India Inc hails Govt’s victory in trust vote
New Delhi, July 22: India Inc today hailed Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s victory in the confidence vote saying the Government should go all out on the economic reform and take the Indo-US nuclear deal to its logical end.
The apex industry chambers associations said the victory proved that a majority of people's representative were in support of nuclear civil agreement for meeting India’s energy needs. “With UPA passing the confidence vote Ficci is looking forward to a wave of reforms, some of which were held back in the past due to the ideological concerns of the Left,” Ficci said immediately after the counting of votes was over in Lok Sabha this evening.
“We expect that in the next three months some major bills, including Pensions Bill and Banking Reforms Bill, pending in Parliament will also be pushed through,” Ficci added.
The Indo-US nuclear deal would give a huge technological edge to the Indian industry in the area of nuclear power generation by opening up opportunities for Indian companies, the chamber said.
With the backing of its new allies, the UPA Government would push through the disinvestment of PSUs to restore fiscal health, see through the passage of the Insurance and Pension Bills to generate the much-needed resources for infrastructure building, and give a fillip to the private sector engagement in defence activities, Ficci added.
Ficci said its President Rajeev Chandrasekhar would be proposing to the Prime Minister a 10-point agenda tomorrow to move the reforms efforts forward in a major way.
Echoing similar sentiments, PHD Chamber of Commerce President L K Malhotra said the victory would signal stability and continuation, which is good for the economy and the industry as reforms initiated by the government will continue.
“It will also signal a stint of reforms which have been debated such as insurance, pension funds and financial reforms,” he added.
Assocham president Sajjan Jindal said: “This goes to prove that majority of people’s representatives are all out to support the nuclear civil agreement for meeting India’s energy needs.
Commenting on the government’s win in the floor test, Videocon Group Chairman Venugopal Dhoot said, “It is a good thing that the government has won. India need power and victory should help in making power available to farmers at cheap rates.” “US investment will be more in India now; already India has a strong brand equity in the US and that will go up after this,” Dhoot added.
Echoing similar sentiments, leading real estate player Parsvnath Developers’s Chairman Pradeep Jain said: “I would like to congratulate the Prime Minister and the government. This is a good thing because by this win the government will be able to take forward the nuclear deal.”
The nuclear energy coming here would help the country to sustain the GDP growth that it has achieved in the last few years, he added.
“In the next 8-10 months, I hope the government will do lots of good things by bringing in newer technology, which will make the country strong,” Jain said. (PTI)

Business clips
StanChart launches overdraft product
MUMBAI: Standard Chartered Bank has launched a ‘smart credit gold overdraft’, a product that would enable its customers to overdraw on their current accounts using a card attached to the account. The funds can be accessed by using the card at an ATM machine and can be used at any merchant establishment like a credit card, the bank said on Monday. The overdraft amount can be repaid over a period of months as per the convenience of the customer, the bank said. “We have designed the overdraft with the aim of giving our customers the unique experience of using many products rolled into one. (PTI)

NIIT Q1 net at Rs 35.1 cr
New Delhi: NIIT Technologies Ltd, a global IT solution firm, today said its consolidated net profit remained unchanged at Rs 35.1 crore for the first quarter ended June 30, 2008 over the same period last fiscal. However, the revenue increased seven per cent to Rs 245.8 crore in April-June 2008 from Rs 229.4 crore in the corresponding period previous year. “Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) provided maximum share of business, representing 52 per cent of total revenues, while the Americas contributed 30 per cent of overall revenues during the quarter. The rest of the world contributed 18 per cent of the revenues,” company CEO and Joint Managing Director Arvind Thakur told reporters here while announcing the results. (PTI)

