UK fashion retailer Marks & Spencer (M&S) has seen 13 per cent growth in India sales compared to a year ago and plans to go up to 100 outlets in two years, against the backdrop of an overall decline in consumer spending.

Globally, annual profit fell for a third year due to a drop in clothes’ sales.

Vodafone India on Tuesday said it had recorded a net profit for the year ended March, the first since it started operations as Vodafone in the country. Earlier, the company operated as Hutchison Essar, before Vodafone Plc bought into the company in 2007.

The company declined to share its net profit data for India. “While the numbers may change with fresh investments, we hope to stay net profitable in the future,” said Vodafone India Managing Director and Chief Executive Marten Pieters.

The enormity of what he had achieved in the general elections finally caught up with Narendra Modi, India’s prime minister-elect.

As Modi walked into Parliament’s Central Hall, pausing to go down on his knees to touch his forehead to the doorstep, to the hardened and the cynical it might have seemed a disingenuous and forced unsophisticated gesture. Many cringed.

LONDON: With nearly 8 lakh new born babies dying every year in India, the country holds the dubious distinction of having the highest number of such deaths globally.

A comprehensive review led by Professor Joy Lawn of the London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine to be made public on Tuesday found that 8,000 new born babies die everyday, leading to 2.9 million deaths per year worldwide. Half of the new born deaths occur in just five countries: India (77,9000), Nigeria (27,6000), Pakistan (20,2400), China (15,7000) and Congo (11,8000).

New Delhi, May 19: Union home secretary Anil Goswami today briefed Prime Minister-designate Narendra Modi about the security situation and “priority areas” that would need his government’s immediate attention.

Sources said Goswami was with Modi for about 40 minutes at Gujarat Bhavan and discussed matters relating to the creation of Telangana, Centre-state relations and the Pakistan policy.

New Delhi: Y.S. Jaganmohan Reddy, chief of the YSR Congress, met the Bharatiya Janata Party’s (BJP’s) prime ministerial candidate Narendra Modi to seek his support for Andhra Pradesh as the state awaiting bifurcation emerged as an important issue on the prime minister-designate’s agenda on Monday.

Andhra Pradesh is to be bifurcated on 2 June for the creation of Telangana as India’s 29th state.

New York: London imam Abu Hamza al-Masri was convicted of terrorism charges in New York on Monday, following a four-week trial that shined a spotlight on the preacher’s controversial anti-Western statements.

After deliberating for about 11 hours over two days, a jury of eight men and four women found Abu Hamza, 56, guilty on all 11 counts he faced, handing Manhattan US Attorney Preet Bharara his second high-profile terrorism conviction in three months.

New Delhi: HCL Technologies Ltd, India’s fourth largest software services, has bagged a deal estimated to be around $500 million (around Rs.3,000 crore) from beverage giant PepsiCo Inc. for offering infrastructure management services.

Though the value of the seven-year deal was not disclosed, sources said the size of the agreement is about $500 million.

The results of CBSE Class X examinations of Chennai region were declared on Tuesday, with over 1.22 lakh students passing the exams, registering an impressive 99.70 pass percentage.

In the All India Secondary School Examination (AISSE 2014) held between March and April, 1,22,912 students passed out of a total of 123279, said DT Sudharsana Rao, Regional Officer, CBSE.

Unhappy with the P J Nayak Committee panel report suggesting privatisation of public sector banks, five bank employees unions on Tuesday decided to stage nationwide demonstrations on May 23. “We oppose the Reserve Bank of India appointed Committee, with P J Nayak as its Chairman, which recommended privatisation of public sector banks and reduction of government’s capital to less than 50 per cent,” said C H Venkatachalam, General Secretary of All India Bank Employees Association (AIBEA) representing employees of public and private sector banks.

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