Reliance unit files for insolvency in Germany

Reliance Industries Ltd on Wednesday said that Trevira, a European textile unit, had applied in a German court to start the proceedings of insolvency with a restructuring plan.

The move follows major efforts by the company to overcome the impact of industrial slowdown in Europe particularly of the automotive and textile sectors to whom it is an important supplier, Reliance said in a statement.

Reliance said that Trevira was "severely impacted" by the recent global financial downturn that resulted in considerable contraction in demand in its'' principal market segment. Trevira makes polyester fibres as well as filament yarns. It has production units in Germany as well as Denmark, Poland and Belgium, the website showed.

Reliance Industries had acquired Trevira in 2004.

Wipro''s revenue will not be affected by GM''s bankruptcy

The revenues of Wipro will not be affected due to the bankruptcy of its client, General Motors Corp, the IT firm said in a regulatory filing Wednesday. "General Motors accounts for less than 1% of Wipro''s IT services segment revenue, and our assessment is that a substantial portion is expected to continue," the company statement said.

It also added "Our accounts receivable as on the date of filing is under $8 million. Based on our current assessment, we do not expect significant adverse impact on account of this development,".

Educomp bags Rs 83.82 crores contract from Gujarat Government

Educomp Solutions, India''s leading education company has bagged Rs 83.82 crore order from Gujarat Government to introduce computer-aided learning (CAL) in Secondary/Senior Secondary Schools in the state. This will cover around 8,50,000 students in class 9th to 12th.

Soumya Kanti, President, Edureach (Educomp''s ICT Division) said, "We have signed an agreement with Commissioner MDM and Schools, Gandhinagar, Gujarat for Implementation of Computer Aided Learning in 1780 Secondary/Senior Secondary Schools in two Zones namely, North Gujarat (905 schools) and Saurashtra & Kutcch (875 schools) for the period of five Years on BOOT basis including supply of Hardware, Software, Manpower Services, Teacher Training and Maintenance of the Systems,"

Key Deliverables include supply, installation and maintenance of Computer Hardware, Software and connected accessories, providing Computer Aided education, impart training to teachers for using computers for operation & using the software and making provision for Internet connection at each school. One project manager per zone and one school coordinator/computer assistant for each set of five schools will also be provided by Educomp.

With the current project, the total number of schools under ICT implementation by Educomp in Gujarat is 5099 and the total number of schools across India stands at 13792.
The Public Private Partnership model has emerged as the most successful model for bridging the digital divide in the country and Educomp is leading the initiative in this segment. ICT in education, especially computer-aided learning has overall had an extremely positive impact on raising learning standards as well as in reducing drop out rates among children in these schools across the country.

Geometric releases GeomCaliper version 2.3

Geometric Limited, a leader in Product Lifecycle Management (PLM) solutions and technologies, announced the release of version 2.3 of GeomCaliper with support and integration with CATIA V5R19 and enhanced features primarily for performance improvement.

Major advancements in this release include:

* Support and integration for CATIA V5R19

* Improved accuracy of the Thickness Checker tool; the tool now displays important and more relevant results only, by filtering out non-critical results

* Ability to create and load different templates of Options/Settings for different types of thickness analysis

* Editable colour band that allows you to change GeomCaliper results file after importing it in CATIA V5

A free 15 day trial version of GeomCaliper for CATIA and Pro/ENGINEER platforms can be downloaded from http://geomcaliper.geometricglobal.com/

GeomCaliper is an innovative tool that facilitates measurement and checking of wall thickness of 3D CAD models. It accelerates the design review process for manufacturability, enabling faster prototyping and production of designs, thus reducing the overall design cycle time. Unlike other traditional measurement methods, GeomCaliper is fast, accurate and easy to use.

IRDA likely to allow banks to sell policies of rival insurers

The Insurance Regulatory Development Authority (IRDA) is expected to allow banks to sell policies of rival insurers in order to give more choices to the customers. IRDA is evaluating the norms that limit banks from selling policies of rival insurance companies. According to the existing norms, a bank can sell insurance products of one life and one general insurance company and only insurance brokers are allowed to sell policies of rivals. The plan may impinge on the multi-crore distribution arrangements between banks and insurers. Life insurers earn an important part of their premium through sales by a group bank. Banks are getting commissions for passing on customers to life insurers. Insurers also worried that banks would push the products of those who pay the maximum commission, after getting freedom to sell policies of multiple companies.

RBI extends time period for realization of bad assets

On Friday, the Reserve Bank extended the period for final realization of bad assets from the existing five to seven years to decrease the pressure of NPAs rising on companies. The Bank increased the time limit for reconstruction and securitisation companies (SCs/RCs) for realisation for reconstruction of assets taken by it. "As an interim measure, the Bank has accorded permission to give an extension of two more years for realisation of the assets in respect of the security receipts (SRs) issued by SCs/RCs which have completed five years," said the Reserve Bank in a notification The Central bank had received representations from many asset reconstruction and securitisation companies which had not been able to realize the financial asset acquired within the given time frame.

Banks'' non performing assets to triple by 2011: Crisil

The economic slowdown as well as aging of loans will deteriorate the banks’ assets in the next two years, said a report from Crisil, the rating agency. The report also said that the banking sectors’ gross non-performing assets are likely to witness a growth to touch 5 per cent by 2011 as against 2.3 per cent in 2008. The gross NPAs in absolute terms would grew to around three times from the March 2008 level of Rs 55,000 crore to Rs 1.9 lakh crore. This rise in NPA include the demand slowdown as well as lack of funding, lengthy working capital cycles and foreign exchange rate fluctuation, said Mr Tarun Bhatia, Head, Finance Sector Ratings, Crisil.

However, in the retail front, the gross NPAs are likely to reach 4.7 per cent by March 2011 from 3.2 per cent in March 2008. But the impact will be limited as most of the banks as well as financial entities have not increased their incremental exposure to unsecured loans portfolio, the report said. The bottom line of the banking sector will have a negative impact due to increase in defaults cases but with the banks having to keep aside about 25-40 per cent of their profits as provisions for their non-performing assets this fiscal, Mr Bhatia said.