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NTPC to add 4150 MW in 201011Union Minister for Power, Shri Sushilkumar Shinde, today reviewed the progress of NTPC projects for the 11th Plan. NTPC will be commissioning projects totalling 4,150 MW during 201011.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 8:18 am Fitch sees ve overhang in Indian oil gas downstream bizFitch Ratings has today said, in a just published Special Report, that the upstream sector (i.e. exploration production, or EP) of India\'s Oil Gas industry has a stable outlook but the outlook on the downstream business (i.e. refining marketing, or RM) is negative to stableSource: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 7:20 am Parsvnath to raise Rs 200300cr via stake saleRealtor Parsvnath Developers plans to raise Rs 200Rs 300 crore through stake sale in projects during the JanMar quarter, a top executive said on Monday.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 7:09 am Auto sector sees accelerated sales growth in JanJanuary brought good news for the automobile sector which delivered a strong set of sales numbers.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 7:02 am TVS Motor clocks 32% growth in January salesIn an interview with CNBCTV18, HS Goindi PresMktg, TVS Motor spoke about the positive sales performance of the company and the road ahead.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:48 am LT sees 30% rise in orders by DecAM Naik, Chairman and Managing Director, Larsen Toubro, expects to return to 9% growth by 2011. \"We should see an order uptick of over 30% by yearend,\" he stated. The company\'s order book currently stands at Rs 91,000 crore.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:34 am DLF seeks to cut high debt cost via bonds, fx loanDLF, India\'s top listed real estate firm, is looking to sell Rs 1,000 crore of bonds and is in talks for a foreign currency loan to help reduce highcost debt, two sources with direct knowledge of the matter said on Monday.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:16 am Pacnet promises lowered internet prices in IndiaThe extension of Singaporebased Pacnets submarine cable to India could mean lower Internet prices for Indian businesses and consumersSource: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:16 am 3G auction: How the gameplan could evolve3G auctions will mean telcos have to find ways to move people from voice to data servicesSource: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:16 am Istanbul: Crossroad of the worldIstanbul sits between continents and eras, religions and cultures,boom and bust. Two writers wander its streetsSource: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:16 am Obama`s bank regulation is right: Vikram Pandit !Vikram Pandit, the Indian American CEO of Citigroup, says President Barack Obama`s plan to regulate and limit the size of banks is in the "right direction".Source: Zee News : Business | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:01 am Food security, productivity remain major concerns: PM!The sense of comfort over India`s food security is somewhat misplaced and both availability of produce and controlling prices remain challenges needing focussed attention on productivity, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said.Source: Zee News : Business | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:01 am Sensex opens lower by 175 points on global cues!The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex on Monday fell by over 175 points, or 1.06 points, in early trade on fresh spell of selling by funds driven by weak trends in the overseas bourses.Source: Zee News : Business | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:01 am January manufacturing growth at 18-month high: Survey !India`s manufacturing in January grew at its fastest pace in almost one-and-a-half years, boosted by a sharp rise in new export orders that underpin a recovery in the industrial sector, a survey showed.Source: Zee News : Business | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:01 am China faces price pressures as economy shows strength!China`s economy made a strong start to the year, according to a pair of business surveys released on Monday that also underlined the mounting challenge policymakers face to curb inflation.Source: Zee News : Business | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:01 am Global co-operation on financial reforms needed: IMF!International Monetary Fund (IMF) Managing Director Dominique Strauss-Kahn has urged the US, Britain and other countries to cooperate on new policies and regulations in the wake of the financial crisis.Source: Zee News : Business | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:01 am Rupee weakens as shares fall; lower Asians!The rupee dropped early on Monday tracking losses in other regional peers and weighed by the fall in domestic shares which fell more than 1 percent early and raised concerns about capital outflows.Source: Zee News : Business | 1 Feb 2010 | 5:01 am Nifty closes above 4900; pharma, IT gain - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:24 am Electronics industry keen on creation of national electronics missionThe industry (Electronic System Design and Manufacturing or ESDM) wants the mission to be a nodal agency for it within the Department of Infomation Technology and with direct interface to the PMO.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:19 am India's exports, imports jumpExports maintain growth for the second month running, imports show growth over December last year.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:15 am India s Indoco US Watson Pharma in drug dealIndian drug maker Indoco Remedies Ltd said on Monday it signed a deal with U.S.-based Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc to develop generic products for the U.S. market.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:07 am BSE Sensex provisionally closes up 0.2 pctMUMBAI (Reuters) - The BSE Sensex provisionally rose 0.2 percent on Monday, helped by late buying in Infosys Technologies and robust January sales numbers from auto makers.Source: Reuters: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:07 am Toyota recall spreads to some cars in Middle East - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:04 am Indian bond yields stay easy, budget seen as next trigger - Reuters India
Source: Business - Google News | 1 Feb 2010 | 3:02 am JAL says still neutral on Delta or American tie-upJAL, Asia's largest carrier by revenues, filed for bankruptcy protection last month with about $25 billion in debt, and vowed to slash about a third of its work force.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:59 am Reliance Comm says sees lower capex in FY11NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Reliance Communications, India's No. 2 mobile operator, expects capital expenditure of 30 billion rupees ($648 million) for the financial year to March 2011, a third lower than its spending this year, a top official said on Monday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:58 am Cathay Pacific plans small capacity increase"We are planning a small increase in capacity this year and reinstating some of the frequencies that we dropped last year," CEO Tony Tyler said.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:57 am Mahindra posts 67.4% jump in domestic auto sales in Jan - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:55 am Cox and Kings India eyes US, UK, Canada for buysThe company, the parent of UK-based unlisted Cox and Kings, completed a Rs6.1 billion initial public offering of shares in December.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:54 am Markets end up 0.2% on robust Jan auto sales numbersMumbai: Indian shares provisionally rose 0.2% on Monday, helped by late buying in Infosys Technologies and robust January sales numbers from auto makers. The 30-share BSE index provisionally ended up 0.21% or 34.57 points higher at 16,392.53, with 18 components gaining. The 50-share NSE index provisionally closed up 0.7% at 4,915.70. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:54 am RBI: Yields pressured if govt borrowing highMUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian bond yields will be pressured if the government borrows more than the central bank expects in fiscal year 2010/11, Reserve Bank Governor Duvvuri Subbarao said on Monday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:53 am Toyota recall spreads to some cars in Middle EastToyota Motor Corp said it is recalling 2005-2010 model year Avalons and 2009-2010 Sequoia cars in the Middle East to fix faulty accelerator pedals.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:53 am Indian Hotels to run three hotels in EgyptCAIRO (Reuters) - Indian Hotels Co Ltd, which owns the Taj luxury chain, has inked an agreement to run three high-end hotels in Egypt developed by Palm Hills Developments, the Egyptian developer said on Monday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:52 am Pearson, Nokia form English teaching JV in ChinaThe new joint venture, named Beijing Mobiledu Technologies, builds on a service that Nokia launched in 2007, providing content from a variety of publishers.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:51 am Exports underpin manufacturing momentum - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:50 am IVRCL Infra gets Rs1,125-cr road project from NHAIMumbai: IVRCL Infrastructures & Projects Monday said it has got a road project worth Rs1,125 crore from National Highways Authority of India (NHAI). The company has got the contract from NHAI for six-laning and four-laning of stretches on NH-47 in Tamil Nadu, IVRCL said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange. The scope of the work includes design, build, finance, operate and transfer of 54.775 kms of road, the filing said. The concession period of the project is 27 years, which includes construction period of 30 months, it said. Meanwhile, in a separate filing to the BSE, the company said it has achieved financial tie-up for the four-laning of the Baramati-Phaltan road project in Maharashtra. The cost of the Maharashtra road project is estimated at Rs382 crore, it added. Shares of IVRCL were trading at Rs315.65 on the BSE, up 2.62% from previous close. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:48 am GLOBAL MARKETS - Shares slide on Greece, ChinaLONDON (Reuters) - World shares sank to a three-month low on Monday as concerns about Greece's debts and a reminder of the challenges China faces to curb inflation stung risk demand, helping push the dollar to a six-month high versus a currency basket.Source: Reuters: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:45 am Rupee recovers from day’s low as stocks riseMumbai: The Indian rupee recovered from the day’s lows on Monday afternoon closely tracking the local sharemarket which turned positive after having dropped early with losses in the dollar against majors also providing a boost. At 3:15pm, the partially convertible rupee was trading at Rs46.28/29 per dollar, off a low of Rs46.44 but still weaker than Friday’s close of Rs46.16/17. Local shares were trading marginally higher after having dropped more than 1% in early trade. Foreign fund investments into local shares are a key driver for the market and the rupee. Foreigners have been net sellers of $2 billion worth of stocks in 11 of the last 12 trading sessions. The euro edged up against the dollar on Monday, recovering slightly from recent losses, but continued to hover close to seven-month lows, dented by concerns over the fiscal health of some euro zone countries. At its monetary policy review last Friday, India’s central bank lifted the cash reserve ratio, the proportion of deposits that banks must keep with the central bank as cash, by a higher-than-expected 75 basis points and held key interest rates steady. In the currency futures market, the most traded near-month contracts on the National Stock Exchange and MCX-SX were both quoting at 46.3775, with the total traded volume on the two exchanges at about $3.9 billion. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:43 am Govt may decide on freeing petrol, diesel pricing this week - Times of India
