Government identifies Pak, Egypt, Iran for increased tea exports
Kolkata: Pakistan, Egypt and Iran have been classified by the government as the most important non-traditional countries for boosting tea exports.

Jairam Ramesh, Union Minister of State for Commerce said all efforts would be made to step up tea exports to Pakistan to over 30 million kg (mkg) annually in the next few years from the current 14 mkg. Pakistan consumed an estimated 140 mkg of tea annually and half of it was imported from Kenya.

He said India would be interested in buying more cotton molasses and other things from Pakistan.

Tea exports to Egypt in 2006 jumped by one mkg to touch 1.5 mkg, he said and indicated that there was a proposal to launch a tea marketing centre in Cairo by way of a partnership between the Tea Board and tea industry.

He said India, the largest producer of tea, suffered from low productivity because 38 per cent of the gardens were more than 50 years old. Between 1971 and 2005, only about 2400 ha per annum on an average was brought under replanting and rejuvenation.
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Rlys to increase scope of freight operating information system
New Delhi: The Railways may put 600 more stations under the implementation of the freight operating information system (FOIS) in the next fiscal from the current level of over 500.

The system enables freight customers to obtain information regarding the status of their consignments in transit on a real-time basis.

Currently, only those locations are connected to the system, which handle over ten rakes per month. The proposal is to connect other locations - which handle over five rakes per month with the system, according to official sources.

FOIS has two modules — the rake management system for handling trains and terminal management system pertaining to the commercial transactions at loading and unloading stations.

The operating system enables monitoring all freight trains indicating their position on the Web and their expected time of arrival at the destination.

It also helps generate reports that show commodity-wise flow of freight trains for customers such as power houses, refineries, fertilisers and cement plants, steel depots and public freight terminals enabling the recipients of consignments to have accurate information on cargo arrivals, giving them adequate time to complete preparatory arrangement to handle the cargo.
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Railways to enter into deals with big retailers
New Delhi: The Indian Railways will soon enter into partnerships with big retailers and is preparing a draft policy outlining the modalities of partnership. The retailers include the likes of Mukesh Ambani-owned Reliance Industries (RIL), Kishore Biyani's Future Group, Sunil Mittal's Bharti, Tatas and Adanis with which the Railways will set up agri-retail hubs, cold storage houses, multi-purpose warehouses on excess land in cities and villages with .There would soon be a high-level meeting between the Railways and the private players who have submitted their expression of interests for the second round of container train allotment on January 15.

RIL, Kribcho and Cargill have bid for the second round of the container business. The Railways hope to earn at least Rs 1,500 crore in the second round as licence fees, as compared to the first round where they just managed to earn Rs 540 crore through 14 private operators. This time, they are expecting a turnout of at least 30.

The retail and container business is expected to bring in good revenues to the Railways. As far as containers are concerned, the railway hopes to carry 100 million tones of goods in 10 years, while retail would be a de-risking model.
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Ahluwalia asks Indian diaspora to help finalise 11th Five Year Plan
New Delhi: Montek Singh Ahluwalia the Planning Commission's deputy chairman has invited experts in the Indian diaspora to form a working group and give inputs for finalizing the 11th Five Year Plan.

Ahluwalia said liberal economic policies did not mean that planning had become irrelevant and added that now planning is about identifying government's own priorities. Ahluwalia said the public sector could play a significant role in setting up various projects in backward areas where private sector may not reach.

He said the 11th five-year plan has identified four major areas of focus: agriculture, infrastructure, health and education.
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Optic fibre gateway opened up to Nepal
New Delhi: BSNL has opened its optical fibre gateways to Nepal allowing the country to connect its telecom, IT and internet networks to other countries through the company's network.

Nepal has been dependant on expensive satellite communication for telecom and IT data transfer and this would result in more than 75 pc drop in current bandwidth rates.

Nepal will also getting ready to sign a similar deal with Bharti Airtel, for an additional 34 Mbps of bandwidth and for using is fibre network to connect to other countries. This is likely to lead to lead to a further drop in internet rates in the country to about a fifth of the current tariffs.

Additionally, Nepal will also be able to set up its proposed superhighway for cross-country data transfer, as bandwidth from BSNL and Bharti will help reduce costs of internet services, making it affordable and accessible for its citizens to connect to the national network.
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Animation, gaming to cross $1-billion mark in three years
Hyderabad: The Indian animation and gaming industry is forecast the $1-billion mark by 2010 from the current revenues of $402 million mostly due to huge domestic demand for animated content and online/mobile gaming.

According to Nasscom's animation and gaming industry 2007 report, though a major proportion of workforce in the animation gaming industry is involved in the outsourcing segment, going forward, the share of the domestic market is expected to grow. Increased mobile and broadband penetration along with introduction of new generation consoles is expected to drive growth for the nascent $48-million industry. Similarly, the report notes, success of several Bollywood movies like Krrish, Dhoom 2 and fully animated Hanuman has pushed up demand for animated content in the domestic market.

Gaming is expected to witness a 72 per cent CAGR to touch $424 million by 2010 while animation is projected to grow at 25 per cent CAGR from current revenues of $354 million. The global animation market is estimated at $59 billion in 2006 while the gaming industry is pegged at $21 billion, the report said.

The Nasscom report proposes government support to the animation and gaming industry in terms of assistance in manpower development, infrastructure and industry status akin to what is practiced in countries like France, Singapore, China, Korea, Canada and the Philippines.
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