Essar Energy may buy 3 Shell refineries

Essar Energy has now entered into exclusive negotiations with Shell for its three refineries of Stanlow, Heide and Harburg. These refineries have a total capacity of about 500 barrels per day. If you look at the negotiations which have been going on, the value has been pegged in the region of USD 1-1.5 billion though it could be much lower given the kind of growth refining margins and the refinery outlook which is going on currently.

The Stanlow refinery which has a total capacity of 296,000 barrels per day is largest of the three and it will go with other operational facilities of Stanlow. The current gross refinery margin (GRM) for these refineries is in the range of USD 2-3 per barrel in the European market and these are old refineries so the gross refining margins are much lower. So GRM for the combined capacity is in the region of USD 550 million. But these are loss-making refineries. So that basically means that the valuations will be much lower that USD 1-1.5 billion which is being talked about in the market as of now.

These refineries are running at a capacity of 75-80%. That is primarily due to the lower demand in these markets and that also means that the negotiation power for Essar is much higher when it goes out with Shell and negotiates in the next 30-45 days which is its exclusivity period.

HP introduces ‘Thinspiration’

Hewlett-Packard India (HP), on Wednesday announced the launch of 'Thinspiration' notebooks.

With new designs and features, the thin and ultra portable new notebook portfolio from HP includes the limited edition HP Mini by Studio Tord Boontje, the HP Pavilion dm1 and dm3 and the ultra-slim HP ProBook 5310m that deliver an optimal balance of mobility and cater to a wide spectrum of consumers.

Ravi Swaminathan, president, personal Systems Group, Hewlett-Packard India said, "The launch of the 'thin and light' range raises the bar for the category, while promising a new paradigm for the Indian consumer - 'light weight' and 'style' bundled with world class performance. Our new range of notebooks further consolidates our position as the undisputed leader in notebook design."

Following successful collaboration with Vivienne Tam last year, HP's partnership with world-renowned Tord Boontje is the next step in its strategy to align with designers who are leaders in their field. HP and Tord Boontje share a common vision in their respective fields of social and environmental responsibility and influencing others to do the same, said a press release.

Kevin Frost, vice president and general manager, Consumer Notebooks Business Unit Personal Systems Group said, "With the launch of 'Thinspiration' from HP's stable, it is our endeavour to provide a power packed, performance loaded stylish 'thin and light' notebook experience to our consumers."

He added that backed by extensive R&D, HP reinforces its commitment to innovation in technology. The consumer mobility industry is poised to grow, and as the leading player in the PC industry they believe in fuelling this growth through our enhanced product offerings by catering to the well studied needs of the user.

Samsung S5560 touchscreen handset glimpsed

After officially introducing theOmnia II-GT I8000 handset in India, Samsung has turned its attention back to Europe. The company is now gearing up to launch yet another touchscreen handset called the Samsung S5560 in Europe, reportsIntoMobile. This latest Samsung handset looks pretty much similar to the company’s previous handset.

Reportedly, the Samsung S5560 resembles the Samsung’s S5230 and S5600. The handset boasts of a 3-inch WQVGA touchscreen display and other advanced features. The device is believed to shun 3G connectivity in favor of quad-band GSM/EDGE connectivity. The handset also packs in a standard 3.5mm headset jack and a FM radio tuner.

This Samsung handset also offers support for Wi-Fi and Bluetooth 2.1 connectivity. The integrated 5 megapixel camera claims to capture all the special moments in bright and vivid colors. The internal memory of this handset can be further expanded via a microSD memory card up to 16GB. The phone is said to provide up to 9.5 hours of talktime.

The Samsung S5560 is all set to hit the European markets somewhere next month. The device is expected to retail for around €300 when it releases.

