New Delhi, November 26
Alleging a nexus between the Centre and Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries (RIL) on the gas price issue, Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL) headed by Anil Ambani today sought to cross-examine Petroleum Minister Murli Deora and Petroleum Secretary RS Pandey.

Senior counsel Ram Jethmalani made the plea before a special Bench, headed by Chief Justice KG Balakrishnan, hearing the gas dispute case, primarily between the companies of the Ambani brothers.

Jethmalani made the demand when the government and RIL opposed RNRL's October 19 letter seeking certain documents from the Ministry of Power relating to gas supply and pricing. He said these documents would prove that government approval was not necessary for deciding the price of the gas to be supplied from the KG Basin.

RNRL has approached the apex court seeking implementation of the Bombay High Court judgment. The HC has asked RIL to sell gas to RNRL at $2.34 a unit, while RIL wants $4.2 a unit, the rate fixed by the government.

"The government is bound to produce these documents," Jethmalani said adding these related to the minutes of the meeting of the Empowered Group of Ministers (EGoM) held on August 28, 2007. The documents referred to the presentation made by the Petroleum Ministry to the EGoM on August 27, 2007.

RIL counsel Harish Salve, however, contended that RNRL could not rely on these documents.

Jethmalani said he would take two more days to conclude his arguments. The special Bench, which included Justices B Sudershan Reddy and P Sathasivam, today asked the government to file its affidavit without any delay.

RNRL counsel said RIL hurriedly convened a Board meeting of RNRL on January 11, 2006, and approved gas supply agreements worth Rs 1 lakh crore in five minutes flat. The notice for the meeting had been sent only the previous day and the draft of the agreements were provided to Anil Ambani group (ADAG) at midnight, just hours before the meeting.

New Delhi, November 26
The setting up of an ombudsman to redress complaints of poor mobile telephony services like call drops was ruled out by the government today on the plea that the state-run BSNL/MTNL were taking effective steps to upgrade technology.

The reaction from the government came as Minister of State for Telecom Sachin Pilot gave a reply to the supplementaries during question hour in the Rajya Sabha.

He said while the telecom revolution has led to India having one of the world's cheapest call rates, it has also led to congestion in network leading to call drops. “BSNL and MTNL are taking effective steps like upgrading technology and putting in more efforts to improve quality.”

When asked whether government will set up an independent ombudsman to address complaints like call drops, he said, “the direct answer to his question is no".

Pilot said teledensity has increased from 9 per cent in 2005 to 44 per cent now. In metros like Delhi and Mumbai, it is more than 100 per cent but is just 16-18 per cent in the rural areas.

State-run BSNL will set up 10,000 towers by March 2010 and 15,000 towers by March 2011 to improve mobile telephony services.

Telecom Minister A Raja said the per-second metering of call, recently introduced by major mobile operators, is to ensure that consumers are not made to pay for full one-minute when the call may not have lasted more than a few seconds because of call drop.

He said he was "not bothered" about companies' losing revenue in the per-second billing as long as consumers were benefiting from it.

The government was providing a level-playing field to public and private telecom operators, he added.

New Delhi, November 26
Food inflation shot up to 15.58 per cent for the second week of November on the back of potato prices, which have more than doubled in the past one year. Other essential items like pulses and onion rose by more than 25 per cent in the wholesale market, government data on inflation for week ended November 14 showed.

"Food inflation is incredibly high...The drought has aggravated the situation and I expect the wholesale price-based inflation to rise to around 7 per cent by March next year," said HDFC Bank economist Jyotinder Kaur.

With inflationary pressure building up, the RBI in its next policy review may take steps to check easy money. "It is likely that RBI in its January policy might go for monetary tightening measures and raise Cash Reserve Ratio (CRR) or policy rates," Kaur said.

According to the inflation data, potato prices rose by 111 per cent, pulses by 35 per cent and onion by 27 per cent in the one-year period ending November 14.

Staple items like wheat and rice rose by 12 per cent each during the period. Vegetables, too, continued to stalk consumers registering a 12 per cent rise during the same period.— PTI

Ludhiana, November 26
Hinduja Group flagship Ashok Leyland is expanding its marketing infrastructure in Punjab, said Vinod K Dasari, director of the company.

