30.11.2007

• OLPC programme
• One Laptop Per Child project is the brainchild of MIT professor Nicholas Negroponte.
• The project envisages supply of laptops for less than $100 to each school going child in developing countries. Pricing is currently set to start at US$188 and the goal is to reach the $100 mark in 2008.
• Called the XO it is about the size of a textbook and lighter than a lunchbox. It easily assumes several configurations: standard laptop use, e-book reading and gaming.
• It can be solar or foot powered. It will come with at least two of three options: a crank, a pedal, or a pull-cord.
• It has no internal hard disk, has only two internal cables. Creates its own mesh network out of the box, as it is a full-time wireless router. Its life expectancy is about 5 years.
• But most of the sales so far have been in developed countries. Schools in developing countries still lack basic amenities like building, blackboards and benches. People connected with the education sector in developing countries (especially the poorer ones in Africa) are highly skeptical about its success.
• You can know more about it on Wikipedia here.
• Websites wary of search engines
• Ever heard of a file called the robots.txt? It is used by web sites to control access by search engines to the hosted content. Though not an official standard, it has become an industry standard by practice since 1994, following concerns that some crawlers were taxing web sites by visiting them repeatedly.
• Now the proposal is to provide extra commands to this text file which could limit how long a search engine can retain copies of content in their indexes, or tell the crawler not to follow any of the links that appear within a web page.
• Geek? With technology enthusiasts like me lurching around the world, you have no choice but to suffer our rantings. Please bear with me. A geek yourself? Then read on more about it here.
• What is the equivalent of ‘subprime’ category of borrowers in India?
• It is called the STPL – Small Ticket Personal Loans.
• Banks, especially the private sector ones have been aggressive in giving such loans. But because of the uproar made about the methods and processes of recovery being adopted by some of the over-enthusiastic recovery agents, banks have developed cold feet now and are going slow on these loans.
• This is sure to drive the borrowers into the hands of the money lenders again.
• SPV (Special Purpose Vehicle) for coal acquisition
• Remember what we noted earlier about this?
• Coal Ventures International, is being setup by PSUs – NTPC, SAIL, RINL, NMDC and CIL.
• This would scout for coal deals globally by pursuing an aggressive merger and acquisition strategy.
• The Cabinet has cleared the proposal for setting up this entity. It would have a war chest of Rs. 10,000 crores.
• It will have greater powers for making investments. As against navaratna companies’ limit of Rs. 1000 crores, this entity is given the power to invest upto Rs. 1500 crores at the board level itself.
• About MCPs!!
• Male chauvinist pigs? No just kidding. I am talking about Mobile Command Posts. These are the high-tech heavy-duty trucks equipped with GPS-based satellite navigation system, satellite phones, TV cameras and monitors to aid safety measures at the airports.
• These are being deployed at all the 66 airports to tackle aviation emergencies.
• Indo-ASEAN FTA talks
• We have been fed on reports about how India has been very reasonable in accommodating the concerns of ASEAN nations in the FTA talks. But take a look at today’s article by MK Venu. It argues for a more liberal approach. Read it here.
• It argues that supply of food items in general will need to be enhanced substantially over the next decade as more and more Indians will rise above the poverty line. India will need to end up producing more and may be importing even more, to provide food security. Hence haggling over bound rates, in these talks may not be making sense; when we can actually appear more magnanimous and strike deals with the ASEAN nations.
• Actual weighted average duties on imported food items is less than 35% but bindings are over 100%.
• The Annapolis conference
• We have covered in detail once about the Palestine issue. This is one more development that will eventually make it into our notings as one more sentence over a period of time.
• The US has organized a Mid-East peace conference in Annapolis in USA. The joint understanding of all the participants was that Israeli and Palestinian governments must negotiate a peace treaty by the end of 2008.
• Peter Mandelson praises India’s role in world economy!!
• In an article arguing for a EU-India FTA, the EU Trade Commissioner has eulogized Indian economic achievement. Look at the substance of his averments:
• It is a mark of India’s growing weight in the world, alongside China, that a healthy economy will be a key artery in a healthy global economy.
• India gets a 10^th of the FDI that flows to China. Further improving the investment climate can only open the tap wider.
• Increasingly, India’s growing economy will be one of the world economy’s important sources of demand. An EU-India FTA can help strengthen that demand.
• NREG beneficiaries to have smart cards by March
• This flagship programme of the government will soon receive a technological facelift to plug some loopholes noticed in its implementation.
• The programme aims to enhance livelihood security of people in rural areas by guaranteeing 100 days of wage employment in a financial year to a rural household, whose members volunteer to do unskilled manual labour.
• Starting with 200 districts across the country in phase I in 2006-07, it was expanded to cover 130 districts in phase II in 2007-08 and from April, 2008 it is slated to cover the whole of rural India.
• When extended to the whole of the country, it is expected to require about Rs. 1,50,000 crore per annum as funding.