Source: Business - Google News | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:42 am India’s Indoco, US’ Watson Pharma in drug dealMumbai: Indian drug maker Indoco Remedies Ltd said on Monday it signed a deal with US-based Watson Pharmaceuticals Inc to develop generic products for the US market. Under the deal, Indoco will develop and manufacture eight sterile products while Watson will file for regulatory approvals and have the right to sell these drugs in the United States, said Aditi Kare Panandikar, Indoco’s executive director-business development. “One of the products will probably, if everything goes well, get filed this quarter. And the rest will be filed across Q1, Q2 and Q3 of the next fiscal,” she said. The US is a $679-million market for the drugs covered by this deal, she added The companies will share the development costs and profits from sale of these products, she added. Indoco shares were trading 3.9% higher at Rs337 in a flat Mumbai market. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:41 am Fitch afrms India at 'BBB-'; local currency outlook still neg(The following statement was released by the ratings agency)Source: Reuters: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:40 am Clampdown fears belie China’s loose lendingBeijing: For all the panic about China’s lending clampdown, the market has lost sight of the fact that the risks of excessive loan growth and hence economic overheating and inflation are still skewed to the upside. Global markets tumbled on the clampdown, fearing tighter monetary policy would crimp demand from a country providing a crutch for an otherwise limping global economy. But those fears have arisen in part from a basic mistake. Investors have confused the government’s hard line on the pace of lending for its much more generous stance on lending volume. Beijing entered 2010 with a hefty target of 7.5 trillion yuan ($1.1 trillion) in new credit, or an 18% increase in the stock of loans, and a demand that banks spread out their loans over the course of the year. A loans surge at the start of January made a mockery of the latter. Banks lent 1.1 trillion yuan, or 15% of the full-year target, in the first two weeks of the year, rushing to expand their balance sheets before policy tightening shuts the door on them. The subsequent clampdown — ordering banks to slow and, in some cases, even halt loan approval — was a crack of the whip to get the unruly lenders to fall into line with the goal of a more balanced pace of lending. The central bank also instigated a rise in bank reserve requirements across the board, restricting cash that otherwise could be used for lending. The worst offenders were singled out for even steeper increases. Had banks continued to dish out loans unabated, the situation would have been more dire, fanning price rises and asset bubbles. “It would be out of control. The real demand for loans — for investment, consumption, for all this business — is not that great,” said Ting Lu, an economist with Bank of America-Merrill Lynch in Hong Kong. But there is little doubt so far about the government’s commitment to relatively loose credit conditions over the course of the year. “This year’s new loan target is definitely smaller than last year’s level (of 9.6 trillion yuan) but it still represents massive growth compared with other years,” said a banking official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. “It means that lending will not shrink abruptly, because the economic recovery still needs capital support.” Moreover, analysts estimate that a good chunk of last year’s loans — as much as 1.5 trillion yuan or 16% — is still sitting unused in corporate bank accounts. Surge redux? China’s annual loan growth had been below nominal GDP growth for a few years until last year’s blow-out, when credit rose by 33%, more than 20 percentage points faster than the overall economy’s expansion. This was a key part of the country’s stimulus programme, fuelling the economy with loose money to power past the global financial crisis. With global demand weak, the private sector flat and manufacturers suffering from over-capacity, the government judged — and many analysts agreed — that it could contain inflationary pressures caused by the lending surge, so long as it was confined to one year. It was, in other words, meant to be an exceptional policy in exceptional circumstances. But the gusher of loans at the start of this year was a warning that Beijing would have a battle on its hands to avoid a repeat of last year’s surge. A slowdown at the end of January may have capped monthly new loans at 1.6 trillion yuan, according to official media reports, but this is broadly the same amount as January 2009 when the economy was in the doldrums and not growing at an annualised rate of 11.3%. “If this pace were allowed to continue, total lending would far exceed the 18% growth that had been deemed ‘appropriately accommodative,” Tao Wang, an economist with UBS in Beijing, wrote in a note. Tug of war If the government fails to control lending — for example, if new lending tops 4 trillion yuan in the first quarter, as it did last year — Beijing may have to wade in more heavily to keep a lid on inflation and prevent over-investment. Strict bank lending quotas, aggressive reserve requirement increases, slower investment project approvals and eventually higher policy rates could be on the cards. For possible scenarios Beijing was always going to have a tall order in getting banks to go easy on loans at the start of the year. In the country’s typical lending pattern, banks issue about 40% of full-year loans in the first quarter. If the government had any illusions about banks’ incentive to front-load lending even more heavily when tightening is expected, those have been dispelled by January’s lending surge. The way that banks rushed to push out loans to gain market share before worried regulators pushed back could become something of a pattern, as it was in 2007/2008. “We are likely to see the tug-of-war repeated each month and each quarter for the rest of the year. The end result may be net new lending of at least 7.5 trillion, but the process should be stop and go, causing a lot of uncertainty,” Tao said. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:33 am Clampdown fears belie China's loose lendingBEIJING (Reuters) - For all the panic about China's lending clampdown, the market has lost sight of the fact that the risks of excessive loan growth and hence economic overheating and inflation are still skewed to the upside.Source: Reuters: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:30 am Govt may decide on freeing petrol, diesel pricing this weekThe government may decide on freeing petrol and diesel prices after an expert committee on fuel pricing submits its report this week, Petroleum Minister Murli Deora said on Monday.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:29 am Auto sector sees accelerated sales growth in Jan - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:25 am Exiled Tibet government says sovereignty not an issueDharamshala: The Tibetan government-in-exile argued Monday that Chinese objections to sovereignty for Tibet were misplaced, as it was seeking autonomy, not independence, for the Himalayan region. “We are not wishing to have Tibet as a sovereign state,” Tibetan administration spokesman Thubten Samphel said. His remarks came after Beijing announced it had made no concessions on Tibetan sovereignty during talks with envoys of the Dalai Lama in China — the first such negotiations in more than a year. “(China’s) national interests are inviolable and there is no room for discussion on the issues of national and territorial sovereignty,” said a government statement on the talks, quoted by the official Xinhua news agency. But Samphel said the exiled government had never sought any concessions on the issue, arguing instead for a high level of autonomy for the region. “We have made it clear to them that Tibet should enjoy autonomy and this was conveyed to the Chinese side,” he said. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:24 am No fuel price hike till committee submits report DeoraPetroleum Minister Murli Deora today indicated that transport fuel prices will not increase till the Kirat Parikh committee submits its report.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 2:03 am Rising incomes to pressure food supply - PMNEW DELHI (Reuters) - Rising prosperity will increasingly put pressure on food supply in India and the country urgently needs to boost farm productivity, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:52 am Maruti car sales rose 33 3 percent in JanuaryIndia's largest car manufacturer Maruti Suzuki on Monday reported a 33.3 percent rise in sales in January at 95,649 vehicles compared to the like month last year.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:41 am India’s rising incomes to pressure food supply: PMNew Delhi: Rising prosperity will increasingly put pressure on food supply in India and the country urgently needs to boost farm productivity, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said on Monday. After last year’s failed monsoon rains, food prices have jumped in India, one of the world’s top consumers of sugar, wheat, edible oils, rice and lentils, triggering protests in poorer regions and putting pressure on authorities to tighten monetary supply. Indian demand has helped New York raw sugar futures surge to the highest in 29 years. Singh told a meeting of top bureaucrats from Indian states that the country needed to increase farm productivity as food supply was an area of concern. “Many felt that we have been able to control prices. But we have learnt that our growing population and higher levels of living necessitate augmentation of our food supplies,” he said. Last year, sugar prices in India doubled in step with global prices and forced India to import large quantities to ensure steady supplies. “We must also recognise that in a globalised world, it will never be possible to insulate ourselves from the pulls and pressures of international demand and supply,” Singh said. He urged state governments to take steps to boost food output and tackle shortages of essential commodities. India’s consumption of items such as sugar, wheat, vegetable oils and lentils has increased steadily as the world’s third-largest economy expanded rapidly. Analysts say the government’s welfare schemes and its focus on rural development has further increased demand in villages. India’s central bank last week lifted its wholesale price index inflation forecast for the end of the fiscal year in March to 8.5% from 6.5% and upgraded its economic growth forecast for 2009-10 to 7.5% from 6%, predicting a similar rate of growth the following year. It said it expected inflation to moderate from July, assuming a normal monsoon and steady oil prices. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:38 am Hyundai sales jump 42 per cent in JanThe country's second largest carmaker, Hyundai Motor India, on Monday reported 41.60 per cent growth in sales at 52,635 units in January 2010.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:36 am China, India factories buzzing, recovery intactChina's manufacturing powered ahead in January, providing more evidence of its robust economic health.