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Bharti Airtel to work with network partners on 3GIndian telecommunications carrier Bharti Airtel will work with its existing equipment suppliers when it builds its 3G mobile network following a longdelayed auction for 3G licenses, a top executive said.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Apr 2010 | 7:48 am RILAtlas Energy JV: Scott Hanold analyses deal potentialAtlas Energy has announced a USD 1.7 billion Marcellus Shale joint venture with Reliance Industries. The former is a key Marcellus Shale gas producer in the US.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Apr 2010 | 6:23 am 3G auction: Experts see intense bidding aheadThe much anticipated 3G auctions kicked off yesterday. In an exclusive interview with CNBCTV18, Jaideep Ghosh, ED, KPMG and Nitin Gupta, Partner, EY, talk about 3G auctions and give their outlook going forward.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Apr 2010 | 6:20 am SEBI bans 14 private insurance companies from issuing ULIPs!Fourteen private insurance companies, including SBI Life, ICICI Prudential and Tata AIG, have been banned from raising money from public for ULIPs.Source: Zee News : Business | 10 Apr 2010 | 6:02 am Energy Devt Co gets order worth Rs 31 croreEnergy Development Company Ltd, engaged in the generation of electricity and infrastructure contracts, said on Saturday it has won a twoyear contract worth Rs 31 crore for construction and replacement of bridges in Tripura.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Apr 2010 | 5:11 am DB Corp board approves restructuringNewspaper publisher DB Corp Ltd said on Friday it will demerge its FM Radio business and merge Bhaskar Publication Allied with itself.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Apr 2010 | 4:40 am Unitech board to meet on April 20 on restructuringUnitech Ltd, India\'s secondlargest listed property firm, on Friday said its board would meet on April 20 to consider recommendations of a restructuring committee on various proposals.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Apr 2010 | 4:40 am Orissa signs pacts with 5 firms for 4,800 MW powerThe Orissa government on Friday signed initial pacts with five firms to set up coalfired power plants with an estimated investment of Rs 232 billion and capacity of 4,800 MW, an official said.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Apr 2010 | 4:40 am Southern Sudan: oil boom to bustup?With southern Sudan stumbling towards independence next year, the Chinese oil workers in Africa\'s biggest country are bracing for trouble. For southern villagers like Maria Jande, trouble is already here.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Apr 2010 | 4:40 am Slow death of fuel oil gets quicker thanks to gasRefining margins for fuel oil look set to fall deeper into the red as traditional demand sources dry up due to fuel switching.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Apr 2010 | 4:40 am IMF schedules Iceland loan review for April 16After months of delays, the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has reached agreement on a review of Iceland\'s IMF loan programme and tentatively scheduled a meeting of its board for April 16 to consider the issue.Source: Moneycontrol Top Headlines | 10 Apr 2010 | 4:40 am Sun Pharma gets US nod for Namenda genericMUMBAI (Reuters) - Indian drugmaker Sun Pharmaceuticals said on Saturday its unit had received tentative U.S. regulatory approval to market a generic version of Forest Laboratories' Namenda tablets.Source: Reuters: Money News | 10 Apr 2010 | 3:13 am Bharti to work with Ericsson, Nokia Siemens on 3GBOAO, China (Reuters) - Leading Indian telecommunications carrier Bharti Airtel will work with its existing equipment suppliers when it builds its 3G mobile network following a long-delayed auction, a top executive said.Source: Reuters: Money News | 10 Apr 2010 | 3:12 am Air passenger traffic up by 20%: MallyaThe Indian aviation industry, which suffered a slump in the wake of the global economic slowdown has been witnessing a resurgence with a 20% increase in air passenger traffic, Vijay Mallya said.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 10 Apr 2010 | 2:31 am Yuan rise still on cards despite rare trade deficitBEIJING (Reuters) - China recorded its first monthly trade deficit in six years, but a customs official called the shortfall a blip and economists doubted it would stand in the way of a resumption in the yuan's rise before long.Source: Reuters: Money News | 10 Apr 2010 | 2:29 am Euro will survive, more oversight needed - RehnHELSINKI (Reuters) - The European Union and the euro will survive the ordeal caused by Greece's debt crisis, but the bloc must make sure the crisis does not spread, EU Economic Affairs Commissioner Olli Rehn told a Finnish newspaper.Source: Reuters: Money News | 10 Apr 2010 | 2:22 am SEBI bans 14 insurance cos from selling ULIPs - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 10 Apr 2010 | 2:10 am Polish president feared dead in Russian plane crash Smolensk, Russia: “Polish president Lech Kaczynski was feared dead after his plane crashed on approach to a Russian airport on Saturday,” a Polish government official at the airport said. Russian news agencies reported at least 87 people died in the crash near Smolensk airport in western Russia, citing the Russian emergencies ministry. They reported 132 people were aboard the Tupolev Tu-154. Polish state news agency PAP said that there were no survivors. The Polish government official in Smolensk said that there was no information about survivors. The crash occurred about 1.5 km (a mile) from Smolensk airport in foggy conditions. The official said that the head of the Polish army and the head of the presidential administration were also on board the plane, along with the president’s wife and families of other senior officials. “The plane caught fire after the crash. Teams began attempting to pull out passengers from the badly damaged airplane,” said a Polish foreign ministry spokesman in Warsaw. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 10 Apr 2010 | 2:01 am From ruins to riches, a biz storyA clutch of Indian business houses, from the Jindals to the Mittals, have sniffed opportunities in an Iraq that is slowly but steadily recuperating from its war wounds. But experts advise patience and caution citing the example of Reliance, which moved in too quicklySource: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 10 Apr 2010 | 1:56 am DBS CEO, who joined in Nov, earned $3 mln in two monthsSINGAPORE (Reuters) - The new chief executive of Singapore's DBS, who joined in November last year, received S$4.2 million ($3.02 million) in his first two months in the job as his pay package was boosted by bonus shares.Source: Reuters: Money News | 10 Apr 2010 | 1:52 am Suzlon bullish on China despite cost pressuresBOAO, China (Reuters) - Competition has got tougher for foreign wind power manufacturers in China, but Indian turbine maker Suzlon Energy still expects to increase its market share as it further cuts costs, the company's managing director said.Source: Reuters: Money News | 10 Apr 2010 | 1:33 am 3G auction: Experts see intense bidding ahead - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 10 Apr 2010 | 1:10 am RIL-Atlas Energy JV: Scott Hanold analyses deal potential - Moneycontrol.com
Source: Business - Google News | 10 Apr 2010 | 1:10 am China state planner positive on Geely's Volvo buyBOAO, China (Reuters) - China's state planner said it is leaning in favour of approving a landmark $1.8 billion deal for Zhejiang Geely, China's top private carmaker, to buy Ford Motor's money-losing Volvo unit.Source: Reuters: Money News | 10 Apr 2010 | 12:15 am Infosys partnering CSIR for TB projectNew Delhi: Software giant Infosys Technologies Ltd is partnering the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) for its open source drug discovery project (OSDD). The project, launched last year, is a novel attempt at fashioning an efficient way to look for tuberculosis (TB) drugs. A key part of OSDD is to develop a gene map for mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), the bug responsible for the infectious disease. The gene map, which will be akin to “Google Earth”, as described by the scientists involved, will be Web-based. Infosys will help with the software aspects in making such a map. A spokesperson for Infosys declined to comment for this story, citing confidentiality agreements with CSIR. Vinod Scaria, a key CSIR scientist involved with OSDD, said a team of programmers at Infosys was working on the project. The current drug discovery process, in which scientists develop molecules to activate or inactivate proteins key to an infection, is inefficient, say experts. Most molecules that promise success in animal studies and theoretical calculations turn out to be unworkable due to surprise side effects or ineffectiveness among certain populations. Millions of dollars are wasted as drug companies usually discover these shortcomings during the clinical trial stages. “There aren’t enough, good toxicology models available to judge the accuracy of a drug in the initial stages. So for every successful drug there are several that have failed and that’s what pushes up the cost of drugs,” said Chandrasekhar Nair, founder director, Bigtec Pvt. Ltd, a Bangalore-based firm that makes diagnostic devices. “One reason this happens is because most available literature detailing how proteins interact with each other, are scattered across journals. Currently a key focus area is about integrating such information,” said Zakir Thomas, technical head, OSDD. Genes, that are often building blocks of a protein, are key to identifying new drug targets. In a sort of reversal of the current drug discovery process, OSDD is premised on systematically arranging all information available on every one of the MTB’s genes, and making them publicly accessible, in an easily searchable format on the Web. This, it is hoped will greatly increase the chances of interested researchers at finding better drug targets, quicker and cheaper, say scientists involved. “You can make several kinds of maps for a city—by restaurants, by schools etc. The software challenge lies in stitching these maps together and being able to retrieve the information you want by simple questions. Essentially a Web 3.0 application. That’s where Infosys is helping us,” said Thomas. He added that Infosys wasn’t charging for the service. Web 3.0 is said to be the next level of the World Wide Web, with computer networks becoming more intuitive and allowing surfers to cull information from them quicker and easier than today. The need to find better drugs is urgent. With an estimated 3.8 million cases recorded in 2008, India ranks highest in the list of tuberculosis-afflicted countries worldwide, according to figures from the health ministry. Tuberculosis, which infects about one-third of the world’s population, killed about 1.6 million in 2007, according to the latest estimates. Combined with HIV, TB is harder to control and reining in the infection has become harder as several drug-resistant strains