The US Food and Drug Administration warned Novartis AG last week after the Swiss firm was found in violation of manufacturing practices last year at two of its India drug-making plants, Novartis said.

Facebook chief executive and founder Mark Zuckerberg said Wednesday he believes India will be crucial to getting "the next billion online" and helping to alleviate poverty.

Apple said Tuesday that surging iPhone sales helped propel a sharp rise in quarterly profits, as the tech giant delivered a record 48 million of the smartphones.

The Federal Reserve is expected to keep interest rates unchanged on Wednesday and may struggle to convince sceptical investors it can tighten monetary policy before the end of the year in the face of US and global economic headwinds.

EARLIER this month, an elderly homeless woman died in a crowded Hong Kong McDonald's restaurant. No-one noticed her for seven hours. The BBC's Juliana Liu spent a night in one 24-hour restaurant to meet the people the city has dubbed "McRefugees".

SINGAPORE remains the easiest place to do business, while developing countries stepped up their pace of business-friendly reforms in the past year, according to a World Bank report published Tuesday.

British drugmaker GlaxoSmithKline on Wednesday posted rising third-quarter earnings and revenues, buoyed by sales of HIV drugs and its asset swap deal with Swiss peer Novartis.

Volkswagen has been pushed into loss by the mounting cost of its emissions scandal.

A boy was killed in a wall collapse of a madrasa in Ghoraghat upazila of the district yesterday afternoon.

Facebook shares lifted Friday to an all-time high, crossing $100 for the first time, during a rally in the technology sector on Wall Street.

A programme to attract gold owned by households into a bank deposit scheme to monetise the precious metal could be ready in weeks, India's Prime Minister Narendra Modi said on Sunday, a step aimed at cutting expensive imports.

The village sprang up in a matter of days -- neat lines of bright yellow houses that looked like something a child might have built with Lego bricks.

Toshiba is preparing to sell its image sensor operations to Sony in a deal estimated at around $165 million. The move would mark

Talks between Greece and its international lenders on implementing required reforms are "on the right track" despite a few sticking

China cuts its one-year benchmark interest rate by 0.25 percentage points to 4.35%.

Chinese President Xi Jinping promised "no hard landing" for the world's second largest economy despite its slowdown, during a state visit to Britain focused bolstering business and trade ties.

Japanese Prime Minister Shinzo Abe on Thursday left for a week-long tour to Mongolia and five Central Asian nations, eyeing billions of dollars in business deals as China boosts its influence in the resource-rich region.

Leading Chinese smartphone maker Xiaomi is aiming for a future as an Internet company with the potential to cross swords with titans such as Alibaba.

Festive demand for gold in India got off to a tepid start, with local prices still at a heavy discount to the global benchmark, a bad sign for a period when buying is typically strong.

Twelve-year-old Myat Noe dashes between tables taking orders and sweeping up cigarette butts, working for around a dollar a day in Myanmar, which has one of the worst records for child labour in the world.