Summer rains evenly spread in Kerala
Thiruvananthapuram: The Met office at Thiruvananthapuram's agromet advisory statistics have yielded reports of summer rain spells of fairly even spread for the last four days, including the "desolate" north.The Agromet Advisory forecast valid until March 31 spoke about rain or thundershowers at isolated places in all districts. Outlook for the two subsequent days did not indicate any significant change.
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Govt to raise Rs. 1 lakh crore yearly from divestment
Mumbai: The Ministry for Disinvestment plans to raise around Rs 1 lakh crore every year from disinvestment, for the next five years, according to the Union Minister for Disinvestment, Arun Shourie,
The minister said that plans are being made following the Prime Minister's request for tapping the capital markets in order to finance large projects in such areas as bio fuels, the networking of rivers and building a knowledge economy. Addressing a meeting at the Bombay Stock Exchange, organised by the Indian Merchants' Chamber, the Minister said that the disinvestment of government stake through the six large public offers had proved that efficient and honest execution of projects on a large scale can be achieved in India, today.
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ESC asks for review of withholding tax issue with Japan
New Delhi: The Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC) has called for a review of the `Avoidance of Double Taxation Agreement' between India and Japan in order to eliminate the 20 per cent withholding tax in Japan on the import of software and services from India.

According to the council, Indian software products and solutions are marked up by 20 per cent in the Japanese market, which has considerably affected its market access as compared to the entry of similar products from countries like China.Also, Indian professionals and entrepreneurs, particularly from the small and medium enterprises (SMEs) were facing difficulties in getting multiple-entry visa to visit Japan on business promotion tours, adversely affecting their scouting of the market and the building of people-to-people contacts.
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IIM-A paper mauls government handling of IIMs
Ahmedabad: The white paper brought out by the Indian Institute of Management, Ahmedabad faculty on the twin issue of fee cut and autonomy were made public on Monday. Titled `Sustaining academic excellence - A position paper', it derides the Ministry's attempts to run the IIMs as extensions of the office of the Ministry.

The paper has termed some of the recent developments as clear attempts by the Ministry of Human Resources development to gain operational control over IIMs. According to it the fee cut order "… subsidises richer students who can easily afford the current fee. The order has not to be seen in isolation but in the larger context of many other decisions taken by the Ministry that threaten the autonomy of the institute." "We stress the need to protect the autonomy of the institute in all aspects: academic, administrative, institutional and financial," the paper says.
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Following CERC directive — NTPC to reduce power tariff
New Delhi: The National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC), which supplies around 25 per cent of the country's power requirement, will bring down the price of its unit by around 15 paise following the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission's (CERC) order released today. NTPC sells power at an average price of around Rs 1.42 paise per unit.

The inter-State power regulator, the CERC, today reduced the rate of return on all cost-based power projects to 14 per cent return on equity. Further, the commission has advised that all future projects in generation, transmission and distribution be structured through a tariff-based competitive bidding process.This norm will affect only the Central sector projects like that of NTPC since private projects have been set up only in the state sector which is governed by the state power regulator. Further, these private projects enjoy water-tight contracts and are insulated from reduction in returns.
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