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| Saturday,
November 25, 2000, Chandigarh, India   
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Govt firm on reining in fiscal deficit:
Sinha Assocham proposes
national trade policy Tap rural areas for MFs: SEBI
chief Govt to offer 25
oil blocks PNB launches international
credit card Will tablet or pad-style computers sell? Sick company cannot
withhold PF dues: HC Need for customer care:
experts |
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Domestic IT spending
to touch Rs 21,000 cr
Sony kills Santa Claus
ads Daimler-Chrysler
selects 7 Indians Looks matter
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Govt firm on reining in fiscal deficit: Sinha NEW DELHI, Nov 24 (UNI) — The government will be able to meet the budgetary target of fiscal deficit at 5.1 per cent of the GDP, Finance Minister Yashwant Sinha today said. Replying to supplementaries in the Lok Sabha, Mr Sinha said this was due to measures to control expenditure and because most revenue targets were being met. There was, however, some a shortfall on customs during the first seven months of the current fiscal but direct taxes were doing well, Mr Sinha said, adding excise revenue was close to the target. The government had taken a series of measures to control growth in non-plan, non-developmental expenditure. These include a mandatory 10 per cent cut in budgetary allocation for non-plan non-salary expenditure of all ministries and departments and autonomous institutions; a complete ban on purchase of new vehicles for next year; 10 per cent cut in the consumption and allocation of funds for expenditure on POL for staff cars; ban on creation of new posts for one year and ban on foreign travel for study tours and seminars. The gross fiscal deficit of the Central Government during the first six months of 2000-2001 (April to September) was Rs 45,592 crore and was lower by 18.7 per cent compared with a fiscal deficit of Rs 52,395 crore in April-September last year. Mr Sinha said curbing avoidable administrative expenditure has been a continuous priority of the government. Instructions had been issued from time to time in this regard. The government issued guidelines on September 24, 2000, outlining a number of austerity measures. If a ministry wants creation of additional posts then it is asked to match that with additional savings. The minister said the Eleventh Finance Commission had submitted its main report for 2000-2005 on July 7 and a report on additional terms of reference on August 31. The report was under government examination. Some state governments in their reaction to its recommendations expressed views on inter-allocation of share of taxes and grants-in aid to the states. Mr Sinha said the government will take steps during the fiscal as to what share it should give to the states in respect of the proposals by them. |
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Assocham proposes national trade policy NEW DELHI, Nov 24 (PTI) — The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) today proposed setting up of a National Internal Trade Commission to formulate a national trade policy and a comprehensive Act to deal with all aspects of trade. In a paper submitted to the government the chamber recommended a national trade policy to act as a guiding principle to initiate short-term changes and help achieve the long-term objective of creating a common domestic market, an Assocham release said. The suggested Act, the paper said, should set up a National Internal Trade Commission to facilitate the formulation of a national policy. It also suggested a separate board or authority at the state level to facilitate domestic trade since such an institutional arrangement would also help resolve the issues pertaining to local taxes. A second Act relating to consumers should also be enacted essentially to protect the consumers’ interests like prevention of adulteration, truthful information regarding weights, contents and ingredients, Assocham said. The two acts, it added, must be uniformly implemented all over the country for them to be more effective. Assocham also suggested that the financial needs of the trading community be recognised as genuine and sustained efforts made to free the sector from the informal markets using unaccounted money and costly credit. “Allowing commercial banks to be more liberal in their attitude towards lending to traders would definitely help,” it added. To meet the needs of small and medium traders, who account for the bulk of trade, the paper suggested a specialised financial institution like the Small Industries Development Bank of India (SIDBI) to cater to their needs. This financial institution could play a multiple role of providing finances as well as sensitising traders about laws and regulations as well as the important consumers’ rights and privileges. The infrastructure needs of trading networks should be taken up by each state government in consultation with representatives from the trading community, Assocham said adding that typically, the needs range from enhancing transportation speed, quick communication channels, trade centres with internet and on-line trading facilities, modern storage facilities and godowns, stockyards and transport
nagars. |
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Tap rural areas for MFs: SEBI chief MUMBAI, Nov 24 (PTI) — Indian mutual funds should go beyond cities and tap investors in semi-urban and rural areas to prepare for a double digit growth, Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Chairman D.R. Mehta said. “MF industry faces the danger of concentration in metropolitan cities. They need to expand in rural and semi-urban areas to expand investors base,” Mehta said at the launch of Association of Mutual Fund Association of India (AMFI) revamped website here today. Asking MF players to learn from automobile industry sales where rural and semi-urban areas were contributing to the turnover of the companies, he said mutual funds should follow suit for accelerating its growth. Mehta welcomed the IDBI-Principal mutual fund’s reported alliance with Indian postal system, saying rural investor would immensely benefit from such arrangements. He said MF industry has grown rapidly in recent times but was likely to face danger because of the clout of big players adding that “these players have easy access to regulators, more seen in advanced countries, and tend to influence the policy”. “We must guard against this... And the regulator would have to take special care to guard against such influence”, Mehta added. Mehta said making the Net Asset Value (NAV) information on real-time-basis on the Internet would help investors get timely information and make better investment decisions. Quoting a study commissioned by SEBI on investor profile, he said while 2.3 crore people have invested in Mutual Funds, only one crore investors had direct exposure to the markets. “The markets including MFs are gathering institutional character and this is the way they should grow in the future” he added. |
