27.11.2006

• SBI and ICICI Bank’s foray into US
• So far concerns relating to money laundering controls of Indian banks expressed by US agencies has led to an impasse. These issues have now been addressed and with India on course to further tighten its anti-money laundering legislation and rules, the approvals should come through.
• The US authorities have often pushed the case of their banks also; but India stuck to its stance that there should be reciprocity. Allow our banks to operate in US and we will allow your banks to set up shop or increase presence here.
• India is the second largest compact car manufacturer
• With a projected sales of about 8,82,094 small cars for the current fiscal, India is set to occupy the second slot after Japan, which manufactures 1.7 to 1.8 mln cars annually.
• Killing by radio-active poisoning
• Alexander Litvinenko a former Russian spy died last week of suspected radiation poisoning.
• He appeared to have mysteriously absorbed Polonium 210, a rare highly toxic radioactive material.
• Divya Drishti
• Is the DRDO’s (Defence Research and Development Organization) project for ground-based over-horizon surveillance system. It is expected to detect targets in space and close to ground.
• Estimated to cost about Rs. 750 cr. Launched three years ago.
• But because of slow progress, India sought the help of Israel for completing the project.
• Top 5 cities in India per capita income wise
• Bangalore Rs. 77,000 per annum
• Ahmedabad Rs. 66,000
• Pune Rs. 66,000
• Chennai Rs. 65,000
• Delhi Rs. 60,000
• A Booz Allen Hamilton study, estimates that by the year 2020, the defence related R&D work will be worth about $220 bn to $240 bn. Of this India is expected to garner about $5 bn business through outsourcing.
• About IPTV?
• Channels are encoded in IP (Internet Protocol) format and delivered to TVs through a set-top box.
• Three components of IPTV’s service
• TV and content head-end
• Delivery network
• Set top box
• World’s first IPTV was by ABC’s World News Now in 1994.
• India’s first IPTV was MTNL’s Mumbai and Delhi services.
• Unique services to fight spam
• Definition of spam: To indiscriminately send unsolicited, unwanted, irrelevant, or inappropriate messages, especially commercial advertising in mass quantities.
• Boxbe.com and junkbusters.com are offering unique ways of fighting spam. The first one does this by making advertisers pay for access to people’s inboxes. The second one helps mobile phone users in the US download an out-of-service tone to confuse telemarketers.
• 8 miniratnas to lose their status for poor performance
• ITDC – India Tourism Development Corpn.
• REC – Rural Electrification Corporation
• STC – State Trading Corpn.
• Hindustan Newsprint
• IMPL – Indian Medicines and Pharmaceuticals Ltd.
• Mecon – Metallurgical & Engineering Consultants (India) Ltd.
• NFDC – National Film Development Corpn.
• RCF – Rashtriya Chemicals and Fertilizers
• 93^rd Amendment to Constitution of India
• It allows the government to legislate in matters of education in private unaided institutions.
• It was passed by Parliament in December 2005.
• World Economic Forum’s prescription for India in mitigating risks facing India:
• New exploration for offshore oil and gas
• Flexible labour laws
• Extension of retirement age in government jobs
• Preventing misuse of free electricity for irrigation
• More trade, security and knowledge transfer with the US and EU
• More public and private sector involvement in clean development mechanism projects to reduce emissions

For an in-depth understanding of the issues, I strongly recommend reading of the full report here. It is only a 20 page pdf file. Gives very good facts and figures and analysis.

• Government’s trying to rope in PE (Private Equity) funds to partner with it for infrastructure funding has its pitfalls:
• Government trying to hold a 10-15% stake in the corpus fund is risky as it can open the government to a much greater liability later.
• Example of PE fund Ripplewood’s takeover of a troubled Japanese bank, LTCB is noteworthy in this respect.
• While Ripplewood, which bought LTCB for 121bn yen in 2000 sold its 2/3^rd stake for a cool 555 bn yen in 2004, Japanese tax payers spent 8 trillion yen for capital infusion and to make up for short recoveries on bad loans, in view of government guarantee to underwrite the loans.
• This is why, governments should allow PEs to enter into any business based on their own risk-reward assessment rather than on any comfort level or cushion that a government’s association brings to the business enterprise.