Estimates of wheat output reduced to 69.48mn tonnes
New Delhi: The Union Government has further cut its estimate of the country's wheat production during 2005-06 to 69.48 million tonnes (mt).

Earlier, the Agriculture ministry, in its initial `second advance estimate' of foodgrain production for 2005-06, announced on February 22, had projected a wheat output level of 73.06 mt which was revised downwards to 71.54 mt in the `third advance estimate' released on May 5. In the `fourth advance estimate' of July 15, the number has been put even lower at 69.48 mt.

The difference is almost 3.6 mt between the initial and the latest estimates and is significant because it shows that the Government had vastly underestimated the shortfall in the country's wheat production, which explains its belated announcement of a Rs50-per quintal bonus (over and above the minimum support price of Rs650 per quintal).

Private companies had maintained that production would be in the 68-69 mt range, close to the present Government estimates.

The total foodgrain production during 2005-06 as per the "fourth advance estimates" is now put at 208.30 mt, against 210.01 mt and 209.32 mt in the `third' and `second' advance estimates, respectively.
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DoT directs telecom operators to disconnect phones
New Delhi: The Department of Telecom has directed telecom operators in Delhi, Chennai, Mumbai, Hyderabad and Haryana to discontinue all connections issued without proper verification. This raises the prospects of millions of mobile connections being disconnected by the end of the month.

An official of the Association of Unified Telecom Service Providers Association of India said: "Nearly 10-15 per cent of all mobile subscribers (100 million) are unverified. However, the number of connections that may be disconnected cannot be determined at this moment."

The number of connections that could be affected are around 10-15 million.
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Terror hit central government hits out at bloggers sites
Mumbai: The central government, under fierce criticism of its response to the Mumbai blasts, has issued orders to block blogs across the country.

The Department of Telecommunications has sent a notice to internet service providers (ISPs) to block around 17-18 websites on the internet. The government's move is believed to be aimed at thwarting the use of blogs (online journals) and websites by terrorists and their supporters. Blogspot, a Google-owned site, is among those blocked by this government measure.

The DoT had sent this notice to all ISPs on Friday, and some of the ISPs have started blocking these websites. While it could not be confirmed from the ISPs whether they have blocked these sites, internet users were not able to get through to certain websites.
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