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PPP decides to name Zardari for PM post
13 Mar 2008, 0101 hrs IST......................
ISLAMABAD: The PPP, set to head Pakistan’s new coalition government, is understood to have decided in principle to nominate Asif Ali Zardari for the premiership, a post he will be eligible to occupy only after his election to the National Assembly.

The single largest party is also offering Makhdoom Amin Fahim, till recently the front-runner for office of prime minister, the position of PPP parliamentary leader in the National Assembly (NA) and his son the post of adviser to the premier with the status of a federal minister, Daily Times claimed in a report on Wednesday.

Zardari, the co-Chairman of PPP, “has assigned a senior party leader to convey this offer to Amin Fahim and return with a response soon,” a source at Zardari House was quoted as saying by the paper.

Meanwhile, names such as Fahmida Mirza; Azra Pechooho, the sister of Asif Ali Zardari; and Syed Khurshid Ahmed Shah are among those suggested for the post of interim prime minister pending Zardari’s election to the National Assembly, the report said.

“The offer has been extended to Fahim (for the post of parliamentary leader) after the party’s own ranks and its would-be coalition partners expressed reservations over the nomination of the PPP senior vice chairman (Fahim) as the party’s nominee for the office of prime minister,” the source at Zardari House said.

Sources said Fahim, a loyalist of slain former premier Benazir Bhutto, was offered the post of parliamentary leader in view of his long association with the party.

The offer was also made to avoid differences and faction formation within the party, the newspaper reported.

During Tuesday’s meeting of PPP’s lawmakers, most of the participants said they would accept Zardari’s decision on the party’s PM post.

Farmers to get bank loans to pay off money lenders; FM
New Delhi, March 14: The Finance Minister on Friday announced that the Govt would make available bank loans for farmers who had borrowed money from the money lenders. The Govt would also ensure adequate liquidity for the lending authorities.

The Govt is targeting June 30 as the date by which the accounts of all the farmers would be cleared. The Govt would release Rs 40,000 cr to the financial institutions in 14 months (ending August 2009) for farm loan waiver.

The Govt is also would also try to release 2/3 rd of the loan waiver within 14 months. 3 crore large farmers and 1 crore small farmers would be covered by the scheme.

The announcement comes on the back of widespread perception that the farm loan waivers would not be able to solve the acute agrarian crisis plaguing the country.

On Thursday Congress MP Rahul Gandhi made a strong pitch for raising the land limit (fixed at 2 hectares) for getting loans.

Elaborating on his suggestions on the loan waiver, he said the current ceiling of two hectares for eligible farmers does not account for land productivity and excludes deserving farmers in poorly irrigated areas.

Gandhi, who was participating in the discussion on the Union Budget, also wanted that the government do away with the single cut off date of March 31 last year for the farm loans.

Hailing the budget as a "landmark" one, he said the cut off date should be made variable for different regions as it would help more farmers get benefit of the loan waiver.

Gandhi suggested that several government programmes would be better implemented if fund transfers were linked to achieving RTI and social audit objectives.

"I humbly request the Finance Minister to consider budgetary provisions and incentives to encourage states to build self-help group networks which comprehensively cover the poor," he said.

This was because in some parts of the country the cropping cycles are such that the bulk of loans have been taken after the cut-off date of March 31, 2007.

"A single cut-off date unfairly penalises farmers in these regions. It would greatly help if localised cut-off dates were considered so that every deserving farmer benefits from the waiver," Gandhi said amid thumping of desks by UPA members.

Sab maya hai: Mukesh Ambani on billionaires list

New Delhi, March 14: Within days of being named richest resident Indian by the US magazine Forbes, Reliance Industries Chairman Mukesh Ambani on Friday termed the hype over list of billionaires from the country as 'maya'.

"There was much hype over the list of billionaires that India has thrown up... (but) this is a deceptive distraction," the head of the country's most valued corporate group said while referring to the Forbes' worldwide billionaire list that included 53 Indians.

"It is like maya (illusion) of our Indian philosophy. It veils your vision and we should be beware of this titillating illusion," Ambani said while speaking at the India Today conclave here.

In its list published on March 5, Forbes magazine had ranked Mukesh as the richest resident Indian with a wealth of 43 billion dollars. Among all the Indians residing across the world, Mukesh was ranked second after NRI steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal, whose wealth was put at 45 billion dollars.

In the global list, Mukesh Ambani was ranked as fifth richest in the world after legendary investor Warren Buffett, Mexican telecom baron Carlos Slim Helu, software czar Bill Gates and Arcelormittal CEO Lakshmi Mittal.

The magazine said that Mukesh Ambani was the second biggest gainer adding 22.9 billion dollars to a wealth of 20.1 billion dollars reported in the Forbes billionaire list for August 2007. Last year, Ambani had been placed at the 14th position in world.

Inflation rises to over nine-month high at 5.11%

New Delhi, March 14: Inflation rose to over nine-month high at 5.11 percent for the week ended March 1, due to rise in prices of some manufactured items and aviation turbine fuel, dashing all hopes of interest rate cuts by the RBI to boost the sagging industrial production.

The wholesale price index-based inflation rate stood at 5.02 percent in the previous week and 6.51 percent in the correspondingly week a year earlier.

This is the second week in a row that the inflation rate crossed the 5 percent mark, the target set by the reserve bank for this fiscal.

Analysts said RBI is not likely to slash interest rates to provide a fillip to industrial growth, which plunged to a 10-month low of 5.3 per in January as inflation remains the prime concern of the central bank.

