International Business
The Shiv Sena has raked up the Belgaum card to trump the proponents of a separate Vidarbha state out of Maharashtra. The saffron party, which is yet to recover from its successive defeats in the Lok Sabha and state Assembly elections, has already reiterated that it will launch an agitation for an undivided Maharashtra. At the same time, the party dared the Congress-led governments at the Centre and the state to take concrete measures for the inclusion of Belgaum (currently in Karnataka) in Maharashtra. The demand is currently pending in the Supreme Court.
Pharmaceutical company Strides Arcolab has launched an anti-swine flu drug.
The political crisis in Andhra Pradesh over the Telangana issue has hit cricket as well and the BCCI is planning to shift the second India-Sri Lanka one-dayer in Visakhapatnam to another venue due to security concerns.
The Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) has extended Sahara"s contract for another six months as the Indian team’s sponsor for the same price the company had paid earlier. Sahara had paid around Rs 1.9 crore per test match and one-day international (ODI), while it will pay Rs 1.5 crore for T20 matches.
Vallee de Vin, maker of the premium Zampa brand of wines, is looking at investing upto Rs 35 crore on expansion as well as verticalisation by offering a range of services centred around the core business of wine manufacturing. Ravi Jain, chief executive officer of the Sanjegaon, Nashik-based vineyard, said that the company has a horizon of upto three years to raise the amount.
Tata Realty and Infrastructure Ltd (TRIL), a 100 per cent subsidiary of Tata Sons Ltd, will invest Rs 3,500 crore in setting up an information technology (IT) Special Economic Zone (SEZ) at Taramani, Chennai. The project will have both commercial and residential projects.
While the growth visibility is reasonably good, the offer leaves no meaningful gains for investors in the near-term.
Delay in rainfall is likely to impact crop size and farmers may shift to short-cycle crops like cotton and castor seeds, an industry official said.
Volatility in share price of a company is inversely proportional to the grade assigned to its initial public offer, as firms with high grade show relatively less fluctuations in share prices, a study said.
The deadline has been extended for the sixth time in a row due to non-allocation of coal linkages for the project
After hesitating for four years, the Himachal Pradesh government has finally gone ahead with power reforms by deciding to unbundle the mammoth Himachal Pradesh State Electricity Board (HPSEB).
Energy-hungry India will from November receive additional liquefied natural gas (LNG) from Qatar, raising imports of the fuel to 7.5 million tons a year.
The ratio of volatile capital flows, comprising cumulative portfolio investments and short-term debt, to India’s forex reserves moved up to 51.1 per cent at the end of March 2009 from 45.4 per cent a year ago. This ratio was 46.2 per cent at the end of March 2007.
The International Monetary Fund has said that Japan would likely wrestle with deflation through 2011 as it struggles to recover from severe recession.
The gems and jewellery sector, hit hard by the global financial meltdown, has begun showing signs of improvement with employment reporting a 3.80 per cent increase during January-March 2009.
India"s handicrafts exports contracted 26 per cent in May at $125 million compared to that in the same month last fiscal, but exporters expressed hope that the worst is probably over.
Petronet LNG, the nation"s largest liquefied natural gas importer, today signed an agreement to import 1.5 million tons of LNG Australia.
Global rating agency Standard & Poor"s today warned that corporate defaults are likely to rise in the Asia-Pacific region over the next year due to contraction in economic output.
The government has uncollected revenue of over Rs 1.24 lakh crore in respect of corporate and income taxes at the end of 2007-08, a Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) report said.
Tata group company, Tata Capital, today announced the introduction of its auto loans at attractive rates.
Tata group owned Jaguar Land Rover (JLR) today said it is recalling 40 Land Rover vehicles from India to fix a technical fault as part of an ongoing global process that started in July.
Natarajan Chandrasekaran (called Chandra by colleagues and friends) will take charge as the managing director and chief executive officer (MD & CEO) of India’s largest information technology services provider, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), from S Ramadorai tomorrow. He’s the third in the line of TCS’ CEOs, after F C Kohli and Ramadorai.
