15% hike in rail fares recommended

LAHORE: GM Operations Pakistan Railways, Ashfaque Khatak, late Friday said he has sent federal government a summary requesting for 15 percent increase in fares of goods and passenger trains, Geo news reported.

Talking to Geo news he termed inflation in rail fares as ‘indispensable’ in order to meet additional expenses of Pakistan Railways given the salary-raise for government employees and increase in diesel and electricity tariff.

Rs47.332bn AJK deficit budget presented

MUZAFFARABAD: Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK) government Friday announced an overall consolidated budget of Rs 47.332 billion for fiscal year 2010-11 with a record deficit of over Rs 17.6050 billion, allocating Rs 11.1749 billion for Annual Development Programme (ADP).

AJK Minister for Finance Raja Nisar Ahmad Khan presented the budget in the AJK Legislative Assembly, which was presided over by Speaker of the Assembly Shah Ghulam Qadir.

The opposition boycotted the budget speech of the Finance Minister after a short protest in the house against non-provision of their development funds during the outgoing fiscal year.

The budget sets aside Rs 11.174965 billion for development, up by 10 per cent over the outgoing fiscal year's original allocation of Rs 9.555 billion as compared to original spending of Rs 7.13 billion.

The finance minister hoped that the federal government would provide grant in aid to meet the development expenditures deficit.

The total revenue receipts were estimated as Rs 22.9 billion including share from the taxes of Kashmir council income from local resources of Rs 9.92 billion, Mangla Dam water usage charges Rs750 million, share from AJK council taxes Rs 4.5 billion, and share from federal taxes Rs 6.68 billion.

The finance minister announced 50 per cent ad hoc increase in the salaries of the government employees, police officials, pensions and medical allowance following the federal government's initiative.

However, he did not announce any cut in the salaries of ministers and government functionaries as the federal and provincial governments did by cutting down their expenditures.

It is pertinent to mention that AJK has the biggest cabinet of its history with all treasury members except one having the portfolio.

The finance minister in his budget speech said the share of the federal government in the new National Finance Commission (NFC) award was reduced, which had also affected the AJK share putting his government in financial crunch.

"If we are provided net profit over the hydro-electric projects, complete share from the federal taxes and Kashmir property, we might not need any grant in aid to bridge the gap between income and expenditures," he informed the house.

The minister said the government need extra seven billion rupees in the current expenditures head to raise the salaries of government employees, Judiciary, police and 100 percent increase in the medical allowance of grade 1 to 15 employees and 15 percent of higher grade officials.

In the development budget, priority has been given to transport and communication sector by allocating a sum of Rs 4.18 billion for the construction and maintenance of roads and bridges, besides fixing Rs 1.5 billion for development projects in the power sector.

Local government departments would be provided Rs one billion during the next fiscal year while Rs 916 million have been allocated for foreign funded projects. The education sector would get Rs 800 million for its development schemes.

The minister announced to regularize 1100 contractual employees during the fiscal year starting from July 1, but no new post has been announced in the budget.

In the non-development expenditures head, a junk amount of Rs 7.594 billion have been allocated for the education sector, Rs 5.30 billion for electricity department, Rs 3.31 billion in the head of miscellaneous expenditures, Rs 2.5 billion for state trading, Rs1.82 billion for health, Rs 1.17 billion for general administration, Rs 1.6 billion for the payment pension and Rs 1.58 billion for police department.

The minister also presented the revised budget estimates of Rs 32.78 billion for the outgoing fiscal year 2009-10 in the house, out of which Rs 25.65 were for non-development expenditures and Rs 7.13 for the development expenditures. The revised budget shows a deficit of Rs 5.5 billion.

The house will debate the budget for the fiscal year 2010-11 and revised budget for the outgoing fiscal year from Monday after a two days pause.

Poultry products prices rise in Karachi

KARACHI: The prices of poultry products have risen in Karachi with addition of Rs.10/kg in chicken meat while eggs by Rs.3 a dozen, Geo news reported Friday.

Spokesman Pakistan Poultry Association (PPA), Maroof Siddiqui, told Geo news price of chicken has hiked by Rs.8/kg and is now selling at Rs.146/kg while chicken meat saw inflation by Rs.10/kg to sell at Rs.248/kg in local market.

“Summer vacations and commencement of marriage season are the major causes to contribute hike in prices of poultry products”, he identified.

Further more, eggs price has risen by Rs.3/dozen to sell at Rs.59, he added.

Gates backs cell phone banking for Haiti

The massive earthquake in Haiti in January destroyed a third or more of the country's banks and ATMs, but even before the quake fewer than 1 in 10 Haitians had ever used a traditional bank.

Aiming to broaden access to financial institutions and aid in the recovery, the Gates Foundation and the U.S. Agency for International Development announced Tuesday a plan to back up to $10 million in funding to spur the use of cell phone banking, an approach that has worked elsewhere to bring financing to the poor.

