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egNEW DELHI: Gautam Adani plans to acquire power plants with a total capacity of 5,000 mw, but he will avoid aggressive bids to ensure good returns, a source close to the tycoon said a day after Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group outbid him to buy 1,800 mw hydro power capacity from Jaypee Group.

 

Gautam Adani is directly involved in evaluating offers and negotiations, something he left to company executives in the past, the source said. The company is in talks with several power sector players, including GMR, Lanco, Indiabulls, Avantha Power and Athena, the source said.

 

Another person in the Adani Group said there are many sellers in the market, offering projects with a combined capacity of nearly 50,000 mw.

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fsNew Delhi: Finance minister Arun Jaitley will address the board of the Reserve Bank on August 9 amid expectations that the central bank will complement government actions by reducing rates to boost growth. “The meeting has been scheduled for August 9 where he would be addressing the board members and talk about announcements made in the Budget to perk up growth,” a source said. Jaitley is likely to inform the RBI board about the steps taken to contain the fiscal deficit and may underline the need to reduce interest rates to promote growth. It has been a custom that the finance minister addresses RBI board, consisting of RBI governor and existing three deputy governors, after the Budget. The meeting comes in the backdrop of the persistent high food

egNEW DELHI: In a big push to 31,000-MW of electricity generation plants stranded without fuel, the power ministry has proposed a Rs 5,700 crore subsidy to help operationalise idle gas-based capacity, a loan restructuring scheme for such plants and the supply of coal to projects that will be commissioned before March 2015.

 

The proposals will benefit 24,148 MW of gas-based projects and 7,230 MW of plants that run on coal, set up at a total investment of about Rs 1,50,000 crore.

 

An additional 10,930 MW of coal-based plants that will be commissioned before March are also likely to gain. The ministry will approach the Union cabinet with a proposal to pool prices of imported gas and coal with domestic fuels to help stran

ogNew Delhi: GAIL (India), under a petroleum ministry directive, has decided to buy a third of the LNG ships it plans to acquire to ferry the fuel from the US to India, from Indian shipbuilders. Considering that the PSU, whose massive LNG imports from the US would start in 2017, has lined up investments to the tune of $7.6 billion for hiring the required specialised vessels, the move would give a big boost to the Indian shipbuilding industry.

 

Domestic players such as L&T and Pipavav are among the obvious beneficiaries of the decision, which is in line with the Modi government’s thrust on the domestic manufacturing sector. Although some analysts are doubtful about the feasibility of Indian ship makers meeting such huge demand g

defNew Delhi: The NDA government has deferred its decision on the procurement of 16 multi-role helicopters for the Indian Navy as one of the two companies in the race for the deal is linked with Finmeccannica– the parent organisation of the scam-tainted firm AgustaWestalnd.

 

The Defence Acquisition Council headed by Defence Minister Arun Jaitley put off its decision on the procurement of the helicopters for the Navy from vendors including American Sikorsky and European NH Industries, which has Finmeccannica as one of its partners, highly-placed sources said.

 

Finmeccannica is the parent firm of AgustaWestland firm, whose Rs 3,600 crore contract for supplying 12 VVIP choppers to the IAF has been scrapped by the

Qatar’s state spending increased 12.7 percent last fiscal year, the lowest rate in 11 years, as slow growth in current expenditure offset a sharp rise in funds spent on infrastructure projects, data showed on Sunday. Expenditure rose to a record high of 231.7 billion riyals ($63.6 billion) in the year that ended in March, from 205.6 billion riyals in 2012/13, preliminary finance ministry data released by the […]

DUBAI // An online push by the Roads and Transport Authority and a private website to encourage car-pooling among commuters has been warmly received. The RTA website, Sharekni, allows users to register and find others who want to share the daily drive. Carpool Arabia does the same thing but is privately operated. They both say commuters are keen to avoid relentless rush-hour traffic, the challenge of finding […]

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ogHindustan Petroleum Corporation Limited (HPCL), a major stakeholder in the proposed refinery cum petrochemical complex at Pachpadra, may give in to the Rajasthan government’s demand to increase the state’s share from 26% in HPCL-Rajasthan Refinery Limited (HRRL).

 

Chief minister Vasundhara Raje vowed to renegotiate the terms under which the previous Congress government persuaded HPCL to set up the refinery. In her budget speech, Raje had targeted the conditions in the agreement and termed it as unique and against the interest of the state. She pointed out that despite giving land, interest free loan of Rs 3,736 crore each year (for 15 years) and oil wells, the state controls only 26% while HPCL has stake of 76%.

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Households could claim cashback for installing double or triple glazing Photo: Alamy After just six short weeks, the Green Deal Home Improvement fund is no more. The cashback fund, launched on June 9, abruptly closed to new applicants on Thursday night. The Department for Energy and Climate said “overwhelming popular demand” meant the allocation of £120m – meant to last until April 2015 – has already been hoovered […]

egNEW DELHI: Power plants in India are not importing coal despite global prices of the fuel slumping to decade-low levels. Power generating companies are rather operating at lower capacity on domestic coal that is short in supply, as distribution companies (discoms) are not willing to pay for costly power fuelled by imports.

 

A Mumbai-based trader, who did not wish to be identified, said global prices had fallen to a 10-year low due to weak demand from China that is reducing dependence on imports by encouraging production from own mines.

 

He said prices of 4,200 kcal/kg thermal coal in international markets were hovering around $36.50 per million tonne as against $52 per million tonne two years ago.

