07.12.2007

• India’s interceptor missile test successful
• India test fired an advanced anti-ballistic interceptor missile successfully.
• The target surface to surface missile (a Prithvi missile) was fired first. Then at a little under 3 minutes an interceptor – Advanced Air Defense (AAD) missile – was launched to destroy it at an altitude of 15 km in mid air. At these altitudes it is called an endo-atmospheric intercept.
• India successfully tested an exo-atmospheric interceptor missile PAD-01 in November 2006. It destroyed an incoming missile at an altitude of 50 km.
• Andhra Pradesh aims to be the first WiMAX connected state
• It plans to invest around Rs. 200 crore over the next one to two years to ensure vertical and horizontal connectivity in the state departments.
• WiMax is a long-range system, covering many kilometers that typically uses licensed spectrum to deliver a point to point connection to the Internet from an ISP to an end user.
• Wi-Fi is a shorter range system that uses unlicensed spectrum to provide access to a network, typically covering only the network operator’s own property.
• Coke’s CEO
• Neville Isdell is set to hand over charge to Muhtar Kent on July 1, 2008. Kent is currently the COO of the company.
• More subprime figures
• More than 30% of borrowers with subprime adjustable rate mortgages are behind on their payments before their loans reset higher, according to estimates from analysts. It is projected that about 775,000 homes with $143 bn of mortgage debt will go into foreclosure in the next two years.
• Typically a foreclosure is seen as bringing the neighbourhood prices down by about 20%.
• Backtesting
• As new mutual funds don’t have any past performance to show for their potential investors, they resort to this. Under this they calculate and show what their results would have been had they been around longer.
• Number of tax payers on the rise in India
• It is a good sign. Tax compliance in the country is going up. The number of tax payers has increased from 301.78 lakhs (2003-04) to 319.26 lakhs in 2006-07.
• The number of people filing IT returns has increased from 234.25 lakhs to 275.44 lakhs during the same period.
• Some factors that the FM attributes to this rise are:
• TDS administration, refund bankers, tax return preparers scheme, large tax payers unit, E-filing of taxes and business process reengineering.
• Solutions to our health care problems
• Just yesterday we noted something on the subject. Some more wisdom that comes from today’s ET editorial:
• Our policy has got fixated unduly on drugs, which account for only about 15% of total healthcare costs, to the exclusion of spiraling costs of healthcare services, diagnostics and in-hospital treatment.
• What is needed more urgently is a functioning public health care system, which can be leveraged for large-scale drug purchases by government at lower prices, provision of public health insurance and some checks on private healthcare providers. This would ensure that healthcare, and not just medicines, becomes affordable.
• Jaywalkers
• This is a slang used to mean pedestrians who are rather cavalier about traffic rules, but basically means a dull, stupid person, or one who is unsophisticated, inferior or poor.
• What is wrong with our agricultural marketing system?
• We have been noting from time to time that the APMC Acts of the States need to be done away with or reformed. Today an excellent article from Pravesh Sharma in ET details about the ills of our agricultural marketing system. Read it in full here. But some excerpts for our record:
• The present day mandis (agricultural markets) are a legacy of the 1960’s and the era of perpetual shortages. While it is possible for the manufacturer of industrial goods and services to sell a product anywhere in the country, the farmer is forced to offer his produce to a mandi within a fixed geographical area, usually no larger than a district. The competition in the mandi is tightly controlled by a select group of traders. Price discovery is opaque and the infrastructure barely adequate.
• Once elected, a market committee (comprising of traders and farmers) performs a unique 3-in-1 role: it is at the same time a licensing authority, the regulator and a player in the market. Its tenure is 5 years.
• The balance of power is always in favour of the traders in these committees. This is achieved by limiting the number of market players and exercising bizarre controls over the movement of agricultural commodities from the command area of the mandi. The fee levied by these bodies is actually a tax on farmers, since traders factor this in as a transaction cost to be passed on to the farmer in the form of lower prices.
• It results in lower prices for the farmer, an unduly long chain of intermediaries with concomitant cost escalation and ultimately higher consumer prices of agricultural goods. While the primary producer of agricultural goods in Western Europe and North America usually receives 50% of the supermarket shelf price of a commodity, the average realization of farmer in India ranges from 15 to 20% of the consumer price.
• Malaysian Indians problem
• We have covered about this briefly on 01.12.2007. Get a good grip on the issue by reading today’s op-ed in The Hindu.
• The demonstrators were protesting at the failure of colonial Britain, at the time of Malaysian independence, to protect the rights of ethnic Indians brought in as indentured labourers. Organised under the umbrella of the Hindraf they were trying to link their marginalization in Malaysia to that failure.
• The agitation is against what it feels is the unofficial policy of temple demolition and the steady introduction of Sharia based law. The desecration of Hindu temples began in 1978. Hindraf alleges that it is going on without any hindrance.
• Year of Russia
• It is about to be organized in India with about 150 events in 2008.
• The organizing committee has approved its logo – a white stork pictured with the colour of the flags of the two countries in the background.