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BKU for support price SONEPAT, Mar 8: Haryana unit of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) has asked the Central Government to fix the support price...more NEW DELHI, Mar 8: A spurt in buying of gold by local parties at attractive levels, wiped off previous day’s losses on the bullion market today.....more India’s first pvt submarine cable company launched CHENNAI, Mar 8: India’s first private submarine cable company, ‘Network I2I Limited’, a 50:50 Joint Venture (JV) between Singapore Telecommunications.....more Indian
companies BANGALORE, Mar 8: Software major Infosys Technologies Limited and Chennai-based Pentasoft would invest US dollars 280 million each in....more |
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Multinationals to compete WASHINGTON, Mar 8: International pharmaceutical companies have decided to compete with Indian .....more PFC
bags prestigious NEW DELHI, Mar 8: The Power Finance Corporation (PFC) has bagged the prestigious assignment ......more BJP, Oppn members NEW DELHI, Mar 8: BJP and opposition members in the Lok Sabha today sought reduction of .....more More
women at work, GENEVA, Mar 8: Women are making up an increasing percentage of the world’s workers, but many still find it impossible....more |
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BKU
for support price in accordance with SONEPAT, Mar 8: Haryana unit of the Bhartiya Kisan Union (BKU) has asked the Central Government to fix the support price of foodgrains in accordance with the cost of production as the denial of remunerative price will put the farmers under debt. It resolved to continue its struggle against the alleged anti-farmer attitude of both the central and the state at a state-level convention in Gohana, 35 kms from here yesterday. It also threatened not to pay the electricity bills if the State Government failed to withdraw the hike in power tariff by April five. The convention expressed its anguish over the non-completion of the Sutlej Yamuna Link (SYL) canal and resolved to organise a march in protest. (PTI) |
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NEW DELHI, Mar 8: A spurt in buying of gold by local parties at attractive levels, wiped off previous day’s losses on the bullion market today to close higher. Marketmen said buying by local parties influenced by higher overseas advises mainly brought back local customers to the market. They said a firm trend in gold in other Asian markets cast its shadow on domestic market here and helped the prices to recover smartly. In Hong Kong, gold was better by 2.50 US dollar an ounce at 263.05 US dollar. Standard gold and ornaments bounced back by Rs.40 each at Rs.4250 and Rs.4100 per ten gram respectively. Sovereign jumped up by almost about a same strength at Rs.3700 per piece of eight gram, showing a rise of Rs.50. Silver ready was better by Rs.10 at Rs.7300 per kilo and weekly delivery by a same margin at Rs.7330 per kilo. However, silver coins remained unchanged at Rs.11,000/11,100 per 100 pieces in scattered small deals. The following were today’s quotations: Silver ready 7300 and delivery 7330. Silver coins buyer 11,000 and seller 11,100 standard gold 4250, ornaments 4100 and sovereign 3700. (PTI) |
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India’s first pvt submarine cable company launched CHENNAI, Mar 8: India’s first private submarine cable company, ‘Network I2I Limited’, a 50:50 Joint Venture (JV) between Singapore Telecommunications Limited (SINGTEL) and Bharti Group, India’s leading telecom conglomerate, was launched here today, to operate Singapore-India submarine ring cable network for a length of 10,800 km. The JV company would build and operate a submarine optical fibre cable network, estimated to cost 650 million US dollars. The 10,800 km ring network would link Singapore, Chennai and Mumbai. Bharti Aquanet Ltd, a 51:49 per cent JV between Bharti and Singtel would manage and operate the cable stations to be put up in India, Viresh Dayal, Corporate Director, Bharti Group, told a news conference here today. Network I2I had established the first landing point of the cable network in Chennai. The 3200 km Singapore-Chennai leg of the cable network would start commercial traffic by first quarter of next year. When completed, the network would have the world’s largest bandwidth capacity of 8.4 terabits per second. In Singapore, it would link to Singtel’s extensive cable network infrastructure to the rest of the world, he said adding that India would now be able to fulfill the demand for enhanced bandwidth to and from the subcontinent. (PTI) |
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Indian companies to invest in Mauritius BANGALORE, Mar 8: Software major Infosys Technologies Limited and Chennai-based Pentasoft would invest US dollars 280 million each in Mauritius to start their new ventures, Mauritius Minister for IT and Telecommunications Deelahchand Jeeha said today. Jeeha told reporters here that Mauritius Government had already allotted 50 acres of land to the Nasdaq-listed and Banglore-based Infosys to set up their facility there, while Pentasoft is establishing an IT park in the country. In addition, DSQ software is setting up their shop in Mauritius, he said. Also, Chennai-based Oilwing is establishing a hardware manufacturing facility, while a Bangalore group would put up a non-PC hardware plant in Mauritius. The Indian Government, Jeeha said, had granted a credit of US dollars 100 million to Mauritius which is being used for computer-aided IT education and setting up of Mauritius’s first cyber city. Jeeha said IIT, Madras, had agreed in principle to start a chapter in Mauritius for which modalities were being worked out, adding he yesterday had discussions with the Institute Director Natarajan. ‘I will take up the matter with Indian Human Resources Development Minister Dr Murli Manohar Joshi when I visit Delhi next week’, he said. Jeeha said Mauritius Government is introducing a ‘green visa concept’ under which Indian companies coming to Mauritius could bring in as many IT experts as they wished to work there. (PTI) |
