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Germany says EU concerns don't endanger Opel dealBERLIN (Reuters) - Economy Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg expressed confidence on Saturday that Germany could address EU concerns about a sale of carmaker Opel to Canada's Magna, saying they did not put the deal at risk.Source: Reuters: Money News | 17 Oct 2009 | 4:04 am Apple's on a roll, but iPhone sales pivotalApple Inc is once again expected to top Wall Street's estimates when it unveils quarterly earnings next week, but it may have to beat by a lot to drive an already lofty share price higher.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 17 Oct 2009 | 3:40 am GE looking to acquire cos with energyefficient techThe global conglomerate General Electric (GE) is on the look out to acquire companies with innovative energy efficient technologies.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 17 Oct 2009 | 2:45 am Sony Ericsson CEO says firm profitable in 2010 - paperSTOCKHOLM (Reuters) - Sony Ericsson, the world's fifth biggest mobile phone maker, should return to profitability next year, daily Dagens Industri quoted the firm's new top executive Bert Nordberg saying on Saturday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 17 Oct 2009 | 2:29 am Maharashtra post dept targets 40kg gold coin sales in festive seasonThe department of post in association with Reliance Money has been selling gold coins through 33 post offices in the state since October last year.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 17 Oct 2009 | 12:08 am It’s a sparkling Diwali at Chennai’s Golden FurlongChennai, Oct. 16 An evening walk along Usman Road, a prime stretch of one of Chennai’s prime shopping districts, Theagaraya Nagar, or T.Nagar in short, would be next to impossible as hundreds of shoppers throng the street jostling oneSource: Business Line - Home Page | 17 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Rice production may come a cropperThe Union Agriculture Ministry is yet to take a call on the size of this year's kharif rice crop.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 17 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Marketmen bullish on Samvat 2066Mumbai, Oct. 16x Market looks set for another cracker of a year – Vikram SamvatSource: Business Line - Home Page | 17 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am New Code may be taxing for capital-intensive cosBL Research Bureau The change over to asset-based taxation, proposed in the draft Direct Taxes Code (DTC) could double the tax outgo for at least 40 per cent of the companies in the S&P CNX 500 universe.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 17 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am BNP Paribas says valuations justified by economic stabilityKochi, Oct. 16 The capital markets are not unduly overvalued because valuations are backed by good economic growth prospects, Mr Jean-Christophe Gougeon, Managing Director for South East Asia of BNP Paribas Personal Investors, said.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 17 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Retailers buoyed by festival spirit, see sales reboundNew Delhi, Oct. 16 Retailers are seeing a sharp increase in sales as consumers shun austerity and get into the spirit of the festival season. From food and grocery to apparel, electronics and even home furnishing are all reporting double-digitSource: Business Line - Home Page | 17 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Premium rates for term life insurance policies may drop 10%Premium rates for term policies of life insurance companies may drop by about 10 per cent once the new mortality and morbidity table is in place in the beginning of 2010-11, according to Mr G.N. Agarwal, President, Institute of Actuaries ofSource: Business Line - Home Page | 17 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Financial services sector boosts TCS’ consolidated net 29% in Q2Mumbai, Oct. 16 Tata Consultancy Services beat analyst estimates on Friday, reporting a 29 per cent growth in consolidated net profit for the second quarter ended September 2009, aided by increased spending from clients especially in theSource: Business Line - Home Page | 17 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Sterlite to raise $500 m for expanding copper bizMumbai, Oct. 16 Sterlite Industries, part of London Stock Exchange-listed Vedanta Group, has proposed to raise $500 million (Rs 2,300 crore) through the issue of Convertible Senior Notes (CSN) that will be converted into the company’sSource: Business Line - Home Page | 17 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am For kharif, it is a South spoilerOct. 16 First it was the prolonged dry spell. Then, unseasonal rains dented the prospects of various kharifSource: Business Line - Home Page | 17 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am TCS Q2 net profit at Rs 1350 cr - Sify
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:48 pm Reliance says remains buyer of Iranian oilNEW DELHI (Reuters) - Reliance Industries said on Friday it remained a buyer of Iranian crude.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:46 pm RIL sends CSR team from Gujarat to Andhra PradeshThe top management of the RIL has geared up the help the flood-affected people of the Krishna and Guntur districts of Andhra Pradesh.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:28 pm Sensex may kiss 17,500 during muhurat tradingSamvat 2065 is drawing to a close with stock market indices registering over 100% gain during the outgoing year. It is, therefore, an optimistic market that will welcome Samvat 2066 with muhurat trading for an hour on Saturday.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:13 pm U.S. Congress calls on BofA directors to testify - sourceWASHINGTON/CHARLOTTE, N.C (Reuters) - Two Bank of America directors have been asked to testify before Congress on the bank's acquisition of Merrill Lynch and ensuing fallout, a source familiar with the matter said on Friday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 9:55 pm ANALYSIS - Wal-Mart attacks new markets with big price cutsSAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Wal-Mart Stores Inc is taking its ferocious price cutting into new markets as the economy shows hints of recovery.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 9:52 pm Madoff beach house sale completed for $9.41 mlnNEW YORK (Reuters) - Epic swindler Bernard Madoff's former beach home off the eastern-most point of New York's Long Island sold for $9.41 million, money that will go toward a fund for defrauded investors, the U.S. Marshals Service said on Friday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 9:44 pm Japan govt cool to JAL restructuring plan - NikkeiTOKYO (Reuters) - Japan's finance ministry and a state-owned bank are wary about approving the latest restructuring plan for struggling Japan Airlines Corp, the Nikkei business daily reported on Saturday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 9:41 pm FACTBOX - What they said: Quotes from the insider trading caseNEW YORK (Reuters) - Galleon Group founder Raj Rajaratnam and five others were charged with engaging in the largest ever hedge fund insider-trading scheme, generating profits of more than $20 million over several years, U.S. prosecutors, the FBI and the SEC said Friday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 8:49 pm Scandal hits corporate role models IBM, McKinseyNEW YORK (Reuters) - It isn't often that big blue gets a black eye.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 8:46 pm U.S. charges billionaire Rajaratnam with insider tradingNEW YORK (Reuters) - Billionaire hedge fund founder Raj Rajaratnam and executives from some of the most prestigious U.S. companies were charged on Friday with the largest hedge fund insider-trading scheme ever.Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 8:44 pm Diwali sales wipe off last year`s gloom as consumers splurge!This Diwali is likely to be particularly bright for retailers as a positive sentiment with generous bonuses doled out by employers has led to a voluminous spurt in sales, more than making up for last year`s gloom.Source: Zee News : Business | 16 Oct 2009 | 5:30 pm TCS Q2 net profit up 29.17% at Rs 1,642-crore!Tata group company, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), on Friday reported net profit of Rs 1,642-crore in the second quarter (July-September), up 29.17 percent over the corresponding period last year.Source: Zee News : Business | 16 Oct 2009 | 5:30 pm Govt not to hike oil prices despite surge in global rates!The government is not considering revising petrol and diesel prices despite a sharp rise in oil rates in international markets, as the devaluation of dollar against rupee has helped neutralise the global impact.Source: Zee News : Business | 16 Oct 2009 | 5:30 pm IRDA constitutes Insurance Information Bureau!Insurance regulator IRDA on Friday constituted an Insurance Information Bureau (IIB) to provide reliable data on the sector to researchers and policy makers.Source: Zee News : Business | 16 Oct 2009 | 5:30 pm Ambani brothers to square off in Supreme Court!Ambani brothers face off in the apex court next week over a gas pricing case with all guns blazing: lined on each side are a battery of India`s highest paid legal brains.Source: Zee News : Business | 16 Oct 2009 | 5:30 pm Mukesh`s decision to take pay cut commendable: Khurshid!The government on Friday lauded RIL chief Mukesh Ambani`s decision to take a pay cut and said that the industrialist has shown a "remarkable sensibility" towards the prevailing scenario with this voluntary step.Source: Zee News : Business | 16 Oct 2009 | 5:30 pm Bank of America loses $2.24 bn as loan losses rise!Bank of America Corp said Friday it lost more than USD 2 billion in the third quarter as loan losses kept rising, providing further evidence that consumers are still struggling to pay their bills.Source: Zee News : Business | 16 Oct 2009 | 5:30 pm `India insulated due to domestic expenditure-driven eco`!High savings rate and domestic expenditure-driven economy helped India mitigate the adverse impact of financial meltdown, the Reserve Bank has said.Source: Zee News : Business | 16 Oct 2009 | 5:30 pm Ambani gas dispute: ASG Vivek Tankha in Govt legal team!Days before the Supreme Court begins hearing on the Ambani gas dispute, the government has expanded the legal team, which will put its views before the apex court, by including ASG Vivek Tankha.Source: Zee News : Business | 16 Oct 2009 | 5:30 pm CLB allows Satyam to finalise accounts for 2008-2009!The Company Law Board on Friday allowed Satyam Computer (now Mahindra Satyam) to finalise accounts for 2008-2009 and also adjust past irregularities.Source: Zee News : Business | 16 Oct 2009 | 5:30 pm Pfizer conducting 62 clinical trialsPharmaceutical major Pfizer is currently conducting clinical trials for 62 drugs in India.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 4:24 pm Unity Infra's Rs300 crore real estate projects face delaysMumbai-based Unity Infraprojects' three realty projects worth nearly Rs300 crore continue to be plagued by delays.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 4:23 pm Rural demand strong this year, says UltraTechUltraTech Cement will expend Rs2,000 crore in the next two years for setting up a 25 megawatt power plant at Awarpur in Maharashtra.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 4:21 pm 'Provogue will see exponential growth in the next 10 years'Provogue India, the apparel retail chain, is back on the expansion track.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 4:18 pm Duet, DLF hotel plot talks called offDIH has said its talks for picking up a 2-acre Gurgaon hotel plot of DLF, the country's biggest realty developer, have fallen through.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 4:16 pm Even textiles help to keep aircraft flyingEver wondered what helps those big birds from Boeing or Airbus fly as far up as 50,000 feet in the air?Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 16 Oct 2009 | 4:15 pm Reinvention mantra: Arvind Mills to focus on brands, retailBrand Arvind is going in for a makeover. The company wants to become an aggressive player in the retail space.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Oct 2009 | 4:00 pm Samvat 2065 gives 103% returns - Times of India
