The Hyderabad-based Nuclear Fuel Complex (NFC), the supplier of fuel for India’s nuclear power programme, will set up an exclusive facility to produce niobium useful in space and nuclear industries. The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) will contribute Rs 30-crore for the new facility which will be established in the NFC campus, according to NFC Chief Executive Mr R N Jayaraj.
Budget carrier SpiceJet’s chief executive Neil Mills feels the aviation sector, marred by high fuel and interest cost in the coming fiscal, will continue to face “tough operating conditions”.
“I think the tough conditions will continue for a while in the coming fiscal. Our futures are pegged with oil prices and they are very high right now,” Mills told IANS in an interview.
“There are some decisions on new policy like direct import of fuel and foreign direct investment. We are evaluating them and will do what is best for us.”
Global oil prices have soared once again with Brent crude seeing an 83-cent increase to exceed USD124 per barrel on fears that international sanctions against Iran are limiting supply.
The price hike came on Monday as US President Barack Obama was going to discuss Iran sanctions in his meeting with Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, heightening uncertainty over Iran’s future oil exports.
After China and Japan, India’s oil firm Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL) is mulling to cut its annual import deal with Iran by 44 percent, an international news agency reported on Monday.
Reportedly, the 44 percent or 80,000 barrels per day (bpd) oil import cut would roughly estimate a reduction of more than 20 percent in India’s total purchases of Iranian oil in the next fiscal year.
The news agency has quoted their sources from the MRPL who plans the cut in imports of oil from Iran in the next fiscal year beginning April.
Facing an economic down turn due to steady fall in exports, China for the first time in seven years projected a lower growth, scaling down its GDP growth target to 7.5 percent this year from last year’s eight percent.
The lower growth target was projected in the annual government work report delivered by Premier Wen Jiabao at China’s Legislature, the National People’s Congress here today.
This is the first time for the Chinese government to lower its economic growth target after keeping it around 8 percent for seven consecutive years.
LAST week, when Arun Sirdeshmukh, chief executive officer ( CEO) of Reliance Trends, the retail arm of Reliance Industries Ltd ( RIL), announced his decision to step down and start his own fashion e- retail venture, it hardly raised eyebrows.
Sirdeshmukh is just another one in the league of executives who have left lucrative jobs to start their own eretail ventures — an industry which is growing at 35- 45 per cent per month.
Indian equities markets which opened Saturday for a special 90- minute trading session closed on a flat note. State-run firms were among the major gainers, while some realty scrips edged lower.
The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) opened at 17,648.47 points and closed at 17,636.99 points, barely moving from its Friday close at 17,583.97 points.
The 50-scrip S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange also closed similarly unchanged at 5,359.4 points.
For the week, the Sensex shed 1.6 percent, while the Nifty lost 1.28 percent.
Banks and stock broking firms are beginning to carry out business on Facebook, an important step as they try to build deeper customer relationships through social media platforms. With nearly 45 million users in India and growing rapidly, Facebook’s popularity is making banks test the waters with a few basic services to discover how comfortable customers are carrying out transactions on the social networking site.
ICICI Bank CEO and MD Chanda Kochchar, Biocon founder Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw and film producer Ekta Kapoor are among the nine Indian women named in Forbes magazine’s inaugural ‘Asia Power Businesswomen list’.
The list names 50 “pathbreakers” whose extraordinary business success is driving the region’s remarkable economic rise, Forbes said.
US stocks higher on positive economic data
US stocks traded higher Thursday after the latest economic data affirmed the US economy is picking up, Xinhua reported.
The labor department said the number of people applying for jobless benefits decreased 2,000 to a seasonally adjusted 351,000 last week, holding the four-year low level.
Meanwhile, US personal income gained 0.3 percent in January, according to the commerce department.
Also lifting the market, retail sales came in better than analysts had expected, another proof that the recovery is gaining momentum.
The rupee on Thursday depreciated by 20 paise to 49.21 against the U.S. dollar in early trade on the Interbank Foreign Exchange market, due to fresh demand from importers for the American currency amid strong global cues.
Forex dealers said weakness in euro and other Asian currencies against the dollar overseas also weighed on the rupee’s value.
Weak opening in the equity market and fresh demand for the US currency from importers, put pressure on the rupee, they added.
Meanwhile, the BSE benchmark Sensex fell by 184.83 points, or 1.04 per cent, at 17,567.85 in early trade.
The UPA’s flawed Food Security Bill is now under attack from its most ardent supporters — for varied reasons.
One campaign is led by Right To Food (RTF), an umbrella grouping of non-governmental organisations that include people like Aruna Roy, who is on Sonia Gandhi’s National Advisory Council (NAC), and Jean Dreze, an economist and former member of NAC.
