New Delhi, May 23
The Indian stock markets and the currency suffered sharp losses caught in the whirlwind of a dramatic day in global financial markets which saw Japan’s Nikkei index fall more than 7%.

It was risk off in global equities which hurt Indian markets also and the BSE benchmark Sensex plummeted nearly 390 points to end below the 20,000 level.

The NSE Nifty posted its biggest percentage fall in a year on Thursday. The Nifty fell 2.09% or 127.45 points, to end at 5,967.05, marking its biggest daily percentage fall since May 8, 2012.

The Sensex fell 1.93% or 387.91 points, to end at 19,674.33, falling for a fourth consecutive session.

Several factors including scare of the withdrawal of the US monetary stimulus, poor factory output signs in China and volatility in Japanese markets led to the global selloff. Bad financial results of State Bank of India led to a drop of 8% in the stock.

The rupee also breached the 56 to the dollar mark, the weakest in more than 8 months but recovered later.

Anindya Banerjee, currency analyst, Kotak Securities said the Indian rupee touched a lowest point since September of last year, when it used to trade around 56.00/dollar levels on spot. A mix of contra-positioning from participations and a reversal in risk sentiment caused this fall.

Overnight the US Federal Reserve chief talked about possible discussion to be held on possible withdrawal of QE and at the same time of some of the members of the Federal Open Market Committee (FOMC) expressed concern on the risk of frothiness in the US financial markets. These comments triggered a reversal in the US equity markets.

Across the markets, investor wealth worth Rs 1.37 lakh crore was wiped off on Thursday with over 1,700 stocks ending on the losing side while nearly 600 scrips managing to close higher.

New Delhi, May 23
Finance Minister P. Chidambaram tried to soothe frayed nerves in the stock markets by saying there was no need for any nervousness and the markets should not be influenced by something elsewhere.

He said the issue of quantitative easing in the United States, China and Japan has no relevance at all to the situation in India. He said that inflation is coming down, foreign inflows are copious and there is no need for any kind of nervousness.

He said US Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke`s statement on quantitative easing may have been misunderstood or misinterpreted, adding fears that the Fed would start reversing its US monetary stimulus programme were unfounded. But his remarks failed to prevent steep falls in Indian markets on Thursday.

Although minutes from the Fed on the same day showed the bar for any winddown would still be high, investors fretted about the prospect nonetheless. The increased liquidity created by these US bond purchases are seen by analysts as having contributed to flows into emerging markets such as India.

Foreign investors have been strong buyers of domestic debt and stocks this month, boosting sentiment. India has also come to depend on these capital flows to help narrow a current account deficit that hit a record high in the December quarter.

Bernanke's comments have raised fears among domestic investors about the potential fallout from an end to the Fed's so-called quantitative easing.

FIIS have bought more than $5 billion of debt and stocks this month, sparking a rally in markets.

New Delhi, May 23
A bitter feud has erupted between Japanese pharma giant, Daiichi Sankyo, the current owners of Ranbaxy Labs and Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, the erstwhile promoters.

On Wednesday, Daiichi Sankyo issued a statement which stated it “believes certain former shareholders of Ranbaxy concealed and misrepresented critical information concerning the US Department of Justice and FDA investigations”. It also said it will explore its legal options against these shareholders who were not named.

Ranbaxy was recently fined $500 million in the US following a long drawn probe.

The Singh family, comprising Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, the former shareholders and founders of Ranbaxy who sold their stake earlier to Daiichi today issued a statement accusing the Japanese company of trying to divert attention.

They said the phrase used by Daiichi is an obvious reference to the members and companies of the Singh family who were shareholders of Ranbaxy. “Daiichi Sankyo’s allegations of concealment and misrepresentation are false and baseless”, it said.

Taking the attack to the Japanese firm, the Singh family claimed the belated suggestion, made years after the fact, that information was concealed from and misrepresented to Daichii Sankyo is false and designed to divert attention away from Daiichi Sankyo's own failures to protect itself and its shareholders in the negotiations and agreement with the Singh family shareholders of Ranbaxy.

The statement said Ranbaxy had recently entered into a settlement agreement with the USFDA and DOJ in relation to their investigations and that, under that settlement agreement, Ranbaxy agreed to pay large penalties.

