Serial Number Portfolio Name of Minister 1 Prime Minister and also In-Charge of the Ministries/Departments viz: Dr. Manmohan Singh Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions Ministry of Planning Ministry of Water Resources Department of Atomic Energy Department of Space 2 Minister of Finance Shri Pranab Mukherjee 3 Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution Shri Sharad Pawar 4 Minister of Defence Shri A.K. Antony 5 Minister of Home Affairs Shri P. Chidambaram 6 Minister of Railways Km. Mamata Banerjee 7 Minister of External Affairs Shri S.M. Krishna 8 Minister of Steel Shri Virbhadra Singh 9 Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Shri Vilasrao Deshmukh 10 Minister of Health and Family Welfare Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad 11 Minister of Power Shri Sushil Kumar Shinde 12 Minister of Law and Justice Shri M. Veerappa Moily 13 Minister of New and Renewable Energy Dr. Farooq Abdullah 14 Minister of Urban Development Shri S. Jaipal Reddy
Transcript
Serial Number
Portfolio Name of Minister
1Prime Minister and also In-Charge of the Ministries/Departments viz:
Dr. Manmohan Singh
Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions
Ministry of Planning
Ministry of Water Resources
Department of Atomic Energy
Department of Space
2 Minister of Finance Shri Pranab Mukherjee
3Minister of Agriculture and Minister of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution
Shri Sharad Pawar
4 Minister of Defence Shri A.K. Antony
5 Minister of Home Affairs Shri P. Chidambaram
6 Minister of Railways Km. Mamata Banerjee
7 Minister of External Affairs Shri S.M. Krishna
8 Minister of Steel Shri Virbhadra Singh
9 Minister of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Shri Vilasrao Deshmukh
10 Minister of Health and Family Welfare Shri Ghulam Nabi Azad
11 Minister of PowerShri Sushil Kumar Shinde
12 Minister of Law and Justice Shri M. Veerappa Moily
13 Minister of New and Renewable Energy Dr. Farooq Abdullah
14 Minister of Urban Development Shri S. Jaipal Reddy
15 Minister of Road Transport and Highways Shri Kamal Nath
16 Minister of Overseas Indian Affairs Shri Vayalar Ravi
17 Minister of Textiles Shri Dayanidhi Maran
18 Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Shri Murli Deora
19 Minister of Information and Broadcasting Smt. Ambika Soni
20 Minister of Labour and Employment Shri Mallikarjun Kharge
21Minister of Human Resource Development, Minister of Communications and Information Technology
Shri Kapil Sibal
22Minister of Mines and Minister of Development of North Eastern Region
Shri B.K. Handique
23 Minister of Commerce and Industry Shri Anand Sharma
25Minister of Rural Development and Minister of Panchayati Raj
Shri C.P. Joshi
26Minister of Housing and Urban Poverty Alleviation and Minister of Tourism
Kum. Selja
27 Minister of Food Processing Industries Shri Subodh Kant Sahay
28 Minister of Youth Affairs and Sports Dr. M.S. Gill
29 Minister of Shipping Shri G.K. Vasan
30Minister of Parliamentary Affairs/Minister of Water Resources
Shri Pawan K. Bansal
31 Minister of Social Justice and Empowerment Shri Mukul Wasnik
32 Minister of Tribal Affairs Shri Kantilal Bhuria
33 Minister of Chemicals and Fertilizers Shri M.K. Alagiri
Ministers of State with Independent Charge
Serial Number
Portfolio Name of Minister
1 Ministry Civil Aviation Shri Praful Patel
3Ministry of Coal and Ministry of Statistics and Programme Implementation
Shri Sriprakash Jaiswal
4Ministry of Corporate Affairs and Ministry of Minority Affairs
Shri Salman Khursheed
5 Ministry of Micro, Small and Medium Enterprises Shri Dinsha J. Patel
6 Ministry of Women and Child Development Smt. Krishna Tirath
7 Ministry of Environment and Forests Shri Jairam Ramesh
Ministers of State
1 Ministry of Chemicals and Fertilizers Shri Srikant Jena
2 Ministry of Railways Shri E. Ahamed
3 Ministry of Home AffairsShri Mullappally Ramachandran
4Ministry of Planning and Ministry of Parliamentary Affairs
Shri V. Narayansamy
5 Ministry of Commerce and Industry Shri JyotiradityaScindia
6 Ministry of Human Resource Development Smt. D. Purandeswari
7 Ministry of Railways Shri K.H. Muniyappa
8 Ministry of Home Affairs Shri Ajay Maken
9 Ministry of Textiles Smt. Panabaka Lakshmi
10 Ministry of Finance Shri Namo Narain Meena
11 Ministry of Defence Shri M.M. Pallam Raju
12 Ministry of Urban Development Shri Saugata Ray
13 Ministry of FinanceShri S.S. Palanimanickam
14 Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Gas Shri Jitin Prasad
15 Ministry of Steel Shri A. Sai Prathap
16 Ministry of External Affairs Smt. Preneet Kaur
17Ministry of Communications and Information Technology
Shri Gurdas Kamat
18 Ministry of Labour and Employment Shri Harish Rawat
19Ministry of Agriculture and Ministry of Consumer Affairs, Food & Public Distribution
Professor K.V. Thomas
20 Ministry of Power Shri Bharatsinh Solanki
21 Ministry of Road Transport and HighwaysShri Mahadev S. Khandela
22 Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Shri Dinesh Trivedi
23 Ministry of Rural Development Shri Sisir Adhikari
24 Ministry of Tourism Shri Sultan Ahmed
25 Ministry of Shipping Shri Mukul Roy
26 Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Shri Mohan Jatua
27 Ministry of Social Justice and Empowerment Shri D. Napoleon
28 Ministry of Information and Broadcasting Dr. S. Jagathrakshakan
29 Ministry of Health and Family Welfare Shri S. Gandhiselvan
30 Ministry of Tribal AffairsShri Tusharbhai Chaudhary
31Ministry of Communications and Information Technology
Shri Sachin Pilot
32 Ministry of Heavy Industries and Public Enterprises Shri Arun Yadav
33 Ministry of Youth Affairs and SportsShri Pratik Prakashbapu Patil
34 Ministry of Road Transport and Highways Shri R.P.N. Singh
35 Ministry of External Affairs Shri Shashi Tharoor
36 Ministry of Water Resources Shri Vincent Pala
37 Ministry of Rural Development Shri Pradeep Jain
38 Ministry of Rural Development Ms. Agatha Sangma
K. Rosaiah,
Hon'ble Chief Minister, General Administration, Law and Order, PE and all
other portfolios not allotted to other ministers
P.Sabita Indra Reddy Home, Jails, Fire Services, Sainik Welfare, Printing and
Stationery
K Rosaiah Finance, Planning, Small Savings, Lotteries and Legislative Affairs
D Prasadarao Revenue, Relief, Rehabilitation, ULC
D Nagender Health and Family Welfare, APVVP and Hospital Services
P Satyanarayana Arogyasri, Health Insurance and Medical Infrastructure
P Sudarshan Reddy Medical Education
N Raghuveera Reddy Agriculture, Agriculture Technology Mission,
Horticulture, Sericulture, R.S.A.D
P Lakshmaiah Major and Medium Irrigation
V Sunitha Laxma Reddy Minor Irrigation
J Geetha Reddy I and PR, Cinematography, FDC and Tourism
A Rama Narayana Reddy Municipal Administration and Urban Development
M Mukesh Goud B C Welfare
Konda Surekha Women Development and Child Welfare, Disabled Welfare
and Juvenile Welfare
R Venkat Reddy Cooperation and Labour and Employment, Factories and
San Francisco: More than 300,000 smartphones running on Google-backed Android software are activated daily, according to an engineering vice president at the Internet giant.
Andy Rubin fired off the update in a terse “tweet” at microblogging service Twitter late Wednesday.
The news indicates that Android smartphones are building momentum in the hot mobile market, where just a few months ago Google boasted that the rate of Android handset activations averaged 200,000 a day.
Google is fueling interest in Android devices with the release next week of a new champion on the mobile phone market battlefield, a “Nexus S” smartphone made by South Korea’s Samsung.
The Nexus S, the successor to the Nexus One launched about a year earlier, will be the first smartphone on the market powered by the latest version of Android mobile software, “Gingerbread.”
The Android mobile operating system surged past Apple’s iPhone and Canada’s BlackBerry in the third quarter to become the second biggest smartphone platform after Nokia’s Symbian, research firm Gartner reported in November.
Gartner said Finland’s Nokia sold 29.5 million smartphones during the third quarter of the year for a 36.6% share of the worldwide market, down from 44.6% a year ago.
Sales of Android-powered smartphones soared to 20.5 million units, giving the Android platform a 25.5% market share, up from just 3.5% a year ago, Gartner said.
Apple’s iPhone was next on sales of 13.5 million units for a 16.7% market share, down from 17.1% a year ago.
Canada’s Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, was in fourth position with sales of 11.9 million units. Its market share dropped to 14.8% from 20.7% a year ago.
Microsoft’s Windows Mobile saw sales of 2.2 million units giving it a 2.8% market share, down from 7.9% a year ago, Gartner said.
Gold buying ebbs after two days of pick-upInternational gold held steady in choppy trade as a dollar rally took a breather, and uncertainty over
Europe’s fiscal health continued to attract investors to bullion
Mumbai: Gold buying retreated on Friday afternoon after picking up for two straight sessions, as traders sought better bargains to stock up for the wedding season, dealers said.
“I have booked for less than 10 kgs today. For deals to happen, either rupee must appreciate to 44.90, or gold must fall below $1,380 (an ounce),” said a dealer with a state-run bullion importing bank in Mumbai.
International gold held steady in choppy trade as a dollar rally took a breather, and uncertainty over Europe’s fiscal health continued to attract investors to bullion.
International spot gold was trading at $1,391.45/1,392.20 an ounce as against the previous day’s close of $1,387.39/1,388.20.
The rupee, which rose due to mild gains in the euro and positive shares, plays an important role in determining the landed cost of the yellow metal, which is quoted in dollars.
The wedding season that follows Dhanteras and Diwali festivals is underway in India and will continue till end-December, sustaining the demand for the yellow metal. The country accounts for 20% of global demand for gold jewellery.
In July-September, India imported 214 tonnes of gold, up 21.6% on year, the World Gold Council said.
Panasonic cautious on US, Europe holiday salesOne analyst said any increase on last year’s sales would be seen favourably, given economic
uncertainty in developed markets
Tokyo: Consumer electronics maker Panasonic Corp said on Friday it sees no strong recovery in year-end sales in North America and Europe, but expects to pull its loss-making TV unit into the black in the January-March quarter.
Panasonic’s president, Fumio Ohtsubo, also told Reuters in an interview he expected some restructuring costs from its takeover of subsidiary Sanyo Electric to arise in the financial year starting in April, as the company shifts focus for a big push into environmental technologies.
“We don’t have detailed figures as yet, but based on quick reports from America and Europe, there is no strong recovery in consumption,” Ohtsubo said of sales in the vital year-end shopping period.
“They are within the expectations we had at the beginning of the year-end period and roughly in line with last year, or slightly above,” he said.
One analyst said any increase on last year’s sales would be seen favourably, given economic uncertainty in developed markets.
“If they manage to beat last year’s sales, that gives a pretty good impression,” said Mizuho Investors Securities analyst Nobuo Kurahashi. “The television market in particular has not been good in the United States.”
Ohtsubo said he expected Panasonic’s TV business to return to profit in the January-March period, partly thanks to the launch of a new model in February, though he expects the unit to post its third consecutive annual loss for the year to March.
The unit’s ability to make a profit for the September to March period would depend on year-end sales, he said.
For the year to March 2012, the maker of Viera TVs and Lumix cameras is aiming to turn a profit on televisions, despite fierce competition that is expected to trigger a more than 10% fall in 3D TV prices, he said.
“In fiscal 2011 we will more or less have completed a system where panels are made in Japan, modules in various parts of the world and final assembly takes place close to the point of consumption,” Ohtsubo said.
Panasonic, which competes with the likes of Samsung Electronics in televisions, posted a 74% rise in profit for the July-September quarter.
But it kept its full-year forecast unchanged on concerns about the strength of the yen, which has eroded overseas revenue for Panasonic and other Japanese exporters. Panasonic relies on foreign markets for about half its sales.
Free trade
Ohtsubo called on the government to forge free trade deals to combat what he said were disadvantages faced by Japanese manufacturers.
“Compared with South Korea, we are in a worse position in terms of corporate taxes, exchange rates and incentives for capital investment and research and development,” he said.
“If we are also behind in sealing trade deals, Japan’s manufacturers will be hit from all sides, because we have to compete on a global basis.”
He said there was no change now to Panasonic’s midterm targets of ¥10 trillion in sales and 55 operating profit margin in the year to March 2013, but said they might be revised next year.
Shares of Panasonic have fallen about 17% since the start of the financial year in April, underperforming a roughly 9% drop in the Nikkei average. Panasonic fell 0.8% to ¥1,185 on Friday.
Panasonic’s takeover of Sanyo, aimed at enabling the firm to leap ahead of rivals in environmental technologies such as solar panels and rechargeable batteries, is scheduled to be completed by the end of March.
Ohtsubo said the process was going smoothly and reiterated a target of withdrawing from overlapping or non-core businesses to a total of 300 billion yen in sales. Sanyo has already shed its loss-making semiconductor and mini precision motor businesses.
“A lot of companies are going into environmental technology,” said Mizuho’s Kurahashi. “But rechargeable batteries are not easy to manufacture and at this point it seems like a sector with a big future in which they are already a major player, so I think we can have good expectations.”
US expresses regret over frisking of Indian ambassadorAccording to the Indian Embassy here, the State Department has reached out to Shankar and regretted about the incident
Washington: Expressing regret over the Indian Ambassador to Washington being pulled out of an airport security line and patted down, the US on Friday promised to ensure that such incidents do not recur.
The Obama administration has regretted the humiliating incident that took place on 4 December at the Jackson-Evers International Airport where sari-clad Meera Shankar was about to board a flight to Baltimore after attending the Mississippi State University’s programme.
“We obviously are concerned about it. We will be looking into it and trying to determine both what happened and what we could do to prevent such incidents in the future,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told reporters at the Foggy Bottom headquarters of the State Department in joint press conference with her Nigerian counterpart.
According to the Indian Embassy here, the State Department has reached out to Shankar and regretted about the incident.
“The US State Department has reached out to the Ambassador and has regretted what all had happened. The Embassy is in touch with the State Department on this issue,” Indian Embassy spokesman Virander Paul said.
Paul confirmed that the Ambassador was subjected to the pat down security check last week at the Jackson-Evers International Airport.
Earlier, State Department spokesman P. J. Crowley said: “It is our understanding the (Indian) Ambassador was pulled out for secondary screening, and DHS
(Department of Homeland Security) has indicated they’re prepared to talk about this.”
Crowley said there are guidelines that have been published on diplomats. “They are subject to basic security. So everyone at the airport goes through a basic screening,” he said, adding from a TSA standpoint they followed their normal procedures.
“It is the responsibility of the Transportation Security Administration to assess each passenger and then work each passenger through security based on what they see,” he said, adding that as to the rationale that TSA used for this, he will let them explain it.
External affairs minister S. M. Krishna has called the pat-down of Shankar as “unacceptable” and said the matter would be taken up with the American government.
ICICI Bank, RIL lead the bounce back in SensexThe BSE 30-share index Sensex was trading at 19,463.37 points at 11:15 am, up 221 points from yesterday’s close
Mumbai: Two of the index heavyweights, ICICI Bank and RIL, on Friday led the recovery at the Dalal Street by rising 4.64% and 3.11%, respectively, at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
The country’s most valued corporate firm Reliance Industries (RIL) shot up by 3.11% to touch an early high of Rs1,015 on BSE, giving the much needed push to the broader market, which was reeling under pressure.
Similarly, top lender ICICI Bank, zoomed by 4.64% to an early peak of Rs1,106.35.
Both these blue-chip stocks have contributed the most in in the Sensex gains today so far.
Yesterday, amid heavy selling pressure, RIL had lost 3.41%, while ICICI had closed 4.41% down.
The BSE 30-share index Sensex was trading at 19,463.37 points at 11:15 am, up 221 points from yesterday’s close.
LIC Housing scrip sheds 7% in early tradeOn the National Stock Exchange, the company scrip dipped 6.5% to trade at Rs828 in the morning
session
Mumbai: LIC Housing Finance on Friday continued its losses for the sixth consecutive session, with the scrip shedding over 7% in the early trade on BSE, hit by the EPFO’s decision to suspend further investments in the company.
The government yesterday said the Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) will not invest any funds in the LIC Housing Finance, a subsidiary of the largest insurer Life Insurance Corporation (LIC), till the CBI inquiry in the bribes-for-loans scam is over.
LIC Housing scrip that has declined over 15% in the last five trading sessions, started the day on a subdued note and plunged by 7.49% to Rs.827.05 per piece on the Bombay Stock Exchange.
On the National Stock Exchange, the company scrip dipped 6.5% to trade at Rs828 in the morning session.
Meanwhile, the 30-share benchmark Sensex was quoting 203 points higher at 19,445.35 at 11:25 am.
Apple suppliers point to new camera-toting iPad in 2011The revamped model would feature cameras on the front and rear, while the other said the new model
would be slimmer, lighter and have a better resolution display
Hong Kong/Taipei: Component suppliers for Apple Inc’s iPad are gearing up for a new round of production in the first quarter, sources said on Friday, with one saying the product will be a revamp of the popular tablet computer including front- and back-mounted cameras.
Touchscreen chip designer Wintek Corp, battery maker Simplo Technology Co Ltd and AVY Precision, an unlisted maker of covers for electronic products, are among suppliers for the next batch of iPads, four people familiar with the situation said.
Two could only confirm they were ramping up for a new round of production in the first quarter for components previously supplied for the original iPad, while two said the ramp-up was for a new iPad.
One of those said the revamped model would feature cameras on the front and rear, while the other said the new model would be slimmer, lighter and have a better resolution display.
