Lodha challenges appointment of executors
Kolkata: Rajendra S. Lodha on Tuesday challenged the appointment of B.K. Birla and Y. Birla as the executors of the mutual wills of the late Priyamvada Birla and M.P. Birla made in 1982 saying it was nothing but an attempt to create their caveatable rights.

Earlier Arun Jaitley, counsel for B.K. Birla, and P. K. Roy, counsel for Y. Birla, filed two separate supplementary affidavits to put the fact in record that after the death of M. P. Birla and Priyamvada Birla, two posts of executors of the 1982 will stood vacant. B. K. Birla and Y. Birla were accordingly appointed executors on the demise of M. P. Birla and Priyamvada Birla, in the vacant posts.

R.S. Lodha, in a reply to the supplementary affidavit, stated that B. K. Birla and Y. Birla attempted to establish that they were the appointed executors of the 1982 wills only on August 24, 2004. Hence, it was evident that to establish their rights in Priyamvada Birla's estate, the other Birlas were trying to stay in to consolidate their claims. But it was not tenable in law, the affidavit of Lodha said. Lodha's supplementary affidavit further stated that the court should not accept such a frivolous affidavit, which is merely an abuse of the process of law, and as such, should be rejected.
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IISCO to be merged with SAIL
Kolkata: The Ministry of Steel has decided to merge the nation's oldest steel company, the 130-year-old Indian Iron & Steel Co Ltd (IISCO), with the Steel Authority of India Ltd (SAIL). The Steel Minister, Ram Vilas Paswan, formally announced this.

According to Paswan, there will be no shortage of funds for the revival of IISCO. He said that, "SAIL has earned over Rs.2, 500-crore profit this year and therefore funds will not be a problem. Whatever is required for IISCO will be given."

SAIL, in turn, confirmed the development but said that a formal clearance was necessary from the Union Cabinet and the Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction.

With the merger, IISCO, which was nationalised in 1972 and made SAIL's subsidiary in March 1979, will become the fifth integrated steel plant of SAIL, after Bhilai, Bokaro, Durgapur and Rourkela.
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Skoda launches turbo petrol engine car
New Delhi: Volkswagen group company Skoda Auto India is planning to launch two more models in the current year including an automatic diesel variant of the premium sedan L&K.

The company also will be bringing in new product lines next year. Their new model line-up for next year includes the Octavia on the A5 platform. The current Octavia is based on the A4 platform. Skoda would also be setting up an R&D centre in the country next year.

The company announced the launch of a new model, the Skoda Octavia RS, dubbed as India's first turbo petrol engine car. The SkodaRS has been priced at Rs.13.23 lakh (ex-showroom, Delhi).

The SkodaRS is powered by a 1,781cc, multi-point fuel injection engine. It has features like a 528-litre double-bed boot, sun and moon roof, and parking sensor. According to the company, the new Skoda RS heralds the beginning of a completely new category in the Indian automobile sector. The car can go from 0 to 100 kmph in about 8.4 seconds.

Skoda, which has invested over $56 million in India, aims to break even next year and is targeting 60 per cent sales growth this year at 8,000 units.
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Biocon ties up with Novartis for contract research
Bangalore: Biocon's R&D subsidiary, Syngene International, has announced that it has entered into a contract research agreement with Novartis' research and development arm, the Novartis Institutes for Biomedical Research Inc.

The agreement will be initially for three years for carrying out research projects to support new drug discovery and development, primarily in the early stages and involving small molecules in oncology and cardiovascular segments.

The contract research agreement was signed recently after a senior team from NIBR, based in Cambridge, visited Syngene in Bangalore last month. Syngene, formed in 1994, will put 30 of its scientists on the Novartis programme.
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Cauvery Electrodes opens new unit
Bangalore: Cauvery Electrodes has opened a new factory to manufacture mild steel copper coated wires.

The unit has been set up at a cost of Rs.1.5 crore. The capacity utilisation of the new unit is 72 tonnes. The price ranges between Rs.65 and Rs.72 per kg depending on the size of the wire. The turnover of the company is expected to more than double to around Rs.3.5 crore in 2004-05.
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Kanoria Chem to invest Rs.180 crore on expansion
New Delhi: Kanoria Chemicals and Industries Ltd (KCIL) has announced the financial closure for the Rs.180-crore expansion plan of its existing facilities at Renukoot.

The company would be investing Rs.180 crore over the next one year to set up a chloralkali project with a capacity of 110 tonnes per day as well as increasing its power generation capacity. The company will be increasing its power generation capacity from the existing 25 MW to 50 MW through the expansion.

