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Business Standard

  • Setu Samudram project set to go into deep-freeze

    The Congress appears to have decided that the Setu Samudram canal project is too much of a political hot potato to be carried out, as its ally DMK wants it. Party sources confirmed that a view had been taken on the Setu Samudram project, which is also being challenged in the Supreme Court, and the consensus is that an expert committee will be constituted to look into the project, a move clearly aimed at buying time.

  • Bird flu scare revives Jalandhar shuttlecock units

    Though the ban on the import of Chinese shuttlecocks due to the bird flu scare might have resulted in the cancellation of the National Badminton Championship, scheduled to be held in Goa, it has proved a blessing for the indigenous shuttlecock units, which were on the verge of closure due to competition from Chinese shuttlecocks. The shuttlecock units of the city, which had migrated from Sialkot after independence, had provided employment to a lot of families since then and the highly skilled labour involved in shuttlecock manufacturing in the city earned fame.

  • Poor hygiene makes the state vulnerable

    The large poultry industry in Punjab appears vulnerable to the bird flu outbreak in a similar way as it began in West Bengal. Talking to reporters here last week, officials of PETA (People for the Ethical Treatment of Animals) said they had investigated the poultry farms in Ludhiana, Amritsar and Chandigarh in the past few months and found gross negligence on the part of poultry farmers towards the birds.

  • Pharma biggies tie up with foreign firms

    Leading Indian pharmaceutical companies such as Nicholas Piramal, Orchid Chemicals and Jubilant Organosys, have tied up with foreign companies to leverage technology, talent and cost-benefits to develop new chemical entities (NCE). Zydus Cadila, the latest to join the bandwagon, announced on February 4 a collaboration with Karo Bio of Sweden, an upcoming drug discovery company with expertise in nuclear receptors (a group of specific drug targets), structural biology and drug design. FOREIGN AID

  • Power on demand by 11th Plan: Govt

    The Centre has a plan to provide electricity on demand by the end of the 11th Five Year Plan, Union Minister for Power Sushilkumar Shinde said today. "However, we have targeted to produce 80,000 Mw in the 11th Five Year Plan, for which Rs 28,000 crore has been earmarked under the Rajiv Gandhi Rural Electrification Scheme (RGRES) compared to Rs 5,000 crore allocated in the last Plan, Shinde told at the concluding session of the two-day 85th Indian National Trade Union Congress (INTUC) here, The 80,000-Mw power production included a 4,000-Mw ultra mega project, he said.

  • Pharma firms may develop diagnostic kits

    The Indian drug industry, which has proven its strengths in manufacturing cheap generic or off-patent medicines for the global market, may soon find a similar generic opportunity in the molecular diagnostic segment. This is after the patent protection on molecular diagnostics based on PCR (polymerase chain reaction) platform expired globally.

  • Biofuel production to pollute environment, says study

    Ironically, converting new land to produce alternative fuels from crops and grasses can cause emissions of carbon dioxide 420 times more than the annual savings from replacing fossil fuels, according to Minnesota-based scientists. Policymakers in the European Union and the US have identified biofuels as a tool to fight global warming, as they emit less greenhouse gases than burning fossil fuels.

  • Signet to set up Rs 2K cr photovoltaic unit in India

    It will be the California-based firm's largest global facility.

  • Tata BP Solar plans to raise $78 million debt

    Tata BP Solar, which specialises in solar photovoltaics, has signed an agreement with Calyon Bank (Credit Agricole CIB) and BNP Paribas to raise a $78 million debt to fund its 128 mw solar cell expans

  • Cairn gets nod for pipeline funding plan

    An empowered committee of secretaries (ECS) has cleared Cairn India's proposal to recover the cost of the $700-million pipeline from its Rajasthan fields to the Gujarat coast through sale of crude oil from the field. "The ECS has allowed the pipeline cost to be included in the field development cost of the Rajasthan field,' said a senior government official. The ECS decision is likely to go to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs for final clearance. Cairn is laying a pre-heated 585-km pipeline to transport its "waxy' crude oil from Barmer in Rajasthan to Salaya in Gujarat from where it will be transported to various refineries. The government allows a company to recover the investment in developing an oil or a gas field through oil sales. Once the company has recovered the costs, the government starts taking a share of the profits from oil sales. The field extends to the point of delivery of oil. The ECS decision will shift the point of delivery from Rajasthan to the Gujarat coast. A Cairn executive said they had not received the final word from the government. He added that all major contracts for laying the pipeline and developing the field had been awarded. "We remain committed to producing oil from Rajasthan in the second half of 2009,' the official said. The pre-heated pipeline became necessary after . Refinery and Petrochemicals Ltd (MRPL), the official buyer of the crude, said it could take only around 1 million tonne (mt) out of the projected 7.5 mt output. The oil has to be transported through a heated pipeline as this "waxy' oil coagulates at normal temperatures.

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