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Azim Premji bets on strong rebound as global ecos recoverCalled the Bill Gates of India, Azim Premji, the influential Chairman of Wipro, ranks amongst Asias most powerful business leaders. This is the man who has left an indelible market, Indias IT sector. He created software colossus Wipro, a pioneer which helped to stir up the wave of outsourcing across the globe.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 31 Jul 2010 | 6:57 am How important is it to have health insurance?In an exclusive interview with CNBCTV18, V Jagannathan, CM and MD, Star Health and Allied Insurance and Lovaii Navlakhi, Chief Financial Planner and MD, International Money Matters, speak about health insurance.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 31 Jul 2010 | 6:55 am Cos indulging in misuse should be blacklisted: MedantaThe CII facilitated a meeting of the heads of the four PSU insurance companies and key corporate healthcare players to address the issue of cashless medical insurance. In an interview with CNBCTV18, Dr Naresh Trehan, the chairman and managing director of Medanta was at that meeting spoke about key takeaways.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 31 Jul 2010 | 6:12 am Are MBAs and biz schools to blame for recent eco crisis?In an exclusive interview with CNBCTV18\'s Anuradha Sengupta Harvard Business School Dean Nitin Nohria spoke about the perception problems faced by the business community globally, and what changes he\'s making at the school to set that right.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 31 Jul 2010 | 6:07 am EDF deal heralds more Asian investments: AnalystsHong Kong billionaire Li Kashing\'s offer for French utility EDF\'s UK power grids suggests more Asian cash is in the pipeline for similar assets, analysts said on Friday.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 31 Jul 2010 | 5:00 am US House approves oil spill reform billThe US House of Representatives on Friday approved the toughest reforms ever to offshore energy drilling practices, as Democrats narrowly pushed through an electionyear response to BP\'s massive oil spill in the Gulf of Mexico.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 31 Jul 2010 | 4:58 am Reliance, Universal near deal on India park: FTIndian billionaire Anil Ambani\'s entertainment group is close to signing an agreement with Universal Studios to build a USD 1.5 billion filmthemed amusement park, the Financial Times reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the talks.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 31 Jul 2010 | 4:54 am Procter Gamble: Educating rural IndiaCNBCTV18s Shereen Bhan caught up with PGs India CEO, Shantanu Khosla to find out how does educating rural India tie in with PGs social responsibility.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 31 Jul 2010 | 4:23 am Union Bank hikes deposit rates by up to 1%; BPLR up 0.5% - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 31 Jul 2010 | 4:07 am Taj hotels owner IHCL reports 80 per cent profit slump - domain-B
Source: Business - Google News | 31 Jul 2010 | 3:58 am Torrent Power Q1 cons net profit up at Rs 299.2 cr - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 31 Jul 2010 | 3:55 am ICICI Q1 net up 17 percent; meets forecast - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 31 Jul 2010 | 3:35 am ICICI Q1 net up 17 percent; meets forecastMUMBAI (Reuters) - ICICI Bank, India's No. 2 lender, posted a 17 percent rise in quarterly net profit, meeting forecasts, on strong corporate and retail loan demand in a rapidly growing economy.Source: Reuters: Money News | 31 Jul 2010 | 3:29 am JAL to spend $2.8 bln to procure 65 aircrafts-JijiTOKYO (Reuters) - Japan Airlines plans to spend 241.5 billion yen ($2.8 billion) in the next five years to procure 65 aircrafts as it rejigs its fleet toward smaller, more fuel-efficient airplanes, Jiji news agency reported on Saturday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 31 Jul 2010 | 3:10 am Sensex sheds 263 points on profit-booking - Hindu Business Line
Source: Business - Google News | 31 Jul 2010 | 2:39 am Religare board okays $431 million fund raising, posts lossReligare has posted a consolidated net loss of Rs492.3 million ($10.6 million) during the April-June quarter, compared to a profit of Rs134 million ($2.9 million) year ago, it informed the exchanges.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 31 Jul 2010 | 2:22 am Insurers, hospitals to restore emergency cashless claims - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 31 Jul 2010 | 1:12 am Indefinite curfew imposed in major towns of KashmirSrinagar: Indefinite curfew was clamped in all major towns of the Kashmir valley on Saturday in the wake of protests, even as the death toll in the violent clashes between locals and security forces rose to four. There were also reports of sporadic protests in some parts of the valley. Two of the 70 people injured during protests on Friday succumbed to injuries at a hospital on Saturday morning, a police spokesman said. The deceased have been identified as Mohammed Rafiq and 30-year old Mohammed Siddiqui of Baramulla district. Official sources said curfew has been imposed as a precautionary measure following the protests. Police and paramilitary forces were deployed in all sensitive areas and the residents have been asked not to step out. Curfew passes given to media persons have been cancelled, police said. This is the second time this month that curfew passes have been cancelled. On 6 July, curfew passes were cancelled when the army was deployed in the city. Security forces on Friday opened fire to quell stone-pelting protesters who clashed with them at several places. The mob had also ransacked a police station in Pattan, besides a special operation group camp in the same area. Shoukat Ahmad Chopan and Mohammad Ahsan Ganai were killed and seven others injured when security forces opened fire on a mob at Arampora village of Sopore, 55 kms from here in Baramulla district of north Kashmir. People had taken to the streets shortly after Friday prayers and were heading towards Sopore town when the security forces intercepted them and asked them to disperse. However, the protesters turned violent and indulged in stone-pelting on a CRPF picket. The security personnel opened fire, resulting in injuries to seven persons who were rushed to hospital. Chopan and Ganai succumbed to injuries at SMHS hospital here, they said. Seven persons were also injured when police opened fire after a group of youths went on rampage and set ablaze a vehicle parked inside police station in Pattan, 27 kms from here on Srinagar-Baramulla national highway, police said. The clashes come nearly 10 days after a person was killed and another injured in police firing in self-defence on a mob. which turned violent during funeral of youth, who had drowned in Jhelum river in Baramulla district. Condemning the killings, Opposition Peoples Democratic Party (PDP) had said on Friday that such incidents were contributing to an “unprecedented worsening of situation.” PDP general secretary Mohammad Dilawar Mir in a statement accused the state administration of failing to perform its duty. The state unit of CPM also expressed grief and shock over the killings. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:53 am Fears of second recession in US loomThe US economy continued to grow during the second quarter with the gross domestic product rising at a slower than expected 2.4 per cent annual rate during the three months ended June 30, the Commerce Department said yesterday.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:52 am PNB to raise rates from SundayMumbai: State-run lender Punjab National Bank (PNB) said on Saturday it would raise its benchmark prime lending rate (BPLR) by 75 basis points (bps) to 11.75% from Sunday. The lending rate revision by Punjab National Bank comes after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday raised interest rates more forcefully than expected to tame inflation. Punjab National Bank said it would also increase its term rates by 25-75 basis points on select deposits with effect from Sunday. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:48 am Apple invades BlackBerry territory with iPhone 4Frenzied Canadians lined up in front of Apple stores and other authorized retailers from Toronto to Halifax to Vancouver almost 24 hours before the delivery of the smartphone started in Canada.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:27 am Reliance's Infotel raises $500 million from RBS consortium: ReportThe fund raising was completed by June-end, and the cheque has already been presented to Reliance Industries, said a banker, who was one of the three sources.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:20 am Kharif sowing sees shift from oilseeds to pulsesFarmers have shifted significant area under oilseeds this time to pulses because of more favourable price signals in the case of theSource: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 am PSU banks' mutual fund investments jump 44%State-owned banks are clearly getting more bullish on mutual funds going by their recent investment trend in suchSource: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 am Inflation– of various kindsThe Reserve Bank of India has declared a 3 per cent inflation goal. Why 3 per cent? Because it's near enough to the target of the European Central Bank and Bank of England? (Their's is 2 perSource: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 am Accenture, Mahindra Satyam, L1 Identity win UIDAI's biomentric projectThe Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) has selected three consortia led by Accenture, Mahindra Satyam-Morpho, and L1 Identity Solutions, to implement the core biometric identification system for the ‘Aadhaar' programme thatSource: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 am Mining: GoM for profit-sharing with land losersThe Group of Ministers on the new mining legislation has suggested setting up an effective mechanism to ensure that profits are shared by companies with land losers. Besides, it also favoured giving more powers to the regulatory authority toSource: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 am Insurers violating cashless mediclaim terms face fineThe Chairman of the insurance regulator Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA), Mr J. Hari Narayan, said on Friday that action will be taken against insurance companies violating the terms of cashless health insurance policy forSource: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 am