Coal India to seek revised MDO contract interest next week

 
Coal India is to come out with a revised tender next week for request for qualification (RFQ) for mine development in seven projects.

"Based on discussions with participants we have modified and refined the terms of RFQ for inviting Mine Developer and Operator(MDO). We will release the tender next week," Coal India chairman S Narsing Rao said.

He was speaking on the sidelines of a seminar organised by The Mining, Geological and Metallurgical Institute.

"There will be seven projects (two underground and five open cast mines) in the revised MDO tender with total peak production capacity of 17.5 million tonne per annum," he said.

Rao said among the terms which were changed were relaxation on qualification for greater participation.

Rao said CIL was aiming to offer the MDO contract by March 2014.

In April, government had said two Australian companies had shown interest in developing Coal India's opencast mines and four British and Chinese companies in the PSU's four underground mines.

Anil Ambani's I-T account hacked by CA student

Country's leading industrialist Anil Ambani's e-filing of Income-Tax returns account was allegedly hacked by a 21-year-old chartered accountant (CA) student from Hyderabad, police said on Friday..

Police said the account was hacked with an intention to know his income and tax amount paid over a period of time.

The young woman, who has been doing her chartered accountancy articleship at Manoj Daga & Company in Hyderabad, was booked under relevant sections of Information Technology Act on September 7, after a preliminary investigation and faces arrest in the case.

"The girl hacked Ambani's e-filing of Income-Tax returns account with an intention to check the industrialist's income and tax amount paid by him over the period of time. After hacking the account of the chairman of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), she accessed the details of his income, tax amount paid, PAN card number and even changed twice the password of his e-account on the IT website," an official involved in the probe said.

According to police, a chartered accountant firm in Mumbai, which files 54-year-old Ambani's individual tax details, was intimated through an email from I-T department on June 26 that as per request, the industrialist's e-return account had been changed. Again on July 12, the firm received another email stating that second time the password had been changed.

As suspicion grew, the ADAG group representative complained to Joint Police Commissioner (Crime) Himanshu Roy, who directed cyber cell inspector Mukund Pawar to probe the case.

"As preliminary probe suggested it as a clear case of cyber crime since it involved hacking into the e-return account, a case was registered on September 7. Probe revealed that the account was hacked from Manoj Daga & Company's computer following which a team rushed there and upon questioning, the girl confessed to have hacked into Ambani's account," Pawar said.

The server has been seized, Pawar said adding that, "we have all technical and physical evidence against her. The accused, who is in Hyderabad, will have to face arrest."

The offence was bailable and she will be arrested soon, another police official said.

IIFL to raise Rs 1,050 crore through NCDs

India Infoline Finance (IIFL), the subsidiary of non-banking financial services firm India Infoline, will issue non-convertible debentures (NCDs) to raise Rs 1,050 crore for business expansion.

"We will issue Secured Redeemable NCD with a printed value of Rs 1,000 crore on September 17. This public issue will close on October 4," IIFL Chairman Mukesh Kumar Singh said.

The size of this NCD is Rs 525 crore, but in case of over-subscription, its size can be expanded up to Rs 1,050 crore, he said.

Under the public issue, investments can be made for a period of three and five years with the money generated to be used for bolstering IIFL's expansion schemes, Singh said.

He said that with the money, the company will expand its business related to the granting of loans against mortgage of gold and immovable assets.

"Besides, there is a huge demand for home loans in smaller towns and the company would try to fulfil this requirement," Singh said.

IIFL is also focusing on schemes to provide loans for the purchase of commercial vehicles as this sector has a lot of scope for expansion, he added.

Indian rupee climbs 90 paise against US dollar, at 4-week high

The Indian rupee strengthened by 90 paise against the US dollar on Monday, to trade at four-week high of 62.58 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market, on increased capital inflows and dollar selling by exporters.

The Indian currency had settled at 63.48 against the Greenback on Friday, up marginally by two paise over previous day's close.

Traders said apart from selling of the American currency by exporters and banks, a higher opening at the domestic equity market and dollar's weakness against other overseas currencies, after Larry Summers, the man tipped to be named Ben Bernanke's successor as Fed chairman, withdrew from the race, also supported the rupee.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex soared over 200 points in morning trade to cross the 20,000-level.

Boss at Big Blue

Not long ago, Vanitha Narayanan had the time to pluck rosemary and basil from her kitchen garden at her home in the United States to cook dinner for her family every evening. Italian, Oriental, West Indian, North Indian and South Indian - she could handle any cuisine. But dinner wasn't just a chore for Narayanan - it was a form of relaxation, after her demanding day job at International Business Machines (IBM).

