Daily News Roundup - March 19 2010

The Government has received applications from eight telecom companies, including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communication, Tata Communication, Tata Teleservices, Vodafone Essar, Etisalat DB, Tikona and Qualcomm, to bid for 3G and broadband wireless access (BWA) spectrum to be auctioned starting April 8. (BL)

Promoters of Ratnagiri Gas and Power (RGPL), that include state-owned utility NTPC and gas distributor GAIL, said they are likely to blacklist contractor Gammon India for delaying a vital dredging work that has caused cost overruns to a gas project. (ET)

LIC which has been reportedly planning to make a foray into the banking sector, has hiked its stake in Indian Overseas Bank to close to 12%. (FE)

Bajaj Auto targets sales of 4mn bikes and three-wheelers in 2010-11, a near 40% jump from this fiscal's expected close of 2.9mn units. (BL)

Commissioning of Adani Power’s 3,300MW power plant at Tiroda in Maharashtra runs the risk of getting delayed for want of fuel due to an environment hurdle in mining coal. (ET)

Korean steel major Posco and SAIL have initiated talks to set up a steel plant under the joint venture route near state-owned company’s existing steel making facility at Bokaro in Jharkhand. (ET)

SAIL and Shipping Corporation of India will shortly sign 50:50 joint venture; a proposal that was hanging since June 2008. (BL)

Unitech plans to demerge its non-core businesses, like telecom, from the company to unlock value for shareholders. (BS)

ITC plans to open 25 new hotels under the Fortune brand during the next 12-18 months. (BS)

The income tax department conducted a search at offices of Punj Lloyd till late on Wednesday. (BS)

Punj Lloyd secured a letter of award for EPC of NGI (Mixed Case) Project in UAE from Abu Dhabi Gas Industries Ltd for a value of US$40mn. (BL)

Welspun-Gujarat Stahl Rohren said it will acquire controlling stake in construction firm MSK Projects India for Rs4bn. (ET)

Glenmark Generics, a subsidiary of Glenmark Pharmaceuticals, has received a US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) approval for a hypertension drug. (ET)

Cephalon, a US-based drug maker, has filed a lawsuit against Lupin and its US subsidiary Lupin Pharmaceuticals for challenging the patents on its sleep disorder drug Nuvigil. (BS)

Strides Arcolab bought stakes owned by South African generics drug major Aspen Pharmacare in two 50:50 cancer drug making joint ventures – Onco Therapies in India and Onco Laboratories in Cyprus - for US$117mn (Rs5.3bn). (BS)

Elder Pharmaceuticals said it had increased its stake in Bulgarian subsidiary Elder Biomeda AD to 61% from the present 51%, as part of its strategy to strengthen its presence in the European market. (BS)

BEML has secured an order worth Rs6.3bn from the Defence Ministry for supply of 788 BEML Tatra vehicles to the Indian Army within 18 months. (BL)

Dalmia Cement said it plans to spin off its cement, refractory, thermal power and certain businesses other than sugar into DCB Renewable Energy and Industries Ltd and list the new entity. (BS)

INOX has denied the claims made in a complaint to the stock market regulator by Reliance MediaWorks that Fame India promoters sold their stake in that company to INOX at an unduly low price, far lower than what RMW was willing to pay. (BS)

As part of its Rs18bn ongoing expansion programme, Apollo Hospitals is planning to open 11 more hospitals in the next fiscal which includes an additional 2,000 more beds the existing 8,800 beds. (FE)

Apollo Hospitals Group is on the look-out for hospital project commissioning orders overseas and also plans to foray into Ayurveda research. (BL)

Apollo Hospitals, Fortis Healthcare and Max Healthcare - are poised for an aggressive foray into medical education, which was opened to them recently. (FE)

Debt-ridden Vishal Retail denied fudging accounts and blamed it on printing errors by auditors, and said the firm would soon complete its corporate debt restructuring exercise. (BS)

McNally Bharat received Rs1.7bn order from Mahanadi Coalfields Ltd, Sambalpur, Orissa. (BL)

United Bank of India is negotiating with a clutch of asset reconstruction companies to sell a part of its bad loans with a view to clean up its loan book. (ET)

To overcome delays, on account of land acquisition problems, in the launch of its Rs500bn steel project in Jharkhand, global steel giant ArcelorMittal is set to relocate its plant proposed in Khunti-Gumla to Bokaro. (BS)

Factoring in the government’s push to improve its finances and higher growth, Standard & Poor's revised the outlook on India’s sovereign credit rating to stable from negative. (BS)

India is expected to double the number of branded hotel rooms from 100,000 now in just three years. (BS)

The government is expected to give additional incentives, while retaining the existing stimulus measures for the labour-intensive export sectors in 2010-11. (BS)

Days after Iran and Pakistan signed pacts to implement a long-delayed gas pipeline; India said it had proposed trilateral talks in May to address concerns that have been impeding its joining the project. (BS)

RBI could raise key interest rates ahead of its monetary policy review on April 20 if the price situation continued to deteriorate, a deputy governor of the apex bank said in the capital on Thursday. (ET)

RBI said it may come out with guidelines on new banking licences in about three months. (BS)

Sugar production in Karnataka is likely to increase 26.4% to 2.1mt in the present sugar season compared with 1.7mt last year. (BS)

The Food and Agriculture Minister said it has no plans as of now to re-impose customs duty on white sugar or permit wheat exports. (BS)

India, Brazil and the EU have come together to press for convergence of all national standards with the relevant international standard to check arbitrariness in rules that often leads to rejection of shipments by importing countries. (ET)

EGOM on national highways has decided to convert 10,000 km of roads into national highways. (FE)

India’s food inflation for week ending March 6 dropped to a four-month low of 16.3%. (FE)

Four education reforms Bills of HRD ministry, including one seeking to ban unfair practices in technical and medical educational institutions and universities, are expected to come up before the Union Cabinet on Friday. (FE)