 |
|
Aiyar wants Raha to stay as ONGC chief
TCS to establish centre at Mohali
Tatas to invest Rs 43,000 cr in Jharkhand
Tatas withdraw plea against Reliance Info
|
|
|||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
|
RBI guidelines for one-time settlement scheme for SMEs
Green energy to power Reliance Info network
Microsoft CEO vowed to
24 get Udyog Ratna
IA to get new fleet
IA helpline for region launched
LIC mulls jv for Australian, NZ markets
Kinetic to launch ‘Millennium’
Horlicks drink for diabetics
|
|
Aiyar wants Raha to stay as ONGC chief
New Delhi, September 6 Mr Aiyar, who returned from a week-long tour of Norway, Iceland and Bangladesh today, assured that he would also look into the issues raised by Raha, even as he criticised Directorate General of Hydrocarbons chief V K Sibal for making public, his differences with the ONGC chief. "No, I do not want him to go," the minister told reporters when asked to comment on the controversy. "It was immature of Raha to have suggested such a thing. I have no interest in seeing a competent man like Raha go." At the same time, he was extremely critical of Sibal, who had gone on television calling Raha's resistance to his appointment as "indiscipline." Sibal had also dared Raha to resign from ONGC, instead of just threatening to quit. Raha had, in an August 22 letter, petitioned Aiyar on what he termed as "intimidation" by government directors in pushing for appointment of two additional directors — one of them being Sibal — on the ONGC board. He had opposed the move saying a regulator cannot sit on the board of the company he governs. The Petroleum Minister said he was in receipt of Raha's letter which had raised very pertinent issues. "We have taken note of his objections and are giving it serious consideration." Mr Aiyar said he had on August 29 referred to the
Department of Public Enterprises, the issue of whether the number of government directors on a company could be raised to four from the present prescribed norm of two. He had also sought the Law Ministry's view if a regulator could be appointed on the board of a company he is supposed to govern. Petroleum Ministry officials said the ministry would not move a resolution at the September 21 Annual General Meeting (AGM) of ONGC seeking ratification of the appointment of DGH Sibal and M S Srinivasan, Special Secretary, Ministry of Petroleum and Natural
Gas. — PTI
|
|
TCS to establish centre at Mohali
Mohali, September 6 The TCS park here will cater to its domestic information technology (IT) work in Punjab, Himachal Pradesh and Jammu and Kashmir. With over 500 workstations housed in a series of buildings, TCS aims at employing 500 IT professionals and another 100 persons initially which can go up three times later. TCS has reportedly offered to pay Rs 25 lakh per acre to the government towards the cost of the land, which was almost one fifth of the cost fixed by the government. However, the Chief Minister has given a nod to give land to TCS at subsidised rates so as to attract other top IT companies to Mohali. TCS will be the third IT company to set up base in Mohali after Quark and Dell. Besides TCS, the government has decided to allot land to Wipro and Infosys for setting up their centres. The TCS campus will be in place within 18 months of approval of the master plans.
|
|
Tatas to invest Rs 43,000 cr in Jharkhand
Kolkata, September 6 “The Jharkhand Government has received a Rs 40,000 crore investment proposal from the Tata Group. This includes the setting up a 2,500 MW power plant, a 12 million-tonne steel plant and the new Jamshedpur township,” Chief Minister Arjun Munda said on the sidelines of a tourism roadshow here last night. “We are hopeful of signing a memorandum of understanding (MoU) this week in the presence of Mr Ratan Tata,” Mr Munda said. Jharkhand is also taking legal opinion on Mittal Steel’s 12 million tonne steel plant proposal. He, however, made it clear that the state government was against iron ore exports and looking at value addition of the ore. The Tata group, he said, had also come up with a proposal for setting up an international airport. “We have also identified three or four places for the proposed project,” he said.
— UNI
|
|
Tatas withdraw plea against Reliance Info
New Delhi, September 6 “We are withdrawing the petition as a goodwill gesture to Reliance Infocomm,” a spokesperson for the Tatas told PTI from Mumbai. Reliance officials confirmed the development and said that Tata Teleservices had been getting interconnection in various circles after the senior management of the two companies met and resolved various contentious issues. There was a stalemate in negotiations at one point of time as the Tatas were not agreeable to certain commercial terms, which resulted in delays in interconnection — which, in turn, prompted the Tatas to approach TDSAT. The tribunal was scheduled to hear the case today.
