Come April next year, the Indian Railways will start entering into a clutch of ‘transportation guarantee agreements’, or memorandums of understanding, to improve its faltering freight segment, the backbone of the railways’ revenue.

“Many industries such as cement, iron ore and steel have already shown interest which will give me guarantee of a certain traffic for, say, 5-10 years, and the railways will give them a guarantee to provide adequate number of wagons throughout the year as per their requirement,” said a ministry of railway requesting not to be named.

Maruti Suzuki launched its new compact SUV Ignis which we believe is likely to be another winner due to its superior features, performance and higher fuel efficiency than its competition. Our analysis suggests that at the introductory launch price for Ignis, profitability of the car will be significantly lower than for Maruti Swift and we expect the company to raise prices after assessing the order book. Maintain Buy with an unchanged target price of R6,300.

NEW DELHI: Despite Presidentelect Donald Trump's threat to car companies that they must manufacture in America or face heavy taxes, Ford has decided to go ahead with export of India-made Eco Sport SUV to the US, saying the move is part of a “broader business decision, including several parameters, costs“.

The company had said in November last year that export of Eco Sport -made at Chennai factory -will begin from 2018. But Trump's focus on boosting manufacturing in the US has rattled many car makers.

NEW DELHI: The government expects each telecom operator to hold an average 40 MHz of spectrum per circle by next year, on a par with some international markets, telecom secretary JS Deepak said. This should help increase the low broadband penetration levels in India, a subject which led to a public disagreement between the telecom ministry’s top official and the sector regulator.

Currently, Indian telecom service providers hold close to 25 MHz of spectrum per circle, which analysts say is lesser than needed, especially when it comes to offering a large number of services, such as those under the government’s digital drive.

The leadership at Tata Motors believe that the pent-up demand will begin to release now, after demonetization and apprehension over GST made a sizeable number of customers hold back on their purchase.

"I am not saying that the sales will suddenly increase in January or in February, but we expect it to increase from here," said Mayank Pareek, president, passenger vehicles business unit at country's largest automobile company Tata Motors on the sidelines of the launch of its SUV Hexa in Mumbai on Wednesday.

The government is expected to impose charges on handling cash in the upcoming Budget, ETNOW said in a series of tweets quoting unnamed government sources.

The move will be made to dissuade people from using cash to make payments and to promote cashless, digital transactions. Incentivising digital payments and disincentivising cash transactions has been on the radar of the government mainly to ensure that records of all the payments are maintained.

A South Korean court on Thursday rejected a request for a warrant to arrest the head of the Samsung Group, Jay Y Lee, over his alleged role in a corruption scandal that led to the impeachment of President Park Geun-hye.

The decision by the Seoul Central District Court is likely to come as a major relief for the country's largest conglomerate and for Lee, who has tried to fill the vacuum in the group's leadership since his father was incapacitated by a heart attack in 2014.

Benchmark indices opened the day in red amid mixed cues in Asian markets as dollar gained after Federal Reserve Chair Janet Yellen hinted on hiking rates at a gradual pace this year.

Back home, investors remained cautious as the corporate earnings season continues. Yes Bank, Axis Bank and Federal Bank will announce their Q3 results today.

After Bharti Airtel, Idea Cellular has approached the telecom dispute tribunal TDSAT against regulator Trai for allowing the Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Jio to continue free promotional offer beyond the stipulated 90 days.

Idea's petition in Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) asking for quashing of Reliance Jio's promotional offer has been ordered to be listed and heard along with Bharti Airtel petition on February 1, sources said.

The benchmark BSE Sensex recovered by nearly 22 points to close at 27,257.64 points on Wednesday on fresh buying by investors as well as funds mainly in metal and financial stocks amid firm global markets. The broader NSE Nifty too closed above 8,400-mark with total gains of 19 points at close.

Sentiment remained firm for the better part of the session as buying picked up momentum after other Asian markets rose.

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