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question of Govt KHAMMAM (ANDHRA PRADESH), Mar 22: The Government will not introduce or commercialise any technology that went....more IMF,
WB seen focusing OTTAWA, Mar 22: African poverty and the explosion of AIDS on the continent will likely be key issues at .....more Export-imports transactions to be based on PAN NEW DELHI, Mar 22: Export and import transactions will now be carried out....more 150
industries involved SRIHARIKOTA, Mar 22: About 150 Indian industries accounted for at least 45-50 per cent of ISRO’s...more |
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Dismal show by NEW DELHI, Mar 22: Four of the six infrastructure industries slipped into negative zone in February 2001 over the same month last year with the key sectors comprising electricity, coal, steel, cement, crude petroleum and petroleum refinery products showing a sharp decline in growth during......more Govt
to seek stay on NEW DELHI, Mar 22: The Government is to ask a constitution bench of the Supreme Court to stay its directive of January 1997 that industries engaged......more WB
loans Rs 47cr to KOHIMA, Mar 22: The World Bank has extended a loan of Rs 47 crore to Nagaland for development of Information Technology in the state, official ......more Nokia
unveils new range SYDNEY, Mar 22: Telecom major Nokia today introduced its latest range of mobile phones including its first GPRs handset Nokia 8310 sporting an ...more |
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No question of Govt commercialising anti-farmer technology: Nitish KHAMMAM (ANDHRA PRADESH), Mar 22: The Government will not introduce or commercialise any technology that went against the interests of the farmers, according to Union Agriculture Minister Nitish Kumar. "We have taken a conscious decision not to promote terminator seeds technology in agriculture, the most debatable development in the history of biotechnology," he noted in his address, read in absentia, at a national seminar here on "crisis in Indian agriculture and the way out" last night. A bill introduced in the Lok Sabha for Plant Varieties Protection (PVP) had recently got the approval of the parliamentary standing committee, he recalled at the symposium organised by the All India Kisan Sabha on the occasion of its 26th annual conference. "Perhaps, India will be the first developing country to have a comprehensive PVP and Farmers Rights Act," he added. The challenges of rising population, poverty, natural resource degradation, global climatic changes, globalisation, including implications of intellectual property rights and emergence of new trade regime, could be overcome through sound planning and linking technology generation with implementation of releavant development programmes, the minister said. Mr Nitish Kumar expressed satisfaction over the increase in foodgrain production from 50 million tonnes during the 1960s to 209 million tonnes during last year despite the super-cyclone in Orissa and drought in Rajasthan and Gujarat besides parts of Andhra Pradesh. He attributed the phenomenon to continuous generation of adoptable and cost-effective technologies. A high-level inter-ministerial group headed by the Finance Minister had been constituted to resolve the long-neglected problems at all points in the foodchain and unlock the huge potential of the food economy to create employment, generate wealth at the grassroots level and boost agricultural exports, he pointed out. Stressing the need for harnessing information technology, biotechnology, space science, nuclear science and genetic engineering in the new era of "precision agriculture", Mr Nitish Kumar admitted that not all solutions to the problem was in science and technology. He called for perfect coordination among Kisans and rural credit institutions, State Agricultural Universities and Krishi Vigyan Kendras, Meteorological Offices and Marketing Cooperatives. Terming as "well-entrenched misconception" the view that farmers needed no formal education in farm management, he stressed the need for conducting refresher courses for knowledge-hungry growers similar to short-term courses for business executives and other professionals. "It will help enrich the human resources in agriculture since developments in science and technology would determine the nations’s destiny in the 21st century," he observed. "We have to move towards an ever green revolution through diversified agriculture, precision farming, resource conservation and value addition to attain in true sense the required food, nutrition and environmental security to our people," Mr Nitish Kumar asserted. (UNI) |