Samsung I8000 Omnia II Arrives in India

Samsung has unveiled its latest Windows Mobile powered smartphone, the i8000 Omnia II in India. The Windows Mobile 6.1-powered device will augment the Omnia range in India, which currently includes the Omnia I900, Omnia Pro and the Series 60 Omnia HD.
The Omnia II is a full touchscreen device that has an impressive spec-sheet. The phone boasts of a huge 3.7-inch AMOLED display with a resolution 800x480 and displays 65k colors (thanks to the Windows Mobile limitation). With 8GB of internal memory and support for micro SD cards of upto 32GB, you will almost never fall short of storage space on this one. The Omnia II also features a 5-megapixel camera and high quality video recording with 720x480 resolution at 30fps. This is only slightly below the Omnia HD that can record 720p videos. The phone is a full 3G device with exhaustive network support. Other features include FM radio with RDS, FM Recording and availability of a 3.5mm jack. It is also quite zippy in nature, thanks to a powerful S3C6410 800Mhz processor.
The Omnia II also features a host of motion-enabled features including 3D photo album, video library, music library, browser bookmarks and FM Radio. Samsungs TouchWiz UI runs atop Windows Mobile and users can use widgets for accessing Facebook, Picasa, Flickr and the likes The phone is priced at Rs. 28,990 in the country and is now available across all dealers.
As of now, there is no word if Samsung will come up with a (sensible) Windows Mobile 6.5 update for this one.

Jet Airways says awaiting FIPB approval to raise $400 m

The Naresh Goyal-owned private air-carrier, Jet Airways, Tuesday said that it was awaiting Government approval to raise $400 million to meet its cash flow requirements.
"We are awaiting the response to our application filed for FIPB approval," Jet Airways' Senior Vice president (Finance) M Shiv Kumar said during a conference call here.
Kumar said that a meeting with the Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) officials on the issue is slated in New Delhi on October 30.
As the apetite for domestic investment in the aviation sector is not strong, Jet Airways plans to raise funds by selling equity to foreign institutional investors (FIIs) through Qualified Institutional Placement (QIP) route.
When asked about reports that the Government had deferred its approval, Jet Airways Executive Director, Saroj K Datta, said, "these are speculative comments, we don't have to worry about these."
The airline, which today reported a net loss of Rs 406.69 crore for Q2 FY 10 as against Rs 384.5 crore in the year-ago period, proposes to issue 7.92 crore fresh equity shares at a price of Rs 252.5 per share to raise the amount.
Its revenues fell by 26.9 per cent for the second quarter at Rs 2,380.97 crore. Jet Airways had earned revenues of Rs 3,258.45 crore in the same quarter last fiscal.

Leaders conclave at IIM-L

CEOs of some of India's top companies converged at a conclave hosted by the Indian Institute of Management, Lucknow (IIM-L) on Sunday to discuss the theme: `Emerging pillars of Indian economy'.

The event christened `Samvit 09 -- the leaders conclave' saw the participation of Kalpana J Morparia, CEO JP Morgan; Pramod Bhasin, chairman, NASSCOM and president & CEO Genpact; Ajit Balakrishnan, founder and CEO, rediff.com; Sandeep Pandey, Magsaysay award winner for emergent leadership, 2002; Meera Sanyal, country head, ABN AMRO; Biswadip Mitra, president and managing director, Texas Instruments India.
Ajit Balakrishnan and Biswadip Mitra shared their insights on technology's indispensable contribution and its potential for India. Speaking on corruption, Balakrishnan focussed on the different facets of corruption and how India has emerged from Licence Raj era to a fairly liberal environment.
Sandeep Pandey, reminded the audience about the plight of more than a million people who truly constitute the unorganised sector/section and thereby forced to accept punitive measures.
Kalpana Morparia cleared some of the most popular misconceptions about China and drew the panel into a discussion on China's progress viz-a-viz India. China's administration, she said, is governed by some of the smartest people in the country, which facilitates sustained development.

Maruti to launch Alto, Wagon R with new generation engine

The country's largest car maker Maruti Suzuki will launch two of its best selling models -- Alto and Wagon R, with a new generation engine as it prepares to meet April 2010 deadline of stricter emission norm.
According to industry sources, the company will discontinue the old F-series engines in both Alto and Wagon R and replace them with its new K-series engine, which is Bharat Stage IV complaint.
When contacted a Maruti Suzuki India (MSI) spokesperson said, "the successful K series engines will be mounted on more models in a phased manner," without specifying details and timeline for the change in engines.
Alto is MSI's best selling model. In November last year it crossed one-million mark in domestic market, while Wagon R also accounted for a good number to its compact car sales.
The company's newer models such A-Star, Ritz and the new Estilo are powered by K-series engines, which the company claims are more fuel efficient and have lesser emission.
With 11 cities in India scheduled to move to stricter Bharat Stage (BS) IV emission norms from the current BS III by April next year, MSI has been preparing itself for the change.
It has already upgraded its mid-sized sedan SX4 to make it BS IV compatible and it will be shortly launched in the market. A similar upgradation for premium compact car Swift and entry-level sedan DZire is also on the cards but the company has decided not to upgrade its oldest model M800 to meet the new emission norms.

