Public Company
A stream of mourners lined up before the CPI-M headquarters and the Indira Bhavan, official residence of Jyoti Basu, here to pay their last respect to the departed leader as West Bengal observes a two-day state mourning beginning today.
Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh today said as his resignation from key posts was not yet accepted by Mulayam Singh Yadav, he would not be able to actively participate in party-related issues.
Senior Samajwadi Party leader Amar Singh today ruled out withdrawal of his resignation from party posts, saying he would "not slog" for the organisation the way he used to.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) is planning to make the one-second pulse a mandatory tariff option for all operators, a move that will benefit consumers by potentially reducing call charges and adding transparency to their tariff plans.
Sical Logistics, engaged in port handling services, today said it has entered into an agreement with Japan"s Mitsui O S K Lines to form a joint venture company to operate the automotives yard at the Ennore Port near Chennai.
The markets have extended losses in the last few minutes. The Sensex is now down 54 points at 17,561. The Nifty is down 15 points at 5,248.
Aditi Phadnis / New Delhi December 12, 2009, 0:15 IST
Aditi Phadnis / New Delhi October 3, 2009, 0:48 IST
The Congress’ ‘outside supporter,’ Samajwadi Party (SP), joined the Left protest against the disinvestment policy of the UPA government in the Lok Sabha. The Congress-led UPA also showed aggression. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee told CPI(M) leader Basudeb Acharya, “Thank god we didn’t follow your policies. Otherwise, we would have occupied your position instead of leading the country today.” The Congress secured a record 206 seats in the 15th Lok Sabha while the CPI(M) recorded its lowest ever tally of just 16 seats.
Asian stocks rose, giving the MSCI Asia Pacific Index its biggest advance in two weeks, as the Group of 20 nations agreed on steps to shore up the financial system, while merger speculation boosted technology shares.
Signs of a deepening recession in the US, Japan and Europe have prompted investors to pull money out of developed-market stocks.
The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), probing the Satyam Computer Services fraud case, is currently in the process of preparing Letters Rogatory, which would be vetted by the Ministry of External Affairs before being presented in the court.
The All India Regional Rural Bank Employees" Association (AIRRBEA) on Sunday demanded the de-linking of the Regional Rural Banks (RRBs) from the commercial banks sponsoring them.
With Indian Railways having developed two automobile wagon rakes (trains), with a holding capacity of almost 550 cars each for transport of vehicles from sites closer to their manufacturing bases to their final destination, auto manufacturers say they look forward to increasingly using this form of transport for their products.
Overseas borrowing by India Inc declined by around 9 per cent in November to $2.35 billion compared to the previous month.
Business Standard / New Delhi February 1, 2010, 0:54 IST
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today tightened the guidelines for external commercial borrowings (ECBs) by withdrawing relaxations provided to companies to raise money from overseas debt markets, a move that will contain surge of capital flows.
With an aim provide innovative products, services and solutions to the rural poor, Villgro, a social enterprise incubator is set to launch "Wantrapreneur 09" Business Plan Competition, which challenges entrepreneurs to come out with innovative technology, solutions (products / services) with direct application at the rural level.
National carrier Air India today said its passengers bookings in the last two days have regained the 26,000-28,000 level it had registered before the five-day stir by its senior pilots.
Nilanjana S Roy / New Delhi October 6, 2009, 0:25 IST
Public sector telcos BSNL and MTNL together have Rs 41,471 crore cash on hand as of September 2009, the government said today.
Allcargo Global Logistics today said it will raise Rs 100.97 crore by issuing debentures to Black Entities (Investors) on preferential basis.
New Year resolutions are common. Every year, during this time, a lot of people decide that they would do a number of things to improve their lifestyle, careers and finances. However, many times things do go awry and the best-laid plans fail to fructify.
The government today said it will soon remove the ambiguity concerning change in the national status of leading lenders like ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank following the revised FDI guidelines issued in February 2009.
Disinvestment plans likely to get delayed in 21 out of 43 listed companies
The date for rolling out the Goods and Services Tax could be announced on January 8, the Chairman of the Empowered Committee on State Finance Ministers, Asim Dasgupta, said today.
Towns and cities, witnessing a growing population and change in both quality and quantity of their urban solid waste, are finding garbage disposal a major environmental issue. Garbage clearance and its disposal is becoming a herculean task with the volume of solid waste rising by the day.
