The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has announced 33 per cent reduction in charges; the money two operators pay each other while transferring calls from one network to other.

The move, applicable from April 1 onwards, may result in nearly 20 per cent drop in STD and local calls from mobiles. The decision would also applicable to 3G services due to launch in coming months.

With the IBM - International Business Machines Corp. - stock having done better than the company's large-capital technology contemporaries,

Chairman and CEO Samuel J. Palmisano, in a letter to the stockholders, expressed optimism that IBM is "positioned to lead in the era that lies on the other side of the present crisis."

Saying that IBM is confident of thriving despite the economic downturn, as the company plans to develop money-saving computer services, and spread out further, by the way of the so-called 'cloud computing' concept of delivering software, data and computing power over the Internet.

Dunlop India is likely to resume operations at its tyre manufacturing plant at Sahagunj from March 6 after halting the production activities for more than three months.

About 229 workers out of the total 1,189 workers from the maintenance and engineering division have been called back to restart the operations at the major plant mainly for maintenance and refurbishment of the company. However, the company is unlikely to reopen the Ambattur unit in Tamil Nadu.

In a major relief to firms the government has announced to extend tax relief to companies who are providing services from the tax-free export zones. Developers are also entitled to avail the benefits of tax exemptions under the new norms. However, tax benefits would be extended only for permitted activities within SEZs.

A statement by commerce ministry said that government has also decided to exempt the zones from all indirect taxes for authorized operations. The Empowered Group of Ministers has already endorsed the viewpoint of commerce ministry in a meeting held on August 2008 chaired by External Affairs Minister and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee.

Continuing its downward journey, the wholesale price index based inflation rate touched seven year low of 3.03% for the week ended February 21. The annual inflation rate was at 3.36% a week before while at 5.69% during the same period last year.

Decline in prices of food articles, metals and transportation articles helped to reduce the inflation at seven year low, a big respite to UPA government, which is going to face public opinion in the forthcoming general elections in April-May period.

The average asset under management (AUM) of country's mutual fund industry increased 8.68% from Rs 4,609,489.97 million to Rs 5,009,733.79 million for the month ended Feb 28, 2009.

The data about 35 fund houses published by Association of Mutual Funds in India (AMFI) shows that twenty three fund houses reported growth while 12 reported fall in their assets during the reporting period.