My tableau

Indian equities opened on a strong note Monday and moved up further on strong global cues to extend the gains for the third straight trading day.
The sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) opened at 15,362.93 points, as opposed to Friday’s close at 15,240.83, and was ruling at 15,531.76 points, an hour into trade – a gain of 290.93 points, or 1.91 percent.

Stocks of realty, metals and consumer durables industries were the current flavours. Among the individual stocks of the30-share Sensex, Jaiprakash was up 3.59 percent, Sterlier was up 3.29 percent and Hindalco was up 2.88 percent.

In fact, all the 30 shares that go into the Sensex basket were in the green.

At the National Stock Exchange (NSE), the S&P CNX Nifty, a basket of 50 shares, was ruling at 4,613.40 points, against Friday’s close at 4,528.80 points, with a gain of 1.87 percent, data with the bouse showed.

The capital Monday continued to reel under the effects of Friday’s two-hour downpour — trees and branches blown down during the storm were still lying on the roads and traffic lights were non-functional, leading to traffic snarls and accidents.
While the civic agency claimed to have cleared out the mess from the storm, the scene Monday morning showed a different story. Fallen trees and branches clearly blocked carriageways on busy roads.

Delhi Mayor Kanwar Sain decried this, saying that “the clear-up operations should have been done on an emergency basis, irrespective that it was the weekend”.

“Our horticulture department undertook a survey of all roads in our jurisdiction. Wherever there was a problem the trees should have been cleared. Still there may be areas like on public works department (PWD) roads or New Delhi Municipal Corporation roads where residents are facing problems,” Sain told IANS.

But on one of the main roads under the jurisdiction of the MCD, many branches lay on south Delhi’s Outer Ring Road in front of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campus, leading to accidents and four-kilometre-long traffic queues.

The capital Monday continued to reel under the effects of Friday’s two-hour downpour — trees and branches blown down during the storm were still lying on the roads and traffic lights were non-functional, leading to traffic snarls and accidents.
While the civic agency claimed to have cleared out the mess from the storm, the scene Monday morning showed a different story. Fallen trees and branches clearly blocked carriageways on busy roads.

Delhi Mayor Kanwar Sain decried this, saying that “the clear-up operations should have been done on an emergency basis, irrespective that it was the weekend”.

“Our horticulture department undertook a survey of all roads in our jurisdiction. Wherever there was a problem the trees should have been cleared. Still there may be areas like on public works department (PWD) roads or New Delhi Municipal Corporation roads where residents are facing problems,” Sain told IANS.

But on one of the main roads under the jurisdiction of the MCD, many branches lay on south Delhi’s Outer Ring Road in front of the Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) campus, leading to accidents and four-kilometre-long traffic queues.

Super-speciality hospital group Fortis has acquired 10 hospitals from Wockhardt for Rs.909 crore, the company said Monday.
With this acquisition, the Delhi-based Fortis will add 1,902 beds, including 534 beds in the two ongoing greenfield projects of Wockhardt in Bangalore and Kolkata, taking its total capacity to 5,202 beds in 38 hospitals.

Wockhardt will retain some of its speciality hospitals, and will use the proceeds from the sale of the 10 hospitals to part repay its debt of Rs.2,500 crore.

The business transaction is set to close by December on completion of agreed conditions.

Fortis said there would be no change in the management of the acquired hospitals as the company wanted to work with the existing teams.

“We will be working with the existing team of Wockhardt with Vishal Bali as the chief executive officer,” said Shivinder M. Singh, chief executive and managing director of Fortis Hospitals.

The acquisition will enable Fortis to expand its footprint in the southern cities, and attain planned set-up of 40 hospitals and add 6,000 beds by 2012, Singh said.

The Wall Street Journal on Sunday came up with reports that the drug maker Warner Chilcott, which primarily makes acne-related medications, offers hormone therapy and birth-control pills is willful of taking up Procter & Gamble. The company’s (P&G) Ohio-based drug-manufacturing unit was up for sale from December 2008. However there are at least 2 more organizations that are eying Procter & Gamble. They are rival drug manufacturer Forest Laboratories and Cerberus Capital Management .

Warner Chilcott has lately moved to Ireland from Bermuda. In the beginning of August Warner Chilcott had made public that in its second quarter, profits had risen by 67 %, particularly indicating increased sales of birth controls and dermatological products. Its shares saw a rise of 4.9% on Friday trading.

The deal with Procter & Gamble will probably be finalized by Monday, as per unidentified sources. The two companies have made nothing public till date on that regard.Six sources (backed by Bank of America Corp.), and JPMorgan Chase & Co. will supply the buyer with $4 billion, inclusive of $1 billion to met out the Chilcott debt.

In December Procter & Gamble had indicated that it would concentrate on its inclination for health business. In April P&G Chairman A.G.Lafley had mentioned that the pressure coming from generic products was particularly the major reason for selling off the business. Procter & Gamble is based in Cincinnati and has been hoping to find a good buyer for the company. Ali Dibadj, one analyst at Stanford C.Bernstein & Co. said on the matter, “There is encroachment on their(P&G) products from generic drugs and competitive products, which may have depressed the price.”