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| Tuesday, November 7, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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America’s boom can come crashing down any moment NCAER cuts growth to 6.1 pc World Bank President to focus on states Andhra Bank
to tap market Zee to offer Internet
on DTH platform |
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Telephone
charges to be reduced Microsoft
launches servers
Patiala gets its first
online MT institute Essar Cell launches
Short Message Service
He paid ‘family price’ Sitar maestro asks MNCs for help Why Tendulkar is still angry
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America’s boom can come crashing down any moment AMERICA hates a loser, and should Al Gore squander Bill Clinton’s golden economic legacy by losing to George W Bush tomorrow he will go down in history as one of the losers of all time. Unemployment is low, inflation is low, real incomes are rising, the dollar is strong, Silicon Valley has transformed the global industrial landscape. Put simply, Gore should be cruising it. Should the Republicans win back the White House after eight years, the pundits will say the Vice-President was wooden, lacked warmth, told little white lies, came across like an arrogant know-all - all of which is true. Maybe they will even think up a new catchphrase - ``It’s not the economy, stupid”. A recent analysis of Clinton administration’s record by the American economist Robert Pollin in the New Left Review concluded that it had ``done virtually nothing to advance the interests of organised labour or working people more generally”. To be sure, the minimum wage has been raised, but its purchasing power has fallen by 40% since the late 60s. To be sure, real wages have been rising for the last couple of years, but this follows a period of falling wages stretching back two decades. Wage inequality has widened, with the gains for ordinary workers far lower than in previous economic expansions. If Gore needs to know why he is having trouble getting his core vote out, he should mull over the fact that average wages for non-supervisory workers are lower than they were under Ronald Reagan. Gore may still win. When it comes to it, there may be a temptation to hold on to nurse for fear of something worse. However, there does not seem to be too much fear about and Bush could find himself in the same position as Tony Blair in 1997 - about to inherit an economy that has been growing for nine years without a break - the longest expansion since records began in the 1850s. Almost without exception, the gurus of Wall Street believe that the US economy is heading for a soft landing. But it is far too early to conclude that there will be a soft landing. Neither Bush nor Gore has dared to mention the fact that America’s boom could come crashing down at any moment, even though they must be aware of the risks. On the web, there is a wonderful site called iTulip.com, which specialises in warning stupid and greedy investors of the dangers ahead. It argues that there will be a point at which even the most stubborn bull of Wall Street realises that the game is up and starts to yell at his broker: ``Stop arguing with me! Sell, you bastard.’’ This, charmingly, is known as the puke point, and when enough investors reach the PP at the same time panic sets in; iTulip believes this could be November, other analysts think it could be January. So we have had a situation where there has been no shortage of cash to fund new ventures, even those with little chance of commercial success, and no shortage of money to drive shares in these companies to unprecedented levels. Although the pace of expansion under Clinton has been unremarkable when set against those of the 50s and 60s, stock market valuations went crazy. To take one example, the price-earnings ratio for Xerox peaked at 123 in 1961; the peak for the online auction company eBay was 9,571. In the next phase of the cycle, the boom in the stock market created a wealth effect, which in turn fuelled increases in consumption and gave individuals the confidence to take on more debt and companies the confidence to invest in even more marginal projects. Investors in other parts of the world looked on enviously as Wall Street reached
dizzyheights. Desperate for a slice of the action, they bought US assets at overblown prices, driving up the value of the dollar and helping to dampen down American inflation. That this position is precarious in the extreme should be immediately apparent. Financing consumption via stock market gains only holds good while the stock market is going up, and Wall Street has moved sideways this year. Why has it moved sideways? Simple. There has been colossal
overinvestment, profits are starting to come under pressure, and the cannier investors are starting to lose their faith in the ability of the hi-technology sector to deliver the earnings that would justify their absurd share prices. Actually, the really canny investors banked their winnings a long time ago. Yet even now there is a sense of denial - and this could prove costly. Share prices have perked up, belying what is going on in the corporate bond market , where rising yields indicate that a credit squeeze is well under way. If there is borrowing going on at the moment, it is probably distress borrowing. All of which suggests that a hard landing is a much more plausible scenario than the many followers of Dr Pangloss would have us believe. Early cuts in interest rates might just do the trick, but having underwritten the stupidity of investors once, Greenspan will be reluctant to do the same a second time. The economists at Goldman Sachs believe that rates will be kept on hold for the whole of next year, and if they are right the consequence may be a very sharp slowdown indeed, with a plunge in the dollar acting as a further deterrent to easing monetary policy. If this happens, it will provide a suitable epitaph to the Clinton years. As Pollin notes: ``The core of Clinton’s programme has been global economic integration, with minimum interventions to promote equity in labour markets or stability in financial markets. Gestures to the least well-off have been slight and backhanded, while wages for the majority have either stagnated or declined. Wealth at the top, meanwhile, has exploded. But a stratospheric rise in stock prices and debt-financed consumption spree make a mortgaged legacy. Clinton will hand over to his successor the most precarious financial pyramid of the post-war period.” It could be a good election to lose. — By arrangement with The Guardian
