NEW DELHI: Growth of eight core sectors expanded to 7-month high of 6.7 per cent in June due to better performance by cement, refinery and coal segments, as per official data released today.The eight sectors, which also include fertilisers, steel, natural gas, electricity and crude oil, had expanded by 1 per cent in June last year.The previous high rate of growth was recorded in November 2017 at 6.9 per cent.The growth rate in May was 4.3 per cent.As per the data released by the commerce and industry ministry, the expansion in cement, refinery products and coal was 13.2 per cent, 12 per cent and 11.5 per cent respectively, year-on-year basis.Crude oil and natural gas registered a negative growth of 3.4 per cent and 2.7 per cent respectively in June compared to the year-ago period.The expansion in the electricity generation was 4 per cent in June compared to 2.2 per cent in the same month of the last fiscal.Steel sector, however witnessed a slower growth of 4.4 per cent compared to 6 per cent in June 2017.The data revealed that expansion rate in the fertiliser segment was 1 per cent, better than negative growth recorded in the year ago month.During the April-June quarter of the current fiscal, the eight core industries recorded a growth of 5.2 per cent as against 2.5 per cent in the same period last year.These eight core industries comprise 40.27 per cent of the weight of items included in the Index of Industrial Production (IIP). 65214792

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NEW DELHI: After stumbling in the first half of the trade, the bulls roared back with full force in the second half on Tuesday, and lifted benchmark indices to fresh record highs on a closing basis. Heavy buying in RIL, HUL and Infosys gave S&P BSE Sensex a 112-point lift to 37,606. NSE’s Nifty50 pack added 37 points to close at 11,356, with 30 constituents ending in the green and 20 in the red. With this, the benchmark indices have gained 6 per cent each this month.Here’s a quick look at Tuesday’s top newsmakers of Dalal Street: - IndiGo crashes post Q1 numbersInterGlobe Aviation plunged nearly 13 per cent in intraday trade after the low-cost airline reported a 97 per cent plunge in June quarter profit due to adverse impact of foreign exchange, high fuel prices and a competitive fare environment. The stock closed 7.49 per cent lower at Rs 929.05 apiece, wiping out Rs 4,352 crore of investor money. Broader market rises tooThe S&P BSE Midcap index gained 0.33 per cent to 16,013 with Adani Power (up 7.92 per cent) being the top gainer and Bank of India (down 8.75 per cent) the worst laggard. The S&P BSE Smallcap pack ended 0.26 per cent higher at 16,584. Earnings impactShares of LG Balakrishnan shot up 12.3 per cent during the day after the company reported a 96 per cent YoY jump in June quarter profit at Rs 21.6 crore. The stock settled 6.63 per cent higher at Rs 555 piece on BSE. FMCG firm Dabur India on Monday reported 24.59 per cent rise in consolidated profit at Rs 330 crore for the quarter, driven by volume growth in key categories. The stock settled 6.96 per cent high at Rs 420.Bharat Electronics (BEL) reported 43.4 per cent rise in profit at Rs 179 crore. The stock jumped 7.76 per cent to settle at Rs 115 apiece. BASF gained a solid 10 per cent to Rs 1,938 apiece on BSE after it reported June quarter PAT at Rs 24.4 crore against Rs 68 lakh YoY. Insider tradeMax Ventures Investment Holdings, the promoter group of Max Financial Services, revoked 6,28,000 pledged shares on Tuesday. Another promoter group Mohair Investment and Trading Company revoked 72,000 equity shares. This apart, Y Srinivasa Rao, the director of Everest Industries, disposed of 1,813 shares. Most active stocksAdani Power, Reliance Communications, HDIL, JP Associates, Idea Cellular and Bank of India were the most active stocks in terms of volume. RIL, Axis Bank, SBI, InterGlobe Aviation, Dabur India and HDFC emerged the most active in terms of value. Eicher skidsShares of Eicher Motors, parent company of motorcycle manufacturer Royal Enfield, fell as much as 2.84 per cent amid reports that American motorcycle major Harley Davidson is turning aggressive on Asia and hopes to unveil a lightweight motorcycle for India through an alliance with an Asian manufacturer. The stock settled 2.62 per cent down at Rs 27,820. READ MORE New milestones!Reliance Industries on Tuesday knocked off TCS as India’s largest company in terms of market capitalisation. Brokerages are bullish on RIL post June quarter numbers. Goldman Sachs has the highest target of Rs 1,400 on the scrip while Nomura India's Rs 1,220 is the lowest among major foreign brokerages. At close, RIL’s m-cap stood at Rs 7,51,415 crore, while that of TCS was Rs 7,43,222 crore. Shares of RIL shut shop at Rs 1,185, up 3.14 per cent and those of TCS at Rs 1,941, down 0.19 per cent. D-Mart at new peakAvenue Supermarsts, the parent company of retail chain D-Mart, hit a fresh lifetime peak of Rs 1,663.80 apiece on BSE after reporting a 43.4 per cent surge in net profit at Rs 251 crore for the June quarter. The stock settled 3.77 per cent higher at Rs 1,652 apiece on BSE, helping the company reclaim the Rs 1 lakh crore market-cap mark. Call/Put writingOn the options front, maximum Put OI was at 11,000 followed by strike price 11,200 while maximum Call OI was at 11,500 followed by 11,400. Put writing was seen at 11,000 and 11,200 strike whereas call writing was seen at 11,400 followed by 11,700.Fiscal deficitIndia reported a fiscal deficit of $62.57 billion for April-June, or 68.7 per cent of the budgeted target, for the financial year compared with 80.8 per cent a year ago. Net tax receipts in the first quarter of financial year 2018-19 that ends in March, 2019, were Rs 2.37 lakh crore, government data showed. READ MORE Block dealsHDIL shares jumped 20 per cent to Rs 24.05 apiece on BSE after 27.8 lakh shares changed hands in two block deals. Inox Leisure settled at Rs 192.50, down 1.69 per cent after 41 lakh shares (4.2 per cent equity) changed hands in a block deal on BSE, Bloomberg reported.

