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Thursday,
June 26, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
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Sun, Oracle join hands for low-cost computing
Disasters threat to India’s growth: WB
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WB to study Punjab project World economy may grow by 2.25 pc: UN
Bids for damaged wheat rejected
Rules on royalty payment relaxed
J&K expects over 2.17 lakh tourists
PNB, Vijaya Bank, Principal ink pact
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Sun, Oracle join hands for low-cost computing
Bangalore, June 25 Notice of this was served on Wednesday by the Indian arms of Oracle and Sun as part of the global alliance to open the new markets in countries like India. "The NT-based server market is currently worth $70 million. We are now entering this market that is dominated currently by Microsoft. Today, we are offering a sub-$10,000 solution to customers," Sun India MD Bhaskar Pramanik told a news conference he jointly addressed with Shekhar Dasgupta of Oracle. "The banking, financial services and insurance (BFSI) sector and the telecom sector invest about 2 to 3 per cent annually in technology. We are providing customers with solutions that will lower ownership costs and bring rapid returns on investment," Dasgupta added. Practically every aspect of the BFSI sector is employing technology like never before. The banking sector in India generates revenues of $35 billion while insurance contributes $17 billion. Sun Microsystems said its desktop solutions “Madhatter” would be launched in India as part of its global plan in September. “Our aim is to bring down the overall cost of the software in excess of 70 per cent to 80 per cent than that of Microsoft,” Pramanik told reporters. He said the desktop solutions for businesses would have Linux and Solaris Operating Environment as part of its package. Unlike the West which is a server based market, India was largely a desk-top market with over 2 million PCs in use, Pramanik said. “Imagine the savings using Sun’s desktop solutions multiplied by 2 million as compared to Microsoft products,” he said. With an integrated approach that simplified communications and content, Oracle collaboration suite running on Solaris and Linus platform was a more reliable, secure and cost effective choice as compared to the current fragmented server solutions, they added. The two organisations were bringing the two products together so that the cost of software was less than alternative offerings in the market place, Mr Pramanik said. On the desktop Sun’s Staroffice software offered a full featured multi-platform office suite that offered cost effective multi-platform alternative to closed office suits, they added. Talking off from the May 19 global announcement about Oracle’s support to Sun’s full line of Solaris Operating System, Solaris OS for x86 and Linux systems, Sun and Oracle were identifying various key market verticals in India for joint marketing initiative. — Agencies
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Disasters threat to India’s growth: WB
New Delhi, June 25 “Of India’s 31 states, 22 are regarded as being particularly disaster prone. About 55 per cent of the country’s land is vulnerable to earthquakes, 8 per cent to cyclones and 5 per cent to floods,” the World Bank’s senior insurance officer Eugene N Gurenko said, referring to the bank’s executive summary on India. The disasters erode 2 per cent of GDP and 12 per cent of government revenues, he said at the Ficci seminar on insurance here today. Direct losses from natural disasters increased alarmingly to $ 13.8 billion during 1996-2001 from $ 13.4 billion in 1981-95 and $ 2.9 billion during 1965-80, according to the World Bank’s estimates. The World Bank criticised the government for inadequate disaster management mechanism and proposed further liberalisation of the insurance market to enable public and private insurers to take care of such colossal risks. “The Constitution does not directly specify which level of the government is responsible for managing disasters,” the bank said, adding that the Centre was financing catastrophe relief efforts through “margin money” allocated to the states from the successive Finance Commissions. The World Bank, however, lauded the Eleventh Finance Commission’s recommendation for a greater role of insurers and creation of a national centre for calamity management to provide advice to the government on the financing of calamity recovery efforts. — PTI
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WB to study Punjab project Chandigarh, June 25 This was disclosed today to TNS by the Principal Secretary, Finance, Mr K.R.Lakhanpal. He said a letter from the Union Finance Minister, Mr Jaswant Singh, to the Punjab Chief Minister, Capt Amarinder Singh “fully appreciated” the state’s efforts to improve its fiscal position. Punjab had argued its case with the Union Finance Ministry for World Bank assistance at official level in April last. The letter notes that without transgressing the sanctity of the agreed cap on the annual borrowings under the “medium-term fiscal programme,” the ministry would be willing to facilitate the state’s efforts to access up to $125 million annually. Normally, the World Bank takes about 15 months to process a project. Punjab has prepared specific projects involving an amount of Rs 5,000 crore for financial assistance from the World Bank. These are in the areas of rural drinking water supply, urban infrastructure covering solid waste management, water supply, sewerage and sewage treatment plants in 13 towns, integrated rural development, water resources management project covering drinking water supply and environment sanitation in rural areas and development of state road network. The last one has now been forwarded to the World Bank. Punjab is hopeful that the World Bank would help it to make structural adjustments, as it had done in the case of Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka, Orissa and Tamil Nadu, which have been given assistance between $125 million and $200 million. If Capt Amarinder Singh had presented Punjab as a reform-oriented state to the World Bank, the Chief Secretary, Mr Rajan Kashyap, and Mr Lakhanpal projected Punjab as a partner during their interaction with the world class economists and policy-makers at Stanford University in the USA, where they were invited to make a presentation on Punjab earlier this month. |
