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US companies plan to re-hire fired employees!With the economy showing signs of recovery, American firms are looking to re-hire employees they laid off in the past, mainly in the finance and manufacturing sectors, says a latest report.Source: Zee News : Business | 28 Sep 2009 | 6:07 am Beijing sells 1st yuan bonds in Hong Kong!Beijing sold govt bonds denominated in the mainland`s yuan for the first time Monday in Hong Kong, adding to gradual moves to expand the international use of its tightly controlled currency.Source: Zee News : Business | 28 Sep 2009 | 6:07 am IPO pricing in focus; small investors grumbleMUMBAI (Reuters) - Jayesh Jhaveri has had enough of Indian IPOs for now.Source: Reuters: Money News | 28 Sep 2009 | 4:17 am Twitter gets new round of funding, new backersSAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Twitter received $100 million in funding on Friday, valuing the company at $1 billion, according to a person familiar with the matter, as investors bet that the Web company's explosive growth will yield actual revenue or a lucrative deal.Source: Reuters: Money News | 28 Sep 2009 | 4:15 am Oil falls below $66, sluggish demand in focusLondon: Oil fell below $66 a barrel on Monday, extending last week’s 8.4% drop, as investors focused on high inventories and sluggish demand, shrugging off tension between Iran and the West. Gains in the US dollar also put pressure on oil, which had risen earlier in the session on the back of Iran’s test firing of missiles. Stock markets fell in Asia and eased in Europe. US crude fell 43 cents to $65.59 a barrel by 2:24pm after rising by as much as 64 cents. The contract settled up 13 cents at $66.02 on Friday. London Brent fell 44 cents to $64.67. “The market is down on currency, and general economic malaise which carried the market so much lower last week,” said Christopher Bellew, a broker at Bache Commodities in London. “The Iranian situation is not having much influence. If it was, we’d be back towards $70 again.” Iran test-fired a type of missile on Monday which defence analysts have said could hit Israel and US bases in the Gulf region, state television reported. The drills coincide with increased tension in Iran’s nuclear dispute with the West, after last week’s disclosure by Tehran that it is building a second uranium enrichment plant. Tensions over Tehran’s nuclear programme have supported oil prices in recent years. The country is the second-largest oil producer in the Middle East and a major crude oil exporter. In late 2008, Iran threatened to block the Strait of Hormuz, through which about 40% of the world’s globally traded oil passes, when tensions rose in another row with the United States around the nuclear work. Even so, sluggish oil demand, reinforced by some lacklustre economic data from the United States last week, continued to command investors’ attention. Oil prices posted their largest weekly decline in around 2-3 months last week, pressured by government data showing US crude oil inventories had risen, suggesting demand remains weak. US durable goods orders dropped by the largest amount in seven months while a rise in new home sales was less than forecast, according to data from the US Commerce Department on Friday. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 28 Sep 2009 | 4:09 am Bharti, MTN Not Seeking Immediate Dual Listing, ET Now Reports - Bloomberg
Source: Business - Google News | 28 Sep 2009 | 4:07 am ArcelorMittal to step up focus on emerging marketsNew York: World’s largest steel-maker ArcelorMittal will focus more on emerging markets, including India, and expects to return to the pre-crisis level by 2012, the company’s chief Lakshmi N Mittal has said. “Growth will be a slow, progressive recovery. Maybe by 2012, we could come back to the pre-crisis level. Growth will only come from emerging markets. That is where we will focus,” India-born Mittal told the Wall Street Journal in an interview. “On the steel sector, we will start looking at Brazil and India and (Commonwealth of Independent States) countries.” Mittal, one of the world’s 10 richest people, said the worst is probably behind but the growth trajectory the company had been on since the merger of Arcelor SA and Mittal Steel Co in 2006 is not going to return anytime soon. ArcelorMittal posted losses in the last three quarters, the latest being $792 million for three months ended June. Analysts expect it to post another loss this quarter. “... it would been far worse if the steelmaker did not shut mills, slash production (by) about 35% and lay off thousands of workers,” the India-born steel tycoon said. He further added that his new success mantra will be slow and progressive growth. “We will be much more selective and now we have to take a slightly different view. So instead of finishing a project in 2011-2012, we will finish in 2014,” he said. “We will work on our mining projects - Liberia, Senegal - and we will continue to expand in the mining sector,“ the Mittal told the newspaper. Terming the crisis as a shock, Mittal said his company took lots of steps such as production cuts, inventory cut and cost cutting. “We reduced our fixed costs by $10 billion, which is about 30-35% of our total fixed costs, in a period of nine months,” he said. Mittal pointed out that productivity in the emerging markets is also going up. “If we look at some of the plants in China and some of the plants in India, they are catching up really fast in terms of productivity. “We have to work with the unions to ensure that they understand what is competition and productivity in the emerging markets,” he said. According to him, the question to be addressed is how to make the industry in the Europe and the US competitive and whether they could survive in the next 30 years going forward. “The answer lies in making Western plants more productive and reducing their costs,” he noted. Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 28 Sep 2009 | 3:39 am Anil Ambani group says gas marketing margin illegalThe Anil Ambani group has called the marketing margin for the gas produced by Reliance Industries from the Krishna-Godavari basin illegal and asked the oil ministry to prevent the company from suspending supplies as threatened.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 28 Sep 2009 | 3:30 am Watch/Listen: Mint in multimedia - 27 SeptemberVideo Story: Taking Stock Sandeep Wagle of Angel Broking expects the Sensex to hit between 17,500 -17,800 in the next two to three weeks ********* Video Story: Cooking with Lounge Bored of your regular pasta routine? Now learn to cook Fettuccini in Tomato Concasse ********* Listen to a podcast of Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, talking about Dr. Norman Borlaug and how the green revolution came to be Listen to a podcast on the best ways of ensuring you can still invest and earn money in a stagnant and volatile equities market Source: Home - Livemint.com | 28 Sep 2009 | 3:03 am Energy producer Greenko buys Indian hydro projectLONDON (Reuters) - Clean energy producer Greenko Group said it agreed to buy a licence for a 96 megawatt hydro project in Sikkim, India to boost its production capacity.Source: Reuters: Money News | 28 Sep 2009 | 2:45 am Stocks down, yen hits 8-mth highLONDON (Reuters) - World stocks fell for a third straight day on Monday, depressed by recent weak U.S. economic data and failing to find support from the G20 summit, and the yen hit an eight-month high against the dollar.Source: Reuters: Money News | 28 Sep 2009 | 2:44 am ADAG alleges RIL diverting govt revenue from marketing marginNew Delhi: An Anil Ambani group company has asked the oil ministry to stop RIL from charging marketing margin on gas, alleging that the Mukesh Ambani-led firm was not sharing the revenue and “diverting” crores of rupees of the government’s share. In a letter to petroleum secretary R.S. Pandey, Reliance Infrastructure also sought to know whether RIL was entitled to charge the marketing margin despite the fact that “RIL is not sharing this part of sales consideration with the government. “Thus, several crores of rupees that would belong to the government are being diverted by RIL”. Demanding an early resolution to the issue that whether Reliance Industries was justified to charge the marketing margin, R-Infra vice-president Kamal Kant said in the letter: “You are requested to advise RIL to act in terms of the Bombay High Court order and continue to supply the gas on payment of 4.2 per mmBtu.” The letter coincided with the power Secretary H S Brahma and state-run NTPC also questioning the marketing margin, which R-Infra has termed as “illegal” and declined to pay, prompting RIL to issue a notice for suspension of fuel to ADAG’s power plant in Andhra Pradesh for payment default. “The marketing margin being charged by RIL on sale of K-G D6 gas is fair and justified consideration for the risks and costs undertaken in the GSPA including such risks and costs beyond the delivery point,” RIL President (Gas Business) wrote to power secretary H S Brahma. “Please note that by continuing the supply of gas to the extent aforesaid, we should not be deemed to have waived our notice of suspension dated 22 September or any of our right under the GSPA or our letters dated 22 September or accepted the obligation to resume supply of gas at all till the payment default on your part is continuing,“ Suresh wrote. RIL earlier this month had written to R-Infra saying its notice for postponement of the planned 35-day maintenance shutdown of its 220-MW Samalkot power plant was not in conformity with the Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement (GSPA). R-Infra on September 24 informed RIL of postponing the planned maintenance shutdown from 27 September by one day. RIL said its decision was without prejudice to any of its rights and contentions, its notice of suspension dated 22 September and its rights to “recover full price of gas and the marketing margin for the entire quantity of gas supplied”. R-Infra had in April signed GSPA to buy 0.19 mmscmd of KG-D6 gas at government approved rates. The allocation was raised to 0.56 mmscmd on a ‘fall-back´ or temporary basis as not all of the initial customers identified for RIL gas were taking their allocated volumes. The Anil Ambani Group paid marketing margin for the initial 4-5 months of supplies but stopped payments this month. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 28 Sep 2009 | 2:44 am Oil falls below $66, sluggish demand in focusLONDON (Reuters) - Oil slipped below $66 a barrel on Monday, extending last week's 8.4 percent drop, as investors focused on high inventories and sluggish demand, shrugging off rising tension between Iran and the West.Source: Reuters: Money News | 28 Sep 2009 | 2:43 am RIL diverting crores of govt revenue from mktg margin: ADAG - Press Trust of India
