Indian economy grows by 6.1 pc in Q1, against 7.1% a year ago

The country managed a reasonable economic growth of 6.1 pc during the first quarter of the current fiscal despite the global financial crisis impacting manufacturing and certain services like hotels.

The Gross Domestic Product (GDP) growth rate during April-June 2009 at 6.1 percent was higher than 5.8 percent in the previous quarter, though it witnessed a decline when compared to 7.8 percent economic expansion recorded during the corresponding period of the last fiscal.

The government and Reserve Bank have been maintaining that the Indian economy will grow by six percent growth with upward bias.

If agriculture growth does not crash and this trend continues, growth this fiscal would be in line with the expectations of the authorities.

Mining and electricity among industrial sector, and financing among services sector posted higher growth of 7.9, 6.2 and 8.1 percent, respectively, in the first quarter of this fiscal, against 4.6, 2.7 and 6.9 percent a year ago.

Petroleum Ministry rules out reducing ATF price

Petroleum Ministry lined out reducing the base price of ATF as demand by the cash-strapped aviation industry, saying there was little scope for tinkering given the low margins oil firms earn on processing of basic bought at international rates.

"(While) the base price (of jet fuel or ATF) is linked to international prices (import parity), the price build-up has a significant tax component," Petroleum Secretary R S Pandey told reporters.

State-run fuel retailers Indian Oil, Bharat fuel and Hindustan Petroleum pay international rates for buying crude oil and so the products refineries produce are also priced at international parity.

Pandey said refinery margins or the value a company earns for processing a barrel of crude oil, were low. "Margins are not very high... they have (infact) shrunk in recent days and you have to appreciate this (before seeking a cut in base price)," he said.

Central and state taxes make up for more than one-third of the jet fuel price, he said, adding the Government does not control the price of aviation turbine fuel (ATF) as it was a deregulated product. The Rs 37.48 per litre selling price of ATF in Mumbai comprised Rs 13.46 a litre in excise duty and sales tax.

"Taxes are entirely in domain of the finance ministry and the states," he added. The basic price for jet fuel in Mumbai, the nation's busiest airport, is Rs 24.02 per litre. Freight and other costs add Rs 3.68 to the price while excise duty contributes Rs 2.28 a litre.

State sales tax is the biggest component, making up for one fifth or Rs 7.50 per litre of the retail ATF price. Sales tax is the highest in Chennai adding Rs 9.03 to the price and the lowest in Delhi where only Rs 6.05 a litre is added.

In Kolkata, the state government earned Rs 8.88 per litre from jet fuel sales.
"The methodology adopted in fixing the price of ATF by the public sector oil marketing companies at the airports is based on the ex-refinery price of jet fuel which is linked to the import parity price," Pandey said.

SFIO to visit Satyam office to enquire into fund siphoning

A Serious Fraud Investigation Office (SFIO) team will visit Hyderabad soon to enquire into the siphoning of funds by promoters of the IT company Satyam. The SFIO team, sources said, will be meeting officials of the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI) which is also probing the Satyam fraud.

"The visit is with the view to have a better coordination with the CBI working there. Discussions would be held regarding the various aspects of the fraud at Satyam, especially, to gather insight into the findings of the CBI in the money-siphoning case," an official source told a news agency.

The SFIO, the investigative arm of the Corporate Affairs Ministry, has been asked by the government to probe the angle of siphoning of money by the promoters of Satyam and submit its report by October. The investigation would require the SFIO to check the accounts of over 350 companies and 700 to 800 bank accounts.

Besides visiting the headquarters of the IT company, which has been taken over by Tech Mahindra, the SFIO team would meet representatives of some local companies which had dealings with Satyam.

In April, the SFIO had submitted a preliminary report on the Satyam fraud to the government. The report, spread over 14,000-page, however, has not been able to track down the chain of events leading to diversions of funds, sources said.

The report also did not give any indication about the beneficiaries of third-party transactions totalling about Rs 600 crore. Similarly, the end use of funds raised through American Depositories Receipts worth USD 100 million have not been tracked.

Talking to reporters in Hyderabad last week, Corporate Affairs Minister Salman Khurshid said, "there are still some aspects to be reported on and the final report will now come." The Minister dismissed media reports that the government was not satisfied with the preliminary report submitted by the SFIO. "There s no question of not being satisfied with the report," he had said.

The SFIO in its preliminary report showed violations of various provisions of the Indian Penal Code like criminal breach of trust, forgery and cheating.

