Draft policy proposes airline technical tie-ups

The draft national aviation policy, which is being put up before the Committee of Secretaries (COS) next week, favours technical tieups between domestic airlines and international carriers. This puts to rest speculation in media and airline Industry circles that along with the ban on entry of international airlines into the domestic skies, technical tie-ups with domestic airlines were also being disallowed. The policy also paves way for the revival of ModiLuft which has indicated that it will fly again from February 1998 after entering into a technical tie-up with British Airways.

Banks allowed to import gold, silver without licence

The seven banks which were earlier authorised by the Reserve Bank of India to import gold and silver for sale to exporters. Special Import Licence holders and returning NRIs, have now been authorised to import gold and silver for sale in the domestic market as well, without a licence or without surrender of SIL. The RBI move to allow the seven banks which were earlier authorised by it to import gold and silver for sale to exporters, SIL holders and returning non-resident Indians was due to recent changes in the Government policy, the press note said.

It’s tamarind patents now

After neem and turmeric, it is now tamarind. International majors have started grabbing patents, while the varied applications of this typically Indian tree continue to remain household knowledge and utility in the country. The US and Japanese MNCs have obtained 30 patents from the US Patent Office of the 40 patents granted worldwide in the past two decades. In the same period, Indian scientists and institutes got about 10 national patents.