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| Air Deccan to expand in north India, firm up fleet size NEW DELHI, Oct 5: Low cost airline Air Deccan is now expanding its network in north India, linking the national capital with.....more Airtel to
invest Rs 27 cr NEW DELHI, Oct 5: Leading cellular service provider Airtel will invest an additional Rs 27 crore to roll out services in 26 more.....more ICF enters
its CHENNAI, Oct 5: From a modest beginning after its inauguration by the then Prime Minister Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru.....more Oracle to
showcase BANGALORE, Oct 5: Oracle India Private Limited (Oracle India), the wholly owned subsidiary of Oracle corporation, has......more |
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Max New York launches life maker, plans pension scheme NEW DELHI, Oct 5: Leading Life Insurance Firm Max New York Life (MNYL) today launched a flexible unit linked investment........more FIPB nod
for to MUMBAI, Oct 5: In a bid to woo foreign investors, the Government has dispensed with the condition of obtaining Foreign.......more TCS
granted gold MUMBAI, Oct 5: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), leading global IT services firm, today announced that its custody and.....more Uncertainity
prevails on THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, Oct 5: Uncertainity looms large over the tea futures trade proposed to be launched by the.........more |
Air Deccan to expand in north India, firm up fleet size NEW DELHI, Oct 5: Low cost airline Air Deccan is now expanding its network in north India, linking the national capital with cities like Agra, Jaipur, Dehradun and Kanpur. And in the next five years, it plans to have a fleet of 60 planes - 30 airbus that can carry upto 180 passengers and 30 ATRs that generally accommodate 72 people at one go. "The key for Air Deccan’s success lies in connecting all regional metros with major cities across the country," said airline’s managing director G R Gopinath. The no-frills air deccan has introduced dynafare scheme for linking destinations which offers tickets for as low as Rs 500. It is the first airline to offer air tickets at this rate with a statutory tax of Rs 200 taking the total cost to Rs 700. "We believe every Indian should be able to fly," says Capt Gopinath. Under the system, the airline offers 75 per cent of seats at rates ranging between Rs 500 and Rs 5,000 and the remaining 25 per cent at around Rs 7,500 which is 25 per cent less than the normal fare of Rs 10,500 in a full service flight. The booking for seats opens 90 days in advance. Air Deccan sells air tickets worth over Rs one crore every day through the internet. It is clocking these numbers with a fleet of seven ATR 42-320s and two a-320 aircraft. A third a-320 will join the fleet in a few days and push the daily earnings up. Capt Gopinath said the airline is on course to its goal of clocking revenues of 120 million dollars (about Rs 550 crore) in 2004-05 by carrying two million passengers. In the next three months, it will phase out the existing ATR 42-320s and induct five brand new ATR 72-500s. By May-June 05, it will have 15 new ATRs. Air Deccan is also negotiating with aircraft manufacturer bombardier for acquisition of planes. Nearly half of its 60-strong fleet will eventually be owned and the other half leased. On the other hand, Kingfisher Airlines — which is planning to start operations in first quarter of next year — is looking at inducting upto 16 airbus-320 planes over a two year time-frame. Each a-320 costs about 58 million dollars. Air Deccan is looking at offloading 15 to 25 per cent of its equity for funds between 50 million to 75 million dollars. It has appointed N M Rothschild to talk to private investment funds to offload its stake. Industry experts say 10 to 12 new budget carriers are planning to launch services in the high-cost Indian air travel market over the next 18 months which will increase competition and lure passengers away from using trains. (UNI) |
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Airtel to invest Rs 27 cr on
expansion NEW DELHI, Oct 5: Leading cellular service provider Airtel will invest an additional Rs 27 crore to roll out services in 26 more towns of Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh (west) by installing 120 new sites in the region by this year-end. Airtel has already invested Rs 76 crore in Uttar Pradesh (west) and Uttaranchal in this fiscal, taking the total investment by Airtel in the region to Rs 250 crore. The company had invested Rs 147 crore in the fiscal 2003-04. With the new investment, the total number of cell sites in the region will be 505 by November 2004. Airtel would also cover 6 new state highways, Bharti Cellular Ltd said in a statement here today. Bharti also announced the Airtel - up one initiative, which enables customers to call any mobile or fixed line number in Uttar Pradesh (east) at Re 1.99 per minute. If the chosen number is an Airtel mobile in Uttar Pradesh (east), then the post-paid customers can make calls at Re one per minute. Roaming in Uttar Pradesh (east) will also be 42 per cent cheaper. Airtel pre-paid customers can also choose the option and make calls at Re one per minute to an Airtel number and at Rs 2.25 per minute to any other mobile or fixed line under the same offer. This facility is available to customers on a monthly rental of Rs 25. "Uttar Pradesh (west), Uttaranchal