26.04.2008

• World IP day
• Today is World IP day. WIPO has designated 2008 as the year for “celebrating innovation and promoting respect for IP.”
• IP: Intellectual Property.
• Sugar being decontrolled?
• The government may decontrol sugar in one stroke. Scrapping all curbs in one go rather than in phases (the earlier plan) will allow Indian sugar mills compete more efficiently from the very next season. The liberalisation would mean mills can sell sugar freely in the market, no cane area reservations and a direct linkage between the price of cane and sugar. The matter is now under consideration of the prime minister.
• An expert group that is looking into the issue is due to submit its report in the next few months. Therefore, a view on the entire gamut of reforms would be taken simultaneously.
• Have any ideas on this? Is it being thought about at the right time? I mean when we are faced with inflation both on the domestic and global fronts; could it be the right time to talk of decontrol? Let’s wait and watch the developments.
• Know anything about Microsoft’s profits?
• For Q1 of this year (i.e., Jan to March 2008), it has earned a net profit of $4.39 bn!
• Compare this with our Indian IT industry’s total revenue. One estimate puts the total revenue of our IT industry at $47.8 bn. Where do we stand? M$ earns a profit of a cool 10% of our annual revenues from the industry in just one quarter! Extrapolate it and you have a net profit figure which is nearly half our total IT industry’s revenues! Mind boggling, isn’t it?
• Can you reel out any of the available alternatives for bio-fuel?
• Cellulosic ethanol: This is produced from waste wood or weeds such as switch grass, by either enzymes or thermo-chemical reactions breaking down the cellulose and turning it into sugar to be converted into ethanol.
• BTL (Biomass to liquid): This technology produces biodiesel from wood biomass using the Fisher Tropsch process. The Fischer-Tropsch process is a catalyzed chemical reaction in which carbon monoxide and hydrogen are converted into liquid hydrocarbons of various forms. Typical catalysts used are based on iron and cobalt.
• Bio-butanol: This is an alternative to ethanol.
• GM corn: This is produced using an enzyme from the stomach of a cow. This should allow corn to be processed into ethanol without the use of synthetic chemicals.
• Ligno-cellulose: Direct conversion of this into a petrol-like fuel. The process involves rapid heating of cellulose in the presence of catalysts and then cooling it to create many of the components of petrol, including toluene and naphthalene.
• Algae: Conversion of this into ethanol and hydrogen gas has been researched upon. Algae with an enzyme called hydrogenase create small amounts of hydrogen.
• Emerging food crisis and its warnings
• Anger over high food and fuel costs in recent months has sparked protests in several countries. In Haiti, the poorest country in the Americas, protests have brought down the government and killed six, while in Cameroon at least 24 have died in protests linked partly to rising living costs.
• Humans escaped extinction?
• Humans might have had a brush with extinction some 70,000 years ago. So says a study.
• Spencer Wells is director of the Genographic Project, launched in 2005 to study anthropology using genetics.
• Previous studies using mitochondrial DNA — which is passed down through mothers — have traced modern humans to a single ‘mitochondrial Eve’, who lived in Africa about 200,000 years ago.
• The migration of humans out of Africa to populate the rest of the world appears to have begun about 60,000 years ago, but little has been known about humans between Eve and that dispersal.
• What could be reasons for RBI’s love for an SWF?
• SWF: Sovereign Wealth Fund.
• One is that forex reserves are now over $300 bn and with the return on US treasury bills falling steadily, the RBI is, perhaps more willing to look at alternative avenues of investment to improve earnings from forex reserves.
• Secondly, rising domestic interest rates widen the gap between interest paid on market stabilization scheme (MSS) bonds and earnings on forex assets.
• The IMF estimates that SWFs will rise from $2 to 3 trillion today to about $6 to 10 trillion within 5 years. China, Kuwait, Norway, Russia, Saudi Arabia, Singapore and the UAE are likely to be the big players with SWFs.
• Is there a need for a world agriculture bank?
• From a very interesting article on the subject, I give below some excerpts which will make us ponder over the subject for some time.
• What does a country which has a foreign currency problem emanating from a fundamental balance of payments disequilibrium do? It goes to the IMF for assistance. What are the options for a country when it needs money for a development project? It goes to the World Bank, IDA or ADB for aid. What can a country which has a physical food problem do? It cannot look beyond probably imports which have their own limitations of being uncertain, besides carrying the ubiquitous threat of higher inflation being transmitted.
• Presently there is no way out for a country which has a shortage of food and cannot supplement the same with imports. The problem is more acute when the product is rare, like pulses which are grown by a few countries. This situation should sow the seeds of the idea of establishing a world agricultural bank (WAB) which can respond appropriately in times of crisis.
• The WAB should be established by member countries which will have to contribute both equity capital as well as grains/oilseeds to the Bank. The Bank could choose the products that it would like to stock and can include those which normally are subject to production volatility. This would form a corpus which can be used to assist member countries in times of distress. The Bank on its part would be in the business of procuring products from the market at all times to build a buffer and would also be tapping all countries for surpluses. The Bank could also carry out its own farming activity by either procuring land or leasing the same in different countries and growing the deficit crops such as corn, wheat, oilseeds, etc, so as to augment its own supplies.
• Some solid ideas know? The article is from Madan Sabnavis who is the Chief Economist from NCDEX. Have ideas on the subject?
• Why should we be worried about silicon shortage?
• India must move quickly to create large-scale capacities for solar grade silicon, the main constituent of solar cells, to realise its renewable energy plans and combat power shortage, according to industry experts.
• The country is now short of power by 25,000 mw. Worried over the environmental impact of fossil fuel-fired power plans, many countries have started hiking their solar power generation capacity.
• India should take this opportunity to access technology and set up four to five poly silicon plants with an annual capacity of about 3,000 tonne, which could help generate 1000 to 1200 mw solar power every year, according to experts.
• International Energy Foundation experts have indicated that by 2050, a sizeable chunk of power generation would be accounted for by nuclear and renewable energy sources, specially solar energy.
• Demand for solar energy is increasing at the rate of 30% annually around the globe and about 50-60% for grid connected solar power. Japan, Germany and the US have started programmes to install solar rooftops in a big way.