Poll India: 2004
EC urges govt to ban exit, opinion polls
New Delhi: The Election Commission has asked the government to bring out an ordinance immediately to ban all opinion and exit polls. In a meeting called by the Election Commission earlier in the week all political parties had reached a consensus to ban opinion polls once the elections were notified.

Congress releases its first vision document
New Delhi: Releasing its first of the three vision documents titled `Economic Growth — an expanding economy; a just society freedom from hunger and unemployment — the Congress Agenda' senior Congress party leaders Dr Manmohan Singh and Pranab Mukherjee charged the BJP-led Government of "colossal neglect" of agriculture, poverty, unemployment, illiteracy and universal coverage of public health. Commenting on the dwindling interest rates on PPF, EPF and other savings, Dr Singh said: "We believe that the BJP Government has mishandled the interest rate and the UTI fiasco has hurt millions of savers and interest rates need to be adjusted to give incentives to save".

Dr Singh said the BJP Government had not put the bulging foreign exchange reserves to productive use and said domestic companies should be extended foreign currency loans for expansion and modernisation so that their access to foreign currency loans would be minimised and investment in the economy enhanced. The document said for raising the rate of growth to 10 per cent a year, the rate of investment had to be raised to about 35 per cent.

Jethmalani to take on Vajpayee
New Delhi: Former law minister in the Vajpayee cabinet, senior lawyer Ram Jethmalani has said that he would contest against Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee in Lucknow. Announcing his decision to contest as an independent candidate, Jethmalani claimed he had the backing of the Congress, RJD and the left parties.
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Shias and Sunnis take on the US in Iraq
Baghdad: More than 30 Iraqis have died in US air strikes on the city since Monday in retaliation to last week's killing of four Americans, in the city of Falluja, which is part of the Sunni triangle. The Al Jazeera network has carried pictures of the damage, showing several women and children killed in the attacks.

Meanwhile over 130 people have lost their lives in the clashes between the US-led forces and the supporters of the Shia cleric Moqtada al Sadr, known as the Medhi army, a militia with a reported strength of 10,000 members.
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US Congressman supports outsourcing
New Delhi: Terming trade as "the currency of friendship", Republican congressman and Chairman of the House Rules Committee, David Dreier, has supported off-shoring as "an important and positive part" of the overall US trade agenda.
However Dreier said, that on its part, India would also need to pursue a higher degree of economic liberalisation, eliminate barriers, and allow and encourage greater Foreign Direct Investment.
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IIM: Deveshwar calls for review of the MoAs
Kolkata: Y.C. Deveshwar, Chairman of the board of governors of the Indian Institute of Management, Calcutta (IIMC), said there was a need to devise a mechanism by which companies, which approach IIMs for recruitment, are charged market prices.
According to him if companies can recruit candidates by agreeing to pay huge salaries, a portion of that amount could be easily paid to the institute. This would help bring down the subsidy element substantially. Deveshwar suggested that the placement service fee should be raised to Rs 2 lakh per candidate from the Rs 15,000 at present, as companies that come to campuses to recruit have the capacity to pay.

He also called for a thorough review of the Memorandum of Association (MOA) of IIMC, which was put in place way back in 1961 in a different era. He said that there was a convergence of views among the IIMs on a number of common issues, and called for strong coordination amongst them. He said fee reduction in Government funded institutions was a matter of public policy. He also informed that a meeting with the faculty members was scheduled for April 16 to discuss the situation.
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