The Australian Securities and Investments Commission imposed new criminal charges against Laurie Emini, the former managing director of Opes Prime Securities Limited.

The corporate regulator laid the charges against Mr. Emini over allegedly falsifying records of clients' accounts over more than 18 months. ASIC is investigating the spectacular collapse of Opes Prime in March 2008 with debts of more than $A600 million.

Ranbaxy Laboratories, Country's largest drug maker, has entered into a licensing agreement with South Korean firm Medy-Tox Inc. for selling its cosmetic product, Neuronox, in India.

The company will launch Medy-Tox's anti-ageing medicine Neuronox in India to boost its presence in the dermatological segment. In India, the current market size for this drug is about Rs 30 crore per annum.

Medy-Tox is a privately held biopharmaceutical company focused on leveraging its proprietary technologies in the microbial toxin area to develop innovative biotech products to diagnose and treat diseases.

The Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday launched a 'desi' web based 3D mapping tool, dubbed as 'Bhuvan', almost similar to Google Earth. The application will provide much clearer pictures of Indian terrain, avoiding misuse of sensitive locations such as military and nuclear establishments.

'Bhuvan' will use images taken by ISRO's seven remote sensing satellites, including Cartosat-1 and Cartosat-2, capable of taking pictures even of small objects, like vehicles on the roads. It will show popular places, with high degree of resolution.

The government, preparing a new business-friendly foreign trade policy (FTP), will take measures to help the ailing export sector, including labor incentive segment, currently reeling under huge financial pressure due to worldwide slowdown.

Union Minister of Commerce and Industry Mr. Anand Sharma, during his recent interaction with representatives of various trade bodies, said: "We hope that after consultations with the Finance Minister, Pranab Mukherjee, we will be able to give more encouragement, possibly in the new FTP."

Berger Paints Ltd is searching options to pump Rs 1 billion in a greenfield plant with the aim to manufacture water-based paints.
According to the company, the investment for the proposed endeavor will be done over a period of two years.

The sources said that by mid of fiscal 2011, the commercial production would start at the plant.

In a separate release, the company has informed that the new plant will have a capacity of 100,000 kilolitres per year.

The Indian rupee declined 15 paise against the dollar on account of low trading, due to strike by the employees of public sector banks. Rupee oscillated in the range between 47.56 and 47.77, and finally settled at 47.67/69. The Indian currency touched its highest level to 47.43 since June 12 on Tuesday.

Benchmark Sensex too declined by 389.80 points due to heavy out flow of funds, enhancing weak rupee sentiments in the market. Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) chose to sell assets on August 5; and the likelihood of this trend to continue in future, put pressure on the Indian rupee.

LG Mobile has introduced a new phone in the Indian market - the LG GC-900, Viewty Smart. The mobile phone comes with many unique and user-friendly features, including 4 inch touch screen and 8 mega pixel camera with a facility to capture fine quality videos.

Dr. Skott Ahn, President and CEO of LG Electronics said: "Viewty is back and better than ever, with new smart camera applications that take care of all the complicated camera adjustments and processing for you."

Adhunik Metaliks Ltd. (AML) is the Flagship Company of "ADHUNIK GROUP" of industries and represents on integrated Steel Plant located at Rourkela, Orissa engaged in the production of value Added Steel, Alloy Steel and Stainless Steel products catering to the automobile, construction engineering and household industry.

Quarterly Results in line with our Expectations ?? Net Sales for Q1 FY10 went down by 32% at Rs. 231.39 crores as compared to Rs. 328.64 crores in Q1 FY09 and was almost flat at Rs. 229.90 crores in Q4 FY09. The major reason for fall in the net sales was due to the fall price realization.

India will increase spending in road infrastructure sector, awarding road projects worth Rs 2 lakh crore in coming two years. Union Road Transport and Highways Minister, Kamal Nath said: "We are going to award Rs 1,00,000 crore of projects this year and Rs 1,00,000 crore in the next year."

Mr Nath, speaking at a seminar organised by FICCI, said that government will increase infrastructure activities in coming years, especially in road infrastructure sector, thereby propelling demand in the domestic segment.

Friday saw Jet Airways terminating the services of 43 trainee junior technicians on contract, which it said will help in restructuring exercise in the midst of the global financial downturn.

According to a Jet Airways spokesperson, "These personnel are on fixed term contracts and the notices have been issued in accordance to the terms of their contract and law."

The spokesperson, however clarified that some of them have been offered opportunities to work in other departments of the airline.

The Indian government will introduce a multimillion-pound plan to import Cheetahs, a species on the verge of extinction, for Indian grasslands. Jairam Ramesh, the Minister of State for Environment and Forests, said: "We have to get cheetahs from abroad to repopulate the species. We soon hope to do so."

