Government

Govt may cut duty on wheat flour, float new tender

ArtKerala — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:03:26 -0500

The government India may abolish customs duty on wheat flour and float a new tender for grain imports in August, traders said on Thursday, but the moves may not dent local prices due to expensive global markets.

In an attempt to build stocks and keep a lid on prices during upcoming religious festivals -- when demand peaks -- the food ministry has proposed scrapping an existing 30 percent customs duty on wheat flour, industry officials said.

That could help India take advantage of surplus milling capacity in countries, such as Sri Lanka and Malaysia.

"It might happen soon, but might not be very beneficial as international prices of wheat are still bullish and higher than domestic prices," said Vinod Kapoor, an official of the Roller Flour Millers' Federation of India.

But he said it could help U.S. wheat enter India in the form of flour, which does not go through the exacting phytosanitary tests that imported grain has to pass.

The United States has criticised India's wheat import regulations as unrealistic after strict controls on weed presence, fumigation and inspection barred purchases of U.S. grain in recent tenders.

Pramod Kumar, president of the Karnataka Flour Millers Association, said flour was selling at $365 a tonne in southern Indian markets, while imported flour would cost around $375 a tonne, including handling and other charges.

Hindus mark important religious days in August, while the Muslim holy month of Ramadan will begin in September.

Trade officials said domestic prices of wheat were currently stable but the government might soon float another tender to build stocks ahead of the next harvest.

Kapoor said wheat prices in northern India were around $260 per tonne while in the southern states, which do not produce any wheat, the grain was selling around $300 per tonne.

Against this, international prices were around $335 a tonne, free on board, he said.

"I am sure the government might start the tender process for wheat imports in a couple of weeks," said Kapoor. "Volumes will depend on global prices and availability."

Agriculture Minister Sharad Pawar said on Tuesday that the government would continue to import wheat to build stocks. The agriculture ministry last month revised its 2007 wheat output estimate to 74.89 million tonnes, up from 69.48 million in 2006.

"They might float another tender any time, maybe they will float a tender for 500,000 tonnes every month," said Kumar.

A senior government official said the government could enter the global market in August.

The government last month contracted 511,000 tonnes of wheat imports, against a tender for 1 million tonnes.

A government official said the grain would arrive in India in eight shipments, half in August or September, and the other four in the following two months.

"Toepfer will supply wheat of Canadian origin, while Riyaz will supply Russian origin wheat," he said. The State Trading Corp. had yet to hear from Cargill, the third global firm supplying wheat, he said.

Poultry industry seeks specific farming zones

ArtKerala — Sat, 04 Aug 2007 00:00:13 -0500

The agricultural ministry will examine Monday a proposal to create special poultry farming zones so that the industry as a whole does not suffer when the birds are hit by diseases in a small isolated area. The proposal from the Poultry Federation of India will be discussed in detail during a meeting between agricultural ministry officials and industry representatives.

"We are going to meet the agricultural ministry Monday with two main agendas. Firstly, we want to urge the government to divide the entire country into specific poultry farming zones," Shabbir Ahmed Khan, secretary of the Poultry Federation of India said.

Secondly, he said, the federation would ask the government to help Bangladesh, Myanmar and China to control bird flu since the northeastern states border these countries.

"We would request the government to create state-wise zones similar to what is followed in buffalo meat exports. By doing this if the strain is found in one state, then the rest of the country could at least be declared free," Khan said.

Officials of the commerce ministry and the Agricultural and Processed Food Products Export Development Authority are expected to participate in the Monday meeting.

The move comes in the wake of the culling of tens of thousands of poultry in Manipur after an outbreak of bird flu. Myanmar and Sri Lanka have imposed a temporary ban on imports of poultry products from India. Around 60,000 poultry, including chickens, ducks and pigeons, have been culled since Thursday.

"Small farmers are the worst affected during these outbreaks, forcing them to wrap up their businesses," Khan said, adding that rumours create panic among consumers harming the industry.

According to Khan, chicken consumption in India is about 1.5 kg per capita.

The outbreak of the virulent form of the avian influenza, H5N1, in a chicken farm in Imphal was confirmed Wednesday. However, officials have said the disease was localised and has been contained.

Last year the presence of H5N1 strain was confirmed twice in western India. But not a single human case of bird flu has been confirmed till now.

Centre to take over Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology

ArtKerala — Fri, 03 Aug 2007 03:59:16 -0500

Seeking to tap the vast potential in the bio-technology sector, Union Government today decided to take over the Rajiv Gandhi Centre for Biotechnology in Kerala and accord it the status of an autonomous institute.

