US renews Super 301 against Japan
The Clinton Administration’s announcement on Thursday that it was renewing the ‘Super 301’ trade law, enabling the U.S. to take retaliatory action against countries indulging in what it deems unfair trade practices will take the escalating economic sparring with Japan a couple of notches closer to an all-out trade war. The U.S. Trade Representative, Mr. Mickey Kantor... said no country was being named at present but stated unambiguously that Japan and other countries with closed markets were the targets of the move.
The banning of the privately-sponsored lotteries in Uttar Pradesh, which was gradually turning into a legalised gambling net, has been widely welcomed in this most populous State. Political leaders and various voluntary agencies had, in the past, made frantic efforts to get the lottery business banned since it was mostly the poor and the middle class who were losing heavily in this... Chief Minister, Mr. Mulayam Singh Yadav, announced that the State had taken a decision to ban all private lotteries run by the other States and the Union Territories in the State.
Battle against CSB takeover intensifies
The meeting between the Managing Director of Chartered Securities Ltd., Mr. Johnny Chandy, and the Chief Minister of Kerala, Mr. K. Karunakaran, at Guruvayoor assumes increasing significance for the future of Catholic Syrian Bank (CSB). This is the first meeting between the Chief Minister and those resolutely opposing the takeover attempts, since 19.81 per cent of the banks’ equity changed hands from seven directors to the Bangkok-based buyer, Mr. Somchai Chawla.