LUCKNOW: Annoyed by the Centre not
clearing a tough law against organised crime and terror, Uttar Pradesh
government on Thursday withdrew the legislation with Chief Minister Mayawati
accusing the Congress of double standards for not scrapping a similar measure in
Maharashtra.



“We have dumped the UPCOCA bill in ‘raddi ki tokri’
(dustbin) with immediate effect,” Mayawati told reporters here, while announcing
the decision to withdraw the UP Control of Organised Crime Bill-2007 which was
passed in the state Assembly on February 13 and was awaiting Presidential
assent.



Accusing the Congress of following double standards,
Mayawati said that UPCOCA was prepared on the lines of MCOCA in Maharashtra
after the Centre had asked the states on June 6, 2001 to frame similar law to
firmly deal with organised crime.



Mayawati said that Congress was of
the view that there was no need of the new law. “If it is so why they (Centre)
did not do away with MCOCA in Maharashtra?”



She also asked the
Maharashtra government to take a cue from the state and control crime with
existing laws.



Mayawati’s move came days after Union Minister of
State for Home Sri Prakash Jaiswal said the Centre would turn down the UP’s
request to pass UPCOCA.

Uttar Pradesh to frame new textile policy

September 05, 2008 (India)

Recently, Dr. V. Rajagopalan, IAS, Principal Secretary, SSI & Textiles, Govt. of Uttar Pradesh met a group of eminent textile mill owners, industrialists, garment manufacturers and garment exporters at NITRA. The meeting was held to seek once again the industry’s opinion before finalizing the revised draft textile policy (2008-13) for Uttar Pradesh. In this context it may be recalled that in December 2005, Govt. of U.P. had assigned to NITRA the task of preparing the textile policy. In order to accomplish the same, NITRA interacted with textile entrepreneurs and trade bodies in UP such as Indian Industries Association & UP Powerloom Federation (both Kanpur), All India Carpet Manufacturers Association (Bahdoi), Eastern UP Exporters Association (Banaras), Chamber of Industries (Gorakhpur), UP Kangar Bunkar Union & Powerloom Bunkar Union (both Tanda), Powerloom Vastro Utpadak Association (Meerut), and Niwan Nirmata Sangh (Modinagar). NITRA also discussed with CEOs of leading textile companies of UP like Alps Industries Ltd., Ginni Filaments Ltd, Gajroula Spinning Mills, and a host of textile professionals, garment manufacturers/garment exporters in and around U.P. After collecting their views, NITRA compiled and submitted the same in the form of draft U.P. Textile Policy 2006-11. The referred meet was held as a sequel to the exercise already made, so as to give a fresh look to the matter under the changed circumstances and prepare the policy for 2008-13. The suggestions emerged from the deliberations held on 28th July are given in this issue. New Draft of UP Textile Policy: 1) UP textile policy should be framed keeping the policy guidelines of Tamilnadu (being the most developed state in India) in terms of different sectors of textiles - organized mills sector, handloom, powerloom, knitting, and garments. 2) In view of the changing scenario of textile trade in India over last couple of months, it is suggested to have a second round of discussions with veteran industrialists and technical experts to take their opinion for incorporating in the policy 3) In line of the removal of VAT on yarn, readymade garments should also be exempted from VAT. 4) Adequate supply of good quality of electricity power is to be ensured. 5) Subsidized power for power loom sectors to be continued. 6) For organized sector, instead of providing subsidized charges (electricity charges per unit), low cost electricity charges should be proposed which may be less than the present charges by a certain percentage. 7) Amendment of age old lopsided labour laws – urgently required. 8) In view of high cotton prices and high yield in recent years, techno-economics of cotton cultivation in UP can be assessed so as to eliminate dependence on cotton procurement from far off places. 9) Infrastructure like road and transportation should be improved in Noida as the place houses huge number of garment export units. 10) As Noida is a garment hub, fabric is mostly procured from other states. Some kind of freight subsidy should be given.

Singapore readying for Pravasi Bharatiya Divas

 P. S. Suryanarayana

SINGAPORE: The stage is being set for the first-ever Asia-Pacific “Indian Diaspora event.”

India’s annual Pravasi Bharatiya Divas is seen here as a festive
conclave with “a global reach.” The ‘PBD Singapore,’ slated to be held
for three days from October 9, will be a regional variant. The
objective, according to the organisers, is to promote an event with a
difference, which will be in tune with the City State’s efforts to
remain “an economic hub” in the Asia-Pacific zone.

The prime mover is the Singapore Indian Chamber of Commerce &
Industry (SICCI). While the Confederation of Indian Industry has joined
hands with the SICCI, the governments of Singapore and India have
extended “full and active support,” according to Sat Pal Khattar,
chairman of the ‘PBD Singapore’ steering committee.

Singapore, in his view, is the theatre where India scored its “first
Look-East policy breakthrough under [former] Prime Minister Narasimha
Rao [in the early 1990s].”

Free trade pact

Briefing journalists, SICCI chairman Vijay Iyengar said the
“business focussed” conference would be particularly topical, as
India’s free trade agreement with the Association of South East Asian
Nations (ASEAN) “is in the pipeline.” The key thematic discussions
would centre on sustainable development, scenarios for India’s next
generation, and youth and education.

‘Towards a dynamic Indian Diaspora’ being the overarching theme, it
was expected that the conference would capture the imagination of
entrepreneurs and opinion leaders among overseas Indians in
Asia-Pacific, he said. Estimates of the Indian-origin people in this
region varied from five million to 10 million.

