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March 27, 2001, Chandigarh, India   
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SC extends CNG bus deadline
It pays to have flexible working hours
Rural industries project in Bathinda Dishnet services for
Ludhiana Poor man’s mobile rings in
Gurgaon |
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HSBC branch in
Chandigarh 10 CSE firms declared defaulters Haryana team to woo foreign investors Archies plans more outlets
Men go in for cars, women fashion Quake-resistant houses Cathay starts flight to Delhi Rats back on the menu Aiwa to slash 5,000 jobs
Export of sports goods dips
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SC extends CNG bus deadline
New Delhi, March 26 “If any bus operator, including stage carriage permit holders, have placed or will place by March 31, 2001 firm orders for CNG buses or for conversion into CNG mode, they shall be permitted to operate equal number of their existing buses, which are not more than eight years-old, till September 30, 2001,” the Court said. Giving an example, the court said if a bus operator had 20 buses and placed firm orders for CNG buses for 10 buses, then from April 1, 2001, he would be allowed to ply 10 buses from the existing fleet of 20. Refusing to give any blanket extension of the March 31 deadline set almost three years ago, a bench comprising Chief Justice A S Anand, Justice B. N. Kirpal and Justice V. N. Khare said the relaxation was being given “in public interest and with a view to mitigate the sufferings of the cummuter public in general and the school children in particular”. The bench said as Delhi Transport Corporation has placed firm orders for 1880 CNG buses with manufacturers, it would be allowed to ply equal number of buses even after March 31. The Court directed that after April 1, 2001, “no commercial vehicle (buses) will be registered in Delhi which does not conform to the July 28, 1998 order.” By the July 28 order, the court had ordered that no city bus would ply in the capital without being run on CNG or other clean fuel. The court directed the Transport Department of the Delhi Government to ensure compliance of the order and made Transport secretary Ashok Pradhan responsible for this. It said Pradhan, after satisfying himself about the firm order placed by the operators, would give a permit and no bus without such a permit would ply in the national capital after April 1, 2001. On its refusal to give a blanket extension to the March 31 deadline, the bench said giving such an extension would amount to “putting premium on the lapses and inaction of the administration and the private transport operators”. Referring to the Delhi Government’s plea that if an extension was not given to the deadline, it would result in “urban chaos”, the court sarcastically said “this ‘urban chaos’ which may arise as a result of not extending the deadline, is a creation of the administration and the private operators and they have to thank themselves for it.” “The administration does admit its ‘lapses’ but the additional Solicitor General has time and again submitted that for their lapses,’let the commuting public not suffer’. It appears to be an argument in despair,” the bench said.
PTI
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It pays to have flexible working hours London, March 26 Other companies that have taken this path report the same outcome. In its well-regarded `Work-Life Balance Manual’, the UK’s Industrial Society details case study after case study all pointing the same way. With their huge and predominantly female workforces, banks were always likely to be ahead of the field. They estimate that the hidden cost of losing a good senior manager can be $56,800 when you take into account recruitment costs for a replacement, time spent interviewing candidates and the bill for training them. If it was not to lose staff who wanted to start families, Lloyds TSB needed to let them work part-time, share jobs, take career breaks, work only in term time, compress their five-day week into four days or work from home. But the bank also encourages men to join the scheme. `More and more people are doing it because they just want a life outside work,’ says Evans. `That means they suffer less stress at work because they are not constantly worried about things outside.’ Staff do not have to give a reason for wanting to join the scheme. Many small businesses already operate flexible working: when you just have three employees, it is fairly easy to let them mix and match their hours and duties. But overall, it is estimated that only one in 10 UK companies allows it. Authoritarian employers will, of course, be unwilling to believe that people will work responsibly unless they are forced to, and have their work monitored. But the evidence seems to be that, when these schemes are properly introduced, employees generally respond very well to the trust placed in them. Many parents have felt compelled to tell untruths to their employers, taking time off sick to look after an ill child, for example. Taking away this pressure to lie by giving staff flexible working arrangements seems to produce a far healthier workplace atmosphere. The UK is actually moving quite fast towards embracing work-life balance. But it needs to do something to tackle the long-hours culture, which means that UK men work the longest hours in Europe, with a quarter of our fathers putting in more than 50 hours a week. A raft of recent legislation has pushed us this way, such as the right to four weeks holiday, the part-time workers’ directive which put them on a par with full-timers and the measures in extending maternity leave and introducing paternity leave. Employment specialist Matthew Lewis of British solicitors Hammond Suddards Edge says: `People are very careful about dismissing out of hand an employee’s request to return to work on a part-time basis.’ This reflects a body of case law very favourable to people with family responsibilities. But there is also pressure from younger people for a better quality of life. More than 80 per cent of 18-24-year-olds say they would be more motivated by work-life balance schemes, according to research by EWLB. And long hours damage lives. In a report published this month, Married to the Job?, the Chartered Institute of Personnel and Development said that in half the relationships where one partner works long hours their sex life is harmed. The report’s author, Melissa Compton-Edwards, says: `Once a lot of university-educated young people have been at work for 10 years, they often think, `There must be more to life than this’. `They find that the vision of climbing up the organisation isn’t that fulfilling. In a healthy economy, where skills are in short supply, employers will have to offer more flexible ways of working.’ When colleagues talk about using flexitime to look after their family, youprobably imagine them looking after their children. But we are actually witnessing a boom in `eldercare’. There are now almost exactly the same number of children under 16 in the UK population as there are over-sixties - about 12 million people in each category. Looking after an elderly person is difficult for someone with a job. In the US, Ceridien says: `Half of employed carers of the elderly reported taking time off, coming in later, or working fewer hours; 6 per cent stopped working altogether; and 4 per cent took early retirement. In total, at least 50 work hours per year are lost by employed carers.’ But now some employers are starting to think about this. Peugeot in Coventry in the UK, for instance, runs a daycare centre for the elderly in conjunction with the Motor & Allied Trades Benevolent Fund. It was set up particularly to take care of Alzheimer’s sufferers and has capacity for 25 people each day. By arrangement with The Observer
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Rural industries project in Bathinda Bathinda, March 26 Official sources said under this project small and big industries woule be set up in the rural areas to generate employment opportunities through enhanced credit flow to the rural nonfarm sector. The employment to the rural population would be provided by facilitating the setting up of cottage, village, tiny and small industries in rural areas. Mr A Ramanathan, Chief General Manager, Nabard, who along with Mr Ajaib Singh Bhatti, Additional Deputy Commissioner (ADC), while launching Drip in this district, said yesterday a three-day workshop on Gole-Oriented Project Planning (GOPP) would be organised in April to find out the areas which could be explored for the industries. All government agencies, commercial banks, NGOs, rural banks and entrepreneurs associations would be invited to participate in DRIP to make it a big success. People in the rural areas were being made aware of this project. Under DRIP, training and production centres, mother units, common service centres and artisan guilds would be set up through beneficiaries. The main stress would be laid on those which would set up the manufacturing unit in the rural areas. That units would also be promoted which would get raw material from rural areas. He said there was no limit of advancement of loans under DRIP. The loan would be disburs through primary lending institutions. Mr Ramanathan said DRIP was launched as pilot project in five districts of the country in 1993-94 which was a big success. Seven more districts were brought under this pilot project in 1999-2000. To identify the areas where the industry could be promoted, a survey would be conducted to know the likings of prospective beneficiaries. The project duration was five years.
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Dishnet services for
Ludhiana Ludhiana, March 26 Subscribers to this services from Ludhiana, Khanna and the adjoining areas can connect to this facility with a single local call dial up number 172341. Soon the local dialing facility will be extended to Jalandhar and Phagwara. The Ludhiana dial-up services also covers Jagraon, Samrala, Nawanshahr and the adjoining areas. Dishnet DSL has introduced various packages to suit the budgets and requirements of various categories of people subscribing to the services. A 50-hour pack parts with a price tag of Rs 149. Besides, a 30-hour pack comes at Rs 199 and a 100-hour pack at Rs 750. Unlimited surfing for one month comes at Rs 299 and at Rs 3000 for a period of one year. The “freedom plan” comes at Rs 1800 for one hour of use every day for a period of five years. Announcing the launch of the service, Mr Prashant Verma, General Manager-Sales &Marketing said, “We need to link Ludhiana with our service since it has a large number of industries with export potential and also a large number of people living here have relatives abroad.” |
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Poor man’s mobile rings in Gurgaon New Delhi, March 26 Pulse rate for local, domestic long distance (STD) and international long distance (ISD) calls has been kept as applicable to an ordinary telephone, a senior official from Gurgaon Telecom told PTI. The department is offering wireless fixed and wireless mobile connections using wireless in local loop (WLL) technology with a refundable deposit of Rs 10,000 in case of fixed connection. The deposit at Rs 10,000 would, however, be adjustable in case of wireless mobile (limited mobility) connection. The subscribers would be required to pay one year rental as security deposit for the fixed WLL connection while for mobile connection the security deposit has been kept in three slabs of Rs 2,000 for local calls only, Rs 3,000 for local and STD and Rs 5,000 for local, STD and ISD facilities. The officials said that initially the department would be offering 2,000 fixed and mobile connections and the capacity would be raised subsequently according to response in the market. Department of Telecommunications (DoT) had announced its policy to allow basic telecom operators to provide limited mobility in January this year. The cellular operators have filed a case in Appellate Telecom Tribunal chellenging DoT’s decision. Though the Telecom Dispute Settlement and Appellate Tribunal (TDSAT) had refused to grant a stay in this regard, but had said that operators must inform subscribers that continuation of this scheme would be subject to the final verdict of the Tribunal. Rental for the wireless fixed connection would be as applicable to an ordinary telephone. |
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HSBC branch in
Chandigarh Chandigarh, March 26 The new branch offers the full range of HSBC’s personal banking products and services, including car loans, home loans, loans against shares, personal loans, depository services, business banking services for commercial establishments and business people and a 24-hour ATM facility. The bank also plans to introduce Premier, HSBC’s international banking service shortly, said a bank release here today. HSBC has introduced gold and classic international credit cards to customers in Chandigarh. The bank claims to be a leader in the credit cards merchant acquiring businesses in India and has started signing up leading business as its merchants in Chandigarh. Mr Richard Groves, HSBC’s Senior Manager, Northern India said: “We offer the full range of financial services to customers in Chandigarh that we are providing to customers in other major cities in India.
