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Diesel prices to go up in national Capital

     New Delhi: Diesel prices will increase by Re 1.80 per litre here while drugs, medicines, tea, processed meat, poultry, preserved fruits and vegetables will attract lower tax than VAT rate. Essential food items, including rice, wheat and pulses and CNG have been exempted from the purview of Value Added Tax (VAT). Presenting the Delhi state budget 2005-06, Finance Minister AK Walia also announced an increase in the threshold limit for the business

Parliament approves Patent Bill

     New Delhi: Parliament today approved the crucial Patents (Amendment) Bill to introduce product patent in drugs and agri products after Rajya Sabha passed the legislation amidst walkout by BJP-led NDA. The House negatived the resolution to disapprove the Patents (Amendment) Ordinance, 2004 and the amendments moved by BJP member Yashwant Sinha. Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, in his reply to the debate, assured the House that prices of medicines would not go up as a result of introduction of product patents. He said as per estimates of the drug controller, out of 195 drugs, 185 were pre-1995 drugs and were out of the gambit of the patent regime. Nath said even the rest would not be moved for patents immediately and it would take at least three years to get these patented after procedures are completed. Opposition leader Jaswant Singh said the government has not satisfactorily replied to points raised by them through amedments and led the NDA boycott.

RECs converted into NITs (Go To Top)

     New Delhi: Seventeen Regional Engineering Colleges in the country and the Bihar College of Engineering, Patna have been converted to the National Institutes of Technology (NITs). They are now fully funded institutions under the Central Government and have also been given deemed to be university status. All these steps have been taken to make these institutions Centres of Excellence. According to a PIB press release, the Director of NIT is the Chief Executive of the Institute and is responsible for the proper administration, imparting instructions and maintenance of discipline therein.

     As per the Memorandum of Association, the Director is appointed by the Central Government on contract for a period of five years. Immediately after the taking over of total control of these Institutes by the Government of India, the process of recruitment of Directors was started from February 2003 and till December 2003, Directors of 13 NITs (out of the total of 18 NITs) were appointed. These NITs were Allahabad, Bhopal, Calicut, Hamirpur, Jaipur, Jalandhar, Jamshedpur, Krukshetra, Nagpur, Rourkela, Srinagar, Surathkal and Warangal. Subsequently, 2 of them i.e. Directors of NITs, Nagpur and Hamirpur, submitted their resignations which were accepted. The appointment of these Directors needed prior approval of the Appointment Committee of the Cabinet (ACC). However, no such approval was taken in their cases. Appointment Letters were issued to them without seeking prior approval of the ACC. Therefore, these appointments were ab initio void. Accordingly, the ACC has approved the termination of the appointments of the remaining 11 Directors of the NITs. It has further been directed by ACC to immediately entrust additional charge of the post of Director NITs to the senior most professor of the NIT concerned till further order or till appointment of a regular Director. The Ministry of HRD has further been directed by ACC to complete full and proper process of selecting new Directors of Institutes within the next four months.

     The Ministry of HRD has, therefore, issued the Orders of Termination of services of the following Directors of NITs:- 1. NIT Allahabad - Dr. Krishna Kumar 2. NIT Bhopal - Dr. P.K.Chande 3. NIT Calicut - Dr. S.S.Ghokhale 4. NIT Jaipur - Dr.A.K.Jain 5 NIT Jalandhar - Dr. Pramod S.Mehta 6.NIT Jamshedpur - Dr.D.Bhattacharya 7.NIT Krukshetra - Dr.Somanth Mahendra 8.NIT Rourkela - Dr.Sunil Kumar Sarangi 9.NIT Srinagar - Dr.(MRS.)Shashi Krishna Pandey 10.NIT Surathkal - Dr. S.S.Murthy 11.NIT Warangal - Dr.Deba Kumar Tripathy.

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