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Oct 2009 | 3:55 pm Forex reserves rise $282 billion - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Oct 2009 | 3:27 pm Mukesh Ambani gets it right - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Oct 2009 | 2:59 pm No immediate need to review retail fuel prices, says Deora - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Oct 2009 | 1:30 pm Govt says it is open to IIMs going abroad - Business Standard
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Oct 2009 | 1:22 pm UltraTech net up 53% to Rs 251 crore - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Oct 2009 | 1:14 pm Ranbaxy wins US court ruling on Roche patentDaiichi Sankyo-owned Ranbaxy Laboratories has won a decisive ruling from the District Court of New Jersey that its generic version of valganciclovir, prescribed for HIV/Aids patients and for organ transplantation-related infections, does not infringe the patent rights of Swiss drug maker Roche's anti-infection drug, Valcyte.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 16 Oct 2009 | 1:00 pm Bollywood lights up with DiwaliSix big-budget films to be launched over next two weeks.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 16 Oct 2009 | 12:59 pm TCS beats the street; net up 29%Beating analysts expectations, Indias largest IT services provider, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), posted a 29.2 per cent increase in consolidated net profit (Indian GAAP) at Rs 1,642 crore for the second quarter ended September 30 against Rs 1,271 crore in the same quarter a year ago.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 16 Oct 2009 | 12:58 pm ITC can make a killingTobacco major ITC could make a killing from its 14.98 per cent stake in EIH. Information available in the companys annual report suggests that its 100 per cent subsidiary, Russell Credit, acquired the shares at an average cost of Rs 36.20 per share over several years.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 16 Oct 2009 | 12:56 pm Analjit to become biggest shareholder in EIHBuzz over KKR's role in deal with Oberoi gets louder.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 16 Oct 2009 | 12:55 pm Gold sales touch Rs 30 crore on Dhanteras - Business Standard
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Oct 2009 | 12:40 pm Sterlite raises $500 mn via convertible bonds - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Oct 2009 | 12:36 pm Six consortia opt out of Dharavi project biddingBangalore: Six of the 14 teams in the fray to bid for a Rs15,000 crore Dharavi makeover project have opted out, jeopardizing the scheme. Five consortia have to be chosen to develop one sector each of the 535-acre shanty town in Mumbai, to make it a part of the growing residential and commercial development within Mumbai. Some lead members of teams that are not a part of the project any more are Unitech Ltd, K Raheja Universal Pvt. Ltd, Lanco Infrastructure Ltd, RNA-Videocon, Runwal group and Kalpataru group. On Friday, the Dharavi Development Authority asked the 14 short-listed groups to submit to it the memoranda of understanding among the team members. This was asked after rumours that many of the international and local companies wanted to opt out of the project in the wake of the global economic downturn.  Lacking expertise: A file photo of the Dharavi slum area in Mumbai. Property consultants who have tracked the makeover project say that most of the existing bidders don’t have the experience of redeveloping slums. Madhu Kapparath/Mint Among the remaining teams are Lodha Developers Pvt. Ltd and DB Realty Pvt. Ltd. The two firms recently filed their draft red herring prospectuses to raise money through initial public offerings. Lodha has tied up with a Malaysian construction firm, LBS Bina Group Berhad, as its technical partner, and DB Realty has teamed up with its subsidiary, Conwood Agencies Pvt. Ltd. In March, following a harrowing six months of liquidity crunch and slow property sales, five out of 19 teams had opted out, leaving only 14 in the fray. Some the prominent firms that exited were Housing Development and Infrastructure Ltd (HDIL), and Reliance Engineering Associates Pvt. Ltd and Urban Infrastructure Venture Capital Ltd. HDIL, one of the country’s biggest slum redevelopers, was forced to opt out after its US-based partner Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. went bankrupt in September 2008. “We had been getting a little jittery about the project and don’t want to be a part of the project anymore,” Sandeep Runwal, director of Mumbai-based Runwal group, had said in September. Property consultants who have tracked the Dharavi project closely said the biggest problem with the participants now is that none of them really has experience in redeveloping slums. “Developing slums in Mumbai needs expertise because such projects have serious socio-political complications,” said an analyst with an international property consultancy, who didn’t want to be identified. “Besides DB Realty, no other team is equipped for that.” Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 11:34 am BJP national executive meet deferredNew Delhi: The Bharatiya Janata Party has postponed its national executive meet scheduled for 28-29 October, amid reports of a rift between party chief Rajnath Singh and L.K Advani, leader of the opposition in Parliament. The new dates for the meeting are yet to be decided, said party secretary Shyam Jaju, who declined to give any reasons for the deferment. “It shows how indecisive the party is and the confusion which the main opposition of the nation is going through,” said associate professor Vivek Kumar of Jawaharlal Nehru University. The decision of the party also seems to be due to the fact that its leadership is not hopeful of a good performance in the assembly polls in Maharashtra, Haryana and Arunachal Pradesh. The results of these state elections are expected on 22 October. “Elections are an issue but it is a time when lot of changes are in the pipeline,” a senior party leader said on condition of anonymity. “A national executive meet at this point is not of any use at all.” The tenure of Singh as party chief is coming to an end in December and Advani has expressed his desire to quit active politics after two consecutive losses for the party in the general elections. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 11:34 am Stock markets may continue to sparkleMumbai: This Diwali, investors will welcome the Hindu new year Vikram Samvat 2066 with more gusto than usual. After all, they are richer by $684 billion (Rs31.67 trillion), with the Sensex, India’s bellwether equity index, rising at least 91.53% since the last festival of lights, the best gain in at least 10 years. The coming year too will see growth, traders say, though the ones who have been around for a long time and seen it all advise temperance in light of the meteoric rise and rich valuations. “The mood is upbeat; we have seen two extremes in the space of a year,” said Motilal Oswal, chairman and managing director (MD) of the brokerage bearing his name. “We can’t rule out a sharp correction. When there is a sharp rise, there could be sharp falls too. When it will happen is the question.” The scene was very different a year ago. The festival, when brokers worship the Hindu goddess of wealth Lakshmi, came at the onset of a global economic credit crunch that was set off by the fall of American investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc. This time last year, equities had lost almost half their value since the previous Diwali, foreign investors were pulling out from Indian stocks and the outlook was grim. The mood didn’t change despite a 5.86% rise in the Sensex on 28 October 2008, during the one-hour muhurat trading where traditionally investors make token buys. Also See | Heady Diwali (Graphics) That 5.86% gain was far in excess of the less than one percentage point swing typically seen during muhurat trading. In fact, the average gain during one-hour muhurat trading every year in the 2003-07 bull run was 0.24%. Volumes during this special trading are usually about one-fourth of average trading volumes. Things have turned around since the last muhurat trading day. The markets have pulled back sharply, with Indian shares rising the sharpest among those in $1 trillion-plus economies this year. Economic growth forecasts have been upgraded, company earnings have bounced back and foreign investors have returned in droves. “There is a lot of confidence now because of the strong economic recovery undercurrent,” said Deven Choksey, MD of Kisan Ratilal Choksey Shares and Securities Pvt. Ltd. “Corporate earnings have surprised positively and expectations are that the second half of the (fiscal) year is going to be even better.” Economic indicators such as industrial production and export growth are getting better. Factory input increased 10.4% in August, the most in 22 months, and the rate of decline in exports is slowing. “Optimism is there, sentiment is there, liquidity is good,” said Rashesh Shah, chairman and MD of Edelweiss Capital Ltd. But he pointed out that there is some concern on inflation and the rupee gaining over the dollar. Indeed, inflation is rearing its head again, even as growth expectations in key sectors such as software and textile exports are muted because of the rupee’s rise. Wholesale inflation gained 0.92% for the week ended 3 October. With economists predicting this number will touch at least 6% by the end of March, India’s central bank will have to start considering raising interest rates, a move that could hurt growth. Foreign institutional investors, the main driver of Indian equities, have so far bought stocks worth at least $13 billion this year and the dollar flow has bumped up the rupee to a 13-month high of 46.25 to a greenback. With liquidity flows to emerging markets such as India predicted to be strong for some more time, a further strengthening of the rupee could hurt exporters as the rupee value of their dollar earnings goes down. Yet another concern, according to Ved Prakash Chaturvedi, chief executive officer of Tata Asset Management Ltd that manages around Rs20,000 crore, is global sentiment. Indian markets now move in tandem with other markets around the world, though the degree of correlation varies. “Liquidity till now has papered over the cracks in the system,” said Chaturvedi. “Large economies (such as the US and the UK) will eventually have to adjust to a savings-oriented scenario”, from the present consumption-led one. This could have repercussions on metrics such as emerging market exports. Unlike in the past, this time around muhurat trading is taking place when the earnings season has just begun. With early results indicating that the earnings rebound is on, brokers are advising investors to stay invested, though selectively, and buy during Saturday’s special trading hours. Ashwin Ramarathinam and N. Sundaresha Subramanian contributed to this story. Graphics by Yogesh Kumar / Mint Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 11:31 am Puppetry | With strings attachedOn Monday, audiences at this year’s European Capital of Culture—Linz, Austria—will be privy to a multimedia theatre production that will spill the beans on Bollywood. With its 20-character cast, the musical Bollywood Bandwagon will address everything, from impossible plots to the casting couch, to failed ambitions and fading stars.  