India has boosted the output of coal and cancelled passenger trains to free up rail track to move it, officials said on Friday, as the government scrambles to overcome its worst power crisis in years.

State-run Coal India, which accounts for 80% of India's coal output, increased production by 27.2% in April, the federal coal ministry said. Federal government-run Indian Railways has cancelled 753 passenger train services, the government said.

Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) on Friday said it will hike prices of its compact SUV Urban Cruiser and premium hatchback Glanza from May 1, 2022 to offset the increase in input costs.

At present, the Urban Cruiser is priced between Rs 8.88-11.58 lakh while the Glanza is tagged at Rs 6.39-9.96 lakh (ex-showroom Delhi), depending on the variants.

Electric two-wheeler maker Hero Electric on Friday said it had zero dispatches to dealers in April, hit by the ongoing global semiconductor shortage that led to stoppage of production.

The company experienced extreme chip shortage and supply chain constraints, Hero Electric said in a statement.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Friday said India is headed for a robust economy and the country's consumption of semi-conductors is expected to cross USD 110 billion by 2030 and has the world's fastest growing start-up eco-system.

He said India is set to lead the next technology revolution and investments are being made in developing capabilities in 5G among other things.

The Centre on Thursday rubbished claims by Telangana Minister K T Rama Rao that Chief Minister K Chandrashekar Rao was asked to stay away from Prime Minister Narendra Modi's programmes in the state.

"According to some media reports, the son of Telangana CM has claimed that PMO sent a message that Shri KCR should not be a part of PM's programs when he visited Hyderabad. This is patently untrue. No such message was sent by the PMO," Minister of State in the Prime Minister's Office Jitendra Singh said on Twitter.

Shares of Camlin Fine Chemicals hit a 52-week low of Rs 112.50 as they slipped 17 per cent on the BSE in Friday's intra-day trade on concerns of weak earnings due to ongoing Russia – Ukraine war. The stock of the specialty chemicals company has fallen below its previous low of Rs 116.30 touched on December 29, 2021.

Camlin Fine said the Russia – Ukraine crisis has had an adverse impact on all costs especially raw materials, logistics and power and fuel. The future impact of the situation is difficult to be assessed at this point, as the situation is unravelling at a fast pace, it said.

BSP supremo Mayawati on Friday mocked Samajwadi Party (SP) president Akhilesh Yadav's assertion that he wanted her to become the prime minister and wondered how someone who could not fulfil his own dream of becoming the chief minister will manage to realise the aspirations of others.

Reacting to Yadav's statement that he wanted her to become the prime minister and that the SP had forged an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party (BSP) for the 2019 Lok Sabha polls for this, Mayawati, in a tweet in Hindi, said, "When the SP chief could not fulfil his own dream of becoming the chief minister (of Uttar Pradesh) even after securing the votes of Muslims and Yadavs and forming an alliance with several parties, how can he fulfil the dream of others to become the prime minister."

The global coronavirus caseload has topped 512.5 million, while the deaths have surged to more than 6.23 million and vaccinations to over 11.33 billion, according to the Johns Hopkins University.

In its latest update on Friday morning, the University's Center for Systems Science and Engineering (CSSE) revealed that the current global caseload and the death toll stood at 512,225,941 and 6,230,957, respectively, while the total number of vaccine doses administered increased to 11,334,817,928.

Shares of Varroc Engineering froze 20 per cent upper circuit at Rs 494.60 and hit 52-week high on the BSE. The spike comes after the company signed a Securities Purchase Agreement (SPA) with Compagnie Plastic Omnium SE of France for divestment of 4-wheeler lighting business of the company in US and Europe.

The stock of auto components and equipments maker surpassed its previous high of Rs 458.30 that it had touched on January 14, 2022. Till 09:24 AM; a combined 570,000 equity shares changed hands with 1.32 million shares as pending buy orders on the NSE and BSE.

Ever since the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) announced launching the initial public offering (IPO), 65 million LIC policyholders have shown interest to get the much-touted share of the largest insurance company in the country, an official said. Of them 12 million have dematerialised accounts, the official added.

The LIC has set a price band of Rs 902-Rs 949 per equity share. The government intends to raise Rs 21,000 crore through the issue.

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