The stock erased all its gains and slipped into the negative terrain to touch a low of Rs 90. The scrip finally ended at Rs 91, down 2% from its previous close. The counter clocked volumes of 3.71 million shares as compared to the two-week daily average traded volumes of 1.11 million shares on the BSE.
Indian banks might meet the Reserve Bank of India’s projection of an 18 per cent growth in credit, K V Kamath, chairman of the country’s second largest lender ICICI Bank said in Mumbai today.
Gujarat government has given its green signal to Nirma Ltd"s controversial cement plant in Mahuva. The company has been aiming to foray into cement production by setting up a 2.4 million tonnes cement plant in Bhavnagar district for an estimated investment of Rs 1000 crore, according to industry sources privy to the development.
As corruption cases against members of the judiciary make the headlines, a proposed bill on judicial accountability has suggested that the declaration of assets made by judges will be treated as a "legal document" and can be used to investigate complaints against them.
Wipro Ltd, a relatively late entrant in the lucrative information technology outsourcing market in Australia, is planning to hire more locals.
Australia today said it will cooperate with the family of Nitin Garg, the Indian youth killed here, and expedite the process of returning his body back home, terming the delay in the process as "unfortunate".
Fred Bergsten & Arvind Subramanian / August 22, 2009, 0:01 IST
Leading Indian rock bands will perform today in New Delhi for spreading awareness about climate change
In the backdrop of racial attacks against Indians, three students of the community were bashed and robbed when they were returning home at night.
A late charge by bulls helped key indices surpass crucial resistance levels. However, select momentum indicators are currently in a sell mode even while the trend is up. It seems that markets will remain directionless until a clear breakout in either direction appears.
PM puts onus on US, China.
As with all the bad news from Iraq and Af-Pak, sooner or later the bad news on the climate acquires a stultifying sameness. Only when a surge is in sight — troop surge, storm surge — does one’s news radar jolt awake momentarily. The cause of this deadened state is not an unassimilable surfeit of information, rather, it is a shortage of the right sort of information. Despite the barrage of news and opinion, we don’t know enough to figure out what the right questions are. Without that foundation, our knowledge rests on a bog, into which it is liable to settle with a gentle burp or two of greenhouse gas (or, hot air).
- Vidal, withal - Energy sleuth - Pulp fiction - Hello, China - Mountain lines - Prefaces
Gears up to launch stock, commodity futures in three years.
The commodity futures market, which has a turnover of over Rs 50 lakh crore, will see more changes and a deepening of the market with the entry of two new exchanges in the second half of 2009.
The power ministry has asked the petroleum ministry to place a proposal before the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) to allot 12 million standard cubic meters per day (mscmd) of gas from the KG-D6 block to state-run NTPC at $2.34 (about Rs 107) per million British thermal unit (mBtu).
Rupee rose for the first time in four days on speculation exporters took advantage of the currency’s slide to a six-week low to repatriate overseas income.
The Rs 1-lakh wonder Nano will soon enter the elite league thanks to auto design firm DC, which today said it will unveil redesigned version of the world"s cheapest car within the next two months with premium price tag of Rs 1 crore.
French car maker giant Renault today said it will launch two models in India in 2011 that will be rolled out from the company"s upcoming Chennai plant.
Speciality chemicals maker SRF today said its net profit jumped two folds to Rs 92.57 crore for the quarter ended June 30, over the same period last year.
Global pharma major Pfizer is to source source 40 off-patent (generic) cancer care products from Bangalore-based Strides Arcolab and sell the products in the United States.
Europe’s largest car maker, Volkswagen AG, today started production of its small car Polo at its plant in Chakan near Pune.
Life Sciences technology firm, Opto Circuits, a wholly-owned subsidiary Eurocor has received Communite European (CE) approval to market and sale its Drug Eluting Stent- Taxcor Plus in the world markets.
Food inflation softened to 18.65 per cent for the week ended December 12, though essential items like potato and pulses continued to remain expensive.
The government today ruled out additional borrowing in the current fiscal.