India seeks adequate policy space to protect its farmers
GENEVA, July 22: India today told the world community that it will not “compromise on policy space” to protect its vulnerable farmers and infant industries, while asking the WTO to send a strong signal for correcting the distortions in the agriculture trade.
Indicating that there was stagnation at the WTO trade ministers’ conference, Brazil termed the first day of talks on Monday as “totally useless” due to lack of new ideas at the meeting where absence of Kamal Nath was felt strongly.
“It is absolutely essential for us to protect the livelihood concerns of subsistence farmers. Therefore, provisions like Special Products and Special Safeguard Mechanism are indispensable,” Commerce Secretary Gopal Pillai told PTI here.
He said the Doha negotiations to open world market should allow developing countries to retain their policy space for protecting their nascent industries.
At a time when global food, fuel and financial problems are throwing up challenges, it is important that the ministers participating in the meeting send a strong signal on correcting the distortions in global economy and show their willingness to improve the condition of global trade, he said.
Welcoming the process of negotiations that began at the WTO Ministerial Meeting yesterday, Pillai said India expects ministers would be able to restore the balance between agriculture and Non-Agricultural Market Access (industrial goods) in the next few days and move ahead in other areas.
In a statement to the Trade Negotiating Committee, India stressed that talks must address the critical imbalances in agriculture and industrial goods, besides delivering on the specific nature of the development dimension of the Round.The unfinished agenda of trade reforms, primarily the reduction of trade distorting support which has affected the livelihood of million of farmers in developing countries, needs to be significantly taken forward, Pillai, who is representing Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath at the WTO Ministerial Meeting, said. Ruling out any widening of differences between the developed and developing countries, Pillai said “in yesterday’s discussion, primarily everybody was laying out their positions and giving their entire vision”.
While the EU and US were more positive about the first day of the meeting, stating that there were “interesting indications” at the sessions, Brazilian Foreign Minister Celso Amorim described the first day as “totally useless” due to the absence of new ideas.
“Today is the crunch time with numbers... No more speeches and negotiations,” he said.
On the European Union’s offer on the first day of the Ministerial that it was willing to slash farm tariffs by 60 per cent as part of a new global trade pact, Pillai said there is nothing new in the offer.
“It is old. Percentages can be cut in averages or average cut. One cannot cut tariffs from two per cent to zero and say that he has made 100 per cent cut. We are looking at real average cuts,” he said. (PTI)

‘Indian stocks offer good bargains’
HONG KONG, July 22: Stocks in India and China offer “good bargains” after declines this year dragged down valuations in Asia's two largest emerging markets, Templeton Asset Management’s Mark Mobius said.
“We’ve been rearranging the portfolio based on valuations, which have come down pretty dramatically in places like India and China,” Mobius, oversees emerging- market equities as executive chairman of Templeton, said in Toronto. “There’ve been big declines.”
The two most populous nations are the worst performers among largest global stock markets this year as soaring raw material prices and slowing economic growth weigh on profits.
Benchmarks in the two nations had surged 162 per cent and 47 per cent, respectively, in 2007.

Fidelity to foray into India
GUWAHATI, July 22: Fidelity International today announced that it would launch its world renowned online fund platform, FundsNetwork, in India. FundNetwork will be an open architecture fund platform that will offer online a range of funds from a number of fund houses, a press release states.
It will help intermediaries to grow their business by allowing them to focus on customer acquisition, advice and relationship management without being concerned about back office issues.
India would be the fifth country in the Fidelity Group to launch FundsNetwork. In the first phase, Fidelity today launched the Fidelity Advisers Institute, the centre for advisors.

Ranbaxy wins price rigging case in UK
NEW DELHI, July 22: Homegrown pharma major Ranbaxy Laboratories Ltd on Tuesday said it has got clean chit from English Crown Court in a case relating to allegation of price rigging in drug supplies to UK’s National Health Services (NHS) between 1996-2000.
The English Crown Court has quashed the prosecution of Ranbaxy (UK) Ltd (RUKL) by UK Serious Fraud Office (SFO), Ranbaxy said in a statement.
“The court has also declined an application by the SFO for permission to appeal to the English Court of Appeal,” it said.
The SFO, however, retains a right to appeal to the Court of Appeal directly, it added.
SFO had initiated prosecution against Ranbaxy in April 2006 for alleged price rigging of pencilin-based anti-biotics, including amoxicillin, ampicillin and flucloxacillin, that were supplied to the NHS between 1996-2000. (PTI)

