Maruti Suzuki has made its way to the Guinness Book of Records as a result of the world record that it has set on Sunday by planning and executing world’s largest car procession of Swift, its top selling hatchback model in Gurgaon.

Just few days back Maruti had exceeded a sale of 4.5 lakh units of the popular hatchback Swift.  This achievement has added another feather to its hat.

In a statement, the company spokesperson said “Maruti Suzuki has set a new Guinness Book of World Records by bringing together 342 Swift cars at a car parade in Gurgaon,”.

There were several car parades held on Sunday in Sriperambadur and Mumbai, but they failed to break any record.

Similar car parades were held simultaneously in Mumbai and Sriperumbudur but did not achieve any world record.
“Today’s world record is a testimony to the ever-growing popularity of the Swift. The new record is a victory for all the 4.5 lakh Swift owners,” said Mayank Pareek who is Maruti Suzuki’s executive officer for marketing and sales.

Manufacturing over 12,000 Swifts monthly at both its plants in Manesar and Gurgaon, Maruti Suzuki still finds it challenging to satisfy the demand in the market. The waiting period for the diesel version of Swift is 4 months and that for the petrol version is 2 to 3 months in the market today.

The diesel variant comes equipped with a 1.3 liter DDis engine and the petrol version has a 1.2 liter K-series engine.

The much-hyped India-US strategic dialogue that will lay foundation for Obama’s India visit later this year is scheduled to be held on June 2^nd and 3^rd. External Affairs Minister S M Krishna along with senior officials will be in Washington from June 1-4.

Mr. Krishna will meet US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton during the two-day strategic talks, covering a range of issues that will have local, bilateral and international repercussions. More stress will be given to counter-terrorism operations and bilateral cooperation concerning internal and global security. The US authorities are believed have taken additional steps to ensure that the dialogue achieves its objectives and to wipe out the impression that India-US relationship is cooling down under Obama’s tenure.

Minister Krishna is accompanied by Minister for Human Resource Development Kapil Sibal, Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission Montek Singh Ahluwalia, Minister of State for Science and Technology Prithviraj Chavan and Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao for the talks. A spokesperson for the Ministry of External Affairs, Vishnu Prakash said, “The strategic dialogue will enhance the Global Strategic Partnership between India and the US, by serving as a very important mechanism to review, enhance and coordinate our broad-based cooperation.”

“It would give direction to the programs currently under implementation and take initiatives to further the Indian and US developmental, security and economic interests,” Mr. Prakash added.

The US side will comprise of National Security Advisor James Jones, Commerce Secretary Gary Locke, FBI Director Robert Mueller and the USAID Director Rajiv Shah, in addition to Ms. Clinton.

Robert Blake, Assistant Secretary of State for South and Central Asian Affairs revealed the importance his country is giving to the strategic dialogue when he said, “As President Obama himself has said, this will be one of our signature partnerships in the 21st century.”

The much-awaited auction of 3G spectrum is barely over; the allocation process to private telecom players is yet to start. The astounding success of the auction has set the government authorities thinking about the next step ahead – 4G spectrum auction. This was revealed by a telecom commission official.

Mr. Chandra Prakash, member (technology), Telecom Commission told media persons in Coimbatore that the Telephone Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) has begun the 4G spectrum auction process by moving the consultation papers to Department of Telecommunications (DoT). The remaining processes are expected to be completed within 6-8 months and 4G ready in a year.

“The recommendations of TRAI and DoT would be discussed in detail and 4G can be expected in place by next year,” Mr. Chandra Prakash said.

J S Sharma, chairman, TRAI had earlier hinted at the government’s intention not to delay 4G auction. He had said in New Delhi, “”We will be ready with a consultation paper on 4G in a week and expect the regulations to be in place in the next few months.”

Mr. Sharma had revealed that the consultation paper would cover matters such as tariff, cost of bandwidth, establishment of an optic fiber network and nuances of the partnership between telecom and internet service providers.

A few private telecom players like Tata Teleservices and Qualcomm have already shown interest in early auctioning of 4G spectrum.

Arrival of 4G services in the country would be a huge step forward in mass data transfer at super high speeds using the same bandwidth as 3G. 4G or Long Term Evolution (LTE) technology is capable of data transfer at speed up to 10 mbps, while 3G can reach speed up to 3 mbps.

On Saturday, Civil Aviation Minister Praful Patel stated that planned and “systematic efforts” were being made by insiders and there was “opposition” from members to ensure that the long term process of merging Indian Airlines and Air India remains unsuccessful. Mr. Patel said, “I will tell you that there has been opposition from within and systematic effort to see that the merger does not succeed… by a lot of people in the organization. Now some unions also have to be blamed for that.” Acknowledging that the merger is a long process and it cannot happen overnight, he also said that it was the right step to take despite the delays in the past. “It was envisaged as a three to five year process…to say it is internally or inherently flawed is wrong.”

“It has been delayed-Yes. The fact is, who has to make it work-the organization. But I still feel, if these people do not make it work, they will be losers in the long run,” Mr. Patel also said that Air India’s problems were not due to the merger and it was not right to blame the merger for it.

“I would like to put across….if there are any problems, if there are losses and if there are systemic issues…please do not put one attribute of merger. That is another issue,” he said.  The Civil Aviation minister also said “Even today, there are two streams in the organization – one is domestic operations, which was earlier the Indian Airlines, and the other is Air India. But that doesn’t mean that anything is fundamentally wrong with the organization. It takes time for the whole pyramid to build”.  He also added “It is not that I conceived the merger. This merger discussion is going on in the Ministry from the days of J. R. D. Tata. .. chances were taken but nothing really fructified. Eventually it happened.”

No tolerance to indiscipline

The Civil Aviation Minister Mr. Patel avowed that in the wake of the recent strike that has upset the normal routine, he has bestowed the management of Air India with autonomy to take strict and necessary actions, as no tolerance will be shown to indiscipline.

During an interview for CNN-IBN news channel with Karan Thapar, the minister stated “I had made it very clear to the management that you have full freedom and you must do whatever is necessary in these circumstances. This (strike) type of gross indiscipline will not be tolerated,”

When questioned, as a consequence of the strike if further employees of Air India would be fired.“If they (airline management) feel, they are free to do it, we will not come into the picture,” said Patel.

According to him the Management of Air India had full authority to take actions on the two unions which could include rescinding the services of the union leaders and that the government did not have any say in it, thus detaching the government from the scenario at hand.