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Tuesday,
September 18, 2001, Chandigarh, India  
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Steps to
check fall in sensex Stocks
nervy, dollar weak & gold up PM reviews
housing initiatives Raise
interest rates on savings |
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Poultry
Corporation has little to develop Dhumal
seeks Agrotec complex for HP Zee News
inks pact with CNN
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Steps to check fall in sensex New Delhi, September 17 The rupee took a further beating and reached a historic low to close the day at Rs 47.85 to a dollar, sending alarm bells ringing on the country’s import front. A Finance Ministry source said that the government was considering to increase the limit of foreign institutional investors (FIIs) to 74 per cent from the current ceiling of 49 per cent. Union Finance Minister Mr Yashwant Sinha declined to comment on the plunging stock prices following the devastating terrorist strikes in the USA. The confidence building measures that the government is considering include increase in the limit of FII investment, allowing of margine trading and giving more teeth to SEBI to prevent manipulation in stock prices. The
government is also understood to be considering to relax the 5 per cent ceiling on creeping acquisition enabling companies to buy back their own shares. Analysts said a lot will depend on the functioning of the markets in the USA which opens on Monday for first time after the terrorist strikes rocked the country on September 11. The Sensex today closed at 2680.98 points, the lowest level in eight years. It fell by 149.14 points or 5.27 per cent as compared to the previous day’s closing on Friday. On the forex front, rupee reached an all-time low and was traded at Rs 47.85 to a dollar. Analysts expressed concern about a weakening rupee and they were expecting some kind of intervention from the Reserve Bank to prevent a free-fall in the domestic currency vis-a-vis the dollar. Forex market experts believe that a rupee should stabilise at a level of Rs 47.50 with a few points of deviation and as such there is not much cause for panic. “ A lot will depend on the pattern of stock prices in the New York Stock Exchange which opens in evening ( India time) on Monday. If contrary to general expectations, the markets in the USA demonstrates some sort of stability, it will act as a big confidence booster for Indian markets”, a Delhi-based analyst said. Markets in India has been witnessing a sustained
downslide since the terrorist strikes and FIIs are offloading funds in anticipation of possible retaliatory strikes in Afghanistan.
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Stocks nervy, dollar weak & gold up
London, September 17 The prospect of the first session of the New York Stock Exchange since last Tuesday’s terrorist strikes on New York kept markets volatile, as investors feared a vertiginous drop in US share prices and hoped that financial authorities would step in to save the day. Cash flowed into the usual safe havens such as the Swiss Franc, which gained against all major currencies, and gold, which jumped above $ 290 an ounce. The dollar by contrast remained under pressure, falling at one point to 116.65 yen and 0.9331 to the euro, as investors fretted about the short-term direction of US stocks and the longer-term outlook for the US economy following last Tues-day’s outrageous strike at the hub of US capitalism. Oil prices held steady after an early fall, nudging up to $ 29.50 a barrel amid concern that US retaliation for Tuesday’s onslaught would trigger a stand-off between western oil importers and Arab oil-producing nations.
AFP
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PM reviews housing initiatives New Delhi, September 17 The constitution of the GoM, which would comprise the Finance Minister, the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Rural Development Minister, the Urban Development and Poverty Alleviation Minister and the Law Minister, was decided at a meeting called by Mr Vajpayee to review the pace of housing activity in the country. Official sources said the GoM has been asked to submit the action plan within a months time. It was also decided to convene a National Housing Conference under the chairmanship of the Prime Minister and with participation of the State Chief Ministers, Finance Ministers and Housing Ministers to ensure implementation of various legal, fiscal issues and to take up increasing housing construction. The conference would also take up specific proposals to speed up housing construction activity in rural and urban areas. Several legal issues like amendment to State Urban and Ceiling and Rent Control Acts would also figure at the conference. Major issues which came up at the meeting included doubling equity of Hudco for expanding support to housing, amendment to State Urban and Ceiling and Rent Control Acts, increasing unit cost of rural housing from Rs 20,000 to Rs 30,000, introducing insurance component in housing for the poor and launching of Valmiki-Ambedkar Basti Awas Yojana. Expressing satisfaction over the progress achieved after the launch of the two million housing programme in 1998-99 by the National Democratic Alliance, Mr Vajpayee noted that more than 2.5 million houses were taken up in rural areas against the target of 1.3 million while more than 800,000 units were constructed against the target of 700,000 in urban areas. The meeting was attended by the Finance Minister, Mr Yashwant Sinha, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Mr K.C.Pant, Rural Development Minister, Mr Venkaiah Naidu, Urban Development Minister, Mr Ananth Kumar, Minister of State for Rural Development, Mr Subhash Maheria and Minister of State for Urban Development, Mr Bandaru Dattatreya. The Chairman of Hudco and senior officials from the concerned ministries were also present at the review meeting.
