New Delhi, July 5
Bharat Bandh today partially disrupted economic activities with commodity markets and the transport sector taking a hit in many parts of the country, and the industry pegged losses at up to Rs 13,000 crore. While Mumbai, the financial capital of the country, and several industrialised states including Maharashtra, Gujarat, were affected, the impact was partial in many other states like Tamil Nadu and in the national capital Delhi.

The 12-hour strike was called by the Opposition parties to protest the fuel price hike and rising inflation.

"The bandh is estimated to have cost the nation close to Rs 13,000 crore in terms of GDP loss," industry chamber Ficci said. Another industry body Assocham put the losses at Rs 10,000 crore, while CII pegged it at Rs 3,000 crore.

Wholesale commodity markets remained shut in most of the cities, while several flights from key airports like Mumbai were cancelled. According to the All-India Motor Transport Congress, 6 lakh vehicles were off the road.

Though the screen-based stock market remained open, the trading volume at the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) was down 52 per cent to Rs 2,857 crore against a daily average of nearly Rs 6,000 crore.

According to reports by industry chambers like Ficci and Assocham, thin attendance was witnessed in commercial establishments in several states, while the economic activity came to a complete halt in states like West Bengal, Gujarat and Kerala.

Ficci said most of the industrial activities remained shut in Bangalore and majority of MNCs and IT firms preferred to give a holiday to their employees. In Mumbai, transport services were "completely affected" and traders were mostly off the market.

The PHD Chamber catering mainly to the northern states, said the impact was felt in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and UP.

Banking services were completely paralysed in Left-governed West Bengal and Kerala while some disruptions were noticed in Karnataka, Madhya Pradesh, Bihar and Mumbai.

The industry leaders, including Rahul Bajaj and Adi Godrej, have opposed the bandh and termed the protest as "odd and absurd". — PTI

Mumbai, July 5
ADAG firm Reliance Natural Resources (RNRL) today sank over 27 per cent, while the group firm Reliance Power closed up over 3 per cent after touching a 52-week high intra-day.

Yesterday, the boards of both the companies approved the merger of RNRL with Reliance Power in an all-stock deal with an exchange ratio of one equity share of R-Power for four shares of RNRL.

Shares of RNRL plunged 27.26 per cent to close at Rs 46.30 on the Bombay Stock Exchange. The scrip touched a month low of Rs 45.50, down 28.51 per cent during the day.

On the contrary, the shares of Reliance Power remained strong even in a volatile market to surge to a 52-week high of Rs 189.80, up 8.36 per cent. The stock, however, pared the early rally and closed at Rs 181.40, up 3.57 per cent.

"This deal has left the RNRL shareholders in a very tight situation. It will be a difficult time for the investors of both the companies as it will take at least three-four years for Reliance Power to get the benefits of gas promised by Reliance Industries. The shareholders are left with no choice but to stay invested," Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services assistant vice-president Gaurang Shah said.

The ADAG group has claimed that Reliance Power would reap benefits from RNRL's coal bed methane blocks, and fuel supplies through the latter's coal supply logistics and shipping business. The combined entity would have over 60 lakh shareholders, the largest in the world. — PTI

Bangalore, July 5
Hundreds of IT firms, including Indian bellwethers TCS, Infosys Technologies, Wipro and Mindtree, remained closed here today due to the nationwide shutdown against the hike in fuel prices. “As a precaution, we have given off on Monday to our employees working in the Bangalore campus. They will compensate by working on Saturday (July 10),” Mindtree senior vice-president Kalyan Banerjee told TNS.

Infosys has made arrangements for employees working on important projects and BPO services to work in the night when the dawn-to-dusk shutdown will be over.

“We have made arrangements for those employees for overnight stay,” an Infosys official said.

Infosys has its largest software development centre in the Electronics City here where about 16,000 employees work.

Similarly, Wipro, which has two software development centres in the city declared a holiday, directing its employees to report for duty on July 10 in lieu of today.

“We declared holiday for our employees on July 5 in view of the nationwide shutdown. They have been asked to work on July 10 though it’s a weekend,” a Wipro official said.

Due to uncertainty of public transport by the state-run Bangalore Metropolitan Corporation, hundreds of small and medium enterprises in the IT and biotech sectors have extended the weekend holiday to their employees up to Monday.

As a precautionary measure, multinational firms like HP, CITRIX and others also observed holiday today and asked their employees to compensate by working on Saturday.

The nationwide shutdown has been called by the leading opposition parties, including the BJP, which is the ruling party in this southern state.

The BJP had earlier sought cooperation from educational institutions, transporters, government agencies and private firms for making the bandh a success.

New Delhi, July 6
Telecom Minister A Raja is slated to meet telecom operators in the country tomorrow in an apparent bid to sort out various matters concerning the industry. The meeting comes within days of the minister agreeing to refer the matter regarding spectrum holding by the telcos to the Empowered Group of Ministers headed by Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Facing diverse views, both from the telecom operators and the Opposition parties, the Department of Telecom (DoT) had thought it best that the EGoM would be able to solve all problems relating to the telecom regulator TRAI’s recent recommendations on spectrum-related issues.

