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Clinton launches $ 300 mln world school lunch program WASHINGTON, Dec 29: President Bill Clinton launched an ambitious international school lunch program that will deliver 300 million dollars worth of US food to some nine million needy ....more Colour television sales set to cross five million mark NEW DELHI, Dec 29: The booming Colour Television (CTV) industry is expected to sell a record five million units this year, much against ...more Govt intervention needed to control real estate prices CALCUTTA, Dec 29: West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has said Centre must encourage construction of housing estates under Joint ....more Year 2000: End of a NEW DELHI, Dec 29: Lured by the rainbows of the new internet age, brilliant Indian dotcom entrepreneurs were confronted by harsh business realities in ...more |
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Sharp setback in MUMBAI, Dec 29: Silver suffered a sharp setback on the bullion market during the year following steep fall in the international prices coupled with good inflow of the white metal into the country. ...more Rollback foodgrain price hike for BPL: Parliamentary panel NEW DELHI, Dec 29: Slamming the Government for hiking foodgrain prices for people Below Poverty Line (BPL), a parliamentary committee has sought its roll back saying it led to poor offtake from godowns as well as fair price shops. ...more India goes to WTO for professional movement NEW DELHI, Dec 29: India has approached the World Trade Organisation (WTO) seeking greater commitments on liberalisation of the movement of . .....more Evolve long-term fertiliser policy: Parliamentary panel NEW DELHI, Dec 29: A parliamentary committee has taken serious exception to Government’s failure to frame a long term policy for the fertiliser industry, despite the fact that potassic fertilisers were decontrolled . ........more |
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Clinton launches $ 300 mln world school lunch program WASHINGTON, Dec 29: President Bill Clinton launched an ambitious international school lunch program that will deliver 300 million dollars worth of US food to some nine million needy children in over 38 countries. The pilot program, to be loosely modeled on the US subsidized school lunch program, will deliver over 680,000 tonnes of US commodities to provide school-aged children with at least one nutritious meal a day. "This initiative, by itself, is not a solution to the global hunger problem, but it’s a down payment and a beginning," Clinton said at a White House ceremony. The program, the global food for education initiative, was created by Clinton in July during the group of eight summit in Japan. In addition to providing humanitarian aid, the program also offers American farmers a way to get rid of vast inventories of food and grain that have been depressing prices for the past three years. "I’m not trying to saddle a future administration or future Congress with an unbelievable burden," Clinton said, noting that the pilot program is set to run for only a year. "This is a relatively small new commitment that I think the United States should embrace in cooperation with its allies and friends and others around the world," he said. US lawmakers have already proposed a long-term international school lunch program estimated to cost up to seven billion dollars annually, with the US share at about 1.5 billion dollars. British Prime Minister Tony Blair and other world leaders have shown an interest in participating in the program, US Agriculture Department (USDA) officials have said. Among the projects receiving grants under the pilot program is an in-school feeding program in Eritrea that provides high-protein biscuits and milk throughout the school year to some 65,000 students in 170 schools. In Bangladesh and Vietnam, private voluntary organizations will provide milk packages and biscuits to over one million school children. And in Guatemala, two humanitarian organizations, catholic relief services and world share, will use proceeds from the sale of US commodities to purchase locally grown food for school meals and take-home rations for more than 26,000 children. Under the pilot program, USDA will provide surplus commodities and funds to cover transportation and distribution of the goods to the United Nation’s world food program and 14 private voluntary groups. USDA spokeswoman Susan McAvoy said wheat, corn, rice, vegetable oil and oilseed products were expected to be among the first donations. The 300 million dollars worth of US agricultural goods will be taken from federal commodity surpluses under the Section 416(B) program, which provides for overseas donations to developing and democratically-friendly countries. The USDA said each school feeding program was examined to ensure that the donations would have a benign effect on local markets and would not disrupt commercial sales opportunities. (REUTERS) |
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Colour television sales set to cross five million mark NEW DELHI, Dec 29: The booming Colour Television (CTV) industry is expected to sell a record five million units this year, much against predictions of gloom, with Indian brands maintaining their dominance over the fiercely aggressive international ones. The year also saw a consolidation among existing players with BPL unshaken at the top and Onida usurping second position from Videocon, as per market research agency ORG. Despite MNC aggression, the top three Indian brands BPL, Onida and Videocon together held sway over 40 per cent of the CTV market by reducing margins, and consequently prices. This also helped reduce the grey market share, which was earlier as high as 70 per cent of the total market. Korean brands LG and Samsung gained significant share of the market, while Japanese major Sony languished at below five per cent marketshare