31.12.2006

• Saddam hanged to death
• Ousted Iraqi leader and 69 year old Saddam Hussein was hanged to death early Saturday morning; three years and nine months after America started its war on Iraq.
• He is reported as having remained dignified and defiant even at the gallows; the true mark of a leader.
• There were contrasting emotions displayed all over the globe about this hanging. Emotions apart, America had no business intervening in Iraq in the first place; leave alone hanging its leader. The court proceedings that delivered the death sentence on the leader also smacked of arbitrariness and were less convincing about their fairness in trial.
• High networth individuals in India
• The HNI households are pegged at 1.6 million and growing at the rate of 14 to 15%.
• There are about 7,11,000 Indians with liquid wealth of $100,000 or more. The number of millionaires in India are reportedly growing at 12.8% annually, with their wealth being projected at around $322 billion by 2009.
• La Dolce Vita
• In describing its today’s edition, ET said it is “14 pages of La Dolce Vita”. I wondered what it meant. Googling for the phrase “La Dolce Vita” left me ogling at this scene:
  
  
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• This was the famous scene of Anita Ekberg in the Fontana di Trevi. This is one of the most celebrated images in cinema's history. The scene was from the movie “La Dolce Vita” of 1960. It is a film directed by Federico Fellini. It is a vast panel of long, loosely connected scenes that paint a portrait of the high and low life of Rome in the late fifties and early sixties, as seen through the eyes of its main character, a jaded society reporter, Marcello (played by Marcello Mastroianni), in his dealings with various woman characters in his life. Marcello wants to quit his job as a gossip columnist and become a novelist, but he never seems to be able to concentrate long enough to make any progress on his serious writings.
• OK ogling apart, let us understand that describing something as “La Dolce Vita” means something like this: unfocused wanderings around. Even in La Dolce Vita, I found something worth learning; don’t you?
• Kancheepuram, the Varanasi of South India, is famous for:
• The Kanchipuram saree;
• Old, architecturally marvelous and spiritually important temples;
• The famed 3,500 year old (according to Hindu mythology) mango tree whose branches give four different types of mangoes;
• Being a great seat of learning with luminaries like Sri Sankaracharya, Appar, Siruthonder and Bodhidharma having lived and worked there; and
• Received international travelers like Yuan Chwang, the great Chinese traveler who visited in the 7^th century.
• Who is the Chairman of the Central Silk Board?
• H. Hanumanthappa
• The size of the beauty and wellness markets:
• India’s beauty market is pegged at about $9 billion
• Worldwide market for herbal products and services is pegged at $150 billion.
• World’s most expensive Champagne
• Perrier Jouet’s Belle Epoque at 1000 Euros.
• Some of the world’s best known upper segment music hardware (Speakers, Players) brands:
• Bang and Olufsen, Bose, Jamo, Denon, Marantz, Parasound, LG, Sony and Samsung
• Some prominent fashion designers from India
• Ashish Soni, Sabhyasachi, Varun Behl, Anamika Khanna, JJ Valaya, Krishna Mehta, Raghavendra Rathore
• Some of the prominent social networking web sites from India
• Yaari.com, minglebox.com, zhoom.com, desimartini.com, humsubka.com
• About bloggers in the world
• The number of bloggers worldwide has touched 200 million. The US tops the list with about 50 million bloggers. India has about 1.2 million bloggers. China has 19.87 million and Japan 10 million of them.
• India’s publishing industry
• Has more than 15,000 publishers with more than 75,000 books in 30 languages.
• Jeev Milkha Singh
• India’s best golfer is now Asia’s Number 1 and is ranked 37 in the world rankings.
• He won the Volvo Masters (European Tour), Casio World Open and Golf Nippon Series JT Cup in Japan.
• Other prominent golfers from the country include: Gaganjeet Bhullar, Anirban Lahiri, Chiragh Kumar, Joseph Chakola, Jyoti Randhawa, Arjun Atwal, Rahil Gangjee, Shiv Kapur and SSP Chowrasia.
• China heralds the year of the pig
• Chinese scientists have successfully bred partially green fluorescent pigs. The mouth, trotters and tongue of the pig are green under ultraviolet light. This was achieved by injecting fluorescent green protein into embryonic pigs.
• This is considered an achievement and is expected to boost stem cell research.
• Huge ice mass snaps in Canada’s far north
• An ice chunk of 66 sq km has broken off the Ayles Ice Shelf at Ellesmere Island. It is adrift now and if floats westward, it could wreak havoc in the oil-drilling regions and shipping lanes next summer.
• Global warming is suspected to have been the cause of this ecological change.