Paul Tertilus writes a text message earlier this month to his girlfriend from a tent city in Port-Au-Prince, Haiti. The Gates Foundation is hoping to spur use of cell phones for making mobile payments.

(Credit: Natasha Fillion/Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)

"Out of the ruins of Haiti's tragic earthquake, there is an unprecedented opportunity to improve the lives of millions of Haitians and unlock the country's economic potential through mobile money," said Mark Suzman, acting president of the Global Development Program at the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, in a statement. "Making financial services widely available to the poorest families in the developing world can help break the cycle of poverty by giving them a safe place to save, guard against risks, build assets, and provide opportunities for the next generation."

The fund will offer cash awards to companies that build mobile financial services in Haiti, giving $2.5 million to the first country that launches a mobile banking service in the next six months and hits certain goals. The second company that does so within 12 months will get $1.5 million, while the remaining $6 million will be awarded proportionately to those services that process the first 5 million transactions.

The program's backers hope that, in the short term, mobile banking will make it easier to distribute humanitarian aid, including various cash-for-work programs. Over time, the hope is that a mobile banking system will leave Haitians with broad access to savings and other financial services that were not widely available before the quake.

A program in Kenya, known as M-Pesa, reaches 9 million people--40 percent of adult Kenyans--just three years after its launch. The service allows a range of goods and services, from taxi fares to school fees--to be paid by phone. The Gates Foundation touts a recent University of Edinburgh study that suggests rural households using M-Pesa saw their income increase by 5 percent to 30 percent.

Mildred, an M-PESA agent helps a customers at a booth in Eldoret, Kenya. M-PESA allows Kenyans to make payments using their cell phones.

(Credit: Frederic Courbet/Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation)

Bill Gates has been a big proponent of the role cell phones can play in bringing access to banking, particularly savings, to the poor. He touted the Kenyan program during a stop in Berkeley, Calif., on his recent speaking tour at top U.S. colleges.

"Poor people don't have saving accounts," Gates said. "The financial system doesn't work for the poor."

Setback for TiVo in long-running patent dispute

The U.S. Patent and Trademark Office on Tuesday rejected a claim by TiVo that it owns the patent on time-warp DVR technology.

TiVo released this statement Tuesday: "While TiVo is disappointed with this recent PTO office action, this is just one of several steps in the review process. We will continue to work with the PTO to explain the validity of the claims under review. It is important to note that TiVo received a 'final action' holding several claims invalid during EchoStar's first re-examination request at this juncture only to have the PTO ultimately uphold the validity of all claims of the patent."

Dish Network said it was encouraged by the ruling in the case running parallel to its own TiVo patent lawsuit.

"We are pleased the Patent and Trademark Office issued a Final Office Action maintaining its rejection of the software claims of TiVo's patent," Dish Network said in a statement. "These software claims are the same claims that EchoStar was found to have infringed in the contempt ruling now pending for en banc review by the Federal Circuit."

Though the two cases are technically unrelated, the uncertainty could be bad news for TiVo's the long-running dispute with EchoStar/Dish Network. In 2006, a Texas court first found Dish Network and its parent company EchoStar (they have since split into two companies) guilty of using TiVo's patented "time-warping" DVR technology. EchoStar was ordered to pay $74 million to TiVo. That amount was raised in September 2009 to $200 million.

But last month an appeals court granted EchoStar's petition for a rehearing of the case. A panel of three or more appellate judges will be listening to both sides re-argue the case, but this time, TiVo won't have the U.S. PTO's stamp of approval on its time-warp patent, which could cause a very different outcome this time around.

Twitter tests its own URL shortener

Twitter has squeezed the way we communicate, and now it is putting the squeeze on Web links users share on the microblogging service.

Twitter is testing a new service--called t.co--to wrap and abbreviate all links shared on the site in the same way other URL-shortening services such as Bit.ly do. The move is designed to increase security on the site, as well as offering analytics and related services for the company's Promoted Tweets platform, Twitter spokesperson Sean Garrett wrote in the post announcing the move Tuesday afternoon.

To illustrate how URLs would appear after testing is complete, Garrett said that a URL such as http://www.amazon.com/Delivering-Happiness-Profits-Passion-Purpose/dp/0446563048 might appear on Twitter wrapped as http://t.co/DRo0trj on mobile devices. However, users viewing the message on a computer will still see the entire URL.

"If you are already partial to a particular shortener when you tweet, you can continue to use it for link shortening and analytics as you normally would, and we'll wrap the shortened links you submit," Garrett wrote.

However, t.co is likely to put the squeeze on new competitors such as Bit.ly, which also offer analytics services and custom domains for corporations. The related services Twitter referred to might include content recommendation, suggesting content that users might want to consume.

The move isn't a total surprise. After a series of phishing attacks in February, Twitter launched a filtering servicein March to detect malicious links designed to dupe users into revealing their login credentials and other attacks