13.11.2009

Politics & the Nation

• Take a look at how the Indian Army is facing shortage of officers
• Read this story.
• Isn't there a lesson in it? What should be done? Any ideas?
• Some very good thoughts on handling funding of political parties
• Largely there prevails a view that it is the money power of candidates that is corrupting the political system in our country. Here are some thoughts on how to curb the money power. Some excerpts from the debate:
• While banning corporate funding of parties, providing a combination of state subsidies and private funding with stringent regulations on transparency and accountability of public and party funds, may do the trick. Such a step together with internal reform of parties might help break the unholy nexus and clean up public life.
• Any candidate found to have paid for votes must be debarred from contesting an election for a minimum of 10 years. The political party to which this candidate belongs must not be allowed to contest from that seat for five years.

Finance & Economy

• A tribute to the dabbawallahs of Mumbai
• Yesterday, Pepsico's Board of Directors was trying to learn lessons from the dabbawallahs of Mumbai. What else can be a befitting tribute to them? They deliver over 2 lakh lunch boxes everyday with such great accuracy that the corporate world wants to learn lessons from them.
• Apart from the dabbawallahs, other notable Indians sharing their wisdom with the Pepsi's 11 member board were Ratan Tata, Azim Premji and Ramachandra Guha, the eminent historian.
• IIP numbers bring lot of cheer
• Industrial output grew by a surprisingly strong 9.1% in September from a year ago, reinforcing optimism that economic recovery is on track and imparting urgency to the debate over the timing of the withdrawal of stimulus measures that were put in place to counter the slowdown.
• Strong growth in factory output, or manufac turing — one of the three components of the in dex of industrial production (IIP) along with elec tricity and mining — was driven by a surge in consumer durable production and output of cap ital goods. Festival buying, continued stimulus measures and a pick-up in demand following the release of wage arrears for government staff boosted buying of a range of consumer goods.
• Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said last week that the government would start rolling back the stimulus measures from the next year and RBI has already signalled a hardening of its monetary policy stance with a 100-basis point increase in the statutory liquidity ratio.
• The government expects the economy to grow at 6.5% in the fiscal to March 2010, slightly slower than the 6.7% pace in 2008-09, as it feels the effects of lower farm output because of a deficient monsoon. Gross domestic product grew by 6.1% during the April-June first quarter.
• Look at this graphic to get a better comprehension in this connection.
• India becomes an export hub for mobile phones too
• The country’s not just a small car hub, handset manufacturers such as Nokia, Samsung, LG, Sony Ericsson and Motorola are shipping 60 million mobiles each year from the country to more than 60 countries mostly in Africa, South-East Asia, Middle East and South Asia.
• India, which accounts for one in every 10 handsets made in the world, now plans to more than double its production from 120 million devices in 2009 to 250 million units by 2012.
• On our rural consumer market
• The rural consumer market, which grew 25% in 2008 when demand in urban areas slowed due to global recession, is expected to reach $425 billion in 2010-11 with 720-790 million customers, says a white paper prepared by CII-Technopak. That will be double the 2004-05 market size of $220 billion.

Books

• 10 must reads for budding entrepreneurs
• Worth our attention. Take a look.

Miscellany

• Know your booze
• Though booze should be the last thing that we need to know about, as you mature with experience in life, there will be situations wherein being an ignoramus about it can be quite an inconvenience as we found out in our life.
• To get over such situations, nothing can be quite educative than this piece that appeared in today's ET.

Language lessons

• kosher: Adjective
• Proper or legitimate; Conforming to dietary laws
• eg: KYC norms, aimed at ensuring banks are not used as a channel to route funds that are not kosher, often hamstring ordinary citizens.
• What is sauce for the goose is not sauce for the gander
• This is an old saying. If some kind of behavior is wrong, it's probably wrong for both sides, not just one. Don't do it yourself either.
• This meshes well with the Golden Rule, or ethic of reciprocity, which is a key moral principle in many religions and philosophies, and is often stated as "Do unto others as you wish to be done for you", or conversely, "Don't do unto others what you would not wish to be done to you."
• slather: Verb
• Spread thickly
• eg: Considering she has probably notched up quite a few years of such reckless behaviour, she could well have been ‘ageing’ enough to prompt her anguished son to want to be by her side to slather on some last minute creams and potions, and perhaps take her to a spa.