The rupee, which had been falling steadily for the past many days due to fundamental weakness in the economy like higher Current Account Deficit, breached the key 54-level soon after trade resumed on Tuesday at 54.05.
It immediately touched its second lowest intra-day at 54.15 but the sentiment improved on suspected RBI intervention as public sector banks were seen selling dollars.
The rupee finally settled at 53.79, showing a gain of 17 paise from its overnight close.
It had recorded historical intra-trade low of 54.32 on December 15, 2011.
Indian Overseas Bank GM (Treasury) T S Srinivasan said, “ Rupee appreciated today due to intervention of the central bank in the market. It seems, there was huge selling of dollars in the market after the rupee opened beyond Rs 54 level.”
But market observers said rupee’s gains is temporary as it remains fundamentally weak and is likely to trade 55-58 range over the next 12 months.
“Even if the RBI decides to intervene decisively to bridge the current account deficit gap, the fact that the size of the BoP balance is a far more powerful driver of INR movement than RBI intervention, we expect the INR to depreciate further and head towards 55-58 INR/USD over the next 12 months,” said Ritika Mankar Mukherjee, Economist – Institutional Equities, Ambit Capital.
IDBI Bank Treasury Head N S Venkatesh said the central bank would not defend any particular level though Rs 54-level would remain as a psychological level for market participants.
Forex dealers said exporters were also selling dollars amid some weakness in the US currency overseas.
There was also strong signs capital inflows that helped rupee to sustain its gains during the day.
Meanwhile, the benchmark Sensex ended higher by 112.41 points or 0.69 per cent, breaking the five-day losing streak. Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) picked up shares worth USD 172.27 million in three days since 10th May.

India, which imports 80 percent of its crude oil and relies on Tehran for 12 percent of those imports, shipped 18.50 million tons of oil from Iran in 2011-12, Minister of State for Petroleum and Natural Gas R P N Singh said in a written reply in the Rajya Sabha on Tuesday.
The government had earlier said that it was not possible for India to take any decision to reduce the imports from Iran drastically as that country was important in meeting India’s growing energy needs.
The US has already granted waivers to the sanctions for Japan and 10 European countries but has left out China and India, Iran’s biggest clients.
India has not publicly said it was aiming to cut back oil imports from Iran but has unofficially asked its top imports to prune shipments from Tehran.
“Total crude oil imported from Iran by Indian companies during the period 2010-11 and 2011-12 is 18.50 million tons and 17.44 million tons respectively.
The target fixed for import of crude oil from Iran for the year 2012-13 is approximately 15.5 million tons,” Singh said.
He said the quantum of crude oil imported by Indian refineries from various sources is decided by them on the basis of technical, commercial and other considerations.
“In order to reduce its dependence on any particular region of the world, India has been consciously trying to diversify its sources of crude oil imports to strengthen the country’s energy security,” he said.

Inflation moved up to 7.23 percent in April on account of spurt in prices of vegetables, meat, milk and pulses, although onion and fruits showed a declining trend.

Inflation, as measured by the Wholesale Price Index (WPI), was 6.89 percent in March. In April last year, it was 9.74 percent.  Vegetables turned costlier by 60.97 percent during April. In March, the rate of price rise in vegetables was 30.57 percent. Pulses were expensive 11.29 percent.

Milk became costlier by 15.51 percent, while rice and cereals turned costlier by 5.68 percent and 5.8 percent respectively. Prices of potato too rose by 53.44 percent.
Besides, eggs, meat and fish prices rose 17.54 percent during the month, slightly lower from 17.71 percent in March.
However, as per the official data released on Monday, inflation for the overall food items category was 10.49 percent in April, as against 10.66 percent in March.

Onion prices declined (-)12.11 percent in April. The rate of decline was (-)24.23 percent in March.
Food articles have 14.3 percent share in the WPI basket.
Inflation in the price of manufactured goods increased marginally to 5.12 percent in April, from 4.87 percent in March.
The headline inflation number for February was revised upwards to 7.39 percent, from the provisional estimate of 6.95 percent.
Inflation in overall primary articles inched up to 9.71 percent in April, from 9.62 percent in March.
On year-on-year basis, among manufactured items, iron grew dearer by 17.98 percent while edible oil prices rose by 11.10 percent.
Inflation in tobacco products and basic metals was 9.48 percent and 10.72 percent respectively.
Non-food primary articles, which include fibres and oilseeds increased slightly by 1.61 percent in April. In March, it was (-)1.2 percent.
Inflation in the fuel and power segment was 11.03 percent on an annual basis. The rate of price rise was 10.41 percent in the previous month.
Experts said the inflationary pressure, driven by prices of food articles, will keep the pressure on the government to remove supply side bottlenecks. Overall inflation hovered at double digit for most of 2010 and 2011.
The Reserve Bank hiked key policy rates 13 times, totalling 350 basis points, between March 2010 and October 2011 to tame inflation.
Since January, RBI has resorted to injecting liquidity into the financial system, by reducing Cash Reserve Ratio for banks. Besides, it has called for fiscal steps by the government to combat inflation.
However, in its annual monetary policy last month, RBI cut key lending rate by 50 basis points to lower borrowing costs amid falling industrial and economic growth.
RBI has projected inflation to be around 6.5 percent by March 2013, with a caution that it will remain sticky and there is need to arrest the decline in economic growth.

