Faced with economic challenges, engineering major Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has laid off 14,000 employees across businesses during April-September period this year, saying it was necessary to stay "agile and competitive".

"It was a strategic decision that if a business is not in good shape, we are trying to resize it. If there is time to get the business back to normalcy, it is important to reduce the under-recoveries. So, the jobs that we are finding redundant, we are allowing people to move on," company's Chief Financial Officer R Shankar Raman said.

With State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender, and HDFC Bank, the second-largest private sector lender, deciding to accept payments made through the Unified Payments Interface (UPI), the digital payment system is likely to see robust growth in the days to come. With this, the number of banks accepting UPI payments stands at 28.

Launched on August 25 this year, UPI has made money transfer simpler by doing away with details such as bank account number, IFSC code, etc. Bankers had hailed it as the ‘WhatsApp moment’ for payments in India.

NEW DELHI: With an aim to deepen capital markets, regulator Sebi may consider allowing FPIs to invest in unlisted non-convertible debentures and securitised debt instruments in its board meeting tomorrow.

In a slew of proposed reform measures, the regulator also plans to tighten corporate governance rules on profit-sharing agreements between promoters and private equity funds as part of its efforts to safeguard minority shareholders in markets.

Mumbai: Indian shares on Tuesday bounced back from six-month lows hit in the previous session, led by IT and auto stocks, with sentiment turning positive as Asian shares rallied after all three major US stock indexes hit record highs.

Asian shares were also lifted as crude prices touched their highest for the month after comments from Russian President Vladimir Putin raised the odds of a freeze in oil production. The benchmark BSE Sensex was headed for its first gain in seven sessions, while the broader NSE Nifty was headed for its first winning session in four.

New Delhi: The government will announce more measures to ease the cash crunch in the rural areas, finance minister Arun Jaitley said on Tuesday, even as he stressed that partial demonetisation will benefit the Indian economy in the long term.

He was speaking at the parliamentary party meeting of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP), chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

Mumbai: The Indian rupee on Tuesday weakened marginally against the US dollar, after local equity markets wiped out most of the gains.

At 2pm, the rupee was trading at 68.23 a dollar, down 0.08% from its previous close of 68.17. The home currency opened at 68.11 against the US dollar and touched a low of 68.27 a dollar—a level last seen on 1 March. So far this year, it fell 2%.

Mumbai: Larsen and Toubro Ltd (L&T), India’s largest engineering and construction company, will see some impact of demonetisation on its construction and real estate business in the next quarter, analysts said.

L&T, which is referred to as a corporate proxy for the broader economy, will report results for the second quarter ended 30 September on Tuesday, but all eyes will be on the company’s outlook commentary for the full-year and the impact of demonetisation on its various businesses.

New Delhi: In an attempt to counter Reliance Jio’s unlimited free voice, Reliance Communication on Tuesday announced unlimited voice plan at Rs.149 for all its customers. The plan also includes 300 MB of data usage, indicating that the company is adopting bundling of voice and data.

“The ‘149 Unlimited’ Plan, available across the 2G, 3G and 4G technology platforms, is targeted at incentivizing 2G, 3G and 4G handset-owners across India to move to the R-Com network.

With high-priced products such as compact hatchbacks, utlity vehicles and mid size sedans becoming more popular with customers, Maruti Suzuki’s traditional products like the Alto, Swift and Dzire have clocked smaller volumes in recent months.

Between April and October volumes for the Alto fell 9.36% y-o-y to 1,39,574 units while those for the Swift fell 23.44% y-o-y to 95,367 units. During the same period volumes of Dzire (compact sedan) slipped by 22.13% y-o-y 97,127 units.

Infosys founder N R Narayana Murthy, in an interview with CNN News18, on Tuesday said that demonetisation was a good step would help boost India’s digital economy. Murthy was of the opinion that this was the best time for all the political parties to come together and ensure a clean economy. He said that all the political parties could join shoulders to ensure a clean electoral funding.

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