HEAD LINES

Business standard

1. Tata Motors has signed a deal to buy luxury brands Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR) from Ford for US$2.3bn in cash.
2. Tatas to get approval to make an eco-car from the Thailand’s Board of Investment.
3. Religare Enterprises to buy a London-based broking firm, for ~Rs7bn.
4. DLF to add Ferragamo to luxury brand portfolio.
5. TRAI to fix prices of pay channels on the DTH platform in line with the Rs5 per channel cap on CAS.
6. Government to talk to iron ore exporters for raw material security.
7. Gujarat NRE Coke plans to set up coke oven flu gas power plants in its production facilities.

Economic Times

1. SEBI Board will take up listing norms for corporate bonds in the next board meeting.
2. Withdrawal of income tax holiday for refinery may hit three government refinery projects.
3. Cabinet to take up DPEB extension today.
4. The CAG has recommended the closer of 12 state PSUs on account of the poor turnover and continuous losses.
5. Maharashtra Government will not take further action for three months with regards to land declared as private forest.
6. Government to create a debt relief fund to provide liquidity to bank for implementing the Rs600bn loan waiver package.
7. Government still wary of easing ECB curbs.
8. Pfizer has filed two law suits to block Ranbaxy's generic version of Lipitor and Caduet.
9. RCOM and TCS to enter last leg of bid for setting up 12,000 common service centres across the country.
10. Alok Infra, a subsidiary of Alok Industries, to raise $100mn through a PE fund.

Hindu Business Line

1. ONGC, along with its partner the Hinduja Group, to sign an initial agreement to develop two huge oil and gas fields in Iran.
2. IDBI reduces its benchmark prime lending rate by 50 basis points to 12.75% from 13.25%.
3. KS Oils has acquired 50,000 acres of palm plantation in Indonesia with an investment of Rs2.3bn.
4. ITC stops non-filtered cigarette production.
5. Ashok Leyland has recently concluded an ECB program of US$200mn.
6. Tata Teleservices has partnered with PayMate to enable Tata Indicom customers to book domestic flight tickets.
7. DoT may agree to allow niche operators specifically for providing services in the rural sector.
8. Cabinet nod for farm debt relief fund today.
9. India's crude oil production increased 2.3% yoy and natural gas output rose 4.7% yoy in February.
10. Idea Cellular to extend its network to cover 3,000 towns and 30,000 villages by the end of the year.
11. Indian refiners February oil processing grew 5.8% on yoy basis.

Mint

1. TRAI is looking to reduce a fee charged by telcos from other telcos.