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| Wednesday, July 26, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Indian IT students stranded in Australia 2 Indian kids
among world’s brightest in IT Kaun Banega
tax payer? Sell-off plans test Vajpayee’s mettle Kuwaiti project for Haryana Indian wins
comedy contest |
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Hind Lever vs Fena
Indian IT students stranded in Australia MELBOURNE, July 24 — In a rare departure from norm, the Australian education department is likely to allow a group of mostly Indian students to leave the institute where they had enrolled and shift to a public university after it was found that it indulged in unfair practices. This rare migration is being considered as their college, Sydney’s Australian IT Careers Institute, has come under scrutiny for a number of unfair practices, including charging fees for courses that were not even on its curriculum. The development has come as Australia’s Minister for Immigration and Multicultural Affairs, Philip Ruddock, is touring five nations, including India, to elicit their cooperation to curb human smuggling into Australia. Indian students have been blamed in the past for using education as an avenue to enter Australia. Usually overseas students have to wait for a year before they could apply for migration to another institute. But they can transfer to another college if they have special written permission from their parent institute. But these “stranded” IT Careers Institute students are likely to get a waiver to transfer to, most likely, a public university. The incident has also highlighted the increasing paucity of trained IT professionals in Australia. According to The Sydney Morning Herald, these 32 students include a few who have paid their fees for courses which do not even exist. These students have paid up to A$5,000 for admission to such “ghost” courses. Another student has reportedly complained that even though her course is on the institute curriculum and she has paid A$5,000 there have been no classes for her course in the last four months. This student has further alleged that whenever she made inquiries about her course she was told that it would start “next month.” These students have also been without “basic facilities” which are supposed to be provided by a recognised educational institute in Australia. There is reportedly no library for the institute students. The promised Internet access has also been denied to them. They were also allegedly ask to cough up extra A$ 1,500 to use mandatory photocopy facilities. They were not informed about these extra charges before their enrollment by the institute. Australian Education Minister David Kemp has already ordered investigations into the practices being pursued by this institute. The functioning of the central Sydney college, headed by former premier of New South Wales (NSW), Neville Wran, would also be investigated by the NSW Vocational Education and Training Accreditation Board. The Sydney Morning Herald has reported that this group of 32 students have already paid around $A 350,000 in fees. The top administrators have got involved in the damage control exercise as education is one of the major foreign exchange earners for Australia. One student, 27-year-old Prasad Reddy, is quoted as saying, “I came with lots of expectations, but I’ve wasted four to five months of valuable time. I’ve moved from Sydney to Melbourne to Sydney and I’m still waiting to get my $5,000 back.” — IANS |
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Two Indian kids among world’s brightest in IT WASHINGTON, July 25 (PTI) — Two students from India — Raghav of Visvesvaraya College of Engineering, Bangalore, and Lavanya Maran of the Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi — are among 103 of the “world’s brightest students’ from 20 countries chosen by Lucent Technologies in its second annual worldwide summit of the Lucent Global Science Scholars Programme. They joined students from 18 other countries at a “summit” that began yesterday and will go on till July 28 at Lucent’s headquarters in Murray Hill, New Jersey. Lucent said in a release that they will have a unique opportunity to work alongside researchers and scientists from Bell Labs and their peers in trying to define the single technological innovation set to impact the future of communications much like the world wide web of today. David Ford, Lucent Foundation President, said: “Many of these students will be constructing the communications networks of the future and already some of them nave thought about and conducted impressive research on their own. The summit gives them the chance to see first-hand how concepts become real-world technology developments at Bell Labs. The theme of the 2000 summit is “Technology leadership in the new millennium.” Eighty per cent of the young scientists predicted that communications as simple as birthday greeting to friends in the year 2020 will be transmitted through personal digital assistants equipped with wireless capabilities. Twentysix per cent said there will a trend towards enhancement in video conferencing to make long-distance communications more convenient, while 30 per cent said devices that enable “virtual reality” technologies and three dimensional imaging to be used for communications as depicted in the move “The Matrix” will become mainstream. Fiftyeight per cent predicted that the days of wired communications are nearing an end. Thirtyone per cent said letter-writing by hand will remain and be common because of the personal feelings this traditional mode of communications evokes. Many of the scholars forecast that in just 20 years, common household devices such as heating and cooling systems and kitchen appliances will operate computer-driven voice activation devices. Along with the invitation to the summit, the scholars received cash awards of $5,000 at local ceremonies. In addition, most of the scholars will have the opportunity to intern at Bell Labs while they are in college. The Lucent Technologies Foundation, which finances the programme, is the charitable arm of Lucent Technologies. This fiscal year, the Foundation will contribute about $ 50 million around the world towards youth development projects. |
