The Commonwealth of Virgina on Thursday announced that the social networking giant Facebook would invest $1 billion to build a new facility in the US state. The bulding that will be built will be of a data center, which will require almost no person to operate, mashable.com said. According to the website, plenty of money spent on construction of the building, with only about 100 employees working in it.

State-owned Bank of Baroda on Friday reduced its marginal cost of funds-based lending rate (MCLR) by 5 basis points (bps) across tenures. The one-year MCLR at the bank now stands at 8.3%. The overnight rate is was reduced to 8.05%, the one-month rate to 8.1%, the three-month rate to 8.15%, the six-month rate to 8.25%, the three-year rate to 8.45% and the five-year rate to 8.6%.

The revised rates will come into effect on Saturday. Under the MCLR regime, banks review their lending rates every month based on their incremental cost of funds and a few other factors, as mandated by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). This method of determining lending rates replaced the older base-rate regime in April 2016.

The Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council on Friday approved a number of steps to alleviate the new regime-related pains of small businesses and exporters and suspended the implementation of the cumbersome e-way bill and reverse charge mechanisms till the end of the current financial year. While the tax rates on some 27 high-consumer-interest items have been reduced — exactly a month ago, it had cut the rates on 30 items — the council also resolved to revisit the complex taxation structure it imposed on restaurant business.

Coal stocks at power plants across the country have declined to a point where they can meet the requirement for an average of only six days.

Close to 70 plants have enough stocks to see them out for just three days.

Coal stock indicates the slowing down of supply as the plants need to maintain a threshold of more than 20 days of their stipulated coal supply as reserve at their sites.

In what the company is terming the “first direct evidence” of hydrocarbon reserves in the Kutch offshore basin, state-run ONGC has come across flows while drilling the GK-28-12 well. “Though 700 metres are more to be drilled, we are getting flows and are hopeful to get more. There is possibility of oil and gas reserves or at least there is evidence of them passing through the area,” said an ONGC executive requesting not to be named.

Coal India (CIL) reported 10% production growth and 15% off take growth y-o-y in September 17 due to the low base in FY17 as well as restocking of coal at power plants. With the recovery in off take growth in Aug-Sept’17 the 2Q17 off take growth is 14% which should reflect positively in earnings. Additionally, the YTD FY18 growth till Sept’17 now stands at 0.9% for production and 8 % for off take despite negative growth in 1Q18. Production growth is lower than off take as CIL is depleting its stocks estimated to be around 50mnT.

Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries seeks to garner $126 Million by selling Reliance Marcellus assets to BKV Chelsea, an associate of Kalnin Ventures. Reliance Marcellus II, LLC, a subsidiary of Reliance Industries announced the signing of agreements to divest all of its interest in upstream assets in north-eastern and central Pennsylvania.

Reliance could receive contingent payments of up to $11.25 million in aggregate based on natural gas prices exceeding certain thresholds over the next three years, according to an ET Now report.

NEW DELHI: German luxury car maker Mercedes Benz today reported best ever sales in India for the first nine months this year with 11,869 units, up 19.6 per cent from the year-ago period, retaining the top slot in the luxury segment.

The company had sold 9,924 units in the January- September period of 2016.

The government has made Aadhaar card mandatory for all post office deposits, PPF, the National Savings Certificate scheme and Kisan Vikas Patra. Current subscribers can provide their unique Aadhaar id till December 31. Ministry of Finance has issued four separate Gazette notifications making Aadhaar mandatory for opening all post office deposit accounts, Public Provident Fund (PPF), National Savings Certificate scheme and Kisan Vikas Patra deposits.

Sensex surged over 130 points in the opening session on Friday, as oil and banking shares took the middle stage.

The broader NSE Nifty also reclaimed the 9,900-mark. Expectations built up that today's meeting of the GST Council may provide some relief to exporters and SMEs in terms of faster refunds and compliance.

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