‘The Legend of Hanuman's New Season Debuts On October 25

Indian investors have lost over Rs 14 lakh crore in the last two trading sessions as all listed companies' market cap on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) skewed to Rs 461 lakh crore which was earlier Rs 475 lakh crore.

At closing, Sensex was down 808 points or 0.98 per cent at 81,688 and Nifty was down 235 points or 0.93 per cent at 25,014.

M&M, Bajaj Finance, Nestle, Asian Paints, Bharti Airtel, UltraTech Cement, ITC, HUL, Power Grid, HDFC Bank, Reliance, Bajaj Finserv, ICICI Bank and NTPC were the top losers. Infosys, Tech Mahindra, Wipro, Tata Motors, Axis Bank, TCS and SBI were the top gainers.

Selling was also seen in the midcap and smallcap stocks. The Nifty Midcap index closed at 58,747, down 550 points or 0.93 per cent, and the Nifty Smallcap 100 index settled at 18,758, down 193 points or 1.02 per cent.

Among the sectoral indices, Auto, Fin service, pharma, FMCG, metal, realty, energy and services were the major laggards. Only IT and PSU bank indices closed in the red.

India VIX, which is an indicator of market volatility, closed at 14.12, up 7.21 per cent.

According to the market experts, "The bearish sentiment continued as investors are monitoring the escalating conflict in the Middle East and have adopted a sell-on recovery strategy. Crude prices have moved up sharply but may be restricted due to an increase in production from OPEC plus."

"The drag was across sectors led by realty, auto, and FMCG except IT stocks, which gained due to expected benefits from US rate cuts and defensive nature. The pessimism on the market is expected to continue in the near term amidst rising crude prices and fund flows to cheaper markets like China," they added.

The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) sold equities worth Rs 15,243 crore on October 3, while domestic institutional investors bought equities worth Rs 12,914 crore on the same day.

--IANS

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Acting on the complaint of one Meenaketan Chahar, Vigilance sleuths laid a trap to nab Sahoo with the chemichalised notes. Chahar was a contractor engaged in MGNRGA work. 

Earlier, Krushna Sahoo had taken Rs 15,000 as a bribe from him. He further demanded Rs 7,000 to clear his pending bills. This time, Chahar informed the Vigilante. 

The Vigilance is interrogating the arrested Junior Engineer. More information is awaited. 

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After perusing the review petitions, a 7-judge Constitution Bench headed by CJI D.Y. Chandrachud said that “there is no error apparent on the face of the record. No case for review under Order XLVII Rule 1 of the Supreme Court Rules 2013 has been established. The review petitions are, therefore, dismissed.”

In a landmark verdict delivered on August 1, the majority suggested the application of the "creamy layer" principle to the SCs and STs for availing quota benefits, but with a caveat that while providing for sub-classification, the government would not be entitled to reserve 100 per cent seats available for SCs/STs in favour of a particular sub-class to the exclusion of other castes in the List.

In a 6:1 decision, it overturned its 2004 judgment, which had ruled against giving preferential treatment to certain sub-castes within scheduled castes (SCs).

In his detailed opinion, Justice B.R. Gavai said, "When the 9-Judge Bench in Indra Sawhney held that applicability of such a test (creamy layer test) insofar as Other Backward Classes are concerned would advance equality as enshrined in the Constitution, then why such a test should not also be made applicable to the Scheduled Castes and Scheduled Tribes."

"Can a child of IAS/IPS or Civil Service officers be equated with a child of a disadvantaged member belonging to Scheduled Castes, studying in a Gram Panchayat/Zilla Parishad school in a village?" Justice Gavai asked.

Justice Gavai's opinion, supported by Justices Vikram Nath, Pankaj Mithal, and Satish Chandra Sharma, stressed that the government must evolve a policy for identifying the creamy layer even from the SCs and STs so as to exclude them from the benefit of affirmative action.

In 2004, a 5-judge Constitution Bench in E.V. Chinnaiah vs State of Andhra Pradesh case, which now stands overruled, had held that the members of the reserved category groups form a homogeneous class incapable of further regrouping or classification.

Days after the SC ruling in August this year, the Union Cabinet chaired by Prime Minister Narendra Modi held a detailed discussion on the top court’s judgment and said that no provision of the Constitution provided for "creamy layer" within SCs and STs quota.

The Union Information and Broadcasting Minister Ashwini Vaishnaw said that the NDA government was committed towards the provisions of the Constitution and “according to the Constitution given by B.R. Ambedkar, there is no provision for a creamy layer in the SC-ST reservation".

--IANS