Tentative approval for Ranbaxy's anti-depressant
New Delhi: Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd has received a tentative approval from the US Food and Drug Administration for the generic anti-depressant, Gabapentin, in capsule form.

According to FDA, the approval is for "oral capsules" in 100 milligram, 300 mg and 400 mg strengths.

Gabapentin is the generic name of US drug company Pfizer Inc's Neurontin drug, whose sales were estimated at $2.4 billion in 2003.
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National awards for 23 BHEL equipped power stations
New Delhi: Out of the 27 power stations throughout the country that have bagged national awards for meritorious performance, 23 are equipped with power generation equipment built by the public sector major, Bharat Heavy Electricals Limited (BHEL).

Out of the 23 such power stations equipped with BHEL sets, 21 are thermal units while the remaining two are atomic plants.

In particular is APGenco's 1, 260 MW thermal power station (TPS) at Vijaywada, which has been consistently winning the award instituted by the Ministry of Power. It has won awards for the last 12 years since 1992 and the gold medal for the tenth consecutive year.

The other BHEL set-equipped power stations which have been awarded for excellent performance include Rayalaseema, Kothagudem, Ramagundam, Korba, Singrauli, Suratgarh, Kota, Mettur, Tuticorin, Wanakbori, Badarpur, Kakrapar, Gandhinagar, Raichur, Unchahar, North Chennai, Narora, Vindhyachal, Simhadri, Lehra Mohabbat and Kaiga, apart from the gas-based Dadri combined cycle power project.
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Eveready looking for battery units in China
Kolkata: Eveready Industries India Ltd. is planning to acquire battery manufacturing capacity in China through the joint venture route during the next three to six months.

The company has started preliminary discussions with some Chinese battery manufacturers. Senior officials of the company have already made several visits to China and have identified two to three plants for future discussions. All these plants are owned by private parties.

He said that Eveready Industries had initiated a capacity expansion programme at its Cossipore plant in Kolkata, the oldest unit of the company. The plant capacity will be increased from 200 million pieces per year from the existing 80 million pieces per year.

Funds for this project will be generated from internal accruals and the project will be ready by the end of next year.

Meanwhile, the company has become the original equipment manufacturer (OEM) for a number of battery producers based in other countries such as Japan, Chile, Australia, Hong Kong and the US.
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Pidilite to set up new units in Himachal Pradesh
Mumbai: Pidilite Industries Ltd is setting up new units in Himachal Pradesh at an estimated cost of Rs.55 crore.

The company said it will fund this investment mainly from internal accruals. The implementation of this project will be in a various phases spanning a period of three years, the company has informed the BSE.
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1:1 bonus from Jetking
Mumbai: The board of directors of Jetking Infotrain Ltd has proposed to issue bonus in the ratio of 1:1, according to a company notification to the BSE.
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India Steamship mulls long term growth plans
Kolkata: India Steamship Company (ISS) of the K.K. Birla Group hopes to wipe out its accumulated loss, amounting to more than Rs.18 crore within the next three years, according to the company.

ISS was now engaged in drawing up a long-term business plan whose focus would be on building up capacity for transportation of crude.

The company plans to achieve one million dead weight tonnes threshold over the next eight years as compared to 249,678 dwt at present. Right now the company's fleet consisted of three vessels, all crude carriers, with the third one, "Ratna Urvi", a 96,088-dwt Aframax, due for delivery next month.

By 2011, the ISS fleet would consist of seven to eight vessels, mostly crude tankers. "Ratna Urvi", 1989 Japanese built, cost the company $17 million funded again partly by internally and partly loans. In first quarter of the current year, both "Ratna Abha", engaged in cross trading, and "Ratna Shalini" (89,960 dwt), on charter with Great Eastern Shipping, performed ahead of the objectives.
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Hutch halves rates for prepaid users
Mumbai: Cellular operator Hutch has more than halved tariffs for its prepaid service, with a local airtime rate of 99 paise per minute to any mobile phone, and a flat STD rate of Rs.2.25 per minute to any phone in the country.

It is the third wireless operator after Reliance Infocomm and Bharti in the last fortnight to revise downward its prepaid tariffs.
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Desktop market grows 34 per cent
New Delhi: The desktop market has witnessed a 34 per cent year-on-year growth in unit terms during April-June quarter of 2004. According to IDC India, the desktop market has grown year-over-year for the ninth quarter in a row.

The AMD-Linux combination has worked well for nearly all vendors who experimented with it, emerging as one of the favourite product offerings in the entry-level segment, it pointed out.

The price-sensitive consumer market accounted for 39 per cent of shipments and dominated sales in the sub-25,000 market for desktops. IDC, however, viewed price drops in the desktop segment as a small subset of the larger positioning game that the PC market is set to witness.

While overall prices posted a drop, it was not the entry-level price bracket alone that contributed to the bulk of shipments. The Rs.25, 000-Rs.35, 000 price-bracket accounted for nearly 41 per cent of overall desktop shipments in India in 2003, with unit shipments growing by 43 per cent over 2002.

Furthermore, in line with WTO guidelines, the tariffs on IT products should be reduced to zero in 2005, IDC said adding that this would create a rapid accelerating effect in the Indian PC market from second half of 2005 into 2006.
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Flextronics acquires Future Software
Chennai: Flextronics, the $14.5-billion Singapore headquartered electronics contract manufacturer, has acquired the Chennai-based Future Software Ltd that provides software solutions to telecom firms globally buying out its entire equity. The company would now become a 100 per cent subsidiary of Flextronics.

Future Software made a marginal profit on revenue of $25 million for the year ended March 31, 2004. Employees of Future Software would get cash compensation and large shareholders, including Intel and ILFS, would get Flextronics shares.

Flextronics' acquisition of Future Software comes close on heels of it acquiring a 55 per cent stake in India-based telecom firm Hughes Software Systems (HSS) and a $10 million investment in inSilica, a semiconductor design firm based in Bangalore.

The acquisition would help Flextronics fill the gap in telecom software design and embedded software.
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ISPs in grey Net telephony fined by DoT
New Delhi: The Department of Telecom has cracked down on Internet Service Providers (ISPs), which are routing illegal traffic through their network. The department has imposed a fine on defaulting ISPs — the Tatas-managed Dishnet DSL, Spectranet and Primus Telecommunication.

Dishnet DSL Ltd, Spectranet and Primus Telecommunication have been asked to cough up Rs.2.28 crore, Rs.2.34 crore and Rs.9 lakh, respectively. Other defaulting ISPs would face similar action by the department.

Reacting to the DoT move, the Tatas controlled Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd, which had recently acquired Dishnet, said was not liable to pay any fine as VSNL had taken over Dishnet's business, business assets and only the business liabilities. Any violation of licence agreement prior to VSNL acquiring Dishnet's Internet business lay with Dishnet Ltd, and not with VSNL.

As per the licence conditions, ISPs are not permitted to offer telephony services on fixed lined phones. However, raids conducted by DoT along with the Central Bureau of Investigation revealed that Internet leased lines of ISPs were being misused for switching the international calls to fixed line telephones bypassing the networks of long distance operators. In some cases, pre-paid cards were also used to originate calls from fixed line numbers, which were illegally switched to international numbers through Internet.
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