30.12.2006

• Volatility coefficient for sensex
• The annualized volatility coefficient for BSE sensex stood at 26% for 2006, compared to 17% and 25% during 2005 and 2004 respectively.
• This coefficient indicates the amount of fluctuation in market movements during the year.
• It is calculated by taking the standard deviation of daily returns for either the stock or the index and then annualizing it over the total number of trading days during the year.
• Call money rates hit a 9 year high
• Call money means the money on call or overnight funds borrowed by banks to meet their daily asset liability mismatches. The money is lent by other banks with surplus funds and bond houses with a specific mandate to lend in the call money market. Banks can also borrow from the RBI by pledging their surplus government bond holdings.
• These rates have touched a high of 18 to 19% on fund crunch.
• Quantitative restrictions on agricultural exports may go
• The government’s motivation on banning farm exports is to hold their prices domestic market.
• The government is signaling that these restrictions will be replaced with tariffs; a measure which will have huge impact on farm incomes and commodity prices in general.
• India’s current policy on agricultural exports is simple: the government decides from time to time and ‘in public interest’ whether any commodity can be exported at any point of time.
• Schedule of assembly polls in three states
• The Election Commission has announced that elections to the state assemblies of Punjab, Uttarkhand and Manipur will be held in Febrary, 2007.
• Demand for return of Kohinoor diamond
• The diamond was gifted to Queen Victoria by 9 year old last Sikh ruler of Punjab, Duleep Singh in 1849.
• There were claims from Pakistan, Iran and India on Britain for the return of the diamond.
• What are interconnect user charges? Is service tax leviable on such charges?
• Interconnect user charges are charges paid by one telecom service provider to another for enabling calls to move from one network to the other.
• The Attorney General of India has opined that service tax cannot be levied on such charges. This is because interconnectivity is a service provided between telecom operators and not between the telecom company and the subscriber.
• Hutch shareholding pattern
• Hutchison Telecom and associates hold 67% in Hutch Essar. While 52% is directly held by Hutchison Whampoa, the balance 15% is held indirectly through associates like Telecom Investments Inida and subsidiaries and Indusind Telecom Networks.
• Of Essar’s 33% holding, a 22.02% block is foreign controlled.
• Managing Director of NABARD: Mr. K.G. Karmaker.
• Balance of payments surplus helps the country brave the current account deficit
• The country’s current account deficit touched $6.9 billion during the quarter ended September, 2006. The capital account has seen a surplus of $8.6 billion during the same period. Hence the balance of payments, which is the sum of the current and capital account transactions in a given period showed an overall $2.2 billion surplus.
• The country’s trade deficit is at $17.9 billion on an exports figure of $30.8 billion and imports of $49 billion.
• Management of external debt
• India’s external debt has increased to $136.5 billion in the quarter ended September, 2006. The country’s foreign exchange reserves stood at $165.3 billion for the same period.
• Foreign debt management policies administered by the government include:
• Placing of emphasis on raising funds at concessional terms and from less expensive sources with longer maturities
• Monitoring short-term debt
• Prepayment of high-cost loans
• Rationalization of interest rates on NRI deposits
• Restrictions on end-use of external commercial borrowings (ECBs)
• Limiting of trade credits
• Encouraging non-debt creating capital flows
• Indo-Asean FTA talks
• ASEAN has not responded positively to India’s revised negative list of 490 items in place of its earlier 560 items.
• ASEAN’s primary interest lies in the area of palm oil where it has demanded that duties should be pruned to 30% to 40% within 5 years of the implementation of the free trade agreement instead of the 50% within 10 to 12 years as suggested by India.
• ASEAN, which has initially produced a negative list of 600 items, has later hiked it to 1000 items.
• What is competitive advantage?
• Competitive advantages are the firm specific set of capabilities that enable individual firms to perform well in open markets.
• Changing composition of our exports during the period 2000 to 2006
• Exports can be grouped into three broad classes on the basis of primary factors affecting the competitive process in each activity and the technological characteristics.
• The first is the resource intensive product category whose major competitive source is access to abundant natural resources – like aluminium smelting, oil refining etc. The share of these products has remained stagnant and did not show any definite trend over the period.
• The second is labour intensive exports where the main competitive advantage is labour costs – garments, clothing, footwear, toys etc. The share of these products in our exports has gone down from 26% to 21%.
• The third is knowledge and technology intensive product category. There has been a substantial increase in the share of this category of exports from 24% in 2000-2001 to 29% in 2005-2006.
• Thus India’s current export boom is not labour-based as is revealed by the composition of merchandise exports. The results show that India’s exports have shifted towards more value-added, science and technology based products and there again has primarily come at the cost of labour intensive products.
• What does El Nino have to do with tyre prices in India?
• The El Nino effect, created by the abnormal warming of waters in the Pacific Ocean around the equator, usually results in drought in Australia, Indonesia and Phlippines along with flooding in the Americas.
• Thailand, Indonesia and Malaysia account for more than 70% of the world’s natural rubber output.
• Since rubber tress are impacted by warm weather, availability of natural rubber is also reduced. Since production of synthetic rubber will not increase dramatically from crude oil, in view of the volatility in prices of crude, rubber prices are set to rule firm. This leads to an increase in prices of rubber products like car tyres.
• Joseph Stiglitz on why interest rates as a tool for managing monetary policy are less important now.
• The objectives of the monetary policy are achieving growth and stability. These objectives can be achieved by a adopting a multiple indicator approach and the central bank should focus on a plethora of tools.
• The focus should be on credit markets. With new technologies, money is not required for transactions, only for credit. Most transactions are not income-generating, but simply exchange of assets. The ratio of exchange of assets to income is not stable. This has changed the velocity of money. This in a way, has restricted the effectiveness of interest rates as a tool of monetary policy.

29.12.2006

• Some concerns about doing business in India
• It takes an average of 1420 days and 56 different procedures to enforce contracts.
• Importing goods takes 41 days and 15 documents.
• Starting new businesses takes 35 days.
• Tax payments have to be made 59 times a year and the process takes 264 hours.
• India’s external trade front
• In the last three years, the ratio of exports of goods and services to GDP has shot up from 14.6% to 20.5%.
• India’s share in global merchandise exports has doubled from 0.5% in 1990-91 to 1%.
• Its share of global services exports too has doubled in just the last two years to 2.5%.
• Export growth has averaged about 25% during the last three years.
• During the current year, we are expected to export goods worth $125 billion and $75 billion worth of services.
• If the exports and imports are combined, they would total about $450 billion during the current year.
• Why is inclusive growth in India important to foreign investors?
• Firstly, a society in which the fruits of development are more evenly spread, makes for a stable social environment that is attractive and reassuring.
• Second, it proves that India is an enormous market and that what is being seen in only a tip of the iceberg.
• Lastly, it demonstrate the tremendous resilience capability of India. We have survived the zooming oil prices, the fluctuating dollar and global recession, with barely a hiccup.
• India’s GDP growth
• In nominal terms it is growing at an astonishing 16% per year in dollar terms.
• Nominal GDP means the value of goods and services produced in a year when output is valued at current year prices.
• Centre to implement Sachar recommendation in toto
• The Central government announced that the Justice Sachar committee recommendations on removing the “inequalities” and “imbalances” faced by the Muslim community would be implemented in toto.
• Uttaranchal being renamed
• The hill state of Uttaranchal which was formed in November 2000 would be renamed as Uttarkhand. The President has given assent to a bill passed by the Parliament in the just concluded winter session.
• India and the world
• As we approach the 60^th anniversary of independence, we can see three distinct stages in India’s engagement with the world:
• In the first stage, lasting three decades after independence, the country suffered from a severe colonial hangover. In sought self-sufficiency, decoupling itself from the global economy, in the mistaken belief that this alone would yield economic independence to buttress the political freedom that had just been won.
• In the second phase, it undertook big IMF structural adjustment loan of 1981. It began opening up cautiously, internally and externally. The pace gained momentum after the economic reforms of 1991.
• In the third phase, from 2003-04 onwards, it has witnessed record growth and takeovers by Indian companies of foreign ones.
• Parekh heads panel to liberalize core funding
• The finance ministry has set up a 7 member panel headed by HDFC chief Deepak Parekh to explore ways to spur private financing of infrastructure.
• Currently as per the IRDA norms, LIC requires to invest at least 15% of its premium in infrastructure projects.
• Poor spending on R&D by India in the energy sector
• Compared to the spend on R&D by international companies, which is in the range of about 2% of their turnover, Indian companies like NTPC have spent only about 0.025% in 2005-06.
• Therefore, government is thinking of imposing a cess on energy majors such as NTPC, Reliance, Cairn, GAIL, IOC etc., to spur investments in R&D.
• Total NPAs in the banking sector
• They are estimated to be at Rs. 50,000 crores.
• Success of VAT in India
• During April-November 2006, the VAT revenues of states rose 25.5%, while growth in non-VAT states was 21%.
• India’s agriculture scenario
• Over 72% of India’s population lives in rural areas according the 2001 census.
• About 40% of the farmers surveyed told that they don’t want to stay on in farming.
• Agriculture sector contributes approximately 20% to out GDP.
• Some interesting thoughts about opportunities and threats to banking business from the telecom sector
• The total money mobilized by the telecom sector as advance payments for talk time works out to Rs. 4,459 crores.
• Currently consumers are using cell phones to buy items like ring tones and music from the service providers. It is believed that in the years to come, the cell phone might well emerge as one of the major payment channels. This may very well threaten a large chunk of the banking business.
• Therefore, banks can think of constructively engage cell phone companies for delivery of microfinance. For telecom companies, a tie up with banks can perhaps reduce their non-performing assets and increase collection of payments. Thus there could be excellent synergies also for both of them.
• With about 136.8 million cell-phone subscribers growing at about 20% per annum, it would not be too far off by the time these numbers catch up with the 334 million savings and current account numbers.

