Daily News Roundup - Feb 23 2011

L&T is in talks to supply nuclear equipment to Electricite de France. (ET)

Coal India has placed an order for two giant (91.7 tonne payload each) electric mining shovels with 17-year maintenance and repair contract worth Rs5.9bn to the US-based P&H Mining Equipment Inc. (BL)



Maruti Suzuki launched the diesel variant of its SX4 sedan with an aggressive price tag of Rs 7.74-8.62 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi). (BL)

Chennai Metro Rail Ltd has awarded a Rs3bn contract for power supply and overhead equipments to Siemens AG, Germany, and Siemens India consortium. (BL)

GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare is targeting the breakfast, snacks and mid-day meals categories for expanding its foods business. (BS)

RCom today launched 3G services in Kashmir. (BS)

Ashok Leyland Defence Systems and Krauss-Maffei Wegmann GmbH & Co. KG, Germany, will work together to develop defence systems for India and international markets. (BL)

Sun Pharma has announced a plan to merge its US arm Caraco Pharma Laboratories in a deal for $5.25 a share. (ET)

Petronet LNG is turning into a marketer of natural gas from being just an importer and regassifier of LNG. Company has launched a pilot project in Vadodara, Gujarat. (BS)

Sebi has given the nod for State Bank of Bikaner and Jaipur to raise up to Rs8bn through a rights issue. (ET)

Allahabad Bank has raised its benchmark prime lending rates by 25 basis points to 13.75% a year. (ET)

Mahindra Satyam BPO has announced that NAVTEQ, a leading digital map data provider, renewed its contract for two years. (BL)

The Department of Telecommunications has revived a proposal for the merger of BSNL and MTNL to synergise their business operations across the country. (BS)

Zensar will recruit 2,200 employees in the next two years. (BL)

Delta corp said it will acquire Marvel Resorts which could cost upto Rs540mn. (FE)

Jindal Stainless is in talks to buy Ahmedabad-based Shah Alloys as part of a lenders-initiated exercise. (ET)

Sujana Energy, part of the Sujana Group, is in advanced level of talks with private equity players to raise up to US$100mn to fund its expansion into hybrid power generation. (ET)

Castrol India announces dividend of Rs8 per share (FE)
Economy Snippets

The government is likely to dilute a provision in an upcoming legislation on mining that would have required companies to share profits with local communities. (ET)

The country's food subsidy bill is expected to jump by 27% to Rs742.3bn in the 2010-11 fiscal, the Lok Sabha was told on Tuesday. (ET)

World Bank on Tuesday projected the Indian economy to grow by about 8.5-9% in the current and next financial years. (ET)

The total income tax arrears in the country stood at Rs2.5tn on April 1, 2010. (ET)

The Government has now decided to do away with the earlier announced security norms for importing telecom gear that had imposed stringent measures on the vendors. (BL)

Government has agreed to set up a joint parliamentary committee to probe into the alleged abuse in the allocation of 2G spectrum. (BL)

The government is set to propose simplified FDI norms for media companies in India, classifying them into two categories: news media and non-news media while the FDI cap for news media will continue at 26%, it is the non-news media which benefits more, with a higher FDI ceiling of 74% —up from the existing 49%. (FE)