levels. Yet another remarkable trend during the year was the waning of freebie and gifts’ mania. While players attribute this decline in freebies to booming sales, marketeers said it was plain boredom of the consumer and that the market was looking for novel ways to push CTVs. So, while growth rates may have suffered this year, unable to keep pace with the 25-30 per cent earlier due to the economic slowdown, market analysts agree that CTV purchase still tops the family list of a lifestyle/durable product. What does differentiate brands is the number of latest technological features it offers, be it the country’s first internet TV by Videocon, Sony’s Wega Super Flat range, LG’s flatron or the ‘Designer’ TV from Onida. Future trends point towards demand for TVs which can have multipurpose utility - as televisions, as computer screens and as a gateway for the impending multimedia boom. While the industry was struggling with dwindling sales, the brand play got intensified, and clear leadership became a thing of the past. Along with the success stories, some failures also emerged. Baron International (of the Aiwa fame) decided against launching its own brand in the Indian market, whereas haier, a Chinese brand, finally called it quits and exited the JV with Indian partner LG hotline. Again, another Chinese brand Konka is known to be shaky about the Indian market, with much of the promised investment not materialising, but the company is still present in India and selling televisions. Among the success stories, for the first time in the fiercely competitive market, Onida brand usurped second highest market share from Videocon. As per market research agency ORG, while Onida inched up to corner 11.8 per cent market share, Videocon brand slipped to 10.7 per cent. This came as a surprise to the industry since till August, Videocon as a brand was comfortably ensconced at the second position with 14.2 per cent share of the CTV market while Onida followed at 12.5 per cent. (PTI) |
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Govt intervention needed to control real estate prices CALCUTTA, Dec 29: West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee has said Centre must encourage construction of housing estates under Joint Venture (JV) to control spiraling real estate prices and provide accommodation to middle class families of metropolitan cities at reasonable prices. "Centre’s decision to offer housing development to private entrepreneurs needs to be changed as they (private promoters) can never offer reliable buildings at reasonable prices to common man," Bhattacharjee said while speaking at a ceremonial gathering to offer the keys to owners of flats of Calcutta Greens Phase-1 (a housing complex developed by State Government) yesterday. By constructing this complex a year before schedule and another under JV with Gujarat Ambuja recently, the State Government had shown that work like this could be done under JV, he said, adding to prevent unscrupulous promoters from cheating the common man, the State Government will bring them within legal framework. Built on ten acres of land, Calcutta greens projects in its first phase offered 144 flats measuring 34.70 sq. m each for the low income group at the subsidised price of Rs 1,77,400 and 160 middle income group flats measuring 49.80 sq at Rs 4,38,500 each. In second phase, 268 flats in two categories would be ready by 2001 for high income group at Rs 15 lakh and Rs 21.03 lakh. "Promoters will have to seek registration and provide other details before commencing a project in the state. (PTI) |
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Year 2000: End of a great dotcom affair NEW DELHI, Dec 29: Lured by the rainbows of the new internet age, brilliant Indian dotcom entrepreneurs were confronted by harsh business realities in the year 2000 that witnessed the fall of many as market began the process of shakeout and consolidation. Even with the Government pitching in to promote entrepreneurs in the greenfield area through a slew of measures including liberalisation of foreign investment norms, framing of guidelines for venture capital funds to help upstarts and passage of information technology bill, it is still a long haul for the players. Even Satyam Infoway, which is likely to be one of the first profit making internet ventures, according to Merrill Lynch, would have accumulated losses of about Rs 500 crore by 2003. Effects of a global downtrend, wherein such ventures lost over two trillion dollars in market capitalisation in the last few months, were also visible on the Indian companies as was evident from the fact that new economy scrips lost much of their sheen and fast moving consumer durable major HLL once again became the leading scrip on Bombay bourses by the last week of December. The breaking of the illusion about the dotcom companies led to significant fall in the scrip value of leading companies like Satyam and Rediff while many of those internet companies which ventured into this field also burned their fingers. In India, Dotcom market first touched an all time high both in terms of valuation and hectic market activity during the first half of the year, and attracted foreign investment firms to India. During its primetime, in mid 2000, the industry saw Rupert Murdoch-promoted news corp taking a strategic stake in Microland’s indya.Com. Over the next few months internet giants like Microsoft, Yahoo!, Altavista and Lycos opened their India specific sites. Back home, against all odds Indian dotcommers struggled against constrained returns, limited funds and short-sighted entrepreneual and managerial skills. The much-touted Information Technology Bill 2000 providing a legal framework of electronic commerce in the country failed to galvanise the subdued dotcom market as the global trend of failing B2C (business-to-consumer) models for retail trading through net caught on to India, despite extravagant advertisement campaigns during the first half of the year. In June, the Government gave a helping hand by relaxing norms on foreign equity investments in the Business-to-Busines (B2B) e-commerce sector, by raising the limit for foreign direct investment limit to 100 from 49 percent. However, generous incentives and healthy market forecasts failed to vibrate the shrinking business revenues. E-commerce companies with their eyes on NASSCOM’s over optimistic market projections of a Rs 3500 crore in 2000-01, witnessed drying up of revenues and thinning of profit margins. (PTI) |
