News Snippets
• The cable television sector is a sellers' market and the consumer is a mere puppet, concludes a survey done in Delhi, Mumbai, Kolkata and Chennai, by a group of Indian consumer organisations led by the Consumer Unity and Trust Society, an NGO. Seven of 10 households interviewed do not have the option to change their cable operator. 80 per cent of households faced an increase in subscription charges at least once in the past one year.
• Contract Killing, a film that links Russian oil giant Yukos, the Chechen field Khozh-Akhmed Nukhaev, and self-exiled tycoon Boris Berezovskii in the killing, in June, of Russian "Forbes' editor-in-chief Paul Klebnikov, has attracted the ire of Russian human rights activities. They say the film is reminiscent of Soviet campaigns to discredit political opponents.
• An Indo-French "virtual centre' to study climate change will be established at the Centre for Mathematical Modelling and Computer Simulation (C-MMACS) in Bangalore by 2004-end. Institut Pierre Simmon Laplace, a key centre in France where nearly 300 scientists are studying climate change, will collaborate with C-MMACS.