Daily News Roundup - Dec 2 2009

ONGC signed agreements to pick up a stake in a giant gas field and an LNG plant in Iran, which also awarded the rights to develop a gas discovery made by it in the Persian Gulf two years ago. (BS)
ONGC Videsh and the Hinduja Group have each got 20% stake in Iran's South Pars-12 project. (BL)
Minister of State for Petroleum & Natural Gas said that 97% of ONGC's total gas production is APM and only 3% is non-APM gas. (BL)
Reliance Industries has stopped selling gasoline and gas oil to Iran since April. (FE)
GMR Group firm GMR Energy said it will invest Rs180bn in the next three years to add electricity generation capacity and become nearly 3,300 mw company from the little over 800 mw now. (ET)
German auto major Daimler has renewed efforts to build its commercial vehicle foray in India and is talking with at least two major Indian players - the TVS group and Bajaj Auto. (ET)
Nuclear Power Corporation of India said French power equipment maker Alstom will be the third partner and hold 33.3% stake in the proposed joint venture with BHEL. (ET)
FIPB has rejected a proposal from German firm EADS Deutschland GmbH and L&T for setting up a JV company for manufacturing, distribution and marketing of products pertaining to electronic warfare, military avionics, radars and defence-related mobile systems. (BS)
Rourkela Steel Plant, a unit of SAIL, produced 0.19mn tons of hot metal and 0.18mn tons of crude steel in November, thus making it its best ever performance in November since its inception. (BS)
SAIL is set to reduce prices of flat steel products sold in the spot market by up to 3% or Rs 800/tonne owing to mounting threat from low-priced imports. (ET)
Nalco will spend about Rs220bn in setting up two mega projects, one each in Andhra Pradesh and Orissa. (ET)
Minority investor Templeton Asset Management supports Sun Pharmaceuticals in its legal battle to acquire Israel’s Taro Pharmaceuticals. (BS)
Biocon said it would upgrade the newly acquired bulk drugs facility in Hyderabad and quickly start manufacturing its own portfolio at the erstwhile IDL Specialty Chemicals plant. (BL)
Cipla is in talks with Pifzer and other leading companies for major supply contracts, but has denied any proposal for a stake sale. (BS)
Jubilant Organosys and Eli Lilly & Company have extended their drug discovery collaboration for another five years. (BL)
Nestle said its board of directors, in a meeting scheduled to be held on December 9, would consider the acquisition of nutrition business of Speciality Foods India. (ET)
Fifteen major Indian institutional investors which invested in Satyam Computer have together suffered ‘wrongful losses’ of slightly over Rs16bn. (BS)
Mahindra Satyam plans to expand its global solution centre operations at its campus in Cyberjaya, Malaysia. (BS)
Tech Mahindra is mulling a brand new BPO operation in the Philippines, which will be its third offshore contact centre after Northern Ireland and the UK. (ET)
The government today said three firms of Anil Ambani group - Reliance Infrastructure, RNRL and Rcom - have violated overseas debt norms. (FE)
Employee unions of the SBI have demanded a wage hike of around 27.5%. (FE)
HDFC said all new home loan applications filed till the end of January could avail of its dual-rate offer, under which the interest rate would be 8.25% up to March 31, 2012. (BS)
Union Bank of India has revised its interest rates on foreign currency deposits with immediate effect. (FE)
A combine of Alstom and Schneider Electric have bought the entire stake in Areva T&D of its majority holder, French nuclear major Areva for euro2.3mn. (BS)
IDBI Bank has given the mandate for syndication of US$225mn five-year loans to Australia and New Zealand Banking Group, Royal Bank of Scotland Group and Deutsche Bank AG. (BS)
Mphasis plans to replace its annual salary increment for its staff with a one-time bonus in order to ensure more variability in its employee wage bill and align it better with the company’s performance. (ET)
Essar Steel has agreed to pay Rs1.9mn/acre to the land losers in Paradip where it plans to build its pelletisation plant. (BS)
UTV Software Communications is planning to expand its presence in the regional language space to scale up its television business. (BL)
Bharati Shipyard increased the open offer price for Great Offshore by 5.4% to Rs590/share from Rs560/share earlier; the open offer will remain open from December 3 to December 22. (BS)
