Andhranews

New Delhi, Aug. 25: The report of the Comptroller and Auditor General of India (CAG) for the year ended March 2005, on the performance audit of disinvestment of government shareholdings in selected PSU undertakings during 1999-2003, reveal that “no clear accountability regime had been in place for the disinvestment process.”

The report points out that in the case of four PSUs namely — BALCO (Bharat Aluminium Company Limited), VSNL ( Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited), PPL (Paradeep Phosphates Limited and IPCL (Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited) — the effforts made by the PSUs, the administrative ministry and the department of disinvestment (DOD) to get title deeds to the land and buildings and to remove encumbrances, before taking up disinvestment were not adequate.

The report, which was placed in the Parliament on Friday, says that government had no mechanism in place to verify that post-disinvestment, the strategic partners had in fact brought in the technology and the finance for turning around and improving the performance of the disinvested PSUs. To substantiate its observation, the report says that in fact, the units were made sick by the new owners as three of the PSUs-MFIL, HTL (Hindustan Teleprinter Limited) and PPL (Paradeep Phosphates Limited) had been referred to the BIFR (Board for Industrial and Financial Reconstruction) after disinvestment.

It observes that government had been saddled with litigations and uncertainties after disinvestment. In the case of HTL and PPL, the strategic partners have made claims on government of the same order of magnitude as the sale values. The report further says that in the case of IPCL (Indian Petrochemicals Corporation Limited), there is a substantial claim on the government from the strategic partner on grounds of non-disclosure of financial statements.

As far as telecom PSU VSNL is concerned, the report says that “the government has not been able to derive any benefit from the surplus land in the possession of the company.” Reacting sharply to the CAG report, the Left parties have demanded a thorough probe for such ordeals for national wealth. CPM politbureau member Sitaram Yechuri has said, “A thorough probe is needed for such loot of national wealth.”

Hyderabad, Aug. 25: DaimlerChrysler India, which makes the Mercedes-Benz cars, has been in talks with Sutlej Motors of Punjab, for an entry into the luxury buses market in the country. Confirming this here on Friday, DaimlerChrysler India managing director and CEO Wilfried Aulbur said, “Sutlej Motors and DaimlerChrysler are in talks for a partnership to tap the luxury buses segment. However, nothing has been finalised yet.”

Dr Aulbur did not touch upon a timeframe or the contours of the partnership but it is widely expected that DaimlerChrysler would roll out its buses in India next year. With the entry of high-end numberplates like BMW, Lamborghini and Volvo cars in the months to come, Dr Aulbur believes DaimlerChrysler still has an edge as it has a presence network of 26 and its sales and distribution system is well-entrenched. “Entry of rivals will obviously expand the market of high-end cars,” he said.

Dr Aulbur’s optimism evolves from the fact that 2,010 Mercedes cars were sold in 2005, and in the first seven months of 2006, 1,214 cars have rolled out of its plant in Pune. Declining to discuss DaimlerChrysler’s numbers in detail, Dr Aulbur maintained that the outlook for 2006 remained “positive”. With the festival season set to kick-off in a month’s time Daimler is on track to better last year’s sales figures.

On changes in the Mercedes-Benz fleet in India, Dr Aulbur without being specific hinted that “the C-class at some point in time would be replaced” with another numberplate. DaimlerChrysler India, meanwhile, has emerged as the second largest OEM for the worldwide operations of the company. “Sourcing from India for our operations elsewhere is growing at a CAGR of 20 per cent,” Dr Aulbur said.

Additionally, the company is testing the economic viability of jatropha, source for bio-diesel, as an alternative fuel. Dr Aulbur said it would take atleast 2-5 years for commercial use of jatropha in Mercedes cars. Dr Aulbur was in the city to inaugurate the second show-window of Adishwar Motors, a Mercedes-Benz dealer.

Mumbai, Aug. 25: India’s leading automobile manufacturer, Tata Motors Limited (TML), on Friday announced that the company has set up a new subsidiary to support and enhance the company’s vehicle financing operations. The new entity, TML Financial Services Limited (TMLFSL), would function as a non-banking finance company (NBFC), for which it has received the necessary approval from the RBI, the company said in its statement.

