MUMBAI: LIC chairman G Krishnamurthy has said that the institution's decision to sell ITC shares will be a business deal. ``We might think of selling to whoever gives us the best price,'' he said. LIC holds around 10 per cent stake in the tobacco comapany, and recently, there have been reports that BAT Industries is talking to various financial institutions to increase its stake in ITC.

Curbs on restricted items may go

NEW DELHI: The 2,400 items in the "restricted" list of the current Exim policy (1997-2002) or a "substantial" portion of these may be allowed to be imported freely without any quantitative restrictions from April 1. The commerce ministry's thinking on these lines is expected to be reflected in the revised Exim policy which will be announced early next month.

M&M shelves tractor plant plan

NEW DELHI: Tractor major Mahindra & Mahindra has decided to shelve its plan to invest Rs 500 crore in a heavyweight tractor-manufacturing plant tobe set up in Andhra pradesh. Industry observers speculate that the reason could be the company's move to pick up a 51 per cent stake in the HMT tractor division.

CyberQuest at BrainShare '99

MUMBAI: Brainshare '99 is one of the most popular and largely attended technical event organished by Novell Inc, the world leader in networking. The event is currently in progress at Salt Lake city, the USA. The only Indian company participating in BrainShare '99 is CyberQuest Systems from Pune. It has participation on almost all the top-raking software development companies like IBM, Oracle.

RPG plans tyre-batteries chain foray

NEW DELHI: The RPG group, as part of its thrust in retail operations, plans a foray into the tyre-batteries-and-accessories chain in the country. The outlets will be multi-brand one-stop destinations providing the full range of automobile tyres, batteries and related accessories to even car-servicing.

Mandya test run under consideration

NEW DELHI: The Centre isconsidering a proposal of the Tamil Nadu Newsprint & Papers to test-run the ailing Mandya National Paper Mills, a wholly owned subsidiary of Hindustan Paper Corp. Tamil Nadu Newsprint was approached by Hindustan Paper after Indian Granite Pvt Ltd, which expressed interest in buying Mandya, failed to put in the token credibility amount of Rs 2 crore.