have been reported in every country. Because tuberculosis is largely found in poor, developing countries, funds supporting research into vaccines and drugs have been limited. Unlike 70,000 odd genes that make up the human genome, MTB consists of 4,000 genes. “Lack of research interest means only about 1,000 of these have been annotated (their functions completely documented) and this in spite of the genome being sequenced a decade back,” said Scaria, a scientist at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology, a CSIR lab. “By the middle of next year, we’re aiming to get the MTB at least as well-annotated as the human genome,” he added. Preparing detailed genome maps is not new. Labs across the world have prepared several maps of a variety of organisms, from E. coli to the human genome. Most of these employed hired help to prepare the genome, which is where OSDD diverges. “As of now we are reaching out to universities and professors. We have about 300 senior faculty, who will in turn engage students to work under them. It could be a great summer project work for several students,” said Thomas. The OSDD approach could eventually drive down costs, but not anytime soon, say experts. “Right now, drug companies are working on improving their toxicology process. But when a great deal more is known about genes and their functions in an organism, it would begin showing benefits,” added Nair. jacob.k@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 10 Apr 2010 | 12:08 am 3G auction off to cautious startIndia's giant step towards adopting third generation (3G) mobile services got off to a weak start as bidders adopted a ‘wait and wait' strategy on Day 1 of theSource: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Apr 2010 | 12:00 am Brokerages woo investors with deluge of SMS adviceWith mid- and small-cap stocks hogging the limelight, broking houses are trying to capitalise on this boom to increase their businesses by stepping up advice through SMS for retailSource: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Apr 2010 | 12:00 am Coaxing gas out of porous rockNatural gas is the best known and exploited gaseous hydrocarbon, but these burnable gases occur in manySource: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Apr 2010 | 12:00 am Reliance in $1.7-b deal with Atlas Energy to tap gas in USReliance Industries has entered the US gas exploration market through a joint venture with Atlas Energy in a deal valued at $1.7Source: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Apr 2010 | 12:00 am PPF investment limitSection 80C of the Income-Tax Act, 1961 (Act) provides for deduction from gross total income of taxpayers, who are individuals or Hindu Undivided Families (HUFs) up to a sum of Rs 1 lakh if the same is invested in a previous year in deposits,Source: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Apr 2010 | 12:00 am Jet puts fund raising plans on the back burnerWith lease rentals coming in and the business environment improving, Jet Airways seems to have pressed a pause button on its fund raisingSource: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Apr 2010 | 12:00 am NHB plans to revive home loan securitisationNational Housing Bank (NHB) is planning to revive the market for securitisation of home loans to help banks and housing finance companies overcome asset-liabilitySource: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Apr 2010 | 12:00 am Base rate system to take effect from July 1The Reserve Bank of India on Friday asked banks not to charge any fee from existing borrowers wanting to switch from the current benchmark prime lending rate system to the proposed base rateSource: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Apr 2010 | 12:00 am H-1B visa filings off to a slow startContrary to broad industry perceptions, H-1B visa filings, that allow companies to send employees to work in the US, are off to a slow start this year. That geography, by far the largest export market for Indian IT services, has received a totalSource: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Apr 2010 | 12:00 am India second fastest growing auto market after ChinaRiding on the Government's stimulus package and easy finance rates, the automobile industry in 2009-10 recorded a 26 per cent growth in domesticSource: Business Line - Home Page | 10 Apr 2010 | 12:00 am China still concerned about weak global demandBOAO, China (Reuters) - China is still concerned about weak global demand and rising protectionism, Vice Commerce Minister Yi Xiaozhun said on Saturday.Source: Reuters: Money News | 9 Apr 2010 | 11:45 pm SEBI bans 14 insurers from issuing ULIP; IRDA questionsThe players who have been prohibited from raising any further money include SBI Life Insurance Company, ICICI Prudential Life, Reliance Life, Metlife India, Aviva Life, Tata AIG Life, etc.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Apr 2010 | 11:36 pm DoT clarifies to CAG on award of licences - Sify
Source: Business - Google News | 9 Apr 2010 | 10:49 pm EPFO defers decision on PF interest rate - Sify
Source: Business - Google News | 9 Apr 2010 | 10:47 pm China posts first monthly trade deficit in 6 yrsChina reported a $7.24 billion trade deficit in March, its first in almost six years, according to customs figures released Saturday. Officials say the trend will be short-lived.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 9 Apr 2010 | 10:01 pm Reliance to pay Atlas $1.7 bln for Marcellus stakeIndian energy giant Reliance Industries will pay $1.7 billion to form a joint venture at one of the most promising c in the US with Atlas Energy, becoming the latest foreign company to invest in shale plays that are expected to be very lucrative.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 9 Apr 2010 | 9:22 pm U.S. panel consolidates Toyota cases in CaliforniaLOS ANGELES (Reuters) - A panel of federal judges consolidated dozens of lawsuits on Friday against Toyota Motor Corp over cars that have raced out of control, assigning them to a federal judge in heavily conservative Orange County, California.Source: Reuters: Money News | 9 Apr 2010 | 7:19 pm Reliance to pay Atlas $1.7 bln for Marcellus stakeMUMBAI/NEW YORK (Reuters) - Indian energy giant Reliance Industries will pay $1.7 billion to form a joint venture at one of the most promising natural gas deposit regions in the U.S. with Atlas Energy, becoming the latest foreign company to invest in shale plays that are expected to be very lucrative.Source: Reuters: Money News | 9 Apr 2010 | 4:49 pm ULIP ban on 14 private life insurance companiesSebi has asked 14 private insurance companies, including SBI Life, ICICI Prudential Life and Reliance Life Insurance, not to issue any more ULIP products.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 9 Apr 2010 | 3:59 pm Our target of Rs 30,000 cr will be well met: Sachin PilotAs the first-of-its-kind e-auction of 3G spectrum got under way in India, Sachin Pilot shared with DNA his "personal agenda" to harness broadband Internet technology to transform the lives of many Indians.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Apr 2010 | 3:24 pm Street inches closer to 18000The Sensex closed the week at 17933.14, up 240.52 points after having crossed the 18000 mark mid-week, during intra-day trade, while the Nifty gained 71.25 points to close the week at 5361.75.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Apr 2010 | 3:17 pm SC dismisses petition against Lanco InfratechThe petition was filed by Madhya Pradesh Power Trading Corporation (MPPTC) against Lanco over sale of the output of its 300 mega watt Amarkantak Unit 1.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Apr 2010 | 3:14 pm Greece's crisis shows the perils of a deflationary policy, tooThe rising clamour from inflation hawks for rate hikes by the Fed is worryingSource: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Apr 2010 | 3:09 pm Plan panel rejects demand to increase local area devp funds for ministers of ParliamentThe government is currently running 15 flagship schemes to improve economic conditions of the poor. The rejection is seen as the Plan panel's distrust in the MPs' ability to undertake developmental work.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Apr 2010 | 3:06 pm Railways ministry counters Coal India Ltd charge on wagon shortageThe ministry also claims that CIL is facing wagon crunch as it violated the fuel-supply agreement inked between the two last year.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Apr 2010 | 3:02 pm 'Reddy mines beyond lease area' - Times of India
Source: Business - Google News | 9 Apr 2010 | 3:00 pm Comptroller & Auditor General wants regulators under its ambitCAG has also stressed the need for repealing and replacing the existing CAG's (duties, powers and conditions of service) Act, 1971 with a 'new Act which directly addresses the constraints faced by us'.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Apr 2010 | 2:59 pm Motown thrills with speed, but could slow downCar sales grew the most in six years in the financial year ended March at 1.53 million, data released by the Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers on Friday showed.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Apr 2010 | 2:58 pm Swissotel to expand India footprintThe hotel management company's president Meinhard Huck was recently in the country to explore such opportunities and held talks with various developers, especially in Mumbai.Source: Daily News & Analysis: Money News | 9 Apr 2010 | 2:56 pm The making of a GodBalaram Mondal is not amused. The petticoat that has been given to him stops inches above his ankles. He grunts and asks his wife for a bigger size. She pleads helplessness. Mondal has to make do with what he has. An hour of intense preparation later, Mondal will be ready. He was Shiva yesterday; he is set to hit the road as the goddess Kali today. Click here to view a slideshow of photographs of behrupia artist Balaram Mondal At 44, Mondal has spent exactly half his life as a behrupia—the many-faced folk performers in West Bengal who dress as mythological and godly characters, among others, and traverse vast terrain collecting alms. Most of the behrupias have basic educational qualifications and this traditional profession assures them a decent income, both in cash and kind. But soliciting this can often be demeaning. An important element in his oeuvre, Mondal says, is dressing up as female characters such as the Hindu goddesses Kali and Durga, Radha and sundry rakshasis (female demons). Travelling in trains or manoeuvring through busy city streets with multiple hands and other goddess paraphernalia is no easy task, but with no female behrupias around, it’s a role Mondal often has to play. Other folk art forms in West Bengal such as Jatra (the travelling folk theatre) may have shed their exclusively male past to allow women performers on stage, but the traditional craft of behrupias remains a steadfastly male domain. “Because the art of behrupia necessarily entails travelling long distances and spending nights in the open, it’s an insecure profession for women,” reasons Satyajit Goswami, associate professor at