Camera module makers Genius Electronic Optical Co Ltd and Largan Precision Co Ltd were also starting new supply deals with Apple, two sources said, but neither could confirm for which product the modules were intended.
“It makes sense for these suppliers to begin delivering their goods in February,” said Steven Tseng, an analyst at RBS in Taipei. “I think Steve Jobs will announce the new product in January, and we should see the new product hitting shops in about April.”
All the people familiar with the supply chain situation declined to be named because they were not authorised to speak to the media on the topic and because of Apple’s obsession with secrecy.
Spokespeople at all five companies either declined to comment or were not immediately contactable. An Apple spokeswoman also declined to comment.
Component makers generally do not know what a finished product will look like or what software it will run on because they are only responsible for manufacturing one part before passing it on for assembly.
Apple is expected to ship 12.9 million iPads this year, with shipments rising to 36.5 million in 2011, research firm iSuppli said in July, with an 84% share of the tablet PC market.
Other tech brands such as Dell, Acer and BlackBerry maker Research in Motion have all also jumped on the tablet PC bandwagon, having unveiled their own versions of the mobile device.
“I expect to see more tablet PCs being pushed out in the second half of next year,” said Bamboo Lin, an analyst at SinoPac Securities in Taipei.
“Sales of the iPad will still be good next year, but I expect those running on Google’s Android system to have the advantage in the long run, just like what’s happening with smartphones now.”
Sinopec buys Occidental’s Argentina assets for $2.5 bnThe top refiner in Asia and China’s largest oil firm by sales said in a statement on Friday that the
takeover was subject to government approvals
Beijing: China Petrochemical Corp, parent of Sinopec Corp, agreed to buy all of US-based Occidental Petroleum Corp’s oil and gas assets in Argentina for $2.45 billion, its first foray into the upstream market in the Latin America country.
The top refiner in Asia and China’s largest oil firm by sales said in a statement on Friday that the takeover was subject to government approvals.
The move adds to a growing list of international purchases by Chinese firms in the past two-year as the country wields its financial strength beyond its borders while many Western peers struggle with the fallout from the global financial crisis.
Occidental’s Argentina units hold interest in 23 production and exploration concessions in Santa Cruz, Mendoza and Chubut provinces in Argentina, according to the release.
As of 31 December, 2009, the concessions held gross proven reserves plus probable reserves of 393 million barrels of oil equivalent.
Gross production from 22 producing concessions totaled over 51,000 barrels of oil equivalent per day in 2009, according to the release.
China Petrochemical Corp or Sinopec Group agreed in October to buy 40% of Spanish oil major Repsol’s Brazilian arm for $7.1 billion, strengthening resource-hungry China’s presence in Latin America.
CNOOC, the third-largest oil and gas firm in China, agreed on Wednesday to acquire 50% of exploration rights in five Australian coal seam gas blocks owned by Exoma Energy Ltd for A$50 million.
CNOOC in March agreed to buy 3.6% tonnes of liquefied natural gas (LNG) per year for 20-year from BG Group’s Queensland Curtis export plant in Australia that will use coal seam gas as feedstock. It said it would take equity stakes in the gas reserves and production facilities.
Google says 300,000 Android phones activated dailyGoogle is fueling interest in Android devices with the release next week of a new champion on the
mobile phone market battlefield, a “Nexus S” smartphone made by South Korea’s Samsung
San Francisco: More than 300,000 smartphones running on Google-backed Android software are activated daily, according to an engineering vice president at the Internet giant.
Andy Rubin fired off the update in a terse “tweet” at microblogging service Twitter late Wednesday.
The news indicates that Android smartphones are building momentum in the hot mobile market, where just a few months ago Google boasted that the rate of Android handset activations averaged 200,000 a day.
Google is fueling interest in Android devices with the release next week of a new champion on the mobile phone market battlefield, a “Nexus S” smartphone made by South Korea’s Samsung.
The Nexus S, the successor to the Nexus One launched about a year earlier, will be the first smartphone on the market powered by the latest version of Android mobile software, “Gingerbread.”
The Android mobile operating system surged past Apple’s iPhone and Canada’s BlackBerry in the third quarter to become the second biggest smartphone platform after Nokia’s Symbian, research firm Gartner reported in November.
Gartner said Finland’s Nokia sold 29.5 million smartphones during the third quarter of the year for a 36.6% share of the worldwide market, down from 44.6% a year ago.
Sales of Android-powered smartphones soared to 20.5 million units, giving the Android platform a 25.5% market share, up from just 3.5% a year ago, Gartner said.
Apple’s iPhone was next on sales of 13.5 million units for a 16.7% market share, down from 17.1% a year ago.
Canada’s Research In Motion, maker of the BlackBerry, was in fourth position with sales of 11.9 million units. Its market share dropped to 14.8% from 20.7% a year ago.
Microsoft’s Windows Mobile saw sales of 2.2 million units giving it a 2.8% market share, down from 7.9% a year ago, Gartner said.
Facebook co-founders pledge wealth to charityFacebook co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz have joined a pledge to give away more
than half their wealth to charity
San Francisco: Facebook co-founders Mark Zuckerberg and Dustin Moskovitz have joined a pledge to give away more than half their wealth to charity.
The pair were among 17 of “America’s wealthiest families” to add their names to a “Giving Pledge” project started by billionaire investor Warren Buffett and Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates.
“People wait until late in their career to give back,” 26-year-old celebrity entrepreneur Zuckerberg said in a Pledge release online Thursday.
“But why wait when there is so much to be done?”
The 57 family or individual names on the Pledge roster include media mogul Ted Turner, film maker George Lucas, Oracle chief Larry Ellison, and famed investors T. Boone Pickens and Carl Icahn.
“With a generation of younger folks who have thrived on the success of their companies, there is a big opportunity for many of us to give back earlier in our lifetime and see the impact of our philanthropic efforts,” Zuckerberg said.
Zuckerberg’s status as the world’s youngest self-made billionaire comes from his ownership stake in Facebook, which has yet to go public with a stock offering. His net worth was recently estimated at nearly seven billion dollars.
The pledge to divert the bulk of one’s wealth to philanthropic works before or after dying is a moral contract, not a legal one, and is meant to inspire people in all income brackets to support worthy causes.
Research shows that knowing others are donating makes people more inclined to give to charity, according to Princeton University professor of bioethics Peter Singer, author of the book “The Life You Can Save.”
“Publicly pledging to give will encourage others to give,” Singer said.
“This holds true for billionaires and for those of us who aren’t anywhere near that level of wealth.”
The first 40 pledges to the project came in August.
“In just a few short months we’ve made good progress,” Buffett said. “I look forward to many more conversations with families who are truly fortunate, and whose generosity can and will change lives made good progress.”
Investors spooked, stocks fallThe Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex dropped 454.12 points, or 2.3%, on Thursday, to close at 19,242.36
Mumbai: Indian shares had their steepest one-day fall in six months as foreign investors got spooked by the growing controversy over telecom. Fears about weak corporate governance in smaller firms, expectations of further hikes in interest rates on the back of rising inflation and margin calls by brokers worsened the sell-off.
The Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex dropped 454.12 points, or 2.3%, on Thursday, to close at 19,242.36.
The markets have under-performed peers over the storm that has broken over the allocation of spectrum for second-generation (2G) mobile services since mid-November. The Sensex has dropped 3% since then while the MSCI Emerging Markets Index has been flat.
Analysts expect stock markets to be volatile in the next few weeks, with the sentiment turning negative for Indian stocks despite strong economic growth in recent quarters and consensus estimates putting earnings growth at 20% for fiscals 2011 and 2012.
“Investor sentiment is bad, and more so for mid-caps and small caps,” said Dhiraj Agarwal, director (India institutional equities) at Standard Chartered-STCI Capital Markets Ltd. “While there are no large institutional sellers yet, buyers seem to be stepping away.”
A ban by market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India on the promoters of four companies from trading on bourses raised concerns over corporate governance and prompted some investors to make a hurried exit from many smaller firms, as speculation about more investigations under way gained ground.
The BSE mid-cap index has corrected 10% since 2 December while the small-cap index has fallen 14%.
The decline in small and mid-cap stocks pushed up the margin requirement on them, forcing sales, said Dipen Shah, senior vice-president (private client group research) at Kotak Securities Ltd.
“In some cases, investors resorted to selling large-cap stocks to fund their margins, which were due with the lenders,” he said.
Margin funding allows an investor to purchase stocks by paying only a part of the price, the rest being funded by the broker.
If the share price falls below the purchase price, the investor is asked to put up additional margin. If clients are not able to meet that requirement, the broker may be forced to sell the stock to avoid further losses.
“Many retail and high networth individuals have been forced to unwind their leveraged positions because of the sharp correction in the market,” said Sandeep
Sabharwal, head of portfolio management services at Prabhudas Lilladher Pvt. Ltd.
Another issue that weighed on the mind of investors is inflation pressure that could lead to further increases in interest rates by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), raising costs for companies and impacting valuations.
RBI governor D. Subbarao said on Thursday that inflation remained above acceptable levels, signalling borrowing costs may be raised for a seventh time since March.
While rising inflation and the consequent expectation of a rate hike are cause for worry, the various allegations of wrongdoing seem to be the biggest market dampener, even as macroeconomic indicators look robust, according to most analysts.
“I think both inflation and scam-related issues are at play,” said Bharat Iyer, head of research at JPMorgan India Pvt. Ltd. “But there is only so much you can do about inflation and the more pertinent issue I think relates to the scams and the corporate governance issues, which have come to the fore now.”
While analysts affirm India’s domestic demand-driven growth story and expect markets to continue attracting foreign investments, the outlook for the near term does not appear too bright. Most analysts predict volatility in the trading sessions ahead. The Sensex has corrected by nearly 8.4% since its recent closing high of 21,000 on 5 November.
Although some brokerages such as Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachs have advised investors to remain underweight on India because of valuation concerns, the current decline is mostly because of local issues, analysts said.
“With a current account deficit, India is best positioned to attract capital flows, although the sentiment currently might not be very favourable,” Iyer said. “We are looking at returns of 15% in the year ahead.”
16 tycoons agree to give away fortunesThose pledging are part of a broader shift in philanthropy, in which successful business people, often entrepreneurs, are giving more of their money to charity far earlier than their predecessors
The billionaire founder of social network Facebook Inc. has agreed to give the majority of his wealth to charity, part of a broader group of rich entrepreneurs committing to philanthropy earlier in their lives.
Mark Zuckerberg has signed onto the Giving Pledge, which asks signatories to commit publicly to give away the majority of their wealth.
The 26-year-old is one of the 16 billionaires new to the pledge, which now totals at least 50 donors. New names include AOL co-founder Steve Case, investor Carl Icahn and former junk-bond king Michael Milken.
They join existing pledges made by wealthy individuals and families, including Oracle Corp. founder Larry Ellison, film director George Lucas and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The Giving Pledge is an effort organized by software mogul Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett to persuade the world’s rich to boost their giving.
“I view this as a call to others who might in their 30s or 40s use some of their creativity to get involved in philanthropy earlier in life,” Milken, 64, said of the pledge.
Those pledging are part of a broader shift in philanthropy, in which successful business people, often entrepreneurs, are giving more of their money to charity far earlier than their predecessors. It was a trend that was helped along by Gates, who started his foundation while still leading Microsoft Corp.
Case, 52, and his wife Jean Case, 50, said they signed the pledge because they hoped it would help philanthropists learn from each other.
“It is less about what size of a cheque that you write and more about the outcome,” Case said.
Case said Internet entrepreneurs have a unique interest in philanthropy. “The folks that helped bring AOL to life were out to change the world,” she said. “It seems a natural thing that as they look at the role they want to play, they are giving back in big ways.”
Icahn and Zuckerberg weren’t available to comment. In a video prepared by the Giving Pledge, Zuckerberg said, “There’s so much that needs to be done, it would be better to start now.”
The Giving Pledge was born in part from a dislike by Buffett for dynastic wealth. Buffett over the years has schooled Gates on philanthropy, giving him a copy of The Gospel of Wealth, in which steel tycoon Andrew Carnegie argued that fortunes were often wasted by heirs and thus should be put to charitable use.
Starting last year, Gates, his wife Melinda Gates, Buffett and other wealthy individuals hosted a series of dinners for billionaires to discuss setting up the pledge. That led to an announcement in June of the pledge and also its earliest signers.
Since then, Gates, his wife and Buffett have been calling on billionaires to get their commitment. The pledge doesn’t ask for specific donations, nor does it track giving; rather, it asks that a pledge maker commit to giving away the majority of their wealth.
That proposition at times has been a tough sell, the pledge founders said. “People are super nice to us, but there is a certain awkwardness because it’s a big decision,” Gates said in an interview this week. “Sometimes the wife and the husband have never really talked through their priorities on the charity stuff.”
Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in his Harvard University dorm before dropping out of college and working on the business full time in California, is one of the world’s youngest billionaires, worth an estimated $6.9 billion (Rs31,120 crore), according to Forbes. Yet, since his wealth is from his ownership stake in a firm that has yet to list on the stock market, much of that wealth is theoretical at this point.
Dustin Moskovitz, a co-founder of Facebook and former Harvard room-mate of Zuckerberg’s, has also signed the pledge.
Many of the pledge signors had already planned to disburse their wealth and most are already involved in philanthropy. It’s unclear if the Giving Pledge has encouraged more giving.
Overall, philanthropic giving has been hit hard by the weak economy. Donations in the US fell 3.6% to $303.75 billion last year, down from $315 billion in 2008, according to Giving USA Foundation.
11 DEC
Nations set up global climate fundThe agreement set up a “Green Climate Fund” to administer assistance to poor nations, which many
experts say are already suffering more floods and drought as temperatures steadily mount
Cancun, Mexico: Global talks on climate change on Saturday set up a new fund to manage billions of dollars in aid to poor nations in a hard-fought package urging deep cuts in industrial emissions.
After two weeks of talks in Mexico and two virtually sleepless final days, more than 190 countries reached a deal that leaves open an extension of the Kyoto Protocol whose requirements expire in two years.
“A new era in international cooperation in climate change has begun,” Mexican foreign secretary Patricia Espinosa told the talks in the resort of Cancun.
A year after the chaotic Copenhagen summit, Espinosa won wide praise for steering the talks and seeking consensus on building blocks to a future climate treaty. Indian environment minister Jairam Ramesh even called her a “goddess.”
But the talks left much of the hard work to next year’s talks in Durban -- including the crucial question of by how much all nations will cut carbon emissions blamed for global warming.
Bolivia was the main holdout. To the dismay of many other negotiators, Bolivian negotiator Pedro Solon took the microphone repeatedly after midnight, saying the deal would not halt climate change “will put more humans in a near-death situation.”
But the vast majority of countries offered support. Australian climate change minister Greg Combet called the deal a “historic step forward.”
Chief US negotiator Todd Stern said the deal “while not perfect, is certainly a good basis for moving forward,” voicing hope it would “put the world on a more hopeful path toward a low-emissions and sustainable future.”
In a key area, the agreement set up a “Green Climate Fund” to administer assistance to poor nations, which many experts say are already suffering more floods and drought as temperatures steadily mount.
The fund will be steered by a board of 24 members chosen evenly from developed and developing nations. For the first three years, the new international organization would be overseen by the World Bank — a point of controversy for some activists who distrust the Washington-based lender.
The European Union, Japan and the United States have led pledges of $100 billion a year for poor nations up to 2020, along with $30 billion in immediate assistance.
A broader issue is just how wealthy nations would raise the money, with some negotiators advocating levies on airplane and shipping fuel.
The agreement called for “urgent action” to cap temperature rises at no more than two degrees Celsius (3.6 Fahrenheit) above pre-industrial levels and asks for a study on strengthening the commitment to 1.5 degrees Celsius.
The proposal says it “recognizes that deep cuts in global greenhouse gas emissions are required according to science.”
The accord at Copenhagen included similar language, but it was never approved by the full UN-led talks.
The Cancun deal also agreed on ways forward on fighting deforestation and on monitoring nations’ climate pledges.
But the talks were stuck for days over the fate of the Kyoto Protocol, the landmark treaty whose obligations on wealthy countries to cut emissions run out at the end of 2012.
With a new treaty looking distant, the European Union led calls for a new round of commitments under Kyoto.
Japan opposed a new Kyoto round, pointing out that the treaty named after its ancient capital covers only 30% of global emissions because top polluters including China and the United States are not part of it.
In a compromise embraced by Japan, the Cancun agreement called for work on a second period of the Kyoto Protocol “to ensure that there is no gap” but did not oblige countries to be part of the new round.
Japan faced intense pressure to compromise, with British Prime Minister David Cameron telephoning his counterpart Naoto Kan, diplomats said.
The Kyoto Protocol makes no demands on emerging economies to curb emissions. China has refused to be subjected to a treaty, although India in a surprise shift in Cancun said it would at least consider binding action in the future.
Environmentalists were mostly positive. Tim Gore of anti-poverty movement Oxfam welcomed the Green Climate Fund and said the draft Cancun accord “breathes new life” into UN-led talks on climate change.
Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline project not shelved: IndiaAs the natural gas comes via Pakistan from Iran, there are some serious security concerns
United Nations: India has not abandoned $7.3 billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project and is seriously looking for courageous insurance companies to underwrite the project, a senior diplomat attached to the Permanent Mission of India to the UN said on Saturday.
As the natural gas comes via Pakistan from Iran, there are some serious security concerns. “Apart from what we see is happening in the world today, we need Lloyds or other major global insurance giants setting up a new division and undertake the risk so that we can start the project,” he said.
On the global threat of terrorism and how India is planning to take up the issue at the security council, the official, who did not wished to be named, said elements such as Taliban or Al-Qaeda are the core issues.
“We know where the wiper or the snake comes from? We have to collectively deal with that. Pakistan is one country that is itself feeling the problems of terrorism now and the bigger problem faced by that country today is terrorism,” he said.
