The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	IPI Pipeline Pak not to guarantee gas flow to India Islamabad, January 6 Pakistan has decided not to give any guarantee for uninterrupted gas supplies to India through a proposed multi-billion dollar pipeline from Iran, a media report said here today. Pakistan and Iran have resolved almost all other issues pertaining to the gas pipeline project, including pricing of gas, project details and quantity of gas to be purchased, Dawn newspaper quoted unnamed sources as saying. Work on the project can be undertaken immediately if Iran does not press Pakistan too much on the guarantee that it had sought to ensure unhindered gas supplies to India through the pipeline, the sources said. Iran had been told by Pakistan that a friendly project between two neighbourly Muslim countries should not become victim to the interests of a third country and Iran should not ask Pakistan to guarantee uninterrupted supplies to India given the history of relations between Islamabad and New Delhi, sources said. They said Iran wanted Pakistan to agree to a performance guarantee for gas deliveries if India decided to become part of the project. This will require Pakistan to pay penalties to India for disruption of supplies even in case of sabotage or war between the two countries. Pakistan is ready to put in place all security measures required to protect the pipeline in its territory but it cannot pay the price for gas disruption when its own security is "threatened by India" or due to any sabotage activity, sources said. Pakistani defence authorities too objected to providing iron-clad sovereign guarantees to India for gas supplies through the pipeline, sources told the newspaper. India has been in discussions with Iran on joining the project and has participated in several trilateral meetings. Sources added that Pakistan needed gas from Iran to meet its growing energy requirements but it could not compromise on its long-term national interests and even more so when it has not made progress in resolving longstanding issues with India. Iran and Pakistan signed a gas sales and purchase agreement in June last year under which Islamabad will purchase at least 750 million cubic feet of gas a day from the Southern Pars gas field. Gas supplies can be increased to one BCFD, the sources said. — PTI
	Auto Expo Ratan Tata surprises visitors at rival stalls Girja Shankar Kaura / Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 6 It was a day for bus launches at the 10th Auto Expo here. But along with the launches of the luxury and hybrid buses, there was surprise in store for the bus makers. The visionary leader of the Tata Group, Ratan Tata, took his business rivals by surprise by visiting their stalls. Dressed in a blue shirt, dark blue pullover and trousers, Ratan Tata had both his company rivals and crowds present at the Auto Expo falling over each other to get a glimpse of one of the most respected Indian industrialist. Ratan Tata was present early in the morning at the DC stall that had Dilip Chabbaria unveiling his new designs. Moving on from the DC stall, Ratan Tata then visited stalls of those companies that are considered rivals of Tata Motors. Known for producing some of the best buses in the country, Tata group has been trying to modify its designs and what better way than their chief mentor going around taking a look at rival products. Ratan Tata accompanied by Tata Motors managing director Ravi Kant and other senior officials from the company visited the stalls of Mahindra and Mahindra, Volvo and Ashok Leyland, besides some others. Senior officials of the respective companies welcomed Tata at every stall he went to. Ratan Tata not only looked at the interiors of the new buses, but also took a keen interest in their technology and capacity. He took a special interest in the country's first electric plug-in CNG hybrid bus by Ashok Leyland, HYBUS, which was unveiled today. While launching the bus, Seshasayee said the government should encourage public transportation and asked for support for production of hybrid buses. "The government must bring down duty on lithium ion batteries," he said. At present, duty on lithium ion batteries that powers the drive system of a vehicle is 18 per cent. Meanwhile, Mercedes-Benz India today launched its multi-axle luxury bus at a price of Rs 85 lakh in the domestic market.
	A star-studded affair Top automobile makers of the country are looking forward to better sales in 2010 even though 2009 marked the revival of the auto sector. As the celebrities descended on the 10th Auto Expo on its second day here today, automobile makers expressed confidence of improving their sales through more offerings. As the Hyundai Motors brand ambassador Shah Rukh Khan unveiled the electric i10 hatchback, the company said it was bracing for tougher competition in India as more global rivals make a foray into the small-car segment. Incidentally, country's largest carmaker Maruti Suzuki has said it planned to have an output of 15 lakh units by 2015 to maintain its 50 per cent market share in the Indian car market.
