Indian finalises agreement to lease two A-330s
New Delhi: State owned airlines Indian has finalised an agreement for lease of two Airbus A-330 aircraft that will be capable of operating flights from India to destinations in Europe, Far East and beyond.

The airline said the two aircraft it has leased from a French company are five years old and would be utilised to operate flights to international destinations in Europe and expand services to existing and new destinations in the Far East. The Government has already designated Indian to operate flights to Australia, the UK and the US and has also received permission to commence operations to the UK.

At present, Indian operates regular flights to Thailand, Singapore, Malaysia, Sri Lanka, Nepal and several cities in the Gulf region mostly utilising the 145-seater Airbus A-320 aircraft. The Airbus A-330 aircraft being leased by Indian would be able to seat more than 270 passengers in both economy and business class, thereby making it the largest aircraft present in the airline fleet.
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UTV partners with Fox, Will Smith for Hollywood movies
Mumbai: Indian media company UTV Software Communications is partnering Fox Searchlight (a unit of Fox Entertainment group) and Will Smith's production house — Overbrook Entertainment — for producing three mainline Hollywood films with a total value across projects estimated at up to $37m.

This is the first time an Indian production house has tied up with a Hollywood studio for a co-production.

The first deal with Fox Searchlight is a 50:50 equity joint venture, with both parties putting in $7m, making it a $14m co-production. This is UTV's second project with Fox after co-producing Mira Nair's Namesake for $9m, which is slated for release in March '07. The film, titled I think I love my wife starring Chris Rock, will be released in the US on February 9, '07.

Ronny Screwvala, CEO, UTV said the company's growth plan would eventually like to see 35-40 pc revenues coming from the overseas markets.
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Videocon likely to acquire Daewoo Electronics
New Delhi: Videocon is said to have emerged as the front-runner for acquiring South Korean Daewoo Electronics with a bid of $650 million (about Rs2,990 crore).

Four potential buyers including Haier, LG Electronics and Whirlpool PLC and Videocon had recently submitted their final bids for Daewoo Electronics that was put on the block by its lenders.

Daewoo had announced earlier this year that it would be selling its consumer electronics division and invited bids. The company has six plants in South Korea and 18 in other parts of the world, is controlled by Korean Asset Control Management Corporation and Woorie Bank, which own 97 percent stake in the business.

The company has been valued at $ 500-600 million by investment bankers. Videocon had acquired colour picture tube business of French giant Thompson SA for euro 240 million, strengthening its global presence in the fast growing electronics and consumer durables business.
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Govt puts off order on Ad ceiling
New Delhi: Protests by broadcasters has led the Government to review its decision of putting a 12-minute ceiling on the number of ads per hour. It has also deferred an order asking 43 channels to carry a scroll on-air regretting telecast of surrogate ads of liquor and tobacco products.

Earlier the Government had introduced the 12-minute per hour ceiling -- comprising upto ten minutes of commercial ads and upto two minute of a channel's self-promotional programmes -- as part of the notification on implementation of Conditional Access System in Delhi, Mumbai and Kolkata.

The Information and Broadcasting Ministry also directed channels to carry a scroll round-the-clock for three consecutive days on the channels from August 18-21 and those reprimanded included Aaj Tak, Animal Planet, B4U, Channel V, CNBC TV-18, HBO, India TV, MTV, NDTV 24X7, Star Movies, StarOne, Zee Bangla and Zee News.
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Mittal Steel, ONGC venture may not take off
New Delhi: Steel tycoon Lakshmi N Mittal has written to the Indian government about delays in the shaping up of ONGC-Mittal Energy Services (OMESL), a JV company that will trade and ship oil and gas (including LNG), industry sources said. The Mittal letter has pointed to delays on the part of ONGC to register oil companies with OMESL, a pre-requisite to begin trading in crude oil and petro products.

Sources said ONGC is not keen on forming the joint venture with Mittal Steel and has refused deputation of its employees to ONGC-Mittal Energy (OMEL) - the company formed to acquire oil and gas properties abroad and OMESL.

