Mumbai, Oct. 29 Higher sales volumes, lower raw material costs and excise duty helped Mahindra & Mahindra post its highest ever net profit of Rs 703 crore for the second quarter of this fiscal compared with Rs 206 crore in the same period last year. Net revenue was up 34 per cent to Rs 4,558 crore from Rs 3,355 crore. The company sold 55,280 utility vehicles during the quarter, a 44 per cent increase over 38,462 units last year. Tractor sales grew 32 per cent to 38,811 units. Mr Bharat Doshi, Chief Financial Officer, said there would be some “upward pressure” in raw material costs. “You will see prices firming up in the longer term,” he added.

No price hike However, M&M does not plan to hike vehicle prices. “Going forward there would be an increase of five per cent in raw material cost. We would have to consider a hike then,” said Mr Anjani Kumar Choudhari, President, Farm Equipment Sector.

M&M has earmarked capital expenditure plan of Rs 7,000 crore for three years including the current fiscal. This includes the Rs 2,500-crore Mahindra Navistar commercial vehicle project at Chakan near Pune. “We will invest roughly Rs 1,000 crore for product development,” said Dr Pawan Goenka, President, Automotive Sector.

He said that the first product, a medium and heavy commercial vehicle, would debut in the first quarter of next calendar. A sub-3.5-tonne truck is also part of the Chakan plan. On the Mahindra-Renault joint venture, Dr Goenka said that Logan sales were around 500 units a month. “Our business plan is to keep it at that level. We are certainly incurring losses but the figure is coming down quarter-on-quarter as we have downsized the business.”

LONDON: Hit by organizational delays and controversies, the formal countdown to the 2010 Commonwealth Games began on Thursday with the launch of Queen's baton relay, which saw India's President Pratibha Patil making history by becoming the first Head of a State to attend such a ceremony. The brief ceremony, held at the majestic Buckingham Palace showcased India's rich tradition through a cultural show before Queen Elizabeth II handed over the glittering baton to Patil amidst thunderous applause.

The Queen placed her message into the baton after receiving it from Commonwealth Games Federation Michael Fennell as a host of dignitaries watched the proceedings beamed live in India. President Patil passed on the baton to Sports Minister of India MS Gill, who handed it over to Organising Committee Chairman Suresh Kalmadi. From Kalmadi baton reached the hands of first baton-bearer Abhinav Bindra, India's only Olympic Gold medallist. With Indian music playing in the background air rifle shooter Bindra began the relay-run and handed over the baton to legendary middle-distance runner Lord Sebastian Coe, waiting just outside the gates of the Palace.

Coe is also Chairman of the Organising Committee of the 2012 London Olympics. The baton passed through the hands of legendary cricketer Kapil Dev, the most successful female tennis player Sania Mirza, flying sikh Milkha Singh, Olympic bronze medal winners -- boxer Vijender Singh and wrestler Sushil Kumar -- and England's first Sikh cricketer Monty Panesar among other Indian sports personalities. The Queen's Baton for the 2010 Commonwealth Games is a delicate mix of aesthetics and technology with an in-built location tracking system and a camera capable of sending images to the Games website. After travelling to different member countries of the Commonwealth, the Baton will enter India through Wagah Border along Pakistan, 100 days before the start of the Games.

It will then be taken to all state capitals of the country before reaching the Jawaharlal Nehru Stadium in Delhi for the opening ceremony of the Games on October 3, 2010. Earlier, dance, dresses and drums from different parts of India virtually turned the majestic Victoria Memorial into a mini-India at the start of relay. A bunch of British students joined the celebrations chanting the Sanskrit verses from ancient Rig Veda. As the sanskrit prayers speaking of unity and humanity of these students from St James school reverberated in the forecourt of the Buckingham Palace, the crowd joined in with encouraging cheers and claps for their effort. The students provided perfect icing on the function by performing Indian classical dance forms Bharatnatyam, Kuchipudi and folk dances like Bhangra and Dandia in front of Queen Elizabeth II and President Pratibha Patil.

NEW DELHI: In a last-ditch attempt to come to an amicable agreement with pilots, the aviation ministry has decided that Air India should pay them their rightful dues. And once the existing claims are settled to a certain date, fresh wage agreements would be drawn up with them to bring the salaries to current industry levels. After pilots of erstwhile Indian Airlines threatened to go on strike yet again over non-payment of two months’ flying allowances, aviation secretary M M Nambiar struck a conciliatory note with airline management. He is learnt to have clearly told the management that existing wage agreements must be honoured up to a certain date and then fresh agreements be worked out.

The AI top brass was told that it’s not correct to dishonour existing agreements. ‘‘An attempt should be made to work out a date to which the old agreement will be honoured, after which a new lower structure must be put in place. Once the dues to that date of all wages, allowances are cleared, the new scheme of things should be accepted. If even that is not agreed to, then the options for everyone get narrower,’’ said a top source. The source said AI is likely to get a loan from State Bank which would enable it to pay the arrears of employees. Pilots of erstwhile Indian Airlines say they have not got their flying allowance that accounts for 70%-80% of their total pay for past two months. While AI had no money to pay them, the much higher paid expats were getting their wages on time and without any cut that was causing much heartburn in the erstwhile IA.

An AI statement on Thursday evening said the airline was hopeful of getting some money in a couple of days following which some allowances would be paid by November 10. ‘‘After the way the last strike had to be called off with the management putting on hold the pilots wage-cut order, things have become very difficult in the current negotiations we are holding with them for wage cuts. Now that it has been decided to pay dues to a certain date, pilots and others should accept a wage cut. It’s better to have a salary structure that can be paid on time instead of having something that cannot be paid,’’ said a source.

The AI-IA combine has close to 32,000 employees with an annual wage bill of Rs 3,600 crore of which nearly Rs 1,500 crore are paid as performance-linked incentives (PLI). The PLI has gone up in past two years even as the airlines performance nosedived in terms of load factors, yields and on-time performance. The group of ministers formed to look into AI’s woes has made it clear that there has to be some wage cut as Jet has a similar fleet but its wage bill is one-third at Rs 1,200 crore.

TOKYO: Japan's economy today showed fresh signs that it is recovering after a sharp downturn, with jobless figures hitting a four-month low, an easing in deflation and household spending edging up. Japan's unemployment rate fell to a four-month low of 5.3% in September, beating the market expectation that it would rise to 5.6%, according to data from the internal affairs ministry.

The latest figure was down from 5.5% in August and the lowest since 5.2% in May. A separate survey released by the labour ministry today showed there were 43 job offers for every 100 job seekers in September, slightly up from a record low of 42 in the previous two months.

It is the first time since May 2007 that the job-offer ratio has improved from the previous month. Many Japanese companies, particularly exporters, moved swiftly to cut jobs and production in response to a slump in demand caused by the global economic downturn.

But Japan's economy grew in April-June for the first time in five quarters on rebounding exports and government stimulus measures. Another survey from the internal affairs ministry showed deflation in Japan eased slightly in September following four straight months of record declines in consumer prices.