A framework for the report of the Working Group was developed In the first meeting of the Group and 11 Sub-Groups were constituted for detailed study of important focal areas to identify the bottlenecks and suggest facilitation needed to overcome them. In its second meeting the Working Group decided to give the recommendations on following thematic verticals:

• Finance, including credit.
• Infrastructure.
• Technology.
• Marketing & Procurement.
• Skill Development & Training.
• Institutional Structure

The Working Group has recommended a road map for projecting Khadi as well Village Industries as pure, ethnic and environment friendly products in the global market. Similarly, Coir sector has an enormous growth potential. This wonder fibred could be converted into high value products like geo- textiles and other green products. The recommendation of the Working Group is to promote value added coir products with required funding by the Government. The Group recommends retaining unique status of both the sectors and proposes separate allocation for them.

The Approach Paper of the Planning Commission for the 12th Plan period mentions MSME Sector as the foundation for the overall manufacturing sector. Nurturing competitive MSMEs would help in absorbing new technologies and improving productivity in manufacturing sector, with stimulation of the growth of dynamic clusters as a key to such an approach. The Approach Paper also stresses on need for skilled human resources for competitive enterprises and linking Skill Development and training initiatives with industry requirements. It also stresses the importance of penetration of information and communication technology, which can enhance the overall competitiveness of the sector as well as the quality of governance. Further, it also recognizes the important role of innovation in spurring growth and unleashing potential of enterprises. Thrust on frugal innovation will result in generation of affordable and accessible products and services of global standards.

The National Manufacturing Policy envisages increasing the sectoral share of Manufacturing in GDP to 25 % over the next decade and generating additional 100 million jobs in manufacturing sector through an annual average growth rate of 12-14 % in manufacturing sector. MSME sector is the major base of manufacturing sector in India with its contribution of over 45% in overall industrial output. To achieve the ambitious targets of National Manufacturing Policy, the Working Group on MSME Growth looks forward to enhance the growth rate of the MSME sector substantially from the existing level of 12 – 13 % growth rate per annum.

Planning Commission constituted the present Working Group on Micro, Small & Medium Enterprises (MSMEs) Growth for the 12 th Five Year Plan (2012-17), under the chairmanship of Secretary (MSME) with 46 members representing various Ministries/Offices of Government of India, representatives of selected State Governments and Industry Associations, NGOs etc. in May, 2011. The terms of reference of the Group was, carrying forward the recommendations of the Prime Minister’s Task Force and suggest specific action plan and milestones to be achieved within the 12 th Plan period. Further, the terms of reference of the Group also includes suggestions to address problems of Un-organized Sector and formulate proposals/schemes to facilitate overall growth of the MSME sector.

To identify issues inhibiting growth of the sector, a Task Force was constituted by the Prime Minister in 2009. The Task Force made 85 recommendations to unshackle the Indian MSMEs.

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India, on the other hand, is steadily if stealthily dismantling its capital controls, foregoing the ability to emulate the Chinese growth strategy. Why so?

For reasons still unclear, the world, and hence Indian policy makers, are in thrall to the narrative of “imbalance” surrounding Chinese mercantilism. In this view, mercantilism has been a problem for China, creating distortions and reducing welfare, and a problem for the world. Now, Chinese mercantilism has not been costless, and these costs may well be rising.

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Yet, in India, there is no national consensus on what constitute the key elements of energy security. Does subsidising power consumption contribute to national security? Is the policy on coal mining or on hydroelectricity or on nuclear energy, or on oil and gas pricing, defined by India’s national security and national interest?

Nowhere is the absence of political consensus on policy in India as damaging to the national interest as in the case of the power sector. What is even more disturbing is the fact that even within the government, there appears to be no consensus on energy policy and security. Different ministries pull in different directions.

Mindful of this problem, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh constituted an Energy Coordination Committee (ECC) in July 2005 to, among other things, “identify key areas requiring energy policy initiatives, so that the overall objectives of economic development, energy security and energy efficiency are met; monitor vulnerabilities that directly impinge on energy security aspects; outline the follow-up action needed for implementing identified policy initiatives; identify institutional mechanisms for implementing policies; periodically monitor key policy decisions”.

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This report is a wake-up call to the both the movers and shakers on a global level to come up with productive ways to realign the expectations of an increasingly concerned global community. Expectedly, Davos, this week, will address the issues.

GLOBAL COMPETITIVENESS

Also to be discussed is the Global Competitiveness Report broughtout by the WEF. Findings show that Switzerland tops the overall rankings. Singapore overtakes Sweden for second position. Northern and Western European countries dominate the top 10. Japan remains the second-ranked Asian economy at ninth place, despite falling three places since last year.

As for India, she ranks 56th in the assessment. India dropped five places and demonstrated only “slight changes in its competitiveness performance” since last year. Countries such as Tunisia (40), Malta (51), Sri Lanka (52), and Azerbaijan (55) are ahead of India!

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“This settles a prolonged litigation that had created a lot of uncertainty for foreign companies having similar structures who had entered into or were proposing to enter into similar transactions,” said Sandeep Ladda, executive director with PricewaterhouseCooper (PwC) India.

“This should provide much needed respite to other litigants in other cases – where the Vodafone controversy had been initiated by the revenue authorities – and are currently pending at various stages of litigation across the country,” he added.

In a landmark judgment, the apex court said Indian tax authorities had no jurisdiction over transactions abroad and quashed the Income Tax department’s demand of capital gains tax from Vodafone pertaining to its majority buy of Hutchison Essar in 2007.

Income tax authorities had claimed Rs.11,218 crore ($2.2 billion) in the form of capital gains tax from the world’s largest telecom operator Vodafone.

“This landmark decision will enhance the trust of international investors in the Indian judicial system and the strong institutional fundamentals underlying the economy,” said FICCI secretary general Rajiv Kumar.

“Stability of institutional processes is an important requirement for attracting foreign direct investment. This decision will re-inject confidence in cross-border mergers and acquisitions and further augment such investment coming to India,” Kumar said.

Among other deals under the IT department’s scanner are global telecom firm AT&T’s stake sale in Idea Cellular to Tata. The Tatas later exited Idea, but the tax liability issue is still pending before the Bombay High Court.

Echoing a similar opinion, Hemant Joshi, partner at Deloitte Haskins & Sells, said the judgment would send a strong positive signal to foreign investors and help attract overseas investments in telecom and other sectors.

“The telecom sector has been plagued by various uncertainties. For a sector that is expected to contribute to 15 percent of India’s GDP shortly, foreign investment is going to play a key role,” Joshi said.

“With this decision, a strong signal goes out to investors regarding the predictability and certainty of tax laws in the country,” he said.

“It will have a positive impact on the sentiment for attracting foreign investments. With the sector having attracted more than $10 billion in foreign investments, this should help to give the right signals,” Joshi said.

Some similar cases which would be impacted from the Supreme Court’s verdict on Vodafone:

- GE’s sale of majority stake in one of India’s biggest outsourcing firm Genpact. The $500 million transaction for 60 percent stake bought by US-based private equity companies, General Atlantic and Oak Hill Partners, was completed overseas

- Japanese Mitsui’s 51 percent stake sale in mining company Sesa Goa to UK-based Vedanta Group for $981 million in April 2007. The deal was routed through Fininsider, a company incorporated in the UK and which held the Sesa Goa shares. Vedanta bought 100 percent of the company. The deal came under the scanner of authorities and the case is pending before the Goa High Court

- SABMiller, leading global brewer acquired 100 percent stake in Foster’s India, a subsidiary of Foster’s Australia, in 2006. The matter is pending before a Pune court. In a separate case, Foster’s Australia had approached the Authority for Advance Ruling a quasi-judicial body which ruled against the company and said the Australian beer major’s sale of brand and trademarks to SABMiller in India is taxable in the country.

Indian Coal sector during post nationalization period has seen tremendous growth in production and productivity. Coal India Limited (CIL), a state owned coal company and the single largest coal producer in the world, has focused on excellence in technological advancements. This includes use of underground and opencast mining equipment, eco-friendly mining concept, introduction of satellite surveillance, e-marketing of coal and awareness on quality front. It has adopted best mining practices that take into consideration environmental-forestry-societal well being.

Innovation to optimize the available coal resources has been the key strategy of the Ministry of Coal. The thrust areas for development of coal sector include opening up new mega underground and open cost projects in potential coalfields. Not only large scale deployment of clean fuel technologies, but also use of modern techniques like GPS, remote sensing, satellite surveillance etc.are being adopted for effective resource management. Cost reduction measures through deployment of modern techniques are also being implemented to remain cost-competitive against international volatility in coal prices.

Pursuant to nationalization of coal sector in 1972-73 and subsequent formation of Coal India Limited in November, 1975, Indian coal sector has witnessed a growth in production from a level of 70 million tonnes (1973-74) to a level of 533.07 million tonnes in 2010-11, with Coal India’s contribution of about 431.32 million tonnes, representing a share of 81%. The underground & opencast production shared a ratio of 75:25 in 1974-75. Over a period of almost 37 years, the trend in coal production has undergone a drastic change with opencast mines contributing to 90% of the total coal production while a meagre 10% is extracted from underground mines. Overall labour productivity, referred to as “Output per Manshift” (OMS) in mining parlance, has reached a level of 4.73 T (2010-11) from 0.58 T reported in 1974-75. The underground productivity has mostly remained stagnant over last 5 years, hovering in the range of 0.70 – 0.77 from a level of around 0.55 – 0.60 T in the early 80’s. The productivity of the opencast mines at the early stage of technological development in 80’s was of the order of 0.76 – 1.20 T which has subsequently attained a level of 10.06 T in 2010-11, largely because of higher degree of technical advancement and deployment of HEMM of higher configuration. It is, therefore, imperative that sluggish growth in underground productivity calls for some measure of technological advancement with our ability to innovate the same to suit to our specific geo-mining conditions.

The opencast mines in India usually deploy shovel-Dumper combination of various configurations. Measures like upgradation and standardization of HEMM namely, upgradation of dumpers of various sizes ranging from 35T to the standard 60 T, 100 T, 190 T and 240 T and standardization of Electric Rope shovels to 5 m3, 10 m3 and 42 m3 have been our decision in the recent past. Apart from the above, higher capacity Crawler Dozers of 850 HP have been inducted in Mega opencast mines of CIL. Gradual introduction of such higher capacity HEMM, which are technically advanced, introduction of Maintenance practices have resulted in overall improvement in productivity, which in turn have vastly improved profitability of mines of CIL.

Smaller mines have been amalgamated to form bigger capacity projects to enhance the life of the mine with enhanced production and productivity. Productivity improvement does not mean taking care of the various measures, as suggested above only. It also needs to be ensured that the equipment introduced and the skilled manpower deployed is able to perform uninterruptedly. Recent experience of introduction of large size equipment in some of the mega size open-cast mines has shown that non-availability of sufficient land and or obstruction in their operation results in effective utilization, thereby reducing their productivity. It is, therefore, necessary to create a situation, which is socially acceptable for application of any technology.

Future outlook

An ILO analysis of labour markets shows that skills development is central to improving productivity. Effective skills development systems – which connect education to technical training. HRD wing of Coal Indian is entrusted with the great responsibility of upgradation of technical and managerial skill of employees, both executives and non-executives.

CIL has organized HRD infrastructure comprising Technical Training Institutes, Management Training Institutes and Vocal Training Centres at subsidiary level and Indian Institute of Coal Management for organising In-company training. Employees are frequently nominated to attend training organized by other renowned Professional institutes within India and abroad. Annual training plan for each subsidiary is formulated and training target is set under MOU with the Government every year. Importance is being attached to Formal Training on Project Management and Training of Medical professionals on Occupational Health. New areas like new technology and IT, Contract Management and Awareness on sustainable Development etc. have touched upon to groom the necessary training for upgradaiton of skill. Unskilled and semiskilled workers and contractor’s labourers are attending training at Vocational Training Centre at subsidiary companies. Safety training is another important aspect which is statutory for an industry like mining and is given due weight-age.

It is felt that women empowerment is critical for productivity enhancement and their participation should be encouraged in the development process. The strength of female employees in CIL is around 28000 out of total manpower of 375851 (as on 1.11.2011). There are instances in various mines of Coal India where female employees have been trained to work as Switch Board attendants, Shovel and drill operators, telephone operators etc. and are leading role models with their performance.

Conclusion

Role of enhancing productivity is vital for the Indian coal sector. Advanced technology, sophisticated training programs and skill development programs are now considered to be the best possible measures to improve production, productivity and in turn the profitability. The productivity improvement in the coal sector depends not only on the resources, but on many other factors such as improving policy guidelines, development of environmentally acceptable technologies, and exploitation of the available energy resources with adequate attention towards commercial viability, which are now focus points of the agenda.

In rupee terms, the prices were slightly lower  at  5835.14   against 5861.99 per bbl on 9.1.2012 due to higher  exchange rate of   52.23/ US$ against  52.73/US$ on 9.1.2012.

The table below gives details in this regard:

During the month of December 2011, the revenue earning freight traffic carried by Indian Railways was 86.75 million tonnes. There is an increase of 6.87 million tonnes over the actual freight traffic of 79.88 million tonnes carried by the Indian Railways during the month of December 2010, showing an increase of 8.60 per cent.

In addition to the three upgrades above, there has been another upgrade by Moody`s with the short —term country ceiling on foreign currency bank deposits increasing from NP (Not Prime) to P-3 (Prime: acceptable ability to repay short-term obligations).

In its Investors Services Global Credit research (released on 20th December, 2011), Moody`s has underlined some of the Government`s efforts at fiscal consolidation by appreciating that the “[Government] eliminated petrol subsidies and changed the way fertilizer subsidies are calculated, which may yield some budgetary savings. There have also been initiatives on the revenue front involving simplification (and hence hoped-for improvements in compliance) of indirect and direct taxes.”

Moody`s upgrade follows a positive rating action by Dominion Bond Rating Service (DBRS). It had been rating India`s debt since June 2007. For the first time, in June 2011 they upgraded the trend of India`s Long Term foreign and local currency debt ratings from BBB (low) Negative to Stable outlook.

Similarly, in its June 2011 report, Fitch affirmed the credit ratings issued the year before and appreciated the management of the economy by India. Fitch noted, “India`s medium-term economic growth prospects remain strong, as potential GDP growth remains greater than 8%, well above the `BBB`- range median.”

India`s sovereign debt is rated by six international sovereign credit rating agencies namely Standard and Poor`s (S&P), Moody`s Investors Service, Dominion Bond Rating Service (DBRS), Fitch Ratings, Japanese Credit Rating Agency (JCRA) and Rating and Investment Information (R&I). These agencies normally visit the Ministry of Finance and the Reserve Bank of India before making their credit assessment. DEA will continue to engage rating agencies on regular basis to impress upon them the long-term structural strengths and sound fundamentals of the Indian economy.

