23.03.2007

• FDI in telecom finally hiked to 74%
• The union cabinet has finally hiked the FDI limit. Press Note 5 of 2005, which originally mooted the idea and was followed up with two more cabinet notes in October 2006 and December 2006, finally received the cabinet nod.
• A series of additional security norms for allowing remote access were part of the approval.
• Foreigners also can hold key posts like the Chairman, CEO and MD in those companies. But the posts of Chief Technical Network Operations and Chief Security Officer will have to be manned by Indians.
• Pakistan to have the first Hindu acting Chief Justice
• Justice Rana Bhagwan Das, who has been on tour in India for the last couple of weeks is named the acting CJ of Pakistan. This follows the sacking of the incumbent Iftikhar Muhammad Choudhary by Gen. Musharraf sometime earlier.
• Pakistan successfully test fires Hatf VII Babur missile
• This missile is capable of a terrain-hugging flight, can avoid detection by radars and has a range of 700 km. On top of this, it can carry nuclear war heads also. It can cover many Indian cities without being detected.
• This is widely seen as Pakistan’s answer to India’s Brahmos missiles.
• Bob Woolmer death in West Indies
• It is suspected that it is a case of homicide.
• Many TV channels reported that Dawood Ibrahim is behind it.
• Match fixing is suspected to be behind this killing.
• Semiconductor Complex
• The almost defunct Chandigarh based public sector undertaking SCL is about to be revived in the next couple of months.
• It was set up in 1983. Its aim was to design and manufacture VLSI (Very Large Scale Integration) and VLSI based systems and sub-systems and R&D.
• It was capable of processing wafers of 0.8 micron. When revived, it is expected to acquire the processing capability of 0.35 micron wafers.
• The ubiquitous hard disk drives of computers may after all be replaced in years to come!!
• Intel, Fujitsu and Samsung are working on integrating flash memory with computer hard drives.
• Flash memory has no moving parts (unlike a regular HDD, which has lot of moving parts) and is thus capable of delivering data access at very high speeds.
• But the downside is that it tends to wear over time and is quite expensive.
• India’s outbound FDI in the current fiscal
• Is more than $20 bn
• Doubts over IPI gas pipeline
• The fate of the proposed Iran Pakistan India gas pipeline is still unknown.
• Pakistan is demanding high transit charges of 10% of the gas price at India border, while India is willing to pay a maximum of 5% of the gas price at Iran-Pakistan border.
• Iran has also scaled down the quantum of gas to just 60 mmscmd from the originally envisaged 150 mmscmd. Out of this 60 mmscmd, Pakistan and India will get 30 mmscmd each.
• With the project (if completed) expected to begin supplies only 2011, estimates have it that India would by then have added almost 100 mn cubic meters of additional gas to its kitty, thus raising a big question mark on pursuing this project.
• Integrity Pact
• Is a tool developed by Transparency International to help governments, businesses and civil society to fight corruption in public contracting.
• It binds both parties to a contract to ethical conduct. An independent body evaluates the entire process and both companies and the bidder could be blacklisted for any slip.
• World’s largest Vanilla producer
• Is Madagascar.
• Do you know that vanilla prices have ruled higher than the price of gold, just a couple of years back?
• It was then that Indian farmers, especially in the southern part, have taken to vanilla farming. But now the prices have crashed to about Rs. 60 per kg.
• Budget and FBT on ESOPS
• The latest budget has proposed levy of Fringe Benefit Tax on ESOPS (Employee Stock Options).
• An ESOP is a call option (the opposite of ‘put’ option) i.e., the employee has the option to buy the share being offered by the company at a future date for a price which is fixed now.
• Companies usually set aside a portion of their authorized share capital for ESOPS. The employee will pay the exercise price and acquire the shares. This is effectively a preferential issue by the company to the employee.
• The difference between the fair price (market price) and the exercise price is the additional benefit that the company bestows on the employee. This gain is nothing but a short-term capital gain and has to treated as such. But taxing it at a higher rate as normal income is against the global practices.
• What went wrong in Nandigram?
• Today’s article by Narender Pani “Unravelling rural Bengal” is damn good. I find it almost impossible to give you a précis of it. Read it in full here. Some excerpts/notings I can’t resist from giving you are:
• What is being challenged in West Bengal today is not just the SEZ policy or even land acquisition, but the land politics that the Left has followed for the last 30 years.
• In its quest for political power, it (Left) avoided dependence on communal allies by opting for less radical reforms. Operation Barga protected the rights of the tenants, as much as it did the ownership of the landlords, implicitly.
• Changes were inevitable in 3 decades with new tenants coming in. Where the change could not be dealt with formally, informal mechanisms – party cadres – have stepped in.
• Such a system of sharing left little scope to generate capital on a scale that could be used to create industry. For years, the Left’s response was ignoring industrialization. But once it proved to be unsustainable, it had to attract capital. The only advantage the state had was to offer the land of the unwilling farmers.
• For a population that has not seen rapid industrialization, and has been spoon-fed on the ideology of globalization not benefiting the poor, the forcible takeover of land is a serious threat to their livelihood. And this is the triggering point.
• Rajivlochan’s article “Throwing the farmer to the wolves” is also very good today. If you want to learn critiquing a government measure or policy in a meaningful way, this is a must read. Especially read the third and fourth paragraphs of his article, if you can’t read it in full. He castigates the Planning Commission’s suggestion of dependence on contract farming to battle the failure of organized credit system.
• Though I am a votary of the Planning Commission’s approach, I can’t help but see some alternate point of view coming from a different perspective. He cites the example of Aalsmeer Flower Auction of Holland, a cooperative of flower cultivators in securing better prices for their produce.
• Read the article in full to appreciate the nuances well. You can find the article here.
• Oceans
• Do you know that ocean absorbs about 85% of atmospheric heat?
• The first Hyderabad International Film Festival opened
• It’s a week long even from 22^nd March to 29^th March.
• Jawaharlal Nehru Award for International Understanding 2005
• Was conferred on Wangari Muta Maathai of Kenya.
• She is a leading environmentalist.
• UPDATE: Piyush Yadav corrected me about her nationality. She is from Kenya, NOT Nigeria as was originally noted.
  
• Indian wins the Abel Prize
• Srinivasa S.R. Varadhan, a professor of New York University was awarded this prize for his fundamental contributions to probability theory and in particular for creating a unified theory of large deviations.
• King Harald V of Norway will present the award on May 22, in Oslo.
• The prize money is $850,000.
• India to host 2010 World Cup for Hockey
• FIH, the international body governing the sport of Hockey has decided to award the chance of hosting 2010 World Cup to India.
• India hosted the World Cup earlier in 1982 in Mumbai.
• Only Netherlands and Kuala Lumpur have organized the even twice earlier.
• Parduman Singh dead
• Former Asian Games shot put and discuss champion. He won the gold at 1954 Manila Asian Games for both these events.
• In 1958 he won gold for shot put and silver for discus throw. He won the discus silver in 1962.
• Pakistan Award to Bob Woolmer
• Pak President Musharraf has announced that the award of “Sitara-e-Imtiaz” (Star of Excellence) would be conferred posthumously on the cricket coach.