Indian Current Affairs: 19.01.2007

Sector wise caps are being proposed. This will probably limit proliferation, give balanced treatment to various sectors.
Only vacant to be acquired. This will prevent acquisition of village land, prevent disruption.
Sector-specific SEZ only on contiguous land. This will prevent rural infrastructure from being sandwiched by SEZs.

Gross refining margins for RIL are about $11.7 per barrel in the quarter ended December, 2006. These are much higher than the benchmark Singapore margins which are about $3.9 per barrel in the same period.

According to law, a statement made by a person during a narco analysis is neither treated as a confession nor as evidence in the court of law. The information provided will be used as a clue to physically establish claims.

Hearing a petition challenging the constitutional validity of the Haj Committee Act, 1959 and the provision of annual financial assistance by the government to Muslims going on the Haj pilgrimage, the Supreme Court has asked the government to explain the rationale of the Act.
The provision of special subsidy to the Muslim community to the exclusion of others like the Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and the Sikhs was questioned as violative of the constitution of India as the state cannot discriminate between the citizens on the grounds of religion, caste or creed.

Prime Minister of Iraq – Nouri al-Maliki
Director General of IAEA (International Atomic Energy Agency) – Mohammed El Baradei

In the advertising space, print media occupies about 48.2% share and television about 40.6%.
The total advertising market size is pegged at Rs. 16,300 crores.

It is considering a proposal to divest about 5% stake in each of the three PSUs – Power Grid Corporation, National Hydroelectric Power Corporation and Rural Electrification Corporation.

All airports in India are owned by government except one; which is that airport?

India Inc accounted for over 50 %of all new depository receipt stock exchange listings globally in 2006.
In all there were 55 such listings of which more than 30 were from India.
A GDR (Global Depository Receipt) is an instrument in the form of a certificate created by an overseas depository bank outside India and issued to non-resident investors against the issue of ordinary shares or foreign currency convertible bonds of the issuing company.
Among the domestic companies, Reliance was the first to issue GDRs for raising funds abroad.

Some comments on government’s ban on AXN’s programme – “World’s Sexiest Advertisements”

The views of a few bureaucrats cannot be allowed to dictate the viewing habits of the public.
The decision needs to be challenged in court and the courts need to intervene, as they often done, to protect the public from the depredations of the politicians and bureaucrats.
If the one-billion plus citizens of India are deemed to be capable of making an informed choice when it comes to the government they elect to represent them, that government should return the compliment by accepting that they can decide for themselves what is likely to affect their morals, and that they can, if they so wish, choose entertainment that is in bad taste.

Unions empower their members in general and, in the absence of an overarching political commitment to secure growth, to shirk work as well. The resultant lethargy, verging on paralysis, has stilled growth in Kerala and Bengal.
But then how did communists allow industry to be built?

Industry, in the communists’ scheme of things, is a concession to the compulsion of electoral politics.

Two other popular Bollywood personalities to have their wax replica there were Amitabh Bachchan and Aishwarya Rai.

Chairman of APEDA Agricultural & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority

About 70% of the tea bushes in the state are more than 130 years old and need replanting. The current subsidy of 25% granted by the Tea Board is inadequate, as the cost of replanting is about Rs. 5 lakh per hectare.

Indian Current Affairs