Small Business
Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) is in the process of examining whether registered portfolio managers invest in instruments other than listed securities, an official of the agency said.
Budget 2009 contained important proposals in regard to exempting packaged software from customs duty, on importation, and on excise duty, with regard to domestic supplies, to the extent that such software is purportedly chargeable to the service tax. The proposals attempted to redress the problem of potential double taxation that arises in regard to such software. Earlier articles in this column had highlighted the problem of double taxation in relation to several transactions including the service taxation of packaged software post the changes announced in the Budget 2009.
Stimulus packages and economic slowdown have hit the exchequer hard as indirect tax collections shrunk by 21.6 per cent to Rs 1.27 lakh crore in the first seven months of this fiscal, against Rs 1.62 lakh crore a year ago.
The Madras High Court today directed Ahmedabad-based Zydus Cadila (Cadila Healthcare) not to sell its anti-depressant drug, Venz (venlafaxine), in the domestic market for the time being, based on a trademark complaint from Mumbai-based Sun Pharmaceutical industries.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) today sold shares worth Rs 14.47 crore, amid a weak market where the benchmark indices closed in negative territory.
Domestic institutional investors (DIIs) were net sellers of Rs 875.92 crore (provisional) today, according to data released by BSE.
Credit offtake remained subdued at 11 per cent during the one-year period ending December 18, indicating the economic activity is yet to fully pick up momentum.
Markets: Everyone knows money is not a panacea. Cash cannot cure broken hearts, and all that. But the news from Dubai and the foreign exchange markets shows that ample supplies of money can’t even solve all financial problems.
Freebies are no longer catching the fancy of prospective home buyers; instead they are seeking cash discount, as the real estate market shows signs of revival.
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Against the backdrop of some provocative steps by China, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said there was "certain amount of assertiveness" by China lately, which had to be taken note of.
Abheek Barua / New Delhi January 6, 2010, 0:09 IST
In the wake of the indefinite strike of the jute industry beginning December 14 this year, the Indian Jute Mills Association (IJMA) has drawn the attention of the West Bengal government to a number of long-standing issues.
Finance ministry begins internal discussions.
Seema Sindhu / New Delhi January 7, 2010, 0:24 IST
State-run telecom firm MTNL today reported a 77.5 per cent decline in its net profit at Rs 20.58 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2009.
Anil Ambani group firm Reliance Capital today reported 32 per cent decline in consolidated net profit for the second quarter ended September 30, while its total income rose by 11 per cent.
Ailing Jyoti Basu is responding to treatment and there is a positive change in his health condition, CPI(M) politburo member Sitaram Yechury said today.
FII attitude may be key.
A meeting of the Union Cabinet scheduled today was cancelled in view of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh"s visit to Kolkata to see the ailing CPI(M) leader Jyoti Basu.
Meet chaired by PM concedes suggestion for immediate sale.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net buyers of Rs 660.55 crore (provisional) today, according to data released by BSE.
Writer Pamela Timms regales us with her expert baking, and stories of street food adventures
Surjit S Bhalla / New Delhi December 08, 2009, 0:36 IST
India’s power sector continues to attract private equity (PE) players. According to industry sources, more than 51 per cent PE investments in India between January 2008 and November 2009 went into the power sector. The value of these 15 investments is estimated at $ 751.2 million (Rs 3,600 crore).
The United Arab Emirate"s average sustainable crude oil production capacity is set to increase by 12.5 per cent to 3.06 million barrels per day (bpd) by 2014, the International Energy Agency (IEA) has estimated.
Asian stocks rebounded from earlier losses after Dubai secured $10 billion of funding to repay its debt. Japan shares dropped as a measure of business confidence showed companies are scaling back investment plans.
Ashok K Lahiri / New Delhi November 30, 2009, 0:47 IST
Pharma major Glenmark Pharmaceuticals is planning to repay its debt of around Rs 300 crore by end of this fiscal, a top company official said.
Stocks of 127 companies on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) have raced to touch their lifetime highs this month, even while the key domestic benchmark index, the 30-share Sensex, is still well below its all-time high of 21,000 that it had touched in January 2008.
