Oct. 7 - In order to encourage foreign inflows into India, the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI), India's capital market regulator lifted curbs on indirect investment notes by foreign funds to spur inflows into a battered stock market. SEBI initiated the change to stem record sales by offshore funds that have triggered a 42 percent slide in the benchmark index this year, Bloomberg reported.

A requirement forcing investors to register in India before buying shares and limits on offshore derivatives that were imposed in October will be lifted with immediate effect, C.B. Bhave, chairman of the Securities & Exchange Board of India, told reporters after a board meeting in Mumbai.

Sept. 24 - In a bid to avoid letting India's soaring economy slip due to the U.S. downturn, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called for strengthening "surveillance" of multilateral institutions within India.

"We need to strengthen multilateral surveillance for free market economies to function properly. For that multilateral institutions need to be strengthened," the prime minister told the Hindustan Times on board his special aircraft enroute to the United Nations General Assmebly meeting in New York.

Sept. 18 - Earlier this week, India and her neighbor to the north Nepal agreed to review a decades-old pact governing bilateral relations that has been a source of friction between the South Asian neighbours for a few years now. Prachanda, the present prime minister who led the Maoist insurgency before embracing multi-party democracy led the country's first demecratic delecgation to India. Prachanda as prime minister, held talks with his counterpart Manmohan Singh on Monday, AFP reported.

Known as the 1950 Indo-Nepal treaty of Peace and Friendship, it binds the two countries in a close strategic partnership and forms the basis of security and trade links, allowing landlocked Nepal access to Indian ports for commerce.

Sept. 10 - Even as France and the UK plot to get a share in India's estimated US$100 billion nuclear power market, the European Union (EU) announced that it is likely to take a collective decision on nuclear commerce with India. The plan is to tap the opportunity arising from the recent waiver by the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) to India to carry out nuclear trade.

"European companies are very well placed in India in the field of nuclear energy," European Commission Director General for Energy and Transport, Matthias Ruete said here, hoping the process of inviting technology and machinery would be competitive.

Aug. 20 - Asia's biggest solar thermal energy plant of 10 MW capacity would be set up at Nagpur, western India, by Acme a private company, Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy, Vilas Muttemwar told the Economic Times. Nagpur would also be the site where the union government would set up a special economic zone to manufacture equipment and appliances related to wind, solar and biogas energy.

The Indian central government has set a target of generating 14,000 MW additional power through renewable resources in the 11th Five-Year Plan, taking the total generation to more than 26,000 MW, the union minister added.

July 8 - Having garnered strength from his fragmented coalition government, India's confident prime minister, Manmohan Singh, is ready to meet President Bush on Wednesday morning, the stage is now set for India to sign the nuclear deal with America.

July 7 - Amidst the row in the United States over outsourcing, a study proves that Indian companies are not taking American jobs, instead they have generated more than 30,000 jobs for U.S. citizens in recent years. Indian small and medium enterprises alone in 2007 had set up shop in the U.S. through greenfield units or via acquisitions and created no less than 65,000 jobs, said a study conducted by industry chamber Ficci.

June 20 - BOLLYWOOD'S songs are hummed in Morocco, its films are rented in California and its stars are cast in wax at Madame Tussauds in London. But India's new money has an appeal even its melodrama cannot match. On June 17th the Wall Street Journal reported that one of India's biggest conglomerates, Anil Ambani's Reliance group, was in talks to form a film-making partnership with Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks studio, owned by Viacom, a media giant. Mr Spielberg and David Geffen, the studio's co-founders, want to regain their independence when their contract with Viacom ends, and are looking for funding.

June 2 - Global steel giant ArcelorMittal will spend at least $20 billion setting up two new integrated steel plants in India from 2009 onwards, company executives told CNN.

The two projects, based in the eastern states of Orissa and Jharkhand, will be the largest foreign direct investments yet seen in India and will add 24 million tonnes of annual steel production capacity.

Luxembourg-based ArcelorMittal is the world's biggest steel maker, with annual capacity of 120 million tonnes, but has no presence yet in the fast-growing Indian market.

 May 15 - The rupee weakened by about 34 paise at Rs 42.44/46 per US dollar on Wednesday, making it costlier for the travellers and students going abroad, reported the Hindustan Times.

At the same time, the remittances from those working abroad would fetch more money now, than it did a couple of weeks back when the rupee hovered around Rs 40 against the dollar. The rupee weakened against the dollar by 6.52 percent from April 10, 2008 when it closed at Rs 39.84 against a dollar.

On the corporate front, the weakening rupee will help exporters to fetch more bucks for the same unit of exports. No wonder, the market has given a thumps up for the information technology stocks on Wednesday by taking the IT sector index on Bombay Stock Exchange up by 3.8 per cent to 4,256 points. On the contrary, imports will become costlier to the extent of weakness in the domestic currency.