Warmonger Bush sends Rice to India and FBI SET into WORK! DUNLOP Closed and STRIKE in the JUTE GRAVEYARD in Bengal!
Direct foreign Interests hit has made the MUMBAI Attack an Avenue of DIRECT US and ISRAELI interference in india. The Centre and state governments as well as the Political parties affliated to Ruling and Resistance hegemony are never concerned with public Grievances. Marxist ruled West Bengal seems to be the best Example where GENOCIDE Culture is quite dominant!
Troubled Galaxy Destroyed Dreams: Chapter 116
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By Abhijit Mhamunkar . Buzz18 Dec 01, 2008 The Mumbai terror attacks had casualties in Bollywood as well. To begin with, out of the three films that were to release on Friday, November 28, UTV's Oye Lucky!
For me, heroic characters are not exciting to play: Abhay Deol
Oye Lucky..!(Hindi)
Oneindia -
Describing terrorists as 'people who have no religion or God', Bollywood actor Aamir Khan has strongly criticised political parties for targeting efforts by security forces to deal with these elements.
Bollywood pays homage to national heroes
Aamir: Terrorists have no religion
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1 Dec 2008, 1027 hrs IST, IANS
MUMBAI: Police in Mumbai on Sunday said they had no information on any Israeli plane coming here with medical and forensic experts to identify some
of the Israeli victims of the terrorist attack.
"No one has informed us about any Israeli plane arriving here, we just do not know anything," Deputy Superintendent of Police Nisar Tanboli, in charge of airport security, told IANS late on Sunday.
Nine Jews, some of them Israeli nationals, were among 22 foreigners killed during the sustained terror attack at a Jewish centre at the Nariman House and two five-star hotels in south Mumbai between Wednesday night and Friday night.
Some of them remain to be identified and a section of the Israeli media had reported that an Israeli Air Force plane had landed in Mumbai Sunday with experts to help in the identification.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Police_unaware_about_Israeli_plane_in_Mumbai/articleshow/3778398.cms
Warmonger President George W Bush is sending Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to India this week as a "further demonstration" of US solidarity with New Delhi in the wake of terror attacks in Mumbai, the White House announced Sunday. MUMBAI Terror Attack is considered DIRECT HIT on US and ISRAELI Interests. Thus, Washington Posted Chettiar Gang in Indian Home Ministry! Now nearly five years of CONTINUOUS Failure on HOME FRONT India Incs promise a BETTER HOME under Chidambaram!
Direct foreign Interests hit has made the MUMBAI Attack an Avenue of DIRECT US and ISRAELI interference in India. The Centre and state governments as well as the Political parties affiliated to Ruling and Resistance hegemony are never concerned with public Grievances. Marxist ruled West Bengal seems to be the best Example where GENOCIDE Culture is quite dominant!
It is claimed that West Bengal industrial growth rate is higher than national average amidst reports of CLOSURE in DUNLOP and STRIKE in the Jute Grave Yard!Jute Industry played an important role in the economic development of Bengal. At the beginning of the twentieth century, Bengal could boast of only one manufacturing industry - jute. It employed about a half of the total industrial workforce of Bengal. In 1900-1, the export value of jute manufactures accounted for nearly a third of the entire export trade of Bengal. The industry was dominated at the beginning, by Europeans and later, by marwaris. During most of its history, three-quarters of the labourers in jute factories were non-Bengalis. Bengalis generally occupied only the intermediate position in the industry. The raw jute for the industry used to come from Eastern Bengal.
The proposed indefinite strike in Bengal’s jute industry from Monday could pave the way for dilution of the mandatory packaging order for food grains in jute sacks. However, Citu and Trinamul Congress trade union wings are opposed to any strike to realise the demand for payment of dearness allowance
Prior to the establishment of the first jute mill in 1855, handloom weavers used jute fibre to make twines, ropes, coarse fabrics for the poor, and also for fishing and for mooring vessels. Towards the end of the eighteenth century, jute attracted the attention of the British east india company, which sent a consignment of jute samples to England in 1791 that were successfully spun by flax machinery. The British also found out means to soften the hard and brittle nature of jute fibre by adding oil and water. This made the fibre more pliable and easily separable, and resulted in the production of a usable thread.
Several historical events were responsible for the growth of the jute industry. In 1838, the Dutch government specified bags made of jute instead of flax for carrying coffee from the East Indies. At that time flax was imported from Russia. But the Crimean War of 1854-56 led to the stoppage of supply of flax from Russia and forced Dundee, the famous jute manufacturing centre of UK, to look for substitutes. In Dundee the flax mills were converted into jute mills. The American Civil War (1861-65), on the other hand, gave further impetus to the jute trade, as supplies of American cotton were much restricted. Since then, the industry did not return to flax or cotton again. The main reason for this permanent shift had been its comparative cost advantage. The jute industry grew rapidly and jute mills were established in many countries, including USA, Germany, France, Belgium, Austria, Italy, Holland, Spain, Russia, Brazil and Bengal. This led to a rapid increase in the demand for jute. The Bengali peasants responded quickly to meet the world demand by increasing the area under jute cultivation.
The outbreak of the First World War led to a rapid increase in the demand for raw jute, since it was used to manufacture sandbags to protect soldiers in trenches and to produce gunny bags for carrying food grain for the army. Inevitably, the price of jute also rose sharply.
Although Bengal, particularly Eastern Bengal, was the main producer of quality raw jute, the first jute mill was established at Risraw near calcutta on the bank of the hughli only in 1855, after 20 years of mechanical spinning of jute in Dundee. The delay was due to the non-availability of technical hands and power to drive machines. In 1854, coal mines were opened at Raniganj. Attracted by the easy availability of power, George Aucland, an Englishman established the first jute mill. But he could not make reasonable profits and left the business. In 1859, the Bornee Company founded the second mill with spinning and weaving facilities. Unlike the Aucland mill, it started prospering after its establishment. Within five years it doubled its plant size. By 1866, three new mills were established. Between 1868 and 1873, these mills made large profits. Five new companies started in 1874 and eight more in 1875. Thus Bengal experienced a real boom in jute industry towards the end of the nineteenth century.
With the establishment of jute mills, Bengal became a major exporter of sacking bags. Calcutta appeared to be a strong competitor of Dundee and successfully penetrated into Dundee's hessian market in many parts of the world, including America, primarily because Calcutta had the cost advantage in producing jute goods. Secondly, it was situated in close proximity to the jute growing districts of Eastern Bengal and Assam. Thirdly, it had cheap labour. Fourthly, the mills ran for 15 to 16 hours, and sometimes even for 22 hours daily. This led to a clear advantage of Calcutta manufacturers in monetary terms. Moreover, they could offer a finer quality of jute. In sixty years between 1880 and 1940, the number of mills increased by 5 times, that of looms by about 14 times, of spindles by 19 times, and of persons employed by 11 times (see Table). The growth of the industry was significant during the 20 years between 1900 and 1920. During the Great Depression of 1929-33, the jute industry was severely hit since the demand for jute goods declined drastically throughout the world.
Major problems of the jute mills are: (a) increase in the cost of production while the sales prices of jute goods remain at the same level or even decline; (b) accumulation of huge losses and consequently, of huge debts; (c) decline in exports of jute goods; (d) electricity failures; (e) excessive wastage; (f) labour unrest; (g) poor management that affects productivity; and (h) frequent changes in government policies.
The performance of the private sector jute industry is also not encouraging. privatisation itself has been a very problematic and slow process. Resistance from workers/employees of the mills and lengthy formalities forced the process to be slow. In 1998, out of forty jute mills in the private sector, three were closed and two laid off. The private sector jute mills run on a very low profile. Up to December 1999, the private sector jute mills have accumulated losses of more than Tk 12 billion.
The Bengal government today withdrew police camps in West Midnapore’s Lalgarh, Belpahari and Salboni even as tribals scaled up their protests and dug up the road branching from National Highway 6 and going to Jhargram, cutting off the town from the rest of the state.The People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities had been demanding the withdrawal of the police camp and police outpost from Ramgarh. But it was not happy today. “Our main demand has not been met. The district superintendent of police is yet to apologise to the villagers (for the police action after the mine blast targeting the chief minister),” said committee leader Chhatradhar Mahato.
The outfit had earlier decided to boycott the police and the civil administration.
Tribals under the banner of Police Santras Birodhi Public Committee (PSBPC) staged a demonstration outside Lalgarh police station in Midnapore West for four hours today. They demanded that the police camps housed at Lalgarh Ram Krishna High School and Lalgarh Saradamoni Girls High School be withdrawn within 24 hours, failing which, policemen would be socially boycotted, said Mr Chatradhar Mahato a PSBPC leader.
The presence of police personnel in those schools has been jeopardising studies since 10 November. Earlier, yielding to their threat, 13 police camps including two from panchayat offices and one from a girls high school in Lalgarh area were closed down on Thursday. A five member PSBPC team led by the committee secretary Mr Sidhu Soren and the president Mr Lalmohan Murmu, submitted a memorandum to the officer-in-charge of Lalgarh police station, in this regard. The leaders have also threatened to block the National Highway~ 6 at Lodhasuli unless the district administration complies with their 11-point charter of demand within four days, said Mr Mahato.
Mr R A Israel, the additional district magistrate will be holding a meeting with the committee leaders at Lalgarh tonight as a last step to sought out the month long Lalgarh imbroglio.
Work at Dunlop unit suspended!Dunlop India Limited declared on Sunday suspension of work at its unit in Sahaganj in West Bengal’s Hooghly district. The unit has a workforce of 1,171.Workers demonstrated outside the factory protesting against the management’s decision to suspend work that was brought to their attention through a notice pasted on the gate.The announcement comes in the wake of failure of several rounds of discussions between the management and labour unions, following a decision by the former to temporarily suspend production at the unit on November 17. Both the sides have also held talks with the State government since then.
The industrial growth rate of West Bengal is 1.1 per cent higher than the national average of 10.8 per cent (2006-07), and the State continues to move ahead on the path to development and economic progress, the Singur episode notwithstanding.
According to leading industrialists, the sectors like steel and mining, chemicals and petro-chemicals, power, agro industries and food processing, Information Technology (IT), real estate and retail have been generating a lot of interest in West Bengal.
The State is a gateway not only to north-east India besides other States like Orissa, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, but also to countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.
The growth and development is obvious in and around the capital city of Kolkata. Major real estate players like DLF, Unitech, Singapore-based Keppeland, Purvankara, Emaar Group, are all competing for a pie of the new satellite township coming up at Rajarhat, near the airport.
