Public lender State Bank of India (SBI) on Saturday said it has incorporated a wholly-owned subsidiary firm – SBI Infra Management Solutions (SBIIMS) – to take care of its premises and estate related matters.

"The primary role of the new entity will be to handle transaction management and advisory services, project management, facility management and implementation of policies and initiatives," SBI said here in a statement.

"The decision to incorporate separate entity is implemented to save time of banks' executives who were involved in managing this non-core business so that these executives can instead focus on core banking services," the statement said.

SBI Chairman Arundhati Bhattacharya said it made sense to create separate entity employing much lesser number of employees nearing about 400 who will handle premises and estate related officials more effectively and efficiently.

"SBI is having valuable properties under its possession since the days of Bank of Bengal," she said at the head office launch of SBIIMS here. 

"We realised that the job of acquisition, construction and maintenance of owned and leased premises,… were being looked after by 1,100 officials of the bank including 200 technical officials," Bhattacharya said . 

SBIIMS will have its circle office in each local head office centre of SBI and about 100 zonal offices at administrative office centre on pan-India basis. 

Initially this subsidiary will look after work related to premises and estate of SBI group only, it said.

Hinduja Group Co-Chairman Gopichand P. Hinduja on Saturday said that the overseas Indian diaspora stands in support of all initiatives of Prime Minister Narendra Modi to give a thrust to the country's economy.

In a message congratulating the Prime Minister for the Bharatiya Janata Party's (BJP) stupendous win in assembly elections in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand, the London-based industrialist termed it as "a win that carries the stamp of people from all socio-economic backgrounds".

"This to my mind, should put the debate on demonetisation to rest," Hinduja, 77, asserted.

He added that this was a mandate for Modi's governance and spur the Prime Minister for not only sustaining, rather aggressively pursuing, reforms for 'Making in India'.

"The path of reforms should ensure increased ease of doing business in India. I can foresee more FDI coming into the country and private investment to get a fillip, which, together with business reforms would create more jobs for the Indian youth," Hinduja concluded.

India on Saturday lodged a strong protest with Pakistan over the continuing incidents of ceasefire violations at the Line of Control (LoC) and the International Border (IB), particularly the killing of an Indian soldier in unprovoked firing by the Pakistani forces on 9 March. 

Deputy High Commissioner of Pakistan Syed Haider Shah was summoned to the MEA this evening and conveyed New Delhi’s grave concern and its expectation that Pakistan would not take any step detrimental to peace along the LoC and IB and to the security of India. 

Coal India on Saturday said its wholly-owned subsidiary Central Coalfields Limited (CCL), which had approved a Rs 1,001.88 crore buyback proposal, has decided "not to proceed" with the plan.

"..the Board of Directors of CCL at its meeting held on March 10, 2017 has, after reviewing the limited reviewed unaudited financials of the company ended December 31, 2016 based on the Revised valuation Report submitted by the merchant banker, decided not to proceed with the proposed buyback," the miner said in a regulatory filing.

Last week, the miner's arm had approved buyback of 5,21,000 fully paid equity shares for an aggregate amount not exceeding Rs 1,001.88 crore.

It had also said the equity shares proposed to be bought back by the miner's subsidiary would represent 5.54 per cent of the existing paid up capital of CCL.

In another regulatory filing, CIL which produces 84 per cent of the country's coal, said its board on Saturday approved to tender the shares held by the company in its subsidiaries — Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd (MCL), Northern Coalfields Ltd (NCL), South Eastern Coalfields Ltd (SECL) — in their respective buyback offer.

MCL's 4,51,743 shares would be tendered in the buyback offer and "the price per share at which the shares are to be tendered is Rs 35,796.02".

Accordingly, NCL's 4,11,135 shares would be tendered at Rs 30,260.70 per share while SECL's 6,09,250 shares would be tendered Rs. 19,699.47 a share.

Nice midfielder Wylan Cyprien will miss the rest of the football season due to a ruptured knee ligament following a medical test on Saturday.

"OGC Nice are sure that he will face up to this test with strength and a motivation to come back stronger than before," the club said in a statement on their official website.

With a 2-2 draw against Caen at home on Friday, Nice went one point ahead of the defending champions Paris Saint-Germain on the second position, two points adrift leaders Monaco.

