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Sunday,
March 17, 2002, Chandigarh, India  
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Sinha sees
signs of economic recovery
Union Finance
Minister Yashwant Sinha with RBI Governor Bimal Jalan arriving to
attend the post-budget meeting with the RBI board members in New
Delhi on Saturday. — PTI photo USA
suspends new deals with Enron New Exim
Policy on March 30 Cars to
help avoid collision |
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Net
telephony may cause 10,000 cr loss
Suitable
employment
Aviation
policy soon
Vote to
decide H-P, Compaq merger
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Sinha sees signs of economic recovery
New Delhi, March 16 “There are signs of recovery in the Indian economy and global economy. The Budget has made various provision for spurring demand. We look forward to better days”, the Finance Minister said after the customary post-Budget meeting with Board members of the RBI. Mr Sinha, who has earned for himself the sobriquet of “roll-back Minister”, said “it was wrong to conclude that the rollback would stall reforms”. His response came shortly after Ram Naik announced in the Lok Sabha a partial rollback of LPG price by Rs 20 per cylinder. Every year the Finance Bill does contain some room for flexibility for reversing certain decisions, he said. Mr Sinha, however, categorically ruled out any change in tax exemptions on savings in the Budget and did not agree that the middle class was the worst hit by the proposal. “I myself was a government employee. I can feel that the tax exemptions level announced in the Budget are not harsh. It was I who increased the exemption level on those drawing salaries of up to Rs 1 lakh to 30 per cent”, he said. “Try to understand that out of a population of 100 billion people only 3.65 lakh people have taxable income above Rs 5 lakh”, he added. The RBI Board was of the view that the economy was picking up even as he identified increasing levels of NPAs of banks, food stocks and high transaction costs of the industry as problem areas. The Governor of the RBI, Dr Bimal Jalan, said recent spurt in the oil prices was unlikely to have any major impact on the inflation rate in India. “ The inflation outlook is very good. Months ahead. We do not see any problem of any kind”, the RBI Governor said.
RBI to decide on rate cut
Sinha said he had left it to the RBI to decide on a cut in the bank rate. “It is up to the RBI to decide on that”, Mr Sinha told reporters on being asked whether he expected the central bank to follow up his cut in administered interest rates by cutting the key bank rate. He spoke to journalists after the meeting with the Board of Directors of the RBI. Mr Sinha cut interest rates on small savings schemes in the Budget 2002-03 which experts feel has paved the way for the RBI to cut its bank rate from its present level of 6.5 per cent. Bimal Jalan had stated yesterday that he was in no hurry to reduce the bank rate although the central bank will maintain the soft interest rate bias. Mr Jalan had declined to elaborate on what he considered as “soft” interest rate.
TNS, UNI
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USA suspends new deals with Enron
Washington, March 16 The General Services Administration said Enron was suspended from new government business for a year while Andersen, charged on Thursday with obstructing the government's inquiry into Enron, was suspended for the duration of the indictment. The suspension includes Enron units, several former senior executives of Enron, and a former Andersen partner. "Those companies and individuals are not at present responsible as contractors to do business with the government," said Raymond McKenna, GSA general counsel. An Enron spokesman protested the decision, saying it was based on "allegations and speculations." An Andersen spokesman did not return a call seeking comment. The move does not affect existing contracts, which means that the government could still be doing business with the two firms up to five years from now, a GSA official said. The GSA officials pegged the value of existing deals at $35 million for Enron and between $60 million and $90 million for Andersen. McKenna said the agency had reviewed all current contracts with the two companies and had found no evidence of dishonesty. The government should not have trouble finding other firms to provide accounting and energy services, he added. Enron, a major contributor to President George W. Bush's election campaign, made the largest bankruptcy filing in the US history on December 2 amid a steady stream of revelations about questionable accounting methods and extensive off-the-books partnerships.
Reuters
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New Exim Policy on March 30
New Delhi, March 16 The new policy would aim at achieving at least 1 per cent share of the global trade against the present 0.67 per cent, he said during pre-exim policy discussion with the Board of Trade . To achieve this, a compound annual growth rate (CAGR) of 11.9 per cent will be required over the next five years to increase India’s exports to $ 80 billion by the end of plan period. “This is achievable with the cooperation of the trade and industry,’’ Mr Maran said while agreeing with the members on the need to reduce transaction costs and for ensuring a hassle-free policy environment for external trade. Mr Maran said there had been a shift away from export pessimism in recent times with export consciousness being created for the first time.
