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India will need 1000 airplanes in next 20 yrs: Boeing IndiaIndia will need about 1,000 airplanes in the next 20 years, says Dinesh Keskar, the President of Boeing India.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 31 Oct 2009 | 9:32 am RPG Cables to merge with KEC InternationalRPG group company KEC International has decided to merge group company RPG Cables with itself. Shareholders of RPG Cables will get one share of KEC for 20 shares of RPG Cables. KEC, which buys 30% of cables produced by the RPG Cables, says that in the future it hopes to buy 100% of cables produced by RPG Cables.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 31 Oct 2009 | 7:18 am US Bancorp gets $18 bn seized bank assets!US Bancorp on Friday acquired nine banks held by FBOP Corp, picking up USD 18.4 billion in assets after regulators seized a major Los Angeles lender and eight other banks in the latest failures to emerge from the financial crisis.Source: Zee News : Business | 31 Oct 2009 | 6:28 am SingTel boosts stake in Bharti Airtel to 31.95%!Singapore Telecommunications has agreed to increase its effective stake in India`s mobile phone operator Bharti Airtel to 31.95 percent from 30.43 percent, the company said.Source: Zee News : Business | 31 Oct 2009 | 6:28 am Obama stimulus plan created 640,000 jobs!US President Barack Obama`s economic stimulus package has created or saved more than 640,000 jobs since it was enacted earlier this year, the White House said Friday.Source: Zee News : Business | 31 Oct 2009 | 6:28 am Sensex witnesses biggest fall of `09 in Oct!The BSE Sensex fell 7.2 percent in October and logged its biggest monthly fall in a year.Source: Zee News : Business | 31 Oct 2009 | 6:28 am Global recovery liable to run out of steam: Soros!The global economic recovery is liable to run out of steam and the risk of a double-dip recession remains real, billionaire investor George Soros said on Friday, a day after the US economy returned to growth.Source: Zee News : Business | 31 Oct 2009 | 6:28 am Govt team launched to keep Japan Airlines afloat!The government of Japan has launched a new team involving related ministries and offices to discuss measures to keep Japan Airlines Corp afloat as it begins turnaround efforts under state supervision.Source: Zee News : Business | 31 Oct 2009 | 6:28 am Tata Steel, Riversdale to invest in MozambiqueTata Steel and Australian Stock Exchangelisted Riversdale Mining have proposed to invest USD 270 million (Rs 1,279 crore) to undertake the initial stageone development of the Benga Coal project in Tete province of Mozambique.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 31 Oct 2009 | 5:22 am SEBI mulls 15day futures contractsThe secondary markets advisory committee of the SEBI, which met on Friday, has recommended the introduction of fortnightly futures contracts on the stock exchanges, it is learnt.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 31 Oct 2009 | 5:13 am Essar Oil close to buying out Shell\'s European refineriesRoyal Dutch Shell PLC has selected Essar Oil as the preferred bidder for its three European refineries.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 31 Oct 2009 | 5:10 am General Motors gears up for new ChinaIndia linkGeneral Motors is putting in place a growth strategy for the AsiaPacific region which will see huge synergies between its Chinese and Indian operations. In the process, its ally in China, SAIC Motor Corporation, will get a comfortable foothold in India, which could only get stronger in the coming years.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 31 Oct 2009 | 5:07 am Hindustan Unilever July-Sept net down 22 pctREUTERS - Three months ended Sept 30. (versus the same period a year earlier, in billion rupees unless stated)Source: Reuters: Money News | 31 Oct 2009 | 4:12 am State Bank of India Profit Beats Analysts' Estimates - Bloomberg
Source: Business - Google News | 31 Oct 2009 | 4:08 am Citigroup shares down after report on Q4 writedownNEW YORK (Reuters) - Citigroup Inc shares tumbled on Friday after accounting expert Robert Willens said the bank was likely to have a $10 billion fourth-quarter charge on its deferred tax assets.Source: Reuters: Money News | 31 Oct 2009 | 3:27 am Chevron Q3 profit hit by oil, refinery weaknessNEW YORK/SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Chevron Corp posted a 51 percent drop in quarterly profit on Friday, becoming the latest oil major to be hit by the steep decline in oil and natural gas prices and anemic margins at refineries.Source: Reuters: Money News | 31 Oct 2009 | 3:23 am EXCLUSIVE - Fidelity preserves income with deep cutsBOSTON (Reuters) - Operating income at FMR LLC, parent of Fidelity Investments, fell just 7 percent to $1.4 billion in the first nine months of 2009, even as revenues plunged, according to a confidential prospectus obtained by Reuters for a debt offering by the privately held firm.Source: Reuters: Money News | 31 Oct 2009 | 3:20 am HT Summit | Bush favours Security Council seat for IndiaNew Delhi: Former US President George W Bush on Saturday favoured a United Nations Security Council (UNSC) seat for India, saying it has “arrived” as a strong democratic country in the world. He also wanted India and the US to work together to win the war on terror in Afghanistan to bring peace and stability in the region. “We must see the possibility of a seat for India in the United Nations Security Council,” Bush said, speaking at the HT Leadership Summit here. HT Leadership Summit (Full Coverage) “India has arrived as a strong democratic country in the world. It is a tolerant, peaceful and multi-religious democracy,” he said. Bush, who visited India in 2006 when the two sides chartered out the road map for further strengthening Indo-US strategic partnership, said the two countries shared the same values of freedom and democracy. On Afghanistan, he said, “America and India must work together to win the war in Afghanistan. The mission in Afghanistan has been long and difficult and costly. I believe it is necessary for stability and peace.” He wholeheartedly agreed with US President Barack Obama that the US-India relations were not only one of the most important ties in the world, but they should also be one of the best. But he cautioned that it would not happen automatically and the two nations would have to make important choices, including cooperation in the war in Afghanistan. “The Taliban, Al Qaida and their extremist allies are trying to take over Afghanistan again. If they would have safe havens, the Afghan people, particularly women, would face a return to brutality. The region and the world would face serious threats,“ Bush warned. Appreciating the Indian development aid to the Afghan government, the former US president said: “The US and India must continue to stand together to support the young democracy for the sake of security and peace.” Bush said that the US-India strategic cooperation has further been strengthened following the 9/11 terror attacks in the US in 2001, the Tsunami in 2004 and the Mumbai terror attacks in 2008. On the growing Indo-US relations, the former US president joked that by the time he left office, American presence in India was the second largest after Iraq, where it is waging a bloody battle against insurgents. Expressing hope that India would continue to pursue economic reforms, Bush called for further opening up of trade and business, particularly in the financial, agriculture, health and energy sector. “After the financial downturn of last year, the economic stage has shifted from Europe-Atlantic to Asia-Pacific,” he said. He said that government intervention during last year’s economic crisis, be it in the US, India or in other world economy, was necessary to prevent the situation from getting worse. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 31 Oct 2009 | 3:09 am SBI net profit up 10 percent - Sify
Source: Business - Google News | 31 Oct 2009 | 3:07 am Godrej Industries Q2 net profit at Rs 66.67 cr - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 31 Oct 2009 | 3:00 am Jindal Steel July-Sep net slips a third(versus the same period a year earlier, in billion rupeesSource: Reuters: Money News | 31 Oct 2009 | 2:59 am Godrej Industries Q2 net profit at Rs66.67 cr Mumbai: FMCG major Godrej Industries on Saturday reported a consolidated net profit of Rs66.67 crore for the second quarter ended 30 September. The company had recorded Rs 9.4 crore net profit in the same period last year. “The figures are not comparable pursuant to the business restructuring by the company,” Godrej Industries said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE). Total income stood at Rs896.17 crore in the quarter ended 30 September, however it had a total income of Rs965.27 crore in the same period last year. On standalone basis, the company reported a net profit of Rs36.43 crore in July-September quarter, while it had a net loss of Rs9 crore in the same period previous quarter. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 31 Oct 2009 | 2:53 am Hindalco Sept quarter net halves, lags forecast(Versus the same period a year earlier, in billion rupeesSource: Reuters: Money News | 31 Oct 2009 | 2:42 am SBI Q2 net up 10.2% Mumbai: Country’s largest lender State Bank of India (SBI) reported a 10.2% rise in quarterly profit on trading gains and rising loan demand. The bank, which along with its associates controls almost a quarter of Indian bank loans and deposits, said on Saturday that its July-September net profit rose to Rs2,490 crore ($530.2 million) from Rs2,260 crore a year earlier. That met a Reuters poll of brokers who forecast a profit of Rs2,460 crore for the period. Closest rival ICICI Bank on Friday said that its quarterly net profit rose 2.6%, beating forecasts. Shares in State Bank, valued at $31.5 billion, rose 26% in July-September, beating a 20% rise in the sector index and an 18% gain on the benchmark index. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 31 Oct 2009 | 2:31 am JK to take up pre-paid mobile issue with Centre - Press Trust of India
