Monday 30 July 2012

Bharti Airtel and ICICI Bank included in top 100 Global Brands


                       
                          Indian telecom giant Bharti Airtel and renowned private sector bank ICICI Bank have been included in the prestigious ‘BrandZ list’ of the top 100 most-valuable global brands across the world of the year 2012 by the well-known research firm Millward Brown. Eventually ICICI Bank was ranked 63, while Airtel clinched the 71th spot. This has to be mentioned here that the top five brands on the list are Apple, IBM, Google, McDonald’s and Microsoft.

                       According to the research study, ICICI Bank’s brand value has declined by 15% since the year of 2011. Though ICICI Bank declined, Bharti Airtel entered in the BrandZ Top 100 list for the very first time, which is quite a great achievement for sure.

                      The study mainly took into account what the common people thought about the brands they bought and used alongside with the analysis of financial data, market valuations, analyst reports and risk profiles and covered almost two million consumers and more than 50,000 brands in over 30 countries, which proved ho w reliable the study is.

India claimed 46th rank in trade logistics performance


                      For the last two years or so global trade logistics performance slowed down because of many reasons like global recession, uncertainty over euro zone etc, but India along with a few other countries which pursued quite aggressive economic reforms continued to improve drastically, according to the World Bank.


                       India’s Logistics Performance Indicators (LPI) score of 3.08 was eventually ranked 46th in the latest survey of World Bank on trade logistics, while Singapore topped the list, as the top performer among the 155 economies included in the report,  with a score of 4.12.

                        Countries like India, Chile, China, Morocco, South Africa, Turkey, and the US all improved their own previous performance. It is a very good sign for India to improve the score quite regularly for the last few years.

                         According to the latest LPI report, high income economies dominate the top logistics rankings, while the economies with worst performance are least developed countries that are also often landlocked, small islands, or post-conflict states.

                          In the category of upper-middle income, top performers are South Africa, China and Turkey, while in the lower-middle category, India, Morocco and the Philippines have above average performance improvements.

                          According to the Mona Haddad, Sector Manager of the World Bank’s international trade department, infrastructure is the chief driver of progress in top performers, which is followed by factors like improvements in logistics service, and customs and border management.

                          All the top performers show a strong cooperation between the public and private sectors, and a very comprehensive approach in the development of services, infrastructure and efficient logistics.

Saturday 28 July 2012

Trade target of $15 billion by 2015 is set by India-Brazil


                   India is seeking loads of investment from the Latin American Country Brazil, mainly in the infrastructure sector for which it arguably needs $1 trillion over the next five years, as the said two countries set bilateral trade target of mere $15 billion by the year of 2015.


                    Eventually both the countries can be able to operate together in the various sectors like agriculture, textiles, IT, infrastructure and pharmaceuticals. Currently the bilateral trade is set at $10 billion. Both the nations have agreed to fix the target of $15 billion by the year of 2015.

                    For the last two years or so the Indian government is taking several necessary steps to increase the share of important manufacturing sector in the GDP to at least 25% by the year of 2020, which is only 16% at the present. For this, a new National Manufacturing Policy (NMP) was announced quite recently, which mainly envisages setting up of NMIZs.

                     There will be loads of mega industrial zones with world class supporting infrastructure. The government is also offering a host of incentives and a liberalized labor and environment norms to promote these zones hugely.

                      These types of move are hugely needed by India, as it is suffering a marginal economic growth, and it still needs lots of improvements to be considered as a developed nation worldwide.

Tuesday 24 July 2012

India’s Mangoes exports to US is likely to increase by 43% this year


                India’s mangoes exports to the United States are likely to increase by quite a huge 43% to 130 tonnes in this year. It is mainly because of the higher availability of export quality fruit and robust demand. Considering the present poor condition of the Indian economy, this is very good news indeed. India needs to increase the export percentage of other fruits too.


