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Baahubali 3’ is pretty much confirmed! If reports are to be believed, the third installment of the iconic fantasy series will be made. According to aTimes Of India report, ‘Baahubali 3’ has pretty much been confirmed. In a recent interview, Gnanavel Raja, the creator of the ‘Mahishmati Franchise’ spilled the beans. He said the movie is still in the planning stages, with recent discussions focused on developing new ideas. Unlike their previous back-to-back releases within two years, this time, the 'Baahubali' makers are allowing a longer break before working on the third installment. He elaborated that the filmmakers are deliberately pacing themselves to ensure that audiences have enough time to emotionally reconnect with the characters before diving into sequels. Raja also mentioned that the sequel to 'Kalki 2898 AD' will only come out after two other films are completed, and similarly, there will be a gap between 'Salaar 1' and 'Salaar 2'. He explained that this is a strategy proven effective in franchises like Suriya’s 'Singam' series, where spacing out sequels worked well.

Axis Bank shares are in focus today after the private lender reported an 18% increase in standalone net profit, reaching Rs 6,918 crore, compared to Rs 5,864 crore in the same quarter of the previous financial year. The bank’s Net Interest Income (NII) grew 9% year-on-year (YoY) to Rs 13,483 crore, while its Net Interest Margin (NIM) for Q2 FY25 stood at 3.99%.

Rajesh Cheruvu – MD and CIO, LGT Wealth India. In an interview with ETMarkets, Cheruvu said: “From a taxation standpoint, both physical and digital gold are treated similarly, with capital gains taxes applied if the asset is held for more than three years,” Edited excerpts:

NSE500 stocks closing in the red. The IT sector was the only exception, as the selling was widespread across other sectors. The Nifty50 index declined by around 0.90%, ending just above the critical swing low of 24,694 established on October 7th.

Yahya Sinwar on Wednesday. Intelligence services had been searching for Sinwar for months and had been gradually restricting the area where he could operate, the military said on Thursday, after dental records, fingerprints and DNA testing provided final confirmation of Sinwar's death. «The dozens of operations carried out by the IDF and the ISA over the last year, and in recent weeks in the area where he was eliminated, restricted Yahya Sinwar’s operational movement as he was pursued by the forces and led to his elimination,» the Israeli military said in a statement.

Axis Bank, while Morgan Stanley has downgraded Manapurram Finance to equal-weight. Jefferies has maintained a hold call on Havells and Macquarie has an outperform rating on Wipro.

Godavari Biorefineries has announced a price band of Rs 334-352 per share for its Rs 555-crore initial public offering (IPO), set to open for subscription on October 23. The IPO will close on October 25, with anchor bidding beginning on October 22. The allotment will be finalised on October 28, and refunds and share credits will take place on October 29, followed by the stock listing on October 30.

Nvidia hit a record high amid a rally in U.S. chip stocks on Thursday after industry bellwether TSMC's strong sales forecast boosted investor optimism about demand for processors used to power artificial intelligence applications. Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co, the world's largest contract chipmaker, raised its expectation for annual revenue growth and said sales from AI chips would account for mid-teen percentage of its full-year revenue. US-listed TSMC shares rose more than 11%, lifting the company's market capitalization above $1 trillion.

IT services company Infosys will be in focus after the company announced its second quarter results, where it posted a 5% growth in net profit and revenues. The Bengaluru-based tech major has also raised its guidance upwards to 3.75-4% for the current fiscal year.

Kamala Harris celebrates her 60th birthday on Sunday, but it's US election rival Donald Trump whose age is under scrutiny after a series of rambling speeches and a bizarre dance party. Seeking to shift the polls in a desperately tight White House race, Harris has ramped up attacks on the mental fitness of the 78-year-old, who is the oldest presidential candidate in US history. «Donald Trump is increasingly unstable,» Democratic vice president Harris said on Wednesday after Trump spent nearly 40 minutes on stage swaying to music at a town hall event.

Sudip Bandyopadhyay, Group Chairman, Inditrade Capital, says there are signs of a pickup in rural consumption in multiple pockets. It is not that uniform, but in pockets, rural consumption is picking up. As things stand today, there is pressure, but we might not have seen the best already. Further, the IT companies which are catering primarily to the BFSI segment or have a skew towards the BFSI segment are expected to win. For Mphasis, 60% plus business is coming from BFSI. Naturally they are the beneficiaries of that and we believe that they will continue to benefit from this trend. Deal wins also will start happening in BFSI. Bandyopadhyay is positive on Infosys as well. Would you concur with the view that Q2 early indication suggests margin weakness and a miss on earnings – more downgrades than upgrades? Sudip Bandyopadhyay: Unfortunately that looks like the scenario. There is definitely pressure and that is getting reflected in the financial numbers which are coming out in Q2. I would think that IT would be an outlier. There is generally a much better performance and much better traction as far as technology companies are concerned, but many other sectors are witnessing pressure. Very clearly the earnings are under pressure. Of course, there is a silver lining that we had a good monsoon and the festive season has kicked in. So the half year can be different. We will have to wait and watch for the festive sales numbers for pretty much all the sectors including automobiles.

