Banks have agreed to extend financial help to small and medium enterprises (SME) and exporters in the wake of tight liquidity conditions, following the international credit crunch. The Indian Banks Association (IBA) discussed the problems of SMEs and hinted to increase the credit limit and ease loan repayment norms without any penalty.

The chief executive of Citigroup, Vikram Pandit, has informed that the major reason behind the things going wrong at the company is the banking behemoth putting in lot of money in US real estate market.  

In an interview on Tuesday, Pandit said, “What went wrong is that we had tremendous concentration in the sense we put a lot of our money to work against US real estate. So how we got here is, by lending money and putting money to work in the US real estate market in a size that was probably larger than what we ought to have done on a diversification basis.”

Finally the viewers will get to see the telecast of fresh episodes and new content by all the Hindi general entertainment channels, which went into a forced break since 10th November. 

From 1st December, 2008, the TV viewers who were missing on their daily dose of entertainment will finally be able to enjoy all new and fresh episodes of the entertainment series. 

Almost all the channels have resumed back, shooting of their serials. During the break time, many of Hindi GECs revised their new programming strategies. 

The TV ratings of Star Plus and Zee TV have dipped significantly even from the last week of repeat programming for the 47th week. However, Colors has stayed the same as last week with 199 GRPs. 

In the times of economic slowdown, public sector steel major Steel Authority of India Ltd has decided to move ahead with its Rs 54,000-crore expansion plans.  

SK Roongta, SAIL’s chairman told, “All our short term expansion plans are on track and though there is a liquidity crunch around the world, we will raise whatever capital is required at the appropriate time. Half of the Rs 54,000 crore needed to ramp up capacity to 26.2 million tonnes from the current 15 million tonnes would be through external borrowings.”

At the Effie 2008 awards, JWT India and Bennett, Coleman & Co managed to gather the limelight. The agencies were awarded last night at Mumbai’s Turf Club. The moment was a perfect replay of this year’s Cannes Lions awards. 

The Lead India campaign for The Times of India, revived its magic all over again by claiming four big awards—including the prestigious Grand Effie—that were given last night, following making a good impression on Cannes juries and winning India’s first ever Grand Prix Lion in June this year. 

India and Nepal have decided to work together to restore the embankment of Kosi river in their border region that ruptured and flooded hundreds of villages in August. The deadline for this work has been set as March 2009.

Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee visited the region with his Nepalese counterpart, Upendra Yadav on Wednesday to review the repair work of the breached portion of the river banks.