However, Cyprien landed badly when challenging a header in the 56th minute. Images showed that his knee suffered a twist at that moment.

A test on Saturday morning confirmed that the 22-year-old midfielder suffered a ruptured anterior crucial ligament, and were unavailable for the remainder of the season.

Cyprien made 29 appearances in the league this season, including 27 starts, finishing 8 goals and 3 assists for the southern coast side.

Nice already lost their top scorer Alassane Plea, who had 11 goals so far, due to a knee injury. Cyprien's absence would cast more uncertainty on the team's title race ahead.

Bengaluru FC, who returned to winning ways last weekend after going eight games winless in the I-League football championship, played a goalless draw against Mohun Bagan in a crucial match here on Saturday.

Following the result, Bagan remained at the third spot with 23 points in 12 matches, while the defending champions are at the fifth spot with 18 points in 13 matches.

Both teams started the proceedings on a positive note by playing a frantic end-to-end game but some sloppy passes from both the teams resulted in a dull draw at the Sree Kanteerava Stadium here.

The last 10 minutes saw some good attacking game from Bagan and as a result they seemed to have found the back of the net in the 85th minute but Katsumi Yusa's header was disallowed following a foul.

The last few minutes saw Bengaluru changing their tactics but it failed as both teams played a dull draw.

Chinese internet and technology conglomerate LeEco has come up with attractive offers and discounts on its superphones on online marketplace Snapdeal's Holi Sale from March 10 to 13.

During the sale, users purchasing Le 2 (3GB+32GB variant) can avail flat discount of Rs 300 on all debit and credit cards, the company said in a statement on Friday.

With 3GB RAM and 32GB ROM, Le 2 weighs 153 grams and comes in dual-SIM.

The 5-5 inch device has 16MP rear camera and 8MP front camera with full-HD resolution display and a mirror-surfaced fingerprint sensor along with powerful Octa-Core Qualcomm Snapdragon 652 processor.

LeEco started retailing the 3GB+64GB variant of Le 2 on Snapdeal which was only available in offline stores until now, the statement added.

Between nine and 15 per cent of active Twitter accounts are autonomous entities known as social bots, new research has found.

The micro-blogging site has a little over 300 million monthly active users and that would mean nearly 27 million to 45 million accounts are actually not controlled by humans, according to the study.

The researchers from Indiana University and University of Southern California in the US wanted to find out how much of the content on Twitter is generated by bots. 

"Our estimates suggest that between nine per cent and 15 per cent of active Twitter accounts are bots," the researchers said.

To detect bot accounts on Twitter, the researchers analysed publicly available data about user's friends, tweet content and sentiment, network patterns, and activity time series. 

"Characterising ties among accounts, we observe that simple bots tend to interact with bots that exhibit more human-like behaviour," the study said.

The Twitter bot detection framework that the researchers developed leverages more than one thousand features to evaluate the extent to which a Twitter account exhibits similarity to the known characteristics of social bots.

"Our models yield high accuracy and agreement with each other and can detect bots of different nature," the researchers said.

According to the researchers, many bots also "perform useful social functions such as dissemination of news and publications and coordination of volunteer activities" — but there is a dark side, too, as they can support "malicious applications" like promoting terrorist propaganda and recruitment, cbsnews.com reported.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Saturday thanked the people of Uttar Pradesh for the BJP’s “historic victory” in the just concluded Assembly polls to the state and termed it a win for development and good governance ~ “Vikas aur sushasan ki jeet”. 

“I thank the people of Uttar Pradesh from the bottom my heart. This is a historic victory of the BJP and a victory of development and good governance,” Modi said in a series of tweets on the outcome of elections in the five states of Uttar Pradesh, Punjab, Goa and Manipur. He termed the party’s victory in Uttarakhand as a special one and assured the people of the party’s commitment to work for their well-being. 

Modi thanked the people of Goa and Manipur, where the party claims that it would be able to form government. “I thank the people of Goa & Manipur for their support to BJP. We will always work for the wellbeing of these states,” he tweeted 

The Prime Minister attributed the BJP’s victories to party president Amit Shah and party state units and BJP workers’ exemplary work. “Amit Shah, party office bearers & state units for their exemplary work in taking the party to new heights,” Modi tweeted. 