Source: Business - Google News | 31 Oct 2009 | 2:29 am Hold Bajaj Hindusthan: SP Tulsian - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 31 Oct 2009 | 2:25 am Sensex entrenched in consolidation zone, loses 5.44 percent in week - Sify
Source: Business - Google News | 31 Oct 2009 | 2:14 am State Bank of India Q2 net up 10.2 pct; meets viewMUMBAI (Reuters) - The State Bank of India, the country's largest lender, reported a 10.2 percent rise in quarterly profit on trading gains and rising loan demand.Source: Reuters: Money News | 31 Oct 2009 | 2:09 am Stimulus saved or created 640,239 jobs - White HouseWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The Obama White House on Friday said the $787 billion economic stimulus plan approved early this year had saved or created 640,329 jobs so far.Source: Reuters: Money News | 31 Oct 2009 | 2:07 am Sensex entrenched in consolidation zone, loses 5.44 percent in weekIndian equities markets entered into a consolidation zone with analysts terming the downward movement as long expected. A benchmark index fell 5.44 percent from its last weekly close and ended trade below the 16,000-mark.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 31 Oct 2009 | 2:02 am Sterlite bags international star award for qualityLeading copper producer Sterlite Industries (I) Ltd, a subsidiary of London based Vedanta Resources, has bagged the 'International Star Award' for quality.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 31 Oct 2009 | 1:54 am IISR project to motivate farmers through mediaThe Indian Institue of Spices Research is an umbrella organisation of ICAR and was set up here in 1976.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 31 Oct 2009 | 1:51 am Essar Energy may buy 3 Shell refineries - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 31 Oct 2009 | 1:47 am Jammu and Kashmir to take ban of pre-paid mobile issue with CentreThe ban came in the wake of reports that proper verification is not being done while providing such connections by the service providers/vendors raising security concerns.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 31 Oct 2009 | 1:46 am SingTel boosts stake in Bharti Airtel to 31.95 pctSINGAPORE (Reuters) - Singapore Telecommunications has agreed to increase its effective stake in mobile phone operator Bharti Airtel to 31.95 percent from 30.43 percent, the company said.Source: Reuters: Money News | 31 Oct 2009 | 1:04 am Expect 9% GDP growth in 2 years: FM - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 31 Oct 2009 | 1:01 am SingTel boosts stake in Bharti Airtel to 31.95% Singapore: Singapore Telecommunications has agreed to increase its effective stake in India’s mobile phone operator Bharti Airtel to 31.95% from 30.43% the company said. SingTel has entered into a conditional agreement with Bharti Group to purchase an additional 730,000 shares in Bharti Telecom, which is the sponsor of the listed entity Bharti Airtel, the Singapore firm said in a statement late on Friday. SingTel will make an estimated payment of between Rs18,073 million to Rs30,084 million ($641.3 million) for the purchase of additional shares of Bharti Telecom, the statement said. The price difference is because the payment schedule is spread over more than a year after the agreement kicks in on 12 November. Bharti Telecom has a stake of around 45.3% in Bharti Airtel. On Friday Bharti Airtel gave a downbeat outlook due to a price war after posting its slowest pace of profit growth in at least six years, sending its shares down nearly 7%. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 31 Oct 2009 | 12:50 am Jaipur Indian Oil depot blaze continues to rageThe massive fire at an Indian Oil depot here that has killed five people and injured 150 continued to rage for the third consecutive day Saturday. Officials are still waiting for the fuel stock to burn out and the blaze to die out, inviting criticism from residents.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 31 Oct 2009 | 12:01 am President asks NRIs to join social welfare programmes in India Nicosia (Cyprus): Describing education and health care sectors as essential pillars of a society, President Pratibha Patil has asked NRIs here to participate in social welfare programmes launched by the Indian government. “We are expanding our education and health care sectors as essential pillars for building a human resource that is educated and healthy,” she said at a reception hosted for her by Indian high commissioner, Ashok Kumar last evening. Addressing the members of Indian community gathered at the event, the President said that the government has taken up social welfare programmes in whose implementation, civil society and NGOs are important partners. “This is another field in which Indians abroad can play a role. I hope that you will support these efforts,” Patil, who is here on a two-day visit, said. Patil, who is the first Indian head of state to visit the island nation in two decades, said India has established its place as a major player in the information technology (IT) sector and its stature is growing in the emerging global order. “I am confident that in this journey, the Indian diaspora will be active participants,” she said. “We are undertaking a large-scale expansion of infrastructure in India, which opens numerous opportunities for investment. India is also a large market in which the middle class has been growing. This makes it an attractive market,” the President said. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 31 Oct 2009 | 12:01 am Flying from Hyderabad may become costlierIstanbul (Turkey), Oct. 30 Flying from Hyderabad will become more expensive soon. The Chairman of GMR Group, Mr G.M. Rao, told newspersons that the operator had applied to the regulator for an increase in the user development feeSource: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Madras SE members to trade directly on NSEThe National Stock Exchange has decided to permit members of the Madras Stock Exchange to trade directly on the NSE in both cash and F&O segments.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Rains to continue for another 2-3 daysAmong stations recording heavy rainfall till Friday morning (in cm) are: Ramanathapuram-9; Sathankulam - 8; and Pamban and Tiruchendur (all Tuticorin district) - 7 each; Vedaranyam -5; Kavali - 4; Tondi, Kodaikanal and Agathi-3Source: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Essar Oil close to buying out Shell’s European refineriesMumbai, Oct. 30 Royal Dutch Shell PLC has selected Essar Oil as the preferred bidder for its three European refineries.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am ICICI Bank reports flat net in Q2ICICI Bank’s net profit edged up a marginal 2.5 per cent in the quarter ended September 30, 2009 at Rs 1,040 crore, against Rs 1,014 crore in the corresponding period last year.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Results add to woes of battered telecom stocksSelling in telecom stocks intensifed on Friday as telecom major Bharti Airtel announced lower than expectedSource: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am General Motors gears up for new China-India linkMumbai, Oct. 30 General Motors is putting in place a growth strategy for the Asia-Pacific region which will see huge synergies between its Chinese and Indian operations.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Judging Indira GandhiToday, it is exactly 25 years since the assassination of Indira Gandhi. Its memory is still fresh in the minds of Delhi-ites. There is so much to recall and to sort out that it is hard to make sense of what she was all about.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Bharti Airtel joins mobile tariff war with per second billingNew Delhi, Oct. 30 The mobile tariff war intensified further on Friday with the largest player in the Indian cellular market Bharti Airtel announcing seconds-based billing. Until now, Bharti was charging on a per-minute basis.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am Markets this weekInstitutional selling in heavy weight stocks, particularly of banks and real estate, led the market indices to end lower on Monday, heralding the advent of a choppy session. The Sensex fell 70 points to finish at 16,741. On the NSE, the Nifty easedSource: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Oct 2009 | 12:00 am SingTel boosts stake in Bharti Airtel to 31.95 pct - Reuters
