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| Published on April 20th, 2007 In Politics | Views 312 | ||||
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Smile Please! Palash Biswas Contact: Palash C Biswas, C/O Mrs Arati Roy, Gosto Kanan, Sodepur, Kolkata- 700110, India. Phone: 91-033-25659551 Email: palashchandrabiswas@gmail.com Aamar Gram, Tomar Gram, Shobar Gram: Nandigram, My Village; Your Village; Everybody"s village. Mahashweta di Speaks in Nandigram! Mahesweta Devi said the Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee government owed an explanation to the people of the state as to why police opened fire on innocent villagers. “I want to know what action has been taken against the police officers for firing on innocent people," she said. With the controversial land acquisition move in Nandigram still unresolved, West Bengal government has fixed April 22 for another all-party meeting there after the last four such exercises failed to take off. The last such effort on April 3 failed with local leaders of BJP, which is part of the nine-party Bhumi Ucched Pratirodh Committee (Land Eviction Resistance Committee) and is fighting acquisition of farm land for industry, vandalising the meeting venue. Peace meetings called on February 19, 22 and March 10, to discuss restoration of roads dug up since January preventing access to Nandigram and the entry of the police had also failed as committee members did not turn up. The Calcutta High Court will hear all the cases related to land acquisition by the West Bengal Government in Singur for Tata Motors Small Car Project from April 27. A division bench comprising Justice P C Ghose and Justice B Somadder today directed that at least nine cases on several issues ranging from alleged forcible acquisition of land to questioning the use of the Land Acquisition Act, 1894 would be taken up for hearing serially. The land acquisition process at Singur had earlier come in for sharp criticism by another division bench headed by Justice Bhaskar Bhattacharya which had directed the government to furnish the entire details of the controversial acquisition of 997 acre. The government has already filed an affidavit before the court giving its account on the acquisition, while admitting that Advocate General Balai Roy had made an “erroneous submission" earlier on the process of acquisition. Rs. 12,000 crores to be invested by RIL in West Bengal The railway authorities today began its hawker eviction drive at Howrah and Sealdah stations. Hawkers, however, went about their business unhindered on the trains. Various hawkers’ unions decided to oppose the eviction and said the move would jeopardise the future of more than 3 lakh hawkers. The authorities, though, have 28 days to act on the directive of the High Court delivered yesterday. Railway Protection Force (RPF) and government railway police officers at both the stations claimed that they had been trying to rid stations of hawkers even before the High Court issued directive. Faced with the stiff resistance to acquisition of land for industries, the West Bengal government has decided to prepare a land map to demarcate the character and nature of land. A high level meeting called by the Land and Land Revenue minister Abdur Rezzak Molla laid the groundwork for land map preparation, in coordination with concerned departments and the West Bengal Industrial Development Corporation, Industry secretary Sabyasachi Sen told reporters here. The state government has decided to prepare the land map to demarcate the character and nature of land, whether it was fertile or fallow, agricultural or non-agricultural. The meeting was attended by Chief Secretary A K Deb, WBIDC Managing Director Debasish Som, besides senior officers of Land and Land Revenue and WBIDC. NDTV.com Shabbir Shah rejects invitation to Kashmir roundtable State-run banks, India"s biggest lenders, should moderate credit growth, the finance minister said on Thursday, in what is seen as a move to head off Asia"s fourth-largest economy from overheating. Japanese auto major ‘Nissan", whose presence in India is limited to SUVs and luxury sedans, today said it would inevitably step into the compact and small car market as it seeks to become a formidable player here. Only market forces would rule and purchasing capacity is invested only in the ruling Brahminical classes with Zionist corporate allaince. The Volcano is revolting for a New dawn , smile please! See this also and smile if you can, pleas! how do they operate in India! Understand the Sex Sensex, Luxury malls and Luxury phenomenon keeping in mind the begginning with east India comapny. the Copany has taken over once again with MNC Raj! When the first Hilfiger store opened