09.06.2007

• Bill Gates awarded an honorary degree by Harvard
• 32 years after dropping out of school, he was awarded one by the university. With this he joins the likes of George Washington and Benjamin Franklin.
• Wireless electricity is here!!
• A team of researchers from MIT (Massachusetts Institute of Technology) made a 60 watt light bulb glow by sending it energy wirelessly from a device which is 7 feet away.
• They are calling their breakthrough ‘WiTricity’.
• The key technology behind this is to make the recharding device and the device that needs power to resonate at the same frequency. This allows them to exchange power efficiently.
• Latest 7 wonders of the World
• I was bemused when I received some mails/Orkut scraps from some of you asking me to vote for the Taj to be voted as one of the Seven Wonders of the World. I was a bit reluctant. Because I don’t care whether or not it finds a place there. Whoever says it is not one, is to be found fault with; not me for not voting it so. Whether or not we vote, it remains an eternal beauty and remains permanently etched in everybody’s heart as a great monument symbolizing love and our great culture. But nevertheless I was wondering who could have started this ‘tamasha’ of a contest.
• To my surprise today’s ET had the answer. It was the brainchild of Swiss author-filmmaker Bernerd Weber. He stipulated that to be voted as a World Wonder, the site has to be man-made, be in an acceptable state of preservation and to have been completed by 2000.
• Do I care for this contest? NOOOOOOOOOO. To hell with it. Taj is Taj. Period.
• Some language lesson: déjà vu
• I am talking of the hit number from Beyonce Knowles. Incidentally I like it.
• Déjà vu – the eerie sense of having experienced something before – is caused by neurons in a memory center of the brain called the hippocampus. They make a mental map of new places and experiences and store them away for future use. But when the two experiences begin to seem very much alike, these mental maps overlap, causing déjà vu.
• Fertilizer subsidy bill
• For the year 2007-08, it is likely to cross Rs. 50,000 crore.
• MSP (Minimum Support Price) for wheat
• It is currently at Rs. 850 per quintal.
• The principle behind government’s petroleum product retail pricing
• The oil marketing company, the consumer and the government to share one-third burden of the under-recoveries.
• This is fleetingly referred to in today’s ET.
• It’s quite sometime since we looked at the weekly statistical supplement figures doled by RBI. I strongly suggest that we should keep at looking these figures once in a month. Time again for a look at some of the latest figures.
• Money in circulation: Rs. 33.25 lakh crores.
• Annual growth in money supply: 19.6%
• Loans disbursed by commercial banks: Rs. 19.86 lakh crores.
• Deposits mobilized by commercial banks: Rs. 26.08 lakh crores.
• Investments in government bonds by banks: Rs. 8.17 lakh crores.
• WMA (Ways and Means Advances) to Center: Rs. 26,707 crores.
• What is NDF market?
• It stands for Non Deliverable Forwards market.
• It offers an alternative hedging tool for FIIs having exposure to the local currency. A contract in the NDF market is similar to the regular forward foreign exchange contract, except that at the time of maturity, the NDF contract does not require physical delivery of currencies. It is settled in an international financial centre in US dollars.
• Is medical tourism desirable?
• You would have noticed my early notings in the blog about medical tourism and how to make it viable. Take a look it here.
• But Dr. Ajay Kumar, the President of IMA (Indian Medical Association) is of the view that medical tourism should not be too eagerly promoted, as it amounts exporting healthcare when there is an acute shortage of health facilities in our country. Our specialists should look after the healthcare of our own people first. It can be open for private sector to pursue such opportunities.
• Snippets on climate change
• Currently it takes only three quarters of primary energy to produce one unit of the world’s GDP than it did thirty years ago.
• By developing a vision of environmentally sustainable economic growth, which includes sustainable use of natural resources, we can respond to the concerns of a much larger section of population than the earlier approach of imposing restrictions on the use of natural resources.
• Sweden seems to have observed this in practice. It has a ministry of sustainable development, with environment being a department within it. This is an excellent example of institutional reorientation.
• Tirumala accorded special status
• The Government of AP has accorded special holy status to Tirumala, the abode of Lord Balaji. This was done with an objective of ensuring its sanctity in the wake of reports that religions and other than Hinduism were being propagated there.
• Tirumala is popular for its seven hills. The hills are Seshadri, Garudadri, Venkatadri, Naraynadri, Vrishabhadri, Vrishadri, and Anjanadri.
• Digamber Kamat is CM of Goa
• Indo-US nuclear deal
• If you want a very well reasoned critique of the deal, reading today’s centre page article in The Hindu is a must. Do so here.
• When or how did the G8 come about?
• In the wake of the oil crisis, when oil prices quadrupled from $3 a barrel in 1972 to $12 in 1974, and with the collapse of the fixed exchange rate system of currencies, six of these countries came together and formed into G6. The club has since then expanded to include Canada in 1976 and Russia in 1998.
• Tennis at Roland Garros
• I am talking of the French Open; you guessed it I suppose.
• It is Nadal vs. Federer now in the men’s final.
• And watch today’s final between Justin Henin Hardenne and Ana Ivanovic.
• Henin is on the verge of a rare feat. If she wins today’s final, she will be only other woman (other than Monica Seles) to win the French Open thrice.