01.01.2007

• Centre may halve hardware excise
• As against a total taxation for IT and electronic products in China of 17%, in India this taxation level is about 20% and 30%.
• Hence the Centre is considering reducing the excise duties on IT and electronics hardware
• IT industry readies a war chest of $3.7 billion for mergers and acquisitions
• In the first 10 months of 2006, the IT industry had entered into M&A deals worth $2.05 billion when compared with $1.3 billion during the previous year.
• Paswan takes on pharmas with cost-based pricing
• The Union Minister for Chemicals and Fertilizers has proposed to control the prices of 354 essential medicines by going into their cost of production.
• Currently, one-fourth of the Rs. 23,000 crore domestic pharmaceutical market is controlled.
• Investments in infrastructure
• Of the estimated $320 billion funding requirement for infrastructure in the 11^th plan, about 20% is estimated to come from the private sector.
• Global potential of Indian tipple
• Many countries of the world are known for their distinctive liquors. Mexico has its Tequila, Jamaica has rum, Britain has Scotch whiskies, America has its bourbon, Russia has vodka, France is famous for its champagne and cognac, Italy has its grappa and Japan has sake.
• In contrast India has its indigenous drinks such as Feni of Goa in addition to toddy and arrack. Feni is made from cashew fruit or palm toddy. India’s strength in the rum category is believed to be unassailable, as molasses, the basic ingredient of rum, is available in plenty in the country.
• R&D expenditure in the country
• According to IACC (Indo American Chamber of Commerce) the R&D expenditure in the country has reached $8.4 billion in 2005 and is growing at a CAGR of about 30%.
• IT market to log 21.5% growth this year
• India’s domestic IT market including hardware, software and services is expected to touch Rs. 62,456 crores.
• The number of broadband users in the country is expected to touch 3.5 million by June 2007 and 5 million by the end of 2007.
• Difference between pre-launch and soft-launch in real estate
• Raising money from public for projects which are yet to get regulatory approval in the form of license and clearances is called pre-launch. In the case of soft-launch, the move follows only after receiving all the necessary approvals.
• Uranium exploration may be opened up in the country
• The government is set to open up production of uranium exploration and mining.
• India’s annual production of uranium is about 1,334 tonnes.
• Uranium deposit in Jaduguda (Jharkhand) was discovered in 1951 with the help of Associated Drilling Company of London.
• Beard of the Year Award
• Monty Panesar, England’s first Sikh spinner has been awarded this year’s award.
• Why is the quality of our institutions important? And how does it decline?
• If we are serious about becoming a global economic power, we need to focus on our soft infrastructure. By soft infrastructure we mean the entire gamut of governance, probity in public life, quality education and healthcare, gender, caste and communal equalities etc.
• As this is an area where we fair badly, this infrastructure can be improved only through an improvement in the quality of our institutions.
• When growth is more concentrated at the upper ends of the income spectrum (as it most definitely has been so far in India), there is the distinct possibility of the rich opting out of the public system and turning to private sector to get essential services (for example, gated communities with private policing, private generators for power, private schools for their children’s education etc.). The danger with this is that the normal pressures for improving the provision of public goods that one would ordinarily expect from higher incomes become noticeably absent. That is why the quality of institutions declines.
• Joseph Stiglitz, the 2001 winner of Nobel Prize for economics on intellectual property rights regime
• What is needed is an intellectual property regime that helps narrow the knowledge gap that separates developed from less developed countries – not one which reduces access to knowledge and denies access to life-saving medicines, but which, at the same time, provides little incentive for research in diseases that plague the developing countries.
• Disruptive power of technology
• K.V. Kamath, the CEO of ICICI Bank says that no where is the disruptive power of technology more evident than in the fact that the proportion of transactions in branches decreased from over 90% in 2000 to less than 25% in 2006. All because people have taken in a big way to technology driven transaction methods like ATMs, internet, phone banking and call centres.
• Romania and Bulgaria join EU today
• With the joining of these two countries, the strength of the EU rises to 27 and 493 million people.