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Tata Tea, Tetley merger by Dec
Kolkata: Tata Tea today has sought shareholder approval for the merger of Tata Tetley with itself in an attempt to compensate for revenue loss after it recently divested a part of its portfolio of tea gardens. The approval has been sought through postal ballots, and the company will announce the results in the next 48 hours.

Speaking on the sidelines of the company's extra-ordinary general meeting, Tata Tea managing director Percy Siganporia said, the company wanted to grow the tea-bag business, which was under Tata Tetley. Siganporia said the benefits of the merger would come in the third or the fourth quarter of the current financial year.

The tea-bag business under Tata Tetley cater to markets like Poland, Australia, Russia and China, which will now all come under Tata Tea. The merger would bring about more efficient and better utilisation of available resources, he said.

Tata Tetley became a subsidiary of Tata Tea as a consequence of the acquisition of Tetley in 2000. The company was incorporated during 1992.
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Tata Tele may move apex court over TDSAT's Walky order
New Delhi: Tata Teleservices is expected to move the Supreme Court today against the TDSAT order, which classified the company's fixed wireless service, Walky, as a limited mobile service. The company may now have to forgo a huge amount as an Acess Deficit charge to BSNL.

TDSAT had ruled last week that Walky was a mobile service, and thus the company was liable to pay levy (access deficit charge) to BSNL.
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BPL to divest dry cell battery business to Exide
Bangalore: BPL Ltd, which has signed an MoU with Eveready Industries to sell its dry cell battery business to the latter, will keep its alkaline battery business. It expects an export market for the batteries in the US, EU, UK, and Japan, where it sells the batteries under the Sanyo brand name to retailers.

Announcing an MoU with Eveready for selling the entire holdings in BSES Ltd the company said that it was exiting the dry cell battery business since it did not want to enter the price sensitive paper jacket battery segment but instead wanted to focus on its core competence in entertainment electronics, medical electronics, engineering plastics and tooling for the auto and consumer electronics sectors.

In February, BPL Ltd had commissioned PricewaterhouseCoopers for a strategic study of the company and on the basis of this study the company is now planning a re-launch of the BPL brand in October. Its corporate debt restructure plan has received the approval of the Kerala High Court and its 50:50 joint with Sanyo is ready to take off.

The money from the sale will go toward the re-launch of the BPL consumer electronics business after its corporate debt restructuring and the Sanyo-BPL joint venture, said a company official.
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L&T consortium bags ONGC rig restoration contract
Mumbai: A consortium led by Larsen & Toubro has won the fast-track project for restoring output at the Oil & Natural Gas Corporation's Bombay High platform, which was recently ravaged by a fire.

L&T's consortium partner is Global Industries Offshore LLC from the US.

L&T will engineer, supply and commission offshore facilities worth around Rs325 crore in addition to the main order of Rs930 crore for pipeline replacement including platform modifications received earlier this year, said a news release from L&T.

The additional work includes 10 new pipelines and 24 platforms to be modified, with the completion period set for the pre-monsoon season 2006.
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Tata Steel strikes landmark deal with colliery workers
Ranchi: Tata Steel has struck a landmark deal with coal mine workers, which will involve them paying more than what is listed in the Seventh National Coal Wage Agreement (NCWA). The company has also decided to pay employees more, in terms of minimum and maximum rates of increment, and allowances.

The agreement was signed on September 18 in Jamshedpur, between representatives of the Intuc-backed Rashtriya Colliery Mazdoor Sangh and Tata Steel management for Jharia and West Bokaro collieries. Spokesperson for Tata Steel Prabhat Sharma, dubbed the agreement as "historic" and "ahead of its time".

"The settlement is the first of its kind in the history of Tata Steel collieries. All the earlier settlements were done under the aegis of the NCWA," he said.

He added that the union and management have shown "high levels of maturity and understanding" in finalising a wage revision based on business imperative and mutual benefit. The step will improve the quality of life of its employees he added.

The wage agreement covers over 10,500 employees of the Tata collieries employed at Bhelatand, Jamadoba, Sijua pits 6 and 7, Digwadih collieries, Jamadoba coal washery and West Bokaro collieries.

The agreement was signed by company managing director B. Muthuraman, deputy-managing director (steel) T. Mukherjee, vice-president (industrial relations) Avinash Prasad and RCMS president Rajendra Prasad Singh.
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Airtel, ICICI Bank and Visa launch payments via mobile phones
New Delhi: For the first time in the country, mobile phone users will now be able to make payments over the phone with the launch of Airtel, ICICI Bank and Visa's new service 'mChq'.

Under this service, the sim card serves as a credit card and the mobile phone serves as a secure point-of-sale (POS) and a payment mechanism.

Airtel customers subscribing to this service will be issued a new Sim card free of cost while ICICI Bank cardholders will be issued an add-on card on the basis of their existing ICICI Bank - Visa credit card.

Launching the product, Akhil Gupta, joint managing director, Bharti Tele-Ventures Ltd, said, "Mobile phones now turn into virtual wallets and there is chance that the entire concept of payment may change. The product is a boon for customers, financial service providers, retailers and mobile service providers." The service works on the basis of a Pin number. To carry out a transaction, the merchant sends an SMS mentioning the amount to the customer.

The customer enters his personalised Pin number and sends an SMS back to the retailer acknowledging the amount to be paid. Both the parties then get a confirmatory SMS indicating the end of the transaction.
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China Mobile denies interest in Reliance Tele
Mumbai: China Mobile, the world's largest wireless operator, on Monday denied it was negotiating to acquire Reliance Telecom. Reliance Telecom provides a GSM-based service to 1.5 million subscribers in eight telecom districts in India. Reliance Telecom had earlier recived a visit from a Russian telcom firm as well.

Its sister company, Reliance Infocomm, has nearly 12 million subscribers to its CDMA technology and, with a network reaching deep into semi-urban areas, it is by far the more attractive asset.

ADAE has not commented on the visits from Russian and Chinese telecom executives.

China Mobile has said it wants to expand beyond its mainland market and had been "exploring opportunities" amid slowing growth and heated competition on its home territory. The company bid for a 28 per cent stake in Pakistan Telecom this year but lost to Emirates Telecommunications.
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UTV Software strikes animation deal with US firm
Mumbai: UTV Software Communications Ltd said on Monday that along with UTV Toonz, its animation division, it has entered an animation deal of US$10mn with BKN New Media Inc based in New York.

The Company said, to begin with, there will be two 26-episode 3D series, "Kong The Next Generation" and another yet to be titled series. BKN has also recently signed a number of licensing deals with partners in the US for other Kong Properties.

BKN is an international producer, distributor and marketer of animated children's programmes and exploits the ancillary rights through licensing and merchandising. The Company has a catalogue of some 22 titles covering 862 episodes.

As per the US$10mn agreement, of which the first series of 26 episodes will be reflected in fiscal 2006 for the Company, UTV Toonz has also bagged distribution, licensing and merchandising rights to some of BKN's high demand animation series like, Legend of the Dragon, Starla & the Jewel Riders, Skipper & Skeeto, and Ali Baba Forty Thieves.

Some of these will feature on UTV's Kids channel, Hungama TV, UTV's joint venture in Broadcasting, business, giving a booster to Hungama TV's programming, the Company said.
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