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Shareholders favour Lodha chairing AGM
Montek justifies consulting foreign experts to Left
Shipments from China, Korea, Taiwan suspended
IA appoints two DMDs, reviews expansion plan
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Rajan Bharti Mittal, Joint MD, Bharti
Tele-Ventures Ltd, addresses a press conference in New Delhi on Wednesday. —
Tribune photo by Mukesh Aggarwal
Chairman of Tata Sons Ratan Tata (right)
addresses a meeting of the National Hydrogen Energy Board (NHEB) in New Delhi on
Wednesday. Also seen in the picture are Anand Mahindra, Vice-President of
Mahindra and Mahindra (centre) and CII President S. K. Munjal (left). — PTI
photo
PNB disburses retail loans of Rs 21 crore
Maruti shares skid ahead of board meeting
8,700 truant cos face action
Sony to buy MGM for $ 3 b
Krone unveils world’s first 10-GB cable
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Shareholders favour Lodha chairing AGM
Kolkata, September 15 An overwhelming 99.99 per cent of the shareholders of the company voted in favour of Mr Lodha to chair the controversial AGM being held here in the backdrop of a bitter legal wrangle between Lodha and the Birla family for control of the M P Birla group. Only 0.01 per cent shareholders of the company opposed Lodha in the poll conducted by the provisional chairman of the meeting Dharmendra Bhramchari, a nominee of a financial institution in Birla Corp board. Following the approval of Lodha’s chairmanship, the AGM began its normal business of taking up the agenda as per the notice of the meeting. The listed business of the meeting include re-appointment of Lodha as a director of the company, along with two other directors Pracheta Mujumdar and Vikram Swarup, since all of them are completing their terms. The holding of the AGM of Birla Corp as per schedule and result of this morning’s voting came as a major success for Lodha as more than 100 shareholders of the company had earlier moved the Company Law Board (CLB) seeking ouster of Lodha as director and stay on the AGM alleging ‘oppression of minority shareholders’ by the management led by Lodha. The CLB, however, had rejected the plea in an order yesterday giving a go ahead to the AGM as well as re-appointment of Lodha as Director. The board, however, had directed that the election of the director be held by a secret ballot and be conducted by a director who is not offering himself for re-election and that the result should not be announced till the final hearing in the matter on November 22. Interestingly Ms Nandini Nopany, a member of the Birla family who is a director of Birla Corp, was conspicuous by her absent at the AGM, which is being held under tight security.
— PTI
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Montek justifies consulting foreign experts to Left
New Delhi, September 15 “We must not allow foreign money-lender to decide or dictate our national policies,” Mr Abani Roy of the Republican Socialist Party (RSP) said in a letter to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. Mr Roy said those who lend money should be satisfied with timely repayment and “not try to influence or tailor our policy-making” and termed as disastrous the advice given by the World Bank on Sardar Sarovar project and on power reforms in Orissa. Planning Commission Deputy Chairperson Montek Singh Ahluwalia has justified the decision to engage foreign experts. “The Planning Commission cannot do justice to the mid-term appraisal if it relies solely on the work of civil servants in the Commission commenting on the work of other civil servants in the ministries,” Mr Ahluwalia said in a letter written to Mr Roy. There is enormous expertise outside the government and it is essential for the Commission to make itself aware of these views, the Deputy Chairperson of the Planning Commission said. At the same time, Mr Ahluwalia, assured the Left leader that the consultative process will be to subject “careful professional scrutiny.” “I would like to point out that multilateral institutions in any case interact regularly with Central and state government agencies... We are responsible to the Union Government and also the states for formulation and implementation of the Plan and I would like to assure you this function will be performed entirely within the Commission,” he said in his letter to Mr Roy.
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Shipments from China, Korea, Taiwan suspended
New Delhi, September 15 This decision of the shipping lines is bound to affect companies, including Maruti, Samsung and LG, importing goods from the three countries. They would now have to source consignments directly from the feeder ports — Jawaharlal Nehru port in Mumbai and Mundra in Gujarat. This could prove to be a costly and time-consuming exercise for the companies and would become increasingly tough as imports go up for the forthcoming Divali season. It usually takes about a week for containers to reach Delhi after they are unloaded at the ports. Central Warehousing Commission and Container Corporation of India transport the containers to inland container depots in Delhi for customs clearance.
— UNI
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IA appoints two DMDs, reviews expansion plan
New Delhi, September 15 Ms Chawla was earlier finance director while Mr Paes was director for IA’s northern region. Mr Paes is also the managing director of IA’s wholly-owned subsidiary, Alliance Air. The board meeting although reviewed the fleet acquisition plan as had also been suggested by the Ministry of Civil Aviation recently yet could not take any decision on induction of bigger planes with twin aisles to be leased in addition to the proposal of buying 43 A-320 family aircraft. This, sources said, could not happen as some members had to leave for a meeting at the Planning Commission. The next board meet may take place by this month-end where a final decision may be taken. IA has been asked by the Ministry of Civil Aviation to start afresh on aircraft acquisition proposals, keeping in mind its 10-year business plan. The board was to take techno-economic view on the aircraft. The airline’s plan to buy a mix of 43 A319s, A320s and A321s has been hanging for the past two years. Officials say even a minor alteration to the existing plan will mean that the airline will have to seek layers of government nods all over again. AI is also planning to buy more than 25 long-range planes during the second phase after passing on the 18 medium-capacity short-range aircraft (Boeing 737-800s) planned for acquiring in the first phase to its low-cost, no frills arm — Air India Express.
