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Satyam seeks apology from World Bank - Economic Times
Source: Google News India - Business | 25 Dec 2008 | 1:35 pm Reliance Petroleum commissions Jamnagar refineryReliance Petroleum announced commissioning of its only-for-exports oil refinery in a Special Economic Zone at Jamnagar in Gujarat.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 25 Dec 2008 | 1:16 pm Reliance startup makes biggest fuel complexMUMBAI (Reuters) - Reliance Industries Ltd on Thursday began processing crude oil at a new refinery in western India, almost doubling company output and creating the world's biggest refining complex just as global oil demand retreats.Source: Reuters: Money News | 25 Dec 2008 | 1:12 pm Reliance Petroleum commissions Jamnagar refinery - Hindu
Source: Google News India - Business | 25 Dec 2008 | 1:04 pm Pope ushers in Christmas at the VaticanVatican City: Pope Benedict XVI ushered in Christmas at the Vatican as he led the celebration of Midnight Mass in the splendor of St Peter’s Basilica early Thursday. Dressed in white and gold-colored vestments, the 81-year-old Benedict walked in a procession up the main aisle, smiling and stopping several times to shake outstretched hands and bless children. As a choir intoned a Psalm, the pope sprinkled incense on the central altar under Bernini’s towering bronze baldachin before opening the service with the traditional wish for peace in Latin: “Pax vobis” (“Peace be with you”). The faithful responded: “Et cum spiritu tuo.” (“And also with you.”) Thousands of pilgrims, Romans and tourists packed the basilica for the midnight service. For those unable to enter there were giant screens set up in St. Peter’s Square. Earlier Wednesday, Benedict appeared briefly at his studio window to bless the crowd in the chilly square and light a single candle in a sign of peace. Before the pope appeared in his darkened studio to light the flame, the Vatican’s No 2 official, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone, said the gesture was an invitation to all to pray for peace and think of those who are less fortunate. “I say to all those who are listening, light the candle of peace inside yourself, light the candle of welcoming and understanding that will help you listen and share the cry of the poor and of those who suffer,” Bertone said. The Vatican’s Christmas festivities began with the unveiling of the larger-than-life Nativity scene next to the Vatican’s largest-ever Christmas tree in St. Peter’s Square. Children in red-and-white Santa hats sang Italian holiday hymns as the Vatican’s Gendarmeria band played alongside. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:41 pm Reliance starts world’s biggest refinery complexMumbai: India’s Reliance Industries Ltd on Thursday commissioned its 580,000-barrels-per-day (bpd) refinery in western India, doubling its capacity and creating the world’s biggest refinery complex just as global oil demand retreats. The US $6-billion project makes the oil complex in Jamnagar in western Gujarat the world’s single largest supplier of fuels to the global market, pumping out 1.24 million bpd. The entire complex is expected to reach full capacity ‘shortly.´Reliance Petroleum, Reliance Industries’ unit that runs the refinery, said in a statement. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:18 pm Russia takes majority in Serbia oil firm!Russian energy giant Gazprom on Wednesday signed a controversial accord to take a majority stake in Serbia`s oil monopoly NIS, in a deal that strengthens Russian access to lucrative southern European energy markets.Source: Zee News : Business | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:10 pm Facebook cuts ties with Project Playlist!Facebook has severed ties with Project Playlist after rival MySpace cut its links with the latter.Source: Zee News : Business | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:10 pm GMAC gets Fed`s OK to avail bailout!The US Federal Reserve has approved a request by GMAC, to become a bank holding company.Source: Zee News : Business | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:10 pm Investor`s death probe widens Madoff scandal!US authorities on Wednesday investigated the apparent suicide of a French investment manager who lost more than a billion dollars in Wall Street titan Bernard Madoff`s alleged pyramid scheme.Source: Zee News : Business | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:10 pm US jobless claims touch 26-yr high!The US saw a raft of sour economic and employment data from various state departments, with the jobless claims soaring to a 26-year high of 5,86,000 for the week ended December 20.Source: Zee News : Business | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:10 pm CBI raids Kotak Securities office, recovers Rs 66 lakhCBI officers recovered Rs 66 lakh during a raid conducted at the office of Kotak Securities in suburban Malad.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:09 pm Olmert urges Gaza to reject Islamist HamasJerusalem: Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert urged Palestinians in the Gaza Strip on Thursday to reject their Hamas rulers and said he would not hesitate in using force to stop them from firing rockets at southern Israel. “I will not hesitate to use Israel’s might to strike Hamas and (Islamic) Jihad. How? I will not go into details now”, Olmert said in an interview with Al Arabiya television, according to his office. “Israel left Gaza about three years ago with no intention of returning,” Olmert said in an appeal carried by the Arab news broadcaster. “Is the spirit of Islam to kill innocent children, to fire rockets at kindergartens and civilians? I don’t think that is the spirit of Islam,” Olmert was quoted as saying. “That Hamas does this in opposition to the spirit of Islam is the main reason for your suffering, and our’s. I say to you in a last minute call, stop it. You, the residents of Gaza, can stop it.” In Cairo, Israeli Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni discussed the crisis with her Egyptian counterpart Ahmed Aboul Gheit, who urged both sides to exercise restraint. Fighting across the Gaza Strip border with Israel has escalated since a six-month truce brokered by Egypt expired last week. The talks took place a day after Palestinian militants in the Gaza Strip fired more than 80 rockets and mortars at southern Israel and Israel killed a Hamas gunman in an air strike. Livni described the latest escalation as “unbearable”. Under the truce agreed in June, Hamas agreed to halt rocket fire in return for Israel easing a blockade that was tightened after the Islamist group seized control of the Gaza Strip in June 2007. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 11:57 am Daewoo seals Myanmar-China gas export deal - XinhuaBEIJING (Reuters) - A Myanmar gas consortium led by South Korea's Daewoo International has signed a 30-year agreement to sell natural gas to China, China's Xinhua news agency said on Thursday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 25 Dec 2008 | 11:50 am Asia stocks mixed in light Christmas tradeTokyo: Most Asian stock markets were closed on Thursday for Christmas and the remainder were mixed in thin trade, with Tokyo shares creeping up cautiously after a festive rally on Wall Street. Tokyo closed 0.97% higher, buoyed by shipping and electronics stocks. Of the other Asian markets that were open, Shanghai fell 0.61% and Taiwan slipped 0.22% while Bangkok rose 1.25%. The Tokyo Stock Exchange’s benchmark Nikkei index rose 82.40 points to finish at the day’s high of 8,599.50. Dealers in Tokyo welcomed a Christmas Eve rise on Wall Street on Wednesday, which broke a five-session losing streak despite a new round of grim figures on the US economy. The Topix index of all the Tokyo Stock Exchange First Section issues gained 9.03 points or 1.09% to 836.02, with turnover of just under one billion shares, the lowest of the year. Shares in troubled Toyota Motor Corp. rebounded, rising 2.34% to 2,845yen. Nissan Motor Co. gained 2.70% to 304yen. The commerce department had reported personal income contracted 0.2% in November from the previous month while consumption expenditures shrank 0.6%, in a further sign of a consumer slowdown. On Wall Street on Wednesday the Dow Jones Industrial Average gained 48.99 points (0.58%) to close at 8,468.48 in a shortened Christmas Eve session. Japan, whose economy has contracted for two straight quarters, was set to release its own set of data on Friday morning, industrial output, unemployment and inflation for November. But Takero Inaizumi, head of the equities department of Mizuho Investors Securities, said he doubted the market would focus much on the data as the year winds to a close. “The only thing that would trigger selling at this point is additional earnings forecast cuts from companies that have already lowered their forecasts recently,” he told Dow Jones Newswires. In China, oil refiners fell on concerns over further sliding demand, but retail and home appliance stocks outperformed after Beijing said on Wednesday it would take more steps to stimulate domestic consumption, traders said. Chinese shares closed down 0.61%. The benchmark Shanghai Composite Index closed down 11.38 points at a 6-week low of 1,852.42 on thin turnover of 42.2 billion yuan (6.2 billion dollars). China Petroleum Chemical Corp (Sinopec) closed down 1.5% to 7.09. PetroChina, the biggest index component, was down 0.8% at 10.14yuan. Hong Kong, Sydney, Seoul, Singapore, Kuala Lumpur, Manila, Jakarta, Wellington and Mumbai were closed. Taiwan share prices closed down 0.22%. The weighted index fell 9.64 points to 4,413.45, on turnover of 29.5 billion Taiwan dollars (893 million US). Thai shares closed 1.25% higher. The Stock Exchange of Thailand (SET) composite index rose 5.47 points to close at 444.64 points while the bluechip SET-50 index gained 4.11 points to 312.58. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 11:31 am Bureaucrats to supervise mid-day meals in ChandigarhMiddle-level bureaucrats in the union territory of Chandigarh will now supervise the preparation of mid-day meals for government school children in the city.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 25 Dec 2008 | 11:30 am India to take steps against dumping from China - Economic Times