On the question of expansion of G-20 to include more developing countries, the senior diplomat, who enunciated the strategic agenda before India as a non-permanent member of the UN security council from January 2011, said India is vary about small groups that were designed for a particular purpose suddenly gets expand because others want to be in and it does not serve the purpose.
“G-20 was born as a group of finance ministers when the East Asian economic crisis took place in 1997. The world financial and economic crisis took place in 2008 and no one knew how to deal with it including the US, the International Monetary Fund the World Bank had no clue. It was then decided to upgrade the finance ministers group to a heads of state governments so that they could do macro economic coordination and stimulus package and be able to produce
reasonably good results. G-20 is big enough as it has the major economies and emerging economies,” he said.
“If another crisis takes place, nations have to turn to some countries that are able to deliver the goods. India is yet to take a complete view on this stand,” he said.
On the global issues India will be facing as a non-permanent member, he said North Korea is a factor Security Council should concern itself and no member of the Council will disagree on this.
On Myanmar, he said there are two approaches. One is broadly speaking the kind of approach India has taken along with some other very important countries in the region like China.
Oracle seeks $211 mln more from SAPSAP should pay $211.7 million in interest-Oracle filing; request follows $1.3 billion jury verdict against
SAP
San Francisco: Oracle Corp is seeking another $211 million from SAP AG on top of the $1.3 billion jury verdict it won last month after a widely watched copyright infringement trial.
Oracle wants an additional $211,662,935 in “prejudgment interest” due to the company, according to a court document it filed on Friday.
Both parties have already agreed that SAP will pay Oracle $120 million in attorney’s fees, the filing added.
But the two sides could not agree on whether the final judgment in the case should provide for prejudgment interest, and if so, in what amount, according to the filing.
“We don’t believe that Oracle is entitled to any additional compensation beyond the final judgment in this case,” SAP said in a statement on Friday.
Prejudgment interest is intended to compensate for the loss of the use of funds and account for the effects of inflation after a party suffers economic damages.
Facebook holds inaugural "Hackers Cup"Facebook is taking its tradition of all-night “hackathons” to a higher level with an international coding
competition promising top contenders cash, glory, and a free trip to the company’s Northern California
headquarters
San Francisco: Facebook is challenging software hotshots around the world to show their mettle in the online social networking king’s first “Hackers Cup.”
Facebook is taking its tradition of all-night “hackathons” to a higher level with an international coding competition promising top contenders cash, glory, and a free trip to the company’s Northern California headquarters.
The contest consists of a set of online rounds that kick off in January and a final round in March held at Facebook’s campus in the Silicon Valley city of Palo Alto.
Facebook will pay for the top 25 contestants in the online rounds to come to California for the final stage of the competition.
The first place finisher is promised $5,000 and will no doubt catch the eye of recruiters at Facebook. Details about the contest can be found at a Hackers Cup page at Facebook.
Post 26/11,Congress played religious politics:CablesUS has neither confirmed or denied the authenticity of these cables, but said that some 250,000 papers have been stolen from its system and demanded that WikiLeaks return them back to the State Department
Washington: Post 26/11, a section of the Congress leadership was seen playing religious politics after one of its leaders, A R Antulay, implied that Hindutva forces may have been involved in the Mumbai terror attacks, according to a confidential memo by the then US ambassador to India, David Mulford, released by WikiLeaks.
“The Congress Party, after first distancing itself from the comments (of Antulay, the then minority affairs minister), two days later issued a contradictory statement which implicitly endorsed the conspiracy. During this time, Antulay’s completely unsubstantiated claims gained support in ... Indian-Muslim community,” Mulford wrote in his secret cable to the state department on 23 December, 2008.
“Hoping to foster that support for upcoming national elections, the Congress Party cynically pulled back from its original dismissal and lent credence to the conspiracy,” Mulford wrote.
Regardless of home minister P Chidambaram’s dismissal of Antulay’s comments, the Indian-Muslim community “will continue to believe they are unfairly targeted by law enforcement and that those who investigate the truth are silenced,” he said in the cable.
“The entire episode demonstrates that the Congress Party will readily stoop to the old caste/religious-based politics if it feels it is in its interest,” Mulford alleged, according to the cable posted by WikiLeaks on its website yesterday.
The United States has neither confirmed or denied the authenticity of these cables, but said that some 250,000 papers have been stolen from its system and demanded that WikiLeaks, the whistle blower website, return them back to the State Department.
According to WikiLeaks, there are some 1,300 cables from the US embassy in New Delhi. However, only half a dozen of them have been posted by it on its website.
Mulford said while the killing of three high-level law enforcement officers during the Mumbai attacks, including ATS chief Hemant Karkare, “is a remarkable coincidence, the Congress Party’s initial reaction to Antulay’s outrageous comments was correct.”
“But as support seemed to swell among Muslims for Antulay’s unsubstantiated claims, crass political opportunism swayed the thinking of some Congress Party leaders,” he wrote.
GE ups dividend again, cites stronger Capital armThe world’s biggest maker of electric turbines and jet engines said it would raise its quarterly payout to shareholders by 2 cents per share to 14 cents
Boston: General Electric Co raised its dividend for a second time this year, in a move the largest US conglomerate said signaled its growing confidence in the rebound of its finance arm.
The world’s biggest maker of electric turbines and jet engines said it would raise its quarterly payout to shareholders by 2 cents per share to 14 cents.
Coupled with a July increase, GE has now raised its dividend by 37% this year, though it remains well below the 31-cent rate in place before chief executive Jeff Immelt slashed the payout in 2009 as the company scrambled to conserve cash during the financial crisis.
The company now aims to pay back about 45% of its annual profit to shareholders in the form of a dividend each year.
GE shares were up 3% in afternoon trading on the New York Stock Exchange.
“They’re signaling a little better environment for the segment of the business that was using cash, which was the financial side” said Peter Klein at Fifth Third Asset Management. “So they’re getting some back and they’re going to give some to us.”
Michael Neal, head of the company’s GE Capital finance arm, told investors earlier this week that the unit expects to grow profit in 2011 and 2012 and resume paying a dividend to the Fairfield, Connecticut-based parent company in 2012.
“We are able to increase the GE dividend for the second time this year because of continued strong cash generation, accelerated recovery at GE Capital and solid underlying performance in our Industrial businesses,” said Immelt, who will brief investors next week on GE’s expectations for 2011.
GE shares rose 53 cents to $17.66. They are up almost 13% so far this year, outperforming both the blue-chip Dow Jones industrial average and Standard & Poor’s 500 index.
Rising Cash
The company, which is in the process of selling a majority stake in its NBC Universal media business to No. 1 US cable operator Comcast Corp, has told shareholders it also plans to use cash to buy back a preferred stake it sold to Warren Buffett’s Berkshire Hathaway Inc, repurchase its common stock and fund small acquisitions.
Much of corporate America hoarded its cash during the downturn, and investors are now looking to companies to redeploy those reserves or pay them out to shareholders.
Oliver Pursche, co-portfolio manager of the GMG Defensive Beta Fund, predicted other top multinationals would follow GE’s lead to appease shareholders who have been pleading with them “to stop hoarding cash.”
Fellow industrial Tyco International Ltd late on Thursday said it would seek shareholder approval to boost its dividend by 20%. Transfer company Western Union Co this week raised its dividend and high-end grocer Whole Foods Market Inc said it would resume a payout.
But Pursche said he also believed GE’s move reflected a sense of relief among US business leaders that the Obama administration and the resurgent Republican opposition in Congress had reached a deal on taxes.
“They are growing less concerned about the economic recovery,” Pursche said.
Fellow US manufacturer United Technologies Corp late on Thursday told investors it expects profit to rise 7% to 14% despite an uneven US recovery.
Pfizer recalls lung drug after two deathsPfizer spokesman Curtis Allen said the drug, called Thelin, which is not sold in the United States, was
being recalled in Europe, Canada and Australia after being linked to a new liver problem
New York/Boston: Pfizer Inc is voluntarily recalling its drug to treat a life-threatening lung condition and will end
studies of the pill after it was linked to potentially deadly liver toxicity.
The European Medicines Agency on Friday said the modest-selling drug, used to treat pulmonary arterial
hypertension, was withdrawn due to “new information on two cases of fatal liver injury.”
Pfizer spokesman Curtis Allen said the drug, called Thelin, which is not sold in the United States, was being recalled
in Europe, Canada and Australia after being linked to a new liver problem “that occurs rarely and unpredictably in
patients.”
“The decision was based on a review of emerging safety information and post-marketing reporting,” said Allen,
referring to reports by doctors that have prescribed it.
Thelin and similar medicines already carry warnings of elevated liver enzymes, a marker for potential liver damage.
But the new liver risk for Thelin now suggests its overall risks outweigh its potential benefit, Allen said.
Pfizer, the world’s biggest drugmaker, whose chief executive abruptly resigned on Sunday, scrapped US trials of
Thelin for pulmonary arterial hypertension. Such patients have elevated blood pressure in lung arteries and veins
that cause shortness of breath and other symptoms, which can lead to heart failure and early death.
About 1,100 patients have taken Thelin since it was launched in Europe in 2006 and in Australia and Canada the
following year.
Pfizer in 2008 paid $195 million for the company that developed the product, Encysive Pharmaceuticals, even
though the US Food and Drug Administration had repeatedly rejected the drug for lack of efficacy.
Pfizer had been counting on the US trials to ultimately prove Thelin’s worth. It is the latest in a long string of
setbacks for Pfizer, whose labs have not generated any big-selling drugs for more than a decade.
“It’s another ding in their pipeline, though expectations for it (Thelin) had been fairly low,” said Damien Conover, an
analyst at Morningstar. “Had it been approved in the United States and didn’t have the safety side effect, you could
have seen it just breaking into blockbuster sales at peak.”
Conover said investors are more focused on Pfizer’s so-called JAK inhibitor, an oral treatment for rheumatoid
arthritis, and its ALK inhibitor for a subset of patients with lung cancer. Both drugs, if successful in trials, could
generate peak annual sales of more than $2 billion, he said.
Pfizer shares were up 1.3% to $16.98 in afternoon trade on the New York Stock Exchange. The stock has fallen
nearly 18% from a 52-week high of $20.36 in January.
Thelin garnered sales of $44 million in the first nine months of 2010, making it a small product for Pfizer.
It competes with Tracleer, a drug made by Actelion Ltd that had sales of $1.4 billion in 2009. Thelin also competes
with Letairis, made by Gilead Sciences Inc, which produced 2009 sales of $184 million.
Thelin, Tracleer and Letairis all block fragments of endothelin, a protein that causes blood vessels to tighten up.
Deutsche Bank analyst Richard Parkes said on Friday the new liver problem appears to be specific to Thelin.
“In contrast, Actelion has generated a large database of safety, showing that liver enzyme elevations with Tracleer
can be safely managed,” Parkes said in a research report.
Actelion shares rose 1.3%, as the recall of Thelin eliminated a rival to Tracleer.
Pfizer late last year bought US rival Wyeth in hopes Wyeth’s drugs would bolster Pfizer’s aging array of medicines,
including the $11 billion-a-year cholesterol fighter Lipitor, which faces US generic competition in November 2011.
On Sunday, Pfizer CEO Jeffrey Kindler surprised Wall Street by announcing he would retire to “recharge his
batteries.” He handed the company’s reins to Ian Read, head of Pfizer’s global drug business.
Holcim hikes stake in ACC Ltd by 1.17 % to 47.37%Holcim bought a majority stake in ACC in 2005 through Ambuja Cements, it is currently the promoter
of both ACC and Ambuja Cement Ltd
Mumbai: Swiss cement giant Holcim Ltd has increased its stake in Mumbai based Cement company ACC Ltd by
1.17% to 47.37%, through Ambuja Cement India Pvt Ltd, by purchasing 22.13 lakh shares for Rs237.79 crore in a
bulk deal on the Bombay Stock Exchange on Friday.
Holcim bought a majority stake in ACC in 2005 through Ambuja Cements, it is currently the promoter of both ACC
and Ambuja Cement Ltd.
Dard-e-retroViewers are made to travel back in time to share the director’s deep-seated love for a kind of larger-
than-life film that is apparently not being made any more.
A new genre of film-making has emerged in Bollywood in recent years. It’s called the “dard e-retro” genre. A movie that belongs to this category pays subtle or open tribute to Hindi films from the 1960s and 1970s, even though it seems a bit too early to do so. Such films fondly evoke the way actors in the good old days dressed, wore their hair and make-up, sang songs and danced. Sometimes, film-makers doff their hats to specific songs, characters, or pieces of dialogue. Sometimes, a whole movie is set in rewind mode, such as Om Shanti Om or Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai. Viewers are made to travel back in time to share the director’s deep-seated love for a kind of larger-than-life film that is apparently not being made any more.
The most blatant example of the dard-eretro genre is the recently releasedAction Replayy by Vipul Shah, which is based on a Gujarati play which, in turn, borrowed many ideas from Back to the Future. In Action Replayy, a young man goes back in time to revisit the love story of his parents (played by Akshay Kumar and Aishwarya Rai Bachchan). The plot gave Shah a great excuse to excavate bell-bottomed trousers, floppy wigs, polka-dotted dresses and hoop earrings. Audiences didn’t seem to share Shah’s taste for sartorially embarrassing times. The movie flopped at the box office.
One of the premier nostalgists of Bollywood is Farah Khan, who wants to be known as the Manmohan Desai of modern film-making and who wants to deliver the same kind of all-round entertainment that Desai excelled at. Khan’s upcoming Tees Maar Khan, about a charming con man played by Kumar, hopes to evoke the same madcap quality of Desai’s movies. Khan’sOm Shanti Om started off as a pastiche to a kind of over-the-top film-making that we have apparently abandoned, but she didn’t have the emotional distance or the critical faculty to maintain the momentum. Unlike seasoned practitioners of pastiche such as Quentin Tarantino or Todd Haynes, most Bollywood film-makers don’t actually have a well-developed perspective on older storytelling styles. Retro films are little more than better-dressed versions of tacky 1970s movies, and are mostly interested in creating a kind of cool that will especially appeal to younger audiences. Throw in a disco song and the package is complete—never mind the fact that disco music
came to Hindi movies only in the 1980s, many years after shiny pants and glitter balls had invaded dance halls in America. Neither film-makers— nor audiences, for that matter— seem to care too much for verisimilitude. The crime drama Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai, which claims to recreate the 1970s, isn’t recommended viewing for students of production design.
The real nostalgia of such films as Once Upon a Time in Mumbaai and Om Shanti Om seems to be for a time when film viewing was a far less complicated business than it currently is. Although 2010 hasn’t ended, it’s safe to predict that this is the year when the film industry realized that the more things change, the more they stay the same. Viewers want to be served the same comfort food, but in shinier packaging. The humongous success of Dabangg proves that audiences haven’t lost their appetite for masala fare. Film-makers want to make the all-encompassing film that embraces all kinds of viewers. What better place to look for tried-and-tested fare than the 1970s, which is a golden decade for the mostly 30-something film-makers who dominate Bollywood in the same way the 1950s were for older film-makers?
Tees Maar Khan will release on 24 December.
Nandini Ramnath is the film critic of Time Out Mumbai (www.timeoutmumbai.net )
CBI was aware of Radia’s role in 2009; govt can’t curb leaked tapesRadia’s phone lines were tapped for 120 days in 2008 and 60 days in 2009 from seven locations across
India by the directorate general of income tax
New Delhi: The Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) knew of Niira Radia’s involvement in an alleged conspiracy as
early as 16 November 2009 and was investigating the irregularities, the income-tax (I-T) department told the
Supreme Court on Friday.
The department, which tapped Radia’s phones in 2008 and 2009, filed a nine-page affidavit in response to Ratan
Tata’s privacy petition, scheduled for hearing on Monday. Tata moved court after around 140 such conversations
“This kind of strong growth will accentuate the pressure on inflation and calls for further monetary
tightening,” said Sonal Varma, a Mumbai-based economist at Nomura, Japan’s biggest brokerage. “We
think RBI is likely to raise rates in the January to March quarter.”
The Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex rose for the first time in four days, climbing 1.4%. Ten-year
government bond yields fell four basis points to 8.08% at close in Mumbai. The rupee advanced 0.4%
to 45.05 against the dollar. One basis point is one-hundredth of a percentage point.
The central bank’s goal is to keep the benchmark wholesale price inflation rate between 4% and 4.5%.
It may slow to an 11-month low of 7.5% in November, according to the median of 26 estimates in
a Bloomberg survey. The commerce ministry is scheduled to announce the data on 14 December.
In China, where industrial output rose 13.1% in October from a year earlier, inflation is accelerating
following an unprecedented credit expansion, a result of efforts to protect the economy from last
year’s global recession. Consumer prices rose 4.4% in October from a year earlier, the fastest pace in
two years.
The People’s Bank of China on Friday raised lenders’ reserve requirements for the third time in five
weeks. In October, it increased the interest rate for the first time since 2007.
RBI, which has boosted rates six times this year, the most by any central bank in Asia, said on 2
November that it probably won’t raise rates until January, giving itself time to see the impact of its
monetary tightening. India’s benchmark repurchase rate is 6.25%.
Manufacturing grew 11.3% in October after a 4.6% gain in September, Friday’s report showed.
Electricity production climbed 8.8%, while mining rose 6.5%.
A cash squeeze at banks after companies, including Coal India Ltd, raised funds from share sales and
businesses withdrew money to pay taxes, may also prompt Subbarao to keep borrowing costs
unchanged for now, according to Anubhuti Sahay, an economist at Standard Chartered Plc in Mumbai.
Coal India raised Rs.15,200 crore in October in the nation’s biggest initial share sale.
Commercial banks borrowed an average Rs80,900 crore a day this quarter using RBI’s repurchase-
auction window, compared with Rs23,900 in the previous three months, according to data compiled
by Bloomberg, indicating a shortage of funds at lenders.
Subbarao said on Thursday that RBI was conscious of the liquidity situation at banks, and that it will
take some steps as may be necessary.
RBI on Thursday conducted an auction to purchase Rs12,000 crore of securities to ease liquidity.