Things changed after she landed in India in 2009. Her high-profile roles as Sales and Distribution Leader and then Managing Partner for Global Business Services left her little time to even watch television food shows, let alone cook. Narayanan has more than enough on her plate as IBM India's new Managing Director, a role that has propelled  her into the league of just a handful of women to head a technology company in the country.
Narayanan's work-life balance may be off  - her day is packed with back-to-back meetings - but she isn't complaining. IBM has done well in the past few years: the company does not break up revenues by country or headcount, but sources say it employs about 150,000 people. That makes it the largest multinational employer in the country. Narayanan has shepherded the company beyond its traditional strengths in telecom. "In the last few years, I have taken the IBM story to many industries beyond telecom - banking, financial services and insurance, industrial and retail segments," she says.

Since she moved to India, IBM has reported significant wins in insurer Birla Sun Life, Asian Paints and Godrej Consumer Products, among others. Narayanan applied her learning from telecom to other sectors. "Before I came here, I thought of myself as a telecom person - I spent 20 years in that industry. For the first time, I have started working with companies in manufacturing and industries I have not worked with before," she says.

The 54-year-old IBM India chief has risen from the ranks. She began her career at the company as a trainee, servicing telecom customer Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in Missouri in the US. She spent 10 years working with this client. "It has defined my IBM career. It helped me lay a foundation - you respect the industry of your client and sometimes, the client is your best teacher," says Narayanan, a management graduate specialising in management information systems. "Apart from a job in a department store, IBM is my only job. It was the only place where I wrote a professional resume and was interviewed."

Steadily, she climbed the corporate ladder to become Global Vice President for IBM's telecom solutions offerings and in 2006 moved to Shanghai to run the communications sector business for IBM's Asia Pacific Unit. India happened next. And it has been the ultimate feather in her professional cap, considering the size of domestic business, the number of people it employs and IBM India's strategic importance from an outsourcing perspective. "IBM wanted somebody with an appreciation for the market, for what it needed from a local perspective. I brought my experience with IBM, in global and local roles. Plus, they had me here for the last four years learning the market and running parts of the business," says Narayanan.

FULL COVERAGE: The Most Powerful Women in Indian Business

But Narayanan's familiarity with Big Blue's India business dates back to 2001 when she was asked to help start a local telecom practice. She did a "special project" and put together a team that created history. IBM bagged a landmark $750-million outsourcing deal for 10 years with Bharti Airtel in 2004, a contract now valued at $2.5 billion.

Despite her meteoric rise, Narayanan comes across as extremely modest. She says she doesn't think she is powerful - she prefers the word 'influential'. She also struggles to pinpoint a defining moment in her career. "I don't have these night-and-day moments," she says. "My first decade was about appreciation for an industry and a client. The second decade was about bringing value, about building organizational capability. The third decade is about leadership in different cultures and environments."
 
Narayanan pauses for a while before talking about her leadership style. "You should ask my team," she says. Colleagues say Narayanan is both collaborative and decisive at the same time. "She is no push-over," says Jeby Cherian, Vice President and Managing Partner of IBM Global Business Services, India/South Asia. "But she can build trust very easily. "

Gold import squeeze hits jewellers hard ahead of festive season

Finance Minister P. Chidambaram and his fellow wonks will be all smiles with plunging gold imports in the country, but the shortage of bullion ahead of the festival and wedding season could be a boomerang they had not accounted for.

Gold imports were just about 3.5 tonnes in August - about a tenth from year-ago period. This is against an average 40 tonnes of gold a month that the domestic jewellery business consumes, says C. Vinod Hayagriv, managing director at one of India's oldest jewelers, C. Krishniah Chetty & Sons in Bangalore.

Leading jewellery retailers are worried.

"There is a short supply of gold in the market, and we are managing hand-to-mouth," says Bhaskar Bhat, Managing Director at Titan Co. Ltd, which owns the Tanishq jewellery chain of more than 150 stores. "We are somehow managing, but I can say we have less of a problem compared to many others in the market."

"I think we are going to see a big shortage in about a fortnight's time as we get close to the festival season," says Harmesh Arora, spokesman at Bombay Bullion Association Ltd.

Festival season sales in India start typically around end-September just before the Durga Puja celebrations - beginning October 9 this year - and go on until after Diwali, falling on November 3 this year. Wedding season runs between October and early January.

What caused the sharp decline were a series of measures by the finance ministry and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to rein in gold imports, the second highest imported item in 2012-13 after crude oil and petroleum products.  One rule change had a condition imposed on jewellers or banks that they would have to export a fifth of their gold imports. The resultant confusion and absence of any clarification from the government side led to a sharp decline in imports.

In routine course, jewellers buy bullion from banks, which import and sell, but the export rule has crimped the supply from banks. "We are not able to import because we cannot pay upfront for gold, and take the exposure [to the dollar on exports]," says P.G. Jayakumar, CEO at Dhanlaxmi Bank.

Gold coin sales have almost come to an end after All India Gems & Jewellery Trade Federation, a grouping of jewellers, recently advised its members to suspend their sale.

"We are gradually closing down our gold coin business because we are not able to  import gold," says P.E. Mathai, CEO at Muthoot Precious Metals Corporation, citing the new regulations. "There is a shortage of gold in the market for those who follow ethical business practices."