Source: Google News India - Business | 25 Dec 2008 | 11:30 am Unitech lays off 10% employeesNew Delhi: The country’s second largest realty firm, Unitech, has reduced its workforce by about 10%, out of a total of 1,700 employees, as part of its cost-cutting measures on the back of a credit crunch faced by the company. Besides, downsizing employees strength over the last 4-5 months, the company is also not filling up vacancies, which were left empty in the process of normal attrition. “Our normal attrition is there. Naturally we are not looking for replacements and we have let go trainees in over a period of 4-5 months,” Unitech chairman Ramesh Chandra said. The company’s current rate of attrition is about 15-20% per annum, he added. Asked about the number of people that the company has fired, he said: “It is to the extent of 10% of total workforce and total is about 1,700 people.” He, however, said the company has not cut salaries of its employees yet. Besides, Unitech has also shifted some employees to its newly formed telecom venture from the real estate business. “Our telecom company’s requirement is very large. We have transferred some people from Unitech to Unitech Wireless (the telecom subsidiary),” Chandra said without giving details. Reeling under slowdown and heavy credit crunch, the realty players have recently either cut jobs or slashed employees’ salaries. Earlier this month, Parsvnath had cut salaries of its employees in top and middle level management by up to 20%, while Omaxe had fired 70 employees and also lowered the remuneration by 10%. Country’s largest realty firm DLF had also hinted at firing people if the demand of the sector would not improve. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 11:24 am Farm credit to touch Rs120,000 cr during Apr-OctNew Delhi: Banks are estimated to have provided farm loans worth Rs25,000 crore in October, which would take the agricultural credit disbursal to Rs120,000 crore during April-October. Credit worth Rs95,064 crore was provided to the agriculture sector in the first half of this fiscal, which is 32% less than the target of Rs140,000 crore. “As per the earlier estimate, the farm credit was Rs105,000 crore during April-October. But with more information coming in later, the government is soon going to revise the figure upwards,” a senior official said. The agriculture credit would touch Rs120,000 crore till October, he added. The banks are targeted to provide loans worth Rs280,000 crore to farmers in the entire 2008-09 fiscal. Asked about credit flow to farmers during November, he said it would take more time as there are practical difficulties in collecting data from each and every bank. According to the mid-year review of the economy, farm loans from commercial banks stood at Rs64,988.65 crore, while cooperative banks lent Rs19,442.33 crore in the first six months of the current fiscal. Regional rural banks provided farm credit worth Rs10,633.18 crore. During the entire 2008-09 fiscal, commercial banks need to disburse Rs195,000 crore, cooperative banks are projected to extend such loans worth Rs55,000 crore and regional rural banks would provide loans amounting to Rs30,000 crore. The banks had provided loans amounting to Rs2,43,569 crore in 2007-08, Rs229,399 crore in 2006-07 and Rs180,485 crore in 2005-06, respectively. The review also said loans worth Rs284,312 crore was disbursed through Kisan Credit cards, the number of which so far crossed 7.57 crore since it was introduced in August 1998. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 10:47 am U.S. recession deepens, countries boost spendingNEW YORK (Reuters) - The United States fell deeper into recession, data showed on Wednesday, as the number of people filing for jobless benefits hit a 26-year high last week and consumers cut spending for the fifth consecutive month.Source: Reuters: Money News | 25 Dec 2008 | 10:46 am BSNL to account for Rs 10,000 cr deficitNew Delhi: State-run BSNL, which was corporatised in 2000, had to “conceal” Rs10,000 crore on its books as it had stated its assets at Rs75,000 crore at the time of its formation against the transferred assets of Rs65,000 crore. “The biggest challenge was to create an asset register of the company. A.F. Ferguson & Company, the appointed consultant for the corporatisation process at BSNL, estimated the total assets transferred to BSNL amounted to about Rs65,000 crore. “However, the assets were at Rs75,000 crore leaving a gap of Rs10,000 crore that had to be concealed over a period of time,” BSNL director (Finance) S.D. Saxena said in his book Connecting India while describing the transformation of the entity from being a Government department to a corporation. He said experts declared that BSNL would not be able to close its accounts for at least three years with such a gaping hole in its assets register. BSNL was directed by the DoT to close accounts for the remaining six-month period ending 31 March, 2001, by December 2000. BSNL officials, along with auditor PricewaterhouseCoopers, finalised the accounts in March 2002. The amount of Rs65,000 crore was broken up into an equity of Rs5,000 crore and the rest was shown as reserves and surplus. Later, this was re-jigged to equity of Rs5,000 crore and preferential shares of Rs7,500 crore and a long-term loan of Rs5,000 crore with the rest shown as reserves as a balancing entry, he has stated. Saxena, who retires this month-end, has played a key role in the transition of BSNL from a 145-year old government department to a corporate body. The Physics post-graduate, who later became the CFO, narrates in his book the pain of a new corporate entity and said the hardships of moving into a new culture was clearly not mapped well. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 10:33 am Gold prices drops by Rs110New Delhi: Gold prices tumbled by Rs110 at Rs13,150 per ten gram on the bullion market on Thursday on closure of overseas markets for Christmas holidays amid deepening global financial crisis. Trading activity turned bearish as overseas markets closed for long festival holidays and traders on the domestic front refrained from enlarging positions, and thus reducing the trading volumes. Standard gold and ornaments fell by Rs110 each at Rs13,150 and Rs13,000 per ten gram respectively. Sovereign was unchanged at Rs10,600 per piece of eight gram. Silver ready fell by Rs100 at Rs17,100 per kg and weekly-based delivery by Rs75 at Rs17,195 per kg. Silver coins were unchanged at Rs26,800 for buying and Rs26,900 for selling of 100 pieces. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 10:25 am Japan auto production marks worst drop since 1967Tokyo: Japan’s production of cars, trucks and buses marked its steepest fall in at least four decades in November, an industry group said on Thursday, as the fallout from the US slowdown crimped auto demand. Auto production in Japan, home to Toyota Motor Corp. and other major automakers, plunged 20.4% in November compared to the same month a year ago to 854,171 vehicles, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association said. That marked the second straight month of on-year declines and the percentage slide was the biggest since the group began compiling such data in 1967, it said. Production of passenger cars in Japan decreased 20.3% in November from the previous year to 737,797 vehicles, while production of trucks here declined 20.9% for the month to 106,170. Japanese automakers, which also include Honda Motor Co., Nissan Motor Co. and several other manufacturers, have been hammered by the dwindling of demand in the US, the world’s biggest auto market. Japanese plants are being idled to reduce production, and thousands of assembly line workers have lost their jobs in recent weeks. “Even if we are doing our utmost, the global crisis is coming at us like a tidal wave,” Teruyuki Minoura, president of Daihatsu Motor Co., a Toyota affiliate, told reporters Thursday. Earlier this month, the Japan Automobile Manufacturers Association said it expected demand in Japan will dive next year to its lowest in about three decades. Sales of new autos are expected to stand at 4.86 million in 2009, down 4.9% from what it’s projecting for this year at 5.11 million, the group said. New vehicle sales in Japan have never dipped below the 5 million mark since 1980. They reached 7.78 million in 1990, during this nation’s heyday “bubble” economy. Vehicle sales in Japan stood at about 5.02 million in 1980, and at 4.31 million in 1975. Toyota executive vice president Akio Toyoda apologized for the public concern that Japan’s top automaker has set off by forecasting its first operating loss in seven decades for the fiscal year ending March 2009. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 10:11 am Private equity investments falls 80% in Oct-NovMumbai: Private equity (PE) investments have declined by as much as 80% in the first two months of December quarter with the ongoing credit crunch casting its shadow on the investment space of the country. The private equity investment in 41 companies during the October-November period stood at US $969.22 million, a whopping 80% plunge over the same period 2007. In 2007, there were as many as 71 deals during the corresponding period attracting an investment of US $4,753.98 million, as per data compiled by Nexgen Capital, the merchant-banking arm of brokerage firm SMC Global. “With FII selling offsetting the investment this year and slowdown in the global economy there is a lack of clarity about the entire economic scenario in the country. Hence, PE funds are adopting a wait-and-watch approach before investing their money,” Venture Intelligence Founder and CEO Arun Natarajan said. Meanwhile, analysts feel that volatility in the currency market has put pressure on the PE investors in the country as they are confused over the valuation of the company. “The number of PE deals are coming down this quarter and the road ahead is also quite competitive for the corporates as redemption pressure and lack of conviction are forcing PE players to hold back investment,” Nexgen Capital Equity Head Jagannadham Thunuguntla said. Also slowdown hit corporates, who are witnessing value erosion, would now see the average PE deal size coming down substantially from the previous period. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 9:45 am Eating out in DelhiIn our previous episode, we spoke to Hemanshu Kumar to talk about street-food in Delhi. In this episode of the Expat show, we talk to him about his  Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 9:41 am Over two million personal computers shipped in third quarterAbout 2.27 million personal computers (PCs) were shipped in India during the third quarter this year, reflecting a growth of 1.7 percent as compared to the corresponding period last year, according to a recent IDC's India Quarterly PC Tracker 2008 third quarter survey.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 25 Dec 2008 | 9:30 am PC shipments rose marginally at 1.7% in Q3 - TopNews
Source: Google News India - Business | 25 Dec 2008 | 9:18 am SBI to inject funds into insurance armKolkata: The country’s largest public sector lender, State Bank of India, is planning to inject fresh capital into its insurance arm, SBI Life, which is awaiting the right market conditions to raise funds through an initial public offering (IPO). Company’s managing director and chief executive officer Uday Sankar Roy, however, denied to divulge the amount SBI LIfe Insurance intended to bring in as fresh capital. Commenting on the IPO, he said, “We are progressing on the IPO. But, in the current market scenario, it is difficult to say at this point of time when it will hit the market.” SBI chairman O.P. Bhat had earlier said SBI Life Insurance, in which the banking major has a majority 76% stake, would hit the capital market by the end of 2009. BNP Paribas Assurance holds the remaining 24% stake in the life insurance firm. Apart from the volatility of the capital market, which, according to Roy, has more to do with western disturbances some impending regulatory changes domestically, including increasing higher foreign direct investment, might be thought upon before going for the IPO. The government has already tabled the Insurance Bill in Parliament aiming to increase the FDI cap in the sector to 49% from 26% now. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 9:18 am Maruti likely to cut production - TopNews