NASA begins filling shuttle Discovery's external fuel tank

NASA on Monday began filling the external fuel tank of the shuttle Discovery, one day before it blasts off toward the International Space Station carrying a crew of seven astronauts. As space officials prepared for Tuesday's launch, they said they saw nothing worrisome at this time that would lead to a delay.

"Everything looks normal. There is no technical issue to report," said NASA spokesman George Diller. Mission officials said there is an 80 percent chance of launch-friendly meteorological conditions, although there is a slight risk of thunderstorms and lightning within an eight-kilometer (five-mile) area of the launchpad.

Discovery's liftoff is set for 0136 am (0536 GMT) on Tuesday from Kennedy Space Center in Cape Canaveral, Florida. The task of filling the enormous reservoir, which got underway about 10 minutes late, was to be completed at 7:15 pm (23H15 GMT), US space officials said.

The space vehicle's external fuel tank was being filled with nearly two million liters of liquid hydrogen and oxygen. Discovery is to deliver equipment for a new bedroom, a treadmill, a freezer, food and other supplies. It will also be dropping off the newest member of the ISS team -- US astronaut Nicole Stott.

Stott will be taking over from engineer and fellow American Tim Kopra, who has been aboard the ISS since July and is returning to Earth with the Discovery. The Discovery crew, led by astronaut Rick Sturckow, will be delivering 6.8 tonnes of cargo transported in a pressurized module called Leonardo that was built by the Italian space agency.

Two astronauts from the team are scheduled to conduct three spacewalks of six and a half hours each during the 13-day mission, which is the fourth of five planned for the shuttle this year. The last is scheduled for November.

One of the key goals of the space walks is the replacement of an old liquid ammonia tank, which will be substituted with a new 800 kilogram replacement brought from Earth aboard the Discovery. The substance is used as a coolant.

The astronauts will also be retrieving experiment equipment from the outside of the ISS and returning it to Earth for processing. The new freezer will store samples of blood, urine and other materials that will eventually be taken back to Earth for study on the effects of zero-gravity.

The COLBERT treadmill, named after popular US comedy talkshow host Stephen Colbert, will be the second aboard the ISS. Exercise is key for astronauts spending long periods of time in space, where zero-gravity can result in muscle atrophy.

Among the seven-member crew is veteran European astronaut Christer Fugglesang, 52, of Sweden. The shuttle flight also is the first with two Hispanic astronauts: veteran mission specialist John "Danny" Olivas, 44, of El Paso, Texas, and rookie Jose Hernandez, 47, of Stockton, California.

Hernandez will provide bilingual Twitter updates from space, via Twitter.com. The mission will be the 128th for the space shuttle program, and the 30th mission to the ISS. Once the Discovery mission is complete, just six more shuttle flights remain before NASA's three shuttles are retired in September 2010.

Railways exhibition starts today in Delhi

Over 150 railway equipment companies, including those from the US, the UK and China, will showcase products and latest technologies at an exhibition in New Delhi on Monday

The three-day exhibition, to be jointly organised by Railways Ministry and industry body CII, will support the modernisation plans of the Indian Railways.

The 8th International Railway Equipment Exhibition (IREE 2009) is expected to be participated by over 150 companies from 12 countries, including the US, the UK, Australia, China, France and Germany, CII said in a statement.

"The Indian Railways, this time, will specially focusing on Railway equipment manufacturers, electrification, energy conservation, locomotives, maintenance and service equipment, mass rapid transport systems, safety and security systems," it said. Indian Railways is continuously focusing on modernisation of its entire railway system particularly stations and trains, in view of the Commonwealth Games, to be held in Delhi in 2010.

Keeping in view the security concerns for the railways and the government's focus on the issue, the IREE would also display special security equipments and technologies for the railway stations.Over 10,000 business visitors, besides a large number of government officials are expected to visit the exhibition at Pragati Maidan

ISRO eyes mission to Mars; Govt sanctions Rs 10 cr

After the challenging mission to moon, ISRO on Wednesday said it has begun preparations for sending a spacecraft to Mars within the next six years. The Government has sanctioned seed money of Rs 10 crore to carry out various studies on experiments to be conducted, route of the mission and other related details necessary to scale the new frontier, said ISRO Chairman G Madhavan Nair.

"Already mission studies have been completed. Now we are trying to collect scientific proposals and scientific objectives," he told reporters on the sidelines of a day-long workshop of the Astronautical Society of India in New Delhi. He said the space agency was looking at launch opportunities between 2013 and 2015.

