Financial Chronicle Businessman of the Year

You could attribute it to the vision of one man. But that perhaps would be too hagiographic. It's as if a business entity, unshackled from the era of permits and licences, has found its feet, rising to claim its rightful place in the sun. The Tata group has added $8.3 billion to its 2008-09 revenues, taking the total to $70.8 billion, which is more than the combined might of its two nearest rivals, the Mukesh Ambani empire and the Kumar Mangalam Birla combine.

But that's not the reason why we are giving the 72 year old chairman of the Tata group, Ratan Naval Tata, the FC Businessman of the Year honorific.

The Financial Chronicle senior editorial team went through several names out of which three stood out Sunil Bharti Mittal, Anil Ambani and Anand Mahindra.

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Vijaywada realty prices rise on Telangana talk

Property prices in Vijayawada have spiked nearly 20 per cent in a month as realtors have shifted their focus to the coastal city, anticipating that it will become the new capital of Andhra Pradesh if a separate Telangana is carved out of the state.

Although both Telangana and Samaiky andhra agitators are still fighting over the status of Hyderabad, many builders are showing a keen interest on construction activity in Vijayawada, said Giridhara Prasad Gupta, a real estate businessman.

And this has led the prices of apartments and plots zooming northward in Vijayawada.

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Platinum shines for jewellery buffs

Efforts to provide purity assurance and buyback guarantee for platinum have gone well with jewellery buyers in India. Soaring gold prices too have worked in favour of platinum, which is seeing a 30-40 per cent year on-year growth in sales.

According to Rajesh Rajendran, trade manager (south) of Platinum Guild India, the metal is gaining wider acceptance penetrating from the metro cities to the tier II and III cities and from the uber-rich to the upward moving middle class. The trade body formed to promote the use of the metal for jewellery purposes has been conducting awareness drives in several cities and had launched a mass media campaign a few months back.

"When platinum jewellery was introduced in the country in 2002, it was available with 40 retailers in the country.

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Microsoft launches WebsiteSpark

In order to create a partner network and drive business growth for professional web development and design companies, Microsoft India on Tuesday launched a WebsiteSpark programme.

The programme provides web professionals with Microsoft software and solutions, together with related tools, training and support, to help their businesses succeed.

It also helps drive new business opportunities by connecting web professionals and hosters with an ecosystem of customers, partners and other professionals with complementary technologies.

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Karnataka introduces digital ration cards

The impact of information technology seems to have finally reached the grassroots in India as the humble ration card is getting digitised countrywide.

Karnataka is the first state to have started distributing digitised ration cards across several districts in the state. Bangalore-based Comat Technologies has taken up the 5-year project valued at Rs 95 crore.

Sudhanva Kimmane, director (Karnataka) for Comat Technologies, told Financial Chronicle that the three-phase project has covered 25 lakh consumers already and by mid-January would cover the entire state. "We are setting up permanent back offices in 200 taluks for any form of updation," he said.

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Railways plan to phase out IRCTC

The railway ministry proposes to phase out services of Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation (IRCTC) and plans to handle catering services itself.

It will also set up a new portal for online ticketing. Catering services account for 85 per cent of IRCTC's business and e-ticketing contributes 10 per cent of the railway's revenues.

A senior railway ministry official confirmed this. "Yes, the railways have expressed interest in handling catering business on their own like earlier. The ministry also wants to set up a new portal for e-ticketing that could be handled by its information technology service provider CRIS (Centre for Railway Information Systems)," the official told Financial Chronicle on the condition of anonymity.

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It would take an Avatar to save the earth from nature's fury

Imagine a scene from the upcoming James Cameron's upcoming sci-fi extravaganza, Avatar, where Zoe Saldana's tribal warrior princess is about to kill Sam Worthington's soldier-scientist and says, "If I'd known you were going to settle for a mere 17 per cent below 2020 levels, I would have killed you when I had the chance."

