OfficeYes.com announces franchise opportunity in India

OfficeYes.com, India's largest Office Supplies and Stationery Company has recently announced its franchise opportunity in India. Through this franchise channel, entrepreneurs and aspiring entrepreneurs can open one-stop stationery and supplies stores all across India under the OfficeYes brand name.

The stationery and supplies market in India is estimated to be worth approximately Rs.50,000 crore but is largely served by disorganized local vendors. This is where, OfficeYes.com steps in with its franchise channel offering a breakthrough opportunity to capture a share of this large market through organized retail with minimum risks and investment.

The OfficeYes franchise opportunity is open to anyone with the passion to sell and the capacity to invest minimum Rs.3-4 Lakhs (including the refundable reseller fee of Rs.1 Lakh). The recommended retail space required is 100-150 sq feet. OfficeYes.com has launched its franchise opportunity based on the reseller model, which gives more autonomy and freedom to its franchise partners or resellers letting them run their business their way without too much intervention together with providing all the support they need.

Commenting on the initiative, Co-Founder and MD - Siddharth Nambiar explains that "Our company's main value proposition is offering great value via a convenient platform and our reseller stores will help us to spread our offering over a wider area and access new channels. Building a chain of stores throughout the country with the capacity to provide a comprehensive stationery and supplies solution to businesses, institutions and individuals is what we aim to achieve". The idea behind the one-stop reseller stores is to help do away with the lack of organization, disaggregation and cost disadvantages generally associated with regular stationery stores by giving customers the luxury to shop from over 6500 products, from a shop right across the street.

OfficeYes.com's Franchise Opportunity in India comes with various benefits such as extensive industry driven expertise, guidance at every step and widespread marketing at a low investment cost. The franchise opportunity offers direct access to target customers and quick return on investment with 100% ROI within the first year and profit margins upward of 20%. Currently, OfficeYes.com has opened its first two reseller stores in New Delhi at Rohini and Vikaspuri with more in the pipeline.

About OfficeYes.com

OfficeYes.com is India's largest and fastest growing Stationery and Office Supplies Company. The company has several thousand customers, offers 6,500+ products across 9 categories, such as office supplies, customised products, office furniture, technology, corporate gifting and more, delivering products at great value to its customers.

FOR MORE INFORMATION:

Talk to our Expert Advisors: +91-81306 65858, +91-81304 27676

Visit our Reseller Page for more information and Request for Call Back:

http://www.officeyes.com/reseller/

Send a Mail with your Query to: Gautam@Officeyes.com

Download the Reseller Brochure: http://static.officeyes.com/images/local/maintenance/BrochureOY-new.pdf

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Cooper Corporation launches 3 cylinder gensets in Mumbai

Cooper Corporation, an Engine Major launches its 3 Cylinder, 62.5 KVA and 82.5 KVA Generators under the brand name "Cooper ECOPACK" at the Power Gen Exhibition in Mumbai. A cost efficient and silent revolution, Mumbai gets India's best power packed genset that is not only eco friendly with Low fuel consumption but is also lighter in weight, smaller in size and meets with US & European Emission norms.

Years of in-house research and the technical collaboration with Ricardo, UK, have culminated in the launch of the Cooper ECOPACK genset. It is available in power ranging from 62.5 KVA and 82.5 KVA. Today's cost of running genset will be double as the government is slowly removing subsidy on diesel. Cooper has come out with revolutionary breakthrough technology in collaboration with Ricardo, an international design engineering company.

The 62.5 KVA and 82.5 KVA Genset range is powered by Cooper three cylinder engines with 4 valves per cylinder, with centrally placed Injector with a Peak firing pressure up to 210 Bar .The Cooper Three Cylinder Engines come equipped with Built in Lube oil cooler, Hydraulic tappets with roller follower and Cylinder head cast in Compacted Graphite Iron (CGI). These stand-apart genre of power generators is entirely produced at Cooper Corporation's assembly plant located at Satara, Maharashtra.

Commenting on the launch of Cooper Corp's ECOPACK generator, Mr. Farrokh N. Cooper, Chairman and Managing Director says, "The Three Cylinder engines series enjoys a unique position among other diesel power generators in India. This will set a global platform for Cooper Corporation. It owes this distinction to several outstanding features and benefits like 25% lower fuel consumption, 25% smaller in size, 40% lighter in weight, 42% saving in maintenance cost and several times quieter." Cooper Corp's Eco Pack could be used for homes, farm houses, bungalows and hotels.

Salient Features of 62.7 / 82.5 KVA Genset:

-- Small in size
-- Lighter in weight
-- Quieter in noise
-- Lower fuel consumption
-- Less in maintenance cost
-- Low voltage fluctuation
-- Good in Block loading
-- CPCB approved

Cooper Corp's ECOPACK series is India's first Euro IV, US EPA Tier IV Interim and CPCB 2 compliant set of generators. This makes Cooper Corp's ECOPACK the automatic choice for environment-conscious power consumers. With a 7-tank pretreatment and durable powder coating the Cooper Corp's ECOPACK series functions with a commando like efficiency - stealthy, powerful and yet the noise measured is well within 75 dbA at 1 meter distance under free field condition.

The Cooper ECOPACK is Efficient & Consumer Friendly. Coupled with the longest maintenance interval of 500 hours and lube oil consumption of 0.1% makes Cooper ECOPACK the most economic brand of generators to operate and maintain.

Cooper Corp's ECOPACK series Gensets comes with the Cooper guarantee of quality hence breakdowns are hardly any. With a nationwide network of service dealers who are well equipped with genuine spare parts stock and ready to provide prompt after sales service

The 62.7KVA- 82.5KVA ECOPACK genset is priced approximately between Rs3.5 -5 lakh depending on its configuration.

About Cooper Corporation

The legacy of Cooper Corporation dates back to 1922 when Sir D B Cooper established Cooper Engineering in Satara. Thanks to his astute vision, the historic town of Satara witnessed a new wave of industrialization without losing its rich heritage that finds its roots in ancient times. Cooper Corporation's ceaseless commitment to quality, service and product innovation has consistently kept pace with the changing market needs worldwide. Cooper today employs over 2000 people comprising engineers, quality control personnel, workmen and administrative staff recruited from the leading educational and technical institutions following a rigorous induction process that strikes a judicious blend of academic expertise and professional exposure. Over the years, the company has consistently invested in the latest state-of-the-art technology across 9 plants in Satara through the engagement of experienced consultants from the world over. The company has set-up its own R & D unit to explore the possibilities of developing new products. Today Cooper supplies to all leading engine manufacturers in India and across the world, from Japan to Europe and USA.

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McDonalds India to hike prices amid rising inflation

Fast food chain McDonalds Corp plans to increase prices in India for the second time this year, responding to rising inflation which, along with an economic slowdown, it expects to temper demand growth for at least the next 7 months.

The company said on Tuesday it would raise prices by 5-6 percent. That follows a 5 percent hike after the government increased the service tax rate in February.

"There is pressure and it's a tough environment, no doubt. But inflation is at 8-10 percent so we have to hike our prices," said Amit Jatia, vice-chairman of Hardcastle Restaurants, which owns the McDonalds franchise for west and south India.

Consumer spending in India has taken a hit in the past three quarters as rising food prices, meagre salary increases and the slowest Indian economic growth in a decade hurt buying appetites for clothes, cars and eating out.

With its 1.2 billion people and growing middle class, India is a large market for global chains, though for now most Indians cannot afford to eat regularly in western-style restaurants.

The burger chain said its same-store sales remained under pressure and although they would grow, the increase would not be at the 22 percent achieved in the fiscal year ended March 2012.

McDonalds entered India in 1996 without its signature hamburger, respecting local religious beliefs which mean many people avoid eating beef and pork. It has become India's largest fast food chain operator selling chicken and fish burgers along with vegetarian items like McAloo Tikki, which has a potato patty, and the McSpicy Paneer, filled with cottage cheese.

The burger chain plans capital spending of 5 billion-10 billion rupees in India over the next 3-5 years, mostly for store expansion, Jatia said, adding India's long-term consumption growth story remained intact.

McDonalds has 309 stores in the country.

The company plans to add 80-90 restaurants in western and southern India in the next two years.

Hardcastle is also contemplating an equity fund raising to fuel McDonalds' expansion in the country in the coming years.

"We are in talks with merchant bankers every day and are open to it. But we are considering all our options and that includes debt also. We will be clear with our decision on what instrument we choose in a month," Jatia said.

In December, Hardcastle Restaurants merged its operations with listed parent Westlife Development Ltd

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HDFC unlikely to cut rates unless cost of funds dips

Moneycontrol Bureau

India's largest mortgage lender HDFC is unlikely to cut interest rates unless there is noticeable fall in the cost of funds. The lender had last cut its retail prime lending rate by 10 basis points to 16.40 percent in February, 2013.

"In January we had seen a fall in our cost of funds and later, we passed it on to our customers. Right now, no bank is slashing rate following a policy rate cut. Liquidity still remains tight. Unless borrowing cost comes down and liquidity eases, rate cuts are unlikely to happen," Keki Mistry, chief executive officer, told moneycontrol.com after announcing the fourth quarter results.

Also read:    HDFC Q4 net up 17% to Rs 1,555 cr, shares hit 52-wk high

In its annual monetary policy the Reserve Bank of India reduced the policy (repo) rate by 25 basis points to 7.25 percent. However, no lender so far passed on benefits of rate cut as their cost of funds are mostly related to cash reserve ratio (CRR) or the portion (currently at 4 percent) of deposits banks are mandated to keep with the central bank.

Repo is the rate at which banks borrow from RBI while housing finance companies always offer interest rates at a discount to their respective retail prime lending rates.

