Assam Chief Minister Himanta Biswa Sarma on Wednesday inaugurated the ceremonial distribution of scooters to meritorious candidates who cleared the last higher secondary examinations conducted by the Assam Higher Secondary Education Council with percentage above a certain threshold at a ceremony held at the Veterinary College Playground in the state's capital city.

Banikanta Kakati Merit Award, under the Pragya Bharti scheme, this year is being awarded to a total of 35,800 beneficiaries, of which 6,052 are boys and 29,748 are girls.

The rupee appreciated 32 paise to 80.98 against the US dollar in early trade on Thursday on a broad dollar weakness after Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell said the pace of interest rate hikes may slow.

At the interbank foreign exchange, the domestic unit opened at 81.08 against the dollar, then gained further ground to touch 80.98, registering a rise of 32 paise over its previous close.

Vodafone Idea (Vi) has approached the State Bank of India (SBI) for a loan of Rs 15,000-16,000 crore to meet its capital expenditure needs and fund its gear supply for the 5G rollout, a report in the Economic Times (ET) said.

The talks have reportedly been going on for over a month now and SBI is waiting to get clarity on the government's potential shareholding in Vi, the report added.

Polling began at 8 am on Thursday for the first phase of Gujarat Assembly elections in 89 out of the total 182 seats across 19 districts of Saurashtra-Kutch region and southern parts of the state to decide the fate of 788 candidates.

The voting is being held across 14,382 polling stations, of which 3,311 are in the urban and 11,071 in rural areas, the office of the state Chief Electoral Officer (CEO) said.

Amazon CEO Andy Jassy said Wednesday the company does not have plans to stop selling the antisemitic film that gained notoriety recently after Brooklyn Nets guard Kyrie Irving tweeted out an Amazon link to it.

Pressure has been mounting on Amazon to discontinue sale of the film, called Hebrews to Negroes: Wake Up Black America," since Irving shared the link to the documentary with his millions of Twitter followers in October. The synopsis on Amazon says the film uncovers the true identity of the Children of Israel.

Elon Musk on Wednesday tweeted that the misunderstanding about Twitter potentially being removed from Apple Inc's App Store was resolved following his meeting with the iPhone maker's Chief Executive Tim Cook.

"Tim was clear that Apple never considered doing so," the billionaire CEO of Twitter and Tesla Inc said in a tweet.

The ruling BJP received Rs 614.53 crore as contributions, more than six times the funds garnered by the opposition Congress during fiscal year 2021-22.

The Congress received funds to the tune of Rs 95.46 crore, according to Election Commission data.

Shares of Zomato were trading firm on the National Stock Exchange (NSE) on Wednesday after 4 per cent equity of the food delivery firm changed hands via block deals. The stock of the food delivery firm rallied 5 per cent to Rs 66.80 in the intra-day trade.

Around 353 million shares, representing 4.13 per cent of total equity of Zomato, changed hands on the NSE in early trade, the exchange data shows.

Tata Group is in talks with Wistron to buy its manufacturing facility in Karnataka for Rs 4,000-5,000 crore. The facility in Narasapura is Wistron's only plant in India and manufactures devices and components for Apple, as reported by the Economic Times (ET). It employs 14,000-15,000 workers.

The deal could help the Tata Group to ramp up the manufacturing capacity of Tata Electronics Pvt Ltd (TEPL) in precision engineering, the report added.

In a dramatic late night development on Tuesday, the new NDTV board approved the resignations of Prannoy Roy and Radhika Roy as directors of RRPR Holding Private Ltd (RRPR), the promoter group vehicle of New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV).

This means that the existing and longstanding promoters and management of NDTV has exited the company. The Adani group takeover is thus complete.

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