Info corner... July'06

General Tit-Bits:

• Maruti comes out with a new version of Wagon-R with dual fuel injection system. It can operate, both, on petrol as well as LPG.
• Tata Steel Ranked World’s Best Steel Maker for the third time - Study by World Steel Dynamics. The WSD report of February 2006 covers the study of all the leading steel manufacturing companies across the globe including POSCO, Arcelor, Nippon Steel, Bao Steel, Thyssen Krupp on 20 different parameters. Emerging out of the study, Tata Steel has been ranked first with a weighted average score of 8.51 as against a score of 8.11 last year. POSCO of South Korea followed in the second place with 8.41. The production capability of Tata Steel at the end of the Financial Year, 2005-2006 stands at around 5 mn tonnes. NatSteel, acquired by Tata Steel has a capacity of around 2mn tonnes.
• Infosys will be the first Indian company to remotely ring the Monday bell to open trading on the Nasdaq stock exchange in New York - reports CNN-IBN on July, 29, 2006. Infosys was India's first global company, with more than 90 per cent of its US$ 2.1 billion in annual revenues coming from overseas.

National & International News:

• Mumbai rocked by seven serial blasts in local trains on July 11, 2006..
• Israel launches offensives in Gaza and Lebanon over the capture of Israeli soldiers.
• The United States House of Representatives on 27th July, '06 overwhelmingly voted for a legislation providing greater access of sensitive nuclear technology to India after defeating potential deal breaker amendments. The legislation, cleared by the 435-member House by a 359-68 vote nearly four hours after taking it up for debate, must now be approved by the Senate before being signed into law by President George Bush. Besides the Senate, the deal, which was reached during Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to the U.S. in July 2005, needs the clearance from the Nuclear Suppliers Group, an assembly of nations that export nuclear material.
• Srilankan army launches air-offensive against LTTE.
• The Affirmative Action Committee, set up under the chairmanship of J J Irani by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham), has given the thumbs down to the government’s suggestion of reservations in the private sector. It has proposed several benefits for disadvantaged groups of society, including SC/STs, but not OBCs. These sops aimed at helping create employment includes help to create 100 SC/ST entrepreneurs by large firms, setting up of coaching centres in 10 universities for 10,000 students belonging to the lower strata of society apart from the setting up of 10 coaching centres that will cater to 5,000 students preparing for professional and technical courses.
• Eminent cardiologist and executive director of Escorts Heart Institute and Research Centre, N Trehan is planning to expand his MediCity project beyond Gurgaon. "Discussions have been initiated to set up MediCity in Kolkata similar to the one coming up in Gurgaon and the proposal is likely to be finalised within the next three-four months," he said.

Economics & Business:

• WTO talks fail in Geneva with US refusing to budge on the issue of Farm-subsidies. EU had agreed to reduce farm subsidies by 75%. Meet attended by G-6: U.S., the EU, Australia, Brazil, Japan and India.
• The RBI raised the reverse repo rate (the rate at which the RBI sucks out liquidity from the system ) from 5.75 per cent to 6 per cent and the repo rate (the rate at which the RBI lends its short term funds or the process of injecting funds into the system) to 7 per cent with immediate effect. Dr. Reddy expressed concern in particular over the fact that the credit growth of banks was much higher than deposit mobilisation. This would also help keep the inflation in check.
• Tatas, Fiat team up to make cars. Tata Motors and Fiat have scaled up their alliance that was forged last year. The two companies will now undertake joint production of passenger cars, engines and transmission systems in India.
• Mittal on 26th July,'06 stated that he had acquired 92% control of Arcelor. Ever since Mittal made the offer to Arcelor, the combined market capitalisation of the two companies has gone up by 8 billion USD. The merged entity, to be christened Arcelor-Mittal, would control 10 per cent of the world's steel making capacity that is currently estimated at 1,000 million tonnes a year.

Telecom Sector:

• In April 2006, the number of mobile subscribers in India reached 96.92mn while fixed line telephone subscribers stood at 47.50mn. Total telephony subscribers in the country crossed 144mn. Gross tele-density reached around 13.16. Total broadband connections in the country in April,'06 stands at 1.4mn. In the last two years, the number of telephone connections have doubled.
• DoT is augmenting the spectrum availability for 3G roll-out in India. A Rs.1000 crore project initiated for release 45MHz from defence.
• After the Alcatel-Lucent mega merger, it was the turn of the the Nokia-Siemens big ticket merger in the Telecom circles. The 50:50 joint venture isvalued @$30bn. It will start with 60K employees with revenue of 15.8bn euros. Siemens has a strong fixed-line network equipment, Nokia specialises in the wireless equipment side. Before the merger, Nokia had sales of 6.56bn euros and operating profit of855mn euros. Siemens had sales of 13.1bn euros and operating profit of 45mn euros.
• Stockholm based Erricson is valued at $61.8bn (last Oct, it acquired fixed line gear maker Marconi Corporation's broadband internet and telecommunication assets for $2.2bn. The Paris based Alcatel-Lucent entity is valued at $36bn and the Nokia(FIN) - Siemens(GER) entity is valued at $30bn. Motorola has been pushed to fourth position among 'Network Equipment Makers'.

Sports:

• Italy wins Football WC'06 by defeating France in the Finals on 9th July,'06. Golden Ball awarded to: Zinedin Zidane(FRA). Golden Boot awarded to Miroslav Klose(GER).
• Roger Federer moves closer to making tennis history by winning the Wimbledon for the fourth time. Andre Agassi also announced his retirement during this year's Wimbledon Championship. Amelie Mauresmo of France became the Ladies' Wimbledon Champion in 2006 following her win at the Australian Open a few months back.
• Abhinav Bindra won the air rifle gold at the World shooting championship, India's first-ever in the sport, on 24th July,'06. He is a 23 year old lad from Delhi.
• Manavjit Singh Sandhu’s explosive performance at the shooting ranges in Zagreb enabled not only got him an individual gold but also helped India clinch the team silver at the ISSF World Championships. Indian team totalled 360/375
• ICC launches 2007 World Cup logo, mascot in India on 27th July, 2006.

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