Bangalore: India’s largest private port and special economic zone, Mundra Port and Special Economic Zone Ltd, which is promoted by the Adani Group, has filed a writ petition in the Bombay high court after it was excluded from the bidding process for developing a fourth container terminal at Mumbai’s Jawaharlal Nehru Port, according to a person briefed on the matter.

The petition is slated to be heard on 13 April, this person said declining to be identified.

The litigation comes at a time JN Port is looking to set up a new container handling facility to boost capacity and ease congestion.

The port wants to develop, through private investments, a small container terminal with a berth length of 330 metres (half the normal length of 650-700m) with a capacity of 6 lakh standard containers a year.

Mumbai-listed Mundra port and SEZ Ltd had applied for the project along with Leighton Contractors (India) Pvt. Ltd and Adani Enterprises Ltd.

Spokespersons for both JN Port and Mundra port and SEZ Ltd declined comment.

The new case comes on the heels of another one that JN Port managed to avoid when the court refused to admit a writ petition filed by Mumbai-listed ABG Infralogistics Ltd against its disqualification from the bidding process, an executive at ABG said on condition of anonymity.

The port currently handles some 60% of India’s container cargo of about 7.85 million standard containers, but is restricted by capacity from handling any more.

In the year to March 2009, JN Port handled 3.95 million standard containers and is already operating at more than its designed capacity of 3.6 million standard containers.

JN Port has shortlisted only two entities for the new project from a list of nine that had applied last year.

This is despite the fact that government-owned ports have been allowed to shortlist up to six bidders for auctions to set up cargo handling terminals there.

The shortlisted firms are DP World Ltd, the world’s fourth biggest container port operator owned by the Dubai government, and a consortium comprising the Essar Group companies Vadinar Oil Terminal Ltd and Essar Ports and Terminals Ltd.

Those excluded from the auction include L&T Transport Project Pvt. Ltd, a unit of India’s biggest engineering and construction firm Larsen and Toubro Ltd; Grup Maritim TCB S.L-Eredene Capital Plc-Obrascon Huarte Lian SA-GE Mauritius International Holdings Ltd; Mundra Port and SEZ Ltd-Adani Enterprises Ltd-Leighton Contractors (India) Pvt. Ltd; IL&FS Maritime Infrastructure Co Ltd-Punj Lloyd Ltd-Pembinaan Redzai Sdn Bhd.

Banks are under pressure from the Reserve Bank of India, or RBI, as well as the government to lower lending rates. Indeed, cheap money can stimulate demand for loans from companies as well as individuals and prop up a slowing economy, but the prime lending rate, or PLR, the rate at which banks lend to their top-rated clients, is no indication of the cost of funds for borrowers. This is because about 70% of borrowers are still accessing money at below PLR.

Between October and March, RBI cut its policy rate by 5.5 percentage points—from 9% to 3.5%—but banks have not reduced their PLR even by half as much. The main reason behind this is their inability to pare deposit rates aggressively, but even those banks that have brought down their deposit rates are reluctant to cut PLR for a structural reason. The industry is by and large deregulated, but a few lending rates are still mandated by RBI and they are linked to banks’ PLR.

For instance, loans to exporters are given at 2.5 percentage points below PLR. Similarly, all loans to small farmers are priced cheaper than PLR. This means that if a bank pares its PLR, its earnings on loans to exporters and small farmers decline drastically. So, banks prefer to keep their PLR at an artificially high level and charge the bulk of their borrowers a loan rate that is much below the prime rate. In other words, PLR is no indication of the actual loan rate that the banks charge their borrowers.

The best way to force banks to cut their PLR could be to ban the practice of lending below PLR. Since PLR is meant for the top-rated borrowers, they should get bank loans at the prime rate and not below it. Once banks are banned from giving loans at below the prime rate, PLR will come down to 8.5-9% from the current level of around 11.5-12%, almost in sync with RBI’s cut in policy rate. But to do this, the regulator will have to delink export loans and small farm loans from PLR. After all, not all exporters and small farmers are better than banks’ best borrowers. So, banks should be allowed to give loans to exporters and small farmers at PLR and not below PLR. Once this is done, banks will be left with no excuse to keep their prime lending rate at an artificially high level and lend to prime borrowers at below PLR.

It’s also high time RBI looked into some of the mandated rates that hinder banks’ ability to manage their cost of funds. One such rate is the savings account rate, currently pegged at 3.5%. In the past 15 years, the savings bank rate has come down by 1.5 percentage points. In November 1994, it was brought down from 5% to 4.5%. The next two half a percentage point cuts came in April 2000 and March 2003. Since then, it has remained unchanged and banks have no freedom to fix this rate. Any cut in the savings account rate will face political resistance as it affects savers, but RBI can offer banks limited freedom by allowing them to fix the rate within a cap of 3.5%.

A similar cap is used for the deposits kept by non-resident Indians, or NRIs. In this space, RBI should take the next logical step and give banks complete freedom to fix the rate. NRIs keep both rupee as well as foreign currency deposits in India. Banks can pay a maximum 1 percentage point above the London interbank offered rate, or Libor, on foreign currency deposits. For rupee deposits, known as non-resident external, or NRE, deposits, the ceiling is 1.75 percentage points above Libor. Minimum maturity for such deposits is one year. Since one-year Libor is now 1.96%, an NRI earns 2.96% on foreign currency deposits and 3.71% on one-year NRE fixed deposits.