Inflation will come down to 6% by December, says MontekThe current inflation situation is not comfortable, but will get down to around 6 per cent by December, the Deputy Chairman, Planning Commission, Mr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, said at an interactive session organised by the Bangalore Chamber ofSource: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 am Satyam accounts restatement is Rs 50-cr windfall for audit firmsMahindra Satyam may end up paying a huge fee for restatement of its book of accounts that were allegedly fudged by its former Chairman Mr B. RamalingaSource: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 am BPCL posts Rs 1,718-cr net loss on under-recoveriesBharat Petroleum Corporation has reported a net loss of Rs 1,718.10 crore for the quarter ended June 30 compared to a profit of Rs 614.12 crore in the same period last year.Source: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 am Tata Chem net zooms to Rs 216 cr on higher salesTata Chemicals reported that its net profit has grown five times to Rs 216 crore in the quarter ended June 30, against Rs 43 crore logged in the same period last year. Sales were up six per cent at Rs 2,477 crore (Rs 2,345 crore) in the quarterSource: Business Line - Home Page | 31 Jul 2010 | 12:00 am Infotel raises $500 mln from RBS consortium - paperMUMBAI (Reuters) - Infotel Broadband Services, owned by India's largest firm by market value Reliance Industries, has raised $500 million in loans from a Royal Bank of Scotland led consortium, a newspaper report said on Saturday, quoting three sources.Source: Reuters: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:48 pm Ford apologises for Fiesta delays, offers cashFord apologised to 2,300 US customers and offered all of them $50 gift cards comes amid signs early Fiesta buyers were becoming increasingly frustrated by delays in vehicles reaching dealerships.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:20 pm BlackBerry maker to launch tablet in November: ReportThe Blackpad is expected to have about the same dimensions as the iPad and cost about as much as the $499-plus Apple tablet, the report said.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:17 pm US bank failures total 108 after 5 shut on FridayBank failures are expected to peak this quarter, with the industry slowly recovering from large portfolios of bad loans, many tied to commercial real estate.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:00 pm Aircel to enter Gujarat this AugustFor Gujarat, only four players have won the 3G spectrum - BSNL, Tata, Idea Cellular and Vodafone Essar.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:00 pm U.S. bank failures total 108 after 5 shut on FridayWASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. bank failures reached 108 so far in 2010 on Friday as regulators seized five small banks in the Pacific Northwest and the Southeast, none publicly traded.Source: Reuters: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 10:26 pm It's a smooth affair on penultimate day of filing tax returnsBangaloreans hail IT mela on Palace Grounds as there was no rush, no long queues, and no confusion. The whole process took just 5-10 minutes.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 9:57 pm Shopping? Keep an eye out for I markFrom October 2011, goods and products across the country will have a unique mark, which will help you choose the best.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 9:09 pm Reliance, Universal near deal on India park - FTSINGAPORE (Reuters) - Indian billionaire Anil Ambani's entertainment group is close to signing an agreement with Universal Studios to build a $1.5 billion film-themed amusement park, the Financial Times reported on Saturday, citing people familiar with the talks.Source: Reuters: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 7:53 pm Qualcomm to dilute more stake for 3G play: Kanwalinder Singh - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 30 Jul 2010 | 7:27 pm BP to try well kill Tuesday, House passes reformsBILOXI, Miss. (Reuters) - BP Plc said on Friday it could seal its ruptured Gulf of Mexico oil well by next week as the U.S. House of Representatives voted to toughen regulation of offshore energy drilling.Source: Reuters: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 6:59 pm Wall St Week Ahead: Jobs data, earnings latest test for stocksNEW YORK (Reuters) - U.S. stocks are unlikely to break above a key technical level next week unless monthly jobs data and consumer company results paint a more promising picture of the recovery.Source: Reuters: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 5:23 pm RBI allows currency options trading for residentsIn order to increase the menu of hedging tools, the Reserve Bank of India and the Securities and Exchange Board of India have finally come out with the much awaited guidelines on currency options.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 30 Jul 2010 | 4:18 pm Imports slow U.S. Q2 growth, business spending surgesWASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. economic growth slowed in the second quarter as companies invested heavily in equipment from abroad and the pace of consumer spending eased, raising concerns about the recovery in the rest of 2010.Source: Reuters: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 3:39 pm Nano ruckus has impacted Tata brand positively: Morgen WitzelTrust, reliability and service to the community are some of the values associated with the name Tata, says Morgen Witzel, author of Tata - The Evolution of a Corporate BrandSource: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 3:30 pm Maruti sees Alto sales rising 30% with new variantCarmaker will unveil entry version of the 1000 cc Alto K10 on Wednesday targeting first-time buyers, likely to price it close to Rs3 lakh.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 3:30 pm Near drought situation in east and northeast India - Times of India
Source: Business - Google News | 30 Jul 2010 | 3:29 pm Partners to invest $58m in Qualcomm India JVQualcomm said on Friday Global Holding Corp and Tulip Telecomwould each invest USD 28.86 million for the 13% stake that each would take in its India broadband venture.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 30 Jul 2010 | 3:10 pm W.House: Europe crisis 'stunted' U.S., world growthWASHINGTON (Reuters) - The White House blamed the second quarter slowdown in U.S. economic growth reported on Friday on "headwinds," including the debt crisis in Europe.Source: Reuters: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 2:40 pm ICICI Bank, StanChart penalised for violation of banking norms - Business Standard
Source: Business - Google News | 30 Jul 2010 | 12:45 pm ICICI Bank, StanChart penalised for violation of banking normsThe Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Friday imposed a penalty of Rs 5 lakh each on ICICI Bank and Standard Chartered Bank for violating banking regulations.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 30 Jul 2010 | 12:43 pm Vaidyanathan quits ICICI Pru to join Future CapitalV Vaidyanathan, managing director and chief executive officer of ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, has resigned and will move to a new role in Future Capital, the financial services arm of the Kishore Biyani-led Future Group.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 30 Jul 2010 | 12:41 pm RBI takes banks to task on MF incomeThe Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has come down heavily on banks for treating returns from liquid mutual fund (MF) investments as interest income and not as trading income.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 30 Jul 2010 | 12:41 pm Non-Cong states implementing UPA schemes betterEarlier this month, Congress president Sonia Gandhi spent hours hearing party people grumble on how opposition parties were allegedly hijacking the United Progressive Alliances (UPAs) flagship programmes and claiming these as their own. Yet, the latest figures from the Union rural development ministry suggest opposition-ruled states are actually implementing the UPAs rural schemes better and more efficiently, while Congress-ruled ones are lagging.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 30 Jul 2010 | 12:39 pm SEZs to retain tax sops, with ridersUnits located in special economic zones (SEZ) are likely to retain the income tax concessions even after introduction of the Direct Taxes Code. A compromise is being worked out by the commerce and revenue departments, though a continuation of the tax dispensation will come with certain riders for units in the duty-free enclaves as well as SEZ developers.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 30 Jul 2010 | 12:39 pm IL&FS unit now largest in IndiaMumbai: Saffron Asset Advisors Pvt. Ltd, a $440 million (Rs2,046 crore) real estate focused private equity (PE) fund, is set to be absorbed by IL&FS Investment Managers Ltd (IIML), in the first sign of consolidation in the PE industry. The acquisition will make IIML India’s largest PE firm. IIML is the only listed PE firm in the country and is the subsidiary of financial services provider Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services Ltd (IL&FS). IIML currently has $2.8 billion of assets in three business segments—$400 million for growth capital, $700 million for infrastructure and $1.6 billion for real estate. The PE business may be set for a shakeout given the number of entities that have proliferated in the Indian market. “There are 540 firms in the market today and not all will survive,” Rahul Bhasin, managing partner at Baring Private Equity Partners (India) Pvt. Ltd (BPEP), said on Thursday. In 1998, there were 36 PE firms, which came down to six. This number rose to 78 with the Internet and dot-com boom and then with the crash fell to eight, pointed out Bhasin, whose firm was one of the early funds to set up an India office. The capacity in the market is much larger than demand, said Arun Duggal, chairman of Shriram Capital Ltd and senior adviser to PE firm TPG Capital Lp. “I expect such transactions to happen more, so smaller funds who are unable to raise money will be opportunities for bigger funds to acquire.” Saffron Asset Advisors, which has two funds, has deployed $260 million across 16 transactions since 2005. Yatra Capital, listed on the Euronext Stock Exchange, has committed to invest €158.65 million (Rs963 crore) across 15 projects. The second fund is the unlisted Saffron India Real Estate Fund 1. “Yatra Capital is an open-ended fund and hence it will help us tap a set of investors, which we have