India may review Iraq situation
Washington: Indian Foreign Minister Natwar Singh, addressing a joint press conference with US Secretary of State Collin Powell in Washington, claimed that the situation, which had prompted India earlier not to send troops to Iraq, had now changed. "The resolution of the last Parliament said we were against sending troops to Iraq. But the situation has now changed. The Iraq resolution was unanimously passed in the UN and there are Arab members in it. We'll look at the situation very carefully," the Indian foreign minister held.

Singh also hinted the government could consider sending troops when the Iraqi government requests it. Meanwhile, Powell expressed gratitude for India's support for the UN Security Council resolution on Iraq. The US Secretary of State cited the United States' close ties with India and said Washington "not only intends to keep it strong but to build on that relationship, to move forward."
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Shyam Saran to be next Foreign Secretary
New Delhi: India's Ambassador to Nepal, Shyam Saran, has been appointed as the country's new Foreign Secretary. With this appointment at least 10 officers senior to Saran stand superseded. Saran's name was cleared by the Appointment's Committee of the Cabinet. Saran is from the 1970 batch of the Indian Foreign Service and he will succeed Shashank, who retires on July 31. Saran's tenure will be for a little over two years till September 2006. Saran has headed Indian missions in Mauritius from 1992 to 1997, Myanmar (1997 to 2001) and Indonesia (August 2001 to October 2002). He took over as India's Ambassador to Nepal in October 2002. Saran has also served in Hong Kong, Beijing, Geneva and Tokyo besides undergoing a fellowship in the UN Disarmament Programme in 1979.
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Cabinet panel on WTO meets
New Delhi: The Cabinet Committee on WTO has met under the Chairmanship of the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, to work out the broad position New Delhi would take in the next month's WTO General Council meeting to draw framework agreements on major issues such as agriculture, non-agricultural market access and Singapore issues of trade facilitation and transparency in government procurement.
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Domestic penicillin makers suffer crash in prices
Chennai: Domestic penicillin manufacturers have sought the Central Government's help after a crash in its price. The domestic industry's case is that an unusually large quantity of Penicillin-G and another intermediate, 6APA, had been imported into India to be used in the manufacture and subsequent export of downstream products (antibiotics). However, in contravention of the import rules, some of the Pen-G may have found its way into the domestic market and reduced the price sharply. The association recently asked the Government to take measures to protect them. Key requests from the industry are a duty of Rs 200/BU on Pen-G imports, changes in advance licence rules to cut loopholes and strict monitoring by the Government.
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Nasscom urges security consciousness as USP
Bangalore: The National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom) is encouraging Indian IT and ITES companies to adopt the best practices in information and data security to prevent any `incident' and any move by the anti-outsourcing lobby in the West to scuttle offshoring work to India on that score. Mr Kiran Karnik told presspersons on the concluding day of the Nasscom ITES/BPO Strategy Summit, 2004, that even as cost and quality considerations become vital factors in the outsourcing game, Indian industry must differentiate itself by identifying and dealing with customer concerns, adding that security was at the top of such a list. The move is part of Nasscom's Trusted Sourcing initiative to retain India as the preferred offshoring destination.
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