MUMBAI: Tata Consultancy Services and Cognizant widened their lead over the rest of the Indian IT industry in 2014 and increased their strength in verticals such as banking and financial services, making it hard for other players to catch up.

The lead being developed by TCS, the number one player in the Indian IT industry, and Cognizant, a close runner-up, has been in the making for more than five years.

Mumbai: Anil Ambani-led Reliance Communications Ltd (R-Com) said on Friday that it has signed a five-year, multimillion dollar agreement with Avaya Inc., which will improve its call centre operations. The size of the deal was not disclosed.

Reliance Communications will have digitally enabled customer engagement call centres in the country powered by Avaya, which will provide better customer experience.

Looking to increase fund flows from overseas investors, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Thursday allowed Foreign Portfolio Investors (FPIs) to invest their coupons received on investments in government securities back into such bonds.

These investments would be allowed even after FPIs have fully utilised the applicable limits of $30 billion, Sebi said in a circular.

Heavy security will be in place at 12083 polling stations that will be manned by 65791 polling personnel for Saturday’s single-phase day-long casting of votes by over 13 million eligible voters to elect the next Delhi Assembly.

A total of 12083 electronic voting machines (EVMS) will be in use to allow 1, 33, 14, 215 persons to vote throughout Saturday.

Buoyed by retail participation in recent Coal India divestment programme through OFS, India’s leading bourse NSE on Wednesday said brokerages and investors need to keep adequate funds ready to buy shares in such issues as they are announced in a short notice.

The offer for sale (OFS) mechanism facilitates the promoters of listed companies to sell their existing shareholding through an exchange-based bidding platform.

New Delhi: The government’s appointments regulator has turned down a request by the civil aviation ministry, sent at the behest of the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO), to allow it to select the next chief of the state-owned Air India through a search committee, bypassing the usual process.

The Public Enterprises Selection Board (PESB) has told the aviation ministry it does not see any merit in constituting a search committee as the board, which makes appointments to top managerial posts in the public sector, has already started the process of choosing the Air India chairman and managing director (CMD).

Infosys, the country's second largest information technology (IT) services company, has undertaken an organisational realignment to ensure stronger effectiveness of the "new & renew" strategy laid out by chief executive officer Vishal Sikka.

Among other things, the company has decided to consolidate its delivery functions horizontally, as against the current structure, where delivery teams were in many cases linked to the several business verticals.

Struggling Indian operations and slowing sales of Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) weighed on the consolidated performance of Tata Motors, India’s biggest automobile manufacturer, with the company’s net profit for the December 2014 quarter missing estimates by a huge margin. Though a few one-offs impacted profits during the quarter, profits at the operating and net levels would have been lower than Street expectations.

HDFC Bank on Thursday raised Rs 9,840 crore by selling shares in the domestic market and offering 22 million American depository receipts (ADRs) in the US, opening the floodgates for other companies and banks to raise funds from investors keen to bet on the India growth story.

For domestic investors, the shares were priced at the upper band of Rs 1,067 a share. The bank raised Rs 2,000 crore through a qualified institutional placement (QIP) and Rs 7,840 crore ($1.27 billion) from US-based investors. The ADRs were priced at $56.76 each.

Mumbai: After falling for four consecutive sessions, India’s benchmark Sensex rose over 350 points on Thursday, led by gains in shares of information technology and banking companies.

At 2.20pm, Bombay Stock Exchange’s 30-share Sensex was up 1.24%, or 358.52 points, at 29,241.62 points, while the National Stock Exchange’s broader 50-share Nifty was up 1.2%, or 101.50 points, at 8,825.20 points.

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