During the week under review, aviation turbine fuel rose by 6 percent and some manufactured items like tobacco products, textiles and metals turned expensive.

No plans to prepare separate agriculture budget: Govt

New Delhi, March 14: Ruling out Shiv Sena's demand for a separate agriculture budget, the government on Friday said it has no plans to prepare any such budget on lines of the railway budget.

Replying to supplementaries during question hour, Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said agriculture was interlinked to several other ministries like the ones for irrigation, fertilizer, rural development, finance, cooperative and power.

"It is not possible to group all these ministries into one," he said ruling out a demand from Manohar Joshi (Shiv Sena) for a separate agriculture budget.

Pawar said the plan outlay for department of agriculture and cooperation under his ministry has gone up to Rs 5,520 crore in 2007-08 from Rs 4,800 crore in the previous year.

The allocation for department of animal husbandry, dairying and fisheries has been increased to Rs 910 crore from Rs 777 while that of department of agricultural research has gone up from Rs 1350 crore to Rs 1620 crore.

Tata Tele offers voluntary penalty for poor quality

New Delhi, March 14: Setting a new benchmark in the telecom industry, Tata Teleservices on Friday announced that they will offer penalty "voluntarily" to their subscribers if the quality of their services was below standard.

"We will come out with a customer chart setting more stringent quality norms compared to telecom regulator TRAI and if we fail to comply with those standards we are ready to pay penalty to our subscribers," Tata Teleservices MD Anil Sardana said.

He also announced that Tata Tele has become the number two telecom operator in Delhi and the NCR with over three million subscribers and has set an ambitious target to become top player in the region by march 2009.

At a time when the Average Revenue Per User (ARPU) is increasingly coming under pressure for all the operators due to falling tariffs, Sardana said, "our ARPU has been increasing steadily over a period of time."

He, however, did not specify the ARPU figure in terms of rupee for the company.

On the raging controversy over BlackBerry, for which the company was denied permission, Sardana hoped that they would be able to launch the services at the earliest and said the government has taken a positive view on the issue raised by them last week.

"All we want is the level playing field. Since other operators have been offering this service to close to four lakh subscribers we also want to offer the same to our subscribers," Sardana said.

The government is likely to meet the cellular operators on the issue of BlackBerry.

Sardana also said that the government approval is required not only in case of BlackBerry but for all value added services.

"We have been taking the government`s approval for all value added services even if its takes months but the same is not true in case of others so what we want is that rules should be same for all," he added.

Microsoft, ***** met to discuss merger

New York, March 14: Microsoft Corp and ***** Inc met on Monday to discuss Microsoft`s takeover offer for the Internet company, the Wall Street Journal reported on Friday, citing people familiar with the matter.

The meeting was said to be the first since Microsoft made its unsolicited offer for *****, worth nearly USD 42 billion, on January 31. ***** rejected the offer as inadequate last month.

The Journal said the meeting wasn`t a negotiation and that no bankers were present.

The session was intended to allow Microsoft to present its vision of a combined company, and ***** executives mostly listened, the Journal quoted one of the sources as saying.

Microsoft and ***** spokesmen declined to comment.

Government clears 18 FDI proposals to bring in Rs 1,553 cr

New Delhi, March 14: Government on Friday announced it has approved 18 foreign direct investment proposals that will bring in Rs 1,553.26 crore, including Rs 560 crore by Essar Capital Limited.

The Finance Ministry approved the proposals at a meeting held on March 7.

Among the approved proposals, Essar Capital Limited would invest Rs 560 crore to acquire the status of holding company for downstream investments. Cyprus-based Melbrook Ltd would bring in an FDI of Rs 125 crore for changing its status from operating company to operating cum holding company.

Redington India Limited would bring in Rs 195 crore by way of foreign equity by holding company, while Ortel Communications would effect a compulsory convertible for Rs 60 crore.

JSW Energy would induct FDI of Rs 63.23 crore in a holding company through IPO.

The government has, however, rejected four FDI proposals. These were from Red Fort India Realty Fund, Azorim International Holdings Ltd, Wadhwa Associates Realtors and Xcel Telecom Pvt Ltd.

Seven proposals have been deferred, including those from Singapore-based Singtel Australia Pte Ltd, and KNOX Holding Pte Ltd. Singtel's proposal was to set up long distance telephony services.

Besides, two FDI proposals have been recommended for consideration of the Cabinet Committee for Economic Affairs. These were from Chennai-based Rakindo Developers Pvt Ltd and Agam SPV Ltd from Caymen Islands.

New index to measure inflation

New Delhi, March 14: A new index is being prepared to measure inflation more accurately, Finance Minister P Chidambaram told the Lok Sabha on Friday.

The index, which is in the process of being formulated, will take into account the current baskets of goods and services and hence would more accurately measure inflation, he said in a reply in the House.

"The index that is being used to measure inflation has been there for the last 10-15 years," Chidambaram said.

The inflation rates are calculated on the basis of the average Wholesale Price Index of certain articles.

Siachen scam: Army officers replaced oil with water

In what could be seen as a major embarrassment to the Army, five personnel including a brigadier have been chargesheeted by Jammu and Kashmir police for allegedly replacing kerosene and diesel in tankers meant for troops in Siachen with water. The chargesheet, filed before chief Judicial Magistrate Leh earlier this week, has named Brigadier Sukhbir Singh, Lt Col D K Chaturvedi, Captain Parveen Rawat (406 ASC), Subedars Major Sunder Singh and R K Nigam.