Chief minister, K Rosaiah, has approved allotment of 80 acres of land at Aganampudi village in Visakhapatnam district for the Tata Memorial Centre (TMC) where it proposes to set up its second campus.
Apparel chain Koutons Retail India today said its net profit rose by 18.63 per cent to Rs 15.79 crore in the third quarter ended December 31, 2009 over the same period last fiscal.
While govt banks are offering lower rates, private lenders are dangling higher loan-to-value proposition.
Despite the surge in automobile sales in recent months and new vehicle development programmes of car makers, auto component makers are wary of committing further investments in building new capacities. They have adopted a wait-and-watch attitude to see if the demand sustains. “Component makers are investing with caution and moving in a phased manner. They are not adding capacity in big strides, like a few years ago, but only incrementally,” said Ashok Taneja, president, Shriram Pistons.
Industrialist Rahul Bajaj today said the government should adopt a carrot and stick policy to bring back Indian money stashed in Swiss banks and suggested that identities of account holders should be protected.
Breaking a long dry spell, Uttarakhand and its nearby areas today received rainfall in the plains and snow in the higher reaches of the Himalayas. Experts said the rains, which came after a dry spell of two months, would auger well for the agriculture sector. Anand Sharma, director the metereological department, said light rains had occurred in areas like Tehri, Mukteshwar and Dehra Dun. “The trend may continue for one more day at least in the Kumaon region,” he said.
The Indian economy is expected to bottom out towards end of the calender year, led by recovery in private investments and exports, a report has said.
The group also has plans to spend Rs 50,000 crore on power generation.
India today sought speedy negotiations of reprocessing arrangements, as well as liberalisation of the export licensing procedures, to move forward the Indo-US civilian nuclear deal.
A K Bhattacharya / New Delhi May 20, 2009, 0:11 IST
A day after Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao smoked the peace pipe, New Delhi today said it was in discussion with Beijing for a free trade agreement aimed at breaking the duty barriers for bilateral trade.
Reasons vary from fear-psychosis to retiring debt to growth capital
Expects Rs 10K crore bilateral trade in a decade.
The Orissa government has decided to introduce e-Registration of land transfer replacing the present system of manual registration.
The Orissa government plans to issue identity cards to the artisans in the coir sector and the salt workers. A similar process is currently on for the handicraft artisans.
Supporters of Y S Jaganmohan Reddy today sought to step up the campaign for making him the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh even as the interim incumbent K Rosaiah ruled out the possibility of any division in the party.
The manufacturer of Bell helicopters has offered its assistance to Indian authorities in probing into the crash of the Bell-430 chopper which claimed the lives of Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajashekhar Reddy and four others.
The land acquisition process for the Rs 54,000-crore Posco steel project in Orissa is expected to make some headway soon with the state government showing resolve to expedite the process.
Praja Rajyam Party (PRP) President K Chiranjeevi has appealed to his party MLAs to withdraw their resignations after 11 of his 18 party legislators quit their assembly membership in protest against the Centre"s decision to carve out a separate Telangana state.
V Madhu, principal secretary, infrastructure development department, government of Karnataka said that the government was keen to partner with the railway ministry to expand the network in the state. Incidentally, the rail coverage in Karnataka lags neighbouring Tamil Nadu by a factor of two with the former having only 16 kms of railway lines per 1000 square kilometres compared to Tamil Nadu’s 30 kms.
The Chennai Port Trust is planning to award the construction of its Rs 3,686-crore mega container terminal by March 2010. The proposed terminal will have a capacity of five million twenty foot equivalent units (TEUs) per annum.
Two major ports in Tamil Nadu are planning to set up captive wind farms at a combined investment of around Rs 82 crore.
State run power firm NTPC today said it is looking for long-term supply of coal from overseas market to meet the requirements of its local plants.
Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde today threatened action against companies that do not start work on captive mines within two years of allotment.
The stock finally ended at Rs 141, down 2.5%. Over 1.18 shares were traded on the BSE today.
