The Hindu Business Line : Friday, September 16, 2005

Reviving monsoon brings North-West too under its footprint
POWERED by three concurrent systems and with a fourth expectedly joining the party in another 24 hours, the southwest monsoon is back on top gear. The biggest beneficiary from the latest monsoon pulse will be the moisture-stressed northwest, ... More

NRIS

Reliance IndiaCall begins services in UK from today
RELIANCE Communications UK will launch its Reliance IndiaCall service in England and Wales on Friday. The company already has such a service in the US and Canada. Reliance IndiaCall will charge 7.9 pence per minute for landline calls made from ... More

NON-CONVENTIONAL ENERGY

Big push to promote non-conventional energy planned
THE Ministry of Non-conventional Energy Sources (MNES) will adopt a mission-based approach in tapping and popularising non-conventional energy in India. In a bid to popularise and extend the use of renewable energy, the Ministry has expanded ... More

ECONOMY

India most popular offshoring destination, says PwC survey
INDIA is currently the most popular offshoring destination on parameters such as macroeconomic stability, regulations, labour costs and skills, and would gain more as the scale of outsourcing in the financial services sector is expected to ... More

ENVIRONMENT

First Citizen `powers' the way — Rashtrapati Bhavan plans solar plant
RASHTRAPATI Bhavan has plans for a captive solar power plant to meet its energy requirement. "Rashtrapati Bhavan is considering generation of electricity from renewable resources to take care of its energy needs. One proposal under ... More

107 clean development projects get Ministry nod — Can attract $2.6-b revenues
Each CER stands for one tonne of carbon dioxide reduction and can be traded globally. More

Sops sought for Green Buildings
INDIAN Green Building Council (IGBC) asked the Government on Thursday to make it mandatory for buildings above 20,000 square feet to incorporate minimum green features. It also sought incentives such as reduction in property tax and lower water ... More

Coast Guard to observe coastal cleanup day tomorrow
THE Coast Guard District Headquarters No. 3 will observe International Coastal Cleanup Day in 10 beaches of Karnataka on September 17. Addressing presspersons here on Thursday, Commandant S.K. Chaudhry, Commander, Coast Guard, Karnataka, said ... More

FOREIGN TRADE

Plea for US foreign commercial officer
THE US Consul General in Kolkata, Mr. Henry V Jardine, today said that his office had asked Washington for the appointment of a foreign commercial officer in Kolkata. Apart from Delhi, US consulates in Chennai and Mumbai already had such an ... More

HEALTH

Vibes opens fitness centre in Hyderabad
THE Delhi-based Alankar Group opened its weight loss-cum-fitness centre here on Thursday. It plans to open more centres during the year. Opening the fitness centre, Bollywood starlet Dia Mirza said "A strenuous lifestyle should not mean ... More

HOTELS

More hotel projects coming up in South
OF the 70 new hotel projects approved at an all-India level, 45 are in the South, Mr M. P. Purushothaman, President, South India Hotels and Restaurants Association (SIHRA), said. To cater to the growth of the knowledge-driven industries, five ... More

PETROLEUM

IOC-OIL combine eyeing second round of bidding for Libyan blocks
THE Indian Oil Corporation Ltd-Oil India Ltd combine is expected to take part in the second round of oil and gas blocks bidding in Libya. Senior official sources said, "IOC-OIL combine are taking part in the second round of bidding in ... More

Big players still keep off crude futures — `Volumes offered not big enough'
IT has been a good seven months since the country's first crude oil contract was launched. If MCX was the first to test waters in crude futures, NCDEX, in strategic partnership with International Petroleum Exchange (IPE), launched the next crude ... More

Appointment of independent directors according to norms: Aiyar
THE Petroleum Minister, Mr Mani Shankar Aiyar, today said that a final decision on the appointment of independent directors for public sector oil companies would depend on the approval of the search committee of the Department of Public ... More

PHARMACEUTICALS

Pharma policy must strike balance between drug cost and safety: CII
THE Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has said that any policy for the pharmaceutical sector must strike a balance between affordable healthcare and availability of safe and efficacious medicines, besides providing an impetus for Research & More

POWER

Dabhol revival plan may trip on costlier LNG — `Tight' market likely to push up power cost
Gas supply originally proposed at $3.65/mmbtu (million metric British thermal units); now the rate is at $4.5- $5; consequently the end price of power may go up to Rs 2.75 per unit from the earlier estimate of Rs 2.30. More

PowerGrid to invite bids from pvt players for two projects
POWER Grid Corporation of India Ltd (PGCIL) will invite bids from private companies for two projects involving the strengthening of transmission network in parts of the western region within a month's time, the Chairman and Managing Director, Mr ... More

India should aim at conserving at least 10-15 pc energy: Kalam
THE President, Mr A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, on Thursday said India, with its current power generation of one trillion units a year, should aim at conserving at least 10-15 per cent energy. "Presently, we are generating one trillion units of power. We ... More

French reactor tech, US fuel to drive India's N-power programme
With the US and France agreeing to support India's nuclear power programme, the country should be able to make progress on the 10 nuclear plants where work is currently under way, a Power Ministry official said. More

