Reliance Group and Dassault's joint venture gets CCI approval

New Delhi: The Competition Commission of India (CCI) on Friday approved a joint venture between Anil Ambani-led Reliance Group and French aircraft manufacturer, Dassault Aviation SA.
The fair trade regulator announced its approval in a posting on the microblogging site Twitter. “CCI approves setting up of a joint venture between Reliance Aerostructure Limited and Dassault Aviation,” the commission said.
The joint venture, Dassault Reliance Aerospace Pvt. Ltd, between Reliance Aerostructure and Dassault was announced in October.
In September, India inked a deal to buy 36 Rafale aircraft from Dassault for Rs59,000 crore. The agreement has a 50% offset clause. Of this Rs24,500 crore, 74% will have to come from India in goods and services, which could mean a boost for the government’s efforts to promote the local manufacture of defence equipment.
A filing with the CCI stated that Reliance Aero will hold a 51% stake in the joint venture and the remaining 49% will be held by Dassault.
CCI’s approval fulfils the regulatory requirements needed by the companies to proceed with the deal. The agreement has a 50% offset clause.
Reliance Group companies have sued HT Media Ltd, Mint’s publisher, and nine others in the Bombay high court over a 2 October 2014 front-page story that they have disputed. HT Media is contesting the case.

ONGC to invest Rs78,000 crore in KG basin, signs deal with Andhra Pradesh

New Delhi: State-owned explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd (ONGC) said on Saturday it will invest Rs78,000 crore in the Krishna Godavari basin for producing hydrocarbons and has signed an agreement with the Andhra Pradesh government for smooth execution of the projects.
ONGC has been pursuing exploration in the basin and had last March announced a $5 billion (Rs34,000 crore) investment over the next three years in two of its fields there after the central government earlier that month announced a liberal pricing formula for natural gas from deep sea blocks.
The investment figure announced on Saturday is for the entire basin. The agreement with Andhra Pradesh to “take forward all critical exploration and production activities in the state” was signed on the sidelines of the Partnership Summit, 2017 jointly organized by the state government and industry chamber Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) in Visakhapatnam on Friday.
ONGC sees Andhra Pradesh as a hydrocarbon rich state. “ONGC is very aggressively pursuing to put the huge gas reserves it has discovered in KG basin, to production. It plans to invest about Rs10,000 crore for exploration and production activities in onland blocks and about Rs68,000 crore in offshore assets in the KG Basin,” said a company statement.
As per the deal, the state government will assist ONGC in taking over land and in obtaining other statutory clearances. The state has offered ‘single window service’ through office of the Commissioner of Industries.
All state-owned oil and gas companies together have planned an investment of Rs1.43 trillion in Andhra Pradesh, the statement said quoting oil minister Dharmendra Pradhan who was present on the occasion. “These Investments would start from 2017-18 and will be completed by 2021-22,” it said quoting Pradhan.
Andhra Pradesh will extend full cooperation in making the country self-sufficient in energy and the present agreement is the first step in that direction, the statement said quoting chief minister N. Chandrababu Naidu, who was also present on the occasion.

