The Hindu Business Line : Friday, February 27, 2004

CLIMATE & WEATHER
TN annual rainfall average declining, says study
IS Tamil Nadu getting progressively dry with time? According to monsoon data, the answer seems to be a firm yes. In fact, the 1980's saw an all time low rainfall during the entire 20th century, with annual rainfall of a meagre 525.5 mm and the ... More

Bay of Bengal, Arabian Sea surface temperatures vary
DIFFERENCE in the structure and magnitude of prevailing winds has been found responsible for keeping the mean temperature of the top 50 metres of the Bay of Bengal warmer than that of the Arabian Sea during the summer monsoon. The genesis of ... More

Signs of summer
A herd of cattle takes refuge in Hussain Sagar Lake from rising temperatures on Thursday afternoon. There has been a sudden rise in day temperatures in Hyderabad in the last couple of days. ... More

AUTOMOBILES
Nod for auto testing project
THE Ministry of Heavy Industries has cleared a Rs 55-crore Auto Testing Project (for tractors and other vehicles) to be set up near Nagpur. Based on representations received from Vidarbha Jan Kalyan Sanstha and the Vidarbha Industries ... More

ECONOMY
`Bengal industrial growth shows encouraging signs'
THE Governor of West Bengal, Mr Viren J. Shah, on Thursday said that the industrial scenario in West Bengal has "continued to display encouraging signs of advance". Addressing the opening day of the Budget session of the West Bengal Legislative ... More

ENVIRONMENT
`Plastics are useful, if handled with care'
THE West Bengal Chief Minister, Mr Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee, has said that there are various advantages of using plastic materials and they do not damage the environment if handled with care. Addressing a seminar on `Building competencies in the ... More

FOREIGN TRADE
Pak team sees scope for boosting trade ties
A HIGH-LEVEL business delegation from Karachi Chamber of Commerce and Industry (KCCI) today called on the Union Commerce and Industry Minister, Mr Arun Jaitley, as part of the ongoing confidence-building measure between New Delhi and Islamabad to ... More

Free trade with Thailand likely to begin from July
NEGOTIATIONS between India and Thailand over the Free Trade Agreement are slightly behind schedule. Right now, negotiators are discussing `rules of origin', or, what should be the value addition in each country so that the product made in one ... More

Sri Lanka Trade Centre opened in Chennai
THE suspension of peace talks between the Sri Lankan Government and the LTTE has not deterred foreign investment coming to Sri Lanka, according to Mr Arjuna Mahindran, Chairman, Board of Investment, Sri Lanka. The climate is conducive to foreign ... More

Unctad keen to revive integrated plan for commodities to shore up African economy
THE UN Conference on Trade & Development (UNCTAD) has underlined the need to "revisit" its two-decade-old proposal for integrated programme for commodities (IPC) in a serious bid to shore up the commodity-dependent economies in Africa, despite .. More

Indo-Italian chamber in Kolkata to become operations office
THE Kolkata branch of the Mumbai-headquartered Indo-Italian Chamber of Commerce, re-launched recently, is soon being transformed from a representation office into a full-fledged operations set-up, to be headed by a its Regional Manager. Making ... More

INFRASTRUCTURE
Hyderabad to have Habitat Centre
HYDERABAD could in the near future have a clone of New Delhi's India Habitat Centre — a well spread out multi-storied, multi-block complex, aesthetically designed centre housing a number of modern offices, restaurants, convention and ... More

Coastal Agenda Task Force awaits Karnataka Govt nod to submit report
THE Coastal Agenda Task Force (CATF) — an advisory body set up by the Karnataka Government for the comprehensive development of coastal districts of Dakshina Kannada and Udupi — is ready with its final report. However, it is ... More

PETROLEUM
RIL threatens to stop supplies to PSU oil marketing cos
RELIANCE Industries Ltd (RIL) has threatened to stop sale of petroleum products to public sector oil marketing companies (OMCs) from April 1, in case the OMCs do not pick up around 11 million tonnes, or a third of its refinery produce of 33 ... More

PHARMACEUTICALS
Drugs: Outsourcing gains highlighted
IN the backdrop of prohibitive costs of over $800 million per each new drug in the global market and the huge opportunity of over $53 billion in drugs going off-patent in the next five-six years, the US pharmaceutical and biotechnology industry ... More

National Forum to fight spurious drugs
EVEN as the law proposing death penalty to manufacturers of spurious drugs has lapsed after the dissolution of Parliament, a National Forum for Anti-spurious Drugs has been set up to tackle the issue. The Forum, under the Chairmanship of Mr ... More

POWER
NTPC gung-ho on coastal power plants — Simhadri experience a major confidence booster
LESSONS learnt in the 1,000 MW Simhadri thermal power plant have encouraged NTPC to set up more such power plants along the coast, according to officials at the power plant. For BHEL, which set up the plant for NTPC, it has been a proving ... More

Paucity of imported coal hits western region
RELIANCE Energy and Gujarat State Electricity Board, among other bulk coal consuming industries in the western region, are reportedly in rough weather due to non-availability of imported coal. Available market information indicates that ... More

Madurai-Tvm power project: Way cleared for implementation
ALL outstanding issues concerning work on the Madurai-Thiruvananthapuram 400-KV power highway have been resolved and the project will be readied for commissioning in the next three months, according to the State Electricity Minister, Mr K. ... More

Power exchange `possible' within five years
THE setting up of a power exchange, acting as a B2B portal for buying and selling power, is becoming a distinct possibility, according to power sector sources. With the Electricity Act 2003 imparting a momentum to such moves, setting up an ... More

