Inflation crosses the 5 per cent mark
New Delhi: Inflation crossed the 5 per cent mark for the week ended August 26 mainly due to increase in the prices of food articles including vegetables and wheat. The wholesale price-based inflation rose 5.01 per cent during the week under review from 4.91 per cent in the previous week and 3.33 per cent during the corresponding week last year.
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"India, China trade can overtake world trade":Sibal
Beijing: "India and China can overtake world trade," said visiting Union minister for science & technology and earth sciences, Kapil Sibal in his keynote address at the inauguration of the fourth 'Made in India' and India-Tech show organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), in partnership with the Indian embassy here.

He said India was strong on innovation while China's capacities and capabilities are huge. The two countries together would present a potent force, he said.
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Australia seeks Indian investments
New Delhi: Delegations from two Australian cities, Melbourne and Ballarat have held interactive meetings here with leading investors and highlighted possibilities that they offer.

At the interactive session organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), the delegation from Melbourne, led by councilor Fiona Snedden, discussed possible collaborations in information and communications technology (ICT), mining, manufacturing and entertainment and also offered assistance in the run-up to the 2010 Commonwealth Games being hosted here.

With the success of Bollywood film "Salaam Namaste" shot in Melbourne, joint ventures in film production, related software and post-production were highlighted among areas of cooperation.
Another team from the city of Ballarat, led by the city's mayor councillor David Vendy, focused on small and medium industries, ICT, education and food processing.

A gold-rush town, Ballarat is one of Australia's largest inland cities and home to several large ICT companies such as Telstra, Neighbourhood Cable, Chariot NetConnect and IBM Global Services as well as leading processed foods companies.

In March this year, Ballarat had hosted a business delegation led by the CII to Australia coinciding with the Commonwealth Games in Melbourne.

The City of Ballarat and CII recently signed a memorandum of understanding under which they would partner in the India Global Summit on SMEs in the capital from Nov 22-23. The event would be organised by CII in association with the Indian ministry of small scale industries.
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New I-T Act in place by 2008-09
New Delhi: India will have a new income tax act in place from the assesment year 2008-09, Union finance minister, P Chidambaram said.

A government-appointed group formed to study simplification of laws relating to income tax has recommended removal of redundant provisions and the use of simple language for understanding the laws. It has also submitted the 'Report on Simplification of Income Tax Act, 1961' to Chidambaram and the government will now decide on further action, an official statement said.

The report combines all existing direct taxes like income tax, wealth tax, fringe benefit tax etc, into one code 'Direct Taxes Code Bill 2006'. For better understanding of the law, the group has taken recourse to simple language — minus the usual legalese. It has made efforts to remove existing anomalies and inconsistencies to enable easy implementation and ensure better compliance.

The concepts of 'previous year' and 'assessment year' have been replaced with 'financial year'. Chidambaram had announced in his Budget speech of 2005 that the Income Tax Act would be simplified and a new Bill would be introduced in Parliament, following which the group was constituted to simplify and rationalise the law relating to income tax.
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Andhra Pradesh, Maharashtra lead in SEZs
New Delhi: The Board of Approval in the commerce ministry has so far given final clearances to 150 SEZs and in-principle nod to another 117 zones across the country.

27 SEZs have received the final approval in Andhra Pradesh, while Maharashtra is a close second with 26, followed by 20 in Tamil Nadu, 19 in Karnataka, 13 in Gujarat and 8 in Haryana, according to data compiled by the ministry.

States in the northern, eastern and north-eastern region are lagging far behind. In fact, there is no zone proposed in the seven north-eastern states of Assam, Nagaland, Mizoram, Meghayala, Manipur, Arunachal Pradesh and Tripura.

Other states that draw a blank in the list of SEZs given final approval include Orissa, Himachal Pradesh, Chhattisgarh, Sikkim, Bihar and Jammu and Kashmir.

For in-principle approval, Haryana is at the top with 23 proposed zones . Maharashtra has 19 SEZs awaiting an in-principle nod, followed by 15 in Karnataka, 9 in Uttar Pradesh and 7 each in Gujarat, Punjab and Tamil Nadu. In terms of area, Haryana has the country's biggest proposed zones. Gujarat is also getting a large number of bigger-sized multi-product zones, followed by Maharashtra.
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