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:22 am Exports underpin manufacturing momentumNEW DELHI (Reuters) - India's manufacturing in January grew at its fastest pace in almost 1-½ years, driven by a sharp rise in new export orders that are supporting a recovery in the industrial sector, a survey showed on Monday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:22 am China, India factories buzzing, recovery intactBeijing: China’s manufacturing powered ahead in January, providing more evidence of its robust economic health to markets fretting about Beijing’s policy tightening and the dire state of government finances around the world. A pair of surveys showed on Monday that China’s vast manufacturing industry expanded at close to record pace last month as the world’s third-largest economy continues to lead the global recovery. India, another emerging power that avoided recession and is coming out strongly from a soft patch, saw its factory sector expanding at the fastest clip in nearly 1-½ years. Euro zone and US purchasing managers’ surveys, due later on Monday, are also expected to confirm a pick up in manufacturing in major developed economies after. Russia in January recorded its second expansion in activity in the last 18 months. South Korean and Australian manufacturing surveys showed improvement too, in part feeding off China’s growth burst in the past quarter that brought it back to its cruising speed of more than 10%. With interest rates at record lows and budget deficits at multi-year highs after costly crisis-fighting efforts, investors are keen to see any signs that the recovery spurred by massive policy stimulus can carry forward without more public aid. Costly rescue The cost of preventing the global recession from turning into depression will be evident in US budget estimates due at 1500 GMT. The White House will predict a record $1.6 trillion deficit for the fiscal year 2010, a congressional source told Reuters. Fears that Greece, Portugal and other smaller euro zone countries will struggle with servicing their heavy debt have also soured market sentiment, prompting investors to shun risky assets and driving stock markets lower. Beijing’s steps to cool buoyant credit growth to prevent overheating also fanned concerns that they may prove too heavy-handed and derail the upturn at a time when other big economies have yet to regain their momentum. Chinese bank lending slowed sharply in the final 10 days of January, according to a newspaper report, but there was little evidence yet in Monday’s data that the crackdown was hurting activity. An index based on an official survey of purchasing managers last month eased from a 20-month high in December but remained firmly in expansionary territory, while an index derived from a companion poll by HSBC scaled an all-time high. Both reports also showed a further rise in cost pressures leaving the authorities little choice but to keep tightening policy after they have steered debt yields higher at auctions, raised banks’ reserve requirements and reined in lending. More Tightening “Industrial activity continues to accelerate, implying stronger GDP growth in the first quarter. But rising input and output prices also point to greater inflationary pressure, which will likely prompt more tightening measures in the coming months,” said Qu Hongbin, chief economist for China at HSBC. Markets found little comfort in the PMI data, focusing instead on the likelihood of further policy tightening. “Fears about stronger monetary tightening remained the key negative factor today,” said Li Wenhui, analyst at Huatai Securities in Nanjing. The official survey also showed a rise in imports, a welcome news for several Asian economies, which heavily rely on the upturn in Chinese demand for a recovery in their exports. In fact, South Korea, Asia’s fourth-largest economy reported that its exports to China jumped 88% year-on-year in January, even as overall export data disappointed markets and month-on-month growth was moderating. Despite growing concerns that Beijing’s tightening campaign will sap demand for South Korean exports, January’s purchasing managers’ survey marked the fastest manufacturing expansion in more than two years, largely due to still rising export orders. Australia’s manufacturing survey also showed expansion month and a jump in new orders suggested a further pickup ahead even as it remains the only G20 economy to have started raising interest rates to cool mounting price pressures. The euro zone Markit survey due at 0858 GMT is expected to show manufacturing growth edging up. In the United States, the Institute of Supply Management survey due at 1500 GMT is also forecast to show a pick-up in growth, but only compared with a downward revised December figure. The index is seen edging up to 55.2 from 54.9, though last month’s original reading was at 55.9 points. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:19 am TVS two-wheeler sales up 34 pc in January - The Hindu
Source: Business - Google News | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:16 am China, India factories abuzz, recovery intactBEIJING (Reuters) - China's manufacturing powered ahead in January, providing more evidence of its robust economic health to markets fretting about Beijing's policy tightening and the dire state of government finances around the world.Source: Reuters: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:14 am Exports grow by 9.3% to Rs 68,000 crore in DecemberThe country's exports grew for the second straight month in December by 9.3 per cent to USD 14.60 billion (around Rs 68,000 crore).Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 1 Feb 2010 | 1:01 am AR Rahman wins two Grammy AwardsMumbai: “Slumdog Millionaire” composer A.R. Rahman struck gold twice at the Grammy Awards on Sunday, adding to the Oscars he won last year for the film’s soundtrack and theme song “Jai Ho”. Rahman, 44, beat Grammy veteran Bruce Springsteen in the motion picture song category while “Slumdog Millionaire” swept aside “Inglourious Basterds” and “Twilight” to win best compilation soundtrack for a film. “Insane eh? I never even dreamt about winning all these awards,” the composer said on his Twitter account. Country-pop starlet Taylor Swift and R&B star Beyonce were the big winners at the awards ceremony in Los Angeles. In 2009, Rahman became the first Indian composer to triumph at the Oscars, winning for original score and original song in “Slumdog Millionaire”, a feat that earned him the Padma Bhushan, India’s third-highest civilian honour, this year. Known for his musical versatility -- from romantic compositions to foot-tapping numbers, Rahman has innovated with different instruments and sounds to create some of India’s best-known musical hits for nearly two decades. Despite earlier international credits such as the Andrew Lloyd Webber musical “Bombay Dreams”, it is Rahman’s work on British director Danny Boyle’s “Slumdog” that endeared him to Western critics. His work for the Hollywood film “Couples Retreat” is in contention in the original song category at the Oscars next month. The nominations will be announced on Tuesday. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:54 am Hindujas to acquire construction co to invest 10 bn in powerDiversified Hinduja Group said it is close to acquiring an Indian construction firm in a bid to secure a foothold in India's fast growing infrastructure sector, especially roads, and also announced an investment of $10 billion (around Rs 46,200 crore) in the power sector.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:42 am Asia shares at 3-month lows; China fears weighSingapore: Asian stocks fell to three-month lows on Monday with investors cautious after new data strengthened the case for tighter Chinese monetary policy and as attention focused on key US economic reports due this week. European shares were also expected to retreat by as much as 1.2% amid lingering worries about Greece and other weak euro zone members. US stock futures pointed to a slightly higher open after Wall Street ended lower on Friday despite data showing the US economy grew at its fastest pace in six years in the fourth quarter. Markets are bracing for a big week with a number of major central bank meetings across the world and a raft of economic reports out of the United States, culminating in the non-farm payrolls data on Friday. Many of Asia’s stock markets lost ground on Monday, rattled by US losses last week, while Japan’s Nikkei stock average ended flat. “A correction in Asia is healthy, definitely. Prices have moved ahead quite well,” said Alex Boggis, fund manager at Aberdeen Asset Management, which oversees about $240 billion in investments. “Obviously over the last year markets have moved ahead quite strongly based on ... a dramatically improving environment. But has it really dramatically improved?” Asia Pacific stocks outside Japan as measured by MSCI were off 0.84%, a 3-month low. The index lost 6.4% in January, its worst month in a year, after a 68% surge in 2009, as a host of unsettling factors prompted investors to take profits. According to data from Nomura, foreigners sold nearly $4.1 billion in stocks in six Asian markets ex-Japan in the week ended 31 January -- led by $1.7 billion in Taiwan, $1.2 billion in India and $811 million in South Korea. The US dollar held at its highest levels in six months on Monday, while the euro huddled near seven-month lows on euro zone fiscal concerns, and higher yielding currencies remained pressured by the closing of leveraged trades. Fresh worries over public finances of Greece, Portugal and other smaller euro zone countries have also weighed on global stocks. Fears that Athens will not be able to service its heavy debt have prompted investors to shun riskier investments. Also high on investor radar screens has been China, where a pair of business surveys on Monday underlined the mounting challenge policymakers face to curb inflation in the world’s third-largest economy. An index based on an official survey of purchasing managers last month eased from a 20-month high in December but remained firmly in expansionary territory, while an index derived from a companion poll by HSBC scaled an all-time high. “Industrial activity continues to accelerate, implying stronger GDP growth in the first quarter. But rising input and output prices also point to greater inflationary pressure, which will likely prompt more tightening measures in the coming months,” said Qu Hongbin, chief economist for China at HSBC. The Shanghai Composite Index fell 1.6% but Hong Kong’s Hang Seng index managed to recoup early losses. South Korean shares bucked the overall trend, ending up 0.25%, with automakers posting strong gains on firm January sales data and troubles at rival Toyota Motor Corp, which has been hit by a massive recall of vehicles. Hyundai Motor ended up 2.65%, while Kia Motors closed 5.63% higher. Toyota, the world’s top automaker, fell 1.15% after losing almost 14% last week. Toyota will announce on Monday details of its plan to fix accelerator pedals that have led to the recall of 2.4 million cars in the United States as it scrambles to put its worst public relations crisis behind it. The Australian dollar hovered at its weakest since mid-December as investors unwound yen-funded carry trades on a report that a UK regulator would like to restrain carry trading generally. The euro teetered at its lowest since last July, holding just above $1.3850 where one trader reported talk of a barrier yet to be triggered. It tested that level several times. US Treasury bonds slipped but their losses were limited as many investors held back ahead of key economic data and events this week. Before the jobs data on Friday, investors will get a snapshot of US manufacturing sentiment on Monday and President Barack Obama will also make remarks on the US budget. The benchmark 10-year notes edged down 5/32 in price to yield 3.609%, up about 2 basis points from late New York trade on Friday. T-note futures were unchanged at 118-05/32 Oil prices steadied below $73 a barrel on Monday, pausing from the previous session’s 1% decline which came as concerns about sluggish energy demand outweighed stronger-than-expected US economic data. Nymex crude for March delivery edged lower to $72.75 a barrel by 0645 GMT. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:40 am Maruti posts record sales up 33.3 pc in Jan'10 - The Hindu
