Business Line articles from May 2001, page 10

Business Line archives from May 2001

India: SBI to upgrade Sydney office to a branch.
May 23, 2001... MUMBAI, May 22. STATE Bank of India (SBI) is planning to upgrade its representative office in Sydney to a branch office, making it the only Indian bank branch in Australia. The bank is also rethinking its plan to set up a subsidiary in...

India: J&K Bank net up at Rs 168 cr.
May 23, 2001... MUMBAI: Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd (J&K Bank) has registered a 39 per cent increase in net profit at Rs 168 crore for the year ended March 31, 2001, as compared to Rs 120 crore in the previous year. Addressing a press conference here on...

India: Lord Krishna Bank deposits rise.
May 23, 2001... KOCHI: THE city-based Lord Krishna Bank has registered 83.93 per cent growth in total deposits in the last two years, as the figures touched Rs 1,227.56 crore from Rs 667.77 crore. According to the unaudited financial results of the bank,...

India: Buddhadeb gets down to business in Bengal.
May 23, 2001... KOLKATA, May 22. BY meeting a delegation of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) on May 20 at Alimuddin Street, the party headquarters of CPI (M), the West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacherjee, sent a loud and clear message...

India: Non-payment of dues: Weak bank unions to intensify stir.
May 23, 2001... CHENNAI, May 22. IT is an issue that touches the lives of some 80,000 bank employees. Involving three banks and an amount of Rs 170 crore, which the unions consider "insignificant" when compared to the huge outflows arising out of VRS,...

India: SBI to use drop boxes for loan applications.
May 23, 2001... COIMBATORE, May 22. THE hi-tech personal banking branch (PBB) of State Bank of India (SBI) here is introducing a novel method to receive personal loan applications. It plans to employ the 'drop box' to collect the applications. ...

India: Task force sees funds crunch for Mangalore Corpn.
May 23, 2001... MANGALORE, May 22. IN the 10 'urban centres' of coastal Karnataka that have been targeted under the ADB-sponsored Karnataka Urban Development and Coastal Environment Management Project, the implications of development are beginning to...

India: Rally to assess WTO impact on farmers.
May 23, 2001... MANGALORE, May 22. THE newly-formed Samaagama will organise a rally in Mangalore focussing on the plight of farmers in the WTO-dominated regime. Addressing a press conference here on Tuesday, Samaagama functionaries said that the rally,...

India: 2 cos shortlisted for flyover scheme in Kolkata.
May 23, 2001... KOLKATA, May 22. GAMMON India Ltd and Shristi, a company floated by the Srei group for infrastructure projects, have been shortlisted from among the six corporates which had made to the final round of the bidding for the Rs 50-crore flyover...

India: Dubai help sought for shopping festival.
May 23, 2001... HYDERABAD: The Andhra Pradesh Government has requested a high-level Dubai business delegation, to help organise a shopping festival in Hyderabad in October. The delegation which was led by Mr Sheikh Ahmed Bin Saeed Al Maktoum, Chairman...

India: Solar tunnel dryer for spices.
May 23, 2001... KOTTAYAM: As a solution to the huge damage to spices in Kerala due to lack of storage facilities, the usage of a solar tunnel dryer has been proposed. Solar energy has been found to be ideal energy source for drying spices, according to...

India: Cardamom output, exports expected to rise.
May 23, 2001... KOCHI, May 22. CARDAMOM production during the current season is estimated to touch 10,500 tonnes. If the prevailing weather and crop conditions are of any indication, the next crop is expected to cross 11,000 tonnes. The timely arrival...

India: Re-exports mar tea image: Upasi.
May 23, 2001... KOCHI, May 22. THE re-export of imported tea after value-addition has done more damage to the credibility of the Indian tea following the rejection by Libya of a "re-exported" consignment and a subsequent ban on import of tea from the...

India: Procurement: Political compulsions versus economic realities.
May 23, 2001... HYDERABAD, May 22. POLITICAL compulsions and economic realities seem to be at variance with regard to decentralisation of foodgrains procurement for public disribution system (PDS) in the country. This is evident from the fact that while...