Read no history — nothing but biography, for that is life without theory
Gretchen Peters’ Seeds of Terror: The Taliban, the ISI and New Opium Wars (Thomas Dunne Books, Hachette India reprint, Rs 495) tells you why Afghanistan and Pakistan’s North West Frontier provinces will always be on the boil that will spread into the Punjab and increase in intensity, as recent events have shown. Aided and abetted by rampant corruption spread by poppy growers to the Taliban and other local powers, to drug lords and their allies in government, the influence of opium money pervades Afghan life. Afghanistan today provides 93 per cent of the world’s heroin, far exceeding the combined production of Colombia, north Myanmar, Thailand and other regions of the world. Peters examines the depth of the opium problem and describes how opium sales have ballooned since 2001 and continue to grow exponentially, earning more than half a billion dollars off the opium trade. Why and what could be the consequences for us is the central question asked in the book.
All successful publishers and authors have an impeccable sense of timing and generate literature with an eye upon the calendar. So it isn’t surprising that we have a flood of books on the fall of the Berlin Wall that started the process of disintegration of the Soviet Union and the collapse of communism in Europe. But what we have is an embarrassment of riches which try to unravel why such an all-embracing system that Alexander Solzhenitsyn described as “all pervasive, paranoid, oppressive, incompetent, lethal” in the latest edition of The First Circle (Harper, $18), came to an unexpected end. Almost everyone had expected that it would have to be killed; instead it collapsed, as if a house had fallen in on itself. What happened?
Rajasthan-based Rallison Electrical Private Limited today launched the country"s first Fire Survival Cable and targeted to achieve turnover of Rs 500 crore in the current fiscal.
The recession-hit British economy shrank less than expected at 0.7 per cent in the second quarter of this year, indicating that the worst of the financial turmoil could well be over for the country.
Financial behemoth Citigroup was under pressure from US regulators to replace its chief financial officer Ned Kelly, says a media report.
- BofA likely to pay bonuses close to 2007 level - Future Group pulls the plug on "Bijli Ghar" - PowerMin wants gas at $2.34 for NTPC - Another RIL cash raising on anvil - RIL to drill six new wells in KG-D6 block this year - Reliance Industries: Filling its coffers
The financial crisis in Dubai may not affect remittances sent by Indian expatriates in Gulf countries, policymakers and economists said on Friday. About one-fourth of the total money remitted to India every year comes from Indians in the United Arab Emirates (UAE).
Oil prices moved above $78 a barrel in Asian trade today as a weaker US dollar helped boost demand, analysts said.
The government today said creation of jobs for women under the state-sponsored schemes fell to 72,701 in 2008-09 from 3,62,918 in 2007-08.
A contentious statement on Indian poverty, put out some years ago by Arjun Sengupta, said that 78 per cent of Indians lived on less than Rs 20 a day. That figure always looked problematic, but has become a favourite statistical weapon in the hands of the Left. So it is just as well that the Suresh Tendulkar report on poverty has effectively nailed that number. The Tendulkar report says that 25.7 per cent of urban residents are below the new definition of the poverty line, because they spend less than Rs 578.80 per month. That is Rs 19/day, close to the Sengupta benchmark. Given the urban-rural mix of 28:72, if the Sengupta claim of 78 per cent for the country as a whole (urban and rural) is correct, then 92 per cent of all rural residents would have to be consuming less than Rs 20/day.
Barun Roy / New Delhi December 17, 2009, 0:59 IST
The paper industry may recover its losses from the next quarter due to an expected rise in demand because of robust industrial and economic growth. The industry was suffering from overcapacity, low demand and competition from cheap imports. While no fresh capacities have been added in the recent past except in the writing and printing paper segment, analysts hope the demand to improve soon.
The Ministry of Road Transport and Highways was in a position to bid out contracts for the construction of 8,000 km of roads within the current financial year, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia indicated today.
The BSE metal index tops the sectoral gainers list with an appreciation of 233 per cent.
Several mines exploded along the Line of Control (LoC) when a fire broke out in the area, defence officials said today.
Two more army jawans tested positive for swine flu here today, raising the total number of people affected by the disease so far to 37 in Jammu and Kashmir.
The swine flu death toll touched 108 today with two more persons succumbing to the disease.
Food supply department of Rajkot on Thursday seized pulses stock worth Rs one crore, which was kept illegally by two city-based traders. The case of illegal stock has been handed over to the collector as the amount involved is quite big.