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IMF, WB seen focusing on AIDS, poverty OTTAWA, Mar 22: African poverty and the explosion of AIDS on the continent will likely be key issues at April’s World Bank and International Monetary Fund meetings in Washington, Canadian Finance Minister Paul Martin has said. "The whole question of AIDS, and the whole question of Africa," Martin said yesterday when asked about the agenda for the meetings to take place at the end of April. "How do you deal with extreme poverty and how do you deal with the combination of extreme poverty and major health problems. I think you’ll find they tend to dominate the debate," Martin told Reuters in an interview. Sub-Saharan Africa — the world’s poorest region — has been ravaged by the AIDS epidemic, accounting for more than 25 million of the 36 million people worldwide who have been infected with the HIV virus. Martin, as chair of the G20, which encompasses the wealthy group of seven nations as well as developing countries, has increasingly pushed for the recognition of social problems at such international meetings. "Canada’s really pushing the topic quite strongly," he said. "The health issue is a moral issue and it stands on its own. But at the same time it is also a major economic development issue. Countries in africa are losing vast segments of their population at ages when they should be contributing." Britain announced yesterday that leaders of the industrial world will study ways to help developing countries access AIDS drugs and other life-saving medicines at their summit in Genoa, Italy, in July. Drug companies, under attack for their insistence on patent protection in developing countries and facing mounting competition from generic producers, have recently bowed to pressure by cutting prices in Africa. International funding institutions like the IMF and World Bank have also been under attack by critics and protesters who say they ignore the world’s poor. Martin said current economic concerns arising from the slowdown in the U.S. economy and Japan’s banking crisis will take center stage at the talks. "The state of the world economy is going to be, probably first and foremost, the topic of conversation, and perhaps more important than previously," he said. The members of the G7 include the United States, Britain, France, Germany, Japan, Italy and Canada. (REUTERS) |
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Export-imports transactions to be based on PAN NEW DELHI, Mar 22: Export and import transactions will now be carried out on the basis of the income tax Permanent Account Numbers (PAN) of exporters and importers from April, 2001 rather than the Import-Export (IE) code used at present. Currently transactions are conducted on the basis of the common business identifier, a directory of exporters and importers based on the IE code, which will cease to operate from april one as per a notification issued by the customs unit at Air Cargo (Delhi). Under the new system, the PAN-based identifier will be called Business Identification Number (BIN) and would be a 15 character data element comprising ten digits of the PAN. It will therefore be compulsory for every exporter and importer to obtain a bin number along with a PAN number after April. According to the notification only the validated directory as received from the Directorate General of Foreign Trade (DGFT) online would be used for the purpose of carrying out all transactions relating to exports and imports. Further, only those bank account numbers which have been validated on the basis of the data received by the DGFT will be treated as operational accounts for the purposes of crediting of drawback. (PTI) |
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150 industries involved with GSLV project SRIHARIKOTA, Mar 22: About 150 Indian industries accounted for at least 45-50 per cent of ISRO’s spending on the Rs 1400 crore prestigious GSLV (Geosynchronous Satlellite Launch Vehicle) project. ISRO Chairman, Dr K Kasturirangan, told reporters at Shar, ISRO’s satellite launch station here, on the eve of the maiden developmental flight of the GSLV scheduled for March 28. He said Indian indigenous industry’s involvement in the "highly complex and most challenging" project was mainly for the supply of hardware like motor cases, interstages, heat shield, engine components, and electronic modules. The industries involved in the project included both public and private sector, he said. He said some of the major industries involved with the GSLV project, which was using cryogenic stage (supplied by Russia) for the first time in India’s satellite launch vehicle programme, were Godrej and Larson and Toubro. Sub-systems of GSLV-D1, to be launched on Wednesday next, were integrated at the various facilities of ISRO in Thiruvanthapuram, Mahendragiri (Tamil Nadu), Bangalore and Ahmedabad and tested before transportation to Shar centre here. (PTI) |
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Dismal show by infrastructure industries NEW DELHI, Mar 22: Four of the six infrastructure industries slipped into negative zone in February 2001 over the same month last year with the key sectors comprising electricity, coal, steel, cement, crude petroleum and petroleum refinery products showing a sharp decline in growth during April-February 2001 over the corresponding period of 2000. Together these infrastructure industries showed a negative growth of 1.4 per cent in february 2001 against an impressive increase of 11.3 per cent in the same month last year. For the 11-month April-February period, these sectors could manage a growth of 5.2 per cent against 9.2 per cent last year. The index of the six infrastructure industries with a significant