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Thursday,
August 23, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Bharti sees revenues, demand booming
Attempt to expand WTO agenda opposed
Web pirates ‘ripping off’ top authors
JPC’s term extended till Winter session Daewoo net loss
doubles to 121 cr |
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Another case against Mesco Directors
Argentina gets $ 8 b aid from IMF
Crude oil production dips 5.7pc
Zee to invest Rs 150 cr in programming |
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IMT Manesar site fetches Rs 3.21 cr
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Bharti sees revenues, demand booming
Singapore, August 22 “We are absolutely convinced that India will have 40-50 million mobile customers by the year 2005/06,” Sunil Bharti Mittal, Chairman and Managing Director of the unlisted firm and the Bharti group, told a news conference in Singapore. “We are pegging our position between 10 and 12 million mobile customers by then.” The Bharti group — which counts Singapore Telecommunications E.M. Warburg Pincus and the International Finance Corp among its investors — recently won eight mobile licences at an Indian government auction. It already runs mobile phone networks in five states in India with a subscriber base of about 850,000 and a fixed-line network in Central Madhya Pradesh state with 120,000 customers. The group plans to roll out fixed-line networks in four Indian states and complete its foray into national long-distance telephone business simultaneously. With the opening of telecommunications to private sector competition, customers in India are seen rising sharply. Mittal estimated the customer base for fixed-line phones would grow to about 100 million by 2005 from about 32 million now in the nation of more than one billion people. The penetration rate for fixed-line phones was a meagre 3.18 per cent and just 0.4 per cent for mobile phones, he said. Bharti Tele-Ventures will be spending $1.2 billion to $1.4 billion to roll out mobile, fixed-line and local long-distance services, which will be funded through an equal mix of equity and debt. Mittal said a planned initial public offering (IPO) in India to raise about $200 million to $250 million was likely to be made in the current financial year, perhaps before December. The IPO would offer a maximum of 10 per cent of the firm’s equity and would be directed at foreign institutional investors, he said. Bharti Tele-Ventures clocked a cash profit, excluding depreciation, of $27.69 million in the year to March 31 and $11.02 million in the three months to June 30. SingTel, which has an equity interest of about 32 per cent in the firm, said the second phase of a planned private submarine fibre-optic cable connecting Singapore to India was “delayed slightly” due to poor market conditions. The first phase of the $650 million project, executed by a 50:50 joint venture of SingTel and Bharti, is likely to be ready for commercial service by the first quarter of 2002, SingTel Vice-President for international network Hoh Wing Chee said.
Reuters
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Attempt to expand WTO agenda opposed New Delhi, Aug 22 Chaired by Commerce Secretary Prabir Sengupta, it was conveyed at the meeting that India was firmly committed to the multilateral trading system but was disappointed at the lack of transparency at Seattle. Mr Sengupta also said there was considerable imbalance in the agreements which needed to be corrected if all countries were to benefit from trade liberalisation. He strongly stressed the primacy of the development dimension. The Commerce Secretaries shared their concern and misgivings with regard to the attempts by some developed countries to expand trade agenda. They agreed that it was essential that obligations already entered into be fulfilled in the first instance before taking on fresh commitments and obligations. The Commerce Secretaries agreed on a text of a draft statement which would be put up for the consideration and approval of the Commerce Ministers tomorrow. It was also recommended that the ongoing consultations in Geneva by the SAARC Ambassadors to the WTO should be intensified to include other like-minded countries and also to ensure that the agenda for the fourth WTO Ministerial conference be agreed to without further delay. The Committee has meanwhile visited Kolkata and Mumbai to familiarise itself with the actual working of the Stock Exchanges and also had informal discussions with the representatives of the Reserve Bank of India, Securities and Exchange Board of India, Investors’ Forum and Brokers. It has also heard the views of some independent experts.
