New Delhi, October 14
Headline inflation rose for the fourth consecutive month in a row to hit 6.46% in September, a seven-month high.

The rise in Wholesale Price Inflation (WPI) was mainly on account of higher food prices and imported inflation due to the weakness in the rupee. The higher inflation coupled with weak growth in the economy will become a challenge for policymakers and hurt household budgets just before the festival season. Amul raised the prices of its milk sold in Delhi by Rs 2 a litre today.

Given the higher inflation, it will be tough for the RBI to cut rates and some analysts are even expecting a repo rate hike in the upcoming policy review in October-end.

Higher prices of onion along with other vegetables and fruits pushed up inflation for the fourth month in a row.

The inflation, based on wholesale price index (WPI) was at 6.1% in August and 5.85% in the previous month.

The biggest increase was witnessed in case of onion prices which jumped 323% year-on-year in September. The price of vegetables in general rose 89.37%.

As per data released by the government today, the food inflation stood at 18.40% in September over the same month last year. The food prices had shot up 18.18% in the previous month.

Industry is worried at the impact of rising inflation on the economy. Industry chamber Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Ficci) said this marks the fourth consecutive month of increase and highlights inflationary pressure is resurfacing in the economy.

"While there has been a further spike in the inflation rate, we have seen that the improvement in industrial production numbers has also not sustained. With inflation firming up and industrial growth failing to take off, the central bank will once again find itself in a difficult situation in terms of calibrating the monetary policy", said Ficci Secretary-General, Didar Singh.

Expressing concern over the growth outlook, he said in the past few days, the outlook for global growth has worsened as pointed out by several international agencies and there is a need to stimulate growth.

Analysts said the weaker rupee is exerting pressure on manufacturing prices. Aditi Nayar, senior economist, ICRA, said, “The pick-up in the index for non-food manufactured products in month-on-month terms despite the continuing weakness in domestic demand conditions is a cause of concern. This partly reflects the pass-through of the weaker currency to prices of final goods”.

Some analysts are now expecting a rate hike by the central bank. According to Crisil Research, “With inflation now out of RBI’s comfort zone for four months in a row, we expect a 25 basis points repo rate hike on October 29”.

Mumbai, October 14
Infosys today overtook Reliance Industries (RIL) to become the second most influential stock on BSE benchmark Sensex after its shares surged by 1.52%.

At close today, Infosys commanded 9.15% weight on the 30-share Sensex, while RIL had 8.72% weight.

Shares of Infosys ended 1.52% higher at Rs 3,323.50 apiece, while RIL was up 0.84% at Rs 870.25.

Diversified group ITC Ltd continues to have the biggest weight of 10.62% on the Sensex.

Weight of a stock is measured by the value of a company's free-float or non-promoter shares that can be freely traded in the market.

Infosys counter rallied by more than 6% in the past three trading sessions. The stock had touched its 52-week high of Rs 3,360 on October 11 after the IT giant had posted strong quarterly earnings and also revised its US dollar revenue guidance upwards to 9-10% for the 2013-14 fiscal.

Among others in the top five, software major TCS's weight stood at 7.34% and HDFC Bank's at 7.20%.

In terms of market capitalisation, TCS is the most-valued company with a valuation of Rs 4,33,455 crore, followed by RIL (Rs 2,81,146 crore), ITC (Rs 2,68,883 crore), ONGC (Rs 2,35,575 crore) and Infosys (Rs 1,90,847 crore). — PTI

New Delhi, October 14
Reliance Industries today reported a 1.5% increase in net profit and became the first company in the country to achieve sales of more than Rs 1,00,000 crore in a quarter.

Profit rose to Rs 5,490 crore in July-September quarter from Rs 5,409 crore a year earlier, the company said in a statement. Turnover or sales soared 14.2% to Rs 1,06,523 crore. Net profit in the first half of the financial year increased 9.4% to Rs 10,842 crore.

RIL CMD Mukesh Ambani said the performance reflects "the resilience of our business model in a period of volatility and uncertainty." "Our diversified and integrated petrochemicals business captured margins across segments, delivering near-record profit levels even as the domestic economy slowed," he said. — PTI

New Delhi, October 14
Reliance Communications will start selling Apple's iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c smartphones from November 1.

iPhone 5c will be available at price starting from Rs 41,900 and iPhone 5s at Rs 53,500, the company said.

A contract-free and unlocked 16GB version of the iPhone 5c is available for $549 (about Rs 34,700) in the US, while an unlocked and contract-free iPhone 5s can be bought for $649 (about Rs 41,000).

iPhone 5c will be a choice for consumers evaluating Apple's 16 GB model of iPhone 5 while iPhone 5s can be an option for customers looking for an alternate option to 64 GB model of iPhone 5.

The 16 GB variant of iPhone 5 is available in the country for around Rs 45,000 and 64 GB variant of the smartphone is available for around Rs 59,000.

Apple last week announced that iPhone 5s and iPhone 5c would be available in more than a dozen countries on November 1, including India, without revealing their prices. — PTI

New Delhi, October 14
Idea Cellular today said it has received from DoT the Unified Licences for seven circles that had been quashed by the Supreme Court in February 2012.