In a path-breaking development for the tea industry of Assam and West Bengal, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) has offered its remote sensing (RS) and geographical information systems (GIS) facilities to tea gardens in the two states.
Six firms including TCE Consulting Engineers Ltd, Kirloskar Consultants Ltd and Desein Pvt Ltd have submitted bids to Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) for rendering consultancy and services for obtaining environmental clearance and no objection certificate for the 1,000-Mw gas-based power project in the existing premises of Guru Gobind Singh Super Thermal Plant (GGSSTP), in Ropar.
To encourage information sharing, collaboration, and interactivity, the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) and the US Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) have been working jointly to provide consumers and partners with social media tools like widgets, mobile information and online videos.
Ahead of the Copenhagen summit on climate change, India today discussed with France and the UK ways to ensure the success of the event as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh met French President Nicolas Sarkozy and British Premier Gordon Brown here.
The ambience prompted Congress President Sonia Gandhi, who inaugurated the 1.44 million square feet mega-structure on Tuesday, to joke that she wouldn’t mind “bunking” party politics, at least temporarily.
The country"s largest carmaker, Maruti Suzuki, today said it expects sales to grow around 10 per cent in 2010.
Seema Sindhu / New Delhi January 7, 2010, 0:24 IST
As Tata Motors gears up for test production, it is targeting 200 Nanos daily from its Sanand factory by March 2010, according to vendors.
The designer Nano will hit the streets soon. The world’s cheapest car has generated interest of designers like Dilip Chhabria and former Maruti Suzuki India chief Jagdish Khattar, both of whom are working on a re-designed avatar of the car.
The Indian stocks trading on the American bourses saw a collective value erosion of $7.5 billion last week, with copper producer Sterlite Industries accounting for nearly one-third of this loss.
As the government mulls hiving off Oil and Natural Gas Corp’s (ONGC’s) Assam oilfields, state-owned Oil India Ltd (OIL) has said it is willing to take over the assets and can run the fields more efficiently than the current owner.
Helped by cash subsidy from the government, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation Ltd (HPCL), India’s third-largest refiner, managed to report a net profit of Rs 31.4 crore in the quarter ended December 2009. It posted a net loss of Rs 422 crore in the corresponding quarter last year.
In a major setback to cash-strapped infrastructure company Maytas Properties, promoted by former Satyam Computer founder B Ramalinga Raju’s family, a local court has passed an order barring it from using land as collateral for loans.
UPA was facing criticism from some states that the various schemes launched by it were for political advantage
Taking a lead from his mother and UPA Chairperson Sonia Gandhi in practising austerity, Congress leader Rahul Gandhi today travelled to Ludhiana in the chair car of Shatabdi Express.
Railway Minister Mamata Banerjee has taken initiative to ensure that cricket fans in India could watch all Twenty20 ICC World Cup matches in UK which is being telecast on ESPN Star Sports (ESS).
The proposed helipad atop ‘Seawind’, Mukesh Ambani’s residence in south Mumbai, has got clearance from the Maharashtra Coastal Zone Management Authority (MCZMA), a senior official said today.
Anil Ambani group firm Reliance Money has exited financial services firm Wall Street Finance through sale of its entire 36.8 per cent stake in the company.
The government has allocated Rs 1,740 crore to expand educational and economic opportunities for the disadvantaged section of the minorities through various schemes, Rajya Sabha was informed today.
Beijing has threatened to ban import of seafood and other food products from India if New Delhi continues to restrict import of milk products from China, the government informed the Lok Sabha today.
India has been successful in phasing out ozone depleting substances (ODS) like chlorofluorocarbons (CFCs) 17 months ahead of the targeted date, said Union Minister for Environment & Forests, Jairam Ramesh, while addressing a conference to observe International Ozone Day here today.
India has said that developed countries should "not expect miracles" at the key Copenhagen climate summit in December and the goals sought for emission controls should be more "realistic".
Disgraced former Haryana DGP SPS Rathore today moved the Punjab and Haryana High Court challenging a sessions court order denying him anticipatory bail in two fresh FIRs involving serious criminal charges against him in the Ruchika Girhotra molestation case.
