Secretary of State for Foreign Affairs William Hague and Chancellor of the Exchequer George Osbourne, heading the largest business and ministerial delegation ever, arrived in Mumbai, their first port of call, during a two-day visit to the country.
Market breadth on the BSE ended firm as 1,908 shares advanced and 1,156 shares declined
'When the youth population is so large, in a globalised world, they look for opportunities. Are there enough opportunities for the youth in India?' 'The idea of affirmative action has to be creating capability. All individuals have potential. Unfortunately, there is capability deprivation because of the State's inaction.' 'Nation building has been a disaster in India mainly because we lacked the work ethic compared to the US and European countries.'
Physicist Kanwal Singh appointed dean of Sarah lawrence College, the first Indian American to head a leading liberal arts college in the US.
The Pakistan army, which is alleged to have huge business interests, "must acquire" a television channel for dissemination of propaganda to counter the growing penetration of Indian TV and news channels in the country, a senior army officer has suggested.
'This is the first time that the Americans have agreed to refer to "cross-border terrorist attacks" in a joint statement.' 'No wonder Pakistan has called the joint statement "singularly unhelpful" and has blasted it, and its all-weather friend China has applauded Pakistan's frontline role in combating terrorism,' points out former foreign secretary Ambassador Kanwal Sibal.
Till date, 107 elections to states and three parliamentary polls have been smoothly conducted using the EVMs.
'Some intolerance is there in society. Fortunately, a majority of Indians are tolerant.'
Capital goods, IT, auto and pharmaceuticals lead gains for the financial year
The 30-share Sensex ended up 142 points at 29,462 and the 50-share Nifty gained 26 points to end at 8,895.
Son of a Madurai farmer, Dr Vijayaragavan Vishwanathan has built a unique device for agriculture that can save water as well as electricity. Ironically, Vijay got support for his project from different international bodies but is still looking to get support from Indian government organisations when the product was specifically made for India.
'Make in India' will be central to Mr Modi's visit to Europe and Canada. It is difficult to predict what will happen with the Rafale deal, but if it goes through, it will undoubtedly become the 'Mother' of all 'Make in India' projects,' says Claude Arpi.
During the phone call, Trump underscored the determination of the US to defend itself and its allies from the growing threat posed by the North Korean regime, the White House said.
The J-20 fighter is called Beijing's answer to the US F-22 stealth fighter and the F-35 that will be soon deployed in the Pacific by the United States and Japan.
The American Association of Physicians of Indian Origin will attend the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in Delhi with an agenda to develop a plan to bring together AAPI, NGOs and the government to provide access to affordable and quality health care. Aziz Haniffa reports
The president's moves will make it easier for entrepreneurs to work in the United States
'India alone cannot walk the path of peace. It also has to be Pakistan's journey to make,' says Prime Minister Narendra Modi at the government's geo-political flagship initiative "Raisina Dialogue-II".
'In the time I have been an Indiawallah, I have seen three US Presidential visits to India, nuclear sanctions, nuclear cooperation, a border conflict with Pakistan, the growth of IT services, a government losing a confidence vote, and so much more,' Rick Rossow, the new Wadhwani Chair in US-India Policy Studies tells Rediff.com's Aziz Haniffa.
With a sole mandate of inflation targeting, RBI wears many hats.
India on Thursday pitched for unleashing the "collective strength" of the South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation as External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj underlined the need for a South Asian Economic Union with greater connectivity and forward movement on pending agreements on rail and motor vehicles.
Perhaps, the most misunderstood aspect is the role of the state.
Markets closed in the red on domestic worries.
'Over the last two decades, the India-French relationship has grown steadily, no major political difference having darkened the sky between Paris and Delhi,' says Claude Arpi.
'We use the word "historic" perhaps too much, but the prime minister's visit certainly was historic in so many ways.'
The 30-share Sensex ended down 30.30 points at 28,161.72 and the 50-share Nifty dipped 7.95 points at 8,543.
The Forbes 30 Under 30 list is harder to get into than Stanford or Harvard University. Meet the desis who made the cut this year.
President Pranab Mukherjee's visit to Israel is a final and critical step in the normalisation of relations between the two countries.
November 12 marks 25 years of the beginning of the World Wide Web. Shivanand Kanavi gives us the story of how it all began.
The BSE Midcap and Smallcap indices have performed better than the front-liners
'Four years into his tenure and Modi still has no idea what is wrong with the agriculture sector!'
Shedding its gains from Monday, NIkkei has declined around 0.7% while Hang Seng and Shanghai Composite were trading marginally lower.
Aadhaar-related schemes and the Aadhaar Act exist on the assumption that Right to Privacy is not a Fundamental Right.
Younger party leaders are livid with the Murli Manohar Joshi-headed manifesto drafting committee for not taking their suggestions, reports Archis Mohan.
Sensex hit a record high of 27,225.85 and Nifty hit a record high of 8,141.90 in the intra-day trades today.
