Cabinet reshuffle: Shibu Soren back
New Delhi: The Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, has decided to undertake a mini-reshuffle of his Cabinet today, involving the return of the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha leader, Shibu Soren, to the Cabinet and the allocation of work for the Telangana Rashtra Samiti chief, K. Chandrasekhara Rao, who has been a Cabinet Minister without portfolio.

While Rao is slated for the Labour and Employment portfolio, Soren gets the Coal Ministry, minus the Mines Department. The incumbent Labour Minister, Sisram Ola, will now run the truncated Ministry of Mines.

Lately Rao had been insisting on visible "progress'' on the question of grant of statehood for Telangana. The Congress leadership had also come under sustained pressure from the Jharkhand Mukti Morcha (JMM) in the last few days. Earlier in the day, the JMM leadership had got its "central executive" to pass a resolution critical of the Manmohan Singh Government.
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UPA sub-committee to look into the demand for Telangana
New Delhi: The United Progressive Alliance has decided to constitute a sub-committee to look into the demand for a separate Telengana State. The decision was taken at a meeting of the UPA Coordination Committee, which met this evening at the residence of the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh. It authorised the UPA chairperson, Sonia Gandhi, to constitute the committee.

The move comes in response to the demand made by Chandrasekhara Rao, leader of the Telengana movement and Minister without portfolio in the Union Government.

Today's meeting of the coordination committee was the first since the formation of the UPA Government at the Centre and was attended by the four Left parties.

The UPA has decided to hold wider consultations with the political parties both within the alliance and outside before deciding to go ahead with the Women's Reservation Bill. While the Congress, the Nationalist Congress Party and the Left parties are openly in favour of the legislation, others such as the Rashtriya Janata Dal and the Lok Jansakthi Party have objections to the Bill in its present form.

The RJD leader and Railway Minister, Lalu Prasad, has suggested that the Government first try and evolve a consensus on the issue before bringing up the Bill in the House.

Briefing newspersons after the meeting, the Union Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, said the UPA had decided to bring in eleven Bills to replace the ordinances that were issued in the period when Parliament was not in session.

Prominent among the bills that is likely to be introduced are the National Employment Guarantee Bill.
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HRD Ministry sacks IIAS board
Shimla: The HRD Ministry has sacked the board of the Indian Institute of Advanced Studies (IIAS) in Shimla.

The ministry claims that the board was sacked because they refused to cooperate with the investigations being conducted into financial irregularities and appointments made by the previous NDA government. Prof J S Grewal has been appointed as the president and chairperson of the reconstituted governing body of the IIAS.

The government has also appointed six new vice-chancellors and 24 educationists as members of the Council of IIAS for the remaining term of the Council till April 10, 2005.
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Inflation falls to 7.34 per cent
New Delhi: Inflation fell to 7.34 per cent during the week ended November 13. The fall is due to cheaper vegetables and other essential food and manufactured products, even though fuel became costlier.

The inflation based on Wholesale Price Index fell to 7.34 per cent from 7.76 per cent a week ago. However it was still significantly higher than 5.42 per cent in the year-ago period.

The WPI fell by 0.2 per cent to 190 points from the previous week's level of 190.3, but was higher than 177 in the year-ago period.

The inflation rate stood corrected at 7.86 per cent as against the provisional figure of 7.8 per cent during the week ended September 18, while WPI was revised to 189.4 from 189.3.
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Cement manufacturers call for withdrawal of freight hike
New Delhi: The Cement Manufacturers' Association has called for a withdrawal of the hike in railway freight rates, saying the hike would lead to unsustainable increase in production cost.

The CMA has said that cement was one of the highly taxed commodities and the industry faced periodic increases in costs of various inputs.

According to the CMA, "The input cost variations not only include royalties on raw materials such as limestone and coal, but also transport costs, he added. Increase in input costs has taken place through annual Union Budgets and also periodical revisions."
The Railways has increased the classification (train load) for the four commodities coal, clinker, cement and gypsum.
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Fifty One Central projects completed in H1
New Delhi: The Minister for Statistics and Programme Implementation, Oscar Fernandes, has announced that in all, a total of fifty one Central sector projects costing Rs23,910 crore were completed in the first half of the current fiscal.

Giving the sector-wise break-up of the fifty one completed projects till September this year, mainly in the infrastructure sector, Fernandes told newspersons that while eleven pertained to the Railways, nine were in road transport and highways, five in shipping and ports, two in urban development, one in power, three in petroleum, two in steel, one in atomic energy, eleven in coal and two in mines.

When in full production or operation, these projects, the Minister said, would add new capacity to the extent of 27.58 million tonnes of coal production annually, 1,000 MW capacity for power generation through Nathpa-Jhakri hydel power project in Himachal Pradesh, 1,150 tonnes additional yearly capacity for production of aluminium with 120 MW captive power and 26,400 tonnes capacity for production of special grade alumina each year, expansion of the Manali refinery capacity to three million tonnes, apart from various works on new rail lines, broad-gauging, line doubling and extension of metro network.

These infrastructure projects, he said, would have a multi-directional effect on the economic development of the country, which include creation of fresh employment and development of the industry, while the rail and road projects would go a long way in improving the carrying capacities by way of freight traffic and movement of passengers.

At present, there are 605 Central projects under implementation with an anticipated cost of Rs 2,67,815 crore. Of the total projects, 22 are proceeding ahead of schedule, 140 are on schedule, 250 behind schedule and 149 projects are yet to be assigned a definite date of commissioning.
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NELP-V: Twenty oil and gas blocks up for bidding
New Delhi: The Government will shortly offer twenty oil and gas exploration blocks in the fifth round of bidding under the New Exploration Licensing Policy (NELP-V) to bring more areas under exploration and production of oil and gas expeditiously. The Minister for Petroleum & Natural Gas, Mani Shankar Aiyar, has said that NELP-V would be launched in January and will include onland, shallow offshore and deepwater blocks.

The Government has, so far, awarded ninety oil and gas blocks under the previous four rounds of NELP bidding.

Besides intensifying exploration within the country, Mr Aiyar said India was also acquiring oil and gas properties abroad to cut dependence on imports and enhance self-reliance. India is eying oil properties in Saudi Arabia, Vietnam, Australia, Myanmar, Bangladesh, Iran, Iraq, Qatar, Kazakhstan, Syria, Egypt, Libya, Algeria, Senegal, Nigeria, Sudan and West Africa.

To mobilise diplomatic experience and expertise to synchronise with investments abroad, the Government has formed an 11-member Standing Advisory Committee on Oil Diplomacy for Energy Security headed by economist Arjun Sengupta. The committee has been entrusted with the task of facilitating security of oil and gas properties in oil-rich countries, particularly West Asia.
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