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Cash strapped realty cos eyeing PE funds: SourcesCashstrapped real estate developers are not only trying to lure buyers, but also private equity funds. It is learnt that developers are offering PE funds, a preference on returns. In a preferred return deal, as they call it, a fund can leave the project, even before it is sold out completely.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Aug 2008 | 3:02 pm Maharashtra, Orissa invite Tata NanoJust hours after Ratan Tata threatened to pull out his Nano Car project from West Bengal, Maharashtra has extended him an invitation. Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilas Rao Deshmukh, has requested Tata to set up the 1 lakh rupees car project in the state. Orissa has offered a site as well.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Aug 2008 | 3:01 pm Pay less for your next Dubai visitJet Airways is all set to fly to Dubai by the end of the week. This will be Jet\'s 20th international destination and should be its most lucrative. Jet has a significant 35% market share on the London route and 28% on the Singapore route but it may be comparatively tougher when it comes to Dubai.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Aug 2008 | 2:10 pm Rising int rates, change in RBI norms hit MFIsThe business of lending to the poor may not be profitable anymore. Microfinance institutions (MFIs) have taken a 50% hit in revenues due to rising bank interest rates and a change in RBI norms. Industry leader SKS Microfinance has approached private eqity companies for an additional round of funds.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Aug 2008 | 1:16 pm Govt sees steel prices softening in IndiaInternational steel prices have softened and this has given the government a cue that steel prices in India may come down. Here\'s steel secretary PK Rastogi on where steel prices could go from here.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Aug 2008 | 1:00 pm Karnataka\'s superhighways: Good news for infra cosIf you can\'t take investment to the villages, then take the villagers closer to the investment that seems to be the gameplan in Karnataka. A group of infrastructure companies includng GVK and Maytas are planning to connect the state through superhighways, a project that they estimate would cost a whopping Rs 30,000 crore.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:56 pm `Relocate Nano plant to Maharashtra`!Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh on Saturday invited Tatas to set up their plant for manufacturing Rs 1 lakh car Nano in Maharashtra.Source: Zee News : Business | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:13 pm Oil falls 5.4% in biggest drop since `04!Crude oil prices fell more than 5.4 percent on Friday in the biggest one-day slide since 2004 as dealers turned their focus to rising supply levels and weakening global demand.Source: Zee News : Business | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:13 pm Quick work needed to save world trade deal: Lamy!World trade negotiators need to bounce back quickly from a failed meeting in July to have any chance of reaching a deal by the end of the year, the head of the World Trade Organization said on Friday.Source: Zee News : Business | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:13 pm Japan`s economic package to reach $73 bn: Report !Japan is set to unveil a stimulus package worth eight trillion Yen (USD 73 billion) in a bid to shore up the economy, a report said on Saturday.Source: Zee News : Business | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:13 pm OPEC may cut output if price trends down: Venezuela!OPEC should consider cutting oil production at the next meeting if member nations determine that recent price declines constitute a sustained downturn, Venezuela`s energy minister Rafael Ramirez said on Friday.Source: Zee News : Business | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:13 pm Security beefed up at Tata's Nano plant siteSecurity arrangements around Tata Motors' Nano project site at Singur have been strengthened ahead of an indefinite agitation against the project from Sunday. Group chairman Ratan Tata has said the plant would be shifted out of West Bengal if the security of employees could not be assured.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 23 Aug 2008 | 11:31 am Jammu and Kashmir suffers Rs.50 bn loss: AssochamThe current bout of unrest in Jammu and Kashmir has cost the industry Rs.50 billion ($1.16 billion) in the past two months, a leading industry chamber said here Saturday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 23 Aug 2008 | 11:30 am '86 percent rural Indians use dung cakes, firewood'About 86 percent of India's rural households still use dung cakes and firewood as fuel, a senior government official has said here.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 23 Aug 2008 | 11:00 am Abhinav Bindra gets Rs.3.9 mn VolvoIndia's only individual gold medal winner at the Beijing Olympics, shooter Abhinav Bindra, was Saturday gifted a Volvo car worth Rs.3.9 million by the Swedish car manufacturer.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 23 Aug 2008 | 11:00 am Trinamool protests in Tripura against Tata's West Bengal plantThe Trinamool Congress Saturday staged a protest demonstration in Tripura against Tata Motors' small car project at Singur in West Bengal.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 23 Aug 2008 | 10:32 am Foundation stone laid for Hindustan Aeronautics' Kerala unitDefence Minister A.K. Antony laid the foundation stone for the strategic electronics manufacturing unit of the state-run aerospace major Hindustan Aeronautics Ltd (HAL) here Saturday.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 23 Aug 2008 | 10:30 am Maharashtra, Orissa invite Tata Nano - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Google News India - Business | 23 Aug 2008 | 9:54 am Bombay HC ruling brings tax cheer for MNCs - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Google News India - Business | 23 Aug 2008 | 9:54 am Banks told to review inoperative accountsBanks must play a more proactive role in finding the whereabouts of account holders whose accounts have remained inoperative and must also continue to pay the interest on such deposits, said the Reserve Bank of India in a notice issued on Friday.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Aug 2008 | 8:57 am Star may buy stake in Asianet; launches Bengali channelStar India is looking to buy a stake in Asianet Entertainment and add a Malayalam and Kannada channel to its bouquet. It announced the launch of its Bengali general entertainment channel, Star Jolsha, on Friday.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Aug 2008 | 8:52 am Lanco Infratech to foray into solar sectorLanco Infratech is set to foray into solar modules manufacturing and solar power generation with significant investments. A special purpose vehicle is being formed for this purpose.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 23 Aug 2008 | 8:49 am New Indica to be launched today - Sify
Source: Google News India - Business | 23 Aug 2008 | 8:00 am Tata Tea seeks buys in US and Russia - Sify
Source: Google News India - Business | 23 Aug 2008 | 7:43 am Obama taps Biden to be running mateWashington: Barack Obama named Senator Joe Biden of Delaware as his vice presidential running mate early Saturday, 23 August, balancing his ticket with a seasoned congressional veteran well-versed in foreign policy and defense issues. Obama announced his decision on his website and moments later in a text message to supporters. “Barack has chosen Senator Joe Biden to be our VP nominee,” the text message said. Across more than 30 years in the Senate, Biden has served at various times not only as chairman of the Foreign Relations Committee but also as head of the Judiciary Committee, with its jurisdiction over anti-crime legislation, Supreme Court nominees and Constitutional issues. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 23 Aug 2008 | 7:20 am Oil prices plunge after dollar firmsNew York: Oil prices have shed more than $6 a barrel after the dollar firmed and as the world’s second-largest pipeline appeared set to reopen. New York’s main contract, light sweet crude for October, fell $6.59 to close at $114.59 dollars a barrel on 22 August. The benchmark futures contract was 82 cents higher from a week ago, but remains about $33 below its record-high $147.27 on 11 July. In London, Brent North Sea crude for October dropped $6.24 to settle at $113.92. Oil prices that had surged more than $5 on Thursday headed south yesterday (22 August) when the dollar lost steam against the euro, said Phil Flynn at Alaron Trading. “At the end of the day it is all about oil perceived value against a backdrop of uncertainty and a world and economic system gone wild,” he said. “The best way to judge in terms of commodities is to watch the dollar. That is the gauge that will drive them all.” The euro, which rose above $1.49 Thursday, was trading around $1.47 yesterday. The greenback’s newfound vigor inspired profit taking in dollar-denominated oil ahead of the weekend, analysts said. Another factor hitting crude prices was expectations that the Baku-Tbilisi-Ceyhan oil pipeline (BTC) would reopen next week. BP, which operates the pipeline, said this week it expects to start loading oil to the ships at the port of Ceyhan on Turkey’s Mediterranean coast “early next week.” The BTC line was shut on 5 August after a blast in a pump at a section in eastern Turkey sparked a fire. The blaze was put out six days later. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 23 Aug 2008 | 6:55 am Maharashtra spreads red carpet for Tata’s ‘Nano’Mumbai: Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh has invited Ratan Tata to set up the ‘Nano’ small car project in the state if it decides to move out from West Bengal, where it is mired in controversy. “The Tatas will be accorded red carpet welcome to set up the project in Maharashtra and will be given land and necessary facilities,” Deshmukh said in a statement here on 23 August. The Maharashtra Government’s offer comes a day after Tata threatened to exit from the small car project at Singur if violence and disruption continued. Incidentally, West Bengal Chief Minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee had offered help to Videocon chairman V.N. Dhoot in setting up the company’s TFT-LCD project in his state, after Maharashtra revenue minister Narayan Rane objected to the allotment of land for the plant near Mumbai. The Singur plant, which has already seen an investment of Rs1,500 crore, will make the world’s cheapest car that Tata had promised to bring in the market by year-end. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 23 Aug 2008 | 6:28 am Wary of equity risk? Go for index funds - Sify
Source: Google News India - Business | 23 Aug 2008 | 6:24 am ICICI Bank to move call centre operations - reportMUMBAI (Reuters) - India's top private-sector lender, ICICI Bank, plans to consolidate its call centre operations in Hyderabad, the Economic Times business daily said on Saturday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 23 Aug 2008 | 6:14 am 'Indian art market is becoming global'The high and mighty in the world of Indian art and its western promoters are now in the sprawling arena of the capital's exhibition grounds to take contemporary Indian art and a few foreign exhibits to the masses.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 23 Aug 2008 | 5:32 am State will soon have special education zones, says CM - Times of India