Even though the ceilings on NRI deposits were sharply increased in November after the collapse of Wall Street investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. plunged the global financial system into an unprecedented credit crunch, interest rates in absolute terms have not increased significantly as Libor has been dropping following rate cuts by global central banks. With rates turning unattractive, NRIs prefer to invest their savings in the countries where they are living. For instance, interest rates in West Asia are much higher than what Indian banks are paying and a large chunk of NRI deposits come from that region.

Higher insurance cover on deposits is another attraction for NRIs to park their money overseas. US banks haveraised the insurance cover on deposits up to $250,000 (Rs1.25 crore) and banks in Singapore and Hong Kong offer full coverage while Indian banks offer insurance cover on only Rs100,000. No wonder then that between April and January of fiscal 2009, the net outflow of foreign currency deposits almost doubled to $1.2 billion, from $670 million in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal.

The regulator possibly feels that the banking system is not mature enough yet to handle the freedom and that any deregulation of savings account and NRI deposit rates may trigger a rate war among banks and push up their cost of funds. But there is no excuse for not banning sub-PLR loans. It should be done immediately to introduce transparency and tell the world that loan rates in India are not as high as they seem.

Tamal Bandyopadhyay keeps a close eye on all things banking from his perch as a deputy managing editor of Mint. Please email comments to bankerstrust@livemint.com

The first phase of voting is only a few days away and yet there is a curious feeling, as though everyone is viewing the process as a spectator, not a participant. People I spoke with in Mumbai, the financial capital, said there was a general feeling of despondency, of disconnect with the government due to concerns about the downturn and the loss of jobs and business. There is a feeling that there is no one to turn to for solutions at this time.

It is now clear that the fiscal and policy measures so far have done little to revive the economy. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) points out that “credit expansion during the period between 19 December and 13 February, at Rs8,091 crore, was sharply lower than that of Rs86,978 crore in the corresponding period of the last year... The total flow of resources to the commercial sector from banks and non-banks during 2008-09 up to 13 February, at Rs4.98 trillion, was lower than Rs6.08 trillion during the corresponding period of the last year”.

There is a very interesting analysis by Prof. Dilip Nachane, one of the country’s leading monetary economists, in the Economic and Political Weekly of 28 March. He argues that “the stimulus packages in several other countries (most notably the US, the UK, Germany and Singapore) also incorporate a host of special measures to help their vulnerable sections. In contrast, in India, very little seems to have been done towards relieving the distress caused by the crisis to the vulnerable sections of society. Making extremely clever use of the media, India Inc. has succeeded in projecting itself as the sole casualty of the financial crisis. Since official policy finds it extremely difficult to ignore media feedback in a democracy, it is not surprising that the major policy thrust so far has been on rescue packages aimed at salvaging this sector. But just as rescue operations in a shipwreck cannot be confined to first-class passengers alone, the vulnerable sections of Indian society (on whom the media seem to have virtually turned their backs) need help too”. This, he feels, has not been done. He goes on to argue that there is sufficient liquidity in the economy and that there are real dangers of emerging inflationary pressures, and cautions against fiscal expansionism.

Nearly half a million jobs have been lost in India, there are far fewer campus placements, export growth is sharply down, and several manufacturers are running reduced factory hours. Winter wheat harvesting has been affected by non-seasonal rains, cotton prices and yarn prices do not match, and there is general gloom all around. It is not surprising that people are a little more worried about themselves than the elections, and are quite concerned about whether someone is minding the store in the crisis—in fact, whether there is anyone in control at all.

Of course, as long as the election process is on, there is little that can be done in the way of policy interventions.

This does not, of course, mean that the entire machinery has gone to sleep and that we are a rudderless ship. The election process does not mean the absence of all governance—we fought the Kargil war while elections were on, and are responding to terrorist attacks now.

On the financial side, RBI is professionally staffed and is looking at monetary and fiscal developments closely and making the necessary corrections. Banks continue to go about their businesses as usual. The corridors of power, frequented by corporate houses and bureaucrats, are low on footfalls, but this also ensures that the normal process of governance goes on without any “special” interventions.

As a bureaucrat who saw nearly 10 elections in the state and at the Centre, I believe this is the time to put governance in order—in terms of policies and procedures for delivery of programmes, allocation of responsibilities, tidying up inter-ministerial issues, and most importantly, looking at personnel matters. I presume that the bureaucrats at the helm are doing the same.

This time around, we also have the advantage of having a prime minister who does not have to do much electioneering, and hence can focus on running the government.

So, we are in safe hands. But whether this will reassure those who have lost jobs and export orders, those who have no placements and are facing an uncertain future, is another matter. The pity is that none of the parties have come out with a 100-day agenda of what they would do to solve the crisis of the downturn.

The further pity is that this is perhaps the first election where the urban and rural youth is likely to turn up in very large numbers, we would record a very high polling rate, and yet the voters would be disappointed with the choices they find before them in the polling booths.

Mountain View, California: Google is based here in Silicon Valley, but Sanjay G. Mavinkurve is not. Mavin-kurve, a 28-year-old Indian immigrant who helped lay the foundation for Facebook while a student at Harvard, instead works out of a Google sales office in Toronto. He has a visa to work in the US, but his wife, Samvita Padukone, also born in India, does not. So he moved to Canada.

Just more than half the companies founded in Silicon Valley from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s had founders born abroad, according to Vivek Wadhwa, an immigration scholar working at Duke and Harvard.