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Sharp setback in silver during 2000 MUMBAI, Dec 29: Silver suffered a sharp setback on the bullion market during the year following steep fall in the international prices coupled with good inflow of the white metal into the country. Gold showed wide fluctuations mainly in line with the euro but the final closing prices were more or less pegged around the previous year’s closing rates. Both the precious metals, silver and gold, failed to attract much demand even during the two major festivals like Ganesh Chaturthi and Diwali and the usual buying enthusiasm during marriage season was also missing. Traders attributed the poor demand to the general economic slowdown and poor harvesting as many states faced drought-like conditions due to lack of rainfalls. They said there were less auspicious dates to buy gold during the first nine months of the current year. Silver: In the local market, ready silver (.999 fineness) opened strong at Rs 8280 per kilo and moved up to a high of Rs 8425 in February in line with firm gold prices. However, as the inflow of silver into the country increased, prices started nosedear’s lowest level of Rs 7790 in November. Thereafter, it moved in a range between Rs 7915 and Rs 7725 during the month of December and was quoted at Rs 7760 around Christmas, which showed a sharp fall of Rs 465 from the last year’s close of Rs 8225. Similarly, raw silver (.916 fineness) started firm at Rs 8120 per kilo and rose to a high of Rs 8285. Thereafter, it declined sharply to the year’s low of Rs 7685. Tenderable silver hovered between a high of Rs 8430 and a low of Rs 7795. On December 24, raw silver was quoted at Rs 7650 and tenderable silver at Rs 7765, sharply lower than the previous years close of Rs 8100 and Rs 8230 respectively. The inflow of silver into the country was one of the major reasons for the steep fall in prices, traders said. The main sources of imports of silver are normally through Non-Resident Indians and Special Import Lincence (SIL), but since the introduction of Open General Lincence (OGL), imports completely changed as the OGL imports sidelined the other two ways of shipments, dealers said. There was a sudden spurt in inflow of silver from China to the rest of the world during the past two years, with much of this coming to India, they said. According to Gold Fields Mineral Services Ltd, the London-based analysts of global precious metals markets, around two-thirds of the flow of silver into India was from China. Gold: Standard gold opened on a better note at Rs 4550 per ten gram and shot up further to the year’s highest level of Rs 4825 in February, registering a record jump of Rs 270 per ten gram in a single day due to firm global advices. (PTI) |
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Rollback foodgrain price
hike for BPL: NEW DELHI, Dec 29: Slamming the Government for hiking foodgrain prices for people Below Poverty Line (BPL), a parliamentary committee has sought its roll back saying it led to poor offtake from godowns as well as fair price shops. "It was unfortunate that when there was abundant foodgrains, Government raised the central issue price for BPL to reduce subsidy which led to negligible offtake from godowns as well as from FPS", the standing committee on food and public distribution said in its eighth report. "Hence, economic cost in stocking the foodgrains rises endlessly. On the one hand, it increases the economic burden on the exchequer and on the other hand, the poor masses are deprived of foodgrains under PDS", it said. It said no sincere efforts have been made by the ministry to minimise storage and operational cost which contributes to rise in economic cost and disagreed with the plea that 50 per cent of economic cost was charged from BPL families. The committee said that while giving the reply, the crux of its recommendation that BPL families should get foodgrains from Targeted Public Distribution System (TPDS) at affordable price has not been considered seriously. "At one side due to bumper crop, foodgrains are lying in stocks and on the other side, the BPL population is not able to purchase the foodgrains at a high price", it said. It said if the Government had been sincere enough, it would have made efforts to curtail the economic cost and then the formula of 50 per cent cut in economic cost for BPL would have been adopted. Asking the Government to roll back the increase in the prices of foodgrains for BPL under PDS, the committee said introduction of modified TPDS from April 2000 by raising BPL quota to 20 kgs per family with a substantial increase in price without matching the purchasing power of the poor was nothing but a "deception" with them. There have been regular bumper crops for four years in the country but the Government does not have sufficient storage capacity, it said. "Even very old stocks are rotting in godowns and there is no storage facility to keep the surplus and new arrivals of stocks of foodgrains", it said, adding that the old stock of foodgrains have been damaged and have become unhygienic. Thus, the committee said, it was a "great mistake on the part of the Government to raise the price of CIP at that juncture which caused heavy loss to the Government and the poor could not get foodgrains at an affordable price". During the course of on-the-spot tours of the committee, State Governments like Kerala, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh were of the opinion that the decision of the Centre had led to decline in offtake, the report said. This caused large stocks to pile up with the ration shops, wholesale depots, godowns of Food Corporation of India and even at the rail heads, it said. Though it was mentioned in budget speech that reduction in food subsidy would save Rs 1100 crore, low offtake would cause a large loss on account of carrying costs and losses in storage, the committee said. (PTI) |
