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By Nantoo Banerjee A national currency is a national pride. But, not in India. Not, at least, since its independence. In 1947, one Indian rupee (INR) was equivalent to one British pound. Today, the buying rate is around Rs. 89 for a UK pound. The rate is dropping almost...
From Ashis Biswas KOLKATA: A major controversy has erupted in Bangladesh about the proposed joint venture power station in the Southwest region, close to the Sunderbans. The National Thermal Power Corporation of India and the Bangladesh Power Development Board recently finalised an agreement to build a 1320 megawatt coal-based...
By Kalyani Shankar The CBI arresting the YSR Congress chief Jagan Mohan Reddy has made him a national hero. The public, instead of seeing him as a villain, who allegedly made illegal money, looks at him with sympathy. This is the second big blunder the Congress has committed after...
The Congress President Sonia Gandhi will leave for a medical check up in mid-June to US. And before leaving she is expected to hand over charge to Rahul Gandhi. The Gandhi scion has already started the process of a reshuffle. He is meeting MPs for wider consultation. There is...
NEW DELHI: The finance ministry has rejected a Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) proposal to market Rajiv Gandhi Equity Savings Scheme (RGESS) through mutual funds, indicating such a move would contradict the principle of deepening capital markets by attracting new retail investors. Sebi had suggested to the...
MUMBAI: The fourth-quarter sales growth at 10.3 per cent for manufacturing and software services companies (excluding oil marketing companies, refineries and banks) confirm a demand slowdown for India Inc. The sales growth rate has been a 10-quarter low, dragged by slowdown in the key sectors — capital goods, construction,...
NEW DELHI: The government plans to ask all mobile phone companies to pay auction-discovered price for the 2G spectrum they hold for the remaining period of their licences, as it seeks to create a level playing field, said a top telecom ministry official. The move will send shockwaves among...
NEW DELHI: The government has removed roadblocks to coal mining by leading business houses and taken the first step to relax scrutiny of corporate expenditure on oil and gas fields, in a burst of action that has cheered investors and industrialists in the languishing energy sector. A group of...
NEW DELHI: Power consumption in the city touched an all-time high of 5,155 MW at 3.23pm on Wednesday afternoon. The previous record was recorded less than a week ago on Friday. Power sector experts attributed the growing demand for electricity to the rising mercury and noted a trend in...
NEW DELHI: State-run oil companies are ready to cut prices of petrol by about Rs 2 per litre after reporting strong earnings, signalling a surprise turnaround in the sector that scared investors with talk of astronomical losses from subsidised fuel sales. Oil marketing companies could cut retail price of...
NEW DELHI: The finance ministry has asked state-run general insurers to increase premiums on health insurance, motor and other policies, and refrain from undercutting each other to get new business. In a recent letter to National Insurance, Oriental Insurance, New India Assurance and United India Insurance, the ministry laid...
NEW DELHI: A Bharti Group joint venture company, set up last year to invest in social media and gaming and partly managed by promoter Sunil Mittal’s son Kavin, has made its first acquisition in the e-commerce space. Bharti SoftBank Holdings (BSB), the JV between the Indian mobile phone firm...
The Indian hi-tech industry is growing fast, but for particular equipment such as modern pocket UAVs,Delhicontinues to launch billion dollar contests (it is to be noted that 10% of armament sales worldwide is directed toIndia). The remote-controlled aircraft, or UAVs (Unmanned Aerial Vehicles) are the latest developments featured by...
NEW DELHI: The government today allowed qualified foreign investors (QFIs) from six member-countries of the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) and 27 countries of the European Commission (EC) to invest in the Indian capital market to enhance foreign capital inflows. Saudi Arabia,Bahrain, the United Arab Emirates (UAE),Oman,QatarandKuwaitare the six countries....
NEW DELHI: Companies may now have to inform shareholders about the policies taken by them to tackle the menace of corruption, including bribery. They may also have to inform shareholders of how many complaints they receive, as well as how many they resolve. The committee, constituted by the Ministry...
YANGON: Two years ago,Myanmarwas to the Association of Southeast Asian Nations (Asean) what Bihar was toIndia: Dogged in its isolation, a region with low development indices and one the West loved to hate — a state perpetually on the defensive. However,Myanmar’s growth has also been as rapid as that...
MUMBAI: In growing evidence of banks’ deteriorating asset quality, the number of corporate loans referred to the corporate debt restructuring (CDR) cell in April was the highest in any month since the cell was set up in 2001. Senior officials said the cell received 18 cases with an aggregate...
NEW DELHI: Power, cement and steel companies, which are facing uncertainty due to environmental and other regulatory issues over their captive coal blocks, can now relax. This is because the government will soon come out with a policy on allocation of alternative coal blocks to them. The group of...