and Uttar Pradesh (east) stand as a great potential market for us and with the introduction of the UP one initiative, we are sure of replicating the success seen by Airtel across the country," Bharti Cellular Services Director and CEO (north Central region) Sanjay Nandrajog said. The 26 new towns to be covered by this year-end include Pinkhua city, Amroha, Bijnore, Dhampur, Kotdwar, Laksar, Baghpat, Barot, Pantnagar, Nankmatta, Sikandrabad, Etawah, Meerapur, Govardhan and Hastinapur. The expansion of the existing network will provide seamless connectivity across over 280 towns in Uttar Pradesh and Uttaranchal, Airtel said. Bharti tele-ventures is one of India’s leading private sector telecom service provider with 9.04 million customers as on August-end consisting of over 8.28 million mobile customers. The company offers mobile services in 17 out of 23 circles in India. (UNI) |
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ICF enters its golden jubilee year CHENNAI, Oct 5: From a modest beginning after its inauguration by the then Prime Minister Pandit Jawahar Lal Nehru, Asia’s oldest and the largest railway coaches manufacturing unit — the Integral Coach Factory (ICF)— has come a long way, as it chugs into its golden jubilee year. The saga of the the premier coach builder in India commenced on October two, 1955, when Pandit Nehru flagged off the first coach. From there on, there was no stopping as ICF had achieved several firsts to its credit in its 49-year-long existence. As it stepped into the golden jubilee year on October two, ICF looks back with pride at the significant gains it had made after a humble beginning of producing 35 shells in its first year of operation. Since then it has taken rapid strides in serving passengers of the Indian Railways and has achieved a capacity to produce 1200 coaches per annum as against the installed capacity of 1000 coaches. Started in collaboration with the Swiss car and elevator manufacturing company of Switzerland for manufacture of third class shells, Asia’s largest railway passenger coach manufacturing unit has improved by leaps and bounds. It has produced more than 200 varieties of coaches ranging from second class day coach to the most luxurious tourist cars and fire proof coaches. The ICF has so far produced more than 35,000 coaches of various types since its inception. Though ICF was started in technical collaboration with the Swiss firm, at present the entire production of coaches is being done indigenously. "New types of coaches are coming with indigenous design and development," a senior official of ICF told UNI. The official said last year ICF successfully rolled out three new types of coaches — the new generation Electric Multiple Units (EMUs), new generation diesel EMUs and luxury tourist coaches for deccan Odyssey operated by the Maharashtra Tourism Development Corporation — that received widespread accolades from the public for the workmanship and design capabilities of the ICF. With passenger safety being the main "Mantra", ICF has constantly been incorporating various new features to provide comfortable and safe journey to the passengers, besides ensuring that injuries would be bare minimum in case of accidents or derailments. "There will be no let up as ICF accords top priority for maximum passenger safety. All injury-free features will be incorporated in the new coaches manufactured by ICF with emphasis on maximum safety," the official said. Emergency exit windows on both sides of the coaches in second class sleeper coaches as well as air-conditioned coaches, emergency exit hatches in roof and floor areas to ensure safe and swift evacuation of passengers in the event of accidents are some of the features. "Use of fire retardant materials and paints in coaches is also one of the high points of the passenger safety features", he said and added that "in the new generation EMUs, various never-before features like end-to-end duct type lightings, public address sytem, half openable windows, cushioned seats, modular switches and ergonomically designed driver’s cabin have been introduced". Besides fire and smoke sensor alarms, centre buffer couplets have been introduced in lieu of conventional hook couplers to avoid climbing of coaches one over the other and parting of coaches during accidents. Though rail coach factory at Kapurthala, set up in the early 1980s, also manufactured coaches for the Indian Railways, ICF’s success story continued with the manufacturing of luxurious tourist coaches for royal orient express operated by the Gujarat tourism department, palace-on-wheels train for the Rajasthan Tourism Development Corporation and the deccan Odyssey. These trains fuse the modern facilities with old-world ambiences. In deccan Odyssey coaches, for the first time in the history of Indian Railways, variable room temperature facility have been introduced. Besides this, internet and mobile communication facilities have also been provided on board. And for the high-flying executives, the deccan Odyssey train also has a gym car and a conference car. In consonance with the thematic objective of 2003-04 being celebrated as year of "customer satisfaction", ICF produced Jan-Shatabdi coaches with a series of upgraded passenger comforts. Another firsts of its kind at the ICF, which had bagged the iso 9001 certificate for quality systems and ISO 14001 for environment systems, was the manufacture of new generation EMUs with enhanced