in 2004, it carried the most expensive jeans in India, at more than $100 a pair, Vijay Murjani says. The 2,000-square-foot store format the Murjanis chose was unheard of at the time. The largest brand stores that existed at the time were half that size. “People thought we were crazy,” says Vijay Murjani. “They were, like, ‘What are you going to fill them with?’” The answer, says his father: the same products, atmosphere and prices consumers would find in a Tommy Hilfiger store in New York or Chicago. If the products are too expensive, the stores too small or shabby or the selection outdated, then high-end Indian shoppers will just wait until they go abroad, he says. “Indian consumers with all the media that is available to them — the Internet, magazines, television — they know exactly what the latest products are in the world; they are totally up to speed,” Mr. Murjani says. Hilfiger dressing rooms in Indian stores have heavy doors and massive framed mirrors, just like the stores in the U.S. The shopping bags and paper used for receipts are identical. For the new French Connection store in Mumbai, the Murjanis have imported the jeans shelves, indoor billboards and even the mannequins to get the same edgy look that makes the chain popular in Europe. Presenting the findings of the report, UN Under Secretary General Kim Hak-Su said that services and industrial production would be the key growth drivers.Despite the prospects of good growth, the Indian economy is overheating a little bit and the surplus in Balance of Payments was not there to provide cushion from external shocks, he added. But authorities say local leaders are defying controls and some are initiating their own investment projects. Mind you, China never surrendered like our political leadership despite opening the Great Wall for Globalisation!The news on China"s growth comes amid increased trade tension between Beijing and Washington, with the US threatening to impose punitive tariffs on Chinese goods if it doesn"t end currency controls blamed for the surpluses. Last year, the United States reported a record $232.5 billion trade deficit with China.US critics contend China"s currency, the yuan, is kept undervalued, giving its exporters an unfair price advantage and adding to its trade surpluses. First-quarter gross domestic product was forecast to rise 10.3 per cent from the same period a year ago. It was the highest rate of growth since the second quarter of last year, when growth reached 11.5 per cent, the fastest rate in a decade. “If this type of fast growth continues, there is the possibility of shifting from fast growth to overheating. There is that risk," Li Xiaochao, spokesman for the National Bureau of Statistics said. The consumer price index in March rose 3.3 per cent, the bureau said, above the government"s three per cent target. Fixed-asset investment countrywide grew a robust 23.7 per cent during March. Smile again and have Fun Infinite reading and hearing all double speaks of different colors and dimentions! Despite the controversy over tax sops special economic zones already enjoy, the government on Thursday widened the scope of incentives for SEZs by making developers and co-developers eligible for duty exemption and remission schemes.The newly announced special economic zone (SEZ) policy, which has limited the size of a SEZ to 5,000 hectares, can be “changed" according to specific needs, Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath said on Wednesday. The new SEZ policy was announced by the government on April 5. The total investment in the 50 SEZs has been to the tune of Rs 13,500 crore and over 18,000 direct jobs have been created. “For the moment we have limited the size to 5,000 hectares. But should any proposal comes up that requires us to review the policy we would see what can be done," he told reporters on the sidelines of a conference here. Kamal Nath said the government is looking at the rehabilitation policy and the provisions announced under the new SEZ policy can be reviewed. “Developer and co-developer of SEZs would be entitled to the benefit of all duty exemption and remission schemes like advance authorisation scheme, DEPB and Duty Free Import Authorisation," said Kamal Nath, Commerce and Industry Minister.Terming SEZs as engines of employment, investment and export growth, Nath added that during the current year, additional investment of Rs 40,000 crore would go into the SEZs and 15 lakh jobs would be created. Smile Friends, smile again. Infinite entertainment it is as we have to pay mor and more interests and get lesser and lesser! But The government on Thursday said it has requested the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) for concessional credit