The state owned oil producer, Oil and Natural Gas Commission (ONGC) would go for acquisition of UK-listed Imperial Energy.

The Chairman and managing director of ONGC, R S Sharma said that there in no change in its earlier plans of USD 2.59 billion to bid for imperial. The company maintains a good balance sheet, and it has enough financial resources to fund the acquisition.
 
It is to be noted that crude oil rates are declining in the international market and some quarters expected scrap of bid by state owned oil giant.

Jaguar Land Rover is planning to shed around 200 jobs in its UK operations. Jaguar Land Rover is a leading automotive company owned by TATA group. The company wants voluntary layoffs of its production staff from its plants located in Merseyside in Northern England, Birmingham and Solihull in Central England. The company would provide nine months salary to retrenched staff and pension to over-sixty staff.

The Time

London, Oct. 18 : North Korean leader Kim Jong -il maybe dead. According to The Telegraph, North Korean diplomats abroad have been ordered to stay close to their embassies and await an "important announcement" concerning Kim Jong-Il.

The rumours circulating that Kim is dead have caused instability in North Korea''s diplomatic corps, and the announcement may very well be a carefully worded instruction to remain loyal to the regime or have the diplomats'' families still in North Korea face the consequences.

London, Oct. 18 : A female professor has become the first woman to lead a mixed congregation in Islamic prayer in Britain.

Professor Amina Wadud gave a sermon at a centre in Oxford in what is being called a "leap forward" for equality in Islam.

According to The Telegraph, the sermon was controversial as tradition holds that Muslim religious leaders, called Imams, must always be men when there are services with both sexes. Some Muslims also believe it is against Islam for a woman to conduct such services.

Prof Wadud took the service, known as a khutbah, to mark the start of a conference on Islam and feminism at Wolfson College, Oxford. "There''s nothing in the Koran that prohibits it," she said.

The London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine undertook the survey on Britons’ hand-washing habits. The survey shows many Britons don’t wash their hands properly after visiting the washroom.  

October 15, is considered as the Global Hand-Washing Day to promote clean hands to ward off infection, specifically in developing countries.