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New Delhi, March 16 Infosys Technologies said today that there is unlikely to be any major impact on the finances of the company due to the tax dispute in California, the US. Cable tariff:
panel report in 15 days The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) will consider the recommendations of the Cable Television Committee, which it expects to receive in another 15 days.
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Threat to stop
oil supply to Punjab Punjab needs to
develop infrastructure "Punjab needs to focus on infrastructure development by encouraging private investment that will boost the economy of the state," said Mr. S.C. Agrawal, Principal Secretary, Industries and Commerce, Punjab, here today. Seeds, pesticides
at petrol stations soon Farmers will now get fertilisers, pesticides and seeds along with diesel and lubricants at HPCL petrol stations. HPCL is working out modalities for setting up 100 such stations, known as “Kisan Vikas Kendras” in Punjab and Haryana. Cotton export
hits handloom units The handloom industry in the city is facing a crisis due to the steep hike in the price of the cotton yarn. The price of the cotton yarn increased up to 30 per cent in the past six months. New Delhi, March 16 Air Deccan will launch flights between the five metros of Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad and Chennai at fares that will be 40 to 50 per cent lesser than the existing levels and also possibly lower than the apex fares presently being offered by the domestic airlines.
The Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce and Industry (FICCI) has bestowed its “Living Legend Awards” on Bollywood stars Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini in acknowledgement of their continuing contribution to the Indian film industry. Amitabh Bachchan and Hema Malini after receiving the 'Living Legend in Indian Entertainment Industry Award' at a function organised by FICCI in Mumbai late on Monday. Also in the picture are Union Minister for Information and Broadcasting Ravi Shankar Prasad (second from left), UK Secretary of State Department of Culture, Media and Sports Tessa Jowell (second from right) and director-producer Yash Chopra (right). — PTI photo Nortel finance
chief suspended Nortel Networks today suspended two senior finance executives amid an internal probe of the Canadian telecom equipment maker’s accounting practices. Graphic:
Industrial Production Index for January
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Infosys centre for Czech Republic New Delhi, March 16 Chief Operating Officer and Deputy Managing Director of the company Kris Gopalakrishnan said the dispute amounted to just over $1 million of taxes which is a not a very large amount in comparison to the company’s annual revenue of $1 billion. “Till date we have paid all taxes and are working with the authorities in California to arrive at an appropriate taxation mechanism” Mr Gopalakrishnan said on the sidelines of a conference organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) here. He said the company is discussing the issue with the tax authorities in California as the actual work was done offshore. “Global services is a new concept for which taxation mechanism will take time to evolve. Moreover, the taxes the petition dealt with were not federal taxes but the state taxes,’’ Mr Gopalakrishnan said. The company has also decided to set up an offshore centre in the Czech Republic and should be operational within a few months. ''We would like to go about
setting up a centre in the Czech Republic in a right way and things
might take time,’’ he said. |
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Cable tariff: panel report in 15 days
Mumbai, March 16 “The committee will provide us
its report in the next 15 days and we will look into it. However, the
recommendations will be implemented after the general election in the
country, which might take another three to four months,” said TRAI
Chairman Pradip Baijal in his special address at the FICCI Frames 2004
convention here today. The regulator had earlier constituted a special
committee comprising representatives of state governments and TRAI,
which would work on the various issues relating to Cable TV and provide
inputs to it. The TRAI Secretary was the Chairman of the committee and
the regulator has the authority to finalise and implement the
recommendations. The reference committee had suggested norms for
fixing rates (ceiling rates) for cable subscribers, operators and Multi
System Operators (MSOs) and for individual pay channels and
bouquets. There were around 55 million cable homes and 45 million
telephone homes (fixed-line) in the country, he said, adding that this
translated into a huge potential for the broadband and cable TV sector
in India. There were only four Internet connections for every 1,000
persons and two broadband connections for every 10,000 persons in the
country, he said, adding that this was on the low-end. The regulator’s
job was to ensure the industry’s growth and regulating tariffs does not
fall under its purview. However, TRAI would continue regulating tariffs
for another three months, before letting the industry decide for itself,
Mr Baijal said. He said the spat between VSNL and Reliance Infocomm on
the bandwidth issue over the FLAG submarine network was purely a
corporate issue and the companies should sought it out themselves. Both
parties were meeting in Delhi to deliberate on the issue, he added. —
PTI |
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Threat to stop oil supply to Punjab Ludhiana, March 16 The decision was taken at a general house
meeting of the Punjab Petroleum Dealers Association held at Moga on
March 13. The members alleged that the government always promised to
clear the bills, but once the elections were over, it forgot its
promise. Mr J.P. Khanna, president of the association, said going by
the past experience, it was resolved that no member would supply petrol
and diesel on credit to the government during the elections. He said
several bills pertaining to the 2002 Assembly elections were yet to be
paid. Moreover, it had become unfeasible to extend such bulk supply on
credit and block the working capital for months with the State Electoral
Officer, Mr Khanna said, adding that it had been decided that the
products would only be supplied against advance or cash payment. The
meeting also demanded that the government should rationalise its tax
structure on petro products at par with neighbouring states. Mr Khanna
said the price disparity with Haryana and Chandigarh had caused serious
concern as negative growth has been registered in Punjab during the past
two years. He said the government’s attitude towards the trade was
deplorable. The association urged the government to review its tax
structure on petroleum trade to remove this disparity and achieve
maximum gain in revenue. Another resolution drew the attention of the
state towards the deregulation of petroleum trade which has “made an
adverse effect on the existing retail outlets”. The mad race of oil
