Financial Express - 1st October

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Bharat
Atul
Ashish


Banks hike base rate, loans likely to become expensive
Commercial banks, such as, Punjab National Bank, IDBI Bank, Allahabad Bank and Axis Bank have hiked their base rates on Thursday in the wake of increasing borrowing cost. Some of the Banks that have increased the deposit rates on Thursday were State Bank of India, PNB and IDBI Bank.
According to SS Ranjan, CFO, State Bank of India, the cost of deposits have gone up to absorb the cost and this will be there for a while.
The Reserve Bank of India has raised the repo rate by a quarter percentage point and the borrowing rates by half a percentage point to control the rising inflation.
The hike in the base rate of the banks is unlikely to have any immediate effect on the existing bank borrowers.
• Punjab National Bank, IDBI and Allahabad Bank have hiked base rate to 8.5%.
• Axis Bank hikes base rate by 25basis point to 7.75%.
• SBI to wait till mid-November before increasing the base rate.
Sense and Sensex (The Financial Express – Editorial)
The sensex vaulted to 20,349.74, its best level since 15th Jan 2008, as stocks cutting across sector rallied sharply this morning. How the economy reacts to yesterday’s judgment on the verdict of the Ram Janambhoomi/Babri Masjid will depend needless to say, On Whether there is a law and order problem in the days and weeks to come.
The Markets remains high up in positive territory with the bulls continuing to hold on the back of the strong cues from Asian Market and on expectations of buoyant results from India Inc of the July.
Top Gainers – Tata Motors, Mahindra and Mahindra are up by 2.5 and 3% respectively. Bajaj Auto has gained over 2.5%. TVS Motor’s Trading up by 3.3%.

MasterCard Buys Into ElectraCard (Quick View)
Mastercard has acquired a 12.5% stake in Indian software-services provider Electracard. This buyout’s main focus is in expanding processing services and software services for debit and credit cards users. It will help MasterCard expand its reach in Asia, the Middle East and Africa.
VW brands compete against each other as Ford,GM shrink
Volkswagen’s goal to surpass Toyota Motor’s in its sales and profitability by turning out more models, which is stoking unwanted competition among its own brands. VW’s strategy is to build a wide range of models in the existing brand lines at a cheaper rates but at the same time using the same engines and components. VW, is undergoing a merger with Porsche as it is seeking to overtake Toyota by 2018by expanding it sales and profit and line-up 200 models under its Nine brands.
Volkswagen is losing 500 million euros ($681 million) in every year as customer are going towards Skoda and Seat models according to Ferdinand Dudenhoeffer. Ford, the second biggest US carmaker is also trimming its product to as few as 20 models CEO Alan Mulally said this week. Ford sold Volvo Cars in August after the previously divesting Jaguar, Land Rover and Austin Martin.

Sensex closes above 20,000
Surging foreign portfolio investment lifted BSE Sensex higher for 7th quarter. Sensex gained 13.4% in the quarter & 11.7% in September foreign funds have poured in $5.3 billions in equities market this month. Even Mahindra Satyam did well after it was hit by India’s corporate fraud .SBI rose 1.2%, ICICI & HDFC Banks by 0.8% and 1.5% respectively.

Ayodhya Idol site Ram’s Birthplace: HC
The ayodhya verdicts proceedings were carried out on 20 September 2010 and the judges came up with the solution of dividing the land into 3 parts or in three ways among Muslims, Hindus and Nirmohi Akhara. Justice khan, Justice Agrawal and Justice Sharma came up with this decision in lucknow bench of the allahbad high court on Thursday. This order may not be the last word since an appeal may be filed in the supreme court.
The order was delivered after 4 pm on Thursday. The verdict was delivered to the media and lawyers in the tight security .The briefings of the press were arranged in the district collectorate opposite the court premises and the summary of the judgment was soon uploaded on the courts website.
Sunni central board of waqfs which is one of the parties to the case said that the three way division of land was not acceptable and it would move the Supreme Court against the verdict.