13.09.2008

• Industrial growth rebounds
  
• Buoyancy in production of consumer durables and capital goods resulted in industrial growth rebounding to 7.1% in July as compared to 5.4% in June. However, the rebound was not enough to prevent slower industrial growth of 5.7% during the first four months of 2008-09 as compared to 9.7% during the corresponding period of the previous year.
• Look at this graph to know the trends in IIP - Index of Industrial Production.
• West Bengal government and Trinamool agreement on Tata's Nano project at Singur comes unstuck
• Looks like the Tatas have to finally call it quits from West Bengal.
• The talks between TNC and the West Bengal government to end the impasse over the agitation demanding return of 300 acres of land from inside the project area, have reportedly failed.
• Reliance may not be permitted in the near future to export LPG out of India
• RIL has a refinery in the SEZ at Gujarat (Jamnagar) where it processes LPG and has been requesting the Govt. to export the LPG.
  
• The government is depending on the SEZ refinery to partially meet the shortfall to offset the import burden of public sector oil companies, including IOC. If RIL supplies about 2.5 MMTPA from its EoU refinery, the PSUs would be required to import 3.74 MMTPA LPG, which would be almost equal to their entire production.
  
• The projected demand of LPG is about 13 MMTPA.
• MMTPA: Million Metric Tonnes per Annum
  
• Confusing signals on the Indo US nuclear deal
• Bush is reported to have made it clear to the US Congress that fuel supply assurances given to India, in the eventuality of a nuke test, are not legally binding on America.
• Such assurances, he should know, do not go down well with the political establishment back here in India. They only add fuel to the fire that is already raging over the agreement.
  
• In contrast look at the French offer of nuclear cooperation with India. The French government has indicated that it was willing to consider giving reprocessing technology and fuel supply guarantees to India.
• France, a leader in civilian nuclear technology and home to 58 nuclear plants, is eager to enter into civilian nuclear cooperation with India. However, India has made it clear that it would operationalise agreements with other countries only after the 123 agreement with the US is finalised. France and others like Russia have no option but to wait for India to give the green signal.
• On judicial accountability
• The CJI seems to be dead serious in bringing this about in the Indian judiciary. We are sure to get this feeling if we look at the recent happenings.
• The CJI recommended initiating impeachment proceedings in Parliament against a Calcutta High Court judge found guilty of “financial misconduct”. Further the Supreme Court decided to hand over the matter of alleged involvement of 34 sitting judges in the embezzlement of provident fund monies to the CBI for a probe. Similarly, the CJI has also allowed the CBI to question two Punjab and Haryana High Court judges, who have been linked to a bribery scandal.
• Though these steps are welcome, what is needed is institutionalization of judicial accountability. This can come about when:
• The Parliament passes the Judges Inquiry Bill, 2006 which proposes the establishment of a national judicial council, made up of sitting judges, to probe allegations of judicial misconduct and legitimately recommend impeachment where required; and
• The recruitment and transfer of both SC and high court judges is made amenable to public control. This public control can come about with the establishment of NJC which comprises of senior-most members of higher judiciary as well as the executive.
• What is green strategy?
• In this interview, we get to learn about this concept that is doing rounds in the corporate world.
• Worth a read.
• Forex kitty dives by a whopping $6.5 bn!!
• FOREIGN exchange reserves dipped by a record $6.5 billion during the week ended September 5, 2008 — the steepest weekly decline since December 2005.
  
• The decline followed dollar sales by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) to meet exporters’ demand and also to prevent the rupee from slipping sharply against the dollar.
• Are you hearing any alarm bells as yet? Nope.
  
• Who is Jim Rogers?
• He co-founded the Quantum Fund with George Soros in the 1960s. He catapulted to fame in the 1970s, when his fund gained 4200% against a relatively modest 50% on the S&P index.
• The CERN experiment
• Can there be a better way to know about it than from Shelly Singh? TVs have been screaming about this experiment for the last couple of days.
• This piece is a must read.
• The 'low key’ firing of a beam of protons—sub-atomic particles —using 450 giga electric volts of power, will generate temperatures more than 100,000 times hotter than at the heart of the sun, concentrated within a miniscule space!
• The data thrown up by these collisions of the beams are expected to change what physicists know about everything from the Big Bang, black holes to the existence of Higgs boson and the most fundamental building blocks of matter.
• Thomas and Uber cup tournaments not to be split
• Plans by the Badminton World Federation (BWF) to split the Thomas and Uber Cups into two separate tournaments have been abandoned after objections from member nations.
• At its annual meeting last year, the BWF decided to hold the men’s and women’s team events in 2010 in different countries to enable both tournaments to attract the same level of interest from sponsors and advertisers. But it had to give up the plans.