Daily News Roundup - May 7 2012

The government has slapped a hefty penalty of about US$1.24bn on Reliance Industries for the steep fall in gas output from the KG-D6 block. (ET) Cipla cut prices of key cancer drugs by nearly 75%, an astounding, one-shot reduction that is certain to unsettle the industry and trigger a price war. (ET) Tata Motors owned Jaguar Land Rover is planning to expand its plant at Castle Bromwich to build new Jaguar models and overhaul the brand. JLR intends on expanding the facility by 50%. (ET) Tata Global Beverages increased its stake in Mount Everest Mineral Water to 50% through an off-market transaction worth Rs330mn. (ET) Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering has been selected by Mazagon Dock as the preferred partner for a joint venture that will look to build warships and submarines for Indian Navy. (ET) Abbott Laboratories will collaborate with Biocon to establish a R&D centre to develop nutrition products in India. (ET) Kansai Nerolac Paints plans to set up a manufacturing unit in Bangalore at an investment of Rs3bn this fiscal. The company said that, with the new plant, its annual capacity will increase to 0.26mn tonnes from 0.22mn tonnes across its existing 4 units. (BL) Bosch Group plans to invest Rs3bn to upgrade its Nashik plant. The investment in Nashik is part of the Rs22bn investment announced by the group in January. (BL) Private sector lender Ratnakar Bank announced a partnership with Infosys. The bank plans to revamp its products and services by deploying Finacle. The deal will see Ratnakar Bank spend Rs500m on this system over the next five years. (BL) The government informed Parliament it had initiated prosecution proceedings against Vedanta Resources-owned Sesa Goa for violation of certain provisions of the Companies Act. (BS) Cairn India, along with partner ONGC, will invest US$5bn in Rajasthan’s Barmer block to ramp up output to 300,000 barrels per day, from 175,000 at present. (BS) Economy Snippets Securities and Exchange Board of India has decentralized the process of filing offer documents with effect from May 14. For an issue size of up to Rs5bn, companies would be required to file offer documents with the respective regional office of SEBI. (BL) The Department of Telecom is looking to sweeten the auction deal by putting more spectrum on the block. It has started talks with the Defence forces to get 55 Mhz of spectrum more in the 1,800 Mhz frequency band. (BL) The Government is spending Rs260.87bn for the revival of 43 sick Central Public Sector Enterprises, based on the recommendations of Board for Reconstruction of Public Sector Enterprises. (BL) Lok Sabha passed a bill allowing the centre to withdraw Rs54,000bn from the Consolidated fund to meet its expenditure during 2012-13, thus completing the second phase of the budgetary exercise. (FE)