Animated: Roy with one of her creations. Harikrishna Katragadda/Mint A week before they are set to leave, I watch Kat-Katha’s lively bunch rehearse in their studio in the crowded Delhi neighbourhood of Lajpat Nagar. The entry to the stairway leading to their second floor terrace rooms is by the back door. But atop the narrow flight of stairs, the small rooms breed a capacious world of fantasy. And history: As a tradition that is more than 2,000 years old, puppetry predates several other art forms. Their 75-minute production will employ what Roy calls humanoids. Dolls, 2ft tall, made of wood, foam and fabric, will hang from the puppeteer’s neck, making his or her face and arms a part of the performance. I watch as two young puppeteers, Mohammad Shameem and Pawan Waghmare, bring alive a doll fashioned as a struggling Bollywood actor—Vicky Kapuur, whose name is spelt numerologically for luck. Kapuur’s nemesis, superstar Jahangir Khan, represents Bollywood’s nepotistic leanings. Other important members of the cast include star actress, Kamini Katyal and “item girl” Maya. The production parodies Bollywood to absurd levels that would have been difficult to achieve with human actors. Their puppet manoeuvring techniques are not easy to decipher at first. Vicky Kapuur’s body bears Shameem’s face (seen in the picture below). And Waghmare, who stands behind Shameem, works Kapuur’s legs to dance in sync with an original score by Mumbai-based composer Shyam Banerjee. During the performance at Linz, a static camera will record it all live and project it on an LCD screen above the puppet stage, a technique that evokes the 20th century German playwright Bertolt Brecht’s philosophy and constantly reminds audiences that they’re watching a performance. As the founder and managing trustee of Kat-Katha Puppet Arts Trust, Roy is always seeking to push artistic boundaries; to nudge the real and the fantastical closer to each other. Her company is dedicated to puppetry research, the therapeutic use of the medium, training new artists and building a platform for practitioners.  Action: Shameem (left) and Roy (right) rehearse their Bollywood moves, puppets and camera in tow. Harikrishna Katragadda/Mint With the way that it fuses forms, Bollywood Bandwagon seems part theatre, part puppetry. But Roy dismisses such divisions. She traces the genesis of Indian theatre largely to Kerala’s 2,000-year-old Koodiyattam tradition, where actors do everything from acting and singing to dancing. She feels that the division of performing art forms is artificial. Her Voice, the second production that she did in 2000, was a collaboration with Bharatanatyam dancer Geeta Chandran. And her last production, About Ram, in 2006 was a collaboration with animator Vishal Dar. Kat-Katha will also be performing About Ram at Linz on 21 October. The young artiste attributes her love for puppetry to its undertones of magic; the way it suspends disbelief. “Not just children, adults come up to us and ask how we did this move or that jump,” she says. “It’s the incredible power that dead material can have over a human being.” Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 11:24 am Safety pin | Colourful, child friendly syringesPast Life Samarth Mungali, 26, a graduate from the Delhi College of Engineering, worked with IBM as a software engineer for two years before applying to the National Institute of Design (NID), Ahmedabad, for a course in strategic design management. There he met Bhavna Bahri, 25, a commerce graduate who had worked as an accounts assistant with a Dubai-based firm and moved to graphic and Web designing before enrolling herself at NID. Bahri had initially chosen the graphic design course, but switched to the strategic design management course, with the aim of starting an entrepreneurial venture after graduating. The duo thought his engineering skills and her background in graphic design would make them a strong team, so they decided to start a venture, No Formulae, together.  Colourful jab: Samarth Mungali (left) and Bhavna Bahri’s toy-like cases for syringes are targeted at children. Amit Dave / Mint Mungali says he always had an interest in designing and creating things: “I remember tinkering with small gadgets and circuits when I was young.” He was later fascinated by his family’s woodworking unit, and experimented with creating products. “I appreciated the way an object’s shape influences its use. That’s when I realized that design is ubiquitous—some thought has gone into the design of every object we use.” Eureka Moment The Philips Simplicity Challenge was the catalyst for Acceptor, the child-friendly syringe project. The electronics company was looking for simple, innovative, original business ideas. The Mumbai-based duo remembers reading that the disposable syringe was the big simple business idea of the last century. “My own fear of injection syringes helped me appreciate the need for the product. That was what gave us the idea to try to change the look of the syringe,” says Mungali. The duo tried to use distraction therapy, by designing a brightly coloured toy-like case in which a syringe could be fitted. The case comes in the shape of a butterfly or a juice bottle and the syringe is barely visible. “We wondered: If the look of the syringe was changed to sidetrack the child, would it help her forget the pain or trauma that generally comes with an injection?” says Mungali. Genesis They started on the challenge and sought help from friends at the college’s design institute who helped with some aspects of the design. They went on to win the Simplicity Challenge, and the prize money went towards designing proper prototypes which they showed doctors for testing. They conducted a market survey in five cities to see how parents and doctors reacted to the product. Mungali also made a trip to Sweden to present it to the medical fraternity there. Danderyds Sjukhus, a hospital and medical institute in Sweden, has certified it as a feasible concept. Acceptor has just received a grant from the Union government to make working prototypes for large-scale medical testing in India. The duo hopes to have the syringes in the market in about eight months. Also See At a Glance (click here) Reality Check They feel they’ve come a long way from the first idea, and are currently running the last lap of the race to get Acceptor into the market as soon as possible. Plan B Along with Acceptor, Mungali and Bahri have several other ventures under No Formulae, the parent company. This is a service design firm that marries design with business. In fact, they did not take on any campus placements after their course, so they could be free to start No Formulae. They have conducted research for an ice-cream company, helped an organic cosmetics and food company rebrand itself, and finished a project for a real estate firm trying to market luxury apartments during the downturn. They are also looking to commercialize the syringes and are on the hunt for partners. Secret Sauce “What pushed us was a craving to achieve things we could only dream about. My dream was not staying in a job and working for IBM or a firm. I always wanted to do something of my own,” says Mungali. “I didn’t mind working 24x7 and 365 days a year for myself, but I didn’t want to be stuck in a nine-to-five job, working for someone else.” parizaad.k@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 11:18 am The week in review for 16 October 2009New Delhi: Several major banks reported their quarterly results this week. Net profits for HDFC Bank rose 30.2% to Rs687 crore compared to the same period last year. Axis Bank also boasted impressive growth with a 32% increase in net profit to Rs532 crore on a year on year basis. UCO Bank also reported healthy results with net profit growing 38.4% to Rs208 crore. And also posting results this week was IndusInd Bank, which saw it net profit for the second quarter shoot up 131% to Rs78 crore. India’s largest mortgage lender, HDFC posted its second quarter on Monday. Net profit rose 24.7% to Rs664 crore beating analyst expectations. On Thursday Anil Ambani publicly criticized a special audit report that said his company Reliance Communications had overstated its revenues and evaded license fees. Ambani asked Sebi to investigate the recent fall in Reliance Communications stock and said he will take up the issue with the telecom ministry. Reliance Communication stock declined after the report by a government appointed auditor was leaked. According to the audit report, Reliance Communications has overstated its revenues by Rs3,000 crore and has evaded license fees of Rs300 crore. India’s auction of oil and gas exploration blocks met with a muted response this week. Nearly half of the 70 blocks on offer received no bids, with all of the 76 bids going for just 36 blocks. Provisional winners of the auction include BHP Billiton, which won three blocks, and Cairn India, which got one block. The World Bank has signed agreements to lend India $4.2 billion for growth related projects. Out of the $4.2 billion, $2 billion will go to public sector banks, $1.2 billion will go to IIFCL to fund infrastructure projects, and $1 billion will go into power transmission projects. It’s been good news week for India’s auto industry with the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers or SIAM revealing impressive sales figures for September. Car sales rose 21% during the month with Indian companies selling nearly 130,000 vehicles. Truck and bus sales were more modest, increasing 6.5% to about 45,500 units while two-wheeler sales rose 6.6% to nearly 674,000 units. At least one two-wheeler company is laughing all the way to the bank. Bajaj Auto’s net profits for the second quarter leapt 117% to Rs403 crore compared to the same period last year. France-based Areva could sign an agreement with India’s Nuclear Power Corporation to sell it two 1,650 megawatt reactors for a project in Maharashtra. Areva is also considering offering Nuclear Power Corporation a stake in an African uranium mine to guarantee supplies for the plant. The Wholesale Price Index jumped 0.92% in the week ending 3 October. Rising commodity prices and food inflation are said to be the main causes of the spike. India’s industrial output rose higher than expected in August. Industrial production went up 10.4% compared to a year earlier, the most it has risen in 22 months. Vijay Mallya’s UB Group says it is talking to two foreign companies about entering India’s organized retail market. The UB Group’s subsidiary MCF plans to be the exclusive supplier of agricultural produce items for its international retail partner. Insurance regulator IRDA has objected to a proposal that suggested removing agents’ commissions from the premiums of policyholders. The proposal it is opposed to came from a government-appointed panel. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 11:06 am Smita Verma: on a success trailJust two weeks ago, 22-year-old Smita Verma helped her family move from their one-room tenement in Old Delhi’s Chandni Chowk—the house that she was born and brought up in—to a two-floor stand-alone house in Shastri Park, a couple of Metro stops away. In the new home, houses don’t meld into one giant housing block and windows open out to real roads instead of other tenements. Her job as a piping design engineer at an American construction company that consistently features in the Fortune 500 list pays well over Rs20,000 a month. She is the first engineer in her extended family, and thanks to her, the Verma family is the first in the extended lot to have moved out of the crowded bylanes of one of Delhi’s most congested neighbourhoods.  