28.12.2006

• Hutchison puts a floor price for its stake
• Hutchison has said that it will consider selling its 67% stake in Hutchison Essar for a price exceeding $14 bn. This is equivalent to Rs. 62,000 cr. This puts a valuation of $21 bn on the Cellular operator. It is considered very high.
• Meaning of humdinger
• someone of remarkable excellence; "a humdinger of a secretary"
• CBI files chargesheet in Khairlanji dalit carnage
• In this incident a mob killed the wife, daughter and two sons of dalit family in Khairlanji.
• The immediate provocation for the incident was that the wife and daughter duo had intervened in an altercation, one of their relatives had with one of the accused on non-payment of wages.
• The accused are all belonging to the OBC communities -- Kumbi and Kalar
• The Trinamul Congress Chief Mamata Banerjee’s fast unto death on Singur issue
• She had been on the fast for the last 24 days protesting against allotment of land by West Bengal government for Tata’s proposed car factory in Singur.
• The project was allotted a total of 997 acres of land, out of which the Trinamul Congress is contesting that 387 acres were forcibly taken from farmers.
• National Commission for Minority Educational Institutions is headed by Justice MSA Siddiqui.
• CBI files chargesheet against Jaya Jaitley in Tehelka sting case
• The reporters from Tehelka sought assistance from Jaitley to obtain orders for equipment from the defence ministry. In this connection Rs. 2 lakh was allegedly handed over to one Pancherwal at the instance of Ms. Jaitley. In the video footage secretly filmed by the Tehelka reporters, Ms. Jaitley wa shown saying that she would put in a word to “sahib’s office” if the firm was not considered.
• Discounts garnered by airlines from star hotels normally
• Airlines usually get about 40% discount on the rack rates from star hotels.
• Even in this supposedly lean season for Delhi hotels, the hotels are seen offering only about 30% discount as they have seen that there is huge demand for rooms caused due to flight delays on account of fog.
• Government to set up state internet exchange hubs
• It is proposing to set up these exchanges at Mohali, Bangalore, Ahmedabad and Hyderabad.
• Already we have four nodal exchanges at Noida, Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.
• Why do we need these exchanges?
• This is to avoid our internet traffic going all the way to the other side of the globe and coming back to us in India. For example, if a Yahoo mail user in Delhi sends an email to somebody in Mumbai, the data may be going all the way up to the US and then re-routed to Mumbai.
• There are 130 active ISPs in India and only 27 of them are connected to the NIXI – the national internet exchange of India.
• A tenth of rural India lives on Rs. 9 per day
• In spite of the superb growth seen in the economy, statistics from NSSO reveal that the villager at the bottom 10% pile of the rural population spent just Rs. 9 a day on his consumption needs, while his urban counterpart was slightly better off with Rs. 13 per day.
• Government may level ATF rates for foreign and domestic airlines
• The foreign airlines are not charged any taxes on ATF bought by them in India. But the Indian carriers are required to pay duties. The central excise is at 8% and the sales tax varies between 4% to 39% across states.
• In a bid to level the playing field between the foreign carriers and the Indian carriers flying to foreign destinations, the government is thinking of allowing a duty draw back for Indian carriers.
• “Let one hundred flowers bloom, let one hundred schools of thought contend” said Mao in 1958, in a bid to encourage constructive criticism. When the criticism did come, he swiftly exiled those who spoke too freely and too soon!
• What is scope creep? How can it be controlled or managed?
• It is phenomenon that causes users to be highly fickle about what they wish their software to do. Software engineers typically notice that there is a confusion in users about what they need and what they want.
• The methods that can be deployed to manage scope creep are:
• Employing the use case method to manage user requirements.
• Making the software development process more cyclical rather than linear.
• Making users play an active role in software evolution.
• Additionally two metrics are also suggested: Requirements clarity indicator and requirements stability indicator. The first one allows a panel of software experts to review a set of requirements early in the life cycle of the project and determine how well the stakeholders even understand what they want from their software. The second metric indicates the number of changes to the requirements and the amount of information needed to complete the requirements definition.
• The Rape of Nanking
• The Chinese city of Nanjing suffered a rampage of murder, rape and looting by Japanese troops in 1937 that became known as “The Rape of Nanking”, using the name by which the city was known in the West at that time.
• Historians generally agree that the Japanese army slaughtered at least 150,000 civilians and raped tens of thousands of women. China says that as many as 300,000 people were killed.
• China and Japan ordered a series of historical study groups in an effort to mend strained ties and reduce bitterness between the two countries.
• Tamilnadu to get two ultra mega power projects instead of one
• Tamilnadu is about to get two projects – one each at Cheyyur and Nagapatnam instead of one originally envisaged.
• E & P, gas pipelines to get infrastructure tag
• This getting of the infrastructure tag means that all incentives would be made available in terms of Section 19(23G) and 80 IA of the Incometax Act.