Besides housing estates, several budget and star hotels and conference centres, cultural centres, shopping malls, multiplexes are being built across the city.
Smaller towns like Durgapur, Haldia, Asansol, and Siliguri across the State are developing. The steel sector, recently received a boost with the foundation stone laying of the proposed Rs. 35,000 crore-Jindal Steel Plant in Salboni, in West Midnapore District, approximately 240 kilometres from Kolkata.
The other sectors that have witnessed a lot of activity are metals, mining and plastic.
With a sustained agricultural growth of over 8 per cent, the State is also finding investors in the agro-industries and in food processing.
"There is great focus in potato, other vegetables and fruit cultivation and processing. The entry of wholesale giants like Metro-Cash-And-Carry signals well for this segment," says Dr. Rajeev Singh, Secretary General, Indian Chamber of Commerce.
According to the city-based industrialist Sanjay Budhia, Chairman of the Patton Group, Kolkata finds investors because of facilities like low-cost housing compared to other metros, good sanitation and basic amenities, best clubs in the country, culture and a literate working class.
Sanjay says investors from Japan and Korean get bowled over when they see the great golf courses the Tolly club and the Royal Calcutta Golf Club (RCGC).
In the hotel industy, Kolkata has witnessed entry of big players. The Apeejay Group is putting up a 300-room five star hotel spread over a 3.3 acre plot on the Eastern Bypass worth Rs 1.36 billion, as is the Emaar Group.
The Bengal Shrishti Infrastructure Development is building a hotel in Rajarhat worth Rs. five billion. The Hilton group has also made enquiries.
According to Samit Ganguly, Director for Sales, Hyatt Regency, Kolkata, has a corporate-driven hotel market, which is growing despite seasonal downslides.
West Bengal today is the third largest economy in the country. Its IT sector, which set off much later than other parts of the country, is growing fast with big names like Wipro, TCS and IBM finding a place in the IT hub at Sector V already.
The State, according to industry leaders, is on the right track. It has garnered new projects worth two billion dollars in the last four years. The government has offered the right incentives and even during the recent global meltdown and recession, not many see much reason to worry.
However, all emphasize that there is need for an environment for industrial growth.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's government in West Bengal has shown the political will towards taking the State forward industrially. However, the state's merit as an investment destination and for industrial development would ultimately be decided on the basis of its work culture and the public will to see projects through.
ABOUT THE Jute INDUSTRY
There had been a rapid expansion of the jute industry in India around Calcutta particularly during certain boom periods. From one mill in 1855 with no looms and another mill established four years later with only 192 looms, towards the end of the first decade of the 20th Century there were 59 mills with 30,685 looms. In the year 1918, the loom strength was 39,401. During the period after the First World War, there was a further advance in the productive capacity of the industry and in 1919-20 the number of mills had increased to 76 with 41,000 looms. There had also come into existence three mills in Andhra Pradesh part of the then Madres Presidency, and one in Uttar Pradesh (formally United province). During 1919-20 fourteen mills ware registered in India showing a great development in jute industry in Bengal and according to the statistics available in the ‘Romance of Jute` the loomage was well above 50,000 in 1927. The temp of expansion continued unabated both in number of mills and in loomage irrespective of the considerations of demand and supply till about 1939-40 when there were 108 mills with 68,000 looms. There was very little expansion of the industry during the years of the Second World War; nevertheless, at the end of the war, i.e., in 1945, there ware 111 mills with an installed capacity of 68,542 looms. There has been no significant expansion ever since and the number of composite mills has now come down to 73 owing to amalgamation an closure of uneconomic units. There has however been a reduction in the loomage also and it now stands at 44162 looms. Besides these 73 jute mills, there are about 30 spinning units manufacturing ropes and twines. The industry has completed its hundred forty five years of existence. Its productive capacity has increased from 1.2 million tones per year in the first plan period to 1.4 million tons at the end of the Second Plan period and 1.6 million tones at the end of this century. There is an overwhelming concentration of he industry in West Bengal and only a sprinkling of it is to be found elsewhere in India. The reasons for this are not far to seek. Factors like an abundant supply of raw material, proximity of cola fields of Ranigunge, navigability of the Hooghly and the availability of the required type of labor in the neighborhood were all responsible for the location of industry over a stretch of about 60 mille on either side of the river Hooghly, from Bansberia to Uluberia on the West bank and from Halisahar to Birlapur on the east bank. Calcutta grew into greater prominence on account of this industry and was developed as first class port, a network of railways was laid, connecting Calcutta with the interior of the country, giant electric power supply station came up and inland water transport service developed.
Bengal and jute industry are inseparable and in fact there is such a heavy concentration of the industry in this area that one is apt to ignore the existence of the industry else ware. But due to factors such as the availability of raw materials near about, cheap labor or ready local market, small jute mills have come up in other states too. Besides 59 composite jute mills located in West Bengal, 3 mills are located each in Bihar and UP, 4 in Andhra Pradesh, 1 each in Assam, Orissa, Tripura and Madhya Pradesh. In addition there exist 3 exclusive yarn-producing units and about 30 mini jute-spinning units. Six sick and closed units were nationalized in 1980 and placed under the management of NJMC for their rehabilitation. Out of 73 composite units, 6 belongs to public sector, 5 to state sector, 1 to co—operative sector and 61 are private sector units.
Out of the country’s total loomage of 44162, only a mere 4429 looms are found distributed in places other than West Bengal. Similarly, out of 6,35,096 Spindles installed in the country, 5,07,960 has been installed in West Bengal.
The annual production of jute goods was 15.96 lake tones during 1998-99. Sacking continues to be the largest segment of production accounting for 52 percent. Hessian constitutes about 25 percent. One significant change in the product mix is the remarkable increase in production. Another welcome development has been the steady increase in production of non-traditional diversified products.
http://jutecomm.gov.in/indostry_intro.htm
Palaniappan Chidambaram says will respond strongly to threats!
After union home minister Shivraj Patil, Maharashtra deputy chief minister R R Patil quit on Monday in wake of the Mumbai terror attacks and now chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh also appears to be on the way out. Maharashtra governor S C Jamir has accepted the resignation of the deputy chief minister. Chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh had forwarded Patil's resignation to the Governor, a Raj Bhavan spokesperson said.
The anger against the political class in wake of the Mumbai terror attack boiled over with slain NSG commando Major Sandeep DG, NSG, Jyoti Krishan Dutt, along with colleagues pay their respects to NSG men Sandeep Unnikrishnan and Gajendra Singh who laid their lives fighting terrorists in Mumbai.
Unnikrishnan's father literally shooing away Kerala chief minister V S Achuthanandan on Sunday!
The CM, who had been criticized for his delay in offering condolences to the bereaved family, who hail from Kerala, tried to make up by calling on the Unnikrishnans. But he failed to anticipate the rejection he would meet at the residence of the fallen soldier. The dead commando's father did not tolerate the CM's presence and shouted at him to leave at once
The mood at special MCOCA court was sombre where Dayanand Pandey, an accused in high-profile Malegaon case, was produced and sent to
judicial custody till December 12.
The case was being probed by Hemant Karkare, who fell victim to the bullets of militants on Wednesday night on way to Cama Hospital, south Mumbai.
An exhausted-looking assistant commissioner of police ATS, Mohan Kulkarni brought Pandey, one of the main accused, before the Special Judge Y D Shinde and did not press for his further police custody.
He was sent to judicial custody till December 12 in a brief hearing which lasted not more than 10 minutes.
"We miss him (Karkare). We are not in a mental state to accept that he is no longer with us," Kulkarni told reporters in a choked voice.
In his firm resolve, Kulkarni said the best tribute to Karkare would be to bring culprits to justice.
Refusing to part with information on the controversial Scorpene submarine deal, the CBI has said that any revelation of inputs received
from foreign governments on the alleged payment of kickbacks in the Rs 16,000 crore deal will "adversely" affect India's diplomatic relations with those nations which co-operated in the probe.
"Disclosure of the CBI report to public will not only be against the interests of the nation but will also adversely affect the diplomatic relations of India with the concerned country (which participated in the investigation)," CBI director Aswani Kumar said in his affidavit before the Delhi High Court.
"It is submitted that some of the information is information received in confidence from foreign government and the disclosure thereof may prejudicially affect the relationship of India with foreign states," Kumar said in his 13-page affidavit.
The Director mentioned various conditions imposed by the investigating agencies of foreign countries pertaining to not disclosing the information supplied by them to public.
The CBI claimed that its inquiry report is a "privilege" document which could not be disclosed to public.
New Home Minister, appointed to the post after the Mumbai attacks, said on Monday that the government would respond strongly to threats posed to the country.
"I want to assure the people on behalf of the government that we will respond with determination and resolve to the grave threat posed to the Indian nation," Palaniappan Chidambaram said.
"I recognise that there is a sense of anguish and deep shock among the people of India. This is a threat to the very idea of India, very soul of India," he said, referring to the Mumbai attacks.
In New Delhi, it is RED ALERT as the Intelligence Bureau has also sounded a fresh alert to Delhi Police asking them to step up security at vital installations in the capital after an email, which police sources said was signed by the "Deccan Mujahideen", warned of a repeat of the Mumbai terror attack at Indira Gandhi International Airport and the three major railway stations. Acting on the three-wheeler threat, police are conducting random checks on autos, particularly around the airport. During the last serial blasts in Delhi, a bomb had gone off in an auto at Ghaffar Market in Karol Bagh. At that time too there had been intelligence alerts on the possibility of key installations in Delhi coming under threat from autos.
FED UP with LIVE TELECAST of TERROR STRIKE Indian ELECTRONIC Media may hope to harvest on Continous High TRP as Pietersen and his teammates are set to return to India by Friday to play the two-Test series, the first of which would be shifted from Ahmedabad to Kolkata, according to media reports in London. According to a report in 'The Guardian', the English cricketers would return to India on Thursday or Friday and the warm-up match, originally scheduled in Vadodara from Friday, is likely to be shifted somewhere near Kolkata. Indian officials have pointed out that the terrorists involved in Mumbai attacks were trained in Pakistan.With India blaming Pakistan-based elements for the Mumbai terror strikes, the US today said Islamabad must "follow evidence wherever it leads" and lend "absolute" and "transparent" cooperation in the probe as Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice headed for New Delhi.
President George W Bush has asked Rice to travel to New Delhi on Wednesday amid apprehensions of tensions rising between India and Pakistan in the aftermath of Mumbai blasts. The White House said US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice would visit India on Wednesday, underscoring the seriousness with which Washington viewed the attacks and the potential threat they had to regional stability. After union home minister Shivraj Patil, Maharashtra deputy chief minister RR Patil quit on Monday in wake of the Mumbai terror attacks and now chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh also appears to be on the way out.
