The board of Reliance Industries (RIL) will meet on 2 March to consider merger of Reliance Petroleum (RPL) with itself. The merger will be effective retrospectively from 1 April 2001. The merger plan was announced after the close of trading hours. In separate but identical filings both Reliance Industries and Reliance Petroleum informed the stock exchanges of their boards' proposals for merger. The Reliance Industries scrip closed 1.97 per cent lower at Rs1,265.05, while Reliance Petroleum scrip dropped 1.23 per cent to Rs76.20. Reliance Industries holds 70.38 per cent stake in Reliance Petroleum, while Chevron holds another 5 per cent. The rest is held by financial institutions and the public. […]

Dish TV India Ltd is in talks with private equity firms for a stake sale, a top official said on Thursday. “The talks are on but I will not be able to declare anything for the next two months,” Managing Director Jawahar Goel told television channel NDTV Profit. The direct-to-home satellite services operator is also passing on the service tax cut to its consumers,”the 2 percent service tax we have passed on to the consumer.” Earlier this week the government reduced service tax by 200 basis points to 10 percent and trimmed the central excise duty to 8 percent to raise demand for Indian goods and services in an economy facing a slowdown.(Reuters) […]