India will be energy independent by 2030

Emphasising the need to reduce India's oil and gas imports, Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, M. Veerappa Moily said on Friday (September 27) that India was likely to become energy independent by 2030. He was addressing the inaugural Business Today-YES Bank Emerging Companies Excellence Awards 2013 function at the ITC Maurya, New Delhi, where he was chief guest. "By 2020, 50 per cent of imports should be reduced, which should become 75 per cent by 2015. By 2013, India should be energy independent," he said.

 The criteria for inclusion among such companies were: they should be unlisted, innovative and should clocked a turnover between Rs.200 crore and Rs.1,000 crore in the financial year 2011/12. Around 526 companies applied for the award of which 177 made it to the second phase of the contest.

While five of the awards have been given for financial performance, three were non-financial. There was also an overall winner award. A five-member jury went through the list of final nominees in the third phase to choose the winners.

Akums Drugs & Pharmaceuticals Ltd, the largest manufacturer of medicines in India, bagged the overall Best Emerging Companies Award. "That we have been recognised is the biggest achievement for us," said D.C. Jain, Chairman of the company. "We had never expected that we would win. We have 30 years of experience in the pharmaceutical line. Akums was formed in 2004-05 and we had made profits beyond our expectations. We supply to many big pharma companies in India. We have six units in Haridwar and our manpower strength stands at 5,000." Akums also won the award for Corporate Governance.

The Category of Global Business Excellence saw two winners -- Transasia Bio-Medicals Ltd and Raajratna Metal Industries Ltd. The Award for Most Innovative Company went to Minex Metallurgical Company Ltd, while Tulasi Seeds Pvt Ltd won the award for CSR sustainable development. GR Infraprojects Ltd bagged the award for the category in Capital Management.

Dr Lal Pathlabs won the Best Employment Creation Awards. "We feel humbled that we have got the award in the category of best employment. We have 4,000 people and 200 doctors (pathologists) along with 150 labs across the country. With 2,500 collection centres, we test about 32,000 people everyday," said Brig. Dr Arvind Lal (retd), Padma Shri, Chairman and Managing Director, Dr Lal Pathlabs.

The award in the category of Scalability of the Business Model went to Eris Lifesciensces Ltd, Ahmedabad, which also won the award for Managing Operational Efficiencies. "We are happy to be selected. Next, from one of the best emerging companies, we want to become one of the best companies," said Amit Bakshi, Chairman, Eris Lifesciensces Ltd.

The guest of honour was M. Damodaran, former Chairman of SEBI and the Unit Trust of India, who is also doing some pioneering work in rural healthcare - he is Chairman of Glocal Healthcare Systems. Chaitanya Kalbag, Editor, Business Today explained the procedure adopted for choosing the awardees and emphasised the importance of entrepreneurship.

Moily also spoke about how entrepreneurship can take the country ahead and shared the success story of Infosys Co-founder NR Narayana Murthy.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/india-will-be-energy-independent-by-2030-veerappa-moily/1/312089.html

Blackberry-Now A NRI Owned Co.,

BlackBerry's largest shareholder has reached a tentative agreement to pay $4.7 billion for the troubled smartphone maker, even as many investors fret about its potential demise.

BlackBerry Ltd. said on Monday that Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. has signed a letter of intent that "contemplates" buying the company for $9 per share in cash in a deal that would take the company private. The tentative deal comes just days after the Canadian company announced plans to lay off 40 percent of its global workforce. The offer price is below what BlackBerry was trading at before the layoff announcement.

Analysts say that although BlackBerry's hardware business is not worth anything, the company still owns valuable patents. Patents on wireless technologies have exploded in value in recent years, as makers of the iPhone and various Android devices sue each other. Having a strong portfolio of patents allows phone makers to defend themselves and work out deals.

BlackBerry is also strong in having total cash and investments of about $2.6 billion, with no debt, though it's burning through that stockpile. In just the past few months, it's spent about half a billion dollars.

The possible BlackBerry deal follows a $7.2 billion offer that Microsoft Corp. made this month for the phones and services business of another troubled phone maker, Nokia Corp. Last year, Google Inc. paid $12.4 billion for another fallen pioneer, Motorola Mobility, mostly for its patents.

