Indian Current Affairs: 23.04.2008

It has revised the norms for merger between telecom companies within a circle. Merger conditions have been made stringent in four areas – pre-approval by DoT is required for merger; threshold market share of merged entity beyond which a merger will be prohibited has been lowered from 67% to 40%; a licensee must complete three years of operations before it can contemplate merger; and finally, the merged entity will have to pay extra for spectrum.

He will visit India on April 29 on his way to Sri Lanka. He will hold talks with prime minister Manmohan Singh on an array of issues including the nuclear stand off. Though India doesn’t want another nuclear neighbour, it supports Iran’s right to peaceful uses of nuclear energy. India is also likely to reiterate its position that the continuing nuclear stand off should be resolved through diplomatic means.
It would be interesting to know that India has announced its intention of joining the TAP (Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan) gas pipeline project this week. The negotiations on the IPI (Iran-Pakistan-India) gas pipeline are dead-locked. US is opposed to this IPI pipeline and is reported as pressuring India to move away from it. While India itself is reportedly facing stand-off in its negotiations with Iran on pricing issue and Pakistan on transit fee issue.
TAP pipeline is a 1680 km pipeline that will transport 100 mn cubic meters of gas from Duletabad gas field, of which India’s share is likely to be 60 mmscmd.

China, Mexico, South Africa, Brazil and India are meeting in Beijing ahead of the G-8 summit in Japan in July.

It is headed by RC Bhargava. It was appointed to review the functioning of the IIMs.
It has asked in its interim report to defer any increase in fee till the final report is submitted.
You might have noticed that recently all the IIMs have announced a hefty increase in their tuition fees. It has suggested that the fee structure should be maintained at Rs. 3 lakh or below.

The industry is 76 years old. It is second only to Bollywood. (BTW Tollywood doesn’t stand for Tamil movie industry; it stands for Telugu film industry).
The industry shifted its base from Kolkata to Rajahmundry in 1936 and then to Chennai. It established its presence in Hyderabad in 1990s.
It makes about 150+ movies a year.

Dark pools: anonymous off-exchange stock trading venues where traders can match large orders while concealing price and volume. By allowing traders to hide their cards, the pools limit the impact on stock prices before an order is complete, reducing costs for the trader.
Gaming: It is the industry term for the way traders manipulate prices in the dark pools by finding an information leak other cannot access.
Pinging: it is perhaps the most common technique used for gaming. While pinging, a trader submits a small order to see if someone else in the pool is willing to take the other side of the trade.
Rainmaker: An employee of a brokerage firm who brings a large amount of wealthy individuals or corporations to the brokerage firm's client base.

This is one company without watching which, our knowledge about Indian economy would never be complete.
You know its turnover last year? Rs. 1.39 lakh crores. How many state governments in India this much of budget receipts in a year?
Its GRM (Gross Refining Margin) is about $15/bbl. It is perhaps the highest in the world. This is achieved by it because its strategy is to source heavy and sour crude oil, which tend to be less pricey and require complex refining.

Indian Current Affairs