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India \'holding up well\' in recession, says UnileverMS Banga, President, Unilever Foods Division said this was a very unusual recession because so many geographies were impacted simultaneously. \"I must tell that a number of geographies are holding up quite well. For instance, India,\" he said.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 13 Jun 2009 | 1:58 pm China Eastern confirms Shanghai Airlines merger!China Eastern Airlines confirmed it was in long-awaited merger talks with smaller rival Shanghai Airlines, adding a detailed plan of the tie-up was expected within the next 20 days.Source: Zee News : Business | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:19 pm India-US pursue civil aviation cooperation!India and the US have agreed to work towards making the Aviation Cooperation Programme (ACP) more productive for India in its efforts to modernise the civil aviation industry as it undergoes rapid expansion.Source: Zee News : Business | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:19 pm Cessna Aircraft to slash additional 1,300 jobs!Embattled US corporate jet builder Cessna Aircraft said on Friday it plans to cut an additional 1,300 jobs to adjust production to match a meltdown in orders amid the global economic downturn.Source: Zee News : Business | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:19 pm G8 to ask IMF for study on cutting stimulus: Source!The world`s rich nations will ask the International Monetary Fund to study ways of unwinding the drastic steps taken to rescue the global economy, a source with knowledge of the plan said on Friday.Source: Zee News : Business | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:19 pm Tata`s Indian Hotels profit plunges 96% !Tata Group`s hospitality arm Indian Hotels Company Ltd has said its annual net profit plunged 96.4 percent, hit by last November`s militant attack on its landmark Taj Mahal hotel.Source: Zee News : Business | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:19 pm Gitanjali group in talks to pick stake in MobileNXTJewellery major Gitanjali group is in advanced talks to pick up a major stake in the Bangalorebased mobile retail chain, MobileNXT. Confirming this to BusinessLine, Mr Vijay Menon, Founder Director, MobileNXT, said there was a proposal from Gitanjali to invest in MobileNXT.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 13 Jun 2009 | 10:18 am Royal Enfield to launch two models by MarchEicher Motorsowned Royal Enfield will leverage on the success of its Thunderbird motorcycle by launching two models based on the same engine platform. Both the motorcycles are expected to be introduced by March 2010.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 13 Jun 2009 | 10:09 am OILIndianOil combine to start drilling in Libyan blocksThe consortium of OIL India Ltd and IndianOil will launch a fourwell drilling campaign in five onshore blocks in Libya in SeptemberOctober. The consortium owns 100 per cent interest in all the blocks with OIL as the operator.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 13 Jun 2009 | 10:02 am Scam delays army upgrade - HardNews Magazine
Source: Google News India - Business | 13 Jun 2009 | 8:49 am It's end of the road for 10,000 Satyam staffThe Pune-based IT firm plans to send the excess staff on a sabbatical to address higher staff costs, which account for more than half of the company's expenses.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 13 Jun 2009 | 8:44 am Taj Group acquires Sea Rock Hotel for Rs 680 crore - Hindustan Times
Source: Google News India - Business | 13 Jun 2009 | 8:40 am Taj Group acquires Sea Rock Hotel for Rs.680 croreIndian Hotels Co, which owns the Taj Group of hotels, has acquired Sea Rock Hotel, one of suburban Mumbai's oldest five-star properties, for Rs.680 crore.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 13 Jun 2009 | 8:30 am India, US agree on civil aviation cooperationIndia and the United States have agreed to increase their level of cooperation in the aviation sector, including its modernisation, and to meet the challenges in view of its rapid expansion.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 13 Jun 2009 | 7:57 am 150 Mercs to roll out in a yearC-Class is likely to have maximum demand among all its models; Guj has 7% share in total sales.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 13 Jun 2009 | 7:27 am TN wants Centre to pay Rs 4055cr claim - Business Standard
Source: Google News India - Business | 13 Jun 2009 | 7:24 am Computer sales up 7 per cent in January-March quarter - Hindu
Source: Google News India - Business | 13 Jun 2009 | 7:18 am Modernisation of steel plants top priority: Minister - Hindu
Source: Google News India - Business | 13 Jun 2009 | 7:18 am The king of fruits leaves courtiers waitingIndia is the world's largest producer and exporter of mangoes. Producing some 10 mn tonnes of mangoes annually, it accounts for 52 per cent of the world output.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:38 am Traders protest businessman's killing in PatnaHundreds of angry traders took to the streets and disrupted traffic here Saturday to protest the killing of a businessman by alleged extortionists, police said.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:00 am Mango fair in Kolkata attracting crowdsLuscious varieties of mangoes grown in West Bengal like the Himsagar, Langra and Fajli are being showcased at the three-day Mango Mahotsava fair here that is attracting crowds.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 13 Jun 2009 | 6:00 am GLOBAL MARKETS - U.S. dollar rebounds, commodities sag in soft tradeNEW YORK (Reuters) - The U.S. dollar recovered some of this week's losses on Friday, pressuring oil and other commodities, while the Dow edged into positive territory for the first time this year since January in lackluster trade.Source: Reuters: Money News | 13 Jun 2009 | 1:32 am G8 to ask IMF for study on cutting stimulus - sourceLECCE, Italy (Reuters) - The world's rich nations will ask the International Monetary Fund to study ways of unwinding the drastic steps taken to rescue the global economy, a source with knowledge of the plan said on Friday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 13 Jun 2009 | 1:30 am Sahay to seek separate funding as food processing gets 15% of FDI flow - Times of India
Source: Google News India - Business | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:57 am Indian Hotels to acquire Sea Rock for Rs 680 crMumbai, June 12 Indian Hotels Company Ltd (IHCL), which runs the Taj Group of hotels, will acquire Sea Rock Hotel in Mumbai for Rs 680Source: Business Line - Home Page | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am MFs want removal of STT, short-term capital gains taxMumbai, June 12 A removal or reduction in the securities transaction tax, short-term capital gains tax and dividend distribution tax tops the wish list of mutual fund houses as they await the newly elected Government’s Budget thisSource: Business Line - Home Page | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am SEBI Board to discuss NSDL issue on June 18Mumbai, June 12 The controversial NSDL issue is likely to be discussed by the Board of SEBI at its meeting scheduled for June 18.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am Employees of SBI associates say no to consolidationNew Delhi, June 12 About 50,000 employees and officers of the six associate banks of the State Bank of India are to go on a “protest strike” on July 3.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am Markets this weekAfter the relentless rally of past several weeks, the benchmark indices bucked the trend on Monday, taking a cue from weak European markets and lower US index futures, and also squaring off of long positions by few entities recently barred by SEBI.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am Vedanta investing Rs 600 cr in Sesa GoaMumbai, June 12 Sesa Goa, which on Thursday announced it was buying the mining assets of the Dempo group for Rs 1,750 crore, will raise Rs 600 crore through a preferential allotment of shares to Vedanta Resources plc, its parentSource: Business Line - Home Page | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am Drug cos alerted on swine flu ‘pandemic’Mumbai, June 12 Drug companies have been put on the alert, with the World Health Organisation pushing the pandemic button on influenza A (H1N1), commonly known as swineSource: Business Line - Home Page | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am 9,200 Satyamites ‘virtual’Hyderabad, June 12 At one stroke, the full board of Satyam Computer Services converted close to 9,200 employees of the IT company into ‘Virtual’ status. The employee strength (standalone) of Satyam as on March 28 officially wasSource: Business Line - Home Page | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am Water storage level continues to be criticalChennai, June 12 With monsoon being 39 per cent deficient during June 1-10, the water storage level in the 81 major reservoirs in the country continues to be low.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am April industrial growth at 1.4% hints recoveryNew Delhi, June 12 Indian industry has registered a year-on-year growth of 1.43 per cent in April.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 13 Jun 2009 | 12:00 am It's end of the road for 10000 Satyam staff - Economic Times
Source: Google News India - Business | 12 Jun 2009 | 11:57 pm Nearly all dealers agree to work with new GM - CEOWASHINGTON (Reuters) - Virtually all dealers asked to do business with the new General Motors Corp after bankruptcy have agreed to do so, while the automaker will work through the weekend to weigh appeals from those that are being cut loose, the company's chief executive said on Friday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 12 Jun 2009 | 10:19 pm Tata firm inspires Srei Infra - Calcutta Telegraph
Source: Google News India - Business | 12 Jun 2009 | 9:46 pm Vedanta raises $1.25 bn through a bond issue - Economic Times
Source: Google News India - Business | 12 Jun 2009 | 9:44 pm Competition catching up with India: IT honchos - Economic Times
Source: Google News India - Business | 12 Jun 2009 | 9:39 pm Tax relief for new telcos will level playing fieldIndia's subscriber base has crossed 440 million and telecom operators are adding a whopping 8-10 million new subscribers each month.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 12 Jun 2009 | 9:37 pm It's a high-maintenance yearThis time, the telecom industry will watch the Union Budget proposals with keen interest as the sector has been kept waiting for the past few years.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 12 Jun 2009 | 9:31 pm Bharat Forge to up capital goods playBharat Forge, the auto components major, is planning to reduce its reliance on auto component business by focusing more on its capital goods foray.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 12 Jun 2009 | 9:30 pm Listen to what consumers have to say about your brandsIf brands really care about their own future, it is time they took stock of what consumers are saying about them.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 12 Jun 2009 | 9:30 pm GM sale of Saab looms as speedy Koenigsegg steps upNEW YORK (Reuters) - Top retail and luxury executives are sacrificing watches, vacations and new cars in the economic downturn, but keep your hands off their newspapers, nonfat lattes and bicycles.Source: Reuters: Money News | 12 Jun 2009 | 9:21 pm Lower fares help airlines carry more passengers in MayA seasonal upswing and rationalisation of capacity and fares helped domestic airlines improve their load factors in May.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 12 Jun 2009 | 9:19 pm EXCLUSIVE - Some stimulus plans may harm world trade - EUBRUSSELS (Reuters) - U.S. financial aid to carmakers and a number of stimulus packages adopted by other countries to fight the economic slowdown could distort global trade, a confidential European Commission report concludes.Source: Reuters: Money News | 12 Jun 2009 | 8:53 pm Using the inverse of P/E to read markets betterWith the local stock markets rallying more than 65% from the bottom seen in March 2009, the "valuation debate" is back in vogue.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 12 Jun 2009 | 8:40 pm 'Recession's like a hockey stick, quick to fall, slow to build up'David Nixon, managing director, Ninah USA, and Sebastian Shapiro, managing director, Ninah Consulting, talked to Arcopol Chaudhuri of DNA Money about their expectations from the Indian market.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 12 Jun 2009 | 8:35 pm Outsourcing edge going blunt, say code captainsThe message from Wipro chairman Azim Premji and Infosys' chief executive S Gopalakrishnan is loud and clear -- India cannot rest on its outsourcing laurels.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 12 Jun 2009 | 8:29 pm ANALYSIS - Crisis gives high-end retail industry a makeoverNEW YORK (Reuters) - Fashion and retail executives are adding new ingredients like extensive customer data and streamlined websites to their marketing mix to get consumers to buy in the recession.Source: Reuters: Money News | 12 Jun 2009 | 8:25 pm Taj group buys Sea Rock for Rs 680crFor years, two marquees of the Mumbai hospitality scene Sea Rock Hotel and Taj Lands End have stood facing each other in a cozy, sea-facing corner of the city's Bandra suburb.