The government will sell a 5 per cent stake in power equipment manufacturer Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd (Bhel) to state-owned Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC), fetching the exchequer about Rs 2,046 crore.
"Bhel disinvestment will happen this fiscal through a block deal to LIC," Disinvestment Secretary Ravi Mathur said.
The Empowered Group of Ministers headed by Finance Minister P Chidambaram met on Friday to decide on the timing and mode of disinvestment in Bhel.
New Delhi: State-owned Oriental Bank of Commerce (OBC) on Friday said it plans to raise up to Rs 1,000 crore from bonds to fund its growth.
The bank intends to raise Tier II capital to the extent of Rs 1,000 crore through issue of Basel III compliant Tier II bonds on private placement basis, OBC said in a BSE filing.
The government infused Rs 150 crore by way of preferential allotment in December. This lead to increase in government shareholding in the bank to 59.13 percent from 58 percent.
California: Apple Inc sold more than USD 1 billion of Apple TV set-top boxes in 2013 and is investing heavily in the next generation of products, Chief Executive Tim Cook said at the company`s annual meeting on Friday.
Apple`s ability to again transform the fast-moving technology arena is the central question in investors` and Silicon Valley executives` minds as the company`s growth slows, and rivals like Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Google Inc take chunks out of its market share.
New York’s first March commute may end up being one of its worst of the season as another winter storm threatens to start the work week with snow, sleet and rain throughout the U.S. Northeast.
A system that’s bringing rain to drought-stricken California will make its way across the U.S., possibly laying down snow from Kansas City to Boston this weekend, said Tom Kines, a meteorologist at AccuWeather Inc. in State College,Pennsylvania.
Commuters in New York will probably see the worst of a storm that will strike at the beginning of the workweek, spreading snow, sleet and ice from Boston toWashington, forecasters said.
There’s at least a 30 percent chance for 8 inches (20 centimeters) of snow in New York from late Sunday, March 2, into March 3, the National Weather Service said. The agency will release specific accumulation forecasts tomorrow because the track of the storm is still in doubt, said Lauren Nash, a meteorologist for the agency in Upton, New York.
As freezing weather drained stockpiles of propane to their lowest seasonal level in two decades on the U.S. East Coast this month, shivering New Englanders couldn’t tap abundant supplies sailing out of Texas. They had to look 4,000 miles away to more-expensive heating fuel fromEurope.
The reason? The Jones Act, a 94-year-old law that prohibits non-U.S. ships from transporting cargoes between the country’s ports. With pipelines full and not a single eligible propane tanker to deliver fuel from Houston to states such as New York, consumers have had to pay more than $100 a metric ton extra for propane from across the Atlantic.
Ousted Ukrainian leader Viktor Yanukovych said he’s still the nation’s rightful president and urged Russia to refrain from military intervention in the southern Crimea region as tensions there flared.
Speaking publicly for the first time since leaving Ukraine, Yanukovych said the country should abide by a peace accord sealed a week ago with European Union diplomats under which he’d remain leader through December. His temporary replacement, Oleksandr Turchynov, said Russian troops were “directly involved” in the growing crisis in Crimea.
Ukraine’s acting president accused Russia of invading the southern Crimea region, where unidentified gunmen seized airports and other facilities.
“The Russian Federation started a naked aggression against our country,” Oleksandr Turchynov said in a speech broadcast by the parliamentary television channel today. “I demand that President Putin halt the provocation immediately and call military forces back from Crimea.”
Bitcoin has had a rough go of it here lately but fortunately for the crypto-currency, it received a bit of good news on Thursday as Federal Reserve Chairwoman Janet Yellen told the Senate Banking Committee that the Federal Reserve simply don’t have the authority to supervise or regulate Bitcoin in any way.
Yellen described the virtual currency as a payment innovation that is taking place entirely outside the banking industry. She added that it would certainly be appropriate for Congress to ask questions about what the right legal structure would be for virtual currencies that involve non-traditional players. Her statement will no doubt help set the tone for future discussions.
A reputable newspaper in central Florida is eliminating its entire photography department. In what it calls a restructuring effort designed to increase the quality of video on its site, the Orlando Sentinel will instead send reporters out in the field armed with iPhones / iPads to report the news.
Earlier this week, the paper’s design, graphics and multimedia editor, Todd Stewart, informed the photography staff that their positions are being dissolved on March 17.
The Madras High Court has issued notice to the Union Ministry of Human Resources Development and the Indian Institute of Management (IIM)-Indore (convener of CAT 2013) to reserve one seat at each IIM for all the petitioners who protested against the Common Admission Test (CAT) 2013 results.
