New Delhi, December 14
Indicating that tough measures are on the way in the coming days, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said on Friday that some "bitter medicine" is necessary to restore the health of the economy and get back to a high growth path.

"Some bitter medicine has to be taken this year. We have to take some bitter medicine. There’s no other way. This bitter medicine is good medicine. It’ll restore the health of the economy and next year we can look forward to much higher growth," he said.

Chidambaram was winding up a discussion on the first batch of supplementary demands for grants in the Lok Sabha.

The bitter medicine analogy and the need to take tough measures to revive the economy is something that the finance minister has been stressing on while hardselling the economic reforms burst.

Chidambaram also expressed confidence that inflation, which has continued to remain a concern and a challenge, would moderate in the next two to three months. "Inflation is a challenge. Inflation worries the government. While CPI inflation is sticky, the good news is that WPI inflation seems to be moving downwards. If it trends downwards, there will be some reason for comfort," he said.

Economic growth in the first half of the fiscal fell to 5.4%, against 7.3% in the corresponding period a year ago. The growth in 2011-12 fell to a nine-year low of 6.5%. In the current fiscal the RBI expects it to be around 5.8%.

Later, amid a walkout by BJP and Trinamool Congress party members, the Lok Sabha passed the first batch of supplementary demands for grants that seek to raise government expenditure by Rs 32,120 crore in 2012-13. Of the total cash outgo of Rs 30,804 crore, Rs 28,500 would be towards payments of oil subsidy and Rs 2,000 crore for the rescue of Air India.

Earlier, speaking at a seminar, Chidambaram said the government was making every effort for turning around the economy and creating an investor friendly climate.

“I’m confident that the steps we’ve taken, and some more steps that we’ll take in the next few weeks, will help turn the Indian economy around. It’s too early to say whether the measures have begun to bear fruit, although it’s our expectation that they’ll do so,” Chidambaram said.

The finance minister also asked Asian G20 member nations and Russia to increase resource base of Asian Development Bank for development of the region.

New Delhi/Mumbai, Dec 14
The country’s wholesale inflation fell to its weakest pace in ten months in November, a positive sign for the struggling economy but probably not a big enough slowdown to persuade the RBI cut interest rates next week.

The wholesale price index (WPI), the main inflation gauge, rose 7.24% from a year earlier, below expectations for a rise of 7.6% and below October's 7.45%. An easing in annual fuel and manufacturing inflation helped rein in price pressures.

"I don't think the RBI will be in a position to reduce policy rates on December 18," said Rupa Rege Nitsure of Mumbai's Bank of Baroda. "But, the probability of a rate reduction in the month of January has now gone up."

India's 1-year overnight index swap fell around 3 basis points after Friday's data.

The inflation data comes after a spike in industrial output in October and data indicating that infrastructure output and investment is picking up, raising hopes a long slide in India's economic growth is coming to an end.

However, the economy is still headed for the weakest full-year growth in a decade, at about 6 percent, far below the near double-digit pace before the global financial crisis.

The RBI has not lowered interest rates since April because inflation has remained near 7%, exacerbated by a weak rupee that has added to the cost of fuel imports.

The central bank has said any interest rate cut is "highly improbable" at the policy meeting on Tuesday. But given the sharply lower number, some analysts now see an outside chance the bank will change its mind.

"Given the food and manufacturing prices are much better behaved than what many private analysts had predicted, we expect inflation by March-end to be sub-7%," said A. Prasanna, an economist at ICICI Securities in Mumbai. "There’s nothing that should stop them from cutting rates in December," he said. — Reuters

New Delhi, December 14
Land prices will escalate leading to rise in housing price if the Land Acquisition Bill is passed by Parliament, real estate developers and property consultants have said.

"It’s not a good development for the industry. This will definitely increase land cost and housing prices," Confederation of Real Estate Developers' Associations of India (CREDAI) national president Lalit Kumar Jain told PTI when asked about his comments on the cabinet's nod to the bill. If the bill gets Parliament's nod, developers will also hesitate to go for big projects, he added.

The bill was cleared by the cabinet on Thursday, making the consent of 80% of owners mandatory for private projects.

Expressing similar sentiments, National Real Estate Development Council president Navin M. Raheja said the bill is not an industry friendly one. "While farmers' compensation issue is taken care of, the government should have looked at the overall growth of the country. Unfortunately, that’s not the case here," he added.

