New Delhi: The government has proposed a 2% levy on domestic and international plane tickets to subsidize airlines so that they connect small and remote cities, and enable millions more to travel by air in the world’s fastest growing aviation market.

NEW DELHI: US social networking major Facebook has partnered state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd. (BSNL) to create 100 WiFi hotspots in rural India to drive digital penetration in the country.

Facebook is investing Rs 5 crore per annum for buying bandwidth from BSNL in this joint initiative that also includes IT infrastructure services providers such as Quad Zen and Trimax for equipment and fibre deployment, BSNL chairman and managing director Anupam Shrivastava told ET.

The Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has begun the process for capping a borewell, that got active and threw water to the surface, in Kothapally village in Andhra Pradesh's East Godavari district.

The borewell, which was dug 20 years before and abandoned by a farmer, recently got active and some biogas also surged to the surface yesterday, an ONGC release said today.

Mahindra & Mahindra is the only automobile company in the country that has a diverse portfolio of vehicles, which comprises scooters, motorcycles, cars, sports utility vehicles (SUVs), heavy commercial vehicles (HCVs), light commercial vehicles (LCVs), electric cars and tractors. Regularly churning out new and successful models in each of these segments is not an easy proposition for any company. To be fair to Mahindra & Mahindra, it has managed to do a rather good job in India's extremely competitive passenger vehicle segment. Much of that credit needs to be given to its clutch of SUVs.

SUVs such as the Bolero, Thar, Scorpio and XUV500 have been well accepted in the country. But it's the compact SUV segment where Mahindra really needs to make an impact. The company recently launched the Mahindra TUV300 (pronounced three double O, as in the alphabet O). The design of the TUV300 has been inspired by a battle tank.

ICICI Bank, India’s largest private sector lender, posted a 12 per cent rise in net profit for the quarter ended September to Rs 3,030 crore. This was driven by 25 per cent growth in retail loans. The bank’s earnings were in line with market expectations.

Overall credit growth stood at 17 per cent despite muted loan demand from corporate borrowers. Retail loan growth was higher than the sector’s, which stands at 16-17 per cent. Now, retail loans account for 44 per cent of ICICI Bank’s overall loan book, compared with 40 per cent a year ago.

Engineering and construction firm Larsen & Toubro (L&T)'s net profit increased 16 per cent to Rs 996 crore for the September quarter from Rs 861.7 crore a year ago. The profit was also two per cent higher than Bloomberg consensus estimates of Rs 975 crore. The profits were boosted by exceptional gains of Rs 309.6 crore on account of a stake sale in a subsidiary company, as well as in an associate company.

L&T's consolidated gross revenue rose 11 per cent to Rs 23,605 crore. International revenue at Rs 7,658 crore constituted 32 per cent of the total revenue. The group's consolidated order book stood at Rs 2,44,097 crore, higher by 14 per cent year-on-year, with international order book constituting 28 per cent of the order book.

ITC on Friday reported a decline in revenue and almost flat growth in net profit for the September quarter, with a drop in cigarette volume sales and slow consumer demand in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) sector.

Analysts said there was a 16 per cent decline in cigarette volumes, in keeping with the trend in the earlier two quarters. Net profit rose 0.2 per cent to Rs 2,431 crore versus Rs 2,425 crore in the same quarter last year. Revenue fell 1.4 per cent to Rs 8,904 crore, compared to Rs 9,024 crore last year.

HCL Technologies on Thursday announced that it has acquired Minneapolis-based PowerObjects, provider of Microsoft Dynamics CRM. Total cash consideration for this transaction is approximately Rs 299 crore ($46 million), including contingent payments subject to certain financial milestones, the company stated in a BSE filing.

The acquisition, it claims, will accelerate HCL’s growth and bolster its global applications business.

The BSE Sensex and NSE Nifty fell for the fifth consecutive day on Friday as quarterly results from ITC and Larsen & Toubro disappointed investors and raised concerns about the health of the corporate sector. The sentiments were also affected after Moody’s projected that RBI will keep rates on hold for the remainder of 2015, with a small chance of another cut early next year. Sensex closed 181.31 points down at 26,656.83 while Nifty settled 45.95 points down at 8,065.80.

Private sector lender Kotak Mahindra Bank reported 31% growth in consolidated net profit for the July-September quarter to Rs 942 crore.

The rise in net profit was on the back of strong growth in advances which led to a higher net interest income.

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