Source: Google News India - Business | 25 Dec 2008 | 9:17 am Dabur to set up second unit in Himachal PradeshDabur India Ltd, with business interest in healthcare, personal care and food products, has got the green signal from the Himachal Pradesh government to set up another medicine manufacturing unit in the state, a senior official said here Thursday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 25 Dec 2008 | 9:00 am Forensic accounting to prevent white-collar frauds: ICAINew Delhi: With corporate accounting frauds on the rise, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has decided to promote forensic accounting to equip chartered accountants with adequate tools to detect white-collar crimes and identify malpractices like money laundering and routing terrorist funds. Pointing out that it is difficult to detect sophisticated frauds through traditional accounting methods, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) president Ved Jain said, “Forensic accounting will help professionals to deal with this new problem in the corporate world.” The emphasis of the ICAI on forensic accounting comes in the backdrop of the US financial meltdown, caused due to misreading risks involved in complex derivative instruments by credit rating agencies and other investors. Similar, the $50 billion fraud by Wall Street trader Bernard Madoff reinforces the need for a stronger accounting system. Madoff siphoned off billions of dollars through fake bogus investment schemes. Forensic accounts, Jain said, “will encompass the use of accounting and auditing skills and will use computers as an audit tool. Chartered accountants will be trained in forensic accounting.” Forensic accounting, which includes data mining and fraud detection, will provide corporates, private equities (PE) and other stakeholders an effective tool to verify the accounts of companies and present a clear and transparent picture of the financial health of the entity concerned, Jain said. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 8:51 am Forensic accounting to prevent white-collar frauds: ICAINew Delhi: With corporate accounting frauds on the rise, the Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) has decided to promote forensic accounting to equip chartered accountants with adequate tools to detect white-collar crimes and identify malpractices like money laundering and routing terrorist funds. Pointing out that it is difficult to detect sophisticated frauds through traditional accounting methods, Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) president Ved Jain said, “Forensic accounting will help professionals to deal with this new problem in the corporate world.” The emphasis of the ICAI on forensic accounting comes in the backdrop of the US financial meltdown, caused due to misreading risks involved in complex derivative instruments by credit rating agencies and other investors. Similar, the $50 billion fraud by Wall Street trader Bernard Madoff reinforces the need for a stronger accounting system. Madoff siphoned off billions of dollars through fake bogus investment schemes. Forensic accounts, Jain said, “will encompass the use of accounting and auditing skills and will use computers as an audit tool. Chartered accountants will be trained in forensic accounting.” Forensic accounting, which includes data mining and fraud detection, will provide corporates, private equities (PE) and other stakeholders an effective tool to verify the accounts of companies and present a clear and transparent picture of the financial health of the entity concerned, Jain said. Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 8:51 am Tune in for Just to Clarify-Best of 2008 next week Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 8:24 am Luxury brands a tough sell in wealthier IndiaMUMBAI (Reuters) - On a recent evening at a luxury Mumbai hotel, shoppers tried on sequined sandals and handmade moccasins at Joy Shoes, an Indian family business that has sold out of its only shop for nearly 70 years.Source: Reuters: Money News | 25 Dec 2008 | 8:07 am Abhinav Bindra plans to set up 50 schools in 5 yrsNew Delhi: After hitting the bulls eye in Bejiing, India’s sole individual Olympic gold medalist Abinav Bindra is training his eyes on setting up to 50 schools across the country in the next five years. The schools to be run under the banner of Abhinav Bindra Ace Public School (ABAPS) will have sports as the main focus. “We are trying to set up ABAPS across the country. Our aim is to give a unique balance between sports and studies. Sports would be an integral part of our extra curricular activities,” Abhinav Sporting Trust Managing Trustee A S Bindra said. He said the trust plans to set up around 50 schools within the next five years and the first school is likely to come up by 2010 in Bangalore. Bindra said while the Karnataka government has already given 50-80 acres land for the purpose, it is still in the process of acquiring land in other states like Kerala, Gujarat, Maharashtra, Uttarakhand and Chandigarh. ABAPS would have a capacity of around 800 residential students and would impart education from the 6th to 12th standard. Bindra said the trust is in talks with various international bodies and agencies and NGOs to finance the schools. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 7:57 am ANALYSIS - YouTube dispute underscores music labels weak handNEW YORK (Reuters) - First it was MTV, then it was Apple, and now it's YouTube.Source: Reuters: Money News | 25 Dec 2008 | 7:51 am Govt should review Ecomark scheme: CAGNew Delhi: Noting the dismal response to the 20-year-old Ecomark scheme under which products are classified as eco-friendly, the Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has asked the government to review it so that it is more receptive to manufactures. Of the 17 product categories marked as ‘green’, only 15 firms have obtained licences under three categories in the country. The CAG has suggested inclusion of more products and monitoring adherence to environmental standards for classifying products as environmentally-friendly. “The (environment) ministry should also carry out environmental impact studies of such products,” said the CAG in its recent report titled, “Waste Management in India.” It compared its progress to similar schemes floated in countries like Japan, Norway and Iceland besides Denmark where a large number of manufacturers have chosen environment friendly products. “Japan’s Eco Mark which was introduced in 1989 as a seal of programme that aims to spread information on the environment effects of products and to encourage consumers to choose environment friendly products has been awarded to 5,176 items under 64 product categories,” the report said. Norway, Sweden, Finland, Iceland and Denmark under their “The Nordic Swan” plan introduced in 1989 have developed 60 product categorised and awarded the label to over 1,200 products. Similarly, Taiwan under its Green Mark Programme has 41 product categories with 451 products already awarded the eco-label. However, in India, the government admitted that the Ecomark products were not being widely used. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 7:41 am Piquadro to roll out 16 stores by 2013New Delhi: Italian travel items and lifestyle brand Piquadro, which had recently opened a store in the capital, mulls setting up 15 such showrooms by 2012-13, eyeing the Rs800 crore Indian branded luggage market. The $40 million company is seeking at tapping the corporate and fashion gifts market and has set up a 51:49 joint venture (JV) with DLF Group’s retail management arm DLF Brands for expansion in India. The company is targeting the premium segment customer in the metros and Tier I cities. The company is setting up its second store in February 2009 in Delhi before venturing into other metros. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 7:31 am Oil slump to fresh low on weak economic gloomNew York: World oil prices tumbled on Wednesday to new four-year lows in volatile pre-Christmas trade as economic gloom weighed on the market, analysts said. Light sweet crude for delivery in February shed 3.63 dollars to close at US $35.35 a barrel on the New York Mercantile Exchange, the ninth consecutive drop in prices. On London’s InterContinental Exchange, Brent North Sea crude for February delivery fell 3.75 dollars to settle at US $36.61 a barrel, the lowest since July 2004. Analysts said the declines were driven by worries about a global recession that saps energy demand. “The economic data remains decidedly weak,” said John Kilduff at MF Global. The latest reports from the United States confirmed ongoing grim conditions. In the first decline in four months, personal income contracted 0.2% in November, surprising analysts who had expected no change. Consumption expenditures shrank 0.6% in the month before Christmas, its fifth consecutive decline, according to the commerce department. The labor department said separately that new US weekly jobless claims rose by 30,000 over the past week to 586,000, in another sign of a weak employment picture. The figure was higher than the 558,000 expected by private economists and indicates employment, one of the best indicators of economic momentum, continues to struggle. The market shrugged off a decline in US inventories of 3.1 million barrels, which normally would cause a rise in prices. New York crude for January had plunged last Friday to US $32.40, lowest reading since February 9, 2004, as investors raced to sell before the contract’s expiry. Analysts said that recent US data showing that the world’s biggest economy remains mired in a recession was likely to keep crude oil prices under pressure in the immediate term. The Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, which produces 40% of the world’s crude, agreed last week to cut output by 2.2 million barrels per day to shore up the market. However, prices have continued to slide. The price of crude oil has now collapsed by as much as 78% since hitting record highs above US $147 per barrel in July, as a sharp global downturn has slashed the world’s demand for energy. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 7:15 am Tim O’ Reilly, the tech guru talks about Web 2.0This is Kamla Bhatt. Today my guest is Tim O’Reilly, who is the founder and CEO of O’Reilly Media based in Sebastapol in Northern California. He also publishes O’Reilly Network and hosts conferences on technology topics. Tim is an activist for open source and open standard. Tim’s mantra is spreading technology change by capturing and transmitting the knowledge of “Alpha Geeks” and other innovators. Labeled as a trend spotter and technology evangelist Steven Levy famously described Tim as a scone baking publisher in a Wired magazine article. By his own admission, Tim loves making jams. Tim has a BA in classics from Harvard University.  Tim: Hi! Glad to be with you. Kamla: Before we talk about technology, I am very curious to know what was this tension that you explored between mysticism and logic? Tim: One of the ideas that has really shaped my life is the idea that the experience of the people, who are first wrestling with a hard problem is very different than the experience of the people who come along later and are rehearsing and replaying that same experience. So in Plato there was a lot of discussion around the idea that there seem to be some kind of tension between the ideas of logic and then these mystical images that are associated with it. And you would see people making arguments and say this was the influence of Orphix or the incluence of the Pythagoreans. I said no, no this is what it was like when people were first thinking about these abstract concepts like justice. These had numenous power. I mean it was a mystical experience. Logic was mysticism then. Now it is dry. But it was not back then. And that was kind of talk that I gave today at the DevLearn conference. I tried to highlight that by showing the progression from the Wright Brothers and their joy and excitement of just invention and then the banality of Airport Security today with people with all their toothpaste in a plastic bag. It was not always banal, and that was really the point I was trying to make in my thesis. If you are rooted your thinking in human experience in how people actually work you would say Oh this is not a conflict. This is actually how those world changing ideas felt to the people who were first exploring. Kamla: So switch to the 21st century, what is the tension you are trying to explore today? Tim: Well, I think there are a lot of tensions that we all need to explore. Probably the biggest one is the tension between the individual and the collective that is expressed and mediated through our new technological tools. This boom that that I have dubbed as Web 2.0 is really about the way that computers now allow us to aggregate data from millions of people and turn it into useful applications. Lot of people when they think of Web 2.0 they think about light weight advertising driven web applications or they think may be about social media. All those things are certainly part of the movement, but at the very heart of it is the idea that once applications live on the network, they are able to do things that a standalone computer application can’t do. What evidence showed us particularly the name Web 2.0 was not a version name, it was really a testament to our belief that the web was coming back after the dot com bust. It was really saying hey you know you guys all think that the web is dead but it is coming back and that was the real meaning of the term. We were looking at what distinguished the companies that had succeeded from the ones that had failed. It seemed to us that all of the ones that succeeded had in one way or another learned to do what I later came to call harnessing collective intelligence. They were building services that literally got better when more people used them, they were data driven services and mastery of the data gave them competitive advantage. So I always considered Google to be the pre-eminent Web 2.0 company and it is always amused me when I see people say well Google is not participatory and I say hey wait a minute first of all the very basic technology on which they rely, the web is all user contributed we open it up on our websites. Secondly, the basic technology web crawling is also they are going out there and harvesting all the user contribution. But then the break through Google introduced in 1998 with Page Rank was a very very powerful idea. Up to that time everybody, who was building a web search engine simply searched the content of the pages, whereas Google realized that there was meaning hidden in the structure of the links. Some links mattered more than others. That a link by an expert on a subject for example meant something that a link by casual consumer or a spammer didn’t mean. So this analysis of a link structure and the relative importance, who was linking was the extraction of the meaning that was hidden in the data. The second big breakthrough, which again shows Google as a contribution engine better at harnessing data from their users was their economic engine, their ad auction. Many people believed that Overture, which was later acquired by Yahoo, invented the ad auction that Google uses. Yes, they did bring to us the business model of putting search key words, I mean advertisements next to search results. But Google did something profoundly different that shows once again their deep understanding of the power of user contribution on the network. Yahoo sold ads to the highest bidder. Google realized that they can actually predict ads, which are most likely to be clicked on, and therefore they could sell not to the highest bidder but to the best combination of a price and likelihood of click. So if somebody says oh yes I will pay you $15, somebody else says I will pay you $10, but they are twice as likely to be clicked on then it will say $20 to you, and that is why Google ad option was more efficient. And in the course that set in motion the virtuous network effect that has made Google so dominant. Ads were more effective therefore more advertisers, therefore more ads, more searchers. You look at how all that works, and you say oh my Gosh! Google has succeeded because they understood better than their competitors what it means to harness the intelligence of their users. Every click goes into their collective intelligence engine and I think we saw that in the news where they announced their flu trends site, where literally they are able to make predictions about where there are outbreaks of flu simply by collecting the data from where people are searching for information about the flu. And this really is the heart of Web 2.0. This idea that there is so much data being generated on the network by our collective activity, and we can learn from it. In some sense we are building a global brand and we are present in some sense at the birth of that global brand. So back to your question. The tension that we face between our proud experience of individuality and these powerful new applications, which are an expression of our collective knowledge or collective thinking. Everything from Wikipedia, which is sort of explicitly you know let us get into our best thinking to other explicit things like Digg like services where people vote up new stories to what I have been talking about with Google. These make a very powerful statement about the power of data mining against collective information and yet the individual still matters. Infact we see one of the big trends that the internet has highlighted is the power of small companies to make a difference. The power of individuals to be noticed, whether it is through blogging or Twitter or new kinds of social media. The ability of people to create their own small associations. So we have one of the most powerful centripetal forces ever where we are seeing massive sites getting more and more data, getting better and better because more people use them in this virtuous circle that is going to lead to enormous powerful monopolies. And then at the same time we are seeing this network that so many other people celebrate, which is this decentralized network, where power belongs out in the edge, where anybody can trip you. And I think we have to understand both of the statements are true you know the internet is... I should not be saying the internet I should be very clear where I am not just referring to the internet on computers. The internet solution definition was the network of networks and I increasingly see that the cell phone network becoming part of that broader network because of course any cell phone is connected and is a host for connected applications as well. So the same principles apply, perhaps even more so because our cell phones are actually sensors gathering data even when we don’t type anything at all. They are sending their location when we take pictures with them those pictures are now being used for to build 3D models. So it’s all kinds of interesting things, there it even the applications used in the cell phones as a sensor. There is a start up called IMMMI, trying to compete with Nielsen, trying to measure television watching. The cell phone just literally wakes up every 30 seconds listens for 5 seconds of ambience sound and matches it against database saying did I hear a commercial and if so which one. Oh my Gosh! You are giving ears to the global brand. Kamla: So you mentioned very, very interesting concepts on that answer I had asked. Tim: Yes, short question long answer. Kamla: That is ok. But it throws out two other questions. One was the privacy concern, which for instance the location aware phone and how it eavesdrops if you will, even if I gave it permission on what I am doing. The second is also the lack of transparency, and this is where you said that some people feel Google is not participatory. That could maybe stem from the fact that Google’s Page Rank is still not transparent. We still don’t know what is the secret sauce that Google has. So the lack of transparency and privacy- would not those be two issues that will come into play when we talk about the internet and Web 2.0? Tim: Let me talk about lack of transparency first. There are a lot of people who think that particularly because of the roots of the technology community particularly in today’s technology community in open standard and open source software. They take almost as an article of faith that openness is this trump card that really drives innovation. What we see looking at the history of technology is that again and again early innovated markets are open. Once players get competitive advantage they become less open and they start to extract more value from the eco-system and there is this almost a Hegelian thesis-synthesis-antithesis kind of thing that happens in the industry, where we see this recycling. The early PC was this open platform, a rebellion against the dominance of IBM and yet within 10-15 years we saw a new giants emerge with Microsoft taking IBM’s place as the closed dominator of the industry. Now, we are watching about the same thing and worrying about where is Google heading in that direction, open source software, new openness, open standards of the internet and yet we see the re-emergence of big centralized players, who