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If edge-to-edge, displays turn into a trend, the next OnePlus smartphone could feature it.

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By Harshal Dewangan

At the crux of any data protection law are definitions of personal data and sensitive personal data.

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Realme would focus on offering strong performance and stylish designs to young people at affordable prices.

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As per Amazon's banner, there was no sign of the Xiaomi Mi A2 Lite, but only Xiaomi Mi A2.

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Huawei's Kirin 980 chipset is said to be among the first to be built on TSMC's 7 nm process.

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The lawsuit argues that publishing blueprints would allow criminals easy access to weapons.

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The amount of unclaimed insurance money has been increasing. According to a report of PTI, as much as Rs 15,167 crore of policyholder's money was lying unclaimed with 23 life insurers as on March 31, 2018. Compared to this, for the year 2012-13, Rs 4,865.81 crore was the unclaimed amount for the entire industry. This is a 25 percent increase annually over the past five years in unclaimed money by policyholders. According PTI, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority of India (Irdai) data, out of the total unclaimed amount, insurance behemoth Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) is sitting on Rs 10,509 crore, while the 22 private sector insurers account for the remaining Rs 4,657.45 crore. Among the private insurers, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance has 807.4 crore of unclaimed insurance claims followed Reliance Nippon Life Insurance (Rs 696.12 crore), SBI Life Insurance (Rs 678.59 crore), and HDFC Standard Life Insurance (Rs 659.3 crore). What happens to unclaimed amount?In July 2017, the Irdai had asked all insurers having unclaimed amounts of policyholders for a period of more than 10 years as on September 30, 2017 to transfer the same to the Senior Citizens' Welfare Fund (SCWF) on or before March 1, 2018. The fund shall be utilised for such schemes for the promotion of the welfare of senior citizens in line with the National Policy on Older Persons and the National Policy on Senior Citizens.Why claims go unclaimedNominees not aware of the policy: The nominees may not be aware that the policyholder had such an insurance policy or whereabouts of the policy document. Thereafter, on the death of the policyholders, the dependants may not be in a position to claim the amount. To avoid such a scenario, the nominees should not only be aware but they should also be in the know of where the policy document is. Also, make sure to update nominations in the policy.Change in address: Where the settlement of claims happens through payments made by cheque, any change in the address of the policyholder/claimants will delay the process. To avoid this, ensure that the address is updated in the insurer's records. Cheque misplaced: Cheque payments can become time-barred or misplaced leading to delays. Most insures have initiated claims payments through electronic transfer of funds, hence make sure to enrol for it in all the existing policies. For new policies issued after 2014, insurers insist on electronic transfer of funds and thus asking for blank cancelled cheque at the time of application itself. How to findIrdai had asked the life insurance companies to provide a search facility on their websites to enable policyholders or beneficiaries or dependents to find out whether any unclaimed amounts due to them are lying with these companies. Policyholders/beneficiaries are required to enter the details like policy number, PAN of the policyholder, name of the policyholder, date of birth or Aadhaar number, in a window provided on the website of the insurer to find out the unclaimed amount. The insurers have to update information regarding unclaimed amounts on their websites on a half-yearly basis.ConclusionDespite the clear guidelines by Irdai in 2014 and a strict monitoring of unclaimed amount every six months, the figures are rising. Insurers need to ensure that every amount goes to the rightful claimant at the right time as intended by the policyholder at the time of buying it. Policyholders, too, need to make sure that the family members are well aware of the policy details and their rights as nominees.

