Home loan rates are back to where they were in ’99-00, just before the start of the retail boom. Two of India’s largest housing finance providers, HDFC and ICICI Bank, hiked interest rates on floa More

BELYING apprehensions of a slowdown, net direct tax collections grew by a whopping 46.95% in the first four months of the current fiscal (April-July 2008) to Rs 71,648 crore against Rs 48,765 crore More

Austral Coke has filed Rs 600-crore defamation suit against the promoters Gujarat NRE in the Bombay High Court, for maligning Austral Coke’s ongoing initial public offer. The defama More

THE Supreme Court has stayed the proceedings challenging the legality of imposition of 12.36% service tax on renting out premises. Various multiplexes, members of the Retailers Association of India, More

THE Delhi High Court has dismissed a petition by GSM players that challenged the government’s decision to allow telcos to offer mobile services under dual technology (both GSM and CDMA technology pl More

SANKATMOCHAN blasts mastermind Waliullah has been sentenced to 10 years’ rigorous imprisonment by a Lucknow court for illegal possession of a firearm. He has also been slapped a Rs 1-lakh fine. More

THE Supreme Court has ruled that extra-judicial confessions of an accused could be relied upon for convicting the person. It is not open to any court to start with a presumption that extra-judicial More

India Inc has raised a total of $2.5 billion in July this year by way of borrowings from the international markets. However, borrowings from the automatic route have almost dried up with most of the f More

The Union Cabinet gave its approval for implementation of the recommendations of the Sixth Central Pay Commission. The revised pay scales will come into effect from 1/1/2006 and revised rates of More

The Delhi High Court found senior lawyers R K Anand and I U Khan guilty of the contempt of court and debarred them from appearing in the High Court and all Delhi courts for next four months for infl More

The Union cabinet today gave its nod for the introduction of the Companies Bill 2008 in the next session of Parliament to replace the existing Companies Act, 1956 by incorporating far-reaching changes More

State-run equipment firm Bharat Heavy Electricals (Bhel) has said that it has bagged an order worth Rs 200 crore for a hydro-electric power project in Vietnam. The contract marks company’s foray int More

THE Tata Group has started integrating operations of its recently acquired British marques, Jaguar & Land Rover (JLR), under its own umbrella. INCAT, a Tata Technologies company will devel More

US INVESTMENT bank JPMorgan Chase & Co incurred losses of about $1.5 billion since July, hurt by turmoil in the credit and mortgage markets and by wider credit spreads and lower levels of liquid More

INDIAN corporates looking to raise money will now be able to reach out to their shareholders faster, with capital market regulator Sebi reducing the time line for approving a rights issue from 109 d More

Private lender ICICI Bank has entered into a $250-million agreement with Export-Import Bank of United States to finance capital goods imports of Indian companies from the US. The agreement, which is More

Piramal Life Sciences has said that it has received the go ahead from the drug controller to take forward its clinical trial on two of its molecules in India. "We have received notifications to carr More

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) has approved the acquisition of domestic drug maker Ranbaxy by Japan’s Daiichi Sankyo. The deal would now have to be cleared by the finance ministry a More

Indian pharma firm Lupin has acquired German generics drugmaker Hormosan for an undisclosed sum. The deal will help Lupin access Europe’s biggest generic market. The generic drug market in Germany i More

Wipro Technologies has completed the acquisition of US-based Gallagher Financial Systems (GFS), which brings into its fold around 100 people. Without disclosing the deal value, a Wipro spokesperson More

THE world’s sixth-largest steel maker Tata Steel has joined hands with Vietnam Steel and Vietnam Cement Industries Corp to set up a 4.5 million tonne steel plant in the south-east Asian country. More

Chennai-based Orchid Chemicals and Pharmaceuticals has acquired majority control in US-based drug firm Diakron Pharmaceuticals Inc, which has an exclusive license agreement for an anti-coagulant dru More

AFTER setting foot in the distribution arena with Kismat Konnection, multiplex chain Cinemax India is getting into film production. It has taken the first step towards this by signing a co-productio More

TIMES Internet Limited (TIL), a part of India’s largest media house (Times Group), has recently made a strategic investment, equivalent to 50% stake, in Webnotions Books India Private Ltd. Webnoti More

Panacea Biotec is learnt to have bagged a $35-million drug supply order from Unicef to supply pentavalent vaccines, the first Indian company to get such a contract, reports Khomba Singh. Pentavalent More

MUMBAI-BASED drug major Lupin has acquired nearly 35% stake in Generic Health Pty, one of the top generic pharmaceutical companies in Australia, for an undisclosed amount.   More

Ansal Properties and Infrastructure said that Merrill Lynch Capital Markets Espana has acquired a further 1.03% stake in the company to raise its holding to 5.96%. Shares were purchased in the secon More