Delhi-based Indraprastha Gas has objected to oil regulator Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board"s (PNGRB) decision to open price bids for giving gas licence for Ghaziabad, saying the Delhi High Court had given it permission to begin CNG retailing in the town.
Having provided mobile internet solutions to 20 million customers worldwide, world’s third largest PC vendor, Acer, is targeting 6-7 per cent market share worldwide in the smartphone category.
Reliance Industries (RIL) may make a firm bid to acquire bankrupt chemicals and fuel maker LyondellBasell Industries AF in February 2010 after $20 billion of debt owned by the troubled firm is restructured.
Biocon Limited, India"s second largest bio-technology firm, has announced the launch of Basalog, a human insulin analogue, which attempts to relieve diabetic patients of frequent insulin shots in a day.
Liquefied natural gas importer Petronet LNG today said its net profit declined by 2.20 per cent at Rs 103.31 crore for the quarter ended June 30, 2009, over the same period last year.
India and Russia have reached a broad agreement to break the logjam over the protracted price renegotiation over Admiral Gorshkov aircraft carrier and the two sides are expected to sign a landmark civil nuclear pact during summit talks between Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and President Dmitry Medvedev tomorrow.
The government counsel are understood to have advised the Centre to explore out-of-court settlement in the Ambani brothers" gas dispute as it cannot afford to contradict its position in another matter involving power PSU NTPC.
The Gujarat government has banned Jaswant Singh’s book. But it is one of the items being smuggled into the state from Rajasthan, along with liquor. Two days ago, there were a few hundred copies of the book in various bookshops across Udaipur. Two days later, there were none. Reason? Smugglers bought these for circulation in Gujarat.
Increased supply however less than contracted 2.13 mmscmd
While imports continue to be the order of the day in acquiring metal forming machines, SMEs in India are slowly moving away from the pre-used machinery market for low and mid-range-priced machines. They are now looking at new products from the domestic market as well as those from countries like China, Taiwan, Korea, Brazil and Turkey.
After contaminating the search results on major search engines such as Google and Bing, search engine optimisation (SEO) poisoning is set to pose a threat to small and medium enterprises (SMEs).
State Bank of India (SBI), the country’s largest lender, is expected to set aside more funds to meet the new norms that mandate 70 per cent provision coverage for non-performing assets (NPAs).
Even as the order inflow was healthy, analysts feel the company may fall a tad short of its new revenue growth guidance.
Sees first sales decline in seven years at 6%, cuts year’s revenue forecast growth to 10%
Asian stocks fell for the fourth straight day as China’s fastest quarterly economic growth since 2007 and Indian food inflation raised concern about government action to control price increases.
Glenmark Pharmaceuticals has entered into a strategic in-licensing agreement with Stratpharma AG, Switzerland to market and distribute the product Strataderm in India.
Chief minister K Rosaiah on Sunday directed civil supplies, vigilance and enforcement, and agriculture and marketing departments to step in immediately to keep the prices of essential commodities under control.
Andhra Pradesh chief minister K Rosaiah said revenues coming to the government in the form of taxes had taken a beating due to the turmoil in the state. “Trade was first affected by the agitations for a separate Telangana and now for a unified Andhra,” he told reporters here on Thursday.
FMCG companies may re-engineer the packaging of coconut hair oil by increasing the grammage to escape the purview of the Central Board of Excise & Customs" decision to impose eight per cent excise on product packs under 200 ml.
If a telephone company had a heart, Google Inc would be inspiring terror in it. As the newspaper, book and video industries can attest, Google has a knack for invading established markets and turning them upside down. Next up are the phone companies: Google Voice, still in testing, provides a free, powerful suite of Internet-based services that makes it a personal communications hub.
Despite concerns about a less-than-normal rainfall, the BSE FMCG Index continues to outperform the market. Over the past month, the index has risen by 8 per cent whereas the BSE Sensex has lost 8 per cent. The monsoon does impact private consumtption, although to a much smaller extent than in the past. Also, it has been seen that in years of deficient rains, revenues of FMCG firms hardly grow.
