Daily News Roundup - July 2 2010

ONGC Board has in-principle approved the cluster development of four marginal fields in the Western offshore. (BL)

After more than two years, Tata Motors has dislodged Korea’s Hyundai Motors in India from the second spot in monthly domestic passenger vehicle sales. (BS)

RCom today announced acquisition of one of India’s largest cable service providers, Digicable, in a cashless all-stock deal. (BS)

Tata Power to raise Rs14bn via coal SPVs. (FE)

HDFC Bank is now looking for a south-based bank for its next phase of merger. (FE)

Raymond’s plan to utilise 125 acres of land at its Thane plant for residential and commercial purposes has met with strong objection from the Maharashtra Government. (BS)

ITC is setting up another unit at its existing paper mill in Bhadrachalam at a cost of Rs10bn. (BS)

The GMR Group has decided to keep on hold an agreement on distribution of promoters stakes among family members. (ET)

The Government approves $5.25 per mmBtu for ONGC gas. (ET)

Axis Bank targets 12,000 villages in five years time under financial inclusion plan. (ET)

Sterlite Energy, the flagship company of Vedanta Resources, has ignited the first unit (600 MW) of its 2,400MW power plant at Jharsuguda. (BS)

The Blackstone Group has secured 12.5% stake for Rs2.8bn in Monnet Power, a 100% subsidiary of Monnet Ispat and Energy. (BS)

BK Birla's daughter, Manjushree Khaitan, to be Kesoram vice-chairman. (BS)

Kesoram Industries to invest Rs11.3bn on cement capacity expansion and additional power generation. (BL)

SpiceJet may get an expatriate CEO after Sanjay Aggarwal quit the post. (BS)

MRPL, a subsidiary of ONGC, will revisit its fuel retail business plans as the government has decontrolled petrol prices. (BS)

Kinetic ties-p with Italian company for engineering services for infra projects. (BL)

Mangalam Cement studying Mangalam Timber's merger proposal. (BL)

Tata Chemicals is planning to invest Rs35-40bn to double urea production capacity at its Babrala facility in Uttar Pradesh. (BL)

Puravankara Projects announced a new project, Purva Skywood, in Bangalore that would see development of 1.25mn sqft of residential space spread over 12.5 acres. (BL)

Federal Bank to open 31 new branches in Kerala this week. (BL)

Vijaya Bank has applied to the Government of India for Tier-I capital. (BL)


Food inflation declined by a significant 4% to 12.9% for the week ended June 19 due to a high base effect and timely arrival of monsoon rains. (BS)

FDI in DTH raised to 74% and FM radio to 26%. (FE)

Department of industrial policy & promotion (DIPP) has initiated an exercise to tweak the foreign direct investment policy for wholesale trading. (ET)

SEBI has made it tougher for non–finance businesses, which has less than five-year of financial services experience, not permitting it to own stake in an asset management company. (ET)

May export surges to US$16.1bn, up 35.1% yoy. (BS)

Maharashtra Government is considering imposition of betterment charge and service tax on developers of residential and commercial complexes adjacent to the mega-infrastructure projects lined up in Mumbai. (BS)

The Centre’s fiscal deficit stood at Rs1lakh crore during April-May 2010, constituting over a fourth of the budget estimate for the entire year. (BS)

Funds raised by corporate India through syndicated loans and equity issuances have more than trebled to about Rs578bn for the half-year ended June 2010. (BL)

The European sovereign debt crisis will cause companies and governments in the region to curtail IT spending for 2010, according to Gartner and Forrester. (BL)