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National Advisory Council (NAC) was 'uncharitably caricatured' as a 'separate power centre' when it functioned purely as an 'advisory body to the Prime Minister', the former Congress President Sonia Gandhi has said in an essay in an upcoming book. She adds that this was ironic given that NDA has openly been taking directions from the 'unelected and unaccountable' RSS. «It is extremely ironic that the NAC was vilified, when the current National Democratic Alliance (NDA) government has routinely deposed before, and taken direction on policy and legislation from the unelected and unaccountable Rashtriya Swayamsewak Sangh (RSS), most visibly in September 2015 when Union ministers gave detailed presentations explaining their policies, and south their 'marg darshan' (guidance), as Prime Minister Narendra Modi put it», Gandhi writes in her essay titled- Enhancing People's Rights and Freedoms- The NAC revisited. She also holds forth that the NAC's role was limited to submitting recommendations to the PM and the final decision was left to the discretion of the Union government.

Russell Norman has died following a brief illness. He was 57. The news comes at the heels of his fourth cookbook that was published recently. His business partner Richard Beatty while announcing the death of his “best friend” expressed grief in a heartfelt statement. The cause of the TV chef's death remains undisclosed. Russell was known for his Italian-inspired cuisine. He had left an indelible mark on the food industry with multiple successful restaurants and cookbooks throughout his illustrious career. Born in Perivale, Russell spent his childhood in Hounslow before pursuing studies at Sunderland Polytechnic. Reflecting on his formative years, he shared his experiences with Food and Travel magazine in 2021, describing his return to London after working in the North East as a community arts officer. Russell Norman gained widespread recognition for establishing the POLPO chain of eateries, along with the successful ventures of Spuntino and Polpetto. His legacy will endure through BRUTTO, his laid-back Italian restaurant in Farringdon, which will continue operations under the stewardship of Russell's son, Ollie, and daughter-in-law, Jules, according to Restaurant Magazine. In a 2018 revelation, Russell disclosed that one of his cherished family cooking traditions was preparing baked potatoes. He described a simple yet comforting dish, featuring tinned tuna, sweetcorn, mayonnaise on one half, and baked beans on the other, occasionally adding a touch of flair with a homemade coleslaw. The inspiration behind his restaurant menus, he noted, came from «the 95-year-old Italian granny.»

personal loans jumped more than four-fold to Rs 13.32 lakh crore as of March 2023 from Rs 4.26 lakh crore in March 2017, as per a report. Overall, the number of personal loans has almost tripled during this period to Rs 51.7 lakh crore, an analysis by Care Ratings revealed.

The «fixReducedOffersV1» amendment, which is currently in its final activation countdown phase, is about to bring about a significant improvement to the XRP Ledger (XRPL), which is nearing completion. This modification is a crucial upgrade for XRPL, signifying a step forward in resolving important concerns, notably within its Decentralized Exchange (DEX) services. It has received approval from more over 80% of the validators, signaling that it is ready for implementation.

₹507 crore from its initial investment five years ago. Affiliate BH International Holdings sold its entire 2.46% stake in the fintech firm for ₹1,371 crore to Ghisallo Master Fund and Copthall Mauritius Investment. Ghisallo picked up 42,75,000 shares, while Copthall bought the rest.

By Julie Cazzin with Aman Budhwar

Rockingdeals Circular Economy was subscribed 142.16 times on the last day of bidding on Friday. The SME board IPO received over 21.35 crore bids against the issue size of 15 lakh shares as of 4:30 pm. As a result of this overwhelming response to the IPO, the share is already demanding a 30% premium on the issue price of Rs 136-140/share in the grey market. The IPO opened for subscription on November 22, Wednesday. The company planned to raise Rs 21 crore through fresh issue of shares.

Nicholas Hoult, the actor known for his roles in «About a Boy» and «The Great,» is reportedly set to take on the iconic role of Lex Luthor in James Gunn's upcoming film, «Superman: Legacy.» The news has stirred mixed feelings, considering Hoult's evolution as a versatile actor with a knack for complex characters. The casting choice hints at a potentially youthful direction for Superman, despite Gunn's assurances to the contrary. Hoult, at 33, is poised to engage in a face-off with David Corenswet's 30-year-old Superman, suggesting a narrative shift towards a younger dynamic.

Indian Coast Guard and the Navy will acquire 15 C-295 transport aircraft that are being manufactured in India in a joint venture between Tata Advanced Systems and Airbus. The proposals for the acquisition of these 15 aircraft are at an advanced stage in the defence ministry, in which nine planes would be procured by the Navy while six would be taken by the Indian Coast Guard. The transport aircraft would be equipped with the required radars and sensors and turned into a maritime patrol plane by the Defence Research and Development Organisation's Centre for Airborne Systems (CABS), defence officials said. Speaking about his force's projects, Indian Coast Guard Chief Director General Rakesh Pal told ANI, «There are plans for acquiring long-range maritime surveillance aircraft, which the Air Force has taken, and the contracts will be signed with TASL (Tata Advanced Systems Limited), wherein we are about to get six C295 transport aircraft.» He said, «The Ministry of Defence is giving us adequate funds to ensure that our acquisition processes are all fast-tracked.» The Coast Guard chief informed that shortly his force was also set to sign contracts for nine more advanced-light helicopters, the ALH Dhruv manufactured by Hindustan Aeronautics Limited. The Indian Air Force recently inducted the first C-295 transport aircraft manufactured in Spain. While the first 16 will come from Spain in fly-away condition, the remaining 40 will be produced in India at a Tata facility in Vadodara, Gujarat. The order from the Navy and Coast Guard, if approved by the government, will take the Tata Airbus order book to 71 from the existing 56. The C-295 is being used by some of the operators of the plane in maritime patrol roles.