Microsoft brings together start-ups to offer solutions for smart cities

Hyderabad: As part of its CityNext initiative, software major Microsoft has partnered the Telangana government and organised a Smart City Start-ups conclave in Hyderabad on Tuesday.
Microsoft CityNext is a people-first initiative to enable residents and city leaders to use technology to build a foundation for sustainable growth and prosperity. Microsoft has identified more than 40 solution areas across eight city domains, which include energy and water, buildings; infrastructure and planning, tansportation, public safety and justice, tourism, recreation and culture, education, health and social services and government administration, which help address 90 per cent of the challenges facing cities today.
"Around 21 startups, a combination of Microsoft Ventures' core portfolio and extended portfolio, participated in this bold step that the new Telangana state has taken, and launched a dialogue to quickly put smart city solutions on the ground,\" Ravi Narayan, director, Microsoft Ventures India, told Business Standard.
India's urban population is projected to grow from 340 million in 2008 to 590 million in 2030, according to a 2010 McKinsey and Microsoft study. By 2050, nearly 70 per cent of the global population will live in cities. Through its CityNext initiative, Microsoft India integrates information technology and human engagement to address infrastructural challenges and create new opportunities for economic growth and improved competitiveness overall.
"We are not going to leave this initiative at the networking level. We will help facilitate a consortium of startups to go through the tendering process (for smart cities), when called for,\" Narayan added.
"Developing smart cities is important to drive the state’s growth. With this focus, we are pleased to partner with Microsoft India to leverage its technology offerings and expertise to help transform Telangana into a sustainable and competitive state that cares for its citizens," said Telangana IT minister KT Rama Rao.
"Over the course of the next few months, we look forward to working with Microsoft and various startup partners, on solutions across areas that will help us keep the citizen at the centre of our development and fulfil our smart city vision," said Jayesh Ranjan, IT secretary, Telangana government.

Wipro Ventures to invest in early-stage venture capital funds in US

Bengaluru: Wipro Ltd's corporate venture arm Wipro Ventures plans to invest in early-stage venture capital (VC) funds based in the US even as it buys minority stakes in early-to-mid-stage start-ups to help fill gaps in its own range of offerings.
Wipro's $100 million corporate venture arm, overseen by Rishad Premji, son of chairman Azim Premji, has minority stakes in four US-based start-ups; India's third-largest software services firm has until now shied away from investing in VC funds.
The company's change of heart comes a week after Wipro's rival Infosys Ltd made its first investment in an early-stage focused venture fund, Palo Alto-based Vertex Ventures.
"This is inevitable," said an executive familiar with the matter. "As we try to broaden our reach in the start-up ecosystem, it's impossible for any one individual or team to evaluate the most promising start-ups. So it's only logical that we also look to invest/partner with some early-stage venture capital funds," added this person, who asked not to be named as he is not authorized to speak with the media.
The executive declined to disclose details, including whether Wipro Ventures is in talks with any VC funds, saying: "As part of our mandate we constantly evaluate and engage with VCs. We could soon invest in a US-based VC fund unless of course there is a compelling proposition to partner with some other country-focused VC."
A spokesman for Wipro confirmed the development. "In addition to our direct investment activities, it is part of our charter to invest in early-stage funds that focus on specific technology areas or geographies."
Some experts say this is a logical move for the corporate venture arms of technology firms.
"There are many ways to approach this. Having your own ventures team is important but adding a mix gives you the opportunity to try different approaches and gives you broader exposure to new investment hypothesis," said Ray Wang, founder of Constellation Research, a technology research and advisory firm.
Until now, Wipro has focused only on start-ups in the US though its management has said in the past that its investments will not be limited to one country. Since May 2013—even before Wipro formally set up a corporate venture arm late last year—Wipro has made five investments in start-ups. It sold its stake in one, US-based machine-learning start-up Axeda, to a Nasdaq-listed firm PTC Inc.
Wipro has spent $30 million to buy a stake in Opera Solutions, a New-Jersey based data analytics company, and invested $5 million in Drivestream Inc., a Virginia, US-based cloud solutions start-up.
During the April-June period this year, Wipro also made undisclosed investments in San Francisco-based artificial intelligence start-up Vicarious and California-based early-stage big data start-up Talena Inc.
Both Infosys and Wipro know the significance of start-ups in reviving the fortunes of legacy software firms.
Over the past few years, the traditional approach followed by the large companies in India's $146 billion outsourcing industry has come under pressure. This is primarily because information technology (IT) maintenance work is becoming commoditized, as new technology offerings such as automating a lot of tasks and cloud computing offer a cheaper and more efficient alternative to the historical model of using an army of engineers to oversee technology work.
To retain their dominance in the outsourcing space, IT vendors are picking stakes in small start-ups focused on disruptive technologies, including artificial intelligence and cloud computing, which they can then take to their clients.
Infosys has set up the Infosys Innovation Fund, with capital of $500 million, to back start-ups and has so far spent $18.4 million in picking up stakes in three start-ups, It is managed by CEO Vishal Sikka's former SAP AG colleague Yusuf Bashir.
Bashir does not have any prior VC expertise, and at SAP AG, he helped then chief technology officer Sikka develop and launch new products. Bashir works along with a team of eight executives—none of them have worked in venture funds in the past—based out of US, Israel and Bengaluru. Infosys has also reserved half of its $500 million fund to back start-ups in India.
Wipro Ventures' $100 million fund is jointly managed by Venu Pemmaraju, formerly a senior investment manager at Intel Capital, and Wipro executive Biplab Adhya. Both Pemmaraju and Adhya are based out of California, report to Rishad Premji, and work with Wipro's chief technology officer K.R. Sanjiv, who is based in Bengaluru.

