India's foreign exchange reserves rose to $33.09 billion on September 17 from $32.986 billion in the previous week, RBI said in its weekly statistical supplement on Saturday. The loans and advances by the RBI to the Government rose to Rs 7266 crore in the week to September 10 from Rs 5608 crore in the previous week, it said.

Bayer ends cancer drug trials

Bayer AG unit Bayer Corp said has said it halted all clinical trials of a novel drug meant to fight cancer and osteoarthritis after those taking it fared worse than patients taking placebos. The drug is meant to work by blocking so-called matrixmetalloproteinase enzymes.

BoB Card to double share capital

The shareholders of BoB Cards, a wholly owned subsidiary of BoB, have given their nod for doubling the company's share capital to Rs 20 crore by issuing one crore equity shares of Rs 10 each. They have also approved an offer of one crore equity shares of Rs 10 each on a rights basis to BoB. Forthe year ended March 31, the company's net has fallen to Rs 2.27 crore compared with Rs 3.45 crore last year.

Japanese pen major sets up unit

Japanese pen major Pentel, which has been distributing its writing instruments in India for the past two years, has set up a Rs 6 crore manufacturing facility in Daman. The plant has an initial capacity to manufacture 50,000 pens per day.

IT sector needs to grow: Pant

IT sector will have to grow by 80 per cent to achieve the target of $50 billion worth of software exports by 2008, deputy chairman Planning Commission KC Pant has said. India can become a leader in information revolution, but its IT sector will have to boost its annual growth from 57 per cent to 80 per cent, he has said.

FISE to set up task force

The Federation of Indian Stock Exchanges has decided to constitute a task force to prepare a blueprint on introducing derivatives and sustaining the utility of weekly badla system in the proposed rolling settlement regime. The taskforce will comprise representatives from Calcutta, Delhi, Ahmedabad, Bangalore stock exchanges.

Umarji RBI executive director

MR Umarji has been appointed RBI executive director effective from September 1. Umarji will look after the department of non-banking supervision. He was executive director of Corporation Bank. Syndicate Bank's merchant bankersSyndicate Bank has identified SBI Capital, ICICI Ventures, DSP Merril Lynch and Kotak Mahindra as merchant bankers for its public issue to be floated on October 25. On the block are 12,50,00,000 equity shares of Rs 10 each for cash at par aggregating Rs 125 crore.

Asia's problems persist: IMF

IMF has warned that Asia's crisis-hit economies are still saddled with complex problems and have a long way to go in their financial restructuring effort. In its second assessment of the response to the Asian financial crisis, the IMF said there is need for prompt and decisive action to combat banking problems.

`Cauvery panel crossedlimits'

In a new twist to the raging Cauvery row, Karnataka on Saturday accused the monitoring committee of the Cauvery River Authority of having crossed the limits of its powers in announcing that the state should release nine tmc ft of water to Tamil Nadu. State major irrigation minister KN Nagegowda said the centre should direct the committee to act in consonance with its powers.

Resolving the Net identity crisis

Rohit Chandra, an India-born entrepreneur, was the first to realise the need for an Internet user identity manager. And his Ecode.com, which made its public appearance just two months ago in Chicago, has already acquired one lakh users.

Unwired customers stand to lose

The digital divide is widening, says a recent study , and the gap is on its way to becoming a ``racial ravine''. While more Americans are going online, black and Hispanic families are less than half as likely as white families to have access to the Net .

Gulf still an attraction forKeralites

The Gulf may not hold the same promise for the prospective job-hunter that it did a few years ago. But contrary to the general perception, Keralites continue to land there in large numbers.

Talk business in 16 languages

Breaking the language barrier is most essential in the process of business negotiations. In recent times, a large number of transnational corporates have utilised the services of multilingual communication.

Compiled by Joby P Johnson