The renaming will cover other group companies, such as the Tata Iron and Steel Company, and Tata Chemicals. 
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Telco unveils Magna, its large car
New Delhi: The Tata Engineering and Locomotive Company has made its entry into the upper end of the Indian car market with its impressive looking beautiful Magna. Telco chairman Ratan Tata unveiled the car at the Auto Expo in New Delhi on 12 January 2000.

According to Mr Tata, the Magna will be a large, rear-wheel sedan available in both petrol and diesel versions. Positioned as a C class car, it will be made on the company’s Safari line. The car will be in the market in about a year. The Magna is expected to contest with the Opel’s Astra and Mitsubishi’s Lancer.

Telco also displayed its Aria, a concept car on the Indica platform. The Aria is a two-seater roadster developed by Telco in association with the IDEA of Italy. The car has a high-performance 140-horse power, 4-cylinder engine and a maximum speed of 225 km per hour. Aria can be developed into a 4-seater with a larger wheelbase.

The company has launched Euro II diesel variants of its Indica, called Tata Indica 2000, the Tata Sumo Premia, the Tata Sumo Deluxe, the Sierra Rage, the Sierra Sport, Sierra TC, and the Safari Blazer.
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GM plans to bring in Vectra
New Delhi: General Motors India is considering introducing the Vectra in the Indian market. Richard C. Swando, president and managing director of the company, said the company will import some Vectra models and, depending on their reception in India, it will decide whether to make the vehicle in India.

The Vectra is a 2-litre, 4-cylinder, direct injection turbo-charged diesel engine vehicle with four valves per cylinder. It has an anti-lock brake system, electronic revolution counter, speed-sensitive power steering, radio remote control locking with deadlock, air filter system and other accessories.

The company launched the Corsa a week earlier. It is considering a two-door convertible variant of the Corsa, which is intended as a "fun" vehicle.
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A cheaper version of Siena from Fiat
New Delhi: Fiat India Auto has announced a cheaper version of its Sienna. It will be priced around Rs 5.25 lakh, which is around Rs 63,000 lower than the base model launched earlier. The company also has a plan for a station wagon model of the vehicle and CNG versions of all the new models. The company will launch its mid-size Palio by end-2000.
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13 new models under Planet Bajaj
New Delhi: Now it's Planet Bajaj from Bajaj Auto. The company has launched this project to launch some 13 new models of two-wheelers – scooters, motorcycles, mopeds and three-wheelers -- in the next two years. The new models include the motorcycle model Eliminator, four other models of motorcycles, three new models of scooters, and four models of three-wheelers.
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Bajaj Tempo in tractor foray
New Delhi: Multi-utility and light commercial vehicle maker Bajaj Tempo is phasing out its Matador range of vehicles from March 2000. The Matador engine will be used in tractors, which it plans to make soon. In place of the Matador will be its LCVs, Excel-4 (four tonner), Excel-3 (a three-tonner) and Excel-2. It will also have an MUV called Judo, with a 2,399cc Mercedes engine. The prototypes of all the vehicles, including a tractor, are on display at the Auto Expo in New Delhi

The company hopes to name its tractor OX25, which will be a 4-cylinder, 25 horsepower machine. It will be available in the market before the end of the first quarter of 2000.
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Indo Flogates, IFGL merge
Calcutta: Special refractory makers Indo Flogates and IFGL Refractories, both belonging to the S.K. Bajoria group, are merging.  The merger is intended to strengthen the resources of the two for optimum growth and to offer a unified source of refractories for tundishes and ladles to steel plants.  The equity capital of the merged entity will be Rs 34 crore.

The Bajorias hold nearly 77 per cent of Indo Flogates' equity and about 42 per cent of IFGL Refractories' equity. Post-merger, they will hold 54 per cent of the equity of the merged entity, and the collaborator Japanese firms will have a 14.5 per cent holding. The swap ratio will be five equity shares of Rs 10 each of IFGL Refractories for every one equity share of 10 held in Indo Flogates.

The group has also entered into a strategic alliance with an Austrian firm Vetisch-Radex-Didier, world leader in refractories, for marketing its products in India.
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Ranbaxy gets US FDA nod for ranitidine
New Delhi: Ranbaxy Pharmaceuticals, the US-based subsidiary of Ranbaxy Laboratories, has been given tentative approval by the US Food and Drug Administration to make and market 75 mg anti-ulcer ranitidine tablets in the US. Ranbaxy already makes and markets 150 mg and 300 mg ranitidine tablets in the US.

