13.01.2007

• Booming industrial production
• The country’s industrial production grew 14.4% during November 2006 – the fastest growth in more than a decade.
• The growth was driven by manufacturing, which grew by a whopping 15.7% in November.
• An interesting story about Asim Ghosh, the MD of Hutch Essar, the company that is making continuous news headlines for quite some time. And of course, we will not let a chance pass us by to learn a bit about any new concept. This time it is “Coriolis force”.
• A bunch of guys were standing at the Equator. One of them noticed that when crossed the equator to the North, water in a leaky mug would drain out spinning clockwise and when crossed to South, it would do so anti-clockwise. As this bunch is a highly educated lot, mostly ex-IITians et al., they had an argument as to what led to this phenomenon. After lot of arguments, they had no agreement and so decided to do what the world is doing nowadays. Refer the problem to India. (No !!! here; please note. It’s just period, period.) And so they sent an SMS. The recipient was Asim Ghosh. He replied to them, in spite of his busy schedule, to bring order and perspective, especially to an argument amongst friends! He replied to them that this is because of coriolis force.
• It’s worth learning a little bit more about it. Do so here.
• CEO of Star TV
• Ms. Michelle Guthrie
• She has put in her papers and is likely to be succeeded by Paul Aiello
• Bangladesh President steps down
• President Iajuddin stepped down amidst protests from various political parties and administered oath of office to Fakhruddin Ahmed as the head of interim government tasked with steering the country out of its political crises by conducting national elections.
• Secretary General of NATO
• Jaap de Hoop Scheffer
• India is paying huge royalties on cars
• Our top companies have paid Rs. 861 crores to their parents for brand the technology use in FY06, up from Rs. 691 crores in the previous year. What has led to this surge in payments?
• India’s appetite for new models and variants. With model lives getting shortened, companies introduce new models or next generation variants in step with the rest of the world.
• Growth in India’s car and bike market. Since in many cases, royalty is tied to per unit sale, the absolute quantum of royalty goes up as the subsidiary sells more units.
• Negotiation of royalty is done separately for each model and tendency is to keep royalty low initially and increase it as we build scale economies. So, as time passes by, royalty percentiles start climbing upwards.
• Number of PCs sold in India during 2005-06
• 1.4 million units.
• Inflation rate touched 5.58% for week ending December 30, 2006.
• Current account deficit projection pared down to $13.4 bn
• The EAC (Economic Advisory Council) to the Prime Minister, headed by C. Rangarajan has said that the current account deficit for the current fiscal year is likely to be just $13.4 bn. This is much below the mid-year forecast of $20 bn.
• Net FDI for the year is expected to be about $9 bn, up from $4.7 bn last year. This results from inbound FDI of $12 bn outweighed by outbound FDI of $3 bn.
• Education cess collections better
• With increasing tax collections, the education cess collections are also expected to be buoyant. They are expected to surpass the budgeted Rs. 8,746 crores.
• Prarambhik Siksha Kosh is the designated fund created in the public accounts, where this revenue is parked.
• Railways to come out with bullet trains
• In a bid to improve the tourism potential of the country, the Railways is thinking of introducing super fast bullet trains in the country, which will run at speeds of up to 225 to 250 kmph. These trains will be modeled on the Japanese Shinkansen trains.
• President calls for 10% growth in GDP
• One of our President’s pet subjects is PURA. Providing Urban Amenities in Rural Areas. He is very passionate about lifting the lot of 220 million people living below the poverty line. He feels that the country should have about 7000 PURA programmes encompassing the 6 lakh villages of the country. For this to happen, the country should aim at 10% GDP growth and maintain it for quite a long time.
• Vidarbha region of Maharashtra: in the news this time for positive reasons
• The farmers in this region appear to have taken to Bt (bacillus thuringiensis) cotton seeds in a big way and appear to be poised to harvest a bumper cotton crop this year.
• Dr. B.M. Khadi: Director, Central Institute for Cotton Research, Nagpur.
• Prices of Bt cotton seeds have been brought down from Rs. 1750 per bag to Rs. 750 per bag following an MRTPC order in May 2006. This was consequent to Andhra Pradesh’s agriculture minister Mr. Raghuveera Reddy’s successful contest before the MRPTC on the issue. As a result, the company selling Bt cotton seeds to farmers MMB (Mahyco Monsanto (India) Biotech has reduced the price.
• Cotton crop in the entire country is expected to yield about 270 lakh bales this year. Each bale is about 170 Kilograms.
• Ramen
• Instant ramen (i.e., instant noodles) was invented in 1958 by Momofuku Ando of Japan.
• Cattle resistant to mad cow disease
• By genetically removing a particular protein, prion scientists in US have developed cattle that seem to be resistant to mad cow disease.
• Vietnamese Prime Minister
• Nguyen Tan Dung