Mobile telephony service provider Aircel is taking the philanthropic path. While most brands and advertisers offered discounts this festive season, Aircel came out with a 35-second corporate social responsibility TV campaign that urged youths to donate their unused mobile handsets to old people.
Business Standard / New Delhi November 18, 2009, 0:13 IST
ADAG will provide help in production and distribution in India.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee released two ‘Bhabha Centenary Commemorative Coins’ at the international conference on ‘Peaceful Uses of Atomic Energy-2009’ in the capital’s Vigyan Bhawan. He handed over the first set of coins — one of Rs 10 and the other of Rs 100 — that were set in a black plaque to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Singh, who has been RBI Governor and understands everything there is to money, asked “Are these legal tender?”. No, Mukherjee replied, they cannot be used by the common man since they are only for commemorative purposes, “but if one keeps these coins for a hundred years and then sells it to coin collectors, one can make a fortune!”
Amid reports about Mumbai Police Crime Branch Chief Rakesh Maria"s offer to resign if Home Ministry does not clarify allegations levelled against him by Vinita Kamte, the slain IPS officer Ashok Kamte"s widow today said she stands by each and every word in the book written by her.
A Taliban insurgency and the war in neighbouring Afghanistan have put Pakistan"s nuclear arsenal at risk giving rise to a "troubling" situation, an arms control expert who served as former US President George W Bush"s national security adviser has said.
As government mulls hiving off Oil and Natural Gas Corporation"s (ONGC) Assam oilfields, state-owned Oil India has said it is willing to take over the assets and can run the fields more efficiently than that the current owner.
Unitech Ltd, the country’s second-largest developer, posted a 29 per cent increase in its net profit for the December quarter, on the back of improved home bookings. Unitech registered a consolidated net profit of Rs 176 crore in the quarter, compared to Rs 136 crore in the corresponding quarter the previous year.
The government didn"t plan to induct any strategic investors in weak public sector banks (PSBs) and would not trim its holding in state-owned banks to below 51 per cent, a senior finance ministry official said on Tuesday.
Stock markets recovered sharply after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised the cash reserve ratio (CRR) for banks by 75 basis points and kept key interest rates unchanged. Short-covering in banking and real estate stocks, along with a rise in European markets and US index futures, also boosted sentiment.
BCCI almost doubles base price; stiffer cut-off for bidders.
The Walt Disney Co and Hong Kong"s government have reached a deal to expand the territory"s Disneyland theme park at a cost of about $465 million, officials announced today.
Anguished over delays in procurement and supply of military equipment, Defence Minister A K Antony today urged foreign vendors, including those from Russia and Israel, to stick to deadlines.
Russia is considering buying up to $10 billion worth of International Monetary Fund (IMF) bonds to help boost the institution"s resources, the country"s finance minister said today.
The Kathalguri Tea Estate in the Dooars, is now closed. Situated 40 km from Jalpaiguri, on the India-Bhutan border, it was a big garden with more than 1,200 acres of plantation and 1,479 workers. The annual output of the garden used to be 12 million kg of processed tea and sources in the Dooars Branch of the Indian Tea Association say it could have yielded up to 16 million kg of tea if it had been run properly..
To buy from Thailand, Vietnam; not to import wheat as it has surplus stock.
Kirtika Suneja / October 23, 2009, 1:09 IST
BCCI to partner Google India for the venture.
Business Standard / New Delhi October 19, 2009, 0:49 IST
Koushik Chatterjee, chief financial officer, Tata Steel, said the $500 million GDR issue got a good response across the globe.
From the moment I left Yale and started working for Goldman Sachs, I’ve felt uneasy interacting with those who don’t.
With bond yields hardening, bankers say they will not be able to look to their trading rooms for high profits.
FinMin seeks 5-yr growth road map from banks to assess their capital needs.
With two Deputy Governor posts falling vacant, the Reserve Bank has reallocated portfolios and Governor D Subbarao would handle the monetary policy department directly.