It"s eyeing significant growth focusing on fewer product categories - without targeting the mass market.
As BJP grappled with dissidence among its MLAs, opposition Congress today fielded T B Jayachandra as its candidate to contest the post of assembly Speaker to be held tomorrow.
Hyderabad-based MLR Motors, which failed to achieve financial closure for its Rs 1,250-crore project, got a fresh lease of life with the Andhra Pradesh government agreeing to extend the deadline till March 31, 2010.
For the Americans (and some Europeans) it’s “that pesky section”. And the US government is throwing its weight behind an industry campaign to discredit this section if not get it removed from India’s Patent Act. Yes, of course, it is Section 3(d) that is under attack from big pharma which has lost no opportunity in pointing out that this law will stifle the growth of India’s own drug companies and also choke off foreign investment in the sector. In recent weeks, this campaign has picked up in tempo both here and abroad.
Kotak Mahindra Bank has won a cybersquatting case at the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) against a South Korea-based person, who was using the name "Kotak" in an internet domain.
Originally, Andhra Pradesh was to be the recipient of the first unique identification (UID) number. However, political unrest in the state has taken its toll. Now, it appears that Nandan Nilekani’s project will be rolled out first in the state most ready for it — Karnataka. Pilot projects have already been done and the majority of Karanataka’s population will have UIDs by the end of 2011. The proactive state government has also set up an empowered committee on UIDs under the chief secretary. The state cabinet will, at its next meeting, decide who will be on the committee. The numbers will begin to be issued by February 2011.
Denouncing Pakistan"s "selective" approach on the fight against terrorism, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has asked the world community to mount pressure on it to desist from such a behaviour and rein in those elements who continue to target India.
TRS chief K Chandrasekhar Rao was today discharged from a hospital here after being admitted for 13 days during his fast for a separate Telangana state.
Over Rs 30 crore worth of business has been affected in this major textile town in Tamil Nadu due to the "unrest" in Andhra Pradesh for the past 12 days and non-operation of lorries to that state, R S Natarasa Mudaliar, President, Erode Handloom Cloth Merchants Association said today.
Top brass of Cong, TDP face renewed challenges from their anti-Telangana leaders
Chennai-based Pharma major Orchid Chemicals & Pharmaceuticals today said that it has settled patent litigation with Schering-Plough Corp SGP.N, a US-based drug maker. The issue was related to generic versions of its allergy medication, Clarinex.
PSL zoomed 11.5% to settle at Rs 142. The counter finally witnessed a four-fold increase in its traded volume of 767,408 shares as against its two-week average traded quantity of 198,622 shares.
Bharati Shipyard is mulling a Rs 200-crore capital expenditure over the next two years, a top company official said.
Market-regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) wants listed Indian entities to disclose sufficient information to the market to ensure transparency in their functioning.
In the shadow of 26/11, the Home Ministry took measured steps to bring changes in the complex intelligence-security system during 2009 that saw India pass through without any major terror attack and it could be in for some reforms in the new year if P Chidambaram has his way.
Drug maker Glenmark Pharmaceuticals today said it was facing a lawsuit in a US District Court for a patent infringement case of an anti-malaria product.
India"s largest mobile operator Bharti Airtel, which has over 110 million users, today was confident that it will lead the race in adding new users in the next five years by when there would be 1 billion mobile subscribers.
Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister K Rosaiah today briefed new Governor E S L Narasimhan about the prevailing political situation in the state.
Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal today urged Union Power Minister Sushil Kumar Shinde to allow the Punjab State Electricity Board (PSEB) to continue as a State Transmission Utility and a Licensee for another six months till June 15, 2010, though the government would try to complete the process much before the onset of paddy season of 2010. It may be recalled that earlier the Centre had agreed to the request of the Punjab government for continuation of PSEB as a State Transmission Utility and a Licensee up to December 15, 2009.
Steel magnate Lakshmi Mittal has pulled out of a project to develop an oil field in Kazakhstan in partnership with Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) and is looking for buyers for its stake in another company in the Central Asian nation.
ArcelorMittal, the world’s largest steel maker, will benefit from a windfall of £1 billion (Rs 7,000 crore), thanks to the carbon credits issued to it under the European Trading Scheme. The Sunday Times today reported that ArcelorMittal will be the single largest beneficiary under the ETS due to its dominant presence in Europe.