Source: Business - Google News | 30 Oct 2009 | 11:15 pm Nine U.S. banks seized in largest one-day haulLOS ANGELES (Reuters) - U.S. authorities seized nine failed banks on Friday, the most in a single day since the financial crisis began and the latest stark sign that substantial parts of the nation's banking industry are being crippled by bad loans.Source: Reuters: Money News | 30 Oct 2009 | 11:05 pm IBM replaces executive charged in insider trading caseSenior executive Robert Moffat once widely seen as a possible successor to IBM chief executive Sam Palmisano, was placed on a leave of absence on October 19 following his arrest.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 30 Oct 2009 | 10:51 pm 'Consolidation is the way forward'Akhil Gupta, deputy CEO, Bharti Enterprises, spoke to the media after announcing the financial results for the quarter ended September 2009.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 30 Oct 2009 | 9:00 pm No escaping the tariff vortexBy evening, Bharti, too, failed to walk the talk: It announced its first per-second billing plan, a gambit launched to great effect by rookie Tata DoCoMo.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 30 Oct 2009 | 8:57 pm SingTel to raise stake in Bharti by 1.52% to 31.95%Bharti Airtel Ltd reported profit growth slowed for the ninth quarter as competitors cut call charges in the world's second-largest wireless market.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 30 Oct 2009 | 8:56 pm DLF plans a new brand for 'value' housingDLF, India's largest realtor by market capitalisation, is set to launch a new brand of residential projects in the new 'value' housing segment.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 30 Oct 2009 | 8:54 pm IVR Prime will house IVRCL's BOT projectsIVRCL has been working on a bouquet of EPC (engineering, procurement, construction) and build-operate-transfer, or the so-called BOT projects.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 30 Oct 2009 | 8:52 pm Triple your money! 'China's Nasdaq' fires bigMarket madness roared into Shenzhen in southern China on Friday, when the country's newest stock market board for innovative start-ups and small businesses opened for listing.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 30 Oct 2009 | 8:51 pm IT dept issues fresh showcause to Vodafone - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 30 Oct 2009 | 3:44 pm Airtel bows to competition, joins tariff warNew Delhi: In a sign that the telecom price wars will intensify, India’s largest telecom firm has taken the battle into enemy territory. Bharti Airtel Ltd on Thursday became the latest operator to bill customers for every second of usage. Under its newly launched Freedom Plan, the firm is offering its prepaid customers a tariff of 1 paise per second on local and intercity calls made to another user on its network and a tariff of 1.20 paise per second for calls made outside its Airtel network. The move comes even as Bharti faces stiff competition from rivals such as Tata Teleservices Ltd that have signed on users and grown their market share with similar per-second billing offers.  Falling in line: Bharti’s Kohli says while some users would prefer the per-second option, others may want to stay with the per-minute plan. Harikrishna Katragadda / Mint The announcement, which came on a day when the company announced second quarter results for the current fiscal that were below analyst expectations, was surprising, as earlier during the day the firm had dismissed any plans of matching its competitors’ offers of per-second tariffs. “We will be competitive, (but) there is no reason why we should always match the lowest common denominator,” said Akhil Gupta, deputy CEO, Bharti Enterprises, during a media briefing on Friday to announce the results. He also added that the ongoing tariff war was not sustainable and would lead to operators with stronger balance sheets emerge stronger while smaller operators would face “irreparable damage.” Bharti director Rajan Bharti Mittal said on Wednesday that consolidation is inevitable because there are “too many” operators. The price war and one-off factors such as weak rural demand led to the worst profit growth for Bharti in nine consecutive quarters. Net profit rose 13% to Rs2,320 crore for the September quarter, from Rs2,050 crore for the same period a year ago, but profits fell 8% on a sequential basis. Total revenue grew 9% to Rs9,850 crore ($2.1 billion) over the same period last year while revenues fell almost 1% from the first quarter of the current fiscal year. “We believe a timely move by Bharti will prevent build of scale by new players and accelerate the consolidation process,” observes Rajiv Sharma, analyst with HSBC Securities and Capital Markets (India) Pvt. Ltd. In a poll of five analysts by Mint, Airtel’s revenues were estimated to be Rs10,250.4 crore, up 13.6% from the figure reported last year and 3.06% sequentially. Net profit was estimated at Rs2,411.72 crore up 12.7% over the year-ago period and down 4.34% over the first quarter of this fiscal. The Bharti scrip fell more than 6% on the Bombay Stock Exchange to Rs292.15 on Friday, its lowest since 20 March. The Bombay Stock Exchange was down 0.97%. Investors have sold telecom stocks in recent months on profit concerns. “The second quarter is traditionally the weakest quarter,” said Sanjay Kapoor, deputy CEO, Bharti Airtel. A weak monsoon has also crimped rural spending, he added. Around 62% of Bharti’s subscribers come from rural areas of the country. Kohli said the company will continue to enhance and focus on revenue market share leadership. “We will continue making our business model leaner and meaner with more economies of scale, outsourcing and increasing manpower efficiency,” he added. The firm is banking on non-telecom businesses and expanding its product portfolio to include businesses that are related to telecom and expand the Airtel brand, Kohli said. Currently, 35% of the firm’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization, a measure of operating profits, is from non-mobile businesses. The Friday evening announcement of the pay-per-second plan comes in the wake of several other operators revving up their marketing strategy to capture a bigger slice of the subscriber pie. Recently, the sixth largest telecom company in the country, Tata Teleservices, launched tariff plan of 1 paisa a second for its GSM network-based brand Tata DoCoMo and another Re1 per call plan for its CDMA-based Tata Indicom brand. The per-second plan was followed by a number of other operators, leading to a nasty tariff war. Reliance CommunicationsLtd also cut all call charges to 50 paise a minute. The Airtel Advantage plan prices all calls within its network at 50 paise per minute. “With this competitive intensity and irrational pricing in some pockets, it is possible in the short term we could see some impact on the growth,” admitted Gupta. At least four new firms, including ventures of Unitech Wireless Ltd (with Telenor called Uninor) and Etisalat DB Telecom India Pvt. Ltd (with DB group), are set to start operations this year. Mobile number portability (MNP) is expected to be allowed by December. MNP allows users to change their operators without changing their numbers. “This has led to a scramble for subscribers by all existing operators by drastically dropping call charges,” a Mumbai-based analyst with an international brokerage firm said on the condition of anonymity. Bharti’s three-month-long $24 billion negotiations with South Africa-based MTN Group, to form the third largest telco in the world with more than 200 million subscribers, collapsed last month for a second time in the last two years. But the firm is still hopeful of other opportunities. “We will look for and into any and every opportunity that comes our way,” says Gupta. “There is nothing on the horizon right now,” he added, denying that Airtel was in talks with Kuwait-based telecom firm Zain. Bharti added 8.1 million mobile users in the quarter to reach a total of 110.5 million at end-September, or 23% of the total subscribers in India, 43% more than in the year-ago quarter. Interestingly, key metrics such as average revenue per user fell 24% to Rs252 from a year ago, as more than half of Bharti’s new users came from rural areas, where customers tend to spend less than in urban areas. Average minutes of usage fell 15% to 450 minutes. The Ebitda margin, a key gauge of profitability, was 42.1%, compared with 41% in the year-ago quarter. Bloomberg contributed to this story. shauvik.g@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Oct 2009 | 1:45 pm Mukherjee on stimulus exit; Bush on PakistanTiming of exit policy after Q3 growth figures: FM New Delhi: Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Friday he would decide when to withdraw the fiscal stimulus, put in place by his ministry to support faltering economic growth earlier this year, only after the release of the third quarter data on economic growth, which is expected towards end of February. He was speaking on the first day of the two-day annual Hindustan Times Leadership Summit organized by HT Media Ltd, which publishes Mint.  