Rishi Bankim Chandra College for Women, Naihati, North 24 Parganas, and author of a book on Bengal’s behrupias. “One might find young girls as behrupias but they opt out with adulthood. Though an ancient art form, the tradition of only-male performers continues, whereby men also play female roles,” he says. In Tarakeshwar town, which is among the focal points of the behrupia tradition in West Bengal, and from where around two dozen professional practitioners take the train each morning for the streets of Kolkata, Kalipada Pal is a renowned figure. After spending nearly five decades as a behrupia, the octogenarian’s primary earnings these days come from renting out costumes and grooming young professionals. The one occasion when a married woman from Pal’s neighbouring village came along wanting to be a behrupia, the encounter was short-lived. “Like many others who later became behrupias, she too had run away from home. But being a woman, she presented other challenges,” says Pal. “We couldn’t risk sending her out. There was also the chance of her getting solicited by men and the profession earning a bad reputation,” Mondal says. Mondal himself ran away from home. Pal took him in around 20 years ago, and Mondal and his wife now live with him. As he sits in the open courtyard of Pal’s unadorned home, Mondal recounts how despite being a man dressed as a woman, he has had to contend with the “greedy male gaze” and, worse, “those groping hands”, while on the streets. “They pinch and touch even though I’m dressed as a goddess. I think it is also because people are less reverential these days,” he says, as his shaving brush stirs up rich foam on his face, covering a week-old stubble. The beard goes first, the thick moustache follows. Out comes Mondal’s make-up box, with seven small bowls containing paint and other beauty items. He coats his face with cream before applying a dark paint. He colours his lips a bright red and takes time to paint the third eye. His blouse is buttoned, sari carefully draped. From an iron trunk, Pal brings out a garland of fake human heads and other adornments. It’s exacting work that the behrupia has perfected. Ready, Mondal permits himself a cigarette. “In this form, I feel an added shakti (strength) come over me,” he says between drags. Photographs by Indranil Bhoumik / Mint Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 2:24 pm 3G spectrum bid a low-key affairIndia's largest auction for spectrum that began on Friday turned out to be a low-key affair. While all leading players including Bharti Airtel, Reliance Communications Ltd (RCOM), Tata Teleservices, Vodafone Essar, Idea and Etisalat entered the foray to buy 3G spectrum, the bids have been barely above the reserve price, reports HT Correspondent.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 9 Apr 2010 | 2:06 pm Jet puts fund raising plans on the back burner - Hindu Business Line
Source: Business - Google News | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:48 pm India second fastest growing auto market after China - Hindu Business Line
Source: Business - Google News | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:48 pm CSIR to unveil gene map for TB on portal developed by InfosysNew Delhi: In what could be a significant step forward for discovering new drug candidates for serious, but neglected diseases, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) will on Monday unveil the most detailed map yet of a pathogen’s genome. The map of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), the organism which infects one-third of the world’s population, and kills at least 330,000 per year in India alone, will allow researchers across the world to better understand the bacterium and possibly be a model for mapping and studying other disease causing organisms. Akin to a Google map, or a Wikipedia article that can be modified and continually updated to accommodate new geographical features or information, the MTB map will list information on the nearly 4,000 genes that determine how the bacterium lives and infects human beings.  Step forward: A file photo of CSIR director general Samir Brahmachari. Ramesh Pathania/Mint “The MTB would be some kind of a template. Though you can’t really compare it to the human genome which has many more genes and hence requires more labour, this effort is among the best so far,” said Hiroaki Kitano, director of the Systems Biology Institute, Tokyo. The MTB map will be hosted on a Web portal custom developed by Infosys Technologies Ltd, that uses an emerging format called Web 3.0. This format allows users to get better search results, when querying for data. “It’s the first time such a Web service is available for scientists. You can ask questions like you ask another human being. So, you can actually ask the Web what happens when x gene interacts with y gene, and expect valid answers,” said Vinod Scaria, a scientist at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology and a key OSDD expert. Also read 7 December story -- “Infosys partnering CSIR for TB project” Despite the seriousness of India’s TB problem, inadequate funds and a paucity of concerted research have crippled new drug discovery. CSIR’s Open Source DrugDiscovery (OSDD), first reported by Mint on 7 December, aims to find new drug candidates by first collating all known information on thedifferent genes that make up the bacterium on single web portal. Though the MTB genome was completely sequenced in 1998, meaning scientists knew the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) alphabets that made up the organism’s genes, less than 40% of these genes were deciphered or, in scientist jargon, annotated. “As of today we’ve annotated nearly 98% of the MTB. That concludes a major phase of the OSDD project and is a big step forward for science,” said Samir Brahmachari, director general of CSIR. OSDD has been centrally funded to the tune of Rs150 crore of which Rs46 crore has been released. However, those involved in the process said all of the progress achieved yet is largely due to people working for free. “Over 300 students, many of them non-biologists have contributed to the bulk of the project. The money will begin to be spent on trials and experiments once we identify really promising drug targets,” said Zakir Thomas, technical head, OSDD. The current drug discovery process, in which scientists develop molecules to activate or inactivate proteins key to an infection, is inefficient, said experts. Most molecules that promise success in animal studies and theoretical calculations turn out to be unworkable due to surprise side effects or ineffectiveness among certain populations. Millions of dollars are wasted as drug companies usually discover these shortcomings during the clinical trial stages. “There aren’t enough, good toxicology models available to judge the accuracy of a drug in the initial stages. So, for every successful drug there are several that have failed and that’s what pushes up the cost of drugs,” said Chandrasekhar Nair, founder director, Bigtec Pvt. Ltd—a Bangalore-based company that makes diagnostic devices—in an earlier interview. jacob.k@livemint.com Source: Tech News - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:45 pm CSIR to unveil gene map for TB on portal developed by InfosysNew Delhi: In what could be a significant step forward for discovering new drug candidates for serious, but neglected diseases, the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) will on Monday unveil the most detailed map yet of a pathogen’s genome. The map of Mycobacterium tuberculosis (MTB), the organism which infects one-third of the world’s population, and kills at least 330,000 per year in India alone, will allow researchers across the world to better understand the bacterium and possibly be a model for mapping and studying other disease causing organisms. Akin to a Google map, or a Wikipedia article that can be modified and continually updated to accommodate new geographical features or information, the MTB map will list information on the nearly 4,000 genes that determine how the bacterium lives and infects human beings. Step forward: A file photo of CSIR director general Samir Brahmachari. Ramesh Pathania/Mint “The MTB would be some kind of a template. Though you can’t really compare it to the human genome which has many more genes and hence requires more labour, this effort is among the best so far,” said Hiroaki Kitano, director of the Systems Biology Institute, Tokyo. The MTB map will be hosted on a Web portal custom developed by Infosys Technologies Ltd, that uses an emerging format called Web 3.0. This format allows users to get better search results, when querying for data. “It’s the first time such a Web service is available for scientists. You can ask questions like you ask another human being. So, you can actually ask the Web what happens when x gene interacts with y gene, and expect valid answers,” said Vinod Scaria, a scientist at the Institute of Genomics and Integrative Biology and a key OSDD expert. Also read 7 December story -- “Infosys partnering CSIR for TB project” Despite the seriousness of India’s TB problem, inadequate funds and a paucity of concerted research have crippled new drug discovery. CSIR’s Open Source DrugDiscovery (OSDD), first reported by Mint on 7 December, aims to find new drug candidates by first collating all known information on thedifferent genes that make up the bacterium on single web portal. Though the MTB genome was completely sequenced in 1998, meaning scientists knew the DNA (deoxyribonucleic acid) alphabets that made up the organism’s genes, less than 40% of these genes were deciphered or, in scientist jargon, annotated. “As of today we’ve annotated nearly 98% of the MTB. That concludes a major phase of the OSDD project and is a big step forward for science,” said Samir Brahmachari, director general of CSIR. OSDD has been centrally funded to the tune of Rs150 crore of which Rs46 crore has been released. However, those involved in the process said all of the progress achieved yet is largely due to people working for free. “Over 300 students, many of them non-biologists have contributed to the bulk of the project. The money will begin to be spent on trials and experiments once we identify really promising drug targets,” said Zakir Thomas, technical head, OSDD. The current drug discovery process, in which scientists develop molecules to activate or inactivate proteins key to an infection, is inefficient, said experts. Most molecules that promise success in animal studies and theoretical calculations turn out to be unworkable due to surprise side effects or ineffectiveness among certain populations. Millions of dollars are wasted as drug companies usually discover these shortcomings during the clinical trial stages. “There aren’t enough, good toxicology models available to judge the accuracy of a drug in the initial stages. So, for every successful drug there are several that have failed and that’s what pushes up the cost of drugs,” said Chandrasekhar Nair, founder director, Bigtec Pvt. Ltd—a Bangalore-based company that makes diagnostic devices—in an earlier interview. jacob.k@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:45 pm Sensex up 219 points as FIIs continue buying - Financial Express