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Govt to
offer 25 oil blocks NEW DELHI, Nov 24 (PTI) — The government said today it will offer 25 oil blocks, including eight each in deep waters and shallow waters, in the second round of new exploration and licensing policy (NELP) before the end of December. “The government will come out with the second round of NELP comprising around 25 blocks - eight deep water, eight shallow water and nine onland - before December, 2000,” Petroleum Minister Ram Naik said at the Executive Assembly of World Energy Council here. The government had earlier this year awarded 25 blocks for exploration out of a total of 48 blocks on offer for private sector participation under the first round of bidding. The minister also announced that the government would soon issue detailed guidelines on exploration for coal bed methane (CBM). The guidelines would be issued after the announcement of the second round of bidding under the NELP, he added. Mr Naik said royalty rate at 12.5 per cent of international market value for crude for onshore area and 10 per cent of offshore area.
PNB launches international
credit card JALANDHAR, Nov 24 — The Punjab National Bank launched its international credit card in collaboration with Hong Kong and Shangai Banking Corporation here today. Mr P.N. Khurana General Manager of PNB, Punjab zone said the card would be of two types — “gold card” and “classic card” which would enable a customer to go in for monetary transactions across the globe. Mr Khurana added that these cards will be accepted at more than 18 million merchant establishments across the globe including about one lakh in India. The major advantage of these cards is these have round the clock access to the cash at 5.5 lakh ATMs worldwide. AMRITSAR (FOC):
Mr Narinderjit Singh, Deputy Commissioner, today launched an PNB International Credit Card. Mr Narinderjit Singh said that the bank was in the forefront of providing efficient banking services for the economic growth of the country. Mr V.K. Sood, DGM of the bank also spoke on the occasion. |
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Will tablet or pad-style computers sell? LAS VEGAS: WHEN Bill Gates showed a tablet PC during his keynote speech at the opening of the Comdex computer trade show in Las Vegas last week, Jon-Erik Prichard was well pleased. Microsoft does not make tablet PCs, but Prichard’s Californian company, Aqcess, does. "We applaud [Microsoft’s] effort, because it legitimises the tablet space, so we have less of an argument to convince buyers. But what Gates showed was a stripped down version of what we have today,’’ said Prichard. Pads and tablets:
The first version of Aqcess’s Qbe ('cube'’) personal computer tablet was a Best of Comdex award winner last year. This year the company unveiled a smaller, lighter model, the Vivo (www.qbenet.com). This runs Windows Me or Windows 2000 and therefore lacks the
"digital ink’’ feature that allows handwriting to be manipulated like word processed text, while retaining the annotations people typically make in paper notebooks. (They put words in boxes, or ring them, and add links or arrows.) Naturally, the Qbe will get
"digital ink’’ when it is added to Windows. In the meantime, it has handwriting recognition, voice recognition, wireless networking, and a built-in camera. The Qbe models are not available in the UK but Prichard says the company is talking to European distributors. Tablet or pad-style computers have been around for more than a decade, GRiD’s GridPad being a notable example. However, they have not been successful with consumers, though they have been used for industrial and commercial applications, including the police and health services. More recently there have been attempts to sell tablet computers as mobile
"internet appliances’’ (IA). This trend started at Comdex two years ago, when National Semiconductor unveiled a reference design for the WebPad as a way of encouraging sales of its Intel-compatible Geode processor (http://ia.national.com). It was continued last year, when Gates demonstrated ``MSN companions’’ during his keynote speech, using a Compaq device. Most of these tablets are not PC-compatible but use an operating system requiring fewer, cheaper hardware resources. Examples include Linux, Be’s BeOS, and Windows CE. But the market has yet to take off. Honeywell launched its version of the WebPad only last month (Online, October 26), but at Comdex, NatSemi unveiled a revised version, the Geode WebPad Metro. This has been co-developed by Metricom, which runs the Ricochet wireless network (www.ricochet.com), and has a built in 128kbps Ricochet wireless modem. Palmtops: Gerry Purdy, founder of the Californian research company Mobile Insights, billed it as the Battle of the Century. The fact that Comdex took time out to debate whether Palm-compatibles were better than PocketPCs showed palmtop computers were being taken seriously. Far more significant was the fact that a dozen similar machines were on show in the halls from a wide range of Asian companies, including Acer, from Taiwan, and China’s giant PC supplier, Legend. The three major stands - Palm, Handspring, and Microsoft’s PocketPC arena - were all mobbed. Handspring’s partner companies were showing a very impressive range of plug-in modules for its Springboard expansion slot (not available on Palm’s systems). But when it came to new devices, Microsoft’s PocketPC/Windows CE 3 was the only system to score. Leading the way was the Cyberbank Multipalm (www.cb.co.kr) from Korea. This includes a palmtop with a built-in mobile phone and unlimited wireless internet access. The 4in colour screen provides full VGA graphics with 640x480 resolution, which is four times as good as a PocketPC and more than 10 times what you get on a Palm’s 160x60 screen. Like other new CE-based devices, it also includes MP3/Windows Media Audio software. PC-EPhone, which will sell the Multipalm in the US, says it expects the device to be manufactured by Samsung in the first quarter of next year.