Since February, HDFC's cost of funds have fallen slightly. The lender generally does not disclose its cost of funds. However, their spread or the difference between interest on loans over the cost of borrowings stood at 2.30 percent for the year ended March 31, 2013. For last so many quarters, it has been steady at around 2.30 percent only.

The lender raises funds through public deposits, bonds and debentures as well as bank loans.

"We avail the cheapest avenue to mop up funds. Moreover, it always depends on current interest rate scenario," said Mistry.

On economy

"The worst is perhaps behind us. GDP may grow at 6 percent in FY14. However, it depends on a lot of factors like inflation, monsoon, global commodity prices and so on," the CEO said.

Home loan growth in FY14

Mistry does not see any fall in demand for home loans due to sluggish economy. People will keep buying homes irrespective of any interest rate fluctuations. Buying home is a requirement, he is of opinion.

Currently, HDFC offers a loan to value (LTV) ratio of 65 percent for an average house price of Rs 30 lakh. This means, the lender will sanction a maximum of about Rs 20 lakh for buying a house worth Rs 30 lakh. It offers loans up to Rs 30 lakh at an interest rate of 10.15  percent while it is 10.40 percent for loans above Rs 30 lakh.

saikat.das@network18online.com

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Geojit ties up with BSE to launch 1st stock trading app

In a move to attract more young investors to the Indian capital markets, Geojit BNP Paribas today entered into a tie-up with premier stock exchange BSE to launch 'Flip Social' -- India's first stock trading application suite -- for Facebook. The application was launched today by BSE MD and CEO Ashish Kumar Chauhan, who punched the first trade order in the presence Geojit BNP Chairman A P Kurian and Geojit Technologies Managing Director A Balakrishnan.

The application suite, which resides in Facebook, includes investment tutorials, a stock market game that will give players a virtual real time experience of trading in the Indian stock markets and a trading application. "We have entered into an exclusive tie-up with Geojit BNP Paribas Financial Services to launch this trading application.

It is expected to help in attracting more young investors in the Indian capital market," Chauhan said. This initiative will also motivate other members of the Exchange to also come out with such products for financial inclusion, he said. Geojit BNP Paribas' new application suite offers to play stock games, access investment tutorials and other multimedia contents. It also allows users to carry out transactions in BSE using their access credentials, Balakrishnan told reporters here.

The application was developed by Geojit Technologies Ltd, which is a subsidiary of Geojit BNP Paribas. The new application, via its gaming option, will allow the uninitiated to learn and experience the thrill and mechanics of trading through a stock exchange, Kurian said. Chauhan pointed out that the social media like Facebook is becoming important to connect QFI investors across the world. He sees huge potential in QFI funding in the Indian stock market over the next few years.

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No respite seen in SEBI's 25% minimum float norm: Mayaram

Listed companies are unlikely to get any respite from the Securities and Exchanges Board of India's (SEBI) June 30 deadline for having a minimum 25 percent public shareholding, Arvind Mayaram, Economic Affairs Secretary told CNBC-TV18's Aakansha Sethi in an exclusive interview. 

Mayaram said that government completely supported SEBI's requirement for minimum public shareholding. It must be noted that there are still about 150 listed companies that have not met the norm and around Rs 10,000 crore worth of shares are required to be listed by June 30.

SEBI had announced this norm in middle of the last year. Mayaram said that public sector units also had to comply with this norm.  SEBI chairman UK Sinha has been repeatedly warning listed companies to comply with the norm or unless face strict action.

On FDI, Mayaram said there was an urgent need to make FDI policy more investor friendly. "We can make it more simple, more predictable, more understandable to the investor and that includes review of caps, that includes review of all the other limitations that have been put in the policy," he said.

After clearing 51-percent FDI in multi-brand retail and 49 percent in aviation in August 2012, the government has been trying to push the bill in Parliament which will allow 49 percent FDI in insurance and 26 percent in the pension sector.

The decision on the review of FDI in various other sectors is expected to come by May-end. In the Budget, finance minister P Chidambaram had announced the setting up of a committee which would look at the definition of FDI and foreign institutional investment (FII).

This committee, which is headed by Mayaram, has already met once. The committee is now waiting for the Reserve Bank of India to submit a paper on the definitions of FII and FDI as well as on the sectors where the FDI cap will be reviewed.

FDI caps are pegged broadly at five levels-26 percent, 49 percent, 51 percent, 74 percent and 100 percent.

Below is the edited transcript of the interview on CNBC-TV18.

Q: There are still around 150 listed companies that are yet to meet the minimum 25 percent public shareholding norm. Shares of around Rs 10,000 crore are to be listed by the June 30. Are you considering a relaxation of the guideline?

A: These guidelines have not been imposed by the government but by the Securities and Exchange Board of India. The SEBI chairman has clearly stated that these norms would not be relaxed. The government fully supports SEBI in this regard.

Q: Will PSUs have to comply as well?

A: This regulation is for both private companies and PSUs.

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Ittiam announces induction of Lip-Bu Tan

Mr. Tan's extensive industry experience and global network to be an asset for the company in the next phase of its growth

Ittiam Systems today announced the induction to the Company Board, Lip-Bu Tan, Chairman of Walden International which is a leading venture capital firm with $2 billion under management.

Founded in 2001 by a team of semiconductor industry experts, Ittiam has grown to be the largest pure-play IP company from India with world class leadership in video technologies and multimedia systems. It has a global customer base of over 300 companies. The volume of customer products such as smartphones, tablets, video communication systems and automotive infotainment systems with Ittiam IP embedded inside crossed 25 million units in 2012.

Welcoming Lip-Bu to the Board of Ittiam, VG Siddhartha, Head of Global Technology Ventures (GTV) which invested in Ittiam in 2001, said "I have had the pleasure of working with Lip-Bu for over 12 years including in our joint successful investment in MindTree Technologies. His extensive industry experience and global network will be very valuable for Ittiam in the next phase of its growth".

Looking forward to his association with Ittiam, Lip-Bu Tan commented "I am excited to join Ittiam initiative and will work with them closely to make Ittiam the best digital media technology and solutions provider for the global market. Ittiam is a fine example of new generation product companies who represent the next phase of Information Technology industry in India".

"Our vision is to deliver compelling solutions to customers who spearhead the growth of media creation, management and consumption", said Srini Rajam, Chairman and CEO of Ittiam Systems. "We are delighted to have Lip-Bu join our board. We will leverage his precious bandwidth to build great partnerships and long-term customer relationships", he added.

About Ittiam Systems Private Limited

Ittiam Systems Private Limited, headquartered in Bangalore, India, is a technology company singularly focused on embedded media centric systems. It operates through its network of offices and representatives around the world. Ittiam's customers include Fortune 100 companies and are distributed across U.S., Europe, Japan and Asia. Since 2004 the company has been consistently rated as the "World's Most Preferred DSP IP Supplier" in the annual surveys conducted by Forward Concepts Incorporated. In 2005 Ittiam had been selected by Red Herring into the top 100 private companies in Asia. In February 2007, Ittiam received the NASSCOM India IT Innovation Award, a prestigious recognition. In July 2011 Ittiam's VC won the Product of the Year 2010 from Communications Solutions. In January 2012 Ittiam won two Product of the Year 2011 awards from Internet Telephony. Embedding Ittiam IP inside, annual volume of customers' products shipped such as Smartphones, Tablets, Broadcast, Video Communication and Wi-Fi Devices is in several tens of millions units For more details, visit www.ittiam.com.

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Oxigen NPCI launch OxiCash Money Transfer

History jointly created by National Payments Corporation of India and Oxigen.

OxiCash unveils its Instant Money Transfer Service. RBI Chief General Manager , Dept of Payment and Settlement Systems , Mr. Vijay Chugh inaugurated the service. A service that enables the unbanked masses of India, to transfer money without any hassles to any bank account and receive money into the Wallet 24 x7.

This service is a boon to the underprivileged segment of India's population, who have been unable to avail the benefits of money transfers due to non-availability of Bank account. They would all now be able to transfer and receive funds from any bank into the OxiCash Wallet.

These money transfers are instant & made on real time , and is made possible by NPCI, using IMPS (Immediate Payment Service).

The tie up of NPCI with Oxigen's mobile e-wallet, "OxiCash", makes OxiCash India's First Non Banked wallet (approved by RBI), to make Instant money transfers to any bank, receive funds into the OxiCash Wallet from any bank, anytime, anywhere, 24*7!

Speaking at the occasion, Mr. Pramod Saxena, Chairman & Managing Director, Oxigen said," It is indeed a proud moment for Oxigen, to be a pioneer, once again! Having launched India's first wallet OxiCash in 2008, and now with NPCI, Oxigen is the "India's First" , in mobile payment space, to launch an Instant 24x7 money transfer service, using IMPS on the OxiCash wallet. We are happy that our pioneering efforts continue to facilitate financial inclusion. The OxiCash money transfer service would be available at more than 100 thousand Oxigen retailers across the country to help the unbanked masses with an instant remittance service ".

Mr. A.P Hota, MD and CEO of National Payments Corporation of India, announced ,while inaugurating the service,"This is an unique experiment of inter-operability between bank accounts and wallet accounts. A new vista of financial transactions open up with this project."

The tie up for Money Transfers between NPCI and Oxicash would be 3 fold:

1.OxiCash to Bank Account using beneficiary's Bank account number and IFSC code:

27 banks are live on date, to execute Money Transfers, from OxiCash to any Bank Account as specified by a customer using the Beneficiary's Bank account number and Bank IFSC code, as listed in http://www.npci.org.in/impsIFSC3.aspx with 14 more banks in pipeline.

2.OxiCash to Bank Account using Beneficiary's Mobile Number and Mobile Money ID (MMID):

55 major Banks are live on date,to execute Money transfers from OxiCash to any Bank account where the customer specifies the Beneficiary's Mobile Number and Mobile Money ID (MMID), which is issued by Banks, as per list given in http://www.npci.org.in/impsmerpayp2p.aspx, with remaining 6 banks in pipeline.