India: Asia's biggest mango market gutted.
May 23, 2001... VIJAYAWADA, May 22. THE mango marketyard at Nunna village near here, Asia's biggest mango market, was gutted on Monday night dealing a crippling blow to the already depressed trade. The fire destroyed lorries, tractors aircoolers,...

India: This is no war room.
May 23, 2001... IN A MOVE that is bound to reflect rather poorly on the Centre's decision-making and implementing skills, the port of entry regulation imposed on 300 sensitive items early this month has been withdrawn in less than three weeks. Strangely, the...

India: What makes anti-technology people tick?
May 23, 2001... 'TECHNOLOGY' has become a foul word. You cannot have anything to do with technology unless you are prepared to make long prefatory and apologetic assurances that your technology is not anti-environment, anti-people, inappropriate or...

India: Caught in a jam.
May 23, 2001... AMERICANS are great ones for collecting and disseminating statistical trivia. Ask them how many times a glow-worm glows in its life time, or how many pounds of nuts a squirrel stores in a year, or the number of winks with which any living...

India: Need for nuanced diplomacy.
May 23, 2001... THE word 'crisis' in Mandarin is composed of two syllables that stand for 'danger' and 'opportunity'. India faces both this week as relations between China and the US plummet to a new low, sparking fears of another Cold War, because Taiwan's...

India: Coating surfaces with the D-Gun.
May 23, 2001... SAI Surface Coating Technologies is a small and medium enterprise (SME) parked in the technology entrepreneurship park promoted by the International Advanced Research Centre for Powder Metallurgy and New Materials (ARCI). The interesting...

India: CPCL jetty project stuck in land acquisition problems.
May 23, 2001... CHENNAI, May. 22. CHENNAI Petroleum Corporation Ltd's Rs 96-crore jetty project in Nagapattinam district has ran into land acquisition problems, as some of the locals are refusing to sell their lands. "We are trying to resolve the matter...

India: Drop in crude traffic daunts Haldia dock authorities.
May 23, 2001... KOLKATA, May 22. A SHARP drop in crude traffic so far in this month is causing concern to the Haldia dock authorities. As per RDC (rationalisation of distribution of cargo), the dock is supposed to handle about one million tonnes of...

India: Customs notification may hit trade through Petrapole.
May 23, 2001... KOLKATA, May 22. THE Commissioner of Customs, Kolkata, in charge of Petrapole, in a recent notification, has informed exporters that appraisal and processing of all Drawback Shipping Bills for all exports under the Drawback Scheme through...

India: Red Eagle invokes force majeure at Chennai port.
May 23, 2001... CHENNAI, May 22. EVEN as work at the Chennai port container terminal continues to be affected, Red Eagle Maritime Services (I) Pvt. Ltd., the Chennai-based liner agents has invoked the force majeure clause. In a communication to its...

India: Vital to green manufacturing.
May 23, 2001... CONSIDER this: Over 90 per cent of the resources taken out of the ground globally enter the waste stream within months. India, for various reasons, has traditionally displayed a high level of native ingenuity in recycling its waste, the...

India: Select IT stocks move up on a dull day.
May 23, 2001... IN one of the dullest trading days that the Bombay Stock Exchange has witnessed in recent times, the sensitive index remained stuck at Monday's levels showing no movement whatsoever. The index closed the day at 3,640.60 points compared to...

India: Parry Agro board meets today.
May 23, 2001... Book closure/Record date/Dividend Company, BC/RD, Date, Purpose Asutosh Enterprise BC July 6 to 16 AGM Bengal Steel Industries BC July 6 to 16 AGM Crompton Greaves BC July 14 to 24 AGM & Nil Dividend GTN Textiles BC...

India: Nifty turns sideways.
May 23, 2001... THE movement of the index on Tuesday was within a narrow bandwidth of about 11 points. During the day, the prevailing uptrend in the index was terminated and the trend became sideways. The sentiment of the tradable list, however, continued to...