— PTI
|
|
RBI guidelines for one-time settlement
Mumbai, September 6 The
guidelines aimed at recovering of NPAs below Rs 10 crore will provide a simplified, non-discretionary and non-discriminatory mechanism for one-time settlement of chronic NPAs in the SME sector. All public sector banks shall uniformly implement these guidelines, an RBI notification said here. While the guidelines will not cover cases of wilful default, fraud and malfinance, the RBI said, banks shall identify such cases and initiate prompt action. It will also cover cases on which the banks have initiated action under the Securitisation and Reconstruction of Financial Assets and Enforcement of Security Interest Act, 2002, and also cases pending before courts/ DRTs/ BIFR, subject to consent decrees being obtained from them.
|
|
Green energy to power Reliance Info network
Chandigarh, September 6 With the success of its solar power pilot projects at Kunustara and Murugathal near Durgapur in West Bengal, the company has now planned to replicate this experience in Northern India also, thereby not only empowering their network systems to be self-sufficient on power, but also saving the valuable power resources of these states. According to Mr Arun Sur, Head, Wireless Network, Reliance Infocomm, the solar power units at each of the above projects generate 1,800 watts of power during the peak sunshine hours. Of this, about 500 watts is consumed by the company's repeater sites and the rest is stored in the battery sets to keep the network live when there is no sunlight. Reliance Infocomm has more than 300 BTS (base transreceiver stations) towers in Punjab and 160 and 50 BTS towers, respectively in Haryana and Himachal Pradesh. All these towers and other network equipment will generate their own power tapping the alternate sources of energy in the coming few months. The company has installed wind power units at these sites to generate additional power, particularly during the monsoon season when sunshine is scarce. The company has also installed monitoring equipment to check the effectiveness of these solar and wind modules. Reliance Infocomm network has been using the diesel generator sets extensively at an average of eight hours a day due to power shutdowns in the area. "The company has a plan of network expansion to cover 5,700 towns and cities and 4,00,000 villages by the end of this year and it will increasingly need to depend on alternative sources of power in view of grid outages," Mr Sur added.
|
|
Microsoft CEO vowed to “kill” Google
Silicon valley, September 6 The allegation, filed in a Washington state court, is the latest salvo in a courtroom battle triggered when Microsoft executive Kai-Fu Lee jumped to Google in July this year in what Microsoft claims is a violation of a one-year, non-compete agreement, CNET News.com reported. In a sworn statement, key Windows and. Net architect Mark Lucovsky, who left Microsoft for Google in November 2004, recounted Mr Ballmer’s angry reaction when he told Mr Ballmer of his decision to work for the search engine company. “At some point in the conversation, Mr Ballmer said: ‘Just tell me it’s not Google,” Lucovsky, whose title at Microsoft was ‘distinguished engineer,’ said in his statement. Lucovsky replied that he was joining Google. “At that point, Mr Ballmer picked up a chair and threw it across the room hitting a table in his office,” Lucovsky recounted in a sworn declaration. The 16-year Microsoft veteran, added that Mr Ballmer then launched a tirade against Google CEO Eric Schmidt. “I’m going to bury that guy, I have done it before, and I will do it again. I’m going to kill Google,” Mr Ballmer reportedly said. The remarks apparently refer to Mr Schmidt’s previous stints as an executive at Sun Microsystems and Novell, two Microsoft competitors.
— PTI
|
|
24 get Udyog Ratna Award today
Ludhiana, September 6 Those selected for the award are: Mr Gurnam Arora, Mr Gursaran Singh, Mr Hans Raj Pahwa, Mr Jagesh K. Kaitan, Mr Jawahar Oswal, Mr L.D. Mittal, Mr Malvinder Singh, Mr Martial Rolland, Mr Nick Massey, Mr Om Parkash Munjal, Mr R.K. Saboo, Mr Rajan Mayor, Mr Rajinder Gupta, Mr Rajiv Bali, Ms Rajni Bector, Mr Rana Gurjit Singh, Mr S.P. Oswal, Mr Sanjay Singhal, Mr Satish Bagrodia, Mr Satya Pal Virmani, Dr Satya Paul, Mr Sukhdev Raj, Mr Sunil Mittal and Mr Amarjit Goyal. PHDCCI President K.N. Memani said the chamber would focus on improving government-industry dialogue. He unveiled a seven-point action plan for improving competitiveness of industry in Punjab. He said there was need for supplying power at low cost to industry, constructing a pipeline for supply of natural gas, providing investor
friendly environment to high-potential industries like IT and ITES, biotechnology and agro processing, establishing R&D centres in bitechnology, indentifying new destinations for developing airports and implementing infrastructure
projects trough private sector participation.