BSNL offers prepaid broadband service

State-run telecom operator Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd (BSNL) on launched prepaid broadband service for the first time in the country from this tech hub to enable customers access internet in any city except Delhi and Mumbai.
"There are no fixed monthly charges for prepaid broadband service. Postpaid customers can also subscribe to the service," BSNL chairman and managing director Kuldeep Goyal said.
Initially, prepaid broadband customers will be given an account with username and password and 50MB free download with a 15-day validity period.
The service offers unlimited download through four slabs (vouchers) of access at speeds ranging from 256kbps to 2mbps in the validity period. Limited download is also available through nine slabs at 2mbps speed.
"The other advantages of prepaid service are subscribers will have control on usage and will not have to exceed download limit. A group of prepaid customers like students or professionals can share a single digital subscriber line (DSL) connection," Goal said.
Corporates and enterprises can control expenditure on broadband usage of employees by subscribing to the service.
"As in case of mobile connectivity, where 80 percent of subscribers are prepaid, we are confident of increasing the broadband subscriber base with this new service in view its advantages such as affordability and mobility," Goyal said.

Nokia 2220, new slider in the market by the end of the year

Citing the rising demand of slider phones and big banners in the mobile sector like Samsung luring customers by offering low priced slider phones, Nokia, is all set to launch a slider by the end of this year.

Nokia 2220 has been showcased. The new slider phone coming from the largest mobile makers, Nokia is not multimedia friendly. The phone will come up with dual GSM band connectivity (900/1800 MHz) and 128 x 160 TFT display. The phone is reported to have a VGA camera with only 10MB inbuilt memory.

The upcoming handset has FM radio, Opera Mini and 3.5mm headset jack. Like the other Nokia handsets the 2220 also boasts of tremendous battery backup with 8 hours of talk time, or up to 400 hours of stand-by time.

With the afore mentioned features the phone is priced around $100.Alongwith basic black the phone will be launched in lustrous colors like red, green,pink and blue before the advent of the New Year.

Microsoft launches Windows 7 in India

Microsoft India has announced the availability of Windows 7 for its customers in India.In line with the company’s commitment to releasing a new OS at periodic schedules, Windows 7 is designed to be more reliable and responsive, delivering a simplified PC experience for consumers.

Announcing the Windows 7 launch, Ravi Venkatesan, Chairman, Microsoft India reportedly said, "Proactive engagement and feedback thereof with partners and consumers was fundamental to the development of Windows 7. It has helped deliver what is the highest quality OS in the history of Windows. It enhances the user experience by its sheer simplicity and caters to their connected lives across work and play. We are delighted by the initial reviews from partners and the technology community.
Over 90% of testers from around the world have rated it as "good" or "extremely good" and consider Windows 7 to be responsive, simple to use and stable."
Over 600 new feature ideas for Windows 7 were tested through global quantitative research early in the engineering process, helping Microsoft determine the features that best address consumers' top needs. Further, Windows 7 saw the largest beta testing program in the history of the industry, with 8 million testers worldwide.
With features such as Aero, Shake, Peek, Snap, Jump Lists and a redesigned Windows Taskbar, Windows 7 is designed to become the control center for all the media and make it easy to do more with photos, music, movies and videos. New features like HomeGroup, Play To, Windows Live Movie Maker and Remote Media Streaming in Windows 7 will help consumers discover easy and exciting new ways to have fun and get new things done with the PC.
Windows 7 is available in six editions. The two primary editions are: Windows 7 Home Premium for home consumers and Windows 7 Professional for small and medium sized businesses. Also available in the line-up are Windows 7 Starter, Windows 7 Home Basic (in Emerging Markets only), Windows 7 Enterprise and Windows 7 Ultimate. The FPP pricing for Windows 7 has reduced in the range of 25-35 percent over Windows Vista, for most SKUs.
Windows 7 is available at more than 45,000 retailers around the world and in India, all 16 OEMs will bring in more than 100 different Windows 7 PCs within 30 days from today.
Globally, more than 17,000 software and hardware companies are building solutions on Windows 7 and over 50,000 developers are enrolled in the Windows Ecosystem Readiness Program. Together, these partners are developing hardware, software and services capable of reaching more than a billion PCs around the world.

