Indian stock markets were lower on Wednesday as investors exercised caution, rattled by renewed trade war concern following US President Donald Trump’s threats to Beijing amid tariff negotiations and ahead of the Federal Reserve’s long-awaited rate cut in a decade. The Sensex was down about 200 points while Nifty traded 61 points lower at 11,025.

The rupee tumbled 9 paise to trade at 68.94 against the U.S. Dollar in early trade on July 31 amid unabated foreign fund outflows and rising crude oil prices.

The Rupee opened weak at 68.89 at the interbank forex market and slipped further to 68.94, showing a decline of 9 paise against its previous close.

Five people, including two cops, were killed and 38 others injured on July 30 in a powerful blast targeting a police vehicle in Quetta, the largest city of Pakistan’s troubled Balochistan province.

The blast took place close to a police vehicle at the Bacha Khan Chowk in the remit of the City Police Station, Quetta’s Deputy Inspector-General of Police Abdul Razzaq Cheema said.

Tata Motors on Tuesday said its shareholders have approved appointment of N Chandrasekaran as director on the company’s board. He is chairman of Tata Motors. In a regulatory filing, the company also said Nasser Munjee, Vinesh Kumar Jairath and Falguni Nayar have ceased as independent directors upon completion of their terms.

The fate of the country’s financially stressed telecom industry is hanging in a precarious balance. The Supreme Court is shortly going to conclude the hearings on a case which is going since 2006 relating to the definition of adjusted gross revenue (AGR) and pronounce its judgment. If the operators lose the case, they may have to shell out a massive Rs 92,000 crore as outstanding licence fee.

Q1FY20 was strong for ICICI Bank marked by significantly higher-than-expected PAT of Rs 19.1 billion (our estimate: Rs 16.7 billion) primarily on lower provisions (down 41.5% year-on-year). Key highlights of Q1: (a) domestic advances growth improved to 17.9% y-o-y — retail book (up 22.4%); (b) decline in BB and below rated pool to 2.6% of loans vs 3% in Q4FY19; and (c) headline asset quality improved with GNPA down 21 bps quarter-on-quarter at 6.5%.

Tata Motors chairman N Chandrasekaran on Tuesday said that the company is examining various options around its UK-arm Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR), which has been hit by volume slowdown and mounting losses, including meeting multiple private players and looking for partnerships in China to lessen the financial burden on the group’s bottom line.

Axis Bank’s net profit jumped 95% year-on-year (y-o-y) to Rs 1,370.08 crore for the April-June period against Rs 701.09 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.

The private lender witnessed a 13.1% y-o-y rise in net interest income (NII) at Rs 5,844 crore. NII is the difference between interest earned and interest paid by a bank. The private lender’s shares fell 2.58% intraday, before settling at Rs 706.55 per share, down 1.82%.

The government is working on a plan to merge state-run BSNL and MTNL as part of strategy to revive the ailing telecom companies. The Union Cabinet is expected to take a final call on the matter.

According to sources, the merger plan is one of the many components of the revival package, which also includes reducing retirement age from 60 to 58, asset monetisation and allocation of 4G spectrum.

Coming down heavily on the government for failing to put in place a non-intrusive indirect tax compliance IT system, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has slammed it for having a system which remains vulnerable to fraudulent Input Tax Credit (ITC) claims even after two years of the GST rollout.

“The complexity of return mechanism and the technical glitches resulted in the rollback of invoice-matching, rendering the system prone to ITC frauds.

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