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New Delhi: In one of the largest office space transactions, Godrej Properties on Wednesday announced the sale of 4.35 lakh sq ft in its commercial project at BKC, Mumbai for about Rs 1,480 crore.

Although the company did not disclose the name of the buyer, sources said the office space has been purchased by pharma company Abbott India.

In a filing to the BSE, Godrej Properties informed that “the company has entered into a transaction for selling 4,35,000 sq ft of saleable area at its commercial project Godrej BKC in Bandra Kulra Complex (BKC) Mumbai to a single user for a total consideration of Rs 1,479 crore.

“This is the highest ever value for any single end-user commercial real estate transaction in India”.

Godrej BKC is a large high-end commercial real estate project with approximately 1.3 million sq ft of saleable area. Godrej Properties had partnered with Jet Airways to develop this project, which is expected to be completed and ready for occupancy by mid-2016.

“We are very happy to have successfully concluded this large and strategically important deal at our project Godrej BKC. This deal will be an important driver of our plans to unlock capital invested in our commercial portfolio and will hasten the pace of our growth going forward,” Godrej Properties MD & CEO Pirojsha Godrej said.

Mr Godrej added that after the transaction it still has 300,000 sq. ft. of space in the building which it hopes to monetise it in coming months.

Godrej Properties is developing residential, commercial and township projects spread across 110.30 million square feet in 12 cities.

In May, Pirojsha Godrej had said that the company is targeting to sell Rs 2,000 crore worth commercial assets over the next 2-3 years to reduce debt.

The company had a net debt of Rs 2,764 crore as on March 31, 2015.

Although real estate market is facing a huge slowdown for the last 2-3 years, the office space segment is performing well with increased leasing activities.

Recently, e-commerce player Flipkart leased over 2 million sq ft of office space in Bengaluru.

“Six fresh cases of dengue were detected yesterday taking the total number to 27 in the entire Jammu region,” Director of Health Services, Jammu, Dr Baljeet Singh Pathania said.

He said that out of six new patients, four were male and two were female.

A health advisory has been issued by the Centre which has been widely published in local dailies to create awareness among people, he added.

The health department claimed that they are fully equipped to treat patients suffering from dengue adding that no hospital in the region has so far received any patient whose sickness has taken dangerous proportion.

Mr Pathania said that people need to take precautions to save themselves from mosquito bites and also advised to discard any stagnant water which can become breeding ground for mosquitoes.

On Tuesday, a 40-years-old man and a middle-aged woman from Kathua district were tested positive for the vector-borne disease.

Himachal Pradesh Chief Minister Virbhadra Singh leaves after attending a Congress legislature party meeting in Shimla on September 27, 2015. (PTI)

Admitting the petition of Virbhadra Singh against whom an FIR was registered by CBI last week, a division bench of High Court comprising justices Rajiv Sharma and Sureshwar Thakur, also directed CBI to keep the court informed before interrogating the couple and fixed the next hearing on November 18.

The court said the inquiry in the case will continue. The chief minister had filed a petition in the court yesterday pleading that the raids on his private residence Holley Lodge and other premises were conducted with “malafide intentions and political vendetta” by the central investigating agency.

Senior Supreme Court lawyer and former Union Minister Kapil Sibal appeared for the chief minister. Singh in his petition alleged that the CBI had overstepped its jurisdiction in filing the case and questioned how the CBI could raid his premises when the case was already pending in the Delhi High Court and also before the Income Tax tribunal and other Income tax authorities, where all documents relating to his returns have been submitted.

Seeking setting aside of entire CBI process of investigations and case filed against him and wife Pratibha Singh, a former lawmaker, Mr Singh argued that the permission of the state government and home department was not sought before raiding the residence of a sitting chief minister.

Virbhadra sought directions from the court to quash the FIR registered against him and his wife under Sections 13(2) and 13(1) (e) of the Prevention of Corruption Act and Section 109 of IPC by CBI on September 23 in New Delhi and urged the court to summon record of the preliminary inquiry and the FIR.

The CBI had acted without jurisdiction by conducting probe into alleged offences under the Prevention of Corruption Act against the highest democratically elected constitutional functionary in the state without any consent from the state government, a pre-requisite under Section 6 of the Delhi Special Establishment Act, the petition said.

There was no order, direction or judgment by any court that authorised the CBI to inquire, investigate or register regular cases and exercise jurisdiction in the territory of Himachal Pradesh, he said.

Even the cause of action did not arise in the territory of Delhi, he claimed.

After the hearing was concluded, the chief minister, who was not present in the court, told reporters outside that the case was “politically motivated”.

HCL Tech’s second warning in six months rattled investors

HCL Technologies shares plunged 15 per cent to Rs 834.85 on Thursday in its biggest one-day fall since January 7, 2009. The sharp selloff was on account of HCL Tech’s Wednesday warning about the possibility of “tepid” revenue growth in the September quarter. HCL Tech, India’s fourth largest outsourcer, was the worst performer in the 50-share blue chip Nifty index.

