India and China reopen Silk Route
Gangtok: In a historic event India and China will soon resume border trade through the Nathu La pass located in Sikkim 44 years after the Indo-China war that led to a closing of the ancient route.

Businessmen from Tibet and Sikkim will be able to cross over into each other's territory through the border post at Nathu La and trade at newly built marts on either side. The Nathu La pass is part of the historic Silk Road -- a network of roads that connected ancient China with India, Western Asia and Europe. The opening of the Pass comes soon after Beijing linked the Tibetan capital of Lhasa with railway and is seen as another move by China to help modernise the long-isolated region.

Nathu La border trade markets will not only benefit border inhabitants in both countries and promote local openness and development, but also further motivate and open up a new channel for the blooming China-India trade relations said Chinese officials. Nathu La, at an altitude of 4,310 metres (14,200 feet), is the third border trading point to be opened by the two sides. It is considered the most significant as it controlled almost 80 percent of the entire trade between India and China before it was closed in 1962.

Trade between India and China since the thawing of relations between the two countries in the past couple of years has been soaring. It touched $18.7 billion in 2005, a growth of 37.5 percent over the previous year. This year, it is expected to reach $22-23 billion.

Today, border exchanges accounts for a paltry $100 million of total trade with the rest being accounted for by sea and air. Official border trade could touch $3 billion by 2015 through Nathu La alone if the two countries build good roads, develop infrastructure in the region and lift restrictions on goods that can be traded through the route.
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Mumbai thrown out of gear
Mumbai: Five days of continuous rains for the past five days have left the Indian financial capital out of gear.

Local train services have been disrupted leaving commuters stranded and unable to reach office on time. The main runway in the Mumbai airport was closed for two hours from 2 p.m. to 4 p.m. on Wednesday for repairs causing further delay and cancellation of flight services. Banks, corporate offices of several companies in Bandra-Kurla complexes as well as south Mumbai reported thin attendance, for the second day today.

Cargo handling operations at Mumbai port have been badly affected and port officials said the average daily volume of cargo handled in the last three days has come down to 5,000 tonnes as against the normal volume of 25,000-30,000 tonnes. Mumbai port mainly handles bulk cargo such as sugar, pulses and iron and steel. The situation at the Jawaharlal Nehru port, which only handles containerised cargo, was much better. An official said there was only a marginal drop in the volume of containers handled at the port.
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Defence wants spectrum for Wi-Max, 3G networks
New Delhi: The Defence establishment has sought exclusive spectrum band for deploying Wi-Max technology in its communication network and the armed forces have also sought radio frequency for third generation (3G) network, for high-speed data transmission. This will create a further crunch for commercial cellular operators who were banking on the Defence vacating some of the radio frequency it is currently using. Lack of adequate spectrum, especially for high-speed broadband services like 3G and Wi-Max, result in poor quality for users.

The defence has made these demands in response to the paper on spectrum allocation for 3G services from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. To tide over the resulting shortage in spectrum for commercial use, the armed forces have told TRAI that the number of mobile operators offering 3G services should be restricted to a maximum of four.
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Sugar prices may fall due to export ban
Kolkata: Sugar prices are expected to temporarily drop following the government's decision to stop issuing fresh sugar export licences till March 31. At the moment the industry is awaiting clarification on whether the ban applies to even those deals for which letters of credit have been issued.

Industry officials said prices are expected to drop by Rs1,000-1,500 a tonne, but may again go up as at present there is no excess sugar in the country.

A notification by the Directorate General of Foreign Trade on Wednesday said sugar exports will not be allowed until the end of March 2007.

India's sugar production in 2005-06 (October-September) was estimated at 19 million tonnes and in 2006-07 at around 22 million tonnes. Under the advance licence scheme, Indian sugar mills need to export about 2 million tonnes of white sugar in lieu of raw sugar imported earlier.

In 2004-05, mills imported 2 million tonnes of raw sugar and have to export an equivalent quantity by September 2007.

However, most mills have already been exporting sugar and reaping profits as international prices are higher than domestic rates.
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WB govt to close down 18 state PSUs, revamp four
Kolkata: The West Bengal government plans to restructure four unviable state PSUs according to Industry Minister Nirupam Sen.

The four companies were Westinghouse Saxby Farmer, Gluconate, Britannia Engineering and Durgapur Chemicals. The state government has decided to close down 18 non-viable state PSUs as it massive investment was required to upgrade them. About 5,973 employees of these PSUs had availed the volutary retirement scheme.

He said under joint venture transformation of PSUs, the job has been completed in three out of 12 PSUs.

The minister said a comprehensive package under an Early Retirement Scheme (ERS) has been designed for employees of closed state PSUs.
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BTPS to be revamped
Guwahati: The Bongaigaon Thermal Power Station (BTPS), which has been shut for a long time will be revamped and would start production within next three years to ease the current power crisis in Assam.

A memorandum was signed between the Centre and National Thermal Power Corporation (NTPC) last week to revive the BTPS, which will start producing 750 mw of power in three years time.

State government officials said Assam's dependency on hydel power is very high, which becomes scarce due to lack of rainfall for more than four months in a year. With this in mind the government had mooted to set up thermal power units at Tinsukia and Karimganj under public private partnership, for which tenders would be issued.
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Cancel Reliance SEZ deal, demands INLD
Chandigarh: Opposition party Indian National Lok Dal (INLD) in Haryana has demanded immediate cancellation of the recent deal of the state government with Reliance Industries led by Mukesh Ambani. It has also demanded a high level probe into the agreement for the setting up of the SEZ.

Last month Reliance Industries signed a deal with Haryana State Industrial and Infrastructure Development Corporation (HSIIDC) to set up an Rs25,000 crore special economic zone in Gurgaon district that would boast of a dedicated airport and a 2,000 megawatt captive power plant.

RIL besides pumping the Rs25,000 crore into the SEZ, is seeking additional investment from third parties totaling Rs1,00,000 crore.

The deal has raised a political storm in the state. The main opposition party INLD, the BJP and ruling Congress MP from Bhiwani, Kuldeep Bishnoi are demanding a scrapping of the deal and are alleging foul play and serious irregularities in the deal.

A delegation led by party secretary general Ajay Singh Chautala has submitted a memorandum to Governor A R Kidwai demanding scrapping the deal alleging that the SEZ had been handed over to the Reliance Group without following the rules and regulations or adopting the competitive bids as there were a number of other interested parties also.

The memorandum pointed out that HSIDC was the first to get permission for setting up of the SEZ for which it also procured 1,715 acres of land in Gurgaon which has now been given to the Reliance Haryana SEZ project without any open bidding or tender process.

The INLD said that the land has been given at the rate ranging between Rs15 lakh and Rs21 lakh whereas the market price is between Rs six crore to Rs72.50 crore per acre. This would result in a substantial loss to the farmers of the state who have been paid very little compensation.

The land allotted to reliance is not for setting up any industry, it said adding that the group would work as a real estate agent and it would further sell land to others who would set up units in the SEZ.
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