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NEW DELHI, Oct 12: Gold prices shot up on the bullion....more Hotline MD rules out NEW DELHI, Oct 12: Retracting from its earlier statement...more Industrial nations CALCUTTA, Oct 12: The Federation of Indian Export...more India to take up NTB CALCUTTA, Oct 12: India will take up the issue of ...more |
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UK firm now
patents use CALCUTTA, Oct 12: After basmati, turmeric, neem and bitter gourd (Karela), it is the turn of hessian now to get patented by a foreign company....more H&P announces NEW DELHI, Oct 12: Hewlett-Packard company’s Verifone division, has announced electronic payment 2000....more Interactive STBs NEW DELHI, Oct 12: National Semiconductor Corporation has offered its ...more Rajasthan Govt to launch JAIPUR, Oct 12: Rajasthan Government is launching a new Mukhya Mantri ......more |
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NEW DELHI, Oct 12: Gold prices shot up on the bullion market today on emergence of brisk buying by local customers coupled with stockists and closed with notable gains. However, silver remained neglected in the wake of fresh arrivals and was quoted lower. Marketmen said weak overseas advices failed to impact to the domestic markets which continued to witness increased demand. They said higher upcountry advices also influenced the trading sentiment to some extent. TradeRs said the rise in gold value began late last evening itself on brisk support. Gold in asian markets closed lower by 2.25 US dollar an ounce at 316.75 US dollar. Silver also traded 5 cents lower at 525 cents an ounce. Standard gold and ornaments shot up by Rs.65 each at Rs. 4825 and Rs.4675 per ten gram respectively. Sovereign remained unchanged at Rs.3900 per piece of eight gram. Silver .999 (ready) lost Rs.30 at Rs.8310 per kilo and weekly delivery by Rs.20 at Rs.8290 per kilo. Silver coins remained unchanged at Rs.11,300/11,500 per 100 pieces. The following were today’s quotations: Silver .999 (ready) 8310 and delivery 8290. Silver coins buyer 11,300 and seller 11,500. Standard gold 4825, ornaments 4675 and sovereign 3900. (PTI) |
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Hotline MD rules out any plans to revive CTV brand NEW DELHI, Oct 12: Retracting from its earlier statement, Hotline Managing Director V N Masaldan has ruled out any plans to revive the group’s colour television brand. In CTV sector, customers do not show much interest in old brands and as such reviving hotline brand would not be feasible in that scenario, Mr Masaldan told UNI here. Besides, the group manufactures CTVs and picture tubes for other brands, which may clash with its interests if it decides to come out with its own brand, he said. Once a formidable name in the domestic industry with kitchen appliances and TVs, hotline had gradually faded away following death of its promoter Mr Mukesh Aggarwal and is now assembling television sets for a number of players in the segment. While Rs 450-crore Hotline Wittis Display Devices Limited manufactures colour TV sets for leading companies in the field including BPL, Videocon, Onida and Konka, the Rs 30-crore Hotline Wittis Electronics Limited is engaged in manufacturing electronics tuner for black and white and colour TV sets. Besides, the group has two more joint ventures—LG-Hotline and Barco Hotline Limited. While 50:50 LG-hotline manuactures colour picture tubes for leading players, including LG Electronics, in the field, 60:40 Barco Hotline manufactures Video projections for export to parent company Barco NC of Spain and other European countries. Mr Masaldan had earlier stated that the Hotline group is working towards relaunching the ‘Hotline’ brand with televisions for the Indian market. He had said the group is, as the first step towards relaunching the brand, strengthening its component base in the country by setting up manufacturing units for the same, both on its own and through joint venmtures. "It will be gradual move towards relaunching the hotline brand of televisions in India. We want to go about it in a phased and calculated manner," he had added. (UNI) |
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Industrial nations side-stepping WTO CALCUTTA, Oct 12: The Federation of Indian Export Organisation (FIEO) today expressed serious concern at the industrialised nations’ growing efforts to sidestep the WTO norms in providing easy market access to the developing nations and demanded immediate discussions on the issue at the next WTO ministerial meeting at Seattle. While access to India’s market is being demanded aggressively by the industrialised nations, the developed nations have put up a number of non-tariff barriers specially in the form of anti-dumping measures and countervailing duties to deny us similar access, said FIEO All India president Navratan Samdria while participating in a meeting on non-tariff barriers and export policy for the next millennium . Organised by FIEO, Eastern Region here, the meeting was attended by several leading experts on the issue including, Mr H A C Prasad, Economic Advisor, Union Commerce ministry and Merchant Chamber of Commerce president A.K.Kajaria. Alleging that 161 items specially in service sector were being denied access on arbitrary grounds like lack of eco-friendliness, use of child labour and the working condition of other labourers, both Mr Prasad and Mr Kajaria said the overall objective of the industrialised nations appeared to neutralise the competition because of lower production costs. It has therefore become absolutely necessary for exporters to educate themselves on all aspects of WTO and the implications of related developments on global trade, they observed.(UNI) |
