Wary of the policing by the All India Council for Technical Education -- the body that regulates technical education in the country -- more and more management schools are going the Indian School of Business way, opting for one-year management programmes and registering themselves as private limited entities under the Companies Act, 1956.
McKinsey, RBS postpone placements by three to six months
Work on disinvesting government holdings may gather pace after the first week of August. Administrative ministries of around 15 Public Sector Undertakings have been asked to give feedback on the feasibility of coming out with initial public offers by then.
India has managed to create ripples in the global commodities market with countries like the US and China set to follow its benchmark price for potash, a fertiliser widely used in the country. Breaking a well-entrenched global cartel, government-owned Indian Potash Ltd has managed to negotiate a potash deal with Russian company Silvinit at $460 a tonne
Development plan for K-G basin runs for 12 years, so can't supply to RNRL for 17 years, says RIL.
Reliance Gas Transportation India Ltd, the pipeline company wholly owned by Reliance Industries promoter Mukesh Ambani, has decided to write to the finance ministry, seeking a restoration of profit-linked tax benefits the Budget has replaced with an investment-linked tax break.
Anil Ambani's Reliance Natural Resources Ltd is laying claim (through a family agreement prior to the group's split) to gas from estranged brother Mukesh Ambani's Reliance Industries Ltd at a fixed price of $2.34 per mBtu
With deficient monsoon reducing hydropower generation in the country by around 40 per cent, the power ministry has started stressing more on power from coal and natural gas.
Sources said the company was likely to be incorporated with the four government companies holding equity in proportion to their profits, implying that the bigger the profit size, the larger their holding. The combined holding is likely to be in the range of Rs 325 crore (Rs 3.25 billion).
With the monsoon season to begin and hotels hoping for a robust business at leisure destinations, swine flu could play spoilsport for the hotels, said industry players. At leisure destinations, international tourists form around 35 per cent of the clientele, with around 20-25 per cent coming from the US alone. Last year, tourist arrival in the country was 5.37 million, a fifth of whom stayed in five star hotels.
IIT Bombay, for instance, recently joined hands with Intellectual Ventures to seek support in marketing and licensing patents the institute holds.
The Indian government, said a senior official, wishes to take talks forward on the $7 billion Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline project.
Cairn India is open to buying the 30 per cent stake that government-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation owns in its oil block in Rajasthan. Cairn India is the operator of the block, with 70 per cent ownership currently.
Both IIM-Bangalore and IIM-Calcutta confirmed the development. "We have received placement requests from some students from the 2006-08 batch. We are trying to approach companies at a personal level and help these students get placed," confirmed a professor from IIM Bangalore.
The government-owned Indian Oil Corporation is tying up with US-based National Renewable Energy Laboratory for a pilot project to produce second generation biofuel. This biofuel -- essentailly bio-ethanol -- would be produced from cellulosic biomass or degradable agricultural waste or wood.
"With RIL commissioning its second refinery last December, the total capacity of the (Jamnagar) complex will go up to 1.24 million barrels a day, exposing it to international vagaries. By surrendering the EOU status of one refinery and maintaining that of the other, the company will be able to hedge its risks," said an industry veteran. EOU status for RIL's second refinery currently ends in March 2010.
It would be complete by 2012 with a total investment of over Rs 11,300 crore, including an estimated Rs 2,300 crore from RIL and Rs 9,000 crore from GAIL. Analysts say refineries -- Mangalore Refinery and Petrochemicals, Chennai Petroleum Corporation, Essar, Indian Oil Corporation, Hindustan Petroleum Corporation and Bharat Petroleum Corporation -- located in the vicinity of these pipelines would benefit as they would be able to substitute costly fuel oil with cheaper gas.
P M S Prasad has been part of Mukesh Ambani's A-team for the last 25 years. The 55-year-old engineer, now president and CEO (petroleum), Reliance Industries, joined the company in 1984, when it was building a captive power plant at Patalganga, 70 kilometres north of Mumbai.
RIL has been using gas from GAIL during the past three months to test-fire the 1,440-km east-west pipeline, India's longest, from Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh to Bharuch in Gujarat. Only 100 km of the pipeline remains to be test-fired. It will transport gas from the world's largest gas discovery at the Krishna-Godavari basin in the Bay of Bengal to Jamnagar in Gujarat, where it has set up the world's largest petroleum refinery.
Despite a troubled job market that could continue for another year or more, many B-schools are looking at expanding the number of seats by up to 50 per cent and launching new programmes. B-schools maintain the demand for good students will remain even in a troubled job market and the student pool and programme portfolio need to be expanded. "Besides, when these students pass out in the next two years, the market will be better," said a director from one of the institutes.