Shah Rukh Khan, the owner of Kolkata Knight Riders, is more popular in Kolkata than the KKR captain Sourav Ganguly, revealed the Reebok showrooms in Kolkata as well as the shops selling spurious KKR merchandise in the New Market area in central Kolkata.
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.
The auto sector is doing well in India, despite stock market meltdown, emerging signals of industrial slowdown and rising costs.
With revenue generation on mind, Shah Rukh Khan's Kolkata Knight Riders is regularly adding several new features to its official Web site, in an attempt to push advertising revenues as well as offer variety and interactivity to the KKR fans. The move is also expected to make cricket more fun for the fans with the launch of several 'cricketainment'-related activities for all age groups.
Banking sources said with the MTN shareholders asking for a higher price than what Bharti had initially offered, the Indian telecom company might now pay 50 per cent of the money in cash and the rest through shares in Bharti Airtel. The sources added that MTN is also believed not to favour signing an 'exclusivity' contract with Bharti Airtel under which it would be bound not to talk to any other competing bidder till the negotiations with them have been concluded.
Although Red Chillies Entertainment, owners of Kolkata Knight Riders team, has already earned Rs 12 crore from ticket sales of its home matches at Eden Gardens so far, its expenses have shot up drastically due to the new tax structures and security fee it has to shell out.
The Indian Premier League's overwhelming response in terms of ratings has seen a lot of cine-goers in Kolkata stay away from movie theatres and opt for the three-hour Kolkata Knight Riders cricket matches at home or in the stadium.
With the Indian Institutes of Management (IIMs) hiking their fees, many general category students will have to approach banks for educational loans. Most will also have to furnish collateral to get that all-important loan.IIM-Ahmedabad, for instance, has almost trebled its fees to Rs 4 lakh to Rs 11.5 lakh. IIM-Kolkata has hiked it from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 7.5 lakh. Others like IIM Bangalore and IIM Lucknow have hiked it from Rs 5 lakh to Rs 8 lakh and Rs 4 lakh to Rs 5 lakh.
This is as definitive as it can get. Dutch global beer major Heineken is understood to have outlined its intent to Vijay Mallya's United Breweries that it does not want to have any conflicting presence in India.
After 14 months of deliberation, the five-member Abhijit Sen Committee on futures trading has failed to reach a consensus on whether to support or oppose the ban on futures trading in all farm commodities. Earlier, the committee had planned to recommend continuation of the existing ban on futures trading in some farm commodities and had included it in its draft report. The government had suspended futures trading in tur, urad, wheat and rice last year.
About eight million users are estimated to be sending and receiving e-cards per month in India, and companies like 123Greetings and Webdunia are now attempting to increase their user base by making e-greetings available on mobiles too. Currently, only musical tunes can be sent with 123Greetings. It is also planning to introduce video-greetings for MMS-enabled mobile handsets. It is also talking to various community portals for offering newer applications.
The premier Indian Institutes of Management will have to draw on all their management skills to solve the current financial imbroglio they are in. On the one hand, the fee hike by IIM Ahmedabad and IIM Bangalore has caused heartburn not only among students and the Union Human Resource Development Ministry but also among the other IIMs who say they were not consulted despite an existing agreement to do so. IIM-A and IIM-B have said that a fee hike is a prerogative of their own
Eastern India sends the least number of scholars, North leads.
MarketHero.in is one of the first financial market gaming portals. A free-to-use financial and stock-broking game, built on Web 2.0 standards, it has recorded close to 500 registered users in one month. The participants can manage a virtual gaming portfolio of Rs 1 million and trade equity stocks, mutual funds and commodities, which are backed by real prices from the exchanges. It will be extended to multiple platforms such as mobile and other networks -- Facebook and Orkut.
Global information technology player, IBM, has selected 100 employees across 33 countries, including 20 from India, for specific projects under its Corporate Service Corps initiative, launched as part of its corporate social responsibility drive. These 100 employees are being sent to emerging and developing countries to address core challenges confronting society in fields like education and environment.
Reliance HR Services (RHRS), a human resources company formed by the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), will recruit half a million people for the group in the next four years.
While most companies send their employees for executive education programmes at various IIMs and IITs, freshers' recruitment is mostly based on conventional degrees since the belief is that distance learning does not enjoy the same value as regular classroom programmes. Why is it so?
The Mondols were taken in by the 'Kajla Janakalyan Samiti', formed seven years ago in Contai Deshapran block in east Medinipur district, an NGO supported by various other organisations and individuals, which works with displaced and trafficked families and trains them in ways to earn alternate livelihood.
According to Ajit Balakrishnan, chairman of the board of governors of IIM-C, "Most students who study in IIM-C come from families whose annual income is Rs 5 lakh. We are a public higher education institute funded by taxpayers' money. Hiking our fees just because IIM-Ahmedabad or IIM-Bangalore has hiked theirs will make IIM-C an opportunist."
Struggling US telecom giant Motorola is exploring the possibility of shifting part of the manufacturing facility it is closing in Singapore to India. China and Thailand are also on the radar. Top sources said India is high on the list since Motorola already has a plant in Chennai and a large domestic mobile phone base of over 120 million phones annually.