03.05.2010

Politics & the Nation

• Kapadia is new Chief Justice of India
• Justice S H Kapadia, the seniormost judge of the Supreme Court, was on Friday appointed as the Chief Justice of India.
• Justice Kapadia will be the 38th CJI since independence and will be sworn in on May 12.
• The 13th Finance Commission's (ThFC) contribution to make our legal system more competent:
• It made a Rs 5,000 crore grant, to improve the delivery of justice. Given the huge backlog of over three crore cases pending in various courts in the country today, the ThFC has earmarked grants for improving quality of legal infrastructure — increasing the number of court working hours using the existing infrastructure by holding morning/evening/shift courts, enhancing support to Lok Adalats to reduce the pressure on regular courts and to State Legal Services Authorities to enable them to enhance legal aid to the marginalised and empower them to access justice, promote the alternate dispute resolution (ADR) route to resolve part of the disputes outside the court system, enhance capacity of judicial officers and public prosecutors through training programmes and support creation of a judicial academy in every state to facilitate such training.

Finance & Economy

• PE funds tap domestic banks, Insurers and Individuals to build investment kitty
• Many Indian private equity fund managers are now looking to raise funds locally, thanks to the growing surpluses with banks, insurance companies and family offices, and the increasing number of ultra high net worth individuals. Earlier, these firms used to collect a significant chunk of capital for their investment schemes from overseas investors.
• Industry people say Indian PE funds have realised it is far easier to sell the domestic growth story to local investors, than to court overseas investors.
• In developed markets, pension funds, endowment funds, university funds and family offices are among the major investors in private equity funds. In India, the base of domestic investors is quite limited.
• Private equity investments in India have touched $3 billion so far this year, as against $4 billion for the whole of last year and $10 billion in 2008.
• India's airlines are seeing better days
• Take a look at this news report. Airlines are asking for permission to import new aircraft. This means that things are improving a tad for them.
• Domestic air carriers flew 39.67 lakh passengers during March, registering an increase of 23% over the corresponding month last year.
  

• Buffett comes calling
• The legendary investor Warren Buffett, who has till now made only a few investment outside the US, plans to visit India next March and is likely to explore possible investment opportunities.
• One of the richest persons in the world, Buffett is the chairman and chief executive of the conglomerate Berkshire Hathaway, which has holdings in diverse firms like Coca-Cola and Swiss Re.
• In Asia, Berkshire’s current investments include those in South Korean steel maker Posco and in Chinese entity BYD. Switzerland and Israel are among other countries where Berkshire has investments.

International

• Greece accepts tough bailout terms, secures $133-billion aid package
• Greece accepted an unprecedented bailout from the European Union and International Monetary Fund valued at more than € 100 billion ($133 billion) to prevent default. The measures are worth € 30 billion, or 13% of GDP, and include wage cuts and a freeze on pensions for three years. The sales tax will rise 10%.
• Policymakers are trying to prevent a Greek default as its fiscal crisis shows signs of spreading through the euro region. The agreement, following 10 days of talks and protests, comes after a surge in Greek borrowing costs left the government struggling to finance its debt and investors speculating that Portugal and Spain could also suffer their fate.
• The financial lifeline will last three years and will force Greece to cut its budget deficit below the EU’s limit of 3% of gross domestic product by the end of 2014. That’s one year later than originally planned. The shortfall was 13.6% in 2009.
• This graphic gives details of the Greek tragedy.
• Forbes top paid CEO list
• With a total compensation of $141.36 million, H Lawrence Culp Jr, the chief of the diversified manufacturing and technology firm Danaher, is at the top of the list.
• At the second spot is Oracle’s Lawrence J Ellison with a pay packet of $130.23 million, followed at the third place by Chesapeake Energy’s Aubrey K Mc-Clendon with $114.29 million in annual package.
• The list of the 500 CEOs of the biggest American companies features as many as three India-origin people — Nooyi (93rd position), diagnostics entity Quest Diagnostics’ Surya N Mohapatra (96) and software major Adobe Systems’ Shantanu Narayen at 425th slot. While Nooyi had a compensation of $10.66 million, that of Mohapatra was $10.29 million and Narayen had a pay packet of $1.88 million.

Language Lessons

• fig leaf: Noun
• A covering consisting of anything intended to conceal something regarded as shameful
• bucolic: Adjective
• (used with regard to idealized country life) idyllically rustic
  
• eg: ...who brought alive the joys of 19th century bucolic Alpine life ...
• suzerain: Noun
• A state exercising a degree of dominion over a dependent state especially in its foreign affairs
  
• festoon: Verb
• Decorate with strings of flowers