Maruti introduces the SX4 sedan
New Delhi: Maruti Udyog (MUL) on Monday introduced its SX4 sedan at an introductory price of Rs6.18 lakh in the Indian market.

Jagdish Khattar, managing director and CEO, MUL said it had been more than seven years since the company had launched a sedan. He added that with the launch of the SX4 MUL would be evolving from a leading carmaker to a complete carmaker.

According to him, the SX4, the second global car after Maruti's Swift would be launched in the US market by autumn this year, and would also be introduced in the European and Japanese markets.

The SX4 has a 1.6-litre petrol engine and is equipped with the M series engine technology that is compliant with Euro 4 and Euro 5 norms. SX4 would also be available in two other variants, priced at Rs6.89 lakh and Rs7.24 lakh.
Back to News Review index page  

OCL gets $50-m IFC loan
New Delhi: Orissa-based cement manufacturer OCL India will receive a $50 million loan from IFC, the private sector arm of the World Bank Group. The 10-year loan will help the company build and operate a new kiln line of 1.3 million tonnes per year at its existing cement plant site at Rajgangpur, IFC said.

Besides, it will also enable the company to set up a cement-grinding unit with nine lakh tonnes per year capacity at Kapilas, Cuttack district, Orissa, it said.

In addition to providing long-term funds, IFC will advise the company on developing an integrated community development plan and adopting higher environmental, health, and safety standards.
Back to News Review index page  

Tech Mahindra consol Q4 net more than doubles
Mumbai: Telecom solutions provider Tech Mahindra has registered an increase of 120 per cent in its consolidated net profit (excluding exceptional items) for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2007 (Q4FY07) to Rs196.1 crore against Rs89.1 crore registered in Q4FY06 mainly due to higher revenues from value added services like managed platforms and consulting apart from expansion into areas like BPO and remote infrastructure management.

The company's revenue increased 108 per cent to Rs874.5 crore from Rs421.2 crore in Q4FY06.

The company incurred a one-time exceptional charge towards upfront payment of Rs524.9 crore to a customer and reported a net loss of Rs328.9 crore in the quarter ended March 31, 2007.
The revenue grew 13.6 per cent quarter on quarter from Rs769.8 crore in the quarter-ended December 31, 2006.

For the complete financial year 2006-07, the company's consolidated net profit, excluding exceptional and prior period items, registered an increase of 160 per cent at at Rs612.6 crore over FY06. Its consolidated revenue grew 136 per cent to Rs2,929 crore.

The company's headcount rose 88 per cent in the period and stood at 19,749. The utilisation percentage, including trainees, was at 67 per cent.
Back to News Review index page  

'Air Deccan not for sale' Gopinath to Mallya
New Delhi: Following reports of Vijay Mallya chairman Kingfisher Airlines, evincing interest in acquiring a stake in Air Deccan, the managing director of the low budget airline G R Gopinath came out with a sharp hands off reaction saying, "we are not for sale".

"We are not for sale..... We are three times bigger (than Kingfisher) in routes and operations."

Gopinath added for good measure that, "He (Mallya) must restrict himself to running his own airline rather than talking about Air Deccan."

Mallya had earlier said he did not have any current plans to acquire Air Deccan.

However, earlier there were reports that the UB Group, promoting company of Kingfisher Airlines, was interested in taking over Air Deccan. Mallya and Gopinath were also reported to have held parleys on the issue.

Air Deccan is India's largest low-fare airline with over 350 daily flights and a fleet of new Airbus A320s and ATRs.

Mallya, whose Kingfisher Airlines is positioned as a full service-true value carrier, had last year sought to acquire Sahara group-promoted Air Sahara, but the deal never happened due to differences over valuation.
Back to News Review index page  

Airbus plans to invest $1bn in India over ten years
New Delhi: European aircraft maker Airbus Industrie has confirmed that would invest $1bn in India in the next decade. The aircraft maker's superjumbo Airbus A380 has arrived in India for Kingfisher Airlines, its only customer in the country.

Airbus said will invest $1bn in the next 10 years' in India for training, maintenance and a design centre, said John Leahy, chief operating officer for customers at European-based Airbus Industrie. In February this year, Airbus had announced an investment of $1bn in India during the next decade. Kingfisher Airlines, owned by Indian distiller UB group, ordered five A380s in 2005 among 15 planes in a deal worth about $3bn. It expects the first delivery of the aircraft in 2011 as it draws up plans for an international debut, using the A380.
Back to News Review index page  

Infosys to boost investment in training
Bangalore: Infosys is planning to invest Rs1,600 crore in training, an increase of more than two-and-half-times. Apart from this it will add to the seating capacity, as the scramble for talent in the industry gains further momentum. The computer services company was the largest recruiter of 30,946 employees in 2006-07. This year the company plans to hire 24,500 employees for this year (gross number without attrition) and is making substantial investments to create a scalable training engine at its sprawling global education hub in Mysore.

