Sansui to enter mobile handset business

Sansui to enter mobile handset business

New Delhi, Aug 9: Japanese audio and video equipment maker Sansui said it will enter the mobile phone business in India, launching 10 handsets by the end of this year, as part of an expansion plan. The company on Monday launched its new range of slim, LCD televisions and digital video disc players. “We have launched our new range of LCDs with a plan to target a 5 per cent share in the Indian LCD market by the end of the current financial year. We also plan to increase our market share in television to 12 per cent,” said Jaideep Rathore, chief marketing officer, Sansui.

The new range of LCDs launched by the company offers high audio and video quality and enables customers to store movies, music and photographs with high storage capacity. The slim television, which has a touch control sensor, also offers access to tweeter networking website. Sansui has a dedicated customer call centre as well to ensure healthy after sales services, besides exclusive service centers. “We also plan to invest over Rs 40 crores in the next six months in advertising and marketing promotion initiatives,” Rathore added. The company expects a turnover of Rs 2,000 crore by the end of 2011, currently it enjoys a sales turnover of Rs 1,000 crore. (IANS)

Mamata urges Maoists to give up violence, sit for talks

Mamata urges Maoists to give up violence, sit for talks

Lalgarh (West Bengal), Aug 9: Railway minister and Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee on Monday urged the Maoists to eschew violence and come for talks, and appealed to social activists and thinkers like Swami Agnivesh, Medha Patkar and Mahashweta Devi to broker the discussions.

Addressing a huge rally in this Maoist-hit area of West Midnapore district, Banerjee also promised to shower development goodies like renovating schools, setting up hospitals, colleges and a railway factory for giving employment to the local people.

“I request everyone with folded hands, please eschew violence, stop killings. I am telling all those, including the Maoists who are indulging in violence, to help in restoring peace. Medhaji (Medha Patkar), Swami (Agnivesh) are here. They should talk to the Maoists and ensure restoration of peace”.

Banerjee said she was not in favour of establishing peace by using rifles, condemning the manner in which Maoist spokesman Cherukiri Rajkumar alias Azad was ‘killed’ last month.

“What happened is not right. Azad had reposed faith in the democratic process,” she said at the ‘apolitical’ rally organised under the banner of the Anti-Atrocities Democratic Forum.

The Moists and the pro-rebel tribal body People’s Committee Against Police Atrocities (PCAPA) had extended support to the rally also attended by social activists like Agnivesh and Patkar, and pro-rebel writer Mahasweta Devi, among other intellectuals.

“Let the peace process start from today. Let negotiations begin. Let Bengal show the way to India, wherever there is disturbance and misunderstanding,” Banerjee said.

“Tell us when and where you will sit. We all want to sit. However, if my presence poses problems in the peace process, I won’t mind if I am kept out of it,” she said.

“If a policeman dies, or a mediaperson, or a Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) activist or a Maoist, that’s equally sad. All are human beings. I don’t want anybody to die. I don’t want politics of death”.

She also appealed to the left ultras not to obstruct railway services as it adversely hit the daily life of the common man. Categorically saying she did not support the Maoists’ politics of violence and killings, Banerjee asked the CPI-M and Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee should think why the Lalgarh movement was on despite their 34-year rule. “There is a dearth of development, schools, colleges and hospitals. The government could ensure only 12 days’ work under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS),” she said.

Banerjee said Rs 20 lakh would be sanctioned for the Ramakrishna Vidyalaya here from Minister of State for Shipping Mukul Roy’s MPs Local Area Development fund. Apparently referring to the Maoists, she asked: “What do you want? Schools, college, rights over forests? I feel tribals should have rights over forests.”

The Trinamool chief, whose party is the second largest constituent of the ruling United Progressive Alliance at the centre, however, said her powers were limited. “We are in power. But our party has only 19 MPs. It’s not that they (Congress) listen to whatever we say”.

On land acquisition, she said she was against taking land by force. “In railways whenever we have to take land we provide employment to the landlosers and take minimum land with their consent”.

“Show me one area where I have deviated. If I have, I will publicly admit it and apologise,” she said, in an apparent reply to some questions made by the Maoists in an open letter to her on and acquisition and some other issues.

Banerjee told the ultras that their policy of violence was only benefiting the CPI-M. Accusing the CPI-M of misleading the people and committing atrocities by putting on police and military fatigues, she appealed to Patkar and Agnivesh to visit other violence-prone areas of the state. “If necessary, we can go to areas outside the state like Dantewada also to bring back peace”. Addressing a party rally at Tamluk of East Midnapore district, state Congress chief Manas Bhunia welcomed Banerjee’s rally at Lalgarh. However, Congress general secretary in charge of the state K Kesava Rao stayed away from the Trinamool Congress’ invitation to attend the Lalgarh rally citing the party’s meeting at Tamluk around the same time. (IANS)

Sensex rises by 44 points in early trade

MUMBAI: The Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex today gained nearly 44 points in early trade on buying by funds and retail investors in select heavyweight stocks.

