Coal India to seek revised MDO contract interest next week

Coal India is to come out with a revised tender next week for request for qualification (RFQ) for mine development in seven projects.

"Based on discussions with participants we have modified and refined the terms of RFQ for inviting Mine Developer and Operator(MDO). We will release the tender next week," Coal India chairman S Narsing Rao said.

He was speaking on the sidelines of a seminar organised by The Mining, Geological and Metallurgical Institute.

"There will be seven projects (two underground and five open cast mines) in the revised MDO tender with total peak production capacity of 17.5 million tonne per annum," he said.

Rao said among the terms which were changed were relaxation on qualification for greater participation.

Rao said CIL was aiming to offer the MDO contract by March 2014.

In April, government had said two Australian companies had shown interest in developing Coal India's opencast mines and four British and Chinese companies in the PSU's four underground mines.

Anil Ambani's I-T account hacked by CA student

Country's leading industrialist Anil Ambani's e-filing of Income-Tax returns account was allegedly hacked by a 21-year-old chartered accountant (CA) student from Hyderabad, police said on Friday..

Police said the account was hacked with an intention to know his income and tax amount paid over a period of time.

The young woman, who has been doing her chartered accountancy articleship at Manoj Daga & Company in Hyderabad, was booked under relevant sections of Information Technology Act on September 7, after a preliminary investigation and faces arrest in the case.

"The girl hacked Ambani's e-filing of Income-Tax returns account with an intention to check the industrialist's income and tax amount paid by him over the period of time. After hacking the account of the chairman of Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), she accessed the details of his income, tax amount paid, PAN card number and even changed twice the password of his e-account on the IT website," an official involved in the probe said.

According to police, a chartered accountant firm in Mumbai, which files 54-year-old Ambani's individual tax details, was intimated through an email from I-T department on June 26 that as per request, the industrialist's e-return account had been changed. Again on July 12, the firm received another email stating that second time the password had been changed.

As suspicion grew, the ADAG group representative complained to Joint Police Commissioner (Crime) Himanshu Roy, who directed cyber cell inspector Mukund Pawar to probe the case.

"As preliminary probe suggested it as a clear case of cyber crime since it involved hacking into the e-return account, a case was registered on September 7. Probe revealed that the account was hacked from Manoj Daga & Company's computer following which a team rushed there and upon questioning, the girl confessed to have hacked into Ambani's account," Pawar said.

The server has been seized, Pawar said adding that, "we have all technical and physical evidence against her. The accused, who is in Hyderabad, will have to face arrest."

The offence was bailable and she will be arrested soon, another police official said.

IIFL to raise Rs 1,050 crore through NCDs

India Infoline Finance (IIFL), the subsidiary of non-banking financial services firm India Infoline, will issue non-convertible debentures (NCDs) to raise Rs 1,050 crore for business expansion.

"We will issue Secured Redeemable NCD with a printed value of Rs 1,000 crore on September 17. This public issue will close on October 4," IIFL Chairman Mukesh Kumar Singh said.

The size of this NCD is Rs 525 crore, but in case of over-subscription, its size can be expanded up to Rs 1,050 crore, he said.

Under the public issue, investments can be made for a period of three and five years with the money generated to be used for bolstering IIFL's expansion schemes, Singh said.

He said that with the money, the company will expand its business related to the granting of loans against mortgage of gold and immovable assets.

"Besides, there is a huge demand for home loans in smaller towns and the company would try to fulfil this requirement," Singh said.

IIFL is also focusing on schemes to provide loans for the purchase of commercial vehicles as this sector has a lot of scope for expansion, he added.

Indian rupee climbs 90 paise against US dollar, at 4-week high

The Indian rupee strengthened by 90 paise against the US dollar on Monday, to trade at four-week high of 62.58 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange market, on increased capital inflows and dollar selling by exporters.

The Indian currency had settled at 63.48 against the Greenback on Friday, up marginally by two paise over previous day's close.

