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| Khan inaugurated Raghbir Watch Company Excelsior Correspondent JAMMU, Nov 5: Raghbir Watch Company a new Show...more
LONDON, Nov 5: Pakistan’s military leader General...more IT
shares hog limelight MUMBAI, Nov 5: Information Technology counters.....more
Essar Cellphone, IOC announces tie-up NEW DELHI, Nov 5: Essar Cellphone and Indian....more |
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France wanted to double CHENNAI, Nov 5: Ambassador for France in India Claude Blanchmaison today said his country wanted to double its trade with India and .....more SBI favours lowering RBI stake, hiking foreign equity NEW DELHI, Nov 5: State Bank of India today favoured bringing down the ....more NEW DELHI, Nov 5: Government today countered United States and...more
Generation reform in
power sector NEW DELHI, Nov 5: The Associated Chambers of Commerce ...more |
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Khan inaugurated Raghbir Watch Company Excelsior Correspondent JAMMU, Nov 5: Raghbir Watch Company a new Show Room dealing in all kinds of watches, time pieces and wall clocks was opened at Residency Road near St Paul’s Church here today. The Show Room was inaugurated by Chairman Jammu and Kashmir Bank Ltd, Mr M Y Khan after cutting the ribbon in presence of political leaders, prominent citizens and members of business community. Mr Khan was accompanied by senior officers of the Bank also. Among the prominent personalities who were present on the occasion include president Institute of Public Opinion, Messrs Ram Sahai, Provincial president National Conference and MLC, Mr Harbans Singh Bali, Chander Ghulati a prominent businessman of the Jammu and three partners of the Raghbir Watch Company. The show room deals in all watches including HMT, Titan, Gemini, Maxima, Ajanta, Samay, wall clocks and time pieces ranging from Rs 150 to onwards. According to Mr Daljeet Singh Kukreja one of the partners of the Company, the showroom has a full range of watches of all the products. He said it will be one of the biggest showrooms in the Jammu. |
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LONDON, Nov 5: Pakistan’s military leader General Pervez Musharraf today said that he could not give a time frame for a return to democracy until his objective of reviving the economy had been achieved. Gen Musharraf said in an interview with Britain’s Times newspaper that a deadline would only generate political instability. "I cannot give a time frame for a return of democratic rule until the main objective of reviving the economy is achieved," he said. "Whenever you give a time frame a countdown starts and administration comes to a standstill." Gen Musharraf said the military did not have any choice in staging its bloodless coup on October 12 and ousting Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s Government. The coup was triggered when Sharif dismissed Musharraf as head of the army when the general was returning from an official visit to Sri Lanka. "It was not a coup but a counter coup against the Government’s illegal action of sacking the Army chief," Musharraf said. "The Army did not have any option but to step in to save the country from civil war." Gen Musharraf accused Pakistani politicians of having made politics "a game for rich people who misguided illiterate and poor people". "It was a sham democracy where people did not have any say. I want to establish a real democracy where the people are masters of their own destiny," he said. (REUTERS) |
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IT shares hog limelight at opening session MUMBAI, Nov 5: Information Technology counters hogged the limelight at the opening session lifting the benchmark index past 4500-level on the stock market here today in the wake of sustained buying by Foreign Institutional Investors (FIIs) and speculators. FIIs were said to be net buyers for the first three days of the current settlement to the tune of Rs 305.00 crore, which boosted the market sentiment as operators also joined the buying bandwagon. On the New York, Nasdaq Stock Exchanage composite index was closed at an all-time high of 3056.10 last Thursday for the first time and this also aided the uptrend in the technology shares. The BSE-30 share sensitive index opened moderately up at 4501.27 and improved further to a high of 4560.02 before being quoted at 4536.55 at 1100 hours as against yesterday’s close of 4485.92. Pharmaceutical sector showed a mixed trend on alternate bouts of buying and selling. Dealers said the decrease in net outstanding positions by another Rs 120 crore to just over Rs 2400.00 crore lifted the enthusiasm of the local operators. Among the major gainers, Silverline shot up by 7.95 per cent, Digital Equip by 7.69 per cent, Cummins India by 7.25 per cent, Sun Pharma by 6.79 per cent and TATA Elxsi by 4.77 per cent. Garware Poly, however, declined by 2.91 per cent, sail by 2.50 per cent, BSEs by 2.50 per cent voltas by 2.48 per cent and Crompton Greaves by 2.00 per cent. (PTI) |
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Essar Cellphone, IOC announces tie-up NEW DELHI, Nov 5: Essar Cellphone and Indian Oil Corporation today announced tie-up to provide a wider array of services to their customers. As part of this agreement 122 petrol pumps of Indian Oil Corporation (IOC) would double up and serve as retail outlets, for selling the speed prepaid cards, recharge coupons and first mobile cards. In addition all such outlers would also serve as collection centers, which would allow essan cellphone customers to drop their monthly cheques. Essar cellphone had carried out a market research study. Which brought out that customers regarded buying and recharging prepaid cards as well as dropping their monthly cheques to be a big hassle in terms of accessibility, a company release said. (UNI) |
