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India won’t accept ‘prescriptive conditionalities’ from NSG: Pranab

On Board Special Aircraft, Aug 23: India will not accept any "prescriptive conditionalities" to get an exemption from the NSG to operationalise the Indo-US nuclear deal, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee said on Saturday.

"We have to see what kind of amendments come. Then only we can decide. But we cannot accept prescriptive conditionalities," Mukherjee said while accompanying President Pratibha Patil on her two-day visit to West Bengal.

He was asked about the government's future course of action in the face of reservations expressed by some countries which could lead to a re-wording of the draft waiver presented in the 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Mukherjee said he was briefed by Foreign Secretary Shiv Shankar Menon about the developments in Vienna during the two-day meeting of the 45-member NSG.

Menon had yesterday described the NSG meet as "constructive and useful", saying "we met a lot of individual delegates of NSG member-countries and had an opportunity to brief them on Thursday."

He said the exemption to NSG guidelines for nuclear trade would help civil nuclear cooperation and "is a necessary step for cooperation between India and the NSG. We look forward to working with them".

Sources said differences between India and NSG countries have been narrowed down in a short span of time and New Delhi expected them to shrink further before the next meeting of the grouping here on September 4-5.

Nano relocation: Offers pour in for Tata

Mumbai, Aug 23: Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on Saturday invited Tatas to set up their plant for manufacturing Rs 1 lakh car Nano in Maharashtra.

"The Tatas will be accorded red carpet welcome to set up the project in Maharashtra and will be given land and necessary facilities," Deshmukh said in a statement here today.

The invitation came a day after Tata Motors chairman Ratan Tata threatened to pull out of West Bengal if the violence and agitations against the project continued in Singur.

Orissa CM Naveen Patnaik also said that he was ready to consider if Tata Motors approaches his government to relocate the plant in the state.

The Punjab government too invited Tata Motors to make the state its home for manufacturing the world's cheapest car Nano, promising all possible facilities that the car maker needed.

"I will soon write an offer letter to Tata to formally invite the group to install its Nano plant in Punjab, for which every possible facility will be provided by the state government," state Industry Minister Manoranjan Kalia told reporters.

A frustrated Ratan Tata yesterday said that they will have no other option but to relocate the Nano plant if the violence and agitations continue in Singur.

Tata put the ball into the WB government’s court by making it absolutely clear that the company is not afraid of moving out of Singur even if it meant huge loses.

“It’s impossible to work in such a situation; we don’t want to work in an area where we are unwanted,” said the man who had shocked the world with his Rs 1 lakh beauty ‘Nano’.

A visibly disturbed Tata told reporters on the sidelines of Tata Tea's AGM that Rs 1500 crore of investments had already been made in the project.

"It is not a hypocritical investment. Whatever be the cost, we will move out if the situation so demands. If anyone thinks we will not exit Singur because huge investments, they are wrong. We cannot compromise the safety of our men,” he asserted.

Tata however, didn’t elaborate on whether the company would be able to meet the October deadline; he only said, "It is our desire to do so." But considering the time that it will take to relocate, it seems highly unlikely that the Nano can roll out at the onset of festival season.

Don’t leave Singur: Farmers

In a twist of the tale, a day after Ratan Tata threatened to pull out of the 'Nano' project in Singur, farmers whose land have been acquired do not want the Tata Motors Limited Chairman to leave as they believe industrialisation would improve their lot.

Quick work needed to save world trade deal: Lamy

Washington, Aug 23: World trade negotiators need to bounce back quickly from a failed meeting in July to have any chance of reaching a deal by the end of the year, the head of the World Trade Organization said on Friday.

"The good news is that they want to re-engage," WTO Director General Pascal Lamy said in an interview, referring to India and the United States, whose differences on agriculture led to the collapse of world trade talks last month in Geneva.

Lamy said after the meeting on Friday with US Trade Representative Susan Schwab and several US industry groups, including the National Association of Manufacturers and the US Chamber of Commerce.

Earlier this month, he traveled to New Delhi to explore India's interest in restarting negotiations.

The nearly seven-year-old Doha round suffered a major setback in July when Trade Ministers from around 30 key WTO countries and the European Union failed again to agree on terms for cutting farm subsidies and tariffs and opening markets around the world to more manufactured goods trade.

