Indian Current Affairs: 08.06.2008

THE government may change the base year for compiling wholesale price index (WPI) from the current 1993-94 to 2004-05. The department of industrial policy and promotion (DIPP) may roll it out in six months. The updating of the base year is believed to be the first step for introducing services sectors such as tourism, banking, IT services and retail in calculating weekly inflation numbers. This, in turn, will allow the government to manipulate rising inflation figures by introducing changes in the weightage mechanism too.
The government has also made attempts to create a producers’ price index where ex-factory prices would be taken into account.

Dubai appears to offer a freehold property scheme, allowing foreigners to own property for life, with the right to sell, lease or rent at their will and also offering tax benefits to overseas investors. Our own real estate market seems to be going through some tough times of late. Investors, who seem to have entered our country by the droves for investing in real estate seem to be preferring other shores.
BTW remember the other famous Russian term perestroika? What do these terms stand for?

Perestroika stands for economic restructuring.
Glasnost is the policy of maximal publicity, openness, and transparency in the activities of all government institutions in the Soviet Union, together with freedom of information.

A GROUP of businessmen and professional auto racers has come together to establish India’s first privately-run motorsports club in the country’s technology capital.
Called Red Rooster Racing (RRR), the club has announced teams in a range of disciplines, including car-racing, motorcycling and cycling with the aim of nurturing them into world-class outfits.

India and Pakistan are setting up on either side of the LoC on almost same river hydro power projects. This gives an interesting spin to the water-sharing Indus Water Treaty. NHPC is implementing 330-mw Kishanganga project on the River Kishanganga (called Neelum on other side of the LoC) and WAPDA has just started work on 969-mw Neelum Jhelum Hydro Electric Project.
Both sides believe that water sharing Indus Water Treaty would uphold the genuineness of the project that is completed early. And this particular clause has made both sides to speed up their projects regardless of the fact that ultimately one of them would be unviable.
Therefore, NHPC (National Hydroelectric Power Corporation) will have to work faster on the Kishanganga power project in wake of Islamabad's efforts to complete Neelam-Jhelum project on the other side of the LoC by 2015.

Botox is the short and popular name for botulinum toxin. Botox is now commonly used as an alternative to plastic surgery -- for the treatment of frown lines, smoothing out horizontal lines in the forehead, crow’s feet, mouth frown, dimpled chins and lines on the neck, shaping the jaw and sides of the face and to balance asymmetrical features (due to injury or surgery).
Botox injections are also safe and provide local relief of low back pain without systemic side effects. The shots have also helped reduce pain among people with migraine and tension headaches.
A recent development has opened newer possibilities in the medical field. Doctors say the case in point — sweating problem — can be effectively treated with the use of Botox as the drug also blocks sweat glands and completely stops sweating in the area where it is placed with the help of insulin needles. Botox is effective in treating ‘hyperhidrosis’ — a severe sweating problem that heightens discomfort during hot summer days. Worse still are for those with axillary hyperhidrosis, which generally refers to the type of excessive sweating that occurs in the underarm area.
A one 20-minute injection session can stop sweating for 6 to 12 months — so most people can get satisfactory relief with one or two Botox sessions each year.
And the final and most important factor? Botox costs Rs 25,000-35,000 per session. Are you ready for a shot?

NEARLY two weeks after its historic landing, the US Mars probe Phoenix has scooped up its first sample of Martian soil and begun analysing it for water and organic compounds.
The 200-milliliter (12 cubic inches) of Martian earth is topped by a white crust that has set Nasa scientists debating whether it is ice or salt deposits from evaporated water. The sample soil now lies inside the scoop, poised over an instrument called the Thermal and Evolved-Gas Analyser, or TEGA, where it will be dumped and sealed in for several days of analysis.
Water was first detected on the Martian north pole by the US Odyssey probe in 2002. It sparked the Phoenix mission.
Take a look at this picture.

Humans hunting the docile creatures for research, food and blubber left the population unsustainable, say biologists who warn that Hawaiian and Mediterranean monk seals could be the next to go.
The last confirmed sighting of a Caribbean monk seal was in 1952 between Jamaica and Mexico’s Yucatan Peninsula.

Ana Ivanovich won the French Open women’s championship by beating Dinara Safina in straight sets.
She is the first Serbian to have won a grand slam title.
With this win, she became World No. 1 in rankings.
This is how you will also look like when you succeed in Civils. Picture this and work for it. Success shall be yours.

I have developed a ‘thing’ for football of late. (I started practising dribbling during my morning exercises.) Perhaps it is its ability to give us concentration that made me naturally gravitate toward it.

Look at this pic of Michael Ballack of Germany, and my hunch appears to be proving right. Do you see how pointed or strong is the concentration?
Whether you are a stock trader or a person targeting something, this is what is very badly needed; know?

Indian Current Affairs