The Tribune, Chandigarh, India

	Air India Boeing Dreamliners grounded in US by red tape New Delhi, July 11 Three of Boeing's cutting-edge 787 Dreamliners painted in Air India colours are parked in South Carolina, waiting for the ailing state carrier to pay for them and take possession. The 787, which promises to help modernize Air India's ageing fleet, has instead been a source of several headaches for the money-losing carrier. The three planes, the first of which was ready for delivery at the end of May, are caught up in a dispute between the US planemaker and India over compensation to the airline after production was delayed by four years. India has not yet signed off on an undisclosed package agreed between Air India and Boeing, according to a senior government official directly involved in the process. "We still do not have inputs from several ministries, including departments like expenditure secretary in the finance ministry. So the process is getting delayed," the official said on Wednesday, declining to be identified. Air India has ordered 27 Dreamliners in total and was to be the first non-Japanese carrier to take possession of the long-haul plane, whose carbon-composite construction makes it more fuel-efficient than earlier models. At list prices, the three planes have a combined value of about $580 million, although discounts are common. They are being financed by Standard Chartered Bank. "Three Dreamliners are ready for delivery and are parked at Charleston, South Carolina. We’re just waiting for Air India to receive those," said Dinesh Keskar, Boeing's vice president of sales and marketing for Asia-Pacific & India. The Dreamliners are part of orders totalling $6 billion made by Air India in 2005, stretching already constrained finances that subsequently required a $5.8 billion government bailout. More recently, the right to fly the 787 was at the heart of a 58-day strike by a group of about 500 pilots. The striking pilots had demanded that their colleagues from the former Indian Airlines, the domestic state-run carrier that merged with Air India, not be trained to fly Dreamliners because they worried it could hurt their own career prospects. The first of the three planes, showcased at an air show earlier this year in India, was ready for delivery in late May, and Air India sent a group of pilots to take delivery. — Reuters Strike fails to affect AI, Q1 revenues up 21% Despite the two-month-long strike by a section of its pilots, the state-owned Air India saw its revenues rise 21% in the April-June quarter. The carrier's topline rose 3% in June over the same period last fiscal, notwithstanding the fact that it operated a truncated flight schedule on the international network during the entire month, officials said. — PTI
	India investment-friendly, PM assures Singapore Ashok Tuteja/TNS New Delhi, July 11 Prime Minister Manmohan Singh today assured his Singapore counterpart Lee Hsien Loong of India’s commitment to reinforce its status as an investment-friendly destination as the two countries signed three accords, including one for the conduct of joint military training and exercises in India. On a state visit to India, Lee, earlier in the day, described India's business environment as ‘complicated’ for investors and asked New Delhi to press ahead with economic reforms. The other agreements between the two countries were on facilitating cooperation in the field of vocational education and skills development and on the setting up of a greenfield world class skills development centre in Delhi to provide state-of-the-art facility for skills development. The pacts were inked after extensive talks between the two PMs. The two leaders are understood to have discussed the entire gamut of bilateral relations as well as international issues, including India's growing ties with the ASEAN. ''Prime Minister Lee and I have decided to step up bilateral cooperation and exchanges in the fields of defence and security. To this end, we have just signed an MoU to renew the bilateral arrangement between our Air Forces on joint training and exercises,'' Manmohan Singh said in a statement after the talks. Loong urged Indian industry leaders to invest more in the island nation for greater economic cooperation. “We’re in the process of setting up a board of investment to help potential investors in executing the projects”, he said while addressing a joint business meeting organised by industry bodies Assocham, CII and FICCI. .Dilip Modi, immediate past-president of Assocham, said Singapore is India’s largest trade and investment partner in ASEAN. Singapore has become a preferred center of operations for Indian companies active in the Asia Pacific region and there are estimated to be about 4,000 registered Indian firms in Singapore. CII president Adi Godrej, said bilateral trade post CECA has been growing at close to 20% annually with the exception of a couple of years when trade was affected by the global financial crises. Between 2006 and 2011, trade has grown by 51% and a target of $32 billion would be achieved by 2015. Indian firms too have invested in a large variety of sectors in Singapore such as IT and ITES, FMCG, steel. FICCI president RV Kanoria said Indian entrepreneurs are increasingly using Singapore as a launch pad to expand their business globally, with their presence from services to manufacturing.
	Ministerial panel on telecom to meet today Tribune News Service New Delhi, July 11 The reconstituted Empowered Group of Ministers on telecommunications is expected to meet on Thursday to decide on the crucial aspect of spectrum pricing and other issues related to the auction of the vacated 2G spectrum. The high-level ministerial panel, now headed by Home Minister P. Chidambaram, was reconstituted after Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar recused himself from the panel last week citing attempts to drag him into controversies. Defence Minister A.K. Antony, Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal, I&B Minister Ambika Soni, Law Minister Salman Khurshid, Minister of State in the PMO V. Narayanasamy and Planning Commission deputy chief Montek Singh Ahluwalia are the other EGoM members. Reports said that with the delay in the group’s meeting, which was postponed on four earlier occasions, the department of telecom may seek an extension from the Supreme Court for completing the auction process. The court has set a deadline of August 31, 2012 for the auction process to be completed. Incidentally, the Supreme Court has already extended the deadline once, saying cellular licences issued to new players would stand cancelled from September 7, 2012 onwards. According to the latest guidelines worked out by DoT, the latter will now issue an information memorandum for the 2G spectrum auction on August 22 instead of August 6, which would mean the auction process cannot be completed before August 31. DoT has also indicated to operators that the auction may not be completed before November or even December.
