NHRC indicts Gujarat govt over riots
New Delhi: The National Human Rights Commission has said the inability of the administration to prevent the Godhra carnage and the ensuing developments reflected inaction and inefficiency on the part of the Narendra Modi government.

"The police officials should not ask permission to perform their duty under the law. They must act," said NHRC chairman JS Verma

Justice Verma said the commission would meet very soon on the issue and that a comprehensive report had been sought from the Gujarat government over the incidents to allow the administration to put forth its point of view.
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Centre to refund excise duty on hank yarn
Chennai: The central government would refund the entire excise duty of 9.2 per cent imposed on hank yarn to benefit the handloom sector in the country, union minister of state for textiles V Dhananjaya Kumar said.

"There is nothing to worry. The entire duty will be refunded for the handloom sector," he said when his attention was drawn to the protests by handloom weavers and traders in several parts of Tamil Nadu demanding revocation of the duty.
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Centre issues notices to telecom players
Mumbai: The government has threatened to cancel licences of private basic telecom services operators, including Reliance, Tata and Bharti, if they failed to meet their rural telephone connection targets.

The basic service providers like Reliance in Gujarat, Tata's in Andhra Pradesh, Bharti in Madhya Pradesh, Hughes in Maharashtra, Shyam Telecom in Rajasthan and HFCL in Punjab, were yet to meet their targets for connections in villages. "We will review their plans and performance by June," information technology and communications minister Pramod Mahajan said.

"In case their performance was not up to the mark, we have the option to withdraw their licences," Mahajan told reporters at a function to inaugurate the Indian Institute of Software Engineering.
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Inflation rate dips to 1.51 %
New Delhi: Inflation rate dipped slightly by 0.13 per cent to 1.51 per cent during the week ended 9 March, mainly on account of cheaper wheat, tea, cotton, jute, vanaspati and coconut oil.

The inflation rate, based on wholesale price index (WPI) for all commodities, came down from 1.64 per cent in the previous week and was still much lower than 6.71 per cent a year ago.

Inflation rate came down during March second week despite the 0.1 per cent hike in manufactured products with primary articles and fuel group indices remaining static.
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Car, bike exports surge
New Delhi: Exports of cars and motorcycles continued to surge ahead even as commercial vehicles, MUVs and others failed to attract overseas buyers during this fiscal.

Car exports shot up by a whopping 105 per cent at 42,444 units during April-February this fiscal on the back of a superb performance by Ford India which accounted for more than half of the total exports, data compiled by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers showed.

Ford Motor shipped 27,572 units of its mid-size car 'Ikon' to countries like South Africa and Mexico.

Car market leader Maruti Udyog, however, posted a 35.7 per cent dip at 8,559 units during the review period.

South Korea's Hyundai also witnessed a 14.5 per cent decline in exports at 4,494 units (5,260 cars a year-ago).

Car exports of Tata Engineering surged ahead by 261.6 per cent at 1,689 cars (467 cars) while that of General Motors slipped to 40 cars year-on-year from 69 units.

Commercial vehicle exports slumped by 19.9 per cent at 9,683 units (12,092 units).
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Cabinet clears N-power projects
New Delhi: The cabinet committee on economic affairs has cleared a host of nuclear and road projects including financial sanction to set up two units of Rajasthan Atomic Power Project at a cost of Rs 3,072 crore.

The committee approved the setting up of two units of 220-MW pressurised heavy water reactors at Rawatbhata in Rajasthan.
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Chinese firms want alliance with RIL, Indo-Rama
Mumbai: Chinese companies are looking for an alliance with Reliance Industries and Indo-Rama Synthetics for technical know-how on chemical fibres.

Last year, China produced 8.2 million tonnes of synthetic fibres against a capacity of eight million tonnes.

China imported 1.4 million tonnes of synthetic fibres last year and the country intends to keep it at the same level this year also.
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India's forex reserves cross $ 52 billion
Mumbai: India's foreign exchange reserves have increased by over $ one billion in the first half of this month to touch a record high of $ 52,189 million owing to fresh inflows.

During the week ended 15 March, foreign exchange reserves have swelled by $ 753 million while they rose by $ 692 million at $ 51,436 million in the previous week, according to Reserve Bank of India.
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