After establishing itself as an independent company earlier this year, L&T Technology Services, a fully-owned subsidiary of Larsen & Toubro (L&T), is set to explore inorganic growth.

Late last month, the Mumbai-headquartered company took a controlling stake in Thales Software India , a Chennai-based captive software arm of Thales, the French defence major. It has now set its sights on acquisitions in client countries.

The information technology sector, India’s largest private-sector employer with 3.1 million direct jobs, will witness muted hiring activity this year. According to industry body Nasscom, growth in IT hiring in 2014-15 will be a moderate six per cent.

This year, the IT sector will see higher attrition rate and wage increase to the tune of 8-11 per cent, Nasscom said in its Annual HR Survey 2014. According to the report, the sector will add 170,000-180,000 employees this year.

Wipro, the country's third largest information technology (IT) services company, which last week announced an acquisition in Canada for $195 million (Rs 1,200 crore), will continue with its 'string of pearls' inorganic growth strategy.

Addressing shareholders at the company's 68th annual general meeting here, Chairman Azim Premji said Wipro would continue to look at acquisitions to strengthen its presence in growth areas.

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) on Wednesday became the first Indian company to exceed Rs 5 lakh crore in market capitalisation. The company's share price touched a 52-week high of Rs 2,580.60, taking its market cap to Rs 5.6 lakh crore ($86.5 billion, at 60 a dollar).

This is more than the combined market cap of rival information technology companies Infosys (Rs 1,92,198 crore), Wipro (Rs 1,40,481 crore) and HCL Technologies (Rs 1,07,878 crore). TCS is also ahead of global competitors like Accenture and is within striking distance of SAP's $100 billion, though it is far behind IBM's $193.70 billion.

NEW DELHI: Anil Ambani-headed Reliance Communications has shortlisted IBM and WiproBSE 1.55 % among five companies each for two contracts worth a combined upto Rs 1,200 crore to upgrade technology across its call centre operations as well as to outsource those back office operations, a top official at the telco said.

IBM, Wipro, Tech Mahindra, Aegis and Vertex are those in the fray for the call centre outsourcing contract while IBM, Wipro, Cisco, Genesys and Avaya are in the running for the technology upgradation deal, the official told ET, asking not to be named.

CHENNAI: Car market leader Maruti Suzuki India Limited (MSIL) on Wednesday announced that over two million people have now been trained in safe driving at its various driving training facilities in the country.

MSIL, which started its safe driving initiative with Institute of Driving Training and Research (IDTR) in partnership with Delhi Government in 2000, said the two million milestone was achieved in July.

The Enforcement Directorate (ED) today launched its biggest money laundering action in the coal blocks allocation scam as it attached assets worth a whopping Rs 186 crore of an accused firm based in Hyderabad.

The firm in question, Nava Bharat Power Projects Pvt Ltd, has earlier been chargesheeted by CBI for allegedly misrepresenting facts and making "fraudulent" claims to "embellish" its applications to get coal blocks between 2006 and 2009.

The oil regulator Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) has said that ONGC did not adhere to the minimum work programme, while exploring the offshore deepwater block (KG-DWN-98/2) in the Krishna Godavari (KG) basin. The block is expected to commence output from 2017.

The regulator has told the petroleum ministry that ONGC has “drilled 15 less wells” in the block between 2006 and 2014.

The National Stock Exchange (NSE) index Nifty today scaled a new record-high of 7,809.20 points, led by a rally in IT, tech, auto, oil & gas, banking and pharma stocks on sustained foreign capital inflows amid robust corporate earnings.

The 50-issue NSE Nifty index regained the 7,800-level for the second time this month by surging 41.35 points, or 0.53 per cent, to trade at an all-time high of 7,809.20, surpassing its previous intra-day high of 7,808.85 touched on July 8.

From October 15, employees will not have to apply for transfer of their provident fund (PF) accounts while switching jobs anywhere in India.

The Employees' Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) is speeding up work on universal account numbers (UANs) for subscribers. Employees now are allotted another PF account numbers when they switch companies.

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