28.09.2006

Airline industry losses
Airline industry’s losses in India (all airlines put together) are estimated to be around Rs. 2200 cr. for the current year.
The Civil Aviation ministry is concerned that a repeat of the post-1991 boom and bust cycle does not repeat itself, in which a number of private players including East-West, Damania and ModiLuft airlines went down.

3G spectrum allocation
Circle-specific reserve price for 3G bidding is finalized by TRAI
Reserve price is fixed as Rs. 80 cr for Category A, Rs. 40 cr for Category B and Rs. 15 cr for Category C circles.
The operators will have to pay 1% of adjusted gross revenue per annum as spectrum fee for 5 MHz of spectrum.
TRAI has also recommended a national frequency management board to provide long-term vision and planning for spectrum availability.

TCS changes pricing model
It started using the success based pricing in some of its outsourcing contracts.
Time and material pricing: Most of the Indian software industry operates on the basis of a fixed hourly rate, referred to in industry parlance as time and material pricing.
Outsourcing contract: In a typical outsourcing contract of the type taken by consulting firms like Accenture tend to promise clients specific quantum of process improvement, cost reduction and revenue enhancement. If these outcomes are reached, the software firm gets to share a part of the upside.

BCCI revenues
It has clocked a revenue of Rs. 430 cr in FY 2005-06.
It is sitting on a pile of Rs. 590 cr cash.

Auditing may turn must for all property deals
CAs to certify property has not been undervalued to save registration fee

Reservation quota implementation from June next year
The oversight committee headed by Veerappa Moily to prepare a roadmap for implementing the 27% reservation for OBCs in educational institutions under the central government has suggested setting up of three new IIMs, IIT-like institutions and public-private partnerships to fund the expansion.
The 27% reservation for OBCs will necessitate a 54% seat expansion to ensure that the number of general category seats in institutions is not affected.

Marad killings: Judicial report finds Muslim League guilty
The Judicial Commission headed by Justice Thomas P. Joseph to enquire into the massacre of nine persons, mostly Hindus in Marad, Kerala on May 2, 2003 has found that the Indian Union Muslim League and the National Democratic Front, a Muslim outfit as having played a role in the massacre.
The Marad massacre had its roots in two earlier incidents. A minor incident in December 2001 had flared up into a communal riot in January 2002. The commission report finds that the 2003 issue was a one sided attack on Hindus, exploiting the revenege of close relatives of those killed in the 2002 riot.

Champions Trophy
The cricketing spectacle is scheduled to be played between October 5th and Novermber 5th.
The television viewing universe has close to doubled from 35 mln in the 2003 World Cup to about 65 mln currently.

Grey India bags India’s first Euro Effies
Grey Worldwide India has bagged the country’s first Euro Effies, a bronze for Ministry of Tourism’s Incredible India campaign for 2005 in travel & tourism category.
Effies is advertising effectiveness award, and not just judging the creative content of the campaign. It judges the campaign’s stated objectives and evidence of performance of those goals.
Effies sit right next to Cannes, Clio and D&AD as far as being the gold standard for advertising world.

Consumer durables in India
About 60% of the domestic demand is met through local manufacturing and the rest through imports.

Tamilnadu plans spiritual tourism drive
Tamilnadu has around 4000 well-known temples and the Tamil diaspora who visit these destinations are fuelling the growth of pilgrimage tourism for the state.

Telecom companies may lose licence over poor identity check
As at end May 2006, nearly 23.5 mln of the existing subscribers (31.26% of the user base then) had been verified.
The country’s mobile user base is around 124 mln as at August end.
The subscriber verification is a daunting task for the telcos and they are demanding the government to put in place a suitable legislation to prevent / deter submission of false or incorrect information by subscribers and also take action against errant retailers who do not comply with the process requirements.

Anti-virus software varieties
Signature based technology: identifies finger-prints unique to each virus, updates a database, and when it finds a virus, it cleans.
Heuristic based technology: identifies viruses based on the suspicious behaviour, and usually doesn’t maintain a complete database. Usually it doesn’t differentiate between legitimate and suspicious acts and raises false alarms.

Search engines in vogue as the latest promo tool
According to IAMAI, there are about 65 mln people who use search engines in India and the market size for search engine advertising is estimated at Rs. 236 cr.
India still forms only a small fraction of this big $10 bn global opportunity, which is expected to touch j$23 bn in the next four years.

Reliance Industry – Government of India gas pricing dispute
The Government feels that the natural gas sale price should be based on open bidding process.
The PSC says that the valuation should be on ‘arms length basis’, which is defined as sales made freely in the open market, between willing and unrelated parties.
A committee was constituted by the Government to look into the dispute and the DGH has been providing secretarial assistance to the committee.

Indian retail markets
The rural market accounted for 70% of the market and consumed 20% of FMCG, whereas the 30% of urban market consumed 80% of FMCG in India.
Currently there are 30 mln retail outlets but modern retailing is a mere 4% of all retail.

Information technology consumption
China uses $21 bn of IT for domestic consumption
India consumes only $7 bn in contrast.