Banks may be fined for levying prepayment fee

The Competition Commission of India (CCI) has declared prepayment banks charge on loans as “anticompetitive”, say sources, and may impose a fine on banks for levying the fee.
Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jan 2010 | 8:14 am

Govt allows power cos to bid for add\'l UMPP with caveat

The government has allowed a single company to bid for a fourth ultra mega power project (UMPP) provided it has completed one out of three UMPPs it has on hand.
Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jan 2010 | 6:43 am

Oil cos hike jet fuel prices by 6.5%

Public sector undertaking (PSU) oil companies is going to hike ATF (aviation turbine fuel) prices by average Rs 2,616 per kilolitre today (on Saturday), reports CNBCTV18.
Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jan 2010 | 6:29 am

Suzlon bags wind turbine order from Swedish co

Wind turbine maker Suzlon Energy said on Saturday its oversease arm won an order from Swedish wind power developer and consultant Triventus AB.
Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jan 2010 | 6:28 am

SMEs ride the Metro boom

For many small entrepreneurs around India, growth and prosperity come riding on the Delhi Metro
Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jan 2010 | 5:32 am

Suzlon bags order for 4.2 MW from Sweden co Triventus AB

Suzlon Wind Energy A/S (SWEAS), the international business arm of Suzlon Energy Limited – broke new ground with its first order in Sweden.
Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jan 2010 | 5:18 am

TRAI seeks industry comments on FDI hike

India\'s telecom regulator on Friday issued a consultancy paper seeking suggestions from the industry on hiking foreign investment limit in the broadcasting sector.
Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jan 2010 | 3:47 am

Kuldip Singh takes over as MTNL chairman

Kuldip Singh, currently a director with Indian staterun Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd, has been appointed as the acting chairman and managing director of the company, effective Friday.
Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 16 Jan 2010 | 3:47 am

Provide credit to women SHGs at 4 pc: President tells RBI

President Pratibha Patil on Saturday asked the Reserve Bank to consider evolving a mechanism to give loans to women Self-Help Groups, particularly those comprising members below the poverty line, at not more than four per cent annually.
Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 16 Jan 2010 | 3:14 am

Markets end week in green on IT, PSU shares rally

Mumbai: Markets ended on a positive note for the fourth week as the Sensex gained 14 points to reach 17,554.30 following a sharp rise in IT shares on the back of higher earnings reported by Infosys.
Public sector stocks too ended with gains on renewed support from investors following talks of stake sale in some of them. Small-cap and mid-cap shares also moved up on persistent buying.
However, banking shares became the major losers of the week on fears that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) might tighten monetary policy due to a likely surge in inflation.
The BSE 30-share barometer Sensex ended higher by 14.01 points, or 0.08%, to settle at 17,554.30 against last weekend’s close of 17,540.29.
The BSE IT index rose by 446.26 points, or 9%, after encouraging third quarter results from Infosys, which registered a gain of 8.56% in its share prices.
India’s largest software services exporter TCS firmed up by 13.03%, while third-largest IT services exporter Wirpo shot up 9.80%.
The BSE small cap index outperformed the Sensex, rising by 272.82 points, or 3.14%, while the mid-cap index shot up 104.41 points, or 1.50%. The BSE PSU index vaulted by 204.42 points, or 2.10%.
The BSE dollex-200 and dollex-100 firmed up by 3.03% and 2.89%, respectively.
However, the BSE bankex dropped by 230.28 points, or 2.27%, followed by the BSE metal index, which fell 138.91 points, or 0.77%, and BSE FMCG, which lost 51.50 points, or 1.81%.
The NSE 50-share Nifty edged up further by 7.45 points, or 0.14%, to end the week at 5,252.20 from last weekend’s level of 5,244.75.
Index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) rose by 0.66%.
India’s largest power equipment maker by sales BHEL lost 2.15%, while the country’s largest engineering and construction firm by sales Larsen and Toubro fell 1.52%. Hindalco dropped by 3.84% and Sterlite dipped 3.70%.
Among banks, SBI slipped by 6.25%, ICICI Bank by 3.74% and HDFC Bank by 1.32%.
During the week, the trading volume on the BSE fell to Rs31,229.62 cr from last weekend’s level of Rs33,023.59 crore, while the NSE improved further to Rs89,728.33 crore from Rs87,862.28 crore earlier.

Source: Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jan 2010 | 2:42 am

Markets end week in green on IT, PSU shares rally

Mumbai: Markets ended on a positive note for the fourth week as the Sensex gained 14 points to reach 17,554.30 following a sharp rise in IT shares on the back of higher earnings reported by Infosys.
Public sector stocks too ended with gains on renewed support from investors following talks of stake sale in some of them. Small-cap and mid-cap shares also moved up on persistent buying.
However, banking shares became the major losers of the week on fears that the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) might tighten monetary policy due to a likely surge in inflation.
The BSE 30-share barometer Sensex ended higher by 14.01 points, or 0.08%, to settle at 17,554.30 against last weekend’s close of 17,540.29.
The BSE IT index rose by 446.26 points, or 9%, after encouraging third quarter results from Infosys, which registered a gain of 8.56% in its share prices.
India’s largest software services exporter TCS firmed up by 13.03%, while third-largest IT services exporter Wirpo shot up 9.80%.
The BSE small cap index outperformed the Sensex, rising by 272.82 points, or 3.14%, while the mid-cap index shot up 104.41 points, or 1.50%. The BSE PSU index vaulted by 204.42 points, or 2.10%.
The BSE dollex-200 and dollex-100 firmed up by 3.03% and 2.89%, respectively.
However, the BSE bankex dropped by 230.28 points, or 2.27%, followed by the BSE metal index, which fell 138.91 points, or 0.77%, and BSE FMCG, which lost 51.50 points, or 1.81%.
The NSE 50-share Nifty edged up further by 7.45 points, or 0.14%, to end the week at 5,252.20 from last weekend’s level of 5,244.75.
Index heavyweight Reliance Industries (RIL) rose by 0.66%.
India’s largest power equipment maker by sales BHEL lost 2.15%, while the country’s largest engineering and construction firm by sales Larsen and Toubro fell 1.52%. Hindalco dropped by 3.84% and Sterlite dipped 3.70%.
Among banks, SBI slipped by 6.25%, ICICI Bank by 3.74% and HDFC Bank by 1.32%.
During the week, the trading volume on the BSE fell to Rs31,229.62 cr from last weekend’s level of Rs33,023.59 crore, while the NSE improved further to Rs89,728.33 crore from Rs87,862.28 crore earlier.

Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jan 2010 | 2:42 am

Alibaba slams Yahoo's statement on Google

SHANGHAI (Reuters) - China's largest e-commerce firm Alibaba Group, in which Yahoo Inc owns a 40 percent stake, has called the search giant's comments on Google "reckless".

Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Jan 2010 | 2:34 am

JAL agrees tie-up deal with Delta - Yomiuri

TOKYO (Reuters) - Japan Airlines (JAL) has agreed on a tie-up with Delta Air Lines that will mean JAL joins the SkyTeam airline alliance, dropping its membership of the Oneworld alliance, a Japanese newspaper said on Saturday.

Source: Reuters: Money News | 16 Jan 2010 | 2:07 am

SMEs ride the Metro boom - Moneycontrol.com


Stock Market Today
SMEs ride the Metro boom
Moneycontrol.com
From train tokens to ear tags that track the medical history of cattle to prevent the mad cow disease in Europe. For Noida-based radio-frequency identification (RFID) company, APK Identification, the journey has been eventful indeed. ...
Metro to start trial runs on Gurgaon lineTimes of India
Delhi needs 400 km of Metro rail, has 90 kmHindustan Times
Gurgaon feels the change as Metro inches closerEconomic Times
Hindustan Times ePaper -NetIndian -Press Trust of India
all 15 news articles »

Source: Business - Google News | 16 Jan 2010 | 1:50 am

Scenarios What happens next

Google Inc jolted investors and China this week by threatening to quit the Communist Party-run nation over censorship and hacking, and both sides are tight-lipped about what they expect to happen next.
Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:41 am

Yahoo knew of attacks before Google kept mum

Yahoo Inc knew it had been a target to sophisticated Chinese cyber attacks on US corporations before Google alerted the company to them, a source familiar with the matter said, but chose to remain silent after its bigger rival went public.

Scenarios: What happens next


Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:37 am

SEBI bars SocGen from overseas transactions - Times of India


Business Standard
SEBI bars SocGen from overseas transactions
Times of India
MUMBAI: India's markets regulator has barred Societe Generale from conducting new transactions in offshore derivatives instruments until such time as it complies with the country's reporting requirements. In a notification late on Friday, ...
SocGen faces Sebi heat on PNsEconomic Times
SEBI bars Societe Generale from issuing ODIsdomain-B
Sebi bans Societe Generale from issuing PNsBusiness Standard
Financial Express -Indian Express -Livemint
all 25 news articles »

Source: Business - Google News | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:29 am

3 killed in train collision near Tundla

New Delhi: Amid thick fog, the Kalindi Express train rammed into Kanpur-bound Shram Shakti Express near Tundla junction in Uttar Pradesh on Saturday morning, killing three people and injuring more than 14.
The Ministry of Railways has ordered an inquiry into the train mishap and rushed a three-member team to the accident site.
Commissioner, Railway Safety, PK Vajpayee will conduct the probe into the incident and submit a report, North-Central Railway spokesperson RD Vajpai said.
The Bhiwani-Kanpur Central Kalindi Express hit the stationary Kanpur-bound Shram Shakti Express from behind near Nitawali-Tundla crossing at around 8.15 am.
Officials said according to preliminary reports, thick fog was believed to be the cause of the accident.
Railway minister Mamata Banerjee directed three senior officials to rush to the mishap site, Ministry spokesperson Anil Kumar Saxena said.
The three are Railway Board Member (Mechanical) Praveen Kumar, director general of railway health services VK Ramteke and additional member (Signal and Telecom) KB Sharma.

Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:21 am

Suzuki to end hybrid development with GM

Suzuki Motor Corp said it would end joint development projects with General Motors for hybrid and fuel-cell technologies as part of an operational review following its alliance with Volkswagen AG.
Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:19 am

SEBI bars SocGen from overseas transactions

India's markets regulator has barred Societe Generale from conducting new transactions in offshore derivatives instruments until such time as it complies with the country's reporting requirements.
Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:14 am

Asian emerging markets lead yet fragile global recovery IMF

Led by emerging market economies, especially in Asia, the global economy is recovering significantly faster than previously expected, but growth is still dependent in most advanced economies on government stimulus measures, the IMF has said.
Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:10 am

IE flaws led to Google hack - Times of India


CBC.ca
IE flaws led to Google hack
Times of India
The Chinese managed to hack Google accounts of human activists and many businesses as they took advantage of vulnerabilities in Microsoft's Internet Explorer (IE) browser which were previously unknown, according to reports. Google has threatened to ...
Yahoo had talks with Google about China attacksReuters
Google Denies Media Reports on Closure of China Site, OfficeBloomberg
Yahoo Was Target in Hacker AttackWall Street Journal
New York Times -BBC News -Washington Post
all 8,015 news articles »

Source: Business - Google News | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:09 am

Ill treatment of Air Deccan pains me says Capt Gopinath

Captain GR Gopinath has expressed apparent anguish over the way the low-cost carrier Air Deccan that he founded was treated after its acquisition by Vijay Mallya-promoted UB Group’s Kingfisher.
Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:01 am

Tata Consultancy net profit up 34% on rising IT spends

Riding on the back of a revival in IT spend across industries and geographies, the country's largest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services, beat market expectations to report a 34 per cent rise in net profit for the third quarter ended
Source: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am

Centre limits mega power projects to 3 per company

The Union Government has decided to limit the number of Ultra Mega Power Projects (UMPPs) awarded to a single company to a maximum of three
Source: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am

Disinvestment talks trigger buying in PSUs

Shares of Government-owned companies gained between 5 and 20 per cent on Friday on talks of stake sales in some of
Source: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am

Cabinet panel to take up soon SAIL stake-sale plan

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) will soon take up the Steel Ministry's proposal to offload 10 per cent stake in Steel Authority of
Source: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am

Top IT cos may vie for ‘e-migrate' project

Emigration from India could soon be a much smoother affair thanks to ‘e-migrate', a Rs 100-crore automation project envisaged by the Ministry of Overseas Indian
Source: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am

3G winners may not be allowed to merge

To ensure competition in the third generation mobile segment, the Department of Telecom is likely to impose a ban on mergers between operators who win the auction to be held later this year. Though the number of players to allotted spectrum is
Source: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am

Ruchi Soya takes farm land on lease in Ethiopia

Ruchi Soya Industries, one of the leading edible oil processors, on Friday announced a major farm land acquisition in Ethiopia for soybean cultivation.
Source: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am

NIIT Tech Q3 net doubles

NIIT Technologies Ltd said its consolidated net profit for the December quarter has more than doubled on the back of an improving business
Source: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am

Fog conditions moving to the East

Fog conditions are now moving to the east of the country with Assam and adjoining eastern parts of the Indo-Gangetic plains forecast to be brought under cover over the next two
Source: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am

No real relief from food inflation until July

Food inflation that has stayed at elevated levels for a length of time, eating into the already fragile purchasing power of the aam aadmi, is unlikely to abate anytime soon. The Government has clearly been unequal to the task of quickly fighting
Source: Business Line - Home Page | 16 Jan 2010 | 12:00 am

Suzlon wins wind turbine order from Swedish firm

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Wind turbine maker Suzlon Energy said on Saturday its oversease arm won an order from Swedish wind power developer and consultant Triventus AB.

Source: Reuters: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:59 pm

NAVs end mixed banking FMCG pharma funds advance - Moneycontrol.com


Indian Express
NAVs end mixed banking FMCG pharma funds advance
Moneycontrol.com
Equity diversified NAVs ended mixed with advance:decline ratio of 116:126, as the benchmark Sensex closed flat with negative bias after seeing volatility throughout the session. Profit booking was seen in metal, PSU banking, oil & gas, capital goods ...
Sensex stagnant, foreign investors pump in $ 981 mn (Weekly market review)Sify
Weekly update: Tired Sensex stays staticIndia Infoline.com
Weekly Review: Rally in IT, PSU shares helps markets end week in greenBusiness Standard
Economic Times -Times of India -Reuters
all 223 news articles »

Source: Business - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:59 pm

Johnson amp Johnson issues massive recall of Tylenol

Johnson & Johnson issued a massive recall of over-the-counter drugs including Tylenol, Motrin and St Joseph's aspirin because of a moldy smell that has made people sick. It included caplet and geltab products sold in the Americas, the United Arab Emirates, and Fiji.
Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:51 pm

Shinsei may sell Indian JV to Daiwa - newspaper

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Japan's Shinsei Bank and Indian billionaire investor Rakesh Jhunjhunwala may sell their Indian mutual fund joint venture to Japan's Daiwa for about $10 million, two senior bankers told the Economic Times.

Source: Reuters: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:41 pm

Suzuki to end hybrid development with General Motors

Suzuki had relied on General Motors, once its top shareholder, for help in developing hybrid and fuel-cell technologies.
Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:40 pm

Bloomberg-UTV Autocar Car of the Year 2010 Winners - Techtree.com


Seattle Post Intelligencer
Bloomberg-UTV Autocar Car of the Year 2010 Winners
Techtree.com
Why - The tiny, twin-cylinder four-door Nano represents a history-making attempt by Tata Motors. When the Nano was launched, people asked is it really a proper car? After all nobody in the world had ever designed and launched a car for one-lakh rupees. ...
Even at double the price, Nano to still be cheapest car in USIndian Express
US Customers to Preview Nano Next WeekCarTradeIndia.com
Nano's price tag may double in US marketsNDTV.com
Pune Mirror -Rediff -Stock Watch
all 262 news articles »

Source: Business - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:34 pm

Ill-treatment of Air Deccan pains me: Captain Gopinath

It was no secret that Capt Gopinath was not happy with Kingfisher's move to abandon the low-cost model. Air Deccan was reincarnated as Kingfisher Red.
Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:28 pm

Kraft's Rosenfeld seen raising Cadbury bid

Kraft is expected to raise its $17.1 billion (£10.5 billion) bid for Cadbury Plc by a Tuesday deadline in its final offer for the British chocolatier.
Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:27 pm

Jubilant FoodWorks ropes in anchor investors, gets Rs 44 Cr - Moneycontrol.com


The Hindu
Jubilant FoodWorks ropes in anchor investors, gets Rs 44 Cr
Moneycontrol.com
Jubilant FoodWorks, the market leader in organised pizza home delivery segment in India (Source: The Food Franchising Report, 2009 published by CIFTI, FICCI) has received bids for 3060510 equity shares at a price of Rs 145 (the upper end of the price ...
Jubilant Foodworks IPO to hit markets on January 18, 2010Equity Bulls
Domino's to go onlineFinancial Express
Jubiliant Foodworks fixes IPO bandEconomic Times
BloombergUTV -TopNews -Bloomberg
all 30 news articles »

Source: Business - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:25 pm

Oil PSUs to get Rs 12000 cr from finance ministry - NDTV.com


Rediff
Oil PSUs to get Rs 12000 cr from finance ministry
NDTV.com
PTI The finance ministry on Friday agreed to give just over Rs 12000 crore in cash to state-run fuel retailers to cover for their losses in the current fiscal, a far cry from Rs 29405 crore they were seeking. The finance ministry sent a letter to the ...
Loss making oil PSUs to get Rs. 12000-cr compensationThe Hindu
Oil firms may get Rs 12000-cr compensation from Finance MinistryHindu Business Line
Oil firms may be given Rs.12000 crore compensationSify
Economic Times -Times of India -Calcutta Telegraph
all 170 news articles »

Source: Business - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:23 pm

NBC's talk show wars seen as PR disaster for all

NBC's late-night woes have become the biggest drama on US television as comedians and TV executives trade increasingly bitter barbs in public.
Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:18 pm

Sebi bars SocGen from overseas transactions

Sebi said SocGen which operates in India as a foreign institutional investor, had wrongly reported certain transactions.
Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:08 pm

SEBI bars SocGen from overseas transactions

MUMBAI (Reuters) - Markets regulator has barred Societe Generale (SocGen) from conducting new transactions in offshore derivatives instruments until such time as it complies with the country's reporting requirements.

Source: Reuters: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 10:02 pm

Yahoo knew of attacks before Google, kept mum

The two Internet search and email providers had discussed a highly coordinated attack originating in China prior to Google's high-profile announcement on Tuesday.
Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 9:10 pm

Suzuki to end hybrid development with GM

TOKYO (Reuters) - Suzuki Motor Corp said it would end joint development projects with General Motors for hybrid and fuel-cell technologies as part of an operational review following its alliance with Volkswagen AG.

Source: Reuters: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 8:49 pm

Realty cos check into service apartments, add keys

Rebound in corporate bookings has put a raft of service apartments back in green after a meltdown season.
Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 8:48 pm

Heli-hop above all traffic woes

With streets clogged with traffic, and road space blocked off by the Metro project, many now look to the skies as a viable route out of the traffic mess.
Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 8:45 pm

JPMorgan loan losses overshadow higher Q4 profit

NEW YORK (Reuters) - JPMorgan Chase & Co reported deep losses on mortgage and credit card loans in the fourth quarter, damping hopes that consumer credit is on the mend.

Source: Reuters: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 7:31 pm

DEALTALK - Kraft's Rosenfeld seen raising Cadbury bid

CHICAGO/LONDON (Reuters) - Kraft Foods chief Irene Rosenfeld has a long weekend ahead of her and may leave Cadbury shareholders unsatisfied at the end of it.

Source: Reuters: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 6:55 pm

For B-schoolers, jobs in India appeal more

Ratan Tata is their hero, India the hotspot for work and McKinsey the dream company they'd like to work for.
Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 15 Jan 2010 | 5:35 pm

Wall St Week Ahead: Earnings growth takes center stage

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Profits from top U.S. technology companies like IBM and financial companies like Goldman Sachs Group Inc next week could help stocks gain as long as investors see room for more profit growth.