Source: Business - Google News | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:39 am Fire breaks out at SAIL Chhattisgarh unit, production affectedA fire broke out at the Bhilai Steel Plant in Chhattisgarh, severely hitting hot metal production at the flagship unit of the Steel Authority of India Limited. No one was injured, an official said on Monday.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:33 am Smartphone competition to bite in 2010 after Q4 boomThe smartphone wars will be good news for consumers, but the fierce competition will inevitably place downward pressure on vendors'' pricing and margins.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:21 am Exports grow by 9.3% to $14.6 bn in December - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:21 am Toshiba-JSW JV to starts operations by January 2011In 2008, the JSW group and Japan's Toshiba Corp lined up a $250 million joint venture to make and sell steam turbines and generators in India.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:18 am L amp T bags two orders worth Rs 2 155 cr from NFLDiversified company Larsen & Toubro on Monday said it has received two orders worth Rs 2,155 crore from National Fertilisers Ltd for converting the feedstock of ammonia plant to natural gas.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:12 am Gold futures may test support levelsComex gold futures ended lower touching a one-month low, as strong economic data boosted the dollar and markets remained cautious of a US proposal to limit bank risks. The US GDP report showed the economy in the fourth quarter grew at its fastestSource: Business Line - Home Page | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am Bulls may try to stage a comebackThis week the market may attempt to keep a brave front and the benchmark index may actually sport a weekly gain, thanks to positional adjustments by bigSource: Business Line - Home Page | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am Oriental Bank of Commerce – BuyInvestors with medium-term perspective can consider buying the stock of Oriental Bank of Commerce. The stock bottomed out at the multi-year low of Rs 95 in March 2009. Since then, it has been on a long-term uptrend, forming higher peaks andSource: Business Line - Home Page | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am Day Trading GuideDLF appears to have found near-term support and bounced up. We recommend a buy with stop at RsSource: Business Line - Home Page | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am Ashok Leyland net profit zooms on lower expensesAshok Leyland has reported a net profit of Rs 105 crore for the quarter ended December 2009, which is six times that in the corresponding quarter of lastSource: Business Line - Home Page | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am Bulk deals no big indicator of market movementFor retail investors looking for cues to market direction, transactions by large investors in big chunks of company stock (commonly termed bulk deals) may not be a great indicator, an analysis of aggregated data for 2008 and 2009Source: Business Line - Home Page | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am MNCs find it tough to get women on boardWhile diversity is not a new issue at IT multinationals in India, getting more women on board has become more expensive forSource: Business Line - Home Page | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am Gold vulnerable as dollar strengthensAfter a fantastic recovery over the past few months, global commodity markets are currently experiencing some turbulence, what with renewed caution over macroeconomic outlook, concerns over the impact of monetary tightening in China (the world'sSource: Business Line - Home Page | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am FDI inflows up 13% in December at $1.5 bIndia attracted foreign direct investment (FDI) inflows of about $1.5 billion during December 2009, an over 13 per cent increase from about $1.3 billion notched a year ago, according to initialSource: Business Line - Home Page | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am Pvt life insurers may do away with renewal commissions to agentsInsurance agents are perturbed that some private life insurance companies have decided to discontinue payment of renewal commission after five years in the case of select categories ofSource: Business Line - Home Page | 1 Feb 2010 | 12:00 am Asia is now world s biggest air travel market IATAThe Asia-Pacific region has overtaken North America as the world's largest air travel market with 647 million passengers in 2009, the International Air Transport Association (IATA) said on Monday.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 31 Jan 2010 | 11:59 pm Hyundai sales jump 42% in Jan 2010New Delhi: The country’s second largest carmaker, Hyundai Motor India, on Monday reported 41.60% growth in sales at 52,635 units in January 2010. The company had sold 37,171 units in January 2009. Domestic sales during the month rose by 40.85% to 29,601 units compared to 21,016 units in the same month last year, Hyundai Motor India Ltd (HMIL) said in a statement. The domestic sales in January are the highest since 1998 when HMIL launched its flagship Santro in September, it added. “We have started the year on a right note and we hope the momentum will continue with the help of the stimulus package offered by the government,” HMIL director (Marketing and Sales) Arvind Saxena said. Exports of the company grew 42.58% to 23,034 units from 16,155 units in the year-ago period, it added. In its A2 segment (Santro, i10, i20 and Getz Prime), the company sold 47,104 units, while in the A3 segment (Accent and Verna) sales were at 5,502 units. The A5 segment (Sonata Transform) of HMIL witnessed sales of 29 units, while its SUV Tucson had no takers during the month. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 31 Jan 2010 | 11:32 pm Manufacturing growth at 18-month highIndia's manufacturing in January grew at its fastest pace in almost 18 months, boosted by a sharp rise in new export orders that underpin a recovery in the industrial sector, a survey showed.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 31 Jan 2010 | 11:01 pm Sensex opens lower by 175 points on global cuesThe Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex on Monday fell by over 175 points, or 1.06 points, in early trade on fresh spell of selling by funds driven by weak trends in the overseas bourses.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 31 Jan 2010 | 10:38 pm Oil extends decline towards $72, worries over demandPerth: Oil prices fell on Monday, extending January’s worst loss in 13 months on concerns about global growth and sluggish oil demand. Oil prices ended January down more than 8%, pressured by data showing tepid energy in the United States, worries about fiscal turmoil in smaller euro zone countries and a stronger US dollar. US crude for March delivery fell 36 cents to $72.53 a barrel by 0239 GMT. The contract fell 75 cents to settle at $72.89 a barrel on Friday, after sliding to a five-week low of $72.43. London Brent crude fell 33 cents to $71.13. “The cold weather premium is coming off and investors have to consider the pace of global economic recovery, actual oil demand and a strengthening US dollar,” said Benson Wang, an oil trader at Commodity Broking Services in Sydney. “Looking at how crude oil prices have collapsed in the last 1-2 hours of trading in the past few sessions, I think it shows a trend whereby investors are trying to get out of their long positions.” Money managers cut their net long crude oil futures position on the New York Mercantile Exchange in the week through 26 January, the Commodity Futures Trading Commission said on Friday. Official data that showed China’s Purchasing Managers’ Index falling to 55.8 in January from 56.6 in December, the first month-on-month deterioration since May 2009, also weighed on sentiment. Analysts said there is a persistent worry that China would further tighten monetary policy. Beijing’s moves last month to rein in rapid growth and curb inflationary pressures have sparked fears that such measures could impede a still-weak global economic recovery and curb Chinese demand for energy and commodities. Adding to the gloom, the White House will predict a $1.6 trillion US budget deficit in the 2010 fiscal year, a fresh record and the biggest since World War Two as a share of the economy, a congressional source told Reuters on Sunday. The grim forecast adds to the challenges facing President Barack Obama, who is emphasizing a message of fiscal discipline but is also seeking stimulus measures to boost the struggling economy in the near term. Markets are bracing for a big week of economic news, with a number of major central bank meetings across the world and a raft of economic reports out of the United States, culminating in non-farm payrolls data on Friday. Asian stocks slid on Monday after suffering their worst monthly drop in a year, while the US dollar gathered steam, as fiscal worries in the euro zone prompted investors to add to short positions in the single currency. Royal Dutch Shell has shut down three oil flow stations in Nigeria’s Niger Delta after a key crude oil pipeline was sabotaged, a company spokeswoman said on Sunday. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 31 Jan 2010 | 10:06 pm Sensex opens lower by 175 pointsThe Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark on Monday fell by over 175 points, or 1.06%, in early trade on fresh spell of selling by funds driven by weak trends in the overseas bourses.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 31 Jan 2010 | 9:13 pm B K Modi goes for consolidationThe company will merge its two subsidiaries listed Spice Mobiles and unlisted Spice Televentures to form a new entity Spice Mobility that will invest Rs 1000 crore over the next two years.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 31 Jan 2010 | 12:50 pm FIIs raise holdings in FMCG companiesFII holdings in most of the FMCG companies have gone up by about a percentage point in the December quarter of 2009 over the September quarter.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 31 Jan 2010 | 12:48 pm 'Exit ELSS after lock-in period'Is it prudent to keep your money in a tax-saving mutual fund scheme beyond the mandatory lock-in period of three years? A large number of investment experts think otherwise.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 31 Jan 2010 | 12:47 pm OIL ready to take over ONGC's fieldsNortheast explorer Oil India Ltd has said it is ready to take over flagship explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corporation's fields in the regionSource: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 31 Jan 2010 | 12:45 pm DoT considers single licence for 17 servicesIn a development that could make the process simple and minimise the bureaucratic interference, the government is mulling a single telecom licence in the place of 17 types of service-specific ones.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 31 Jan 2010 | 12:44 pm My way was the highwayIn Pimpalgaon, a small village near Nashik on NH3, the first crop of grapes is being harvested. Yashwant Ganghurde, clad in a white dhoti and Gandhi topi, sits on a blue plastic sheet, supervising the grape picking and sorting. His denim-clad agent sits nearby, atop a motorcycle of dubious parentage, fiddling with his cellphone and waiting to take delivery of the harvest. But Ganghurde, who started off as small-time farmer and now employs a dozen people, is not a happy man. “The yield is half of what it was a year ago,” he says in Hindi. “A bad monsoon leaves less water. This also means that the grapes are less juicy and not of export quality.” He murmurs vaguely that the government should do something about irrigation. Then he shrugs philosophically and gets back to the picking and sorting. He is just one among the thousands of people who live along this road—the Mumbai-Agra national highway. It’s a vignette of the so-called glowing India story—of development in the hinterland, of growth and urbanization. But this is a growth that still depends on the vagaries of nature and coexists with poverty and corruption.  