The Magic Of Chandrayaan

Chandrayaan is India’s first sole Moon mission ever. But it is significant not only in terms of India’s first steps on the Moon but also due to its staggering findings.

One of the most important is the one that proved there is water on that planet.

This country’s first solo mission is remarkable and meaningful as it was then that India’s first footprints appeared on the Moon. It also made several breakthrough discoveries.

It was found during the mission that the Moon generates water. It established that its rock like structures contain iron. And it proved that Apollo did exist.

Thus, the nest step in the Moon quest is to define whether it is suitable for habitation. As NASA recently implemented its plan about Moon surface bombing, it is to come up with new findings and detailed data on water probe. Chandrayaan found that water present on the planet has neither molecular nor moisture or gas form.

Etisalat DB Tele inks pacts with Tech Mahindra, Aegis, Conflux

The move is to accelerate Etisalat DB Telecom's forthcoming roll-out of telecom services in the country.
Under the agreement, Tech Mahindra, Aegis and Conflux would set up state-of-the-art contact centres to provide a host of customer management services including billing, collections, customer service and retention amongst others, the company said in a statement here.
"We are pleased to partner with Tech Mahindra, Aegis and Conflux who have the proven expertise in managing large customer support operations for telecom service providers such as Etisalat, both in India and internationally," Etisalat DB's official spokesperson said.
Telecommunicaton major, Etisalat DB Telecom, today said that it has signed over Rs 750 crore worth end-to-end outsourcing agreements with BPO providers Tech-Mahindra, Aegis and Conflux.

The agreement would be for a period of five years. Etisalat DB Telecom is a joint venture between Etisalat and Dynamix Balwas Group.
The BPOs safeguards would ensure seamless service and business continuity for Etisalat DB with all centres being linked to each other, thereby presenting the company with a single window to provide superior experience to customers, the statement said.
Customers will also have access to the contact center via email, chat and sms besides inbound and outbound calls.
While Tech Mahindra would be responsible for managing Etisalat DBs services in north and south India; west and central India will be managed by Aegis.
Conflux would be responsible for servicing customers in Bihar.
The BPOs multi-site centers would provide both inbound and outbound services in the respective regional languages, besides English and Hindi.

NTPC sets up core group for nuclear ventures

BL reported that NTPC Ltd is gearing up for its entry into nuclear power generation and a core group is being readied for the new venture. The thermal major has set up a Nuclear Project Engineering Group and a core group of 30 engineers have begun their training in nuclear power technology as part of the company’s effort to build a core team of nuclear power professionals.

NTPC is among the new entrants in the nuclear sector with State owned Indian Oil Corporation and National Aluminium Company Ltd also in the fray.

NTPC which has already signed an initial Memorandum of Understanding with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd to set up nuclear power projects through a joint venture is targeting 2,000 MW by 2017.

A company official said that “We are getting in place the training of a core team. This is being done in partnership with NPCIL, with the aim of gearing up to commence work on a project, as soon as it is assigned to use.”

While a pact with NTPC Ltd is already in the works, NPCIL is in talks with both IOC and Nalco, which will all be roped in as junior partners and investors for possible joint venture projects on the anvil.

This comes as a proposal to allow private players to set up nuclear projects in the country, envisaged through an amendment to the Atomic Energy Act, is likely to be put on the backburner.

Government officials said that the Center’s alternative strategy to tide over the paucity of funds and ramp up execution capability for new Light Water Reactor based projects hinges on roping in core-sector public sector undertakings and implementing projects through joint ventures with state owned Nuclear Power Corporation of India Ltd. The country’s installed nuclear power capacity is 4,120 MW.