are not necessarily transparent and who are doing they can to cement their leadership and some people see this as evil, I see this as the natural progression of technology. This is no more wrong than the fact that we start as a baby, we grow up to be a child, then a teenager and then an adolescent and then we grow old. This is the natural progression of technology business. So, what we have to do if we celebrate openness is we say ok, what is open now? We don’t worry about what used to be open and now closed. We do find that areas where still innovation is happening and we try to accelerate that process. So I guess this hasn’t entirely addressed transparency and I do think transparency is a good thing. But, overall in my world view I just kind of accept it all. This is great line by Lao Tsu, the Chinese philosopher, who says, “The sanest man sets up no deed, lays down no law, takes everything that happens as it comes, is something to animate not to appropriate, to earn not to own.” I think that if we just look on the panoply of the world as it passes by, we see there is this technology alternation. There is also a great line also from Pope John Paul-II, who said something wonderful. He said, “See everything, ignore a lot, improve a little”, and that is certainly part of my attitude towards technology. I am a crusader for openness, but I also get the world is the way it is, and we do what we can and we try to see it with an unjaundiced eye. We try to ignore a lot of things that are wrong we cannot fix and then we try to fix the things that we can. So over to your other question privacy- I feel like the standards of privacy are changed and they have to change. I do not think we have found the right balance yet. But if you look with that kind of open line that I was just describing you see that...say take Facebook, when they introduced the mini feed everyone was saying Oh my Gosh! This is big invasion of privacy, but in a few weeks they were saying this is incredibly useful. And Facebook then had to introduce new features to make it possible for people to be more private. Or, Flicker when they made that breakthrough by saying our photo is going to be to the world by default and they created a mechanism, where privacy can be brought back into the picture. So I think this arc right now will explore benefits that come from giving out privacy, from sharing information from letting other people build services with our data. We are going to figure out really great things as a result from that. Those location based applications that know where you are and your phone and therefore are able to give you much more intelligent search results or make recommendations to you. Fantastic! And then we are going to say oh! this is too much and we are going to come back and we are going to say ok how we get those benefits, while protecting our necessary privacy. If we start with the idea that sharing this information is wrong, and we try to block things from happening. We never get the benefits in the first place. Whereas if we are willing to allow it will get a bit out of whack and we want to go back and recover and fix it we are in a much better position. You were listening to Tim O’Reilly of O’Reilly Media, tune back in for part 2 of our conversation. This is Kamla Bhatt and this interview is brought to you in association with Live Mint Radio. And as always thank you for tuning in. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 7:11 am Firms should co-create with customers: C.K. PrahaladUS-based management guru Coimbatore Krishnarao Prahalad says companies should join hands with customers to co-create products of value.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 25 Dec 2008 | 7:02 am Shopping festival starts in KolkataWith the aim of emulating shopping festivals in Dubai and Singapore, the Great Kolkata Shopping Festival has got off to a glittering start.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 25 Dec 2008 | 7:01 am GSPC gets nod to exploit gas finds in Deendayal block - Sify
Source: Google News India - Business | 25 Dec 2008 | 6:28 am New York Times November ad revenue slips by 20.9%New York: The New York Times Co. said on Wednesday that its advertising revenue dropped 20.9% in November from a year ago, as the financial crisis prompted steep declines in classified and national ad spending. The sharp economic deterioration, which followed the turmoil in the financial markets this September, has exacerbated an already-weak advertising market for newspapers as readers and advertisers have migrated to the Internet. As part of its efforts to shore up its core newspaper assets amid the slump, the Times Co. is actively seeking buyers for its 17.5% stake in the holding company of the Boston Red Sox, according to reports on Wednesday. The holding company, New England Sports Ventures, owns the baseball club, Fenway Park and a majority interest in the New England Sports Network. The Wall Street Journal cited an estimate by Barclays Capital that the Times Co. stake in the holding company could be worth about US $166 million. Red Sox president Larry Lucchino declined to comment late on Wednesday. Spokesmen for the Times Co. were not immediately available but the company’s flagship paper reported the effort to sell the Red Sox stake, citing a person briefed on the plans. The New York Times said the company is “seeking to raise cash and shield its newspaper franchise from rapidly falling revenue.” It said the Times Co. paid $75 million for the stake in 2002. The Times Co.’s ad revenue, which makes up nearly two-thirds of total revenue, had booked declines of 16.2% in October and 14.1% in September. Total revenue from continuing operations fell 13.9% in November. For The New York Times’ news media segment, advertising revenue dropped 21.8%, while circulation revenue grew 4.2%. At its flagship newspaper, the New York-based company said weakness in the studio entertainment, national automotive, book and financial-services categories drove declines in national ad spending. Classified ad revenue in the segment also plunged 33.3%. Total internet, revenue which also includes NYTimes.com, About.com and other company-owned web sites, dipped 2.6% in November. In total, Internet businesses accounted for 12.1% of total revenue in November, up from 10.7% in November 2007. The company noted that internet revenue gained 8.3% over the year-to-date period. The New York Times said unique visitors in the US rose 11% to 55 million from 49.6 million unique visitors in November 2007, according to Nielsen Online. The company had the 10th largest presence on the web and NYTimes.com maintained its position as the top newspaper Web site in the US. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 6:21 am Boom to gloom: Indian economy saw it all in 2008No other year in recent times saw such wild mood swings in the Indian economy than 2008, which started on a strong note but ended on a weak wicket in the wake of a general global slowdown and severe recession in some of the richest countries like the US and Japan.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 25 Dec 2008 | 6:00 am Key business and economic milestones for India in 2008Following are some key economic, business and financial milestones in India during 2009:Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 25 Dec 2008 | 6:00 am A forgettable year for IPOs, FCCBs and bond issues - Indian Express
Source: Google News India - Business | 25 Dec 2008 | 5:13 am Govt pulls up SAIL for slow progress on expansion - Hindu Business Line
Source: Google News India - Business | 25 Dec 2008 | 5:03 am Facebook cuts ties with Project PlaylistWashington: Social network Facebook has severed ties with Project Playlist, just days after rival MySpace cut its links with the fast-growing music-sharing startup over copyright violation fears. Facebook’s move came a day after the Palo Alto, California-based Project Playist announced its biggest coup yet -- an agreement with Sony BMG to make its library of digital music available to users of playlist.com. Project Playlist, which allows users to upload music and create and share playlists, is being sued by the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) and three major music labels for alleged copyright violations. Just days after MySpace made a similar move, Facebook on Tuesday said it was removing a Project Playlist application from the social network. In a statement obtained by several technology blogs, Facebook said the RIAA “initially contacted Facebook last summer requesting the removal of the Project Playlist application for copyright violation, and recently reopened those communications. “We have forwarded the RIAA’s letters to Project Playlist so it can work directly with that organisation and music labels on a resolution,” Facebook said. “In the meantime, the application must be removed to comply with the Facebook Platform Terms of Service,” it said. Project Playlist has more than 40 million users according to online research firm comScore and recently hired former Facebook executive Owen Van Natta to head the startup. Announcing the agreement with Sony BMG on Monday, Project Playlist founder Jeremy Riney said he hoped the deal would lead to similar agreements with other music labels. Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 25 Dec 2008 | 3:46 am Pakistan stalls, obfuscates and erases evidenceIn the five years I lived in Pakistan, a constant feature was the ever-present ISI minders who followed me wherever I went. Their surveillance was crude. On one occasion they seated themselves next to a table at which I was hosting Maleeha Lodhi,Source: Business Line - Home Page | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:00 am Bill to change Apeda Act to protect trade mark interestsNew Delhi, Dec. 24 India’s case for safeguarding its specified agricultural and processed food products such as basmati rice, Darjeeling tea or Alfonso mango – which have been increasingly challenged by other countries – wouldSource: Business Line - Home Page | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:00 am Slowdown reflected more on deposit side: J.M. GargMangalore, Dec.24 Corporation Bank is a 102-year- young and vibrant brand that can attract a wide spectrum of customers, says Mr J.M. Garg, Chairman and Managing Director of the bank. As a brand, it stands for customer trust (spanning over threeSource: Business Line - Home Page | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:00 am ICICI Bank to depend less on agentsMumbai, Dec. 24 ICICI Bank, the largest private sector bank in the country, plans to curtail its dependence on direct sales agents (DSAs) for sourcing retail loans in order to bring down costs. Instead, the bank, in a deliberate strategy shift,Source: Business Line - Home Page | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:00 am It’s a bumpy ride for BPO cosMumbai, Dec. 24 The ride just got bumpier for Indian BPO companies in 2008. However, the smarter ones took this opportunity to diversify and tweak their business models.