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Supreme Court on Wednesday fixed April 16 for hearing a batch of pleas challenging the appointment of the chief election commissioner (CEC) and election commissioners (EC) under the 2023 law. A bench of Justices Surya Kant and N Kotiswar Singh fixed the date for hearing the pleas after advocate Prashant Bhushan said the matter is listed at number 38 and is not likely to reach for hearing during the course of the day. Bhushan requested an urgent hearing of the matter, saying it goes to the root of democracy and the issue is covered by the 2023 Constitution bench verdict. Justice Kant said the court understands all these arguments but a lot of urgent matters are listed every day. «We will fix it on April 16, so that the matter is finally heard,» the bench said. Bhushan, appearing for petitioner NGO Association for Democratic Reforms, said the matter involved a short legal question — whether the 2023 Constitution bench verdict should be followed for the appointment of the CEC and ECs through a panel involving the prime minister, Leader of Opposition and the Chief Justice of India or the 2023 law, which excludes the CJI from the panel.

Ed Yardeni of Yardeni Research, says the US stock market has weakened since the middle of February as the Magnificent Seven have declined by about 15% since the beginning of the year. But other stock markets have actually done well. Germany, China. India seems to be stabilising. Money already has been going global. It has left the United States and that may continue to be the case. It is as though the stock markets are saying that the tariff situation is going to be worse for the US than for the rest of the world. But the markets are also saying that the US has been expensive What is your expectation from the Fed this time, a status quo? Ed Yardeni: Status quo. Nothing different from everybody else. The Fed has communicated that they are in no hurry to ease. I view that as a fundamentally dovish stance because the alternative would have been to say there is no hurry to do anything. In which case, the message would be rates could be here for a long time, not going up, not going down. But they have been saying over and over again that they are in no hurry to ease, so they are clearly thinking about lowering interest rates and depending on how this tariff turmoil turns out there may be a weak enough economy out there that they will ease. The problem is they may also get some inflation out of tariffs. So, they could really be boxed in and really be in no hurry to do anything for a while.

Tata Steel climbed up to 3% to Rs 159.25 on the BSE on Wednesday, driven by a broader steel sector rally. Brokerage Emkay Global said the stock is at a “point of inflection,” citing improving prospects across multiple fronts. The brokerage highlighted volume growth, a potential turnaround in its European operations, and attractive valuations as key factors supporting its bullish view. Emkay retained a ‘Buy’ rating on the stock.

Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) shares are set to gain investor attention on Wednesday after the company announced its partnership with BluJ Aerospace and KPIT Technologies for various projects. Additionally, BPCL also informed the launch of the 'Emerge' cohort under the BPCL Ankur Fund to support startups.

Anand Rathi has a buy call on Venus Pipes & Tubes with a target price of Rs 1,700. The current market price of Venus Pipes & Tubes is Rs 1299.9. The time period given by the analyst is a year when Venus Pipes & Tubes price can reach a defined target. Venus Pipes & Tubes, incorporated in 2015, is a Small Cap company with a market cap of Rs 2540.90 crore, operating in the General sector. Venus Pipes & Tubes' key products/revenue segments include Pipes & Tubes and Other Operating Revenue for the year ending 31-Mar-2024.

Oracle said on Wednesday it would provide Singapore's defense technology arm with «isolated» cloud computing and AI services, in the company's first such deal in Southeast Asia. Southeast Asian governments are frequent targets of cyber espionage campaigns and are facing escalating supply chain attacks, according to security researchers. Under the deal, the US firm will provide Singapore's armed forces and defense ministry with an «air-gapped» isolated cloud computing infrastructure — meaning that it will be cut off from the internet and connected instead to classified networks via encrypted devices.

On Tuesday, Gold prices surged to an all-time high, breaking the key $3,000 level internationally, while reaching a new peak of Rs 88,513/10 g on MCX.

Bajaj Auto will be in focus on Wednesday after the company’s board extended the appointment of Rajivnayan Rahulkumar Bajaj as the Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer for a further five years, starting April 1. They have also sanctioned an infusion of up to Rs 1,500 crore into the company's subsidiary, Bajaj Auto Credit, to be made in one or more tranches. The company informed on Tuesday that the current five-year term of appointment of Rajivnayan Rahulkumar Bajaj as the Managing Director & Chief Executive Officer of the Company is expiring on 31 March 2025. And, based on the recommendation of the nomination & remuneration committee, the Board of Directors has approved his re-appointment for another term of five consecutive years with effect from 1 April 2025.