The government needs to provide an augmented fiscal deficit data in the budget to reflect the burden of off-budget items, including oil and fertiliser bonds on the exchequer, suggested a RBI Committee.
News Corporation is planning a sweeping shake up of its Star Asian television operations, including a sharp cut in jobs in Hong Kong and the rest of the region, the Financial Times said today.
Despite Bollywood icon Amitabh Bachchan anchoring the third season of big-ticket reality show Bigg Boss on Colors, data from aMap, the overnight ratings agency, showed that the launch episode aired on October 4 generated an average television rating point (TRP) of just 3.
Industrial conglomerate General Electric is considering the sale of its 51 per cent stake in NBC Universal to America"s leading cable operator Comcast, says a media report.
Reliance Industries (RIL) , the country"s most valued company, today said the Bombay High Court has approved merger of group firm Reliance Petroleum (RPL) with the company.
Andhra Pradesh will seek financial assistance, including an additional Rs 2000 crore under NREGA, from Centre to meet the drought situation prevailing in the state.
Dissatisfied with the way NREGA is being implemented, the Centre has directed the states to ensure that the rural job guarantee scheme is run properly and transparently.
Indian stocks trading on the American bourses added nearly $3.6 billion to their market capitalisation, with copper producer Sterlite and private sector lender HDFC Bank accounting 70 per cent of the total gains.
“Consumer wants can have bizarre, frivolous, or even immoral origins, and an admirable case can still be made for a society that seeks to satisfy them. But the case cannot stand if it is the process of satisfying wants that creates the wants.”
Essar Steel has approached the government to denotify a sector-specific Special Economic Zone developed by it in Hazira, Gujarat, as this would enable the company to sell the produce also locally.
Adventure tourism operators in Uttarakhand are up in arms against the state forest department for its move to withdraw lease permits for the Ganga beach.
- Getting rid of government controls - For the risk-takers - High on expectations - Commodity to the rescue - Policy to guide infra growth - Betting on bonds
McKinsey, RBS postpone placements by three to six months
In what should come as a huge respite for Common Admission Test (CAT) candidates, the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) have hinted that the registration fee for the computer-based test this academic year will not be as high as similar tests like GMAT (Graduate Management Aptitude Test, for admission to business schools overseas).
The Bangalore Electricity Supply Company (Bescom) has caught the fancy of students of the HEC School of Management, Paris, who are planning to prepare a case study of the same in association with students from the Indian Institute of Management - Bangalore (IIM-B). The students were in Bangalore as part of the first year of the HEC IIM-B Exchange Programme (HIEP).
With power situation improving following good rains, Karnataka minister for energy K S Eshwarappa today said urban areas would get 22 hours of supply a day from August one, while load-shedding in rural ones would be to the extent of 14 hours. In Bangalore, the Bangalore Electricity Supply company (Bescom) has said it would make all efforts to provide 24-hour power supply, he told reporters here. Rural areas would get power supply for five hours in case of single-phase and five hours for irrigation purpose (IP sets) which means they would face load-shedding for 14 hours.
Indian industry is of the view that the proposed Goods and Services Tax (GST) will be beneficial for the economy, but the deadline of April 1, 2010, is not realistic, a leading consulting firm said in its survey.
Pearson, the British-based education and education technology company, which recently picked up a stake worth $30 million (around Rs 150 crore) in Educomp Solutions’ vocational business and online tutoring firm, TutorVista, is leveraging these tie-ups to increase its India footprint.
People are nervous. A DTC bus had stopped near an under-construction Metro line, near Nehru Place in the capital. Nervous passengers asked the driver to move on, saying, ‘It’s a metro line, let’s not take a chance’.
Three years ago, Officer’s Choice was selling just five million cases a year and its market share was around 10 per cent in the regular whisky segment.
Allied Blenders and Distillers today said its heritage whisky brand, Officer"s Choice, has crossed the 10 million cases mark to become the fastest growing whisky brand in the country clocking a compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) of 31 per cent over the last three years.
The country’s burgeoning mutual fund industry is expected to see its assets growing by 29 per cent annually in the next five years, with high household savings rate and low retail penetration attracting foreign asset managers, a report has said.