Source: Google News India - Business | 23 Aug 2008 | 5:04 am Fertiliser major plans Rs.30 bn expansion at Gujarat plantLeading fertiliser maker Indian Farmers Fertiliser Cooperative Ltd (IFFCO) has said it will expand the production capacity of its Kalol urea plant in Gujarat at a cost of Rs.30 billion once natural gas from the Krishna-Godavari basin starts flowing to the state.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 23 Aug 2008 | 4:31 am Quick work needed to save world trade deal - LamyWASHINGTON (Reuters) - World trade negotiators need to bounce back quickly from a failed meeting in July to have any chance of reaching a deal by the end of the year, the head of the World Trade Organization said on Friday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 23 Aug 2008 | 2:55 am OPEC may cut output if price trends down: VenezuelaCARACAS (Reuters) - OPEC should consider cutting oil production at the next meeting if member nations determine that recent price declines constitute a sustained downturn, Venezuela's energy minister Rafael Ramirez said on Friday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 23 Aug 2008 | 1:32 am Hefty price tag spoils iPhone’s launch party - Economic Times
Source: Google News India - Business | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:29 am Tata Motors alters Rs 7200 crore fund raising plan - Economic Times
Source: Google News India - Business | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:18 am Govt asks steel cos to cut prices in line with falling global trendTalks initiated between iron ore, steel cos. New Delhi, Aug. 22 Turning the argument forwarded by the steel industry head on, the Government on Friday asked domestic steel manufacturers to cut prices in line with the falling trend in global ...Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:00 am Nano suppliers also to pull out if Tatas shift from SingurConstruction apace on plants at suppliers’ park. Kolkata/New Delhi/Chennai, Aug. 22 About 20 of the 56 suppliers for Tata Motors’ Nano, who have been allotted land at Singur, have started construction of their plants at the ...Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:00 am Singur plant project will continue, says Bengal Industry MinisterKolkata/Chennai, Aug. 22 The impasse will be contained and the project at Singur plant will continue, Mr Nirupam Sen, West Bengal Industry Minister, said on the sidelines of a meeting with various Chambers of Commerce here on Friday. “I ...Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:00 am Phoenix Mills gets €200 m from German fundEquity offering in real estate developer, subsidiaries ranges from 10% to 49%. Mumbai, Aug 22 Atul Ruia-promoted real estate developer Phoenix Mills has raised € 200 million (about Rs 1,300 crore) from German real estate fund MPC ...Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:00 am Plea against dual tech telephony under single licence dismissedDecks cleared for RCom’s GSM foray; COAI now looks to tribunal ruling. New Delhi, Aug. 22 In a blow to GSM operators, the Delhi High Court on Friday dismissed their petition challenging the Government’s decision to allow Reliance ...Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:00 am We may pull out of Singur if protests continue: Ratan Tata‘We do not want to be where we are unwanted’. Kolkata, Aug. 22 Mr Ratan Tata, Chairman of the Tata Group of companies, made it clear here on Friday that Tata Motors would not hesitate to pull out of Singur, the location of the Rs 1 ...Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:00 am BSE bid to whip up derivatives falls flat‘Spent Rs 65 cr on 2 market makers’. Mumbai, Aug. 22 The Bombay Stock Exchange had spent at least Rs 65 crore last fiscal on two market makers whose brief was to create volumes in derivatives trading on the Exchange. ...Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:00 am Kharif oilseeds area crosses last year’s levelPulses, coarse cereals, sugarcane coverage lags behind. New Delhi, Aug. 22 Kharif oilseed plantings this year have finally crossed last year’s corresponding levels. According to the Agriculture Ministry’s latest crop weather watch ...Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:00 am Brokers told to carry out internal audits half-yearly‘Move to aid transparency and accountability’. Mumbai, Aug. 22 The market regulator, Securities and Exchange Board of India, has asked the stock exchanges to direct their brokers and clearing members to carry out complete internal ...Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:00 am Markets this weekSevere inflation hang-over, weak global markets cues and steep fall in commodities set a negative direction for the Sensex on Monday. The bears managed to resurface but failed to wrest full control from the bulls. After a seesaw battle, the bears ...Source: Business Line - Home Page | 23 Aug 2008 | 12:00 am Banks to make a killing on fertiliser loans - Economic Times
Source: Google News India - Business | 22 Aug 2008 | 11:41 pm NTPC slams government counsel on gas deal - Economic Times
Source: Google News India - Business | 22 Aug 2008 | 11:38 pm Wary of equity risk? Go for index fundsIt is an established fact that over the long run, equities as an asset class outperform all other alternative asset classes including real estate.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 11:04 pm What's caste got to do with business?Capitalism is all inclusive. Or is it?Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 10:58 pm There ain't any boss like youK Kurian, founder and chairman of Radeus Advertising, passed away earlier this week. His health had been on the decline since 2006.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 10:40 pm OOH unlimited: 3 examples that redefined innovationLast week, I was at the Goa airport. And I couldn't help noticing the lazy way in which a major telecom brand had used the OOH property in the airport's vicinity.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 10:38 pm ING Vysya steps out of southAt a time when banks are taking a hard look at their retail books, fearing a rise in loan defaults as high interest rates begin to bite, ING Vysya is looking at that very source.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 10:37 pm Govt brands Axe advert indecentKeeping in line with its crackdown on suggestive advertisements being televised, the government on Friday took strong objection to the promotional piece of a deodorant brand.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 10:37 pm 'You can't merge creative firms'When BBDO, the most awarded advertising network in the world as per the Gunn Report 2007, debuted, its prize catch to steer the Indian business was JWT's national creative director Josy Paul.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 10:35 pm Railways to set up 3 wagon repair centresIndian Railways is working towards upgrading its wagon maintenance and repair capacities by setting up three more repair points.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 10:34 pm HC dismisses GSM plea on dual technologyThe petitioners, including Bharti, Vodafone Essar, Idea Cellular and Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), have been asked to pay Rs 50,000 each.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 10:32 pm ONGC Videsh closing in on Imperial EnergyAfter two weeks of below-radar activity, ONGC Videsh Ltd may well emerge triumphant in its bid to take over UK-based Imperial Energy.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 10:31 pm OVL mulls buying institutional holding in Imperial EnergyIn an effort to stem a possible counter-bid by Chinas Sinopec and others, ONGC Videsh Ltd (OVL), the overseas exploration subsidiary of state-owned Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC), hasSource: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 22 Aug 2008 | 10:14 pm Flashpoint at SingurTata reiterates threat to withdraw, Left stages massive support rally.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 22 Aug 2008 | 10:13 pm Wall St Week Ahead: U.S. stocks brace for another whipsaw weekNEW YORK (Reuters) - What should be a holiday lull of a week looks set to be anything but, with Wall Street on high alert for the latest twists and turns in the credit crisis, more volatility in commodity prices and key developments in the race for the White House.Source: Reuters: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 9:36 pm Historical Bombay HC ruling brings tax cheer for MNCsThe Bombay High Court ruled today that income of Sony Singapore from its Indian channels is not taxable in India. It has overruled an earlier Income Tax Appellate Tribunal, or ITAT ruling that favoured the Income Tax department. This is the first time an Indian court has clarified PE, or Permanent Establishment taxation.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 22 Aug 2008 | 9:23 pm GLOBAL MARKETS - Oil falls sharply, stocks gain on Lehman hopesNEW YORK (Reuters) - Oil prices fell sharply on Friday in their biggest one-day slide since 2004, helping lift stocks that rallied early in the day on hopes battered U.S. investment bank Lehman Brothers will gain a major investor.Source: Reuters: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 8:34 pm Team effortGroup shows can be tricky affairs. Put more than one artist in a room and you immediately set up a dialogue between the works, even if the works and the artists have, or want, nothing to do with each other. The point, however, more often than not is to reveal new narratives or perspectives, tenuous ideas that become apparent, and lasting, when, say, a Manet is placed next to a Degas. The idea is to give the viewer some thread with which he can feel his way through an exhibit, that Manet’s broad brushstrokes were undoubtedly the first base washes from which Impressionism sprung.  Ganesh’s Sugar and Milk As the art season gets underway, a few are already up and running, pulling together various themes and subjects with varying success.  Nelson’s Oh Pal (left) and Joag’s The sweet smell of the consecrating holy acid Strictly speaking, Thomas Erben at Chatterjee and Lal is not a conventional group show in that it lacks a title (which may not be a bad thing) and is a sampling of stock works from Erben’s New York gallery. Erben has carefully pruned the selection, so that in all but one or two cases, there is only work by each of the nine artists on display. There is no real continuity here, though Erben has intentionally placed works in a certain sequence, so that one work reveals in the next something unexpected.  