An Airbus A320 plane crashed today in the southern French Alps, security sources said.

One of the sources said the plane belonged to Germanwings, an affiliate of German airline Lufthansa, travelling between Barcelona and Dusseldorf. There were 142 passengers and six crew members onboard.

French President Francois Hollande says all are feared dead.

Essar Power MP limited, a subsidiary of Essar Power, signed the Coal Mine Development and Production Agreement with the government for the Tokisud North coal block in Jharkhand on Tuesday.

Essar Power MP, won the coal block in the e-auction of coal mines for Rs 1110 per tonne.The block, which has all necessary clearances to begin mining, has extractable coal reserves of 52 million tonne. The company said that vital infrastructure like connectivity to the nearest railway sliding, merely 6 kms away, already exists, thereby reducing the block development time.

Corey Anderson and Grant Elliott produced a superbly timed 103-run partnership to take New Zealand into their first cricket World Cup final with a tense four-wicket win over South Africa at Eden Park on Tuesday.

Anderson (58) and Elliott (84 not out) had been thrust together at 149 for four in the 22nd over of the rain-effected semi-final and calmly took their side within sight of victory before Daniel Vettori joined Elliott to guide their side home to ecstatic scenes in Auckland.

The Supreme Court on Tuesday quashed the controversial Section 66(A) of the Information Technology (IT) Act, which criminalizes “causing annoyance or inconvenience” online or electronically, stating that it violated the fundamental right to freedom of expression guaranteed to all citizens in Article 19(1) (a) of the Constitution.

The court said that the provision introduced in 2009 to the original Act of 2000, used expressions “completely open-ended and undefined”. Every expression used is "nebulous" in meaning. “What may be offensive to one may not be offensive to another. What may cause annoyance or inconvenience to one may not cause annoyance or inconvenience to another. Even the expression ‘persistently’ is completely imprecise,” the 120-page judgement emphasised.

Banking shares continued to remain under pressure on the bourses with the Bank Nifty slipping for the fourth straight trading session.

State Bank of India (SBI), Bank of India, Bank of Baroda, Canara Bank, IndusInd Bank, Yes Bank and Punjab National Bank were down 1%-2% on the National Stock Exchange (NSE).

To strengthen its technical capabilities including for probes, Sebi is planning to beef up its team of officers by hiring IT experts to develop data mining and intelligence tools, as also to check cyber attacks.

These officers will develop data analytics and business intelligence tools, and also manage internal IT security and audit systems to guard against data loss and theft.

Once the Undisclosed Foreign Income and Assets (Imposition of Tax) Bill (black money Bill in popular parlance) is implemented, income tax assessees will not only have to disclose their foreign assets and accounts but also the beneficial owners or nominees of these. This will help the government track those stashing unaccounted money abroad.

"For this, income declaration forms will have a separate column for details of foreign assets, accounts and the beneficial owner or nominee," said a senior official.

As Wipro prepares to plunge into the ‘digital’ area, the company is pursuing an active acquisition strategy in this segment to supplement what it is trying to build organically.

The Bengaluru-based multinational, the country's third largest information technology (IT) services company, has launched an independent business unit called Wipro Digital. It is looking at acquiring companies in areas such as 'design competency' and 'process utility' to expand its bouquet of services in the digital space.

In his 50 years of service and leadership in one company, A M Naik has a formidable collection of laurels. There has been no dearth of compliments. However, the executive chairman of Larsen & Toubro (L&T) would surely treasure this as one of his biggest awards – about 3,000 employees of the engineering and construction conglomerate came together to celebrate Naik’s 50 years of service at the company’s Powai campus here on Monday.

Naik completed his 50th year in the company on March 15, but the celebrations were delayed as the man himself was in Kuwait, to do what he loves best – work.

State Bank of India (SBI) is planning to focus more on auto loans as the sector is expecting better growth.

Speaking to reporters after announcing the bank's special finance scheme for Ola driver entrepreneurs in Chennai on Monday, PS Prakash Rao, chief general manager, SBI, said that the auto sector was expected to report a healthy growth this year.

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