Leading steel producers Tata Steel and state-owned Steel Authority of India Ltd on Tuesday agreed to hold their prices for 2-3 months after the government's top economic managers spoke out against the rising cost of steel and cement. Essar Steel said it too could look at a similar assurance. Finance Minister P Chidambaram told Parliament that cement and steel producers were acting like a cartel and the govt was looking at legal and administrative measures to deal with them.
A lot of hype has been generated ahead of the launch of iPhone, which would be available at Rs 31,000 a piece for the 8Gb memory model and Rs 36,100 for 16GB from the stroke of midnight on Thursday. Leading service providers Vodafone-Essar and Bharti Airtel, who have been accepting bookings from customers, have said the response has been extremely good.
In his letter dated October 19, Anil Ambani points out that while the top three GSM players -- Bharti, Vodafone-Essar and Idea Cellular -- have acquired an additional 52 million subscribers in the past few years without allocation of any additional spectrum, something they have constantly told the government that they do not have sufficiently.
Top steel producers like SAIL, Tata Steel, JSW and Essar have decided to maintain status quo on steel prices even as the three-month price freeze ends today. Industry sources said they have decided to keep prices on hold as of now since inflation is ruling at a 13-year high of 11.98 per cent and any increase would aggravate the situation.
Vodafone has rejected a restructuring call by an activist investor lobby that would have unlocked up to $75 billion to shareholders, saying such business strategies could have prevented it from recent acquisitions such as Hutch-Essar in India.
In the case, which will begin on Tuesday and last for five days, Indian tax authorities will argue that Vodafone, the UK-based mobile phone group headed by Arun Sarin, is liable for an estimated $2bn in taxes on its $11bn acquisition of local operator, Hutchison Essar, last year.
Vodafone appointed to its board on Thursday a former group managing director at HTIL's parent company Hutchison Whampoa.
Power Finance Corporation, the nodal agency for ultra mega power projects, has extended the last date for accepting bids for Krishnapatnam project to October 24, sources said. Essar Power, Sterlite Industries, Larsen and Toubro, D S Construction, Japan's Sumitomo Corp and CLP-GMR combine are other companies believed to be in the qualified bidders list.
High-end mobile device Blackberry, which was till now available only with the GSM operators, will be soon launched on CDMA platform by Reliance Communications.
Bid to plug loopholes that surfaced in Hutch Essar case.
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.
The total revenues and net profit of the top six Indian telecom players, Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications, BSNL, Hutchison Essar, MTNL and Idea Cellular, more than doubled during the last two years.
The petitioner said the companies were increasing the prices just to earn huge profit. Companies like Bharti Airtel had posted an annual profit of more than 90 per cent, the NGO said.
The government on Friday cleared British telecom firm Vodafone's application for buying a majority stake in India's fourth-largest mobile operator Hutch-Essar Ltd.
Hutch's migration to the Vodafone brand became complete on Wednesday, but the pug that made the mobile company ever so popular with the masses will remain.
NMDC pitted against Tatas, Essar on Bailadila deposits.
The Foreign Investment Promotion Board has expressed dissatisfaction with the replies given by Hutchison Essar, its Hong Kong-based parent Hutchison Telecom International
Joining the rush of companies looking for spectrum, BPL Mobile has applied for a unified access service licence in 21 of the country's 23 telecom circles.
Sources said I-T deparment has sent a notice to Vodafone for not paying capital gains tax, arguing that the company should have deducted tax at source while making payment to Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecom International Ltd.
Aegis BPO Services, an Essar Group business process outsourcing (BPO) company, is close to acquiring an 8,000-seater BPO firm in the Philippines. The exact size of the deal is not clear.Aegis has been bullish on inorganic growth as its races to reach a turnover of $500 million (around Rs 2,000 crore) by 2010.
Setting an ambitious target of 100 million cellular subscribers, leading private GSM operator Vodafone-Essar today announced an investment of $6 billion (about Rs 24,000 crore) in the next three years.
In the last three months, attrition of the company has come down by 25 per cent. The company's attrition on an average ranges from 38 to 58 per cent annually.
In November they had raised $2.19 billion from abroad, according to the Reserve Bank data released on Friday.
The department of telecommunications is planning to seek details from four operators - Bharti-Airtel, Hutchison-Essar, Tata Teleservices Ltd and Reliance Communications - on the fulfillment of rollout obligations under the mobile telephony licence.
Undeterred by the controversy surrounding its acquisition of Hutch-Essar, Vodafone asserted on Monday it was fully compliant with the foreign direct investment regulations as it had 'only stepped into the shoes of Hutchison Telecom.'
The FIPB referred the matter to the law ministry today.
The Hinduja Group, Mukesh Ambani, Murugappa, and the Adani groups were the other gainers in the Modi regime, while Naveen Jindal and Sun Pharma groups saw the most erosion in their m-cap in the last five years, reports Krishna Kant.
A depreciation in the value of the rupee against the dollar, coupled with surging crude oil prices, are likely to push the country's crude oil import bill to over $100 billion in 2008-09, from $77.02 billion in 2007-08, according to industry officials.
The Essar group has also closed down 275 outlets across the country. The two companies could not withstand 'unfair competition' from government-backed companies which are compensated for selling fuel at subsidised rates.
As per TRAI norms, Vodafone and Airtel are close to getting added spectrums, given their growing subscriber rates.
Russian billionaire Mikhail Fridman's mobile firm Altimo, which had recently evinced interest in Hutch-Essar, today said it was still looking for potential acquisition opportunities in India.
The domestic supply of diesel has been constrained on rapidly growing demand. The diversion of supplies from Reliance Industries, which was given export-oriented unit status last year, has added to the shortage. Reliance produces 10 million tonnes of diesel from Jamnagar.
The Hinduja group plans to go ahead and set up a Rs 25,600 crore (Rs 256 billion) refinery at Kakinada even if its indecisive project partner Oil and Natural Gas Corporation opts out. ONGC had put a slew of conditions, including Andhra Pradesh government giving 950 acres of land free of cost, sales tax exemption and fiscal concessions equivalent to a Special Economic Zone, for setting up the 15 million tons refinery-cum-petrochemical project at Kakinada.
The petroleum ministry has rapped Reliance Industries for failing to meet its obligations of opening and operating 10 per cent of its petrol and diesel retail outlets in remote and low-service areas.
The government, however, amended the tax laws with retrospective effect to undo the Supreme Court judgement and claim taxes.
Of BSE 500 companies, promoters of 142 companies have pledged their holding.
Five major steel producers including SAIL, Tata Steel and Essar have decided to hold the price line for up to three months after an appeal by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh not to manipulate prices for short-term gains. India has said it will take measures to bring down steel prices, but would first wait to see if producers do it on their own. High steel prices are partly to blame for soaring inflation, which rose to 7.33 per cent for the week ended April 12.
Tops the group in mobile voice usage volumes.
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