MAIN HEAD LINES

News:

Developers of gas fields like RIL, ONGC and Cairn India may not get the seven-year tax holiday under Section 80-IB of the Income Tax Act, 1961.

The pipeline to evacuate gas from RIL block in the KG basin is set to be commissioned in the next three months.

A consortium of Adani group, GSPC and Essar Oil, plans to spend Rs100bn to build a LNG regassification terminal at Mundra in Gujarat.

Sintex Industries is scouting for companies in the composites space and has earmarked US$150mn for the same.

Tata Steel has outlined its “vision” for 2012, which entails, among other things, doubling of ROI from around 16% at present to 32%.

The Government is understood to have granted ONGC’s request for status change for its oil and gas block in Mahanadi basin from a shallow water block to a deepwater block.

The Government has approved plans by ONGC Videsh (OVL), to invest up to US$458.21mn in oil and gas projects in Venezuela and Qatar.

The user development fee for domestic air travelers will not be collected for now by GMR Hyderabad International Airport Ltd.

Eicher Motors announced a reduction in the prices of its trucks and buses between Rs5,000 and Rs19,000.

MRTPC has found Cement Manufacturers Association and nine others including ACC and Grasim Cement, guilty of cartelization in Jabalpur (Madhya Pradesh) during 2000 and 2001.

Parsvnath Developers is looking to invest between Rs20-25bn for the development of 40 more hotels.

Bank of India is looking to sell aggregate stressed assets of around Rs2.5bn to an asset recovery company.

The US subsidiary of TCS has received incentives worth more than US$19mn for setting up base in Cincinnati in the US.

Power Grid Corporation of India's Chairman and Managing Director, Mr R.P. Singh, has resigned after a ten-year stint at the helm of the power transmission utility.

JSW Steel will be setting up a 3mn ton cement plant at Salboni in West Bengal.

Business standard

Commercial banks’ NPAs in the farm sector were just Rs110bn at the end of December 2007.

Oil companies have begun selling some of their holdings of oil bonds to meet their respective liquidity requirements.

Exports for January 2008 clocked a growth of 20.47% and cumulative export growth during the first 10 months of the fiscal at 21.62% in dollar terms.

The TRAI has sought comments on raising the foreign investment limit in the broadcasting sector to 100% to permit the Indian subsidiaries of foreign companies to provide broadcasting services.

Insurance companies will soon be allowed to invest up to 5% of their total investible corpus in venture capital funds investing in infrastructure projects.

Economic Times

Sugar output is likely to decline by 15 lakh ton in 2007-08.

Cooking oil prices have surged by ~Rs8 and are expected to rise by another Rs10 per kg on par with global rates.

Business Line

The tea industry is exploring various ways and means to expand its market share abroad with specific focus on Egypt, Pakistan and Iran.

Standards for 17 products in steel are to be made mandatory from May 2008.

Mint

India’s coffee exports rose by 5.4% yoy to 35,877 tons during Jan-Feb’08.

Financial Express

Indian companies with subsidiaries abroad and those planning overseas mergers & acquisitions would not benefit from the dividend distribution tax offset announced in Budget 2008-09.

Budget 2008-09 has proposed that the service tax rate on the composite works contract scheme be doubled from 2% of the total value of the contract to 4%.

India and Pakistan on Monday agreed to expedite the process of allowing banks of both countries to open branches in either country.

The ailing fertiliser industry has expressed serious disappointment over allocation of Rs309.85bn in the annual Budget against the subsidy requirement of a whopping Rs750bn for 2008-09.