Connecting people: The highway near Kasara Ghat on the Mumbai-Nashik route. Photographs by Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint Many stretches on this route were relaid about two-three years ago, although the four-lane road starts only when you leave Mumbai. On the way, as the high-rises of the suburbs recede, construction activity and the realty business still remain the dominant themes until Kasara, the last stop for local trains. Be it roads, malls, or housing complexes, including one called Shangri-la and a garishly painted Orange City Villa—all are being built frenetically, perhaps reflecting economic recovery. After you pass Khardi, the start of the bush territory, the construction activity flags, albeit only till you reach the outskirts of Nashik. The weather changes from hot and humid to slightly chilly and dry, but the dust never leaves you. Neither do the forces of development, it seems. You can’t look at the horizon in any direction and expect to see only trees or farms. There are cellphone towers dotting the highway, in tens of dozens, as far as the eye can see in all directions. Most of them have come up in the last four years, say residents. For many of them, like Deepak Ramgowte, a farmer at Godhe, it’s an alternative source of income. Ramgowte says he gets Rs4,000 per month for renting out a small part of his land. It’s a 10-year contract and he feels a bit cheated because land prices have increased. But given the vagaries of the monsoon, he adds, at least it’s a steady income and he is able to afford luxuries such as satellite TV.  On the road:(clockwise from right) Workers sort grapes at a vineyard in Pimpalgaon; a rickshaw driver in Jhodage village in Nashik district; Sai Baba devotees walk towards Shirdi near Asangaon in Thane district; and a toppled truck in Malegaon. That’s another striking feature—as you pass the smallest, most isolated villages on the way to Dhule. Most houses, including the shanties, boast of direct-to-home television, with cable TV having bypassed this region. After one passes Nashik, industry and construction give way to agriculture. On this flat terrain, you see vineyards and fields of millet and onion. This is India’s Napa Valley, but unfortunately, the roadside dhabas neither serve wine, nor have they been able to escape the onslaught of paneer butter masala, a highway staple. But for those dependent on agriculture, these are tough times, with all three crops of the region—grapes, onions and tomatoes—in difficulty. At Ozar, a small village, we spoke to a truck driver, Dhananjay, part of a group of 10-odd truckers washing their vehicles by the river, killing time. Dhananjay has waited four days, but is yet to get his cargo of onion—it’s just not available. “Growth has been good the past couple of years, but things are a bit uncertain now with the (fallout of the) bad monsoon,” says an official of Axis Bank Ltd, which opened a branch here three years ago. Still, agriculture has led to development in this area, says an official of HDFC Bank Ltd at Pimpalgaon. This village, which has the thickest concentration of grape and onion farms in the region, has seen shops, schools and a few banks spring up in the past three years. The highway is being converted into four lanes and a cold storage depot is being constructed. But this prosperity also brings officialdom and its tales of corruption. At an onion trader’s storage facility near the village, we aren’t allowed to take photographs because a picture published previously led to a tax raid. “My income has increased in the past three years. But with the rise in prices of rice and onions, I have to pay double the bribe to the police and transport officers on the highway,” says Balwinder Singh, a trucker who is bringing potatoes from Agra to Mumbai. As we reach the last stop, where NH3 crosses NH6, or the great eastern road that connects Surat to Kolkata, we encounter a gypsy family that travels to Rajkot in the non-monsoon season. The patriarch of the group, which stays in makeshift tents and makes baubles for a living, tells us how times are changing for the better. His name is Dhirubhai. “Do you know about your famous namesake?” we ask. “Ambani,” he grins toothily as he returns to his wife, who is cooking fish and mutton for the eight-member family by the wayside. Every highway has its own unique knack of connecting people. ravi.k@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 31 Jan 2010 | 12:39 pm Note to readersDear Reader, Thank you. Mint is now three years old. The latest edition of the Indian Readership Survey says Mint is the country’s second most read business paper, after The Economic Times (which, to be fair, is far ahead) but ahead of the Business Standard, The Hindu Business Line, and The Financial Express. It is also India’s No. 1 media brand according to a survey done by Pitch magazine that rated publications and TV channels on several parameters, including how well the sales team sold the product, and the kind of audience delivered by the product, so thank you (too) advertisers. That’s a fine progression of numbers and no one could ask more of a paper that remains a start-up—in spirit as well as age. In days (and years) to come, we will continue to give you more of what makes Mint unique—best-in-class offerings in the personal finance (Money Matters), news-you-can-use (Business of Life), and weekend magazine (Lounge) areas; credible and objective reporting; excellent narratives; in-depth investigations; as well as the courage to take on subjects not considered apt for a business paper or issues that are too controversial to be covered. Between the paper, the mobile phone offering (Mint Mobile), the website (livemint.com) and our online video offering (Mint TV), we will also try to match your needs for news, views, and analysis across media. And we will do all this without deviating from our code of conduct. Thank you for choosing to read Mint, and do continue to send your feedback to feedback@livemint.com, or to me directly at sukumar.r@livemint.com R. Sukumar Editor Source: Home - Livemint.com | 31 Jan 2010 | 12:24 pm The power of 3Three wise men, the trinity, three dimensions, hat-tricks and triple sundaes. The number three finds resonance everywhere, in mythology, in fables, books, films, everyday life and now, in Mint’s anniversary issue. Read about the third-generation tragedy in business, evolving India as seen from the NH3, real life stories that mirror ‘3 Idiots’, the magic of the number three and much more. 3 things to run for, and 3 to run from your money in 2010  Going digital: Technology is finally having a say in how you invest. Stockxpert Yet, a big blowout will have to await the repricing of money in the US. As long as money is cheap, the party will continue in some form or the other. To exit the market is to lose on the long-term bounce that equity gives your portfolio, but to time the market is suicidal. So, what are we looking at in 2010? What to watch out for The financial products that an average person needs are mostly already in the market in India. The big challenge is to make transactions smooth and seamless. It is difficult today to get a full net worth statement from any one website or service provider, though there are small companies working in this direction. The big change will be firms offering processes that make it easier to move your money across products and accounts, maintain and manage the investments and to see your financial life all in one place without having to pull out 10 different files. Online MF platforms: Technology is finally having a say in the way you buy, sell and manage your mutual fund (MF) accounts. Say you invest in five schemes across five different fund houses, you need to fill in five forms, five cheques. Next, you will get five account statements that you need to keep a track of. Consolidating investments is just next to impossible in this structure. Online platforms such as fundsindia.com, fundsupermart.co.in and the soon-to-be-launched Powermf.com make it easier for you to track your investments. Open an account just the way you open an email account, link your bank account with it, submit relevant documents like a copy of your permanent account number (PAN) card and you’re all set to invest in MFs. Mobile banking: Cash has begun the journey from the wallet to the cell and 2010 will see more changes to expedite this journey. With banking regulator, the Reserve Bank of India, hiking the limit that can be transacted through the mobile gateway to Rs50,000 every day, the regulatory approval for this is in place. Not just bill payments, you can book tickets and make all other transactions that a debit card can do. Stock exchanges and mutual funds are looking at the mobile gateway to reach investors in both urban and rural India. The National Stock Exchange and the Bombay Stock Exchange are planning to launch a trading platform where brokers (and investors later) will be able to execute orders for mutual funds products over their mobile phones. Mutual fund houses have already begun work on a mobile transaction platform. Insurance transactions Insurance buying and maintaining is yet fairly clunky in India. Fully online today are comparisons between premiums across portals such as www.click2insure.in, www.policybazaar.com and www.insurancemall.in. Fully online buying is not yet in place since insurance policies require underwriting procedures, which often need the transaction to shift gears to an offline mode. Typically, you can buy life, motor, health, house, travel and personal accident insurance online. Expect more such services and a growing focus on comparison shopping in insurance products in 2010. Look for plain vanilla insurance products to be sold online directly by insurance companies themselves at a fraction of the off-line cost. What to be wary of In the thousands of products on offer in the marketplace, there are just a few that really work for you. Buying plain vanilla investment, insurance and home loan products will be a winning strategy in 2010 since the scope for mis-selling is lesser when the product you buy is simpler. This year will be noisy in product pitches and here are three products to stay away from. Overseas funds: Your mutual fund does not just invest in Indian markets; it can also invest abroad. In 2007, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) raised the overall ceiling for investments in foreign securities by mutual funds to $5 billion. Twelve international funds were launched in 2007. Ironically, when foreigners were rushing to put bucketloads of money into India, there were funds taking our money to markets that were sitting on the edge of a cliff. Over the past five years, the Sensex returned 21.22%. The US’ Dow and Japan’s Nikkei lost money in the same period. Given the current global growth outlook, don’t buy a regional diversification argument. Keep it home and keep it growing. Guaranteed insurance products: Insurers have begun rolling out a new product suite that is in sync with the new cost caps that the regulator had instituted last year. Costs were capped at 2.25% of the return for tenures more than 10 years. This means the charges in the policy cannot drag the return your fund earns by more than 2.25%. But there are products that are able to escape this cap. An extension of capital guarantee products, these policies escape the cost caps because the regulator has allowed them to charge extra for the guarantee. An analysis of the guarantees shows they keep your returns low and costs high, though the advertisements will seem to offer you a lock-in at the highest end of the net asset value. Stick to a term policy for a life cover and avoid all Ulips for now. Loans with teaser rates: The year 2009 was one of teaser loans. These loans offer a low and fixed rate of interest for an initial one to three years after which the applicable interest rate, linked to the bank’s prime lending rate, comes into play. It started with State Bank of India’s 8% fixed rate for a year home loan offer, and soon others followed. RBI is concerned that some borrowers could be caught wrong-footed by the twin forces of a planned hike in the teaser rate to a more realistic level and that level itself rising due to an inflationary economic regime. bindisha.s@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 31 Jan 2010 | 12:21 pm Three is company tooPick the odd one out: Shankar-Jaikishan, Kalyanji-Anandji, Laxmikant-Pyarelal, Jatin-Lalit, Vishal-Shekhar and Shankar-Ehsaan-Loy. Obviously, it’s the trio of composers that stands out among the list of Bollywood duos. Over the years, while duos have had extremely successful careers as music composers, it is rare to come across an enduring relationship between three musicians. Since they got together in 1997 for the soundtrack of the Hindi movie Dus, there has been no looking back for Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa.  