Information Technology company NCR Corporation (NYSE: NCR) on Wednesday introduced Total Premise Services to help branch, retail store and airport operators simplify the management and operation of all equipment through a single point-of-contact, reducing costs while they focus on growing their business and improving the customer experience.

According to Gartner, India’s IT services market is expected to grow from USD 9.5 billion in 2011 to USD 15 billion by the end of 2014.
NCR said, through its Total Premise Services, institutions in India can turn to thencompany as a single contact for the maintenance and repair of multi-vendor technology found within a branch, retail store or an airport including ATMs, personal computers, kiosks, terminals and voice and data networks.

NCR said it will leverage its dedicated Managed Services centre and extensive services foot-print across 260 service support centers in India, covering 4,500 contact points with 700 engineers on ground and a dedicated customer care centre.
“CIO’s today are under significant pressure to deliver a exceptional customer experience while maintaining operational efficiency. NCR’s Total Premise Services enable institutions to consolidate service providers typically delivering savings of 10-15 percent,” said Jaivinder Gill, managing director, NCR India.
“The introduction of Total Premise Services and leading service innovation is part of our strategic goal to grow our business in India by introducing software and services to meet the needs of businesses looking for profitable growth,” said Gill.

JPMorgan Chase & Co lost $15 billion in market value and a notch in its credit ratings on Friday while a chorus of regulators and politicians reacted to its surprise $2 billion trading loss by demanding stiffer oversight for the banking industry.

Republican Senator Bob Corker of Tennessee called for a hearing into the losses that the largest U.S. bank disclosed Thursday, while Securities and Exchange Commission Chairman Mary Schapiro told reporters: ‘It’s safe to say that all the regulators are focused on this.’  The debacle sparked  new fears about big banks and prompted Dallas Federal Reserve Bank President Richard Fisher, who has called for the breakup of the top five U.S. banks, to say he is worried the biggest banks do not have adequate risk management.

The fallout extended across much of the banking sector, with shares of some of Wall Street’s top names declining on Friday. Among others, Citigroup dropped 4.2 percent, Goldman Sachs fell 3.9 percent and Bank of America slipped 1.9 percent. JPMorgan was far away the worst performer, however, falling 9.3 percent on a day when some 212 million of its shares traded, the most volume in its history.

Fitch Ratings downgraded JPMorgan’s debt ratings by one notch and put all of the ratings of the bank and its subsidiaries on negative ratings watch. While Fitch saw the size of the loss as manageable, ‘the magnitude of the loss and ongoing nature of these positions implies a lack of liquidity,’ the ratings agency said. ‘It also raises questions regarding JPM’s risk appetite, risk management framework, practices and oversight; all key credit factors.’

‘Fitch believes the potential reputational risk and risk governance issues raised at JPM are no longer consistent with an ‘AA-’ rating,’ it said. Standard & Poor’s put JPMorgan and its banking units on a negative outlook, but affirmed its current ratings. Chief Executive Jamie Dimon’s reputation also took a hit. For a leader lauded for steering his bank through the fallout from the 2008 financial crisis without reporting a loss, the incident was embarrassing, especially given Dimon’s criticism of the so-called Volcker rule to ban proprietary trading by big banks.

‘We know we were sloppy. We know we were stupid. We know there was bad judgment,’ Dimon said in an interview with NBC television to be broadcast on Sunday. He said it wasn’t clear whether the bank had broken any laws or violated any rules. ‘We’ve had audit, legal, risk, compliance, some of our best people looking at all of that.’
Dimon recorded the segment to go with a wide-ranging interview he had done on Wednesday for NBC’s Sunday ‘Meet the Press’ program.
The New York Times reported that the Securities and Exchange Commission has opened a preliminary investigation into JPMorgan’s accounting practices and public disclosures about the trading loss.
In a conference call disclosing the problem on Thursday, Dimon said the $2 billion in losses could rise by a further $1 billion, and acknowledged they were linked to a London-based credit trader Bruno Iksil. Nicknamed the ‘London Whale’, Iksil amassed an outsized position which hedge funds bet against, according to a report in The Wall Street Journal in April.     The Federal Reserve Bank of New York, meanwhile, had been aware of JPMorgan’s big trading loss and is currently monitoring the situation, according to a source close to the situation.