Full circle: Smita Verma, an engineer, is now a donor to the Udayan Shalini fellowship programme, which funded her education. Harikrishna Katragadda Till class X, Verma, like most other girls in her neighbourhood, went to a Hindi-medium girls’ school that didn’t offer science in classes XI and XII. The reasoning was practical: Few girls who attended that school had aspirations to go to medical or engineering college. Verma pleaded with her parents to be moved to an English-medium school so that she could better prepare for engineering college. She spent the three-month break after her class X board exams acquainting herself with the scientific terminology in English. Despite discouragement from those around her, she determinedly went ahead and educated herself in English. “They said I wouldn’t be able to do it; that it is difficult to break out of what one is conditioned for,” she says. “It sure was, but in the end it was worth it.” Every day, she’d read the same chapter in her old Hindi textbook and then reread it in her newly acquired English version. “Once I learnt that ‘acceleration’ simply meant what I knew to be twaran, studying science in English didn’t seem so intimidating,” she says. On a relative scale, Verma didn’t grow up in abject poverty. Her father, Rajender Kumar, owns a school uniform shop in Chandni Chowk. He sent all his three children to school: Smita, her younger sister Priyanka (21) and brother Vaibhav (16). But an engineering degree, that costs around Rs35,000 annually, would have been difficult to fund. The Rs18,000 Udayan Shalini fellowship sponsored half of Verma’s tuition annually and that made things much easier. The Udayan Shalini fellowship is awarded on the basis of need, talent and aspiration, and is designed for girls like Verma who have had their basic school education, but are limited by resources in breaking the socio-economic barrier that keeps them from realizing their full potential. The financial criterion dictates that the combined family income of the applicant has to be under Rs8,000 per month. Verma is from the first batch of 72 Udayan Shalini fellows who were inducted in 2002, with each girl selected after two rounds of testing. Both Kiran Modi, founder and managing trustee of Udayan Care, and Vikram Dutt, former vice-chairperson of the Forum of Public Schools, who directs the fellowship programme, count Verma among their brightest mentees. “She went beyond what was expected of her. She stayed up nights to brush (up) her language skills and today she is a bright, confident young woman,” says Dutt. “I keep telling her chuhiya banke aayi thi, sherni banke ja rahi hai (she was so timid when she came and she has so much confidence now).” What makes Verma a success story is that she’s come full circle. Today, she is a donor to the Udayan Shalini fellowship programme, something that Modi says she hopes every fellow will become. She also exudes an aura that compels those around her to take her seriously. On her advice, her parents shifted both her younger siblings to English-medium schools in order to improve their higher education prospects. Verma’s life today is far removed from what her family had imagined. Other girls from her milieu would have either been married by now or would be thinking about it. Verma shrugs off all marriage-related talk: “Well, there are proposals but I haven’t settled into my career yet,” she says. A master’s degree is on the cards. Does she wonder how things would have panned out if the fellowship hadn’t happened? She says, almost dismissively, that she never thinks of the “ifs”. “What’s the point?” she asks. When she was in class III, Verma recalls a knitting assignment. All her classmates had their mothers or grandmothers finish their assignment for them. “Those were perfect,” she says. But her mother, Manju, refused to finish hers for her. “She did half of it and asked me to follow it up.” Verma marks this as her most valuable life lesson: “Standing on my own feet and following up on my own success.” ********* Udayan Care , New Delhi For the last 15 years, Udayan Care has been caring for disadvantaged children and women. Along with outreach programmes and 10 foster-care homes in and around Delhi, the organization conducts the Udayan Shalini fellowship programme, which provides monetary aid and mentoring to girls from disadvantaged socio-economic backgrounds who want to pursue higher studies. Kiran Modi, founder and managing trustee, says that since its inception in 2002, the programme has helped around 1,500 girls, in the 16-24 age group, in five cities. Rs5,000 for this charity can: Partly fund the Udayan Shalini programme. The money is used to support a high school, college or professional degree student. Annual donations are typically accepted in denominations of Rs10,000 (high school), Rs15,000 (college) and Rs25,000 (professional degree). Donors are expected to ‘adopt’ a girl and commit to a six-year period. They are sent reports on the girls they have sponsored. If you want to volunteer Udayan Care seeks long-term mentors who will be available to counsel Udayan Shalini fellows round the year. The programme currently works with 85 such mentors across the country Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 11:05 am The Mint Report October 16 2009New Delhi: Tata Consultancy Services has reported better than expected second quarter results. Net profits rose 28.7% to Rs1,624 crore rupees compared to the same period last year. And total revenue for the quarter stood at Rs7,435 crores compared to Rs7,206 crores in the previous year. In recent times, TCS has seen pressure on its fees ease up and has cut its costs and won more outsourcing deals. Friday’s numbers are crucial in reassuring markets about the recovery in India’s IT sector. UltraTech Cement reported its second quarter results on Friday. Net profits grew 53% to Rs251 crore rupees compared to the same period last year. Net sales increased to Rs1,541 crore rupees from Rs1,396 crores in the same period last year. Cement production went up 12% to 3.73 million metric tonnes. Ultra Tech says it expects industry demand to grow at 9% in the current fiscal year because of the government’s packages to boost infrastructure and housing. An economic think-tank says corporate India is likely to see a 22.8% growth in its overall profit after tax or PAT this fiscal year. The Centre for Monitoring Indian Economy says that the manufacturing sector excluding the petroleum industry will see a 24.3% rise in profits after tax. It expects the financial services sector’s PAT to go up 32.2% and the non-financial services sector’s PAT to go up 20.4%. Satyam Computer Services has delayed the restatement of its accounts by a quarter. While the company’s previous target for restatement was December, it says its accounts won’t be available until March because it has fictitious accounts going back to 2001. Satyam found itself in the middle of India’s biggest accounting scandal in January this year and was later taken over by Tech Mahindra. China’s largest automaker is considering buying a stake in General Motors’ India operations. SAICO is talking to GM about making minivans and small cars in India to meet local demand for low-priced transport. The two companies are already partners in China and are focusing on introducing Chinese-made Wuling light commercial vehicles into the Indian market. IIFCL has raised Rs500 crore rupees through taxable bonds in a transaction arranged by Trust Investment Advisor and ICICI Bank. The 15-year bonds have a coupon rate of 8.55%. Sterlite Industries says it has raised $500 million in convertible notes that are can be converted into American depository shares. The money will be mainly used for expansion in Sterlite’s copper business. The World Bank says it has approved a $320 million dollar loan for upgrading roads in Andhra. According to the bank, the 30-year loan will help improve the quality and safety of more than 6,000 kilometers of roads in the region. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:57 am The heat in the religious sweetNew Delhi: The first award of a geographical indication (GI) tag to a complex food, rather than a simple farm product like the Nagpur orange, has not gone unchallenged for long. Within a month of the Tirupati laddu being deemed GI-worthy, two separate litigants have protested the decision, claiming that it violates the spirit of the GI Act.  Divine discontent: A man carries trays of Tirupati laddus. Dinodia Another Thiruvananthapuram-based academic, R.S. Praveen Raj, wrote to the Supreme Court within a week after the 15 September GI recognition, but is now considering withdrawing his letter and joining the fight in Chennai. GI is an intellectual property right, which identifies a good as originating in a certain region where a given quality, reputation or other characteristic of the product is essentially attributable to its geographical origin. Kashmir pashmina, Darjeeling tea and Kancheepuram silk have all been granted GIs. The Madras high court has posted the case for hearing on 2 November. A verdict, when it comes, could alter the GI landscape dramatically, either paving the way for a rush of similar applications or considerably sharpening the Act’s focus. For the Tirumala Tirupati Devasthanam (TTD), the trust administering the Tirupati temple, its laddu involves serious business. In 2008-09, it made roughly 50 million laddus, spending Rs60 crore in the process and expecting to earn from their sale at least Rs40 crore. Unsurprisingly then, when vendors in the temple town began to sell laddus on their own, TTD sent its security personnel after them. The campaign to seek legal protection, in the form of the GI tag, was merely TTD’s new front in a long-running war. “The laddus are not produced anywhere in the world and are very unique in terms of quality, reputation and other characteristics, which go into its making,” TTD’s application read. “Being a food item, it derives its sanctity, reputation and uniqueness from its being offered as naivedyam (offering) to the Lord. The laddu gets reputation not from its taste alone, but from its sanctity.” Represented by law firm Anand and Anand, TTD began to seek GI protection a little over a year ago. G. Muthukumaar, a GI specialist who worked extensively on the Tirupati laddu case at Anand and Anand before leaving recently to start his own firm, calls it “the first religious commodity anywhere in the world to get a GI tag, and also the GI-protected product with the smallest area of production—the premises of the temple itself”. Besides the larger question of allowing religion into the IPR arena, TTD’s exclusive claim on the laddu is one of the technical flaws that Praveen Raj, a former patent examiner himself, sees in the GI award. “In the case of Kancheepuram silk, for instance, the benefit goes to all the weavers, but here, the only beneficiary is the TTD,” he says. “The GI Act is meant to benefit collective groups or societies. It isn’t meant to create a new monopoly.” But Muthukumaar, who calls the grant “perfectly valid”, disagrees. “All IPR rights are private rights,” he says. “There’s no power under the GI law in India that restrains a single entity like the TTD from applying. It doesn’t talk about community rights or private rights.” Asked whether any restaurant would now be able to apply for a GI tag on its own minor variation of an otherwise common dish, Muthukumaar grants the analogy, but is quick to pinpoint the distinction. “The entire GI legislation revolves around the concept of uniqueness,” he says. In the case of the laddu, that uniqueness “comes from its sanctity”, because it is an offering made within the temple. In which case, Praveen Raj retorts, TTD hardly needs GI protection. “Why don’t they simply tell people that the authentic laddu is only available on the premises, and that the laddus sold outside are fakes?” he asks, reasoning that pilgrims seeking the genuinely blessed laddus will buy them only in the temple. “So the TTD’s intention is obviously just the commercialization of faith.” samanth.s@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:54 am Bharti Wal-Mart donates pushcarts, earns from ad spaceAmritsar: For years, Darshan Singh, a 45-year-old green grocer in Amritsar, rented a pushcart for Rs400 a month to hawk fruits and vegetables. Last month, Singh got a free upgrade thanks to Bharti Wal-Mart Pvt. Ltd. Singh doesn’t have to pay rent any more and his shiny new tricycle cart allows him to thread his way through Amritsar’s neighbourhoods with greater ease. The cart itself is emblazoned with advertisements for Washington Apples, USA Pears and California Grapes, courtesy Best Price Modern Wholesale, a Bharti Wal-Mart venture, for which this is a part of a corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiative. Bharti Wal-Mart, which opened its first Best Price Modern Wholesale store in Amritsar in May, distributed 10 of the carts to hawkers last month. SCS Group, the Gurgaon-based firm that promotes the Washington Apples Commission, the California Table Grape Commission and the Pear Bureau Northwest in India, says it bought ad space on the 10 carts presented by Bharti Wal-Mart. “We pay for advertising inside the Bharti Wal-Mart store,” said Rachna Sharma, head of communications and strategy at SCS. “Similarly, we have bought space on the carts too.” Sharma declined to specify the money spent on advertising. “We often partner with companies on CSR initiatives, as we did with Coke (Coca-Cola India Pvt. Ltd) for plantations inside the premises of the Best Price store,” a Bharti Wal-Mart spokesperson said in an email. “The carts were donated to their owners.” Bharti Wal-Mart said it has received a positive response to its CSR venture and plans to scale it up, though it didn’t provide any details. Bharti Wal-Mart is a 50:50 cash-and-carry wholesale joint venture between Bharti Enterprises Ltd and US-based Wal-Mart Stores Inc. The carts come with proper licences that allow them to ply legally.  