Farmers protest against land acquisition by Maruti
Farmers from Hansalpur village, the proposed site for the upcoming Maruti plant, on Tuesday staged a day-long dharna outside the collector’s office in the city. They were protesting against the construction of a wall on the disputed 207-acre land. The dispute is over ownership of land, which, the villagers claim, was taken away from them at a throwaway price and given to Maruti. The case is expected to come up for hearing in the Gujarat High Court on Thursday, March 13.
2G, 3G rates will converge in future, says Vodafone
Betting big on 3G adoption with the increasing penetration of smartphone users, Vodafone India has said 2G and 3G tariffs will converge in near future, although there is little scope for further cut in 3G rates. As per the company, when it launched 3G services in 2010-11, the 3G tariffs were 6-7 times higher than 2G but this difference has now been reduced to just 1.5 times. “We brought down the 3G data prices around four months back and we except 2G and 3G prices will converge in near future,” Vodafone India Business Head (Delhi) Subrat Padhi said here.
Two Godrej group cos ink pact for housing project
Realty major Godrej Properties has signed an agreement with group firm Godrej & Boyce to develop a premium housing project on the latter?s land parcel at Vikhroli in Mumbai. Godrej Properties, part of the Godrej Group, would act as development manager and get 10% of the total revenue generated from this project as service fee. In a statement, Godrej Properties announced it has entered into ?an agreement with Godrej & Boyce to develop a new project on the latter’s property on the Eastern Express Highway, Vikhroli, Mumbai.?
Car sales to grow by up to 9% in 2014, says JD Power
Car sales in India would be back on track and grow by up to 9% in the current year with leading manufacturers such as Maruti Suzuki and Hyundai Motor introducing new models to expand market share, global marketing information services company JD Power said. An expected improvement in buying sentiment after the general elections would also lift the car sales, it said. The introduction of new models, as well as improvement in buying sentiment after the general elections, would play a vital role in bringing back growth in the Indian passenger car market, the market research firm said.
MOIL net up 8.35% at R391 crore in Apr-Feb
State-run manganese ore producer MOIL, recently upgraded to a Schedule A company, clocked an 8.35% rise in profit after tax at R390.53 crore in the first 11 months of the current fiscal. The company, formerly known as Manganese Ore, had reported R360.44 crore net profit in the corresponding period last fiscal, an official source said. Total revenue of the country’s largest manganese ore producer also went up by over 8% to R1,112.12 crore compared to R1,027.11 crore a year ago.
Mindtree, SITA sign deal for finance platform
IT firm Mindtree has inked a deal with SITA for providing application support and evolutionary maintenance services for the strategic finance system (SFS) platform. SITA specialises in providing IT and telecommu-nication services to the air transport industry. The SFS, based on Oracle’s eBusiness suite, consolidates all internal and external finance processing across the globe for 200 countries, encompassing 310 entities, Mindtree said.
Unitech sells 10 acres for R130 crore to repay debt
Realty major Unitech has sold almost 10 acres of land in Bangalore and Mysore for about R100-130 crore as part of its strategy to repay debt. Unitech currently has debt of about R6,200 crore, including R150-200 crore from Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC). There have been reports that LIC had declared Unitech a ?wilful defaulter? and that the insurance firm has taken ?notional possession? of a slice of Unitech’s 350-acre land parcel in Noida.
DLF gets final tranche from IDFC for IT park
DLF Home Developers (DHDL), a wholly owned subsidiary of DLF, has received its final tranche of payment of R93.5 crore on the sale of balance shares of Galaxy Mercantile, a joint venture company of DHDL, IDFC and others, DLF informed the BSE on Tuesday. In November 2011, IDFC had contracted to acquire 100% stake in the JV company owning a 1.3-million-square-feet IT park in Sector 62, Noida. The above transaction is in line with DLF’s objective of divesting its non-core assets, the company said.
Business plane cos seek separate framework
Business Aircraft Operator?s Association (BAOA), a lobby body for the business aviation industry in India, has called for a separate regulatory framework for general aviation to remove long-prevailing bottlenecks for the sector to grow in the country. Taking into account retarded growth, BAOA pressed on the need for a favourable environment for operations through compliances being brought on a par with scheduled airlines.
