The second performance audit of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL)’s KG-D6, tabled in Parliament on Friday, has taken a lenient approach towards the country’s biggest private petroleum company. Taking a “pragmatic” view, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) has recommended the government allow the company to recover $427 million in cost from the field’s natural gas production.

Cost recovery for $118.99 million on the remaining wells, however, has been disallowed. Besides, the well cost for D29, D30 and D31 would be disallowed if these aren’t found to be commercially viable, the auditor said.

The Supreme Court asked the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Friday to suggest an asset management agency that could arrange better deals for the Sahara properties up for sale. The company is selling some of these to get Sahara chief Subrata Roy released from Tihar jail here. Roy has been imprisoned since March 4 on court orders and his bail requires Rs 10,000 crore, including Rs 5,000 crore in cash and the rest in bank guarantees.

Sahara told a bench headed by T S Thakur that it could not sell the two hotels in London and another in New York as Bank of China, which has charge on these, has put hurdles. Therefore, Sahara had found another entity to take over the entire loan and offer a ‘junior loan’. Post-dated cheques are ready and payments will be made to an escrow account, to be immediately transferred to Sebi.

Reliance Industries would fare comparatively better in an environment of falling oil prices because of its scale and complexity and its capacity expansion in the petrochemicals businesses over the next 12-18 months, analysts said.

The $10-billion petrochemicals expansion will help the Mukesh Ambani-led company to offset declines in refining earnings. Crude oil prices will impact Reliance Industries’ gross refining margin by at least $1.5 a barrel this quarter, said Phani Sekhar, fund manager with Angel Broking.

Hyderabad is the second best place in the world that one should see in 2015, according to an international travel publication.

The Presidio of San Francisco in the US ranked first on the “Best of the World – 20 Places You Should See in 2015″ list, published in the annual guide of ‘Traveler’ magazine of National Geographic.

Markets continued to trade firm in late noon trades led by rate sensitive shares on hopes of a rate cut by the central bank and index heavyweight Reliance Industries.

At 2:15PM, the 30-share Sensex is up 333 points at 28,772 and the 50-share Nifty has gained 109 points to trade at 8,604.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Trinamool Congress friction, in Parliament and in West Bengal, continued on Thursday.

The Trinamool members protested in Parliament, demanding answers from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government for its "failure" to bring back unaccounted (black) money stashed in foreign banks. A Trinamool member of Parliament (MP) raised the issue of the State Bank of India (SBI) sanctioning $1 billion (Rs 6,100 crore) to the Adani Group's coal project in Australia, terming it "crony capitalism".

The Reserve Bank of India has allowed banks to give loans to individuals against investment in long-term bonds issued to raise money for lending to infrastructure and affordable housing projects.

The purpose in giving such loans is to provide liquidity to retail investors. Banks can give loans up to Rs 10 lakh per borrower. The tenure should be within the maturity period of the bonds, RBI has told banks.

Scaling a new peak, the total investor wealth in Indian stock market today hit a record high of Rs 100 trillion, marking a jump of ten times in little over a decade.

Measured in terms of total market capitalisation of all listed companies on the country’s biggest bourse BSE, the overall investor wealth in the Indian stock market rose to Rs 100.01 lakh crore in early morning trade at 1005 hours as benchmark Sensex soared by over 300 points in its continuing record rally.

The Aligarh Muslim University has warned of communal tensions in the campus if the BJP proceeds with plans to celebrate the birth anniversary of Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh on December 1 at the campus gates, say reports.According to reports, AMU vice chancellor Lt Gen (retired) Zameer Uddin Shah has written to union HRD minister Smriti Irani and has warned about the possible ramifications if the celebration goes ahead as planned. However, Shah did not mention the names of the parties- neither the BJP, which has planned the event, or the Samajwadi Party, which has opposed it in the letter. Shah has reportedly warned that the political games played out by "certain elements" might be detrimental to peace on the campus.

Hardy Oil, a partner of Reliance Industries (RIL) in the D3 block in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin, said on Thursday that it would review its investment in India in the light of unattractive pricing and uncertainty surrounding long-term price outlook for natural gas sales.

In a statement on its half-yearly results, Hardy Oil said the joint venture (JV) partners might have to relinquish portion of the block owing to Indian defence ministry's new policy on access restriction. It said India's Defence Research and Development Organisation has classified one-third of the D3 block as 'impact zone' and has imposed certain access restrictions to that area.

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