Sensex falls at close; metals, banks perform well.
India Inc is seeking at least quarterly interactions with senior government representatives to establish a channel of communication and help change the opinion at the highest level.
The Nifty-Sensex have recorded successive 52-week lows through the last week.
Colonel Anil Athale (retd) recalls how the Battle of Panipat, 258 years ago, changed the history of India for the next century and half.
Benchmark indices failed to sustain gains and retreated from day's high dragged primarily by the losses in metals, information technology and bank shares as investors started to book profits in late noon deals. Earlier, markets had scaled fresh all-time highs on the surprise post-budget rate cut by Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The 30-share Sensex ended down 213 points at 29,380 and the 50-share Nifty closed down 74 points at 8,922. Intra-day, Sensex reached the all-time high mark of 30,024.74 while Nifty touched the life-time high level of 9,119.20. In the broader market, both the BSE Midcap index and Smallcap indices, down 1% and 1.2% each underperformed the front-liners. Market breadth in BSE ended negative with 1,882 declines against 1,010 advances. A day after signing an agreement with Finance Ministry on inflation targeting, RBI surprised the markets with an early post-budget repo rate cut of 25 bps (basis points) to 7.5% from 7.75% which was again outside of central bank's scheduled policy review meetings as the earlier rate cut effected on January 15. "RBI's latest rate cut of 25 basis points, while a surprise in its timing is in-line with our expectations of a sharp rate-cutting cycle over the coming quarters. With inflation sustainably lower by 500bps, the RBI has in recent months acknowledged the scope for rate cuts and was only waiting for additional comfort that the government's fiscal policy would not play spoil-sport," said Dinesh Thakkar, chairman and managing director at Angel Broking in a note. Analysts at Karvy believe that further monetary policy action will depend on number of factors including easing of supply constraints, improved availability of power, land, minerals and infrastructure, fiscal consolidation, the pass through of rate cuts by banks and the expected monsoon. Citing weakness in some sectors of the economy and the overall global trend towards monetary easing as rationale for the rate cut the central bank also exuded confidence in the road map for fiscal consolidation as laid out in the Union Budget, 2015. Commenting on how the markets reacted to RBI's surprise move, K Subramanyam assistant vice-president (institutional research), Asit C. Mehta Securities said, "The unexpected cut did take the market by surprise .However, credit off-take is not dependant only on interest rates. A gradual revival in the economy would be of more help which would trigger credit off-take. Hopefully this will follow and RBI's action would prove helpful. From market point of view this is bullish as equity becomes more attractive vis-a-vis falling interest rates." On the macro-economic front, the HSBC services PMI rose to an eight-month high of 53.9 in February up from 52.4 in January indicating strong expansion in output across the sector. Respondents cited robust growth of new business as the principle factor for the increase in activity. Meanwhile, foreign portfolio investors (FPIs) bought shares worth a net Rs 773 crore on Tuesday, as per provisional data. Buzzing Stocks 9 out of the 12 sectoral indices of BSE ended in red. BSE Metal index, down 2.4% was the top loser followed by BSE Oil & Gas and Power indices, down 1.3% each. BSE Healthcare index, up 1.2% and BSE FMCG index, up 0.9% were the top losers. Bank stocks came under during late noon trades as traders booked profits at higher levels. However, RBI rate cut may encourage large lenders to cut their lending rates boosting demand for home and auto loans and provide funds for various stalled and new projects. Many stalled projects across the country are waiting for cash to restart work. The stock of stalled projects at the end of December 2014 stood at Rs 8.8 lakh crore or 7% of GDP. ICICI Bank ended down 0.1%, Axis Bank and SBI declined over 3% and HDFC Bank shed 1.5%. Sun Pharma gained over 6% on approval granted to Sun Pharma Advanced Research Company (SPARC) by US FDA for an antiepileptic drug. The product will be manufactured by Sun Pharmaceutical Industries at its Halol (Gujarat) facility in India. SPARC was formed in 2007 when Sun Pharma separated out its active projects in drug discovery and innovation into a new company. Dr Reddys Lab and Cipla have gained over 1% each. ITC gained over 1% after consecutive sessions of losses on the proposed larger-than-expected hike in excise duty on cigarettes in the Union Budget. The biggest ever auction of spectrum by the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) started on Wednesday in the morning where government expects to garner Rs 80,000-1lakh crore from the sale of spectrum. Idea Cellular gained over 2%, Reliance Communication gained around 1% and Bharti Airtel closed 0.5% higher. Metal stocks were under pressure in today's session. Hindalco declined over 3%, Sesa Sterliteended down over 4% and Tata Steel closed down 2%. Profit-taking in IT stocks led to Wipro losing around 1.8%, Infosys declining 0.7% and TCS losing 1.5%.
Modi's visit to Brussels comes eight days after the deadly attacks on the city in which at least 35 people, including an Indian, died and over 300 were wounded.