The foreign-born elite includes Andrew S. Grove, the Hungarian-born co-founder of Intel; Jerry Yang, the Chinese-born co-founder of Yahoo; and Google’s Russian-born co-founder, Sergey Brin. But technology executives say that byzantine and increasingly restrictive visa and immigration rules have imperilled their ability to hire and retain more of the world’s best engineers.

Mavinkurve’s case exemplifies how immigration policies can chase away a potential entrepreneur who aspires to create wealth and jobs here and highlights the technology industry’s argument that the US will struggle to compete if it cannot more easily hire foreign-born engineers. “We are watching the decline and fall of the United States as an economic power—not hypothetically, but as we speak,” said Craig R. Barrett, the chairman of Intel.

Barrett blames a slouching education system that cannot be easily fixed, but he says a stopgap measure would be to let companies hire more foreign engineers.

“With a snap of the fingers, you can say, ‘I’m going to make it such that those smart kids—and as many of them as want to—can stay in the United States.’ They’re here today, they’re graduating today—and they’re going home today.”

The idea is opposed by staunch foes of liberalized immigration and by advocates for US-born engineers. “There are probably two billion people in the world who would like to live in California and work, but not everyone in the world can live here,” said Kim Berry, an engineer who operates a nonprofit advocacy group for US-born technologists. “There are plenty of Americans to do these jobs.”

The debate has only sharpened as the country’s economic downturn has deepened. Advocates for US-born workers are criticizing companies that lay off employees even as they retain engineers living here on visas. But the technology industry counters that innovations from highly skilled workers are central to the country’s long-term growth.

Mountain View, California: Google is based here in Silicon Valley, but Sanjay G. Mavinkurve is not. Mavin-kurve, a 28-year-old Indian immigrant who helped lay the foundation for Facebook while a student at Harvard, instead works out of a Google sales office in Toronto. He has a visa to work in the US, but his wife, Samvita Padukone, also born in India, does not. So he moved to Canada.

Just more than half the companies founded in Silicon Valley from the mid-1990s to the mid-2000s had founders born abroad, according to Vivek Wadhwa, an immigration scholar working at Duke and Harvard.

The foreign-born elite includes Andrew S. Grove, the Hungarian-born co-founder of Intel; Jerry Yang, the Chinese-born co-founder of Yahoo; and Google’s Russian-born co-founder, Sergey Brin. But technology executives say that byzantine and increasingly restrictive visa and immigration rules have imperilled their ability to hire and retain more of the world’s best engineers.

Mavinkurve’s case exemplifies how immigration policies can chase away a potential entrepreneur who aspires to create wealth and jobs here and highlights the technology industry’s argument that the US will struggle to compete if it cannot more easily hire foreign-born engineers. “We are watching the decline and fall of the United States as an economic power—not hypothetically, but as we speak,” said Craig R. Barrett, the chairman of Intel.

Barrett blames a slouching education system that cannot be easily fixed, but he says a stopgap measure would be to let companies hire more foreign engineers.

“With a snap of the fingers, you can say, ‘I’m going to make it such that those smart kids—and as many of them as want to—can stay in the United States.’ They’re here today, they’re graduating today—and they’re going home today.”

The idea is opposed by staunch foes of liberalized immigration and by advocates for US-born engineers. “There are probably two billion people in the world who would like to live in California and work, but not everyone in the world can live here,” said Kim Berry, an engineer who operates a nonprofit advocacy group for US-born technologists. “There are plenty of Americans to do these jobs.”

The debate has only sharpened as the country’s economic downturn has deepened. Advocates for US-born workers are criticizing companies that lay off employees even as they retain engineers living here on visas. But the technology industry counters that innovations from highly skilled workers are central to the country’s long-term growth.

Mumbai/ Bangalore: The Union shipping ministry has revived an almost decade-old proposal to bring all ports in India, both state-owned and private, under one tariff regulatory body.

This would mean that ports owned by state governments in Pipavav, Mundra, Krishnapatnam and Gangavaram, as well as new ones being developed by states with private investment will have their tariffs set by the Tariff Authority for Major Ports, or TAMP.

“TAMP now sets tariff for Union government-owned ports. We want TAMP to do this for ports owned by the state governments also,” said Rakesh Srivastava, joint secretary looking after ports in the shipping ministry.

The move is being opposed by private operators currently operating or developing these ports. Such port operators currently can set their own tariffs.

Only 11 of the dozen ports owned by the Union government are currently regulated by TAMP. These ports function as trusts under the Major Port Trusts Act, 1963. TAMP was created by amending this Act when the Union government in 1997 opened cargo capacity expansion projects at these ports to private investments. The only exception is the Ennore port in Tamil Nadu, which was set up by the Union government as a firm under the Companies Act, 1956, and is, therefore, outside TAMP’s purview.

There are at least 185 ports outside the Union government’s control, owned by state governments. These ports now account for some 25% of India’s port traffic from zero a few years ago. Some of these so-called non-major ports have been given to private firms for development and operations.

The Union government is planning to give deterrent powers to TAMP, including penal and enforcement rights by having a full-fledged TAMP Act, rather than just be a part of the Major Port Trusts Act.

“We want to have a powerful and all-pervasive TAMP,” Srivastava said. The idea is to have a transparent tariff structure across ports with TAMP acting as a dispute settlement mechanism with more powers, he said, adding that the government wants to bring all ports in India under a uniform tariff regulator by 2011.

But moving the tariff authority to TAMP will require the agreement of state governments. “No one has objected to the proposal so far,” claimed Srivastava. “We are trying to build a consensus because maritime states are also involved in this and all of them have to be taken on board. Hopefully, it will come through,” he told Mint during a visit to Mumbai last week.