The Geneva meeting foundered because of sharp differences between the United States and China and India over a "special safeguard mechanism" (SSM) to help developing countries protect their farmers from a surge in imports.

The United States complained that India in particular was demanding terms that would let developing countries hike tariffs above levels agreed in previous trade rounds in response to just normal growth in trade.

India said developing countries needed a mechanism that was quick and easy to use and it could not let the demands of rich-country farmers for more export opportunities jeopardize the livelihood of subsistence farmers.

Talks could restart

"It became a huge issue because of the politics on both sides ... I wouldn't say if we solve the SSM, the rest will fall in place. But what I'm pretty certain is if we don't solve this, the rest will not fall into place," Lamy said.

Schwab told reporters she urged Lamy to quickly convene a meeting of senior officials from key WTO members to try to resolve that and other outstanding issues, as well as lock in the substantial progress made in other areas last month.

That effort could begin in early September, Lamy said, noting that he still needed to consult with more WTO members before calling senior officials to work.

As a practical matter, the fast-approaching Nov 4 US presidential election is probably the deadline for reaching an agreement this year, Lamy said.

"I think that's the view" of the Bush administration, Lamy said. "It's also the view by others that the more time passes, the more the ability of an administration to contract" a deal diminishes, he said.

Some WTO members suspect the real reason talks collapsed last month was because the United States did not want to deal with developing country demands for deeper and faster cuts in US cotton subsidies than for other commodities.

"I know there are lots of conspiracy theories running on this ... To be frank, I don't suspect the US broke on the SSM not to have cotton on the table. They know cotton has to be there" as part of the deal, Lamy said.

He also argued the overall agricultural package was big enough to satisfy US demands that other countries pay for cuts in US trade-distorting farm subsidies by opening their markets to more imported farm goods.

The deal also allows the United States, like other countries, to shelter its most sensitive agricultural commodities from deep tariff cuts, he said.

US still in recession: Warren Buffet

Omaha, Aug 23: Billionaire investor Warren Buffett said late on Friday that the US economy continues to be in a recession, by his definition, and will continue to be for at least several more months.

US investor Warren Buffett was named the world's richest person this year.

During a live appearance on a television channel, Buffett said ripples of the credit crunch are continuing to cause problems in financial businesses and the economy.

Earlier this year he said a financial crisis reveals which players have been "swimming naked," because the tide goes out. That picture has worsened along with the crisis.

"We found out that Wall Street has been kind of a nudist beach," said Buffett, who is chairman and chief executive of Berkshire Hathaway Inc, which is based in Omaha.

Buffett said activity at businesses Berkshire owns, especially ones related to housing construction such as Shaw carpet and Acme Brick, continued to slow during the summer.

He is confident the US will be doing better five years from now, Buffett said, but the economy could be worse five months from now.

Buffett said the economy is in a recession because most Americans aren't doing as well today as before. The technical definition of a recession most economists use is two consecutive quarters of negative growth in the nation's gross domestic product.

Regarding the nation's credit crunch, Buffett said he believes mortgage giants Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac are too big to fail, but that doesn't mean that all the shareholder equity in those companies can't be wiped out.

"They're looking for help, obviously. And the scale of help is such that I don't think it can come from the private sector," Buffett said.

So the Oracle of Omaha predicted that the federal government eventually will have to step in to help because the troubles of Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac seem to be growing and feeding on themselves.

Together the companies hold about half of US mortgage debt and are the largest source of funding for home mortgages. But they are seeing too many defaults. Losses between April and June for the two companies totaled USD 3.1 billion, and investors fear they will continue to grow.

Buffett said it is likely more banks will fail, especially in areas where there was a real estate bubble and the bank got heavily involved in the housing market.

"What we'll see is failures where the bankers were dumb in what they did," Buffett said.

But Buffett said the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp.'s guarantee on accounts up to USD 100,000 should prevent bank failures driven by panic.

Buffett said America's current economic struggles create investment opportunities, and his phone is ringing more lately than it was three months ago. But he said many of those calls have come from desperate people and did not represent good investment opportunities.