The Rehabilitation and Peripheral Development Advisory Committee (RPDAC) meeting for three Angul based industries including the Rs 15000 crore steel project of Jindal Steel and Power Limited today failed to resolve issues related to land rate for the Jindal India Power’s 1200 Mw project in the area.
India’s agriculture growth could be down by 5 per cent due to deficient monsoon, a top corporate leader said today.
What would you attribute the good results to?
Sub-optimum availability of power to the industry is one of the main impediments in the path of industrial growth, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry president Satish Bagrodia said here.
Government hopes to surpass last year"s all-time high production of 80.58 million tonnes of wheat, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar told the Rajya Sabha today and described as manageable the current food security situation in the country.
Corporate India today felt let down by the failure of the $23-billion proposed merger deal between telecom giants Bharti Airtel and South Africa"s MTN but said the south-south co-operation was still alive.
The Central government would set up "model" markets in every state for preserving perishable commodities such as vegetables and fish to help farmers get better remunerative prices, Minister of State for Agriculture K V Thomas said today.
Uncertainty looms large over the holding of the meeting of the Rehabilitation and Peripheral Development Advisory Committee (RPDAC) for the Posco’s mega steel project in Orissa as the government is likely to miss the November time line for this meeting.
The US, which foiled a major terror plot by LeT to target India, has said it would be forthcoming with details of the case but cited legal limitations in allowing Indian investigators to quiz the two arrested operatives David Coleman Headley and Tahawwur Rana.
S Kalyanasundaram, former managing director of GlaxoSmithKline Pharmaceuticals, will join Sun Pharmaceutical Industries, the country’s largest drug manufacturer in terms of market capitalisation, as one of its top three executives.
Small is beautiful. So is a micro and medium business enterprise.
Despite the economic slowdown, Nestle India, the food and beverages major, registered net sales of Rs 3,780 crore for January-September 2009, a 17 per cent jump as compared to the same period a year earlier.
Even healthy growth in vibrant markets like India and China could not help global personal computer manufacturer Dell’s net profit from slipping 54 per cent to $337 million, from $727 million in the same quarter last year. Revenue also declined by 15 per cent to $12.9 billion, compared with $15.2 billion in the same period last year, it added.
While the owners of the debt-laden retail chain Subhiksha Trading Service refuse to comment on what’s happening after it shut all its shops over the last year, there is some activity taking place. At one outlet in Chennai, for instance, labourers can be seen renovating the place and stocks are being brought in as well. When a photographer of this newspaper took photographs, staffers from the shop came and snatched the camera and released it only after all photographs were deleted. The company, which has dozens of legal cases against it — it owes banks Rs 870 crore and owes another Rs 107 crore to unsecured lenders — had earlier stated it just needed Rs 300 crore of cash infusion to restart the business.
Bangalore-based public sector lender, Vijaya Bank has informed the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) that its authorised capital has been increased from Rs 1,500 crore to Rs 3,000 crore. The bank has a network of 1,132 branches in the country.
Private sector lender Yes Bank today said it raised $250 million (about Rs 1,140 crore) by private placement of shares to fund its expansion plans, which include opening up to 250 branches next year.
J Venkatesan, Fund Manager, Sundaram BNP Paribas MF spoke with Jitendra Gupta about PSU stocks as an investment theme.
Vandana / Mumbai January 27, 2010, 2:06 IST
National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) today reported a growth of 5 per cent in net profit at Rs 2,364.9 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2009, over the same period last year.
Apollo Tyres today reported an over 18-fold jump in net profit for its Indian operations during the quarter ended December 31, 2009, at Rs 102.03 crore, mainly due to robust growth in topline.
The shareholding pattern of all credit rating agencies should be made public so that their relationship, if any, with rated companies, could be known, a body constituted by market regulator Sebi has recommended.
Anti-Posco activists today abducted four Posco officials engaged in the company"s corporate social responsibility (CSR) activities at Patana village under Dhinkia village panchayat in Jagatsinghpur district.
Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid today opined that India Inc should focus on CSR activities in their own interest.
Kohlberg Kravis Roberts & Co (KKR), a global private equity fund, has announced that it has hiked its stake to 79 per cent in Aricent, a telecom software solutions firm in a deal valued at $225 million.
Trust Kishore Biyani, the founder of Future Group, to spot new revenue streams before anybody else. The latest from Biyani is Indian-style hotels and schools to train entrepreneurs and help understand consumer behaviour. Both initiatives are expected to go on stream in the next six to eight months.
It’s not quite time for DTH to retire, as a leading IPTV firm would have us believe, since there are 13 mn DTH subscribers compared to IPTV"s 30,000.
Apollo Hospitals today reported a 48.6 per cent increase in its net profit at Rs 43.91 crore for the quarter ended on December 31, 2009, as compared to the similar period last fiscal.
Jammu and Kashmir (J&K) Bank has posted over 19 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 139.99 crore for the third quarter of 2009-10 on the back of high non-interest income. The bank had registered a net profit of Rs 120.67 crore in the same quarter last year, a J&K Bank spokesman said today. Operating profit increased by 31 per cent during the same period.
Textile company S Kumars Nationwide today said its net profit stood at Rs 60.09 crore for the year ended March 31, 2009, while it had a net profit of Rs 178.13 crore in the same period previous fiscal.
Realty giant Unitech today reported a jump of 29.37% in consolidated net profit for the quarter ended December 31 at Rs 176.01 crore, thereby signaling a revival of demand.
The revival in capital flows, which started in financial year 2009-10 and gathered momentum in the second quarter, has remained buoyant even in the third quarter, according to the second-quarter macroeconomic and monetary development report released by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today.
Many entrepreneurs wanting to sell a stake have unrealistic valuations of their companies. This is a major block for private equity (PE) players to close a deal. Also, many do not have a second plan if talks fall apart, according to speakers at the Private Equity Conference at the Indian School of Business.
Britannia ended at Rs 1578, lower by Rs 22 or 1.4%, on the BSE.
Rating agency Crisil today said that Glenmark Pharmaceuticals" rising debts have strained its financial health and downgraded the working capital loan and cash credit ratings of the drug maker.
Under attack for making knowledge of Marathi a must to get new taxi permits in Maharashtra, Chief Minister Ashok Chavan today did a quick U-turn insisting that fluency in any local language like Hindi and Gujarati was also enough.
In the wake of attacks on Indians in Australia, Shiv Sena chief Bal Thackeray today said his party would not allow the Down Under team to play cricket in Maharashtra.
A concoction of politics and sport leaves a bitter aftertaste.
Evading taxes for long by calling itself a charitable organisation, the the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI) may now have to shell out more than Rs 100 crore as the Income Tax department is set to penalise the Indian Cricket Board for hiding details of its commercial activities.
The Prime Minister’s information technology advisor Sam Pitroda said the government was not planning to merge BSNL and MTNL, but efforts were on to sell stake in BSNL.
Finnish handset giant Nokia today said it will form a joint venture with an investment firm New Alliance to offer mobile services in China.
Mobile phone major Nokia today indicated that multi-sim mobile handsets were on the anvil for the Indian consumers with expansion in demand.
Indian stocks trading on American bourses lost $3.85 billion (around Rs 18,000 crore) from their total market valuation last week, with HDFC Bank and Sterlite Industries leading the pack.
US markets slumped on Thursday.
In my mind
State Bank of India (SBI) Chairman O P Bhatt today said that excess liquidity available with the bank would be a matter of concern for the next two quarters.
The state-run telco BSNL has informed the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) that it may miss the March 31 deadline for implementing the mobile number portability (MNP) regime if it does not get security clearance for importing the needed equipment at the earliest.
About 40 per cent of people who have died of swine flu or fallen seriously ill were young and otherwise healthy, an expert from the World Health Organisation told a conference in Vienna today.
In a major boost to India"s Sun Pharma, which is locked in a takeover battle with Taro, shareholders of the Israeli drug firm today rejected a proposal to re-elect directors.
