The ordeal is on
New Delhi: Day seven turned out to be no different for the ill-fated passengers of the Indian Airlines aircraft hijacked to Kandahar in Afghanistan. While negotiations between Indian officials and the hijackers progressed in a see-saw manner, there were no signs of any release of the passengers who have been in the hijackers' custody now for nearly 175 hours. The talks were stalled at one time in the night of 29 December, but were resumed later. There was some hope when the Taliban rulers deployed heavy armoured carriers and a large number of armed guards around the plane, but it was short-lived as Taliban foreign minister Wakil Ahmed Muttawakeel described them as a  routine change of guards.

Meanwhile, international opinion has supported India, with the United Nations and the European Union condemning the hiackers' action in no uncertain words. They demanded immediate release of the passengers.
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Drug prices revised
New Delhi: The National Pharma Pricing Authority has revised the prices of 32 drug formulations. Among them will be Reckitt & Colman’s Dettol, which will be slightly cheaper, German Remedies’ Derephyllin, E Merck’s Neurobion and Pfizer’s Terramycin, which will be costlier. The highest price revision will be in the case of a corticosteroid product marketed by Wyeth Lederle. The other drugs whose prices have been revised upwards are Pentoxyfylline, a cardio-vascular drug, and Sofratile, an antibiotic dressing, from Hoechst Marion Roussel and Optineuron from Lupin Laboratories.
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IDBI fund for investment in startups
Mumbai: The Industrial Development Bank of India has formalised a plan to create a fund that will offer assistance to startups with high growth potential. The fund will have an initial corpus of Rs 1,000 crore and will offer financial support to projects that are not able to enter equity market for its capital and other requirements. It will also invest in securities of existing companies with high growth record, offer funding for mergers and acquisitions and restructuring.
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RBI stresses on profitability of banks
Mumbai: The Reserve Bank of India has underlined the need for commercial banks to maximise economies of scale and scope to cut costs and raise profitability. It says the risk management guidelines it issued in early 1999 will be a clear pathway for future banking business. The central bank’s observations are contained in a report on Currency & Finance for 1998-99. The report said the banks will have to adopt to new technologies to improve their services, which will only lead to increased business volumes and in turn profitability.

The RBI is also critical of the government share of credit and investment allocations in the banking sector, which has risen from an average 29 per cent between 1985-86 and 1989-90 to 49 per cent between 1990-91 and 1993-94.
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