Advertising push: Ranjit Kumar, a juice vendor, with his Bharti Wal-Mart pushcart. Ramesh Pathania/Mint The vendors are also given membership of the Best Price store, although they don’t restrict themselves to the outlet. For the more affluent people, “we buy from Best Price. For locals, we buy from the mandi”, Kumar said. Bharti Wal-Mart has not faced the sort of protests that greeted some of the other firm entering the field. ITC Ltd’s plans to sell fresh produce through pushcarts invited the ire of existing small businesses in many cities, forcing it to abandon the venture. Owners of small shops in Amritsar dismiss the Bharti Wal-Mart venture as a publicity stunt. “They are just doing it to become famous,” said Narendra Kumar, a local green grocer. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:54 am 1 OMDC share fetching up to Rs25,000Kolkata: The recent cabinet decision to give state-owned Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd (RINL) that runs the Vizag Steel Plant (VSP), control of steel ministry-administered iron ore miner Orissa Minerals Development Co. Ltd (OMDC) has led to a scramble for the latter’s shares. Investors are betting on RINL acquiring more shares from the market, either through an open offer or otherwise to make OMDC a subsidiary.  No takers? The Calcutta Stock Exchange. OMDC’s shares were last traded here in 1985 at Rs3.75 apiece. Indranil Bhoumik / Mint For about 24 years, there has been no trading in OMDC’s shares on the floor of CSE because of poor liquidity—only 207,420 shares, or 34.57% of the OMDC’s 600,000 shares, are widely held. The firm has an equity base of Rs60 lakh. OMDC’s shares were last traded on CSE in 1985 at Rs3.75 apiece, according to Molly Thambi, the bourse’s managing director and chief executive officer. Till recently, investors were holding most OMDC shares in physical form. Since the shares are not being traded, investors are buying OMDC’s shares through off-market transactions. CSE authorities are encouraging brokers to restart trading in OMDC’s shares on the official trading platform of the exchange, called C-Star. If all goes well, trading in OMDC’s shares on C-Star should restart from Saturday, said Thambi. The exchange has decided that there will be no circuit filter, or restriction on price movement of OMDC’s shares, on Saturday. However, no speculative trade will be allowed, and each trade will have to be settled. Stocks traded in the derivative segment do not have any restriction on price movements, but others have a limit of 5%, 10% and 20% for daily gains and losses. The bourses decide from time to time the price band within which individual stocks can be traded, depending on their volatility, volume of trading and other factors. “Brokers planning to sell OMDC’s shares on Saturday have been asked to deposit shares with the exchange by 5pm on Friday to make sure that there is no speculation and no shortfall in securities pay-in,” Thambi said. “Brokers buying shares will have to pay 100% margin.” Though there was no official trading, shareowners could always sell OMDC’s shares through off-market transactions at Rs8,000-10,000 a share, said a Kolkata-based stockbroker, who owns about 200 shares of OMDC, and declined to be named. “Typically such offers would be made immediately before the company announced its annual dividend,” he said. High dividend For the past few years, OMDC has been paying a high dividend. For fiscal 2009, it paid a dividend of Rs455 a share, and in fiscal 2008 and 2007, it paid Rs372 and Rs434 a share, respectively. Though there’s been no trading on the official platform of CSE, “there were huge off-market transactions in the past few years”, Thambi said. But the price has gone up sharply following the government’s announcement that the firm would become a subsidiary of VSP. “It seems investors are snapping up shares expecting an open offer from Vizag Steel,” the stockbroker, quoted earlier, added. Any entity acquiring over 15% stake in a listed company is required to make an open offer for at least 20% more. It is, however, not clear whether RINL will have to make an open offer for taking over OMDC. RINL’s chairman and managing director P.K. Bishnoi, who is also the chairman of OMDC, was travelling and could not be contacted. A company spokesperson said RINL would not able to comment on the matter until Bishnoi returned. OMDC officials also refused to comment. Jayant Thakur, a chartered accountant and an expert on takeover rules, said the transaction could be exempt from takeover regulations and RINL might not have to make an open offer because the shares are being transferred to a state-owned company. However, if RINL buys the government’s shares in OMDC, the transaction could be seen as disinvestment and would trigger an open offer. The government has said OMDC would become a subsidiary of RINL, which means the latter will have to raise its stake in the miner by at least 2% to over 50%. The government currently holds 48.18% in OMDC—14.2% directly and 33.98% through Eastern Investments Ltd, a firm that was nationalized in the early 1980s. Under the restructuring plan approved by the cabinet last month, RINL would be given control of Eastern Investments, and through it OMDC as well, which would eventually become the steel company’s subsidiary. Besides expectation of an open offer from RINL, OMDC’s shares gain strength from the company’s fundamentals. OMDC has reserves of around 200 million tonnes (mt) of high grade ore in six mines in Orissa. In fiscal 2009, it produced 1.66 mt of iron ore and posted a net profit of Rs181.81 crore on a turnover of Rs291.71 crore. Its net profit translates into earnings per share of Rs3,030. The company also has Rs718 crore in cash balances, which translates into a cash per share of almost Rs12,000. OMDC seems to be looking forward to the proposed restructuring. Its annual report for 2009 says both RINL and OMDC would benefit from the restructuring. RINL would gain access to iron ore reserves and OMDC would benefit from the steel maker’s financial and administrative support. aniek.p@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:54 am Stand-off over, paves way for incentives to IIM staffNew Delhi: The stand-off between the government and the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) ended on Friday after both sides relented, paving the way for a compromise. As a result, the IIMs will now be governed by an independent body constituted by the schools themselves and faculty members will now be eligible for additional performance-based incentives, human resource development (HRD) minister Kapil Sibal said. The changes could make it easier for the IIMs to attract talent. It also means the schools have preserved their autonomy. Directors of IIMs, the best- known business schools in the country, and members on their respective boards will now be appointed through an independent collegium, instead of a pan-IIM board suggested by a government-appointed panel last year, a move being seen as giving greater autonomy to the IIMs in their administrative affairs. “The IIMs have agreed to this process. The boards have become too unwieldy. They will be reconstituted. The composition of the collegium will be restricted to 13 members,’’ Sibal said. At the meeting of IIM directors with Sibal, the institutes also agreed to submit a five-year vision document by January. The ministry has also asked the IIMs to expand the number of seats and forge partnerships with the private sector to set up hostels on their campuses. Sibal said the ministry was also not opposed to IIMs setting up campuses abroad. “Maybe not just one IIM, several IIMs should get together and draw a plan. We want IIMs to be a global brand,’’ he said. IIM Bangalore had earlier evinced interest in setting up a campus in Singapore, but the IIMs have been unable to open campuses abroad as their memorandum of association with the government does not allow them to go overseas. The creation of a pan-IIM board was recommended last year by a government-appointed committee headed by former Maruti Udyog (now Maruti Suzuki India Ltd) chairman R.C. Bhargava to review the functioning of the IIMs. The IIMs viewed the proposal as an infringement on their autonomy. The panel had also argued that the B-schools’ management development programmes were eroding the quality of their teaching and research. Stressing that the autonomy of the IIMs would not be compromised, Sibal said the collegium would ensure a more broad-based selection procedure. “The Bhargava panel had suggested a pan-IIM board and none of the IIMs agreed to it. A collegium will address all those concerns,’’ he added. Members of the boards of the IIMs and their directors have so far been appointed by the ministry on the recommendations of the respective boards, which include representation from the industry and academia. All the existing boards will, however, be reconstituted now, Sibal said. The proposed collegium will comprise academicians and members from industry. While each IIM has its own board currently, the proposed collegium will be a single body for all the IIMs. “It is a good idea. We will see how it can be implemented,” IIM Bangalore director Pankaj Chandra said. “A collegium sounds very similar (to a pan-IIM board) to me. The purpose of the board was also to help in running the IIMs and the constitution of the collegium is also the same as proposed by our panel. It’s a good decision in the sense that at least there will be a collegium now,’’ Bhargava said. “As far as faculty recruitment is concerned, they (IIMs) have said that they are finding it difficult,’’ Sibal said, while stressing that the incentives would help the institutes tide over these difficulties. Last month, faculty members at all the 13 Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs) agitated over a government notification on their salaries, which they found inadequate, and regulations on faculty recruitment, which they said interfered with their autonomy. The IIMs too joined in, but later agreed to accept the circular. The IIT professors agreed to call off their protest after the ministry stated that the notification was only a policy guideline. However, the face-off with the government highlighted the difficulties faced by these premier institutes in attracting and retaining talent. The seven older IITs have an estimated cumulative shortage of at least 900 faculty. Among the IIMs, barring IIM Lucknow, each school faces a faculty shortage of 15 members or less, then HRD minister Arjun Singh had told the Rajya Sabha in 2007. pallavi.s@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:53 am Sunny and green | Gardens that fit any size and any budgetPast Life My Sunny Balcony is a venture started earlier this year by four gardening enthusiasts—Athreya Chidambi, 31, Shailesh Deshpande, 40, Reena Chengappa, 31, and Sriram Aravamudan, 33. Chidambi works as a Web designer and continues to do so while helping the company with its website. Deshpande works in an environmental consultancy BPO; Chengappa has just quit her full-time job in an IT company to devote all her time to the gardening venture; and Aravamudan is a freelance writer and full-time garden consultant. They have been friends for several years. “I had quit my job a year ago and was doing some freelance writing. Reena’s frustrations at her corporate job peaked at the same time as the idea of My Sunny Balcony took off, so we both work full-time in the venture,” says Aravamudan.  