Things went from bad to worse since December 2008 for people who purchased bungalows, villas and apartments at Maytas Hill County, promoted by Maytas Properties Limited (MPL) -- the company run by B Rama Raju (Jr), the younger son of Satyam Computer Services founder and former chairman B Ramalinga Raju.
With Tata Power now in a position to sell 100 MW of power from its Trombay unit as merchant sales, the company’s earnings for the current year should get a slight boost. In the current year, the higher generation—estimated to be higher by 10-15 per cent — is what will push up revenues rather than any significant increase in power realisations.
The markets have opened in the positive, mirroring the gains in the US and firmness across Aia. The Sensex is quoting at 17589, higher by 103 points and the Nifty is at 5254, up 29 points.
Shocked by the surfacing of fake Chinese medicines with "Made in India" logo in Africa, the government has asked its missions in the region to step up vigil for protecting the nation"s image and market.
The 224-million-tonne cement industry is yet again set to strike a growth of 10 per cent in June. If the initial numbers from the top cement makers are anything to go by, industry analysts said, the continuous robust growth will be maintained.
Jaiprakash Power Ventures today said it has appointed Sunil Kumar Sharma as Vice-Chairman and Chief Executive Officer of the company.
Sun Pharmaceutical Industries’ attempts to take over Israeli drug major Taro Pharmaceutical is gaining more support from independent advisory firms. RiskMetrics Group’s ISS Governance Services (RMG), an independent proxy advisory firm, has recommended that shareholders of Taro Pharmaceutical Industries vote against all the proposals made by Taro’s board of directors, including all of its nominees for election and re-election as directors in the upcoming Annual General Meeting (AGM) scheduled for December 31, Sun Pharma said in a press release.
The Copenhagen accord on climate change was a partial success for India but it has certain "inbuilt hazards" of which the developing countries have to be wary, Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said here.
The British government plans to freeze the salaries of top bureaucrats and offer only minimal increases to other senior workers in an effort to control the country"s spiralling deficit, a treasury official has said.
Japan"s unemployment rate fell to 5.5 per cent in August, from a record 5.7 per cent in July, the first improvement in seven months, the government said today.
Dhanalakshmi Bank is planning a brand transformation initiative which will include changing the logo and related branding treatment across all its customer touch-points.
Following the increase in the long term loans of Videocon Industries (VIL), Fitch Ratings has today affirmed Videocon Industries Limited"s (VIL) National Long-term rating at "A-(ind)" with Negative Outlook.
The affordable housing segment will offer business opportunities worth over Rs 500,000 crore as India requires more than 10 million houses to be built by 2013-14.
US consul general Cornelis M Keur on Friday met health minister D Nagender and offered to work together in dealing with H1N1 cases through the Centre for Disease Control (CDC), a US government body working in the state with the Andhra Pradesh State AIDs Control Society.
Chennai would require Rs 2,000 crore and 700 acres of land for rehabilitating slum dwellers, said Vikram Kapur, member – secretary, Chennai Metropolitan Development Authority.
The country"s largest car maker, Maruti Suzuki, today launched a multi-purpose vehicle, Eeco, at an introductory price between Rs 2.59 lakh and Rs 2.89 lakh.
About 40,000 vacancies have been created in public sector banks so far this year due to retirements, resignations and expansion of business. The State Bank of India group had 19,000 vacant positions, followed by mid-size banks like Syndicate Bank and Central Bank of India, which have over 3,000 vacancies each. The data is from the Department of Financial Services.
Posco India has sought more time from the Centre for implementing Rs 54,000 crore SEZ project at Jagatsinghpur in Orissa, as the South Korean steel giant could not get land due to protests by tribals.
The board of UK’s leading confectioner Cadbury Plc today accepted the final takeover offer of US-based Kraft Foods Inc at £11.9 billion ($19.7 billion), ending a six-month resistance and putting on course the creation of the world’s largest confectioner. According to the final offer, Cadbury shareholders will get 840 pence a share, including 500 pence in cash and rest in stock.