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:00 am Satyam Computer recoups after sharp slideHyderabad, Dec. 24: The Satyam stock has hit a 52-week low of Rs 114.65 on Wednesday on reports of World Bank confirming that it barred the company for eight years from getting theSource: Business Line - Home Page | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:00 am India Inc raises Rs 45,000 cr less this year compared to 2007India Inc finds raising money a lot tougher proposition in 2008 compared to the previous year if data compiled by Bloomberg news agency is anything to go by. It could mobilise only Rs 3,05,377 crore as of December 23, the latest date up to whichSource: Business Line - Home Page | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:00 am Kotak Securities fined Rs 10 lakhMumbai, Dec. 24 The Securities and Exchange Board of India on Wednesday imposed a fine of Rs 10 lakh on Kotak Securities Ltd (KSL) for alleged violations of SEBI Regulations pertaining to the Depository Participants inSource: Business Line - Home Page | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:00 am Oil majors stare at Q3 lossesMumbai, Dec. 24 Despite crude prices falling to $35 per barrel, the Big Three public sector oil refiners are fortifying themselves for another round of net losses in the third quarter of thisSource: Business Line - Home Page | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:00 am M&A deals lack lustre on slowdown bluesMumbai, Dec. 24 Merger and acquisition (M&A) deals and private equity investments in 2008 suffered a major setback in line with the financial crisis and global economicSource: Business Line - Home Page | 25 Dec 2008 | 12:00 am 6 days left, Subhas says govt has limited powers' - Times of India
Source: Google News India - Business | 24 Dec 2008 | 10:15 pm HC nod for Rs 100-cr water plant - Times of India
Source: Google News India - Business | 24 Dec 2008 | 10:15 pm Pharmacy retailing biz pops the shakeout pillThe $5 billion-a-year industry is expected to log a healthy 11% annual growth rate over the next two years.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 24 Dec 2008 | 9:47 pm Satyam director says not told of World Bank banThe independent directors of the beleaguered Satyam Computer Services were not informed of the World Bank's actions against the company.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 24 Dec 2008 | 9:45 pm Reliance Power raisingThe company is setting up the 4,000 mw power unit for Rs 20,000 crore, of which Rs 14,500 crore would be raised through debt.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 24 Dec 2008 | 9:42 pm No bail for Raju, Madhav in Nagarjuna Fin caseThe bail plea of Nagarjuna group chairman K S Raju and Maytas Infra chief executive officer P K Madhav was rejected by a Hyderabad city court.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 24 Dec 2008 | 9:40 pm Tatas won't vacate Singur before SeptemberTata Motors has communicated to the West Bengal government that any discussion on the return of the land at Singur can start only in September 2009Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 24 Dec 2008 | 9:38 pm Rollovers in line, but volumes remain bareThe December F&O series, which got crunched at start due to the Mumbai terror attack, was curtailed to the jingles of Santa in the end. In the end, the rollovers remained in line.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 24 Dec 2008 | 9:34 pm Biosimilars for cancer yet to find tractionWith over 2.5 million cancer patients in India, the potential for drugs to fight the dreaded scourge is a no-brainer.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 24 Dec 2008 | 9:32 pm Mecon to study Nalco's AP projectNational Aluminum Company (Nalco), despite being hit hard by collapsing aluminium prices, is taking strides on its national expansion plans.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 24 Dec 2008 | 9:31 pm Sebi imposes Rs 10lakh fine on Kotak Sec in 2003 caseThe Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has levied a penalty of Rs 10 lakh on Kotak Securities for margin trading irregularity. In response, Kotak Securities said it will appeal against the the Sebi order in the Securities Appellate Tribunal the case pertains to DP accounts inspection and dates back to September 2003.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 24 Dec 2008 | 8:01 pm Oil falls 9 percent on economic gloomNEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil dropped 9 percent on Wednesday as another round of gloomy economic data showed the United States has fallen deeper into recession.Source: Reuters: Money News | 24 Dec 2008 | 7:52 pm Energy-efficieny technologies to the foreNew Delhi: In 2009, India will launch prototypes and start pilot projects to test energy-efficient technologies—a fallout of increasing policy initiatives and industries recognizing that such efficiencies add to corporate image. To be sure, scientists say awareness about global warming is still low in the country. “Though global warming might sound like old news, awareness of its impact on the climate and the need for solutions to mitigate it, have not reached our villages and towns,” says Rajender K. Pachauri, chairman of the Nobel peace prize-winning Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change. “It’s only the cities that are somewhat sensitized.”  Illustration: Jayachandran / Mint Gagan Mehra, managing director of Osram India Pvt. Ltd, a lamp maker, says his company will sell at least two million CFL units at a deep discount to poor families in Maharashtra, Haryana and Andhra Pradesh in 2009. A CFL unit will cost around Rs10-15, while the actual cost is around Rs300, he says. A study by Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), an industry lobby group, says that six million CFLs used every year in India would eliminate the need of 3,700MW of electricity and save around $6 million (Rs28.4 crore). Most power plants in the country are coal-fired, that add to greenhouse gas emission, a prime cause of climate change. “In India, there are 300 million general lighting service points, and if 10% of these are converted to CFL, 4,400 million kW per annum of electricity would be saved, reducing the country’s electricity bills by Rs1,320 crore,” says N.K. Bansal of the Centre for Energy Studies at the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Delhi. Although there are no formal studies done on CFL adoption, ballpark estimates put the figure at as low as 10-20%. “The centre, too, is planning a scheme to popularize CFL adoption. So, that would mean several projects across 2009 to increase their popularity,” says Pachauri. Many local companies are also looking at technologies that reduce the toxicity of greenhouse gases. Though these technologies have been around for a while, international market-based mechanisms such as the Clean Development Mechanism—under which industries in developed countries have agreed to offset a portion of their emissions by paying industry in developing countries such as India and China to implement cleaner and costlier technologies—have renewed interest in them. Clean biogas Chandan Gadgil is an entrepreneur who 15 years ago figured out a way to clean up biogas, a useful but polluting gas. The clean biogas, he says, can be used as natural gas to power boilers. Chemical factories, such as Kanoria Chemicals and Industries Ltd in Gujarat, have adopted the process. Gadgil, the chief executive of Innovative Environmental Technologies Pvt. Ltd, now adds an extra line to his sale pitch—“This can also help your company gain carbon credits.” “This line really gets people’s attention,” he says.  Elemental power: Wind turbines at a wind farm in Raghapuram, Tamil Nadu. Scientists are looking at ways to make wind power generation more efficient. Rogan Macdonald / Bloomberg Swatantra Kumar, one of the directors of the company, says the firm has now tied-up with CantorCO2e India Pvt. Ltd, a firm that consults on managing emissions and trades in carbon credits. CantorCO2e advises companies on what technologies may be useful to reduce their carbon emissions and importantly gain carbon credits. Ram Babu, managing director, CantorCO2e India, says: “Indian industries have already taken a lead in capturing major portion of the multibillion carbon credit market.” Kumar claims the strategic tie-up with Abhitech has greatly stoked buyer interest from coal companies and kiln manufacturers. State-funded innovations Unlike in the US, where bulk of the clean technology research is done in universities, India’s efforts are concentrated in government labs such as those of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR). Scientists here are looking at developing low-cost fuel cells, isolating strains of algae and bacteria that may yield biofuel as well as making solar, wind and hydroelectric projects more efficient. Notable projects that may see progress in 2009 include CSIR’s fuel cell programme that aims to harness hydrogen to produce electricity, and hopefully, run cars. “The immediate aim is to indigenously manufacture a 1kW fuel cell at a viable cost. Once that happens, we can experiment on a variety of other fuel cells, including methanol-based ones to power laptops,” says K. Vijayamohanan, a senior scientist at the National Chemical Laboratory, a CSIR lab involved in the fuel cell programme. Other research organizations such as the Central Food Technological Research Institute, Mysore; IIT Kharagpur; and the Institute of Microbial Technology, Chandigarh, are set to scale up pilots that use algae such as Botryococcus braunii and Enterobacter cloacae, a bacteria that may potentially be a storehouse for extractable hydrogen. Telecom efficiency India’s burgeoning telecom sector may be the first beneficiary of new age energy-efficient technologies. Since diesel-powered generators are the main source of energy for telecom towers, operators are increasingly looking at biofuel-run generators and cooling systems that could reduce power consumption and save costs. If 10% of India’s general lighting is converted to CFLs, electricity bills can be reduced by Rs1,320 crore An ACME spokesperson says the company’s clients included Bharti Airtel Ltd, Reliance Communications Ltd, Vodafone Essar Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd, and “depending on the number of installations, we’ve been able to achieve efficiency, and thus cost savings, of nearly 30-40%.” In October, Ballard Power Systems, a Canadian company that manufactures clean energy fuel cell products, said it had signed multi-year supply agreement with ACME to provide fuel cells for backup power in the wireless telecom market. The supply agreement imposes mutual exclusivity on both companies for the India wireless telecom backup power market through 2010. jacob.k@livemint.com Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 24 Dec 2008 | 7:00 pm Reliance Power to raise Rs 11500 cr via syndicated loansReliance Power will raise Rs 11,500 crore via Syndicated loan and USD 500600 million via external commercial borrowings (ECB). The company will raise the ECB via India Infrastructure Finance Company Limited, or IIFCL, (UK).Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 24 Dec 2008 | 6:39 pm Personal network matters as Silicon Valley braces for firingsSan Francisco: Silicon Valley, the technology mecca once considered immune to fallout from the global financial meltdown, now faces the biggest cutbacks since the dot-com crash. “Lots of my friends have been laid off,” Peter Raulwing, a project manager for Microsoft Corp., said during lunch at a Starbucks in Palo Alto, California. “I absolutely watch what I spend. I feel lucky I’ve survived, but you never really know.” He has reason for concern. Global spending on computers and software will slide 8% next year in the US, Western Europe and Japan, according to Goldman Sachs Group Inc. With a 7% unemployment rate, Silicon Valley has about 4,000 fewer jobs today than this time last year, the Center for the Continuing Study of the California Economy said last week. Global spending on computers and software will slide 8% next year in the US, Western Europe, Japan Technology companies with headquarters in Silicon Valley—a corridor of office parks stretching between San Francisco and San Jose—have announced at least 38,000 job cuts since September. Hewlett-Packard Co., Yahoo Inc., Adobe Systems Inc., Sun Microsystems Inc. and Palm Inc. are among the firms paring their workforces. The region will probably feel more pain starting next month, said Madeline McMenamin, a senior consultant for workforce consulting firm Watson Wyatt Worldwide Inc. “People are finishing their forecasts and budgets for the next year, and those will reflect continued downsizing,” McMenamin said from Santa Clara, California. “We need to brace for tough times.” Raulwing said he’s put off buying a 42-inch flat-screen television, has postponed vacations, and is dining out less to save money. “It feels more scary,” said Lutz Haentzschel, a software developer sitting with his laptop at a coffee shop in Palo Alto. He moved to the Bay Area 17 years ago and works for Siemens AG, Europe’s largest engineering company. “I’m waiting for my shares to recover.” Tighter credit and slumping home prices mean Stephen Johnston can’t get the refinancing he needs to consolidate his loans and save on taxes. A software engineer at Microsoft, Johnston and his wife own a house in Fremont and another in Hayward—across the San Francisco Bay from his Palo Alto office. Johnston said he went further into debt with an eight-month remodel of their Fremont home. To save $4,000 a year on petrol and bridge tolls, the two-car family now drives only one, increasing Johnston’s commute time to 2-and-a-half hours. “I leave my house in Fremont, drop off my daughter at day care 6 miles away, commute with my wife across the bridge to Redwood City, and then drive to Palo Alto,” Johnston said. While there isn’t much optimism in Silicon Valley right now, the slowdown will be less severe than the fallout after the dot-com bubble in 2000, said Doug Henton, chief executive officer of Collaborative Economics Inc., a consulting firm in Mountain View, California. About 200,000 jobs disappeared from the region in 2001 and 2002, he said. “The last time around, whole swaths of the technology market vaporized,” John Challenger, CEO of executive search firm Challenger, Gray and Christmas Inc., said from Chicago. “We won’t have the same impact this time. This recession is from banks and others dragging technology down with it. And people in the Valley realize how important personal networking is.” Trip O’Dell is counting on that network. He and 600 colleagues at Adobe Systems Inc., the biggest maker of graphic-design programmes, lost their jobs this month. With a two-year-old daughter and another baby on the way, O’Dell plans to create games for Apple Inc.’s iPhone or develop applications for Facebook Inc.’s social networking site. “The benefit of being on the wrong side of a layoff is you have access to all these others with talent who suddenly have a lot of time on their hands,” said O’Dell, 35. There are still opportunities for people who use personal networks to find new jobs and start companies, he said. Silicon Valley’s workers will have to spend more time networking next year as companies continue to cut jobs, Challenger said. “The first quarter is going to be rough waters,” Challenger said. “The strength of the workforce lies in their flexibility, and how they use their knowledge of each other.” Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 24 Dec 2008 | 6:36 pm CISF to quadruple consultancy fees for private companiesSpotting an opportunity in the counter-terrorism business, the government is considering quadrupling security consultancy service rates provided by the Central Industrial Security Force (CISF) toSource: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 24 Dec 2008 | 6:36 pm Industry associations, BCCI to come under tax netGovt redefines charitable purpose to exclude organisations earning fees.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 24 Dec 2008 | 6:34 pm Cut tobacco FDI to 74%: DIPPThe Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) in the commerce ministry proposes to scale back the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) ceiling for the tobacco industry from 100 to 74 per centSource: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 24 Dec 2008 | 6:32 pm Moon mission spells money for IsroNew Delhi: India’s Chandrayaan-I mission in October has not only successfully put a satellite in the moon’s orbit but it has done it at one-fourth the cost. And this has made countries across the globe sit-up and take notice. The Indian Space Research Organization or Isro expects to get an additional revenue of Rs500-Rs600 crore per year in new orders from foreign clients for making and launching satellites. Click here to watch video “We have now commitments to launch for four different customers — Algeria, Netherlands, Italy and Singapore. And there are also indications that there could be further demand for a launch from PSLV and GSLV when it becomes operational,” says KR Sridhara Murthy the managing director of Antrix Corporation. Buoyed by the success of Chandrayaan-I, space scientists now plan to conquer new frontiers by sending a robot on moon in 2012 and a spacecraft to Mars the following year, which will also see an Indian astronaut in space. Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro) has lined up a slew of missions, which also include landing a spacecraft on an asteroid and sending a probe to fly past a comet. Isro plans to send an Indian astronaut in space onboard a Russian mission in 2013 and follow it up with two Indian astronauts on a seven-day mission on an indigenously developed rocket in 2015. Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 24 Dec 2008 | 6:25 pm Financing still an issue, but Jan may pep auto cos: MarutiMaruti Suzuki India\'s latest launch, AStar, hasn\'t revved up sales for Maruti. RC Bhargava, Chairman, Maruti Suzuki India said that financing still remains a big handicap. He hopes January to be a better month because of new model, new models, new year etc.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 24 Dec 2008 | 5:43 pm Ashok Leyland asks suppliers for breather in paymentsReeling from the slowdown, Ashok Leylands inventory levels are as high as threefour months, reports CNBCTV18 quoting sources, adding that the company is having problems in making payments to suppliers. Sources added that the commercial vehicle major has asked its suppliers for a 20% cut in payments for the time beingSource: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 24 Dec 2008 | 5:42 pm SRF buys SRF Polymers for Rs 150 crOn December 16, the SRF Board approved buying two businesses of SRF Polymers for Rs 151 crore and this news has got away because of the Satyam fiasco. FY08 EBIDTA made by both these businesses is a loss of Rs 1.7 crore and FY08 net loss of nearly Rs 14 crore.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 24 Dec 2008 | 5:41 pm Average ticket size of PE deals to go below $100 m in \'09The global financial crisis and flagging investor sentiment have led to shrinkage in private equity infusion in the real estate sector by 50% from last year, with some funds not having done a single deal this year. Investors feel that the average ticket sizes of PE deals will shrink below USD 100 million in 2009.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 24 Dec 2008 | 5:35 pm E-books promo helps rekindle readers’ interestCould book lovers finally be willing to switch from pages to pixels? For a decade, consumers mostly ignored electronic book devices, which were often hard to use and offered few popular items to read. But this year, in part because of the popularity of Amazon.com’s wireless Kindle device, the e-book has started to take hold.  Palm reading: MaryAnn van Hengel, a graphic designer in New York, with her Amazon Kindle. The $359 Kindle, which is slim, white and about the size of a trade paperback, was unveiled a year ago. Now it is out of stock and unavailable until February. Alan Zale / NYT Now it is out of stock and unavailable until February. Analysts credit Oprah Winfrey, who praised the Kindle on her show in October, and blame Amazon for poor holiday planning. The shortage is providing an opening for Sony Corp., which embarked on an intense publicity campaign for its Reader device during the gift-buying season. The stepped-up competition may represent a coming of age for the entire idea of reading longer texts on a portable digital device. “The perception is that e-books have been around for 10 years and haven’t done anything,” said Steve Haber, president of Sony’s digital reading division. “But it’s happening now. This is really starting to take off.” Sony’s efforts have been overshadowed by Amazon’s. But this month it began a promotional blitz in airports, train stations and bookstores, with the ambitious goal of personally demonstrating the Reader to two million people by the end of the year. The company's latest model, the Reader 700, is a $400 device with a reading light and a touch screen that allows users to annotate what they are reading. Haber said Sony’s sales had tripled this holiday season over last, in part because the device is now available in the Target, Borders and Sam’s Club chains. He said Sony had sold more than 300,000 devices since the debut of the original Reader in 2006. It is difficult to quantify the success of the Kindle, since Amazon will not disclose how many it has sold and analysts’ estimates vary widely. Peter Hildick-Smith, president of the Codex Group, a book market research company, said he believed Amazon had sold as many as 260,000 units through the beginning of October, before Winfrey’s endorsement. Others say the number could be as high as a million. Many Kindle buyers appear to be outside the usual gadget-hound demographic. Almost as many women as men