3.Bank Account to OxiCash eWallet using OxiCash registered Mobile Number and MMID (8888888):

55 major banks are live on date, to execute Money transfers from a Bank account to OxiCash wallet where customer specifies the Beneficiary's OxiCash Mobile Number and Mobile Money ID (MMID) as 8888888, as per list given in http://www.npci.org.in/impsmerpayp2p.aspx with remaining 6 banks in pipeline.

Additionally, a customer can also transfer funds from an OxiCash wallet to another OxiCash Wallet.

Customers now need not wait for a long periods of time to get refunds. They also benefit from this service's Instant refunds system.

OxiCash Money Transfer service is available both Online (www.oxicash.in) and on mobile, using a Mobile Application (Android application) and available on simple text SMS also.

This wallet is available pan India and can be created over a simple SMS.

The OxiCash wallet can be funded initially at any of Oxigen's 1,00,000 retail touch points or through IMPS without visiting any retail touch points.

The steps to use OxiCash Money transfer services are easy and as follows:

On the OxiCash Website, www.oxicash.in

Go to http://www.oxicash.in/

1.Click on INSTANT MONEY TRANSFER tab

2.The customer selects the payment type as per choice: Using Account Number/IFSC Code or MMID/Mobile Number Combination

3.The customer selects the option Wallet to Any Bank (Account Number)

-- The customer logs on using his/her wallet number and the OxiCash Password
-- The customer enters the beneficiary account number and the IFSC Code
-- The customer enters the OTP received to authenticate the payment
-- The money transfer is done and updated balance is displayed on the screen

4.The customer selects the option

5.The customer selects the option Wallet to Any Bank (MMID)

-- The customer logs on using his/her wallet number and the OxiCash Password
-- The customer enters the beneficiary mobile number and MMID
-- The customer enters the OTP received to authenticate the payment
-- The money transfer is done and updated balance is displayed on the screen

Using Mobile Banking

To Send money, the customer uses either a combination of Mobile Number and MMID or Account Number and IFSC Code.

1.The customer wants to send money using Account Number and IFSC Code
SEND IMPS*Account Number*IFSC Code*Amount*OxiCash Password*Remark
to 9870888888 / 9971888888

2. The customer wants to send money using Mobile Number and MMID
SEND IMPS*Beneficiary Mobile Number*MMID*Amount*OxiCash Password*Remark
to 9870888888 / 9971888888

The information is also available on IMPS mobile site (accessible through the mobile phone browser) at http://imps.npci.org.in

Company Information:

About Oxigen:

Oxigen Services India Pvt. Ltd. an ISO 9001:2008 certified company, is India's First and Largest Payments Solutions Provider.

Oxigen is in the business of service aggregation, distribution and payment processing/collections for a number of Operators , Services Providers and Banks , pan India . The services include: Prepaid, Postpaid & Subscription based services like Mobile Recharge, Bill Payments , Ticketing and Subscriptions for all leading Telecom operators, Direct-to-home TV Operators, Internet Broadband Service providers, Railways/ Airlines/Bus/Movie Ticketing, Bill Payments (for Utilities, Post-paid Bills, Landline bills), Prepaid Value-added services, Subscription services (Music & Movie downloads ,Internet Packs, Magazines etc) Donations, Calling Cards, Insurance and a large bouquet of Banking services on a single platform.

Oxigen has a retail footprint of 100,000 outlets & has 30 million transactions per month. Oxigen works closely with SBI, Yes Bank Money, ICICI, and many other banks, for a variety of services like Money transfer, Banking Kiosks , Account opening , UID related Aadhar cards, etc.

Oxigen provides merchant payments to many such telecom operators, bank-led m/e-Wallets and online Banking portals like Airtel Money, ICICI Quick Shopping, SBI, HDFC, Corporation Bank and many more.

Oxigen has joint hands with Banks for enablement of various services like SBI Kiosk Banking, ICICI Bank for Saral Money Card & Yes Bank for Money transfer services, at Oxigen Outlets.

Oxigen is also the technology provider for India's first Full Service eWallet from State Bank of India called MobiCash, with cash-in/out, peer to peer, wallet to any Bank, Merchant payments as well, and has also as partnered to ensure market availability of MobiCash at Oxigen retail.

Oxigen is in partnership with Blue Label Telecom (South Africa). Website: http://www.myoxigen.com and http://www.oxicash.in/

About NPCI:

NPCI is a registered company under Section 25 of the Companies Act, 1956. It is promoted by 10 banks in India under the aegis of the Indian Banks Association with majority shareholding by Public Sector Banks. It has been identified by Reserve Bank of India (RBI) and Indian Banks Association (IBA) as the umbrella organization for all retail payment systems in the country. The 10 promoter banks are State Bank of India, Punjab National Bank, Canara Bank, Bank of Baroda, Bank of India, Union Bank, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, Citibank and HSBC. www.npci.org.in

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Sify names C R Rao as Chief Operating Officer

Sify Technologies Limited (NASDAQ Global Markets: SIFY), a leader in Managed Enterprise, Network and IT Services in India with growing global delivery capabilities, today announced the elevation of C R Rao as the company's new Chief Operating Officer. Prior to this promotion, C R Rao was the company's Vice President Strategy, Admin & HR.

C R Rao joined Sify in 2009 as Vice President Strategic Planning. In his new role as the Chief Operating Officer, CR Rao will work closely with the Chairman and be responsible for all operational and delivery duties concerning Sify's multiple businesses.

Commenting on his appointment, Mr. Raju Vegesna, Chairman, Sify Technologies, said "Sify is now in its third phase of growth and is emerging as a strong player in the IT solutions and services industry, with a strong focus on Cloud based services. C R Rao will play a crucial role in ensuring operational excellence during this defining period. Over the years, Rao has established a sterling track record of being persistent in his efforts to put Sify on the growth roadmap and we welcome him as he takes on a larger role on the management team."

Commenting on his new role, Mr. C R Rao, Chief Operating Officer, Sify Technologies, said, "The last four years have given me substantial learnings on the major factors driving growth within Sify. The company is now at a defining point in its multiple service and product lines. I look forward to the challenges of this new role, equipped with rich learnings from my previous engagements."

Prior to joining Sify, C R Rao has over 21 years of industry experience and brings with him rich expertise in strategic planning, operational management and organizational development initiatives. A double graduate in Law and Commerce, his previous assignments were with Delta Tubes Pvt. Ltd. and Bobba Aviation Services GSA Lufthansa Cargo.

About Sify Technologies

Sify is among the largest integrated Managed Network, IT and Software services companies in India, offering end-to-end solutions with a comprehensive range of products delivered over a common telecom data network infrastructure reaching more than 1000 cities and towns in India.

A significant part of the company's revenue is derived from Enterprise Services, which include Network and IT services, Security, Enterprise applications, Hosting and Remote Infrastructure Management Services. A varied product portfolio at multiple price points allows Sify to also cater to the burgeoning demands of the SMB/SOHO community and the retail consumer; much of it on the cloud platform.

Sify is a recognized ISO 9001:2008 certified service provider for network operations, data center operations and customer support, and for provisioning of VPNs, Internet bandwidth, VoIP solutions and integrated security solutions, and ISO / IEC 20000 - 1:2005 and ISO/IEC 27001:2005 certified for Internet Data Center operations. Sify has also built a credible reputation in the emerging Cloud Computing market and is today, regarded as a domain expert. Sify has licenses to operate NLD (National Long Distance) and ILD (International Long Distance) services and offers VoIP backhaul to long distance subscriber telephony services. With the Sify Cable landing station and the partnerships inked with several cable companies globally, Sify in present in almost all the spheres of the ICT eco system.

The company has an expanding base of Managed Services customers, both in India and overseas, and is also India's first enterprise managed services provider to launch a Security Operations Center (SOC) to deliver managed security services.

As a solutions provider, Sify Software develops applications and offers services to improve business efficiencies of its current and prospective client bases. Sify also offers services in the specialized domains of eLearning for-profit, not-for-profit and government institutions both in India and globally. The business also operates two of the most popular portals in India, Sify.com and Samachar.com.

For more information about Sify, visit www.sifycorp.com.

Forward Looking Statement

This press release contains forward-looking statements within the meaning of Section 27A of the Securities Act of 1933, as amended, and Section 21E of the Securities Exchange Act of 1934, as amended. The forward-looking statements contained herein are subject to risks and uncertainties that could cause actual results to differ materially from those reflected in the forward-looking statements. Sify undertakes no duty to update any forward-looking statements.

For a discussion of the risks associated with Sify's business, please see the discussion under the caption "Risk Factors" in the company's Annual Report on Form 20-F for the year ended March 31, 2012, which has been filed with the United States Securities and Exchange Commission and is available by accessing the database maintained by the SEC at www.sec.gov, and Sify's other reports filed with the SEC.

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Panel proposes no profit sharing clause for coal miners

The parliamentary panel on coal and steel today submitted its recommendation on The Mines and Mineral Development and Regulation (MMDR) bill. The panel suggested that companies mining coal and lignite instead of sharing profit with local communities should pay equivalent amount to state government's District Mineral Corporations, reports CNBC-TV18's Rituparna Bhuyan

MMDR bill, which was passed by parliament in September 2011 mandated coal mining companies to share 26 per cent of their profits with people impacted by projects and in the case of non-coal miners, an amount equivalent to royalty was required to be paid to the state government.

Also read: Govt to pool coal supplies, pass on higher cost of imports

Another major relaxation for mining companies suggested by the Panel was that royalty for coal miners will now be fixed by coal ministry, instead of the earlier proposal of the National Mining Regulator fixing it. However, when it comes to cess that the state governments will charge or levy on royalty, the committee has recommended that more power and flexibility should be given to the state governments. The MMDR bill had obligated mining firms to pay 10 percent cess to state governments and 2.5 percent to the centre on the total royalty paid.