India: Media companies in focus.
May 23, 2001... THE gainers list of the past two weeks features a mix of technology and non-technology stocks. While non-technology stocks have been the focus of value based buying, stocks in the media and telecom sector appear to have staged a recovery of...

India: Star-studded party.
May 23, 2001... PEARL HARBOR: HOLLYWOOD moved to Hawaii late Monday, as the film Pearl Harbor debuted on the very spot where the Japanese attacked and destroyed most of America's Pacific fleet almost 60 years ago, launching the United States into World War...

India: New bogeyman in town.
May 23, 2001... SO now its the monkey-man who has set out to scare the living daylights out of ornery Delhiites. In the absence of anything better to do or say.... after all the Prime Minister and his knee are fine, (despite talk about another surgery) and...

India: Political crisis takes toll.
May 23, 2001... LYONS RANGE (Down 0.02) THE market ended on a flat note on Tuesday. The CSE-40 closed at 1,913.10, down from 1,918.55, while the CSE-50 settled at 121.92 after opening at 121.94. In general, trading was marked by an absence of volumes,...

India: Peel & play?
May 23, 2001... AN organisation as large as HDFC subscribed to Internet access through television cable for its Mumbai office some months ago. The organisation is not particularly unhappy with this connectivity, but it will soon relinquish this for dedicated...

India: Herbal asthma drug developed.
May 23, 2001... THE much-needed relief for people suffering from the suffocating problem called Asthma, especially bronchial type, is here, and the big news is that the herbal drug has been developed by Indian scientists. Called 'ASMON', the plant-based...

India: The Attention Economy.
May 23, 2001... Attention is the hard currency of cyberspace. - Thomas Mandel and Gerard Van der Leun. HENRY Thoreau concludes his Walden Pond with a parable from the Hindu Puranas. He recounts the story of an artist in the ancient Indian city of Kuru,...

India: A Zen for change.
May 23, 2001... AGAINST the backdrop of the US slowdown, which is sending ripples of fear down the Indian IT industry, the Pune-based Zensar Technologies has drawn up a three-year strategy to project itself as a global player. Zensar is the merged...

India: Barking up the right tree.
May 23, 2001... COMPANY lore has it that the founders of Banyan Networks had their first business meeting under a banyan tree on the campus of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT), Chennai, and that the company got its name from the venue of this...

India: Launch pad: School means fun...
May 23, 2001... Holy Faith International, part of the MBD Group, the publishing house, has come out with computer books for schools in association with Payne Gailway Publishers Ltd, UK, which specialises in textbook and software resources for information and...

India: The oil flows smoothly.
May 23, 2001... ASHOK Sinha is a proud man. The finance director of one of India's biggest oil and gas companies - Bharat Petroleum Corporation Ltd (BPCL) - has seen successful implementation of an Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) package in the company....

India: 'Anoto' with a Chatpen.
May 23, 2001... IT'S the most advanced digital input screen that's been made in the world so far. It offers perfect contrast and an extremely high level of resolution and any graphical interface that you can think of can be printed on it. It costs a pittance...

India: Tip-Off.
May 23, 2001... Error message I always find an error message while disconnecting my Internet connection: The error message: An exception 0e has occurred at 0028:c156eb83 in vxd.... This was called from 0028:c14e0270 in vxd... It may be possible to...

India: Time-proof technology.
May 23, 2001... THE infotech world never ceases to talk of the importance of time. But nothing can be more time-sensitive than the biological world, where a consignment delayed is a consignment lost, as the express company TNT knows. Because TNT packages...

India: Cyber Quest.
May 23, 2001... Questions 1. What term is given to the pop-up menu that can be moved around the screen like a window? 2. Sanjiv Sidhu, the company's founder, was recently replaced as CEO of which company? 3. Name the codec...