27.12.2006

• Great adspend figures
• The first four months of 2007 will see a combined adspend of about Rs. 350 to 400 cr from World Cup and KBC III alone.
• These two programs are billed as the biggest media events of 2007.
• AIFHI
• All India Federation of Horological Industry
• Wrist watches is the second largest consumer durable product in India after mobile handsets.
• The watch industry is dominated by unorganized sector which commands about 62% market share.
• Market size of entry level mobile handset market in India
• Is pegged at Rs. 14,400 cr.
• Heli-tourism
• Helicopters typically fly with a speed of about 175 km per hour. This gives the chance of a clear view from up above the sky.
• There are currently about five major players in the field:
• Pawan Hans Helicopters (State owned) with 33 helicopters
• Deccan Aviation with 15 copters
• Global Vectra Helicop with 15 copters
• United Helicharters with 8 copters and
• Jagson Airlines with 6 copters.
• Royalty on coal – method of collection to be shifted
• The Government is considering a shift to advalorem rates which are likely to be fixed between 20% and 22%. Centre may also permit states to levy a cess over and above the royalty with a permissible limit of 5%.
• The coal royalties are collected at present under the specific rate regime. The Centre fixes the rate of royalty on per tonne basis for three years.
• The new regime is expected to enrich the states by about Rs. 500 cr.
• Multiple levies in telecom sector
• On 23.11.2006, I gave some details about the license fee payable by telecom operators in India.
• Let us re-visit that in view of the statement made by T.V. Ramachandran, Director General of Cellular Operators Association of India.
• The multiple levies include – license fee, spectrum charges, ADC, service tax, entry tax, octroi, stamp duties etc. In addition various civic authorities impose levies on installation of cell towers like the property tax, fire tax, sewerate tax, education cess. The sum total of all these levies would be a staggering 40% or more of the net operator revenue.
• The regulatory levies alone put together will make up about 19 to 28% depending the on the circle of operation.
• Hence the argument for making a single levy.
• But my take on the subject runs like this: Only the regulatory levies can perhaps be clubbed into a single levy. The other levies which may include customs, excise, local levies by civic authorities etc., cannot be clubbed to put forth their argument for a single levy. All other businesses also operate in the same environment. Besides there is a jurisdiction problem of who levies and / or collects what as laid down by the respective statutes. In solving a problem we cannot go on creating some other problem of centre-state funds devolution, departmental turf encroachments etc.
• Repo rate and reverse repo rate hikes done by RBI in 2006
• January: Repo rate hiked to 6.5% from 6.25%; reverse repo rate hiked to 5.5% from 5.25%
• June: Repo rate made 6.75%; reverse repo rate 5.75%
• July: Repo rate made 7%; reverse repo rate 6%
• October: Repo rate made 7.25%; reverse repo rate unchanged at 6%.
• FII registrations grind to a halt in December
• There were 823 FIIs on SEBI rolls by December 2005. By November 2006, they touched 993. There was no registration so far in December.
• FII inflows between 2003 and 2005 was about $9.59 bn.

26.12.2006

• FII flows to be out of 49% FDI cap on insurance companies
• At present there is a 26% composite cap for FDI and FII in insurance sector. With the government considering a separate cap for FIIs and hiking the FDI cap to 49%, the total foreign equity cap could go up to 74%.
• Insurance companies are mandated to list within 10 years of inception.
• Government set to lay down law for realty dealers
• Real estate brokers may be mandated to register with the realty regulator and their brokerage charges are set to be capped at 2% of the property value.
• At present, most of the time, brokers charge indiscriminately and multiple brokers exist for the same transaction costing money both for the seller and the buyer.
• Broker may also be given area-wise licences.
• Vexillology
• is the study of flag history and symbolism. The name comes from the Latin word vexillum, which means flag. The word was coined by Dr. Whitney Smith of the Flag Research Center.
• Flags owe their origin to the need to communicate identities over distances, mainly in battles or at sea. Ships, in particular, have long been required to fly flags to identify themselves at sea.
• Phishing
• Is an email fraud method in which the perpetrator sends out legitimate-looking email in an attempt to gather personal and financial information from recipients. To the recipient, the email appears to come from well known and trustworthy websites.
• Despite falling ARPUs operators clock increase in revenues
• ARPU: Average Revenue Per User for cellular operators is a keenly watched figure in the market for the company as well as for the markets. The ARPU for the industry as a whole has fallen from Rs. 375 in September last year to Rs. 335 this year.
• The ARPUs of the top four operators in the country are reportedly at:
• Rs. 373.99 for Hutchison Essar
• Rs. 348.56 for Bharti Airtel
• Rs. 299.47 for Idea Cellular
• Rs. 250.99 for Reliance Communications Limited (RCL)
• Despite the fall in the ARPUs the adjusted gross revenues of the companies have been registering a growth. They are currently at Rs. 6,330 cr for the quarter ending September, as against Rs. 5,621 cr last year for the same period.
• India’s cinema halls
• The country has about 13,000 cinema halls.
• Tamilnadu alone has 4,000 of them.
• Financial advisory services in India
• Estimates put the market size of this at about $1 bn (i.e., ~Rs. 4,500 cr)
• Indian mutual fund industry’s assets under management are put at Rs. 3 lakh cr.
• Insurance penetration is pegged at a mere 3% of India’s GDP. In developed economies this percentage is about 5.
• Booming revenue collections in the country
• While the Centre’s budget estimates were Rs. 4,35,000 cr, the collections for the year are projected at about Rs. 4,70,000 cr.
• Thus the gross revenue collections are expected to increase by Rs. 35,000 cr which is 1% of the GDP.
• The estimated deficits – both fiscal (3.8% of GDP) and revenue (2.1% of GDP) are expected to be exceeded marginally.
• The Centre and the States together are sitting over a cash balance of Rs. 60,000 cr.
• The AIR (Annual Information Return) of the Central Government seems to have helped in keeping (or at least infusing a fear) a tab on evasion in a big way.
• Under the AIR, the incometax department collects information about credit card spends of more than Rs. 2 lks, mutual fund investments of more than Rs. 1 lk and sale of houses for more than Rs. 30 lks.
• Import duties on petroleum
• Currently import duties on petrol and diesel are at 7.5%. The proposal is to reduce this to 5%. This may not result in any significant loss as the import of these products is negligible. What we import mostly is crude. We refine it and use it.
• Import duty on crude is at 5%. Ideally duty on crude be lower than on products like petrol and diesel. The higher duty at present serves as a margin of protection for the domestic refineries.
• Rich will be under IMF net soon
• Just as the IMF has been a set of remedies to third world economies in financial crises, as the developing economies look far more cost efficient than the developed ones, it may turn to giving some advice to them.
• Sheer military prowess is accompanied by economic and political strength only for a certain period of time. A point of inflexion comes when the complementarity between the two breaks. Perhaps the US is reaching such an inflexion point.
• Look at the take of leading financial wizards like George Soros. He feels that the US is progressively losing sight of reality.
• In both politics and economics, it is safe to be nearer the equilibrium. Humans can become collectively irrational and move completely away from the equilibrium, towards what they perceive as reality. This happens both in financial markets and politics as a result of bias rather than real knowledge.
• Soros feels that this is precisely what happened to the Bush administration in its Iraqi policy.
• Problems of financial inclusion of agricultural farmers
• According to Parliament papers, over 50% of farmer households had no access to credit from formal or informal sources. Of the remaining 48.6% that had taken some sort of debt, only about 50% had access to credit from institutional sources such as government, cooperative societies and banks.
• This means that over 72% of farmer households had either no access to credit or were dependent on moneylenders for their needs.
• Agricultural NPAs (Non Performing Assets) were at 3.5% of the total lending to the sector as against 3.3% of the gross NPAs to gross advances. This is not bad.
• Nearly 45% of bank branches, including regional rural banks are located in rural areas. As over 75% of commercial credit is concentrated in about 100 centres, it is clear that this branch network is underutilized.
• MFIs, SHGs and NBFCs who are more closer to the borrowers than banks appear to be more suited for delivering rural credit. This closeness appears to be coming from their ability to take a more realistic call on the ability of the farmer to repay the loan than what rule and procedure bound entities like banks can do. Therefore, instead of forcing banks to open rural branches or lend more to priority sector, it would make sense to enable NBFCs, SHGs or MFIs access bank funds for onward lending to the farmers.
• Orthodox tea
• Orthodox tea is the top two leafs of each plant. These two leaves produce the best quality tea leaf. Since tea plucking is still done by hand, it is possible to select these two leaves.