“As the West now continues to suffer a widespread economic crisis, there is an opportunity for India to become a champion of globalisation,” Bilimoria, who is part of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s Global Advisory Council, told IANS in an interview here.

“This was also one of the important points that emerged” at last week’s meeting of the distinguished panel in Jaipur that was held on the sidelilnes of the Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, he said.

Bilimoria said that despite some setbacks in recent months on the reforms front such as the holding back of foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail and key legislation like the higher education bill not going through parliament, India’s prospects as a growing economic power were bright.

“The intent to pass through key reforms is evident. In spite of some problems, India is making giant strides.”

The founder of Cobra was gung-ho about Bihar’s prospects. Impressed by the transformation the state has undergone under the Nitish Kumar government in the past few years, he held the first board meeting of Molson Coors Cobra India, brewers of the iconic beer, in Patna Tuesday.

Bilimoria, who holds a 49 percent stake in the company in India, said people were only just beginning to wake up to the opportunities that existed in Bihar. And that was the main reason for his company to set up its base in the state which is now being scaled up.

“So much is happening in Bihar. In the last six and a half years, the state has undergone a complete change. It’s a state with 100 million people and luckily we are ahead of the game. It’s a huge market and we have seen it before others,” said Bilimoria.

“The crime rates have gone down and the GDP growth of Bihar is higher than India’s … Bihar is our foundation, our base. And from there we are supplying to neighbouring states.”

Bilimoria’s Cobra entered into a joint venture with US company Molson Coors in June 2011 to jointly brew and market the beer in India and overseas.

Molson Coors Cobra has now ambitious expansion plans which include doubling capacity of the brewery in Bihar to four million tonnes by next month and trebling it within the year.

Beer consumption in Bihar has gone up 10 times from an annual 700,000 cases five years back to about seven million currently.

“The doubling of capacity is almost complete, well in time for the summer season. If the summer goes well then by the end of July we will start with the next phase of expansion which will increase capacity more than three times than what it is today,” said Bilimoria.

“Our growth target for the next financial year will be eight percent plus. In the medium-term, say, in two-three years, we target to reach double-digit growth,” Meena told IANS in an interview here.
Meena was in Jaipur to attend the three-day Pravasi Bharatiya Divas, the annual congregation of the Indian diaspora.

Indian’s gross domestic product (GDP) growth is estimated to fall to seven percent in the financial year ending Mar 31, against the budgetary target of nine percent (plus-minus 0.25 percent). The economic growth was 8.5 percent in 2010-11.

“In the current financial year, we could not meet the growth target because of global slowdown. Inflation remained higher than expected. It also affected the real GDP growth,” said Meena, adding things were likely to improve in 2012-13.

The minister said inflationary pressure was easing and overall inflation would come down to 6-7 percent by March-end this year.

“Our priority is to bring inflation down and increase growth. Inflation is more or less under control. Food prices have in fact declined; so the focus will be on growth.”

After remaining near double-digit for almost two years, food inflation has dropped sharply in the last two months. In fact, food inflation slipped into negative for the first time in six years. Food inflation dipped to minus 3.36 percent for the week ended Dec 24 as compared to 20.84 percent during the corresponding period of last year.

The headline inflation based on the wholesale price index, however, remain at an elevated level. It was recorded at 9.11 percent in November.

The minister said with easing inflationary pressure the central bank would cut rates that would boost private investment and demand.

“There is a substantial improvement on the inflation front; so the RBI can now cut rates,” he said.

The Reserve Bank of India last month kept policy rates unchanged after hiking the key rates 13 times since the beginning of 2010. The aggressive monetary tightening has made cost of capital expensive, hurting industrial and overall economic growth.

After registering a slower growth in the April-September period, industrial output slipped into negative zone and fell by 5.1 percent in October. The GDP growth fell to 6.9 percent in the second quarter of the current financial year, according to the latest available data.

“Despite the slowdown, India remains one of the fastest growing economies in the world. High savings rates and strong domestic demand will drive our growth in the future,” said Meena.

He said India’s economic fundamentals were strong and it would remain an attractive destination for overseas investors.

Asked about the impact of graft and corruption controversies on business sentiments and overseas investments, Meena said: “These things are temporary. The long-term India growth story is intact. We have strong demands. Foreign investments are increasing.”

Meena said a lot of overseas investments are likely to come to India from the Gulf countries in the coming years.

“Gulf countries have started looking East. India is the obvious choice,” he said.

On the date of presentation of the union budget for 2012-13, Meena said it would be after the assembly election process was complete. “Because of the assembly elections, budget will be delayed. The date has not been finalised yet.”

The general budget is usually presented on the last day of February every year.

Today India can proudly claim to be fourth largest economy in the world on purchasing power parity. The economic reforms initiated by successive governments in India have paid rich dividends leading to strong all around development of the agriculture, service and industry sectors. India’s robust performance in difficult times shows that we could actually come out stronger from these crises. It is marks the shifting of balance in the global economy, presenting new opportunities for us. We have to be alert to shape real-time policy responses, reform systems, improve our institutions and make the most of the opportunities coming our way.

. The challenge now is to sustain this high GDP growth over an extended period of time and find the means and modalities to make it count for each and every individual across the country. Our objective is to harness this growth to make the development process more inclusive, strengthen food security, improve education opportunities and health facilities both in rural and urban areas. At the same time, we are looking to address the weaknesses in our systems, structures and institutions of governance at different levels of governance.

Even as the country prepares itself to set new benchmarks for growth and sustaining it over an extended period of time, development would be welcome only if inequalities in incomes and opportunities come down. And if there is better social cohesion and social attainments for all. This requires action on several fronts. We need to have effective polices in place and an efficient institutional system to make those policies yield the desired results. We need to strengthen our governance, oversight and regulatory systems to minimize corruption and improve accountability in public life. We need to craft credible and consistent rules and regulations for markets, including financial markets, to prevent a race to the bottom where capital leaks out to the areas with the weakest regulation. In this process we all have to play our respective roles.

India is globalizing in every aspect, the way businesses are being conducted and resources are being mobilized. The accountancy profession has an added role to play in this context. The standards for accounting and auditing should enable everyone to access the balance sheets in a comprehensible way that makes comparisons easy. The accounting profession has to play its role as a watchdog for ensuring and complying with the financial probity and propriety. Your profession has to focus on working and contributing to the upcoming areas of reforms in urban and local bodies, accounting of NGOs and even the government run entities, extending your domain beyond the corporate world, thereby re-enforcing elements of accountability. All this would help in making the best use of our resources for the greater good of our people.

While the direct outcome of a robust accounting system is to bring out the correctness of the financial information, ultimately it has to promote the concept of correct usage of funds on projects that involve larger public interest. There is thus a case for creating a platform wherein the huge welfare schemes launched by the government are able to provide the desired benefits to the set of stakeholders for whom such initiatives are directed at. It is here that the accountancy profession has to make significant contribution by disseminating its best practices.

Transparency is very important in the accounting profession and is a major tool to combat corruption. Accountants work in diverse areas as auditors, practitioners, tax advisors and in key internal positions in public and private sector. It is expected of the accountants, while performing their roles in these areas, to act decisively and in the best interest of the public without compromising professional values and ethics. Indeed the role of the accountancy profession is critical for the fight against corruption.

The role of the accounting profession is critical in lending credibility to financial markets by providing high quality information, facilitating market discipline and fostering confidence of various stakeholders. This has become all the more important with today’s volatile nature of capital markets, emergence of knowledge based economy, and technological changes that have posed major issues in financial reporting.  the effectiveness of the accounting profession also depends on the quality and the consistency of the services provided by its members and the capacity to respond to market demands. Professional organizations like ICAI have a specific responsibility and role to play in this regard.

The ICAI has been in the forefront of development of the accounting profession in India. The Indian accountancy profession has the distinction of being one of the largest in the world, and also technically competent. Your pursuit towards internationalization of your skills and experience is a welcome step. We need to promote brand India in a big way globally. Your members who have excelled in India should, on the strength of their internationally benchmarked qualification and orientation to international standards, be able to perform equally well in foreign markets.  the Institute has signed MoUs/MRAs with internationally reputed institutes. There is a need for establishing professional reciprocity wherever possible to gain from each others’ experience.

India’s economic legislation needs to be progressive and be in tune with global norms and best practices. Towards that end we have set up a Financial Sector Legislative Reforms Commission to re-write the financial sector laws and bringing them in harmony with the new liberalized environment in the country.

. We have introduced the Direct Taxes Code Bill. The thrust of the Code is to improve efficiency and equity of our tax system by eliminating distortions in the tax structure, introducing moderate levels of taxation and expanding the tax base. The language has been simplified to enable better comprehension, remove ambiguity and encourage voluntary compliance. The new Code is designed to provide stability in the tax regime as it is based on well accepted principles of taxation and best international practices. I am confident that together with GST, this will streamline the tax administration of the country by making it efficient and equitable.

Source : Union Finance Minister, Shri Pranab Mukherjee’s speech at Chennai Trade Centre

The attack, a new version of trojan horse SpyEyesoftware that targets computers using Windows, has been detected in the US and the UK.

According to Trusteer, a security company which detected the attack, the software, which steals your bank passwords to give access to your account, waits for you to enter the same banking details before “adjusting” what you see.

The idea is to gives criminals more time to use debit card details on fraudulent transactions without the person realising it’s happening, the Daily Mail reported.

The malware is designed in a way that when one visits his or her online bank, there will be no trace of the transactions that cyber-criminals are using to empty the bank account.

Worse, the balance will also be adjusted on screen so it looks as if nothing is happening, Trusteer claimed.

“The next time the victim visits their online banking site, the malware hides the fraudulent transactions, as well as artificially changing the total balance,” it said.

“As a result, the deceived customer has no idea that their account has been ‘taken over’, nor that any fraudulent transactions have taken place.”

“SpyEye is a tweak of the Zeus crimeware kit that grabs web form data within browsers,” says the Naked Security blog at web security experts Sophos.

“The new Trojan, instead of intercepting or diverting email messages, hides bogus transactions even after users have logged out and then logged back into their accounts.

With hi-tech cyber attacks such as SpyEye, there are few visible signs that anything is wrong. There are defences, though — ensure your browser is up to date, manually updating it if necessary, experts said.

Thus, it is important that users should ensure that the “anti-phishing option is switched on” in their web browser that which will check for “blacklisted” websites and prevent the browser from being directed to the “fake” version that delivers your bank statement, they added.

The Indian Minister in the bilateral talks informed that,” The total trade between India and Saudi Arabia has increased from US $ 15,946.10 million in 2006-07 to US $ 25,612.46 million in 2010-11. The exports to Saudi Arabia have increased from US $ 2590.77 million in 2006-07 to US$ 5,227.19 million in 2010-11. The principle items of export to Saudi Arabia are Petroleum (Crude & Products); Rice Basmati; Dyes/Intmdtes & Coal Tar Cheml.; Machinery and Instruments; Prmry & Semi-Fnshd Iron & Stl. Similarly, the imports from Saudi Arabia has increased substantially from US$ 13,355.33 million in 2006-07 to US$ 20,385.28 million in 2010-11 and the principle items of imports are Petroleum (Crude & Products), Organic Chemicals, Artificial Resin, plastic, Material etc;; Metaliferrous ores & Metal Scrap and Inorganic Chemicals. India imports almost 23% of its crude oil requirements from Saudi Arabia.

Shri Sharma during the meeting observed that the focus is now to be shifted to investment and joint ventures for enhancing our trade as well as services. Minister also emphasised strategies to be developed for increasing volume of trade in traditional items and diversify the trade basket.

Shri Sharma expressed satisfaction on the fact that both countries have pledged to elevate the current buyer-seller relationship into strategic energy cooperation. India would like to participate in the Petroleum and Gas sectors in Saudi Arabia both upstream and downstream and invites Saudi Arabia to invest in Indian petroleum and gas based mega industrial estates, fertilizers and petrochemical plants, refineries, etc

The total investment in the Agriculture and Allied Sectors has increased from Rs.90710 crore in 2006-07 to Rs.133377 crore in 2009-10. Similarly, public investment has increased from Rs. 22987 crore in 2006-07 to Rs.23635 crore in 2009-10 and private investment has increased from Rs.67723 crore in 2006-07 to Rs.109742 crore in 2009-10. Total gross capital formation in agriculture and allied sectors during 2006-2011 [In Rs crore, at 2004-05 prices]

The Government of India has launched several schemes to increase investment in agriculture sector, such as, the Rashstriya Krishi Vikas Yojana (RKVY), National Food Security Mission (NFSM), Development and Strengthening of Infrastructure facilities for Production and Distribution of Quality Seed, National Horticulture Mission (NHM), Integrated Scheme of Oilseeds, Pulses, Oil Palm and Maize (ISOPOM), Gramin Bhandaran Yojana etc. In addition, Government has substantially improved the availability of farm credit; implemented a rehabilitation package for areas with higher agrarian stress; implemented a massive programme of debt waiver; introduced better crop insurance schemes; increased Minimum Support Price (MSP) etc., to improve investment in the farm sector.

Short-term debt accounted for 21.9 percent of the country’s total external debt by the end of the second quarter of 2011-12, while the rest 78.1 percent was long-term.

“The increase in external commercial borrowings reflects some concern, given that the depreciation of the rupee leads to higher debt service burden in rupee terms that could impact profitability and the balance sheets of corporate borrowers,” a finance ministry statement said.

The rupee has depreciated by almost 20 percent in the last five months.

Between end-March 2006 and end-March 2011, commercial borrowings registered a compound annual growth 27.4 percent.

Component-wise, the share of external commercial borrowings stood highest at 30.3 percent in total external debt followed by NRI deposits 16.0 percent and multilateral debt 15.0 percent as on Sep 30.

The government and non-government element in the total external debt was 24.3 percent and 75.7 percent respectively.

The share of debt denominated in US dollar was the highest in India’s external debt stock at 55.8 percent, followed by the Indian rupee 18.2 percent and Japanese Yen 12.1 percent.

As on September-end India’s foreign exchange reserves provided a cover of 95.4 percent to the total external debt stock, while it was 99.5 percent at beginning of the current fiscal.

The ratio of short-term external debt to foreign exchange reserves stood at 22.9 percent at end-September 2011, as compared to 21.3 percent at March 2011.

“Other indicators of India’s external debt remain within manageable limits,” the ministry said.

The ratio of concessional debt to total external debt declined to 14.7 percent in September as compared to 15.5 percent at the beginning of the year.

As per the standard practice, India’s external debt statistics for the quarters ending March and June are released by the Reserve Bank of India and those for the quarters ending September and December by the finance ministry. The external debt data are released with a lag of one quarter.