The Fed, which is JPMorgan’s primary regulator, aims to ensure banks are sufficiently capitalized to withstand such trading mistakes, not to prevent them, the source said. The exact nature of the trading loss is still unclear, although sources said a host of asset managers, arbitrageurs and hedge funds were on the other side of the bet, viewing it as good value and a effective way to insure portions of their portfolio. Blue Mountain, a hedge fund with offices in New York and London, was among those on the other side of JPMorgan’s trade, according to two people familiar with the situation.
Dimon will undoubtedly be pressed by investors for more details about what exactly went wrong when he hosts the bank’s annual shareholder meeting on Tuesday in Tampa, Florida.

A national union on Friday urged shareholders to approve a stockholder resolution calling for an independent board chairman at JPMorgan. Dimon currently holds the chairman and CEO titles. ‘The stakes are too high to leave Jamie Dimon unsupervised,’ said Gerald McEntee, president of the American Federation of State, County & Municipal Employees, which sponsored the proposal. ‘Dimon denied that the ‘London Whale’ was making risky bets, and now that this has turned out to be a fish story, shareholders need to step in.’     Dimon had parlayed his bank’s reputation as a white knight during the financial crisis into a position as the de facto representative fighting against excessive post-crisis regulation.

‘What concerns me is risk management, size, scope,’ said Dallas Federal Reserve Bank’s Fisher answer to a question about JPMorgan’s trading loss. ‘At what point do you get to the point that you don’t know what’s going on underneath you? That’s the point where you’ve got too big.’     The trader at the center of the storm, Iksil, who graduated in engineering from the Ecole Centrale in Paris in 1991, was not available for comment. The Frenchman, and the Chief Investment Office (CIO) where he works, are known by rival credit traders for taking extremely large positions.

Friends, colleagues and fellow traders describe an unassuming man, a far cry from the brash image normally associated with traders staking huge bets in fast-moving financial markets, including derivatives. ‘He’s a really nice bloke. A quiet bloke. He’s not an arrogant trader, he’s quite the opposite. He’s very charming,’ one former colleague at JPMorgan said of Iksil, whom he said was married with ‘a couple of kids’.

A friend and former JPMorgan colleague said Iksil and his team were not carrying out so-called prop trading, where a bank makes bets with its own money, in disguise and its activities were known about at the highest levels. ‘The CIO does not do prop trading, let’s be clear on that… It involves taking positions in the form of investments, trades, credit-default swaps, or other, with the aim of rebalancing the risks of JPMorgan’s balance sheet.

‘The information comes from the very top of the bank and I do not even think that the CIO team members at Bruno’s level are given the full picture,’ the ex-colleague said.  Iksil was brought into the CIO unit to head its credit desk, an asset class it had not previously covered, a person who worked in the unit said. It built up large credit positions over several years through trades which were vetted by management and the losses now likely resulted from a combination of these trades going wrong, the person said.

The CIO desk had grown rapidly in the past five years and was given free range to trade in a whole range of financial products, the only exception being commodities, they added. The CIO is run by New York-based Ina Drew, who is Chief Investment Officer. Credit market traders said other banks have comparable functions to JPMorgan’s CIO. The French banks, Citigroup, Deutsche Bank and UBS were all cited as examples of large treasury functions that hedge credit exposures in similar ways.

‘The argument that financial institutions do not need the new rules to help them avoid the irresponsible actions that led to the crisis of 2008 is at least $2 billion harder to make today,’ U.S. Representative Barney Frank said in a statement. The Democrat co-authored the 2010 Dodd-Frank financial reform law designed to avoid a repeat of the recent credit crisis.

The precious metals moved up at the domestic bullion market today, with Silver surging by Rs 440 per kg to Rs 54,130 and Gold rose marginally by Rs 15 per ten gm to Rs 28,400 following good demand from local dealers, traders at the Bombay Bullion Association (BBA) said.