25.12.2006

Ravi Shankaran to be arrested

• Ravi Shankaran who? He is the kin of former Navy Chief Admiral Arun Prakash and accused in the Navy War Room leak case. See Discover It of 20th October 2006, wherein I mentioned about this case.
• The Centre requested the UK government for his provisional arrest under Article 12 of the extradition treaty between the two countries.
• What’s a honey trap? In this war room leak case, one Ms. Raj Rani Jaiswal was allegedly acting as one for the defence personnel. In espionage, a honeypot or honeytrap is a trap set to capture, kill or compromise an enemy agent using sex as the lure. A honey trap is a form of sting operation, in which wrong doers are lured into revealing themselves to a policing organization. While a sting operation targets a known or suspected individual and attempts to trap them committing a specific case of crime, a honey trap establishes a general lure to attract unknown criminals.

The crux of the Iran-US dispute about nuclear fuel enrichment

• The US accuses Iran of seeking to develop a nuclear weapon. Iran vehemently denies this and says that it wants to develop only nuclear energy for its growing population. Iran has succeeded in enriching Uranium to levels of around 5% in its research work at Natanz but this is well off the 90% levels required to make an atomic weapon.
• My take is that Iran should not be taken seriously in its protestations. While it has got all the oil and gas reserves that will fully meet its energy needs, where is the necessity for it to go nuclear without IAEA safeguards? If its nuclear program is not one aimed at becoming a nuclear power in military terms, why should it refuse IAEA safeguards? It would have been a different story had it been saying that NPT regime itself is a lopsided one (a line that is taken by India all along). But that appears to be not the case.

Tibet’s interest is to be with China: Dalai Lama

• In a very rare speech, the Dalai Lama has been quoted as saying so. This is in sharp contrast with what is so far understood in general. It was usually perceived that the Dalai Lama was fighting for independence of Tibet. But that appears not to be the case anymore.
• He was quoted as having said that the increasing Chinese Han population and deployment of Peoples Liberation Army (China’s military) in Tibet are the obstacles for attaining political autonomy.

Online shopping or e-commerce statistics relating to India

• According to IAMAI (Internet & Mobile Association of India), e-commerce transactions, not including travel, will cross Rs. 2,300 cr or 10% of organized retail market in 2006-07.

India’s iron ore reserves

• Are reportedly at 25 bn tonnes
• Currently about 150 mn tonnes of ore is produced per annum. More than 60% of this (about 90 mn tonnes) is exported.

About NeGP

• Sometimes referred to as NeGAP also, it is National e-Governance Plan
• It was initiated in October 2005 and aims at improving the accessibility and effectiveness of government services with the help of information and communication technologies. It consists of 10 functional components and 26 mission mode projects (MMPs) to be executed over a period of 4 years.
• Central government projects include: National ID, Central Excise, Incometax, DCA-21, Passports/Visa and immigration, pensions, banking and insurance.
• State government projects include: Land records, property registration, transport, agriculture, municipalities, gram panchayats, commercial taxes, treasuries, police and employment exchange.

A loophole in the current SEZ policy

• An EOU (Export Oriented Unit) needs to export most of its output to get tax benefits. While a unit located in an SEZ needs to be a net foreign exchange earner. Thus a company that imports nothing but exports 5% of its output in an SEZ may get more tax benefits than a 100% EOU.
• Plugging this loophole is more important than limiting the SEZs to wasteland, argues today’s ET’s editorial. I can’t agree more.
• China does not build SEZs in the wastelands of Tibet or the Gobi desert. So crying hoarse over agriculture land, multi-crop land etc., being diverted to setting up of SEZs needs to be given a lesser preference than this.

Youth 4 Jobs

• Is a programme of employment generation and marketing mission headed by Meera Shenoy in Andhra Pradesh.
• It is getting rave reviews for being able to tap into the employment potential of rural youth by equipping them with the requisite skill sets needed for getting them gainful employment in the rural areas where the revolution of retail is fast catching up. The retail giants as well as others are now evincing interest in this program. The program boasts of 90% placement of its trainees. It is taken up with the active involvement of the Government of Andhra Pradesh and is partnered by private companies.
• See today’s article by Rama Bijapurkar in ET’s centre page for full details.

About Private Equity as told by David Rubenstein, co-founder of Carlyle Group, a leading PE firm

• PE has come a long way. Back in 1980, PE firms mainly focused on Europe and the US. Today it has become a truly global industry with capital under management at $743 bn and managing assets worth over $3 trillion.
• In PE parlance, very large single transactions (investments) are called the ‘club deals’.

Two more national water ways?

• The Centre is considering declaring two more national water ways which will be named 4th and 5th water ways respectively:
  1. The Kakinada – Pondicherry route: This links the Godavari and Krishna rivers and several canals such as the Kakinada Canal, Eluru Canal, Commamur Canal, Buckingham Canal and Kaluvely Canal and will have a length of 1,095 km.
  2. Geonkhali (West Bengal) – Paradip (Orissa) route: This 623 km route will integrate the Hijli Tidal Canal and the East Coast Canal, and will link three rivers – the Matai, Brahmani and Mahanadi.
  3. The existing three declared National Waterways are:
  National Waterway 1 - Allahabad Haldia stretch of the Ganga Bhagirathi Hooghly river system (1620 km) in October 1986.
  National Waterway 2 - Saidiya Dhubri stretch of the Brahmaputra river system (891 km) in September 1988.
  National Waterway 3 - Kollam Kottapuram stretch of West Coast Canal (168 km) along with Champakara canal (14 km) and Udyogmandal canal (23 km) in February 1993.
  
