The Indian rupee weakened to hit a near one month low against the US dollar due to a spoke in crude oil prices amid escalating tensions in West Asia after a US airstrike killed a top Iranian commander. The death of Iranian commander Qassem Soleimani, who led the Revolutionary Guards’ Quds force, heightened fears of an armed conflict between the US and Iran that could easily pull in other countries, media said. Since 1 December, oil prices have risen over 13.3 per cent supported by the progress in US-China trade talks and the political unrest in Iraq. Government bond yields fell after Reserve Bank of India (RBI) announced its third ‘operation twist’. The Reserve Bank of India plans to buy three bonds for a combined Rs 10000 crore on 6 January. The 10-year bond yield was trading at 6.497 per cent from its pr

Bosch Ltd. is the world’s largest auto-parts supplier, plans to join its parent, Robert Bosch GmbH in cutting jobs as South Asian nation witnessed one of its worst auto sales slow down. The German company will cut a couple of thousand jobs in India in the upcoming four years, Managing Director Soumitra Bhattacharya said. About 10 per cent of 3,700 white-collar jobs and a slightly higher percentage of 6,300 blue-collar jobs will be cut, he added. There is a transformation happening across the industry, Bhattacharya said. He looked like an opportunity to transform the company even before the downturn started, also said. The world will shed 80,000 jobs in the coming years amid shrinking demand. That will hit sales at auto part makers. Bosch expects auto sales to only recover in the next two-three years after plummeti

The company claims to have developed an Artificial Intelligence (AI) model that is ‘capable of surpassing human experts’ in predicting breast cancer. “In an independent study of six radiologists, the AI system outperformed all of the human readers: the area under the receiver operating characteristic curve (AUC-ROC) for the AI system was greater than the AUC-ROC for the average radiologist by an absolute margin of 11.5 per cent," the company said. This research has been working for two years with clinical partners in the United Kingdom (UK) and the United States (US). The company claimed to have provided evidence of the ability of the system to generalise from the UK to the US. The AI model was trained and tuned on an anonymised data set of mammograms (X-Ray images of the breast used to detect cancer) from

Tata Sons Ltd moved the apex court against the reinstatement of Cyrus Mistry as executive Chairman and also against his immediate reinstatement as director of the Tata Sons and three group companies named Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), Tata Industries Ltd and Tata Teleservices (Maharashtra) Ltd. The petition would be heard on 6 January when the court opens. The petition is seeking urgent relief ahead of TCS board meeting on 9 January, as the board is meeting to consider its third-quarter earnings and would need to decide on the reinstatement of Mistry as a director. The appeal comes after the National Company Law Appellate Tribunal (NCLAT) on 18 December reinstated ousted chairman Cyrus Mistry and held as illegal the appointment of N. Chandrasekaran as his successor. The appeals court had cited the haste i

Gujarat Narmada Valley Fertilizers & Chemicals Ltd. (GNFC) said India’s telecom ministry has asked it to pay Rs 15,200 crore ($2.1 billion) in overdue fees by January 23. The company will seek legal advice in the matter, which pertains to licenses for satellite phones and internet services which held between 2005 to 2019, according to its exchange filing. The amount sought is 20 times Gujarat Narmada’s Rs 740 crore net profits for the year ended March 2019. The government, which has already exceeded its budget deficit target, has been asking companies with telecom licenses to pay dues after the nation’s Supreme Court said it can take into account firms entire revenue for calculating licensing fees. GAIL India is also facing a Rs 1.7 lakh crore, according to media reported on December 22 without sa

Indore was adjudged India's cleanest city for the fourth time in a row while Kolkata was the worst performer in the central government's cleanliness survey announced on Tuesday. In the category of cities having population more than 10 lakh, Bhopal stood second in first-quarter results (April to June), while Rajkot grabbed the second spot in second-quarter results (July-September) of 'Swachh Survekshan League 2020'. The third position was grabbed by Surat in the first quarter and Navi Mumbai in the second quarter. In the second quarter, Vadodara was ranked fourth, followed by Bhopal, Ahmedabad, Nashik, Greater Mumbai, Allahabad and Lucknow. Among cantonment boards, Delhi Cantt stood first while second and third positions were grabbed by Jhansi Cantt board and Jalandhar Cantt Board respectively in the second qua

The Central Bank of Sri Lanka has permitted Indian private sector lenders Axis Bank and ICICI Bank to close their operations in the island nation, according to online news portal ColomboPage. This follows requests by their parent banks. The licenses issued to them will be cancelled once the winding-up operations are complete. Read EquityPandit's Nifty Bank Outlook for the Week ColomboPage said the two banks are no longer permitted to carry on banking operations, including accepting deposits from the public.

Today, LPG cylinder prices raise high by Rs 19 per cylinder from the fifth consecutive month. The liquefied petroleum gas (LPG) cylinder of 14.2 kg was priced at Rs 695 in New Delhi, till December 31, but the rate has now gone up to Rs 714. State-run fuel retailers change LPG cylinder rates every month, based on international benchmark rates. According to Indian Oil, which retails Indane LPG cylinders, the price of a 14.2 kg LPG cylinder has now been revised to Rs 714 in Delhi, Rs 747 in Kolkata, Rs 684 in Mumbai and Rs 734 in Chennai. Similarly, the price of a 19 kg LPG cylinder has been revised to Rs 1241 in Delhi, Rs 1308.50 in Kolkata, Rs 1190 in Mumbai and Rs 1363 in Chennai. The revised prices are effective from January 1, 2020. LPG cylinder rates are now inching back to May-June 2019 levels when i