10% surcharge on fire, marine, engg insurance
New Delhi: The government has decided to levy a 10 per cent surcharge on fire, marine and engineering insurance in order to create a calamities loss reserve fund of nearly Rs 300 crore.

The tariff advisory committee (TAC) under the Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (Irda) took this decision on Thursday. The surcharge will come into effect immediately for new policies issued and for policies coming up for renewal.

The risks covered include not only natural calamities like earthquake, floods, storms, inundations, explosions etc, but also riots, strikes, and malicious and terrorist damages.

Indian ships, though, are covered by a government-run war risk fund obtained by pooling premium on this score. About Rs 3 crore of it was used during the Gulf war, but it has for the most part only been been accumulating. The corpus stands at about Rs 100 crore today.
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Centre bans SIMI, violence in Lucknow
New Delhi: The Centre on Thursday banned Students Islamic Movement of India (SIMI) saying it has links with terrorist groups. As an immediate fallout, violence erupted in Lucknow where three persons were killed in police firing on a protesting mob.

SIMI, which started from Aligarh, has over 1.5 lakh active members across India but mostly in UP, Maharashtra, West Bengal and Kerala.

SIMI is alleged to be distributing pro-Osama bin Laden posters and cassettes of his speeches in Madhya Pradesh.

In Lucknow, indefinite curfew was clamped in Chowk, Wazirganj, Saadatganj and Bazar Khala localities of the walled city following violence.

Police arrested 67 SIMI leaders, including 63 of its office bearers, in a state-wide swoop in U.P.
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US, British warplanes strike Iraq
Baghdad: The US and British warplanes struck two anti-aircraft artillery sites in southern Iraq on Thursday. The warplanes returned to bases safely after the attacks on the two surface-to-air artillery posts which were located south of Baghdad.
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Vijayabhaskar Reddy passes away
Hyderabad: Congress stalwart and former Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister Kotla Vijayabhaskar Reddy died here on Thursday after prolonged illness. He was 81. Reddy, who was a member of Lok Sabha for six terms, a CWC member and Chairman of the party's Disciplinary Action Committee (DAC), was admitted to Apollo Hospital here last month following lung ailment.
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Edict handed over to bin Laden
Islamabad: Afghanistan's ruling Taliban said it has located Saudi renegade Osama bin Laden and delivered him the decision of Ulema asking him to leave the country.

Taleban's ambassador to Pakistan Mullah Abdul Saleem Zaeef was quoted by a news agency as saying that the prime suspect in the September 11 attacks in the US has been delivered of the council's decision.

But Zaeef ruled out any compromise on bin Laden to avoid war in the country.
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13 PSUs to be disinvested by March
New Delhi: The government has finalised the time-table for disinvestment of 13 public sector units by the end of this financial year.

The time-table was finalized at the meeting of the Cabinet Committee on Disinvestment (CCD) held here on Thursday.

The CCD decided to delink the PSU slated for disinvestment from its administrative ministry and entrusted supervision of the process to the finance ministry.

The department of disinvestments had received two bids for Hindustan Teleprinters Ltd (HTL) and would receive bids for CMC on Friday. To assess the bids, a meeting is scheduled for October 1.

Among the companies whose fate was discussed at the CCD are Maruti, VSNL, NALCO, STC and MMTC, and the Hotel Corporation of India.

In case of NALCO, the government's stake will be brought down to 57 per cent from 87 per cent. STC and MMTC, which have a cash reserve of Rs 900 crore, will transfer Rs 100 crore to the government.

The Hotel Corporation of India, a subsidiary of Air-India, will be delinked from it and then disinvested. The proceeds from HCI's sale will be passed on to Air-India.

In case of Maruti, three valuers will be appointed - one each by the government and Suzuki Motor Company of Japan, and the third will be a mutually agreed valuer.

VSNL will be disinvested by November.
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Communication, IT ministries to merge soon
New Delhi: The communications and IT ministries are to be merged soon, according Union minister Pramod Mahajan who holds the portfolio of the two departments.

A formal proposal for this will be sent to the prime minister. The idea of merging the two ministries was mooted a couple of years ago during the formulation of IT and telecom policies but was not followed through.

The proposal is the first big step towards convergence of the two sectors at the government level and has come at a time when the convergence bill is in the Parliament.

The bill aims at setting up a single regulatory framework for issues related to convergence, which enables people to access voice, video, data on a common telecom and IT infrastructure, possibly from a single company with a single bill.
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Air-India suspends Mumbai-Singapore flights
Mumbai: Air-India on Thursday announced the suspension of two of its three new direct Bombay-Singapore flights from October 1 to November 30 due to shortage of passengers.
However, it will continue to operate 16 other flights a week from India to Singapore. Air-India had introduced thrice-weekly Bombay-Singapore flights only on August 11.

Last week, Air-India resumed flights to the United States after a week's suspension. United Airlines has stopped some of its flights to India.
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