Labour Minister Bandaru Dattatreya said on Thursday that the Finance Ministry has approved 8.65% interest rate on EPF for 2016-17.

The ratification of the 8.65% on EPF will enable the retirement fund body EPFO to credit this rate of return into the accounts of four crore subscribers. "Finance Ministry has agreed to 8.65% rate of interest. Now, the communication will come. The formal discussions are over," the minister said.

Talent shortage is acute in the IT and data science ecosystem in India with a survey claiming that 95% of engineers in the country are not fit to take up software development jobs.

According to a study by employability assessment company Aspiring Minds, only 4.77% candidates can write the correct logic for a programme -- a minimum requirement for any programming job.

Mumbai: The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) plans to enhance surveillance of commodity brokers ahead of introducing a unified licence for intermediaries. The capital market regulator’s board will consider this issue when it meets on 26 April, two people with direct knowledge of the matter said.

The increased surveillance will happen through a so-called risk-based supervision system that focuses on identifying, measuring and mitigating risk—which is already in place for equity brokers. This will be part of the overall operation framework for a unified licence for commodity and equity brokers, said the people cited.

US tech giant Microsoft has announced a new feature wherein users can now just use their smartphone to sign in to their account. The company is enabling the new option as part of the iOS and Android Microsoft Authenticator app. “The process is easier than standard two-step verification and significantly more secure than only a password, which can be forgotten, phished, or compromised,” said Alex Simons, Director of Program Management, Microsoft Identity Division, in a statement.

The benchmark BSE Sensex advanced almost 64 points to 29,400.14 in early trade on Thursday on sustained buying by domestic institutional investors amid firm Asian cues.

The 30-share index rose 63.57 points or 0.22% to 29,400.14. The gauge had gained 17.43 points in the previous session. Also, the NSE Nifty was up 23 points, or 0.25%, to 9,126.50.

State-run National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), on Wednesday said its board has approved the proposal to increase the amount to be raised by issuing bonds in international markets to US $6 billion from US $4 billion.

"The Board of Directors, in its meeting held on April 19, 2017, has accorded approval for updating and upsizing the US $4 billion MTN (medium term note) programme up to US $6 billion for raising debt from international markets to part finance capital expenditure on new/ongoing projects, coal mining projects, renovation and modernisation of power stations and for other permissible end uses," it said in a BSE filing.

Korean auto major Hyundai has sharpened its rural focus and aims to get more than one-fourth of its sales from buyers in villages and small towns this year. The second -largest car maker in the country got about 23 per cent of sales from rural markets in 2016 calendar year.

“The focus will be on rural for future growth. We have set up a new department to focus on the rural market. We will create a different communication strategy on the products that are well suited for these markets. Every regional office and most dealership now have a rural team. The matrix has been completed,” said Rakesh Srivastava, director (sales & marketing) at Hyundai.

Reliance Industries Ltd has commissioned world’s largest and most complex ethane project, including commissioning of its ethane receipt & handling facilities and ethane cracking, at its Dahej facility in Gujarat in a world record time of less than three years.

Reliance is the first company to globally conceptualise large-scale imports of ethane from North America as feedstock for its cracker portfolio in India. The project involved seamless integration of several elements across a complex infrastructure value chain.

Driven by a surge in sale of its single-premium policy and falling interest rates, Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) has registered a 27.22 per cent growth in first year premium (FYP) in FY17.

Total FYP rose to Rs 1,24,396.27 crore in FY17 from Rs 97,777.47 crore in the previous year. It resulted in the insurance giant increasing its market share to 71.07 per cent from the last year's 70.61 per cent, the state-run corporation said in a statement.

Exposure to a single cement company made a Rs 350-crore dent in the net profits of IndusInd Bank and YES Bank, private lenders otherwise known to have better control on asset quality.

IndusInd Bank and YES Bank had to make provisions of Rs 122 crore and Rs 228 crore, respectively, for their exposure to this account, in compliance with a Reserve Bank notification.

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