President's rule in Bihar as Paswan refuses to budge
New Delhi: The Union Cabinet is all set to endorse Bihar Governor Buta Singh's recommendation for president's rule in the state, with Lok Janshakti Party President Ram Vilas Paswan refusing to endorse support for either the UPA or NDA allies in forming the government. Paswan has emerged as the kingmaker in Bihar, post elections with a tally of twenty nine seats.

Both the UPA and NDA alliances have fallen short of the 122 figure, required to form the government.

Pressure is now being mounted, on both the LJP and the Congress, by the RJD by advancing the logic that since Paswan is a member of the UPA at the centre he should be forced to support the formation of a secular government in Bihar.

President's Rule has to be cleared by the Parliament and can last for at least six months. This may provide a chance to the politicians to get their act together and give Bihar a new government.
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Marginal rise in fiscal deficit
New Delhi: Fiscal deficit rose marginally by 1.7 per cent to Rs1,03,801 crore till January during 2004-05. Fiscal deficit in the first ten months constituted 75.5 per cent of the budget estimate of Rs1,37,407 crore for the entire 2004-05, as per the figures released by Controller General of Accounts.

In his budget, Finance Minister P Chidambaram has revised fiscal deficit estimate upwards to 4.5 per cent of GDP for 2004-05. In absolute terms, fiscal deficit of Rs1,03,801 crore till January 2005 was marginally higher than Rs1,02,042 crore during the same period last fiscal.

Revenue deficit at Rs79,622 crore during April-January surpassed the budgeted estimates of Rs76,171 crore for the entire 2004-05. However, revenue deficit of this fiscal was lower than Rs86,483 crore during April-January 2003-04.

While Centre's total spendings till January stood at Rs3,68,340 crore, its receipts were at Rs2,64,539 crore. Tax collections was higher by 18 per cent at Rs1,54,663 crore till January 2004-05. However, the tax mop up in the ten months of the previous fiscal was only 66.1 per cent of the budget estimate of Rs2,33,906 crore.
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CII survey: India Inc positive about GDP growth
New Delhi: A CII survey reveals that India Inc is positive on the prospect of GDP growth but has given the thumbs down to the proposed fringe benefit tax.

Among the respondents polled, 87 per cent of the CEOs were optimistic that the economy would clock a growth between 6 and 7 per cent in 2005-06.

Queried on the dividend distribution tax, a vast majority of 73 per cent felt that the increase in surcharge on dividend distribution tax would not bring about any significant reduction in corporate tax, inspite the corporate tax having been reduced to 30 per cent from 35 per cent.

On the issue of the fringe benefit tax, the respondents unanimously said that the tax fails to distinguish between routine business expenses and employee benefits. In the case of cash withdrawal tax, 90 per cent of the respondents felt that the proposed tax would not be effective in keeping a check on the black economy.

On the easing of SLR and CRR norms, the CEOs were confident that this would not only boost investments but also bring down interest rates of the loans in the priority sector.
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Empowered committee on VAT to sort out residual issues
New Delhi: The Empowered Committee of the state finance ministers is meeting on Monday to clear the decks for replacing the 55-year-old sales tax system with the Value Added Tax (VAT) regime with effect from April 1, 2005.

The committee, in its crucial two-day meeting, is likely to sort out the residual issues and give a final go ahead to the implementation of VAT. The introduction of VAT by the states and Union Territories is aimed at developing a rational commodity taxation structure and a common market in the Indian federation.

The Empowered Committee, which has come out with a White Paper in January 2005, it yet to finalise the list of 550 items which will be subjected to VAT and the list of exempted category items. The Committee has proposed two rates - 4 per cent and 12.5 per cent. This would be in addition to tax-exempted goods and a special VAT rate of 1 per cent for gold and silver ornaments.
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540 MW nuclear power plant at Tarapur goes critical
Tarapur: Country's first 540 MW Pressurised Heavy Water Reactor (PHWR) here has attained criticality, Chairman Atomic Energy Commission, Dr Anil Kakodkar has said. The new reactor — unit 4 of Tarapur Atomic Power station (TAPS-4) will be connected to the western grid for commercial purposes before August this year, he said. TAPS-4 is the flagship plant of the Nuclear Power Corporation of India Limited (NPCIL).

With this addition of 540 MW into the western grid by August, the total nuclear power generated in the country would be 3310 MW. Currently, NPCIL produces 2770 MW electricity from its plants in Tamil Nadu, Uttar Pradesh, Rajashtan, Karnataka and Gujarat, Kakodkar said. Before connecting to the grid, the plant will undergo various tests and experiments, since it is the first completely indigenously designed one and has a larger size.

The PHWR at Kalpakkam (Tamil Nadu), Narora (UP), Kakrapar (Gujarat), Kaiga (Karnataka) and Kota (Rajasthan) are of 220 MW capacities.
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INSAT- 4A's Ku band transponders fully booked
Bangalore: The thirty four Direct to Home (DTH) television transponders on Indian satellites have been booked even before their launch, Antrix officials have said.

Antrix, the commercial arm of ISRO, markets the space agency's satellite building and launch capabilities, besides space images, to global customers.

The state-run Doordarshan and the Zee group's Dish TV have booked slot for the Ku band transponders, used for DTH service on INSAT-4 series of satellites, scheduled to begin launch from this year. ISRO plans to launch DTH capable INSAT-4A with 12 Ku transponders by June this year.

DTH covers a table fan sized satellite dish, a digital encoder and a smart card. The dish connects to the decoder, which is linked to the TV. ISRO officials said besides the slots for Dish TV and DD's DTH service, Space TV, the TATA Murdoch joint venture has also sought transponders for DTH service on INSAT satellites.

ISRO's next-generation satellites, INSAT-4B, will also have 12 Ku band transponders. The space agency plans to build DTH dedicated satellites INSAT-4C and 4G with 18 Ku band transponders in the next few years to keep up with the demand from DTH players.
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