Facebook and Instagram users lost access to the social network's applications in parts of the world Wednesday as a result of an outage of undetermined origin.

The California giant which has more than two billion users acknowledged the outage after users noted on Twitter they could not access Facebook or had limited functionality.

The government has once again extended the deadline for mandatory testing and certification of mobile phones and telecom equipment to August 1, 2019. Department of Telecom (DoT) had in 2012 for the first time fixed April 1, 2013 as the deadline for mandatory testing and certification of telecom equipment (MCTE), and has deferred it many times since then.

Globally, total commodity asset under management has crossed USD 300 billion and India’s contribution to this is anything but negligible. In most parts of the world commodity derivative indices are traded by institutional investors, however, India is just getting started.

Despite the fact that commodity derivative markets have been functioning now for decades, most retail investors have maintained arms-length from this asset class.

The Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Wednesday approved the issuance of statutory notifications for General Elections to the Lok Sabha 2019 under sub-section(2) of Section 14 of the Representation of the People Act, 1951.

It provides for calling upon the parliamentary constituencies to elect Members to the House on the dates to be recommended by the Election Commission of India in its proceedings.

India and Pakistan officials are all set to meet on the Indian side of the Attari-Wagah border on March 14 to decide the modalities of the Kartarpur corridor.

This will be the first meeting between the officials of the two countries to decide on the details of the corridor.

Shares of Anil Ambani-owned Reliance Communications (RCom) were trading lower for the sixth straight day, hitting a new low of Rs 4.82, down 6 per cent on the BSE in intra-day trade in otherwise strong market. The fall comes after the lenders claimed to have the first right over income tax (I-T) refunds.

In the past six trading days, RCom has dipped 27 per cent from level of Rs 6.64 on the BSE, as compared to 4 per cent rise in the benchmark index, the S&P BSE Sensex.

Assets worth over Rs 36 crore of a Madhya Pradesh-based company have been attached by the ED in connection with a coal blocks allocation scam case, the agency said on Tuesday.

It said a provisional order for attachment of properties like land, plant, machinery, office and factory buildings of Kamal Sponge and Steel Power Ltd (KSSPL), located in Rajasthan’s Jaipur and Satna in Madhya Pradesh, and its director Pawan Kumar Ahluwalia was issued by it on Monday under the Prevention of Money Laundering Act.

The Bombay high court on Tuesday declined to give any interim relief to Kotak Mahindra Bank in its dispute with the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) over the latter’s direction to pare promoter's holding in the private sector lender.

The court turned down the bank's plea for an interim protection from regulatory action and posted the matter for further hearing to April 1.

The BSE benchmark Sensex rose over 100 points Wednesday led by gains in banking stocks amid continued buying by foreign investors.

The 30-share index was trading 134.95 points, or 0.36 per cent, higher at 37,670.61, while the 50-share NSE Nifty climbed 22.10 points, or 0.20 per cent, to 11,323.30.

Royal Bank of Canada’s Dave McKay is feeling the bite of the FANGs.

The lender’s chief executive officer told investors on Tuesday that he’s increasingly worried about the so-called FANG companies — Facebook Inc., Amazon.com Inc., Netflix Inc. and Google parent Alphabet Inc. — getting into banking. The companies are already inserting themselves between the bank and its customers as people increasingly turn to the technology giants when shopping for financial services, McKay said.

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