29.08.2008

• Life insurance term cover becomes cheaper
• The cost of life insurance has come down by up to 40%, with Insurance Regulatory and Development Authority (IRDA) reducing the capital that insurance companies need to sell term policies. For the second time since the liberalisation of the insurance industry in 2000, there has been a dramatic reduction in term insurance rates, making life protection a great deal cheaper.
• Term policies are purely life covers as against endowment policies, which have a sizeable savings component. While the premium for endowment policies will also soften, the benefit will be more apparent on term covers.
• Kalpana Morparia moves to JP Morgan
• Kalpana Morparia, regarded in the Indian financial sector as one of the public faces of ICICI Bank and a trouble-shooter for the group, has quit. She will now head financial services major JP Morgan’s operations in India.
• Inflation slows down
• Annual inflation declined marginally to 12.40% for the week ended August 16, 2008, from 12.63% a week ago.
• The decline in inflation is largely on account of the drop in global crude prices and marginal easing of prices of essentials such as fruits, vegetables, eggs, meat and fish.
• More border troubles for India?
• Intelligence agencies believe that with the political changeover in Pakistan, the terrorist outfits may now be “more free” than they were under Gen Pervez Musharraf, given his tough stand on terror. Also, with the turmoil in J&K giving the jehadi outfits an opportunity to play on the secessionist tendencies, terrorists have started converging at the launching pads across the international border for infiltration with renewed vigour.
• Powerful women of the world
• Indian women prominently figuring in this list compiled by Forbes magazine include:
• Indra Nooyi, the Pepsico chief at 3^rd position.
• Sonia Gandhi at 21^st place.
• Mayawati at 59^th place.
• Kiran Mazumdar Shaw of Biocon at 99^th place.
• The first position has gone to the German Chancellor for the third straight year, Ms. Angela Merkel.
• Sheila C. Bair, the chairman of the Federal Deposit Insurance Corp., is at No. 2.
• What is Cobra?
• It is the elite anti-naxal force that is being set up in the country.
• It will be a 10,000-strong CRPF command.
• Cobra is the acronym for Combat Battalion for Resolute Action (Cobra).
• Indo-ASEAN FTA finally concluded
• Negotiations on ASEAN-India free trade agreement (FTA) — which will result in elimination of tariffs on 80% of the commodities traded between the two sides by 2015 — were formally concluded on Thursday. Economic ministers from India and the 10 ASEAN countries have decided to target implementation of tariff reduction commitments from January 1, 2009.
• The FTA is expected to boost bilateral trade between India and ASEAN to $50 billion by 2010 from the present level of $35 billion.
• It took six long years for the two sides to conclude the negotiations as the talks tripped several times over issues such as rules of origin (ROO) and market opening by India for five sensitive agricultural products including palm oil, tea, coffee and pepper.
• Under the pact, India and ASEAN will eliminate import duties on 71% products by December 31, 2012, and another 9% by 2015. Duties on 8-10% products that have been kept in the sensitive list will also be brought down to 5%.
• India will keep 489 items in the negative list of products to be excluded from tariff reduction commitments.
• LIC investment norms
• Yesterday we were noting about this topic in our blog along with my comments thereon. Take a look at an excerpt from today’s ET editorial on the issue:
• LIC, and indeed other traditional development finance institutions, must be given full freedom to decide how and when to sell their equity holdings in companies. So there is no case for having a special dispensation for LIC — that of being able to hold more than 10% of a company’s equity capital. Besides, there surely must be a level playing field between the private and public sector insurance players in this regard. Ideally, within broad norms, both must be left to their judgement on how much they might want to invest in a single company. Investment norm by fiat is best avoided.
• Language lessons:
• inure
• Made tough by habitual exposure
• Cause to accept or become hardened to; habituate
• Usage example: The indifference of a state — cynically inured to the destruction floods wreak in Bihar with seasonal regularity — has, this time around, compounded an annual disaster into a catastrophe.
• Eddy
• A miniature whirlpool or whirlwind resulting when the current of a fluid doubles back on itself
• Whopper
• A gross untruth; a blatant lie
• Something especially big or impressive of its kind
• arcane
• Requiring secret or mysterious knowledge
• Move away wax models, gold statutes are here!
• The British Museum unveiled a solid gold statue by British artist Marc Quinn titled Siren 2008 of supermodel Kate Moss. Quinn’s work is the largest gold statue since Ancient Egypt and will premiere at the British Museum as part of the exhibition ‘Statuephilia: Contemporary sculptors’ on October 4, 2008.
• The US economy grows faster than anticipated
• The US economy expanded at a faster pace than previously estimated in the second quarter, helped by surging exports and a smaller decline in inventories.
• The 3.3% annualised increase in gross domestic product from April through June was higher than forecast and compares with an advance estimate of 1.9% issued last month, the commerce department said on Thursday in Washington.
• It is perhaps too early to sing “happy days are here again.”