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CHENNAI: Cloud-based customer engagement software maker Freshworks has become the most recent member of the country’s unicorn club after securing $100 million in a fresh round of funding led by Sequoia capital and Accel Partners with participation from CapitalG, bringing the total amount of capital raised to $250 million, since the company’s inception in 2010.The latest funding round has taken the San Bruno, California and Chennai-based SaaS Company’s valuation to $1.5 billion, according Freshworks. The cash infusion will be used to further expand Freshworks’ worldwide footprint and for continued investments into its integrated SaaS products.“When we started Freshworks in 2010, we were a single product company with a goal of offering better, easier-to-use customer service software than what was in the market. We’ve since scaled our company to $100m in annual recurring revenue and built a full SaaS platform where all of our products - like Freshsales, Freshdesk, and Freshservice - work together seamlessly, without requiring additional integration resources or consultants to make the software simply work,” said Girish Mathrubootham, Co-founder and CEO, Freshworks.The company had recently crossed the $100 million mark in annual recurring revenue scaled by growth in the company’s flagship customer support product Freshdesk and growing revenues clocked by its IT services management product Freshservice and customer relationship management product Freshsales.Sequoia was an early investor in the company, flushing in $55 million into Freshworks in 2016. Managing Director, Sequoia Capital India Advisors, Mohit Bhatnagar said "Girish and his team have worked relentlessly to build Freshworks into a leading SaaS company from India – one that is truly global with customers across 127 countries. The investment reinforces the Sequoia principle of being a long term business partner to founders and supporting them at every stage of their company’s growth.”Freshworks has also hired former AppDynamics Vice President of Finance & Treasury, Suresh Seshadri as its Chief Financial Officer. Further, Mathrubootham indicated that the company may not be looking for further funding.“With the addition of Suresh leading our financial management and strategy towards a path of free cash flow breakeven and our latest, and likely last, private funding round in place, we believe we have a unique opportunity to attract customers from around the globe who have been let down by legacy solutions,” said Mathrubootham.Suresh Seshadri, the company’s new CFO, who was behind AppDynamics’ initial public offering in - before it was acquired by Cisco in 2017, said “Coming on board to work with Girish and the rest of the executive team is an incredible opportunity and I am confident that we are well-positioned to reach the next phase of Freshworks’ expansion.”The company’s products are used by more than 150,000 businesses including the NHS,Honda, Rightmove, Hugo Boss, Citizens Advice, Toshiba and Cisco.

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Home-grown auto major M&M today said its new multi-purpose vehicle (MPV) will be called 'Marazzo', which will compete with segment leader Toyota Innova Crysta.Built on a completely new platform, the 7/8-seater Marazzo is the automaker's first passenger car developed at its North American technical centre along with Mahindra Research Valley (MRV) in Chennai.The new vehicle will be manufactured at the company's Nashik facility and will be rolled out by September, said Pawan Goenka, managing director, M&M."A collaborative effort of Pininfarina, Mahindra Design Studio, MNATC and MRV, Marazzo is born of a vision to design a global vehicle with quality and refinement," he said.Goenka did not disclose the price or the investment that has gone into the making of the new vehicle but said that typically the creation of a new platform entails an investment of Rs 800-1,600 crore.The current MPV market stands at around 10,000-12,000 units per month and M&M looks to corner a sizeable pie of it, the company said.Goenka said that with the new launches, Mahindra is filling the gap in its product portfolio, adding that the company will also be rolling out a sub-four metre SUV as well as a large G4 SUV in the premium segment, with its pricing higher than any other Mahindra vehicle this year."One of these two SUVs will be rolled out before Diwali this year," he added.Besides Innova Crysta, Marazzo will also be competing with other brands in the segment such as forthcoming second-gen Maruti Ertiga and Ranault Lodgy.The Mahindra Design Studio in Kandivili in Mumbai and and Italian design house Pininfarina have collaborated closely during the design development process of the new vehicle, the company said.

