Australian PM’s move on Uranium welcomed

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By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 17.11.2011 (Business Standard): The Australia India Business Council (AIBC) has welcomed Prime Minister Julia Gillard’s support for uranium exports to India, a move that has boosted optimism across the sector here.

“The ability for India to generate the power needed to support its rapidly growing economy is reliant on safe and secure access to nuclear power. With Australia holding a significant share of the world’s uranium reserves, it represents an important opportunity for trade that can be managed, given appropriate levels of transparency,” said Arun Sharma, national chairman of AIBC, which this year celebrates 25 years of promoting trade and business relations between the two countries. Continue reading →

Oswals crash land on alleged fraud in Oz

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By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 15.11.2011 (Business Standard): When industrialist Pankaj Oswal set out to build one of the largest fertiliser plants in the resource rich state of Western Australia, his stellar rise attracted admiration and envy, but today he stands accused of one of biggest corporate frauds in Australia after his Burrup Fertilisers Pty Ltd, a subsidiary of Burrup Holdings, went into receivership last December.

The ANZ Bank, which is trying to recover A$900m in loans, appointed PPB Advisory as the Receivers following ongoing court disputes between Pankaj, who was Burrup’s chairman and managing director, and Norway’s Yara International, a 35 per cent shareholder and customer of the ammonia plant; default events related to debt facilities which were established between 2002 and 2007; and evidence of financial irregularities.

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India was part of our growth timeline: Nathan Bell

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By Neena Bhandari

Sydney, 5.11.2011 (Business Standard): Australia’s leading telecommunications and information services company, Telstra, has entered into a joint venture with Microland, a specialist information technology (IT) infrastructure services provider with operation hub in India, to provide international and national long distance telephone and internet services. Telstra International’s Director, global products and marketing, Nathan Bell, speaks to Neena Bhandari from Singapore about the company’s India plan. Edited excerpts:

Why did Telstra choose to enter the Indian market at this juncture?

Telstra has reintegrated the reach assets back into the Telstra International business and because of that we have now got significant cable and infrastructure in other countries. One of the countries where Telstra International actually didn’t have a full set of licenses was in India. There was an infrastructure part under reach in terms of being able to service our customers on an end-to-end basis. We therefore needed the International Long Distance (ILD), National Long Distance (NLD) and Internet Service Provider (ISP) licenses. So though it is a late venture of Telstra into India, it is actually part of our overall timeline that is progressing to the point that we have so that now that we’ve integrated the assets Now that we have have the license, the next step is deployment and setting up of our network.

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