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:54 pm GM says tries to reach deal with Magna for OpelWASHINGTON (Reuters) - General Motors Corp is trying to cement an agreement with Canadian auto parts group Magna to buy its European unit, Opel, and is willing to broaden discussions if necessary, GM's chief executive said on Friday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:53 pm Tatas in JV with US co for chopper productionOnly state-owned aeronautic manufacturer, Hindustan Aeronautics (HAL), manufactures choppers in India.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:52 pm Vedanta launches $1.25bn convertible bond issueA day after announcing the acquisition of V S Dempo's Goa mining assets through subsidiary company, Sesa Goa, Anil Agarwal-controlled Vedanta Resources, launched a convertible bond issue of $1.25 billion the largest from any company in India on Friday.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:51 pm To raise stake in Sesa Goa to 55%Vedanta on Friday said it will subscribe to the preferential share offer being made by Sesa Goa to hike its stake in the group iron ore company to 55% with a cash outgo of $120 million (Rs 569.79 crore).Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:51 pm Qatar Airways says upgrading Airbus speed sensorsDUBAI (Reuters) - Qatar Airways is upgrading the speed sensors on its Airbus fleet as part of a maintenance programme, it said on its website.Source: Reuters: Money News | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:49 pm Rel Infra plans to raise $1bnAnil Ambani group firm Reliance Infratel is looking to raise about Rs 5,000 crore through sale of shares, for which it is in talks with a number of private equity firms.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:48 pm Cautious investors pull down sensexThere is an undercurrent of nervousness on Dalal Street which is affecting investor sentiment that pulled the BSE sensex down by 174 points on Friday to 15,238.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:47 pm Accounting norms on C-credit from July 1This means, corporates will have to account for their issued carbon credits, as well as carbon credits which they may have sold in the current financial year, in the September quarter results.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:47 pm The second coming of ITIsNew Delhi: For decades, the government’s efforts to build an efficient workforce have failed to keep pace with the country’s rapidly changing industrial needs: outdated syllabi and prehistoric training labs could barely equip the country’s unemployed youth—the foot-soldiers of Indian industry—with better employable skills and wage opportunities. But the beginning of a slow and silent revolution may be sweeping across Industrial Training Institutes (ITIs), the behemoths that came into existence in the mid-1950s when India’s first industrial policy was laid out by then prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. As part of a new skill development public-private initiative launched three years ago, at least 600 firms have signed memoranda of agreements with state governments under the public-private partnership (PPP) model.  About Rs5,291 crore will be spent through a combination of a phased PPP plan, a long-term World Bank loan and direct Central funding. Sandeep Bhatnagar / Mint Companies such as ITC Ltd and Tata Motors Ltd will modernize at least two institutes each in Andhra Pradesh and Uttarakhand, respectively, along with local industry partners. NTPC Ltd, on the other hand, plans to revamp at least half a dozen ITIs, while Educomp Solutions Ltd has already started upgrading courses to train IT instructors in several of the 16 ITIs. It has signed agreements in Haryana, Rajasthan, Punjab and Uttar Pradesh. Hospitality firms Indian Hotels Co. Ltd, which owns the Taj brand, and EIH Ltd, which runs the Oberoi chain of hotels, have also taken up similar initiatives. So have steel companies such as JSW Steel Ltd and Ispat Industries Ltd. “We are working on improving the skills and motivation of teachers. We also plan to train students to become IT entrepreneurs by offering courses such as website designing, so that they can generate revenue by serving small medium enterprises,” said Sharad Talwar, president of Educomp Solutions. At present, the firm has entrusted five employees to look after its ITI activities. The government plans to modernize 1,896 ITIs to train one million workers in the next four years and an additional one million every subsequent year. About Rs5,291 crore will be spent through a combination of a phased PPP plan, a long-term World Bank loan and direct Central funding. On its part, the government sees skill development as a way to reduce regional disparity and poverty. Last year, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh reaffirmed the government’s commitment to skill development and said any programme to train the country’s youth—who constitute 30% of the population—must begin with investment in education. The Centre has already provided Rs160 crore to revamp 100 ITIs, while the World Bank’s long-term credit of Rs1,581 crore is paying for 400 other institutes. But a majority of these institutes—1,396—are being revamped in partnership with the private sector with an outlay of Rs3,550 crore, and that’s generating fresh interest. While it’s too early to gauge the exact contribution of companies in terms of investment commitment or capacity to offer employment, at least one company, Bharat Forge Ltd, the world’s largest forging firm, has invested its own money—Rs7.6 crore—for a complete overhaul of the institute at Khed in Maharashtra, where three of its industrial plants are located. About 99 students have already received training in handling manufacturing tools and plans are afoot to scale up recruitment to 500 within three years, said Leena Deshpande, senior human resource manager at Bharat Forge. The government is offering Rs2.5 crore per institute to upgrade obsolete machinery and introduce new training modules, and turn each of them into self-sustaining units by handing over management control to industry. The institutes, which dwindled in importance after their control was transferred to the states in 1968, have also been allowed to set up a production and service centre, and charge fees for specialized courses. The interest-free loan is repayable in 30 years, and will be managed by a panel consisting of industry and government. Many say the new effort has the potential to produce spectacular results: It will shave off training costs and improve productivity in the long term. Despite witnessing quick-paced growth through the reform decades, India suffers from a severe shortage of skilled workers. According to Sunil Kandlikar, chief executive of Bangalore-based TeamLease Staffing Solutions, companies spend close to 28% of their annual compensation to train workers to become productive. “It’s a two-way street. Companies have vested interest in developing these institutes while trainees gain industrial exposure,” he said. “It’s a positive sign. Industries can train according to their requirement and the trainees get placement in these establishments,” said Sharda Prasad, director general (employment and training) in the ministry of labour and employment, whose challenge is now to select industry partners for the remaining 696 ITIs. The ITIs were originally set up to assist school dropouts to find employment. A range of courses are offered—from machine automation to tool maintenance. New skills such as personality development and fashion designing are being introduced now. Indian Hotels, for example, will start a baking skills course this month with a batch of 20 at the Channarayapatana ITI, located 100km from Bangalore; imported machinery such as spiral mixers and three-deck ovens have already been purchased at a cost of Rs18-20 lakh, said Ramesh Subramanian, welfare manager at Bangalore’s Taj West End Hotel. “Companies are coming forward to offer management expertise because it serves everyone’s interest. What is missing in these institutes right now is management and a framework,” said B. Santhanam, managing director of Saint-Gobain Glass India Ltd and chairman of the Confederation of Indian Industry’s skill development committee. Many of these institutes, located in remote outposts such as Sirpur, in the tribal belt of north Maharashtra, say they are already turning into profit centres. The Sirpur ITI tied up with Animation Film Institute to set up an in-house production centre a year ago. In the last six months, at least 15 students have found private employment, earning Rs15,000-20,000 a month. The production centre has earned Rs1.5 crore in turnover through outsourced contracts, and is about to execute a 22-part children’s animation programme for government-owned television channel Doordarshan, said its principal, S.A. Pawar. “A few years ago, we barely had 90 students. After introducing new courses, we have 400. We have also started seeing campus recruitment, which was unheard of a few years ago,” he added. But the public-private endeavour has challenges ahead. Experts say companies prefer ITIs located in bigger towns to those deep in the countryside. Many regions have far fewer institutes, leaving out a large swathe of backward regions that need these programmes the most, such as Chhattisgarh and states in the North-East, which are in the grip of extremist violence. In the last three years, 90 new ITIs have been set up. In many ways, skill development is filling in where the formal education system has failed. Only 7% of Indian students apply for higher education, according to the National Knowledge Commission website. Many of the higher education courses are beyond the pale of students because of high education costs, such as, capitation fees, said R.T.T. Ram Mohan, who teaches finance at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad. “There is a role for skill development in far-flung areas,” said Mohan. “But the aspiration of the youth is much larger today.” Source: Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:45 pm Culture List | Quasar Thakore PadamseeThough born to parents steeped in theatre—Dolly Thakore and Alyque Padamsee—the young theatre director Quasar Thakore Padamsee is quick to distance himself from any direct parental influence in his choice of career. Q Theatre Productions (QTP), the production house he launched with friends in 1999, has staged 20 plays and is currently busy rehearsing Project S.T.R.I.P., a comic examination of the plight of indigenous people. A theatre veteran of 14 years, the 30-year-old talks about five favourite plays that he has produced and directed.  Director’s cut: Q.T. Padamsee. Ameet Mallapur Minorities: We put up three short plays, all of them about the marginalization of minorities. The first is about a Holocaust survivor. The second, by the Australian playwright Alex Buzo, is about a Pakistani student in the US, and the third is about two students trapped in a toilet in Ahmedabad with the post-Godhra riots raging outside. I was feeling vulnerable in Mumbai after the 2002 genocide in Gujarat and this project emerged from there. Khatijabai of Karmali Terrace: I adapted it from the Singaporean play Emily of Emerald Hill by Stella Kon, and based it on my paternal grandmother, encompassing the Khoja community of Mumbai. It’s a one-woman show about an orphan girl who marries into this wealthy family at age 14 and later becomes its matriarch. Lucky One: A British play by Tony Marchant, set in a corporate office which I adapted to Mumbai, it is about four people who have good jobs and are supposedly leading a good life. But actually, they are just pushing paper. I had been working in advertising and had just quit my job, so I could relate to it. Project S.T.R.I.P: Our current production. I haven’t worked like this before for five weeks now we have been meeting and rehearsing for 8-9 hours daily, and developing the script as we go along. Playwright Ram Ganesh Kamatham attends every day, takes notes and writes all night and then we try it out the next day. It’s a heady feeling. Project S.T.R.I.P. will show from 16 June-5 July at the Prithvi Theatre, NCPA Experimental Theatre and Sathaye College auditorium in Mumbai. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:45 pm Does output rise signal a recovery?New Delhi: India’s industrial production rose unexpectedly for the first time in three months, suggesting interest-rate cuts and government stimulus measures are helping resuscitate demand in Asia’s third biggest economy.  