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Raise interest rates on savings Chandigarh, September 17 Speaking to The Tribune, Mr Tarakeshwar Chakraborti, General Secretary, of the All-India Bank Employees Association, said the NPAs had touched the figure of Rs 70,000 crore. If interest, which was freezed on NPAs, also included then the figure was near Rs 1,20,000 crore. He said except a few, almost all other big industrial houses were wilful defaulters. They had the capacity to return the money taken from banks as loan but they were deliberately not paying back because of a nexus among managements of banks, industrialists and politicians. Urging the managements of banks to publish names of such defaulters in print media, Mr Chakraborti urged the government to black list such industrial houses and get criminal cases registered against the board of directors of their companies. Mr Chakraborti, who was accompanied by Mr N.K. Gaur, General Secretary of the Punjab Bank Employees Federation, said that the meeting of the Central Committee of the association would be held at Patiala for next two days. The committee would chalk out action plan of the agitation to be launched by the association in consultation of other associations of employees to protest against the closure of branches of banks at certain places and on the issue of NPAs. Urging to increase the interest on savings from existing 4 to 5 per cent, Mr Chakraborti said the government was following the policy of robbing the Peter to pay the Paul. Though the rate of interest on leadings to industrialists had been lowered from 12 per cent to 8 per cent in the past three or four years but industrialists had not made a cut in the price of their products of single penny.
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Poultry
Corporation
has little to develop Patiala, September 17 Acute frustration has set in among the 140 employees of the department at Chandigarh and at other centers in the State who are almost without work and have also not been paid their salaries since May this year. As many as 102 employees have volunteered that they may be given a golden handshake around four years back but no action has been taken in the matter till now. The government is still to take a decision to wind up the Corporation even though it has admitted in the State assembly that the main objective for which the Corporation was created — the development of poultry in the State — had been achieved and there was no longer any need to continue with the Corporation. The Poultry Corporation is presently a far cry from it former self. Established in 1964 with the purpose of initiating the egg revolution in the State, it continued to offer an egg marketing scheme to poultry owners under which their produce was taken to Delhi and sold via its depots there. The egg marketing scheme was winded up in 1996 as there are no longer many small poultry entrepreneurs and all the big poultry farmers market their produce themselves. The sources said the decline in the manufacture of feed as well as the Corporation started after 1993 when the government did away with the control price at which molasses and rice bran was being supplied to the Corporation. This saw the Corporation competing directly with the private sector with molasses which it purchased for Rs 15 per quintal earlier going up to Rs 350 per quintal and rice bran shooting up from Rs 100 per quintal to Rs 400 per quintal. They said the Corporation found it difficult to compete in the open market as far as feed sale was concerned as there was no standardisation in the feed quality with only a few factories out of 85 feed manufacturing units in Khanna manufacturing feed according to ISI norms. Besides this Corporation officials said they were not able to compete with private feed manufacturers as many of them did not pay all the taxes and did not have the same staff infrastructure and could easily undercut them. Officials said with the development of large poultry farms the relevance of the Corporation had ended and they had little to do. They said it was not difficult to reallocate employees to other departments as most of them were class four servants who could be adjusted
anywhere. They said as far as salaries were concerned, the Corporation was telling them that it was short of funds and was waiting for the sale of is plant at Chhajumajra in Kharar following which they would be released. |
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Dhumal seeks Agrotec complex for HP New Delhi, September 17 The Chief Minister, who met the French Minister of Agriculture and Fisheries Mr Jean Glavany, here today, said that the park will go a long way in imparting technical knowledge to the farmers as is being done in France. Mr Dhumal said that Himachal Pradesh has immense horticulture and agriculture potential and value-addition to products would go a long way in boosting the state’s economy. There was also a great scope for floriculture in Himachal Pradesh.
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Zee News inks pact with CNN New Delhi, September 17 The alliance is initially valid for a year and can be later extended up to three years, senior Zee News officials told PTI. The deal, signed late last week, comes at a time when American networks, including CNN, have launched blanket 24-hour coverage after the terrorist strikes in New York and Washington and the possibility of US strikes on Afghanistan.
PTI
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Kribhco net up Godrej Foods Opel Corsa SBP branch Spice coupon Whirlpool |
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