                  Last year India was named as the world’s largest grower of the fruit, and eventually India had shipped 91 tonnes of mangoes to the America only. America is the main country to export mangoes from India for the last decade or so. But in the last few years the export percentage is increasing quite hugely.

                   Eventually the mangoes exports to the US has been 90 tonnes so far and the overall shipments could nearly touch 130 tonnes in this year. The shipments to America are likely to be much better than last year for two major reasons. First of all there is very good supply of export quality fruit on account of conductive weather conditions, and last but not the least Indian mangoes has regular demand in the foreign markets.

                    It has to be mentioned here that mangoes are exported to the US via air after the irradiation process, which is a latest food preservation technology that can hugely reduce the main risk of food poisoning, control food spoilage and extend the important shelf-life of food. The US mainly prefers irradiation to get rid of an insect pest mango seed weevils and fruit fly from the fruit.

                     The annual export volumes could be improved to 200-300 tonnes but for that government would have to build more irradiation centres in key mangoes growing states.  At present, there is only one irradiation centres in Nasik district of Maharashtra. As a result of this, only Alfanso and Kesar varieties of mangoes were grown in the states of Maharashtra and Gujarat are being shipped via air to the US.

                     In the year of 2007 India resumed the mango exports to the US. The export volumes have always been below 100 tonnes in the last three years. India’s overall mangoes exports are likely to be around 80,000 tonnes this year.

Saturday 21 July 2012

I-T return is not necessary for Income up to Rs. 5 lakh



                On this Friday, the Central Board of Direct Taxes announced that, salaried employees, who have an annual income of below Rs 5 lakh, are exempted from filling Income Tax return for assessment year of 2012-13, provided they don’t have any sort of other incomes whatsoever.

                  They also added that different individuals who are having earnings via interest from savings bank deposits are also exempted from filling Income Tax returns only if the total interest component is less than Rs 10,000 per year. Eventually here total annual income of Rs 5 lakh means the total gross income of a salaried employee after the deduction of all necessary taxes.

                    The announcement contained a very important disclosure for all the beneficiaries. There is a small condition to get this tax benefit. The exemption is possible only when an employee has provided his Permanent Account Number (PAN) to his employer and all of his interest income via different savings bank being reported properly before Form 16 is generated.

                     This facility of exemption to I-T file returns also applicable to those individuals, whose tax liability has been fully taken care by the employer and also deposited to the government through Tax Deducted at Source (TDS) deposits.

                      If an employee needs to claim his tax refund, he will just need to file the returns. The exemption will also not apply to those to whom the tax authorities have issued notice to file Income Tax returns. So you need to file your I-T return as early as possible to get this benefit.

Friday 20 July 2012

Infusion of Rs 1500 Crore is needed by IOB in this fiscal






            The Indian Overseas Bank (IOB) is requiring an infusion of Rs 1500 crore in the current fiscal (2012-13), as said by its Chairman and Managing Director M Narendra on this Thursday. This type of capital infusion is becoming quite necessary for the various Indian Banks, considering the economic scenario of current fiscal.


            “This year our requirement may be Rs 1,500 crore, which may be done partly by our profit and for the rest we will be looking at the government. Last fiscal (2011-12), we got Rs 1,440 crore and the fiscal year before that we got Rs 1,053 crore. The government holding in our bank is 69%, and we also look Rs 302 crore from LIC,” Mr. M Narendra told the press reporters on the sidelines of the ongoing banking conclave, which is eventually organized by FICCI.

              He was also asked to detail how much the government would likely to infuse, to its reply he told that the main amount of infusion will surely depend on certain important details, which will be provided by the various PSU banks like ongoing business plan, profit level and others.

              “Until market comes to the level, where banking stocks get a fairly better valuation, we may have to look for the government support and as and when the market capitalization on the banking sector outlook gets better, we have to look for alternative resources also,” he added on his speech. On the matter of credit growth he said, “This year the credit growth is not at par with last fiscal. RBI has projected 16%, we may look at 18-20% for our bank.”