Source: Business - Google News | 28 Sep 2009 | 2:28 am Air fares likely to go up - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 28 Sep 2009 | 2:10 am Future Group sees Rs1,000 cr revenue from sports bizNew Delhi: Seeking to cash in on India’s growing presence in the sports arena globally, Kishore Biyani-promoted Future Group has sensed a new retail opportunity and is looking at garnering Rs1,000 crore revenue from the segment within four years. Future Group’s sharpening focus on retail of sports gear is part of the company’s strategy to become a Rs 25,000-conglomerate within 3-4 years. “We are looking at building up a big sports business. We believe the category of sports alone could be a Rs 1,000-crore business in the next 3-4 years,” Future Group chief executive officer Kishore Biyani said. He said the group is currently acting as the Indian distribution and marketing partner for a number of foreign brands, including Speedo, Wilson and Converse. “We are into a lot of interesting sports. We represent lot of brands in the country like Speedo and Converse. Sports are one category where we are working more,” Biyani said. He, however, did not share details of the sports segment’s current contribution to the group’s total turnover. Future Group has a wholly-owned sports subsidiary - Planet Sports - which has 63 speciality multi-brand sports lifestyle outlets in 40 cities and is expanding the business. “We are opening up large stores. We opened a large store in Mumbai this month measuring 10,000 sq ft and now we are looking at even larger stores, may be of 20,000-25,000 sq ft,” Biyani said. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 28 Sep 2009 | 1:58 am ANALYSIS - Asian convenience stores ride the recoveryBANGKOK (Reuters) - On a bustling street in Bangkok's Silom district, workers are putting finishing touches to a new 7-Eleven store, another sign of the resurgence in Asian convenience stores on the front line of an economic rebound.Source: Reuters: Money News | 28 Sep 2009 | 1:56 am Steel, finance ministers start talks on SAIL stake saleNew Delhi: With the stock market heading north, the Steel Ministry has approached the ministry of finance to initiate the disinvestment process in SAIL along with its proposed public offering. “Discussions are on between us and the Ministry of Finance on the matter of disinvestment in SAIL. Its public offer is also being looked at,” Steel Secretary P K Rastogi said. He, however, declined to elaborate saying discussions are at the preliminary stage. The quantum of government’s holding to be sold through disinvestment and fresh equity to be raised through the public offering could not be ascertained. The equity sale could go along with the proposed public issue of the country’s largest steel maker. Official sources said the measures could be taken in a way that government’s holding in the firm does not fall below 75%. The government currently owns 85.82% stake in SAIL. Besides, about 4.59% is with the Life Insurance Corporation and the rest is with the public. SAIL shares were closed at Rs169.20 on Friday last week. The steel major has already submitted the proposal for its public offer to the ministry and is awaiting approval for the proposed issue, proceeds of which would part finance its Rs 70,000-crore expansion project. SAIL has a capital expenditure programme of about Rs10,300 crore for the current fiscal. The company is in the process of expanding its annual production capacity to about 23 million tonnes by 2012 from the present 14 million tonnes. SAIL has also expressed confidence that the dispute over renewal of four mines in Chiria would be resolved soon, with the Jharkhand government acknowledging mining rights in SAIL’s favour. “We are making progress on Chiria issue. SAIL is much more confident of getting the Chiria issue resolved... Jharkhand government has acknowledged that Chiria mines rights belong to SAIL,” SAIL chairman S.K. Roongta had said recently. Of the 10 mining leases, SAIL is facing dispute over renewal of four mines in the Chiria region. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 28 Sep 2009 | 1:48 am Commerce minister visits Russia to boost tradeMoscow: India Commerce and industry minister Anand Sharma is reaching Russia on Monday with a large business delegation on a three-day visit to boost bilateral trade. Sharma will address the third India-Russia Business Forum tomorrow at which the Indian industry would be represented by over sixty top business executives. From the Russian side the Forum would be addressed by economic development minister Elvira Nabiullina. During his Moscow visit, Sharma is also to interact with Russian Industries and Trade Minister Viktor Khristenko to explore ways for exploiting the potential offered by two emerging economies. On the last leg of his Russia visit, Sharma is scheduled to inaugurate the ‘India Show´ in St Petersburg on Wednesday. At the four-day ‘India Show´ organised within the framework of ongoing Year of India in Russia, 153 Indian entities are to offer from IT products to jewellery and spices, space technology to handicrafts to the potential Russian importers. According to Indian Ambassador Prabhat Prakash Shukla, the two countries are confidently moving to achieve the bilateral trade target of $10 billion in 2010, set by the top political leadership of India and Russia. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 28 Sep 2009 | 1:39 am Govt committed to introducing new company law: KhursheedNew Delhi: Corporate affairs minister Salman Khursheed has said the government is committed to introducing the new Companies Bill expeditiously as it would help firms grow fast. “It is our responsibility to pass the Companies Bill so that in the modern times they get an opportunity to progress fast ... (We want) to implement the bill fast. We are committed to it”, he said while talking to reporters on the sidelines of India Leadership Conclave organised by Assocham and Wockhardt Foundation. The government introduced the Companies Bill 2009 in August in the Lok Sabha which seeks to replace the earlier law which was enacted in 1956. Pointing out that the bill is pending before the Standing Committee, Khursheed said, “People can put their views before the committee. Based on their suggestions, further steps would be taken.” Answering questions on the issue of CEO’s salary, the Minister said, “We want that as far as possible, decisions pertaining to the company should be taken by the shareholders ... I understand that all these matters would be discussed in the Standing Committee.” Besides other things, the new law provides for incorporation of single person companies and shift from control to regulation. The proposed Bill has 480 sections compared to over 600 sections in the Companies Act, 1956, and provides for greater shareholder democracy and less government intervention. The new legislation will try to promote shareholders democracy with protection of rights of minority shareholders, responsible self-regulation with adequate disclosure and accountability and lesser government control over internal corporate processes, said a statement of objects and reasons of the new Bill. It will also make it mandatory for listed firms to have 33% independent directors, while empowering the government to provide a simpler compliance regime for small companies. The Bill also proposes to make stringent provisions for companies seeking to raise money from the public. They would not be allowed to raise deposits from the public without obtaining permission from the relevant regulator. There will be a single forum for approval of mergers and acquisitions, whether domestic or with foreign entities. Also the procedure for merger of holding and wholly-owned subsidiaries would be shortened. The bill also seeks to prohibit insider trading by company directors or key managerial personnel. Such activities will be treated as a criminal offence. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 28 Sep 2009 | 1:31 am Timing of pilots' strike cruel: Passengers' bodyThe timings of the ongoing strike by Air India pilots was 'cruel' as they intentionally chose a long weekend, inconveniencing a large number of passengers, Air Passengers Association of India (APAI) said Monday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 28 Sep 2009 | 1:30 am Solvay sells drugs unit to Abbott for 4.5 bln eurosAMSTERDAM (Reuters) - Belgian drugs, chemicals and plastics maker Solvay said on Monday it would sell its drugs unit to U.S. partner Abbott Laboratories for 4.5 billion euros ($6.6 billion) in cash and reinvest in chemicals and plastics.Source: Reuters: Money News | 28 Sep 2009 | 1:25 am AI cancels 14 flights as pilots agitate for 3rd dayNew Delhi: Air India on Monday cancelled 14 flights from the national capital as a section of the agitating executive pilots refused to accept the management’s proposal to set up a committee to look into their grievances and continued with their stir. The airline cancelled 12 domestic flights to Bangalore, Varanasi, Guwahati, Dibrugarh, Leh, Nagpur, Raipur, Bhubaneshwar, Chandigarh, Hyderabad and Tirupati besides two international ones to Bangkok and Kabul after the pilots of these flights did not report to work, an airlines’ official said. The national carrier operates over 50 flights from the national capital, but on Sunday they decided to run just 27 flights out which only 18 were operated. In a bid to buy peace with its agitating executive pilots, Air India last night put on hold the cut in the pilots Productivity-Linked Incentives(PLI), which triggered the stir, and decided to form a seven-member committee to look into the modalities in the cut in the PLIs. But representative of the agitating executive pilots, Captain V.K. Bhalla refused to accept the proposal, saying the management will first have to pay the due flying allowance and PLIs of three month to all pilots and withdraw the order of cut in their PLIs. “If they pay us our dues, then a neutral platform for talks would be set up and then we will go for any talks,” Bhalla said. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 28 Sep 2009 | 1:03 am Air India strike continues, management to meet pilots' factionThe Air India management will meet the Delhi faction of the agitating executive pilots here Monday as their strike entering the third day, forcing cancellation of at least 11 flights out of the national capital alone.