are buying it, Hildick-Smith said, and the device is most popular in the 55-64 age group. So far, publishers such as HarperCollins, Random House and Simon and Schuster say that sales of e-books for any device—including simple laptop downloads—constitute less than 1% of total book sales. But there are signs of momentum. The publishers say sales of e-books have tripled or quadrupled in the last year. Amazon’s Kindle version of The Story of Edgar Sawtelle by David Wroblewski, a best-seller recommended by Winfrey's book club, now represents 20% of total Amazon sales of the book, according to Brian Murray, chief executive of HarperCollins Publishers Worldwide. The Kindle version of the book, which can be downloaded by the device itself through its wireless modem, costs $10 in the Amazon Kindle store. The Reader version costs $12 from Sony's e-book library, accessible from an Internet-connected computer. Even authors who were once wary of selling their work in bits and bytes are coming around. After some initial hesitation, authors such as Danielle Steel and John Grisham are soon expected to add their titles to the e-book catalogue, their agents say. “E-books will become the go-to-first format for an ever-expanding group of readers who are newly discovering how much they enjoy reading books on a screen,” said Markus Dohle, chief executive of Random House, the world’s largest publisher of consumer books. Nobody knows how much consumer habits will shift. Some of the most committed bibliophiles maintain an almost fetishistic devotion to the physical book. But the technology may have more appeal for particular kinds of people, such as those who are the heaviest readers. At Harlequin Enterprises, the Toronto-based publisher of bodice-ripping romances, Malle Vallik, director for digital content and interactivity, said she expected sales of digital versions of the company’s books someday to match or potentially outstrip sales in print. Harlequin, which publishes 120 books a month, makes all of its new titles available digitally, and has even started publishing digital-only short stories that it sells for $2.99 each, including an erotica collection called Spice Briefs. Perhaps the most overlooked boost to e-books this year—and a challenge to some of the standard thinking about them—came from Apple Inc.’s do-it-all gadget, the iPhone. Several e-book-reading programmes have been created for the device, and at least two of them, Stanza from LexCycle and the eReader from Fictionwise, have been downloaded more than 600,000 times. Another company, Scroll Motion, announced this week that it would begin selling e-books for the iPhone from major publishers such as Simon and Schuster, Random House and Penguin. All of these companies say they are now tailoring their software for other kinds of smartphones, including BlackBerrys. Publishers say these iPhone applications are already starting to generate nearly as many digital book sales as the Sony Reader, though they still trail sales of books in the Kindle format. 2008/The New York Times feedback@livemint.com Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 24 Dec 2008 | 5:09 pm The Capitalist | Power production: game getting interestingFirst, let’s start with the good news. India’s power generation has been increasing and so has been its per capita utilization, despite the increase in population. Then comes another bit of good news—India’s per capita power consumption is way below world averages. True, it’s not encouraging for India lovers, but it points to an incredible opportunity for business. India will need to produce and consume a great deal more electricity to maintain even half the economic growth rate of the past two years. No wonder then that this sector has begun attracting big money. Also ReadR.N. Bhaskar’s earlier columns In fact, it alone could become the next El Dorado for most investors, lawyers and fund managers. By 2012, India is likely to see an increase in installed power generation capacity of 51,250MW, according to estimates by financial services group Nomura, or 68,504MW estimated by the Planning Commission. That should involve an investment outlay of anywhere between Rs2.56 trillion and Rs4.11 trillion—arrived at by taking the cost per MW of installed thermal power generation capacity of Rs5 crore to Rs6 crore. The private sector is delighted, because it is expected to pick up around a quarter (14,889MW) of this business. But, in last two months, much of this glee has given way to worries. Some say, such large funds may not be available any more. But others say money can always be found. After all, almost all power equipment firms and construction companies are in developed nations. To generate jobs for their own countries, they will give suppliers’ credit. Also See Power Play (Graphic) However, government clearances are not likely to come in for at least eight months. All investments are, therefore, being deferred till the general elections are over and a new government is in place. But why should anyone wait for a new government to interfere with project implementation? That is because Indian costs of installing one MW capacity—which typically cost $1 million (Rs4.9 crore) per MW in international competitive bids—is anywhere between 15% and 30% more. This is because money is required to get clearances for power projects, and nobody wants to pay such sums, especially when a government is just about to relinquish power. ********* Asset pricing: a pyramid scheme? In a brilliant 136-page report, ‘The Business of Ageing’, John Llewellyn and Camille Chaix-Viros of Nomura examine the potential effect ageing can have on financial markets. “Economic considerations suggest that young societies, which have a relatively large proportion of their population at work, will tend to build up assets, while ageing societies, with a smaller proportion of their population in work, will run them down,” it says. “This would imply that, starting in the coming few years, the downward underlying trend that has characterized (real) interest rates and equity yields in many OECD (Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development) economies could flatten out and then turn upwards; while in young societies, most notably the developing economies, the trend would be downwards,” it adds. “In turn, that could imply that the underlying trend in the currencies of the ageing OECD economies would be upwards vis-à-vis the currencies of the developing economies,” the report says in a key finding. This in effect means that all asset markets could be seen “in demographic terms... as a pyramid scheme,” explains ‘The Economist’ magazine. This is because each generation saves for the next convinced that, other things being equal, the value of the asset will go up primarily because there will be greater demand for it when the next generation inherits it—provided that the numbers of the next generation exceed that of the current. It is one reason why many marketers describe India’s population as the demographic dividend. But, the demographic dividend can also be a curse. World Bank officials never tire of reminding Indian economists of Iran. Ten years ago, it enjoyed the demographic dividend among Islamic countries. But most people forget that when you have a large illiterate and unemployed population, a riot is always around the corner. Lawyers and fixed fees Last week’s comments on how the US law firm Cravath, Swaine and Moore Llp. has begun adopting fixed fees for its clients provoked some Mint readers to tell this columnist that this practice should become a law in India, as it could be one good step towards reducing the time taken to litigate and minimize the plague of adjournments. (Many law firms in India charge for adjournments as well.) In a lighter vein, a Mint reader narrated an anecdote where a potential client asked a lawyer what his charges were, and he replied $500 for three questions. “Isn’t that a bit steep?” asked the potential client. “Yes.” said the lawyer. “Now, what is your third question?” Will India’s policymakers take heed? ********* R.N. Bhaskar runs a company with significant interests in distance learning and examination certification and writes on corporate and business policy issues. Comments on this column are welcome at capitalist@livemint.com Graphics by Ahmed Raza Khan / Mint Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 24 Dec 2008 | 4:53 pm Extend excise cut to dealer level: Auto dealers\' bodyThe Federation of Auto Dealers (FADA) has asked the government to extend the excise cut to dealer level, reports CNBCTV18, quoting sources. The FADA has asked the Planning Panel and Commerce Ministry to extend 4% excise cut on stocks lying.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 24 Dec 2008 | 4:37 pm DDA house allotment defaults may head for CBI probeCNBC TV18 in an exclusive last week had exposed the plight of more than 25,000 applicants waiting for allotment of their affordable house through DDA since last 27 years. Now there are reports that the case may be headed for a CBI probe.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 24 Dec 2008 | 4:13 pm Auto cos suffering from inventory pile up; cut productionMany automobiles companies, such as, Tata Motors, MM, Ashok Leyland and Asia Motor Works plants have been shut due to inventory pile up. The enquiries for new vehicles have dried up and there is no movement in core sectors like cement and steel, except coal.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 24 Dec 2008 | 3:21 pm Newspapers not responsible for advertisers' claims: CourtNewspapers and periodicals cannot be held responsible if there is a defect in a consumer product whose advertisements are printed in their pages, the Delhi High court has held.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 24 Dec 2008 | 3:00 pm Rel Infra sole bidder for 135km Delhi expresswayReliance Infra has emerged as the sole bidder for the 135kilometre Eastern Peripheral Expressway around Delhi, reports CNBCTV18.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 24 Dec 2008 | 2:49 pm Toyota Innova, Corolla to cost moreToyota's Innova and Corolla Altis models will be costlier by up to Rs.25,000 next month, the Japanese auto major said Wednesday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 24 Dec 2008 | 2:33 pm Dikshit takes stock of Delhi's electricity situationDelhi Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit at an official meeting Wednesday took stock of the electricity situation in the capital and directed the distribution companies to involve legislators in exhorting consumers to install metres.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 24 Dec 2008 | 2:32 pm Satyam shares pullback on takeover talkBANGALORE (Reuters) - Shares in Satyam Computer Services pulled back from steep losses on Wednesday on market talk the outsourcer may see a takeover bid after its valuation plummeted on corporate governance concerns.Source: Reuters: Money News | 24 Dec 2008 | 12:49 pm
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