SEZ Bill introduced in Lok Sabha
New Delhi: The long-awaited Special Economic Zone Bill has been introduced in the Lok Sabha. The umbrella legislation, cleared by the Union Cabinet last week, provides for a fiscal regime for both developers and units in the zones besides a legislative framework for setting up offshore banking units.

The SEZ Bill also seeks to establish a single enforcement agency to ensure speedy trial and investigation of notified offences committed in such zones.

As per the provisions of the Bill, SEZ units will be eligible for 100 per cent tax exemption for five years, 50 per cent for the next five and 50 per cent of the ploughed back export profits for the next five years. The developers of the zones will thus get 100 per cent income tax exemption for 10 years in a block period of 15 years.

India already has eleven functioning SEZs. Of these, seven have been set up by central government, while four have come up in the private/ joint/state sector. In addition, approvals have been given for 35 new SEZs in private/state sectors.

The eleven SEZs functioning are in Kandla, Surat, Cochin, Santa Cruz, Falta, Chennai, Vishakhapatnam, Noida, Indore, Salt Lake (Kolkata) and Jaipur. Two more at Jodhpur and Moradabad are ready for operation.

Other SEZs are at various stages of implementation.
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Cartosat beams out first 3D pictures
Bangalore: The first 3D pictures from Cartosat-1 have come in, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) said in a release here. The black and white images are of Punjab (Amritsar) and Gujarat, over which the satellite passed on Sunday.

They come almost three days after ISRO's latest remote-sensing satellite was launched. ISRO said it would not share the pictures immediately.

Cartosat-1 (IRS-P5) is the world's first remote sensing satellite and uses twin cameras for pure stereo images, which give information of objects of heights of up to 2.5 m. This is said to be globally the best civilian stereo range available, though US and French commercial satellites have non-3D capability, which see objects of less than 1 m.

ISRO said the cameras were switched on last Saturday and tested for two days. The images were received at the National Remote Sensing Agency's Data Reception Station near Hyderabad. "Detailed analysis confirms the excellent performance of the cameras," ISRO said.

ISRO said the small HAMs satellite (HAMSAT) that was launched with Cartosat got a huge response from amateur radio operators across the world. Ever since the UHF/VHF (Mode-B) transponder got switched on HAMs were sending their feedback on the performance of the satellite.
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Total telephone subscriber base crosses 100 mn
New Delhi: The total telephone subscriber base in the country, including fixed lines and mobiles, has crossed the 100-million mark. Last month, approximately 2 million subscribers were added, which included around 0.59 million fixed lines and 1.44 million mobiles, a TRAI release said here on Monday.

At the end of April, the total fixed lines crossed 46 million while the mobile subscriber base was close to 54 million, the release said. The teledensity of the country has also reached 9.26, as compared to 9.08 at the end of March.

Broadband connections have also started to grow steadily since the beginning of 2005 and during the month of April, approximately 44,000 additional broadband connections were provided. The total broadband connections stood at 2.28 lakhs at the end of April, the release said.
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Hotel Centaur sale: Left demands enquiry
New Delhi: The CAG findings on the sale of Centaur Hotels in Mumbai has created an uproar in the Rajya Sabha, with the Left parties demanding an "appropriate" inquiry. CPM leaders have said that the government should initiate an enquiry by the CBI or the Central Vigilance Commission (CVC) into the issue.

The Comptroller and Auditor General has slammed the NDA government's sale of Mumbai's Centaur hotel to a single bidder, Ajit Kerkar, three years back.

Responding for the government, Suresh Pachauri said he would convey the feelings of the members to the Finance Minister.
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