15.07.2007

• While answering one of your queries about the need to study the India Gazetteer, I came across the beautiful link: http://dsal.uchicago.edu/. It is Digital South Asia Library. This is where you will also find a link to the Imperial Gazette: http://dsal.uchicago.edu/reference/gazetteer. It is just for reference. Trying to read it from cover to cover is like trying to read a dictionary.
• Today’s ET had a good article on China’s strengths and weaknesses. I noted something from it for you in Discover It. Take a look at it here.
• How many trucks are plying on Indian roads?
• About 3 million.
• Taxation issue of MNC BPOs
• The Supreme Court has settled the issue of taxation of foreign companies setting up captive BPO units in India. Delivering its verdict in the Morgan Stanley case, the court held that the IT department could not tax part of the global revenues of a foreign company by attributing it to its India-based BPO. The parent company therefore does not risk being taxed in India if it compensates its local BPO on an arm’s length basis.
• India-US defence deal
• India and US are close to signing an agreement under which their armed forces will provide each other logistics support on a reciprocal basis.
• US has offered to India a giant landing ship, USS Nashwill for sale. It is of the same class as the USS Trenton that was bought by the Indian Navy.
• Mayawati
• Amulya Ganguli’s “Mayawati: Now the bad news” is worth a read. This piece discusses some unsavory aspects of the rise of the regional leaders from the subaltern classes, once hailed as the spread of democracy.
• One comment worth noting from this article is: “Mayawati is not alone in believing in the philosophy of pandering to the popular craving for circus and not bread, which also guided the Roman emperors.”
• Ramanujan Number
• Do you know that 1729 is known as Ramanujan Number? He discovered that it is the smallest number that can be expressed as the sum of two cubes in two different ways. 1729 = 1³ + 12³ + = 9³ + 10³.
• Palynology
• It is the branch of science dealing with study of decay-resistant remains of certain plans and animals. The term was introduced by Hyde and Williams in 1944, on the basis of the Greek words ‘paluno’ meaning to sprinkle and ‘pale’ meaning dust.
• Why are Latin Americas called so even though the language spoken there is Spanish?
• The term Latin America was coined in the 1860’s when the French emperor Napolean III was trying to extend French imperial control over the whole region. He and his ministers used the term to try to suggest at least some degree of cultural similarity between the region and France. The region consists of people who speak Spanish, Portuguese and French. These languages (together with Italian and Romanian) developed from Latin during the days of Roman Empire and the Europeans who speak them are sometimes called ‘Latin’ people. Hence the term Latin America.
• Cricket
• Muttiah Muralitharan of Sri Laka became the second bowler in cricket history to take 700 test wickets.
• The first one is Shane Warne of Australia with 708 wickets to his credit.