The 30-share BSE barometer rose by 43.98 points, or 0.24%, to 18,187.97 points.

The wide-based National Stock Exchange's Nifty also moved up by 15.50 points, or 0.28%, to 5,454.75 points.

Brokers said fresh buying by funds in realty, auto, PSU and capital goods stocks helped the index post gains despite weak trends on other Asian bourses.

Among major gainers, Reliance Industries rose by 0.24% to Rs 1,002.90, Maruti Suzuki by 0.31% to Rs 1,224.95, Tata Motors by 0.97% to Rs 903, Mahindra and Mahindra by 0.69% to Rs 653.95, Hero Honda by 0.78% to Rs 1,855, Tata Steel by 0.72% to Rs 535, State Bank of India by 0.38% to Rs 2,630.05 and DLF Ltd by 0.94% to Rs 310.50.

TOI

Cloudbursts ravage Leh: 113 dead, 500 missing

NEW DELHI: Amid the mounting death and debris of Choglamsar village -- located 5 km from Leh and a bustling settlement of Ladakhis and Tibetan refugees -- that has borne the major burnt in the massive mudslide sparked by Friday's cloudburst, comes stories of miraculous escapes bordering on divine intervention.

According to sources in Leh that ToI was able to contact through defence sources, the wife of an Indo-Tibet Border Police officer was found alive after being swept away by the slithering mass of mud. Another officer's child was saved by a sofa in their quarters. She was found under the furniture that saved her from being smothered.

Sources said the situation could have been worse but for the rumbling of the slithering mass of mud -- akin to cold lava -- and screams of people warning people in the defence settlements dotting the plains. Many in the defence establishment managed to escape nature's wrath since the slithering mass of mud did not gush like a stream of water, and the preceding rumbling gave some precious time to the people in the lower reaches to beat an hasty retreat.

Sources expected the Leh-Manali road to be opened in a couple of days as heavy earth-moving equipment, called JCB by
the defence establishment, have been pressed into service. "Once the slush and big boulders are cleared, trucks can start moving even if the surface is strewn with small rocks or streams," a source said. Indeed, fjording streams of snow-melt is a norm rather than exception for truckers in this part of the world.

The urgency to get the road opened -- one of the two lifelines for Ladakh -- is understandable. First, material for relief and reconstruction has to be moved in quickly. Second, this is the time when food, fuel and military supplies for the entire year have to be moved in before the passes get inaccessible due to heavy snow. Troops, too, are replaced around this time, with fresh Army and paramiliatry units relieving those who had done their stint through the hostile winter. Any loss of time due to slides can prove to be costly.

Unconfirmed reports said the airport could be operational by Saturday, at least for military planes or choppers. But, BSNL's telephone exchange, in all liklihood, has to be rebuilt. Its transmitter has been damaged badly as it was on a slope outside Leh.

Restoration of power supply, too, will take time as the Stakna hydel plant is believed to have been choked by silt. While Leh could still get some power in the evening from the diesel generating station, the fate of a similar plant at Choglamsar remains uncertain.

Villagers living in the upper reaches were not so lucky as they bore the full impact of the sliding pile of mud and rocks, living as they were in mudhouses built cheek-by-jowl.

There is a patch of land -- 500 m long and 300 m wide -- near this village, about 15 minutes' drive on the road to Manali that has completely been overrun by mud that appears like mortar. This was where most of the Choglamsar village stood. The area is a plateau, with rising hills to its north and west. The wind-swept plain gently slopes towards the Indus that flows in a reverse arc towards its east and south. The road to Manali runs right through the middle of this patch of land, which at many places appears like a desert.

But this openness is deceptive. The surrounding hills and the depressions in the ground -- making it extremely difficult to figure out the locations of man-made structures -- give the place the character of a very wide bowl, or more aptly the bed of a sauacepan.

Contrary to popular perception, the unprecedented cloudburst did not trigger flood. Mountains in the dry, cold desert of Ladakh are made of rocks stuck in loose, sandy formations. Concentrated rains, thus, immediately turn them into mortar which then slithers down as a rumbling mass of cold lava and obliterates anything that comes in its way. Once the mass settles after exhausting its momentum, the water locked in the mortar and blocked behind the mass breaks free into gushing streams.

TOI