"I don't want to jump to any conclusions myself on this, but I do think that this is a time for complete, absolute, total transparency and cooperation and that is what we expect (from Pakistan)," Rice told reporters travelling with her to London.
Warning that militants have the power to precipitate a war in the region, President Asif Ali Zardari has asked India to "resist striking out at his government" should investigations show that "Pakistani militant groups" were responsible for the attacks in Mumbai. The Pakistani President said his country should not be punished for the three-day terrorist rampage in Mumbai that killed around 200 people including foreigners.
2008: A saga of bruises for Ratan Tata
By: Madhu T & Reeba Zachariah, TNN
It's been a rough year for Ratan Tata so far. For the industrialist, 2008 started off in a grand way, with the acquisition of the iconic British marquees Jaguar and Land Rover (JLR).
Coming on the back of the Corus acquisition, the JLR deal gave the Tata group the necessary global credentials. But things started skidding off-course when the Nano project had to be pulled out of Singur, West Bengal.
Soon the global financial meltdown set in, hurting several group businesses. And now, the devastation of the Taj Mahal Palace and Tower, the jewel in the Tatas' hospitality crown.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Police_unaware_about_Israeli_plane_in_Mumbai/articleshow/quickiearticleshow/3777488.cms
After attacks, PM battles for political life
Mon Dec 1, 2008 4:45pm IST Email | Print | Share| Single Page[-] Text [+]
1 of 1Full SizeBy Alistair Scrutton
NEW DELHI (Reuters) - Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's political survival may depend on finding a strong response to the attacks in Mumbai as Indians clamour for answers and action to the country's "9/11".
But if the track record of the quietly spoken "prime minister by accident" is anything to go by, the Congress-led government may find it hard to both appease voters ahead of general elections, and persuade Pakistan to act against militants.
"We have a figurehead prime minister," strategic affairs expert K. Subrahmanyam said. "There is an impression that the government is weak and not able to deal with terrorism."
http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/idINIndia-36803620081201
Reuters Insight: Mumbai after attack
(01:30) Analysis
Dec. 1 - Less than a week after the deadly terrorist attacks that rocked India's financial capital, Mumbai is creeping back to normalcy. How will the high profile carnage affect the India story?
Phil Smith, Reuters South Asia Editor, gives us an analysis.
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NSG director speaks post attack
(02:27) Report
Dec. 1 - India's NSG commandos returned to New Delhi after a grueling 60 hour standoff with terrorists in two of Mumbai's elite hotels and a Jewish center.
The Director General of the NSG spoke about the challenges his team faced while in combat at a ceremony organized to pay tribute to those commandos that lost their lives in the battle.
An ANI report.
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India lawmakers face Mumbai anger
(01:52) Report
Dec. 1 - After the deadly attacks in Mumbai, politicians are facing a backlash for their poor handling of the situation.
The President of India, Pratibha Patil pledged tough action against terrorism.
The residents of Mumbai are still coming to terms with what happened in their city.
Paul Chapman reports.
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Patil resigns as home minister
(01:10) Report
Nov 30 - Shivraj Patil resigned as India's Home Minister on Sunday.
Finance Minister Palaniappan Chidambaram was appointed to take over Patil's job while Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will handle the finance portfolio for now.An ANI Report.
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Two women raped in India every hour
NEW DELHI: Every 60 minutes, two women are raped in this country.
What is more horrendous is that 133 elderly women were sexually assaulted last year, according to the latest report prepared by the National Crime Records Bureau (NCRB).
A total of 20,737 cases of rape were reported last year registering a 7.2% increase over the previous year, with Madhya Pradesh becoming the "rape capital" of the country by topping the list of such incidents.
Going by the NCRB statistics, two women are raped in the country every hour.
Madhya Pradesh (3,010) accounted for 14.5 per cent of the total cases, with West Bengal following with 2,106 such incidents. Records of high incidence in other states are Uttar Pradesh (1,648), Bihar (1,555) and Rajasthan (1,238).
The national capital had 598 cases in which 602 women were sexually assaulted.
In its report 'Crime in India - 2007', the NCRB noted that offenders were known to the victims in as many as 19,188 cases (92.5 per cent) that included 6,902 incidents in which neighbours were involved.
Parents or close family members were involved in 405 cases while in 1,448 cases relatives were involved. "Everywhere in this country, over 90 per cent of the victims are raped by person known to them," a senior police official said.
Women in the age-group of 18 to 30 years were the largest chunk among the victims (11,984) followed by 3,530 victims in the age-group of 30-50 years.
While 617 victims were below the age of 10 years, 4,507 were between 10 and 18 years, the report said.
A total of 1,85,312 incidents of crime against women were reported in the country as compared to 1,64,765 in 2006, recording an increase of 12.5 per cent.
Andhra Pradesh was at the top of the list of crime against women accounting for 13.3 per cent of such incidents recorded in the country followed by Uttar Pradesh with 11.3 per cent.
Molestation and sexual cases also increased by 5.8 and 9.9 per cent last year.
Madhya Pradesh, which had the highest number of rape cases, registered a record 6,772 incidents out of a total of 36,617 molestation cases followed by Andhra Pradesh (4406 cases).
Andhra Pradesh shared the dubious distinction of having the largest number of 3,316 sexual harassment cases followed by Uttar Pradesh which had 2,882 cases. Total number of such cases in the country was 10,950.
Respect for women seem to be the most worst in Andhra Pradesh which accounted for 83.5 per cent of cases under Indecent Representation of Women (Prohibition) Act of total cases across the country. Out of a total 1,200 such cases, Andhra had registered 1,005 incidents in this regard.
There was a 20.3 per cent increase in cases of torture by husband and relatives with Andhra Pradesh again leading the pack with 11,335 cases out of the 62,128 incidents. West Bengal and Rajasthan were not far behind in torturing women registering 9,900 and 8,170 cases respectively.
According to the report, one-fourth of the dowry death cases were reported from Uttar Pradesh (2,076 cases). Bihar came second in this list with 1,172 cases while the national capital has 138 dowry deaths last year.
PTI
Islamabad threat forces Delhi to boost LoC vigil
1 Dec 2008, 1305 hrs IST, TNN
NEW DELHI/WASHINGTON: With evidence mounting of Pakistani footprints in the Mumbai strike, Islamabad has moved swiftly to pre-empt any international
consolidation against it by threatening to withdraw one lakh soldiers from the “war on terror” on its Afghan border and move them to the Indian side if New Delhi makes any aggressive move.
In Washington, Pakistan’s ambassador to the US Hussain Haqqani said there is no movement of Pakistani troops right now, but if India makes any aggressive moves, Islamabad will have no choice but to take appropriate measures.
While the threat is clearly aimed at ringing alarm bells in the US, Indian armed forces have cranked up their readiness and surveillance levels by a few notches all along the western front as a “precautionary measure”. But, as reported by TOI on Sunday, there is no Indian move to mobilise troops on a large scale near the border, as was done during Operation Parakram in the aftermath of the December 2001 terror attack on Parliament.
“There is no mobilisation... Routine troop movements and small exercises are in progress in border areas. In any case, the army’s operational philosophy has changed from the Operation Parakram days, with long-drawn mobilisations giving way to the rapid ‘cold start’ strategy of strike units,” said a senior officer.
The army also debunked reports that the government had ordered it to “break” the ceasefire—along the 198-km International Border in J&K, the 778-km Line of Control and the 150-km Actual Ground Position Line in Siachen—which came into force on November 26, 2003. Though Pakistani forces have violated the ceasefire 65 times since then, with 35 of those breaches being reported this year alone, it has generally held with the two sides not descending into the heavy artillery duels of yesteryears.
Though Indian armed forces have so far not noticed any move by Pakistan to redeploy its troops, they have spotted “heightened military activity across the border”. “Consequently, the armed forces and the BSF have stepped up their vigilance levels,” said an official. But the situation is unlikely to progress into an “eyeball-toeyeball” confrontation along the Indo-Pak border as it did during 2001-2002.
Such a Pakistani move would obviously undermine the US-Nato battle in Afghanistan that would also be detrimental to India in the long run. In the short term, the current Pakistani troop deployment is keeping Islamabad engaged on its western front and minimizing infiltration in Kashmir, allowing India to tackle the insurgency in the state.
In fact, some experts surmise that the terror strike on Mumbai may have been aimed at precisely this—taking the pressure off Pakistan on its Afghan front, where it is getting a battering from US predators and causing a civilian uprising on its border, and allowing Islamabad to return to its traditional hostile posture against India on its eastern front.
Senior US officials have been in constant communication with their Indian counterparts to deal with the complex situation.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/News/PoliticsNation/Islamabad_threat_forces_Delhi_to_boost_LoC_vigil/articleshow/3779225.cms
The industrial growth rate of West Bengal is 1.1 per cent higher than the national average of 10.8 per cent (2006-07), and the State continues to move ahead on the path to development and economic progress, the Singur episode notwithstanding.
According to leading industrialists, the sectors like steel and mining, chemicals and petro-chemicals, power, agro industries and food processing, Information Technology (IT), real estate and retail have been generating a lot of interest in West Bengal.
The State is a gateway not only to north-east India besides other States like Orissa, Bihar, Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand, but also to countries like Nepal, Bhutan, Bangladesh, and Myanmar.
The growth and development is obvious in and around the capital city of Kolkata. Major real estate players like DLF, Unitech, Singapore-based Keppeland, Purvankara, Emaar Group, are all competing for a pie of the new satellite township coming up at Rajarhat, near the airport.
Besides housing estates, several budget and star hotels and conference centres, cultural centres, shopping malls, multiplexes are being built across the city.
Smaller towns like Durgapur, Haldia, Asansol, and Siliguri across the State are developing. The steel sector, recently received a boost with the foundation stone laying of the proposed Rs. 35,000 crore-Jindal Steel Plant in Salboni, in West Midnapore District, approximately 240 kilometres from Kolkata.
The other sectors that have witnessed a lot of activity are metals, mining and plastic.
With a sustained agricultural growth of over 8 per cent, the State is also finding investors in the agro-industries and in food processing.
"There is great focus in potato, other vegetables and fruit cultivation and processing. The entry of wholesale giants like Metro-Cash-And-Carry signals well for this segment," says Dr. Rajeev Singh, Secretary General, Indian Chamber of Commerce.
According to the city-based industrialist Sanjay Budhia, Chairman of the Patton Group, Kolkata finds investors because of facilities like low-cost housing compared to other metros, good sanitation and basic amenities, best clubs in the country, culture and a literate working class.
