Natwar takes on the PM
New Delhi: Former Union minister K Natwar Singh has moved a privilege notice against Prime Minister Manmohan Singh in the Rajya Sabha on the leak of the Pathak inquiry authority report. This was followed by all the major opposition parties, including the BJP and Samajwadi Party - the latter extends outside support to the ruling coalition - serving privilege notices against the Prime Minister in the two Houses of Parliament.

Natwar Singh stepped up efforts on Sunday (a day before the Union finance minister P Chidambaram tables the Pathak authority report along with the ATR in Parliament) to drum up across-the-board support for his strategy of pinning the government down on the manner in which the report had found its way into the media.

The former external minister, who, along with his son Jagat, finds himself in the dock for being a beneficiary of the Iraqi oil-for-food programme began the day by meeting Samajwadi Party general secretary Amar Singh, and followed it up by holding consultations, albeit separately, with CPI general secretary AB Bardhan, NDA convenor George Fernandes and, finally, BJP leader Yashwant Sinha.

Singh however, refused to divulge his future plans.

The Congress is caught in a predicament. Even though the former Union minister had served notice of his intentions, the party's strategists were still assessing the damage-inflicting potential of any drastic action they could initiate against him.
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Govt not to exercise control on steel, iron ore prices
New Delhi: The Government does not plan to introduce a mechanism to control the prices of steel and iron ore as they are deregulated and are governed by market forces, the Lok Sabha was informed by steel and mines minister Ram Vilas Paswan today.

In view of sufficient reserves of iron ore there was no proposal to completely ban the export of iron ore, he said in reply to a supplementary query. He pointed out that the total iron ore (haematite and magnetite) production in the country was 22,107.99 million tonnes.
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IT sector growth at 33 pc in 2005-06
New Delhi: According to business publication Dataquest, in its Top 20 survey 2006 said the software and services exports posted an upbeat growth of 36 per cent in fiscal 2006, touching a revenue base of Rs78,134 crore. The Indian IT exports also grew at 36 per cent touching revenue of Rs1,08,511 crore in 2006.

The publication said IT exports would maintain this growth rate in the coming years, with a growing number of Indian IT firms bagging or renewing high-value long-term service contracts. The domestic market also kept pace with exports and grew 28 per cent at Rs56,141 crore in the last fiscal.

Heading the list of the Top 20 Software and Services Exporters for 2005-06 was Tata Consultancy Services with revenues growing 40 per cent from 2004-05 to Rs11,595 crore. Close on the heels of TCS is Infosys, which increased 32 per cent at Rs8,977 cror e in 2005-06. BPO exports saw an increase of 37 per cent and earned revenues of Rs27,789 crore in 2005-06.

Hardware exports stood at Rs2,588 crore in fiscal 2006, up 7 per cent. PC sales increased 21 per cent to 4,052,241 units while laptop sales jumped 168 per cent to touch 588,592 units, the survey said.
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Govt may revise fertiliser prices
New Delhi: The government is considering revision of delivered prices for phosphatic and potassic (P&K) fertilisers along with the revision of freight charges of urea to lessen the impact of increased transportation costs said the minister of state of chemicals and fertilisers B K Handique in a written reply in Lok Sabha.

The minister also said under the new policy, provisions of New Pricing Scheme of urea units, there is a provision for revision in rates of primary freight on account of rail freight and annual increase/decrease in the wholesale price index of diesel for the road component.

He, however, said as the urea and the decontrolled P&K fertilisers were made available to farmers at statutorily notified maximum retal price (MRP) or indicative MRPs, the revision in freight has no financial implications for the farmers.
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