The Government will soon give some airports on "long term deals" to multinational companies to make them user-friendly with multi-model linkages to enhance international trade and tourism, Minister of State for civil Aviation Chaman Lal Gupta.

"This was necessary to make the airports at par with world class," Gupta said addressing a conference on the aeronautics industry organised as part of 'France-India 2000' exhibition.

"We have already started opening up airports for private parties like the one in Kochi and joint venture is on cards for the Bangalore airport."

Among civil avitation experts from France, who stressed on joint ventures especially in aircraft production and traffic management was Alain Brodin of Avions de Transport Regional (ATR) who said "there will be tremendous growth of the aviation industry if India could tap just I per cent of its daily 11 million railway passengers to the airflight."

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Azim Premji, was today declared "IT man of the year" by computer magazine Dataquest. "The IT industry can transform the wealth scape of our country, being as it is in the business of creating and redistributing wealth. It has created more millionaires in India in the last five years than all the industries put together in the last 50 years," Premji said receiving the award.

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UTI Bank is entering North India in a big way—opening its 39th branch in Sector 34 here today and 40th branch in Ludhiana tomorrow. Shimla, Panchkulla, Mohali, Khanna and Phagwara are the other towns where the bank proposes to open its branches.

To illustrate customers' faith in the bank, Mr. Gupta said many of its customers had subscribed to the bank's public issue last year. The bank will focus on demat services—it has the largest number of demat subscribers in the country—and the personal loan segment.

Promoted by UTI, LIC and GIC, the bank has posted a 94 per cent increase in its profits in the year just ended on a deposit base of Rs. 3,040 crore and has a capital adequacy ration of 11.64 per cent.

All offices of the bank are fully computerised, networked through VSAT and offer ATM services.

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Private FM radio transmission is likely to begin by the end of 2000, a top government official said on Thursday. "We are in the process of finalising the auction latest by February, 2000. After setting up the required physical infrastructure of studios and transmitters, the private stations are likely to go live by the end of next year," Mr. R.C. Mishra, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, told newspersons.

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Airlines (IA) is to launch a "five boarding card millennium promotion" programme from next month, in a bid to increase its market share. Under this scheme, a passenger becomes eligible to participate; if he or she travels on any five sectors between January 1 and March 31, 2000 on any of the domestic, international or Alliance Air services in the economy or executive class or even a mix of both.

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Mr. B.K. Shrivastava, Chairman of NRI Association of Jalandhar announced that the 4th annual meeting will be held on Jan. 9, 2000 while a seminar will be held on the 12th Jan. 2000 at Bhagat Yaadgar Hall, Jalandhar at 11 am.