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India to take up NTB issue at Seattle CALCUTTA, Oct 12: India will take up the issue of Non-Tariff Barriers (NTBs) at the WTO ministerial meeting to be held in Seattle in November. Stating this here today, economic advisor to the Ministry of Commerce, H A C Prasad, said that for this purpose, Government has drawn up a list of NTBs which were impeding exports of the country. He added that the Indian side would also present a detailed analysis of the NTB list along with data at the Seattle meet which he hoped would assume immense significance as far as these issues were concerned. Criticising the UNCTAD list of NTBs, Prasad said that the Indian case was not represented there properly, thereby forcing the Commerce Ministry to draw up its own list. The official said that list would be circulated among all the Export Promotion Councils for their feedback. Suggesting that the WTO should have its own mechanism to handle the NTB issue, Prasad said that the Indian Government would press for such an arrangement within precincts of the multilateral trade body. The official said that USA, Japan, and EU states were adopting different criteria while imposing NTBs on Indian exports. While in the case of US, the country was implementing domestic legislations beyond its borders, Japan was raking up issues like child labour, which according to Prasad, did not conform to the WTO guidelines. The EU nations, on the other hand, were imposing NTBs in the form of classification of items, he added. According to him, genuine NTBs were the ones where factors like environment and health come into play, adding that there is a strong rationale for imposing such barriers. Prasad also demanded that compensation be paid for artificial NTBs. The official was speaking at an open house on Non-Tariff Barriers and export policy organised by FIEO. Commenting upon services sector, he said that the Indian side would discuss the problem of NTBs and detailed negotiations would be done at the Seattle meet. According to him, the list of NTBs would also help the Government in framing a WTO-compatible Exim policy. The president of FIEO, N Samdria, said that NTBs appeared to neutralise the competition that Indian exporters offer due to lower production costs. (PTI) |
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UK firm now patents use of hessian, demands royalty CALCUTTA, Oct 12: After basmati, turmeric, neem and bitter gourd (Karela), it is the turn of hessian now to get patented by a foreign company. The UK-based Geohess (UK Limited) has recently received an European patent (no 728048) claiming as an invention the use of hessian cloth on landfill sites, to cover rubbish. The firm is now claiming that anyone covering rubbish with hessian cloth would have to pay it a royalty of 65 per cent of the cost of hessian in the UK. Though a number of firms have not attempted to investigate the validity of the patent and were paying the charge, a UK firm has challenged its validity after being billed by geohess for payment of royalty. The firm (name not disclosed) challenged the entire claim of geohess in a court of law in the UK. Through its attorneys, Dummett Copp, PAtent Attorneys, UK the affected firm has been able to establish that other people were using various synthetic fabric covers for landfill sites before the date of the patent, but the patent-holders are claiming that the idea of using hessian for this purpose is inventive and therefore patentable. The matter came to light in India recently when dummett copp, on behalf of the affected firm, approached hastings jute mill after locating its name on the website to get inputs to establish that the idea of using hessian for landfill sites was not inventive and therefore was not patentable. Stung by the development and anticipating depletion of demand of Indian hessian products, Mr Sanjay Kajaria Director of Hastings Jute Mill and also Chairman of Indian Jute Mills Association (IJMA), Sanjay Kajaria, quickly swung into action and contacted other jute promotion bodies such as Jute and Mineral Development Corporation (JMDC) and Indian Jute Mill Research Association (IJRA). Railing at this development, Mr Kajaria said, "this is wrong. Hessian was used for covering various things, including dumps since a long time. It is nothing new. I will help dummett copp in whatever way I can." "If we do not chalk out strategies now, tomorrow one can patent the use of potato sacking bags, wheat bags and any other thing where jute is being used. Ultimately Indian jute manufacturers would be the losers," he added. The century-old jute industry is in the doldrums. Despite use of cheap, natural fibre only after a multi-pronged campaign are its fabrics being used for various purposes. Mr Kajaria said, "we have to save our market. Otherwise the use of jute will decline as consumers might not pay a price in which