Daily News Roundup - Jan 27 2011

An Arbitration Panel has allowed the government to sell its residual 49% stake in Bharat Aluminium Company (Balco), as it deems fit, dealing a blow to Vedanta group’s plans through Sterlite. (ET)

GVK Power and Infrastructure will develop international airports at Bali and Java in Indonesia. (ET)

Suzuki Motor Corp is taking cost-effective car models conceived by its Indian subsidiary, Maruti, to its home market. (ET)



L&T has formed a joint venture with Japan’s Kobe Steel for manufacturing equipment for tyre and rubber industry for global market with a total investment of Rs600mn. (ET)

ONGC has found shale gas indication from the pilot R&D project in West Bengal. (ET)

Adani Power plans US$500mn FCCB by mid-Feb and may use part of the proceeds to fund coal mine buy. (ET)

Rishad Premji, Wipro’s new strategy chief, has been given additional responsibility of leading the company’s M&A pursuits as India’s thirdbiggest software exporter seeks to widen its gap with aggressive rivals by identifying the next big bets. (ET)

Adani Enterprises to build rail, port project in Indonesia. (BL)

JB Chemical promoters partner for Rs11.60bn pharma SEZ. (BL)

SAIL to explore mineral deposits in Indonesia. (BL)

iGate gets IT notice to pay tax on pure onsite software development and work that involves deputation of technical manpower, also referred to as ‘body-shopping’. (ET)

Coal India plans to increase spending by 17% to Rs42.20bn in the year starting April 1 as the company seeks to expand production. (ET)

Coal India’s ERP project valued at Rs7bn gets only 2 bids. (ET)

RIL has roped in IL&FS as a strategic partner, holding 45%, to develop a model economic township and other infrastructure facilities at Jhajjar in Haryana. (ET)

Aurobindo Pharma has received approval from the US health regulator to manufacture and market generic levofloxacin tablets, used for treating bacterial infections, in the American market. (FE)

Tata Motors launched Tata Venture, a multi-purpose vehicle, in Maharashtra. (FE)
Economy Snippets

RBI raised policy rates 25 basis points, meeting market expectations, and raised inflation forecast for the fiscal by 150 basis points to 7%. (ET)

Finance minister could extend tax benefits available to software and merchandise exports under the special schemes by another year (ET)

IMF has pegged its growth forecast for the global economy higher at 4.4% while retaining the projection for India at 8.4% for 2011. (ET)

Telecom operators added 22.9mn mobile subscribers in November 2010, taking the total number of telephone users in the country to 764.8mn. (ET)

The handicraft exports have registered a growth rate of 25% from US$912mn to US$1,139mn during April-November 2010. (FE)