The minister said that the government had failed to check the rampant killing of tigers, despite reserving a sum of £93 millions for the protection of the national animal of the country.

Intex Technologies, in what can be called good news for people having more than one mobile connection, has introduced two new dual-SIM phones IN 4488 and IN 3080 in India, adding two more products in its dual-SIM phones portfolio.

The IN 4488 model supports all modern features including Bluetooth for data transfer, a VGA camera, FM Radio, audio player and expandable memory with capacity of saving up to 800 contacts through a microSD card. It is available for Rs 4,600/- with Hindi-Numeric keypad.

Norway-based Telenor has announced that it has increased its stake holding in Unitech Wireless Ltd., the telecom unit of Indian Real Estate major Unitech Ltd., to 49% by pumping an additional Rs 11 billion.

The authorities of Unitech Ltd stated in a communiqué to Bombay Stock Exchange that eight units of Unitech Wireless on Tuesday (19 May) received the funds for buying the additional 15.5% stake from Telenor Asia Pte Ltd., the Asian unit of the Norwegian telecom major.

The Chennai-headquartered Murugappa grorup, is planning to spend Rs 586 crore in 2009-10 through its group companies.

The company plans to invest Rs 586 crore in 2009-10, lesser in comparison to Rs 850 crore, which it had invested in 2008-09.

According to company officials, the proposed investment include Rs 146 crore in Tube Investments of India (TII) which in turn will invest in setting up a metal forming manufacturing unit at Uttarakhand . The new plant will cater to railway wagon segment.

Stand-in finance minister Pranab Mukherjee need not have quibbled over Constitutional propriety and could have announced the stimulus package of about Rs29,000 crore a week ago when he presented the interim budget. But he did not and the reason put out was that the vote on account ought not to be used to push through commitments which the next government would have to meet. The markets were disappointed but constitutional correctness was maintained.

State-run gas company, Gas Authority of India Ltd. (GAIL) is planning to raise the capacity of its Pata petrochemical plant. The capacity would be increased to 800,000 tons in next few years.

The plant has a capacity of 410,000 tons per annum at present. GAIL Chairman and Managing Director, U D Choubey said that the Pata plant in Uttar Pradesh would be expanded by setting up a mega petrochemical plant alongside the existing plant.

New Delhi, July 5 : The Central Board of Trustees of the Employees Provident Fund Organisation today has deferred its decision on the interest rates of 2008-09 till its next meeting.

It also decided that industries having ten or more employees would now come under the ambit of the EPFO.

The Left supported Centre of Indian Trade Unions (CITU) has demanded around 12 per cent interest rates for the current fiscal, citing the high rate of inflation.

The All India Trade Union Congress (AITUC) has been demanding at least 9.5 per cent interest as assured by the Prime Minister in 2004 for 2005-6 and in 2006-7, the rates have been stable at 8.5 per cent.

New Delhi - A magnitude-6.7 earthquake jolted the Andaman Islands off the east coast of India Friday, but no tsunami alert was issued by authorities, officials said.

The undersea quake struck at 5:10 pm (1140 GMT) 113 kilometres west of the state capital Port Blair, said AK Bhatnagar of the Indian Meteorological Department in New Delhi.

"The moderate quake shook the islands, causing panic amongst residents, but there are no reports of any damage or injuries," he said.

The quake were also felt in the southern metropolis of Chennai on the Indian mainland, which lies 1190 kilometres west of the islands, news reports said.

New Delhi - Floods and landslides triggered by heavy monsoon rains have affected 900,000 people in three eastern Indian states as the death toll climbed over 30, officials and news reports said Wednesday.

Electricity supplies, road and train services were disrupted as floods submerged huge areas in the northern districts of Orissa state since Tuesday, the IANS news agency reported.

"The total number of people affected would be about half a million," B Baral, Orissa's senior relief official, told IANS news agency. He said the situation was likely to worsen with rains continuing to pound the region on Wednesday.

New Delhi - Police in India's north-western state of Rajasthan have arrested a Muslim cleric suspected of being involved in last month's deadly serial bombings in the state capital, Jaipur, news reports said Monday.

Police picked up Mohammed Ilyas, the imam of a mosque in Bharatpur, a city nearly 200 kilometres east of Jaipur, in the first significant arrest in the blasts, which killed more than 60 people, the CNN-IBN network reported.

Ilyas is suspected of having links with the banned Students Islamic Movement of India and the Bangladesh-based Islamic militant group Harkat-ul Jehadi Islami (HuJI), which are suspected in the attacks.