BUSINESS NEWS - SEPTEMBER 2010 Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani has topped the list of latest Forbes

I ndia Rich list. Steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal remains number two. Moving up to thi rd position is Wipros Azim Premji. Indias most expensive five-star hotel has opened in New Delhi under the brand nam e Leel Palace Kempinski. Microsoft founder Bill Gates has retained his position as the richest man in USA , topping Forbes 400 Richest Americans list. Larsen & Toubro (L&T) has signed an agreement with South-Africa-based Befula Inv estments for a joint venture to develop power transmission and distrivution (T&D ) projects in South Africa. Indian drug-maker Sun Pharmaceutical Industries has taken-over Taro Pharmaceutic als after a three-year battle with Israeli companys promoter family. German carmaker Volkswagen has taken advertising to a new level with an innovati ve audio advertisement in print to create a buzz for its entry-level sedan Vento . The voice-recorded device was pasted on two English dailies in Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Pune and Chennai. Indias only dedicated currency bourse, the United Stock Exchange of India, began operation on September 20, 2010. USE is the third exchange offering currency der ivatives in India after MCX-SX and NSE. SEBI has allowed USE to trade in dollarrupee, euro-rupee, yen-rupee and pound-rupee. Telecom service provider Bharti Airtel has inked a deal with IBM to manage its A frica operations. Kellogg India has signed Hindi film actress Karisma Kapoor as the brand ambassad or for 10 Kelloggs Chocos pouches, The Union Cabinet has cleared the acquisition of 46 new aircraft worth Rs 19,000 crore by the three low-cost carriersSpiceJet, IndiGo and Jet Lite. Boeing has ba gged the larger part of the roder32 planeswhile 14 orders have gone to Airbus. Nokia, the worlds top cell-phone maker, has appointed Microsofts Stephen as its ne w CEO. Business News - August 2010 NTPC-BHEL Power Projects Ltd (NBPPL) is setting up a Rs 6,000 crore power equipm ent manufacturing plant at Mannavaram village, near Tirupati in Andhra Pradesh. The Singapore Mercantile Exchange (SMX) is the first pan-Asian multi-product com modity and currency derivatives exchange. Promoted by Financial Technologies, it started operations in Singapore on September 1, 2010. Arup Roy Choudhury has been appointed as the Chairman and Managing Director of N TPC. Indias largest thermal coal importer, Adani Enterprises, has announced setting up of a $1.65 billion project in Indonesia to source coal for its Indian power pro jects. Automobile major Mahindra and Mahindra (M&M) has signed a memorandum of understa nding (MoU) with Ssangyong Motor of South Korea to acquire s majority stake in t he company known for its sports utility vehicles.

In a first-of-its-kind move in branded paper segment, J.K. Paper has tied up wit h Hewlett Packard (HP) to avail of its ColorLok technology in producing copier p aper. ColorLok papers lock ink at the surface of the paper for improved print qu ality. J.K. Paper is the 11th company worldwide to be awarded certification by H P to produce ColorLok paper. Ranbaxy Laboratories has appointed Arun Sawhney as Managing Director of the comp any. MasterCard Inc., the worlds second-biggest payments network, has agreed to buy Da taCash Group Plc for about $517 million in cash to expand its e-commerce offerin gs. Chipmaker Intel Corp has decided to buy security technology firm McAfee Inc for $7.68 billion, in an effort to make security technology a strategic focus. Supply chain and logistics player Arshiya International has decided to invest ar ound Rs 7,468 crore over three years on setting up warehousing and railway infra structure across India. Bharti Airtel has announced plans to invest $10 million in newly acquired teleco m network in Seychelles. The company will also participate in the Seychelles Eas t Africa submarine cable (SEAS) project. Business News - July 2010 Olive Telecom has announced the launch of the Olive Pad, which it said, is Indias first tablet PC. It runs on Googles Android operating system. Budding actors, directors and scriptwriters can now showcase their talent on Ibi bo.com. The social networking site has launched a talent hunt for Indias first 24 -episode online serial, which will be broadcast on its site. Partnering with Mar uti Suzuki, Ibibo will provide this opportunity to its more than eight million u ser base. The participants will be chosen in three categories of acting, directi ng and scriptwriting. The National Stock Exchange (NSE) has started disseminating its volatility index on real-time basis, instead of just at the end of the day. The volatility index , called the India VIX, indicates investors perception about volatility in the ne ar term. The index shows the expected market volatility over the next 30 calenda r days. Karnataka will be the first State of India to set up an Information Technology I nvestment Region (ITIR), which will be a self-sustainable, integrated investment region, housing IT, ITeS and hardware parks, supported by residential townships , a mini airport, high-speed railway network, shopping malls, hospitals and educ ational institutes. Decks have been cleared for the merger of State Bank of Indore with its parent S tate Bank of India. This will be the second merger of an associate bank with SBI after a similar exercise with the State Bank of Saurashtra in August 2008. Larsen and Toubro (L&T) has bagged the Rs 12,132-crore Hyderabad Metro Rail proj ect. Eight Indian companies, including Indian Oil Corporation and Mukesh Ambani-led R eliance Industries, have made the cut on the list of the world s 500 largest com panies compiled by Fortune. The league of 500 elite companies for 2010 is topped by US retailer Wal-Mart Stores, followed by oil giant Royal Dutch Shell and ano ther oil major, Exxon Mobil, in that order. Besides IOC and RIL, the other India n companies on the list are Tata Steel, Tata Motors, Bharat Petroleum, Hindustan

Petroleum and Oil & Natural Gas and SBI. The Oberoi groups Vanyavilas Hotel at Ranthanbhore has been ranked as the best in the world by the Travel+Leisure magazine. On July 19, 2010, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange started trading in Nifty futur es to enable US citizens to access Indian share market opportunities. The Anil-Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) has decided to merge Reliance Natural Res ources Ltd (RNRL), its gas trading subsidiary, with Reliance Power. The Hongkong and Shanghai Banking Corporation (HSBC) has decided to acquire the Indian business of Royal Bank of Scotland, worth $1.8 billion, a move that will help the British giant gain greater exposure in India.