Sliding by Rs 800 per kg yesterday, Silver recovered by Rs 440 per kg to Rs 54,130 from its last close.
Gold, which was down by Rs 60 per ten gm yesterday, today increased by Rs 15 for standard gold and Rs 20 for pure gold.
Standard and Pure gold ended at Rs 28,400 and Rs 28,530 per ten gm respectively, traders added.
Following are the closing rates of spot silver and gold: Silver per kg Rs 54,130 Rs 53,690 Gold 99.5 (standard mint) Rs 28,400 Rs 28,385 Gold 99.8 (pure) Rs 28,530 Rs 28,510

With this week’s fall, the market completed straight three weeks of losing string.
The BSE benchmark Sensex collapsed by 1,080.86 points, or 6.22 per cent, and the Nifty by 361.95, or 6.84 per cent.
Selling was seen across-the-segment as all 13 sectoral indices closed in the red between 0.5 per cent and 4.67 per cent.
Shares of power, IT, metal, realty, banking and healthcare sectors bore the brunt of heavy sell-off from operators and investors and ended with losses.
Only three — Bajaj Auto, BHEL and DLF — out of the 30 Sensex-based components closed with gains.
Fall in heavyweights like RIL, Infosys, TCS, Wipro, Tata, Steel, Jindal Steel, Coal Ind, Hindalco, Sterlite Ind, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank, SBI, ITC, M&M, Tata Power, NTPC, Hero MotoCorp, Maruti Suzuki and Sun Pharma, mainly contributed to the Sensex’s fall.
The benchmark Sensex recovered its early losses on the first day of the week and rose by 82 points on fag end buying after investors cheered Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee deferring controversial General Anti-Avoidance Rules (GAAR) in Parliament to 2013/14, giving some sigh of relief to the foreign investors.
The government also halved the capital gains tax for private equity investors to 10 per cent and decided to withdraw the levy on all precious metal jewellery, branded and unbranded, with effect from 17th March, 2012 with thresholding limit for TCS (tax collection at sources) on cash purchase of jewellery will be raised to Rs 5 lakh from the present Rs 2 lakh.

“The IIP figures are disappointing… Continued weak global business sentiments are also adversely impacting recovery in domestic private investment,” Mukherjee told reporters in New Delhi on Friday.
Factory output, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), contracted in March to a five-year low of 3.5 per cent.
The IIP growth was higher at 9.4 per cent in March last year. “Domestic investment recovery remains frail… Though RBI’s monetary stance has been reversed in last policy announcement, it will take some more time for interest costs to come down,” Mukherjee said.
On an annual basis, the IIP grew by a meagre 2.8 per cent, as against 8.2 per cent in the 2010-11 fiscal.
Saying that the revival of manufacturing output in the January-March quarter was not on expected lines, Mukherjee said part of the dip in March IIP numbers is due to base factor.
Expressing “deep concern” over the IIP numbers, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma said that he would be meeting the exporters this month to analyse the impact of slowdown in global demand.
As per the official data, output of the manufacturing sector, which constitutes over 75 per cent of the index, contracted by 4.4 per cent in March, compared to growth of 11 per cent in March 2011.
Output in the capital goods sector contracted by 21.3 per cent as against a growth of 14.5 per cent in the same month last year.
Mining output too fell by 1.3 per cent in March, from a growth of 0.4 per cent in the same month a year ago.

The facility is among the largest underwriting by Euler Hermes in recent years. Euler Hermes has for the first time accorded ‘Better than Sovereign’ rating to a corporate.
Despite the challenging financial markets, the deal witnessed ~ 50pc over subscription.  The facility has a door-to-door maturity of 13 years. This deal helps diversify RIL’s funding sources and extends the maturity profile of its long term debt in a cost effective manner.
V. Srikanth, Joint Chief Financial Officer of RIL, commented “We are delighted with the support provided by Euler Hermes for this landmark financing. This deal received strong
support from international banks, particularly from German lending institutions. The better than sovereign assessment by Euler Hermes is a strong testimony of RIL’s credit standing in the international markets.”
KfW IPEX-Bank GmbH arranged the Euler Hermes cover and the following nine banks participated in the funding of the facility: KfW IPEX-Bank GmbH, Citibank N.A., Commerzbank AG, Nord LB, Banco Santander, S.A., Landesbank, Baden-Württemberg, DZ BANK AG, BHF-BANK AG, ING Bank, a Branch of ING-DiBa AG.
Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) is India’s largest private sector company on all major financial parameters with a turnover of INR 339,792 crore (USUSD 66.8 billion), cash profit of INR 31,994 crore (USUSD 6.3 billion) and net profit of INR 20,040 crore (USUSD 3.9 billion) as of March 31, 2012.

Vijay Mallya-led UB group’s United Breweries (Holdings) Ltd today said Kingfisher Airlines has ceased to be its subsidiary, but it had a significant exposure of over Rs 12,000 crore to the air carrier.