Ranitidine has been a patented Glaxo product and Novopharm, a Canadian company applied for approvals for the 75 mg form. It enjoys a 180-day period of exclusivity that expires later in January. Besides Ranbaxy, other companies had applied for approval for the 75mg ranitidine tablets.
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Cheminor Drugs files 3 ANDAs
Calcutta: Dr Reddy’s group company Cheminor Drugs has filed 'abbreviated new drugs applications' for three of its products in the US and two in Europe. Among the products the company plans to introduce shortly are Celecoxib and Rofecoxib, a new range of pain-management drugs. It will also make Zolpidem, an anti-depressant, and Irbesartaan, an anti-hypersensitive.

The company has so far filed seven ANDAs in the US and six products in South Africa and Europe. The company has three bulk drug manufacturing facilities, two of which have the approval of the US Food & Drug Administration.
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Utkal Alumina comes into being
Calcutta: Utkal Alumina International has signed a joint venture and offtake agreement with Alcan Aluminium, Hydro Aluminium and Indal to launch a 100 per cent export oriented unit to make calcined alumina in Raygada district of Orissa. Alcan Aluminium will have a 35 per cent holding in Utkal Alumina, Hydro Aluminium 45 per cent, and Indal 20 per cent in the total equity of Rs 66.3 crore of the company. The facility will have an initial production capacity of one million tonnes per annum.
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Dishnet launches DSL service
Mumbai: DishnetDSL, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Sterling Infotech, has launched a digital subscriber line service for high-speed and low cost Internet connectivity in Mumbai. Digital subscriber line, or DSL, is a technology that converts ordinary phone lines into high-speed data circuits.  The company said it will offer broadband access in the country, which will be 140 times faster than the fastest analog modems.

The company has fixed an upfront service set-up/activation charge of Rs29,970 and a flat monthly access charge of Rs1,995 for individual users. For commercial users the rates will be Rs49,950 as upfront charge and Rs9,995 for a 64 kbps connection, and Rs18,995 for a 128 kbps connection as access charge.
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Kanan Foods to have holding in Agro Dutch
Mumbai:  Kanan Foods of the US is picking a seven per cent holding in Agro Dutch Foods, maker of processed foods. The company is making a preferential allotment of 10 lakh equity shares at a price of Rs 140 per share to Kanan Foods, promoted by Mehul Shah, a non-resident Indian. The company has applied to the Foreign Investment Promotion Board for the allotment. The funds will be used to finance the expansion of the company’s processing facilities. Agro Dutch Foods sells most of its products to the Unilever group through the Kanan group.
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Glaxo in tie-up with Merial
Mumbai: Glaxo India has tied up with Merial, the world’s largest animal healthcare company, to market live and inactivated vaccines used against poultry diseases. The products will be marketed by Glaxo’s AgriVet Farm Care.
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Hindustan Lever sends workers home, pays them
Mumbai: Hindustan Lever has directed nearly 250 workers at its Sewri plant in Mumbai to stay at home and get paid for one year. The company has issued advance salaries to these employees for the period, saying it has been forced to restructure its operations because of the high expenditure involved in maintaining manufacturing facilities in Mumbai.

The employees’ union said the company is deliberately creating a surplus in order to force workers to accept the voluntary retirement scheme. The workers have refused to encash the cheques and have handed them over to the union.
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More FDI in satellite companies
New Delhi: The cabinet has decided to permit India-registered companies with equity of up to 74 per cent by foreign companies to own and operate satellites. The decision is an extension of the satcom policy of 1997.  The decision paves the way for private Indian companies to go in for a satellite, register it in space slots allotted to the Indian government by the International Telecom Union and then get up to 74 per cent funding from foreign partners.  The state-owned Insat system will also work out a specific percentage of transponder use for private companies cleared by the government. For foreign participants, the government will clear applications on a case-by-case basis through the Foreign Investment Promotion Board. 

The policy also differentiates between satellite infrastructure and satellite service providers.
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Bayer to change aspirin ads
Washington: Drug major Bayer will have to spend $1 million to roll back its claims that all adults can take an aspirin to prevent heart attack. The Federal Trade Commission and the US department of justice, worried that aspirin can cause bleeding, strokes and even death in some people, said Bayer’s advertisement will encourage inappropriate use of the drug. The company will now be required to include a warning in its advertisements and brochures.
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