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US voices concern on gas pipeline issue
Washington: The United States has voiced "concern" over the proposed Iran-Pakistan-India gas pipeline, but using quaint phraseology said America was sharing its feelings with the two South Asian nations in a "constructive" manner and not in a "negative way".

"We have communicated our concerns to both Pakistan and India about this, but we have very positive relations with Pakistan and India," US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice told reporters here yesterday, replying to a question about how seriously or to what degree of opposition America really has towards the 2600 km-long pipeline project.

Asked whether it was fair to say that the US was not likely to move towards sanctions if India and Pakistan were to go ahead with the pipeline project, Rice said: "Well, I think we are sharing our concerns in a constructive way with them and not in a negative way."
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Iran gas pipeline: Mulford meets Aiyer
New Delhi: The US Ambassador to India, David C. Mulford, had a 45-minute meeting with the Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas, Mani Shankar Aiyar. Both Aiyar and Mulford maintained that they had discussed areas of enhancing bilateral trade in the hydrocarbons sector.

"The focus of the meeting was on bilateral issues. The meeting was to talk about common energy problems," Mulford said.

On Thursday, the visiting US Assistant Secretary of State in charge of arms control, Stephan Rademaker, had expressed the view that going ahead with the pipeline with Iran "would be a mistake."

However, US Embassy officials later backtracked saying that this was not yet the official view of the US Government. India has been in dialogue with Pakistan and Iran to draw up a framework for the proposed $4.16-billion pipeline. The US has reportedly warned Pakistan of imposing sanctions if it went ahead with the project.

Stating that the US wants to be constructive, Mulford said that the proposed pipeline was not an impediment to Indo-US co-operation in the energy sector.
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IMD: 59 per cent deficit in rainfall thus far
Thiruvananthapuram: The India Meteorological Department (IMD) has assessed the all-India area weighted rainfall deficit from June 1 to 15 at 59 per cent.

The actual recorded rainfall during the period was 25 mm against the normal 61.6 mm, the IMD said in its update on its Web site on Friday.

Of the 36 meteorological sub-divisions in the country, only three had recorded `excess' rainfall (+ 20 per cent or more). These are Andaman and Nicobar Islands (+29), south interior Karnataka (+20) and Rayalaseema (+33).

Tamil Nadu and Pondicherry (-1) and north interior Karnataka (+14) managed to register `normal' rainfall (between +19 and - 19). The rest reported deficient, scanty or no rain.

The update came on a day when a fresh pulse of the monsoon hit the Kerala coast, dumping some of the heaviest rains in recorded history.

In its forecast for the next 24 hours, the IMD has warned of isolated heavy rainfall in Kerala, Lakshadweep, coastal Karnataka, south Konkan and Goa, the north-eastern States and sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim.

According to the National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting, the monsoon has advanced over West Central and North Bay of Bengal, entire Nagaland, Manipur, Mizoram and Tripura, Arunachal Pradesh, Assam and Meghalaya and parts of sub-Himalayan West Bengal and Sikkim. The northern limit of the system passed through Panjim, Chitradurga, Anantapur, Kaveli and Gangtok on Friday.

Model prediction suggests it may progress further and cover more areas of sub-Himalayan West Bengal, Konkan and Goa, leading to the onset of monsoon over Mumbai and its neighbourhood during the next three days.
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Reconstituted Board of Trade sets up five working groups
New Delhi: The reconstituted Board of Trade has set up five working groups on evaluation of export promotion schemes, trade facilitation, export-oriented units (EOUs) and special economic zones (SEZs), infrastructure bottlenecks, identification of specific sectors and manufacturing sector to address the problems in each one these areas head-on.

The board, which met here under the Chairmanship of industrialist Kumar Mangalam Birla, also had an inter-face with the Prime Minister, Dr Manmohan Singh, at his residence to explain the problems plaguing exporters.

Birla stated that the Prime Minister has directed the various ministries to work towards removing roadblocks to exports, including infrastructure bottlenecks and the need for a flexible labour policy.

Birla has stipulated a timeframe of two months, i.e., by end-August, to present these reports to the Ministry of Commerce and Industry. The next meeting of the board, scheduled in September, would discuss the recommendations of the working groups.

On regional trading agreements and free trade agreements, it was decided that the Federation of Indian Chamber of Commerce & Industry would present a paper on the issues.

In his remarks at the meeting, Birla said that the board would look at exports as a national priority by addressing issues such as evolving the successor scheme to the Duty Entitlement Passbook Scheme, a duty neutralisation scheme for input taxes, reducing cost disabilities through elimination of transaction cost and the issue of non-tariff barriers.

He also underlined the importance of global retail sourcing, stating that as much as $15 billion worth of goods was sourced by Wal-Mart from China last year and said the board could consider what effective role India could play in attracting some of this.

Earlier, Kamal Nath urged the board to foster strategies to score a quantum leap in India's exports to a level of $500 billion by way of trade, including import and export of merchandise and services in the next four years. This would help fuel domestic economic activity, besides generating adequate job opportunities in labour-intensive sectors such as agriculture and manufacturing.
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Dabhol deadlock may be resolved soon
Mumbai: The Dabhol Power Project is likely to resume power generation in six months with the Maharashtra Government showing an inclination to buy 2,184 MW of power from it at Rs2.30 per unit at 80 per cent plant load factor. The Maharashtra Government announced this on Friday after a specially convened Cabinet meeting. The National Thermal Power Corporation will run the power plant.

To carry out the negotiations with the Union Government over the issue, a four-member secretary-level committee has been formed by the Maharashtra Government, which will be authorised to take all decisions.

The resumption of power supply from the Dabhol Power Project will bring in immense relief to Maharashtra, which is suffering from load shedding of over 3,000 MW.
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Inflation hits 13-month low of 4.22 per cent
New Delhi: Inflation hit a 13-month low of 4.22 per cent in the week ended June 4, with food items becoming cheaper along with some of the fuel and manufactured products.

The point-to-point Wholesale Price Index (WPI) inflation fell for the sixth consecutive week by almost one per cent from the previous week's 5.20 per cent. It was as high as 6.70 per cent in the year ago period. Reserve Bank Governor Y V Reddy recently said core inflation was still low in the country.

WPI rose by 0.2 per cent to 192.5 points due to increase in the index of fuel products, while there was fall in the indices of primary articles and manufactured products. The index was 184.7 points in the year ago period.

Government revised upwards inflation to 5.86 per cent during the week ended April 9 as compared to the provisional estimate of 5.48 per cent.

WPI stood corrected at 191.4 points in the second week of April as against provisional level of 190.7 points.
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Power Grid to enhance capacity to 12,000 MW
New Delhi: State-owned transmission utility Power Grid Corporation of India Ltd plans to enhance its grid infrastructure capacity to allow inter-regional transfers of around 12,000 MW by the end of this year, enabling additional regional transfers of around 2,500 MW.

The central transmission utility aims to take the inter-regional electricity transfer capacity to 30,000 MW by the end of the 11th Plan in 2012. The task of setting up this country-wide electricity grid, termed the National Grid project, will require an investment of nearly Rs70,000 crore. Power Grid will chip in with Rs50,000 crore, while the rest is expected to come from private players.

The 30,000-MW National Grid would help save about Rs52,000 crore which is necessary to add about 13,000 MW of generation capacity. To strengthen its transmission network, PowerGrid is also modernising its load dispatch centres, officials said.
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