11.10.2007

• RBI calls for curbs on PN, PE inflows
• In a bid to tackle the unprecedented inflows of foreign currency, the RBI is seeking to ban fresh issuance of PNs and tighter due diligence norms.
• The share of PNs in the total FII inflows rose from 32% in late 2006 to about 42% in March 2007.
• SS Tarapore committee
• Though this committee has recommended (over a year ago) a ban on PNs, the government did not accept this proposal.
• SR Bommai is no more
• He was Chief Minister of Karnataka for 9 months from August 1988.
• When his government lost majority and President’s rule was imposed, he appealed before the Supreme Court. On the basis of this petition the Supreme Court has laid down the guidelines for determining majority for a party only through floor test.
• Microsoft IT
• It is a company that is set up by Microsoft for managing Microsoft’s worldwide IT infrastructure 24x7. It monitors and supports over 9,000 servers, 10,000 network devices and over 2000 internal databases and telephony services within the company.
• One interesting concept that is adopted by this company is called dogfooding. What this means is that this group adopts the latest technologies being developed by Microsoft before they are commercially released worldwide. This helps Microsoft understand the product’s capabilities and challenges so that modifications can be done on time.
• Staggered hiring
• Talent crunch is forcing IT companies to adopt this technique. What this encompasses is targeting those students who either have not been placed in jobs during campus recruitment or those who leave their existing job offers.
• Nobel Prize for Chemistry
• Gerhard Ertl of Germany won this for study of chemical processes on solid surfaces. His research has advanced the understanding of why the ozone layer is thinning. It has laid the foundations of modern surface chemistry which has helped explain how fuel cells work, how catalysts operate in cars and even why iron rusts.
• Gold hallmarking to be made mandatory from January 2008.
• The implications of EGoM’s fixing of gas price for Reliance Industries Limited’s KG basin gas
• While the RIL’s method of market determined prices indicated a price of $4.33 per mmBtu, the EGoM that has gone into the issue has arrived at a price of $4.2 per mmBtu.
• The EGoM’s price is only the minimum price at which the government will compute its profit petroleum. If the actual price is over and above this, government will get a bigger share of the profit petroleum.
• GCMMF in talks to acquire up to 15% in Vanilco
• Kochi based Vanilco was promoted by a group of 2,500 farmers and is the country’s largest supplier of natural vanilla extracts.
• This year Vanilla crop is expected to be about 130 tonnes against 200 tonnes of last year. The decline is attributed to disease, heavy rains and neglect by farmers because of low prices.
• Remember how rewarding was Vanilla farming at one time?
• To know about the world’s largest Vanilla producer see this.
• Private luxury trains to be allowed?
• The Indian Railways seems to be going hammer and tongs with innovative ideas. It seems to be in a mood to allow private luxury trains. The Oberoi Group has approached it with a proposal to run a 7-star luxury train, a much superior service than the present Palace on Wheels.
• High on the success of allowing privatization of the container freight, which garnered it a cool Rs. 540 crore as licence fee from operators, Railways appears to be game for this proposal also.
• Involving farmers in forward markets
• The FMC is coming out with a concept called aggregators. An aggregator is any legal entity like an individual, an institution like a corporate or an NGO that will act as a front and put trade on behalf of the farmers in commodity exchanges. In this, the commodity needs to be deposited in a warehouse upfront unlike in futures market where short selling is permitted.
• ICICI Bank bullish on private banking
  
• Market data indicates that private wealth tops $7.6 trillion. Hence the bank’s eagerness to capture a share of servicing this wealth.
• The case for organized retail
• The idea that organized retail is no good for farmers and can render landless workers jobless, is fallacious argues an ET editorial. Take a look at the arguments:
• What it does is knock off the intermediaries from the traditional logistic chain who are an unnecessary drain and only pad up the price without adding any value. Once they are cut off, a greater share is left for the producer, the consumer and the retailer.
• In the case of manufactured products, the large retailers are able to wrest discounts from manufacturers that are shared with the consumers.
• The fears of the trading lobby that its future is threatened are unfounded as even the mature markets see both organized retail and the small trader coexist peacefully.
• It may be true that some traditional kirana shops may face the heat and may close down; but such losses would be more than made up by the opportunities created by organized retail, especially by way of employment in the logistic chain in the procurement process.
• What is civic sense?
• We have all heard this phrase and perhaps used it a number of times in our lives.
• It is respect for the needs of others in public spaces.
• Some quotable quotes regarding power (not the electrical kind; but of the political kind):
• “Power is the ultimate aphrodisiac” – Henry Kissinger
• “Let us have wine and women, mirth and laughter,/Sermons and soda water the day after” – Byron
• SBI unveils reverse mortgage products for senior citizens
• They will be available from October 12^th.
• SBI to merge all its associate banks within itself
• SBI is the major shareholder in all the seven associate banks.
• The merger of State Bank of Saurashtra is already going on. SBH is the next one. It hopes to merge all the remaining by March 2009. That is the time when banking sector will be thrown open to foreign competition.
• The seven associates banks’ total business – deposits and advances – totaled nearly Rs. 3,50,000 crores in 2006-07. SBI’s business is about Rs. 7,70,000 crore.
• What does a gamma ray observatory do in space?
• A new powerful satellite will constantly scan the sky for gamma rays – energy from power gamma ray bursters, which are some of the most mysterious objects in space. A consortium of 6 nations has built the satellite: France, Italy, Japan, Germany, Sweden and US. The satellite will scan the entire sky every 3 hours. It orbits the earth at an altitude of 530 km.
• The gamma ray tracker contains 16 towers of silicon and lead sheets.
• Incoming gamma ray strikes top of tower, converts into one electron and one positron.
• Electron and positron trigger sensors that determine precisely where in sky the ray came from.
• Lower stack of cesium-iodide sensors determines the ray’s energy.
• Satellite then transmits data to scientists on earth.