Jet Airways set to fly to US, Canada
New Delhi: Jet Airways planning to begin flights from India to the US and Canada and has applied to the Centre for slots for its aircraft to operate flights from here to the US, Initially, the airline plans to operate from Delhi and Mumbai to three US cities — New York, Chicago and either San Francisco or Los Angeles.

However, Jet Airways will also have to await clearance from the US Government before it can start operating regular commercial flights from India.

Sources indicated that the routes being considered by the airline include operating Mumbai-Brussels-New York and Mumbai-Shanghai-San Francisco.

The airline is also examining the option of operating on the Delhi-Dusseldrof-Toronto sector but will have to wait till April or May next year before it can do so since it will take take delivery of the Boeing 777 aircraft by then.
Back to News Review index page  

ITC farm retail ops to begin by mid 2007
Kolkata: ITC's farm retail operations in West Bengal, the key element of the Rs1,250-crore investment package for the State by the company is expected to be launched by the middle of 2007.

The company's planned procurement and distribution of vegetables in West Bengal has been planned on a pilot basis (some 30 tpd initially), and will run on the lines of similar projects being taken up in Hyderabad, Pune and Punjab, and are estimated to cost Rs15-20 crore each.

The initial project is Kolkata-centric, and for the pilot, Barasat area in North 24 Parganas is being considered.

The project will include a farm interface through a demonstration outlet to impart knowledge to the farmer on both production and handling of produce, cold chain and pack house. In the last phase will come the wholesalers and retailers.
Back to News Review index page  

Orascom Hutch talks fail
New Delhi: Egyptian company Orascom Telecom Holding's negotiations for merger with Hutchison Telecom International have failed.

Orascom had earlier picked up 23 per cent stake in Hong Kong-based Hutchison Telecom, which gave it about 10 per cent equity share in Indian cellular venture, Essar Hutchison. Orascom had shown interest in picking up a 100 per cent stake in Hutchison Telecom, which Hutchison officials did not agree to.

The failure would come as a relief to the Essar Group, which had objected to Orascom's entry into the Essar-Hutchison venture.

Some security agencies had expressed concerns with the investment. The Government, however, had given its approval to the investment.

The FDI level in Hutchison Essar is currently at 74 per cent, which rules out any fresh FDI unless an existing foreign equity holding firm decides to dilute its share.
Back to News Review index page  

ONGC-Hinduja JV off
Mumbai: State-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC) has cancelled plans to form a JV with the Hindujas at the last minute even though the oil major's board had approved the deal on October 19.

ONGC and the Hinduja group had planned to float a holding company on the lines of ONGC Mittal Energy Services (OMEL) to hunt for oil blocks in the Middle East region.

The JV was to be headquartered in Cyprus and was expected to use the Hinduja group's connections and contacts in the region to buy oil blocks. The two groups were also supposed to sign another JV on liquefied natural gas (LNG) purchase. The ONGC management changed its mind on the eve of the signing ceremony as a result of which only the JV for LNG procurement was signed. An ONGC official declined comment on the move.
Back to News Review index page  

TCS gets $35mn Eli Lilly contract
New Delhi: Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) has obtained a large pharma BPO contract from pharma giant Eli Lilly to provide drug development services, including clinical trial data management, statistical analysis and medical writing, to the global pharma major.

The multi-year contract is estimated to be in the range of $30-35m, although TCS refused to disclose the size. This is TCS' second pharma outsourcing contract and is the largest so far in this space.

TCS said it would establish an exclusive medical information sciences centre in Noida as part of the agreement, which spans all areas of therapeutics. It said the order will cover all aspects of clinical trial data management, including data clearing, checking and data mining. Other services the company would provide include biostatistical analysis and medical writing which involve taking the data and converting it into information for regulatory review.

The medical information sciences centre at Noida is starting with 100 professionals ranging from doctors, biochemists, software engineers to microbiologists. The centre will be scaled up over a period of time.

As per McKinsey estimates, the size of the market for offshore clinical operations is $600m. The total research and development (R&D) spend by top 40 pharma companies is estimated at $52b.
Back to News Review index page  

Gujarat farmers file PIL in SC against RIL over SEZ
New Delhi: Farmers from Gujarat has filed a case against Reliance Industries in the Supreme Court questioning the acquisition of 10,000 acres of farm land for Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Infrastructure's proposed Jamnagar Special Economic Zone.

The PIL, listed for hearing on Monday, has challenged the Gujarat High Court order dismissing their plea against the decision allotting the land to the company in five villages.

The farmers alleged that of the 10,000 acres of land acquired by state government, 9,000 acres is farm land.

The land would be utilised by the company for developing an SEZ, which would also house its parent firm Reliance Industries proposed 27mt mega refinery.
Back to News Review index page  

British Telecom readies for India entry
New Delhi: British Telecom has obtained the Foreign Investment Promotion Board's clearance in India to set up operations in India. Apart from its main area of operations the company plans to foray into eight other telecom-related areas as well.