Bullion Association's Arora says what has met part of the demand is people who bought gold at lower rates before selling back to jewellers taking advantage of the price rally. Twenty-four-karat gold is trading above Rs 31,000 for 10 grams. Part of the gold from Indian households is getting recycled easing the supply to some extent, but traders say this will taper after some time.

Jewellers, off the record, say bullion is available in the grey market at prices lower by Rs 250-300 per gram as they have been smuggled in but that is not an option for the large jewellers who source their gold only through legal channels.

According to data from industry body World Gold Council, which tracks gold imports by the calendar year, India imported 859.7 tonnes of gold in 2012. To be sure, gold imports in the past have been higher at 958.2 tonnes in 2010 and 969 tonnes in 2011. But what hurt the Indian economy in 2012 and first two quarters of calendar year 2013 was the double whammy of rising gold prices and an appreciating dollar.

India's current account deficit (CAD), or the difference in imports and exports net of remittances and transfers, stood at nearly $88 billion in 2012-13, or 4.8 per cent of gross domestic product, primarily because of surging gold imports by value. The government target for CAD, $78.2 billion in 2011-12, in 2013-14 is $70 billion.

Going by import numbers of August and September, the government may be on target to reduce gold imports, even if there isn't supporting evidence of demand tapering on the ground. In January-June of 2013, gold imports were 553.1 tonnes - averaging over 92 tonnes a month. In July and August, it fell sharply to an average of 23.75 tonnes a month. The trend of lower imports in August is expected to continue in September also, according to gold industry sources. They expect the government to ease rules in October if the CAD improves a little bit.

The World Gold Council predicts some stability in the days to come. "We hope to see the situation to ease during the festival season with the government issuing the necessary clarifications on gold imports," says P.R. Somasundaram its managing director, India.

RBI governor Raghuram Rajan’s report to be lynchpin of financial sector reforms

NEW DELHI: Next up on India's reforms agenda is the financial sector. After retail, aviation and fuel prices, the government is getting ready to roll out the long-overdue, next generation of measures aimed at freeing up the country's financial sector and a framework for this could be in place as early as next month.

The plan to kick off the process, stalled for many years, was discussed in the run-up to the appointment of Raghuram Rajan as Reserve Bank of India governor and has the highest political sanction. The reforms blueprint will lean heavily on the two high-profile reports already available with the government, one of them authored by Rajan himself.

"We will have a framework ready soon and will take it to the Financial Stability and Development Council (FSDC) for deliberation before the measures are rolled out," a senior finance ministry official told ET. 

Financial sector reforms took a back seat after the global meltdown in the belief that India's conservatism had saved it from the worst effects, which which wasn't the right lesson to draw from the experience, Rajan had said in his 2008 report on financial sector reforms, 'A Hundred Small Steps'.

The policy paralysis that gripped the government in the first three years of the UPA-2 administration (2009-12) also contributed to the lack of progress on changes in the sector even as the government swore on the need to improve financial inclusion.

P Chidambaram's return as the finance minister in August last year was followed by a series of measures to break the policy logjam — fuel price reforms, the opening up of multi-brand retail, the establishment of the Cabinet Committee on Investment. It's now the turn of the financial sector. "The idea is to pick out 10-12 recommendations that could be taken up," the official added.

Drawing up the blueprint for change shouldn't be too onerous as two committees have conducted an exhaustive study of what needs to be done.

The High-Powered Expert Committee (HPEC) on making Mumbai an international financial centre called in 2007 for "deregulating, liberalising and globalising, all parts of the Indian financial system at a much faster rate".

Rajan's 2008 report cited above spoke of the "need to deregulate certain areas of the financial sector" and "focus on creating necessary institutions, and closing important gaps in regulation".

The Reserve Bank has sought suggestions on the banking structure in India in response to a discussion paper released last month. That could yield more ideas for the reforms exercise.

The Rajan committee had suggested more small private banks, disinvestment in small, underperforming state-run banks, the freeing of branch licensing rules, and the greater participation of foreigners in Indian financial markets.

Rajan, reputed as one of the few who warned about trouble ahead of the 2008 financial crisis, has already set the ball rolling in a way with a flurry of announcements on the day he took over as the RBI governor — September 4. He also said that new bank licences could be issued in January. India had first raised the prospect of new banks in 2010. Financial sector reforms are badly needed, experts said.

"This is good news... financial sector reforms in India are long overdue," said Jahangir Aziz, senior Asia economist and India chief economist at JPMorgan Chase. The "past five years we did not touch anything for the fear of doing something unintended".

Aziz also cited the widespread belief in India that the country was ring-fenced in 2008 by the restrictions and controls it had in place and said there had been no empirical study of the cost that taxpayers had to bear.

India's interest rates shot up to among the highest in emerging market economies after the crisis, besides which RBI's foreign exchange losses have been substantial, he said. Even when it comes to financial inclusion, competition is needed to ensure that it happens, he said.