Buyback ordinance awaits president's nod: Corporates will have to wait for a few days more for the ordinance on share buyback. The government on Wednesday forwarded the ordinance to president KR Narayanan, who is expected to sign it only after a couple of days as he is on a visit to Gujarat.

Hoechst, Rhone-Poulenc in tieup talks: Speculation that Germany's Hoechst AG and Rhone-Poulenc SA of France are discussing various forms of strategic collaboration, and perhaps even a full merger, drove their shares up sharply. Both the companies declined tocomment. But people familiar with the deliberations of Hoechst and Rhone-Poulenc confirmed that senior executives from the companies have discussed possible collaborations in recent months, although it isn't clear whether such top-level discussions are active.

Rajdoot Paints mulls merger option: Rajdoot Paints, the Delhi-based KS Dhingra-controlled paints company is examining the feasibility of a merger with group company Berger Paints. The Calcutta-based Berger Paints, which is the third largest paints company after Asian paints and Goodlas Nerolac, will post-merger become a significant player in the decorateive paints business.

DCA orders transfers of 4 directors: The Department of Company Affairs under the ministry of law, justice and company affairs has, in an unexpected move, transferred two regional directors and two directors of inspection and investigation on Monday.

Laloo, Mishra sent to jail: Former Bihar chief ministers Laloo Prasad Yadav and Jagannath Mishra were onWednesday remanded to judicial custody after the designated CBI judge SK Lal rejected their prayers for provisional bail in a conspiracy angle case of the fodder scam. Others who were sent to the Beur central jail include former union minister Chandradeo Prasad Verma, two former cabinet colleagues of Yadav--Bholaram Toofani and Vidyasagar Nishad--and RJD MLA RK Rana.

Ashok Leyland posts marginal profit: Ashok Leyland Ltd, aided by significant savings in costs, has posted a marginal cash profit of Rs 0.35 crore for the first half of the current fiscal erasing the loss incurred in the first quarter. The company has posted a net loss of Rs 36.73 crore, compared with Rs 32.41 crore in the corresponding period of the previous year.

Tata Tea net zooms 87.6%: Tata Tea Ltd has registered a 87.67 per cent rise in net profit to Rs 94.42 crore in the first half of the current fiscal ended September 30, 1998, as against Rs 50.31 crore in the corresponding period last year. Income from operations droppedmarginally by 1.5 per cent to Rs 440.07 crore during the period from Rs 446.80 crore in the same period last year.

MTNL unable to use Trai proposals: The state-owned Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd has expressed its inability to implement the recent recommendations of the Tariff Regulatory Authority of India in toto. MTNL chairman and managing director S Rajagopalan told newsmen that the telephone company was unable to hike the rental charges to Rs 610 as per the recommendations, from the present Rs 380.

DoT, Iridium pact for GMPCS service: The Department of Telecommunications on Wednesday signed a provisional licence agreement with Iridium to enable the latter to commence commercial operations of global mobile personal communications by satellite in the country. As a result of the agreement, the GMPCS service would be launched in the country simultaneously with the global launch on November 1, an official release said in New Delhi.

Sebi directive to Sterlite on Indal shares: TheSecurities and Exchange Board of India has directed Sterlite Industries to accept the shares of Indal furnished to the company under its aborted takeover bid on the aluminium major. The regulator has asked Sterlite to make the payment of Rs 221 per share in cash plus an interest of 15 per cent from July 2, the date by when the payments should have been made to shareholders of Indal.

Indal stand on Alupuram lockout: Indian Aluminum Company Ltd has informed the Bombay Stock Exchange that it has been constrained to declare a lock-out at Alupuram extension plant in Kalamassery, Kerala as the workers are resorting to violence and obstruction in the factory premises.

Sensex dips 63 points: After a smart recovery of about 111 points, equities beat a hasty retreat pushing the Sensex down by 63 points on the stock market as foreign funds turned net sellers inducing profit selling by operators. Operators, particularly bears, who had covered their short positions on the opening day of the new account,pressed heavy sales after knowing that foreign institutional investors had turned net sellers since Tuesday. FIIs were reported to have sold shares of ITC, SBI, RIL, Telco, MTNL, Hind Lever and others.

New income-tax director-general: CM Betgeri has taken over charge as the director-general of income-tax (investigation), West, at Ahmedabad. His jurisdiction comprises Gujarat, Rajasthan and Maharashtra (except Mumbai). He had earlier held the post of CIT at Cochin, Mumbai, Ahmedabad and Rajkot.

Move to improve cotton yarn exports: The government has delinked cotton yarn exports from the condition of fulfillment of hank yarn export requirement. This decision has been taken with the objective to reverse the downturn in cotton yarn exports.

Central Vigilance Commission ordinance amended: The government has amended the Central Vigilance Commission ordinance making it a four-member body broad-basing it to include experts from outside the bureaucracy as members of the commission. Keepingthe commitments made to the Supreme Court to "fine-tune" the provisions of the August 25 ordinance, the government also dropped the original "single directive" provision. The single directive had made it mandatory for investigating agencies to seek permission of the competent authority before launching probe against officials above the rank of joint secretary and other high-ranking bank and public sector officials.

India-EU import duty row: India and the European Union have settled a row over higher Indian levies on European goods, but only temporarily, according to official indications. The dispute has highlighted several disadvantageous terms India accepted under the World Trade Organisation.

Justice Mohan panel report: The Justice Mohan Committee Report will be presented to union industry minister Sikander Bakht on October 30. The report will submit recommendations for revision of salaries for employees of central government administered public sector units.

PSUs may not be able tobuyback their shares: With its disinvestment programme for the year not having taken off, it might make excellent sense for the government to ask PSUs to buy back their shares when it is finally allowed. This might, in fact, be the only alternative left to garner at least part of the disinvestment proceeds targeted for the current fiscal.

Directive on banks computerisation soon: Chief vigilance commissioner N Vittal on Wednesday said that he would issue a directive by November 10 asking all public sector banks to complete computerisation of their branches by January 1, 2000 so that financial and bank frauds could be checked.

Low-key credit policy seen: Notwithstanding the comfortable liquidity condition in the banking system, the Reserve Bank of India is now facing an uphill task to prescribe any measures in its half-yearly credit policy on Thursday and go ahead with further restructuring of banking system particularly in the light of negative factors such as slowdown in productivity,increasing non-performing assets of banks, lack of consumer demands, rising inflationary pressure along with money supply and growing fiscal deficits.

IBM move to expand Unix market: IBM has unveiled a broad set of alliances to allow its version of Unix, the high-powered business software system, to run on new, upcoming Intel computer chips, a move that fortifies the fractured Unix market against inroads by Microsoft Corp's rival Windows NT system. IBM said it had agreed to strategic pacts with Santa Cruz Operation Inc, the largest supplier of Unix software operating on Intel-based computers, and Sequent, a supplier of technology that allows computers to be strung together to give them supercomputer-like performance.

Ford mulls changes in Lincoln unit: Ford Motor Co is mulling big changes to its Lincoln Mercury division, industry analysts said, including the addition of new aluminum sport wagons and dropping the Mountaineer utility vehicle in favour of a Lincoln version. Also on the drawingboard is a special four-door Lincoln pickup truck code-named Blackwood due out possibly in calendar 2000, analysts said.