A vase by Clemente In this manner, the show carries the viewer across and around the room, so that standing in the centre of this fairly compact space, one is able to see parallels and cross-references, such as Mahbub Shah and Yamini Nayar, who both work in the miniature tradition, one applying composition and mosaic to magazine cut-outs, the other to dollhouse set-ups of crumbling interiors. At Galerie Mirchandani+Steinruecke, the set-up is less integrated, with a room devoted to each artist. Drawing Sculpture is, exactly as the name suggests, a series of drawings, some of sculptures and two actual sculptures by three artists who share very little except that they draw with varying degrees of success. There are thrilling parts of this exhibit—individual works that shine in isolation but seem to lose their lustre in this linear display. Dutch artist Juul Kraijer is a gifted draughtsman whose ghostly, intricate charcoals of faces and figures, seemingly plundered from Freudian theory, have been acquired by the Museum of Modern Art in New York. Sadly, these are not on display. Three neat charcoal figures and one bronze bust peppered with shrieking heads do little, except maybe push the viewer into the next room where Tushar Joag’s pen-and-ink drawings more than hold their own as a mini exhibition. Like strange and desolate landscapes from a sci-fi movie, his drawings explore otherworldly places, where gas tanks and carcasses lie strewn on post-apocalyptic ruins. Whatever context the viewer is given comes through the titles (The sweet smell of the consecrating holy acid; Shhh! We can pounce when they come to suckle at the carcass, to name a couple) and this is probably a good thing. Apocalyptic fantasies are best conjured up in the head, and Joag’s drawings do a good job of stimulating all kinds of menacing scenarios. N.N. Rimzon, the accompanying literature tells us, “pays obeisance to the worker” and uses cloth, sandpaper, charcoal and other odds and ends to create stolid, uninspired drawings of tombs and mirrors that lack the intensity of Joag, or even Kraijer. In the middle of the room, The Tools, a sculpture of a farmer-like figure offering thanks for harvest, surrounded by rusty farming tools, is impressive but out of place. Lastly, Bodhi Mumbai with its cross-continental reach and financial might, is adept at corralling big names under one roof. Everywhere is war (and rumours of war) starts today and will feature a heady mix of contemporary biggies and international giants such as Jon Kessler and Francesco Clemente, many of whom were specially commissioned for this show. The gallery will be reconfigured to resemble war bunkers and trenches, a little hokey undoubtedly, but possibly a way to entice viewers not already sold on the stellar roster. The question, however, remains whether 35 artists, including some of India’s biggest, can coexist in a coherent fashion. Thomas Erben at Chatterjee and Lal, Colaba, continues till 30 August; Drawing Sculpture at Galerie Mirchandani+Steinruecke, Colaba, continues till 20 September; Everywhere is war (and rumours of war) at Bodhi Art, Kala Ghoda, continues till 27 September. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 7:55 pm Oil falls 5.4 percent in biggest drop since 2004NEW YORK (Reuters) - Crude oil prices fell more than 5.4 percent on Friday in the biggest one-day slide since 2004 as dealers turned their focus to rising supply levels and weakening global demand.Source: Reuters: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 7:50 pm U.S. trade chief Schwab urges new push for WTO dealWASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. Trade Representative Susan Schwab said on Friday that serious negotiations in world trade talks should resume in September to see whether a deal is still possible this year.Source: Reuters: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 7:33 pm French make-up artist to give Kareena new lookKareena Kapoor is all set to fly to Paris to shoot an advertisement for an apparel chain and the Bollywood actress will don a new look, thanks to a French make-up artist.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 22 Aug 2008 | 7:31 pm Tata warns of pullout, West Bengal assures Nano project is onHours after Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata threatened to withdraw the Nano car project out of West Bengal if the unrest against it over farmland acquisition continues, the state government said Friday the small car factory would be set up at the proposed site in Singur despite agitations by the opposition Trinamool Congress.Source: IndiaeNews.com: Business News | 22 Aug 2008 | 7:31 pm An army gone awryCrossed Swords | Shuja Nawaz The Pakistani army has time and again taken the political reins of the country. These takeovers have occurred at times when the credibility of its civilian rulers has been very low. The army, in turn, has always returned to the barracks when its credibility is hit hard. Why and how has this recurring pattern become a near-constant feature of Pakistan’s history since 1958?  Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army and the Wars Within:Oxford University Press, 655 pages, Rs695. In recent decades, the second argument has been in vogue, especially in academia. Crossed Swords: Pakistan, Its Army and the Wars Within, the new book by Shuja Nawaz, a US-based political analyst who specializes in Pakistan and West Asia, offers a more balanced perspective. The strength of Nawaz’s book lies in its detailing of history and its interpretation, without losing sight of the facts. He does not mince words when it comes to the failings of the army, but he refrains from criticism for the sake of it, not allowing his own beliefs to intrude into his analytical scheme. The history of the Pakistan army is complex, and cannot be boxed into a single explanation. Nawaz says that the army’s interference in politics is due to a combination of factors: recklessness of politicians and the presence of ambitious soldiers in the army. That, of course, is not the whole picture. The age of ambitious soldiers probably ended with General Agha Mohammad Yahya Khan in 1971. After the era of General Zia ul Haq, which ended in 1988, army chiefs have been reluctant to take over executive control, directly at least. At least three generals, Asif Nawaz Janjua (the author’s brother), Abdul Waheed and Jehangir Karamat, have been conscious of the army’s limited abilities in the political domain—all three were chiefs in the 1990s. All three had a difficult time with an ambitious politician, former prime minister Nawaz Sharif.  On vigil: The army in Pakistan has a complex history and troops are omnipresent in the country. Photograph: AFP After reading Nawaz’s book, one gets the feeling that Sharif was in a hurry to control the army, and, in the process, lost the distinction between asserting control and browbeating generals. He finally paid the price after the Kargil conflict in 1998. One chapter of the book is devoted to the genesis of the Kargil episode. Nawaz argues that the presence of like-minded generals at the top and the closing “window of opportunity” for deciding the Kashmir issue in Pakistan’s favour, triggered the war. Sharif, who was prime minister at the time, was briefed many times. He was aware of what was going on, but tried to extricate himself by saying that he did not know the scale of what was taking place. These attempts led to a breakdown in relations between him and General Pervez Musharraf. The coup by Musharraf took place when the credibility of politicians had hit rock-bottom. Musharraf had to give up his uniform when the army, in turn, lost credibility after years of misgoverning Pakistan. This only reinforces the idea of the cyclical, civilian-military-civilian nature of Pakistan’s history. The final chapter of the book outlines how organizational changes in the army, and an alteration in its command structure, may prevent the occurrence of coups. That may help, but one cannot but be sceptical about the efficacy of those changes. For, unless Pakistan gets a stable political order, nothing can help it. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 7:29 pm Raindrops keep falling on my tankMy rainwater collection tour started one morning with a cup plant, Silphium perfoliatum, in Lenny Librizzi’s front garden on Staten Island. This prairie plant’s daisy-like flowers bloomed way over our heads, and its oval leaves joined at the stem like big hands, cupping about half an inch of the rain that had fallen the night before.  “The insects and birds know they can go there for water,” says Librizzi, who is a bit obsessed with this precious resource. As assistant director of the open space greening programmes at the council on the environment of New York City, he designs rainwater harvesting systems for community gardens. He and Lars Chellberg, who also works for the council, started building them in 2002, after the severe drought the year before. This summer, while much of the south-east, Texas and areas across the US are suffering from drought, the north-east is enjoying regular rains. You won’t save a lot of money harvesting rainwater — as Librizzi said, “city water is dirt cheap; you pay about a penny a gallon” — but you’ll save water. “My tank has probably been emptied and filled three or four times since I put it in this spring,” Librizzi says. “That’s 600 gallons that’s not going into the sewer,” he adds, and it saves the water in the reservoirs for drinking, which is important because “only 3% of the world’s water is freshwater”.  Eco-storage: Lenny Librizzi next to his home rainwater tank. Photograph: Andrew Henderson / NYT Librizzi installed his tank on the north-west corner of his house, about 50ft from the little 10X20ft kitchen garden he tends with his wife, Kathy Venezia, and their children, Paulina, 12, and Julian, 11. The 32 inch-diameter tank holds 165 gallons, and he estimates that it collects about one quarter of the rain that pours off his 1,000 sq. ft roof. It sits on a wooden platform, about 15 inches off the ground, to increase the water flow to the garden. To keep the tank stable in a storm, Librizzi wound metal strapping around it and the downspout; to soften its industrial look on the side facing the street, he erected a trellis for a native honeysuckle or autumn clematis. The construction is simple: Rainwater flows down a spout from the roof until it reaches a T, where a filter catches leaves and particulate matter; water is then directed into the tank through a pipe set at a slightly downward angle. When the tank is full, the overflow runs through the other pipe in the T and into the ground. Rainwater harvesting is practised in community gardens in more than 20 cities in the US, Librizzi says, including Seattle, Vancouver, Chicago and New York, where there are about 36 working systems operating under GreenThumb, a parks department garden programme, and more on the boards. Because the topography and climate of different gardens are so variable, the collection systems have to be designed to suit the individual sites. Seattle and New York, for example, get about 40-50 inches of rain a year, Librizzi said, but Seattle gets much of its rain in the winter, in a light drizzle. New York’s is spread out, with downpours followed by dry spells. Community gardeners in Seattle, therefore, often build large tanks, with a capacity of 10,000 gallons or more, to capture winter rains; New York gardeners use smaller tanks, from 500-1,000 gallons. Harvesting rainwater is like growing your own food. It puts you in touch with the seasons and where your water comes from. And anyone who remembers the drought of 2002 knows it could happen again. As Librizzi likes to say: “You have to learn to live with your water supply. Use it judiciously until the next rain.” ©2008 / The New York Times Write to lounge@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 7:27 pm Glazed expressionWhen Delhi-based interior designer Adil Ahmad renovated the the Raj Niwas Palace in Dholpur, Rajasthan, there was one thing he knew he didn’t need to touch: the old tiles that adorn its walls. “From floor to ceiling, there are these 20ft high walls covered with tiles, like wallpaper. With their jewel tones, they are reminiscent of our traditional minakari (enamelling) work, and almost have a three-dimensional feel to them,” he says. “I loved working around them.”  