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Food inflation falls sharply to 12.92 pc
BlackBerry, Google under lens again
US House passes Bill
to reform financial markets
Car sales continue to rise in June
May exports jump 35%
RCom to acquire Digicable
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Food inflation falls sharply to 12.92 pc
However, a number of essential items like pulses, fruits and milk remained quite
expensive for the week ended June 19. The fall in food inflation would provide some breather to the government struggling hard to control prices of essential items which may again rise due to the cascading effect of the diesel price hike last week, say analysts. The fall in food inflation was largely because of high base effect, which means that inflation was so high at this point of time last year that the rate of price rise now looks comparatively lower. "The significant fall in food inflation is due to the (high) base effect," Planning Commission principal adviser Pronab Sen, who retired as the Chief Statistician yesterday, said. Otherwise, most food items remained expensive, except for potatoes, onions, wheat and rice. Because of the high base effect, cereal inflation came down to 5.36 per cent against 13.42 per cent a year ago, vegetables fell 1.17 per cent against 25.19 per cent. Within vegetables, potatoes turned cheaper by 39.61 per cent, while onion prices fell by 7.36 per cent. Among cereals, rice inflation was 6.44 per cent against 17.22 per cent a year ago, and wheat stood at 4.49 per cent against 6.40 per cent. However, many commodities such as milk, fruits and pulses turned expensive during the week under review. Pulses rose by 31.57 per cent year-on-year despite some moderation on a weekly basis. The latest data do not capture hike in prices of fuels, announced on June 25 and will be partly covered by the figures to be released next week. As such, prices of fuel items remained stagnant on a weekly basis. In fact, the cascading effect of the diesel price hike will also push up food inflation. And economists do not expect food inflation to come to single digit before September. "Fuel inflation will go up, hiking the freight cost which in turn will put upward pressure on prices. Food inflation will come down to a low single-digit level only in the second half of the fiscal," Crisil chief economist Dharmakriti Joshi said. Headline inflation, however, will remain in double digits because of its spread to manufactured items and the recent hikes in fuel prices. Overall inflation stood at 10.16 per cent in May. "Overall inflation is likely to hover in double digits for some more time on account of the fuel price hike," Yes Bank chief economist Shubhada Rao said.
— PTI |
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BlackBerry, Google under lens again
New Delhi, July 1 They both, along with the Skype services, have been classified as a security threat by the Indian security agencies and have been given a specific time to either make available their data in readable format to them or their services would be blocked. The move comes after months of silence when RIM was allowed to run the BlackBerry services without any disruption following exchange between India and Canada at the inter-governmental level. In February 2009, Canadian Minister of Industry Tony Clement after meeting Telecommunications Minister A. Raja had said the BlackBerry issue had been resolved to the satisfaction of the all parties involved. The initial security concerns had been raised more than two years ago in May 2008. However, this time round the security forces have again raised the issue of they not being able to access the data being transferred through the BlackBerry and have the full backing of the Ministry of Home Affairs (MHA) to resolve the issue. Besides, Skype services and Google have also been pulled into the ring to ensure availability of data to the security agencies in readable form. An internal note circulated in the government says, “DoT will call the representatives of Research In Motion and Skype and ask them to ensure that the content going through the telecom service providers is in readable format. They have to ensure that this is implemented within 15 days, failing which services that do not allow lawful interception on a real-time basis would be blocked/banned”. Besides, reports said that representatives of Google in India would also be summoned to ensure availability of data in readable form. These decisions were taken following a recent meeting between the MHA, the Intelligence Bureau, the DoT and the National Technical Research Organisation - a scientific organisation under the National Security Adviser. The latest development indicates that security agencies are again finding it difficult to intercept or decipher messages sent through BlackBerry phones, which use codes with an encryption of 256 bits. This encryption code first scrambles the emails sent from a BlackBerry device and unscrambles it when the message reaches its target. There are a over million subscribers in the country using the BlackBerry services. Security agencies fear that Internet-based telephony services like Skype are being misused by terrorists to bypass monitoring systems linked to mobile phone services. |
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US House passes Bill
to reform financial markets
Washington, July 1 The Bill passed by the House of Representatives on Wednesday by vote 237-192, largely along party lines would now go to the Senate, where Republicans may obstruct it. The Democrats, however, exuded the confidence that they would be able to get it through the Senate as well. The US President Barack Obama said the House vote "puts us on the cusp of passing a law" that will give consumers greater protection and safeguard to the US economy against future financial crisis. "It has been a long fight against the defenders of the status quo on Wall Street, but today's vote is a victory for every American who has been affected by the recklessness and irresponsibility that led to the loss of millions of jobs and trillions in wealth," Obama said. "It will put in place the strongest consumer financial protections in history, curbing abuses by banks, mortgage and credit card companies and giving their customers information they need to make responsible financial decisions," he said. The Wall Street Reform Bill will make the US financial system more transparent. It will put an end to the idea that any financial firm is too big to fall, and therefore entitled to taxpayer bailouts, he asserted. Noting that the law also will put in place the Volcker rule - that would ban banks from running private-equity and hedge funds - so that banks don't put the savings of millions of Americans at risk, Obama said US' economic future depends on a thriving financial sector. "But, as we have seen, it also must operate within a sensible framework of rules and regulations, adequate to hold financial institutions accountable," he said.