"The takeover of RGCB will have a major role in the implementation of relevant biotechnology projects both for the state and for the region as a whole," Information and Broadcasting Minister P R Dasmunsi told reporters after a cabinet meeting.

The RGCB, Thiruvanthapuram, would be taken over by the Central government as an autonomous institute under the administrative control of Department of Biotechnology, he said.

It would be the only Central institute in the area of biotechnology in the state of Kerala, he said.The aims and objective of RGCB include translational cancer research, human genetics, protein engineering, molecular reproduction, molecular microbiology, cancer research, neurobiology and plant molecular biology.

The RGCB will be a national research centre for bio-drug discovery programmes based on the rich knowledge of traditional systems of medicine prevalent in the Kerala.

UAE mulling AIDS test for immigrant job seekers

ArtKerala — Wed, 01 Aug 2007 15:10:06 -0500

Immigrants coming to the United Arab Emirates (UAE) for employment purposes will have to furnish certificates which state that they are not infected by the Human Immunodeficiency Virus (HIV) or suffer from the Acquired Immuno Deficiency Syndrome (AIDS), officials said.

Ali bin Shukur, under-secretary at the ministry of health told Khaleej Times on Tuesday that the government is mulling a new policy under which the HIV/AIDS-free certificates would be made mandatory for immigrant job seekers.

"This measure will be part of a comprehensive project to be implemented in coordination with governments of several countries exporting labour force to the UAE," Shukur told the paper.

Shukur added that once the expatriates arrive in the country, they would again be screened for HIV/AIDS for issuance of a work visa.

"In some developing countries, the diagnosis and screening systems might not be up to the mark and the results may be unreliable. That is why double-checking is vital," he said.

Another reason for repeating the tests, he said, was the possibility of forging of medical documents by unscrupulous recruitment agencies.

According to official records, last year, 750 expatriates were found to be carrying the virus.

There are around 1.4 million expatriate Indians in UAE, many of them contract workers. In Dubai alone, Indians comprise over 60 per cent of the city's total population of over 1.4 million

Now, even smoking at home can be a crime

ArtKerala — Sat, 28 Jul 2007 00:14:33 -0500

Forget bars and restaurants, even smoking at home in the presence of a domestic help might invite action from the government. Minister for Health and Family Welfare Anbumani Ramadoss said Friday that the government would soon take stringent measures against smoking in all public places or any place where there is an employee.

"We are going to take stringent measures against smoking in public places like hotels, bars and restaurants... in fact any place where there are employees," Ramadoss said, speaking at a ceremony here where he was awarded the World Health Organisation (WHO) Director-General's Special Award for Tobacco Control for the year 2007.

"Even at home, if you smoke and there is a maid present, action can be taken against you," he said.

"If you have to smoke, then go to the roads."

The minister said that The Cigarettes and Other Tobacco Products (Prohibition of Advertisement and Regulation of Trade and Commerce, Production, Supply and Distribution) Act 2003 was an effective act but it was the enforcement that needed to be tightened.

"We have got a very vibrant act on tobacco control but the enforcement has been loose. We are soon going to set up a drug regulatory authority which will help us in our fight against tobacco."

Ramadoss said that the new authority would be a professional body and the US's Federal Drug Agency (FDA) has given lots of inputs for this.

Apart from thanking the WHO, family, friends and colleagues for the award, the minister also thanked the media.

"I have to thank a very special group for this award. It is called the media. It is the media that called me a 'fool' and 'stupid' and even questioned my MBBS degree when I called for a ban on smoking in films and television."

He said that every year, there are a million cases of cancer in India because of tobacco use.

"We spend Rs.40,000 crore (Rs.400 billion) annually on tobacco control. Our fight will continue and I am confident that India will soon become a tobacco free country."

Congratulating Chandigarh for becoming the first city in India to be tobacco free, the minister said, "In Tamil Nadu, there is a village called Varanavasi where the panchayat leader is an illiterate. And he has gone on to make the village totally tobacco free.

"These are the people who will help us make India a tobacco-free nation."

Earlier, presenting the award to Ramadoss, WHO regional director, Southeast Asia, Samlee Plianbangchang commended the minister for carrying out an effective campaign against tobacco.

"Dr. Ramadoss has efficiently and effectively steered the process of implementing rules and regulations related to the ban on tobacco smoking in public places and on tobacco advertising, as well as restricting access to tobacco products by youth," he said.