• India has an extensive network of inland waterways in the form of rivers, canals, backwaters and creeks. The total navigable length is 14,500 km, out of which about 5200 km of river and 485 km of canals can be used by mechanised crafts. Freight transportation by waterways is highly underutilized in India compared to other large countries like USA, China and European Union. The total cargo moved (in tonne kilometers) by the inland waterway was just 0.1% of the total inland traffic in India, compared to the 21% figure for USA. Cargo transportation in an organized manner is confined to a few waterways in Goa, West Bengal, Assam and Kerala. Inland Waterways Authority of India (IWAI) is the statutory authority in charge of the waterways in India. It does the function of building the necessary infrastructure in these waterways, surveying the economic feasibility of new projects and also administration and regulation.

24.12.2006

• Problems of plenty in realty sector
• Small and medium players have mushroomed in the last one year. As against 1500 to 2000 in 2004 developers that were there in the fray, now the number is about 6000.
• Overbooking has resulted in crashing of realty prices
• Tier III cities have seen prices come down by 20 to 25%
• Small developers will slowly fizzle out in a tough market
• About soccer clubs
• European football club culture is beckoning Indian corporates.
• Corporate sponsorship has two reasons: a genuine interest in the sport and brand building for the corporate. If the club can generate its own revenue, then the corporate gets free brand building.
• Pramod Mittal recently bought the Bulgarian football club CSKA, Sofia.
• Indian corporate sponsored clubs
• JCT
• Churchill Alemao
• Dempo
• Salgaonkar Industries
• Kighfisher East Bengal
• McDowell Mohun Bagan
• Global clubs which are business ventures in their own right
• Chelsea of Roman Abramovich
• Manchester United of Malcolm Glazer
• Juventus of Fiat’s Agnelli family
• India Pakistan agree to conduct a joint survey of the Sir Creek area
• The Sir Creek is a 96 km (60 mile) strip of water disputed between India and Pakistan in the Rann of Kutch marshlands. The creek, which opens up into the Arabian Sea, divides the Kutch region of the Indian state of Gujarat with the Sindh province of Pakistan.
• The Sir Creek dispute hinges in the actual demarcation "from the mouth of Sir Creek to the top of Sir Creek, and from the top of Sir Creek eastward to a point on the line designated on the “Western Terminus”. From this point onwards, the boundary is unambigiously fixed as defined by the Tribunal Award of 1968.
• Sir Creek is named after the British representative who was requested to mediate in a dispute between the ruler of Sindh and the Rao of Kutch over a pile of firewood lying on the banks of the nearby Kori Creek.
• Being politically correct in celebrating Christmas
• We in India really enjoy all festivals. Whether they have a religious connotation or not. It is very normal for us to greet people from other religious faiths on their festival days.
• But the West suddenly seems to have developed cold feet even in celebrating their very own Christmas publicly for fear of offending people from other religious faiths. Sounds very weird to me.
• So they stopped saying “Happy Christmas” and instead saying “Happy Holiday season”. In a similar vein some funny words being totted about for being politically correct in greeting others:
• Chrismahanukwanzakah: This is combination of three. Christmas, Kwanzaa (a 1960’s invention of a black American activist, purporting to be celebration of pan-African culture) and Hanukkah (the Jewish celebration)
• RamaHanuKwanzMas: For Ramadan, Hanukkah, Kwanzaa and Christmas.
• Some of the world’s costliest pens
• Louis Cartier – ~Rs. 50 lakhs
• Montegrappa - ~Rs. 28 lakhs
• Mont Blanc - ~Rs. 7 to 8 lakhs
• Visconti - ~Rs. 2 lakh
• Computer game rating agencies
• PEGI – Pan European Game Information
• ESRB – Entertainment Software Rating Board
• Most of the authorized games sold in India follow the rating by one of the two above.
• Why do you need rating in the first place? Because many of the games being developed by the geeks contain violence, sex and bad language.
• New dinosaurs discovered
• Called the Turiasaurus riodevensis, it was discovered in Barrihonda El Humero, near the village of Riodeva in Spain.
• It is estimated to weigh as much as 6 elephants.
• World’s obese people stats
• It is estimated that about 2.1 bn people in the world are overweight. Of them 1 bn live in the developing countries.
• Ajeet Bajaj
• One of India’s rare species – an adventure sports person.
• He is the first Indian to have skied to the North Pole. His next mission is to touch the South Pole.
• He is into skiing, rock climbing, snorkeling, sea kayaking, scuba diving, bungee jumping and canyoning.
• Canyoning (also known as canyoneering) is travelling in canyons using a variety of techniques that may include walking, scrambling, climbing, jumping, abseiling (the process of descending on a fixed rope), and/or swimming.

23.12.2006

• David Bonderman
• He is the founding partner of TPG (Texas Pacific Group), a leading Private Investment firm.
• Just over 10% of India’s population owns a mobile phone. In US, about 70% own one.
• India’s sales tax collections on petroleum products
• States earned about Rs. 46,667 cr on petroleum products in 2005-06.
• The Centre is reportedly toying with the idea of making petroleum products “Declared Goods”. This means that states cannot levy more than 4% sales tax on them; thus reducing the price of petroleum products across the country.
• Alzheimer’s disease
• Is a progressive brain disorder that gradually destroys a person’s memory and ability to reason and make judgements.
• Justice KG Balakrishnan is the new Chief Justice of India
• He will be taking over office on January 14, 2007 from the outgoing CJI Justice Y.K. Sabharwal
• Bali bombing accused cleared
• Muslim cleric Abu Bakar Basheer accused of masterminding the Bali bombings in 2002 was cleared by Indonesia’s Supreme Court.
• The Bali bombings have killed 202 people, most of them foreign tourists.
• Director General of DRDO & Scientific Advisor to Defence Minister
• M. Natarajan
• World’s largest natural gas producers
• Russia and Iran. Iran has about 26 tcf of proven gas reserves.
• Viability gap funding limits
• The government provides up to 40% of project cost to enhance viability of the project on a case to case basis.
• Outward remittances by Indians
• Even though the government allows up to $25,000 per annum for an individual, the outward remittances in 2004-05 were only about $28.3 mln.
• About OTC drugs
• OTC = Over The Counter
• These are drugs which are included in Schedule K of Drugs and Cosmetics Act.
• Currently about 30 drugs are mentioned in this schedule.
• Currently these medicines can be sold by non-chemist shops only in villages with a population under 1,000. But it is proposed to allow them to sell everywhere.
• ILS
• Instrument Landing System
• This allows flights to land even in poor visibility conditions.
• The latest category III C ILS allows planes to land on auto-pilot. That is without any human intervention.
• The downside of this system is that it will function correctly only when there are no obstructions in the signal broadcast area.
• Should we travel to work?
• Questions Karuna Raman in an article in today’s ET. Let’s see how or why.
• Predictions of depletions of world resources have been proved wrong. The classic best seller “Limits to Growth” authored by Donella H. Meadows, Dennis L. Meadows, Jorgen Randers, and William W. Behrens III and commissioned by the Club of Rome, a global think tank predicted – that gold would run out by 1981, silver and mercury in 1985 and zinc in 1990. But it did not happen.
• A typical oil field yields only 20% of the reservoir, with close to 63% remaining buried in the earth even when the most advanced technologies are used.
• Fuel efficiencies in the automotive sector have increased by more than 60% in the past three decades.
• More than 80% of modern societies consume energy generated by oil, either in the form of electricity or as fuel for transport.
• As we have now tech infrastructure to bring job-related information to worker while allowing them to collaborate closely, the time is ripe to assess the need to travel to work.

