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NEW DELHI/MUMBAI: The rupee continued its free fall and touched a nadir of 52.73 against the dollar, before recovering a little to close at 52.32, amid indications from RBI and the government that there was little that authorities could do to prop up the currency.

The Indian currency closed 16 paise lower compared to Tuesday’s close which was a record low. The steep fall on Monday morning trade was due to heavy dollar demand from oil companies. Expectations of a further decline are also prompting importers to buy dollars, dealers said.

There are clear indications from the market that the falling trend is going to last for a while. In the offshore market, three-month forward contracts traded at 53.46 to the dollar, compared with 53.05 on Monday. Forwards are agreements to buy or sell assets at a set price and date. Non-deliverable contracts are settled in dollars.

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MUMBAI: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex on Wednesday dropped to a more than two-year low, down 365 points, as investors squared positions ahead of the monthly settlement in derivative contracts amid heavy fund outflows and weak global markets.
 
Sensex, which gained 119 points yesterday, fell 365.45 points to 15,699.97 - level seen on November 3, 2009. It had touched a low of 15,478.69 before the partial recovery. Before yesterday’s gain, the market had lost nearly 10 per cent in eight straight sessions.
 
The broad-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty tumbled 105.90 to 4,706.45, after touching 4,640.95.

Brokers said investors sold heavily while clearing pending positions ahead tomorrow’s settlement in this month’s derivative contracts and weak cues from Asian and European equities markets.
 
IT, industrial and financial stocks led the slide on weak global trend as the US economy expanded at a rate below market expectations during the third quarter, they added.
 
The overall market fall was cushioned somewhat as shares of telecom operator RCom and real estate firms DB Realty and Unitech recovered after the Supreme Court granted bail to their executives in the 2G spectrum case.

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DUBAI/NEW DELHI — In a significant development, the UAE and India on Wednesday signed two agreements aimed at enhancing security cooperation for combating terrorism and organised crimes, and transfer of prisoners.

UAE Deputy Prime Minister and Minister of Interior Lieutenant-General Shaikh Saif bin Zayed Al Nahyan and Indian Home Minister P. Chidambaram signed the agreements in New Delhi.

According to a spokesperson of the Indian Home Ministry quoted by Indian news agencies, the two leaders also held discussions on “issues pertaining to bilateral security cooperation between (the) two countries”.

The agreement on transfer of sentenced persons provides the framework to facilitate the social rehabilitation of sentenced persons in their respective countries by giving citizens of the contracting states, who have been convicted and sentenced as a result of commission of a criminal offence, the opportunity to serve the sentence in their own society.

There are around 1,200 Indians imprisoned in the UAE for various crimes, including drugs and fraud. There is only one UAE national presently in an Indian jail. The pact will apply to those who have already been convicted and not to under-trials.

The two leaders extensively discussed issues pertaining to bilateral security cooperation, issues relating to drug trafficking, security and capacity-building so as to enhance cooperation to combat organised crimes, the spokesperson said.

On terrorism, both countries stressed their commitment to stepping up cooperation in investigating mutually relevant criminal cases and sharing of relevant information in this regard.

Under the historic prisoner exchange programme, any Indian sentenced in the UAE, who is to be transferred to Indian jail, must have a minimum of six months of jail term left and there shouldn’t be any pending case against him.

Since suspects undergoing trial cannot be transferred, the only Emirati prisoner in India can be transferred only if he is sentenced.

Speaking to Khaleej Times, the Indian Ambassador to the UAE, M.K. Lokesh, acknowledged that the security agreement is very significant at this point of time that requires larger cooperation between countries to fight terrorism. “It will increase the strength of the already existing cooperation.”

Regarding the prisoner-swap programme, he said both the countries are yet to finalise the technicalities involved in the implementation of the pact.

“What I can say now is that it (availing the option of serving jail term in home country) is applicable to all convicted Indians in the UAE and in cases where the crime is acknowledged as a crime in both the countries,” he said.

The diplomat said the authorities would come up with a mechanism to inform the prisoners about the provisions of the pact once the technical formalities have been finalised. - sajila@khaleejtimes.com