Source: Reuters: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:17 pm

Defendant in Galleon case may be near plea

NEW YORK (Reuters) - Federal prosecutors may be close to obtaining a plea agreement with an eighth defendant in the widening Galleon hedge fund probe.

Source: Reuters: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 4:08 pm

TCS beats the Street with 34% rise in Q3 net - Economic Times


The Hindu
TCS beats the Street with 34% rise in Q3 net
Economic Times
MUMBAI: India's biggest software exporter, Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), on Friday reported better-than-expected earnings and joined rival Infosys in signalling that the worst may be over for the country's $60-billion IT and back-office services ...
TCS performs spectacularly in Q3: CEOCIOL
TCS third quarter net up 33.9%Business Standard
TCS beats expectations, Q3 net up 34%NDTV.com
Calcutta Telegraph -Moneycontrol.com -The Hindu
all 117 news articles »

Source: Business - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:26 pm

US FTC ruling may impact generics industry: Glenmark

The recent ruling by the Federal Trade Commission may impact the generics industry. So says Glenn Saldanha, MD and CEO of Glenmark. In an interview with CNBCTV18, Saldanha spoke about the recent FTC ruling, revenue kickers and outlicensing deals in 2010.
Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 15 Jan 2010 | 3:09 pm

Lyondell must weigh Reliance Industries offer, creditors tell court

Lyondell indicates it will seek more time to win acceptance for its current plan, which excludes Reliance Industries.
Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:29 pm

Robust loans lift HDFC Bank profit up 32%

Demand for bank loans in India has been sluggish, but the New York-listed HDFC Bank's focus on retail loans has helped it do well.
Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 15 Jan 2010 | 2:26 pm

\'IT spends to gain momentum through 2010\'

John McCarthy, VP Principal Analyst, Forrester Research believes that the upbeat TCS and Infy numbers reflect the beginning of clients starting to unfreeze budgets.
Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:49 pm

IDBI Bank Q3 profit surges 29%

State-run IDBI Bank on Friday said its net profit rose 29% to Rs 287.1 crore for the quarter ended December 31, 2009, over the same period previous fiscal.
Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:13 pm

Nacil being short-changed on land?

At a time when Nacil is in the red and various avenues are being explored to raise money, there are charges that the airline is being short-changed on a valuable asset - land.
Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:10 pm

Asian emerging markets lead yet fragile global recovery IMF

Led by emerging market economies, especially in Asia, the global economy is recovering significantly faster than previously expected, but growth is still dependent in most advanced economies on government stimulus measures, the IMF has said.
Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 15 Jan 2010 | 1:05 pm

Anil Ambani firm leads race for MGM

Reliance Entertainment, the media and entertainment arm of the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group, could well be the frontrunner in the race to acquire Hollywood studio Metro Goldwyn Mayer (MGM), given the very low bids the debt-laden film studio is reported to have received.
Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:57 pm

NHAI chief's post gets a makeover

The NHAI chairman's post has become lucrative for top bureaucrats after the Cabinet approved to raise the retirement age to 65 years from the present limit of 62 years.
Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:51 pm

EIL stake sale in Jul-Sept, to mop up Rs 1200cr

State-owned consultants Engineers India Ltd is likely to hit the market with a follow-on public offer in the early part of the July-September quarter and the government could mop up some Rs 1,200 crore from sale of 10% stake.
Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:48 pm

'Examine RIL bid evaluation'

Lyondell Chemical Co.'s unsecured creditors want a court-appointed examiner to investigate how the chemical maker is evaluating a bid from RIL.
Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:39 pm

HDFC Bank and Axis post handsome profits

Mumbai: Rising demand for loans from individuals and companies in the world’s second fastest growing major economy and higher fee income led to healthy profit growth for two of India’s leading private sector lenders—HDFC Bank Ltd and Axis Bank Ltd—that announced their December quarter earnings on Friday.
In sync: HDFC Bank executive director Paresh Sukthankar. Bloomberg
In sync: HDFC Bank executive director Paresh Sukthankar. Bloomberg
HDFC Bank, the second largest private sector bank by assets, posted a 31.6% growth in its net profit to Rs818.5 crore while Axis Bank’s net profit growth has been 30.97% (Rs655.98 crore) for the quarter ended December.
HDFC Bank shares rose marginally 0.33% to close at Rs1,691 apiece on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Friday and that of Axis Bank rose 1.52% to close at Rs1,078.20, even as the exchange’s benchmark index, the Sensex, lost 0.17% to close at 17,554.30.
HDFC Bank’s loan book for corporations and individuals grew by 21% to Rs121 trillion, much higher than the industry’s 13.7% credit growth year-on-year till December end. In fact, credit growth for the fiscal year so far for the industry is even lower, 8.8%.
Axis Bank’s growth in loans is almost in sync with the industry—13%. Its loan book is now worth Rs84,770 crore.
Particularly significant is the 11% growth in HDFC Bank’s retail loans, such as mortgages and auto loans. Most of the banks have been seeing single digit growth in retail loans and some of them are even shrinking their retail loan books.
HDFC’s corporate loan book has seen a 30% growth.
HDFC Bank earned Rs723.7 crore from fees and commission, a 12.4% growth, but it posted a loss of Rs26.5 crore in its investment book, against a profit of Rs232.1 crore in the same quarter last year. This is because of rising yield of government bonds. Prices and yields on government bonds move in opposite directions. When the prices drop and yield rise, banks make losses as they need to value the bonds in accordance with their market price and not the price at which they were bought.
In contrast, Axis Bank has posted a Rs170 crore profit trading government bonds in the quarter, higher than Rs114 crore that it had registered in the year-ago quarter. Its fee income rose by 29% to Rs800 crore, against Rs619 crore.
“The loss or lower treasury income will affect almost all banks in a rising interest rate scenario,” said a banking analyst with a domestic brokerage, adding that the profit numbers of both the banks are in line with market expectations.
Stating that the retail loan growth is largely driven by auto and home loans, Paresh Sukthankar, HDFC Bank’s executive director, said, “The growth in loans and fee income has offset the loss made on treasury book.” According to him, the revenue mix for HDFC Bank emanating from interest income and fee income is 70:30.
HDFC Bank’s net non-performing assets (NPAs) as a percentage of advances dropped to 0.5% in the December quarter, from 0.6%. The NPA coverage ratio of the bank is now 72% against the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) norm of 70%, which will come into effect from September.
RBI had last year allowed banks to recast those assets where borrowers, affected by the economic downturn in the wake of the collapse of US investment bank Lehman Brothers Holdings Inc., were unable to service loans. Total restructured assets, including applications received for loan recast but not approved or implemented, are 0.4% of the bank’s gross advances.
“Incremental formation of non-performing loans have come off. The worst is over as the economy is looking up,” Sukthankar said.
Net NPAs of Axis Bank, however, rose to 0.46% for the quarter ended December, from 0.39% in the year-ago quarter. Its gross non-performing loans, before provisions, narrowed to 1.6% of the bank’s total advances, from 1.9% a year earlier.
These would have been higher had the bank not stepped up provisions for bad loans in the quarter. Its provisions and contingencies rose to Rs373.14 crore, from Rs131.98 crore.
Its provision coverage as on 31 December stood at 69.07%. The bank has restructured loans worth Rs87 crore during the quarter ended December. The cumulative value of assets restructured till December was Rs2,309 crore, 2.43% of Axis Bank’s gross customer assets.
Somnath Sengupta, executive director and chief financial officer of Axis Bank, is not worried about the rising NPAs. “The rise in NPAs is not a matter of concern as we have maintained that we are comfortable till the net NPA level is 0.5%. We want to be a prudent bank and hence the provisioning number is high,” he said.
An earnings preview by domestic brokerage IDFC-SSKI Securities Ltd does not expect deterioration in asset quality with the improving economic scenario, capital-raising by firms and limited incremental restructuring. Provisions, according to the report, could come off sequentially on account of easing asset quality pressures, specially for private banks.
Another report by Motilal Oswal Securities Ltd said the loan growth could be 20% for the year and “larger banks will gain share and grow faster than the sector”.
Yet another earnings preview by Centrum Broking Pvt. Ltd predicted that the weak treasury performance in the third quarter will erode the operating profit margins across the banking sector. It expects the banking industry to register 11% year-on-year decline in profit. For public sector banks, the decline will be sharper at 13%, in contrast to private banks’ 6%.
The first set of banks that announced their December quarter earnings on Friday, however, told a different story.
anita.b@livemint.com

Source: Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:29 pm

Knights of the Western ghats

Along the west coast runs the 1,600km-long chain of mountains known as the Western Ghats. Far older than the Himalayas in the north, the Western Ghats house some of the most diverse and intact rainforests in peninsular India.
These mountain ranges have attained recognition as a biologically unique area for conservation. Biologists have included it in the 34 hot spots of biological diversity in the world because of the large number of plant and animal species it contains, including hundreds that are not found elsewhere, says US-based wildlife non-governmental organization Conservation International (CI). More recently, in the assessment by CI, the Western Ghats have also been recognized as one of the 200 globally most valuable eco-regions for the conservation of the diversity of life on earth.
Click to see a slide show on the lion-tailed macaque
And like many other regions that are biologically rich and crucial for conservation, the Western Ghats today face increasing degradation and loss of habitats, and a number of other threats to the survival of wild species—particularly due to developmental projects such as roads and reservoirs. This is not surprising—among all the global hot spots, this is the one with the highest human population density.
The Lion-tailed Macaque (Macaca silenus) that lives only in this region ranks among one of the most threatened primates in the world. It is dark-brown or black with a silver-white mane which surrounds the head from the cheeks down to its chin, giving the monkey its German name of “Beard Ape”.
In many ways, this macaque is the symbol of the endemic and endangered diversity of the Western Ghats. They are the “Knights of the rainforests”, being pushed to the edge.
Kalyan Varma (http://kalyanvarma.net/) is a Bangalore-based wildlife photographer and film-maker. In 2005, he won the Sanctuary Wildlife Photographer of the Year award. He freelances with BBC’s natural history unit, the BBC Earth series, and has been published in magazines such as the National Geographic, GEO and Wildlife Conservation. Varma is part of the team that runs India Nature Watch, an online community which hosts the largest number of wildlife photographs in Asia.