Among all the industries, food products generated the highest employment of 12.5 percent followed by textiles 11.7 percent, basic metals 7.6 percent, wearing apparel 7.3 percent and other non-metallic mineral products 6.8 percent, chief statistician TCA Anant told reporters here.

“Compensation to employees rose by 13.6 percent in current prices and 11.1 percent in real terms,” said Anant, who is also the secretary of the ministry of statistics and programme implementation.

According to provisional results of the annual survey of industries, total number of estimated factories rose by 2.3 percent to 1,58,877.

Among the industries, highest number of factories was observed in food products, which accounts for about 16.5 percent of the total factories in all industries followed by other non-metallic mineral products 11 percent and textiles 8.4 percent.

Among the states, highest number of factories was observed in Tamil Nadu 16.9 percent followed by Maharashtra 12.2 percent, Andhra Pradesh 10.8 percent , Gujarat 9.8 percent and Uttar Pradesh 6.9 percent.

Field work for the survey was carried out during 2010-11 throughout the country with a reference period coinciding with the fiscal year 2009-2010.

The total sample size for the survey was 61,080 which represented about 30 percent of the total population and was drawn adopting stratified circular sampling procedure, the official statement said.

The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE) ended the year at 15,454.92 points, down 24.20 percent or 4,934.15 points from its 2010 closing level of 20,389.07 points.

Indian markets are among the worst performer this year. Most other major global indices lost between 10 to 20 percent in 2011.

The benchmark Sensex closed at 15,454.92 points Friday, the last trading day of the week, down 0.57 percent or 89.01 points from its previous close at 15,543.93 points.

The index closed in the red for the fourth straight day. The 30 scrip index lost 516 points in the last four trading sessions.

At the National Stock Exchange, the 50-scrip S&P CNX Nifty also lost nearly 25 percent of its value in 2011.

The Nifty closed 0.47 percent down at 4,624.30 points Friday, closing in the red for the fourth consecutive day.

Broader markets and most sectoral indices witnessed even more severe selling pressure in 2011. The BSE midcap index slumped 33.44 percent while the smallcap index tumbled 41.90 percent.

However, the BSE midcap and smallcap indices managed to close in the positive Friday. The midcap index rose 0.31 percent and the smallcap index closed 0.09 percent higher.

There was selling pressure in oil and gas and realty stocks. Oil and gas index of the BSE fell 1.47 percent and the realty index closed 1.1 percent down.

Reliance Industries slipped below Rs.700 for the first time in more than a year. The scrip fell 2.81 percent to Rs.690, taking 2011 loss to more than 30 percent.

The BSE bankex index fell 0.7 percent. Most lenders SBI, ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and HDFC closed in the red.

In a press release, the e-commerce giant said the Kindle family, including the Kindle Fire, Kindle Touch and Kindle, held the top three spots on its best seller list, reports Xinhua.

Kindle Fire, the tablet introduced 13 weeks ago, is the No.1 best-selling, most gifted and most wished-for product on Amazon.com.

Compared to the same period of last year, gifting of Kindle e-books was up 175 percent between the Black Friday, or the day following Thanksgiving Day in the US, and Christmas Day, said the company.

“We are grateful to our customers worldwide for making this the best holiday ever for Kindle,” said Jeff Bezos, Amazon.com founder and CEO.

With a much affordable price and backed by Amazon’s content and commerce assets, the Kindle Fire has been considered one of the most promising candidates to shake the dominance of Apple’s iPad in the tablet market.

According to market research company Forrester, Amazon is expected to sell around five million Kindle Fire tablets this year.

But the rolling four-week average of new claims, viewed as a better gauge of underlying trends, fell 5,750 to 375,000, its lowest level since June 2008.

A four-week average below 400,000 is seen as a positive indicator. New jobless claims were running at around 700,000 a week when President Barack Obama took office in January 2009.

The number of people receiving state unemployment benefits rose 34,000 during the week that ended Dec 17, to 3.6 million, while the ranks of recipients of state or federal jobless aid increased by 79,385 to 7.23 million.

State benefits generally run out after 26 weeks, but the worst economic slump since the Great Depression prompted lawmakers to approve federal emergency programs that provide jobless benefits for up to 99 weeks.

The US economy lost 8.4 million jobs between December 2007 and June 2009, when the recession officially ended.

The Labor Department’s November jobs report, released Dec. 9, showed the unemployment rate dropping from 9 percent to 8.6 percent as the economy added 120,000 net new jobs. The rate now stands at its lowest level in 2 1/2 years.

Liquidity crunch was the bane of the industry. The average cost of debt shot up, adding to developers’ debt burden. Top 11 listed real estate companies accumulated a debt of over Rs.38,000 crore, with DLF alone contributing more than 50 percent to it.

As a result, many developers scaled down their projects and some even sold their non-core assets. There was also an increasing trend of cash-strapped developers pooling land, marketing and capital resources for joint projects to minimise risks.

The residential segment, principal demand driver for real estate, remained restrained. Key market indicators like sales and absorption were low due to prohibitive prices and high home loan rates. Prices in the National Capital Territory (NCR) and Mumbai peaked to 2008 boom-time levels. Home loan rates were hiked as many as 12 times, aggregating 375 basis points since March 2010.

Buyers’ hopes of price correction were dashed. Despite pressures of low sales volumes, developers stuck to high property prices due to low margins. Consequently, home sales were significantly hit and even the festive season could not bring cheers.

Affordable housing that had led to residential real estate recovery in 2010 also faced a slowdown. Noida and Greater Noida, which had dominated affordable housing sales in NCR, suffered a setback due to land rows. As a result, 160,000 units remained unsold in NCR.

According to industry statistics, 5.76 million square feet of inventory piled up in top six cities of NCR, Mumbai Metropolitan Region, Bangalore, Pune, Hyderabad and Chennai. The inventory pile up by 10 listed companies amounted to Rs.31,000 crore.

Developers were on the horns of dilemma. On the one hand, there was desperation to raise funds through advance bookings from new projects. On the other, they were faced with the execution challenge to complete ongoing projects than launching newer ones. Majority of developers preferred to deliver committed projects, resulting in a dip in new launches.

The residential segment witnessed a growing trend of high rises and niche housing like sports homes. Small towns emerged as major hubs for residential realty.

Commercial office real estate was in stress due to a slowdown in demand and an oversupply situation. There was excess supply of nearly 166 million square feet of ready and under construction commercial space across top seven cities of Mumbai, Delhi NCR, Bangalore, Chennai, Hyderabad, Pune and Kolkata.

Around 60 million square feet of office space is likely to remain vacant this year. But due to a dip in demand for corporate leasing and an oversupply situation, there has been a correction in rentals. Commercial office real estate also witnessed a trend of leases skewed towards suburban sub-markets due to easy availability of cost-effective space. Taking cost advantage, many large office occupiers, especially big IT companies, relocated themselves to special economic zones.

For the retail segment, it was a year of renaissance and maturing market, as retailers expanded their footprint in not just Tier-I but also in Tier-II and Tier-III cities with both mall and high street space leasing picking up.

Retail real estate supply grew rapidly with additions of six million square feet of space in the first half of the year. Rentals in malls and high-streets appreciated to the tune of 15-20 percent. There was a clear shift towards well-designed and well-managed malls and transactions were skewed in favour of revenue-sharing deals than simple leasing.

The year brought mixed fortunes for real estate reforms. The high points were subsidy on home loans of up to Rs.15 lakh, introduction of green building rating, mandatory sale deed for property transfer and a new National Manufacturing Policy to give boost to industrial townships. But the inability to introduce a Real Estate Regulatory Bill and a New Land Acquisition, Rehabilitation and Resettlement Bill was a big disappointment.

The real estate investment scenario was also not very encouraging. Foreign equity inflows remained moderate and a number of companies deferred their public issues due to volatile stock market conditions, with realty index taking a severe beating. Investments in land banking, too, experienced a slowdown to the tune of 20 percent.

Due to curbs imposed by the Reserve Bank of India on exposure to real estate, private equity was much sought after and is likely to top the $1-billion mark this year. There were also signs that non-resident Indians were taking advantage of rupee depreciation to invest in real estate.

Going forward, the sector is expected to be in the grip of slowdown at least till the first half of 2012. Things may improve only in the latter half if the economy improves and political stability is back to push key reforms.

(Vinod Behl is editor of Realty Plus, a leading real estate monthly. He can be reached at vbehl2008@gmail.com)

-Circle rates hiked in Delhi to curb black money flow and bring transparency.

-National Investment and Manufacturing Zones to boost industrial real estate.

-Sale deed made mandatory by Supreme Court for property transfer.

-India’s first all-woman housing society in Panchkula.

-Realty growth dips from 25-30 percent to about 15 percent.

-DLF fined Rs.630 crore for abusing its dominant position, tribunal stayed penalty.

-Sahara realty ordered to refund money to investors, order challenged.

-Number of realty firms deferred public offers.

-Government failed to introduce Real Estate Regulatory Bill.

-Land Acquisition and Rehablitation Bill also not introduced.

The company in a regulatory filing said the six-laning of the 124-km Chittorgarh-Udaipur bypass project had been awarded under the engineering, procurement, construction (EPC) basis.

The project, a part of the phase-V of the National Highways Development Programme (NHDP), is scheduled to be commissioned in 36 months.

A company spokesperson Wednesday said the 16 GB model of the PlayBook can be bought for Rs.13,490 in the Indian market instead of its regular price of Rs.27,990.

While the 32 GB model is available for Rs.15,990, the 64 GB model is being offered for Rs.24,490 against their regular prices of Rs.32,990 and Rs.37,990 respectively.

The smartphone maker has been struggling to gain significant market share since April when it launched the tablets. It has been able to sell 800,000 units of the device globally in the first nine months of financial year 2011-12.

In comparison, Apple has sold over 11 million iPads globally during the quarter ended September.

‘We have developed a new engine incorporating patent pending technologies that would give a scooter owner 20 percent fuel economy and a motorcycle owner an easy riding experience like a scooter,’ Vinay Harne, president, new product development, told reporters here.

According to him, a motorcycle fitted with this engine will not have clutch and the gear could be changed with the touch of a button, or can be put on automatic transmission mode.

‘We have developed the technology and tested the product. However, the engine has to be tested in various climatic conditions and it should undergo 100,000 km of road endurance. Hence, a new model fitted with the new engine could be launched only in 2013,’ Harne told IANS.

The engines that have been developed are 110cc four-stroke and the technology can be applied to make engines with higher cubic capacity, say up to 250cc, Harne added.

According to Harne, the engine can be used for other models like skubeks, step-thru apart from scooters and motorcycles.

Asked about the engine’s compatibility with three-wheelers that TVS Motor rolls out, Harne told IANS: ‘An engine with this technology can be applicable for three-wheelers as well as they also use a similar capacity engines. But our initial focus is on scooters followed by motorcycles.’

He said the new engine had been tested on road for several months and its performance was satisfactory.

Harne said the focus of the developing the new engine and the technology was four-fold – improving the engine and transmission efficiency, energy saving and reducing the engine weight.

On energy efficiency, he said the new engine will not have cooling fan that consumes fuel. The cooling would be done but by taking in the air.

The new engine is lighter by five kg compared to the existing one.

About the changes in the engine production line, he said it would be minimal but declined put a number to the cost benefit the company would derive because of the common engine while agreeing that it would be significant.

According to Harne, the objective is to deliver a compact engine layout, that will deliver enhanced fuel efficiency and which is usable across product forms like scooter, motorcycles and step-thru’s.

He said the technology also delivers the lowest carbon di-oxide emissions in scooters while providing for low floor board and space for luggage.

The company has filed patent for the technology in India and abroad and does not foresee any of its competitors complaining of infringement.

TVS is looking at launching a scooter with the new engine first and other models later.

It was also a year when art lost several buyers, who were not willing to wait out the period of slow growth following the global meltdown. This might have made for less crowds at exhibitions, but big retrospectives and intense academic and archival research and blogging by art lovers — including buyers — and India’s historic participation at the Venice Biennale 2011 after years of dilly-dallying made up for the lows.

Then, Nobel laureate Rabindranath Tagore kept the Indian art world abuzz with a grand comeback to the mainstream nearly 77 years after he began to experiment with art in 1924. The occasion was his 150th birth anniversary, during which the nation decided to cast an eye on ‘Tagore, the artist’.

The government, which was officially celebrating the Tagore anniversary, collated nearly 4,000 of his art works into a volume titled ‘Chitrabali’. In another first, a cultural dialogue was also opened with Bangladesh to collaborate on Tagore’s art.

And, while various organisations mounted exhibitions of his art, showcases of artistic interpretations of his works in the country and abroad, Tagore made grim news in Kolkata’s exhibition circuit with a mega exposition of ‘fakes’ at the government-run Calcutta Art College.

Nearly 20 of the 23 paintings by Tagore displayed at the college in March were found to be fake, a report prepared by the Archaeological Survey of India (ASI) said.

The ASI verdict has turned the spotlight on fake art which is in adundance across the market in the country. Sources in the art industry say as the traditional reproduction art continues to flourish, the new cause of concern this year was the hi-tech nature of copying art.

High-tech copies confuse e-buyers who fail to distinguish between original and copied art while trading on the Internet.

Explaining the modus operandi of hi-tech faking of art, leading Kolkata-based auctioneer and gallerist Vikram Bachhawat told IANS: ‘The fakers of art usually create a original digital print of an art work and set an artist to work on it — to touch the image with colours manually. In the end, the prints resemble originals and when they are sent to prospective buyers, it is difficult to identify the fake. E-galleries usually transact in digital fakes on the Internet,’ Bachhawat said.

The numerous e-commerce portals for art that offer bargains as low as Rs.15,000 for collectibles priced Rs.100,000 and above have allowed hi-tech fake art to find more buyers, Bachhawat said.

Dinesh Vazirani, the CEO of Saffronart, India’s biggest online art auction house, said: ‘The astute nature of transactions by art collectors, who are opting for quality and branding post-meltdown, has become more research-based. In the future private museums, owners will demand longevity, exclusivity, value for money better and provenance of the art works they acquire.’

An analysis of Saffronart auctions over the year shows that quality has pre-occupied price curves. The modern masters took the lead in Saffronart’s winter online auction with M.F. Husain, S.H. Raza and F.N. Souza crossing the $180,000 mark. In an earlier auction, a painting (Kali) by Tyeb Mehta set a new auction precedent by selling for $1 million.

Overall, however, ‘business has been bad this year and I don’t see the market looking up before 2014′, said Narendra Jain, the Delhi-based co-director of Art Mall.

The Indian art market is estimated at $375 million.

The roster of death in 2011 was mind-boggling with icons like M.F. Husain, Sohan Qadri, Biren De and Jahangir Sabavala bowing out of the arena.

