• Nine cos enter trillion club as Sensex rides past 17k-mark
• Rs 100,000-cr power projects in 11th Plan
• Govt to open retail market to FIIs: FM
• Mukesh Ambani pips Mittal, is world's richest Indian now
• Incredible India @60: Lights, camera, action
• Mukesh Am bani group M-cap hits Rs 4 trillion
• India new launchpad for auto giants
• Plantations play integral role in South's economy
• RIL's net profit jumps to Rs 11,943
• India wins No.1 position at the prestigious Conde Nast Traveller, UK Readers' Travel Awards 2007
• India ranks 69th in Global economies freedom index

• India to be sole hub for Hyundai Pa hatchback
• Nine Indian banks among top 50 in Asia
• Sky is the limit for Indian IT, literally
• Sensex scales 17k in intra-day trade
• India's Richest
• Retail boom to give stiff competition to IT
• Aging Europe seeks manpower from India
• Sensex zooms past 1600-marks
• RIL busy Malaysia's hobbling Hualon
• Cachar to get gas from Myanmar

Hyundai Motor will make India its sole global production hub for the upcoming premium hatchback - code named Pa. The company feels the Pa will drive sourcing growth from India from the present 1 lakh units per annum to 2.5 lakh units per annum by 2009. Incidentally, the company has already announced plans to launch Pa in India by end-2008. "India will be the only global production hub for Pa which will be launched across the globe, including Europe and the US. We are working on finer details for this," Hyundai Motor India (HMIL) senior general manager B Mani told reporters here on Thursday. HMIL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of the Korean auto major, is already one of global export hubs for compact cars like Santro, Accent and Getz. While Mr Mani refused to elaborate on Pa, industry sources said the model would be a notch above the Santro and have a 1000 cc engine. The price is also expected to be around Rs 4 lakh. The company said it has no plans to withdraw its top-selling model Santro from India after Pa hits the market. It sells 14,000 units of Santro out of total monthly sales of 18,000 units in India. "There's been wide speculation in the market that we might withdraw Santro. We have no such plans. In fact, we will launch newer variants for the model," said HMIL general manager D S Jang.

Courtesy: www.economictimes.indiatimes.com, September 28, 2007

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The surprise bull run has generated so much of wealth that many top-rung companies can now boast of being part of the Rs 1-trillion market cap club. The list of the biggest wealth creators is expanding with every 1,000-point rise in the Sensex. Nine companies, led by Reliance Industries (RIL), have already entered the hall of fame after their market caps soared beyond Rs 1,00,000 crore (trillion) amid unprecedented rally in their shares in the past few months. RIL topped the list with Rs 3,23,322 crore as on Thursday when the Sensex soared past the historic 17k-mark to close with a gain of 229 points, or 1.4%, at 17,151. The stock has been on a dream run, jumping 27% to Rs 2,320 in one month. The market is still looking for clues as to what sparked the surge in the scrip. Public sector oil and gas giant ONGC ranks second, but the company's market cap at Rs 2,07,826 crore is substantially lower than that of RIL. Apart from RIL and ONGC, Bharti Airtel (Rs 1,82,256 crore), NTPC (Rs 1,59,880 crore) and DLF (Rs 1,26,432 crore) are among the top five wealth creators. Most of them, barring Bharti Airtel, have outperformed the Sensex in the past one month. The stocks have risen between 10% and 27% against a 16% gain in the index. Two companies - DLF and ICICI Bank (market cap Rs 1,09,222 crore) - have found place in the list of high-fliers during the Sensex's journey from 15K to 17K in the past two-and-a-half months. A few more companies are close to touching the Rs 1 trillion-mark. Bhel and SBI, with a market cap of Rs 99,896 crore and Rs 99,260 crore, respectively, may soon achieve the milestone if these stocks continue to rise in the coming days.

Courtesy: www.economictimes.indiatimes.com, September 28, 2007

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As many as nine Indian banks, led by HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank, have made it to the list of top 50 Asian Banks. However, none of the Indian banks could qualify for top 10, as per this year's Asian Banker 300 report released today. The performance of India pale when compared with Hong Kong as 11 banks from the Chinese region are in the top 50. Commending on Indian banks, the report said, "This (achievement) is no surprise given the Indian economy is in overdrive, with buoyant consumption and investment demand driving the banking sector's strong balance sheet growth." Private lenders such as HDFC Bank and ICICI Bank have been able to protect their net interest margin and loan quality amid aggressive growth, further improving their earnings growth momentum. Hong Kong and Shanghai Banking Corporation topped the list, the report said, adding the 2006 ranking of the AB 300 outlines what can be described as "the year of the conservative banks". "The 10 strongest banks in the region are all solid franchises, and their pricing power has enabled them set the pace for the whole banking industry," said Benny Zhang Wei, senior research analyst at the Asian Banker. Abundant capital and the stable operation of core businesses in their home markets have enabled many of these banks to replicate success beyond their traditional borders, Zhang said.