The US markets on Friday ended on a negative note. The Dow Jones Industrial Average slipped 2% to 10,173 and the Nasdaq Composite Index dropped around 3% to 2,205.
The US central bank has retained near-zero rate regime to boost the country"s fragile recovery and said cheap credit would continue for an "extended period".
As a mark of its commitment to biodiversity conservation, India will host the eleventh Conference of Parties (COP) to the Convention on Biological Diversity (CBD) in October 2012. Called ‘Rio + 20’ CBD Conference, the COP, to be held in New Delhi, will also commemorate the twentieth anniversary of the Rio Earth Summit, held in 1992 in Rio de Janeiro.
India Infrastructure Finance Co was likely to finalise the takeout financing scheme within a month and might implement it by the first week of March, Chairman and Managing Director SS Kohli said today.
US President Barack Obama"s ambitious health care reform now appears to have been put on hold for the time being after the shocking Democratic party defeat in the Massachusetts Senate polls this week, which has denied the ruling party of a filibuster majority in the Senate.
Zydus Wellness has posted a rise of 105 per cent in its net profit for the quarter ended December at Rs 14.3 crore compared with Rs 7 crore in the corresponding quarter previous year. Its net sales during the period grew to Rs 75.1 crore from Rs 53 crore, up 42 per cent.
GMR Hyderabad International Airport Limited (GHIAL) has signed an agreement with aircraft engine manufacturer, CFM International (CFM), to establish a new CFM56 maintenance training centre to support its customers in the South Asian region.
The Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has set aside charges of insider trading against Dilip Pendse, former managing director of Tata Finance, and his wife Anuradha Pendse and Nalini Properties.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers of Rs 362.76 crore (provisional) today, according to data released by BSE.
Media and entertainment firm UTV Software today said its board has approved to raise Rs 100 crore by issuing non-convertible debentures to Life Insurance Corporation of India.
Inter-regulatory committee set up to fix norms.
The Delhi High Court today dismissed an application by ITC Ltd for grant of an injunction against the use of a device mark by Philip Morris in relation to its Marlboro brand of cigarettes in India.
The country"s oldest fund house, UTI Asset Management Company (AMC), today said it will divest 26 per cent stake to a strategic partner by August this year.
With the impact of global slowdown still persisting across countries, there may be a dip in remittances inflow into the country in 2009, according to Rajesh Mehta, director marketing – South and South East Asia, Western Union Services India.
Money transfer firm Western Union Financial Services plans to tie up with e-governance service providers and microfinance institutions to expand its reach in India.
State-run Power Grid Corporation of India said its net profit grew 31 per cent to Rs 487.84 crore in the third quarter ended December 31, 2009, over the same period a year ago.
Farmers who want land back wish to return the compensation only in instalments.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers of Rs 361.67 crore (provisional) today, according to data released by BSE.
Era Infra Engineering today posted a jump of over 85 per cent in net profit at Rs 57.24 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2009.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers of Rs 2,415.49 crore (provisional) today, according to data released by BSE.
Heavy selling in opening trades saw the Nifty break the psychological 5,000-mark, but regain it at close on good quarterly numbers from market heavyweights.
United Auto Workers (UAW) President Ron Gettelfinger plans to anoint Bob King, head of negotiations with Ford Motor Co, to be the shrinking union’s next president, on December 16, said two people familiar with the matter.
Suzuki agreed to sell its entire 50 per cent stake in the venture, Cami Automotive Inc, to the Detroit-based car maker.
Bajaj Auto sold 220,429 two-wheelers in December 2009, registering 85 per cent growth in sales over the same month last year, when it sold 119,215 units, a company release said here today.
While the recovery in sales volume is positive for Tata Motors, the gains are priced in
‘Green’ vehicle set to hit Indian roads next yr
General Motors India unveiled the all new Chevrolet Cruze diesel model in Chandigarh. The car will be available in two variants - LT & LTZ. With the launch of this model, it expects that by the end of this year, it would be able to achieve a growth of 11-12 per cent over the previous year.