The petitioners had requested for a halt on the entire IIM admission process for this year, however Madras High Court has given them hope that they may still secure admission at one of the prestigious IIMs.
In a significant move towards environment friendly public transport, the country's first electric bus began operations in Bangalore on Thursday. Representational image. BYD The passenger bus, with zero emission level, was inaugurated by Karnataka Transport Minister R Ramalinga Reddy as an initiative of the Bangalore Metropolitan Transport Corporation. The air-conditioned bus can seat 31 passengers and a fully charged battery (5 hours) covers a distance of around 250 km. “The bus will run on free trial basis for the first three months, following which the BMTC will decide on its purchase. The passenger fare will be equivalent to the Volvo bus fare,” Ramalinga Reddy told .
The stock of Larsen and Toubro , the engineering and construction major, is on buyers' radar on Friday after its construction division bagged orders worth Rs 5,220 crore in the year 2014 so far. It gained more than 1.5 percent in intraday trade, continuing upmove for the 10th consecutive session today. It has rallied 13 percent since February 18. "Although there is still sluggishness in economy, these orders reflect that there is some positive movement in the infrastructure sector which augurs well for both the country and L&T going forward," SN Subrahmanyan, senior executive vice president, infrastructure and construction said.
The government will take a decision on withdrawal of conciliation offer to Vodafone for resolving the Rs. 20,000 crore tax dispute after a transfer pricing case concerning the U.K. telecom giant is settled.
“The Cabinet has decided to instruct the Income Tax Appellate Tribunal (ITAT) to expeditiously solve the Vodafone transfer pricing case. Once that is done, the Cabinet will review the conciliation process,” a senior Finance Ministry official said after a meeting of the Union Cabinet on Friday.
Passengers flying into India will have to fill up a new immigration form from Saturday to declare Indian currency exceeding Rs 10,000 being brought by them, among others.
The 'Indian Customs Declaration Form' carries additional fields for declaration of dutiable goods and baggage (including hand baggage) in a separate column for passengers entering into India, said the new rules notified by the Finance Ministry.
An Indian citizen would need to fill up the immigration form only when he or she goes out of the country. There will be no immigration form for Indian citizens returning from abroad, the rules said.
Mruti Suzuki shares hit one-month low on Friday as brokerages raised concerns over the proposed Gujarat project even after the automaker filed clarifications on the exchanges on Thursday after market hours. The scrip was trading 4.75% lower at Rs 1,582.80 on 12.30 pm IST.
Experts feel there are still uncertainties. "The press release still does not specifically clarify regarding the quantum of 'surplus’ that Suzuki Gujarat will charge to Maruti Suzuki India. Although the maximum surplus that Suzuki Gujarat can charge is defined as normal margin earned by Maruti Suzuki India. In the years when capex requirements are low, analysts will find it tough to forecast 'surplus’ unless proper guidance is given for every year," Nomura said in a report.
The rupee strengthened to its highest in more than a month on Friday boosted by bunched-up dollar inflows and selling by exporters, and aided by gains in the euro, which improved risk appetite.
The partially convertible rupee closed at 61.75/76 per dollar, its highest since January 21. It had closed Wednesday at 61.98/99. Financial markets were closed on Thursday for a local holiday.
The rupee rose 1.5 percent on the month, its biggest monthly gain since October, after foreign investors bought a net $2.05 billion in debt and stocks in February.
(Reuters) - India's economy grew a slower-than-expected 4.7 percent in the three months through December, dragged down by a contraction in manufacturing and mining, the last GDP data released by the government before a general election showed on Friday.
Analysts polled by Reuters had forecast growth of 4.9 percent. December's figure was the seventh successive quarter of economic growth below 5 percent.
Interval International has announced the affiliation of The Palm at Playa, a boutique hotel located right off the world-famous 5th Avenue in the heart of Playa del Carmen. The property was built by Alfonso Montes, a widely respected residential and commercial developer in the region.
With its clean lines and open plan, The Palm at Playa features an elegant contemporary design and organic color palette. The property has 69 studio, one- and three-bedroom units that include premium bedding, 40-inch LCD TV, and complimentary WiFi.
Interval International has announced the renewal of its master affiliation with Starwood Vacation Ownership, Inc. (SVO), a division of Starwood Hotels & Resorts Worldwide, Inc. (NYSE: HOT). The long-term agreement extends the relationship established in 2000 and includes 19 shared ownership properties, as well as future resorts.
NEW DELHI: Even as action is missing in new power project commissioning in the country, investors have pumped in Rs 5,000 crore for developing solar powerprojects worth 750 mw under the second phase of theJawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM).
