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With successful introduction of such a policy by the defence ministry two years ago, the government has secured feedback from 47 ministries and departments for adopting the offsets at the national level in all sectors. A committee of secretaries, headed by the cabinet secretary, will be giving the final touches to the policy soon before it is placed before the Union Cabinet, a high level source in the commerce ministry said on Saturday.

“We have revised our interest rate by 1.5 per cent from 13 per cent to 11.5 per cent,” an ICICI Bank spokesperson said. This cut will, however, be applicable for only new home loans, the spokesperson said.

Similarly, the state-owned corporation has subscribed to NCDs worth around Rs 20,000 crore (Rs 200 billion) this year, with nearly Rs 12,000 crore (Rs 120 billion) flowing into these instruments over the last three months when the global credit crisis intensified.

Roche expects to start selling Actemra by April 2009, company sources said. India will be the second country to launch the drug, Japan being the first. The Indian drug regulator Drug Controller General of India usually approves a new drug marketing application based on safety and efficacy data cleared by regulators in the US, EU and other developed countries.

What’s the point of information, like on Mumbai, if it cant be accessed???If the colossal intelligence failure over the Mumbai massacre highlighted the importance of information, conflicting

Sailesh Jha, DirectorAsian Economic Research at Barclays Capital, feels the impact of any monetary or fiscal policy action that happens soon, as expected, will be marginal.

According to Reliance Money\’s report, expect the markets to remain volatile and despite the unprecedented policy response from central bankers across the globe, including India which might have stemmed the panic reaction, there is no doubt that deleveraging and risk aversion still continues.

A strong fiscal policy stimulus has to accompany any rate cut, with the global slowdown’s impact turning out to be much deeper than feared.

LIC Housing Finance had touched an intraday high of Rs 222.75 and an intraday low of Rs 199.40. At 3:05 pm, the share was quoting at Rs 203.00, down Rs 18.3, or 8.27%. It was trading with volumes of 1,534,113 shares. Yesterday the share closed up 10.37% or Rs 20.80 at Rs 221.30.