24.11.2006

• Infrastructure funding stunts
• As you all may be aware by now (you are reading the blog don’t you?) the country is in need of $320 bn funding requirement for the infrastructure sector in the next five years.
• In a bid to shore up the availability of funding the government is in talks with top global private equity players such as Citigroup, Blackstone and other institutional investors to team up and raise $7 bn through a special fund to finance a stream of infrastructure projects.
• The proposal envisages the government contributing 10 to 15% of the corpus of the fund directly or through a sovereign backed entity along with international private equity funds besides banks and other institutional investors.
• Moves are also afoot to allow infrastructure funding companies like IIFCL (Indian Infrastructure Finance Company Limited) freedom to lend to companies based on the strength of their balance sheets rather than merely restricting the lending as at present only to project financing. Companies may be allowed to raise funds to the tune of 20% of the project cost on these lines.
• Chinese President Hu Jintao meets Dr. Kotnis’ family
• Dr. Kotnis who? When China was fighting Japan in 1938, Dr. Dwarakanath Kotnis along with four other Indian doctors, responding to a plea from China went over to the frontlines and gave medical assistance to the fighting Chinese soldiers.
• Status of Tibet
• China has forcibly occupied Tibet in 1950. At that time about 1.3 mln Tibetans have been put to death, according to reports.
• Today, though India recognizes Tibet as part of China, it gives asylum to the Dalailama, Tibet’s spiritual leader and head of state in Dharmasala.
• Web mashups
• Mashups are a new tool to mix and match information from various websites to make the experience of searching for anything on the web more rich.
• Mashup blends external information and web services (like newsfeeds, weather reports, maps, traffic conditions and more) with content and services, isntantly ‘mashing’ them together to create a fast and flexible application for specific business needs.
• Technically mashups are websties or applications that combine content from more than one source into an integrated application using open technologies like AJAX (Asynchronous Javascript and XML), PHP scripting language and syndicated feeds.
• India’s oil potential
• Estimates suggest that up to 10 bn tonnes of oil may be found in the sedimentary basins of the country.
• Impact of Russia’s entry into the WTO
• For the first time in history, there will be a single system with an effective dispute settlement mechanism monitoring most of the global trade.
• This comprehensiveness could reduce the difference between politics of the WTO and world order as a whole.
• Geopolitical requirements could easily influence alliances within the WTO.
• Airline mergers
• AirFrance KLM and Alitalia (Italian airlines) are in merger talks.
• Autobahns
• The term was first used in 1928 for German road network of free, multi-lane highways.
• A typical autobahn is a two-way multi-lane road with a green median of 11.5 ft width. The lanes on either side of this can be two, three or occassionally four. Each of these lanes is usually 12.3 ft wide.