Indian Current Affairs: 13.11.2007

The IIP for September grew at a snail’s pace of 6.4%; its slowest in 11 months as rising interest rates pinched consumer demand and exports wilted under the weight of a strengthening rupee.

The government has decided to introduce number portability for cell phone users from the next year onwards. To start with this facility will be introduced in the four metros.

With a view to offset flaring oil effect on consumers and companies, the government is toying with the idea of reducing or bringing to zero the excise duty on petroleum goods.
At present the excise duty of petrol and diesel has two components – an ad-valorem duty of 6% and a specific duty of Rs. 13 for petrol and Rs. 3.25 for diesel.
The government seems to be toying with the idea of doing away with the ad-valorem component altogether and retaining the specific duty, albeit at a lower rate than existing at present.
The Centre’s total revenue earning in 2006-07 on petroleum is about Rs. 93,800 crore. Of this over 55% is from excise duty.

India and Russia seemed to convey that their friendship is far stronger than what is made out to be in the recent press reports. Both the countries have signed a total of 4 agreements including the vexed issue of utilization of the rupee debt fund totaling to a whopping Rs. 80 bn (8,000 crore) for Russian investments and trade.

Microsoft is coming out with this software. This enables communication and collaboration through emails, phone calls, instant messaging and video conference seamless and efficient.

The hopes that this agreement could be ready for signing during the ensuing East Asia Summit at Singapore are receding by the day. It is the ASEAN’s insistence on reducing the import duties on four products – palm oil, pepper, coffee and tea – to 30% on palm oil and 20% on the remaining three items, by India that is coming in the way. India has agreed to bring it down to 50% from the present levels.
East Asian Summit comprises of ASEAN+3 and India, Australia and New Zealand.
Look at the chronology of events and issues in this regard as noted by us in our blog:

The issue of spectrum allocation is generating lot of heat between industry circles and government on the one hand and between industry circles themselves on the other.
The law ministry suggested that a GoM be constituted to go into the whole gamut of issues that need to be sorted out. But the DoT is unwilling as it feels that this allocation is nothing but a simple procedural issue.
The case in favour of a GoM stems from the fact that earlier too there were two GoMs that have gone into telecom issues:

A GoM headed by Yashwant Sinha looked into the New Telecom Policy of 1999.
A second one headed by Jaswant Singh looked into the issue of allowing telecom players to offer mobile services without participating in the mobile entry process. This arose when Tata and Reliance wanted to make, what was perceived as a back-door entry to offer full mobility to their landline users.

These are cards which are backed by a deposit account in a bank. Usually the card holder is not credit-worthy or has no credit history. Hence the credit card issuers issue this type of card which has his deposit account as a security for the funds being used by the card holder. The deposit serves as a collateral.

A generation set of unit size 600 MW would weigh 1,500 tonnes while an 800 MW unit weighs about 2000 tonnes. Units of 500 MW size weigh less than 1000 tonnes. The dimension of the units also is larger by anywhere between 25 to 50%.
These weights and sizes can pose a problem in transporting this equipment to the place where it is to be erected. Hence the government is planning to introduce new norms that will make ministry of surface transport’s clearance mandatory before starting construction of large sized thermal power projects.
Though this can be perceived as one more bottle-neck, the ministry argues that the aim is to take appropriate advance action for augmenting the road infrastructure to facilitate transportation of heavy equipment.

These are being set up with a view to curb piracy and cross-border terrorism. They will undertake surveillance along the coastal belts of the country.

Fernando Gonzalez making waves!! He beat Roger Federer in Shanghai Masters Cup final.

Indian Current Affairs