Source: Business - Google News | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:34 pm Maxus sparkles at Goafest Media AbbysGoa: Goafest Media Abby awards ceremony saw Lodestar Universal Pvt. Ltd, a Interpublic company, win three gold and four silver medals to mark a tally of nine points. Mindshare, a GroupM India firm, won two gold and two silver medals and a total of seven points. Maxus, another a GroupM India company, notched up the highest tally with 11 points but won a lone gold and five silver medals. The awards recognize the best ideas and use of various media in Indian advertising.  “We don’t have an agency of the year concept. One must consider the number of gold versus silver (medals) while making a tally,” he added. Some of the best work was seen in digital and mixed media categories, according to Sinha. “GroupM’s Mindshare had created a game for Star Plus for their show Sach ka Samna, which was a really good entry. Mudra Max’s work for Aircel (for outdoor media), which talked about help at hand in case of floods, was also noteworthy,” Sinha said. Lodestar had also done some good piece of work on Tata Nano in the innovations during launch category, which fetched them a lot of points during the Goafest awards, according to Sinha. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:27 pm Sangakkara shines, Kings XI Punjab humble MumbaiMohali: Kumar Sangakkara led from the front as tournament laggards Kings XI Punjab showed rare form to humble table-toppers Mumbai Indians by six wickets in an Indian Premier League match here on Friday night. Already out of IPL’s semifinal race, the Punjab side effected as many as five changes in their squad and the intensity showed as they bowled with a purpose and batted sensibly to record only their third win in 11 outings. For them, Piyush Chawla (3/24) silenced the Mumbai top guns, including Sachin Tendulkar, while Irfan Pathan (3/29) dented the middle order to restrict the visitors to a modest 154 for nine. Five of the visiting batsmen were bowled, most in an IPL match. For Mumbai, JP Duminy (35), Ambati Rayudu (33) and Tendulkar (29) chipped in with useful cameos but the Kings XI bowlers never really allowed them to go ballistic. And the Punjab side showed the same alacrity with the bat. Mahela Jayawardene (31 of 18 balls) gave them a flying start and Adrian Barath (33) provided the solidity while skipper Kumar Sangakkara (56 of 42 balls) stayed put till the penultimate over as the home side cruised to 158 for four in 19.2 overs. Yuvraj Singh’s struggle to wriggle out of a prolonged bad patch, however, continued with the left-hander getting out at a time when victory looked far from a certainty. It was Jayawardene’s brisk knock which set the tone for Punjab’s chase. Jayawardene opened his account with back-to-back fours off Ryan McLaren, a treatment he meted out to Zaheer Khan and Lasith Malinga before Malinga removed the right-hander. Barath and Sangakkara, however, kept going. Barath hit Harbhajan Singh over long on ropes for a six before Duminy trapped him leg before and Yuvraj too left when his team needed him most. Sangakkara, however, batted with characteristic nonchalance, helping himself to the occasional boundaries that kept coming. Sangakkara hit Duminy over his head for a six and then hit Zaheer for a boundary to complete his half-century before Malinga removed him in the 19th over. The match was heading for a close finish but Irfan Pathan (15 not out) maintained his calm to complete the formality with four balls to spare. Earlier, Piyush Chawla and Irfan Pathan shared six wickets between them as a lowly Kings XI Punjab restricted formidable Mumbai Indians to a modest 154 for nine. Opting to bat first, the Mumbai outfit showed rare batting frailty and lost wickets at regular intervals before useful cameos from JP Duminy (35), Ambati Rayudu (33) and skipper Sachin Tendulkar (29) guided them to a modest total. Pathan removed Shikhar Dhawan (2) with his first delivery to rattle Mumbai but the 44-run stand between Tendulkar and Rayudu, who was the more aggressive of the duo, helped them tide over the early crisis. Rayudu was harsh on Brett Lee and Pathan, hitting the left-arm seamer for three boundaries in the sixth over before Chawla castled him in the next. In his next over, Chawla removed the dangerous Saurabh Tiwari (4) and he maintained the trend in his third over as well, castling Tendulkar with a straight delivery. Pathan then chipped in to cut short R Sathish’s (20) stay and also removed Kieron Pollard (18) before the towering all-rounder could get dangerous. Even though wickets kept tumbling at one end, Duminy in his IPL III debut played sensible cricket, staying put at one end. The South African left-hander stepped across and flicked Brett Lee for a breathtaking six, having hit Ramesh Powar earlier in his innings. The Mumbai Indians made a mess of the final over, losing three wickets, including that of Duminy who was run out in the final delivery, and managing just four runs. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:26 pm Sebi bars 14 firms from issuing UlipsThe Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi), the capital markets regulator, restrained 14 insurance entities from raising fresh money through Ulips - Unit Linked Insurance Products. In a late evening notice posted on the Sebi website, the regulator said insurance companies need its approval before launching any product with an investment option.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:25 pm RIL to invest $1.7 bn in shale gas in USIn its first-ever break through in the United States, Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) today said its subsidiary, Reliance Marcellus LLC, would enter into a joint venture with United States-based Atlas Energy. The two sides have executed definitive agreements under which Reliance is to acquire 40 per cent interest in Pittsburgh-based Atlas core Marcellus Shale acreage position.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:23 pm Tata Tea-Pepsico to offer 'good for you' drinksTata Tea and Pepsico are exploring joint venture opportunities in non-carbonated ready-to-drink beverages in the health and wellness category.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:20 pm Tata Tea, Pepsi plan health-drinks JV - Economic Times
Source: Business - Google News | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:19 pm Pan-India bids kick off at Rs 3,919 crore3G auctions cautious beginning.Source: Business Standard | Front Page Headlines | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:18 pm India 2nd in auto market after ChinaIndias auto industry displayed its resilience and strength, racing past several developed markets to emerge as the worlds second-fastest growing light vehicle market, second only to China.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:13 pm 'Interest rates to be more transparent'The Reserve Bank of India on Friday announced the guidelines on base rates for banks, which will be the new reference benchmark to fix the interest rates from July 1, 2010.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:10 pm The Week in Review for 9 April 2010Big changes at the top at financial services firm Religare. On Tuesday the company’s chairman, Malvinder Mohan Singh announced his resignation. He was joined by his brother Shivinder, who announced he was resigning from his position as director of Religare. Together, the two brothers still hold a majority stake Religare. The Singh brothers now plan to focus on their other business interest: healthcare. Their hospital chain, Fortis has been expanding for some time now. Last month, it said it would buy a nearly 24% stake in Singaporean healthcare company Parkway. And in 2009, it bought ten hospitals from Wockhardt. The Essar Group plans a stake sale to fund its expansion plans. The company says it will raise $2.5 billion by selling shares in its energy business to institutional investors. The shares will come from Essar Energy and will be listed on the London Stock Exchange. Proceeds from the sale will help Essar buy coal mines and develop more oil and gas blocks. Essar is not the only company looking to raise money. Government-run steel firm SAIL is now closer to its follow-on public offer. On Thursday, the union cabinet approved a stake sale in the company that will have two components. One will see the government divest a part of its holdings for an estimated Rs8,000 crore. The second will involve SAIL selling fresh equity to the extent of 10% of its current holding. That’s expected to bring in another Rs8,000 crore. SAIL’s public offer will take place in two tranches. Each tranche will include both the components. Renault and Nissan are hoping to rake in greater profits from a new alliance. On Wednesday the two companies announced a new partnership with German carmaker Daimler. Together, the three firms plan to develop a range of small cars and share engine technology. Carlos Ghosn, the chief executive of Renault and Nissan told reporters the alliance would be lucrative. He expects it to bring in €2 billion euros in additional profits over the next five years. The three companies plan to seal their alliance through a cross-holding of shares. Renault and Nissan will get a total 3.1% stake in Daimler. Daimler will in turn pick up stakes of 3.1% in each company. Renault and Nissan already hold large portions of each other’s shares ever since their alliance more than a decade ago. The UB Group was in high spirits. At a press conference in Bangalore, the group’s chairman Vijay Mallya announced his liquor company United Spirits had become the second largest in the world. Mallya said United Spirits sold a hundred million cases annually, leaving behind competitors like French firm Pernod Ricard. Diageo remains the world’s biggest seller of alcoholic drinks. Real estate firm Emaar MGF says half the money it raises from its upcoming IPO will be used to service debt. Emaar MGF currently has a debt of Rs5,000 crore that’s due over the next two years. The company expects to raise about Rs3,500 crore from its IPO. India’s services industry grew at a slower pace in March. The Business Activity Index for the month stood at 58.1. That’s a slight fall from February’s high of 60.9. Food prices shot up for a second straight week. The food price index increased 17.7% in the year to 27 March. The previous week, the index rose just 16.35%. Katherine Bigelow’s Oscar-winning movie The Hurt Locker exploded on Indian screens Friday. The movie tells the story of an American bomb squad in Iraq’s mean streets during the early years of the war. Last month it beat stiff competition from James Cameron’s Avatar to win the Academy Award for Best Picture. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:10 pm PepsiCo, Tata ink JV deal for health drinksPepsiCo and Tata Tea, part of Tata conglomerate, signed a preliminary agreement for a joint venture to foray in the high-growth non-carbonated ready-to-drink beverages, focused on health and wellness.