Sanjay says investors from Japan and Korean get bowled over when they see the great golf courses the Tolly club and the Royal Calcutta Golf Club (RCGC).
In the hotel industy, Kolkata has witnessed entry of big players. The Apeejay Group is putting up a 300-room five star hotel spread over a 3.3 acre plot on the Eastern Bypass worth Rs 1.36 billion, as is the Emaar Group.
The Bengal Shrishti Infrastructure Development is building a hotel in Rajarhat worth Rs. five billion. The Hilton group has also made enquiries.
According to Samit Ganguly, Director for Sales, Hyatt Regency, Kolkata, has a corporate-driven hotel market, which is growing despite seasonal downslides.
West Bengal today is the third largest economy in the country. Its IT sector, which set off much later than other parts of the country, is growing fast with big names like Wipro, TCS and IBM finding a place in the IT hub at Sector V already.
The State, according to industry leaders, is on the right track. It has garnered new projects worth two billion dollars in the last four years. The government has offered the right incentives and even during the recent global meltdown and recession, not many see much reason to worry.
However, all emphasize that there is need for an environment for industrial growth.
Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee's government in West Bengal has shown the political will towards taking the State forward industrially. However, the state's merit as an investment destination and for industrial development would ultimately be decided on the basis of its work culture and the public will to see projects through.
http://www.merinews.com/catFull.jsp?articleID=150965
Bachchan cancels Clinton invite after Mumbai terror strike
NEW DELHI: Superstar Amitabh Bachchan has cancelled an invitation of former US president Bill Clinton to participate in his Clinton Global
Initiative after the terror strikes in Mumbai, saying he wanted to be in the country during this time of crisis.
"I cancelled. I am NOT going to leave my country in this troubled hour to travel to a foreign land to lend cause to a foreign initiative, patronized and guided by a foreigner, for his benefit !! I need to see initiative here in my country," he wrote in his blog.
The actor has also cancelled his participation in Live Earth concert, which was organised for 6th and 7th December in Mumbai.
"I am NOT going to sing and dance at a time when my country and city bleeds, even though the funds collected were going to be for charity. They can keep their initiative to themselves," said Bachchan.
Taking a dig at the political system, Bachchan said, "Cynical and provocative text come in describing the ridiculous utterances of the system and those that run it. And actions to placate themselves of dire circumstances, prevail among ruling governance."
The actor said he shared the anger and frustration of the countrymen over the situation. "Never ever have I observed the extent of extreme anger in each and every individual of this country towards those that sit in the seat of authority and system and power," he wrote.
"This is a determined and definite citizen. A citizen that has decided that everyone of them needs to become his own vigilante. For his sake and for the sake of his country. "I endorse that sentiment," he said.
PTI
Top US lawmakers on Sunday pushed for aggressive and effective US diplomacy in South Asia to prevent the further escalation of tensions
between Pakistan and India as a consequence of the Mumbai terrorist attacks that have killed 183 people, including six Americans.
Appearing on various Sunday talk shows, these top law makers, cutting across party lines, were worried that the escalation of tension between the two nuclear-power South Asian neighbours, would not only endanger its soldiers stationed in Afghanistan, but also badly hit its war against terrorism.
With Afghanistan being a top foreign policy priority for the upcoming Barack Obama administration, these lawmakers also welcomed the idea of the president-elect appointing a special envoy for mediation between the two countries.
"We're going to have to move very rapidly ourselves, the United States of America, to make certain that our forces in Afghanistan, quite apart from whatever we're doing in Iraq, are protected, while the rest of this goes on, with two very high-level countries," Senator Richard Lugar told the ABC News on its popular weekend show 'World This Week'.
"Our presence there is going to be very important," said Lugar, who is a ranking member of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee.
Pushing a strong diplomatic initiative from the US now, Lugar said: "Everybody could have suspicions, at this point. My point is diplomacy may try to unravel some of this, to try to keep things afloat."
Appearing on "Fox News Sunday", Senator McCaskill said: "We've got to have aggressive and principled diplomacy between these two countries."
A senior member of the Armed Services Committee, McCaskill said in order to keep Americans safe, the US needs to make sure that "we hold Pakistan accountable for the terrorist training activity that's ongoing there".
The US has been giving Pakistan a lot of financial aid to root out terrorism within their borders and frankly they haven't been as accountable as they need to be for those dollars, he argued.
"So we need to continue to strengthen these relationships and do everything we can to make sure these two countries work out these differences in a way that does not involve a full-scale military conflict," he added.
Democratic Senator Jack Reed said: "If there's a strong indication, on both sides, that they're moving together, and that we can play a productive role, yes. But I think you have to have the building blocks in place."
Another senior Democratic Senator Claire McCaskill said: "The Obama administration is very focused on making sure that we do not have a full-blown conflict between Pakistan and India. Obviously, the Kashmiri border has been a sticking point for these two countries for a long, long time."
McCaskill said the Obama national security team is going to be looking at how the US can strengthen the entire region and continue to focus on where the terrorism threats are.
Two senior investigators said on condition of anonymity that evidence from the interrogation of Azam Amir Kasav, the only gunmen of the 10 captured alive, clearly showed that Pakistani militants had a hand in the attack.
The Live Earth India concert, scheduled to be held in Mumbai next month, has been called off in the wake of attacks in India’s financial capital that killed nearly 200 people, organisers said. American musician Jon Bon Jovi, British rocker Roger Waters and Bollywood superstar Amitabh Bachchan were to share the stage at the Dec. 7 event to raise funds for lighting homes with solar energy in places where people do not have access to electricity.
Two days after the last of the terrorists was gunned down by commandos, the country's commercial capital limps back to normal with the routine flurry of activities seen in almost all parts of the city.
The first signal of normalcy came when a couple of hours after the operation at the Taj was over on Saturday, Jehangir Art Gallery, a stone's throw away from the landmark hotel, was thrown open for art aficionados.
On Sunday, Cafe Leopold, where the terrorists started their bloody campaign, opened its doors to customers.
Government and corporate offices, courts, schools, and colleges have also opened, and lakhs of Mumbaikars have resumed their daily routine.
Investigators said on Monday the militants who attacked Mumbai had months of commando training in Pakistan, adding to rising tensions between the neighbours as recriminations mounted at home.
The fallout prompted a second top politician from the ruling Congress party to resign, amid growing anger at intelligence failures that many Indians believe allowed 10 Islamist gunmen to kill 183 people and besiege India's financial capital for three bloody days.
The attacks, which struck Mumbai's two best-known luxury hotels and other landmarks in the city of 18 million, are a major setback for improving ties between India and Pakistan.
The seven-member team of the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) has started its assessment of the Mumbai terror attacks. The team arrived in the city on Sunday and was in a day-long meeting with the Director General of Police (DGP), Mumbai Commissioner of Police and senior officials from the Crime Branch. The team is in the process of examining evidence and remnants of explosives gathered from the targeted places and the methodology used by the militants, official sources said.
FBI would be investigating the case from their side as six American nationals were killed in the attacks. It was not immediately clear whether the FBI has also registered a case in the matter as they had done in the hijacking of Indian airlines' IC-814 plane in 1999 which carried a US national - Jennir Moorie.
The clean-shaven, 21-year-old with fluent English was photographed during the attack wearing a black t-shirt emblazoned with the Versace logo. He has said his team took orders from "their command in Pakistan", police officials said.
Meanwhile,the United States has told Pakistan it expects nothing short of complete cooperation in investigations into the terrorist rampage in India, and Pakistan's response will be a test of the will of the new civilian government, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said on Monday. Talking tough with Pakistan, the Ministry of External Affairs in India has summoned the Pakistan High Commissioner after strong links to Pakistan in the Mumbai terror attack emerged.
On the other hand, European and Chinese industry activity slumped in November, Japanese officials said their economy was slowing rapidly and US retailers slashed prices to lure shoppers as recession took a grip. Underscoring the tightening grasp of the downturn, Bank of Japan Governor Masaaki Shirakawa warned on Monday economic conditions were deteriorating fast, and Japanese firms were finding it increasingly hard to secure credit.
"What we are emphasizing to the Pakistani government is the need to follow the evidence wherever it leads," Rice said. "I don't want to jump to any conclusions myself on this, but I do think that this is a time for complete, absolute, total transparency and cooperation and that's what we expect."
At President George W. Bush's direction, Rice is cutting short a European trip to visit India later this week. Attacks spanning three days killed more than 170 people in the Indian commercial capital Mumbai, including six Americans.
Indian leaders pointed fingers at "elements in Pakistan" although it is not yet clear where the well-planned operation originated.
"We share the grief and the anger of the Indian people but of course Americans were also killed in this attack and they were killed deliberately because they were Americans," Rice said during a news conference aboard her plane en route to London. "That makes this of special interest and concern to the United States."
Attackers chose sites representing the city's wealth and tourism, and reportedly sought out Westerners as victims. Rice will see Indian leaders in New Delhi. She does not plan to go to Mumbai.
A previously unknown Muslim group called Deccan Mujahideen – a name suggesting origins inside India - has claimed responsibility for the attacks. But Indian officials said the lone surviving gunman, now in custody, told authorities he belonged to a Pakistani militant group with links to the divided Himalayan territory of Kashmir.
India has blamed "elements" from Pakistan for the 60-hour siege during which suspected Muslim militants hit 10 sites across Mumbai.
Ashok Todi in judicial custody
Prime accused in the Rizwanur Rahman death case Ashok Todi on Monday was sent to judicial custody till December 12 after he surrendered
before a city court here on the direction of the Supreme Court.
Todi, who had allegedly been evading arrest for some time, had moved the Supreme Court challenging an arrest warrant issued by the metropolitan magistrate at Bankshall Court. The apex court had directed him to surrender before the magistrate.
Todi's counsel Pradip Ghosh prayed for bail plea before magistrate Madhumita Roy claiming that he was ill and had been exonerated of any accusation by Rizwanur, whose body was found beside railway tracks in September last year, a month after he married the industrialist's daughter, Priyanka.
He stated that as per the last letter of Rizwanur before his alleged suicide, the computer graphics teacher had stated "I forgive my father-in-law Ashok Todi because he is a father."
CBI counsel Partha Tapaswi opposed the bail plea submitting that Todi was the main accused and as such should not be given bail. Appearing for Rizwanur's mother, Kishwar Jahan, counsel Kalyan Banerjee made an impassionate plea opposing the bail petition.
I was disinclined but answered to call of duty: PC
I was disinclined’ to move to the Home Ministry but in a situation like this, "I answered to the call of duty", P Chidambaram said on Monday on his portfolio being changed from Finance Minister to Home Minister.
