LIC business hit in Gujarat
Mumbai: There has been a distinct drop in Life Insurance Corporation of India's business in three out of seven divisions - Ahmedabad, Baroda and Nadiad - due to the long spell of violence.

Events in Gujarat had an impact on LIC's activities, specially in March, when 30 per cent of the business for the year is transacted.

The performance during the year 2001-02 suffered a setback. As against 3.17 lakh policies sold in March 2001, the number declined by 9.3 per cent to 2.88 lakh policies in March 2002.

The total sum assured for 2.88 lakh policies issued in Gujarat during March was also down 7.7 per cent at Rs 2,863 crore.
Back to News Review index page  

Debt write-off to cost exchequer Rs 400 crore
New Delhi: Finance minister Yashwant Sinha's announcement of cancelling bilateral debt to the heavily-indebted poor countries may cost the exchequer about Rs 400 crore till the last fiscal.

However, if Sinha extends the generosity to include the budgeted loans for foreign governments in this fiscal, the sum will go up by Rs 512 crore. Total loans to foreign governments by India from 1993-94 till 2001-02 amounts to Rs 821 crore.

Total loans to foreign countries have jumped in the past couple of years. The loans stood at Rs 47 crore in 1993-94, at Rs 130 crore in 1997-98, at Rs 152 crore in 2000-01 and were Rs 160 crore in 2001-02.
Back to News Review index page  

Andhra plans submarine cable project
Hyderabad:  The Andhra Pradesh government is all set to revive the $600 million two-way submarine cable project linking Visakhapatnam-Malaysia-Singapore in association with a consortium of companies including Reliance.

The government has proposed to connect Vizag-Penang-Singapore with an estimated investment of over $250 million in league with a consortium of Malaysian companies and Reliance.

The project, which was conceived a year ago, got delayed due to various factors. However, the recent launch of Bhartis Chennai-Singapore submarine cable project has prompted the state government to push the project.

A joint venture company - Asia Access Limited - has been floated between AP Technology Services Limited and Satcom Holdings of Malaysia to implement the project.
Back to News Review index page  

Voicexpress launched
Ahmedabad: Voicexpress - a cellular voice messaging service was launched by Sabeer Bhatia, co-founder of Hotmail.com, at a function here.

The service offers users the facility to send voice messages to the US and Canada. The voice messages to the US would be charged at Rs 5.95 per minute.
Back to News Review index page