New Delhi, June 27: Amid plans to hold two protests against imposition of Hindi in schools in Maharashtra, senior Shiv Sena (UBT) leader Sanjay Raut on Friday announced that there would be only one demonstration and the two Thackeray brothers would participate in it together.

Even though there has been no formal announcement on this till now by the Maharashtra Navnirman Sena (MNS) or the Shiv Sena (UBT), but Sanjay Raut’s post on X, in which he has also put up a picture of the two cousins together with a photograph of the late Bal Thackeray in the background, has fuelled speculation of rapprochement between Uddhav and Raj Thackeray and the possibility that they might hold the protest jointly.

Earlier, close to Raj Thackeray’s birthday Uddhav Thackeray had also hinted at a rapprochement between them but nothing concrete had come out of it.

On Thursday MNS chief Raj Thackeray announced the change in morcha date to July 5 instead of July 6 to protest the imposition of Hindi in Marathi and English-medium schools for classes 1 to 5 in Maharashtra.

This was done as the auspicious Ashadhi Ekadashi falls on July 6 when the devotees fast for the day and walk all the way to Pandharpur to pay tribute to the presiding deity Vitthal.

Significantly, Uddhav Thackeray on Thursday extended his party’s support to a morcha organised on July 7 in Mumbai by The Tribhasha Sutra (Three language formula) committee.

Raut’s post is significant because even though both the brothers and their parties had declared that they would not allow the imposition of Hindi, they had announced two different protests.

Insiders from both the parties said that efforts are on to fight as one, in order to avoid a split in the Marathi speaking people opposing the imposition of Hindi.

Now, it remains to be seen whether Sanjay Raut’s post was his own initiative or whether it had the blessings of the leaders of both the parties and the two estranged brothers have finally decided to come together for a cause close to their heart and fight for it jointly.

New Delhi, June 27: GIFT International Financial Services Centre (IFSC) should be developed as a prominent gateway for global capital flows into India to feed the needs of high-growth sectors over the next two decades, Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman has stressed.

She underscored the importance of developing GIFT City into a dynamic smart city, equipped with integrated, modern, and sustainable living infrastructure, and stated that establishing such world-class amenities is essential to attracting top-tier talent from both domestic and international markets.

During her visit to IFSC at GIFT City in Gandhinagar, the Finance Minister reviewed the progress and interacted with key market participants.

While commending the GIFT IFSC’s role in enhancing India’s global financial standing and acknowledging its impact on reshaping international financial engagement by Indian companies and individuals, she stressed on fast-tracking the reforms in next few years itself, to enable growth to align with the vision of ‘Viksit Bharat’ by 2047

Reiterating GIFT IFSC’s core mandate for focussing on bringing foreign capital into India through structured and well-regulated channels, FM Sitharaman also laid emphasis on the importance of Indian financial sector regulators to take initiatives for identifying aspirational needs of GIFT IFSC in this direction.

The Finance Minister indicated that the twin advantages of India pertaining to technology and availability of a very large domestic market and its financing needs must be leveraged to gain competitive advantage.

Given India’s status as a major gold importer, she stressed on the need to scale up operations at the India International Bullion Exchange (IIBX) by expanding stakeholder participation and strengthening price discovery, thereby positioning GIFT IFSC as a global bullion hub.

She also interacted with MDs and CEOs, chairpersons, founders and CFOs from banking, insurance, capital markets, funds industry, finance companies, payment services providers, aircraft and ship leasing firms, fintech firms, ITFS platform providers and foreign universities.

Mumbai, June 27: The Indian benchmark indices opened higher on Friday amid a ‘great’ India-US trade deal possibility, as buying was seen in the PSU bank and IT sectors in the early trade.

At around 9.15 am, Sensex was trading 150.40 points or 0.18 per cent up at 83,906.27 while the Nifty added 54.50 points or 0.21 per cent at 25,603.

US President Donald Trump has hinted at a “very big” trade deal with India, weeks after a team of negotiators from the two countries held four-day closed-door talks on the agreement. Addressing the ‘Big Beautiful Event’ at the White House, Trump said he has a “great deal” with India.

According to analysts, reports that the July 9th US tariff deadline is likely to be extended are also positive for the market sentiment.

“High inflation, aggressive monetary tightening by the central banks, geopolitical events including some wars and conflicts, and unprecedented tariff threats, did pose some threats to the rally, but the bull market climbed all these walls of worries. It appears that the rally is unlikely to be impacted by the approaching July 9th tariff deadline,” said Dr. VK Vijayakumar, Chief Investment Strategist, Geojit Investments Ltd.

Nifty Bank was down 80.25 points or 0.14 per cent at 57,126.45 in early trade. The Nifty Midcap 100 index was trading at 59,505.65 after adding 278.25 points or 0.47 per cent. Nifty Smallcap 100 index was at 18,920.30 after climbing 114.70 points or 0.61 per cent.

“Technically, the inside day pattern from two days ago was proof that a trending move was coming, and we got one yesterday with more than 5 stocks advancing for every stock that fell in the Nifty,” said Akshay Chinchalkar, Head of Research, Axis Securities.

The thrust may have more to go though, with the 25,700-25,800 zone the next immediate upside hurdle, and while tactical support at 25,000 is holding, bulls will be optimistic about getting there and beyond sooner than later, he added.

Meanwhile, in the Sensex pack, L&T, Tata Steel, SBI, Tata Motors, NTPC and HCL Tech were the top gainers. While, HDFC Bank, Bajaj Finserv, Kotak Mahindra Bank and Bajaj Finance were the top losers.

Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net buyers on June 26, purchasing equities worth Rs 12,594.38 crore. Meanwhile, domestic institutional investors (DIIs) remained sellers, selling equities worth Rs 195.23 crore.

In the Asian markets, China, Bangkok, Seoul and Hong Kong were trading in red, whereas only Japan was trading in green.

In the last trading session, Dow Jones in the US closed at 43,386.84, up 404.41 points, or 0.94 per cent. The S&P 500 ended with a gain of 48.86 points, or 0.80 per cent at 6,141.02 and the Nasdaq closed at 20,167.91, up 194.36 points, or 0.97 per cent.