                 He also said that IOB is also making serious plans to raise a capital of merely $500 million through Medium Term Notes (MTN) in the next three to six months or so. While talking about the important issue of requiring capital base for Basel III norms, which is going to start from January 2013, he said, “We need to have better profitability plan. Our tier I is 8.32% and overall the capital adequacy ratio is 13.32%.”

Thursday 19 July 2012

India’s Latest Signed Agreements Cum MoUs


           India has signed a few agreements with its neighboring countries in recent days. Here is a short brief about it:


India and Myanmar signed 12 agreements 

              Recently 12 agreements were signed by India and Myanmar, which is a clear signings of developing bonding between the said countries. The agreements included various services like a $500 million credit line, border area development and air services. The agreements were signed after the honorable Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh held wide-ranging discussions with the President of Myanmar Thein Sein at Myanmar’s new capital.

              A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed on a $500 million credit line between Export-Import Bank of India and Myanmar Foreign Trade Bank. It was a great move, as it will eventually benefit both the countries quite heavily.

              As mentioned above, both countries also signed agreements on India-Myanmar border area development and an air services pact. There were also MoUs for setting up the Myanmar Institute of Information Technology and the Advance Centre for Agriculture Research and Education, Yezin Agriculture University.

               A rice bio park, establishing border haats and also setting up a joint trade venture and investment forum were covered as well. There will also be an important cultural exchange programme for 2012-15.

               India and Myanmar entered into a deal of cooperation between the Institute of Defence Studies and Analysis (IDSA) and the Myanmar Institute of Strategic and International Studies (MISIS). Besides these, there were also agreements, between the Indian Council of World Affairs (ICWA) and the Myanmar Institute of Strategic and International Studies (MISIS).

India and Bahrain signed Agreement for Exchange of Information with Respect to Tax

                Recently India signed an Agreement with the Government of Bahrain for exchange of information with respect to taxes (TIEA). The said agreement was signed by Mr. Namo Narain Meena, who was the Minister of State for Finance (Expenditure and Financial Affairs), on behalf of the Government of India and H.E. Kamal Ahmad, Minister for Transportation and Acting CEO of the Economic Development of Bahrain on behalf of the Government of United Kingdom of Bahrain.

                 The agreement is mainly focused on international standards of transparency and exchange of information. It also incorporates the provisions for effective exchange of information including the all important banking information between the tax authorities of the mentioned two countries. It has also been provided that the Exchange of Information shall be on request and without regard to the domestic interest. Eventually the agreement will surely enhance mutual cooperation between the two countries by having effective exchange of information in tax matters.

India and Turkey signed Agreements for Enhancing Cooperation in the Field of Sports and Youth Activities

                   India and Turkey signed an important agreement via a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) for further developing relations in the field of sports and youth activities in order to promote and also strengthen the existing friendly relations and cooperation in the field of Sports.

                   The MoU was signed by Minister of State (Independent Charge) for Youth Affairs & Sports, Mr. Ajay Maken, on behalf of the Government of India and by Suat Kilic, Turkish Minister for Youth & Sports, on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Turkey in Ankara, which is also in Turkey.

                   This MoU will pave the way for further enhancing traditional ties between the said two countries especially among youth populations. So it will eventually help both the countries significantly, as youth development issue is one of the major issues to the country’s growth.

India and Canada signed Agreement on Infrastructure Development, Operation & Maintenance of Roads

                       India and Canada signed an agreement via a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) on infrastructure development, operation & maintenance of roads. It was signed during the visit of Dr. C.P. Joshi, the Union Minister Road Transport & Highways to Canada on the invitation from Denis Label, Minister of Transport, Infrastructure & Communication, government of Canada from 10-13 June, 2012. The said MoU will facilitate sharing and exchange of knowledge and technical expertise in the areas of Infrastructure Development, operation and maintenance of roads, Intelligent Transport System etc.

