21.03.2007

• Call money rate goes through the roof
• Call money is money on call or overnight funds borrowed by banks to meet their daily asset-liability mismatches.
• The interest rate for these funds has touched 60%, the highest in a decade, on the back of severe liquidity crunch.
• Even the rupee also found itself strengthening and has breached the Rs. 44 per dollar mark and touched Rs. 43.75 per dollar.
• Why is the Left’s support crucial for Congress or the UPA government?
• It has a 61 member contingent in the Lok Sabha.
• Measures like FDI in insurance which need to be passed in the Lok Sabha cannot be passed without support from the Left parties. Hence, their power of veto.
• DEPB Scheme may get a three year extension
• One of the most sought after export promotion schemes, but which is feared to run counter to our WTO obligations is likely to get a three year extension, backed by the Hoda committee’s recommendations.
• The scheme reimburses basic and special customs duty paid by an exporter on an imported input.
• The scheme does not block exporters’ money since export credit is used to pay duties. On the other hand, in duty drawback scheme the duty on import has to be first paid and then when exports are done, the paid duty can be drawn back. Thus cash flow is impacted. Hence DEPB is favoured by the trade.
• It costs Rs. 10,000 crore per annum to the government.
• CCRI – Central Coir Research Institute
• Is headquartered in Kochi.
• Is headed by Dr. US Sharma
• It has come out with blended coir (80% coir and 20% sisal), which makes it possible for manufacturing new products.
• Is government going back to price control regime?
• The proposed move of the government to ‘talk’ to cement industry on price moderation, the recent price controls seen in pharmaceuticals, banning of sugar and milk powder exports, and ban on forward trading in some agricultural commodities etc., is all pointing to the price control raj mindset.
• Efforts like these, point to a policy flip flop and damages more damage than good in the long term.
• On institutional infrastructure for securities market
• Today’s ET carries an excellent article written by two civil servants.
• It is a very good article. I recommend reading it at least once. Here is the link.
• The Indian securities market shifted from merit-based regulation to disclosure based regulation formally in 1992.
• Want to be a very good critique of something? Especially in the political domain? If you harbour such ambitions, you cannot miss out today’s article by PR Ramesh. This is an excellent critique of CPI(M).
• What I found very remarkable in this article is his ability to systematically knit his criticism in a fine mesh and whack the party.
• Read it here.
• IIFCL: India Infrastructure Finance Company Limited
• One of my favourite organizations on which I have lot of hopes. I hope it will be able to find innovative ways of financing our infrastructure funding requirements of about $320 bn for the next five years.
• It is headed by SS Kohli. He was the former CMD of Punjab National Bank.
• India gets new Hockey coach
• The Indian Hockey Federation has sacked the national coach Vasudevan Bhaskaran and appointed Joaquim Carvalho as the coach.
• IHF is headed by the much celebrated and controversial former DGP of Punjab KPS Gill.