Poll India: 2004
SC clears poll ads on TV channels
New Delhi: The Supreme Court has appointed the Election Commission as the sole authority to certify ads, which political parties can now advertise on television channels.
A three-judge Bench, headed by Chief Justice V.N. Khare, said that political parties, contesting candidates or any other person intending to insert ads in the electronic media would have to submit contents of the advertisement along with its transcript to the EC or its nominated official for clearance.

For the first phase of elections, scheduled for April 20, the Court said that clearances should be obtained two days before the proposed date of telecast while for the remaining phases of the elections, it said that advertisements should be submitted to the EC for clearance at least three days before the proposed date of telecast. In case of others, the advertisement has to be submitted seven days before the proposed date of telecast, it said.
The EC has been empowered to seize the equipment of the TV channel or the cable operator showing illegal advertisements. The order shall remain in force from April 16 till May 10.
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Assocham: Tax benefits for contractors
New Delhi: The Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) has advocated extending benefit of tax holiday under 80-IA to contractors engaged in the development of infrastructure facility under agreement with Government/statutory bodies. This, the Chamber says, would provide real impetus to infrastructure development.

In a note submitted to the Finance Ministry, the Chamber has pointed out that if an entity enters into an agreement with the Government for development of infrastructure facility and transfers the facility to the Government after development on BOT (Build-Own-Transfer) basis, the profits from such development and transfer is eligible for a tax holiday, while a contractor, who is directly awarded the contract for development of infrastructure facility on behalf of the Government on BT (Build-Transfer) basis, is not eligible for tax holiday in respect of the profits derived from such development.
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Railways: Summer Specials - 2004
New Delhi: Indian Railways will run over 1745 special trains on 48 different routes to clear summer rush of passengers across the country from April to June 2004.An All India Summer Specials Time Table is being released to make Summer Specials popular with users and to increase the accountability of the Railways. In addition, the augmentation of trains, by adding extra coaches during the summers, has also been planned. Advance action has also been taken to put the Summer Specials and the augmentation of the trains in the computerized Passenger Reservation System (PRS) to make all reservations in these trains available to the users.

As a result of the Summer Specials and the augmentation of trains, additional accommodation of 60,000 berths and seats will be available daily to the travelling public.The Summer Specials will cover 25 new routes. But they will not run on 29 routes, this year, because regular new trains have already been introduced on these routes.

The new routes, on which the Summer Specials will run, are: Ahmedabad-Bandra Terminus, Asansol-New Jalpaiguri, Bandra Terminus-Gandhidham, Bandra Terminus-Okha, Bangalore-Trivandrum, Bangalore-Jodhpur, Chennai-Mangalore, Coimbatore-Chennai, Gandhidham-Ahmedabad, Gorakhpur-Ahmedabad, Howrah-Dadar Terminus, Kacheguda-Bangalore, Kacheguda-Madurai, Mangalore-Trivandrum, Mysore-Dharvad, Porbander-Bandra Terminus, Secunderabad-Chennai, Secunderabad-Vishakhapatnam, Secunderabad-Tirupati, Secunderabad-Bikaner, Tiruchurapalli-Tirupati, Valsad-Allahabad and Vijayawada-Vasco.
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