Silver lining: Industrial output rises on rate, tax cuts. Sandeep Bhatnagar / Mint Asia’s largest economies are showing signs of recovering from the global recession as the region’s governments start to implement nearly $950 billion (Rs45.03 trillion) of stimulus measures. China’s new lending doubled in May as industrial output and retail sales climbed more than economists estimated, reports on Friday showed. “I think we have now passed the bottom,” said Robert Prior-Wandesforde, an economist at HSBC Holdings Plc. in Singapore. “Although the output growth is unlikely to go vertical, improving external and domestic demand will help production grow between 5% and 8% by the end of 2009.” India’s benchmark stock index, the Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex, however, lost 1.1% to end the day at 15,237.94. Analysts say the measure may have failed to react positively to the news in the wake of the recent gains it has had. Bonds rose after the report. The yield on the 7.59% note due 2016 declined to 6.98%, from 7% earlier. Six interest rate cuts since mid-October and three stimulus packages are giving India a boost worth almost 7% of its gross domestic product, the central bank estimates. Cement, coal The lower borrowing costs, tax cuts on consumer products and higher spending by the government are bolstering local demand even as exports plunge. Coal production in April rose 13.2%, more than twice the pace in March, while the growth in cement output accelerated to 11.7%. Manufacturing expanded at the fastest pace in eight months in May, helped by domestic demand, according to Markit Economics’ purchasing managers’ index. India’s exports fell 33.2% from a year earlier in April as the global recession cut demand for the nation’s goods. “Governments the world over are relying on higher spending to expand opportunities for growth of output and employment,” Prime Minister Manmohan Singh told Parliament in New Delhi on 9 June. “That is what we should do without worrying about the widening fiscal deficit,” he said. The government will increase spending and plans to allow greater overseas investment to revive an economy growing at the slowest pace since 2003, according to the Prime Minister, who was re-elected for a second five-year term last month. Union finance minister Pranab Mukherjee will unveil Singh’s economic plans when he presents the budget in the first week of July. Rate cuts The Reserve Bank of India cut its repurchase rate by 4.25 percentage points to 4.75% from 20 October to 21 April. It also lowered the reverse repurchase rate to 3.25% to reduce the cost of lending and stimulate domestic demand. The Sensex has risen 26% since the 16 May re-election of Singh’s Congress party-led United Progressive Alliance, on optimism that higher government spending will boost company profits. The $1.2 trillion economy stabilized in the three months to March, maintaining the 5.8% pace of expansion recorded in the preceding three months. The central bank expects the economy to grow 6% in the fiscal year that started 1 April, the slowest pace of expansion since 2003. Annual growth averaged 8.5% in the previous five years. Production rebounded in April as manufacturing, accounting for about 80% of the total output, grew 0.7% from a year earlier after a decline of 1.6% in the previous month, Friday’s report showed. Mining climbed 3.8% and electricity rose 7.1%, accelerating from March. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:29 pm Quick Edit | Building on the recoveryIt is hard to believe, but true: a small increase in industrial production is being met with sighs of relief, if not whoops of joy. That tells us a lot about the mood in Indian industry right now. The government on Friday released data on industrial output cranked out in April. It was a modest 1.4% higher than a year ago, but still a huge relief after the decline reported in the previous two months. Other bits of data— such as purchasing managers’ indices, cement dispatches and car sales—suggest that demand for industrial goods is stabilizing. China, too, has reported very good numbers this week. Extra public spending and rapid interest rate cuts seem to have helped. What happens next will be watched closely. There are risks here. The new government will want to spend on infrastructure, but is constrained by a scary deficit. The Reserve Bank of India has less space to cut interest rates further. And a strong rupee will curb exports. Thus, it is important that business investment picks up soon. But we doubt firms are in a position to take big risks. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:21 pm Indian Hotels to pay Rs680 crore for 85% in Elel HotelsMumbai: The Tata group-owned Indian Hotels Co. Ltd said on Friday that it will acquire at least 85% stake in Elel Hotels and Investments Ltd, the company that holds a long-term sublease for the Mumbai land on which Bandra’s Sea Rock Hotel is located, for Rs680 crore. R.K. Krishna Kumar, vice-chairman of Indian Hotels, said that his company is planning to demolish the existing structure and redevelop the area that would have hotel rooms, a large convention centre, and retail and commercial operations. The Sea Rock Hotel—located opposite Taj Lands End hotel, another Indian Hotels property—has been shut since 1993 after the serial bomb blasts in Mumbai. Kumar said his company will have to spend around Rs500 crore to redevelop the acquired property. All necessary approvals, including coastal regulation zone approvals, have been obtained, he added. “There are no pending legal cases against Sea Rock Hotel,” Kumar said, adding that the company can eventually increase its stake in Elel up to 100%. He also indicated at a Mumbai press conference on Friday that Indian Hotels has secured this deal at a significant discount considering that the deal was struck in the backdrop of the current economic slowdown. The demolition of the existing structure will be carried out in an environment-friendly manner and should be completed in six months. The redevelopment will be completed within 18-20 months, Kumar said. The strategic intent behind this acquisition is to increase the hotel chain’s footprint in north Mumbai, as the city will see the opening of the nearby Bandra-Worli sea link with a second international airport earmarked close to it. Elel Hotels is a closely held company and a subsidiary of Claridges Hotels Pvt. Ltd. Separately, Indian Hotels reported a consolidated net profit of Rs12.46 crore in the year ended 31 March, down 96.5%, from Rs355 crore in the preceding fiscal year. Its income fell to Rs2,780 crore from Rs3,060 crore a year ago, the company said in a statement on Friday. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:06 pm Consumer durables prop up industrial production Two features stand out in the April data. First, growth in the capital goods sector continued to be negative year-on-year (y-o-y). That should soon be remedied, once the government’s plans to spend large amounts on infrastructure start bearing fruit. But the slack in the sector also shows that government spending is essential to keep the industry going. Rather strangely, the machinery and equipment industry group grew a healthy 9% y-o-y. The second point is that the 16.9% y-o-y growth in consumer durables possibly indicates that the rate cuts are at last working. Also Read Does output rise signal a recovery?  Sandeep Bhatnagar / Mint On the other hand, non-durable consumer goods growth has been showing increasingly negative rates of growth every month and some analysts say that the fall in sugar production is one reason. The food products industry group has been contracting y-o-y at double digit rates since January. The fall in consumer non-durables is a concern, although other data, such as cement offtake, shows that rural demand continues to be strong. Interestingly, this difference between the growth rates of consumer durables and non-durables is seen also in the stock market, where the BSE Auto Index is up 18% y-o-y, while the BSE FMCG Index is down 0.83% y-o-y, in spite of being a supposedly defensive sector. The other positive factor is that as many as 12 of the 17 major industry groups showed growth in April, up from six industry groups in March. That indicates the recovery is broad-based. But both low interest rates and government spending on infrastructure continue to be essential to keep the recovery going. Write to us at marktomarket@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 7:03 pm Intellectuals and watery coffeeThe 52-year-old Indian Coffee House in Connaught Place may be shutting down. About a fortnight ago, a national daily broke the news in this oh-tragedy-is-so-beautiful headline: “The coffee aroma is fading away”. The report described the coffee house, situated on the third floor of the rundown Mohan Singh Place shopping complex, as a “thinking man’s favourite haunt”. Click here to watch video It is not certain that the coffee shop will actually close. The place is plagued by controversy. The management, run by a Soviet-era organization called the Indian Coffee Workers Cooperative Society, claims the coffee shop is not making enough money. However, quite a few regulars have rejected this argument. Along with charges of financial irregularities, they have accused the cooperative of no longer wanting to run the show. The rumour is that this prime location could be leased to McDonald’s or some such fast-food chain. Another version suggests that it was the New Delhi Municipal Council (NDMC) that asked the cooperative to pay the dues and shut shop. But why so much fuss? After all, this is a rather shabby coffee house frequented by retired old men. Just look at the three sitting areas here—an inside hall, a corridor and a terrace. In the summer, no pedestal fans are provided outside. The corridor, too, remains muggy; there are three manholes just next to it. In the hall, the windows and ventilators are forever closed, fans move slowly, sofas are torn and there are no curtains. “We may as well die of asthma,” says Naresh Gupta, a retired government employee who has been coming to the coffee house for 20 years. “It’s as stuffy as Tihar jail.”  A waiter at the Indian Coffee House. Mayank Austen Soofi “This is something we cannot answer,” says Gupta, sitting with his three friends. Indeed, quite a few regulars confess that they don’t come here for food, which is “just ok”; not even for the coffee, which has “become too watery.” It is probably just a habit for them. “Indian Coffee House has a sociocultural significance,” explains Gupta, “It’s a necessity, a home away from home.” S.K. Mathur, a regular since 1976, fears that if the place closes, it might mean the end of their friends circle too. But if, say, McDonald’s opens in its place, couldn’t they still gather here? “The Indian Coffee House is an institution; it has helped in formulating social and political opinions in the country; it used to be frequented by intellectuals,” says Gupta. “A fast-food joint can’t replace that.” Are you aware that all revolutions came out of coffee houses? Soon, another regular joins the adda. Ashok Jain has been coming to the coffee house almost daily since 1957. Back then, the café used to be in what is now Palika Bazaar. Later, it moved to Janpath and then shifted to its present site at Mohan Singh Place in 1975. “Are you aware that all revolutions came out of coffee houses?” Jain asks as he sprawls on the sofa. “Yes, he’s right,” nods the unnamed gentleman. “In 1975, the news of the Emergency first broke out here in this coffee house, even before Indira Gandhi could’ve made an official announcement.” “But why would you care?” he notes sullenly, staring at the slow-moving ceiling fan. “Imagine, they banned smoking in the entire coffee house!” “See, this is how the management is killing the place,” Mathur shakes his head slowly. “In Europe, they even allow people to smoke marijuana in cafés.”  For regulars it’s an easy place to unwind with friends. Mayank Austen Soofi In fact, these regulars are also members of an organization called Coffee Consumers Forum, which has sent a letter to Sonia Gandhi urging her that “the Cultural and Intellectual hub of the country be saved and in the meantime the Registrar of Cooperative Societies, Parliament Street, New Delhi & the Joint Secretary Registrar, Agriculture & Cooperation Department, Agriculture Ministry, Krishi Bhawan, New Delhi to dissolve the Indian Coffee Workers Cooperative Society Limited and appoint an administrator”. Somewhere in this bureaucratic gibber jabber, this appears to be a last-ditch effort to turn back the clock and make the coffee house what it once was—a Parisian-style café where writers, painters, musicians, philosophers and politicians engaged in verbal duels, where the sofas were not torn, where the china was not chipped, where windows weren’t closed, where the coffee wasn’t weak, where there were not one but two air coolers. “Each evening, we gather here,” observes Gupta, “and leave only when the waiter comes at 8pm to switch off the lights.” Adds Mathur, “We have nowhere else to go... nowhere to unwind.” Write to lounge@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:59 pm IIP: what analysts and economists have to sayWe expect a pick-up in activity in the second quarter of fiscal 2009. Several large investments that were mothballed in part due to election-related uncertainties will likely be put back in place. There are several other reasons which suggest…that there will be an improvement in investment demand in the second half of 2010. Domestic demand indicators have shown substantial upticks recently. Historical peak-to-trough declines in the investment cycle suggest a bottoming out in the first half of 2009, and the economy continues to have significant pent-up demand for investment, especially in infrastructure and affordable housing. We think that monetary policy easing is at an end... We expect the rupee to appreciate further against the dollar. Pranjul Bhandari & Tushar Poddar Goldman Sachs ********* While some incremental data have yet to recover (exports, industrial production), we think India will do better in FY10 on the back of election results, an improvement in the investment climate, both domestic and global, and signs of thawing credit markets. Rohini Malkani & Anushka Shah Citigroup Global Markets ********* April’s industrial production data points tentatively to a stabilization of the industrial sector. Demand for the industrial sector’s consumer goods appears to remain weak, but this has been offset by government infrastructure and construction projects. Although borrowing rates remain high for businesses compared with regional peers, interest rates have fallen and this has helped to boost demand for housing and construction. In coming months, industrial production is likely to continue to show signs of improvement. Already, the recent rise in commodity prices has led to increased production in mines, while recovering domestic demand has led to electrical production recovering. These trends will likely continue in coming months. Nikhilesh Bhattacharyya Associate economist, Moody’s Economy.com ********* We expect industrial output growth to average 4.2% year-on-year (y-o-y) in FY10 from 2.6% in FY09. We believe the rate-cutting cycle is over and expect Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to start withdrawing liquidity by fourth quarter of 2009, followed by rate hikes in 2010. We expect industrial output growth to improve sequentially. We expect industrial output growth to rise 4.2% y-o-y in FY10 from 2.6% in FY09. On the policy front, we judge the RBI rate-cutting cycle is over. Our view is RBI will withdraw liquidity by issuing market stabilization scheme bills, possibly by as soon as fourth quarter of 2009. We expect this to be followed by cash reserve ratio hikes of 100 basis points and a cumulative 75 basis points policy rate hike in 2010. Sonal Varma India economist, Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) Pvt. Ltd ********* The biggest surprise came from the intermediate goods sector, which recorded a strong growth of 7.1% in April, after having remained in the negative territory for seven months in a row. We feel the intermediate goods sector has turned a corner. RBI’s rate-cutting cycle could be very close to the end. Given the buoyant performance of equity markets so far, coupled with signs of an incipient growth recovery in the real economy, the chances of further incremental rate cuts from RBI get reduced considerably. A last 25 basis points (One basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point) rate cut in the July monetary policy, therefore, becomes an extremely close call and will purely be dependant on how financial markets perform. Indranil Pan and Kaushik Das Kotak Mahindra Bank Ltd ********* It may not have been anywhere near as strong as China’s 7.3% industrial growth rate in April (and 8.9% in May), but India’s 1.4% y-o-y out-turn was a pleasant surprise as the market had expected a 0.1% y-o-y fall. Output growth almost certainly bottomed on y-o-y in March and we are looking for a healthy upward trend to develop from here. This is certainly the message of India’s Manufacturing Purchasing Managers’ Index, which may provide a short-term lead, and has jumped from a low of 44.4 in December last year to 55.7 in May. It is domestic activity that looks to be leading the upturn, thanks mainly to the government’s fiscal measures, as exports continue to collapse. The worry here, of course, is that the government can’t support growth forever given the state of public finances. We think they will. First, the lagged effects of the interest rate cuts have still to be felt, while it shouldn’t be too long before exports also begin to contribute, at least modestly. Our lead indicator model suggests that the regional trade cycle will begin to turn from the third quarter of this calendar year. Robert Prior-Wandesforde Senior Asian Economist, Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corp. Ltd Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:51 pm Manjunath Award | How they upheld truth, honesty in public lifeBangalore: A village revenue officer who ignored orders and ensured that a government bailout package reached debt-ridden farmers, an Indian forest service officer who fought to protect forest land and against the misuse of public funds, and a homoeopathic doctor who launched a civil rights movement in a remote village near the Indo-Nepal border, have been nominated for the third annual Manjunath Shanmugam Integrity Award. The award honours and encourages those working to uphold values of truth and honesty in public life. It was instituted in memory of Manjunath Shanmugam, a young Indian Oil Corp. Ltd officer and alumnus of the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow, who was murdered in the line of duty while fighting corruption. The award will be presented at the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, on Saturday. Mint spoke to the three nominees. Vinod Adhau  Rural warrior: Vinod Adhau, a village revenue officer in Maharashtra’s Amravati district, ensured that the farmers got their rightful dues. Hemant Mishra / Mint “I protested. I had a written order from the government on the aid scheme and stuck to it,” said Adhau. The 43-year-old, who had joined service at 19, ensured that 518 farmers in the affected Gawandgaon circle got complete financial aid totalling Rs5.23 lakh. Soon, farmers from other zones came asking for help. He taught them to use the Right to Information (RTI) Act to gather information about their dues from the government. This wasn’t the first time Adhau had raised his voice for the farmers. In 1997, when a killer pest destroyed crops inlarge parts of Vidarbha, which has nearly 400,000 farmers, Adhau had fought a similar battle to ensure that the farmers got their due of the bailout package that was announced then. Kishore Tiwari, a member of advocacy group Vidarbha Jan Andolan Samiti, which reported 10,000 cases of farmer suicides in five years, said farmers in Vidarbha want easier means of getting credit. So far in 2009, there have been 352 farmer suicides, said Tiwari. “It’s not easy when you work at the lowest rung of the ladder and with many people above you,” said Adhau, who draws a monthly salary of Rs14,000. Sanjiv Chaturvedi This Indian Forest Service officer helped halt illegal poaching and the construction of an irrigation canal in Haryana’s Saraswati Wildlife Sanctuary. He also brought to a stop the creation of a herbal park in Fatehabad, Haryana, on private land with government money. Sanjiv Chaturvedi, 34, a 2002 batch Indian Forest Service officer, joined the forest service in October 2006. Soon, he noticed that 5-10ha of forest land on the periphery of the Saraswati Wildlife Sanctuary had been shaved of its tree cover. Earth movers and heavy trucks were busy constructing an irrigation canal in the forest, home to the hog deer, a rare and endangered species. Chaturvedi filed a first investigation report that was escalated to the Supreme Court, which ordered the work to be stopped. He was then transferred to Fatehbad, where he prevented the diversion of public funds for the development of a private herbal park. This got him suspended but he was later reinstated to service by the President. Ask him what drives him, and Chaturvedi, currently deputy conservator, forests, at Jhajjar, Haryana, says, “I always try to do my duty. My inner conscience drives me.” Jitendra Chaturvedi A homoeopathic doctor, Jitendra Chaturvedi returned to his home district of Bahraich, on the Indo-Nepal border in Uttar Pradesh, after graduating from the National Homoeopathic college in Kanpur. “...my dream was to do social work and ended up becoming a homoeopath because my father wished that I become a doctor,” says Chaturvedi. At 23, he began to serve as a homoeopathic doctor in the eight peripheral villages around the Katarnia Ghat Wildlife Reserve. In less than a year, Chaturvedi, now 41, realized that the eight forest villages needed a lot more than his medicinal remedies. Being located on forest land, the residents of the village were not entitled to form a panchayat or receive government grants or schemes. They didn’t even possess ration cards and could not apply for government jobs. The only indication of their identity as citizens of India were voter identity cards. After failed attempts to start a school and a youth club in the area, Chaturvedi realized the need for a dedicated and strong voice. In 2000, he registered DEHAT (Development Association for Human Advancement) as a non-profit organization focused on educating and empowering the villagers and helping them break out of the exploitation of money lenders and forest officials. “Now they have ration cards, get resident certificates and some even have government jobs,” says Chaturvedi. madhurima.n@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:44 pm Excise cuts may be selectively withdrawn to boost revenuesThe Union finance ministry is considering an increase in the central excise duty for some of the products that had benefited from the two rounds of reductions announced by the government as part of its fiscal stimulus measures last year.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:39 pm Taj checks in at Sea RockIndian Hotels buys 85% in Claridges subsidiary for Rs 680 crore.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:35 pm Lounge Review | Flip Video camcorderThe most challenging part of owning a Flip Video camcorder is the stage known as “convincing the missus to let you buy it”. The Flip Video’s many merits are all entirely impossible to convey without actually owning one of the beauties. So best of luck with the convincing: “No, it does nothing except record video. Well, it records for an entire hour. At best. Nope, no zoom really. No flash. No fancy effects. And no, you really can’t shoot anything in poor light. Yes, but it will look smashing inside this new handbag no?... I thought as much.” Click here to know more about Flip Video The Flip Video camcorder may look deceptively simple. The one we recently procured via a relative abroad has all of one button and two switches on it. But there is a reason why, according to some estimates, that the brand has cornered around 13% of the world camcorder market. The Flip Video is ridiculously easy to use. Complete tech novices will be shooting clips and uploading them on YouTube within moments of unpacking the shiny device. That’s because the Flip is a complete video production studio in one ultra-compact package. The good stuff The Flip Video is not much larger or heavier than a small candy-bar cellphone. On one side is a video camera lens behind a nice protective shield. And on the other is the control panel which comprises the above-mentioned button and a small matchbox-sized display screen. Push the switch and your Flip is ready to record. One push of the red button to start recording and one more to stop. The version we use, the Flip Mino, has a few touch-sensitive points around the central red button that let you flip through clips, play or delete them, toggle volume and do some rudimentary zooming. All the functions are extremely intuitive and require no prior postgraduation in any engineering majors to understand. But the best part is yet to come. Once you are done shooting your little clips of video, flip the other switch on the side and—what is this little thing!—a USB connector pops out. Yes, it’s actually built into the camcorder. Insert it into the USB port on your computer, run the software on the camcorder and you are all set to edit, title, add background music and upload your clips to YouTube. All with just a few simple clicks. No need for extra software, complicated editing or complex file format conversions. While the video quality is passable, you can opt for one of the high-definition Flip models for TV-quality clips. The not-so-good The very simplicity of the Flip means that you don’t get strong zooms or digitial effects while recording and though you can shoot in all light conditions, you have no chance of shooting sinister lounge-bar goings-on. Also even the most roomy Flip model, the Ultra, can only hold up to 2 hours of video. So if you intend to use it to record all-nighter weddings, you’ll have to lug around a laptop to empty it every hour or so. And desktop computer users should buy a cable to connect it. You can’t have the Flip hanging from your CPU by the USB connector. Talk plastic There are four models in the series, starting with the chunky, older Flip Ultra at $149.99 (around Rs7,110) to the newer, sleek Flip Mino HD, at $229.99, which gives an hour of HD video (shop around on eBay and Amazon for better prices. You’ll have to get it shipped to India). The Flip Video is great for anyone—video bloggers and citizen journalists come to mind—who wants a better recording option than a mobile phone but doesn’t want to lug around an orthodox camcorder. This one slips nicely into the above-mentioned handbag. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:33 pm The non-profit motiveBeing a non-profit organization with offices in multiple locations, we tend to gravitate towards hosted applications that are either free or have special rates for non-profits. Also, being in the publishing space means that we tend to use a lot of websites or platforms to share content. Project management This is pretty much the crux of our working life—email, internal wikis, shared documents and chat. It’s easy to set up, reliable, has a very easy learning curve and has the advantage of untethering a user from any one computer.  