Stock Watch

Indian software firm Wipro has expressed concerns over the recently draft U. S. immigration bill, saying it might burden Indian firms operating in the U. S. with additional costs.

Azim Premji, chairman of Wipro, said the immigration bill, which was unveiled on Thursday, might restrict Indian IT firms' access to H-1B and L1 visas that Indians require to work in the U. S.

However, Mr. Premji also said that they were still studying the provisions of the U. S. immigration bill that run into over eight hundred pages, adding that active lobbying would decide the eventual shape of the bill.

Slashing power supply rates in Delhi could shatter the whole system, which would lead to huge outages in the national capital, Planning Commission Deputy Chairman Montek Singh Ahluwalia warned.

Mr. Ahluwalia said that a drastic cut in power supply rates would force the state government to subsidise power by that much and the whole system would get shattered.

Speaking on the topic, the Deputy Chairman said, "Cutting the power rates by 30 per cent will mean the Delhi government will end up subsidising power by that much and the whole system will get wound up, leading to huge power cuts."

The government of India has recently removed its mandatory restrictions of minimum land area requirement for the IT companies under which the companies needed to have compulsory 10 hectares of built-up area.

With the change, the minimum built-up area requirements have been revised to 100,000 square meters for the seven major cities, 50,000 square meters for Category B cities and only 25,000 square meters for the remaining cities.

In order to generate funds for next month's assembly elections, mining barons in Karnataka are selling their residential and commercial complexes.

Reports have said that a mining baron, also an election candidate is all prepared to sell two of his apartments. This can be attributed to the fact that a ban was imposed on miners in 2011 Supreme Court verdict. After banning of illegal mining in Karnataka, many mine-owners are not left with funds.

MRF Ltd has posted an impressive 40 per cent year-on-year jump in net profit for the quarter ended March 31, thanks to softening of the raw material.

The Tyre giant said that its net profit jumped to around Rs 210.6 crore in the three months through the end of March this year, from Rs 150 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year. Quarter-on-quarter, net profit jumped nearly 17 per cent.

Total income was recorded at Rs 2,906.30 crore, against Rs 2,992.80 crore in the year ago period.

Software services provider Wipro Ltd on Friday reported a bigger-than-expected increase in its profit for the three months ended March 31, 2013.

The third-largest Indian software maker announced that its consolidated net profit jumped 16.7 per cent year-on-year, from Rs 14.81 billion in the January-March quarter of 2012 to Rs 17.29 billion in the same quarter of
2013.

A group of analysts surveyed by Thomas Reuters had projected consolidated net profit of Rs 17 billion for the company.

The Maharashtra government has faced criticism over the high fiscal liabilities during 2007-12 which increased by annual rate of 15.44% during the period. The Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) observed in its report that the liabilities were about two times the revenue receipts and thrice the state's own resources.

The liabilities were seen to be increased from Rs 1,58,114 crore in 2007-08 to Rs 2,55,756 crore in 2011-12. These were made up of loans and advances from the Government of India, internal borrowings and receipts from the Public Accounts & Reserve Funds.

Reports suggested about a hike in the exports of India for the third month in a sequence. The hikes in the export rates are considered as the reflectors of the recovery in the global markets.

The exports of India have grown by 6.97 per cent in March. However, the rates have seen a downfall in the annual basis. The declination seen was about 1.76 per cent to 300.6 billion dollars in 2012-13.

A service that was a success in Africa will be launched in India. A distinctive mobile money transfer and payment service, M-Pesa is expected to be launched by Vodafone India in association with ICICI Bank.

Vodafone India MD & CEO Marten Pieters have said, "India becomes the eighth country for rolling out of M-Pesa technology and we are very optimistic about this service".

Ninety per cent of the natural forests left in the Western Ghats complex, spread across six state, should be conserved under the Ecologically Sensitive Area (ESA) provisions of the green law, a high-level working group (HLWG) suggested.

The panel headed by Planning Commission member K Kasturirangan suggested that nearly 60,000 square kilometers of Western Ghats should be turned into a no-go area for commercial activities, such as mining and large housing projects.