	Too much stimulus can harm economy: Fin Secy New Delhi, January 6 Amidst the growing industry pressure to continue with the stimulus measures, the Finance Ministry today said too much support was not desirable and could harm a reviving economy. "Too much of stimulus, when the body is getting healthy, is not good; it can be injurious to health," Finance Secretary Ashok Chawla said at a seminar on textiles organised by the industry chamber Ficci here today. At the pre-Budget meeting with Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee yesterday, the heads of apex chambers had pressed hard for continuation of the fiscal stimulus packages, which they felt, helped revive the economy hit by global credit crisis that began in September 2008. Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata had also joined Ficci president Harsh Pati Singhania, Assocham chief Swati Piramal and CII president Venu Srinivasan in seeking extension of the fiscal sops till September. December 2008 through February 2009, the Centre extended a slew of stimulus measures to help revive the economy. On the taxation side, beginning December, it had slashed excise duty by 6 per cent, and service tax by 2 per cent. On the other hand it also massively stepped up Plan expenditure. All this had fiscal deficit shooting up to an estimated 6.8 per cent this year. That apart, the RBI too eased all key interest rates to pump money into the system. And the booster measures worked sooner than expected, with the economy growing by 7.9 per cent in the second quarter from 6.1 per cent in first three months of the fiscal. But on the negative side, the while economy recovered much faster than expected, the inflation, after turning negative September October began to shoot up. More worrisome is the ballooning food inflation which touched nearly 20 per cent last week. All this led to the government to think of withdrawing the stimulus measures on the one hand and tightening the money supply on the other. "It seems private demand is picking up...the need to keep the government demand at the last year's level may not be necessary," Icrier director Rajiv Kumar said. Several industries like autos, steel and textiles are back on track, while exports turned positive in November after 13 months. Following improvement in demand, steel and automobile manufacturers have raised prices in the last few days, while the balancesheets of textile firms have started showing better results. Steel majors, including SAIL, Tata Steel, JSW, Essar, abd Bhushan, have hiked prices of by up to Rs 2,000 a tonne on the rising demand. Commercial vehicle makers, including Tata Motors, Volvo and Ashok Leyland have also already raised or are considering to jack prices of trucks even as the segment witnesses return of demand. The government is expecting the economy to expand by eight per cent during the current fiscal after hitting six-year low of 6.7 per cent during 2008-09. — PTI
	Cadbury shareholders reject Kraft’s takeover bid New York, January 6 A majority of shareholders of the British confectioner Cadbury Plc have rejected the initial hostile takeover bid from Kraft Foods Inc. The American food major had made an over $10-billion acquisition bid, including both cash and stock, late last year. The Cadbury management had turned down the offer, saying it undervalued the company. Kraft today said only 1.52 per cent of Cadbury shareholders have accepted its takeover offer as on January 5, the day when the US firm raised the cash component of its bid. “Kraft Foods had received valid acceptances of the offer in respect of a total of 20,917,708 Cadbury shares (including those represented by Cadbury ADS), representing approximately 1.52 per cent of the existing issued share capital of Cadbury,” the US firm said in a statement. Kraft had offered about £3 and 0.26 new Kraft stocks for every Cadbury share. The firm has time till January 19 to make the final offer for the British confectioner. According to the American company, the first closing date of the initial takeover offer was January 5. The same has now been extended to February 2 after the company raised the cash part of the offer. Kraft has offered more cash for the takeover, after selling its North American pizza business for $3.7 billion to Nestle. Even though Kraft has increased the cash component of the bid, hurdles remain, with the US company’s top shareholder - Warren Buffett-led Berkshire Hathaway - opposing the move to issue new shares for the Cadbury deal. — PTI
	ONGC exits Trinidad and Tobago gas block New Delhi, January 6 ONGC has been forced to exit from a gas block in Trinidad and Tobago after its partner Lakshmi N Mittal walked out of the project. ONGC-Mittal Energy Ltd - the joint venture of ONGC Videsh Ltd and Mittal Investment Sarl - had in 2007 won the offshore block North Coast Marine Area-2 (NCMA-2), that is estimated to hold in-place reserves of two trillion cubic feet, beating Britain's Centrica Plc. But last year, Mittal Investment Sarl (MIS) decided to exit the project possibly because of global economic downturn. "When we had bid for the block in Trinidad and Tobago, we had consciously decided not to take more than 51 per cent stake. After the exit of MIS we had the option of doing the project entirely on our own but that did not fit into our scheme of things," an OVL official said. OMEL had 65 per cent interest in the block while Trinidad and Tobago's state-owned oil firm Petrotrin had the remaining. Under the initial agreement, OMEL was required to carry Petrotrin during the exploration phase (OMEL contributing Petrotrin's share of investment). After the exit of MIS, OVL - the overseas investment arm of ONGC - would have to foot the entire $304 million exploration expenditure with Petrotrin not willing to share any risk. "We tried to get an international energy firm as partner but did not succeed so we had no option but to exit the block," he said. OMEL had also committed to pay a signature bonus of $30.1 million for the acreage, but this was never paid as the production sharing contract was not concluded. — PTI