22.12.2006

• Today’s papers reported that Vodafone Group credit-default swaps rose after media reports surfaced that the world’s biggest mobile phone operator may offer to buy Indian wireless provider Hutchison Essar for $13.5 bn. What are these credit-default swaps (CDSs)? In layman’s terms it is used to speculate on a company’s ability to repay debt. An increase indicates deteriorating credit quality. In detail -- a CDS is a swap designed to transfer the credit exposure of fixed income products between parties. It is the most widely used credit derivative. It is an agreement between a protection buyer and a protection seller whereby the buyer pays a periodic fee in return for a contingent payment by the seller upon a credit event (such as a certain default) happening in the reference entity. A CDS is often used like an insurance policy, or hedge for the holder of a corporate bond. The typical term of a CDS contract is five years, although being an over-the-counter derivative almost any maturity is possible.
• Another interesting term that we get across in the same context is an LBO. An LBO refers to acquisition of a company using a significant amount of borrowed money (bonds or loans) to meet the cost of acquisition. Often, the assets of the company being acquired are used as collateral for the loans in addition to the assets of the acquiring company.
• Financial intermediaries may get to access the ECB (External Commercial Borrowing) window
• This is to enable them to finance the domestic infrastructure. The beneficiary institutions include
• Power Finance Corporation
• Rural Electrification Corporation
• Indian Infrastructure Finance Corporation
• The RBI has some reservations
• When the debt has to be repaid on maturity, it would strain the forex kitty
• Lending by a financial intermediary per se will not lead to forex-generating activity
• It is too risky to expose financial intermediaries to currency risks
• The government has recently enhanced the tenure of the ECBs from the 3-5 years to 10 years.
• PE funds top IPO mop-ups
• So far in 2006, IPOs have mobilized an amount of Rs. 24,100 cr.
• In contrast the investments made by PE (Private Equity) funds totaled to Rs. 33,750 cr.
• Left’s opposition to the pension reform bill
• It would change the nature of pension as a social security benefit if the funds are made available for investment in the equity markets.
• Specific provisions should be made for prohibiting investments in stock markets.
• Government should guarantee assured returns to employees, irrespective of the returns from the invested funds.
• Durand line
• Separates Afghanistan and Pakistan
• Meshrano Jirga = Upper house of Parliament of Afghanistan
• Wolesi Jirga = Lower house of Parliament of Afghanistan
• Maruti Udyog divestment
• Government decides to sell off the residual holding of 10.27% in Maruti Udyog.
• As Maruti Udyog is not a government entity now, the sell off of this equity cannot be called divestment. Hence the proceeds need not go into the National Investment Fund.
• WTO given names to agricultural subsidies
• The AoA (Agreement on Agriculture) structures domestic support (subsidies) into three categories or "boxes": a Green Box, an Amber Box and a Blue Box.
• The Green Box contains fixed payments to producers for environmental programs, so long as the payments are "decoupled" from current production levels.
• The Amber Box contains domestic subsidies that governments have agreed to reduce but not eliminate.
• The Blue Box contains subsidies which can be increased without limit, so long as payments are linked to production-limiting programs.
• Shane Warne and McGrath announce retirement
• The spinner and the paceman will be retiring from international cricket on January 6^th 2007, the last day of the 5^th Test at Sydney of the ongoing Ashes series.
• Pipeline policy
• The government has finally announced the pipeline policy, which is to be implemented from January 2007 once the regulator for Petroleum and Natural Gas is in place.
• Several criticisms leveled against the policy include:
• Its very purpose is unclear as it fails to clarify the provisions contained in the Petroleum and Natural Gas Regulatory Board Act.
• It takes away the independence of the proposed regulator.
• It completely overlooks storage, which is integral to any transportation and distribution network.
• It is silent on important aspects such as transnational pipelines built under inter-government agreements.
• It fails to clarify the difference between “contract carrier” and “common carrier”.
• Tobin tax and how it came about?
• Till 1971, the US dollar was pegged to the gold standard, which in effect meant that the amount of dollars the Federal Reserve could print was restricted to its underlying gold holdings. In 1971, the US government decided to take the dollar off the gold standard, which theoretically gave it the right to print any amount of dollars it chose to. As a result, liquidity in the system shot up, encouraging currency speculators across the globe to bet on or against the dollar. To deter excessive currency speculation, Nobel Laureate economist James Tobin proposed a small tax on international currency transactions in 1972. The proposed tax was to be between 0.1% and 0.25% of the value of the transaction.
• It is the news recently because Thailand imposed some capital control measures.
• Read more about in the interesting “ET in the classroom” of today’s ET.

