CCEA approves additional capital subsidy under TUFS
New Delhi: The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs has approved an additional capital subsidy of ten per cent to textile processing units for benchmarked processing machinery under the Technology Upgradation Funds Scheme (TUFS).

This subsidy, which is in addition to the normal five per cent interest subsidy, will be admissible to the investments made in the benchmarked technology for one year from now.

"Textile processing is the weakest link in the textiles scheme. This scheme has been devised with an expectation that it will give a fillip to textile processing and generate employment," the Finance Minister, P. Chidambaram, told reporters after the CCEA meeting here.

The CCEA also approved recommendations of the FIPB to allow Emaar Properties, Dubai, to establish a joint venture company in India for development of integrated township project. Under the joint venture, Emaar Properties would hold 60 per cent capital while the Indian partners, MGF Development Ltd and Sarin Estate Pvt Ltd (both belonging to MGF Group), would hold the remaining 40 per cent, he said. This would bring foreign direct investment of $500 million into the country, he said adding that the total project cost was pegged at $833 million.
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Fifteen NTC mills to be modernised
New Delhi: The government has decided to modernise fifteen of the 53 mills under the National Textiles Corporation at the cost of Rs318.83 crore.

"It has been decided that 15 mills should be modernised at the cost of Rs 318.83 core and modernisation of other mills may be attempted through a strategic pivate partner," Textiles Minister Shankersinh Vaghela told Rajya Sabha in a written reply to a question. The minister said that sufficient resources could not be mobilised for the moderanisation of all the 53 mills.

Vaghela said after the liberalisation of global trade in textiles, India's exports in 2005-06 are expected to cross $15 billion.
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Gem and jewellery exports touch $15.7bn for the fiscal
New Delhi: Gem and jewellery exports have surged 29.27 per cent in dollar terms, to touch $15.68 billion, during April-March 2005 as compared with $12.13 billion in the same period during the previous year. In rupee terms, gem and jewellery exports increased by 26.44 per cent in fiscal 2004-05 to Rs70,240.69 crore (Rs55,554.50 crore).

Cut and polished diamond exports continued to enjoy the lion's share, with exports from this category touching a level of $11.18 billion during April-March 2005 ($8.63 billion). Gold jewellery exports during fiscal 2004-05 increased by 42.16 per cent to $3.81 billion ($2.68 billion). Coloured gemstones exports during fiscal 2004-05 stood at $0.19 billion ($0.18 billion).

The export target for the gem and jewellery sector for the fiscal 2005-06 and 2006-07 has been pegged at $18 billion and $20 billion respectively.

In the meanwhile, the GJEPC Chairman has suggested that the Customs duty on diamonds be brought down from five per cent to 'nil' to enable the conversion of India into a trading hub for gems and jewellery.
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TIFR and HP to set up largest supercomputer in India
Mumbai: The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) has announced a partnership with Hewlett Packard to implement high performance computing (HPC) solutions at its Computational Mathematics Laboratory (CML) in Pune. The project will feature one of the largest supercomputers in India and will include the roll-out of the largest Itanium Linux cluster.

This implementation will enhance CML's ability to conduct world-class research in the area of computer science and mathematics. It will allow CML to run various complex algorithms with up to a billion variables.

This implementation also represents a growing importance of Linux based Industry Standard Architecture clusters with High Bandwidth interconnect in High Performance Computing. The supercomputer includes 78 x 2-way Itanium nodes with a high performance Infiniband backbone.

Dr. Narendra Karmarkar, Head, Computational Mathematics Laboratory, TIFR, said, "TIFR is very pleased to partner with HP, a global technology leader for high-end research in the field of computational mathematics. These technologies will help us in our research on the fundamental problems in mathematics and optimization techniques."
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Left parties move against export of iron ore and minerals
Kolkata: The Left parties are now gearing up to stop all iron ore exports from India especially now that the Union Commerce Ministry has announced that 14 fresh licences would be issued for iron ore exports.

Nilotpal Basu, Leader of the CPI (M) in the Rajya Sabha, has said that his party was against the export of any mineral from India because it would be used as a raw material for manufacturing units located elsewhere on the globe. According to him, it is not only just a scarce commodity but also a costly mineral in today's global market.

The Ministry has not hiked the annual iron ore export target and has been retained at last year's level of 64 million tonnes. Asked whether the CPI (M) would oppose the DGFT's decision, Basu said that his party would first study the Ministry's decision. "However, in principle we are against any mineral export of India", he reiterated.

The Ministry officials have said the decision to export iron ore was taken after studying the domestic demand for the mineral. However, leading steel companies have repeatedly urged the Union Government to stop iron ore exports.

At present, iron ore is the most sought after mineral in the global market. Its demand has jumped many times because of the massive steel requirement in China.
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