New-age gardeners: (from left) Sriram Aravamudan, Reena Chengappa, Shailesh Deshpande and Athreya Chidambi have introduced a ‘gift a garden’ concept. Hemant Mishra / Mint Eureka Moment The four partners were sitting around in a coffee house and cribbing about the loss of green cover in Bangalore. They were wondering why no one was doing anything to help the city live up to its “garden city” moniker when it occurred to them that they could do something themselves. “There are actually quite a lot of spaces that you can green up in cities, but you have to open your eyes and look for them. There are very few people who know extensively about how to optimize small spaces and grow something nice that you can enjoy,” says Deshpande. They worked on the balconies and small patches of gardens in their own homes, sent “before and after” photographs to friends and associates, offered to do a garden at cost and birthed a business. Genesis They roped in a friend’s boss, who was willing to let them run a trial on his garden. They billed him at cost and used that garden as the showcase for potential customers. “The cash outflow was low because we worked at the garden ourselves, without hiring any employees. The real investment was in the time spent in tracking down vendors to supply the things we needed,” says Chengappa. Also See At a Glance (click here) Reality Check During the initial months, the group members went on site visits after office hours and implemented the projects on weekends. Typically, the team visits the site, works on the design and chooses plants in accordance with the client’s ability to maintain the garden. Then they go back and implement the design. Implementation is a day’s work. Lately, the group has introduced a “gift a garden” concept. Clients who have friends or family in Bangalore can contact My Sunny Balcony and have them execute a garden. “A typical balcony or terrace garden costs Rs14,000-25,000 and an outdoor garden can cost up to Rs40,000,” says Chengappa. They have annual maintenance contracts and offer a range of organic pesticides. They are also exploring some franchisee options. Plan B If the business isn’t viable after three years, they figure they may go back to their day jobs. But with orders pouring in, that is a distant option. Secret Sauce “The fact that we speak the same language as our client is our biggest plus point,” says Aravamudan. “Earlier, clients had only two options; they could either hire a high-flying landscaping company and expect to pay at least Rs1 lakh for a premium garden, or hire a local gardener who would place five pots in a row and then disappear. For the modern, city-dwelling, upper middle-class garden lover, there was no one he could call to help get started on a nice, but modest garden. We understand what they want,” he adds. veena.v@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:53 am Plan the perfect party Shivani Wazir Pasrich Menu: I prefer to serve Kashmiri food for a festive do, or a mix with some Continental food thrown in. Special attention is always paid to desserts and salads. Clothes: I either wear a sari or a salwar-kameez with jewellery. I especially love dressing up the children in traditional choli-lehengas and kurtas. Decor: I normally focus on three things in a party—flowers, candles and the menu. Amir, my husband, takes care of the music. The ceilings in our main hall are really high, so I place candles on the ledges. The gardens are lit up with mashaals (torches) and citronella candles. The balcony has a glass ceiling with an opening from where I drop strings of tuberoses that smell and look great. Fresh-flower arrangements and garlands are strewn all over the place.  Trade secrets: (clockwise from above) Shivani Wazir Pasrich likes to serve her guests Kashmiri food; Mini Thapar Shastri likes to wear saris at Diwali dos; and Kalyani Chawla uses mogras for floral arrangements. Photographs: Better Homes and Gardens Menu: Good food, alcohol and nice music are key ingredients for a successful evening. A well-stocked bar, iPod with great non-stop music, and an attentive hostess make for a fun evening. Guest list: A compatible mix of people, keeping in mind their interests and professions and always infusing new people within Delhi’s niche groups, chosen with caution, turn out to be interesting! Decor: I take great pains in decorating and creating an ambience with many, many candles and lots of flowers. During Diwali it’s tonnes of mogra (Arabian jasmine) and exotic flower arrangements. I am partial to diyas (lamps), incense and candles. I have an outdoor dining area which opens to the sky. The other side has trees from which I hang ladis (strings) of flowers or small light bulbs bought during my travels. I also ensure I have a creative table decor every time. I love entertaining at home, especially after the monsoons are over and the weather is perfect for outdoor parties. Malavika Tiwari Menu: I follow a set menu for my dinners. It’s either Hyderabadi or Kashmiri food. Clothes: I am mindful not to go over the top, yet not be repetitive. I love Indian clothes. Activities: I enjoy a good card party, but usually keep a budget to lose. We play very low stakes and basically have fun. It’s all about meeting your near and dear ones and celebrating. Decor: I focus on the ethnic look. I bring out my silverware instead of porcelain. I love serving Indian food on banana leaves as opposed to place mats. Since I don’t have a sprawling home, gol takias (round pillows) and gaddas (mattresses) make for easy floor seating. I place a decorated urn instead of a bowl for placing money while playing cards. Parties in the festive season mean diyas for me. I also love mad, kitschy lights. I decorate with marigolds and rangoli. I love the traditional urli (bowl) with floating diyas and some flowers. Mini Thapar Shastri Menu: The food is always traditional. I live in a joint family which serves delicacies from UP. I handle the starters. I make the children pitch in; they love helping out with the dips and setting up the platters. Clothes: I love buying saris by young designers that are traditional yet fresh. But when I am the host, I get into a kaftan or a tunic teamed with a great pair of heels and accessories, so I am comfortable, yet dolled up. Decor: Designed for parties, our outdoors has a lily pond where we float candles on a metallic base (so as not to scare the fish). The gazebo near the pool is my fave spot; it’s done up with beautiful lights and furniture. We also pull out all the props that we have, like candelabras, which add to the festivities. Tents designed in Jodhpur are hitched up. Wicker is cozily set up in the lawns. There is an indoor gazebo with glass windows that boasts chandeliers and lights with dimmers. No decor is complete without fresh flowers; they change as per the mood. Since my husband is into designer lights, we use them cleverly around the gardens and gazebos. Raell Padamsee Menu: The bar is set outdoors and the dinner is laid inside. I live in my grandmother’s home, which is replete with unusual furniture. The dining table is shaped like a horseshoe and can seat 14 people. For parties we lay food buffet-style. I put up candles and flower arrangements along the tables. The menu is mixed fare, from Parsi dishes to Continental food to anything that is the flavour of the year. The starters are always aplenty and my house is famous for its dips. Activities: I keep one room for cards with gaddelas (mattresses) and low seating, and one for karaoke (especially for the non-players). Once the singing begins, it’s a complete riot. Decor: The flowers and foliage interspersed with candles and diyas look beautiful. I keep the lighting soft, with no direct lights. There’s a tree that I highlight with fairy lights which creates a stunning view. I use a traditional Parsi chalk, flowers and diyas to decorate the floors all the way from the ground floor to the fourth, where I live. All the doors of my house are done up with red and white garlands. I go to Tresorie, a Mumbai store that always has select, aesthetic stuff perfect for decorating in the festive season. Manpreet Brar Wallia Menu: My husband is a complete foodie and we pay maximum attention to the food. There are plenty of starters served hot as many guests come straight from work. The menu depends on the number of guests coming—if it’s a small group, I like to cater to individual tastes, but for a larger do, I stick to serving Indian food. I do not cook myself and rely heavily on a good cook. I only enter the kitchen 10 minutes before dinner to ensure every dish is correctly placed and is piping hot. We have a bartender to take care of the drinks. Clothes: I like an effortless, relaxed look. I generally wear comfortable clothes that make me look dressed up, yet not too elaborate. It’s important for the host to be well dressed. Decor: I don’t stress too much over the decor, but I pay special attention to the seating arrangements so that there is enough space for everyone to sit and relax. We make sure that there’s good music in the background for the first couple of hours of the evening, and then pump it up later if the mood permits. All content on this page is provided by Better Homes and Gardens Photographs courtesy Better Homes and Gardens Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:53 am Vivimed Labs considers preferential issueVivimed Labs is considering a preferential issue, says its Chairman and Managing Director, Santosh Varalwar. The issue is targeted only to cater the companys immediate requirements, he adds.