However, the year also boasted a retrospective of Anish Kapoor, a British sculptor of Indian origin; the return of the Kolkata Painters to the capital after 47 years and a retrospective of S.H. Raza — to name a few. It began with the India Art Summit 2011 in the capital, announced India’s first biennale at Kochi in 2012 and drew the directors of London’s Victoria & Albert Museum and the Paris Louvre to explore the possibilities of collaborations.

(can be contacted at madhu.c@ians.in)

Dikshit told IANS: ‘He (Sreedharan) is known for his outstanding work. His managerial skills are admirable. We will miss his services.’

Dikshit said the planning and timely execution of the Metro project by Sreedhran was admirable.

Sreedharan, 79, fondly called the ‘Metro Man’, retires Dec 31 after a 15-year tenure as Delhi Metro chief. The Metro has made public transport affordable, reliable and a safe travel option for people in Delhi and its adjoining towns in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

Sreedharan was scheduled to retire in 2000, but was requested repeatedly by the Delhi government to continue as DMRC chief.

He was given five extensions so that work on Delhi Metro’s Phase I and II was not hindered.

Mangu Singh, 56 and the Metro’s Director (Works) who oversaw the construction of the showcase Airport Express Metro, will be Sreedharan’s successor.

Singh will be in-charge of Delhi Metro’s Phase-III that will bring another 103 km of the capital under the Metro network.

The engineer is also in-charge for consultancy works undertaken by Delhi Metro for planning Metro systems in Mumbai, Chennai, Hyderabad, Kolkata, Ahmedabad and Kochi.

Dikshit said: ‘Phase III will be come up under a different leadership. It is not right to compare the new person with Sreedharan or comment on him…

We are confident he is capable as he has been picked up by a committee. He will definitely be able to do well.’

Delhi Metro’s 160 trains make about 2,400 trips a day and carry about 18 lakh passengers on working days.

The Afghan government and China National Petroleum Corporation (CNPC) inked the agreement here after the China’s state-owned firm won the country’s first oilfield bidding, reported Xinhua.

The Chinese company is ‘to explore and extract the Amu Darya river basin oil deposits in northern Afghanistan and will start producing oil in the next two years’, Afghan Minister for Mines Waheedullah Shahrani told the media.

Shahrani and top CNPC official Lu Gongxun signed the agreement.

‘I am very glad to attend this ceremony for the energy cooperation between CNPC and Afghanistan’s ministry of mining which is the symbol of bilateral energy cooperation,’ Lu said.

According to the agreement, the CNPC will launched a joint project with local partner Watan Group.

Under the contract, the CNPC agreed to pay a 15 percent royalty in oil itself, a 20 percent corporate tax and Afghanistan would have a share of 70 percent in the profit proceeds.

The Admiralteiskaya station lies over 100 m below the surface. Its opening Wednesday will decrease the load on other metro stations in the city, the northwest Russian city’s administration reported.

A total of 10.2 billion rubles ($325 mln) has been allocated from the city budget to the construction of stations and tunnels in 2011.

This comes as another embarrassment for the government, a day after the constitutional amendment to give statutory status to Lokpal was defeated in the Lok Sabha.

As the Rajya Sabha met for the day, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar rose to introduce the Rani Lakshmi Bai Central Agriculture University Bill.

Opposition members, however, objected stating that agriculture education is a state subject and the central government cannot set up the university in Bundelkhand.

‘Centre has no jurisdiction to legislate in state subject,’ P. Rajeeve of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) said.

Agriculture, including agricultural education and research, is a state subject – according to the constitution.

Human Resource Development (HRD) Minister Kapil Sibal intervened to defend his cabinet colleague and pointed out to Deputy Chairman K. Rahman Khan that education was in the concurrent list.

He said a central agriculture university has been earlier created in Imphal in Manipur.

After listening to both sides, Khan decided to grant leave for introduction of the bill.

A united opposition, however, said ‘no’ for introducing the bill and demanded a division.

But following this, the house was adjourned thrice, first for half an hour at 11.15 a.m. amid the ruckus, then till noon, and then again for 10 minutes.

When the house reconvened at 12.10 p.m., Khan announced that the bill has been deferred.

The proposal for the agriculture university was approved by the union cabinet in November. It is to have two colleges each in Uttar Pradesh and Madhya Pradesh, with headquarters in Jhansi.

‘This is the Africa of opportunity…the Africa where people take charge of their own futures… the Africa where people are looking for partnerships,’ International Monetary Fund (IMF) managing director Christine Lagarde said during her first official visit to Africa earlier this month.

Growth across the 54-nation continent has averaged 5-6 percent or more over the past decade, the World Bank has noted. It varies from country to country, said the bank, adding that it was significant that the poverty rate declined from nearly 60 percent to just over 50 percent in the 10 years up to 2005, it added.

Noting that Africa has been able to shield itself from the ongoing global economic crisis, Lagarde attributed this to ‘good economic policies’ that have provided a platform for higher growth and more investment, leading to a reduction in poverty.

There are, however, apprehensions that growth would be impeded if the population surge is not put under control. The UN says the continent has joined India and China as the third region of the world to reach a population of one billion people. This figure is certain to shoot up to 1.3 billion by 2050. This is staggering, considering the fact that, by 1950, there were just 500,000 people living in the urban areas across the continent.

‘A number of African countries have demonstrated strong growth in 2011 as growth slowly returns to trend, post-crisis. Of these, Ghana, with an estimated 13.6 percent growth rate, is by far the most impressive,’ Standard Chartered chief economist Gerard Lyons told IANS.

Another country that has also performed well is Angola. The country, which is the third-largest sub-Saharan African economy, is set for a growth resurgence. ‘Rising oil production will likely drive a growth rebound to 8 per cent in 2012, with oil production set to rise to 1.8 million barrels per day (mbd) from 1.6mbd in 2011,’ Standard Chartered said in a continental review.

Of the other countries, it said: ‘Mozambique is set to remain a star performer in Africa in terms of economic growth. The economy expanded at an average rate of close to eight per cent over the last decade and is likely to grow by more than seven per cent in 2012.’

Lyons said: ‘South Africa underperformed even relative to pre-crisis trends….South Africa with its deeper linkages to the global economy is now threatened with a slowdown in the global economy, especially the euro area, the destination of most of its manufactured exports.’

In Nigeria, Africa’s most populous nation, the resurgence of religious attacks by the Islamist group, Boko Haram, is likely to create some security problems for the country and affect the investment climate. The resource-rich Democratic Republic of Congo is still trying to come to terms with a contested election result and there are indications that this would affect any attempt to develop the economy. The famine in Somalia and the crisis in Sudan are yet to be fully solved and this is likely to impinge on growth in the two countries.

Lagarde’s hope for Africa hinges on the assessment that, though ‘the food and fuel crisis of 2008 had a severe impact on the continent and the global financial crisis that followed, policymakers responded effectively. Most countries were able to maintain critical spending on health, education and infrastructure. And we saw countries in the region recover quickly, with growth rates now returning to levels enjoyed in the mid-2000s.’

‘This is a testament to the hard work and dedication of policymakers and people across the region. Before the crisis, they reduced budget deficits and public debt; they brought down inflation, and built up foreign exchange reserves. In short, they put their economies on a fundamentally stronger footing,’ she added.

The optimism is also buoyed by Lyon’s views that the continent’s fundamentals are improving. ‘Even though Africa is often talked of as if it is a commodities story, it is more than that. Commodities are a key part of many countries’ success, and the challenge for them is to make sure that they build on that. But a key part of the Africa story this year – and one which can sometimes be overlooked – is stronger domestic demand. And this is a key reason to be optimistic. If Africa can build on this then it will generate a stronger basis for a growing middle class.’

‘Africa too is investing in its much under-developed infrastructure. And this – alongside the growing middle class – should make Africa a more attractive destination for private sector investment, including higher Foriegn Direct Investment flows,’ Lyon added.

The continent has also found a new way of dealing with the adverse effects of the global financial crisis by accelerating its engagement with emerging economies. Jean Ping, chairperson of the African Union Commission (AU), told a meeting in Istanbul, Turkey in December that ‘this adverse impact is alleviated thanks to the strong partnership that Africa has forged with countries like Turkey, China and India.’

‘This gives us an assurance that while we cannot be fully insulated from current crisis in Europe, we have developed enough resilience to enable us to cope better with its adverse impact,’ Ping added.

Against this background, Mthuli Ncube, chief economist of the Africa Development Bank (AfDB), has urged Africa to use this new relationships to beat the Eurozone blues. ‘While the economies of Europe and North America have stalled, the gloomy picture is by no means worldwide,’ he said. ‘All was not lost as the BRIC nations – Brazil, Russia, India and China – continue to forge ahead. The Chinese economy is likely to continue with its phenomenal rate of growth: nine and a half percent this year, and nine percent in 2012. In India, we’re likely to see growth holding steady at around the 7.5-percent mark.’

Ncube also noted that ‘Russia looks on course to maintain growth above four percent, and Brazil is expected to dip only from 3.8 percent this year to 3.6 in 2012,’ and therefore Africa needs to be looking up to the BRIC countries for their potential to contribute to the continent’s growth over the next few years.

(Francis Kokutse can be contacted at fkokutse@hotmail.com)

November’s figure came in well below median market forecasts for a 0.8 percent decline and follows a 2.2 percent increase logged in October, the Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) data showed.

On an annual basis, factory output dropped 4.0 percent, missing forecasts for a 2.0 percent retreat, following a 0.1 percent increase booked in the previous month, said Xinhua.

The index of industrial shipments dropped 1.5 percent to 91.5, while that of industrial inventories fell 0.8 percent to 102.8, the ministry’s data showed.

Global exports retreated 4.5 percent on the year to 5.20 trillion yen in the recording period, the government said, marking the second straight month of declines, while production of transportation equipment fell 9.5 percent from the previous month, marking the first fall in two months.

Production of information and telecommunications equipment, meanwhile, tumbled 23.7 percent in November from the previous month, the ministry said.

Based on the latest data the government maintained its assessment that ‘industrial production appears to be flat’.

The cars included 217 units of Brio, 213 units of Jazz, 353 units of City, 150 units of Civic, 91 units of Accord, 30 units of CR-V and 1 unit of Freed.

‘We made every effort to protect our plant, but with the massive amount of flood water… 1,055 vehicles that remained in the plant were finally damaged by the flood,’ Pitak Pruittisarikorn, executive vice president of Honda Thailand, told a press conference Tuesday.

According to Pitak, the process of scrapping the cars, which is expected to be finished within one month, had stringent controls to ensure that it was done in an environmentally-responsible way, reported Xinhua.

The programme was a reflection of Honda’s commitment to delivering the ‘highest quality’ to its customers, Pitak added: ‘We will not sell any of the damaged cars to customers, or reuse any of the parts’.

To ensure transparency, the vehicle identification numbers of all the cars will be made public on the website of Honda (Thailand).

Located in China’s financial hub of Shanghai, the building is expected to grow by 400 metres next year, with an average of seven days spent on the construction of each floor, said Kong Qingwei, board chairman of the development firm Shanghai Tower Construction and Development Co. Ltd.

Kong said Wednesday that it took three years to complete the foundation, and he estimated it will take another three to finish the ground structure, reported Xinhua.

Once completed, the Shanghai Tower will be the tallest structure in China as well as a new Shanghai landmark alongside the 420.5-metre Jin Mao Tower and the 492-metre Shanghai World Financial Center. The three skyscrapers in Shanghai’s Lujiazui Financial Zone will be connected by subways.

Kong said the Shanghai Tower will be a ‘vertical city’ as it will house hotels, offices, malls and other facilities and will be capable of holding more than 50,000 people.

The monthly business survey index (BSI), which gauges local manufacturers’ assessment of current business conditions, fell 3 points on-month to reach 80 in December, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK).

A reading below 100 means pessimists outnumber optimists, said Xinhua.

The BSI for January, measuring manufacturers’ outlook on business conditions for the upcoming month, came in at 79, down 4 points from a month earlier. Domestic manufacturers picked fragile domestic demand, economic uncertainties and rising raw material prices as their difficulties in doing business.

The monthly index for non-manufacturers gained 5 points on-month to 83 in December, but the index for January stood at 79, down 3 points from the previous month. Local non-manufacturers regarded weak domestic demand, fierce competition and uncertain economic conditions as their hardship.

The BSI index was based on a nationwide survey of 1,618 manufacturers and 890 non-manufacturers, conducted between Dec 14 and Dec 21.

The Board’s Consumer Confidence Index climbed from 55.2 in November to 64.5 this month.

Analysts had forecast a reading of 59.

The strong showing in December comes after the index dipped to a 2 1/2-year low in October.

‘Looking ahead, consumers are more optimistic that business conditions, employment prospects, and their financial situations will continue to get better,’ Lynn Franco, director of The Conference Board Consumer Research Center, said.

She cautioned, however, that though ‘consumers are ending the year in a somewhat more upbeat mood, it is too soon to tell if this is a rebound from earlier declines or a sustainable shift in attitudes’.

The sub-index that gauges consumers’ appraisal of current economic conditions rose from 38.3 to 46.7, The Conference Board said.

The Expectations Index, based on responses to questions about what the economy and job market will look like in six months, advanced to 76.4 from 66.4.

‘The International Monetary Fund expects Brazil will be the (world’s) fifth economy in 2015, but I believe it will happen earlier,’ Guido Mantega told journalists in Sao Paulo.

Brazil continues to outpace European countries in economic growth and will ‘inexorably’ surpass France in the near future, the minister said.

‘Who knows?,’ he mused, Brazil may also overtake Germany if that country’s economy stumbles.

Brazilian gross domestic product grew by an average of 4.5 percent a year from 2003 through 2010 and is set to return to that level in 2012, Mantega said.

Latin America’s largest economy has slowed in 2011, due largely to government efforts to prevent overheating and avert the return of inflation, the bane of Brazilian governments in the 1980s and early ’90s.

With inflation under control and healthy job creation, Brazil is equipped to remain in the ‘vanguard of growth’, the finance minister said.

‘What is important is that we will be growing more in 2012 than in 2011 and the exchange rate will be better and credit will be cheaper,’ Mantega said.

Brazil is set to become a leading economic power, the finance minister said Monday in a statement, citing a study from the London-based Center for Economics and Business Research showing the Latin American giant moved ahead of Britain this year to become the globe’s sixth-biggest economy.

‘The countries that will grow more are the emerging ones, such as Brazil, China, India and Russia,’ he said, predicting his country will end 2011 with $65 billion in new foreign direct investment.

The state phone company, ETESCA, installed 43,362 fixed lines and activated 300,000 new cellular connections in 2011, the newspaper said, citing the firm’s president, Mayra Arevich Marin.

