With some of the exit polls predicting a hung Assembly in UP, Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav on Thursday reached out to BSP chief Mayawati, indicating the possibility of the two parties replicating the Bihar model of a 'grand alliance' to keep the BJP out of power as also prevent the Modi government from imposing President's Rule in the state.

Meanwhile, BSP supremo Mayawati was quoted as saying on CNN-News18 that her party was confident of forming the government on her own.

If the predictions of several of the exit polls, made public on Thursday, for the five states that had Assembly elections in February-March turn out to be true, Prime Minister Narendra Modi is set to emerge as the most influential leader of India since Indira Gandhi, who had held sway over the country’s political landscape 40 years back.

Findings of at least four exit polls suggested that Modi’s blitzkrieg of public rallies in Uttar Pradesh (UP) could help the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) either comfortably cross the majority mark of 202 in the 403-seat UP Assembly, or come close to it.

Exit poll results for the bitterly fought Assembly Elections in five states are expected on Thursday evening.

Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand, Punjab, Goa, and Manipur states went to polls over the course of two months and the results of these states will be seen as a virtual referendum on Prime Minister Narendra Modi's popularity after his demonetization decision on November 8 last year.

Google on Thursday announced a strategic partnership with European multinational software corporation SAP to develop and integrate Google's best cloud and machine learning solutions into SAP enterprise applications.

The partnership, which includes certification of the in-memory database SAP HANA on Google Cloud Platform (GCP), new G Suite integrations, Google's machine learning capabilities and data governance collaboration offers Google Cloud, SAP and customer's more scope and scalability.

After trading in a range all through the Thursday's session, the benchmark indices eventually settled marginally higher ahead of the exit poll results of state elections due later in the day.

The S&P BSE Sensex ended at 28,929, up 27 points, while the broader Nifty50 closed at 8,927, up 3 points.

With the Trump administration seriously mulling H-1B visa reforms, at least half a dozen bills have been tabled in the US House of Representatives and the Senate, contending that the programme that is popular among Indian IT firms eats into American jobs.

Authors of all these bills from both the Republican and the Democratic parties believe that H-1B work visas, which are highly popular among Indian techies and Indian IT companies, tend to replace American workers.

Punjab could be on the verge of turning over a new leaf in its political history on Saturday when counting of votes cast for 117 assembly seats takes place. The counting day, this time, is different from such earlier occasions as the state witnessed triangular contests for the first time.

While the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP), the latest entrant in Punjab's political scene, the Congress and the ruling Shiromani Akali Dal-Bharatiya Janata Party (SAD-BJP) alliance are all claiming victory for their respective parties, the anxiety factor for candidates is higher than usual this time.

Union Home Minister Rajnath Singh on Thursday commended the father of a suspected ISIS terrorist who was killed in an operation in Lucknow, for refusing to take his body.

Refusing to accept his son's body, Saifullah's father Sartaj had said, "One who cannot be loyal to the nation, how can he be ours." He added that, "A traitor can't be our son. We are Indians, we were born here, our forefathers were born here. One who indulges in anti-national activities can't be our son... we won't accept his body."

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Thursday said it will shortly issue new Rs 10 denomination currency notes, while clarifying that the old Rs 10 notes will also remain valid.

The Reserve Bank of India will shortly issue Rs 10 denomination banknotes in the Mahatma Gandhi Series-2005 with inset letter L in both the number panels, bearing the signature of Urjit R. Patel, Governor, Reserve Bank of India, and the year of printing 2017 printed on the reverse of the banknote, a release issued by the apex bank said.

Reliance Industries' (RIL) nearly 396 million equity shares representing 12.58% equity of total paid up capital changed hands on BSE through block deal in early morning trade.

RIL on March 2, 2017 had informed the stock exchanges that entities forming part of the promoter group of the company intend to acquire from other promoter group entities by way of ‘inter-se’ transfer aggregating up to 1,190 million shares of RIL

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