Agreement on Iran gas pipeline close: Pakistan
Islamabad: Pakistan's prime minister Shaukat Aziz said the country was close to signing a pricing formula with India and Iran on building a much-delayed $7-billion pipeline to bring gas from Iran to South Asia.

Aziz told a gathering of oil and gas industry officials in Islamabad that the countries were very close to agreeing on the tariff. "We are in a very advanced stage and I think we are very optimistic," he said.

Aziz said he believed a gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan to India was the easiest of several options to pipe gas to the sub-continent.

A proposal to build the pipeline has been on the drawing board for years but have been delayed have prevented by uneasy relations between Pakistan and India.

Industry officials said the three countries are likely to sign an agreement on pricing in June, which would be based on a price framework suggested by a British consultant Gaffney, Cline and Associates, which has recommended linking the gas price to the average of the six-month Japanese crude basket preceding the month of delivery.

The United States, at odds with Iran over its nuclear programme, opposes the pipeline project.
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Indo-Pak Samjhauta Express train blast kills at least 64
New Delhi: At least 64 passengers have died aboard the Samjhauta Express, the 'peace train' linking India and Pakistan, after two bombs exploded. According to a statement made by the chief secretary of the Haryana state government, Prem Prashant, most of the casualties are Pakistani citizens.

The explosions occurred at Panipat, in the State of Haryana, about 80 km north of the Indian capital, in the early hours of Monday morning.

The casualties also include some Indian security personnel. Some reports indicate that up to three Railway Protection Forcde personnel may have perished in the act of terror.

Indian officials have described the attack as an apparent attempt to undermine the peace process between the nuclear-armed neighbours. It may be mentioned that the incident comes days before the Pakistani foreign minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri is due for a visit to New Delhi for talks with Indian leaders to push forward the peace process.

According to reports, two other unexploded homemade bombs were also found on the train and the track. According to the police, though the explosions were relatively small the idea was to cause a fire in at least four of the train's coaches.

"It's sabotage -- it's an act of terrorism like the one in Mumbai," Railways Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav told reporters in Patna, referring to serial bomb blasts in Mumbai last July that had killed 186 people. Interestingly, the attack has also occurred just days before the fifth anniversary of a fire on a train that killed 59 people in Godhra in Gujarat, and sparked communal riots in that State.

Meanwhile the Pakistani government has said that it was in touch with Indian authorities. It has confirmed that most of the dead were Pakistani citizens. The Samjhauta Express train, connects New Delhi to the northern Pakistani city of Lahore. The Samjhauta Express was carrying around 527 passengers.
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SAARC businessmen ask India to outsource work
Mumbai: A chief beneficiary of the global outsourcing phenomenon India would have faced a piquant situation after Pakistani and Bangladeshi business representatives at the second SAARC Business Leaders' Conclave here asked that India should outsource work to its neighbours.

At a session on outsourcing, business representatives of Pakistan and Bangladesh said India could outsource work to avail of competitive rates. Media Star Bangladesh chairman Latifur Rahman also mentioned that inter-SAARC outsourcing was negligible.

Lead speaker at the conclave, Kaushik Basu from Cornell University, an expert on outsourcing, did make it a appoint to mention in his presentation that "outsourcing should be where it is most competitive."

It is estimated that 50 per cent of global outsourcing work comes to India and that this activity may be experiencing a high growth of 50 per cent year-on-year.
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