M&M’s tractors may not be as visible as its sports utility vehicles (SUVs) which vroom on Indian roads, but it is the tractor that is driving the auto major’s profitability while being a smaller contributor to revenues. As things stand this year, tractors could further expand its share in both revenue and profitability. This is because tractor sales, driven by prospects of a normal monsoon, have grown at 11 per cent this year against a decline in passenger vehicle sales.

The company’s profit before tax from the farm equipment segment (primarily tractors) rose 31 per cent last year to Rs 2,562 crore while the same from automotive (SUVs & commercial vehicles) declined over 17 per cent to Rs 2,162 crore. Automotive segment’s profit before tax was higher at Rs 2,623 crore in FY16 when farm clocked PBT of Rs 1,956 crore.

Stock markets saw an alarming slump on Tuesday as the equity benchmarks- Sensex and Nifty lost well over 0.50 per cent. The 30-share BSE Sensex closed 179.96 points below (0.58 per cent) at 30,958.25 while the broader 50-share NSE Nifty slipped 63.55 points (0.66 per cent) to end at 9,511.40.

In a turbulent day for the market, Sensex hit the day-low of 30,847.08, almost 300 points below closing mark of the previous session. It slipped below 31,000 for the first time since May 25. Nifty also lost more than 100 points in intra-day trade to touch the low point of 9,473.45, hitting a one-month low.

The deadline for the memorandum of understanding (MoU) for NTPC to take over Rajasthan’s 1,660 MW Chhabra power plant has been extended till September from May. Sources aware of the development said that NTPC and Rajasthan’s state electricity boards have not agreed on the tariff at which the plant would be selling power to the state after the proposed NTPC take-over.

Sources said that NTPC had earlier claimed that power prices would come down by more than 30 paise/unit after NTPC starts operating Chhabra. In order to improve the plant’s functioning, NTPC agreed to renovate and modernise the plant. However, it was found that modernisation of the plant would raise tariffs by about 10 paise/unit, sources said.

Chipmaker Nvidia Corp announced on Monday it was partnering with Volvo Cars and Swedish auto supplier Autoliv to develop self-driving car technology for vehicles due to hit the market by 2021.Volvo is owned by China's Geely Automobile Holdings Ltd .The Silicon Valley-based Nvidia also announced a non-exclusive partnership with German automotive suppliers ZF and Hella for artificial intelligence technology for autonomous driving.Nvidia came to prominence in the gaming industry for designing graphics processing chips, but in recent years has been a key player in the automotive sector for providing the so-called "brain" of the autonomous vehicle.

Dozens of companies, including Alphabet Inc’s Google, Microsoft Corp, CBS Corp and Viacom Inc urged a federal appeals court on Monday to rule that a law banning sex discrimination in the workplace offers protections to gay employees. The brief submitted by 50 companies to the 2nd U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in Manhattan marks the first time such a large group of businesses has backed arguments about employment discrimination that LGBT groups and the administration of former President Barack Obama have made for years.

Power minister Piyush Goyal on Monday said the country is set to lose Rs 25 lakh crore over the next 25 years as imported coal mandated for power plants could have been easily substituted with domestic coal if we had stayed away from the mindset of India being a land of perennial shortages. Around 83,100 MW of power plants based on imported coal were awarded in India on assumptions that the country will not be able to meet its coal requirement, the minister said at an event organised by Loksatta in Mumbai. This one decision will lead to a loss of Rs 1 lakh crore every year for the next 25 years to the exchequer, he said. “It was the mindset in India that we can never improve and will remain crippled forever,” Goyal said.

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has received environmental clearance for drilling five wells to explore shale gas and oil in the KG basin of Andhra Pradesh at an estimated cost of Rs 217 crore. ONGC has been operating in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin for the past more than 35 years. The exploratory efforts so far have led to the discovery of 65 small-to-medium sized hydrocarbon fields with about 356 million tonnes (oil and oil equivalent gas) of initial in-place on-land reserves.

NEW DELHI: Air India's subsidiary Alliance Air today announced the launch of new flights connecting Lucknow with the capitals of Uttarakhand, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh.

The move is aimed at developing Lucknow, the capital of Uttar Pradesh, as a regional hub of Alliance Air, an airline official said.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday refused to pass any interim order against the Centre's notification making Aadhaar mandatory for availing benefits of various social welfare schemes.

A vacation bench of Justices AM Khanwilkar and Navin Sinha said that no interim order can be passed at this stage on the "mere apprehension" of petitioners that government may deprive people from availing benefits of various social welfare schemes due to lack of Aadhaar.

With concerns still looming over Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation’s (IRCTC's) service charge, the listing plans of three railway public sector undertakings – Indian Railway Finance Corporation (IRFC), IRCON, and IRCTC – are on track. According to sources close to the development, bid managers have been appointed for all three companies and the government is likely to take a call on IRCTC's service charge by June 30. Service charges on online train tickets were exempted from November 23, 2016, to March 31 this year in order to boost digital mode of transactions among passengers. This was later extended to June 30.

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