to exporters, who are under pressure due to rising value of the rupee. “The concerns of exporters on appreciating rupee are valid. We will be meeting exporters next week to discuss ways to mitigate its impact. Meanwhile, RBI has been requested to provide concessional credit," said Kamal Nath, Commerce and Industry Minister. Commerce Secretary Gopal K Pillai said that banks were required to provide 15 per cent credit at concessional rates for exporters and government has requested RBI to set aside 50 per cent of it for small and medium companies. “Most of the time, the banks lend to few big companies to meet their obligation. We are discussing with the RBI on this issue," he added. Pillai also said that the issue is being discussed and efforts would be made to ensure that any decision on this is implemented. The rupee has appreciated nine per cent against dollar since August 2006. In the worst of the bombings, a car packed with explosives exploded at an intersection in the Sadriya neighborhood that serves as a hub for buses traveling to the Shiite district of Sadr City. The blast killed at least 140 people and wounded 150; incinerated scores of vehicles, including several minibuses full of passengers; and charred nearby shops, witnesses and the police said. They are not invited for the big wedding. But they have a reason to celebrate. The Ash-Abhishek wedding has given a major boost to the businesses of chaiwalas, Vada Pav-walas and panwalas, courtesy diehard fans who have camped around the Bachchan villa, media crowd and policemen. Suresh Bhaskar Devare and his wife Anita are running a small tea stall and eatery just outside Prateeksha, where everyone is on marriage alert. They have been running the stall for 35 years. Being near the Bachchans has always helped. Exclusive: Ash-Abhi Sangeet UN Urges Businesses to Tackle Climate Change The Global Business Summit for the Environment gathered about 600 business executives and environment experts to discuss ways that corporations can fight climate change. It was touted as a “green" event, with brochures printed on recycled paper, handmade carrying bags made of hemp and no plastic bottles or cups. Hyderabad , Oct. 24 THE global entertainment industry, projected to touch a whopping $1.8 trillion by 2015, is gravitating towards the Asian region, and India has the potential to garner a chunk of it — about $200 billion. Riding on the emerging digital infotainment wave, India can do with this sector what its human resources have managed to do for the IT services industry. Actor, director, film-maker and now an entrepreneur, Shekhar Kapur, said that he has been evangelising the immense latent potential of this untapped market, and it has taken a while for consultant PricewaterhouseCoopers to come up with the numbers about the potential of this sector and how Asia fares in this. “From a predominantly a West and Europe-centric entertainment industry, signs are already evident that the market will gravitate towards the Asian region. It is indicated that out of the $1.8 trillion, at least $800 billion would be in the Asian region and of this, India could possibly account for $200 billion. This, we expect, would be larger than the IT services industry," he said. This optimism is despite the fact that the Indian entertainment industry is still less than $1 billion and extremely fragmented. The market in the West, particularly the US, is saturated and extremely protected. While the radio took 25 years to reach out, Internet expanded in seven years, the digital entertainment would take less than three years to grow. The best part is that films would contribute barely 10 per cent of this entertainment market, about 60 per cent would be through convergence where content would be made available on mobile devices. Global hybrid One of the challenges India is faced with is building leaders who can be creative and the accent has to be on IP (intellectual property) creation, he said. India has 12,000 legal cinema theatres and 85,000 plus video parlours and these will account for about 10 per cent of the overall entertainment industry and the rest would come from other media, he said. Kapur, who was in Hyderabad to interact with students of Indian School of Business, spoke about the challenges faced by the sector in bringing about scale of economies. The Business " arts initiative of the ISB brings together students and select artistes providing a platform for interface. Mumbai , Oct. 24 THE Reserve Bank of India has repeated its warning that unless the Government passes on the increase in international oil prices to the domestic market, it will pose a significant risk to the country"s fiscal situation. “The hike in international oil prices and the