safety features and passenger comforts for Hyderabad Multi Model Transport System and the AC-DC EMUs for Mumbai suburban services. On bulk manufacture of fire proof coaches, the official said as a trial measure a couple of fire proof sleeper coaches and an airconditioned coach was manufactured and was being tested on experimental basis in the Chennai-Madurai Pandiyan Express. "It was put on test about four months back. We are just waiting for the feed back from the public and the railway board. Then we would proceed with production of more fire proof coaches". In the golden jubilee year, the ICF would be spending about Rs 35 crore for modernising and setting up additional infrastructure facilities, including two assembling lines to cope up with the heavy demand. "The indigenous demand from various railway zones itself was so high that we are not able to concentrate on export, though we have good export orders on hand". ICF had played a significant role in exports, by exporting 425 coaches and 359 bogies to various afro-Asian countries. "We have requests from various foreign countries and in the golden jubilee year Malaysian Railways had placed orders for 11 metre gauge coaches. Production would commence soon and we are expected to deliver it to them in the next one year", the official said. Another feather in the cap was the ICF registering the highest ever production capacity of 1070 coaches per year during 2003-04 and had targetted to touch 1100 coaches in 2004-05, before gradually increasing it to 1250 coaches in the next one or two years. Looking ahead with renewed vigour, the ICF has lined up year-long celebrations to mark its golden jubilee that includes seminars, symposiums and workshops. The celebrations, which are expected to commence by the end of this month with a function to be attended by Union Ministers, would culiminate with a grand function by inviting either the President or the Prime Minister’’. Having ushered in modernisation of infrastructure and state-of-the-art technology upgradate, ICF heralds into glorious saga of 50 years in an ambitious bid to provide world class service and comfort at affordable price to Indian passengers. (UNI) |
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Oracle to showcase latest applications software BANGALORE, Oct 5: Oracle India Private Limited (Oracle India), the wholly owned subsidiary of Oracle corporation, has announced that the latest version of its applications software, Oracle e-business suite 11/.10, will be one of the key highlights at the upcoming oracle openworld mumbai conference on November 2 and 3. Sharing this with the media today, Oracle India’s managing director Shekar Dasgupta also unveiled the logo of Oracle openworld Mumbai. He said the spotlight at Oracle openworld Mumbai would be on Oracle e-business suite 11/.10. This would be a major milestone for our applications business as we are also kicking off a new applications sales and marketing thrust across India, he added. He said the Oracle openworld Mumbai theme was "answers for your industry, applications for your business" and IT was for Oracle customers and partners, and for all leading organisations in India with enterprise information management needs. Apart from keynotes by Oracle and industry experts. The conference would have four industry solutions tracks - focused on telecommunications, financial services, manufacturing and Government sectors - and three cross-industry enterprise solution tracks. (UNI) |
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Max New York launches life maker, plans pension scheme NEW DELHI, Oct 5: Leading Life Insurance Firm Max New York Life (MNYL) today launched a flexible unit linked investment plan — life maker — to help customers manage their financial needs, including protection, investment and liquidity, and said it would soon introduce a pension product. "With life maker, we are offering the customers the flexibility to actively manage their own investments with a balance between protection, investment and liquidity needs," MNYL vice-chairman and managing director Anuroop Tony Singh said at its launch here. Mr Singh said the company has plans to roll out the pension insurance scheme in the next phase. After completing the life insurance product agenda, he said, MNYL will foray into other insurance segments like health. The new insurance product, life maker, provides the customer a choice from two terminal benefits — level and increasing insurance covers. In the former case, the nominee will receive higher of the insurance cover or value of units while in the case of latter, the nominee will receive the insurance cover plus the value of units in the plan, he explained. In addition, during the tenor of the plan, the customer can switch from increasing insurance cover to level insurance cover. Pointing out that the customer also has the flexibility of increasing or decreasing their sum assured during the tenor of the plan, Mr Singh said life maker can be further customised using two riders — personal accident rider and dread disease rider. Besides, it offers the choice of investing the premium in four investment funds, which are used to purchase assets such as government securities, investment grade corporate bonds, money market instruments and equities. He said Franklin templeton investments will advise MNYL on fund management. Max New York life, which has sold well over 3,76,000 policies with more than Rs 13,600 crore in sum assured and Rs 387 crore as paid-up capital, expects 100 per cent growth by this fiscal-end. (UNI) |