UNI
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Cars to help avoid collision
Washington, March 16 There’s no crunch. In this DaimlerChrysler video, the car stops an inch from the cart — even though the driver never applied the brakes. An onboard computer did it for him, with help from a radar system mounted on the bumper. Automakers are working on systems that send out pulses to determine the location, size and distance of objects and then reflect that information back to sensors on the front and rear bumpers. Applications could extend well beyond supermarket parking lots. The sensors might detect a child running behind a minivan backing out of a driveway. Or might measure the speed and angle of a drunken driver swerving into oncoming traffic. The onboard computer could tighten the seat belt and deploy the air bag just before impact to lessen the chance of injury. “Through sensors, vehicles sharing the road in the more distant future will be able to speak to each other,” said Ford Motor Co. spokeswoman Sara Tatchio. Ultra-wideband technology sends millions of narrow pulses each second over the airwaves to get a precise reading of an object’s location and distance. It can carry huge amounts of data over short distance and can carry signals through objects that reflect signals at more limited bandwidths. It has myriad potential uses, from allowing a home computer to network with other appliances to detecting objects behind a wall, buried underground or even inside a person. DaimlerChrysler, BMW, Volkswagen, Jaguar, Renault, Audi, Ford and Volvo all lobbied the Federal Communications Commission to allow them to use ultra-wideband in vehicles. The FCC agreed last month.
AP
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Net telephony may cause 10,000 cr loss
Mumbai, March 16 “The voice over Internet will be permitted from April this year but unlike conventional telecom services there is no understanding on revenue sharing charges”, Gupta said addressing a seminar on the telecom industry organised by the Indian Merchants’ Chamber here today. Incoming international traffic is much higher than calls originating from India and this has high revenue loss implications, he said, adding that this issue should be raised at the global level. Maharashtra state Chief Secretary V. Ranganathan said though Internet had a potential to facilitate development, limited carrying capacity beyond district level runs the risk of excluding large population living in rural areas from net revolution.
PTI
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rc
by Praful R. Desai Suitable employment Q: Whether direction by EI Court to appellant to find suitable employment for employee disabled on account of employment injury, proper? Ans: In ESI Corporation v C. Saseendran (2002-1-LLJ-545) SC was dealing with this point. In these appeals, the respondent workman claimed certain benefits arising out of the ESI Act, 1948, as each of them sustained certain injuries in the course of employment. The EI Court after assessing the extent of disability benefits arising there to was also computed with a direction to the effect that the appellant is bound to find a suitable employment for such an employee who became disabled on account of employment injury as provided in S. 19 of the ESI Act. The matter was carried in appeal in each of these cases to the HC. The HC dismissed the appeals. It is now complained before SC that the EI Court has no powers to give a direction to the ESI Corporation to find a suitable employment for the respondents U/s 19 of the ESI Act. This Court while granting leave confined the matter to this aspect only. S.19 provides that the Corporation may in addition to the scheme of benefits specified in the Act, promote measures for the improvement of the health and
welfare of insured persons and for the rehabilitation and re-employment of insured persons who have been disabled or injured and may incur, in respect of such measures expenditure from the funds of the Corporation within such limits as may be prescribed by the Centre. Whatever may have been the situation at that time when the order was made, it has now been brought notice to the SC that a scheme is in fact framed in terms of S 19 of the Act which provides not only for the payment of compensation but also for rehabilitation. If that is so, the SC held that the direction issued by the EI Court U/s 19 of the Act will have to be
given effect to in terms of the scheme. The appeals in that way were dismissed.
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by K.R. Wadhwaney Aviation policy soon In this country, even after 55 years’ of independence, Air India and Indian Airlines are rivals to each other. What is the cause for concern is that there is more rivalry from within than from outside. The result is that both are losers. One airline, however, loses more than the other but that is no cause for satisfaction. The situation has reached such a depressing low that they can’t rationalise even load factor on domestic sectors like flying on the Delhi-Mumbai-Delhi sector. The merger plan of the two airlines has failed. Disinvestment move has proved abortive because of political differences. Bureaucrats play their own role to maintain their stranglehold on the country’s aviation. Ministers keep changing but the bureaucrats remain unfazed. If the two carriers continue to fly through turbulent weather, it is because of the government’s lopsided attitude towards the aviation sector which deserves far greater importance than it is given. The two national carriers are passing through critical situation. The plight of the Directorate-General of Civil Aviation and the Airports Authority of India (AAI) is no better. The AAI may be a profit-making unit but it pays little attention to comfort of passengers and visitors. The general aviation, in control of corporate houses and commercial bigwigs, continues to be in turmoil. Several mishaps have taken place in recent months. Now there is talk of starting a training institute for helicopter pilots. Training of pilots is one thing but maintaining of fleet is quite another. The accidents have taken place more because of poor maintenance of aircraft than human fallibility. Even in the two national carriers, aircraft are more utilised than yardsticks and stipulation made by the International Civil Aviation Organisation (ICAO). Recently, an IA aircraft crashed into the wall while toeing on ground at the Indira Gandhi International Airport (IGIA). Why should a person other than a qualified pilot be allowed to negotiate aircraft even on ground? It showed total laxity on the part of the authorities. Apart from heavy loss sustained, the airline’s image gets an avoidable beating. For the last five-six years, the government has been wanting to have a new civil aviation policy. It is now learnt that it will soon be drafted before it is sent for approval to Cabinet. By the time, the policy is approved, it will become obsolete. It is believed security aspect is being merged into the aviation policy. Experts feel that aviation and security are two different areas. After all, security at airports will be handled by altogether different unit than aviation. Why merge security with aviation?
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Barely a fortnight after the
presentation of the Budget, Yashwant Sinha today saw early signs of the
positive affects of the announcements and observed that the economy was
on a path to recovery.
In video (