Adani Enterprises are expected to remain in focus on Friday after the company successfully raised Rs 4,200 crore in a share sale to investors via a qualified institutional placement (QIP). The company has allocated 1.41 crore shares at an issue price of Rs 2,962 each.

government securities at the buyback auction, versus the notified amount of ₹25,000 crore. The amount offered by institutions was ₹33,201.4 crore. This is the second such buyback operation done by the central bank this month. This auction, along with the one last week, was one of the most successful buyback auctions conducted by the RBI since it resumed such operations in May this year, after a gap of six years.

Jio Financial, Infosys, LTIMindtree, Wipro, Tata Consumer, MGL, Axis Bank among others will be in focus due to various news developments and second quarter results. Jio Financial, Tata Consumer, ZEE, ICICI Lombard Jio Financial, Tata Consumer, ZEE and ICICI Lombard will be in focus as the companies will announce their second quarter earnings today.

LTIMindtree, sixth largest Indian IT services company reported a 7.7% year-on-year (YoY) rise in net profit at Rs 1251.6 crore. The profit compares with Rs 1,162 crore in September last year. Sequentially, profit grew 10.3% from Rs 1,135 crore. The Mumbai-headquartered IT services company reported a 5.9% growth in consolidated revenues at Rs 9,432.9 crore in Q2FY25 as compared with Rs 8905.4 crore in Q2FY24 and 3.2% rise from Rs 9142.6 crore in Q1FY25.

Bengaluru: Infosys, India’s second-largest IT company, posted a 4.7% increase in September quarter net profit to ₹6,506 crore, slightly below market estimates, from the year earlier. Some deal ramp-ups and an uptick in the key vertical of financial services lifted profit and revenue, which rose 5.1% from the year earlier and 4.2% from the preceding quarter, to ₹40,986 crore.

education startup Eruditus has raised $150 million in new funding at a flat valuation of $3.2 billion post-money, led by TPG Rise, an impact investment fund from the US private equity investment firm. Existing investors SoftBank Vision Fund 2, Leeds Illuminate, Accel, CPP Investments and the Chan Zuckerberg Initiative participated in the round. TPG Rise has invested $100 million in Eruditus while SoftBank has put in another $20 million.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: The onslaught of artificial intelligence has polarized many, but innovators, inventors, and investors all agree that its impact will be felt across all facets of life. More important, it is critical to define both the benefits and risks from AI.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Over 400,000 Indians are studying in Canada but experts estimate a drop of 100,000 in the coming year as India-Canada ties plummet. With Ottawa also restricting other international students, Mint asks if Canada’s youth-and-education charm is fading.

finance companies, including Sachin Bansal-led Navi Finserv and Mitsubishi UFJ Financial Group-backed DMI Finance, from sanctioning and disbursing new loans as they were found to be charging excessive interest rates. This follows a warning by the RBI governor earlier this month over such practices. The other two companies are Manappuram Finance-promoted Asirvad Micro Finance Ltd and Kolkata-based MFI Arohan Financial Services Ltd. The RBI’s directive comes into effect from the close of business on October 21, the central bank said in a statement on Thursday. “Unfair and usurious practices continued to be seen during the course of onsite examinations as well as from the data collected and analysed offsite,” the RBI said. The action comes less than 10 days after central bank governor Shaktikanta Das warned some non-banking finance companies (NBFCs), microfinance companies (MFCs) and housing finance companies (HFCs) against “aggressively pursuing growth without building up sustainable business practices.”

group insolvency framework under the bankruptcy law. This will facilitate a joint resolution of stressed entities of a domestic corporate group, given the interconnected nature of their operations, people aware of the development said. The framework will be a part of Insolvency & Bankruptcy Code (IBC) amendments that the corporate affairs ministry could introduce in the winter session of Parliament, likely in December, they said. The mechanism could empower the committees of creditors of various bankrupt companies of a group to decide if they need to join hands to speed up resolution and maximise gains or pursue the processes separately, they told ET. It will apply only to a group’s bankrupt companies and won’t extend to its solvent entities, they said.