                      India has already shifted its focus towards the Private-Public-Partnership (PPP) Mode for undertaking various development projects and up-gradation of many national highways network across the country as also development of express-ways which are soon going to be access-controlled with all latest construction technology, Information Technology, including Electronic Toll Collection System.

                     It is expected that surely there would be an dramatic increase in involvement and participation from the Canadian Industry in India’s ambitious National Highways and Expressways Development Project. 

                     So the MoU will eventually help both the countries especially India significantly, to develop its transport system in a proper way.

India and Finland signed Agreement on Social Security

                    Recently India and the Republic of Finland signed a crucial agreement on social security, which will indeed quite a brilliant step for sure, considering the present global situation.

                   The above mentioned agreement was signed by Atul Kumar Tiwary, Joint Secretary, Ministry of Overseas Indian Affairs on behalf of the Government of India and by Terhi Hakala, Ambassador of Finland to India on behalf of the Government of the Republic of Finland.

                    This agreement will eventually enhance the mutual cooperation on social security between the two countries. It was signed for a short term contract up to 5 years. It was also mentioned that no social security contribution would need to be paid under the Finnish law by the detached workers provided they continue to make social security payment in India. The self-employed Indians in Republic of Finland would also be entitled to export of social security benefit on their relocation to India. There are approximately about 5,000 Indians in the Republic of Finland; most of them are working as professionals and self-employed.

Tuesday 17 July 2012

Yahoo picks Google’s Marissa Mayor as its new CEO


                     Yahoo, once an internet powerhouse, is having a terrible fall back in internet business. They are struggling a lot to regain their lost glory, so to turn around this unfavorable condition they picked Google’s Marissa Mayor, who is an engineer with established Silicon Valley credentials, to become its brand new CEO.


                The 37 year old Marissa Mayor has edged out the acting Chief Executive and front runner Ross Levinsohn to become Yahoo’s third CEO in a year only. Yahoo is trying hard to accumulate their eternal glory. Mayor hopes to stop losses to the other internet powerhouses like Google and Facebook, which eventually her high profile predecessors have failed to do.

                  Experts are saying that Yahoo is now likely to renew its main focus on the web technology and products rather than beefing up the online contents. The hiring of Ex Google employee as its CEO is the primary step to it.

                   Mayer is one of the oldest employees of Google. Eventually she was the very first female engineer of Google and she led a number of its business, and also was credited for envisioning the clean, simple Google search interface, which is still very much in use today, a major selling point for the web surfers.

                   She was also known for her interest and love for fashion and a regular in top rated society pages, she joins the extremely thin ranks of female Silicon Valley CEOs. She also told that she was immediately very much interested in Yahoo’s proposal, when the board of Yahoo approached her in mid-June.

                    “This is a very competitive and a tough space. I don’t think that success is by any means guaranteed. My focus is always end users, great technology and terrific talent.” She said. May be this move will help Yahoo to regain its place as the internet powerhouse.

IMF lowered India’s growth forecast to 6.1%


               
                Indian economy has suffered another blow, as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) on Monday lowered the India’s growth forecast to 6.1% for the year of 2012. Global economic uncertainty and India’s slower aspect on proper economic reform may be the reasons behind it. The IMF is citing the slowing global economy quite regularly. In its latest update to the World Economic Outlook, the IMF also cut the growth estimate for India to 6.5% for the year of 2013. Eventually in its last outlook, which was announced in the month of April, it had forecast India’s growth at 6.8% for 2012 and 7.2% for 2013.

              “In the past three months, the global recovery, which was not strong to start with, has shown signs of further weakness. Financial market and sovereign stress in the Euro area periphery have ratcheted up, close to end-2011 levels. Growth in a number of major emerging market economies has been lower than forecast,” the IMF said in its latest update.

                Actually it is not the first time that India’s growth forecast have been lowered. Many reputed economists and several high rated agencies have already slashed India’s growth forecast in this year, considering lack of economic reforms and higher interest rates.