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France wanted to double its trade with India CHENNAI, Nov 5: Ambassador for France in India Claude Blanchmaison today said his country wanted to double its trade with India and become one among the top five foreign investors in the country by the year 2005. Making a presentation on the "France-India 2000" exhibition, to be held in New Delhi from November 6 to 10, he said the exhibition was an important step in realising this objective of the French Government as the two countries already had a successful economic relationship. He said "our aim is to become India’s technology partner in the next millennium and a major provider of technology for Indian companies with French direct investment in this country". France also aimed at increasing the volume of trade with India by five per cent in the next five years, he said and added that French expertise in agro food products and services sector, in which it ranked third in the world, would be a major booster in pursuit of this target. Twentyfive per cent of India’s exports would be to the European Union (EU), the gateway for which was France, Mr Claude Blanchmaison said. He said the single currency of the EU would be of great help to exporters. Emphasising the large French presence in the South especially in Chennai, he announced that the French Trade Commission would open an exclusive branch in the city on January one next year. The French Government had also realised that South India was a a more dynamic area for investment and had superior human resources, he said. Very big French projects had already been set up here and some more would follow soon, he added. M S Srinivasan, Secretary, Industries Department, Government of Tamil Nadu, in his address, announced that legislation to facilitate entry of value added agri industry and agro processing industries would be introduced in the State Assembly very soon. (UNI) |
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SBI favours lowering RBI stake, hiking foreign equity NEW DELHI, Nov 5: State Bank of India today favoured bringing down the Reserve Bank of India’s (RBI) stake in the bank to below 51 per cent, increase foreign equity to 30 per cent and merger of its seven associates to become a global bank. We will definitely prefer to go for dilution of equity. Either the SBI has to subscribe for the rights issue or allow us to go to the market for raising additional equity, SBI Chairman G G Vaidya told reporters while favouring bringing down RBI holding below 51 per cent. He said that SBI Act needed to be amended to allow the bank to raise the ceiling of foreign equity from present 20 per cent to 30 per cent. Vaidya said that merger of its associates including State Bank of Patiala, State Bank of Indore, was needed as it would be difficult for the small banks to survive beyond three-four years. Though there is no specific merger proposal now, we will discuss the issue with unions before approaching the board, he clarified. The capital adequacy ratio of SBI as of now is at 12.51 per cent as against the prescribed 12 per cent. If we have to meet our growth plan target we need additional equity which could be possible through dilution of RBI stake, he said. Presently RBI has 59.74 per cent stake, domestic financial institutions hold 18 per cent while the foreign banks have about 20 per cent stake. (PTI) |
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NEW DELHI, Nov 5: Government today countered United States and European Union tirade that India was against labour standards and environmental concerns saying it only opposed its "abuse" for trade protectionism. New Delhi which is giving finishing touches to its strategy for wto ministerial meeting at seattle this month end said multilateral trade should act as an "engine of growth" but not as a hinderance and hence trade measures taken for environmental purposes were not compatible with WTO. Official sources told that developed countries increasingly sought better accommodation of environmental measures in trade units and this was evident by WTO’s appellate body decisions on 1996 clean air case and shrimp-turtle case which had expanded trade measures to conserve exhaustible natural resources. The sources said India right from time immemorial believed and worshipped nature and hence ecological balance and environment conservation were close to the heart, more so with the people of India rather than Western countries. But what India opposed "tooth and nail" was the attempt of the United States to stunt growth of developing countries by practicing new protectionism under the garb of environmental protection, the sources said and likened this attitude to that of a football referee which has started showing "green" card to play foul with developing countries. The 1996 singapore ministerial declaration of WTO had rejected the use of labour standards for protectionist purposes, and agreed that the comparative advantage of countries, particularly low-wage developing countries must in no way be put into question. It also noted that the WTO and ILO secretariats would continue their existing collaboration, the sources said pointing out that despite this, United States was keen on pressing for a working group on core labour standards at Seattle which made its intentions suspicious. In fact India’s commitment to international labour standards were well known and