Three of a kind: (from left) Shankar Mahadevan, Ehsaan Noorani and Loy Mendonsa. Abhijit Bhatlekar/Mint Within 5 minutes it’s evident that you have very different personalities. Ehsaan: We come from vastly different backgrounds and are into very different kinds of music. I come from a fully rock, guitar background and know a lot about modern music like rock, pop and blues. Shankar’s got a strong Indian background, yet he has an easy grasp of any kind of music. Loy has a lot of colour in his sound. Being a piano player, which is the mother instrument, he can just put his hands on the piano and come up with a melody in no time. All that blends together and you get something which is quite unique and changes with every composition. Shankar: As people, we have no resemblance to each other! His (Ehsaan’s) tastes in music, food or lifestyle are different from my tastes and environment. That keeps it going—three completely different individuals in one room and each one inquisitive about the other person’s take on a particular thing. Loy: It’s like having access to so much more colour. Does having a third vote help? Ehsaan: Definitely. One of us will always be objective about whether something works or about the aesthetics. Somebody else may bring something new into the composition. Loy: Sometimes everyone gets too involved in a composition; then one needs to step out and come back in with a completely different perspective. Shankar: The advantage of being three is that if there is a conflict, the third guy can settle the issue. Ehsaan: An important factor which, as composers, is unique to A.R. Rahman and us, is that we are musicians ourselves. So we do not take an idea and pass it on to someone to execute for us. All three of us have a strong sense of harmony and theory of music, which means you can take a melody and completely skew it by adding harmony in the background. What is the process of creation? Shankar: It’s abstract. Ehsaan: There is really no pattern… Shankar: There can’t be a pattern. Loy: Where do you start? Shankar: In the morning, we get an empty canvas and three of us paint. Nobody knows who is going to start. If one of us puts one colour, will it work? If we erase that colour and start with something else…by the end of the day we are pretty much ready with some song, some piece of music. Does being commercial for the sake of Bollywood constrain you, creatively? All: Yes, sometimes it does. Ehsaan: On the flip side, Dil Chahta Hai was not really commercial; there were no Indian instruments in it. There were good melodies in the soundtrack. Anyone who writes a song—whether it’s Sting, John Mayer or us—will write a good melody. Then it automatically becomes commercial. We will not do My Name is Khan with avant-garde jazz music, which we know only the three of us will listen to. Shankar: As composers, you are walking on a path where you know your music is a huge medium. Today you are sitting in this 10x10 room and tomorrow you know the whole world is going to hear your songs. But we also have to maintain our own influences and musical quality otherwise we won’t be able to sleep peacefully. Ehsaan: Last Navratri, dandiya bands were playing versions of Rock On!! See where it goes. It’s incredible. Have you ever reached breaking point? Loy: Never as a group, but many times on the music we are making. Shankar: For a song, a million times, for almost every song. There are fights, arguments, walking out of the studio. Loy: We are well aware that Shankar is a high-profile individual and artist. If one is not aware of such things then that can create problems. Ehsaan: If we had got success at 25, things would have been different, but not when you are older. What about personal ambitions? Shankar: We do many things on our own. Ehsaan plays with a band. I am already doing too many things and I would like to do them properly. Loy has just started learning to play the upright bass. Loy: It’s a new passion. When I have learnt my bass properly, I want to play bass in a trio. Ehsaan: I would like to go back to music school for a few months. Loy: I might go to New Zealand. My brother is there and he said he would find me an instructor to study the bass for a month or so. Shankar: I don’t want to go to school. I want to get into practising properly. I have never done riyaaz in my life. I say that with my hand over a harmonium—so I cannot lie. I want to do that for 2 hours a day. What keeps you grounded? Shankar: That this is not the only thing we enjoy doing. This is just one. A bhajan concert, watching a cookery show or a trip to Goa with my family will excite me equally. Studying guitar or learning a new guitar solo will excite Ehsaan. Ehsaan: The learning process really keeps you going. You look at things more holistically as opposed to being influenced by just one factor of your life. It has a lot to do with personalities also. You can fly high and behave like… Shankar: A snob… Ehsaan: But that doesn’t get you anywhere. What are your best albums? Loy: Dil Chahta Hai is beautiful and a couple of songs like Maa (Taare Zameen Par) and Kal ho na ho have translated beyond the movie. Ehsaan: Lakshya is underrated. We have done a lot of good work and also some horrid songs, like one song from Kuch Na Kaho and one from Mission Kashmir. Shankar: You cannot be partial to a song because it has done well. There are albums that were good that did not do well because the film did not work, like Luck By Chance, Armaan, London Dreams and Kuch Na Kaho. How come no one ever uses Loy-Shankar-Ehsaan or some other combination? Shankar: Many people say Shankar-Loy-Ehsaan. If you say Jaikishan-Shankar it sounds like a different person. Ehsaan: It is programming. It’s funny though, because while people know Shankar they get confused between Loy and me. So when they see either of us they say that’s Ehsaan-Loy, like it’s one person. Is three company or a crowd? Shankar and Ehsaan: Company, definitely. Loy: I am okay with either. It doesn’t bother me. I never really analyse. Shankar: Four is also okay. feedback@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 31 Jan 2010 | 12:15 pm Banks rush to open branches in Mukherjee’s constituencyJangipur (West Bengal): The opening of an Allahabad Bank branch near his home in Panchgram village, in the interiors of West Bengal’s Murshidabad district, has brought relief to Mohammed Samiruddin, a wholesale dealer of fertilizer and insecticide. The bank where he had an account until Allahabad Bank opened a branch in his village was nearly 7km away. “I would often have to carry Rs4-5 lakh in cash when I returned home, which at night wasn’t an advisable thing to do, but at times there would be no alternative,” said Samiruddin, who now wants his loan account, too, moved to the branch near his home. Samiruddin is one of tens of thousands of people in Murshidabad for whom accessibility to banks has improved dramatically since Pranab Mukherjee became finance minister last year—after winning the parliamentary election from Jangipur constituency. State-owned banks have made Jangipur and its neighbourhood their preferred destination for initiatives aimed at “financial inclusion”, which range from opening of branches to the so-called “adoption of villages”. In the past six months, Mukherjee has inaugurated at least 18 new branches of different state-owned banks in Jangipur and its vicinity. Contrast this with the financial year ended March 2009, during which 26 branches were opened in all of rural West Bengal, according to banking regulator Reserve Bank of India (RBI). “This is the highest for any district of West Bengal in a year,” said Nitish Kumar Poddar, an official at the Kolkata-based United Bank of India (UBI), who is also the lead manager for public sector banks in Murshidabad. The country’s biggest lender, State Bank of India (SBI), alone has opened eight new branches in the past six months, followed by UBI’s seven. On Sunday, SBI announced the “extension of banking services” to Sanyasidanga village near Jangipur town, where banking services were not available until now. It has appointed an agent in the village to facilitate banking transactions for people with SBI’s nearest branch, which is a few kilometres away. This, claimed SBI, was the 100,000th village it reached ahead of any other bank in the country. On Sunday, chairman O.P. Bhatt announced 50,000 more villages would be brought under its network within a year. India has some 600,000 villages in all. Former finance minister P. Chidambaram’s parliamentary constituency, Sivaganga in Tamil Nadu, had become a similar magnet for state-owned banks two years ago. In two years until the middle of 2008, public sector banks had opened at least 30 branches in Sivaganga, adding up to one bank branch for every 6,800 people. The story of Murshidabad, however, is slightly different. The district, which had a population of 5.9 million in 2001, now has 261 bank branches. This translates to one branch for every 22,600 people, significantly worse than the national average of one for every 14,000 people. “Banks are opening branches here, but this isn’t because I am from Murshidabad,” Mukherjee said in Jangipur on Sunday. “This district is indeed one of the poorest in the country, and has a large number of people from the minority community (Muslims). Financial inclusion of people in Murshidabad will benefit the whole country.” A recent study by Kolkata’s Indian Statistical Institute found that Murshidabad, which was once known for its opulence, was now home to the largest number of rural poor in India—about three million people, or 56% of the district’s rural population, were found to be below the poverty threshold. “What is happening in Jangipur is indeed great—for financial inclusion there is no alternative to opening bank branches,” West Bengal’s finance minister Asim Dasgupta said. “But it is just a beginning.” Out of the state’s 3,304 gram panchayats (village councils) 935 still don’t have a bank branch, according to Dasgupta. “By RBI’s own admission, bank penetration in 17 out of 19 districts of West Bengal is low,” he added. Business has been reasonably good for banks that have launched branches in Murshidabad recently. For instance, UBI’s branch at Palsonda village has in a month received 500 applications for agricultural loans and opened 400 savings bank accounts. A lot of people are opening so-called no-frills accounts, or zero-balance savings accounts. But, on their own, such accounts are not profitable for banks, according to Satish C. Gupta, UBI’s chairman and managing director. “They are used to build relationships with customers so that we could eventually offer them other products such as overdraft facilities and insurance,” he said. There is already demand for credit in Murshidabad’s interiors, yet targets for the current year may not be met, according to Poddar of UBI. In the current fiscal ending in March, banks in the district had a collective credit disbursal target of Rs922 crore, but only 35% has been achieved so far, he said. “Things are going to get better in the last two months of the year, yet the target is unlikely to be achieved,” he added. As of 30 September, banks in Murshidabad district had total deposits of Rs4,354 crore and advances were at 40% of that amount at Rs1,728 crore, whereas the credit-deposit ratio for Indian banks was at 74% at the end of fiscal 2009. A large section of the people rushing in to borrow from these newly launched bank branches are those indebted to moneylenders, said another banker on condition of anonymity. “Often people here can’t wait for banks to process loan applications, and end up borrowing from moneylenders, who typically charge 10% interest a month,” he added. Standing nearby, two farmers—Abul Khayer and Mohammed Sukurullah—nodded in agreement. Khayer had submitted several loan applications with the regional rural bank (RRB) nearby, but it wouldn’t even discuss the proposals. “Eventually, I had to borrow from a moneylender. But once Allahabad Bank opened its branch in Panchgram, things changed. Even the people at the RRB were keen to give me a loan, but I refused,” Khayer said. Sukurullah’s story is similar. He, too, borrowed from a public sector bank to repay a Rs20,000 loan he had taken from a moneylender. While it is true that thousands have benefited from the opening of new bank branches in Murshidabad, a large section of the people, who