PM to address UN today
New York: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in his address to the United Nations General Assembly today is likely to make a strong pitch for India's place as a permanent member in the Security Council.

The PM's speech is expected to plead that the voice one billion people or 1/5th of the world's humanity cannot be ignored. He is also expected to argue that any talk of a rotational membership is untenable as a Group of Four - Brazil, Japan and Germany and India - who are powerful economic players must get equal status in a body that manages world affairs.

In a meeting with Secretary General Kofi Annan, Singh has already said that there can be no two classes of permanent members and India must also have a veto on crucial decisions.

A day before the speech, Singh visited Wall Street and the New York Stock Exchange to demonstrate to the world's most powerful CEOs that India's reform process was not just on track, but was also aiming at a global economic status.

The fact that the Pakistan President General Musharraf chose to use his speech at the UN for the first time to call for reconciliation and dialogue with India, even on the tougher issues like Kashmir, is bound to make the Prime Minister's task much easier.

"We have seen President Musharraf's remarks on India-Pakistan relations and are encouraged that Pakistan remains committed to the ongoing dialogue process with India," said MEA Spokesperson Navtej Sarna.

"It has been our consistent position that all outstanding issues between the two countries, including Jammu and Kashmir, can be resolved through bilateral peaceful dialogue," he added.

The Prime Minister is likely to focus on the need for UN reform, particularly with regard to the expansion of the Security Council by adding more members - both permanent and non-permanent.
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PM promises 'hard decisions' to free economy
New York: On Wednesday, Dr Manmohan Singh became the first Indian Prime Minister to address the New York Stock Exchange. The Prime Minister promised that the UPA government will take "hard" decisions to free the economy from bureaucratic controls and assured them that compulsions of coalition politics and Left support will not derail reforms.

He also said that India needs US$ 150 billion of investment for a "quantum leap" in infrastructure. "Our economy has grown at an average of 6.0 per cent in the early 1990s and it is our expectation that economy can grow at 7-8 per cent," Singh said, adding that "we will take all the hard decisions to realise this ambitious target."

He said the Government had shown that in 1990s that the economy could move on high growth trajectory and "I wish to assure you that this is a task that can be accomplished and we will."

The list of participants in the luncheon interaction are the CEOs and Chairman and CEOs of the following corporations: Citigroup, American International Group, Goldman Sachs, The McGraw Hill Companies, JP Morgan Chase, New York Life Insurance, Moody's Corporation, American Express, Dow Jones, Bell Helicopter, Discovery Communications, Cendant Corporation, International Steel Group, Gartner, Ambac Financial Group and SunGard Data Systems.

What is being emphasised ahead of the meeting is that the intention is for the Prime Minister and participants to have a free interaction. A similar meeting is also being planned with Indian American CEOs.
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Putin to visit India in December
New York: Russian President Vladimir Putin will visit India in December to further consolidate the strategic partnership between the two countries.

External Affairs Minister K Natwar Singh discussed Putin's upcoming visit during a meeting with his Russian counterpart Sergei Lavrov yesterday.

During the 35-minute meeting, the two leaders exchanged views on Indo-Pak relations, UN reforms and also the meeting of the Group of four (G-4) comprising India, Japan, Germany and Brazil.
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UNCTAD report: India major investor abroad
New Delhi: The rising trend of investment by Indian IT, Pharma and oil companies in overseas markets, has placed India as a significant source of outward foreign capital in the world. The UNCTAD World Investment report said that India's average annual outflow has reached $1.0 billion.

This has enhanced India's rank to 61 in 2003 from 107 in 1999, close to China at 58, in the Outward FDI Performance Index.

"India also stands out among Asian investors, not because of its recent and significant increase in outward FDI and because of its potential to be a large outward investor, but because of the new trend set by some of its IT firms," it said.

Almost all of the top 15 Indian IT companies have invested abroad mainly in developed countries while Indian call centres and BPO companies are setting up foreign arms in Philippines and Mexico.

A major chunk (55 per cent) of Indian outward FDI is in manufacturing, followed by non-financial services (25 per cent).

With 19 percent share, US has emerged as the favourite destination of Indian outward FDI, followed by Russia (18 per cent) due to acquisitions in the oil and gas industries. Nearly half of the total Indian outward FDI has gone to other developing nations.
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Left 'satisfied' with foreign experts offer to quit
New Delhi: Reports of the nine 'outside experts' representing the World Bank, the Asian Development Bank (ADB) and the McKinsey consultancy group offering to resign from the various consultancy groups in the Planning Commission, have been hailed as the "right decision", by the CPI (M) Polit Bureau member, Sitaram Yechury. He said: "The issue has unnecessarily been blown out of proportion. It did not deserve to become such a big issue after we met the Prime Minister."

Speaking to newspersons, Yechury held that it was the statement by the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission, Dr Montek Singh Ahluwalia, which "led to this situation."

Dr Ahluwalia, who is accompanying the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, on his visit to the UK and the US, had defended his stand noting that the outside experts had been co-opted for a "holistic view" on various economic issues.

Following this, at least five Left economists on various panels of the Commission had threatened to resign if the foreign experts were not moved out. In fact, two economists stayed away from a consultancy meeting of the Commission yesterday.

After a luncheon meeting with the Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, and Congress MP, Jairam Ramesh, Yechury said that the CPI(M) was satisfied with the Prime Minister's assurances to consider their demand after his return from the US.

The issue would be taken up at the next meeting of the UPA and the Left parties later this month after Dr Singh's return, he added.
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Infrastructure index records 5.6 percent growth
New Delhi: The official six-industry infrastructure index has registered a 5.6 per cent year-on-year growth during April-August this year, as against 4.2 per cent during the corresponding five months period of 2003.

The higher growth has been mainly led by the energy sector, with growth rates during April-August 2004 being 4.7 per cent in crude petroleum (against minus 1.8 per cent during April-August 2003), 8.8 per cent in refined petro-products (5.1 per cent), 5.4 per cent in coal (3.7 per cent) and 7.8 per cent in electricity (2.4 per cent).

But there has been a slowdown in cement and finished steel, which have registered lower growth rates of 3.4 per cent (5.2 per cent) and 2.8 per cent (8.9 per cent).
During the latest recorded month of August 2004, the overall index grew year-on-year by 4.4 per cent, against 3.9 per cent in the same month last year.
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Film industry forms panel to counter ban in Karnataka
Hyderabad: The film industry has joined hands against the Karnataka ban on new releases of non-Kannada films.

Top film producers and film personalities across the country gathered here on Wednesday to form a Joint Action Committee (JAC) to face Karnataka's ban.
G. Adisheshagiri Rao, President of AP Film Chamber of Commerce, has been elected Convenor of the JAC.

Address a news conference, Rao announced that the rest of the industry would place an embargo on the Kannada films unless it came forward for talks to sort out the issue.
"We are making efforts to stop artists and technicians from associating with Kannada films," he said.

Terming the seven-week ban as unfortunate, leading Hindi filmmaker Yash Chopra said the ban was against the very spirit of India. "It is the choice of the people to select the movie of their liking," he told reporters after the formation of the JAC.

The ban on non-Kannada films sent shockwaves in the film industry, particularly Hindi, Telugu and Tamil. Films from these languages went well in Karnataka. Some Karnataka filmmakers argued that the backward Kannada industry couldn't stand up to the competition from the non-Kannada films, crippling the native industry.

Last month, a delegation headed by Chopra met the Prime Minister appealing to him to sort out the issue.
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