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| FIPB nod for to share transfer by
non-resident not needed MUMBAI, Oct 5: In a bid to woo foreign investors, the Government has dispensed with the condition of obtaining Foreign Invesment Promotion Board’s (FIPB) approval for non-residents to transfer shares and convertible debentures of Indian companies from Indian residents, subject to sectoral caps. This relaxation is not applicable to finance sector companies including banks, non-banking finance companies and insurance firms. The non-resident shareholding after the transfer should comply with sectoral FDI limits and the price at which the transfer takes place should conform with pricing guidelines prescribed by regulators, Reserve Bank of India said in a notification today. The activities of the investee company should be under the automatic route under FDI policy and transfer of shares or debentures should not attract the provisions of SEBI’s takeover regulations, it said. As a measure of simplification of procedures, increase in foreign equity participation by fresh issue of shares and conversion of preference shares into equity capital have been put under general permission provided such increase falls within the sectoral cap and are within the automatic route, it said. The general permission does not include transfer of shares from residents to non-residents of entities in the financial sector like banks, NBFCs and insurance companies, it said. (PTI) |
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TCS granted gold accreditation by CA report 2004 MUMBAI, Oct 5: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS), leading global IT services firm, today announced that its custody and corporate action product, network custody and clearing system, has been given the gold accreditation in the corporate action report 2004. The report, ‘Benchmarking of International Systems and Services (BISS)’, was drawn up by citycompass, an independent financial services firm, and presented by bloor research’s senior analyst, Andrew Chilcott. TCS Network Custody and Clearing System (NCS) achieved the gold standing in two market sectors: asset management and custody. A panel of securities practitioners including BNP Paribas SS, UBS, Dredner Kleinwort, Baring AM and HSBC also assisted in compiling the data. The report highlights TCS’ "implementation" capabilities and the firm’s track record of successful NCS deployments for a number of the world’s leading banks’ custody businesses. Reiterating the firm’s strong customer base and client relations, Mr Chilcott said "Tata consultancy services has undoubtedly reached a superior level of market support based on the outstanding client user-base of their system." Currently, leading institutions in 35 major markets as well as emerging ones across north America, Europe, Africa, Australia and the Asia Pacific are using NCS for their securities servicing requirements. Support for these installations is provided out of TCS centres in the United Kingdom, United States and the NCS development centre in India. (UNI) |
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Uncertainity prevails on UPASI’s plans for tea futures THIRUVANANTHAPURAM, Oct 5: Uncertainity looms large over the tea futures trade proposed to be launched by the United Planters Association of South India (UPASI). Hailed as the first ever farmers’ venture of its kind, the tea exchange is scheduled to be launched by October end. Only three weeks are left for the deadline to launch the tea futures and failure to do so would result in the forfeiture of licence by UPASI. The licence was originally issued by the Forward Markets Commission (FMC) in July 2002. It was later extended upto October 2004. This is the last extension of the deadline on the two-year-old licence. In the wake of the October 31, 2004 deadline, the UPASI meeting at Coonoor last month decided to go ahead with the futures trade plan independently. A company was floated by the association in this regard. UPASI had also decided to mobilise resources for the purpose. It chipped in Rs 10 lakh while the tea board had sanctioned Rs 11.25 lakh which had been set aside for the Trade Guarantee Fund (TGF). The new company, however, had been facing a fund crunch prompting upasi to explore the possibility of roping in a partner. The association’s bid to tie up with the over the counter exchange of India (otcei) was, meanwhile, widely criticised. This was because of the possibility of upasi losing its majority stake. Major tea companies were inclined to associate with the futures trade. Besides, there was also a proposal to associate as many tea companies as possible with the new venture. The possibility of getting every tea company to contribute Rs two lakh each towards subscription was being explored. The total requirement of the exchange company to be on stream was estimated at Rs 25 lakh in addition to what had already been pumped in by the UPASI and the tea board. Now, uncertainty follows the indecision at the UPASI meeting on Friday last which was supposed to have been crucial. The meeting failed to initiate any concrete steps or spell out the future course of action in regard to the proposed tea exchange. UPASI sources disclosed that other than informal talks held with tea majors like Tatas, Harrisons Malayalam, Avt, HLL, and Stanes etc at the September meeting of the association, there was no effective follow-up. The tea board representative who had attended the Friday meeting was, however, non-committal on funding the project. (UNI) |
