Lakshmi Vilas Bank reports 22.79% business growth

Lakshmi Vilas Bank reports 22.79% business growth

CHENNAI: Private sector lender Lakshmi Vilas Bank on Monday said it has registered a total business growth of 22.79 per cent at Rs 15,561 crore

for the financial year ending March 31, 2010.

Last year, the bank's total business stood at Rs 12,673 crore. "The total deposits of the bank rose from Rs 7,358 crore to Rs 9,076 crore, increasing by 23 per cent year-on-year basis," a statement issued by the bank here said.

The Current Account Savings Account deposits of the bank also increased from Rs 1,229 crore to Rs 1,650 crore registering year-on-year growth of 34 per cent, it said.

The bank's credit portfolio expanded from Rs 5,315 crore to Rs 6,485 crore, registering a year-on-year growth of 22 per cent, the statement added.

Lakshmi Vilas currently has 16 lakh customers and has 271 branches spread across 14 states and one union territory, it further said.

After Uma, Govindacharya quits his organization

After Uma, Govindacharya quits his organization

BHOPAL, April 4: Close on the heels of Uma Bharti’s resignation from the president’s post of her party, Bharatiya Jan Shakti (BJS), her mentor and former Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) ideologue K.N. Govindacharya has quit as national convenor of his own organisation - Rashtriya Swabhiman Andolan (RSA).He left for Delhi shortly before the organisation’s two-day national executive meet was to begin here Saturday.

Govindacharya’s decision to quit the RSA post was announced at the organisation’s meet on Saturday and Rakesh Dubey was nominated as RSA’s national convener. Govindacharya was the convener of RSA since its founding May 15, 2004, and was devoting his time and energy in working for the Bharatiya Shodh Sansthan, Kautilya Shodh Sansthan and Bharat Vikas Parishad.

The former BJP general secretary and an RSS ideologue had severed ties with the BJP during the Atal Bihari Vajpayee government following his remarks calling the former prime minister a ‘mask’ and Advani the ‘real face’ of the party.Since then, Govindacharya, a patron of the RSS Swadeshi movement, restricted himself to academic activities even after Bharti roped him in 2009 and announced that the BJS would be the political wing of the RSA.

India willing to hold another FS-level meeting with Pakistan

India willing to hold another FS-level meeting with Pakistan

NEW DELHI, April 3: After the ice-breaking February 25 Foreign Secretary-level talks, India has conveyed to Pakistan its willingness to have the second round of parleys but is yet to get any response.

India also has not heard anything from Pakistan on the three dossiers given to it containing names of 34 terrorists wanted here, including LeT chief Hafiz Saeed, with a demand for handing them over and other effective actions.Sources said India has told Pakistan that the second round of talks can be held but they have to “come back to us”.

The February 25 talks held in Delhi were an ice-breaker after the 26/11 attacks when the dialogue process was put on hold by India as terrorists from Pakistan were responsible for the strike.The initiative for those talks was taken by India and were intended to discuss terrorism, which India says is the “core issue”.India is still not satisfied by Pakistan’s actions with regard to ending terrorism but it conveyed to it that the channels of communication are open from the Indian side, they said.

At the day-long talks between Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao and her Pakistani counterpart Salman Bashir on February 25, the two sides noted the “trust” deficit in the ties and decided to “remain in touch and continue endeavour to restore trust”. India had said that the trust had been “erased” by the Mumbai attacks.

With regard to 26/11, India “acknowledged” that Pakistan had taken certain steps to bring perpetrators to justice, but “pointed out that these did not go far enough to unravel the full conspiracy behind the Mumbai attack and to award exemplary punishment to all culprits.” (PTI)

India market soars for business jet makers

India market soars for business jet makers

NEW DELHI: With the number of billionaires and high net worth individuals in India growing, business jet makers are intensifying efforts to sell their aircraft in India which industry sources say will need over 250 aircraft in the next 10 years.

"We are very optimistic about India. We have good business here as India is an expanding market," said Roger Sperry, vice president, sales, of the US-based Gulfstream.

"Earlier most of our sales were in th US, but now at least 60 percent of our sales are outside. We have built new facilities for the production of our latest offerings," Jerry said.

Gulfstream Aerospace Corp is a wholly owned subsidiary of General Dynamics. It had a record sale of 250 business jets in 2008 when recession spread worldwide. It is looking to increase its presence in the Asian market.