"When the Prime Minister conveyed the decision to me, I will be less than honest if I do not say that I was disinclined," Chidambaram told reporters here while winding up his duties with the Finance Ministry.
"But in a situation like the one we find ourselves, the final call is taken by the party leader, in my case the Congress president and the Prime Minister. I therefore answered to the call of duty," he said.
Chidambaram was appointed the Home Minister on Sunday after Shivraj Patil resigned in the wake of terror strikes in Mumbai.
Demand for security system makers rise after terror attacks
Shares of security systems manufacturers picked up steam on Monday after the recent terror attacks in Mumbai prompted companies to enhance Women light candles during a vigil in Mumbai on Sunday. (AFP)
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Terror attack in Nariman House |
Mumbai attacks |
Places targeted |
Pak Connection |
Marine Link
their security.
Issues such as physical security measures, access control, frisking and checking of baggage of guests, installation of gadgets like CCTV cameras, door frame metal detectors, hand-held metal detectors and X-ray baggage scanners took centrestage after the co-ordinated terror attacks in the city.
Companies like Zicom Electronic Security Systems, Bartronics India, Gemini Comunications and Bharat Electronics are among the few that will gain on the markets, analysts said.
Zicom provides electronic security solutions in India for customers from the banking, telecom, media and finance sectors among others. It offers a range of products, including access control systems, closed circuit television surveillance, fire alarm systems, smart cards and law enforcement products.
Hyderabad based Bartronics is engaged in providing automatic identification and data capture solutions in India and internationally. It also offers radio frequency identification (RFID) solutions, smart cards, and point of sale solutions. The company's products are used in various applications, such as access control, building management, crowd management, patrol management, application tracking, vehicle tracking, siren management and fleet management apart from others.
Gemini Comunications, which is based in Chennai, together with its subsidiaries, offers security products and services like voice and data copper cabling, fiber optics, and wireless solutions to industrial and small and medium enterprise customers. It also provides WAN infrastructures, and LAN/WAN solutions and support services.
The business unit offers security products, including hardware, software, and chips; and security solutions comprising perimeter security, unified threat management, nternal security, secured remote access, employee Internet management, mail security, patch management, and access control.
Bangalore based Bharat Electronics supplies products and turnkey systems to the Indian Defense Services. It also manufactures various civilian products and offers turnkey telecommunication solutions to civilian market.
At 3pm, Zicom shares gained 4.9 per cent to Rs 49.20 and Bharat Electronics climbed 2.46 per cent to 573. But shares of Bartronics India pared early gains and were trading at Rs 59.50, down 2.86 per cent while Gemini Comunications fell 0.85 per cent to Rs 17.50.
Pakistan denied it was involved and demanded evidence.
India has repeatedly accused Pakistan of complicity in terrorist attacks on its soil, many of which it traces to militant groups fighting Indian rule in Kashmir. The U.S. has tried to persuade Pakistan to shift its security focus from India, with which it has fought three wars, to Islamic militants along the Afghan border.
Rice said Pakistan's U.S-backed civilian president, Asif Ali Zardari, has pledged to improve relations.
Zardari replaced President Pervez Musharraf earlier this year and has established polite but distanced relations with Washington. Musharraf was a military man and a Bush administration ally against terrorism, but that closeness cost him support at home.
"It's a difficult task for this new Pakistani government," Rice said, referring to the way Islamabad will respond to the attacks next door. "They know this is a time to step up to the task."
Rice spoke Sunday with President-elect Barack Obama, their third conversation about India in as many days.
PAKISTAN TRAINING
The training was organised by the Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group, and conducted by a former member of the Pakistani army, a police officer close to the interrogation said, on condition of anonymity because he was not authorised to speak.
"They underwent training in several phases, which included training in handling weapons, bomb making, survival strategies, survival in a marine environment and even dietary habits," another senior officer said.
The Pakistani-based Lashkar-e-Taiba made its name fighting Indian rule in Kashmir but was also blamed for an attack on the Indian parliament in 2001 that brought the nuclear-armed neighbours close to war.
Lashkar had had close links to Pakistan's military spy agency in the past, security experts say, although the government in Islamabad insists it too is fighting the group and other Islamist extremists based on its soil.
New Delhi has not accused Islamabad's civilian government of involvement but has expressed deep frustration that its neighbour has been unable or unwilling to prevent militants using its soil to attack Indian cities.
Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has appealed to India not to punish his country for last week's attacks, saying militants could precipitate a war, the Financial Times reported on Monday.
"Even if the militants are linked to Lashkar-e-Taiba, who do you think we are fighting?" asked Zardari in an interview with the Financial Times.
Officials in Islamabad have warned any escalation would force it to divert troops to the Indian border and away from a U.S.-led anti-militant campaign on the Afghan frontier.
"It's part of the usual blackmail of the United States that Pakistan does to take more interest in India-Pakistan issues," said B. Raman, a former head of Indian intelligence agency RAW.
"NO ONE ACTED"
The leader of Maharashtra's main fishermen's union says he had tipped off the government four months ago about militants using the sea to land RDX explosives in Mumbai.
"No one acted upon our information," Damodar Tandel said.
A huge consignment of explosives and guns brought ashore in Mumbai in 1993 was used to set off a string of bombs in the city that killed 257 people.
Mumbai residents returned to schools and offices on Monday for the first time since the attacks.
Candlelight vigils were held in New Delhi and at various spots in Mumbai on Sunday, with people holding hands, singing and carrying banners, some in remembrance of victims, others protesting over what they saw as government inaction.
Candles and flowers were also strewn at the bullet-scarred Cafe Leopold and at barricades in front of the Taj and Trident hotels, where the gunmen holed up during the 60-hour siege.
Pentagon to reserve 20,000 troops for domestic emergencies: Report
The US Department of Defense plans to deploy 20,000 troops nationwide by 2011 to help state and local officials respond to terror or
nuclear attacks and emergencies.
Citing Pentagon officials, the newspaper said the plan calls for three rapid-reaction forces.
The first 4,700-strong unit, built around an active-duty combat brigade, is based at Fort Stewart, Georgia, and is already available for deployment, according to General Victor Renuart, commander of the US Northern Command, it said.
Two additional groups will later join nearly 80 smaller National Guard and reserve units made up of about 6,000 troops to support local and state authorities nationwide, The Post said.
They will all would be trained to respond to domestic chemical, biological, radiological, nuclear, or high-yield explosive attacks.
The newpaper said that civil liberties groups and libertarians had expressed concern that the plan could undermine the Posse Comitatus Act, a 130-year-old law restricting the military's role in domestic law enforcement.
A glimpse of Nariman House cost them their lives
They were not among the hostages inside the Nariman House where the mindless terror game was on, but being around it even cost them dearly.
Terrorists holed up inside the Jewsih building opened fire at those trying to have a glimpse from their rooftops and balconies of what was happening inside the structure.
Salim Harawala (62) and Maria Harawala (55) fell to the terrorists' gunshots in the process. Their 28-year-old son, Mohammed Harawala, was lucky enough to survive the attack as the bullet just passed above his head. He was admitted to St George hospital with minor injuries.
Mohammed, on the fateful day, after attending a family function was returning home along with his parents when a blast at a petrol pump in Colaba occurred.
Fearing danger, they decided to go to their relative's place at Shivam House adjacent to Nariman House.
The family heard some loud shots and they leaned out from the balcony. Terrorists opened fire in the air and two bullets hit Mohammed's parents, claiming their lives.
Tayeebi Gittsam, Mohammed's father-in-law, is in a state of shock.
"It is high time something is done to eradicate terrorism. How many more innocent persons are going to lose their lives.
"These people (terrorists) just want to take revenge and they don't think about the consequences and only have a motto of killing as many people as possible," he said.
What's wrong with taking my son along? Asks Deshmukh
Brushing aside the criticisms on filmmaker Ram Gopal Varma being part of his entourage to the terror-hit Taj hotel and other sites, Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on Monday said there was "no bad intention in it".
Asked what the filmmaker was doing at the site of a terror attack when most people were not allowed inside, Deshmukh said, "There was no bad intention in it. Many people come to such places. The television footage of the visit was provided by the government."
Deshmukh also said there was nothing wrong in his actor son Riteish accompanying him to the sites of the terror attacks.
"If my son is with me what is wrong in that? It was a big incident and he wanted to see it," Deshmukh said.
The actor and the director were seen in the entourage which accompanied the Chief Minister when he visited the Taj, the Oberoi and the Nariman House in south Mumbai.
"If people speak right thing then the media does not show it. However, I have complete respect for the opinion of all people of the state as it is a democracy and they are entitled to it," Deshmukh added.
Slowdown deepens, attack clouds prospects
India's manufacturing industry contracted sharply in November and economists said fallout from last week's attacks on its financial capital risked deepening a deceleration already underway due to the global financial crisis.
A survey showed activity reported by Indian manufacturing purchasing managers shrank for the first time since the survey began 3-½ years ago, although the rate of contraction was not as acute as in neighbouring China. "It is a much larger fall than expected and follows the more dismal Chinese PMI," said Robert Prior-Wandesforde, an economist at HSBC. "Industrial output itself may also contract."
India's lending markets seized up in October as turmoil in the world's major credit markets disrupted the flow of funds between banks and their customers.
The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has slashed its main lending rate by 150 basis points to 7.5 per cent and released billions of dollars into the financial system but evidence shows demand is still faltering.
Sales at India's largest car maker, Maruti Suzuki, fell 24.4 per cent in November from a year earlier and TVS Motor, the third largest two-wheeler maker, saw annual sales drop about 13 per cent.
Palaniappan Chidambaram, who moved from being Finance Minister to Home Minister in a cabinet reshuffle on Sunday, said on Monday he still expected the economy to expand 7-8 per cent in the fiscal year to March.
Data on Friday showed the economy expanded 7.6 per cent in the September quarter, slower than 7.9 per cent in the quarter before and far below 9 per cent seen in all of 2007/08.
Prior-Wandesforde said the coming months would be extremely challenging for the economy and growth was likely to soften more.
"It is up to the government to loosen fiscal policy now that the RBI has already announced several measures, and I think further rate cuts may be there," he said.
The trade deficit narrowed slightly to $10.54 billion in October compared with $10.63 billion in September.
Imports rose an annual 10.6 per cent in the month, with oil imports up 22 per cent, and exports for the April-October period grew 23.7 per cent from a year earlier.
The seasonally adjusted PMI output index slumped to 44.6 from 54.1 in October, showing manufacturers have scaled back production on the back of waning demand.