Launching 3116 H, a multi-axle truck, here today, Dasari also announced the launch of "Sahayog", a loyalty programme exclusively for Punjab. Under this programme, customers will be offered various benefits, including extended warranty package at a subsidised price. The drivers of customers will be trained and presented Personal Accident Cover (PAC) for a period of one year from the date of purchase of vehicle. The company will also conduct free service camps every month at all major hubs in the state, offering free vehicle check-up and on-the-spot minor repairs.

Dasari told The Tribune that northern region was leading in the revival of commercial vehicle market. Volumes in recent months had surpassed the sales in the corresponding months of a healthy 2007-08.

He emphasised the company's focus on the development of network in northern markets. In Punjab, the company was currently present at nine locations. The service network was set to grow further with new dealerships at Chandigarh, Bathinda and Moga and six new authorised service centres in the state slated to commence operations in the current fiscal year.

Bangalore, November 26
“Localise to succeed” is Nasscom’s prescription to Indian IT companies interested in doing business in the Nordic countries (Norway, Denmark, Sweden, Finland and Iceland).

Nasscom and PricewaterhouseCoopers yesterday released a report titled “Opportunities for Indian IT industry: Nordic countries”. The report said although the Nordic market is relatively less sensitive to working with foreign service providers as compared with other European markets, Indian companies must establish a local entity either independently or in partnership. “Indian companies should be mindful of the need to localise their front-end sales teams,” said the report.

The report also advised the Indian IT sector to go for “big ticket acquisition to establish themselves” in the Nordic region. The Nordic IT services market comprises a large number of international and regional service providers. This is in consolidation phase and has seen several takeovers and mergers. Though Indian vendors have also been active in this scenario, the transaction size has been small. Indian vendors should look at big-ticket acquisitions as a viable strategy to establish themselves in this market. Such transactions will provide Indian companies with requisite scale in this market and give access to specific customer accounts, the report says.

This is the third report in a series focusing on specific countries and regions which are new markets, competitive destinations and potential partners for India.

Ameet Nivsarkar, vice-president, Nasscom, said, “Indian IT-BPO companies are fast diversifying into new territories and opening up further opportunities for growth. The Nordic region with very high ICT adoption, besides R&D investments offers an untapped opportunity for Indian IT companies and another potential entry point to Europe.”

According to the report, manufacturing, telecom, public sector, banking and financial services offer opportunities to the Indian IT companies for business. The report says engineering services and remote infrastructure management (RIM) are quick win opportunities for Indian companies. These services leverage technical expertise of Indian companies and compatible with respect to Nordic requirements of technical innovation and talent shortage. 

Chandigarh, November 26
By opting for a multi-brand strategy, Acer India has managed to double its market share in the desktop as well as notebook segment in the past six months. As against a market share of 5.5 per cent in the first quarter of this fiscal, the company has now managed to get 10 per cent of the pie.

Talking to TNS here today, S Rajendran, chief marketing officer, Acer India, said the growth has been phenomenal in the notebook segment, where the company has grown from 8.9 per cent in the first quarter to 15.2 per cent now. “Our aim is to be the global leader in the notebook segment by 2011. We already have a 40 per cent of the market share in notebooks. By adopting a multi-brand strategy and increasing our market presence, we will be able to become a top player in the country,” he said.

It may be noted that Acer Inc. had acquired US-based company, Gateway, and Packard Bell, a European company, two years ago. After this acquisition, the company launched two global PC brands in the Indian market early this year. The two brands — Gateway is targeted at the premium segment of the market and eMachines targeting the value customer. The two brands are being promoted at all Acer retail outlets, besides the Acer computers.

“In a market where consumer goods offer increasingly advanced and standard technologies, a new generation of users is changing consumer rules. A PC brand aimed at gaining share in today’s market must respond to end users’ requests. It is with this in mind that we decided to adopt a multi-brand strategy. Moreover, the industry was going in for consolidation and battling the global economic slowdown. But we decided to go strong since this fiscal and bulked up by offering more variety and thus offering better negotiating power to our customers,” said Rajendran.

He said they were now also in the expansion mode and were tying up with large format retailers as well as mom- and-pop stores to reach out to more people. “Earlier, we had a tie up with Chroma only. But now we are tying up with other large format stores like Reliance Retail, Jumbo, Staples and Hypercity to sell our computers. We are also tying up with 20 multi-brand stores in 10 cities, where Acer will have shop to retail its goods,” he added.