India's national carrier, Air India, and the recently-created Airport Economic Regulatory Authority, AERA, will likely have new chiefs named on Friday, after a high-profile meeting - under the chairmanship of Cabinet Secretary K M Chandrasekhar - takes a decision regarding the persons to be at the helm of affairs of the two organizations.

Other known dignitaries to participate in the top-level meeting include Prime Minister's principal secretary TKA Nair, civil aviation secretary M Madhavan Nambiar, and public enterprises selection board chairman Naresh Narad.

According to a report released by rating agency Crisil, a nearly three-fold increase in gross non-performing assets (NPAs) of the banks is projected by the year 2011 - the figures are likely to go up from the last year's 2.3 percent of advances to 5 per cent of advances by 2011.

Speaking in absolute terms, the gross NPAs would from last year level of Rs 55,000 crore to Rs 1.9 lakh crore.

The report says increased gross NPAs would result from increasing defaults in payments by companies and small and medium enterprises (SMEs), because of their puny risk profile and severe strain on operating margins.

As a part of CEO Carol Bartz's endeavors to streamline operations at Yahoo, it was announced on Thursday that the company is shutting down its GeoCities website. The 1995-founded free web hosting service passed into oblivion probably because of its rather archaic service model and out-of-date technology.

The provider of mobile social instant messaging (geo) presence and VoIP services, Nimbuzz and Tata Teleservices Limited (TTSL), which operates under the brand name Tata Indicom, have teamed up to offer instant messaging services. Nimbuzz and TTSL have announced that they have signed partnership deal to provide instant messaging services across multiple communities including Skype, Windows Live Messenger, Google Talk, Yahoo, Instant Messenger, AIM, Jabber and ICQ.
 

U. S. crude futures were steady under $50 a barrel, after finishing up the previous day as a fall in the dollar and stock market gains boosted oil prices.

Natural Gas with almost more than double built as compared to last week’s data and hit lower freeze on MCX and price remain under pressure.

Base metals witnessed correction during yesterday session where most of them fell by 3-4%. Weak housing numbers coupled with rising jobless claims raised concerns about demand for non ferrous metals.

Japan's output of rolled copper products fell by a record 60 percent from a year earlier in March, data showed on Friday, illustrating the sharp collapse in industrial demand from the world's fourth-biggest consumer. Japan's output of rolled copper products fell to 32,338 tonnes in March on a seasonally adjusted basis, down 60.2 percent from a year earlier, preliminary industry data from the Japan Copper and Brass Association showed.