The point here is that the Zoe Saldana's tribal warrior princess could easily take the role of the developing countries like India, China and many in Africa fighting it out at Copenhagen, where, the soldier-scientist could represent the developed world with the EU and the US. For those who still haven't got to what I am writing, I'm talking about the problem of climate change, which the world's leaders are chewing over at this very moment in Copenhagen. Earth's climate is changing, there are clear signs and evidence from Intergovernmental Panel on climate change (IPCC) out there that this is caused by human actions.

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West may raise climate wall against India, China goods

Could a legacy of the Copenhagen climate conference turn out to be higher tariffs? With little prospect of an agreement at the talks this week bringing immediate and binding emissions limits on the developing world, pressures are mounting in Europe and the United States to impose restrictions, called border adjustments, on imports from low-cost producers such as China and India that are resisting cutting greenhouse gases.

"The shadow of border adjustments hangs over these talks," said David G Victor, a professor of international relations and an expert in environmental issues at the University of California, San Diego.

"Unions and heavy industry are deeply worried about climate policies that could make them less competitive, especially with the Chinese, and nothing in Copenhagen will change that fact."

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New recruits of all banks to join pension scheme

Come April 1, 2010, the entire Indian banking system will make a transition to the New Pension System (NPS).

In what could give a major boost to the NPS, the Indian Banks' Association (IBA) has signed an agreement with the PFRDA that requires all new recruits of banks that part of the association would have to mandatorily join the defined contribution system with effect from the cut-off date.

The banks that would be adopting the new system are the 20 nationalised banks and a dozen-odd private sector banks.

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New method to recycle plastic

An Indian origin scientist has discovered a new method to recycle plastic bags into valuable multiwalled carbon nanotubes.

Researcher Vilas Ganpat Pol from the Argonne National Laboratory, Illinois, has found a new way to convert waste plastic like "throwaway" carrier bags into carbon nanotubes, the cylindrical carbon molecules that exhibit extraordinary strength and unique electrical properties.

Pol converted high or low-density polyethylene (HDPE and LDPE) into valuable multiwalled carbon nanotubes and also used the nanotubes to make lithium-ion batteries, Journal of Environmental Monitoring reported.

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India seeks United Nations norms for monitoring emission cuts

India's minister of environment & forests, Jairam Ramesh, has said India would ask the UN framework convention on climate change to come up with verification norms for voluntary projects in developing countries, under which "we would report the progress to the UN".

But he has ruled out any international monitoring of Indian projects not supported by any financing from abroad.

The minister was briefing Indian media after two days of ministerial-level talks with over 50 countries. He said India had already committed to verification of projects financed by the international community.

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Accepting peace prize, Barack Obama evokes `Just War'

President Obama, accepting the Nobel Peace Prize here on Thursday, acknowledged the age-old tensions between war and peace but argued that his recent decision to escalate the conflict in Afghanistan was justified to protect the world from terrorism and extremism.

"We must begin by acknowledging the hard truth," Obama said. "We will not eradicate violent conflict in our lifetimes. There will be times when nations acting individually or in concert will find the use of force not only necessary but morally justified." In a ceremony at Oslo City Hall, Obama was formally welcomed into the ranks of Nobel laureates who have won the prize, which was established 108 years ago. He said he accepted the award with "deep gratitude and great humility," conceding it could be seen as premature.

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Climate talks lead to rise in tempers

The negotiations at the climate change conference in Copenhagen appear headed for a roadblock as the so-called Danish text was leaked to the Guardian website and G77+China group said it would reject this attempt to "violate the sanctity of talks".

India said it would not let the draft be admitted as a last- minute document, though at the moment it was a "non-issue".

The text, supposed to have been put forward by Denmark, the UK and the US, seeks to get developing countries to agree to specific emission cuts which were not part of earlier agreements.

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Sony launches music website Vevo

In the beleaguered music industry's latest bid to generate more money from its content, two top music labels are introducing Vevo, a website for music videos.

