News makers:

Mr. Natarajan will however, continue to be associated with the operations of BConnectBWorldwide Ltd., a subsidiary of Aptech Limited as a director. The Board has appointed Mr. Pramod Khera, executive director as acting chief executive of the company. Mr. Abhay Sinha, executive vice president will be the acting head of the software business.

Mr. Narayana Murthy chosen " Businessman of the Year"
New Delhi: Mr. Narayana Murthy, chairman and CEO of Infosys Technologies Ltd. has been chosen as Business Standard's "Businessman of The Year." Mr. Narayana Murthy emerged as the number one choice in a poll conducted by the business daily paper early this month. As many as 10 CEOs of top BS 1000 companies were shortlisted for the poll and the senior editorial staff of Business Standard judged them on the criteria of leadership, vision, commitment to corporate governance, new forays and creation of shareholders' value.

26 February 2001

Mr. JJ Irani seeks 'reasonable' tariff under post-QR regime
New Delhi: Mr. JJ Irani, Tata Steel managing director has said that the government should impose `reasonable' tariffs on items, which would be freely imported from April this year.

A reasonable rate of tariff should be imposed on items, which would be removed from the quantitative restriction (QR) list," Dr Irani has opined.

He however, observed that while the industry was in favour of frequent imposition of anti-dumping duties on Chinese goods, it could not be denied that these goods are highly competitive in terms of low prices and reasonable quality. Chinese goods on an average were 40 per cent cheaper than similar ones produced in India and to face such stiff import competition, an appropriate macro-environment had to be provided by the government, Mr. Irani has said.