Rapped by the Supreme Court for delaying judicial appointments, the government has said that it has increased the sanctioned strength of High Court judges from 906 to 1,079 and insisted that there has been no abnormal increase in the vacancies in the high courts under NDA rule.

The average annual rate of appointment of judges in the High Courts has not declined during the last two years, though no new appointments were made during April-December 2015 due to hearing of the NJAC matter, sources said.

Days after the Tatas replaced Cyrus Mistry as the chairman of the Tata Sons group, with Ratan Tata as the new chairman, three other members, who were part of the advisory council of the ousted head, had also quit. Tata groups’ Chief of Human Resources NS Rajan was one, among the members who had put their papers, along with business development officer Madhu Kannan, strategist Nirmalya Kumar.

Republican Presidential candidate Donald Trump on Saturday criticised outgoing President Barack Obama for leading a slow economic growth, arguing that if a large country like India can grow at 8%, why the United States (US) is not.

Trump remarks at an election rally in Manchester, New Hampshire, came hours after latest figures showed the American economy grew 2.9% in the third quarter this year.

A BSF jawan was today killed in ceasefire violation by Pakistani troops in Macchil sector along the Line of Control in Jammu and Kashmir.

28-year-old Constable Koli Nitin Subhash, hailing from Sangli in Maharashtra, was martyred this morning in firing by Pakistani security forces, a BSF official said.

ICICI Bank has decided to cut its MCLR by 10 basis points (bps) for loans with tenor of one year to 8.95 per cent. The new rate will be effective from November 1.

This is an outcome of monthly review and not an out-of-turn action. The private-sector lender has reduced MCLR for one-year loans by 25 bps since April. MCLR in April was 9.20 bps for one-year loan.

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has allowed Bombay Commodity Exchange (BCEL) to exit the commodity futures business with immediate effect. In a directive on Friday, Sebi also asked the exchange to drop “Exchange”, from its name and avoid its use in any variant.

The stock markets regulator had in February told BCEL to abide by the exit policy in view of suspension of trading for more than 12 months.

NTPC, India’s largest power generating company, reported an 18 per cent drop in its stand-alone net profit at Rs 2,496 crore for the September 2016 quarter compared to Rs 3,039 crore in the year-ago period. According a company statement, its total income rose seven per cent to Rs 19,588 crore compared to Rs 18,218 crore a year ago.

NTPC has a total installed capacity of 47,228 Mw. It generated 125 billion units during the second quarter of FY17 against 119 billion units last year.

New Delhi: In what could bring cheers to 50 lakh central employees and 58 lakh pensioners ahead of Diwali, the Centre is all set to announce 2% dearness allowance (DA) to be effective from 1 July 2016.

“The proposal to provide 2% dearness allowance and dearness relief to central government employees and pensioners respectively, is listed on agenda of the Union Cabinet meeting scheduled for tomorrow,” a person familiar with the matter said.

New Delhi: Bajaj Auto Ltd on Friday reported 7.2% increase in consolidated net profit at Rs1,200.72 crore for the second quarter ended 30 September. The company had posted a consolidated net profit of Rs1,120.04 crore in the same quarter of last fiscal.

Total income from operations during the quarter under review was marginally up at Rs6,432.32 crore as against Rs6,407.54 crore. Unit volume sales during the quarter were at 10,31,945 units as against 10,56,596 units in the year-ago period, down 2.33 per cent.

Automobile major Mahindra hopes that the proposed GST regime will not treat electric cars as luxury items and therefore, it should be taxed accordingly.

“We hope that the upcoming GST regime will not treat electric cars as luxury items and will not be taxed at high rates,” Mahesh Babu, CEO-designate of Mahindra Electric, told reporters here today.

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