Announcing in mid-2010 that Cuba had passed the milestone of 1 million mobile connections, ETESCA proclaimed a goal of substantially boosting cell phone use in the island nation of 11.2 million people.

It was in March 2008 that the government authorised ordinary Cubans to own cell phones.

Since then, ETESCA has gradually reduced activation fees by 80 percent, instituted a sliding scale of rates and given subscribers on prepaid plans the ability to have friends or family outside Cuba add minutes to their accounts.

Median annual pay, however, has climbed less than 14 percent, from 19,802 euros ($25,743) in 2002 to 22,511 euros ($29,264) in 2009, the latest year for which data are available.

The Organization of Consumers and Users report points out that the price of bread in Spain rose 24 percent within four months of the introduction of the euro in September 2001.

Potato prices have soared 116 percent since the Spanish peseta disappeared in favour of the common currency, followed by eggs, up 114 percent; milk, 48 percent; rice, 45 percent; olive oil, 33 percent; beef, 36; and pork, which is 26 percent more expensive.

In December 2000, the median cost of housing in Spain was 1,453 euros per sq. meter, compared with 2,419 euros per sq. meter in June of this year, an increase of 66 percent.

Residents of the country’s two largest cities, Madrid and Barcelona, face housing costs that are 78 percent and 70 percent higher, respectively, than before the advent of the euro.

–IANS/EFE

rd

America Movil, owned by billionaire Carlos Slim, operates in Brazil via wireless operator Claro, fixed-line telephone company Embratel and cable television firm Net.

Next year’s scheduled spending includes 1 billion reais ($540 million) to build an undersea cable linking Brazil and the US, Claro Brasil president Carlos Zenteno told Folha de Sao Paulo.

Claro and its corporate siblings will also focus on extending high-speed Internet coverage for 3G mobile subscribers, expanding their fiber-optic network and bidding on 4G frequencies in an auction set for April.

While a merger of Claro, Embratel and Net is not on the cards for 2012, the firms will offer bundled services, Zenteno said.

Embratel controls 18.2 of the Brazilian fixed-line telephone market and enjoys a monopoly on international calls in that segment. Claro, with around 25 percent of the market, is Brazil’s No. 3 wireless company.

Net, which is partly held by Brazilian media powerhouse Globo, is the country’s leading cable television provider, commanding nearly 40 percent of the market, and the second-biggest provider of residential Internet.

–IANS/EFE

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Phoenix, where home prices edged up 0.3 percent, was the only one of the 20 areas to show an increase in October.

Home prices dropped 5 percent in Atlanta, 3.3 percent in Detroit and 2.8 percent in Minneapolis.

With the exception of Detroit, Washington and Miami, home prices were lower in October than 12 months earlier.

‘In the October data, the only good news is some improvement in the annual rates of change in home prices, with 14 of 20 cities and both Composites seeing their annual rates of change improve,’ David M. Blitzer, chairman of the Index Committee at S&P Indices, said in a press release accompanying the data.

The Composites are the indices measuring price movements in the 10 and 20 largest metro areas, respectively.

‘Atlanta and the Midwest are regions that really stand out in terms of recent relative weakness,’ Blitzer said, noting that home prices in the Georgia city declined 11.7 percent over the 12 months ending Oct 31.

Prices for single-family homes in the top 20 metropolitan areas have plummeted 32.1 percent since their peak in the summer of 2006, S&P said.

The escalators in six double up-and-down segments have replaced the 350 cement steps that many Las Independencias I residents had to climb as part of their daily routine.

The escalators, a project dubbed Independencias I Connection Pathways, were inaugurated Tuesday by Medellin Mayor Alonso Salazar and the Urban Development Company, or EDU, that tackled the joint initiative four years ago.

‘We suggested the escalators as a possible transit solution that would enable people on the mountainsides to get around more easily,’ EDU interim chief Luz Adriana Campuzano told Efe.

In Las Independencias I, which is one of the 20 neighbourhoods in Medellin’s Comuna 13 district, there are cases of residents confined to their homes by old age or disabilities.

Some people ‘couldn’t ever leave their houses because quite simply they had no way to do so’, Campuzano said.

Now they can thanks to Independencias I Connection Pathways, a route of escalators 130 meters long, from the foot of the mountain on which the neighborhood sprang up 30 years ago, to the highest point on the peak.

The project, with a cost of 10 billion pesos (about $5.2 million), involved the Japanese company Fujitec, which designed the escalators and manufactured them at its plant in China, along with Conservicios, a local firm responsible for importing and installing the parts.

Fujitec made the basic elements of stainless steel, used smelted aluminum for the steps and a synthetic resin for the entry platforms.

It’s a ‘transit solution that will give residents a better quality of life’, Campuzano said.

The escalators are not the first in the world to be installed outdoors, since there are several for purposes of tourism, but this is a first for urban transport.

The official also said that Connection Pathways were conceived as an urban landmark that will help Medellin residents see Comuna 13 in a new way and not as just a dangerous haunt for crime gangs.

Comuna 13 is one of the 15 ‘comunas’, or districts, that make up the industrial city of Medellin with its more than 2.3 million inhabitants, which has taken the lead in Colombia in urban transport solutions, beginning in the 1990s with a metropolitan train and subsequently with the cable-car project known as Metrocables, which also serves poor mountainside areas.

The line of escalators is the latest chapter in this story of progress, and will not only transport other Comuna 13 inhabitants, who number 130,000 or 5.7 percent of the entire city, but is available to all Medellin inhabitants and tourists as well.

The People’s Bank of China has also banned setting up of gold trading platforms in other exchanges, the China Daily reported Wednesday.

The ban came after some institutions and individuals have set up gold exchanges and trading platforms as gold prices soared in the country, leading to a surge of illegal practices due to inadequate management.

Those which have opened for business must cease operations, the bank said in a statement.

The central bank will work with the Shanghai Gold Exchange and Shanghai Futures Exchange to boost the healthy development of the country’s gold trading market, the statement added.

Major indexes went higher in early trading after a latest report from the Conference Board Tuesday showed confidence among US consumers rose to the highest level in eight months, suggesting American consumers were more upbeat about the economic outlook at the end of a turbulent year.

According to the New York-based organization, its Consumer Confidence Index rose to 64.5 in December from 55.2 in November.

However, the upbeat report was dampened by weak housing data. The Standard & Poor’s/Case-Shiller index of 20 city dropped 0.6 percent in October, compared with September, said the Standard & Poor’s monthly report. The index was down 3.4 percent year-on-year.

The Dow Jones industrial average dipped 2.65 points, or 0.02 percent, to 12,291.35. The Standard & Poor’s 500 was up 0.10 points, or 0.01 percent, to 1,265.43. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 6.56 points, or 0.25 percent, to 2,625.20.

The Standard & Poor’s Case-Shiller index of 20 city dropped 0.6 percent in October, compared with September, said the Standard & Poor’s monthly report. The index was down 3.4 percent year-on-year.

Meanwhile, according to the New York-based organization, its Consumer Confidence Index rose to 64.5 in December from 55.2 in November.

Consumers’ short-term outlook also improved in December. The number of consumers expecting business conditions to improve over the next six months increased to 16.7 percent from 13.7 percent, while those expecting business conditions to worsen declined to 13.4 percent from 16.1 percent.

The Dow Jones industrial average gained 17.60 points, or 0.14 percent, to 12,311.60. The Standard & Poor’s 500 was up 2.08 points, or 0.16 percent, to 1,267.41. The Nasdaq Composite Index rose 7.38 points, or 0.28 percent, to 2,626.00.

JAKARTA (ILO News): In Indonesia, informal economy workers and employees without contracts are largely uncovered by social security benefits. It is estimated that 54 per cent of the total population does not have access to social health protection (most of the excluded are workers in the informal economy and their families) and 83 per cent of workers do not have access to other social security benefits (old age, death, work injury).

The extension of social insurance and health insurance to informal economy workers above the poverty line is challenging. However, the extension of social protection cannot be achieved without strong commitment and willingness from national and local governments. In the absence of an adequate social protection floor in place, people who manage to get out of poverty face the risk of falling again into poverty.

To further discuss the promotion of basic social security rights, including essential services in employment, health, water and sanitation, nutrition, education and family-support, the International Labour Organization (ILO) is conducting a four-day meeting entitled “Experts Meeting on Social Security and Social Protection Floor: Learning from Regional Experiences” from 12 to 15 December 2011 in Jakarta. The main goal of the meeting is to support the implementation of the Indonesian Jobs Pact on social protection and the Social Security Law No. 40/2004 by sharing information and knowledge on existing social protection tools and initiatives at the global, regional and national level.

The meeting is also in line with the recent report published by the ILO and the World Health Organization (WHO) titled “Social Protection Floor for Fair and Inclusive Globalization”, emphasizing the principles of the Social Protection Floor (SPF) Initiative. The report is also known as the Bachelet Report as the report was formulated under the chairpersonship of Mrs Michelle Bachelet, former President of Chile. The report was also used as a background and advocacy document for the G20 discussions on social protection

The SPF promotes income security through a basic set of guarantees including: (i) all residents have access to a nationally/provincially defined set of affordable essential health care services; (ii) all children enjoy income security through transfers in kind or in cash ensuring access to nutrition, education and care; (iii) all those in active age groups who cannot (or should not, in case of pregnancy) earn a sufficient income enjoy a minimum income security through social transfers in cash or in kind or employment guaranteed schemes; and (iv) all residents in old age and with disabilities have income security at least at the level of the nationally defined poverty line through pensions for old age and disability or transfers in kind.

Indonesia has recently made a significant move towards universal coverage of social protection by the enactment of the Social Security Provider Bill (BPJS). The Bill, in conjunction with the Social Security System Law of 2004, stipulates that the workers in the informal economy (63 million in 2009) will be included in the social security system in the coming years.

The ILO has conducted a comprehensive study on the implementation of the SPF in Indonesia. The study indentified specifc policy and implementation challenges of existing social protection programmes. Recommendations are translated into various scenarios of extension of coverage and/or benefits:

• A gradual universal coverage for health would cost between 1 to 2 per cent of GDP or 3 to 5 per cent of the central government expenditure (depending on the benefit package offered in the scheme).
• Extension of family benefits to all poor families with children (using the Family Hope Programme (PKH) scheme) by 2015 would cost around 1 percent of GDP.
• The government has a cash transfer program to severely disabled people, but the coverage is still low. Extending this cash transfer to all severely disabled people by 2015 would cost 0.007 per cent of GDP or less than half a percent of the central government budget.
• Universal pension (by gradually reaching all elderly by 2020), set at the level of the poverty line, would cost around 0.6 per cent of GDP or around 3 per cent of government expenditure.

President of the French Civic Service Agency, Martin Hirsch, who was a member of the SPF Advisory Group under Mrs. M. Bachelet, says,“Social protection is not charity. It is important to implement policies and programmes on social protection at the country level by linking it with job creation programmes rather than having separate policies and programmes. This would contribute to programme sustainability and poverty reduction.”

The meeting also presents lessons learnt from various Asian countries, including Thailand, China and Cambodia. Thailand, for example, shares its experiences in organizing the universal tax-financed 500 baht pension scheme; meanwhile, Cambodia presents its national social protection strategy, particularly in the agricultural and rural development.

In addition, the meeting includes sessions on comparative analysis with the ILO’s Convention No. 102 on Social Protection, income security for children, income security to the working age, including compensation for workers experiencing work injuries and disabilities and for working age population, particularly for the elderly.

The meeting targets policy makers from Government ministries. The workshop also involves representatives from employers’ and workers’ organizations, national and international organizations, UN agencies working on social protection issues as well as mass media.

Tauvik Muhamad
ILO’s Programme Officer
Tel.: +6221 391 3112 ext. 103
Email

Gita F. Lingga
Media Relations Officer
Tel. +6221 391 3112 ext. 115
Email

	Details
Document Date: 2011/12/12 Document Type: Procurement Plan Report Number: 66141 Volume No: 1 of 1 Country: India ;  Disclosure Date: 2011/12/26 Doc Name: India – Additional Financing for Rajasthan Water Sector Restructuring Project : procurement plan Keywords: Apr, Community Participation, Community Participation in Procurement, Competitive Bidding, contract award, contract value, contractors, Credits, Data Center, Equipment, Fixed Budget, Force Majeure, Gang, goods contracts, Implementing Agency, Information System, Installation, Internal Audit, Laser Printer, negotiation, procurement, procurement Plan, Procurement Procedures, provisions, Remuneration, satellite, Technical assistance, Training Manual Show More Language: English Major Sector: Public Administration, Law, and Justice ; Agriculture, fishing, and forestry ; Health and other social services Rel. Proj ID: IN-Rajasthan Water Sector Restructuring Project — P040610 ;  Region: South Asia ;  Rep Title: India – Additional Financing for Rajasthan Water Sector Restructuring Project : procurement plan Sector: Other social services ; Sub-national government administration ; Agricultural extension and research ; Irrigation and drainage Topics: Law and Development ; Public Sector Development ; Private Sector Development ; Social Development ; Finance and Financial Sector Development SubTopics: Bankruptcy and Resolution of Financial Distress ; Public Sector Corruption & Anticorruption Measures ; E-Business ; Community Development and Empowerment ; Contract Law TF No/Name: TF023101-PHRD-WATER RESOURCES INNOVATION AND TRAINING ; TF022765-WATER RESOURCES/INSTITUTIONS SPECIALIST ; BBFAO-BB FAO ; TF029301-PHRD-RAJASTHAN WATER RESOUR.CONSOL.PROJ. ; TF032909-INDIA – WATER RESOURCES, ENVIRONMENT Unit Owning: Agriculture & Rural Development (SASDA) Credit No: 4709 ; 3603 Show More

 

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The banks will resume their work Jan 2, 2012.

In a circular, the UAE’s Central Bank, has urged the banks to ensure that their ATMs were properly stocked with cash at all times.

According to AMA, the current system of self-regulation is inadequate and that tougher legislated measures are needed to stop this insidious and dangerous form of marketing, Xinhua reported.

It has criticised alcohol companies for using summer sporting events and music festivals while launching mass advertising campaigns that encourage young people to drink.

The warmer weather and high profile sporting and music events make summer the ideal time for alcohol companies to exploit current loopholes in advertising regulations, said AMA president Steve Hambleton.

These companies launch mass advertising and marketing campaigns that encourage teenagers and young people to drink, often recklessly, he added.

‘The underlying reality is that this marketing can encourage excessive and dangerous drinking, and underage drinking,’ said Hambleton.

‘Munda was part of a meeting held in connection with the India Japan Global Partnership Summit 2011 in New Delhi on Tuesday,’ said a press statement issued here.

Munda discussed with the Japanese prime minister issues related to development of roads, water resources and industries in the state.