Deputy governor Subir Gokarn told reporters in Kolkata this week that the move to replenish funds in
the banking system isn’t a sign of a change in the central bank’s monetary policy stance.
“Inflation will remain a problem for a long while,” D.H. Pai Panandiker, president of the RPG
Foundation, an economic policy group in New Delhi, said before the production data was released.
“When consumer demand rises amid infrastructure constraints, it pushes up the cost of doing
business.”
India has a power deficit of 10.5% during peak hours, the Central Electricity Authority estimates,
forcing most companies to invest in their own supply back-ups. “The target to add 62,000MW of
generation capacity in the five years to March 2012 may be missed by about 4,000MW,” the
government said on Thursday.
“There is a real risk of inflation accelerating in the coming months due to strong growth,” said
Dharmakirti Joshi, a Mumbai-based economist at Crisil Ltd, the local unit of Standard and Poor’s
Ratings Services. “RBI may consider raising rates in January.”
Foreign manufacturers are investing more in India to benefit from growing demand in the country of
1.2 billion people. Daimler AG this week announced plans to invest as much as Rs350 crore by 2012 to
expand its India factory that makes Mercedes-Benz cars.
Manish Modi contributed to this story.
2G Scam | Trai wants 38 licences to be cancelledMinister of state for telecom Sachin Pilot told the Rajya Sabha that the telecom regulator had
recommended cancelling 38 licences after legal examination
New Delhi: The telecom regulator Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has recommended the government
to cancel 38 2G licences, including some held by Telenor, Sistema and Etisalat’s Indian ventures, a government
statement said on Friday.
Minister of state for telecom Sachin Pilot told lawmakers in the Rajya Sabha that the regulator had recommended
cancelling 31 other telecom licences after legal examination, the statement added.
Government officials have earlier said the Trai had recommended cancelling some licences as the companies had
not met network rollout obligations.
On Thursday, telecom minister Kapil Sibal had said his ministry would send notices to the companies by the end of
this week asking them to explain why their licences should not be cancelled.
Engaged Radia to counter vested interests’: TataTata questioned as to why Chandrasekhar himself was trying to influence politicians and solicit support from selected corporate
New Delhi: Niira Radia, who is in the eye of a storm over leaked taped conversations, was engaged by
the Tata group to counter a media campaign against it by an “unholy nexus” between certain
corporate and journalists.
As Tatas did not enjoy any “captive” connection to counter such media campaign, the group chief, who
had earlier gone to the Supreme Court seeking a probe into leakage of tapes containing his
conversation with Radia and also a ban on further publication of the same, said that Radia-led
Vaishnavi was engaged to counter vested interests.
Tata’s views came amid the uproar over Radia’s alleged nexus with corporate, politicians and
journalists and the ongoing litigation on the 2G spectrum allocation scam.
Countering charges levelled against him and the Tata Group by former telcom entrepreneur and Rajya
Sabha MP Rajeev Chandrasekhar, Tata questioned as to why Chandrasekhar himself was trying to
influence politicians and solicit support from selected corporate.
“You and many others have focused your attention on Radia as a corporate lobbyist,” Tata said while
questioning Chandrasekhar’s role in trying to prevent entry of limited mobility and CDMA mobile
service.
The noted industrialist reminded Chandrasekhar of the time when he had parked himself at the Taj
Mahal Hotel Delhi, for several months in 2002 to prevent entry of Wireless in Local Loop (WLL) limited
mobility and CDMA.
He also told Chandrasekhar about his interaction with the polity and bureaucracy and with other
operators to forge telecom policy of his choice, while at the same soliciting support of industry lobby
CII.
“Would you consider this as an endeavour to influence or subvert policy? To influence politicians or
solicit support from selected corporates?
“I take it that in your view, this would not constitute lobbying ... Your affiliation to a particular political
party is well-known and it appears that political aspirations and their endeavour to embarrass the
Prime Minister and the ruling party may well have been the motivation behind your letter and the
insinuations which you make,” Tata said.
Claiming that the Tata Group was under attack 10 years ago in media to defame the ethics and value
systems of the group which held it apart from others, he said Vaishnavi was engaged to project the
group’s point of view in the media.
He said Vaishnavi was owned neither by the Tata Group nor the group is Vaishnavi’s only client.
Tata wondered why Chandrasekhar has sought to denounce Tatas association with Radia after nine
years, particularly when he himself had interacted with her on some occasions in the past.
Tata refuted allegations that the group had employed Pradeep Baijal, former Trai chairman and
disinvestment secretary who is now working with one of Vaishnavi’s affiliate.
“Mr Baijal, whom you apparently have a dislike, is part of Noesis, (an affiliate of Vaishnavi in which
Tatas have no ownership) and, as facts will show, on various occasions has differed with the Tata
Group during his period in office and has not advocated or influenced Telecom Policy for the Tata
Group in any way,” Tata said.
SC stands by ‘rotten’ remark against Allahabad HCThe Allahabad high court had taken strong exception to the apex court’s remarks that “something was rotten” and there was “rampant uncle judge syndrome” in the higher court
New Delhi: The Supreme Court on Friday refused to entertain an Allahabad high court petition seeking expunction of its controversial remarks that something was “rotten” there and that it was suffering from “uncle judges syndrome” and stood by them.
At the same time, a bench of justices Markandey Katju and Gyan Sudha Mishra, while dismissing the Allahabad High Court’s application for expunging the remarks, clarified that there were “excellent and good judges too” in the court.
Rejecting the arguments of senior counsel P. P. Rao that even a clarification that some are excellent and good judges would still cause suspicion on the integrity of the judges, the bench remarked, “It is not just time to react but also to introspect.”
Reacting to the persistent plea of Rao that the clarification would not be sufficient, Justice Katju angrily retorted, “Do not tell all those things. I and my family have more than 100-year of association with the Allahabad High Court. People know who is corrupt and who is honest. So do not tell me all this.”
Justice Katju further observed, “Tomorrow, if Markandey Katju starts taking bribe, then the entire country will know about it. So do not tell me as to who is honest and who is corrupt.”
Rao submitted that the earlier observations had tarnished the image of the entire High Court judiciary and the rustic would not be able to distinguish between a honest and a corrupt judge.
“Do not tell me all those things about the rustic. They are much more enlightened. Do not think people of India are fools,” the bench observed while dismissing the application.
The Allahabad high court had taken strong exception to the apex court’s remarks that “something was rotten” and there was “rampant uncle judge syndrome” in the higher court.
In an application moved through its registry, the High Court had sought expunction of the remarks on the ground that they “have made difficult” for the judges to function and tarnished the reputation of the entire judiciary in Uttar Pradesh.
“The remarks are unfortunate and uncalled for and has brought down the image of the Allahabad high court judges in the eyes of the general public. The observations have made it difficult for the judges to function,” the application had stated.
It had submitted that judges of the High Court are appointed only after clearance from the Supreme Court collegium and as such, there was no scope to question their integrity.
On 26 November, in a strong indictment of Allahabad high court, the apex court had said, “There is something rotten” there and raised serious questions about integrity of several of its judges.
Investors spooked, stocks fallThe Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex dropped 454.12 points, or 2.3%, on Thursday, to close at 19,242.36
Mumbai: Indian shares had their steepest one-day fall in six months as foreign investors got spooked
by the growing controversy over telecom. Fears about weak corporate governance in smaller firms,
expectations of further hikes in interest rates on the back of rising inflation and margin calls by brokers
worsened the sell-off.
The Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex dropped 454.12 points, or 2.3%, on Thursday, to close at
19,242.36.
The markets have under-performed peers over the storm that has broken over the allocation of
spectrum for second-generation (2G) mobile services since mid-November. The Sensex has dropped
3% since then while the MSCI Emerging Markets Index has been flat.
Analysts expect stock markets to be volatile in the next few weeks, with the sentiment turning
negative for Indian stocks despite strong economic growth in recent quarters and consensus estimates
putting earnings growth at 20% for fiscals 2011 and 2012.
“Investor sentiment is bad, and more so for mid-caps and small caps,” said Dhiraj Agarwal, director
(India institutional equities) at Standard Chartered-STCI Capital Markets Ltd. “While there are no
large institutional sellers yet, buyers seem to be stepping away.”
A ban by market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India on the promoters of four companies
from trading on bourses raised concerns over corporate governance and prompted some investors to
make a hurried exit from many smaller firms, as speculation about more investigations under way
gained ground.
The BSE mid-cap index has corrected 10% since 2 December while the small-cap index has fallen 14%.
The decline in small and mid-cap stocks pushed up the margin requirement on them, forcing sales,
said Dipen Shah, senior vice-president (private client group research) at Kotak Securities Ltd.
“In some cases, investors resorted to selling large-cap stocks to fund their margins, which were due
with the lenders,” he said.
Margin funding allows an investor to purchase stocks by paying only a part of the price, the rest being
funded by the broker.
If the share price falls below the purchase price, the investor is asked to put up additional margin. If
clients are not able to meet that requirement, the broker may be forced to sell the stock to avoid
further losses.
“Many retail and high networth individuals have been forced to unwind their leveraged positions
because of the sharp correction in the market,” said Sandeep Sabharwal, head of portfolio
Another issue that weighed on the mind of investors is inflation pressure that could lead to further
increases in interest rates by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), raising costs for companies and
impacting valuations.
RBI governor D. Subbarao said on Thursday that inflation remained above acceptable levels, signalling
borrowing costs may be raised for a seventh time since March.
While rising inflation and the consequent expectation of a rate hike are cause for worry, the various
allegations of wrongdoing seem to be the biggest market dampener, even as macroeconomic
indicators look robust, according to most analysts.
“I think both inflation and scam-related issues are at play,” said Bharat Iyer, head of research
at JPMorgan India Pvt. Ltd. “But there is only so much you can do about inflation and the more
pertinent issue I think relates to the scams and the corporate governance issues, which have come to
the fore now.”
While analysts affirm India’s domestic demand-driven growth story and expect markets to continue
attracting foreign investments, the outlook for the near term does not appear too bright. Most analysts
predict volatility in the trading sessions ahead. The Sensex has corrected by nearly 8.4% since its
recent closing high of 21,000 on 5 November.
Although some brokerages such as Credit Suisse and Goldman Sachshave advised investors to
remain underweight on India because of valuation concerns, the current decline is mostly because of
local issues, analysts said.
“With a current account deficit, India is best positioned to attract capital flows, although the sentiment
currently might not be very favourable,” Iyer said. “We are looking at returns of 15% in the year
ahead.”
Telecom tangle has deep rootsFluidity of country’s telecommunications policy comes under the scanner as charges fly thick and fast
New Delhi: Tata Sons Ltd chairman Ratan Tata reacted angrily to an open letter from Rajya Sabha
member and former telecom entrepreneur Rajeev Chandrasekhar, but while the text of his 14-page
(including annexures) response highlighted his own consistent position on the pricing and allotment of
air waves, it also reiterated an emerging truth about the Indian telecommunications business: one that
involves ad hoc changes in policy, poor regulation, and an impressive display of crony capitalism.
Since the late 1990s, India’s telecom policy has seen sudden changes in some cases, or the retention
of an outdated policy in others, and while some of these changes are responsible for the country’s
mobile telephony boom—India had 688 million mobile connections at the end of September, but the
Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) says only 70% are active—they have also benefited
almost all companies in the business.
In an indirect admission of the fluidity of the country’s telecom policy, telecom minister Kapil Sibal said
the government would ask a retired Supreme Court judge to investigate all allocation of air waves (or
spectrum) since 2001.
On Wednesday, India’s top court, too, signalled that it would like the investigation to date back to
2001. The court was hearing a public interest litigation asking it to step in and monitor the Central
Bureau of Investigation’s (CBI) probe into what is being termed the 2G scam—the allegedly
preferential and favourable allocation in 2008 of licences and spectrum to telcos entering the second-
generation (2G) mobile telephony business.
The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government, too, has previously suggested that it would like to
see any investigation stretch back to 1999; the UPA’s main rival, the National Democratic Alliance
(NDA), ruled India between 1999 and 2004.
Ad hoc(ism) rules
The changes, while arbitrary and beneficial to some telcos (and detrimental to the fortunes of others),
did result in growth. In 2000, India had only 1.88 million mobile phone customers and average call
rates were around Rs16 a minute.
At the end of September, the number of phone connections had multiplied 365 times and average
tariffs dropped to around Rs0.30 a minute. In the process, India’s teledensity soared from 2.86% in
2000 to 60.99% in 2010.
“There have been some unique changes in policy over the years. In 2000, one change that made a
significant difference is the shift from licence fee regime to revenue-share regime. This ensured that
the telcos survived the initial hiccups and were able to build a viable business,” said Kunal Bajaj,
partner and director (India) for Analysys Mason, a consulting firm.
“Another important change was the introduction of the uniform termination regime that eventually
enabled incoming calls to become free and allowed the mobile service providers to compete with the
heavily subsidized fixed-line providers,” he said.
Through the boom, India’s policy on spectrum has been inconsistent. The recent report by the
government’s auditor, the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG), that looks at the issue of 2G
licences in 2008, points out that between 2001 and 2008 all telcos benefited from this
But analysts reckon that Tata Teleservices Ltd and Reliance Communications Ltd (RCom) were among
the biggest beneficiaries of inexplicable changes in policy—such as the one in 2003 that allowed the
two companies, which only had licences to offer fixed telephony services, to offer mobile telephony,
albeit on a different technology platform, CDMA, than the one used by the companies that had licences
to offer GSM mobile telephony services.
In 2008, RCom and Tata Teleservices were again the beneficiaries when companies offering mobile
telephony on the CDMA platform were also allowed to do so on the GSM platform.
“One policy change that made a huge difference is the introduction of the UASL (telecom) licence in
2004 that allowed the full-fledged entry of Reliance in the market. This brought in new competition and
enabled the telcos to experiment with things like tariff strategies among others. The competition made
a huge difference,” Bajaj added. UASL is short for unified access service licence.
To be sure, the telcos that had historically offered services on the GSM platform too enjoyed their
share of benefits—the spectrum allocation policy was skewed in favour of these firms, for instance.
And between 2004 and 2007, some of these telcos received licences (around 48 of them were issued)
and spectrum largely because of the arbitrariness of government policy, or the lack of one—something
Tata has complained about in his reply to Chandrashekhar.
“You have also not noticed that the CAG has not ascribed value to 48 new GSM licences issued to
incumbents during this period even though CAG was supposed to cover the period from 2003,” Tata
wrote.
(For a complete list of policies that changed the course of the telecom business, see chart, Change, the
only constant).
Many of these policies were upheld by telecom regulator Trai as well as the appellate body, Telecom
Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT). For instance, Trai’s 2007 ruling was responsible for
allowing new entrants into the business, and at the same financial terms at which other telcos had
entered the business several years ago. And TDSAT upheld the government’s right to allow companies
offering services on the CDMA platform to do so on the GSM one also.
Tata vs Chandrasekhar
In his response to Chandrasekhar, who wrote a letter to Tata on 6 December, and released it to the
media on the same day, the chairman of Tata Sons said that the missive from the member of
parliament appeared to be an attempt to embarrass the ruling party and the Prime Minister.
“We should all note that many of the flip-flops in the telecom policies occurred during the BJP
(Bharatiya Janata Party) regime,” Tata wrote. “Your affiliation to a particular political party is well-
known and it appears that political aspirations and their endeavour to embarrass the Prime Minister
and the ruling party may well have been the motivation behind your letter”.
Chandrasekhar was elected to the Rajya Sabha with the support of the BJP in May 2006.
Tata didn’t spare the current government either and said the CAG report had ignored the 48 GSM
licences issued to incumbent telcos between 2004 and 2008. Later on Thursday evening, Tata
Teleservices sent a letter to Chandrasekhar refuting his argument, put forth in his letter, that Tata was
one of the biggest beneficiaries of out-of-turn allocation of spectrum.
UPA vs NDA
The UPA, too, seemed to be in a mood to revisit recent history, with the Congress’ spokesperson
Manish Tewari alleging that the migration of telcos from a licence fee regime to a revenue-sharing one
in 1999, when the NDA was in power, had cost the exchequer Rs60,000 crore in notional losses.
The BJP, the dominant member of the NDA, responded by focusing on what its change in policy had
achieved. “We unleashed the revolution and today we are boasting of more than 600 million mobiles in
the country. It is due to the pragmatic and visionary policy of the NDA and that is why we are proud of
our policy,” said the party’s spokesperson Prakash Javadekar.
He added, referring to Tata’s letter, that the chairman of Tata Sons probably didn’t know “much about
what has actually happened”.
Meanwhile, opposition parties continued their demand for an investigation into the 2G controversy by
a joint parliamentary committee.
CBI vs Raja
On Thursday, CBI questioned former telecom minister A. Raja’s aides and associates, including his
former personal secretary R.K. Chandolia, former telecom secretary Siddhartha Behuria, former
member of the telecom commission K. Sridhar; former deputy director general in the access service
wing of DoT A.K. Srivastava, and managing director of Chennai-based real estate firm Greenhouse
Exports, Sadiqui Batcha.
On Wednesday, the agency had searched the residences of Raja and several of these aides. “There will
be more raids and we do not rule out the arrest of these officials,” said a CBI official who spoke on
condition of anonymity. He didn’t rule out interrogating Raja. The agency also said that it had seized a
diary belonging to Raja with notes in Tamil.
In a related development, the committee of secretaries, including the home secretary, the secretary of
department of personnel and training, the revenue secretary, the chiefs of both the intelligence
agencies and the directors of CBI and the Enforcement Directorate, met in the home ministry. “We
discussed the nexus between journalists, bureaucrats and politicians,” said an official who attended
the meeting, asking not to be identified.
In mid-November, two magazines published transcripts of phone conversations between Niira Radia, a
lobbyist for the Tata group and Reliance Industries Ltd, and several journalists, politicians and former
bureaucrats. Some of the conversations, dating back to 2009 and wiretapped by the income-tax
department, dealt with the formation of the government.
