Wednesday, July 18, 2012

HEADLINES

• US warship fires on a fishing boat in UAE waters and kills one Indian; UAE confirms that the firing was a mistake and starts investigation on the issue
• Mamata announces support for Pranab as President; says it is due to lack of options

NATIONAL NEWS

• India to launch Astrosat next year
  • Next year, India is to launch Astrosat, the country's first satellite dedicated to astronomy, which will gaze out at the universe in x-ray, ultraviolet and visible light bands;
  • The data its instruments supply should help scientists to have better understanding of the ways of the cosmos, whether it is black holes, with their insatiable appetites, that lurk mysteriously at the centres of galaxies; the violent death throes of stars; or how one star of a duo, known as a ‘x-ray binary,’ cannibalises the other;
  • The Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) in Mumbai had overall responsibility for developing three of the spacecraft’s five instruments. In addition, the Canadian Space Agency and the University of the Leicester in the U.K. would test and qualify the detector systems for the ultraviolet and one of the x-ray telescopes;
  • Astrosat, as with many space projects, has gone through a long journey, starting with its conception and difficult struggles in developing the various instruments for it. In 2004, the government cleared the Astrosat project with a price tag of Rs. 178 crore. The plan then was to launch the satellite in about four years.
• Russia to fund two more nuclear plants in Tamil Nadu
  • With the Kudankulam nuclear project likely to be commissioned in August, Russia has agreed to extend a $3.4-billion credit for setting up two more 1,000-MW atomic power plants at the same site in Tamil Nadu;
  • The two nations signed a protocol on Tuesday in Moscow for financing units 3 & 4 of the Kudankulam project, under which the Russian Federation will extend export credit amounting up to $3.4 billion for 85% of the value of works, supplies and services provided by the Russian organisations for the two units;
  • The protocol also has provisions for state export credit amounting to $800 million, at 4% interest, for financing up to 85% nuclear fuel and control assemblies.The estimated cost of building units 3 and 4 at Kudankulam will be Rs.32,000 crore, out of which Rs.17,000 crore is expected to be met through the Russian state credit;
  • After facing seven months of protest, the Kudankulam project is at an advanced stage of completion, with the first 1,000-MW unit expected to be commissioned next month.
• Just 4 people keeping a language alive
  • Barely four people, the oldest among them a 70-year-old tribal, speak a language which is on the brink of extinction. Spoken in a tiny village in Tripura, ‘Saimar’ has been identified as a “severely” endangered language. The four Saimar-speaking persons belong to an isolated tribe;
  • In 2009, there were approximately 25 Saimar-speaking tribals, and today only four are remaining — Mr. Sukurthang Saimar, his wife, grandson and a senior lady.

INTERNATIONAL NEWS

• US senate slams HSBC
  • A Senate panel has slammed HSBC, one of the darlings of the U.S. banking system, for allowing billions of dollars of transactions in money laundering and terror financing that aided Mexican drug cartels, Saudi Arabian banks with links to al-Qaeda and even Iranian institutions subject to U.S. sanctions;
  • In a report released on Monday, the Committee on Homeland Security and Governmental Affairs pulled no punches as it argued that HSBC operated in many jurisdictions with “weak AML [Anti-Money Laundering] controls, high risk clients, and high risk financial activities including Asia, Middle East, and Africa”;
  • HSBC’s staff and operations in India were also shown in a poor light. In particular regulators criticised HSBC’s AML reviewers in India and a few other jurisdictions as having deficiencies in the quality of the work, and requiring an independent assessment. When such an independent assessment was undertaken, it discovered that no less than 34 per cent of the alerts supposedly resolved had to be reviewed from scratch.
• Indian Ministry of External Affairs to host first Latin American Minister's meet
  • The MEA will host the first foreign ministers’ dialogue between India and the Community of Latin American States (CELAC) in New Delhi on August 7 to strengthen its relations with the region. At the meeting, CELAC would be represented by the Foreign Ministers of Chile, Cuba and Venezuela. India’s investment in LAC was $15 billion, whereas LAC investment in India was less than a billion dollars;
  • India had signed Preferential Trading Agreements (PTAs) with Chile and MERCOSUR for goods and talks were on with Peru and other regions to sign similar trade agreements.

EMINENT PERSONS IN THE NEWS

• Read this article about social activist, Mrinal Gore, who passed away

ECONOMY & BUSINESS NEWS

• RBI moots Producer Price Index for inflation
  • The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) Governor D. Subbarao, on Tuesday, proposed a Producer Price Index (PPI), which would measure the average change over time in the sale prices of domestic goods and services;
  • “In its present structure, the Wholesale Price Index (WPI) does not capture the price movement of services. Also, it is a hybrid of consumer and producer price quotes,” said Dr. Subbarao. For example, he said, the index captured the price of important commodities such as milk from the retail markets; not at the producer level;
  • In contrast to Consumer Price Index (CPI), PPI measures price changes from the perspective of the seller. Sellers’ and purchasers’ prices differ due to government subsidies, sales and excise taxes, and distribution costs;
  • Theoretically, CPI, which measures changes over time of the general level of prices of goods and services that households acquire for the purpose of consumption, is considered a better measure of inflation than WPI. But, he said, the new comprehensive CPI did not have adequate history to support data analysis and to be used as a sole headline measure of inflation.