BrahMos-II bang on target
New Delhi: BrahMos II, the land-to-land version of the supersonic cruise missile jointly developed by India and Russia, was test-fired for the first time in the surface to surface configuration for the use of the Army yesterday in a desert range in Rajasthan. The missile took off at 12.40 p.m. from an independent mobile launcher with a mobile command post and control units, which provided information on the target.

The missile successfully "discriminated" a pre-determined building out of a cluster of tall concrete structures in the desert, and pulverised it thereby validating its control and guidance systems.
This is the ninth flight of the BrahMos and all of them have been successful. BrahMos is essentially an anti-ship supersonic missile, which flies at a speed of 2.8 to 3 Mach (2.8 to three times the speed of sound). This is the first time that BrahMos was launched in its surface to surface configuration, and has accordingly been designated as the BrahMos II for Army use.

Top Army officers who witnessed the flight, included the Chief of the Army Staff-designate, Lt. Gen. J.J. Singh; the Deputy Chief of Army Staff, Lt. Gen. P.P.S. Bhandari; the General Officer Commanding-in-Chief, southern command, Lt. Gen. B.S. Takhar; the General Officer Commanding, 12 Corps, Lt. Gen. K.S. Jamwal; and the Director-General, Artillery, Lt. Gen. R.S. Nagra. Officers of the Navy and the Air Force, and also the Scientific Adviser to the Defence Minister, M. Natarajan, were also present.

India and Russia are to jointly develop the air-launched version of BrahMos. It will be integrated with the Russian multi-role fighter aircraft Sukhoi-30 MKI (Mark India). This version will be ready in two years. The naval version has already been proved and it will be inducted soon into the Navy.
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Job guarantee Bill introduced in Parliament
New Delhi: The Government has tabled in the Lok Sabha the National Rural Employment Guarantee Bill, 2004. The Bill seeks to provide every poor household whose adult members volunteer to do unskilled manual work not less than 100 days of such work in a financial year in accordance with the scheme decided by the Government.

It also provides for unemployment allowance in case jobs are not provided to the applicants.

It says that if an applicant for employment under the scheme is not provided such employment within 15 days of receipt of his application seeking employment or from the date on which the employment has been sought in the case of an advance application, which ever is later, he shall be entitled to a daily unemployment allowance.

The Bill also proposes to set up a Central Employment Guarantee Council that would be the implementing and monitoring authority for the various provisions under this rule.

The state governments, too, will have to set up their respective State Employment Guarantee Councils.
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Meghnad Desai: Developed countries feeling threatened by developing ones
Chennai: Speaking at the G.L. Mehta Memorial Lecture organised by the Institute for Financial Management and Research (IFMR) Lord Meghnad Desai, economist and Director, Centre for the Study of Global Governance, London School of Economics expressed his skepticism at the employment guarantee scheme brought in by the Government. He said that the Government's role should be to facilitate employment generation, not guarantee it. This, it should do by developing infrastructure. "People should find it profitable to employ people," he said.

Speaking on the topic `Europe, the US and Asia in the World Economy,' Lord Desai said that for the first time in 20 years, the developed countries felt threatened by the developing countries. He said that the emerging global economic scene had a lot of positives for the developing countries, particularly those of Asia. By 2050, he said, the share of the combined GDP of China and India in the global output would be in line with their share of world population.

In the emerging scenario, the competition will be between the US and Asia, while Europe seemed to "rest on its laurels," Lord Desai said. Europeans had taken a preference to easy life, with less working hours. The global scene is shifting from the Atlantic to the Pacific, he said.
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World Bank presents salient features on State reforms
Chennai: A World Bank report has come out with thirteen points to enable State Governments and the Centre to continue with fiscal reforms to achieve development goals.

The report is based on a study of sixteen States, other than the North East, Union Territories and Delhi and Goa, and aims at stocktaking of fiscal reforms as a development issue. The suggestions are aimed at reining in expenditure, particularly the wage and pension Bill, improving revenues through more efficient tax systems and better sharing of resources between states and the Centre, and fiscal discipline.

Though there has been an improvement in the fiscal condition of some States after the crisis of the 1980s, the overall trend is that revenue deficit is not going down and debt levels continue to increase. Indian States are among the most indebted in the world. Of concern is the manifestation of a "reform fatigue" for instance, the reversal of reforms by many State Governments after the last elections. But, according to the report, there is no choice if the fiscal deterioration has to be arrested. While many State Governments have enacted fiscal responsibility legislation, most have not acted on it.

Different scenarios studied under the report indicate that it is possible for the States to eliminate State-level revenue deficit by 2007-08. It would be possible even in the case of the poorer States provided there are Central tax reforms and there is a joint effort by the states and Centre for fiscal discipline.
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ISRO and Malaysian counterpart form JV
Bangalore: The Indian Space Research Organisation and Malaysian counterpart MEASAT Global Bhd have decided to form a 50:50 joint venture to promote their satellite capabilities in the Asia-Pacific region, the ISRO has said.

An agreement signed in New Delhi to this effect paves the way for ISRO to extend the commercial reach of its broadcast and telecom satellites, the Insats, to Malaysia, Singapore, Indonesia, the Philippines and Australia that have a high density of such users.
MEASAT also signed a letter of intent with Antrix to procure a new satellite from ISRO for launch during the first quarter of 2007. To be called MEASAT-4, the satellite will provide additional Ku-band capacity for the MEASAT fleet. Detailed discussions on technical and commercial issues are at an advanced stage, ISRO said.

The tie-up will use the MEASAT's new KL Teleport and Broadcast Centre and also explore the feasibility of developing a world-class customer teleport in India.

Both agencies operate high-powered fleets of satellites for broadcast and telecom customers. They would pool capacities from their neighbouring satellites to provide C-band and DTH quality Ku-band services to over 160 million TV households. The joint venture would and position INSAT as a leading satellite system in the wider Asia-Pacific market.

ISRO has so far launched four commercial satellites and has contracts for three more over the next two years, mostly for domestic and public sector users. MEASAT operates its network for customers in South-East Asia, Indo-China, South Asia and Australia.
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Tourist arrivals in J&K on the rise
Srinagar: After a gap of 10-12 years domestic as well as foreign tourists are flocking to Jammu and Kashmir, and there has been a substantial increase in the number of tourists visiting the region in the last twelve months, according to Jugal Kishore, Minister for Tourism, Jammu & Kashmir.

The number of tourists to Kashmir declined sharply in the last decade due to increased militancy. However, in the last two years, tourists are coming back to Kashmir even as militancy in the State has reduced sharply, he told newspersons.

In 2004, around seven lakh tourists visited Kashmir as against five lakh the previous year. The Leh region attracted around 50,000 foreigners this year, and around 10,000 foreigners visited Kashmir in the last 12 months.

Ladakh attracted around 40,000 foreigners this year, he said.
The religious tourists to Mata Vaishno Devi shrine in 2004 increased to sixty lakh when compared to fifty four lakh last year. Similarly, the Amarnath Yatra attracted around four lakh devotees this year as against 1.5 lakh last year, he said.
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