Internet telephony in India by April 2002
New Delhi: The communications minister, Mr. Ram Vilas Paswan, announced that Internet telephony would be brought into this country by April 2002, two years ahead of the earlier plan to bring it in by 2004.

Currently banned in the country, voice telephony over the internet is expected to drastically bring down costs of long distance telephony. This decision is understood to have come out after a high-powered panel advising Prime Minister Atal Bihari Vajpayee on economic issues had in a recent report suggested that the government should consider allowing voice telephony over the Net to bring down the costs for users significantly.
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Rupee falls to new low
Mumbai: On the back of heavy demand from banks and companies, the rupee fell 24 paise today, thus continuing its downward spiral for the second day in a row. The rate thus reached a new intra-day low of 46.95/96.

In early trades, the rupee had slid to Rs 46.94 before the State Bank of India is said to have stepped in to sell dollars. As the rupee started recovering, a large European bank is said to have entered the fray at 46.88-89 levels.

Foreign institutional investors’ (FIIs) inflow had exceeded $1.8 billion. But the beginning of this week saw the FIIs turn net sellers. These figures worried dealers into thinking that the FIIs were pulling out their investments on the back of profit warnings by the software sector.
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