Bharti setto sweeten MTN deal with extra 10 million dollars

Keen to seal the $23-billion deal with South African telecom major MTN, Bharti Airtel has reportedly agreed to a small sweetener in its offer to MTN. As per reports, it has agreed to offer MTN shareholders roughly $13.1 billion in cash, while the remaining amount would be in the form of shares. Earlier, Bharti was offering $13 billion in cash.

Sources said there’s not much scope for any further offers, as the South African rand has appreciated against the dollar. A Bharti spokesperson declined to comment on the matter.

For the Bharti-MTN deal to finally go through, shareholders holding a combined 75% in MTN must approve the deal. However, in South Africa, while declaring the company’s half-yearly results, the MTN CEO said,

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Ambani dispute hurts markets, says Pranab

The ongoing spat between the Ambani brothers over the pricing of natural gas will negatively impact domestic capital markets and the larger interests of industry and government, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Wednesday.

Speaking at an Idea Exchange programme organised by The Express Group, Mukherjee said the controversy between Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) and the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) has also been unfortunate for the larger interests of the economy.

“It will have its adverse impact on the capital markets because they (the two groups) are too big. They are much bigger than they were in the seventies,” he said. As of August 26, the two groups combined accounted for more than 10% of the market capitalisation of the two major stock exchange BSE and NSE.

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World Trade Organisation meet: India to seek consensus

As New Delhi gears up to host an informal meeting of trade ministers starting from September 2, India will lend a healing touch to help revive the stalled Doha Development Round of the World Trade Organisation (WTO). Ironically, just over a year earlier in July 2008, the global media largely blamed India for the collapse of multilateral discussions at Geneva. “(The international media) treated us unfairly. It is time for us to set the record straight,” said commerce secretary Rahul Khullar on Tuesday, adding, “Never was an attempt made to build a bridge across 100 countries. That’s what we are trying to do.” To be chaired by India, 40 trade ministers representing the interests of over 100 WTO members will attend the meeting.

The objective is to keep contentious issues aside and build consensus instead. So, rather than haggle over specific offers from member nations, India will seek to get ministers to focus on the bigger picture: the need to close the Doha Round, which has been deliberated upon since 2001.

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Fortis to acquire 10 Wockhardt hospitals

Fortis Healthcare Ltd on Monday said it would acquire 10 hospitals of Wockhardt Hospitals that includes four super speciality hospitals, three satellite hospitals and one medical institute each in Mumbai, Bangalore and Kolkata for Rs 909 crore. The medical institute in Kolkata and Bangalore are under construction. The business transfer is expected to be completed by December.

Following Monday's announcement, Wockhardt shares went up 8.87% on the Bombay Stock Exchange(BSE)to close at Rs176.80. Fortis shares closed at Rs 116.05,up 6.57%.

In March this year, debt-ridden Wockhardt had decided to restructure its corporate debt. The company had said it will hive off its non-core businesses. According to Crisil, the company had a debt of Rs 3,777 crore as on December31,2008.

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Swine flu drug spreads on Intern

The panic created by the spread of swine flu has led to mushrooming of dubious websites claiming to sell the Tamiflu drug, thereby circumventing the official ban on retail sales of the drug.

As per the government regulation, Tamiflu is not supposed to be available as an over-the-counter drug and can only be retailed upon a medical prescription.

The websites, which include buydrugs.com, China.org.cn, med4health. biz, firstwebpharmacy.com, are reportedly selling either the branded or generic versions of Tamiflu

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Swiss government settles tax avoidance row, offloads 9 percent stake in UBS

Switzerland sold its stake in its largest bank, UBS, at the top end of its price range, a source said on Thursday, making a profit from last year’s rescue deal.

The sale of the 9% stake comes a day after Switzerland agreed to reveal the names of thousands of UBS’s rich American clients to Washington, settling a tax-avoidance dispute that dented its prized banking secrecy. The US warned it was now setting its sights on other institutions and individuals involved in hiding assets from the taxman.

Swiss authorities said the sale showed UBS had found a solid footing again after becoming one of the biggest victims in the credit crisis, and the markets reacted positively by pushing up its shares.

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Finance Minister meets FIs on investment climate

Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee on Wednesday met institutional investors —foreign and domestic —to seek their views on the current investment climate in the country.

FIIs are bullish on India but are seeking changes in some of tax laws on investments, finance secretary Ashok Chawla said on Wednesday.

