THE MINT - 29th Sep

Submit By:
Vikas sharma
vinit singh
vijayta yadav
Section - H

AYODHAYA JUDGEMENT
Supreme Court clears government braces for ruling.
SC clears away for the verdict
The Supreme Court on Tuesday cleared the decks for the Lucknow bench of the Allahabad high court to deliver its judgment on the six-decade-old case over the ownership of the 2.77-acre plot in Ayodhya where the Babri Masjid stood.
The judgement, whichever way it goes, could potentially polarize the country and trigger a law and order problem when it is pronounced on Thursday, just three days ahead of India's coming out event, the Commonwealth Games
Only two of 27 parties of the case agreed to settle the matter through mediation, other wanted the matter to be settled by the court. The Central government seems to be preparing for the worst. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has said that the way India handles the security in the aftermath of the Ayodhya verdict would have “profound impact on the evolution” of the country; on Tuesday he renewed his call for calm. The government had issued appeals for peace in newspapers across the country ahead of 24 September, when the high court judgment was expected to be delivered.


RBI permits corporations to work as rural agents of bank
The Reserve bank of India allowed firms to play the role of intermediary to spread banking in rural areas. RBI and its guidelines allowed individuals and the corporate societies .post offices and companies with large and widespread outlets to become BC’s but kept non banking financial companies out of it.
The reason behind that could be that these firms including microfinance institutions lend money in rural India. According to the guidelines, BCs will raise deposits, disburse tiny loans and sell micro insurance, mutual funds and other third party products and receive and deliver small value remittances.
India will grow faster in FY12 on strong demand.
Manila based Asian development bank predicted that India will grow at much faster rate in 2011-12 than in current fiscal and China and other Asian economies will slow down.
According to ADB India will grow at a rate of 8.5% in 2011 and 8.7% in 2012,whereas Chinese economic growth will decline from 9.6% to 9.1%.
ADB said India continues to benefit from growing domestic demand, corporate profits and favorable financing conditions, which have stimulated investment. But the country needs to meet some macroeconomic challenges before it can return to the growth levels it enjoyed before the slowdown. These include maintaining export competitiveness by ensuring the right balance between the exchange rate and inflation, continuing the fiscal consolidation, improving agricultural productivity, addressing infrastructure bottlenecks and sustaining investor confidence.
SCI goes shopping in China for 8 ships
The country's biggest ship owner by fleet size and revenue, Shipping Corp. of India Ltd (SCI), is buying eight ships from China worth $557.2 million (around `2,513 crore) even as it awaits government approval for a follow-on public offering of shares.The deal includes four Kam- sarmax dry bulk carriers, each capable of carrying 80,000 tonnes of dry bulk commodities, and four oil supertankers, each with a capacity to carry 318,000 tonnes of crude oil.
iangsu Rongsheng Heavy Industries Group Co. Ltd, based in the eastern Chinese province of Jiangsu, has emerged as the lowest bidder from a list of five technically qualified entities to build the four oil supertankers, including two options, for SCI.
India is heavily dependent on imported crude for its energy requirements. Oil refiners are now seen favoring large tankers to haul crude to cut transportation costs as larger quantities can be shipped at a time. SCI plans to spend about $2 billion to buy 30 more ships by 2015 to replace older vessels and boost capacity.
Anil Ambani’s focus shifts from Promise to Performance
Future plans of Anil Amban i for his three group companies-Reliance Power(R-power), Reliance capital(R-cap) and Reliance communication(R-Com).

R-Power; To have 35000 MW power generation capacity by2017 including 5000MW by 2012 and 25000MW by 2015.
Construction started for 24000MW gas-based power plant at Samalkot, Andhra Pradesh.