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India goes to WTO for professional movement NEW DELHI, Dec 29: India has approached the World Trade Organisation (WTO) seeking greater commitments on liberalisation of the movement of professionals from the member countries. "India has filed a proposal in the WTO on the ‘proposed liberalisation of the movement of professionals under the General Agreement on Trade in Services (GATS)’ as part of the mandated services negotiations", an official statement said here today. India, through this proposal, wants to assess the nature of liberalisation that has taken place in mode 4 under the existing gats framework and the key barriers that prevent the movement of professionals. Suggesting possible strategies and approaches to achieve meaningful liberalisation, the Commerce Ministry has said the issue is of primary importance to India and could contribute to effective market access for the country’s professionals. India’s proposals seek enlargement of horizontal commitments to include specific category of individual professionals and uniform definitions besides coverage of broader service personnel categories. The other proposals mooted by India include specific commitments in sectors/sub-sectors of interest and specification of disaggregated categories of service providers in sectoral schedules. In order to achieve this, the superimposition of International Standard Classification of Occupations (ISCO-88) of ILO on the WTO services sectoral classification list has been suggested. India has also sought removal of existing limitations. As regards Economic Needs Test (ENT), clear and transparent criteria should be laid down and fewer occupational categories be made subject to such tests. In sectors/sub-sectors where ent is to be used, its application should be based on multilateral principles laid out in a reference paper on use of ENT. On administrative procedures relating to visas/work permits, member countries should ensure a more transparent and objective implementation of their regimes. Further, temporary service providers should be separated from permanent labour flows. This could be achieved either by special gats visa for categories of personnel covered by the commitments undertaken by the member in mode 4 or though a sub-set of administrative rules and procedures for temporary movement. (UNI) |
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Evolve long-term fertiliser policy: Parliamentary panel NEW DELHI, Dec 29: A parliamentary committee has taken serious exception to Government’s failure to frame a long term policy for the fertiliser industry, despite the fact that potassic fertilisers were decontrolled way back in 1992, and said flow of investment has been hit because of this. Asking the Government to evolve a long term policy for the high capital intensive sector, the standing committee on petroleum and chemicals said the policy should attract the industry to invest and at the same time be conducive for promotion of farmers’ interests. The committee said in its eleventh report that the Government should evolve a "rational approach" towards the concession scheme for decontrolled fertilisers instead of deciding it on ad hoc basis. Recommending constitution of an independent regulatory authority with full functional autonomy to decide and implement the concession scheme, it said "the concept of ad hoc concessions carried over on an year to year basis has negated the very concept of perspective planning". Even though the Department of Fertilisers has tried to forward a justification that by decontrolling potash they have been able to curtail the growing subsidy, "the facts seem to prove the opposite", it said. For instance, it said, the subsidy (ad hoc concession) figures of potash/potassic fertilisers has gone up by about ten times in the last eight years. Noting that the concession support scheme lacks stability and continuity, the committee said it runs on ad hoc basis and "is notified separately for each year, some times from crop to crop season, and lapses automatically at the year end or after sowing season." "This leads to uncertainty both for the producer and importer", it said, adding, that the sellers face difficulties to get their sale certified by State Governments and "in this process their dues are locked up unnecessarily". The Government should, therefore, evolve a system by which quantum of support under the scheme is assured at least for two-three years, it said. It said the Government should also ensure that sellers are not harassed for getting their sales certified by the representatives of State Governments. "To achieve the objectives, the Government should draw a time-table, within which the State Governments have to certify the sales, failing which penalty in the form of interest on locked up amount must be provided", it said. The committee agreed with the observations of the Fertiliser Association of India (FAI) that despite de-jure decontrol, de facto intervention and control by the Government on various aspects are very much intact and that too without any accountability. The committee also cited the plea made by the fai that in the absence of any policy of the Government for the sector, industry has been unable to take a decision to go for investment, including in joint ventures. (PTI) |
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