Announcing its financial results for the fourth quarter ended March 31, 2012, which saw its net profit plunging sharply by over 83% to Rs 2.10 crore, UB Holdings said that Kingfisher ceased to be a subsidiary as on February 18, 2012, after the carrier alloted shares against optionally convertible debentures to certain entities.
Noting that it has given significant guarantees on behalf of its subsidiaries and associate companies, UB Holdings said its exposure to Kingfisher Airlines totalled Rs 12,215.18 crore as on March 31, 2012.
The company’s exposure relating to Kingfisher Airlines is under various accounts including corporate guarantees to banks.
“The company has significant exposure on various counts to Kingfisher Airlines as on March 31, 2012. These include investment in equity/preference capital at Rs 2,118.48 crore, corporate guarantees to banks/aircraft lessors at Rs 8,925.86 crore,” the filing said.
Total exposure include “advances at Rs 1,029.75 crore and other receivables Rs 141.09 crore”, it said.
“Certain corporate guarantees have been invoked and Kingfisher Airlines is under negotiation in this regard with the beneficiaries,” the filing added.
As on December 31, 2011, UB Holdings’ stake in Kingfisher stood at 40.1%, but it declined to 34.55% on February 18, 2012 after an increase in the airline’s equity base pursuant to issue of shares to some entities in lieu of certain convertible bonds.
As per the latest shareholding pattern available with the BSE, UB Holdings’ stake in Kingfisher has declined further to 29.39% as on April 24, 2012. The entire holding of UB Holdings in Kingfisher is as such pledged, the BSE data shows.
UB Holdings further said that the development of a luxury residential building ‘Kingfisher Towers-Residences at UB City’ is under progress and it has entered into agreements to sell part of this project.
The agreements have been reached with prospective buyers for sale of six units of 8,321 square feet at the project, where UB Holdings’ share is 4,18,388 square feet.
UB Holdings further said that its investment in subsidiaries have been considered as long term strategic investments and diminution in their market value, though significant is considered temporary in nature.
The company said guarantee commission has been accrued based on contractual obligation, although the recovery could take a longer period of time than what was anticipated.
UB Holdings has been giving significant guarantees on behalf of subsidiaries and other associated companies and advances to subsidiaries. No amount has so far devolved on the company, the filing said.

Nokia today announced a strategic tie-up  with Vodafone India and Bharti Airtel, the two leading GSM mobile operators, offering integrated billing solutions.

Under the agreement Vodafone and Airtel subscribers could now download a plethora of top local and global paid content on Nokia’s mobile application store.
They could also pay for their downloads as part of their monthly mobile phone bills or have the amount deducted from the pre paid balance company sources here informed.    Nokia Store India currently sees more than 60 million downloads a month. Currently consumers have the option of purchasing premium content via credit cards.
According to Mr Viral Oza, Director Marketing, Nokia India, Nokia was focused on providing relevant and useful content to the consumers. ‘ With the number of monthly downloads at 60 million and still growing, we believe our partnership with Vodafone and Airtel will provide Indian customers easy access to paid content on the Nokia Store.’ Highlighting other benefits of the partnership, Mr Sanjoy Mukerji, Chief Commercial Officer, Vodafone India, said the new venture would further strengthen their joint mission to drive mobile internet adoption and offer enriched services to the loyal consumers.
Also speaking on the occasion, Chief Marketing Officer, Bharti Airtel, N Rajaram said,the partnership would help increase usage of Mobile Internet services in India. It would also provide access to premium Apps and Games from across the globe,thereby enriching the customer experience.

The introduction of auctioning would help the government to allocate coal blocks in a transparent way. An initial CAG report had recently estimated that the government incurred Rs 10.67 lakh crore by allocating 155 coal blocks without auction between 2004-2009 to private and public sector companies.
Out of the identified 54 blocks, Patil said, 16 blocks with 7.27 billion tonnes reserves have been identified for state-owned companies.
Another 16 blocks with 8.16 billion tonnes reserves have been earmarked for power generation companies to be selected through tariff-based bidding.
The remaining 22 coal blocks with 2.79 billion tonnes reserves would be given to different other firms which would be selected through auctions.
“These coal blocks are located in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Chattisgarh, Odisha, Jharkhand, West Bengal, Madhya Pradesh and Maharashtra,” he said.
To a separate question, Patil said Mahanadi Coalfields, a subsidiary of Coal India, has agreed in-principle to set up a hospital and a medical college at Angul in Odisha with Rs 200 crore investment.
“The land identified for setting of the hospital includes forest land, which requires the clearance from the ministry of forest and environment and the government of Odisha. MCL has already initiated requisite action with the Odisha government for forest clearance and subsequent acquisition of land,” he said.
However, he did not give any time-line for the hospital to start as it would depend upon the progress of construction that can be kicked off only after getting clearances.

