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NDA's Digvijay Singh wins Jharkhand RS seat

     Ranchi: NDA candidate Digvijay Singh today won the lone Rajya Sabha seat in Jharkhand defeating RJD candidate Muktinath Upadhyay and JMM's Durga Soren. The former minister won with 43 votes, while his opponents RJD's Muktinath Upadhyay polled 18 votes and JMM's Durga Soren got 17. Singh got 42 votes from his own NDA alliance and a UPA MLA from the UGDP. In all, 78 lawmakers out of 81 elected members of the Jharkhand assembly today polled their votes to elect the Rajya Sabha member from the state.

Thailand PM arrives, seeks free trade (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: Thailand Prime Minister Thaksin Shinawatra arrived in India today on a crucial visit aimed at restating the talks on a bilateral free trade with the country, which was stalled in October 2003 due to inclusion of a huge number of items in the Indian list. Earlier, the Centre had included more than 1000 items in its list as compared to th 100 items in the Thailand's list. The items on the Indian list include garments, textiles and auto parts. Thailand has listed mostly agricultural and industrial products. The two countries had agreed to talks on creating a free trade area in October 2003. They hoped to completely eliminate import tariffs between the two countries within three years, but the large items on the Indian sensitive list came as a dampened the talks. Shinawatra almost immediately got down to business with a working lunch with Indian industry leaders. "We invited them to do business with their Thai counterparts because the government has opened its doors but it's their duty to follow it," Shinawatra said after the meeting. "There were tremendous exchange of views, thoughts and benefits the two countries can enjoy, that is between Thailand and India. In fact, he emphasised also on the geographical location and he also particularly reminded us of tourism sector, the topic which we have not even touched the fringes of it," said Ramesh Shetty, who represented Indian Pharma major Ranbaxy. Two-way trade between Thailand and India was worth $2 billion last year, up 34 per cent from 2003.

Dinner for Advani leads to Pak Govt defeat in Assembly (Go To Top)

     Islamabad: Around 22 Members of National Assembly (MNAs) of the ruling party the PML had gone to Lahore to attend last night's dinner hosted in honour of Indian Opposition leader LK Advani by party chief Ch. Shujaat Hussain. But, little did they realise that their absence from the National Assembly on the very first day of the Budget session would bring a humiliating defeat for their party. And, the party MNAs were invited by none other than Hussain himself. According to The News, the Shaukat Aziz government suffered a major defeat yesterday when the Opposition parties forced the government to withdraw a bill by the strength of its majority votes. The defeat was so sudden and telling that the ruling party could not frame any strategy to meet the situation with even the Speaker failing to bail out the ruling party, the paper added. This is the first time that the government has faced a big defeat amid passage of a bill, the report added. In Pakistan, the General Budget is presented every year in June, even as the fiscal year runs from July 1 to June 30.

Manmohan may quit by Oct due to illness: Pak astrologer (Go To Top)

     Lahore: A Pakistan-based astrologer has predicted that in the next four-five months a serious illness might force Indian Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh to step down from the post. "Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is a Libra, and 2005 will be dangerous for him. He could face a serious illness from June 10 to October after which he might resign from the premiership," the Daily Times quoted the astrologer Abdullah Shaukat Chaudhry as saying. Abdullah shot to fame recently after correctly predicting the tsunami disaster that devastated southeast Asia in December, the paper added. According to the paper, Chaudhry (68) originally hails from New Delhi and was inspired to learn astrology by the late Pundit Raghunandan Sharma.

     The Pakistani astrologer has predicted that the period from July 15, 2005 to early 2007 will be a "dangerous time" for Pakistan's leadership and both President Pervez Musharraf and Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz will demit office. Chaudhry predicts that Aziz and Musharraf would both lose their offices during this period as the country would enter into the Saturn cycle, which has been destructive in the past. "It is likely that the next leadership of Pakistan will be from the Army. The role of the MMA, militant groups and the Pakistan Muslim League (all factions) will also end," the Daily Times quoted the astrologer as saying. He predicts that former prime minister Benazir Bhutto would return to Pakistan before September 2005, but she would never be premier again. "She will handle her party from behind the scenes like Indian Congress Party leader Sonia Gandhi," he added. The Pakistan-based astrologer equates this period to 1977-79 when Pakistan passed through a lot of instability and former premier Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged. According to him, the period would spell doom for the country as it re-enters a Saturn cycle, which has been destructive in the past. "The last time Pakistan's star was in Saturn was from 1977 to 1979, when the country saw instability and former prime minister Zulfikar Ali Bhutto was hanged," the Daily Times quoted Chaudhry as saying. He added: "From July 15 the same period starts again, and this will be a dangerous time for the leadership of Pakistan and India."

     Chaudhry has predicted that the Kashmir issue between India and Pakistan won't be resolved and the Indo-Pak peace process would be a failure. He said that the ongoing peace dialogue between the two countries won't ensure peace and Pakistan could once again face a 1971-like war situation. "The current talks will end, and there are chances that Pakistan could face a 1971-like situation," the Daily Times quoted Abdullah as saying.

Chidambaram for convergence of financial institutions (Go To Top)
by Gyanendra Kumar Keshri

     New Delhi: Emphasising on the need for convergence of financial institutions Finance Minister P Chidambaram said here on Friday that all banks must become multi-product financial sector and bank officers multi-task workers. "Banks have been encouraged to work on convergence, most banks are tying up with insurance companies, Mutual Funds in order to sell insurance and mutual funds products, this must continue," said Chidambaram after meeting bankers. The meeting was attended by senior officials of Finance Ministry, Reserve Bank, Indian Banks Association and all Chairman of Public Sector banks. Bank products, insurance products, and mutual fund products in course of the times pension products will be sold to banks. Banks must become financial sector offering financial products. This process will gather pace in the current year too, he added. The Finance Minister set agricultural credit target at Rs 1,41,000 crore for the financial year 2005-06 after banks over- shot last fiscal`s target and disbursed more than Rs 1,15,000 crore loans to farmers. He also urged the banks to step up credit in other key sectors like small and medium industries, infrastructure and manufacturing sector to ensure the overall growth in GDP stays above 7 percent. Reiterating the UPA Government's commitment for more emphasise on agriculture and employment generation, Chidambaram said, "we want to expand agriculture in a big way this year. "I have asked banks to put up advertisement to invite application for credit to set up agri-clinics in every districts. For young men and women it's a good business opportunity and it will also help farmers by providing the information about latest equipments," he said. The Finance Minister expressed satisfaction over the performance of the Public Sector banks in the last one year. He said that most of the banks have increased their capital adequacy ratios either by way of higher profits or raising fresh capital from the market. On Non Performing Assets (NPAs) of the public sector banks he said, "Net NPA has come down to three percent and we aim to further reduce it the two percent in the current financial year. Banks have cut their non-performing assets and operating costs by increasing the staff productivity, he added.

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