As the stock market problems continue, Buffett is looking for ways to use Berkshire's roughly USD 31 billion in cash.

"The cheaper they get, the harder I'll look," he said, referring to shares.

He said Berkshire added to some of its holdings because share prices fell enough to be attractive. The company had been buying shares of either Wells Fargo & Co or American Express Co in recent months, he said, but wouldn't specify which.

Shares of both American Express and Wells Fargo rose in Friday morning trading after Buffett's comments. American Express gained USD 1.29, or 3.5 percent, to trade at USD 38.30. And Wells Fargo gained USD 1.02, or 3.6 percent, to trade at USD 29.46.

Buffett also said Friday he sold nearly two-thirds of Berkshire's 35.6 million shares of Anheuser-Busch Cos. stock because he hadn't been sure Belgian brewer InBev SA's takeover bid of USD 65 a share would succeed. Anheuser agreed to the USD 52 billion bid in July.

Suzuki to make India a small car hub

New Delhi, Aug 23: After overtaking parent Suzuki in annual sales last fiscal, Maruti Suzuki is all set to play a pivotal role in the Japanese auto major's global plans and emerge as an 'exclusive base' for small cars. A-star compact would be reintroduced as Alto in Europe and would be first major model towards this end.

uzuki would sell the A-Star, solely manufactured in India, in Europe from the last quarter of this year.

‘Will keep Nano project at any cost`

Kolkata, Aug 23: Clearly determined to keep the Tata Nano Project in West Bengal, Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee announced on the Saturday that the state is ready to give any compensation to the agitators to put an end to the dispute. But the compensation has to be realistic and within the legal framework.

The Chief Minister said more talks will be held with Trinamool Congress’ Mamata Banerjee and gave an assurance that alternative land will be provided to the Singur farmers.

Facing a do-or-die situation after Tata Group chief Ratan Tata sent out caveat saying that the company was willing to pull out even if it meant financial loss; Bhattacharjee clearly seems to have made up his mind to rescue the project.

Panic buttons were pushed in West Bengal after Maharashtra and Orissa promised to roll out the red carpet if Tatas chose them as an investment destination.

Earlier reacting on Tata’s threat to pull out of their Nano project from Singur, Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee on Friday evening said that the state is very much in favour of the project as it would bring prosperity to the state.

Bhattacharjee said he was ready to discuss the Singur issue with any opposition leader and it should be resolved in a realistic manner.

Hoping for consensual decision the CM said, “We want the Tata Nano project at any cost and we are looking forward for a solution”.

Vegetables in Delhi costlier by up to 28%

New Delhi, Aug 21: Tomato prices have gone by a steep 28 per cent while rates of another widely used vegetable potato have seen a sharp rise of over 12 per cent in the last 20 days in Delhi, according to government data.

An analysis of prices of vegetables and fruits compiled by the Agricultural Produce Marketing Committee show that potato and tomato prices rose by 12.27 and 28 per cent respectively in the wholesale markets here during last 20 days, while other vegetables like spinach and pumpkin increased by 25 per cent.

Experts said that if the rising trend in vegetable prices in Delhi is any indication of rates at national level, then it is a matter of concern for the government which is battling high inflation.

Inflation rose further to 12.63 per cent for the week ended August 9. A jump in fruits and vegetable prices combined with other sectors contributed to a rise in inflation for this period.

Potato is selling at Rs 12.50 per kg while tomato is priced at Rs 16 a kg in the wholesale markets here.

Spinach and pumpkin rose by 25 per cent at Rs 12.50 per kg and Rs 5 per kg respectively. Lady finger rose by 13 per cent at Rs 17 per kg, cabbage by 12.5 per cent at Rs 11.25 per kg and bitter gourd by 11 per cent at Rs 8 per kg, the data showed.

However, onion is cheaper by 2.37 per cent at Rs 10.50 per kg. Fruit prices have also dipped up to 18 per cent during the review period.

Cabinet nod to IPTV policy for commercial roll out

New Delhi, Aug 21: Government on Thursday cleared the policy framework for the commercial roll out of Internet Protocol TV services, a new cable TV delivery platform that would benefit telecom players as well as consumers.