The three-day conference was inaugurated by the release of doves as a symbolic representation of freedom, characteristic of free software, by the dignitaries present.

Delivering the keynote address, S.V. Raghavan, scientific secretary to the principal scientific adviser to the Indian government, said that the complexity of the task of building information and software assets for the nation was formidable.

‘FOSS provides a powerful, flexible and customizable model for addressing this need. FOSS provides robust technologies, tools and development methodologies which make the decentralized creation of content, as well as its verification feasible in a scalable manner,’ he said.

In his inaugural address, K.S. Srinivas, the state’s special secretary, IT, said that FOSS fulfils a clear need in developing solutions for e-governance, especially given the needs of responsiveness and transparency.

‘Kerala was the first state to embark on the path of FOSS in the country and in the world. The government of Kerala is committed to continuing efforts to propagate the use of FOSS,’ he said.

Successful FOSS applications of the Kerala government, such as IT@School and InSight is being showcased at the meeting and a workshop on

‘Open Source Hardware’ will be held for students on Friday.

The inaugural event was attended by representatives from Africa, Latin America, Europe, and US in addition to India.

Previous conferences were held in 2001, 2005 and 2008.

Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal asked the state-run Himachal Pradesh Tourism Development Corp. to set up tourism-cum-nature camps in Sangla, an official statement said here.

For this, the HPTDC would establish pre-fabricated tourist huts. ‘This would give a boost to eco-tourism in the tribal area in a big way,’ said Dhumal, who holds the tourism.

He said Sangla, close to the China border, was emerging as a preferred destination for nature lovers.

Located some 275 km from state capital Shimla, it nestles amid virgin nature, with abundant wildlife and exquisite flora and fauna.

Tourism is an important contributor to Himachal Pradesh’s economic development. Last year, 1.32 crore tourists, including 454,851 foreign nationals, visited the state.

‘We invite Indian auto component companies to invest in Slovenia. Our pharma companies can cooperate with Indian drug manufacturers in generics. We would also invite Indian movie makers to look at Slovenia as a shooting locale. Our country is more beautiful than Switzerland but at half the cost of the latter,’ Slovenian Ambassador Janez Premoze told reporters here Tuesday.

According to him, Slovenia offers easier access to European markets for Indian companies.

He said the bilateral trade between India and Slovenia during Jan-Sept 2011 is around 191 million euros (approx $250 mn).

Slovenia has exported goods worth around 60 million euros to India and imported around 131 million euro worth of goods from India.

‘We are also looking at cultural and academic exchanges between India and Slovenia,’ Premoze added.

Slovenia opened its consular office here Tuesday to setrve the southern part of the country.

‘We are negotiating with couple of parties to outsource the visa processing activities. In two months time it will be decided. Currently visas are issued in New Delhi,’ Premoze said.

He said around 10,000 Indian tourists visit Slovenia every year.

Honorary Consul Amit Goel said: ‘Slovenia has a wonderful landscape with Alps in the north and the Adriatic Sea in the south. The coastline is just 46 km long but is home to hundreds of yatches belonging to people from northern Europe.’

He said Slovenians are interested in Indian culture with some attending the cultural festivals in India every year.

‘We plan to take a Bharathanatyam troupe to Slovenia in near future,’ he remarked.

‘The Mahindra Duro DZ is a tough and powerful scooter designed specifically for Indian road conditions. The Duro DZ is the result of our R&D team working closely with consumers and extensive testing,’ Mahindra 2 Wheelers president Anoop Mathur said in a statement Tuesday.

Ruzbeh Irani, executive vice president (Corporate Strategy and Chief Brand Officer), said Mahindra Racing will unveil its new Moto3 challenger, the MGP30 for the first time in India.

Mahindra was the first Indian company to enter the MotoGP motorcycle racing championship in 2011.

Overall, around 50 new two-wheelers, cars, buses and trucks would be launched at the Auto Expo 2012 beginning here Jan 5.

The 11th edition of the biennial exhibition is being jointly organised by Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (SIAM), the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) and Automotive Component Manufacturers Association of India (ACMA).

Some 1,500 exhibitors from 24 countries would participate in the trade show.

Customers faced service outage since Tuesday morning. They were not able to make or receive calls and send messages.

‘Mobile voice, BlackBerry and SMS services have largely been restored and are stabilizing. We are working towards restoring 2G and 3G data services later tonight,’ the company said in a statement.

‘However, for the enterprise services like leased lines and internet services, the restoration work is in progress and these services are likely to be restored in the next 24 hours,’ it added.

The company confirmed reports that the outage was caused by a fire in the network’s central point of presence in Malad, a Mumbai suburb.

Tata Power will own 100 percent of the company on completion of the transaction.

‘We believe that the favourable policy environment in India has led to increase in the size of the solar module and solar cell market in India and is a great opportunity for the company to grow and capture a healthy market share,’ Tata Power managing director Anil Sardana said in a regulatory filing.

‘We would also like to reiterate that Tata BP Solar is not impacted by the decision of BP to gradually exit its solar business and that it is business as usual for them,’ he added.

Tata BP Solar India Limited was incorporated as a joint venture between Tata Exports Ltd (renamed Tata International Limited) and BP Solar India Holdings Limited (renamed BP Alternative Energy Holdings Limited) in 1989 for manufacturing photovoltaic (PV) cells and modules.

At the Bombay Stock Exchange, the shares of Tata Power closed 1.92 percent up at Rs.90.25.

‘As against the targeted quantity of import and sale of 53.10 lakh tonnes of pulses during 2006-11, the agencies imported 30.04 lakh tonnes and sold 26.95 lakh tonnes of pulses during this period, incurring losses totalling Rs.1,201.32 crore on these transactions’, the official auditor said in a report tabled in parliament.

The CAG criticised the government for not being able to make the pulses available even after providing Rs.781.10 crore in subsidies.

‘Despite the release of subsidy amounting to Rs.781.10 crore, the twin objectives of the availability of pulses and stabilization of their market prices remained largely unfulfilled,’ the CAG said in its audit of ‘sale and distribution of imported pulses’.

The report looked at Rs.361.39 crore that was spent under the 15 percent loss reimbursement scheme and Rs.419.71 crore which was utilised under the public distribution system (PDS).

The government had introduced a loss reimbursement scheme of up to 15 percent for pulses importing agencies in May 2006.

The second scheme was introduced in November 2008 which envisaged import of four lakh million tonnes of pulses for distribution to below poverty line households through the PDS with an overall subsidy of Rs.10 a kg.

According to the report, the ministry of consumer affairs, food and public distribution did not conduct any survey to assess the demand and consumption of the different types of pulses in the country.

‘This should have been done to calculate the actual amounts needed to be imported. The shortfall in imports was as high as 76.13 percent in 2009-10, while the shortfall in disposal of the available quantity of pulses was as high as 50.70 percent during 2008-09,’ the report said.

The audit noted that there were some faulty decisions on the part of pulse importing agencies, including the decision to import the yellow peas pulse.

‘The peas did not find many takers in the domestic market and were sold after considerable delays at very low rates, with heavy losses to the importing agencies,’ the auditor said.

The importing agencies continued to import the peas during the subsequent years even when they had huge unsold stocks.

‘The outcome was a total loss of Rs.897.37 crore suffered by the importing agencies, which amounted to 75 percent of the total loss of Rs.1,201.32 crore suffered by them in the process of import.’

‘The new ads format is designed to ensure users find the information they are looking for and enable advertisers to reach potential customers with the right information,’ Google India sales head Praveen Sharma said in a statement here.

As a standalone format designed to put video ads front and centre, the search target is automated.

‘The format is launched with STAR TV campaign built around its new channel Life Ok. The media and entertainment category search volumes have shown phenomenal growth. In the last two years, the query volumes have grown at 125 percent year-on-year,’ Sharma said.

The format will also enable media firms to capture the traffic on search and leverage it to create familiarity of the content.

‘Our research has shown that a substantial number of users are looking to watch the movie trailer or TV show clips on the search results page, which translates into a high response rate for this ad format,’ Sharma noted.

The format also changes the way users experience video on Google search. It introduces a new Lightbox media player. When the video is played either by clicking the thumbnail or the ‘watch’ link, the Lightbox player expands to the centre of the screen and dims the rest of the page around it.

‘The experience is meant to put the viewer’s attention on the video and to create a theatre-like experience,’ Sharma added.

Media Ads are charged at a flat rate on clicks. The pricing model makes it easier to budget for media ads campaign and to know how much an interaction is going to cost.

Google’s search technologies connect millions of people the world over with information every day. Founded in 1998 by Larry Page and Sergey Brin, Google is a top web property in all major global markets.

Google’s targeted advertising programme provides businesses with measurable results, while enhancing the overall web experience for users.

‘At the helm of affairs will now be Deepak Mehrotra, joining as the new Micromax CEO. His last assignment in Bharti was as the operations director, mobility business, handling a large part of the country,’ the company said in a statement.

The company has also appointed senior officials from Sony Ericsson and HTC as well and now plans to have two separate divisions, the feature phone division to be led by Khaja Muzaffarullah who was earlier with Sony Ericsson and smartphone division to be headed by Ajay Sharma, formerly with HTC.

‘The new team brings with them wealth of experience by virtue of their long-standing association and in-depth understanding of the overall mobility market globally,’ Micromax executive director Rahul Sharma said.

In the next two years, as India gears up become the largest mobile market, Micromax aims to double its reach as well and strengthen its distribution network.

‘These are exciting times not only for the brand but for the industry as a whole. The Indian mobile industry is growing at a rate of 12 percent and we would like to capture this opportunity and drive the next phase of growth for the brand,’ Mehrotra said.

Commenting about the potential of smartphones, Ajay Sharma said: ‘Micromax would aspire a 10 percent of the market share at the earliest.’

The state cabinet decided that the department of industries would develop the park infrastructure at Aduwal in Nalagarh tehsil at a cost of Rs.33.66 crore under public-private-partnership (PPP) mode, an official spokesperson told IANS.

The park, having a biotechnology incubation centre and a biotechnology industrial cluster, would spread over 33 acres, he added.

In the budget session of the assembly in March, Chief Minister Prem Kumar Dhumal had said the government was looking for a private promoter to develop the biotechnology park.

Last year, the state had granted permission for the development of a Rs.200 crore biotechnology park with the central government’s assistance.

Customers could not make or receive calls and send messages since morning.

‘A technical outage has affected our network in the western region resulting in disruption of some services,’ said an Airtel spokesperson, regretting the inconvenience caused to customers.

He said the network was rectifying the fault.

However, Twitter was abuzz with comments saying that the fault had been caused by a fire in the operator’s data centre in the city.

The eastern and western peripheral expressways were envisaged to reduce congestion of traffic in Delhi and for developing areas in Haryana and Uttar Pradesh.

‘Delhi government agreed to provide 50 percent initial cost of the Rs.1,307 crore cost for the expressways. It has already released its share of Rs.653.50 crore, though the response from neighbouring state has been lukewarm. The project has not been completed in stipulated period resulting substantial traffic jams and wastage of fuel,’ Dikshit said at a workshop organised by the National Capital Region Planning Board.

She said the expressways are extremely important as a million cars pass through Delhi which is already burdened with lakhs of vehicles registered in the city itself.

The chief minister also urged the Planning Board to facilitate completion of eastern and western peripheral expressways to stop the movement of heavy transport vehicles, which are not registered in the capital, through Delhi.

The apex bank in a statement said the commemorative coins will be a legal tender under the provisions of the Indian Coinage Act, 1906.

According to the bank, the reverse side of the coin will bear the picture of an aircraft and 100 years. It will also have ‘civil aviation’ on the top and the years 1911-2011 at the bottom.

‘The face of the coin shall bear the picture of an aircraft and figure ’100′ with words ‘years’ in the centre flanked by words on the upper periphery and ‘Civil Aviation’ followed by ‘India’ below the figure ’100′,’ the statement said.

The country is celebrating 2011 as the centenary year of the first commercial flight in the country which took place on Feb 18, 1911, between Allahabad and Naini.

The existing RS.5 coins will also continue to be legal tender, said the RBI.

— Indo-Asian News Service

mridhula-rv/srj

The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened in the positive at 15,983.98 points, closed at 15,873.95 points, down 0.61 percent or 96.80 points from its previous close at 15,970.75 points.

The market was largely range-bound. The Sensex crossed the 16,000-point mark in early trade and touched a high of 16,049.12 points and low of 15,799.63 points in the intra-day.

The 50-scrip S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange ended 0.60 percent or 28.50 points down at 4,750.50 points.

Most of the sectoral indices as well as broader markets indexes also closed in the red. The BSE midcap index fell 0.69 percent and the smallcap index closed 0.35 percent down.

The BSE realty index slumped 1.72 percent, metal index fell 1.38 percent and the bankex declined 1.23 percent.

Major Sensex losers were: DLF, down 2.70 percent at Rs.191.25; Cipla, down 2.68 percent at Rs.319.70; Coal India, down 2.44 percent at Rs.298.15; Tata Steel, down 2.42 percent at Rs.349.05 and Tata Motors, down 2.36 percent at Rs.181.90.

Of the 30 Sensex scrips only eight closed in the positive territory. Prominent gainers were: Tata Power, up 1.92 percent at Rs.90.25; Bajaj Auto, up 1.19 percent at Rs.1,630.20; ONGC, up 0.50 percent at Rs.263.55 and ITC, up 0.37 percent at Rs.205.50.

At the Bombay Stock Exchange, shares of Reliance Communications closed 4.97 percent up at Rs.72.90 after touching an intra-day high of Rs.73.65. Reliance Capital closed 0.56 percent higher at Rs.252.25 after moving up to Rs.259.75 intra-day.

The shares of Reliance Infrastructure closed 0.54 percent up at Rs.369.20 after touching an intra-day high of Rs.379.50. However, Reliance Power closed 2.10 percent lower at Rs.72.25 after touching an intra-day high of Rs.75.65.

Shares of Reliance Broadcast Network closed 2.60 up at Rs.51.35 following an intra-day high of Rs.54.90 while that of Reliance MediaWorks closed 3.23 percent higher at Rs.75.05 after edging an intra-day high of Rs.76.70.

The demand has been raised by Chief Minister Bhupinder Singh Hooda for works relating to water supply, solid waste management, roads and improvement of street lights under the city development plans, a spokesman said here Tuesday.

He said that development plans of these local bodies have been prepared by the Haryana government.

‘The financial gap to meet the present infrastructure deficit in these 26 ULBs has been estimated at Rs.2,776 crore,’ the spokesman said.

The Haryana government has made it clear to the central government that it will not be able to bear the high costs of projects like the Regional Rapid Transit System (RRTS) for the Delhi-Gurgaon-Rewari-Alwar and Delhi-Panipat sections.