Policy man: Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee at the summit. Ken Cedeno / Bloomberg In his speech, the finance minister described consumer price inflation as being “reasonably high”. He also said it may not be possible to adhere to the 1 April deadline to bring in the goods and services tax, or GST. “I will not be surprised if there is a delay of a few months,” he said. GST is a nationwide tax to be paid by consumers on their purchases and is to replace the current patchwork quilt of state levies that prevents the emergence of an integrated national market in India. The tax will be introduced only after a much-delayed deal between the Union and state governments gets finalized. Click here to read more... ********* I reminded Musharraf that US supports democracy: Bush New Delhi: George W. Bush had one of the most controversial stints as president of the US. He also played a key role in significantly enhancing the bilateral relationship between India and the US. On his second visit to India, as a private citizen, to participate in the annual Hindustan Times Leadership Summit, he spoke to Mint on Friday on a range of issues, including the future of the bilateral relationship that he had fostered, dealing with the vexing issue of Pakistan and the direction of a new climate change treaty. Edited excerpts:  Old friend: Former US president George W. Bush. Ken Cedeno / Bloomberg First of all, the bilateral relationship forged with previous prime ministers is important for America and I believe it is good for the region and good for the world. India is an important country and it is one with which America shares values. Secondly, its importance is becoming more relevant as the world recovers from the economic downturn. I think historians will look back and say that isn’t it interesting that one of the reasons behind the recovery is India and other emerging countries like her. That would not have been said 20 or 30 years ago. So, India is a country of vital importance. It is important for peace and prosperity. By far you are one of the most popular US presidents in India. That is primarily because of the initiatives you undertook to take the relationship between the two countries to an entirely new level. Do you think this intensity can be sustained? I do. President (Barack) Obama has made this clear in some of his comments. I believe that US-India relations will be based upon mutual respect and we will find areas that we can move forward and obviously there will be some areas of disagreement—but it will be done in a very respectful way. Click here to read more... Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 30 Oct 2009 | 1:25 pm Destiny’s childIn December 1971, after India’s victory over Pakistan and the creation of Bangladesh,a senior British diplomat wryly commented that the triumph had made then prime minister Indira Gandhi the “Empress of India”. The All India Congress Committee (AICC) has declared 31 October—the 25th death anniversary of the woman who bears this epithet—as Martyrdom Day. Tribute advertisements will be featured in the print and electronic media, and the ad blitz will go on until 19 November—her 92nd birth anniversary. The pinnacle of Indira Gandhi’s popularity, when even her political opponents were hailing her as goddess Durga, came just five years after she was sworn in as prime minister in 1966. In the beginning, she was often the object of mirth and ridicule—Ram Manohar Lohia famously called her ‘gungi gudiya’ (dumb doll). Click here to view photographs of Indira Gandhi with her young sons Rajiv and Sanjiv, addressing a public meeting in 1984, sitting by the side of Mahatma Gandhi as a seven year old and more The extent of her role in all that transpired during her political reign, including the Green Revolution, Bangladesh’s war of liberation in 1971, and the declaration of Emergency in 1975, is debated even today. Did she often merely carry out the suggestion of her advisers? Was her life’s mission to keep alive the legacy of her father Jawaharlal Nehru? We put together some images of the woman who ruled India for two decades and left an indelible stamp on the nation. Photographs courtesy Hindustan Times archives Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 30 Oct 2009 | 1:19 pm The north-south combineChetan Bhagat’s clearest memory of Diwali is of when he was 10, and burnt his fingers while making firecrackers on his own. “I put a large amount of gunpowder in a bottle and lit it. But then I lit my fingers along with it,” Chetan smiles, looking at the faded scars on his fingers. As a child, Diwali was all about bursting crackers and the tradition continues with his twin boys, Shyam and Ishan.  Old and new: Anusha follows her mother’s tradition of making rangoli and buying new clothes for the family for Diwali. Abhijit Bhatlekar / Mint Their marriage has been about taking the best from both cultures, and that includes festival times such as Diwali. In fact, in his just-released book 2 States, inspired by his romance with Anusha at the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIM-A), Chetan talks about the struggle to convince both sets of parents to agree to their choice of life partner from another community. “We thought we’re both from IIM, successful middle-class people, and our parents are modern. We say that India is one but true prejudices are revealed when your children want to get married outside the community,” says Chetan. It was a stressful period for the couple, but things eventually worked out. On festivals such as Diwali, they compromise, which means they take the most important aspects of Diwali (according to them) and then combine these to create their special brand of festivities. So buying new clothes and making rangoli is taken from Anusha’s southern traditions, while bursting crackers in the evening and eating jalebis dipped in milk is what Chetan brings to the table. The puja is held neither too early in the morning nor too late in the evening. “How can they burst crackers at the crack of dawn?” Chetan, the quintessential Punjabi boy from Delhi, is still confused about that one. For him, Diwali is always at night with lots of crackers, followed by card parties. Chetan says he’s the more traditional of the two and wanted to bring up his children with Indian values—that’s why they moved from Hong Kong to India two years ago. For nine years, Diwali abroad was spent working. “It wouldn’t feel like Diwali. It was quite sad actually. We would tell friends travelling from India to get us sparklers,” says Anusha.  Chocoholic: The Bhagats prefer chocolates to traditional sweets. Abhijit Bhatlekar / Mint Gifts that they receive and give include diyas and chocolates. “Although my mother used to make a lot of sweets and savouries at home, I don’t get the time to do that. We’ve been living outside India for so long that our celebrations have been pared down to the core,” says Anusha. For Chetan, card parties are out. In fact, they don’t attend many Diwali parties because Anusha usually has to work the next day. Chetan wants to have both his and Anusha’s parents over for Diwali this year. “Later, I’ll take my kids to light crackers. I’m very careful with them. They cannot light anything other than sparklers.” Anusha Bhagat shares Diwali recipes from her mother’s cookbook South Indian mixture Ingredients 2 cups besan (chickpea flour) 100g poha (flattened rice) 100g peanuts 100g cashew nuts 100g maida (refined flour) 100g roasted chana dal (pottu kadalai or Bengal gram) Oil to fry For the tempering A pinch of asafoetida (hing) Salt to taste A sprig of curry leaves A pinch of red chilli powder Method Sieve the besan and mix with asafoetida powder and salt to taste. Add water to make a soft dough. Pass a handful of the dough through a sev mould, then deep-fry the thin sev until golden in colour. Repeat the process for the entire dough. Drain the sev on paper towels. Mix maida with salt and water and make a soft dough. Roll out into a thin roti. Cut into thin strips and then into small diamond shapes. Deep-fry until golden. Drain on paper towels. Fry the poha, cashew nuts and peanuts separately till crisp and golden. Mix the sev, maida diamonds, fried poha, cashew nuts, peanuts and roasted chana dal together. Heat oil and temper with asafoetida, curry leaves and red chilli powder and add to the mixture. Add a little sugar. Maavu Laddu Ingredients 2 cups roasted chana dal 2 cups sugar 50g cashew nuts 50g raisins Cardamom powder to taste Ghee for frying Method Dry grind the roasted chana dal and sugar to a smooth powder, separately. Mix well. Fry the cashew nuts and raisins separately in ghee and add to the powdered mixture. Add cardamom powder. Heat some ghee and add it hot to a small portion of the powdered mixture, enough to be able to hold together and make small balls (laddus) of desired sizes. Repeat the process for the rest of the mixture. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 30 Oct 2009 | 1:19 pm Non-trade issues between India & EU need to be addressed under FTANew Delhi: Non-trade issues are key policy concerns and need to be addressed within the framework of the free trade agreement or FTA talks between India and the European Union, Daniele Smadja, ambassador, head of the EU delegation in India said on Friday. While India has been insisting to keep non-trade issues such as child labour, human rights violation of the FTA radar, analysts feel EU’s constant focus on the issue could derail talks. “Non-trade issues are important because they are policy concerns. They have to be addressed within the FTA,” Smadja said. “But we have to keep in mind we don’t create new tariff barriers. The priority is on tariff negotiations, government procurements, intellectual property rights, non-tariff barriers,” she added. Smadja said child rights and human rights issues in Indian labour market are key concerns for EU. Earlier this year, the European Parliament had said that human rights and democracy constitute an essential element of the FTA. It had raised its concern regarding the “continuing persecution of religious minorities and human rights defenders in India” and the current human rights and security situation in “Indian-administered Kashmir”. It has also called on India to sign the nuclear non-proliferation treaty, even though the Nuclear Suppliers Group has lifted its embargo on India’s nuclear trade. Earlier, speaking to Mint, a senior commerce ministry official had said that they have clearly conveyed to the EU delegation that they are not in a position to negotiate anything other than trade and investment related matters. “Sovereign issues are of our own and non-negotiable,” he had said. “We have made it very clera in various forums that we cannot negotiate such issues. Even we have reservations in negotiating governemnt procurements and we have said that TRIPS related issues are of serious concern to us. EU is raising non-trade issues to put more pressure on India to get what they want in other areas. This could derail the talks,” said Biswajit Dhar, Biswajit Dhar, Director General, Research and Information System on Developing Countries. Talks for an India-EU FTA started in 2007 and the seven round of negotiations was held in New Delhi last month. The issue will be taken up at the India-EU summit on 6 November in Delhi where the dates for the next round of discussions will also be finalised, Smadja said. “India-EU FTA is a strategic objective for us. The negotiators are getting into the details now. There are number of aspects that are not easy. These will be taken up at the India-EU summit,” Marco Buti, director general for economic and financial affairs at EU said. Asked if there is a timeline by which both the sides want to conclude the talks for the free trade agreement, Smadja said “Substance is more important than timing. We have to maintain the objective for a very comprehensive which is highly beneficial to both sides. This is a very difficult FTA because it is an ambitious one. We know there is no quickfix. However, we have made good progress.” “We have the most difficult path ahead. We have difficult constituencies to satisfy on both sides,” she said. The EU is India’s largest source of foreign direct investment (FDI), accounting for €10.9 billion (Rs70,959 crore now), or 65% of all FDI inflows in India in 2007. India was EU’s ninth-most important trading partner in 2007. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 30 Oct 2009 | 1:19 pm FedBank net drops 12% to Rs101 crKochi: Kerala-based private bank Federal Bank Ltd on Friday reported a 12% decline in profit to Rs101.07 crore for the quarter ended 30 September from Rs114.28 crore during the same period last year. Though total income for the quarter rose to Rs1,037.5 crore from Rs932.31 crore, net interest income was down to Rs329.95 crore against Rs331.78 crore in the year-ago period. The net interest margin, or the spread between the yields on loans and cost of funds, was 3.7%, up from 3.31 %. Net non-performing assets increased to 0.54% against 0.4%. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 30 Oct 2009 | 1:16 pm Media numbers reveal the power of twoIt has been known for long that The Times Group (Bennett, Coleman and Company) is the largest. While the News Corporation-owned Star Group briefly lay claim to number two spot, it is now clear that Subhash Chandras Zee is way ahead of its former partner and now arch rival. At Rs 3,732 crore, the Zee Group is Indias second-largest media firm.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 30 Oct 2009 | 1:16 pm Govt may delay GST roll-out: PranabFinance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today hinted at a delay in introducing the uniform goods and services tax (GST), a key element of indirect tax reform, from the scheduled date of April 1, 2010 and said the government would decide an exit strategy for stimulus measures only after reviewing growth numbers for second and third quarters.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 30 Oct 2009 | 1:15 pm Central Bank profit up 227%, seeks Rs700 cr from govtMumbai: Public sector bank Central Bank of India on Friday posted 227% growth in profit to Rs313.93 crore for the quarter ended 30 September, against Rs96.15 crore in the corresponding period last fiscal. Total income of the bank rose 22.21% to Rs3,384.12 crore, against Rs2,768.89 crore in the same period last fiscal. It added that it has sought a further capital infusion of Rs700 crore from the union government. The bank has no plans for a follow-on public offer (FPO) in the near future, chairman and managing director S. Sridhar said at a Mumbai press conference. He added that the bank was close to completing its restructuring which involved the creation of several verticals to cover key business areas. “This restructuring will start reflecting from the fourth quarter onwards,” he said. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 30 Oct 2009 | 1:15 pm Status: in flesh and bloodThe idea of the event is to bring together concerned and thinking Facebook users from all walks of life,” said Sanjeev Chhiber, an organizer of Face to Face, one of the first large gatherings of Facebook users in India. “Combine that with the incentive of networking, and you see the sense in making the transition from virtual to real life,” added Chhiber, a surgical oncologist. A large number of Facebook users in other parts of the world have already made that transition through Facebook parties. Given Facebook’s popularity as the second most visited social networking site in India (with 8.63 million users according to ViziSense, an audience measurement service), it’s surprising that it hadn’t happened here earlier. But now, it seemed a small group of India’s growing number of Facebook users was finally ready to meet. The only difference was that they didn’t seem keen on calling it just a party.  Tie me down: During one game, women mummified their husbands with rolls of toilet paper. Madhu Kapparath/Mint Face to Face was conceived a little more than a month ago. A Delhi-based lawyer and a few friends suggested the idea to some of their friends. Word spread and soon they had a group of 25 people, most of them Facebook friends who’d never met in “real” life, who wanted to be part of the organizing committee. It included a surgeon, a few media professionals, traders, an architect, a chartered accountant and an assortment of other people. Each invited a few of their Facebook friends, who in turn invited theirs, until they’d gathered 1,000 participants. Then a “rigorous vetting process” took place, says Chhiber. “Since there are all sorts of people on Facebook.” The organizing committee went through the lists. Only those Facebook users known to two or more members were selected. The transition to real life wasn’t easy. Ideas and agendas for the evening, which had coexisted amicably on Facebook, pulled the event in different directions. One organizing committee member thought of the evening as a way to “network with like-minded people, influential in their own fields”. For Shilpi Jain, another member, the evening “was an opportunity to meet over 60 Facebook friends, who’d hopefully become friends for life”. Yet others, like Chhiber, had grander activist agendas. The only common denominator, as it turned out in the end, was Facebook. After registration, the participants drifted into smaller groups to various corners of the lawn. Little bursts of exultation rose at regular intervals as people recognized each other. At 7pm, the music kicked in and an emcee took over for a whirligig of party games designed to break the ice. Men and women gathered on stage to sing, dance and in one bizarre game, mummified their standing husbands with rolls of toilet paper. Some people sat chatting animatedly at their tables. R.V. Sharada Prasad, a columnist and corporate consultant, and Hartej Baksh Singh, an elderly IT consultant, were Facebook friends of different organizing committee members. This was the first time they were meeting. But they seemed to have plenty to talk about. As I sat chatting with them, another gentleman walked up to our table. He looked at a visiting card he was holding in one hand and then at Prasad. “You’re on my profile,” he said with manic enthusiasm, “You’re on my profile. I saw your photograph on your card, and I knew I wanted to meet you.” A look of recognition dawned on Prasad’s face and then a smile spread across it. Ten years of virtual friendship, first on a tech mailing list and then on Facebook, was finally for real. It was one of many such encounters. At another table, Govindaswamy Devaraj, a businessman from Chennai, was chatting with a few people. His Facebook profile proclaimed him a “goodwill ambassador”. It was perhaps in that capacity that he’d flown in from Chennai just for the event. “I’ve got over 600 friends on Facebook, but I don’t believe in just virtual friends,” he explained, “I’ve been discussing humanitarian issues with 15 Facebook friends from Delhi. I felt that I now wanted to meet them.”  