Daily News Roundup - July 7 2010

Tata Power said a consortium led by the company has been awarded three coal bed methane blocks for exploration in Satpura, Madhya Pradesh. (ET)

Dubai’s Istithmar sold its 6.9% stake in SpiceJet for US$25.3mn. (ET)



Tata Motors will invest around Rs100bn in the next 2-3 years on product development, facility modernisation and other capex purposes. (ET)

LIC has hiked its stake in Bharti Airtel to 5%. (FE)

IOC has started buying crude oil from Cairn India's Rajasthan oil fields, which have now crossed the 1,00,000 barrels per day mark in production. (FE)

IOC plans to set up solar power panels and power plants at its over 18,100 retail outlets across the country at a cost of Rs5bn. (BS)

Reliance Industries has told the government that it will not sign contracts to supply gas from its KG-D6 fields beyond 60 million units a day, as it may not be able to sustain higher production. (FE)

NTPC has suspended the plan to explore the river route to transport coal to its starved plants. (FE)

NTPC has signed production sharing contracts with the Government for four oil and gas exploration blocks awarded in the eighth round of bidding under NELP-VIII. (BL)

Tata Power, in consortium with Arrow Energy has been awarded the Satpura CBM block in Madhya Pradesh. (BL)

Indiabulls Financial Services has raised Rs12.6bn by issuing 3-year, zero coupon NCDs to private and public sector banks, provident funds and mutual funds. (ET)

Indiabulls Financial Services is looking to grow its home loans business by 40-45% this fiscal and increase its market share from the current 4-4.5% to 7-8% by 2014. (BL)

Opto Circuits set to enhance capacity in Mysore, Malaysia with an investment of Rs2-2.5bn. (BL)

NMDC proposes to build a Rs30bn pipeline between its mines at Bailadila and Vizag to evacuate and supply 12mn tons of iron ore slurry a year to its domestic customers such as Rashtriya Ispat Nigam Ltd and Essar Steel over the next two years. (BL)

NMDC is in talks with Japanese steel makers to source technology for its proposed integrated steel plant in Karnataka and iron ore nugget plant in Andhra Pradesh. (BL)

NMDC profit jumps 80%, sales 90% in Q1 FY11. (BS)

Bajaj Auto has said its low-cost car project with Renault and Nissan is on track, but may not form a joint venture (JV) to manufacture and market the car. (BS)

Bombay Dyeing, may sell its polyester and DMT business located in Pune. (BS)

Indiabulls Realtech, a subsidiary of Indiabulls Power, is setting up a 1,350 mw coal-based thermal power plant at Sinnar, near Nashik, which will commence operations by January 2013. (BS)

Quippo-WTTIL, a joint venture between India’s Tata Tele and Quippo Telecom, is looking to sell 2-5% stake to raise funds for growth. (ET)

Polaris Software Labs said that its group firm Laser Soft has bagged a project from Andhra Pradesh State Co-operative Bank to implement core banking solutions at 22 district central co-operative banks in the state. (ET)

The Supreme Court on Tuesday remanded the income tax department’s plea back to the Bombay High Court that had allowed Essar Shipping to claim depreciation on foreign exchange loans taken for ship purchase. (FE)

EdServ Softsystems, has fixed its QIP issue at Rs 205 a share. (FE)

Nimbus Communications plans to raise up to Rs7.5bn in an IPO.(ET)


Central power regulator has made it mandatory for all power utilities to purchase 6% green power. (ET)

The Bedabahal (Orissa) ultramega power project (UMPP) may hit a road block as the captive coal mines linked with the 4,000-mw project now figures in the list of areas prohibited for mining activities by the environment ministry. (ET)

The interest rates on education loans by banks may be capped at 2% above their respective base rates. (ET)

The government will have to incur a subsidy of about Rs10bn to supply sugar through ration shops due to an increase of about Rs4/kg in the price that it pays to mills for buying the sweetener. (ET)

The Centre's direct tax mop-up increased by over 15% to Rs686bn during the first quarter of this financial year. (FE)

Government has released a discussion paper on FDI in retail. (BS)

Monsoon covers entire India nine days ahead of schedule. (BS)

India’s iron ore exports declined 15% in the Q1 FY11 on slow offtake by Chinese steel mills. (BS)