Poll India: 2004
Final round of polling today
New Delhi: The final round of polling in 182 Lok Sabha constituencies spread across 16 states and union territories is being held today.

Prominent among those whose electoral fortunes are at stake today are CPI-M veteran Somnath Chatterjee, Deputy Speaker in the dissolved Lok Sabha P M Sayeed, Union Ministers Jagmohan, B C Khanduri, Mamata Banerjee, S S Dhindsa, Satyanarayan Jatiya, Sahib Singh Verma, I D Swami and Vijay Goel.
Counting of votes will begin on May 13 and results are expected the same day.

Voting begins in WB as EC issues warning
Kolkata: West Bengal will be voting in all the 42 seats today, amidst tight security. The Election Commission has already issued a warning to the left front government in Bengal, that it will countermand elections in the state in case of any untoward conduct of the electoral process. This has occurred after Sunday's report on CPI-M leader Biman Bose, allegedly intimidating EC observers in West Bengal.

West Bengal's ruling Left Front is contesting 42 seats, the main opposition Nationalist Trinamool Congress (NTC) in 29, and its ally BJP 13. The Congress is fighting in 37 seats and BSP in 33.
Kolkata South faces a triangular contest between Trinamool Chief Mamata Banerjee, Rabin Deb of the CPM and Nafisa Ali of the Congress. Bolpur has CPM heavyweight Somnath Chatterjee looking for a seventh consecutive victory.
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Chechen President killed in landmine attack
Grozny: Chechen President Akhmad Kadyrov and at least 30 others have been killed in an explosion in a crowded stadium in the capital Grozny. Vladimir Putin has promised a massive retaliation and has appointed Chechnya's Prime Minister Sergei Abramov as acting president. According to government sources rebels had apparently placed landmines right under the VIP stands. Atleast 32 others have been killed and nearly 46 have been injured in the explosion. Kadyrov, a former muslim cleric, had been elected as President last October.
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Special Industrial Tribunal accepts bilateral settlements
Coimbatore: In a significant ruling, the Special Industrial Tribunal, hearing the textile workers' wage dispute, has accepted a row of bilateral wage settlements that were signed between individual mill managements and their workmen during the pendency of the dispute before the one-man industrial tribunal. The Special Industrial Tribunal headed by Justice Soundara Pandian, has overruled the objections raised by the joint action committee (JAC) of the textile workers' trade unions which originally raised the wage dispute on behalf of the two lakh textile workers employed in the industry in 2000, industry sources said.

The JAC had been objecting to the tribunal accepting the bilateral settlements on the ground that the issue referred to the adjudication has been 'standardisation of wages' for all workmen in the textile industry and that the wages issue should be determined industry-wise and hence no unit-level wage settlement entered should be entertained by the tribunal. The textile mill workers' wage issue was referred by the Tamil Nadu Government to the Industrial Tribunal for adjudication in September 2001 after protracted conciliations to settle the dispute between the textile mill managements and the workers' unions failed to break the deadlock.
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Big Indian presence at the Cannes Film Festival
New Delhi: India will have a huge presence at the For the first time in the history of Indian cinema, close to 50 Indian films will be screened during the duration of the 10-day Cannes Film Festival which opens on May 12. In a statement, the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), which is putting up an India pavilion, has said that the film market section has registered over 70 Indian films and film projects this year at the festival.

The India Pavilion will also help promote Goa as the new and permanent venue of the India International Film Festival. Over 300 delegates from India including Subhash Ghai, Shekhar Kapur, Deepak Nayyar and Bobby Bedi are attending the event.
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ESC: Opportunities arising from EU expansion
New Delhi: With the induction of new members to the European Union (EU) it has emerged as the world's largest trading bloc accounting for 20 per cent of world trade and would contribute more than 25 per cent of the world's gross domestic product.
According to the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC) this will undoubtedly benefit India for this large single market will operate with a single set of rules for business. ESC has prepared a detailed report of the opportunities and challenges for India in the expanded EU. The total electronics and software exports to the EU (including the newly joined countries stood at Rs 12,120 crore (US$2504 million) in 2002-03 compared to Rs 9,831 crore (US $ 2061 million) in the previous year, a growth of 20 per cent.

Major items of exports include soft ferrite, circuit boards, relays, on-site services and computer software to the Czech Republic and project services to Estonia. Other items are personal computers, onsite services, pacemakers, computer software to Cyprus, transformers to Latvia, CDs to Lithuania, consultancy services to Hungary and on-site services to Malta. ESC has identified the potential areas of co-operation between India and EU in the IT sector. This includes, among others, content development in English, software development, data warehousing, geographical information system, software for banking, IT education and training and IT applications.
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