STEEL

Vizag Steel gets IOC's oil purification system
OIL conservation and recycling are of crucial importance to any industry and the steel plant here is making all efforts in that direction, according to Mr Y. Sivasagara Rao, Chairman and Managing Director, Visakhapatnam Steel Plant (VSP). He ... More

TEXTILES

TN mills want hike in tech fund corpus
THE Tamil Nadu Spinning Mills Association (TASMA) has asked the Centre to enlarge the corpus of the Technology Upgradation Fund Scheme (TUFS) to meet the rising demand for the textile modernisation fund. The existing TUFS corpus of Rs 25,000 ... More

International tag eludes Indian textiles
India is missing out on the global textile front for want of that value addition or product development. More

WATER

Conserving water
An employee at India's first membrane bio reactor waste water recycling plant in Cubbon Park, which was inaugurated by the Karnataka Chief Minister, Mr N. Dharam Singh, in Bangalore on Thursday. This plant is a fully-automated one with 1.5 ... More

EDUCATION

Kuoni Academy course on travel BPO
CHENNAI: Kuoni Academy of Travel is starting a four-month course in travel business process outsourcing. Mr Kamal Hingorani, Vice President, KAT, said the travel BPO course aims to train candidates as travel counsellors for employment in ... More

GEMS & JEWELLERY

Record rise in gold imports; jewellery fabrication up 50 pc
A STRIKING feature of the first half of 2005 has been the phenomenal rise in both gross and net gold imports, with the latter pushing towards the 500-tonne mark against 306 tonnes during the same period in 2004. GFMS (Gold Fields Mineral ... More

REAL ESTATE & CONSTRUCTION

Cess on construction proposed — Proceeds for imparting new skills to workers
The draft National Housing and Habitat Policy said the cess would be levied on all construction projects except those undertaken on a self-help basis. It also proposed that the various training and skill enhancement schemes for workers could be clubb ed to make the process more focussed. More

INDUSTRY ASSOCIATIONS

Study suggests measures to broadbase investors
IN a study on `Equity Conversion Option', jointly prepared by the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry (Assocham) and the research team of Harbhakti Group, it has been suggested that 20 per cent of the excess statutory liquid assets (SLR) ... More

BIO-TECH & GENETICS

Bengal-IIT pact for bio-tech park signed
A MEMORANDUM of Association ( MoA) for developing a biotechnology park along with an incubation centre was signed here between the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation (WBIDC) and Indian Institute of Technology (IIT). The park will ... More

MINERALS

Planning Commission panel to examine States' demand on mineral ore
ARE Orissa, Chhattisgarh and a few other States fair in demanding that the value addition to mineral ores mined in the State must be done within its boundaries? While the heated debate on this continues unabated, the Planning Commission has set ... More

SOCIAL WELFARE

A timely gift
The Tamil Nadu Chief Minister, Ms J. Jayalalithaa, handing over a cycle to a student at the Secretariat in Chennai on Thursday, marking the launch of the extended `free bicycle scheme'. ... More

RURAL DEVELOPMENT

World Bank asks India to review rural lending policy
THE World Bank has suggested that the Indian Government could revisit its policy of setting interest rate `caps' on rural lending rates and `floors' on deposit rates, because the high transaction costs and collateral requirements were making ... More

TRADE & LABOUR UNIONS

HPCL Visakha refinery neglecting safety, says BMS
HINDUSTHAN Petroleum Corporation Ltd, Visakha refinery, is neglecting safety of the workers and all the safety measures shown by the management are only on paper, according to the Bharatiya Mazdoor Sangh. The leaders and workers of the BMS ... More

EVENTS

Govt accounting bodies' meet
INDIA would on Saturday play host to the second assembly meeting of the Association of Government Accounting Organisations of Asia (AGAOA), the Controller General of Accounts, Mr H Prabhakar Rao, has said. Mr Rao said the Association was in a ... More

INCOME TAX

I-T payment at bank branches
MUMBAI: The Income-Tax department has authorised 894 computerised branches of public sector banks in Mumbai and Navi Mumbai to accept payment of income-tax dues, said a press release from Reserve Bank of India. These include 833 public ... More

EXPORTS & IMPORTS

Call to raise spice output to retain export share
WITH consumption in the country rising and no production increases in sight, Indian spices may soon lose the battle for global market share, according to Mr Kirandeep Singh Swani, Chairman of Indian Spice and Foodstuff Exporters ... More

FIEO hails increase in drawback rates of certain items
THE Federation of Indian Export Organisations (FIEO) has welcomed the recent upward revision of duty drawback rates in certain entries of leather goods, glass artware, brass and copper articles, handicraft of brass, textile floor coverings ... More

TOURISM

On a swing
A massive wave breaking up just below his perch on a swing forces a foreign tourist to take evasive action at the Eve's Beach at Kovalam on Thiruvonam Day on Thursday. The number of foreign tourists visiting Kovalam during the Onam festival ... More

Comments & Letters to the Editor to: bleditor@thehindu.co.in
Subscribe to: Business Line