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NTPC is focused on adding energy, says Roy Choudhury

Power major NTPC is well on course of adding 1,28,000 MW by the 15th plan, which roughly ends in 2032, a top company official said today. "There are many projects in the country. (As per the) 12th plan, 15,000 MW project will be commissioned. 41,000 MW is there now.

By the 15th plan, 1,28,000 MW capacity will be added in the country," NTPC Chairman and Managing Director Arup Roy Choudhury told reporters here, about 100 km from Ranchi. Stating that Jharkhand's North Karanpura project has come after 13 years, he appealed to the people here to cooperate in contributing their part to the country's development.

Distributing compensation package under the NTPC's R&R policy for its coal mining project here, the official reminded the people that NTPC is a public sector company and works in the interest of the people.

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HDFC Life FY13 Net up 66% at Rs 451 crore

Private general insurer HDFC Life today reported 66.42 per cent growth in net profit at Rs 451 crore in 2012-13, driven by healthy expansion in new business premium and other fronts. In 2011-12, HDFC Life's net profit stood at Rs 271 crore. "FY13 was one more year of the company consistently outperforming the industry growth rates in new business premium, reducing its operating expenses ratio, growing both individual and group premium, increasing renewals and improving new business margins.

"Along with growth in our business, we will continue to work towards strengthening our risk management practises," HDFC Life Managing Director and CEO Amitabh Chaudhry told reporters here. This year (FY14) will be tough due to political uncertainties, elections and product-related guidelines, among other issues, but the company will continue to post double digit growth, he said. "However, it will be difficult to maintain a growth similar to this year (FY13)."

On IPO, Chaudhry said the company will see how this year goes and will take a decision on the issue when the stock market stabilises. The company will move forward on customer verification from this year and unless a policy has been verified within a stipulated period it might be cancelled, he said. The company recorded 16 per cent growth in new business premium income (individual business) to Rs 3,113 crore in FY13 from Rs 2,695 crore in 2011-12. It witnessed 9 per cent growth in renewal premium income (individual business) to Rs 6,886 crore in the just-concluded fiscal from Rs 6,345 crore in 2011-12.

The private insurer's total premium income saw an expansion of 11 per cent to Rs 11,323 crore during FY13 from Rs 10,202 crore in 2011-12. The company garnered a market share of 17.5 per cent in individual business (private industry) compared to 15.5 per cent in FY12.

Its Assets Under Management grew 24 per cent to Rs 40,108 crore from Rs 32,254 crore in FY12. ULIPs contributed 61 per cent and conventional business formed 39 per cent of the APE (annual premium equivalent) in the individual business, the company said. HDFC Life achieved a decline in expense ratio to 10.8 per cent in FY13 from 11.5 in the previous fiscal. It has a diversified distribution mix with bancassurance channel contributing 72 per cent, agency channel (16 per cent) and the remaining 12 per cent coming from broker, direct and online channels.

"Despite a tough macro-economic and regulatory environment, we have continued to both grow our operations and invested for a sustainable future without a corresponding increase in operating expenses. The organisation is prepared for a smooth transition to the new product regime in 2013-14," HDFC Life Executive Director and CFO Vibha Padalkar said.

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SBI General hopes to break even by FY15

Private sector general insurer SBI General Insurance hopes to break even by FY15 on the back of better underwriting practices, a top company official said today. "We hope to break even by 2014-15 given the better underwriting practices, coupled with consumer focus," company's Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer Bhaskar J Sarma told reporters after announcing the annual results here.

The general insurer reported a 208 per cent growth in its gross written premium (GWP) to Rs 771 crore last fiscal (2012-13), the company said. During this period, its net losses were at Rs 145 crore while its investment income stood at around Rs 71 crore, underwriting loss was around Rs 215 crore during this period. According to the company, 61 per cent of business was from the retail segment, followed by 20 per cent from corporate and 19 per cent from the SME sector.

Bancassurance channel was the lead channel for the general insurer with a contribution of 63 per cent, followed by 19 per cent through agency channel, among others, Sarma said. On the product side, while fire insurance contributed 41 per cent to the total portfolio, motor insurance was 35 per cent and health and personal accident contributed to around 15 per cent, among others. On current fiscal 2013-14 growth, Sarma said, "we aim to achieve gross premium of Rs 1,500 crore this fiscal with narrowing of losses to around Rs 85 crore."

He also said the company will add another 25-30 branches this year to its existing 38 branches. The company further said it has adequate capital support from the parents to support its business growth. SBI General Insurance is the joint venture between country's largest lender State Bank of India and Australian insurance company Insurance Australia Group with SBI as the majority stakeholder.

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Subramanian Swamy welcomes SC verdict on Kundakulum

Janata Party chief Subramanian Swamy today welcomed the Supreme Court verdict on Kundakulum Nuclear Power Project and said government should now crackdown on any further agitation which disrupts the schedule of its completion.

He said that from the very beginning he had termed the agitation against implementation of KNPP as "anti-national". "I welcome the long overdue judgement of the Supreme Court on the validity and importance for the nation of the KNPP. "Now that the matter has been finally settled by the SC after hearing both sides, the Government of India must crackdown on any further agitation if it takes place, and which disrupts the schedule for the completion of the project," Swamy said.

Alleging that the contrived agitation against KNPP implementation was led by Catholic missionaries and funded by foreign money, he said, "Catholic nuns were seen distributing food packets to those villagers near the area who were made to do a dharna near the area."

He demanded that the Government of India must arrest all anti-national leaders of this agitation under National Security Act and urged Tamil Nadu government to cooperate and "not engage in competitive politics with the DMK." Swamy alleged that the KNPP had terrified certain Western European nations which had planned to sell India outdated nuclear reactors following the signing of Indo-US Nuclear Treaty. The Janata Party Chief, while showering praise on KNPP, said it uses state of the art technology provided by the Russians at a reasonable price. The apex court today cleared hurdles in commissioning of the controversial Kundakulum nuclear plant, saying safety and security requirements have been taken care of and the project would benefit larger public interest.

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BSNL may report fall in losses at Rs 8,198cr

State-owned telecom operator BSNL is expected to announce a fall in losses, at Rs 8,198 crore, for 2012-13 fiscal. In 2011-12, it had reported losses of Rs 8,851 crore.

"As per unaudited figures, BSNL loss stands at Rs 8,198 crore. It will be audited and then the final numbers will be released," said an official.

The figure does not include around Rs 2,700 crore which the company has to get from the government for supporting rural landline operations.

The company registered losses of Rs 8,850.70 crore during 2011-12 due to regulatory expenses and non-receipt of funds for its rural landlines operations. It stated the impact to be about Rs 3,100 crore.

BSNL has been logging losses since 2009-10. The company's profits had started declining after 2004-05, when it had made net gains of Rs 10,183 crore.

During 2010-11, BSNL losses had risen to Rs 6,384 crore mainly due to hefty outgo on salaries and expenses borne by the PSU for procuring 3G and BWA spectrum.

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Cobrapost 2: FinMin calls for action, banks to investigate

Moneycontrol Bureau

The second round of Cobrapost sting operation evoked immediate responses across the spectrum. Rajiv Takru secretary at the Department of Financial Services asked all state owned banks and the Life Insurance Corporation (LIC) of India to initiate actions. At the same time, the State Bank of India (SBI) India's largest lender, assured of stern punishment if allegations involving select officials, are proved.

"If KYC (Know Your Customer) violations are detected, people would be severely punished," said Pratip Choudhuri, chairman SBI in New Delhi.

"If somebody puts big sum with us, we are obliged to see the identify proof. However, we cannot ask whether that cash is taxed. That is for the Income Tax department to see. We have a set-up in Jaipur, which sees if any transaction is disproportionate to the scale of operations, then it is reported to FIU."

It is a normal practice for a branch manager (of any bank) to report any suspicious transaction to the Financial Intelligence Unit (FIU), the government agency which reports the same to the Income Tax Department.

Choudhuri rubbished allegation that transaction were split under Rs 50,000 so that those were not detectable. Cobrapost, an investigative news website alleged that 23 financial institutions including giants like SBI, PNB , Bank of Baroda , LIC and others were involved in money laundering cases across India.

"Those (allegation) are too vague and generalized. Our system still captures small transactions. We have reported all to FIU. All transactions have been investigated. We are fully compliant with the Money Laundering Act. Our own investigation is on," he said adding that the bank has not yet concluded on the alleged KYC violations.

Meanwhile, the ministry has started scrutinizing the video footage shown in the exposure. It has obtained copies of DVDs, allegedly contain what happened in the sting operation.

"We have immediately put three different senior officers on the job to watch these DVDs and prepare transcripts so that we know exactly what kind of transaction has taken place and with whom name wise, branch wise and transaction wise. At this moment we are not talking in terms of forensic examination of DVDs," he told CNBC TV18.

Also read: Why Cobrapost expose was a non-event for bank stocks

Two other large public sector lenders Bank of Baroda and IDBI Bank separately issued press statements in the aftermath of Cobrapost revelations/allegations.

Both have initiated internal investigations. They have exuded confidence of respective internal standards relating to anti-money laundering and KYC violations. In case of any deviation from established norms or guidelines, banks however, will act, releases indicated.

Reliance Capital whose name also figured in the list of 23 institutions, has outright denied such allegations.

"We categorically deny the baseless allegations in relation to any involvement of the company in money-laundering by customers of our life insurance business. Reliance Life adheres to strict internal controls, processes and best practices and is in full compliance with the KYC norms and regulatory framework," it said in a press release.

saikat.das@network18online.com

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Embattled Sahara seeks equity, debt infusion

The embattled Sahara conglomerate is looking to bring equity and debt investment into its businesses as an ongoing dispute with the the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) has set back its growth.