Cosmetic touch
Though there has not been any remarkable progress in enhancing power generation in the State, KSEB staff are engaged in maintenance work in Kochi, to exhaust the allotted funds before March 31. ... More

TAXATION
Participatory approach vital to improve revenue collections in Karnataka: Panel
KARNATAKA has the potential to increase its non-tax revenue by about 800 per cent from Rs 214.66 crore in 2001-02 from the four social infrastructure sectors like education, health, forest and irrigation, if only it implemented the ... More

SSI
Applications invited from SSls for Visvesvaraya award
THE Madurai District Tiny And Small Scale Industries Association (Maditssia) has invited applications from the small-scale industrialists for the 12th Visvesvaraya Award, for the best small-scale industry functioning in the southern ... More

COAL
Move to identify isolated pockets of coal deposits
AS a new initiative to improve availability of coal in the remote areas, the Union Ministry of Coal & Mines has directed Mineral & Exploration Corporation Ltd and Central Mine Planning & Design Institute Ltd to identify small isolated poc More

RADIO/TV
TRAI to set up special panel on CAS
AS part of the consultations on the implementation of the Conditional Access System (CAS), the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has decided to set up a special committee comprising representatives of the four State Governments of ... More

EDUCATION
IIM course helps IT cos combat attrition
APART from instilling managerial skills in their engineers, the PG course in Software Management at IIM-Bangalore has helped IT companies battle attrition rates too. "Most of the graduating students of the programme have remained with their ... More

AICTE may fix ceiling on technical education fees
THE All-India Council for Technical Education (AICTE), a statutory body regulating technical education, plans to establish ceilings on the fees chargeable by technical education institutions in the country. The ceilings would at best serve as ... More

CARS
Car buyer getting younger: JD Power
WITH a deluge of easy finance schemes , the Indian car buyer is only getting younger, particularly in the bigger cities. According to a study by JD Power, the percentage of car buyers below the age of 25 has gone up from 9 per cent in 1999 to ... More

CONSULTING
Private cos appointed consultants for defence housing projects
THE Government has roped in the private sector for providing consultancy services to construct houses for defence services personnel under the Rs 19,000-crore Married Accommodation Project launched by the Prime Minister, Mr A.B. Vajpayee, last ... More

MEDICAL INSTITUTIONS & HOSPITALS
Aditya Birla hospital coming up near Pune
THE Aditya Birla Foundation on Thursday laid the foundation stone for a 500-bed super speciality hospital, Aditya Birla Memorial Hospital, in Chinchwad, near Pune. Mr Ashwin Kumar Kothari, trustee of the hospital, told presspersons that an ... More

GOLD & SILVER
Spot gold may test support level
GOLD prices fell to its lowest in more than three months on back of reports that the European central Bank was ready to intervene in the markets to slow the Euro's unstoppable rise against the dollar. This was prior to calls from the German ... More

NEWSPAPERS & PUBLISHING
Media marketing body formed
BANGALORE: The media marketing fraternity in Bangalore has come under one umbrella with the formation of Media Association of Bangalore. The association is exclusively meant for the 300-odd media marketing people covering print, ... More

PRINTING
Printing is now IT-enabled
HYDERABAD: Thanks to the convergence of information technology, printing and packaging industries, printing is no longer considered as just printing. "It has become an IT-enabled services as a result of the convergence," Mr P. Narendra, ... More

DISINVESTMENT
IBP public offer subscribed 75 pc of issue size
AFTER languishing for the first three days, the public offer of IBP received strong response from the investing community on Thursday with the issue being subscribed almost 75 per cent of the offer size. The issue of Dredging Corporation also ... More

Ambiguities in fertiliser policy — Major stumbling block to privatisation
With the Government reviving the divestment process in a host of PSUs, including in the fertiliser sector, it should announce that the pricing schemes in both the nitrogen and phosphate sectors will be withdrawn by a specified date and benchmark pri cing to the import parity price. This will ensure transparency and fair valuations of the fertiliser PSUs put on the block. More

IOC, GAIL cannot sell equity in ONGC for six months
THE Government, GAIL India and IOC will not be able to sell their equity in ONGC for six months after the proposed public offer for sale of 10 per cent Government equity in ONGC which is slated to open on March 5, a top company official has ... More

SOCIAL WELFARE
`More corporate funding must to tackle issues in social sector'
THE economic divide today is far more dangerous than the communal divide, and there is need for greater corporate social responsibility for tackling social sector issues such as education, health and empowerment of women, especially in semi-urban ... More

EVENTS
`Affordable biotech needed to address socio-economic gaps'
THE Union Secretary designate for the Department of Biotechnology, Dr M.K. Bhan, has said affordable and accessible biotechnology products should be developed indigenously, absence of which would only lead to increased socioeconomic ... More

In Hyderabad today

EXPORTS & IMPORTS
Sugar industry to utilise export quota to US
WITH domestic prices on a roll, the sugar industry is not particularly enthused over the allocation of 8,000 tonnes of raw sugar for exports to the US under the Preferential Raw Cane Sugar Tariff Rate quota for the fiscal year 2004 (October 1, ... More

Campco ships arecanut consignment to Kabul
IN a bid to expand its overseas market, the Central Arecanut and Cocoa Marketing and Processing Cooperative (Campco) Ltd on Thursday despatched the first trial consignment of one 40-ft container arecanut to Siraj Miraj Ltd in Kabul, Afghanistan. ... More

TOURISM
Spain eyes `big spending' tourists
SPAIN, a modern, rich and vibrant western European nation, is keen to attract more "big spending, adventurous" Indians to its shores. India is still a "developing market" for Spain and Indian arrivals to the country stood at around 10,000 ... More