Mumbai: Telecom operator Bharti Airtel Ltd said it has appointed eight global banks for the planned initial public offering (IPO) of its African unit. Airtel Africa Ltd, a subsidiary of the Indian telecom giant, has appointed J.P. Morgan, Citigroup, BofA Merrill Lynch, Absa Group Limited, Barclays Bank PLC, BNP Paribas, Goldman Sachs International and Standard Bank Group for its IPO, it said in an exchange filing.

Bharti Airtel shares jumped as much as 3.14% intraday to Rs 338.25 per share following the announcement.

The proposed IPO of the African unit follows a $1.25 billion fund raise by Airtel Africa, led by Warburg Pincus, Temasek, Singtel, SoftBank Group International and others.

Earlier this month, Airtel Africa also announced its newly-constituted board of directors that includes representatives from Bharti Airtel and the investors. “The new Board of Directors brings a wealth of industry and governance experience to further drive the Airtel Africa business,” the telecom operator said in the filing.

Jet Airways Ltd, the biggest full-service carrier in India, has been under dark clouds for the past few months. While intense pricing competition, weak rupee and rising fuel costs have hurt Indian airlines like IndiGo owned by InterGlobe Aviation Ltd and SpiceJet Ltd, Jet Airways is in a league of its own. Saddled with a debt of about 80.52 billion rupees ($1.14 billion) as of Sept. 30, Jet is desperately searching for a deal that could help mitigate its severe liquidity crunch. The airline has a market capitalisation of 35.03 billion rupees as of last close.The Tata conglomerate is now likely to be the potential white knight for the debt-laden company, but no proposal has been made yet.

Constitution Day is celebrated on November 26 every year to mark the day on which the Indian Constitution was adopted by the Constituent Assembly. The Constituent Assembly met for its first session on December 9, 1947, and was attended by 207 members. The Drafting Committee of the Constitution was headed by B R Ambedkar who is often referred to as the ‘architect of the Indian Constitution’. Over the course of the next two years, the committee took important decisions regarding the objectives, principles and other aspects of the Constitution. It was finally adopted on November 26, 1949, and came into effect two months later on January 26, 1950, which is celebrated as Republic Day.

USA coach Billy Walsh calls Mary Kom a heartbreaker. Not for surpassing her former ward Katie Taylor’s haul of five World Championship gold medals — “She deserves her sixth title, coming back at 35 and beating all opposition” — but because of how Mary torments her opponents.

“She breaks your heart. She never gives your peace, never lets you rest,” Walsh said on the sidelines of the Women’s World Championships. “Her aggression is the mainstay of her game. And she has a never-say-die attitude a boxer should have. She fights till the last bell, and one can only respect that.”

But Walsh, who has led Ireland’s Taylor and USA’s Clarissa Shields to Olympic glory, believes it is her exploits outside the ring which make Mary a boxer’s boxer.

“She has been legendary. She was there at the beginning of the female boxing movement, flying the flag for the sport,” said Walsh. “Especially in India, where women boxers weren’t accepted maybe at that level.”

Indian classical music doyen, Ustad Imrat Khan, known for promoting the sitar and the surbahar internationally, has passed away in the United States at the age of 83, his family said on Friday.

Khan breathed his last in a hospital in St. Louis on Thursday after a stroke. He was unwell for quite some time and was hospitalised last week. He had been living in St. Louis for well over two decades.

"No words can express the loss? May Allah bless his soul," Khan's bereaved nephew, Hidayat Husain Khan, said confirming his death. The funeral is expected to take place on Saturday.

Former Indian hockey player Sandeep Michael, who captained the Indian junior team to an Asia Cup gold in 2003, died on Friday after battling an unspecified neurological problem in Bengaluru.

The former forward was 33.

The high point of Michael's India career was the 2003 junior Asia Cup in which he was adjudged the most promising player. He scored in crunch games against teams like Pakistan and Korea.

"He had a knack of scoring goals from any position and angle. This skill endeared him to the coaches and he was also loved by fans," Murthy said.

Jharkhand Day is being celebrated today at the International Film Festival of India (IFFI) in Goa. Jharkhand is the focus state at this year's IFFI. This is for the first time that any state has been made focus state at the festival. 
 
Chief Minister Raghubar Das and a host of film personalities will attend the celebrations. Information and Broadcasting Secretary Amit Khare had inaugurated the Jharkhand Tourism's pavilion at the IFFI on Wednesday.
 
Jharkhand is home to some of the biggest celebrities including, MS Dhoni, Priyanka Chopra, archer Deepika Kumari and actor R Madhavan.

The Government has decided to set up a domestic Gold Council in India. Commerce and Industry Minister Suresh Prabhu said this while inaugurating the 2nd Edition of India Gold and Jewellery Summit in New Delhi today.

Mr Prabhu underlined the need for an integrated Gold policy to address all the issues in holistic way. 

He said that his ministry will make sure that gems and jewellery business does not suffer from financial issues and his ministry is in talks with Finance Ministry in this regard. 

External Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj will today co-chair the 9th Meeting of India-Lao PDR Joint Commission on Bilateral Co-operation with her counterpart Saleumxay Kommasith in Vientiane today.

External Affairs Ministry said, the two sides will review the entire gamut of bilateral relations covering areas of Defence, Agriculture, Trade and Investment, Science and IT, Energy and Mining among others.

The Minister will also call on the Prime Minister of Lao PDR Thongloun Sisoulith.

Mrs Swaraj attended an Indian community event held at Vientiane after arriving in Lao PDR last evening.

MEA Spokesperson Raveesh Kumar said in a tweet that Mrs Swaraj appreciated the role of the Indian community in acting as a bridge to strengthen India-Lao PDR relations.

New Delhi: Facebook Inc.-owned messaging service WhatsApp on Wednesday said it has appointed Abhijit Bose as head of WhatsApp India, the local entity that is expected to begin operations next year amid calls to check the spread of fake messages. Bose, who was the co-founder and chief executive officer of enterprise payments solutions firm Ezetap, will be based in Gurugram, and join the messaging app early next year.

The move marks the first step by WhatsApp towards meeting the union government’s demand to curb the spread of fake news on the platform.

It comes less than a month after a meeting between information technology minister Ravi Shankar Prasad and Chris Daniels, vice-president of WhatsApp. Daniels had told Prasad in the meeting that WhatsApp has incorporated a local unit in India whose operations would begin soon.

This is crucial as the government and the messaging app are trying to find common ground to ensure traceability of fake messages. Rumours circulated on social media apps have led to more than a dozen killings across India this year in mob lynchings.

Prasad, in an earlier meeting with Daniels, had requested him to devise ways to trace the origins of fake messages, set up a local corporate entity and appoint a grievance officer to address complaints to curb the spread of rumours.