Square beauty: (left) Interior designer Adil Ahmad left much of the tile-work intact while renovating the Dholpur palace in Rajasthan; (right) tiles from the upcoming exhibition which opens on 8 August at Delhi’s InterContinental The Grand. Ahmad recently purchased 60 antique tiles for personal use from a collection that will be exhibited and go on sale at the annual fund-raising event for People for Animals (PFA), an animal welfare non-governmental organization. PFA chairperson Maneka Gandhi, who has been a collector of tiles for many years, says 10,000 antique tiles will be on sale. Among them is one with the classic peacock feathers splendidly unfurled in hues of blue and green, set against finely cracked, dull-white ceramic. Then, there is the calendar-art Lakshmi, with a chipped nose, seated on a rose-red lotus that matches the colour of her sari; there is also a charging green lion in profile, its tongue protruding like Kali’s. The tiles will be on display from 8-10 August at Hotel InterContinental The Grand, New Delhi. The larger tiles are priced at Rs2,000 each and the smaller ones at Rs1,500. “We sent teams all over the country — places such as Baroda, Udaipur, the south — over a two-year period and they procured the tiles from old havelis and houses that were being pulled down. They were mostly used in hearths and the walls,” says Gandhi. All the tiles are about a century old, and were mostly made to order and sourced from countries such as Britain, Portugal, Germany and Japan. “There were only two kilns in India during the colonial times, in Saurashtra and Gwalior, which actually makes the decorative tiles on sale from these kilns rarer and, therefore, more valuable,” says Gandhi. Not surprisingly perhaps, there is no dearth of tiles with religious imagery and motifs. Anila Bal from Gurgaon, who works in the retail and designer wear sector, bought tiles from PFA with images of Krishna, Lakshmi and Ganesh that were made in Germany. And Ahmad’s purchase include ones with “Radhey Shyam” written across them. “I’ll put them at home where I can benefit from the good vibrations,” he says. Gandhi sees the tiles as “major art” meant to be hung on the walls. She is in the process of framing several of them. However, many designers and decorators feel that antique tiles can still be used for the decorative purposes they were originally meant for, albeit in a more creative fashion. Put a tile anywhere, says Delhi-based fashion designer Rahul Jain, and it makes a statement. “I came across this antique tile from Madhya Pradesh,” he says, “mounted on a centre table with a glass top. It was exquisite”. The use of tiles in furniture is an old practice. In 19th century Europe, when they first began to be mass produced, tiles were used to adorn furniture in middle-class homes. “You will find them on a lot of old Parsi furniture in Mumbai,” says Gandhi. Today, designers use antique tiles on chairs, doors, and tables or as decorative accents on walls. Fashion designer Rohit Bal has used tiles as inspiration for his clothing line. His love of antique tiles springs from his fascination for old architecture. “After all this time, the tiles still retain their original colour,” he says, as he recalls some of the countries from where he has bought tiles over the years — France, Spain, Morocco, Egypt and Turkey. Bal has stored away his most valuable antique tiles and prefers to work with contemporary tiles made using the same age-old techniques that produce the look and feel of old tiles. “Iznik in Turkey has been a centre of tile making for a few thousand years now,” he says. “And tiles are still made the same way there, and then lacquered and hand-painted.” The biggest problem with antique tiles is that there are not that many left. “We are limited by the fact that old tiles of the same design and pattern are never available in large numbers,” says Ahmad. He believes that the Raj Niwas Palace probably has the best extant tile work in the country. Mumbai-based designer Sandeep Khosla, who along with partner Abu Jani works extensively with contemporary tiles, agrees. “I would love to work with antique tiles, but the problem is that you can’t get enough of them,” he says. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 7:27 pm Life on a pitchCricket and life are two very different things, but to the lovers of the game they often seem the same, or at least seem to inhabit a continuous plane of existence.  Unlikely heroes:The US cricket team is yet to find a fan following in cricket-loving nations, but it participates in the ICC Cricket World Cup. Photograph: Nicolas Asfouri / AFP O’Neill’s novel, his third, has its home in the scattered cricket fields of New York, one of cricket’s earliest centres (as one character in the book points out, the first international cricket matches were between the US and Canada in the mid-19th century). Hans is a Dutchman married to an Englishwoman, and his job in banking brings him to New York where, very soon, he begins to inhabit “the nativity New York encourages even its most fleeting visitor to imagine for himself”. But soon Hans’ world begins to collapse around him. His wife, Rachel, feels their marriage is unsatisfactory, and wants to move back to London with their young son, Jake.  Netherland:Fourth Estate,248 pages, £14.99 (around Rs1,200). Hans shares many similarities, for instance, with Tommy Wilhelm, the protagonist of Saul Bellow’s great short novel Seize The Day. Both live in hotels, both are estranged from their wives and torn from their children, and both are “to anyone who could be bothered to pay attention, noticeably lost”. Hans used to play some cricket as a boy in Holland, and one day, taking up an invitation from a Pakistani cab driver, he goes to a weekend club game at Staten Island. He finds himself the only white man in a motley crowd of Indians, Pakistanis, Sri Lankans, Bangladeshis and West Indians, but this sense of being pulled out into a new set is a relief to him, and he finds playing cricket again immensely calming. O’Neill evokes this calm majestically in his description of “the sights and sounds and rhythms of a full day’s cricket, in which unhurried time is portioned out by the ticking of ball against bat”. Cricket in this description is a kind of restorative clock set to a more languorous speed than others, encouraging everybody to slow down and appreciate the big picture and the finer details. It is through cricket, too, that Hans meets an older Trinidadian, called Chuck Ramkissoon— a great dreamer and schemer who talks “incessantly, indefatigably, virtuosically”, is a master of the grand pronouncement (“women are responsible for the survival of the world; men are responsible for its glories”), and has a plan for building a cricket stadium in Brooklyn. The stadium, in Chuck’s optimistic view, will make New York a centre of world cricket. Hans finds succour in this unlikely brotherhood of men who have come together through a shared love of the game, and in the infectious enthusiasm of Chuck and his motto of “Think fantastic”. Netherland is an exquisite achievement on every level, from the stream of beautifully weighted and sonorous sentences that ripple on page after page to the larger architecture of narrative time and of plot. The captivating sound of Hans’ voice and the density with which his predicament is evoked redeem the novel form from the assaults made on it every week by the dozens of shapeless, derivative, and linguistically insipid works that pass under the same name. Through cricket, Hans recovers some lost part of his life, and it would not be an exaggeration to say that through O’Neill’s novel you might be given back some part of yours. Respond to this review at lounge@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 7:26 pm ED gets stay from Bombay HC on returning Anandraj’s passportMumbai: The Enforcement Directorate (ED), the agency that investigates economic crimes in India, has secured a stay from the Bombay high court on a sessions court order asking it to return the passport of Switzerland-based hotelier Philip Anandraj, a claimed accomplice of Hasan Ali Khan, the Pune-based stud farm owner allegedly involved in laundering $8 billion (about Rs34,750 crore).  Absconding: Hasan Ali Khan. Y.R. Mishra, an advocate representing ED, said: “We sought the stay on the ground that the sessions court has no jurisdiction to decide this application as his (Anandraj’s) passport was seized under the foreign exchange management act.” Mishra claimed that the agency had found details of Khan’s accounts from Anandraj’s laptop. Anandraj, a co-conspirator in Khan’s case, was not cooperating with the agency’s investigation, an ED official, who did not wish to be named, said. Anandraj’s advocate, P. Janardhan, declined to comment on the issue as the case is to come up for hearing in the high court next week. The Mumbai sessions court on 8 August had asked ED to return the passport of Anandraj that had been seized by the agency. The hotelier, denying any involvement in the money laundering case, moved the court against ED on 29 July for the return of his passport. ALSO READ Mint had reported on 4 August that ED claimed to have in its possession conclusive evidence to prove Anandraj’s association with Khan. “We have found that Khan has given the power of attorney to operate his five lockers with Barclays Bank Plc. in the UK to Anandraj,” a top ED official in Mumbai, who spoke on condition of anonymity, had then said in an interview. “ED is in talks with the UK government to get details of these lockers.” ED also said investigations revealed that Anandraj was assisting Khan and his family to obtain Swiss citizenship and a work permit, but that these efforts fell apart after Indian authorities launched an investigation last year. In February, the Mumbai police had booked Khan for holding three fake passports. Following this, Khan filed an anticipatory bail application in the Bombay high court, which was rejected. On 30 April, a Mumbai court declared Khan a proclaimed offender after he failed to appear for a hearing. Since then, the police have not been able to trace Khan. Mint reported in a 2 February story that ED claimed to have found $8 billion in the Swiss bank accounts of Khan. ED also said it had evidence of a $300 million transfer to him, via a Chase Manhattan Bank account in New York, from billionaire Saudi arms dealer Adnan Khashoggi. