Sensex, Nifty continue to be sluggish; banks slump

Moneycontrol Bureau11:55 am Bihar polls turn out:  Around nine percent turnout was recorded in the first two hours of polling in 50 Assembly constituencies of six districts of Bihar on Wednesday. "Around 9.12 percent turnout has been reported from 50 Assembly constituencies in the third phase. Polling is peaceful in the state as we have not received information of any untoward information so far," Additional Chief Electoral Officer (ACEO) R Lakshmanan told agency.

Polling is currently underway in six districts of Saran, Vaishali, Nalanda, Patna, Bhojpur and Buxar in the third phase. As per hourly EC bulletin, Saran recorded 10.29 percent turnout, Vaishali recorded 13.32 percent, Nalanda 8.80 percent, Patna 7.41 percent, Bhojpur 6.61 percent and Buxar 9.41 percent.

11:45 am Sebi: To ensure better compliance with corporate governance norms, Sebi may expand list of companies required to submit annual 'business responsibility report' to the market regulator, to the country's top 500 corporates. Presently, the business responsibility reports (BRs) are mandatory for top 100-listed entities based on market capitalisation at BSE and NSE. "As part of corporate governance efforts we are now looking at expanding this universe say from top 100 to top 500 companies to submit business responsibility reports," Sebi chairman U K Sinha said here.

"We hope to take a decision in this regard very soon," he said at a Ficci conference on Indian capital markets. The BRs are submitted by the companies along with annual reports and indicate, among others, the number of complaints related to child labour, forced labour, involuntary labour and sexual harassment during a financial year.