October 9, 2003

College Union Elections to take place on Oct 10

Thiruvananthapuram: The College Union Elections scheduled for Oct 10 would take place on that day itself, following the court giving permission for the elections. Earlier the principals of different colleges had filed a case at the High Court to stop elections due to the increasing politicisation in campus elections. However, the High Court gave permission for conducting elections. Wide campaigning has been going on in the various colleges here and the students had been active in their campaigning work for the past few days. In quite a few colleges, the candidates have already been chosen without any kind of opposition. But the details of candidateswould be revealed only tomorrow. There won't be elections tomorrow in a few colleges here like the M.G.College, where no one has yet submitted any nominations for the posts.

Marad rehabilitation to take place tomorrow; preparations almost completed

Following the plans of the Government to solve the Marad issue, the first step in this behalf would take place on October 10, when the victims of the incident will be taken back to their homes. The preparation for rehabilitation had already starting by morning itself. Wide arrangements for cleaning up and providing facilites have been carried out with great vigour. With the rehabilitation issue solved, it is hoped that peace would be once again restored in Marad.

Free Trade Agreement signed by India and Thailand

Bangkok: India and Thailand today signed five accords, including a free trade agreement that will eliminate all tariffs on trade between the two countries by 2010. An assurance has been given by Bangkok that it will not allow its territory to be misused by terrorist groups for anti-India activities.The assurance is of great importance in the wake of recent incidents of reported violence in Bangkok involving Mumbai underworld dons having terrorist links.

The two representatives of the countries, Prime Minister Atal Bihar Vajpayee and his Thai counterpart Thaksin Shinawatra discussed cooperation in combating terrorism. An agreement was also reached on continuing the sharing of information and intelligence to tackle the scourge.

Meeting of foreign ministers for a trilateral road project

Bangkok: External Affairs Minister Yashwant Sinha said today, that a trilateral road project to connect India with Mayanmar and Thailand may take concrete shape when their foreign ministers meet in New Delhi in December.

Yet another project under discussion is the modernization of the Dawai Port in Myanmar. A road will link it with Kanchanapuri and Bangkok in Thailand connecting Andaman Sea to Gulf of Thailand reducing journey time for ships, Sinha added.

"Technical level studies have been completed for the project and the three foreign ministers have agreed to meet in December,"he said following the talks between Prime Minister Atal Bihar Vajpayee and his Thai counterpart Thaksin Shinawatra. Sinha was to meet his Thai and Myanmarese counterparts in Bali yesterday but it could not not materialize due to heavy engagements.

Next year in February , a Summit meeting of BIMST-EC (Bangaldesh, India, Myanmar, Sri Lanka and Thailand-Economic Cooperation) would be held in Phuket in Thailand with the aim to foster economic ties among the five countries.

A committee set up by TRAI to ensure maximum mobile services to cellular services

New Delhi: The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has set up a committee to look into technology and switches to be used by basic operators offering WLL mobile service in order to ensure that limited mobile services remained distinct from cellular services following the direction of the Telecom Dispute Settlement Appellate Tribunal(TDSAT).

The committee would be headed by D P S Seth, member TRAI and would have two more members -- Prof V K Dande, Chairman of IIT Kanpur and V K Gupta, Additional Secretary in CSIR. TDSAT had earlier asked Government to constitute a taskforce to go into the details of technology to be used by the operators.

Banks to accept coins of all denominations says RBI

Mumbai: Following, the receiving of complaints from the public, chambers of commerce, co-operative banks that banking entities do not accept coins from them, Reserve Bank of India (RBI) today directed the chairmen and managing directors of all banks to instruct their branches to accept coins of all denominations from any member of public without any restrictions and pay the value in notes.RBI said that banks should accept even five, 10 and 20 paisa coins as though minting of these coins has been discontinued, they still were legal tender and in circulation.

RBI in a release,asked banks to use coin counting machines or accept coins by weight in order to be able to accept large quantities tendered at bank counters provided the coins are tendered after sorting out RBI has also asked banks to ensure that adequate quantity of bank notes were available in branches and ATMs.

Due to various measures taken by RBI, coins were now freely available with shopkeepers, traders, transport undertakings and general public, causing a reverse flow to the banks, the release said.