Larsen and Toubro Ltd (L&T), the conglomerate that often mirrors the performance of the broader economy, on Friday posted a 46% increase in consolidated net profit for the June quarter as lower tax expenses and reduced losses at subsidiaries helped counter a decline in margins and order inflows.

L&T, which has businesses in engineering and construction, power, finance, information technology (IT) and realty, reported a group net profit of Rs893 crore for the quarter, up from Rs610 crore a year earlier. Gross revenue rose 10% year-on-year to Rs23,990 crore.

The country’s third-largest telecom operator, Idea Cellular, has raised Net neutrality concerns over the VoLTE-enabled feature phone by new entrant Reliance Jio as the handset does not allow apps other than its own to work on the phone. Besides, the Aditya Birla Group firm, which is against giving any sort of subsidy on mobile phones, is working with handset manufacturers so that they can offer smartphones in the range of Rs 2,500 to compete with Jio’s 4G feature phone. “Idea for the last 21 years does not sell handsets, other than a small quantity that was acquired to initiate the sale of 3G four years back, and we will continue that stand.

Q1FY18 earnings were 4% above our estimate, mainly driven by securities and insurance business. At the bank, core PPoP growth was 4% above, helped by higher loan growth and strong fees despite one-time costs. Yet non-core income kept the bottom line below our forecast. Asset quality was strong. OW. Q1FY18: Key positives Continued pick-up in revenue growth: Loan growth accelerated (18% y-o-y vs. 15% y-o-y last quarter), margins were broadly stable (4.5% vs. 4.6% last quarter), and fees were strong (+43% y-o-y). Thus, core PPoP growth was 30% y-o-y despite one-time costs related to 811 product launch (adjusted cost growth would be 12% vs. 16% y-o-y reported).

ICICI Bank reported a soft quarter with no clarity on the asset quality ‘rabbit hole’ contrary to street’s expectation of things getting better. Outside watchlist (WL) slippage were high. No material information was offered on stress outside WL & credit cost guidance. Maintain Hold. Prefer Axis Bank in the private corporate banks. The total net stressed assets including drill-down exposures declined to 10.28% of net advances vs. 10.52% q-o-q. PCR improved only marginally to 41.4% q-o-q (vs. 47.1% in Q3FY17) in spite of partial recovery of the large cement account which slipped in Q4FY17 & had taken down the coverage to 40.2%.

After announcing ‘free’ feature phones, Reliance Jio wants to offer free Wi-Fi to almost three core college students in India. The company has submitted a proposal last month to the human resource development (HRD) ministry as well.

According to a report by Hindustan Times, a proposal was received by the ministry in which Reliance Jio expressed a desire to connect close to 38,000 colleges (technical and non-technical) under the HRD ministry across India by deploying free Wi-Fi connectivity.

Body parts that could belong to passengers killed in one or other of two Air India plane crashes more than years ago have been found on Mont Blanc in the French Alps, sources said today.

Daniel Roche, who is fascinated by air plane accidents and has spent years combing the Bossons Glacier looking for remains, made the discovery yesterday.

As widely expected, Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar on Friday sailed through the crucial floor test in the Bihar Assembly with a convincing margin of 131 votes. Nitish kick-started his fresh stint by launching a full-scale attack on the Rashtriya Janata Dal’s (RJD’s) first family, calling their secularism “a mask for corruption”.

Four members of the 243-member Assembly couldn’t vote, reducing the total strength of the House to 239. The new NDA government needed 120 votes to win the vote. The 131 votes in favour of Nitish comprised the Janata Dal (United)’s 70, BJP’s 52, LJP’s two, RLSP’s two, HAM’s one and four Independent MLAs. On the other hand, 108 MLAs — 79 from RJD, 26 from Congress and three CPI (ML) lawmakers — voted against the motion.

To kill a domestic (cigarette) brand in favour of a smuggled one is not in the interest of the country, ITC chairman Y C Deveshwar said at a press conference following the company’s annual general meeting.

The cigarette industry is facing one of the steepest rates of taxation, with the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council recently increasing the cess on this. In six years, taxes have gone up by 202 per cent.

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has won government approval for acquisition of Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation’s (GSPC) entire 80 per cent holding in a KG basin gas block for Rs 7,738 crore, the company said.

ONGC had in December last year agreed to buy the entire 80 per cent interest of GSPC along with operatorship rights, in Deen Dayal West (DDW) gas field in Block KG-OSN-2001/3 in the Bay of Bengal for $995 million (Rs 6,443 crore).

BSNL mobile subscribers will soon be able to piggyback on the network of private telecom player Vodafone in Delhi and Mumbai.

The move will improve the coverage of BSNL's mobile network in these two areas where it doesn't offer services.

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