Investors celebrate Diwali with Rs 30 lk cr gain

It has truly turned out to be a festive year for Dalal Street with investors becoming richer by nearly Rs 30 lakh crore since last Diwali, on the back of recovery in the stock market.

The total investor wealth has more than doubled to over Rs 58 lakh crore in the Samvat year 2065, the year according to the Hindu calendar, ended Friday last week, a day before Diwali.

As curtains are down to Samvat 2065, hopes of swifter economic recovery have replaced sombre mood seen last year.

Reversing the trend after a fall of over 10,000 points during Samvat 2064, the Sensex recorded a gain of 8,813.26 points, or 103.57 per cent, in the Samvat 2065.

The total investor wealth in the country's 30 blue-chip companies soared by over Rs 13 lakh crore in the Samvat Year 2065.

IBM raises full-year outlook, posts higher net profit

IBM raised its full-year outlook and reported higher-than-expected quarterly profit as its growing focus on higher-margin software and services helped it cope with weak technology spending.

International Business Machines Corp still failed to satisfy investors, whose expectations had risen along with a 24 per cent rise in the shares over the past three months. A drop in service contract numbers, an indication of future sales, also worried Wall Street.

Indeed, IBM reported third-quarter net profit rose to $3.2 billion, or $2.40 a share, from $2.8 billion, or $2.04 a share, a year earlier.

Revenue fell 7 per cent from a year earlier to $23.6 billion, but it rose 1 per cent from the previous quarter and was better than Wall Street’s forecast of $23.4 billion. IBM forecast a return to revenue growth in the fourth quarter.

RCom continues to slide despite Anil Ambani's statement

Continuing its downward slide, Reliance Communications on Thursday fell by three per cent, even as the ADA Group Chief alledged that the firm's rivals were looking to hammer down the shares of his group companies.

So far this month, shares of Reliance Communications has tanked over 34 per cent and in the last four trading sessions, ever since news reports about the overstatement of revenue by about Rs 3,000 crore and evasion of licence fee of over Rs 300 crore surfaced the scrip has lost nearly 9 per cent.

"The stock of RCom is on a downward spiral as the news ragarding the audit report came amid the ongoing tariff war among telecommunication operators," SMC Capitals head of equity Jagannadham Thunuguntla said.

At the end of today's trading session the stock was quoted at Rs 229.20, down 1.04 per cent on the BSE.

ADA Chairman Anil Ambani today said corporate rivals of the group are involved in "... hammering of our group stocks, to create panic and loss of confidence, and to cause huge losses to over 11 million loyal shareholders of our Group."

Ambani said during the Reliance Power IPO, in 2007-08, "there was a similarly vicious campaign of disinformation and hammering of our stocks to sabotage the IPO."

Touted as the biggest ever IPO to hit the Indian market, the RPower issue failed to hold on to the investors' interest and the hype that saw the scrip touching a high of up to Rs 1,000 a share in the grey market. On its listing day RPower touched a low of Rs 389 from a high of Rs 599.90.

Airtel brings Twitter via SMS in India

Soon, the Twitter birdie would be chirping, we mean, tweeting on Indian mobile phones through SMS. Bharti Airtel has got into a four week exclusive deal with Twitter to offer update notifications as SMS to Airtel Subscribers. Twitter is a free micro-blogging service that allows users to update their status messages in 140 characters.

Back in 2008, Twitter was available in India through SMS but the notifications service was discontinued due to high costs. Twitter has been raging mania amongst youngsters just like Orkut of yesteryears. The main attraction is the presence of celebrities and known public figures on Twitter.

Airtel bagged an exclusive four weeks deal with Twitter for sending and receiving updates via SMS. Airtel subscribers can try out the Twitter notifications by sending this shortcode SIGNUP to number 53000. Existing Twitter users who wish to link their Airtel Number to Twitter account need to send START to 53000 for activating their device. More details about Twitter on Airtel can be accessed at this exclusive page - http://airtel.in/twitter/.

New users:
Send SIGNUP to 53000

Existing Twitter Users to link their Device to their account:
Send START to 53000

Twitter is accessible through mobile web over Data connection (GPRS). But the question is why only Airtel? In a blog postat Official Twitter Blog, Biz Stone, Twitter Co-founder said, "We worked quickly to establish full SMS service in India with the largest operator because organic growth in the region has been unusually strong and there is huge potential for positive impact."