"I salute the hardwork of BJP Karyakartas. They have tirelessly worked hard at the grassroots level & won the confidence of the people…Am overjoyed that BJP has received unprecedented support from all sections of society. Huge support from the youth is gladdening," he said. 

Modi also thanked Congress president Rahul Gandhi for his congratulatory tweet on the party’s victory. He congratulated Congress leader Captain Amrinder Singh for his party’s victory in Punjab even as he thanked the people of the state for allowing the party and its alliance to govern the state for ten years.   

Making a special mention about the people of Varanasi, his Lok Sabha constituency, Modi said as a MP from the area he is overwhelmed by the affection bestowed on him by the people of Varanasi.  

Later addressing a press conference at the BJP headquarters, Amit Shah claimed the party’s victory in Uttar Pradesh was “unprecedented” and ‘biggest ever victory after Independence’ since the formation of Uttarakhand, carved out of UP. 

He said it is a victory of PM Narendra Modi’s development initiative and showed people’s rock solid support for his demonetisation policy. He said people have given a ‘karara jawab’ (befitting reply) to the Opposition attack against Modi and the BJP.  

Shah said his party would be able to form the government in Goa and Manipur by virtue of the party’s showing. He thanked the people of Uttar Pradesh for giving the BJP and its allies ‘a historic mandate’ which he claimed would give a new direction to the Indian polity. 

The BJP will organise a function at the party headquarters on Sunday to felicitate Modi over BJP’s victory. Thereafter, the BJP parliamentary board would meet to decide on the party’s chief ministerial candidates. Amit Shah said the victory in UP would give the party an edge in the Rajya Sabha. 

Six out of 10 assembly seats in Amethi and Rae Bareli parliamentary constituencies — long considered Congress strongholds — have gone to the BJP while two went to the Samajwadi Party, leaving the grand old party gasping with just two.

A beaming Amit Shah, the BJP President, in his first media comments after the party's grand success in the state elections, drew specific attention to its performance in the twin Lok Sabha constituencies, held by party chief Sonia Gandhi and her deputy and son Rahul.

It was a complete washout for the Congress in Rahul's Amethi Lok Sabha constituency, comprising the assembly seats of Amethi, Tiloi, Jagdishpur, Gauriganj and Salon. 

The party managed to win two of the five assembly constituencies of Sonia Gandhi's Rae Bareli Lok Sabha seat — Rae Bareli and Harchandpur — while losing Sareni, Bachhrawan and Unchahar.

In Rahul's constituency, the Congress managed to come in at second spot in Jagdishpur, Gauriganj and Salon, was beaten to third spot in Tiloi and came in a miserable fourth in Amethi itself.

In Sonia's constituency, the party came in at No.2 in Bachhrawan, No.3 in Sareni and a distant fourth in Unchahar.

In the prestigious Amethi constituency, the erstwhile "queen" of the local principality Garima Singh of the BJP defeated SP's rape-accused absconding minister Gaytri Prasad Prajapati. Congress candidate Ameeta Singh, the current "queen" and wife of senior leader Sanjay Singh, came in a poor fourth behind the BSP candidate.

"Of 10 seats, we won six seats by big margins and this is making us very happy. We didn't do well here in 2014. But from now, politics will take a new direction in Uttar Pradesh," Shah said.

Only six out of 81 women candidates managed to register a win in the Punjab Assembly results 2017 announced on Saturday.

Interestingly, Congress and Aam Adami Party (AAP) shared three seats each giving no chance to Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) and Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) women candidates to win. The six winning candidates are Razia Sultana (Congress) from Malerkotla, Aruna Chaudhary (Congress) from Dinanagar, Satkar Kaur (Congress) from Ferozepur rural, Sarabjit Kaur Manuke (AAP) from Jagraon, Rupinder Kaur Ruby (AAP) from Bathinda rural and Baljinder Kaur (AAP) from Talwandi Sabo assembly seats.

While Aruna Chaudhary registered a massive win of 31, 917 votes, the AAP candidate, Rupinder Kaur Ruby, won with the least margin of 10,778 votes. There were total 1,063 men and 81 women candidate in the fray while one third gender candidate in the fray. The third gender candidate, Mumtaj of Bahujan Samaj Party (BJP) managed to get just 1,137 votes from Bucho Mandi assembly seat which was won by Congress candidate Pritam Singh.

