What happens if, in the forthcoming Union Budget 2018, a tax is reinstated on long-term capital gains (LTCG) on listed shares? After an initial shock, the stock markets should stabilize. Domestic investors will realize that equities yield better post-tax returns than other asset classes and India will continue to be a part of the emerging market portfolio of foreign investors.

Once the chaos dies down, the focus will shift to whether revenue increases for the government, which is the underlying objective of any tax proposal.

New Delhi: State finance ministers and their counterpart in the central government Arun Jaitley will hold wide-ranging talks on Thursday about state finances and indirect taxation at the 25th meeting of the Goods and Services Tax (GST) Council and a pre-budget consultation in the national capital.

State finance ministers will present their wish list for budget 2018-19 to Jaitley and senior finance ministry officials.

Riding on the back of expected HPCL-ONGC deal, the government is eyeing to end FY18 with record disinvestment receipts of over Rs 90,000 crore as against the Budget target of Rs 72,500 crore, media sources reported. It is almost the double of over Rs 46,000 crore recorded last year. However, the exact amount to be raised after stake sale in HPCL is still uncertain. The deal, if finalized by March this year, should raise over Rs 30,000 for the government.The fiscal deficit reached Rs 6.12 trillion or 112% of the full-year budget during eight months to November.

NEW DELHI: Indian Oil Corp, the nation's largest refiner and fossil fuel retailer, in in talks with Bangladesh and Myanmar to enhance trade of petroleum products and offer its expertise to set up oil infrastructure in the two countries.

This month, Indian Oil will open offices in Bangladesh and Myanmar, with a plan to closely pursue business opportunities in the two countries. "For the neighbouring countries, we are not only looking for business, we are looking for association beyond business.

Private lender YES Bank is slated to unveil its earnings numbers for the December quarter on Thursday.

Analysts see an over 20 per cent year-on-year growth in the bank's bottom line with robust asset quality.

The BSE Sensex continued its record-setting spree for a second day, scaling a new high of 35,476.70 in opening trade today as banking stocks led rally on sustained foreign fund inflows. Also, the broader NSE Nifty zoomed to a new high of 10,887.10. The 30-share index rallied by 394.88 points, or 1.12 per cent, to hit the peak of 35,476.70, breaching its previous intra-day high of 35,118.61 hit yesterday.

HDFC Bank saw its market capitalisation (market-cap) crossing Rs 5-trillion after the share price of the bank hit a new high on Thursday. The country’s private sector lender becoming the third firm after Reliance Industries (RIL) and Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) to achieve this milestone.

At 10:27 AM; HDFC Bank was rading 3% higher at Rs 1,949, have a market-cap of Rs 5.04 trillion, the BSE data shows. RIL was at number one rank with a market-cap of Rs 5.84 trillion, followed by TCS, which have market-cap of Rs 5.5 trillion.

Oil-to-telecom conglomerate Reliance Industries (RIL) is expected to report a sequential decline in gross refining margins (GRM), while still maintaining it in double digit. The market is watching out for the telecom division’s performance which surprised the street with an operating profit in the previous quarter.

In a Bloomberg poll, nine analysts estimated the company’s consolidated profit at Rs 84.96 billion against Rs 81.09 billion and seven analysts estimated revenue of Rs1.02 trillion against revenue of Rs 914.81 billion reported in the same quarter a year back.

The Supreme Court on Wednesday was told that Aadhaar was "an electronic leash" to which every resident of India was tethered, and was violative of the Constitution as it reduces the recognition of an individual to a number.

Asserting that Aadhaar reduces the individual identity to a numerical, the five-judge Constitution Bench headed by Chief Justice Dipak Misra was told the "government has rolled out a little-understood programme that seeks to tether every resident of India to an electronic leash".

Mahindra Two Wheelers Ltd (MTWL), the ailing subsidiary of Mahindra and Mahindra, is trying to re-invent itself and come back on the growth path - for starters, it aims to reduce its losses in this financial year to sub Rs 1 billion levels (from a Rs 4.71 billion in FY17). Besides planning to launch new variants of its premium bike Mojo in the coming quarters, it has got a brand new BSA bike in the works apart from a Jawa motorcyle (expected in FY19).

Inviting Real Estate Agents, Job Placements Agents, Educational Institutes, Software Service Providers, Real Estate Builders, Marriage Bureaus, Travel Agents, Restaurant Owners, Health & Fitness Centers and other Local Businesses to Post a FREE Classified Advertisement on Cootera.com Classifieds Website.