Terrorist outfit threatens devastation by January 26 2008

Terrorist outfit threatens devastation by January 26 2008

The Newindpress.com

Thursday August 31 2006 13:55 IST

HUBLI: A letter, said to have reportedly been sent by the terrorist outfit Al Kaeeda Laskhar-e-Toiba to a private news channel office here, stated that large-scale devastation will take place in the nation before January 26, 2008.

The computerised letter was in English and bore the seal of the old Hubli Post Office, is said to have reached the office on Wednesday afternoon.

Challenging President A P J Abdul Kalam, Vice President B S Shekhawat, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, Union Home Minister Shivaraj Patil, chief ministers of all southern states, Vilasrao Deshmukh of Maharashtra, Narendra Modi of Gujarat and Sheela Dixit of New Delhi, the letter said, “Powerful bombs will definitely explode before January 26, 2008, in cities and districts stated below, and it is a challenge for them to prevent the same if they can...”

The letter has listed almost all the capital cities, ports, railway headquarters, and densely populated major cities of the nation.

The cities of the state that are included in the hit list are:

Hubli, Bangalore, Bagalkot, Belgaum, Bellary, Bidar, Bijapur, Chamaraj nagar, Chikmagalur, Chitradurga, Davanagere, Dharwad, Gadag, Gulbarga, Hassan, Haveri, Kodagu, Kolar, Koppal, Mandya, Mysore, North Canara, Raichur, Shimoga, South Canara, Tumkur and Udupi.

Mischievous act: Police Commissioner Narayan Nadamani said, “It is a mischievous act by miscreants, there is absolutely nothing to be believed in the letter. However, the police have been alerted and people need not be scared of such letters.”

Karnataka clears 4 SEZs of TCS

Karnataka clears 4 SEZs of TCS
Business Standard.com

BS Reporter / Bangalore August 28, 2006

The Karnataka government on Monday cleared IT major Tata Consultancy Services' (TCS) proposal for special economic zones (SEZs) at four locations in the state with a combined investment of Rs 1,150 crore.

In all, 40 projects, involving an estimated investment of Rs 62,864 crore, were cleared by the state high level clearance committee (SHLCC) headed by the Chief Minister today.

Some of the projects had been approved, in-principle, at the previous SHLCC meeting. The final clearance was given to these projects by the SHLCC, Chief Minister H D Kumaraswamy told reporters today.

TCS has proposed SEZs at Devanahalli, Bangalore (Rs 500 crore, 100 acres), Mysore (Rs 410 crore, 50 acres), Hubli-Dharwad (Rs 120 crore, 50 acres) and Mangalore (Rs 120 crore, 50 acres). The employment generation expected from the four projects is 23,200.

Shapoorji Pallonji & Company’s proposal for a hardware park at Devanahalli on 1,450 acres with an estimated investment of Rs 5,779 crore was also given the final clearance. Similarly, an SEZ for electronic hardware and software, including ITeS, proposed by Ittina Properties at Hoskote on Bangalore’s outskirts with an investment of Rs 534.58 crore was cleared.

Another SEZ proposed by Suzlon Infrastructure for hi-tech engineering industries at Udupi with an investment of Rs 246.08 crore was cleared.

‘Launch ‘Suvarna’ celebrations from Dharwad

‘Launch ‘Suvarna’ celebrations from Dharwad
The Newindpress.com

Sunday August 27 2006 12:55 IST

DHARWAD: At a time when Kannadigas had no thought of unifying Kannada speaking regions and forming a separate state for themselves, people of Dharwad had dreamt of Karnataka. So, the State Government should begin the ‘Suvarna Karnataka’ celebrations from here, said Patil Puttappa, president of Karnataka Vidyavardhak Sangh.

Addressing a news conference here on Saturday, Papu said Dharwad had been the source of inspiration to unify the Kannada speaking regions into a State.

November 1 would mark 50 years of the state’s formation. During the initial stages of the unification movement, Mysore-Bangalore had not favoured the same. Unfortunately, the government had decided to launch the celebrations from Bangalore-Mysore, which was sheer historical irony, he added.

He likened launching the said celebration in Bangalore instead of Dharwad, to a ‘marriage ceremony without the bridegroom.’

Administrators sitting in Vidhana Soudha, should remember that Karnataka was formed involving Belgaum, Karwar, Gulbarga and Bellary regions, not only with the Old Mysore region, he said.

Questioning the government’s commitment toward safeguarding the interest of Kannada and Karnataka, he said it had failed to appoint Kannada language teachers to Urdu and other lingual minority schools in the state even after repeated pleas from people concerned.

He said that chanting hymns in the name of Kannada, could not develop language, people at the helm of affairs must be aware of culture, language and geography of the State and be committed to protect the same, at any cost.

Papu said mere organisation of the Kannada Sahitya Sammelan, Vishwa Kannada Sammelan, Mysore Dasara, Hampi-Utsav and other such grand programmes would not serve the purpose of protecting Kannada from the onslaught of globalisation.

Condemning the Kannada Sahitya Parishad’s proposed plan to demolish the old Parishad building in Bangalore, he demanded the government to construct an Art Complex, in Dharwad and Belgaum.

Prof B V Gunjetti, Siddalingaih Desai and others were present.

EUROPEAN FIRMS TO SHIFT TO SEZS IN INDIA

EUROPEAN FIRMS TO SHIFT TO SEZS IN INDIA
Star of Mysore

Mysore, Aug. 26 (NMG)- Many Europe-based industries have expressed their willingness to relocate to Special Economic Zones (SEZ) in India which has the best facilities for their growth, said, C.J. Mathew, Development Commissioner of Cochin Special Economic Zone.

Speaking at an interaction programme on SEZ in CII here yesterday he said that a number of industries from Europe were ready to shift to SEZs in India and China because of the ready availability of skilled human resource. The Union Government had approved 150 out of 388 proposals and half of them are reserved for IT. The sanctioning of 150 SEZ will result in a loss of Rs. 90,000 crore as the developers of SEZ will be exempted from customs duty and VAT for a period of three to five years, he added.

The SEZ for Mysore has been sanctioned in principle for IT and a developer had offered to set it up, said Mathew.

Kalpesh Maroo, Manager, BMR and Associates has said that developers have come forward to establish SEZ in Hubli at an investment of Rs. 600 crore, in the field of power generation education and amusement parks.

The proposals will be cleared in the board meeting in September he explained and added that the existing industries will not be allowed to shift to SEZs as a lot of money has been spent by the Government to create infrastructure for their benefit.

The demand for SEZs in Belgaum, Mangalore and other parts of the State is on the rise he said.

Convenor of Economic Affairs and Public Policy panel of CII B. Jayaraman, General Manager of Corporate Finance and Taxation of the Prestige Group K. Madhusudhan and others spoke