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10 CSE firms declared defaulters Kolkata,
March 26 The decision was taken after the exchange’s sub-committee on defaulters, comprising SEBI nominee on CSE board D N Rawal, public nominees V N Reddy, Shyamal Sen and CSE President and Executive Director at a meeting recommended that all the 10 firms be declared defaulters and proceedings be initiated as per bye-laws of the exchange, a CSE release said. “We have recommended declaration of all the 10 firms as defaulters,” SEBI nominee Rawal told reporters after the meeting. The sub-committee’s recommendation was ratified by the full board of the exchange at a meeting later during the day, a CSE committee member said. Only a few public nominees and one of the committee member — Girish Mehta — were not present.
PTI |
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Haryana team to woo foreign investors Chandigarh, March 26 The delegation will address investment meets at London in the UK Toronto and Vancouver in Canada, and Washington, Wisconsin, Seattle, San Francisco, San Jose and Los Angeles in the USA. On its return journey, the delegation will have a stopover in Shanghai for meeting the Economic and Trade Chamber of Shanghai and visiting the Special Economic Zone. The visit includes meeting with the Chairman and CEO of IBM, Mr Lou V Grstner and officials of Epson, besides roadshows in Silicon Valley and Santa Clara. Mr Sampat Singh, Finance Minister, will also visit Wisconsin on the invitation of the Governor, Mr Scott McCallurn to explore the possibility of setting up multi-speciality hospitals in the state. A meeting with the premier of British Columbia, Mr Ujjal Dosanjh, is also on the schedule. The delegation will include Mr A.N. Mathur, Finance Secretary, Mr S Y Quraishi, Principal Secretary to the CM, Mr Harbaksh Singh, Managing Director of HSIDC, Mr Dharam Vir, IT Secretary and Mr Sanjeev Kaushal,
DPR. Archies plans more outlets Chandigarh, March 26 Mr Moolchandani, who was here to take part in the silver jubilee celebrations of the Dewsun, said e-greetings can never replace the virtual card as the former lacked the personal touch. |
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Men go in for cars, women fashion Singapore, March 26 Denmark, with 54 per cent of its households connected to the Internet, took top spot among 12 nations surveyed. The United States came in second with 50.9 per cent of its homes wired, trailed by Singapore (47.4 per cent), Taiwan (40 per cent) and South Korea (37.3 per cent), NetValue's January, 2001, global Internet usage report showed. China and Spain lagged behind with less than 18 per cent of households connected to the Internet, NetValue said. The gender difference was most glaring in Mexico, where men make up almost 66 per cent of the country's Internet users. The United States boasted the greatest online equality with men making up 52 per cent of surfers. Men and women also have different interests. The favourite male sites across the 12 countries involved cars, sports and pornography. Females flock to sites for women, fashion, beauty and electronic greeting cards, the report said. Almost all the world's top sites are portals. Apart from China and Germany, Yahoo.com, its local sites and msn.com were among the top domains in the countries studied. Asian countries take the lead in non-web activities such as audio-video use, chats, file transfers, games, instant messaging and news. But Denmark has the greatest concentration of e-mail users at 73.4 per cent of its population. South Korea stands out among Asian countries with half of its Internet population using online games, four times more than Taiwan which came in second place with 12 per cent. South Korea also tapped into the Internet's audio-video capability more than twice as much as all other markets. The other countries surveyed were France, Hong Kong and Britain.