Courtesy: www.economictimes.indiatimes.com, September 28, 2007

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The Union Cabinet would shortly sanction Rs 100,000 crore worth projects for the eleventh Plan period under two key reform tools in the power sector in India - the Accelerated Power Development and Reforms Programme (APDRP) and the Rajiv Gandhi Vidyut Vitran Yojna (RGVVY), said Rakesh Nath, chairperson, Central Electricity Authority (CEA). "The Cabinet is expected to shortly clear the APDRP and RGVVY projects for the 12th plan period to improve the transmission infrastructure as part of our target to meet 78,000 Mw during the Plan period. A circular power grid connecting the northern region to the western grid with 765 KVA lines would be a major component," he said, while addressing the 60th annual general meeting(AGM) of the Indian Electrical and Electronics Manufacturers Association (IEEMA) meeting in Mumbai, yesterday.

The circular grid would cover Seepath, Zeoni, Bina, Gwalior, Agra, Fathepur, Sasaram, Gaya and Ranchi, connecting back to Seepath in North India. Once the ultra mega power project (UMPP) at Krishnapatinam in Andhra Pradesh takes off, a similar infrastructure would be made to connect the UMPP to the southern grid during the start of the 12th Plan period, he said. Started during the 10th Plan period, the schemes undertaken nationally under the APDRP include renovation and modernisation of sub-stations, transmission lines and distribution transformers, consumer meters, high voltage distribution system (HVDS) and computerised billing. About Rs 40,000 crore worth projects were approved under the scheme during the 10th Plan period. RGVVY is to accelerate the rural electrification. Rakesh Nath said about Rs 51,000 crore projects had been identified under RGVVY and APDRP each. The actual requirement was Rs 400,000 crore to upgrade the transmission and distribution (T&D) infrastructure, including for replacement of about 20 per cent of the transformers operational in the country. He said as part of the reforms, specific standards had been prescribed for transformers. Two separate committees for supercritical equipments and Balance-of-Plant equipment were also working on to prescribe pre-qualification parameters for vendors in the power sector. On the targeted 78,000 Mw of installed power capacity for the Plan period, he said about 52,000 Mw was being executed and about 2600 MW had been commissioned. Apart from this, the private sector was executing about 10,000 MW. About 18-20,000 MW of these projects are expected to generate power by March 2008.

Courtesy: www.business-standard.com, September 28, 2007

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With aviation majors like Boeing and Lockheed Martin looking at setting up captive R&D centres in India, smaller aircraft and business jet manufacturers are likely to follow suit. The other aircraft manufacturers like Bombardier, ATR, EADS Socata, Eurocopter, Hawker, Falcon are very seriously evaluating the option of setting up their R&D centre in India with a third party IT services provider or independently. This move could mean a billion dollar business opportunity within the ecosystem of the aviation industry in India. These R&D centres would come under the engineering services segment of IT. A study done by NASSCOM and Booz Hamilton estimates that engineering services outsourcing could touch $40 billion by 2020 and the contribution by the aerospace segment is expected to be around 15%.

European Aeronautic Defence and Space (EADS), the parent company of Airbus is setting up a technology centre in Bangalore with investment to the tune of Rs 11,000 crore. "Eventually this centre, which will handle core projects and mission critical projects, will evolve into major technology centre for Airbus," said a company official. Aiding this momentum is the offset clause of the government which stipulates that 50% of $10 billion order for the purchase of 126 multi-role combat aircraft deal has to be sourced locally. Srinivas Duvvuri, VP and Chief Country Representative, Bombardier (India) said, "Currently we have partnerships with Capgemini, Infotech Enterprises and Satyam for work like technical publication, engineering design. In the future we will look at different options to grow these partnerships, as it the logical way to grow. However at the same time, I don't see any reason why we should not have our own operations like a captive centre in the country." However, the business opportunity is not just limited to the larger IT players as even the smaller entities focused on aerospace segment stand to benefit. B V R Mohan Reddy, CMD, Infotech Enterprises said that there has been significant traction in the aviation space in the last one year. The $120 million IT company gets 40% of its revenues from the aerospace segment. According to Senthil Kumaran, MD, Silver Software, more number of aircraft manufacturers are looking to undertake R&D operations in India which will certainly boost the India based IT companies. Silver has been providing software solutions for Airbus A380 aircraft and Boeing's Dreamliner project. Industry observers said that there are going four main players in this R&D area: IT companies looking at focusing on aerospace segment, manufacturing companies providing engineering services, captive centres and lastly the third party services providers which are specialised in this segment. It is expected that the smaller aviation companies who come into India for R&D will typically get into an alliance with third party and later form their own captives.