The Unified Licence allows operators to offer a wide range of telecom services.

"The company has signed on October 11, 2013, Unified License with the Department of Telecommunications, in respect of its seven service areas namely Tamil Nadu, Orissa, West Bengal, Kolkata, Assam, North East and Jammu & Kashmir," Idea said in a filing to the BSE. — PTI

Mumbai, October 14
SEBI today proposed new norms for settlement of administrative and civil proceedings against suspected market defaulters, except in cases of serious violations like illicit pooling of funds from investors, insider trading and fraudulent and unfair trades.

The list of violations that can't be settled has been expanded widely under the new norms, which also provide for the involved entity to file settlement plea within 60 days of the show-cause notice served by the SEBI.

The market regulator has said a plea to settle pending cases, upon payment of settlement charges and related costs, will not be considered if the applicant has already been party to two earlier settlements.

Besides, cases already pending before a court or tribunal can't be settled under the new norms.

An entity can't seek settlement of any proceedings if the alleged default has been committed within two years of an earlier settlement involving them.

Also, settlements can't be sought for cases involving non-compliance to SEBI orders, violations to the open offer requirements, listing disclosure norms, front running, sharing of unpublished price sensitive information, manipulative practices of mutual funds and failure to redress investor grievances, among other serious offences.

Issuing consultation paper on the draft SEBI (Settlement of Administrative and Civil Proceedings) Regulations, 2013, the regulator said the terms of settlement may include payment of a settlement amount and other related costs, voluntary suspension of registration, closure of business and other appropriate directions.

The settlement amount will be credited to Consolidated Fund of India, while legal costs will go to the SEBI General Fund. The new norms have been proposed pursuant to promulgation of the Securities Laws (Amendment) Second Ordinance, 2013, by the President last month, which conferred explicit powers on SEBI to settle administrative and civil proceedings under relevant sections of the SEBI Act, the SCRA Act and the Depositories Act. — PTI

New guidelines Pending cases will not be considered if the applicant has already been a party to two earlier settlements Cases already pending before a court or tribunal can't be settled An entity can't seek settlement if the alleged default has been committed within two years of an earlier settlement Settlements can't be sought for cases involving non-compliance to SEBI orders, violations to the open offer requirements and listing disclosure norms etc

Washington, October 14
Ruling out takeover of the crisis-ridden NSEL, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has said its parent group Financial Technologies and another related entity MCX-SX are under watch and persons responsible for the alleged irregularities will have to pay the price. "There is no question of the government taking over NSEL.

The government is concerned about the regulated entities, one of them is MCX which is a commodity exchange, other is MCX-SX and the other is the promoter of the MCX and MCX-SX, which is the Financial Technologies. All three are under watch", he said in an interview to a news channel.

National Spot Exchange Limited (NSEL), promoted by Jignesh Shah-led Financial Technologies, is facing payment crisis of Rs 5,600 crore.

The minister, who is here to attend the IMF-World Bank meetings, said NSEL has been operating under an exemption order and "if it has defrauded any of its investors or clients, (it) must pay a price." Chidambaram further said the Economic Offences Wing (EOW) of the Maharashtra Police had registered a case and was probing the alleged irregularities.

"They made one arrest before I left. I didn't know about the second arrest. Those who have committed the acts of malfeasance or misfeasance will pay a price," he added.

As far as MCX-SX, a stock exchange promoted by Financial Technologies, is concerned, the minister said SEBI had forced two of its directors to resign.

The MCX-SX, Chidambaram said, "is now managed by a board which does not have suspected or tainted people."

With regards to MCX, he said, "the show-cause notice has been issued, the two weeks period is to expire and the FMC (Forward Markets Commission) regulator will take action after he receives the reply to the show-cause notice". — PTI

BRIEFLY

Rupee drops 48 paise
Mumbai: The rupee ended two sessions of gains and fell 48 paise to 61.55 against the dollar after weak inflation and industrial output data amid fresh demand from importers for the US currency. The decline came even as local equities firmed up amid sustained capital inflows. A weak dollar overseas also failed to stem the rupee's fall, a forex dealer said. — PTI

NHPC bond issue to open on Oct 18
New Delhi: State-owned power producer NHPC's first ever tax-free bonds issue worth Rs 1,000 crore will be open for subscription on October 18. The public issue of "tax-free, secured, redeemable, non-convertible bonds in the nature of debentures of face value of Rs 1,000 each" would amount to Rs 500 crore. The issue will close on November 11. — PTI

OVL ups stake in Brazilian oilfield
New Delhi: ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas arm of ONGC, said on Monday it has bought an additional 12% stake in a Brazilian oilfield for $529 million after blocking a Chinese entry. OVL, which had a 15% stake in block BC-10 along with Royal Dutch Shell, exercised a pre-emption right to block China's Sinochem Group from buying a 35 per cent interest in the oilfield from Petrobras of Brazil. — PTI

Connect offer
Jalandhar: To celebrate the festive spirit, telecom company Connect, which provides wireline and broadband services in Punjab, has announced Season 2 of ‘Khushiyon Ka Connection’ offer. Under the offer, the company’s new subscribers become eligible in the lucky draw contest having fabulous prizes. — TNS