Easy tips: Salesforce.com is a full-fledged customer management tool. Without Basecamp, coordination would be a mess. We use it to keep track of our ongoing software projects and other strategic work. We use Salesforce to track leads and accounts and to assist in donor management. Outreach and publicity We use a blog to talk about our work and to write about the industry in general—Blogspot is less than ideal but it serves our purpose. Again, for all the video content that we produce. It’s a great way to share stuff that otherwise couldn’t be shared. Again, serves as a platform for us to share pictures and source pictures for our blog. We’re a big fan of the Creative Commons and upload pictures with a CC-BY licence, and only use pictures with similar licence. See Pratham Books’ Flickr stream here: www.flickr.com/photos/prathambooks/ We use this to display and distribute some of our books. It’s easier than asking people to download big PDF files. You can check a collection of our work here: www.scribd.com/prathambooks Social networking Serves as a personal and organizational networking platform. It allows us to interact with our fans. Personally, I’m an unabashed Facebook addict. Supporters of our organization interact here: www.facebook.com/pages/Pratham-Books/9307274926 I use this both in my personal and work capacity, with distinct identities. As with Facebook, I’m a fan! And an addict. The power of one-to-many communication at its best. Leisure No working day is complete without a peek at cricket scores, and where else but at Cricinfo—they have the best commentary!  Surf worthy: Cricinfo hosts cricket analysis and match commentary. News and information It’s my one source of news, views and analysis (to steal a phrase) both for my personal and work lives. It makes it so much easier to collate and share from one central location. Gautam John works in Bangalore at Pratham Books, a not-for-profit trust that publishes high-quality children’s books in several Indian languages at affordable prices, and at the Akshara Foundation, an NGO working in the field of education. John handles legal, technological and strategic issues for Pratham and data operations for Akshara. He is also a trained lawyer and is involved with several entrepreneurial projects. Write to lounge@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:31 pm The first family of tandoorsNew Delhi: In the Lal family, it is a well-known fact that one of its members invented the commercial tandoor, paving the way for naans and tandoori chicken to make it on to takeout menus across the world. Establishing exactly who that member is, however, depends very much on who is telling the story. In Naresh Lal’s version, it was his grandmother. “She was from Punjab, and she was used to domestic ovens made of mud,” Lal, the 45-year-old owner of a tandoor-manufacturing firm named Parshadi Lal and Sons Pvt. Ltd, says. “She started making her own tandoors by hand, and in the late 1970s, when a lot of hotels were coming up in Delhi in anticipation of the 1982 Asian Games, they began looking for tandoors for tandoori restaurants. So my grandfather took it up as a business, and here we are.” Click here to watch video on how tandoor is made Naresh Lal’s father’s cousin, Munnilal, narrates an alternative history. “Just after Partition, a number of Pakistani refugees came into Delhi, and they came to my grandfather, asking him to make a clay pot-like oven,” Munnilal says. “He made the first one for a hotel near Sadar Bazaar. My grandfather was of the kumhar caste—he worked with clay, making toys and little pots, and so on—and when the demand for the tandoor rose, he moved into that line.” These divided views arise from a divided family. In 1998, after making tandoors together for nearly 20 years, after being the first to export the tandoor, and after fanning the business into a roaring trade, the Lals split. Naresh Lal started Parshadi Lal and Sons, naming the firm after his father; he diversified into other kitchen equipment in 2002, but he still calls the 1,500 clay tandoors he makes every year the core of his business. That same year, Munnilal renamed his business from Munnilal and Brothers to Munnilal (India) Pvt. Ltd, and he still sells only tandoors—at least 2,000 annually. The basic techniques of tandoori cooking date as far back as the Indus Valley civilization, but until the 1960s, earthen ovens were custom-built by artisans in situ, either in homes or in a village’s communal bakery. “Tandoori cooking started taking off in hotels only in the 1980s,” says J.P. Singh, executive chef at the Bukhara restaurant in Delhi’s ITC Maurya. “Bukhara got its tandoor in 1977, from Munnilal.” The tandoori restaurant, as a concept, was made possible only once the commercial tandoor—portable, easy to manufacture, and therefore saleable—was developed, and Singh and other industry experts unanimously point to the Lals as the pioneers of the commercial tandoor. Even in a fairly well-populated trade, Singh estimates that the firms of Naresh Lal and Munnilal hold close to 50% of the market; Naresh Lal puts it closer to 75%, especially when exports are factored in. The gulf between Naresh Lal and Munnilal notwithstanding, their factories still lie within a few kilometres of each other, in northern Delhi. In a village named Bhalaswa, otherwise famous for its landfill, Munnilal makes tandoors in a higgledy-piggledy complex of buildings, in an alley known locally as Tandoori Gali. He makes so many that they spill over on to the road, large clay pots standing like silent signals of the activity in this neighbourhood. In a small metalworking shop, Munnilal’s assistants cut and weld sheets of metal into the cubical outer cases of commercial tandoors. (“Over a period of time, the tandoor makers woke up to the changes in the industry,” says Sonia Mahindra, director of Under One Roof, a restaurant consultancy. “So they started making the outers as well as the clay inners.”) Munnilal and his two brothers, however, are always to be found in a shed next door, dressed in singlets and trousers, mucking about with clay. Every week, Munnilal has a truckload of terracotta-quality clay dumped into his front yard. With this clay, and with sawdust and goat hair mixed in to bind it all together, he makes a thin, foot-high ring; after allowing it to dry, he builds a second ring on top, and then another, curving the top of the final ring into a neck. (“My father used to use horse dung as binder, but we replaced that with sawdust,” Munnilal says.) When he has raised them incrementally thus, almost like children, he sends them off into the world to make their daily bread. The most spare clay tandoor costs Rs1,500; the biggest size, in its metalled shell, can cost more than Rs30,000. It was in this workshop, Munnilal claims, that Naresh Lal first learnt the art of fabricating a tandoor. “He was an accountant earlier, and then he gave that up and joined me. I took him to Australia, Hong Kong and Singapore with me, when I went there to make or install tandoors,” Munnilal says. “But then he saw the volume of work, and he slowly started siphoning business away to himself and started his own company.” And then, most witheringly, Munnilal adds: “His name isn’t even Naresh Lal, it’s Naresh Kumar. He added the ‘Lal’ just to demonstrate that he was of this family.” Naresh Lal insists, however, that the split was amicable, and that he still considers Munnilal his teacher and mentor. His factory, a little distance north of Munnilal’s, lies dispersed over Saroop Nagar; his metal shop and corporate office occupy one building, a storage shed is a few streets away, and his clay tandoor “factory”, with its 10 itinerant workers, is really an open plot of land surrounded by other open plots of land on Saroop Nagar’s outskirts. It looks considerably less scientific and more ad hoc than Munnilal’s workshop. “When I was a boy, I was always the one trying to avoid doing this work, although my brothers and sisters all helped out with making tandoors,” Naresh Lal says. “It’s ironic that they’re all doing something else now, and I’m the one getting my hands dirty. But I love doing it now.” To the utter confusion of one onlooker, Naresh Lal drives up to the open factory in his Hyundai Verna and immediately proceeds to strip down to singlet and underwear. Like Munnilal, he relishes working with his hands, and the seat of his formal trousers bear large smudges of clay. Even in the late afternoon sun, he squats over a thin carpet of wet clay, pounding the air out of it with his palms. At least 40 tandoors in various stages of completion are drying around him; in his storage shed, he counts 98 finished tandoors. One batch of six has been packed for export to Qatar; another batch of three is headed to Australia. Naresh Lal’s technique varies slightly from Munnilal’s. In addition to clay, he uses black mud collected from sugar cane fields in Haryana and Punjab, and instead of goat hair, he uses horsehair. There are two other ingredients, but Naresh Lal refuses to reveal them to the public: “There is such a thing as a trade secret, after all.” For what is, in its essence, still a traditional, artisanal craft, tandoor-making is enjoying a boom like never before, Naresh Lal says. “Right now, 75% of my demand is from overseas, and for comparison, I was making only 400 tandoors a year 10 years ago,” he says. “There are plenty of manufacturers who make tandoors that crack within six months, and then those customers come to us, because our tandoors can last even two years with proper care.” Munnilal might disagree with at least a part of that statement; he insists that Naresh Lal does not know how to make a good tandoor. But he agrees with Naresh Lal’s roseate view of the market. “It’s a tough art, I’ll admit. A man cannot learn it fast, he needs five or 10 years to become a master,” Munnilal says. “But I learnt to work with mud, and I sent my children to college by working with mud. That’s my biggest achievement.” Source: Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:29 pm Cosmo films acquires GBC Commercial Print for USD 17.1mnCosmo Films Limited today announced that it has successfully completed acquisition of GBC Commercial Print Finishing with global revenues of approximately $100 million. GBC Commercial Print Finishing is the thermal lamination division of ACCO Brands, Inc. and has been bought by Cosmo Films Ltd. for a consideration of US $ 17.1 million.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:26 pm The transformersIt’s a busy day at the studios for Salim and Sulaiman Merchant. They’re wrapping up the background score for Kites, the Hrithik Roshan-Barbara Mori starrer that is slated to release this year. The brothers have been hot property for a decade now, known for their shape-shifting background music and winning soundtracks across an eclectic canvas from Bhoot to Iqbal to Fashion. The Emmy nomination for their score for Nickelodeon’s Wonder Pets: Save The Bengal Tiger, prepped for prime time as a special episode, has given them a global platform.  Brothers grin: Sulaiman (right) and Salim have worked out a harmonious working relationship. Abhijit Bhatlekar / Mint “The whole episode is like a musical opera and we knew this was going to be something special,” says Salim, of the animation show featuring a chick, a turtle and a pup who save endangered animals in every episode. Wonder Pets came along even before Yash Raj’s Roadside Romeo last year, so it turned out to be their maiden score for an animation project. “We had a 30-page script with music for every paragraph. When we started out, it was challenging to figure out how to Indianize it,” adds 38-year-old Sulaiman. So flutes, tablas (but naturally), the sitar and the santoor were incorporated along with vocals, while their Western counterparts in the US were working on adding more classical instruments such as violins, cellos—the works. The composers logged on to iChat and Skype for the next few days to “video conference, re-edit, and correct” and sent all the music online to the studios in the US. “This is the first time that we fully used the potential of the Internet,” says Sulaiman. Salim recalls how schizophrenic it got, with them scoring music for Vipul Shah’s Namaste London simultaneously. “We were pushing the barriers and doing something different, which is why this was so fulfilling,” he says of the episode that was wrapped up in 20 days. India, as Salim puts it, is the flavour of the planet. Refashioning music to reach the international audience is an important step, he adds, pointing to the A.R. Rahman-Pussycat Dolls Jai Ho! collaboration. “If you look at iTunes, Indian music is under the World Music genre, while you’ll find Spanish or music from another country have their own category,” Salim says. “Eventually we can give the world our music as it is,” says Sulaiman. The brothers have worked out a pattern over the years. Salim programmes the keys and Sulaiman does the drums. “But we bleed into each other’s space and I might have a rhythm idea or he might have an idea for the keys,” says Salim. The unit is tight—sibling Sulaiman’s easy calm complements Salim’s super-caffeinated energy, and while Salim has always been more