Here are 10 things to know about HCL Tech’s revenue warning

1) HCL warned that its Q1 revenue will be lower-than-expected because of adverse currency impact, client specific issue (revenue loss of $20 million on account of client disengagement) and slowdown in its most critical infrastructure management services (IMS) vertical.

2) HCL Tech’s second warning (first was in April 2015) in six months rattled investors, sending the company’s shares sharply lower. Fund manager Sandip Sabharwal termed HCL Tech’s warning as “crazy”, given the sharp depreciation in the rupee during the September quarter. IT companies get a major portion of their revenue in dollars, so rupee depreciation leads to translation gains.

3) The September quarter will mark the third consecutive quarter of earnings downgrade at HCL Tech, said Kawaljeet Saluja of Kotak Institutional Equities.

4) The revenue warning means HCL Tech will be the weakest performer among top 4 IT firms in the September quarter, analysts said. According to Bank of America Merrill Lynch’s Kunal Tayal, HCL Tech will post 1.5 per cent sequential growth in constant currency revenue and an operating (ebit) margin of 20.3 per cent in the September quarter.

5) HCL Tech’s case is a standalone one and will not impact the overall IT sector, said Rumit Dugar and Saumya Shrivastava of Religare. However, they noted that the frequency of client program disputes has been increasing of late.

6) Domestic brokerage Nirmal Bang’s Girish Pai said HCL Tech has little control over cross currency issues, but the other two factors (client disengagement and lumpy growth in IMS) are probably more serious and require a greater scrutiny.

7) The slowdown in HCL Tech’s IMS vertical (because of competition from other Tier-1 players) is worrisome because it is the biggest revenue generator for HCL Tech, analysts noted.

8) According to Kotak, HCL Tech has weak applications portfolio and it also lags competition in the fast-growing, high-margin digital space, Kotak added. These factors are likely to weigh on HCL Tech shares.

9) HCL Tech’s loss proved gainful for other IT stocks such as Infosys and Tata Consultancy Services, which saw buying on Thursday. HCL had outperformed TCS and Infosys in last one year; As of Wednesday’s close, TCS was up 1.2 per cent year-to-date, while Infosys was up 18 per cent while HCL Tech gained 23 per cent.

10) Kotak retained its “reduce” call on HCL Tech and cut its target price from Rs 900 to Rs 875; Nirmal Bang also cut its target price on HCL Tech from Rs 1,008 to Rs 991. However, the brokerage retained its “accumulate” rating on HCL Tech terming the revenue warning as an “aberration”.

(With inputs from Reuters)

BJP President Amit Shah at an election rally in Bihar.

New Delhi:  The BJP will today release what it calls its vision document for the Bihar assembly elections, to be held in five phases from this month. Party chief Amit Shah, who is on a week-long tour of the state, will release the document along with finance minister Arun Jaitley.


 


Sources say that apart from a focus on farmers and rural households, the document will make an effort to reach out to the state’s women, seen as a strong support base of BJP rival Bihar Chief Minister Nitish Kumar.


 
With chief strategist Amit Shah in town, a five-star hotel in Patna is functioning as the BJP’s “war-room.” Mr Shah has held long meetings with state party leaders to fine-tune the election strategy of the four-party coalition the BJP is leading.


 


Mr Shah is also travelling to other parts of the state to meet party workers and check any signs of rebellion in constituencies where there is discontentment about over the party’s choice of candidate.


 


Senior leaders, said sources, will visit the homes of disgruntled leaders to placate them and ensure they do not spoil the BJP’s chances in an election it must win.


 


The BJP is contesting 160 of Bihar’s 243 seats and the other 83 have been divided among three regional allies. The party thus has little room to take chances and has in several places strategically fielded candidates who have just joined the party after quitting the rival Janata Dal United or Rashtriya Janata Dal.


 


This has caused heartburn among leaders who have been working for years towards the party’s big moment in Bihar, out from the shadow of the JDU to which the BJP played junior partner for 18 years, till they parted in 2013.


 


The grumbling includes allegations of ticket being given to people with a criminal background and about the relatives of local leaders being denied nomination.


 


Amit Shah has instructed party workers that they must ensure all election rallies held by senior leaders are a huge success, and not just a select few.


 


Also, every worker has been instructed to bring 100 new voters to the polling booths.


 


 

Mohammad Akhlaq, 50, was killed by a mob in Dadri, UP, over beef rumours

Corporal Sartaj’s father, Mohammad Akhlaq, and brother were dragged from their house and beaten with bricks and stones by around 100 villagers in Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, about 45 km from Delhi.

Among the attackers, allegedly, were neighbours who had known the family for years. Sartaj says his sister has not stepped out of the house since the incident.

“There was no sign that something like this would happen, nothing at all, but obviously, those who killed my father were neighbours,” he said. “Right now, there is police protection, but what will we do when they leave? We have to shift from here…maybe we will shift to the airbase.  

Corporal Sartaj is an engineer with the Air Force and based in Chennai.

Around 25 minutes after he spoke to his father, he said, his sister called. “I spoke to father about his recovery from typhoid and low blood pressure…Then my sister called and said ‘they beat father and dragged him out’.”

Sartaj’s brother is critically ill in hospital since the attack.

