Daily News Roundup - Apr 13 2011

Coal India Ltd has been conferred the coveted Maharatna status, giving company autonomy for taking investment decisions. Neyveli Lignite Ltd has also been awarded Navratna status. (BS)

Coal India is planning to invite coal-bed-methane players to capture methane in the five existing underground mines in the Jharia and Bokaro coalfields in Jharkhand. (BL)

Oil ministry has sought security clearance from the home ministry for UK’s BP to buy 30% stake in most of RIL oil and gas blocks, including KG-D6 fields. (ET)



NTPC and RIL will soon enter into a complex deal to ensure supply of more gas to Andhra Pradesh power projects. (BS)

SAIL has obtained environmental clearance for the McLellan Iron Ore Mining Project, exclusively for Budhaburu lease. (BL)

The mini-refinery of ONGC at Tatipaka in East Godavari has started producing mineral turpentine oil. (BL)

The corporate R&D unit of BHEL in Hyderabad has developed a maintenance-free solar thermal sun tracker for solar photovoltaic modules that requires no external electro mechanical fittings. (BS)

Sun Pharma and Merck to form a JV to sell generic drugs in Asia Pacific, Latin America, Eastern Europe, West Asia and Africa. (ET)

Maruti Suzuki India will hire at least 2,300 people, mainly for its upcoming two new plants in Manesar, within next two years. (BS)

Bharti Airtel would launch Apple's iPhone 4 in India in the coming months. (BS)

JSW Steel has recorded its highest-ever quarterly crude steel production of 1.72mn tons in Q4 FY11. (BL)

GMR Infrastructure is close to raising as much as US$150mn in the second round of private equity investment for its airport arm, GMR Airport Holdings. (BS)

GMR Infrastructure has completed the divestment of 50% stake in InterGen to China Huaneng Group. (FE)

Emami plans to launch a host of mass-premium skin care products under ‘Pure Skin’ brand next month. (ET)

EIH will utilize more than half of its rights issue of Rs11.8bn to reduce debt. (FE)

United Spirits has taken the distillery facility of KBD Sugars and Distilleries on management lease to operate, manufacture and bottle whisky in Hubli. (BL)

United Spirits said that its McDowell's No 1 Platinum has sold over 30mn bottles in its maiden year. (ET)

Tata Chemicals will invest US$290mn to buy a 25% stake in its joint venture project with the government of Gabon to set up a urea manufacturing project. (BS)

Tata Chemicals has decided to put its domestic expansion plans on hold due to low gas supply. (BL)

Punj Lloyd has acquired 50% stake in a thermal coal mine company in central Kalimantan, Indonesia. (BS)

Punj Llyod plans to secure one highway project worth US$454mn in the current financial year, and is also looking to bid for three World Bank-funded highway projects in east Africa. (BS)

The government has fixed US$5.25 per mbtu as the provisional sale price of gas Essar Oil is producing from its Raniganj Coal Bed Methance block in West Bengal. (BS)

The Supreme Court censured Mahindra Satyam for writing to the Government adopting the tone of "arrogance" in the case relating to Rs6.17bn income tax demand, which is being re-assessed by the tax authorities. (BS)

Essar Oil, Essel Mining, Lanco Infratech, Adani Enterprises and four other companies have submitted bids to Coal India Ltd for participation in the underground coal gasification projects at the Kaitha and Thesgora coal blocks in Jharkhand and Maharashtra respectively. (BL)

Indian Overseas Bank’s US$1bn medium-term notes sale plan has received an oversubscription of US$1.9bn. (ET)

Hinduja Group has strengthened its new asset financing arm, Hinduja Leyland Finance, by increasing its capital base by 80%. (ET)

Titan Eye Plus, the eyewear retail arm of Titan Industries, expects the eastern region market to grow at 66 per cent in the current fiscal. (BS)

Rating agency CRISIL has revised its rating outlook on Great Offshore's long term loan to ‘negative' from ‘stable', due to the delay in taking delivery of its new jack-up rig. (BL)

IndusInd Bank has entered into an agreement to acquire Deutsche Bank's credit card business in India. (BS)

Uflex will invest about US$180m to set up a plant in Kentucky, the US. (FE)

Sakthi Sugars announced that its subsidiary Tilan Sugar has been dissolved under the easy exit scheme notified by the Corporate Affairs Ministry. (BS)
Economy Snippets

Industrial growth slowed to 3.6% in February, 2011, compared to 15.1% expansion in the year-ago period, dragged down by poor performance of manufacturing and mining sectors. (BS)

International Monetary Fund has lowered India's economic growth rate forecast to 8.2% for 2011. (BS)

India's coal shortage may soar to 200mn tonnes by 2017 as against 142mn tonnes by 2012, Planning Commission has said. (ET)

The government has decided to issue biometric PAN cards to taxpayers across the country to weed out the problem of duplicate and fake ones. (BS)

The Directorate General of Civil Aviation has set up three teams to carry out full-fledged audits of 40 institutions across the country from next week. (BL)

The Central Electricity Authority expects a 75,000 to 1,00,000 MW power generation capacity addition in the 12th five year plan. (BS)

The telecom companies under the (proposed) NTP-2011 will have to file an application 30 months prior for the renewal of the telecom licenses and it will be renewed for 10 years unlike 20 years as of now. (BS)

The government has released norms for appointment of relatives in companies, a decision that will allow directors or managers to engage services of close ones without seeking permission of the Centre. (BS)

The mobile value added services market is expected to generate over Rs550bn in the next four years, according to a report by PwC. (BS)

The finance ministry is likely to review the loan portfolio of public sector banks to ensure they are lending directly to the priority sector and not buying loans from regional rural banks or microfinance institutions to meet their mandatory lending requirements. (ET)

The Commission for Agriculture Costs and Prices has suggested the government rope in the private sector along with state agency FCI for undertaking procurement of food grain from farmers. (ET)