Excise collections for April have been badly hit, resulting the fiscal deficit touching 16 per cent of target in the very first month itself, which could douse expectations of interest rate cuts.
Castigated by CAG for stepping away from protocol in releasing over Rs 50,000 crore meant for welfare schemes, the government is proposing electronic surveillance of flow of funds earmarked for flagship schemes.
Outlay on setting up new lines, gauge conversion down by 11.55 per cent.
Micro-blogging site Twitter is close to securing $100 million funding from about seven investors, a move which will make it a billion-dollar entity, says a media report.
Mysore became the first city in the country to have a bus stand modernised under the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Reconstruction Mission (JNNURM) today.
The Textiles Ministry is pushing for amendments in the Drugs and Cosmetics Act to ensure that quality standards are set for new medical textiles used in products like baby diapers, contact lenses and surgical gloves to promote their sales.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee holds a couple of Master of Arts degrees, but banker Chanda Kochhar rates him as a great financial engineer for designing the government"s borrowings taking care not to hurt the credit needs of the industry.
BJP President Rajnath Singh today said the UPA government should not put the onus of fighting price rise and drought-like conditions prevailing in the country on the state governments as the latter had limited resources.
Unhappy with the way the National Rural Health Mission has been implemented by states, Union Health Minister Ghulam Nabi Azad has said the flagship scheme was not going in the right direction and the state governments should equally "share the burden".
State-run Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) today said it is losing more than Rs 4 a litre on selling petrol and over Rs 2 per litre on diesel.
Concerned over the impact of deficient rainfall on agricultural productivity, the government today said it would stop all exports of non-basmati rice and wheat. This was announced by Union Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar in the Rajya Sabha.
APEC trade ministers began meeting here today to discuss ways of clinching a global liberalisation deal in 2010 with signs that major recession-hit economies may be on the mend.
Gartner, Inc. has evaluated and highlighted technologies that will have an impact on Indian enterprises as they look at increased technology adoption to support growth and competitive differentiation. The Gartner Hype Cycle for ICT in India 2009 is the company’s most comprehensive to date, featuring 31 technologies and topics such as massive array of idle disks (MAID), fibre channel over ethernet (FCoE), video telepresence in India, x86 server virtualisation, and software as a service (SaaS) in India.
The government is considering to divest stake in four PSUs -- NMDC, KIOCL, MOIL and RINL -- administered by the steel ministry, as part of a broader plan to mobilise resources to meet their funding needs.
The Indian business process outsourcing (BPO) industry is following in the footsteps of information technology service firms, increasing its global footprint as it eyes bigger and more complex work from clients.
Board, audit panel to meet on September 4.
The Planning Commission approved the annual plan outlay for Uttarakhand for the year 2009-10 at Rs 5,574.7 crore.
Ritchie Bros Auctioneers, a Canada-based industrial auctioneer, is formalising plans to make an incremental investment of $100 million (approximately Rs 490 crore) for setting up six permanent industrial equipment auction sites in various cities across India over the next five years.
Dish TV has advanced nearly 2% to Rs 44. The stock has touched a high of Rs 45 and a low of Rs 43 during the day. The counter saw trades of 2.56 million shares as against its two-week average quantity of 3.8 million.
The high level of pre-paid churn in an increasingly competitive market is worrying.
Stock markets pared early gains today and ended in the red owing to subdued Asian cues.
Tata Motors has threatened to scrap its plan to launch Vista electric cars in the UK if it does not receive a £10 million loan from the British government soon, The Observer reported today.
Until lions have their own historians, the history of the hunt will always glorify the hunter —African proverb
Telecom major Airtel today said it has achieved 1 million subscribers in Sri Lanka in a record 171 days of launching services, making its subsidiary Bharti Airtel Lanka the fastest growing service provider in the Island nation.
The government proposal to reduce the promoters" stake in listed companies to 75 per cent may result in 180 companies offloading part of their shares in the market, as per a study done by merchant bankers.
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