The government today said some banks have initiated the process of declaring debt-ridden Kingfisher Airlines as wilful defaulter. “Some banks have already started the process,” Financial Services Secretary G S Sandhu said when asked as to whether the banks are going to declare Kingfisher Airlines and its promoter Vijay Mallya as wilful defaulter. Once declared wilful defaulter, criminal proceedings can be initiated against promoters and directors of the company.

Wipro, India's third-largest IT services company, on Thursday posted a profit of Rs 2,118 crore that was largely in line with expectations for the June 2014 quarter, but the surprise came from a stronger guidance for its IT services business on the back of healthy order booking and demand from key geographies.

The benchmark BSE index Sensex today retreated from record high by losing over 25 points in early trade as investors booked profits in recent outperformers, mainly capital goods, oil and gas and power sector stocks.

The 30-share barometer, which had gained 1,140.35 points in the past seven sessions, shed 25.91 points, or 0.10 per cent, to 26,121.42. The gauge had closed at a new record high of 26,147.33 yesterday.

There is no proposal to change the present five-day week for the employees of central government ministries and departments, Lok Sabha was informed today.

"No," said Jitendra Singh, Minister of State for Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions in a written reply to a question whether the government plans to change the five days per week working for central government servants.

The gender pay gap in the information technology (IT) sector is as high as 29 per cent, according to Monster Salary Index (MSI). While a male employee in the sector receives a gross salary of Rs 359.25 per hour, a woman receives Rs 254.04 per hour. This disparity possibly emerges from the fact that men get promoted to supervisory positions more often than women.

The government's disinvestment programme is set to get a boost this Diwali, with the finance ministry planning to hit the market to sell a five per cent stake in Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL) by October. This will be followed by a 10 per cent stake dilution in Coal India.

Apart from these two, the department of disinvestment has identified about a dozen other companies in which the government could offload shares this financial year.

New Delhi is most likely to block the World Trade Organization’s (WTO) eagerly-awaited trade facilitation agreement (TFA) in a bid to safeguard its interest on food stockpiling and food grain subsidies. The Cabinet, which was supposed to meet on Wednesday to take a call on this, deferred the meeting by a day.

According to sources, the Cabinet meeting, which will be chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, will now take place on Thursday morning and it is likely to spell out India’s stance on the contentious issue, something which will be closely watched internationally.

Home-grown auto maker Mahindra & Mahindra today opened an all-in-one dealership in Dahod district of Gujarat that will focus on vehicles sales, service and spares supply in the entire region, as part of the strategy to expand its retail presence across Western region.

The new dealership will take care of the Mahindra's vehicles sales, service and spares supply in the entire district, the company said.

On Day One of the final hearing of the ongoing court case between YES Bank and Madhu Kapur, the latter's counsel said the lender tried to de-classify her as promoter of the bank, citing communications between the bank and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).

Kapur's counsel presented copies of the correspondence between the two institutions during 2010-13 to challenge the promoter status of Kapur, the second largest shareholder.

YES Bank has reported a 9.6 per cent growth in net profit to Rs 439 crore for the April-June quarter.

Gains from treasury income have been muted, though net interest income (NII) was higher by 13 per cent. The net profit was three per cent below the Bloomberg estimate of Rs 452.6 crore.

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