Daily News Roundup - July 21 2010

Reliance Industries has said it cannot give natural gas to new customers by cutting supplies to power and fertiliser plants. (BS)

BHEL has won a Rs26.65bn contract for setting up a 1,200 MW coal-based thermal power plant in Chhattisgarh. (BL)



Tata Motors is expanding capacity of its Ace pickup to 275,000 units from 225,000 units at its Pantnagar facility. (BL)

The Supreme Court on Monday sought a response from Mahindra & Mahindra on the excise department's plea alleging that the automobile manufacturer had undervalued its vehicles to evade excise duty. (FE)

The Mahindra group has drawn up a 10-year plan for its two-wheeler business that will focus on forging new alliances and going global. (BL)

IOC plans to set up another 14-15mn tons refinery with an investment of Rs150-200bn on the western coast. (BS)

Apollo Tyres has despatched its first original equipment shipment manufactured from its Chennai plant. (BS)

BEML has asked for a majority 52% stake in the joint venture company that is set to acquire the closed facility of the Durgapur-based Mining and Allied Machinery Corporation. (BL)

IDBI Bank plans to raise Rs31.19bn through preferential issue of equity shares to the Government. (BL)

Alstom Holdings and Schneider Electric Group today postponed their open offer to buy a 20% stake in Areva T&D India till further notice. (BS)

A deal between SKIL Infrastructure and Everonn Education faced uncertainty on Tuesday because of differences over the rights to be enjoyed by the acquirer. (ET)

Fortis Healthcare promoters have pledged an additional 33mn shares with lenders to raise money to part fund the acquisition of Singapore’s Parkway Holdings. (ET)

Reliance MediaWorks said it, along with two other group firms, has purchased another 0.11% in Fame India, hiking their combined stake in the multiplex chain to 15.88%. (ET)

Deepak Fertilisers & Petrochemicals said that it will raise around Rs500mn through the issuance of non-convertible debentures to LIC. (ET)

Patni Computer Systems, announced the appointment of Apoorva Singh as its SVP and global head of infrastructure management services (IMS). (ET)

MMTC will split its Rs 10 share into 10 scrips of Re 1 each and issue a 1:1 bonus. (FE)

Tata Sons has moved to Delhi High Court against environmental NGO Greenpeace India and Greenpeace International following a game that makes direct references to the company which are "disparaging" and "libelous" in nature. (FE)

IDBI Bank said its board will meet on Wednesday to consider government fund infusion of Rs31bn. (FE)

Dhanlaxmi Bank is looking for a financial partner to kick off its mutual fund business in a tripartite way. (FE)

MRPL has achieved 46% progress in phase-III expansion-cum-upgradation project till the end of May. (BL)

Retail price inflation for items consumed by agricultural and rural labourers declined to 13.02% in June from 13.68% in the previous month. (ET)

Assocham called for the levy of 40% super profit tax on mining activities in a bid to curb exports of iron ore. (ET)

The Centre looks set to bring the direct taxes code bill and the constitutional amendments required to roll out the GST in the forthcoming Monsoon session of the Parliament beginning next week. (ET)

Erratic monsoons have caused a sudden spike in spot electricity rates. (BS)

The Tamil Nadu Government has announced a State Advised Price of Rs 1,900 a tonne for sugarcane linked to a sugar recovery of 9.5% for 2010-11. (BL)