Courtesy: www.economictimes.indiatimes.com, September 28, 2007

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It may sound alarming to the small retailers that the Government is about to open country's $300 billion retail market to foreign institutional investors (FIIs). Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram on Thursday said that the huge retail market would be kept open to the FIIs after gaining confidence of the mom and pop shopkeepers. "In course of time their fears will be allayed and it is only a matter of time before the policy is tweaked to allow FDI in retail," Chidambaram told students at a packed Dhirubhai Ambani auditorium here after delivering Wharton Leadership Lecture. "Experience tells us (organised) retail does not drive them (small retailers) out. They will reorganise themselves and thrive. But there is genuine fear that has to be allayed," he said. Earlier this week, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath had said that the issue was not about allowing FDI in retail but that of large versus small players. His ministry has asked economic think-tank ICRIER to study the situation and the report is expected in a month. While political opposition to allowing FDI in retail is well known, there has been a growing opposition from tens of thousands of small retailers who employ millions of people to even entry of domestic corporates into the sector. Only in the last month food stores of some of the Indian corporate houses received orders to shut their shops in Uttar Pradesh where the State Government cited law and order problems for the decision.

Courtesy: www.dailypioneer.com, September 27, 2007

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The Sensex crossed a new milestone of 17,000 - a gain of over 1,000 points in six consecutive sessions - on big inflows from foreign funds, short-covering in blue-chips and value buying in battered information technology (IT) stocks. The Reserve Bank of India's (RBI's) steps to curtail the rise in the rupee yesterday also encouraged investors to buy stocks early in the session, anticipating a fall in the currency value, which would boost earnings of export-led sectors, including IT. The BSE Sensex closed at 16,921.39 - a new life high close - after hitting the day's high of 17,073.87, up 1,133.08 points since September 19, when the index crossed 16,000. This is a gain of about 7 per cent.

Courtesy: www.business-standard.com, September 27, 2007

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The Indian stock markets are rewriting stories of wealth and affluence over and over again as the bulls race towards a new high day after day. On Tuesday, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani had become first Indian with a net worth of Rs 2 trillion as the booming stock market pushed the value of his shareholding in various group firms. Just a day later, the markets wrote new fortune for Mukesh Ambani as he overtook NRI steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal to become the richest Indian in the world, thanks to the unprecedented boom in the domestic stock market. Ambani's net worth has soared past $50 billion, making him the first Indian and only the fourth person in the world to have a wealth higher than this amount. The RIL chief is now believed to be next only to software czar Bill Gates of the US, Mexican business baron Carlos Slim Helu and Warren Buffett, regarded as the world's greatest investor. Based on the closing share prices of various group companies such as RIL, Reliance Petroleum, IPCL and Reliance Industrial Infrastructure, Mukesh Ambani is estimated to hold shares worth $50.1 billion (about Rs 2,00,000 crore) through promoter holdings in these companies. The four companies together have a market value of Rs 4,09,325 crore ($103 billion). On the other hand, Mittal owns shares worth about $48.4 billion in ArcelorMittal, the world's biggest steelmaker in terms of revenue, assets and market value. Shares of ArcelorMittal, in which Mittal family holds 44.79 per cent, were trading around 55 euros ($77) in European market on Wednesday, giving it a market cap of about $108 billion. While the net worth of Ambani and Mittal are based on the current market values of their group companies, that of Gates, Buffett and Carlos Slim are based on figures for August-end.

Courtesy: www.ibnlive.com, September 26, 2007

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Courtesy: www.forbes.com, September 27, 2007

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'My numbers are nearly correct': At the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas in New York, Vayalar Ravi, minister for overseas Indian affairs set the tone with a slew of statistics. As an ethnic group, Indian Americans have an average median income of a little over $67,000. He also pointed out that there are 200,000 Indian-American millionaires; and that 18% of all start ups in Silicon Valley are founded by people of Indian origin. But, he also pointed out, foreign direct investment (FDI) from non-resident Indians is only 5% of the total FDI that flows into India. Every speaker that followed had some set of similar statistics to prove a point. For instance, Parag Saxena of Vedanta Capital pointed out that 15% of all Indian Americans live below the poverty line. In this case, the poverty line being defined as an annual income of $21,000 for a family of four. And Kamal Nath said that 77% of all FDI in India is profitable; 8-9% of FDI is breaking even; more importantly that US corporate investments earn higher returns than in any other part of the world.

