Alejandro Vela of Mexico's Cruz Azul and Jose Parra of Venezuela's Deportivo Tachira scramble after the ball during their Copa Libertadores soccer match in Mexico City.

Alejandro Vela of Mexico's Cruz Azul and Jose Parra of Venezuela's Deportivo Tachira scramble after the ball during their Copa Libertadores soccer match in Mexico City.

MUMBAI: India’s rupee fell, erasing earlier gains, on speculation importers stepped up purchases of the dollar to take advantage of the exchange rate after the local currency strengthened to the highest level in almost two weeks.

The rupee also weakened as concerns about Greece’s debt crisis persist, according to Naveen Raghuvanshi, a trader at Development Credit Bank.

NEW DELHI: Iran offered India extra crude supplies on revised terms as international sanctions tighten the Middle East producer’s circle of oil customers, according to three people with knowledge of the talks.

Indian refiners have yet to decide on whether they will take up Iran’s offer of additional shipments, the people said, declining to be identified because they aren’t authorised to speak with the media.

MUMBAI: Indian stocks rose to their highest level in almost seven months after European finance ministers reached an agreement on a second bailout package for Greece to shield the region from a precedent-setting default.

Bharat Heavy Electricals Ltd., India’s biggest producer of power equipment, rose to a two-month high as the government is likely to approve a proposal to levy a 19 per cent import tax to help local companies compete for orders with Chinese rivals, Power Secretary P.

Dubai: Emirates NBD may sell as much as $1.8 billion in bonds this year as the lowest interest rates in at least 20 years give the UAE’s biggest bank room to raise cheaper funds to repay debt.

The bank, 56 per cent owned by Dubai’s government, has Dh8.47 billion ($2.3 billion) of debt due in 2012 and will “target raising medium- to long-term funding at acceptable pricing,” Rick Pudner, chief executive, told reporters on February 15.

LONDON/TOKYO: Western investors in Japan’s disgraced Olympus have accused its banks of trying to take control of the boardroom by stealth, amid media reports that the firm’s major creditors are set to install their own appointees in the top jobs.

Foreign investors in the maker of cameras and medical equipment, engulfed last year by a $1.

NEW DELHI: With one of the world’s most expensive yachts and a cricket and Formula One team, Vijay Mallya is known as India’s Richard Branson or simply, the ‘King of Good Times’.

Owner of lucrative business in brewery, it is his chairmanship of debt-ridden Kingfisher Airlines that is currently making headlines, not the usual write-ups in society pages of his jet set lifestyle.

Mallya, who prefers to be addressed as doctor for his honorary Ph.D.

MUSCAT: The CME Group, the world’s largest futures exchange owner, and Oman Investment Fund will raise their respective stakes in the Dubai Mercantile Exchange (DME) to support expansion at the Middle East oil bourse.

CME Group’s Nymex division will double its holding to 50 per cent, while Oman’s sovereign wealth fund will own 29 per cent of the Dubai exchange.

The DME will receive “significant new funds,” Thomas Leaver, chief executive.

India: India may spend as much as Rs50 billion ($1 billion) in the next five years to map underground water as indiscriminate sinking of wells by farmers depletes resources in the world’s second-most populous nation. The government’s goal is to avert a water crisis in the South Asian country, where agriculture accounts for 20 per cent of the $1.