The entire galaxy of Singapore’s political leadership would be
associated with the conference; and elder statesman Lee Kuan Yew,
presently Minister Mentor, is expected to shine the spotlight on
“India’s role in the big global picture.” Indicating this, Ambassador
Ong Keng Yong said Prime Minister Lee Hsien Loong would be the guest of
honour at the inaugural session. While Senior Minister Goh Chok Tong
would recall his long engagement with India, President S.R. Nathan had
also agreed to associate himself with the event.

Economic dimension

Mr. Ong said “the economic and trade dimension” would define the
Singapore event, in some contrast to the pervasive sense of “kinship”
that usually enlivened the annual shows in India itself.

‘PBD Singapore’ is open to both resident and non-resident Indians,
Indian-origin citizens of other countries, and also other foreigners
with a stake or interest in India. Official India would be represented
by Union Ministers Kamal Nath, Vayalar Ravi, Kapil Sibal and A. Raja.
Malaysia’s Human Resource Minister S. Subramaniam is another likely
participant.

Rajendra Kumar Pachauri, Chairman of the Intergovernmental Panel on
Climate Change, and China’s Special Representative for Climate Change
Yu Qingtai agreed to participate in the session on sustainable
development, being seen as the centrepiece of the thematic agenda.

Dedicated website

The SICCI has already launched a dedicated website http://www.pbdsingapore.com.sg
for the conference. Mr. Iyengar said the ongoing preparations helped to
“catalyse” the launching of the SICCI’s Representative Office in New
Delhi to cater for the long-term needs of small and medium
entrepreneurs. The SICCI India office could also serve as a portal for
‘PBD Singapore.’

New Microsoft browser lets you surf ‘InPrivate’

Anand Parthasarathy

BANGALORE: Like great minds thinking alike, the announcements of
‘Chrome,’ Google’s browser, and the latest — and eighth – ‘avatar’ of
Internet Explorer, the market leader in this application area, were
almost simultaneous last week.

And trust Microsoft to steal some of Google’s thunder by introducing
a feature which was one of its key additions to existing browser
features: privacy! The second beta or trial version of IE8 is available
for free download at www.microsoft.com/windows/internet-explorer/beta/ and it is a 16 MB file. A key feature is InPrivate.

In fact, Microsoft has applied for a trademark on the term, which
it explains as follows: “Computer programmes for disabling the history
of web cashing features of a web browser … and for notifying a user
of a web browser when others are tracking web use, and for controlling
the information others can access about such use.”

Simply put, it means the new IE enables its users to delete — what
Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram would call — an ‘audit trail’ of
their surfing — websites they visited and cookies they downloaded. If
they stumble on sites which try to snoop on their activities they are
warned and will be able to block such attempts.

It is too soon to fully evaluate the new browser offerings, but it
would seem at first glance that this feature in IE goes beyond what
might be on offer in Chrome in its Incognito feature.

Microsoft has also tweaked IE to cut the time and the number of
clicks to perform common tasks. It has quickened search by trying to
second guess what you are looking for even as you make every key
stroke. Visual elements have been integrated into basic search. The new
Explorer can be downloaded to all PCs running Windows Vista, Windows
Server 2003 or Windows XP which has been updated with Service Pack 3.

Anand Parthasarathy

BANGALORE: Reacting to the surprise announcement by Google last week
of its own browser offering, named Chrome, the authoritative
‘Information Week’ wrote: “The desktop is dying. Long live the
browser.” And it is right on target.

The web’s search leader offers GMail, a web-based email service;
GoogleTalk, a web voice call and chat client; GoogleDocs, virtually an
office suite on the web; Orkut, a web social networking site, and
GoogleMaps, the ultimate tool to understand where on earth you stand
(literally!).

With Chrome, Google has virtually carpeted the average Internet
user’s entire span of experience and, more importantly, shifted
everything to the ‘Cloud’, a fashionable term for the enveloping cloud
of Net-based applications and services.

Chrome is available for free download with a button, the Google search engine ( www.google.com).
It is a fairly slim 7 MB download and the opening page is starkly
simple like all Google offerings. This can change fast because the page
is quickly populated — by you.

Different browser

Unlike other browsers, Chrome does not fill the page with default
offerings but uses most of the space for 9 window panes — the nine
pages you have visited most frequently in the past. To have web pages
download fast, Chrome’s development team, headed by Google’s
vice-president for Product Management, Sundar Pichai (a B.Tech from
IIT-Kharagpur and M.S. from Stanford University, U.S.) decided not to
reinvent the wheel, so to speak: it just took the Webkit rendering
engine used by Apple’s Safari browser. Ironically, there is no Chrome
version for Apple’s Mac PCs — yet, it works, now only with Windows.

In a videoconference briefing for The Hindu, from
his lab in Mountain View, California, Mr. Pichai explained that Chrome
was released as an Open Source project. This means the source code is
available for developers to build their own applications. The fruit of
two years work, Chrome does away with annoying pop-ups and dialogue
boxes; seamlessly integrates search and navigation functions and allows
users to surf “incognito” — erasing all trails of where they surfed.

Will satisfied users of Internet Explorer, Firefox or Opera shift to
Chrome? It remains to be seen; but if you are already a heavy user of
Google’s tools it might make good sense to put all your web-hatched
eggs in one big basket called Chrome!