Reuters Quake-resistant houses Toronto, March 26 The orders were placed to the company, Minaean Ventures, by the governments of Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and HUDCO during a visit of Canadian Building Trade Mission, organised by the Canada India Business Council to India earlier this month. The units, based on cold-formed steel and concrete fiberboard building system, have been tested (simulator) in Canada to seismic zone 5.5 and withstood 240 km of force wind, Murray A. Jans, Executive Director of Canada India Business Council, who led the mission, said. Mervyn Pinto, Chairman of Minaean Ventures, said structural strength of the material offered excellent protection from earthquakes and hurricane force winds. The system was designed to accommodate practically any floor plan, from small one-bedroom homes to multi-storied apartment blocks. Pinto said the system was a unique concept of construction which replaced regular masonary, wood and other internal and external walls construction with corrugated steel walls panels and concrete fibre paneling.
PTI Cathay starts flight to Delhi Beijing, March 26 The new air route, operating four times a week, uses an airbus A330-300 aircraft. The new route became possible with an air traffic rights agreement signed between Hong Kong and India on January 19, 2001. Cathay Pacific believes that the agreement will bring great benefits to tourism and business interests in both places. “The airlines of both Hong Kong and India now have far greater room to grow and a greater capacity to provide extra seats for passengers and space for cargo,” official Xinhua news agency reported from Hong Kong. Under the new service, Delhi will become Cathay Pacific’s second passenger destination in India after Mumbai. The airline began flying to Mumbai in 1982. PTI Rats back on the menu Hanoi, March 26 The Tuoi Tre Chu Nhat (Youth Sunday) Magazine said at least three tonnes of rats were being brought to market daily in the southern province of Bac Lieu. They are destined to be served up as rat sour soup, fried rat, curried rat and grilled rat, all popular dishes in the rice farming Delta, where the rodents are a scourge for crops. Rat meat is sold at $1.70 per kg for top cuts down to $0.80 for the lowest grade, the paper said. The report said data from the Bac Lieu Agriculture and Rural Development Service showed up to 270,000 rats had been caught on 34,000 hectares (84,000 acres) of rice fields in the province so far this year. It said rat catchers were managing to earn up to $4 a day. They were disappointed last year when heavy floods that lasted for months in the Delta nearly wiped out the rat population, but the phenomenal reproductive rate of the rodents means no shortage lasts for long.
Reuters Aiwa to slash 5,000 jobs Tokyo, March 26 Aiwa, facing its second straight year of losses, will issue 30 billion yen ($243 million) in shares to shore up its capital. Sony, which owns 50.6 per cent of the company, will get 50.6 per cent of the stock. The rest goes to other shareholders. In the latest restructuring since Aiwa began cutting jobs last July, it said it would consolidate three production lines with nine separate factories — in Japan’s Iwate prefecture, Malaysia and Indonesia — into one line with one factory.
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Export of sports goods dips Jalandhar, March 26 Mr D.K. Mittal, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Commerce, while talking to this correspondent, admitted that the export of sports goods, which was to the tune of 65 million last year, has declined by 6 per cent this yea. Showing its concern regarding decline in exports of sports goods for the last five years, the Ministry of Commerce had conducted a survey in the world market and it was found that there was a big demand for non-conventional sports goods like rugby and baseball equipment, health and fitness goods, golf sticks and balls, water surfing goods, and skewing equipment in Canada, USA, Japan and Latin America. “Infact, the Indian manufacturers, who have been producing mainly conventional sports goods like hockey sticks and balls, cricket bats and badminton, will have to diversify into new products which are in a big demand throughout the world. The ministry has been in touch with the foreign technical experts for technology transfer of these products,” he added. “The ministry, in order to promote exports, will provide 50 per cent subsidy with a maximum of Rs 6 lakh for setting up an export office abroad and subsidies will be allowed on air fare expenses on the foreign trips of an exporter,” Mittal said. When asked about the non availability of malburry and willow wood, required for manufacturing of cricket bats and hockey sticks, which had badly affected the exports, since the Jammu and Kashmir Government had imposed a ban on its exports to other states Mr Mittal said that Jammu and Kashmir Government has agreed in principle to lift the ban and a resolution to this effect will be passed during the current session of the assembly. While commenting upon the repercussions on the WTO agreement on the SSI sector in the country, Mittal said the role of these SSI will have to be changed in the present scenario since they could not compete with the big manufacturers. These units should act as ancillary units and start producing those items which are required by big manufacturers for their finished products. |
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Sun F&C Dundee MF Tata Chemicals Engineering expo Aptech course Dell, Samsung Gestetner profit |
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