India: Amara Raja net, turnover rise.
May 23, 2001... CHENNAI, May 22. AMARA Raja Batteries has reported a higher turnover and net profit for the year ended March 31, 2001, as compared to the previous year. Buoyed by the sales of Amaron range of automotive batteries (which the company...

India: Learn while you earn.
May 23, 2001... RAPID technological advances, a performance-driven economy and a result-oriented workplace - all these have transformed our approach to learning. Not an off-site event anymore, corporate learning is evolving as a continuous process that gets...

India: The show goes on.
May 23, 2001... For decades now, film has remained the most popular medium around the world. Now that the Internet is here, there is access to kinds of information unthinkable less than 10 years ago. Apart from movie Web sites, which has caught on in India...

India: B2Bs still at Net practice.
May 23, 2001... EVEN as the euphoria surrounding business-to-consumer (B2C) portals started dying out, 'new economy' pundits busied themselves with the task of pushing yet another "trail blazer" in our faces. And sure enough, the spotlight shifted to...

India: Dabhol lenders draw blank with Finance Ministry.
May 22, 2001... NEW DELHI, May 21. THE Indian lenders to the Dabhol power project, led by Industrial Development Bank of India (IDBI), have met with a cold response from the Finance Ministry to their request to the Government to help protect their loan...

India: Gold hits new 14-month high.
May 22, 2001... MUMBAI: Gold prices spurted by Rs 85 to touch a new 14-month high of Rs 4,660 per 10 gm here on Monday on heavy demand from stockists, influenced by firm trends in global prices. Standard gold opened strong at Rs 4,625 and surged further...

India: PentaMedia: Film Roman cries off.
May 22, 2001... THE indications that the deal with Film Roman may be off for all practical purposes may not lead to any significant stress on the stock price of PentaMedia Graphics in the short term. The deal has been beset by problems and at one stage...

India: Morepen Labs: Venture may not enthuse.
May 22, 2001... A joint venture arrangement with a US company may not lead to any major improvement in the valuation of the Morepen Laboratories' stock. The stock has gained 36 per cent in the past week moving up from around Rs 84 to Rs 115. The company...

India: Entry point curbs on 300 'sensitive' items withdrawn.
May 22, 2001... NEW DELHI, May 21. BARELY a fortnight after its decision to restrict imports of 300 'sensitive' items only through 11 designated entry points, the Centre has abruptly withdrawn the notification issued in this regard. The Commerce...

India: Tribunal rejects BPL plea on SEBI order.
May 22, 2001... MUMBAI, May 21. THE Securities Appellate Tribunal (SAT) has dismissed the appeal of BPL Ltd and its promoters and officers to stay the SEBI order in what is referred to as the BPL share manipulation case. Stating that the company and...

India: Uncertainty over DPC presence at Godbole meet.
May 22, 2001... MUMBAI, May 21. THERE is uncertainty about Dabhol Power Company (DPC) officials' attendance at the second negotiation meeting on May 23 chaired by Dr Madhav Godbole. The company had said that the Godbole committee report "should not form...

India: RPL, HDFC Bank GDR issues cleared.
May 22, 2001... NEW DELHI, May 21. THE Ministry of Industry has cleared 57 foreign direct investment proposals involving FDIs worth Rs 6,020 crore. They include Reliance Petroleum Ltd's proposal for issue of global depository receipts (GDRs) worth Rs...

India: Govt won't hesitate to raise import walls: PM.
May 22, 2001... NEW DELHI, May 21. THE Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, has said that the Government would not hesitate to increase import tariffs to their bound levels if the situation so warranted. Addressing the Chief Ministers' conference on...

India: RIL to raise Rs 1,000 cr thru preference shares.
May 22, 2001... MUMBAI, May 21. RELIANCE Industries Ltd (RIL) plans to raise Rs 1,000 crore through issue of redeemable preference shares. RIL will seek shareholders' approval to issue preference shares with face value of Rs 100 each in course of...

