Mumbai, Broadly negative global cues subdued the key Indian equity indices during the morning traded session on Tuesday.

According to analysts, heavy selling pressure was witnessed in the FMCG, consumer durable and metal stocks

At 9.45 a.m., the wider Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange, traded at 11,451.75 points, higher by just 13.65 points or 0.12 per cent from its previous close.

The S&P BSE Sensex, which had opened at 38,017.49 points, traded at 37,956.77 points, up by only 34.60 points or 0.09 per cent than the previous close of 37,922.17 points.

So far, it has touched an intra-day high of 38,043.27 points and a low of 37,848.64 points.

(IANS)

By: Vani B T & Shaheen Raaj

Audio Lounge Opens 2nd Luxury Retail Store

Audio Lounge, retailers of world’s most technically perfect & high-end audio equipment, opened a new store offering pure listening pleasure for discerning music lovers in & around Bangalore. The store, located at Taj West End, will range some of the most desirable audio brands available including Avantgarde, Bel Canto, Boulder, Crystal Cable, Nagra, Ortofon, Sennheiser, Siltech, SME, Spendor & YG.
On live demonstration, both unique & elegant, Avantgarde high-end 2 channel horn loudspeakers was also unveiled for the 1st time ever in India. A stunning visual appearance is matched with a convincing sound performance that will radiate effortlessly into a room, handcrafted in the best German tradition. It is sheer magic to the ears. Purists are invited to come exclusively to Audio Lounge to experience this phenomenon for themselves!

Experienced experts will always be on hand at Audio Lounge to tailor bespoke exquisite audio systems for the home to suit every budget & lifestyle, so music enthusiasts can immerse themselves in the most beautiful sound they have ever heard, in the manner they choose. Which will be akin to “Pure Listening Pleasure”.

Audio Lounge is part of the Cadence Audio Group backed by Ajay Shirke, who pioneered the manufacture of high-end audio equipment since the year 1995. After developing tube amplifiers & electro-static loudspeakers under the Cadence name in India,

Cadence acquired major stake-holdings in 2 European award-winning companies to create an international group of specialists in audio engineering. British manufacturer Spendor Audio Systems, which was founded in 1960’s, grew out of expertise from BBC’s sound engineering department & adapted its technology for a consumer market. Siltech & Crystal Cable, based in Netherlands, known for their industry leading cable technology & highly acclaimed speakers & amplifiers.

Cadence acquired ownership of British tone arm & turntable specialist manufacturer, SME Limited, based in Steyning. The group also acquired the iconic Garrard turntable brand from IGB Gradiente SA in Brazil earlier this year, with plans to re-launch the legendary Garrard transcription turntables.

Obsessed by perfect sound, German based manufacturer Avantgarde has been engineering & producing prime quality horn loudspeakers for nearly 3 decades to global acclaim. Horn loudspeakers are the oldest & have the most natural physical principle for rendering sound. On demonstration will also be the widely respected compact Uno, this unique speaker simply transcends such technical aspects as frequency response, phase response & dispersion, allowing it to create a highly effective impression of music being played live.

As part of India’s reachout to Africa, the External Affairs Ministry on Monday signed an agreement with the Telecommunications Consultants India Ltd. (TCIL) to establish a pan-African e-network between the two nations.

“This project, called the e-VidyaBharati and e-ArogyaBharati Network Project, will serve as yet another bridge – a digital bridge – between our countries, shrinking the distance between India and Africa even more,” External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj said at the signing ceremony.

She said that the the Project “is a clear effort by India to reach out to Africa in the critical areas of education and health”.

“This e-network aims at providing quality tele-education and tele-medicine facility by linking select Indian Universities, Institutions and Super Specialty Hospitals to African educational institutions and hospitals,” the Minister said.

Stating that the earlier avatar of this project was operated on satellite-based technology and covered 48 African countries, Sushma Swaraj said that it has now been decided to establish two separate web-based portals – one each for tele-education and tele-medicine.

“This would significantly increase the ease of access for students, doctors etc. who are the intended beneficiaries of this project,” she said.

Reiterating the importance of Africa in India’s foreign policy priorities, the External Affairs Minister pointed out that in the last four years, there have been 26 visits to African countries at the level of President, Vice President and Prime Minister apart from several other Ministerial visits.

“It has been decided to significantly enhance our diplomatic presence in Africa with the opening of 18 new resident missions over the coming four years,” she said.

She also referred to Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s 10 guiding principles of India’s engagement with Africa during his address to the Ugandan parliament in July and said: “Our development partnership will be guided by African priorities, so that it liberates African potential and not constrain their future.

“We will rely on African talent and skills and build local capacity and create local opportunities. We will keep our markets open and make it attractive to trade with India.”

Sushma Swaraj also said that the Indian industry will be supported for investing in Africa.

India is also a leading development aid partner of African countries and this includes implementation of 180 lines of credit worth about $11 billion in over 40 African countries.

(IANS)

Tech major Infosys on Monday announced a strategic three-year partnership with the Australian Open to enhance digital experience of the tennis tournament.

As the Official Digital Innovation Partner of the Australian Open, Infosys will leverage its expertise in emerging technologies like Big Data and analytics, artificial intelligence as well as virtual and augmented reality, to provide unique, innovative and engaging experiences for fans.

“We have long understood the importance of using data and insights to improve connections with our fans, players, coaches and the rest of the tennis community and we look forward to working with Infosys to change the way we all experience our great sport in the future,” Craig Tiley, Tournament Director, Australian Open, said in a statement.