The average bid amount in the domestic content and open category was Rs 2.13 crore per unit and Rs 1.06 crore per unit respectively against the proposed government funding of Rs 2.5 crore per unit.
Telefonica SA (TEF), Spain’s biggest phone company, reported fourth-quarter earnings that topped analysts’ estimates as the carrier cut costs in Europe to cope with falling revenue.
Operating income before depreciation and amortization fell 8.7 percent to 4.98 billion euros ($6.8 billion), the Madrid-based company said today. Analysts had projected 4.91 billion euros, the average of estimates compiled by Bloomberg. Net income jumped to 1.45 billion euros from 473 million euros.
NEW DELHI: In a bid to boost renewable energy generation, oil giants like ONGC and Indian Oil Corp will form new companies to set up large sized solar and wind energyprojects in India and abroad.
Oil and Natural Gas Corp (ONGC) along with Oil India Ltd(OIL), GAIL, Engineers India Ltd (EIL), Solar Energy Corp of India (SECI) and Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) will set up a special purpose vehicle to undertake big electricity grid-connected projects.
The superabsorbing design could decrease the thickness of the semiconductor materials used in thin film solar cells by more than one order of magnitude without compromising the capability of solar light absorption.
"State-of-the-art thin film solar cells require an amorphous silicon layer that is about 100 nanometers (nm) thick to capture the majority of the available solar energy," says Dr. Linyou Cao, an assistant professor of materials science and engineering at NC State and senior author of a paper describing the work. "The structure we're proposing can absorb 90 percent of available solar energy using only a 10 nm thick layer of amorphous silicon.
Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi launched a 130-MW solar power plant at Bhagwanpur in Neemuch, about 400 km from here, on Wednesday. Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister Shivraj Chouhan was present.
The Welspun Solar MP project, the largest solar power plant in India set up at a cost of Rs. 1,100 crore on 305 hectares, will supply power at Rs. 8.05 a kWh.
Calling it a saffron revolution, Mr. Modi said: “We have already seen the green and the white revolutions; soon, we are going to see a saffron revolution in the country ... The sun was there even during the time when there was a Congress Chief Minister. But the Congress never thought of using it to develop solar energy, and it was Chouhan who used it for energy production.”
Horns Reef, Denmark
Solar installation at Fort Carson courtesy of USACE.
The Delhi High Court on Wednesday paved the way for the South Delhi Municipal Corporation (SDMC) to collect entry tax from commercial vehicles entering Delhi from the Rajokri toll plaza at 24 km milestone on the Delhi-Gurgaon Expressway. The control of the expressway was recently taken over by the Infrastructure Development Finance Company (IDFC), the lead financer of the project, putting an end to a long-drawn legal tussle.
Image Credit: Graphene via Wikimedia Commons
We’re not totally screwed. I doubt Ethan Zindler would use those exact words to describe the rapid global transition to cleaner forms of energy he’s spent the past eight years or so tracking for Bloomberg New Energy Finance. But that’s the feeling I was left with after reaching him by phone recently at the market intelligence firm’s Washington, D.C. offices. Zindler, its head of policy analysis, doesn’t advocate for clean energy. His job is to make sense of the sector’s latest financial data.
The Indian government should consider banning imports of equipment related to power generation and telecom from China, the Indian Electrical & Electronic Manufacturers' Association (IEEMA) said on Wednesday.
"Government should look into this issue of increasing Chinese electrical equipment imports. We would like the Chinese equipment not to come in the power and telecom sectors. It is detrimental to the interests of the country," Director General of IEEMA Sunil Misra told PTI.
Emily dreamed up BLAZE to address some of the most significant blind spots of drivers. Her ingenious idea looks like a winner.
79% of bicycle accidents (in the UK, Emily’s home) occur from drivers turning into bicyclists. This is partly due to driver blind spots. Emily conceived BLAZE to help address this. BLAZE is a projected neon light that warns drivers visibly that they are sharing the road. With this projected neon image of the bicyclist on the road, ahead of the driver, the driver becomes conscious of a bicyclist sharing the road even if she or he does not see the bicyclist.
The government’s plans to auction two more coal blocks in Jharkhand has been put on hold because of some issues involved.
The government on Wednesday had put three other mines in Jharkhand and West Bengal on block for captive use, beginning the process for the first ever auction of mines.
“A Coal Ministry panel had proposed to earmark five coal blocks for auction. However, the Coal Ministry decided to put only three on block and keep the remaining two on hold as there were some issues involved,” said a source privy to the development.
India's drive to break an infrastructure investment logjam has come too late to revive the economy before the forthcoming general election - and it could be years before it pays growth dividends for the next government.