In case of youth candidates, 25-year-old Congress candidate, Devinder Singh Gubaya won his Fazilka seat after defeating his BJP counterpart Surjit Kumar Jyani with just 265 votes. Likewise, 26-year-old Congress candidate Angad Saini from Nawanshahar defeated SAD candidate Jarnail Singh Wahid by a margin of 3,323 votes. Another Congress youth candidate Amarinder Singh Raja Warring has defeated SAD youth candidate Hardeep Singh Dimpy Dhillon with 16,212 from Giddarbaha.

Harjiot Kaur, a young AAP candidate has lost to SAD candidate Sukhwinder Kumar from Banga assembly seat by 1,893 votes. Also, 25-year-old, another AAP candidate, Samarbir Singh Sidhu, vice-president of the youth wing of AAP and a candidate from Fazilka constituency also got defeated. Likewise, Parambans Singh Romana, a youth SAD candidate from Faridkot constituency also lost his seat. Whereas, the outgoing Punjab chief minister Parkash Singh Badal was the oldest winner with a margin of 22,770 votes from the Lambi assembly seat.

Jammu and Kashmir Chief Minister Mehbooba Mufti on Saturday congratulated Prime Minister Narendra Modi for the landslide victory in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand assembly elections, saying that it was a clear and decisive mandate for governance.

"I congratulate Prime Minister Narendra Modi and his party on this resounding victory which is an endorsement of his governance, developmental and economic agenda," Mehbooba Mufti said in a statement.

She said the people have given a decisive mandate to the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) for a strong and stable government to usher the country into a new era of economic development and prosperity.

She said despite ideological and political divergencies, Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) joined hands with the BJP to provide a broad-based political platform to the people in all the regions and sub-regions of Jammu and Kashmir.

Terming the power of the vote as the game-changer in a democratic setup, Mehbooba said a new course for Jammu and Kashmir can be decided only by the people by exercising their right to franchise effectively.

After the Congress party swept Punjab with nearly two-third majority, the party's chief ministerial candidate Captain Amarinder Singh on Saturday termed the massive victory as a collective feat of the people of the state, as well as the party high command and its workers.

Thanking electorates for giving a clear mandate, the Punjab Congress Pradesh Committee (PPPC) chief described the poll outcome as a mandate for stability and progress, as well as good governance. Congress is committed to the nine-point agenda contained in the party's poll manifesto and would initiate its execution without delay, the former chief minister added.

When asked about the factors contributing to the failure of the Aam Aadmi Party (AAP) in Punjab, Captain said that the voters of Punjab are sensible and had seen through the AAP farce. The AAP bubble had burst with their outright rejection by the Punjab voters.

Captain announced that he would be meeting the Congress vice president Rahul Gandhi soon to submit his recommendations on cabinet formation. The issue of deputy chief minister would also be decided by the party vice president, he added.

He hoped that their government in Punjab would get the support from the BJP led government at Centre in taking forward the development agenda for the state.

Trailing at third position by getting merely 15 seats, the Shiromani Akali Dal (SAD) said that it accepts the mandate given by the people of Punjab and will extend support to the new government for the welfare of the state.

The SAD chief patron and CM Parkash Singh Badal said that his party was ready to extend full cooperation to Captain Amarinder Singh to work for the rights of Punjab. He also announced to meet the Punjab Governor tomorrow submitting his resignation.

SAD president Sukhbir Singh Badal also congratulated Capt Amarinder for the victory and said that their party would co-operate with the new government on all pro-Punjab issues.

The party would take stock of the polls performance soon, he added while stating that the SAD-BJP has got an impressive 30.4 per cent of the vote share.

Even Prime Minister Narendra Modi too called up him to congratulate on his party’s landslide victory in the state assembly elections. Modi spoke to Capt Amarinder on telephone to convey his regards and extend his government’s full support for the development of Punjab.

The Election Commission on Saturday rejected BSP chief Mayawati's claim that electronic voting machines were rigged in the Uttar Pradesh elections and said her demand for a repoll using ballot papers was legally untenable.

