Daily News Roundup - Jan 6 2010

US fund house TIAA-CREF has exited ONGC and other Chinese energy companies over their investments in war-torn Sudan. (BS)
BHEL says it bagged 11.2GW orders from independent power producers between April 09 and December 09, comprising 94% of the total order inflow during this period. (BS)
BHEL has seen order intake worth Rs350bn in the first nine months of the current financial year. (BL)
Mobile service provider Aircel has entered into a partnership with Infosys Technologies to launch mobile application store. (BL)
Bangladesh's telecom regulator has approved Bharti Airtel's proposal to buy a 70% stake in Warid Telecom for about US$300mn. (BL)
HPCL's Mumbai refinery has rolled out the first batch of Euro IV MS [petrol] for meeting their north and north-west needs. (FE)
Maruti Suzuki said that it aimed to jack up its total output by 50% to 1.5mn units in five years to defend its 50% market share. (BS)
The RBI has barred foreign institutional investors from buying Maruti Suzuki shares citing the investment limit under the portfolio investment scheme has been reached. (FE)
Sterlite Industries has put on hold its proposed Rs23bn copper smelter expansion project at Tuticorin in southern Tamil Nadu as a dispute related to the project is being fought in the court. (ET)
Maharashtra Electrosmelt, a subsidiary of SAIL, will invest Rs2bn to set up a furnace with capacity of 42,000tpa at its Chandrapur plant. (ET)
Sobha Developers plans to launch projects worth Rs28bn over the next 12-18 months covering 8mn square feet. (BS)
Axis Bank launched the ‘Power Advantage Home Loan’ scheme which offers housing loans at a fixed interest rate of 8.25% p.a. for the first two years and a floating rate of interest thereafter. (BL)
The Supreme Court issued a notice to Nestle India on the plea of the I-T department seeking adjudication on the issue of whether MAT falls within the meaning of ‘advance tax’ so as to enable the company to set off against tax payable in assessment year 1998-1999. (ET)
The government will examine Sun Pharma’s post marketing surveillance studies and clinical trials report of breast cancer medicine Letrox to decide whether the drug should be banned from being marketed. (ET)
Tel Aviv district court on Monday ruled in Taro's favour in one case filed by Sun Pharma. (FE)
IVRCL bagged Rs9.6bn worth of contracts in transportation, water and irrigation, buildings and power sectors. (FE)
Century Real Estate Holdings, the realty development arm of Century Group, plans to raise Rs7bn to expand its development initiatives. (BS)
MTNL is introducing VDSL2 (Very high speed digital subscriber line) service which will provide 100Mbps symmetrical traffic on short copper loops. (BL)
Indian shipping companies, such as Great Offshore, Chowgule Ports and Infrastructure and Bharati Shipyard, are investing in creating repair facilities, a market pegged at around Rs20bn annually. (ET)
Uttam Galva Steels, one of the leading manufacturer and exporter of value added steel, increased prices of its products by Rs3,000/ton. (BL)
L&T Infotech bagged two turnkey ERP projects from the Indian Railways for automating the maintenance of its wagon fleet and diesel locomotives. (BL)
The Anil Ambani-promoted Reliance Big Pictures which is distributing the movie is planning to add new screens in the third week of the movie's release buoyed by the response of the audience. (BL)
Rising raw material prices will result into FMCG companies increasing prices or reduce grammage per pack over the next one or two quarters. (BS)
Mukesh Ambani and Anand Jain promoted Mumbai SEZ Ltd has suspended its land acquisition for the MahaMumbai SEZ in coastal Raigad for an indifinite period. (BS)
Karnataka government has granted in-principle approval to ArcelorMittal’s and Posco’s proposal to invest Rs300bn and Rs323bn respectively for setting up a steel plant. (BS)
Infinite Computer Solutions plans a public issue to raise around Rs1.9bn at the upper end of the price band of Rs155-165/share. (BL)
TCG Lifesciences, the Rs4bn clinical research organisation (CRO), has entered into an exclusive collaboration with the US-based pharma giant, Pfizer, to develop a portfolio of pre-clinical molecules for discovery of new drugs. (ET)
A healthy increase in corporate tax receipts pushed direct tax collections in December 09 to Rs664.1bn, up 24.5% from Rs533.5bn collected in the month a year ago. (BS)
Indian industry has urged the government to continue the stimulus package till the middle of the next financial year to help the economy achieve robust growth. (BS)
The center announced sops for the food processing industry including separate policy at the state level, thrust on contract farming and making the sector tax-free. (BS)
Medium and small scale drug manufacturing units in Madhya Pradesh have alleged that they are being ignored in the new drug manufacturing policy of the state government, likely to be effective from March this year. (BS)
Union Minister of State for Textiles said the domestic textile sector was recovering from recession and is showing positive growth. (BS)
Political disturbance over the demand for a separate Telangana state is forcing information technology companies to shift. (BS)
India has dropped projects located in Arunachal Pradesh from its list of projects to be funded by the Asian Development Bank in 2010. (BS)
The power ministry is seeking an over 56% increase in the gross budgetary support for its planned outlay, at Rs144.3bn, for 2010-11 primarily for the R-APRDP and RGGVY programmes. (BS)
The Union minister for New and Renewable Energy said the government is negotiating ethanol prices at Rs26-27/litre and is likely to be finalised this month. (ET)
The Planning Commission has asked the finance ministry for a substantial hike in the budgetary support for Central ministries and departments for the coming fiscal to meet the expansionary aspirations’’ in various sectors, especially education, a government official has said. (ET)
Pension regulator PFRDA will launch a low-cost pension scheme on April 1 to provide social security cover to economically weaker sections. (ET)