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 28 Sep 2009 | 1:00 am INTERVIEW - Deutsche Bank's Walter sees no ECB rate hike in 2010BERLIN (Reuters) - The euro will likely firm against the dollar next year and weak European exports will mean the European Central Bank has no need to raise interest rates, Deutsche Bank's chief economist told Reuters on Monday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 28 Sep 2009 | 12:58 am Yen surge hits Japan shares, risky assets retrestHong Kong: The yen surged to an eight-month high against the dollar on Monday as Japanese officials waved off any plans to stem the currency’s rise, driving the Nikkei down more than 2% and sparking a broad retreat in risky assets. The yen’s jump against the dollar has it poised to make a run at the 13-year peak of 87.10 struck earlier in the year, with the rise through levels that Japan’s big exporters had planned for this financial year hitting their shares. The Japanese currency’s climbed as senior officials again made clear they were not considering intervention to stem the rise at this point, with finance minister Hirohisa Fujii telling Dow Jones Newswires that the rise was “not abnormal”. Fujii later said yen moves were becoming one-sided and stable moves were desired, but market players were more focused on the hands-off aspect of his remarks. Those comments reinforced the perception that the new ruling coalition is taking a different tack on currency policy than its predecessor and that Japan is no longer as trigger-happy as it once was, having spent about $400 billion to protect its fragile economic recovery in 2003 and 2004. “There is little caution towards the government intervention at the moment because Japanese authorities say they are not thinking about taking action,” said Hideki Hayashi, global economist at Mizuho Securities in Tokyo. “In the longer term, the dollar could resume its slide against the yen if data, such as US jobs later this week, points to a subdued recovery. The Nikkei share average shed 2.4% in morning trade to hit a two-month low and briefly fell below the 10,000 line. Among exporters, Honda Motors fell 5.3 percent and electronic parts maker Kyocera Corp lost 2.6% - among the biggest drags on the index. The dollar fell as far as ¥88.23 on trading platform EBS before trimming losses to ¥89.33, down 0.3% on the day. The yen staged broad gains, with the euro down 1.1% at ¥130.25 and sterling shedding 1.4% to ¥141.10. Other Asian equity markets also retreated, but losses were smaller than those in Japan. The MSCI benchmark of Asia-Pacific shares outside Japan fell 1.4%. South Korea’s KOSPI index was down 1%, while Taiwan’s TAIEX dipped 0.9%. Some foreign investors were also pulling funds out of Asian stock markets before quarter-end, partially reversing some of the heavy buying that has taken place over the past six months on bets favouring the region’s growth prospects. Foreign investors were sellers for a third consecutive session in South Korea on Monday. “Without strong buying by foreign investors, markets are turning lower, and weaker-than-expected U.S. economic data are weighing on sentiment,” said Choi Seong-lak, a market analyst at SK Securities in Seoul. Weaker-than-forecast reading of US housing sales and durable goods orders on Friday pushed the US S&P 500 index down 0.6 percent on Friday. S&P futures were down 0.3% in Asia trade. Commodity prices also came under pressure. US crude oil shed 43 cents to $65.59, extending last week’s 8.4% slide after data showing a build-up of US inventories raised worries about the strength of demand. Gold prices dipped 70 cents to $990.25, partly as the dollar staged a broad rebound despite its losses against the yen. The dollar index, a gauge of its performance against six major currencies, was up 0.8% at 77.136. The euro slid 0.8% to $1.4580. The drop in equities propped up government bonds. The benchmark 10-year Japanese government bond yield fell 2.5 basis points to 1.285%, while the US 10-year Treasury note dipped 2 basis points to 3.307%. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 28 Sep 2009 | 12:31 am It's best time now for divestment: PRIME Database - Business Standard
Source: Business - Google News | 28 Sep 2009 | 12:08 am Stocks, futures and commodity markets closed for DussehraThe wholesale commodity markets, including bullion, metal, steel and plastic, across the board will also remain closed for the festival.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 27 Sep 2009 | 11:57 pm IITs precious, I'll not interfere with them: Sibal - IBNLive.com
Source: Business - Google News | 27 Sep 2009 | 11:50 pm Taj city struggles to increase tourist flowDespite housing the Taj Mahal and two other World Heritage monuments, Agra's tourist flow remains more or less static due to poor infrastructure and an unclean environment, say hotel owners and tour operators.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 27 Sep 2009 | 11:30 pm ArcelorMittal sees slow and progressive growth - WSJREUTERS - ArcelorMittal, the world's top steelmaker, expects growth to be slow and progressive, its chairman and chief executive Lakshmi Mittal told the Wall Street Journal in an interview.Source: Reuters: Money News | 27 Sep 2009 | 11:11 pm India in spotlight at Frankfurt auto showIndia, whose mode of transportation in antiquated cars was once referred to in German industrial circles as the 'world's bullock cart', is now being aggressively courted by German automakers, seen by the enormous attention it received at the International Motor Exhibition here.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 27 Sep 2009 | 11:00 pm Air India strike enters third day, 11 flights from Delhi cancelledA strike called by Air India pilots entered its third day Monday, resulting in cancellations of over 11 flights alone from Delhi, an official said.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 27 Sep 2009 | 10:30 pm Calica rolls out Rs 650 crore IT/ITeS SEZ - Business Standard
Source: Business - Google News | 27 Sep 2009 | 5:31 pm Ghosts to give HP tourism a boost - Times of India
Source: Business - Google News | 27 Sep 2009 | 3:31 pm Gold an effective hedge in volatile marketsContinuing with the last week's theme of diversification, we will talk about investments in gold as yet another means to diversify a predominantly equity oriented portfolio.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 27 Sep 2009 | 3:31 pm Reddy's set for brace of generic gainsAllegra and Lotrel copies will hit the markets shortly.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 27 Sep 2009 | 3:28 pm Caution's the buzzword this week as volatility is set to be highThis week being holiday-riddled also hurt. Base metals such as nickel and copper fell off a cliff and are likely to face pressure on advances as trapped bulls attempt to beat a retreat.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 27 Sep 2009 | 3:27 pm Renault 'defers' Chennai planFrench auto maker Renault has decided to "suspend" its proposed investment in the Rs 4,500 crore plant at Oragadam, near Chennai.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 27 Sep 2009 | 3:26 pm Increase in roll costs points to correctionActivity was confined to the expected range of 4900-5000 as the expiry did not witness significant fresh build up in October series; instead almost 8 million Nifty contracts got expired.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 27 Sep 2009 | 3:25 pm Actuary shortage haunts insurersRegulator says it is leading to incorrect pricing of policies.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 27 Sep 2009 | 3:25 pm RIL justifies levyUnder pressure to cut the marketing margin on its gas, RIL has sought to justify the levy.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 27 Sep 2009 | 3:24 pm Fertiliser cos want RIL to cut charges on gasMarketing margin, freight cost taking bill over $6/mmBtu.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 27 Sep 2009 | 3:23 pm Japan might prove dollar's nemesis, not ChinaFar-East nation seen moving counter-intuitively.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 27 Sep 2009 | 3:22 pm Investing in a stagnant marketIn this week’s personal finance podcast “Notes on notes”, money management coach Harish Rao explains the importance of a systematic investment plan or SIP. Harish talks about the best ways of ensuring you can still invest and earn money in a stagnant and volatile equities market. He says that investors should consider a SIP when the markets are bearish instead of investing in a bullish market, when the stakes are high. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 27 Sep 2009 | 1:00 pm Perks cut put on hold but AI pilots stir to continueMumbai: In a bid to buy peace with its agitating executive pilots, Air India on Sunday night put on hold the cut in their productivity-linked incentives(PLI) but complete normalcy of flights is unlikely with a section of the pilots deciding to continue the two-day-old stir. As the stir by the executive pilots entered the second day on Sunday disrupting 30 domestic and international flights, the AI management held a meeting with 20 Mumbai-based executive pilots and decided to set up a committee to “exclusively” look into the key issue of PLI cut which triggered the stir on Saturday. “The committee, comprising executive director (finance), executive director (industrial relations), general manager (operations in Mumbai) and four representatives of the executive pilots, would address the concerns of the agitating pilots over the cut in the PLIs,” Air India spokesperson Jitendra Bhargava told reporters here. The CMD has announced that the modalities of PLI cut, whether it was 50% or 70%, would be looked into by this committee and management will articulate these concerns, Bharagava said at the end of the four-hour long meeting convened by Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav. The Committee is expected to be set up by this week-end. Bhargava also said that the entire problem (agitation by the pilots) was caused by the 24 September office order, regarding the cut in the PLI, is not applicable as of now. In Delhi, Captain V. K. Bhalla, a representative of agitating executive pilots told PTI , “We will continue with our agitations and pilots of Delhi, Kolkata and Chennai would be reporting sick.” He called Sunday’s decisions by AI management as an “eyewash”. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 27 Sep 2009 | 1:00 pm How Borlaug’s dwarfs came to stand tall in India’s agronomyNew Delhi: Nothing distinguishes this parcel of west Delhi soil from any of the other 600-odd acres of cultivable land within the Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI). It sits under a test crop of cotton in a corner of IARI’s MB3 sector, narrow roads on two borders and a tube well bristling on one frontier. There isn’t even a signboard identifying it as what it is: the plot of land where the first trials of Norman Borlaug’s dwarf-wheat seeds were planted, the plot of land where the Green Revolution began. Listen to a podcast of Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, talking about Dr. Norman Borlaug and how the green revolution came to be Borlaug, the Nobel-winning food scientist who died on 12 September at the age of 95, had worked since 1944 on variously engineered, richly productive strains of wheat—an agricultural philosophy that would later be decried as ecologically destructive, but that appeared at the time ideal for solving the developing world’s growing hunger. His solutions were developed for Mexico, but their grandest theatre of operations would be India, and they arrived here via IARI.  Two pioneers: M.S. Swaminathan (left) and Norman Borlaug in the fields at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in 1965. MS Swaminathan Research Foundation “More of the same was evidently not the answer,” says V.L. Chopra, an emeritus professor at IARI and, according to an institutional wisecrack, the oldest living fixture on the campus, having been there since 1955. “We knew somebody had to think out of the box. That was the atmosphere prevailing at the institute back then.” In 1962, an IARI wheat scientist named M.V. Rao spotted, among a large set of wheat samples sent by the US department of agriculture (USDA), a batch that was short and sturdy. “That interested him immediately,” remembers H.K. Jain, who worked at the time in IARI’s botany division. “He thought that could help solve our problem, and he showed it to us, and to M.S. Swaminathan, who headed botany in those days.” Swaminathan contacted USDA, asking for the origin of the dwarf batch, and he was directed to a certain N.E. Borlaug. “So, I wrote a letter to the IARI director, requesting him to invite Dr Borlaug,” Swaminathan says. “Then, he sent the letter on to the ministry. In those days, the bureaucracy was like that.” The invitation went to Borlaug through the Rockefeller Foundation, and Borlaug came to New Delhi in March 1963. “Borlaug would be out in the fields early every morning, and anybody who wanted to discuss anything was welcome—not just science, but development too,” Chopra recalls. “He didn’t confine his curiosity to wheat. I remember taking him around the chickpea and rice fields in season.” Swaminathan accompanied Borlaug on a tour of the north Indian wheat belt to better acquaint him with the conditions; six months later, Borlaug sent IARI four selected varieties of his dwarf wheat.  The beginning:The plot at the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in Pusa in New Delhi where the first dwarf varieties of wheat seeds sent by the late agricultural scientist Norman Borlaug were planted. Harikrishna Katragadda/Mint Even that first, modest trial was riddled with doubt; Swaminathan remembers “a lot of sceptics”, and says that pushing the trial through wasn’t easy. “Many people had doubts about it. With the imported seeds, one might very well bring in diseases and pests and so on,” Chopra says. “These seeds needed a new agronomy altogether. They had to be planted at lesser depth, and the irrigation schedule was different. Then, there was the bhusa—the straw. Farmers used the straw as well, and people thought that a shorter plant would mean less straw.” The resulting crop, however, was almost impossibly ideal, free of taint or disease, producing 4,000-5,000kg of grain per hectare instead of the earlier 1,000kg norm. When the crop flowered, visitors started to drop by IARI just to see it. “It is now very evident…that a number of Mexican wheat varieties are very well adapted to Indian conditions,” Borlaug wrote to Swaminathan just before the harvest. “It just clicked—it was just the right time,” R.P. Sharma, also an IARI emeritus professor, and Swaminathan’s PhD student during those heady days, observes. “There was a sort of wall, and it had been difficult to go beyond that without thinking creatively. Everybody had been desperate for a solution—which is similar to the situation prevailing now also.” The next year, Swaminathan suggested jumping straight into farmer trials, an unusually rapid progression. His proposal for what he called a National Demonstration Programme in 150 fields of poor farmers faced an acute danger of languishing or being cancelled, until C. Subramaniam, then Union minister for agriculture, approved it overnight. Once again, the results were thoroughly persuasive. “Those demonstrations really catalysed the revolution,” says Sharma. “Farmers have a very strong communication channel among them, and the message spread very quickly about these successes.” It could not have come a moment too soon. A brutal double whammy of drought, in 1965 and 1966, massacred the wheat crops, pressing India to import 21 million tonnes (mt) of wheat over those two years. “We reached a stage where there was stock for only two weeks and there was nothing in transit in the pipeline,” Subramaniam recalled at a seminar in Chennai in the early 1990s. “I called all my officials and experts together and…said we should identify the nearest ships carrying wheat to other countries and appeal to the president to divert those ships to India, if the other countries could wait for another six to eight weeks for their supplies. That was how the situation was saved.” In 1966, India ordered 18,000 tonnes of dwarf seeds from Borlaug in Mexico and, in 1968, reaped a record wheat harvest: 17 mt, up from 12 mt in 1964. Schoolrooms were requisitioned, at short notice, to store the surplus grain, and there were not enough wagons on trains to transport the harvest. That July, when Prime Minister Indira Gandhi released a postage stamp that used the words “wheat revolution” for the first time, the image selected to accompany three stalks of wheat was that of IARI’s library, its façade sketched in clean lines and its clock tower rising into a vivid green sky. “After that, of course, we’ve never looked back in wheat, although in recent years I haven’t been satisfied with the growth rate,” Swaminathan says. “Borlaug had also been concerned in recent years with the farmer suicides in India. He used to say: ‘No time to relax. Continue the work,’ and so on. Those were always his favourite words. ‘No time to relax.’” Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 27 Sep 2009 | 12:59 pm One day internationals: Caught and bowled T20Advertisers seek safeguards as low viewership of Indo-Pak tie shows the games showpiece is losing sheen.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 27 Sep 2009 | 12:51 pm Air India climbs down to set up panel on pay cutThe National Aviation Company Ltd, or Nacil, which runs state-owned Air India, today agreed to form a committee to look into the productivity-linked incentive (PLI), or flying allowance, paid to executive pilots. The executive pilots will get full salary until the committee comes out with its report.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 27 Sep 2009 | 12:50 pm US puts Lockheed off Tejas flight pathDj vu for the US giant, as queries land at the eleventh hour.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 27 Sep 2009 | 12:48 pm Transparency is most important in insuranceNew Delhi: Audit, tax and advisory service firm Mazars’ global head of insurance Gilles Magnan has an unusual take on the manner in which the Indian insurance market has evolved. In an interview, Magnan, a chartered accountant by training, identified likely trends in India and the lessons it could heed from developments in Central and Eastern Europe following the opening up of the financial markets. Edited excerpts:  Nurturing the market: Mazars’ Magnan says that in a developing market such as India, it is good to protect the insurance sector for some time so that the domestic firms are able to compete with global companies. Rajkumar / Mint. The first important point is to place India in the global market. On a worldwide basis, you have two very big markets—the US and Europe. These markets are mature. India is a new market. It is not mature. My feeling after a few days in India is very good. First, the people I met are very well trained and they know the business. Second, it is very important you have rules and you have a very strong regulator. When you sell insurance, you touch the people. It is very important to protect them and very important to protect the market. The fact that the regulator is strong in India is very good for the business and it will make a good environment for companies to develop. The last point, people here care about internal control, governance... India is not a mature market, that is clear. It is going to grow very fast in the future. Is there any other market you can probably think of which went through a similar experience in the first 10 years after opening up? I think it is not exactly similar, but Eastern Europe was a very specific market where everything was controlled by the state. Very simple, basic products sold by one company in each country. This market opened up in the beginning of the 1990s after the fall of the Berlin Wall. Nineteen years later, these markets are quite mature, or least some of them like Hungary and Poland. Some of them are still on the way to development like Bulgaria. What makes the difference? The difference is legal environment. I think you have a good legal environment in India which protects people and investors. And you must have the willing(ness) of the people to develop the business. This feeling you have in Poland, Czech Republic, Hungary and I am sure you have it here. I think you (India) will have a comparable evolution. I am sure in 10 years the market will be very different in India. What kind of differences do you think will come through? First, you have got a lot of actors entering the market. We will go through some years— next three-five years—of very big competition in India. That will be quite difficult for insurance companies because it will be difficult to make good results. And then, you will have the phase of consolidation, after three-five years. Normally, when a market opens up like the one in India, how many years pass before you see consolidation coming in? At least 10-15 years for consolidation. First is market share. What are things that strike you most about the Indian market. What are the strongest impressions you have had? As soon as as you speak about volume and distribution channel, you are in huge scale. At the same time, it is very good and it is also dangerous. I think the most important challenge for companies in India is to choose the good distribution network and put in place good procedures and people. You have