06.02.2010

Politics & the Nation

• Rahul's Mumbai visit
  
• One's in a while we also need to look at such events and read the news reports to get a feel of politics. He is widely reported as having scored political brownie points with the Shiv Sena. Worth a look. Read it the news story here.
• Government mulling retirement age for jet planes
  
• The government is reportedly coming out with a policy that bans jet planes older than 15 years from flying.
• Carriers operating jets that are more than 15 years old will have to look for replacement soon, as the civil aviation ministry has decided to gradually phase out older aircraft to check noise level around airports.
• The development follows complaints from people living around the country’s busiest Delhi airport about the rising noise levels.
• The new rules are likely to affect foreign airlines more as they would be also be barred from flying aged jets.
• But what are the international norms in this regard? As per the globally accepted norms, the permissible noise is higher level in the vicinity of airports than other locations. India, however, does not differentiate between the noise level around the airport and other areas.
• In the last few years aircraft movement in the country has multiplied with more and more people flying on the back of growing economy and increasing incomes. The Capital’s Indira Gandhi International airport (IGI) now handles as many as 650 aircraft a day.

Finance & Economy

• Why did our stock markets tank yesterday?
  
• BSE’s 30-share Sensex fell 434 points, or 2.68%, to 15,790.93. NSE’s 50-share Nifty declined 127 points, or 2.61%, to 4,718.65, its lowest since November 4, 2009. In the broader market, losers outnumbered gainers by nearly 5 to 1 on BSE. The MSCI Asia Pacific Index fell 2.6% and its Emerging Markets Index was down more than 2.5%. European and US indices were lower.
• Indian shares were pummelled in a global equities and commodities sell-off, as investors fear that “dynamite” deficits of many governments across the globe may explode in coming months, pushing up interest rates and stall the statesponsored economic revival.
• Investors fear that Spain, Portugal and Greece may find it difficult to manage their deficits as their revival tapers off, and it may hold true for many economies which have huge deficits.
• Also, growth in developed economies, such as the US, without signs of revival in employment, signals that whatever has been achieved by government spending may not be enough to sustain the recovery.
• VIX rises: India’s Volatility index, VIX, which reflects investors’ perception about market risk, rose to 30.07, its highest since September 14. A rising VIX suggests increased risk aversion to stocks.
• Should we keep looking at the West and Japan for best practices in business?
  
• This article argues that the arrival of the FGIE -- First Generation Indian Enterpreneurs -- on the Indian business firmament has also brought about a sea change and that it is time for us to look inward for the lessons and best practices followed by the first generation entrepreneurs.
• A good idea; no doubt. Worth a read.

International

• What exactly is the crisis brewing in European Union?
  
• The southern members of the union are facing some tought times -- economically. Their stock and bond prices are tumbling amid investors' fears that heavily indebted countries in the south of the zone may be unable to cope with the fiscal and monetary demands of membership.
• Facing the most severe economic strains since its birth 11 years ago, the euro zone looks likely to hold together for now but the exit of some of its weaker members cannot be ruled out in the long term.
• Many analysts expect the European Union to intervene with some kind of aid for weak members if that proves necessary to keep the zone intact. But economies are diverging so sharply that even if weak members are bailed out, their problems could hurt growth in the zone for years, and conceivably prompt them to abandon the euro later this decade if the costs of membership seem too high.
• The weaknesses of the euro zone’s southern members were masked in its early years by a benign global environment, cheap credit and housing booms. In the financial crisis of 2007-2009, membership protected countries from the worst market turmoil.
• Jhumpa Lahiri gets Obama's nomination
  
• Indian-American Pulitzer Prize-winning author Jhumpa Lahiri has been appointed as a member of US President Barack Obama’s Committee on the Arts and Humanities, along with five others.
• A fiction writer, Ms. Lahiri’s debut collection of stories, ’Interpreter of Maladies’, received the Pulitzer Prize, the PEN/Hemingway Award, the Addison M Metcalf Award and the New Yorker magazine’s Debut of the Year.
• Her novel, ‘The Namesake’, was a New York Times Notable Book, a finalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Prize and was selected as one of the best books of the year by USA Today and Entertainment Weekly.
• Her latest story collection, ‘Unaccustomed Earth’, won the Frank O’Connor International Short Story Award and the Vallombrosa-Gregor von Rezzori Prize.

Movies

• Look at the staggering figures that Hollywood actors command!
  
• Take a look at this report. Actors get paid in millions of dollars. Directors are also equally well paid.

Language Lessons

• ring-fence: Verb
• Guarantee that funds or an investment will be spent only for a particular purpose
• alack: Interjection
• Exclamation expressive of regret
• geniality: Noun
• A disposition to be friendly and approachable (easy to talk to)
• nous: Noun
• [Brit] Common sense; That which is responsible for one's thoughts and feelings; the seat of the faculty of reason
• eg: In doing all this, Mr Gandhi once again demonstrated the political nous that he has increasingly displayed.