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NCAER cuts growth to 6.1 pc NEW DELHI, Nov 6 (PTI) — The National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) today revised downward the economic growth projections for the current fiscal from 7 per cent to 6.1 per cent and warned that the hike in the petroleum prices would push inflation beyond 7 per cent during the year. Cautioning that diminished expectations on overall economic conditions and the financial position of corporates had pulled down the Business Confidence Index
(BCI) during July-September, NCAER said buoyant global market and new economic segments were unable to arrest the slowdown. Attributing the slowdown in the economy to slack growth in industry and agriculture, a survey by the apex research body said “a combination of external and domestic shocks has adversely affected the pace of the economic growth in 2000-01.” Inflation rate, based on the wholesale price index (WPI), was placed at 7.1 per cent, well above the 3 per cent experienced last year and above the projected 5 per cent at the beginning of the current fiscal. NCAER indicated that the hike in the international price of crude had led to an increase in the domestic price of petroleum products, and higher POL prices meant higher rate of inflation. Stating that the higher import bill had widened the trade deficit in Q1, it said although forex reserves were adequate to cover the increased import bill, firming up of the interest rates in the USA and appreciation of the US dollar vis-a-vis other major currencies led to pressure on the exchange rate of the rupee. Although “new economy” segments, comprising mainly IT, communication and entertainment electronics, continued to record further gains in output and sales, growth in “old economy”, particularly in capital goods and intermediates, had decelerated significantly in the current year. On the consumer goods sector, NCAER said it was marked by a slower growth in some of the durables like passenger cars after steep increases in sales recorded in the last fiscal. The review observed that the balance-sheet of the government for the first four months suggested better revenue collection and control over expenditures, and said fuel related expenditures were likely to overshoot the budgeted levels. In its latest round of business expectations Survey, conducted in September, NCAER said the BCI, an indicator of market expectations and confidence, had fallen for the second consecutive quarter of the current fiscal by 14.6 per cent.
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World Bank President to focus on states NEW DELHI, Nov 6 — The World Bank President, Mr James D.Wolfensohn, will focus on states during his ten-day visit to India beginning tomorrow. Mr Wolfensohn’s schedule in the country, which begins from Mumbai, is in keeping with the reform agenda, which has shifted to the states over the past few years. The Bank Group has reoriented its strategy to focus mainly on those states that have chosen to embark on a comprehensive programme of economic reforms. These include some of the poorer states with the worst social indicators. The Bank President would be meeting the chief ministers of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Gujarat,
Maharashtra, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh to review the state-level operations of the Bank in India. Mr Wolfensohn would reach the capital on November 13, when he is expected to meet senior leaders, including the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Behari
Vajpayee, the Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, and the Ministers of Health, Power and Information Technology. Besides touring development projects and interacting with government leaders, the World Bank President would assess the impact of the bank’s assistance programme in India. He would also assess how the bank’s mission of poverty reduction was being implemented in the country. Mr Wolfensohn’s visit to India comes at a time when the bank is developing comprehensive assistance programes for reforming states. All bank loans to the states continue to be channeled through the Central Government, and then on-lent to the states. In support of this strategy, the bank is undertaking fiscal studies of the major states in collaboration with local research institutions. Andhra Pradesh was the first state to benefit from this new type of state-focused lending. A loan of US $ 543.2 million loan was approved in June 1998 for the multisectoral Andhra Pradesh Economic Restructuring Project, which provides urgently needed resources to the state for health, education, nutrition, rural development, and civil service reforms, while supporting ongoing reforms intended to redirect spending towards priority areas by restructuring the state’s public expenditure. This was followed a few months later by a US$1 billion commitment for a series of loans for restructuring AP’s power sector. In the financial year 2000 Uttar Pradesh became the second state to receive state-level bank assistance, through a multisectoral package aimed at supporting its economic reform programme. Operations supporting primary education and health systems development as well as fiscal, public sector and power sector reform, have provided urgently needed funds, especially for the improvement of social services for the poor, while helping the state put its finances on a sustainable path. The reforms encompass the civil service, tax reform and privatisation. Further operations are envisaged to support highway development as well as reforms in the water sector. Discussions are underway with other states for similar assistance. |