A report of the state government states that Vedanta Aluminium has not violated any forest and environment norms at its alumina refinery and bauxite mining site in Kalahandi district of Orissa. (BS)
MTNL said it was unlikely to be able to implement mobile number portability by the government deadline of December 31. (BS)
MTNL announced half a paisa per second plan for its 2G and 3G subscribers for making local and STD calls in the same network. (BS)
With more infrastructure projects needing funds, IIFCL expects a 50% rise in disbursals to Rs49bn in 2009-10. (BS)
HDFC Mutual Fund’s asset base now stands at Rs1trn as at end of November 30. (BL)
Toyota Motor Corporation would unveil the concept model of its compact car for the Indian market next month. (ET)
Wipro will use social media networks such as Facebook and Twitter to project a new identity that will focus on ecology, education and innovation. (ET)
Direct tax collections during April-November period grew by 2.4%. (ET)
India’s exports declined 6.6% to US$13.2bn in October, extending the decline for the 13th month in a row, and its imports too declined by 15% to US$21.9bn. (BS)
Indian DTH sector is expected to see a 100% growth over the next two years as subscriber base is expected to more than double from the present 16mn to over 32mn by 2011. (BS)
19,417 industrial consumers owed Rs2.2bn as outstanding electricity bill to the power distribution companies in Kolkata. (BS)
Finance Minister said that the 10% cap on offloading shares of profit-making PSUs would stay for the next four years. (BS)
Finance Minister said that the disinvestment process in three power Central public sector enterprises - NTPC, Satluj Jal Vidyut Nigam and Rural Electrification Corporation - would be complete by end of the current fiscal. (BL)
The government said it would not withdraw the fiscal stimulus, provided in the last one year to help the economy deal with the global slowdown, in the current financial year. (BS)
DIPP has proposed to increase the FDI cap for DTH services, uplinking hubs, teleport services and FM radio to 74% from the current 49%. (BS)
Dubai crisis may increase cost of funds for India companies, particularly those with business interests in West Asia. (BS)
The government has approved 17 FDI proposals worth Rs45.5bn, including that of the Federal Agency for State Property Management of the Russian Federation to buy 20% stake in telecom service provider Sistema-Shyam for Rs30.5bn. (BS)
Gujarat government will develop seven modern and state-of-the art bus terminals along with commercial facilities at seven locations in four cities on PPP basis. (BS)
Uttarakhand is mulling a new proposal to construct an expressway along the upper Ganga canal from Delhi to Haridwar after Uttar Pradesh decided to scrap the proposed Hindon expressway. (BS)
The expert committee examining the way financial products are sold plans to go ahead with its earlier proposal of banning payment of upfront commission by insurance policyholders. (BS)
The Government plans to develop and upgrade the entire National Highways network to minimum of two-lane NH standards by December 2014 by exploring the possibility of securing World Bank loan and also through budgetary allocations. (BL)
The Government is betting on a big boost in private power project commissioning to partly make up for the slippages expected in projects executed by the CPSU’s during the XI Plan period. (BL)
RBI has said that banks and companies that have violated FEMA while transacting in currency derivatives in the past few years will be penalised. (ET)
RBI instructed the commercial banks to increase their provisioning against bad assets to at least 70% by September 2010. (ET)
The Prime Minister’s economic panel said it could revise upward the economic growth forecast to 7% from 6.5% for the current fiscal on the back of robust economic growth in the second quarter. (ET)
A Committee of experts set up by the petroleum ministry may suggest several measures to cut the fuel subsidy, including freeing of pump prices of petrol, in its report that will be submitted by the end of January next year. (ET)
The government has drawn up a preliminary list of 25 unlisted PSUs for disinvestment. (FE)
Finance ministry has proposed that service providers should be taxed based on the telecom circle once the goods and service tax (GST) regime kicks in. (FE)