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:08 pm Mint 50 best fundsThis is a short-term fund that has stayed true to its objective and has consistently invested, on an average, in short term scrips. The fund has a good quality portfolio and comes from a fund house that specialises in debt fund management. Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:04 pm Coming soon, UID-backed micro ATMs for the poorIn the short time that Infosys Technologies former CEO and co-founder Nandan Nilekani has been part of the government, he has emerged as UPA's tech czar.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:03 pm Telecom set for big leap as 3G spectrum auction beginsThe much awaited auction for allocation of 3G spectrum kicked off on Friday, with six major operators in the simultaneous online race for three pan-India slots across 22 telecom circles.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 9 Apr 2010 | 1:01 pm RIL to buy 40% in Atlas Energy's shale gas fieldRIL, through its subsidiary Reliance Marcellus, would be spending another $4.76 billion to develop shale gas in the Marcellus region, its CFO Alok Agarwal, told reporters.Source: India Business News | Business News - Times of India | 9 Apr 2010 | 12:59 pm From representative democracy We Indians are proud of our democracy, and with reason. Over six decades, we’ve enfranchised hundreds of millions of people who were long excluded from the most basic of civil and social rights. Starting with the 1950 Constitution’s electoral set-asides for the lowest in the social order, extending to reservations for BCs and OBCs in other realms, and coming back to expanded electoral quotas now for women, we’ve used legislation to give a wide range of citizens a real voice in our political democracy. In this respect, we’ve leapfrogged ahead of some of the older, self-satisfied democracies —Germany, for instance—where minority racial groups, the poor, and women are still rarities in public office. But perhaps we too are becoming a little intellectually lazy about our version of democracy. The thought crossed my mind as I considered the impending legislation that will triple the number of women MPs currently in the Lok Sabha to one-third of the available seats, and which will maintain that level by law for at least the next three general elections. Also Read Sunil’s previous Lounge columns There is no doubt we have far too few women in decision-making positions, and this measure offers a swift remedy to that problem. But like most remedies, this one too comes with side effects. While some of those effects have received a good deal of attention in the debate over the new legislation, other, more insidious consequences may require more thoughtful attention than we’ve yet paid.  Victorious: (above) Congress president Sonia Gandhi greets supporters; and women celebrate after the passage of the women’s reservation Bill in the Rajya Sabha in March. Photographs by Vijay Joshi / PTI and Vipin Kumar / Hindustan Times A second line of criticism couches its objections in terms of institutional design. This group accepts the utility of quotas, but it disagrees about the mechanisms chosen to give women greater representation. They argue cogently that the Bill’s adopted means—reserved constituencies, which are rotated every election—weaken both accountability and political parties. Indeed, with constituency rotation, elected candidates will represent their constituencies for just one term—so nullifying the only real form of sanction that electors have over whom they elect: to reject them when they stand again. Since two-thirds of all constituencies at each election would be such movable feasts, the attempt by such means to remedy a representational deficit will in fact create a massive accountability deficit. Instead of slapping a “Women Only” sign for candidates in certain constituencies at election time, such critics argue, we should require political parties to field a specified number of women candidates—but leave it to them to allocate constituency tickets. The third line of objection is the line I find probes most deeply into the heart of the problem. It’s more philosophical than political, and it also happens to be the core reason our founders rejected separate electorates: because such electorates are premised on the idea that only like can represent like. In this view, conceding the principle of quotas and reservations in the electoral process, in whatever form, serves ultimately to entrench identities, and fragments efforts to build a community of individual citizens. While the principle serves expedient purposes, long-term it undermines both unity and individuality. For better or worse, India has long relied on legal and legislative fiat, rather than politics and economics, to bring about social reform. But as we weigh the great positive gains of having more women leaders against the problematic ways in which we hope to accomplish this, it’s useful to step back from the current debate over legislation, to ask how electoral reservations fit into the larger picture of our democracy’s evolution. Currently, 131 parliamentary seats are already reserved, for candidates from the scheduled castes and scheduled tribes. If one then adds the 137 general seats to be reserved for women, at the next general election, in just under half of all Lok Sabha seats (268 to be precise) the social and gender identities of candidates will be predetermined by law.  Dissenters: (above) Bahujan Samaj Party president Mayawati; and (from left) Mulayam Singh, Lalu Prasad and Sharad Yadav are among the prime critics of the Bill. Photographs by AFP and Arvind Yadav / Hindustan Times Yet now, as we install an order that we imagine mirrors our society, we are replacing the idea of political representation with that of social reflection. Motivating this shift is an implicit belief that an order which more directly mirrors society as it is will be more legitimate than one that attempts to articulate a vision of what it could be. I wonder, though, if we are being clear-headed about what sort of democracy we are building. Democracy, wherever it has appeared, has been an answer to a particular local problem. As it emerged in England and America, it was an attempt to restrain the power of the crown or of a federal executive, and as such it tried to reconcile a conflict between the claims of state power and the rights of individual citizens. In France and continental Europe, on the other hand, democracy was seen as a means to reconcile a society at war with itself: where there were fierce divisions along partisan lines, marked by revolution and civil and religious wars. Democracy in those countries offered a way of resolving conflict between groups who sought to capture the state and to turn it to their own purposes—to build a revolutionary future, for instance, or restore a usurped monarchy. In each case, distinctive forms of political representation were invented. In the Anglo-American model, a random mix of citizens in a defined unit of territory were asked to choose a single person to represent their interests. Once elected, the representative was expected to exercise judgement not just in favour of all within his territory but in the interests of the nation as a whole. This model, organized as parties of government and opposition, worked to check overweening powers accruing to the executive. In many parts of the continental European model, the idea of representation was somewhat different. Here, the elected assembly was supposed to reflect, in proportional measure, the political affiliations, social composition and religious beliefs of the electorate. Electoral systems were not designed to represent mixed territorial constituencies—rather, they aimed to entrench in the political system the existing antagonisms of the social order, and so to mitigate their destructive capacities. In the Indian case, representative democracy served to legitimise an inherited, largely undamaged colonial state. But, and more importantly, its purpose was also to politicize a social order at once rigid and riven by local loyalties. The problem Indian democracy had to address was the idea that certain forms of identity—whether of religion, of caste, or of language and culture—were primary and could trump other claims. By drawing such groups into political and electoral competition, the founders hoped to make those groups more malleable, and thereby neutralize their potential to corrode India’s unity. Still, they immediately qualified the model of territorial representation that they adopted—single members representing geographical constituencies—by creating reserved seats for the lowest castes. Electoral democracy alone could not lead to the social justice to which the founders were committed, and so from early on they used law and administrative means to balance democratic numbers. What we seem to have forgotten, 60 years on, is that those special provisions were conceived as temporary ones—expedients that the founders never envisioned as permanent features of the system. And indeed, reservations can make sense if thought of as something like a stimulus package—to kick-start participation in public life by excluded groups. Yet not only have we failed to devise exit strategies from such stimulus measures, we’ve actually gone on expanding them further—with the result that we are fundamentally redefining the nature and purpose of our representative democracy. Political representation is by definition a claim to speak on behalf of others. As such, it is an inescapably political idea, since it is always open to active dispute. When Gandhi declared, ‘‘I am a Harijan”, when Nehru claimed to represent all Indians, Muslim and non-Muslim, their claims had to be sustained by arguments and actions. And their claims were vigorously disputed, by men like Ambedkar and Jinnah: men whose own arguments invoked their identities (to bolster their claims to be more authentic spokesmen) but also appealed to reasoned views about social justice and minority protections. We are now unravelling that idea of political representation. We have embraced a politics in which claims have to be prefaced by the locution: “As a…” after which one inserts one’s caste, gender or cultural identity in order to silence other arguments. This “As a-ism” marks the triumph of an idea of democracy as expressive of social voice rather than representative of political vision. In such a democracy, if one can assert an identity between leaders and followers, then leaders no longer need account for their actions. Thus, when an elected Dalit woman leader arranges to have herself festooned with a wreath of thousands of Rs1,000 notes, merely the latest display of her amassed illegitimate wealth, she relies on her identity to absolve any need to explain her actions. Her wealth avenges the past oppressions of “her” people. As the most important decision maker in India’s largest state, she doesn’t have to actually do anything—just be. At her worst, she exemplifies our new national motto: not “Just do it”, but “Just be it”. Reasoned action has ceded place to stupefied being. But in far more places across our land, we seem to have moved from a view of