For the week ended Nov 22, India’s annual rate of inflation fell further to 8.4% as compared to 8.84% the week before on account of a sharp fall in petroleum fuels prices.

During the corresponding week of the last year (2007), the annual inflation rate was 3.11%.

The official wholesale price index (WPI) for all commodities dropped 0.6% to 233.7 during the week from 235.1 for the previous week.

As a result of recent terror attacks, Big B aka the Bollywood legend Amitabh Bachchan has declined to participate in the ‘Clinton Global Initiative’.

Big B was to be one of the main speakers at former US President Bill Clinton's Global Initiative.

In a press release, Big B said, “I am not going to leave my country in this troubled hour to travel to a foreign land to lend cause to a foreign initiative, patronized and guided by a foreigner, for his benefit. I need to see initiative here in my country.”

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari will visit Turkey on Friday to attend the second trilateral summit. Afghan President Hamid Karzai will be a part of that meeting.

The summit will focus on "important development dimensions in the bilateral process including joint economic projects (and) regional and trilateral economic and trade matters," said a statement from the Foreign Office.

During his stay in Istanbul, Zardari will have separate bilateral meetings with Turkish President Abullah Gul and Karzai.

One of India’s largest IT company, Infosys Technologies said the domestic IT industry is likely to grow by 15 per cent this year against 30 per cent growth last year in the wake of global slowdown.

Giving this information, Infosys CEO S Gopalakrishnan said, “Last year the IT industry grew more than 30%, this year it is looking at somewhere in the region of 15%. So, it has slowed down.”

Kerala Chief Minister V. S. Achuthanandan finally expressed regret for his remarks on the family of slain National Security Guard commando Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan.

"I am sad that Sandeep's family was hurt by my remark. I apologise for that," Achuthanandan said at a press conference at Thiruvananthapuram.

"If my comments have hurt Major Unnikrishnan's family, I'm sorry and I regret it. But now the Opposition is trying to misinterpret it. So I thought of giving a clarification," he said.

Indian equities continued to gain momentum on the back of heavy buying action witnessed across all sectors.

Mirroring the sharp increase in values of key stocks in this space, the BSE Realty index gained 10%. Capital goods, oil, power, bank and metal stocks also rallied smartly.

BSE Midcap and Smallcap rose 1.98% and 1.38% respectively.

At 02.25 p.m., the 30-share index Sensex stood at 8,993.39, up 245.96 points, after hitting a high of 8,997.36 and a low of 8,726.71.