Lagaan nominated for Oscars
Los Angeles: Aamir Khan's Lagaan has been nominated as one of the best non English-language film for this year's Oscars. France's subtle comedy Amelie, and Bosnia's No Man's Land were also nominated as best non English-language film for this year's Oscars.

Also vying for the coveted prize were Norway's Elling and Argentina's Son of The Bride.

Leading the Oscar nominations is the fantasy epic The Lord of the Rings: The Fellowship of the Ring with 13 nominations, including best picture, director and supporting actor.
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SEBI warns erring companies
New Delhi: Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) has sought more powers to punish erring companies and has warned the corporate sector against non-compliance.

Speaking at a function organised here by the Federation of Indian Stock Exchanges, Sebi chairman D R Mehta said overlapping of regulatory functions of RBI, Sebi and department of company affairs had led to misuse of regulations by many companies.
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Japan grants Rs 2,040 cr loan to India
New Delhi: Japan has extended a Rs 2,040-crore loan under the Overseas Development Assistance for NTPC's Simhadri Thermal Power project and Delhi's Mass Rapid Transport System project.

The loan, to be administered by the Japan Bank for International Cooperation, carries an interest rate of 1.8 per cent with a maturity period of 30 years, including a grace period of 10 years.

Japan also agreed to extend Debt Relief Grant Assistance to the tune of Rs 2.3 crore to India for importing essential commodities.
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India gets four ISD applications
New Delhi: India has received applications from four companies to start international long distance phone services when state monopoly over the business ends on 1 April.

The government was processing the applications and would award licences in the next few weeks.

Two of the applicants were Bharti Enterprises and Internet access company Data Access, the Indian unit of Hong Kong's Pacific Century Cyberworks.
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Govt eyes ONGCs Rs 10,000cr reserves
New Delhi: Finance ministry is contemplating a draw-down from the over Rs 10,000 crore reserves of Oil and Natural Gas Corporation to meet its revenue shortfall.

But ONGC officials feel that if their reserves are drawn out, it could face difficulty in financing the Rs 8,200 crore Mumbai High redevelopment project and the $1.7bn investment in Russian oil and gas field of Sakhlain.

ONGC has been demanding that it be paid as per the 1997 cabinet decision of according phased import parity to domestic crude as its investments were constrained by the price cap.

ONGC is being paid an ad hoc price of Rs 5570 per tonne since 1999 against its entitlement of 77.5 per cent of the international freight-on-board price approved by the cabinet for 1999-2000.
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Emirates starts new flights
New Delhi: Emirates, the Dubai-based airline, plans to start operating a fifth weekly service on the Dubai-Chennai-Dubai sector from September this year.

Talks are on with the Indian civil aviation authorities for starting flights to Kochi as well.

Meanwhile, Emirates has become a large beneficiary of the Directorate General of Civil Aviation's (DGCA) recent offer to international airlines to operate more flights during the peak season to avoid inconvenience to passengers.

The airline operates 37 flights a week from four Indian cities, including 14 flights a week from Mumbai, a daily service from Delhi and a four-times-a-week service from Chennai.
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Emirates offers online visa facility
New Delhi: Emirates is offering the option of booking visas online.Visa formalities can be completed by logging on to www.emiratesindia.com. To avail of the visa online facility, users have to log on to the site and provide details of their credit card, passport and other flight-related information.

Within 72 hours of submission of request, they will receive an e-mail from Emirates with an Emirates visa application reference number and confirming issuance of the visa. The credit card gets debited for a sum of $ 55.

Emirates officials said that the passengers would be required to hand over a physical copy of the e-mail while checking in at the Emirates airlines counter. The details are entered into the computer in India and simultaneously in Dubai.
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Haldia-Chittagong container service launched
Kolkata: A new container shipping service has been launched between Haldia dock and Chittagong port in Bangladesh.

The distance from Haldia to Chittagong would be covered in 22 hours.

The service is expected to help shippers facing problems in sending their consignments by road.

At the Petrapole-Benapole road checkpost, the trucks are detained for a long time, causing untold suffering to transporters as well as traders on both sides of the border.

The Chittagong service from Haldia, being a fixed-day service, offers sailing every Saturday.

The Haldia-Chittagong service is part of H R C Shipping's Chittagong-Colombo-Haldia-Chittagong service.

The shipping line also operates services between Chittagong and Port Klang and between Colombo and Tuticorin.
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Rites gets Mini Ratna status
New Delhi: Rites, a government of India enterprise under the ministry of railways, has been granted the status of a Mini Ratna.

With this, the Railway Board will have greater operational and financial autonomy to approve capital expenditure, form joint ventures and float subsidiaries.

The company achieved a turnover of Rs 181 crore for the financial year ended March, 2001 as against Rs 172 crore in the previous year.

Its gross foreign exchange earnings also increased to Rs 61 crore from Rs 52 crore.

Rites has bagged contracts in Bhutan, Colombia, Ghana, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Iran, Malawi, Vietnam, Ethiopia and Uganda.
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EPZ/SEZs turnover at Rs 5,500cr
New Delhi: Exports from export processing and special economic zones posted a steady increase, crossing Rs 5,500 crore in the first eight months of the current fiscal year.

As against an export of Rs 8,552.30 crore during 2000-01, exports from these zones during the period April-November 2001 were Rs 5,559.76 crore.

The government had incurred an expenditure of Rs 315.64 crore up to December 2001 towards cost of land and development of infrastructure in these zones.

Investment by industrial units in these zones as on December 2001 stood at Rs 1,978 crore of which Rs 416.36 crore was the foreign/NRI investment component.
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US wants higher FDI in Indian banks
Mumbai: The United States wants India to further open up investments in local banks. US deputy treasury secretary Kenneth Dam, on a visit to Mumbai recently, took up the case for enhancing foreign investments in Indian banks with RBI governor Bimal Jalan.

Indian rules limit foreign banks from holding more than 20 per cent in an Indian bank, but Jalan said last week this was being reviewed by the central government. Foreign funds are allowed to invest between 20 and 49 per cent in local banks.

Earlier this month, Dutch ING Group's Bank Brussel Lambert said it wanted to take control of private sector Vysya Bank but was awaiting regulatory clarifications. A host of other banks including Citibank, a unit of US financial services giant Citigroup Inc, Dutch bank ABN-AMRO and Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation have expressed interest in buying out Indian banks once the limit is relaxed.
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IA hikes fares
New Delhi: Indian Airlines (I-A) announced a marginal 1-2 per cent hike in fares for most sectors with effect from 15 February. The fares for the northeast routes, however, have been revised upwards by 10-15 per cent.

IA has increased fares in the range of Rs 115 and Rs 120. Despite the larger increase in airfares to northeast, they would still be an average 14 per cent lower that fares to the rest of the country.
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Foreign airlines to get more access
New Delhi: The government has given a limited open sky facility to all international airlines flying into India to cater to the growing traffic of travellers in the peak month of February.

Under the facility, the airlines are allowed to either upgrade aircraft or increase frequency of flights to India.
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Motor risk premiums to go up from April
Bangalore: The Tariff Advisory Committee (TAC) of the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) has effected a hike in motor insurance premiums. The new premiums are expected to take effect from 1 April.

Consequent to the hike, insurance premiums would be the highest in Chennai and New Delhi. The premiums have been increased from 1.5 per cent to 1.751 per cent in these cities for commercial vehicles.

Similarly for cars, the hikes in the new premiums are expected to range between 3.2 per cent and 3.5 per cent depending on the category of the vehicles from the current level of 2.15 per cent.
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