 |
Saturday,
August 16, 2003, Chandigarh, India  
|
PM favours boost to rural economy
‘Sagar mala’ to attract 1,00,000 cr investment
Pepsi, Coca-Cola join hands Panel on report on textiles mooted Thiruvananthapuram, August 15 In a boost to India’s birth control programme, the country’s first herbal spermicide cream will soon be introduced in the market by the public sector Hindustan Latex.
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
Maruti Udyog
to set up unit
in Chennai
Two new IIITs
to be set up
|
|
PM favours boost to rural economy *
Credit cards, insurance scheme for artisans and fishermen *
Mobile phone services for J&K from next week *
Technology mission for railway safety to be set up New Delhi, August 15 The initiatives announced by the Prime Minister during his Independence Day speech include setting up of a National Farmers’ Commission, cheaper and easier credit availability to artisans and weavers, commencement of the river-linking project and a food chain revolution to enhance the average income of the farmers. Giving a detailed report card of the government’s performance on the economic front, he said a National Commission for Farmers would be set up soon and called for unleashing a food chain revolution on the lines of green and white revolutions to double farmers’ income by 2010. “We will soon constitute a National Kisan Commission to encourage new experiments in farming and study various problems being faced by our farmers”, he said. “The Green Revolution and the White Revolution of previous decades have imparted much strength to agriculture. Now India needs a new revolution — the food chain revolution. Its aim is to achieve a double average income of the farmer by 2010”, Mr Vajpayee said adding that an important part of this revolution was to reduce the wastage of fruits and vegetables worth thousands of crore each year. Weavers, artisans and fishermen would be provided with credit cards on the line of Kisan Credit Card at a concessional interest rate of 9 per cent and insurance scheme would also be started for their benefit. The purpose of the reforms was to impart dynamism to the economy to not only enable it become a strong force globally but also to become sensitive to the poor and unemployed, he said. Mr Vajpayee said mobile telephone services would be started in Jammu and Kashmir from next week and projected that cellular subscriber base would reach the level of three crore in the coming year. The Rs 54,000 crore national highway development programme was providing employment to 1.5 persons and the number would increase to 3-6 lakh by the next years. The Prime Minister has raised the benchmark for increasing the pace of road construction from 11 km per year during the past 50 years to 11 km per day. He said the nation should prepare the next generation for more opportunities in the areas of science and technology. Mr Vajpayee said the task force for the linking of rivers had identified two projects whose implementation would begin by the end of this year. A Technology Mission for Railway Safety would be set up to comprehensively address safety-related issues of The Railways. This would be done in collaboration with the Department of Science and Technology, IIT Kanpur, and a consortium of private sector companies. For better power supply, the Minister of Power and the Ministry of Non-Conventional Energy Sources will jointly implement a project to provide electricity to 1lakh uncovered villages and 1crore households over the next two years through an electricity supply technology mission. “The prices of essential commodities are under control. There is no shortage of anything in the market... poverty is declining,” he said while resolving to eradicate it faster.
|
|
‘Sagar mala’ to attract 1,00,000 cr investment
New Delhi, August 15 The project, “Sagar mala (garland of ports)”, announced by Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in his address to the nation on Independence Day today, envisages investment through a mix of public and private funding, Shipping Minister Shatrughan Sinha said at a press conference here today. “This project will cover all facets of maritime transport, including ports, shipping and inland waterways with the aim to fully realise the potential of sea-borne trade and inland water transport systems, which will play a catalytic role in the speedy development of the country,” said Sinha. “Sagar mala” aims to link ports with inland waterways, expand and modernise ports along India's east and west coasts and develop of inland navigation. Around 95 per cent of India's import-export trade conducted through the maritime route. This accounts for 75 per cent of India’s total global trade. Besides being the most economic mode, development of inland water transport is expected to reduce India’s energy consumption. According to the shipping ministry’s estimate, only 0.15 per cent of the 1,000 billion tonne cargo transported within the country is by the inland waterways. —
IANS
|
|
Pepsi, Coca-Cola join hands New Delhi, August 15 “There are no standards for pesticides in soft drinks anywhere in the USA or the European Union. The EU norms only specify that the water used in soft drinks should be potable.....we are meeting the EU norms on source water in India with the total pesticide levels well below the permissible 0.5ppb,” Chairman of PepsiCo India Holdings Rajeev Bakshi told PTI here. He said blindly adopting EU standards is an ill-conceived strategy, fraught with risk both in qualitative and quantitative terms for a developing country like India which will make 90 per cent of its groundnut crop inedible, liquid milk undrinkable and processed milk products unusable. Taking the Centre for Science and Environment to task, Bakshi said “we have sufficient doubts that the CSE’s report is erroneous. It has used suspect testing methods...it has created panic”. A Coca-Cola spokesperson said “our products are of unimpeachable quality not only in India but across the world. If the government decides to bring in any new norms, we will comply with those too”. Bakshi said the lab used by the CSE was neither accredited nor recognised, and could not have helped with cross references of results arrived at in a particular lab. Making a case against aping the EU, he said “Is the EU, the repository of all knowledge? Are they the only ‘consumer friendly’ standards setting organisation worldwide?” Hitting out at the
