President's rule in Goa
Panaji: The Centre has recommended President's rule in Goa. Announcing the decision, Home Minister Shivraj Patil said the cabinet had considered a report sent by the Goa Governor S C Jamir before taking the step. In his report, the governor had said that the frequent switching of MLAs had made providing a stable government in the state a difficult task.

The decision to impose President's rule in Goa came after an emergency meeting of the Union Cabinet. According to reports, President A P J Abdul Kalam has approved the cabinet's recommendations.

Earlier, amidst high drama, the Pratapsinh Rane government won the vote of confidence in the assembly after pro-tem speaker Fransisco Saldinha cast the deciding vote. When the voting took place both the Congress and the BJP got sixteen votes each. The pro-tem speaker had denied voting rights to one MLA in defiance of the governors' order that the presiding officer had no such powers.
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Hooda to be sworn in Haryana CM
New Delhi: Bhupender Singh Hooda will be sworn in as the new Chief Minister of Haryana today. He will be sworn in alone.

Meanwhile, the supporters of senior Haryana Congress leader, Bhajan Lal who lost out in the race for Chief Minister have called for a bandh in his constituency of Adampur. There have also been some incidents of buses being burnt in other areas in the state.
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Jharkhand governor convenes high level meet
Ranchi: In Jharkhand, the Governor Syed Sibtey Razi has convened a high-level meeting today with Chief Minister Shibu Soren and NDA legislature party leader Arjun Munda to work out a date for the first assembly session.

The move comes a day after Razi had met the President and said that he will be bringing forward the date of the trust vote.

Meanwhile, the Jharkhand BJP legislature party leader Arjun Munda has declared that he will not attend the meeting called by the Governor. The BJP has demanded the resignation of the Governor.
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Aiyar: India keen on stake in Venezuelan oil, gas fields
New Delhi: India may acquire stakes in the oil and gas fields of Venezuela, as well as import crude oil from the Latin American country, the Union Petroleum Minister, Mani Shankar Aiyar, has said.

After withdrawing from its earlier stand to offer six exploration blocks to India, Venezuela has now expressed its intent to make available the on-shore discovered field San Cristobal in eastern Venezuela to India. Aiyar and the visiting Venezuelan President, Hugo Chavez, on Friday discussed the participation of Indian public sector firms in the on-shore discovered field San Cristobal, and two gas fields on the offshore by taking a stake of 49 per cent.

"The Venezuelan President said block San Cristobal can be made available to us. We have shown our interest and want the joint cooperation agreement, the two sides are to sign tomorrow (Saturday), to reflect Venezuela's commitment," Aiyar said after a 75-minute meeting with Chavez here.

Venezuela has also offered the offshore exploration Block 5 and two gas blocks, but Indian firms would have to compete with other bidders to win the deal.

India and Venezuela are seeking closer cooperation in several sectors, including hydrocarbons, infrastructure and biotechnology. Indian firms will also explore the possibility of increasing production from marginal fields in Venezuela through Enhanced Oil Recovery and Improved Oil Recovery techniques.
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FM: New income tax bill to be introduced next fiscal
New Delhi: Finance Minister P Chidambaram has said that a new comprehensive income tax bill will be drawn up by the next fiscal end in order to clean up the complex and archaic laws.

"I will introduce a brand new Income Tax bill before next fiscal end. A number of provisions and exemptions need to be cleaned up," he said at a post-budget meeting with apex industry chamber CII.

He also proposed a system through which government can get production data and excise liabilities on a daily basis through an online system.

"There are about 80,000 excise assesses who pay about 90 per cent of the excise duty. What I want is all these 80,000 assesses to file everyday the production data and excise liability online," he said.
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FM: Seven per cent growth targeted for FY06
New Delhi: Finance Minister P Chidambaram today set over seven per cent growth target for 2005-06.

"We must grow by over 7 per cent. Which means agriculture must grow by 3-4 per cent, industry by 8-9 per cent, manufacturing 9 per cent and services by 8 per cent," he said at the CII post-budget meeting.

"My government will do nothing to hamper growth. We will not throw sand in the wheels. The growth engine is humming and moving at full speed and we will not let it flutter or falter," he said.

Pointing out that the budget proposals would spur investment, he said the higher spendings of Rs25,000 crore for social sectors was possible because of the high growth of 6.9 per cent estimated for this fiscal.
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Inflation eases to forty month low of 4.83 per cent
New Delhi: After remaining unchanged in the previous week, inflation fell to a 40-month low of 4.83 per cent during the week ended February 19 due to cheaper edible oils, vegetables and some of the manufactured products despite higher global oil prices.

Toeing the lines of pre-Budget Economic Survey, which had said the government was able to contain price rise, the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation fell by 0.18 per cent from a week ago level of 5.01 per cent.

The general price level stood as high as 6.00 per cent in the previous year period.

However, WPI remained unchanged at 188.8 points despite costlier primary items and cheaper manufactured products, even as fuel prices stood firm for the second consecutive week, notwithstanding, violent gyrations in the world oil prices that hovered 47-48 dollars a barrel. The Wholesale Price Index was 180.1 points a year-ago period.

Government revised upwards the point-to-point inflation to 6.56 per cent during the week ended December 25 last as compared to the provisional level of 6.39 per cent. The final WPI during December-end stood corrected at 188.5 points as against the provisional level of 188.2 points.
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Chidambaram to meet RBI Board over borrowing schedule
New Delhi: Finance Minister P Chidambaram will discuss with Reserve Bank the monetary policy implications of the Budget today and finalise the borrowing schedule by month end.

Chidambaram will meet the RBI board on Saturday and explain the various measures taken in the budget. The finance ministry officials and the RBI Board will discuss the monetary implications also.

The Finance Ministry officials will have meetings with the RBI in the third week of March to draw up the schedule for government's market borrowing and Market Stabilisation Scheme (MSS) for the first half of 2005-06, officials said.

Government is expected to come up with longer-maturity papers depending on the appetite of the market in the next fiscal. With inflation sliding to less than 5 per cent, the yields on government bonds is also likely to come down.

Centre's market borrowing is budgeted at Rs 1,00,836 crore in 2005-06. The revised estimate for borrowing is Rs71,034 crore for this fiscal as against the budgeted Rs1,15,501 crore in a year, which witnessed spiralling inflation and yields on government bonds.
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Disinvestment of five PSUs in the offing
New Delhi: Disinvestment in at least five PSUs, including Maruti, Balco, BHEL, Oil India and PowerGrid is in the offing in the next few months as part of efforts to raise Rs5,000-7,000 crore in 2005-06.

Initial public offers of Oil India and PowerGrid Corporation of India Ltd is also being explored for next fiscal, he said. The Government also intends to offload five per cent stake in Bharat Heavy Electronic Ltd. The move is part of efforts to mop up Rs5,000-7,000 crore in 2005-06 through sale of government equity in PSUs. The disinvestment process is likely to gather momentum from 2006-07.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram has targeted a whopping Rs50,000-70,000 crore mop up from disinvestment of PSU shares in the next four to five years. The entire amount would go into the National Investment Fund to be managed by professional fund managers like UTI Mutual Fund, LIC Mutual Fund and SBI Mutual Fund.

The dividend from the National Investment Fund would be spent for funding social schemes and restructuring of PSUs.
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