Capital18, the venture capital unit of Network 18 Media & Investments, has sols tis stake in India's leading digital agencies, Webchutney to Dentsu India Group.

The company has now announced the financial details of the deal yet but it is believed that it made 300 per cent return on investment. The latest sale of stake is in line with the company strategy to cash non-core assets and also increase value for the company's shareholders. Bryan, Garnier & Co were the sole advisor to Capital18 and other shareholders.

The central government in India is set to pay $8.1 billion or about 450 billion rupees as fuel subsidy to state-run oil marketing firms for the fourth quarter of the 2012-2013 financial year.

There are indications that Japan's Daiichi Sankyo Co. Ltd, which owns India based drug maker Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd, is considering legal action against former promoters of the company in order to recover the $500 million in fines that it had to pay to the US Food and Drug Administration for setting civil and criminal charges against the company.

In a major setback for pharmaceutical giant, Wockhardt, the United States Food and Drug Administration has issued an import alert for the drugs produced at the company's Aurangabad unit.

FMCG firm Jyothy Laboratories Ltd on Wednesday reported a fall of mote than 57 per cent in consolidated net profit for the quarter ended March 31.

The maker of popular fabric whitener Ujala reported that its consolidated net profit during the January-March quarter fell 57.70 per cent to Rs 11.81 crore, from Rs 27.92 crore during the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.

Consolidated net sales of the company jumped 24 per cent to Rs 272.51 crore in the fourth fiscal quarter, from Rs 219.35 in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.

The EUR/USD made a three wave rally in this week which was expected in wave 4, but pair is already turning lower again after the completed zig-zag at 1.3000 psychological level. We can see that the price broke through the lower side of a corrective channel, which is a very important evidence for further EUR/USD weakness, this time to 1.2680/1.2730 for wave 5. The critical level now stands at 1.3000; the bearish trend is below.

Forex Analysis by Gregor Horvat at ForexPros. com

After suffering a decline of 6 per cent on Wednesday, Larsen & Toubro (L&T) shares suffered another decline of 3 per cent at Rs 1,470 apiece in the morning trading on Thursday on the Bombay stock Exchange (BSE), due to worse-than-expected Q4 results.

L&T, India's biggest engineering and construction firm, on Wednesday reported a year-on-year decline of 6.9 per cent in net profit at Rs 1,788 crore for the quarter ended March 31, 2013.

Crisis in coal could become a major impediment to India's economic growth as the domestic supply of the fuel is lagging far behind demand.

As demand for coal is increasing by more than 10 per cent per annum and domestic supply is rising merely 3-4 per cent, the country's coal imports are growing at a compounded annual rate of around 23 per cent.

In terms of rupees, the rise in coal imports has been nearly 15 per cent (CAGR) during the past five years.

New Delhi, May 23 - “Saat Phere” fame Rajshree Thakur, who is making a comeback to the small screen after three years, says her motto is to do prominent characters that suit here personality.

Best known for playing dusky Saloni in “Saat Phere”, which was her debut on the small screen, she will now be seen as Jeevantha Bai (Maharana Pratap's mother) in Sony's upcoming show “Bharat Ka Veer Putra - Maharan Pratap”.

Hyderabad, May 23 - Director Rohit Shetty, who recently visited the sets of "Garam Masala", a Telugu remake of Hindi movie "Bol Bachchan", had a ball.

"Rohit was in the city on a personal trip and he happened to visit us on the sets. He spent some time watching us shoot and afterwards bonded really well with the cast. It was fun having him on the sets," a source from the film's unit told IANS.

Madrid, May 23 - FC Barcelona confirmed that the football club has agreed to extend the contract of utility player Adriano Correia until the end of June 2017.

Adriano has signed a four year-extension with the club he joined in the summer of 2010 for 9.5 million euros from Sevilla and has so far made 105 appearances in which he has scored 10 goals, reports Xinhua.

Reliance Jio Infocomm aims to roll out 4G broadband services in Metros by the end of current fiscal year, Tarun Jhunjhunwala, business head & state mentor (East) at the Reliance Industries Ltd's telecom arm said on Wednesday.

