India and China to hold boundary talks today
New Delhi: Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao will meet his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh in New Delhi today and is expected to hold path-breaking talks on the age-old boundary issue.

On Sunday, National Security Advisor M K Narayanan met the Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Dai Bingguo in the Capital and finalised documents for the guiding principles on the boundary dispute.

According to reports, the Prime Ministers of both the countries will sign the agreement today.
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Wen: Enhanced IT ties to give India and China global leadership
Bangalore: Visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has said that cooperation between India and China in the IT industry will help the two nations lead the world in information technology.

"If India and China cooperate in the IT industry, we will be able to lead the world IT industry. And when the particular day comes, it will signify the coming of the Asian century in the IT industry," Wen said in an interaction with executives of India's biggest software exporter Tata Consultancy Services in Bangalore.

Asserting his India trip as a "very important visit," Wen said, "Cooperation is just like two pagodas - one hardware and one software. Combined we can take the leadership position in the world".
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Chip design: China looks for Indian expertise
Bangalore: Visiting Chinese Premier Wen Jiabao has stressed the need for China to improve its software expertise, but more importantly a need to collaborate with India in the chip space, in an interaction with government officials last night.

Most of the world's biggest chip makers like Texas Instruments, Intel and AMD have their R and D units in India, which design their next generation chips.

It is not just costs, but also the availability of quality manpower that design and build software for the chips, used in diverse fields as consumer electronics to missiles and rockets.

China is one of the few countries which has chip fabricating units in the world.
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CII study: Diversify exports to China
New Delhi: The Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) has called for the diversification of exports to China in order to attain $20-billion trade between the two countries by 2010 as compared to $13.6 billion in 2004.

According to a CII study, special focus needs to be put on investment and trade in services and knowledge-based sectors, besides the traditional manufacturing sector. Trade between the two countries reached $13.6 billion in 2004 compared to $7.6 billion in 2003.

The study says that Indian companies could enter the Chinese domestic market of $615 billion by using China as a production base. There is potential for growth in biotechnology, IT and IT-enabled services, health, education, tourism and the financial sector.

India must shift its focus from primary exports to the export of high value-added products, according to the CII study. Marine products, oilseeds, salt, inorganic chemicals, organic chemicals, tanning/dyeing extracts, plastic and plastic articles, rubber and rubber articles, electrical machinery, engineering goods and machine tools, optical and medical equipment, and dairy products are some of the products with export potential identified by the chamber.
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Kamal Nath: Trade deficit not a cause of concern
New Delhi: The Government has said that imports were being leveraged to push up exports, especially in the manufacturing sector, as in China and has set aside fears that the widening trade deficit was a cause for concern.

Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath has said in an interview that the country has to leverage imports in order to push up the country's exports, and this in turn generates incremental employment. The minister said that increased imports was helping the manufacturing sector and was also generating employment.

Nath pointed out that with $105 billion imports in 2004-05, India's total trade was $185 billion, which meant substantial engagement in global trade. He also said that in order to step up economic activity in the country, an increased trade volume was necessary.

Oil imports of $29 billion were partly a contributory factor for the widening deficit, he said.
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Manmohan Singh in Time magazine's most influential list
New Delhi: Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, US President George W Bush and Chinese President Hu Jintao have been named among the 100 most influential people of the world by the prestigious American magazine 'Time'.

The 'Time 100' list, featured in the latest issue of the magazine, also includes Tibetan leader the Dalai Lama, former US President Bill Clinton, Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, Palestinian leader Mahmood Abbas, Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, African National Congress President Thabo Mbeki, US Defence Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice and North Korean leader Kim Jong II.

Singh is described as a man of "deep humanity and breadth of vision who inspires widespread confidence" in a biographical sketch written by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen.

"The man in the blue turban, despite his great success, has remained approachable and ready to listen and instinctively sympathetic to the underdogs of society," he says.

"Can an astute economist, a famous professor and a superb civil servant also be an outstanding Prime Minister? Can someone without a populist political base be secure as the head of a democratic government? Can a country in which more than 80 per cent of the people are Hindus be comfortable with a blue-turbaned Sikh Prime Minister in addition to a Muslim President and a Christian leader of the ruling party?" Sen asks.

"If the answer to all those questions is yes (as seems plausible enough), that says something not only about the nature of India but also about Manmohan Singh's deep humanity and breadth of vision, which inspires widespread confidence," writes Sen.

As Finance Minister in the early to mid-'90s, Singh, 72, was the pioneering leader of India's economic reforms, which restrained the all-powerful Indian bureaucrat. The reforms sought and found a significant place for India in the global economy.

"And yet, given the asymmetric sharing of the fruits of expansion, the subsequent government's proud but insensitive slogan, 'India shining,' was a peculiarly divisive theme.

"Who better, then, than the architect of the pro-market reforms to take the country's reins and emphasize the need for a less unequal distribution, and the urgency of supplementing a flourishing market economy by strengthening social services and the societal infrastructure," he adds.
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Harkishen Singh Surjeet steps down as CPI (M) Gen. Sec.
New Delhi: The CPI (M) Politburo has accepted Harkishen Singh Surjeet's request to step down as the party General Secretary.

The election for the post will be held on Monday, and Prakash Karat is most likely to replace Surjeet as the General Secretary. The decision comes close on the heels of the party's 18th congress, where Surjeet was seen making way for Karat.
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TRAI: Tele-density at 9.08
New Delhi: The subscriber base of private telecom operators is slated to cross that of State-owned companies Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd and Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Ltd by December according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI). In a performance report for 2004-05, TRAI has said that the ratio of subscriber base of private sector companies to that of public sector companies is 46:54.

The regulator said the number of telephone lines in the country is expected to cross the 100-million mark at the end of this month.
The tele-density during the year increased 1.91 per cent to touch 9.08, compared to 7.17 at the end of the previous year. The growth in tele-density in the 50 years from 1948 to 1998 was only 1.92 per cent.

During 2004-05, the subscriber base of Internet service increased from 4.55 million to 5.65 million showing a 25-per cent growth.
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