At the moment, Twitter notifications via SMS service is available in U.S., UK, Canada, New Zealand and now in India. So, after the four weeks period, other telecom operators would be able to provide Twitter notifications via SMS to users. Till then, Airtel servers would be bombarded to handle the SMS traffic. If you suffer from SMS congestion, please bear with avid Twitter users. That's all we got to say.

Gmail Saves Mailing to Wrong Recipient

We often face duplications and errors while mailing multiple recipients, especially the ones with common names. Now, there could be several Johns or Michaels on your mailing list, and hence to save yourself from the embarrassment that could be caused by sending a mail to the wrong John, Gmail Labs has brought out the 'Got the Wrong Bob' feature. Basically, if you have contacts with similar first or second name, this feature helps you verify if it is the correct contact.

As per a blog post on official Gmail blog, if more than two recipients are being added to an email, Gmail will automatically check if you've added different contacts by mistake. For instance, if instead of adding John Smith, you added John Smithers using the Autocomplete feature, this new feature will point it out.

This feature can be activated from Gmail Labs section by clicking on the Labs icon. Named 'Got the wrong Bob', it sure sounds funny. Gmail has also changed the name of its feature Suggest Recipients to 'Don't forget Bob' in the Gmail Labs.

Use both the features in conjunction to avoid any misfires in future. To be honest, these features should've been present ever since the Contacts Manage upgrade took place. Needless to say, even if Gmail is out of its Beta phase, a number of features would be added in the name of evolution

Garmin's Nuvifone G60, M20 in India

Asus has introduced two new GPS-enabled smartphone models -- M20 and G60 -- in the Indian market in alliance with Garmin, a maker of navigation oriented devices.

Earlier this year, Asus had announced that it is partnering with Garmin to sell location enabled/oriented phones and what we see now is the fruition of the same alliance. Let's see what these two models have to offer you. We start with the M20 which comes with a 2.8-inch touch screen and weighs in at 99 grams and comes loaded with the recently launched Windows Mobile 6.5 mobile OS. The G60 is the larger of the two phones has a bigger screen (3.5 inch). Both the smartphones incorporate a carfinder feature and a 3 megapixelcamera. The images taken by the phones are geotagged as well. Unlike the G20, which uses Windows Mobile, the G60 runs a customized Linux OS.

On the features front, both come with a decent full HTML browser and support for various connectivity options including 3.5G and W-Fi. Apart from the navigation abilities of the phones, both the devices also act as extremely capable mobile phones and come with almost all the features you'd expect from "normal" mobile phones. Other features include proprietary features like Location Link, which is aimed at helping the user reach a location by just selecting the PoI and then by navigating to the desired destination, and the Carfinder feature which helps the user to easily find his car even in an outdoor parking. There's support for Panoramio shots as well.

Both the phones are available in India for a steep Rs. 30,000 price tag.

HDFC net up 24%, NPA dips

Housing Development Finance Corporation (HDFC) has witnessed a 24% rise in its net profit to Rs 663.94 crore in the second quarter of the current fiscal from Rs 534.23 crore recorded in the corresponding quarter last fiscal.

Total assets of HDFC jumped 17% to Rs 1,04,544 crore as on September 30, 2009, as against Rs 89,670 crore in the year-ago period. “The numbers have been above expectations,” said Keki Mistry, vice-chairman and managing director, HDFC Ltd.

The bank has disbursed loans amounting to Rs 22,342 crore during the six-month period ending September 30, 2009. This indicates a growth of 26% as the housing finance major had disbursed Rs 17,788 crore during the corresponding period last year.

Loan approvals during the six-month period amounted to Rs 28,418 crore as compared to Rs 24,180 crore in the corresponding period last year, representing a growth of 18%.

On a sequential quarter basis, the growth in individual loan approvals and disbursements for the second quarter of the current financial year has been 26% and 24%, respectively, as compared to the first quarter of the 2009-10 fiscal. Mistry noted that 70% of the loans disbursed by the company are to individuals.

