The Hindu Business Line : Thursday, August 18, 2005

Employment Guarantee Bill: Govt agrees to Left demands
THE Government today yielded to the demands of the Left parties and agreed to incorporate five major amendments in the National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, slated to be tabled in the Lok Sabha on Thursday. The decision follows a meeting ... More

IFMR Director to talk on job prospects in financial sector
THE Institute for Financial Management & Research (IFMR) Director, Mr R. Kannan, will deliver the BL Club lecture on `Job opportunities in the financial sector' at the Meenakshi College for Women here on Thursday. His talk will focus on ... More

CLIMATE & WEATHER

Weekly rainfall figures show decline
ALL India weekly rainfall has declined considerably from 16 per cent above normal last week (August 1-7) to 25 per cent below normal during the latest (Aug 8-14) for which statistics are available, says the National Centre for Medium Range ... More

NON-CONVENTIONAL ENERGY

Petroleum Ministry wants OMCs to pay Rs 25 a litre for bio-diesel
THE Petroleum Secretary, Mr S.C. Tripathi, today said that the Petroleum Ministry would like the oil marketing companies (OMCs) to increase the price offered by them to purchase bio-diesel from entrepreneurs for blending with diesel. At a recent ... More

ECONOMY

`Govt will measure development outcomes of all major programmes'
THE Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, today said that a mechanism would be put in place to measure the development outcomes of all major programmes. "At the end of the year, we should ask not how much has been spent, but what has been ... More

HOTELS

Floor space index relaxed for hotels
THE State Government has decided to relax the floor space index (FSI) for hotels and the hospitality industry following a request from the Tourism Department. Considering the increasing demand for star hotels to cater to the growing populace ... More

INFRASTRUCTURE

World Bank chief's visit evokes fears and expectations
THE World Bank President, Mr Paul Wolfowitz's two-day visit to Andhra Pradesh has raised both expectations and controversy. While the State Government wants to carry forward the support from the Bank as per its understanding, the Left parties ... More

PSU

IIM-B interim report on APSRTC soon
THE Chief Minister, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, on Tuesday asked the expert team from the Indian Institute of Management (IIM), Bangalore, to take up an in-depth study on the functioning of the Andhra Pradesh State Road Transport Corporation ... More

PETROLEUM

To provide cushion for under-recoveries — Standalone refineries may be merged with oil marketing cos
THE Ministry of Petroleum & Natural Gas is weighing the option of merging pure refining companies with oil marketing companies (OMCs) to enable the latter to cushion the impact of high global crude oil prices on their bottomline. Due to the ... More

PHARMACEUTICALS

Task force's report soon on affordable life-saving drugs
THE task force, which is looking at options other than price control for increasing affordability of life saving drugs, is likely to submit its report shortly. Responding to a calling attention motion in Rajya Sabha, the Chemicals and ... More

TAXATION

Revenue trends in VAT States
VAT-implementing States that had generally a moderate tax structure under their earlier sales tax regime seem to have recorded higher rates of increase in revenue in the first quarter of the current fiscal, compared to the States that had ... More

AP: 12% growth in VAT collection
THE State recorded an encouraging growth of 12 per cent in value added tax (VAT) collections in July compared to a low growth rate of 6.2 per cent in the previous months. So far, VAT collections in State stood at Rs 3,413 crore against an ... More

Create a single authority for imposition of service tax, VAT: Assocham
IN a memorandum submitted to the Empowered Committee of State Finance Ministers, the Associated Chamber of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) has suggested setting up of a single authority to resolve issues of imposition of service tax and ... More

WATER

Reservoirs in Kerala set to touch full capacity
THE water storage in the reservoirs of the State's hydel projects this year is expected to touch the 1992 level of 99.79 per cent of their capacity if the current trend of monsoon prevailed during the rest of the season. A senior KSEB official ... More

CARS

`Maruti ranks top in customer satisfaction'
The industry improved its overall performance by six index points. More

SCIENCE & TECHNOLOGY

Ground station antenna for Chandrayan spacecraft to be set up near Bangalore
The Rs 60-crore antenna, being developed by Electronics Corporation of India, will be ready by March 2007. More

DISINVESTMENT

Strategic sale method flawed: Chidambaram
`Divestment process not on back burner'
THE Finance Minister, Mr P. Chidambaram, on Wednesday defended the Government's decision to dump the strategic sale route for disinvestment in profit-making public sector undertakings, and said that the system was flawed since it "raised more ... More

SOCIAL WELFARE

Delhi's half marathon in Oct gets corporate backing
COME October and the country will witness a public-corporate partnership of a different sort on the roads of the Capital. It will be a 21-km-long marathon run, literally. The public will run, the corporates will provide the funds and the money ... More

EVENTS

Pharma, biotech conclave to be held in Manipal
MANIPAL AcuNova, a player in biotechnology and clinical research, will host a `CXO Conclave' at Manipal in Udupi district on August 20. A press release said here on Wednesday that the conclave would focus on the developing trends in pharma and ... More

Meet on energy conservation at Thiruvananthapuram
THIRUVANANTHAPURAM: Energy Research Centre of the Central Power Research Institute is organising a three-day workshop on `Best practices in energy conservation' from Thursday at the Mascot Hotel here. The Electricity Minister, Mr ... More

CONSUMERISM

`Consumer courts must penalise cos manipulating markets'
THE Government today asked consumer redressal courts to levy punitive damages on erring companies to safeguard the interest of consumers. "There are innumerable examples that could be cited where markets are often manipulated and abused. Class ... More

INCOME TAX

Decks cleared for tax waiver on IMD interest income
THE decks have been cleared for granting tax exemption to income earned by way of interest on the India Millennium Deposits (IMD) that were issued by the State Bank of India. The Centre, through the Revenue Department, has now specified IMD as ... More

Benchmarks for I-T collection
HYDERABAD: Mr T. K. Dewan, Special Chief Secretary and Chief Commissioner of Land Administration, has asked the Income-Tax Department to benchmark itself against developing and developed countries on tax collection procedures. ... More

EXPORTS & IMPORTS

Textile exports showing positive growth
EVEN as the controversy over the discrepancy in export data of textiles and clothing from India and those of the importing major developed countries such as the US and the European Union (EU) is raging, the Textile Ministry appears to be unfazed ... More

NATURAL CALAMITIES

Govt announces excise refund scheme for tsunami-hit areas
THE Central Government has come up with an excise duty refund scheme to support the reconstruction of houses in the tsunami-affected districts of Tamil Nadu, Andhra Pradesh, and Kerala and in Pondicherry and the Andaman and Nicobar Islands. The ... More

Corpn Bank's donation for flood-hit States
CONSIDERING the large-scale devastation caused by floods in Maharashtra and Karnataka, Corporation Bank has donated Rs 1 crore and Rs 50 lakh to the Maharashtra Chief Minister's Relief Fund (Natural Calamities) and the Karnataka Chief Minister's ... More

ALTERNATIVE MEDICINES

Govt seeks details of Canadian ban on traditional Indian drugs
The Government has also directed the companies to carry out safety/toxicity studies for the banned products. More

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