Ministry may push for SAIL equity recast
Union minister for steel and mines Naveen Patnaik SAID that a "financial restructuring'' of the Steel Authority of India (SAIL) was under examination. The largest public-sector undertaking (PSU) under the steel ministry's wings has proposed conversion of its nearly Rs 4,000 crore of loans into government shares.

Pharma firms keen to use grace time before patent enforcement
Even as the cabinet has failed to arrive at a consensus on product patents, the domestic drug industry seems to have worked out a mutually acceptable formula -- January 1, 2000 EMR (exclusive marketing rights) + January 1, 2005 (product patents).

Rs 25,000 cr outlay for textile sector likely
The union government has finalised a corpus of Rs 25,000 crore to give a massive push to the textile sector during the Ninth Plan. The funds would be essentially provided by the financial institutions (FIs), including Sidbi and Nabard, under the technology upgradation scheme.

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