Almost all the indexes covered by the report, which tracks changes in manufacturing business conditions by polling purchasing managers each month, fell to their lowest in the series.
Economy to fall sharply from Q4: Nomura
India's economic growth will start falling sharply from the fourth quarter of 2008 mainly due to a drop in investments, demand and exports, Nomura Financial Advisory & Securities (Pte) said in a note.
Potential fallout from last week's terror attacks in Mumbai is an added "downside risk," the Japanese financial group added.
Nomura also cut its estimate for India's gross domestic product growth in 2008/09 to 6.8 per cent from 7.2 per cent, and expects 2009/10 GDP growth to slow to 5.3 per cent from its earlier estimate of 6.9 per cent, according to the note. There are increasing signs of non-linear economic effects: vicious negative spirals from falling asset prices, sagging confidence, rising job losses, tightening lending standards and weakening demand, as well as increasing multiplier effects on domestic demand from the slump in exports," Nomura said.
"We forecast inflation to ease sharply due to falling commodity prices and rising economic slack, and consequently expect the RBI to embark on an aggressive rate-cutting cycle," Sonal Varma, economist, said in the note.
India's GDP grew by 7.6 per cent in the third quarter of 2008 down from 7.9 per cent in the previous quarter, led by still-strong growth in the services sector, but details confirm that the economy is losing momentum, the bank said.
'Terrorism has the most fanatic followers'
Condemning the terror-attack in Mumbai, reel-life turned real-life couple Ajay Devgan and Kajol said that terrorism is the only religion that should be wiped off from the earth.
"If there is any religion that should be wiped off this earth, it is terrorism. However, each religion is trying to wipe the other out. Terrorism has no god besides terror and this religion has the most fanatic followers," the duo said in a statement.
"A salute and hats-off to our armed forces who have showed such courage and made us believe in heroes all over again. We pay our tributes to the able officers who have laid down their lives so that we can sit safe in our house today," they said.
The duo felt it was impossible to fight such fanaticism.
"How do we fight this new religion? Do we blame political parties or do we start something on our own?" they asked.
"The crisis is over. At least that's what we would like to believe till the next one props up, which could be tomorrow, day-after, today or even right now," they said referring to the end of security operations at the hotels held hostage by militants.
"This is their job and they have done it wonderfully, but have we done ours? We pay tributes to them till the crisis is over but the next working day, is exactly that, a working day. We forget all about them till next situation comes up," the duo said.
A year Tata would like to forget
1 Dec 2008, 0227 hrs IST, MV Ramsurya, ET Bureau
Terrorists could have used 2 taxis, planted IEDs
MUMBAI: It has truly been annus horribilis for the Tatas. The mishaps range from the trivial to the serious. Before the terrorist attack at the
Taj, the greatest challenge confronting the group was a violent agitation by the Mamata Banerjee-led Trinamul Congress, which eventually led to the shifting of the prestigious Nano car project from West Bengal to Gujarat. It was also the victim of a series of well-orchestrated forgery reports.
The 100-year-old Taj — the flagship property of the Tatas’ Indian Hotels — accounts for almost 45% of the company’s revenues. Group founder Jamshetji Nusserwanji Tata built the Taj in 1903 after he was reportedly refused entry at an ‘Europeans-only’ hotel.
The Tata Group, industry observers say, is sure to bounce back. It has great leadership at the top and dedicated human resources across all levels of the workforce. This became increasingly apparent during the terrorist attack, where the Taj staff worked selflessly to rescue and comfort the guests.
The terrorist attacks came a month-and-a-half after the group was forced to move its small car project out of Singur following widespread violent protests led by Ms Banerjee, who claimed that the original owners of the land on which the Nano (a low-cost small car) was to be built, had been forcibly evicted. The Tatas had invested about Rs 1,500 crore in Singur.
“Our reason for leaving West Bengal is the continued aggression and agitation by the Opposition with total disregard for the rule of law, and not because of what the state government has done or not done,” chairman Ratan Tata had said, even as a distraught West Bengal government made fervent pleas to the Tatas to reconsider their decision.
The small car project shot into the limelight ever since Mr Tata said his group would offer a car at just Rs 1,00,000 to make a four-wheeler accessible to the common Indian. The spike in crude prices and the tightening liquidity situation didn’t impact the group’s deadline for the car, but the agitation has caused a minor delay.
The Nano is now slated to roll out on Indian roads by March 2009 from the Tata Motors’ Pune and Pantnagar facilities. “It was a big setback for the group to move out of Singur at the last moment. It would definitely have some impact on the schedule,” said a consultant closely associated with the group’s operations.
Though trivial in comparison with what has happened now, the group has also been the victim of hoaxes. In August, a forged press release said group flagship Tata Steel had suspended work on an Orissa port. The press release, which seemed to be from Tata Steel, said it was halting work on the port as it could endanger the survival of the Olive Ridley turtles.
The statement came as a big surprise to the market as only days before, at its annual earnings meet in Mumbai, senior Tata Steel executives including MD B Muthuraman had talked about quick progress on the port project and the benefits of having a captive port on the eastern coast.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ET_Cetera/A_year_Tata_would_like_to_forget/articleshow/3777540.cms
Sagnik Chowdhury
Posted: Dec 01, 2008 at 0926 hrs IST
Mumbai Nearly two days after the unprecedented terror attacks in Mumbai were neutralised, police and Central security agencies are struggling to piece together what is apparently a complex plot even as questions remain if there are any attackers still on the loose and if the blasts in the two taxis were intended for other high-profile targets.
While police and government officials have gone on record to say that 10 attackers entered the city from the sea on a raft and nine have been killed and one arrested, the blasts in two taxis — in Vile Parle and near the Dockyard Road station — have sown doubts about the presence of more men.
But police sources said they suspected the 10 men had used the two taxis after landing in the city and left an IED each in the two vehicles to be randomly triggered by timers later in the night and cause chaos and destruction.
They said the driver and the passenger in the Vile Parle taxi and the driver in the Dockyard Road station taxi, all of whom were killed, had been identified and the nature of the explosives used was being ascertained. More details are expected from the interrogation of Azam Ameer Qasab, the lone attacker nabbed alive.
“We are still verifying whether they had any local assistance and how they got information about the internal layout of the targeted areas. We are also investigating explosions that took place in a taxi in Vile Parle and Dockyard Road,” said Joint Commissioner of Police (Crime) Rakesh Maria.
“Qasab has told us that he is with Lashkar and along with the other nine was trained at camps in Pakistan. Each terrorist was carrying about 10 hand grenades. Qasab has given us the names of the other nine men but they might be aliases and need to be verified.”
Maria denied reports that the terrorists were staying in the Colaba area using Malaysian student identity cards and rubbished talk of two hotel interns assisting the terrorists. He said that the three groups of terrorists who held hostages captive at three different locations in the city were not in touch with each other during the course of the attacks.
Exports also fell an annual 12.1 per cent in October to $12.82 billion, the first year-on-year fall in nearly three years, as slowing output at home and weakening economies in key overseas markets slashed demand.
"Even as external demand shrunk, it appears that much more rapid domestic demand destruction occurred in November," said Gaurav Kapur, senior economist at ABN AMRO.
Mumbai, the financial hub, was gradually getting back to normal on Monday after three days of paralysis last week with gunmen holed up in three locations in a spate of attacks which left nearly 200 people dead.
Nomura economists wrote in a client note economic growth was likely to slow sharply in the coming quarters due to downturns in capital expenditure and exports.
"Potential fallout from the terrorist attacks in Mumbai is an added downside risk," they said in the note.
The ABN AMRO Bank purchasing managers' index, based on a survey of 500 companies, tumbled to a seasonally adjusted 45.8 in November, well below October's 52.2.
A reading above 50 signals economic expansion while a figure below 50 suggests contraction.
With inputs from Smita Nair)
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Terrorists-could-have-used-2-taxis-planted-IEDs/392652/
Shivraj's tenure of internal insecurity
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Amitabh Sinha
Posted: Dec 01, 2008 at 0920 hrs IST
New Delhi: As Home Minister, Shivraj Patil presided over one of the bloodiest periods in India’s recent history. The four and half years of his tenure were laced with about 20 major terrorist strikes, hundreds of deaths of innocent civilians in internal violence, and an alarming increase in the spread of Naxal activities, to mention just a few elements of internal security.
To be fair to Patil, he never got much of assistance from any of the state governments, which are directly responsible for the maintenance of law and order and also for collecting intelligence information at the grassroots level. The states were quite happy to see the responsibility and the blame being fixed on Patil.
But his own statements and actions never instilled any confidence among the people who were at the receiving end of an endless cycle of violence and mindless terror attacks.
There have been eight major incidents of terrorist strikes in this year alone — including the latest attacks in Mumbai — in which more than 400 people have lost their lives. But all that came out in response from the Home Ministry was some inane statements that, to the hapless victims, sounded hollow, repetitive and impotent, even comic.
Even as recently as last weekend, Patil did not forget to mention that the incidents and casualties in the past four years was much less than those that occurred in the previous four and half years. “Yet, the impression created is that terrorism has increased and not reduced,” he said at the annual conference of police chiefs.
“Even if one incident occurs or one person becomes a casualty, it should cause us concern and should make us alert. However, it should not demoralise us and give wrong information to the uninformed section of the society,” he said.
True, there were a few meetings during which issues like modernisation of police forces and improving the intelligence network was discussed. True states were repeatedly being urged to fill up the burgeoning vacancies in their police forces, to increase their spending on modernising the forces and buy equipment, and to encourage coordination of efforts by various policing agencies.
But these were not able to stop the almost predictable cycle of terror attacks. Instead, his penchant for referring to terrorists and Naxalites as ‘misguided brothers’, his ill-advised equation between Mohammad Afzal and Sarabjeet Singh, his adamant opposition to the promulgation of a tough anti-terror law and denying the same to the state governments, all contributed to the perception that Patil was soft on terror. He came to symbolise everything that was wrong with India’s internal security mechanism.
So much so that he started getting attention for the number of times he was changing clothes on a day when about 30 people had been killed in a coordinated serial bomb blasts in Delhi.
Patil could have resigned — or sacked — after any of the numerous terror attacks in the last three years. But he survived, probably because — as Patil himself mentioned recently — “he had the blessings of the Congress president”.
Unfortunately for him though, the Mumbai attacks just proved to be the last straw on the camel’s back. As Prime Minister Manmohan Singh remarked at the all-party meeting on Sunday that Mumbai attack was “different” from all the previous terrorist strikes.
http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/Shivrajs-tenure-of-internal-insecurity/392648/
Wings for NSG could have saved lives
1 Dec 2008, 1304 hrs IST, TNN
NEW DELHI: Had the government heeded the National Security Guard (NSG) proposal for a separate air wing for it, the paramilitary force could have
reached Mumbai much faster and may have saved a few more lives in the process.
