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Transfer of cable NEW DELHI, Dec 7: The Government today said the optical fibre cable assets on about 7,000 ....more Govt
authorises KOLKATA, Dec 7: The Centre has given the green signal to state-owned Gas Authority of India Limited to bid ....more Skindia
GDR index MUMBAI, Dec 7: Skindia Global Depository Receipts (GDRs) index gained marginally ...more Home-based
internet WASHINGTON, Dec 7: India will see growth in home-based internet usage which is expected..more |
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Harshad, 2 brothers get MUMBAI, Dec 7: A special court today rejected the bail plea of ‘big bull’ Harshad Mehta and his brothers Sudhir and Ashwin and remanded them to judicial custody till December 21 in a case of misappropriation of funds worth about Rs 250 crore from 27 lakh ‘missing’ shares of 90 blue chip companies.......more Tata
Sons withdraws NEW DELHI, Dec 7: Disinvestment process in the civil aviation sector seems to have come to a grinding halt with TATA Sons, the sole bidder for Air India, withdrawing from the race to acquire Government stake in the national flag carrier......more ‘Farmers’
interest safe NEW DELHI, Dec 7: The interest of Indian farmers is fully safeguarded because of high tariff protection the country could..more |
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Govt authorises GAIL to bid for Dabhol KOLKATA, Dec 7: The Centre has given the green signal to state-owned Gas Authority of India Limited to bid for the LNG terminal of troubled Dabhol Power Corporation located in Maharashtra. The chairman of GAIL, Prashanto Banerjee, told PTI here today that the energy PSU would immensely benefit if it could acquire the LNG import terminal of DPC located on the Western side of the Indian coastline. The GAIL chairman declined to reveal the price at which it would be willing to buy out the LNG terminal, saying that the company was "looking forward to a bargain price". Other interested parties who have shown interest in buying out the DPC’s LNG terminal are shell and British gas. Asked whether GAIL was waiting for the crisis-ridden DPC to make a distress sale, Banerjee said that looking at the general condition of US energy trader Enron, the bankrupt promoter of DPC, it is expected that GAIL would be expecting nothing less than a competitive price. If GAIL was able to buy out the terminal, then it would be able to supply two million units to the industries in Maharashtra and the balance three million units to the rest of the country, Banerjee said. (PTI) |
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Skindia GDR index gains, GDR premium loses MUMBAI, Dec 7: Skindia Global Depository Receipts (GDRs) index gained marginally by 0.18 per cent to 531.07 points on December six compared to the 530.09 points of the previous day, according to the daily update provided by Instanex Capital Consultants Pvt Ltd here today. Skindia GDR index p/e also went up marginally by 0.10 per cent to 10.18 points from the previous close of 10.17 points. Skindia GDR index premium however, came down by 14.10 points to 7.49 from the previous 8.72 per cent during the same period. Out of the 73 GDRs and American Depository Receipts (ADRs) scrips, 18 (25) gained, 11(8) lost and 44 (40) remained unchanged. The top gainers were SSI Ltd, Spic, Mah Mah while Satyam Infoway (adr), Silverline Tech (adr) and IPCL were the major losers. (UNI) |
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Home-based internet use in
India to double WASHINGTON, Dec 7: India will see growth in home-based internet usage which is expected to double in the next 12 months, according to global internet audience measurement service Nielsen/Netratings. India will buck the trend in the Asia-pacific region where overall growth in the next 12 months will be less than half of the rate achieved in the previous year, Nielson said in the third quarter 2001 global internet trends report on internet access and penetration. However, India proved the exception to the overall growth in the third quarter in the seven Asia-pacific markets surveyed by Neilson where more than half the people have internet access from home. Only one household in 250 had home internet access in India, Nielsen reported. Globally, 474 million people now have home-based internet access, the survey revealed, with an increase in the third quarter of 14.8 million people over the last quarter. "In both Europe and Asia pacific, there is continued growth in the rate of internet penetration, but the growth rate has steadied this quarter over last quarter," Nielsen said. In Europe, where most countries have been online for some time, an additional seven per cent of European households are expected to gain internet access from home over the next 12 months, equating to just over ten million households, as compared to the 16 million households who gained internet access in the past 12 months. In the Latin American countries, a strong surge in online access is expected over the next 12 months, ‘reflecting the newness of the internet in that region,’ with an expected growth rate of three times the growth over the past 12 months. "This signals that the established regions of Asia-pacific and Europe are moving beyond the sheer growth phase and moving into mature internet usage, with the medium an accepted part of everyday life," it said. It may take several years for Latin America and India to arrive at the same point in their growth cycle and enjoy the full range of benefits as the technology is adopted by large numbers of people in those countries, Nielsen said. The survey found that online purchasing is on a global upswing. "One of the clearest markers that an internet market is maturing is the widespread adoption of buying online. In all Asia-pacific countries, the rate at which online browsers convert to online purchasers has increased this quarter," Nielsen said. More than ten per cent of Europeans have bought online, representing an increase of 4.2 per cent over early 2000, and over half the online browsers in Europe, the Middle East and Africa in the past six months made a purchase. For Europe as a whole, an additional 6.3 per cent of the people have now surfed the internet for information on products and services, compared to early 2000. The Nordics, with their longer experience in internet access and usage, are more likely to browse and to buy online than other Europeans, with Italians and Spanish the least likely to convert browsing to buying and Germans the most likely. E-commerce is still in its infancy in Latin America, though Brazilians are more likely than Mexicans or Argentineans to browse or purchase online, the survey found. In contrast, e-commerce is much more affected by overall macroeconomic trends in the US, where 63 per cent of the people have home-based internet access. "In the past years of hyper internet growth in the US market, changes in the economy were only minor ripples against the online surge. But this year, every company online must face the economy as internet retailers compete squarely against traditional retailers for consumer attention, Nielsen said. (UNI) |
