New Delhi: The Election Commission on Wednesday said Gujarat elections will be held in two phases on 9 and 14 December while the results will be announced on 18 December.

The first phase of Gujarat elections will see polling in 89 seats while the second phase of polling will witness polling in the remaining 93 constituencies. The counting of votes will take place on 18 December together with the counting of votes with Himachal Pradesh which goes to polls on 9 November.

Microsoft is dropping a lawsuit against the US government after the Department of Justice issued new rules limiting the use of secrecy orders that prevent firms from telling customers law enforcement has accessed their data.

The tech giant sued the government in April last year, but declared victory yesterday and said it was ending its case after the DOJ announced it would revise its rules.

A Delhi-based NGO has moved the Delhi High Court seeking cancellation of the appointment of Shashi Shanker and BJP national spokesperson Sambit Patra, as the chairman & managing director, and independent director, respectively, on the board of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation. The HC will hear the PIL on November 1. Energy Watchdog, through counsel Prashant Bhushan, has alleged that Shanker’s appointment was contrary to the public interest, as he was suspended in a tender matter and was also recently reprimanded by the CVC on a procurement matter.

The third party logistics service provider Mahindra Logistics is planning to raise around Rs 829.35 crore at the upper end of the price band from its initial price offering (IPO). The company has set a price band of Rs 425-429 per share for its IPO. The IPO is scheduled to open on October 31 and close on November 2. The minimum bid lot for the offer is fixed at 34 equity shares and in multiples of 34 shares thereafter.The company has proposed an offer for sale (OFS) up to 1.93 crore equity shares of face value of Rs 10 each.

The country’s second largest software services exporter, Infosys on Tuesday lowered its revenue guidance to 5.5-6.5% from 6.5-8.5% for the current fiscal, even as it beat market expectations to record a 7% sequential rise in its net profit to Rs 3,726 crore during the July-September quarter, on the back of higher utilisation rates and cost control. The company’s revised guidance falls below Nasscom’s industry projections of 7-8%. Explaining the rationale behind lowering the guidance, the IT major said the second half of the fiscal is expected to witness seasonal softness with a longer holiday period along with client uncertainty on spending in certain accounts. Revenue for the period grew by 2.9% to Rs 17,567 crore.

Shares of PSU banks rallied heavily on Wednesday following Modi government’s plan to recapitalise the lenders with a huge capital size of Rs 2.11 lakh crore. The stocks of all the listed state-run banks on the PSU bank index of NSE traded in green today with a maximum rise of up to 40%. About Rs 7,300 crore worth of shares exchanged hands on the Nifty PSU Bank index within an hour trade which is Rs 2,300 crore (approx) short of Rs 9,600 crore turnover of Nifty as at 10:17 am. India’s largest bank by asset size and loan book — State Bank of India — jumped as much as 24.56% to hit the 52-week high of Rs 316.95.

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed a monetary penalty of Rs 2 crore on IDFC Bank Limited for contravention of regulatory restrictions pertaining to loans and advances.

The RBI in a release said the action is based on deficiencies in regulatory compliance and is not intended to pronounce upon the validity of any transaction or agreement entered into by the bank with its customers.

Collections under the goods and services tax (GST) rose by Rs 1,481 crore to Rs 92,150 crore in September against Rs 90,669 crore in the previous month. However, these were marginally lower by Rs 133 crore than Rs 92,283 crore in July.

Little over 50 per cent of the assessees filed summary returns for September. Of eight million assessees, 4.29 million filed GSTR-3B. As many as 3.94 million had filed GSTR 3B by Friday, the deadline for September filing. To enable late filing, the authorities have waived late fee for August and September.

Reliance Communications, which is in the midst of a debt restructuring, is shutting down its direct-to-home television business from next month after it failed to find any buyer for the business.

“DTH operations are a no-core area for RCom, and we are currently working with three leading DTH operators for seamless migration of our customers, for them to enjoy uninterrupted services. A new scheme without any additional costs will be communicated to our customers in the next few days,” said an official spokesperson of Reliance Communications.

Reliance Industries (RIL) has had a dream run over the past one year, with its market value almost doubling and the firm leapfrogging 66 places in the league table of the world’s most valuable firms.

The Mukesh Ambani-led firm ranks 111, against last year’s 177, Bloomberg data show. Some of the global majors Reliance overtook include Nike, Starbucks, Vodafone and Volkswagen. It also surpassed TCS, which ranked 122 last year.

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