Featured Articles from The Economic Times

NEW DELHI: Worried about a sudden fall in the Sensex in the month of December? Well, the big bull of Dalal Street, Rakesh Jhunjhunwala , has got some good news. He sees the markets to triple in the next 4-5 years. The S&P; BSE Sensex, which has rallied nearly 30 per cent so far in the year 2014 till November, came under intense selling pressure by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) in the last month of the calendar year 2014. The index has dropped a little over 1500 points so far in the month of December, fuelling concerns of a further fall possibly in the coming year.

MUMBAI: Bangalore-based digital publisher EC Media International on Thursday launched its multi-function e-book reader Wink that not only supports 15 languages but will also offer over 200,000 book titles on debut. Wink will offer consumers a one-stop e-store to access e-reading content of choice via www.thewinkstore.com that would enable access not just to e-books, but also journals, newspapers, magazines and selected articles, EC Media said. Many of the titles have been acquired from international aggregators, giving Indians access to a whole lot of books not available in the country.

WASHINGTON: Federal Reserve chairman Ben Bernanke issued a stern warning to Republican lawmakers that delays in raising the United States' $14.3-trillion debt limit could have "catastrophic" consequences. "Beyond a certain point ... the United States would be forced into a position of defaulting on its debt. And the implications of that on our financial system, our fiscal policy and our economy would be catastrophic ," he told the National Press Club. Bernanke coupled his warning with a call for the Obama administration and Congress to put in place a credible plan to curb future budget deficits.

NEW YORK: Data analysis software company Tableau Software and developer tools maker Atlassian are among several small, business software firms preparing to go public in the next 12 months, hoping a growing market for cloud computing will shield them from the aftermath of Facebook's botched IPO and Europe's woes. Sources familiar with the situation said others include: AppSense, whose user virtualization technology allows people to use different devices; Marin Software, which offers an online advertising management platform; Rapid7, which makes network security software; Rally Software, a provider of project management tools; and CollabNet, which offers web-based software development tools.

By Clifford Krauss The oil industry, with its history of booms and busts, appears to be in the early stages of its latest downturn. The price of oil has plunged in recent months, reaching its lowest point in more than five years. Q: Why is the price of oil dropping so fast? Why now? A: This a complicated question, but it boils down to the simple economics of supply and demand. US domestic production has nearly doubled over the last six years, pushing out oil imports that need to find another home.

NEW DELHI: BJP may win half the seats in the 70-member Delhi Assembly, falling just short of a clear majority, as per the projection of an opinion poll today. AAP is looking to make a strong challenge and is likely to win 29 seats, one more than what it had last time, in the February 7 elections, according to the 'India TV-CVoter' opinion poll. Congress, however, was projected as doing worse than last time, when it hit a low of eight seats and was relegated to third position behind BJP and AAP. The forecast today gave it only five seats.

CHICAGO: The first shots have already been fired in what could be an escalating "price war" between major automakers in the US market, according to a Hyundai Motor Co executive, "I think we can officially say that a price war broke out in the industry,' John Krafcik , president and chief executive of Hyundai Motor America said on the sidelines of the Chicago auto show. "There is apparently a lot of pressure to deliver sales results. " Increased discounting on new car sales would be a boon to consumers but could chip away at the profitability that many investors had projected for automakers at the start of the second year of a still-developing recovery in US auto sales.

NEW DELHI: State-run BSNL will focus on turning around the company into a profitable venture expeditiously, its new CMD Anupam Shrivastava said today. Soon after taking charge, he also said affordable connectivity is another priority area for which BSNL will work with government. "Government is focusing on connecting unconnected people with telecom services including high speed broadband. As BSNL CMD it will be my priority area to work with government in connecting people at affordable cost, expeditiously and at turning around BSNL into a profitable venture," Shrivastava told PTI. Shrivastava was appointed CMD of BSNL for period of five years or till the time of superannuation age of 60 years.

Shares of BF Utilities rose to its daily limit of 20 percent after CNBC TV-18 reported the Supreme Court has given go-ahead for the acquisition of land in Bangalore for the NICE ( Nandi infrastructure Corridor Enterprise ) project, four dealers said. BF Utilities holds a majority stake in NICE. At 2:47 p.m., shares were locked in circuit at 845.60 rupees.

BHOPAL: Kiran Bedi, who was popularly known as 'Crane Bedi' said here that she was fully aware that she would be transferred to a distant place if she removes the car of former Prime Minister, Indira Gandhi. "I knew that I will be transferred when I decided to lift Indira Gandhi's car (for wrong parking). I gave a thought to it and decided to do what was right then," Bedi told a student who asked her about her daring decision to remove the car of none other than Indira Gandhi herself and what happened after that.

KOLKATA: Shell India Markets Pvt Ltd is eyeing around 13 percent market share in the Indian lubricant market from the present 6-7 percent, a top official said here on Thursday. Shell India Markets Pvt Ltd is 100 percent subsidiary of global oil major Shell. Shell makes and sells more than 3,000 different lubricants. "We have targeted to double our market share and for this we need to increase supplies through various option, either by adding capacity to our Taloja plant or by sourcing supplies from our plants in neighbouring countries," Donald Anderson, Country Head, Lubricants, Shell India Markets, said.

CHENNAI: Good news for those aspiring to work in the Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) sector! Now any one seeking a job in a BPO can apply dialling a toll-free number to key in their resumes from their mobile phone. The aspirants can also record their voice on the toll-free number, once this is done, the mobile number gets registered into the system. This service, DialBPOJobs, is available in five cities - New Delhi, Pune, Hyderabad, Chennai and Bangalore. After finding the initial response encouraging, the New Delhi-based job portal company Times Business Solutions Ltd. (TBSL)