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Harshad, 2 brothers get JC till Dec 21 in scam case MUMBAI, Dec 7: A special court today rejected the bail plea of ‘big bull’ Harshad Mehta and his brothers Sudhir and Ashwin and remanded them to judicial custody till December 21 in a case of misappropriation of funds worth about Rs 250 crore from 27 lakh ‘missing’ shares of 90 blue chip companies. Harshad and Sudhir were produced before Justice S H Lapadia who remanded them to police custody for two weeks. Harshad’s another brother, Ashwin, could not be produced as he continues to be in Government-owned J J Hospital since November 22 following complaint of giddiness. He too was remanded to judicial custody by the judge who directed CBI not to interrogate him until he was discharged from hospital. The court allowed the accused reading and writing material in the jail but did not allow their plea to have a laptop in the cell. However, the judge gave liberty to the defence lawyer Mahesh Jethmalani to move the court on December 10 for permission to use laptop in the prison. CBI counsel V C Gupte and Raja Thakre sought judicial custody of the accused because the period for police custody remand was already over. The accused were arrested on November 9 and remanded to police custody on two occasions. Harshad and his brothers contended that it was on the basis of their complaint that the court had earlier ordered CBI to probe the ‘missing’ shares, while CBI argued that these shares were sold fraudulently in the market by the accused. Jethmalani contended that the CBI allegations were vague and at the best shares worth Rs 25 crore could be attributed to Harshad Mehta group. He also alleged that some influential persons, including Samir Jani, were being ‘shielded’ by CBI. He told the court that the accused had information that Samir Jani had stolen shares from their possession, introduced them in the market and misappropriated the funds. The value of such shares was estimated to be 125 crores. CBI lawyers V C Gupte and Raja Thakre denied that influential persons were being shielded and said efforts were being made to trace shares. Of the 27 lakh missing shares, they had collected information of only about five lakh shares. They said interrogation had revealed involvement of various brokers, individuals and industrialists in clandestinely marketing the shares of Harshad Mehta and receiving benefits therefrom either directly or indirectly. CBI contended that employees of Harshad Mehta group and their associates were also involved in forging transfer forms of shares in the names of various persons and they have yet to be traced and documents seized from their possession. Some of them have been examined by Income Tax Department in connection with Benami shares of Harshad Mehta. Such witnesses have given false statements before the Income Tax authorities due to the influence of Harshad Mehta group. They were questioned during interrogation when Harshad and his brothers had not been arrested. However, during the second round of investigations after the arrest of Harshad and his brothers, these witnesses have changed their statements and come out with different versions, CBI lawyers pointed out. (PTI) |
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Tata Sons withdraws from Air India NEW DELHI, Dec 7: Disinvestment process in the civil aviation sector seems to have come to a grinding halt with TATA Sons, the sole bidder for Air India, withdrawing from the race to acquire Government stake in the national flag carrier. Tata Sons director (Finance) Ishaat Hussain conveyed the company’s decision to pull out in a letter to Disinvestment Ministry earlier this week, sources said. Privatisation of domestic carrier Indian Airlines too had fallen after two remaining bidders - Videocon and Hindujas -were disqualified by the government acquiring stake for different reasons. While withdrawing, Tata Sons cited its failure to find a suitable partner to fill-in for Singapore Airlines, which had pulled out on September one deciding against pursuing acquisition of Air India stake due to "adverse climate". Tatas also blamed the slump in the global aviation industry for putting in abeyance its decision to foray into airline business, the sources said. Earlier, Hindujas, the only other bidder in the race for acquiring 40 per cent Government stake and management control in Air India, had pulled out. SIA’s withdrawal dealt a severe blow to Tatas who failed to bring about a partnership in the airlines sector for the second time. Earlier, a Tata-SIA proposal to start a domestic airline was shot down by the United Front Government in 1997-98 on the ground that an airline with foreign equity participation could not be permitted to fly the Indian sky. (PTI) |
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‘Farmers’ interest safe owing to high tariff protection’ NEW DELHI, Dec 7: The interest of Indian farmers is fully safeguarded because of high tariff protection the country could impose on imported agricultural products, Lok Sabha was informed today. Replying to a spate of supplementaries, Commerce Minister Murasoli Maran said for primary agricultural products, the bound tariff level is 100 per cent, for processed products it is 150 per cent and for edible oil it is 300 per cent. The Minister said "we have to calibrate our tariff system" and the Finance Minister will be doing this to discourage imported agricultural products from flooding Indian markets. He said before the Doha ministerial conference, the Government held wide consultations with various stakeholders. Several formal and informal meetings were also held at Geneva prior to the conference to decide the agenda. The Government had attached high priority on resolution of implementation of various WTO rules, he said adding a major gain has been achieved in the form of recognition of asymmetries for the first time. Maran said India had strongly opposed linkage of core labour standards with trade. The declaration reaffirms that it is the appropriate forum to address the issue of core labour standards, he said. (PTI) |
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