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NEW DELHI: IIFL Asset Management has announced the appointment of Anup Maheshwari as the joint CEO and Chief Investment Officer with effect from mid-August 2018.Maheshwari has over 24 years of investment experience and is an alumnus of IIM Lucknow. He was earlier working with DSP BlackRock Investment Managers since July 1997. According to a release, Maheshwari will play a key role in meeting the company's aggressive growth goals as well as product development and devising innovative investment strategy.“Maheshwari’s successful experience in investment management, both offshore and onshore, will be highly advantageous to IIFL AMC. He brings with him incredibly strong knowledge and experience which will be vital as we chart out ambitious plans to grow and develop our asset management business,” Karan Bhagat, Founder, MD & CEO of IIFL Investment Managers, said.

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Huge growth ahead in consumer space and within that in FMCG space, Mahantesh Sabarad, Head, Retail Research, SBI Cap Securities, tells ET Now.Edited excerpts: Can Dabur continue to beat itself or is this quarter’s results a one- off? If they are reporting volume growth of 21% in Q1, which has surpassed their 65213681 65210291 65212306 own expectations, what does one pencil in for the remaining three quarters? Basically, in consumer space and within that in the FMCG space, there is huge growth ahead. That can be partly seen because rural incomes are getting better. We have a normal monsoon although the spatial distribution is not so great. There is a situation where a lot of GST rates have been moderated. Some of this is applicable for consumer durables but that is translating into a consumption boost which will continue to have momentum for two-three quarters more. While the growth rate in terms of volumes that we have seen from the likes of Levers, Daburs and Asian Paints have been in double digits, those double digit growth numbers will moderate because the base effect will catch up. The numbers, nevertheless will be strong. In an FMCG company, one has volume growth plus the pricing advantage and then comes the premiumisation effect. All three combined would drive growth on the top line and that growth will be in double digits.Harley is now eyeing Royale Enfield’s turf. Although CLSA believes that they may not quite harm Royal Enfield’s market share and may not really target a very large market size, I guess pricing is the key. Could this escalate into a deeper problem for Eicher? No not really. There is a separate niche that Eicher enjoys in the bike space in the light-weight categories. Harley while it is graduating from the heavy weights to middle weights and then the light-weights now, is not really going to affect Eicher in a big way because distribution is the key for such bikes. While the product is great, if you do not have great distribution network, your ability to generate sales is limited which is what Eicher has been targeting over the years. Now they have been expanding their distribution reach and they are becoming quite strong now. They were earlier the south-based distribution reach company. Now they have a well established distribution base. Overall, Eicher should not be worried about Harley coming into India in the light-weight category.What do you make of Bajaj Auto? Are they doing the right thing by coming out in the open and saying that we will do whatever it takes to regain market share? They have become number four. I can sense the desperation in the management. But will the bid to regain market share come at a price? Is the stock pricing in a margin erosion and a price war?Let me split your question into three parts. One is the strategy that is being employed by Bajaj Auto. It is in the right direction because you have to necessarily react to market pressures. The two-wheeler space is competitive and you cannot just stand by the way side. The second part of your question was will this really affect the company in terms of its margins and thereof? While the company has guided that they will not have 20% kind of margins for the next two or three years, I tend to believe that there are enough margins levers available with Bajaj Auto because of its diversified nature of business that can eventually take it to 20% margin.The third part of your question is whether the stock price is reflecting all this. I would say no. The stock price is not reflecting the potential that Bajaj Auto has in terms of growth ahead. It is fairly cheap at this juncture relative to the peers and relative to the broader market as well for the kind of return ratios, balance sheet strength and the kind of management quality they possess.Can Bank, Bank of Baroda have come out with excellent set of numbers. The PSU banks doing pretty well for themselves. But with Bank of India numbers, again all the factors which were looking positive for the space have turned bit negative. Should one be stock specific in PSU space? We continue to like the PSU space as a whole but then you have to be very stock specific even within that space because RBI is intervening and there are lots of banks under prompt corrective action. That means there will be a period of virtually no growth for those companies and for investors those are not the companies to look at. That leaves the other set of PSU banks which appear quite promising because now the NPA worries are going to be over. Also, it is not about NPA issue alone, it is about growth as well. Unless and until you have strong capital, you really cannot grow and therefore you cannot arrest the slide. For us, there are three or four PSU banks that we like -- Bank of Baroda, Vijaya Bank, Indian Bank and Can Bank seems to be coming into our radar right now. That space is generally good. The moment any bank comes out of the prompt corrective action, that would be something one should be watching out for.

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