However, he conceded that the plan has a few operational problems. “The first constraint is because of capacity and the second is because of the type of cargo,” he said. Unlike non-major ports, major ports have larger capacities where the tariffs are set on the basis of capacity as well as on the nature of cargo. “So, if capacities do not match, the biggest problem TAMP will face is how to make it uniformly applicable,” Srivastava said.

Not surprisingly, private firms that have developed and are operating the non-major ports were vocal in their opposition to the idea.

“It is a retrograde step,” said an executive at the Adani Group, which runs India’s biggest private port at Mundra in Gujarat, the western Indian state that has the most ports with private investments. He did not want to be named because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

“Ports in Gujarat do not require a regulator because there is perfect competition there,” said Prakash Tulsani, managing director, Gujarat Pipavav Port Ltd. Pipavav port is run by APM Terminals Management BV, the port operating unit of Danish shipping and oil conglomerate AP Moller-Maersk A/S. “In Gujarat, a customer has so many ports to chose from that there is no need for a tariff regulator. Market forces will decide tariffs.”

Apart from Mundra, Pipavav and Hazira, a dozen-odd ports are being developed by Gujarat with private investments. Similarly, the Andhra Pradesh government has developed Krishnapatnam and Gangavaram ports with private funds.

In 1999, a committee headed by C. Babu Rajeev, then chairman of government-owned Cochin port, had suggested legislation to combine the Indian Ports Act, 1908 and the Major Port Trusts Act, 1963 into a single one to enable corporatization of these ports.

The committee had also suggested converting TAMP into an appellate authority that would only address tariff disputes. “The recommendation was never implemented though it was discussed in the shipping ministry and by the parliamentary standing committee on transport,” Babu Rajeev, now the chief executive officer of ABG Infralogistics Ltd told Mint.

Instead, the government then floated the idea of bringing ports that are outside Union government control under a tariff regulator. The plan was shelved due to lack of support from the states.

New Delhi: India’s largest power generation company, NTPC Ltd, says its plans to set up power projects and a training centre for local engineers in Yemen—from where it wants to source gas for its fuel-starved plants back home—have run into trouble following a dispute over the cost of maintaining existing facilities in that country.

“We wanted to make it a relationship-building exercise as they (Yemen) have gas. We have plans (to set up power facilities) there but they will have to bear the costs. They want us to pay below the cost (for maintaining and repairing power plants in Yemen) to which we are not ready. We are still in talks,” said R.S. Sharma, NTPC’s chairman and managing director. “The governments in these countries are very unpredictable. Though we have been pursuing our Yemen plans, there has been no response from there. What to do...it looks like, it may not work,” said a senior NTPC executive who didn’t want to be identified.

Similar NTPC plans in Nigeria—to secure 3 million tonnes of gas a year for its projects in India—had faltered because of delays in finalizing an alliance with a local partner, as reported by Mint on 28 October.

The state-owned company has a total gas requirement of 12 million standard cubic metres per day (mscmd), which is expected to go up to 17.35 mscmd by 2012. NTPC has seven power plants fuelled by gas or liquid fuel with a total capacity of 3,955MW; it also runs a 740MW gas-based plant under a joint venture.

The company had zeroed in on Yemen, located in south-west Asia, following a suggestion from the ministry of external affairs, to leverage India’s old relationship with that country to secure gas resources, estimated at around 4,000 million barrels of oil and gas.

The Yemen embassy in New Delhi couldn’t be contacted for comment.

Mint had reported on 3 November 2007 about the company’s plans to set up power projects and a training facility in Yemen to secure gas supplies for its plants.

Kuljit Singh, a partner at accounting and consulting firm Ernst and Young, said: “NTPC is one of the few such large global utilities that is not venturing out of the country. They should aggressively look at overseas projects—and not only at bilateral projects. They should actively look at bidding for setting up projects overseas in addition to depending on inter-governmental contacts.”

NTPC currently has a power generation capacity of 30,144MW, which it plans to increase to 50,000MW by 2012. Of the 22,596MW it plans to add, 15,180MW will be through coal-based power generation, 4,550MW through gas-based generation and the balance from hydro-power. The company registered a net profit of Rs7,827.4 crore last year (2008-09) on a turnover of Rs42,182.4 crore.

The first phase of voting is only a few days away and yet there is a curious feeling, as though everyone is viewing the process as a spectator, not a participant. People I spoke with in Mumbai, the financial capital, said there was a general feeling of despondency, of disconnect with the government due to concerns about the downturn and the loss of jobs and business. There is a feeling that there is no one to turn to for solutions at this time.

It is now clear that the fiscal and policy measures so far have done little to revive the economy. The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) points out that “credit expansion during the period between 19 December and 13 February, at Rs8,091 crore, was sharply lower than that of Rs86,978 crore in the corresponding period of the last year... The total flow of resources to the commercial sector from banks and non-banks during 2008-09 up to 13 February, at Rs4.98 trillion, was lower than Rs6.08 trillion during the corresponding period of the last year”.

