Left parties flex muscles on fuel price hike
New Delhi: Four Leftist parties have warned that any move by the Government. to revise the prices of petro products would lead to nationwide protests and even a general strike.

The leaders of the four parties - the CPI (M), the CPI, Forward Bloc and the RSP — met here on Thursday to discuss various issues ahead of the Left-UPA coordination committee later this month.

Speaking to presspersons after the meeting, the CPI (M) General-Secretary, Mr Prakash Karat, said that, "if the Government announces a hike in the prices of petrol and diesel, which is likely next week, then the Left parties and other organisations will come out spontaneously to oppose the move."

"We will contact other political parties and give a joint call for a nationwide protest action, including a general strike," he said.

Meanwhile, the Left parties have also decided to prepare a comprehensive note on the two-year performance of the UPA Government.
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IT/ITeS exports up 33 pc at $24bn
New Delhi: India's IT and IT-enabled services (ITeS) exports registered a growth of 33 per cent to touch revenues of $23.6bn during 2005-06, against $17.7bn it had racked up last year. The growth rate is also marginally higher than the 32 per cent registered in 2004-05.

IT and BPO exports are, however, projected to grow at relatively lower rate of 27-30 per cent during 2006-07 and are expected to bring in about $29-31bn in revenues.

According to the National Association of Software and Services Companies (Nasscom), the projection for a lower growth rate for the current financial year is on account of the rising export base.

Against a forecast of 26-27 per cent growth, the overall software and services (which includes exports and domestic market) grew by over 31 per cent at $29.6 billion in 2005-06. The domestic market revenues grew to $6 billion in 2005-06, from $4.8 billion in the previous year.
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NH network widened with eight new road stretches
Chennai: Eight new stretches of roads, with a total length of 1,551 km, have now been added to the national highways network, as per a notification to that effect by the Union Government.

The eight stretches of national highways, which were earlier under the charge of the respective state governments, are culturally important, and rich in trade and commerce, according to the Union minister of shipping, road transport and highways, T.R. Baalu.

The new national highways are Eastern Peripherals Expressway around Delhi (134 km), Srinagar-Leh Road (422 km), Thanjavur-Manamadurai (144 km), Tiruchi-Chidambaram (135 km), Ahmedabad-Dandi (374 km), Lucknow-Rae Bareily-Allahabad (185 km), Burdwan-Bolpur (52 km) and Delhi-Akbarpur-Jadunathpur-Bihar/UP border (105 km), he said.

The Ahmedabad-Dandi stretch is famous for the Dandi Yatra undertaken by Mahatma Gandhi and the Burdwan-Bolpur is famous for the presence of Santiniketan.

Similarly, the Tiruchi-Chidambaram national highway has a number of heritage temples, Baalu told newspersons.

On the 5,846 km Golden Quadrilateral project, which connects the four metro cities of Delhi, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata passing through 13 states, Baalu said the Delhi-Mumbai corridor was complete.

Over 91 per cent of the Golden Quadrilateral project (5,319 km) was complete as of April 2006, and this would inch up to 96 per cent by December. The remaining four per cent suffers from litigation and problems arising out of contracts.
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Centre meets revised fiscal deficit target
New Delhi: The Centre has met its revised fiscal deficit target of 4.1 per cent of the gross domestic product (GDP) for 2005-06, announced in this year's Budget.

In absolute terms, the fiscal deficit in 2005-06 stood at Rs1,46,348 crore, marginally higher than the revised estimate target of Rs1,46,175 crore.

According to the data released by the Controller-General of Accounts (CGA), revenue deficit for 2005-06 stood at Rs94,644 crore, which is higher than the revised estimate of Rs91,821 crore.

In percentage terms, revenue deficit as a percentage of GDP stood at 2.7 per cent, higher than the revised estimate of 2.6 per cent.
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TRAI: Deploy wireless technologies for broadband growth
New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has urged the Communications ministry to implement the fiscal measures as envisaged in the Broadband Policy announced in 2004.

Pointing out that the broadband growth has been way below the target, it has also asked the Government to delicense the radio frequencies that can be used for deploying wireless technologies such as Wi-Max.

TRAI has also indicated that last mile local loop unbundling of the copper network owned by Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd may not be necessary and the Government should instead promote wireless technologies.

"The length of copper loops in rural and remote areas is also very large thus making them unsuitable for provision of broadband service supporting digital subscribers link. The deployment of wireless technologies for the provision of broadband services would be an appropriate step ," said the TRAI letter.
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