Judicial custody of Ghandy's aide extended

A city court on Tuesday extended the judicial custody of a suspected associate of Maoist leader Kobad Ghandy by 14 days. Chief Metropolitan Magistrate Kaveri Baweja sent Arvind Joshi, who hails from Uttarakhand, to judicial custody till May 25. Joshi was arrested from Kanpur in Uttar Pradesh February 21 and was brought to New Delhi on March 19 in connection with a warrant issued against him. Joshi was allegedly in possession of the hard disk of a laptop seized from Ghandy last year.

Rs 2 lakh each to families of soldiers

Uttarakhand chief minister Ramesh Pokhariyal Nishank has announced an assistance of Rs 2 lakh each to the families of Major Yogendra Rajwar and Rifleman Uttam Singh Negi, who died fighting terrorists in Jammu and Kashmir recently. Nishank also went to the residence of Maj Rajwar in Dehradun to meet his family members and said his supreme sacrifice has made the state as well as country proud. In this regard, the chief minister also directed the District Magistrate of Dehra Dun to provide education facilities to Maj Rajwar's son.

Transfer of judges put on hold

A recommendation of the Supreme Court collegium to transfer three High Court judges whose names were allegedly in the list of beneficiaries in the multi-crore Provident Fund scam has reportedly not found favour with the government. Law Minister M. Veerappa Moily is learnt to have returned the file of recommendation to the Chief Justice of India K G Balakrishnan with a "request to reconsider" the decision, official sources said. While Justice Sushil Harkauli and Justice J C S Rawat were transferred to the Jharkhand High Court from Allahabad and Nainital High Courts, respectively, Justice Tarun Agarwal of the Jharkhand High Court was transferred to Nainital (Uttarakhand) High Court last year after their names allegedly figured in the list of beneficiaries in the Ghaziabad PF scam. The SC collegium had recently recommended that they should be sent back to the High Courts from where they were transferred in the later half of 2009. But the Law Ministry has put its foot down by returning the recommendation of the five-judge panel. If the collegium decides to once again recommend their names for transfer, the government will have to accept it as per the Memorandum of Procedure which governs the appointment of members of the higher judiciary.

The three judges were transferred as it was decided that they should not continue in the same place after their names allegedly cropped up during investigations. CBI is yet to file its final report on the investigations before the Supreme Court which ordered a probe in September, 2008.

'Scrap dam projects on Ganga'

Hundreds of holy men in Varanasi held a rally last week and demanded scrapping of dam projects on the Ganga to save the livelihood of people. They also say that the Ganga, which flows through Gangotri in Uttarakhand, is much more cleaner than the river that flows in Varanasi. "We want that every dam project should be scrapped. the Ganga should be clean because livelihood of 10 to 20 crore people is linked with the Ganga. The Indian constitution says that a government should not do anything that hampers the livelihood of a person. That's why, now we are asking the government politely that such projects should be scrapped," said Swami Narendranand, a Hindu pontiff. "We are also taking help of acts like RTI (Right to Information). Besides that, we want to know what would be an alternative solution for the issue. For example, looking for an alternative way of producing energy is a legal outlook; similarly there is a constructive prospect as well. Therefore, every step would be taken to create awareness. We would also pressurise the ministers for this," said K.N. Govindacharya, a former leader of BJP. The Ganga is one of the main rivers of the Indian sub-continent, which rises from the Himalayas and drains into the Sunderbans delta of Bay of Bengal.

Uttarakhand, HP to jointly take up issue of industrial package

Uttarakhand and Himachal Pradesh will jointly take up the issue of extension of special industrial package to the hilly states with the centre. The decision was taken at a high-level meeting between Himachal chief minister P K Dhumal and his Uttarakhand counterpart Ramesh Pokhariyal 'Nishank' in Shimla reacently. Both chief ministers agreed to ask the centre not only to restore the package upto March 2013 but further extend it up to March 2020. Briefing mediapersons, Dhumal and Pokhariyal said the hill states would fight for their rights on all fronts and also write a letter to prime minister to restore the package up to March, 2013 and extend it up to March, 2020. Pointing out that the north-eastern states had been granted Special Industrial Package for 20 years and the incentives were much more as compared to Himachal Pradesh and Uttarakhand, they said that without restoration of exemption in central excise duty, the package was meaningless. The Uttarakhand government has sought extension of the total Central Industrial Package (CIP) stating that exemptions in excise duty are the most important part of the package. Chairman of State Media Advisory Committee Devendra Bhasin said the state government demanded the extension of total industrial package including the exemption in excise duty. "This (exemption in excise duty) is the most important part of the package that attracts industries to set up their units," Bhasin said in a statement. In this regard, he said although income tax holiday and capital subsidy have not been ended, the industries would not find any attraction in setting up their units as exemptions in excise duty is the major part of the package. CIP expired in March this year. Uttarakhand witnessed a robust growth in industrial sector following the CIP in 2003 by the then government with top notch companies like Tata Motors, Britannia, Hero Honda and Bajaj Auto setting up their units. Nishank has met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee several times seeking the extension of the package.

'Credit availability still a concern for industry'

Credit availability continues to be a major concern area for industry as 74 per cent of industry representatives of northern region complained of not observing any improvement in credit availability in last six months, according to CII survey. Moreover, 67 per cent respondents expect no change in the credit availability in next six months though 47 per cent expect increase in cost of credit in the same period, the survey highlighted. According to the CII Northern Region Business Outlook Survey, the overall outlook for business is better for the current six months (April-September 2010-11) vis-à-vis actual performance for the last six months (October-March 2009-10).

The survey is based on 137 responses received from industries across Chandigarh and the states of Uttarakhand, Delhi, Haryana, Himachal Pradesh, Jammu and Kashmir, Punjab, Rajasthan and Uttar Pradesh. Among them, 56 per cent were from the manufacturing sector, 39 per cent from the service sector while 46 per cent represented small organisations.

Infrastructure and institutional shortages followed by cost and availability of labour are the other two most important areas of concern, survey highlighted. Survey found that 96 per cent of the respondents expect GDP growth of 7 per cent or more as against only 16 per cent in the previous October-March 2009-10. It further said that 90 per cent of the respondents expect inflation to be 5 per cent or higher suggesting high inflationary expectations, on the back of the headline inflation nearing double digits.

The survey also looked into the expectations on various elements that build up business confidence including investments, capacity utilisation and sales, etc. Capacity utilisation is expected to improve with 64 per cent of the respondents expecting a capacity utilisation of greater than 75 per cent as against only 38 per cent reporting a capacity utilisation of more than 75 per cent in the last six months.