Since the NSG is mandated to take part in commando operations anywhere in the country, it had asked the home ministry three years ago to procure at least two aircraft for it so that its crack anti-terrorist team could reach the spot directly from its Manesar (Haryana) base. But the government did not find merit in the proposal and deemed the current system of getting aircraft from the Air Force and Aviation Research Centre (ARC) of RAW good enough.
The system, however, did not work this time with NSG commandos losing a crucial two-and-a-hours before boarding a plane (IL-76 ) to Mumbai.
It is clear from the sequence of events on Wednesday night that the Quick Reaction Team (QRT) of NSG got ready within the mandated 30 minutes from the first call (at 11 pm) it received from the home ministry . The team, however, had to travel to Delhi airport by road, taking one hour.
Unfortunately , the commandos had to wait for another one-and-ahalf hours (till 2 am) at the airport before taking off for Mumbai as the IL-76 was to reach Delhi from Chandigarh and the ARC’s aircraft was unavailable due to some technical snag. Since most of the hostages were killed by terrorists in Taj and Oberoi hotels before the NSG commandos arrived, it is clear that some lives could have been saved had they not wasted so much time.
Without getting into a blame game, NSG director general of J K Dutt said, “The NSG started its operations well in time. We received quick help from the Maharashtra state authorities in launching operations at all the places.”
What Dutt did not say was that the force had, in fact, got the message from the home ministry at 11 pm — one-anda-half hours after the terrorists struck Mumbai. The ministry had got the state’s request for commandos only at 11pm when the chief minister Vilasrao Deshmukh finally grasped the enormity of the situation, an indication of how poor coordination between Centre and states can play with the lives of people.
Dutt, while addressing media on the occasion of welcoming his commandos here for their successful operations in Mumbai, said the force generally requisitions private jets for counter-hijack operations but for the Mumbai operations, an IL-76 transport plane was used.
“On the first day, when 192 commandos took the flight, an IL-76 transport plane was used,” he said.
Other officials later explained that it was only IL-76 type of aircraft which could serve the purpose as it can carry a large number of commandos and their arms, ammunition and other equipment in one go, a requirement to launch such operations.
Dutt later said his commandos even utilised the travelling time in chalking out their plans for the operation after receiving all relevant information from the state police.
Crack commando recounts being shot by Mumbai attackers
1 Dec 2008, 1509 hrs IST, REUTERS
MUMBAI: Indian commando Sunil Kumar Yadav spent nine hours searching for militants inside Mumbai's vast Taj Mahal hotel before he was fired on.
Yadav and his elite Black Cat commando squad, working in pairs, had cleared three floors of the hotel, escorting frightened guests to the fire escape through dark and smoke-filled corridors, when they came to a door which would not open with a master key.
"It was locked from inside," the bearded, 29-year-old commando told reporters from a hospital bed. "So we kicked down the door and charged a grenade."
Smoke filled the room and instantly a hail of bullets was fired from inside.
"There was one militant - fair, lean, about 20-25 years of age," said Yadav, recalling returning the fire from his MP5 machine pistol. The militant carried an AK-47 rifle and wore a vest of grenades.
"There was a fierce exchange of fire. We could see he was burned from the fire started by the grenade," said Yadav.
"At some point I was hit on my legs."
Yadav was dragged to safety by Major Sandeep Unnikrishnan, who was later fatally shot, the only casualty from India's elite commando force during the operation.
The last of the militants was gunned down early on Saturday, almost 60 hours after they came ashore in a rubber dinghy and rampaged through the city with grenades and assault rifles.
By government count, at least 183 people were killed in the frenzied violence.
"The hotel was a maze of doors and corridors and you didn't know from where the terrorists would emerge," said Yadav, lying on his stomach because of his injuries.
"Everything was charred, everything was enveloped in a thick black coat of soot."
The commandos were evacuating the hotel room by room, coming down from the roof of the six-storey building, and all they could hear was the sound of the militants firing and hurling grenades at security forces outside, Yadav said.
One of those fired on was police Inspector Deepak Dhole, who was in the same hospital being treated for burn injuries.
"They had the height advantage firing at us, from upstairs and throwing grenades," said Dhole, a stout, balding man who has served in the police for 23 years.
"The grenade bursts started a big fire on the second floor where we were and it trapped us."
But reinforcements arrived soon and the gunmen were engaged by another set of officers while Dhole was evacuated.
"I was hurt and in pain," he said. "But it was a greater pain to have to leave the operation midway."
Keep up the spirit to fight
1 Dec 2008, 1249 hrs IST, Shashi Tharoor,
There is a savage irony to the fact that the horror in Mumbai began with terrorists docking near the Gateway of India. The magnificent arch, built
in 1911 to welcome the King-Emperor George V, has ever since stood as a symbol of the openness of the city. Crowds flock around it, made up of foreign tourists and local yokels; touts hawk their wares; boats bob in the waters, offering cruises out to the open sea.
The teeming throngs around it daily reflect India's diversity, with Parsi gentlemen out for their evening constitutionals, Muslim women in burqas taking the sea air, Goan Catholic waiters enjoying a break from their duties at the stately Taj Mahal Hotel, Hindus from every corner of the country chatting in a multitude of tongues. Today, ringed by police barricades, the Gateway of India — the gateway to India, and to India's soul — is barred, mute testimony to the latest assault on the country's pluralist democracy.
The terrorists, who heaved their bags laden with weapons up the steps of the wharf to begin their assault on the Taj, like their cohorts at a dozen other locations around the city, knew exactly what they were doing. Theirs was an attack on India's financial nerve-centre and commercial capital, a city emblematic of the country's energetic thrust into the 21st century. They struck at symbols of the prosperity that was making the Indian model so attractive to the globalising world — luxury hotels, a swish cafe, an apartment house favoured by foreigners.
The terrorists also sought to polarise Indian society by claiming to be acting to redress the grievances, real and imagined, of India's Muslims. And by singling out Britons, Americans and Israelis for special attention, they demonstrated that their brand of Islamist fanaticism is anchored less in the absolutism of pure faith than in the geopolitics of hate.
Today, the platitudes flow like blood. Terrorism is unacceptable; the terrorists are cowards; the world stands united in unreserved condemnation of this latest atrocity. Commentators in America trip over themselves to pronounce this night and day of carnage India's 9/11. But India has endured many attempted 9/11s, notably a ferocious assault on its national Parliament in December 2001 that nearly led to an all-out war against the assailants' presumed sponsors, Pakistan.
This year alone, terrorist bombs have taken lives in Jaipur, in Ahmedabad, in Delhi and (in an eerie dress-rehearsal for the effectiveness of synchronicity) several different places on one searing day in the state of Assam. Jaipur is the lodestar of Indian tourism to Rajasthan; Ahmedabad is the primary city of Gujarat, the state that is a poster child for India's development, with a local GDP growth rate of 14%; Delhi is the nation's political capital and India's window to the world; Assam was logistically convenient for terrorists from across a porous border.
Mumbai combined all the four elements of its precursors: by attacking it, the terrorists hit India's economy, its tourism, and its internationalism, and they took advantage of the city's openness to the world. A grand slam.
Indians have learned to endure the unspeakable horrors of terrorist violence ever since malign men in Pakistan concluded it was cheaper and more effective to bleed India to death than to attempt to defeat it in conventional war. Attack after attack has proven to have been financed, equipped and guided from across the border, the most recent being the suicide-bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, an action publicly traced by American intelligence to Islamabad's dreaded military special-ops agency, the ISI.
The risible attempt to claim ‘credit' for the Mumbai killings in the name of the ‘Deccan Mujahideen' merely confirms that wherever the killers are from, it is not the Deccan. The Deccan lies inland from Mumbai; one does not need to sail the waters of the Arabian Sea to the Gateway of India to get to the city from there. In its meticulous planning, sophisticated co-ordination and military precision, as well as its choice of targets, the assault on Mumbai bore no trace of what its promoters tried to suggest it was — a spontaneous eruption by angry young Indian Muslims. This horror was not homegrown.
The Islamist extremism nurtured by a succession of military rulers of Pakistan has now come to haunt its well-intentioned but lamentably weak elected civilian government. The bombing of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel proved that Frankenstein's monster is now well and truly out of that government's control. The militancy once sponsored by its predecessors now threatens to abort Pakistan's sputtering democracy and seeks to engulf India in its flames. There has never been a stronger case for firm and united action by the governments of both India and Pakistan to cauterise the cancer in their midst.
Inevitably, the questions have begun to be asked: ‘‘Is it all over for India? Can the country ever recover from this?''
Of course the answers are no and yes, but outsiders cannot be blamed for asking existential questions about a nation that so recently had been seen as poised for take-off. India can recover from the physical assaults against it. It is a land of great resilience that has learned, over arduous millennia, to cope with tragedy.
Within 24 hours of an earlier Islamist assault on Mumbai, the stock exchange bombing in 1993, Bombay's traders were back on the floor, their burned-out computers forgotten, doing what they used to before technology had changed their trading styles. Bombs and bullets alone cannot destroy India, because Indians will pick their way through the rubble and carry on as they have done throughout history.
But what can destroy India is a change in the spirit of its people, away from the pluralism and co-existence that has been our greatest strength. The prime minister's call for calm and restraint in the face of this murderous rampage is vital. If these tragic events lead to the demonisation of the Muslims of India, the terrorists will have won. For India to be India, its gateway — to the multiple Indias within, and the heaving seas without — must always remain open.
Mutual funds to cut cash, eye large-cap shares
1 Dec 2008, 1814 hrs IST, REUTERS
MUMBAI: Indian shares, mainly large-caps and financial sector stocks, are likely to attract domestic mutual fund managers in the next three months
as they hope for a stock market rebound, a Reuters poll shows.
Three-fourths of the respondents in the Reuters Asset Allocation Poll conducted between Nov. 21 and 25 said they would cut the amount of cash they hold because they expect local stocks will rise during the period.
Three of the eight fund houses polled said Indian shares are fairly valued, while an equal number said they were undervalued.
All said they would raise exposure their to large-cap stocks.
"Based on historical earnings also if you see, it's more on the cheaper side," said I.V. Subramaniam, chief investment officer of Quantum Advisors Pvt Ltd.
The BSE Sensex has slumped more than 50 percent this year and now trades at a 12-month forward price to earnings multiple of 9.8 times, far lower than the over 20 times at the start of the year, Thomson Reuters data shows.
