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| 25% public holding will bring stability to mkt: SCOPE NEW DELHI, Feb 3: Apex association of public sector enterprises - SCOPE - today welcomed the Finance ......more' MFs defy
turbulent NEW DELHI, Feb 3: Domestic mutual funds appear to have sensed opportunities in the recent stock market turmoil and have .....more Prices of
some NEW DELHI, Feb 3: Prices of some essential food items have gone up as high as 82 per cent in the last five years despite .......more IT
ministry seeks NEW DELHI, Feb 3: Electronic goods including personal computers could become cheaper if the Finance Minister grants the Ministry of IT and Communications what it has wished for in the Budget......more |
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Insurers' annual IT bill to triple to $9 bn by 2012: Study NEW DELHI, Feb 3: After having relied on traditional ways of doing business for long, insurance companies are now .....more Delhi HC
quashes NEW DELHI, Feb 3: The Delhi High Court has quashed a criminal case against Vinay Bharat Ram, former Managing Director of ......more Indian
internet firms NEW DELHI, Feb 3: With IT giant Microsoft bidding 44.6 billion dollars to acquire internet major Yahoo to take on growing competition ....more Employees
bracing up to NEW DELHI, Feb 3: The recent stock market turmoil seems to have had little impact on the employees of two state- run power firms, REC and NHPC, who are waiting eagerly for the initial public offers of their companies......more |
25% public holding will bring stability to mkt: SCOPE NEW DELHI, Feb 3: Apex association of public sector enterprises - SCOPE - today welcomed the Finance Ministry's proposal for making mandatory public holding of 25 per cent in listed companies, saying it will have a "sobering effect" on the market against any overheating. "Enhanced public holding will not only enable a large shareholders' base for PSUs but also be the best cushion against overheating of the market by providing depth through a greater number of tradeable shares," S M Dewan, Director General of Standing Conference on Public Enterprises, said. Backing the idea floated by the Finance Ministry last Friday, Dewan said that the move, if accepted and executed, would help unlock the value of Public Sector, the single largest block on the bourses accounting for more than one-fifth of the total value in terms of market capitalisation of the listed companies. The partial sale in PSUs in a 'transparent' manner has unlocked the financial, managerial and entrepreneurial value of the PSUs and the process should be continued, he said. As many as 45 listed PSUs had a market capitalisation of over Rs 14 lakh crore as on January 31, down from close to Rs 18 lakh crore at the end of December 2007, reflecting the crisis emanating from a sustained bear run during most part of the month gone by. The Finance Ministry, in a discussion paper on 'Public Holdings for Listing', had suggested that "for a company to be listed and continue to be listed, it must have a public stake of 25 per cent". (PTI) MFs defy turbulent times at D-Street; pump in over $5 bn NEW DELHI, Feb 3: Domestic mutual funds appear to have sensed opportunities in the recent stock market turmoil and have pumped in close to Rs 20,000 crore (over USD 5 billion) since January 11, when the nightmares for the bourses began. Despite some brief recovery in a few trading sessions, including a gain of about 600 points on Friday last week, the stock market benchmark Sensex is still close to 2,400 points or more than 11 per cent below its January 10 level. The total market value of all the listed companies has dropped by close to Rs 12 trillion during this period in a plunge primarily driven by foreign investors and some panic selling by retail investors. However, the trading pattern shown by the domestic MFs indicate that they have held their nerves in this crisis and purchased shares worth close to Rs 20,000 crore by taking advantage of buying opportunities from falling share prices. Madhusudan Kela, Equities Head at the country's top fund house Reliance Mutual Fund, which invested close to Rs 2,000 crore in last few days when market was correcting, said that long-term strategy is about buying good companies' shares at good valuation. Pointing at confidence reposed by investors, Kela said that Reliance Mutual Fund got over one lakh new investors in seven days of correction during the later half of January. "Reliance Mutual Funds got over Rs 1,000 crore investments in existing funds as markets corrected," he said, adding that investors need to rein in their expectations from return on investments in equities. Interestingly, a number of fund houses are believed to have diverted their capital from debt market to the equity market during the recent correction. (PTI) Prices of some essential food
items NEW DELHI, Feb 3: Prices of some essential food items have gone up as high as 82 per cent in the last five years despite Government's attempt to contain inflation, industry chamber Assocham said. Coffee, pulses and wheat prices from January 2003 to January 2008 have gone up by 82 per cent, 34 per cent and 24 per cent respectively, ASSOCHAM said in a release. Besides, condiments and spices, fruits and vegetables, eggs, fish and meat and milk were also out of common man's reach as these got dearer by 22 per cent, 21 per cent, 19 per cent and 18 per cent during the same period, it said. As regards other food articles and eatables that make up the common man's food basket, the price rise was to the extent of 38 per cent, it said. "Despite paramount efforts put in by the Government to successfully contain inflation in last few years, its reflections were hardly seen in containment of essential commodities prices for Aam Adami," it said. The inflation stood 3.41 per cent in January 2003 touched a high of 6.42 per cent in January 2005 before coming to below 4 four per cent in January this year. The principal reason for hike in coffee prices includes its buoyant demand in domestic as well as overseas market, it said, adding, but its production could not keep pace with the increasing demand and amounted to constrictions of supplies and increased focus on export led to the increase in price by 82 per cent. (PTI) |
