Daily News Roundup - Mar 22 2011

Coal India’s 77 projects having a production capacity of almost 185mn tonnes have been cleared by the government and are under different phases of completion. (ET)

NHPC's 2,000MW Subansiri project in Assam is likely to be delayed by at least two years due to resistance from locals. (ET)



Bajaj Auto is on course with the development of the ultra low-cost (ULC) car whose prototypes will be shown to its partner, Renault, during the course of this calendar. (BL)

ICICI Bank Ltd, in association with Intuit announced the launch of "Money Manager", an online personal finance management solution for its customers. (BS)

Essar Energy Plc, whose plans to sign a gas sales purchase agreement with RIL for supply of 0.6mn metric standard cubic meters of gas for its Vadinar refinery in Gujarat has now hit a stumbling block. (ET)

The Supreme Court has admitted the petition of Reliance Communications challenging the order of the telecom tribunal TDSAT, which had set aside the plea of Anil Ambani group firm challenging penalty imposed by the state-run firm BSNL. (ET)

Gail India has endorsed petroleum sector regulator's proposal allowing pipeline companies to charge tariffs lower than approved rates. (ET)

Voltas has decided to form a joint venture with German-based Linde Material Handling GmbH (LMH), a part of KION Group, for materials handling business. (BL)

Everest Industries will set up a new manufacturing facility in East India to cater to the growing demand as it aims to cross Rs10bn revenue in 2011-12. (BS)

BPCL has deferred shutdown of a hydrogen unit at its Mumbai refinery and a diesel unit at the Kochi plant to meet local fuel demand. (ET)

HPCL may defer the planned 15-day shutdown of a 60,000 barrels per day crude unit at Mumbai refinery to September to meet local fuel demand. (ET)

IOC may consider deferring shutdowns of units at some of its refineries to meet local fuel demand. (ET)

Hindustan Copper plans to invest Rs36.8bn to almost quadruple its existing copper ore production capacity to 12.41mn tonnes per annum by 2016-17. (ET)

Lanco Infratech has started the trial run of the first 600 Mw unit of Anpara Power project in Uttar Pradesh. (BS)

Monnet Global, a wholly owned subsidiary of Monnet Ispat and Energy, has acquired a 100mn ton Indonesian coal company, PT Sarwa Sembada Karya Bumi at US$24mn. (BS)

NALCO has become the first PSU in the country in implementing a pilot-cum-demonstration project on Carbon Sequestration in its Captive Power Plant at Angul. (ET)

Elder Health Care has decided to give more focus to building its own brands and has lined up about half-a-dozen launches this year. (ET)

US based pharmaceutical company Mylan Inc. sued the US Food and Drug Administration, seeking to block the Ranbaxy’s exclusive rights to sell a generic version of blockbuster anti-cholesterol. (BL)

TCS eyes 1,000 customers for 'iON' by year-end. (BS)

The Finance Ministry wants a legal opinion from the Law Ministry to be taken on royalty state-owned ONGC pays on behalf of Cairn India before Cabinet considers giving nod to Vedanta Resources' US$9.6bn acquisition of Cairn India. (BS)

TCS, Infosys, Wipro and HCL are beginning to see an uptick of up to 5% in pricing, driven by higher salary costs and improved business environment. (ET)

Sundaram Finance forayed into Infrastructure Management Services business (IMS) with the launch of a new vertical- Sundaram Infotech Solutions. (BS)

A consortium of SREI Infrastructure and ECI Engineering and Construction Company is likely to bag the strategically important Rs20bn highway project in Arunachal Pradesh. (BL)
Economy Snippets

India's import of sensitive items, including foodgrains and milk products, has gone up by 8.1% to Rs525bn during the April-December period of the current fiscal, from Rs485bn a year ago.(BS)

The Centre is likely to increase dearness allowance (DA) by 6% to 51%, benefiting over 5mn employees and 3.8mn pensioners. (ET)

Centre may extend preferential status to 'Made in India' products in the New Telecom Policy, 2011. (BS)

The final guidelines on the new banking licences would be released only after the necessary amendments to the Banking Regulation Act and Banking Laws Act are cleared by Parliament. (BS)

An environment ministry panel has cleared power projects with total proposed capacity of 5,674 mw. (ET)

The income tax authorities will need to go through another layer of scrutiny before they are allowed permission to listen to private phone conversation. (ET)

Aviation regulator DGCA plans to bring under the scanner over 10,000 commercial pilot license holders and conduct third-party audit of all flying schools in the country. (ET)

India's economy is expected to maintain the eight-plus growth trajectory in FY 12 with its real GDP projected to grow by 8.8 per cent during the fiscal. (ET)

India is likely to allow 0.2mn tons of sugar exports under unrestricted sales, less than 0.5mn tons permitted earlier. (BS)

Indian Media & Entertainment (M&E) industry is expected to grow at a CAGR of 14% to touch Rs1,275bn (US$28bn) by 2015, as per FICCI-KPMG report. (BS)