The sharp drop in share values had forced diversified stock funds to seek safety in cash, which rose to an average 15 percent of their portfolios at end-October, the highest in several years, according to data from fund tracker ICRA Online.
The trend is likely to change, fund managers said, as shares across sectors such as banks, energy, metals and engineering, have fallen to attractive levels and may rebound as India takes aggressive monetary measures to revive its slowing economy.
"Now you require some confidence building for it to revive. Nothing is wrong with the companies," said Subramaniam.
In October, stock funds raised exposure to financials, investing 16 percent of equity assets in them on hopes of rate cuts and moderating inflation. Three-fourths of the respondents said they would invest more in the next three months.
India's central bank has cut its key short-term lending rate by 150 basis points and cash reserve requirement by 350 basis points since October to ease liquidity. Inflation dropped to 8.84 percent last week from the earlier week's 8.9 percent.
Interest in metal and mining shares, which has been battered by a sharp plunge in world commodity prices and the global economic slowdown, is also likely to perk up. Half the respondents said they plan to raise exposure to the sector.
The Reuters-Jefferies CRB Index, a global commodities benchmark, is down a third this year while shares of metal companies in India have plunged nearly 80 percent.
Indian funds cut exposure to such shares to 4.1 percent of equity portfolio in October from 9.1 percent at end-December.
Jayesh Shroff, fund manager at SBI Funds Management, said the prices reflected too much pessimism.
IT-BPO lobby to take up layoff issue with Nasscom
1 Dec 2008, 0129 hrs IST, Deepshikha Monga, ET Bureau
NEW DELHI: Unites Professionals India, the IT-BPO trade union, plans to take up the issues of layoffs and training for the so-called
‘non-performers’ at its first meeting with apex software and services association, Nasscom, on December 5. Such non-performers are usually asked to leave by the employer.
In any IT-BPO company, about 5% of employees come under the category of low or non-performers. “Why don’t we invest in them? They may not be paid their full salaries for some time but their skills, teamwork and other problem areas can be worked on,” UNITES Professionals India general secretary Karthik Shekhar said.
UNITES stands for Union for Information Technology-Enabled Services and has over 15,000 members among the two million IT-ITeS professionals in India. It is a part of UNI, a global union for skills and services, that claims to have 20 million members across the world.
Apart from training for non-performers, the union will also discuss the issue of layoffs in the IT-BPO industry. Large IT-BPO companies in the country have denied any job cuts in the wake of slowdown in projects from clients in the US and Europe who have been hit by the global financial crisis.
Mr Shekhar says he’s aware that companies make employees resign and pass it off as voluntary attrition. “We would like to see the data for the last three years. How does the number of those who left their jobs this year, voluntarily or not, compare to that last year? The question is what will happen after January, ” he asked.
The union is in the process of filing a public interest litigation (PIL) against IT companies making employees work for longer hours than the mandated eight hours per day under the Indian Factories Act, 1948. “It’s because companies have reduced their workforce that they are making employees work longer,” Mr Shekhar reasoned.
Companies, on their part, say that employees work longer hours as they follow a five-day week. Representatives from the UNI’s global headquarters and India chapter will meet Nasscom vice-president Raju Bhatnagar on December 5.
Attacks add to global crisis woes for IT industry
28 Nov 2008, 0430 hrs IST, REUTERS
BANGALORE: India's $52 billion outsourcing industry, battered by a global financial crisis that is squeezing its business clients, faces more Mumbai terror attack
Taj Mahal Hotel
Terror in Trident
Colaba attacked
Reactions
Main places of target
Latest from Mumbai
Armed Forces in action
Hemant Karkare
Terror attack on Nariman Bhawan
short-term challenges in the wake of attacks on Mumbai that killed more than 100 people.
Industry officials said prospective overseas clients were likely to put off planned visits to India because of the attacks, even though most software and back-office services firms were operating normally.
"This will surely introduce some sort of concern among clients," said Krishnakumar Natarajan, CEO of mid-sized software and R&D services provider MindTree Ltd.
"There was some expectation clients would start visiting India from January after the end of the annual holiday season. That will now get pushed away for some more time."
The software and back-office services sector, which earns billions of dollars from exports, is reeling from a global slowdown and turmoil in the financial sector, one of its major markets.
The chief financial officer at Wipro Ltd, India's No.3 software services exporter, told a Reuters India Investment Summit this week he expected a pickup in growth in the first quarter as companies firm up outsourcing plans, though many businesses will likely delay decisions and tighten costs.
India's large pool of English-speaking engineering workers and cheaper wages have helped attract outsourcing from western firms ranging from Citigroup and Goldman Sachs to Cisco Systems Inc and Nortel.
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India's outsourcers compete against larger IT services firms such as IBM and Accenture.
"We have to wait for things to settle. This is a temporary aberration," said T V Mohandas Pai, a board member at Infosys Technologies, India's No.2 software services exporter.
"If countries issue advisories, it means some travel will be deferred. I think people will use technology or we'll go and visit our clients. Business will go on," he said.
"We have seen terrorist attacks happen in different parts of the world. It's unfortunate it has happened in Mumbai and I think business is confident the government and authorities will get to the bottom of it," he added.
How safe is outsourcing?
29 Nov 2008, 0015 hrs IST, ET Bureau
MUMBAI: A large global firm runs its trading desk out of Mumbai. Bookings for a leading airline are happening out of another office in a
neighbouring city, while the telecom infrastructure of an overseas operator is being remotely monitored from another location in the country.
A terror attack on any of these sites can have significant implications for corporations in the US and other parts of the developed world as India emerges as the world’s back-office.
For instance, if a trade is not squared off on time, the firm will have to carry higher liabilities. Wednesday’s attack raises questions about the vulnerability of these locations to terror threats and the preparedness of firms and authorities to tackle them.
The issue assumes importance as nearly seven out of every 10 outsourced processes come to India, according to industry estimates. While 6-7 years ago, business process outsourcing (BPO) mostly involved basic data entry, a number of mission critical processes such as airline bookings and investment research are now taking place out of offices in Mumbai, Pune and Bangalore.
In its strategic review, Nasscom, the apex industry body, notes, “Indian BPO has undergone significant transformation since its inception over a decade ago... The past few years have seen the scope of these services expand progressively to include more complex processes involving rule-based decision making and research requiring informed judgment and domain knowledge,” the apex industry body notes.
Indian firms also manage infrastructure worth over $3-4 billion remotely for clients. Damage to these locations can bring down desktops and servers, besides crippling entire sections of organisations outside India. “After 9/11, there is a greater appreciation of the risk arising from a terror attack,” admits KPMG executive director Akhilesh Tuteja.
“But the level of preparedness even for mission critical operations is below average,” he adds. The redundancy plan usually involves a backup and mutiple service providers to ensure connectivity. But process capability and an ability to swiftly execute the process at another centre are not a reality in most cases.
“Disaster recovery plans are like an insurance you may never use. There is now an awareness about the need to have them, but the decisions are usually postponed because this is not an investment that will result in growth. Firms usually make investments for growth,” says PriceWaterhouseCoopers managing consultant Nikhil Donde.
Companies are saving costs amid the slowdown, as every bit can eat into margins. Multinational parents are managing a majority of the mission critical operations by way of captives. Ideally, 70% of the process should be offshored and 30% retained at the onsite location to minimise the risks, according to Mr Tuteja. But again there is a trade-off on costs, with real benefits kicking in only when the process is completly offshored.
In client contracts with third-party firms, it is not uncommon to find clauses related to business process continuity (BCP). However, these clauses rarely go into specifics and are usually interpreted in terms of having a multi-locational presence, back-up capability and multiple connectivity providers. Rarely do they consider whether the alternate locations will have people with the necessary skills. And this is really the biggest threat in a terror attack, when people at one location can be killed, say the experts.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/Infotech/ITeS/How_safe_is_outsourcing/articleshow/3770971.cms
Clash in Howrah, polls peaceful in other civic Times of India, India - BEHRAMPORE: Voting passed off smoothly for four South Bengal civic bodies Howrah, Krishnagar, Behrampore and Jhargram that went to polls on Sunday. ... Civic poll turnout Civic polls peaceful |
Lalgarh shadow over Jhargram polls The Statesman, India - 29: Elections to 17-ward Jhargram municipality in Midnapore West will be held amidst Adivasi resentment in Jhargram town over the Lalgarh issue. ... |
 TopNews | Stir against “police excesses” spreads to Jhargram Hindu, India - The agitation by the locals, which began more than a week ago in the Lalgarh area, spread to Jhargram. Processions were taken out by protesters, ... WB tribals protest against police excesses Lalgarh still cut off: Cops sit and watch Tribal agitation spills over |
Bengal police out of rebel hub Calcutta Telegraph, India - “We tried to persuade them against cutting off Jhargram, but they did not listen,” subdivisional officer Tanmoy Chakraborty said. ... Lalgarh: Cops bow to Maoist demands |
More roads dug up, Lalgarh continues to simmer Indian Express, India - ... the alleged police atrocities on the tribals. The bandh evoked a mixed response. Normal life was disrupted in Jhargram sub-division, said the police. Bandh begins; Police leave camps in West Midnapore |
Jhargram faces fresh blockades The Statesman, India - ... under the banner of Sara Bharat Jakat Majhi-Madowa Juan Gaounta ~ a Santhal Samaj organisation in Jhargram, Binpur, Jamboni blocks, will be called off, ... |
Opposition parties join tribal protests against police Hindu, India - Fresh roadblocks were set up by protesters in the Jhargram sub-division of Paschim Medinipur district as well as in parts of adjoining Bankura district, ... Trinamool Congress demands ban of Maoists Mamata for all-party meeting on tribal agitation To tackle Maoists in Lalgarh, special force to be upgraded |
Govt withdraws police force from Lalgarh Indian Express, India - The police need more forces for the Jhargram civic polls, which is scheduled for November 30, he added. Sources in the chief minister’s secretariat, ... |
Tribals consider total boycott of admn Expressindia.com, India - More roads were also dug up as various areas in Jhargram, Salboni and Lalgarh remained cut off from the rest of Bengal. “We are planning a total boycott of ... Tribals defer boycott of police, impose fresh road blocks |
 Calcutta Telegraph | Life in Midnapore paralysed The Statesman, India - Traffic on NH-6 was disrupted as the Kurmi Chhatra Yuva Sangram Committee blocked the highway at Lodhasuli point in Jhargram for about an hour from 2 pm ... Lalgarh admn relents, may accept demands of tribals Tribals vow to step up protests No need to deploy Central forces in West Midnapore, says state ... |
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