21.12.2006

• SEZs may face fresh restrictions
• The eGoM (Empowered Group of Ministers) on SEZs is scheduled to consider new restrictions, including a ceiling on land acquisition for multi-product SEZs, freeze on new IT SEZs in tier-I cities and also some changes in Central Land Acquisition Act.
• India’s exports are booming
• Grown at 57% to $9.7 bn in November 2006 when compared with previous year’s $6.1 bn.
• Apr-Nov figure is $79.59 bn
• Set to exceed the targeted $125 bn for the current fiscal.
• Steps on capital account convertibility
• Till now Indians could invest in a foreign company only when that company held at least 10% in a listed local company. That is now set to change.
• Indians can even invest in foreign mutual funds or park their money in foreign currency deposits in international banks which have no India presence.
• We can even donate up to $50,000 in a financial year.
• All these can be done of course with RBI approval.
• Indian veto power in telecom joint ventures
• It is set to go. So far, even if a local company had only 10% in a telecom JV it had a veto power (a power which can be there in other sectors only when they hold 26% stake).
• Press Note 5 of 2005 is being amended to make way for this.
• Amartya Sen
• Won the 1998 Nobel Prize for Economics. It is actually called the Sveriges Riksbank Prize in Economic Sciences.
• Awarded the Bharata Ratna in 1999.
• Market figures about home video rental markets
• Put at about $137 mn in 2006. Set to grow to $562 mn by 2010.
• Leaders are
• Japan ($3,541 mn)
• China ($427)
• Hawthorne Studies
• Between 1924 and 1932, a series of experiments were conducted in a factory in Hawthorne works of the Western Electric Company in Chicago. The experiments were conducted, among other things, for testing workers productivity in varying lighting conditions.
• Oddly, the results of the studies were very confusing – whether the light was dimmed or brightened, productivity was up.
• Based on this, it was concluded that the mere act of involving people in a piece of research (making them know that they are being watched) caused them to work harder.
• The results of these studies are taught as classical lessons in management schools.
• Patent scenario in India
• Number of patents filed
• 2001 - 6,000
• 2005 – 23,000
• 2006 – 30,000
• But in spite of the increasing number of applications for patents being filed in the country, it still remains under the 301 watch list of the US. This list aims at identifying countries not providing adequate protection to copyrights, patents or other IPR and brings them under the higher scrutiny of US authorities.
• State of Indian roads sector
• India has a total road network of 33.13 lk km.
• Of this, 200 km comprises of expressways, 66,590 km comprise of national highways, 1,28,000 km comprise of state highways and 4,70,000 kms comprise of the district highways. Rural and other roads comprise of 26,50,000 km.
• “No one can stop an idea whose time has come” – Victor Hugo
• This best describes the move towards using the huge forex reserves of the country for infrastructure funding.
• Championed by the Dy. Chairman of the Planning Commission and supported by the PM, the government is set to consider this option soon.
• DEPB Scheme
• It is basically a scheme to neutralize the incidence of customs duty on the import content of the export product by way of grant of duty credit against the export product.
• It is seen as non-WTO compliant, because of its non-transparent nature since the reimbursement is based on pre-fixed rates and is freely transferable.
• Though set to expire by 31^st March 2007, the scheme is likely to get an extension because the government has not been able to come out with an alternative scheme.
• Quotable quote:
• “This is not the approach to the Seventh Plan. It is the seventh approach to the same Plan!” – Late Prof. Raj Krishna is stated to have said so on the VII Plan approach paper.
• Suggestions to tackle judicial delays:
• Take up only that many cases, which the judge can hear; with this about half the day spent on rescheduling the cases can be saved.
• Put the cause list on the web, at least a week in advance; this way everyone can prepare well for the cases and avoid adjournments.
• Classify cases and have a norm, within which each type of case should be disposed of.
• Based on the norm, have an incentive system for the judges, in terms of giving them a variable pay, for disposing of the cases in excess of the norms.
• Consider two-shift working of courts, in order to clear pending cases.
• Cigarette smoke contains radio active pollutants:
• Polonium 210 and Lead 210.
• Shareholding norms in Stock exchanges set to be modified
• The RBI and the SEBI will be issuing guidelines shortly on this.
• The total foreign investment in the stock exchanges is likely to be capped at 49%. Of this 26% can be FDI while 23% can be FII.
• Also, no single investor can be allowed to hold more than 5% in the corporatised exchange.

20.12.2006

• Names of Asian stock market indices
• Sensex and Nifty India
• SET Thailand
• Hang Seng Hong Kong
• Nikkei Japan
• Straits Times Singapore
• Kospi South Korea
• Example of a really curious demand
• Ashok Ghosh (84), State Secretary of Forward Bloc has demanded that each of the 4,068 farmers who have relinquished their plots for the proposed Tata Motors project in Singur should be given one share in Tata Motors.
• Most probably this may be a faux pas on his part.
• Latest Law Commission’s Report
• Finalized in January is the 195^th Report of the Commission.
• India’s hair grooming market
• Is estimated to be about Rs. 85 cr.
• This consists of hair colourants and styling gels etc.
• Cricket news
• India finally registered its first win in the current tour of South Africa with a win at the Wanderers, Johannesburg.
• Advantages of online advertising
• Advertisements can be targeted to specific groups, who could be potential customers.
• This can be best understood by an example. If Domino’s site appears through Google to only customers who have a Domino’s branch nearby, that is targeted advertising. Suppose the city or the area from where we surfing the web does not have a Domino’s branch, there is no point our being targeted with Domino’s ads.
• NABH
• National Board for Hospitals and Healthcare Providers
• Power trading exchange/s to be set up
• A power exchange is a common trading platform to ensure transparency and efficiency in power trading market in the country. There is no such exchange at present in India. Electricity is traded bilaterally through mutually agreed rates.
• The CEA (Central Electricity Authority) has suggested that power trading can be kick started by assigning 10% of the unallocated power to the exchange.
• George Soros
• He is currently on a visit to India. He is rated as the world’s most successful speculator.
• He authored a book titled “The Age of Fallibility”, which was released during his visit.
• Beach sand minerals
• They include ilmenite, rutile and leucoxene.
• India is the world’s larges reservoir of ilmenite with about 400 million tonnes, which is about 30.42% of the world’s reserves.
• Ilmenite yields titanium metals.
• Thus India is comfortably placed to tap a shift in preference from steel to titanium.
• The new National Mineral Policy is not likely to throw open mining of the beach sand minerals, as they are treated as atomic minerals. Atomic minerals are regulated by the DAE (Department of Atomic Energy) while all other minerals are regulated by the Department of Mines.
• The fundamentals of the stock markets today are much stronger than the July 1997 situation for the following reasons:
• Asian central banks are sitting on huge stockpiles of reserves.
• Most of the countries (barring India and Pakistan) are running healthy current account surpluses.
• Global liquidity is also comfortable.
• Overseas investors no longer tar all emerging markets with the same brush. They now distinguish between different markets.
• Quote of the day:
• “You think, therefore you are” – Rene Descartes
• Centaurs of India’s financial jungles
• With the first wave of economic reforms the government fashioned a set of new companies and organizations, structured differently from the traditional PSUs
• These institutions utilized their autonomy to great effect and did remarkably well
• The patchy nature of the boards also helped these hybrid institutions survive
• Examples of these types of institutions include: NSE, UTI Bank, ILFS (Infrastructure Leasing and Financial Services), CSDL (Central Securities Depository Limited), IIFCL (India Infrastructure Finance Company Limited), ICICI Bank and HDFC Bank etc.
• Joseph Barbera is no more
• The man who helped create the world’s best loved cartoon characters like Tom & Jerry, Fred Flintstone and Yogi Bear has died at the age of 95.
• The other person in two man team viz., William Hanna passed away in 2001 at the age of 90.
• About draught beer
• Draught beer (also called draft beer or tap beer) is beer that has been served from, or has been conditioned in, a cask.
• We can understand the difference between two types of beer easily when we look at bottled beer.
• This may look very simple for tipplers; but for those who don’t know the ABCs of liquors it could be confusing.
• Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious
• Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious (super - cali - fragil - istic - expialid - ocious - ) is a song and a long word from the movie Mary Poppins (and in the musical version)
• The word is used as an adjective referring to "absolutely stunningly fantastic".