Smart TVs are also the latest battleground for technology giants like Apple Inc, Samsung Electronics Co Ltd and Lenovo Group Ltd, each of which is trying to capture the eyeballs and wallets of consumers hungry for content displayed in the comfort of their home in 3D on a high-definition screen.     The latest entry in the market was unveiled in Beijing by Lenovo on Tuesday, where the world’s second-largest PC maker showcased its 55-inch K91 smart TVs to attendees who were reading Sina microblogs, playing simulated tennis and watching the movie ‘Inception’ on demo models.
While relatively established in other parts of the world, smart TVs have been slow to catch on in China because of restrictions on content and the concept itself is relatively new. The K-series is Lenovo’s first smart TV and the company decided to launch it on its home turf because it said it would be easier to negotiate content deals in China.  ‘We been very busy this spring sowing seeds for the future,’ Lenovo’s CEO and chairman, Yang Yuanqing, said during the launch. ‘Lenovo not only wants to be a leading PC vendor, it also wants to be a global leader in providing Internet consumer devices.’
Lenovo may have to play catch-up in the rest of the world as tech heavyweights Samsung and Apple power ahead with their own offerings. Another Korean firm, LG Electronics Inc, the world’s No.2 TV maker, plans to launch Internet-enabled TV based on Google’s platform in the United States in May.
‘Whatever Apple does, it sets the trend for some other PC makers,’ said Vincent Chen, an analyst at Yuanta Securities in Taipei. ‘For Lenovo, the smart TV is a good strategy for it to consolidate its market share in China.   However, content will be the biggest obstacle for Lenovo’s smart TVs to be sold outside of China.’
Lenovo, which has been diversifying into making its Lephone smartphones and Lepad tablet PCs, derived more than 40 percent of its total nine-month sales of $22 billion in 2011 from China. Analysts said Lenovo had been dominant in the traditional PC sector, but its foray into smartphones, tablet PCs and now smart TVs, has not been as successful. The launch of its smart TVs will unlikely have an immediate boost on Lenovo’s earnings in coming quarters since it is only being sold in China. By 2015, smart TVs will make up about half of total TVs shipped globally, Lenovo executives said.
Lenovo’s smart TV, which comes in four models with prices ranging from 6,499 yuan ($1,032) to 14,999 yuan, uses a Qualcomm Inc processor and runs Google Inc’s Android 4.0 operating system. Lenovo plans to start selling its smart TV this month at electronics retailer Suning stores in nine cities: Beijing, Tianjin, Shanghai, Nanjing, Suzhou, Hangzhou, Ningbo, Guangzhou and Shenzhen.  The company is already selling a console that could be paired with the new smart TV. The company’s Eedoo unit in April launched the CT510 console that will compete with Microsoft Inc’s XBox Kinect and Sony Corp’s Playstation. However, Lenovo said its CT510 device is primarily an exercise and entertainment device since sales of so-called gaming consoles are banned in China. Lenovo’s shares fell 4.2 percent on Tuesday, underperforming the main Hang Seng Index’s 0.4 percent loss.

Norway’s Telenor distanced itself further from the Indian market on Tuesday, excluding the country from its 2012 forecasts for the first time after licensing problems there led to massive writedowns that weighed on its quarterly results.

