India Tightens Telecom Security Rules

Chandrasekhar Atreya
29 Jul, 2010
New York City

Stocks in Mumbai fluctuated and closed higher. Soros plans to buy Dubai Holding

[R]5:00 PM Mumbai, 8:30 AM New York – Stocks in Mumbai fluctuated and closed higher. Soros plans to buy Dubai Holding’s 4% stake in the BSE. Accenture awarded a two-year contract by UIDAI. Telecom department tighten rules and collect more data on subscribers. Bajaj Corp plans an IPO in August.[/R]

Stocks in India fluctuated and closed higher after swinging between gains and losses more than fifteen times.

The Sensex index in India increased 34.63 or 0.19% to 17,992.00 and CNX Nifty index rose 6.80 or 0.13% to 5,404.35. Among the Sensex 30 stocks, 17 rose and 13 fell.

On BSE trading, 1,415 stocks advanced, 1,408 declined and 121 were unchanged.

Rupee edged higher 7 paisa to 46.68 against one dollar.

The wholesale price index in India increased 0.4% to 308.8 from 307.5 for the previous week. For the year ending in the week average inflation surged to 14.50% compared to 8.18% in the same period a year ago.

George Soros is in the final round of negotiations to buy Dubai Holding’s 4% stake in the Bombay Stock Exchange. Soros Fund Management plans to pay about $40 million for this stake valuing Asia’s oldest bourse at about $1 billion, Financial Times reported.

Reliance Industries Ltd, Essar Oil are among about half a dozen firms in race to buy crisis-hit British energy giant BP’s fuel marketing assets in East African countries. Reliance and Essar have offered between $400 million to $500 million for these assets.

Reliance Industries Ltd has bought out the loss making polyester plant of Bombay Dyeing for just under Rs 300 crore beating the offers of Indo Rama and JBF Industries, according to a news item in the economic times.

India’s largest real estate firm DLF Ltd is likely to bring in a strategic Indian investor in DLF Life Insurance, its joint venture with U.S.-based Prudential International Holdings. The successful investor may acquire up to 44% stake in the insurance firm to become its largest shareholder, according to a report in Economic Times.

A consortium headed by Greenko Group, one of India’s fastest growing power producer, has proposed to set up an ‘Energy and Oil City’ at Sonepur in Ganjam district of Orissa at an investment of Rs 15,000 crore. The project would include a port, a ship building unit, a 1000 megawatt gas-based power plant, a desalination plant with a capacity of 120 million liters a day and a modern township to accommodate 10,000 people, Business Standard reported.

The Unique Identification Authority of India has awarded a contract to consulting firm Accenture to implement the core biometric identification system in support of the “Aadhaar” program that aims at providing all citizens with a unique identification number.

Under the terms of the initial contract, which will run up to two years or until 20 crore enrollments, Accenture will build a new system to help manage identity-related de-duplication and verification requests from public and private organizations.

Department of Telecommunications on Wednesday amended telecom license agreements asking equipment suppliers to share all codes and design details, besides making provision for severe penalties against defaulters.

In a communication to all license holders, including state-owned BSNL and MTNL, DoT said in view of national security concerns, equipment suppliers would have to share all codes and design details.

A day after the central bank raised its short-term policy rates to rein in inflation, State Bank of India, the nation’s premier bank said, deposit rates are likely to increase soon. HDFC Bank, a leading private sector bank, raised its deposit rates by 25 basis points to 75 basis points for different maturities.

Lakshmi Vilas Bank, a small private sector bank based in South India, also decided to increase rates on deposits by 25 to 50 basis points with effect from August 2.

The Manufacturer’s Association for Information Technology on Wednesday said, over 80,00,000 personal computers were sold in 2009-10, registering a growth of 18% over the previous year thanks to increased spending on IT products and improved consumer confidence.

Releasing the findings of its ‘Industry Performance Review’ for last fiscal, MAIT President Ravi Aggarwal said, “The impact of global economic recession is now well behind us and the IT hardware industry in India is once again on a revival path.”

Bajaj Corp Limited, a leading producer of hair oils in India plans to list the company through an offering of 4,500,000 shares of Rs 5 each in the price to be priced in the range of Rs 630 to Rs 660 each.

The issue opens on August 2 and closes on August 4 for qualified institutional buyers and on August 5 for retail and non-institutional bidders.

Fortis Healthcare Ltd said the company plans to list its pathology shares in India next year. Chairman Malvinder Singh while speaking in an interview in Singapore said that the company is also in talks with regulators in India about starting a health insurance business in the country.

Gainers & Losers

Aban Offshore Limited dropped 1.0% to Rs 888.70 after the company received an order of Rs 50 crore for the deployment of a jack-up rig for about 120 days.

Apollo Tyres Ltd rose 5.6% to Rs 63.10 after chief financial officer Sunam Sarkar told the media that the company may have to raise tyre prices again if rubber rates continue to remain high.

Bank of Baroda added 0.8% to Rs 722.00 after the bank reported first quarter net profit increased 25.3% to Rs 859 crore compared to net profit of Rs 685.4 crore a year ago.

EID Parry (India) Limited dropped 4.2% to Rs 381.35 after the manufacture of sugar reported first quarter net profit declined 87.4% to Rs 7.3 crore compared to net profit of Rs 57.25 crore a year ago.

Emco fell 3.0% to Rs 70.50 after the company reported net loss of Rs 25.94 crore compared to net profit of Rs 8.11 crore a year ago.

HCL Technologies Limited rose 2.1% to Rs 380.70 after the company''s fourth quarter June 2010 earnings beat market expectations.

Lakshmi Electrical Control Systems Limited added 6.0% to Rs 265.20 after the company reported net profit surged 168.5% to Rs 1.88 crore.

Neyveli Lignite Corporation Limited rose 0.3% to Rs 156.60 after the open-cast mechanized lignite mine reported first quarter net profit rose 18.9% to Rs 342.10 crore.

Oriental Bank of Commerce rose 4.3% to Rs 373.10 after the lender reported first quarter net profit surged 41.1% to Rs 363.31 crore.

Sobha Developers Limited rose 0.1% to Rs 339.05 after the real estate developer reported first quarter net profit surged 170.0% to Rs 34.30 crore.

Renaissance Jewelry Limited dropped 3.9% to Rs 76.35 after the company reported first quarter net profit declined 77.5% to Rs 0.52 crore.

Sun Pharmaceutical Industries Ltd fell 0.7% to Rs 1,793.50 after managing director Dilip Shanghvi said the company expects to meet its guidance of 18% to 20% revenue growth for the year ending March 2011.

Tata Communications Limited dropped 4.5% to Rs 271.90 after the company reported first quarter net loss of Rs 281.39 crore compared to net loss of Rs 55.13 crore a year ago.

VIP Industries Limited rose 2.7% to Rs 425.15 after the travel products business reported first quarter net profit surged 60.2% to Rs 32.20 crore.

Wabco TVS (India) Limited climbed 5.9% to Rs 923.90 after the manufacture of automotive components reported first quarter net profit surged 245.6% to Rs 27.99 crore.