What Would Be The Impact Of Fuel Price Hikes?

The government has moved to ease price controls on petrol and raise other fuel rates. Here are some questions and answers about the implications.

LIC's investment in markets may cross Rs 2-lakh crore this year

Our gross investments last year were Rs 1,93,000 crore; this year, they should cross Rs 2-lakh crore. The investments will be across government securities, state and corporate debt, project loan infrastructure, equity,” said N Mohanraj, ED-investments at LIC.

Inflation as a solution for Europe

Blanchard said that if 2% inflation was the norm, and interest rates were around the same level, central banks could not cut interest rates by more than 2% in a slump: they could not go below zero.

U.S. Debt and the Greece Analogy

Don't be fooled by today's low interest rates. The government could very quickly discover the limits of its borrowing capacity.

BP Relied on Cheaper Wells

In recent years, oil giant BP PLC used a well design that has been called "risky" by Congressional investigators in more than one out of three of its deepwater wells in the Gulf of Mexico, significantly more often than most peers, a Wall Street Journal analysis of federal data shows.

Obama's New Approach to Missile Defense in Europe

he Obama administration's recently announced "Phased, Adaptive Approach" to missile defense in Europe will strengthen ties with European allies and will provide for better security, explains CDI Research Assistant Jenny Shin.

Budget Nightmare at the Pentagon

An extremely broad right-left coalition may be forming to bring real change to the Pentagon. Such change is not coming otherwise, explains Straus Military Reform Project Director Winslow Wheeler.

Very nice letter

The Honorable Alan Simpson
Mr. Erskine Bowles
National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform
1650 Pennsylvania Avenue NW
Washington, DC 20504

Nine Questions (and Provisional Answers) About the Spill

The sea is slow to reveal its secrets, and so is BP. The regulators and other companies caught up in the Gulf of Mexico oil disaster are almost as opaque. Whether motivated by the need for self-protection, the desire to get it right before releasing information, or the inevitable fog of a shape-shifting crisis, the sometimes conflicting statements released by BP, the Minerals Management Service, and others have left a raft of unanswered questions. How much oil is spewing into the Gulf each day? How much damage is it doing, and will the ecosystem ever recover? Who made the decisions that led to this nightmare?

Green Solutions

Siemens continues its traditional partnership with World Expos and offers its green solutions to Shanghai

Solutions for the Green Economy

Government officials, scholars and business leaders gathered in Beijing to discuss a roadmap to the globe's low-carbon future

Basel chief hits back at growth curb claims

The head of the Basel Committee on Banking Supervision on Friday hit back at industry claims that global growth will be cut and fewer jobs created if banks are forced to hold more capital and liquid assets.

What Level of Public Debt Could India Target?

Very nice working research paper at IMF..... Must read

An Estimated Model with Macrofinancial Linkages for India

Very nice working research paper at IMF..... Must read

Inflation Expectations and Monetary Policy in India: An Empirical Exploration

Very nice working research paper at IMF..... Must read

Growth Convergence and Spillovers among Indian States: What Matters? What Does Not?

Very nice working research paper at IMF..... Must read

World Economic Outlook database

Entire database of entire world by IMF

Global Financial Stability Report Meeting New Challenges to Stability and Building a Safer System

Very Nice report on

Global Financial Stability Report

Meeting New Challenges to Stability and Building a Safer System 

By IMF. Must Read

World Economic Report

Pls read World Economic Report by IMF

“Capital inflows: The role of controls”

Very nice IMF Report on “Capital inflows: The role of controls”

Grow, but don't try to rule the world

Emerging markets have come out of the sub-prime crisis better than the advanced economies. Banks are a play on the economy, so this is reflected in the condition of banks in advanced and emerging economies. In 2009, banks in the US, UK and elsewhere reported their lowest return on assets in years, if not decades.

Shale gas transforms geopolitics, energy

The Indian government remains asleep to the revolutionary potential of shale gas, which promises to revolutionise both the world energy scene and global geopolitics. Russia, Iran and Opec are going to be greatly weakened, while the US, Europe and China will be greatly strengthened. India can be a major beneficiary.

Rarity in India Inc: Munjals seal amicable settlement pact

The Munjals of Hero Honda have a habit of doing things differently, even if it is slicing the family cake. The businesses born out of the partition of the nation, have been partitioned, of course without the bad blood.

Drumbeats: The Tech Press Turns on Microsoft's Ballmer

Microsoft has a problem—a big one. The problem is not just that its CEO, Steve Ballmer, has had a disastrous 10-year run. That’s been obvious for a while now, as I first pointed out last October in a piece titled “The Lost Decade—Why Steve Ballmer is no Bill Gates.”

Why Japan and the U.S. Can't Live Without Okinawa

The continued U.S. military presence in Japan has been a growing concern for the Japanese public, and last week it became a lever to pry Prime Minister Yukio Hatoyama from office. The first Democratic Party prime minister in a half century may have brought that fate upon himself, by promising on last fall's election campaign trail to move a key U.S. air base off Okinawa, and perhaps out of Japan entirely. That would have broken his predecessors' tradition of treating the U.S. presence in Japan as an American birthright, but what proved to be Hatoyama's undoing was his failure to deliver.

Boycott BP! : Because it’s much better to give your money to Exxon.

Go ahead, boycott BP. Not only do you get to send a message to the company that has proved incapable of stopping the undersea gusher unleashed on April 20, but (unless you live in a one-gas-station town) you can do it without much pain to yourself.

BP's Leaky Fix: Can More Oil Be Recovered?

