Daily News Roundup - Feb 7 2011

Oil ministry to ask Cairn India to accept its position in a lawsuit over sharing of profits in the Cairn-operated Ravva oil and gas fields as a precondition to approve the US$9.6bn Cairn-Vedanta deal. (ET)

Unitech stalls HNI move to sell shares, repays Rs1.78bn loan ahead of February 22 deadline. (ET)

BP Plc is in talks with Reliance Industries to buy a significant stake in the D6 hydrocarbon block in the Krishna-Godavari basin. (Mint)

DLF plans to appeal in the Supreme Court against a Punjab & Haryana High Court order to demolish properties on a land owned by it in Gurgaon. (ET)

Hindustan Unilever plans to launch its first fruitbased drink under the Kissan brand. (ET)

The Prime Minister’s office has recommended NTPC and Reliance Power should jointly mine adjacent coal blocks in Jharkhand to help them extract about 200mn tons of additional coal. (ET)

Siemens sells its 8-acre land parcel in Bangalore for Rs3.8bn to realty developer RMZ Corporation. (ET)

Government nod for the Cairn-Vedanta deal will take more time with the ministry of petroleum and natural gas conveying pre-conditions for an approval to the companies. (BS)

RCom and Bharti, have approached the government seeking to prematurely exit from the rural telephony scheme under the USO subsidy without fulfilling the commitment they had made by winning bids in 2007 to provide telecom services in villages. (BL)

Mozambique has awarded Jindal Steel & Power a 25-year licence to explore and mine for coal in the northwest Tete province, in return for a US$180mn investment. (DNA)

Bank of Baroda increased the minimum lending rate by 50bps to 9.5% and the BPLR by 50bps to 13.8%. (ET)

Hindustan Unilever says there could be further price hikes in its products as input costs particularly that of commodities continue to rise. (FE)

Lakshmi Vilas Bank plans to dilute 40% equity to raise Rs3.5bn from a share sale to boost its capital and raise lending. (ET)

Indian Overseas Bank plans to launch a financial services subsidiary in FY12, besides setting up exclusive branches to give gold loans. (ET)

Karur Vysya Bank increased its base rate by 50 basis points to 10%. (BS)

GMR and GVK may go to the appellate tribunal to appeal against the Airport Economic Regulatory Authority’s recent order to regulate airport revenues. (ET)

Fortis Healthcare is restructuring across its 53 hospitals in India to bring in more efficiency and re-organise the management structure. (BS)

NMDC to spend less than US$100mn to acquire 51% stake in the two mines in Australia. (BS)

Radico Khaitan says it may finalise some international marketing tie-ups to bring a few iconic brands in the country within a few months. (BL)

Fortis to invest Rs10bn for adding 12 new hospitals. (BL)

NMDC will increase ore prices for domestic steel makers from the current level of about US$140/tonne for the April-June 2011 quarter in tandem with the rise in ore prices globally. (BL)

Hinduja Group is in talks with Italian construction company Pessina Construzioni to develop four real estate projects, costing US$2bn in India. (FE)

Shree Ashtavinayak is joining hands with LFS Global for a multi-billion dollar project to build India’s largest film city near Mumbai. (ET)
Economy Snippets

Inflation serious threat to growth: PM. (ET)

Foreign exchange reserves fell US$223mn to US$299bn for the week ended January 28. (ET)

Centre has sent the empowered committee of state finance ministers yet another draft constitutional amendment on the proposed GST. (BS)

Employees Provident Fund Organization has no real surplus, says CAG. (BS)

Fertilizer companies see no under recoveries under the new nutrient based subsidy policy, which will complete one year in April. (BS)

Shipping ministry plans to set-up a new port regulatory body, and cease the operations of Tariff Authority for Major Ports and allow all ports-both minor and major-to fix their own tariffs. (DNA)

The IT industry has sought extension of tax benefits under STPI and simplification of the tax structure to encourage investments in the sector. (ET)