Even as the rest of India witnessed a lacklustre performance from the Congress, the youngest state, Telangana, became a beacon of hope for the Grand Old Party, poised to secure 64 seats, surpassing the simple majority mark of 60 needed to form a government in the southern state. A key driving force behind the Congress victory was its success in rural constituencies outside the Hyderabad area.

This marks the first instance since the formation of the state in 2014 that any party other than Kalvakuntla Chandrashekar Rao (KCR)-led Bharat Rashtra Samithi (BRS) is set to assume power.

Tremors were felt in various parts of West Bengal as an earthquake of 5.6 magnitude hit neighbouring Bangladesh on Saturday morning.

According to the National Center for Seismology, the earthquake took place in southeastern Bangladesh at a depth of 55 km at 9.05 am.

Union Minister Anurag Thakur, speaking about exit poll results and Rajasthan assembly elections, said on Saturday that people of Rajasthan will soon be freed from the Congress government and its loot.

"The wait of the people (of Rajasthan) will be over and they will be freed from the anarchy and corruption in the state. People will be freed from Rajasthan's Congress government, known for its loot. Just wait for one day," said Anurag Thakur.

Tripura Chief Minister Dr Manik Saha on Friday expressed concerns over the rising cases of HIV/AIDS in the state and said that the number of active cases among the students is causing worry.

Tripura has reported a total of 5,269 cases of HIV/AIDS, with 575 of them being students.

The benchmark Nifty50 soared to a fresh record high on both intraday and closing bases on Friday. This surge came on the back of a better-than-expected GDP growth figure for the September quarter of 2023-24 and was fuelled by growing global optimism that the US Federal Reserve and other large central banks have successfully reined in inflation and are on the verge of lowering interest rates.

The 50-share index rose by 135 points, or 0.67 per cent, to close at 20,268, surpassing its previous closing high of 20,192, recorded on September 15.

Aditya Birla Health Insurance on Thursday announced the launch of a new product – ‘Activ One’. The product features ‘100 per cent Health Returns’, which enable policyholders to earn back their premium up to 100 per cent.

The product offers wide-ranging features including coverage for live-in partners under the policy. The policy offers chronic care cover which provides Day 1 cover to people with several chronic conditions such as asthma, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes, chronic obstructive pulmonary disease, obesity and coronary artery disease.

Ola Electric in November had the highest monthly registrations (30,000) for its electric scooters, helped by strong festive demand. The company cited state-run VAHAN portal to say it had a month-over-month growth of 30 per cent in registrations and year-over-year growth of 82 per cent.

The company said it dominated the electric scooter market with a 35 per cent share in November. The Bhavish Aggarwal-led firm competes with Ather Energy, Okinawa Autotech, Ampere EV by Greaves, Hero Electric, and TVS Motor Company.

Bharti Airtel is set to utilise a portion of its remaining rights issue proceeds to prepay a major part of its balance dues on the spectrum acquired in the 2015 auction, according to a report by The Economic Times (ET). This may have triggered Bharti Telecom (BTL), which owns 38.75 per cent stake in Airtel, to raise around Rs 8,000 crore (under $1 billion) through non-convertible debentures NCDs.

The NCDs will reportedly be raised in three tranches of Rs 2,000 crore, Rs 3,000 crore, and Rs 3,000 crore with two, three, and five-year maturities.

As of the end of November, 97.26 per cent of the Rs 2000 banknote have been returned to the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), according to a notice released by the regulator on Friday. The RBI also announced that the circulation amount of the note had declined from Rs 3.56 trillion in May to Rs 9,760 crore at the end of November.

At the end of October, the RBI had revealed that 97 per cent of the Rs 2000 denomination banknotes had been returned to the regulator.

Shares of ITD Cementation India surged 13 per cent on the BSE to hit a new high of Rs 305 in Friday’s intra-day trade on the back of heavy volumes after the company won new orders worth of Rs 1,001 crore.

The stock of the civil construction company has zoomed 54 per cent in past one month.

Today, the average trading volumes on the counter more than doubled with a combined 3.8 million equity shares having changed hands on the NSE and BSE.

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