216: Top News Podcast: Govt says all Indian students stuck in Ukraine's Sumy evacuated; Paytm, shares hit fresh low; RBI launches UPI123Pay and more

All Indian students stranded in Sumy have now been evacuated, Union Minister Hardeep Singh Puri said on Tuesday. He tweeted that all the students who were stuck in the Ukrainian city of Sumy have been safely moved to Poltova in buses.

The development comes as Ukraine and Russia agreed to one evacuation corridor in Sumy, which has seen sustained Russian attacks and airstrikes in recent days.

Apart from the latest on the Russia-Ukraine crisis, in this edition of CNBCTV18.com’s Top News Podcast, Kanishka Sarkar shares the latest on assembly elections, stock market, NSE co-location scam, and more.

The market snapped its four-day losing streak and ended in the green, giving up initial losses. Sensex rose 581.3 points to end at 53,424.1 and Nifty50 settled at 16,013.5, up 150.3 points from its previous close. Financial and IT stocks gained whereas metal and select oil & gas stocks lost. Investors globally however remained cautious tracking newsflow on the Russia-Ukraine war.

Paytm shares, however, hit a fresh low during the day and plunged more than 65 percent below their issue price in just four months of listing. The stock slipped 2.8 percent from its previous close to an all-time low of Rs 732.35. It ended the day 1.9 percent lower at Rs 739.

On the trade front, government sources told PTI, India may consider alternative payment mechanisms for exporters if the Russia-Ukraine conflict continues for a long time and key trade sectors such as gems and jewellery face a problem in international cash transfer.

Meanwhile, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has launched a Unified Payments Interface (UPI) UPI123Pay for feature phones and a 24X7 helpline for digital payments platform DigiSaathi. This means people who do not have a smartphone or internet connection will also be able to make digital payments.

RBI Governor Shaktikanta Das said UPI123Pay will help achieve financial inclusion. He said the platform makes facilities under UPI accessible to that section of society that was so far excluded from the digital payment landscape.

In Goa, a day after the exit polls predicted a hung Assembly in Goa, hectic political activities have begun in the state with the Congress focusing on keeping its flock together and plans to shift all its candidates to a resort, a senior party leader said.

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