Unlisted Sahara, a household name in India through its sponsorship of the national cricket team, has been ordered by the Supreme Court to repay billions of dollars it raised from millions of small investors in outlawed bonds.

Sahara says it has paid back most investors and its total liability is less than the Rs 51.2 billion it has deposited with the regulator.

"Out of turn, when you have to make payments, it affects the cashflow," Sahara chief Subrata Roy said in an interview at the sprawling gated complex where he lives and works in the capital of Uttar Pradesh, India's most populous state.

The unlisted group has vast real estate holdings as well as operations in media and hotels, including the Plaza Hotel in New York and London's Grosvenor House.

Roy, 64, said the company was looking to bring in corporate or financial equity partners to take minority stakes in some Sahara businesses including its Q Shop retail chain, a large dairy project in India and real estate ventures.

He did not identify any potential investors, who presumably would need to overcome concerns about Sahara's ongoing issues, but said he may offer stakes of 10-20 percent.

"MALICIOUS" MOVE

The market regulator has accused Sahara of failing to comply with the court order and has sought approval to arrest Roy and two other Sahara directors. In full-page newspaper ads in March, Roy challenged the regulator to a televised face-off, calling the regulator's move "malicious".

On Monday, Roy said Sahara had previously not been interested in bringing in equity partners, but would now look for such investors to bring debt, too. Sahara does not have significant bank debt.

He said the tussle with SEBI had set its growth back by a year or two.

"We have now said, yes, we will give equity, provided equity also brings a bigger amount of debt with it," he said.

Sahara has two small listed units and Roy said the company has no plans for any further listing. A draft prospectus for the IPO of another Sahara business had brought the now-outlawed bond scheme to the attention of regulators.

Despite its profile, Sahara is outside the mainstream of corporate India. Unlike many Indian CEOs, Roy is not a regular on the industry conference circuit, and is often photographed with cricketers and Bollywood stars.

Roy calls himself managing worker and chairman of Sahara and "chief guardian" of the world's biggest family, with nearly a million staff and agents. The conglomerate's full name is Sahara India Pariwar, which means family, and is known for public displays of patriotism.

Earlier on Monday, Roy presided over an attempt to set a world record for the number of people singing a national anthem. On the outskirts of Lucknow, he led a sea of Sahara staff and agents in song, with the men in the corporate uniform of white shirt and black tie with Sahara logo, the women in a black-and-red bordered saree.

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RIL surpasses ITC to reclaim third most valued co status

Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) on Monday overtook FMCG major ITC to become the country's third most-valued company after TCS and ONGC .

At the end of the trade, RIL commanded market value of Rs 2,65,814 crore. This is about Rs 7,978 crore more than ITC's m-cap of Rs 2,57,836 crore.

Shares of RIL ended 2.53 per cent higher at Rs 821.50, while ITC's fell by 1.35 per cent to Rs 326.30 on the BSE.

RIL had last week slipped to fourth position in the list of top-10 most valued companies of the country in terms of their market valuation.

TCS with a market capitalisation of Rs 2,86,703 crore was at the top of the chart, followed by ONGC (Rs 2,72,663 crore), RIL, ITC and Coal India (Rs 1,99,249 crore).

Market capitalisation or the value of a listed company is arrived at by multiplying the total number of its shares with its stock price on a particular day or time. This figure changes every day with the change in the stock price.

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Balaji Telefilms did not disclose Rs 30cr income: I-T

Three days after conducting searches at Balaji Telefilms' facilities and also at the houses of its promoters here, the Income Tax department today said the film production house had not disclosed Rs 30 crore income it had earned, and thus evaded tax.

"After investigation, we found that Balaji Telefilms did not disclose Rs 30 crore income. By not disclosing the amount, it has evaded tax," a senior Income Tax officer told PTI. "Now, the production house has agreed to pay tax and penalty on the Rs 30 crore income. We will receive 30 percent tax on this amount and also the penalty," the officer said.

The officer further said that when Ekta Kapoor, the joint managing director of the company, was asked about tax evasion, she claimed that she is only involved in the making of films and television serials. "Hence, persons involved in the financial matters of the production house have been grilled," he added.

During the search operation on April 30, a team of over 100 officials from the department swooped down on seven locations across the city, including that of producer Ekta Kapoor and her actor-father Jeetendra's residence in suburban Juhu. Balaji Telefilms' office and studio were among the seven premises where searches were conducted, I-T sources said.

The personal offices of Ekta Kapoor, who made it big with television soaps before venturing into films, and her actor-brother Tushar Kapoor in suburban Bandra were also searched, they said. A top official of the production house refused to comment on the development. Meanwhile, 'Shootout at Wadala', produced by Balaji Telefilms, hit cinema screens across the country today.

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NMDC keeps ore price unchanged in May

Moneycontrol Bureau

State-run miner NMDC 's board has decided to keep iron ore price unchanged for the current month and will continue to sell iron ore lumps in the range between Rs 4500-Rs 4700 per tonne, while fines will be sold at Rs 2,610 per tonne.

The firm revises iron ore price each month after aligning with the landed cost of the imported raw material and also depending on demand. The firm has cut prices nearly six times since October due to an overall slowdown when steel demand hardly grew in the year gone-by as end-users such as auto and construction firms witnessed sluggish environment.

Read This: UBS upgrades NMDC to neutral, shares extend gains

NMDC had lowered the price of lumps by about seven percent last month and by 2.5 percent in February. It did not tweak the prices of fines (having iron content of less than 60 percent) for quite some time now

It is also rumoured that the state-owned miner may bring down the price of the steel-making raw material in sync with the international prices of iron ore, which has softened in recent times to USD 130 per tonne against USD 145 per tonne in recent past.

In terms of quantity, NMDC's sales of iron ore had declined by 17 percent to 5.3 million tonne (MT) in the third quarter of 2012-13, while the production was down 25 percent at 5.4 MT during the period.

The company has a total production capacity of 32 MT per annum at its mines in Chhattisgarh and Karnataka.

( with PTI inputs)

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Police seize property documents of Saradha Group

The police seized documents relating to the property of the Saradha Group on Saturday. "We have seized property documents relating to the investigation into the Saradha Group," Arnab Ghosh, deputy commissioner (DD), Bidhanagar City police told PTI here.

Saradha group chairman Sudipta Sen, along with two others Debjani Mukherjee and Arvind Singh Chauhan are currently in 14 days' police custody. Sen has been accused of duping thousands of investors in Bengal . The police on Friday took Debjani Mukherjee to the main office of the group and seized important documents.

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Cheering social entrepreneurship: How Lok Capital did it

Investing in a social enterprise in India has become quite the in-thing and the definition of who is a social entrepreneur seems to be changing as well. Rajiv Lall, Vishal Mehta and Venky Natarajan, founder of 'Lok Capital' who started their journey in 2004 explains the opportunities and challenges of making investments in the Indian social entrepreneurial space.

It was the proverbial urge to do something more that bought the team at Lok Capital together. Then a Managing Director with Warburg Pincus in New York Rajiv Lal and Donald Peck of the Commonwealth Development Corporation and Actis setup Lok Capital in late 2000 with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The idea was simply to find a way to facilitate entrepreneurs who wanted to address the inclusion challenge in India.

"Because I was in the private equity business, the idea of creating a fund that focused on making investments that didn't seek necessarily to maximise profits but rather to satisfy his profits and when I say satisfy his profits its an economist term which basically means, it is an optimisation of the profit motive. So, it is the profit motive tempered with wider objectives and the wider objectives being objectives that go beyond the simple bottom-line but seek to have an impact and make a difference in other measurable terms to the people that you are serving," Rajiv Lall, Founder, Lok Capital said.

Today Lok Capital manages two funds and has over USD 85 million under management. While Fund one was focused only on the microfinance sector and counts amongst its investments some of the best performing microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India like Janalakshmi Financial Services (JFS), Ujjivan, IFMR Capital, Satin Creditcare Network (SCNL) and BASIX.

The second fund worth USD 65 million raised in 2011 has taken a broader view of inclusion - investing in education, livelihood and healthcare as well. With four successful exits so far from fund one, with internal rate of return (IRR) between 15-35 percent and only one major write-off the learning's from the hits and misses have been important for the team at Lok Capital.

"Social Enterprises does invoke kind of a Robin Hood image and it is very easy in this space for people to get into a premature celebration mode and that can sometimes take the focus away from the business, these are very tough businesses. Working in rural areas, working in that kind of infrastructure and then policy and regulatory hurdles add all of that, this is a very tough space. So, focus as I said is one challenge that we see. Also, we have seen premature scaling as one of the other challenges where before establishing your proof of concept in one particular geography there is a tendency to go and scale it up prematurely," Vishal Mehta, Co-Founder, Lok Capital said. 

Lok Capital has learned it lesson from the crisis. With their second fund the team has revised some of its investment parameters like the ticket size and the stake taken in a company to guard against conflicting ideas of growth that might creep in.

"Initially in our first fund we used to take 5-10 percent stakes. What we realised is in order to maintain the social fabric of the investment and until the business model is stablised we need to have liked minded, aligned investors being part of the company. So, in the second fund our biggest learning has been take 25-30 percent stakes to begin with and as the company evolves as a business model matures, as they become more and more profitable we also have the capability to bring in some of our limited partners as co-investors who are completely aligned with us," Venky Natarajan, Managing Partner, Lok Capital said.

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Indian PC, mobile mkt not much different from China: Lenovo

Lenovo, the personal computer, smartphone and tablet maker is all set to grow its presence in India and aims to become a numero uno vendor for PCs and smartphone. The company which has already achieved a very strong market presence in China is now setting its feet firm in India and is establishing strong distribution network to fulfill its goal.