The Mysore hub will have training centres to train about 13,500 people in a single sitting, 400 faculty cabins, 10,000 residential rooms and other facilities.

Against this, Infosys currently can train 4,500 at a time, and invested $140 million (around Rs600 crore) on training last year.
Back to News Review index page  

DoCoMo cancels license for internet-browsing service in India
Tokyo: NTT DoCoMo, the biggest mobile-phone company in Japan, has revoked the license it gave to Hutchison Essar last year to provide its i-mode Internet access service, after Vodafone Group agreed to buy a controlling stake in the Indian operator.

Vodafone said, "The business environment of Hutchison Essar has changed, which makes it difficult" for both companies to provide i-mode, DoCoMo said.
Back to News Review index page  

Essar Oilfields plans regional base in Dubai
Dubai: Essar Oilfields Services, a wholly-owned subsidiary of India's Essar Group, with interests in manufacturing, services, oil and gas, steel, power, telecom, BPO, shipping, logistics and construction sectors - plans to set up its regional base at the Dubai Maritime City (DMC).

Essar Oilfields, will offer its expertise in oilfields, drilling and rig business at the DMC.

Backed by a pool of 20-plus professionals in Dubai, three deep rigs of Essar Oilfields are undergoing refurbishment and upgradation at Jebel Ali, a company release said.

Company officials said when completed, Dubai Maritime City would be the world's biggest and the most comprehensive maritime complex spread across 227 hectares of man-made peninsula between Port Rashid and Dubai Dry Docks, and will be surrounded by the waters of the Arabian Gulf.
Back to News Review index page  

Bharti ties up with GRS for retail training
New Delhi: Bharti Resources, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Bharti Enterprises has announced a tie-up with the Global Retail School (GRS) to impart training to jobseekers in this sector.

"We have entered into a strategic partnership with the Global Retail School to bring modern skills, knowledge and progressive training to create employability for young people in the growing retail sector of India," Bharti Resources CEO and executive director Sanjeev Duggal said. He added that besides retail, the company was also looking at training workforce in areas like insurance and telecom.

In the first year of the alliance, the company is targeting to enroll around 15,000 in various courses in subjects like retail sales and marketing, visual merchandising and space planning, retail supply chain management, retail management and store operations including others.
Back to News Review index page  

Amara Raja to open 2,000 retail outlets
Chennai: Amara Raja Batteries has plans to open 2,000 retail outlets across India, mainly rural areas, to meet the growing demand for the power equipment.

The managing director of the company, Jay Galla said that the retail outlets, named 'Powerzones', would offer top quality automotive and power related products, from automotive batteries and inverters to home UPS, at cheaper rates.

The company has designed new variety of products and cut down production cost by reducing the use of plastics.
Back to News Review index page  

TataSky turns down Star TV plea on sharing of channels
New Delhi: DTH operator TataSky has objected to a plea by international broadcaster Turner International (India) seeking to be excused from a case involving its partner Zee and the Tata-Star joint venture. Turner had approached TDSAT last week seeking deletion of its name from the tribunal's order, which observed some broadcasters had failed to provide signals to the direct-to-home operator.
Back to News Review index page  

Tatas told to pay half of interconnection charges to BSNL
New Delhi: Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) has asked Tata Teleservices to pay 50 per cent of the ''disputed'' interconnections charges to state-owned BSNL for all those calls that had no caller line identification during 2003.

BSNL has accused the Tatas of tampering with the CLI to evade payment of interconnection charges.

BSNL said that after scrutinising details of some of the callers it was found that many calls were made from a single number and there were many such cases. It said that there was a large number of tampering.

BSNL's counsel said Tata Teleservices had admitted of having a fault in its own system, which was generating non-CLI numbers.

BSNL had claimed Rs 10 crore as interconnection charges for some months of year 2003, and has already served notice for disconnection to them. Tata Teleservices challenged this before the tribunal on Monday. The company also opposed that its call data record (CDR) was tampered.

Tatas said that, "BSNL has waited since 2003... They (BSNL) should wait till a solution is found as we are willing to pay them the right sum".
Back to News Review index page