               “Growth momentum has also showed in various emerging market economies, notably Brazil, China and India. This partly reflects a weaker external environment, but domestic demand has also decelerated sharply in response to capacity constraints and policy tightening over the past years,” in its update the IMF also mentioned.

Monday 16 July 2012

The Government acclaimed passenger bus service to Myanmar


              
                The government of India acclaimed starting a passenger bus service to Myanmar and increasing the total number of flights to the neighboring country. The cabinet also applauded the proposal for introduction of bus service in its meeting. It will eventually tighten the bonding of two countries, as now the communication gap will reduce in a high manner for sure.

              The said proposal, which was mooted by the Ministry of Road Transport and Highways, is for signing a MoU (Memorandum of Understanding) with the neighboring country for the introduction of passenger bus service between Imphal (Manipur) and Mandalay (Myanmar).

               Eventually the Union Cabinet has also given its necessary approval to the air services agreement with the neighboring country and has allowed operation of more number of flights to Myanmar. The revised air service agreement would enable various Indian Carriers to operate more flights from different cities of India to Myanmar.

                The agreement will also enable Indian airlines to fly onwards from Myanmar to other destinations in South East Asia. Considering the present situation, domestic airlines can only fly between India and Myanmar.

IAF has signed a deal of Rs 2,800 Crore for trainer aircraft




              The Indian Air Force requires the basic trainer aircraft for quite long period of times, they have waited for it but it was pending until recently, as now IAF signed an Rs 2,800 Crore deal with the Swiss Company. The deal consists of the acquisition of 75 Pilatus planes, and it will be started later this year.


               It is quite a necessary step considering the recent condition of IAF. The aircraft will eventually help the IAF to replace its fleet of HPT-32 basic trainer aircraft, which have been grounded for over two years now after a horrible and fatal air crash in 2009.

                Pilatus Aircraft Limited is feeling very proud while announcing that IAF has entered into a contract in excess of 500 million Swiss Francs to procure a fleet of 75 PC-7 Mk-ii turboprop aircraft. The complete training system and the delivery of the aircraft are scheduled to be started in the 4th quarter of this year only. It is a great move by IAF, as it will boost up the strength of IAF quite drastically.

               Pilatus will also do a transfer of technology to the Hindustan Aeronautics Limited for maintenance of the fleet for the next 30 more years. It is the added features of the signed contract. Pilatus will also do 30 percent offsets of the worth of the deal. 

Friday 13 July 2012

Latest Indian Parliament Affairs



Government nod for setting up two committees in RGNIYD

              Accepting a vital recommendation of a Parliamentary panel, the government approved composition of two committees in the Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development (RGNIYD).

              A meeting of the Union Cabinet chaired by the Honorable Prime Minister Dr. Manmohan Singh himself, approved composition of the much-awaited academic council, consisting of 18 members, and the finance committee, comprising 8 members.

             Scrutinizing the Rajiv Gandhi National Institute of Youth Development Bill 2011, the Standing Committee on Human Resource Development had recommended the composition of the council and the committee too.

Andaman cops are to get Ration allowance

               The government recently approved grant of ration money allowance to all non-gazetted personnel of the Andaman and Nicobar Police, which have so far been provided only to those posted at forward lookout posts.

               The Union Cabinet approved allowance at the rate of Rs 1697 per month per head to the non-gazetted personnel of the Andaman and Nicobar Police and to the personnel of India Reserve Battalions (IRB) in Andaman and Nicobar Islands with immediate effect.

               The grant of allowance will fulfill a long-pending demand of the non-gazetted police personnel and personnel of IRBs posted in the Union Territory and bring them on par with the personnel of Delhi Police.

Cabinet cleared Agriculture Bio-diversity Bill

                 The Union Cabinet approved a Bill that aims to set up National Agriculture Bio-diversity Authority that will mainly aim to keep a firm check on the inflow of external pests while importing agricultural and animal products.

                 The National Agriculture Bio-diversity Bill will eventually replace the Destructive Insects and Pest Act of 1914. The Cabinet cleared the bill, which will have provisions to protect the country’s bio-diversity through stricter norms for import of agricultural, animal and fish products mainly. The Authority will be set in the grounds of similar legislation in the US, New Zealand and Australia.

