Economy

By DPA, New York : Wall Street stock indices closed higher on Friday, ending one of the best weeks in three decades, as banking giant JPMorgan Chase & Co moved to tackle the housing crisis at the centre of the economic downturn in the US. JPMorgan Chase said it would suspend foreclosures proceedings as it works to modify the terms of $110-billion worth of mortgages. Financial shares gained 12 percent Friday.

By IANS New Delhi : Chandrajit Banerjee has been appointed the new director general of Confederation of Indian industry (CII), the chamber announced Friday. Banerjee, an internal senior executive, would take charge from May 1, 2008, succeeding S.S. Mehta, CII said in a statement. "These are the best of times in India and, yet, the most challenging. I shall work with the outstanding team in CII to support India's high growth and inclusive development," said the 45-year-old Banerjee.

By IANS, Chennai : With India losing an appeal filed by the US at the World Trade Organisation (WTO) against its customs duty regime and restrictions on liquor imports by some states, imported wine and spirits will soon flow into Tamil Nadu, an official at a state-run agency said. On the condition of anonymity, the official of the Tamil Nadu State Marketing Corp (Tasmac), the sole liquor wholesale and retail agency in Tamil Nadu, told IANS that foreign brands such as Johnnie Walker (Red and Black Label), Smirnoff Black and Gordon's Dry Gin will be soon available at its retail outlets.

New Delhi : The following are the highlights of the Railway Budget for 2015-16 presented by Railway Minister Suresh Prabhu in the Lok Sabha...

By IANS, Ahmedabad : The National Multi-Commodity Exchange (NMCE) has launched new series for futures contract in non-ferrous metals, menthol crystal and raw jute. All the contracts can be traded on NMCE e-platforms from May 2. The new contracts in the six non-ferrous metals - aluminium ingot, nickel prime, copper, zinc, lead and tin - will mature July 31, 2008. The new contract in menthol crystal will expire Aug 30 and that in raw jute Sep 30, 2008.

By IANS, Mumbai : Marked by volatile trading, Indian equities opened sharply lower and dipped further Thursday, on growing fears of a recession in the US, but staged a recovery led by realty stocks before the closing bell to salvage a better part of the losses. The upturn, however, was not strong enough to prevent the sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) from ending with a loss of 227.63 points, or 2.11 percent, at 10,581.49 points, against the previous close at 10,809.12 points.

By IANS New Delhi : India's telecommunications appellate tribunal, in a move expected to put to rest the tussle over radio frequencies for a while, has directed the government to start issuing spectrum to new operators. The Telecom Disputes Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT), which was hearing a petition filed by GSM organisation, the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), also refused to stay issuing of new licenses. The government would be allocating spectrum based on the GSM technology of mobile phone services.

By IANS, New Delhi : Asserting that his ministry had nothing to do with hiking milk prices, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar Monday said it was the state milk federations that had decided to raise the prices. "It is the decision of state (milk) federations," Pawar told reporters when asked about the milk price hike particularly in major cities like Delhi. Pawar did not say whether his ministry was planning to control the rise in price of milk.

By IANS,

By IANS New Delhi : Ajai Chowdhry, chairperson and CEO of HCL Infosystems, has been conferred the award for IT Person of the Year 2007 by Dataquest, the premier magazine of the IT industry published by the CyberMedia group.

By IANS, Mumbai : The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani group Thursday accused the petroleum ministry of failing to attract foreign investment in the auctions for oil and natural gas exploration blocks in the country because of its flip-flop, partisan and non-transparent policies. The auctions under a new exploration policy conducted over the past three years unfortunately reveal the absolute failure of the oil ministry to attract any global capital inflow into the country's upstream hydrocarbons sector, the group charged.

By IANS, Mumbai : State-owned steel manufacturer, Steel Authority of India (SAIL), Tuesday announced its net profits had declined in the third quarter by 56.4 percent to Rs.8.43 billion (Rs.843.34 crore) from Rs.19.35 billion (Rs.1,934.66 crore) in the year-ago period. The company's net sales were down 7.14 percent to Rs.88.52 billion (Rs.8,852.26 crore) for the period under review, against Rs.95.33 billion (Rs.9,533.3 crore) in the corresponding previous quarter.

By IANS, Bangalore : IT giant Infosys Ltd Friday declared a final dividend of Rs.22 per share for fiscal 2011-12, which is 440 percent over its par value of Rs.5 per share.

By IANS Kolkata : DaimlerChrysler India, a subsidiary of the German auto major and one of the first joint ventures in the industry in India, wants to start manufacturing commercial vehicles by the end of the year.

By IANS, Mumbai : India's largest private carrier Jet Airways has posted a net loss after tax of $63.26 million (Rs.2.53 billion) during the fiscal year 2008 compared to a net profit of $6.98 million (Rs.279.40 million) for the previous year. The total income increased to $2.37 billion (Rs.94.81 billion) for the year ended March 31, 2008, from $1.85 billion (Rs.74.01 billion) in the year ago.

By IANS Washington : Anand G. Mahindra, CEO of India's $6 billion Mahindra Group, intends to use the weak US dollar to buy manufacturing plants in "bargain basement" America, according to Newsweek magazine. For an Indian businessman, the biggest opportunity is to buy manufacturing assets in America, which is not a manufacturing country, the 52-year-old Harvard Business School graduate told the US weekly on a recent trip to New York.

By Anjuman Ara Begum, TwoCircles.net,

By IANS Mumbai : US-based aircraft manufacturer Boeing will pay compensation to Air India for delaying delivery of 787 Dreamliners. "We will be making compensations as a penalty amount," Boeing's senior vice-president of sales of commercial airplanes, Dinesh Keskar, told IANS. However, Keskar declined to disclose figures. The state-owned Air India had placed an order of 27 Dreamliners. The company was scheduled to receive the first of the Dreamliners in the second half of 2008.

By IANS Mumbai : Imagine a lightweight laptop for just Rs.15,000! An entrepreneur here is working on a project to develop just such a computer that is expected to hit the showrooms by the end of this financial year. "I want to make the laptop available to the common man," says Hirji Patel, the managing director of Mumbai-headquartered Allied Computers International (Asia) Ltd (ACi).

By IANS, Kolkata : The city's business community is upbeat following the resolution of the dispute Sunday over land allotted for Tata Motors' Nano project at Singur in West Bengal. "We are back in business. This is a victory for Bengal," Indian Chamber of Commerce president and Patton Group managing director Sanjay Budhia told IANS. The entire world is watching the developments at Singur, 40 kilometres from here, where global automobiles major Tata Motors is building a factory that will produce the world's cheapest car.