live across the river Ganga, complained that banks had done nothing for them. “Opening of branches in Jangipur or Raghunathgunj doesn’t help us,” said 60-year old Nazrul Islam, who is dependent on the money his son sends from Kerala, where he works as a labourer. “For us, the nearest bank is still 6 km away in Berhampore,” the district headquarters of Murshidabad. aveek.d@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 31 Jan 2010 | 12:11 pm Tell it right: it’s three not two decades This seems to have happened with the story of India’s tryst with economic reforms. Repeated over and over again in the last two decades, most people in the country have come to believe that economic reforms began in 1991-92, when India was in the throes of one of its worst economic crises. Responding to this challenge, the minority Congress government, despite severe political opposition, first mapped out and then implemented the economic reforms. Also Read Anil Padmanabhan’s earlier columns There are two problems with this theory. One, it is too pat. Second, and more importantly, it denies a simple maxim of history: Continuity with change. The moment one accepts this logical view of history, the cast changes and so do the credit lines. Contrary to popular perception, India took its first baby steps in the direction of economic reforms in 1980-81. Seen this way, India’s reform process is actually three decades old; it also adds some unlikely names to the cast, such as Indira Gandhi—a populist and until the 1970s, ideologically Left-leaning. To be fair, it was not the first time that Indira Gandhi was toying with the idea of economic reforms. She did dabble with them in the late 1960s, when the country was besieged by an economic crisis and had to approach the International Monetary Fund (IMF) for a loan. The clumsy attempt by the US to leverage the loan to push its foreign policy agenda with India and the domestic political fallout after the loan conditions were leaked resulted in the move being aborted. Around the same time in 1969, Jagdish Bhagwati and Padma Desai published their seminal work India: Planning For Industrialization: Industrialization And Trade Policies Since 1951, severely critiquing the industrial growth strategy adopted since the country attained independence, and argued that it was devoid of economic rationale. Through the 1970s, this theme came back to haunt the country as it lurched from one crisis to another. Eventually, when a more mellow Indira Gandhi returned to power in 1980, she hit upon the strategy of approaching IMF for a fresh loan, but with the caveat that the loan conditions would be homegrown. That is: economic reforms would be initiated voluntarily by India and would be consistent with the loan conditions, a clever strategy politically.  Close-knit team: Montek Singh Ahluwalia (left) and Bimal Jalan. Ramesh Pathania / Mint The Sixth Plan (1980-81 to 1985-86) evolved as India’s economic reform strategy and the IMF loan was conceived as a part of it. So when it approached IMF for a loan, there was hardly any opposition, excepting from the US—which eventually abstained from the final vote, approving a $6 billion (Rs27,840 crore today), the largest ever, three-year loan to India. Indira Gandhi and her team also ensured that all the more stringent elements, such as reduction of import tariffs and delicensing, were back-ended. Once again, an adroit move to mitigate political damage; in fact, after the economy recovered, the government exited the loan programme a year ahead of schedule and also avoided implementing those difficult reform measures. Even though economic reforms had made their advent, the politician was reluctant to embrace the process, giving rise to the strategy of “reform by stealth”. The vision was there, but execution was incremental. Take, for instance, the long-term fiscal policy—one of the most seminal ideas in the country’s modern economic history— articulated in V.P. Singh’s 1985-86 budget. It was an idea that first took flight during the end of the last tenure of Pranab Mukherjee as finance minister in 1984. The first seeds of public sector overhaul were laid during Rajiv Gandhi’s tenure, when he spun off the Delhi and Mumbai telecom circles to create Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. He later employed Sam Pitroda to launch a telecom mission and set up the Centre for Development of Telematics—they were governed by less stringent rules than other public sector undertakings. Similarly, RBI was systematically exploring ground on financial sector reforms—the blueprint was laid out in the 1985 report of the committee to review the working of the monetary system under the chairmanship of Sukhomoy Chakravarty. What the 1980s did was to systematically effect a change in the mindset of the country even as the economic situation continued to deteriorate largely due to a reckless fiscal policy financed through overseas borrowing, which eventually led up to the balance of payments crisis in the beginning of the 1990s. By then, the initial ideas put out by the core team around Indira Gandhi had been fleshed out sufficiently and the arguments for glasnost in the country’s industrial policy framework were becoming bolder and more articulate. So when P.V. Narasimha Rao took charge as the next prime minister and appointed Manmohan Singh as finance minister, the duo knew what had to be done. The call was more for Rao to make: whether politically the country was finally ready to bite the bullet in earnest. Using the Teflon-like image of Manmohan Singh, Rao moved ahead. The two together, in a span of six months, implemented the blueprint. The scale of change was so dramatic that it is often assumed that this is where it all began. What the 1990s did was to bring the politicians and thereby the rest of the country on board the reform process. This was made easier by the fact that there were several coalition governments that included politicians of all hues, bringing about an informal consensus. Economic reform became a way of life, but unfortunately did not lose its elitist tag. The Congress-led United Progressive Alliance has succeeded in reversing this by once again giving a clever tweak to the reform logic. It first showed that it cared for those who were not equipped to benefit from the unprecedented surge in economic growth in the country by setting up what is probably the world’s biggest social safety net—the Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme. It linked its ability to fund this and other social sector spending programmes to sustained growth—not possible without more reforms such as an accelerated disinvestment of public sector undertakings. It is an interesting quirk of historical coincidence that Mukherjee, who was at the helm in the early 1980s, has returned to North Block as finance minister in what will be the fourth decade of economic reforms—which should see India introduce the single goods and services tax and a direct tax code, something that would mark the culmination of the tax reforms process. Reaffirmation of the maxim: Continuity with change. Anil Padmanabhan is a deputy managing editor of Mint and writes every week on the intersection of politics and economics. Comments are welcome at capitalcalculus@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 31 Jan 2010 | 12:05 pm Smart marketing, wider marketIf 2009 was the year of stars being forced to cut fees, production houses rationalizing budgets and astronomical marketing budgets giving distributors the Blues (pun intended), then 2010 is likely to see a big change in the way the business of film entertainment is conducted. Further reach For one, the increase in digitized cinemas and the proliferation of multiplexes will see the emergence of new markets, namely B-towns. Places such as Varanasi, Bathinda, Gorakhpur, Ranchi, Raipur and Meerut, to name a few, will contribute in a bigger way to the box office.  Changing the script: Innovative marketing and New Age ideas will define blockbusters. Rajkumar/Mint Smart marketing Hand-in-hand comes the second trend—innovative marketing, with campaigns designed to cater to new markets. As Chaudhary adds: “The muscular markets of last year which saw spends of up to Rs18 crore on the marketing of Blue, Rs16 crore on Kambakkht Ishq, Rs11 crore on Kurbaan contributed in large part to the films’ losses. Cheeky marketing by movies such as Love Aaj Kal, Dev D and 3 Idiots did the trick. Reducing your marketing budget immediately affects the bottom line.” Siddharth Roy Kapur, CEO of UTV Movies, predicts “lower and more innovative ways of marketing films, by cutting out the waste and focusing single-mindedly on the core target audience for each film.” Independent thrust Creatively, the year will see the ongoing tussle between mainstream commercial content and New Age themes explored by independent film-makers. While the former banks on star appeal, the latter focuses on getting the script right and finding fresh ways of telling a story. “Big ideas, not a big star cast, will rule,” says Kapur. Then again... On a lighter note, here are three populist predictions for Bollywood: 1. Hrithik Roshan will finally cut his hair, but only after the release of Kites and after wrapping up Guzaarish because he will be preparing to collect all the acting awards. But Roshan’s paraplegic will face stiff competition from Shah Rukh Khan’s autistic Khan. 2. Katrina Kaif and Kareena Kapoor will continue to battle for the top spot. While the media continues to speculate on their love affairs, marriage plans, in-laws’ blessings, Aishwarya Rai Bachchan will quietly emerge the winner, sweeping awards for her roles in Raavan or Guzaarish. 3. Aamir Khan will march steadily to the powerful position of No. 1 producer, marketing brains and actor as he promotes the living daylights out of his productions Dhobi Ghat and Delhi Belly. feedback@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 31 Jan 2010 | 12:01 pm Best profit growth in 8 quartersMumbai: Average profit growth in the three months ended 31 December has been the best in eight quarters at companies that make up the 50-stock Nifty, the benchmark index of the National Stock Exchange. While the momentum is likely to be carried forward to the next quarter, the market is concerned about the Budget and a possible rollback of fiscal stimulus.  Profit at firms in the narrower 30-stock Sensex, the Bombay Stock Exchange’s bellwether equity index, grew by 18.63% on average in the three months, also the best in eight quarters. All Sensex firms are part of the Nifty. Sales for the Nifty firms grew 21.43% for the three months ended December after declining for the previous three quarters. To an extent, sales were boosted by the 90% revenue growth posted by Reliance Industries Ltd, India’s most valuable company. Still, a broader sample of 1,106 firms posted an average 11.65% growth in sales, indicating the underlying economic recovery, say analysts. “We believe the earnings cycle is turning and broad market earnings are likely to outpace the narrow market in terms of growth,” Morgan Stanley India Co. Pvt. Ltd’s Ridham Desai and Sheela Rathi wrote in a 19 January research note. For the broader sample of 1,106 firms that have so far announced their December quarter earnings, profit grew by 31.75%, less than the 43.94% gains posted in the previous quarter—the best in three years. Company earnings that faltered in the last fiscal year after the global credit crunch have received a boost this fiscal from government stimulus packages and a series of interest rate reductions by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). In its latest credit policy review, RBI raised its estimate of gross domestic product growth in fiscal 2010 to 7.5% from 6%. “We are seeing that earnings have fully recovered. The fiscal stimulus package has helped,” said Raamdeo Agarwal, joint managing director at Motilal Oswal Financial Services Ltd. “This (earnings growth) will likely continue because of the base effect.” Unlike the previous two quarters, when profit growth was driven by cost cuts and gains from low raw material prices, increased sales too contributed in the three months ended December. Economic indicators support the revenue numbers. For instance, the HSBC Purchasing