16 tycoons agree to give away fortunesThose pledging are part of a broader shift in philanthropy, in which successful business people, often entrepreneurs, are giving more of their money to charity far earlier than their predecessors
The billionaire founder of social network Facebook Inc. has agreed to give the majority of his wealth to
charity, part of a broader group of rich entrepreneurs committing to philanthropy earlier in their lives.
Mark Zuckerberg has signed onto the Giving Pledge, which asks signatories to commit publicly to give
away the majority of their wealth.
The 26-year-old is one of the 16 billionaires new to the pledge, which now totals at least 50 donors.
New names include AOL co-founder Steve Case, investor Carl Icahn and former junk-bond king Michael
Milken.
They join existing pledges made by wealthy individuals and families, including Oracle Corp. founder
Larry Ellison, film director George Lucas and New York mayor Michael Bloomberg.
The Giving Pledge is an effort organized by software mogul Bill Gates and investor Warren Buffett to
persuade the world’s rich to boost their giving.
“I view this as a call to others who might in their 30s or 40s use some of their creativity to get involved
in philanthropy earlier in life,” Milken, 64, said of the pledge.
Those pledging are part of a broader shift in philanthropy, in which successful business people, often
entrepreneurs, are giving more of their money to charity far earlier than their predecessors. It was a
trend that was helped along by Gates, who started his foundation while still leading Microsoft Corp.
Case, 52, and his wife Jean Case, 50, said they signed the pledge because they hoped it would help
philanthropists learn from each other.
“It is less about what size of a cheque that you write and more about the outcome,” Case said.
Case said Internet entrepreneurs have a unique interest in philanthropy. “The folks that helped bring
AOL to life were out to change the world,” she said. “It seems a natural thing that as they look at the
role they want to play, they are giving back in big ways.”
Icahn and Zuckerberg weren’t available to comment. In a video prepared by the Giving Pledge,
Zuckerberg said, “There’s so much that needs to be done, it would be better to start now.”
The Giving Pledge was born in part from a dislike by Buffett for dynastic wealth. Buffett over the years
has schooled Gates on philanthropy, giving him a copy of The Gospel of Wealth, in which steel tycoon
Andrew Carnegie argued that fortunes were often wasted by heirs and thus should be put to charitable
use.
Starting last year, Gates, his wife Melinda Gates, Buffett and other wealthy individuals hosted a series
of dinners for billionaires to discuss setting up the pledge. That led to an announcement in June of the
pledge and also its earliest signers.
Since then, Gates, his wife and Buffett have been calling on billionaires to get their commitment. The
pledge doesn’t ask for specific donations, nor does it track giving; rather, it asks that a pledge maker
commit to giving away the majority of their wealth.
That proposition at times has been a tough sell, the pledge founders said. “People are super nice to us,
but there is a certain awkwardness because it’s a big decision,” Gates said in an interview this week.
“Sometimes the wife and the husband have never really talked through their priorities on the charity
stuff.”
Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in his Harvard University dorm before dropping out of college and
working on the business full time in California, is one of the world’s youngest billionaires, worth an
estimated $6.9 billion (Rs31,120 crore), according to Forbes. Yet, since his wealth is from his
ownership stake in a firm that has yet to list on the stock market, much of that wealth is theoretical at
this point.
Dustin Moskovitz, a co-founder of Facebook and former Harvard room-mate of Zuckerberg’s, has also
signed the pledge.
Many of the pledge signors had already planned to disburse their wealth and most are already
involved in philanthropy. It’s unclear if the Giving Pledge has encouraged more giving.
Overall, philanthropic giving has been hit hard by the weak economy. Donations in the US fell 3.6% to
$303.75 billion last year, down from $315 billion in 2008, according to Giving USA Foundation.
Insurers can offer group policies to agents: IrdaIncentive aimed at helping firms retain agents who have been quitting after a drop in their commissions
Mumbai: Life insurers will be allowed to offer group insurance policies to their agents under a proposal
cleared by the industry regulator. This could help insurers retain agents who have been leaving the
industry after the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) tightened commission
norms.The industry has 2.8 million agents.
A senior Irda official said that at the first stage, the regulator will allow life insurers to offer group
health and group term assurance policies to their agents.
India opened the insurance industry to the private sector in 2000, but no private insurer is allowed to
offer group insurance cover to its own agents. The cover will be an incentive for agents who have
recently seen a drastic cut in their commissions.
Irda will issue guidelines on group insurance for agents in the next two weeks, the official said.
“Those agents who have been with a company for 5-10 years should be incentivized in some ways. We
feel it will help the industry retain the performing and serious agents in the business,” the Irda official
said. He declined to be identified as the final guidelines are yet to be framed.
Under the proposed structure, an agent may be offered a health cover of up to Rs2 lakh annually as a
part of the group health insurance plan. The group term assurance plan is also likely to offer a life
cover of Rs2-3 lakh.
All agents who have completed 5-10 years will be offered these covers at a nominal premium, the Irda
official said. “A company may opt to offer different plans with different sum assured and premia under
a single group insurance, according to the experience of the agents with the same company,” he said.
There are 23 life insurers in India with total assets worth around Rs13 trillion. Till October, the industry
collected new business premia of Rs69,707.92 crore. Nearly 80% of the new business premia in life
insurance comes from sales of unit-linked insurance policies (Ulips).
Ulips are hybrid products that combine life insurance and investments.
Till August, life insurance agents could earn up to 40% as first-year commission from the sale of Ulips.
Such lucrative front-ended commissions were drawing millions into the business of selling insurance. In
fact, since 2000, the number of life insurance agents in India has grown fourfold from 700,000.
Following a sudden tightening of Ulip norms in September and the erosion in commissions, the
insurance business has turned unattractive for agents.
Irda also capped surrender charges, stipulated a minimum risk cover, top-up benefits, and fixed gains
or sum assured for Ulips.
The most significant reform has been a cut in commissions that insurance companies used to pay their
agents for selling Ulips—from 57.5% over five years to 30-32%. The first-year commission has been
brought down from 35% to 10-15%, according to a second Irda official, who also didn’t want to be
named. For pension plans, the first-year commission has come down from 7.5% to around 5.5%.
These norms forced companies to curtail their agency cost, and the agents started looking for different
jobs to earn more.
“It will certainly help the industry to motivate agents and attract performing people to remain in the
business. This in turn will result in better advice for customers and increase productivity of the
agents,” said S.B. Mathur, secretary, Life Insurance Council, a lobby for life insurers in India.
Interestingly, Irda has also tightened the performance criteria for agents recently in its effort to
improve the persistency ratio in the industry. The persistency ratio refers to the proportion of policies
that get renewed every year.
Some of the performance criteria for agents are to ensure an average annual persistency ratio of at
least 50%.
Among other norms, the minimum number of policies per agent need to be 20 per annum and the
minimum first-year premium income to be procured by an agent Rs1.5 lakh a year.
These rules are yet to be finalized by Irda, but industry experts say that when these rules are enforced,
50% of the agents will be out of business.
The Irda official quoted in the first instance said the final guidelines on both agents’ performance
criteria and provision of group health and term assurance policies will be announced later this month.
“Only good agents are required in the industry, and group health and term policies at nominal
premium should help companies incentivize the agents,” said the second Irda official.
IDBI to hike deposit, lending rates by up to 100 bpsIn addition, the bank has hiked its benchmark prime lending rate (BPLR) by 25 basis points to 13.75%,
which will also make existing loans more expensive
Mumbai: In line with the market trend, IDBI Bank on Monday announced a hike in deposit and lending rates by up to
100 basis points.
While the interest rates on fixed deposits of different maturities will be increased by 25 to 100 basis points, loans
from the bank would also become expensive, with the lender raising its base lending rate by 50 basis points to 9%,
a release said.
In addition, the bank has hiked its benchmark prime lending rate (BPLR) by 25 basis points to 13.75%, which will
also make existing loans more expensive.
While the new deposit rates will come into effect from 15 December, the revised lending rates will be applicable to
existing and new borrowers from 1 January.
As regards the deposit rates, IDBI Bank will offer the highest rate of 8.75% on deposits of 1,100 days’ tenor,
compared to 8.25% interest at present.
The highest increase of 100 basis points was announced for short-term deposits with a 46-90 day maturity period.
The depositors will now earn 5.50% interest on these short-term deposits, up from 4.50% at present.
Following a recent suggestion from Reserve Bank governor D. Subbarao to hike deposit rates to increase the level
of national savings, several banks -- including market leaders State Bank of India, ICICI Bank, Punjab National Bank
and Bank of India -- have raised their rates by up to 150 basis points.
Huaneng Renewable scraps $1.28 bn Hong Kong IPOWeak market conditions were also blamed for the lacklustre response to offerings
Hong Kong: Huaneng Renewables Corp, which holds among China’s largest wind assets, pulled its up
to $1.28 billion initial public offering (IPO) as a stalemate at the UN climate talks and a weak Hong
Kong market hurt investor appetite.
Its peer, China Datang Corp Renewable Corp, priced its Hong Kong offering at HK$2.33, representing
the low end of an earlier indicated range raising about $640 million, a source familiar with the deal
said.
Datang originally aimed to raise up to $1.5 billion from its Hong Kong IPO. A total of 2.14 billion shares
were sold, the source added.
“Failure of world leaders at Cancun to agree on extending the Kyoto Protocol casts shadows on carbon
markets and worried investors about the prospect of Chinese renewable firms,” said Yuanta Research
analyst Min Li.
Carbon offset markets worth $20 billion last year depend on Kyoto emission caps to drive developed
countries to pay for cuts in greenhouse gases in developing nations.
China is among the biggest beneficiaries of the Kyoto pact as its companies earn UN credits for helping
prevent the release of carbon dioxide in the atmosphere by building clean energy projects.
World leaders at recently-concluded climate talks in Cancun delayed the task of extending the Kyoto
pact until next year’s talks in South Africa. Kyoto expires in 2012.
Weak market conditions were also blamed for the lacklustre response to offerings.
“In light of the change in market conditions and recent unexpected and excessive market volatility ...
the company has formed the view that it would be inadvisable to proceed with the global offering at
this time,” Huaneng said in a filing to the Hong Kong stock exchange.
Application monies would be refunded in full without interest, the company said.
Huaneng Renewables had aimed to raise as much as HK$9.9 billion ($1.3 billion).
Air India to offer more flights from Middle EastAir India plans to offer flights from the Gulf region to places like South East Asia, Kathmandu, Sri
Lanka, SAARC countries and New York, via New Delhi, a senior official has said
Dubai: The Middle East is one of the largest and most important markets for Air India and the air carrier now plans
to offer flights from the Gulf region to places like South East Asia, Kathmandu, Sri Lanka, SAARC countries and New
York, via New Delhi, a senior official has said.
“We are also offering Delhi hub for selling in this market where the passengers can travel from Gulf to South East
Asia, Kathmandu, Sri Lanka, SAARC countries and West bound New York via India,” said Air India regional manager
—Gulf, Middle East and Africa Abhay Pathak.
Pathak was speaking on the occasion of the Annual Agency Award function for the year 2009-2010 in Dubai.
He said the airline is exploring the possibility of offering tailor-made packages to address customers’ needs, adding
that a new state-of-the-art fleet is already being put together.
Pathak also noted that the airline continues to connect difficult destinations such as Kabul.
Aventis Pharma to exit vaccines co; shares riseAventis Pharma Ltd said it would sell 49% stake in a vaccine making firm to its joint venture partner
Novartis Pharma AG for $22.4 million
Mumbai: Aventis Pharma Ltd, a unit of French drugmaker Sanofi-Aventis, said on Monday it would sell 49% stake in
a vaccine making firm to its joint venture partner Novartis Pharma AG for $22.4 million.
Shares of Aventis Pharma rose more than 6% after the announcement.
Aventis Pharma holds 4.9 million shares in vaccines maker Chiron Behring Vaccines Pvt Ltd while the rest is owned
by Novartis Vaccines and Diagnostics Inc, a unit of Swiss drugmaker Novartis AG, Aventis said in a statement.
Until February 2009, the unit was manufacturing anti-rabies vaccine ‘Rabipur´ at its plant in Ankleshwar in the state
of Gujarat while Novartis Healthcare is the distributor of the vaccines in the country, it said.
According to the agreement, Aventis would continue to provide certain utilities and services at the Ankleshwar plant
for a period of three years on mutually agreed terms, it said adding the deal would close before 31 Dec.
After the deal is closed, all the pending disputes and legal proceedings between Aventis Pharma and Novartis
Vaccines and Diagnostics would be withdrawn unconditionally, it added.
At 12:48 p.m., shares of Aventis Pharma were trading at Rs. 1,800, up 1.12% in a weak Mumbai market.
Confidence Petroleum bags Rs. 36.64 cr order from HPCLConfidence Petroleum India on Monday announced that two of its units have received orders
worth Rs.36.64 crore from Hindustan Petroleum Corporation for supply of LPG cylinders
Mumbai: Confidence Petroleum India on Monday announced that two of its units have received orders
worth Rs. 36.64 crore from Hindustan Petroleum Corporation for supply of LPG cylinders.
Confidence Petroleum’s Khopoli Cylinder manufacturing unit and Andhra Cylinders, a unit of Envy Cylinders, have
bagged the orders, the company said in a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE).
The work is to be executed by April, 2011, it added.
Confidence Petro is also expecting further orders from HPCL for its Bazpur (Uttaranchal), Kalmeshwar (Nagpur) and
Saoner (Nagpur) units.
Shares of the company were trading at Rs. 18.40, up 7.92% from the previous close on BSE.
Facebook in challenge to Google crownMark Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in his Harvard University dorm room six-year ago and is now
worth an estimated $6.9 billion, refers to it as the “social graph”
New York: Facebook is challenging Google’s supremacy on the Internet with a radically different approach to how
people live, work, play and search online.
While Google delivers search results selected by algorithms that take into account a user’s Web history, Facebook
boasts a richer level of personalisation based on one’s own “likes” and the recommendations of Facebook friends.
Mark Zuckerberg, who founded Facebook in his Harvard University dorm room six-year ago and is now worth an
estimated $6.9 billion, refers to it as the “social graph”.
“I think what we’ve found is that when you can use products with your friends and your family and the people you
care about they tend to be more engaging,” Zuckerberg said in an interview with the CBS show “60 Minutes.”
“The social graph is incredibly broad,” said Wedbush Securities social media analyst Lou Kerner, picking up on
Zuckerberg’s favorite phrase. “It includes not only what you do and what you like but people you know and what
they like and the companies you interact with.”
For some Internet watchers like Kerner, Facebook is building a parallel network built around the interactions of its
more than 500 million members.
“I refer to Facebook as the second Internet, maybe more valuable than the first because we’re all interconnected on
it,” Kerner told AFP.
“Social media is an increasingly important part of how you reach people and it’s a growing part of every marketer’s
budget,” he said.
“The idea is you do not want to fight Facebook, you want to embrace Facebook and leverage Facebook because this
is where people are going to spend increasing amounts of time,” he said.
According to online tracking firm comScore, Google receives more unique monthly visitors than Facebook but
visitors to Facebook spend more time at the site than they do on Google properties.
Since this spring, Facebook has been rolling out features which put it on a collision course with Google -- an
@facebook.com email service which competes with Google’s Gmail and “Facebook Questions,” a search engine of
sorts which lets Facebook members ask questions and get answers from other members.
Facebook has also been facing off with Google on the hiring front, forcing the Mountain View, California-based
Google to recently raise salaries by 10% across the board.
“They’ve become competitive in some areas, but it’s not that Facebook has grown at Google’s expense or that
Facebook is growing and Google is shrinking,” said Danny Sullivan, editor of technology blog
SearchEngineLand.com.
“Google is not going away,” agreed Kerner. “Google, in fact, I think is going to benefit from the emergence of social
media.
“Because what it’s doing is it’s driving people to spend more time online and when you’re spending more time
online, you end up doing more searches,” he said.
“Where they’ve really been encroaching on each other more is in the display space,” Sullivan said. “Facebook has a
lot of people who buy display advertising. Google wants to sell more display advertising.”
Sullivan also said Google “has been trying to encroach on their social area, but they haven’t been very successful.”
Zuckerberg, in the “60 Minutes” interview, acknowledged “there are areas where the companies compete.” “But
then, there are all these areas where we just don’t compete at all,” he said.
Facebook’s growth is not necessarily a bad thing for Google, which has been coming under increased scrutiny from
anti-trust authorities in both the United States and Europe.
“Some of it plays very well for Google,” Sullivan said. “Google is able to say ‘You know, we have this stiff
competition out there.’
“It’s not necessarily to Google’s disadvantage that Facebook is growing.”
Telecom regulator wants 69 telecom licences cancelledThe telecom ministry has said it would send notices to companies that have been named by the regulator, asking them to defend their licences
New Delhi: Telecom regulator has recommended cancelling 69 telecom licences, the government said
on Friday, confirming earlier media reports in a case running parallel to an investigation into one of the
biggest corruption scandals to hit India this year.
The regulator has recommended cancelling 38 licenses of companies including the Indian joint
ventures of Telenor, Sistema and Etisalat’s for failing to meet network rollout requirements, the
government said.
The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) also recommended cancelling 31 other licences “after
legal examination,” junior telecoms minister Sachin Pilot said in a written reply to a question from a
lawmaker.
The Trai’s recommendations are not binding, but the telecom ministry has said it would send notices to
companies that have been named by the regulator, asking them to defend their licences.
The ministry is also sending notices to companies involved in a telecom scam in which firms were
allegedly given telecom licenses and spectrum at rock bottom prices, possibly costing the state $39
billion in revenue. Many of those companies are accused of being ineligible for the licenses.
The case, which revolves around the sale of telecom licenses at low prices, has led to the resignation
of telecoms minister, and, according to an official audit, has possibly lost the state $39 billion in
revenue.
It has also frozen the country’s parliament for nearly a month as opposition parties have demanded a
full parliamentary investigation.
The government has decided to set up a one-man committee of former Supreme Court judge Shivaraj
Patil to examine the allocation of licences and spectrum from 2001 to 2009, telecom minister Kapil
Sibal said on Thursday.