The BlackBerry, pioneered in 1999, was once the dominant smartphone for on-the-go business people and other consumers. It could be so addictive that it was nicknamed "the CrackBerry." President Barack Obama couldn't bear to part with his BlackBerry. Oprah Winfrey declared it one of her "favorite things." But then came a new generation of competing smartphones, starting with Apple's iPhone in 2007. The BlackBerry, that game-changing breakthrough in personal connectedness, suddenly looked ancient.

Although BlackBerry was once Canada's most valuable company with a market value of $83 billion in June 2008, the stock has plummeted to less than $9 from over $140 a share, giving it a market value of $4.6 billion, just short of Fairfax's offer.

BlackBerry shares plunged 17 percent Friday after the company announced a quarterly loss of nearly $1 billion and layoffs of 4,500 workers. It gained 9 cents, or 1.1 percent, to $8.82 Monday.

Fairfax head Prem Watsa, who owns 10 percent of BlackBerry, stepped down as a board member last month because of potential conflicts when BlackBerry announced it was considering a sale. If the proposed deal goes through, BlackBerry will no longer be traded publicly.

"We believe this transaction will open an exciting new private chapter for BlackBerry its customers, carriers and employees," Watsa said in a statement. "We can deliver immediate value to shareholders, while we continue the execution of a long-term strategy in a private company."

Watsa is one of Canada's best-known investors and is the billionaire founder of Toronto-based Fairfax Financial Holdings Ltd. BlackBerry founder Mike Lazaridis recruited Watsa to join the company's board when Lazaridis and Jim Balsillie stepped aside as its co-CEOs in January 2012. Because Watsa was on the board, he likely has the best information on the value of its patents and other assets, said Mike Walkley, an analyst with Canaccord Genuity.

Watsa is likely to keep current CEO Thorsten Heins in the job should the deal happen. He said in April that he's a big supporter of Heins and has called his promotion the right decision. If BlackBerry is sold and Heins is ousted, though, the embattled CEO stands to receive $55.6 million in stock awards, benefits and other compensation, according to the company's proxy statement filed in May.

BlackBerry said the general terms of the deal have been approved by its board and a special committee set up to review options. The company said it will negotiate and execute a definitive transaction agreement with Fairfax by Nov. 4.

During that time, BlackBerry is entitled to shop around for other buyers, but if BlackBerry backs out of the deal, it would owe Fairfax about $157 million.

"The special committee is seeking the best available outcome for the company's constituents, including for shareholders," BlackBerry chairwoman Barbara Stymiest said in a statement.

Fairfax said it is seeking financing from Bank of America Merrill Lynch and BMO Capital Markets. The release didn't identify what other investors are involved.

Walkley believes the preliminary nature of the deal suggests his partners likely want to do due diligence with an option to back out. The announcement made no mention of any penalty should Fairfax back out.

"The deal is hardly definitive at this stage, said Eric Kirzner, a professor of finance at the University of Toronto. "There are so many questions about it. It looks clever and it looks like it may set off a flurry of activity, maybe some other white knights are going to come along," Kirzner said. "Maybe that's the intent of this, or maybe the intent is for Mr. Watsa to acquire the company but I just don't know."

BGC analyst Colin Gillis called it a "trial balloon."

"It's worth the paper it's written on," Gillis said. "It forces the hand for anyone else that might be interested."

Gillis said taking BlackBerry private is the right move and that it's possible that BlackBerry could survive in a much smaller form. He noted that the $9-per-share offer is lower than the $12.32 average price that the stock traded over the past six months.

Going private removes the burden of pleasing shareholders with short-term results, just as Michael Dell hopes to do with Dell Inc. after winning a bid to take the troubled computer maker private, said Anthony Michael Sabino, a professor at St. John's University's business school. He said Fairfax is known for patience in its investments, which would give BlackBerry time to regroup.

"In all honesty, its fate is still uncertain, but at least now it has a fighting chance," Sabino said.

This year's launch of BlackBerry 10 and fancier devices that use it was supposed to rejuvenate the brand and lure customers. But the much-delayed phones have failed to turn the company around. At their peak in the fall of 2009, BlackBerry's smartphones enjoyed global market share of more than 20 percent, Walkley said. That is now just 1.5 percent.

The decline of BlackBerry, formerly known as Research In Motion Ltd., is evoking memories of Nortel, another Canadian tech giant, which ended up declaring bankruptcy in 2009.

