Mumbai, June 17
The BSE benchmark index, Sensex, today dropped by 115 points to a three-week low on persistent selling, mainly in IT and oil& gas stocks, as global investors were spooked by worsening Greek debt default in Eurozone.

Extending losses for the third successive day, the BSE 30-share Sensex closed down by 115.35 points, or 0.64 per cent, to 17,870.53. In three days of straight losses, the key index has lost 438.35 points.

The 50-share Nifty of NSE also fell by 30.35 points or 0.56 per cent to 5,366.40 from its last close.

"Global markets weakened on fears of a Greek debt default, sending jitters back home. High volatility and selling pressure in heavyweights across sectors further aided the downtrend," Bonanza Portfolio Senior Research analyst Shanu Goel said.

Market leader Reliance Industries (RIL) remained under severe selling pressure and further lost 2.21 per cent.

But it was IT stocks that were the biggest losers of the day, led TCS and Infosys. TCS lost a hectic 3.5 per cent, Wipro 1.64 per cent and Infosys 1.29 per cent.

Brokers said a weak economic data in the US and continuing sovereign debt crisis in Europe, the markets from where the software exporters earn most of their revenue, weighed on them.

Tata Steel notched up an impressive 3.45 per cent gain after the company decided to divest its entire 26.72 per cent. — PTI

Kolkata, June 17
US Assistant Secretary of State (Bureau of South and central Asian affairs) Robert O Blake today said the future of Indian economy seems very bright and the country is likely to become the world's third largest economy by 2030, and the largest by 2050.

He added, “The incredible growth of India's economy has resulted in positive spillover effect for the US between 2002-2009, US goods exports to India quadrupled, growing from $4.1 billion to more than $ 16.4 billion in 2009.”

Last year, US-India trade in goods broke a record with US exports increasing by 17 per cent and US imports from India rising by 40 per cent, he said during a seminar in Kolkata. — PTI

New Delhi, June 17
Market regulator Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) is likely to raise the trigger limit for open offer to 25 per cent when it takes a decision on the new Takeover Code for merger and acquisitions at its board meeting scheduled later this month.

"SEBI is likely to clear the Takeover Code in its board meeting scheduled on June 30," an official said.

An agreement seems to have emerged between the Finance Ministry and the capital market regulator for raising the trigger limit from 15 per cent to 25 per cent, as recommended by a SEBI panel but the government is not in favour of 100 per cent open offer, sources said.

"Certainly not 100 per cent," the official said when asked if the open offer would be for the entire stake. "More or less it would be between 50 and 75 per cent," he added.

The SEBI committee headed by C Achuthan on a new Takeover Code had suggested that the acquiring company should make 100 per cent open offer, thus giving the exit option to all shareholders of the target company. — PTI

New Delhi, June 17
Admitting that the Reserve Bank's anti-inflation monetary measures may impact growth, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee today said the major challenge right now is to contain price rise.

“The monetary policy has been gradually tightened... Monetary measures may end up moderating the growth if they have to be persisted for an extended period of time," Mukherjee said at an ASSOCHAM meet here.

However, he said in the short-term, moderating aggregate demand is critical to check inflation, which is "our major challenge". The RBI yesterday hiked key policy rates for the tenth time since March, 2010, in a bid to tame inflation, which crossed the 9 per cent mark in May.

Inflationary pressures persist both from higher global commodity prices and domestic structural demand-supply imbalances in several commodities. — PTI

Chandigarh, June 17
The Punjab Government today decided to issue a project termination notice to real estate firm Omaxe Limited for allegedly failing to give the promised employment in its integrated township project at Patiala.

The decision was taken during the 44th meeting of the Punjab Urban Planning and Development Authority held here under the Chairmanship of Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, an official release said.

Omaxe has allegedly failed to give employment to 1,000 people in the IT and Bio-Tech sectors at the end of third year (August 9, 2010) after commencement of the project. Another 3,000 people were to be given employment by the end of the fourth year, a spokesperson said.

Omaxe was to develop IT and Biotech sector on 1.5 lakh square feet of area, which was to be part of integrated township project in Patiala.

The state government also announced that in future, the entire development of the said project would be done by Punjab Urban Development Authority (PUDA).

Meanwhile, Omaxe has strongly contested the desion. An Omaxe spokesperson said it released ads inviting expression of interests for IT and Bio-tech parks but the company and Patiala Development Authority (PDA) didn't receive any response.

The permissible time for developing the IT & BIO-tech park in PDA Omaxe City is four years ending on August 2011.

The company and PDA is adhering to the provisions of the Joint Development Agreement (JDA) and despite several attempts to sell IT & Bio-tech parks, it didn't get any response due to economic slowdown and market dynamics which is beyond its control, he said.

The steering committee (comprising of two members from PDA and two members from Omaxe) requested the Punjab government for an extension of two years for developing the these parks, spokesperson added. — PTI

New Delhi, June 17
Clearly underlining the “hand-to-mouth existence” of the pauper Maharaja through a bare-all letter to employees, Air India CMD Arvind Jadhav has said that turnaround plans of the cash-strapped national carrier would not be possible without the government’s help.

Warning the staff that the “deadwood” could be culled out if they failed to respond to challenges facing the company, he also made a fervent appeal to them to put in their best and prepare for a major restructuring that was bound to happen

Jadhav expressed regret over the delay in payment of salaries, saying that with the help from the government, “we have got the funds released and your salaries would be credited to your accounts soon”. “... increasing debts, mushrooming interest burden and increasing fuel costs were financially crippling the company. It is becoming difficult to sustain our operations without cash flows and revenue generation,” he added.

