After a sustained campaign fronted by Lalu and Mulayam Yadav, the government has decided to give Members of Parliament another raise.Last week, the government increased MPs’ salaries from Rs. 16,000 to Rs. 50,000 a month . Their constituency and office allowances were doubled from Rs. 10,000 to Rs. 20,000. Now both those tax-free allowances have been raised to Rs. 25,000 a month.

Most Opposition MPs had earlier united in the demand that their salaries go upto Rs. 80,001 a month- a rupee higher than what the Cabinet Secretary makes.MPs say that they are among the lowest-paid public representatives in the world.They get an allowance of Rs. 2000 a day when Parliament is in session.

The Dalal Street closed with big gains for a second straight session today. The Sensex has gained more than 400 points in two days and is at a 30-month high now. The Nifty, too, crossed the 5,500 mark for the first time since February, 2008.The Sensex closed at 18,455 with gains of 198 points and the Nifty shut shop at 5,540, up 61 points.The Sensex had closed at 18,663 on 5 February, 2008. The Nifty had closed at 5,705 on 18 January, 2008.

Ajay Argal, co-head of equity, Birla Sun Life MF, said. “The stock-specific activity is likely to continue. The US Fed has initiated measures for further quantitative easing and this is good for risky assets and emerging markets.” The 5,545 will be an important level to watch for in tomorrow’s trade. Analysts pointed out that the breach of the 5,545 mark (the high of February 2008) will be considered a technical breakout.Bajaj Auto (up 2.62 per cent), Dr. Reddy’s and Sesa Goa (up 1.88 per cent) will be added to the list of 50 stocks on Nifty index of NSE from 1 October. They have replace ABB, Idea Cellular (up 0.21 per cent) and Unitech (down 1.47).

The Department of Telecom may impose a penalty on Bharti Airtel for alleged licence violation.The DoT has accused Bharti Airtel of third party transfer of SIM/connections. The telecom department has said that the telecom operator has issued 2588 connections in bulk to two companies.

According to DoT, Bharti has entered into an agreement to rent these SIMS to individuals, and further renting of SIM cards issued in bulk is not allowed.Earlier during the month, Minister of State for Telecom and IT Sachin Pilot had said the Home Ministry has intimated that security agencies face problems in establishing identity of actual users in cases where bulk connections have been activated in the name of a single user/location/organisation, and the numbers have been further distributed/rented for use.

Pilot had said, “this practice of providing mobile connections to an individual without maintaining his identity particulars has security implications and operational activities of security agencies are hampered due to non-availability of identity of a particular suspected target.”

Portraying the shortage of right talent for companies to hire, a latest study said just 18 per cent of the fresh technical graduates surveyed possessed right skills to be eligible for jobs in IT services companies.As per the study of over 40,000 technical graduates by assessment technology company Aspiring Minds, a majority of fresh engineering graduates require additional training to be eligible for any job in the IT/ITeS sector.

The employability study was based on results of a computer-based test called AMCAT conducted for engineering and Masters in Computer Applications (MCA) students (in final year) across 12 states in the country.”Employability with regard to IT services companies is 17.84 per cent,” the study found.Employability refers to skills like English communication, quantitative skills, problem-solving skills and computer science and programming skills, which fresh graduates must possess to get employed by firms.

State-owned Punjab National Bank has announced a festival bonanza offering home loan at 8.5 per cent, a teaser rate to attract new customer.The concessional rate of 8.5 per cent has been fixed for three years for housing loans up to Rs. 50 lakh. As per the existing rate-card, loans up to Rs. 30 lakh attract a lowest rate of 9.25 per cent with a repayment period of 5 years while loans above Rs. 30 lakh is available at 10 per cent for similar maturity.”Under the offer, housing loans up to Rs. 50 lakh will be available at discounted rate of interest of 8.50 per cent under fixed interest rate option (fixed for three years) across all repayment tenors,” PNB said in a statement.

At the same time, new car loan borrower under fixed option will get a rebate of 0.5 per cent. The festival offer will be valid from August 20 to December 31, 2010. PNB is probably the first bank to announce loans at concessional rate to cash in on festive fervor. Interestingly rebate comes weeks after after PNB raised its Benchmark Prime Lending Rate (BPLR) for its existing customers.

