Leading merchant bankers in race for Air India mandate
New Delhi: In keeping with the government’s decision to disinvest 40 per cent equity in the country’s international airline, Air India, the department of disinvestment has invited merchant bankers to make presentations for getting the mandate to manage the disinvestment.

The country’s leading merchant bankers including Merrill Lynch, Salomon Smith Barney and Lazard Capital are said to be in the race for bagging the mandate. These firms lead a consortium of merchant bankers and civil aviation experts. They are to make their respective presentations on June 29 and 30, after which the financial bids will be invited and the shortlist prepared.
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Several global majors bid for tie-up with railways for telecom and internet project
Calcutta: Having announced its intention to set up a mega optical-fibre-based internet and telecom project, the Indian Railways is seeing several suitors lining up at its doorsteps to get involved in the project. These include telecom giants like British Telecom, Deutsch Telecom, AT&T and Sprint, as well as global management consultancies like Mckinsey & Co., PriceWaterhouseCoopers and Arthur Andersen.

The railways plans to use its "right of way" available for over 60,000 kilometres of railway track and build up an optical fibre network across the country, which it then plans to lease out to different service providers. This mega project has already received the approval of the cabinet.

Presentations by the bidders will be made to the Railway Board soon and one of the names will be finalised to draw up a detailed blue-print of the optical fibre project.

Indian Railways has already started laying optical fibre cables over its existing track network with South Eastern Railways (SER) almost completing around 700 kilometres of cable laying out of its 5,000 odd kilometre identified for the project. It is estimated that for Indian Railways as a whole, a coverage of 50,000 kilometres of optical fibre network would call for an investment of around Rs 1,400 crore.

The Railways are also looking into a proposal to bring in multiple strategic partners with the optical fibre infrastructure being leased out to different service providers in various railway divisions of the country.
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Government to decide on DTH before monsoon session
Mumbai: According to the information technology minister, Mr. Pramod Mahajan, the much-awaited decision on direct-to-home broadcast is expected before the monsoon session of Parliament, scheduled to begin on July 24.

The government had constituted a new seven-member ministerial committee, in January this year, to go into issues connected with the controversial DTH broadcasting as well as to review the uplinking policy.

Allowing DTH, an end-to-end service which will by-pass the cable operators, would mean lifting the bar on KU-band transmission in the country and the ban on bringing in the dish-size DTH equipment.
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