IT ministry seeks duty reduction on computer peripherals NEW DELHI, Feb 3: Electronic goods including personal computers could become cheaper if the Finance Minister grants the Ministry of IT and Communications what it has wished for in the Budget. In its recommendations, the Ministry of IT and Communications has sought for scrapping the 16 per cent excise duty on chipsets, memory modules for motherboards, peripherals and LCD/flat panel displays for monitors. It has also proposed to reduce excise duty on all electronics, IT goods, components and parts to 12 per cent from existing 16 per cent and to 8 per cent after one year. The proposed cut in excise duty, if accepted, would also encourage manufacturing in the country, by attracting foreign players to make these goods in India. The exemption of excise duty on all storage devices, integrated circuits, chipsets, memory modules and flat panel displays would certainly have positive impact on the prices of computers, the IT Ministry said. India's electronic hardware market, which encompasses all segments including telecommunications, consumer electronics, computer hardware and medical electronics system, is currently valued at 16.1 billion dollar. The electronics equipment market in India is expected to grow at the rate of 30 per cent per annum, to reach a size of 158 billion dollar by 2015. (PTI) Insurers' annual IT bill to triple to $9 bn by 2012: Study NEW DELHI, Feb 3: After having relied on traditional ways of doing business for long, insurance companies are now embracing information technology in a big way and their IT expenses are expected to rise three-fold to over USD 9 billion by 2012. According to a new report by global consultancy firm Celent, the Indian insurance companies would spend close to three billion dollars on IT in 2008, with life insurers alone accounting for nearly 2.6 billion dollars. Matching the rate of growth in premium collection, the IT expenses would also grow to 9.4 billion dollars in the next five years. In its report titled 'Insurance market in India: Market and IT Overview,' Celent said that companies need to invest heavily on technology in coming years as they would need to replace their core systems and the operational expenses for IT would start declining only after this transition is completed. As of now, "insurers are very reliant on traditional ways of selling to the end-customer through the broker and branch network," Celent said. According to study, a large majority of the budget would go for hardware and software, while staff and telecom would also attract significant investments on this front. Hardware and software would see 34 per cent and 31 per cent of the total IT budget, telecom and staff would see 14 per cent each, while services would attract 7 per cent. Average spending on maintenance and new projects would be in ratio of 70:30, Celent said. Celent said that Indian insurers face the challenge of building IT infrastructure in order to support the explosive growth in users and policy counts. "With a population of 1.2 billion and an expected middle class of almost half, insurers in India will have to cope with volumes of data and transactions never seen before," it noted. (PTI) |
Delhi HC quashes criminal
complaint NEW DELHI, Feb 3: The Delhi High Court has quashed a criminal case against Vinay Bharat Ram, former Managing Director of DCM Ltd, on the ground that too much time had lapsed between the date of offence and filing of complaint. While quashing the proceedings pending in Metropolitan Magistrate court of Delhi, which had issued summons to the MD and others, Justice S Muralidhar said: "Petitioners (MD and others) are right in their contention that the complaint in question is not sustainable in law." The court also said "MM could not have taken congnizance since the complaint was filed beyond the period of limitation under Section 629A of the Act (maximum punishment of a fine of Rs 5,000 where no specific penalty is provided) read with Section 468 CrPC (bar to take cognizance after lapse of the period of limitation)." Refusing to accept the argument of Registrar of Companies (ROC) that sanction for prosecution was received late leading to delay in filing the complaint, the court said: "This cannot be said to be reasonable explanation for the delay since the limitation would necessarily be computed from the date of the knowledge of the commission of offence." The ROC had filed a complaint before MM against MD and others for the contravention of Section 349 (4) of the Companies Act, which deals with computation of certain deductions for arriving at net profits. The Department of Company Affairs in June 1998 ordered inspection of books of accounts and records of the company. (PTI) |
Indian internet firms say ready NEW DELHI, Feb 3: With IT giant Microsoft bidding 44.6 billion dollars to acquire internet major Yahoo to take on growing competition from Google in the fast-growing online advertisement market, domestic players in this arena today said they are ready for the new challenge. A successful deal would make the combined entity much more formidable in the online advertising market, which is estimated to grow from 40 billion dollars in 2007 to nearly 80 billion dollars by 2010. Besides the internet search market, Google currently also enjoys a significant share in higher-revenue advertisement market worldwide, including India. "The Indian online advertising market is still in very nascent phase and there is room for every player," US-listed Indian internet firm Sify's Chief Communication Officer David Appaswammy said. Sify has an alliance with Google for its search service 'Khoj' and the deal would not impact it, he added. Google dominates the internet search market with an estimated 85 per cent share, while the rest is shared between Yahoo, Rediff and other players. From a worldwide market point of view, a final deal would give Microsoft a good play in the online market, Rediff.Com's Vice President (Marketing) Manish Agarwal said. "They can become a serious player online, have a good share... A lot of synergies would come from the product point of view, from consumers behaviours, and from innovation," he said, adding that it would make Microsoft number two player in the online space. Asked about the probable job cuts post-merger, Agarwal said that there could be some issues on that front in the US, but there should not be much from an India perspective. (PTI) |
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