reservations as a necessary if regrettable supplement to the workings of representative democracy to one where reservations are the basic operative principle of the system. And with that comes a troubling irony. The great achievement of 60 years of Indian democracy has been to politicize the social order: to transform apparently age-old social allegiances—of caste, religion and culture—into allegiances of political choice. The great risk, now, is that we will accomplish the reverse: socialize the political order, and entrench within it social identities and divisions. Sunil Khilnani is the author of The Idea of India and is currently working on a new book, The Great Power Game: India in the New World. Write to him at publiceye@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 12:47 pm 3G auctions may have rung up Rs12,000 crNew Delhi: India’s auctions for high-speed mobile spectrum saw five rounds of bidding on the opening day, with the total estimated value of the bids for the spectrum across the country reaching around Rs12,000 crore. In some circles the increment in the bids in successive rounds was 5% while in others it was 10%, a senior department of telecommunications (DoT) official said on condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media. “The auction is likely to go on for another two weeks.” Also Read Timeline: 3G auctions in India The bids began at the base price set by the government—Rs3,500 crore for a pan-India slot of third generation (3G) spectrum. As per the rules, the auctioneer raises the bid value in each round based on demand. For a circle with three slots available and at least six bidders, the price increment will be 10%. If there are five bidders for three slots, the bid increment will be 5% and if there are four bidders, it will be 1%. Assuming that the bid price was raised by 10% in successive rounds, this would value each block of 3G spectrum across the country at around Rs4,500 crore or around Rs15,000 crore for the three or four blocks available at the end of three rounds. “For some circles, the demand is not that high and the bid increments may have reduced,” a Mumbai based brokerage firm said on condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media. “If the demand for all the circles was maintained to a minimum of six bidders for every circle then the value of three slot of spectrum would have crossed Rs20,000 crore.” As per the daily report of the auction published by DoT on its website late in the evening, Delhi is the circle with the most demand going at a price of Rs373.29 crore for a slot of 3G spectrum at the end of Round 5. The remaining four of the top five circles with maximum demand were Mumbai, Maharashtra, Gujarat and Andhra Pradesh—all ending Round 5 at Rs362.66 crore for a single slot. “At least one of the new operators bidding for the spectrum has reduced its aggressiveness in the bidding,” an official with one of the larger phone companies said on condition of anonymity due to the sensitivity of the issue. This development could not be independently verified. There are a total of nine bidders for 3G mobile spectrum, with six of them seeking nationwide coverage. Three to four slots per operating region are being auctioned. The auction is expected to easily garner upwards of Rs40,000 crore for the government that is struggling to rein in a fiscal deficit that was at a 16-year high last year. The Indian government estimates that it will get around Rs35,000 crore from the online auction, which is expected to take about two weeks to complete. The auction closed for the day at 7.30pm as scheduled with no new rounds starting after 6.30pm. After two years of deliberations, the long-delayed auction got under way at the scheduled 9.30am start on Friday morning. The country’s telecom operators need the spectrum in order to offer high-speed data services at around 40Mbps on the mobile phone as well as a greater capacity for voice calls, significantly reducing congestion in the mobile networks. There are 11 applicants for the BWA (broadband wireless access) spectrum auction, which begins two days after the 3G auction ends. “We expect the (3G) auction to go on for at least two and half weeks,” said Dan Muldoon, representative of DotEcon, that is running the auction process along with Rothschild and Sons. The auction has attracted much attention throughout the global telecom sector, given that India is the second largest and fastest growing telecom market in the world. At the end of February, the number of telephone subscribers in India increased to 600.69 million from 581.97 million in January, registering a growth of 3.22%. Of these, 563.73 million were wireless subscribers, showing that 18.76 million wireless users were added in February. The pace of the bidding is expected to pick up in the next few rounds. “This is just the beginning. It has only just begun and will pick up pace as we go ahead,” a senior DoT official said on condition of anonymity as he is not authorised to speak to the media. India’s top phone companies, Bharti Airtel Ltd, Vodafone Essar Ltd, Reliance Communications Ltd and Tata Teleservices Ltd are expected to win the maximum number of slots of 3G spectrum across the country. Aggressive bidding could stretch the finances of firms and weigh on their earnings. In 2000, the UK raised at least $35 billion (Rs1.55 trillion) from a spectrum auction, while Germany collected around $67 billion from its UMTS licence auctions. In 2008, the US raised $18 billion from spectrum auction. Germany’s latest mobile phone spectrum auction starts on Monday, which analysts expect to raise from €3 billion (Rs17,790 crore) to €7 billion. Vodafone is also one of the bidders in the German auction. Reuters contributed to this story. shauvik.g@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 12:21 pm Inside hunger republicWhen journalist P. Sainath talks in public—be it in Parliament, addressing political leaders, or to a motley group of Mumbaikars at an auditorium, as shown in Deepa Bhatia’s documentary Nero’s Guests—it is impossible to let the words breeze by. You have to listen, react—even feel guilty. He is an impassioned speaker about India’s agrarian crisis and its unsavoury manifestations. He gesticulates a lot, his voice changes timbre as he describes families who have lost sons and fathers to suicides. He knows how to be heard. One of his friends once told Sainath, and he says this at a public forum filmed by Mehta, “Give us some good news sometimes!”  Survivors: A family in Vidarbha. Mehta records Sainath in the crumbling bamboo huts of farmers who have committed suicide in Vidarbha, on a train where he travels with rural women who are forced to work 12 hours a day as manual labourers, at his home where he preserves reams of papers about—and hundreds of photographs of—people he has met. There are parts in the film that seem to be there simply to make those who don’t acknowledge the issues Sainath is talking about look small and inhuman. These parts are sweeping, preachy and affected. But Nero’s Guests is a must-watch. Sainath’s subjects must be heard and seen. To buy the DVD of Nero’s Guests (Rs500 for individuals and Rs750 for institutions), write to nerosguests@gmail.com —Sanjukta Sharma sanjukta.s@livemint.com Source: LatestNews-Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 11:52 am Quick Edit | From Mekong to IndusEarlier this week, leaders of Laos, Cambodia, Thailand and Vietnam met with Chinese officials over concerns about the biggest drop in the Mekong’s water level in decades—feared to be a result of China’s extensive dams on the river. The concerns of the four South-East Asian countries are valid. The shortage in Mekong’s waters affects the lives of 65 million people, and these countries are the hardest hit. China, predictably, has denied that its dams are in any way responsible for the shortage, and has traditionally been opaque about its activities in the upper reaches of the river. But then, China was never particularly neighbourly. Compare this with India’s water dispute with its own neighbour. Pakistan’s allegations notwithstanding, India has had a record of civil cooperation that has transcended a history of bitter political conflict between the two countries. Such transparency has reaped little reward for India in bilateral relations. But in a region where it is the only effective democracy, this has lent some credibility to the country’s foreign relations. Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 11:43 am IPL’s Kochi franchise may have blocked out yorkerNew Delhi/Mumbai: The uncertainty surrounding the Kochi franchise of the Indian Premier League (IPL) has been dismissed by one of its promoters as rumour and that the winning consortium is set to seal the deal with the tournament’s organizers. The Times of India said in a report on Friday that the Board of Control for Cricket in India (BCCI), which owns the league, had returned the papers submitted by the franchise and asked it to mention all its partners in the papers while resubmitting them. The report added that Rendezvous Sports, the consortium that won the franchise, had given 25% of its equity to some unknown entities.  New players: (from left) Abhijit Sarkar of Sahara India, IPL commissioner Lalit Modi, BCCI vice-president Rajeev Shukla and Rendezvous’ Shailendra Gaikwad at a conference announcing the franchise winners. R.S. Kumar/HT The signing may take place as early as Saturday, said a person familiar with the process. Rendezvous Sports World Ltd is a consortium of several businessmen and firms, including Parinee Developers Pvt. Ltd, Anchor Earth, Film Waves and Anand Shah Developers. It is headed by Mumbai-based Shailendra Gaikwad of Rendezvous and Venugopal, a West-Asia based businessman, and had bid $333.33 million (Rs1,533 crore then) for the Kochi franchise of India’s popular Twenty20 cricket league. Minister of state for external affairs Shashi Tharoor had said at the time of the auction that he was supporting the bid because it would mean an IPL team for the state from which he was elected. Two people familiar with the developments and who did not want to be identified separately said that the issue was resolved late Thursday night after the intervention of several political heavyweights. “The agreement with the Rendezvous group has not yet been signed because the formalities are still to be completed,” Rajeev Shukla, chairman of BCCI’s media and finance committee, had said earlier. Keshav P.T., the representative of one of the members of the Rendezvous consortium, dismissed the media report as speculation and said, “We are in the process of submitting all the information and papers that the BCCI has asked for” and that this would “be done by the deadline (set by BCCI)”. Sahara India Parivar and Rendezvous won the rights to own the ninth and 10th IPL teams. Both were expected to submit a bank guarantee of $5 million within 10 days. Sahara did so and its agreement with BCCI was signed on 31 March. However, according to BCCI officials, Rendezvous’ papers had some gaps and the board returned them. BCCI officials Shukla and secretary of the board N. Srinivasan dismissed the controversy as “procedure”, but a person involved in the bidding process and who did not want to be identified alleged that the developments were orchestrated by IPL commissioner Lalit Modi and were part of an effort to have “Adani Group and Videocon to bid for the team”. Mint couldn’t independently confirm this allegation. Modi couldn’t be reached for comment over the phone despite repeated attempts. Responding to sports columnist Ayaz Memon’s tweet “Stories on Kochi IPL franchise spreading like whirlwind”, Modi tweeted: “All speculations. Delay due to consortium agreement not in line with franchise agreement. That is being done.” And in response to Rajdeep Sardesai’s tweet: “Masala story of the day: Kochi IPL in danger. Market rumour: Gujarat’s Adani Group trying to get in through backdoor”, Modi replied: “No such thing possible”. Rendezvous’ Venugopal told TV channel CNN IBN earlier that the “news of a transfer of 25% stake” was baseless. Ahmedabad-based Adani Enterprised Ltd and Mumbai’s Videocon group were also bidders for the two franchises. The person involved in the bidding process and cited earlier said agriculture minister Sharad Pawar and Gujarat chief minister Narendra Modi had interceded on Rendezvous’ behalf. A Bharatiya Janata Party leader from Gujarat, who did not want to be identified, confirmed that Modi had interceded to sort out the matter. Mint couldn’t independently confirm this. Meanwhile, Videocon (part of a consortium that bid for the Pune franchise) and Adani Enterprises that had submitted bids of $319 million and $315 million, respectively, are ready to step in if the deal with Rendezvous falls through. A spokesperson for Adani reasoned that because BCCI wants to make as much money as it can from IPL, it would obviously contact the next highest bidders if things didn’t work out with Rendezvous. “But we haven’t heard from them yet,” he added. “We were $13 million short. The stipulated time to sign the contract after submitting the bid is 30 days. If they (Rendezvous) don’t sign, we become number two and get Kochi,” said Venugopal Dhoot, chairman, Videocon Industries Ltd. However, a member of Dhoot’s consortium wasn’t as sure because it had submitted a bid only for Pune, which was won by Sahara with a bid of $370 million. In which case, Adani would “technically, be next in line for (an) Ahmedabad” team, said Atul Chordia, chairman and CEO of Panchshil Realty. liz.m@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 11:32 am 3G auction may raise Rs40,000-45,000 crTelecom minister A. Raja said in an interview that the auction of the third-generation (3G) mobile radio spectrum that began on Friday has been a completely transparent process. Edited excerpts: You must have received some initial reports about the auction. Tell us how it is progressing?  Positive response: Telecom minister A. Raja. Manpreet Romana/AFP Given the kind of response we have seen in the auction in terms of nine firms bidding for 3G, do you feel now that the reserve price could have been the originally suggested Rs4,000 crore instead of Rs3,500 crore? It has been decided in the eGoM (empowered group of ministers) that this base price is sufficient. It may be interpreted either way. But one cannot deny that whatever was the decision taken in the eGoM has been accepted by all the operators who participated in the tender. They are happy. The process is very transparent. Nowhere in the process, which was started 10 days back, including the mock auction, nowhere in the system was there any ill feeling or a second opinion has been explored by the companies that participated in the process. What does it mean? Everything is intact, including the base price. Some critics say the policy was not correct, which is why foreign firms have stayed away. I do not know where they stand because when the policy was devised, it was not assigned. When the recommendation came to me and the department saying that 3G spectrum should be auctioned and what will be the slot and amount of the spectrum, no criticism or no suggestion was made. So the only question arose was how many slots are going to be auctioned. When we decided that three-four slots can be auctioned, suddenly you cannot make criticism that the policy that is devised by the government is not correct. They are having their own inability or business viability. Whether they come to India or not is their own wish. One thing must be noted that whether it is Indian or the foreign operator, the policy of FDI is always there. The basket is open for them to come into the picture through the local operator to have 10-20% (stake). Airtel, Aircel and Vodafone have diluted their shares to foreign companies. This means that the other gate is open. cnbctv18@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 11:20 am RIL in shale assets deal with AtlasMumbai: Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) has agreed to pay $1.7 billion (Rs7,548 crore) to get into a joint venture (JV) with Atlas Energy Inc., a deal that will give India’s largest private sector firm access to natural gas assets in the US and a global foothold at a time when it seeks to use its growing cash hoard to nurture new sources of revenue and profit growth.  The Mukesh Ambani-led firm will have to invest another $3.4 billion as its share of development costs over the next 10 years, said RIL executive director P.M.S. Prasad. The company hopes to close the deal by the month-end. “From a strategic perspective, it is a positive move and in the right direction. We prefer an upstream asset to a downstream one. Plus, this is getting them into a new unconventional energy source,” said Deepak Pareek, analyst with Mumbai-based Angel Broking Ltd, adding that financially, however, this was “a completely new ball game”, and he was still figuring out how to value it. Another analyst highlighted the fact that RIL will get access to technology through this JV. “Even with a minority stake, this will enable RIL to learn the ropes of a new technology and then apply it elsewhere,” said a Mumbai-based analyst with a foreign brokerage, who did not want to be named. India has not yet auctioned any blocks for shale gas development. The JV comes soon after both of RIL’s global acquisition bids failed in the last couple of months. Its $14.5 billion buyout bid for bankrupt Dutch chemical maker LyondellBasell Industries AF ran into stiff resistance from the target’s management and a section of its creditors, and eventually fell through. RIL also lost a race for Canadian oil sands firm Value Creation Inc. to BP Plc, despite offering $2 billion for a majority stake. RIL will be paying $339 million after the deal closes and an additional $1.36 billion to fund nearly three-quarters of Atlas’ capital cost over their five-year development plan, according to an RIL statement. In return, it gets to “partner in approximately 300,000 net acres of undeveloped leasehold in the core area of Marcellus Shale in southwestern Pennsylvania”, retains “the option to acquire 40% share in all new acreages” and “obtains the right of first offer with respect to potential future sales by Atlas of around 280,000 additional Appalachian acres currently controlled by Atlas” at $8,000 per acre. Low operating costs and proximity to US’ northern gas markets adds to the attractiveness of the deal. Prasad said this “joint venture will materially increase RIL’s resources base and provide it with an entirely new platform” to grow its exploration business. Atlas, which reduces costs and monetized its assets with this deal, will be the development partner for the JV, but RIL will also begin to do so in later years. Barclays Capital Inc. acted as the exclusive financial adviser to RIL. Vinson and Elkins Llp were the legal counsel and Bank of America-Merrill Lynch provided strategic and financial advice. RIL’s shares rose 1.78% to Rs1,123.95 a piece on the Bombay Stock Exchange, outstripping the rise in the Sensex, which rose 1.23%. The deal was announced after the market closed for the week. bhuma.s@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 11:06 am RBI fails to sell all bonds at auctionMumbai: In the first bond auction of the fiscal year, the central bank failed to sell a sizeable 9% of the benchmark 10-year paper on offer. Investors sought a higher cut-off yield for the bonds, and primary dealers—underwriters for government bond auctions—had to buy Rs450 crore of the Rs5,000 crore issue. The other two bonds on auction—Rs5,000 crore of two-year paper and Rs2,000 crore of 17-year debt—were fully subscribed and performed better than expected. The devolvement of the 10-year bond pushed yields to cross 8% for the first time in a month. On Thursday, the yield on the 10-year bond was at 7.75%, but started rising after the government said food price inflation rose at a higher-than-expected 17.70% in the year ended March. The faster inflation means the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) may have to tighten policy rates at a sharper pace than was anticipated. Until Thursday morning, investors had anticipated a 0.25 percentage point hike in RBI’s policy rates, but the possibility of a 0.50 percentage point increase following the food inflation figures spooked the bond market, pushing yields higher. RBI’s next monetary review is scheduled for April 20. In a rising interest rate scenario, holding a long-tenure bond becomes risky as yields rise —or prices fall—with every rate hike, pushing older purchases into a loss from a trading point of view. The 10-year bond is considered the most important in this regard as banks benchmark their investments to this paper. The cut-off yield for the 10-year paper in the Friday auction came at 7.9645%, against the market expectation of 7.90%, as per Bloomberg estimates. The yield closed at a little more than 8% on Friday. “The devolvement shows the bearishness in the market,” said G.A. Tadas, MD of IDBI Gilts Ltd, a primary dealer. Arvind Sampath, director, rates, at Standard Chartered Bank, said the devolvement could have happened because of the nervousness in the market ahead of a large borrowing programme. “Nobody wants to be the first buyer when the auction calendar is so huge. The waiting phenomenon is behind the spike in yields,” said Sampath. “Policy rates are far lower than the market yields, and bond yields have factored in a rate hike in April... It’s true that the bond yields may move up to 8.25-8.30% in two months, but we may not see this kind of sharp movement.” Bond dealers say managing the government’s Rs4.57 trillion borrowing programme in fiscal 2011 will be a huge challenge for RBI as it doesn’t have the tools it had last year, such as the unwinding of Rs88,000 crore of intervention bonds or the leveraging of its balance sheet to buy back Rs56,000 crore of bonds from the secondary market. But dealers consider the present yields attractive for banks as the lenders can buy these bonds in large numbers instead of parking surplus money in excess of Rs1 trillion with RBI and earning only 3.5% interest. The cut-off yields on the two-year paper came at 5.9803% and the 17-year paper at 8.2908%, against Bloomberg’s estimates of 6.09% and 