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Andhra Bank
to tap market CHANDIGARH, Nov 6 — Braving unfriendly market conditions, Andhra Bank plans to enter the market in January next year to raise Rs 150 crore. The issue pricing and other details are being worked out. This was announced by the bank’s Chairman and Managing Director, Mr B Vasanthan, at a press conference here today. The CMD was here to open tomorrow the bank’s branch in Sector 8 of Panchkula — the second in Haryana after Faridabad. Detailing expansion plans for the North, Mr Vasanthan said the bank will also open its branches in Gurgaon, Panipat and Rohtak, besides Patiala and Noida. Asked about the implementation of the voluntary retirement scheme, he said the bank’s board would take up the issue shortly. Of the 14,000 total employees, about 2,000 are expected to benefit from the VRS. The bank, he said, has been making profits for the last five years. For the year ended March 31, 2000 the bank made a net profit of Rs 120.59
crore. The bank ranked No 1 among all nationalised banks with the highest capital adequacy ratio for the year 1999-2000. In terms of percentage of growth in deposits, the bank topped among all public sector banks. The deposits of the bank stood at Rs 16082 on September 30, 2000. The net NPAs as percentage to net advances stood at 3.47 per cent at the end of March, 2000. |
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Zee to offer Internet
on DTH platform NEW DELHI, Nov 6 (PTI) — Zee Network today announced a joint venture with Sivasankaran’s Sterling group for establishing its Direct to Home (DTH) operations in the country. “We are happy to welcome Sterling group as our partner since they will add value in terms of the technology they have developed. And we have a versatile set-top box with features like interactivity, DVD and CD player all in one,” Chief Operating Officer of Zee Network Dev Naganand said in a statement here. He, however, did not disclose any further details about the JV company’s structure. Naganand said a simple version of the set-top box would be available to the households at less than Rs 5,000 adding that the higher end of the box will also be able to provide Internet services on the proposed DTH platform. “We are happy to join forces with the country’s leading content provider Zee Network,” promoter of the Sterling group Sivasankaran said. He said the company had already signed similar agreements with other channels including Sun Network, Udaya and Asianet and also had an in-principle understanding with established foreign and Indian channels to be on this DTH platform. “We believe that there will be nine million computers in India and all computers will be served by DTH with a DTV card, which will cost Rs 995,” Sivasankaran added. |
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Telephone
charges to be reduced NEW DELHI, Nov 6 (PTI) — Close on the heels of slashing the telephone registration charges by 33 per cent from Rs 3000 to Rs 2000 for urban subscribers, the government today said it planned to further reduce the charge to Rs 1000 in future. “We are looking at further reduction in telephone registration charge to Rs 1000 as part of plans to achieve telephone on demand targets by March 2002,” Communication Minister Ram Vilas Paswan said here. The registration charges cannot be reduced to Rs 1,000 now as the new corporation Bharat Sanchar Nigam
(BSNL) has to equip itself to meet huge demand arising due to lower charges, he told reporters after the meeting of Consultative Committee on Telecommunication. In the rural areas the registration charges have been reduced by 50 per cent at Rs 500 from Rs 1,000, with effect from November 1. |
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Microsoft
launches servers NEW DELHI, Nov 6 (PTI) — Microsoft today launched six new servers in the .Net Enterprise category, developed on a platform which enables the rapid development,
integration and orchastration of any group of services and applications into a single solution. With this launch, which is the largest ever from Microsoft, the company outlined a new generation of industry standard software and services to run the most demanding enterprise solutions, a senior company official said here. “Infrastructure and tools are going to become crucial for businesses to harness the untapped potential of the third generation internet, Managing Director of Microsoft India Sanjay Mirchandani told reporters here. |
Patiala gets its first
online MT institute PATIALA,
Nov 6 (UNI) — Medical transcription, a lucrative career in the USA but hitherto unknown here, has come to this former princely town, courtesy Excellent Carewer Step (ECS), a division of Excellent Softtech Limited (ECL). The institute, to be inaugurated by Punjab Finance Minister Kanwaljit Singh shortly, will offer quality medical training with graduate certification from Career
Step-LLC (CS-LLC), USA, which has global recognition and offers online medical transcription training through the Internet. Addressing a seminar of students, doctors, para-medical staff, nurses, the