Land, and not mines, has emerged as the biggest stumbling block for steel projects, threatening to derail the government’s target to boost the capacity from 55 million tonnes now to 124 million tonnes by next year.
The global merger and acquisition (M&A) activity in the property sector so far this year amounted to $151.8 billion (around Rs 7 lakh crore), the lowest level in the last six years amid the economic downturn.
The status would enable the institute to offer graduate, post graduate and PhD degrees instead of diplomas
The world"s largest steel maker ArcelorMittal may cut 10,000 jobs globally next year and plans to reduce costs in order to regain its lost market share particularly in Europe, a media report says.
The sugar industry is all set to challenge the recent amendment to the Essential Commodities Act, which seeks to introduce a fair and remunerative price (FRP) for sugarcane, besides absolving the government of a Rs 14,000-crore levy price obligation arising out of several court rulings.
Mahindra Satyam today said its board has approved settlement of lawsuits brought by its former client Upaid Systems by paying $70 million.
Construction work on the onshore LNG terminal, coming up at Puthuvype, near here will be completed by December, next year.
2009 saw a high-voltage legal battle between the Ambani brothers over the gas dispute reaching the Supreme Court with a judge withdrawing from the bench.
After a year long slump due to global meltdown, first year students of elite B-schools are back in the radar of companies in finance and banking sectors which are now hiring them for summer internship programmes.
Strong brands, value for money strategy and focus on new markets and products will help Godrej Consumer sustain high growth rates.
Eyes 20% growth in cryogenic engineering business in 2010-11
May buy power from Jan to meet demand
IT firm Mahindra Satyam (formerly Satyam Computer) today appointed Deloitte as auditors, within days of CBI charging Price Waterhouse of complicity in the Rs 14,000-crore accounting scam.
The indigenous Kaveri aircraft engine, soon to make its debut flight, lacks the muscle needed by India’s Tejas light combat aircraft, which the engine was designed to power. In its present form, the Kaveri will never power a modern fighter.
Business Standard / New Delhi October 13, 2009, 0:04 IST
Half of Reliance Industries Ltd’s (RIL’s) KG-D6 additional gas production will go to the power sector. The Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM), headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, has finalised consumers for the 50 million standard cubic metres a day (mscmd) of gas that RIL would produce beyond the initial 40 mscmd for which customers had been decided earlier. The fertiliser sector has been allocated 15.3 mscmd out of the initial 40 mscmd gas production.
RIL Director PMS Prasad addresses the many charges laid at the company’s door
Reliance Industries today said PMS Prasad, who has been recently inducted into the company board, holds 17,433 equity shares in the company but does not own any derivatives of the shares.
The stand-off between the IIT faculty and the government over the "anomalies" in pay structure finally ended today with the teachers" body deciding to accept the new package in the "interest" of the institutes, but maintained that concerns still remain.
After the launch of the country"s first indigenously built nuclear submarine, India has the "technical expertise and capability" to build nuclear-powered aircraft carrier and warships, Atomic Energy Commission Chairman Anil Kakodkar has said.
The Nuclear Power Corporation of India today said it has tied up funds for its Rs 33,000 crore nuclear power project in Maharashtra to be set up under the Indo-French civil nuclear cooperation.
A serological survey on swine flu antibodies is currently underway to determine the prospects of Pune developing "herd immunity" to the dreaded virus.
Competing with Vedanta Resources, Grupo Mexico has come up with a $1.6 billion reorganisation programme for regaining control of its bankrupt firm Asarco.
Other banks to go ahead with plans, private players to wait for spreads to narrow.
The Sensex has ended (provisional) at 16,393 - up 35 points. The Nifty ended (provisional) at 4,916 - up 34 points.
The private players across the country who had signed MoUs since the constitution of Jharkhand as a new state bifurcating Bihar in 2000, have been eagerly waiting for the follow up action against their signed MoUs by the Shibu Soren-led ministry sworn in on last week by the Governor K Sankaranarayanan, ending over 11 months of President’s Rule in the state.
Union ministries have together sought a whopping 82 per cent increase in gross budgetary support (GBS) for Plan outlay in fiscal 2010-11 over budget estimates for 2009-10.