There is a very interesting analysis by Prof. Dilip Nachane, one of the country’s leading monetary economists, in the Economic and Political Weekly of 28 March. He argues that “the stimulus packages in several other countries (most notably the US, the UK, Germany and Singapore) also incorporate a host of special measures to help their vulnerable sections. In contrast, in India, very little seems to have been done towards relieving the distress caused by the crisis to the vulnerable sections of society. Making extremely clever use of the media, India Inc. has succeeded in projecting itself as the sole casualty of the financial crisis. Since official policy finds it extremely difficult to ignore media feedback in a democracy, it is not surprising that the major policy thrust so far has been on rescue packages aimed at salvaging this sector. But just as rescue operations in a shipwreck cannot be confined to first-class passengers alone, the vulnerable sections of Indian society (on whom the media seem to have virtually turned their backs) need help too”. This, he feels, has not been done. He goes on to argue that there is sufficient liquidity in the economy and that there are real dangers of emerging inflationary pressures, and cautions against fiscal expansionism.

Nearly half a million jobs have been lost in India, there are far fewer campus placements, export growth is sharply down, and several manufacturers are running reduced factory hours. Winter wheat harvesting has been affected by non-seasonal rains, cotton prices and yarn prices do not match, and there is general gloom all around. It is not surprising that people are a little more worried about themselves than the elections, and are quite concerned about whether someone is minding the store in the crisis—in fact, whether there is anyone in control at all.

Of course, as long as the election process is on, there is little that can be done in the way of policy interventions.

This does not, of course, mean that the entire machinery has gone to sleep and that we are a rudderless ship. The election process does not mean the absence of all governance—we fought the Kargil war while elections were on, and are responding to terrorist attacks now.

On the financial side, RBI is professionally staffed and is looking at monetary and fiscal developments closely and making the necessary corrections. Banks continue to go about their businesses as usual. The corridors of power, frequented by corporate houses and bureaucrats, are low on footfalls, but this also ensures that the normal process of governance goes on without any “special” interventions.

As a bureaucrat who saw nearly 10 elections in the state and at the Centre, I believe this is the time to put governance in order—in terms of policies and procedures for delivery of programmes, allocation of responsibilities, tidying up inter-ministerial issues, and most importantly, looking at personnel matters. I presume that the bureaucrats at the helm are doing the same.

This time around, we also have the advantage of having a prime minister who does not have to do much electioneering, and hence can focus on running the government.

So, we are in safe hands. But whether this will reassure those who have lost jobs and export orders, those who have no placements and are facing an uncertain future, is another matter. The pity is that none of the parties have come out with a 100-day agenda of what they would do to solve the crisis of the downturn.

The further pity is that this is perhaps the first election where the urban and rural youth is likely to turn up in very large numbers, we would record a very high polling rate, and yet the voters would be disappointed with the choices they find before them in the polling booths.

New Delhi: Ahmedabad-based Cadila Pharmaceuticals is looking for global tie-ups to market its new patented product - Polycap - a combination of five medicines that prevents heart attack.

“We have already got regulatory approval to launch Polycap in India and for launching it in overseas market. Cadila is looking for tie-ups with global drug firms,” company’s Vice President-Medical Services Arun Masi said.

The company has the capability of launching the drug in Indian market, but in markets such as the US and Europe, it requires partnership with other firms, he said adding, “Partnership with global players is also required for getting regulatory approval and market access in developed countries.”

Cadila has already initiated talks with some multinational firms, he said while declining to divulge the names citing confidentiality as the reason.

The company has also applied for the nod of US health regulator Food and Drug Administration, but the issues such as patent rights of Polycap in overseas is yet to be decided, he added.

Polycap is a combination of three common anti-hypertensive drug, along with aspirin and a statin, a cholesterol lowering drug.

Cadila Pharmaceuticals will launch the drug in India by Cadila had recently submitted a study report on the five-in-one ‘Polycap´, at The American College of Cardiology, Orlando and was published online by the British medical journal, Lancet.

New Delhi: India’s Satyam Computer Services could have a new owner on Monday when bids are opened for the disgraced outsourcing giant, officials said.

Sale of the firm at the heart of India’s biggest accounting fraud has taken on an urgency, with dozens of clients reported to have terminated their contracts or be aiming to shift their business because of uncertainty over Satyam’s future.

“The bids will be seen Monday,” Satyam board chairman Kiran Karnik told reporters on Saturday.

The Satyam board, advised by investment bankers Avendus and Goldman Sachs, then expects to announce the winning bid for the company, which acts as the back office for some of the world’s biggest manufacturers, health care providers and banks.

“We very much expect it to be wrapped up Monday unless there’s something we didn’t anticipate, but that’s unlikely,” a person close to the bidding process, who did not wish to be named said.

A statement by Satyam, listed on the New York Stock Exchange in 2001, was expected late on Monday.

The government-appointed board took control of Satyam after its founder B Ramalinga Raju stunned India’s corporate world in January by declaring he had inflated the balance sheet by over one billion dollars and overstated profits.

Just a handful of players are believed to be in the race as a result of lack of clarity about Satyam’s accounts and worries over liabilities from US shareholder and other suits.

The accounts are still being restated and won’t be ready for months. But Satyam has been battling to pay wages and other expenses since the fraud was revealed and is desperately in need of a cash infusion to help it survive.

Indian engineering giant Larsen & Toubro has already built up a 12% stake in Satyam and is seen as a front runner for the firm, once India’s fourth-largest by revenues.

Others expected to be in the race are Indian telecom software company Tech Mahindra Ltd and US billionaire investor W L Ross - possibly in tandem with Nasdaq-listed Cognizant Technology Solutions, according to media reports. All have refused comment.

Information technology consultancy Forrester Research has warned there is a chance any deal might fall through due to lack of financial data and the risk of litigation, meaning Satyam would go “back to square one.”