never tapped. If we have to do that from the start, it will not be easy,” said Shahzad Dalal, IIML’s vice- chairman and managing director. Real estate PE funds are finding it difficult to raise and deploy money, said an investment banker who advises on real estate transactions. Limited partners (Lps), the investors in such funds, are not keen on real estate due to the lack of exits and low returns, said the banker, on condition of anonymity as he’s not authorized to speak to the media. Saffron deferred its fund-raising plans in February as Lps shunned real estate. In September, Saffron had announced it would raise fresh funds to invest in firms that run hotels and logistics businesses, and build infrastructure projects in India by 2010. “We have always said that we would raise funds at the appropriate time and the appropriate time is a function of many moving parts. For now, we are absolutely focused on ensuring that we create value for the current funds that we manage,” Ajoy Veer Kapoor, founder and managing director of Saffron, had said in February. The deal will also lead to growth in IIML’s assets under management, and hence earnings and fees, Dalal said. Calls made to Kapoor’s mobile phone went unanswered. IIML runs a dedicated real-estate fund and has a fund jointly managed by Milestone Capital Advisors Pvt. Ltd. Saffron has a tilt towards retail assets, giving IIML exposure to an area it doesn’t have a presence in. The employees of Saffron, including Kapoor, will be retained by IIML. “Talent is scarce in this industry and they have a good pool of people,” said Dalal. “We have met three Lps (of Saffron) and they are happy with the merger.” Amit Goenka, national director (capital transaction) at Knight Frank (India) Pvt. Ltd, said: “Many fund lives are coming to an end and people are finding it difficult to exit, so the best way is to merge with bigger players and ride it out.” However, there are PE funds still coming into the real estate sector. BPEP said on Thursday that it will invest in real estate apart from other sectors. “Real estate will be our new focus,” Bhasin said. shraddha.n@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 12:38 pm TRS gains strengthen Telengana movementHyderabad: Both the ruling Congress and main opposition Telugu Desam Party (TDP) in Andhra Pradesh were set to lose to the Telangana Rashtra Samithi (TRS) in by-elections to 12 assembly seats in the Telangana region. Giving strength to the movement for carving a separate Telangana state out of Andhra Pradesh, TRS has won seven of the 12 seats and was leading in four more constituencies, according to poll data available on Friday evening. It is set to improve its tally in the region by one seat over the April 2009 polls. The Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) secured one seat. Results were declared by the afternoon in seven constituencies where electronic voting machines had been used. Paper ballots were being counted in the other constituencies, of which the results for one were declared late evening. The 12 seats had been vacated by lawmakers to press their demand for a separate state. All have won or are leading in their respective seats, including Ch. Ramesh of TRS, who had contested as a TDP member in the previous election. Except for the loss to TDP, there is no change in the strength of the political parties in the state assembly. Political analysts describe the results as a vote for TRS’ Telangana movement but not as a major loss to the Congress or the TDP. “The ground-level situation is entirely different in the Telangana region, where more than 90% of panchayats are in the hands of (the) Congress and TDP and they may regain their lost ground quite quickly,” said C. Narasimha Rao, an independent political analyst. “For the time being, TRS was successful in making the voters treat the bypolls as (a) referendum for a separate Telangana state by re-electing the candidates,” he added. Both the Congress and the TDP said the results were not a sign of weakening bases for their parties in the region. “The sentiment for a separate Telangana state is quite strong and the by-election outcome should not be seen as Congress’ defeat. The people of the region favoured those who sacrificed their posts for the cause of Telangana,” said D. Srinivas, Andhra Pradesh Congress Committee president and losing candidate from Nizamabad urban constituency. TDP legislator A. Revanth Reddy said, “We should understand that the by-elections were held in special circumstances and the victory of TRS and BJP candidates should be seen as the victory of sentiment for Telangana state and not as defeat of other parties.” T. Harish Rao, TRS leader and nephew of party president T. Chandrasekhar Rao, said he hopes the results will convince the justice Srikrishna committee of public support for a Telangana state. The Union government-appointed panel looking into the division of Andhra Pradesh has to submit its report by the end of the year. Senior Congress leaders from the Telangana region, including Parliament members Madhu Yashki Goud, Gutta Sukhender Reddy and Ponnam Prabhakar, said the results were a referendum in favour of a Telangana state. They urged the party high command at the Centre to expedite the process of carving out a new state. Supporters of former chief minister late Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy’s family, now rallying behind his son and Parliament member Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, blamed the party’s poor show on what they said was the absence of a strong leadership at the state level. Jagan Mohan Reddy strained ties with the Congress leadership after it refused to name him chief minister following his father’s death in a helicopter crash in September. His backers have since then criticized chief minister K. Rosiah and are threatening a split in the party at the state level. “Had the high command utilized the services of the only charismatic leader now in the state party, Y.S. Jagan Mohan Reddy, we would have easily won at least three to four seats and improved the party’s performance in other seats as well,” said Pulla Padmavathi, a Congress legislator. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 12:28 pm SEBI allows currency options in stock exchanges - The Hindu
Source: Business - Google News | 30 Jul 2010 | 12:26 pm Quick Edit | Our terror vs theirsPeople-to-people contacts, cultural exchanges and track II diplomacy have often been held as beacons in the night that bedevil India-Pakistan ties. If the Pew Research Center is to be believed, there is trouble on that front, too. In a survey on public opinion about terrorism, released on Thursday, Pew found that while Pakistanis were worried about Al Qaeda and Taliban, they were much less concerned about the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT). While 65% of the respondents had a negative view of the Taliban, only 35% looked at LeT that way. Worse, 25% viewed LeT favourably, while only 15% thought so about the Taliban. Is there a link between such opinion and the reluctance to tackle LeT? Had Pakistan been a well-run democracy and not an army-manoeuvred one, the link would have been crystal clear. But this is hardly an academic issue. The correlation is tight enough to show where matters are headed. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 12:14 pm ‘3 Idiots’ debut on television claims record ratingsNew Delhi: Riding on its record box-office success and heavy on-air promotions on Sony, the Aamir Khan-starrer 3 Idiots got the best viewership ratings ever for a feature film when it premiered on Multi Screen Media Pvt. Ltd’s flagship channel. The preliminary ratings provided by TAM Media Research for the three metros—Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata—have pegged the TVR (television rating) at 13.1.  Blockbuster: A still from 3 Idiots. Aamir Khan (centre), the male lead, worked closely with executives from Sony Entertainment Television to create special promos for the release of the film on the small screen. In the six metros—Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata, Chennai, Hyderabad and Bangalore—the film clocked a TVR of 10.1, still well above the previous record achieved by Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani—with Ranbir Kapoor and Katrina Kaif in lead roles—in January. TVRs reflect the percentage of viewers watching a programme at a particular time. Rohit Gupta, president (network sales and revenue management) at Multi Screen Media, said the film exceeded the company’s expectations both in terms of viewership and advertising revenue. On 25 July, beginning 8pm, 16.8 million viewers tuned into Sony Entertainment Television (SET) in the top six Hindi speaking metros to watch 3 Idiots, according to TAM. In January, Ajab Prem Ki Ghazab Kahani got a TVR of 7.5, the highest for a film since 2005. The movie was screened on Colors, Viacom18 Media Pvt. Ltd’s Hindi general entertainment channel. Gupta is tightlipped about the advertising revenue that the 3 Idiots premiere generated for the channel, but experts in the media industry estimate it to be in the region of Rs4-5 crore. The film was supported by 12 associate sponsors, including Life Insurance Corp. of India (LIC), Cadburys, Airtel, Raymonds, Tata Motors, Tata Sky and Lux, among others, and sold its 10-second advertising spots for approximately Rs2.2 lakh, according to company executives. The film, produced by Vidhu Vinod Chopra and directed by Rajkumar Hirani, has been a box-office hit, grossing at least Rs400 crore since its release in December 2009. To grab more eyeballs, the channel was supported by the film crew in promoting 3 Idiots’ television debut. “The week leading up to the premiere of 3 Idiots was called ‘Aal Izz Well Week’,” said Ajit Thakur, executive vice-president and business head at SET, which refers to a catchphrase from the film. That’s not all. Khan, the male lead in 3 Idiots, worked closely with channel executives to create special promos for the release of the film on the small screen. “Aamir (Khan) is full of innovative ideas and happily promoted the film on the channel,” said Thakur. Along with Hirani and Sharman Joshi, Khan promoted 3 Idiots by appearing on Indian Idol, the ongoing talent hunt show on Sony. The breaks between the film telecast were also interspersed with special clips where the actors shared behind-the-scenes moments during shooting. Although the cost of acquiring new and successful Bollywood films for satellite television typically ranges between Rs15 crore and Rs16 crore, film trade analyst Komal Nahta had told Mint earlier that 3 Idiots was sold to SET for Rs38-40 crore. At least two executives at Viacom18 and Star India Network—rivals of SET—who were also in the race to acquire the film, confirmed the figure. The executives declined to be identified as they are not authorized to speak to the media. However, in response to a query from Mint, producer Chopra said the figure was off the mark. He did not comment further. SET, the channel that lags Star Plus, Zee and Colors in rankings, has improved its total gross rating points (GRPs) in the last one year. From approximately 80 GRPs last July, the channel is now closer to 160 GRPs. Shuchi Bansal also contributed to this story. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 12:13 pm Shift in monsoon pattern feared: IMDNew Delhi: The dramatic recovery in the monsoon in the last seven days notwithstanding, the head of the India Meteorological Department (IMD) has warned against a structural shift in the pattern of the annual rainfall that could yet force a change in cropping patterns in the country. While IMD maintained the situation was still being reviewed, it said that some of the adverse climate conditions of last year, which eventually resulted in a drought, seem to be playing out in the current year too. Also See Monsoon Jitters (PDF) Typically, rain-bearing depressions, a precursor to cyclones in the Bay of Bengal and originating along the east coast of India, bring rains to key rice, oilseed and wheat-growing regions such as eastern Uttar Pradesh, Jharkhand, Madhya Pradesh and Orissa. The “abnormal conditions” are now threatening the dependability of the monsoon. “There have been no depressions and few low pressure systems (a prelude to a depression) over the Bay of Bengal,” said Ajit Tyagi, IMD director general. “If such a situation persists for few more years, then the whole monsoon itself will be affected. Why all of this is happening is still an open research question, and we, too, are trying to understand this.” Other experts said that barring El Nino (a heating of waters in the central Pacific region associated with droughts over India), monsoon conditions this year were similar to last year, which saw India’s worst drought in 37 years and indirectly worsened food price inflation. El Nino did not recur this year. Until last week, the all-India monsoon deficit was nearly 14%, with most of the shortfall due to limited rains in central and east India. As of Friday, the monsoon deficit improved to 5%, which Madhavan Rajeevan, a senior meteorologist with the Indian Space Research Organisation called a “lucky phenomenon”, rather than a genuine monsoon revival. Rajeevan said that the key to good rainfall over central and east India were a good number of low-pressure systems. “Normally, July-end should’ve seen at least seven-eight low pressure systems. This year there were no more than three. That’s been a trend that we’ve been seeing for a decade, and that’s worrying,” he said. Low-pressure systems brought moderate drizzles over wide swathes—beneficial for agriculture—and depressions typically lead to concentrated bursts of rainfall. This year IMD, in its first forecast for the June-September monsoon, had said rainfall would be 102% of the 50-year normal, buoyed by heavy rains in August and September. The monsoon generates nearly 80% of the annual rainfall over the country and is vital for the economy, being the main source of water for agriculture, which generates about 17% of India’s gross domestic product. Other than the 60% of the country’s workforce that depends on agriculture, the rains are also important for traders dealing in food and cash crops as any shortfall can inject volatility in the markets. The beneficial rains so far this year have largely been due to a phenomenon known as western disturbances that usually lead to pre-monsoon rain, and unusually active pressure systems in the Arabian Sea. An IMD scientist, who didn’t want to be identified, said that changes in cropping patterns would have to be effected to offset shifting monsoon patterns. “There are changes in the monsoon patterns. If Indian farmers refuse to adapt, then there could be a problem. Western disturbances can’t pull the extra weight every year,” he added. However, IMD, in a mid-term appraisal of the monsoon on Friday, said that rainfall in August and September would be a staggering 107% of the 50-year average. “That’s more statistics than reality,” said Rajeevan. While he too didn’t rule out a normal monsoon, he added that certain parts of India would receive far more rainfall than others. “Every year, even normal monsoon rainfall (patterns) are different. Most times when one system weakens, another strengthens,” Rajeevan said. “Trouble is, it’s become harder to say which, and when.” jacob.k@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 12:13 pm Army to set up CoI against Major in possesion of sensitive infoNew Delhi: The army has decided to set up a Court of Inquiry (CoI) against Maj. Santanu Dey, who is accused of having in his possession sensitive documents. Maj. Dey, who was posted in the Andaman & Nicobar Islands, was allegedly in posession of up to 2,000 documents which he was not authorized to have access to. The Indian authorities were alerted by US intelengence agencies on this. The CoI comes after a joint investigation of the Military Intellegence (MI) and National Investigation Agency (NIA) have ruled out the possibility that the officer was intentionally spying. The MI and NIA had however raised questions about how documents, reportedly about the army’s war plans, came in his posession and the CoI would now investigate the same. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:44 am Bharti Airtel appoints Andre Beyers as CMO for African opsTelecom major Bharti Airtel today announced the appointment of Andre Beyers as the Chief Marketing Officer for its African operations.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:32 am Asians more likely to buy gold in next 6 monthsNEW YORK (Reuters) - Asian investors are more likely to buy gold in the next six months than their North American and European counterparts, a global survey found.Source: Reuters: Money News | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:31 am NIA to probe attempted terror attack on Deloitte Hyderabad officeNew Delhi: India’s National Investigation Agency (NIA) will probe the attempted terror attack by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) on US audit firm Deloitte in Hyderabad earlier this year. “The NIA will probe the case relating to an attempted attack on the office of Deloitte, Hyderabad, in which LeT operative Zia-ul-Haq was arrested in Hyderabad on 3 May as a suspect,” home minister P. Chidambaram told reporters in Delhi. Zia-ul-Haq, in his mid-30s, was picked up from Hyderabad before he could strike. He worked as driver with a high-ranking official of the US audit firm in Hyderabad. He was tasked to carry out attacks in Hyderabad city as well as Deloitte’s office, said a home ministry official. According to the official who didn’t want to be named, Zia was indoctrinated when he went to visit his father in Saudi Arabia in 1995. He was then sent to Pakistan in 2002, where he underwent training with other terrorists. In 2007, he returned to Delhi and collected grenades and weapons, the official said. He was asked to remain dormant until he received directives from his Pakistani handlers, the ministry official added. The home minister said the federal agency will also probe links involving the October 2007 Mecca Masjid blast, the May 2007 Ajmer Sharif blast, the 29 September 2008 Malegaon blast and the unsolved 18 February 2007 Samjhauta train blast case. Hindu radical groups are said to be behind some of these. Asked about the involvement of the same radical groups in the Samjhauta Express blast, Chidambaram said the case has not been solved yet. “That’s why we gave the case to NIA,” he said. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:31 am Which is the best IPO method?The flaws of the book- building mechanism, which gives the underwriter substantial discretion over allocations in an initial public offer (IPO), are well known. That is why the suggestion often is that issuers are best served by using an auction method instead. Auctions are relatively more transparent, giving little discretion to the auction administrator, and are consequently less subject to manipulation and abuse. Yet, many countries have tried the auction method and abandoned it. The usual reason given is that lobbying by investment bankers has scuttled the adoption of the auction method, because they benefit by charging higher benefits or by granting favoured allocations to their cronies. The researchers examine the arguments for and against the book-building method and why the auction method has not been universally adopted. Incidentally, while in India we continue to talk about our IPO method being one of book building, the authors say that, “Although India still labels its method book building, the method is now a uniform price auction, with no allocation discretion.” That’s because underwriters no longer have power over allocation, which are required to be proportionate to bids. In true book building, the authors argue, “the offering price is set only after the order book is full, giving the underwriter some idea of demand. The underwriter has substantial discretion over allocations, with those customers who helped in pricing the issue and those with long term relationships with the underwriter getting more favourable treatment.” After conducting a study of IPO practices in 50 countries the researchers find that while the book-building method that was once rare outside the US is now common, auction methods have been tried in 25 countries, but are rare today. Moreover, the auction method has been tried for issues of all sizes and the auction methods too have varied. Yet, says the paper, “the outcomes have been surprisingly consistent: When issuers have been given a choice, they have generally chosen not to use auctions once they became familiar with the method. In this sense, IPO auctions have consistently failed the market test.” Book building is gaining in popularity or is already the dominant method in more than 40 of the countries, while fixed-price public offers are still used in smaller countries and for smaller offerings. In fixed-price public offers, the price and allocation rules are set before information on demand is received, and shares are allocated according to the rules announced earlier. Why did the auction method not succeed? The researchers say they did not find support for the common explanations offered for the unpopularity of IPO auctions in the