CSE, he said it claims to have used the USEPA 8141A method to arrive at its results but there are serious deviations from the standardised test methodology. The actual properties adopted to conduct the tests do not match the USEPA prescribed procedures. Furthermore, the method is prescribed for testing water and not soft drinks, he said, adding that this can lead to erroneous conclusions because a number of ingredients are added in water to manufacture a soft drink. The CSE had benchmarked the alleged presence of pesticides in “soft drinks” against the permissible limits in the EU for “water”. The CSE report focuses on detection of increased levels of four pesticides in the soft drinks brands but fails to elaborate on the limit up to which its intake by humans is safe. “Allowable residue levels for the same four pesticides in other product categories strangely are significantly higher. The CSE report says nothing about this at all”, Bakshi said. Pepsi on its part had got the water it uses to make soft drinks, tested at Vimta Laboratories, Hyderabad, which is accredited, recognised and open to public scrutiny. The results have been cross-referred with TNO Labs, in the Netherlands, he added. Bakshi said the CSE is trying to give a wrong impression on health implications of presence of pesticides in the soft drinks by quantifying the number of times its levels was found to be higher in the tests than what was permissible under the EU norms for water. The CSE report does not mention that the EU limit for pesticide residue of lindane, DDT, chloropyrifos and malathion combined in the case of milk and cream is 7,139 times higher than in water. The maximum DDT residue limit for water is 0.0001 mg/kg but in the case of apple it is 0.500 mg/kg, while for meat it is one mg a kg which are 500 and 10,000 times higher than water. If India is to “blindly” adopt EU standards, it cannot produce whisky locally unless from melted grain. It will have to import basic foodstuffs and cereals to meet EU food safety standards. —
PTI
|
|
|
Panel on report on textiles mooted New Delhi, August 15 The PHDCCI, welcoming the report, said the restructuring scheme as suggested will ensure quantum jump in new investments as well as strengthen the existing units to face tough competition with the abolition of quota regime from January, 2005. The restructuring exercise is a must in the wake of ongoing financial crisis. He said this sector provides a significant scope for employment to diverse section of society. The textile industry being the biggest foreign exchange earner, the scheme will significantly enhance foreign exchange earning capabilities positioning the Indian textile industry to become internationally competitive. The chamber, however, suggested that there is need for marginal modification in the recommendation in order to enhance the viability for a large number of textile units. In this context, it suggested that a clarification should be issued that two years moratorium will be made available on interest payment and four years moratorium will be available on principal. Besides, an extended repayment period of at least up to 12 years may be allowed in deserving cases as against 10 years recommended by the group. This will help to reduce the capital charge. To ensure that the Textile Reconstruction Fund Scheme remains flexible, the lenders may be allowed to grant additional help beyond the stipulations of the scheme in individual cases on condition that assistance from TRF will be restricted as per the stipulations of the scheme, the chamber added.
|
|
Herbal spermicide cream to be launched soon Thiruvananthapuram, August 15 “We signed an agreement earlier this month with Lucknow-based Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI), which has developed herbal spermicide, based on commonly-grown plant “reetha” (spindus mukorossi). Laboratory tests of the product are almost over. We are entering the commercialisation phase and the product is likely to be available in the market within a year,” Hindustan Latex Chairman G Rajamohan said. Clincial tests by the CDRI had shown that the cream was free from side-effects and had a good success rate, he added. The only spermicidal cream available in India presently was a chemical one. —
IANS
|
|
Maruti Udyog
to set up unit
in Chennai
New Delhi, August 15 The Chennai project will be operational by January. The network will be further expanded in the near future in other parts of the country, Maruti Udyog Adviser (Engineering) K. Kumar said on the completion of the fourth year of MSM. The MSM, a joint venture between Maruti Udyog and Japan’s largest integrated business enterprise, Sumitomo Corporation, was floated fours years back. The network of MSM units offers a host of services, including car maintenance, insurance, finance and accessories and it also sells pre-owned, refurbished cars under the “True Value” brandname. Senior General Manager H Nagaoka said “We are committed to providing more funds for this project”. —
PTI
|
bb
Jewellery expo Petroleum varsity Farmers Club VRS to staff Cement output Essar Oil outlet Markets closed Banks sans licence |
 |
| Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir | Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs | Nation | Editorial | | Business | Sport | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh Tribune | Ludhiana Tribune 50 years of Independence | Tercentenary Celebrations | | 123 Years of Trust | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