possibility that they may remain high longer than anticipated earlier will continue to pose significant risk to the fisc, directly or indirectly, unless appropriately passed on," the RBI said in the `Macro-economic and Monetary Developments-mid-term review," released on Monday, a day before the bank"s mid-year policy review. Earlier, the RBI, in its annual report, had also cautioned the Government if domestic oil prices are not allowed to keep pace with the international price, the fiscal burden of the Government could increase and also hurt investors of public sector oil companies. The RBI said global oil costs have been only partially passed on to the economy. Inflationary pressures: Referring to the inflationary pressures, the RBI said year-on-year inflation fell to 3 per cent on August 27, 2005 from 5.1 per cent at March-end 2005. It has since then increased to 4.6 per cent as on October 8, 2005. Fiscal and monetary measures undertaken since mid-2004 to reduce the impact of imported price pressures on domestic inflation and stabilise inflationary expectations, coupled with base effects and the revival of monsoon, enabled the moderation in headline inflation from its high of 8.7 per cent last year. However, when a significant part of the permanent component of oil price increase is yet to be passed on, there is a need to consider two factors. First, the advisability of treating the oil price increase as a shock rather than a permanent shift in relative prices may need to be questioned; and, second, the inevitability of second order effects on inflation needs to be taken on board. But as incomes rise and ways of eating change, the inevitable has happened. Street food, that emblem of raucous, messy, urban India, is slowly being tamed. In recent years, it has begun to come indoors, get sterilized, and go upmarket. Most recently, a court order has prompted this city’s government to consider a ban on cooking food outdoors. Across India, street food can range from the gilauti kebab of Lucknow, skewered lamb so tender that legend says it was invented by a toothless nawab’s cook, to the kathi roll of Calcutta, a deep-fried wrap of grilled meat, raw onion and hot sauce of secret provenance. The iconic street food of Delhi is chaat, a variety of snacks that are meant to deliver a rave of tastes and sensations to the tongue, from crunchy to soft, tart to hot and sweet. The word is derived from the verb to lick. A good chaat is a complex assemblage, as pleasure always is, and, by definition, it is not good for you. In Delhi, you can find nearly a dozen different kinds of chaat on the streets. They all involve something fried and starchy, and indulging in chaat requires abandoning all concern for hygiene. Today, across India, brightly lit fast-food chains offer the standard varieties of chaat. Specialty restaurants self-consciously peddle the nostalgia of the unruly street in the least unruly surroundings of all: the mall. Even at a five-star hotel restaurant called Fire, a slender glass platter of chaat can be sampled, improbably, with a bottle of champagne. Increasingly in these tamed chaat enclaves, the cooks use gloves for the sake of hygiene. Plastic cups and plates have replaced the cups and plates washed on the side of the road (though to say they are washed is being generous and invariably it is done by children, which is illegal). RESTRUCTURING MERGERS " ACQUISITIONS Farallon Capital buys 60 pc stake in Indiabulls Real Estate UN Sees Strong Asian Growth in 2007 Economic growth across the Asia Pacific is forecast to remain strong in 2007, led by India and China, although moderating due to forecasts of a slower US economy, the United Nations Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific reported Wednesday. The UN commission’s annual survey expects growth at 7.4 percent across the Asia Pacific region in 2007, an increase from 6.9 percent predicted in December. The projected growth rate for 2006 is 7.9 percent. “We see a lot of resilience in our economies to withstand any kind of slowdown in the US economy, and we are still predicting a very high growth from India and China,” Dr Sirimanne said. “India is supposed to grow around 9 percent in 2007— China close to 10 percent. These are remarkable numbers and Southeast Asia will have a rebound, except for a couple of countries—Cambodia and Thailand—which will see lesser growth than the others,” she said. The main concern for Thailand—with a forecast growth rate of 4.7 percent from 5 percent in 2006—lies with the underlying political uncertainties. UNESCAP said the sound growth in 2006 came despite the backdrop of “a risky global environment.” “Oil prices hit a reco |
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