PM Modi woos foreign investors, hopes for GST rollout in 2016

Bengaluru: Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday sounded hopeful of India successfully rolling out the new goods and services tax in 2016, while German Chancellor Angela Merkel said German companies operating in India should be treated the same way as Indian companies since it would benefit both sides. On Tuesday at the Indo-German Business Summit, India and Germany also inked five more MoUs to strengthen ties in areas such as telecommunications, solar power and defence, in addition to the 18 MoUs that were signed on Monday between the two countries.
The pacts signed included an agreement between Tata Power and Rohde & Schwarz to manufacture "software defined secure radio communications systems" for military usage and other agreements between Siemens and the Gujarat International Finance Tec (GIFT) City. During her visit to Bangalore, Merkel also encouraged Indian investors to consider investing in Germany, citing the country's business friendly regulations and abundant supply of skilled labour, among other things.
"Indian investors are certainly welcome in Germany. You as Indian companies would find excellent conditions on the ground," said Merkel addressing a packed auditorium of top executives from India's corporate sector, as well as German business delegates.
Merkel's call to boost trade ties between India and Germany comes a day after the two countries agreed to resume talks towards a free trade agreement between India and the European Union. Earlier on Tuesday, Merkel and Modi also visited German automotive engineering company Bosch's Bangalore operations.
On Tuesday, Modi stressed on the attractiveness of investments in Asia's third largest economy and said that the government was working hard to attract more foreign investments into the country, which had translated into more investor-friendly foreign direct investment (FDI) norms in sectors such as railways and defence.
Modi also emphasised the need to provide a boost to the country's technology and startup ecosystem, citing the government's ambitious plans on the Digital India and the Startup India initiatives.
"While in Bengaluru, I must say that it is the software of India that will move the hardware of the world..it makes strong business sense to be in India. It makes even greater business sense to Make in India," said Modi, addressing an audience that included the likes of Wipro's billionaire chairman Azim Premji, ICICI Bank managing director and chief executive Chanda Kocchar and Aditya Birla Group chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla among others. "India is on the threshold of a big IT revolution," added Modi. "Ours is a country of the young and it is going to remain so for many more years. Talented young Indians... are now looking to take risks and become entrepreneurs." Modi also said that India and Germany had potential to boost ties further and collaborate more.
Modi also sounded optimistic about the GST, which is currently blocked in Parliament, being rolled out in 2016.

Government of India and KFW (Federal Republic of Germany) Sign Loan Agreements Worth Euro 125 Millions for KFW Assisted Himachal and Andhra Pradesh Green Energy Corridors' Projects

New Delhi: Government of India and KFW (Federal Republic of Germany) signed here yesterday two loan agreements worth Euro 125 Millions for financing two projects under the Green Energy Projects (GEC) programme- Himachal Pradesh (Euro 57 million) and Andhra Pradesh (Euro 68 million). Loan agreements were signed by Mr. S. Selvakumar, Joint Secretary (Bilateral Cooperation), Department of Economic Affairs, Ministry of Finance on behalf of the Government of India and Mr. Roland Sillar, Member, KFW Board Management, from German side. Project agreements were also signed by Mr. S.L. Sharma, MD, HPPTCL and Mr. P. Satyamoorty, Director (Finance), Andhra Pradesh TRANSCO relating to their respective State(s)
With the Green Energy Corridors, the intra-State network will feed the renewable energy to the respective State grids and the high capacity transmission corridors and inter-State network will connect major renewable energy pockets with the national grid.
Renewable Energy is one of the key areas of Indo-German partnership mentioned in the Joint Statement of Hannover in April 2015 and with financing of the transmission infrastructure of Renewable Energy projects, the Central and State grids will be strengthened to evacuate more green energy.