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Bharti unifies brand; to ring in J&K
New Delhi/Chandigarh, Sept 15 “We are investing Rs 600 crore for providing services in Jammu and Kashmir, Bihar, Orissa, North-east and Assam circles. The last two circles will be covered by March 2005,” Joint Managing Director of the company Rajan Bharti Mittal told newspersons here. The services will be rolled out in Jammu and Udhampur this month. “We are discussing the issue of lease line between Jammu and Srinagar with BSNL. We hope BSNL will give us the line”, he said. Mr Mittal also unveiled a unified brand strategy for the company under which all company’s services will come under the Airtel brand. Under the new brand architecture, Bharti’s telecom services are being clubbed under four heads — Airtel mobile services, Airtel Telephone and Broadband Services, Airtel Long Distance Service and Airtel Enterprise Services. Airtel is also introducing the Family Celebration offer for existing Airtel telephone services customer. An existing Airtel telephone service customer on choosing a new Airtel mobile connection would not have to pay an activation fee or security deposit for the new Airtel mobile phone. Also, this telephone service customer can make a call to the new Airtel mobile phone and from this Airtel mobile phone to his/her Airtel fixed line phone at 60 paise per minute. “The unified brand approach will ring in benefits of common identity, scale and size for Bharti. This will make us a single window provider of a suite of telecom services. The integrated brand will also bring in the benefits of a larger distribution network, bundling offers and more”, Mr Mittal said.
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Rs 1-lakh car in 3 years: Tata
New Delhi, September 15 Mr Tata is also chairman of a steering group set up by the NHEB to prepare a roadmap for making commercial use of hydrogen as a fuel. However, Maruti Udyog Ltd, which manufactures the cheapest car “Maruti-800,” is of the opinion that it would be impossible to make the car at such a price whereas India’s second-biggest carmaker Hyundai maintains that the vehicle would not be able to meet safety and emission norms. Earlier, Minister for Non-Conventional Energy Sources Vilas Muttembar presided over the second meeting of the
NHEB. The board recommended various measures to accelerate the development of hydrogen energy. The recommendations include setting up of corpus fund of Rs 200 crore and provision of low interest loans at 3 per cent interest rate and 100 per cent depreciation on investments in hydrogen energy development.
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Opec hikes quota by 1m barrels a day
Vienna, September 15 Sheik Ahmad Fahad al-Ahmad al-Sabah, Kuwait’s Oil Minister, said the cartel agreed to the decision to raise output by nearly 4 per cent, adding that it would take effect on November 1. The decision will increase Opec’s self-imposed output limit for all its members, except Iraq, from 26 million barrels a day to 28 million barrels, bringing the cartel in line with actual output, which stands at more than 27.4 million barrels. Opec’s current price band is $ 22 to $ 28. A decision whether to increase the price band would be made at a meeting on December 6 in Cairo, Egypt.
— AP
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PNB disburses retail loans of Rs 21 crore
Chandigarh, September 15 The loan for the housing segment was Rs 8 crore, trading loan worth Rs 7 crore and education loan to the tune of Rs 2 crore. Speaking at the function, Mr B.P Chopra, General Manager of the North Zone, said under its housing rehabilitation scheme, the bank had already extended loans worth Rs 5 crore to 402 inhabitants from the economically weaker sections of society.
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Maruti shares skid ahead of board meeting
New Delhi, September 15 The MUL Board of Directors will meet to deliberate the joint venture project. Incidentally, the announcement from Japan has led to MUL shares crashing on the BSE by almost nine per cent during the last three days. Although the fall in share prices was not as high as it was during the last two days but today the volume of trade on these shares was very high. The markets saw more than 1 crore shares being traded during the day. On Monday the shares had dropped 3.55 per cent on the BSE, it skidded further by 6.34 per cent yesterday.
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8,700 truant cos face action
New Delhi, September 15 The Ministry of Company of Affairs in an official release issued here today claimed that action has been taken in 8,746 cases defaulting companies, after complaints were received against them from shareholders and members of public after necessary scrutiny and inquiry. There are 117 vanishing companies in the records of the Company Affairs Ministry. The Ministry received 12,283 complaints in 2002-03, while the number of complaints received the previous year was 12,245. The nature of complaints included non-payment to the depositors by the defaulting companies, embezzlement and fraud, non-issue of share certificates, non-receipt of balance sheets and non-registration of transfer of shares.
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Sony to buy MGM for $ 3 b
Los Angeles, September 15 The company said it received a cash deposit of $ 150 million yesterday from Sony, along with private equity companies Providence Equity Partners Inc, Texas Pacific Group and DLJ Merchant Banking Partners. MGM said yesterday its management would recommend the deal, which it called a “proposed merger” to its board by September 27. Sony’s winning bid comes after Time Warner Inc dropped out of the competition.
— AP
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Krone unveils world’s first 10-GB cable
New Delhi, September 15 Addressing a press conference here, Krone Managing Director Bala K. Chandran said CopperTen usage would result in time and cost savings as well as increased productivity, as it is both easier to install and is a more cost-effective solution than shielded and fibre optic cabling systems. The company also kicked off its three-city cabling road show, starting from the National Capital, to strengthen its business in India and showcase CopperTen — the world’s first unshielded (UTP) augmented Category 6 cabling system.
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