in India lots of contracts between insurance company and banks... In this situation, the insurance company is under the power of banks because banks distribute the product. If it closes the distribution, you lose access to the market. I think every insurance company has to find a good balance between different insurance networks they can use. In Europe, you are now moving towards a no-commission system. Could you tell us something more about it, as a debate on the subject has started here? What is the most important point about that? It is transparency. Problem (is), I am a client, I don’t know how much commission I will be charged... When you say no commission, it is nonsense. Why? You have to pay someone or something to distribute your products. So the question is not commission or no commission; the question is transparency of the system. In some countries, you had a problem because you had too high commissions. Here the premium (paid by the insured) includes the commission. If you have the rate of commission on the product, it is okay... You make a job, you give money. One approach to the issue is that commission should be decided between the agent and the client. The insurance company should not be a part of it. It seems difficult for me. How will the client negotiate the commission? He will have no power. It is more risky to do that because you risk more abuse towards the client than if it is the insurance company paying the commission directly. What is important to understand about the insurance market is that a big part of the products are about mass products... Most of them do not understand exactly what is in the contract. So you have to have very simple rules and a very small regulator to protect the people. Right now Parliament is debating a proposal to increase foreign ownership in Indian insurers from 26% to 49%. How many markets in the world allow complete foreign ownership? What I would like to say first is, when you have a developing market like India, it is good to protect it for some time to allow the possibility for some Indian groups to compete for market share... Central European countries are a very good example. When they opened the market, they were told, “You must liberalize and you must privatize everything.” Some of these countries did that. Now, if you go to Hungary, there is not any more any Hungarian bank or Hungarian insurance company. Do you think it is good? My answer is no. I think it is good to have local actors to compete with international actors. Now they feel a little disappointed with the situation because they have no more control on their banking system or their insurance system... If you want to control the situation in your country and monitor the economy, you have to have minimum control. I think that is the position in India. Even if it is not the best position for the foreign investor, it is a good position for India. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 27 Sep 2009 | 12:40 pm IT consulting biz yet to make impactBangalore: In May, when Wipro Ltd won a $500 million (Rs2,400 crore) strategic outsourcing contract from mobile-phone services firm Unitech Wireless Ltd, very few people knew about the key role played by the technology firm’s consulting arm in helping it clinch the deal.  Strong defence: Infosys CEO Kris Gopalakrishnan says where his company has failed is in scaling up the IT consulting business. Hemant Mishra/Mint “We were able to bag the deal because of the initial work done by the consulting division which made Unitech understand the value we could bring to the table,” says Anurag Srivastava, vice-president, Wipro Consulting Services. “One of the key advantages of being in the consulting space is the huge downstream revenues it generates for other businesses such as application services and infrastructure management.” Unitech Wireless is a joint venture between Unitech Ltd, India’s second largest property developer by market value, and Norway’s Telenor ASA. The firm is yet to roll out its network. While the Unitech deal was a key win, it was an exception rather than the rule in India’s software services industry. Five years after most top Indian information technology (IT) companies, including Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), Infosys Technologies Ltd and Wipro set up their consulting divisions, they are yet to make a substantial impact either in terms of revenue generation or in acting as a multiplier in generating downstream revenue. IT research and advisory firm Gartner Inc. estimates that while the market size for all IT services worldwide is around $872 billion, the consulting opportunity makes up about 9% of it. Traditionally, IT consulting has been dominated by the likes of IBM, Accenture Plc, Capgemini SA and Deloitte Consulting Llp. Top Indian IT players get less than 5% of their total revenue from consulting. Infosys, India’s second largest IT services exporter, was one of the earliest to set up a separate consulting division, back in April 2004, when it incorporated Infosys Consulting Inc. as a subsidiary in Fremont, California. It invested $20 million and hired rainmakers from other consultancies such as Deloitte Consulting, PricewaterhouseCoopers and Electronics Data Systems, or EDS. “Consulting was a natural progression for us. It was already embedded in areas like package implementation or our banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) offerings,” says Kris Gopalakrishnan, chief executive and managing director of Infosys. “But we wanted to evolve from technology consulting to business strategy consulting. We were also clear that we did not want to be in the management consulting space where the likes of McKinsey (McKinsey and Co. Inc.), BCG (Boston Consulting Group) and Booz (Booz Allen Hamilton Inc.) operate.” J. Rajgopal, executive vice-president and global head, consulting, TCS, says a presence in consulting helps in raising brand equity, generating higher margins, enhancing CXO relationships and helping get additional business for traditional IT services offerings. “Consulting was a critical component of our strategy to be a full, end-to-end services provider,” says Rajgopal. TCS set up its consulting division at the end of 2005. Indian firms have found it hard to crack the global consulting market. For instance, TCS last year derived a mere 3.47% of its total revenue of Rs22,404 crore from the consulting business. “We generated about $162 million (Rs777.3 crore) in revenue from the consulting business and have about 280 clients. Revenues are about the size of what a mid-sized consultancy traditionally has,” says Rajgopal. For 2008-09, Infosys Consulting had 96 clients, generated revenue of Rs287 crore and a net loss of Rs59 crore. The normally unflappable Gopalakrishnan bristles at any suggestion that the consulting gambit has failed to pay off. “Every research and advisory firm puts us in the leader’s quadrant in the consulting space. I don’t know where this impression (of it not having paid off) is coming from. It also depends on what consulting is defined as,” he says. “Is it services for which we bill more than, say, $100 per hour? By that metric, nearly a quarter of our revenue comes from consulting. But if it is from an advisory consulting point of view, we get about 4-5% of our revenues. Where we have failed is in scaling up, and we are addressing this issue. One also has to take into account the consulting expertise which is a part of the verticals and industry offerings that Infosys has, and not just look at the numbers of the subsidiary.” Gaurav Gupta, principal and country head of Everest Group, a global consulting and research firm, says Indian IT firms are still marginal in the global consulting space. “Consulting is a high-risk, high-reward game which is cyclical also. There is little room for labour arbitrage in consulting. Indian IT players prefer predictable, safe revenues even if margins are lesser.” Srivastava of Wipro admits that Indian IT firms have some way to go before they can catch up in consulting with their larger and established multi-national rivals. Still, Indian firms have one key advantage in their consulting plus global delivery model (GDM), he says. “Unlike some of the MNC consulting companies who just deliver a report at the end of a consulting assignment, we are ready to walk the talk. We have the capabilities to implement the recommendations.” That, in fact, can act as a handicap while pitching for consulting assignments. Chandramouli C.S., director, advisory services, Zinnov Management Consulting Pvt. Ltd, says Indian IT players are seen as using consulting assignments to generate revenue for other offerings in their portfolio, limiting their objectivity. Indian companies are also seen as very process-driven, whereas consulting is still a people business. Indian companies ought to move to partnerships from just relationships with clients. “There are cultural aspects too. It is easy to bag a consulting assignment if you are playing golf over the weekend with a CEO who is convinced that you understand the business,” says Chandramouli. “Indian companies look to offshore consulting work, which does not work. They need to have more feet on the street. Also, consulting assignments need to be led by industry and not technology experts.” Rajgopal of TCS says one-third of his consulting team of 750 people are not people of Indian origin and 150 of them are based in the North American market. Sudip Saha, senior research analyst at Springboard Research, says that since consulting is growing at a faster pace than traditional IT services, Indian IT firms need to step up their game. “In tough times, clients are more prone to look at innovative solutions which can save costs and deliver better efficiencies. Indian companies’ value proposition continues to be cost even in consulting,” he says. “If the established players charge $250 per hour, Indian players do anywhere between $125 and $175 per hour. Nothing wrong with that. However, they need to enhance their industry and domain expertise both organically and through niche acquisitions.” The current downturn in the market provides an opportunity to Indian players to expand their consulting footprint. “While the focus is on operations and sustenance, we believe that Infosys Consulting is better placed to take advantage of the current environment,” says Gopalakrishnan. Gupta of Everest and Saha of Springboard both say that all the Indian IT firms have made some progress. While Wipro has managed to carve out a niche in the utilities, energy and outsourced research and development space, Infosys has made a mark in retail and BFSI, and TCS is seen to be strong in the business process outsourcing, finance and insurance platforms. “Slowly, they are building their strengths. In the next 10 years, they should ideally get 40% of their revenues from the consulting business. It’s difficult, but not impossible,” says Gupta. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 27 Sep 2009 | 12:24 pm Bond defaults begin to emergeDo the names Rasandik Engineering Industries India Ltd and Venus Remedies Ltd ring a bell? Perhaps not. Well, these two firms defaulted on the repayment of their foreign currency convertible bonds (FCCBs) earlier this year, according to news reports by the Financial Chronicle and The Economic Times. They had raised $10 million (around Rs48 crore) and $12 million, respectively, in April 2006 by issuing convertible bonds with a three-year maturity period.  Bond holders of a much larger firm, Wockhardt Ltd, are also likely to get a raw deal when the bonds come up for redemption next month. The company is under a corporate debt restructuring programme and FCCB holders may either have to take a large haircut on their initial investment or resort to legal action against the company. For now, these seem like a few cases of default and far between. According to a banker with the Mumbai office of an overseas bank, who didn’t want to be identified, there may hardly be any more defaults since the availability of funding is much easier now both through the equity and debt routes. Whenever a repayment is due, companies can raise fresh funds if internal accruals are insufficient and repay the bond holders, the banker says. In fact, a few firms such as Firstsource Solutions Ltd have taken fresh external debt and have bought back bonds at a discount, thereby reducing their overall debt burden, well before the bonds come up for redemption. But from the next year onwards, and especially in 2011, when a number of FCCBs mature, bond holders may be in for some more pain. Companies such as Subex Ltd, whose convertible bonds mature in 2012, have an extremely high debt position and raising fresh funds may not be easy. The company recently announced an exchange offer for its bond holders without revealing details of the new bonds. In the past, Suzlon Energy Ltd has been successful in getting some of its bond holders to participate in an exchange offer. It must be noted that even in such cases, bond holders end up taking a hit on their investment. The main problem with FCCBs is that a large number of Indian companies viewed them as equity issuances and gave little or no thought to these instruments ending up as debt on their books. So in internal calculations, they never featured in their calculations of debt, leading to insurmountably high debt levels, as companies such as Wockhardt and Rasandik have now discovered. Bond holders, too, ignored sound investing principles and just assumed that a rapid rise in the Indian stock market would lead to a conversion of the bonds. But what’s even more interesting is that in the case of Venus Remedies, it seems to be a case of a wilful default, says another banker with an overseas firm. According to this executive, the company unsuccessfully tried negotiating with bond holders, which include some hedge funds. FCCB holders are no ordinary investors; they are typically large investment firms and Indian companies should expect intense legal action from them in the event of a default. To be sure, Venus Remedies’ bond holders have filed a winding up petition against the company, according to The Economic Times report. Write to us at marktomarket@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 27 Sep 2009 | 12:23 pm Nacil to get Rs2,000 cr by JanuaryMumbai: Debt-ridden National Aviation Co. of India Ltd, or Nacil, which runs Air India, will get Rs2,000 crore in the first tranche of an equity infusion from the government by December or early January, two civil aviation ministry officials said.  The government, which has previously extended the national carrier sovereign guarantees on loans to buy aircraft, had in July offered to support the loss-making airline with conditional equity infusion or soft loans so it could continue flying and add to its fleet and can compete with rivals at home and abroad. “We are talking to the finance ministry to extend a sovereign guarantee that will help recast some high-cost working capital loans of Air India,” the official said. “We are moving a proposal to the cabinet in consultation with (the) finance ministry for getting a sovereign guarantee. No time frame is set for this.” The government typically extends sovereign guarantee to public sector firms only for large borrowings and not for normal working capital loans. The two officials did not want to be identified. Air India’s schedule has been disrupted after pilots went on strike on Saturday in protest against the management slashing incentives by as much as half to curb costs as the financially strapped carrier tries to stem losses ahead of the government rescue. The equity infusion will ensure a better debt-equity ratio for Nacil so it can raise loans at interest rates of 7-8% as against the 12% that it will otherwise have to pay. Nacil’s current equity capital is Rs145 crore. The equity infusion will be given in three tranches over three years, with Rs2,000 crore in the first, another Rs2,000 crore in the second and Rs1,000 crore in the final one, the official said. With accumulated losses of Rs7,200 crore and borrowings of up to Rs15,241 crore at the end of June, up from Rs6,550 crore in November 2007, Nacil had asked the government for a loan and equity infusion of around Rs15,000 crore. In a 25 July meeting, the committee of secretaries, or CoS, had suggested Nacil prepare a cost reduction proposal, including an alternative for its performance-linked incentives (PLI), to justify an equity infusion or any soft loan grant. In the last week of August, CoS reviewed Air India’s turnaround measures and asked for more aggressive cost cuts. On 23 September, Air India said it would cut incentives for officers and top managers by up to 50%, resulting in a protest call by some pilots. The reductions will be with effect from August. On Sunday, the second day of a strike by some of its executive pilots, Air India had to cancel at least 30 domestic and international flights. Late Sunday evening, Air India announced it would set up a committee to look into the concerns of the pilots. A spokesperson for the carrier said the incentive cuts would not apply till the committee takes a decision. The committee will include executive pilots as well as members of the the company’s management. The announcement came after a meeting between Air India chairman and managing director Arvind Jadhav and 20 executive pilots from Mumbai. But V.K. Bhalla, a New Delhi-based representative of the executive pilots, said the issue is not resolved fully and pilots in Delhi, Chennai and Kolkata are going ahead with the strike. The ministry official quoted earlier in the story would not comment on whether the strike would jeopardize the equity infusion. “We had asked them to come out with a cost reduction plan. But pilots are now showing how they can contribute to it,” he said sarcastically. The airline’s decision to cut PLI would cover 7,000 of 31,500 employees, and result in savings of at least Rs750 crore. Air India now includes employees of the erstwhile domestic carrier Indian Airlines. “All employees need to have a better appreciation of the difficult market environment in which the industry is operating and (which is) affecting all airlines, and not just Air India alone,” said Jitender Bhargava, executive director, corporate communications, Air India. “We cannot go back to the government every year begging for money.” Another Air India executive said the airline is also looking to cut fuel costs and has engaged an International Air Transport Association, or Iata, consultant for this. He didn’t want to be named. Air India is eyeing potential savings of $198 million (Rs950.4 crore) a year from lower fuel costs. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 27 Sep 2009 | 12:23 pm Bangkok may smoothen road to CopenhagenBangkok/New Delhi: Climate change negotiators embark on another round of talks in Bangkok on Monday to narrow the differences between rich and developing nations two months ahead of a key meeting at Copenhagen, but countries such as India may be in the way. India and other developing nations are mulling domestic emission limits but have resisted global binding curbs fearing such a move would impede their economic growth.  Laying groundwork: The two-week meeting in Bangkok follows a UN climate summit last week in New York (above), where 100 world leaders expressed their support for a deal on emission reduction. Kevin Lamarque / Reuters. The US, which had rejected the Kyoto Protocol because it exempted countries such as India and China from obligations, says emerging economies have to first accept emission cuts and that private investments, and not inter-governmental financial transfers, should be the solution to the climate change issue. At the Copenhagen meeting in December, the international community will try to forge a pact to replace the Kyoto Protocol, which expires in 2012. But a growing chorus of voices is warning that a pact may be out of reach this year over the issues of emission targets and financing for poor and developing nations. “Without a financing package, there is no deal in Copenhagen at all,” said Alden Meyer, director of strategy and policy for the Union of Concerned Scientists. In India, experts are worried the country may be tweaking its position and strategy to sit better with that of the US. The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) recently floated the idea of a Bill prescribing limits on the amount of carbon spewed by five activities that account for most of India’s harmful emissions, echoing legislation being considered in the US senate. Some members of the Prime Minister’s national council on climate change have argued that such ambitious targets be taken only after an international framework for finance and technology sharing is sorted out. A climate change analyst said India’s national action plan on climate change has been separate from any international commitment, but now it doesn’t seem so. “Now there is much less clarity; too many abrupt policy changes and no consultation. These are worrisome... Aligning with the US is not a trivial matter,” the analyst said, asking not to be identified. “Legislation in the US is very different from India. In the US, it has to go past the Congress, the Senate and the President, with both the parties critically and carefully debating it. But in India, there are no checks and balances,” he added. Jairam Ramesh, minister of state, MoEF, said