Putin not for dilution of existing powers of Security Council
New Delhi: The Russian President, Vladimir Putin, said that there could be no erosion of the existing "veto tool" of the United Nations Security Council, but emphasised that Moscow would "show significant flexibility" in the process of negotiations that might add permanent members, such as India, to the Council.
Putin, who spoke in the presence of the Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh, held detailed discussions with Dr. Singh and signed a joint declaration on the future trajectory of bilateral relations. He also held talks with the President, A.P.J. Abdul Kalam, in the evening.

A total of nine agreements, including an accord for Indian use of the Russian global satellite navigation system (Glonass), peaceful cooperation in outer space and a strategic cooperation agreement in the gas sector, were signed between the two countries. Direct banking relations between Indian and Russian entities were also agreed upon.

The Prime Minister said that India would work towards the speedy conclusion of a bilateral agreement leading to Russia's entry into the World Trade Organisation (WTO) and also clinch an intellectual property rights (IPR) agreement to protect defence technology in the next four months.

Favouring reorganisation of the U.N., Putin said India was the largest democracy in the world and Russia's "strategic, privileged partner". India was "number one" in Russia's list to enter the Security Council in the permanent category. "We believe that it would be absolutely unacceptable to erode such existing tools of the U.N. because otherwise the U.N. organisation will lose its weight, lose its role, changing into some discussion club - some new edition of the League of Nations."

Russia favoured preserving the universal character of the U.N., which was serving as a tool for the resolution of conflicts. "We are fully in favour of reorganising the U.N., including an increase in the number of permanent members in the Security Council."

Though he did not give any details, Putin said the two countries had now established a "real mechanism" for cooperation in full-scale space projects. "It is expanding and increasing," he said.
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Putin: Unipolar world is dangerous
New Delhi: Without naming any country, the Russian President, Vladimir V. Putin, today cautioned against unilateral action and dictatorship in international affairs even if it was "in a beautiful package of pseudo-democracy."

Delivering the 36th Jawaharlal Nehru Memorial Lecture here, he said it was dangerous to reconstruct the world on unilateral and unipolar principles.

Invoking the ideals of Jawaharlal Nehru time and again, Putin lamented the fact that the potential of the non-aligned movement had not been tapped fully and disagreed with the view that the United Nations and its institutions were unable to effectively respond to present challenges. As for India's claim to permanent membership of the U.N. Security Council, he said Russia in principle supported it.

In his speech - delivered in Russian - and greeted with a standing ovation by the gathering, Putin said India and Russia had a common understanding on fighting global terrorism. Stating that both countries were victims of terrorism and had a stake in addressing the problem, he asserted that "there cannot be double standards while fighting terrorism." Also, according to him, terrorism cannot be used as an instrument for geo-political games.
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India-Russia: Banking and IT to drive future economic cooperation
New Delhi: India and Russia have identified information technology, banking and the energy sector as the areas that offer new scope for strengthening economic relations between the two countries.

"Mutual investments in industries, cooperation in IT and banking are some areas that offer a new scope (of economic exchanges between the two countries)," a joint declaration by India and the Russian Federation has said.

The joint declaration was signed on the first day of the three-day official visit to India by the Russian Prime Minister, Vladimir Putin.
The declaration also sought greater cooperation in the energy sector. "The sides also recognise the considerable scope for cooperation in the hydro-electric and thermal power sectors.

Russia is a major exporter of oil and gas and India is emerging as a large consumer," the declaration said. It said that both sides would pool their resources to develop new oil and gas fields.

"The sides affirm their desire to cooperate in development of new oil and gas fields and the mean of transportation in Russia, India and other countries," the declaration said. The two sides have also committed themselves to greater investment flow in the energy sector.
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Tatarstan to invest in Andhra Pradesh
Hyderabad: The Republic of Tatarstan of the Russian Federation has expressed keenness to invest in the petrochemicals, pharmaceuticals and information technology sectors in Andhra Pradesh.

This was an important development during the meeting of the delegation led by the Prime Minster of Tatarstan, Rustam Minnikhanov, and the Chief Minister of Andhra Pradesh, Dr Y.S. Rajasekhara Reddy, on Thursday.

The two sides agreed to make a minister each responsible for maintaining mutual liaison for expediting execution of the proposed projects. The Tatarstan delegation visited Satyam Computers, Centre for Good Governance and met key Government officials during their two-day visit to the State.

The Chief Minister, in his presentation suggested that entrepreneurs from Tatarstan could invest in food processing as well as set up companies to buy Virginia tobacco from the State. Stating that abundant reserves of natural gas, coal and steel were available in the State, Dr Reddy said Tatarstan could promote basic manufacturing industries.

In another development, an agreement was signed between the 1,000-year-old city of Kazan in Tatarstan and the 400-year-old Hyderabad for cooperation in the fields of culture, education and develop economic relations.
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INSA: Sharp growth in shipping tonnage
Mumbai: With the Indian shipping industry acquiring over 1.5 million GRT (gross registered tonnage) to its fleet during the last one year, the Indian National Shipowners Association (INSA) has projected that if this trend in tonnage acquisition were to continue, India could well cross the 10-million GRT mark and subsequently emerge in the list of top 10 maritime nations in the near future.

