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Corporate Highlights

• Oil and Natural Gas Corporation Limited (ONGC) Asia's largest oil and gas company in India, will hold a final say in deciding fate of $9.6-billion Cairn-Vedanta deal as the oil ministry has proposed the firm's consent as a necessary condition even if the cabinet rules that the royalty dispute in the Rajasthan block should be settled independent of the transaction

• Leading infrastructure company Lanco Infratech agreed to acquire Australia's Griffin Coal for A$730 million (about 3,400 crore) extending the recent spate of buyouts by Indian companies eager to secure resources to feed their units. The transaction will be the second biggest investment by an Indian company in Australian, after Adani Enterprises acquired Linc of Australia in August last year for $2.7 billion.

• Punjab National Bank (PNB) third largest bank in India will buy equity stake and enter into a corporate agency tie-up with one of the 10 life insurers. The firms are Aegon Religare Life, Aviva India, Bharti AXA Life, Birla Sun Life, DLF Pramerica Life, Future Generali Life, HDFC Life, Max New York Life, MetLife and Reliance Life. At present, PNB has a referral arrangement with the Life Insurance Corporation of India (LIC) for selling insurance products.

• Leading FMCG players, including Emami and Godrej, interested in buying the hair care business of Henkel India. Henkel is planning to dispose off movable assets and other components of hair care division of the company. Henkel's hair care division includes hair colours, hair stylings and other professional hair care products. Economic Highlights

• The government has sought parliamentary approval to spend about an additional $2 billion in the fiscal year to March 31. Food subsidy in India mainly covers compensation to state-run procurement firms such as Food Corp of India for buying staple grains including rice and wheat from local farmers to supply to the poor at below-market rates. The additional spending of $2 billion is over and above an estimated $13.5 billion the government said in its Budget last month it would spend on food subsidy during 2010-11.

• India's crude oil imports dipped by 2.2% in January to 11.28 million tonne, despite fuel demand growing by a healthy 6%.Asia's third largest economy imported 11.286 million tonnes of crude oil in January, as against 15.123 million tonnes a year ago. Refiners boosted crude oil processing to a record 15.2 million tonnes in January, 8.7% higher than the achievement in the yearago period.