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Web pirates ‘ripping off’ top authors
London, August 22 Almost 7,500 copyrighted books are available free and the publishing industry could be faced with the same headaches that the free Napster downloading system created for the music industry. "This is the first original research showing that top authors such as J.K. Rowling (creator of Harry Potter) and John Grisham are being ripped off by Internet pirates," said the British-based Internet monitoring company Envisional. It said authors' latest titles were being "swapped on Napster-like file sharing systems and posted on the Internet for free in their thousands". Envisional's research showed 7,267 pirated e-books could be freely accessed. It warned publishers that the "growing problem has the potential to impact upon the sector as hard as Napster hit the music industry". Science fiction and fantasy titles were the most pirated. Among world renowned authors, Stephen King headed the list, followed by J.K. Rowling, Terry Pratchett, Tom Clancy and Douglas Adams. Two main methods were used for pirating books. A minority were "cracked" copies of copyrighted e-books like Stephen King's novella "Riding the Bullet". The process involved disabling the copy-protection system surrounding an e-book. The most common method was taking traditional copyrighted paper books that were scanned and then converted into e-formulas. They could then be downloaded and printed out. Clare Griffiths, a lawyer at intellectual property specialists Briffa, said: "Copying e-books and downloading them is a straight-forward copyright infringement by the pirate." The quickest and cheapest way of tackling the pirates was to contact the original Internet service provider (ISP) which was "hosting" the illegal material, Griffiths said. Envisional, whose systems help to track down the origin of such material, said the problem was global. "The Internet has enabled intellectual property theft — of the spoken word, still and moving images and music —on an almost unimaginable scale," it said. And it was not just books and music that suffered. "Last year a rumour started spreading that Kentucky Fried Chicken had created a GM (Genetically Modified) chicken without a beak or feathers for use in their restaurants. If this kind of misinformation is left unnoticed and unchecked, it can bring a company to its knees," Envisional warned.
Reuters
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JPC’s term extended till Winter session New Delhi, August 22 The JPC, headed by Mr Prakash Mani Tripathi, seeking extension of time from the Lok Sabha said it would not be possible for it to complete the work entrusted to it by the end of the current session of Parliament as stipulated when it was constituted. The JPC has also been mandated to look into all the issues relating to the Unit Trust of India, including the issues discussed in Parliament. The Committee proposed to take evidence during the inter-session period. After conclusion of evidence of official and non official witnesses, draft report on the subject would be prepared and approved by the JPC Chairman.
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Daewoo net loss doubles to 121 cr New Delhi, August 22 Confirming this, Daewoo India officials told PTI today that its net loss has increased to Rs 121 crore during April-June 2001-02 from Rs 60.75 crore in the year-ago quarter. Sales had fallen by 73 per cent at 94 crore against Rs 353.1 crore last year, the officials said. Operating profits have also come down by over 100 per cent year-on-year at Rs 5 crore from Rs 57.65 crore, they said. During 2000-01, Daewoo India had incurred a net loss of Rs 340.3 crore over a turnover of Rs 814 crore. “The launch of the three cars has been held back till such time a decision is taken on the structure of the new management of Daewoo India in South Korea”. Daewoo India had earlier announced that it would launch three mid-size cars — Lanos, Nubira and Magnus this year. The company currently manufactures the premium small car Matiz and the mid-sized Cielo Nexia cars at its Surajpur plant in Uttar Pradesh where it has invested over Rs 4,500 crore. Daewoo India is believed to be part of the ongoing negotiations with US automaker General Motors for a takeover. GM has reportedly expressed interest in taking over Daewoo’s Changwan, Kusan plants in South Korea besides those in India, Egypt and Vietnam, the company officials said. They said Daewoo India has undertaken a massive exercise, including laying off workers, to cut costs by Rs 103 crore this fiscal. “We have revised our cost cutting target to Rs 103 crore from Rs 85 crore this year,” the officials said. “We are now revamping our dealership and authorised service centres network to make them stock more models and spare parts. PTI |
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Another case against Mesco Directors
New Delhi, August 22 In a regular case registered by the agency recently four senior officials of SIDBI, including its Managing Director, have also been named as conspirators in the fraud along with Rita Singh, J.K. Singh, Mesco Pharmaceuticals (MPL), Mideast (India) Ltd. (MIL) and senior officials of the companies R.K. Gupta and A.K. Rohatgi. Senior CBI officials told UNI today that the case was filed on the basis of reliable information
received by the agency about the fraud committed during 1993-1995. The officials said the two Directors along with Gupta, the Deputy General Manager (Accounts), and Rohatgi, Chartered Accountant of the companies, entered into a criminal conspiracy with four Delhi-based SIDBI officials — Managing Director R.S. Aggarwal, General Manager G.K. Saxena, Manager M.H. Jhurani and Deputy Manager Ajit Saraswat — between 1993 and 1995 for sanctioning of the bill discounting limit under the Direct Discounting Scheme (Component) of SIDBI. The SIDBI officials allegedly abused their official positions, sanctioned the limits and discounted bills without adhering to the laid down procedures thereby causing undue advantage of Rs 34 crore to MPL and MIL and a corresponding loss to SIDBI. MIL, the officials alleged, approached SIDBI on August 10, 1993, for sanctioning a bill discounding limit of Rs 4 crore. The SIDBI officials sanctioned a limit of Rs 150 lakh to the company on November 11, 1993, in contravention of the laid down procedures and also issued a letter of intent (LoI) the following day. The limit was periodically enhanced on an ad hoc basis in quick succession as and when requested by MIL. An additional ad hoc limit of Rs 2 crore was sanctioned on January 4, 1994, followed by another amounting to Rs 2 crore sanctioned on February 28, 1994. The sanctioned limit was enhanced to Rs 10 crore on May 31, and later to Rs 15 crore on September 24 the same year, and Rs 20 crore on February 22, 1995. The CBI officials said the enhancements were made by the SIDBI officials in contravention of SIDBI’s guidelines from time to time. The bureau said investigations revealed that as on June 13, 1997, Rs 16.94 crore were outstanding and interest amounting to Rs 10.35 crore was also due on the amount as the company had failed to repay the bills to SIDBI.
