Trai appeal dismissed
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has rejected the appeal made by the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India to vacate the stay granted by a division bench of the Delhi High Court for implementing the ‘calling party pays’ or CPP system.

The Supreme Court expressed surprised that Trai could appeal before the former at such a preliminary stage of the case.

Earlier, the Trai had proposed to implement the CPP system of revenue sharing for mobile operators from 1 November 1999. But, a consumer organisation – Telecom Watchdog and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd. appealed to the Delhi High Court and got a stay on the implementation of the CPP.

On 16 November 1999, the Delhi High Court will again hear the case.
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Exports grow at 12%
New Delhi: The economy has registered a 12 per cent export growth in September 1999 as compared to September 1998. During the period April – September 1999, the cumulative exports in terms of dollars grew by 7.39 per cent compared to the corresponding period in the previous year.
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Internet connection in each district
New Delhi: Ram Vilas Paswan, Union Communications Minister, has said that each district in India will have at least one internet node by the year 2000. He also said that all villages will have telephone connection by the year 2002. Mr.Paswan said that the department of telecom services will strengthen the national network by layin an optic fibre network.
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HDFC’s MF venture
Mumbai: The Housing Development Finance Corporation and Standard Life Investments have signed an agreement for a mutual fund joint venture.

Standard Life Investments is the investment division of Standard Life Assurance Company of the UK. The latter holds 5 per cent equity stake in HDFC. Standard Life Investments will hold 26 per cent in the asset management company that will be jointly floated for the mutual fund foray.
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Syndicate Bank issue oversubscribed
Mumbai: Public Sector -- Syndicate Bank -- which had closed its maiden public issue on 30 October 1999 has met with an oversubscription of around 3.75 times the issue size of Rs.125 crore. The bank received around 4 lakh applications and about 80 per cent of the amount collected has been from retail investors.

After this issue, the government stake in Syndicate Bank has fallen to 73 per cent from the earlier 100 per cent.
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Gilt trade regulations relaxed
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India has eased the stipulation that made trades in government securities to be compulsorily settled in two days. Banks need not follow the two day norm anymore provided they abide by the regulations prescribed by the concerned stock exchanges.

For example, the National Stock Exchange prescribes a settlement of trades in government securities within five days.

The RBI has said that it should be notified about the deals through the subsidiary general ledger.
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Banks closed on 1 January 2000
Mumbai: All scheduled commercial banks and regional rural banks will be closed on 1 January 2000. The Reserve Bank of India has issued a directive to this effect to all the concerned banks. This is part of the contingency plan for preparing for the year 2000.
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Bangalore IT exhibition begins
Bangalore: The five day information technology event, Bangalore IT.Com 1999 has begun. As part of the event, a three day National Conference on Electronic Governance will also be held.
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Pondy unveils IT park
Pondicherry: Around 21,000 square feet of office space for information technology companies is coming up at the IT park in Pondicherry. The first phase of the park has already been inaugurated. There are two buildings with office space ranging from 400 square feet to 1,500 square feet.

Companies will be allowed to build their own premises if they want to, after buying up plots of land in the park. The IT park will contain a convention centre, conference rooms, business incubators and business centres.

Videsh Sanchar Nigam Ltd. has provided the park with a 2 mbps fibre optic connectivity.
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IL&FS scheme gathers Rs.125 crore
Mumbai: IL&FS Asset Management Company’s IL&FS Growth & Value Fund -- an open ended scheme -- has collected Rs.125 crore. Out of this, Rs.50 crore was from IL&FS, while the rest came from 4,500 other investors.

ABN Amro gets ‘AAA’
Mumbai: ABN Amro Bank India’s 7-year, 12.5 per cent, Rs.100 crore subordinated debt issue has been assigned a credit rating of AAA by Crisil. The issue will help the bank in shoring up its capital adequacy ratio.
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Allianz takes majority stake in Pimco
Frankfurt: Allianz AG of Germany will buy 70 per cent of the equity capital of Pimco Advisors, US-based fund managers for $3.3 billion.

Alianz is the biggest European insurance company. Pimco has about $255 billion of funds under its management.
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