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150 branches of Vijaya Bank to go online NEW DELHI, Oct 5: With competition among banks heating up, Vijaya Bank has commenced network banking with plans afoot to provide online banking facility across its 150 branches. With this move, customers would be able to conduct ‘anywhere’ as well as ‘internet’ banking. Besides, the bank is connecting about 160 ATMs across the country under its network banking initiative. "To further consolidate our market position and to effectively meet the challenges arising out of liberalisation, Vijaya Bank commenced net work banking through finance software of Infosys technologies. In the first phase, 150 branches of the bank, covering major cities, will go online by March 31, 2005," sources in the bank said here today. As part of this ambitious programme, the Barakhamba road branch, in the heart of the capital, was brought under network banking last evening. This is the largest branch in the Delhi region and the first in the capital to go online. With this, the Barakhamba road branch is fully prepared to provide its clients anywhere banking facility. The ATM installed by the bank at this branch has also gone online, connecting major cities. Vijaya Bank has thus so far connected 23 of its branches. The online connectivity was inaugurated by Mr V D V Prasad Rao, member (Finance), Airports Authority of India. The bank’s CMD M S Kapur was present on the occassion. (UNI) |
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Honda joins Toyota, Nissan to develop car software TOKYO, Oct 5: Honda Motor Co Ltd said on Tuesday it would join Toyota motor corp. and Nissan Motor Co Ltd in developing an international standard for software that operates a car’s electronic systems. Japan’s third-biggest auto maker said it had been preparing to apply for a membership in a non-profit entity called Japan Automotive Software Platform and Architecture (JASPAR), which was established last month by two Toyota group companies. Nissan is also a member of Jaspar. "We are definitely going to join Toyota and Nissan," said a Honda spokesman, who declined to be identified. "I think almost all auto makers and many suppliers are interested in participating for cost cutting and efficiency purposes." Earlier, the Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported Honda would apply for membership in jaspar this month, but the spokesman said no date had been set although it would likely happen soon. Toyota and Nissan have said the tie-up would allow them to spend less on developing and improving the base software needed to run the electronic systems, comparable to a computer’s operating system, and more on actual electronic products such as power windows and cruise control systems. Electronics have long since replaced the mechanics in a car’s braking and steering, and are expected to be used more as auto makers build cleaner and safer cars with equipment such as lane-keeping systems. The three firms will aim to establish an international standard for the software through Jaspar and to pitch it to its European counterpart, Automotive Open System Architecture (AUTODAR), the paper said. Shares in Honda were up 0.18 percent at 5,510 yen by 0007 gmt, while the nikkei average was up 0.05 percent. (AGENCIES) |
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China may launch bond roadshow next week: Source HONG KONG, Oct 5: China is expected to kick off marketing of a planned US 2 billion, dual-tranche sovereign bond as early as next week, a market source said on Tuesday. It will be Beijing’s second global bond offering in as many years and fixed income analysts expect the issue will help China set a yield benchmark for Chinese companies keen to tap offshore debt markets in the future. Fund managers expect the issue to be well received because of its rarity and the country’s strong credit ratings. "They come to the market, but not with enough frequency," said Stephen Chang, head of fixed income for Asia at JF asset management. Goldman Sachs, Jpmorgan, Merrill Lynch and Morgan Stanley will handle the dollar-denominated tranche, which is expected to be a five-year issue. BNP Paribas, Deutsche Bank and UBS will lead the euro tranche, expected to have a 10-year maturity. Merrill is also the global coordinator of the deal. China last sold US 1 billion of 10-year and 400 million euros of five-year bonds in October 2003. China is rated a2 by Moody’s investors service and BBB-plus by standard poor’s. (AGENCIES) Survey for Manmad-Indore broad gauge completed NEW DELHI, Oct 5: A survey for the construction of new broad gauge railway line from Manmad to Indore via Melegaon and Dhule has been completed recently and the report is under process. Updating surveys for new broad gauge lines between Gotegaon-Ramtek via Seoni, Ujjain-Jhalawar/ Ramganj-Ratlam-Mhow have been included in the budget 2004-2005. Survey was in progress for Chhindwara-Nagpur gauge conversion, an official release said. A proposal for a road overbridge near Indore in lieu of level crossing has been received from the state government of Madhya Pradesh, which is under process for approval. (UNI) |
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