05.10.2007

• I have answered a couple of your shout-box queries in today’s Discover-It. Take a look at the explanations on core inflation and headline inflation, why the Japanese yen is having such a low value, and pointers to composition of our GDP.
• Courts should respect high officials, says Supreme Court
• In a case setting aside the order of the Gujarat High Court, summoning the chief secretary and the law secretary of the Gujarat government to be personally present before it in connection with the steps being taken to provide sufficient staff to the office of the government pleader / public prosecutor, the Supreme Court made the above observation. It said higher officers should be called only when absolutely necessary and not as a matter of routine. It further said that when summoned they should be given a proper chair to sit on and they need not be made to stand as long as the hearing goes on.
• Walter Bagehot
• Those of you who read “The Economist” magazine should have noted this name. Do you know who this is? He was an economist and eminent author of the 19^th century. He edited the Economist from 1861 to 1877.
• Bharat Nirman programme
• With elections on everybody’s minds, this programme is receiving lot of attention as it can be a vote catcher. Let’s have a re-look at it:
• It is a Rs. 48,000 crore programme envisaging development of rural infrastructure through joint efforts of the Centre and the States during the period 2005-2009.
• Roads: 38,484 villages with a population of more than 1000. All 20,867 villages in hilly and tribal areas with a population of more than 500.
• Telephone: 66,822 villages to be connected.
• Irrigation: Create one crore hectare of irrigation potential.
• Water supply: Cover 55,067 uncovered habitations.
• Housing: Provide 60 lakh houses at the rate of 15 lakh per year.
• Electrification: Provide electricity to 125,000 villages.
• Biggest food grain producing states in India
• UP, Punjab and AP in that order.
• AP produced 169 lakh tonnes of food grains in 2005-06.
• Dutch auctions in IPOs
• Dutch auctions in IPOs gained prominence with the Google IPO.
• What happens in this is that the prospective investors mention the number of shares and the price at which they are interested in subscribing to through their application. The allotment is made from the highest bidders to the lower bidders till the stocks are sold out.
• This can lead to a more efficient price discovery. Hence results in the disappearance of opportunity to acquire stocks at a discount to the market price. The scope to sell the shares immediately on listing will be minimal.
• Do you remember we noted about a few types of reverse auction sometime in June? Look here for quick recap.
• Can the Supreme Court recommend President’s rule in a state?
• With the widely reported outburst of a Supreme Court judge against the Tamilnadu government for sponsoring a bandh against the cannons of existing law, this has assumed significance. The judge threatened that the court will recommend to the President for imposition of President’s rule.
• But Sarkaria Commission’s recommendations say that it is only for the Governor of the state or the Union Cabinet to recommend such a course to the President having been accepted by the SC in the SR Bommai case, it is not for the SC to recommend such an action. .
• Media audit
• It is a new kind of work that is happening in the country. The country’s total ad spend is about Rs. 16,000 crores.
• In media audit, the efficacy of advertising is measured. Whether the objectives, in terms of reaching out to a certain target audience and a certain number of people could have been done differently and in a more cost effective way, is the focus of media audit.
• Accenture (the IT company for which Tiger Woods appears in its ads) is a global leader in this business. Billettes, EMM and SLE are some other names from England in this space. The only Indian company operating in this space is Spatial Access.
• Duck-billed dinosaur
• Discovered in Arizona Line in 2002, this is amazing scientists. It has robust jaws that allowed it to eat just about any vegetation that came across. The jaws are believed to be capable of crunching even trees. It is believed to have roamed the earth 75 mn years ago.
• Why India should opt for nuclear power?
• In a hard hitting article, MR Srinivasan argues that the cost of fuel for producing power in the case of nuclear power is so cheap – 20% in case of PHWRs and 15% in case of LWRs – that it is a no brainer. Critics of the nuclear power in India are failing to see why France has about 80% of electricity being generated from nuclear power, why Korea and Japan are importing nuclear power and why China is building furiously its nuclear energy capability.