A government auditor said in its recent report that licences were given too cheaply and 85 licence
holders were ineligible to get them as they had suppressed facts and submitted false documents.
Sibal said on Thursday his ministry would send notices to all the companies by the end of this week,
asking them to explain why their licences should not be cancelled.
He had earlier said there were 119 licensees who have not met rollout requirements.
Telecoms licensees in India are required to cover 90% of the service area in metro cities and 10% of
the main town in other parts within the first year.
The cancellation recommendations include 10 licenses held by Sistema Shyam Teleservices, eight of
Telenor’s India joint venture called Uninor, 14 of Loop Telecom, four of Aircel and two of Etisalat DB
Telecom.
The 31 licences which the regulator wants cancelled after a legal examination include 13 held by
Etisalat DB, 10 of Videocon Telecommunications, six of Loop Telecom and one each of Aircel and
Sistema Shyam.
Last month, a source with direct knowledge had told Reuters that the regulator had recommended
cancelling 38 licences for not complying with rollout requirements, and to legally examine 31 other
licences which had “just met” them.
WikiLeaks Assange says US trying to prosecute himWikiLeaks founder Julian Assange said in a documentary on Sunday he faced prosecution by the United
States and was disappointed with how Swedish justice had been abused
Stockholm: WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange, who angered Washington by releasing secret cables, said in a
documentary on Sunday he faced prosecution by the United States and was disappointed with how Swedish justice
had been abused.
Assange has been remanded in custody in Britain after a European arrest warrant was issued by Sweden, which
wants to question Assange about allegations made by two women of sexual crimes. He has denied the allegations.
“I came to Sweden as a refugee publisher involved with an extraordinary publishing fight with the Pentagon, where
people were being detained and there is an attempt to prosecute me for espionage,” Assange said in an interview
in the documentary, aired on Swedish public television.
“So I am unhappy and disappointed with how the Swedish justice system has been abused,” the 39-year-old
Australian added in the documentary, which was made before his arrest.
Assange faces a fresh British hearing on 14 December. His Swedish lawyer has said he will fight extradition to
Sweden.
One of his British lawyers, Jennifer Robinson, told ABC News in London on Friday that a US indictment of Assange
was imminent, but the report offered no further details or comment by Robinson why she believed charges were
likely to be filed.
The US Justice Department has been looking into a range of criminal charges, including violations of the 1917
Espionage Act, that could be filed in the WikiLeaks case involving the release of hundreds of confidential and
classified US diplomatic cables.
‘Narnia’ cruises to No. 1 debut with modest $24.5 mn“The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” the third in the franchise based on C.S. Lewis’ fantasy novels, took in $24.5 million domestically, according to studio estimates
Los Angeles: The latest chapter in “The Chronicles of Narnia” saga has sailed to the top of the
weekend box office, though the franchise sank to a weak debut compared to the first two movies.
“The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” the third in the franchise based on C.S. Lewis’ fantasy novels, took
in $24.5 million domestically, according to studio estimates Sunday.
Johnny Depp and Angelina Jolie’s romantic thriller “The Tourist” opened in second-place with $17
million.
“Dawn Treader” revenues showed a huge drop from 2005’s “The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe,”
which took in $65.6 million over opening weekend, and 2008’s “Prince Caspian,” which did $55 million.
But with the movie topping $80 million in 85 countries overseas, for a worldwide total of $105.5
million, executives at distributor 20th Century Fox said they are making good headway toward
recouping the movie’s budget of just under $150 million.
“We had a huge task ahead of us to resurrect this franchise and get movie-goers back to that feeling
of affection they had for the first movie. I think all the evidence says we’ve accomplished that,” said
Chris Aronson, head of distribution for Fox, which took over the “Narnia” series when Disney dropped it
after the second movie finished at $141.6 million domestically, less than half the $291.7 million haul of
the first. “I think they all had such a bad taste in their mouth from the last one. That’s why we really
had our work cut out for us.”
“Dawn Treader” follows the adventures of some of the Pevensie siblings from the first two films as
they take a magical sea voyage with their royal pal Caspian. Liam Neeson again provides the voice of
talking lion Aslan.
Sony’s “The Tourist” also had a quiet start. The film stars Jolie as an Englishwoman who picks up a
mild-mannered American (Depp) on a train in Europe as a diversion while she’s on the run from cops
and gangsters.
“You have two of the biggest stars in the world, so expectations could be skewed a bit,” said Rory
Bruer, Sony’s head of distribution. “But it certainly is a respectable opening.”
The previous weekend’s No. 1 movie, Disney’s animated musical “Tangled,” slipped to third-place with
$14.6 million, raising its domestic total to $115.6 million.
Hollywood remains in a lull as it heads into the Christmas frenzy. Among the movies that will compete
for holiday audiences are Jeff Bridges’ science-fiction tale “Tron: Legacy,” Robert De Niro and Ben
Stiller’s comic sequel “Little Fockers,” Jack Black’s comic adventure “Gulliver’s Travels” and Reese
Witherspoon’s romance “How Do You Know.”
Overall revenues totaled $94 million, down 3% from the same weekend last year, when “The Princess
and the Frog” was No. 1, according to box-office tracker Hollywood.com.
“The marketplace is pretty much in a malaise, unless you’re a specialty or indie film playing in a
limited number of theaters,” said Hollywood.com analyst Paul Dergarabedian. “Those are really the
bright spots in an otherwise lackluster post-Thanksgiving period.”
In limited release, Natalie Portman’s ballet drama “Black Swan” expanded to more theaters and leaped
into the top-10, coming in at No. 6 with $3.3 million in just 90 cinemas. That gave it a strong average
of $37,024 a theater, compared to $6,892 in 3,555 cinemas for “Dawn Treader” and $6,168 in 2,756
locations for “The Tourist.”
Distributor Fox Searchlight expands “Black Swan” into nationwide release Friday, three days after the
Golden Globe nominations, where the film is considered a likely contender in acting and other
categories. Portman, also a strong Academy Awards prospect, plays a ballerina coming unglued amid
the stress of fending off a rival for the lead in “Swan Lake.”
Mark Wahlberg and Christian Bale’s boxing drama “The Fighter” was the latest awards contender to
put up huge numbers in a limited-release opening. The Paramount film took in $320,000 in four
theaters, averaging a whopping $80,000.
“The Fighter” stars Wahlberg as real-life boxer Micky Ward, who overcame harsh family conflicts to
earn a title shot in his mid-30s with help from half-brother Dicky Eklund (Bale), an ex-fighter whose life
unraveled amid crime and crack addiction. The film expands to wide release Friday.
Disney’s Shakespeare adaptation “The Tempest,” with Helen Mirren playing the traditionally male lead
of the play, opened modestly with $45,000 in five theaters, for a $9,000 average.
Estimated ticket sales for Friday through Sunday at US and Canadian theaters, according to
Hollywood.com. Final figures will be released Monday.
1. “The Chronicles of Narnia: The Voyage of the Dawn Treader,” $24.5 million.
2. “The Tourist,” $17 million.
3. “Tangled,” $14.6 million.
4. “Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows: Part 1,” $8.5 million.
5. “Unstoppable,” $3.8 million.
6. “Black Swan,” $3.3 million.
7. “Burlesque,” $3.2 million.
8. “Love & Other Drugs,” $3 million.
9. “Due Date,” $2.55 million.
10. “Megamind,” $2.5 million.
15 December 2010
Mumbai HC upholds stay on King’s XI terminationThe two-member Division Bench ruled that the entire basis of the letter of termination issued by the BCCI to the Mohali franchise was “erroneous and flawed”
Mumbai: Indian Cricket Board suffered another set back on Wednesday when a division bench of the
Bombay High Court upheld the order of its single bench, Justice S F Vazifdar, to stay the termination of
Indian Premier League franchise King’s XI Punjab by the BCCI.
The two-member Division Bench of Justice D Y Chandrachud and Justice Anoop Mohata today ruled that
the entire basis of the letter of termination issued by the BCCI to the Mohali franchise was “erroneous
and flawed”.
“It is abundantly clear that BCCI wanted to terminate the contract on the basis of what was factually
incorrect. Termination was anything but fair and was wholly arbitrary,” observed the Court.
The order means the Mohali franchise can take part in the BCCI’s players auction to be held on 8 and 9
January.
The Division Bench cited seven circumstances which supported the decision of the single bench.
“The members of the consortium had exercised control of franchise,” the Division Bench observed.
“Neither Dabur nor Windy Investments had exercised 100% control of franchise and all these
companies belonged to Mohit Burman. There was no change in share pattern,” the division bench said.
The division bench also rejected BCCI’s argument that under the franchisee agreement King’s XI
Punjab can’t seek injunction from any court and have to go for arbitration, saying, “this will not apply
here”.
Franchise owners Preity Zinta, Ness Wadia and Mohit Burman, who were present, rejoiced over the
verdict.
Mosque attack kills 30 in Iran, wounds 100A pair of suicide bomb blasts took place during a Shi’ite mourning ceremony outside the Imam Hussein
Mosque in the southeastern city of Chabahar
Tehran: A pair of suicide bomb blasts outside a mosque in Iran killed at least 30 people and wounded more than
100 on Wednesday during a Shi’ite mourning ceremony, local media reported.
Al Arabiya television reported that Jundollah, a Sunni Muslim rebel group, had claimed responsibility for the attack
outside the Imam Hussein Mosque in the southeastern city of Chabahar, near Iran’s border with Pakistan and
Afghanistan.
The report could not be confirmed independently.
“Terrorists carried out two suicide bombings among Shi’ite mourners in front of a mosque in the town of Chabahar,”
deputy interior minister Ali Abdollahi told Iranian radio.
Iran has faced a string of blasts in past months, including two in June that killed 27 people in the same province.
Jundollah had also claimed responsibility for that attack.
The Sistan-Baluchestan province is an impoverished area near Pakistan and Afghanistan. Bombings and clashes
between security forces, ethnic Baluch Sunni insurgents and drug traffickers have increased in recent years in the
area.
Ali Mohammad Azad, governor of Sistan-Baluchestan province, put the death toll in the mosque blast at “over 30”.
“Many women and children were killed in the suicide bombing,” he told state television.
Ali Bateni, governor of Chabahar, said two assailants were involved. “One of them was killed and the other was
arrested,” he said.
Mahmoud Mozafar, head of the province’s Red Crescent, said his team had received a number of threats before the
ceremony. “We were on alert in the past days because of some anonymous threats,” he told Reuters by telephone.
He said that according to his information more than 36 people were killed.
Instability in region
Iran says Jundollah has links to Sunni Islamist al Qaeda and has accused Pakistan, Britain and the United States of
supporting the group to stir instability in southeast Iran, home to Iran’s Sunni minority. The three countries deny
backing it.
“Based on our experience, we believe the intelligence services of America and Britain were behind Wednesday’s
bombing,” said senior lawmaker Alaeddin Boroujerdi, the students news agency ISNA reported.
In May 2009, a suicide bomber killed 30 people and wounded more than 120 in an attack on a mosque in the city of
Zahedan, capital of the Sistan-Baluchestan province.
Ethnic Baluch, many with tribal links to their restive kin in neighbouring Pakistan and Afghanistan, make up an
estimated one to three percent of Iran’s 77 million people.
Iranian leaders reject allegations by western human rights groups that the Islamic Republic discriminates against
ethnic and religious minorities.
Greece paralysed by new anti-austerity strikeIn addition to grounding planes and paralysing rail and ferries, the general strike shut down schools,
courts, banks and pharmacies while hospitals ran on reduced staff
Athens: Thousands of Greeks demonstrated on Wednesday against a new wave of austerity cuts as a general strike
brought the country to a standstill, paralysing air, rail and maritime services.
Some 15,000 protesters according to police estimates marched in separate Athens demonstrations at the call of the
main public and private-sector unions.
Other protests against austerity measures were expected Wednesday in other European capitals, including
Brussels, Luxembourg and Dublin.
“Enough is enough,” read a banner carried at the head of the protest organised by the General Confederation of
Greek Workers (GSEE) and the main union of civil servants ADEDY.
“History is written in the streets,” the demonstrators chanted.
Communist-affiliated workers had earlier staged another demonstration.
The general strike, the seventh this year, came as the ruling Socialists hurried through additional reforms under a
tough economy overhaul mandated by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund in return for a
rescue loan.
A bill slashing salaries in the country’s poorly managed public utilities was approved in the early morning, months
after civil servants in the broader public sector had also had their wages and pensions cut.
“Work rights are being suppressed and I think the whole Greek people should rise up,” said Ellada Christodoulou, a
lawyer in her fifties as she marched in the protest with a sign that said “default on payments now”.
“This is a fight not only in Greece but in the entire world,” she said.
In addition to grounding planes and paralysing rail and ferries, the general strike shut down schools, courts, banks
and pharmacies while hospitals ran on reduced staff.
Civil engineers, journalists and lawyers also joined the action.
For a third consecutive day after previous action by disgruntled transport workers, Athens witnessed giant traffic
jams as even taxi drivers prepared to stage a stoppage in support of the strike.
Prime Minister George Papandreou late on Tuesday called a crunch cabinet meeting to discuss privatisation and
“better coordination” in the use of state properties.
Hours later, the government secured parliamentary approval of salary cuts in the country’s badly mismanaged
public utilities but was forced to axe a dissenting lawmaker, reducing its majority in the chamber to six.
The new bill spelled salary cuts for staff at utilities, known as Deko’s in Greece, who earn more than €1,800
($2,413) a month.
“We have tough decisions ahead of us, but it is only through bold strokes that we can overcome the difficulties,”
Papandreou told his ministers late on Tuesday ahead of the parliamentary vote.
The finance ministry had recently released figures showing that Deko staff were annually paid some €40,000 on
average, far more than other public or private-sector employees.
This was despite the fact that most of the public utilities were deep in debt.
Greece is trapped under a debt mountain of over €300 billion ($402 billion) and came near bankruptcy in May
before it was rescued by a loan from the European Union, the European Central Bank and the IMF.
The government in November announced a plan to reduce the deficit of loss-making state enterprises by €800
million ($1 billion).
The adoption of such reforms follows a first round of austerity measures aimed at reducing the Greek public deficit,
which stood at over 15.4% of output last year, more than five times the EU ceiling.
The economy overhaul is a condition set by the European Union and the International Monetary Fund for the release
of a €15-billion installment from the €110-billion EU-IMF rescue package granted Greece in May.
Athens is now hoping in exchange to get an extension to repaying this EU-IMF loan in order to avoid facing an
impossible mission to settle it among other debts that expire in 2015.
On Tuesday, unions brought hundreds of protesters outside the Greek parliament, carrying banners that read
“Strike until final victory”.
“We cannot take any more (austerity)” read another banner.
Several hundred police officers and coastguards, whose wages were targeted in a previous wave of cuts, staged a
separate demonstration later in the day.
“Your profits cost human lives,” read a banner held up by uniformed security staff, some of them standing under a
crossed-out emblem of the IMF.
Air India, BSNL likely to be provided govt support: PM“Enterprises which are facing difficulties, such as Air India and BSNL, are receiving the due attention of
the government,” Singh said
New Delhi: Amid the demand from Civil Aviation Ministry for induction of Rs.1,200 crore as fresh equity into Air
India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said the government is actively considering helping the
national carrier.
Along with the Air India, state-owned telecom firm BSNL is also likely to get the government support.
“Enterprises which are facing difficulties, such as Air India and BSNL, are receiving the due attention of the
government,” Singh said.
The Prime Minister was addressing an award function of the Department Public Enterprises and PSUs’ body SCOPE
here.
Saddled with the loss of Rs. 5,551 crore in 2009-10, Air India is seeking induction of fresh equity to improve its
balance sheet.
Civil Aviation minister Praful Patel met Plan Panel deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia yesterday in this
regard.
A Cabinet note on equity infusion proposal has already been circulated among the key economic ministries
including Finance.
If the proposal is approved, it would be the second tranche of equity infusion since 2008-09 when Rs. 800 crore was
released to the beleaguered carrier.
BSNL, which used to be the flagship telecom company, lost market share to the private sector operators and posted
its first loss at Rs. 1,822.65 crore in 2009-10.
Talking about the ailing public sector units, the Prime Minister said that 20 out of 39 companies revived by the
Board of Reconstruction of Public Enterprises, were making profits.
“We must ensure that these improvements are sustained in the long run, and these companies do not need to
come back to the government for fresh revival packages,” he added.
Air India, BSNL likely to be provided govt support: PM“Enterprises which are facing difficulties, such as Air India and BSNL, are receiving the due attention of
the government,” Singh said
New Delhi: Amid the demand from Civil Aviation Ministry for induction of Rs.1,200 crore as fresh equity into Air
India, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Wednesday said the government is actively considering helping the
national carrier.
Along with the Air India, state-owned telecom firm BSNL is also likely to get the government support.
“Enterprises which are facing difficulties, such as Air India and BSNL, are receiving the due attention of the
government,” Singh said.
The Prime Minister was addressing an award function of the Department Public Enterprises and PSUs’ body SCOPE
here.
Saddled with the loss of Rs. 5,551 crore in 2009-10, Air India is seeking induction of fresh equity to improve its
balance sheet.
Civil Aviation minister Praful Patel met Plan Panel deputy chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia yesterday in this
regard.
A Cabinet note on equity infusion proposal has already been circulated among the key economic ministries
including Finance.
If the proposal is approved, it would be the second tranche of equity infusion since 2008-09 when Rs. 800 crore was
released to the beleaguered carrier.
BSNL, which used to be the flagship telecom company, lost market share to the private sector operators and posted
its first loss at Rs. 1,822.65 crore in 2009-10.
Talking about the ailing public sector units, the Prime Minister said that 20 out of 39 companies revived by the
Board of Reconstruction of Public Enterprises, were making profits.
“We must ensure that these improvements are sustained in the long run, and these companies do not need to
come back to the government for fresh revival packages,” he added.