State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp"s Rs 13,000 crore Dahej complex will be the anchor tenant at the proposed special area for chemical and petrochemicals industry in the Gujarat city that may attract a total of Rs 50,000 crore of investment.
The country"s largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki today said it expects September sales to increase by over 30 per cent due to robust demand during the festive season but cautioned that a looming hike in interest rates on car loans may not help in maintaining the momentum.
The chief executives of Italian auto maker Fiat and oil major Royal Dutch Shell will not be seeking re-election to the board of Swiss banking entity UBS.
Japan"s top five auto makers have reported smaller year-on-year declines in their global production in August compared with July, showing signs of a bottoming out in auto production.
Robust festive demand and new launches helped the country’s largest automotive company, Tata Motors, to swing to a third-quarter net profit of Rs 400 crore. The company had made a net loss of Rs 263 crore in the three months ending December 2008.
Tata Motors, the country"s leading automobile manufacturer, reported a net profit of Rs 400.14 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2009.
In the first three-and-a-half weeks of trading in the new year, the Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensitive Index, or the Sensex, has been range bound – a phase that many market experts would call a consolidation phase. And there are expectations that after the Union Budget, the market could enter a correction phase as well.
The Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) were net sellers of Rs 749.25 crore in futures and options segments on Wednesday.
The foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net buyers of Rs 14.90 crore in futures and options segments on Monday.
The Sensex is now at 16,262, down 27 points. The NSE Nifty is at 4,853, down two points. Meanwhile the European markets have opened on a positive note. FTSE is up 37 points.
Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers of Rs 285.84 crore (provisional) today, according to data released by BSE.
In a record achievement despite the global economic recession, spice exports from India clocked $11.68 billion —an all-time high —in 2008-09.
Net income at Rs 106 crore, but sales drop 6 per cent.
Hypermarket Trent will hire over 4,000 people at its Star Bazaar stores over the next 14 months, a top company official today said.
Professor Amartya Sen tells us that his high school teacher’s advice, on whether he could get away with saying that Lord Krishna’s argument in the Gita was incomplete and unconvincing, was that “Maybe you could say that, but you must say it with adequate respect”. Following this advice, I write the review with the deepest respect for Professor Sen.
Exporters, hit by a demand slump in the global market, have sought RBI"s intervention for dollar credit from banks at competitive rates.
Highway projects worth about Rs 110,000 crore will be executed in the country over the next three years, Minister of State for Road Transport and Highways R P N Singh informed the Rajya Sabha today.
Maruti Suzuki has ended at Rs 1433, down Rs 6 or 0.4%, on the BSE.
The government today said three firms of Anil Ambani group - Reliance Infrastructure, Reliance Natural Resources and Reliance Communication -- have violated overseas debt norms.
Usha Martin, a wire rope manufacturing firm, today said its net profit declined by 31.11 per cent to Rs 18.42 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2009, over the same period in the previous fiscal.
Wholesale prices-based inflation leaped to 7.31 per cent in December, shooting past RBI"s forecast of 6.5 per cent-level by this fiscal end, as food items such as sugar, potatoes and pulses turned costlier. Overall inflation in November was 4.78 per cent.
Indian drug companies have reduced their cumulative foreign currency convertible bond (FCCB) burden by over 60 per cent. This has helped the companies improve their financial health and look for further fund-raising for expansions.
Government-owned Union Bank of India has initiated preliminary discussions with three-four small-sized Indonesian banks for a possible acquisition, a top bank official said.
A mistake by a US Navy intelligence official has given the world an unexpected peek into the secret world of China’s navy. The US Office for Naval Intelligence (ONI) committed the blunder of posting, on an open website, the agency’s assessment of the state of the Chinese navy. Before the ONI could rectify this indiscretion by pulling off the report, it had been downloaded and posted on a publicly accessible website.
PTC Financial Services, a subsidiary of Power Trading Corporation, is mulling to raise Rs 1,500 crore by divesting 26 per cent of the promoters’ stake.
US Defense Secretary Robert Gates today said there has been a remarkable advancement of defence relationship between India and the United States in the last few years.