CS-LLC chief Executive, Dr Morvin Loflin, said that the production of the unit of the centre would have an installed capacity of 1,12,500 lines per day with accuracy level of above 99 per cent and cent per cent guaranteed jobs. Excellent Softtech Limited CMD Dhiran Chalana said
ECS would set up 20 centres in Punjab, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Madhya Pradesh, Delhi and Chandigarh. All the 6,000-odd trainees trained in medical transcription by June next year would be offered employment on salaries ranging between Rs 72,000 and Rs 1.44 lakh per annum by
ECS. The trainees from the day one would start earning stipend, he added. Dr Morvin
Loflin, CS-LLC president, Ms Andrea Anaya, and an NRI Director, Dr Arun Sofia, said the students could improve computer skills and develop medical transcription faster. The centre would have unique features like web page technology, automatic computer grading, modern digital skills, and live chat room for interaction. Chalana said the demand for medical transcription was growing in India and
MT business contributed significantly to total it exports. This provided vast opportunities for employment for students and housewives having good command over English. Essar Cell launches
Short Message Service CHANDIGARH, Nov 6 — Essar Cellphone today announced the launch of Short Message Service (SMS) in Haryana , Rajasthan, and UP (East) . This service will enable the user to send and receive text messages to and from their mobile phones. The new SMS will allow the Essar Cellphone subscribers to send and receive messages anywhere within the country to SMS enabled phones. For the first three weeks, from November 6 to November 31, this service will be available free of cost. Aksh Optifibre bags order NEW
DELHI, Nov 6 (PTI) — Aksh Optifibre has bagged $ 170 million export contract from a us-based company for optical fibre cable, to be executed over the next three years. The company is also in advanced stages of negotiating for two more long term export contracts, Aksh said in a statement here.
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He paid ‘family price’ LONDON: The latest edition of the American Esquire magazine publishes a long “exit interview” with Bill Clinton about his eight years in the White House. How had the presidency changed him, he was asked; and he said it had changed him for the better. “Because I laboured from the first day I was in office, and even in the campaign, under a virtually unprecedented barrage of attack, both political and personal, it helped me to develop a certain discipline and a certain humility . . . it made me sort of get up and go to work every day, no matter what else was going on. And so I think that it helped me personally to be a better person, to be constantly judged and condemned and torn apart, then to have to confess error and be publicly humiliated and all that . . . it really helped me a lot, because I think that one of the greatest sins of character almost everybody is vulnerable to is pride”. The Republicans, he said, have failed to make his character an issue against Al Gore in the current presidential campaign for two reasons: “One is, unlike them, I have apologised for what I did wrong, and most Americans think I paid a pretty high price. Most people make a personal mistake, but they’re not publicly humiliated and strip-searched. But everybody pays a personal price, and most Americans know that the family price is the highest price. So most people are not like politicians and pundits who only keep score in terms of whether you got hurt politically. Most people got this, and they know that I didn’t get out of this for free”. — The Guardian Sitar maestro asks MNCs for help LONDON: Sitar maestro Ustad Vilayat Khan has asked MNC to help preserve and promote Indian classical music. “In the past, Maharajas and Nawabs (erstwhile rulers) patronised Indian art, culture and music but in the modern days, the corporate bodies should take upon themselves that role,” Khan told PTI here. Khan, who has been acknowledged as “Bharat Sitar Samrat” by the Indian Classical Artists Association, said he was happy to see that youngsters were very much interested in Indian culture and classical music. “It is up to us to lead or mislead them.” The sitar maestro, who has entered into an exclusive tie-up with Navras Records, was honoured by Indian High Commissioner Nareshwar Dayal at a function here on Friday.
— PTI Why Tendulkar is still angry NEW YORK: Controversial Marathi playwright Vijay Tendulkar, in an interview with Newsweek, has said India is so burdened with traditions that it is harming the country. “I have a love-hate relationship with my country. We’re so overburdened with traditions, so stuck. I’m envious of America’s openness to change. Refusal to change is harming India. At times, I’m in pain”, he said. Asked why he was called the angry young man of Marathi theatre, 72-year-old Tendulkar said it was anger at the human
condition. “Distrubing real-life experiences make you want to change things until you see that you can’t make an impact”. The women in his life, he said, had to fight for basic things. “My sister was brought up to be so dependent, she could not make decisions. My father refused to arrange her marriage so she ended up a
single woman in a society that insisted on marriage. “She spent the end of her life in an old woman’s home. She could have been creative, she did translations for a magazine I edited. I saw her and my mother as victims — one in marriage, the other outside”, he said.
— PTI |
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Jain Studios net profit rises 59 pc NIIT has no plans to go in for
US listing Reliance to invest $3b in
LNG business Tata Consultancy plans centre in Noida Aksh optifibre bags $ 170 m contract |
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Spice Telecom Houston Tech M.P. Pinto IOC offer CNN shows |
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