India seeks ‘win-win’ drug tie-up with ChinaCollaboration between India and China will give both nations a strategic edge over the developed countries, said Daara Patel, secretary general of Indian Drug Manufacturers’ Association
New Delhi: India’s top drug manufacturing association on Wednesday urged Chinese pharmaceutical
companies to cooperate in a “win-win” partnership to supply global generic medicine needs.
The call came as Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao began a trip to India, accompanied by 400 Chinese
business executives, aimed at fostering burgeoning trade and repairing ties dogged by persistent
disputes over shared borders.
Daara Patel, secretary general of the Indian Drug Manufacturers’ Association, told his Chinese
counterparts in New Delhi a “Chindia” partnership meant “together we could meet almost all global
generic requirements.”
In recent years, the two countries have become major suppliers of low-cost medicines and medicine
ingredients to global markets and their products are widespread in the generic and over-the-counter
sector.
China now produces large volumes of pharmaceutical ingredients while India is strong in
manufacturing finished drug products such as anti-depressants, antibiotics and heart medicines.
“A strategic partnership will cover the gaps in production for each other,” Patel said.
Collaboration between India and China will give both nations a “strategic edge over the developed
countries,” said Patel.
Liu Zhanglin, vice president of the China Chamber of Commerce for Import and Export of Medicines
and Health Products, welcomed the Indian group’s call.
“We agree we can work together to expand the global market and provide manufacturing tenders in
partnership rather than competing,” Liu said.
The Indian group also announced the two sides have drafted an accord to be signed next month under
which they will give each other more information and guidance about import regulations and
marketing in their respective companies.
The agreement comes as India seeks to promote its pharmaceutical and information technology
exports to China. Bilateral trade stands at $60 billion, a 20-fold increase since 2000, but is massively in
China’s favour.
Bilateral trade in health care products totalled the $3.1 billion for the first 10 months of the year, the
Chinese delegation said, without breaking down the figures, up from $2.8 billion for all of 2009.
DBS to take over RBS’ China retail businessDBS shares ended down 0.9% on Wednesday, in line with the broader Singapore market’s decline
Singapore/ Shanghai: DBS Group, Southeast Asia’s biggest lender, agreed on Wednesday to take over Royal Bank of
Scotland’s retail and commercial businesses in three major Chinese cities, as it accelerates expansion in the world’s
second-biggest economy.
The agreement ends more than a year of speculation over who will acquire RBS’ China assets, with rivals including
HSBC Holdings Plc , Standard Chartered and Australia and New Zealand Banking Group having all been identified by
media as potential buyers.
But the arrangement between RBS and DBS does not involve any cash investment, transfer of outlets or business
licences.
It will give RBS’ 25,000 customers in Shanghai, Beijing and Shenzhen the option to transfer their existing accounts
and deposits to DBS China. Some RBS employees, as well as $900 million worth of banking products will also move
over to the Singapore bank as part of the deal.
“This landmark agreement enables DBS China to rapidly expand its retail banking customer base, grow its deposit
base and correspondingly, accelerate plans to grow its loan portfolio, in a market that is of critical importance to
DBS,” said Melvin Teo, CEO of DBS China.
“We didn’t invest a single cent. RBS wants to exit, we want to accept, it’s just as simple as that.”
RBS chief executive Stephen Hester embarked on a wide-ranging asset sale programme after the bank was ordered
last year by European regulators to sell a string of assets as a price for its state bailout.
RBS, 83% owned by the UK government, has sold most of its commercial banking units in Asia but still has an
investment banking presence in the region. RBS also has banking operations in other Chinese cities.
“China is a core market for RBS,” RBS said in a statement on Wednesday. “We will continue to provide services to
large-scale companies and institutional clients in China.”
Doubling staff
DBS plans to double its China staff to 2,000 next year and expand its China outlets to 50 by the end of 2013, Teo
said, adding that he also expected the agreement with RBS would enable it to double its client base in China.
“The key here is that the transaction is in the right geography, and is part of a well articulated strategy of sourcing
30% of revenues from Greater China,” Harsh Modi, a JPMorgan analyst said in a note to clients.
DBS CEO Piyush Gupta earlier this year announced plans to boost revenue from outside the bank’s core markets
Singapore and Hong Kong.
He wants South Asia and Southeast Asia, excluding Singapore, to account for 30 percent of revenue in 5-year, with
the same coming from Greater China. Singapore’s share will drop to 40% from 60% in the same period.
“We expect DBS to differentiate itself from the past on two aspects: good execution of plans and passing over
costly M&A deals,” said JPMorgan’s Modi.
“Hence, we believe DBS could shape up as one of the biggest turnarounds amongst Asian banks in 2011.”
DBS, which trades at 1.3 times book, trails rivals Oversea-Chinese Banking Corp , which trades at 1.9 times book,
and United Overseas Bank’s around 1.7 times.
DBS shares ended down 0.9% on Wednesday, in line with the broader Singapore market’s decline.
Tata Motors’ launches special finance scheme for Nano
Tata Motors Finance (TMF) will provide finance up to 90% for the Nano at easy rates
Mumbai: In a bid to push-up
sales, Tata Motors on Wednesday announced a special finance scheme by which a customer will get within 48 hours
loan for its small car Nano.
Tata Motors Finance (TMF) will provide finance up to 90% for the Nano at easy rates. TMF, which provides customer
finance for all Tata Motors vehicles, is present in all the 540 passenger vehicles outlets of the company, Tata Motors
said in a statement here.
The move may help boost Tata Nano’s flagging popularity, as sporadic incidents of the small car catching fire has
made it difficult for the company to push Nano sales.
Despite a number of assurances by the company through various campaign initiatives, the number of units sold has
declined from 9,000 units sold in July to the low of 509 units sold in November.
Last week, the company had announced a four-year or 60,000 kilometre manufacturing warranty on its small car
Nano to woo customers.
“The Tata Nano will now come with a four year/60,000 km (whichever is earlier) manufacturer’s warranty, at no
extra cost. Besides being applicable on new deliveries, the warranty is also being extended to all existing owners of
the car,” the company said.
Besides, it had said all new Nano customers will have an option to avail a comprehensive maintenance contract
at Rs. 99 per month. “These benefits will further enhance the satisfaction of Tata Nano users,” it said.
Tata Motors earlier this month had asked Nano buyers to bring back their cars to add safety devices free of cost to
prevent the vehicles from catching fire but insisted it was not a recall.
The company even after registering 85% fall in sales at just 509 units in November this year, claimed that customer
satisfaction with the small car was high.
“Customer satisfaction studies with current Tata Nano owners indicate that over 80% are satisfied or very satisfied
with the car, because of it being small yet spacious, its performance, manoeuvrability, durability, mileage and
safety,” it said.
It added that Tata Motors has made the Nano even more robust, as announced on 9 November, with enhanced
features in the car’s electrical and exhaust systems and that all new cars are being delivered to customers with
these enhanced features.
Parallely, existing owners are also being offered the option to install these in their cars, at no extra cost, the
company said.
2G spectrum scam: ED joins CBI in searchesCorporate lobbyist Niira Radia was earlier questioned by ED in connection with its probe
New Delhi: Widening the probe in the 2G spectrum scam, the Enforcement Directorate (ED) on Wednesday joined
CBI in conducting searches in connection with the case and visited the house of alleged hawala operator Mahesh
Jain here.
Official sources said a team of the Directorate visited the house Jain in New Friends Colony area.
They said the ED team may also visit some other locations where the CBI was conducting searches. The CBI was
carrying out raids in Tamil Nadu and Delhi.
The sources said Jain’s name had figured during investigations into the 2G scam and that the Directorate has found
that Mahesh and his brother Alok Jain alias Bobby had allegedly registered companies as fronts.
CBI sleuths searched the office and residential premises of corporate lobbyist Niira Radia, former Trai chairman
Pradip Baijal and a Chennai NGO with which DMK MP Kanimozhi is linked in a crackdown here and in several places
in Tamil Nadu in connection with the scam.
Radia was earlier questioned by ED in connection with its probe.
16 DEC
The year of networkingIn the last year and a half, Zuckerberg’s Facebook has added more than 250 million users. It is difficult to think of anyone else who has influenced so many lives in this period
To many, it might seem odd that a social entrepreneur should be put on the same platform as some of history’s most influential and controversial characters, especially if that includes people such as Mohandas Karamchand Gandhi, Albert Einstein, Adolf Hitler, Ayatollah Khomeini, as well as almost every US President since Franklin Delano Roosevelt. Yet Mark Zuckerberg’s nomination as Time’s Person of the Year is hardly surprising.
In the last year and a half, Zuckerberg’s Facebook has added more than 250 million users. It is difficult
to think of anyone else who has influenced so many lives in this period. And beyond the numbers, it
has inculcated a wholly different world view for its followers, leading to what’s known as the Facebook
generation. Like that of the Millennials before them, the Facebookers’ sociological effects, already
manifest, are likely to persist. Timemay find that 2010 will not be the only Zuckerberg year.
A crisis of legitimacyPlagued by scandals, the UPA government at the Centre led by Prime Minster Manmohan Singh is busy saving itself from political downfall rather than securing the country’s future and punishing the guilty
This is India’s season for scandal. But that’s not quite all. A grave crisis of legitimacy afflicts the United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government. This is due, in very large part, to the absence of leadership in government and in the political system. There are no signs of this abating anytime soon.
If matters continue to drift, history may mark this as the tipping point—when matters turned from bad to worse. The country, after years of coasting along on autopilot, did not get the leadership it needed at a critical juncture. The spectrum allocation case, in this context, is only the latest link in a chain that began much earlier.
Consider the nature of the drift: There is a clear line that joins the 26/11 Mumbai attacks with the spectrum issue. There are other markers along this path of deterioration—the slow-burning crisis in Jammu and Kashmir that boils over every now and then being one example. Each of these episodes has been marked by the absence of the kind of decisive leadership that was needed to control the situation. The response to 26/11 has been defensive and tepid. Kashmir, as always, has been left to its own devices. The 2G spectrum issue has played out before the eyes of aghast citizens, who’ve helplessly watched the plunder of resources controlled by the government in their name.
During the recent troubled history of its tenure, the government has taken no steps to communicate with citizens or reach out to them in a meaningful manner, either through the press or directly. When it came to taking action, the government’s steps were reluctant and halting. In this, it was always calculating a step ahead: Instead of doing what was right, the UPA government was always worried about the advantages the opposition would garner if it took decisive action.
The result was that action— whatever little of it the Manmohan Singh regime did take —was almost always late and looked more in the nature of an afterthought. The departures of Shashi Tharoor, Ashok Chavan and A. Raja are all cases in point. Had the government been pro-active in the first place, all its worries about the consequences of getting rid of the corrupt and the compromised would have not existed in the first place. Indian democracy is robust and the average citizen intelligent enough to realize when the government is sincere and when the opposition is indulging in criticism devoid of merit. But the UPA does not have any faith in the average Indian.
Which brings us to another aspect of the functioning of Prime Minister Singh’s government: the arrogance of power. Minister after minister, leader after leader, keep making statements that insult the intelligence of citizens. There are far too many instances of such behaviour and citing particular incidents is invidious but one recent example is worth illustrating: The statement of Congress general secretary Digvijaya Singh on the threat to the life of the slain Mumbai police officer Hemant Karkare from right-wing Hindu organizations. This was a patently partisan comment meant to garner political mileage from a sensitive issue, one that
wounded all Indians, irrespective of their religious belief. It was made in the full glare of television cameras, before and after inconvenient facts emerged. Yet, the individual concerned refused to back down. This was even after people at large had convinced themselves that there was more than a hint of suppressio veri in the proceedings.
This is where the country’s leadership has to step in, be it Prime Minister Manmohan Singh or UPA chairperson Sonia Gandhi. There is no sign of either one doing so. Singh’s attitude is marked by professorial detachment, something that a prime minister cannot afford in a country such as India. Gandhi’s preoccupation has been the survival of the UPA government. The result is that a wide swath has been left open for ministerial discretion, or indiscretion for that matter. Ministers say and do what they please. There is little check over their performance and still lesser control over the promises they make, ones the people know they will never be able to fulfil or never intend to. Keeping ministers in check is difficult in normal times and more so in a coalition government, but the UPA’s ministers tend to treat their departments as personal fiefs, mocking the idea of the collective responsibility of the cabinet.
That is the substance of the drift. It is for everyone to see.
In this, the prime minister’s first and last line of defence has been his personal honesty and integrity. No one disputes that. But after five-and-a-half years at the helm of India, that shining banner has frayed into a tattered standard. The question is not about him or his honesty but what his ministers do; what do his partymen do; the inability of his government to carry out key, nay the very basic, tasks of governance. In this and much else, Manmohan Singh, in spite of his lofty credentials and even higher expectations, has been found wanting. In calmer moments, he will do well to reflect on what needs to be done to stem the rot that not only threatens his government but also the present and future of the country.
GVK Energy gets Rs. 698 crore investment from Actis, GICThe company may come out with an IPO in the next 72 months, giving an exit option to the PE firms, says its CFO
Mumbai/Bangalore: Two leading private equity (PE) players will invest Rs. 698 crore in power company
GVK Energy Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hyderabad-based infrastructure developing company
GVK Power and Infrastructure Ltd.
On Thursday, GVK Power said it signed an agreement with private equity firms Actis Advisors Pvt.
Ltd and an affiliate of the government of Singapore Investment Corporation (GIC) for an investment
of Rs. 349 crore each in GVK Energy. Actis and GIC’s affiliate will bring in Rs. 218 crore each as the first
tranche of investment.
Also See Energy Investments (PDF)
GVK Energy has tied up a total Rs. 1,498 crore from three private equity players, including Actis and
GIC, and the overall stake dilution will be 24.97%. In early November, another private equity firm, 3i
Infrastructure Fund, agreed to invest Rs. 800 crore in GVK Energy. GVK’s power portfolio comprises an
operational capacity of 909MW with a further 4,200MW under various stages of development.
“We have tied up private equity investments for around Rs. 1,500 crore. As on date, we have
raised Rs. 936 crore from Actis, GIC and 3i. The second tranche of funds will be raised as and when we
require the same. These funds will be used for the capital expenditure of our 4,200MW power projects
under various stages of development,” said Issac A. George, director and chief financial officer at GVK
Power. “We have given an initial public offer (IPO) as an exit option for private equity companies. This
should happen in the next 72 months.”
Experts said GVK Power is following a well-documented business plan with specific plans of exit options
and sourcing funds for its power projects. “The company may look at investors in airport division in
similar fashion. The surprising element in this development is the entry of GIC,” said a senior analyst
tracking GVK Power stocks at a domestic brokerage. He did not want to be identified.
Actis is an emerging markets private equity investor with $4.7 billion (Rs.21,338 crore) under
management. GIC is a global investment management company established in 1981 to manage
Singapore’s foreign reserves. GVK is present in sectors including energy, airports, roads and urban
infrastructure. As on date, GVK has invested more than Rs. 10,786.02 crore in infrastructure projects
and has on-hand projects worth more than Rs. 25,000 crore.
G.V. Krishna Reddy, chairman, GVK Power, said in a statement: “While this strategic transaction will
enable GVK Energy to deploy further capital, we believe that both Actis and GIC will prove to be ideal
partners in the next phase of the company’s growth.”
Michael Till, a partner and co-head of the Actis infrastructure business, said his company is helping
secure Indian’s current and future energy needs through this investment.
On Thursday, GVK Power and Infrastructure rose marginally to Rs. 39.60 on the Bombay Stock
Exchange.
Private equity players are betting on India’s power sector as there is a demand-supply mismatch and
regulations are being streamlined.
The sector has become attractive for private equity investors who seek clarity in policies, said Kalpana
Jain, senior director, Deloitte Touche Tohmatsu India Pvt. Ltd, a consulting and audit firm. “If
someone can get land, organize coal procurement, and get a power purchase agreement (PPA), power
can be very attractive at this moment,” she said.
Queried on why private equity firms were looking at backing subsidiaries, Jain said: “The expectation is
that power has higher growth potential, which could be the play of the subsidiary, and could be taken
to the market faster than the parent company. An investment in a subsidiary also increases the value
of the parent company. They are keeping their options open.”
Vikram Utamsingh, executive director of KPMG India, a consulting firm, said big-ticket deals in the
power sector have been triggered by the huge amount of dry powder (capital yet to be invested) lying
with private equity investors. “Private equity players need to find large-ticket deals and there are not
many opportunities available for deals above $100-150 million outside the infrastructure sector.”
Expectations on returns are another reason. The private equity community expects infrastructure at an
asset level could yield returns of 15-18%.
“Non-infrastructure private equity funds look for returns of 20-25%, so they take a call on these 15-
18% returns and, looking at the demand, they know they can get returns of 25% once the asset is up
and running,” Utamsingh said.
According to both Jain and Utamsingh, investment in the power sector will continue to gain momentum
in 2011 as well.
This calendar year has witnessed similar investments in the power sector. Bangalore-based GMR
Infrastructure Ltd received a $200 million investment from Singapore’s government investment arm,
Temasek Holdings Ltd, for its wholly owned subsidiary GMR Energy Ltd. Similarly, US private equity
firm Blackstone Group LP has invested $300 million in unlisted energy firm Moser Baer Projects Pvt.
Ltd.
In the electricity sector alone, India is facing a peaking shortage of nearly 12% and an energy shortage
of 9-10%. Sushilkumar Shinde, Union minister for power, in October said India was targeting a capacity
addition of 62,000MW in the 12th Five Year Plan (2012 -2017). In 2007-2012, the funding requirement
in the Indian power sector has been estimated at $230 billion.
Abductions by fringe outfits revive fears among Assam tea estatesIn a little over a month, at least three persons have been abducted from various tea gardens in Assam, the last one on Monday from Menoka Tea Estate in the Darranga Mela area
Kolkata: Fringe political outfits have, after a gap of at least five years, again begun extorting money
from owners of tea estates in Assam. In a little over a month, at least three persons have been
abducted from various tea gardens in Assam, the last one on Monday from Menoka Tea Estate in the
Darranga Mela area near India’s border with Bhutan.