royalty is also included. Why should one pay 10 to 15 per cent extra for the same thing?" Dummett Copp, in its efforts to establish that use of hessian cloth on landfill sites was not a new invention and was being used in various parts of the world for a long time, had sent a questionnaire to Mr Kajaria which has been replied in consultation with other promoting agencies. Meanwhile, IJMA, JMDC and IJRA are planning a joint action to prevent any development which might prove harmful for the domestic jute industry. As of now, if Geohess (UK Limited) can prove that hessian cloth on landfill sites were not being used before November 9, 1993 and it was never used in the construction industry or in agriculture or horticulture as a temporary covering of outdoor structures, it could still manage to establish that their production was indeed an invention. (UNI) |
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H&P announces electronic payment 2000 NEW DELHI, Oct 12: Hewlett-Packard company’s Verifone division, has announced electronic payment 2000, a payment strategy designed to handle all current and future forms of electronic transaction. The new initiative, designed to bridge payments made in the physical and virtual worlds, incorporates all of the elements necessary to build integrated payment solutions. These include point-of-sale terminals, payment applications, terminal and network- management programmes, payment-processing programmes and embedded verification applications for use in mobile phones, laptops and other portable computing devices Among the first products to be launched under the new strategy is Verifone’s new Omni 3200 payment terminal, a payment terminal capable of supporting all commonly used credit, debit and smart cards. The Omni 3200 itself is the first in a series of new payment terminals, the Omni 3000 series, from HP’s Verifone division the Omni series will use softpay, Verifone’s payment software, which allows migration of existing applications to new ones, according to a press release here. (UNI) |
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Interactive STBs national semiconductors by year end NEW DELHI, Oct 12: National Semiconductor Corporation has offered its geode brand of information appliance to three Indian companies who will indigenise it to suit local market conditions, Mr Martin Kidgell, Vice President and Managing Director, Asia Pacific said here. The Indian Consumer Electronics and Telecom Companies will suitably modify national semiconductor’s reference platform and the interactive set-top boxes are most likely to be in the market by the end of this year. The California-based company recently integrated all the semiconductor content for an information appliance onto a single chip to deliver an optimal internet experience for the interactive set-top box market - providing full web-browsing functionality together with digital video. "The reference platform is almost ready. The time-to-market these stbs will be very short", Mr Sanjay Keskar, Country Manager, India, said. However, both officials declined to name the Indian companies which will use national semiconductor’s reference platform. Nor did they reveal the price at which the interactive STBs will be available here. Talking to reporters here last night on the company’s plans for India, Mr Kidgell said a combination of aggressive marketing and launch of new products in India will propel the company to a 100 per cent growth trajectory for the next two to three years. Currently, the Indian arm of national semiconductor established in 1995 has less than five per cent share or five million dollars of the total two billion dollar turnover. Mr Kidgell said, "the company intends to target banks, stock exchanges, school computerisation programmes, hotels and finally individual consumers for our STBs". The chip company is bullish about the big potential of internet in india with over 50 million installed TVs and 20 million cabled homes. Moreover, less than ten per cent of the one million banks and branches are computerised. The company said it will continue to meet the entire business demand in thin clients market like banks and stock exchange through its distributors in India-arrow electronics and future electronics. "A high possibility exists that the strength of silicon designers in our Bangalore unit will be doubled to 50 within six months, Mr Kidgell added. (UNI) |
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Rajasthan Govt to launch new employment scheme JAIPUR, Oct 12: Rajasthan Government is launching a new Mukhya Mantri Rozgar Yojana (Chief Minister’s Employment Scheme) for providing four lakh kiosks to unemployed youths and others in the next four years. The scheme to be implemented both in urban and rural areas will be completed within four years. About half of the total number of four lakh kiosks would be allotted in the first year itself, Chief Minister Ashok Gehlot told reporters here. The kiosks to be constructed on small grove like vacant Government lands vulnerable to encroachments, would be allotted to unemployed youths, women, widows, deserted women and handicapped persons, Gehlot said. The cost of kiosks, not to exceed Rs 6,000 each, will be recovered from the allottee in easy installments. (PTI) |
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