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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