A senior policy adviser revealed that in order to conserve the scarce natural resources for other crops, the Government needs to put off exports of water guzzlers like sugar and rice through an "environmental tax".

Irrigation stays as a major challenge with depleting ground water levels, though; India has incurred expenditure on water resources to $50 billion in the five years to March 2012. Farm output still relies on the June-September monsoon rains.

Pranab Mukherjee, the Finance Minister of India on Thursday made it clear to the Chairman of the Presidential Committee during G-20 finance ministers meeting, in the South Korean city of Busan that India is not in favour of taxing banks for creating a corpus for future bailouts.

The idea is supported by United States and Europe but is being opposed by Australia and Canada on the pretext that their banks had not started the 2008-9 financial crisis

A textile major in South India, Suryalakshmi Cotton Mills Ltd. has declared its fourth quarter financial results for the fiscal year 2009-10 and has managed to register a strong result and improved financial performance.

The company has posted a profit before tax (PBT) of Rs 7.93 crore, for the quarter that ended on 31st March, 2010. The profit after tax (PAT) of the company was reported to be Rs 4.35 crore for this quarter.

Orissa Chief Minister Mr. Naveen Patnaik has invited the local MLAs and MP to have a peaceful discussion over the controversial Posco issue. He has decided to go for such talk in order to find a peaceful solution to the dispute over implementation Posco-India project.

The estimated cost of the project is of around Rs 52,000 crore. On 20th of May Mr. Naveen Patnaik will have the meeting with MP and MLAs of Jagatsinghpur district.

J&K Bank has announced its annual financial results for the fiscal year 2009-10 and has managed to register the highest ever annual profit.

The company has posted a net profit of Rs 512.38 crore for the fiscal that ended in 31st March, 2010. It was reported to be Rs 409.84 crore for last year.

After the government has recently announced a hike in the rates of compressed natural gas (CNG) sold to automobiles in Delhi and Mumbai by close to Rs 6 per kg, while because of the government's decision to raise input gas prices to Rs 7.5 per cubic metre, it will results in raising piped gas for households by about Rs 4 per cubic metre, the government is still hopeful of the fact that the CNG, PNG firms will not pass on the burden on the shoulders of the consumers.

With a view to give it back to the rising competition in the Indian market and keep its flag flying high, Hyundai motors India is working hard on a plan of launching three new models in the Indian market.

According to the recently announced strategy by the company, it will be striving hard to launch a new vehicle, a facelift and a model-year-model every year to keep the consumer close to the Hyundai brand in the Indian market.

As the Indian subsidiary of the world's largest automaker, Toyota Motor Corporation is working hard on its plan to launch the Etios in the Indian market by the end of this year in India; the company credits the Indian consumer for the idea of Etios. As the company is gearing for the global launch from India, Toyota Kirloskar Motor Pvt. Ltd's Bangalore office is full of activities these days.

While the company has sourced close to 75% of the components from the Indian market, the company wants to sell the entire 70,000 units production in the Indian market.

Internet giant Google has officially confirmed that its much talked about Google Editions is now all set for launch this summer. The new offering is a "buy anywhere, read anywhere" e-books service that would allow users to effectively download e-books on mobile phones, electronic readers and computers.

Cloud computing is being viewed as the future of technology by the whole world and witnessing the same, Avnet, one of the world's most prominent distributors of semiconductor, electronics components and software technologies, has started preparing itself and its various partners to ride the cloud computing wave.

Avnet has officially announced the introduction of CloudReady, which is an initiative specifically designed to prepare and enable its AMerican and Canadian partners to make the most of the up and coming cloud computing and its many growth opportunities.

In what might be looked at as a pretty asymmetric copyright warfare, the $176 Billion Internet giant Google has slapped a lawsuit against Blue Destiny Records, a tiny Florida based indie label that releases blues records.

Last December, Blue Destiny had first sued Microsoft, Google and RapidShare while claiming the RapidShare provided a "distribution centre for unlawful copies of copyrighted works" and the search engines were deriving huge benefits from this infringement.

In March, however, Blue Destiny took the lawsuit back but that did not satisfy Google.

Today, DB Corp. Ltd., the publisher of the popular Hindi Daily Dainik Bhaskar, officially announced that it would be demerging the radio business of subsidiary Synergy Media Entertainment and the name would be completely transfered to itself.

The plan for the demerger of the radio business has received approval from the firm's board of director, which yesterday met, as has been shared by DB Corp. in an official statement to the Bombay Stock Exchange.

As has been revealed by official figures, revenue of Indian-focused mining group Vedanta Resources managed to post a whopping 187% growth in yearly earnings per share mainly on the back of a rebound in prices of metals and a stronger output. The group is expecting figures to get even better because of a strong economic recovery.

"The recovery in demand and commodity prices appears well-founded and the medium and long-term outlook for our commodities remains strong", Chairman Anil Agarwal said.

Despite the fact that India has slowly been coming out of recession, the FY10 imports and exports data of the company has managed to reveal disappointing figures. A decline of 4.7% to $176.5 Billion was recorded by Indian exports in the year up-to 31 March, 2010.

During the same period, imports also managed to decline by 8.2% to $278.7 Billion as compared to FY09.

The trade deficit in FY10 was at $102 Billion, as compared to $118 Billion in the last financial year.

On Tuesday, the Hong Kong stocks ended slightly lower after changing directions several times during the session, tracking declines in China’s shares. As the Australian dollar weakened, stocks fell in Europe and Asia, after an index of Chinese manufacturing slipped to a six month low. Mark Tan, who helps oversee about $11billion at UOB Asset Management Ltd, in Singapore said , “Concerns over a China slowdown are going to weigh on the rest of the region. The Australian tax came as a bit of surprise. Stock prices will take a one-off hit.”

On Tuesday, China’s key stock index fell by 1.2 percent on Tuesday to its lowest close in seven months, led by the bank and property shares after China’s Central Bank raised bank’s reserve requirement ratios to fend off inflation. The market closed on Monday for a national holiday with the Shanghais Composite Index ended at 2,835 points.

On Monday, the Craiglist. com was subpoenaed by Connecticut’s attorney General, who is investigating whether the popular online was classified ad service is doing enough to quash prostitution on its site and whether it may be profiting from it. It may be noted that last year , “erotic services ad” posted by Craig list was promptly replaced with its new “adult” category and said that it would be closely screened.

According to intra day data from Markit, the cost of insuring $10 million of Goldman’s debt using five year credit default swaps is $155,500. With the capital markets calmed and Goldman prospering its credit default swaps typically cost less than those of Cites and Morgan Stanley as JP Morgan is set to have the lowest risk among large US banks. The company said the lawsuits were filed since April 22 in federal and state courts in New York.

The New York based company, NYSE Euro next, the largest U. S stock exchange operator by total market share, said the net income climbed to $13410 million compared with $104 million a year earlier. The first quarter profit increased by 25 percent driven by strong growth of its derivative businesses. NYSE Euro next was formed in 2007 by the combination of NYSE Group Inc and pan European bourse operator Euro next NV with the first quarters earnings also hurt by costs of its NYFIX acquisition.

According to a statement today, six flags cut its obligations to $1 billion from the $2.7 billion it owed to creditors and holders of redeemable preferred stock as of Dec 31. A group of investors is buying $275 million worth of new stock being issued by New York based Six Flags. According to the announcement the firm plans to apply to list the new common stock of six flags entertainment on the New York Stock Exchange.