Mumbai airport operations unaffected post-blast
Mumbai: The bomb blasts on suburban trains in Mumbai have not had any impact on the tourism sector.

Officials at the Chattrapati Shivaji International Airport have said that there were no serious fluctuation in inbound or outbound traffic and that flight operations were as per schedule.

The domestic airport at Santa Cruz logged some ticket cancellations,, mainly owing to late arrivals at the airport. However, flights operated as usual.

Mumbai is an important gateway into the country, with some 40 lakh foreign tourists (nearly 50 per cent of total inbound tourists) entering India through the city.
Back to News Review index page  

K. Narayana to lead probe into GSLV-FO2 failure
Bangalore: K. Narayana, former director of ISRO's Satish Dhawan Space Centre, will head the failure analysis committee that will investigate the failure of the GSLV-F02 mission on July 10.

The launcher was scheduled to place a 2-tonne Insat-4C communications satellite in orbit, before it was destroyed mid-launch by ISRO after a malfunction.

Narayana, now senior adviser at the Centre, heads a 15-member team of experts from ISRO centres, academic and research institutions, a release said.

The team is expected to give its report in a month's time. The committee will review the performance of all sub-systems of the failed launcher right from its lift-off to the termination of the flight. It will also recommend measures for future course of action, the release said.

ISRO had to use the destruction command for the first time for a failed launcher when it went awry at 15 km height. According to the initial assessment of ISRO technicians, as reported in the media, one of the four strap-on boosters in the first stage lost pressure, proved a dud and failed to give it the required lift.
Back to News Review index page  

Chidambaram: Mumbai blasts will not hurt economic growth
New Delhi: Finance minister, P Chidambaram, said on Wednesday that the July 11 Mumbai blasts would not hurt economic growth and that the country's growth story was intact.

"These cowardly and dastardly attacks cannot break our will or resolve to move forward. India's growth story is intact," Chidambaram told reporters.

He said that foreign investors still have confidence in the Indian economy and should continue to repose faith on the economy.

He pointed out that the strong industrial and manufacturing growth indicated that the economy was driven by good domestic demand as well as exports. "As long as industry and manufacturing are strong, there is no need to worry", he said.

The Finance Minister also felt that the Mumbai blasts would not put a downward pressure on the Indian rupee.

The Government on Wednesday released data on industrial output performance for May. Aided by robust manufacturing growth in April-May, industrial production logged 9.8 per cent growth in the first two months of the current fiscal against 9.5 per cent recorded in the same period last year.

Manufacturing growth shot up by 10.9 per cent in April-May against 10.3 per cent in the same period last fiscal.
Back to News Review index page  

India Inc reposes faith in resilience of economy
New Delhi: India Inc has reposed faith in the resilience of the country's business and its economy.

The Confederation of Indian Industry president, R. Seshasayee, said, "We are shocked and grieved at the bomb blasts but we have complete faith in the resilience of the Indian people and the economy".

He also attributed the rupee's fall against the dollar on Wednesday to a wider fall in Asian currencies following the bomb blasts. "We expect no adverse impact on business," he said.

Expressing deep anguish over the incident, Bibek Debroy, secretary general, PHD Chamber of Commerce and Industry, said that the Indian economy has time and again proved its resilience.
Back to News Review index page  

No unbundling of BSNL, MTNL fixed lines for private players
New Delhi: The union minister for communications and information technology, Dayanidhi Maran, ruled out unbundling of fixed lines of BSNL and MTNL for the broadband network of private telecom players.

"Wireless is going to dominate the world and the cost of fixed line is more... unbundling will not work," he said on the sidelines of a seminar on cyber crimes organised by Nasscom on Wednesday.

Private telecom companies have been asking for permission to ride the wires of BSNL and MTNL to extend their broadband services, since the two public sector companies have a very wide fixed line network compared to the private companies.

Maran also said that the Indian Computer Emergency Response Team (CERT-In) is operational and is entering into collaborations with leading IT vendors in the country with a view to taking necessary help from them and provide security to the cyber community.

"CERT-In has been set up to provide instant response and all necessary help in the area of cyber and information technology security to cyber community in India," he said.
Giving an account of cyber crimes, he said Web sites with .co.in and .gov.in addresses mostly fall prey to attacks with about 1,400 Indian Web sites being attacked in the first half of this year alone.

Giving the size of the IT industry in the country as $30 billion, he said that it is expected to grow at the rate of 30 per cent annually. The number of Internet users in the country, currently at 40 million, is also expected to double in 2-3 years, he said.
Back to News Review index page  

Govt agrees to look into inverted duty structures
New Delhi: The finance ministry has agreed to look into three cases of inverted duty structure brought to the notice of the finance minister, P. Chidambaram, by apex industry associations.

Sources said that representations on inverted duty structures have been made in the areas of rubber goods industry (tyres), catalysts and chemical consumables for fibre manufacture, and synthetic fibres and yarn.

Inverted duty structure arises when the duty on the finished product is lower than the duty on raw materials.

According to industry representation, while the basic Customs duty on tyres is 12.5 per cent, the duty on natural rubber is 20 per cent. In the case of catalysts and chemical consumables for fibre manufacture, the duty is 12.5 per cent against 10 per cent on fibres.
Back to News Review index page