Government-run Air India on Wednesday rejected the charge that it was driving air fares down by offering cheaper ticket prices for the last minute travel against the industry's practise of increasing them manifold.

"We are not driving down air fares. We are only filling empty seats by lowering last minute air fares to the level of AC-II class ticket prices of Rajdhani trains," Air India Chairman and Managing Director Ashwani Lohani told reporters on the sidelines of an event here.

At least 31 persons were killed and over 170 injured on Wednesday when twin suicide bombings hit the city of Qamishli in Syria with the Islamic State militant group claiming responsibility for the attacks..

One of the blasts was caused by a booby-trapped vehicle which went off near the headquarter of the Kurdish security force called Assayish in the western neighbourhood of Qamishli, Xinhua news agency reported.

To revive the khadi industry, Indian Railways and Air India are being encouraged to use products made up of the fabrics in trains and aeroplanes even as the KVIC’s sales grew 24 per cent in 2015-16, Parliament was today informed.

“Yes Sir. Indian Railways and Air India are being encouraged to use khadi fabrics in order to promote Khadi industries,” Minister of State in the MSME Ministry Giriraj Singh said in a written reply in Rajya Sabha to a query on whether the government is taking any steps to promote khadi in these two entities.

State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and Hindustan Petroleum Corp Ltd (HPCL) may sell a part of their stake in Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) to comply with regulations on minimum public holding.

Public shareholding in the Mangalore-based refiner is currently just 11.42 per cent, not even half of the mandatory 25 per cent public float required by the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) for listed companies.

India’s fastest growing telecom operator Idea Cellular announced expansion of its high-speed 4G LTE services in over nine districts of the North East Service Area.

The telecom operator’s services are now available in Agartala, Aizawl, Imphal, Kohima, Mokokchung, Senapati and Tura, in addition to Dimapur launched earlier this year. With the rapid expansion in a fairly short span of time, Idea’s 4G LTE services are now available to over 1.7 million people in North East.

Mahindra & Mahindra has set up a wholly owned subsidiary on Wednesday, called Mahindra Airways Limited with a paid up capital of Rs 5 lakh.

It is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mahindra Holdings Limited, which in turn is a wholly owned subsidiary of Mahindra & Mahindra Limited, M&M told BSE and National Stock Exchange (NSE) in a notification.

Private sector lender Yes Bank today said it has received an in-principle approval from the capital markets regulator SEBI to sponsor a mutual fund and to set up an asset management company and a trustee company.

In a BSE filing, Yes Bank said it “has received an in-principle approval from the Securities & Exchange Board of India (SEBI) to sponsor a Mutual Fund and to setup an asset management company (AMC), and a trustee company.

The country’s largest passenger car manufacturer, Maruti Suzuki India, on Tuesday beat analysts’ estimates by posting a net profit of Rs 1,486.2 crore during the April-June quarter, which was a rise of 23% on a year-on-year basis. The higher profits were on the back of a huge jump in other income, which increased by 134% to Rs 483 crore during the period on a yearly basis.

Reliance Jio, is yet to start commercial operations, but it has already started giving sleepless nights to rival companies. The latest organisation to express its concern is the Aditya Birla Group, which is the promoter of Idea Cellular, India’s third largest telecom operator. Kumar Mangalam Birla in an interview to ET Now said that RelianceJio launch will be ‘extremely disruptive’ for the telecom market.

Bajaj Auto shares were trading marginally in red in morning trade on Wednesday as the auto major is scheduled to announce its first quarterly results today. According to Karvy Stock Broking, Bajaj Auto will report 8.8 per cent fall in net profit figures at Rs 922.10 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2016 against Rs 1,011.60 crore in the corresponding quarter a year ago. According to the brokerage house, Bajaj Auto may report 1.8 per cent year-on-year (yoy) growth in net sales figures.

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