India joins the 100-million mobile club
New Delhi: India now has more than 100 million mobile subscribers and has become the fifth country in the world to have these many subscribers. China has the highest number of mobile users in the world at 404 million. The US with 185 million subscribers, Japan 150 million, and Russia 140 million mobile users are the other countries ahead of India. Germany, Italy, the UK and Brazil are the countries behind India in the top-10 list. India crossed the 100-million milestone at the end of May when operators added close to 4.2 million new mobile users.

India is the second fastest with 4 million new users being added every month on an average while China is the fastest growing and added close to 24 million new mobile users since January 2006.
The government has now set a target of reaching 500 million telephone subscribers by 2010.
Back to News Review index page  

Nepal invites FDI from India
New Delhi: Nepal has invited Indian businesses to explore investment opportunities in the areas of hydro electricity, tourism and labour intensive manufacturing, among others.

The finance minister of Nepal, Dr Ram Sharan Mahat, said that peace has returned to his country and Nepal now offers a safe and violence-free business environment to the trade community. The Minister said that Nepal's attention is now focussed on increased investment. The process of economic reforms and the environment for foreign direct investment will be made more conducive, he said.
Back to News Review index page  

Duty lifted on imported pulses
New Delhi: The Indian Government has lifted the 10 per cent duty on pulses imported through major ports to help keep domestic prices in check, a government statement said.

The exemption will run until March 31, 2007 and will apply only to pulses arriving at ports with the capacity to handle bulk imports, it said.
Back to News Review index page  

35 non-metro airports to be privatised
New Delhi: The government has started the process of privatising 35 non-metro airports across the country, even as it left out the Chennai and Kolkata airports from the overall modernisation exercise.

Civil aviation ministry officials said the plan for the non-metro airports envisaged a maximum foreign direct investment of 74 per cent and kept runways out of the ambit of privatisation.

The government plans to hand over the modernisation contracts to joint ventures, which are to only take up terminal and city-side development.

In the model followed for the privatisation of the Delhi and Mumbai airports, FDI has been capped at 49 per cent, with runways too handed over to the private parties executing modernisation.

At the non-metro airports, however, the runways will be taken care of by the Airports Authority of India (AAI), which will also manage air traffic control.

Civil Aviation minister Praful Patel said after a meeting of the Prime Minister's Committee on Infrastructure that the partners for the development plans would be decided through a competitive bidding process and would require an investment of over Rs7,500 crore. The 35 airports would be taken up in one go, with tenders for the purpose to be issued shortly, he told reporters. The entire exercise would be completed by 2008-09.
Back to News Review index page