Daily News Roundup - March 27 2012

ICICI Bank has asked Kingfisher Airlines to provide more collateral for loans given to it or face a cut in credit even as promoter Vijay Mallya prepares to present a long awaited revival plan for the teetering carrier on Tuesday. (ET) Telenor opposed its JV partner Unitech’s petition before Company Law Board, seeking arbitration in dispute over control of Uninor. (ET) With KG-D6 output hitting an all-time low, Reliance Industries and partner BP will submit to the government by October an integrated development plan to produce natural gas from all the 18 discoveries in the block. (ET) Jindal Steels ambitious but risky foray into iron ore mining in Bolivia faces an uncertain future after the Bolivian government reneged on its promise of natural gas, a crucial input into steel-making. (ET) In a last ditch effort to rescue Kingfisher Airlines, liquor distributors belonging to the UB group are expected to pitch in with slightly over Rs10bn. (BL) Gammon Infrastructure Projects has bagged a contract from the NHAI for four-laning a national highway in Haryana at an estimated cost of Rs9.35bn. (BS) Larsen and Toubro has started the delivery of US$40mn worth of equipment used in nuclear reactors to the US. (BS) Persistent Systems and Precision Automation & Robotics India Ltd and Maharashtra University of Health Sciences, Nashik are working in robotics surgery area to reduce the cost of development of robots, advance technology and ultimately resulting in reducing cost of the surgery. (BS) State Bank of India has launched a one-time settlement scheme for recovering bad loans in its micro, small and medium enterprises portfolio. To make the scheme attractive, the bank is also offering discounts to borrowers. (BL) Bank of India has launched an online remittance service for non-resident Indians in the UK. (BL) ING has selected Finacle to transform its core banking software and Infosys will power multiple business areas of the bank such as deposits and loans, savings and current accounts among others. (BL) SEBI has granted exemption to the Government of India from the obligation of making an open offer in the case of IDBI Bank. (BL) Economy Snippets Interest rates on post office-operated small savings such as Monthly Income Scheme and Public Provident Fund have been raised by up to 0.5%. (ET) The Maharashtra Finance Minister, Mr Ajit Pawar, projected a marginal Rs1.52bn revenue surplus for FY2012-13 in the Budget presented in the Legislative Assembly. (BL) Small Industries Development Bank of India has committed 30% of its Rs1bn microfinance development fund to some of the country’s poorest microfinance companies, which are yet to get significant funding post the liquidity crisis of 2010-11. (ET) Borrowers from NBFCs can look forward to more clarity from their lenders as the RBI has released the fair practices code for NBFCs, which, among other things, stipulates the need to mention the penal interest rate if any in bold in the loan agreement. (ET)