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Karunakaran demands sacking of Oomen Chandy

     Thiruvananthapuram: The troubles of the Congress Party in Kerala are far from over with a defiant former chief minister K Karunakaran demanding that incumbent Chief Minister Oomen Chandy be replaced immediately. The veteran leader, who has been wanting to meet Congress president Sonia Gandhi on the issue, has warned that he will be organising a rally of his supporters to ensure that his demand is acceded to. In signs that the Congress is tiring of Karunakaran's activities, the Congress President Sonia Gandhi did not meet him at all on Friday. Later in the day, the Congress also hinted at taking action against Karunakaran if he went ahead with his rally in Kochi on Monday. "When the directives of the party's high command are not followed by the leaders in the states, then it is considered as a disciplinary problem," said Congress leader, Ambika Soni. Karunakaran, who has been upset with the party high command over the past few years is looking to once again carve a place for himself within the Congress hierarchy. Despite the high command's diktat he held rallies in Thiruvananthapuram and Kozikhode, calling for the ouster of Chandy. "There are some problems in Kerala. We have had some preliminary discussions. We are trying to ensure that everything is sorted out in a democratic manner," said Karunakaran. For it's part, the Congress High Command wants to do a balancing act. While it would like to keep Karunakaran happy, it does not want Chandy to pay the price for it.

US warns Pakistan against Iran gas pipeline (Go To Top)

     Islamabad: The US has advised Pakistan also not to go ahead with Iran on the proposed Iran-Pak-India gas pipeline project as strengthening Iran even ecnomically would create problems. "Any move to strengthen Iran, by trade or otherwise, would frown the United States," The News quoted US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice as saying during her ongoing visit to South and South-East Asian countries. Rice had earlier advised India against going fast on the proposed pipeline front. "Our views concerning Iran are very well known by this time, and we have communicated our concerns about gas pipeline cooperation," the paper quoted her as saying. Rice, also reportedly, talked to the Pakistani leadership straightforwardly on the AQ Khan network issue. "In comparison with her predecessor, Colin Powell, Secretary Rice sounded more decisive and forthcoming in her handling of the issues and responses," the paper quoted a senior ministry official as saying.

SBI to merge all seven associate banks (Go To Top)

     Hyderabad: The State Bank of India has planned to move ahead with its proposal to merge all its seven associate banks. The Chairman of the bank, A.K.Purwar, announced the decision during a press conference. "'A virtual merger of the State Bank Of India group is taking place. As far as legal merger is concerned, we will wait for the appropriate time,'' he said. Among the seven associate banks are the State Bank Of Patiala, the State Bank of Hyderabad, the State Bank of Mysore and others. According to Purwar, SBI needs to raise capital not just to meet the Basel-II norms but the need arises more due to the unprecedented growth in assets. "This is an unusual, unprecedented growth. So far the profits of the bank were adequate to take care of the capital requirements of the bank but this being a unusual growth therefore may be in the second or third quarter of this year we may have to think of raising capital. We will be having a review of our actual numbers in the end of March 2005 and then perhaps we shall be taking a view of additional capital requirements of the bank. Roughly the estimates are that the capital requirements will be around 3000 crores or so,'' adds Purwar. In an attempt to compete with the top 10 banks of the World, State Bank of India (SBI) is charting out a growth strategy that includes domestic and overseas acquisitions and also a merger of seven SBI associate banks.

     Having acquired a Mauritian bank recently, SBI is now on the lookout for a few more overseas banks for possible acquisitions. The bank has appointed a strategic group to monitor the acquisition opportunities. Stating that the bank would essentially look at takeover targets that were strong in retail banking space, Purwar said SBI was also "open to domestic acquisitions." However, he said, the domestic targets need not be only in the space of retail banking. As a part of the overseas growth, the bank has plans to set up branches in several developed nations and representative offices in the West Asia and African countries early next fiscal. Purwar said the bank planned to spend Rs 600 crore- 800 crore per year on technology initiatives in the next few years. Currently having implemented core-banking solution in 18,000 branches, the bank proposes to implement the solution in all the associate banks by September this year and at least 4,000 SBI branches by next fiscal-end. The bank plans to cover around 9,000 of its branches and altogether 13,600 branches of the group through core banking solution by March 2007. SBI is placed 80th at present among the global banks.

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