The official estimate that an LPG cylinder is sufficient to meet the cooking requirements of a domestic kitchen for 40 days is itself being questioned.

RIL had on May 8 cut supplies to sponge iron makers, refineries and petrochemical plants so that its falling output can meet full demand of core users like fertiliser and power.

RIL from 6 am on Monday started implementing the oil ministry's priority allocation order which had asked it to first supply natural gas from its KG-D6 fields to priority sectors.

The ministry has ordered the Mukesh Ambani-run firm to immediately stop natural gas sales to firms like Essar Steel to meet the full demand of fertilizer and power plants.

Reliance Industries has refused to sell natural gas to power and fertiliser plants by cutting supplies to non-priority sectors like steel and refineries.

Faced with falling production from KG-D6 fields, the government has asked Reliance Industries to first supply natural gas to priority sectors like fertiliser and power even by stopping flow to refineries and steel plants.

Officials with direct knowledge of the development said Reliance has projected maintaining the current production levels during 2011-12.

In a path-breaking move, the government on Thursday allowed gas from Reliance Industries' eastern offshore KG-D6 fields to be swapped with imported LNG for supplying it to fuel-starved power plants in Andhra Pradesh.

Reliance is currently producing 50-51 mscmd of gas from KG-D6, off the Andhra Pradesh coast. The output is lower than the 60 mscmd average production in April-June 2010.

Once all 22 wells come onstream sometime in April 2011, gas output will again touch 60 mmsmcd, DGH Director General SK Srivastava said.

The oil ministry wants fertiliser plants to buy natural gas from ONGC's C-Series field,so that fuel from RIL's KG-D6 fieldscan be given to non-core sectors.

The signing of the Gas Sales and Purchase Agreement was delayed since RIL didn't want to commit providing gas beyond its production limit of 60 mscmd a year.

Money Today reached out to equity analysts and fund managers to know which stocks and sectors to invest in. Here's what they suggest.

Seven equity analysts give their wishlist of promising sectors and stocks for this year and spell out the reasons why they prefer these scrips.

There is a huge amount of dollar liquidity, along with that for the yen and pound, which is earning close to zero investment returns. There is a fear of purchasing power erosion on account of deficits.

The Congress-led coalition has been elected to govern the country, not to please the stock market.

Here we explain the rationale for choosing each stock in Safe Wealth, the 'safer' of our two portfolios.

This selection of research reports gives information and opinions on companies and industries.They are often filled with jargon, which we must reluctantly inflict on readers sincethe excerpts are verbatim. Seven such terms occur in these extracts: EBITDA = EarningsBefore Interest,Tax, Depreciation,Amortisation, EV = Enterprise Value, EPS = Earnings Per Share, PE = Price-Earnings, PAT/PBT = Profit After/ Before Tax,YoY = Year-on-year.

Fuelled by a sustained burst of greenbacks from foreign portfolio investors, and a slow but steady increase in participation from retail investors, the stock markets have more than adequately captured the India growth story. There's no looking back now.

The swiftness and the savagery of the global downturn have caught business by surprise—the bigger the corporation, the bigger is the surprise. But few analysts expected Mukesh Ambani’s Reliance Group to be hit. After seven years of a heady upcycle, Reliance Industries finds itself hemmed in a downturn that’s perhaps the worst ever since it went public 31 years ago. Suman Layak reports.