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ISRO
to commercially launch Italian satellite in 2006
Thiruvananthapuram: The Indian Space Research Organisation
(ISRO) will carry out a full-fledged commercial launch
in 2006, according to the ISRO Chairman, G. Madhavan Nair.
Addressing a press conference the chairman said that ISRO
would launch an Italian satellite, Agile, early next year.
He said that the organisation is also exploring other
commercial launch possibilities, and in five years ISRO
hopes to garner a 10 per cent share of all commercial
space launches.
By the end of this year, ISRO plans to launch CARTOSAT-2
- a remote sensing satellite, he said. This satellite
will be more versatile than the recently launched CARTOSAT-1
and will be extremely useful for town planning. As part
of the CARTOSAT-2 launch, the organisation will also launch
a spacecraft recovery module.
Other launches scheduled for the next few years include
launch of the Chandrayan moon mission, INSAT-4A and INSAT-4C
and the next Oceansat, Nair said. Commenting on the performance
of the recently launched CARTOSAT-1 and HAMSAT, he said
that all systems on both satellites are working well.
In the last financial year, the turnover of Antrix Corporation
Ltd, ISRO's commercial arm, grew by over 25 per cent and
crossed Rs300 crore, he said. Antrix Corporation is looking
at a 25 per cent growth in revenues in the current fiscal
as well, he said.
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Left
seeks oil stabilisation fund
New
Delhi: Finance
Minister P Chidambaram and Petroleum Minister Mani Shankar
Aiyar are seriously considering the Left's proposals on
how to keep fuel prices under control. The Left's proposals
have been outlined in a letter sent by the CPI (M) MP
Dipankar Mukherjee to the Petroleum Minister, which says
that India should have its own formula to fix fuel prices,
instead of following international benchmarks.
The
key suggestion is to set up a new price stabilisation
fund to protect oil companies from global price fluctuations.
The fund will have a corpus of Rs5400 crore that is collected
regularly by the government as a cess on domestic crude
production.
And
although the cess is collected in the name of an Oil Industry
Development Fund, right now it goes into the general coffers
of the government. The Left also suggests that the new
50 paise per litre cess on petrol and diesel should be
scrapped.
The
Finance Minister has apparently also agreed to review
the shrinking budgetary support given to the oil companies
to subsidise LPG and kerosene. While price support per
litre kerosene has halved to just 82 paise between April
and December 2004, from 2003-04, and to one-third from
a year before that, with the same holding good for LPG
cylinders as well, in the same period, oil companies on
the other hand have increased their contribution to the
government's revenues to nearly Rs70,000 crore from a
little over Rs46,000 crore.
The
Left now wants private refiners like Reliance to share
the burden as well. And so, it wants the government to
withdraw the duty refund that Reliance gets when it exports
petroleum products.
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FICCI:
Business confidence index dips in Q4
New Delhi: India Inc's business confidence index dipped
in the fourth quarter of fiscal 2004-05 compared to the
previous period, a FICCI survey has said.
The
sentiment of India Inc has been affected by a number of
factors, including VAT, continuation of central sales
tax, fringe benefit tax and rising input costs, which
are mainly oil-driven, FICCI Business Confidence Index
said.
Corporate
India's confidence index fell to 71.6 in the fourth quarter
as against 75.6 in the third quarter, it said. According
to the survey, the current conditions index fell to 67.5
in fourth quarter from 73.4 in the third quarter. The
expectations index also registered a decline to 73.6 from
76.7 in the previous quarter.
The
study, however, said India Inc exuded optimism on the
export front with 58 per cent of companies surveyed expecting
rise in their exports and 32 per cent looking to sustain
their current levels. The export index stood at 48 in
the fourth quarter as against 41 in the previous one,
it said.
On
the investment front, 51 per cent of respondents sounded
out new plans for investments. The investment index increased
by two points at 42 from the last quarter.
The
survey showed increase in employment index in the fourth
quarter at 23 as against 13 in the previous quarter.
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