Source: Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:29 pm

Loans between firms come under I-T lens

Dept plans to widen deemed dividend tax ambit.
Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:26 pm

Innovator network plans giant leap on the back of 3 Idiots

Mumbai: As India prepares to launch itself into a new decade of economic growth, the year’s top movie is energizing a rapidly expanding national network of grass-roots enterprise.
If you’ve seen 3 Idiots, a frothy film about an impoverished, smart-alecky student-inventor who lives by his wits, you can’t miss the scooter-powered flour mill, a cycle-powered horse shaver and an exercycle-cum-washing machine.
Creativitypays: A scene from the film 3 Idiots, with the scooter-powered flour mill, which was sourced from NIF, in the background.
Creativitypays: A scene from the film 3 Idiots, with the scooter-powered flour mill, which was sourced from NIF, in the background.
The film 3 Idiots is topping critic lists and box-office collections, prompting producer Vidhu Vinod Chopra to quietly announce a fund for the three real-life brains—a Kerala teen, a Uttar Pradesh barber and a Maharashtra painter—powering the fertile imagination of wannabe engineer “Rancho”, or Ranchoddass Shyamaldas Chanchad, Aamir Khan’s character.
The inventions were sourced from the National Innovation Foundation (NIF), set up nine years ago by the Indian government with inspiration and support from a 16-year-old proponent of grass-roots invention, the Honey Bee Network. Both NIF and Honey Bee (the name is a metaphor for the cross-pollination of ideas) figure in the credits of 3 Idiots.
The popular attention to rural invention couldn’t come at a better time for a nation that increasingly values creativity but is still given to rote learning at schools and colleges.
“We can call Mr Chopra’s contribution the Idiot-NIF fund,” joked Anil Gupta, Honey Bee’s founder and professor, Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad (IIMA). “I hope what Munnabhai did for Gandhigiri, this film will do for innovation in India,” he said, referring to 3 Idiots director Raju Hirani’s last movie.
NIF has 140,000 inventions from 545 districts in its database, generating 220 patent applications in India and one in the US. Over the last two years, officials and inventors have travelled to China, Indonesia and the Philippines to share their stories.
In the spotlight: Jehangir Painter with his scooter-powered flour mill. Ganesh Surse/HT
In the spotlight: Jehangir Painter with his scooter-powered flour mill. Ganesh Surse/HT
“Lots of innovations are now going to market,” said NIF’s chief innovation officer Vipin Kumar, who received a call from Chopra’s unit on Tuesday. “As many as 50 technologies have been transferred to companies, and inventors are getting royalties, some up to 5% on sales.”
The stories of the inventors whose machines feature in Chopra’s film mirror the adversity-derived chutzpah that has so endeared “Rancho” to India over the last six days:
• Remya Jose (20), a student from Kerala’s Malappuram district, created the exercycle-cum-washing-machine when her mother was ill and father had cancer. The Discovery Channel shot a video of her invention, now a YouTube hit.
• Mohammed Idris (32), a class V dropout and a barber from western Uttar Pradesh’s Meerut district, invented a cycle-powered horse clipper that pares equine hair in half the time that it takes hard-to-find electric shavers.
• Jehangir Painter (49), a painter from north Maharashtra’s Jalgaon town, put together a scooter-powered flour mill to relieve his wife from the tedium of blackout-induced three-hour waits for wheat to be ground.
When the Hindustan Times called Painter at his home 430km north of Mumbai, he had seen 3 Idiots and was waiting for the return of his scooter. “It felt great, and me and my yellow scooter are a talking point in Jalgaon,” he said.
His favourite scene? “I liked the shot where Kareena (Kapoor) walks towards Aamir beside the lake,” he said. “And my scooter is framed with them.”
The Indian ability to innovate is not new and is exemplified by the word jugaad. It has no direct English translation, but refers to the ability to engineer a solution—mechanical or otherwise—to a problem.
Jugaad has now entered mainstream lexicon as the get-it-done ability of Indian companies. It has also found its way into some business school courses.
IIMA’s Gupta is now on a week-long, 250km trek of discovery of such solutions. It is a journey he organizes twice a year so scientists and other experts can uncover talent in India’s remotest corners.
Gupta explained how he was examining a farmer’s Rs200 invention to pick weeds from a paddy field in an Assam village.
NIF is India’s national effort to move backyard inventions discovered by the Honey Bee Network beyond the jugaad stage and into mainstream business. It gets experts from the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research and the Indian Council of Medical Research (ICMR) to mentor inventors.
After such vetting, at least 140 projects over the last four years have been funded under the Micro Venture Innovation Fund, a “high-risk” fund set up by the Small Industries Development Bank of India.
Meerut’s Idris, for instance, has received Rs25,000 to explore the market for his horse-shaver.
Depending on the innovation and aptitude of the inventors, some win fellowships to national laboratories; others are routed to small and medium firms that may offer royalties, exclusive or non-exclusive marketing rights, a share in profits or simple purchase of inventions, explains Kumar.
ICMR is closely involved because more than half the discoveries flow from traditional medical knowledge.
From Arunachal Pradesh, Gupta said 3 Idiots was a “great effort to link the small ideas with the big picture” and should hopefully now symbolize the national storehouse of inventors. “They (the movie makers) have ignited the fire, now we have to channel it,” said Gupta. “It’s a great opportunity to create mass awareness.”

Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:26 pm

Worried doctors, Basu’s family members throng hospital

Kolkata:With the condition of CPI(M) patriarch Jyoti Basu’s worsening, his son, Chandan, his wife Rakhi and other family members were summoned late tonight to the AMRI Hospital, where the former chief minister is admitted.
Besides Chandan and his wife, Basu’s sister-in-law and her husband were also at the hospital.
Doctors of the medical board of the hospital, who were to meet at midnight, arrived almost an hour earlier and were closeted at a meeting.
Earlier, Basu’s condition turned “very, very critical” and he was “sinking” with multi-organ failure and was totally dependent on support systems, Dr A K Maity, Basu’s personal physician and member of the medical board told reporters.
“He is very, very critical. Three organs -- lung, kidney and the haemo dynamic system have failed and now his heart and liver function is also deteriorating and the senorium of the brain is very low,” Maity said.
To a question how long Basu could survive in this condition, Banerjee said, “I don’t what will happen and when it will happen.”
Asked whether tracheostomy would be done on him, Maity replied “Let him live first. If he survives then only can it be done.”

Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:23 pm

Salary hikes bonuses back in business

Salary hikes and bonuses may be back this appraisal season, as Indian companies strive to retain talent and resume expansion plans put on hold after the global economy slumped in 2008. Mahua Venkatesh examines...
Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:17 pm

Axis Bank Q3 profit rises 31% to Rs 656 crore - Economic Times


Fresh News
Axis Bank Q3 profit rises 31% to Rs 656 crore
Economic Times
MUMBAI: A rise in other income and lower expenses have helped Axis Bank report a 31% rise in net profit for the third quarter ended December 31,2009. The net profit for the bank was at Rs 655.98 crore as against Rs 500.86 crore in the previous year. ...
Low rates help banks post robust growthBusiness Standard
HDFC Bank Q3 profit rises 31% at Rs 818 croreHindu Business Line
HDFC Bank: consistent showFinancial Express
Indian Express -TopNews -Moneycontrol.com
all 115 news articles »

Source: Business - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 12:01 pm

Do big guns mean better security?

