04.07.2008

• Closing bells on GoAir?
• The Wadia family promoted airline is, perhaps, on the brink of extinction. Troubled by the steep rise in the ATF prices, the airline has reportedly halved its flights and has also started laying off employees.
• Wasn’t it just a year ago that everything looked so rosy for the aviation sector?
• Let’s hope that somehow the airline survives this worst phase and Indians continue to have this choice on their menu of options while flying.
• Look at some expert comments (from today’s op-ed) on the aviation sector in India:
• India is not the right environment for the low-fare model. Airlines have few opportunities to keep costs low.
• The fatal attraction for market share has also bled the airlines white. Increasing load factors by offering absurdly low fares is also counter-productive.
• A number of promoters took full control of their airlines from day one — without any understanding of the industry — and made some wrong decisions as a result
• How are oil companies being hit, on account of oil bonds?
• Oil bonds, meant to partially compensate the oil PSUs, have suffered a dip in prices after the recent interest rate hike by the Reserve Bank of India. This has forced oil firms to sell the bonds at a discount. Treasury managers estimate that oil companies may lose Rs 3 crore on every Rs 100 crore worth of bonds they sell to the central bank.
• Earlier, oil PSUs used to sell the bonds to banks and bond houses in the market. However, the RBI had recently announced that it will buy bonds directly from oil companies at the market price. The move was aimed at making life easier for oil companies and improving liquidity.
• Telecom generations and data speeds
• 2G means simple GSM networks. These offer data speeds varying between 9.6 kbps to 14.4 kbps.
• GPRS is a way of enhancing data speeds in 2G networks. It offers typically speeds varying between 32 and 48 kbps.
• Technologies like HSCSD (High Speed Circuit Switched Data) and EDGE (Enhanced Data Rates for Global Evolution) that offer speeds of 57.6 kbps and 384 kbps respectively are called 2.5G. EDGE is the evolutionary step after GPRS that offers 3G data services in the existing GSM spectrum; essentially 3G data speeds in 2G spectrum.
• 3G technologies enable network operators to offer users a wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity through improved spectral efficiency. Services include wide-area wireless voice telephony, video calls, and broadband wireless data, all in a mobile environment. Additional features also include HSPA data transmission capabilities able to deliver speeds up to 14.4Mbit/s on the downlink and 5.8Mbit/s on the uplink.
• WiMax (Worldwide Interoperability for Microwave Access) offers data speeds that are 10-30 times faster than 3G. But it is not 4G. It is considered pre-4G.
• Announcements of share buybacks and some caution about it
• Today’s ET editorial puts buybacks in perspective. Worth not just a read; worth following. The following comment is made in the context of a host of companies announcing their share buybacks. Normally companies resort to this when they feel that the price being commanded by their shares in the market is well below their intrinsic value. Read on…
• Investors would, however, do well not to take increasing buyback offers to mean that the market is close to its bottom. Just as in a Bull Run exuberance takes shares to well past their fair value, in a downturn pessimism tends to drop them much below what is justified by their fundamentals. Given the extreme pessimism in global markets, thanks to inflation, slowdown and oil prices, further slide from prices seen as fair by managements in not ruled out. Even if further downside is limited, a substantial bounce back is surely ruled out. In such a situation, putting money in equities is unlikely to fetch any real reward for investors.
• Isn’t it time we stopped watching TV?
• I was very sad the other day when I read about the Kolkata girl who got crippled just because she was badly treated in a TV reality show. I used to think that MTV and Channel V are basically music channels. But after the reality shows made their way into these channels, I see less and less of music and more and more of these reality shows. Is it for the good? Surely, I don’t think so. An editorial comment in today’s ET is worth a read. Read on here.
• I see this subject as a potential essay question.
• Language lessons: meretricious
• Reading about the nuclear deal I came across this writing: “The partisan rancour over the Indo-US nuclear deal has helped obscure facts, allowing shibboleths and fantasies to substitute for an informed debate on a critical issue. Several myths continue to be repeated untiringly. The biggest of them draws a meretricious link between nuclear energy and soaring oil prices to justify the proposed import of high-priced, foreign fuel dependent power reactors from overseas.”
• Meretricious here means deceptive.
• Look at the other meanings of the word: gilded: based on pretense; deceptively pleasing; "the gilded and perfumed but inwardly rotten nobility"; "meretricious praise"; "a meretricious argument"
• like or relating to a prostitute; "meretricious relationships"; tastelessly gaudy, making a false show of being attractive
• brassy: tastelessly showy; "a flash car"; "a flashy ring"; "garish colors"; "a gaudy costume"; "loud sport shirts"; "a meretricious yet stylish book"; "tawdry ornaments"
• It is not just language lessons that we draw from Brahman Chellany. Want a scathing criticism of the nuclear deal? Didn’t come across any one better than the one penned by him in today’s ET.
• Read it here. I am sure, you would be considering a change of some opinions you might have had about the deal, after reading it.
• Wimbledon
• The women’s final is a Williams’ family affair.
• Look at the men’s semi-final line up here.
• Can you get a better inspiration from any other source?
• Look at this person nicknamed ‘blade runner.’ He is trying to run in Olympics. Can any one of our (err… your) handicaps be worse than this? And yet, I see so many people keeping on complaining about there being no level playing field in competitive exams, life in general etc. Take a leaf out such person’s lives; it will do a lot good.