These include offering fixed-line telephony services, IT and telecom-related consultancy services, hardware and software solutions, setting up an R&D centre in India, setting up call centres and BPOs, and providing services permitted under the ISP licence, including VPN services.

BT has identified India, along with three other countries — the US, Japan and China — as focus markets where it plans to double its revenues by '08-09. The company estimates that the Indian market's contribution to its revenues could rise to $250m in 3 years.

BT also proposes to offer maintenance and fault repair services, installation services, technical services, training and managing services to licensed telecom service provider and multinationals here.

BT has obtained the FIPB nod for an initial investment of $2m in India. Additionally, it plans to invest $10m for setting up its proposed R&D centre here.
Back to News Review index page  

Pepsico India looks to sell salt
Mumbai: Colamajor Pepsico India, which produces substantial amounts of salt as a by-product of its water management initiatives, is considering selling the product to end users. It has started testing the salt internally to see if the quality is on a par with the other commercially available salt.

The company's potential customers could include any utility company that needs to generate or use soft water as a part of its process. The use of this salt would only be in industrial processes and not in any final product. Almost 70 per cent of the company's 35-odd bottling plants produce salt.

In addition to rainwater harvesting, the company has also started re-using tertiary water in cooling towers and boilers, minimising the overall use of water at its plants and in 2006 the company saved 1 billion litres of water.

The company is also working with farmers to reduce water use in agriculture and intends to have 1,600 hectares under cultivation next year, taking it to a zero discharge level, using as much water as it gives out as waste.
Back to News Review index page  

Pfizer settles trade margin issue with pharma dealers in Maharashtra
Mumbai: Pfizer Limited, the 41 per cent Indian subsidiary of the global pharmaceutical giant Pfizer Inc, has settled the issue of trade margins with the Pharmaceutical Wholesalers Association (PWA) to resolve a state-wide purchase boycott imposed by the trade body on the pharma giant since November 8.

Pfizer has been facing the wrath of the PWA, the largest trade network of pharmaceutical stockists and wholesalers, following its move to fix trade margin exclusive of excise duty, which would have reduced the margin to stockists from the current 8 per cent to 6.5 per cent.

The PWA had last week asked its 20,000 odd members in Maharashtra to stop purchase of the entire range of products of Pfizer in the state in protest against the company's move to fix trade margin exclusive of excise duty, which resulted in lowering of the trade margin from the current 8 per cent to 6.5 per cent.

Sources from wholesale trade said that with the two-day trade boycott, the company must have lost sales of around Rs 10 to Rs 15 crore. Pfizer enjoys a leadership position in vitamin preparations, cardiovascular drugs, cough syrups, etc.
Back to News Review index page  

Rajasthan Spinning to expand capacity
Jaipur: Textile firm Rajasthan Spinning and Weaving Mills Ltd (RSWM), part of the LNJ Bhilwara group, plans to double its yarn manufacturing capacity to 1.5 lakh tonnes by 2009, besides expanding the weaving and processing facilities. The company has an annual capacity of 75,000 tons of yarn and has firmed up plans to double the capacity by 2009, company officials said here. The company is also modernizing its fabric weaving and processing facility, which has an installed capacity of 12 million metres per annum. Officials said the company, founded in 1961, has recently gone for an image makeover, including a change of its logo.
Back to News Review index page  

Reliance cuts retail fuel prices
Hyderabad: Reliance Industries (RIL), has reduced the sale price of petrol and diesel by Rs2.50 per litre to bring it on par with prices of petro products sold by public sector undertakings. Officials said the sale of petroleum products of RIL have fallen by 90 per cent after the increase in April and May this year. From an average 20,000 litres sale per day it has come down to less than 2,000 litres per day after the increase. The company now seems confident that with the prices now at par with PSUs, the sale of RIL petroleum products will go up in the coming days. RIL has a little over 1,200 fuel retail outlets in the country.
Back to News Review index page  

HZL cuts zinc, lead prices
New Delhi: Hindustan Zinc Ltd (HZL) has cut zinc prices by 0.1 per cent to Rs2,33,400 per tonne from Rs2,33,600 per tonne. The company also decreased the prices of lead by 0.5 per cent to Rs88,400 per tonne from Rs88,800 per tonne, HZL said in a release. The new rates would be put into effect today, the release added.
Back to News Review index page  

Provogue India to offload shares in subsidiary
Mumbai: Provogue India has informed the BSE that the board of directors of the company has decided to disinvest the shares of its subsidiary Acme Hotels & Hospitality Pvt Ltd.
Back to News Review index page  

Forbes Gokak to consider biz restructuring
Mumbai: Forbes Gokak has constituted a committee of directors of the company to examine, in consultation with accounting and legal advisors, to consider restructuring of businesses of the company and make a recommendation to the board of directors of the company, for their consideration at a meeting to be held on November 28, 2006.
Back to News Review index page