Of the many supposed lessons of the November 2008 attacks on Mumbai, few have thus far yielded real changes: The outraged middle classes did not come out to vote, no civic sense or community arose phoenix-like in our cities. But the attacks did create one soft consensus: that India needs to spend more, much more, to assure the country’s security.
Vision required: The mere allocation of money for equipment (cannons, left Krishmendu Halder / Reuters}, and border fences, right {Munish Sharma / Reuters}) is no guarantee of increased safety.
Vision required: The mere allocation of money for equipment (cannons, left Krishmendu Halder / Reuters}, and border fences, right {Munish Sharma / Reuters}) is no guarantee of increased safety.
More Black Cat units. More speedboats. More and better guns for the police. More fighter planes and faster fibre-optic networks. Several months after the attacks, the government increased the non-nuclear defence expenditure by more than a quarter. One of the highest one-time increases in our history, it pushes the military budget to approaching $30 billion (Rs1.3 trillion). Today, defence spending consumes around 2.35% of GDP—though small in comparison to, say, the US (4.7%), it is in fact larger than it looks, given the idiosyncratic way the Indian military budget is defined. The major part of that increase is for buying new arms and equipment.
Our most distinguished political figures of the 20th century, whose intellectual energies were applied to thinking about how to minimize the role of force, might have been dismayed by this military expansion. The goal, back then, was to keep India away from military conflicts and wars, which were viewed as a product of the Western will to world domination. But our world is different from the one in which they lived. And as nice as it would be to transfer our entire defence budget to efforts at improving education, as little Costa Rica did after World War II, the fact is that India lives in a particularly turbulent part of the world—a place in which force is a necessary precondition for survival.
Even as I foresee the role of force increasing in our collective lives as a nation, I remain troubled by the general consensus that we can simply spend our way to safety. As it happens, this concern is occasionally shared by our own defence minister, A.K. Antony. “Allocation of money has never been a problem,” he said at a conference last year. “The issue has rather been the timely and judicious utilization of the money allocated.” But the question of whether, in fact, we are making judicious use of our monies is only part of my worry. I wonder as well whether we’ve thought hard enough about the role of force itself: what it can and cannot do, in a world of new and various threats.
In what is effectively a globalization of our military force, Indian arms increasingly are being sourced from a range of international suppliers. The numbers are large: India plans to spend some $100 billion over the next decade on defence purchases, and US and European aircraft manufacturers are anticipating an Indian order worth over $10 billion for jet fighters alone. At a time when the US administration, as well as European governments, are contemplating their own defence cuts, it’s hardly surprising that the world’s military suppliers have fastened their sights on India. But those suppliers are selling a strong bias: that India should think of security in technical terms—as a question of improved weaponry and equipment.
Hemmed in: India’s fear of conflict now stems from newer sources, such as neighbours China (Tiananmen Square, top left – Munish Sharma / Reuters) and Pakistan (top right – Ushman Khan / AFP) but its tendency to concentrate debate on weaponry (Lockheed Martin’s F-16 jet, above right – Hemant Mishra / Mint) has seen it acquiring instruments of force in advance of a strategy for optimizing use of them. The example of Costa Rica (above left - Dinodia), which focused spending on education after World War II, is more difficult to achieve in today’s geopolitical landscape.
Hemmed in: India’s fear of conflict now stems from newer sources, such as neighbours China (Tiananmen Square, top left – Munish Sharma / Reuters) and Pakistan (top right – Ushman Khan / AFP) but its tendency to concentrate debate on weaponry (Lockheed Martin’s F-16 jet, above right – Hemant Mishra / Mint) has seen it acquiring instruments of force in advance of a strategy for optimizing use of them. The example of Costa Rica (above left - Dinodia), which focused spending on education after World War II, is more difficult to achieve in today’s geopolitical landscape.
When Lockheed Martin rents half a wing of Delhi’s Taj Palace Hotel and sets up shop, when retired military men from abroad troop through the capital city lobbying for the international firms who pay them, what I see is our own version of a “military-industrial complex” emerging—the very thing that US president Eisenhower, a former general himself, warned his own countrymen against when leaving office in 1961. We have known the enormous political weight of this interest group in the US. But in the US, over the years since Eisenhower issued his warning, systematic checks on military power have emerged, in the form of a range of independent watchdogs such as the non-profit National Security Archives and aggressive investigative reporters, who work hard to invigilate military-industrial interests and to scrutinize government purchases.
We Indians lack such critical eyes. While from time to time brave journalists have exposed corruption in government deals for artillery or phantom night-vision goggles, we are short on the independent agencies and institutions that regularly monitor and hold to account private suppliers and government purchasers. And this lack matters not just because of the public money involved, but because our national security is at stake. Are we equipping ourselves for wars we shall never fight, and failing to equip ourselves for the wars in which we are already embroiled? It’s extremely difficult for me, and I suspect for most citizens, to judge.
Personally, I don’t pretend to have a view about whether the F-16 banks and flips more sweetly than the Dassault Rafale, nor do I know whose 155mm howitzer gives a more satisfying thump. What I have are questions that I’d like some help in thinking through.
Take, for instance, our spending over $2billion on a second-hand Russian aircraft carrier. A carrier is a status symbol, quite possibly a necessary one—and it might indeed be justifiable in practical terms. But one also has to set such an investment in the context of actual threats identified by our own officials: threats such as the growth of China as a naval power, manifest in its build-up of a substantial submarine fleet; and seaborne terrorism and piracy. How does an aircraft carrier (which, I imagine, would line up rather nicely in the periscope of a Chinese stealth submarine, and which would be as useful for chasing down a pirate boat as a Ferrari would be for pursuing a bullock cart) address such threats? In the months leading up to 26/11, the government was buying IL-78 airborne tankers and C-130 transport planes. Again, it’s quite possible that these were right and timely investments. But when so few of us ask the government to justify such decisions, we create a climate in which defence decisions are less likely to be right or timely than they might otherwise be.
Historically, our tendency to concentrate debate on weaponry itself has meant that we have sometimes acquired instruments of force in advance of a strategy for optimizing these augmentations of our capacities. The classic case of this is nuclear weapons: Our nuclear “doctrine” began to be publicly articulated long after we had tested our capacity to explode such a weapon. This wasn’t just a matter of enwrapping the doctrine in high secrecy. It was a matter of devising the doctrine post hoc.
In general, as we make our technical upgrades, we need to invest in conceptual upgrades too. We need a more complex view of the role and purpose of force as a tool for securing our national aims.
Conflict is now for us a condition, not an event. The idea that the primary purpose of military force is to deliver decisive, knock-out blows—with the resultant photo-op banners announcing “Victory” and tickertape parades—is an illusion. Given the broad and diverse range of threats we face, we need to think in terms of managing conflict, not ending it once and for all.
In our first four decades or so, we were much exercised by the threat that we might be drawn into conflicts whose causes originated elsewhere —superpower rivalry during the Cold War, for instance—and over which we would have no control. Keeping out of such conflicts was essentially what national sovereignty, autonomy of judgement and action, meant: being able to choose our battles. Now, however, we face different kinds of threats—rooted in our region, linked to neighbours such as Pakistan and China, and even emanating from within India itself.
The most basic fact about our greater Asian neighbourhood is that it is inhabited by a number of rising, aspiring powers; and at the same time it lacks any agreed structures or shared norms that might harmonize such jostling aspirations. It is states in India’s broad region, stretching from Iran to North Korea, that are most likely to acquire nuclear weapons in the near future. And it is non-state actors in India’s immediate environment— “AfPak”—that will pose lethal and fugitive challenges to us.
In fact, the sorts of military conflicts we potentially face stretch from classical battles (gaining and defending the commanding heights: the battle for Tiger Hill) to, unimaginable as it is, nuclear blasts. Those conflicts encompass along the way situations where the battlefield has “dematerialized” and the enemies are formless— rubber dinghies drifting in the night; bomb-laden people who slip into railway carriages or park scooters in crowded markets.
This awkward conjoining of different types of threat, in some ways quite unique in historical terms, is epitomized at our doorstep in the shape of Pakistan: a state whose destructive weaponry encompasses the entire range of human ingenuity. A country awash in conventional as well as nuclear weapons, Pakistan is also host to thousands of men armed in the most basic of ways, prepared to wreak maximum damage and at best weakly under the control of their state.
We also have, beyond our northern border, a neighbour that has grown faster in economic size than any other society ever in history, possesses one of the largest military forces in the world, and is still trying to make sense of what it has achieved and what it wishes to do in the world. Its intentions and ambitions remain obscure —perhaps even to itself.
Finally, within our own country, the expansion of “disturbed areas” and the ready deployment of growing paramilitary forces continues apace: We are a state at war with our own people. This increased use of force domestically equally demands vigilance and debate. When used at home, force must work with and be subordinate to—rather than seek to negate—law. If the domestic deployment of force is not strictly governed by the rule of law, and if there is not visible redress when the rule of law is violated in the name of public security, we may achieve tactical gains—but our more serious strategic ends will be subverted. It’s a basic point: If the end one wants to bring about is to establish the rule of law, it cannot be achieved by means that ignore law.
It is likely that states will need to use force more, not less, in coming years—not in pursuit of conclusive, decisive outcomes (“decapitating” the enemy, as the gentle phrase goes); not as an act of “last resort”; but as a way of managing long-term confrontations and conflicts. It follows that questions about the proper use of military force will loom large. We will need greater public engagement with questions about the purpose and means of force, not because I imagine that public debate should determine the choices our professionals make— successful military decision making requires leadership, not committees. But a more informed public engagement will mean that the experts and professionals, and politicians, will have to justify and account for their decisions—never, I should think, a bad thing.
Sunil Khilnani is the author of The Idea of India and is currently working on a new book, The Great Power Game: India in the New World. Write to him at publiceye@livemint.com

Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:45 am

The write stuff

Adichie said in an interview that the Internet is a huge sink of time for her. So she spends a little time in the morning reading the news. And then silence. I agree. It is fine if you’re going through a bout of writer’s block and need distraction. Otherwise turn off the Wi-Fi, pull out the ethernet cable or forget to pay the Internet bill.
Also Read
Beevor moved his writing location so that he would NOT have a wonderful view of a valley out of his window. He said it was too distracting. This also holds true for the wall behind your computer. Some people like little posters and paintings. I have nothing. Instead I have a window to one side to let in the light and air (not that there are any valleys in Dwarka). And occasionally look outside while thinking of what to call the secretary who appears in just one scene. But she needs a name.
I was sick of trying to keep my workplace tidy. And the missus was getting sick of telling me why the potted plant was ok, but bundles of back-issue ‘New Yorkers’ and empty coffee cups were not. Then I saw a photo of Eric Hobsbawm’s office on the ‘Guardian’ website. The coffee cups stayed and now have plants growing out of them.
Townsend deserves a hat-tip (and not just because she convinced me that the epistolary style for a book works). Apparently she also listens to a lot of BBC radio and classical music while working. I optimistically installed a BBC Radio widget on the iMac. Then I tried www.musicovery.com that freely streams music based on the mood you choose. Which worked very well. Once you don’t care for the music, it crowds out everything else, you just zone out.
sidin.v@livemint.com

Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:36 am

Quick Edit | The colonial curse

Colonial masters may be a thing of the past, but the decolonized still have one thing in common: payback.
After an earthquake struck Haiti this week, commentators are asking why this Caribbean nation is so poor. One answer that keeps coming up is its tryst with colonialism.
Haiti freed itself of French rule in 1804, but France forced it to pay 150 million gold francs in exchange for recognizing its independence. In 2004, Haiti made a move to demand restitution. After all, that debt devastated Haiti; it didn’t finish paying it off until 1947.
The same year, Britain relinquished the jewel in its crown, without exactly having paid everything back either. For instance, India paid London “home charges” from 1858 to 1947—£40-50 million a year around 1930—for military and administrative expenses the British incurred here—a tax on a poor people to remain under foreign rule.
Should India be demanding this back? We could even complain about the Rs13 Winston Churchill owes the Bangalore Club from 1899. It’s best to look ahead, without forgetting the colonial curse.

