Economy

By IANS, New Delhi : The global meltdown has impacted the Indian sports goods market with export orders going down by more than 30 percent in the last two months. According to a report by the Sports Goods Export Promotion Council (SGEPC), there has already been a loss of Rs.450 million in the business and if the situation continues in the next two months, then more than 50,000 workers will lose their jobs. The sports industry provides employment to weaker sections of the society including women and is scattered in and around Jalandhar and Meerut.

By IANS New Delhi : In another feather to the cap for India Inc, state-owned petroleum major Oil and Natural Gas Corp Ltd (ONGC) has become the first Indian company to feature in Fortune magazine's annual list of the world's most admired companies. "ONGC is the only company from India in Fortune's list for 2007," said a statement issued by ONGC Tuesday.

By IANS, New Delhi : India's leading industry lobby Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) Wednesday conferred its best performing special economic zone award to Sharjah's Hamriyah Free Zone Authority (HFZA). Planning Commission member Anwarul Hoda gave away the award to Rashid Alleem, director general HFZA, and department of seaports and customs, of the overnment of Sharjah. The award was given at the Assocham's international conclave on "Special Economic Zones: What Will Drive Them", organised here.

By IANS New Delhi : India added 6.19 million GSM mobile subscribers in the month of January, according to industry body Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI). The data released Monday indicated that the number of GSM users till Jan 31, 2008 stood at 178.41 million. This, however, excludes the number of users added by Reliance Communications, which is mainly a CDMA major but has GSM operations being developed across the country. Bharti Airtel, India's leading mobile phone service firm, added 2.25 million subscribers, taking its total base to 57.41 million.

By Arun Kumar, IANS,

By IANS, New Delhi : The Delhi Legal Service Authority's (DLSA) initiative to dispose of nearly 100,000 cases of bad cheques and loan-related disputes received a mixed response from the litigants. Nearly 12,000 cases were successfully negotiated Sunday, officials said. The entire exercise, held in association with the ICCI bank, was paperless.

By IANS, New Delhi : A Federation of Indian Exporters Organisation (FIEO) delegation called on President Pratiba Patil to request her to confer annual awards to exporters this year. In a press statement issued Friday, the FIEO said it has apprised the President about its activities to promote Indian goods overseas, including international exposure to small and medium segments of industry with particular emphasis on women entrepreneurs. Association president Ganesh Kumar Gupta requested Patil to give away the annual awards "Niryat Shree" and "Niryat Bandhu".

By DPA, Washington : The US unemployment rate surged to 8.9 percent in April, its highest level since 1983, with companies shedding another 539,000 jobs during the ongoing recession, the US Labour Department said Friday. But the monthly loss was the smallest since October and lower than most analysts expected, suggesting that the worst of the economic downturn may be in the past. The jobless rate was up from 8.5 percent in March and has climbed 3.9 percentage over the past 12 months. The struggling US economy has now lost 5.7 million jobs since the recession began in December 2007.

By KUNA, KUALA LUMPUR : Oil transactions in Asian markets were up for the second day in a row on Wednesday after OPEC hinted at the possibility of a further production cut with the aim of creating a demand-supply balance. OPEC President, Angola's Oil Minister Jose Maria Botelho de Vasconcelos, had said that the organizations would be adopting "a new measure" during its meeting in Vienna in mid-March, should the current production slash fail to raise oil prices.

By IANS,

By DPA Washington : The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has cut its world growth forecast amid an economic slowdown in the US and developed world, a spokesman confirmed Thursday. The IMF said it expected the global economy to grow by 3.7 percent in 2008, down from 4.1 percent forecast in January. The IMF confirmed the new figure a week earlier than expected after Bloomberg News obtained a copy of a background note on the forecast Thursday. The IMF is to officially release its World Economic Outlook report next week, ahead of the IMF-World Bank spring meetings April 12 and 13.

By IANS Mumbai : Indian equities markets opened in the red Friday on negative cues from Asian peers. There was heavy selling of banking, auto and consumer goods stocks during initial trade. The 30-share benchmark sensitive index of the Bombay Stock Exchange opened with a loss of 219.06 points at 17,515.62. Twenty minutes into trading, the Sensex fell further to 17,432.30, a loss of nearly 300 points from Thursday's close. Around the same time, the S&P Nifty of the National Stock Exchange was at 5,137, down 55 points from its previous close.

By IANS, New Delhi : Information and communications technology has become the DNA of modern day warfare, making the development of appropriate technology to ensure information dominance over the adversary a very pertinent issue for India's armed forces, Minister of State for Defence M.M. Pallam Raju said here Tuesday.

By IANS New Delhi : The Ludhiana Hand Tools and Forging Envirocare (LHTFE), a firm floated by small and medium enterprises (SMEs) in Ludhiana's steel forging cluster, will trade in the world's booming carbon market. The firm will get required funding for this purpose from the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI), according to a memorandum of understanding (MoU) inked here Monday. SIDBI chairman and managing director R.M. Malla, said: "Funding would be initially provided at a concession to help the project take off."