vocal, Sulaiman now knows how to have his say. This year, they have 13 films lined up for background score alone; 8x10 Tasveer was their first release of the year. “We’re booked till September,” says Salim, sounding incredibly pleased. Kites, they tell us, has a far-out range, from orchestral sounds to flamenco to opera, and Kambakkht Ishq, the Kareena Kapoor-Akshay Kumar starrer with Sylvester Stallone stealing the thunder, has a crazy, spicy soundtrack that includes the Rocky riff. “We have the rights for using it,” Salim adds quickly. The Merchants, if you’ve noticed their background music, love working with silences. “A lot depends on the director and sometimes we have to fight to keep the silences,” says Sulaiman. Salim explains why a director may be wary of keeping it quiet. An intimate scene, say the intense Ash-Hrithik kiss in Dhoom 2 (Salim and Sulaiman scored the background music), could have been destroyed with catcalls in the theatre. “So we find ways to build and balance the intensity on screen even without silences sometimes,” he says. They also have two Yash Raj films in hand this year—Pyaar Impossible, with a “rock/pop sound”, and Rocket Singh—Salesman of the Year, with Ranbir Kapoor in the lead. “We have an acoustic, unplugged sound planned for Rocket Singh. It’s just an idea right now. We still don’t know how it will be received by Adi (Aditya Chopra) and gang. But it will not be normal,” promises Salim. What’s it like working with some of the biggest directors in the industry? “Adi pushes us the most and is the most vocal, tries to get the sound which is as close to what is in his head,” says Sulaiman. “Karan Johar is an extremely sensitive guy,” says Salim, “He gets into your psyche and gets the work done, which is a beautiful way of working.” Ram Gopal Varma, they tell us, is also completely sure of his music and speaks his mind. “Nagesh (Kukunoor) has his own sensitive approach—he will first show his appreciation and then bring up the ‘but’,” says Sulaiman. Although one film that both composers wish they’d scored for is Jaane Tu Ya Jaane Na, especially because it seemed like it offered a clean slate and the freedom to experiment. The two are looking forward to a 20-day vacation in the US before the Emmys are announced in August in Los Angeles. “Not together,” says Sulaiman. Holidays are time to get out of each others’ heads. Their Heroes Their big inspirations are Hans Zimmer for his emotive scores, Seal and Sting for their songwriting skills, Nusrat Fateh Ali Khan for his Sufi magic, electronic whiz BT, producer William Orbit and A.R. Rahman for his path-breaking music. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:23 pm Connecting with ‘the other’Indian Heathcliff When I first read Emily Brontë’s Wuthering Heights in high school, I found Heathcliff and Catherine nauseating: Their great love was too close to the romanticism I was then growing out of, and the “metaphysics” of the novel irked the rationalist and teenage agnostic in me. Rereading the novel some years ago, I discovered a new world (and text) altogether. I discovered a work of undoubted genius and immense complexity. Since then I have gone back to the novel once again (in the process of writing a forthcoming book on the Gothic and post-colonialism), and I have come away with my admiration doubled.  Wuthering Heights: A tale of terror. AFP What is it that makes Wuthering Heights so exceptional? There are many reasons. But for me, Wuthering Heights is essentially about terror, arising from fear of the other. Remember the scene where Lockwood has a nightmare about the dead Catherine, a “waif-ghost”, trying to enter his room from a window unlatched by the storm? Lockwood writes that “terror made me cruel”: He rubs the “creature’s” wrist on the broken glass pane until it bleeds. But still the “ghost” maintains its “tenacious grip”, maddening him with fear. The terror of this scene is intricately connected with displacement. Lockwood is a traveller; Catherine is displaced, banished from her family house and love. Heathcliff, the house’s current owner, is displaced, having usurped the house but only by using the legal and social rules that left him (and Catherine) on the margins. Significantly, Heathcliff’s terrorizing route out of the margins and into brutal power leaves him displaced more deeply—estranged from his “true self”, Catherine, whose “waif-ghost” doesn’t respond to his entreaties. This narrative of terror and otherness is not explicit in the novel; it has to be read between the lines. This is inevitable, given the nature of otherness. In the last count, it is not the narrative power or even the structure of Wuthering Heights that fascinates me, but its tendency to narrate at a tangent. This tendency is lacking in many acclaimed novels, which are premised on excessive transparency, an easy consumption of “stories” floating like dead fish on the surface of the text. More Mosley A new novel by Walter Mosley: What more can one want as a summer read? Recipient of the PEN Lifetime Achievement Award and the author of 25 books, Mosley is one of the important American writers of his generation and a major genre writer. His Devil in a Blue Dress is a genre classic, and his Easy Rawlins mysteries (11 novels till date) are the contemporary Black American equivalent of Doyle’s Sherlock Holmes series. In his latest novel, The Long Fall, Mosley introduces a new detective, a middle-aged coloured man, coping with a splintering marriage and a new conscience. Not very scrupulous as a detective in the past, he gets paid to track down four men, who then start being murdered. In the past, he would not have cared. But personal events have made him face up to his past, and he cannot live with the knowledge. He needs to find out more. But will he be able to? And in the process, will he have the time also to do his duty as a father of three teenagers, at least one of whom seems to be sliding towards crime? Read on, if you like Mosley. Discover him, if you haven’t yet. Tabish Khair is the Bihar-born, Denmark-based author of Filming. Write to Tabish at readingroom@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:21 pm What ensues when the ‘help’ wants your helpThis column is about the household help. Servants, maids, staff, call them what you will. Servant problems are ubiquitous not only in India but everywhere. One elderly lady I know routinely refuses invitations—to family weddings and births—citing “servant problems”. Whether it is an excuse or genuine, only she knows, but I suspect the latter. I have sat at soirées in Mumbai, Manhattan and Singapore where ladies flaunting Cartier watches, Kelly bags and Kasliwal solitaires complained ad nauseum about servants. Get a life, I felt like telling them, except that I am no exception. I too vent about my servants, usually to my brother. His response, to this and my other complaints, is the same: “Eat more fibre.”  Hands-on: Abroad, it’s much more professional. I didn’t have servants for years in the US. But that was before I had children. Once the babies arrived, I got off my high horse about Gandhian self-sufficiency and Marxist equality of classes very quickly. In Manhattan, the going rate for nannies started at $400 (around Rs18,850) a week. My nanny, Chokpa, a Nepali who lived in Queens, occasionally mentioned missing her husband and daughter but kept her distance. In England, housekeepers are as professional as plumbers, accountants or lawyers. Or not. Choice of job doesn’t reduce dignity of labour. In Singapore, maids undergo a full medical check-up, including an AIDS test. I had to pay the government a “levy” of S$265 per month (around Rs8,670), which was sort of like minimum wage. The expectation was that you would pay your maid at least that much as salary. Most people paid more—S$300-600 per month. India is a wild card; a game changer. Servant wages are all over the map, depending on city and locality. One commonality is how little maids are paid relative to the household income. My neighbour has an enviable diamond collection but thinks twice about paying the maid Rs3,000 versus Rs2,500 per month. We underpay our servants, even though they are essential to our lives—more essential than, say, our husbands. As proof, I point to the panic that women undergo when their maids don’t show up. It is not just the salary. While throwing money at this problem does help, it doesn’t solve all servant crises. Consider my own. Last week, my maid said she wanted to go from working full days to half days. I was shocked, devastated even. You know, I need you till 5pm, I said. How can I let you go at 1pm? I’ll pay you more, I offered. Double your salary. I’ll cut your wage in half if you work half days, I threatened. I cajoled and pleaded. Finally, my maid spoke. You know, last week, my sons and I were preparing to consume poison, she said. My husband has started drinking again. My sons are failing in school. My sister’s son ran away and we haven’t seen him for 15 years. I don’t want that to happen to my boys. So I want to pick them up from school at 2pm, which is why I need to leave at 1pm. To every HR professional out there, I want to ask: How do you negotiate in a situation like this? How do you make this a win-win for both parties? Also Read Shoba’s previous Lounge columns In India, the women (and they are largely women) who come into our homes to work have problems that are hard to fathom, let alone negotiate around. The lady who works in my friend’s house had a husband who was set on fire by his own mother. He died. She needs a new house and an advance of Rs50,000 after two months of work. Should my friend give or not? Bharti Aunty is my Bangalore guru in matters of home. Daughter of the late great C.S. Venkatachar and mother of my friend, Gauri, Bharti Aunty is who I call for advice on matters ranging from pest control to crafts shops. Her maid, Kamlamma, has been with her for 45 years. I wanted to know why and how. Let me insert a disclaimer here. Whenever I include friends in this column, I feel a pang of disquiet. As journalists, we are taught to value objectivity above all. Writing about someone you know is seen as a conflict of interest. Columnists are given a little more leeway, but I still think twice before including anyone I know—and then feel the need to explain myself. So, here goes. In an ideal world, would I have found a stranger who was successful at managing servants as a source for this column? Yes. Does my deadline permit such a search? No. Is Bharti Aunty getting something out of being included here? No. Moral of the story: If you want your name in this column, don’t be my friend. Bharti Aunty was wise and soothing when I asked her for tips on how to manage help. She also didn’t have a solution. “I think Kamlamma has an affection and loyalty that existed in those days and doesn’t seem to exist in the new breed of servants,” she said. I considered calling my friend who obsesses—and helps set policy—on labour reform and ask him for a solution for the nation’s servant problems. But given what I have just said, I can’t. My own take is that the chasm between servants and their employers—in means, circumstances, lifestyle and mindset—has to be bridged. I don’t mean paying our servants more or educating them, although that will certainly help. I mean the reverse. Educating and sensitizing the employers to the plight of servants and imbuing the maids with self-esteem so they don’t have to resort to lying to get their way. Only when there is dignity of labour, only when the “staff” see themselves as professionals can negotiation begin. Until then, we working women who employ other working women are doomed to guilt, bitterness and cynicism. Shoba Narayan’s maid works half days now. For about the same pay. She wants to learn to negotiate better with her help. Write to Shoba at thegoodlife@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:20 pm Those myth-covered mountainsThey call that range Blue Mountains but those mountains are not really blue, and they call the peaks nearby The Three Sisters, giving them names—Meehni, Wimlah, and Gunnedoo—and creating an elaborate story around their lives. We are in magical terrain, awestruck by the beauty. The charms are real, but the stories are made up.  