Milko Van Duijl, the head of Lenovo for Asia region that covers India, Japan, Hong Kong, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, Taiwan, Korea,  Australia and New Zealand in chat with Senthil Chengalvarayan of CNBC-TV18 discusses the company's plans for India, trends in PC and smartphone market and some of newly launched products.

Van Duijl said that Indian PC and smartphone market is not much different from China. "Indian market is not much different from the China market in terms of its vastness, in terms of its tier-I, tier-II, tier-III, tier-IV, tier-V cities, that is the same as in India," he said.

PC market has been seeing some declining trend with increasing popularity of smart hones and tablets. But Van Duijl believes that 'PC is anything but a dying breed'

"Although the market may not be growing or even slightly shrinking as we have seen in International Data Corporation's (IDC) numbers the PC market is still huge. Over 350 million PCs will have been shipped in the calendar year. So even when the market is not growing that much or even shrinking by 2 percent it is a huge market," he said.

Below is the verbatim transcript of his interview

Q: You are coming from a fairly good quarter as far as your PC shipments were for Lenovo worldwide. So PCs are not a dying breed as a lot of people seemed to think. What is the future for PCs?

A: You said it very well. PC is anything but a dying breed. Although the market may not be growing or even slightly shrinking as we have seen in International Data Corporation's (IDC) numbers the PC market is still huge. Over 350 million PCs will have been shipped in the calendar year.

So even when the market is not growing that much or even shrinking by 2 percent it is a huge market. When you have 15 percent as we now have, to gain 5 points of market share over the next couple of years which we think we can do that would still add on about 17 million PCs, so that would mean about USD 10 billion of extra revenue. So it is a big market.

Q: It is a big market, yet companies like HP and Dell are struggling to keep their PC business. There are lots of rumors that they could sell off and industry sources tell us that they really keep those businesses on because it gives them a foot into the enterprise business. You could have an enterprise business. What keeps you in the PC business?

A: What keeps us in the PC business is our belief that this industry of providing the individual with a productivity tool which has become almost an extension of one's personality, is very important and for us to turn that into a global business.

Becoming the leader in the PC business has always been our big driver and our protect and attack strategy has worked now for about three years. We continue to grow profitably in China in our think business, the commercial side of the business for large account and then growing very fast in emerging markets and specific markets like India where we want to get to number one and we have achieved to do so.

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Personalising ads further, challenge to advertisers: Google

Emphasising on the vital role a marketeer plays in any given business, Nikesh Arora, senior vice president and chief business officer, Google says given the change in consumers' perspectives, a marketeer's fundamental task is to relate to the consumer and know where the consumers are.   

With evolving technology, compact devices getting smaller and better and an excessive importance on consuming media, marketeers are constantly looking for ways to evolve marketing tricks. Arora believes the challenge to marketers today is to figure out ways to make advertising more individualised, more personalised.

Also read: Indian PC, mobile mkt not much different from China: Lenovo

Anant Rangaswami, senior editor, Firstpost and Durga Raghunath, vice president products and executive news producer, Firstpost.com interviewed Arora on Story Board on CNBC-TV18.

Below is the edited transcript of the interview. 

Rangaswami: To begin with I am trying to look at things from the marketer's point of view and just when they think they know they think they know everything that the internet has to teach them and ready for the next step you come out, you as in the internet or Google with something new and you got to start all over again and you suddenly feel like an idiot.

Arora: One thing which is constant even though stories change. Before we think at marketing you have to look at consumers and what consumers are doing. In that regard we could learn a lot of from what is happening in different parts of the world. I was in Korea last week and the US. There are things happening with consumers which are very interesting. If you look at consumers today they pretty much live their life on the mobile devices as opposed to sitting and watching TV. I grow up here and you look forward to that two hours in the evening where you could watch TV and it was compact programming, not 500 channels and you know there were two channels that you had to watch and today I cannot keep track of the number of applications my 16 year old uses. She said something interesting to me the other day, she said, dad e-mail is for formal communication. The perspectives of consumers have changed and fundamental task of any marketeer is to relate to consumer so they have to be where the consumers are.

Raghunath: Interesting point about mobile. When you were talking to ATD perhaps this year you made a statement where you said we limit ourselves by calling mobile, mobile. I would love to hear more about what you mean when you say that?

Arora: One of the fascinating thing that has happened as technologies evolved is we have been dealing with devices in isolation and that made sense a few years ago when your television was your television and it never talked to your computer. Your computer was your computer and your phone was your phone and none of these things talked to each other. But today if we think about it you are slowly beginning to see devices talk to each other. I can go like my music on my PC off the internet and I can use my phone to play it. Suddenly your phone is starting to talk to your PC.

There are many applications which I am sure you use on your PC and on your phone and if you see there are instances where people have put their televisions online as well as I can take a YouTube video and play it on my television. So, one is beginning to see devices talk. When devices talk, what happens in the future is that one has a multitude of screens around you. Your watch could be your screen. Your TV could be your screen. Your tablet, your computer, your phone all these are screens and over time services are going to become thing that you want to use across all these screens. So, the mobile becomes a context. It becomes your geospatial context. If I am sitting waiting for somebody in the meeting, I am more likely to read Firstpost, newspaper or something else. If I am sitting at home waiting for something or sitting at home I might watch a video and if I am at work I might search. So, certainly what happens is wherever you are becomes your context and that becomes your screen of choice. So, it is no longer mobile. When I am mobile I will always use my mobile screen. What if I use my tablet? What if my computer with me is WiFi? Suddenly, when I am mobile I can actually have access to multiple screens. As long as my screen knows where I am it can be more useful to me.

Raghunath: The consumer is constantly faced with making choices. Perhaps desktop is becoming almost passé. You have a tablet. You are moving to your mobile phone and a lot of us have completely deserted even a laptop for various reasons. This is hard for the advertiser. We have readers who are moving from a website classic format to the tablet format to the mobile format and each in a way is in terms of the old rules of impact probably diminishing in terms of strength. So, for advertising to remain hugely powerful on digital across these devices, how would you approach dealing with multiple devices, multiple attention consumption patterns?

Arora: There are just lots of interesting places we could take this to. Content and making money is important. Historically, as you have seen changes in media, there has typically been two or three ways money has been made by advertisers as content has been funded. If there were newspapers, it is a combination of advertising and subscription. Some people pay some money and some advertising comes in, that is how newspaper makes money, that is how television makes money.

There was a combination of some function of cable fees versus advertising on television and there are some channels which do not take advertising, for which you have to pay more. So, somewhere in that spectrum or continuum you pay for content or content gets monetized by advertisers and that is still true in any media that you can come up with.

Content will get paid for because consumers interact with content and it is going to get paid for either directly by the consumer or if the consumers are not willing pay, but they are willing to take advertising instead.

The question is what form does that advertising take on when you start interacting with a smaller screen or different sizes and different context. There what becomes very important is the big transitional shift. In the past we had very little idea on who the user is or was. Take a newspaper. You have no idea who is reading the newspaper. You can make up demographics of who the newspaper reader is. Take television. We kind of know there are households involved. There is some agency or some third party measurement services who could figure based on household samples to know who is watching it, but one really did not know.

However, if one looks at today's technology, one has a reasonably good idea of who that person is. You have a lot more data about them because of the applications they interact with or what they do. You have a lot more data about their physical context, you have a lot more data about their social context and that makes advertising three to five times more powerful. So, the big challenge for advertisers or marketeers is how do you leverage the information that you have about individuals and how do you go from a mass market broadcast type advertising concept to a more personalised, more individualised concept of advertising because if it is very useful for me I am willing to accept it if it is interesting and probably you end up making more money. 

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Balaji Telefilms did not disclose Rs 30cr income: I-T

Three days after conducting searches at Balaji Telefilms' facilities and also at the houses of its promoters here, the Income Tax department today said the film production house had not disclosed Rs 30 crore income it had earned, and thus evaded tax.

"After investigation, we found that Balaji Telefilms did not disclose Rs 30 crore income. By not disclosing the amount, it has evaded tax," a senior Income Tax officer told PTI. "Now, the production house has agreed to pay tax and penalty on the Rs 30 crore income. We will receive 30 percent tax on this amount and also the penalty," the officer said.

The officer further said that when Ekta Kapoor, the joint managing director of the company, was asked about tax evasion, she claimed that she is only involved in the making of films and television serials. "Hence, persons involved in the financial matters of the production house have been grilled," he added.

During the search operation on April 30, a team of over 100 officials from the department swooped down on seven locations across the city, including that of producer Ekta Kapoor and her actor-father Jeetendra's residence in suburban Juhu. Balaji Telefilms' office and studio were among the seven premises where searches were conducted, I-T sources said.

The personal offices of Ekta Kapoor, who made it big with television soaps before venturing into films, and her actor-brother Tushar Kapoor in suburban Bandra were also searched, they said. A top official of the production house refused to comment on the development. Meanwhile, 'Shootout at Wadala', produced by Balaji Telefilms, hit cinema screens across the country today.

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NMDC keeps ore price unchanged in May

Moneycontrol Bureau

State-run miner NMDC 's board has decided to keep iron ore price unchanged for the current month and will continue to sell iron ore lumps in the range between Rs 4500-Rs 4700 per tonne, while fines will be sold at Rs 2,610 per tonne.

The firm revises iron ore price each month after aligning with the landed cost of the imported raw material and also depending on demand. The firm has cut prices nearly six times since October due to an overall slowdown when steel demand hardly grew in the year gone-by as end-users such as auto and construction firms witnessed sluggish environment.

Read This: UBS upgrades NMDC to neutral, shares extend gains

NMDC had lowered the price of lumps by about seven percent last month and by 2.5 percent in February. It did not tweak the prices of fines (having iron content of less than 60 percent) for quite some time now

It is also rumoured that the state-owned miner may bring down the price of the steel-making raw material in sync with the international prices of iron ore, which has softened in recent times to USD 130 per tonne against USD 145 per tonne in recent past.

