Will complete Doha Round by 2010: India agrees with G8

In what would be a significant step forward, the G8 and the Group of Five (G5) developing countries — India, Brazil, China, Mexico and South Africa — will agree to commit themselves to conclude the Doha Round of talks in a year’s time by 2010.

In fact, India is expected to host a ministerial meet before the September G-20 Summit at Pittsburgh with a view to resolve existing differences.

They will also agree not to indulge in “competitive devaluation” of currencies during the economic crisis.

The almost-finalized draft of the joint communiqué, agreed after detailed discussions among officials today, states: “We are committed to reaching an ambitious and balanced conclusion to the Doha Development Round in 2010,

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NDTV poll gives UPA a clear lead

In contrast to most exit polls conducted by TV channels predicting I only a slight lead for the UPA against rival NDA, an exit poll by NDTV has projected a clear 39 seat lead for the former.

Moreover, the poll projects a clear lead for the ruling UPA constituent, Congress as opposed to the main Opposition BJP.

While it has projected 216 seats for the UPA as against 177 seats for the NDA, it has forecast 166 seats for the Congress to the BJP’s 132. Despite substantial losses for the Left, whose tally is projected to drop below 35 seats, the exit poll has projected 105 seats for the Third Front. While the Fourth Front has been projected to win merely 30 seats, about 15 seats are slotted for Others.

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Modi refuses to speak at National Integration Council, hands speech text slamming UPA on terror

Gujarat Chief Minister Narendra Modi today stunned the meeting of the National Integration Council, chaired by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, when he “declined” to speak and submitted for the records the text of his written speech.

Belying expectations, Modi sat quietly, listening to the verbal duel between Home Minister Shivraj Patil and Orissa Chief Minister Naveen Patnaik over deployment of paramilitary forces in the state which is battling a wave of anti-Christian attacks.

Asked about Modi, P K Gera, Gujarat’s Resident Commissioner in Delhi, confirmed that the CM declined to speak.“Yes,he did not speak. Perhaps he didn’t find any reason to speak with so many airing their views.”

Modi’s “reluctance” to speak surprised the large gathering because he was expected to raise a storm over the issue of terror. “We were expecting he would create an uproar. We were taken a back when he refused to speak,” said a Union Minister.

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Blast-hit UPA wakes up to tougher law, faster courts

The UPA Government, under attack for seeming ineffective in the face of terror, for the first time has acknowledged the need for new counter-terrorism initiatives, including strengthening the existing law and introducing fast-track courts.

Before a two-hour emergency Cabinet meeting late tonight that discussed such measures, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, speaking at the conference of Governors at Rashtrapati Bhavan today, had set the tone.

In an apparent rebuttal of the BJP charge that vote bank politics was the reason Congress was soft on terror, Singh said: “The public debate on the issue of terrorism has, unfortunately, tended to get driven by politics, and has centered on certain laws enacted or repealed by Governments of different political persuasions...Our Government has no fixed, inflexible or ideological view in this regard.”

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Is it end-deal?

What the Congress kept delaying finally happened today: its moment of reckoning has come, after the Left made it clear it would not let the Government go to Vienna to confirm the safeguards agreement, the key first piece in the operationalisation of the Indo-US nuclear deal.

The party’s top brass went into a huddle at 10, Janpath faced with perhaps the toughest choice since they took charge four years ago: give in to the Left and freeze the Indo-US nuclear deal to keep the government alive and a line with the Left open in an election year or seize the historic opportunity and stamp the party’s commitment to the “national interest.”

Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who spoke to Congress President Sonia Gandhi on the phone, was learnt to have argued in favour of going ahead with the deal after the Left issued a statement that it was of the “firm opinion” that “the government should not proceed to seek approval of the text of the India-specific safeguards agreement from the Board of Directors of the IAEA.”

This Left statement came a few hours after the government deferred today’s UPA-Left meeting to June 25 as External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee’s discussions with CPM general secretary Prakash Karat on Monday and Tuesday failed to make any headway. The Left also said it did not get the full text of the agreement.

