MUMBAI: The department of company affairs has moved a cabinet note for providing a specific penalty for violation of regulations laid down by Securities & Exchange Board of India on buyback of shares, defining bank interest rate in respect of inter-corporate deposits and limiting the period for claiming unclaimed/unpaid dividends to seven years. These new provisions would be introduced through a Companies (Amendment) Bill, 1998, to be tabled in the Lok Sabha during winter session.

FIIs net sellers in first half of NovMUMBAI: Foreign institutional investors (FIIs) were net sellers by $ 2.5 million in the first two weeks of the current month on account of sales of debt instruments. FIIs sold debt instruments worth $ 14.6 million during the week ended November 13 and $ 7.2 million in the previous week, according to Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI). FIIs were net buyers of equity during the two weeks with purchases of rs 558.9 crore and gross sales ofRs 477.5 crore. Debt purchases were nil for the two week period. The cumulative net investments by FIIs as on November 13 stood at $ 8,645.3 million.

New director for Syndicate Bank

MUMBAI: The government has appointed K S Shetty as director of the public sector Syndicate Bank for a term of three years. Shetty is presently the general secretary of Syndicate Bank Officers Association and also deputy general secretary of the All India Bank Officers' Confederation.

Import of plastic waste banned

NEW DELHI: The government today prohibited import of all kinds of plastic waste and scrap in any way.Import of these materials would be permissible against advance import licence or by export oriented units and export processing zones, an official press release said here.A notification in this respect had been issued by the director general of foreign trade.

IBM-Siemens

MUMBAI: IBM and Siemens Ltd announced that they have entered into an IT partnership to support Siemens India's ITinfrastructure. Under the IT partnership IBM's services arm, IBM Global Services India, will take responsibility for maintaining Siemens IT infrastructure including managing and operating their multi-location data centres.

Ganesh Anhydride

MUMBAI: Ganesh Anhydride has reported a net profit of Rs 2.03 crore for the second quarter ended September 1998, recording a 171 per cent increase compared to the first quarter of 1998-99. Net sales and income from operations amounted to Rs 13.30 crore.