India set to grow faster than other emerging markets, as per IMF

New Delhi: The International Monetary Fund (IMF) has forecasted the Indian economy to grow at 7.5 per cent in FY 2015-16, faster than every other major emerging market, mainly due to increase in investments, policy reforms and lower commodity prices. In 2015, inflation is expected to reduce further, reflecting the fall in global oil and agricultural commodities prices, which is expected to aid domestic demand as well as decrease India’s current account deficit. Prime Minister Mr Narendra Modi has outlined several business reforms aimed at attracting foreign investments such as simpler regulations, removing limits for foreign investments in certain sectors and enabling fast-track approvals for infrastructure projects. The government is taking efforts towards making the tax regime transparent and predictable.

DBT Partners with a US Firm to Reach Microscope Easily to Our Students

New Delhi: Undergraduate students from all parts of the country will soon be able to take a peek through a microscope that they can carry with them, following an initiative by the Department of Biotechnology to reach the Prakash Lab’s low cost paper folding-microscope, the Foldscope to students in our country.
The letter of intent to distribute Foldscope through DBT’s star college and other programmes was exchanged between the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) and the Prakash Lab in the presence of Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi during his visit to Silicon Valley in USA recently.
It all started with a tweet from Secretary, Department of Biotechnology Professor K Vijay Raghavan to Dr Prakash on August 12 this year.
‘Hi, can we discuss using Foldscope widely in India? I am at the Deptt of Biotech, Govt of India’.
Dr Prakash responded immediately welcoming it, a skype call followed subsequently. Prime Minister’s office also responded enthusiastically to the call requesting for his support.
Rapid communication through the social media played a crucial role quickly paving the pathway for the letter of intent to spread the low technology widely through DBT’s network.
This was a unique demonstration of how the government is using the social media in novel ways to stimulate citizen science.
Dr Prakash is excited about engaging through DBT to extend further the Foldscope’s reach to all parts of India. He said, “Our vision is to bring a microscope into the hands of every single kid in the world”.
“Partnering with Prakash Lab’s Foldscope is an exciting new adventure for the Department of Biotechnology. It is Citizen Science at its best. The Foldscope is torchlight in the hands of human curiosity that allows each and every one of us to explore our planet at the microscopic level, just as the telescope allows us to explore the stars. The beauty we see and the science underneath it will create a new generation of young scientists in India. We look forward to taking this wonderful partnership ahead” said Professor Vijay Raghavan.
Prakash Lab, a research group at Stanford University working in the field of engineering and physical biology, will source Foldscope to DBT and its constituents.
The DBT will ensure that the Foldscope is provided to students of the Star College scheme in each identified college. This will be done progressively based on the availability of Foldscope.
Foldscope will be used as an educational and training tool to understand physics, chemistry, biology and instrumentation.
Foldscope is provided as a kit where the student starts by first building the actual unit from the kit; and explores curiosity driven questions surrounding the microscopic world in physics, chemistry and biology. The users build an online community and share insights, projects, questions and scientific discoveries with the community at Foldscope online platform.
Workshops and training programmes will be run by Prakash Lab in collaboration with Indian institutions. The nascent Local Foldscope community based in India will also be involved in training.
After this initial pilot program, the collaboration with Prakash Lab will be expanded to setting up of joint research for explorations of other low cost instrumentation in colleges as deemed mutually appropriate.
This was a case of matching of views that is focused to create a spark. The Prime Minister has been stressing on using Indian experts abroad to bring benefits to India.

