The government has sought to put an end to the ambiguities in the implementation of Press Notes 2 and 4, which significantly relaxed foreign direct investment (FDI) guidelines, with the Commerce Ministry requesting the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to make changes in the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) to operationalise the guidelines. The direction from the government follows a number of references and queries from investors.
Claim breach in procedure, demand probes; Reliance denies charge
Halving the productivity-linked incentive will make its salary levels unattractive and put a heavier burden on junior staffers.
Eases regulatory hurdles for Bharti-MTN deal.
New Delhi, 7 August A strike call and its withdrawal proved an embarrassment for a former senior aviation bureaucrat.
Airline losses have more to do with their business models than the price of aviation fuel.
MTNL will be one of the few big telecom companies in the world to allow competitors to offer their brand on its network.
Airline asks for Rs 7,000 cr; may get half subject to conditions.
The government's financial restructuring plan for loss-making Air India may include a staggered infusion of equity, entailing an initial infusion of around Rs 1,300 crore (Rs 13 billion), going up to around Rs 2,000 crore (Rs 20 billion), depending on the company's need.
The guidelines also point out that it is not advisable to form 50-50 JVs, since such a company is regarded as a private company and functions as such, even though the PSU is an equal shareholder. In many cases these entities are not accountable to Parliament or the state assembly.
A bitter battle between the finance ministry and the Department of Telecommunications over their jurisdiction might force the latter to withdraw its decision to waive licence fees for fixed-line service operators in rural areas.
The government's plan to restructure Air India, the loss-making state-owned airline, includes a proposal to rework the troubled productivity-linked incentive scheme, which accounts for over 45 per cent of the company's Rs 3,000 crore wage bill.
DIPP seeks automatic approval, has Plan panel and DEA's support.
Non-resident Indian businessman C Sivasankaran's Sterling Infotech group is in talks with the Seychelles government to lease an island for 99 years, on which it plans to build an integrated mega township and tourism project.
Civil aviation minister Praful Patel, who held this portfolio in the first government of the United Progressive Alliance, too, has so far followed a liberal open-sky policy, sharply increasing the number of seats offered to West Asian airlines on flights connecting India. According to internal figures available with airlines, the total number of seats offered to West Asian carriers rose from 2.5 million in 2004 to 7.5 million last year.
Wockhardt Chairman Habil Khorakiwala can breathe easy, as bankers have approved the debt restructuring package he had sought three months ago.
The Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) under the Ministry of Commerce has called a meeting on July 10 to discuss the foreign direct investment (FDI) policy in the cigarette industry.
Reliance Power Ltd, part of the Reliance Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group, is in talks with five leading global power companies to sell 15 per cent equity stake in the company. Preliminary talks have started with three Chinese power companies, which include China Light and Power Holdings, and French and Canadian companies.
Tata Teleservices' GSM innings is likely to be a tough one despite its innovative offerings and tie-up with the Japanese market leader, NTT DOCOMO.
The Foreign Investment Promotion Board has made it clear that Press Notes 2 and 4 issued in February 2009, which changed the way indirect foreign equity would be treated in calculating foreign investment levels in Indian corporations, cannot take effect retrospectively for proposals before the board.
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