Daily News Roundup - Aug 10 2009

NTPC plans to continue to fight legally for the fuel's contracted price and seek Power Ministry's help. (BS)

Reliance, Lanco, Essar, L&T, GVK are in race for taking up the Rs121.32bn Hyderabad Metro Rail project. (BS)

Tata Motors’ may consider buying 20% stake from Thonburi in Thai truck JV. (BS)

NTPC plans to invest more than Rs90bn in its two new expansion projects located at Jhanor and Kawas in Gujarat. (ET)

Tata Steel plans to invest Rs400bn over the next five years to ramp up its production capacity to 16mn tonnes. (ET)

Bharti Airtel has sought loans worth US$1bn from SBI. (BL)

CAG has sought Petroleum Ministry’s help to access Reliance Industries’ account books.(TOI)

Finance Ministry believed to be favourably inclined towards Petroleum Ministry’s proposal that ONGC be reimbursed the royalty that it would pay on behalf of Cairn India in the Rajasthan oil field.(BL)

Indian Hotels’ arm plans to invest about Rs800mn for setting up seven to eight hotels in the current fiscal. (BS)

Bharti Airtel may increase its offer by 5-10% for a stake in MTN. (ET)

NTPC is likely to set up power plants in Nigeria and Sri Lanka. (BS)

Jaiprakash Hydro-Power plans to add 2,000 mw power generation capacity, comprising hydro and thermal, in the current Five-Year Plan period ending 2012. (ET)

Air India's demand for equity infusion receives support from the Prime Minister. (ET)

Petroleum ministry approves a three-month credit period to Air India for payment of its aviation turbine fuel dues. (BS)

India Cements receives approval for raising around US$100mn. (BS)

Srei Infrastructure unit plans to roll out IPTV services at its 20 common service centers in the rural areas of Orissa by the end of this year. (BS)

Peninsula Land plans to raise a QIP of Rs5bn for acquiring land in Mumbai. (ET)

Mahindra Satyam receives 30 contracts.(BL)

Reliance Power fully acquires Jharkhand Integrated Power, an SPV floated to implement the 4,000MW Tilaiya ultra mega power plant project. (ET)

BHEL plans to airlift critical power equipment from different countries for two NTPC projects critical for meeting the electricity demand during the Commonwealth Games 2010. (ET)

Essar group amongst bidders for Shell’s UK refinery.(TOI)

Moser Baer gets Supreme Court notice on Rs29.78bn tax evasion. (BS)

Berger Paints decides to set up Rs1bn greenfield water-based plant, along with a supporting emulsion facility in southern India. (ET)

Major retailers Future Group, Aditya Birla Retail, Spencer’s and Reliance Retail forms a rainbow coalition to align their sourcing operations and share private labels, logistics, warehouses and hiring details on a transactional payment basis. (ET)

SEBI may give parallel dates to ABG Shipyard and Bharati Shipyard for their open offers to buy additional stake in Great Offshore. (BS)

DoT has given a clean chit to Datacom Solutions on the grounds that there is no violation of the licence norms.(BL)

Tata Communications earmarks Rs100bn capital expenditure over 3 years.(FE)

MTNL invites bids from global players to set up and run its WiMax operations in Delhi and Mumbai on a franchisee basis for a six-year period. (ET)

RPG eyes Rs17bn loan for Haldia thermal project. (ET)

BSNL earmarks a capital expenditure of Rs12.5bn to make its network ready for

India's foreign exchange reserves rose to US$272bn as on July 31, from US$268bn a week earlier.(BL)

Government relaunches its largest ever auction of oil and gas exploration areas, aiming to attract US$3-4bn investment. (BS)

Cement dispatches in July grew 10.6%, as compared to 8.1% a year ago. (BS)

CERC notifies medium-term open access norms.(FE)

Agricultural growth in the current fiscal could slow down to 2.5% from 3%, according to the latest Survey of Professional Forecasters by the RBI.(BL)

CERC issues new rules on transmission.(BL)

Finance Minister says he is unsure of the economy’s direction as other problems may arise from the adverse effects of scanty rainfall.(BL)

The government is likely to come up with an index to track price variation in the services sectors like telecom and railways in the next six months. (BS