 

Du, the United Arab Emirates’ second biggest telecoms operator, expects to offer Internet-based phone calls and broadband services across the country before the year-end in a network sharing deal with rival Etisalat that has been in the works since 2009.  This network sharing agreement is an important step for du, which ended Etisalat’s domestic telecoms monopoly in 2007, but which has since been limited to newer areas […]

fsMumbai: The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has raised the foreign institutional investors’ (FIIs’) sub-limit in government bonds by $5 billion, after the existing $20-billion limit was almost exhausted. The move is expected to stabilise yields, volatile in the recent past. The overall limit for FII investment in government bonds has been kept unchanged at $30 bn. As a result on the rise in the sub-limit, that for long-term investors like insurance and pension funds will be reduced to $5 bn. RBI said the incremental investment limit of $5 bn shall be required to be invested in government bonds with a minimum residual maturity of three years. Besides, all future investment against the limit vacated, when the current investment by these foreign inve

DEFRussian-Indian international naval drills Indra-2014 ended in Russian far eastern city of Vladivostok. “Russian and Indian naval sailors fulfilled all tasks completely,” head of the press service of the Russian Pacific Fleet Captain First Rank Roman Martov told Itar-Tass on Sunday.

 

At the final meeting aboard the guards missile-carrying cruiser Varyag Assistant Commander of the Pacific Fleet Rear Admiral Andrey Ryabukhin noted that interoperability and trust between two fleets reached a very high level.

 

For his part, Commander of the Indian Eastern Fleet Rear Admiral Atul Kumar Jain said at this meeting that naval sailors had acquired a very good experience and were on the way back home with the posit

The worst Qatar stock rout in nine months is creating a buying opportunity for some of the biggest Middle East investors, who say they’re undaunted by speculation the country will lose the right to host the 2022 World Cup. Emirates NBD PJSC, whose wealth management division oversaw about $2.1 billion at the end of 2013, says it’s looking to add stocks because any impact on corporate earnings […]

SHARJAH // Hindus and Sikhs in the emirate can complete the last rites for the dead at Sharjah’s first crematorium, which was finally opened this week. The crematorium is the fourth in the country and has become operational after a hold-up of more than a year owing to documentation, clearance permissions and delay in the electricity connection provided to the site. “People have been approaching us for […]

WASHINGTON — Did the search for Sgt. Bowe Bergdahl cost the lives of American soldiers? Since last weekend’s prisoner exchange in which Afghan insurgents turned over Sergeant Bergdahl after five years of captivity, a number of the men who served with him have called him a deserter. Some have gone further, blaming him for the deaths of six to eight soldiers. That second claim is hardening into […]

Abdel Fattah el-Sisi has won Egypt’s presidential elections by a huge majority, the country’s election commission has said. The former military chief, who last July overthrew Egypt’s first democratically elected president, Mohammed Morsi, won 96.91 of legal votes cast in last week’s election. SISI 23,780,104 (96.91%) SABAHI 757,511 (3.09%) Accepting the result, Sisi urged Egyptians to work to restore stability and achieve “freedom” and “social justice”. “I look forward to your […]

DUBAI // Private schools in Dubai “must address the shortcomings of teaching Arabic as a first and additional language as a matter of urgency”, the Knowledge and Human Development Authority has said in a report. The warning, issued on Monday in the KHDA’s annual report, Key Findings: 2013-2014 Inspection of Private Schools, outlines the strengths and weaknesses of the 141 private schools inspected by the agency and […]

Now that Egypt has held its elections, many in and outside the country will be turning to the new president to see how he plans to pull the domestic economy back from the brink. The economic challenges former army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi faces in many ways resemble those of Citadel Capital, one of Egypt’s foremost investment firms which itself is in the middle of a […]

The swathe of Indian Ocean where acoustic “pings” were detected has been ruled out as the crash zone of missing Malaysia Airlines passenger jet after a lengthy underwater search. The Joint Agency Coordination Centre said on Thursday it had completed the search of an area off the Australian coast where pings were detected in early April, with no success.  An unmanned submarine had searched 850sqr km but had found no […]

ABU DHABI // More than 1,000 cases of employers accused of breaking labour laws by ill-treating their workers were referred to prosecutors in the past year, a new report reveals. The prosecutions came amid a massive enforcement campaign by the Ministry of Labour, whose staff conducted 138,801 general inspections, 11,807 visits to workers’ accommodation and 80,571 visits to construction sites to ensure labourers were not working during […]

Emaar Properties has secured a $1.5 billion sharia-compliant loan from five local lenders, two banking sources aware of the matter said on Wednesday, the latest Dubai-based borrower to take advantage of buoyant markets to reprice debt. A number of state-linked entities in the emirate have sought to refinance existing debts, even if the loans have years until maturity, as market sentiment towards Dubai improves after its debt […]

A Dubai-based startup has raised $1.6 million in new funding to help launch its software that better connects social media users and the brands they follow. Brndstr Inc. (pronounced ‘brandster’) uses software that allows the brand’s Twitter accounts to automatically respond to #hashtags with offers and vouchers. For example, if a Twitter user retweets a brand’s tweet, then that user can automatically be sent a voucher giving […]

Malaysia’s Securities Commission has tightened rules on bai inah, a popular but divisive Islamic financing contract, in a fresh sign that standards in the world’s two main centres for sharia-compliant banking are slowly converging. Regulators and scholars in Malaysia and the Gulf have contrasting approaches to Islamic finance; the Gulf tends to be stricter in defining permissible transactions, and banks in the region have therefore shunned bai […]

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