Indian Current Affairs: 05.09.2008

Look at this figure to get a glimpse of how much additional capital the Indian banks would need to stay Basel II compliant!

According to RBI, banks would need to raise at least Rs 1 lakh crore annually over the next five years, if they have to adhere to the new prudential norms prescribed by the Bank for International Settlements (BIS). The constraints on capital imposed on banks, partly by the government’s decision not to lower its stake to 51%, would force banks to consolidate for attaining a critical mass.

If banks were to set aside capital at 12% of their riskweighted assets, as prescribed under BIS’ new prudential norms, popularly known as Basel-II, they would require an additional capital of Rs 5,68,744 crore in the next five years. Of this, Rs 3,69,115 crore (64.9%) would be required by state-owned banks, Rs 23,319 crore (4.1%) by old private sector banks, Rs 1,13,180 crore (19.9%) by new private sector banks and Rs 63,131 crore (11.1%) by foreign banks.

Unilever has poached Paul Polman, 52, from rival Nestle to take over from Patrick Cescau as group chief executive, when the latter retires at the end of the year.

Even as the NSG appears to be moving towards a consensus on giving India specific waiver from its conditions for engaging in nuclear trade, some embarrassing facts are tumbling out of the closet.

In a letter to the Chairman of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs in January this year, the US administration said that it would stop fuel supplies and other nuclear cooperation if India conducted a nuclear test. The letter came to light just two days ago. As can be expected all hell broke loose and political parties are gunning for Manmohan’s head for cheating the Parliament and the country.

But Mr. Anil Kakodkar, the Atomic Energy Commission Chairman is quoted as saying “it doesn’t take away anything from what we have been saying here in India.”

An excerpt from today’s ET editorial is worth reproduction: “To be fair, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has not misled Parliament on the issue, as alleged by the opposition. It is the United States which is giving the impression of not coming clean in honouring the spirit of the agreement. The US could still make amends at the meeting of the NSG members at Vienna. If the United States does not come clean, it will create a permanent sense of distrust with India’s political establishment, as also the people. This could also have serious implications for bilateral relations between the two biggest democracies. The US cannot come this far and fail to deliver on its promise to India.”

This is one of the very few brilliant pieces that I have seen in recent times about providing a direct answer to the above question. Not just worth a read; also worth filing it for future reference as well so that you can face interviews successfully. But as some of us are as usual very busy, I excerpt generous portions of it below:

Trade in services, one of key areas of gain for developing countries, hinges on the success of this round and is best achieved through multilateral route especially for Modes 1 and 4 of delivery of services. Services constitute more than 50% of GDP for most members and are also the fastest growing component of trade.

Mode 4 is acknowledged as the least liberalised mode amongst the four modes owing largely to the linkages drawn with immigration and unemployment concerns in host countries. The next decade will necessarily require much greater labour movements given the demand-supply imbalances across the world. While it is a fact that a substantial part of this will happen outside the purview of Mode 4, having orderly and rule-bound temporary movement will be crucial. The only impetus to meaningful Mode 4 liberalisation can come from the WTO round as it alone can provide comfort of other members liberalising in parallel as well as cross-sectoral tradeoffs.

For Mode 1, the problem is more of binding regimes largely free from actual restrictions but kept unbound partially due to lack of technological feasibility and jurisdiction control issues. The phenomenal growth of outsourcing has been well documented but has also seen protectionist backlash particularly in the most important markets. The current round is a wonderful opportunity to close such a window by binding the status quo. However, such widespread commitments across a broad range of services sector again needs the comfort and trade-offs of multilateral round as opposed to PTA/FTA negotiations.

The experience with FTA/PTA has been sub-optimal in tackling the barriers imposed by domestic regulations in services – the equivalent of non-tariff barriers in trade in goods. Further, the route of MRA’s is far too complex and long–drawn to provide even medium-term solutions.

avoiding trade-diversion and reduce customs related red tape and discretion; and

Six Indians, including Ranbaxy promoter family’s Malvinder and Shivinder Singh, Suzlon’s Girish Tanti and Indiabulls’ Sameer Gehlaut, have made it to a list of 15 youngest Asian billionaires, compiled by Forbes. “The country’s millionaires jumped 23% last year. The billionaire count soared to 53 from 36 the previous year,” Forbes said.

Cloud computing is the new rage among the net community worldwide and it is catching up in India. With all your data stored in clouds or the internet, there are softwares that allow you to access it from anywhere.

Nivio and Critix are two such softwares which allow you to view your operating system (OS) on your personal desktop and transfer data between the two devices. Nivio allows access only to Windows XP desktop and helps transfer all your data onto the PC you currently working from. It allows you to store your OS data on their remote server which can be accessed anytime, anyplace. Citrix is another such software which allows you access to OS such as Windows, Macintosh and Linux.

Indian Current Affairs