24.01.2007

• With Vijay Mallya trying to bring in F1 racing to India let us learn a bit about this sport:
• It is the highest class of auto racing defined by the FIA – Federation Internationale de l’Automobile, the France based world governing body for the sport.
• The ‘formula’ in the name refers to the set of rules which all participants and cars must meet. The F1 world championship season consists of a series of races, known as Grand Prix. The results of each race are combined to determine two annual world championships – one for the drivers and one for the constructors.
• The present world champions are: Fernando Alonso (Driver) and Renault F1 (Constructors)
• Though the commercial interests of the Formula One are vested in the Formula One Group, the minority shareholder, Bernie Ecclestone who promotes and controls the sport is considered as the boss of F1.
• Carbon labeling
• TESCO, UK’s biggest retailer has become the world’s first supermarket to assign carbon labels to its products in an attempt to attract more environmentally conscious consumers. The labels would record the amount of carbon dioxide emitted (aka ‘carbon footprint’), during the production, transport and consumption of all the products it sells.
• NHPC: National Hydroelectric Power Corporation
• Its CMD is S.K. Garg
• About sexual harassment
• It is a criminal offence, with a seven year non-bailable imprisonment attached as punishment.
• About petroleum products
• India imports 73% of its crude oil needs.
• The current excise duty on diesel is 8.16% plus Rs. 3.32 a litre – the two together translate to a total levy of Rs. 4.98 per litre.
• Do you see any disconnect between the demand on Nimbus (the owners of commercial rights of BCCI cricket matches for 4 years from March 1, 2006) to share its telecast feed with the public broadcaster Doordarshan and the era of liberalization and globalization? The premise of the disconnect being that there is no level playing field!
• It appears there need be no such feeling. Even in an advanced country like the UK, which is recognized as having more developed systems, the law itself lays down that a broadcaster of one category (categories being pay channels and free-to-air channels including public broadcasters) needs the consent of the regulator, to broadcast a listed event, unless it shares the feed with a broadcaster in the other category.
• In an excellent article written today, PR Ramesh chides the Indian political class to stop pandering to hardliners of the minority community. Read the full article here. A couple of observation made in this regard are worthy of note:
• Why are the members of the Muslim community getting agitated over every incident that happens internationally?
• Ruling politicians have become partners in the cynical game of playing the victim card on behalf of extra-territorial causes.
• Hardline elements are backing causes that are inimical to the nation’s interests.
• The community cannot be blamed as the concept of global Islamic brotherhood is quite strong among its members. And global issues are sure to have its reasonable resonance among the members of the community. But the overzealousness that’s being displayed by the community will only reinforce the perception of the hold of hardline elements over its members. And that could further strain inter-faith equations.
• P2P banking
• Ever heard of Zopa and Prosper? These are online P2P (Peer to Peer) banking outfits.
• How this operates is – after the registration at the P2P sites, users can lend money to or borrow money from other people on the site at better interest rates than those available through traditional banks. The basic premise of the system is, to do away with the disintermediary role of the banks. The site attempts to create a more efficient marketplace by matching small lenders with borrowers directly – finding the point at which, the rate at which someone might pay for a loan matches the interest rate another person is willing to lend the money at.
• Usually the P2P integrator will charge a small sum of 0.5% from each side.
• The default rate is stated to be very less – below 0.05%.
• Backdating of stock options scandal in the US
• Stock options represent the right to buy company shares at a set price. Some companies are accused of backdating grant dates to days when the share price was lower, giving the recipient the opportunity to collect extra profit. Backdating is not in itself illegal, but needs to be property accounted for and disclosed.
• The US authorities are investigating into about 160 companies that are suspected of having not accounted for this type of transactions properly over the years.