Daily News Roundup - Oct 28 2009

Infosys BPO, a subsidiary of IT major Infosys, signed an agreement with the Andhra Pradesh government to set up rural BPO centers in 22 districts of the state. (ET)

Bhilai Steel Plant, the flagship entity of the SAIL, has been awarded mining lease for the Rowghat deposit-F spread over 2,029 hectares in a pocket between Kanker and Narayanpur districts of Chhattisgarh. (BS)

UK based First State Investment Management has hiked its stake in Mahindra Satyam to 5.02%. (FE)

Temasek Holding’s reduced its stake in ICICI Bank by 1.85%. (FE)

Glenmark Pharmaceuticals group company Glenmark Generics (Europe) has launched four products in the UK. (ET)

Dr. Reddy’s Laboratories sees huge opportunities in biosimilars to drive its future growth. (BL)

Out of the Rs45bn investments planned in FY10, Idea plans to invest Rs15bn for expanding base in Bihar, Jharkhand and Orissa and launching services in West Bengal. (BL)

Sun TV Network is looking for foreign partners to produce non-fiction contents, announced its tie up with Dutch firm Endemol to launch a television game show. (BS)

The Bombay high court asked Kingfisher Airlines to deposit Rs360mn against its dues payable to Lufthansa Technik. (FE)

PTC India Financial Services, a newly-formed arm of trading major PTC India, sanctioned funds to 10 power projects aggregating around Rs6.3bn during April-September. (BL)

Apart from looking at overseas opportunities for acquisition of cement facilities, Birla Corporation plans to set up a 1mn ton cement plant in Assam for an investment of Rs5bn. (BL)

Binani Cement is in talks to acquire a cement firm in Turkey for around Rs10bn as part of its strategy to more than double its production capacity by two years. (ET)

The board of Lanco Infratech approved a stock split from Rs10 to Re1 face value. (BS)

Intel, along with HCL Infosystems, on Tuesday announced the launch of the first of WiMax-enabled nettops and laptops in the country. (ET)

Intel partners with HCL Infosystems and BSNL to implement the WiMax acceleration program to adopt new initiatives to expand access to wireless broadband internet. (BL)

Elecon Group plans to invest Rs4bn to diversify into developing recreational, sports and residential properties. (BL)

Hyundai Motor India has filed a case against Mahindra Renault objecting the latters plan to launch a compact car with the name "Sandero", alleging that the rival was trying to cash in on its popular Santro brand with similar sounding product. (BS)

Shipping Corporation of India has outlined a US$4bn capex to expand its fleet of vessels by 2012. (ET)

Kolkata based Jai Balaji Industries further raised Rs2bn through a QIP, following its Rs2.7bn private placement in February 2008. (BS)

Private equity majors Citi Ventures, Sequoia Capital and Bessermer Venture Partners have invested US$100mn in Ind-Barath Power Infra. (ET)

SoftBank, a Japanese telecommunications and media company, is all set to become an anchor investor in DEN Networks, the multi-services operator. (BS)

Avesthagen, a Bangalore-based life sciences firm, will license its patented technologies to develop, produce and market seeds nationally and internationally to the newly formed JV with Limagrain, a French international co-operative group, Atash Seeds Pvt Ltd. (BS)

RBI left key rates unchanged, resorted SLR to 25%, tightened norms for loans to commercial real estate and asked banks to increase cover for sticky assets. (BS)

EGoM, headed by the finance minister, allocated additional 50mmscmd of gas that RIL would produce beyond the initial 40mmscmd, bulk of which will be allocated to the power sector. (BS)

Uttarakhand Power Corporation has proposed privatization of distribution at Roorkee in Haridwar and Rudrapur in Udham Singh Nagar district where T&D losses and power thefts are heavy. (BS)

India’s new defense procurement policy will allow domestic private producers to bid for armed forces equipment tenders and allows them to join hands with foreign manufacturers for co-production through JV’s. (BS)

The Information Technology (Amendment) Act 2008, aimed at tightening procedures and safeguards to monitor and intercept data to prevent cyber crimes, comes into effect from today. (BS)

The CBI has alleged that the grant of ‘Unified Access Service Licences’ for 2G spectrum to some private companies caused a loss of over Rs220bn to the government. (BS)

Karnataka government which initiated work on the states first gas based power project with a capacity of 2,100MW plans to develop four more such projects with a combined capacity of 8,000MW. (BS)

RBI mandated loan loss coverage ratio of 70% would affect banks profits over the next four quarters. (BS)

Cane growers in Uttar Pradesh plan to launch an agitation from Thursday demanding higher prices for the crop to be crushed in the mills in the 2009-10 season. (BL)

Originators of securitized debt will have to retain a tenth of the total assets securitized, as part of the central bank’s objective to bring greater transparency to the market. (ET)

Banks told to set aside 5% of funds under CBLO. (ET)

The department of telecommunications will start the 3G spectrum auction process from January 14, 2010. (FE)