RBI examining default
The Reserve Bank of India is examining whether its failure to credit the current account of a bank was responsible for a series of defaults in the money markets on Thursday, a senior official of the central bank said on Saturday. The Financial Express had reported on Saturday that the repo market collapsed on Thursday, with at least 10 market participants defaulting by around Rs 1 billion after the RBI failed to credit the current account of a selling bank as part of its open market operations.

Infosys completes demat drive
Software bluechip Infosys Technologies announced it has recently completed a drive to increase the holdings of its shares in dematerialised form, to become India's largest electronically held company. "As a result of the demat drive, the coverage of the company's dematerialised shares increased from 88.5 per cent to 96 per cent in just three weeks," a company statement said.

Forex reserves rise to $35.595 bn
The country's foreign exchange reserves rose to $35.595 billion on February 25, from $35.193 billion in the previous week, the RBI said in its weekly statistical supplement on Saturday. Loans and advances by the central bank to the Government rose to Rs 2,571 crore in the week ended February 11, from Rs 1,967 crore in the previous week. Loans and advances to state governments fell to Rs 3,953 crore, from Rs 4,510 crore in the previous week, the RBI said.

RBI bought Rs 5.72 bn bonds
The Reserve Bank of India said on Saturday it bought a net Rs 5.72 billion worth of Government bonds through open market operations on March 3, compared with net purchases of Rs 500 million on March 2. Details of treasury bill purchases from primary dealers and sales of government bonds were not available.

PM to dedicate N-plant to nation
Prime Minister AB Vajpayee will dedicate to the nation the 220mw unit II of the Kaiga nuclear plant at the western ghats forests in Kaiga on Sunday. With this, Karnataka will become the sixth state in the country to produce nuclear power energy.

RIL's `analog cotton Vimal Micro'
Reliance Industries' Rs 700-crore textiles division has ventured into the bottom-weight fabrics segment with the launch of `analog cotton Vimal Micro'. The micro fibre segment was launched in Pune on March 4 and will be available all over the country by April this year.

Bajaj Auto sales up 8.7%
Bajaj Auto's combined sales of two and three-wheelers in the month of February went up by 8.7 per cent to 1,27,341 units compared to the corresponding period last year. Sales of motorcycles increased by 30 per cent to 28,500 units in February. "The strong performance of `Bajaj Boxer' has helped boost the motorcycles sales in February," vice-president (business and product development), RL Ravichandran, said.

Government's borrowing programme
The Reserve Bank of India sees the Government's borrowing programme for 1999-2000 (April-March) going through smoothly, the deputy governor of the central bank YV Reddy said on Saturday. Reddy said latest budget estimates showed the Government was likely to borrow Rs 40 to 50 billion more before the end of the fiscal year in March, but said market speculation that it will be raised through securities' auctions was premature.

UTI declares 20% dividend on scheme
Unit Trust of India has declared a 20 per cent dividend on its growth-oriented interval fund UGS 10000, whose current net asset value stands at Rs 18.07. Record date for the dividend, which would not be subject to distribution tax and was also tax free in the hands of the unit-holders, has been set for March 21, 2000, Unit Trust of India said.

-- Compiled by Rajwant