8.32%, respectively. anup.r@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 11:05 am Auto sales may rise 10-14% this fiscalNew Delhi: Automobile sales in India, home to two of the world’s top 10 car plants, will continue to rise in the year that began 1 April as faster economic growth bolsters demand following the best performance in six years by the industry. Sales rose 25% from 1.5 million units to 1.9 million units in the fiscal year ended 31 March as new model launches improved consumer sentiment and increased financing resulted in buyers flocking to showrooms. Increased highway construction activity resulted in operators increasing fleet sizes. Truck sales jumped 38% to 531,395. The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers (Siam) expects light truck sales to grow fastest this fiscal followed by cars. At nine cars per 1,000 India has one of the lowest car penetration rates in the world. “We expect the industry to grow between 10% and 14% this year,” said Pawan Goenka, president of Siam, an industry association. Growth may slow in the next few months before resuming in the latter half of the fiscal, he said. The immediate damping of demand may result from price increases because of rising commodity prices and higher interest rates, Goenka said. New emission norms and the recent hike in excise rates could also deter buyers said Goenka, who estimates the combined impact to bump up prices by 7-8% in the coming months. The slowing may be exaggerated because of the high base effect on last year’s growth figure, the association said. Sales in 2008-09 had been hit hard following the global economic crisis, with the industry registering almost no growth. “After a record-setting fiscal year for most auto companies, we expect volume growth to slow in fiscal year 2011,” wrote Macquarie Research in a recent note. Siam expects domestic sales to drive growth as exports slow due to the withdrawal of incentives by several European governments. Some car makers such as Hyundai Motor India Ltd are working on exporting to new markets to offset the decline in sales from Europe. It recently began exports to Australia. The Automotive Mission Plan targets one million car exports by 2016. Last fiscal the industry exported 441,710 cars. In the same period, domestic auto sales are expected to rise to 4.5 million units. Rural sales are likely to be another driver of growth. Maruti Suzuki India Ltd, the country’s largest car maker, expects this to account for 16% of total sales by next fiscal, up from 12.5%. Two-wheeler sales ended the year at 9.3 million units. Both car and two-wheeler market leaders Maruti Suzuki and Hero Honda Motors Ltd saw their share fall below 50%. Maruti, which sold 870,783 units, had a 44% market share, while Hero Honda’s share stood at 48%. It sold 4.5 million motorcycles and scooters. samar.s@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 11:00 am Cybercrime grows up, fans outInternet frauds have come a long way, and now involve cross-border white-collar gangs, writes N. Madhavan. See graphicsSource: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 9 Apr 2010 | 10:24 am Tata Tea, PepsiCo sign agreement on health drinksMumbai: Tata Tea Ltd and PepsiCo India Holdings Pvt. Ltd on Friday announced a preliminary agreement for a joint venture (JV) in the non-carbonated drinks business. The venture will look at developing and marketing such beverages for Indian consumers on the health and wellness platform, a senior PepsiCo official said. “The scope of the JV is being worked out. The opportunity is huge,” said Sanjeev Chadha, president, PepsiCo India, adding that the firms are currently looking at the structure, work and governance principles.  New deal: PepsiCo CEO (Asia) Saad Abdul-Latif (L) with Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata. PTI The non-carbonated beverages market in India is estimated to be $800 million (Rs3,552 crore) and growing at 25% annually. “The JV will give Tata Tea an upside as it looks at cold beverages for growth as its traditional hot beverages (tea) market is globally a de-growth market,” said Anand Ramanthan, sector analyst with KPMG Advisory Service Pvt. Ltd. “It is to be seen how PepsiCo benefits from it besides gaining from economies of scale for supply chain.” Non-carbonated drinks such as Tropicana, Nimbooz, Gatorade and Aquafina contribute close to 18% of PepsiCo’s India revenue. Tata Tea, which markets the Himalaya, Tetley and Agni brands, is test marketing T!on, a tea drink, in the ready-to-drink (RTD) beverage market. Over the past year, it has been consolidating some of its brands such as Eight O’Clock Coffee, Tetley, Vitax, and Good Earth, under a single, yet-to-be-named umbrella. PepsiCo has a global JV with Unilever for the RTD market. “The proposed joint venture is not intended to conflict with any existing arrangements of either party,” Tata Tea said. sapna.a@livemint.com Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 10:19 am Govt asks CAG for tips to cut subsidy billThe government on Friday asked the Comptroller and Auditor General to suggest ways to curb its rising subsidy bill on food, fertiliser and petroleum products without hurting the targetted population.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 9 Apr 2010 | 10:18 am As Greek bond rates soar, bankruptcy loomsAs interest rates on Greek debt spiral upward, the question facing Europe is no longer whether Athens has the political will to cut spending and raise taxes to curb its gaping budget deficit, but whether Greece will run out of money before it gets the chance to do so.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 9 Apr 2010 | 10:16 am RBI releases guidelines for new base rate systemThe Reserve bank of India on Friday released the guideline on the Base Rate system (wherein commercial banks will fix their lending rates based on their cost of funds).Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 9 Apr 2010 | 10:13 am US firm invests $30 mn in Krishidhan SeedsMumbai: Summit Partners, a 25-year-old private equity (PE) firm that has $11 billion under management, said on Friday that it had made its first investment in India with an infusion of $30 million in agricultural biotech firm Krishidhan Seeds Ltd (KSL). The deal, which took three months to close, is also Summit’s first in the agriculture segment. Amit Chaturvedy, vice president of Summit Partners and soon to join the KSL board, said his firm has been looking at entering the Indian market for a year now. The deal took three months to close. “When it came to the Indian economy we did not have a view that we have to invest in a specific sector,” Chaturvedy said. “We just looked for high growth companies and made this investment.” Summit is the latest addition to a list of PE firms, such as Apollo Capital, Bain Capital and Quadrangle, that have made their first investments in India over the past six months. Investments in agriculture-related businesses accounted for 5% of total number of PE deals in India, valued at $27 million, over the first three months of calendar 2010, according to data firm Venture Intelligence, a Chennai-based research firm that tracks private equity and mergers and acquisitions. The sector had 10 deals worth $3.9 million in 2009 and and seven deals worth $118.8 million in 2008. “Agriculture is a sector which in effect plays on consumers as there is a derivative demand. It is the consumer theme which is driving these type of investments,” said Bhavesh Shah, executive director (investment banking), JM Financial Consultants Pvt Ltd. “While we are sector agnostic, certain sectors that we find interesting include agriculture, communication technology and education,” Chaturvedy said, adding that the focus in India will be on minority stake transactions in the range of $10 million-$100 million. . Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 10:10 am Tata Tea, Pepsi strike deal for beverages joint ventureTata Tea and world No. 2 cola maker PepsiCo on Friday said they had signed a preliminary agreement to form a joint venture for non-carbonated beverages focused on health and wellness.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 9 Apr 2010 | 10:07 am Auto sales zoom 20 pc;in MarchThe automobile industry logged its best-ever annual growth in domestic sales in 2009-10 with an overall growth of 26.4 per cent, largely on the back of an unprecedented 26 per cent spurt in two-wheeler sales.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 9 Apr 2010 | 10:05 am 3G finally comes callingWith the auction process for 3G services that began on Friday, India has taken a giant step towards revolutionising its telecom services. Two days after the auction process for 3G spectrum ends, the government will initiate the process of auctioning spectrum for broadband wireless access services, reports Manoj Gairola. Winner all aroundSource: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 9 Apr 2010 | 9:59 am RIL to invest $5bn over 10 yrs in US shale gas projectAfter multiple attempts to acquire North American assets in the recent months, Mukesh Ambani controlled RIL announced on Friday that it will invest $1.7 billion in a joint venture with the US based Atlas Energy Inc to produce gas from shale (sedimentary rocks) in the Marcellus region.Source: HindustanTimes.com - Top Business News Headlines | 9 Apr 2010 | 9:50 am A trilemma is the new dilemma Why Asian economies? The authors point to Asia’s V-shaped recovery from the crisis and say that if it is sustained, it will mean two things. One, it will be evidence of a decoupling from the Western economies, particularly because this time, unlike after the Asian crisis, they didn’t have the benefit of the US demand to pull them through. Secondly, it suggests that the Asian economies are better open to cope with crises in a globalized environment. The paper examines the policies adopted by the Asian economies that have helped them reduce output volatility.  Illustration: Jayachandran / Mint The study says that greater monetary independence also reduces the volatility of investment. And while aiming for exchange rate stability may make investment more volatile, that volatility could be reduced by holding higher forex reserves. Also, financial openness does not play a role in either investment volatility or the real exchange rate. So which of these policy combinations have Asian economies opted for? The key finding seems to be that as long as countries hold high levels of forex reserves, they can pursue a stable exchange rate and thus reduce volatility in investment. The authors say that “Overall, we find that Asian economies, especially the emerging market economies, are equipped with macroeconomic policy configurations that dampen the volatility of the real exchange rate. These economies’ sizeable amount of IR (international reserves) holding appears to enhance the stabilizing effect of the trilemma policy choices while allowing them to achieve middle-ground policy arrangements. This finding provides a motivation for the recent phenomenal build-up of international reserve holdings in the region.” Source: Home - Livemint.com | 9 Apr 2010 | 9:25 am
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