India: Ketan Parekh released on bail.
May 22, 2001... MUMBAI: Mr Ketan Parekh, leading stock broker, and Mr J.B. Pandya, manager, Madhavpura Mercantile Co-operative Bank, both embroiled in the Rs 137-crore pay-order scam, were released on bail by a special court here on Monday. The...

India: States oppose decentralisation of foodgrains procurement.
May 22, 2001... NEW DELHI, May 21. THE Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee's call to State Governments for adopting the system of decentralised, State-level procurement and distribution of foodgrains has met with lukewarm response. Predictably, the...

India: IA may seek damages from Boeing leasing co.
May 22, 2001... NEW DELHI, May 21. WITH protracted discussions between the leasing company, GIA, and Indian Airlines coming to a "naught," the State-owned carrier is likely to enforce the penalty clause against the lessor within the next few days. ...

India: SWIL merger with Shalimar Wires gets HC approval.
May 22, 2001... MUMBAI, May 21. SWIL Ltd has informed the BSE that the scheme of arrangement entered between the company and Shalimar Wires Industries Ltd and their respective shareholders has been sanctioned by the Calcutta High Court. The company has...

India: Bengal Industry Minister for 'responsible' TUs.
May 22, 2001... KOLKATA, May 21. ON Sunday, he created a ripple by meeting, along with his Chief Minister, a CII delegation at the CPI(M) headquarters here. A day later, the newly-appointed Industry Minister, Mr Nirupam Sen, said that one of his prime tasks...

India: IDBI Bank net profit falls to Rs 19.36 cr.
May 22, 2001... MUMBAI, May 21. IDBI Bank has recorded a 68-per cent decline in its net profit at Rs 19.36 crore for the fiscal year ended March 31, 2001, against Rs 60.99 crore in the previous fiscal. The dip in the profit had been due to the 63 per...

India: Shome panel for cut in median tariff rate to 15 pc.
May 22, 2001... NEW DELHI, May 21. EVEN as the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, today hinted at raising tariff walls to protect the domestic industry, the advisory group on tax policy constituted by the Planning Commission has recommended a cut in...

India: No import surge due to QR removal: DGFT.
May 22, 2001... NEW DELHI, May 21. The Director-General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) has announced immediate withdrawal of its earlier notifications restricting imports of 300 sensitive items to only certain major ports as no import surge has supervened to...

India: AEC net down 45 pc.
May 22, 2001... MUMBAI, May 21. AHMEDABAD Electricity Company (AEC) has reported a net profit of Rs 23.59 crore for the year ended March 31, 2001, a fall of 44.93 per cent over last year's Rs 34.19 crore. Net profit for the quarter ended March 31, 2001 was...

India: Synthetic fibre makers' margins to rise: ICRA.
May 22, 2001... NEW DELHI, May 21. INVESTMENT Information and Credit Rating Agency Ltd (ICRA) has projected that the margins of Indian synthetic fibres manufacturers will rise in the medium term. The agency's Industry Report on the sector has said the...

India: Murky politics.
May 22, 2001... AT A time when all the partners of the National Democratic Alliance (NDA) coalition Government at the Centre should have been closing ranks to present a "united front" to the impending Opposition onslaught in Parliament, the Bharatiya Janata...

India: Rly divestment in RailTel cleared.
May 22, 2001... NEW DELHI, May 21. THE Expanded Railway Board (ERB) today cleared a proposal to divest 49 per cent of the Railway's equity in RailTel to joint venture partners including telecom PSUs Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd (VSNL), Mahanagar Telephone Nigam...

India: CIL may join hands with NTPC, SEBs.
May 22, 2001... NEW DELHI, May 21. COAL India Ltd is exploring the possibility of forming 50:50 joint venture companies with National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) and select State Electricity Boards (SEBs) for setting up of non-coking coal washeries...

India: Ketan Parekh, MMCB manager get bail.
May 22, 2001... MUMBAI, May 21. A SPECIAL CBI court hearing the Rs 137-crore "pay-order" scam today released the stock broker, Mr Ketan Parekh, and the Mandvi branch manager of Madhavpura Mercantile Co-operative Bank Ltd (MMCB), Mr J.B. Pandya, on bail. ...

