New Delhi, March 7
Stressing that economic stability should include both price stability and growth, Finance Minister P Chidambaram today said Parliament could set a target for the Reserve Bank of India to rein in inflation.

Chidambaram said the fiscal deficit target of 4.6 per cent of GDP for 2013-14 would be achieved and the current account deficit (CAD) would remain below $40 billion, against an earlier estimate of $45 billion.

Talking to reporters after his customary address to the RBI Board following the Budget presentation, Chidambaram said, “The sovereign has a right to set the target and then the RBI has a mandate to take steps to achieve it.”

RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan, who was also present at the meeting, said the central bank would issue new bank licences in a few weeks after obtaining the Election Commission's approval. Rajan said the RBI would seek formal approval from the Election Commission (EC) before issuing the licences as the model of code conduct is in force.

“Look, we have to seek the formal approval from the EC that announcing the bank licences will be okay. A number of people have said it will, but it would be best that the process is formally approved by the EC,” he said, adding that the process was started last year and was not a new proposal.

Replying to questions on bank licences, Chidambaram said he had made no recommendations to the RBI, which had appointed the Bimal Jalan Committee to scrutinise the applications.

“The Jalan Committee report is before the RBI. I have not seen the Jalan Committee report. The RBI will take appropriate decisions. If at some stage the Governor wishes to share its content with me, then I would be happy to listen. But I don't intend to speak,”the Finance Minister said.

Elaborating on prices, Chidambaram said he was happy that Rajan in one of the statements had acknowledged that the government through Parliament would set an inflation target and leave the regulator to find ways and means to achieve that target.

"I think there is great degree of convergence on the way to go forward. We must achieve both goals of price stability and growth," he said.

The RBI-appointed Urjit Patel panel has recommended that the central bank should set a retail inflation target of 8 per cent by January 2015 and 6 per cent by January 2016.

New Delhi, March 7
The BSE Sensex is within striking distance of the 22000-mark as huge buying across sectors pushed the index to a new high on hopes of a stable government after elections.

The Sensex climbed to a new closing high of 21,919 points, registering a gain of 405.92 points and the Nifty raced to yet another record close of 6,526 points as Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) continued to repose faith in an economy that is showing signs of stability ahead of the General Election.

Investor wealth ballooned by Rs 85,000 crore on Friday. Aggressive buying by FIIs mainly helped the benchmark indices rise for the fourth day in a row. On Thursday, they bought shares worth Rs 1,272.93 crore as per provisional data.

During the week, the Sensex has seen a spurt of nearly 800 points or 3.79 per cent. BHEL, ICICI Bank, Axis Bank and Reliance Industries led the 22 gainers in the Sensex. Realty, banking, capital goods and refinery counters saw heavy demand.

Raamdeo Agrawal, Joint MD, Motilal Oswal Financial Services, said after seven years, Nifty was walking comfortably into new highs and the current conditions were extremely conducive after a long time.

"Apart from the big political event in two months, corporate earnings are more important. Throughout the slowdown, there has not been a single year of decline in earnings. The currency is also not overvalued anymore. The major theme that is playing out right now is the Modi theme," he said.

The NSE 50-issue CNX Nifty also flared up by 125 points, or 1.96 per cent, to end at a new closing high of 6,526 points. Today, it hit a life-time high of 6,537 points crossing its previous record of 6,415 points.

Sanjeev Zarbade, Vice President- Private Client Group Research, Kotak Securities, said that global markets were modestly up for the week but could have ended higher had it not been for the geopolitical tensions emanating from Ukraine.

“The Sensex outperformed the global benchmarks by closing 4 per cent up for the week. Pre-election rally and consistent flow of foreign money drove Sensex near the 22000-level. Industrials, Interest rate sensitives and commodity stocks were outperformers,” he said.

Bookings online All tickets, for both domestic and international travel, must be booked online between March 8 and May 8, with travel validity of 11 months, Jet Airways said.

