14.02.2007

• A happy Valentine’s Day to all of you.
• Saint Valentine's Day or Valentine's Day is on February 14. It is the traditional day on which lovers express their love for each other; sending Valentine's cards or candy. It is very common to present flowers on Valentine's Day. The holiday is named after two men, both Christian martyrs named Valentine. The day became associated with romantic love in the High Middle Ages, when the tradition of courtly love flourished.
• Do you also know that the Chinese have a similar day called “The Night of Sevens”, a holiday that also relates to love. “White Day”, is a similar holiday celebrated in Japan and Korea one month after Valentine's Day.
• There are only three countries in the world which have carried out anti-satellite tests till now:
• US, Russia and China.
• BioAsia Conference
• The IV edition is being held in Hyderabad from February 15^th to 18^th.
• It is conducted by the Federation of Asian Biotech Associations (FABA) along with the Government of Andhra Pradesh.
• Dr. B. S. Bajaj is the Secretary General of FABA.
• Telecom infrastructure sharing norms to be relaxed
• At present, the regulations allow only passive infrastructure to be shared among the operators. This includes things like towers, repeaters, shelters and generators.
• With Vodafone and Bharti deciding to share active infrastructure also, TRAI is now being looked at for coming out with guidelines on this.
• Active infrastructure includes components like – optic feeder fibre cables, radio links, network elements, backhaul, antenna and transmission equipment.
• CMD of GAIL – Gas Authority of India
• U. D. Choubey
• IBM to research vaccine for bird flu
• IBM’s Zurich research centre is working jointly with the Scripps Institute to understand and work on mutative issues relating to the dreaded H5N1 virus and help developing vaccines.
• This virus can mutate as many as 168 times and can survive for as many as 7 days without any carrier.
• Scripps Institute is founded in 1924 by philanthropist Ellen Browning Scripps.
• IBM can contribute with its super computer Blue Gene in the chemical assaying work that is involved in such a research work.
• An assay is a procedure where a property of a system or object is measured. There are numerous types of assays, such as an antigen capture assay, bioassay, competitive protein binding assay, four-point assay, immunoassay, microbiological assay, stem cell assay, and many others.
• Requirement of locomotives and coaches during 11^th Plan
• It is estimated that about 3,350 locomotives and 22,000 coaches would required.
• India’s crude oil refining capacity
• At present this is about 15.90 crore (159 mn) tonnes.
• By 2012, this is expected to go up to 23.50 crore tonnes (235 mn).
• Harvard University’s first woman President
• Ms. Drew Gilpin Faust
• The university is 371 years old.
• Incidentally do you know that the oldest university in the world is University of Al Karaouine, Fes, Morocco, founded in 859 AD?
• Insurance and FDI
• The NK Singh committee has recommended that FDI in insurance sector be raised to 49% from the existing overall cap of 26%.
• The Left consistently opposes this move. But in China foreign ownership in insurance joint ventures is allowed up to 50%.
• The potential for Indian insurance market is huge with life insurance penetration being only at 3.3% of the GDP. Currently, only 8% of the population is insured, while the total insurable population is estimated to be 24 crores (240 mn) and this figures is slated to increase rapidly.
• India’s gold reserves
• Our gold reserves have touched a high of $650 crore ($6.5 bn) in January 2007.
• RBI raises CRR
• Our CRR is raised from 5.5% to 6% by RBI.
• US Trade Deficit
• For the year 2006, it stood at a good $76,400 crores ($764 bn.)
• Do you know that it is more or less the same as our total GDP? US’ trade deficit is as much as our total GDP!!!
• Talk of economy sizes and this should give you a good sense of a measure; doesn’t it?