Expressing grave concern over President Gotabaya Rajapaksa's declaration of a state of emergency, Sri Lankan Bar Association urged him to revoke the decree while pointing out that stifling public protest is not a solution to the crisis.

This comes at a time when crisis-hit Sri Lanka on Friday declared a state of emergency after the crippling strike and protest over the ballooning external debt for the second time in five weeks.

Faulty battery cells and modules have been identified as the leading cause of electric scooters catching fire in recent weeks, according to the findings of an initial investigation, two government sources told Reuters.

The probe looked into fire incidents involving three companies, including Ola Electric, which is backed by Japan’s SoftBank Group, and was the countrys top-selling e-scooter maker in April.

US-based chipmaker Nvidia will reportedly pay $5.5 million to settle charges that it unlawfully obscured how many of its graphics cards were sold to cryptocurrency miners.

The US Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) announced the charges and a settlement with the company. Its order claims Nvidia misled investors by reporting a huge boost in revenue related to "gaming", hiding how much its success relied on the far more volatile crypto market, reports The Verge.

The cumulative number of COVID-19 vaccine doses administered in the country has crossed 190 crore, the Union Health Ministry said on Saturday.

So far, more than 3.01 crore (3,01,97,120) children in the age group of 12-14 years have been administered the first dose of COVID-19 vaccine.

Till now, 9,95,265 precaution doses have been administered to those aged 18-59 years, according to Health Ministry data.

Burning a bigger hole in common man's pocket, the price of 14.2-kg domestic LPG cylinder on Saturday was hiked by Rs 50.

With the new revision, the LPG cylinder will now retail at Rs 999.50 in Delhi.

Earlier in the month, the price of a 19-kg commercial LPG cylinder was increased by Rs 102.50, whereas the 5-kg LPG cylinder is now priced at Rs 655.

Reliance Jio’s net profit jumped 22.9 per cent to Rs 4,313 crore year-on-year (YoY) in the fourth quarter of FY22, thanks to an increase in revenue and data volume.

Jio, however, continued to lose subscribers for the third consecutive quarter. Its customer base shrunk 10.9 million to 410.2 million at the end of fourth quarter. The company blamed SIM consolidation for the drop in customer base. It said consolidation was now slowing as the tariff hike impact had been absorbed.

Reliance Retail’s net profit for the January-March quarter declined 4.8 per cent to Rs 2,139 crore, while its EBIDTA increased 2.4 per cent to Rs 3,705 crore in the same period. The country’s largest retailer cash profit for the quarter rose 3.8 per cent to Rs 2,878 crore.

For the 12 months ended March 2022, net revenue jumped 26 per cent to Rs 1.75 trillion, EBITDA was up 26 per cent at Rs 12,381 crore (up 29 per cent at Rs 10,932 crore, excluding investment income), and net profit was higher by 29 per cent at Rs 7,055 crore, over the previous year.

India's antitrust body conducted raids at several small mining services companies on Friday for allegedly colluding on prices while offering services to the world's biggest coal miner, Coal India, four sources told Reuters.

Officers of the Competition Commission of India (CCI) raided companies in Kolkata in West Bengal state and Ranchi and Dhanbad in eastern state of Jharkhand, said two of the sources, all of whom declined to be named due to sensitivity of the operation.

Shares of IT companies were leading the list of losers on the bourses on Friday after tech-heavy Nasdaq Composite index in the US witnessed its worst single-day sell-off in 2022 overnight on Thursday.

The Nifty IT index plunged 3.2 per cent on the National Stock Exchange (NSE), and was the worst hit index amid a broad-based sell-off. Individually, all 10 index constituents were down in the dumps led by Coforge (down 9 per cent), Mindtree (5 per cent), LTI (4.8 per cent), and LTTS (4.4 per cent).

Shares of ITC traded 2 per cent higher at Rs 267.25 on the BSE in Friday’s intra-day trade in an otherwise weak market. The surge comes on the back of healthy earnings expectation due to improved cigarette volumes and announcement of dividend. In comparison, at 10:22 am, the S&P BSE Sensex was down 1.8 per cent at 54,695 points.

"A meeting of the board of directors of the company has been convened for May 18, 2022, to consider audited financial results for the quarter ended March 31, 2022.

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