In a bid to streamline the FDI structure, the government on Thursday introduced a composite foreign investment cap by clubbing all forms of overseas investments to define sectoral limits.

Briefing reporters after the Cabinet meeting, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said that “from now onwards, all FIIs, NRIs and other foreign investments… will be clubbed. It will be constituted as a composite cap”.

Banking shares mainly private sector have rallied by up to 5% on the bourses after the Cabinet today cleared a proposal to merge the limits of foreign direct and portfolio investments into composite caps to make foreign investment regime easier.

Axis Bank, Kotak Mahindra Bank, YES Bank, HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank were up 1%-5% on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

The M&M stock has key triggers going for it. Recent government policies should aid its tractor sales while the upcoming launch of compact utility vehicles is expected to help plug product gaps.

The government had last week announced steps to improve agricultural productivity by allotting Rs 50,000 crore for irrigation and reforming the national agricultural market.

China’s Huawei Technologies Co. has finally got the security clearance to establish its manufacturing unit in India, thereby paving its way to become the first major Chinese brand to supply locally made products to one of the largest markets for smartphones.

India has more than close to 150 million subscribers who use Internet-friendly smartphones, and in total has 975 million mobile phone subscriptions (HSBC).

A proposal to redevelop about 400 railways stations in metros and major cities besides pilgrim centres and tourist spots was cleared by the government on Thursday.

The Union Cabinet, chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi, gave its approval for redevelopment of the railway stations on ‘as is where is’ basis to accelerate the process of revamping them.

Making it clear that Microsoft is not giving up on phones, company COO Kevin Turner has asserted that the technology giant is restructuring its phones business for profitable growth and will focus on only a few devices that will grab market share.

Turner, addressing over 14,000 partners, resellers and vendors at the Microsoft Worldwide Partner Conference 2015 here, said people have been asking what the company is doing about its phone business, particularly in the wake of last week’s announcement that Microsoft would be cutting 7,800 jobs and write down USD 7.6 billion, all related to its Nokia business.

Tracking positive gains, the BSE Sensex extended gains and was trading over 130 points up on Thursday’s afternoon trade following sustained foreign funds inflows and across-the-board buying by investors.

At 3:20 pm, Sensex was up 245.95 points at 28,444.24. Similarly, Nifty was up 84.70 points at 8,608.50 during the same time.

The All India Petroleum Dealers Association on Thursday demanded 'one nation one rate scheme' for fuel over the recent hike in petrol prices in the national capital.

"We will hold a meeting and decide whether to declare a strike or not. We want one nation one rate scheme," said Ajay Bansal, President of the association.

Malaysia Airlines, which suffered twin air disasters last year, is reducing capacity on its Indian routes as a part of its overall restructuring exercise.

The airline is withdrawing one of its two Kuala-Lumpur Delhi flights and will operate smaller Boeing 737 aircraft on its two Mumbai flights. The changes in schedule will come into effect from September 1

Cash-rich Bharti Infratel is in advanced talks with British telecom major Vodafone and the Aditya Birla Group's Idea Cellular to buy out their telecom towers at a valuation of up to $1.6 billion (Rs 10,080 crore).

Bharti Airtel, Vodafone and Idea, India's top three cellular service providers, jointly own stakes in unlisted telecom tower company Indus Towers, apart from having their own tower arms. Banking sources said Vodafone might sell 11,000-12,000 towers and Idea Cellular 9,000 to Bharti Infratel.

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