Mumbai: After mark-to-market gains of over 30% from the ONGC stake sale in FY12, LIC is looking forward to the government’s divestment programme to raise its stake further in the oil & gas company if the shares are offered at an attractive price, said a source. Apart from ONGC, the insurer sees SAIL as an attractive opportunity. The government plans to sell 5% stake in ONGC and […]
SINGAPORE: India’s state-owned Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd aims to double its refining margins once it completes the expansion and upgrade of its Kochi refinery in southern India to process high sulphur crudes by 2016, a senior company official said. The refiner’s margins dropped to $3 a barrel this year, from $4.50 to $5 a barrel last year, but levels will increase by a about $3 to […]
New Delhi: The geopolitical wrangling and heartburn over India’s mother of all defence deals, the lucrative $20 billion MMRCA (medium multi-role combat aircraft) project, is still not over. First, it was the Americans, then the Europeans and now, the Russians. Even as India and France inch forward to stitch up the contract for acquisition of 126 Rafale fighters for the IAF, Russian ambassador Alexander Kadakin last […]
Iran’s revenue from crude sales, the OPEC member nation’s most important export, dropped 30 percent because of the recent drop in global oil prices, according to President Hassan Rouhani. “International conditions are such that the country’s main source of income, i.e. oil revenues, has been cut by some 30 percent,” Rouhani said in remarks to the nation’s parliament that were published today by the Oil Ministry’s news […]
The Federal Reserve said it sees further improvement in the labor market while confirming it will end an asset-purchase program that has added $1.66 trillion to its balance sheet. “Labor market conditions improved somewhat further, with solid job gains and a lower unemployment rate,” the Federal Open Market Committee said today in a statement in Washington. “A range of labor market indicators suggests that underutilization of labor […]
Abu Dhabi’s new financial free zone said it has hired a veteran executive from Singapore to head its regulatory body, its second senior appointment this year and a step towards opening the zone for business as soon as next year. Richard Teng, most recently chief regulatory officer at the Singapore Exchange, will be chief executive of the regulator at the Abu Dhabi Global Market (ADGM), overseeing the […]
Bank Muscat unit plans maiden sukuk in Q1 2015 DUBAI, 6 hours, 32 minutes ago The Islamic unit of Bank Muscat , Oman’s largest lender, plans to tap the Islamic bond market in the first quarter of next year, in what would be the first sukuk sale by a bank in the country, a bank official said on Wednesday. The lender has received regulatory approval for the […]
By S. Sethuraman Entering the sixth month post-bifurcation, Telengana and the truncated Andhra Pradesh are still in such unsettled conditions that governance and credibility are at a discount in the new State of Telengana while Seemandhra, battered recently by a super-cyclone, faces baffling problems of land acquisition for capital-building and fiscal management. Both states are in massive budget deficits and have vainly looked to the Centre […]
From L.S. Herdenia BHOPAL: After Assembly and Lok Sabha elections Madhya Pradesh is again in election mode. While Madhya Pradesh electors voted for Assembly at the end of 2013, the first five months of the current year were also marked by election fever, now the stage is set for local elections in November and December. Elections mean total suspension of developmental activities. The ruling Bharatiya […]
NEW DELHI: Life Insurance Corporation of India, the country’s largest insurer, will consider increasing its holding in companies in which the government plans to sell shares this year, possibly up to the 15% limit allowed. LIC, which is also the country’s largest investor, is expected to invest about Rs 55,000 crore in the equity markets this financial year, up from about Rs 51,000 crore in 2013-14. […]
New Delhi: In a bid to take advantage of the bullish stock market sentiment, the finance ministry has kicked off the exercise to cut government stake in public sector banks to 51% and enable them to raise fresh capital to meet their growth requirements. Sources told TOI that the ministry has moved a cabinet note as the government is keen that banks are well capitalized to meet […]
NEW DELHI: Private-sector power plants with a combined capacity of over 1 lakh MW, including plants of 36,500 MW that have been deprived of their captive coal blocks thanks to a recent Supreme Court verdict will get “firm coal linkage” if the Cabinet approves a plan put forth by the power ministry. Pooling of domestic (Coal India) and imported coal will be done to ensure these […]