— The Guardian |
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Sick company cannot withhold PF dues: HC MUMBAI, Nov 24 (PTI) — Can a company absolve itself of the liability of paying dues under the Employees Provident Fund (EPF) Act merely because it is facing proceedings under the Sick Industrial Companies (special provisions) Act (sica)?. No, says the Mumbai High Court which recently held that such dues are payable whether or not an undertaking is sick. Recovery of provident fund and other dues under EPF act did not fall within the scope and purview of section 22 (1) of sica, Justice Dhananjay Chandrachud ruled while rejecting a petition filed by Ralliwolf Ltd seeking a similar relief. “Provident fund and other dues payable under the EPF act are part of the legitimate statutory entitlements of workers. An employer is under obligation to pay his contribution as well as that of his employees to the fund which has been set up under the Act. Such dues form intrinsic part of employees right to life under Article 21 of the Constitution”, he noted. The matter arose out of a petition filed by Ralliwolf Ltd challenging the demand notices issued by authorities under the EPF and Miscellaneous Provisions Act on June 13 this year for recovery of Rs 1.20 crore and Rs 1.23 crore from the company. The petition also challenged the attachment warrants served on June 29 in respect of these provident fund dues whereby the movable and immovable properties of the company were attached. The petitioner’s counsel, Gobindram Talreja, questioned the prohibitory orders issued on June 14 to the company bankers in respect such dues. |
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Need for customer care:
experts GURGAON, Nov 24 — Internationally known experts in the field of business management today underlined that the customer orientation mantra has assumed further importance in the wake of fast technological growth enhancing the logistics and the consequent global competition to retain and increase the market share of firms. The stress on customer-centric orientation of the firms was analysed from various perspectives by the experts on the first day of a two-day International conference on “Customer Relationship Management in India” in the locally situated Management Development Institute (MDI). The conference is being jointly organised by the MDI and Institute for Customer Relationship Management, Atlanta, USA. The experts were of the view that businesses worldwide are enhancing shareholder value by shifting from a “share of the market” mindset to the “share of customer” paradigm through relationship management practices. Relationship management helps firms focus on the lifetime value of customers to enhance their relationship with profitable customers. To be successful in the new
millennium, firms will need to extend this practice of developing long-term relationships with all their other stakeholders including suppliers, intermediaries, partners, and employers. Also, some expressed the view that the underlying philosophy behind CRM is that the cost of attracting a new customer far exceeds the cost of retaining on existing customer thus reemphasizing a shift from a short-term relationship mode. In this connection the main speaker, Dr Jagadish Sheth, who is an internationally known academician from Emory University, said that over the years, the manufacturing costs have reduced from 55 per cent to 30 per cent. Dr Sheth said that
worldwide, marketers in service — like hotels, airlines, etc have been highly successful pioneers in practicing relationship management through loyalty building programs like frequent flyer programmes, memberships, etc. However, now the expectations of customers are greater than ever. Their demand for the “free, perfect and now experience” resonates throughout the business world, he added. |
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Domestic IT spending to touch Rs 21,000 cr NEW DELHI, Nov 24 (PTI) — Fuelled by the high growth in “home” and “small and medium” segments the domestic IT spending in India is expected to cross the Rs 21,000 crore mark by March 2001, according to the latest survey by IDC India. “The domestic IT spending in India is slated to cross the Rs 21,000 crore mark by end of 2000-01. High growth in spending in home and small and medium enterprises (SMEs) would drive the growth in the overall domestic IT spending,” the survey — Map IT 2000 — by IDC India, has pointed out. According to the study Infotech spendings in these two segments would grow at a healthy 55 per cent and 25 per cent respectively during the current fiscal. IDC’s Map IT 2000, based upon end user survey of commercial establishments and households across 25 cities in the country, is aimed at mapping the IT potential of these cities with an effort to capture segment and component spending details within each. Elaborating on the IT spending break-up across various segments, the survey said that the small and medium segments which accounted for 45 per cent of the overall IT spending in 1999-2000 is expected to contribute only about 44 per cent this year. “In the small and medium sites segment, the share of “hardware” to the total IT spending is expected to drop from 64 per cent in 1999-2000 to 59 per cent in 2000-01 and that of services component is expected to grow from 17 per cent to 22 per cent during the said period. The spending of hardware in the SME segment is expected to witness a marginal drop in its share in the same period,” the IDC survey said. Amongst other segments government, research and education would claim 13 per cent of share in the overall IT spendings this year, with 29 per cent share going to the large sites. The home segment which contributed 11 per cent