Giving damning statistics about tobacco use in India, the WHO regional director said, "India is the third largest producer of tobacco leaves in the world, after China and Brazil. Ninety five billion cigarettes and 850 billion beedis are produced in India every year."

He commended Ramadoss for the steps he has taken to "safeguard future generations from the devastating consequences of tobacco use".

"The tobacco control measures initiated and implemented by the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare under the able stewardship of Dr. Anbumani Ramadoss have been widely acclaimed at the regional and global levels, and have set a praiseworthy precedent for other countries to follow," he said, reading out from the citation for the award.

The WHO award is given annually to mark the World No Tobacco Day. According to WHO, the award is a "global recognition of the dynamic leadership" of Ramadoss under which India took rapid strides in tobacco control.

Delhi on frog hunt to curb mosquito menace

ArtKerala — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 01:56:30 -0500

On the face of it, it sounds like an ingenious plan: introducing frogs to do away with the rising mosquito population in the Capital.

The need for an alternative solution isn't unwarranted. The latest mosquito count report shows that dengue-carrying mosquito numbers have increased by over four times in June over the same period last year. Blame it on the early rains. But are frogs the final solution?

“These mosquitoes, domestic or peri-domestic species, breed in flower vases water coolers and water tankers. So is it feasable to put frogs there to control mosquitoeS? It’s not vaiable,” said National Institute of Malaria Research Director, Professor A K Dash.

There's another problem with this scheme. Delhi frog population has all but disappeared thanks to a polluted Yamuna and disappearing wetlands.

Reports suggest that state health department may ship Frogs from neighboring UP and Haryana to make up for the obviously dwindling numbers. But conservationists have given the idea a thumbs down.

“Importing frogs is not viable. We need to improve the habitat and pollution levels, the reasons that old stock dies out in first place. Frogs from outside may die out for same reason,” said Sajeev from the Bombay Natural History Society.

For now it is these fish gambusia and guppys already introduced to some of the water bodies in the Capital that are best suited to do a clean up job on mosquito larvae. So it is fish not frogs that the ministry should be placing its bets on.

Pratibha Patil becomes the first woman President of India

ArtKerala — Sun, 22 Jul 2007 01:32:17 -0500

India has got its woman president in Pratibha Patil who won one of the bitterest political campaigns to the top post in the country's 60-year-old post independence history.

Patil, 72, was voted on Saturday as the 13th president of the country. She won by 306,810 votes against her rival Vice President Bhairon Singh Shekhawat, who contested the July 19 presidential election as an independent backed by opposition National Democratic Alliance (NDA).

Immediately after the results were announced, Patil came out of her temporary residence in the Capital to describe it as a "victory of principles, victory of right thinking" by the people.

Patil, a nominee of the ruling United Progressive Alliance (UPA), Left and Bahujan Samaj Party, got 325,180 votes from the state legislators and 442 of the total 682 MPs who cast their votes, paving her way to Rashtrapati Bhavan, the official residence of the president.

An MP's vote value is 706 and an MLA's varies from state to state according to its population.

Patil, who had been haunted by unsubstantiated opposition charges of corruption, fraud and improprieties, has won almost 11,000 more votes than expected. Shekhawat got 331,306 votes.

Congress party supporters erupted in jubilation across the country, bursting crackers, distributing sweets, dancing to drums and raising slogans in favour of Patil and party president Sonia Gandhi.

Patil's native Jalgaon village in Maharashtra and her husband Devisingh Ransingh Shekhawat's native place in Rajasthan's Sikar have been in celebration mood since morning as her victory was a foregone conclusion against her 84-year-old rival, Shekhawat, a Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) veteran.

Counting began 11 am on Saturday with Election Commission officials unsealing ballot boxes that arrived from 30 assemblies and the Parliament House.

Thursday's poll had been preceded by the most acerbic campaign, which many political analysts said had dented the prestige of the country's highest office.

The ruling Congress party had in turn charged Shekhawat of protecting his family members in a land scam and of serving the colonial police when India was fighting against the British rule in the pre-1947 era.

While a reticent Patil denied the charges during her national tour for campaign, Shekhawat's party went on raising fresh charges against the former Rajasthan governor.

The legislators in Kerala, Mizoram and Tripura voted only for Patil as Shekhawat drew a blank in both the states. It was a sweep for Patil in her home state Maharashtra, where she won the support of 223 MLAs leaving 58 for Shekhawat.

It was a similar story in Haryana with her getting 74 to Shekhawat's 6, Himachal Pradesh (47-20), Manipur (55-5), Meghalaya (49-6) Andhra Pradesh (223-2), Arunachal Pradesh (58-1), Assam (92-20, four votes were invalid), Jharkhand (49-28) Delhi (50-19), Goa (25-14), Nagaland (40-12), Sikkim (31-1) and Tamil Nadu (171-59).

