Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley in his budget for 2017-18 on Wednesday announced central travel system for defence personnel.

Jaitley said the money allocated for defence expenditure, excluding pension expenditure, is Rs. 2,74,114 crores, adding this would include Rs. 86,488 crore of capital expenditure.

The country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) on Wednesday reported a 27.1 per cent increase in total sales at 1,44,396 units in January as against 1,13,606 in the year-ago period.

The company's domestic sales stood at 1,33,934 units, up 25.9 per cent from 1,06,383 in January last year, MSI said in a statement.

State run Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Ltd (ONGC)'s standalone net profit rose almost three-fold in the December 2016 ended quarter, but missed street estimates. The year-on-year jump in profit came against a high exceptional cost item reported in the comparative quarter of the last financial year.

The Company has posted a net profit of Rs 4,352.33 crore against Rs 1,465.88 crore in the same period a year ago. In the October-December 2015 quarter, the company had a reported an exceptional cost item of Rs 3,616.41 crore against no exceptional cost reported in the same quarter in 2016.

In a strategy that may work in tandem with the Look East policy of India, state-run Indian Oil Corporation is set to foray into retail, pipeline and refinery sectors in Bangladesh, Myanmar, Vietnam and Nepal.

While the company is looking to enter into Bangladesh and Myanmar in segments like fuel retail and LPG marketing, in Vietnam, the focus would be on refining opportunities. “We have already submitted bids for fuel trade in Myanmar.

Mumbai: There were signs of anxiety in the market as the Sensex on Tuesday slumped 194 points ahead of the budget—to be presented on Wednesday—to a one-week low of 27,656 and the Nifty slipped below 8,600 after the Economic Survey projected a lower growth of 6.5% for 2016-17.

The recently introduced immigration restrictions by US President Donald trump and the new legislation that aims to rework the H1-B visa programme dealt a blow to IT stocks, which saw a big fall. TCS, Wipro and Infosys dropped by up to 4.47%, dragging down the BSE IT index by 2.96%, followed by technology that tanked 2.49%.

ICICI Bank Ltd, country's No.2 lender by assets, said its third-quarter net profit fell 19% as bad loans rose, although the profit decline was smaller than expected.

Net profit fell to Rs 2,442 crore for the three months to Dec. 31, from Rs 3,018 crore reported a year earlier, the Mumbai-based lender said on Tuesday.

The shares of Tata Motors fell on Tuesday after there were reports that said that Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) was set to recall over 6,000 units in China to fix faulty seat belts.

On the news, the shares of Tata Motors, which owns JLR fell 2.7% to Rs 518.00 apiece. At 1458 hours, the shares were trading at Rs 523.75 down Rs 8.75 or 1.64% lower from previous close.

Stocks of largecap information technology (IT) companies such as TCS, Infosys and Wipro tanked up to 5% in intraday trade on reports that a legislation has been introduced in the US House of Representatives, which among other things, calls for more than doubling the minimum salary of H-1B visa holders to $130,000.

The move, experts say, will make it difficult for the software services firms to replace American employees with foreign workers, including from India.

Mumbai: Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has pared its holdings in Tata group firms, fearing that a potentially long legal battle between Tata Sons Ltd and its ousted chairman Cyrus P. Mistry will erode its investments.

Foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) and mutual funds have been more optimistic, with the latter increasing their ownership in 12 Tata group firms and cutting their stake in seven.

New Delhi: Air India has shortlisted three consulting firms—McKinsey and Co., Bain and Co. and EY—for a project to draw up its business strategy for the coming years, said Ashwani Lohani, the state-run airline’s chairman and managing director.

The firms have been shortlisted out of several that made presentations after the airline floated a tender inviting proposals in October last year.

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