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:46 am TCS posts 7.1% growth in net, beats StreetMumbai: Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS), India’s largest software exporter, on Friday reported 3.1% growth in its September quarter revenue to Rs7,435 crore over the June quarter and a 7.1% growth in net profit to Rs1,642 crore, exceeding Street estimates and signalling growth prospects for India’s nearly $60 billion (Rs 2.8 trillion) outsourcing industry. The performance was aided by improved new business, better manpower utilization and foreign exchange gains. TCS was expected to report a profit of Rs1,500 crore, a sequential fall of 1.21%, and revenue of Rs7,348 crore, registering a 1.9% growth, according to a Mint poll of 11 brokerages. “We are seeing an improvement in market conditions,” chief executive N. Chandrasekaran said, but cautioned that “client budgets are still being tightly managed”. Compared with the same quarter a year ago, TCS posted a 29.2% growth in profit and 7% growth in revenue. It won 10 new deals during the quarter, two of which were worth over $100 million each, besides adding 11 new customers. One highlight of the September quarter results is the 5% sequential volume growth. “It is very exciting. These numbers are more reflective of being back to normal days,” said Apurva Shah, head of research at Prabhudas Lilladher Pvt. Ltd, a Mumbai-based brokerage. Last week, global researcher Forrester Inc. predicted a rebound in US firms’ IT spending, starting in the December quarter. The US contributes nearly 60% of revenue for Indian software companies. TCS joins second ranked Infosys Technologies Ltd in reporting earnings that surpassed forecasts, signalling demand may be starting to recover. Earnings may improve as profits rise at financial clients from Citigroup Inc. to Goldman Sachs. Last Friday, Infosys reported a 2.1% sequential growth in revenue and a 1% growth in profits. “The worst is over for the information technology companies,” Mahesh Patil, who supervises about $2 billion in stocks, including TCS, as co-head of equities at Birla Sun Life Asset Management Co. Ltd in Mumbai, said before the earnings. “Companies are now feeling more confident about the outlook; no one is talking about a sharp recovery, but clearly the inquiries are increasing.” TCS plans to take on board as many as 8,000 new trainees in the October-December quarter, up from the 5,530 additions in the July-September quarter. In line with the rest of the industry, TCS gave performance-related pay hikes for the quarter. The employees have been given 150% of their variable pay as incentive. Typically, 70% of a TCS employee’s salary is fixed pay and the rest is variable. Analysts say the strengthening rupee could impact performance of IT firms in the coming quarter. Indian IT exporters earn a large chunk of their revenues in dollars. In the June-September quarter, the rupee fell 0.43% from 47.90 a dollar to 48.11, but since the beginning of the current quarter the local currency has gained 3.18% to 46.30. At $2.1billion, TCS had the largest currency hedge positions among Indian IT exporters, as of the quarter ended 30 June. TCS rose 2.84% on Friday on the Bombay Stock Exchange to close at Rs599 even as the bourse’s bellwether equity index, the Sensex, rose 0.7%. TCS announced earnings after market hours. Rajhkumar K Shaaw and Harichandan Arakali of Bloomberg contributed to this story. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:42 am The beaches are missingThe Portuguese landed by sea in Goa a couple of decades before the Mughals set foot on Indian soil and ruled it for the next 450 years, till they were driven out by the Indian defence forces in 1961. Which makes Goa a little different—even today, we see it as an exotic pocket of territory on our western coast. Two exhibitions by well-known Indian (and non-Goan) photographers explore Goa in very different ways and, in the process, reinforce its mystique and “otherness”. Click here to view a slideshow of photographs by Bharat Sikka and Prabhudhha Titled The Edge of Faith, Prabuddha Dasgupta’s brooding black and white photographs look at the lives of Goan Catholics—the people, their houses and their places of worship. In his introductory essay to Dasgupta’s book of photographs, which features the same set of images, writer William Dalrymple shows how, over the past 500 years, Goa’s history has been characterized by an often insouciant commingling of Indian and European culture—Hindus venerate St Francis Xavier, Catholics visit temples, consult Hindu priests and astrologers, and observe their old caste rules. Many Catholic priests, for instance, pride themselves on maintaining the purity of their Brahmin blood generations after their ancestors converted to Christianity. The young Goans he speaks with are looking to the future, not pining for the past. Dasgupta’s photos, however, paint a more ambivalent picture—they are an ode to a people and a way of life that is disappearing. And his subjects’ sense of loss, of feeling besieged and exiled in their own land, is palpable. They are usually elderly and framed by old furniture and furnishings, and the long and deep shadows make the photos look like they were shot as the sun was setting. The mood of resigned acceptance hangs heavy over them, even when the subjects happen to be smiling or cheerful. The mood persists in the still-life images, which usually consist of old framed photos, furniture, the crucifix and portraits of the Madonna hung on spare walls with old-style, unconcealed electrical wiring. The past lives in the present and in seeking out that past, Dasgupta’s arresting portraits provide an antidote to the touristy sun and sand, fun and feni clichés of Goa. They also tell the story of faith—the Catholic faith in this case—as a vital link between the past and the present, a marker of a distinct identity and, as the shadows lengthen, an anchor that lends coherence to our lives and our world. Bharat Sikka, known internationally for his fashion photography, has also over the years produced an impressive body of non-commercial photographs (“Fine arty” is how he describes them.) The images in his latest set—shot in and around the Goan village of Salvadore du Mundo, where Sikka and his wife bought a house a couple of years ago—are all about fantasy and make-believe, looking like stills from a noir film. The village residents strike improbable poses in improbable settings, playing out, in Sikka’s words, scenes from “a fable”. Except that this fable has no beginning, middle and end—we are free to make of these disconnected cinematic images what we will. Sikka says he wants them to work at a psychological level which, like most good art, they do—aided by his masterly control of colour, tone and setting. What they also do is tell us something about the quotidian life of the village. Beneath the fantastic lurks the mundane, whether the images are eerie (partly visible girl in a scarlet frock; an old unclad doll nailed against a tree trunk) or hint at action (man in a thicket with a gun; man in a darkroom flashing a torch) or are evocative (an old man covered against the rain in a plastic sheet and looking like a gremlin) or just plain weird (old man, open-mouthed, lying supine on the ground). It is not too hard to contrast Dasgupta and Sikka’s takes on Goa—black and white versus colour, classical versus experimental, or factual versus make-believe. And it is tempting to trace a generational shift in Indian photography in the two approaches to the same broad subject—from journalistic and documentary to “fine arty”. But in their own ways, both evoke a land and a people at a remove from us, fascinating and unfamiliar. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:26 am Sterlite slumps after raising $500 mn in convertible notesMumbai: Sterlite Industries (India) Ltd, India’s largest copper producer, fell the most in two months in Mumbai trading after selling $500 million (Rs2,315 crore) of convertible debentures to finance its copper expansion plans. Sterlite shares fell as much as 9% to Rs790 in intraday trading, the most since 7 August, and closed at Rs820.90 on the Bombay Stock Exchange. Its American depository receipts fell 1.9% to $16.62 on Thursday. Sterlite, a unit of Vedanta Resources Plc, said on Thursday it plans a 400,000-tonne expansion, together with a 160MW power plant, at its south India copper smelter at an investment of about Rs23 billion ($497 million). The debt sold this month comes on top of the $1.5 billion it raised in July selling shares in the US. “The shareholders want to know the end use of the funds raised,” said Rakesh Arora, an analyst at Macquarie Group Ltd in Mumbai with an outperform rating on the stock. “The company has been in the market regularly as it has ambitious expansion plans.” The notes will be converted at $23.33 apiece into American depository shares in 2014, Mumbai-based Sterlite said on Firday in a statement. The notes will mature 30 October, 2014. Sterlite, locked in a bidding war for more than a year with Grupo Mexico SAB for bankrupt Asarco Llc, topped its rival’s offer for the copper miner by almost 3% to $2.57 billion last month. A decision on the sale will be announced at a 19 October hearing in the US district court in Brownsville in Texas. Sterlite and Grupo Mexico want to buy Asarco to gain control of copper mines in Arizona. Prices of the metal doubled this year on rising Chinese demand and optimism the US economy will recover from a recession. feedback@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:08 am For Indian consumers, gold is in their DNAEconomist John Maynard Keynes called it a “barbarous relic”, billionaire investor Warren Buffett doesn’t set much store by it. But in India, gold has never failed to arouse extreme passion, either as a symbol of sanctity and human achievement or as one of evil and decadence. Now, investors and money are chasing it like never before as the yellow metal’s price continues to scale new highs. On Friday, a day before Diwali, gold was trading at $1,046.53 (around Rs48,454) a troy ounce, receding from an all-time high of $1,064 two days ago. India is one of the largest markets for gold, but there is more potential to stimulate demand, says Ajay Mitra, India managing director of the World Gold Council, a grouping of gold mining companies formed with the aim to promote the precious metal. A former marketing executive with Coca-Cola Inc., Mitra joined the council about three years ago and has since turned gold evangelist. With a twinkle in his eyes, he told Mint about plans for gold-tinted contact lenses, comparative returns with other asset classes and efforts to get saree vendors to sell gold. Edited excerpts: What are the reasons for gold’s meteoric rise this season?  All that glitters: Mitra says products such as gold-brushed contact lenses and T-shirts with gold embroidery can be expected to be in the market next year. Abhijit Bhatlekar / Mint; Location: Popley Jewellers, Mumbai But where is it all headed? Inflation is not yet a threat for key gold purchasers such as India, China and the Middle East. Are investors using it as hedge in spite of it touching all time highs? All-time high is something that’s being broken on a daily basis over the last 10 days. The floor price is not something for me to speculate. Demand in India and the Middle East has been soft. Demand in China has been robust. Institutional buyers in the US have been very active. Institutional buyers in Singapore and other parts have been hedging. It’s not just gold. Other commodities are also going up. So, is it fair to say that investment demand is rising? I would love to say that. Current trends have indications of investment showing robust recovery. But we can’t generalize for the whole country. We have been tracking consumer offtakes for the past two months. Mumbai is investment-driven. In Mumbai, coins and bars sell far more while Delhi continues to be jewellery-driven. But why is overall demand soft in spite of the economic recovery gathering momentum? India has a private holding of 19,000 tonnes. Nowhere in the world do we have such private holding. If you were to liquidate the gold, we will be very rich per capita. It is there in the closet, in the lockers. There is a certain level of acquisition already done. The incremental acquisition will reflect economic conditions. Acquisitions now will be lower than, say, seven years back. Diwali this season is early. Is it one reason for lower imports? No. People are buying gold. Those who want to buy gold are still buying. I don’t see it as a slowdown. You have a limited income and your budget permits only so much for an asset. This year, we have seen a price increase of 23-24%. Year to date gold imports are down 26%. It’s not a bad scenario at all. What other investment gives year-on-year (returns of) 20-25%. Remember, it’s a finite resource. There is only so much gold above the ground and no new reserves are being discovered. So it’ll always give you above par returns. Are you buying gold