MUMBAI STOCKS
Abb ltd. 886.65
abbott (i) 533.10
acc 564.50
adani enter 634.00
adi bir muvo 1100.95
alfa laval 780.85
allahabad bk 57.70
alok inds. 39.05
alstom power 421.60
andhra bank 54.25
apollo hosp. 486.10
apollo tyres 30.85
arvind mills 32.30
asahi in.gla 46.35
ashok leyl. 27.80
asian paints 1069.15
aurob.pharma 277.00
aventis ph. 720.00
axis bank 740.05
bajaj auto 403.40
balaji tele. 172.85
balarpur ind 33.00
basf india 286.15
bh.earth mov 654.65
bharat elect 1067.65
bharat forge 243.10
bharat pet. 289.70
bharti artl 778.75
bhel 1597.50
birla corpn. 160.30
bnk of barod 243.65
bnk of india 279.90
bom dyeing 560.65
bongaigaon r 53.40
britania ind 1313.30
cadila healt 310.70
cairn ind 225.90
canara bank 171.25
castrol 248.35
century enka 92.75
century text 478.65
cesc ltd. 353.90
chambal fert 60.95
chennai pet. 290.80
cipla ltd. 237.75
cmc ltd. 468.10
colgate palm 367.25
contain.corp 789.90
corpn.bank 272.15
crompt.greav 233.45
cummins (i) 246.05
d-link india 70.90
dabur (i) 90.40
dena bank 43.40
dlf limited 454.15
dr.reddy’s 627.70
dredging cor 485.45
eih ltd. 123.20
enginrs.(i) 479.20
escorts ltd. 67.10
essel prop 26.35
exide ind. 65.20
fdc ltd. 27.35
federal bank 179.75
fert che(ps) 25.05
finol. Cable 51.80
finolex ind. 52.80
g.e.shipping 399.85
gail (i) ltd 364.65
geomet sofso 44.30
gillette (i) 814.25
glaxosmith 1118.45
glaxosmithkl 612.60
gmr infrastr 85.05
godrej consu 121.00
grasim ind. 1762.55
grasimsl 1760.00
gtl ltd. 203.30
guj.amb.cem 81.00
guj.gas comp 230.05
guj.ind.pow. 76.40
guj.mineral 247.85
guj.narmada 104.50
hcl infosys 128.45
hcl techno 204.70
hdfc 2145.80
hdfc bank 1100.40
hero honda 725.95
hexaware tec 48.35
hind uni lt 232.55
hind.petro 219.50
hindalco 147.25
hinduja tmt 195.95
hindus.zi 545.10
hmt ltd. 54.90
i-flex solut 1373.20
Ici india 469.55
icici bank 661.30
idbi ltd. 70.00
india cem. 137.45
indian hotel 84.35
indian oil 378.70
indian over. 86.45
indo rama 27.00
indusind bnk 52.75
infosys tech 1578.95
infra devfin 93.45
ing vysya bn 243.20
ingersoll 354.50
ipca lab.ltd 548.20
ispat inds. 22.60
itc ltd. 189.90
ivr prime 181.45
j & k bank 461.75
j.b.chemical 39.15
jaipra 159.45
jetairways 393.25
jindal saw 494.35
jindal stain 125.45
jindal ste 1862.90
jswsl 729.15
kotak mah.bk 510.15
lanco infra 323.10
larsen & tou 2571.75
lic hous.fin 262.25
lupin ltd. 726.75
mah & mah 545.90
mah.seamless 263.80
maha.tele 93.95
marutiudyog 587.95
mastek ltd 342.05
merck ltd 310.50
mico ltd. 3725.15
micro inks l 226.00
mirc elect 15.40
moser bear 90.90
mphasis bfl 188.25
mrpl 51.75
nat.alum 381.30
national fer 50.05
nestle (i) 1530.25
neyveli lign 108.05
nicholas pir 283.90
nirma ltd 134.50
novartis 277.75
ntpc ltd 185.00
omaxe ltd 123.40
ongc corpn 966.45
orchid chem 257.65
orintal bank 143.35
pfizer ltd. 555.40
pidilite 142.25
polaris soft 81.10
power financ 130.40
procter &gam 712.70
punj lloyd 240.00
punjab natio 470.70
punjab tract 222.35
ramco systm 100.00
ranbaxy lab. 462.90
rashtr.chem. 51.25
raymond 209.05
rel pet 159.80
rel com ltd 468.15
rel.cap. 1178.30
reliance 2154.30
reliance enr 919.30
rolta (i) 277.60
satyam com 368.35
shipp.corpn 209.10
siemens ltd. 499.05
skf india 209.15
state bank 1397.70
steel auth. 134.40
sterl.biotec 192.45
sterlite ind 620.45
sterlite opt 179.85
sun pharma. 1398.40
sun tvnet 277.90
suzlonenergy 199.60
syndicate bn 53.30
tamil.newspr 89.85
tata chem. 271.95
tata elxsi 176.95
tata motors 411.90
tata power 1108.65
tata steel 624.35
tata stl 633.25
tata tea 758.30
tcs ltd. 834.35
thermax 401.05
titan ind. 1051.30
Torrent phar 161.15
tvs motor l 26.75
union bank l 126.70
united phosh 288.75
videsh sanch 418.45
vijaya bank 35.60
welspun guj. 314.15
wipro ltd. 394.75
wockhardt 178.05
wyeth ltd. 426.00
zee tele. 202.35.