“We’re really excited about the opportunity to showcase how digital technologies can enhance the boundaries of this tournament, to change the way the Australian Open is watched, analysed and played,” added Salil Parekh, CEO and Managing Director at Infosys.

The Australian Open is a tennis tournament held annually in January in Melbourne. Tickets for the tournament will go on sale on October 9.

Infosys is also the technology partner to the Association of Tennis Professionals (ATP) till 2020.

(IANS)

The key Indian equity indices opened in the negative territory on Monday, tracking broadly negative cues in the global markets and also due to a weakening rupee.

The rupee opened at a fresh low of 72.18 against the US dollar on Monday, which dampened the domestic investor sentiment.

At 9.35 a.m., the wider Nifty50 on the National Stock Exchange, traded at 11,546.65 points, lower by 42.45 points or 0.37 per cent from its previous close.

The S&P BSE Sensex, which had opened at 38,348.39 points, traded at 38,213.84 points, lower by 175.98 points or 0.46 per cent than the previous close of 38,389.82 points.

So far, it has touched an intra-day high of 38,354.52 points and a low of 38,242.37 points.

(IANS)

San Francisco In a push to enter the film and TV market, Apple has acquired global rights to two feature films — Victoria Stone and Mark Deebles documentary “The Elephant Queen” and an animated film “The Wolfwakers”.

According to a report in Deadline.com on Sunday, Apple’s worldwide video division led by Zack Van Amburg and Jamie Erlicht acquired “The Elephant Queen” that made its debut at the Toronto Film Festival last weekend.

The documentary follows an elephant named Athena as she leads her herd away from a drought.

“The Wolfwalkers” is two-time Oscar-nominee Tomm Moore’s animated film which follows a young apprentice hunter who travels to Ireland with her father to hunt wolves.

There have been reports that Apple is set to produce its own content and start its own streaming service in order to share a pie of the growing video streaming industry dominated by Netflix and Hulu, among others.

(IANS)

The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has imposed a penalty of Rs 1 crore each on three public sector banks for non-compliance with its directions on “Fraud – Classification and Reporting”.

According to the RBI, the penalty was imposed individually on all the three banks — Bank of Maharashtra, Bank of India, Union Bank of India — on August 30, 2018.

The apex bank took into account the delay on the part of these banks in reporting fraud in certain accounts.

(IANS)

National passenger carrier Air India has invited bids from banks for Rs 500-crore government guarantee-backed “Short Term Loans (STLs)”.

The airline has called for financial bids by September 10.

“Air India is inviting bids for Government Guaranteed INR Short Term Loans (STL) totalling to Rs 500 crore to meet its urgent working capital requirements,” the airline said in a tender document issued on Thursday.

“The tenure of the loan will be for one year (renewable) from the date of availing the STL. The amount of Rs 500 crore will be drawn during September 2018 in one or more tranches.”

(IANS)

As countries over the world including India face elections amid the spread of fake news and political interference on social media platforms, Facebook CEO Mark Zuckerberg has asked for some more time to fix his network that has over two billion users.

In a post on Friday, Zuckerberg said that Facebook started on the platform sanitising project in 2017 and “even this work will extend through 2019, I do expect us to end this year on a significantly better trajectory than when we entered it”.

“My personal challenge for 2018 has been to fix the most important issues facing Facebook — whether that’s defending against election interference by nation states, protecting our community from abuse and harm, or making sure people have control of their information,” the Facebook founder wrote.

After his grilling in the US Congress in April over the Cambridge Analytica data scandal and the Russian interference in the 2016 US presidential election, COO Sheryl Sandberg again testified at the US Senate Intelligence Committee hearing on election security on September 5.

Along with Twitter CEO Jack Dorsey, she faced the committee which is probing the Russian interference from an angle to publicly hold Facebook and Twitter accountable for allowing Russian operatives on their platforms.

“I’m spending a lot of time on these issues, and as the year winds down I’m going to write a series of notes outlining how I’m thinking about them and the steps we’re taking to address them,” said Zuckerberg.

The first note will be about the steps Facebook is taking to prevent election interference on Facebook, which is timely with the US mid-terms and Brazilian presidential elections approaching.

“I’ll write about privacy, encryption and business models, and then about content governance and enforcement as well in the coming months,” he added.

NASA has launched a sounding rocket from the agency’s Wallops Flight Facility in Virginia to test a supersonic parachute for landing its next rover on Mars.

The rocket launched on Friday carried the Advanced Supersonic Parachute Inflation Research Experiment (ASPIRE) from NASA’s Jet Propulsion Laboratory (JPL) in Pasadena, California.

The payload descended by parachute and splashed-down in the Atlantic Ocean 28 miles from Wallops Island, NASA said.

The parachute was successfully recovered and returned to Wallops for data retrieval and inspection.

The suborbital launch was designed to mimic conditions that the parachute might experience during a Mars landing, Space.com reported.

“This is really a strength test of that Mars 2020 (rover) design,” Jeremy Hill, a mechanical engineer at JPL, was quoted as saying during a webcast of the launch.

“We want to get as close to the Martian environment as we can.”

The payload is a bullet-nosed, cylindrical structure holding a supersonic parachute, the parachute’s deployment mechanism, and the test’s high-definition instrumentation — including cameras — to record data.

The Mars 2020 rover mission is scheduled to launch in July/August 2020 when Earth and Mars are in good positions relative to each other for landing on Mars.

The mission takes the next step in addressing questions about potential for life on Mars by not only seeking signs of habitable conditions on Mars in the ancient past, but also searching for signs of past microbial life itself.

(IANS)