Contrary to expectations, the new business premium (NBP) of life insurance companies dropped 12.62 per cent year-on-year (YoY) in March 2023 due to an over 30 per cent drop in Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India’s premiums, albeit on a high base.

Data released by the Life Insurance Council shows the industry racked up NBP of Rs 52,081 crore in March 2023, compared with Rs 59,608.83 crore in the year-ago period.

With the nomination filing process set to conclude on Thursday, the Congress and the BJP have released their final lists of candidates for remaining constituencies. Congress announced candidates for the 5 left seats in its sixth and final list in the early hours of Thursday.

The party, which is looking to take power from BJP in Karnataka, has nominated B V Rajeev Gowda from Sidlaghatta.

ITC has joined the elite group of companies that have market capitalisation (market cap) of Rs 5-trillion. On Thursday, shares of the cigarette-to-hotel major touched a record high of Rs 402.60, up 1 per cent on the BSE in the intra-day trade. The company's market cap touched crossed Rs 5-trillion-mark for the first time on the bourses.

With a market cap of Rs 5.003 trillion, ITC stood at eighth positions in the overall market cap ranking, according to the data from BSE. In comparison, the S&P BSE Sensex was up 0.37 per cent at 59,790.16 at 09:28 AM.

Apple chief executive Tim Cook on Wednesday met Prime Minister Narendra Modi as the iPhone manufacturer is looking to invest more in the world's second-largest smartphone market. According to government sources, iPhone maker Apple is likely to double the employment base at its contract manufacturers in India to around 2 lakh soon.

"An absolute delight to meet you, @tim_cook! Glad to exchange views on diverse topics and highlight the tech-powered transformations taking place in India," Prime Minister tweeted on meeting Apple CEO.

People stampeded at an event to distribute financial aid in Yemen's capital late Wednesday, and at least 78 people were killed and dozens more suffered injuries, a Houthi official said. The crush took place in the Old City in the centre of Sanaa when hundreds of poor people gathered at an event organised by merchants, according to the Houthi-run Interior Ministry.

The ministry's spokesman, Brig Abdel-Khaleq al-Aghri, blamed the disaster on the “random distribution” of funds without coordination with local authorities.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) will soon develop a set of rules that will govern the declaration of a bank account as fraudulent, a report by The Economic Times (ET) said. This comes nearly a month after the Supreme Court asked banks to hear the borrower before declaring their account as fraudulent.

"Banks led by State Bank of India (SBI) are keen to put out their views to the apex court as to why a personal hearing in all these cases is not practical, but the RBI does not want to drag on the case in the Supreme Court and is preparing a new updated notification clarifying all the points raised in the court," a person aware of the matter was quoted as saying in the ET report.

Gold price rose by Rs 230 during Thursday's early trade with 10 grams of the yellow metal (24-carat) trading at Rs 61,150, according to the GoodReturns website. Silver prices went up by Rs 200 with 1 kg of the precious metal selling at Rs 77,600.

The price of ten grams of 22-carat gold jumped Rs 200 to Rs 56,050.

In a significant development, the Delhi government has done away with the archaic rules under the Factories Act of 1948 that prohibited women from working night shifts in factories, The Times of India reported.

Now women in Delhi can also work the graveyard shifts in factories or offices that generally span from 7 PM to 6 AM.

The Board of Control of Cricket in India (BCCI) will, in the future, sell digital and television broadcasting rights for bilateral series involving Indian teams separately, a report by The Economic Times (ET) said. This comes after the same template used for the broadcasting rights of the Indian Premier League (IPL) for five years fetched the BCCI $6 billion.

"While we are still finalising the contours of the BCCI media rights auction, we will be unbundling the media rights this time by selling TV and digital rights separately," an official said in the report.

In its probe against insurance firms on alleged malpractices involving commission payments, the income tax (I-T) department sent notices to two large private banks last week, The Economic Times (ET) reported. However, the names of the two banks are not known yet.

According to the ET report, the initial probe that was against more than 20 insurance firms and around 500 entities linked to their sales agent has now shifted to banks due to unexplained voluminous transactions.

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