It has also reversed the decision to open an office in Delhi and has also cancelled interviews for recruitment of professionals for OMEL.

Frustrated at the delays, Mittal is believed to have begun talking to global giants like Chevron, ExxonMobil for an oil trading venture.
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Reliance communicates to Tata Tele over 3G pricing
New Delhi: CDMA operator Reliance Communications wants 3G spectrum to take off soon and is said to have written to fellow CDMA operator Tata Teleservices to toe the industry's line on the pricing of 3G spectrum.

Recently differences between the two operators on the bandwidth and pricing of 3G led to the CDMA operators' body Association of Unified telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI) pulling out of a Trai meeting to discuss the issue of 3G pricing. While Tata Teleservices has suggested a Rs1,500-crore 3G licence fee for all India rollout, Reliance Communications has suggested a hybrid model and a graded fee structure aggregating to a sum of Rs300 crore for a national 3G licence.

Reliance Communications is also writing a letter to Trai to reiterate how the economic model it had suggested would help make 3G services affordable and meet the teledensity target of the government. It says with seven national operators, it would cover the government's costs of refarming defence spectrum.

Reliance FLAG has said VSNL was charging exorbitant amounts for its international bandwidth landing station access. It added that VSNL was not abiding by the letter and spirit of a recent international tribunal award that had asked VSNL to provide FLAG access to the Mumbai landing station and allow it to upgrade its cable. FLAG sources said they would approach appropriate authorities in the matter.
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CII says reforms benefit financial sector the most
New Delhi: India Inc has termed the economic reforms unveiled 15 years back as beneficial for the country while indicating that a lot more needs to be done.

According to a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) country-wide survey conducted among the leaders of Indian industry, areas like dereservation of small-scale industries (SSI), privatisation, and power were seen as areas of disappointment. Areas like industrial reforms, removal of investment controls, taxation, financial sector reforms were considered the most beneficial by the respondents, a CII statement said.

In the infrastructure sector, the telecom policies were given the highest success ratings with 79% of respondents giving it positive replies. In the area of taxation reforms, the highest ratings were given to rationalisation of customs duty as peak duty was reduced and number of slabs was brought down. 64% of respondents gave a rating of over 4 for this.

Introduction of VAT finished a close second with 63 pc. Here 65 pc of respondents felt that more needs to be done for the reform to be complete.
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ONGC, Cairn ordered to end sales dispute
The Petroleum Ministry has asked for an early resolution to the sales agreement between Mangalore Refinery Petrochemicals (MRPL) and Cairn Energy for Rajasthan crude oil. Official sources said the Government did not want to intervene in what was a `purely commercial negotiation' but it would like the players to end the stalemate.

The issue has been going on for almost two years. Cairn is said to have sought an international price for the 1,50,000 barrels per day Rajasthan crude expected from end of 2008. While ONGC, on behalf of its subsidiary MRPL, has sought certain concessions including a discount of $4-5 a barrel on Cairn's Rajasthan crude oil.

ONGC has been stating that the Rs2,000 crore, which the company would be investing to build a pipeline for crude transportation, needs to be compensated through discounts, as without concessions it was uneconomical to transport the oil from Rajasthan to MRPL's refinery.

Under the terms of the product-sharing contract (PSC), Cairn is obliged to sell the crude to the Indian Government till the country is self-sufficient and the Government had the right to appoint a nominee to take delivery of the oil. MRPL, in September 2005, was nominated by the Government to purchase the entire crude produced from the block, in accordance with the relevant provisions of the PSC.

ONGC has a 30 per cent stake in an oil and gas block in Rajasthan, where Cairn Energy holds the remaining stake and is the main operator.
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Mittal Energy, ONGC may invest in Nigeria
ONGC Mittal Energy, a venture between the overseas arm of India's Oil and Natural Gas Corp and Mittal Steel, may invest up to $2 billion to develop two off-shore deep-water blocks in Nigeria.

The company plans to start production by 2010, and the blocks are estimated to yield 650,000 barrels of crude oil per day.
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