Party games. Madhu Kapparath/Mint Sylvie, celebrity hairdresser and special invitee, seemed a little nonplussed. “I’m not really into all this, I’m on Facebook because one has to be on it,” she said, sighing. And then, either as an afterthought or explanation for why there weren’t more people around her, she added, “My hairstyle changes every day, so nobody would recognize me from my Facebook photograph.” But for most, it was a good, if slightly chaotic, start. “My Facebook friends have turned out to be much livelier than I’d expected,” said Manpreet Oberoi, a marketing consultant. “It was a good way of blending Western technology with the Indian emphasis on social interaction,” added Devaraj. Cartoonist Sudhir Tailang smiled mischievously when I asked him if the evening had been productive. “I might make a cartoon,” he said, “check tomorrow on Facebook.” The last time I checked, Tailang hadn’t got down to doing that cartoon. akshai.j@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 30 Oct 2009 | 1:14 pm Bajaj Hind eyes 37% in Balrampur ChiniShishir Bajaj-promoted Bajaj Hindusthan, Indias largest sugar producer, is in talks with its nearest competitor Balrampur Chini Mills to acquire the 36.67 per cent stake of the current promoters, the Kolkata-based Saraogis.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 30 Oct 2009 | 1:13 pm PepsiCo seeks FIPB nod to invest $200 million moreSoft drinks and foods major Pepsico India Holdings Pvt Ltd has applied to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIBP) to invest an additional $200 million (around Rs 950 crore) as equity in its Indian operations.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 30 Oct 2009 | 1:11 pm Essar in talks to buy 3 Shell refineriesEssar Oil is in talks with Royal Dutch Shell to buy two of its refineries in Germany and one in the UK.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 30 Oct 2009 | 1:08 pm Film Review | London Dreams and AladinLondon Dreams There’s a point in the story of London Dreams when Manjit (Salman Khan), a hard-boiled Punjabi from Bhatinda who has found sudden success as a rock star in Europe, is seduced into snorting cocaine and guzzling tequila shots. We see another such night of drugs in a nightclub, and in the very next scene, the rock star is in a drug rehabilitation clinic, shaking and whimpering!  Not so rocking: The members of London Dreams, a band in the film, are riven with jealousy. The story goes: Arjun (Ajay Devgan) and Manjit or Mannu are childhood friends who hang out in Bhatinda’s mustard fields. Mannu’s father is a musician, but Mannu is not interested in learning the art himself. He, it turns out later, is an untrained, natural singer. Arjun, on the other hand, is passionate about music, but his father doesn’t allow him to learn because Arjun’s grandfather, who was a Sufi musician, once went to perform in London’s Wembley stadium and was tongue-tied when he saw the huge crowd. Arjun runs away to London when he gets an opportunity. He plays the flute on the road and earns money to train as a musician, forms a band, London Dreams, with two Pakistani boys and Priya, a Tamilian (Asin). Mannu joins the band later, and predictably enough, steals Arjun’s thunder and his secret love Priya, who Mannu calls “Chennai Express”. It’s an expensive film, made with around Rs80 crore, and the money shows in the sweeping sets. As in his earlier films, Shah has made yet another big film—big, in the literal sense. The script and performances fall woefully short. There are some genuinely funny moments when Mannu is up to his son-of-the-soil antics, but unfortunately, most of the funny moments arise because of the ludicrous situations in the plot. For example, Arjun whips himself until he bleeds when Priya distracts him from his music, and when he plots against his friend to grab the limelight. Everyone in the audience laughed aloud when that happened. The two rock stars are too old to be true and laughable too; if you’re can’t be like Mick Jagger, you can’t pull off the sex-on-stage in your 40s. Devgan is a fine actor trapped by his persona—the dark, brooding hero, as we know him. In this film, he’s a caricature of that persona. His intensity is exaggerated and unconvincing. Asin has little to do except dance in the background when Mannu and Arjun take centre stage. Khan plays up to his real-life image—that of a generous, impetuous, comical star. If London Dreams works at the box office, it would largely be because of Khan’s star appeal. The music, by Shankar, Ehsaan and Loy, has variety as well as depth—one of the best this year. But it’s difficult to survive all 160 minutes of London Dreams just because of its music. Aladin Sujoy Ghosh’s Aladin was an anticipated film for the special effects that have gone into it—an entire fantasy town, genies vaporizing into life, magical human leaps and contortions. The film has all of that. Although the work can’t be compared with the best in this genre—the Harry Potter films, for example—the work is very competent; the best we have seen in a Hindi film so far. But Aladin’s charm lies in its story and characters. It’s not an original, but a mish-mash of the classic tale of Aladin and the magic lamp, and Harry Potter. Aladin Chatterjee (Riteish Deshmukh), a shy, simple fellow who just wants to be liked, lives alone in an antiquated house in Khwaish town after the death of his parents and grandfather. The boys in the town bully him because of his name. When Jasmine, (Jacqueline Fernandez), a beautiful girl, joins the college, Aladin is enraptured. Once, while being bullied by the other boys into rubbing a lamp, Genius, the genie (Amitabh Bachchan) appears. Aladin’s life changes for the better, but only until Ring Master, an evil wizard, comes looking for the lamp Aladin possesses. The story is not new, but making it Indian and contemporary is a challenge. Despite the fantasy, most scenes ring true. The humour is of the classic fairy-tale variety—you can’t help but chuckle when Aladin’s guitar turns into a multicoloured toad or when his face turns into a donkey’s. A role where Bachchan plays a benevolent protector with a rough exterior never works against him. In parts, his histrionics are loud, but overall he carries it off with great ease. Deshmukh holds up to Bachchan; he is best in the comic scenes where he is the laughing stock. Refreshingly enough, Dutt fits into the part of the villain, and he is better here than in most of the roles we have seen him in recently. Aladin is for everyone. But most of all, it’s a movie you want to take your children to. London Dreams and Aladin released in theatres on Friday. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Oct 2009 | 12:59 pm The myth of liberalization?  Illustration: Jayachandran / Mint The authors point out that while the rising importance of foreign and private firm activity is evident, the incumbents from the pre-reform period control nearly three-quarters of the economy. There’s more: The authors say that the average total assets of state-owned firms represented close to 70% of total assets in 1988-1990 and stood at around 60% by 2005. That shows the state still dominates the corporate sector, at least in terms of assets. So there has been change, but not a dramatic one. One reason could be the considerable government presence in sectors such as power, oil and gas and banking. Most of the big new entries have been in new industries, while established groups continued to dominate the older ones. The obvious conclusion: We need more reform. The authors point out that the continuing high levels of state ownership and ownership by traditional private firms in India “raise the question of whether existing resources could be allocated more efficiently and whether remaining barriers to competition jeopardize the effectiveness of reform measures that have been put in place”. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Oct 2009 | 12:53 pm Why you should be interested in the SKS IPOMint started life in a temporary office on the sixth floor of a high-rise in New Delhi’s Connaught Place. A state-owned company had moved out, leaving some basic furniture behind, and around 50 of us made do with what was available as our office on the 16th floor of the same building got ready. We spent some mornings discussing story ideas with the two-dozen reporters who had already joined and I remember mentioning at one such meeting that microfinance and cities would soon be entire beats unto themselves. Three years on, we cover microfinance but still haven’t bestowed beat status on it. We may soon have to. India’s best known microfinance company SKS Microfinance will go public sometime next year. The share sale, to my knowledge, will be the second by a microfinance company after Mexico’s Compartamos. I find the SKS initial public offering (IPO) interesting for a variety of reasons. As Nachiket Mor, head of the ICICI Foundation and one of the sharpest minds in finance (and other subjects) told a group of Mint editors in September, the SKS IPO will, in many ways, influence the future of the microfinance business in India. Like elsewhere in the world, there are two scenarios about this. And there are two business models underlying these scenarios. As first articulated by Connie Bruck in The New Yorker in late 2006—in a way that only the New Yorker can articulate—one model, best exemplified by Muhammad Yunus’ Grameen Bank, is built around the premise that microfinance needn’t be profitable and that it will continue to be powered by donors. The other is built around the premise that the business needs to be profitable to attract investors (much like limited partners, or LPs, fund venture capital and private equity firms). SKS is a good example of a company trying to follow the second model. Its challenge isn’t making the model work. It works and there’s enough proof from Compartamos’ financials and SKS’ to show that it does. Its challenge is to navigate a treacherous regulatory and political terrain. In India, microfinance has