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World economy may grow by 2.25 pc: UN
New Delhi, June 25 The persistence of a slowdown in trade and investment and rising unemployment continue to hold back world growth as well as hopes for progress on poverty reduction despite the easing of geopolitical uncertainties, according to the annual UN World Economic and Social Survey. Foreign investment also remains hesitant, the international organisation said in a statement here. With globally weak effective demand, the overcapacity created by excessive investment in the 1990s, especially in the ICT (information and communication technology) sector, has been reduced more slowly than expected. At the same time, the geopolitical shocks of the past year have resulted in a large degree of slack in other sectors, most notably in the travel industry. ‘’Overcapacity will continue to have a dampening effect on the business investment that is necessary to sustain recovery,’’ it said. Even so, ‘’most of the negative consequences of the earlier geopolitical uncertainties are expected to dissipate by the third quarter of 2003,’’ according to the survey, which will be presented to international policy makers at the June 30 convening of the UN Economic and Social Council in Geneva. Remove farm trade barriers
Expressing serious concern over the global trade agenda, the UN today called on developed countries to eliminate export subsidies and discontinue dumping agricultural products on third world markets to kick start negotiations. This must be done ‘’not as a negotiating trade off, but as a unilateral action to kick start negotiations and bring the developed countries into alignment with international development principles,’’ said the annual UN World Economic and Social Survey released today. A global consensus on development policies and cooperation had been reached the Doha Ministerial Meeting of the WTO, the Monterrey International Conference on Financing for Development and the Johannesburg World Summit on Sustainable Development in 2001 and 2002. The survey also calls for emulation by other developed countries of the European Union decision in 2000 to eliminate tariffs on all imports from the least developed countries, except for armaments.
— UNI |
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Bids for damaged wheat rejected Chandigarh, June 25 Hafed had put to auction those wheat stocks which were rejected by the FCI on the plea that the wheat was unfit for human consumption. Against the market price of the damaged wheat, known as lustre-loss wheat, of Rs 450 to Rs 500 a quintal, Hafed had received offers around Rs 200 at the places where the auction was hijacked by the goons. The Managing Director of Hafed, Mr Devinder Singh, told TNS here yesterday that it had been decided to invite sealed tenders from the interested parties for the damaged wheat stocks, for which bids less than around Rs 450 a quintal were received. The sealed tenders should be sent to Hafed on or before July 7. |
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Rules on royalty payment relaxed New Delhi, June 25 An official statement said the royalty payments would be made at 8 per cent on exports and 5 per cent on domestic sales while the ceiling on the payment of lumpsum fee would continue to apply in all cases. At present, only wholly-owned subsidiaries are permitted to make payments of royalty of 8 per cent on exports and 5 per cent on domestic sales to their offshore parents on the automatic route without any restriction on duration of royalty payments. Royalty payment by other companies are allowed for a period not exceeding seven years from the date of commencement of commercial production or 10 years from the date of agreement, whichever is earlier. |
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J&K expects over 2.17 lakh tourists
Jammu, June 25 “This year we have kept a target of crossing the 2.17 lakh tourist mark which was created in 1999. We want to break this record which has stood since the past 13 years of militancy”, Mir told PTI. He said 62,171 tourists have already visited the Kashmir valley from January 1 to June 23 this year as compared to 10,603 for the same period last year. A total of 27,356 tourist had visited Kashmir in 2002, he said adding that so far the tourists flow had increased by three folds. “We are just 10,000 short of 2001’s figures of 72,591 tourists and in next few days we will also cross this figure” Mir said. “Before the onset of militancy, Kashmir recorded a flow of 7,22,035 tourists in 1988, which nosedived to just 10,722 in 1990”, he said.
— PTI |
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PSB plans IPO Laminated flooring Aid for J&K silk Wheat to Kenya SBI to cut NPAs Refrigerated van Foster’s beer Mobile connections
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