Mumbai, March 7
Domestic airlines are wooing women travellers with discounts and all-women crew flights to mark International Women’s Day which falls tomorrow.

While private carrier Jet Airways has announced discounted tickets with a two months booking window and 11 months validity, budget carrier GoAir has offered upgrade to business class at low prices. The national carrier Air India is mulling an all-women crew flight.

Naresh Goyal-promoted Jet Airways has offered discounted fares to women travellers with a two-month booking period, starting from tomorrow.

Under the offer, women travellers will get a special 10% discount on base fares for international journey and a similar discount on base fare and fuel surcharge for domestic travel, it said today.

All tickets, for both domestic and international travel, must be booked online between March 8 and May 8, with travel validity of 11 months, Jet Airways said adding the offer is applicable for both Jet Airways and Jet Konnect.

Air India, which has been operating an all-women crew flight to mark International Women’s Day for last few years now, plans a similar flight this year too.

“We have been operating such flights for the last several years. And this year also, we will be operating flights with all-women crew on both international and domestic sectors,” an Air India official said. — PTI

New York, March 7
Privacy groups have approached the US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) to put on hold Facebook’s $19 billion acquisition of WhatsApp and investigate how the social media giant plans to use subscriber data.

The US-based Electronic Privacy Information Centre (EPIC) and the Centre for Digital Democracy asked the US anti-trust body to investigate WhatsApp and enjoin its “unfair and deceptive data collection practices” for any future changes to its privacy policy. The FTC looks into market practices that are anticompetitive, deceptive or unfair to consumers.

The groups claimed that Facebook “routinely makes use of user information for advertising purposes and has made clear that it intends to incorporate the data of WhatsApp users into the user profiling business model." "The proposed acquisition will therefore violate WhatsApp users' understanding of their exposure to online advertising and constitutes an unfair and deceptive trade practice, subject to investigation by the FTC,” the bodies said.

“Specifically, the EPIC requests the commission to initiate an investigation of the proposed acquisition of WhatsApp by Facebook, specifically with regard to the ability of Facebook to access WhatsApp’s store of user mobile phone numbers and metadata,” it said. — PTI

BRIEFLY

RIL-BP to extend life of gas fields in KG-D6 block
New Delhi: British Petroleum (BP) is working with Reliance Industries to extend the life of producing gas fields in the KG-D6 block. “Following approval by the authorities in 2012, many activities are being progressed to arrest the decline in production rates and extend the life of the block KG-D6 producing fields," BP said. — PTI

IOC to buy 10% stake in Petronas’ LNG project
New Delhi: Indian Oil Corp, the nation's largest oil firm, Friday signed a deal to buy a 10 per cent stake in shale-gas assets and a linked liquefied natural gas (LNG) project in British Columbia for $900 million. — PTI

Ministry calls envoy’s note on Jet-Etihad deal normal
New Delhi: The External Affairs Ministry on Friday termed the draft sent to the Finance Ministry by the Indian Ambassador to UAE on the Jet-Etihad deal “normal”, saying it was routine for diplomats to “obtain, assess and share” information on various issues in their host countries. — PTI

Forex reserves rise $ 954.6 million to $ 294.3 billion: RBI
Mumbai: The foreign exchange reserves rose by $954.6 million to $294.36 billion on account of gains in the value of gold reserves, the RBI said on Friday. In the previous reporting week, the reserves had dipped by $383.7 million to $ 293.41 billion. — PTI

SBI to raise Rs 8,00-1,200 cr by issuing shares to employees
Kolkata: The State Bank of India has proposed to offer a share purchase scheme for all its employees which could raise additional equity capital, between Rs 800 crore and Rs 1,200 crore, for the country’s largest lender. “We are planning to offer employees a share purchase scheme and not an employee stock option scheme,” SBI chairperson Arundhati Bhattacharya said here on Friday. — PTI