companies to establish maximum outlets at the cost of its own existing
dealers had proved to be counterproductive, it pointed out. |
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Punjab needs to develop infrastructure
Chandigarh, March 16 Addressing a CII seminar
on Opportunities and Options for Infrastructure Development — A Future
Perspective, he said though traditionally Punjab leads in having a
high-level of infrastructure development, it needs to be developed to
further. The people of Punjab have demanded for better infrastructure—
roads, bridges, transport, hospitals, teachers etc, he said, while
analysing the Punjab scenario. Strong public-private partnerships will
go a long way to help provide better goods and services with a sustained
competitive advantage. "Infrastructure should be considered as a
priority sector," said Mr. Ravi Parthasarthy, Vice-Chairman and Managing
Director, IL&FS Ltd, stressing on the linkages between infrastructure
and the state's economic development." Punjab was looking for private
skills and resources to accelerate infrastructure development in the
state and to sustain them", said Ms Vini Mahajan, Managing Director of
the Punjab Infrastructure Development Board (PIDB). |
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Seeds, pesticides at petrol stations soon Chandigarh, March 16 Senior Regional Manager of HPCL Rajnish Mehta said here
today that these centres would start functioning by July after the Lok
Sabha elections. The decision is significant for the farmers as they
would not have to go to nearby cities to meet their day-to-day
requirements of agricultural inputs. The Vikas Kendras will not be set
up along the highways, but on the interior roads passing through
villages for the benefit of farmers. The work on setting up these
centres has already started. The cost of setting up these petrol
stations would be less than what was required for setting up a general
petrol station. While the amount spent on setting up a normal petrol
station varies anything between Rs 25 lakh and Rs 2 crore, the setting
up of these centres would cost only Rs 10-15 lakh. The process of
appointing dealers for these centres has also started but in the wake of
the model code of conduct coming into force, the process is likely to be
delayed. At the national level 500 such petrol stations will be set up,
where farmers will not only get their desired requirement of fertilisers,
pesticides and seeds but will also be assured of proper quality,
quantity and prices of these products.
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Cotton export hits handloom units Panipat, March 16 Like
previous years, the rise in the price of cotton yarn is not due to lower
production of cotton crop in India. It was due to the fact that
cotton-growing states exported raw cotton to China, the USA and
Pakistan. The shortage of raw cotton led to the increase in the price of
cotton yarn. Many small-scale exporters have even stopped accepting
export orders, fearing losses. The downfall in exports also affected the
weavers and skilled labourers in the city. Talking about the problems
being faced by the exporters, the president of the Keshri International
export house, Mr Amitabh Awasthy, said the hike in the cotton yarn price
had badly affected the export of handloom products. In the past six
months, there had been a continuous increase in the price of cotton
yarn. Giving reason for the existing situation, Mr Awasthy said cotton
suppliers in India had exported a large quantity of cotton to the
foreign countries, especially China, which had been facing shortage of
raw cotton due to poor production of cotton crop there. Giving
details, the secretary of the Haryana Handloom Export Association, Mr
Ram Niwas Gupta, said due to hike in the price of the cotton yarn, the
exporters had been getting lesser margins in the export of handloom
products. He pointed out that in China, the government was supporting
the handloom industry and providing various facilities to increase the
export of handloom products. However, the exporters here have to pay
heavy tax to the government. An exporter, Mr Surender Paliwal, said
many exporters were struggling hard to complete the contract with
foreign countries to supply handloom products due to the high rates of
cotton yarn. The price of the cotton yarn increased from Rs 1,570 to
1,700 per 40 kg. He observed that the exporters would have to face the
crisis till Divali as fresh cotton would be available only after that.
However, some exporters feel that the shortage of cotton in the market
had arisen as many crop-growing states had stocked raw cotton.
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Air Deccan to spread wings New Delhi, March 16 It has plans to fly to Colombo
from Mumbai, Thiruvananthapuram and Chennai by March-end, earlier than
some other private airlines. Air Deccan has plans to introduce
short-haul flights from Delhi to cities like Jaipur, Agra, Shimla, Kullu,
Ludhiana, Jalandhar, Amritsar, Varanasi and Lucknow. From Mumbai,
connections will be offered to Goa, Ahmedabad, Aurangabad, Nashik,
Baroda and Jamnagar. As part of the plan, Air Deccan is acquiring two
Airbus A-320 aircraft for expanding its operations to metro cities. The
two 180-seater all-economy-class Airbus A-320 aircraft on lease are
expected to join the fleet in July. In addition, it will lease five
more A320s from Singapore Aircraft Leasing Enterprise (SALE). Deliveries
of the leased aircraft will begin in July this year while those of the
new aircraft from Airbus will start in September, 2005. Meanwhile, the
competition on the India-Sri Lanka sector is all set to increase with
Skywards offering double miles from May 1 to June 10 for travel aboard
SriLankan Airlines’ business class on most routes. At present the
airlines operates 48-seater ATR aircraft on regional routes and charges
much less than what is charged by the major fairs. |
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FICCI awards for Amitabh, Hema
Mumbai, March 16 The awards were
presented by Information and Broadcasting Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad
at a function held here late last night. “Bachchan is undoubtedly the
most recognised face of the Indian film industry globally, and is
among the first to pave the road for the corporatisation of the
industry, FICCI Secretary general Amit Mitra said. Hema was awarded
since she has managed to transcend the limitations of being bracketed
as merely an actress, he added. Dilip Kumar, Lata Mangeshkar, Dev
Anand and Asha Bhosle were the earlier recipients of the award. —
PTI |
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Nortel finance chief suspended Toronto, March 16 Douglas
Beatty, the company’s chief financial officer, and controller Michael
Gollogly were put on paid leave of absence pending completion of a
review of results going back as far as 2000. William Kerr was named
interim finance chief and Mary Anne Pahapill interim controller as an
internal audit committee continues its review, the company
said. Investors have grown increasingly nervous about holding the stock
as new revelations emerge. — AFP |
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