Source: Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:32 am

PSU stocks rally on sell-off buzz

Mumbai: The share of Engineers India Ltd rose by 20% on Friday, the upper limit for an intraday rise for this stock set by the capital markets regulator, on news that the government will issue bonus shares ahead of a proposed 10% stake sale to the public. The shares closed at Rs2,079.70 apiece on the Bombay Stock Stock Exchange (BSE), gaining 46% in one month.
The stock of the state-owned engineering services provider to the oil and gas industry is not the only one to stage a dramatic rise in recent times.
Investors have been buying state-owned company shares as an estimated Rs30,000 crore disinvestment programme has boosted expectations of reforms and increased institutional participation. But there are sceptics who say partial divestment of government stake alone does not change the profile of a company as there will not be any change in the management and loosening of government control.
Two out of every three stocks that make up the 48-firm public sector units’ index of BSE have outperformed the benchmark Sensex in the past month. Hindustan Copper Ltd gained the most, up 68% during this period. NTPC Ltd, which is likely to be the first firm whose shares will be sold as part of the divestment programme, gained 11.67% while NMDC Ltd, another candidate that has got the cabinet nod for a share sale, rose 18%.
BSE’s PSU index gained 7.97% in the past one month. In comparison, the Sensex’s rise has been 4%.
The government’s disinvestment programme has raised investor hopes of policy changes or reforms benefiting the firms on the block or the sectors that they are a part of, said analysts and fund managers.
The government hopes to raise at least Rs30,000 crore by selling more shares of firms already listed on the exchanges such as NTPC, NMDC, Engineers India and Steel Authority of India Ltd, while other companies such as Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam Ltd are planning to sell shares for the first time.
“There are expectations of beneficial policy changes, which will bring in more investors and a lot of noises being made,” said Deepak Jasani, head of retail research at HDFC Securities Ltd.
For instance, the government is considering a proposal for NTPC to sell 10% of its output at the market price, The Economic Times reported recently. This, some analysts reckon, could boost the company’s profits as much as 40%. On Thursday, the government announced a bonus issue in the ratio of two for every share held of Engineers India, apart from a special dividend.
“One reason why these shares are rising is obviously the positive sentiment,” said Sameer Kamdar, chief executive officer of the ASK Group’s proposed asset management arm that has been awaiting regulatory approval.
“Secondly, it opens the door for institutional investors, many of whom will consider investing only if the free float is above a certain limit.”
Free float is the number of shares available for trading and excludes promoter holding and locked-in shares. The free float of 13 among the 48 listed government firms is less than 10%. The government has a 99% stake in Hindustan Copper and this partly explains its dramatic rise in the past month. Similarly, the government has a 98.38% stake in NMDC.
There are some analysts who don’t buy into the reform/free float story and believe that it’s the buzz created by merchant bankers that is driving up the stock prices.
“When has increasing supply ever increased share price?” questioned a fund manager, who wanted to remain anonymous, citing company policy about talking to the media.
He said that this part of the usual buzz that happens in the market before a share sale and cited the case of NHPC Ltd, which hit the market in August. At that time, there was news floating in the market that the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission will allow return to be paid on equity that is deployed in work under progress. This helped push up the price of the NHPC issue to the upper end of its price band at Rs36, said the fund manager and a head of research at a local brokerage, who wanted to remain unidentified. After its listing in September, NHPC rarely closed above Rs36. On Friday, it closed at Rs35.30.
Ashwin Ramarathinam contributed to this story.

Source: Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:31 am

Louis Cruise Lines sails out of Indian shores

Mumbai: When the MV Aquamarine sails out of Kochi port for the last time on Saturday, there will no longer be any cruise liner using an Indian port as a home port where services begin and end.
Barely a month-and-a-half after it launched on 2 December, Louis Cruise Lines, the world’s fifth largest cruise line operator, is discontinuing its international cruise operations in India.
The subsidiary of Cyprus-based Louis Plc was using Kochi as a home port for the MV Aquamarine, which has a capacity of 1,250 passengers, and sailed to Sri Lanka and the Maldives.
Vijay Puthran, head of sales and marketing at Louis Cruises India, confirmed the development to Mint, but declined to give any details.
“We are discontinuing from 16 January. I cannot offer more comments on this,” he said, adding an official statement will be released on Monday.
In a Thursday letter to travel agents, Margaret Sweeney, manager (passenger services) at Louis Cruises India, said, “Due to an increasing number of operational issues, Louis Cruises India will suspend operations out of the port of Kochi with effect from the 17th of January 2010.”
The letter also said a “number of factors made it impossible for the company to overcome the continuous impediments to successfully launching the cruise product” and that it was discontinuing services after reviewing the “hindrance this has played on the quality of product delivery as well as the resulting financial repercussions”.
Mint has reviewed a copy of the letter.
The surprise move also makes the firm the first to suspend operations in India without completing a full season, which runs October through May.
It also means there are no more international cruise lines using an Indian port as a so-called home, or a port from where cruises start and end.
Genting Hong Kong Ltd, formerly Star Cruises Ltd, in 2007 pulled out of Mumbai after operating the Superstar Libra ship for two seasons in 2006 and 2007. Also in 2007, MV Ocean Odyssey, operated by UK-based Cruise Line Ltd, was pulled out of Mormugao Port in Goa.
All three operators have blamed poor demand and the costs of accessing port infrastructure.
“Cruise business is a niche area. The reasons for the failure of these cruises could be infrastructure hindrance in the country. The access to airports, ports and roads for such cruises was very poor until recently, though things are getting better now,” said Mark A. Edleson, president of Alila Hotels and Resorts, a Singapore-based hospitality chain that targets premium guests.
A person close to the development, who did not want to be identified because of the sensitivity of the issue, said the Cochin Port Trust (CPT), which operates Kochi port, was levying $25,000 (around Rs11.5 lakh) per call.
“Louis Cruises India had written to CPT to lower the charges, but the port refused,” he said.
CPT denied the allegations. Jijo Thomas, a public relations officer for CPT, said it was charging only $12,000 per call. Further, he claimed that CPT has not been informed of the discontinuation of the cruise services.
“We were actually offering 33% discount on Tamp-approved rate,” Thomas said, adding that any additional discount would affect CPT’s profitability. Tamp, or Tariff Authority for Major Ports, fixes ceiling rates for ports that are under the Union government.
He said that CPT had informed Louis Cruises India it would be levying a Rs300 per passenger service fee, but did not eventually collect it. However, he claimed that Louise Cruises continued to collect Rs750 per passenger towards service fee.
“Significantly, the tariff and prevailing conditions were there always, (it is) not that it was imposed yesterday,” Thomas said.

Source: Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:31 am

TCS result beats market expectations

Mumbai: Strong growth in the banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) vertical in the crucial US market and increased business from its top client Citigroup Inc. helped the country’s largest information technology (IT) services exporter Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) comfortably beat market expectations, reporting a 2.9% growth in revenue for the three months to December over the September quarter.
Bullish: TCS chief executive Natajan. Abhijit Bhatlekar / Mint
Bullish: TCS chief executive Natajan. Abhijit Bhatlekar / Mint
The company’s revenue grew 5.1% from Rs7,277 crore in the three months to December 2008, to Rs7,649 crore in the December quarter of the current fiscal. Profits grew 33.9% from Rs1,362 crore in the December quarter of the previous fiscal to Rs1,824 crore in the current fiscal.
Sequentially, TCS’ revenue grew from Rs7,435 crore in the September quarter to Rs7,649 crore in the December quarter, while profits grew 11.1% from Rs1,642 crore to Rs1,824 crore over the same period.
Integration work related to merging of large financial institutions hit by the credit crisis in the US had generated business for Indian IT firms. The BFSI vertical contributed around 45% of TCS’ revenues.
Market analysts had expected the company’s dollar revenue to grow by between 3% and 5%, while it actually grew by 6.6%. A Mint poll of eight brokerages had estimated TCS revenues to be flat over the previous quarter while its profits were expected to fall around 4.2%.
On Tuesday, India’s second largest IT exporter Infosys Technologies Ltd reported a sequential growth of 6.8% in dollar revenues, supported by new business from BFSI in the US.
Hit by rupee appreciation—3.3% over the quarter—Infosys’ rupee revenues grew at a slower pace of 2.8% over the previous quarter.
For TCS, in the three months to December, pricing—hourly rate at which clients are billed—remained flat.
In the previous quarter, the pricing had declined by 1.4% while volumes had grown by 5%. However operating margins (Ebitda, or earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization) improved by 126 basis points due to effective cost-control measures.
On the last 12-month basis, as a percentage of the company’s total revenue, Citigroup contributed 8.1% to TCS revenue at the end of December, while it was 6.8% at the end of September and 5.1% at the end of June.
However, the company’s chief financial officer S. Mahalingam said that it is not accurate to conclude that the growth was on account of the top client alone.
What surprised analysts, however, was the unexpected growth that TCS appears to have derived from services that are traditionally considered to be discretionary spending, which enterprises had curbed drastically in the wake of the economic crisis.
“On a sequential basis, enterprise solutions has grown by 8.4% and consulting has grown by 39.5%, and both of those are discretionary spend,” said Nitin Padmanabhan of Centrum Broking Pvt. Ltd. “That came as a bit of a surprise.”
In the previous quarter, TCS’ revenue was driven by business from the BFSI sector as well as business from utilities and pharma sectors. TCS gets around 53% of its revenue from clients in the US.
Verticals such as manufacturing, and telecom and hi-tech, which had shrunk in the September quarter, have stabilized in the December quarter and the company management expects the business from these verticals to pick up in the coming quarter.
“We see some recovery in the telecom and manufacturing verticals and anticipate growth to pick up in the coming quarters,” said TCS chief executive N. Chandrasekaran. During the quarter, TCS has secured a $100 million (Rs457 crore), five-year deal from a company in the manufacturing sector. About the deals that the company is actively pursuing, Chandrasekaran said that TCS was competing for “20 large deals”.
At the end of the December quarter, TCS had 149,654 employees, against 141,962 in the previous quarter.
According to Ajoy Mukherjee, vice-president and head of human resources, TCS plans “aggressive talent acquisition” given the demand outlook. As part of campus recruitment, TCS has already given 5,500 offers. Of the around 24,000 offers that the company had given during the previous year, Mukherjee said nearly 70% had been accepted and by the end of the fiscal year, all the offers would be honoured.
The list of TCS clients include Merrill Lynch and Co., Prudential Financial Inc., American Express Co., Nestlé SA, Nielsen Co., BT Group Plc, General Electric Co. and Boeing Corp.
The company’s quarterly numbers were announced after the markets closed, but TCS’ shares ended at Rs791.80 on Friday, gaining 1.23% on a day when the Sensex lost 0.17% to close at 17,554.30. points.
P.R. Sanjai contributed to this story.
lison.j@livemint.com