Vevo is co-owned by the Universal Music Group, Sony Music Entertainment and the Abu Dhabi Media Company. Vevo on Monday said that it had signed up a third major music label, EMI Music, as a video provider, leaving only one holdout among the big four labels, Warner Music. Vevo said conversations with Warner were continuing.

Videos on Vevo will be hosted and streamed by YouTube, the video site owned by Google. The site will come online in the United States and Canada on Tuesday evening.

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India, Russia sign civilian nuclear deal, 5 other pacts

India and Russia inked a nuclear cooperation agreement on Monday that officials said entailed no restrictions and was better than the 123 Agreement with the US. The pact ensures uranium supply to nuclear reactors even if pact with Russia falls apart if India tests another atomic weapon.

Officials, who did not want to be named, said the agreement allows reprocessing of spent fuel. They said it also includes a provision that "any termination will be without any prejudice to ongoing contracts and fuel supply obligations". It has provisions that are common with other agreements and as application of IAEA safeguards, retransfer mechanisms and non-interference in India's unsafeguarded programmes.

But it was not clear who was the target of statement by Russian president Dmitry Medvedev.

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Reserve Bank asked to go slow on buying IMF gold

AMID speculations that RBI may buy more gold from the IMF, the Prime minister's economic advisory panel has said the central bank should wait for some more time before going for another round of purchases.

"Having bought 200 tonnes of gold, they (RBI) might wait. I think there is no particular hurry to buy more. At the moment, I think they have made a substantial increase to the total quantity of gold they have," prime minister's economic advisory council (PMEAC) chairman C Rangarajan said.

When asked if RBI bought gold to shore up the value of its reserves in the context of falling dollar value, Rangarajan said, "Not necessarily."

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Common Admission Test date, centre changes allowed

In the wake of disruption in the Common Admission Test (CAT), American firm Prometric, on Thursday said it would try to accommodate any request of the affected students for change of centre or rescheduling the date of the exam. "Every reasonable effort will be made to accommodate any requests for changes," Prometric said in a statement.

Prometric has asked the affected students to contact the Candidate Care at Prometric and speak to the agents for any problem, including change in dates or centres. "Candidates may call 1800 103 9293 for such requests. Please do not send an email," it said. To clear the confusion on rescheduled slots, the firm said that they will be allocated the best available slot and "priority would be to keep your appointment at the same test location".

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Essar Oil GDRs to be pledged for USD 750 million loan

The Essar group wants to offer global depository receipts (GDRs) of Essar Oil as security for a $750 million loan it is negotiating with global banks. The group wants money for the takeover of three European oil refineries from Royal Dutch Shell.

The group approached the banks, including Citigroup, J P Morgan and UBS, with an offer to pledge Essar Oil equity shares as the promoters' contribution towards the equity portion of the funding of the acquisition.

Essar officials declined to confirm the cost of the acquisition, but said it would be over $1 billion.

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Governments in debt fuel fears of more Dubais

Like overstretched American homeowners, governments and firms across globe are groaning under the weight of debts that, some fear, might never be fully paid back.

As Dubai, that one-time wonderland in the desert, struggles to pay its bills, a troubling question hangs over the financial world: Is this latest financial crisis an isolated event, or a harbinger of still more debt shocks? For the moment, at least, global investors seem to be taking Dubai's sinking fortunes in their stride. Stock markets advanced on Tuesday in Hong Kong China, Japan, Indonesia and Singapore. But the travails of Dubai a boomtown whose palm-shaped islands became a potent symbol of hyperwealth -- nonetheless have some economists wondering where other debt bombs might be lurking, and just how dangerous they might turn out to be.

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Good morning, 17 million handsets not working

As you read this, it is probably a good idea to check if your cellphone is working if it is a handset without the international mobile equipment identity (IMEI) number. If it is not and the chances are high you can draw comfort from over 17 million other cellphone users in India whose handsets do not have the number, unique to each instrument.

A last-minute effort by mobile operators to get a November 30 midnight deadline extended failed, with the government directing them to de-activate all handsets without the number.

A department of telecommunications official told Financial Chronicle late on Monday night

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