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Friday,
October
3, 2003,
Chandigarh, India  
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Cabinet meeting to decide fate of oil PSUs today
Oman looks up for investment in HPCL, BPCL
Mobile subscribers seek government intervention to check telemarketing
Sell cars sans animal leather, Maneka tells DaimlerChrysler I am
Governor in RS, Jaswant Singh to Jalan Unctad projects 5.4 pc growth for India
System converts voice mail to e-mail |
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Cabinet meeting to decide fate of oil PSUs today New Delhi, October 2 Stung by the Supreme Court’s ruling that Parliamentary ratification is required to disinvest HPCL and BPCL, the crucial meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment (CCD) will be held here with the Prime Minister, Mr Atal Bihari Vajpayee, presiding over it. With numbers in Parliament not in favour, the NDA coalition will have to work out an alternative to the apex court’s ruling. One of the options before the CCD is the filing of a review petition. However, such a move is fraught with political risks. Any adverse ruling by the review Bench can cause major embarrassment in an election year. Moreover, the Opposition parties, especially the Congress and the Left, have been alleging that the government is diluting its stakes in the PSUs only to rein in the burgeoning fiscal deficit and not to utilise the funds for larger developmental objectives. In fact, some Opposition members have gone to the extent of saying that the government is obliging a section of the industry and a particular group in the oil sector. The meeting has been preceded by hectic brainstorming within the government establishment with the Disinvestment Minister, Mr Arun Shourie, holding separate confabulations with the Deputy Prime Minister, Mr L.K. Advani, and the Law Minister, Mr Arun Jaitley. There have been sharp differences within the government on the issue of disinvestment of oil sector PSUs with Petroleum Minister Ram Naik terming the court’s ruling as “historic” even as some others have reacted by saying that it can have adverse consequences on the privatisation programme. Mr Naik has consistently opposed the disinvestment of oil sector PSUs on strategic considerations. However, some senior members of the Vajpayee government have suggested allowing other PSUs to bid for profit-making companies such as HPCL and BPCL. The Disinvestment Ministry is learnt to have submitted an option paper to the Law Ministry for working out an action plan in the wake of the Supreme Court’s ruling. The confabulations within the government thinktank is taking place to thrash out the broad contours of the disinvestment policy in light of the new developments. Mr Shourie had said the government was “keeping all options open, including review and ratification.” The Law Minister was reportedly supposed to have finalised an action plan based on the detailed paper to be submitted by the Department of Disinvestment. This action plan is expected to come up for discussion before the CCD. Government officials are of the view that seeking Parliamentary ratification can further delay the process of privatisation and also send wrong signals to foreign investors on the pace of economic reforms in India. Mr Shourie had said while the Supreme Court had quoted from a World Bank report which stated that “the success of the programme (privatisation) hinges on, among other things, a basic consensus among Parliament, government and the head of the state’’.
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Oman looks up for investment in HPCL, BPCL Sur (Oman), October 2 “We are keenly watching the developments regarding HPCL and BPCL and are interested in investing in both companies if they are privatised,’’ Oman’s Commerce and Industry Minister Maqbool Ali Sultan told newspersons on the sidelines of the foundation laying ceremony of Indo-Oman Fertiliser Project here yesterday, the first mega joint venture between the two countries. However, the fate of both Indian public sector companies is likely to be decided at tomorrow’s meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment (CCD). The government, which was earlier determined to push through with disinvestment process, has lost much of steam following the Supreme Court verdict, suspending the privatisation programme of these public concerns, and now it (the government) is considering legal options for going ahead with the proposed disinvestment. Oman’s interest in investing in the Indian hydrocarbon sector is manifested by the agreements to set up a $1-billion fertiliser project in Oman in collaboration with
cooperative giants — Iffco and Kribhco. Replying to a query of his country’s disengagement from the Bina Refinery project, the Minister said, “Oman disengaged from the Bina Refinery project as it was overdelayed, losing its commercial viability.’’ “We never withdrew from the project but it was delayed because of some factors in India.....our interest in this sector has not waned,’’ he added.
— UNI
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Mobile subscribers seek government intervention to check telemarketing Chandigarh, October 2 Incidentally, the US President George W. Bush has signed a bill on Monday restricting the companies to make unsolicited calls to consumers on their mobile phones, who have registered themselves in the “Do Not Call” list prepared by the Federal Trade Commission. Any company making such calls will have to pay up to $ 11,000 per call as a penalty. The mobile subscribers in the region resent that though the total number of WLL and mobile connections have crossed over two crore in the country, yet the government has not so far initiated any such move to check the misuse of mobiles by the private companies intruding into their privacy. “The other day one salesgirl from a credit card company called me on my mobile phone, while we had gone for our honeymoon to Shimla. She was talking in such a sweet and convincing voice that I continued to speak to her for about 5 minutes. My wife was almost in tears and threatened even to divorce me,” says Mr Raman Sharma, a marketing executive. He said there should be complete ban on such unwanted calls. Mr Randhir Verma, President, Chandigarh Telecom Subscribers Association, says,” As far as the rights of the telecom subscribers are concerned, the telecom regulator has so far proved a toothless body. But we hope that the new Chairman of the TRAI would take some bold steps to reign in the cellular operators violating the rights of the consumers.” He wonders when the operators claim to provide world class service, why cannot they provide world class service. Enquiries reveal that some of the private companies have illegally procured lists of mobile subscribers from the employees of the Spice, Airtel, BSNL and Reliance, and are using them to contact consumers as part of the marketing strategy. Though officials of the cellular companies deny these allegations, but the fact remains that even the Spice and Airtel are sending SMS to the customers of each other to woo towards their network. The consumers organisations have brought this issue to the notice of operators and TRAI, but without any result. Mr Verma claims that they would again take up the matter with the TRAI and ask the government to make some law on the pattern of the USA.
