08.08.2007

• All this long, I have been disciplined to think that over-population is a problem. But nowadays it has become fashionable to argue that it is not. And the intelligentsia is doing it with lot of cogent reasoning. Take a look at what I noted for you from an excellent article written by Alok Sheel in today’s ET.
• Bill Gates is no longer the world’s richest man!!!
• It is now officially confirmed by Fortune magazine that the Mexican telecom tycoon Mr. Carlos Slim is the richest man with about $59 bn in wealth.
• His telecom companies make up about 5% of Mexico’s GDP.
• Petrol and diesel prices in for hike
• The average price for crude crossed $77 a barrel in July 2007.
• Under-recoveries of various products for our oil companies are as below:
• Rs. 5.88 per litre for petrol
• Rs. 4.80 per litre of diesel
• Rs. 14.63 per litre of kerosene
• Rs. 190 per cylinder of cooking gas
• Sasan ultra mega power project
• It has ultimately been handed over to Reliance Power Limited, an Anil Ambani group company by the government.
• RPL will invest about Rs. 20,000 crores in the project and will supply power at Rs. 1.196 per unit.
• Cold-storage capacities in the country
• At present, there are around 5,000 cold storage facilities with a total capacity of 19.54 mn tonnes. Almost 80% of this capacity is in private sector. 82% of this capacity is dedicated to potatoes and only 0.2% for other fruits and vegetables.
• Why are derivatives not bad?
• We have been observing in recent times that the derivatives market based on US sub-prime mortgage is the source of all trouble in the financial markets worldwide. So, does this make derivatives the villain? No, argues an editorial in ET today. Let’s look at some of its cogent arguments:
• Derivatives allow risk to be spread among a larger number of players. To that extent the pain is not only less, but also the ability to bear it is also more.
• Because of its very wide-spread nature, derivatives offer a kind of bulwark against the spread of a contagion, which can happen when lending is concentrated only among banks. If bank A cannot pay back its loans to bank B then the latter in turn cannot in turn pay bank C and so on. This leads to a vicious circle and could soon have the entire system spiraling downwards.
• Generating electricity through body heat
• German scientists have developed a method which harnesses the temperature difference between the body’s surface and that of the surroundings.
• This invention is expected to help power medical equipment such as sensors attached to the body of a patient in an intensive care unit.
• This is one video that those of you who have the patience and time should watch. It is about globalization. This video was recommended for all the ISB, Hyderabad students during their course. A relative who studied there forwarded this link to me.
• http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/commandingheights/lo/story/index.html