overall weightage of 26.68 per cent decreased to 152.1 in February 2001 from 154.4 in February 2000. The cement received the severest hit showing a February on February minus trend of 9.8 per cent over positive 9.2 per cent. For the 11-month April-February period of 2001, the cement sector slipped into a negative growth of 0.3 per cent against an impressive increase of 14.9 per cent in the comparable period last year. The coal industry was hit in February while managing a modest growth between April-February 2001. This sector registered a minus trend of 7.1 per cent in February 2001 over a positive 15 per cent in the same month last year. However, coal could show a growth of four per cent in April-February 2001 over 3.2 per cent in the same period last year. The electricity sector with a big weightage of 10.17 per cent in the overall index for industrial production dived into a negative territory of 1.1 per cent in February over a positive zone of 8.8 per cent in February last year. For the April-February 2001 period, the vital sector showed a decline in growth to 4.1 per cent from 7.2 per cent. The growth in finished steel declined to 0.8 per cent in February 2001 from 15.3 per cent in the same month last year. For the 11-month period, the growth dropped to 5.8 per cent from 15 per cent. (UNI) |
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Govt to seek stay on alcohol manufacture case NEW DELHI, Mar 22: The Government is to ask a constitution bench of the Supreme Court to stay its directive of January 1997 that industries engaged in alcohol manufacture for potable purpose would be under the total and exclusive control of states in all respects. The court has also permitted the Department of Industrial Policy and promotion to be impleaded as a party in the case of the Government of Haryana vs Haryana Brewery Limited. The court had held in the case which related to Bihar distilleries that all other controls concerned with manufacture of alcohol for exclusive supply to industries (other than potable alcohol) would be under the jurisdiction of the Central Government. The matter is before the constitution bench in view of the necessity to formulate a coherent and effective formula so that the union and states know their respective powers and jurisdiction. (UNI) |
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WB loans Rs 47cr to nagaland for IT development KOHIMA, Mar 22: The World Bank has extended a loan of Rs 47 crore to Nagaland for development of Information Technology in the state, official sources said. The sources said that the loans would be utilised in technology education projects of the Khelhoushi polytechnic, Atoizu in Zunheboto district, women polytechnic, Dimapur, and the proposed it institute at Mokokchung over a five-year period. The state would return the amount to the World Bank in ten years, the sources added. Dr R N Mathur of the national project implementation unit, New Delhi, who is attending a five-day workshop here on ‘training need analysis of polytechnic teachers’, said training at these institutes would match international standards. The sources also said that the department of information and public relations had drawn up a programme under which Kohima would be connected to all districts and sub-divisional headquarters through telecommunications and internet. "This scheme would help the government in disseminating information and promoting transparency and accountability in the administration." (UNI) |
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Nokia unveils new range of mobile phones, services SYDNEY, Mar 22: Telecom major Nokia today introduced its latest range of mobile phones including its first GPRs handset Nokia 8310 sporting an integrated FM radio with voice command and Nokia 6310 featuring blutooth technology. "The Nokia 8310 phone has been designed for trendsetting individuals who appreciate high technology devices and would be commercially available in the Asia Pacific market (including India) in the third quarter of 2001," Nigel Litchfield, senior Vice President, Nokia Mobile Phones (Asia Pacific), said at the "the rhythm of life" event here. Armed with Wireless Application Protocol (WAP) over GPRs technology, the phone would offer fast and instant connection to web-based information and services with an ‘always-on’ experience, besides providing integrated fm radio that would allow users to tune in to radio stations using a headset. "The phone would offer immediate connection to services via gprs network, whenever the handset is on. GPRs sends data in packets, making it possible for billing schemes to be based on the amount of information sent or received, rather than the connection time," he said. Asked if the company would increase its software outsourcing requirements from India, he said that Nokia was in the process of inviting independent software vendors to develop applications on the latest products and technology, a strategy that the company would follow in India. Other phones unveiled today include WAP enabled Nokia 3330 offering a host of personalisation features like games, animated screen savers and SMS chat. (PTI) |
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