it compared very well with some of the developing countries who claimed to be champions on this issue. Reeling out statistics, the sources said there have been 182 ILO conventions, of which 19 were on child labour. India has ratified 7 out of 19 conventions on child labour, while Germany has ratified only three and denounced two and United States had a very poor record of ratifying only one convention, they pointed. The Government is also in the process of formulating a comprehensive law on child labour besides taking steps to ban child labour in hazardous industries. There were several other labour laws in the country providing for minimum wages for skilled and unskilled labour, factories act and the like. But any linkage of labour standards to trade would only lead to its misuse to deny market access to developing countries engaged in the process of development to fight the scourge of poverty. The ministerial declaration of the Seattle meeting now being drafted is expected to reject totally the use of any protectionist measures and maintain the effectiveness of the rule-based trading system, the sources said. Also Seattle declaration is expected to state in unequivocal terms the collective commitment of 134 WTO member countries to advance the trading system as a continuing force for growth, employment, development and stability for the benefit of all members. The 1994 Marrakesh agreement that led to the establishment of World Trade Organisation recognises that the relations of members in trade and economic endeavour should be conducted to raise living standards, ensure full employment and allow optimal use of world’s resources for sustainable development. It is in this context, the sources said that there was need to take a balanced view and without responding to the needs of the developing countries it would not be possible to fulfil the WTO objective of sustainable development. United States is expected to insist on an environmental review at Seattle and the right of WTO members to take measures to meet environmental standards higher than the international ones. Critical of this US attitude, the sources said the Commerce and Industry Minister Murasoli Maran was justified in accusing rich countries of "eco-imperialism" in an attempt to dilute the focus from the real issues of concern for global trade. (PTI) |
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Generation reform in
power sector NEW DELHI, Nov 5: The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (ASSOCHAM) has developed a road map for second generation reforms in the power sector, both for the Centre and States, to meet the challenge of powering the growth of the economy for attaining a GDP growth of eight to ten per cent for the next 15 years. The road map submitted to Power Minister P R Kumaramangalam by ASSOCHAM president K P Singh today suggested setting up of a wholesale electricity market and introduction of competition and efficiency in the electricity market. Competition and efficiency would be imparted through an economic dispatch system compulsory access to the grid to generator and distributors subject to availability of capacity on prefixed wheeling charges encouraging direct agreements between large consumers, generators and distant distributors easy entry into the sector of different players in competitive market conditions supervised by the regulators and determination of generation tariff in a competitive market environment through the creation of a pool/wholesale market. The ASSOCHAM chief while releasing the road-map said, the Central Government has to take effective steps to set up the wholesale power market, create an electricity pool and enforce market-like competitive pressures. Such initiative at the central level will force the states to create similar conditions. The initiatives to complete the missing links in the reform chain at the central level fortunately can be taken without any further legislative measures. These can be achieved by Government initiatives and through regulation by Central Electricity Regulatory Commission. The component of this initiative would include issuance of a notification by CERC, leading to merit order dispatching, disciplined operation of the grid and stable frequency conditions, making trading and setting up of interregional grids easier. Since CERC has been charged with the responsibility of increasing competition and efficiency under tghe act, the grid code and other electricity regulations should, therefore, provide for different reform measures which would increase competition and efficiency like easy, automatic and transparent entry of different players in the inter-state power market and grid under clearly defined principles and rules, and direct contracts between generators/distant distributors and large consumers, etc. If necessary, legislative amendment should be initiated for Central Governments large customers without recourse to any amendment. CERC can also issue rules/regulations for states’ transmission lines, whenever Central Electricity passes through these lines. CERC regulations car thus create a national transmission grid. The chamber president said it is well recognised that reforms cannot be meaningful unless competition and privatisation are initiated. The Centre must, therefore, break up its generating central PSUs into smaller companies and introduce measures to enable competition amongst these companies, these could also later be selectively privatised for generating more resources for further investment and for reducing fiscal pressures on the Central Government. (UNI) |
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