Cabinet to discuss budget today
New Delhi: The Union Cabinet meets today to discuss the budget. The budget session of the Parliament starts on February 25. On February 26, the railway budget and the economic survey will be presented. The general budget will be presented on February 28.

Meanwhile, top CPI (M) leaders, including General Secretary HS Surjeet, politburo members Jyoti Basu and Prakash Karat, are scheduled to attend a three-day meeting beginning tomorrow at Kamarhati in North 24 Parganas district to discuss issues, including economic policies of the UPA government.

Left parties have been asking for a rollback in the decision to lift the cap in FDI in the telecom sector to 74 per cent. They also want a review of the government's decision to disinvest in nationalised banks.
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Aero India 2005 kicks off today
Bangalore: Aero India 2005, which flags off today in Bangalore takes on a keener edge than ever in the past with the Indian Air Force Chief letting announcing on the very first day that India needs to buy 126 fighter jets. US, Russia and China are among the thirty-two nations taking part in the show.

Meanwhile, David C Mulford, the US Ambassador to India has said that the US is keen to do business with India in aviation. "We have decided to show our top of the line equipment here and we have a major interest in becoming a bigger player," said Mulford.

The Russians have arrived with their MIG-29s and want to sell it to the Indian Navy and an improved version of it to the Indian Air Force.

All in all, its hard sell time at the Aero India.
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Bharti approaches TDSAT for refund of entry fee
New Delhi: The Bharti Group has approached the TDSAT seeking a refund of Rs135 crore. The money was paid by the company to the govt. as entry fee for acquiring basic licences, upon migrating to Unified Access Service Licence regime.

"Because of regulatory changes our basic telecom licences have become redundant and therefore we are seeking refund of the entry fee paid by the company," said Bharti officials.

The Government has already taken a decision that since the entry fee was non-refundable there is no case for any refund of entry fee as well as any compensation for change of policy which is a prerogative of the Government, DOT officials have said.

However, the department considers this as "sensitive matter" which may have a snowballing effect. Fearing this, Department of Telecom have shot off a letter to Department of Legal Affairs seeking approval of empanelment of three senior advocates.
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Hewitt survey: Salaries in India on the rise
New Delhi: According to the Hewitt Associates' Ninth Annual Salary Increase survey, salaries of Indian employees working in MNCs, local companies or joint ventures recorded an increase between 9.7-14.3 per cent during July 2004 to January 2005.

And the survey say the outlook for 2005 has been projected even brighter.

This survey covered 573 organizations and analysed information on more than 700,000 employees. Attrition rates have also gone up from 13.2 per cent in 2003 to 14.5 per cent in 2004. The IT sector provided the highest average hike of 14.9 per cent. Next in line is the Entertainment /Communication / Publication sector at 14.7 per cent hike.

This sector is also expected to provide the best pay-cheques at 15.4 per cent in the year 2005.
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