"Issuance of guidelines on IPTV will bring clarity on defining the parameters in which such service providers will work as also clarifying how these services are going to be regulated", Information and Broadcasting Minister P R Dasmunsi said after the Cabinet meeting today.

The Cabinet also gave its approval to amend the Policy guidelines for downlinking of TV channels for allowing broadcasters to provide content to IPTV service providers, he said.

Current downlinking norms allow broadcasters to only share their channels with cable and direct-to-home platforms.

Modification of downlinking guidelines will enable IPTV service providers to obtain content of registered satellite TV channels from the Broadcasters.

IPTV involves delivery of television and video signals over a broadband network. It uses high speed internet to deliver television channels but also other value added services like time-shift TV, interactive advertising, movies without any advertisements, games among other such services.

State-owned BSNL and MTNL are already providing IPTV services across several cities while private players like Bharti Airtel and Reliance Communications are waiting to launch their IPTV services.

Broadcast regulator TRAI had recommended a higher foreign investment cap of 74 per cent for the IPTV sector in comparison to the FDI cap of 49 per cent in the cable sector.

Statistician finds Bradman’s missing four Test runs

SYDNEY, Aug 23: An Australian cricket statistician claimed Saturday to have found four ‘missing’ runs which would lift Don Bradman’s Test average to 100.

Bradman, regarded as the greatest cricketer of all time, needed four runs in his last Test innings against England at The Oval in 1948 to end his famous career a Test average of 100 runs per innings.

It has passed into cricket folklore that Bradman was bowled for a duck by little-known Englishman Eric Hollies, finishing a 52-Test career in which he scored 6,996 runs with an average of 99.94.

Statistician Charles Davis now claims to have studied old Test match scorebooks and to have found a ‘tantalizing clue’ that Bradman may have scored four more runs than he has been awarded.

Writing in Fairfax newspapers on Saturday, Davis said his research had found that errors and anomalies arose quite regularly in old Test match scorebooks.

Davis reviewed the scorebook of the eight-day fifth Test of the 1928-29 series against England in Melbourne, when Bradman was batting with Jack Ryder.

“There are four runs attributed to Ryder that are in the wrong place in both the batting section of the score and in the bowling section,” Davis said. “There is no doubt that a recording error of some kind has occurred. So where do these runs belong?”

Davis said either Ryder may have scored the runs at some other point of the innings, or they were not scored at all or ‘just perhaps’ they were scored by Bradman.

“It is all about the scoring, an activity usually taken for granted,” he said.

Davis, a former scientist, said more potential errors could be found in other scorebooks that could lower Bradman’s Test average.—AP

Anil Ambani`s pay packet fattens six-fold to Rs 13.5 cr

New Delhi, Aug 24: Consumers may be reeling under an inflation of close to 13 percent, but it should not be a cause for concern for India's second richest person Anil Ambani, whose pay package has grown by close to six times over past fiscal.

From about Rs 2.4 crore in the year ended March 2007, Ambani's full-year pay surged to Rs 13.4 crore in the latest fiscal from the four listed group companies.

Moreover, the latest year figure does not include his take from Reliance Communications, the flagship entity that accounts for over half of the group's total valuation.

In comparison, his elder brother Mukesh Ambani -- possibly the highest-paid business chief in India with an annual package of over Rs 44 crore -- got a hike of just about 45 percent over the past fiscal.

Among the three listed group companies -- Reliance Industries, Reliance Petroleum and Reliance Industrial Infrastructure Ltd -- Mukesh gets a remuneration only from the flagship entity RIL.

According to RIL's annual report, Mukesh Ambani got a total payout of Rs 44.02 crore in 2007-08, up from Rs 30.46 crore in 2006-07 and Rs 24.77 crore in the year before that.

In comparison, Anil Ambani got total remuneration of about Rs 13.4 crore in 2007-08 from his four group companies -- Reliance Capital, Reliance Infrastructure (formerly Reliance Energy), Reliance Power and Reliance Natural Resources Ltd (RNRL). The figures for R-COM are not yet available.

This still marks a multi-fold surge from a full-year payout of about Rs 2.43 crore in the previous year 2006-07 from four listed group companies in that year -- namely Reliance Capital, Reliance Energy, RNRL and RCOM.