UNI
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Argentina gets $ 8 b aid from IMF
Washington, August 22 Saved from the brink of defaulting on its public debt of $ 128 billion, the South American nation would receive the rescue amount in two instalments, IMF Managing Director Horst Kvhler said. $ 5 billion would be made available upon the Executive Board’s approval of the augmentation and the balance, Mr Kvhler added. The IMF is also considering the possibility of a voluntary and market-based operation to increase the viability of Argentina’s debt profile. The organisation would then recommend bringing forward the remaining $ 3 billion, he said. The agreement was reached yesterday following week-long talks between Argentine and IMF officials. Argentina has committed to implement stringent austerity measures and cut its budget deficit. The Argentine authorities, he noted, have committed themselves to strengthening fiscal adjustment and to ensuring that the fiscal adjustment is sustainable over the medium term, through full implementation of the zero-deficit law approved by the Argentine Congress on July 29.
PTI
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Crude oil production dips 5.7pc
New Delhi, August 22 Production declined 4.8 per cent to 10.242 million tonnes in the first four months of the current fiscal as compared to 10.759 million tonnes in April-July 2000-01, according to latest figures released by Ministry of Petroleum today. Refinery production rose 2.5 per cent to 8.912 million tonnes in July as against 8.692 million tonnes last year so also did refinery capacity utilisation to 93.2 per cent as compared to 90.9 per cent in July 2000. During April-July 2001-02, refinery production increased 5.4 per cent to 34.952 million tonnes over 33.163 million tonnes production in the first four months of 2000-01 fiscal. Natural gas production at 2514 million cubic metres during July 2001 was 0.3 per cent lower than the production of 2521 million cubic metres and cumulatively it was 1.2 per cent higher at 9762 million cubic metres over the production of 9648 million cubic metres during the same period last year.
PTI
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Zee to invest Rs 150 cr in programming
New Delhi, August 22 Announcing 24 new programmes which go on air from August 27 onwards, Group Broadcasting CEO of Zee Telefilms sandeep goyal told newspersons “we have given the channel an entirely new look and feel and almost all the programming has been revamped keeping in mind results of an extensive audience research conducted over the last few months.” The focus on zee’s new programming mix will be the 7.30-11 pm prime time band and the new lineup includes ‘Aap jo bolein haan to haanm aap jo bolein naa to naa’ — a programme licensed from Gloabo of Mexico. Goyal said Zee has bought the worldwide Hindi rights for this interactive programme and he hoped the Zee audience in India and abroad will like it as well as other world audiences.
PTI
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IMT Manesar site fetches Rs 3.21 cr Chandigarh, August 22 The auction assumes significance in the light of the generally held perception of a sluggish real estate market. This has put an end to the questions raised about the viability of this commercial complex and also vindicated the status of IMT Manesar as the most preferred investment destination near Delhi. The commercial complex is spread over 86.00 acres and has a provision for building blocks with all modern amenities and infrastructure facilities that are at par with international standards.
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Bata-Reebok retailing
partnership
New Delhi, August 22 The partnership entails retailing a range of spots shoes for walking, running, tennis and training for personal fitness and sports ranging between Rs 900-2, 500.
PTI
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