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 7:18 pm Unrest over Amarnath land pits India against PakistanSrinagar: Born and reared during the bloodiest years of insurgency and counterinsurgency, inheritors of rage, a new generation of young Kashmiris poured into the streets by the tens of thousands over the past several weeks, with stones in their fists and an old slogan on their lips: Azadi, or freedom, from India. Their protests in Kashmir were part of an unexpected outburst of discontent set off by a dispute over a 99-acre piece of land, which has for more than two months been stoked by both separatist leaders in Muslim-majority Kashmir and Hindu nationalists elsewhere in India. Overnight, the unrest has threatened to breathe new life into the old and treacherous dispute between India and Pakistan over Kashmir, which is claimed by both nations and lies at the heart of 60 years of bitterness between them. Disastrously for the Indian government, Kashmir has burst onto centre stage at a time of growing turmoil in the region — with the resignation this week of Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, who had sought to temper his country’s backing for anti-Indian militancy here. Even though the two countries have been engaged in four years of peace talks, India has grown nervous that the disarray in Pakistan has left it with no negotiating partner. From New Delhi’s perspective, that power vacuum has allowed anti-Indian elements in Pakistan’s intelligence services and the militant groups they employ to pursue their agenda with renewed vigour. Relations between the countries have become newly embittered as Indian and Pakistani forces have engaged in skirmishes across the Line of Control. Not least, India has blamed the Pakistani intelligence services for playing a hidden role in the bombing of the Indian embassy in Afghanistan last month, a charge that Pakistan vehemently denies. The latest unrest here has only added to the difficulties of renewed dialogue. How long this agitation will continue depends on both India’s capacity to assuage Kashmiri separatist leaders, and their ability in turn to control the sudden eruption of rage among the young. On Monday, tens of thousands of Kashmiris, mostly men, streamed into an open area in the city centre and demanded independence from India. They came in motorcycle cavalcades, and on the backs of trucks and buses. A few waved Pakistani flags. Some shouted praise for Lashkar-e-Taiba, the banned Pakistan-based militant organization that India blames for a series of terrorist attacks in recent years. “India, your death will come,” they chanted. “Lashkar will come. Lashkar will come.” By Tuesday, traffic had returned to the city, as the separatists called for a three-day suspension of the strike. Shops and cafes reopened. The pro-Pakistan graffiti had been covered up, as though it were again an ordinary day. Again and again, Kashmiris from across the political spectrum said the scenes now reminded them of the peak of the anti-Indian rebellion in the early 1990s, except at that time, separatist guerrillas, aided by Pakistan, openly roamed the streets with guns. The current demonstrations have pierced what seemed, perhaps deceptively to the Indian government, such as a return of the ordinary here. “The uprising we see now is the latent anger against the Indian state that has erupted again.” N.N. Vohra, governor of Jammu and Kashmir, compared life in Srinagar today to darkness at noon. The trouble began two months ago over 99 acres of government land that, for decades, had been used by Hindu pilgrims on the route to the Amarnath shrine. In May, the authorities authorized the panel that runs the pilgrimage site to put up “prefabricated structures” for pilgrims. The order enraged Muslims. With state elections scheduled for this year, some politicians and separatist leaders pounced on the decision and declared it a bid to re-engineer the demography of Kashmir. Hardline Islamists compared it to the Israeli occupation of Muslim holy lands. The government rescinded the order, but nothing, as Vohra said, actually changed —Hindu pilgrims still used the land, and they still came this year in record numbers. Nevertheless, the retraction of the original order enraged people in the Hindu-majority plains of Jammu. And they, too, were goaded by politicians and hardline leaders. All told, over the past two months, the protests here in the Muslim-majority Kashmir valley and counterprotests led by Hindu groups in the plains below, have left a death toll of nearly 40 in clashes with security forces. Kashmiri public opinion is hardly uniformly anti-Indian, and the pro-Pakistan current is one among many. But distrust runs deep. “It is a volcano that has erupted,” Shad Salim Akhtar, 54, a doctor, said of the latest agitation. ©2008/THE NEW YORK TIMES Yusuf Jameel contributed to this story Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 7:13 pm The market is not the author of art historyNew Delhi: Robert Storr, dean of Yale university School of Art, has served both the academic side of the art world (as a curator for the Museum of Modern Art in New York, and a teacher) and the practical side (as director of the 2007 Venice Biennale, and as a painter in his own right). He bridges the gap between high-brow intellectuals and young artists whose cause he champions. Here to attend the India Art Summit, Storr talks about his first impressions of the event, where India can improve, and why a formal education is vital for an artist. Edited excerpts: This is India’s first art fair. What do you think of it?  Word of advice: Robert Storr, dean of the School of Art, Yale University, was in New Delhi on Wednesday for the Art India Summit. He says Indian newspapers need independent critics who speak to a general public. Photograph: Harikrishna Katragadda / Mint India has an underfunded public arts infrastructure, in that there are very few museums, public institutions, etc., that support artists. How important is a fair like this in helping boost a country’s arts sector? Fairs can be very good as long as there’s no illusion that fairs are anything but what they are. And fairs are commercial enterprises by generally small individual entrepreneurs, and you may have a very good gallerist who has very good choices, but that is no substitute for active public institutions, because only a relatively small percentage of people who are interested and capable of understanding contemporary art see it through galleries. These things have to enter the public domain through public institutions or big comprehensive exhibitions like biennales. How important is a formal education in art? I think it’s essential, actually. I think there are very few cases in the modern era (that) have actually done it without training and dialogue. What goes on in art schools is not so much that the old teach the young, but that the young talk to each other and that generational interest is synthesized in the context of a programme. So it’s very important. And I think it’s also a strengthening factor because as a generation comes out of an art school, it stays in touch with its members, they egg each other on, they’re competitive and so on. A lot of people here are starting to see art just as an investment. Can that have harmful effects? This idea of art as (an) investment is very very old. It’s not necessary a good judge of what will be the most important art. In the English art world, people spent millions of pounds on (Edwin Henry) Landseer, who was a painter of animals. Nobody looks at Landseer anymore. Art history is not written by the market, it is a factor, but it is not the author of art history. How important is international recognition for an Indian artist? Good art communicates without endorsement of markets or fame. I mean, people who look at art will find the good stuff, sooner or later. Attention in the media and attention to the market can speed that process up. It can spread the news to a wider world than just to people who have a knack for this. It can also create huge problems for the artist because good art is not necessarily made on the same schedules that business is done on. And a good artist can be destroyed with too great a demand for one body of their work, and no time to develop the next body. Are there any areas where Indian art can improve? Again, I don’t know the situation that well, but the strongest issue now probably would be support for independent criticism in the newspapers. The magazines will take care of themselves, but the newspapers need to have independent critics who speak to a general public. There needs to be very strong support for the national museums, and the regional museums. But there also has to be strong pressure on them not to play it safe, and to show a wide variety and to show controversial art. And then, I would say, the last piece of the puzzle is you have to get private support as well as maybe some public support for selfstarting art institutions, like Khoj here in Delhi. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 7:03 pm Private equity finds more takers in IndiaMumbai: Private equity (PE) is gaining greater acceptance in India, where rising borrowing costs and a tanking stock market have shut down other means of funding, forcing family-owned businesses to tap a source they had once shunned. “It’s a question of survival now,” said Vishal Sharma, chief executive of Tuscan Ventures, a PE firm focused on logistics, which has closed three deals in the past year. “The tough times are forcing firms to evaluate their business plans and look for help to ride out the storm,” Sharma said. PE investing in India and China held steady in the first half of the year, the Asia Venture Capital Journal said, with India seeing a 3.2% rise to $6.8 billion (Rs29,512 crore today), and China registering a 3% gain to $5.8 billion. Indian PE deals typically involve little leverage, and PE firms have often done growth capital deals and late-stage investments, buying small stakes in private and listed companies. Still, PE firms have had a tough time convincing family-owned businesses to surrender some control in return for cash. With easy initial public offerings a thing of the past, firms are coming around. “When the markets recover, firms will choose to tap the market again, but they may now also go to PE, as they are recognizing the value add that PE brings,” said Arun Natarajan, chief executive of research firm Venture Intelligence. Family-owned firms tend to be sprawling entities with diversified interests and lacking clear succession plans, which makes smaller firms particularly vulnerable at this time. “Even speaking to a private equity firm was unheard of a couple of years ago for a family-owned business,” Natarajan said. “They see the merit now in selling non-core assets, or a stake to PE. It is seen as a better option to selling out to a rival.” Tuscan’s Sharma said that companies in India were also realizing they want the expertise that PE brings along: “They want more than just a cheque. They now want smart money.” Source: Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 6:59 pm Smart investors have to wonder who’s dumb now Twenty-one years ago this October, global stock markets crashed, dragging down investors who had been persuaded to buy shares in companies they had never heard of, with names they couldn’t pronounce, engaged in businesses they didn’t comprehend and located in places they couldn’t find on a map. It’s no different this time— except that the acronyms have changed, the losses are bigger and the investments more complicated. On 6 August, the Counterparty Risk Management Policy Group III—a 16-person private sector initiative representing major investment and commercial banks, money management companies and a top law firm—released a 176-page report aimed at reducing risk and ultimately making the financial system more efficient. It includes measures to better understand and manage risky, complex securities. “The policy group strongly recommends that high-risk, complex financial instruments should be sold only to sophisticated investors,” reads the report. That raises the question of what constitutes a sophisticated investor. The group’s goal is to complement official oversight in encouraging industry practices that will help mitigate systemic risk. The report, Containing Systemic Risk: The Road to Reform, contains many good proposals. But when it comes to listing some of the characteristics that might define a sophisticated investor, it comes up short. Sophisticated investors should be able to understand an instrument’s risk and return characteristics, and have the ability to price and run stress tests on a security, says the policy group, which is headed by E. Gerald Corrigan, a managing director at Goldman Sachs Group Inc.and former president of the Federal Reserve Bank of New York, and Douglas Flint, deputy head of global markets at HSBC Holdings Plc.  ‘Smart’ losers: Swiss bank UBS AG and other institutions have suffered $505.5 billion in losses and write-downs due to the mortgage meltdown. Photograph: Walter Bieri / AP UBS AG, Merrill Lynch and Co., Citigroup Inc., HSBC and Wachovia Corp. presumably satisfy these criteria and surely regard themselves as financially sophisticated. Yet, they and other institutions worldwide have racked up $505.5 billion (Rs21.94 trillion) in losses and write-downs because of the mortgage meltdown. Given such a performance, the folks who steered clear of collateralized-debt obligations and similar instruments may be considered the more sophisticated, if only because they were smart enough to acknowledge what they didn’t understand. The policy group also advocates that investment term sheets, a summary of a transaction’s details, and offering memoranda carry “financial health” warnings displayed in bold print. Yet, given the propensity with which smokers ignore health warnings on cigarette packages, there is no reason to assume that investors will be any different. In addition, the group calls for stronger relationships between financial intermediaries and counterparties in sales and marketing and communications relating to complex financial instruments. “The policy group believes there is a responsibility on the part of large integrated financial intermediaries to provide clients with timely and relevant information about a transaction,” reads the report. Good idea. Yet, past behaviour involving even relatively simple securities suggests that achieving improved communication will be an uphill battle. In the past two weeks, Citigroup, UBS, Morgan Stanley, JPMorgan Chase and Co. and Wachovia reached agreements with New York state attorney general Andrew Cuomo to begin buying back $42 billion of auction-rate securities. The banks had promoted the investments to individuals as cash equivalents, even though they knew the market for auction-rate securities was collapsing. State regulators have imposed $360 million in fines on the banks. Face it. You don’t fine firms for upfront, honest behaviour. Perhaps the policy group’s first precept ought to be that brokers and investment banks hire ethical individuals. The policy group also sidesteps the role of rating agencies, upon whom many investors relied, rightly or wrongly, to guide them in judging how risky individual investments were. “It is vital for every market participant to understand risk and make independent credit judgments even when ratings are available,” the report says. Still, there’s got to be some middle ground between all-out caveat emptor and outlawing some investments and security structures as too risky. After all, financial engineering has produced benefits: Securitization, for instance, disperses risk. The solution might be to have a neutral body—say, a financial regulator—determine what constitutes a complex, high-risk investment and restrict the aggregate amounts that can be invested in them to a predetermined percentage of an institution’s, or individual’s total portfolio. Lewis Hamilton and other Grand Prix drivers can handle a car travelling at more than 200 miles (322km) an hour. Even so, society imposes speed limits, relegating race cars to closed, separate venues. That still doesn’t mean a racer shouldn’t drive with care. Respond to this column at feedback@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 6:57 pm Clutter-freeAre you suffering from Facebook fatigue? I am, after a year of being a hyperactive Facebooker (I would pass on Mortimer, the travelling bear to, or “bite chomps” off the person I got introduced to last week). It’s no longer a daily ritual, except the endless games of Scrabulous played with my spouse and a few friends. Friend requests are piling up and notifications ignored.  New and improved: Throw Justin Timberlake at the latest addition to your friends’ list. Just as I was getting back to a Facebook-free life, the site’s new interface was introduced — a cleaner one that simplifies the user experience, as opposed to the buzzy and cramped old one. Mark Zuckerberg, the site’s founder, said in an interview to The New York Times soon after the revamped site was launched, that Facebook had “grown up”. The site, launched in February 2004, began as a social networking tool for college students and its closed nature was one of its biggest selling points. But most of those students have graduated, grown up and moved on to the office space. So, the new interface is meant to appeal to a more mature user who doesn’t want to waste time on personality tests and mindless applications. In the bargain, Facebook, having moved on from the dorm to a one-room studio, has become boring. First the aesthetics: The home page now looks like that of a news feed site with a steady outpouring of well-defined news items. The left side of the page is blank and the right has a biggish box that contains the applications, the friend finder and the status update space on top — certainly clutter-free, but is it more dynamic? No. Can the new Facebook reflect needs of its changing user profile and yet hook new surfers already spoilt for choice with Twitter, MySpace and other sites? Perhaps not. The updated news feed and mini-feed features that appear on the home page create a different kind of clutter. Your home page now is a roster of continuous update messages: X became a fan of MooQuest; Y commented on Z’s photo; Z commented back. The previous home page was a combination of photographs, videos, the super-wall and many more elements that made surfing much more unpredictable and fun. The good part, though, is that you can try out new applications before adding them to your profile. So, there’s no compulsion to add silly tags such as the “What type of dance are you” application and inviting 10 friends to it before you can try it out. Plus, look out for small, quirky elements that sure make up for the overall dull interface: you have the choice to “throw Justin Timberlake” at your homophobic guy friend. Or “throw an octopuss” at that school bully who you added long ago but have been waiting for her to write on your wall first. sanjukta.s@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 6:53 pm Check out my new er…NWZ S616FLet’s face it. The iPod is a difficult act to outperform. The gadget, in its many avatars, manages to bring together design, usability and quality in a combination that is addictive and cool. Say what you will about Apple’s branding gimmicks and price premium — once you’ve iPodded, there is really no turning back. Yet, there are things MP3 players can do to become viable alternatives to the iPod. Top most on that list will be a simpler way to transfer music without downloading applications such as iTunes (the latest version of iTunes is a mammoth 60.5MB download, and not exactly the most intuitive application in the world).  Fuddy duddy: Sony’s MP3 players are just not cool enough. Both the players we are reviewing this week, however, score high in the simplicity and ease-of-use department. Transferring and playing music on both players were a breeze. But do they simplify things enough to displace the iPod from your shopping list? The Sansa View 16GB player we received for review handles audios, videos and photographs, and comes in a slim, spare form that is clean, if not particularly captivating. The controls are minimal, and comprise a rubberized, clickable scroll wheel, a small button that accesses the main menu and a slider switch on the side that switches it on/off, and also into Hold mode — when the buttons are locked. Also, built into the right edge of the player, is a feature that will please anyone who likes to carry his/her music around: a microSD card slot that can take cards of up to 8GB capacity. That, along with a decent FM radio, are two reasons why you might want to choose the View over a similarly spec-ed iPod Nano. Transferring any kind of media into the View is easy. Plug it into a USB port using the cable provided, and the gadget will shortly be identified and listed as a USB disk drive — like any old pen drive. Drag and drop the movies, pictures and music you need and you are good to go. If you want to go about it in a more organized fashion, fire up your Windows Media Player and the player should be available to sync with. No downloading, no installing and no proprietary software headaches. Okay, wait. It wasn’t as simple as that. The first few times we tried to connect the player to a PC, many mysterious things happened — alerts popped up, bells rang, and icons danced — but the player simply refused to be identified. We were soon driven to scour the Internet for help when it transpired that many View owners faced this problem. Thankfully, the remedy was simple. A hard reset — switch into Hold mode and hold down the Main menu button while connecting to the PC — and things returned to normalcy. One pleasing feature of the View was the Podcast option in the music menu. Many non-iPod players, including the other piece we are reviewing this week, overlook this simple option. While most music buffs won’t miss this, podcast junkies hate having to browse around manually. One of the iPod’s strengths is its excellent podcast management. The View makes a commendable effort. The View is let down by a screen that is large enough at 2.4 inches (marginally larger than the iPod Nano) across, but is vapid. The photos are soft and mellow, and while the videos are better, the screen is overlaid with a layer of plastic that stretches over the entire fascia that is reflective and a sucker for fingerprints. As a plain vanilla music player, however, the View performs well. Songs are easy to navigate, and while the onscreen interface is plain boring, it is simple enough to get even newbies zipping through tracks in no time. The View also has a decent quality voice recorder — which makes it great for journalists on the move — and thoughtful little touches, such as resuming a video from where you dropped off last time. All of this makes it a joy to use. Priced at Rs12,790, the View is a viable option for anyone looking for a simpler, higher capacity and more feature-packed alternative to the iPod Nano. The great tragedy about our other little piece, the 4GB Sony Walkman Video MP3 player, is its name. Why in the world would anyone name a product NWZ-S616F? Calling it the “Video MP3 player” only makes it sound like a cheap Chinese rip-off. For some inexplicable reason, Sony continues to let its MP3 languish in obscurity while other products, such as the Playstation and TVs, get solid marketing and branding support.  