The state has sought 100 percent central funding for the Delhi-Gurgaon-Rewari-Alwar corridor, the cost of which has been worked out to be Rs.25,150 crore (including land cost) for a stretch of 158 km.

The state government has also sought the Delhi Metro to be linked to industrial townships like Kundli, Sonepat, Bahadurgarh and others in the NCR region.

A study of cocoa plantations in Cote d’ Ivoire and Ghana, which grow over half the world’s cocoa, found that the average for production could halve owing to a temperature rise of just 2.3 degrees Celsius by 2050.

Peter Laderach of the International Centre for Tropical Agriculture said chocolate will certainly become more expensive if demand continues to rise and climate change causes shortages of cocoa, making it a luxury item.

Recent political upheavals in West Africa have already pushed up the price by 10 percent on the trading floor to almost 2,000 pounds per tonne, the Telegraph reports.

Higher demand and shortages due to climate change will push up the price further, eventually forcing retailers to put up the price of chocolate bars, said the study commissioned by the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation.

Cadbury and Nestle have recently pushed up the recommended retail price of top-selling confectionery in Britain such as Dairy Milk, Wispa, Kit Kat and Yorkie by up to seven percent – more than double the rate of inflation.

Cocoa trees need a cool climate to thrive and could be moved further up into higher land but since West Africa is fairly flat the potential for this is limited. Other products reportedly affected by climate change include French wine and Italian pasta.

Addressing the fourth meeting of the Parliamentary Consultative Committee attached to his ministry Monday, Mukherjee said the ‘downturn is only temporary’.

He said due to eurozone crisis, fall in external demand resulting in a slowdown in exports, currency volatility and current account deficit among others had affected the economy, according to an official statement released here Tuesday.

India’s economic growth declined to 7.3 percent in the first half of the current fiscal as compared to 8.6 percent growth during the same period of last year.

Mukherjee early this month revised downward the growth projection for the current fiscal to 7.5 percent from his budgetary target of around 9 percent.

Food inflation, meanwhile, has come down to 1.8 percent and there is moderation in inflation in general. The savings rate has also gone up. These are encouraging signs that would give relief to policy makers, according to Mukherjee.

Mukherjee said he had issued instructions to all ministries and departments to adhere to their expenditure ceilings that would help in containing the fiscal deficit.

For the current fiscal, the government has proposed to keep the fiscal deficit at 4.6 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP)in the current fiscal year that ends in March 2012, down from 4.7 per cent in 2010-11.

But this is unlikely to be met due to increasing government spending. With not much hope on robust tax collections and disinvestment, economists see the gap between the government’s expenditure and receipts to be between six and seven per cent for this financial year. In the first half of 2011-12 itself, the deficit had touched 6.7 per cent of the gdp.

The only good news for consumers was an expected fall in inflation that will ease the squeeze on spending power in households which remain in work, says the report by the Institute for Public Policy Research.

Many European economies were already back in recession, Sky News said.

‘As we enter 2012, it seems the word that best describes the outlook for the British economy is ‘bleak’,’ the institute’s chief economist Tony Dolphin said.

‘… country after country is being forced to adopt extreme austerity measures that will result in large falls in output,’ he said.

‘Going into 2012, the risk is that talk of austerity at home and crisis in Europe will dampen spirits to such an extent that the economy drifts into recession.’

‘The agreement under which MHI will provide licensing and technology support, including training of LTSB engineers, represents the successful convergence of the long term business interests of both companies,’ the company said in a regulatory filing.

‘MHI has been proactively promoting development of its engineering business, centering on technology licensing, while L&T Shipbuilding has been seeking to strengthen its shipbuilding business through the introduction of technology from a global leader,’ it added.

The agreement calls for MHI to provide support for an initial period of three years, with an option to extend beyond that time frame.

Going forward the companies will eventually jointly market and sell commercial vessels.

At the Bombay Stock Exchange, the shares of L&T were 1.77 percent up to trade at Rs.1,043.95.

SBI revises upwards the NRE term deposit rates up to 574 bps in all maturities, effective from Jan 1, 2012, the government-run lender said in a statement.

The State Bank of India said it would also hike the highest tenor for NRE term deposits to 10 years from the existing five years.

SBI’s existing rate of interests on NRE term deposits is up to 3.82 percent. The lender has now brought the interest rates on NRE term deposits on par with the domestic term deposits.

In a separate statement the second-largest public sector lender Punjab National Bank said it would also hike the rates on NRE term deposits up to 9.25 percent.

The bank has decided to increase the rate of interests on NRE term deposit to 9.25 percent for period ranging from 1 year to 5 years with effect from Jan 1, 2012, PNB said in a statement.

Most other lenders have also hiked interest rates on NRE deposits.

Last week, HDFC Bank hiked interest rates on NRE deposits of various maturities period up to 9 percent.

Allahabad Bank has hiked rates to 7.5 percent. IndusInd Bank has hiked rates to 9.25 percent and Yes Bank hiked rates to 9.6 percent.

The existing interest rates on term deposits of most of the banks are in the range of 3-4 percent.

Lenders have hiked rates in a bid to attract deposits from NRIs amid rising interest rates on domestic deposits.

‘For the first time in Emirates’ history, we are offering up to 25 percent off in economy class, business class and first class air fares to every destination on our international network,’ said Orhan Abbas, vice president (India and Nepal) for Emirates airlines in a statement here.

The offer is valid for booking until Jan 9, 2012 for flights departing between Jan 22 and June 30, 2012, when travelling round-trip to any destination.

The bank has decided to increase the rate of interests on NRE term deposit to 9.25 percent for period ranging from 1 year to 5 years with effect from Jan 1, 2012, PNB said in a statement.

Most other lenders have also hiked interest rates on NRE deposits.

Last week, HDFC Bank hiked interest rates on NRE deposits of various maturities period up to 9 percent.

Allahabad Bank has hiked rates to 7.5 percent. IndusInd Bank has hiked rates to 9.25 percent and Yes Bank hiked rates to 9.6 percent.

The existing interest rates on term deposits of most of the banks are in the range of 3-4 percent.

Lenders have hiked rates in a bid to attract deposits from NRIs amid rising interest rates on domestic deposits.

What Was Done:

* Deal for 10 Boeing C-17s signed with the US for $4.1 billion.

* Deal for upgrading 51 Mirage-2000 jets signed for $2.4 billion with French manufacturer Dassault.

* Six Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules for special forces operations delivered.

* INS Deepak fleet tanker inducted.

* Order placed with Korean shipyard for eight minesweepers.

* Deal for 80 fast interceptor craft signed with Sri Lanka.

What Wasn’t Done

* Deal for 126 combat planes yet to be signed.

* Deal for 145 M777 ultra-light howitzers still to be signed.

* Deal for 22 attack helicopters still to be clinched.

* Winner of order for 15 heavy-lift helicopters yet to be announced

* Winner of order for 197 light-utility helicopters still be decided.

During the past 12 months, India finalised the purchase of some important military equipment, such as 10 Boeing C-17 Globemaster III heavylift cargo planes from the US and the upgrade of 51 Mirage-2000 combat planes initially by the French manufacturer and later in India.

These apart, India got the delivery of six Lockheed Martin C-130J Super Hercules medium-lift cargo planes from the US and entered into an agreement with Russia for licensed production of 42 more Sukhoi SU-30 MKI combat jets at the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) facility in India.

What’s more, India is on the verge of finalising the winner of the ‘mother of all deals’ for 126 combat planes for the Indian Air Force (IAF) that is expected to cost over $20 billion if an additional 63 aircraft are bought. A decision is expected in January 2012.

India also added teeth to its underwater warfare capabilities by obtaining a nuclear powered submarine on lease from Russia from this month.

The C-17s that India signed up for in June will cost $4.1 billion and would be delivered from 2013 to 2015. The importance of this plane for the IAF can be gauged from the fact that it can carry a payload of 75 tonnes and can land on airstrips of just over 1,000 metres.

A tactical and strategic airlifter, the C-17 can land combat-ready troops in remote locations or airdrop them directly where needed. The C-17′s ability to back up allows it to operate from narrow taxiways and congested ramps.

The Mirage-2000 upgrade deal, entered into with French firms Thales and Dassault in July, is worth $2.4 billion, and will help in enhancing the technical-operational capabilities of the 51 planes the IAF has in its fleet.

The upgraded Mirages, inducted in the 1980s, will also get new weapon systems including the French MBDA’s MICA aerial combat and interception missiles. It will improve not only the avionics of the combat planes but also their fighting capabilities and increase their life by another 20 years at least.

The C-130J planes will help India to carry out special forces operations to take on enemy targets inside their territory with precision and in quick time.

The four-engined turboprop has a minimum crew of three comprising two pilots and a loadmaster and can carry 64 fully-geared troops or 20 tonnes of cargo. It can touch speeds of 700 kmph and can take off from landing strips of about 1,000 metres.

During Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s visit to Moscow earlier in December, India signed a fresh deal with Russia for producing 42 more Sukhois at HAL that will take the IAF’s fleet strength of the planes, now licensed manufactured in India, to 272. At present, India is operated over 120 of the Sukhois.

The potent air dominance fighter will provide a lethal edge to the IAF, as it has the capability to carry nuke-tipped missiles too.

In April, India also down-selected European consortium EADS Cassidian and French Dassault as the two remaining contenders in the 126 medium multi-role combat aircraft (MMRCA) tender and sent the other four vendors packing.

With that and the opening of the EADS and Dassault commercial bids in November, the tender has entered the final stage and the winner of the deal is expected to be announced in January 2012. The 126 planes will be the replacement for the Soviet-origin MiG-21s that India had begun inducting in the 1960s, as these ageing planes are to be phased out of the IAF by 2015.

The MMRCA deal was expected by the end of this year, but it will take another month or so before coming through, all because of an investigation at the beginning of the year into a file relating to the commercial bids of the vendors going missing and later found at a Delhi roadside.

Among the defence deals that were expected but did not fructify was that for the M777 ultra-light howitzers from the BAE Systems stable, 145 of which India wanted to buy from the US under the foreign military sales route. But after a portion of the guns’ field trials were leaked, the order faced a time overrun in view of an investigation ordered by the defence ministry into the leak.

Some of the other deals, expected this year but which did not materialise included the finalisation of the tender for 22 attack helicopters which was reportedly won by Boeing’s Apache Longbow; the completion of the tendering process for 15 heavy-lift helicopters that is also in its final stages, and the 197 light utility helicopters for the army and the air force, the fate of which is not known yet and could take a long while for a decision.

India also failed to sign a deal for IAF’s basic trainer requirement of 75 aircraft. The Swiss Pilatus PC-7 was finalised as the winner of the tender, but a final deal is yet to be sealed, which may come about only in early 2012.

Among the capacity-builders the Indian armed forces obtained this year were the indigenous stealth frigate of the Shivalik class, INS Satpura, that was inducted in August; commissioning of the fleet tanker, INS Deepak, in January that can carry supplies to Indian warships sailing far away from the mainland so they are in operation mode for months; and induction of over 100 upgraded AN-32 medium-lift Soviet-era transport planes.

India also placed an order with a Sri Lankan shipyard in October for 80 fast interceptor craft for its newly-raised Sagar Prahari Bal that is tasked to protect coastal strategic assets of the country.

It also signed a contract with a South Korean shipyard for building eight minesweepers that protect the harbour fronts from being mined by enemy submarines.

This year also saw the Defence Research and Development Organisation testing the 3,500-km range Agni-IV in November, apart from a score of missiles such as 2,000-km range Agni-II and Shourya short-range ballistic missiles that provide India a significant second strike nuclear weapons capability.

All these missile tests were in preparation for putting India in the over 5,000-km range inter-continental ballistic missile league and DRDO plans and prepares to test the Agni-V, which has this capability, in early 2012.

(N.C. Bipindra can be contacted at nc.bipindra@ians.in

The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened in the positive at 15,983.98 points, was ruling at 15,948.47 in the afternoon, down 0.14 percent or 22.28 points from its previous close at 15,970.75.

The market was largely range-bound. The Sensex crossed the 16,000-point mark in early trade and touched a high of 16,049.12 points and low of 15,928.92 in the intra-day.

The 50-scrip S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange also slipped into the red in the afternoon after ruling in the positive in the pre-noon trade. The Nifty was trading 0.25 percent down at 4,766.90 points.

Most of the sectoral indices were also in the red and broader markets were almost flat. The BSE midcap was down 0.11 percent and the smallcap index was flat.

Growth in the January-November period was 0.9 percentage points lower from that of the first ten months, according to data from the National Bureau of Statistics (NBS).

Total profits realized in the first 11 months amounted to 4.66 trillion yuan ($736 billion), reported Xinhua.

The NBS compiled the figures using the data collected from a pool of industrial businesses with at least 20 million yuan in annual sales revenues each.

In November alone, industrial profits expanded 17.9 percent year-on-year to 542.1 billion yuan, the NBS said.

Consumer sentiment index (CSI), which gauges consumers’ overall economic outlook, stood at 99 in December, down 4 points from a month earlier, according to the Bank of Korea (BOK). The CSI is based on survey response from 2042 households in 56 cities, conducted between Dec 14 and 21.

The figure was the lowest since 99 tallied in September. The index fell this month below the benchmark 100 point, meaning pessimists outnumbered optimists, reported Xinhua.

South Korean consumers’ expectation for inflation eased somewhat. Inflation expectation over the next 12 months came in at an annual rate of 4 percent in December, down 0.1 percentage point from the previous month.

From January to November, the punctuality rate was 76.5 percent on average, up 1.9 percentage points compared to the same period last year, said Li Jun, deputy director of the Civil Aviation Administration of China (CAAC).

Li said that airlines, airports and air traffic control authorities have strengthened cooperation in efforts to reduce delays.

With these efforts, the punctuality rates of the Beijing-Shanghai and Beijing-Guangzhou routes have increased 30 and 11 percentage points, respectively, Li said at a national aviation work conference in Beijing Monday.

Li said that in 2012, the CAAC will further take efforts to reduce flight delays and raise the punctuality rate by another two percentage points.

The state council submitted Monday a draft law on exit and entry administration to the National People’s Congress (NPC) Standing Committee, the top legislature of the country, for its first reading.

The existing law on exit and entry administration, established 26 years ago, barely mentioned illegal employment of foreigners in China, reported Xinhua.

A foreigner shall get work permits and residence certificates for employment before getting employed, according to the draft law.

Foreigners who work illegally in China will be fined between 5,000 yuan ($792) and 20,000 yuan, and may be detained 5-15 days for serious violations.

Those who illegally provide job placement services for foreigners or illegally employ foreigners would be also fined.

‘We shall put forth efforts on regularizing foreigners who are working in China, do better in visa issuing, and strengthen residential management of foreigners,’ said Yang Huanning, deputy minister of public security.