Kamlesh Gupta, the manager of the estate, who was whisked away by armed gunmen from his
bungalow on Monday evening, is still missing. Gupta, 50, is no greenhorn: he has worked at least 15
years in tea gardens, according to Pinaki Roy, director of Menoka Tea Estate Pvt. Ltd. “He never
mentioned receiving any extortion note,” Roy said.
At least two other persons were kidnapped from tea estates in Assam in the past few weeks, but they
did not want to be named because their firms paid ransom for their release. One of them was an
estate owner, the other a manager.
In June-July, armed militants suspected to be members of a separatist group attacked and vandalized
properties on two tea estates in Upper Assam, or the eastern part of the state. Several employees
were assaulted and the owners of the estates later confirmed they had received “extortion notes” from
the group.
“The situation is suddenly beginning to get concerning again,” said one of the biggest tea growers in
Assam, speaking on condition of anonymity. “Unless nipped in the bud, these things can very quickly
escalate into a niggling problem.”
Though militancy has abated, security guards at Assam’s tea gardens are still routinely armed. At
Menoka Tea Estate, Gupta’s personal security guard carried a self-loading rifle, according to Roy. He
was locked up in a room.
“For years, we haven’t faced any extortion,” said Roy. “The industry was in a shambles, and even if
they hacked us to death we couldn’t pay them (the separatists).”
Over the past few years, things have looked up, tea prices have remained strong and tea growers are
again making money.
“Though the notorious separatist groups such as the Ulfa (United Liberation Front of Assam) and BLT
(Bodoland Tigers) aren’t as active as they were earlier, we are again feeling threatened,” he added.
Gupta’s abduction brought back to the tea estate memories of a similar incident that took place in
1997. After 23 days and “extensive discussion”, militants had released Menoka Tea Estate’s manager.
The tea industry had much worse experiences in the 1980s and the 1990s. In 1988, Ulfa militants were
suspected to have killed at least a dozen tea garden officials and abducted many for ransom.
Things came to a head in 1990, when in May, Ulfa militants killed Surrendra Paul, chairman of the
Apeejay Surrendra Group—one of the biggest tea growers in Assam—and in November, laid siege to
erstwhile Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL)’s Doom Dooma tea estate, forcing the company to secretly airlift
its officials. HLL is now known as Hindustan Unilever Ltd (HUL).
Though militancy has declined in the past decade, attacks have been carried out against companies
such as HLL. In November 2003, explosives were set off at the company’s personal care products
factory in Tinsukia district of Assam.
Back then, local people wouldn’t protest, but now it’s different. Locals have got together to protest the
abduction at Menoka Tea Estate, which has some 300 permanent workers and employs as many more
temporary workers. “Over the last few days, our workers have led protest rallies of local people,
blocked roads and even the nearest police station,” said Roy.
The state administration has launched “a massive search operation”, said an official at the Darranga
Mela police outpost. He did not identify himself in the phone conversation. “We suspect some insiders
could be involved. The estate had sacked some of its workers. It could be a case of these guys
retaliating.”
Basel regulators give details of bank capital, liquidity rules
Lenders would have needed €602 billion to comply with the rules if they were in place at the end of
last year
Brussels: Bank regulators published details of an overhaul of liquidity and capital rules for lenders to allow markets
to make more thorough assessments of how well financial companies will cope with the new requirements.
Lenders would have needed €602 billion (Rs. 36.2 trillion) to comply with the rules if they were in place at the end
of last year, Basel Committee on Banking Supervision said.
Banks would also have had shortfalls, including a €2.89 trillion gap in stable funding, necessary to meet separate
liquidity requirements.
The committee agreed in July to phase in the requirements up to 1 January 2019 to mitigate their impact.
Regulators are overhauling bank capital and liquidity requirements because existing rules, known as Basel II, failed
to protect lenders from insolvency during the financial crisis.
The main elements of the overhaul were approved by leaders of the Group of Twenty (G20) countries last month.
“The transition period provides banks with ample time to move to the new standards in a manner consistent with a
sound economic recovery,” Nout Wellink, chairman of the Basel committee, said in a statement on the group’s
website.
The Basel committee said the €602 billion would have been needed for banks to cope with a requirement to hold
core capital equivalent to 7% of their assets, with these assets weighted according to their riskiness.
The figure has been calculated by regulators based on data collected from 263 banks.
Banks that do not meet the requirement will face restrictions on paying dividends, regulators said in September.
Banks would also have failed at the end of 2009 to meet new rules on bank liquidity that have been drawn up by
the Basel committee, the group said.
Banks that fail the minimum liquidity requirements could meet them by lengthening the term of their funding or
restructuring business models, the Basel committee said.
The committee plans to introduce the liquidity rules between 2015 and 2018.
“The new rules are a landmark achievement that will help protect financial stability and promote sustainable
economic growth,” Wellink said.
Internationally active banks with more than 3 billion euros in Tier I capital, a broader measure of banks’ reserves,
would have needed an additional 577 billion euros of core capital to satisfy the rules, while other banks surveyed
would have needed 25 billion euros, the Basel committee said.
The 2.89 trillion euro gap is the group’s calculation of banks’ liquidity shortfall against a so-called net stable funding
ratio.
That ratio, scheduled to be put in place in 2018, aims to limit the mismatch between the duration of loans and
deposits, to ensure that banks don’t face cash flow problems.
Lenders at the end of 2009 would also have had a shortfall of 1.73 trillion euros in the assets necessary to meet a
separate liquidity coverage ratio, which will measure banks’ ability to survive a 30-day credit crunch. That ratio is
scheduled to be effective from 2015.
The actual impact of the new Basel requirements by the time they are implemented will likely be lower as the
banking sector adjusts to a changing economic and regulatory environment, the committee said in its impact
report.
The results do not consider banks’ profitability or make any assumptions about banks’ behavioural responses, the
report said.
The Basel committee published a text clarifying the details of the regulatory overhaul. As well as revised rules on
capital and liquidity, the overhaul also includes a limit on banks’ borrowings.
The Basel committee brings together regulators from 27 countries including Brazil, China, India, Germany the UK
and the US.
AP urges RBI to bar MFIs from tapping capital markets, PE fundsAndhra blamed the for profit MFIs backed by the funds of capital markets and private equity investors for the current plight of tiny borrowers, who were resorting to suicides
Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh government on Thursday urged a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) panel to
bar micro finance institutions (MFIs) from tapping capital markets and seeking private equity
investments arguing this has made micro lenders more profit hungry.
Early this week, the state government had passed a controversial ordinance to check the strong arm
methods allegedly used by some MFIs to recover loans from poor borrowers.
This, allegedly, has led to rising number of suicides in the southern state. The high interest rates
charged by microlenders also came under heavy criticism.
Following this, the RBI constituted a panel headed by chartered accountant Y H Malegam. The
committee, which is likely to submit its report by next month, visited the state on Thursday to take a
stock of the situation.
Submitting a report to the panel, the state government alleged that profit-seeking MFIs, backed private
investors, has resulted in the current plight of microfinance borrowers.
MFIs found it was “necessary to make profit to grow and garner funds from the outside resources and
marketing it as a good business opportunity among private equity funds,” said the state government in
its report.
“The point is that the funds flowing from outside have only one concern – higher profit, at whatever
cost. The poor have become an object of profit, a business opportunity,” said Reddy Subrahmanyam,
principal secretary with AP’s panchayat raj and rural development ministry.
The government has submitted to Malegam that PE investors from across the globe were being lured
by the higher profits and high returns showcased by the for profit MFIs.
These “PEs are not social investors and therefore drive MFIs to earn more profits for them, defeating
the very purpose of financial inclusion,” said Reddy Subrahmanyam.
In its report to Malegam panel, the government appealed, “The MFIs shall not be allowed to go for IPOs
(initial public offerings) as they have to generate more and more profits, defeating the very purpose of
microfinance.”
Also, referring to the high return of assets (RoA) of 4%-5% of MFIs, the government said it was
“considered very high and there is a need to rationalize the same in tune with other similar financial
institutions.”
In this context, the government has advised the Malegam panel to consider capping the interest rates
charged by MFIs while lending to tiny borrowers, which ranged from 30%-40%. “We propose that a cap
of 8% on the interest rate spread may be imposed on interest rates being charged by MFIs.”
Interest spread is the difference between the interest rate at which MFIs borrow from banks and
institutions and the rate at which they lend to tiny borrowers.
AP government, which did not propose any measures in its microfinance bill to cap interest rates
charged by MFIs, said, “Implementation of this maximum cap on the interest rate spread is best done
by state governments, which have the machinery to verify the situation in the field.”
Responding to a debate whether the interest rates charged by MFIs can be regulated by the state
government, Reddy Subrahmanyam said, “Considering that state governments have been regulating
interest rates being charged by money lenders, there is no reason why the state governments should
not be regulating the MFI lending rates.”
Referring to the key provision of monthly repayments by the micro borrowers stipulated in its
microfinance bill, the AP government said, “monthly collection system would significantly reduce
operational cost of MFIs” and “such benefits could be passed on to the poor.”
Seven veenasThe sound of the veena is by far one of the most grand and majestic of all Indian instruments, and one that is often associated with temple ritual and ancient scriptures
What is the genre of music you might expect to hear in an album titledMysterious Duality? Certainly
not the veena, I’ll wager a bet. But that’s exactly what Jayanthi Kumaresh’s new album on the
Earthsync catalogue is titled, and if the intriguing title doesn’t succeed in arousing your curiosity, the
album description most certainly will. Each of the four tracks on the album feature compositions with
multiple tracks played on the veena by the same artiste, Jayanthi Kumaresh. The album notes state
that the artiste used seven different veenas for the album, making it primarily a recording project as in
no other situation would it have been possible for the artiste to have played all the tracks
simultaneously. While one of the tracks is labelledTraditional (India), two are composed by Abhishek
Raghuram and one by violinist and composer R. Kumaresh of the acclaimed Ganesh-Kumaresh duo.
Also Read Shubha Mudgal’s previous Lounge columns
Exploration: Jayanthi Kumaresh experiments with the veena.
The sound of the veena is by far one of the most grand and majestic of all Indian instruments, and one
that is often associated with temple ritual and ancient scriptures. But on the albumMysterious
Duality you hear somewhat different and unfamiliar tones and textures of the veena. Lest anyone
assume that I am joining the ranks of the supposedly “orthodox” who condemn any deviation from the
conventional and traditional in one fell swoop, I must hasten to add that this unfamiliar use of the
veena came as a very welcome surprise. I found it decidedly intriguing to hear the veena playing what
sounded close to a bass line on one of the tracks, doing a pizzicato-like plucking on another, and at
times, playing the same melodic lines in different octaves.
What I am wondering is whether Kumaresh intends to keep this experiment restricted to a recording
project alone. And if not, how would she counter the challenges posed by the project? Would she invite
other vainikas, or veena players, to join her on stage, or would she use a combination of recorded
tracks over which she would play live? The launch of an album is usually followed by a series of live
concerts, and it would be equally interesting to observe how Kumaresh will handle the repertoire she
has recorded in a live performance situation. And being a practical sort, I’m also wondering how she is
going to deal with the formidable task of travelling with so many veenas? Sadly, I was unable to speak
to her in this regard, though I did try and schedule a chat a couple of times.
Earthsync albums are always tastefully designed and produced andMysterious Duality is no exception.
I’m just wondering whether it was at all necessary to insert a rather narcissistic subtitle
proclaiming Just me into the album title. And if that subtitle was at all necessary, couldn’t it have
beenJust Veena? Perhaps, without the subtitle, the mysterious duality would have been heightened
Europe’s Haircut: why debt restructuring is a mustFor the euro zone, the alternative to internal devaluation--and reducing debts--is too dire to contemplate
What once could be dismissed as simply a Greek crisis, or simply a Greek and Irish crisis, is now clearly
a euro zone crisis. Resolving that crisis is both easier and more difficult than is commonly supposed.
The economics is really quite simple. Greece has a budget problem. Ireland has a banking problem.
Portugal has a private-debt problem. Spain has a combination of all three. But, while the specifics
differ, the implications are the same: All must now endure excruciatingly painful spending cuts.
The standard way to buffer the effects of austerity is to marry domestic cuts to devaluation of the
currency. Devaluation renders exports more competitive, thus substituting external demand for the
domestic demand that is being compressed.
But, since none of these countries has a national currency to devalue, they must substitute internal
devaluation for external devaluation. They have to cut wages, pensions and other costs in order to
achieve the same gain in competitiveness needed to substitute external demand for internal demand.
The crisis countries have, in fact, shown remarkable resolve in implementing painful cuts. But one
economic variable has not adjusted with the others: public and private debt. The value of inherited
government debts remains intact, and, aside from a handful of obligations to so-called junior creditors,
bank debts also remain untouched.
This simple fact creates a fundamental contradiction for the internal devaluation strategy: The more
that countries reduce wages and costs, the heavier their inherited debt loads become. And, as debt
burdens become heavier, public spending must be cut further and taxes increased to service the
government’s debt and that of its wards, like the banks. This, in turn, creates the need for more
internal devaluation, further heightening the debt burden, and so on, in a vicious spiral downward into
depression.
So, if internal devaluation is to work, the value of debts, where they already represent a heavy burden,
must be reduced. Government debt must be restructured. Bank debts have to be converted into equity
and, where banks are insolvent, written off. Mortgage debts, too, must be written down.
Policymakers are understandably reluctant to go down this road. Contracts are sacrosanct.
Governments fear that they will lose credibility with financial markets. Where their obligations are held
by foreigners, and by foreign banks in particular, writing them down may only destabilize other
countries.
These are reasonable objections, but they should not be allowed to lead to unreasonable conclusions.
The alternatives on offer are internal and external devaluation. European leaders must choose which
one it will be. They are united in ruling out external devaluation. But internal devaluation requires debt
restructuring. To deny this is both unreasonable and illogical.
The mechanics of debt restructuring are straightforward. Governments can offer a menu of new bonds
worth some fraction of the value of their existing obligations. Bondholders can be given a choice
between par bonds with a face value equal to their existing bonds but a longer maturity and lower
interest rate, and discount bonds with a shorter maturity and higher interest rate but a face value that
is a fraction of existing bonds’ face value.
This is not rocket science. It has been done before. But there are three prerequisites for success.
First, bondholders will need to be reassured that their new bonds are secure. Someone has to
guarantee that they are adequately collateralized. When Latin American debt was restructured in the
1980s under the Brady Plan, these “sweeteners” were provided by the US Treasury. This time around,
the International Monetary Fund and the German government should fill that role.
Second, countries must move together. Otherwise, one country’s restructuring will heighten
expectations that others will follow, giving rise to contagion.
Finally, banks that take losses as a result of these restructurings will need to have their balance sheets
reinforced. The banks need real stress tests, not the official confidence game carried out earlier this
year. Where realistic debt-restructuring scenarios indicate capital shortfalls, across-the-board
conversion of bank debt into equity will be necessary. And where this does not suffice, banks will need
immediate capital injections by their governments.
Again, making this work requires European countries to move together. And, with banks’ balance
sheets having been strengthened, it will be possible to restructure mortgage debts, bank debts, and
other private-sector debts without destabilizing financial systems.
Now we get to the hard part. All of this requires leadership. German leaders must acknowledge that
their country’s banks are dangerously exposed to the debts of the euro zone periphery. They must
convince their constituents that using public money to provide sweeteners for debt restructuring and
to recapitalize the banks is essential to the internal devaluation strategy that they insist their
neighbours follow.
Environment ministry issues show-cause notice to Mundra PortThe notice has asked MPSEZ to respond within 15 days as to why the environmental clearance granted to the project should not be revoked
New Delhi: The ministry of environment and forests (MoEF) has served a show-cause notice on Mundra
Port and Special Economic Zone Ltd (MPSEZ) for alleged violation of coastal zone regulations, the
latest in a slew of actions taken by the ministry for suspected breaches of environmental rules.
Also Read | Compromise deal on Navi Mumbai airport
India’s eleventh five year plan from 2007-08 to 2011-12 has allocated $500 billion for infrastructure investment,
and for the twelfth plan it is $1 trillion.
Honda targets China sales of 7,30,000 units in 2011Honda, like most other global automakers, is beefing up its portfolio of market-specific products in
emerging markets such as Thailand and India to boost sales
Reuters
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Tokyo: Honda Motor Co said on Friday it would target sales in China of 7,30,000 vehicles in 2011, for growth of
more than 10% from the 6,50,000 estimated for this year.
“We expect the overall (Chinese) market to grow by an average 10%,” Seiji Kuraishi, head of Honda’s China
operations, told reporters in Tokyo. “We will aim for a growth of more than 10%, of around 7,30,000 units.”
Honda operates 50-50 joint ventures with Guangzhou Automobile Group Co and Dongfeng Motor Group, as well as a
majority-owned factory building the Fit/Jazz subcompact model for exports to Europe.
New Delhi: The competition in the English movie channel space is set to heat up further, with leading broadcaster
Times Television Network (TTN) on Friday announcing the launch of its new channel, ‘Movies Now´.
The new high-definition (HD) channel will hit television screens from 19 December.
“Movies Now complements the urban focus of the network, where it has met with great success via Times Now, ET
Now and zoOm. Movies Now challenges the status quo of the category to ensure the audience the best of
entertainment,” TTN managing director and chief executive officer Sunil Lulla said in a statement.
The new channel will be available across analog, digital cable and DTH platforms, the statement said.
“We have put together a very well-thought through movies library reflecting the preferences of Indian viewers, who
love to watch popular Hollywood blockbuster titles again and again, to name a few—Rocky 1-6, Pink Panther 1 and
2, I Robot, Night at the Museum, Never Back Down, True Lies, Titanic, The 36th Chamber of Shaolin, etc,” Movies
Now Channel head Ajay Trigunayat said.
Currently, the English movie channels available to Indian viewers include Star Movies, HBO, PIX, WB and UTV World,
among others.
M&As top $2.2 tn in first yearly rise since 2007The preliminary figures show emerging markets made up a record 17% of transactions, and energy was the busiest sector
