A day after the Reserve Bank of India's monetary-tightening measures, banks on began raising interest rates, effecting the hike for the second time in a month.
Bharat Petroleum Corporation (BPCL), the country's second largest oil marketing company, plans to diversify into bottled water and direct to home (DTH) services in an attempt to boost its profits.
India's premier technical institute, IIT-Bombay's golden jubilee celebrations -- to be held in New York from July 18 to 20 this year -- have stirred a hornet's nest. The reason is that Dow Chemicals is one of the main sponsors.
The IT-BPO industry is becoming increasingly alert on fake biodatas. India's largest IT serivces provider, Tata Consultancy Service, has recently asked close to 20 employees at its Kolkata centre to leave after the company, during the background verification, found that these employees have used fudged resumes to get jobs.
The company had hedged $2.5 billion as of March 2008, but unwound its position reducing its exposure to $1.7 billion as on June 30. The unwinding resulted in a loss. An analyst tracking the firm said: "This was expected as HCL Tech had a major portion of its hedges in forward cover. Since the company has unwound $540 million of forward covers, a major part of which will show up in other income.
The double whammy saw the Bombay Stock Exchange's benchmark Sensex fall 3 per cent or 456.39 to close at 13,469.85 even as global rating agency Standard and Poor's suggested it might lower India's sovereign rating of BBB- (investment-grade status) due to the country's deteriorating credit profile over the last 12 months.
Despite a tough economic scenario, the Indian IT software and services sector will touch the $50-billion mark in 2008-09, though the indicated growth is lower at 21-24 per cent (currency-adjusted), according to Nasscom.
Low-cost carriers SpiceJet and IndiGo were two of the main traders of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) at the Multi Commodity Exchange of India (MCX), which started trading of ATF futures on Monday, market sources said. Around Rs 34.8 crore worth of ATF was traded till five on Monday evening.
The voluntary move comes a little more than a year after the Central Drugs Standard Control Organisation, the central authority that approves new drugs for marketing, had asked the drug makers to withdraw the 'combination drugs' as they are 'unnecessary' and may pose health hazards. The Drugs Controller General of India had banned 294 combination drugs sold under nearly 1,053 brand names from the market in June 2007.
Auditing firms in the country could soon run out of business if they do not get themselves verified according to the guidelines mentioned in the Eighth Directive issued by the European Union (EU). EU will recognise balance-sheets of companies audited by firms that fit their specified standards.
Nearly 30 Indian firms that have imported aircraft for charter use are under the scanner of the Customs authorities for allegedly flouting import norms in order to evade taxes.
The finance ministry is considering meeting a key demand of truckers by easing procedural issues and raising the abatement on service tax.
A day after the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) raised the benchmark repo rate and cash reserve ratio (CRR), leading property developers said they are mulling hiking prices of apartments and focusing on the affordable housing segment to counter the impact of a high interest rate regime.
Maruti Suzuki and other Indian companies are bracing themselves for a slump in demand after a 13-year high inflation triggered fears of curbs on consumer spending and the central bank raising interest rates, thereby hurting India Inc's expansion plans. The annual wholesale price index -- the most watched index in the country to gauge rising prices -- rose to 11.05 per cent in the last 12 months ending June 7.
Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) Chairman Deepak Parekh on Tuesday said that interest rates may rise owing to higher inflation, but lending rates are unlikely to change in the next one month.
Chief Executive S Ramadorai said, "We have hedged for about $1.5 billion. I believe one has to run the business on fundamentals and not on currency fluctuations." He also said it was very difficult to predict the rupee movement as in the last one-and-a-half months, the currency has begun to depreciate against the dollar.
Adversity often brings out the best in companies, even state-owned ones. Faced with a bloated fuel bill, companies are busy devising new ways to control costs. These range from cut in travel to shift to cheaper fuels and even reduced recruitment. Power equipment maker Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd has a brand new strategy in place -- it will set up onsite fabrication units rather than transport equipment over long distances.
The second central public sector units (PSU) pay revision committee report has suggested a new classification of state-owned companies linking salaries and remuneration to productivity and performance.
According to Jagdish Shettigar, chairman of BJP's economic cell and former member of the Prime Minister's Economic Advisory Council, infrastructure, especially road building, will be a priority. It is now also certain that work on the controversial 111-km Nandi Infrastructure Corridor Enterprise connecting Bnagalore and Mysore will be accelerated. "We have always supported NICE," said a BJP leader.
The race for South African telecom major MTN Group is hotting up with the possibility of two other players evaluating a bid or a strategic relationship with the company. Banking sources say European telecom major Deutsche Telekom and Russian telco Vimpel Communications are also studying the possibility of talking to the MTN Group.
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