“I want to know why they murdered my father. What is the reason?” asks the 25-year-old corporal. “I hope the murderers are given severe punishment as an example.”

The police say before the attack, an announcement was allegedly made at a temple nearby that a calf had been slaughtered and its carcass had been found near a transformer.

At around 10.30 pm, a large mob descended on Sartaj’s home, wrecked everything and even attacked his mother and 70-year-old grandmother.

Six young men have been arrested.

SPOILERS ALERT

Talvar is a minor miracle of a movie. Mining riveting yet balanced drama from a real-life murder case lost in a tangled web of fact, fiction, hearsay and insinuations could not have been easy. But not a wee bit of the effort shows.

At one level, Talvar is a classic whodunit and a sharply observant police procedural that pieces together different facets of the mystery.

But there is much in this inspired-by-true-events film that reinvents the generic elements that constitute its narrative spine.

Talvar is a mature, insightful commentary on urban India’s lynch mob mentality and a voyeuristic media’s tendency to jump to instant and sweeping conclusions on criminality and culpability.

In dramatising the 2008 Aarushi Talwar murder and its aftermath, director Meghna Gulzar and writer Vishal Bhardwaj steer clear of the sensational to focus squarely on the essential.

Without resorting to cheap thrills, they deliver a gripping, genre-defying and non-exploitative cinematic examination of a murder most foul and its repercussions.

Bhardwaj’s solid screenplay is laced with sly wit and understated tension.

Meghna Gulzar, back in the director’s saddle after an eight-year hiatus, keeps the treatment of the sensational story consistently real and tangible.

A clutch of fine performances from Irrfan Khan, Neeraj Kabi and Konkona Sen Sharma, among others, also goes a long way in enhancing the impact of the plot.

Notwithstanding the film’s naturalistic texture, strewn across Talvar are cross-references to Hindi cinema and lyrics of the past.

Ijaazat is mentioned more than once, and that timeless piece of poetry from the film – Mera kuch saamaan tumhare paas pada hai – wafts in the background on one occasion as a married couple drifts apart.

Several songs (lyrics: Gulzar; music: Bhardwaj) are employed to underpin the Talvar narrative, but the film has no room for any happy musicality.

Talvar is a disconcerting film that turns the lens on the less-than-perfect ways of the media, judiciary and police in a nation where an overstretched legal system is always on the verge of snapping.

Besides addressing the emotional and social issues stemming from the double murder of Aarushi and the family’s manservant Hemraj, Talvar raises many a pertinent question.

It subtly critiques the media culture that thrives on salacity and prurience and engenders a collective propensity to judge and damn even before a court verdict is pronounced.

The screenplay also touches upon the many divides in urban India that aggravate the situation.

It straddles across several socio-economic spaces. One is occupied by the affluent doctor-couple in whose home the double murder takes place.

Another is inhabited by the Uttar Pradesh policemen with their shockingly regressive mindsets and rough and ready methods.

Yet another segment exists on the fringes of the metropolis and is peopled by migrants engaged in lowly jobs in the homes and offices of the newly rich.
The film’s pivotal character, chief investigating officer Ashwin Kumar (Irrfan), has an orbit of his own.

He is called in to salvage the investigation botched up by a police force all too keen to treat the murder as an open and shut case.

The hard-nosed investigator is not without his share of demons. Cynical and vulnerable to bouts of anger and frustration, he has a wife (Tabu in a cameo) who seems to have had enough of him.

The film liberally mixes fictional additions with details culled from research and the proceedings of the special court trial.

The changed names of individuals and organisations involved in the case – CBI is Criminal Department of Investigation (CDI) here – give Talvar the freedom to adopt a free-wheeling approach.

This is in direct contrast to the shallow good-versus-bad constructs that average big screen crime stories tend to favour.

Talvar crafts a Rashomon-like scenario in which the circumstances surrounding the murder are viewed from the standpoints of three separate investigating teams, inevitably leading to divergent theories.

But in a society desperate for closure at all cost, is anything less than a clear-cut verdict acceptable?

Irrfan Khan is the mainstay of Talvar. As long as he is on it, it is difficult to take one’s eye off the screen.

Neeraj Kabi and Konkona Sen Sharma, essaying the roles of the parents, convey the anguish and befuddlement of a couple hit by a dual tragedy.

Not only do they have to grapple with the pain of losing their only child, they also find themselves copping the blame for the heinous murder of their daughter.

Even the lesser characters are fleshed out with striking clarity. Sohum Shah as Ashwin Kumar’s suave assistant Vedant, Gajraj Rao as the paan-chewing Inspector Dhaniram and Atul Kumar as the pristine Hindi-spouting investigator who steps into the breach when Ashwin is shunted out of the case prove equal to the task.

One of the high points of Talvar is a long climactic sequence in which two investigating teams sit across a table and have a go at each other as they strive, with no holds barred, to get their respective points across.

The free-for-all sums up the depths of absurdity that matters can sink to when the truth has many faces.

No matter which of the faces of truth the audience takes away from the film, its importance as a mirror of our times is unlikely to diminish in any way.

Talvar is a must watch.