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Wednesday,
May 22, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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BHEL, IOC,
ONGC in fray for EIL stake SEBI lifts
price band on derivative stocks Rs
192-crore FDI proposals cleared Agrawal’s
remand extended Vysya
Bank’s net profit surges 78 pc |
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Power
losses, theft continue to mount Gold
touches 7-year high Graphic:
Bank loans to farmers
Hind
Lever for changes in Bonus Debenture scheme
BSNL,
Bharti finalise ISD agreement
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BHEL, IOC, ONGC in fray for EIL stake
New Delhi, May 21 Besides IOC, ONGC and BHEL, cement and construction company L&T has also put in initial bid for acquiring control of the engineering and consultancy company, industry sources said. When contacted, IOC and ONGC officials confirmed that the two companies had bid for acquiring stake in EIL. L&T officials could not be contacted for comments. Senior IOC officials indicated that the IOC and the ONGC might also consider a joint bid for EIL at the time of putting price bids. Disinvestment Ministry officials declined to comment on the response received for EIL, for which the last date for submission of expressions of interest (EoIs) was May 17. Earlier, the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment (CCD) cleared a proposal for offloading stake in the PSU strategic partner along with management control. An additional 10 per cent stake would be offered to employees at one-third of market price or bid price, whichever is lower. The government currently holds 90.40 per cent equity in EIL while 5.14 per cent is held by the public and another 3.14 per cent is with banks and financial institutions. After selling 51 per cent equity to a strategic partner, government’s equity would be 39.40 per cent. As per the preliminary information memorandum, companies or joint ventures interested in participating in disinvestment are required to have a net worth of Rs 300 crore. During 2000-01, EIL’s net turnover was Rs 787 crore and its net profit was Rs 123 crore.
PTI
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SEBI lifts price band on derivative stocks
Mumbai, May 21 The margin was imposed to check any excessive volatility in aftermath of September 11 terrorist attacks in the USA. The decision to withdraw this temporary measure was taken at risk management group’s meeting held in April, SEBI said in circular to Stock Exchanges. The group also decided to withdraw the current margins paid by the financial institutions, foreign institutional investors, banks and mutual funds, SEBI said. Since the imposition of such margins, the market structure and margin system have undergone a major change, the market regulator said in the circular issued last week. SEBI said trade settlement system had also moved from an account period settlement to rolling settlement on ‘T + five’ basis and further reduced to ‘T + three+ basis, SEBI added. Brokers would now be required to collect 10 per cent upfront margin for the trades where margins exceed Rs 50,000, the regulator said. The certification work for collecting the upfront margins would be done by the compliance officer, SEBI said.
PTI
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Rs 192-crore FDI proposals cleared New Delhi, May 21 The proposals cleared also include the proposal of Shyam Telecom Limited to place 10 per cent of its equity for Mauritius-based foreign investor India Communication Global Partners PCC involving Rs 73.50 crore ( including premium). The major investment proposals pertain to sectors such as chemicals and petro-chemicals, NBFC activities, telecommunications, tourism, health, information technology and software. Discovery channel and Set India Limited have been allowed to market cable/ satellite channel and provide subscriber management services involving an equity ratio of 26:74. No fresh inflow of fund is, however, involved in the proposal. The proposal of Citicorp Overseas Investment Corporation of the United States to increase its equity from 32.41 per cent to 34.38 per cent has also been approved by the government today.
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Agrawal’s remand extended
Nagpur, May 21 Judicial Magistrate First Class J.G. Dorle accepted government pleader Prakash Sathianathan’s arguments for the extension of the police custody of Agrawal till May 24. Mr Sathianathan told the court that the State CID officers needed further time to interrogate Agrawal on the more than 1,500 pages of computer data and 75 bank accounts which the police had detected. Defence counsel Vinod Thakre pleaded that his client be remanded to the magisterial custody as he had already been in the police custody for the past ten days and had been co-operating with the investigating agencies during his interrogation. The magistrate, earlier, asked Agrawal if he had any problems to which he replied in the negative. Meanwhile, the government pleader urged the court to give a request letter to the Mumbai court for transfer of custody of another accused Ketan Sheth. Mr Sathianathan informed the court that Ketan Sheth is in the CBI custody till May 27. CBI counsel Ejaz Khan was present in the court to seek Sanjay Agrawal’s custody in case he was remanded to the magisterial custody. Officers from Wardha and Osmanabad were also in town to seek Agrawal’s custody for interrogations in connection with the scam in the Wardha District Central Co-operative Bank and the Osmanabad District Central Co-operative Bank.
UNI
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Vysya Bank’s net profit surges 78 pc
Bangalore, May 21 Its Managing Director, K. Balasubramanian, said total business for the year had been in excess of Rs 16,000 crore. Deposits, advances and investments stood at Rs 8068 crore, Rs 4418 crore and Rs 3597 crore respectively. The Board of Directors, at their meeting yesterday, had recommended a dividend of 35 per cent for the year.