United States has announced a new policy that will come into effect starting November 27. Under this policy change, all applicants for F, M, and J student visas will be required to add their own passport details when creating a profile and scheduling their visa appointment. Individuals who have generated a profile or booked an appointment with an incorrect passport number will not be accommodated at the Visa Application Centers (VAC).

F, M, and J student visa programme, should note the changes. The US Embassy in India took to microblogging site ‘X’ to announce the changes.

Animal’ is already breaking box-office records. According to a Times Of India report, the Sandeep Reddy Vanga directorial has earned an impressive $125, 088 (approximately Rs 1 crore) in advance bookings in the US. In India, the movie is expected to perform spectacularly well among the Telugu-speaking audience. A limited booking was opened in Hyderabad and it has already sold 5,000 tickets.

Sunil Koul, Executive Director (Asia Pacific Portfolio Strategy, Global Macro Research), Goldman Sachs, says while high-end consumption has been holding up pretty well, there’s some some weakness in mass market consumption. We are hearing from the companies that things are bottoming out and not worsening. So, consumption and at least the volume growth for the staple companies will improve in coming quarters.” A lot of the corporates that we have been speaking with are alluding to the fact that even despite the festive season, etc, there has not really been any incremental pick up in consumption patterns all around. Rural is lagging a little bit, maybe the premiumisation trend is playing out. What is making you optimistic on consumption as a long-term story? There are a couple of things on the consumption side. I think the high-end consumption has been holding up pretty well there. If you look at the mass market consumption and the lower consumption as you mentioned, obviously there has been some weakness in there, part of that is because of the higher inflation starting to impact consumer wallets, part of it is obviously the monsoons which were subpar.

Ambuja Cements Ltd. fell 0.63 per cent to Rs 412.9 in Friday's session as of 01:38PM (IST) even as the equity benchmark Sensex traded 86.94 points lower at 65930.87. Earlier in the day, the stock witnessed a gap down start to the session.

‘Animal’ started on Sunday, November 26, in India. The film is expected to earn ₹50 crore on its opening day, according to industry tracker Sacnilk reports. Only 3,200 tickets have been sold for 206 locations during the film's early reservations in the US.

₹1,092.26 crore IPO of Fedbank Financial Services, a retail-focused non-banking finance company promoted by Federal Bank, has achieved full subscription on the last day of bidding (November 24). At 12:30 PM, the issue had garnered bids for 7,33,03,453 shares against the available 5,59,23,660 shares, resulting in a subscription rate of 1.31 times. The retail segment displayed notable interest, with a subscription rate reaching 1.51 times.

Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) has trimmed its stake in Engineers India, a leading global engineering consultancy and EPC company, by about 2% through open market. The insurance behemoth disclosed in a regulatory filing on November 23 that it sold 1.14 crore shares of Engineers India during the period from February 02, 2021, to November 22, 2023, at an average price of ₹118.08 apiece. As a result of this transaction, LIC's overall stake in Engineers India has come down to 3.122% from the previous 5.155%.

GMP: The company's shares in the grey market are trading at a healthy premium of ₹76, indicating a 45 percent premium at listing. However, one must note that grey market premium is only an indicator of how the company's shares are performing in the unlisted market and can change quickly. The ₹501 crore IPO of Gandhar Oil opened for subscription on November 22 and will close on November 24.

Tata Motors’ subsidiary, Tata Technologies Ltd, has received strong investors’ response with a record number of IPO applications. The Tata Technologies IPO, which opened for subscription on November 22, will close today, November 24. Read Tata Technologies IPO LIVE Updates here Amid huge interest from investors across the board, Tata Technologies IPO got oversubscribed heavily within hours of opening.

Gurmeet Chadha, CIO & Managing Partner, Complete Circle Consultants, says “we are playing power through power generation which is Tata Power, also had some exposure to CG Power. Then we are playing it through the transmission space which is Power Grid, among others. Some of the stocks are fairly valued, including Coal India and NTPC. So that is one way. Then we have the renewable sources to play, which is Praj Industries and that is more on bio-fuel. The third way is through the financiers and just see the move in REC and PFC, the way they have run up. That has been the most long, secular play.” What all do you own in power because from legacy companies, wires and cables, transmission towers, financiers, there is a big bouquet out there in power? Absolutely. And as we were discussing in the morning we are playing it through power generation which is Tata Power, also had some exposure to CG Power. Then we are playing it through the transmission space which is Power Grid and there is a proxy play to power through a company which is basically a defence company into explosives, got the largest order from Coal India for Rs 3000 crore – Solar Industries. The stock has run up quite a lot. 40% of the revenue comes from Coal India, which again is mainly on power generation.

Maruti Suzuki on Friday said its board has approved the allotment of 1,23,22,514 equity shares of the company to Suzuki Motor Corporation on a preferential basis as consideration for the acquisition of a 100% stake of SMC in Suzuki Motor Gujarat (SMG). The decision to allot shares at a price of Rs 10,420.85 per equity share for a total consideration of Rs 12,841.1 crore was taken at a board meeting this morning. Maruti shares were trading 0.3% higher at Rs 10,525 on BSE in the opening session. Following the preferential allotment, Suzuki Motor Corporation Japan's stake in Maruti Suzuki India will increase from 56.48% to 58.19%. Back in August, Maruti Suzuki said it would acquire parent Suzuki Motor's manufacturing facility in Gujarat to ensure better management control over the unit.