Deven Choksey, MD, DRChoksey FinServ, says whenever the market has made a panic bottom in the past, in the following 3 months to 9 months or 12 months, some of the stocks would give a very smart recovery as high as 70-80% and as low as 25% to 30% in most of the cases. Should that particular trade hold this time around, then from the 21,800, 21,900 kind of a level which Nifty saw a few days back, market should have a recovery back to 24,200, 24,800 kind of levels. Choksey says it is time to buy the value. Some of the NBFCs, HFCs, manufacturers supplying to renewable companies and power utilities or companies in engineering R&D, have some brilliant propositions in the corrective downside. We have had an over 1,000-point recovery on Sensex from the lows. How believable and sustainable is it looking to you? Deven Choksey: The question that should be asked is why should it sustain? The most important part, technically, the market has been in an oversold situation for a long period of time and that oversold situation was continuing largely because of the constant selling by the FPIs. Now, the selling of the FPI has muted, it has come down to a greater extent, largely also because of the fact that the currency is also not depreciating.

Google sweetened its original offer for $23 billion in July to $32 billion, making it one of the largest tech deals ever, and dramatically upped the breakup fee to more than $3.2 billion, people familiar with the agreement said. But the real closer for Wiz and Google executives was the change at the White House that brought with it the prospect of a friendlier antitrust review under Trump, these people said. Google made another pass last fall while Wiz considered a potential IPO, these people said. While negotiations continued sporadically over several months, executives started meeting regularly to hammer out details of a deal after Trump's Jan. 20 inauguration and appointment of key antitrust officials in his administration, these people said.

Nvidia chief Jensen Huang on Tuesday showcased cutting-edge chips for artificial intelligence and new applications for the technology, shrugging off talk of China's DeepSeek disrupting the market and dangers from US President Donald Trump's trade wars. Huang gave a hotly anticipated keynote presentation at Nvidia's annual developers conference that packed the SAP Center in the Silicon Valley city of San Jose, home of the Sharks NHL hockey team. Billing the event as an AI «Super Bowl,» the Taiwan-born tech titan was greeted by an audience of more than 20,000 who sat through his two-hour-plus address announcing the company's latest updates.

Total exports rose 11.4% year-on-year in February, data showed, less than a median market forecast for a 12.1% increase and following a 7.2% rise in January. The threat of Trump's aggressive tariffs has led some Japanese companies such as Sony Group to stockpile inventory in the United States, a step that could have temporarily boosted overall export volumes. Exports to the U.S. rose 10.5% in February from a year earlier, while those to China were up 14.1%, the data showed. Shipments to China may have been affected by more working days last month, with the Lunar New Year holiday ending earlier than usual this year.

Oil prices slid on Wednesday after Russia agreed to U.S. President Donald Trump's proposal that Moscow and Kyiv stop attacking each other's energy infrastructure temporarily, which could lead to more Russian oil entering global markets. Brent crude futures were down 12 cents, or 0.2%, at $70.44 a barrel by 0106 GMT. U.S. West Texas Intermediate crude (WTI) lost 15 cents, or 0.2%, to $66.75.

Bank of Japan (BOJ) and the Federal Reserve later in the day. Overnight, Israeli airstrikes pounded Gaza and killed more than 400 people, U.S. President Donald Trump and Russian President Vladimir Putin failed to reach an agreement on a Ukraine ceasefire and Germany's outgoing parliament approved plans for a massive spending surge.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. Artha India Ventures, which has bet on a range of companies including OYO, and space startup Agnikul, has raised ₹330 crore for Artha Select Fund (ASF), a follow-on investment fund focused on backing winners in its existing portfolio, a person with direct knowledge of the matter told Mint. New limited partners, or investors, in this round include Ashok Bharadia, chairman and managing director of Wallfort Financial Services, Harshal Morde, director of sales and marketing of Morde Foods, Manish Chhabra, managing director and CEO of Hygienic Research Institute Private Ltd (HRIPL), David Wilson, general partner at venture capital firm TYR Ventures, and Hira Group Family Office, among others, the person cited earlier said on the condition of anonymity.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. The "catfish effect", named after the practice of adding catfish to tanks of cod to keep them active during transportation, describes how a strong competitor can energize a stagnant market. Tesla’s entry into India could be just the jolt the country's electric vehicle (EV) industry needs.

Reserve Bank of India's reassurance on a festive weekend. As the story plays out amid rating action and a 24% fall in the stock, the declaration of the bank's derivative losses, estimated at more than ₹1,500 crore, has thrown up many questions. What took the IndusInd management so long to declare the losses?

The NSE Nifty surged 325.55 points, or 1.45%, to close at 22,834.30. The BSE Sensex rose 1131.31 points, or 1.53%, to end at 75,301.26. Both indices have risen about 2% in the last two days.

Subscribe to enjoy similar stories. New Delhi: Vodafone Idea Ltd is discussing ways to catch up with larger rivals Reliance Jio and Bharti Airtel Ltd in the domestic satellite internet race, even as it is set to roll out its 5G cellular broadband network. Jio and Airtel recently announced partnerships with US-based Starlink Services to roll out Elon Musk’s satellite internet service in India, although they will have to wait for government approvals.