Markets continued to trade firm in late noon trades led by rate sensitive shares on hopes of a rate cut by the central bank and index heavyweight Reliance Industries.

At 2:15PM, the 30-share Sensex is up 333 points at 28,772 and the 50-share Nifty has gained 109 points to trade at 8,604.

The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-Trinamool Congress friction, in Parliament and in West Bengal, continued on Thursday.

The Trinamool members protested in Parliament, demanding answers from the BJP-led National Democratic Alliance government for its "failure" to bring back unaccounted (black) money stashed in foreign banks. A Trinamool member of Parliament (MP) raised the issue of the State Bank of India (SBI) sanctioning $1 billion (Rs 6,100 crore) to the Adani Group's coal project in Australia, terming it "crony capitalism".

The Reserve Bank of India has allowed banks to give loans to individuals against investment in long-term bonds issued to raise money for lending to infrastructure and affordable housing projects.

The purpose in giving such loans is to provide liquidity to retail investors. Banks can give loans up to Rs 10 lakh per borrower. The tenure should be within the maturity period of the bonds, RBI has told banks.

Scaling a new peak, the total investor wealth in Indian stock market today hit a record high of Rs 100 trillion, marking a jump of ten times in little over a decade.

Measured in terms of total market capitalisation of all listed companies on the country’s biggest bourse BSE, the overall investor wealth in the Indian stock market rose to Rs 100.01 lakh crore in early morning trade at 1005 hours as benchmark Sensex soared by over 300 points in its continuing record rally.

The Aligarh Muslim University has warned of communal tensions in the campus if the BJP proceeds with plans to celebrate the birth anniversary of Raja Mahendra Pratap Singh on December 1 at the campus gates, say reports.According to reports, AMU vice chancellor Lt Gen (retired) Zameer Uddin Shah has written to union HRD minister Smriti Irani and has warned about the possible ramifications if the celebration goes ahead as planned. However, Shah did not mention the names of the parties- neither the BJP, which has planned the event, or the Samajwadi Party, which has opposed it in the letter. Shah has reportedly warned that the political games played out by "certain elements" might be detrimental to peace on the campus.

Hardy Oil, a partner of Reliance Industries (RIL) in the D3 block in the Krishna-Godavari (KG) basin, said on Thursday that it would review its investment in India in the light of unattractive pricing and uncertainty surrounding long-term price outlook for natural gas sales.

In a statement on its half-yearly results, Hardy Oil said the joint venture (JV) partners might have to relinquish portion of the block owing to Indian defence ministry's new policy on access restriction. It said India's Defence Research and Development Organisation has classified one-third of the D3 block as 'impact zone' and has imposed certain access restrictions to that area.

Notwithstanding the recent bickering between the former allies, the BJP on Thursday announced that it will start afresh talks with Shiv Sena on the issue of the latter's joining the four-week-old government in Maharashtra.

"From tomorrow, senior BJP leaders Devendra Pradhan and Chandrakant Patil will hold talks with Sena leaders," Chief Minister Devendra Fadnavis told reporters here.

Chennai Super Kings is all set to be forced out from the Indian Premier League. The Supreme Court, in an observation on Thursday, has said that the team should be disqualified from the IPL following the indictment of one of its officials, Gurunath Meiyappan by the Mudgal committee on charges of betting.

Meiyappan, the son-in-law of suspended BCCI President N Srinivasan was cleared by the committee on match fixing charges.

Asserting that black money was generated during the Congress-led UPA regime, Parliamentary Affairs Minister M. Venkaiah Naidu on Thursday said the government, which had constituted the Special Investigation Team (SIT) after coming to power, has nothing to apologise or hide on this issue.

Attempting to silence all critics, Naidu alleged that the former UPA Government, which was supported by the Samajwadi Party, Left parties and the Trinamool Congress (TMC), did not initiate any firm steps on the black money issue.

Markets continued to trade flat with stock specific action seen ahead of the expiry of November derivative contracts today.

At 1:15PM, the 30-share Sensex was down 41 points at 28,345 and the 50-share Nifty was down 10 points at 8,466.

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