another way for the chinese to export their pollution to india and to indulge in espionage at the same time.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Claude
Tuesday September 5 2006 00:00 IST
IANS
KOLKATA: The West Bengal government on Monday signed an expression of interest (EoI) with Jiangsu Overseas Group Corporation of Nanjing province to set up a Chinese industrial park in the state.
State Industry Department Principal Secretary Sabyasachi Sen told reporters here that the Chinese corporation had sought 250 acres of land for setting up the park, which would house only companies from Nanjing province.
The official said that a three-member Chinese delegation had visited Haldia in East Midnapore district and Rajarhat near Kolkata. The corporation was in favour of the former location due to its proximity to a port, he added.
Sen said the industrial park might be converted subsequently into a special economic zone (SEZ).
According to him, a number of Chinese companies were keen to invest in West Bengal.
On the first country-specific industrial park in West Bengal, Sen said the Nanjing province had companies in chemicals, pharmaceuticals, textiles and food processing.
1 comment:
Rajeev,
A very interesting article by Ashok Malik , the Pioneer Columnist today - which I reproduce below (Pioneer links dont always work). Ashok does not always get his due by all your readers - a sharp guy (not that I always agree with him)
Reading this article leads me to ask - How about a CSPAN-type channel for India? At 5 bucks-a-pop, even if it gets 1/10 (a big ask I know)of the potentially 68 million subscribers it should generate enough revenue to fund content for a "no adverts", public discourse based, low-budget operation. Of course the downside is - if it conducts a free debate in India it will only get banned! Free debate being anti-Islamic, anti-revolution that "hurts the feelings" of the masses.
--------------------------------------------------------
Article by Ashok Malik
TRAI's Rs 5-a-month ceiling on pay channels is, in a sense, a product of India's anti-intellectualism
Socialism or liberalism, nationalisation to globalisation - whatever the era, whatever the prevailing wisdom, the unerring ability of Indian authorities to complicate straightforward issues remains unsurpassed.
As a recent sample, consider the anachronistic price control regime the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has sought to introduce to the pay channel business. A typically bureaucratic response to a problem that wasn't - actually - a problem at all, it has obviously been suggested by people who have no idea of media. They simply don't understand the equation between content - or "editorial", to use the traditional term - and user charges.
Consider the facts. TRAI was asked to draw up a blueprint for the implementation of CAS (Conditional Access System), whereby each cable subscriber would acquire a set-top box and access only those channels he paid for, beyond, of course, a collective of free-to-air channels.
CAS was - and is - meant to regulate the "Wild West" cable distribution industry, which came up out of nothing at all in the 1990s and whose primary driver is, frankly, hustling and muscle-power. Cable operators run monopolies in most neighbourhoods. They force consumers to pay fees they demand. New channels have to bribe them to ensure visibility.
CAS was conceived to stop such buccaneer capitalism. It was meant to prevent the cable operator forcing a hapless Gujarati into paying for half-a-dozen Tamil channels or saving a Hollywood-phobe from compulsory subscription to HBO or Star Movies.
It was designed to help broadcasters too - with the set-top boxes making it easy to figure out exactly how many homes were watching which channel. Right now cable operators famously under-declare revenues. They claim to distribute a particular channel to, say, 100 homes, but pay the channel for far fewer.
As the recent National Readership Survey spelt out, 68 million of India's 112 million television-owning homes have access to cable and satellite channels. Yet, on their best days, while showing blockbuster events, sports channels receive revenue for no more than a quarter of that 68 million.
CAS, then, was supposed to punish the cable operator and reward the consumer and the quality broadcaster. What TRAI has proposed, however, punishes the broadcaster - and while at it, snubs the discerning media consumer.
TRAI has said that no pay channel can charge more than Rs 5 per month per connection - one catch-all, blanket norm for everyone. It makes no distinction between sportscasters (ESPN-Star Sports or Ten Sports, for instance) - which get 50 per cent of their revenue from subscription and 50 per cent from advertising - and educative channels like, say, National Geographic or Discovery, which get 75 to 80 per cent of their money from advertising.
The TRAI ruling makes no concession for the fact that sportscasters pay huge - obscene - sums to buy live telecast rights for, say, cricket matches or the football World Cup. TRAI, in effect, argues that a pay channel that spends money seeking or generating original content must be treated at the same level as one that buys, cheaply, rights to 1980s-era American soap operas.
TRAI is unable to discriminate between competing business models. Take two hypothetical examples. One, the management of The Pioneer sets up a high-brow news and current affairs channel, spending money on ensuring the best talent and participants, sending correspondents across the world to get compelling pictures and stories. Two, Ekta Kapoor sets up a channel that shows re-runs of Balaji Telefilms' "Saas-Bahu" serials.
The first channel is likely to attract perhaps 50,000 subscribers - if even that many, in India's increasingly intellectually challenged media environment - the second will notch up households by the millions. Yet TRAI says they both must charge no more than Rs 5 a month. With no premium on content, the niche-audience current affairs channel will die in no time.
Content pricing can never be the job of a regulator or a Government. It is the market's prerogative. If TRAI's pay channel example is extended to print, a future media regulator will insist on price controls for newspapers and magazines.
It will say that a specialised golf or gardening magazine - which will sell a few thousand copies, perhaps - cannot cost more than an India Today, which sells half a million. It will say a serious paper, which spends good money on news-gathering, cannot charge more than a bigger rival that may be packed only with trivial gossip items.
If that sounds ridiculous, do consider that this just what TRAI has done to pay channels. It has killed all hope of India ever sustaining intelligent television.
Public discourse in India - and the media is not immune to this - is marked more and more by a tendency to dumb-down, by a certain anti-intellectualism. TRAI has merely institutionalised the process. The whole episode should make evident why bureaucrats - clever fellows as they may be - don't always make judicious business regulators.
Post a Comment