ZEE Network has announced an in-house reorganisation possibly in the wake of Zee TV President, Ms Apurva Purohit’s plan to quit.

The company says the move is aimed at job enrichment and offering higher responsibilities.

Mr Sunil Khanna, CEO, Zee Turner, would take over from Ms Purohit. Mr Khanna has been with the Zee Network for 10 years, occupying various positions, and has a track record in distribution and marketing. Mr Khanna, an engineering graduate from IIT Kharagpur and management graduate from the Indian Institute of Management, Bangalore, is a marketing professional having worked in various marketing positions before joining Zee.

Mr Ashwini Yardi, Business Head, Zee MGM and Zee English, will assist Mr Khanna as head of programming for Zee TV.

Mr Khanna is expected to take over formally at Zee TV in Mumbai after Ms Purohit’s service period ends on 31 January.

Mr Dheeraj Kapuria, at present heading operations of Zee in the US, will take over as CEO of Zee Turner from Mr Khanna. Mr Kapuria’s deputy in the US, Mr S. Venkatasubramanian, will take over from him.

Mr Sunil Rohra, head of the UK operations and Mr Pushpinder Singh, head of the Africa operations, will report to Mr Kapuria, a press release said.

“This re-organisation is a result of our learning from an in depth internal communications exercise in which I met most of the managers within the network to assess the width of in-house talent. It was truly satisfying to reaffirm that we have an extremely talented pool of people in-house. I believe by enriching their portfolios, they will lead Zee Network into the New Year with greater vigour and effect,” the release said quoting Mr Subhash Chandra, Chairman, Zee Network.

Some of the executives have been given additional responsibilities. Mr Abhijit Saxena, currently handling international business (Asia-Pacific) and syndication of programming, will handle Zee English, Zee MGM, Trendz, Smile TV and FX Channel as business head. Mr Yogesh Radhakrishnan, in addition to his current portfolio of Zee Cinema and Zee Music, will also handle Premier Cinema, Action Cinema and Classic Cinema.

Under pressure from local industrialists who fear they are losing out to foreign competition, the Indian government is reviewing a number of free-trade pacts, including those pending with Thailand and Asean.

“Bilateral agreements having divergent standards with different countries may not help India remain competitive in the international market,” said R.V. Kanoria, a international trade expert with the Confederation of Indian Industry, a New Dehli-based trade group.

“Liberalisation of tariffs by the Indian government should be calibrated with internal reforms in labour, infrastructure and agriculture,” he said in an interview with the Bangkok Post.

In October 2003, India signed a signed a limited trade deal with Thailand that came into effect in September 2004. Under the so-called “early-harvest” agreement, which expires in 2008, Indian and Thai firms can freely import and export 82 items. The deal calls for tariffs to be reduced by 50 percent in 2004-05, 75 percent in 2005 and 100 percent in 2006.

Bilateral trade in these 82 items consequently doubled to US$430 million in 2005 from $217 million in 2004, with Thailand recording a trade surplus of $253 million.

The lopsided numbers soured the Indian business community, particularly the automotive components makers, and talks on a more comprehensive deal that would cover thousands of items has since stalled. Recently CII said it was working to modify existing FTAs and implement a new set of industry recommendations for future trade deals, while claiming that multilateral agreements under the World Trade Organisation would benefit the country more than bilateral agreements.

“Toyota, Honda and Procter & Gamble are the three multinational corporations that have benefited the most from the Indo-Thai FTA,” said Sharif D. Rangnekar, an economic analyst and editor of the Indiabiznews.com website.

He added that “these three companies find the logistics of doing business with India rather attractive because they have major manufacturing units in Thailand and find it easy to launch their products in India”.

Indian products, on the other hand, “don’t have a large market in Thailand even if they have the required certification,” Mr Rangnekar said, explaining that this is partly due to the fact that India’s population of 1.1 billion dwarfs that of Thailand.

Criticism of the India-Thai FTA has come from a wide range of sources, including industry groups, independent research think-tanks and columnists. In 2004, the National Council of Applied Economic Research slammed the pact, primarily because of the complicated issue of “rules of origin”. It also questioned if the “early-harvest” agreement is compatible with WTO rules.

Last year, India’s Ministry of Commerce undertook an impact assessment study of the limited trade scheme with Thailand, which analysed trade flows and drew inferences for the future. The Tariff Commission also submitted a similar study to the federal Department of Industrial Policy and Promotion in New Delhi.

The CII committee headed by Mr Kanoria will soon come up with guidelines for the Indian government to consider before negotiating FTAs. These are expected to include guidelines relating to negative list, common floor prices and rules of origin.

A survey by the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI), one of the largest apex industry associations in India together with the CII, found in 2005 that imports from Thailand rose phenomenally under the limited FTA, while exports from India to Thailand actually declined.

The analogy may not be far, some observers of the book industry used to say. Editors, publishers of educational books, in particular, have long used, book sales of reprints churning out every two years. But the Internet, particularly sites like Amazon and eBay, millions of consumers an easy way to find cheap books - often for less than $ 1 - without license fees to pay publishers or authors.

Mass-Market publishers are not safe, used books interesting phenomenon is a problem of addressing, but also others in the industry have their heads.

“We believe it is not good for the industry, and it has an effect, but we can not measure,” said Paul Aiken, executive director of the Authors Guild, a trade group . “It has always been used book sales, but it is always background noise something. Now it is on the right side of the light of a new book on Amazon.

Lorraine Shanley, a senior partner at Market International, a consultant on publication, said the industry was just starting, for the dimensions of the problem.

“Good business for consumer policy are books such as Napster, it was the music industry,” she said. “The question is” How does the book industry address its used book problem? “There is no simple answer, especially since nobody is breaking any laws here.

Shanley, whose company reported on used books this month in their newsletters, publishing trends, said that publishers were beginning the consequences. “We asked publishers, like many a topic, and the answers are” I also many other problems to deal “or” Yes, this is a problem, but it is not easy solves I can ‘t really concentrate, “she said.

Greg Greeley, Amazon Vice President or media products for North America and Japan, strenuously disagreed with the idea that online sales of used books for the publication of the branch. And some publishers are not really for this e-Business used as a problem.

“It is often argued that there are two types of buyers,” said Chad Haight, publisher of Seattle-based Sasquatch Books. These are the bargain hunters, go to bookstores used by the search for a Deal, then he said, are those who, “Go into bookstores often looking for new books. It is d ‘ another category of customers. ” The discount to buyers, Haight said, it is expected by the end of shopping on Amazon.

“I think that they (in the case of Amazon), welcomed the availability of the publication industry,” said Haight.

Furthermore, he added that, unlike the music industry, publishing world has never planned books to a single user of the product. In fact, sharing a good book, that most, it seems almost like a moral obligation.

“We have always believed that if you sell someone a book, they are likely to redistribute it to someone,” said Haight, and added that this may help, mouth-to-mouth resuscitation on an author, editor for an end higher turnover across the line.

Pat Soden, editor of the University of Washington Press, he said more concerned about critics see copies of books, which are not available for retail, are resold.