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Politics Business Expressions General Sports Leisure States 22 January 1998   Institutions also hike prime lending rates Close on the heels of the hike in lending rates by State Bank and other commercial banks, the country's premier financial institutions -- IDBI and IFCI also hiked their prime lending rates (PLR) by 1% yesterday. The list of banks which raised PLR and deposit rates in response to the new money policy announced last week by the RBI also includes Bank of Baroda, Standard Chartered Bank, etc.   FIIs pull out Rs 265 cr in 2 weeks The `quit India' movement started by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) in November last year is continuing. The outflow of funds through the FII route during the fortnight ended January 16 has amounted to Rs 265.1 crore. SEBI has estimated the amount pulled out from India's stock markets by foreign funds at a massive $71.2 million. Re slide to derail power tariff projections The depreciation of rupee is bound to have a disastrous impact on the power tariffs worked out by private power producers in their financial projections. Compared to the average projected tariff costs of around Rs 2.50 per unit earlier, power producers will now have to look at a figure of over Rs 3.50 per unit in view of the massive forex fluctuations witnessed over the last few months. Sensex sinks by 38 pts Pivotals led by ITC, Castrol and SBI declined further at the BSE on Wednesday. This was mainly due to heavy selling, coupled with lack of institutional support. The BSE sensex also dropped further by 38 points.   Rupiah crash drags Asian markets down Indonesia's battered rupiah dragged most Asia markets back into a quagmire on Wednesday. Strength in Tokyo and New York failed to spill over to the rest of Asia, where nearly every market reacted badly to an early session plunge in the rupiah to 12,000 to the US dollar. The rupiah's plunge was attributed to reports claiming that Indonesian corporates were making rupiah payments on their US dollar debt. PESB nominee for BPCL rejected The Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas has over-turned the recommendations of the Public Enterprise Selection Board (PESB) for the post of Director (Personnel) for Bharat Petroleum Corporation Limited (BPCL). While the PESB had recommended BPCL's own general manager (personnel), S.A. Narayan, as their candidate for the job, the Ministry has decided to recommend the name of P Bannerjee, currently the executive director (north) of Indian Oil Corporation, as a candidate.     IDBI hikes coupon on Flexibonds   Bizbits   FIs pledge $3 bn in 20 new power projects   BSE volume fast catching up with NSE   Price cut in rifampicin stayed   Golden Forest in fresh trouble   Lloyds Finance net profit slips 55 pc   MoST chalks revival plan for HDPE   Govt moves SC for time on Rent Act   Aviation outlay fixed at Rs 500 crore