Out of the total investment of Rs.180 crore, Rs.87 crore will be for the power project while another Rs.93 crore would be invested for the new chloralkali capacity with membrane cell technology sourced from the Udhe, which is the market leader for this technology.

The company on Tuesday signed an agreement with Udhe India to execute the chloralkali project and a turnkey agreement has been signed with Thermax Ltd for setting up the power plant. With the commissioning of the two projects, the company is aiming at a turnover of Rs.500 crore by fiscal 2006-07 from the present Rs.360 crore and an operating profit of Rs.100 crore.
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BT Broadcast Services and ASC sign up for DTH operations
New Delhi: BT Broadcast Services (BTBS), the broadcast and media solutions arm of BT, said that it has signed an agreement with ASC Enterprises, licence holder for Direct-to-Home (DTH) operations in India.

The agreement enables European and US broadcasters to tap the 1.5 million forecasted DTH subscriber base in the country by jointly marketing the DTH capacity on its Dish TV satellite broadcasting platform. Besides the Indian subcontinent, this agreement also applies to other English speaking markets in Asia Pacific, BTBS said in a statement here.

Both BTBS and ASC Enterprises will market an end-to-end service that includes 3Mb/s (the Dish TV standard) of capacity on the platform; encryption using Conax conditional access; a Dish TV EPG listing; 24-hour signal quality monitoring from BT Tower; full resilience, with redundant equipment automatically switched into service within 1 second of any failure etc.

The set-top boxes or dish packages will be sold to consumers through Zee TV's (ASC's sister concern) 10,000 resellers, while revenue collection and subscriber management will be handled by another group company, ASCEL.
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Dr Reddy's intends to exit Pathnet
Hyderabad: Dr.Reddy's Laboratories Ltd has informed the stock exchanges that it has expressed its intention to Gribbles Pathology (VIC) Pty Ltd of Australia to exit the joint venture, Pathnet India Pvt Ltd.

Responding to the clarifications sought by the bourses on the press reports on the issue, Dr Reddy's Labs has, however, said it is neither negotiating with any buyers for its stake in this joint venture nor has it appointed any merchant banker for the purpose. Dr Reddy's Labs has a 49 per cent holding in the joint venture with Gribbles.
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Ocimum ties up with Science Partners for UK and Europe
Hyderabad: Ocimum Biosolutions, a life science contract research and development company with operations in India and the US, has entered into an alliance with Science-Partners Ltd of the UK for distribution and marketing of its laboratory information management system, bioinformatics and gene optimisation tools in the UK and North European markets.

Science-Partners is a sales and services distribution company specialising in the life science market, according to a company press release.
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Blue Dart ties up with Hayleys in Sri Lanka
Mumbai: Blue Dart has extended its brand to Sri Lanka in an attempt to exploit the growing trade between the two countries.
The Rs.355-crore company has entered into a service alliance with the Hayleys Group, a listed company on the Colombo Stock Exchange, to set up shop in Sri Lanka.

The alliance, which comes into effect on September 1, will give customers access to a speedy delivery service for documents, packages and supply chain needs. Blue Dart will now cover more than 13,700 locations in India and 400 locations in Sri Lanka.
The revenue sharing would be based on the transaction costs incurred by each company. The alliance is likely to be extended to other markets in the SAARC where Blue Dart has centres, including Nepal, Bhutan, and Bangladesh.
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Airtel post-paid tariffs reduced
Mumbai: GSM cellular player Bharti has reduced the post-paid tariffs for its Airtel services on Tuesday, introducing Airtel-to-Airtel rates of Re.1 per minute on its Plan 150 pack. Under the new package, STD calls to Airtel mobiles will now cost Rs.2 a minute.

Airtel has also launched 'pure local call' and 'pure STD' packs, with rentals of just Rs.25 per month and Rs.75 per month respectively, and tariffs of Re 1 per minute to all GSM mobiles and an STD rate of Rs.2 per minute to any phone. The rentals have been waived for the first two months.
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Patni to expand operations to Chennai
Mumbai: Patni Computer Systems Ltd has announced its plans to expand operations in Chennai. According to a company notification to the BSE, Patni will set up a centre on a 20-acre area in Siruseri IT Park of SIPCOT with capacity to accommodate 10,000 professionals.

The development centre will be built at a total cost of about Rs.450 crore with an investment of approximately Rs.60 crore and a capacity to accommodate 1200 people. The first phase of the project is to be completed in the first quarter of 2005.
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