of the total IT spending in 1999-2000 would account for 14 per cent share in the current fiscal, the survey revealed. “IT spendings in home segment would continue to be hardware-centric in 2000-01 and the component of software and services is not likely to grow,” it said adding that with dominance of single PC households, the annual IT spending on service component is nearly negligible. “The low spending on software can be attributed to the dominance of pirated software in the home segment. Most of the legal software that goes in homes is dominated by operating systems, which are mostly pre-installed,” it added.
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Sony kills Santa Claus ads NEW YORK: Sony Electronics has killed a newly created US Advertising campaign, part of which features Santa Claus being chloroformed and dumped into the trunk of a car, after a cable network objected, the Wall Street Journal reported today its Friday electronic edition. Six commercials promoting SonyStyle.com, a Web site that sells home audio-and-video gear as well as music and movies, were scheduled to begin this week in time for the holiday selling season, the paper said. In the commercials, kidnappers play a series of cruel games with a blindfolded Santa Claus, the paper said. Sony Electronics, a US subsidiary of Japan’s Sony Corp decided it best to pull the lot after the cable network, which Sony did not name, refused to air the advertisements, the paper said. The paper said an executive with knowledge of the situation said it was the commercial featuring Santa being abducted that upset the network. The company grew “concerned that consumers might misinterpret the edginess and irreverence of the campaign and may even be offended,” Grace Ann Arnold, a spokeswoman for Sony Electronics, was quoted as saying. The advertisements were developed by the Young & Rubicam unit of London-based wpp Group. The commercials were expected to appear on such cable networks as Viacom’s
MTV; Walt Disney’s ESPN; and the Discovery Channel, a unit of Discovery Communications inc.
— Reuters Daimler-Chrysler
selects 7 Indians BERLIN: Seven Indians are among 200 young professionals in the engineering and information technology
(IT) sector from around the world being wooed by Daimler-Chrysler to join the ranks of the world’s third biggest car maker. The Indian youngsters in their early and mid-twenties joined others at the just-concluded international e-Day
(IED) organised by Daimler-Chrysler as part of “comprehensive” recruiting measures to rope in “up and coming talent” from across the world. They are among the 40 non-Europeans who were invited by the German Auto major at its Unterturkheim plant, near Stuttgart, to take up a full-time job at the company or participate in one of its special trainee programmes. The Indians included fresh
IIT graduates, some pursuing higher studies abroad and working for automobile companies. The starting annual salary for a full-time job either in
Germany or abroad will be between $ 40,000 and $ 45,000 a company official said adding the 200 youngesters were selected from a
shortlist of 2,000. “I deem it a great privilege to get a job offer from Daimler-Chrysler,” said 24-year-old Krishna Kumar, who hails from Andhra Pradesh and is presently pursuing a post-graduate course in Computer Software at the University of Aberdeen in the United Kingdom.
— PTI Looks matter LONDON: British scientists have found that handsome men have better jobs and earn more than their less attractive counterparts, British newspapers reported today. A study by researchers at London’s Guildhall University has shown that tall men take home ten per cent more pay than their shorter colleagues, according to the Daily Telegraph. The research also found that men who are regarded as unattractive earn 15 per cent less than their better-looking workmates, and plain women are worse off than pretty colleagues by 11 per cent. Obesity has no effect on men’s salaries, but women pay the penalty for being overweight, earning 5 per cent less than slimmer counterparts. The study was based on interviews with 11,000 people all aged 33.
— AFP |
bb
Canara Bank SBP meet Wipro desktop Vshantaram.com Corpn Bank |
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