US—that issuers were reluctant to use a new, experimental method, or that underwriters pressured issuers to use a method for which they charged higher fees or were able to allocate underpriced shares. They also said there is little support for the popular view that auctions lead to highly accurate pricing and, hence, to a low mean and variance of initial returns. In India, for example, they point to a paper by A. Bubna and N.R. Prabhala which found that “when underwriters control allocations, bookbuilding is associated with lesser underpricing, but this effect quickly dissipates when regulations withdraw allocation powers.” Why, then, is the auction method not used? The authors say that auctions are a very complex mechanism and even sophisticated investors have difficulty in getting prices right in an auction. In sum, “optimal auction bidding strategies are complicated, requiring sophistication and discipline, and mistakes by some impose costs on all bidders. Without some way to screen out ‘free riders’ and ensure the participation of sophisticated, long term investors, IPO auctions are highly risky for both issuers and bidders.” The conclusion: the optimal placement method is likely to be different from both traditional book builds, with their lack of transparency and resulting opportunities for potential abuse, and standard sealed bid auctions, with their high risk for both investors and issuers. Write to simplyeconomics@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:13 am The Lounge Show for 31 July 2010On this week’s show: Indian Ocean talks about their new album, Sanjukta Sharma reviews Once Upon a Time in Mumbai, artists from around the world come together in New Delhi for a residential art program, CEOs sing for charity, Lounge looks at the rehearsals for the Indian International Salsa Congress, and a new chain of salons that offer high-end services at low costs. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:07 am Karnataka Bank Q1 net profit up 16 pcMangalore-based Karnataka Bank today reported a growth of 16.03 per cent in its net profit at Rs 46.48 crore for the first quarter ended June 30.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 30 Jul 2010 | 11:06 am The Week in ReviewIndia’s monetary policy went through a greater-than-expected tightening this week. On Tuesday the RBI increased its policy rates as part of its efforts to control inflation. Along expected lines was the hike in the repo rate by 25% to 5.75%. The surprise was the reverse repo, which was increased by 50 basis points to 4.50%. The repo is the rate at which the RBI lends to banks, while the reverse repo is the rate at which banks park their excess cash with the RBI. Fortis Healthcare admitted defeat the battle to control Singapore-based hospital chain Parkway. On Monday it announced it was withdrawing from its bidding war with Malaysia’s Khazanah. The move came after Khazanah offered to buy all of Parkway for a new high price of S$3.95 per share. Earlier Fortis had offered to buy every Parkway share at S$3.80. Unwilling to match that bid, Fortis will now sell its 25% stake in Parkway for a profit of about S$116 million. Fortis chairman Malvinder Singh now says he’s hunting for other acquisitions in Asia armed with about US $900 million dollars in cash and a strong line of credit. In other news from the week, the government plans to make it easier to re-finance power projects. It’s looking at setting up a Rs50,000 crore debt fund that can raise long-term money more cheaply. At the heart of the proposed fund will be so-called take-out financing, which is expected to encourage long-term lending. The take-out system allows financial institutions like IIFCL buy an existing loan off the books of a bank. Reliance Industries posted record profits on Tuesday. Net profit for India’s biggest company rose 32% to more than $4,851 crore. Revenues did even better, shooting up eighty-five percent to nearly sixty thousand. RIL’s profits were boosted by its oil and gas business. The company’s gross refining margins recovered to $7.30 a barrel in the first quarter. In 2009’s first quarter, those margins were at $6.80 per barrel. While RIL’s profits are looking up, some brokerages are downgrading shares of the company. They predict a fall of Rs20-39 from their initial projections of the company’s target price. The downgrade has been prompted by delays in ramping up gas output from RIL’s KG basin fields. BlackBerry users watch out. The home ministry is once again threatening to shut down services for the smart phone. It says BlackBerrys are a potential security risk because the company RIM is not sharing information about its users. At present, Indian intelligence agencies cannot decrypt data sent on BlackBerrys. India has more than 400,000 BlackBerry users. RIM has partnered with Indian telecom operators to increase local services. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 10:55 am A hairy taleRecycled as expensive wigs for the West or sold for use as raw material for the chemical industry, India’s human hair trade has grown into a multimillion-dollar industry. At least three types of hair are harvested in India: temple hair, village hair and barber hair. Given the mass numbers of faithful Hindus, temple hair is the most abundant source available. Each year, thousands of worshippers make pilgrimages to temples where their hair is cut as an act of religious offering or thanksgiving. This custom is lucrative and temples designate women to ensure that the pilgrims’ hair is braided properly before it’s cut. By having the hair cuticles face the same direction, temples are able to sell the locks to wig makers for big money. The Balaji temple in Tirupati collects tons of hair each week, generating an estimated annual income upwards of a couple of ten thousand dollars. Click here To view a slideshow on the human hair trade Click here To see a video on the human hair trade by Adrian Fisk Village hair is regarded as lower quality than temple hair because it’s derived from women’s hair combs. The hair is collected monthly by a “hacker”, who then sells it to hair-processing factories. The women exchange the hair for sweets, plastic toys and bindis. Barber hair, or thuku as it is known, comes from the sweepings off the floor at barbershops. Once collected, cut, cleaned and sorted, it is exported for different end uses. The bulk of the hair trade is for wigs and hairpieces. Indian hair is renowned for its quality. It is generally 30-70cm long and is bought raw for $2-5 (Rs93-233) a kilo by buyers from hair-processing factories at hair auctions held by the temple authorities. Once processed, it’s sold to wig makers for around $40 per kg. Hair is used for a multitude of purposes. Men’s temple hair is used for jacket linings, cosmetic brushes and is also interwoven with other fabrics to make suits. Lower-quality barber hair is converted into amino acids which, in turn, are used in food and medicine. The hair goes through different cleaning processes depending on how it will be used. Temple hair is soaked overnight in caustic soda and shampoo, rinsed clean the next morning and put in the sun to dry. Then in designated “combing rooms”, large groups of women take bunches of hair and thrash them repeatedly against upward-facing spikes. By repeatedly doing this, the worker is left with a bundle of hair of the same length, with the shorter strands left on the metal spikes. It is then tied with a cord to make thick bunches and the ends are cut to precise lengths. The hair is then ready for export. Village hair, which is also used for wig making, goes through the same process apart from the fact that immediately after collection, hackers rub it in dirt to increase its weight and hence the value. Thus, when it comes to cleaning, the workers have the laborious task of using a metal spike to undo the knots and shake the dust out. Low-quality barber hair arrives in big piles. It is sifted carefully by hand to remove debris such as razors. It is then put into a large machine and chopped into little pieces to be sold and converted into amino acids. Workers employed in the hair trade are predominantly women. Protective clothing is non-existent—not even gloves for workers who remove razors from barber hair. Women cover their mouths with their saris to avoid inhaling hair dust belched out by hair-chopping machines. Children are also used as labourers, often at the first stage of cleaning when a child’s small nimble fingers are good at untangling knots. Adrian Fisk is a British photographer who has been living and working in India since 2003. His work has been featured in publications such as National Geographic, Financial Times, Vanity Fair and The Economist. In 2007, he was identified as one of “The World’s Top Photographers” in a book published by RotoVision. feedback@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 10:47 am Six ideas for laid-back livingCue up the colour: The happy colours in this Florida, US, living room  Photographs by Michael Partenio; Styled by Stacy Kunstel Bring the outdoors in: The two-tone sofa, with raffia fabric (made of African palm leaves), is Mickley’s take on outdoor furniture. “It makes you think of a wicker chair with cushions without looking—and feeling—like something that belongs on a patio,” he says. Let it breathe: Wooden accent chairs, slender lamps and curtain-free  Keep it real: “A room should function for the way you live,” Mickley says. Rather than hide the TV, he hung it front and centre, then decorated around it. He centred an oversize, woven, round coffee table so that it would be accessible from both the sofa and chairs. Don’t be too predictable: Nothing looks more serious than a room in which everything matches. Here, smooth wood and rough woven surfaces break up any monotony. The painted end table in the far corner is another change. Mickley likes to add something fun and unexpected, such as the vintage rope-wrapped chairs. “It doesn’t have to be anything expensive—just something that says ‘I don’t really belong here but, wow, I look great anyway,’” Mickley says. Make things movable: Think of baskets as cabinets-on-the-go. They do the obvious (store the stuff), but they also make it easy to tote board games to the patio or magazines and books to wherever you feel like flopping down. Write to lounge@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 10:29 am Will SKS redefine governance standards?You can either love Ashok Jhunjhunwala or hate him, but you cannot ignore him. Depending on whom you are listening to, the professor either is the man who holds the keys to the salvation of indigenous, low-cost technology or the one responsible