Investors with horizon of 6-12 months can consider following scripts for their investment. These companies have potential to give higher returns than index over a long term.

Corporate Highlights - Blue Star Infotech has got an order from Nippo Batteries Co Ltd to implement a business management and information system to improve the latter's overall business. This implementation will streamline Nippo's sales and marketing, purchasing, financial management, manufacturing, inventory and quality.

• India's state-run lender Rural Electrification Corp (REC) plans to raise $200 million from the offshore loan market by the close of the current fiscal year ending this month, a company official said. The $200 million foreign currency loans will have a tenor of five years and could be denominated in yen or dollars, HD Khunteta, director of finance, said. The all-in cost of funding the loans is
170 basis points plus LIBOR.

• Having completed investigation into special audit of five leading operators, including Reliance Communications (RCom), Bharti Airtel and Idea, the Telecom Ministry is likely to raise demand of over Rs 1,100 crore from them for under reporting revenues.

• Chennai-based two-wheeler maker TVS Motor Company will re-enter the Indian electric scooter market with some existing and new models in the next fiscal. The company is currently carrying out test runs of about 50 electric scooters across various towns in the country.

• Education solutions provider Core Projects has bagged a contract from Haryana government to strengthen school education in the state. Valued at Rs 295 crore, the project is one of the biggest information and communication technology projects announced in the country. The project envisages the use of computers and bio-metric devices to enhance delivery of quality education in the schools and to monitor student and teacher performances. Core will also develop software to support monitoring and evaluation of teachers and students for the state's education department, including asset and maintenance management system and help desk facility.

Economic Highlights

• Industrial growth slowed to 3.7% in January, 2011, compared to 16.8% expansion in the year-ago period, dragged down by the poor performance of the manufacturing sector, particularly capital goods. However, growth in factory output in January, as measured in terms of the Index of Industrial Production (IIP), was better than the 2.53% expansion (revised upward from 1.6%) witnessed in the previous month. Industrial output growth during the April-January period this fiscal stood at 8.3% vis-a-vis the corresponding period of the previous year. In contrast, industrial output expanded by 9.5% year-on-year in April-January, 2009-10, official data released here today shows.