German auto major Volkswagen says it will start selling its midsized sedan Vento priced between Rs. 6.99-Rs. 9.23 lakh in the Indian market from September this year.The new Vento, which has been introduced in 1.6-litre petrol and diesel variants will hit the Indian roads from September 6, 2010 and will be available through all Volkswagen dealers, the company said in a statement yesterday.The much awaited car, which is the company’s seventh model in India will be available at prices ranging between Rs. 6.99-Rs. 9.23 lakh at ex-showroom prices in Delhi. The petrol variant starts from Rs. 6.99 lakh while the starting price for the diesel variant is Rs. 7.99 lakh, the company added.

“The new Vento is an extension of our commitment towards the Indian consumers of providing the best quality products at competitive prices. Designed for the Indian market, it will be a strong addition to our product portfolio”, VW Group Sales India Member of Board Neeraj Garg said.Vento, which is being rolled out from the company’s plant at Chakan in Maharashtra, will give the customers a choice between manual and automatic transmission.

India’s biggest ever public share offer will hit the market soon and it could mop up a whopping ` 14,000 crore. State-owned coal producer Coal India could raise that amount by shedding 10 per cent in the market.Coal India is now a step closer to list the company in stock markets, as it files the draft red herring prospectus with market regulator, Securities and Exchange board of India, or Sebi.

With this the promoter, in this case the government, intends to dilute 10 per cent stake in Coal India, which translates into about 63.16 crore shares of the company.Analysts believe that the issue would be priced above ` 200 per share and can fetch anything between ` 13,000 crore and 14,000 crore.However, Coal India, which is sitting on a cash pile of about ` 35,000 crore, would not need the funds much but the IPO proceed would rather help the government in achieving big chunk of its divestment target of ` 40,000 crore.

Coal India is not just the biggest coal producer, but the expected IPO, worth about ` 14,000 crore, could be the biggest in Indian markets, beating Relaince Power’s IPO of about ` 11,500 crore that came about three years back.

Honda Motor Co. is recalling the popular Accord and Civic passenger cars to address problems with an ignition switch that could allow the key to be removed without the transmission being shifted into park, its third recall over the problem since 2003.Honda said the most recent recall involved 384,220 vehicles and includes 2003 model year Accord and Civics and 2003-2004 versions of the Honda Element. Honda told the National Highway Traffic Safety Administration that the defect with the automatic transmissions could lead to a vehicle rolling away and increase the risk of a crash.

The Japanese automaker said in a statement the recall would involve about 197,000 Accords, 117,000 Civics and 69,000 Elements. The company said it has received several complaints about the ignition interlock and “is aware of a small number of related incidents, including one that resulted in a minor injury.”The Japanese automaker said in a statement the recall would involve about 197,000 Accords, 117,000 Civics and 69,000 Elements. The company said it has received several complaints about the ignition interlock and “is aware of a small number of related incidents, including one that resulted in a minor injury.”

Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd Monday said it has signed a contract worth Rs 25.25 billion with Abhijeet Infra Ltd for setting up a 1,080 megawatt thermal power plant in Jharkhand.In a news release, BHEL said the contract is for supplying and installing the main plant package for Abhijeet Infra’s upcoming coal-based project, Matrishri Usha Jayaswal Mega Power Plant, at Latehar district of Jharkhand.The plant will be built in two phases of 540MW each.At 12:08PM, BHEL shares were traded at Rs 2,530.45 on National Stock Exchange, up 0.9% from previous close.

The proposed sharp increase in the US visa fee to raise funds for its border security needs would significantly impact the Indian IT sector, National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) said on Friday.The proposed hike is expected to be about $4,500 per visa from $2,500 currently.”The Border Security Bill, passed by the US senate late Thursday, aims to raise about $600 million by increasing fee for H-1B and L-1 visas. This has significant impact on the Indian IT sector,” Nasscom said in a statement here.

Several Indian software firms avail H-1B and L-1 visas in thousands every year to fly their employees to the US for working at their clients’ locations as on-site engineers.Echoing Nasscom’s concern, IT bellwether Infosys Technologies Ltd termed the US Border Security Bill unfortunate and discriminatory at a time when companies have to be more competitive in an open market scenario.