for its damnation (for the record, this writer believes he is the former). The recent debate about the initial share sale of SKS Microfinance—in this paper (see Monika Halan’s insightful column on it at www.livemint.com/sksmicrofinance.htm; the then work-in-progress initial public offering was also the subject of an earlier column by this writer) and elsewhere—reminded me of Jhunjhunwala, and, more specifically, a meeting with him many years ago. The meeting had happened at his small flat, inside the verdant campus of the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras. It was a Sunday morning and this writer’s arrival in the quiet corner that housed the professor’s house had startled a spotted deer that had been grazing on a grassy embankment nearby (it was a stag, antlers and all). Up a flight of stairs, inside the flat, Jhunjhunwala and this writer discussed, sitting cross-legged on mattresses in the living room— the only furniture around— low-cost technology and how it could be made more inclusive (inclusion was just beginning to become a buzzword). “Charity isn’t a sustainable business model,” the professor had said. I agreed with him then and I agree with him now, which probably indicates where I stand in the whole for-profit or not-for-profit debate that is being played out around SKS. Which means—and this is possibly a red flag for liberals of all hues—that I do not agree with Mohammed Yunus. Enough has been said about the advantages and disadvantages of being a public company, the biggest among the former being access to low-cost funds and that among the latter, an unhealthy obsession with profits. Without getting into the positives, it is clear to this writer that SKS should succeed simply because this will benefit the ranks of the unbanked; it has already reached a scale, in terms of reaching out to people who previously had no access to credit, that no Indian bank, including state-owned ones have. And without getting into the negatives, it is equally clear to this writer that SKS should, just like it redefined the business of microfinance in India, also set new standards in terms of how companies are managed and governed. SKS’ IPO filings are transparent—most companies’ are—but they shed no light on the quality of management and governance. On paper at least, SKS has a good board but a true measure of its performance, as well as that of the company’s management’s, will come only after a few quarters. By then, the company would have undergone the regulatory and media scrutiny that all high-profile public companies go through. For our part, we will cover SKS much like we would cover any large public company—which means we won’t cut it any slack for being a microfinance company that is, essentially, improving lives. Then, nor will we criticize it for focusing on profits or profitability. Write to acuteangle@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 10:18 am Film Review | Those groovy SeventiesIn pulp fiction, few characters can parallel the benevolent don. He is an outlaw, rebel, smuggler and killer. But he has heart. Ghettoized men and women admire him and depend on him for cash and protection. In public consciousness and criminal lore, he swims in apocryphal waters—and is difficult to hate outright. In Milan Luthria’s Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai, Sultan Mirza (Ajay Devgn) is one such don. He arrives in Mumbai as an adolescent runaway from Tamil Nadu, slogs at the docks, which earns him some money, and goes on to rule over a smuggling fiefdom—smuggling, mostly gold, watches and transistors. The film has a disclaimer right at the beginning denying the maker’s earlier claims that Sultan Mirza is a celluloid version of Haji Mastan—the reformed smuggler who became a politician—in order to appease Mastan’s family who took producer Balaji to court. The disclaimer speaks volumes. Sultan is, of course, Haji Mastan whose life is the stuff of Mumbai underworld annals, and therefore public knowledge. The other man in this drama is the petty thief and son of a police constable from Dongri, Shoaib (Emraan Hashmi), who cockily challenges policemen when he is a toddler, falls in love with the power that oozes from a gun—and with a pretty and docile jewellery salesgirl played by Prachi Desai. He becomes Sultan’s kingpin. Sultan is in love with Rehana (Kangna Ranaut), the quintessential 1970s gun moll. She is a Hindi film star who becomes Sultan’s lover. The story is narrated in flashback by Agnel (Randeep Hooda), a steely cop who, while taking on the two men heads on, unintentionally rocked Mumbai’s establishment. The story by Rajat Aroraa (story, screenplay and dialogues) is pretty simple. There are no digressions, layers or intertwining of strands like masterpieces of the gangster genre. The violence is for the weak-hearted. The flunkies are not quirky fringe characters who idolize as well as abhor their bhais. Aroraa focuses on the simple drama of a popular, big-hearted bhai’s fall after his wily and ravenous protégé exploits his trust to adopt ways that Sultan’s conscience does not allow him to do. Shoaib is an unintentionally funny man in the story, his self-obsession and wry humour evident in some great one liners. Sultan divides the city into five parts, and ensures all the city’s smugglers have their domains; Shoaib calls Mumbai Sultan’s Draupadi. The film’s dialogues take the film a notch higher. They have the kind of crackling, street wit reminiscent of those which characterized roles that Amitabh Bachchan played in his early angry young man days. There’s a direct reference to the superstar in one scene when Rehana tells Sultan a film could be made on his life and the young and bright star Amit could play the role: “He has the same eyes that you do.” The throwback to the 1970s is immensely enjoyable. Costumes, such as multicoloured nylon shirts, body-hugging saris and white bell-bottoms, nightclubs shimmering with disco balls and fuchsia wallpapers, and of course, R.D. Burman sounds—the retro groove is tastefully and arduously evoked. An entire love scene is a cute ode to the shirt Dimple Kapadia wore in Bobby. Devgn’s last major role as a mafioso was in Ram Gopal Verma’s spectacularly crafted Company, which was inspired by the story of Dawood and Chhota Rajan. He is a natural in don roles, fitting into Haji’s shoes perfectly. His eyes speak louder than his words, a trick that the actor has often overused. Here it defines the role. Devgn gives the character a groovy swagger and quiet dignity. Hashmi has a tough task on hand. How do you play the role of a man who exists in everybody’s imagination, the most written-about don in India’s underworld history? Hashmi is in character in most parts and plays the role convincingly—lending it the kind of stealthy menace that portraits of Dawood Ibrahim evoke. Ranaut has tried really hard. She has developed acting acumen over the past few years. The character is that of a feisty woman who knows her mind—and Ranaut has grasped her. In most scenes, she is only a doll, Sultan’s arm candy, and her costumes and make-up are more important than what she says. Prachi Desai, who showed promise in Rock On!!, is adept and in character in the few important scenes she has. Luthria is a technically accomplished film-maker. None of his earlier films—he has directed many, including some memorable ones such as Taxi No. 9211—have the stamp of greatness; most of them being formulaic, big-budget films. Here, with good writing and performances, Luthria’s talent for great shot compositions and his control over the medium shows. Some visual flourishes are impressive—the film’s end shot, for example, smacks of Hollywood cool. Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai is a fun ride. Don’t expect ingenious gangster opera; but it has the sizzle and glaze of a well-cooked Bollywood masala movie. Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai released in theatres on Friday. sanjukta.s@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 10:09 am Raghuram Rajan | The problem of inequality in India is worryingNew Delhi: Raghuram Rajan, former International Monetary Fund chief economist and currently professor of finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, is known for his candid views. Rajan was in the Capital ahead of the launch of the Indian edition of his latest book, Fault Lines. He spoke to Mint about his book and other issues. Edited excerpts: What inspired the book? It all started when I was thinking what new I could say about the crisis. Why do checks and balances break down? That is when I realized that this is part of a bigger problem in the US. In some sense the US is a metaphor for industrialized countries. The issues there are those that countries could identify as their own; inequality for one. Inequality is a problem because when people don’t stand at the same level in the long run and see very different opportunities, then their attitudes towards reforms are very different. So ultimately, the destruction of a society is when you have extreme levels of inequality and you don’t have an agreement on anything. I think in the US there has been creeping inequality for reasons I document in the book—different access to education. What about emerging markets?  