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Ad expenses challenged

     New Delhi: Notices have been issued to the Centre and several Central ministries by the Supreme Court on a public interest litigation against their expenditure on advertisements on leaders' birthdays. The advertisements are a familiar sight whenever any major politician is celebrating a birthday. It is not just individuals but Central and state ministries who spend crores on ads wishing their leaders a very happy birthday. But now, the Supreme Court has stepped in on what is seen as a waste of public money. As per the petition a full-page ad in a national daily costs roughly Rs 5 lakh. And there are dozens of such ads in the papers. The petition has sought the imposition of a restraint on the alleged misuse of public money, the recovery of the money if it is spent like this and the presentation of all records pertaining to such expenditure. The apex court has given a month's time for all ministries to file a reply.

Mumbai jewellers go on indefinite strike (Go To Top)

     Mumbai: Jewellers and traders of Mumbai are on an indefinite strike, protesting against the Finance Minister's proposal of imposing two percent excise duty on branded jewellery. "Strike would continue until decision of proposed excise duty is rolled back", said Lalit Jain, a jewellery shop owner. P Chidambaram has proposed a two percent excise duty on branded jewellery in this year's Union Budget, which was introduced in the parliament earlier this week. The officials from the excise department started enquiring about sales figures of many jewellery shop owners and manufacturers, just after the announcement. "Such type of excise duty is step down towards liberalization. I believe that such proposal would affect economy as well as customer buying the ornaments or jewellery", said Anil Jain, another jewellery shop owner. The strike has affected employees, who are working on daily wages. "If the shop closed for two day's, we lose our two day's salary", said Nilesh Chavan, an employee of a jewellery shop. As part of the hallmarking requirements, the logo of the jeweller has to be incorporated on the piece of jewellery. But with the levy of excise duty on any jewellery produced with such markings, the jewellers would be inclined not to continue with the hallmarking process. Industry representatives also met the finance minister on Friday to clarify the ambiguity prevailing around the definition of branded jewellery. Over 90 per cent of the gold jewellery in India is manufactured in the fragmented unorganised sector, by artisans spread across the country. In the unorganised sector the jeweller normally buys the gold bars and hands it over to the workers to convert it into jewellery, for which he is paid making charges. The proposed excise duty will affect jewellery traders, buyers and employees.

India beat China in Davis Cup (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: India took an unassailable 3-0 lead over China in their Davis Cup Asia Oceania Group I encounter here on Saturday after veterans Leander Paes and Mahesh Bhupathi won their doubles tie. After Harsh Mankad and Prakash Amritraj beat Sun Peng and Wang Yu, respectively, to give India a 2-0 lead in the encounter, Paes and Bhupathi completed the scoreline with a win over Yu and Zhu Ben- Qiang. Prakash thrashed Yu 6-3 6-4 6-2 in the second singles match which had to be completed today after rain halted play yesterday. Paes and Bhupathi then struggled a bit, but they eventually beat Yu and Qiang 7-6 (13/11) 6-3 3-6 6-1, in two hours and 45 minutes. India, who had earlier defeated China in 1997 and 2001, would now meet the winner of the match between Indonesia and Uzbekistan for a place in the World Group play off. The dead reverse singles, which will pit Amritraj against Peng and Mankad versus Yu tomorrow, would be best of three affairs now.

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