Twenty Four Indian companies in Forbes 'Asia's Rising companies' list
Coimbatore: Twenty-four Indian companies figure among `Asia's Rising Companies' listed by Forbes magazine in its latest issue dated November 1.

The number of Indian companies in this list, which covers the 100 best smaller-size enterprises in both Asia Pacific and Europe, is next only to UK's. And India is ahead of industrial powers such as Japan, Germany, France, Italy and China.

The study has a cap of $1 billion a year on the company revenue.
To prepare the list, the publication screened the database of 2,600 publicly-traded companies which had less than $1 billion a year in revenue and five-year returns on capital of at least 5 per cent.

The Indian companies listed are Aurobindo Pharma, Balrampur Chini Mills, Bharat Forge, Cipla, Corporation Bank, Essel Propack, Graphite India, Gujarat Ambuja Cement, HDFC Bank, i-flex Solutions, Indian Hume Pipe, IPCA Laboratories, J&K Bank, JB Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals, Jubilant Organosys, MphasiS BFL, Neyveli Lignite Corporation, Nicholas Piramal India, Oriental Bank of Commerce, Satyam Computers, Sesa Goa, Shanthi Gears, Sun Pharmaceuticals and Zee Tele Films.
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Petronet clears LNG project in Kochi
New Delhi: The Board of Petronet LNG Ltd (PLL) has cleared setting up of an Rs2,000 crore LNG terminal at Kochi in Kerala and Rs1,000 crore expansion of its Dahej terminal in Gujarat to 10 million tonnes.

Indian Oil Corp, Oil and Natural Gas Corp, GAIL and Bharat Petroleum Corp Ltd are equal promoters of PLL and BPCL needs re-gasified LNG for internal requirement of its subsidiary Kochi Refineries Ltd. Besides, GAIL has large number of customers with unmet demand.

PLL would also begin work on raising capacity of its 5 million tonnes Dahej terminal to 10 million tonnes at an estimated cost of Rs 1,000 crore. The two additional storage tanks are planned at Dahej in next 18 months to double the capacity.
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Reliance bids for Oman oil block
New Delhi: Reliance Industries, the country's largest private sector oil firm, has bid for an oil and gas block in Gulf of Oman and is looking for oil assets in Qatar.

According to sources, Reliance has put in a bid in the Oman government's tender for three Gulf of Oman deepwater blocks.
Reliance already holds exploration acreage in India totalling 300,000 square kilometers, second only to state-owned upstream flagship Oil and Natural Gas Corporation.

It would invest $550 million in exploration and production of oil and gas over the next 24 to 30 months.

This would be in addition to roughly $2 billion the company would be investing to develop and build infrastructure for the gas discoveries with a total in-place gas reserves of 14 trillion cubic feet in deep-water block KG-DWN-98/3, off the east coast of the country.
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BSNL slaps another bill for Rs.124 crore on Reliance Info.
New Delhi: BSNL has sent another bill of Rs124 crore to Reliance Infocomm, to be paid by November 5, for allegedly routing international calls as local calls thereby causing revenue loss to the PSU.

BSNL had sent the notice to Reliance on October 29 asking them to pay the remaining amount of Rs124 crore out of the total outstanding of Rs182 crore (reported till October 29) on 355 PoIs to the respective circles where the call routing had taken place, sources said, adding the notice was issued yesterday with the payment deadline of a week.

They added that BSNL has adjusted the amount Reliance has paid up (Rs58 crore) as part of interim arrangement in the final bill as the investigation on PoIs proceeds.

Till October 29, the PSU had investigated 355 PoIs where it found illegal call routing had taken place and is currently investigating the remaining 45 PoIs which should take another 10 days, according to sources.

The state-owned company had alleged that Reliance was terminating international calls to BSNL's network and treating them as local calls to avoid paying ADC (Access Deficit Charge) of Rs 4.25 on international calls . The local call ADC is 30 paise a call.
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Torrent Pharma Q2 net up
Mumbai: Torrent Pharmaceuticals Ltd has posted a higher net profit of Rs21.24 crore for the second quarter ended September 30, 2004 as against Rs18.4 crore in the same period last fiscal. The total income for the reporting quarter rose to Rs144.66 crore from Rs118.61 crore in Q2 of 2003-04.

The board also approved plans to raise up to $50 million through foreign currency convertible debentures or depository receipts with green shoe option up to 15 per cent.

The board also accorded its consent to ceiling on foreign institutional investment up to 49 per cent of capital, subject to shareholders' approval.
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Star's DTH project may get go-ahead
New Delhi: The ambitious Rs1,600 crore DTH venture of Rupert Murdoch's Star Network and Tatas may receive a final clearance by the government, shortly.

The Star-Tata application, which had been pending with the government for quite some time now, is expected to be cleared by the year-end, according to official sources.

The Star-Tata venture, in which the Indian partner holds 80 per cent equity as per government guidelines, is called 'Space TV' and when launched will be the third player in the segment, considering that public broadcaster Prasar Bharati's DTH platform will be on air by that time.

Zee is the early bird in the DTH segment as it launched 'Dish TV' in rural areas. Currently with around 1.5 lakh subscribers, it is looking to make a foray in the urban regions as well.
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AP eSeva bags C'wealth award
Hyderabad: eSeva, the integrated citizen services project, having centres across the State, has bagged the Commonwealth Association for Public Administration (CAPAM) Innovation Award that promotes innovations in government reforms in the Commonwealth countries.
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