04.01.2007

• What is CRIDA?
• Central Research Institute for Dryland Agriculture. It is at Hyderabad.
• It is headed by a Director – Dr. Y. S. Ramakrishna.
• Its job is to keep a close eye on crop progress in rain-fed areas of India and advise farmers, usually among the poorest in India, on how to protect their crops from the dangers of weather, pests and moisture stress.
• Incometax arrears
• Out of the about Rs. 1,19,000 crores of arrears, the department says that about Rs. 85,000 crores is non-recoverable.
• The Harshad Mehta group accounts for Rs. 28,400 crores of this.
• China withdraws tax sops for MNCs
• After emerging as the “world’s factory”, China has withdrawn investor-friendly sops and policies it offered since 1970's to woo Fortune 500 companies to set up manufacturing bases in the country.
• The measures included:
• Withdrawing exemption from payment of land use tax
• Withdrawing the differential treatment (beneficial) that was existing in corporate incometax for foreign firms
• Prime Minister of Pakistan
• Shaukat Aziz
• What is “category management” in retail?
• This concept aims at increasing sales turnover of a particular category of products, say hair care or beer, through alliances between the retailer and the market leader in that category. The partners together plan sales promotion, displays, co-branding exercise and development of private labels.
• Unique retail model followed by Kerala’s Supplyco
• Supplyco of Kerala (the government owned retail company) has the largest network of 2,700 odd shops.
• It publishes its price list for a host of essential household items in the local media along with the difference between its own and open market prices.
• Apart from bulk buying, Supplyco also follows a policy of cross-subsidization which allows it to sell essential products at lower rates. The higher margins it earns on some FMCG products are used to subsidize essential items like green gram.
• Describing retail.
• It is nothing but a mechanism to deliver products/goods to the end customers through a systematic chain of shops/outlets under one brand. It involves sophisticated procurement strategy of “best quality at best price”, and high-end technology to track the inventory and ensure constant uninterrupted supply to the customers. Key to success remains the availability of space at the right location and right price. This concerted effort is called “retail”.
• NTPC and Nigeria enter into a gas deal
• NTPC entered into a deal with Nigeria to participate in that country’s power sector on the condition that equivalent or more gas would be provided for its plants in India. The offer was that if NTPC sets up a 1000 MW plant in Nigeria, it would be able to source gas for a plant double the size in India.
• NTPC has six gas based power plants in India – at Gandhar, Kawas, Anta, Auraiya, Dadri and Faridabad. It has not been able to operate these plants beyond 70% plant load factor due to shortage of gas.
• Centre and States reach agreement on CST rate reduction
• The CST (Central Sales Tax) would be cut by 1% to 3% from April 1, 2007.
• In turn, to compensate the states for their revenue loss, the Centre would allow them to tax 44 new services which are currently outside the service tax net and transfer the levy power in respect of 33 services to the states.
• States would also get to tax VAT on tobacco, which was hitherto being taxed by the Centre.
• China leads in global steel output
• World’s steel production is estimated to have touched 1.21 billion tonnes in 2006. It was 1.1 billion tonnes in 2005.
• China’s production is estimated to be at 421.38 mt
• India is placed 7^th with about 42.4 mt production.
• What is political failure? How would you describe one?
• I would recommend reading an excellent article written in today’s ET by T.K. Arun. Read it here.
• Some new words to learn for today:
• Carping: faultfinding. Persistent petty and unjustified criticism
• Cavilling: quibbling over insignificant details