Satyam operates in close to 70 countries and has nearly 700 clients, including about 185 Fortune 500 firms - in theory making it an attractive prospect.

But bidders have faced a tough job assigning a value to the Hyderabad-based firm.

The bidder would buy 31% of Satyam and then make an open offer on the share market to bring its stake to 51%.

Raju, who described the fraud as like “riding a tiger” which got out of control, his brother and seven other people, including two Price Waterhouse employees who audited the accounts, have been charged with conspiracy, cheating, forgery and falsification of accounts.

If convicted on all counts they could face life imprisonment.

New Delhi: Foreign institutional investors (FIIs), who had turned away from the Indian equity market last year, seem to be returning back as since the beginning of the new financial year 2009-10 they have already put in over Rs1,000 crore into the domestic stocks.

FIIs seem to have embarked on fresh buying mode and made net investments of Rs1,056.1 crore since 1 April, the latest data available with the market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) website shows.

Significantly, in last fiscal, FIIs had pulled out close to Rs50,000 crore at the domestic stock market, almost equaling the inflow in the previous financial year.

According to Sebi data, FIIs’ net outflows have been Rs47,706.2 crore till 30 March in the fiscal year 2008-09 as against huge inflows of Rs53,000 crore in FY08.

Further, the Bombay Stock Exchange’s benchmark index Sensex has witnessed a rally in the past two weeks although the trading sessions have been just five due to holidays in between.

Since the beginning of the new financial year, Sensex has gained over 900 points or over 9%. On Thursday, the last trading day of the week, Sensex closed at 10,803.86 points.

Besides, FIIs have also made net investments in the debt segment to the tune of Rs620 crore in the first five days of the FY10.

Interestingly, it seems that domestic mutual fund houses are still concerned about the movement of the equity market as they have been net investors of just Rs38.3 crore in this fiscal, the latest data available with Sebi shows.

However, fund houses have put in significantly more amount in the debt segment in the first few days of the fiscal year. They have made investments of nearly Rs9,000 crore in the debt segment in April so far, the latest data shows.

Since the beginning of 2009, domestic institutional investors (which include mutual fund houses, insurance firms and others) have made a net investment of Rs10,558.98 crore in shares, the latest provisional data with the BSE shows.

In the fiscal year 2008-09, the country’s mutual fund industry witnessed a nearly Rs37,000 crore decline in its assets, with top fund house Reliance MF accounting for a little less than one-third of the losses.

Mumbai: The country’s most valued firms added over Rs33,000 crore to their market capitalisation last week, although heavy-weights like State Bank of India and Bhel suffered heavy losses in the premier club of top-10.

SBI, the country’s largest lender, lost Rs314 crore, from its market capitalisation previous week. At the end of trade on Thursday, SBI’s valuation stood at Rs72,402 crore.

The rejig in the elite club saw Bhel moving down to the seventh spot after losing Rs1,694 crore. Shares of BHEL dropped 2.25% on the Bombay Stock Exchange taking its total valuation down to Rs73,293 crore.

The top-10 firms, comprising four private and six public sector entities, added Rs33,416 crore to their valuation last week, taking the total market cap of the elite club to Rs11,913,76 crore.

In the previous week, the valuation of the club was at Rs11,57,958 crore.

The gains in the premier club of top-10 was led by country’s most valued firm Reliance Industries which gained Rs11,103 crore, accounting for a third of the total gains.

At the end of trade on Thursday, Mukesh Ambani-led RIL was valued at Rs2,72,747 crore.

Two state-run companies -- oil major Oil and Natural Gas Corporation and power utility NTPC-- added Rs3,112 crore and Rs8,658 crore, respectively, to their valuation last week.

At the end of Thursday’s trade, ONGC remained the most valued PSU firm with a market cap of Rs1,89,279 crore. Besides, NTPC’s valuation stood at Rs1,60,127 crore.

The rejig in the premier club saw trading firm MMTC moving up to the sixth place, replacing power equipment maker Bhel, after gaining Rs3,163 crore.

Telecom services provider Bharti Airtel and IT bellwether Infosys Technologies added Rs5,657 crore and Rs347 crore, respectively, to their market cap last week.

Diversified conglomerate ITC gained Rs868 crore and mining giant NMDC added Rs2,516 crore to its valuation in the week under review.

Apart from the top 10 most valued firms, two private sector lenders, ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank, together added Rs4,650 crore to their valuation last week.

While, ICICI Bank saw its market cap surge by Rs4,169 crore to Rs44,274 crore, HDFC Bank added Rs481 crore to Rs 44,497 crore at the end of Thursday’s trade.

RIL, the numero-uno in the list, is followed by ONGC (Rs1,89,279 crore), NTPC (Rs1,60,127 crore), Bharti Airtel (Rs1,26,850 crore), Infosys (Rs81,710 crore), MMTC (Rs77,984 crore), Bhel (Rs73,293 crore), SBI (Rs72,402 crore), ITC (Rs70,732 crore), NMDC (Rs66,250 crore).

Mumbai: As many as 25 companies, including Reliance Industrial Infrastructure, Ruias led-Essar Oil and ABG Shipyard, soared over 50% in the last seven trading days on the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).

As per an analysis of the top 25 gainers in the market rally from 30 March to 9 April, the top two firms - Reliance Industrial Infra (RIIL) and Webel SL Energy have surged over 100%, increasing their promoter wealth by as much as Rs367.52 crore and Rs17.91 crore, respectively.

However, most of the gainers have relatively smaller capitalisations compared to the blue-chip stocks.