FOREX
Mumbai, July 22: The US Dollar ended drearer against the Rupee at Rs 42.73/74 per dollar and the Pound Sterling also turned higher at Rs 85.76/76 per pound at the InterBank Foreign Exchange (Forex) market here today.
Unit Interbank RBI Reference rates
US Dollar 42.73/74 42.71
Pound Sterling 85.74/76
Euro 68.02 68.08/10
Japanese Yen (100) 40.23/25

BULLION
Mumbai: Gold and silver continued their north-bound journey for the second day in a row on the bullion market here today on stockists buying following firm global trend. Gold prices rose in London by 1.2 per cent as the dollar held near record low against the euro, oil firmed and the equity market softened, boosting interest in the precious metals as an alternative investment to stocks. Spot gold rose to USD 972.40/973.40 an ounce from USD 961.75/963.15 an ounce late in New York on Monday. Silver also firmed up to USD 18.57/18.64 an ounce from USD 18.35/18.43 late in New York yesterday. In the domestic market, standard gold (99.5 purity) rose by Rs 105 per ten grams to Rs 13,425 from Rs 13,320 previously and pure gold (99.9 purity) also firmed up by a similar margin to Rs 13,485 from Rs 13,380. Silver ready (.999 fineness) shot up by Rs 260 per kilo to Rs 25,885 from Rs 25,625 yesterday. (PTI)

City prices of food items
By our Staff Reporter
GUWAHATI, July 22: Rice (bold) Rs 1,300-Rs 1,350 per quintal, Rice (fine) Rs 1,400- Rs 1,850 per quintal, Masoor dal (bold) Rs 4,380-Rs 4,550 per quintal, Masoor dal (small) Rs 4,650-5,000, Moong dal Rs 3,380-Rs 3,700 per quintal, Arhar dal Rs 3,700-Rs 3,950 per quintal, Gram Rs 2,950-Rs 3,150 per quintal, Peas Rs 2,425-2,525 per quintal, Urad dal Rs 2800-Rs 4,000 per quintal, Sugar Rs 1,630-Rs 1,680 per quintal, Mustard oil Rs 1,100-Rs 1,130 per 15-litre tin, Refined oil Rs 1,120-Rs 1,150 per 15-kg tin, Veg ghee Rs 860-1,000 per 15-kg tin, Flour Rs 1,240-1,260 per 90-kg sack, Maida Rs 1,300-1,320 per 90 kg sack, Spices: Haldi (gota) Rs 2,500- Rs 3,150 per quintal, Haldi (powder) Rs 4,600 per quintal, Dhania (gota)(Asom) Rs 3,000-Rs 3,500 per quintal, Dhania powder Rs 5,000- Rs 5,800 per quintal, Jeera Rs 10,300 per quintal, Black pepper Rs 14,500- Rs 16,000 per quintal, Pepper powder Rs 4,000- Rs 6,000 per quintal, Pepper (gota) Rs 2,500-Rs 5,200 per quintal, Black jeera Rs 6,500 per quintal, Dal Chini Rs 7,500- Rs 7,800 per kg, Pista Rs 2500-3000 per quintal, Kaju Rs 200- Rs 250 per kg, Long Rs 220 per kg, Saunf Rs 3,80-4,700 per quintal.
Fruits: Apple (20 kg pack) Rs 2,200, Grapes (4 kg) 250, Pomegranate (5 kg pack) Rs 350, Papaya (per kg) Rs 20, Mango 20-25 (Kg), Orange 20-40 (dozen).
Vegetable: Cabbage (per qntl) Rs 300, Cauliflower 3,000, Cucumber Rs 400, Tomato Rs 1,100, Potato Rs 300-400, Onion Rs 550-600, Chilli Rs 1,000, Green Peas Rs 3,000, Capsicum Rs 3,000, Carrot Rs 1,600, Ginger Rs 2,200, Garlic Rs 1,800, Bean Rs 1,200, Bitter Gourd Rs 500, Brinjal Rs 1,100, Pumpkin 500, Beat Rs 3,000, Squash Rs 1,000, Parwal Rs 900, Lemon (100) 70-110, Radish Rs 400, Egg (Cartoon) Rs 510, Ladyfinger 500.