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Sell cars sans animal leather, Maneka tells DaimlerChrysler New Delhi, October 2 Continuing her recent correspondence with Hans-Michael Huber, the Pune-based Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of DaimlerChrysler India, Maneka Gandhi has asked Mr Huber to spell out the plans of DaimlerChrysler regarding the use of synthetic leather. “I encourage DaimlerChrysler to look into using a high-quality synthetic leather instead of animal leather. Synthetic leather is described as superior to leather for its durability, ease of care, uniformity and other advantages and most importantly, does not come with the high cost of animal suffering,” the founder of People for Animals (PFA) said in her letter dated September 29. “Consumers who don’t wish to purchase leather should not be inconvenienced for their compassionate preference,” she has said while hailing DaimlerChrysler’s decision to offer all E-class models with a non-leather option. She has further asked if fabric seat cars will have steering wheel and gearshift lever without leather trim. “Obviously, this must be changed for your vehicles to be truly considered leather-free and thus, suitable for India.” In reply to her previous letter, Mr Huber drew Mrs Gandhi’s attention to a state-of-the-art factory in Pune ranked as the best manufacturing plant in DCAG Group outside Germany for three consecutive years. Assuring Mrs Gandhi of their respect of religious and ethical beliefs of Indian customers, Mr Huber clarified that the main products manufactured in India were C-class and E-class passenger cars which constituted about “95 per cent of our production.” He further said they offered fabric option for C-class, the cumulative sale of which accounted for approximately 54 per cent of the total sales. “We will be able to offer non-leather option to E-class customers in the first quarter of 2004 and try to optimise this time period,” Mr Huber said in his letter. “We can also offer to our customers imported cars from Germany with non-leather option subject to import regulations like higher custom duty and higher waiting period,” Mr Huber said. Acting on a large number of complaints from all over the world, Maneka Gandhi drew Mr Huber’s attention to the reluctance of prospective customers to buy Mercedez Benz or other luxury cars because the models of their choice were only sold with leather interiors. While warning of a large campaign against DaimlerChrysler and its brands in India, Mrs Gandhi offered them a chance to change their attitude and offer non-leather brands. Reminding Mr Huber of his business interests in India where vegetarians had a strong majority and formed a large part of the affluent class, Mrs Gandhi stated, “You will miss many sales because of this adamant refusal to understand that a large number of people don’t like to sit on dead animals. It is also shocking that Mercedez-Benz does not even offer a non-leather version of their models in India where cows are considered holy and leather is shunned by many. None of the Indian cars have used leather.”
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I am
Governor in RS, Jaswant Singh to Jalan
Mumbai, October 2 “You have shifted to new quarters and I will be your governor as the leader of the Rajya Sabha”, Singh said after presenting Jalan with a caricature at a CII function to felicitate the former RBI Governor here. It would be quite different from bank board rooms but the new place would be dynamic and pulsating, he said adding, “I am looking forward to your presence”. Jalan, in his reply said it had been Singh’s practice to say “I am not an economist”. “I suspect that not being an economist was
beneficial as he then always took a larger view. He also took some bold decisions like restructuring of UTI which we economists could not have taken,” he added. The caricature depicts Jalan as a weightlifter balancing the rupee on one side and US dollar on the other.
— PTI
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Unctad projects 5.4 pc growth for India
New Delhi, October 2 The projection is based on FUGI model, which has been used by Unctad since 1981 for long-range forecasts of world economy and also for forecast simulations of UN’s Development Strategies and Perspective Studies. The UN body’s projection for India is in contrast to 6.0 per cent growth estimated by the Asian Development Bank, but higher than 5.1 per cent estimated by the International Monetary Fund. In its Trade and Development Report for 2003, Unctad has placed India’s growth next to China and Iran in the Asian region with China estimated to grow by 7.1 per cent, while Iran poised for 5.7 per cent growth in 2003. However, it found a distinction in India’s growth momentum, which was rather robust as compared to other Asian giants because of weak links with the American economy, which dipped by one per cent in the first quarter of 2003 as compared to 2.5 per cent achieved in 2002.
— PTI
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System converts voice mail to e-mail
Tokyo, October 2 The system still requires further advances in speech recognition technology, but the concept forms the basis to a new type of service business, Nihon Keizai Shimbun reported. The prototype system is designed for use with IP (Internet Protocol) phones. Other elements of the system include an Internet-based switch, a server where recorded messages are converted into text, and a mail server that directs these text messages as e-mail messages to the proper destination.
— KUNA
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