Mumbai: The BSE Sensex surrendered early gains to end over 194 points lower at 32,389.96 in a special Muhurat trading session on Thursday to mark the beginning of Hindu Samvat year 2074.

Banking stocks led the fall as participants booked profits to write their first entry with gains on the first session of Samvat 2074, brokers said. The broader NSE Nifty too dipped below the 10,200-mark in the special one-hour Muhurat session.

San Francisco: As Google’s boss, Sundar Pichai has put artificial intelligence at the center of almost everything the internet giant does these days. Now he wants other companies to catch up.

Alphabet Inc.’s Google is starting what it calls an “AI crash course” of free online tutorials, scripted by its staff, on how to write software that trains computers to translate text, sort images and understand videos. The courses are designed for software coders new to machine learning, one of the most useful types of AI.

Maruti Care, the service app by Maruti Suzuki, is in a new avatar. According to the company, the app will “take the customer convenience to the next level with its many new features.” Customers, for example, can now get easy on-click service booking for their cars and check the status of their vehicle being serviced from the comfort of their home or workplace. Customers also have the option of paying the bills digitally through an integrated payment solution which facilitates them with secured transaction from anywhere. Through this app, customers can avail GPS-enabled emergency on-road assistance using their smartphone.

In June, Volvo Cars has announced that Polestar, its performance car arm, will become a separately-branded electrified global high performance car company. On Thursday, the new Polestar revealed its future as a standalone electric performance brand. It confirmed plans for its first three models, a new purpose-built production facility in China and a customer-focused route to market that, it says, will set an industry benchmark for performance vehicles. Polestar unveiled the 600bhp Polestar 1, its first car, which is set to roll off the production line in mid-2019.

Disinvestment-bound Air India has sought proposals for short term loans worth Rs 1,500 crore to meet “urgent” working capital needs, according to a document. This is the second time in little over a month that the flagship carrier has floated tenders for short tenure loans even as the government is working on the modalities for the stake sale. The debt-laden carrier, which is surviving on taxpayers’ money, is battling multiple headwinds, including financial woes and stiff competition. In a document issued on October 18, Air India said it is looking for “government guarantee backed Indian Rupee short term loans totalling up to Rs 1,500 crore to meet its urgent working capital requirements”.

As India celebrates the Diwali weekend with a bundle of festivities, the domestic equity markets yesterday lost over half a percent in just an hour trade with much heavier volumes than usual. Indian stock markets opened in a special Muhurat Trading session on Thursday to mark the auspicious occasion of Diwali, beginning of Samvat 2074. In an interview to ET Now, BSE CEO Ashishkumar Chauhan said that the exchange’s perspective has always been higher on investment side than on speculation.

More than 24,000 branches and 42 crore customers make the State Bank of India the goliath of all banks by sheer size and physical presence but its new chairman Rajnish Kumar is worried about the competition from nimble fintech companies.

“Today, the risk is the disruption that is caused by the technology ,“ Rajnish Kumar, chairman, State Bank of India told ET in an interview. “We have to be very alert to this challenge. Protecting the turf and meeting the challenges from all the new fintech companies is the priority .“

Pollution is killing millions of people worldwide, mostly through the diseases it causes including heart conditions, strokes and lung cancer, according to a large international study.

Almost all pollution-related deaths - around 92 percent - are in poor or middle-income countries, the research found. And in rapidly industrialising countries such as India, Pakistan, China, Bangladesh, Madagascar, pollution is linked to as many as a quarter of all fatalities.

The US Department of Commerce said on Thursday it had begun an investigation into whether imports of Polytetrafluoroethylene (PTFE) resin from India and China were being dumped on the US market.

The department said it was also initiating a countervailing duty (CVD) investigation to determine whether producers of PTFE resin in India are receiving unfair subsidies.

BSNL's Xgenplus Security Features is available at just Re 1 per day. Here's what it is.

On the occasion of Diwali, state-run telecom firm BSNL announced a new anti-virus, anti-spamming, and anti-hacking plan for its subscribers. The secured email services called ‘Xgenplus Security Features’ is available at just Re 1 per day. The telecom operator had started its corporate e-mail service in partnership with a Jaipur-based company called Data Infosys. BSNL, in a statement, had said that the offer is for “users’ e-mail services to ensure privacy and security of their data”.