ECONOMY AFFAIRS MAY 2010

ECONOMY AFFAIRS MAY 2010

• During the first meeting of the newly constituted Prime Minister's Council on Trade and Industry Dr. Manmohan Singh reviewed the state of economy with Mr. Tata, Mr. Ambani, Azim Premji, Sunil Bharti Mittal, Swati Piramal, Chanda Kocchar, Deepak Parekh, Kesab Mahindra and Kiran Majumdar Shaw and asked them to form sub-groups on food security, public-private- partnership, backward area development and corporate social responsibility. 
• The Central Government has granted ‘Maharatna' status to four giant public sector undertakings (PSUs) — NTPC, Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) and Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL).
• The Bank of Rajasthan, one of the oldest private sector banks in the country announced that it would merge with the ICICI Bank.
• According to the Department of Telecommunications (DoT), the 3G mobile license spectrum auction generated Rs. 67,710 crore for the government. Reliance Communications bagged the highest number of 13 circles followed by Bharti Airtel 12, Idea 11 and Tata and Vodafone nine each. 
• The government decided to set up a Pharmacopoeia Commission in Ghaziabad at a cost of Rs. 14.08 crore for developing indigenous medicines with the aim of raising the country's share in the $62-billion global herbal drug market. 
• The Reserve Bank of India allowed infrastructure finance companies (IFCs) to raise money from overseas markets up to 50 per cent of their owned funds automatically.
• NTPC-BHEL Power Projects Ltd. (NBPPL) signed an agreement with its equal joint venture partners NTPC and BHEL to meet the target of order bookings worth Rs.7,000-crore in the current financial year. NBPPL has been jointly set up by NTPC and BHEL for capacity building in manufacturing of power plant equipment.