the proposed legislation does not bind India to international emission reduction targets, but would be based on a broad, indicative target of emission cuts for India. The Bill could be introduced in the winter session of Parliament, he said. At the two-week meeting at Bangkok, delegates from 180 nations will try to shrink the almost 300-page draft agreement to a manageable 30-page text, which would be battled over in Barcelona in November and then at Copenhagen. Along the way, they hope to close the gap between rich and poor positions and come close to agreement on issues such as reducing deforestation and sharing of technology. The two-week meeting follows a UN climate summit last week in New York, where 100 world leaders expressed their support for a deal. UN climate chief Yvo de Boer said on Friday negotiations were far behind where they should be but was confident a deal would be reached in Copenhagen. “Basically three things need to come together at the same time,” de Boer said. “The first is rich country ambitions in terms of targets; second, specific engagement by major developing countries like China and India; and third, financial support (to poor nations).” Many activists said they were disappointed that a meeting of the Group of Twenty nations ended Friday in Pittsburgh, US, without an agreement on financial assistance to help poor countries shift to cleaner economies. Another key issue for discussion at the Bangkok meetings is on mid-term emission cut targets, which the US has been resisting. The US has promised to cut its emissions by 50% below 2000 levels by 2050 but has refused any target by 2020. Before the second week of high-level ministerial talks in Bangkok, an India delegation including Ramesh and renewable energy minister Farooq Abdullah, is scheduled to go to Washington to meet key US climate officials at the US-India Energy Partnership Summit on 1 October. Michael Casey works with AP. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 27 Sep 2009 | 12:21 pm BSNL to farm out tower, fibre upkeepNew Delhi: State-controlled phone company Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) plans to outsource management and maintenance of so-called passive infrastructure such as its optical fibre cable network and telecom towers, opening up a potentially lucrative business opportunity for companies such as Nokia Siemens Networks. BSNL plans to seek expressions of interest (EoIs) shortly from companies that manage telecom networks, chairman and managing director Kuldeep Goyal said. Seeking EoIs marks the first step in the process of awarding contracts.  Lowering costs: Kuldeep Goyal of BSNL said the telco will soon seek expressions of interest from firms. Harikrishna Katragadda/Mint BSNL will join private sector rivals such as Bharti Airtel Ltd that have outsourced large parts of their operations, including infrastructure and network management and maintenance, in an attempt to lower costs in a market where the average revenue per user, or Arpu, is well below $7 (Rs336) a month, half of what it is in developed countries, as competition forces telecom companies to cut tariffs and boost market share. The outsourcing deal could mean a business opportunity worth well above $1 billion for network management firms such as Nokia Siemens Networks, Ericsson AB and Alcatel Lucent SA that manage the networks of Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications Ltd, analysts say. BSNL has the largest optical fibre cable network in the country, comprising at least 600,000 route kilometres covering all state capitals and district headquarters. The firm also operates around 42,000 telecom towers. In terms of size, BSNL’s optical fibre cable network outstrips Bharti Airtel’s and Reliance Communications’ combined. Bharti Airtel’s optical fibre cable network spans 100,000 route kilometres, covering all the major cities in the country. Indus Towers Ltd, a joint venture involving Bharti Airtel, Vodafone Essar Ltd and Idea Cellular Ltd, is the largest tower firm in the country with at least 100,000 towers. Reliance Communications has around 190,000 route kilometres of optic fibre cable, and it also operates 50,000 towers. Ericsson manages Bharti’s networks in 15 mobile service areas while the rest is handled by Nokia Siemens Networks. Bharti has signed four major network outsourcing deals with Ericsson in the past five years since a $400 million deal in February 2004. The latest contract awarded in mid-2007 was valued at $2 billion. Bharti has also signed four network outsourcing agreements with Nokia Siemens Networks beginning May 2004, when it signed a three-year, $275 million deal to build and manage networks across five operating areas. The last in the series of contracts was a $900 million deal signed in 2007 that went beyond mere network expansion. For BSNL, outsourcing the management of its passive infrastructure also has far-reaching consequences on other aspects of the state-owned telecom operator because at least 40% of the firm’s nearly 300,000 employees are involved in the maintenance of infrastructure. “Many of the junior employees have been moved into the newly created sales and marketing division of BSNL as part of the ongoing restructuring,” said a senior executive from BSNL who didn’t want to be named because he isn’t authorized to speak to the media. “We are training them and improving our sales and marketing, which was a major weakness of the company.” The outsourcing plan follows a report submitted in December by Boston Consulting Group, which was hired to study the operations of BSNL and advise the phone company on how to restructure its operations to compete better with private sector rivals. In the year to March, BSNL fell to second place behind Bharti in terms of revenue. Bharti logged Rs37,000 crore of revenue against BSNL’s Rs35,000 crore. Bharti Airtel has already outsourced its intra-city optical fibre network to a 26:74 joint venture, in which it is the minority partner with Alcatel Lucent. Under this deal, Bharti is paying the joint venture company around $500 million over a five-year period for managing its landline and broadband business in about 100 cities for the next five years. The country’s largest telco is also looking at outsourcing around 80,000km of its inter-city optic fibre network in a deal that is estimated at upwards of $500 million. “It is a massive deal and in terms of a business opportunity it is a very good move for BSNL,” said B.K. Syngal, senior principal, Dua Consulting Pvt. Ltd, and former head of Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. “It is high time they unlock the value in the massive amounts of assets they have in the OFC (optic fibre cable network) and the towers which are not being optimally used at present,” Syngal added. “This move would enable them to concentrate on sales and marketing of their core business as well as use of these assets, which are badly needed by many of the other operators.” The companies that are awarded the maintenance contracts will need workers who can be provided by BSNL from its large pool of skilled employees. “Most of the private companies have hired their core teams from the PSUs (public sector undertakings),” Syngal said. “They can negotiate with the company, which will mitigate the impact on the employees to a large extent.” Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 27 Sep 2009 | 12:20 pm Air India restores bonus, striking pilots adamantNational carrier Air India's striking pilots refused to call off their agitation Sunday even as the management agreed to meet one of their demands and restored the productivity-linked incentive (PLI).Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 27 Sep 2009 | 12:00 pm A burst of technology returns vision to the blindBlindness first began creeping up on Barbara Campbell when she was a teenager, and by her late 30s, her eye disease had stolen what was left of her sight. Reliant on a talking computer for reading and a cane for navigating New York City, where she lives and works, Campbell, now 56, would have been thrilled to see something. Anything.  Regaining sight: Barbara Campbell in New York. She relies on electrodes implanted in her eyes for vision. Beatrice De Gea / NYT She is beginning an intensive three-year research project involving electrodes surgically implanted in her eye, a camera on the bridge of her nose and a video processor strapped to her waist. Some of the 37 other participants further along in the project can differentiate plates from cups, tell grass from sidewalk, sort white socks from dark, distinguish doors and windows, identify large letters of the alphabet, and see where people are, albeit not details about them. Linda Morfoot, 65, of Long Beach, California, blind for 12 years, says she can now toss a ball into a basketball hoop, follow her nine grandchildren as they run around her living room and “see where the preacher is” in church. “For someone who’s been totally blind, this is really remarkable,” said Andrew P. Mariani, a programme director at the National Eye Institute (NEI), a US agency. “They’re able to get some sort of vision.” Scientists involved in the project, an artificial retina, say they have plans to develop the technology to allow people to read, write and recognize faces. The project, involving patients in the US, Mexico and Europe, is part of a burst of recent research aimed at one of science’s most sought-after holy grails: making the blind see. That goal long seemed out of reach because the visual system of the eye and the brain is so complex. But advances in technology, genetics, brain science and biology are making several approaches, both new and long-studied, more viable. Some, including the artificial retina, are already producing results. “For a long time, scientists and clinicians were very conservative, but you have to at some point get out of the laboratory and focus on getting clinical trials in actual humans,” said Timothy J. Schoen, director of science and preclinical development for the Foundation Fighting Blindness. Now “there’s a real push”, he said, because “we’ve got a lot of blind people walking around, and we’ve got to try to help them”. At least 3.3 million Americans 40 and over, or around one in 28, are blind or have vision so poor that even with glasses, medicine or surgery, everyday tasks are difficult, according to NEI. That number is expected to double in the next 30 years. Worldwide, around 160 million people are similarly affected. “With an ageing population, it’s obviously going to be an increasing problem,” said Michael D. Oberdorfer, who runs the visual neuroscience programme for NEI, which finances several sight-restoration projects, including the artificial