Ford India Wednesday reported 18 per cent decline in total sales at 24,420 units in December 2018.

The company had posted total sales of 29,795 units in the year-ago month, Ford India said in a statement.

India's biggest refiner Indian Oil Corp Ltd said on Wednesday that Iran may still invest in a refinery expansion project at one of its subsidiaries.

Indian Oil's chairman Sanjiv Singh said that Iran has not ruled out participating in the expansion at Chennai Petroleum Corp Ltd, a south India-based 20,000 barrels per day (bpd) refinery.

Debt-laden Jet Airways Ltd has delayed the payment to a consortium of Indian banks, led by State Bank of India Ltd, the airline said late Tuesday.

The payment of interest and principal instalment was delayed "due to temporary cash flow mismatch" and the company is in talks with the consortium. The deadline for the payment was Dec. 31, 2018, Jet said in a statement.

New Delhi: The twin trends of outsourcing larger technology contracts and Fortune 1000 companies awarding work that was earlier done internally to its vendors have led analysts and information technology executives to suggest that the sector could grow faster in the year starting 1 April.

These trends are the third positive development for India’s $167 billion information technology (IT) outsourcing sector, after the first six months of the current fiscal saw IT firms adding more employees and raising salaries of some of them by as much as 40%.

The finance ministry has questioned the key proposals in a cabinet note moved by the coal ministry that seek to promote investor interest in captive coal mines, the latest round of auction for which have come a cropper. In a draft cabinet note prepared in this connection, the coal ministry had proposed allowing the bidders for captive coal mines to sell up to 25% of the production in the open market, without any premium chargeable on such sales.

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) on Tuesday gave Hemant Bhargava additional charge as chairman. The announcement to appoint Bhargava, who is currently a managing director, comes after the retirement of VK Sharma on December 31.

VK Sharma was acting as LIC chairman on September 2016 and on December 2016, he took over as chairman after SK Roy resigned, nearly two years ahead of his retirement. Bhargava had taken charge as MD in February, 2017.

Stiff competition in the telecom sector has led to another rough year for the sector’s stocks. The shares of Vodafone Idea have been hit the hardest with the stock moving into the unenviable league of the worst-performing one in the MSCI Asia Pacific Index in 2018.

Last year, the shares of Vodafone Idea were down 65 per cent. Data compiled by Bloomberg shows the stock of the telecom major was among the top 5 losers in the regional index in local currency terms.

The biggest victim of India’s solar revolution has been land – especially hundreds of acres in arid and semi-arid regions. When a large solar park is set up, a vast patch of land goes under the solar panels. The Government of India has maintained that most such land is barren and unfit for farming. However, if India is to generate 100 GW of solar power by 2022, it is only a matter of time before agricultural land also goes under.

The rupee opened 9 paise lower at 69.52 against the US dollar on Wednesday. Minutes later, the currency declined further to 69.63, down 20 paise.

On Tuesday, the domestic unit gained 34 paise to settle at 69.43 on increased selling of the greenback by exporters and smart gains in domestic equities. The currency has rallied 92 paise in the last three trading sessions.

Indian equity market kicked off 2019 on a resounding note, with benchmark Sensex closing with 186 points gain Tuesday led by a rally in banking stocks following the Reserve Bank's comments that the banking sector is on a recovery path amid receding impaired assets load.

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