PTI
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E-mail viruses: the threat continues
Washington, May 21 Take the Sector Zero e-mail virus, which wreaked havoc recently around the world. When the file attachment tied to this e-mail virus was opened, the virus froze users’ computers, forcing them to reboot. Once that happened, the “virus destroyed an the part of your hard disk called Sector Zero and sent itself automatically to all contacts in your address book,” Washington-based e-mail administrator Evelyn Swart told DPA. Another recent e-mail virus called Goner passed itself off as a screen saver. When opened, the virus spread itself throughout a user’s e-mail address book and sent itself out automatically. Yet another clever virus disguised itself as an Internet address and was spread rapidly through college campuses in the United States earlier this year. “People clicked on it thinking it was a Web address. Well, it’s not. It’s an executable programme” said one Internet technology officer at North Carolina-based Duke University. Other very recent e-mail viruses are utilising triggers within popular e-mail programmes such as Microsoft’s Outlook and Outlook Express to present users with an “Open File” dialogue box when the messages are viewed. “These e-mail viruses put people one wrong click away from igniting a major problem on their PCs,” said Swart. Yet aside from accidentally clicking “Open” when an e-mail virus presents you with an Open dialog box, steering clear of the havoc that e-mail viruses can wreak is fairly easy. If you never open an attachment that comes with an e-mail message, you can never suffer the consequences of an e-mail virus. It’s a good rule of thumb never to open attachment from someone whom you do not know. If you’re unsure of the sender’s identity, either delete the e-mail message or attempt to figure out who might have sent it. Even if you know the sender of the message, be suspicious of an attachment. E-mail viruses, as we now know, can disguise themselves as harmless messages sent from people we know. It also pays to know what kinds of attachments are most likely to contain an e-mail virus. In essence, any attachment that is “executable” or that can contain hidden “macros” — small programmes embedded within a document - is likely to be an e-mail virus, unless you know the recipient of the e-mail message. Be especially suspicious of attachments ending in the following letters: exe, zip, scr, vbs, bat, com, pif, asp, doc, xls. Your computer most likely recognises these “file extensions” and will automatically launch the files themselves or the programme associated with those files. The files ending in these letters have been known to carry viruses. Also watch for e-mail attachments that contain more than three letters following a period, such as viewthis.jpg.vbs. Normal files contain a three-letter extension, as in viewthis.doc. Files that contain an extra extension, as in the example above, are probably viruses in disguise. Above all, obtain and use a competent antivirus program, such as McAfee VirusScan (http://www.mcafee) or Norton Antivirus (http://www.symantec.com/product).
DPA
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Power losses, theft continue to mount New Delhi, May 21 An analysis carried out by Assocham observed that Delhi ( in north), Andhra Pradesh (in south), Goa ( west), Orissa ( East) and Manipur ( north-east) had reported the maximum percentage transmission and distribution losses including commercial losses, such as pilferage as high as 60 per cent in their respective regions. The percentage has gone up in the northern region states. While Haryana had reported 26.78 per cent losses in 1992-93, the percentage has gone up to 35.33 per cent in 1998-99. In Himachal Pradesh, the T&D losses increased from 19.51 per cent to 26.11 per cent, in Jammu and Kashmir these increased from 48.28 to 48.64 per cent, in Rajasthan from 22.74 per cent to 29.53 per cent and Delhi from 23.56 per cent in 1992-93 to 44 per cent in 1998-99 and now to around 50 per cent.
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Gold touches 7-year high
New Delhi, May 21 Standard gold was last quoted at Rs 5310 per 10 gram level on June 1, 1996 when US dollar shot up against Indian currency.
PTI
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rc
Hind Lever for changes in Bonus Debenture scheme
New Delhi, May 21 In addition to a bonus debenture of Rs 6 each per share, HLL will also pay a special dividend of Rs 2.76 per share as part of the scheme. The entire tax on bonus debentures and special dividend will be deducted out of the Rs 2.76 special dividend, ensuring that the face value of the bonus debenture is uniform at Rs 6. Both bonus debenture and the special dividend will be payable by reference to the same record date as may be fixed for the allotment of bonus
debenture, according to a spokesman of HLL. As per the revised tax regime, bonus debentures construed as “deemed divided” for tax purposes would now be taxable at the hands of the shareholders, and the company will, therefore, have the obligation to make tax deduction at source (TDS) at rates prescribed for varying classes of the shareholders. Changes are being proposed to the scheme in the light of this particular requirement. The scheme, as originally formulated by the company under Section 391 of the Companies Act and as approved by an overwhelming majority of HLL’s shareholders on December 12, 2001, entails issue and allotment of bonus debentures in the ratio of one fully paid debenture of Rs 6 each for every share of Re 1 held by the members.
TNS
Tata Telecom net up 19.6 per cent Tata Telecom Ltd (TTL) has posted 19.6 per cent increase in net profit at Rs 15.68 crore in the financial year ended March 31, 2002 as against Rs 13.11 crore in the previous year. The board has recommended a dividend of 20 per cent of Rs two per share for the financial year, Vice-Chairperson Niru Mehta said here today. The company’s net sales/income stood at Rs 263.16 crore up from Rs 233.76 crore in the 2001, he said. Forecasting the company’s growth plans, he said TTL aimed to double its revenues to over Rs 500 crore in the next three years with a 25 per cent growth on a year-on-year basis.
PTI
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TVS Electronics Symphony Khaki Floats MRPL exports |
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