ISRO's PSLV C45 lifted off from the Satish Dhawan Space Centre in Sriharikota on Monday, carrying India's EMISAT satellite along with 28 nano satellites of global customers.

As the 27-hour countdown concluded, the nearly 50-metre tall rocket, a new variant of ISRO's trusted work horse PSLV-QL, blasted off from the second launch pad at the spaceport of Sriharikota at 9:27 am. The EMISAT satellite is aimed at electromagnetic measurement.

State-owned gas utility GAIL India Ltd Friday said it has signed an agreement with Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (BHEL) for cooperation in the development of solar power projects.

"GAIL shall be the project developer and BHEL shall act as an engineering, procurement, construction and project management contractor," the company said in a statement.

BHEL shall also provide operation and maintenance services during the initial period upon becoming successful bidder.

"This development will help both the companies to leverage their competitive strengths to build a substantial portfolio in solar power projects.

"The memorandum of understanding (signed Friday) aims at building a closer strategic partnership between the two Maharatna PSUs for jointly pursuing commercial solar power projects through participation in tariff / Viability Gap Funding (VGF) based competitive bidding process," it said.

GAIL is India's biggest natural gas company with diversified interests across the value chain of trading, transmission, LPG production and transmission, LNG re-gasification, petrochemicals and city gas.

India and United States have jointly urged Pakistan to take meaningful, irreversible and verifiable action against terrorists and terror groups operating from its soil.

Indian and US officials met in Washington on Friday for the sixteenth meeting of the US-India Counter-terrorism Joint Working Group and the second session of the US-India Designations Dialogue.

The Counter Terrorism Joint Working Group exchanged views on threats posed by international terrorist organisations as well as ongoing concerns over cross-border terrorism in the South Asia region.

A statement released by US state department said that both sides underlined the urgent need for Pakistan to take meaningful, irreversible, and verifiable action against terrorists and terrorist groups.

There was discussion of strengthening cooperation on information sharing and other steps to disrupt the ability of terrorists to travel, consistent with the important provisions and obligations outlined in United Nations Security Council Resolution 2396.

Power Finance Corp. Ltd (PFC) has completed the purchase of a controlling stake in state-run peer REC Ltd that will create an $80-billion lending giant by assets and potentially help in faster resolution of stressed assets in India’s power sector.

PFC paid ₹14,500 crore to the Union government to buy a 52.63% stake in REC, the company’s chairman and managing director Rajeev Sharma said on Thursday.

The proceeds from the REC stake sale have also helped the union government exceed its disinvestment target of ₹80,000 crore for the fiscal year 2018-19. The disinvestment receipts touched ₹85,000 crore last week.

PFC plans to complete the process of the merger with REC in the next fiscal year in consultation with the government. This would make PFC India’s second largest state-owned financial firm by market capitalization after State Bank of India (SBI).

While SBI commanded a market cap of ₹2.84 trillion on Thursday, REC and PFC achieved a market cap of ₹29,485.53 crore and ₹31,034.16 crore, respectively.

India and Bolivia have signed eight MoUs on the second day of President Ram Nath Kovind’s three-day visit to that country.

These MoUs were signed in the fields of culture, Visa waiver arrangement for diplomats, the exchange between diplomatic academies, mining, space, traditional medicine, establishment of Centre of Excellence in IT and Bi-Oceanic Railway project.
Mr Kovind was also conferred with the highest State honour of Bolivia, “Condor de Los Andes en el Grado de Gran Collar” during his visit to Bolivia. President of Bolivia Evo Morales awarded him the Honour at a function held in Santa Cruz.

President Ram Nath Kovind had extensive talks with his Bolivian counterpart today. During the delegation level talks, a range of areas of mutual interest in bilateral, regional and multilateral fields have been discussed.

Both countries have reaffirmed their commitment to strengthen political and economic engagement. India offered 100 million US Dollar Line of Credit to Bolivia for financing development projects. Both countries also agreed on the need for reform of the UN Security Council to make it reflective of contemporary realities.