|
|
IA to get new fleet
New Delhi, September 6 The eGOM consisting of Finance Minister P. Chidambara, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel, Law and Justice Minister H.R. Bhardwaj and Oscar Fernandes, the Promgramme Implementation Minister, which was constituted by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on the recommendation of the Union Cabinet on August 25, concluded negotiations with the Airbus Industrie officials at the North Block here bring down the cost from the earlier offer. There had been objections from the MPs and the Finance Ministry over the price, which was being offered by Airbus Industrie to India for the purchase of the 43 aircraft as a result of which there was a delay in finalising the deal. After more than three hours of negotiations with the Airbus Industrie team, Civil Aviation Minister told the waiting reporters that the government had been able to bring down the cost “substantially” for the 43 aircraft from the initial cost of Rs 10,089 crore at which the company had last made the offer. “We would get a substantial deal,” Mr Patel said. He, however, added that although the final negotiations with the Airbus Industrie were over but a final decision on the price would be taken by the eGoM by tomorrow. He added that there would be no more negotiations and a decision would be announced tomorrow. When asked specifically whether he was happy with the deal, the minister while saying “yes” added that when we talked to the manufacturers it was always for the best deal. He also said that there was no need now to go back to the Cabinet for the clearance as the eGoM had been set up at the instructions of the Union Cabinet. After the final internal round of talks the eGoM was expected to ink the deal with Airbus Industrie in the coming few days. Indian Airlines had become the first airline in Asia in 1988 to get the fly-by-wire Airbus aircrafts, the then latest technology in the world, at the insistence of then Prime Minister Rajiv Gandhi. But since then there had been no new addition to the fleet even though the Indian Airlines management had been taking aircraft on lease to maintain its fleet. The decision taken by the eGoM had now paved the way for the long-awaited fleet acquisition by the public sector Indian Airlines. The airline had specially been on the back foot in context with the competition with the private airlines, which had been acquiring new generation aircraft leaving the Indian Airlines behind. The Indian Airlines board had cleared the proposal for the purchase of 43 aircraft in April 2002. The proposal had been pending with the government ever since then. It was approved by the Public Investment Board (PIB) and later by an oversight committee headed by former Comptroller & Auditor General (CAG) CG Somiah. The deal got blocked initially due to change in government and price negotiations were held repeatedly since a significant time had lapsed after the Indian Airlines submitted the project report for purchase of 43 Airbus aircraft. Subsequently, further delay occurred since some MPs had questioned whether IA was getting a good deal. The Finance Ministry had observed that a final round of negotiations should be held to bring down prices. Earlier, last month the Civil Aviation Ministry while forwarding the file to the Cabinet Secretariat had suggested that the CCEA either finalise the decision on its own or set up an eGoM. In case the second option was exercised, the eGoM should be given the powers to finalise the deal and authorise placement of orders. The ministry had earlier proposed setting up of an eGoM or a committee of secretaries for the final round of negotiations suggested by the Finance Ministry. The IA proposal to buy 43 airbus aircraft at a cost of $ 2billon (Rs 10,000 crore) had assumed political overtones since the US was batting for Boeing, while the EU had thrown its weight behind Airbus. The IA acquisition project involved purchase of 20 Airbus A321, 10 A319 and four A320 aircraft. While the Europe-based Airbus was chosen for the entire order, IA had picked CFM engines for all the three categories of aircraft.
|
|
IA helpline for region launched
Jalandhar, September 6 The helpline number will enable its customers to know flight departure, arrival timings, flight schedules, fares, seat availability, reservations over telephone, checking current status of booking or for finding out any other information about the new offers from Indian Airlines. This helpline facility will be available round-the-clock. The helpline number will also be toll- free when calls are made from MTNL or BSNL landline numbers or from any mobile number. The callers will be required to dial 1407 if the calls are made from within the six metros and the number 16001801407 in case the calls are made from any city other than the six metros.
|
|
LIC mulls jv for Australian, NZ markets
New Delhi, September 6 “We have shortlisted some companies. The due dilligence process is on,” LIC Chairman
A.K. Shukla told PTI but declined to name the companies. Indications are that the LIC is likely to tie up with New India Assurance and a local partner. The government has provided Rs 280 crore to the LIC in the Budget as the seed capital required for its overseas ventures.
— PTI
|
|
Kinetic to launch ‘Millennium’
Chennai, September 6
|
|
Horlicks drink for diabetics
Chennai, September 6 Both these products are endorsed and certified by Diabetes India for use by people with diabetes.
|
bb
Gold loan scheme liberalised Chinese Airline to buy 10 jets Alstom new name Stake in Annik |
| HOME PAGE | |
Punjab | Haryana | Jammu & Kashmir |
Himachal Pradesh | Regional Briefs |
Nation | Opinions | | Business | Sports | World | Mailbag | Chandigarh | Ludhiana | Delhi | | Calendar | Weather | Archive | Subscribe | Suggestion | E-mail | |
