12.03.2008

• Frozen demat accounts to lose shares on PAN (Permanent Account Number) default
• Government’s tightening of the PAN requirement for investors has resulted in 20 lakhs of demat accounts remaining inoperative out of a total of 77.25 lakh accounts.
• Aggregate value of securities in frozen demat accounts: Over Rs 1 lakh cr
• After the IPO price manipulation scam of 2006, SEBI made it mandatory for depository participants, and later investors, to quote PAN for operating demat accounts
• Failure to comply with this directive could be because some accounts were benami or illegal
• The securities in frozen accounts are mainly shares bought by investors from the primary or secondary market
• Meghalaya government formation
• The Governor of the state has asked the Congress party led by DD Lapang to form the government even though the MPA (Meghalaya Progressive Alliance) led by the NCP has paraded 31 of the 59 MLAs before the Governor.
• Today’s development is that the Supreme Court has refused to intervene in the matter as the Governor has announced 20^th March as the date for floor test.
• Eliot Spitzer’s downfall
• Remember this famous personality?
• Spitzer, a 48-year-old father of three teenage girls, was elected with a historic margin of victory, and took office as Governor of New York state on January 1, 2007. He shot into prominence for his success in stamping out corruption in high places as New York's Attorney General.
• He is now facing a prostitution scandal. Spitzer was the initial target of the investigation and was tracked using court-ordered wiretaps that appear to have recorded him arranging for a prostitute to meet him at a Washington hotel in mid-February. Spitzer allegedly paid for the call girl to take a train from New York to Washington — a move that opened the transaction up to federal prosecution because she crossed state lines.
• Spitzer apologised to his family and the public, but did not directly acknowledge any involvement with the prostitute.
• Spitzer’s cases as attorney general included a few criminal prosecutions of prostitution rings and tourism involving prostitutes. He also uncovered crooked practices and self-dealing in the stock brokerage and insurance industries and in corporate board rooms; he went after former New York Stock Exchange chairman Richard Grasso over his $187.5 million compensation package.
• Our Parliamentary panel wants FBI like powers to the CBI
• It recommended that the CBI be made into an ‘enforcement agency’ and be granted power to investigate and prosecute through a separate statute called the CBI Investigation Act.
• Export targets may not be met
• Our country may not be able to achieve the export target of $160 bn this fiscal. It is widely expected that our exports figure may touch a level of $152 bn to $155 bn.
• New MSS ceilings
• Remember the Market Stabilization Scheme?
• The MSS scheme, which was launched in April 2004, entails the issue of treasury bills and dated securities to absorb excess liquidity arising from significant foreign exchange inflows. The issuance of MSS bonds drain out liquidity from the system and stems Rupee appreciation.
• The cap for market stabilisation bonds for 2008-09 at Rs 2.5 lakh crore is significantly higher than the originally budgeted amount of less than Rs 1 lakh crore for 2007-08.
• The provision for interest payments on account of these bonds has gone up to Rs 13,958 crore as against Rs 8,351 crore in the revised estimates (RE) for the current fiscal. The originally budgeted amount for such interest payments in 2007-08 was Rs 3,700 crore. The interest payments have been calculated with an estimated 8% rate for such bonds.
• The receipts from borrowings under MSS are being held as cash balance in a separate and identifiable account with RBI. These receipts are not available to meet any expenditure of the government, other than repayment of treasury bills or dated securities issued under MSS.
• While MSS is a part of the total public debt, the interest payment is accounted for in the budget. The outstandings under the MSS amounted to Rs 1,61,058 crore as on January 18, 2008. There has been a steady increase in MSS outstandings as reflected in the significant build up of liquidity overhang since August 2007.
• India-ASEAN FTA talks in the last lap
• The long drawn negotiations on this seem to have reached a decisive stage. Senior officials from both the sides are meeting in Cambodia later this week to give finishing touches to the deal.
• Know anything about nihilism?
• A definition from Wikipedia:
• Nihilism (from the Latin nihil, nothing) is a philosophical position which argues that Being, especially past and current human existence, is without objective meaning, purpose, comprehensible truth, or essential value. Nihilists generally assert some or all of the following:

• there is no reasonable proof of the existence of a higher ruler or creator,
• a "true morality" does not exist, and
• objective secular ethics are impossible; therefore, life has, in a sense, no truth, and no action is objectively preferable to any other.