The company further informed that the new entity, TMLFSL, is a 100 per cent subsidiary and would support the vehicle financing activities of Tata Motorfinance. The overall vehicle financing, conducted by Tata Motors’ auto financing arm (Tata Motorfinance) in the year 2005-06, was about Rs 5,500 crores, a 60 per cent increase over Rs 3,400 crores in the previous fiscal.

Tata Motorfinance also accounted for 23.8 per cent of the company’s domestic sales in 2005-06. A total of about 1,13,000 contracts were booked, including refinance and Construction Equipment (CEQ), while 96,247 new vehicles were financed, a 43 per cent inc-rease compared to 67,356 vehicles in 2004-05. Refinance business grew by 110 per cent, while CEQ business grew by 165 per cent in 2005-06, the company informed.

San Francisco, Aug. 25: Apple Computer said on Thursday that it was recalling 1.8 million batteries from some models of its laptop computers because of a risk that they could overheat and catch fire. The batteries were made by a unit of Sony, which also made the 4.1 million laptop batteries that Dell recalled last week.

The Apple recall is the second-largest safety recall in the consumer electronics industry, after Dell’s. Though it is smaller than the Dell recall, the percentage of Apple’s customers affected is greater than the percentage of Dell customers. Apple is recalling batteries from some iBook G4 and PowerBook G4 laptops, representing a third of the notebook computers it sold between October 2003 and this month.

For some customers, it will be the second recall for the same problem. Replacement batteries sent as part of an earlier recall should themselves be replaced, the company advised. Apple said 700,000 of the batteries were in computers sold outside the United States. Sony said it was shouldering much of the cost of the Dell and Apple recalls, which it estimated would cost as much as 30 billion yen, or $258 million.

The Consumer Product Safety Commission, which announced the voluntary recall along with Apple, said the company had reported nine incidents of batteries overheating, including two that resulted in minor burns and others that caused some property damage. The agency said no serious injuries or deaths were reported. Apple would not give any details about when it began receiving reports of problems or when it began to investigate.

“We discovered that some Sony batteries in previous models of PowerPC-based iBooks and PowerBooks do not meet Apple’s standards for safety and performance,” said Ms Katie Cotton, Apple’s vice-president of corporate communications. As was the case with the Dell batteries, the problem is contamination by metal particles inside the lithium-ion battery cells. The microscopic particles are able to bridge a porous separator between the positively and negatively charged parts of the cell and cause a short circuit. This sets off a chemical chain reaction that can lead to the release of hot gases and liquids, smoke or fire.

The Internet browser market is looking set to witness some action in the weeks ahead, with two of the biggest players, Micro-soft and Mozilla, giving final touches to the Internet Explorer 7 (IE7) and the Firefox 2.0. Microsoft has unveiled Release Candidate 1 of IE7, which you can download from the Microsoft website. RC1 is the last version Microsoft is expected to hand over before IE7 goes into final development later this year. Microsoft had released Beta 3 of IE7 in June. Microsoft says that while many users did not see any radical changes in the browser, its performance has been souped up substantially.
“Users should definitely see a difference in performance,” Margaret Cobb, group product manager for IE, was quoted as saying by TechWeb.

According to Ms Cobb, other changes to the browser include the completion of changes to IE CSS (Cascading Style Sheets) support, additional language selections, and an auto-uninstall feature in RC1’s setup that automatically removes earlier betas (betas formerly required users to manually uninstall older versions of IE 7 before installing the newest). Earlier this week, an IE7 programme manager said in a blog that the browser was “a stepping stone in our effort to improve our standards compliance, especially around CSS.”
In the past, TechWeb says, Microsoft has taken heat from website designers for bugs in Internet Explorer’s support for CSS, and for developer’s hesitancy in supporting the newest version of the standard.

