United Spirits signs marketing deal with Russian vodka maker
Mumbai: United Spirits, the spirits arm of the UB Group, has signed a mutual marketing alliance with Russian vodka manufacturer Russian Standard, the vodka manufacturing and marketing arm of Russia's Roust Group.

United Spirits will introduce Russian vodka brands manufactured and supplied by Russian Standard in India.

In return, the Russian company, which has a broad distribution network in Russia and other CIS markets, will market the premium whiskey brands of United Spirits in Russia.

Russian Standard Vodka, one of the premium vodka brand of Roust Group has a 60 pc market share of all local and imported premium vodkas in Russia. It is also exported in more than 20 countries including US, Italy, UK and Greece.
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Rel Comm introduces MMS interoperability
Mumbai: Reliance Communications has introduced its Multimedia Messaging Service (MMS) Interoperability for its subscribers as well to other mobile subscribers worldwide.

Now Reliance Mobile customers will be able to share their MMS pictures, videos and tones with subscribers of global telecom majors like as China Mobile, China Unicom. Digi-Malaysia, Telstra-Australia and MTNL, among others.

Reliance is currently in discussion and also testing interoperability with other operators in India.

This is a part of Reliance's ongoing effort towards building an operator-neutral mobile community across the globe, a release from the company said.

Reliance Mobile customers are charged Rs5 per MMS. The MMS interoperablity service on Reliance Mobile is supported by global data network services and solutions provider Alcent.
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Kalyani Group signs JV with Singapore company
Mumbai: The Kalyani Group has entered into a joint venture (JV) with Singapore Technologies Kinetics (ST Kinetics), Singapore in which the Kalyani Group will be the majority equity holder.(See: Kalyani Group company in JV with Singapore Technologies unit)

The agreement will offer Kalyani access to ST Kinetics' growing portfolio of products and services for the defence market, and will leverage its full service supply capability on the basis of its technology, product design and product development expertise.

According to B N Kalyani, the JV is an effort to further private public partnership (PPP) and largely complement the research and development arm of the central government such as the DRDO and the manufacturing efforts of the ordinance factory.

The JV will design, engineer and manufacture high technology and critical systems for the Indian defence market, he said.

ST Kinetics' capabilities include the design and development, systems integration, production, operation & support and life cycle management of a wide range of specialty vehicles and defence equipment.
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FedEx buys out local franchisee in India
New Delhi: FedEx Corporation, the world's largest express transportation company, has decided to acquire Prakash Air Freight Pvt Ltd, its sole franchisee in the country, for $30 million in cash.

With this the $33 billion FedEx, with nearly 275,000 employees and 670 aircraft worldwide has entered directly into the Indian market.

FedEx applied to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board about two weeks ago for permission to undertake the acquisition.
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Reliance Retail to begin operations today
New Delhi: Reliance Retail will begin its operations at 11 locations in Hyderabad today. The stores will sell fresh produce, groceries and dairy products.

Apart from Reliance Fresh stores, the company will also launch the Reliance Select brand, under which it will sell staples such as pulses and rice, which, it promises, will be cheaper than those in neighbourhood stores.

The company says it will have nearly 1,000 stores, many of them 2,000-5,000 sq ft, spread across major cities in 10 states by March. Important markets such as Delhi and Mumbai will see 30-35 small-format stores begin operations by that time.
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Cognizant makes big investment plans for India
Chennai: Cognizant Technology Solutions based in New Jersey plans to invest $200 million (about Rs910 crore) in expansion plans that will result in the company adding over 3 million square feet of company-owned facilities across India for over 30,000 employees by the end of 2008.

The company will develop state-of-the-art techno-complexes and expand its infrastructure in Chennai, Coimbatore, Hyderabad, Kolkata and Pune. The company also plans campuses in special economic zones. Construction is expected to begin in the first quarter of 2007 and continue till the end of 2008.

In addition, Cognizant will continue to lease additional facilities to meet its headcount growth requirements. It employs about 35,000 people and by the end of 2006, the total headcount is expected to be around 38,000.
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BOC India Q2 PBT up 86 pc
Kolkata: BOC India, a member of the Linde Group, gross sales rose 25 per cent to 134.22 crore in the quarter ended September 30, 2006 against Rs107.39 crore reported in the same period of the previous year.

The profit before tax (without extraordinary items) for the quarter stood at Rs19.16 crore a growth of 86 per cent over the same period of last year. The PBT of the corresponding period of last year amounting to Rs57.32 crore included extraordinary income of Rs47 crore from the sale of property.
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OVL to get stake in Angola, Iran blocks
New Delhi: Norsk Hydro of Norway has offered ONGC Videsh (OVL), the overseas arm of ONGC, stake in an Angolan exploration block and the Aranan field in Iran.

In return OVL has offered Norsk Hydro participation in its two exploratory deep water blocks in Cuba.

Government officials said Norsk Hydro had agreed for participation of OVL in the Angolan block number 34 in which it had 50 per cent participation interest. Brazil's Petrobras holds the remaining half in the same block.

The Scandinavian company has also offered OVL part of its 50 per cent stake in the onshore Aranan field of Iran. (The National Iranian Oil Co holds the other half of the field.) Norsk Hydro has agreed to provide assistance to ONGC on service contract basis and will provide detailed exploitation technology for the development of thin oil rim Vasai East and Bassein Field of Western offshore.
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HPCL allotted 1,500-acre site in AP in SEZ
Hyderabad: The Andhra Pradesh Government has allotted a 1500-acre site near Visakhapatnam's SEZ to petroleum major Hindustan Petroleum Corporation (HPCL) for the latter's mega project which entails an outlay of Rs30,000 crore.

This is part of the 9,000-acre Special Economic Zone proposed to come up near Visakhapatnam.

The SEZ would include land for HPCL, Gangavaram port and several other related projects and is one of the 31 SEZs that the Centre has cleared for Andhra Pradesh.

HPCL proposes to invest up to Rs30,000 crore spread across three major projects - refinery, aromatic plant, and naphtha cracker plant.

This new project, in effect, would mean creation of additional capacities and diversification plans for HPCL, which has significant presence in Visakhapatnam with a refinery.
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Aircel to expand nationally
Chennai: Aircel, now part of Maxis of Malaysia, is planning to launch its GSM mobile service on a national scale. The company is also planning to promote Maxis as the brand for its pan-Indian presence.

Aircel has bagged licences for seven other circles — North-East, Assam, Orissa, West Bengal, Bihar, Jammu & Kashmir and Himachal Pradesh and plans to launch its services nationally except Bihar and HP.

Aircel has about 3.8m subscribers in the country, with Chennai/Tamil Nadu accounting for 3.0m subscribers.
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