After forming a joint venture with GEM and Vittal Innovation City to develop India’s first ‘hi-tech electronic city’, Lepakshi Knowledge Hub (LKH), an integrated part of Andhra Pradesh Government has received the nod from Project Approval Committee, Ministry of Textiles, Government of India under its ‘scheme for Integrated Textile Parks’, to set-up a state-of-the-art textile park within the 10,000 acres in Ananthapur.
International Air Transport Association (IATA) Wednesday said that passenger traffic in India grew by 8.8 percent year on year in January, with demand rising by nine percent over that of December 2011.
According to IATA, the aviation capacity was expanded by 12.8 percent and passenger load factor touched 74.9 percent.
Global passenger traffic grew by 5.7 percent in the month under review, whereas air freight circulation declined by eight percent as compared to the same month in 2011.
India’s economic growth slumped to a near three-year low of 6.1 percent in the quarter ended December due to poor performance of manufacturing and mining sectors, official data showed Wednesday.
The data makes it increasingly clear that growth is likely to fall well below seven percent against the budgetary target of 9 percent and the 7.1 percent growth projected by the Prime Minister’s economic advisory panel recently.
Beleaguered Kingfisher Airlines cannot be closed down just because it is making losses and banks are not helping it out with funds, Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh said on Wednesday.
“You can’t close down a company because they are making losses or banks are not giving them money. As long as passenger safety is not jeopardised, as long as they keep their schedule, why should we close down any industry,” Civil Aviation Minister Ajit Singh told reporters here.
Both the precious metals, silver and gold maintained an upward rally for the third straight day on the bullion market on Wednesday on increased buying by stockists for the ongoing marriage season amid a firming global trend.
While silver spurted by Rs. 2,050 to Rs. 60,500 per kg on demand from industrial units and coin makers, gold added Rs. 120 to Rs. 29,060 per ten grams.
Trading sentiment bolstered as gold in New York climbed to a three-month high as a weaker dollar spurred demand for the metal as an alternative investment.
India’s economic growth rate slipped to 6.1 per cent in the third quarter this fiscal, lowest in more than two years due to poor performance of the manufacturing, mining and farm sectors.
The Gross Domestic Product growth the in third quarter (October-December) last fiscal was 8.3 per cent, as per the latest data released by the government on Wednesday.
GDP in April-December period also moderated to 6.9 per cent from 8.1 per cent in the first nine months of 2010-11.
Corrupt public officials beware! Government officials found taking bribes might have to face 10 years of rigorous imprisonment, while big spenders would have to voluntarily report high-value transactions; as per the recommendations of a panel on black money.
As per a newspaper report, the measures are part of the Black Money Committee Report. The Committee, constituted to examine ways to strengthen laws to curb the generation of black money in the country, its illegal transfer abroad and its recovery submitted its report on January 31.
Mahindra Satyam, a leading global consulting and IT services provider, today announced that M Rajyalakshmi Rao has been co-opted as an additional director on the Board of the company. She will be functioning as an independent director.
The RBI took the first step to ease monetary policy by reducing CRR by 50 basis points on Jan. 24. However, it postponed an interest rate cut, in spite of the advice by the special committee, only to confirm its reputation of being cautious. But excessive caution can also cost the country a pretty penny.
Allaying fears of foreign electronics manufacturers, India has said it will not pursue protectionism policy and will give level-playing field to all participants.
“Look at the policies of world around, we are far less protectionist than any other country in the world. There is no question of India becoming protectionist,” Indian Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal said here yesterday.
The government is in the process of finalising an electronics manufacturing policy that would encourage the use of indigenous equipment and curtail India’s import bill.
In a poor performance, the eight core industries grew by 0.5 percent in January mainly due to slackening output of crude oil, steel, natural gas and petroleum refinery products.
The eight core industries, which include coal, cement, fertilisers and electricity, had recorded a growth rate of 6.4 percent in January 2011.
During December 2011, the core sectors recorded a growth of 3.1 percent against 6.3 percent same period previous year.
Traders picked up from where they left last week, booking profits in stocks which had rallied in the past few weeks. A benchmark for Indian markets Monday was ruling 300 points lower around noon with realty and capital goods scrips leading the losers pack.
The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened at 17,975.19 points, was ruling at 17,621.74 points, 301.83 points or 1.68 percent down from its previous close at 17,923.57 points.
As many as seven employees’ unions of banks, 11 central trade unions and 5,000 smaller unions have given a call for strike on Tuesday.
The striking trade unions include the Left labour arms CITU, AITUC, UTUC and AIUTUC, and Congress’ INTUC, besides BMS, HMS, TUCI and NLO who have joined forces in support of a 10-point charter of demands including protest against rising prices, disinvestment of profit-making PSUs and violation of labour.
As per reports, senior union leaders have said that the strike will be near-total in Assam, Kerala, Haryana, Punjab, Tamil Nadu and Bihar.