According to media reports, Tata Motors' Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR) is all set to hire new work force in the UK. It is said that JLR will be hiring 2,500 professionals to build the new baby Range Rover.

The company needs new employees in the country to design and take care of engineering for new generation Jaguars. For the new baby Range Rover, 29,995 pounds Evoque, company needs workers to assembly work on Merseyside. Carmaker will hire 1500 for its Halewood plant.

Leading low cost air travel service provider, IndiGo announced hiring of more staff. Airline will be hiring 1,200 to 1,500 more employees in 2011 to back its expansion plans.

For this major expansion drive, airline will be hiring 400 to 500 cabin crew staff and 200 to 300 pilots. The company will hire ground staff and engineers also. With completion of this recruitment drive, IndiGo's employee base will reach to nearly 4,900 from its current 3,400.

Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL), Public sector telephone service provider has announced its plan to expand its 3G services to 60 more cities, taking the number to 760 cities. According to Chairman and Managing Director BSNL, Gopal Das, this target will be fulfilled by the end of this fiscal year.

 ‘Mantri’ a residential complex promoted by Mantri Developers has been offered new broadband services through fiber-optic cables by BSNL.

Mr. Gopal Das said that new broadband service make use of fiber-optic cables and optical electronics instead of copper wire and DSL equipment. The company is planning to provide FTTH service to the appealing customers in 127 cities across the country.

Country’s largest Bank, State Bank of India has decided to form joint venture for its POS terminals. It has selected a consortium of Visa International and Elavon as its partners for this joint venture. In this joint venture SBI will set up around six lakh point of sales (POS) terminals in the country.

The POS terminal will help the SBI customers to pay through their credit and debit cards instantly. There will be swipe machines for registering such card payments. However, the Bank has not disclosed the financial aspects of the deal.

The low-fare private airline firm, Spicejet has announced that the airline is going to introduce the Kolkata-Agartala flight next month. This has been a part of company’s plans to expand its presence in the north east of the country. This has been announced by the Chief Commercial Officer of the company Mr. Samyukth Sridharan. The airline has just over 12% of the market share in the Indian aviation industry.

Dubai Electricity and Water Authority (DEWA) has expressed that it would continue its efforts for increasing electricity and water productivity in the region by providing support to the ongoing and new projects. The state-run utility has already announced funds worth Dh6.42 billion to revamp the existing plants and to support new one to address growing power and water needs in the region. DEWA had earlier decided to avail services of international developers for building water and power plant in Emirates.

The National Bank of Abu Dhabi (NBAD) will officially roll out its operation from in the Hashemite Kingdom of Jordan on February 23rd. National Bank of Abu Dhabi is second UAE bank after Dubai Islamic Bank to open branch in Jordan. It had already received nod for opening a new branch from the Central Bank of Jordan.

Directors and Senior Management of the Bank would be in Jordan for officially inaugurating the branch which has already started its soft operations on February 7, 2010. Meanwhile, NBAD Regional Manager in Jordan Mr. Imad Marar, having a vast experience of 32 years in the banking industry, would lead the new branch in Jordan.

Voltas Ltd., the engineering services company of Tata Group, is looking for some acquisitions of Indian as well as foreign companies mainly for making its position strong in the water treatment and hydrocarbon segments. The acquisition company is looking for will be on small-scale and in the price range of Rs. 100-200 crore in the water and hydrocarbon segment.

Maruti Suzuki India, the country’s largest car maker, is expecting to double its exports in the current fiscal year. Also, Maruti India is seeing over 20 percent growth in its overall sales.

In the last fiscal year, the company exported 80,000 units while this year the company is expected to achieve 100 percent growth in exports. Recently, Maruti Suzuki India has started exporting its new model Ritz to South East Asia. At the same time, the company is expanding its export portfolio and looking out for some other markets also.

Essar Oil, India’s largest private fuel retailer, is on expansion mode. The company is planning to nearly double its number of petrol pumps to 2,500 by next fiscal year ending March 2011. The company currently has 1,293 petrol pumps. The company produced 280,000 barrels petrol and diesel per day through its refinery at Vadinar in Jamnagar district of Gujarat.