	HDFC beats realty slump, Q1 net up 18.6% Mumbai, July 11 The country's largest mortgage lender, HDFC, on Wednesday reported a 18.6 per cent rise in net profit at Rs 1,002 crore during the April-June quarter, over the year- ago period, because of healthy growth in advances. "Our net profit rose to Rs 1,001.9 crore for the June quarter, compared to Rs 844.53 crore in the year-ago period. Total income increased to Rs 4,942.31 crore from Rs 3,821.6 crore during the year ago quarter," HDFC chairman Deepak S. Parekh told the shareholders at the AGM here. Parekh said, "The loan book grew to Rs 1.48 trillion (Rs 1.48 lakh crore) during the quarter, up from Rs 1.24 trillion. This is excluding the loans sold to sister concern HDFC Bank during the preceding 12 months period worth Rs 4,978 crore." Net interest income of the pure-play mortgage lender jumped to Rs 1,372.55 crore from Rs 1,170.86 crore, while its tax liability rose to Rs 378 crore from Rs 331 crore during the quarter. Income from operations rose to Rs 4,914.71 crore during the reporting quarter up from Rs 3,800.67 crore in the year ago quarter. The stock closed at Rs 678.30, down 0.62% on the Bombay Stock Exchange today. The Sensex ended the day 0.73% lower at 17,489.14. Speaking about the economy, Parekh added deteriorating macroeconomic parameters were a cause for alarm. "Despite issues, India has managed a GDP growth rate of 6.5% in FY12," he said. Muted capital inflows and oil imports have widened the current account gap, Parekh said. Lack of fiscal rectitude and politics have stalled reforms process, he added. HDFC's Q1 results were largely in line with most estimates. — Agencies
	Deadlock over fuel supply pacts may end by July-end New Delhi, July 11 A big jump in sales of the country’s The deadlock over fuel supply pacts between Coal India and power companies is expected to end by the month-end as the issue is being considered at the highest levels of government, the coal ministry said Wednesday. "Coal India Ltd has some apprehensions whether it can meet the stipulated requirements or not. It is but natural. Coal India is deliberating on the issue and its Board will meet soon," Coal Minister Sriprakash Jaiswal told reporters here at a mining conference, organized by the Indian Chamber of Commerce. "Yes, it should...," he said, when asked whether the long pending issue of signing fuel supply agreements will get resolved by month-end. Many power firms, including National Thermal Power Corp (NTPC) — the largest consumer of Coal India — have refused to sign the supply pacts as they are opposed to certain clauses like minimum assured supply and the penalty to be paid by the state-owned coal producer, in case it fails to meet the commitment. The issue has been lying unresolved for many months now and even the intervention of the Prime Minister's Office has not been able to break the logjam so far. "One should take time in deciding important issues like this. We’re considering it at the highest level, we need to know whether the requirements can be met or not," Jaiswal said. A few days ago, the state-owned coal producer had postponed its board meeting as it has not received the written communication from the PMO on the decisions taken in a meeting held last Friday to resolve the deadlock. The company’s board is now likely to meet on July 17. The PMO meeting of last week is believed to have discussed the contentious clauses of the supply pact, including issue of minimum assured quantity and the penalty to be paid by the state-owned coal producer. It is also believed to have discussed the possibilities of supplying between 65 and 80% of the coal requirement of power companies as minimum assured quantity. While Coal India says that it can not guarantee more than 65 per cent of required coal as minimum assured supply, power producers have been pitching for keeping it at 80 per cent levels. The power firms are also opposed to the minimum penalty clause, which says that Coal India will not be liable to pay penalty for the first three years of the pact even if there is a shortfall in supply. According to the official data, only 27 power plants of the 48 in all have so far signed the supply agreements with the state-owned coal giant. These include Adani's Mundra Power plant, Lanco's Anpara Power, Reliance Power's Rosa Power Project and the RP-Sanjiv Goenka Group’s CESC. — PTI
	MCX cleared to trade equities Mumbai, July 11 The MCX-Stock Exchange has won approval from Indian regulators to start trading equity products, potentially shaking up domestic stock markets dominated by the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange. The Securities & Exchange Board of India has allowed MCX-SX to trade equity, equity futures, interest rate futures and wholesale debt products. MCS’s entry comes at a time when India's two big stock markets prepare for initial public offerings after the regulator set long-awaited guidelines in April. Trading volumes are widely expected to grow substantially. — Reuters
	Slowdown in VAS innovation may affect telecom sector Girja Shankar Kaura/TNS New Delhi, July 11 Innovation in the cellular value added services (VAS), which is expected to drive the earnings of the telecom operators in the future, have slowed down which could have an adverse effect on the overall telecommunications sector. Reports from the market say there have been very few innovations in value added services that, however, remain a huge market for telecom operators. What has emerged is that the lack of significant incentives for VAS is holding the telcos back from launching innovative products. Sector analysts point out that CRBT (caller ringback tone) was the last innovative mobile VAS product launched in India. Since then there has been no innovation in value added services, which are expected to grow 28% year-on-year by the end of 2013. Experts say VAS innovations are very important as the subscriber base, which had been the main stay of the telecom operators till now, has now reached a saturation point. Although figures for mobile subscribers in rural areas are still showing decent pace of growth, urban subscriber numbers have more or less reached the limit.