By IANS New Delhi : The Indian Olive Association (IOA) has regretted that its appeal to the central government to abolish the import duty on olive oil has been ignored though tariffs on almost all crude and refined oils have been sharply reduced. "This is an unfortunate oversight on the part of the government of India," IOA president V.N. Dalmia said in a statement Monday.

By DPA, Tokyo : Sony Corp Thursday reported its net profit plunged 94.8 percent in the October-to-December quarter to 10.4 billion yen ($116.37 million) because of a strong yen and dwindling demand for electronics. The earnings compared with a 200.2 billion yen net profit from the same quarter a year earlier. The Japanese electronics giant suffered an operating loss of 18 billion yen in its third quarter, compared with a profit of 236.2 billion yen during the same period of 2007. Sales also tumbled 24.6 percent to 2.15 trillion yen.

By NNN-PTI
 
Kolkata : India is the fastest growing internet market in the world with over 23 million active internet users, holding out prospect of a larger growth in the number of netizens.

The top eight metros were driving the growth of internet in India with fast growing adoption in smaller cities, said Manish Agarwal, Vice-President (Marketing) of rediff.Com, one of the leading online community portals.

By IANS, Hyderabad : Fraud-hit Satyam Computer Services Monday said that it had started the process to sell 51-percent majority stake in the company by way of a global auction after India's market regulator gave it the go-ahead last week to do so. "Commencing today (Monday), all interested bidders should register their interest in participating in the bidding process," the company said in a regulatory filing. The bids would have to come in by March 12, the statement added.

By IANS, Bangalore : Firebrand Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi turned into a smart marketing executive to hard-sell his state in India's tech hub and lure investments from IT-savvy Karnataka. Invited to inaugurate Asia's premier tech event BangaloreIT.biz by the first Bharatiya Janata Party-ruled government in the southern state, Modi took the opportunity to tell about 1,000 delegates from India and abroad that Gujarat was a land of opportunities, beckoning global investors to set shop and take advantage of its enterprising business community.

By DPA, Washington : US president-elect Barack Obama announced Tuesday that he has selected an economic advisor from Bill Clinton's administration to head the White House office that oversees the federal budget. Peter Orszag, 39, will leave his post as director of the Congressional Budget Office to head the Office of Management and Budget if his nomination is approved by the Senate. Obama touted Orszag as someone who can help identify wasteful spending and save taxpayer dollars while the United States tries to recover from the growing economic crisis.

By IANS, New Delhi : The automobile sales of India's leading car maker Maruti Suzuki declined 24.3 percent in November this year compared to sales in the same month last year, a company statement said here Monday. The company sold 52,711 vehicles in November this year as compared to 69,699 in the like period a year ago, the statement said. However, the company's volumes in the domestic sedan segment, called the A3 segment, which comprises SX4, Esteem and Swift D'zire models, grew by 40.3 percent from 4,260 cars in November last year to 5,975 this year.

By IANS, New Delhi : Jaguar Land Rover (JLR), the premium luxury car brand of the Tata group, Thursday hoped to reach a sale-figure of about 250 units by this month-end as it opened its second showroom in the country here. "We hope to end up selling close to 250 vehicles, both Jaguar and Land Rover. In the 9 months since we opened our first store in Mumbai, we have seen an encouraging response from customers," said Rajiv Dube, president, passenger car business unit, Tata Motors.

By IANS,

By IANS, New Delhi : India's telecom watchdog has disconnected over 10,000 telephone connections of telemarketers for violating the 'National Do Not Call Registry' (NDNC) regulations. NDNC is a database of telephone numbers of subscribers who do not want to receive unsolicited commercial calls and it was operationalised Oct 12, 2007. “So far, 10,151 telephones of the telemarketers have been disconnected on account of repeated violation of the regulation on the subject,” the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (Trai) said in a statement.

By IANS, Mumbai : Indian equities moved up Wednesday, a day ahead of the expiry of futures contracts, even as the mood remained cautious on account of the turmoil in the global financial system and doubts over the US being able to push through a $700 billion bailout package. Trading began with the benchmark sensitive index (Sensex) opening higher at 13,630.54 points, over the previous close at 13,570.31 points, and surging soon to 13,757.71 points.

By Aroonim Bhuyan, IANS Abu Dhabi : Overseas employers seeking to recruit Indian women as housemaids will have to pay a minimum wage of $300 a month if the Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs has its way. "We are going to fix the minimum wage limit for Indian housemaids planning to go abroad at $300," Minister for Overseas Indian Affairs Vayalar Ravi told IANS here.

By IANS

Jaipur : Å kodaIndia - a subsidiary of Å kodaAuto a.s., Czech Republic (Volkswagen Group) - is planning to launch its small car in India by this year end.