China would like to introduce more high-end professionals and limit the inflow of low-end workers, Yang said.

According to the government, the number of people entering and exiting China has increased by 10 percent annually since 1990. In 2010, the number reached 382 million, including 52 million foreigners.

According to figures of the labour ministry, 29,900 more jobseekers were reported in November, up by 1.1 percent month on month and 5.2 percent year on year.

It drove up the total job demands to 2.84 million in France’s mainland, the highest level since 1999, reported Xinhua.

‘We took note of the increasing number of job seekers which was a direct result of the slowing economic activity,’ Labour Minister Xavier Bertrand said in a statement Monday.

By the third quarter of 2011, jobless rate in France inched up by 2 percentage points to 9.3 percent in the context of global economic recession.

To create more jobs in the country, the French government will hold a meeting focusing on unemployment Jan 18, 2012.

Luis de Guindos, a former investment banker, did not use the word ‘recession’, but the condition he described matches the technical definition of the term: two consecutive quarters of contraction.

The October-December and January-March periods ‘will not be easy for growth or employment’, the minister said during the swearing-in ceremony for two of his top aides.

He added, however, that the difficult situation will be ‘a spur’ to needed reforms, including the ‘vital and indispensable’ overhaul of the financial sector and elimination of red tape and bureaucracy in the market for goods and services.

Another priority for the Economy Ministry is fostering the rapid integration of scientific and technological advances to create a more sustainable growth model, De Guindos said.

Regarding the problems of the eurozone, he said much would be at stake in the next few months and expressed confidence that Spain, the zone’s No. 4 economy, will play a relevant role in decision-making and in the implementation of reforms.

The administration of Prime Minister Mariano Rajoy, which took office last week, will decide Friday on an initial set of measures to deal with the economic crisis, Deputy Premier Soraya Saenz de Santamaria said a few hours before De Guindos’ comments.

Rajoy, whose conservative Popular Party won massively over the incumbent Socialists in the Nov 20 general elections, said Spain needs to cut its budget deficit by 16.5 billion euros ($21.4 billion) in 2012 to keep it within the ceiling of 4.4 percent of gross domestic product.

Except for pensions, which he promised to raise after a freeze imposed by the previous government, every other category of spending will be scrutinized with an eye toward cuts, Rajoy said.

The new administration also aims to halt the spiral of job destruction that has left more than 21 percent of the workforce – 5 million people – unemployed.

–IANS/EFE

rd

This is the fifth straight downward revision by private bank economists, who are polled weekly by the Central Bank and lowered their gross domestic product forecast by two-tenths of a percentage point, compared to the previous estimate.

Brazil’s economy grew 3.2 percent in the January-September period, but it stagnated over the past few months due to the international financial crisis.

The bank economists, however, are standing by their 2012 forecast of 3.4 percent GDP growth, an estimate well below the government forecast of 4 percent to 5 percent growth.

The economists’ inflation forecast for this year rose slightly to 6.54 percent, while it was lowered to 5.33 percent for 2012, with both numbers being well above the government target of 4.5 percent for each year.

Prices rose 6.64 percent in Brazil between January and November.

The announcement comes following President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s visit to Armenia Friday. Both sides have agreed to build hydro-power plants on the Aras river.

Iran will also set up a pipeline to supply gas to Armenia, and in return, Yerevan will give electricity to Iran.

The pipeline is expected to cost $240 million.

Talks are on for the purchase of 100-seat capacity planes from Russia, Urban Development Minister Ali Nikzad said.

Russia’s Tupolev and Sukhoi types of aircraft are being considered, according to the semi-official Fars news agency.

Iran hopes to add 20 new planes to its aircraft fleet in the next few months, Nikzad said.

Chairing a cabinet meeting, Chief Minister Sheila Dikshit announced that the government will help the beleaguered discom to get an uninterrupted power supply to avoid power cuts.

She said Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Power Minister Sushilkumar Shinde have been apprised of the situation before taking the decision.

‘We cannot allow the system to collapse. We have taken a decision (to help the discom) to ensure that power cuts do not take place in the city. We had discussed the issue with the centre before taking the decision,’ Dikshit said.

The government will inform power regulator Delhi Electricity Regulatory Commission (DERC) Tuesday about its decision to infuse the fresh equity.

Officials said the city government is likely to infuse fresh equity to the tune of around Rs.500 crore into the company on the condition that the discom would also infuse equal amount. The Delhi government holds 49 per cent share in BSES.

The total consumer base of BSES in Delhi is around 27 lakh.

Dikshit said to ‘ensure level playing field’, the government would offer similar monetary help to discom NDPL even though it has not sought any such assistance.

‘We will not help only one company. We will help both the discoms,’ she said.

The other airlines wishing to operate out of the eastern metropolis are Japan Airlines, Dubai Airlines, Fenix Airways and a Mauritius-based airline, the minister said.

He said German airlines Lufthansa, which has decided to stop operating in Kolkata after March, would be requested to reconsider its position. British Airways had also withdrawn its Kolkata-London flight in 2008.

‘It is true that some international flights have withdrawn their services but airways like British Airways which had stopped their services from Kolkata are now showing interest again,’ Roy said.

The union minister said the modernised Netaji Subhas Chandra Bose International Airport would be fully operational from June next year. ‘The airport modernisation would be over by March 31 next year. But it will be fully operational by June after the shifting process is completed.’

According to TRAI, due to the proliferation of mobile telecommunications in all walks of life in last decade, the landscape of India’s telecom network has changed significantly.

However, similar growth has not been observed in residential and cordless telecommunications system (CTS) in the country. This has been attributed primarily to limited wireless options available in the market.

‘For intra-telecommunication requirements for residential and enterprises, wireless platform is the most widely used solution which also complements wireline networking solutions.This consultation paper discusses the issues of current allocation of spectrum for CTS (cordless

telecommunications system),’ TRAI said in a statement.

The regulator has asked stakeholders to provide their written comments on the issues raised in the consultation paper by Jan 31, 2012 and counter-comments on the comments by Feb 10, 2012.

In November 2010, the core industries growth was 3.7 percent.

Good growth in cement, electricity and refinery products led the rebound in eight core infrastructure sector, which has 37.90 percent weightage in overall index of industrial production (IIP).

Factory output, based on the IIP, registered a negative growth of 5.1 percent in October, the lowest in four years. In October, the 0.3 percent growth in core industrial output was the slowest in five years.

During April-November period, the cumulative growth rate of the core industries was 4.6 percent as against 5.6 percent during the corresponding period of the previous year, according to commerce and industry ministry data.

Cement production registered a growth of 16.6 percent in November 2011 against negative growth of 4.3 percent during the corresponding month of the previous year. In April-November period, cement production grew by 4.3 percent.

Electricity generation, which has 10.32 percent weight in IIP, grew 14.1 percent in the month under review as compared to 3.5 percent during the corresponding month of 2010.

While petroleum refinery production grew by 11.2 percent, coal production registered a growth of 4.9 percent and steel production by 5.1 percent.

However, fertilizer production contracted by 2.4 percent, crude oil production fell by 5.6 percent, and natural gas output fell by 10.1 percent.

‘Cyrus P. Mistry has been appointed as an additional director of the company effective Dec 23, 2011,’ the company said in a regulatory filing.

The 43-year-old Mistry scion was appointed deputy chairman of the board of directors of Tata Sons, the holding company of the Tata Group, last month. He will work in this position for a year till Ratan Tata lays down the chairman’s office in December 2012.

At the Bombay Stock Exchange the shares of Tata Power closed 0.63 percent up at Rs.88.55.

This 50:50 venture, called Jiangsu Havells Sylvania Lighting Co, will initially invest $50 million, with the possibility of raising this to $100 million over three years, Havells India said in a regulatory filing.

‘The joint venture would facilitate constant innovation and quicker product release in international market, including a co-owned, stable supply source in China,’ the electrical equipment maker said.

Havells, which now exports products to China, was looking for a joint venture partner in China to boost sales and set up a manufacturing facility. It has a significant presence in the international lighting industry with its subsidiary SLI Sylvania of Germany.

— Indo-Asian News Service

mridhula/srj/vt

The two companies have signed an agreement to this effect that would make the venture producing LCD panels used in televisions a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung, the world’s biggest television maker.

‘Under the agreement, Samsung will acquire all of Sony’s shares of S-LCD Corporation (‘S-LCD’), the two companies’ LCD panel manufacturing joint venture, making S-LCD a wholly owned subsidiary of Samsung,’ the companies said in a joint statement Monday.

‘In consideration for the share transfer, cash consideration of approximately KRW 1.08 trillion will be paid to Sony by Samsung,’ added the statement.

The share transfer and payment are targeted to close by the end of January 2012 depending on regulatory approvals.

For Sony, the transaction will enable it to monetize its shares in S-LCD. It will help the consumer-electronics exporter secure a flexible and steady supply of LCD panels from Samsung, based on market prices and without the responsibility and costs of operating a manufacturing facility.

Both companies, however, said they would cooperate in engineering efforts focused on LCD panel technology.

The 30-scrip sensitive index (Sensex) of the Bombay Stock Exchange (BSE), which opened in the positive at 15,782.17 points, closed at 15,970.75 points, up 1.47 percent or 232.05 points from its previous close at 15,738.70 points.

The benchmark Sensex has closed higher for the third time in the last four sessions.

The 50-scrip S&P CNX Nifty of the National Stock Exchange advanced 1.38 percent at 4,779 points.

Broader markets as well as most sectoral indices also closed in the positive terrain. The BSE midcap index advanced 0.83 percent while the smallcap index closed 0.98 percent higher.

Technology and IT indices led the rally among sectoral indices. Technology index of the BSE climbed 2.61 percent. IT index rose 2.39 percent and realty index closed 1.59 percent higher.

Prominent Sensex gainers were: Hero MotoCorp, 4.75 percent higher at Rs.1,938.60; Bharti Airtel, up 4.31 percent at Rs.344.70; Tata Steel, up 3.01 percent at Rs.357.70; Infosys, up 2.91 percent at Rs.2,773.35; and Jaiprakash Asso, up 2.89 percent at Rs.55.20.

Only three of the 30 Sensex scrips closed in the red. Cipla, down 0.64 percent at Rs.328.50; Maruti Susuki, down 0.57 percent at Rs.968.85; and Hindalco Inds, down 0.53 percent at Rs.121.10.

]]> http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/2g-sanjay-chandra-withdraws-plea-to-go-abroad/feed/ 0 http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/combat-jet-order-india-to-announce-winner-early-in-2012/ http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/combat-jet-order-india-to-announce-winner-early-in-2012/#comments Mon, 26 Dec 2011 11:39:27 +0000 India Current Affairs http://indiacurrentaffairs.org/combat-jet-order-india-to-announce-winner-early-in-2012/ New Delhi, Dec 26 (IANS) The government is all set to announce the winner of the Indian Air Force (IAF) competition for 126-plus combat jets early in 2012.

Authoritative sources told India Strategic defence magazine (www.indiastrategic.in) that the process was nearing completion but there were volumes of paperwork and the complicated costs involving Transfer of Technology (ToT), Offsets, Lifecycle Upgrades and Maintenance Support. Every detail was being looked into as this was India’s — and the world’s — single biggest defence tender yet in the 21st century.

The defence ministry has not set any deadline to the process, but it could be a New Year gift to the Indian Air Force as the announcement could come around mid-January.

Notably, the financial bids of the two finalists in the fray, European consortium EADS’ Eurofighter and French Rafale, are valid only till Dec 31. Both of them could be asked to extend the validity of their offers for another few months.

However, even if the choice is made within this month, the winner would be asked for an extension to facilitate negotiations and finalisation.

It may be recalled that the IAF chief, Air Chief Marshal Norman Anil Kumar Browne, had said Dec 18 in Bangalore that ‘by mid-December we should have a very good sense of who has been selected’.

Understandably, by now, the IAF and the defence ministry should know who is winning — or who is the lowest — but till all the voluminous paperwork has been examined to the last full stop, the files are Top Secret and literally ‘For Your Eyes Only’ for those dealing with the subject.

The Air chief, who was speaking on the margins of a conference at the Institute of Aerospace Medicine, had also said: ‘I can’t tell anything till the time we finish that work, as there are a lot of complicated calculations and figures that need to be checked.’

Initially, when the tender was floated in August 2007, the estimated cost for 126 aircraft with two years’ support and weapons was $10 billion (Rs 42,000 crores). Both the European finalists are known to be more expensive than the four others who lost out in the fray, and the defence ministry revised the estimate some time back in terms of the dollar and the euro.

The revision could be 30 to 40 percent of the pre-bid estimate, or say around to $13-14 billion. But this is only a guess as the winner has to help set up the manufacturing units in India and costing for this is not available. Neither of the two aircraft has been sold anywhere the way India wants.

There is also an option clause for another 63 aircraft. Their cost would be additional.

Meanwhile, the Indian rupee has been depreciating, but fluctuations are factored in all defence acquisitions and do not hinder the process. No fresh cabinet approval is required in such cases.

Although procedurally the lowest bidder, designated L-1 in the defence ministry jargon, should be the winner, the choice has to be approved by the government, specifically the Cabinet Committee on Security (CCS) headed by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. It includes the ministers for finance (Pranab Mukherjee), Defence (A.K. Antony), home (P. Chidambaram) and external affairs (S.M. Krishna).

Antony has stated that the selection would be on technical and financial merit, that is, on the basis of IAF’s requirements and the price offered. The bid is submitted in two parts: technical and financial.

The IAF disqualified four others in the fray — Sweden’s Saab Gripen, Russia’s MiG-35 and the US Boeing F-18 Super Hornet and Lockheed Martin F-16 Super Viper on the basis of points in its selection process.

As per the procedure, IAF is not supposed to give any grading like Number 1 or Number 2 to the finalists and both are equal for the defence ministry.

Nonetheless, the government is not bound to select the L-1 as the winner, even if it is much lower, as there is an over-riding clause in the tender. If in the national strategic calculus, the L-2 can be of strategic significance for India, then the CCS can go in for that aircraft.

In diplomatic circles, the deal is being described as France (Rafale) vs Europe (Germany, Britain, Spain and Italy make up the consortium that makes the Eurofighter).

Eurofighter’s supporters say that India could gain significant weight in the global arena through this deal.

The French say that they have supplied the best of their systems to India without any restrictions so far, and that it would be much easier to deal with a single country than the bureaucracies of four others over the life time of the aircraft — 6,000 flying hours or 40 years as stipulated in the tender.

So who is the winner?

Procedurally, L-1.

Strategically, only the CCS, the cabinet secretary, the National Security Adviser, the foreign secretary and the defence secretary can decide.

(The authors are senior defence analysts and can be contacted at gulshan.luthra@indiastrategic.in)