Google/cybersecurity: Google’s cyber-complaint is the tip of an iceberg. Coordinated attacks on IT systems are common, yet companies and governments have kept largely silent. The growth of computer services that rely heavily on the Internet means the stakes are growing higher. That may explain why Google spoke up about recent attempts to steal its intellectual property -- and why the U.S. State Department has also taken China to task.
The spat between Google and China is unlikely to have any impact on Islamabad"s ties with Beijing, the Obama Administration has said.
The decade began with the government doing the right thing and auctioning mobile phone licences, but ended with the scandal over its decision to start playing favourites and handing over licences to a chosen few firms at a price that was Rs 50,000 crore less than the market one. The decade began with the government privatising the Delhi Vidyut Board (DVB) in the midst of a huge scandal, since it offered several thousand crore of concessions to two firms, and ended with another scandal over how the winning bidders for the Bangalore airport awarded the major part of the contracts to themselves — and passed on the increased costs to the flying public.
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s core team for the Budget will witness a crucial change on February 1. With the government announcing the appointment of Sunil Mitra as revenue secretary, the West Bengal cadre official will now move to North Block from the Department of Disinvestment, where he spearheaded the recent divestment drive of public sector companies.
The government has rapped state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) for poor financial performance and made a case for disinvestment through an initial public offer (IPO).
The government today cleared 14 foreing direct investment (FDI) proposals, including a Rs 273-crore application from Asset Reconstruction Company, which could together bring in foreign investment worth Rs 732.5 crore.
Seeking to deepen its bilateral defence and strategic ties with India, the US plans to sell to the country 145 state-of-the-art 155mm towed Howitzers worth $647 million.
Arvind Subramanian / January 27, 2010, 0:53 IST
Software company HCL Technologies today said it has received a contract worth around Rs 231 crore from UK-based defence equipment maker Meggitt for providing engineering services.
IT firm HCL Technologies today said it is in talks with Australia-based retail software solutions firm OLR for a possible acquisition.
The government is mulling whether the 2G spectrum can be offered to stand-alone winners of 3G bidders at the price of Rs 1,658 crore for pan India operations -- the amount charged from new players last year.
Stung by the Centre’s indication to compensate half of what was promised as full compensation against phasing out of Central Sales Tax (CST), the Madhya Pradesh government may increase the upper slab of value added tax to 15 per cent from the existing 12.5 per cent before goods and service tax (GST) comes into effect.
State-run power major National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) today said its follow-on public offer (FPO), through which the government plans to divest 5 per cent stake, would open on February 3.
A Norwegian-Indian telecom joint venture firm, Uninor, today said it has secured 1.2 million subscribers across eight telecom circles during the first month of its operation.
Continuing with the growth trajectory, Indian Railways have registered an increase of about 9 per cent in its revenue earnings.
Tata Communications has reached an agreement to acquire BT Group"s Mosaic business, which offers on-demand digital media management platforms, that manage content and workflow from production to distribution across collaborative market ecosystems.
- GST rates within 15 days: Dasgupta - FMCG firms to be hit if hill state tax benefits withdrawn - GST to reduce tax burden on industrial sector - GST to subsume more taxes than envisaged, says Asim - "GST will be a major breakthrough in the history of tax reforms" - GST may provide for rate changes outside Budget
Sunil Jain / New Delhi January 18, 2010, 2:42 IST
State owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) has achieved a subscriber base of over 20 lakh for its mobile services in the Orissa circle.
Thousands of foreign students, including Indians and Chinese, have marched in Sydney and Melbourne seeking more measures from the Australian government on their safety, accommodation and travel concessions.
The scrip ended 3.5% lower at Rs 1,472. The counter clocked volumes of 13.97 crore as compared tp the two-week daily average traded volumes of 3.78 crore shares on the BSE.
Despite the economy seeing revival, credit flow to the industrial sector moderated to 14.2 per cent on a year-on-year basis as of November 20, 2009, as against 37 per cent a year ago.
Chennai Petroleum Corporation (CPCL) today posted a net profit of Rs 220.36 crore for the third quarter ended December 31, 2009.