always been seen as some form of charity. So, a microfinance company that makes profits—and which could, some day, declare dividends for its shareholders—will be viewed with suspicion, not just by a section of the left-leaning press and polity, but even by others. If it manages to change this perception, SKS will find enough takers for its shares. After all, the company is well known. Its investors—most notably among them Vinod Khosla—are equally well known. And SKS founder Vikram Akula is, courtesy a mention in one of Time magazine’s listings of people who matter, even better known. SKS also happens to be profitable. So, the shares will likely be snapped up. Success, however, will engender its own set of problems. It will definitely encourage other microfinance companies to sell shares. And not all of these companies will be happy just to make profits from the business. Some, to borrow a term from SKS chief executive officer Suresh Gurumani, whom I met this week, will not be able to resist the temptation to profiteer. And the federal government, state governments and the Reserve Bank of India will then find it difficult not to regulate the business. I am also not convinced about the merits of a company such as SKS going public. There is, as several businessmen including Sir Richard Branson have discovered, a great deal to be said in favour of being a closely or privately held enterprise. I am, however, convinced that the company’s approach is the right one: Charity isn’t a great business model. R. Sukumar is editor of Mint and will write a weekly column for the newspaper. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Oct 2009 | 12:46 pm Britannia Industries enters milk-based drinks segmentIn order to expand its Rs.200-crore dairy products portfolio, the Bangalore-headquartered Britannia Industries launched a milk-based vitamin fortified drink targeting mainly children here Friday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 30 Oct 2009 | 12:05 pm Sensex falls fifth day straight, ends below 16,000 pointsA key Indian equity index Friday closed 0.97 percent down for the fifth consecutive day to end below 16,000 points.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 30 Oct 2009 | 12:05 pm Vodafone deal under taxman’s lens againNew Delhi: The income-tax department on Friday issued a notice to global telecom company Vodafone International Holdings BV, which marked the first step in its second attempt to levy a tax on the company’s $11.2 billion (Rs52,640 crore) purchase of a majority stake in Indian telecom company Hutch Essar Ltd. A tax department media statement said Vodafone had been issued a show-cause notice asking why Indian authorities did not have the jurisdictional right to tax the company. Vodafone has been asked to comply with the notice on 16 November, the statement said. The sequence of the second attempt to tax Vodafone mirrored the first attempt in 2007, which started when the tax department issued a show-cause notice. However, the developments of the first-round litigation between the tax department and Vodafone gave the department access to key features of the Vodafone’s transaction to buy Hutch Essar. Consequently, Friday’s show-cause notice assumed a different dimension. “This is a far different level of proceedings,” Mukesh Butani, partner, BMR Advisors, said. A Vodafone media release said: “Vodafone confirms it has received a show-cause notice from the tax department today. This development does not affect the strength of Vodafone’s position. Vodafone will be reviewing the document in detail and intends to respond to the tax department in due course. Vodafone is confident that no tax is payable on this transaction; and all of the taxation and legal advice received remains consistent with this view. Vodafone has cooperated fully with the tax department throughout the process, and will continue to do so.” Tax department officials had earlier identified the Vodafone case as a litmus test of the Indian government’s right to tax transactions which involve a transfer of substantial control in Indian assets. Vodafone paid $11.2 billion for a 67% stake of Hutchison Essar (since renamed Vodafone Essar) in 2007. The government approved the deal in May the same year. Hutchison, the seller, controlled its Indian subsidiary through a web of companies that finally led to a Cayman Islands-registered firm to receive the payment from Vodafone. The tax department felt the Cayman Islands transaction was essentially a transfer of an Indian asset and said that Vodafone should have deducted tax at source when it paid Hutchison. In 2007, Vodafone received a show-cause notice asking it why it had not done this. Following this, the company approached the Bombay high court. The case was significant on account of the tax amount involved (around $2 billion) and the precedent it could set for taxation of transactions which involve transfer of Indian assets but are concluded overseas. The tax incidence makes this “perhaps the highest tax matter in the country,” N.B Singh, former chairman of the Central Board of Direct Taxes, had said in December. Vodafone did not indicate if it would wait for a tax demand to be raised by a tax assessing officer before it took the next step. According to Butani, the company does not have to wait for a demand to be raised before it approaches the judiciary. “They can challenge even before the demand is raised,” Butani said. Shauvik Ghosh contributed to this story. sanjiv.s@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Oct 2009 | 12:05 pm JK Tyre doubles production capacity at MysoreTyre major JK Tyre commissioned its new truck and bus radial tyre plant in Mysore Friday, and said it had doubled its annual production capacity to 800,000 units on an outlay of Rs.315 crore.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 30 Oct 2009 | 12:04 pm Berger Paints net up by 21 percentPaints major Berger's net profit went up 20.7 percent to Rs.35 crore during the second quarter this fiscal, as against Rs.29 crore that it posted a year ago, the company said Friday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 30 Oct 2009 | 12:04 pm Bharti Airtel launches Freedom PlanBharti Airtel, Asias leading integrated telecom service provider, today launched the Freedom Plan for its customers. With the launch of this plan, Airtel customers will have the freedom of choosing from a variety of plans based on their usage and calling patterns.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 30 Oct 2009 | 12:00 pm PM's alma mater gets Rs.20 crore grant in 2009-10Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's alma mater Panjab University here has received a Rs.20 crore grant for the expansion of higher education and infrastructure development in 2009-10, an official said Friday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 30 Oct 2009 | 12:00 pm New crowd-puller: branded flash mobsMumbai: On a busy weekend at the Great India Place mall in Delhi suburb Noida, time stood still as 100 people dressed in Allen Solly’s new range of casual clothing froze for seven whole minutes as passers-by gawked, poked and prodded the models to see if they were, in fact, real.  Show stoppers: Apparel brand Allen Solly got 100 live models to stand still at Noida’s Great India Place mall, taking shoppers by surprise. “It was (a) great idea for visual merchandising. All these smartly dressed models just froze in the middle of whatever they were doing at the mall. Whether it was drinking coffee, applying make-up, talking on the phone or walking. So shoppers were a little startled at first, but figured things out when they saw the Allen Solly tags,” said Vinod Vijaykumar, general manager (south and west) of Tequila, part of TBWA Group. The flash mob strategy allowed the brand to showcase 100 different garment pieces at the same time, he added. “Something you can’t even do at a fashion show.” A flash mob typically refers to a group of people who suddenly assemble in a public place, perform an unusual action for a brief period and then disperse quickly. Brands use flash mobs to reach consumers when they least expect it. Not only is it a cost-effective tool for brands looking to reach small but focused target groups but it can also be tactically deployed across locations to generate tremendous word of mouth publicity. No surprise, then, that several brands such as Colors, Shoppers Stop, 7Up and Channel [V] have already used it. Take Reliance BIG Pictures, for instance, which used flash mobs to promote its film Do Knot Disturb in New Delhi early this month. The brand hired dancers, all dressed like regular shoppers, to walk into malls and perform live to the music of the film. “The response was phenomenal, we would have touched close to 20,000 consumers across a span of three days,” said Sweta Agnihotri, COO of BIG Music, which spent close to Rs2.5 lakh on the activity. The company also had a group perform small, live trailers for the movie across Mumbai. “We received close to three times our investment in media coverage,”said Girish Shah, head of branding at the Reliance-Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group and chief marketing officer of the group’s filmed entertainment business, explaining that the videos of the campaign, uploaded on Rediff.com, got at least 40,000 hits. Similarly, Channel [V] hired a group of young dancers to take off their shirts in the middle of a mall (they were wearing branded T-shirts underneath) and start dancing. The idea was to communicate “Channel [V] is changing”, said VJ Manish Anand.  