11.04.2011

Finance & Economy

• Employability of our engineering graduates
• Software body Nasscom estimates that only a quarter of all engineering graduates are readily employable in the IT sector.  Their percentage has grown by a meagre 1% over the past six years.

• Policy tiff holds up city-side work at regional airports
• The process of developing commercial activities at regional airports has got delayed as the Planning Commission does not agree with the Airports Authority of India’s (AAI) view of keeping the airports’ terminal building out of the scope of commercial development. The delay is also hitting the Authority's plans to augment revenues.
• There are two sides to an airport: the airside and the city-side. The airside is directly involved in the arrival and departure of aircraft and includes the runway, aprons, control towers, hangars, aircraft maintenance and refueling facilities, whereas the city-side constitutes commercial facilities around the airport for the benefit of passengers like development of property on the airports’ land, building and maintaining car parking and cargo operations.
• In case of privatised airports like in Delhi and Mumbai, the terminal building has also been given to the private investor for development and maintenance. However, in this case, the intent is not to privatise these non-metro airports and retain the terminal building.
• For undertaking city-side or commercial development of non-metro airports through private participation, the AAI, along with the Planning Commission and the Department of Economic Affairs (DEA) has been preparing a concession agreement, which is getting delayed because of the Plan panel’s reservations.
• Last November, the government approved undertaking city-side development of 24 out of 35 non-metro airports. Together they have about 300-400 acres of land. The AAI is looking to fetch Rs 150-300 crore annually from commercial or city-side development.
• Initially, city-side development of 10 airports will be undertaken in Phase-I. The AAI plans to give land around the airports on a lease of 30 years, extendable by another 30 years, on an upfront payment and the remaining part or rentals will be charged in a staggered manner.
• Some of the 10 non-metro airports where city-side development will begin in the first phase include those at Ahmedabad, Jaipur, Lucknow, Amritsar, Indore, Vishakhapatnam, Guwahati and Bhubaneshwar.
• According to the international airports association Airports Council International (ACI), a minimum of $10 billion of investment in the airports sector is required in India over the next 5-10 years and development of commercial activities at regional airports is a big attraction for investors.

• Money laundering watchdog to track all realty deals
• All real estate transactions will have to be reported to the country’s anti-money laundering agency once the government amends a key law that seeks to curb black-money transactions.
• The government plans to amend the Prevention of Money Laundering Act, which will require property registrars to file data of transactions recorded by them with the Financial Intelligence Unit, or FIU.  FIU is the national agency responsible for processing and disseminating information on suspect financial transactions to enforcement agencies across the world.
• The government may also bring several other transactions under the anti-moneylaundering act. These may include futures and options trade in commodities.
• Real estate transactions in excess of 30 lakh are already reported to the Income-Tax Department, but the government wants to tighten scrutiny of the sector, often accused of rampant use of black money and moneylaundering.
• At present, many states rely on circle rates to check the use of black money in land deals. A circle rate is the minimum rate fixed by the government for valuation of a property. But it is not considered foolproof as the rate leaves scope for intra-region variations. The amended law will help track transactions involving funds from tax havens or territories named as “risky” by the financial action task force, or FATF.
• FATF is an inter-governmental body set up by the Group of Seven (G-7) nations for creating global policies and framework to combat moneylaundering and terror-financing. India became its 34th member last June.

• Performance of ports in India
• Performance of India's major ports during the fiscal year 2010-11 was rather pathetic, to put it in brief. The year on year performance of the 12 major ports of the country has registered a mere 1.57% growth, according to data available with Indian Port Association (IPA), the umbrella organization representing the major ports.
• Non-major ports in Gujarat have registered a traffic growth of 12.34% over last year with cargo handling rising from 206 million tonnes in 2009-10 to 231 million tonnes in 2010-11, Gujarat Maritime Board (GMB) said.
• While major ports claim a capacity of about 642 MT, the combined port capacity of the country stands at 1017 MT as on February 28, 2011.
• Among major ports, Kandla has retained the top slot in cargo throughput for the fourth year in a row, handling a whopping 81.88 MT of cargo throughput during FY 2010-11, registering an increase of 23.80 lakh metric tonnes, i.e. 3%, over the last year's traffic of 79.5 MT.
• Vizag port came second in the pecking order with the port registering a traffic of 68 MT. During the last financial year (2009-10), the port had handled 65.54 MT against a target of 67 MT.
• Among the best turnaround performers, Tuticorin has put forth the best show, registering the highest growth of 8.19% during the year with the port handling 25.72 million tonnes compared with last year traffic. Jawaharlal Nehru Port (JNP) came up second at 5.82% with the port handling 64.30 MT during the year.
• Indian containerization has put forth 12.64% jump in container traffic at the major ports.  The country's premier container port, Jawaharlal Nehru Port handled a record 4.27 million TEUs during 2010-11 surpassing the previous record of 4.06 million TEUs during 2009-10 by 2.1 lakh containers.

International

• India keeps its foot down on sectoral talks
• Despite mounting pressure on the member countries to take the stalled global trade talks forward, India is resisting developed world’s attempts to force negotiations on import duties on specific goods, or sectorals.
• The US, backed by the EU and Japan, has been pushing for sectoral negotiations if talks are revived, which would force the member countries to completely remove tariffs on a number of products, including machinery and chemicals, which are of interest to advanced nations. This could adversely affect the developing countries.
• The chairpersons of the negotiating groups on agriculture and industrial goods of the World Trade Organization, or WTO, are trying to prepare draft negotiating texts by Easter (April 24) that will be starting points for talks. But a lack of consensus on sectoral talks is sure to put a question mark on the chances of members wrapping up the Doha round of negotiations by the year-end, as targeted earlier this year.
• India and other big developing countries, such as Brazil and Argentina, have argued that the mandate of the ongoing Doha negotiations was to keep sectoral negotiations voluntary.
• For all other goods, tariffs have to be brought down as per the reduction formula agreed upon by all members of the WTO.

• It's 50 years since man stepped into space
• Tuesday will be one of the most important days in civilization’s calendar. Fifty years ago, on April 12, 1961, cosmonaut Yuri Gagarin stepped into a bus that took him to the then top-secret Baikonur launch pad in Kazakhstan’s desolate grasslands. There, he boarded the Vostok 1 and shot into outer space – the first human being to do so.
• Jim Lovell is the first to journey to the moon twice.  He is best known as the commander of Apollo 13, which was launched exactly 40 years ago to this day.
• Meant to land on the moon, Apollo 13 suffered a catastrophic explosion that prevented it from reaching its destination. Under Lovell’s heroic leadership, the crew squeezed themselves into the spacecraft’s lunar module, using it as a “lifeboat” — which provided oxygen, power and the necessary propulsion — to return safely to Earth.
• The dollar being nibbled away at its roots
• One must read this development.  It has really missed international headlines.  But this is one development that is going to have a long term effect on the strength of the dollar.

Language Lessons

• bon mot: Noun
• A clever remark
• eg: Parents, therefore, should chew on the idea of where best to slip in engaging pieces of writing — in relevant languages — so that children can develop a taste of literary bon mots along with their daily dose of muesli, bun-maska or poha.
• desultory: Adjective
• Marked by lack of definite plan, regularity or purpose; jumping from one thing to another
• eg: Principles and tools for conducting productive dialogues, rather than stormy fights or desultory discussions must be deliberately employed in the process.
• ack-ack: Noun
• Artillery designed to shoot upward at airplanes; An anti-aircraft gun
• stasis: Noun
• An abnormal state in which the normal flow of a liquid (such as blood) is slowed or stopped; Inactivity resulting from a static balance between opposing forces