Managers’ Index, a leading indicator of demand, increased to 55.6 in December. A reading of 50 indicates expansion. India’s factory output gained 11.7% in November, the most in 25 months. What has also helped firms is the reduction in interest costs, which fell 26.17%. However, with inflation rearing its head and the central bank signalling an exit from its loose monetary policy by increasing banks’ reserve requirements, the advantage may not last long, analysts say. On Friday, RBI raised the cash reserve ratio (CRR) by 75 basis points and indicated that year-end inflation may reach 8.5%. The Wholesale Price Index has climbed to 7.31% for December, driven by an increase in food prices. “We will have to see how excise rates, raw material prices and interest costs (at these levels) continue,” said Ajay Parmar, head of research at Emkay Global Financial Services Ltd. “As of now, I don’t think you will enjoy low interest rates after some time.” “Capacity shortages are back, raw material prices are rising and the pricing power of corporates is high,” wrote Prabat Awasthi and Nipun Prem of Nomura Financial Advisory and Securities (India) Pvt. Ltd in a 27 January note. “Corporations have started to releverage, and so have consumers. Inflationary forces are building up.” For the purpose of this analysis, earnings of 41 Nifty firms and 27 Sensex companies available for the past 30 quarters were considered. These numbers, sourced from Capitaline database, are stand-alone earnings for firms and don’t include that of their subsidiaries. Excluding banks, financial institutions and oil and gas companies, the collective average earnings for 31 Nifty firms increased to 31.06%. Oil and gas firms’ earnings depend on volatile international crude prices and a subsidy sharing mechanism by the Union government. Banks and financial institutions have a different earnings model as non-interest income is a part of their regular earnings, but for manufacturing and service sector firms, income generated from peripheral activities is excluded from profit calculations.  Graphic: Yogesh Kumar / Mint “The markets are over-valued,” Jyotivardhan Jaipuria, head of research at Bank of America–Merrill Lynch, said in a recent interview. “The pace of earnings upgrades is also slowing down.” Jaipuria and other analysts said that the markets would look for signals from the Union Budget at the end of February when the government would decide whether to continue with the fiscal stimulus package or rollback excise duty cuts. ravi.k@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 31 Jan 2010 | 11:52 am GVK power buy hits coal mine hurdleFour-month-long negotiations between GVK Infrastructure and Dainik Bhaskar Power (DB Power) to buy the latters power plant have fallen through.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 31 Jan 2010 | 11:34 am Component shortage puts the brakes on auto firmsBajaj Auto has seen motorcycle production more than double since the lows of December 2008 on the back of surging sales. Thats the good news.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 31 Jan 2010 | 11:32 am SMEs sparkle with 25-fold increase in net profitIf India Incs big boys have come up with sterling numbers in the third quarter ended December 2009, their small and medium (SME) counterparts are not far behind.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 31 Jan 2010 | 11:30 am Bingo clocks top reality TV views since 2008The once-a-week Abhishek Bachchan-anchored game show, National Bingo Night, on general entertainment channel Colors, launched on January 23 at 9 pm, opened with a whopping 5.1% television rating (TVR, Hindi-speaking market, cable & satellite homes, 4+ years), according to Television Audience Measurement or TAM.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 31 Jan 2010 | 10:52 am Social selling logs inMarketers are increasingly looking at new ways and means to reach out effectively to their target consumers, even as they continue to reach out through the conventional routes, Rachit Vats writes.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 31 Jan 2010 | 10:46 am Adding another dimensionOn 8 January in Las Vegas, Nevada, few days after James Cameron’s sci-fi epic Avatar crossed the $1 billion (around Rs4,600 crore) mark—it has since gone on to become the highest grossing film of all time—3D was once again the buzzword. At the showfloor of the International Consumer Electronics Show (CES), an annual consumer technology event—almost every major tech firm seemed to have a 3D ace up their sleeve—Sony, Samsung, and Toshiba unveiled 3D Blu-Ray players. Panasonic went a step further—launching a 3D TV prototype as well as a high-definition 3D camera. At a CES press conference, Avatar producer Jon Landau said, “3D is not about gags; it’s about creating a window into a world. We’ll see 3D become ubiquitous.” Halfway across the world, on the same day, at the New Delhi auto expo in Pragati Maidan, another kind of 3D technology was being showcased. Software company Microsoft demonstrated one of their “surface” computers—a flat dining table-like device on which users could touch and browse through 3D car models, even design their own cars with the use of simple gestures. In the aftermath of Avatar’s much-hyped 3D release, the third dimension has become the hottest trend on the technology circuit. But what exactly does it mean? There are two kinds of 3D technology that are currently gaining traction.  3D race: (clockwise from below) The audience at a screening of Cameron’s Avatar in China; a still from the film;Microsoft demonstrates its upcoming Project Natal for the Xbox 360. Tentative steps “India made its first 3D stereoscopy film with the Malayalam movie (My Dear) Kuttichaathan (dubbed into Hindi as Chhota Chetan) in 1984 but the movement towards 3D didn’t take off then because there weren’t too many facilities,” says A.K. Madhavan, chief executive officer of Mumbai-based Crest Animation Studios Ltd, which is currently working on an animated stereoscopic film called Alpha and Omega. “It’s the rise of multiplexes that made cinemas ready to handle 3D films.” Madhavan says stereoscopy will no longer stay confined to cinemas, and will move into living rooms with 3D-enabled TVs, like the one Panasonic unveiled at CES. “It’s just going to take two or three years for the sets to be available in the market. Like the transition we made from black and white to colour to high definition, we are going to go to 3D stereoscopy television sets,” he says. The technology now extends beyond film as well. In December 2009, Fujifilm launched their 3D digital camera, the FinePix REAL 3D W1, which has two lenses, placed at approximately the same distance apart as the human eyes. The two lenses take simultaneous photos of the same object, the camera layers them together, and shows you a composite 3D image, similar to a how a still from Avatar, with goggles on, would look. But what advantages does 3D offer over a traditional film? “The “wow factor sells,” says Madhavan. “The reason people will watch a regular movie in 3D—a non-animated, non-action, non-sports movie—like, say, a Karan Johar film, is because 3D will make Johar’s wedding scenes look even more grand.” Others are not quite as sure about the leap to 3D. Pramod Dhaval, the chief technology officer at Sanraa Media, a Chennai-based new media firm specializing in film production, graphics and animation, acknowledges the “theme park ride” excitement that 3D offers, but doesn’t see it becoming ubiquitous. “The script and story has to be written for 3D,” he says. “It has to add value to the story, rather than just popping out of the screen for 3D’s sake.” The extra cost that going 3D entails, he says, will also keep smaller productions away. Cameron’s Avatar was budgeted at nearly $300 million. “The format is still evolving, and there are no standardized production techniques yet,” Dhaval adds. The future is here The second kind of 3D technology, whose roots go back further into computing past, involves the development of a three-dimensional interface, a spatially-aware system that can read and understand gestures and movement. These are sometimes referred to as “natural user interfaces”, and are often seen in science fiction films such as Minority Report. Three-dimentional visual in everyday computing has traditionally been associated with videogames (as in a 3D game), so it’s not surprising that most of the advances in this field have come from the gaming industry. In 1995, Nintendo debuted an ill-fated device called a Virtual Boy, a gigantic head-mounted device that looked like a prop from Robocop. It used a variant of 3D stereoscopy called “parallax” for its games, which were mostly in monochrome. It was discontinued the following year. It wasn’t until 2006, when Nintendo hit success with the Nintendo Wii game console that interest in 3D interfaces started developing. The Wii used a wireless remote fitted with an accelerometer to detect swings and jabs. The Wii’s most popular game, a Nintendo-developed title called Wii Sports, allowed players to play simple games like tennis or boxing by swinging and stabbing with the remote. As of 2010, both Sony and Microsoft are working on motion-enhanced controllers for the Playstation 3 and Xbox 360 consoles respectively. Microsoft previewed their variant called Project Natal in 2009. It uses an internally-developed projector that can translate body movements into in-game action. Kick, and your in-game character kicks. Mime a steering wheel, and you can play a racing game. “With Project Natal, we are removing the last barrier to gaming: the controller,” says a spokesperson for Microsoft India. “It’s an entirely new yet completely natural way to play.” Natal is due to be launched in December 2010. But while 3D is the next big thing for entertainment and play, getting work done with it still a while away. A US-based start-up called Bumptop is dabbling with a 3D interface that replaces the staid, boring Windows desktop with stacks, piles and objects strewn around, exactly like a messy desk. But Dhaval feels 3D is too cumbersome for everyday computing. “It’s too early for that,” he says. “It will take a while before people get used to it. It’s currently best used in short bursts.” krish.r@livemint.com Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 31 Jan 2010 | 10:10 am Tech it to the next levelChanging chargers It might seem the least sexy part of your tech gadget. But 2010 could be the year that frees you from the unholy mess of chargers in your handbag or briefcase. Major mobile makers recently committed to making the Micro USB format standard in all phones in another few years. You could see this standardization starting soon, as soon as 2010. With just one charger, you could power you phone, iPod, GPS receiver and maybe even a notebook PC. Even if that takes time, 2010 could be the year wireless contact charger mats take off. With these pads, you can charge your phones and other devices simply by placing them on a “powermat”. No strings or wires attached. The recent International Consumer Electronics Show (CES) 2009 trade show in Las Vegas showcased a few models. Speak up  Beyond words: Text-speech and speech-text could get a big boost this year. Applications such as Vlingo and Google’s Mobile App have voice recognition that let you input commands into your phone by speaking into it. As products get smarter, processors get tougher and voice software gets more accurate, you should see many more devices offering text-speech-text capabilities. Or smart apps, riding on 3G networks, doing it for them. Seamless mobility Why can’t you use your desktop at work, and then when you get up to go home, have all the session data synced to your phone, so that your bookmarks and browsing history travel seamlessly? Or maybe even some data and applications. Opera users have had the facility for ages. But with Firefox looking to launch the Fennec, a mobile browser, and more syncing options between phones and desktops, 2010 could see connectivity getting not just portable but seamless. One moment you’re typing, the next you’re touching. sidin.v@livemint.com Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 31 Jan 2010 | 9:54 am
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