	A year after turmoil, Satyam moves on New Delhi, January 6 It'll be a year tomorrow since B Ramalinga Raju's explosive admission about an accounting fraud at Satyam, but the iconic IT firm has managed to move on and out of the shadows of the country's biggest corporate scam. Raju, who saw his image turn from IT industry poster-boy to conman, is in jail awaiting trial. "People have started detaching Satyam from Raju... they realised its only the promoter of the company and not the company itself that was tainted," said CP Gurnani, CEO of Mahindra Satyam - so rechristened after the company's sale to Tech Mahindra in April last year. On January 7, 2009, Raju wrote to regulator Sebi stating that he had falsified revenue and profits for many years and created fictitious assets. He had famously described the fraud, whose size is conservatively estimated at Rs 10,000 crore, as akin to "riding a tiger and not knowing how to get off without being eaten." He was arrested two days later. One year after, Gurnani is a happy man. He feels the decision to acquire Satyam was well meditated and worked out in favour of the company. "Satyam is in safe hands now and I can only wish them luck. The aspiration now is to be back in the league of the big five", said Kiran Karnik, who was chairman of Satyam's government-appointed board before its sale to Tech Mahindra. In the eight months after it was sold, Satyam has undergone massive changes, and all for the good. Reminiscing the events of the past one year, Karnik said the main challenge was to restore jobs as the future of thousands of young people was at stake. Satyam at that time claimed to have over 56,000 employees on its rolls, although the number was disputed. The headcount has been rationalised. As against 50,000 last January, the current headcount stands at 30,000. From April, till date about 40 new clients have been added, taking the total client number to over 400. On the management side too, there have been changes. “We have formed 12 task forces to look into specific areas, such as task forces looking into branding, governance, finances, legal, growth, R&D, client loss, client wins and others," Gurnani said. — PTI
	Hearing adjourned to Jan 20 Hyderabad: A local court on Wednesday adjourned till January 20 framing of charges against multi-crore Satyam case prime accused B Ramalinga Raju and others. The case relating to hearing of framing of charges was pending in the Additional Chief Metropolitan Magistrate as defence counsels had urged the court to hand over the documents relating to supplementary charge-sheet after its physical verification with original documents. — PTI
	Govt better prepared now: Khurshid New Delhi, January 6 The government today said India was more prepared to deal with a Satyam-like fraud that hit the corporate world with the disclosure of about Rs 10,000 crore fudging of accounts by the founder of the IT firm B Ramalinga Raju a year ago. “We have learnt a lot. Not just about the wrong that we do, but we also learnt about our inherent strengths. We have developed administration skills to steer through crisis,” Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said. The government could not have handled the corporate fraud, which had international ramifications, in a better way, he said, adding "now we can see the silver lining...the company (Satyam which is now Mahindra Satyam) is out of dark clouds". The ministry, Khurshid said, has already put in place an early warning system to detect corporate misdoings and would be fine-tuning the new Companies Bill, which is pending in Parliament, to firmly deal with financial frauds. Satyam went through hard time after its founder admitted to fudging of accounts. Following the disclosure, the government superseded the board of Satyam and asked its nominees to look for a new promoter. After completion of the bidding process, Tech Mahindra acquired the company and renamed it Mahindra Satyam. — PTI
	PM reviews economy with Plan panel New Delhi, January 6 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today met the members of the Planning Commission to take stock of the economy and directed them to complete the mid-term appraisal (MTA) of the 11th Plan (2007-12) by March. The Prime Minister, who is also the chairman of the Planning Commission, suggested that performance of the current fiscal should be incorporated into the MTA, said member Abhijit Sen after the meeting here today.. Earlier, the Commission was slated to complete the mid-term review of the 11th Plan by January-end.The Prime Minister, Sen said, also reviewed the performance of various sectors which were hit hard by the global financial crisis.The meeting was attended by Montek Singh Ahluwalia and Plan panel members, including Abhijit Sen and Saumitra Chaudhuri. — PTI
	Truck prices moving north Tribune News Service New Delhi, January 6 Commercial vehicle makers, including Tata Motors, Volvo and Ashok Leyland, have hiked or are considering raising prices of trucks by up to 4 per cent this month to offset rising input costs, even as the segment saw return of demand. This is mainly due to increase in input costs and also a return in demand for the trucks. The companies are expected to hike the prices from anywhere 1-4 per cent. Prices of steel have gone up by about $60-80 to over $550 a tonne in the past two months due to rise in demand and increase in input cost. Tata Motors has increased prices of all heavy vehicles (16 tonnes and above) and some models in the lower tonnage (3.5-7 tonnes) by one per cent from this month. Volvo Trucks India has hiked prices by 3-4 per cent. "Prices have gone up on account of high input costs especially, steel and rubber," Volvo Trucks (India) president Somnath Bhattacharjee said at the Auto Expo here. Bhattacharjee, who is also on the board of Volvo-Eicher JV, added that prices of Eicher products too have been increased by two per cent for the same reasons. Hinduja Group-promoted Ashok Leyland said it would hike prices of its commercial vehicles before March this year. Ashok Leyland MD R Seshayee said there had been a surge in demand of commercial vehicles in the last two quarters and the company expected to close this fiscal at a total sales of about 62,000-63,000 units. Commercial vehicles makers, who last year were forced to shut operations temporarily to cut operating costs, saw sales turn positive in August 2009. Sales jumped over 130 per cent in November last year.