08.05.2008

• On forex reserve deployment
• At present our forex reserves have touched $313 bn.
• Perhaps alarmed at the situation wherein even established names in banking the world over are taking a beating due to the financial crisis in the international markets, the RBI is moving away its deposits from the international private banks to foreign Central banks.
• India’s forex reserves are spread across a variety of currencies including the US dollar, euro, and yen. But the precise currency composition of reserves is generally not released by most countries including India, going by global practice. According to the RBI, this is because short-term variations in reserves held in different currencies by central banks are regarded as being market sensitive.
• Naxal hit states to get SAF power
• SAF stands for Special Action Force. This is created to specially counter the Naxal menace across the country. It is modelled on the highly successful Grey-Hounds of Andhra Pradesh. Its basic feature is that it will have a more stronger officer force.
• A SAF battalion will have about the same strength of a CRPF battalion. But the former will operate in smaller units or teams of 30 personnel each, unlike CRPF where a company comprises 100 personnel. In addition the officer to non-officer ration will be very high in case of SAF.
• SAF will comprise of about 10,000 personnel and will be headed by an IG level officer.
• Cineplexes to show sports events
• In a bid to de-risk their business model, multiplex owners are turning to sports to generate an alternate source of revenues. While PVR Cinemas would test-pilot the screening of the entire F1 series and Euro 2008, others like Adlabs and Inox are also keen on screening sports content like the Indian Premier League (IPL) to sustain occupancies.
• With real estate prices going on an overdrive and movie producers asking for higher margins, sports could emerge as an interesting alternative.
• The debate about doctors endorsing commercial products
• In the last couple of days, we noted something about doctors’ association, the IMA deciding to allow doctors to endorse the products of PepsiCo. It was bound to raise a debate and the debate did ensue.
• Take a look at the full debate here. It is worth our attention and a potential question in interview, mains or General Essay.
• A new way to advertise -- Flogos
• A special-effects entrepreneur from Alabama has come up with a way to fill the sky with foamy clouds as big as 4 feet across and shaped like corporate logos — Flogos, as he calls them.
• Francisco Guerra, who’s also a former magician, developed a machine that produces tiny bubbles filled with air and a little helium, forms the foam into shapes and pumps them into the sky. The Walt Disney Company will use one of the machines next month to send clouds shaped like Mickey Mouse heads into the air at Walt Disney World in Orlando, Florida, Guerra said.
• Guerra’s company is working on a version that will spit out 6-foot clouds. The foam is environmentally safe because it’s mostly water, air and a soapy agent that creates bubbles, Guerra says. Flogos pop just like bubbles and disappear when they hit a tree or building, sometimes leaving a powdery residue that blows away.
• A single Flogo can travel as far as 30 miles and as high as 20,000 feet, Guerra says, and a machine can produce one every 15 seconds. Guerra says he could put a half-dozen machines together and fill the sky with almost any shape a company orders. Imagine a line of drifting Flogos shaped like the Honda logo leading to a car dealership and you get the idea.
• Agni III test fired successfully
• Though we keep noting about these missile tests frequently, we lose nothing by doing a repeat. It is important.
• Agni-III ballistic missile, which is capable of striking targets 3,500 km away, was successfully test fired from the Wheeler Island, off the Orissa coast.
• The launch propelled India into a select group of countries such as Russia, the U.S., France and China with the intermediate-range ballistic missile capability.
• This is the third flight of Agni-III. The earlier ones took place on July 9, 2006 and April 12, 2007. The April 2007 flight was successful. Designed and developed by the Advanced Systems Laboratory, Hyderabad, it is 17 metres tall and weighs 50 tonnes. It can carry payloads up to 1.5 tonnes.
• Rememer the debate we had about the Director General of the DRDO sometime back in our blog? Today's Hindu reported these names:
• Mr. Natarajan is the Director-General of DRDO.
• V.K. Saraswat is the Chief Controller, R and D (Missiles and Strategic Systems), DRDO.