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Multinationals to compete with India’s Cipla, Hetero WASHINGTON, Mar 8: International pharmaceutical companies have decided to compete with Indian generic drug companies Cipla and Hetero by offering some AIDS drugs below the Indian prices to the poor nations, media reports said. Merck & Co. said yesterday that it is slashing the prices of two of its important AIDS-fighting drugs and other multinationals have also made similar offers, the Wall Street journal reported. In the price war, the multinationals were ranged against the South African Government and NGOs in their own countries which hailed the Indian offers. Merck said that it will offer the new prices not only in Africa but also in other poor countries which it has not yet identified. There is no comparison at all between the old prices, to defend which the multinationals called the Indian generic companies "pirates" and what they themselves are now offering to defend their markets, the journal said. The Washington Post said Yusuf Hamied, the 65-year-old chairman of Cipla, "infuriated" western pharmaceutical firms by offering copies of their patented drugs to third world Governments at 350 dollars for the `cocktail’ of AIDS drugs compared with the multinationals’ price of 10,000 to 15,000 dollars. Hamied told The Post from Mumbai that "we are called pirates but who is being pirated? patients in countries where there is a monopoly of these drugs. AIDS is a foreseen tragedy. In five 35 million HIV-positive people. If we do nothing about it, India will become another Africa, and then it will be too late." The Wall Street journal said that western companies have a love-hate relationship with India as Eli Lilly & Co. of the US and Britain’s Astra Zeneca PLC are both buying out their Indian joint venture partners and Astra Zeneca plans a "superduper research centre", drawing on India’s "cheap and scientifically savvy labour pool." Novo Nordisk as of Denmark is testing two new diabetes drugs in partnership with Dr Reddy’s Laboratories Ltd. There is an overlap with the Indian technology boom as well, said the paper. Pfizer Inc. of the US is doing biometrics in India. Raw clinical data are shipped to India electronically to be evaluated by teams of specialists. "We have every intention of expanding these operations this year," said Hocine Sidisaid, Pfizer’s Managing Director in India, though he would not give specifics. Sreeni Devidas of connect capital holdings, the Asian arm of New York’s insight capital partners, says he is "scoping quite a few deals" in India, particularly in bioinformatics. The Indian pharmaceutical alliance, preparing for free competition, wants nevertheless a different compulsory licensing standard in India. It said that a drug’s price should also be a consideration in invoking the special licence. (PTI) |
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PFC bags prestigious assignment NEW DELHI, Mar 8: The Power Finance Corporation (PFC) has bagged the prestigious assignment from the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL) as management consultant for formation of a joint venture company for the Kaiga Atomic Power Project of 2 x 220 mega watts in Karnataka. PFC bagged this order as a leader of the consortium in which M/S Fieldstone Capital Services (Pvt) Ltd and M/S R R Financial are also consortium partners. This assignment is the first of its kind in the country as NPCIL is exploring the route of joint venture participation is setting up atomic power projects in the country in order to accelerate the pace of nuclear energy based power generation. (UNI) |
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BJP, Oppn members seek reduction of hike on garments NEW DELHI, Mar 8: BJP and opposition members in the Lok Sabha today sought reduction of proposed budget hike in excise duty by 16 per cent on readymade garments, saying that the duty should be brought down for firms with a turnover of less than Rs three crore. Raising the issue during the zero hour, BJP members Madan Lal Khurana and Vijay Goel said lakhs of people employed by the cottage and small-scale industries would be hit by the move. Readymade garment workers have already begun a strike in the capital and in certain other cities, they said, adding that Government could impose a hike in excise duty for goods produced by firms with a turnover of more than Rs three crore. Supporting their plea, CPI-M leader Somnath Chatterjee termed the issue as "serious" and said that move could cause untold misery to the poor workers. TDP leader K Yerran Naidu also came out in support of the plea. Naidu, his party colleagues M V V S Murthy and Ummareddy Venkateswalu and Congress member S Jaipal Reddy demanded that Government should direct reserve bank to provide credit to Food Corporation of India (FCI) to allow procurement of rice in Andhra Pradesh to upto 70 lakh tonnes. They said FCI had stopped the procurement at 38 lakh tonnes due to paucity of funds. Reddy said RBI should give a letter of credit to FCI since there was an acute slump in the market. (PTI) |
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More women at work, but still not at top: ILO GENEVA, Mar 8: Women are making up an increasing percentage of the world’s workers, but many still find it impossible to break in to top jobs, the International Labour Organization (ILO) said today. In a report to mark international women’s day, the organization said women - who make up around 40 per cent of the global work force - face a "glass ceiling" when they try to get to the top in business and politics. Worldwide, women hold up to 3 per cent of top executive jobs. Eight countries have female heads of state while less than 14 per cent of the world’s lawmakers and 1 per cent of labour union leaders are female, said the study, an 18-page summary of a book to be published later this year. "For women who also experience race discrimination, the barrier to top jobs seems to be made of unbreakable plexiglas," the report added. Even women who do get to the top on average earn less than men, the study said. "Wage differences in male and female managerial jobs stem from the reality that even when women hold management jobs, they are often in less strategic, lower-paying areas of a company’s operations." It said one reason for the slow move toward equality is the increasing number of hours top executives are expected to work in order to gain recognition, as well as the fact that there are few part-time managerial positions for women trying to juggle career and family. (AP) |
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