Read more at: http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/blackberry-blackberry-messenger-fairfax--blackberry-to-sell-bbm-for-android-ios-devices-jelly-bean-bbm-chat/1/311360.html

India's First MARS Orbiter

Isro officials said on Sunday that the Mars Orbiter Mission (MOM) will be launched on October 28 from Sriharikota between 3.30pm and 4pm.

A national committee of scientists chaired by former Isro chief U R Rao gave the go-ahead to the Rs 450-crore mission on Friday. "Right now we are continuously monitoring it," an official said.

The Mars orbiter has undergone extensive pre-launch tests at Isro's Satellite Centre in Bangalore and will be moved to Sriharikota on September 30 for integration with the advanced version of the four-stage Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV), known as PSLV-XL.

The pre-shipment review will be held on September 26. With a large contingent of the international media expected to cover the launch, hotels in Chennai are flooded with inquiries about availability of rooms and rates. Sriharikota is about a two-and-a-half hours drive from Chennai.

Referring to the recent discovery by Nasa's Curiosity rover that there was no methane on Mars, Rao who played a major role in the selection of the five scientific instruments which will fly on MOM said that it did not mean much and was of little significance.

He emphasized that Nasa's announcement has in no way made the Indian mission to Mars irrelevant. His statement assumes significance in the context of MOM flying an instrument called the methane sensor, which is designed to measure methane in the Martian atmosphere and map its sources. It is one of the five instruments on board MOM, and was fabricated at Isro's Ahmedabad-based Space Application Centre.

Rao said, "It had always been stated that the moon was bone dry and there was no water. But, our lunar mission Chandrayaan-1 attained a major breakthrough and found water on the moon. Similarly, our Mars mission will achieve something similar."

Rao's view was shared by Syed Maqbool Ahmed, the scientist behind Chandra Altitudinal Composition Explorer (Chace) on board Chandrayaan-1's Moon Impact Probe which discovered water on the moon. Ahmed who had a two-year stint at Nasa's Jet Propulsion Laboratory said, "Depending upon the prevailing conditions, the instruments of MOM which are a heritage class of Chandrayaan-1 may certainly give a chance to measure elusive methane."




Source:Times of India

Rupee-Biggest Loser

Indian currency emerged as the worst performer among its global peers with a fall of 8.7% last month, owing largely to economic slowdown and poor investor confidence. 

The fall in rupee value against the US dollar was the worst compared to its peers across Asia, Americas, Africa, Europe and the Middle East in August, as per the latest data compiled by the World Federation of Exchanges (WFE). 

The rupee fell to an average of 66.07 in August from 60.80 in the previous month against the US dollar, marking a drop of 8.7%, although there has been some recovery in the current month. 


Rupee hit a life-time low of 68.85 against the US dollar on August 28. 

In terms of decline during August, rupee was followed by Indonesian rupiah (6.3%), Turkish lira (4.9), Brazilian real (4.1) and Mexican peso (4). 

"In addition to impact of change in global investment fund flow, India's peculiar reasons like high trade deficit and worsening investor confidence amid tax uncertainty and policy paralysis have contributed to rupee depreciation," Deloitte Haskins & Sells Partner Atul Dhawan said. 

Massive capital outflows to the tune of Rs 62,000 crore ($10.5 billion) by foreign investors in the June-July had added to pressure on rupee. 

"Nonetheless, there are signs of optimism as recently improved performance in external sector has delivered better results in September and rupee has gained the most in last 20 days as compared to its peers," he added. 

So far in September, rupee has appreciated nearly 5% on back of renewed investor sentiments. 

While India witnessed a sharp decline in its currency, its neighbour China's yuan has gained 0.2% against the US dollar. The maximum currency appreciation was noticed by Korea's won (1.2%) in the month of August. 

The other top 10 countries in terms of maximum depreciation in currency values were Norway's krone (6th rank), South Africa's rand (7th), Argentina peso (8th), Thailand's baht (9th) and the Philippine's peso (10th).



Source:Times of India

INDIA AND REST-A TRADE ANALYSIS

Good Time Ahead For India

Source: India Today-Funalytics

Trend of Employment in Agriculture-A comparison with world economies

Courtesy:-India Today