Unprepared: India will not be able to survive if hit by a crisis similar to the one that hit the US, says Rajan. Priyanka Parashar/Mint What I worry about India, however, is the problem of inequality. The rural areas, in many ways, are falling behind because they are not connected to the urban and coastal areas. Many of the ones that are backward do not have access to education, healthcare. It is very much a thing that the US has; so, in that sense, while 8-10% growth is fantastic, we also need to figure out how to expand opportunities for those being left behind. Are the Indian social safety nets sufficient? There is no substitute for giving people the capabilities to be productive workers. We are not a rich country. How much redistribution can we afford? Which means schools, healthcare, some level of insurance, financing, access to markets; roads that connect them to bigger markets; railway and transport lines. In a sense you have to move the vibrant economy into interior parts of India. So, I would say that many of these schemes are palliatives to keep the pressure down before they explode. I think they are necessary, but you can’t let palliatives overcome what is essential—creating those capabilities. There are ways, but they are enveloped in the old ways of socialist thinking, which I think is holding us back in tremendous ways. But this will take time, while aspirations have taken flight. So will people have the patience to wait? They won’t. This is why governance is difficult. I can sit here and preach, but somewhere out there someone has to balance it. While they are acquiring those capabilities, you have to allow them to live. Which is why targeted subsidies are fine. But time is short? This is where the politics comes in. The dangerous political path is to say we can protect you from all problems. If petrol prices go up, we will buffer them; if food prices go up, we will buffer those. Ultimately, food prices going up is telling you something and you need to respect that. The broader issue is that you can draw a social safety net for the poorest of the poor and this is where targeting is important. Targeting through UID (the government’s unique identity programme) could reduce leakages appropriately. I think we also need a mindset, which says that we cannot afford to go beyond this. Beyond that, the only way forward is to create capabilities. We have to some extent be careful about promising too many rights that we can’t deliver upon in an effective way or deliver in a distortionary way. Your book talks about how foreign investments, while important, hold the threat of collateral damage. Doesn’t this pose a serious challenge to public policy in a country such as India? That is why the Reserve Bank of India’s task is complicated at this point. On the one hand, these flows can be and need to be used. We are running a current account deficit—our savings are less than our investments. This is not necessarily a bad thing at our stage of growth..., but (we) also (need to be) improving the quality of the financial system to ensure that it can allocate these resources coming from outside appropriately. A key to this is the resolution of distress, where we are still inadequate. What if a firm goes bust? Even when the new Companies Act, which has a bankruptcy system in place, is passed, we have to ensure they are implemented properly by the courts. But if we can’t reallocate resources from entities that are failing or products that are failing, we are going to have very high costs of using this money...the plumbing of the system so to speak (has to be fixed). We can gloat for all we want (that) we bypassed the crisis…, but at the same time we must recognize that if a crisis of that magnitude hit our system, would we survive as well as the US system has? My sense is that, probably not. Because we don’t have the resolution mechanisms for deep distress and we haven’t tested our existing systems…we haven’t been tested. Till such time we can’t be complacent. Is the worst behind the global economy? I would stick my neck out and argue that we are on the recovery path of the global economy. I think we will have weakness in the second half of the year, but to go back to strong negative growth—I can’t see what will compel that. What about China? It is a big question mark, more because of the medium-term pattern of growth. Obviously, people are worried about the credit boom; they will have some problems there. But the big question is whether the inequality question that is building up will create an implosion at some point or whether it will somehow be managed away. I think the jury is out on that. The fixes you are proposing in your book for the US as well as India will take time. For a politician, this is an uncomfortable reality. I am saying that there are no magic bullets. Let us start with that. Everybody is looking for a quick and dirty answer. In fact, the whole search for the magic bullet is part of the problem. We thought we could deal with the problem through monetary or fiscal policy and find that doesn’t work. Once you accept this, then you realize you have to work for the long haul. What about the short term? I think the answer there is precisely the one India has given, which is you have to paper over the problems in the short term without doing long-term damage. Going by what you say, politicians the world over are facing their most compelling challenge ever. It’s a fair point. Politicians understand that long-term solutions are hard and so across the world they have focused on short-term solutions. Take China, for example. Its entire effort during the crisis has been to revitalize its exports without focusing on the fact that changing the pattern of growth is also important. Why? Because politicians know that one is a tried and tested path. Why go down the untested path right now? In the US, the Fed (the Federal Reserve) is on hold because monetary policy is a low-cost way of trying to get the economy back on a growth path. No matter if there are old problems—we are creating a bubble economy—we can live with that so long as the economy is back to where it was because then the jobs will be back and the politicians are back. To my sense, you are absolutely right and that is the central problem: the fixes every country has are very short-term, which ensures that the deeper fault lines are never addressed. anil.p@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 9:50 am Markets up for 2nd month; lag other Bric peersMumbai: Indian shares rose for the second straight month in July after ending 0.7% lower on Friday, but underperformed emerging market peers in the month, as the central bank’s key rates hike and mixed earnings limited gains. India’s main stock index rose 0.9% in July, but underperformed China’s Shanghai Composite Index, Brazil’s Bovespa and Russia’s RTS Index, which gained between 9.9 and 10.6% so far this month. “For this month, we really had nothing much to cheer about,” said Prakash Diwan, head of institutional business at Networth Stock Broking. “High inflation, two consecutive interest rate hikes, mixed corporate results, all contributed to the underperformance of our market this month.” Diwan expects Indian market to be volatile in August due to uncertainty in the global markets. But, for the year to date, the Indian benchmark has outsmarted its rivals other than Russia by notching a 2.3% gain. Its peers in China and Brazil shed 19.5% and 2.4% respectively while the Russian benchmark gained 2.5%. Foreign funds have poured in $9.3 billion in Indian stocks in the year to 28 July after a record $17.5 billion in 2009. The 30-share BSE index closed 0.69% or 123.71 points lower on Friday at 17,868.29, with 22 of its components closing in the red. The 50-share NSE index closed 0.8% lower at 5,367.60 points. The benchmark eased, in line with weak world equities, and on disappointing quarterly earnings from Oil & Natural Gas Corp and Hero Honda. Top motorcycle maker Hero Honda shed nearly 3% to Rs1,815.40 after it posted a 1.6% drop in quarterly net profit, its first decline in 11 quarters, and analysts said margins would remain under pressure in the current quarter as well. JPMorgan cut its share price target for the stock to Rs1,845 by next March from Rs1,915. “Some of the key earnings are disappointing the market. After Maruti, people were expecting Hero Honda to follow suit and that was the case,” said Diwan. State-controlled explorer ONGC closed barely changed after dropping as much as 1.7% as it reported a more-than-expected 24.5% drop in quarterly profit, as a rise in crude oil prices meant it had to make higher subsidy payouts. Outsourcers contributed the most to the main index’s losses on gloomy outlook by U.S. tech majors and as Federal Reserve official’s downbeat comments raised concerns over the speed of economic recovery in the world’s largest economy. Top outsourcer Tata Consultancy dropped 1%, while smaller rivals Infosys and Wipro shed 1.6% and 1.2% respectively. In the broader market, declining shares outnumbered gainers in the ratio of 1.2:1. A total of 367 million shares changed hands on the BSE. STOCKS ABB Ltd, a unit of Swiss engineering group ABB, fell 4.1% to Rs812.05 as it posted a 54% fall in quarterly net profit on certain exit costs in some projects and increasing pricing pressure in the market. Hindustan Construction Company climbed 3.8% to Rs133.70 as the construction and civil engineering firm posted a 56-percent rise in quarterly net profit and also declared a 1:1 bonus share issue, sending its shares up as much as 8.3%. Real estate firm Omaxe jumped 6.6% to 117.85 rupees on a 38.7% rise in quarterly profit. Titagarh Wagons rose 2.3% to Rs409.40 after its April-June net profit jumped 84%. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 5:46 am Emami sees profits rising 38% in FY11Mumbai: Personal care products maker Emami is targetting a 38% rise in net profit for the current fiscal on the back of robust growth in its flagship brands, a top official said. It expects a profit of Rs235 crore in FY11 on sales of Rs1,300-1,350 crore, Mohan Goenka, director, told Reuters in an interview. It had a consolidated net profit of Rs170 crore on net sales of Rs1,040 crore in FY10. Emami manufactures personal care brands such as ‘Fair and Handsome’, ‘Navratna Oil’, ‘Boroplus’ and ‘Sonachandi Chyawanprash’. However, the firm currently faces a lot of pressure from rising input costs and that will force them to take price increases in the coming months, Goenka said. “This quarter there was a lot of pressure on the input cost side. Our costs have increased by 2-2.5% for the quarter...If the prices don’t come down and continue at the same level then we might take a corrective price increase after 3-4 months,” he added. Key raw material prices such as menthol and LLP (light liquid paraffin) have risen by 25 percent, pressuring margins of the firm, Goenka added. Earlier in the day Emami posted a more than double growth in its June quarter net profit at Rs350 million on net sales of Rs242 crore during the June quarter, which rose by 28%. “The profits jumped mainly because of the reduced interest burden,” Goenka said. Last year in the June quarter the firm had an interest burden of Rs150 million compared to 10 million this year. Emami also has plans to set up two new manufacturing units in Egypt and Bangladesh during this fiscal, he added. “We will manufacture our entire range of products from these units...they will help us expand our base into the neighbouring countries,” Goenka said over the telephone. The plants should be operational by March 2011 or first quarter of the next fiscal, Goenka said. The firm has set aside a capital expenditure of Rs600 million for the current financial year, he said. “Part of it will be used for the two new units. Our regular capex will take about Rs10-15 crore (100-150 million) and then we will use the remaining for setting up some warehouses in the country,” Goenka said. Emami, whose revenue from international business rose 48% in the quarter, expects to aggressively expand its exports, Goenka said. “We are aggressively focusing on the Middle East, Africa. We are already present in Egypt and Bangladesh via our exports from India and now we are setting up manufacturing bases there,” he added.” Goenka said Emami’s international revenues, which last year stood Rs135 crore or 13%, is expected to go upto 15% in FY11. The consumer goods maker is also planning to ramp up its domestic reach by concentrating on ramping up rural distribution. It is investing Rs70-80 million in ‘Swadesh,’ its rural distribution programme, Goenka said. Emami said it plans to launch new products in the haircare space in this fiscal, pricing it at the mass level. Shares of the firm ended up 5.62% at Rs457.05 per share in a weak Mumbai market. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 5:43 am Bitter smartphone war seen pinching vendor marginsHelsinki: An increasingly heated battle in the global smartphone market is set to weigh on handset vendors’ profit margins for the rest of the year, analysts said on Friday. All top cellphone vendors including Nokia, Samsung Electronics and Research in Motion are rolling out new smartphone models for the holiday sales-fuelled fourth quarter. “The smartphone market is becoming heavily congested as a host of players seek to boost margins. The reality in the second half is set to be very different,” said analyst Geoff Blaber from British consultancy CCS Insight. “The market will swell in volume but price erosion will inevitably result in casualties as value is captured by a minority rather than the majority,” Blaber said. Research firm Strategy Analytics said the ramp-up in supply will drive higher volumes, but this will pressure margins as vendors fight to outsmart rivals. The world’s three largest cellphone makers -- Nokia, Samsung and LG Electronics -- all saw smartphone rivalry hitting their profit margins in the April-June quarter. “Each is in the midst of refreshing its respective product portfolio, with greater emphasis on smartphones during the second half of this year,” said IDC analyst Ramon Llamas. “Still, the upward pressure from vendors outside the current top five vendors, particularly Apple and Motorola, will provide tough competition in the quarters to come,” Llamas said. Samsung on Friday warned of weaker margins and profit growth in the second half after reporting telecom unit margins slumped to 7.2% as it boosted marketing spending in the absence of a strong smartphone model. Samsung is making a big bet on its top model Galaxy S, which went on sale last month, while Nokia is counting on its upcoming N8 model to win a larger share of the high-end market. Nokia has said its phone unit margin fell to 9.5% in the second quarter and was likely to slip again this quarter. LG’s phone unit made a loss last quarter and had a negative margin of 3.5%. It has forecast another loss for the business in the current quarter. Market growing again The cellphone market grew in April-June for the third quarter in a row, boosted by demand for low-end models in emerging markets and for high-end phones with touchscreens in mature regions. Growth in the global cellphone market is set to slow slightly to 12% in the July-September quarter, but there are no signs of a major slowdown, Strategy Analytics said. The researcher and CCS Insight both estimated the market grew 13% in the April-June quarter, while IDC saw the growth at 14.5%. Top vendor Nokia said last week the market grew 14% from a year ago. The phone market saw a sharp downturn last year as the recession sapped consumer spending on new gadgets. Canada’s Research in Motion -- which broke into the No. 4 position in the global market in the first quarter -- held on to it, selling 11.2 million Blackberries in the last quarter, just ahead of Sony Ericsson’s 11 million phones. Both firms held roughly 3.6% of the global market. Market shares of the top three changed little in the quarter, with Nokia holding 36%, Strategy Analytics said. Samsung holds 21% of the market and LG 10%. Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 5:07 am Bitter smartphone war seen pinching vendor marginsHelsinki: An increasingly heated battle in the global smartphone market is set to weigh on handset vendors’ profit margins for the rest of the year, analysts said on Friday. All top cellphone vendors including Nokia, Samsung Electronics and Research in Motion are rolling out new smartphone models for the holiday sales-fuelled fourth quarter. “The smartphone market is becoming heavily congested as a host of players seek to boost margins. The reality in the second half is set to be very different,” said analyst Geoff Blaber from British consultancy CCS Insight. “The market will swell in volume but price erosion will inevitably result in casualties as value is captured by a minority rather than the majority,” Blaber said. Research firm Strategy Analytics said the ramp-up in supply will drive higher volumes, but this will pressure margins as vendors fight to outsmart rivals. The world’s three largest cellphone makers -- Nokia, Samsung and LG Electronics -- all saw smartphone rivalry hitting their profit margins in the April-June quarter. “Each is in the midst of refreshing its respective product portfolio, with greater emphasis on smartphones during the second half of this year,” said IDC analyst Ramon Llamas. “Still, the upward pressure from vendors outside the current top five vendors, particularly Apple and Motorola, will provide tough competition in the quarters to come,” Llamas said. Samsung on Friday warned of weaker margins and profit growth in the second half after reporting telecom unit margins slumped to 7.2% as it boosted marketing spending in the absence of a strong smartphone model. Samsung is making a big bet on its top model Galaxy S, which went on sale last month, while Nokia is counting on its upcoming N8 model to win a larger share of the high-end market. Nokia has said its phone unit margin fell to 9.5% in the second quarter and was likely to slip again this quarter. LG’s phone unit made a loss last quarter and had a negative margin of 3.5%. It has forecast another loss for the business in the current quarter. Market growing again The cellphone market grew in April-June for the third quarter in a row, boosted by demand for low-end models in emerging markets and for high-end phones with touchscreens in mature regions. Growth in the global cellphone market is set to slow slightly to 12% in the July-September quarter, but there are no signs of a major slowdown, Strategy Analytics said. The researcher and CCS Insight both estimated the market grew 13% in the April-June quarter, while IDC saw the growth at 14.5%. Top vendor Nokia said last week the market grew 14% from a year ago. The phone market saw a sharp downturn last year as the recession sapped consumer spending on new gadgets. Canada’s Research in Motion -- which broke into the No. 4 position in the global market in the first quarter -- held on to it, selling 11.2 million Blackberries in the last quarter, just ahead of Sony Ericsson’s 11 million phones. Both firms held roughly 3.6% of the global market. Market shares of the top three changed little in the quarter, with Nokia holding 36%, Strategy Analytics said. Samsung holds 21% of the market and LG 10%. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 5:07 am Bitter smartphone war seen pinching vendor marginsHelsinki: An increasingly heated battle in the global smartphone market is set to weigh on handset vendors’ profit margins for the rest of the year, analysts said on Friday. All top cellphone vendors including Nokia, Samsung Electronics and Research in Motion are rolling out new smartphone models for the holiday sales-fuelled fourth quarter. “The smartphone market is becoming heavily congested as a host of players seek to boost margins. The reality in the second half is set to be very different,” said analyst Geoff Blaber from British consultancy CCS Insight. “The market will swell in volume but price erosion will inevitably result in casualties as value is captured by a minority rather than the majority,” Blaber said. Research firm Strategy Analytics said the ramp-up in supply will drive higher volumes, but this will pressure margins as vendors fight to outsmart rivals. The world’s three largest cellphone makers -- Nokia, Samsung and LG Electronics -- all saw smartphone rivalry hitting their profit margins in the April-June quarter. “Each is in the midst of refreshing its respective product portfolio, with greater emphasis on smartphones during the second half of this year,” said IDC analyst Ramon Llamas. “Still, the upward pressure from vendors outside the current top five vendors, particularly Apple and Motorola, will provide tough competition in the quarters to come,” Llamas said. Samsung on Friday warned of weaker margins and profit growth in the second half after reporting telecom unit margins slumped to 7.2% as it boosted marketing spending in the absence of a strong smartphone model. Samsung is making a big bet on its top model Galaxy S, which went on sale last month, while Nokia is counting on its upcoming N8 model to win a larger share of the high-end market. Nokia has said its phone unit margin fell to 9.5% in the second quarter and was likely to slip again this quarter. LG’s phone unit made a loss last quarter and had a negative margin of 3.5%. It has forecast another loss for the business in the current quarter. Market growing again The cellphone market grew in April-June for the third quarter in a row, boosted by demand for low-end models in emerging markets and for high-end phones with touchscreens in mature regions. Growth in the global cellphone market is set to slow slightly to 12% in the July-September quarter, but there are no signs of a major slowdown, Strategy Analytics said. The researcher and CCS Insight both estimated the market grew 13% in the April-June quarter, while IDC saw the growth at 14.5%. Top vendor Nokia said last week the market grew 14% from a year ago. The phone market saw a sharp downturn last year as the recession sapped consumer spending on new gadgets. Canada’s Research in Motion -- which broke into the No. 4 position in the global market in the first quarter -- held on to it, selling 11.2 million Blackberries in the last quarter, just ahead of Sony Ericsson’s 11 million phones. Both firms held roughly 3.6% of the global market. Market shares of the top three changed little in the quarter, with Nokia holding 36%, Strategy Analytics said. Samsung holds 21% of the market and LG 10%. Source: World Business - Livemint.com | 30 Jul 2010 | 5:07 am
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