After seven weeks on the public relations griddle, the folks at BP are starting to get testy — and they arguably have a right to. Going from self-described corporate good guy to the only company in the world that could make Americans forget about Toyota, Goldman Sachs and the subprime mortgage brokers cannot be fun. Worse, the public's loathing of all things BP continues even as the company has some rare good news to report: With the lower marine riser package (LMRP) now in place over the stump of the riser pipe, BP has collected 11,100 bbls. of oil in the 24 hours from Sunday to Monday alone, and that rate of recovery is continuing.

BP's Survival in Doubt After Gulf Oil Spill

There's still no end in sight for the catastrophic oil leak in the Gulf of Mexico . But increasingly there appears to be one for the corporation responsible for it. Several analysts have said this week that BP's existence is in jeopardy. Shareholders, meanwhile, continue to stampede toward the exits, though the stock rose in London Friday on news that BP officials are "confident" the latest cap will at least stem some of the oil.

A Brief History of BP

BP, the giant multinational now responsible for untold millions of gallons of oil billowing into the Gulf of Mexico, has taken pains in recent years to spruce up its image. Its logo, a flowery pastel helix, beams earthy friendliness while the company's current tagline — "Beyond Petroleum" — expresses its desire to diversify into sustainable, greener energy. But the scale of the spill — and the seeming inability of the government to staunch the flow without BP's aid — has provided a stark reminder of the power that Big Oil still holds over national politics and the fate of entire communities that live in its shadow

The Decline: The Geography of a Recession

nice 1 , worth watching

Fixing Big Finance : The real solutions for financial-industry failure.

The credit crisis and the resulting recession are the work of an invisible hand - not the invisible hand of free markets but of an overwhelming government interference in those markets. Over a quarter of a century, Washington gave the world of finance a terrible privilege: freedom from fear of failure. Until the early 1980s, banks, securities firms and insurers, like all private companies, operated under market discipline. Federal laws prescribed a consistent, predictable way in which they could fail, with investors and lenders taking their warranted losses.

Doing Business in China 2010

Expo 2010’s overarching vision is that the world is coming to China and China is going to the world, and that all humanity must come together in a broad international partnership in order to optimize the future. Expo 2010 displays - idealizes perhaps - how people can live in harmony with the environment, in harmony with one another, and in harmony with the city. It should not go unnoticed that China has surpassed America in the raw amount of investment in green technologies.

The Next American Economy : Can America’s idea factories save the day?

At a time when the U.S. is hungry for good jobs, CEOs, technologists and economic development experts are examining America’s universities for clues on whether new industries can be created on American soil, rather than in China, Taiwan or Singapore. Corporate research centers like Bell Labs and Xerox Park have all but disappeared, leaving universities as increasingly important idea factories. The reality is that for every A123 that reaches viability - or for every Hewlett-Packard or Google - dozens of others fail. And for every disruptive technology that is commercialized, dozens remain locked inside the ivied halls of academe.

CEO Confidence Index May 2010

The Current Confidence Index had the largest percentage gain, rising 24.4% to 86.9. Nearly 60% of CEOs forecast slow, continual growth in the economy. “We generally feel that the overall recovery will be gradual with some sectors growing faster than others, mostly dependant on government actions”, one CEO told Chief Executive.

German 4G auction closed, earnings lower than expected

Dow Jones Newswire reported today with initial results from the mobile spectrum auction in Germany. Figures were not as strong as analysts had predicted, with the government’s total adding up to only 4.38 billion euro. Germany’s 3G auction ten years ago clocked in at 50 billion euro, and most analysts predicted at least 5-10 billion for this round.

Telecom : 2020 vision

Telecom trends usually come in three forms.
There are those thought up by telcos that are a success, like broadband and mobile broadband.
There are those that the industry hasn't been able to make work, like MMS, video telephony, mobile TV and m-commerce.
And there are those big hits that have come from elsewhere - like the iPhone and app store, Skype, Web 2.0 and the internet itself.
2020 at a glance

• Telco of one
• 20 billion connected devices
• Augmented reality
• End-to-end fiber
• Smart enablers
• Content conflicts
• Dumb pipes rule OK
• RIP ARPU and MOU
• RIP pay-TV
• LTE thrives, Wimax survives
• Rethink in approach to generating revenue
• The coming application store shakedown
• Only scratched the surface
• Low-cost 4G everywhere
• Big pipe – bigger apps

Outlook for Indian telecom in 2010

The Indian telecom market came of age last year, growing into one of the world’s fastest growing and most competitive markets. But intense competition in the wireless-dominated country also forced operators to lower tariffs to the very brink of sustainability. As a result, 2010 will see operators pursuing new revenue-generating opportunities, as well as more drastic measures such as mergers and IPOs

Chinese bank goes live with TCS banking solution

The Guangdong Rural Credit Union (GDRCU) in China recently went live with Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) Financial Solutions’ BaNCS Core Banking technology, enhancing the institution’s financial system and innovating its core processes.

Indian IT services market nearing saturation point: study

Despite stellar growth forecasts for the Indian IT services market in the Banking, Financial Services and Insurance (BFSI) space—predicted to reach US$2.7 billion by 2013—the fiercely competitive market remains fragmented between a large number of providers offering the same services, according to Springboard Research.

Study: India's IT services market to take double growth by 2013

India’s IT services market is poised to take a massive jump from a US$5.7 billion growth in 2008 to as much as $12.8 billion in 2013, comprising an 18.6% CAGR in the same time period, data from the latest research from Springboard Research reveals.

I apologise for unsolicited material

Dear All,

I was not updating my blog for quite some time, There was couple of unsolicited materiel updated which was not from my side, Some body has hacked it and uploaded those, now I have deleted those posts..

I apologise if I have hurt your feelings....

Regards

Kumar