Steel Authority of India (SAIL) and engineering & construction firm Larsen & Toubro (L&T) have signed a memorandum of under standing (MoU) for setting up a joint venture (JV) company to develop, manage and own captive and independent power plants, to meet the future power requirements of SAIL.

The JV company will develop a 1,600 mw (2 X 800 mw) greenfield coal- based power plant using super critical technology. In addition, the companies will keep the option to further expand capacity by 800 MW/1600 MW at the same or some other location.

Navratna PSU Bharat Electronics Limited has secured an Rs 100 crore order to manufacture and supply 102,000 electronic voting machines for the forthcoming assembly elections in the states of Andhra Pradesh, Orissa, Sikkim and Parliament elections in 2009.

BEL has dispatched the first batch of 5,000 EVM yesterday, while the rest order is scheduled to be supplied in the next two months

Dabur India, country’s fourth largest FMCG firm has revealed its plans to launch `new-u` stores in Gujarat by fiscal 2011.

According to the sources, the specialty beauty, health and wellness retail business will build stores in at least four major cities Such as Ahmedabad, Surat and Vadodara

Dabur India posted a 29.74 percent rise in net profits to Rs 701.40 million for the quarter ended in June 2008 from a profit of Rs 540.60 million for the same period previous fiscal.

New York  - US pharmaceuticals giant Pfizer Inc. is closing out the early-stage development of at least 11 medications in order to focus on more profitable drugs, media reports said Tuesday.

The financial newswire Bloomberg cited a memo sent to employees on September 25 in which the world's largest drug company would be ending the early development work on treatments for a range of illnesses from obesity to heart disease.

Stockholm - Swedish heavy-vehicle maker Volvo Trucks said Tuesday it planned to cut some 1,400 jobs in its workforce, citing the need to reduce production capacity over "declining demand for trucks in the European market."

The measures planned for the coming months included cancelling evening shifts and were to affect plants in the Swedish towns of Gothenburg and Umea, and in Ghent in Belgium, Volvo Trucks chief executive Staffan Jufors said in a statement.

Areva T&D India, the Indian subsidiary of Areva France SA, has formed a strategic alliance with GE Consumer and Industrial, to focus on turnkey electrical solutions.

Under the arrangement, the alliance would focus on turnkey electrical solutions in the power generation, metals, mining, minerals and materials handling markets. The main aim of this latest tie-up is to provide one-stop solution for customer needs like power distribution, control and automation.