The decision to enter into that settlement agreement was made by Ranbaxy and had nothing to do with the Singh family which was not even consulted by Daiichi Sankyo or Ranbaxy, it added.

Mumbai, May 23
State Bank of India, the country's largest lender, posted its first quarterly net profit drop in two years, missing market estimates after being dragged down by lower interest income and higher provisions for loan losses.

The state-run bank posted net profit of Rs 3,299 crore ($593.76 million) in the January-March quarter, a 18.54% decline compared with Rs 4,050 crore in the same period a year ago. Net interest income, the difference between interest earned and interest expended, fell 4.4% to Rs 11,080 crore.

Analysts, on average, had expected net profit of Rs 3,790 crore, according to Thomson Reuters I/B/E/S.

Shares in SBI fell as much as 6.89% in Mumbai trading, its biggest one-day drop since February 2012. As of 0744 GMT, the stock was down 6.5% at Rs 2,206.3, compared with a 1.77% fall in the benchmark BSE index.

Asset quality at the bank worsened over the past year. Nonperforming loans as a proportion of total assets rose to 4.75%, the highest among Indian banks, from 4.4% at the end of March last year. It stood at 5.3% at end-December.

Most state banks, including Bank of Baroda, Punjab National Bank and Bank of India have this month posted drops in quarterly profits, while private sector rivals ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank continued to post higher profit growth on stable asset quality.

Overall, bad loans have risen to a record in India as the country's worst economic slowdown in a decade clouds the outlook for banks including SBI, which accounts for a quarter of all loans and deposits in the country. — Reuters

New Delhi, May 23
The Cabinet Committee in Investment (CCI) today took decisions for removing hurdles in the areas of roads and port development. The panel directed various security agencies to adhere to the timeline of 12 weeks already approved by the Cabinet Committee on Security, for grant of security clearances for port infrastructure improvement projects.

In the year 2012-13, 32 projects were awarded resulting in capacity addition of 136.75 mtpa and involving an investment of Rs 6,765 crore. In order to expedite the process of security clearance for port projects, the shipping ministry has formulated guidelines for streamlining the procedure for grant of security clearance, which have been approved by Cabinet Committee on Security.

According to these guidelines, security inputs have to be provided by the various security agencies within a period of 12 weeks, and once the security clearance is accorded, it is valid for three years, unless there is a change in shareholding pattern.

The CCI was informed today that some of the bottlenecks identified by the road transport & highways ministry for the fast track implementation of the national highways development project have now been removed.

A high-level committee headed by Planning Commission member Krishnaswamy Kasturirangan has been set up to suggest an amicable solution to these unresolved issues.

Some of the bottlenecks that have been resolved include special exemption or no objection certificate under Forest Rights Act, 2006 that has been granted for strengthening and widening of national highways projects.

It has initiated delinking the grant of environment clearance from forest clearance for linear projects. This also includes treating strengthening and widening of national highway infrastructure projects differently from the new projects and allowing construction of national highways in nonforest areas in widening projects, as expenditure does not become infructuous in such projects.

New Delhi, May 23
In a bid to improve the product lineup of Ssangyong Motor, its principle owners Mahindra and Mahindra have given the South Korean auto major 80 billion won (about US $70.9 million or Rs 400 crore) in lieu of the new shares offered to the Indian firm. Ssangyong said the paid-in capital increase was successfully completed.

Ssangyong Motor decided to make a third party allotment to Mahindra on February 14, 2013 to secure investment funds for new products, it said. Mahindra invested 522.5 billion won in 2011 to acquire 70% of Ssangyong Motor Co.

Ssangyong Motor CEO Lee Yoo-il said: “The 80 billion won paid-in capital for stock has been received, and the paid-in capital increase has been successfully completed.”

He added: “As we have secured the funds, we’ll vigorously proceed with our investments for new product development such as small engines and small CUV and make utmost efforts for an early turnaround of the company and improve the corporate value.”

The statement said that the most recent increase in the paid-in capital results from the issuance of some 14.545 million new shares (capital increase ratio of 11.9%).