LONG-STANDING DEMAND – IRDA may soon allow portability in insurance:
India's insurance regulator, the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda), said on Tuesday that health and motor insurance policyholders may soon be al- lowed to switch providers.
“Portability has been a long- standing demand of the insurance industry, but is barred under current norms. Insurance will benefit the most to the consumers, For instance, in health insurance, some companies allow claims against certain set of ailments after one year of inception of a policy, and some allow it after two years and so on. Portability will enable policyholders to avail the best of services as per their needs at a given point of time, “says Hari Narayan
Portability will allow customers to choose a provider without having to forfeit the prominent features of an existing policy.
The regulator is also working on guidelines for mergers and acquisitions and Ulip-like norms for so-called universal life policies. In a universal life policy, part of the premium buys life insurance, while the rest is invested in bonds or equities. The key difference between Ulips and universal life policies is that both the premium and the cover benefits are variable in the latter. Also, an investor in a universal life policy runs the risk of the policy lapsing if s/he is unable to meet premium payments, which can rise through the tenure of the policy.

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LABOUR UNREST - Series of industrial strikes hit Ludhiana's powerloom sector:

A series of industrial strikes n Ludhiana, Punjab, have partially paralyzed the city's power loom sector for more than a month as the industry continues to grapple with labor shortage and thin power supply.
“What we are demanding is within the bounds of labor law,“ said Lakhwinder, the unions demand fixed minimum wages and accidental insurance for the labors.
While the protest continues, the first lots of staff to go on strike at Shakti Nagar have returned to work. The unions managed to extract an 11% raise in piece rate wages after tripartite negotiations between labor officials, factory workers and trade union leaders.
R-Com; To become debt free in 3 years
Substantial interest in the market.

R-Cap; To look at listing life insurance business.
Ambition to create world class Reliance Bank
Aim to create an asset base of over 50000 crore rupees in 3-5 years.

INTERNAL THREAT - Illegal coal mining revenue going to Naxals:
“There has been growing evidence that revenue from illegal mining is going towards Naxal activities, “says Union coal secretary C. Balakrishnan
To prevent illegal mining, the government has taken steps such as filling up holes with stones and debris, digging trenches to isolate illegal mining sites and sealing off access to abandoned mines.
Air India gets board nod to take 14 aircraft on lease
Air India will lease 10 Airbus A320 aircraft to increase domestic market share.
Airline will lease 4 long-haul Airbus A330 aircraft to substitute the delayed Boeing Dreamliner 787.
Pawan K Arora to be the new COO of Air India Express at Rs 1.2 pa
Airline to buy enterprise resource planning software from SAP AG to integrate its operations at about Rs 100 crore.

Profit booking halts 2 days market rally
Weak global markets and profit-booking by investors after the benchmark index surged 11.9% this month on robust foreign fund inflows, dragged Indian shares down 0.06% on Tuesday.
The 30-share BSE index eased 12.5 points to close at 20,104.86, with half its components closing in the red. It had risen 0.2% to 20,157.51 in early trade.
Betting on the strength of the Indian economy, which is expected to grow 8.5% this fiscal, overseas investors have pumped in $5.1 billion (`23,000 crore) this month, taking net investment so far in 2010 to $18 billion and lifting the index around 15%.
The inflows top last year's record $17.5 billion that helped push the benchmark index up 81%.
HNI wealth: India catching up
Pacific high networth individual (HNI) population grew 25.8% to around three million in 2009, catching up with Europe for the first time, after falling 14.2% in 2008. HNI wealth rose 30.9% to $9.7 trillion, more than erasing 2008 losses and surpassing the $9.5 trillion in wealth held by Europe's HNIs in 2009. The three Asia-Pacific markets that witnessed the largest gains in HNI wealth were Hong Kong (108.9%), India (53.8%) and Taiwan (49.6%). China and India are expected to be the fastest expanding Asia-Pacific HNI segments in the coming years.

MOBILE PHONES - Local firms grasp share in market as MNCs lose grip
Indian mobile phone makers are steadily gaining market share at the expense of multinational firms such as Nokia Corp.
In the three months ended June, domestic handset manufacturers together accounted for a 33.2% share of the nearly 39 million handsets sold in the country, according to market researcher IDC India.
Nokia's share has fallen steeply to about 36%, from about 56% in the same period last year.
Micromax Informatics Ltd and Spice Mobility Ltd replaced LG Electronics Inc. and Motorola Inc., which in the past were in the top five firms.
Multi-SIM phones constituted about 38% of phones sold in the June quarter.