17.03.2008

• How should the 21^st century business be?
• As has been the practice with ET for the last so many years, today it invited a corporate honcho to lead its editorial team. That honcho is Neville Isdell, the CEO of Coca-Cola Company. Look at how he outlines three characteristics of a 21^st century company. I would recommend a read of his editorial piece. It is here.
• First, a business should help support the sustainability of the communities it serves.
• Second, businesses must collaborate in new ways with governments and civil society, as they in turn must work with business.
• Third, a successful business must be – in both perception and reality – a functioning part of every community in which it operates.
• Contrast this thinking with Milton Friedman’s quote: “There is one and only one social responsibility of business – to use its resources and engage in activities designed to increase is profits…”
• Barriers to electricity efficiency
• This is a good article written in today’s ET by a Civil Servant. He classifies the barriers as internal and external.
• External are those where efforts by us as a society or country is not sufficient to produce satisfactory results since vital support from outside is required.
• One such barrier is technology, which is costlier than the one presently being used.
• Another is the large investment required upfront.
• Internal barriers:
• Lack of knowledge and awareness among the stakeholders
• High initial costs
• Manufacturers or consumers not paying the economic price of electricity
• Lack of incentive to adopt efficient technology
• Costs of inefficiency not being borne by the producer or the service provider
• Extravagant use of electricity by the relatively well off class.
• How much is the Iraq war costing the US?
• According to Joseph Stiglitz, the famed Nobel Laureate it has so far cost about $3 trillion and is costing about $50 bn every three months.
• He says that for one-sixth of the cost of the war, the US could have put its social security system in a sound footing for more than fifty years, without cutting benefits or raising contributions.
• A bit about AEZs
• Agri-exort zones. These do not comprise a physically defined area as in the case of SEZs. An AEZ is an amalgamation of various schemes of the central and state governments for a particular commodity.
• What is green potash?
• Normally potash which is manufactured is a little harmful for the chloride-sensitive crops like tobacco, tomato, mustard and citrus fruits.
• So a Chennai based firm is coming up with green potash, whereby it will be directly harnessing SoP (sulphate of potash) from the sea bittern found in abundance in the Rann of Kutch.
• About organic farming
• The global retail market for organic food is estimated to be about $100 bn.
• Presently only around 5% of the farmers in our country are engaged in organic farming.
• Organic farming is a form of agriculture which excludes the use of synthetic fertilizers and pesticides, plant growth regulators, livestock feed additives, and genetically modified organisms. As far as possible, organic farmers rely on crop rotation, green manure, compost, biological pest control, and mechanical cultivation to maintain soil productivity and control pests. Organic farming is often contrasted with conventional, or mainstream, farming.
• What is the “Enclosure Movement”?
• It is widely considered as the event that signalled transition from pre-capitalist communities to capitalism. It occurred between 14^th and 17^th centuries in England.
• The movement is about fencing off common grazing and agricultural land into privately-owned pastures and farms.
• India reacts to OIC’s statement on J&K
• When the Secretary General of the OIC (Organisation of Islamic Countries) currently meeting in Dakar, Senegal commented that Kashmir is a pressing and burning political dispute, India retorted saying that the forum has no locus standi in matters concerning its internal affairs.
• Energy dreams
• In a very good article Brahma Chellany argues that India’s zeal for nuclear power needs to be tempered by the fact that more than half a century after the US Atomic Energy Agency claimed that nuclear energy would become ‘too cheap to meter,’ the nuclear-power industry everywhere subsists on generous state support and shows the slowest rate of advancement among all energy technologies.
• This does sow in us a doubt; doesn’t it?
• Australian Grand Prix
• It is won by Lewis Hamilton.
• The race is remarkable as it had seen only 7 cars finish the race.
• The Indian challenge from Force India team was not even present.