Kolkata, May 14 (IANS) Kolkata Knight Riders made 158 for six in their 20 overs against Chennai Super Kings in the Indian Premier League (IPL) at the Eden Gardens here Monday.
Openers Gautam Gambhir and Brendon McCullum struck 62 and 37 while left-arm spinner Shadab Jakati took two wickets for Super Kings.
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Kolkata, May 14 (IANS) With the country’s power and telecom sectors experiencing many challenges, infrastructure and construction equipment financing non-banking finance company (NBFC) Srei Infrastructure Finance Ltd. Monday said it would attach greater priority to IT and healthcare equipment financing this fiscal.
The company plans a 25 percent growth in disbursements in this high-yield equipment business.
“IT and healthcare equipment finances will get greater priority this fiscal. Last (fiscal) year, we did Rs.1,400 crore (Rs.14 billion) disbursement in this two segments. We expect to grow this year by 20 percent to 25 percent over this,” managing director Hemant Kanoria said here.
Kanoria said the Kolkata-based company, which clocked a disbursement of Rs.18,600 crore (Rs.186 billion) in the last financial year, would be looking into IT and healthcare equipment financing along with its core business, infrastructure finance and infrastructure projects, in order to mitigate overall risk.
“Our emphasis on infrastructure finance and infrastructure projects will remain. But simultaneously, we are also growing in other areas to mitigate the risk. That is why we have looked at IT equipment finance and healthcare equipment finance. Now, we are also looking at equipment in rural and agricultural sectors only with an intension to broadbase our portfolio,” he said.
The company, whose profits had been under stress, primarily due to steep depreciation of rupee and multiple interest hikes, started its IT and healthcare equipment business only in 2011-12.
Srei has also decided to take a cautious view of the year ahead as its net profit during the quarter ending March 31, 2012 has come down to Rs.13.21 crore against Rs.14.20 crore for the corresponding period the previous fiscal.
Total income during the fourth quarter increased to Rs 653.36 crore against Rs.627.75 crore for the similar period the previous fiscal.
The firm said greater emphasis on the high-yield equipment financing business like IT and healthcare would also help it improve its net interest margin (NIM).
Kolkata, May 14 (IANS) Director Mrinal Sen, rated as one of the pioneers of the alternative cinema movement in the country, turned 90 Monday. He spent the day attending a series of events organised in his honour.
Winner of Dadasaheb Phalke Award, Indian cinema’s highest film honour, and scores of international honours for his films known for their experimentation and depiction of middle-class life and various shades of Kolkata, Sen’s over-half-a-century celluloid journey produced a clutch of masterpieces whose appeal lie undiminished even today.
He is rated as one of the three – the other two being Satyajit Ray and Ritwik Ghatak – to have made the world sit up and take notice of Indian films.
Beginning his directional career with “Raatbhor” in 1955, Sen has made more than 25 feature films and several short films and documentaries. Some of his noted movies are “Bhuvan Shome”, “Ek Din Pratidin”, “Akaler Sandhane” and “Khandhar”.
He also directed “Oka Oorie Katha” in Telugu language and it was based on Munshi Premchand’s story “Kafan”.
Sen directed his last film “Amar Bhuban ” in 2002 and still says: “I wake up every day thinking I will make a film.”
Screenings of Sen’s films, discussions and viewing of documentaries on him marked the day.
At the film complex Nandan, Sen participated in an interactive programme with eminent director and Satyajit Ray’s son Sandip Ray and actress Sreela Majumdar.
His films “Akaler Sandhane” and “Ek Din Pratidin” were showcased after the interaction.
The Calcutta Film Society also arranged for a discussion with noted film critic Shamik Bandopadhyay giving a discourse on Sen’s movies.
The Eizenstein Cine Club arranged an interaction with Sen and the screening of “With Mrinal Sen”, a documentary on the man himself.
Kolkata, May 14 (IANS) Chennai Super Kings’ captain Mahendra Singh Dhoni won the toss and chose to field in their Indian Premier League (IPL) match against Kolkata Knight Riders at the Eden Gardens here Monday.
The teams:
Kolkata Knight Riders: Gautam Gambhir (captain), Brendan McCullum, Laxmi Ratan Shukla, Jacques Kallis, Manoj Tiwary, Yusuf Pathan, Rajat Bhatia, Debabrata Das, Sunil Narine, Iqbal Abdullah, Merchant de Lange.
Chennai Super Kings: Mahendra Singh Dhoni (captain), Murali Vijay, Ravichandran Ashwin, Dwayne Bravo, Faf du Plessis, Ben Hilfenhaus, Mike Hussey, Ravindra Jadeja, Shahdab Jakati, Suresh Raina, Srikanth Anirudha.
Kolkata, May 14 (IANS) A female college student who was allegedly kidnapped from West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas Friday was rescued and her abductor arrested Monday, police said.
“We have arrested a person named Aftab for the abduction of Karishma Jaiswal, a third year commerce student. The girl has been rescued and we are probing the matter to find if there are others involved in the crime,” Barrackpore Police Commissioner Sanjoy Mukherjee said.
Jaiswal, a student of Rishi Bankim Chandra College in Naihati in the district, some 40 km from Kolkata, went missing Friday while on her way home from college.
The girl’s family had Friday evening filed a missing complaint claiming that they have received calls demanding Rs.10 lakh as ransom for her release.
In order to trap the abductor, the police gave the girl’s father Rajkumar Jaiswal a bag full of fake currency notes and followed him to the place where he had been asked to come and deliver the ransom money.
As shown in movies, the abductor, constantly in touch with Jaiswal over phone, asked him to change trains every now and then and finally told him to wait at Bandel station in Hooghly district where the girl would be handed over to him in return for the money.
No sooner did the abductor, identified as Aftab, come to Jaiswal with the girl, the police surrounded him and rescued the girl.
“While I was returning from the college, a vehicle hit me from behind and I fell down. I was then forcibly pulled inside the vehicle and taken away,” said the girl, adding that the offenders had gagged and blind-folded her due to which she could not identify the vehicle or her abductors.
Aftab will be presented before a court Tuesday.
Kolkata, May 14 (IANS) GlaxoSmithKline Consumer Healthcare (GSKCH), which re-entered the Indian toothpaste market last year launching Sensodyne, hopes to increase its share to double-digits from the current 2 percent, a top company official said Monday.
“We are very happy with the response Sensodyne has received for the past two years. It is growing at a very fast rate almost doubling business every year, if not more. And our focus is to make it a big brand and we hope to increase our market share from the current 2 percent to a double digit figure very soon,” Jayant Singh, the company’s marketing director, told reporters here.
Singh refused to give a time-frame to achieve the target.
GSKCH had first launched Aquafresh in India in 1999 but phased it out in 2003 due to poor consumer offtake.
The fast moving consumer goods company with a strong health and nutrition product portfolio in the country is also planning to increase its presence in the breakfast segment.
“Our first priority is to hit the breakfast table. Horlicks is already there. There is nothing to prevent us from expand our portfolio. There is already Horlicks Oats which has received good response down South (India) and we plan to launch across India at a later stage.
“Innovation will be the clear driver of our force. The pace of innovation will be accelerated. There are a number of products category that are available worldwide but not in India and we are planning to launch them in the country,” added Singh.
The company in association with a city-based NGO Monday launched its CSR initiative “Aahar Abhiyan” aiming to provide health and nutrition education and health services to 9,500 children in West Bengal.
