Corporate News Headline
•    ONGC is borrowing about Rs. 90 bn from a group of banks to part fund the Rs. 124.4 bn petrochemical plant it is building at Dahej in Gujarat. (BS)
•    DLF has been refunded the license fee amounting to Rs. 2.03 bn by the Haryana government for its proposed real estate projects in Gurgaon. (BS)
•    NTPC is planning to raise over Rs. 120 bn from both national and international sources in the next financial year for funding its future projects. (BS)
Economic and Political Headline
•    India’s exports contracted by 13.7% in February 2009 for the fifth consecutive month in the current fiscal, because of slump in global demand. Imports, too, dipped by 18.2%, continuing the trend that began in January where both exports and imports are in the negative territory. (BS)
•    The Reserve Bank of India sent fresh signals to banks to lower their lending and deposit rates by pruning the repo rate and the reverse repo rate by 50 basis points each. (ET)
•    The service industries in the US shrank further in February to 41.6 from 42.9 in January and companies stepped up staff cuts in the US, offering no sign the pace of the economy’s decline is abating. (Bloomberg)