NEW DELHI: ONGC Videsh Ltd, the overseas arm of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corp, on Tuesday signed an agreement to pick an up to 50 per cent stake in PetroVietnam’s two exploration blocks in the South China Sea. OVL will take a 40 per cent stake in Block 102/10 and 50 per cent in 106/10 that lie outside the sea territory claimed by China. PetroVietnam, […]
Mumbai: In the first big boost to the government’s “Make in India” initiative, aimed at making India a manufacturing hub, Airbus Defence and Space and Tata Advanced Systems (TASL) on Tuesday announced a joint bid for a government contract to supply military aircraft for the Indian Air Force (IAF). The IAF is looking to replace its fleet of Avro aircraft and the joint venture will supply Airbus’ […]
Fans of YouTube who would rather not see those “You can skip this ad in 5 seconds” popups before their video of choice starts playing might one day have the option of an advertising-free, paid subscription service. Speaking at Re/code’s Code/Mobile conference this week, YouTube CEO Susan Wojcicki said the Google-owned company is “thinking about how to give users options.” YouTube already has a program in which […]
Storage giant EMC is making bold moves in the hybrid cloud market, acquiring three companies in the space and announcing that it has “redefined” the hybrid cloud for the enterprise with the roll out of the Enterprise Hybrid Cloud Solution. First, the acquisitions. EMC grabbed The Cloudscaling Group, Maginatics, and Spanning Cloud Apps for undisclosed amounts. The company said these acquisitions help forward its hybrid cloud vision […]
By Praful Bidwai With its impressive performance in the Maharashtra and Haryana Assembly elections, the Bharatiya Janata Party has clearly reconfirmed its status, established by the Lok Sabha elections, as the principal pole or central point of reference in Indian politics. Behind its latest success, and not least its marginalisation of established regional parties in the two states, lie medium- and long-term factors which are likely to […]
Shares of Indian companies with key markets in Europe such as Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Bharat Forge, Motherson Sumi and Crompton Greaves have crashed by as much as 19% since mid-September on concerns their earnings may get adversely affected by the slowdown in the region. However, analysts say investors should buy some of these stocks. “We are positive on companies such as Tata Motors, Bharat Forge […]
NEW DELHI: The NDA government has finally taken the first step towards formulating a policy for hydropower projects on the Ganga — Alakananda and Bhagirathi rivers —in Uttarakhand. Water resources minister Uma Bharti informed the National Ganga River Basin Authority on Monday that a committee comprising officials of the environment and water resources ministry had been asked to review the reports of three committees dealing with […]
By Nantoo Banerjee It is very heartening that the government has, for the first time, equipped itself with a clear and comprehensive policy to ensure the growth and competitiveness of India’s less-cared micro, small and medium enterprises (MSMEs) sector. MSMEs are regarded as backbone of development even in highly industrialized countries, including Germany, Japan, France, the US and China. They are incubators of ideas and homes […]
NEW DELHI: With a decade’s existence of the Electricity Act of 2003 doing precious little in infusing efficiency and competition into the sector, the government has proposed some key changes in the Act to remedy the situation and prevent the loss-ridden sector, which is struggling to meet the reformist conditions of a financial restructuring package (FRP), from plumbing fresh depths. The Union power ministry’s draft amendments […]
On a scale of 1 to 10, the new Apple iPad Mini 3 rates only a 2 when it comes to the ease with which it can be repaired. The unit, which hit store shelves this week, was rated by the gadget-repair site iFixit, which proclaimed that the iPad Mini 3 is almost indistinguishable in design and internal components from its predecessor, the iPad Air 2. iFixit […]
Maids from the Philippines break their Ramadan fast at a shelter managed by Labour and Welfare officers in Dubai. The house maids live at the refuge after fleeing their employers’ homes. Agence France-Presse/Getty Images Maids, housekeepers, nannies and other female domestic workers in the United Arab Emirates are often denied wages, have their passports confiscated, don’t get proper medical care and are even in some cases subject […]
By G. Srinivasan The upcoming G-20 Heads of State meeting in Brisbane, Australia in mid-November is being convened when urgent policy actions from major economies, advanced and emerging, call for coordinated and focused approach to get the world economy out of the anemic recovery. Latest economic data from global financial institutions such as the World Bank, the IMF, OECD and the WTO do not inspire hope that […]
