NEWZ on 09.06.2010

Today news 09-06-2010

1. BHARTI Airtel said it will move swiftly and aggressively to expand its newly-acquired overseas domain on a day it announced the closure of its $9-billion purchase of the African operations of Kuwait ’s Zain Telecom.
India ’s largest cellphone company is aiming for a more than two-fold increase within three years in the number of users in Africa while it pursues the low-cost outsourced business model of operations that has served it so well at home.
2. Reliance Brands has launched its third label in the country — Italian luxury sportswear brand Paul & Shark, reports Amit Sharma. The company is in a 50:50 JV with its Italian partner and will be spending nearly $30 million over five years. “This is a long-term association.
3. HINDUSTAN Unilever has intensified its long-running battle with Eureka Forbes for domination in the fast-growing water purifier market by pitting a new product against its rival’s in the premium category.
4. REAL estate firm Lodha Developers will invest Rs 2,000 crore to develop the world’s tallest residential tower in Mumbai to cash in on the continued surge in home prices in India ’s commercial capital. “We will fund the project through internal accruals and pre-launch sales,” MD Abhishek Lodha told a press conference. “We are also looking at some private equity investments for the project.”
5. The income-tax department told the Bombay High Court on Tuesday that it will not seek recovery of around $2 billion in tax, which it claims is payable by Vodafone, the UK-based telecom company, till the case is again heard in July. The court admitted Vodafone’s appeal that challenged an order of the I-T department, levying tax on the telecom company’s $11-billion acquisition of Hutchison Essar three years ago.
6. ANIL Ambani withdrew a Rs 10,000-crore defamation suit filed in the Bombay High Court against elder brother Mukesh Ambani and
The New York Times
(NYT) as the once-estranged brothers seek to return to a more harmonious relationship.
7. HINDALCO Industries plans to borrow about Rs 14,000 crore in the next couple of years to build two new plants that will treble its aluminium making capacity as increased production of cars and aircraft, fuel demand for the white metal.
8. THE country’s largest iron ore mining company National Mineral Development Corporation (NMDC) is forming a 51:49 joint venture with Monnet Ispat & Energy to acquire and develop coal blocks in India . NMDC will have a majority stake in the JV Company, which will bid for coal mines with reserves of 200 to 300 million tonne.
9. THE government’s ambitious UID project will get a big boost, with country’s largest insurer Life Insurance Corporation of India agreeing to share its database of more than 20 crore policyholders with the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI).

10. THE government’s revenue from sale of 3G and broadband wireless airwaves (BWA) crossed Rs 1 lakh crore on Monday. The 13th day of the broadband spectrum auction also witnessed the bids for Tamil Nadu and Punjab circles exceeding the final 3G bid price. The government had estimated to garner Rs 35,000 crore from both 3G and BWA auctions combined.
11. THE Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) has decided to initiate spectrum audit to make sure that telcos are using it in the most economic manner possible, because it is a scarce resource. The audit will be undertaken after about three-four months, said Trai chairman JS Sarma.
12. GLENMARK Pharmaceutical has scored in its patent tussle with Sanofi Aventis and Abbott after the New Jersey district court upheld the challenge by the Indian company for a hyper-tension drug.
13. Tejas Networks, a leader in next-generation optical networking products, on Tuesday announced that it has acquired Ethos Networks, a technology company from Israel specializing in carrier Ethernet and network management products. This deal is the first acquisition of an Israeli hi-tech company by an Indian company, Tejas said.
14. US-based Georgia Institute of Technology (Georgia Tech) and Infosys Technologies on Tuesday announced to partner on potential research and educational opportunities. Georgia Tech said it was exploring the possibility of establishing a small, high quality post-graduate research institution in Hyderabad .
15. The government has allowed real estate major DLF to revive its plan for a special economic zone (SEZ) in Kolkata. The company had wriggled out of its commitment to set up four SEZs last year due to shrinkage in demand for commercial space because of the global economic downturn.
16. The income tax department will look for ways to meet the direct tax collection target of Rs 4.30 lakh crore at its two-day annual meet beginning on Wednesday. “The collection target becomes stiff in view of the relief and concessions announced in the Budget 2010 involving a direct tax outgo of about Rs 26,000 crore,” an official statement said on Tuesday. The budget estimate 2010-11 has pegged the direct tax haul at Rs 4,30,000 crore, a growth of 16.2% over the budget estimates for 2009-10.
17. The government’s wheat procurement, which is in its last stages, has dropped nearly 7% to 22.46 million tonnes (mt), so far, since it began on April 1, despite record production, as per official data. Wheat procurement stood at 24.08 mt in the corresponding period of the previous year.
18. STATE governments stuck to their demands of higher threshold for central Goods and Services Tax and keeping local body taxes and electricity duty out of it, threatening the total implementation of what is touted as the biggest tax reform since independence.
19. THE government may allow export of 10,000 tonne of sugar to the European Union (EU) as the sugar situation in the country has become comfortable with increased supplies and stable prices, an official said. In February this year, the Centre was forced to revoke its decision to allow export of sugar under the EU’s preferential zero duty quota following protests from the opposition as prices of sugar were still ruling high.

20. THE food ministry is readying a revised proposal on customs duty hike on white sugar imports to put up before the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on food. This is despite apprehensions that the total stocks of sugar with the Centre at the start of the festival season, beginning September, could be lower than 2 million tonnes. The EGoM meeting is slated for June 10.
21. FINANCE minister Pranab Mukherjee has said unit-linked insurance plans (Ulips) need further reforms on the back of the changes already announced by the insurance regulator. The finance minister also hinted at a resolution to the dispute between Sebi and Irda over Ulip regulation.
22. A GROWING number of companies have been opting for a buyback of shares to support the price in the current phase of market volatility. While the trend is mostly evident among small- and medium-sized companies, the market also expects large-sized companies to join the buyback bandwagon, after FMCG major Hindustan Unilever (HUL) announced a similar move last week
23. AN insurance major is believed to have trimmed exposure to TVS Motor, of late. The buzz is that the sale is part of its usual profit-booking process. The stock, which closed at Rs 104.35, down 0.3% on Thursday, has risen over 70% since the end of February 2010 to date, a period when share value has eroded in most cases.
24. MORE and more stock brokers in Mumbai are shifting their back-office operations outside Maharashtra to save on stamp duty that’s imposed by the state — the highest in India — when a client signs up with a broker.
While most large brokers have shifted back offices to states with lower stamp duty like Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, Delhi and Union Territory Daman, the smaller ones are now following suit to reduce costs.
25. STATE-OWNED ‘India Post’ has earned just about Rs 2 crore by selling mutual funds last fiscal. The national distributor with some 800 postal outlets selling mutual funds has logged its worst numbers in four years. The department has stopped selling mutual fund schemes of four out of five fund houses with which the department has exclusive distribution tie-ups.
26. Oil prices slid back to near $71 a barrel on Tuesday as European investors looked beyond encouraging comments from US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke and worried about the impact of the debt crisis on demand. Benchmark crude for July delivery was down 45 cents at $70.99 a barrel in electronic trading on the New York Mercantile Exchange late morning European time.