— PTI |
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Car sales continue to rise in June
New Delhi, July 1 Although its domestic sales continued to rise there was a decline in its exports. While it recorded a 8.9 per cent growth at 27,366 units over the same month last year in the domestic market, its exports declined 22.1 per cent at 18,888 units from 24,250 units in June last year. "The domestic market continues to show a steady growth but the exports have slowed down especially in the EU countries in the absence of any fresh incentives from the respective governments there," said Arvind Saxena, director (marketing and sales). Honda Siel Cars India Ltd also reported a drop in sales in the month of June when compared to the previous year. While it sold 4,595 units in June as against 4,067 units sold in May, there was a drop in sales when compared to June 2009, when it sold 5,048 units. On the other hand, country's largest car maker, Maruti Suzuki India Ltd (MSIL), has reported a 17.28 per cent jump in June sales to 88,091 units over the same month last year. The company had sold 75,109 units in June last year, it said. In the domestic market, Maruti sold 72,812 units against 61,773 units in June 2009, an increase of 17.87 per cent. Exports surged 14.57 per cent to 15,279 units from 13,336 units in the year-ago period, it added. Tata Motors said there was a 49 per cent increase in the total domestic sales. This included both commercial vehicles and passenger cars, including the ultra-cheap Nano. While 67,730 vehicles were sold in June 2010, 45,440 were sold for the corresponding period last year. Toyota Kirloskar Motor (TKM) registered a growth of 42 per cent in sales in the month compared to the corresponding period last year. It sold 6,180 units in the month against 4,367 units in the same period last year. SkodaAuto India said its sales grew by 43 per cent in the month over the same period last year. Its sold 1,638 units in June against 1,145 units in the same period last year. |
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May exports jump 35%
New Delhi, July 1 The seventh straight month of rise was registered on a low export base of $11.95 billion in May 2009, when shipments had plunged by over 29 per cent from the previous fiscal under the impact of the recession in the US and several other advanced economies. For the April-May 2010-11 period, exports grew by 35.7 per cent to $33 billion against the year-ago period, according to official data released today. President of the Federation of Indian Export Organisations A Sakthivel said that the crisis in some European countries was a cause for concern. "We hope the growth trend will continue but the only worrying aspect is the crisis in the euro zone, which is likely to affect India's exports in that area," he said. He also said the depreciation of euro would provide fierce competition to Indian products in countries where they are facing competition from Euro nations. The Euro has depreciated by about 17.5 per cent against the rupee since November last year. Of the $176.5 billion exports last fiscal, Europe accounted for 23 per cent.
— PTI |
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RCom to acquire Digicable
New Delhi, July 1 The board of RCom approved the proposal for the acquisition in a meeting held today, the company said in a statement, without disclosing the value of the deal. The new entity, named 'Reliance DigiCom', will integrate RCom's DTH, IPTV and Retail broadband operations with Digicable. Sources, however, said that the deal would create an entity valued at an estimated $1 billion (over Rs 4,500 crore), and the Anil Ambani Group would hold about 60 per cent stake in it. The remaining stake could be held by Digicable and its current promoters. — PTI |
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New Delhi, July 1