In terms of quantity, NMDC's sales of iron ore had declined by 17 percent to 5.3 million tonne (MT) in the third quarter of 2012-13, while the production was down 25 percent at 5.4 MT during the period.

The company has a total production capacity of 32 MT per annum at its mines in Chhattisgarh and Karnataka.

( with PTI inputs)

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Police seize property documents of Saradha Group

The police seized documents relating to the property of the Saradha Group on Saturday. "We have seized property documents relating to the investigation into the Saradha Group," Arnab Ghosh, deputy commissioner (DD), Bidhanagar City police told PTI here.

Saradha group chairman Sudipta Sen, along with two others Debjani Mukherjee and Arvind Singh Chauhan are currently in 14 days' police custody. Sen has been accused of duping thousands of investors in Bengal . The police on Friday took Debjani Mukherjee to the main office of the group and seized important documents.

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Cheering social entrepreneurship: How Lok Capital did it

Investing in a social enterprise in India has become quite the in-thing and the definition of who is a social entrepreneur seems to be changing as well. Rajiv Lall, Vishal Mehta and Venky Natarajan, founder of 'Lok Capital' who started their journey in 2004 explains the opportunities and challenges of making investments in the Indian social entrepreneurial space.

It was the proverbial urge to do something more that bought the team at Lok Capital together. Then a Managing Director with Warburg Pincus in New York Rajiv Lal and Donald Peck of the Commonwealth Development Corporation and Actis setup Lok Capital in late 2000 with a grant from the Rockefeller Foundation. The idea was simply to find a way to facilitate entrepreneurs who wanted to address the inclusion challenge in India.

"Because I was in the private equity business, the idea of creating a fund that focused on making investments that didn't seek necessarily to maximise profits but rather to satisfy his profits and when I say satisfy his profits its an economist term which basically means, it is an optimisation of the profit motive. So, it is the profit motive tempered with wider objectives and the wider objectives being objectives that go beyond the simple bottom-line but seek to have an impact and make a difference in other measurable terms to the people that you are serving," Rajiv Lall, Founder, Lok Capital said.

Today Lok Capital manages two funds and has over USD 85 million under management. While Fund one was focused only on the microfinance sector and counts amongst its investments some of the best performing microfinance institutions (MFIs) in India like Janalakshmi Financial Services (JFS), Ujjivan, IFMR Capital, Satin Creditcare Network (SCNL) and BASIX.

The second fund worth USD 65 million raised in 2011 has taken a broader view of inclusion - investing in education, livelihood and healthcare as well. With four successful exits so far from fund one, with internal rate of return (IRR) between 15-35 percent and only one major write-off the learning's from the hits and misses have been important for the team at Lok Capital.

"Social Enterprises does invoke kind of a Robin Hood image and it is very easy in this space for people to get into a premature celebration mode and that can sometimes take the focus away from the business, these are very tough businesses. Working in rural areas, working in that kind of infrastructure and then policy and regulatory hurdles add all of that, this is a very tough space. So, focus as I said is one challenge that we see. Also, we have seen premature scaling as one of the other challenges where before establishing your proof of concept in one particular geography there is a tendency to go and scale it up prematurely," Vishal Mehta, Co-Founder, Lok Capital said. 

Lok Capital has learned it lesson from the crisis. With their second fund the team has revised some of its investment parameters like the ticket size and the stake taken in a company to guard against conflicting ideas of growth that might creep in.

"Initially in our first fund we used to take 5-10 percent stakes. What we realised is in order to maintain the social fabric of the investment and until the business model is stablised we need to have liked minded, aligned investors being part of the company. So, in the second fund our biggest learning has been take 25-30 percent stakes to begin with and as the company evolves as a business model matures, as they become more and more profitable we also have the capability to bring in some of our limited partners as co-investors who are completely aligned with us," Venky Natarajan, Managing Partner, Lok Capital said.

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Indian PC, mobile mkt not much different from China: Lenovo

Lenovo, the personal computer, smartphone and tablet maker is all set to grow its presence in India and aims to become a numero uno vendor for PCs and smartphone. The company which has already achieved a very strong market presence in China is now setting its feet firm in India and is establishing strong distribution network to fulfill its goal.

Milko Van Duijl, the head of Lenovo for Asia region that covers India, Japan, Hong Kong, Association of Southeast Asian Nations (ASEAN) countries, Taiwan, Korea,  Australia and New Zealand in chat with Senthil Chengalvarayan of CNBC-TV18 discusses the company's plans for India, trends in PC and smartphone market and some of newly launched products.

Van Duijl said that Indian PC and smartphone market is not much different from China. "Indian market is not much different from the China market in terms of its vastness, in terms of its tier-I, tier-II, tier-III, tier-IV, tier-V cities, that is the same as in India," he said.

PC market has been seeing some declining trend with increasing popularity of smart hones and tablets. But Van Duijl believes that 'PC is anything but a dying breed'

"Although the market may not be growing or even slightly shrinking as we have seen in International Data Corporation's (IDC) numbers the PC market is still huge. Over 350 million PCs will have been shipped in the calendar year. So even when the market is not growing that much or even shrinking by 2 percent it is a huge market," he said.

Below is the verbatim transcript of his interview

Q: You are coming from a fairly good quarter as far as your PC shipments were for Lenovo worldwide. So PCs are not a dying breed as a lot of people seemed to think. What is the future for PCs?

A: You said it very well. PC is anything but a dying breed. Although the market may not be growing or even slightly shrinking as we have seen in International Data Corporation's (IDC) numbers the PC market is still huge. Over 350 million PCs will have been shipped in the calendar year.

So even when the market is not growing that much or even shrinking by 2 percent it is a huge market. When you have 15 percent as we now have, to gain 5 points of market share over the next couple of years which we think we can do that would still add on about 17 million PCs, so that would mean about USD 10 billion of extra revenue. So it is a big market.

Q: It is a big market, yet companies like HP and Dell are struggling to keep their PC business. There are lots of rumors that they could sell off and industry sources tell us that they really keep those businesses on because it gives them a foot into the enterprise business. You could have an enterprise business. What keeps you in the PC business?

A: What keeps us in the PC business is our belief that this industry of providing the individual with a productivity tool which has become almost an extension of one's personality, is very important and for us to turn that into a global business.

Becoming the leader in the PC business has always been our big driver and our protect and attack strategy has worked now for about three years. We continue to grow profitably in China in our think business, the commercial side of the business for large account and then growing very fast in emerging markets and specific markets like India where we want to get to number one and we have achieved to do so.

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Personalising ads further, challenge to advertisers: Google

Emphasising on the vital role a marketeer plays in any given business, Nikesh Arora, senior vice president and chief business officer, Google says given the change in consumers' perspectives, a marketeer's fundamental task is to relate to the consumer and know where the consumers are.   

With evolving technology, compact devices getting smaller and better and an excessive importance on consuming media, marketeers are constantly looking for ways to evolve marketing tricks. Arora believes the challenge to marketers today is to figure out ways to make advertising more individualised, more personalised.

Also read: Indian PC, mobile mkt not much different from China: Lenovo

Anant Rangaswami, senior editor, Firstpost and Durga Raghunath, vice president products and executive news producer, Firstpost.com interviewed Arora on Story Board on CNBC-TV18.

Below is the edited transcript of the interview. 

Rangaswami: To begin with I am trying to look at things from the marketer's point of view and just when they think they know they think they know everything that the internet has to teach them and ready for the next step you come out, you as in the internet or Google with something new and you got to start all over again and you suddenly feel like an idiot.

Arora: One thing which is constant even though stories change. Before we think at marketing you have to look at consumers and what consumers are doing. In that regard we could learn a lot of from what is happening in different parts of the world. I was in Korea last week and the US. There are things happening with consumers which are very interesting. If you look at consumers today they pretty much live their life on the mobile devices as opposed to sitting and watching TV. I grow up here and you look forward to that two hours in the evening where you could watch TV and it was compact programming, not 500 channels and you know there were two channels that you had to watch and today I cannot keep track of the number of applications my 16 year old uses. She said something interesting to me the other day, she said, dad e-mail is for formal communication. The perspectives of consumers have changed and fundamental task of any marketeer is to relate to consumer so they have to be where the consumers are.

Raghunath: Interesting point about mobile. When you were talking to ATD perhaps this year you made a statement where you said we limit ourselves by calling mobile, mobile. I would love to hear more about what you mean when you say that?

Arora: One of the fascinating thing that has happened as technologies evolved is we have been dealing with devices in isolation and that made sense a few years ago when your television was your television and it never talked to your computer. Your computer was your computer and your phone was your phone and none of these things talked to each other. But today if we think about it you are slowly beginning to see devices talk to each other. I can go like my music on my PC off the internet and I can use my phone to play it. Suddenly your phone is starting to talk to your PC.

There are many applications which I am sure you use on your PC and on your phone and if you see there are instances where people have put their televisions online as well as I can take a YouTube video and play it on my television. So, one is beginning to see devices talk. When devices talk, what happens in the future is that one has a multitude of screens around you. Your watch could be your screen. Your TV could be your screen. Your tablet, your computer, your phone all these are screens and over time services are going to become thing that you want to use across all these screens. So, the mobile becomes a context. It becomes your geospatial context. If I am sitting waiting for somebody in the meeting, I am more likely to read Firstpost, newspaper or something else. If I am sitting at home waiting for something or sitting at home I might watch a video and if I am at work I might search. So, certainly what happens is wherever you are becomes your context and that becomes your screen of choice. So, it is no longer mobile. When I am mobile I will always use my mobile screen. What if I use my tablet? What if my computer with me is WiFi? Suddenly, when I am mobile I can actually have access to multiple screens. As long as my screen knows where I am it can be more useful to me.