Palak Shah / Mumbai December 29, 2009, 0:02 IST
No one can repair the BJP, former party ideologue K N Govindacharya tells Sreelatha Menon
The Nifty witnessed selling at higher levels and closed in a Doji pattern, indicating indecisiveness among participants. The Sensex moved above the important trendline level of 17,290 but could not sustain it and closed at 17,170. The market is expected to be listless with mid-cap counters expected to outperform large-cap stocks. The support for the Nifty is expected at 5,080.
The Nifty witnessed selling at higher levels and closed in a Doji pattern, indicating indecisiveness among participants. The Sensex moved above the important trendline level of 17,290 but could not sustain it and closed at 17,170. The market is expected to be listless with mid-cap counters expected to outperform large-cap stocks. The support for the Nifty is expected at 5,080.
Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi November 15, 2009, 0:32 IST
Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi November 29, 2009, 0:22 IST
Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi November 8, 2009, 0:13 IST
The win-win deal between United Breweries and Heineken opens up a window of growth opportunities for the duo.
Sreelatha Menon / New Delhi November 29, 2009, 0:22 IST
City-based PGP Educational & Welfare Society, which runs engineering and arts colleges, is now planning to become an integrated one stop point by including medical education. The trust had already applied for a university status.
Normal life was disrupted in non-Telangana regions of Andhra Pradesh, as the bandh called by the All party Joint Action Committee (JAC) in support of United Andhra Pradesh began today.
The proposed All India strike from tomorrow in different steel plants under Steel Authority of India (SAIL) has been postponed following an assurance by the authorities.
Ahead of the Copenhagen summit on climate change, India today announced that it would reduce carbon emission intensity by 20-25 per cent by 2020 on the 2005 levels through a series of policy measures, including mandatory fuel efficiency standards on all vehicles.
With the world"s largest economy climbing out of recession, US President Barack Obama has said there are clear signs that his government"s efforts to stimulate the economy were moving in the right direction, though there are challenges ahead.
Coffee exports globally have fallen 7.8 per cent to 13.4 million bags (1 bag= 60 kg) in the first two months of the 2009-10 crop year, whereas those from India have risen over 20 per cent to 516,000 bags in the same period, the International Coffee Organisation (ICO) has said.The coffee year runs from October to September.
ArcelorMittal’s open offer to acquire a 29.39 percent stake in Uttam Galva Steels will begin on December 19. The open offer will close on January 7, SBI Capital Markets said in a statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange.
Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi’s shadow over the government’s social sector programmes just got longer. After being a part of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Human Resource Development, Gandhi has now been inducted to Parliament’s Consultative Committee on Rural Development — he is one of the 30 members of the committee which was constituted last month and which is headed by Rural Development Minister C P Joshi.
Japanese digital camera maker Canon today said it plans to acquire Netherlands-based copier and printer maker Oce for euro 730 million in an all cash deal, aiming to create a global leader in printing industry.
A 20 per cent share sale proposal in PSU steel maker SAIL will be taken to the Cabinet by mid-January next year, Steel Secretary Atul Chaturvedi said today.
JSW Steel is in talks with Japanese firm JJFE Holdings on equity sharing arrangement of JSW Bengal Steel, which is setting up a 10-million tonne steel plant in West Bengal.
Sajjan Jindal-controlled JSW Steel has overtaken Tata Steel in terms of steelmaking capacity in India and will continue to be ahead even as the two companies go into their next phases of expansion.
JSW Steel today said its crude steel production more than doubled to 4.80 lakh tonnes in November.
The Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL) plans to raise the steel consumption in Himachal Pradesh so that it reaches the national average, top SAIL officials said on Monday. “There is a lot of scope of raising steel consumption in Himachal infrastructure projects. The current consumption is 16 kg per head and we want to raise this to atleast the national average of 46 kg per head,” said Steel Secretary, Atul Chaturvedi.
Government is once again looking at a pricing strategy to resolve the long-pending issue of sale of its residual 49 per cent stake in Bharat Aluminium Company (Balco) to Sterlite Industries. The Cabinet Ccommittee on Eeconomic Affairs discussed this in its meeting last week.
Spectrum crunch may force the government to allow only three private operators to offer 3G services in a circle and said that successful bidders will have to make 100 per cent payment by March 10.