retina. Wide-ranging research is important, he said, because different methods could help different causes of blindness. The approaches include gene therapy, which has produced improved vision in people who are blind from one rare congenital disease. Stem cell research is considered promising, although far from producing results, and other studies involve a light-responding protein and retinal transplants. Others are implanting electrodes in monkeys’ brains to see if directly stimulating visual areas might allow even people with no eye function to see. And recently, Sharron Kay Thornton, 60, from Smithdale, Mississippi, blinded by a skin condition, regained sight in one eye after doctors at the University of Miami Miller School of Medicine extracted a tooth (her eyetooth, actually), shaved it down and used it as a base for a plastic lens replacing her cornea. It was the first time the procedure, modified osteo-odonto-keratoprosthesis, was performed in the US. The surgeon, Victor L. Perez, said it could help people with severely scarred corneas from chemical or combat injuries. Other techniques focus on delaying blindness, including one involving a capsule implanted in the eye to release proteins that slow the decay of light-responding cells. And with BrainPort, a camera worn by a blind person captures images and transmits signals to electrodes slipped onto the tongue, causing tingling sensations that a person can learn to decipher as the location and movement of objects. Campbell’s artificial retina works similarly, except it produces the sensation of sight, not tingling on the tongue. Developed by Mark S. Humayun, a retinal surgeon at the University of Southern California, it drew on cochlear implants for the deaf and is partly financed by a cochlear implant maker. Campbell, a vocational rehabilitation counsellor for New York’s Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped, has long been cheerfully self-sufficient, travelling widely from her fourth-floor walk-up, going to the theatre, babysitting for her niece in North Carolina. But little things rankle, like not knowing if clothes are stained and needing help shopping for greeting cards. Everything is a “grey haze—like being in a cloud”, she said. The device will not make her “see like I used to see”, she said. “But it’s going to be more than what I have. It’s not just for me—it’s for so many other people that will follow me.” ©2009/The NEW YORK TIMES Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 27 Sep 2009 | 11:45 am Skoda Fabia to inaugurate auto industry’s online booking chapterMumbai: In a first for the Indian auto market, Skoda Auto India Pvt. Ltd has decided to sell at least three variants of its Fabia compact car entirely online beginning sometime this week. Thomas Kuehl, director, sales and marketing, at Skoda Auto India said that as part of the three-month exercise—to coincide with the festive season, when big-ticket purchases are made—buyers will need to interact with the dealer only for a test drive, if needed, and at the time of delivery.  Flagging off: Skoda’s Fabia compact car. While online showrooms have been part of the marketing push by auto firms for several years now, no car maker in India has so far attempted an online sales strategy. Ramesh Pathania / Mint Skoda Auto India is the Indian arm of Czech car maker Skoda Auto AS. “We are working on something completely new for the first time for the Fabia,” Kuehl said, adding that this would cut selling costs by between 5% and 10%, adding up to as much as Rs40,000-50,000 per car. Skoda, which does not offer any cash discount on the Fabia, will pass on the savings to customers, Kuehl said. The top variant of the Fabia is available in New Delhi at an ex-showroom price of Rs6,41,082 for the petrol car and Rs7,63,274 for the diesel variant. Kuehl conceded, however, that the “feel and touch” experience, a key element of choosing a car, necessitates complementing the online sales model with an offline one. “If it’s only online, it’s not working— both have to work hand in hand.” In other words, even if a buyer goes to a dealership, the actual booking process will be paperless. Kuehl said his company is joining hands with India’s largest automotive website for the initiative. Mohit Dubey, chief executive officer of CarWale.com, confirmed that the website is working with Skoda on the online sales project and expects to sign the deal shortly. CarWale.com specializes in the sale of new and used cars and facilitates purchases through tie-ups with manufacturers, dealers, financiers and insurance firms. According to www.trafficestimate.com, which measures page views, CarWale.com registered an estimated 1,496,200 visits in the last 30 days, ahead of Zigwheels.com and Carazoo.com, which had 609,500 and 390,400 visits, respectively. While online showrooms, featuring specifications and other details, have been part of the marketing push for several years now, no car maker in India has attempted an online sales strategy. Tata Motors Ltd, which launched the world’s cheapest small car, the Nano, early this year, had tied up with CarWale.com for online bookings. The website received 10,000 enquiries for the Nano, said Dubey. Car makers such as Maruti Suzuki India Ltd and Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd use the Internet to provide information and locate a dealer, but don’t accept online bookings. R.C. Bhargava, chairman of India’s largest car maker Maruti Suzuki, said the dynamics of selling a car involve processes such as the pre-delivery inspection, which don’t work without a dealer being involved. Abdul Majeed, Chennai-based partner at PricewaterhouseCoopers, said that auto makers have chosen to stay away from accepting bookings directly so they can focus on their core competency. “It does not add any value, hence, outsourcing them to dealers is preferred,” he said. According to a Deloitte report, Accelerating Toward 2020—An Automotive Industry Transformed, released earlier this month, “a source of hope for online car sales resides in emerging markets such as Brazil and India, where the commoditization of vehicles at the entry level will reduce the need to compare and contrast or negotiate with a dealer over options and price”. Bhargava conceded that alternative models deserve a chance. “With the cost of real estate going up, companies have to look for ways to reduce the cost of selling as somebody or the other has to pay for it.” Skoda is fine-tuning the processes, technology and theme for online sales, said Kuehl. For processes such as payment or financing, the customer can choose between online and offline options. The online strategy is also expected to complement Skoda Auto India’s move to set up smaller bouquet showrooms that will enhance reach while keeping a check on the high rentals associated with dealerships that require a larger space. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 27 Sep 2009 | 11:33 am Corporate frauds turn the spotlight on internal audit nowThe scam at Satyam Computer Services Ltd (now know as Mahindra Satyam) has cast doubts over the effectiveness of various controls in place to detect and prevent fraud. A lot has been said about the role of the auditors and regulatory bodies, but the role of internal auditors, too, is now coming under scrutiny.  Two recent surveys on the internal audit function, one conducted by Ernst and Young and another by KPMG India and the Bombay Stock Exchange, raise some relevant issues for managements and shareholders. The basic function of internal audit is to assess internal control systems and identify deficiencies. Based on the two surveys, this role is now being expanded by senior management and audit committees to cover risks, fraud, process improvements and also ways of reducing costs or improving revenue. But a large proportion of firms still do not make identifying the possibility of fraud a key responsibility. A more important aspect is to whom they should report to. Most companies prefer them reporting to the top management, either the chief executive officer or the chief financial officer. But there is a growing school of thought for more independence, by making them accountable to the audit committee of companies. The Securities and Exchange Board of India, too, has proposed some changes in the reporting structure. The expanding scope of the internal audit will mean that the people manning these functions will need to be re-skilled and equipped with new technology. Thankfully, both surveys indicate that despite the downturn, there has been no cutback on funding. But the call will be for more investments in the coming years. Internal audits are set to acquire a more powerful role, but can do little if the top management is bent on committing fraud. Even the best of auditors, both external and internal, can be either misled or compromised, as various corporate scams have demonstrated. Investors need to give more weight to management quality in their investment decision making. Write to us at marktomarket@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 27 Sep 2009 | 11:27 am Operation begins at Paradip Port to prevent Oil Spill from Black Rose - BreakingNewsOnline.
Source: Business - Google News | 27 Sep 2009 | 10:17 am Kraft set to launch hostile Cadbury bid - paperLONDON (Reuters) - Kraft Foods Inc is poised to launch a hostile bid for Cadbury Plc valuing the British confectionery business at around 11 billion pounds ($17.6 billion), a report in The Observer newspaper said.Source: Reuters: Money News | 27 Sep 2009 | 8:47 am Air India restores bonus, pilots to continue strikeNational carrier Air India Sunday agreed to restore the productivity-linked incentive (PLI) to placate its agitating senior pilots but they refused to call off their strike.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 27 Sep 2009 | 8:30 am Volkswagen firming up plans for Beetle launch: Official - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 27 Sep 2009 | 7:31 am Airtel launches new plans for US callers to IndiaMobile operator Bharti Airtel Sunday announced two schemes enabling cheaper calls from the US to India as part of a festive season offer.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 27 Sep 2009 | 7:00 am India's stand at G20 was heard, respected, endorsed - Sify
Source: Business - Google News | 27 Sep 2009 | 6:20 am Himachal to promote heritage tourismHimachal Pradesh Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal launched an innovative scheme 'Har Ghar Kuch Kehta Hai' or 'Every House has its own History' on World Tourism Day Sunday to promote heritage tourism.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 27 Sep 2009 | 5:31 am
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