The company's loan book as on September 30, 2009, increased 10% to Rs 89,519 crore as against Rs 81,192 crore recorded in the previous year. Together with the loans sold, the growth in the loan book would have been higher at 18%.

“The average loan size given out by the company is about Rs 15.50-16 lakh,” he said. Meanwhile, the margins in loans over the cost of borrowings for the half year stood at 2.20%.

“We aim to keep our spreads consistent in the range of 2.10-2.25%,” said Mistry.

Gross non-performing assets of HDFC Ltd stood at Rs 860.21 crore, or 0.95% of the loan portfolio, as on September 2009 as against 1.04% in the same quarter previous fiscal. The corporation has brought down its non-performing assets for the 19th consecutive quarter. “We hope to finish the year with lower NPAs,” he added.

HDFC's capital adequacy ratio stood at 14.9% of the risk weighted assets, while tier-I capital adequacy stood at 13.4%. According to Mistry, the company has no plans to raise resources as of now.

During the first half of the current financial year, loans drawn from commercial banks and financial institutions amounted to Rs 18,149 crore. The corporation raised Rs 2,600 crore...

Gmail No.1 E-mail Service in India

• G-mail is the most popular email service among Indians, followed closely by Yahoo Mail and a few other local players. According to ViziSense, an online audience measurement and analytics platform, Gmail had more than 18 million unique users in September as against 16.8 million users who used Yahoo Mail.
• The popularity of Gmail has been steadily growing month-on-month, as indicated by the increasing number of unique users accessing the site, reasons the Vizisense web rankings report. During September, Gmail witnessed an increase of almost 3% in traffic compared to the previous month. Yahoo! Mail on the other hand, saw a decline of 8% whilst MSN Mail experienced an increase of nearly 6% in traffic since August.

Tata Steel to set up Rs 30 cr hospital for project affected

As part of its Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), Tata Steel, setting up a 6 million tonne integrated greenfield steel plant at Kalinganagar in Jajpur district, will set up a hospital near its rehabilitation colony at Gobarghati.

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The project will be completed over next 2 years with the first phase commissioning slated in next one month. The hospital building is under construction over 4 acres of land and the civil construction of the project is almost over. About Rs 30 crore is proposed to be spent by the company for the hospital project.

Tata Steel: On the mend

This is expected to benefit the families affected by the Tata Steel's project at Kalinganagar and also the people in periphery villages.

"The first phase of the hospital is likely to be commissioned in next one month and it will be completed within next 2 years", Mohit Das, head, corporate affairs, Orissa, said.

He said, the hospital would have round-the-clock service, pathology lab and outdoor complex, when completed. The number of beds in the hospital would increase to 200 in phases. To begin with, the hospital would have 4 to 5 doctors and required number of para-medical staff.

Apart from people belonging to Tata Steel Parivar, the hospital would cater to the health services requirement of about 10,000 people from the nearby villages.

Various health services related activities like, rural health check-up programmes, health camps during epidemics and awareness building activities for people on health issues are proposed to be planned through the hospital.

Though the company has a dispensary at Gobarghati to provide basic health services to the periphery people, the overwhelming response to the dispensary has motivated the company to go for a full-fledged hospital for the locals.

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It may be noted, the present dispensary has an experienced doctor and para-medical staff with necessary infrastructure.

Everyday large number of patients from Gobarghati and a number of villages from far-off areas are availing the facility.

Funds no constraint for flood relief, says PM

RAICHUR: Moved by the intensity of the flood disaster in north Karnataka, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who undertook an aerial survey of the flood-hit areas, said that money would not be a constraint for the flood relief works.

After collecting detailed information about the tragedy, he told reporters that he was sharing sorrow and grief with the flood victims.

''It is a massive damage. I am not here to discuss on the nuts and bolts of the damages that occurred due to the floods and incessant rains. But I promise that the Central government stands with the state government on this matter. Money will not be a constraint to take up relief works,'' he said.

‘River interlinking a complex issue’

Commenting on the river interlinking projects, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh termed it a complex issue as it involves many environmental problems.

''However, the Central Water Resources Department will study the matter thoroughly before taking a decision,'' he said.

BJP leaders had asked the PM to convene a conference of Chief Ministers on the issue.