Edelweiss setting up US$ 1 bn real estate fund

Bengaluru: Edelweiss Alternative Asset Advisors Ltd, part of diversified financial services firm Edelweiss Group, is raising up to $1 billion for its first residential real estate fund, a top executive said.
Edelweiss Real Estate Fund is a structured credit, offshore fund that is looking to invest $15-75 million in each transaction. It is planning to do a first close of about $350 million in a month’s time, making it one of the largest first closures in recent times.
Once a fund achieves the so-called first close, it starts making investments.
“We are looking to partner mid-sized developers in real estate projects that have already got the key approvals. The fund will not provide capital to buy land or invest in an early stage of a project,” said Venkat Ramaswamy, executive director and co-head of global asset management, Edelweiss Financial Services Ltd.
The fund will scout for investment opportunities in five property markets—National Capital Region (NCR), Mumbai, Pune, Bengaluru and Chennai.
Private equity (PE) firms plan to raise about $3 billion (excluding the Edelweiss fund) from overseas investors this fiscal year to invest in projects in the top property markets despite choppy markets and inadequate interest from limited partners (LPs) in the Indian real estate segment.
LPs include public and corporate pension funds, insurance companies, wealthy individuals and university and other endowments that are the source of money for PE firms, which then establish funds to invest.
Housing Development Finance Corp. Ltd (HDFC) has two new offshore funds, a $500 million fund through HDFC Property Fund that will be launched later this year and an $850 million fund through another entity which is already in fund-raising mode.
IDFC Alternatives is also targeting about $250 million from offshore investors for a new fund and has entered into an asset management and development partnership with property firm SARE Homes, which will manage and monitor the projects in which the fund will invest.
For six-to-seven years, Edelweiss has made investments in real estate projects mainly out of its own balance sheet. This time, as it gears up for a full-fledged fund, it is tapping investors in Asia, Europe and the US.
“Edelweiss is a meaningful investor in all our alternative credit funds, and our fund size is decided on the basis of what we can deploy. We have an extremely good team with strong real estate market connects in our five addressed cities, which is essential in terms of deploying and recovery of capital,” said Ramaswamy.
PE funds that invest in real estate projects typically opt for equity investments, which carry higher risks and returns; debt investments with lower but guaranteed returns; or structured transactions, which are a mix of both.
In the Edelweiss fund, structured credit means returns are structured keeping in mind the cash flow of the project. It keeps 1.5 to 2 times its investment amount as collateral and has control of the project cash flows.
For home-grown firms such as ASK group and Edelweiss that are raising their first offshore funds, it will be interesting to see how they tap the LP network in today’s challenging conditions, a property consultant said.
“Funds have taken longer to raise offshore capital in recent times as most LPs are not willing to write large cheques and commit upfront capital,” said Shashank Jain, partner, transaction services, PricewaterhouseCoopers India. “Most of them give out smaller amounts, and keep monitoring the fund’s performance and as and when good transactions take place, they commit more money. As a result of which, the final closing of a fund happens in a staggered manner.”

New IPR policy in 2 months: DIPP secy

New Delhi: India was going to unveil a comprehensive intellectual property right (IPR) policy to address the concerns of foreign industries operating here and those looking to invest in the country, Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion (DIPP) Secretary Amitabh Kant confirmed in New Delhi on Monday.
Addressing a joint Indo-German business round table, attended by chief executives of companies from both countries, Kant said the government was doing all it could to bring out the IPR policy; it would be made public in two months’ time.
His statement came after entrepreneurs from Germany’s pharmaceutical and defence industries conveyed the difficulties of working with sensitive technology under India’s existing IPR regime.
The defence trade between India and Germany, though at a favourable stage currently, needed to be streamlined through responses from the demand and supply sides of the economy, said a German industrialist.
Among other issues raised by the delegation were the unease of business, especially in the Customs clearance process, unavailability of technical workforce and need to remove existing red-tape in investment.
Significant concerns over delays in implementation of the goods & services tax (GST) were also mentioned.
The event, organised by industry bodies Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industries (Ficci), Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce, saw the participation by 20 CEOs of German and Indian companies.