Other Briefings
Rupee Weakens to 42.44 per U.S. Dollar
May 15 – The rupee weakened by about 34 paise at Rs 42.44/46 per US dollar on Wednesday, making it costlier for the travellers and students going abroad, reported the Hindustan Times.
At the same time, the remittances from those working abroad would fetch more money now, than it did a couple of weeks back when the rupee hovered around Rs 40 against the dollar. The rupee weakened against the dollar by 6.52 percent from April 10, 2008 when it closed at Rs 39.84 against a dollar.
On the corporate front, the weakening rupee will help exporters to fetch more bucks for the same unit of exports. No wonder, the market has given a thumps up for the information technology stocks on Wednesday by taking the IT sector index on Bombay Stock Exchange up by 3.8 per cent to 4,256 points. On the contrary, imports will become costlier to the extent of weakness in the domestic currency.
US$90 Billion Industry Corridor on Track
May 14 – India's US$90 billion industrial corridor is project is going according to schedule despite rising prices of steel and cement Minister of State for Industry Ashwani Kumar told Reuters.
The project spanning New Delhi and Mumbai is being built with Japanese help on the lines of the Tokyo-Osaka industrial corridor.
It includes high speed rail freight lines, power plants to supply an additional 4,000 megawatt, three new sea ports and six airports, 12 new industrial clusters, 10 logistic parks and agricultural hubs.
India’s Top Mergers and Acquisitions of 2008
May 9 – India's top mobile operator Bharti Airtel Ltd is in exploratory talks to acquire 51 percent in South Africa's MTN Group at a value of around US$19 billion, creating the world’s sixth-largest mobile company with 130 million subscribers across 21 countries.
If the deal does go though, it would make it India's biggest foreign deal.
Reuters reported Tata Steel Ltd. last year engineered India's biggest takeover to date, a US$13 billion purchase of Anglo-Dutch steelmaker Corus Group Plc, which was more than double the size of the next biggest deal, Hindalco Industries purchase of Canada's Novelis.
Indian firms have announced deals worth $6.8 billion so far in 2008, down 39 percent from the same period last year.
India to Test Missile Agni-III Today
May 7 – India is all set to test its most ambitious missile Agni-III on Wednesday on Wheeler Island off the coast of Orissa in Eastern India.
The missile has a strike range of 3,500-km, is 16.7-metres tall, with a lift-off weight of 48 tons and a warhead of 1.5 tons.
The Agni-III launch on Wednesday becomes important since it is the third time that the rail-mobile missile will be tested.
Union Cabinet Approves Women’s Reservation Bill
May 6 – Late last evening, India's Union Cabinet cleared the contentious Women’s Reservation Bill in its original form for introduction in the Rajya Sabha (council for states). The women’s bill seeks to reserve one third seats for women in the Lok Sabha (people's council) and the state assemblies and is one of the last major commitments of the Congress-led UPA’s common minimum program, reported the Hindustan Times. Once introduced, the constitutional amendment bill would be routed to the standing committee to help hammer out a consensus on it.
The Cappuccino that Is India
May 4 – An Indian investment banker recently likened India to a cappuccino, aptly summerizing the workings of the south asian country. “There's coffee at the bottom and lots of froth at the top,'' he says. “It can take a while to get to the coffee. People want more coffee and less froth.'' Dilip Parameswaran, head of Asia credit research at Calyon, Credit Agricole SA's investment-banking unit, told Bloomberg. Parameswaran's analygy of the coffee as actual growth and the foam as the bureaucracy is apt to summerise India's growth, wherein its might take an especially long time to get to the bottom of things.
In a well written article on India, the pace of development and reasons for its slower growth as compared with China Bloomberg contemplates and contrasts, the advantages and disadvantage of the hare and tortoise and finds that the tortoise might just win this race too.
A booming pay Tv market in India
April 28 – Indians are addicted to the idiot box. India's pay television industry is projected to grow at 16 percent annually to log revenues of US$11.3 billion by 2012 and emerge as a key driver of this business in Asia, says a new study by Hong Kong-based Media Partners Asia, a leading think tank on media and communications industry.
The study says the total pay TV revenues in India will grow further to top US$18.5 billion by 2017, with subscription revenues of US$12.3 billion and advertising amounting to US$6.2 billion.
"Much of the region's digital growth will be driven by China and India, though India will have a more significant impact for pay TV distributors and content suppliers," reported Sify.
India to tap into TAPI
April 23 -India is gradually working towards quenching its thirst for more oil and gas. The country has decided to formally join the strategic U.S.-backed US$3.5 billion Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) gas pipeline project this week. To formalise the agreeement Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister, Murli Deora led a delegation to Pakistan to sign the agreement for the TAPI pipeline at the invitation of the Asian Development Bank (ADB).
The meeting comes days before Inranian president Mahmoud Ahmadinejad visits New Delhi at the the end of April to discuss a US$7.4 billion natural gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan to India. Iran holds the world's second-largest gas reserves.
