07.11.2006

• Bankers must balance loans
• After meeting with the financial minister many of the PSU bankers said they intend to hike lending rates for the realty sector with a view to make more funds available for sectors such as manufacturing, SMEs and agriculture. This is with a view to maintain the high growth momentum of the economy.
• IBA: Indian Banks Association. Current Chairman is V.P. Shetty, the CMD of IDBI.
• Companies setting up Institutes linked to core activity
• With a view to ensure that the employee is found productive right from day one, many of the leading corporates are setting up institutes of their own to train manpower. Such corporates and their respective institutes include:
• GSPC (Gujarat State Petroleum Corporation): Institute of Petroleum Technology and Institute of Petroleum Management
• ICICI Bank and NIIT: Institute of Finance, Insurance and Banking
• Bharti with IIT Delhi: School of Telecommunication and Management
• RPG: Institute of Retail Management
• Assam Chief Minsiter: Tarun Gogoi
• Delhi Traders agitation against closing of shops in residential areas
• The Supreme Court came down heavily on the Centre for its failure to shift the business establishments within the time frame allotted for the purpose.
• When the Centre pleaded that the ongoing agitation by the traders is posing a law and order problem and that therefore some more time needed to be given to it held that the authorities concerned were required to be reminded of their constitutional obligations under Article 141 and 144 which specified that they should act in the aid of the Supreme Court.
• Working Group V on Kashmir
• The most important of the five working groups constituted on May 25, the Working Group V finally found a head in Justice Sagir Ahmad, a retired judge of the apex court.
• The mandate of this working group is to recommend the future course of centre-state relations.
• Russia-India space pact cleared
• During President Putin’s visit to India in December 2004, both the countries entered into an agreement on space collaboration on joint space exploration and transfer of space technology.
• This is now given the sanctity of a law when the Russian President approved the law which was passed by the Russian Parliament.
• Under this agreement ISRO (Indian Space Research Orgnaization) will launch Russian navigational satellites GLONASS-M with the help of Indian space launch vehicles and jointly develop with Russia a new generation navigational satellite GLONASS-K.
• Semi literate clerics aided rise of militant Islam: Musharaff
• Muslims number about 1.3 bn worldwide and account for some 25% of the world’s population.
• But their economies make up less than 5% of the global economy based on GDP.
• Islamic Conference Chairman: Malaysian PM, Mr. Abdullah Ahmad Badawi
• Bank credit to SME segment:
• Banks are now looking at increasing the share of SME advances to 20% of the total net bank credit from the current 14%.
• As on March 31, 2006 total net bank credit to SMEs stood at Rs. 1.53 lk cr.
• FDI is the route to market for foreigners
• The Centre is tightening the policy to ensure that foreign HNIs (High Networth Individuals) do not use the PN (Participatory Note) route through the sub-accounts of FIIs to enter the Indian markets.
• SEBI was advised that HNIs should not be registered as sub-accounts of FIIs.
• The position is based on the recommendations of the committee under Ashok Lahiri.
• The panel suggested that only broad based organizations be permitted to register as FIIs with SEBI.
• The finance ministry wants to bar such individual entitites from even registering as sub-accounts of FIIs.
• Reservation for minorities in bank lending?
• The ministry of minority affairs has mooted a proposal under which the finance ministry and the RBI should broaden the existing ambit of priority sector lending.
• At present 40% of the net bank credit should be allotted to priority sector lending. The minority ministry wants that 15% of funds available for priority sector lending be ‘earmarked’ for the five notified minority groups.
• The finance ministry is opposed to the idea as it fears that such a cap could make a large number of dubious proposals also pass muster. Instead it is in favour of instructing banks to take a more proactive stand to clear loan applications from minorities.
• Iraqi Prime Minister: Nouri Maliki
• What are index funds?
• These are mutual funds with a portfolio that is similar to the particular index they represent. For example, an index fund that looks at the Sensex will have 30 shares that are present in the Sensex in the same proportion as in the latter.
• What are ETFs? Exchange Traded Funds
• They possess the features of mutual funds in terms of portofolio, net asset value and other areas, but they also have the characteristics of a stock. The funds can be traded during the day, based on the values that the scheme generates in the market. This means that it is not just the closing NAV of the scheme that determines the transaction price for the individual.
• Current SLR
• Statutory Liquidity Ratio prescribed for the banks by the RBI is presently at 25%.
• That is 25% of the net time and demand liabilities of a bank have to be invested in g-secs (government securities) and other approved securities.