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Politics Business Expressions General Sports Leisure States 27 February 1998   Alcan plans counter offer for Indal stake In a new twist to the Indian Aluminium (Indal) takeover drama, Alcan Aluminium of Canada, the 34.6% owner of the Indian company, has announced its intention to make a counter offer in retaliation to the Rs 90 per share offer made by Sterlite Industries. The offer would be made within the next 21 days deadline as per SEBI guidelines.   Higher foreign equity in Essar, Samsung okayed The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) on Thursday cleared the proposal of Essar Oil to hike the foreign equity in the company to over 49% from the present level of 25%. The board has also approved Korea's Samsung Electronics' proposal to increase its stake in Samsung India Electronics from 51% to 74%. ICL makes open offer for Raasi The takeover game in corporate India is hotting up with the Rs 832-crore India Cements making an open offer to acquire 20% stake in the Rs 410 crore Raasi Cement at Rs 300 per share. The Chennai-based cement major announced that it had already acquired a 9.75% stake in the Hyderabad-based Raasi Cements last year and had further acquired 8.28% for cash on spot basis. Praxair to take over AOL unit Praxair India Pvt Ltd has decided to acquire the Ranipet plant of Asiatic Oxygen as a going concern. The plant is located at Tamil Nadu. Its share of the merchant market in the south is expected to go up to about 25%, claims managing dirctor Indrajit Mukherjee.   VRS eats away Glaxo profit India's largest pharma company, Glaxo India reported a 14% drop in its net profits at Rs 41.19 crore for the year ended December 97 as against Rs 47.90 crore in the the previous year. The company said that the drop in profits is, however, essentially due to a major outgo towards voluntary retirement expenses. Rush to file I-T returns Much like the rush for filing declarations under VDIS '97, the rush for filing returns has only just begun at Aaykar Bhavan, virtually at the fag end of the scheme launched by the Income Tax department on January five this year.     Gupta panel approves norms for derivatives trading   Sebi meeting on market reforms   Sensex gains 87 points   ED probing Mashreq role in forex case   Silver prices nosedive