New Delhi, Dec 15 (PTI): The Supreme Court on Thursday ordered a ban on all liquor shops on national as well as state highways across the country and made it clear that licenses of existing shops will not be renewed after March 31 next year.

A three-judge bench headed by Chief Justice T.S. Thakur also directed that all signages indicating presence of liquor vends will be prohibited on national and state highways.

Coal India’s (CIL) stock slumped to a six-month low on Wednesday, closing at 292.25, down 4.42%. CIL, the world’s largest coal producer, registered its lowest quarterly profit for the July-September period since its listing.

The company’s net profit for the quarter dropped by 77.4% to R600.4 crore from R2,654.34 crore a year ago. The company’s net income from operations has gone down by 7.8% to R16,212.5 in 2016 from R17,489.8 in 2015.

Continuing to slide for the second consecutive session, the benchmark BSE Sensex fell 141 points to 26,462.18 in early trade today amid a weak trend in Asian bourses as the US Fed hiked interest rates by a quarter percentage point and indicated more to come next year.

The 30-share barometer was trading down by 140.66 points, or 0.53 per cent, to 26,462.18. The gauge had lost about 95 points in the previous session.

German luxury carmaker Mercedes-Benz said it will hike prices of its entire model range in India, effective January 1, 2017, by up to 2% to offset rising inflation, input costs and increasing forex rates.

"The rising inflation coupled with rising input costs and increasing forex rates have been exerting significant pressure on the bottom line," Mercedes Benz India said in a statement.

The income tax department has raided the Noida branch of Axis Bank on Thursday, according to an alert from ANI.

ANI also reported that the I-T department found 20 fake accounts in the bank branch with Rs 60 crore deposited in them.

Wipro chief executive Abidali Neemuchwala has split the information technology (IT) major's India and Middle East (West Asia) business in two. And, carved a separate hyper automation group by consolidating the Artificial Intelligence (AI) assets such as Holmes that would be headed by its chief technology officer, K R Sanjiv.

The backdrop is the government push for a 'Digital India' and the move towards a less-cash society. So, the company's India region would now be an independent entity with its head reporting directly to Neemuchwala. He has appointed Sreenath A V, currently head of Wipro's global Oracle Practice, to head the India region.

Mumbai: The stock market erased all its early gains on Wednesday to close in the red at 26,603, in line with subdued global indices, as investors remained tentative ahead of the crucial US Fed policy meet on whether to raise interest rate or not. Index heavyweight Coal India disappointed on the quarterly earnings front, which too soured mood, brokers said.

Retail inflation for November eased to a two-year low of 3.63% and wholesale inflation, falling for the third month, was down at 3.15%. But this was not enough to offset the worries as investors keenly waited for the outcome of the US Fed meeting later in the day.

Volvo Group Trucks Technology (GTT), the global research, development and engineering arm of Volvo, and Indian Institute of Science (IISc) today joined hands to undertake R&D in future automotive technologies.

Volvo Group and IISc will collaborate on long-term research collaboration in selected technology areas under a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU), Volvo Group in India said in a statement.

Apex industry body ASSOCHAM today stated that fall in wholesale price index (WPI) numbers for the month of November 2016 is in tandem with the expectations which started to feel the depressive state in the Indian economy owing to the demonetisation announcement in November 2016. The chamber indicates that WPI numbers for the coming months is expected to fall in coming months since any increase in crude oil prices due to output cut decision by OPEC countries and increase in prices of other commodities due to stimulus given by US and other developed countries will be offset by downward pressure on consumption demand, which is a main contributor in GDP.

Indian Railways will adopt a “completely transparent e-tendering process” to utilise its capital expenditure of Rs 1.22 lakh crore for 2016-17, Union Minister Suresh Prabhu has said.

He said the Railways is trying to ensure that end-users and vendors use e-wallets, in line with the government’s thrust on cash less transactions post demonetisation.

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