MUMBAI: A month ago, an official of Axis Bank -- India's third largest private sector lender -- received an unexpected telephone call. The caller, an engineer at Kaspersky Lab, the well-known Moscow-headquartered cyber security firm, rattled off the names of several Axis computers which, he claimed, have been breached.

The Kaspersky man said his firm had stumbled on the information in the course of a separate probe. When an Axis team looked into the bank’s servers, it found out that there was indeed an unauthorized login by an unnamed, offshore hacker.

The government said on Tuesday it has imposed a total penalty of Rs 10.8 crore on telecom companies for violating mobile towers radiation rule, assuring that it will look into various safety concerns that have been raised. "As on July 31, 2016, the Department of Telecom tested 3.19 lakh base station and found 205 of them were non- compliant to radiation rules. Total penalty of Rs 10.8 crore has been imposed on telecom service providers," according to the data shared by the telecom ministry at the consultative committee meeting held at Parliament on Tuesday.

L&T Technology Services, an arm of engineering giant Larsen and Toubro, today said it has secured a multi-million dollar contract from a large global semiconductor company to provide verification support on their expansive portfolio of offerings and products.

"This strategic tie-up between the two companies will enable the customer to strengthen its product offering and capitalise on market opportunities with superior quality products," L&T Tech said in a BSE filing.

Reliance Industries (RIL) is expected to see its gross refining margins (GRM) decline in the September quarter after repeating a seven-year high in the June quarter, even as analysts expect its petrochemical margins to remain healthy and offset the fall in GRMs.

In a Bloomberg poll, five analysts estimated a consolidated net profit of Rs 7,268 crore and revenue of Rs 62,920 crore. In the September 2015 quarter, the company reported a consolidated net profit of Rs 6,720 crore and turnover of Rs 75,117 crore. RIL will announce its financial results for the July-September 2016 quarter on October 20.

India's PNB Housing Finance Ltd and Varun Beverages are looking to raise as much as $630 million combined from initial public offerings (IPOs) next week, underpinning a surge in first-time share sales in Asia's third-largest economy.

Indian companies have raised $2.9 billion through IPOs in the first nine months of this year, a 171 per cent jump from a year earlier and the best run since 2010, according to data compiled by Thomson Reuters.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Tuesday dismissed the Board for Control of Cricket in India’s (BCCI) special leave petition to review the reforms suggested by the Lodha panel. The petition had also appealed for referring the case to a higher bench.

The apex court had directed the board to implement measures suggested by the R.M. Lodha panel as part of the efforts to make Indian cricket’s governing body more transparent.

Mumbai: The Indian rupee on Tuesday hit a one-week high against the US dollar, tracking gains in the local equity and Asian currencies markets.

At 2.10pm, the rupee was trading at 66.78 against the US dollar, up 0.16% from its previous close of 66.89. The home currency opened at 66.79 a dollar and touched a high of 66.67 a dollar—a level last seen on 10 October.

MUMBAI: The BSE benchmark Sensex made a promising start by bouncing almost 208 points on Tuesday on widespread gains following fresh buying amid a firm trend in Asian markets.

The 30-share index jumped 207.64 points, or 0.75 per cent, to 27,737.61, with all sectoral indices led by realty, metal and banking making all the right moves.

Non-food credit in the banking system grew 10.6% year-onyear during the fortnight ended September 30, up from 9.3% in the previous fortnight, as loan demand improved with the advent of the festive season.

Non-food credit at the end of the fortnight under review stood at R74.35 lakh crore, according to data released by the Reserve Bank of India. Growth in deposits with banks also grew 11.3% y-o-y, against 9.9% in the previous fortnight, to R101.43 lakh crore – the first time total banking deposits crossed the R100 lakh crore mark.

After the recent correction in NTPC’s share price,we upgrade it to buy as valuation at 1SD below mean could rerate on the back of: a potential cut in interest rates; & initiation of two structural reforms –policy mandating shut down of inefficient and old power plants,and policy permitting optimisation of coal usage.

However, decline in interest rates could persuad the Central Electricity and Regulatory Commission to cut FY20- 24 regulated RoE, and thus, we build 100 bp cutin regulated RoE to 14.5%. Despite lowering our RoE estimates, we expect EPS growth of 20% in FY19E/20E, RoE of 12% by FY 20E led by 19 GW capacity addition in FY18-20.

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