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Last year, National Highway Projects Crawled The Slowest Ever

The country's biggest infrastructure upgrade under the National Highways Development Programme (NHDP) has recorded the lowest-ever progress rate under this government in 2007-08.

The National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) has posted a56 per cent project completion rate across all phases of the NHDP in 2007-08 in terms of completion of projects the lowest since the UPA came to power and Union Minister TR Baalu came to head the Ministry of Shipping, Road Transport & Highways.

The NHDP exercise is on along 33,000 km of national highways across NHDP I, II, III and V.

It has only been a slide down in the NHDP progress rate since 2004 and that was evident earlier this week when Baalu held a review with NHAI.

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On bumpy nuclear-deal road, UPA switches on Left indicator

A Head of a Left-UPA meeting on the nuclear deal that coincides with sessions of the IAEA Board of Govenors and the Nuclear Suppliers Group, the Government is clearly trying to signal to its Left allies that it has not, as they have accused, bartered away its "independent foreign policy."

That signal is not so subtly couched in a series of carefully chosen steps which today included an unusually strong rebuff to Washington for commenting on the April 29 visit of Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. And the cancellation of a joint media interaction on Konkan 2008, the Indo-UK joint naval exercise that gets underway the same day Ahmadinejad is in India. Significantly, USS Cole is in Indian waters as an observer.

"India and Iran are ancient civilizations whose relations span centuries.Both nations are perfectly capable of managing all aspects of their relationship with the appropriate degree of care and attention...Neither country needs any guidance on the future conduct of bilateral relations as both countries believe that engagement and dialogue alone lead to peace," said the MEA spokesperson in response to queries on remarks made in Washington last evening.

During the daily press interaction, US Department of State spokesperson, asked about Ahmadinejad's visit to India, said: "We would hope that the Indian Government or any government that was engaging with the Iranians, including with President Ahmadinejad, would call on him to meet the requirements that the Security Council and the international community has placed on him in terms of suspending their uranium enrichment activities and complying with the other requirements regarding their nuclear programme.

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The later, the worse: Fears at home & abroad send Sensex crashing

If the world markets are a coupled entity, correction is country- and time specific. So even as the January-February results season saw earnings per share (EPS) of Sensex companies rise by 8%, the coupled nature of markets have pulled the Sensex down by 25%, taking its PE multiple down by 32% from a scorching 28.4 to 19.4. The 4.8% fall in the value of the Sensex to 15,357 today (See Page 21) has to be seen in this context.

Days or months is too short a time to ascribe clear reasons for a market fall, but the fact remains that India stands next only to China in this global crash. Between January 11 and today, it has fallen by 25%, next only to China's 27.6%.

Flashback to November-December 2007, when the global meltdown began, and the India decoupled story stood strong: as emerging markets fell by 10-12% during the period, the Sensex actually rose by 5%.

The reason then ascribed to Sensex as the last index standing was that the Indian economy does not rely on exports and is more dependent on internal factors - strong domestic consumption, growing infrastructure. In the current fall, these facts have all but disappeared.

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US Defence Secretary turn to say: deal clock ticking

U S Secretary of Defence Robert Gates today said he has conveyed it to the Indian leadership that while Washington understands the domestic political compulsions of the UPA government on the nuclear deal, it is important to realise that the "clock is ticking" in the US as this is an election year and the Senate needs time to ratify the agreement.

"I said we are respectful of the domestic political situation here. But the clock is ticking in terms of how much time is available to get all the different aspects of the agreement implemented," he said at a select media interaction after concluding his two-day visit to India during which he met Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Leader of Opposition L K Advani, External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee and Defence Minister A K Antony.

Underlining that the civilian nuclear agreement "serves the interest of both countries", Gates said: "The real key here is providing time for our Senate to ratify the final arrangement. This being an election year, there is an open question of how long the Senate will be in session beyond the summer and September."

But he emphasised that the Indo-US relationship was "a wide ranging one" and among the few issues in US foreign relations policy with bipartisan support, which is unlikely to change after the US presidential polls. In this context, he also felt that the relationship will continue


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