Indian Current Affairs: 23.04.2007

Earth Day is a name used for two different observances, both held annually during spring in the northern hemisphere. These are intended to inspire awareness of and appreciation for the Earth's environment. The United Nations celebrates Earth Day each year on the vernal (March) equinox; while a global observance in many countries is held each year on April 22.
Want to know more about it? Follow this link…

With the mango season commencing, it is time we recount something about ripening agents used.
“Ethylene” is a natural ripening agent found in fruits. Calcium carbide contains chemical acetylene, which mimics ethylene. So fruit vendors keep calcium carbide in a crate of fruits and leave it a couple of days. Fruits are thus artificially ripened.
But calcium carbide contains traces of arsenic and phosphorus which are not good for humans. They damage health in the long run.

A small correction to what I noted on 20^th April in our blog. India’s merchandise exports are at $125 bn. Its services exports are at $76 bn. Taken together, these two account for a little over $200 bn. Whereas our aggregate imports are pegged at $190 bn. Thus we are a trading surplus nation.
If you are asked to list out a couple of problems that India’s exporters face, perhaps this is what you could say:

Though DEPB scheme is quite popular among our exporters, it is not WTO compliant. Moves to replace with a WTO compliant scheme have not met with success so far.
Government has done well to stimulate agricultural exports through specific programmes and enlarging the scope of Focus Product and Focus Market Schemes.
It is a reality that the multilateral trade arrangements embodied in the WTO rules have diluted the importance of fiscal incentives that used to be an important driving force of the trade policy.

Monte Carlo Open won by Rafael Nadal. This is third straight win of this title. He beat Roger Federer in the finals yesterday.
He is the second player to have won three straight wins for this title in its history. Romanian Ilie Nastase was the first to achieve this feat during 1971 to 1973.

In view of his retirement from the game, let’s take a look at Brian Lara’s career highlights

Highest individual score in Tests – 400 not out against England.
Highest individual first class score – 500 not out for Warwickshire against Durham
Fourth highest maiden hundred in Test cricket – 277 against Australia
Most number of runs in an over in Tests – 28 runs off Robin Peterson (South Africa)
Second in the list of most number of double hundreds in Tests – 9 (Only Bradman with 12, is ahead of him.)
Highest century maker in Tests for the West Indies – 34 hundreds
Highest run-scorer in Test cricket – 11,953 runs
Wisden 2000 second greatest batting performance in Test history – 153 not out vs Australia in 1998-99.
Fastest to reach 10,000 and 11,000 runs in Tests.

On 5^th April, we noted something on this subject. Something more on this in today’s paper.
The Banking (Nationalization and Acquisition) Act, 1970 and 1980 determines the board composition of the Nationalized Banks. According to this, all the PSU banks must be headed by a CMD. For a variety of reasons both the RBI and the Government of India have refused to split the posts.
The only exception being SBI, which is governed by a separate Act of its own.
On the other hand, private banks have to compulsorily appoint a non-executive chairman and an executive CEO or MD, as these banks are governed by the Banking Regulation Act, which is different from the above two enactments referred to above.
The two RBI appointed panels that have looked into the corporate governance in banks and financial institutions – RH Patil committee and the AS Ganguly committee -- have recommended that the posts remain separate.

In a very good article Akil Hirani lists out four instances when a joint venture would be preferred to an acquisition:

Indian Current Affairs