New Delhi, November 20
Against the backdrop of rising global prices, the government today decided against rice import stating it has enough stocks to manage demand despite a shortfall of 15 million tonne in Kharif production.

“We are not importing (rice). We have adequate stocks. We will review if there is any need (in future)," Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma told reporters here after a meeting of the empowered group of ministers (EGoM) on food.

The EGoM, headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, decided to scrap the three tenders, totalling 30,000 tonne, floated by the state-owned trading firms - MMTC, STC and PEC.

“The government does not want to buy at such high prices,” a source said, adding the option of imports through government channels of exporting countries remains open.

The three government firms had received bids earlier this month with a price range of $372-598 per tonne. The landed price of these bids at the ports works out to be Rs 18-28 per kg against the average domestic price of Rs 22-25.

The sources said global prices are impacted after India entered the market.

The EGoM decision against rice import, though an about-turn from the earlier government announcement, is being viewed in the trade circles as a strategy to cool the spiralling international price. They said, the government might again enter the market at appropriate time.

Earlier this week, both Mukherjee and Sharma had spoke about the government move to import rice in view of production shortfall and rising food prices.

The EGoM, however, did not decide on the proposed upward revision in the minimum export price of Basmati rice.

“The facts presented were not adequate...the issue will again come up in the next meeting,” the source said.

The Food Ministry has proposed to increase Basmati MEP to $1,100 per tonne from the present $900 to discourage export of cheaper variety of the grain.

Among other decisions, the EGoM also allowed export of organic wheat and rice up to 15,000 tonne. It also permitted further export of 10,000 tonne edible oil in small and branded packs of 5 kg as the quota of 10,000 tonne got exhausted.

There is a ban on export of cooking oil. The government has allowed outward shipments in packs to meet the demand of Indians living overseas. — PTI

New Delhi, November 20
After Phantom, Rolls Royce is ready to drive its most technologically advanced car Ghost into India and hoped that at least 45 people with crores in disposable income would be charmed by the vehicle's simplistic design.

The company today previewed Ghost, the super luxury sedan with a whisper-quiet engine and a price tag of Rs 2.5 crore, in the country and expects the first delivery to happen in quarter one of next year. The 6.6 L twin-turbo car is charged with a V12 engine.

“We expect to sell 75 units in 2010 in India, of which Ghost will comprise 50-60 units,” Roll Royce Regional director (Asia Pacific) Colin Kelly said here.

Last year, the company had sold about 15 units in the country, comprising cars from the Phantom family.

This year, the company is looking to more than double its global sales. “We are looking for sales of 2,500 units globally in 2010, of which two-third is expected to come from the yet to be launched Ghost,” Rolls Royce general manager (South and East Asia Pacific) Brenda Pek said. She added that the company expectsed to sell 14-16 units in India this year and increase it to 75 units next year. Rolls Royce has already received 25 bookings for the Ghost. — PTI 

New Delhi, November 20
Country’s largest telecom operator Bharti Airtel seems to be feeling the heat from the entry of a number of new telecom operators in India ’s huge subscriber market with it slipping to third place in terms additions in the last month.

According to figures released by Auspi and COAI, Bharti Airtel added about 2.7 million new users in October that was lower than 2.9 million added by Vodafone Essar and over 3.8 million added by Tata Teleservices. Tata Teleservices in partnership with DOCOMO was the first to launch the one-paise-per-second call scheme forcing the other to follow suit.

In all, mobile operators have added over 16 million new subscribers in October with the total number of GSM users in the country rising to 482 million. While Vodafone Essar led the additions in October in the GSM space, Tata Teleservices has topped the additions recorded in both GSM and CDMA segment.

Vodafone Essar and Tata Teleservices now have a subscriber base of 85.8 million and 50 million, respectively. However, Bharti Airtel is still the leader in the segment with 113.2 million users in its network.

Aircel, which is expanding its operations across the country in a bid to become a pan India operator, added over two million new users in October that was higher than 1.3 million added last month.

Reliance Communications, a CDMA operator that recently made a foray in the GSM space, added 2.1 million new users in October. The operator’s total subscriber base now stands at 87.7 million. Idea Cellular added 1.9 million new users in October. 