Chandrayaan-I, the country's maiden unmanned moon mission, appears to have fired the imagination of young scientists who have taken to space sciences and ISRO plans to tap this talent for its mission to Mars.

"A lot of young scientists are being brought into the mission, particularly from the Indian Institute of Space Technology, the Physical Research Laboratory, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research and other research laboratories," K Radhakrishnan, Director of Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, said.

He said the space agency would use its Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) to put the satellite in orbit and was considering using ion-thrusters, liquid engines or nuclear power to propel it further towards Mars.

Spectacular Moon-Venus conjunction at break of dawn

A celestial show greeted skygazers at the break of dawn on Monday with Venus and Moon coming together in the eastern sky for a conjunction.

The phenomenon was seen in the early morning sky during which the thin waning crescent Moon poised directly above Venus, popularly known as Goddess of Love, Director of Science Popularisation Association of Communicators and Educators (SPACE) C B Devgun said.

Conjunction is a term used in astronomy for the relative positions of celestial bodies. In the Moon-Venus conjunction, two celestial bodies will appear close in the sky.Some astro-enthusiasts saw the celestial treat with naked eyes but some used a pair of binoculars for its exact positioning in the northeastern horizon at around 4:00 AM when Venus rises, he said.

The crescent Moon was right on the meridian, high in the south, and the planet Venus was only 4 degrees away from it, to the lower left.The event was visible from all parts of the world, even from light-polluted cities.Venus, the undisputed Queen of the morning sky, will appear in the eastern sky before sunrise everyday till October, and then begin to disappear once again into the glare of the Sun.

India, Russia to ink convey aircraft JV accord in Sept

In line with the BrahMos cruise missile project, India and Russia are predictable to ink a deal during Defence Minister A K Antony's Moscow visit next month on setting up of a joint venture for production of state-of-art multi-role transport aircraft (MTA) for their air forces.

The "formal agreement" for floating the MTA JV is expected to be signed in September during Antony's Moscow visit for the session of Joint Commission on military- technological cooperation, V Balakrishnan, General Manager of Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) aircraft manufacturing division, said.

The Russian administration has cleared the formalities for the creation of 50-50 JV and Prime Minister Vladimir Putin has allocated funds for financing Russia's share, he told the news agency on the sidelines of the International Aero-space show 'MAKS-2009'.
From the Indian side HAL will hold 50 per cent equity in the JV.

The inter-government agreement for the joint growth and production of MTA was inked in 2006 during the then President Putin's India visit, as the air forces of both the countries are seeking to replace their ageing Soviet-era Antonov series transport aircraft.

Balakrishnan said IAF has evinced interest in acquiring 40 MTA aircraft for transport troops, military hardware and military cargo with option of buying more aircraft, while the Russian air force has confirmed readiness to acquire 100 planes.

According to earlier reports under the USD 600 million JV, a highly higher transport aircraft with the capacity of 20 tonnes and capable of landing on any type of runway, including in the high Himalayan altitudes, would be developed on the basis of Ilyushin Il-214 aircraft.

HAL and Ilyushin are to co-design and develop the aircraft.

US Iraq war would end in 2011PM favours envt-friendly technologies to tackle climate change

Terming Climate Change as a big challenge before the world, Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh has called for making investments in new environment-friendly technologies.

Inaugurating the National Conference of Ministers of Environment and forests from States in National capital Dr. Singh said there was a pressing need to modernize existing Forest and Wildlife management system in the country. Dr Singh said State level action plans on climate change should be consistent with the strategies in the National Plan.

He also asked States to effectively enforce legal provisions to curtail the discharge of untreated industrial effluents. Expressing concern that environmental clearances have become a new form of Licence Raj and a source of corruption, Prime Minister said the procedures must be fair, transparent and hassle free.

PNB aims to issue global credit cards by March 2010

Intending to widen its credit card base across value as well as high end customers, public sector lender Punjab National Bank (PNB) is now aiming to issue 2 lakh global credit cards by March 2010.

"We are targeting to issue two lakh global credit cards to our customers by end of the current fiscal," PNB Chief General Manager (Credit Card Venture) Ranjan Dhawan told this to a news agency on Monday. The bank would also shortly launch its new cards- Corporate and Platinum credit cards.

"Corporate Cards will be meant for senior executives of companies who often travel for business purposes. In this category, there will be two cards such as Individual liability and corporate liability," he informed. Another second Platinum card will come with enhanced benefits for high end customers (income having between Rs 7 to 10 lakh per annum).

"This card will meet the requirements of customers like premium gold membership, lounge expenses etc,"