Star power: Allu Arjun promoted 7Up at Hyderabad’s Central Mall. “It is a potent weapon when the proposition is leveraged properly. It (the flash mob and activity) should have an element of surprise,” said Praveen Vadhera, country head for 141 Wall Street, the out-of-home service division of Bates Group Ltd, citing the example of Kurkure, the Pepsi Foods Pvt. Ltd snack which used street plays to communicate its new range of spicy munchies by hiring actors who would burst into flames in the middle of a crowded street. Colors, the Hindi general entertainment channel from Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd, had flash mobs in 20 cities in India to promote the third season of reality show Bigg Boss. “We had groups of people wearing the Bigg Boss eye masks get onto trains and walk through stations... at one point, it was quite funny to see women commuters getting off at a station wearing these masks, advertising our show for free!” said Rameet Singh Arora, head of marketing at Colors. However, flash mobs can be a little difficult to execute as such large gatherings are illegal in public spaces, say experts. In 2003, following a flash mob in the city, the Mumbai police invoked section 37(1) of the Bombay Police Act to regulate any gathering or crowd in a public place without prior permission. Under the law, an assembly of five or more people construes a crowd. “In a mall (it) is different, but the minute it is on a road or (in) a public area, they would need permission to gather, which kind of defeats the purpose of a flash mob,” said Javed Ahmad, additional director general of police, Maharashtra. Cities such as Ahmedabad, Bangalore and New Delhi have also enacted similar bans within the city limits, according to media reports. Brands, therefore, tend to gravitate towards malls for such campaigns. More recently, 7Up organized a flash mob in Andhra Pradesh to promote its talent hunt with actor Allu Arjun. Thirty dancers walked into Hyderabad’s Central Mall and performed a song from Arjun’s latest film. It took a few minutes for the crowd to realize that one of the dancers in the group was Arjun. Experts maintain that advertisers are increasingly looking at such strategies to reach consumers. “Earlier, the percentage used to be dismal. Advertisers would spend up to 90% on ATL (above the line) advertising and 10% on BTL (below the line). Recently, there has been a skew toward BTL, with advertisers now looking to spend up to 25% of their ad budget on BTL,” said 141 Wall Street’s Vadhera, adding that the economic slowdown had forced advertisers to look at newer, more cost-effective ways of reaching target consumers. According to industry estimates, hiring a troupe of six actors would cost a brand approximately Rs15,000 per day. gouri.s@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Oct 2009 | 11:59 am Pantaloon Retail gets board approval for recastMumbai: The country’s largest shopping chain by market value, Pantaloon Retail (India) Ltd, said its board has approved spinning off Big Bazaar and Food Bazaar into a new subsidiary, Future Value Retail, to raise capital. The flagship company of the Kishore Biyani-led Future Group has 119 Big Bazaar stores in more than 70 cities in India, and plans to expand this to 275 by 2014. The firm also has approval to consolidate its interests in Future Capital Holdings Ltd and insurance joint venture companies into a single entity, it said in a statement on Friday. Its board has also approved the transfer of non-allied retail businesses such as Future Brands Ltd, Future Knowledge Services Ltd and Future Learning and Development Ltd to PFH Entertainment Ltd, a promoter company. “We had invested Rs90 crore in these businesses and are now getting Rs190 crore for its sale. The promoter company will grow these businesses,” said B. Anand, chief financial officer, Pantaloon Retail to Mint. “In order to unlock more value for the shareholders, the management had proposed to independently govern and build these businesses, while retaining the character of Pantaloon Retail as a pure retail play, focusing on retail businesses,” Biyani, Pantaloon’s managing director, said in a statement. Mint had reported earlier in October that Biyani would consolidate the 22 companies in the group into three verticals—retail, logistics and financial services—which would be controlled by the promoters through a main holding company. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Oct 2009 | 11:16 am India, China are jewels of the networkMumbai: Advertising veteran and chairman of Ogilvy and Mather Worldwide, Shelly Lazarus, has spent more than three decades in the industry, most of this time at David Ogilvy’s agency. India and China are the jewels of the network, she said in an interview during her recent visit to the country. Edited excerpts: It’s been a terrible year for the economy. Has Ogilvy and Mather (O&M) Worldwide been affected?  Quite balanced: Lazarus says the firm has been affected by the downturn but it hasn’t been catastrophic and managing well outside the US. Prajakt Patil / Hindustan Times Do you have plans to bring Mather as a separate brand to India? We are talking about it. The reason, of course, is to handle more conflicting clients. The thought has been to have Mather here as a strong brand which will have Ogilvy-trained people but in a different environment. It could be a smaller, nimbler outfit. Then again in the US, we have an agency called Soho Square. This agency is a possibility too as a second agency to Ogilvy here. What are the new initiatives for India? Will the alliance with data analytics firm MarketShare Partners (MSP) come into play here? We are developing a whole new practice called “Digital Influence”. This practice doesn’t just judge what content is out there but maps out who’s saying what. You can tell an advertiser, these are the bloggers you need to worry about and reach out to because they influence everybody else. We’ve begun this in Washington DC and will be rolling it out in other markets, including India. The truth is that data analytics has become a lot more sophisticated and it’s not about looking at a few AC Nielsen charts any more. We are looking at how we can bring our data analytics alliance into play in India; but these are early days as yet. Is O&M losing ground in terms of its reputation as a creative agency? BBDO has outranked it in Asia-Pacific, according to a recent Cannes report? I am not sure whether award shows always reflect the quality of work but it certainly is one measure. We continue with the Ogilvy policy of Divine Discontent. Even if we were No. 1 (as per the Cannes report), we would continue to focus on our work. We are doing an interesting campaign presently for Copenhagen. We were awarded this business by the United Nations to enlist people that would influence elected officials on passing an agreement on climate change in Copenhagen. We won this with a simple concept (we replaced the first letter with an H), so it becomes Hopenhagen. So, yes, we continue with a maniacal focus on quality of work, in spite of the Cannes report. Omnicom is said to be chasing the Unilever business in this market. Ogilvy Worldwide has a 360 degree orientation. While others talk about it, we actually do it. Everyone’s been buying direct marketing agencies and public relations companies. But we’ve grown much more the organic route. We (Ogilvy and WPP) put all the pieces together and bring a solution to the client. And that’s quite different from the way Omnicom works. They (Omnicom) have all these specialized disciplines that never work together. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Oct 2009 | 11:10 am Delhi Metro makes trial runs to all stations till NoidaThe Delhi Metro Friday conducted successful trial runs of its service between Yamuna Bank station in the national capital and 10 newly-built stations across the river and Noida township in neighbouring Uttar Pradesh.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 30 Oct 2009 | 10:08 am Airtel launches one second pulse planTelecom service provider Bharti Airtel Friday launched a per second billing plan.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 30 Oct 2009 | 10:08 am Himalya net profit rises to Rs.8.78 croreHimachal Pradesh-based food processing company Himalya International Friday said its net profit for the quarter ended Sep 30 rose to Rs.8.78 crore from Rs.6.47 crore in the like period last year.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 30 Oct 2009 | 10:05 am Experts debate the sustainability of FMCG growth in IndiaIn an interview to CNBCTV18, Kurush Grant, Chief Executive Officer of the Tobacco Division at ITC and Sunil Dugal, Chief Executive Officer of Dabur spoke about how sustainable FMCG growth is and about the consumer demand backing that growth.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 30 Oct 2009 | 9:00 am Vishni Dusad: Lean ThinkingVishni Dusad: Lean ThinkingSource: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 30 Oct 2009 | 4:13 am Clash of civilizations: Ashok Leyland\'s revival strategyUnder R. Seshasayee, truck maker Ashok Leyland became efficient but forgot how to grow. Today, a new breed of young leaders is helping him put together a survival strategy.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 30 Oct 2009 | 4:13 am
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