Source: Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:10 am

Plan panel highlights problems in NREGA

New Delhi: A Planning Commission evaluation of the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) has questioned the effectiveness of projects implemented under the Act in boosting productivity and creating assets.
NREGA, the Union government’s flagship anti-poverty programme that promises 100 days of employment every year to the rural poor, is partly credited with driving the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) to victory in the April-May general election.
In a presentation made at Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s office (PMO) on Wednesday, the Planning Commission highlights the dearth of technical and professional support for implementing projects under NREGA, delays in payments to workers, and issues of corruption and leakages. Mint has reviewed part of this report.
Most of the jobs created under the Act are in the area of water conservation, land development and drought proofing. While NREGA is implemented by the ministry of rural development, its progress is also monitored by the Planning Commission.
“The report has also found out poor implementation in states such as Bihar and Uttar Pradesh. The idea of the meeting was to appraise officials at PMO on the problems arising in the implementation of the programme,” said a government official. He did want to be identified or divulge more details of the report.
NREGA, now re-christened Mahatma Gandhi National Employment Guarantee Act, came into being in 2005.
The commission says in the report that payments to workers are being delayed as there is a late measurement of work. It also says only 19% of the 850,000 differently abled people registered for the scheme have got work under NREGA.
Another issue is that of fake muster rolls and bills being generated, the commission says.
It adds that so-called elite groups within the workers capture most of the job cards.
Jobs cards are given to workers to enrol them for projects under NREGA.
The report is based on feedback from the Planning Commission’s advisers who toured the villages to study the implementation of UPA’s flagship programmes.
One such official said workers were moving away from their main activity, agriculture, and “are digging pits in the name of ponds under NREGA... Water from these pits evaporate very fast”.
The official, who didn’t want to be named, said there was corruption in implementing the programmes and no real asset was being created.
The Planning Commission, however, lauds NREGA’s achievements in some respects. It says the scheme created three billion person-days of work in 2009-10 against 86 million person-days in 2003-04 through other programmes such as food for work.
The report also says 50 million families are likely to get work in 2009-10 with an expenditure of Rs40,000 crore.
S.L. Rao, former director general of the National Council of Applied Economic Research, who recently visited Bihar to have a feel of NREGA, says the figures have to be impressive as it is a vast and innovative programme.
“But then, it is also one of the most abused programmes, where everybody who is getting the chance to make money is making (it)...there are long- and short-term solutions to make NREGA more effective,” he said.
In the short run, the government can start some policing by creating a roving team of, say, retired police officers to ensure that the needy get the job cards, the workers are paid fully, substantial asset is created and no particular group is favoured, said Rao.
In the long run, he suggests the panchayats (local self-government bodies) should be empowered to create capacity and train officials to implement the programme.
“In Bihar, I observed that it was people of the dominant caste who got the job cards whereas the Dalits (members of a socially and economically backward caste) have been denied participation,” said Rao. “It’s not a surprise that Bihar has lagged behind in implementation.”

Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:05 am

S&T ministry seeks to develop research base in cognition science

New Delhi: With an eye on developing its research base in the nascent field of cognition science, in which scientists study the mechanisms by which the brain recognizes and processes information, the ministry of science and technology (S&T) has launched the Cognitive Science Research Initiative.
The aim is to get top scientists in Indian universities interested in cognition science, a field of fundamental research, and get them to train doctoral level students in the study of neural networks, as the mechanisms are known.
Cognition research is an umbrella field and has vital applications in several areas such as mental health, social engineering, education and computer technology.
Of late, cognitive scientists have begun to develop smarter security systems, ones that can better screen terror suspects, and robots that have moved from being mere assemblers in car manufacturing facilities to more complex ones, such as the Japanese robot ASIMO that can recognize and differentiate human faces.
Officials at S&T ministry say that over time the research output from the cognition initiative could tie into the Security Technology Initiative, coordinated by the Indian Institute of Science, Bangalore.
“We should be able to develop better crime-pattern recognition systems. We have tonnes of data coming out of villages and cities, but limited efforts at analyzing them and trying to predict, and prevent, further crime,” said an S&T ministry official, who didn’t want to be identified as he’s not authorized to speak to the media. “These must go beyond the Intelligence Bureau and Research and Analysis Wing.”
A variety of civilian applications such as improved predictive texting (in SMS) in regional languages as well as more interactive websites could spring out improved cognitive science research, said T. Ramasami, secretary, department of science and technology.
“Over the years, it’s becoming increasingly apparent that cognitive science is one of the four pillars of the 21st century, along with nano, bio and information technology, and of the four, cognitive science is the least represented in the Indian scientific scenario,” Ramasami said. “We need to step up on this.” Although a budget for the initiative is still being finalized, a tentative Rs10 crore has been earmarked for the next fiscal. The key thrust areas are—foundations of cognition, language and cognition, computational intelligence, cognitive psychology and cognitive neuroscience.
In addition to basic research and infrastructure, human resource development has been identified as key to the success of this initiative. Existing research facilities such as the National Institute of Mental Health and Neurosciences, Bangalore; National Brain Research Centre, Gurgaon and the Centre for Neuroscience, at the Indian Institute of Science will be big beneficiaries of the project, people familiar with the issue say.
“The key is to get more students. Currently, we’re going to offer a monthly scholarship of Rs20,000 and a research grant of Rs1 lakh. That’s separate from existing grants and funding they already have,” the same official added.
Experts say the initiative needs private sector backing. “Cognition research blooms in the laboratory, but lives in the companies,” said Salil Kapoor, a security systems researcher at the Indian Institute of Technology, Kanpur. “Several smart applications are being developed in Indian labs even today. But private participation is lacking.”

Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 11:05 am

Succession planning at Bharti, with a difference

There’s a new chief executive officer at Bharti Airtel Ltd, the second in its history, and there are mutterings in some sections as to whether this is a leg-up for the new man in the post—Sanjay Kapoor; and it most definitely is—or a sort of let-down for the previous occupant of that position, Manoj Kohli (he is to now head international operations; and this writer really doesn’t know the answer to this).
I have known Kohli for a long time—since his time as HR head of US conglomerate Allied Signal in the mid-1990s to be precise—and he is a sound operations man, which could be one reason why Bharti chief Sunil Mittal picked him. Bharti had around three million subscribers then and I remember that Kohli’s choice was a surprise but then, Mittal has always known what he is doing.
Even then, Mittal would talk of institutionalizing management at Bharti Tele-Ventures, as the company was then called. We must build a team that can manage a telecom company that has 25 million subscribers, he told me once. The company had around 10-12 million subscribers then; it has 116 million (in India) today.
Kohli, clearly, had been hired for that purpose, a selection that showed the use of more science than Mittal had used when he identified someone to head the group’s entry into the mobile telephony business in the early 1990s. Bharti had initially won a licence for Mumbai, not Delhi, and I remember Mittal telling me once that he selected N. Arjun—another of those fine managers who always seem to be around in the Bharti stable—because he was the only bachelor in the senior team and could move to Mumbai. That, though, remained a false start; and when India eventually became a “mobile” market, Bharti ended up with a licence to operate in Delhi.
It could probably be similar logic about finding the right man for the job at the right time that has driven Mittal’s decision to have Kapoor head the local operations of Bharti Airtel and Kohli head the growing overseas operations. I last met Kohli last week— ahead of the announcement —and while he didn’t tell me what was in store, he did speak passionately about Bharti doing in Sri Lanka and Bangladesh what it has done so well in India.
Mittal once told me that he saw Bharti as a once-in-a-generation kind of company. In the 1980s, it was Reliance Industries Ltd, he said. In the 1990s, it was Infosys Technologies Ltd. In the 2000s, it would be Bharti. In some ways, he may have actually outdone both those companies. For instance, Infosys continues to be headed by a succession of the company’s promoters (not to say that they don’t deserve to do that). Mittal’s own succession planning efforts in Bharti present a contrast.

Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 10:53 am

IE was chink in Google armour

If your PC runs Windows Vista or Windows 7, set it to ‘protected’ mode to avoid being snared by hackers. That’s the advice from Microsoft after Internet security firm McAfee Inc blamed flaws in the Internet Explorer browser for the recent cyber attacks on Google Inc and several other businesses.


Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 15 Jan 2010 | 10:49 am

Education sector needs 400 bn

India needs $400 billion investment  — equal to 80 per cent of its infrastructure funding requirement —  in education over the next decade, as it views the sector to be as important as economic growth.
Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 15 Jan 2010 | 10:46 am

Jubilant Food ipo aims to get more than Rs 300 CRore

Jubilant FoodWorks on Friday announced a price band of Rs 135 to Rs 145 per equity share for its initial public offer (IPO). The price would be decided through a 100 per cent book building process. The offer opens on January 18 and closes on January 20.
Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 15 Jan 2010 | 10:44 am

Week in Review for 15 January 2010

India’s headline inflation figures shot up last month. The wholesale price index rose 7.31% in December, reaching a 13-month high. In November the index rose just 4.78%. Despite the spike in inflation, analysts and bankers have told Mint current inflation does not justify a rate hike by the RBI. This is because wholesale inflation has, to a great extent, been pushed up by food inflation. And the RBI’s monetary policy is unlikely to have much impact on rising food prices.
On Wednesday, the government announced several measures to contain the rise in food prices. It plans to import sugar at zero duty until the end of the calendar year. And it’s going to sell 2-3 million tonnes of wheat and rice in the open market. The government has also asked state-run trading firms to import more pulses.
Figures released on Tuesday showed India’s industrial production grew 11.7% in November compared to a year earlier. This is the highest growth in 25 months.
Two major private sector banks announced their third quarter results on Friday. HDFC Bank saw its net profits shoot up 31.7% to Rs819 crore in the quarter to December.
Axis Bank also did well. Its net profits for the third quarter went up 31% to reach Rs656 crore, up from Rs501 crore in the same period last year.
Two of India’s top IT companies also unveiled their results this week. India’s second largest software company Infosys saw its third quarter profits fall 3.6% to Rs1,582 crore, though the figures were actually better than what some analysts had expected.
The government has decided to auction just three slots of 3G spectrum instead of four. As part of the new plan, even places like Delhi, that had less spectrum to auction, will have three slots to put on the block. Analysts say that government is unlikely to lose overall revenue from the auction because of this uniformity. Last year, the government had decided on auctioning four slots and raising Rs25,000 crore.
Reliance Industries Limited once again raised cash for a possible acquisition of Lyondell-Basell. On Monday, RIL sold 33 million treasury shares, raising $763 million. The move brings the total amount RIL has raised in the last four months to about $2 billion.
India’s armed forces may not be equipped to deal with the threats of today. A new report from consulting firm KPMG and the Confederation of Indian Industry says at least half the country’s defence equipment is obsolete and needs to be upgraded. The report also calls on India’s government will have to support local firms making products for the armed forces.
And here are some news stories in brief. India’s exports shot up December with overseas shipments increased 18.2% to reach $14.6 billion, the highest it has reached in 14 months.
India’s struggling airline industry had something to cheer about on Wednesday. Airline regulator DGCA released figures that show nearly 44 million passengers flew in 2009 compared to less than 41 million in 2008, an increase of 7.5%.
Environment minister Jairam Ramesh plans to hold public meetings across India to scientists, farmers’ organisations and others that are opposed to the genetically modified crop, BT Brinjal. The government approved the use of BT Brinjal last year.
A new study suggests drug resistant strains of the HIV virus are more likely to be transmitted than previously thought. Writing in the American magazine Science, the authors of the study say organisations like the WHO will now need to rethink their strategies for dealing with HIV.

Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 10:13 am

Societe Generale not to issue PNs

Mumbai: Capital markets regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) on Friday barred France-based Societe Generale SA from dealing with participatory notes (PNs) in India as it failed to provide “true, fair and complete details” of PNs and offshore derivatives instruments (ODIs) it had issued to Hythe Securities Ltd with Reliance Communications Ltd as the underlying securities.
“As per the monthly reports filed by SG (Societe Generale) with Sebi till date, it was seen that SG had 48 transactions with Hythe, out of which it admitted having misreported in respect of 14 of these transactions,” Sebi’s whole time director K.M. Abraham said in an order late on Friday.
The ban will be in force until “Sebi is satisfied that it (Societe Generale) has the organizational resolve and capability demonstrable vide systems, processes and controls to provide true, accurate and complete picture of its ODIs/PNs transactions as envisaged under the FII (Foreign Institutional Investor) regulations and the reporting requirements therein.” In December, Sebi had issued a similar notice to Barclays Bank Plc on the same case.

Source: Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 9:56 am

Rapid Fire | Consumer, food inflation-related stocks to deliver best returns

Mumbai: Mid-cap stocks have emerged favourites this year with the broader indices outperforming their larger rivals. Over the past month, the Bombay Stock Exchange’s Mid-cap Index has risen 9.67%, compared with 4.01% for the benchmark Sensex. Mint spoke to Kenneth Andrade, head of investments at IDFC Asset Management Co. Ltd on what’s driving these shares and which sectors will outperform. Edited excerpts:
How do you make the case for mid-cap stocks?
They’ve outperformed in recent times, but if you look over two years, a lot of these guys are playing catch-up. In 2008, you had mid-cap indices plunge to depths significantly lower than what large-caps did. That was a time when some of them were trading at bankruptcy valuations. They are making up for a lot of the lost time (since) the latter part of 2009. But I wouldn’t say they are leading the market, just playing catch-up.
So is there still some growth left in this space?
Leading growth: A Spencer’s outlet in Mumbai. The one single variable that’s climbing is the per capita income of the Indian consumer. Indranil Bhoumik/Mint
Leading growth: A Spencer’s outlet in Mumbai. The one single variable that’s climbing is the per capita income of the Indian consumer. Indranil Bhoumik/Mint
In the mid-cap space, the bounceback that has happened isn’t complete. Profitability across the entire spectrum hasn’t come back. For example, in the real estate and commodities sectors, the profitability that led the previous rally hasn’t come back to the original (last time’s) highs. So, the set of companies that have gone past their previous highs are completely different from those that led the rally last time around.
How do you think firms will react if the fiscal stimulus is withdrawn and interest rates are raised?
They will react very similarly to any company that is dependent upon stimulus-led growth. What is happening in corporate India is—not too many of them are leveraging aggressively. That’s typical of a cautious environment. In 2010, the focus will be on deleveraging balance sheets and bringing down debt. So, all the issuances you’ve had so far, a lot of cash flow that has come in, all of it is effectively going in paying back debt.
How do you see valuations?
Well, the smaller part of the market has always been growth-led. But my style of investing is different. When we look at smaller companies, they need to have the characteristics of being leaders. If they can’t be leaders (in terms of market share) in their entire segment, they should at least be cost leaders. In all probability, companies with these characteristics will dominate their region or their industry. We like growth, but are ready to buy even if it comes at a price—if a company has these characteristics. We would not really mind aligning with these companies even if they are expensive.
Which sectors do you like in this space?
I wouldn’t call them sectors, I would call it themes. I like the consumer space a lot and the food inflation chain a lot. When you have food prices rise—for example, when you have sugar trading at Rs15 in 2005 rise to Rs45 in 2010, clearly on price alone the industry has moved from Rs35,000 crore to Rs100,000 crore. Now, that incremental Rs65,000 crore that the industry has got will help improve profitability down the chain in some (related) industry or the other. The consumer lot also looks good—anything related to the revenue spend of the consumer—aviation, alcohol, media. At the end of the day there is one single variable that is climbing—that is the per capita income of the Indian consumer.
ravi.k@livemint.com

Source: Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 9:33 am

Public debt and the cycle of life

Using Inflation to Erode the US Public Debt, by Joshua Aizenman and Nancy Marion, NBER
The huge increase in public debt in the US as a result of the policies adopted to combat the financial crisis has led to a lot of concern about the ability of the government to service its debt and the willingness of foreigners to continue to buy US government bonds. The US dollar too has been under pressure, primarily because of worries that the US administration will succumb to the temptation of inflating away a part of its debt. In their recent paper Using Inflation to Erode the US Public Debt, Joshua Aizenman of the University of California at Santa Cruz and Nancy Marion of Dartmouth College look at the historical record of the US in inflating away its debt and analyse the factors that may induce the government to do so now.
The researchers point out that the outstanding federal debt at the end of 2009 is about 90% of GDP. In 1946, at the end of World War II, gross federal debt was 121.7% of GDP. Within a decade, however, this ratio was cut by half, partly due to growth and partly on account of inflation. The authors say that inflation reduced the debt to GDP ratio by almost 40% within a decade.
They say that the current fiscal situation in the US shares two features with the immediate post-War period: “It starts with a large debt overhang and low inflation. Both factors increase the temptation to erode the debt burden through inflation.”
But there are also important differences between the two periods. One of them is the fact that while foreign creditors held no US debt at the end of World War II, they now hold 48%. That increases the temptation to inflate, because a lot of the pain would fall on foreigners. But then, today’s debt maturity is less than half of what it was in 1946 and shorter maturities reduce the temptation to inflate. The paper says that these two competing factors offset each other. The conclusion: a moderate inflation of 6% could reduce the debt to GDP ratio by 20% within four years. The risks: “unintended acceleration of inflation to double digit levels in the future may have unintended adverse effects, including growing tensions with global creditors and less reliance on the dollar.” Given India’s high inflation and large public debt, there are many lessons the Indian government can take away from this paper.
Monetary Cycles, Financial Cycles and the Business Cycle, by Tobias Adrian, Arturo Estrella and Hyun Song Shin, Federal Reserve Bank of New York
The shape of the yield curve has long been known to have predictive properties about the economy. When the yield curve is inverted it predicts a downturn; when it is steep, it predicts growth. (The yield curve plots the yields of bonds of the same credit rating and of various maturities at a point in time.)
An inverted yield curve is seen as reflecting expectations of low future short-term rates which, in turn, are attributed to weakness in expected credit demand and central bank policy in response to subdued economic conditions.
But does monetary policy work because it raises or lowers interest rates and therefore affects the demand for credit or because it affects the slope of the yield curve? Tobias Adrian, Arturo Estrella and Hyun Song Shin of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, in their paper Monetary Cycles, Financial Cycles and the Business Cycle, argue that monetary policy works through changing the slope of the yield curve.
The authors argue, “Banks and other financial intermediaries typically borrow in order to lend. Since the loans offered by banks tend to be of longer maturity than the liabilities that fund those loans, the term spread is indicative of the marginal profitability of an extra dollar of loans on intermediaries’ balance sheets.” The term spread is the difference between short- and long-term interest rates. As this spread is squeezed it will affect the net interest margin of banks, leading them to curb lending to marginal borrowers. The supply of credit to the economy therefore comes down, leading to a slowdown in growth in the real economy.
The researchers say, “In our view, a tightening of monetary policy induced by higher short-term rates does not require that long-term rates rise as well in order to obtain real effects. The flattening of the yield curve produced by a rise in short-term rates may be sufficient to affect bank profitability, bank lending, and subsequent real economic activity.”
But surely liquidity matters? The authors say it does, but “liquidity should be defined as the growth rate of assets on key intermediary balance sheets, not the quantity of money.”
Illustrations by Jayachandran/Mint
Write to simplyeconomics@livemint.com

Source: Home - Livemint.com | 15 Jan 2010 | 9:30 am

Mayawati b'day gift: Rs 7k cr welfare schemes - Business Standard


Indian Express
Mayawati b'day gift: Rs 7k cr welfare schemes
Business Standard
PTI / Lucknow January 15, 2010, 18:34 IST Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister Mayawati today celebrated her 54th birthday without the trademark pomp and splendour announcing welfare schemes for the poor and development projects worth over Rs 7300 crore. ...
Rs.7312 crore welfare schemes on Mayawati's B'daySify
Maywati's low key birthday celebrationsEconomic Times
Mayawati announces welfare schemes worth Rs 7312 crore on her birthdayTopNews
Moneycontrol.com -Press Trust of India -Times of India
all 144 news articles »

Source: Business - Google News | 15 Jan 2010 | 7:13 am