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NEW DELHI, July 25 (PTI) — Bollywood megastar Amitabh Bachchan has topped the list of income tax violators from the film world, followed by film producer Mukesh Bhatt, Bachchan’s wife Jaya, and Shahrukh Khan. Also on the list, which is a virtual who is who of the Indian movie industry, are actress-turned politician Jayaprada hotshot Bollywood directors Subhash Ghai, David Dhawan, Mahesh Bhatt and Ram Gopal Verma, action heroes Ajay Devgun and Sunil Shetty, Telugu superstar Chiranjeevi and top actresses Sreedevi, Karishma Kapoor and Pooja Bhatt. The list was given by Minister of State for Finance Dhananjaya Kumar in reply to a written question in the Rajya Sabha. Amitabh Bachchan, anchor of top-of-the-chart television programme “Kaun Banega Crorepati”, has outstanding income tax dues of Rs 13.25 crore. Bachchan has been allowed to pay the balance amounts through instalments of Rs 2.5 lakh per month, Kumar said adding that the actor’s petition for stay of recovery demand was rejected. Gulshan Kumar’s
brother Kishan Kumar and Rishi Kapoor are among filmstars involved in the alleged FERA violations. The other income tax defaulters included Ramgopal Verma, Kushboo, Ramba, Chunky Pandey. Corporate list: Mehta and Dalal were followed by state-owned VSNL (Rs 924 crore), Sahara India Financial Corp Ltd (Rs 831 crore), Ashwin S Mehta (Rs 638 crore), S Ramaswamy (Rs 585 crore) and Jyothi H Mehta (Rs 553 crore). The total tax outstanding on account of income tax, corporation tax, customs duty and central excise duty as on March 31, 2000 stood at Rs 62,392 as against Rs 32,617 crore a year ago. The other top 100 tax defaulters included Sahara India Mutual Benefit (Rs 550 crore), ONGC (Rs 464 cr), Ganapati Exports (Rs 329 cr), IFCI (Rs 314 cr), IDBI (Rs 310 cr), GAIL (287 cr), GTC Industries (Rs 282 cr), Surendra M Khandar (Rs 245 cr),Tata Chemicals (Rs 239 cr), Sudhir S Mehta (Rs 238 cr), Pearless General Finance and Investment (Rs 219 cr) and Fairgrowth Financial Services (Rs 218 cr). Also in the list were Premier Automobiles (Rs 204 cr), Asia Satellite Telecommunication (Rs 196 cr), Canara Bank (Rs 192 cr), Subrato Roy (Rs 191 cr), Tata Sons (Rs 188 cr) Ganapati Combines (Rs 180 cr), Tata Power (Rs 174 cr), Dhanaraj Mills (Rs 166 cr), East West Travel and Trade Links (Rs 163 cr) and Cascade Holding (Rs 160 cr). |
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Sell-off plans test Vajpayee’s mettle INDIA’S ambitious privatisation programme is in danger of being blown off course by the powerful Hindu right and disgruntled ministers unwilling to give up their lavish perks. The Prime Minister, Atal Behari Vajpayee, showed his determination to face down his critics — many of them among his natural supporters — by appointing a new hardline minister for privatisation yesterday (Monday), the ex-journalist Arun Shourie. Since he was returned to power in October, Mr Vajpayee’s plans to transform India’s vast and notoriously inefficient public sector have run into trouble. So far only one state business, Modern Foods, an ancient bread factory on the outskirts of Delhi, has been privatised. Earlier this year Mr Shourie’s predecessor, Arun Jaitley, announced plans to sell off at least 10 state companies, including airlines, telecommunications businesses, and car manufacturers. But the proposal was immediately opposed by the Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS), the militant ideological wing of Mr Vajpayee’s Bharatiya Janata party (BJP). The RSS’s new chief, KS Sudarshan, has made it clear that he is against foreign investment in India. He advocates a policy of swadeshi (economic self-sufficiency). Since most BJP members are also members of the RSS, Mr Sudarshan’s views carry some weight. Earlier this month Mr Vajpayee postponed a crucial meeting on privatisation to allow his Finance Minister, Yashwant Sinha, to reach agreement with his RSS critics. India’s public sector is not in good shape. Lunchtime visitors to the New Delhi office of Air India, for example, may be surprised to find that only one of the 37 counters is open. “The staff have gone off to play cards or take a nap,” a passenger said wearily. “They don’t have to bother with the customer because they get money from the government in any case.” Since 1995, Air India’s losses have grown to (pounds sterling) 3.7m. But not everyone accepts the wisdom of privatisation, even in Mr Vajpayee’s government. Several coalition partners who hold important ministerial portfolios have dug in their heels. They include the Civil Aviation Minister, Sharad Yadav, who argued against the sale of Air India. After a Cabinet meeting last month, plans to sell MTNL and VSNL, the state telephone and Internet companies, were postponed. So was the sale of Maruti, India’s biggest car manufacturer, whose family saloons adorn every middle-class Indian driveway. Nineteen less contentious sell-offs were approved. “The big decisions have yet to be taken,” Dr S Bhide, the chief economist at the National Council for Applied Economic Research, said. As things stand, ministers who oversee large state industries enjoy free accommodation at five-star hotels and foreign travel. Some are reluctant to give up these perks up. “I’m all for privatisation, as long as it’s not my ministry,” one said. The communists, and many of the unions, are also against a large-scale sell-off. Those responsible for the “disinvestment” policy remain bullish. “There is bound to be opposition. You in Britain had a miners’ strike for a year,” Pradip Baijal, the Secretary of the newly formed Department for Disinvestment, said.