Mumbai-based Hiranandani Constructions managing director Niranjan Hiranandani said with higher compensation to farmers, resistance in acquiring land will reduce in future. On prices, he said: "Definitely land prices will shoot up. Now whether we will get land for affordable housing, is a big question mark."

Hiranandani said the companies are already acquiring land for private projects with almost 100% consent of the owners, mainly farmers.

India's largest realty firm, DLF, said the reaction and how it will affect consumers have to be seen after the bill comes into effect. "There has to be a debate in Parliament for this bill before the final approval. We’ll see how the situation unfolds in the coming days as that will be crucial for any future decision," DLF Group executive director Rajeev Talwar said. — PTI

New Delhi, December 14
The department of telecom is looking at allowing the use of the airwaves in the 880 MHz band to GSM cellular operators, which may draw protests from the CDMA service providers.

The move comes after the GSM operators met DoT officials to allow them to use the band as an extended branch for operations.

Telecom ministry officials said although no decision had yet been taken, the request to use the 880 MHz band was being examined. DoT will take a close look at the possible operations before allowing the GSM operators to go ahead.

The GSM operators had approached DoT last month seeking its go-ahead to use the 880 MHz band onwards as extended GSM band instead of the present practice of allowing operations to begin from 890 Mhz onwards.

As of now, the 800-890 Mhz band is used to offer CDMA services in the country.

The move has already had the CDMA operators up in arms. Its umbrella body, the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers of India (AUSPI), has urged Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal to reject the GSM operators’ demand.

Reports said if DoT allows the GSM operators the extended use of the 880 MhZ band it would give them an extra 40% of the airwaves.

Washington, D.C., December 14
The Indian capital's famous Nehru Place computer and electronics market has been placed among the top 30 notorious IT markets of the world that deal in goods and services infringing on intellectual property rights, an official US report has said.

"Nehru Place is reportedly one of the many markets in major cities throughout India that are known for dealing in large volumes of pirated software, pirated optical media containing movies and music, and counterfeit goods," said the report released by the US Trade Representatives (USTR).

Among other internet and physical markets that exemplify marketplaces that deal in infringing goods and services, facilitating and sustaining global piracy and counterfeiting include Urdu Bazaars in Karachi and Lahore.

However, China has the largest number of notorious markets listed in the report.

Prominent among them are Buynow PC Malls, which operates 22 stores across China and is known for selling computers with illegal operating system software and other unlawfully pre-installed software; Fu¿an footwear and accessory market in Putian, Luohu Commercial Center in Shenzhen; Silk market in Beijing; and small commodities markets in Yiwu.

"Piracy and counterfeiting, including online sales of pirated and counterfeit goods, is a problem that hurts the US economy, harms some of this nation's most creative and innovative entrepreneurs and companies and threatens jobs for significant numbers of middle-class American workers," USTR Ron Kirk said. "We highlight the notorious markets that have a negative impact on legitimate businesses and industries of all sizes that rely on intellectual property to protect their goods and services," he said.

Kirk also applaud the actions that some markets have taken to begin ridding their virtual and physical marketplaces of pirated and counterfeit goods, as well as enforcement actions taken by certain governments that have resulted in the shutdown of several other markets.

"It is through both voluntary and government actions that we will continue to improve the landscape for IPR owners and companies and their workers here at home that rely on IPR protection," he said.

USTR said Chinese site Taobao, has worked with rights holders to significantly decrease the listing of infringing products for sale through its website, and has committed to continue working to streamline its complaint procedures to further reduce listings of counterfeit products.

USTR has been identifying notorious markets since 2006. — PTI

Mumbai, December 14
Bank account holders can continue to use their old format cheques for another three months as the Reserve Bank of India has extended the deadline for banks to issue new cheques with uniform security features till March next year.

The RBI in a notification on Friday said: "Taking into consideration representations, it has been decided to extend the time up to March 31, 2013, for banks to ensure withdrawal of non-CTS 2010 Standard cheques and replace them with CTS-2010 Standard cheques."

Almost all the banks have confirmed they are issuing only multicity or payable at par CTS-2010 standard cheques at present, representations have been received from various stakeholders requesting for extension of the time beyond Dec 31, 2012, the RBI said.

As per the earlier direction to all banks, the RBI had fixed Dec 31 as the last date for phasing out non-CTS (Cheque Truncation System) 2010 Standard cheques. The homogeneity in security features of CTS 2010 standard cheques will act as deterrent against frauds, and the fixed field placement specifications facilitate straight-through-processing at drawee banks' end through the use of optical or image character recognition technology. — PTI