According to the INSA's latest annual report, released in Mumbai on Thursday, the strength of the Indian fleet increased from 616 ships of 6.18 million GRT as on March 31, 2003 to 665 ships of 7.69 million GRT as on October 1 this year. With the recent introduction of the new tonnage tax regime, INSA expects to record a sharper growth in shipping tonnage in the next fiscal, apart from enhancing the possibilities of FDIs in this sector.

INSA had engaged the services of Tata Economic Consultancy Services for assisting in preparation of a draft offshore maritime policy, as advised by the working group on the subject set up by the Ministry of Shipping. "We do not have a separate offshore maritime policy, despite the increasing activities in this sector. We expect the draft policy to be ready shortly," INSA said.
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Inflation unchanged at 7.34 per cent
New Delhi: Contrary to expectations that it might fall after a cut in petrol prices, inflation remained unchanged at 7.34 per cent during the week ended November 20. The widely monitored point-to-point Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation stood unchanged at the previous week's level of 7.34 per cent and it was 5.48 per cent in the year ago period.

However, market analysts expect inflation to gain pace since diesel prices had not been reduced though the oil PSUs cut petrol prices by upto Rs1.26 a litre.

The WPI was up by 0.1 per cent to 190.1 points due to 0.4 per cent hike in the prices of mass consumption primary items and 0.1 per cent in heavy-weighted manufactured products and it was 177.1 points in the previous year period. According to the latest WPI report release by Commerce Ministry, Government revised down the final inflation to 7.33 per cent during the week ended September 25 as compared to provisional figure of 7.38 per cent.

The final WPI stood corrected at 189 points during the third week of September as against the provisional estimate of 189.1 points.

The index of Primary Articles rose to 192.4 points due to a sharp to moderate increase in the prices of food and non-food articles and it was 183.6 points a year ago. Food Articles' group index was up 0.5 per cent to 193 points due to higher prices for poultry chicken (21 per cent), fish-inland (4 per cent), fish-marine and maize (2 per cent each) and bajra, moong and fruits and vegetables (1 per cent each). The index of Non-Food Articles' group was up by 0.3 per cent to 814.6 points due to higher prices for groundnut seed (2 per cent) and raw tobacco (1 per cent), even as castor seed and linseed became cheaper by 1 per cent. Fuel, Power, Light and Lubricants' group index declined by 0.7 per cent to 289.7 points due to lower prices for naphtha (7 per cent), furnace oil (4 per cent) and petrol (3 per cent) and the index was 255.2 points in the previous year period.

The index of Manufactured Products' group was up by 0.1 per cent to 167 points on account of costlier food products, textiles, chemicals, basic metals and machinery and it was 157.4 points in the year ago period. (PTI)
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PAN mandatory for more transactions
New Delhi: The Finance Ministry has expanded the list of transactions for which permanent account numbers (PAN) will have to be specified in all documents pertaining to such transactions.

A person making an application to a bank or a credit card company for issuing a credit card would have to necessarily mention PAN in all documents relating to the application. PAN is also to be quoted in all documents pertaining to payment of an amount of Rs50,000 or more to a mutual fund for purchase of its units.

Further, every person is now required to specify PAN in all documents pertaining to payment of an amount of Rs50,000 or more to a company for acquiring shares issued by it. A similar stipulation has also been made for payment of an amount of Rs50,000 or more to a company or an institution for acquiring debentures or bonds issued by it.

PAN has to be specified in all documents relating to payment of an amount of Rs 50,000 or more to the RBI for acquiring the bonds issued by the Central Bank.
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Kerosene, LPG subsidy phase-out by 2007
New Delhi: The Government has said that it would phase out subsidies on LPG and Kerosene by 2007.

"It is the Government's stated intention to remove subsidies by 2007 and we are working towards that," the Petroleum Secretary, S.C. Tripathy said at the third Petro India Conference here.

He also said a Bill for setting up an independent regulator for the oil sector has been referred to a Group of Ministers and hence could not be presented in Parliament during the current session.
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ILO: India outsourced $11 billion in services
New Delhi: India has turned out to be the fifth largest economy in the world which had outsourced IT and business services to the tune of $11 billion by the end of 2003-04 to the US, the UK, Germany and Japan.

Stating this at a Seminar on Management of Contract Labour and Outsourcing organised by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industry of India (Assocham) here on Friday, M. Bussi, Deputy Director, ILO Office for India, said India has spent roughly 2.4 per cent of its GDP in outsourcing businesses relating to IT and services as against the US GDP share of 0.4 per cent by the end of 2003-04.

According to Bussi, "The leading business outsourcing countries such as the US spent $ 41 billion followed by Germany (at $ 39 billion) for outsourcing their business towards the end of 2003-04. Countries as Japan and the UK spent $35 billion and $16 billion respectively on outsourcing their business. China spent $8 billion, while the share of India was to the tune of $11 billion."

He said that this hard fact never got published in the media as it has been critically looking at the growing phenomena of BPO with an angle that outsourcing has led to the losses of jobs in the countries of outsourcing origin, an Assocham statement said.
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