yourself? I hadn’t been buying gold before I joined (the World Gold Council). But the last two Dhanteras, I definitely bought gold and this year too (Dhanteras, a festival which Hindus consider auspicious to buy precious metals, fell on Thursday). Now, it’s part of my investments. Has the Indian consumer changed? For Indian consumers, gold is in their DNA. It’s part of our mythology, culture and traditions, which is not the case in the rest of the world. For them, it’s just an accessory, a fashion. It could be in, it could be out, depending on the trend. We are the only civilization that has stayed with our mythology and traditions. For us, gold is still part of our core beliefs. It’s part of our psyche. But surely, you must have noticed some changes? The core fascination for gold continues to be there. It may have taken a back seat from time to time; because we all try to maximize our investments by investing in funds which have given us higher returns. A trend we have been seeing is professionals who have got into businesses or starting a career—they really don’t look at gold to be part of the investment you need to keep back. They are happy with the gold they have inherited. So it’s our endeavour to find new ways and means and get them to invest in gold. This is something that has happened in the last 10-15 years. Another shift has been in the jewellery segment where the teens and the ones just getting into womanhood, they don’t associate themselves with gold simply because we haven’t been able to reinvent and make it relevant to them. What are you doing about that? We will bring in products—accessorize gold, new products in the white gold category because that’s what consumers at this age are looking at. Now, when you say gold, all we can think of is the chain and the ring. We’ve got fantastic products lined up for next year. One (for) instance, gold-brushed contact lenses. It has never happened before. We are looking at belts and buckles and patches you can put in T-shirts with gold embroidery. Basically, we are looking at fusing it with many other materials, many other forms. We are also aiming to expand the reach. We have now roughly 3.2 lakh to 4 lakh (stores) for a population of 1 billion. Stores have to increase. We have to make it accessible. How do we do this? By looking at institutions which already have networks like the postal department. The other big opportunity is saree stores. These are complimentary categories. Now, they do not know anything about hedging and managing gold. If we can help them do that, it can be a big success. Nalli’s (a chain of saree retailers) is going to venture big time into this activity. Does this mean that the trend will move towards branded jewellery? Branded jewellery is a phenomenon only in the big cities. In smaller towns, branded jewellery is the store. It’s the jewellery store which is branded. With the government taking its eyes off the excise angle, we believe fresh investments will come in this sector. Gold quality has improved and buyers are seeing better caratages now. ravi.k@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:01 am India vs China and the value of big investors China’s phenomenal growth has been the envy of the world. It has lifted millions from poverty to prosperity within a single generation. But it has also been accompanied by imbalances between regions and rising inequalities between town and country. Jose Montalvo and Martin Ravallion from the World Bank Development Research Group attempt to find out what kind of growth is best suited to reduce poverty. They also examine whether the Chinese experience bears out the Pattern of Growth hypothesis, which says that it isn’t just growth which matters—if poverty is to be reduced, much depends on the sectors and regions which grow. The researchers compare China’s attempts to reduce poverty with India’s and find that in China “only the growth rate of agricultural output matters for poverty reduction in rural areas”. This is very different from the Indian experience where, “growth in the tertiary (mainly services) sector has had more impact than the primary (mainly agriculture) sector, while the secondary (mainly manufacturing) sector appears to have brought little direct gain to India’s poor”.  One reason is that while China placed a high emphasis on agriculture right from the beginning of their reform period, India’s commitment to the sector has been patchy. But the authors also refer to “an important historical-institutional difference. The relatively greater importance of agricultural growth to poverty reduction in China than India probably reflects, at least in part, the difference in the distribution of agricultural land. While India has a large landless population in rural areas, such landlessness is rare in China”. In other words, a larger share of agricultural land held by the poor allows them to capture a larger share of the gains from agricultural growth. Simply put, land reform matters. For India, Ravallion had in an earlier paper argued that the country hadn’t done very well on the poverty reduction front because growth hadn’t occurred in the poorest states of the Hindi heartland. The conclusion: Growth is not enough, it has to be spread evenly. Unbalanced growth, whether across regions or sectors, reduces the pace of poverty reduction. Institutional Investor Preferences and Firm Value by Gwinyai Utete It’s common knowledge that the participation of institutional investors increases the value of a company. And conventional wisdom tells us that institutional investors are attracted to a stock if the company is transparent, has good accounting policies and the management has a clean reputation. Gwinyai Utete of Auburn University examines the relationship between the preferences of institutional investors and the value of a company.  To do that, Utete classifies institutional investors. He says that “institutional investors differ quite dramatically in their preferences… Short term, high turnover (transient) institutional investors are found to be attracted to companies that perform well (in both an accounting and financial sense) but have a high level of informational uncertainty. Institutional investors with a longer term focus (quasi-indexer and dedicated) are found to be attracted to firms with features that facilitate oversight of managerial behaviour.” The results of his study show that while the presence of long-term institutional investors does increase transparency, it doesn’t have any correlation with an increase in a company’s value (as measured by Tobin’s Q ratio, which is the market value of a company divided by the replacement value of the firm’s assets). On the other hand, the transient institutional investors, or those which trade frequently “possess superior information to other market participants and actively seek out situations in which they can exploit this informational advantage. Their presence, particularly under conditions where firm-level information quality is poor, is associated with both higher returns and higher subsequent firm values”. In particular, transient institutional ownership is positively associated with firm value when cash flow volatility is high and when they buy stocks that have a lot of speculative reports about future earnings. Ironically, the research suggests that traders, who normally do not place much importance on regularly monitoring the firm, are the ones who can spot the big opportunities. Illustrations by Jayachandran / Mint Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 10:00 am Manappuram Finance sees FY10 profit over Rs 100 croreTalking about the FY10 turnover, V P Nandakumar said that the company is expected to make a profit of over Rs 100 crore. \"Next year we are targeting to a size of Rs 5,000 crore.\"Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Oct 2009 | 9:59 am NDTV holding may have been discountedNew Delhi: Indian media company New Delhi Television Ltd (NDTV), through its subsidiary NDTV Networks BV, may have bought back the 26% share that NBC Universal Inc. held in NDTV Networks Plc at a discount to the original sale price. According to US website Businessinsider.com, NBC will get $25 million (Rs115.75 crore) for its entire 26% stake in the firm. The website said: “While no price has been officially announced, a source tells us NBC is only getting $25 million. In January 2008, NBC paid $150 million for the stake.” NBC declined to comment on the details of the transaction. Denise Basset, vice-president, communications, NBC, wrote: “We cannot disclose the price as this is confidential information.” NDTV also declined to comment on the deal size. “NBC obviously gave the shares back to NDTV at a very discounted price. It was clear that NDTV’s entertainment business would have taken longer to break even,” said Nikhil Vora, managing director of financial services firm IDFC SSKI. “It would have required more investments from both the parties. NBC, however, did not want to expand its base in India. Over a period of time, NBC will come back to India. We have to see what route it takes.” Meanwhile, NDTV is in talks to sell a stake in NDTV Networks Plc to Time Warner Inc., a person familiar with the negotiations said on condition of anonymity. Analysts say the company is probably looking to sell a majority stake in its entertainment business under NDTV Networks Plc. Time Warner already has a presence in the country through Turner International, which in December 2007 formed a 50:50 venture to launch entertainment channels in Hindi and other Indian languages with production house Miditech Pvt. Ltd. Vora said the entry of another global broadcaster as an investor is a strong possibility. NDTV Imagine would become stronger if it manages to secure investment. NDTV Imagine chief executive Sameer Nair, “who is a very strong programmer, will get a second life”, said the CEO of a rival Hindi channel asking that neither he nor his channel be identified. “Competition from NDTV Imagine cannot be taken lightly if the money comes in.” Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Oct 2009 | 9:53 am Expect orders of Rs 400600cr in next 2 qtrs: Petron EnggPetron Engineering Construction has current order book around Rs 1,000 crore, says its Managing Director TS Das. We expect orders worth Rs 400600 crore in next 2 quarters.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Oct 2009 | 9:42 am See FY10 profit at Rs 11cr: Liberty PhosphatesLiberty Phosphates expects a profit of Rs 11 crore in FY10, says its Managing Director RR Dhanani.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Oct 2009 | 7:10 am How Apollo Tyres aims to be one of top10 global tyre cosApollo Tyres is dreaming big. It now wants to join the league of the top10 tyre manufacturers in the world. Currently, it is fighting hard to maintain its profit margins despite spiraling raw material prices.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Oct 2009 | 6:32 am Gold loses shine; down by Rs 60 on Diwali eve - Press Trust of India
Source: Business - Google News | 16 Oct 2009 | 6:16 am PFRDA may put an end to insurance agent incentivesFor long, agents have helped take insurance products to the people for fat commissions, of course. The joy ride may come to end soon. The Pension Fund Regulatory and Development Authoritys (PFRDA) decision to scrap commission of the agents within two years is causing a lot of unease in the agent community.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Oct 2009 | 5:42 am GVK Power may raise $350m to hike MIAL stakeGVK Power plans to buy its partner\'s stake in Mumbai International Airport (MIAL).Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Oct 2009 | 5:22 am CERC draft proposal will usher in grid discipline: JSPLIs the CERC Draft proposal positive for JSPL? Sushil K Maroo, Deputy Managing Director answers.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Oct 2009 | 4:13 am
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