In Karnataka it was a close fight as the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)'s ruling ally Janata Dal-Secular abstained from voting. The United Progressive Alliance (UPA) candidate got 83 and her rival, 82.

Shekhawat got more votes in NDA-ruled states. In Bihar he got 145 to Patil's 89, in Chhattisgarh (51-37), Gujarat (123-57), Madhya Pradesh (163-56), Punjab (66-45), Orissa (100-46) and Rajasthan (134-63). The vice president belongs to Rajasthan.

The new president will be sworn in on July 25.

Immediate hike in prices of petroleum products ruled out

ArtKerala — Mon, 25 Jun 2007 10:40:18 -0500

Union Petroleum minister Murli Deora today ruled out any immediate hike in prices of petroleum products, including LPG and kerosene.

"As far as possible we will not increase prices of these products", Deora told a press meet here.

Last year, the government and the oil companies had together shared 87 per cent of the burden of under recoveries caused by the high oil prices, he said.

The price of PDS kerosene had not been hiked in the last three years keeping in the interest of the poor and vulnerable sections of the society, he said adding it had been kept at about Rs 9 per litre.

This has been done by providing a huge subsidy by the government and the oil companies to the tune of Rs 50,000 crore though the global oil prices touched record highs, he said.

The Centre was providing subsidy of Rs 16 per litre by providing PDS kerosene at about Rs 9 per litre.

The minister said he would urge the Finance minister, P Chidambaram to further bring down the excise and customs duties of the petroleum products.

The two duties have been considerably reduced, but that was not enough, he said.

"We are doing our best to see that prices do not increase", he said.

Tata Tea's excess land in Munnar to be recovered

ArtKerala — Thu, 21 Jun 2007 00:16:10 -0500

The land belonging to Tata group firm Tata Tea in Munnar in excess of permissible limits will be recovered within two weeks, Kerala Chief Minister V.S. Achuthanandan told the state assembly Wednesday.

"We are committed to recovering the excess land from the Tatas. Work in this regard is progressing and it would be completed in two weeks," he said.

Achuthanandan was replying to the opposition's allegations that he was delaying action and been making promises for the past one year.

Munnar, a picturesque hill town in Idukki known for its tea estates, was bought by J.D. Munroe, a British national, from the Poonjar royal family near Kottayam in a permanent and perpetual grant in 1877.

In 1895, it was bought over by a British company, James Finlay & Co, which held it till 1977 when Kerala took over the land under the Land Reforms Act and the Kannan Devan Hills Resumption Land Act.

After keeping 70,522 acres, the government gave the remaining 57,359.14 acres to Tata Finlay Ltd, which was acquired by Tata Tea in 1983.

However, the Kannan Devan Hills Resumption Land Act provides for an upper limit of 50,000 acres on private land holding.

After visiting Munnar, Achuthanandan as leader of opposition (2001-06) had maintained that the state government must take back the land over which the company had no right.

The state government had recently asked the Hyderabad-based National Remote Sensing Agency to conduct an aerial survey of Munnar to find out the extent of Tatas' land holding.

The state government in expected to go ahead with land recovery after studying the agency's report.

The move would be part of Achuthanandan's efforts to evict all encroachers in the tourist town of Munnar. In the campaign that started last month, more than 10,000 acres of land has been recovered. K Suresh Kumar again went to Munnar to take the charge of STF.

Govt to take steps for HIV+ kids readmission: Kerala Education Minister

ArtKerala — Sun, 17 Jun 2007 22:30:44 -0500

Kerala Education Minister M A Baby said the government would take all possible measures to re-admit six HIV-positive children, who had been turned away from a school in Kottayam district.

Since this was a social issue, it has been decided to convene a meeting of the Health Minister P K Sreemathy and Leader of the Opposition in the Assembly Oommen Chandy during the Assembly session to chalk out the strategies in this regard, Mr Baby told UNI.

''We will work out an action plan to deal the issue,'' he added.

However, the government could not force anybody on the issue, he said adding it would take all possible ways to make a consensus in this regard with the parents of other students.

Six HIV-positive children had been turned away from a school in Kottayam district for the second time, when the school reopened in June this year.

The Health Minister had also assured that all steps would be taken for the education of the children.

The children, aged between five and 11, were first removed from Mar Dionysius Lower Primary School in Pampady last December after parents of other students complained.