Although Ms Cobb said that Microsoft expects RC1 to be the last publicly-released preview of the browser before the code gets the final stamp of approval (or in the company’s parlance, “release to manufacturing,” or RTC), she wouldn’t rule out another update. “That depends on what the feedback is. If the developer or IT communities create a reason for us to come up with another release, we would,” she told TechWeb.
Meanwhile, Mozilla will be releasing the next version of its browser, Firefox 2.0, dubbed Beta 2, next week. Microsoft has been fighting an increasingly ferocious battle with Firefox since the latter launched in November 2004.

According to some estimates, Firefox has captured over 15 per cent of the Internet browser market since its launch, while Microsoft’s IE has seen its market share decline from over 90 per cent to under 80 per cent in the past two years. Mozilla had said that Firefox 2.0’s Beta 2 was to be ready for download on August 23, but as it’s been forced to do several times already this summer, Mozilla again revised its schedule.

New Delhi, Aug. 25: The United States on Friday said it has a proposal to raise the H1B visa quota for Indians by 25 per cent and is taking steps to reduce the waiting period for visa applications, particularly students, of this country. It also denied that religion was any criteria for issuance or denial of visa to anybody. Efforts are underway to raise the quota for H1B (short duration stay) visas for Indians and there is a proposal to hike it by 25 per cent, Peter G. Kaestner, newly-appointed minister for consular affairs at the US Embassy, said here.

At present, the limit of such visas meant for those employed temporarily is 80,000. Last year, the cap was one lakh. The issue is political in nature and US Congress has to decide on it finally, the official said.Mr Kaestner, who has served at the US Embassy here earlier also, said he felt the number would remain inadequate even after the hike. The US H1B visa ia non-immigrant visa, which allows a US company to employ a foreign individual for up to six years.

The H1B visa-seekers could be those employed temporarily in a speciality occupation or as a fashion model of distinguished merit and ability. Mr Kaestner said the number of Indian students in the US was growing, recording an increase of 30 per cent from last year.

New Delhi, Aug. 25: Finance minister P. Chidambaram on Friday said the government was trying to keep the interest rates down by providing ample liquidity in the banking system. “Hardening international interest rates is not entirely in our control. What we are doing is providing ample liquidity so that the impact of high interest rates is softened,” Mr Chidambaram told reporters.

The finance minister said the proposal to convert bank recapitalisation bonds into tradeable government securities will pump in more liquidity. These bonds will also be eligible for statutory liquidity ratio investments of banks. The government had last week approved conversion of bank recapitalisation bonds worth Rs 208 billion into tradeable securities.

The recapitalisation bonds were issued to nationalised banks in the past to spruce up their capital base. Mr Chidambaram said the government was trying to keep inflation rate below 5 per cent. In the week to August 12, the headline inflation rate based on the Wholesale Price Index was 4.92 per cent, up from 4.82 per cent a week ago.

The Reserve Bank of India is targeting a headline inflation rate of 5-5.5 per cent by end March. The finance minister said the tolerance for inflation has come down, which was a good sign. The current inflation was driven by higher crude oil, pulses and wheat, he said. “Internationally, prices of pulses are high due to poor production. We are trying to ensure adequate supply through imports,” Mr Chidambaram said.

Mumbai, Aug. 25: The Sensex had a roller coaster ride on Friday, opening on a strong note then going into the red and perking up in the latter part of the day. It closed 40.25 points up at 11,572.2, after seeing a swing of nearly 200 points between 11,542.10 and 11,635.25. The Nifty closed at 3385.95, up 15.55 points, after seeing a high of 3402.70 and a low 3368.55.

The turnover at both the exchanges had improved at Rs 36,953.87 crores with the F&O sector accounting for Rs 27,309.66 crores. There were 557 stocks that ended positive and 348 in the red. The Asian markets were marginally up with the Hang Seng gaining 62.41 points and the Kospi 13.62. The Nikkei was down 21.96 points. There were fears that oil would hit new highs.

Among the big gainers was SBI, on the news that the Union Cabinet had permitted the RBI to reduce its stake in the bank from 55 per cent to 51 per cent. The bank could also tap the market for funds. UTI Bank and Corporation Bank were also up Rs 13.40 and Rs 12.40 respectively, though several other bank scrips ended in the red. The other gainers were Tisco up Rs 9.05, TCS Rs 7.15 and Grasim Rs 5.40.