Mahindra & Mahindra, the Indian carmaker, confirmed Tuesday that it had pulled out of a $1bn joint venture with Renault and Nissan to set up a factory near Chennai.
The company is still short of over Rs 4500 crore (Rs 45 billion) to refinance the debt which is due before June 2 this year. The company had planned to raise the fund for refinancing through three routes. It planned to raise about Rs 4200 crore through rights issues which it managed after the issue devolved on underwriters in October as the stock prices were tumbling globally following the economic crisis.
Will the Indian auto giant manage to take Jaguar and Land Rover off Ford's hands?
This camera that assists in locating a safe landing area -- without boulders or deep trenches -- during the descent is developed by Ahmedabad-based Space Applications Centre (SAC), a major research and development centre of ISRO.
Four years after it broke many hearts, Indian Space Research Organisation's Chandrayaan is all set to soar towards the moon in its third expedition on Friday in an attempt to put the country in an elite club of nations that accomplished lunar missions with a soft landing.
With the US economy in a downturn, it could be a while before the Jaguar and Land Rover business turns around. For the first half of 2008, JLR has posted losses of $383 million on sales of $ 7.07 billion, a disclosure that saw the Tata Motors stock fall 5 per cent on September 23.
Bajaj Auto's margins are expected to expand 100 basis points, as volumes have recovered.
Newcastle United midfielder Joey Barton was released from jail on Monday after serving 2-1/2 months of a six-month sentence for attacking a teenager last year.
NASA's Lunar Reconnaissance Orbiter spacecraft has snapped a series of images during its flyby on September 17 of Vikram's attempted landing sight near the Moon's uncharted south pole.
More than a decade after the iconic race car brand Jaguar was forced to pull out from the gruelling 24-hour Le Mans race, the new owner, the Rs 16,400-crore Tata Motors, is considering a plan to put the brand back on the racing track.
After a string of foreign deals in the last few years, including Tata Motors' purchase of Land Rover and Jaguar brands from Ford for $2.3 billion this year, attempts by Indian companies to acquire assets abroad are increasingly hitting roadblocks. At least, the recent attempts by Indian companies suggest so.
However, notable absentees from the expo will be Honda, Toyota, Ford, BMW, Audi, Lexus, Volvo and Jaguar Land Rover along with two-wheeler majors Hero MotoCorp, Bajaj Auto and TVS Motor Co.
Speaking to MPs from the West Midlands in the House of Commons during his recent visit, Tata said jobs at the research centres at Whitley and Gaydon were secure at least until 2012. A fresh business plan is expected to be drawn up for the company in 2012. Coventry South MP Jim Cunningham told reporters after the meeting that Tata indicated the possibility of employing more workers at the two centres.
The initial assessment of the first-ever measurements of the near-surface lunar plasma environment over the south pole region by RAMBHA-LP payload onboard Chandrayaan-3 lander indicates that plasma there is relatively sparse, ISRO said on Thursday.
Friday's mission is the fourth operational flight of LVM3 which aims to launch the Chandrayaan-3 spacecraft into a Geo Transfer Orbit.
Tata Motors made waves when it bought the Jaguar and Land Rover brands. Test your knowledge about the erstwhile owner of these brands -- Henry Ford.
Tata Motors has succeeded in securing a $3bn banking facility for its purchase of Jaguar and Land Rover from Ford Motor, which should clear the way for the deal to close next week. Tata's ability to raise the money in spite of the turmoil on debt markets represents a vote of confidence in the Indian company and removes one of the last main obstacles to the deal.
"The toughest part was continuing to believe that we could do it," Tata told journalists covering the Auto Expo in New Delhi, where he unveiled the lowest-priced car in the world. He added that "a promise is a promise", hinting at the ability of his company to deliver even in the face of brutal scepticism.
American auto giant Ford is likely to retain a stake and continue supplying engines and some of the components for Jaguar and Land Rover, even after the sale of the two British luxury brands, media reports said in the United Kingdom.
India's corporate honchos spent a considerable time and energy this year at deal tables and executed over thousand transactions involving sale or purchase of equity stakes in their companies. On an average, every single day of 2007 saw about three deals being announced. This included a total of 1,047 merger and acquisitions as well as private equity deals for a total value of $68.32 billion (about Rs 2,75,000 crore).
People close to Indian carmakers Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra, and the buy-out group One Equity Partners, said on Tuesday that they expected Ford to respond imminently to their revised offers made last week.
While the rich are buying expensive luxury vehicles in Patna, the poor continue to suffer. The pandemic, discovers M I Khan, has cast new light on the stark economic divide in the capital city of Bihar, India's poorest state.
Asked if the lander was 'damaged' during the 'hard landing", Sivan said: "That we do not know".
The new car market is estimated at around 30,000 units a year in sales in a good year, whereas the used car market for luxury vehicles is estimated at around 60,000 cars annually.
India's largest automotive group said it had received 203,000 pre-paid orders worth Rs25bn ($507m) for the Nano, the world's cheapest car, which it put on sale for a 16-day booking period which ended on April 25.
From Maruti to Honda, every big manufacturer has lined up launches in the domestic market.
'What's sad today is that there are so many people who cannot find work, not because the country is devoid of that opportunity, but because we are not doing enough in the country.'
The report says Tata Motors, JLR's new owners, will produce 200-300 less cars by the end of the year. That would be equal to about a week's worth of production for the Jaguar models of XJ and XK.
Ford said its Jaguar F1 team would pull out at the end of the 2004 season and its Cosworth engine company was also up for sale.
"The panel's report is awaited. The committee has been given a guideline to prepare the mission before the end of next year," a senior ISRO official said. "There is a good launch window in November".
Conducting in-situ scientific experiments is underway. All payloads are performing normally, ISRO said.
Chandrayaan-1, India's first mission to the Moon, was launched on October 22, 2008 from Sriharikota spaceport in Andhra Pradesh.
"I congratulate them on this. When it is time tomorrow for its safe arrival on earth, the whole country should welcome it," he said.
An Indian ownership of Jaguar, one of the two luxury cars that the US car maker Ford is selling off, is not acceptable to the American dealers of the brand. Tata group and Mahindra & Mahindra are two of the front-runners for acquisition of Jaguar and Land Rover, along with a private equity bidder, One Equity that is led by a former Ford CEO.
'Vikram' with rover 'Pragyaan' housed inside is scheduled for a powered-descent between 1 am and 2 am on September 7, followed by its touchdown between 1.30 am and 2.30 am.
Leading scientists and experts said this monumental accomplishment not only marks India's indelible imprint on lunar exploration but also demonstrates the prowess of human collaboration, determination, and cutting-edge technology.
So what's special about the Kaziranga range? Rajesh Karkera and Hitesh Harisinghani find out.
