'War vote' virus warning
New York: Computer security experts have issued warning against a new virus that deletes files while masquerading as a program that will allow people to vote on whether the United States should go to war over the terrorist attacks.

The "Vote Virus," which so far is not widespread, circulates via e-mail to users of Microsoft Corp.'s Outlook e-mail program, according to a spokeman of the Computer Associates International Inc.

The virus, punctuated by strange grammar and a mix of lower- and upper-case letters, appears with the subject line: "Peace between America and Islam!" and the body of the e-mail reads: "Hi. Is it a war against America or Islam? Let's vote to live in peace!"

When the attachment entitled "WTC.exe" is opened, the virus tries to delete all the files on the computer's hard drive and sends copies of the e-mail to every address listed in the computer's address book.
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India lost Rs 7,500 after US attacks
New Delhi: Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) has estimated that the recent terrorist attacks on the US will have a negative impact of Rs 6,500 to Rs 7,500 crore.

Besides this, the Indian industry will be forced to absorb the cost escalation impact of a likely hike in POL prices to cut back the mounting oil pool deficit, substantial increase in the insurance premia burden, additional banker's surcharge for shipping and hardening of the interest rates.

The total burden of these factors would be about Rs 3500-4500 crore or about 0.2 per cent of the GDP.

India would also witness reduced supply of capital flows of at least $1-1.5 billion due to freezing of foreign institutional investors investments, cutback in remittances and postponing of FDI and capital raising through GDRs, ADRs and ECBs by Indian corporates.
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Cargo rates go up
New Delhi: European airlines have raised cargo rates from India by 15-20 per cent with effect from Monday because they have to fly a longer route to avoid the war risk zone of Afghanistan.

Lufthansa, Air France, British Airways and Swiss Cargo India have raised rates on freighter and passenger flights.

Rates to the US are up from Rs 90-100 per kg a week ago to Rs 120 ($ 2.51) now.

The logistics of flying to India are likely to become more difficult if the US launches air strikes on Afghanistan.
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VRS for government staff next month
New Delhi: The voluntary retirement scheme for government employees will be put in place next month. The government plans to reduce staff strength by five lakh in five years as recommended by the Expenditure Reforms Commission (ERC).

The VRS package, which has been cleared by the committee of secretaries, would be on lines of public sector undertakings.

The ERC, which made an in-depth study on the scope of reducing expenditures in 36 ministries, submitted its final report to Union finance minister Yashwant Sinha on Tuesday.

ERC chairman K P Geethakrishnan told reporters that the main purpose of the recommendations were to make the government departments lean, regulatory and supportive to increase the efficiency.

Geethakrishnan said implementation of the ERC would lead to drastic reduction in Centres wage bill in the medium to long term. Independent of the ERC recommendations, the government has decided to fill only one-third of the vacancies arising out of retirement of government staff.
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Norms for taxing perks eased
New Delhi: The government on Tuesday came up with liberal guidelines for taxing perks, which includes conveyance, childrens education facilities, free and concessional residential accommodation.

Although the rules for valuing perks was effective from April 1, 2001, the CBDT has offered an option to value perks during April-September on the basis of previous rules.

The value of free or concessional residential accommodation provided by the employer would be limited to 10 per cent of salary for cities having a population of over four lakh while it would be 7.5 per cent for other cities.

CBDT also modified the earlier rules for valuing conveyance and allowed a dedution of Rs 1,200 to 1,600, depending on the engine capacity
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IA likely to hike fares cut flights
New Delhi: The India Airlines on Tuesday said that air fares might be increased soon to compensate for the surge in insurance costs and plunge in ticket sales.
"This is the time our passenger load usually picks up, but that hasn't happened. Rather there's been a marginal decline," said Robin Pathak, director of public relations at Indian Airlines, the largest domestic carrier.
Pathak said that the airline was filling only 60 per cent of its seats by carrying 18,000-19,000 passengers a day, instead of the 22,000-23,000 it would normally carry at this time of year.
Jitender Bhargava, director of public relations at Air-India, said that the number of seats filled on the Indian flag carrier had declined by five percentage points compared with a year earlier, with flights to and from the US particularly hard hit.
Bhargava said that Air-India had "suffered a loss of Rs 95 million up to September 30" on its US routes.
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