Raghunath: The consumer is constantly faced with making choices. Perhaps desktop is becoming almost passé. You have a tablet. You are moving to your mobile phone and a lot of us have completely deserted even a laptop for various reasons. This is hard for the advertiser. We have readers who are moving from a website classic format to the tablet format to the mobile format and each in a way is in terms of the old rules of impact probably diminishing in terms of strength. So, for advertising to remain hugely powerful on digital across these devices, how would you approach dealing with multiple devices, multiple attention consumption patterns?

Arora: There are just lots of interesting places we could take this to. Content and making money is important. Historically, as you have seen changes in media, there has typically been two or three ways money has been made by advertisers as content has been funded. If there were newspapers, it is a combination of advertising and subscription. Some people pay some money and some advertising comes in, that is how newspaper makes money, that is how television makes money.

There was a combination of some function of cable fees versus advertising on television and there are some channels which do not take advertising, for which you have to pay more. So, somewhere in that spectrum or continuum you pay for content or content gets monetized by advertisers and that is still true in any media that you can come up with.

Content will get paid for because consumers interact with content and it is going to get paid for either directly by the consumer or if the consumers are not willing pay, but they are willing to take advertising instead.

The question is what form does that advertising take on when you start interacting with a smaller screen or different sizes and different context. There what becomes very important is the big transitional shift. In the past we had very little idea on who the user is or was. Take a newspaper. You have no idea who is reading the newspaper. You can make up demographics of who the newspaper reader is. Take television. We kind of know there are households involved. There is some agency or some third party measurement services who could figure based on household samples to know who is watching it, but one really did not know.

However, if one looks at today's technology, one has a reasonably good idea of who that person is. You have a lot more data about them because of the applications they interact with or what they do. You have a lot more data about their physical context, you have a lot more data about their social context and that makes advertising three to five times more powerful. So, the big challenge for advertisers or marketeers is how do you leverage the information that you have about individuals and how do you go from a mass market broadcast type advertising concept to a more personalised, more individualised concept of advertising because if it is very useful for me I am willing to accept it if it is interesting and probably you end up making more money. 

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Boeing agrees to compensate AI for Dreamliner grounding

Boeing Co has agreed to compensate state-run Air India for the grounding of 787 Dreamliner passenger jets, the Indian aviation minister said on Friday, adding the details have yet to be finalised.

The carrier expects to restart Dreamliner operations for domestic flights by mid-May, Ajit Singh said.

Air India has six Dreamliners and has ordered 21 more. The planes have been grounded worldwide since January following incidents of overheating in the batteries providing auxiliary power. Boeing has since worked to develop new battery housings to prevent a repeat of the incidents.

Ethiopian Airlines became the world's first carrier to resume flying the revamped Dreamliners last week.

Also read: Foreign players keen on SpiceJet; AirAsia no threat: CEO

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In case you missed it: Top headlines on RBI policy day

Evening bulletin brings to you all the key events that made headlines today:

RBI Credit Policy: Sensex ends 160 pts lower; rate sensitives fall, metals up

Investors seem to be on selling mode today as the Nifty slipped closer to 5950 led by rate sensitives. The Reserve Bank of India delivered its policy in line with street estimates.

RBI cuts repo rate by 25 bps, keeps CRR unchanged

In his fifth and last annual monetary policy RBI governor - Duvvuri Subbarao cut the policy or repo rate by 25 basis points to 7.25 percent. Repo is the rate at which banks borrow from the central bank. Consequently, reverse repo or the rate at which banks park excess liquidity with the RBI stands at 6.25 percent.

SEBI fines RIL entity Rs 11 cr in IPCL insider trading case

In an over six-year old insider trading case involving shares of Reliance Industries' erstwhile subsidiary IPCL, market regulator SEBI Thursday imposed a penalty of Rs 11 crore on Reliance Petroinvestments Ltd.

FinMin says 2013-14 GDP growth to be over 6%

Riding on the back of a pick-up in investment and improved investor confidence, the Finance Ministry today exuded confidence that the economic growth will be 6 percent and above in the current fiscal.

Bharti Airtel to sell 5% stake to Qatar Foundation; shrs up

Bharti Airtel shares rose 4 percent in morning trade on Friday after the telecommunications company said it has entered into a "binding agreement" with Qatar Foundation Endowment, under which it will issue 199.87 million new shares to QFE, representing a 5 percent stake in the company, post the share issue.

Titan Industries Q4 net profit up 29% at Rs 185cr

Watches and jewellery maker Titan Industries fourth quarter net profit rose 29 percent from a year ago to Rs 185 crore.

HCC slumps on Q4 disappointment, net loss at Rs 50cr

Hindustan Construction Company (HCC) disappointed the street on Friday by reporting higher-than-expected fourth quarter (January-March) net loss of Rs 50 crore. The constrution major had reported Rs 54.2 crore loss same period in the previous year.

Sarabjit cremated with state honours

Indian prisoner Sarabjit Singh was cremated on Friday with full state honours at his village in Bhikhiwind near Amritsar amidst heavy presence of politicians. Among those present at the funeral were Punjab Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal, Deputy Chief Minister Sukhbir Singh Badal and Congress Vice President Rahul Gandhi.

By: Team Moneycontrol

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Air Asia's NOC under consideration: Ajit Singh

Civil aviation minister Ajit Singh on Friday said that the ministry was actively considering Air Asia India's proposal for a no-objection-certificate (NOC) to start operations.

Singh added that the ministry will be able to clear the proposal soon if the JV furnished all the necessary details about its CEO for security clearance.

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RBI Credit Policy: Banks unlikely to cut rates soon, no relief for EMIs

Moneycontrol Bureau

The Reserve Bank of India's annual credit policy for 2013-14 may not bring cheers for you. Clearly, banks are in no mood to reduce interest rates anytime soon following a cut in the policy/repo rate by 25 basis points to 7.25 percent. Hence, there will be no easing for your home or auto loan EMIs. 

However, a fall in cost of funds will only trigger interest reduction among banks in future. Thus, the benefit of policy rate cut or policy transmission as it is known in banking parlance, would be passed on with a lag. Repo is the rate at which banks borrow money from the central bank.

"There is no scope for rate cut," Pratip Chaudhuri, Chairman State Bank of India  (SBI) told reporters after the policy meet.

"Individual banks have to position themselves on sectoral credit growth based on their requirements and standing in the competition. Our home and auto loans continue to be strong. On corporate side, it is not much. Till we don't have much deployments on corporates, there is no such compulsion to cut rates."

SBI boss has been advocating for a 100 bps cut in cash reserve ratio (CRR) or the portion of deposits banks need to keep with RBI. According to Chaudhuri, a CRR cut would have resulted in significant interest rate cuts making the transmission very prompt.  

Currently, SBI borrows around Rs 20,000 crore from RBI's repo window at 7.50 percent. A 25 bps reduction will save Rs 50 crore interest cost for the lender. SBI has around Rs 6 lakh crore loans linked with its base rate at 9.70 percent.

"If we distribute the tiny benefit among our borrowers, it would be only 1 bps advantage for them. There is nothing to transmit," Chaudhuri added.

CRR currently stands at 4 percent. This means, banks have to maintain balance equivalent to 4 percent of their deposits fortnightly basis. Banks normally do not earn interest on such regulatory obligation.

In 2012-13 RBI slashed CRR by 75 bps on top of a 125 bps cut in the CRR in Q4 of 2011-12. Since January 2012, it injected Rs 1.3 lakh crore of primary liquidity into the system through reductions in CRR. RBI had also conducted through an open market operations (OMOs) or buying of government securities totaling Rs 1.5 lakh crore to ease tight liquidity situation.

"Deposits growth rate is not encouraging. It is not possible that deposit rates will not come down in a hurry. Lending rates will really depend on cost of funds. Banks will see how cost of funds move (before cutting lending rates). We should not link lending rate movement to just an announcement of policy rate," Chanda Kochhar, managing director at ICICI Bank said adding that one rate cut does not mean that bank lending rates will fall overnight.

Also read:   RBI sets measures to revive banks' priority lending

RBI projected deposit growth at 14 percent and loan growth at 15 percent in FY14. During 2012-13, banks fell short of attaining year-on-year credit and deposit growth projections by RBI. Those were at the same level.

The real problem is that people are mostly not parking funds on different deposit schemes.  While the high rate of inflation has eroded their savings, the attractive investment returns in equities, post office and other government schemes have also dwarfed interest in term/saving deposits.

Also read: Banks not carrying out customer due diligence: RBI

Under this scenario if banks reduce their rate of interests, deposit schemes will shed further attractiveness. And, banks cannot cut lending rates alone as it will hit their net interest margin or the difference between interests earned and paid out.

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JPC may meet on May 7; could seek another extension

The Joint Parliamentary Committee (JPC) on 2G scam is likely to meet on Tuesday to decide on the "future course of action" amid possibility of it seeking a fresh extension of tenure to adopt the controversial draft report.

After Lok Sahba Speaker Meira Kumar expressed her inability to remove him as JPC Chairman as demanded by 15 opposition members of the committee, P C Chacko has started contacting members to hold a meeting. But the planned meeting on May 7 is unlikely to adopt the draft report which gave clean chit to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Home Minister P Chidambaram and indicted former Telecom Minister A Raja for the 2G scam.

Instead, the meeting is being convened to decide on the "future course of action" following Speaker's advice to the members to "sink" their differences, sources said. "The faith reposed by Parliament is betrayed by trading allegations against each other. It is, therefore, necessary for the Chairman and the members to sink their differences and present a report as mandated by Parliament," she said in a letter to JPC members yesterday.

With the term of the Committee coming to an end on May 10 along with the end of the Budget session, Chacko is most likely to seek an extension to reach a conclusion as amid divergent views, the panel would not be able to adopt the draft report before Parliament is adjourned sine die, the sources said. The fresh extension could be till the beginning of the Monsoon session of Parliament which is likely to begin around July 23.

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