The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) is understood to be considering a change in wording of future contracts to avoid conflicts with road developers, such as the ongoing cases in which it has barred companies from bidding for future projects. NHAI’s executive committee held a meeting with the National Highway Builders Federation (NHBF) on Thursday during which NHAI agreed to consider NHBF’s suggestion to reconsider replacing the word “termination” with “cessation” or other similar words or phrases. In the ongoing case of developers who have been listed as defaulters and barred from bidding for future projects, the issue arose because developers had to invoke the termination clause, thereby getting themselves blacklisted by NHAI.

To help increase developers’ productivity and simplify app development, Microsoft has announced new data platform technologies and cross-platform developer tools. The company launched a new AI-powered platform “Azure Databricks” during an event for developers late Thursday. Designed in collaboration with the founders of Apache Spark, Azure Databricks analytics platform delivers one-click setup, streamlined workflows and an interactive workspace. The platform will enable organisations to provide self-service analytics and machine learning over all data with enterprise-grade performance and governance, Microsoft said in a statement.

CHENNAI: In Tesla's race into the future, there is an Indian partner fastening its belt.

TVS group's auto-component maker Sundram Fasteners has begun its electric vehicle (EV) journey with an order from Elon Musk-founded carmaker Tesla to supply key parts in gear transmission and equivalents of radiator caps in a development that the company believes will ignite its own gradual transition to the EV era.

KOLKATA: Coal India is considering raising prices to meet the cost of the 20% wage hike. It last raised prices by 10% in May last year.

“Unless coal prices are hiked it would be very difficult to attain a decent profit this fiscal,” a senior company executive said.

ey indices on Monday saw a sharp jump as Sensex rallied over 400 points after global ratings agency Moody's on Thursday raised India's sovereign credit rating to 'Baa2' from 'Baa3'.

The ratings upgrade by the Moody's comes after a gap of 14 years.

In a major fillip to the government’s housing for all scheme, the International Finance Corporation (IFC) has joined hands with HDFC Ltd to create an $800-million fund to finance the construction of affordable homes.

The IFC, part of the World Bank Group, will put in $200 million by subscribing to masala bonds issued by HDFC and to be listed on the London Stock Exchange. HDFC will contribute the remaining $600 million from its own resources, according to souces close to the development.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has said foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) should report their investment in hybrid securities separately and has asked the depositories to make necessary arrangements for this.

Currently, the daily FPI net investment data and the FPI Assets Under Custody (AUC) data are disseminated by the depositories (NSDL and CDSL) for equity and debt markets.

A day after the Centre advanced the date of introduction of BS-VI fuel in the national capital by two years, it today directed state-owned thermal power giant NTPC to procure farm stubble for burning in its thermal units, blending close to 10 per cent in the fuel mix,to help mitigate concern on air pollution, power ministry officials said.

This comes in wake on worsening air condition across North India, attributed in large measure to burning of crop stubble by farmers in Punjab and Haryana (and western UP) at the onset of winter.

Things have changed dramatically since Idea Cellular Ltd and Vodafone India Ltd announced the terms of their proposed merger in March this year. Back then, based on earnings for 2016, the combined entity had a net debt to Ebitda ratio of 4.4 times. This has now risen to 8.5 times, based on annualized earnings for the September quarter. Ebitda stands for earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization.

For one, this is far higher than the maximum leverage ratio the two companies envisaged when they agreed on merger terms. Both companies are to ensure that at the closing of the merger, its leverage ratio isn’t higher than an agreed upon “maximum closing leverage ratio” (MCLR).

Renowned luxury car maker Mercedes-Benz recently inaugurated its 12th workshop in Mumbai. With this, the brand now has the largest network of after sales outlets in the city among luxury car manufacturers. The latest service centre by Mercedes-Benz goes by the name Shaman Wheels and is situated in Goregaon near HUB mall. The said outlet is spread across an area of 20,000 sq. ft. The inauguration of the new facility has been done by Santosh Iyer, who is the Vice President of after sales, retail training and YPC along with Joachim Heer, Market Manager, After Sales, Sales Management and MPC overseas at Mercedes-Benz.

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