Mukesh Ambani Group firm RIIL, which gained a whopping 189% in the last seven trading sessions, helped its promoter Reliance Industries gain Rs367.52 crore. RIL held 45.43% stake in the company for the quarter ended December, 2008.

The RIIL scrip surged to Rs819.50 on 9 April, gaining over three times from Rs283.75 on 30 March on the BSE.

RIIL rose sharply on speculations of company’s merger with its promoter and rumours that RIIL might help RIL transport natural gas after Reliance Industries began the gas production from its KG-D6 block.

Among the 25 gainers, Webel SL Energy, HDIL, Essar Oil, ABG Shipyard and Jindal South West Holdings helped their promoters to gain considerably.

Integrated oil and gas company Essar Oil advanced 84.44% in seven days, adding Rs1,318.79 crore to its promoters’ kitty.

Real estate company Housing Development & Infrastructure surged 51.72% during the reviewed period making its promoters richer by Rs686.99 crore at the end of Thursday’s trade last week.

For the quarter ended March 2009 the promoter group held 61.50% stake in the company.

Webel SL Energy Systems, a leading producer of solar photo voltaic cells, rose nearly two-fold to Rs118.80 on 9 April. Its promoters became rich by Rs17.91 crore in the period following the surge in the stock.

Ship builder ABG Shipyard added Rs162.54 crore to promoters wealth after surging nearly 80% in the last seven trading days. Non-banking financial company Jindal South West Holdings gained 67.15%, raising its promoter group’s wealth by Rs104.17 crore.

Interestingly, the BSE 30-share benchmark index Sensex which gained 1,235.72 points in the last seven trading days added over Rs1.82 lakh crore to the investors’ wealth.

Other top gainers during the previous week included Anant Raj Industries (65.65%), Jai Corp (65.07%), Aishwarya Telecom (61.4%), Megasoft (57.62%), Gitanjali Gems (56.97 %) and Birla Capital & Financial Services ( 55.78%).

London: British telecom giant BT is preparing to slash another 10,000 jobs and up to 60% cut in its dividend when it will announce its results next month, media reports say.

“The huge redundancy programme will be announced next month alongside a horrendous set of year-end figures that will include provisions of about 1.5 billion pound,” the Sunday Times said adding that “the redundancies are in addition to the 10,000 job cuts made last year and will be spread around BT’s 160,000 workforce.”

The report further said the dividend is likely to be cut by up to 60%, while profits will be further dented by a big contribution to address a pension deficit that will exceed £8 billion.

The results will mark one of the lowest points in BT’s history since it was privatised in 1984. The share price has crashed to 81 pence, valuing the telecoms company at £6.3 billion.

The results would also seriously damage the legacy of Ben Verwaayen, BT’s former chief executive, who left eight months ago and has since become chief executive at Alcatel-Lucent, the report added.

Another leading daily the Telegraph said, ”The current management, chairman Sir Mike Rake and chief executive Ian Livingstone, is understood to be looking to get as much bad news as possible out of the way when they announce next month’s results. Some commentators are predicting the job cuts could go deeper than 10,000.“

The Sunday Times further added, “They intend to present a company that has a sustainable dividend policy, cash flow and profits that can be delivered at the same time as reducing a debt burden of £11 billion.”

The new business plan will be built around conservative assumptions and draw a line under further provisions at Global Services, the Sunday Times said.

A large portion of the £1.5 billion of provisions, relate to contracts agreed during Verwaayen’s time at the Global Services division, which serves big, multinational customers.

“This division (Global Services), which was meant to be the group’s growth engine, is a financial disaster,” the Sunday Times said.

BT’s remaining three divisions- retail, Openreach and wholesale- are performing at their best for five years.

London: British telecom giant BT is preparing to slash another 10,000 jobs and up to 60% cut in its dividend when it will announce its results next month, media reports say.

“The huge redundancy programme will be announced next month alongside a horrendous set of year-end figures that will include provisions of about 1.5 billion pound,” the Sunday Times said adding that “the redundancies are in addition to the 10,000 job cuts made last year and will be spread around BT’s 160,000 workforce.”

The report further said the dividend is likely to be cut by up to 60%, while profits will be further dented by a big contribution to address a pension deficit that will exceed £8 billion.

The results will mark one of the lowest points in BT’s history since it was privatised in 1984. The share price has crashed to 81 pence, valuing the telecoms company at £6.3 billion.

The results would also seriously damage the legacy of Ben Verwaayen, BT’s former chief executive, who left eight months ago and has since become chief executive at Alcatel-Lucent, the report added.

Another leading daily the Telegraph said, ”The current management, chairman Sir Mike Rake and chief executive Ian Livingstone, is understood to be looking to get as much bad news as possible out of the way when they announce next month’s results. Some commentators are predicting the job cuts could go deeper than 10,000.“

The Sunday Times further added, “They intend to present a company that has a sustainable dividend policy, cash flow and profits that can be delivered at the same time as reducing a debt burden of £11 billion.”

The new business plan will be built around conservative assumptions and draw a line under further provisions at Global Services, the Sunday Times said.

A large portion of the £1.5 billion of provisions, relate to contracts agreed during Verwaayen’s time at the Global Services division, which serves big, multinational customers.

“This division (Global Services), which was meant to be the group’s growth engine, is a financial disaster,” the Sunday Times said.

BT’s remaining three divisions- retail, Openreach and wholesale- are performing at their best for five years.

