In a bid to boost its computer hardware exports, India is wooing companies in Southeast Asia to relocate operations here instead of in China.

"Because of the overheated wage structure in these countries, production costs have considerably gone up, forcing firms to relocate their bases to countries where factor costs including wage cost are relatively low," said executive director of the state-owned Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC), DK Sareen.

While taking proactive steps to make Southeast Asian computer hardware companies view India favourably for the relocation of their production bases, ESC feels more investor-friendly policies are required.

"We have to outbid China in this process, which is extending a slew of incentives to attract investment in the computer hardware industry through appropriate policy tooling," said Sareen in a statement.

Though India has emerged as a major software centre, it is still lagging behind in the hardware sector.

There is some ray of hope, however. India's export of computer hardware registered an impressive 50 per cent growth during 2001-02 over the previous year, according to data compiled by ESC.

"In value terms, export of computer hardware is estimated at Rs 18 billion during 2001-02 as compared to Rs 12 billion in 2000-01. Head stacks is the major item that has pushed computer hardware exports followed by switching mode power supply, scanners, personal computers, add-on cards and printers," said Sareen.

According to ESC, head stacks clocked an export turnover of Rs 9.20 billion during 2001-02 as against Rs 8.11 billion during the previous year, registering a growth of 9.37 per cent.

The major export destinations for this product were Malaysia, Britain, Mauritius, the US and the United Arab Emirates.

In the case of switching mode power supply, the second largest item exported from the country to markets in the US, Singapore, Portugal, Bangladesh and Thailand, the exports rose 28 per cent from Rs 160 million to Rs 210 million.

Singapore, Hong Kong and other countries in the region have emerged as major destinations for computer hardware exports from India. Total exports to the region rose around 20 per cent to Rs 13.25 billion during 2001-02 as against Rs 11.07 billion in the previous year.

The other important destinations for export of hardware during 2001-02 were Europe, the US, Middle East, Australia and Africa.

Courtesy: www.hindustantimes.com, May 12, 2003

The Union Cabinet on Tuesday night decided to grant dual citizenship to Indians living in the United States, the United Kingdom and six other countries. Namely, Australia, Canada, Finland, Ireland, the Netherlands and Italy.

"Indians living there will have to apply for dual citizenships and government could grant it after due verification," Parliamentary Affairs Minister Sushma Swaraj told reporters after a meeting of the Cabinet lasting over an hour. However, they would not have the privilege of voting rights and would not be allowed to hold constitutional offices or jobs in three Defence services, she said.

A bill to this effect would be introduced during the current session of Parliament to amend the Citizenship Act, 1955.

The eight countries have been chosen as they already had dual citizenship laws and a large number of Indians are residing there.

Swaraj said the Cabinet approved certain amendments to the Citizenship Act to incorporate new provisions, streamline and remove certain provisions that have become redundant in order to increase the efficacy of the Act.

The amendments would also introduce overseas citizenship for persons of Indian origin belonging to specified countries and facilitate introduction of the scheme of issue of national identity cards to all Indian citizens.

Courtesy: www.hindustantimes.com, May 07, 2003

UNITED NATIONS: India has been re-elected to the 53-member United Nations Commission on Human Rights from the Asian group for a three-year term, getting maximum number of 47 votes in a secret ballot.

Others elected from group in the first round included Saudi Arabia with 45 votes, Qatar (44 votes), Bhutan (39 votes) and Nepal (39 votes).

Courtesy: www.timesofindia.com, April 30, 2003