A senior official of state-run Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) was today arrested for alleged links with terror organisation ISIS, police said.

The Special Operation Group (SOG) and ATS of Rajasthan Police arrested Mohd Sirazudin, the marketing manager of IOC here.

Markets are likely to extend gains on Friday tracking firm Asian cues and overnight gains on Wall Street.

At 8:30am, The early indicator, the SGX Nifty is down 12 points at 7,687.

With the continuous disruption of Parliamentary sessions and the stalling of important bills, Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Thursday said it is a matter of sorrow that Parliament is not running.

People only talk about GST and Parliament, but there are several other measures for the poor that are pending in Parliament. It's matter of sorrow that Parliament is not running, said Modi at the Jagran forum in Delhi.

The Bombay High Court has acquitted actor Salman Khan in the 2002 hit-and-run case that left one dead and four injured.

Justice A R Joshi said, "the May 6 order by the Sessions Court (convicting Salman for 5 years of rigorous imprisonment) has been quashed and set aside. The Personal bonds paid by the actor has to be returned to him.

IT major Tata Consultancy Service (TCS) has set aside Rs 1,100 crore interest free cash advances as relief for TCS employees in Chennai, which saw one of the worst floods in the last 100 years. The money will be disbursed towards loans to employees, grants and for other purposes.

A few days back, Cognizant announced $40 million (Rs 260 crore) to help residents, its employees and business partners in Chennai, with relief and rehabilitation in the aftermath of the recent flooding.

Markets have turned range bound in noon trades led by gains in index heavyweights such as Reliance Industries and HDFC. However, profit taking in select pharma and auto shares capped upside gains.

At 1:50 pm, the 30-share Sensex was up 212 points at 25,250 and the 50-share Nifty was up about 60 points at 7,671.

China on Thursday played down arch rival Japan winning the contract to build India's first bullet train project as officials said the deal is confined to one sector and claimed India is still open to Chinese investments on other high-speed routes depending on easy financing.

India's move to opt for Japanese bullet trains on the Mumbai-Ahmedabad route has raised concerns in China which is vying with Japan to build high-speed rail in India.

Shares of Infosys are up almost 1% at Rs 1,036 on the NSE after the IT major announced that it has made an investment of $4 million in CloudEndure, a startup that provides cloud migration and cloud-based disaster recovery software.

Infosys said that the company has invested $4 million in cash in CloudEndure for acquiring a minority holding, not exceeding 20% of the outstanding capital of the company.

South Korea's Hyundai Motor Co plans to raise the prices of its car models in India by up to 30,000 rupees ($448.60) starting in January, its local unit said, citing challenging market conditions.

"We are constrained to consider the price increase on account of factors like increase in cost of components, weak rupee etc," Rakesh Srivastava, senior vice president of sales and marketing at Hyundai Motor India Ltd, said in a statement.

Eight organisers of the controversial 'beef festival' on Osmania University campus were detained while BJP MLA T Raja Singh, who was opposing the the event, was arrested in Hyderabad this morning, police said.

A curfew-like situation prevailed on the campus with heavy police security being deployed to prevent any untoward incident.

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