ONGC Gives Nod To Cairn-Vedanta Deal

<?xml version="1.0" encoding="UTF-8"?><root available-locales="en_US," default-locale="en_US"><static-content language-id="en_US"><![CDATA[<p>The board of Oil and Natural Gas Corp has decided to issue a no-objection certificate for London-based miner Vedanta Resources' deal to buy a majority stake in oil and gas explorer Cairn India, ONGC said in a statement on Tuesday.<br><br>The approval from state-run ONGC, which has a 30-percent holding in the Cairn-operated oil and gas fields in western India, comes after India granted conditional approval to the $6 billion deal in June, after a delay of more than 10 months.<br><br>The transaction had been held up mainly over the disagreement on royalty payments between the two partners, and had undermined investor sentiment in Asia's third-largest economy.<br><br>(Reuters)</p>