Daily News Roundup - Jan 12 2010

Reliance Industries raises Lyondell bid to US$13.5bn. (TOI)

L&T plans 6,500 Mw power generation capacity in 4 yrs. (BS)

The steel ministry is planning to set up a special arm under SAIL to spearhead overseas acquisitions, particularly in the mining sector. (BS)

Telenor Group increases its stake in Unitech Wireless from 49% to 60.1% with an investment of Rs15bn. (BL)

IOC plans 26% stake in nuclear power venture with NPCIL. (BS)

Government plans to raise Rs110bn by divesting 5% stake in NTPC. (BL)

RBI may not hike rates in the next six months, says SBI chairman. (TOI)

Ranbaxy Laboratories eyes Bangalore-based biotech company Biovel Life Sciences; deal size is said to be around Rs500mn. (DNA)

National Aluminium plans to set up three subsidiaries to make investments in new businesses. (DNA)

Essar Group plans to acquire a majority stake in Zambia’s state-owned Indeni Refinery, which has a capacity to refine around 1mn tonnes per annum. (Mint)

Sunil Hi Tech Engineers has been awarded a Rs4.9bn Balance of Plant contract by Maharashtra State Power Generation Co. (BL)

Raymond plans to open over 200 stores across the country in the next one and half years to grow its business. (ET)

Setco Automotive plans to invest Rs1bn over the next two years for setting up a new plant for clutch units in Africa (ET)

Natco Pharma to shortly launch its breast cancer drug Albupax. (ET)

Foreign exchange reserves rose by US$22mn to US$284bn, for the week ended January 1. (BL)

Union Government has approved road projects worth Rs61.5bn in five States for upgrading nearly 562km of highways. (BL)

FM has offered a proposal to the states for absorbing 50% of the losses likely to be incurred by them while shifting to the GST regime. (DNA)

Successful bidders at the upcoming auction of 3G services will be allowed to split their payment into two parts. (Mint)

Steel consumption rose close to 8% during April-December 2009, over the year ago period. (ET)

Telecom regulator Trai is planning an alternate solution against moving to 11-digit mobile numbers where it will retain the current 10-digit format but open up digits 2 to 9 for mobile numbers. (ET)

Domestic tourism sector bounces back, about 6.46 lakh foreigners visited the country during December 2009, up 21% compared to 5.34 lakh in the corresponding month the previous year. (ET)