Although a cabinet task force set up by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has fast-tracked approvals for projects worth 5 percent of gross domestic product, severe bottlenecks will limit the scope for his successor to achieve a turnaround.
Mumbai: Days after budget carriers led by SpiceJet lowered ticket rates by up to 75 percent to avail early summer season bookings, Air India joined the fare war today offering discounts on select routes.
The national carrier announced up to 30 percent discount on advance ticket purchases with an extended travel period on select flights on local routes as well as domestic leg of international flights.
Mumbai: Private steel firm Essar Steel is likely to raise product prices by around Rs 1,000 per tonne next month on the back of rise in input costs and demand uptick during the past two months among others.
"Essar Steel is likely to raise product prices by around Rs 1,000 per tonne next month. This is primarily cost push along with some demand uptick in the fourth quarter," according to a source.
The steel firm has also seen rise in demand for exports in recent months and expects the momentum to continue, the source said.
The head of Credit Suisse expressed regret Wednesday that his bank helped US clients hide billions from the tax man, but blamed the wrongdoing on a small band of rogue employees.
The bank could and should have done more to stop workers from aiding and abetting tax evasion on behalf of American account holders, chief executive Brady Dougan said.
"Credit Suisse acknowledges that misconduct, centered on a small group of Swiss-based private bankers, previously occurred at our bank," Credit Suisse said in a statement to a US Senate panel that led a years-long investigation of "Swiss bank secrecy."
New Delhi: The CERC ruling will help in reducing Mundra project's annual losses by Rs 1,100 crore, according to Tata Power.
The 4,000 MW Mundra ultra mega power project, located in Gujarat, is estimated to be incurring a loss of Rs 1,500 crore annually mainly due to rise in price of Indonesian coal that is used to fire the plant.
According to Tata Power Managing Director Anil Sardana, the CERC ruling would help in reducing losses incurred by Mundra Project.
The annual losses are expected to come down by Rs 1,100 crore.
New Delhi: ArcelorMittal, along with Nippon Steel and Sumitomo Metal Corporation (NSSMC), has completed acquisition of ThyssenKrupp AG's steel mill in the US for USD 1.55 billion.
"The transaction a 50:50 joint venture with NSSMC was completed for an agreed price of USD 1,550 million plus working capital and net debt adjustment," the world's largest steel-maker said.
In the vexing world of low-interest rates that we now live in, a promising realm is opening up to alternative energy investors. Two recent IPOs have broadened the dividend investment field for green investors, Hannon Armstrong Sustainable Infrastructure (HASI) and Pattern Energy Group Inc (PEGI). Though these two green companies operate in very different business areas, they both offer promising income investing opportunities.
Humanity’s choice (via IPCC, 2013): Aggressive climate action ASAP (left figure) minimizes future warming. Continued inaction (right figure) results in catastrophic levels of warming, 9°F over much of U.S.
(Corrects 14th paragraph of story published yesterday to show Shell’s drilling will take place over five years.)
The world’s largest oil companies from Royal Dutch Shell Plc (RDSA) to Exxon Mobil Corp. (XOM) are likely to reassess deals to drill in Ukraine where political crisis is threatening a promising source of new profits as well as the country’s drive for energy independence.
Related:
For the past 24 years, Mark Z. Jacobson, a professor of civil and environmental engineering at Stanford, has been developing a complex computer model to study air pollution, energy, weather and climate. A recent application of the model has been to simulate the development of hurricanes. Another has been to determine how much energy wind turbines can extract from global wind currents.
The foes of power grids everywhere, lightning and other high voltage currents now can help utilities track the health of components throughout their systems. For good reason, when power switches or lightning create high voltage currents, power companies view it as a problem. These so-called natural transients have the power to destroy components and cause disturbances along the transmission line.
But Roya Nikjoo went looking for the positive side of natural transients, and she found it. The researcher at Stockholm's KTH Royal Instititute of Technology has developed a system that uses natural transients to measure the wear and tear on power components.
Radiation levels within and around the United States’ only deep-underground nuclear waste facility continue to drop, nearly two weeks after a mysterious leak triggered alarms and shut down the facility, according to data released this week by the US Department of Energy and an independent air-monitoring group.
The sharp spike and subsequent decline in radiation are suggestive of a single release of contamination on 14 February at the Waste Isolation Pilot Plant (WIPP) near Carlsbad, New Mexico. It is the first reported leak at the WIPP, which is a permanent repository for nuclear waste that has been carved out of ancient salt beds 655 metres underground. Contamination escaped the facility, but officials say that the levels are low and pose no health threat. Because no one was underground when the radiation alarms went off, it remains unclear what caused the release.