State-controlled Telenor posted a quarterly net loss of 390 million crown including minority interests after writing off the remaining 3.9 billion crown value of its Indian unit Uninor. That compared with a profit of 3 billion a year earlier.
The group’s troubles in India contrasted with an improvements in several key markets that had been struggling with margin pressure.  India’s Supreme Court earlier this year ordered the cancellation of 122 telecoms licences after a corruption-tainted licensing round.  The proposed fee for a replacement licence is prohibitively high. “This (fee) package will make it almost impossible for incumbents like Telenor to stay in India,” Chief Executive Jon Fredrik Baksaas said on Tuesday.
Analysts have welcomed Telenor’s possible exit as the low-margin market has been a drag on the firm’s earnings for years, and winding up the operation would be a short-term boost to both earnings and the stock.
“When they exclude India from their guidance, that’s a clear signal that unless something changes, they’ll exit,” Espen Torgersen, an analyst at Carnegie said.
“On the operations, it’s difficult to imagine a more ‘in line’ result,’ Torgersen added.
Telenor’s shares offered little reaction, trading 0.2% higher at 0710 GMT, as most of the Indian troubles have already been priced in, analysts said.
Telenor’s earnings before interest, taxes, depreciation and amortization (EBITDA), which exclude the one-off India charge, rose 2.9% to 7.62 billion crowns, coming in not far from forecasts for 7.79 billion crowns.
In Norway, where Telenor had earlier struggled with margin pressure, operations improved, while some of its Asian operations were also above forecasts, analysts said.
Still, the company’s outlook will be uncertain until its troubles in India, and to a lesser extent in Russia, are resolved.
“We remain positive on Telenor’s operations; however we still have concerns that the market is too optimistic on India and Vimpelcom, where we see a risk of negative news flow in the short term,” Citi said in a note to clients.
In Russia, the anti-trust regulator has sought to overturn Telenor’s recent purchase of shares in mobile operator Vimpelcom <VIP.N>, charging the Norwegian telecoms group acted illegally.
The move, the latest twist in a long-running corporate battle, would undo the deal through which Telenor took back partial control of Vimpelcom from Altimo, part of Russian oligarch Mikhail Fridman’s Alfa-Group, to give it a greater say over strategy.
Based on the new guidance without India, full-year revenue is expected to grow at a rate “above 4%” after a previous target for “above 5%” including India.
Telenor did not provide comparative guidance figures but said “on comparable basis, the positive outlook is maintained.”

New Delhi: Bowing to pressure, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee Monday announced a slew of measures to provide relief to the jewellery sector and postponed implementation of the general anti-avoidance rules (GAAR) by one year, but offered no concessions to Vodafone involved in tax dispute.

Moving the Finance Bill, 2012 for consideration and passage in the Lok Sabha, Mukherjee halved the capital gains tax for private equity investors to 10 percent and relaxed the norms for arrest of persons involved in violation of Customs Act.
“The government has decided to withdraw the levy (one percent excise duty) on all precious metal jewellery, branded or unbranded, with effect from March 17, 2012,” he announced, bowing to demand within and outside the House.

He said the threshold limit for TCS (tax collection at source) on cash purchase of jewellery will be raised to Rs 5 lakh from the present Rs 2 lakh.
However, the Minister said, the threshold limit for cash purchase on bullion will be retained at Rs 2 lakh. Bullion will not include any coin or other article weighing 10 gm or less, he added, setting the tone for the debate on the crucial bill.
As regards the GAAR, which has evoked sharp criticism from foreign investors, the Finance Minister said, “to provide more time to both tax payers and tax administration to address all issues, I propose to defer the applicability of the GAAR provisions by one year…(it) will now apply to income of financial year 2013-14 and subsequent years.”
At the same time, Mukherjee said, he proposed to make some amendments to the GAAR provisions. These amendments including shifting of onus of proof to the revenue department from the tax payers, appointment of independent member in the GAAR panel and permitting investors, domestic and overseas, to seek ruling from the Authority for Advance Ruling (AAR).
In order to provide “greater clarity and certainty” in GAAR related issues, he said, a committee has been set up. It has held several rounds of discussions with various stakeholders including foreign institutional investors and will submit its report by May 31.
He made it clear that there would no relief to Vodafone- type overseas deals involving capital gains tax on sale of domestic assets and the proposed retrospective changes in the Income Tax Act would apply.
“I would like to confirm that clarificatory amendments do not override the provisions of the Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) which India has with 82 countries. It (retrospective changes) would impact those cases where the transactions has been routed through low tax or no tax countries with whom India does not have a DTAA,” he said.
Mukherjee did not make any specific mention but was clearly referring to the tax controversy surrounding USD 11.2 billion Vodafone deal which was signed in Cayman Islands in 2007. India does not have a DTAA with Cayman Islands.
Vodafone has won the Rs 11,000 crore tax case in the Supreme Court, but after the passage of the Finance Bill, the government can initiate proceedings to recover the tax.

SC to consider total ban on polly bags
Agencies
New Delhi: The Supreme Court Monday said it would consider whether to completely ban the use of plastic in the interests of animals and the environment.
An apex court bench headed by Justice GS Singhvi said this during the hearing of a PIL (public interest litigation), drawing attention of the court to the plight of animals, which were allegedly swallowing plastic with their food.
The PIL was moved by Karuna Society for Animal and Nature.
The court issued notice to the central and state governments and the plastic manufacturers on the PIL.
The court suggested that either the use of plastic be banned or the manufacturers should pick up the used plastic and re-cycle it.

