"Just media hype," said a relieved Sachin Kumar, executive of the Auto Vikas showroom of General Motors India in West Delhi's Moti Nagar. "There were some showroom queries on the first two days, but it died down."
Real estate developer K Raheja Universal Private Ltd wants to scrap one of their notified special economic zones and also surrender a part of another zone, citing lack of demand from the information technology sector.
It's actually a problem of plenty for investors now. Buoyed by the success of the three companies that sold their QIP issues within a day of opening, as many as 32 companies have joined the queue, hoping to raise a combined Rs 40,000 crore (Rs 400 billion).
CSO revised downwards the construction sector numbers, which account for nearly 9 per cent of India's GDP, for the fourth quarter of fiscal 2008. This revision to 6.9 per cent as against the initial estimate of 12.6 per cent leads to 40 basis point upside to GDP growth. For agriculture, CSO revised the growth numbers to 2.2 per cent as against the initial estimate of 3.5 per cent. This led to higher agriculture growth of 2.7 per cent in January-March 2009.
Government sources in the PMO said Montek Singh Ahluwalia and other panel members will continue till the next Planning Commission is constituted by the prime minister. The apex panel plays a crucial role in the budgetary process. Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee is likely to present the Budget in the first week of July. Though the recommendations of the Plan panel are not legally binding, the inputs are crucial in dealing with the planned expenditure by the government.
Speculators often leveraged volume discounts on property purchases to re-sell them at prices lower than those available to individual buyers. This created problems for realtors when demand slowed, since it put pressure on them to take a hit on margins and lower prices still further. The lock-ins are expected to be introduced mostly for mid-income projects that offer prices 20 to 30 per cent below the market and, therefore, attract more undercutting from bulk discount buyers.
Telecom equipment vendor Nokia-Siemens filed a case in the Delhi High Court today against its disqualification on technical grounds as a bidder for state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd's tender for 94 million lines, one of the world's largest telecom contracts worth over Rs 50,000 crore.
After a near six-month drought, India Inc is finding some takers for debt and equity issues. Though private and the foreign banks are yet to step up lending in a big way, public sector banks have started financing projects.
The bench consisting of acting Chief Justice of Madras High Court S J Mukhopadhyaya and Justice Ibrahim Kalifula on Monday set aside the earlier order according to which TVS Motors was restrained from using the twin spark technology, which was patented by Pune-based, India's second largest two wheeler manufacturer Bajaj Auto.
This means, any investors who had submitted an application to the fund house for purchase or redemption on Monday, before 3 pm will not get the net asset value of the current day. The applications for both, redemption and investments will be processed based on tomorrow's NAV. This will also apply to those who invested after 3 pm on Friday. As markets were closed after hitting the upper circuit, mutual funds could not buy or sell stocks.
In the oil and gas sphere, Congress' manifesto talks of the intention to improve oil diplomacy and intensify domestic oil exploration and production.
Jet Airways, Kingfisher shift flights to low-cost platforms; experts expect a fare war. "Every year, airlines come up with cheap fares in the summer season, but not like this year. I had never seen airlines offering 50 per cent cash-back offers. Now with Jet Konnect and Kingfisher Red, there are more flights to the routes where LCCs used to dominate," says Bhawna Agarwal, co-founder and head of air business, Yatra.com.
Jet Airways announced the launch of a new all-economy, no-frills service called Jet Airways Konnect starting May 8.
Workers at Mahindra & Mahindra's largest plant, at Nashik, have gone on an indefinite 'tools down' strike, denting the company's revenue by Rs 25 crore a day.
Most large American companies earn more than 50 per cent of their revenue from markets outside the US and will be affected by the proposed tax reforms. Business groups in the US had assailed the proposal, arguing it would subject them to far higher taxes than their foreign competitors must pay and ultimately endanger US jobs. Global companies that earn profits in India are subject to a tax rate of 33.9 per cent and the impact of the proposed reforms on them would be marginal.
Industry sources said the carrier owed over Rs 620 crore to BPCL and HPCL, besides Rs 160 crore to IOC. However, Kingfisher Airlines is not the only company with oil dues. Kingfisher Airlines, Jet Airways and state-owned Air India started this financial year with accumulated dues of Rs 4,000 crore to oil companies and airports, sources said. The three airlines are collectively projected to incur operating losses of Rs 5,000 crore, industry estimates suggest.
A decision to this effect has been taken after Arun Ramanathan retired as finance secretary on Thursday. Currently, Chawla is the senior-most official in the finance ministry. In addition, G C Chaturvedi, currently serving as additional secretary in the ministry of health and family welfare, has been appointed as additional secretary in-charge of the financial services department.
The domestic travel and hospitality sectors, which are reeling under the impact of the slowdown and the Mumbai terror attacks, are hoping that the swine flu does not spread to other regions and mar sentiment for travel. Hotel occupancies and tariffs across India have dropped 20 per cent in the last few months, even as foreign tourist arrivals fell by 14 per cent in the first three months of 2009.
The bank expects to still lend at least Rs 30,000 crore, which is close to the loan repayments it gets every year. During 2008-09, the bank's loan book shrank by 3.2 per cent. "We get a lot of repayments every year, which is close to Rs 30,000 crore and even if we keep our balance sheet constant, we will do at least Rs 30,000 crore of lending, if not more," Chanda Kochhar, who takes over as managing director & CEO of the bank on Friday, told Business Standard.
Year 2008 results of India's largest drug maker, Ranbaxy Laboratories, and Wockhardt were also impacted by forex losses. Companies such as Aurobindo and Orchid are also expected to post forex losses, say analysts.