President is in Bolivia on the second leg of his three nation tour. He is on a three-nation visit to Croatia, Bolivia and Chile from March 25th to April 4th.

IT services major Wipro on Thursday said it has partnered with IIT Kharagpur to collaborate on industry-focused applied research in the areas of 5G and artificial intelligence (AI).

Research outcomes from this partnership will be leveraged by Wipro to develop solutions for its customers, across industry verticals, Wipro said in a statement.

Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Kharagpur on the other hand will benefit from the commercialisation of the joint research insights and Wipro's industry expertise.

"Wipro and IIT Kharagpur will jointly take up applied research projects on industry challenges related to the design, planning and operations of 5G networks and cognitive information processing for the automation of these processes and 5G use cases," the statement said.

Shares of Adani Ports rallied more than 3 percent intraday on March 28 after the company became the first Indian port operator to record 200 Million Metric Tons (MMT) cargo movement.

"Our projections were to reach this milestone by 2020 but we could achieve it ahead of schedule courtesy the tech-driven operational efficiency and enhanced asset utilisation. Robust capacity addition at our leading ports such as Dhamra and Mundra as well as deepening presence closer the hinterland with new facilities such as Ennore and Kattupalli played a critical role in this journey," Karan Adani, Chief Executive Officer (CEO) said in a BSE release.

The multi-port operator has a portfolio of eight ports/terminals across India. The company now wants to double the cargo handling to 400 MMT by 2025.

At 1252 hours, the stock was quoting at Rs 377.55, up 3.24 percent on the BSE.

Nobel Prize-winning economist Amartya Sen has been awarded the prestigious Bodley Medal, the highest honour bestowed by the University of Oxford's world-famous Bodleian Libraries. The Medal is awarded to individuals who have made outstanding contributions to the fields in which the Bodleian is active, including literature, culture, science and communication.

"The honour was awarded (to Sen) during the Founder's Lunch on 15 March, an annual event commemorating the birth of the Libraries' founder, Sir Thomas Bodley, and his legacy of philanthropy," the Library said in a statement on Wednesday.

The 85-year-old winner of the Nobel Memorial Prize in Economic Sciences, who is the Thomas W Lamont University Professor at Harvard University and a member of faculty at Harvard Law School, received the Medal from Lord Patten of Barnes, Chancellor of the University of Oxford, and Bodley's Librarian Richard Ovenden.

This year's other winner of the Bodley Medal is Nobel Prize-winning novelist Kazuo Ishiguro, who will hold an in-conversation event with Ovenden next week to celebrate the honour. Past winners of the honour include physicist Stephen Hawking, novelist Hilary Mantel and inventor of the World Wide Web Tim Berners-Lee.

The government has decided to infuse Rs 5,042 crore into state-owned Bank of Baroda (BoB) ahead of merger of two other public sector lenders Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with BoB. The merger of Dena Bank and Vijaya Bank with BoB would be effective from April 1.

The finance ministry through its notification on Wednesday conveyed its decision to infuse capital of Rs 5,042 crore in BoB, the bank said in a regulatory filing.

"The capital infusion will be by way of preferential allotment of equity shares (special securities/bonds) of the bank during FY2018-19, as government's investment," it said.

According to the Scheme of Amalgamation, shareholders of Vijaya Bank will get 402 equity shares of BoB for every 1,000 shares held.

President Ram Nath Kovind reached Bolivia today on the second leg of his three nations tour. President of Bolivia Evo Morales welcomed Mr. Kovind at Viru Viru International Airport, Santa Cruz. 

"President Ram Nath Kovind was accorded Guard of Honour at the Airport. He was also presented with the key of the city of Santa Cruz. Shri Kovind is the first President of India to visit Bolivia. 

Addressing media at the Santa Cruz Airport, President said that this is the historic day in the Indo- Bolivia bilateral relations. 

During his three day visit to Bolivia, President will hold delegation level talks with his counterpart. He will participate in India-Bolivia business forum meeting and also interact with the students at the University in Santa Cruz.