During its Q4 FY2018 earnings call, TCS CEO Rajesh Gopinathan had said the companys intention is "to keep capital return close to 80-100 per cent of annual free cash flow".Last year, TCS had undertaken a Rs 16,000-crore mega buyback offer, entailing 5.61 crore shares at a price of Rs 2,850 per equity share.The buyback process had seen Tata Sons tendering over 3.60 crore shares, accounting for 64.2 per cent of the total shares bought back by the company.Other large investors who participated in the buyback were Government of Singapore, Copthall Mauritius Investments Ltd and EuroPacific Growth Fund. For FY2018, TCS returned Rs 26,800 crore to shareholders in both dividends and the buyback.For the full year, TCS net cash from operations amounted to Rs 28,160 crore and free cash flow was Rs 26,360 crore.Share buybacks typically improve earnings per share and return surplus cash to shareholders, while also supporting share price during period of sluggish market condition.Indian IT Orifice plate flowmeter Manufacturers companies have been under pressure to return excess cash on their books to shareholders through generous dividends and buybacks.Many IT firms, including Infosys (Rs 13,000 crore) and HCL Technologies (Rs 3,500 crore) had undertaken buyback schemes last year.

 President Trump arrived late and left early, skipping the session on the environment and climate change, which is anyway not his favourite subject, as he headed for Singapore for his much-awaited summit meeting with North Korean ruler Kim Jong-un on June 12.With the BJP still reeling under the impact of its bypoll losses, its inability to form the government in Karnataka and hectic outreach to allies, the question could be posed whether the Prime Minister had at all needed to attend the summit. Although the SCO constitutes 40 per cent of humanity and 20 per cent of global GDP, the stated agenda was security cooperation, counter-terrorism coordination, economic development and cultural exchanges. Considering the deep faultlines between India, Pakistan and China, it is unimaginable for any serious cooperation in the security and terrorism-related areas to take place. The meeting, however, provided a good opportunity for Mr Modi to engage other leaders attending the summit, considering that even Iran is an observer and President Hassan Rouhani was present.

 Next year, in June 1988, he presented to the UN a nuclear disarmament plan that appeared visionary but was both unrealistic and irrelevant within two years as the Cold War ended, the Soviet Union collapsed and America’s hegemonic predominance for the next two decades commenced.Mr Modi faces such a moment: he needs a new electoral strategy while the world encounters Trumpian disruption. This requires deft balancing between newly emerging polarities, with no clear friends and foes at home or abroad. History will judge the success of Mr Modi’s premiership not by the number of trips abroad or diaspora events or foreign potentates hugged, but whether he safeguarded India’s interests and helped shape a new and fair global order that is Trump-Xi proof. But the Indian electoral clock leaves him little time for that.New Delhi: Indias largest software services firm Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) will consider a proposal to buyback shares at its board meeting to be held later this week."The Board of Directors will consider a proposal for buyback of equity shares of the company, at its meeting to be held on June 15, 2018," TCS said in a BSE filing late last night.The Mumbai-based company, however, did not disclose any further details about the buyback proposal.