Mr. Jhunjhunwala announced that Kolkata would be among the first cities where the 4G services would be rolled out. He added that the next-generation services would be rolled out simultaneously in Delhi, Mumbai and Jamnagar.

Mumbai, May 23 - A benchmark index of the Indian equities markets was trading 1.27 percent down in pre-afternoon trade Thursday.

Trading in all the major sectors was down. The most pronounced of the lot were bankex, capital goods, auto, oil and public sector units' stocks.

The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened down at 19,971.37 points, was trading at 19,806.74 points in the afternoon session, down 255.50 points or 1.27 percent from its previous day close at 20,062.24 points.

Mustardseed yesterday traded with the positive node and settled 0.06% up at 3512 as restricted supply and pick up in demand at physical markets supported prices. Rise in other edible oils prices and higher demand from oil mills also helped to boost the trading sentiments. Overall tendency in the oilseed complex is range-bound except some buying interests in rapeseed. According to COOIT', the total output of mustard seed in the country is seen at 71.50 lakh tonnes, up 12.70% on the year. The total arrivals of new mustard seed were reported at 2.70 lakh bags, down 32 thousand from the last day.

Wheat yesterday traded with the positive node and settled 0.9% up at 1578 as weak arrivals of wheat in local markets and strong demand of private millers at higher levels has positively impacted wheat prices. The overall wheat supplies for current years is expected to be around 80-85 million tons. As per latest official data, Indian procurement agencies have procured 24.30 million tonnes of wheat. Data revealed that wheat procurement in Punjab reached 10.40 million tonne in the ongoing rabi marketing season. While other states such as Haryana and Madhya Pradesh reported 5.90 and 5.80 million tonnes respectively in the current season.

Crude Palm Oil settled flat as investors pinned their hopes on demand recovery ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. Market participants are counting on restocking ahead of the holy month, which falls in July this year, to drive up consumption in key producers Malaysia and Indonesia. Ramadan is marked by evening communal meals to break observers' fasts. Indonesia, the world's top palm oil producer, has set its export tax for crude palm oil at 9 percent for June, unchanged from May, an industry ministry official said. Rival producer Malaysia had earlier announced it will leave its export tax unchanged at 4.5 percent for the same month.

Ref soyaoil ended with flat node tracking a weak rupee and poor domestic supplies. Soyoil supplies from the local soybean crop have almost dried up as the oilseed crop awaits the new planting season that would start once the annual monsoon rains reach the main producing belts of central India. India grows soybean during the summer, while the new harvest will be ready only after the monsoon ends in September. Until then, the country has to rely on imports from Latin America to meet domestic demand.

Aluminium yesterday traded with the positive node and settled 1.79% up at 103.35 as US Federal Reserve Chairman Bernanke’s testimony to the congress overnight was in support of QE3 to propel US economy. However, Bernanke also said that asset buying may be scaled back later this year if economy improves further. The minutes of April policy meeting indicate intense debate among Fed officials over whether bond purchases should be curtailed. Later, optimistic sentiment from continuation of easing monetary policy in the short term faded. Bernanke’s speech last night came under the spotlight.

Natural Gas yesterday traded with the positive node and settled 0.3% up at 233.4 as prices continued to draw support from a warmer-than-normal weather outlook that was expected to increase demand. Prices seen under pressure at higher levels as investors cashed out the market to lock in gains after prices continued to rise in last some session. Natural gas futures have been well-supported in recent days, climbing almost 7% over the past three sessions, after updated weather forecasting models pointed to a wider swath of above-normal temperatures across most parts of the U.S. in the next two weeks, boosting near-term cooling demand expectations.

Jeera June contract dropped Rs 90 and settled at Rs 13205 per quintal tracking weak spot demand though downside was limited on thin supplies and rising demand from exporters, amid concerns over shipments from Syria. Arrivals are likely to come down in the coming days. Sources are expecting improvement in exports orders due to supply disruption n Syria. The total arrivals stood at 10,000 bags, while demand was seen around 12,000 bags. The total jeera production of around 34-35 lakh bags in the current year, up almost 1-2 lakh bags from the last year. This is mainly due to sowing in Rajasthan and better recovery of jeera from Gujarat.