26.12.2007

• Mobile STD calls to become cheaper?
• The 225 mn cellular users of the country can perhaps expect 5 to 10% reduction in usage charges. This is because the ADC (Access Deficit Charge) regime is likely to go w.e.f. April 1, 2008.
• You might remember that the ADC is used basically to fund state-owned BSNL’s operations in rural India.
• Telecom regulator TRAI has already decided that ADC cannot continue in perpetuity as the idea behind the levy was to have it only for a limited period, mainly to give time to incumbent operators to rebalance their tariff during the transition. The regulator also said if the DoT feels that BSNL requires further financial support for its unviable rural landline services after March, 2008, the PSU can be funded from the USOF (Universal Service Obligation Fee).
• All the telecom companies pay 5% of their total revenues towards the USOF. This fund has now become a sizable Rs. 10,000 corpus. DoT is contemplating using this substantial fund towards encouraging R&D and increasing the tele-density in the country. At present the country’s tele-density stands at about 22%. Rural tele-density is still under the 10% mark.
• Look at the details of the slashed ADC charges in March, 2007 here.
• Hand-in-Hand 2007
• This is the code name given to the first ever Indo-Chinese military exercise on anti-terrorism conducted recently at Kunming in China.
• TVS comes out with ABS for two wheelers
• In a first of its kind in the world, TVS is set to launch Anti-lock Braking System in two wheelers.
• ABS is a high-tech feature that helps avoid skidding of vehicles and allows sure stopping on wet and slippery roads. It reduces the chances of crashing, the severity of the impact by instantly locking the multiple wheels of the vehicle at a time.
• This technology is already there in four wheelers.
• Country’s metros and growth of financial services
• According to the 2001 census, there are 35 cities that are classified as metros in India and they have a population of 108 million.
• The country’s top 6 metros account for only 10.5% of population but consumed 61% of bank credit in 2006-07 against 55% in 1999. They are responsible for 46% of the total bank deposits – a rise of 10% over the corresponding figure of 35.6% in 1999.
• Game theory and spectrum auctions
• Remember our noting about the 2005 Nobel laureate Robert Aumann? He was awarded the prize for his contribution to game theory. A look at the basics of game theory.
• It had been first launched by John Von Neumann and Oskar Morgenstern, who had argued that this theory would help economists find a way to investigate how each economic player’s actions influence those of others. Though their work was basically confined to two player ‘zero-sum’ games, it was John Forbes Nash who extended the concept to any finite game (not just zero sum games) and proved that games with more than two players must have at least one strategic equilibrium, the Nash equilibrium.
• It was this that was widely used in the 1994 spectrum auctions in US. The FCC (Federal Communications Commission) turned to the economists to understand the economic principles of auction and in designing a good auction for auctioning spectrum. In the year 2001 alone, more than $100 bn was realized by way of spectrum auctions all over the world by governments.
• An interesting tidbit about Russia’s “Winter Palace and Hermitage”
• This is the world’s largest art gallery and houses more than 30 lakh art pieces. If you want to see all these at a stretch, you will have to walk a total of 24 kms!!!