“The idea was to get their perception on the investment climate for India and the difficulties, procedural hurdles that they face,” Chawla said after the meeting.

The government has decided to set up a panel comprising officials from regulators to look into regulatory issues.

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National Rural Employment Guarantee to widen broadband reach

Rural workers under the National Rural Employment Guarantee (NREGA) scheme will now help usher in a broadband revolution in the country. In an innovative and ambitious project, the government has hit upon the idea of tweaking the scheme to lay a 12-lakh km, countrywide optic-fibre network at an overall investment of Rs 40,000 crore over the next five years. Since a major chunk of this would be the wage cost, the government proposes to tap the NREGA programme.

Those provided work under the scheme will be asked to dig trenches and perform associated construction work for the network, thereby shaving Rs 20,000 crore off the cost of the project as they would be paid from NREGA funds with the rural development ministry. The remainder would be tapped from the universal service obligation (USO) fund, in which around Rs 14,000 crore is currently lying unutilised.

“Since NREGA cannot be utilised for this project in its current form, certain changes would have to be made to it,” an official involved in conceptualising the project told FE

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India, Asean sign free trade agreement

India and Association of South east Asian nations (Asean) on Thursday signed an ambitious Free Trade Agreement. Both sides have set an bilateral trade target of $ 50 billion by 2010.

“The current Agreement which comes into force from 1 January 2010 would help achieve this trade target,” said a Commerce Ministry statement. The deal was signed on India’s behalf by commerce minister Anand Sharma. He also had bilateral discussions with Indonesian trade minister Mari Pangetsu. Sharma invited Pangetsu to attend a meeting in Delhi to discuss the status of the Doha Round of world trade talks.

India had cleared the deal in last week of July, amidst concerns expressed by political functionaries from Kerala, which included defence minister AK Antony.

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New tax code calls for radical changes

Finance minister Pranab Mukherjee stuck to his Budget promise on Wednesday, releasing the draft Direct Taxes Code aimed at rationalising and simplifying India's obtuse tax regime, while expanding the base and moderating rates. The exercise has taken over a year.

The new code proposes a slew of radical reform measures-lower income and corporate tax rates, abolition of securities transaction tax and an increase in the annual deduction on savings to Rs 3 lakh and brings all pension schemes under a common tax system.

Mukherjee said the government would have "informed discussion with stakeholders" on the code, which rewrites the Income-Tax Act of 1961.

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Four Information Technology majors shortlisted for Army logistics solutions

n a significant deal in the domestic IT space, which is currently abuzz with several big ticket IT projects from the public sector and government agencies, the country’s top software outsourcing firms — TCS, Wipro Technologies, L&T Infotech and Siemens Information Systems Ltd (SISL), have been shortlisted by the Indian Army for its Computerised Inventory Control Project (CICP) in the second round of bidding.

According to sources close to the development, the Indian Army is now expected to come out with a limited tender, where only these companies will be invited to submit their bids. The final contract is expected to be awarded by March 2010.

Industry experts put the worth of the contract anywhere between Rs 400 to 700 crore.

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Export growth tops trade board agenda

The first meeting of the newly constituted Board of Trade, held on Monday in the backdrop of nine consecutive months of decline in exports, focused on reducing the transaction costs for trade and removing procedural bottlenecks that impede export growth.

At the meeting, chairman of the board and commerce minister Anand Sharma said his ministry is working on a proposal to set up an inter-ministerial task force that will deal with export promotion measures.

The ministry has decided to revive the moribund Interstate Trade Council--a forum of the Centre, states and industry formed in 2005. Sharma said he will meet state chief ministers next month at the Council meeting.

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Prime Minister steps in as swine flu toll touches 4

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Sunday stepped in and reviewed the swine flu situation in the country, asking the health ministry to coordinate with state governments' efforts to contain further spread of the disease.

The death toll due to swine flu in the country rose to four on Sunday as a 43-year-old NRI succumbed to the viral infection in Ahmedabad on Sunday morning. Praveen Patel, who had reached Ahmedabad from Atlanta about ten days ago, died of the highly infectious disease at 1.30 am at a city hospital.

On Saturday, 53-year-old Fahmida Panwala from Mumbai and 42-year-old teacher Sanjay Tukaram Kokre from Pune had died of swine flu. Earlier on August 3, 14-year-old schoolgirl Reeda Shaikh, also from Pune, had died due to the H1N1 virus.