Traders said apart from selling of the American currency by exporters and banks, a higher opening at the domestic equity market and dollar's weakness against other overseas currencies, after Larry Summers, the man tipped to be named Ben Bernanke's successor as Fed chairman, withdrew from the race, also supported the rupee.

Meanwhile, the BSE Sensex soared over 200 points in morning trade to cross the 20,000-level.

Boss at Big Blue

 
Not long ago, Vanitha Narayanan had the time to pluck rosemary and basil from her kitchen garden at her home in the United States to cook dinner for her family every evening. Italian, Oriental, West Indian, North Indian and South Indian - she could handle any cuisine. But dinner wasn't just a chore for Narayanan - it was a form of relaxation, after her demanding day job at International Business Machines (IBM).

Things changed after she landed in India in 2009. Her high-profile roles as Sales and Distribution Leader and then Managing Partner for Global Business Services left her little time to even watch television food shows, let alone cook. Narayanan has more than enough on her plate as IBM India's new Managing Director, a role that has propelled  her into the league of just a handful of women to head a technology company in the country.
Narayanan's work-life balance may be off  - her day is packed with back-to-back meetings - but she isn't complaining. IBM has done well in the past few years: the company does not break up revenues by country or headcount, but sources say it employs about 150,000 people. That makes it the largest multinational employer in the country. Narayanan has shepherded the company beyond its traditional strengths in telecom. "In the last few years, I have taken the IBM story to many industries beyond telecom - banking, financial services and insurance, industrial and retail segments," she says.

Since she moved to India, IBM has reported significant wins in insurer Birla Sun Life, Asian Paints and Godrej Consumer Products, among others. Narayanan applied her learning from telecom to other sectors. "Before I came here, I thought of myself as a telecom person - I spent 20 years in that industry. For the first time, I have started working with companies in manufacturing and industries I have not worked with before," she says.

The 54-year-old IBM India chief has risen from the ranks. She began her career at the company as a trainee, servicing telecom customer Southwestern Bell Telephone Company in Missouri in the US. She spent 10 years working with this client. "It has defined my IBM career. It helped me lay a foundation - you respect the industry of your client and sometimes, the client is your best teacher," says Narayanan, a management graduate specialising in management information systems. "Apart from a job in a department store, IBM is my only job. It was the only place where I wrote a professional resume and was interviewed."

Steadily, she climbed the corporate ladder to become Global Vice President for IBM's telecom solutions offerings and in 2006 moved to Shanghai to run the communications sector business for IBM's Asia Pacific Unit. India happened next. And it has been the ultimate feather in her professional cap, considering the size of domestic business, the number of people it employs and IBM India's strategic importance from an outsourcing perspective. "IBM wanted somebody with an appreciation for the market, for what it needed from a local perspective. I brought my experience with IBM, in global and local roles. Plus, they had me here for the last four years learning the market and running parts of the business," says Narayanan.

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But Narayanan's familiarity with Big Blue's India business dates back to 2001 when she was asked to help start a local telecom practice. She did a "special project" and put together a team that created history. IBM bagged a landmark $750-million outsourcing deal for 10 years with Bharti Airtel in 2004, a contract now valued at $2.5 billion.

Despite her meteoric rise, Narayanan comes across as extremely modest. She says she doesn't think she is powerful - she prefers the word 'influential'. She also struggles to pinpoint a defining moment in her career. "I don't have these night-and-day moments," she says. "My first decade was about appreciation for an industry and a client. The second decade was about bringing value, about building organizational capability. The third decade is about leadership in different cultures and environments."
 
Narayanan pauses for a while before talking about her leadership style. "You should ask my team," she says. Colleagues say Narayanan is both collaborative and decisive at the same time. "She is no push-over," says Jeby Cherian, Vice President and Managing Partner of IBM Global Business Services, India/South Asia. "But she can build trust very easily. "