The only problem was that when each speaker had a set of numbers that didn't match that of their other counter-parts on stage. Management guru C K Prahalad said, "This is the problem with us Indians. We must at least agree on the numbers, even if they are wrong." To Vayalar Ravi's credit though, he filed a caveat when he started out. "I think my numbers are nearly correct," he said. "I'm not sure they're 100% on the mark." 'More fake Rolexes in NY': Kamal Nath was in element. When somebody told him that flying through Mumbai and Delhi is exasperating, because flights are delayed, he shot back that 40% of flights out of New York are delayed. "You don't complain in the US because you're used to delays and bad service. In India, your expectations are a lot more because people in India aren't used to delays." Talking about patent laws, he said more fake Rolex watches can be found in New York than in all of India put together. "If you want fake Rolex watches, you'll have to go to another Asian country. I won't tell you which one," he said in an obvious swipe at China. Towards the end of his time in the sun at the event, he grinned and added: "I'm not trying to push myself here. But I've just written a book. It's called India's Century and will be published next month. Please do read it." A harried man: External affairs minister Pranab Mukherjee seemed a hassled man. He was originally supposed to open the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas celebrations in New York. "An extremely important meeting" kept him away, the organisers explained. He made it though to the opening function at Lincoln Centrebut but didn't wait to watch the performance. His speech done, he was quietly whisked away into another meeting. At dinner too, he was conspicuous by his absence. "Very pressing matters," somebody said conspiratorially. Wonder what that could be!

Courtesy: www.timesofindia.indiatimes.com, September 25, 2007

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After the IT sector, Brand India is tipped to hit the big time on the retail turf. Brand gurus like Harish Bijoor feel the rise of domestic retail majors and entry of global biggies like Wal-Mart will bring India much more global prominence than it has achieved in the IT turf. The retail sector, according to brand experts, also has the potential to create many more jobs than any other sector. "Brand India will strike it big in the global market on two pillars - a smaller IT leg and a much bigger retail leg. It's just a matter of time before domestic retailers also set their foot on the global turf," said Mr Bijoor. He was recently in town to attend a national marketing symposium on the 'Changing face of Marketing in the Creative Economy' organised by the Indian Institute of Foreign Trade (IIFT) and CII. The event was conducted in association with The Economic Times. He spoke to ET on the sidelines of the event. Experts like Mr Bijnoor believe retail branding is quite different from FMCG branding . "Retail branding isn't mass branding, but 1:1 branding. Mass customised branding will be the future of retail branding and Indian companies will slowly adopt it. A big retailer needs to bring in an element of personalisation in its service, just like the kiranas," Mr Bijoor said. In this light, IIFT director KT Chacko said the retail and agriculture sectors would drive growth in the Indian economy. "India is often criticised for smaller land holding of about 1.5 hectares. But countries like China have even smaller agricultural land holding," Mr Chacko said. However, Mr Chacko noted that China outstrips India when it comes to research and development in the agri sector. "This is the prime reason why agriculture productivity is so low in India. India files a much lesser number of patents than China in agri technologies," he added.

Courtesy: Courtesy: economictimes.indiatimes.com, September 25, 2007

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Mukesh Ambani on Friday became India's first businessman to head a group with market capitalisation of more than Rs four trillion, following a sharp surge in the share prices of his group companies. The shares of his flagship company Reliance Industries as well as three other group firms -- Reliance Petroleum, IPCL and Reliance Industrial Infrastructure today soared by their all-time high levels with gains ranging from 4-12 per cent. Total investor wealth in the four companies surged to a total of Rs 4,01,800 crore, led by RIL's market value of Rs 3,16,940 crore. The sharp rally in the Mukesh Ambani group stocks further widened the gap with his younger brother Anil Ambani group's total market cap, which today stood at less than half the amount at Rs 1,90,700 crore. The shares of four Anil Ambani group firms -- Reliance Communications, Reliance Capital, Reliance Energy and Reliance Natural Resources Ltd -- also witnessed a sharp rally on Friday. Except for RCOM, all the three stocks reached their all-time high levels. RCOM's market cap rose to Rs 1,18,455 crore, while that of Reliance Capital stood at Rs 37,874 crore. RNRL and REL attained a market cap of about Rs 11,299 crore and Rs 23,072 crore, respectively. Based on the promoter holding in these companies, the net worth of Mukesh Ambani rose to Rs 1,94,871 crore, while that of Anil Ambani was Rs 1,12,509 crore.

Courtesy: www.economictimes.indiatimes.com, September 21, 2007

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A rapidly aging population coupled with an increasingly better standard of living amongst its citizens has prompted the European Union to look towards Asia, specifically India, to bridge a yawning labour supply gap. In recent months, the ministry of overseas Indian affairs is negotiating with Belgium, Poland, Sweden and France to facilitate migration of skilled professionals