The approval to circulate an ordinance to raise the salaries of judges of the Supreme Court and the High Courts to give immediate effect to the hike proposed in the Bill introduced in the Lok Sabha on December 22, 2008 was made in the Union Cabinet meeting.

Since the High Court and Supreme Court Judges (Salaries and Conditions of Service) Amendment Bill, 2008, could not be passed in the Parliament session that ended on December 23, 2008.

State Bank of India (SBI) plans to raise about Rs 500 crore from retail investors as Tier II capital. This capital will be a part of the Rs 5,000 crore, which the bank plans to raise in January.

According to the SBI Chairman, O P Bhatt, the bank is now giving this opportunity to the common man as earlier it was raising Tier II capital only through big investors.

He said, “The minimum investment required will be anywhere between Rs 10,000 and Rs 1 lakh. We are planning to do this in the current quarter.”

The UB Group-owned Kingfisher Airlines has announced a 21 to 65% fare cut on various routes with effect from Jan 1.  

Kingfisher chairman and chief executive Vijay Mallya further informed, “The declining price of ATF (air turbine fuel) facilitates such consumer-benefiting initiatives that will also stimulate the industry. The rate cuts are consistent with our mission to aggressively pursue increase in market share and to deliver India's only five-star experience at highly competitive fares.”

Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) on Friday announced that the capacity of the most advanced refinery at Panipat shall be expanded from 12 million tonnes to 15 million tonnes, per annum, and the expansion would be completed by November this year at a cost of Rs. 14,000 crore.

The near by naphtha cracker complex and the hydro cracker project at Haldia would also be commissioned this year.

IOC Director (Refineries), B. N. Bankapur, said that the commissioning of the naphtha cracker and the downstream polymer units at Panipat would make it an integrated refinery cum petrochemicals complex.

A decline was registered by the crime graph in the national capital compared to 2007. However, the murder cases and motorvehicle theft has increased, whereas there was fall in rape cases.

Police Commissioner Y S Dadwal informed at Delhi Police's annual press conference in New Delhi on Friday, The capital recorded a decline in registration of IPC cases with 46,414 last year as against 53,244 in 2007, a decrease of 1,881 cases.

He told, “The crime rate has recorded a 12.82 per cent decline this year if you compare it with the figures of 2007. There has been a decline of 12.13 per cent in heinous crimes.” It is observed that there has been an increase of 51 murder cases this year compared to last year.

On Thursday, it was announced by the Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Y S Rajasekhara Reddy that the recent developments in the software giant Satyam group are not going to affect major projects in the state.

Reddy said to a pointed question on the fate of projects like the Hyderabad Metro Rail, entrusted to Maytas, “Satyam is Satyam. Maytas is Maytas. Right now we don't see any problem. Maytas will do it.”