Jet Airways,Spice ject,Etihad Airways ans Airasia bhd to sell minority stakes

Reuters :Anurag Kotoky

NEW DELHI | Mon Nov 26, 2012 12:17pm IST

 - Loss-making carriers Jet Airways(JET.NS) and SpiceJet(SPJT.BO) are in talks with Abu Dhabi's Etihad Airways and Malaysia's AirAsia Bhd (AIRA.KL), respectively, to sell minority stakes, a government source said.

Any deal would be the first since India changed its rules in September to allow foreign carriers to buy stakes of up to 49 percent in local airlines, which have been battered by fierce competition and high operating costs.

Shares in both the Indian carriers continued rallies from last week, with Jet shares up about 11.5 percent and Spicejet up 13.5 percent on Monday.

The fiercely competitive Indian aviation industry lost a combined $2 billion in the last fiscal year. All but unlisted IndiGo lost money, hurt by high state taxes on jet fuel, expensive airports and regulatory uncertainty.

Talks between Jet and Etihad have been the subject of media reports citing unnamed sources.

"The talks are on. This is more or less final. It may take around a month and half," the government source told reporters, referring to the Jet-Etihad negotiations.

"This deal is not just about investment but also technology and partnership in many other ways," said the source, who declined to be identified.

A Jet official could not immediately be reached for comment.

SpiceJet declined immediate comment, while officials from AirAsia, Asia's largest budget carrier, could not be reached for comment.

Jet Airways shares had gained 50.6 percent in November through Friday while SpiceJet was up 17 percent on speculation of potential stake sales.

"Reports of stake sale have driven stocks higher but its absurd given so much government interference in this sector," said Vivek Mahajan, head of research at brokerage Aditya Birla Money.

Heavy competition is driven in part by government-subsidised losses at state-owned Air India AIN.UL. However, competition has eased somewhat and airfares have risen due to the decline in cash-and-debt strapped Kingfisher Airlines (KING.NS), the former No. 2 operator which has not flown since the start of October.

(Additional reporting Abhishek Vishnoi and Manoj Dharra in MUMBAI; Editing by Tony Munroe and Jeremy Laurence)

25 bills pending in Parliament

First Post :Pallavi Polanki Nov 26, 2012

Taking up where they left off at the last session of Parliament, MPs seem intent on honouring the House more in breach than in observance with adjournments dominating the first two days of the Winter Session. An ambitious agenda awaits Parliamentarians with 25 bills scheduled for consideration and passing and ten new bills listed for introduction.

The rather memorable Winter Session last year saw both Houses of Parliament seized by the Lokpal Bill, under pressure by the public movement led by Anna Hazare to pass the anti-corruption legislation.

The Lokpal Bill was discussed for 6 hours 42 Minutes in Lok Sabha before it was passed and the Rajya Sabha spent another 7 hours debating the Bill, according to PRS Legislative, an independent research group. A year later Anna Hazare and his new band of anti-corruption campaigners look set to have their cause handed to them on a platter, with disruptions dominating the first two days of Parliament Session.

The Lokpal and Lokayukt Bill, 2011, piloted by the Ministry of Personnel, Public Grievances and Pensions, was first introduced in the Monsoon Session last year, withdrawn and reintroduced with key amendments in the following Winter Session. Passed by the Lok Sabha on December 27, the Bill was referred to a Rajya Sabha Select Committee which on Friday (Nov 23) tabled its report.

During the Monsoon Session which was rocked by the CAG’s coal block report, only four of the 30 bills on agenda were passed. As per PRS Legislative, of the 15 new Bills that were listed for introduction, only six were introduced. Its research shows that “almost no time was spent on discussing Bills. The Lok Sabha passed three Bills in under five minutes.”

Setting new records for the speed with which bill are passed, the Protection of Women Against Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010, which is up for consideration in the current Session, was passed “in 16 minutes without any discussion.” 

In another damning observation PRS states that in the 15th Lok Sabha, Parliament has passed an average of nine Bills per session and that at the end of the Monsoon session, 102 Bills were pending before Parliament.

In response to a recent RTI query, the Rajya Sabha and Lok Sabha secretariats revealed that during the Monsoon Session, the two Houses of Parliament functioned for only 54 hours out of 206 hours. While the Lok Sabha, the RTI revealed, lost 77.51 hours as a result of interruption and adjournment, Rajya Sabha lost 63.3 hours.

On the current session’s agenda, are two key Higher Education reform Bills — the Education Tribunals Bill, 2010, which was passed by the Lok Sabha as far back as August 2010, and is pending in the Rajya Sabha and the The National Accreditation Regulatory Authority for Higher Educational Institutions Bill, 2010.

Awaiting passage in the Rajya Sabha is a crucial bill, the first such legislation that seeks to protect working women against sexual harassment. The Protection of Women from Sexual Harassment at Workplace Bill, 2010, which after much debate was amended to include domestic workers, provides for the setting up of an ‘Internal Complaints Committee’ at the work place and a ‘Local Complaints Committee’ at the district level.

In the current atmosphere of disclosures, an anti-corruption bill the Parliament is sitting on is the Whistleblower’s Protection Bill, 2010, which seeks to protect those making disclosures against corruption or abuse of power by a government servant. The Bill was passed by the Lok Sabha on the same day the Lokpal and Lokayuktas Bill was passed. It remains pending in the Rajya Sabha.