Expandable: The Sansa View comes with a handy micro SD card slot. The S616F — I don’t know what else to call it — takes the Sansa drag-and-drop approach and makes it even simpler. And with a simple onscreen interface, the 4GB S616F is perfect for people looking for a dead-simple music listening experience. After unpacking the product, at no point did we have to refer to a manual to figure out how it works. Yet, it is very apparent that the S616F is Sony’s low-end player. The product is made of dull plastic and has shoddy buttons. However, it does have decent sound and a good quality FM radio. The player has a simple, five-way navigation pad with two little keys — one for the options menu and another to go back to the previous menu — and Hold and volume toggles on the sides. The S616F is free of Sony screw-ups such as Atrac and Sonicstage software that made previous models unpopular. This simpler, plain vanilla new product is a step in the right direction, albeit a dull and poorly-branded one. At Rs7,990, the S616F is a simple, uncomplicated but a pricey buy that you will need to christen with a convenient nickname of some sort. TECH SPECS # Sandisk Sansa View Storage capacity: 16GB Formats played: MP3, WMA, WAV, MPEG4, WMV, H.264, JPEG Expandable memory: micro SDHC/SD slot, up to 8GB FM Radio: Yes Screen size: 2.4 inch TFT Weight: approx. 80g Battery life: 32 hours audio/5 hours video # Sony NWZ S616F Storage capacity: 4GB Formats played: MP3, WMA, AAC, MPEG4, H.264 Expandable memory: No FM Radio: Yes Screen size: 1.8 inch TFT Weight: approx. 50g Battery life: 33 hours audio/9.5 hours video Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 6:53 pm Govt plans to clip AICTE’s accreditation roleNew Delhi: The government is planning to split the regulatory and accreditation roles of the All India Council for Technical Education, or AICTE, which oversees the functioning of engineering and business schools, giving in to a longstanding demand of colleges which have had several run-ins with the body and even alleged that its inspectors demand bribes. The government will create an independent accreditation body for colleges, both private and state-run, by merging the National Assessment and Accreditation Council, or NAAC, part of the government body that allocates money to universities, the University Grants Commission (UGC), and the National Board of Accreditation, or NBA, which is part of AICTE, higher education secretary R.P. Agrawal told a team from industry lobby Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry, or Ficci, earlier this week. ALSO READ “(The) government is looking at the proposition of merging these two bodies and delinking them from AICTE and UGC,” said Shobha Mishra, joint director at Ficci. Another member of Ficci’s higher education committee independently confirmed that Agrawal had indicated this at the meeting where the participants included a representative from Manipal University, one of India’s largest private universities. The higher education secretary’s office did not return calls for comment. “Accreditation will then be made mandatory to ensure quality”, said this member,J.S. Neerav, vice-chairman of the board of Patiala-based Thapar University, who attended the meeting as a representative of colleges. “As far as educational institutions are concerned, we have been saying that accreditation and regulation should be different”. The move will need changes to existing laws on the regulation of educational institutions and will have to be approved by Parliament. The university Neerav helps run is owned by Gautam Thapar’s Avantha Group, whose flagship is the listed Crompton Greaves Ltd. Thapar University has deemed university status—it is designated as a university by an order of UGC—and admits 4,500 students to undergraduate, postgraduate and doctorate programmes. Ficci’s education committee, whose members include the Birla Institute of Technology and Science, Pilani, and Narsee Monjee Institute of Management Studies, Mumbai, has long demanded changes in the functioning of AICTE.  Policy changes: A file photo of higher education secretary R.P. Agrawal, who said the government will create a new accreditation body for colleges. AICTE’s inspectors have been accused of corruption by many educators. Mint hasreported on these charges, citing conversations with a private college. In April, the government appointed R.A. Yadav as its full-time chairman. Yadav is widely seen as having the backing of the politically influential human resource minister Arjun Singh, who has actively pushed for the appointment despite significant concerns about the efficiency and efficacy of AICTE in recent years. The regulator had had to face criticism from colleges, some of which had accused the body of corrupt practices in granting licences as well as expansion approvals. A parliamentary standing committee on human resource development, which includes Communist Party of India (Marxist) leader Brinda Karat and Congress general secretary Rahul Gandhi, had advertised earlier this year in national dailies for suggestions on improving the functioning of AICTE. But despite several colleges sending in their grievances and suggestions, the lawmakers have not met until now to take up the issue. Yadav too has been under scrutiny for drawing both a salary as the head of AICTE and a pension from the University of Delhi, where he once worked. Following a Mint story, the ministry said it had started an inquiry. On 28 March, Mint reported that Yadav had returned much of the pension. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 6:49 pm Promoter stake in Reliance tops 51%Mumbai: Mukesh Ambani, promoter of Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL), India’s most valuable company by market capitalization, has raised the stake he controls in the firm by almost 5 percentage points over the past three years—from 46.75% in June 2005 to 51.37% in June 2008, according to shareholding data reported to stock exchanges. The period is significant because it was in June 2005 that the Reliance group was formally split between estranged brothers Mukesh Ambani and Anil Ambani. The 51% number looks significant because anything in excess of 50% gives promoters or promoting groups a simple majority in terms of ownership, but analysts say it isn’t really all that important a milestone. TIGHTENING GRIP (Graphic) “This number per se is not a holy figure and it does not give more power to the management in terms of decision-making,” said an expert in corporate law who does not want to be named. Under corporate law, there is not much of a difference between 26% and 51% holding. A 26% stake itself gives promoters the power to block any resolution at board meetings. An RIL spokesperson did not respond to an email query on the logic behind the promoters’ decision to increase the stake and the ultimate target. Details on promoter stake in listed firms are published by the stock exchanges every quarter and includes so-called treasury stock or shares whose beneficiary is the firms themselves. After adjusting for treasury stock, the actual promoter stake in firms is much lower. In case of RIL, the promoter stake of 51.37% includes a stake of 7.2% held by Petroleum Trust, whose beneficiary is Reliance Industrial Investments and Holdings Ltd, which in turn is a 100% arm of Reliance Industries. In other words, the ultimate beneficiary owner of these shares is the company itself and not the promoters. However, the fact remains that promoter holding in RIL has been steadily inching up since the split between the two brothers. Analysts who track the Mumbai-based oil refining and gas mining behemoth say this is an instance of “value buying” and expect the promoters stake to rise further in the coming months, especially since promoters have an option to convert warrants at a 36% discount to current market price. Value buying refers to picking company stocks when they are cheaper, expecting the price to rise in future. To be sure, in the case of RIL’s promoters, about 40% of the shares acquired in the past five years were acquired in the April-June quarter of 2006, when the markets had corrected sharply. Apart from that surge in buying activity, Reliance’s promoters have been buying shares steadily across the three-year period. Under Indian law, promoters can buy up to 5% equity in a listed company through market purchases or the so-called creeping acquisition mode every year. Over the past three years, while the promoters’ stake at RIL has risen, the shareholding of foreign institutional investors has gone down by more than 5%. “Promoters do value buying when they find their shares are cheap but feel it will go up in the future on the back of growth prospects that they understand best,” said Rohit Nagraj, senior research analyst with Mumbai-based equity analyst firm Angel Broking Ltd, who has a “buy” rating on the stock and a target price of Rs3,344 per share. On Friday, shares of RIL went up 1.51% to close at Rs2,245.65 on the Bombay Stock Exchange, while the benchmark index Sensex rose 1.11%, or 157.76 points, to close at 14,401.49. Since January, shares of Reliance have fallen 22.0% and Sensex, 29.01%. To be sure, RIL is not the only firm in which the promoters have been raising stakes. Seven out of the 22 firms that have remained part of the Sensex in the past three years have seen a rise in promoters’ holding during this period. Six multinational firms that are part of the benchmark index have not been considered for this study. DLF Ltd and Reliance Communications Ltd have also been left out as the comparative data for them over last three years are not available as they are relatively new entrants in the Sensex. Similarly, among the local firms in 50-stock Nifty index, promoters’ shares have gone up in nine firms. All Sensex firms are part of Nifty. A Mumbai-based sector analyst with a global equity firm, who did not wish to be named and has a “buy” rating on RIL with a target price of Rs2,850, said the promoters had continued to increase their stake, irrespective of the market sentiment being weak or strong. “We have been given no concrete reason for this (raising stakeholding) by the company management. Only if they (promoters) think the valuation can be higher, will they be doing it,” he reasoned. Both Nagraj and this analyst say that there is an exceedingly high probability of the promoters consolidating their stake further as they are sitting on 120 million share warrants that have to be exercised by October . These warrants are priced at Rs1,402, at least 37.57% cheaper than the prevailing share price, and that makes their conversion into equity shares more attractive. If the warrants are converted, the stake of the promoters will rise by another 7.6 percentage points. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 6:49 pm Imperial’s sale seen next week; ONGC in frayNew Delhi: The sale of Russia-focused Imperial Energy Corp. is likely to be announced next week, a government official said on Friday, confirming that Oil and Natural Gas Corp. Ltd (ONGC) is in the race to buy the firm. “We are waiting for it. We have submitted the bid. Our bid is very competitive...it will take two-three days, maybe next week you will hear something,” the official, who did not want to be identified, told reporters. He did not say how much the bid was, but the Business Standard had reported on Thursday the state-run ONGC had submitted an initial bid of £12.90 (Rs1,049) per share, or about $2.96 billion (Rs12,846 crore), quoting unidentified investment banking people. The newspaper had said the oil giant could raise the bid to about $3.5 billion if competition intensified. ONGC chairman R.S. Sharma had declined to comment on the report. Russian authorities may support the Indian bid, the government official said. Besides ONGC, China’s Sinopec Group and Korea National Oil Corp. have also expressed interest in Imperial. An investment banker not directly involved in the bidding for Imperial said on Thursday that he believed ONGC was the most likely winner of Imperial Energy. “What we’ve heard in the market is that Sinopec looked at it, but they didn’t really go through with it in any serious form,” the banker said. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 6:49 pm Tata threatens to pull out of West BengalKolkata: Tata Motors Ltd chairman Ratan Tata warned on Friday that his company would pull out of Singur, where it is setting up a factory to build the Rs1 lakh Nano car, if attacks on the plant by protesters don’t stop, ratcheting up the pressure on the West Bengal government. “Our employees and contractors are working under tremendous tension,” Tata said in Kolkata. “Our compound walls have been broken, people have been coming in and materials are being stolen. We can’t open and operate a plant with police protection.” Tata held out the ultimatum two days before West Bengal’s main opposition party, the Trinamool Congress, starts a sit-in protest in Singur. Tata Motors plans to roll out the Nano in October. Tata Motors has already invested around Rs1,500 crore in its Singur factory. Given the hefty amount it has already spent, Tata Motors is unlikely to carry out the threat, said Mahantesh Sabarad, an analyst at Centrum BrokingPvt. Ltd. “Tatas will be able to sort out the issue amicably by discussions with the concerned political outfits,” he said. “One should not forget that they have been successfully running their construction equipment company Telcon in Kharagpur, which happens to be just 100km away.”  Last resort: Tata Motors chairman Ratan Tata. (Indranil Bhoumik/Mint) “If anybody is under the impression that because we have made this large investment, we will not move, then they are wrong... I can’t bring our managers and their families to West Bengal if they are going to be beaten... if their children are going to be afraid to go to school.” The Trinamool Congress wants the government to return 400 acres of the land it acquired for the Tata Motors project to farmers who had been unwilling to sell it in the first place. “They cant go on facing problems for ever, there’s no point in continuing there if the crisis continues,” said an analyst at SSKI Securities who didn’t want to be named. “After all they are losing precious time. While I do agree that Rs1,500 crore is a lot of money, the land is for free and all they need to do is transfer the machinery. This would still be lesser than the loss that will happen as a result of the delay in the project.” But, much to the relief of the government, the auto maker said it still doesn’t have a “plan B” to fall back on. “I’m an optimist,” said Tata, “(but) the last thing I want is a feeling that the Tatas are unwanted in West Bengal.” Asked if the company could start production of the much awaited car from October, Tata said, “We are in a position to roll out the Nano in October or close to October, but it seems that many people have desired not to see that happen. So, it’s very easy for people to block that from happening; but our desire is to see it take place.” The Trinamool Congress wants the so-called vendor park, where auto component makers would manufacture parts for the Nano, to be separated from the main factory, and the plot returned to farmers. But Tata ruled out carving up the project. “As we are looking at a unique product at a very low cost, we wanted it to be a consolidated car company with its ancillary suppliers incorporated in the same location because logistics and transportation cost are a major part of the component cost of any plant,” he said. Tata’s ultimatum comes two days before Trinamool Congress starts a sit-in protest in Singur against the project “The vendors have made as much a leap of faith as we have,” said Tata, adding that had the vendors not agreed, the Nano plant wouldn’t have come to West Bengal at all. The Trinamool Congress, which wouldn’t budge from its demand for the return of 400 acres, has threatened to start an indefinite sit-in protest in Singur from 24 August. “It’s not my business what he (Ratan Tata) does with his factory,” Trinamool chief Mamata Banerjee said. “No one can blackmail us into altering the course of ouragitation.” The state’s commerce and industries minister, Nirupam Sen, who met Tata on Thursday evening, formally announced that the government was willing to revisit the compensation issue, almost two years after the 1,006-acre project site was acquired. “The government is committed to help those who are financially affected,” Sen said. “The Tatas, too, have agreed to do their bit in helping them,” Sen told chambers of commerce in Kolkata on Friday. West Bengal’s chief minister Buddhadeb Bhattacharjee said he was hopeful of resolving the impasse through discussions with the Trinamool Congress. aveek.d@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 6:48 pm GE on Olympic winner's podium, but is it gold?BOSTON/BEIJING (Reuters) - As the Beijing Olympics wrap up this weekend, General Electric Co is taking its final strides in a race to sell everything from medical equipment to television advertisements while cementing ties with the leaders of the world's fastest-growing economy.Source: Reuters: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 6:39 pm IT: slower hiring=lower marginsIndia’s software services sector, faced with a slowdown in the US and some other parts of the world, has reacted by slowing down its hiring plans. The top firms in the sector plan to increase headcount by about 20% this fiscal year, compared with a historical average of approximately 35%. At first look, it seems like a good way to protect margins. After all, if software firms ended with more people than they need, margins will take a hit.  But scaling down hiring may not ensure protection of margins. In an interesting report released this week by India Infoline Ltd’s institutional research division, analysts Aniruddha Dange and Sandeep Muthangi say the scaling down of hiring plans is likely to drag down margins. This is how: traditionally, large companies such as Infosys Technologies Ltd and Tata Consultancy Services Ltd (TCS) have leveraged their wide employee base by hiring an increasing proportion of freshers every year. New recruits draw much lower salaries and an increase in their proportion leads to a containment in overall employee expenses. India Infoline notes that although software firms gave average annual salary hikes of 7.5% in the three years between fiscal year 2004-05 and 2007-08, they managed to restrict the rise per employee cost to 0-4% per annum during the period. TCS increased the proportion of employees with experience of five years, or less from 65% in fiscal 2004 to 72% last fiscal year. Infosys, too, has “widened its age pyramid” (to use industry parlance) during this period. Its average employee age of 26 is among the lowest in the industry. But with efficiency on this count being at high levels currently, and with a drop in the target for fresh hires (thanks to the slowdown), it’s unlikely that there would be any improvement in the age pyramid. India Infoline suggests that things would deteriorate on this count. In fiscal 2002, the last time the US went into a recession and demand for IT services slowed down, Infosys had scaled down recruitment and its average employee age had increased by 0.7 years, the analysts note. Infosys’ salary costs had then risen by 56%, although the employee base had risen by just 36%. According to India Infoline, an increase of one year in the average employee age would reduce a firm’s margins by 3 percentage points. The extent of the impact can be contested, but the fact remains that margins will be hit to some extent because of the slowdown in hiring. In a slow growth scenario, firms just won’t be able to hire the high number of freshers required to keep widening the base, or even maintain it at current levels. More downgrades in earnings a ‘high certainty event’: Citigroup As the focus of the markets shifts to the slowdown, earnings growth is being revised downwards. A Citigroup note on Asia- Pacific ex-Japan strategy points out that the forecast on the region’s 2008 earnings per share (EPS) growth, as estimated by the institutional brokers’ estimate system, was 10.4% in December 2007. By the end of March, that estimate had been revised to 8.4%. By end-June, it was down to 6.4% and, as on 6 August, it stood at 4.4%. Not only that the numbers are being lowered, but the cuts are at a more rapid rate. The note says: “It (the downgrades) will accelerate further over the course of the next six months on higher input costs (commodity price index is still up 16% year-to- date even post the recent decline) and secondly, the global growth slowdown.” As many as four markets — Hong Kong, Malaysia, Singapore and Taiwan — are expected to show a contraction in earnings. For India, earnings growth is expected to be 15.9% for 2008, slightly more than China’s 15.4%. For India, the earnings growth estimate at the start of the year was 21%. Citigroup believes that for China and India, the risk of further downgrades is a “high certainty event”. In fact, according to Citigroup’s computations, the Indian market is trading around its mid-cycle valuation. In contrast, Korean valuations are at a 37% discount to their mid-cycle valuation, while Taiwan, Australia and Thailand, too, are at discounts to mid-cycle values. The implication is that these markets have already priced in further fall in earnings, unlike the Indian market. The other important point is that while 2008 earnings have been revised down, 2009 earnings for the Asia ex-Japan region have not been cut. The note says: “As a result, the EPS growth rate for 2009 continues to move higher and stands at 15.9%.” In India, the consensus estimates provided by Bloomberg show the total EPS of the 30 Sensex firms at Rs1,170 for 2009, compared with Rs978 for the current year. That’s a growth of 19.6%. Clearly, the market expects V-shaped downturn, with a swift recovery next year. Given the fact that the Reserve Bank of India’s tightening measures will have an impact only with a lag and that the present government is leaving a fiscal mess that will have to be cleaned up next year, the recovery may not come about so quickly. Write to us at marktomarket@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 22 Aug 2008 | 6:38 pm Sebi asks stockbrokers to conduct half-yearly auditsMUMBAI (Reuters) - The Securities and Exchange Board of India on Friday asked stock exchanges to ensure their brokers and clearing members conduct a complete internal audit every six months by an independent chartered accountant.Source: Reuters: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 2:52 pm Tata says violence could force Nano plant to moveKOLKATA (Reuters) - India's Tata Motors Ltd said it was prepared to move a plant to make the Nano, billed as the world's cheapest car, from its eastern Indian site if violent protests continued, despite having invested $350 million in the project.Source: Reuters: Money News | 22 Aug 2008 | 2:27 pm
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