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Indian firms are being squeezed by rising input costs and cooling demand, resulting in a slowdown in earnings and revenue growth compared to recent quarters. An ETIG analysis of 600 companies that have announced results for the quarter ended March 31, 2012, shows that net profit, excluding firms in...
By S. Sethuraman Heading into mid-year, we see more dark clouds on the horizon as against a slow but steady recovery for the global economy led principally by Asian majors like China and India, postulated at the start of 2012. Electoral politics has taken over much of economic space...
By B.K. Chum in Chandigarh It is seldom that the two main national parties, one in power and the other out of power, are afflicted with similar inner-party problems and their top leaders suggest similar remedial measures. The parties under reference are Congress and BJP. Both are plagued with...
By Narendra Sharma NEW DELHI: The scavengers or sanitary workers belong to the lowliest of the toilers among the country’s 450 million workforce. Their working and living conditions which are worse than any other segment of the working class, have remained unchanged over centuries. With stick-broom and a tinplate...
By Surojit Mahalanobis NEW DELHI: If business ethics do not catch up with your conscience, then the CAG will. The Comptroller and Auditor General (CAG) has found the Central Public Sector Enterprises (CPSEs) a slow or no-starter in their corporate social responsibility. At a report of audit on 114...
NEW DELHI: India has finally cast away the “ghost” of Bofors. It has okayed the first purchase of artillery guns for its Army in 27 years. The Ministry of Defence today cleared the purchase of 145 specialised 155 MM artillery guns, the first artillery gun purchase since the Bofors...
NEW DELHI: Public sector power producer NTPC may raise Rs 25,000-30,000 crore via domestic bonds to fund its expansion projects. This was disclosed by the company’s Director (Finance), Mr A.K. Singhal, at an investors’ conference call on Friday, a day after its fourth quarter of 2011-12 numbers. The company...
NEW DELHI: State-run oil marketing firms Indian Oil, Bharat Petroleum and Hindustan Petroleum are on an expansion spree-setting up 3,100 petrol pumps outlets in 2011-12-brushing aside financial concerns arising out of their combined revenue loss of Rs 15,000 crore in the first nine months of this fiscal. ‘State-run fuel...
BANGALORE: Shapoorji Pallonji Real Estate and PE fund New Vernon are selling their investments in three Information Technology (IT) parks in Chennai, Pune and Gurgaon for a cumulative value of 1,500-2,000 crore, a person directly involved in the transaction told ET. “They have been in the market for some...
NEW DELHI: The government and the central bank are pondering over a plan to move bulk dollar purchases by oil marketing companies out of a turbulent currency market to make the weakening rupee less volatile. With a weekly demand of $2-3 billion, roughly one out of every 10 dollars...
MUMBAI: IL&FS Financial Services Ltd (IFIN) and Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) will set up an infrastructure debt fund with a targeted corpus of $2 billion. LIC will pick up 10 per cent stake in the asset management company floated by IL&FS, the infrastructure development and finance company headquartered here....
NEW DELHI: Acting swiftly on the stinging criticism by a Parliamentary panel on the way new drugs are approved in the country without clinical trials, health and family welfare minister Ghulam Nabi Azad on Friday set up a three-member expert panel to probe the allegations and to recommend ways...
NEW DELHI: Industrial production contracted unexpectedly in March, capping a week of grim economic news and spotlighting the Manmohan Singh government’s struggles with boosting growth. Output at factories, utilities and mines shrank 3.5% in March from a growth of 7.3% a year ago, prompting finance minister Pranab Mukherjee to...
By Harihar Swarup A diminutive, crest fallen leader in crumpled dhoti and Kurta stood in queue at the AICC , the Congress headquarter at 24, Akbar Road, 32 years back . A crowd of Congressmen had gathered at the AICC to receive a triumphant Indira Gandhi who had vanquished...
From Ashis Biswas KOLKATA: A present cosmetic pattern seems to have dominated most Indo-Bangla dealings in recent years, with rhetoric prevailing over substance. There are the never-ending complaints about trade imbalance, illegal infiltration and water sharing, usually resulting in some concession from India. There is the mandatory mention of...
NEW DELHI: Agni-V, India’s most powerful missile with a strike range of over 5,000 kms, is set to get substantially higher destruction capabilities with plans to equip it with multiple warheads. “We are working in this area. It will take time for us to develop but our work is...
NEW DELHI: Notwithstanding the CAG stance favouring the auction route for allocation of natural resources, power companies such as NTPC, Tata Power, Rpower and Jindal Power might get another set of captive coal blocks without having to go through the bidding process. The new rule on coal block auctions...
MUMBAI: US private equity firm Warburg Pincus is in an advanced stage of negotiation to acquire Kishore Biyani-controlled Future Group’s 56% stake in non-banking finance firm Future Capital Holdings. The $40-billion buyout firm is doing the second round of due diligence of Future Capital and has hired the law...