02.06.2008

• ECB norms relaxed
• The limit on overseas borrowing for rupee expenditure from $20 million to $50 million ($100 million for infrastructure)
• A 50 basis point higher interest ceiling of 200 basis points over Libor
• FII investment limit in corporate bonds increased ($3 billion from $1.5 billion) and government securities ($5 billion from $3.2 billion)
• A bit about the Euro
• IT IS a little over 10 years to the day EU leaders decided to forge a monetary union and exactly a decade to the formation of the European Central Bank on June 1, 1998.
• Snippets from an interesting article by Alok Sheel
• THE first Indian Census was done in 1871.
• China and India accounted for about half of global income right up to the early nineteenth century. In the light of this it would have been logical for an industrial revolution to have occured in these countries. But it didn't. Why?
• Several non-economic factors such as Max Weber’s ‘Protestant ethic’ and the European Enlightenment are responsible.
• Secondly, and most importantly, the revolution in the productivity of human labour occurred where the relative factor advantage lay in non-human capital. In China and India, where labour was abundant,the response to rising demand was to deploy more cheap labour to raise unit area (as opposed to per capita) output, thereby locking people into low productivity tasks.
• A comparative look at the agricultural scene in India, US and China:
• Although just a third of the geographical size of the United States, India has roughly the same cropped area. This is one area where India has a decisive comparative advantage over China, which is much bigger but has only about half the cropped area as India.
• What could be done to make India an agricultural super power?
• Once investment, subsidy, price, labour and market distortions are addressed, and agricultural trade and markets, including the market for land, opened up, India can emerge as a new agricultural superpower through substantial productivity gains. Major productivity gains in the future could flow from technological advances such as genetically modified seeds, state of the art water (aquifer) management and new ICT based marketing infrastructure that integrates markets, makes price discovery more efficient and reduces parasitic intermediaries between the cultivator and the market.
• In the context of WTO talks, what is meant by our interests being offensive or defensive?
• Since our interests in agriculture are defensive (we are trying to ensure through the sensitive products and special safeguard mechanism that Indian agriculture does not face price pressures) and interests in services offensive (we are trying to gain market access).
• Who is the CEO of the Power Exchange of India that is set up recently>
• Rupa Devi Singh
• One ingenuine method of bringing in money stashed away by you into the country without attracting regulatory glare
• In this very good article this is explained very well. But RBI has put a spanner in the works by asking banks to check the entities investing into the country. Look at how this works here.
• For those of you who don't have the patience/time/inclination, this graphic will do.
• Times of India group acquires Virgin Radio (UK) for 53.2 mn pounds
• UK media circles are keenly watching to see what new ideas this heavyweight entry will bring to the 35-year-old, highly competitive, local audio market.