08.10.2007

• Why would corporates prefer to remain unrated in the post-Basel scenario?
• Basel norms mandate risk weights being assigned to corporates for their loans. The higher the risk weight, the higher the capital allocation that will have to be done by the banks.
• Best rated (AAA rating) corporates attract a risk weight of only 20%. Poorly rated corporates (BB- rating) attract a risk weight of about 150%. Unrated corporates will attract a risk weight of 100%. So the logic is why get rated with a poor credit rating and end up with a huge penalty?
• Have appetite for digging deep into how risk weights are calculated? See this BIS document.
• How much fuel does Indian Railways consume?
• Almost 2 bn litres of diesel per year.
• Dutch royalty’s forthcoming visit to India and our government’s embarrassment
• Queen Beatrix and crown prince Willem-Alexander and princess Maxima are slated to visit India between October 24 and 27.
• The government perhaps is feeling a bit embarrassed that a Dutch NGO has raked up the issue of child labour on cotton farms in India. The Dutch Parliament has asked the dignitaries to seek a clarification from the Indian authorities.
• Number of people accessing the Internet through mobiles in India
• More than 38 mn.
• What is ethical investing?
• Investing in companies that meet minimum ethical standards whether involving the nature of their business or their business practices.
• Anita Roddick is largely credited with being an ethical investor all through her life.
• Banks plan credit counseling
• With the recent reported suicide of an individual (Prakash Sarvankar) due to his inability to service the loan and bear excessive harassment from recovery agents, banks are now planning to offer credit or debt counseling.
• Credit counseling covers three areas: financial education, credit counseling and debt management.
• Abhay and Disha are two such initiatives launched by Bank of India and ICICI Bank in this direction.
• Want to understand more about front running?
• Take a look at today’s article in ET. It gives a real life example and explains all about it.
• Front running, as you might have learnt from our noting earlier is an act in which a stock trader takes up a position of unfair advantage ahead of a large buy or sell order by a client.
• Why is stem cell research heavily monitored across the globe?
• Many countries either prohibit or place restrictions on the morally hazardous areas such as creation of human embryonic stem cell lines. They see the prospect of trade in human embryos. This is considered highly unethical by and large.
• Stem cells are primal cells found in all multi-cellular organisms which retain the ability to renew themselves and can differentiate into a range of specialized cell types. It is believed that cultured cells from embryos have the potential to become any particular cell in the body of the relevant organism and can therefore lead to artificial development of organs including heart, brain and kidneys. Therefore, it holds immense potential for curing ailments caused by degeneration of organs.
• Rudyard Kipling’s house to be an art museum
• He was the first Englishman to receive the Nobel Prize for Literature in 1907.
• He was born on December 30, 1865. His father, John Lockwood Kipling, was the head of the department of architectural sculpture at the then Jejeebhoy School of Art and Industry in Mumbai.
• Stirling Prize
• It is Britain’s most prestigious architecture award. An amount of 20,000 pounds is awarded to a building that has made the greatest contribution to British architecture in the past year.
• It was awarded to Germany’s Museum of Modern Literature.