Newsreel 18.01.04

8226; The suspense is finally over. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is likely to recommend to the President the dissolution of the 13th...

8226; The suspense is finally over. Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee is likely to recommend to the President the dissolution of the 13th Lok Sabha around mid-February after obtaining a vote-on-account. And the election process is expected to be wrapped up by April-end. 8216;8216;I hope a new government will be in place by the end of April,8217;8217; said Vajpayee at the BJP National Executive meeting in Hyderabad on January 12.

8226; One week after India and Pakistan signed the Islamabad declaration to start talks next month, Deputy Prime Minister L.K. Advani invited Hurriyat Conference chairman Maulana Abbas Ansari for talks beginning January 22. The Jamat-ul-Mujahideen reacted by threatening to kill Ansari and his colleagues if they went ahead for talks. Naming a high-powered five-member committee for the dialogue, the Hurriyat promised to take militants into confidence and urged them not to be swayed by emotion or resort to sentimental exploitations.

8226; In a quantitative push to Indo-US ties, the two countries have promised to expand cooperation in the areas of civilian nuclear activities, civilian space programmes and high-technology trade as well as begin a dialogue on missile defence with each other.

8226; Call it another pre-election sop for the middle-class or muddled policy-making. But days after the government made it cheaper for students to take educational loans, it has gone ahead and decided to reduce tuition fees in the Indian Institutes of Management and increase the intake of students. The decision follows the recommendations of the U.R. Rao Committee earlier this month.

8226; Hiking FDI caps in banking and petroleum, the Cabinet decided against the same for the telecom sector. The Cabinet decision to keep the FDI cap at 49 per cent came as a jolt to the cellphone companies, who, as part of a truce with the government and rivals, withdrew their Supreme Court case against basic phone companies providing WLL mobile services.

8226; In a consumer friendly move, the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India has frozen cable TV subscription rates across the country. The rates are based on the tariffs that prevailed on December 26 last year.

8226; At a time when the possibility of a Third Front has been revived in preparation for the coming polls, Ramakrishna Hegde, 76, the gentleman of Indian politics, has passed away.