In March this year, India had invoked a law permitting Hyderabad-based Natco Pharma to manufacture and sell cancer-treatment drug Nexavar at a price over 30 times lower than charged by its patent-holder Bayer Corporation.
“We strongly disagree with the conclusions of the Patent Controller of India and have appealed his order on May 4, 2012 with the Intellectual Property Appellate Board,” a Bayer Spokesperson said in a statement.
“We will rigorously continue to defend our intellectual property rights which are a prerequisite for bringing innovative medicines to patients,” the spokesperson added.
An order, which would be of great relief to the kidney and liver cancer patients, was issued by India Patents Office as a ‘Compulsory Licence’ under Section 84 of the Indian Patent Act, which is in compliance with the TRIPS agreement of the World Trade Organisation.
In his order, Controller of Patents P H Kurian had said the move followed Bayer not doing enough to scale up the sale of the drug despite getting patent for it in India in 2008.
Natco has been allowed to sell the drug at a price not exceeding Rs 8,880 for a pack of 120 tablets required for a month’s treatment as compared to a whopping Rs 2.80 lakh per month charged by Bayer for its patented Nexavar drug.
The German firm said the challenges faced by the Indian healthcare system have little or nothing to do with patents on pharmaceutical products as all products on India’s essential drug list are not patented.
“Rather, the order of the Patent Controller of India damages the international patent system and endangers pharmaceutical research,” the company said.
The company said the limited period of marketing exclusivity made possible by patents ensures that the costs associated with the research and development of innovative medicines can be recovered.
In March, 2010 Bayer had also filed a patent infringement suit against domestic drug firm Cipla at the High Court in New Delhi over Nexavar.
The next hearing is set for August 14, 2012 to direct the further schedule for the proceedings, it said.
Last week, Cipla had slashed the prices by up to 76% of its generic drugs, used in treating cancers of brain, lung and kidney.

The total income rose to Rs 4,884.7 crore in the quarter ended March 31, from Rs 3,774.1 core in the corresponding period a year ago, registering an increase of 29%.
The board proposed a dividend of Rs 11 per share on the face value of Rs 2 each for the financial year 2011-12.
For the entire fiscal ended March 31, 2012, the company reported a 17% rise in net profit at Rs 4,122.6 crore, compared to Rs 3,534.9 crore in 2010-11. During the year, total income improved to Rs 17,332.9 crore from Rs 12,878.9 core in 2010-11.
Net Interest Margin of HDFC stood at 4.4% at the end of March 2012.
Loan approvals during the year were Rs 90,154 crore as compared to Rs 75,185 crore in the previous year, representing a growth of 20%.
At the same time, loan disbursements during the year grew by 18% to Rs 71,113 crore as against Rs 60,314 crore in the previous year.
As at March 31, 2012, the loan book stood at Rs 1,40,875 crore as against Rs 1,17,127 crore in the previous year, an increase of 20%. During the year, HDFC sold loans amounting to Rs 4,978 crore.
With regard to asset quality, gross non-performing loans stood at Rs 1,069 crore at the end of 2011-12. This is equivalent to 0.74% of the portfolio.  On consolidated basis, the net profit of the bank increased 21% in 2011-12 to Rs 5,462.5 crore, against Rs 4,528.4 crore in the previous financial year.

Speaking at the launch, Airtel India CEO Sanjay Kapoor said the company currently had nine million broadband subscribers and it had targeted to achieve a subscriber base of 100 million by the year 2014-15.
He said Airtel’s revenues from data services had assumed significant proportions and it has become the fastest growing line item in the company’s revenue stream.
‘It is multiplying at a fast rate both on 2G and 3G. On wireless side 14.5 per cent of our revenue is non voice. But in totality 23-24 per cent of our revenues will come from data,’ he said.
He said there was no threat of mass exodus by 3G to 4G as they are complimentary services.
‘One should not look at them as substituting one with another. 3G services play value adding role for customers who  use smart devices, data application and voice applications. ‘But customers who are looking at lap tops, computers and are wanting to leverage the wi-fi or high speed wireless internet, for them 4G is offered,’ he explained. ‘The sort of speed 4G is able to offer, there is no other technology on the offer with such speed. Speed is a killer app anywhere in the world,’ he said.
He said the data usage was exploding and is doubling in  India every year. It is expected to grow to nearly 3.6 hexabytes by 2014.
Airtel was the only brand that provides the entire spectrum of broadband services including 2G, 3G, 4G, he claimed.
Mr Kapoor refused to react on the possible increase in  cell telephony tariff following the re-auction of 2G spectrum. He said it was an industry matter and it had come out with its views last week.
‘We are meeting the telecom minister Kapil Sibal in  Delhi tomorrow and you will hear more about it,’ he added.