New York, November 20
Indian private sector lender ICICI Bank and global consumer goods giant Unilever's India-based subsidiary have been named in a list of world's 10 best companies for leaders.

The list, compiled by business magazine Fortune, is topped by global technology giant IBM. Proctor & Gamble has been ranked second, followed by General Mills and McKinsey at third and fourth position respectively.

Fortune said the list had been compiled by ranking the most successful businesses that are the best at developing employee talent.

With a revenue of $7.4 billion and 36,335 employees, ICICI Bank has been ranked at the fifth position. Hindustan Unilever, the Indian arm of Unilever, has been ranked 10th.

About ICICI Bank the magazine said: "ICICI doesn't just have recruiters trolling for talent outside of the company; it also has 600 employees who act as talent scouts internally, identifying coworkers with leadership potential.” The internal recruiters tap 5,000 candidates a year, adding that these trainees are the only employees who get company stock options, the magazine said.

Hindustan Unilever, which has 15,000 employees, likes to think of itself as a talent factory. And with more than 1,000 alumni sitting on boards globally, it can certainly make a strong case for that, the magazine said.

The other companies in the list are fast-food chain McDonald's (sixth), US-based conglomerate General Electric (seventh), Titan Cement (eighth) and China Mobile Communications Corp (ninth).

About the IBM, the magazine said: “Where the average company might offer several hundred employees an international opportunity for two or three years, IBM gives mobility assignments to thousands for 3-6 months.” — PTI 

Mumbai, November 20
Hitting new highs is becoming a habit for gold, as it commenced its record-making journey again after a brief overnight pause on the bullion here today on fresh hectic buying from stockists and traders supported by positive global cues.

A slew of reasons are driving the gold rally. Other than eroding dollar valuation, inflated asset prices around the world due to cheap money policies are leading to diversion of funds to buy gold, traders said.

Standard gold (99.5 purity) shot up by Rs 105 per 10 grams to end at Rs 17,295 from overnight closing level of Rs 17,190. Pure gold (99.9 purity) also rose by Rs 100 per 10 grams to finish at Rs 17,380 as against Rs 17,280 previously. Meanwhile, jewellers are reporting a sharp fall in sales as soaring gold prices dampen buying sentiment, according to veterans in the trade.

“There are fewer buyers as gold prices breach the Rs 17,000-mark,” says Dineshbhai Jhaveri, a jeweller at Zaveri Bazaar in South Mumbai. “People are coming with older sets of jewellery to be melted and refashioned,” Jhaveri added. In such cases, jewellers levy a small ‘making charge”.

The gold jewellery trade has had to come up with a number of new initiatives to keep people buying. On the occasion of Dhanteras, jewellers came up with schemes like offering a silver coin with every gold coin. Such schemes have now been abandoned.

A number of small jewellers have come up with schemes like buying small bits on instalments. “We allow people to buy one gram of gold every month at the prevailing price and fashion the gold into jewellery after a buyer has accumulated 15-20 grams,” says Shamit Jain, who runs a small gold shop at Borivali in North Mumbai. The gold sold by jewellers like Jain, come in the form of small wires weighing a single gram.

However even sales of such pieces have fallen. “Business is poor,” says Jain, though he expects buyers to return, once gold prices stabilise.

Chandigarh, November 20
The Indian Cellular Association (ICA) has asked the government to ban cell phones with cloned International Mobile Equipment Identity (IMEI) number - a 15 digit code that identifies a mobile phone.

Talking to media persons here today, national president of the ICA Pankaj Mohindroo said the menace posed by the Chinese handsets, which do not have a IMEI number, was huge. He said the number of subscribers in Punjab, Haryana and Chandigarh was increasing rapidly, but the handset sale by legal manufacturers did not commensurate with the growth. Hence illegal Chinese handsets continued to pervade the market.

He said ICA had requested the Centre to strictly implement the November 30 deadline to cellular service providers for banning services to cell phones with no or fake IMEI number. "These sets may pose potential threat to the national security. We find many cell phones with cloned number in the grey market, which mostly sell cheap imported ones," Mohindroo said.