12.06.2007

• What do we know about strategic petroleum reserves? Is it necessary to have them? Why should we have them? What action has India taken so far in building up strategic reserves? Take a look at the piece that I wrote in today’s Discover It blog.
• Decontrol of potable alcohol
• Potable alcohol refers to alcoholic beverages. This is as opposed to industrial alcohol which has already been delicensed.
• Government is now thinking of totally delicensing potable alcohol with a view to allowing MNCs also easily set up breweries and distilleries. The local players can find their way through the bureaucratic red tape and obtain licenses from the state governments. But the MNCs find it a tough game to play. Hence the move.
• Something about Amul
• It inspired Operation Flood and heralded the White Revolution in India.
• It began with two big cooperatives and 250 litres of milk per day.
• Formed in 1946, Amul began the dairy cooperative movement in India and formed an apex cooperative organization, GCMMF (Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation), which today is jointly owned by some 2.2 mn milk producers in Gujarat.
• Amul is world’s biggest vegetarian cheese brand.
• Is slum rehabilitation a good strategy?
• NO says an ET article published today. Take a look at the piece here.
• The number of slum dwellers in India has risen from 28 mn in 1981 to almost 70 mn at present. Nearly half of our population in biggest urban centres lives in slums: 45% in Delhi, 41% in Kolkata and 50% in Mumbai.
• Slums have resulted out of vote bank politics. Why is slum rehabilitation bad?
• Because this is nothing more than legitimizing the illegal claims of squatters and sends a signal that if migrants to urban centres manage to come and set up a slum, they are likely to be rewarded in future for their efforts with free housing. Then what is the solution?
• One, politicians have to stop legitimizing the illegal occupation by asking for state largesse.
• Secondly, if governments can find money to rehabilitate slum dwellers after they have become so, it can also find money to build low cost houses in urban centres before the migrant labour become slum dwellers. Why not evolve a mechanism of registering migrant labour and providing them with shelter?
• As we can easily reason that both the above suggestions are impractical – political ambitions will frustrate the first and the second one may not be that cost effective – the only way out is to go in for a balanced development. The greater the opportunities people have where they live, the less likely they are to migrate and live in an urban slum.
• What is the Hoda committee looking into?
• Pricing of port services.
• Average turnaround time at our ports is 3.5 days as against 10 hours in Hong Kong.
• Pre-berth waiting time as increased from 6.03 hours in 2004-05 to about 8.77 hours in 2005-06.
• F1 racing – Canadian Grand Prix
• Lewis Hamilton of McLaren won the race. In the process he became the first black driver to win a Grand Prix.
• What is CITES convention?
• It is Convention on International Trade in Endangered Species.
• It is signed by 171 nations.
• It has recently banned international trade in sawtooth sharks.