The government will soon have "star" ratings for its commercial buildings to keep a tab on their power use and to ascertain consumption by various appliances.
Buoyed by the diplomatic success of former US president Bill Clinton in securing the release of two American journalists from North Korea, a top Senator has asked Pyongyang and Washington to now resume dialogue on the denuclearisation of the Korean Peninsula.
Manufacturing and automobile solutions provider KPIT Cummins Infosystems remains hopeful of eventually crossing the $1-billion revenue mark. However, the global manufacturing and automobile industry, which accounts for a majority of its top line, is currently facing turbulent times, affecting the company"s revenues. In a chat with KAUSTUBH KULKARNI, the company"s Chairman, RAVI PANDIT, gives his view on the road ahead. Excerpts:
Inflation rose to 0.83 per cent for the week ended September 19 from 0.37 per cent in the previous week on account of higher food and fuel prices.
Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia today said food prices would ease during the coming months and economy would grow more than 6.3 per cent, as estimated earlier by the Plan panel.
The Planning Commission, as well as farmers in Uttar Pradesh, leading sugarcane-growing state, have opposed a proposal by the food ministry to control gur (jaggery) production.
Iran today reiterated it has no plans to build nuclear weapons, after US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton warned Tehran that any pursuit of atomic arms was futile.
The Ministry of Finance has assured the Planning Commission of at least 15 per cent increase in gross budgetary support (GBS) for 2010-11, over the 2009-10 budget estimates.
Discussions on Goods and Services Tax inconclusive.
The Polo produced at the Volkswagen plant in Chakan in Maharashtra may be good enough for the Indian market, but made in India is not good enough for Volkswagen. At the Polo’s launch in the auto fair in the Capital, most things in the company’s stall, right down to the chairs, had been imported.
T E Narasimhan / December 11, 2009, 0:39 IST
Concerned over food inflation spreading to other sectors through adverse expectations, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Deputy Governor Shyamala Gopinath has said the near-term policy challenges will depend on the evolving growth-inflation outcome that supports shifting the focus of the policy to managing recovery and containing inflation.
Eleven Congress MPs from Telangana today decided to resign from the House in protest against the Centre"s decision that appeared to put the separate state issue on the backburner.
The bank extends 8% home loan scheme till March.
The Finance Ministry today said asking the employees to pay taxes on their perquisites is not new because such incentives were under the net even prior to the Fringe Benefit Tax (FBT).
Pharma firm Lupin today said it will borrow up to Rs 500 crore from corporate bodies and various financial institutions.
Emerging-market stock funds lost $1.87 billion in the week ended June 24, the first week of net outflows since early March, on concern that a rebound in exports will be delayed, EPFR Global said.
To make up for 80% of losses incurred by component suppliers
Tata Motors, the third biggest player in the passenger car market in the country, is aiming to double its market share in the utility vehicles (UVs) segment in Orissa from eight per cent at present to 16 per cent in the next few months.
With the launch of utility vehicle Grande MK II, an upgraded version of its premium Sumo Grande, Tata Motors is looking to increase its market share by 2-3 per cent in the utility segment. Utility segment at present constitutes 17-18 per cent of the total car market in the country.
Even as legal experts refuse to buy government’s claim that 350 tonnes of waste is no source of pollution and factory premises pose no health risk to humans, a study is going on to incinerate the waste in some cement kiln. According to sources, a final report would come by end of this month or in January. If a well placed government source is to be believed, the Central Pollution Control Board and National Council for Cement and Building Material are in dialogues over the issue.
Industrialisation, technology, urban need make commercial water supply a growing opportunity.
The Madras High Court today dismissed Subhiksha’s scheme of arrangement proposal, which was filed by Cash and Carry Wholesale Traders Private Limited (C&C), a subsidiary of cash-strapped Subhiksha Trading Services.
Drug firm Lupin today said it has settled all litigations relating to memantine tablets, the generic version of US-based Forest Laboratories" Alzheimer drug "Namenda".
Global steel giant ArcelorMittal"s open offer for a 29.4 per cent stake in domestic company Uttam Galva will begin on December 19, according to a Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) filing by the secondary steel maker.
Auto maker Mahindra & Mahindra today reported a net profit of Rs 843.6 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2009, driven by good sales in both automotive and farm equipment sectors.