India: Withdraw service tax, says AIPTI.
May 22, 2001... MUMBAI, May 21. THE All-India Photographic Trade and Industry Association (AIPTI) has urged the Finance Minister to withdraw the five per cent service tax announced in the Finance Bill of 2001-02. According to AIPTI, the industry is...

India: Draft policy for steel likely in 3 months.
May 22, 2001... MUMBAI, May 21. THE Steel Ministry is expected to finalise the Draft National Policy for Steel in the next three months, the Minister of Steel, Mr B.K. Tripathy, said on Monday. The Ministry is due to hold a meeting with the industry...

India: NLC union goes on indefinite strike.
May 22, 2001... CHENNAI, May 21. THE Neyveli Lignite Corporation Workers' Progressive Union (NLCWPU) has decided to launch an indefinite strike commencing tonight following breakdown of wage settlement discussions. Mr R. Gopalan, General Secretary,...

India: Raghav Bahl sells TV 18 shares.
May 22, 2001... MUMBAI: Television Eighteen has informed the Bombay Stock Exchange that its Managing Director, Mr Raghav Bahl, has sold 7,000 shares of the company through the market. Avadh to organise virtual exhibition Date: 22-05-2001 , Pg. 04 ,...

India: Gets export house status.
May 22, 2001... PUNE: Mather+Platt, a fluid engineering group, has been awarded the status of an export house by the Directorate- General of Foreign Trade. The company also has an ISO-9001 and ISO-14001 accreditation, according to an official release....

India: MFs pare exposure in Infy.
May 22, 2001... KOLKATA, May 21. AT least seven leading open-ended mutual funds have given a thumbs-down to Infosys, the percentage composition of which stood reduced in these funds considering the period between March 31 and April 30. The flagship...

India: Indo Rama back in black.
May 22, 2001... NEW DELHI, May 21. INDO Rama Synthetics (India) Ltd (IRSL) has reported a net profit of Rs 18.74 crore on a sales of Rs 1,986.03 crore for the year ended March 31, 2001 against a net loss of Rs 7.65 crore on a sales of Rs 1,751.36 crore...

India: German Remedies net rises to Rs 33.03 crore.
May 22, 2001... MUMBAI: German Remedies Ltd has reported a rise in net profit of Rs 33.03 crore in the year ended March 31, 2001 against Rs 32.40 crore during the previous year. The board of directors has recommended a final dividend of Rs 7 per share...

India: Open offer: A boon or bane?
May 22, 2001... GERMAN Remedies has turned in a lacklustre performance for the year ended March 31, 2001. The company's net profit inched up by about 2 per cent to Rs 33.03 crore, while sales fared a little better, up by about 8 per cent to Rs 230.72 crore....

India: IFC to subscribe to Orchid's FCCBs.
May 22, 2001... NEW DELHI, May 21. THE International Finance Corporation (IFC) will make its first investment in a pharmaceuticals company in South Asia - Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals Ltd - by subscribing to $20- million worth of foreign currency...

India: March truck, bus tyre output on recovery path.
May 22, 2001... NEW DELHI, May 21. TRUCK and bus tyre production staged a smart recovery in March 2001 to touch 7.16 lakh tyres, the best production performance during the first quarter of the current calendar year. The production level in this category had...

India: Egmont launches 102 Dalmatians series.
May 22, 2001... MUMBAI: Egmont Imagination India Ltd, an entertainment company, has launched the new 102 Dalmatians range of products, according to a press release. The company has introduced three variants in the 102 Dalmatians range - a jumbo fun pad...

India: Levi Strauss unveils new collection.
May 22, 2001... NEW DELHI: Levi Strauss India Pvt Ltd, a wholly- owned subsidiary of Levi Strauss & Co, has launched its 'Summer of Desire' collection. The collection comprises three-fourth length pants and converts, jeans, shorts, tops in saturated...