New Delhi: The Supreme Court (SC) will hear a petition filed by BJP candidate from Pilibhit Varun Gandhi on Monday challenging the slapping of National Security Act (NSA) by the Uttar Pradesh government against him for his alleged hate speeches.

The matter will be heard by a bench headed by chief justice K G Balakrishnan, which on 2 April had issued notices to the state government and the district magistrate of Pilibhit on the allegation by Varun that NSA was invoked against him with a political motive to sabotage his electoral debut.

However, the Uttar Pradesh government has refuted the allegations of the 29-year-old BJP leader, saying NSA was invoked against him for his communal speeches and the chaos created by him while surrendering before a court in Pilibhit in in connection with the cases registered against him.

In its 35-page response to the notice issued by the apex court, the state government said the inflammatory statement by Varun and the manner in which he surrendered on 28 March amounted to breach of public order, warranting invocation of the NSA against him.

Varun has challenged his detention under NSA for his alleged hate speeches in Pilibhit last month. He was taken to the Pilibhit district jail and later shifted to Etah jail for security reasons.

Varun has claimed that the district magistrate passed the order of invoking NSA without any authority and he was not supplied with the material which formed the basis for such an action.

However, the state government contended that there was no need for the authority to supply entire material, including the CDs of the speeches and events, relating to Varun’s surrender for booking him under NSA.

It denied the allegation that NSA was imposed against him with any political motive or to sabotage his electoral debut.

The petition filed on behalf of Varun says that “the entire attempt is a combined effort of the district magistrate of Pilibhit and Uttar Pradesh government to ensure that he is not able to contest and campaign for general elections so as to sabotage his electoral debut.”

The BJP leader has sought quashing of the district magistrate’s order invoking section 3(2) of NSA for allegedly making inflammatory statements and causing a breach of public order when he went to Pilibhit to surrender.

Varun has also alleged that he was detained under NSA as there was apprehension to Uttar Pradesh government that he will be released on bail in the cases registered against him for the hate speeches.

He claimed that there was a breach of peace on the day of his surrender due to brutality and excesses by the police.

New Delhi: IT services firm Cognizant Technology Solutions has said it sees a silver lining in the financial crisis and plans to capitalize on it.

“I think any kind of economic slowdown creates opportunities for those who focus on them,” Cognizant CEO Francisco D’souza told PTI.

“We do believe that there are opportunities in the slowdown. One of things about slowdown is that it changes the rules of the games and if you understand those rules then you are able to capitalize on them. I would very much say that there are opportunities and we are focused on how to capitalize on them,” the 39-year-old India-born CEO said.

Francisco, who was also a part of the company during 2001, when the technology bubble bursted, however, feels that the slowdown is going to have less impact on technology spending this time than it had in 2001.

From the Cognizant viewpoint, the 2001 slowdown perhaps had more direct impact on the technology spending because that was precipitated by the bursting of the technology bubble.

“This time, the slowdown is such that though there are impacts on technology spending, I view it as less intense than 2001 slowdown,” he added.

Talking about the challenges faced by companies worldwide he said, “There are two kinds of challenges that our clients are facing now - the first set of challenges are the ones that are caused by the economic environment.

“The second set of challenges are the ones that the companies in sectors such as life sciences, media and entertainment and others are facing...periods of very rapid structural changes where the basic structure of the industry is changing.”

Both these two trends have potential opportunities for Cognizant, he said adding, “We just have to be correctly tooled and correctly positioned to take advantage of these opportunities.”

New Delhi: Satyam Computer has had receivables worth Rs2,000 crore in the January-March period from new and existing clients, its chairman Kiran Karnik said.

“We have had Rs2,000 crore collections from new work and some of the existing clients over the three months (January-March) ... some clients have left but we have got some new work as well,” Karnik said.

He said the rate of receivables per month was about $140-150 million.

In January, when Satyam’s founder B Ramalinga Raju admitted to fraud, its cash balance was a bare minimum and the company was struggling to meet its HR commitment, which was an outflow of Rs500 crore a month. The company had raised a loan Rs685 crore to meet some of its working capital needs.

The company has met its working capital needs through this Rs2,000 crore, officials said, adding that after liabilities towards loans and payments, the company has a closing cash balance of Rs215 crore for the period ended 31 March. Out of the Rs685 crore loan, Rs300 crore has been availed of so far.

On Monday Satyam Computer will be sold to a new investor through open bidding and this relatively comfortable cash balance will provide some succour to the new owner, said a board member.

New Delhi: The exports of pharmaceutical products were valued at $1.01 billion in December, the highest in the first nine months of 2008-09.

According to Pharmaceuticals Exports Promotion Council (PHARMEXIL), total exports in December surged by 46.3% to $1.01 billion from $609 million in the same month of the previous fiscal.

The overseas sales in the first nine months of 2008-09 went up by 21% to $8.44 billion against $6.97 billion in 2007-08.

“Indian pharmaceutical sector has performed satisfactorily during April-December 2008-09 by registering a growth rate of 28.1% in rupee terms and 21% in dollar terms over the corresponding period of the previous year,” PHARMEXIL chairman Venkat Jasti said.

In rupee terms, shipments stood at Rs4,934 crore in December, while during April-December 2008 it was Rs36,877 crore, Jasti said.

“In the current economic slowdown, the 21% growth in dollar terms in nine months of fiscal 2008-09 was a good growth,” Indian Pharmaceutical Alliance secretary general D G Shah said.

India’s main export destinations for drugs are the US, Europe, South Africa, Brazil and Canada.