India Cements shares tank 6.5% on SC panel verdict.

Shares of India Cements saw huge selling pressure Tuesday, falling 6.5 percent, after its franchisee Chennai Super Kings was suspended from IPL for a period of two years.

Reversing its positive opening, the stock fell sharply by 6.31 percent to Rs 88.25 on BSE.

At NSE, India Cements' scrip tumbled 6.47 percent to Rs 88.15.

Chennai Super Kings, the most consistent team in IPL, and Rajasthan Royals were today suspended from the cash-rich cricket league for two years for betting activities of their key officials Gurunath Meiyappan and Raj Kundra during the 2013 season.

The punishment was handed down by a Supreme Court- appointed three-member committee headed by former CJI R M Lodha which held that betting activities of the two officials, Meiyappan, considered the face of CSK owners, and Kundra, co-owner of Rajasthan Royals, have brought the game of cricket, BCCI and IPL into disrepute.

The committee was constituted by the Supreme Court in January this year with its terms of reference being to announce the quantum of punishment against Meiyappan, Kundra and the two franchisees -- India Cements Ltd, owner of CSK and Jaipur IPL, owner of Rajasthan Royals.

Under the rules of IPL, the franchise of a team can be cancelled if a team official indulges in any act that brings the game to disrepute. 

Forex reserves at 'reasonable' level: RBI

 Reserve Bank Deputy Governor S S Mundra on Tuesday assured that India's foreign exchange reserves are at 'reasonable' level.

"Till today, there has been no discovery regarding what is the (forex reserves) level where we can say we don't need more. But yes, our reserves are at a reasonable level now," Mundra told reporters here on the sidelines of an event.

In the week to July 3, the reserves declined by USD 704 million to USD 354.517 billion. It touched a lifetime high of USD 355.46 billion in the fortnight ended June 19.

During last fiscal, the RBI added USD 61.4 billion to the reserves against USD 15.5 billion in the previous fiscal. In the first two months of this financial year, it has already mopped up USD 8 billion to the buffer.

Mundra said accumulation of reserves involves cost aspects and further build-up of reserves will depend on events in the global arena.

When asked whether the inflation trajectory as indicated by the recently released data was on the expected line, Mundra said, "Our inflation trajectory was outlined in the last monetary policy announcement. Wait for the next monetary policy to see how it has progressed".

Retail inflation surged to eight-month high of 5.4 percent in June, from 5.01 percent in May.

Mundra said the RBI is working towards issuing licenses to small finance and payments banks.

He said banks should not take customer service only for meeting the compliance or filing annual certificates.

"We have already issued a circular that each bank should appoint a chief customer service officer, popularly known as banking ombudsman. And, soon we will be issuing the operational guidelines that how these people are going to be appointed," he said.

Mundra further said the office of banking ombudsman, which is an RBI outfit, received around 85,000 complaints last year.

"The single largest segment of complaint was non-compliance with Banking Codes and Standards Board of India (BCSBI), at 29 per cent," he said.

BCSBI is an independent and autonomous institution to monitor and ensure that its standards adopted by the banks are adhered to while delivering their services.

The second largest number of complaints came from ATMs, debit and credit cards-related issues which was around 21 percent. 

Mundra said the complaints came from e-savvy customers or mostly from the urban and metro areas, and those in rural and semi-urban areas are the silent sufferers.

"During this year, we intent to do some proactive camps in semi-urban areas, essentially, to get feedback from the public and to know the difficulties they are facing," he added.

He said the current RBI regulations are equipped to deal with any issues emerging from the digital products launched by banks.

"...But this is an area where one can always learn and can always evolve. As we move further and we face any new issues, we will look into it," Mundra said.

He said last week's announcement by RBI to sell government bonds under open market operations was a usual practise and further OMO will depend on the market conditions.

On the recent loan rescheduling under the new 5/25 scheme -- like Bhushan Steel's Rs 30,000 crore loan earlier this month -- Mundra said, the central bank is reviewing some of them.

"We are reviewing some of those transactions. We have called in the bankers," he added. 

Sensex down by 57 points in early trade on rate cut worries.
 The benchmark BSE Sensex dropped by 57.43 points to 27,903.76 in early trade due to selling in oil, IT and auto stocks even as global markets were firm after the Greece bailout deal.

The retail inflation surging to eight-month high of 5.4 percent in June dampened the hopes of rate cut by the Reserve Bank, brokers said.

The 50-issue Nifty of the NSE fell by 11.65 points, or 0.14 percent to 8,448 points in early trade.

The 30-share barometer, which was up by 33.85 points in pre-trade, dropped by 57 points as bluechips like Tata Motors, HDFC, Reliance and ONGC declined. The gauge had gained 387.53 points in past two sessions.

Among major losers, Tata Motors fell by 1.78 percent, HDFC by 0.76 percent while Hindalco, Reliance, ONGC, TCS, Infosys and ICICI Bank dropped up to 1 percent.

Among other Asian markets, China's Shanghai Composite Index rose 0.73 percent, while Japan's Nikkei was up by 1.50 percent in early trade.

The US Dow Jones Industrial Average ended 1.222 percent higher in yesterday's trade after Greece reached a bailout deal with its international creditors.