The move came after the Prime Minister’s Office (PMO) suggested that the recommendations of the telecom regulator be referred to the EGoM since there are diverse views on the proposals. However, the issue will be referred only after the Telecom Commission takes a view on the TRAI recommendations.

TRAI has recommended a one-time charge for spectrum held by operators beyond 6.2 MHz and suggested that it be benchmarked with 3G-spectrum prices for which auction was held recently.

The DoT’s decision came in the wake of a difference of opinion among operators, with old GSM operators like Bharti, Vodafone and Idea Cellular, opposing the TRAI report saying the more efficient players are being penalised.

Officials said all these issues were also likely to come up during the meeting.

GSM operators have also refused to be part of TRAI's latest consultation process for working out the pricing model for 2G spectrum, linking it to 3G. They said the method used by the regulator to fix the price of 2G spectrum they hold beyond the 6.2 MHz mark was neither transparent, nor open.

They have been wary of the proposals because if the recommendations are accepted by the DoT, they would have to fork about Rs 20,000 crore for keeping spectrum beyond 6.2 MHz.

Helsinki/New Delhi, July 6
Nokia will sell its wireless modem business to Japan's Renesas Electronics Corp for about $200 million, as part of the Finnish cell phone maker's strategy to focus on its core businesses.

The deal will also see the transfer of around 1,000 of Nokia's R&D employees - a majority of them located across Finland, India, UK and Denmark - to the Japanese entity, the two companies said in a joint statement today.

Both the firms had entered into a strategic alliance to develop modem technologies for Evolved High-Speed Packet Access/Long-Term Evolution (HSPA+/LTE), widely used for wireless applications.

Subject to regulatory approvals, the deal is expected to attain completion during the fourth quarter of 2010. — PTI

New Delhi, July 6
India Inc's hiring activity grew by 21 per cent in June this year compared to the year-ago period, led by the improving business sentiment, job portal naukri.com said in a report.

Naukri.com's monthly job index - JobSpeak - moved up to 947 in June this year compared to 784 in the same month of 2009.

Hiring activity in June also showed an improvement over the previous month as well, with the job index increasing by four per cent in June from 913 in May, the study revealed.

"Companies are actively hiring now and have shed their 'wait-and-watch' policy. The hiring growth in June is secular in nature, with a balanced rise seen across all sectors and cities," Info Edge (owner of naukri.com) COO and director Hitesh Oberoi said.

Hiring has been bullish in the first six months of this year, with 22 per cent more recruitment seen in the January-June period of 2010 compared to the same period last year.

"The first half of 2010 has been very encouraging, as most of the key industry sectors have been able to move out of the slowdown phase and are heading towards recovery," Oberoi added.

The IT-enabled service (ITES) sector has been bullish on hiring, with the sector registering a notable growth of 25 per cent in the job index for June compared to May.

Other key industry sectors such as telecom and oil and gas exhibited strong hiring growth, with the sectoral job indices moving up by 14 per cent and 11 per cent, respectively, in June compared to May. — PTI

BRIEFLY

Fortis revokes 3.91 cr pledged shares
New Delhi: Fortis Healthcare on Monday said its promoter firm has revoked 3.91 crore pledged shares, bringing down the percentage of the total pledged stake in the company to 31 per cent. In a filing to the Bombay Stock Exchange, Fortis Healthcare said Fortis Healthcare Holdings Ltd (FHHL) revoked 3,91,77,192 shares on June 22, nearly 10 per cent of the total outstanding shares of the company. — PTI

Tata Daewoo sales unit in SKorea
Seoul: Tata Daewoo Commercial Vehicle Company, the South Korean unit of Tata Motors, has said it has launched a sales unit that will sell large-sized trucks. The sales unit will sell Tata Novus and Tata Prima across the nation, it said on Sunday. — Yonhap

Havells to relaunch 'Sylvania' brand
New Delhi: Electrical equipment maker Havells on Monday said it will relaunch 'Sylvania' brand in India, 17 years after it was discontinued, with investing Rs 120 crore in marketing and network expansion this year. The company, which will now form a separate entity called Sylvania India, is targeting the 'Sylvania' range to become a Rs 500-crore brand in the next five years.— PTI

Tata Walky FM
Jammu: Tata Teleservices on Monday launched Tata Walky FM, a cordless phone with in-built FM stereo. It will be available to both post-paid and pre-paid subscribers. “The new Tata Walky FM is priced at Rs 1,499 and Rs 1,699, respectively, for post-paid and pre-paid customers,” said Atul Kansal, COO, Tata Indicom (J&K).— TNS

Easy Bill plans 10K outlets
New Delhi: Buoyed by a mandate from the insurance giant LIC for premium collection, Hero Group firm Easy Bill on Monday said it was planning to increase its network to 10,000 outlets spanning 100 cities by the year-end. Easy Bill is a chain of one-stop payment collection centres, offering a variety of services like bill collection, pre-paid mobile recharge, railway tickets booking and other Internet-enabled payment services.— PTI