“The company’s difficult financial situation has led to banks, financial institutions, vendors and suppliers asking for higher costs to cover credit risk. The low cash position over the past few years saw Oil Marketing Companies putting Air India on ‘cash-and-carry’ since December 2010 - which is hurting our normal operations,” he said.

ICPA pilots recently wrote to civil aviation regulator DGCA saying that Air India had almost completely run out of money.

“We would like to apprise you of the grim and dangerous situation existing in AI today... in our field of work there is no scope for error, but any human being put under such extreme stress is liable to perform poorly. We (have) not been paid for three months... in case of any unfortunate incident/accident, the entire blame will be on the current CMD (Arvind Jadhav), the incompetent top management and nobody else,” ICPA wrote.

Bangalore, June 17
The Indian biotech industry recorded the fastest growth in the last five years and touched revenues of $4 billion or Rs 18,399.34 crore in 2010-11. Of this, the biotech industry contributed Rs 17,249.34 crore while the life science education market accounted for the remaining Rs 1,150 crore.

The biotech industry, minus the life sciences education component, recorded revenue growth of 21.5 per cent over 2009-10.

According to the 9th annual BioSpectrum and Association of Biotechnology Led Enterprises (ABLE) survey, the BioPharma vertical contributed almost two-fifth of the industry revenues, followed by BioServices with 18.82 per cent and BioAgri at 14.38 per cent.

BioIndustrials and BioInformatics made up the rest of the industry revenue. The fastest-growing sector, BioAgri, increased its market share in the last five years from less than five per cent to over 14 per cent in 2010-11. Five BioAgri companies now form part of the “BioSpectrum-ABLE Top 20” list.

The domestic BioServices market increased by three per cent in 2010-11 over last year’s share of the segment in the total revenue. BioInformatics companies increased exports revenue in 2010-11 to claim 42 per cent segment share with more focus on customers in the US and Europe.

Cheaper biochemical alternatives dragged down the growth of Bioindustrial segment. It grew at 10.98 per cent in 2010-11, a drop of 7.01 per cent over previous year’s growth.

Bangalore-based Biocon retained the No.1 position with revenues of Rs 1,083 crore, followed by Serum Institute of India (Rs 1,041 crore) from Pune, Panacea Biotec (Rs 928.41 crore), Nuziveedu Seeds from Hyderabad (Rs 610 crore), and Reliance Life Sciences (Rs 490 crore) from Mumbai at serial no 2, 3, 4 and 5, respectively.

New Delhi, June 17
Global food prices are expected to be higher in the 2011-20 period compared with the previous decade and this could have a ‘devastating’ impact on the poor in developing countries, an OECD-FAO report has said.

"Higher food prices and volatility in commodity markets are here to stay," Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) and Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said in a joint report released today.

The report 'OECD-FAO Agriculture Outlook for 2011-2020' noted that food prices are expected to fall from the current high level in the coming months on good harvest but the prices are expected to be higher in this decade than 2001-2010.

"A good harvest in the coming months should push commodity prices down from the extreme levels seen earlier this year. However, the outlook states that over the coming decade real prices for cereals could average as much as 20 per cent higher and those for meats as much as 30 per cent higher, compared to 2001-10," the report said.

The projections are well below the peak price level experienced in 2007-08 and again this year, it added.

"While higher prices are generally good news for farmers, the impact on the poor in developing countries which spend a high proportion of their income on food can be devastating," said OECD Secretary General Angel Gurria in a statement.

The report pointed out that higher prices for commodities are being passed through the food chain, which leads to rising consumer price inflation in most countries. — PTI

New Delhi, June 17
Government is considering to impose anti-dumping duty of up to $1,707 per tonne on imports of a chemical, used in making adhesives, to protect domestic industry from cheap shipments from China, Japan, Malaysia, Russia, Taiwan and Thailand.

The Directorate General of Anti-Dumping and Allied Duties — the nodal agency under the commerce ministry— has concluded in its findings that 'Poly Vinyl Chloride (PVC) Paste Resin' is exported by these countries to India below its normal value. — PTI

BRIEFLY

NSE, MDU in pact for MBA course
Rohtak: The Directorate of Distance Education of the Maharshi Dayanand University (MDU) has entered into collaboration with the NSE to introduce MBA (Financial Markets) and BBA (Financial Markets) courses from the current academic session. The NSE will provide on-job-training under the programme. The MDU also signed another tie-up with the NIAM Educational Services for establishing an online campus. Apart from training the faculty, the NSE will provide mock investment, trading and portfolio management software, so that students can develop essential skills for financial markets. — TNS

Kisan credit cards distributed
Jammu: The Chairman and Managing Director of Punjab National Bank, K R Kamath, on Friday distributed about 120 Kisan credit cards to various beneficiaries through its specialised agriculture branch at Bishnah here. Earlier, Kamath inaugurated bank’s ATM at Ratnuchak village and upgraded the extension counter to a full-fledged branch. — TNS

Nissan rolls out 100,000th Micra
Chennai: Japanese auto maker Nissan has rolled out its 100,00th Micra from the Chennai facility. The milestone was achieved within a year. The facility in Chennai will continue to expand its manufacturing capacity, ultimately reaching an overall plant capacity of 400,000 units at full ramp up. — TNS

New NIIT global sales head
New Delhi: NIIT Technologies has announced the appointment of Deepak Khosla as the global head of sales and marketing. He was earlier serving as President (SAARC) at Patni Computers Systems and has also worked with HCL, SAS, Digital Equipment Corporation (DEC) and Dun and Bradstreet. — TNS