The great beyond: (left) The Three Sisters. AFP; and a curious kangaroo. But none of that mattered when we set out to explore the mountains that formed the boundary between Sydney and the vast emptiness beyond. Google Maps rob us of the imagined romance of flying over that stretch of nothingness but, from the sky, the sheer expanse of that vacuity takes your breath away, as if explaining, though not justifying, why the colonizers called this “terra nullis”. And then they decided the entire land was theirs, ignoring the 40,000 years of continuous history the Aborigines remembered, and lived. We left the sparkling city, with its friendly harbour, its Opera House looking like a fluttering swan spreading its wings in the morning light, and the old Harbour Bridge, like a trusty hanger, shining at dawn. And Sydney itself, looking resplendent and colourful, like a Ken Done artwork. Rather than the beaches, we were interested in the mountains where, as Jan Morris pointed out in her eponymous book about Sydney, you could find snow occasionally, when the log fires in resorts would keep you warm. Once you left Sydney, as Morris noted, you were in frontier territory, “extending mile after mile after mile of scrub, waste and desert into the infinite never-never of the Aborigines. Nearly all Australia is empty. Emptiness is part of the Australian state of things”. Also Read Salil’s previous Lounge columns The rough landscape, comprising sheer cliffs and the rainforest around the Blue Mountains, gives the place a primeval quality, and you feel like an intruder, even though there are thousands like you, each weekend, negotiating the narrow paths. And it is the miracle of those mountains that you feel you are the first to discover that little brook, the wild flowers, or the shaft of sunlight that penetrates through the tall trees. My younger son, only five years old at the time, discovers ladybirds (the bugs, not the books), and falls to his knees, crawling behind one, gently letting one of them climb on his little index finger. We enter the limestone caves with stalactites and stalagmites, inching onward, at a pace so slow that even the ladybird thinks of herself as a Ferrari in comparison. They look like a woman’s unkempt tresses magnified a million times as she emerges from a waterfall; or the waterfall itself; or icicles, dangling tantalizingly; or shards of ivory, extending their millions of fingers, as if to clasp the other million fingers thrust upwards, outstretched, and yet, failing to connect. The caves are cool inside, and when they play choral music and turn on the spectacular lights, the atmosphere gets ethereal and surreal. The mountains are not blue, but you can’t deny the blue haze which envelopes them, giving them a soothing, calming presence. It charms the evening. Scientists have found the way to make this poetry prosaic: The eucalyptus trees that crowd the mountains emit oils, which refract the light, which produces the unique blue tinge. There are even more complicated explanations that challenge the eucalyptus theory. But why bother? In his 1888 poem, Henry Lawson wrote: Now in the west the colours change, The blue with crimson blending; Behind the far Dividing Range, The sun is fast descending. And mellowed day comes o’er the place, And softens ragged edges; The rising moon’s great placid face Looks gravely o’er the ledges. That’s good enough for us. We leave the mountains for The Three Sisters, peaks sculpted by wind and water. The stone is soft, leading to frequent erosion, and water seeps through small cracks, gradually making the indentations bigger, and the peaks change their shape ever so slightly over time, as if they are reluctant statues, unable to stand still. Some day, the peaks will disappear completely. There is a fake legend built around the peaks—that the three sisters fell in love with men from a different tribe. An elder fought a battle to defend their honour, and to protect them he turned them into stone. He died in the battle; the three sisters remained mute witnesses. In his book, The Artificial Horizon: Imagining the Blue Mountains, Martin Thomas has reflected on the irony of the colonizers not only disrupting the Aboriginal life, but creating legends they hadn’t dreamt. “As a myth created by the invading colonial culture, it reveals underlying truths about petrifying the Aboriginal sisters and turning them into things you just look at,” he writes, adding a sombre note. For that’s what the powerful outsider does—erasing parts of history he does not like, rewriting the story to suit his world view, destabilizing the past, and affirming a world view that’s entirely mythical. And so the three peaks become The Three Sisters, in a mountain range not quite blue. But that outsider also left behind songs of praise. In the song the poet Alfred Noyes wrote about the mountains, he noted the angelic presence of the Southern Cross, guiding his journey. No stars guide our return journey. Rather, something warmer, more real, more this-worldly, does. As our train races towards the shining city, when we look out of the window I swear I see them—four kangaroos, leaping magnificently, keeping pace. The train would stop where the tracks ended. The kangaroos would go on. It is their mountain, their country. Write to Salil at detours@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:20 pm 10 random thoughts on a hot summer’s dayIt’s too hot to focus on one topic for this column. Summer always enhances my ADD (attention deficit disorder). Here are some of the unconnected thoughts that are flitting through my head these days: 1. Dad heads to certain death as his baby boy is born. “What will we name him?” is his last question to his wife before he is blown to smithereens. Cut to movie title: Star Trek. Director J.J. Abrams has clearly been watching Hindi movies. I know I’ve seen this sequence several times over in Bollywood but movie encyclopaedia Jerry Pinto reminded me of a particularly funny one. “Mard. The titles run on the baby’s chest, where Dara Singh has carved the word mard in Hindi with his knife, and the child has not wept.” Too good.  Do it: Have you created your equivalent of Pyaasa? 2. I have got to get my hands on that ultimate summer accessory—a mist fan. For those of you who haven’t seen one, it’s a pedestal fan that sprays water on its targets. Note to self: Must get one with adjustable “misting volume”. 3. Aamir Khan may be the thinking woman’s Khan and Shah Rukh Khan may be the trendy girl’s favourite Khan but Salman Khan is clearly the most charismatic Khan on the small screen. Anyone who can get Daler Mehndi to crack a wicked joke on national television has got my vote. Did you see last week’s episode of 10 Ka Dum with Daler and his brother Mika? Mehndi had to answer a question about kissing. It’s only now that they give so much importance to kissing, he pointed out, making a reference to Indian men and their lack of foreplay. Salman, of course, got the joke immediately. 4. David Carradine. Autoerotic asphyxiation. Why you shouldn’t try it. Look it up. 5. I’m the same age that Guru Dutt was when he died. And I haven’t even come close to creating my equivalent of Pyaasa. For those of you who are younger, Raj Kapoor made his first movie at 23. 6. It doesn’t matter if you don’t own your own apartment, but after visiting a friend’s bungalow in Himachal Pradesh and devouring vast quantities of home-made plum jam, I’m convinced that everyone needs a second home. Also Read Priya Ramani’s blogs 7. Does anyone know why Airtel harasses their clients before the due date of their phone bill? Can’t wait for number portability. 8. Wimbledon. Why we love it more than the IPL. Read Lounge next week. 9. Last week, an Indian court actually asked the police to register an FIR against a woman and her family for giving dowry. Good job, I say. Both the givers and receivers of dowry are equally at fault. 10. Just a few months after launching Hoegaarden on tap, the Select Citywalk, New Delhi outlet of Spaghetti Kitchen has discontinued it. InBev’s India CEO says the tap ran dry because the customs department plans to increase prices of all imported liquor in Delhi. Oh the joys of living in the capital city. Write to lounge@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 6:19 pm Investors wary as share sales mushroomMumbai: With its investor roadshow complete, India’s GMR Infrastructure Ltd has managed to attract just over half the $1 billion (around Rs4,750 crore) it was initially hoping to raise, according to banking sources—an ominous sign for issuers looking to cash in on a stock market rally. While share sales are beginning to flow after a 15 month drought as India’s main index has surged 90% from its 2009 low in March, wary investors are concerned the run-up has been too fast.  Rapid surge: The BSE building in Mumbai. The Sensex has gained 90% from its 2009 low in March. Ashesh Shah / Mint So far in 2009, 11 Indian firms have raised nearly $2.6 billion, mostly in the last two months. Another three dozen firms, including GVK Power Ltd and JSW Steel Ltd, have announced their intentions to raise $8.5 billion in share sales, Thomson Reuters data showed. Property and construction firms, reeling from debt-heavy balance sheets, form a majority of this group. Most are opting for the sales of shares to institutional funds, which can be done faster than a standard follow-on offering. Bankers reckon as few as one-third of the planned offers will succeed as investors are faced with multiple choices and stocks are no longer cheap. Shares in top real estate firm DLF Ltd have jumped nearly three-quarters since its founders raised $780 million in mid-May, handing out handsome returns to its investors. But new investors in GMR, which operates two of India’s biggest airports in New Delhi and Hyderabad, would be buying into a firm that has already at least doubled in value since February and trades at 93 times its forecast earnings for fiscal 2010. “We are concerned with a run-up (in prices). Investors don’t like this,” said Ashutosh Agarwala, GMR’s chief financial officer for strategic finance. “But having said that, I don’t think it will matter. We haven’t decided the pricing, but all I can say is the (placement) will be investor friendly,” he said. GMR still cannot launch its offer due to restrictions on pricing from the market regulator. Under pricing rules for share sales to institutions, offers must be priced at a minimum of the average price in the past two weeks or six months, whichever is higher, making newer issues dearer following the recent rally. GMR’s current market price of Rs158 is well below the regulator’s floor price of around Rs185. Overseas heavyweights including HSBC Holdings Plc., Government of Singapore Investment Corp. Pte Ltd, the UK’s Prudential Plc. and T. Rowe Price Group Inc. have been among the most active investors in recent offers in India, bankers said, and are expected to become more cautious after sharp run-up in share prices. Most of the share sales so far have gone towards retiring high-cost debt and would not help in generating fresh cash, eventually diluting earnings on expanded capital, analysts said. Even for firms working on new projects, returns will flow only after a few years, as in the case of GMR, which plans to use the proceeds to finance a slew of new road and power projects. “Indian industry is hungry for capital. If investors are indicating prices are high, companies will have to value it. Pricing power is still with the investors,” said Girish Nadkarni, executive director at Avendus Capital, an investment bank. But firms such as Gammon Infrastructure Projects Ltd, which is debt free and plans to invest in new projects, insist offerings that will deliver strong cash flows are attractive enough for investors. “I have a queue of these guys waiting,” said Parvez Umrigar, managing director at Gammon, which aims to sell shares worth $105 million. feedback@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 5:50 pm Acquisition boosts Sesa Goa The acquisition price of $368 million (Rs1,744.32 crore) translates into a valuation of $5.26 per tonne of reserves and resources. Before the announcement of the acquisition, Sesa Goa traded at a valuation of $6.44 per tonne of reserves and resources of 360 million tonnes, after adjusting for the cash on its books. These valuations look expensive in light of the recent deal between BHP Billiton Ltd and Rio Tinto Plc., where the implied valuation worked out to $2 per ton of iron ore reserves and resources. But as brokerage Motilal Oswal Securities Ltd points out in a recent research note, Sesa Goa’s assets will be mined in 18 years, while it will take 97 years for BHP Billiton and Rio Tinto to mine all the assets. In terms of the enterprise value to Ebitda ratio, too, the acquisition seems reasonable at around four times. Ebitda is short for earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, an indicator of a company’s profitability. Having said that, it’s interesting to note that Sesa Goa’s own valuations are now close to the peak they had reached last year. Although iron ore prices have started recovering lately, they are still about 60% lower than the peak reached last year. For the company’s stock to trade at close to last year’s peak, therefore, seems rather strange. True, the company has had an increase in its iron ore reserves and the Dempo acquisition will further increase its capacity, but that wouldn’t compensate for the massive drop in iron ore prices. At the time of its annual results announcement in April, the company had said that it expects contract prices to fall by 35-40%. Based on recent price trends, it looks like iron ore producers may be able to extract some hikes when contracts come up for renewal next year. Reuters has quoted a research note by Goldman Sachs’ Australian unit that says: “After conceding contract price cuts in 2009 ranging from 28-48%, we believe the balance of pricing power will shift back in favour of the suppliers in 2010 and we have raised our benchmark price forecast for Australian iron ore fines to (an increase of) 10%.” Even so, since prices are way off their peaks, Sesa Goa’s current valuations of about 12-13 times one-year forward earnings look expensive, especially considering that the stock has traditionally been viewed as a commodity stock and has had single digit valuations. Write to us at marktomarket@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 5:40 pm Premji foresees return of two-party system in IndiaIndia may get back to the two-party system