— By arrangement with The Guardian |
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CHANDIGARH, July 25 (UNI) — Kirby Building System Limited, a subsidiary of Alghanim industry, Kuwait, has decided to set up its first project in northern India for the manufacture of pre-engineered steel building in the Haryana State Industrial Development Corporation (HSIDC) complex at Bawal in Rewari district. An agreement to allot 15 acres of land for this project at Bawal was signed today by HSIDC Managing Director Harbakhsh Singh with the company. The company’s first plant is already in operation at Hyderabad. An official spokesman said here that Alghanim industry Kuwait is a multinational organisation with diverse interests in industrial and consumer products. The current turnover of the group is around Rs 7,250 crore. The group, through its associate concern Kirby Building Systems, Kuwait, began manufacturing pre-engineered building in Kuwait in 1976 and the name Kirby has become well-known throughout West Asia. The capital cost of the proposed project has been estimated at Rs 40 crore, which is proposed to be financed through an equity by the parent company and term loans from financial institutions both in India and abroad. The company has 16 sales offices all over India which are already operational. The project is likely to go on stream by the end of next year. When implemented, it is expected to generate employment for 400 people directly and many more indirectly through its ancillaries. The growth centre Bawal is attracting foreign direct investment in a big way. Multinational companies like YKK of Japan, Svedala of Sweden, Beckton and Dickinson of the USA and TDT Copper of South Korea have already set up their projects in this complex. Low cost of land and the quality of infrastructure provided by HSIDC are the main reasons for these companies to have selected Bawal as their location, the spokesman added. |
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Indian wins
comedy contest NEW YORK: An Indian American stand-up comedian has won Ed Mcmahon’s ‘Next Big Star’ internet contest held in Orlando, Florida. Saidas “Psy” Ranade, a technology consultant by day, said he was “absolutely excited” to be the winner. This is the first year of the contest hosted by McMahan of the popular ‘Star Search’ television show. The talent competition has 16 categories, of which comedy is one. The final round is held live on the Internet and the winner receives a cash prize of $ 10,000. Previous rounds are also held on the Internet, though in the future the show’s producers have said they plan to take it to TV. Winners of ‘Next Big Star’ are voted entirely by public e-vote and not by celebrity judges, Ranade said. Ranade competed for 13 weeks, flying to Orlando for the final round, which was taped in front of a live audience at The Groove, a club. “For me the journey itself was as exciting as the victory,” he told IANS. “The experience told me, ‘Hey it is important to work hard and stay focussed, but it is most important not to get too obsessed.” The 40-year-old performer said comedy was “an interesting domain because it allows me to experiment with new ideas.” He enjoys the “simplicity of it, a comedian with a microphone, no gadgets or gimmicks, it forces you to be creative.”
— IANS |
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Hind Lever vs Fena NEW DELHI, July 25 — Delhi-based Fena Ltd has accused Hindustan Lever Ltd (HLL) of dishonouring an order of the Advertising Standard Council of India (ASCI) against its “Vim dish wash bar” ad campaign and has also said that HLL was making frivolous complaints on Fena detergent advertisements. According to Fena, ASCI had turned down a complaint filed by HLL against Fena’s advertisement for detergent powder in 1998. Fena said that HLL simultaneously used its advertising and media clout to block its advertisements on Doordarshan and other media but could not succeed as Fena’s advertisements were allowed to be telecast without any modifications.  |
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Grasim’s net inches up 1 pc Britannia net grows 27 pc The net profit of the company during the corresponding period in the previous year stood at Rs 10.60 crore. The growth in the net profit was achieved on a total turnover of Rs 332 crore during the period which showed a rise of 16 per cent over the corresponding figure of Rs 286.60 crore in the previous year. Indian Shaving net up 9 pc The company increased its net sales by 43 per cent to Rs 82.84 crore from Rs 58.4 crore in the corresponding period last year. Pre-tax profit increased by 22 per cent to Rs 9.26 crore as against Rs 762 crore recorded last year. The annualised EPS for the second quarter is up at Rs 16 as against Rs 14.60 in the corresponding period last year. Hughes Soft net zooms 127 pc The company’s total income was up by 85 per cent to Rs 38.35 crore on quarter ended June 2000 as compared to Rs 20.69 crore last fiscal. Coates to drop adhesive business SIFY acquires US online mall Warren Tea net declines Officials said net sales during the period came down to Rs 11.53 crore from Rs 12.42 crore though expenditure was brought down to Rs 9.20 crore from Rs 9.95 crore last year. Manmar, Agilent sign MoU Electrosteel net profit up Mascot Sys profit grows 34 pc |
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Fashion week Tejas Networks Fairwood SBI ATM |
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