Coming to the defence of the beleagured Air India, government on Tuesday said that the performance of Air India has improved and it is making profit for the first time in 10 years.

“Air India’s all-time performance has increased. This year it is making profit, which is the first time in last 10 years. It is making an operative profit. Air India is doing good work,” Raju asserted.

SBI Life Insurance today reported a 5 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 861 crore for the year ended March 31.

The insurer had posted a net profit of Rs 820 crore in 2014-15, it said in a release issued here.

BGR Energy Systems, a Chennai-based EPC and BoP contracting company for the power and oil & gas sector, on Tuesday said it has reached an agreement with its joint venture partners Hitachi, Japan (HTC) and Hitachi Power Europe GmbH (HPE), Germany, to settle their outstanding disputes that have been impacting the execution of a slew of power projects in the country. BGR has also decided to withdraw all pending legal proceedings initiated by the company in various fora.

Rising spree of Kotak Mahindra Bank shares helped the lender to surpass ICICI Bank in terms of market capitalisation on Tuesday. The share price of Kotak Mahindra Bank surged over 6 per cent in the past two months since the central bank removed it from foreign investment ban list. On the other hand, ICICI Bank shares gained 0.38 per cent during the same period till May 3.

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is perusing whether to withdraw a pending arbitration with the government on the gas price issue so that it can benefit from the higher prices.

The company's top management is understood to be looking into two divergent views of whether to drop the arbitration to gain from the near doubling of gas prices or carry on with the two-year-old case. "There is a view in favour of continuing with the case, while a second one favours dropping the arbitration. Both the views have been presented to the top management and the board will take a final call," said a senior executive close to the development. An e-mail sent to the firm remained unanswered.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) is launching trade receivable and credit exchange, a trading platform for small and medium enterprises (SMEs) where their bills against large companies can be accepted electronically and auctioned so that these small enterprises are paid promptly.

"The new platform will be a joint venture (JV) of NSE and Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) and could be the first specialised exchange for micro SMEs," said a source with direct know. The platform would be known as 'Trades Exchange' and will be operational by the end of this calendar year, the souce added.

State-run Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) today announced the commissioning of a 600-Mw coal-based thermal power plant in Madhya Pradesh.

"The unit has been commissioned at the 1x600 Mw Jhabua Thermal Power Project (TPP) located in Seoni district in Madhya Pradesh," BHEL said in a release.

New Delhi: India’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki Ltd has created a new management level as it seeks to build management and leadership bandwidth for the future, three people familiar with the development said, asking not to be identified.

The car maker, which aims to sell 2 million cars in India by 2020 (it sold 1.43 million units in 2015-16), has promoted six executives to the newly created position of executive vice-president, the three people said, citing a 28 April memo by the company that Mint has not seen.

Plans by India’s coal monopoly to buy billions of dollars of new machinery and outsource work are facing resistance from powerful unions worried about job losses, in a potential blow to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise to bring electricity to all.

State-run Coal India Ltd, the world’s biggest coal miner, has already doubled output growth since Modi came to power two years ago, owing to the removal of hurdles to production like environmental clearances and land acquisition.

HYDERABAD: Engineering giant Larsen and Toubro and the Telangana government could be headed for another faceoff over execution of the Rs 16,375-crore metro rail project in Hyderabad.

L&T Metro Rail, which has suffered time and cost overruns, both before and after the formation of Telangana, has a July 2017 deadline for completing the 72-km metro rail project which will crisscross Hyderabad in three corridors.

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