after the next general elections if the new government deliveres on its commitments, Azim Premji, chairman of India's leading IT firm Wipro, said Friday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 12 Jun 2009 | 5:32 pm Sensex lifeline: high beeps and pratfallsSesa Goa (5.65% up) The shares of Sesa Goa Ltd gained Rs10.85 on Friday to close at Rs203 on the National Stock Exchange on Friday. The firm has acquired VS Dempo’s mines for Rs1,750 crore. Morgan Stanley says the acquisition could lift Sesa Goa’s FY10 earnings per share by 12%. JSW Steel (11.04% up) The JSW Steel stock’s target price has been upgraded by Macquarie to Rs826 from Rs543 on the back of improved order flow at its US facility and further clarity on its debt repayments. CLSA has also upgraded the stock to buy from underperform. JSPL(5,25% up) The shares of Jindal Steel and Power Ltd gained 5.25% on Friday to close at Rs125.80 on the National Stock Exchange. The stock is replacing the Reliance Power Ltd stock in the Nifty from 17 June. Analysts believe that the firm could witness value unlocking. Tech Mahindra (6.80% down) The shares of Tech Mahindra declined 6.8% on reports that the firm is facing challenges due to a rise in Satyam’s share price. It will have to either pay Rs1,200 crore extra for the additional 20% preferential allotment, or maintain the stake at 31% and risk a hostile bid. Engineers India (10% up) The shares of Engineers India Ltd gained 10% on the back of better-than-expected results. The March quarter standalone net sales were at Rs407.55 crore against Rs242.82 crore a year ago. Its net profit was at Rs158.82 crore in the quarter compared with Rs56.68 crore a year ago. Mcnally Bharat (4.36% up) The Mcnally Bharat Engineering Co. Ltd stock gained Rs5.20 on Friday to close at Rs124.45 on the National Stock Exchange after the company secured a Rs300 crore order by Hindustan Zinc to set up a zinc beneficiation plant in Rajasthan. The stock touched the upper trading limit on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 5:18 pm Fem Care sees better yr ahead post stake sale to DaburA Ramnathkar, Joint MD of Fem Care Pharma said the companys margins and profits were up as the summers normally upped its sales. Also, she said, the company has introduced new products. Dabur India acquired a substantial stake in the company and Ramnathkar sees a better year ahead.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 12 Jun 2009 | 4:41 pm Abdullah promises special energy plan for Jammu and KashmirMinister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah Friday said his ministry would draw up a special plan for meeting Jammu and Kashmir's energy needs.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 12 Jun 2009 | 4:31 pm See labour reform, interest sops in Budget: House of PearlsRishi Vig, CFO, House of Pearls, said the company faces tough competition from Bangladesh and Vietnam. Commenting on what he expects from the Budget, Vig said any liberalization on retail front is welcome. \"We are look forward to more incentives on the textile core biz, labour reforms, and interest subsidies.\"Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:49 pm Chandigarh to have metro railTo ease traffic problems and provide better transport facilities to commuters of the tri-city of Chandigarh, Panchkula and Mohali, a Mass Rapid Transport System (MRTS), including metro rail, is on the anvil, an official said Friday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:31 pm See good biz if steel ind boom continues: Orient AbrasivesIn an interview with CNBCTV18, SG Rajgarhia, Managing Director, Orient Abrasives, said the company supplied refractories to steel producers. We are also a supplier of refractory raw materials to the other large refractory manufacturers in the country, he said.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:12 pm UAE seeks to boost economic, energy ties with IndiaIn the first visit here by a foreign minister since the formation of the new government in India, United Arab Emirates Foreign Minister Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed Al Nahyan Friday called for scaling up economic and energy ties and sought New Delhi's help to develop renewable energy.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:01 pm Don't take 'India advantage' for granted: Azim PremjiWipro chairman Azim Premji Friday cautioned the IT industry against taking the 'India advantage' for granted as countries like the Philippines were fast catching up in the business process outsourcing (BPO) sector.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 12 Jun 2009 | 3:00 pm Airshow to underscore bleak times for industryPARIS (Reuters) - The world's biggest airshow next week may see more soul-searching than orders as the industry wades through an economic crisis overshadowed by the worst jetliner crash in eight years and looming defence cuts.Source: Reuters: Money News | 12 Jun 2009 | 2:41 pm Blacklisting of firm hits artillery modernisation: Army chiefThe Indian Army's 23-year wait for new artillery guns - a crucial element of its modernisation drive - has just got longer with the blacklisting on corruption charges of a Singapore firm. Its howitzer was the frontrunner for a Rs.29 billion ($612 million) order for 140 guns, the army chief, Gen. Deepak Kapoor admitted Friday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 12 Jun 2009 | 2:02 pm Renewable energy to get cheaper, says India's ministerThe cost of generating clean energy should be brought down to make it 'affordable' for developing countries, Minister for New and Renewable Energy Farooq Abdullah said Friday after his interaction with the visiting UAE foreign affairs minister.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 12 Jun 2009 | 2:01 pm Computer sales up 7 percent in January-March quarterPersonal computer (PC) sales in India were up 7 percent in the first three months of this year over the last quarter of 2008 but were still about 19 percent less compared to the year-ago period, according to an IT media house report.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 12 Jun 2009 | 2:01 pm Is Tata Comm eyeing strategic investors for cable biz?Even as reports suggest that Tata Communications is considering roping in strategic investors for its undersea cable business, the company said these reports are unfounded and have been floated by vested interests.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 12 Jun 2009 | 1:16 pm Kingfisher Air grabs maximum mkt share in MayThe Jet Airways\' market share for the month of May was at 15.7% whereas for Kingfisher Airlines grabbed the hihgest market share for May was at 25.7%.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 12 Jun 2009 | 12:21 pm Mitsubishi in talks for coal plant in AustraliaTokyo: Japan’s Mitsubishi Heavy Industries is close to signing a deal with Australia’s Queenlsand state to build the world’s first large low-emission coal power plant, a company official said Friday. The firm will likely sign a deal with an entity affiliated with the state government and make an announcement as early as this month, the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity as the talks were still ongoing. The power plant would feature both coal gasification combined cycle (IGCC) technology and carbon-capture-and-storage (CCS) capability, promising to reduce carbon dioxide emissions by as much as 90%, he said. While plants using either technology already exist around the world, a plant combining both would be a world-first, the official said. IGCC turns coal into gas to burn to generate electricity, resulting in lower emissions. CCS is a technology that solidifies carbon dioxide so it can be stored deep underground rather than enter the atmosphere. The plant is projected to cost at least ¥200 billion ($2.04 billion), the company official said. Media reports said it is slated to start operating in 2015. Australia, home to a heavily polluting coal industry, this year launched an institute to develop CCS and other “clean coal” technology. Mitsubishi Heavy Industries shares rose 4.6% to ¥409 Friday. Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 10:28 am Windows 7 will ship without IE browser in EuropeSan Francisco: Microsoft on Thursday said regulatory wrangling has prompted it to strip Internet Explorer Web browsers from copies of its Windows 7 operating system to be sold in Europe. The US software giant said it still plans to release its next-generation operating system worldwide on 22 October, but that customers in Europe will have to install Web browsers of their choice. “We’re committed to making Windows 7 available in Europe at the same time that it launches in the rest of the world, but we also must comply with European competition law as we launch the product,” Microsoft deputy general counsel Dave Heiner said in a written release. “Given the pending legal proceeding, we’ve decided that instead of including Internet Explorer in Windows 7 in Europe, we will offer it separately and on an easy-to-install basis to both computer manufacturers and users.” Microsoft announced the development this week so computer makers can adapt to installing Web browsers in new machines running on the US software giant’s new operating system, according to Heiner. “We’re committed to launching Windows 7 on time in Europe, so we need to address the legal realities in Europe, including the risk of large fines,” Heiner said. “We believe that this new approach, while not our first choice, is the best path forward given the ongoing legal case in Europe.” Microsoft is defending itself in the European Union against accusations of unfairly crushing rivals in the Web browser market. The European Commission, Europe’s top competition watchdog, opened a new front in its epic antitrust battle with Microsoft in January, hitting the company with fresh charges of unfairly squashing competition. Microsoft is to defend itself at a hearing, which companies are allowed to do under EU antitrust rules. If Microsoft fails to beat back the charges, the commission could slap the company with huge new fines and order it to change its ways. The commission on Thursday expressed skepticism over the Microsoft move and said it will decide soon whether it believes the software powerhouse has abused its dominant position in the market and what remedies are needed. “In terms of potential remedies, if the Commission were to find that Microsoft had committed an abuse, the Commission has suggested that consumers should be offered a choice of browser not that Windows should be supplied without a browser at all,” it said in a statement. But it said Microsoft’s approach of offering the program to computer manufacturers “may potentially be more positive”. However, the commission said if Microsoft’s behavior was found to be abusive that it would have to evaluate whether the change is “sufficient to create genuine consumer choice on the web browser market”. The commission accuses Microsoft of crushing rivals by bundling IE into its ubiquitous Windows personal computer operating system, giving the program an unfair advantage over competitors’ browsers. Heiner said Microsoft expects that stripping IE from Windows 7 will bolster its position that it is not bundling software in order to suffocate competition. Microsoft appears to be striving to clear away obstacles to adoption of Windows 7, according to analyst Michael Cherry of Directions On Microsoft, a private firm that tracks the Redmond, Washington colossus. The operating system’s predecessor, Vista, has gotten ongoing criticism and been shunned by many computer users. Microsoft wants Windows 7 to be embraced worldwide. In what could be a competitive opportunity for Google, shipping Windows 7 without IE frees computer manufacturers to make deals to pre-install other browsers such as the US Internet titan’s Chrome. Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 9:53 am Next ISRO launch in July-AugustThiruvananthapuram: The Indian Space Research Organisation plans to launch its indigenously built satellite ‘Ocean Sat’ on Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle by July-August, ISRO chairman G Madhavan Nair said here Friday. “It will be a unique mission and the satellite would enable us to study the sea surface, wind and also track down the fishing zones,” Nair told reporters on the sidelines of a national seminar on ‘Aerospace Expanding Frontiers -Technologies and Challenges’ here. “We are planning the mission by July end or early August from the launch pad in Sriharikota,” he said. “Chandrayaan has completed its mission and it was a 100% success,” Nair said when asked about the country’s first moon-mission. “We have mapped the entire lunar surface and the data collected have been given to scientific community for analysing, results of which will be out soon,” he said. Nair said no trace of water was found on the Moon’s surface. “But, we have found traces of magnesium and calcium.” Earlier, inaugurating the seminar, Nair said country would be capable of developing its own ‘Capsule´ to transport human beings to space by 2015. ‘Space Travel’ is an important part of ISRO’s future mission programmes, Nair said, adding developing technology for the same was a big challenge before the country. Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 12 Jun 2009 | 8:46 am
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