Volvo Auto India, the automobile manufacturer giant has decided to launch the upgraded version of its premium luxury sedan S80, in the Indian market. Volvo Auto India, the domestic arm of Sweden-based Volvo Car Corporation has aimed this step under its expansion plan.

The new upgraded Volvo S80 incorporates a D5 Twin-Turbo diesel engine, which is believed to deliver a high performance at low fuel consumption. Additionally, it sports many advanced technical features including Twin Turbo and Peizo high-pressure technology.

Parsvnath Developers, the realty major, said today that it will invest Rs 7,000 crore in the next five on as many as 57 projects.

The realty developer also plans to raise Rs 300 crore through private equity by March-end this year. The company is expecting revenue of Rs 17,000 crore from these 57 projects.

Bajaj Electricals, the Electrical appliances maker is looking for an opportunity in the solar sector and plans to get into commercial manufacturing of solar cells. The company is also interested in bidding for distribution franchisee licenses.

The company said it intends to become a 'full-fledged utility company' and plans to enter into the renewable energy space while considering manufacturing solar cell. The company is also looking for acquisitions.

Mahindra Navistar Automotive (MNAL), a joint venture company of Mahindra & Mahindra and auto major Navistar, has planned to launch a range of heavy commercial vehicles from 4th January.

MNAL's senior executive informed that the company's joint venture with Navistar Inc would be seen operating in all the segments including light commercial vehicles, in 3.5 tonne segment and above, luxury buses and tractor trailers under 49 tonne segment, in the next two years. M&M will also be operating individually in the less-than- 3.5 -tonne segment.

The CEO of Reliance Power Ltd Mr. J P Chalsani has announced that the Rosa power plant's first 300 MW unit in Uttar Pradesh will go on stream by the end of this year.     

Reliance Power Ltd has been developing a power project, which is coal-based in two stages with a capacity of 600 MW each. Reliance Power has invested Rs. 6000 crore for the whole project. The second phase of this project is expected to be completed by March
2012, which is way early than the planned schedule in twelfth year plan.

SAIC Motor Corp has decided to start venture to enter the Indian market with the help of a joint venture deal with General Motors. This is a significant step from the Chinese auto major, which is aimed towards the objective of establishing a firm position in one of the largest emerging auto markets.

In China, both the companies are already working under a joint venture. They have further plans to sell some of the Chinese producer's light commercial vehicles in India, including minivans and mini-trucks, in the market segment, which is currently dominated by domestic market leader, Tata Motors.

Tata Group controlled hotesl major Indian Hotels Company (IHC) is planning to inaugurate 30 more hotels of its mid-segment premium brand ‘The Gateway Hotel’ chain by fiscal 2015.  Currently, there are 20 Gateway Hotels throughout the country.

The Gateway Hotels will provide to a pan-India network of hotels as well as resorts offering all key facilities at competitive prices.

In a proclamation, Ms Monica Lakhmana, Director of the Gateway Hotels said that the company is exploring opportunities at Tier II and other smaller cities as they are mounting and also envisage to spread out in places that draw more tourists.

Barclays Global Retail Banking (GRB) has inaugurated its first subdivision in Hyderabad, the capital city as well as commercial hub of Andhra Pradesh. With the opening of new branch, Barclays has seven branches through out the country situated in Mumbai, New Delhi, Junagadh, Kanchipuram, Nelamangala and Ahmednagar in Maharashtra.

While commenting on the occasion, Mr. Ram Gopal, Interim Managing Director - India, Barclays Global Retail Bank, stated, “The opening of our branch in Hyderabad marks a significant milestone in the history of

Mukesh Ambani led Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has agreed to strengthen its Jamnagar petrochem facility by adding two-million tones per annum of olefins and matching downstream capacities.

With this new addition, Reliance will possess approximately 4-million tonnes of olefins and downstream capacities.

Sources close to company said that the recent economic slump has offered company the chances to optimise capital costs, schedules as well as implementation method for these projects.

J K Lakshmi Cement has decided to pump in Rs 1,200 crore for establishing a greenfield facility at Durg (Chhattisgarh) that will step-up total production capacity of the company by over 50%. In a proclamation, the company said that its upcoming facility will have a capacity of 2.7 million tonnes per annum and is expected to be operational by fiscal 2012-13.