The Commission also listed a series of mechanical and electronic measures it takes to prevent tampering of the EVM.

It said the judiciary has also endorsed the use of the machines in successive elections.

"The prescribed administrative process has been fully complied with in Uttar Pradesh and Uttarakhand elections in the presence of representatives of political parties and candidates.

"The Commission has, therefore, not found any merit in your allegations and the prayers made in your letter under reply are not legally tenable," it told Mayawati.

It said although the poll watchdog has offered opportunities more than once to those alleging the temperability of EVM, no one has been able to demonstrate to it that the EVM used in the country's election process can be manipulated or tampered with.

Terming the results as "shocking", Mayawati had said the Election Commission should stop the counting and withhold results and hold fresh polls using traditional paper ballots.

As results and trends went in favour of the BJP in a big way, she called a press conference in a hurried manner and dared Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP chief Amit Shah to ask the poll panel to hold fresh elections in the state "if they have an iota of morality and honesty left in them".

BJP scored a thumping win in the Uttarakhand polls and now everybody is asking one hot question, “Who will become the chief minister?”

BJP fought the election without projecting any leader as the CM face. Congress used to constantly raise the issue of BJP’s chief minister candidate. Without paying any importance to the Congress jibs, the saffron party pumped in all their energy in the polls.

Now the results are out and many leaders are leading the CM’s race. Which includes spiritual leader and former Union Minister Satpal Maharaj, Nainital Member of Parliment Bhagat Singh Koshyari, Trivender Rawat, Prakash Pant.

Satpal Maharaj claims to be leading the race as he has never contested in state assembly polls. He used to fight in parliamentary elections, this time he contested from Chaubattakhal and won comprehensively. The whole process involving Satpal make people believe that he is being pitched for a bigger responsibility.

The name of Bhagat Singh Koshyari, as he played key role in making BJP win from Kumoan, is also in fray.

Senior BJP leaders like Prakash Pant and Trivendra Rawat is also in the race. But, surprisingly the name of a parachute candidate, a top RSS preacher, for the top post is also in circulation.

Two brothers were arrested in Kashmir on Saturday allegedly with demonetised currency of Rs.35 lakh while they were boarding a train.The two men were arrested when they were trying to board a train at Mazhama railway station in Badgam district, police said.

The BJP Parliamentary Board is set to take a decision on who will be the next chief minister of Uttar Pradesh on Sunday as per party president Amit Shah. However, political analysts believe that there are two front runners for the post — UP BJP Chief Keshav Prasad Maurya and Yogi Adityanath. Home Minister Rajnath Singh's name had also come up during the course of the campaign but it is unlikely that he would be relieved by the Centre from his current post of Home Minister.

One of the common factors between both the front runners which also strengthens their claim is the fact that both hail from Eastern part of the state. BJP President Amit Shah in his victory speech especially emphasised on the performance of the party in Eastern UP.

Observers believe that it would be no surprise if the BJP goes for a young face to head the nation's most populous state.

Taking a cue from national president Amit Shah, top BJP leaders were unanimous in stating that BJP provided hope to the poor while others relied on caste based politics.

Keshav Prasad Maurya, 47, who is member of Parliament and president of the state unit of the BJP, has a humble origin. Like Prime Minister Modi, he too sold tea at his father's stall in a village. Maurya is also a member of the RSS and had participated in the Ram Janambhoomi movement. He happens to be the OBC face of the party who was elected from Phulpur Lok Sabha constituency after garnering over 52 per cent votes. Some, however, point out that Maurya is not too popular outside the eastern belt of Allahabad and Varanasi regions.

The name of another MP, Yogi Adityanath, 45, also popped up in the race for the chief minister's post. Born Ajay Singh, he took over as the head priest of Gorakhnath Mutt in Gorakhpur after the death of his father in 2014.

However, Adityanath at one point of time had strained relationship with the saffron party. In December 2006 he organised Virat Hindu Mahasammelan in Gorakhpur to coincide with the BJP's national executive meeting in Lucknow. The reason for his action was understood to be his demand to get hundred party tickets for his nominees for 2007 elections. A compromise was however, reached but a few years later in 2010 Adityanath defied party's stand on Women's Reservation Bill.