NEWS UPDATES

All companies need to give minimum of 18.55% salary increment to all employees every six months as per latest bill passed. Finance minister P.Chidambaram has approved and it comes to immediate effect which is after the financial period march month. This comes as a relief to petitioners appealing against the growing work hours in the Indian industry without a proper system to check overtime. The bill also mentions that all employees be provided 15 days of casual leave every year.

Sumit Mehta, Director of ETC Networks estimates that his company’s FY09 sales would be 40% higher than FY08. Speaking to CNBC-TV18, Mehta said that their FY09 education business would contribute 50% of revenues. He said that the education business is not capital intensive business – it works through franchise model, he said.

Rain Commodities has recently restructured its business by bringing in Cement and Calcined Petroleum Coke (CPC) business under its fold. The cement capacity of 1.50 Million TPA would rise to 3.16 million TPA by June 08 while CPC capacity is 2.44 Million TPA and is the world's largest producer of CPC.
The present equity of the company is Rs 32.10 crores, of which, 40% is held by the promoters while 8% by Mutual Funds and FIIs and 52% by Public. Of this 52%, Citicorp is holding 14.95% stake.

The markets are getting slower, boring and yet choppy. The Finance Minister is visiting the Bombay Stock Exchange today. No fireworks are expected. Just yesterday he said the economic growth would slow in FY09 to around 8%. The Economist Intelligence Unit says growth will probably average around 7.5% for FY09 and FY10. For the day, we are mildly positive on the back of decent F&O cues and positive FII figures. If inflation softens a little, it will be a bonus for the bulls, but the volatility is here to stay.

Finance Minister admits to a lower GDP growth rate of near 8% in 2008-09.

TRAI proposes abolition of access deficit charge (ADC) wef April 1st 2008.

The Government is planning to ask iron ore producers to check prices.

The Government is planning to liberalise FDI norms in real estate by waiving two conditions; three year lock-in on foreign investment and the requirement of at least US$5mn investment in case of JVs.

IPO regime is set to change from July with requirement of 100% payment by QIBs and shorter period between IPO closing and listing.

DTH operators have approached TRAI asking it to fix the price that they have to pay to the broadcasters.

The Government projects 30% growth in exports in dollar terms in 2008-09.

The Government temporarily suspends export subsidy under the DEPB scheme on steel.