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First-quarter job losses touch 1.71 lakh

Unemployment estimates for the first quarter of the financial year show a total of 1.71 lakh job losses, and the spectre loomed over most sectors, according to a study by the Labour Bureau. Buttressing this is data that shows withdrawal requests from the Employees’ Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) between April and June touching a record 31.51 lakh, indicating large-scale layoffs as well as a severe cash crunch among workers.

The textiles industry was worst hit, shedding 1.54 lakh jobs, followed by IT/BPO (34,000). The gems & jewellery sector reported 20,000 job losses, although, ironically, some employers reported worker shortages. Overall employment across the eight sectors surveyed—including metals, leather, automobiles, transport and handloom/powerloom—dipped by 1.31 lakh.

Exporting units remained badly hit. Across all sectors, employment in these units fell by a sharp 1.67 lakh

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Policy vacuum, supplies behind vegetable inflation

A complex set of factors,like government in action on developing a national market for vegetables, supply chain bottlenecks and the current spell of high temperatures, have fuel led a surge in the retail prices of vegetables in major cities--the largest consumption centres.

FE examined data of the past several years that yielded a surprising mix of conclusions.

As the table shows, in the last one year (until July 2009), arrivals of major vegetables at the Delhi whole sale market(mandis) have gone down, by as much as 36% for tomatoes, 34% for potatoes and 4% for onions.

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Free, compulsory education for children up to 14 years

The Lok Sabha on Tuesday passed the right to education Bill to provide compulsory schooling for all children up to 14 years. Steered by HRD minister Kapil Sibal, the Bill acknowledges the critical role education has come to play in the economy. The Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education Bill, 2008, will operationalise the fundamental right mentioned in Article 21-A as part of the 86th amendment of the Constitution. The Bill was passed by the Rajya Sabha in November 2008 and was pending clearance from the Lok Sabha.

The discussion on the Bill lasted over two hours in the Lok Sabha and was finally passed in its 2008 form, with the minister saying disabled children would also be included in the category of disadvantaged children and that this would be outlined in the “model rules”.

The questions raised by the House were the ones discussed earlier and included financial allocation; problems with government schools,

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Larsen and Toubro wins 1.18 billion dollars contracts from Oil and Natural Gas Corporation

Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has won two offshore platform contracts worth over Rs 5,300 crore ($1.18 billion) from Oil & Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC). The order, the single largest in the Indian hydrocarbons sector, comes to about 13% of L&T's net sales in 2008-09.

The company secured the turn key order for the Mumbai High North process platform & living quarters project, with an additional order to build three process gas compression modules in the same complex. The projects have to be completed within three years.

Hyundai, Samsung and National Projects Construction Corporation were the other bidders for the contracts.

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Private airlines call off strike on August 18

The Federation of Indian Airlines (FIA) has revoked its earlier decision of suspending flight operations on August 18. FIA, which is a forum to voice grievances of the aviation industry , has said sentiments of passengers and willingness from the government to hold talks with airlines has prompted them to take this decision. Civil aviation minister Praful Patel has already said the government can't extend financial help to loss-making airlines but is open for a dialogue.

Private carriers and members of FIA like Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines, GoAir, SpiceJet and Indigo will operate on August 18. The airlines sector has collectively posted losses of Rs 10,000 crore for FY08-09.

Says Aditya Ghosh, president, Indigo, "The airline appreciates the sentiments expressed by the ministry of civil aviation that it understands the problems faced by the Indian aviation industry and that we should all engage in a dialogue with the ministry .

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Airlines threaten strike on August 18 to protest fuel costs

In a rare show of collective bargaining in another wise highly competitive sector, CEOs of the country's major private airlines on Friday vowed to ground their planes on August 18 to protest high aviation turbine fuel (ATF) prices and airport development & usage charges. Passengers booked on flights that day would be refunded their fares.

At a meeting of industry lobby group Federation of Indian Airlines(FIA)held in Mumbai, member airlines like Jet Airways, Kingfisher Airlines, GoAir, SpiceJet and Indigo blamed rising ATF prices and current airport charges for bleeding their companies. Said Jet Airways chairman Naresh Goyal, "The high cost of running an airline is not sustainable."

Within hours of the FIA decision, finance minister Pranab Mukherjee promised to take up the matter of ATF prices with his counterpart in the civil aviation ministry, Praful Patel.

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