                 India imports edible oils, pulses, fruits and many other food products. Besides, plant and seed materials are also imported for the all important domestic purpose.

White Paper on Black money tabled in Parliament

              The Government recently tabled a White Paper on Black Money in Parliament. It was tabled by the Ex Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee himself in the Lok Sabha, the White Paper, made a very strong case for setting up of much-awaited Lokpal and Lokayuktas to deal with the corruption, which is the most important issue of recent times. Many Social activists including Anna Hazare and Baba Ramdeb raised their voice of protest repeatedly on these issues.

              The Ex Minister categorically informed the House that there is no exact estimation of the black money generated in the country but refuted reports that Indians held the largest deposits in Swiss Banks by providing all the necessary data.

                The government in White Paper also stressed the importance for more and more research to arrive at reliable estimates of the extent of the black money and sought the cooperation of the state governments too, as it is very important, in addressing the problem properly.
                  The document consisted of 97 pages; however, it was pitched for fast-track courts to expeditiously deal with the financial offenses and deterrent strong necessary punishment for the offenders.

                    It has also mentioned tax incentives for encouraging use of debit and credit cards as these leave audit trails. The paper suggested a four-pronged strategy to reduce and control the generation of black money. On the possibility of any tax immunity scheme, especially a gold deposit scheme, to deal with black money, it said, the issue of complete tax immunity needs to be examined in the proper light of all the other policy objectives.

Thursday 12 July 2012

Election Commission of India has signed a MoU with IFES


              The Election Commission of India has signed a MoU with the International Foundation for Electoral Systems (IFES), which is mainly a Washington-based company. The MoU HAS BEEN SIGNED AT New Delhi and the aim of it is to develop and strengthen democratic institutions and processes, which is needed to be done.


                 The main focus of the MoU is making available the knowledge and experience of ECI to election managers and practitioners around the world through the Commission’s India International Institute of Democracy and Election Management (IIIDEM). IFES has been involved in election assistance and democracy promotion in around 100 countries across the whole world, so they are simply the best in the business. This proves that this will be a beneficiary move for the India.

                  Dr. S.Y. Quraishi, Chief Election Commissioner and Mr. William Sweeney, President and CEO, IFES signed the MoU. Eventually the foundation is already working with IIIDEM for the development of curriculum for international participants.

                 The MoU also aims to promote working partnership between ECI and IFES for joint initiatives, exchange of information and experiences, training and research and assistance, promoting exchanges, assignments and visits of practitioners and experts. So it has a lot of positive out looks for sure and It will help to conduct all the future elections quite easily and risk freely.

                   The Chief Election Commissioner, Dr. S.Y. Quraishi offered India’s expertise in election management and related democratic process to all democratic countries and hoped that the outreach of IFES would facilitate IIIDEM to meet its goals. The role of systematic training and capacity building in conduct of election worldwide was underlined by the Election Commissioners, V S Sampath and H. S. Brahma.

                   William Sweeney praised the strength of India’s electoral system and it management procedures and said that countries across the world were looking to learn from the Indian experience.

Wednesday 11 July 2012

India saved Gandhi Archive from being sold


            
            Mahatma Gandhi’s various precious prizes, documents and photographs, including some photographs on his most controversial relationship with the architect Hermann Kallenbach, were saved from being sold in an auction, as India bought these treasures for $1.28 million.

                  The archive belonged to Kallenbach, who was a very close friend of Gandhi, and German Jewish bodybuilder. Eventually the auction was to happen at Sotheby’s on Tuesday, but it was cancelled, as Indian government talked off the record with the auction house and the family members of Kallenbach. This helped India to take the possession of the rare documents.

              The documents will now be preserved at the National Archives of India in New Delhi. An agreement is finalized in consultation with Ministry of External Affairs and National Archives of India. The agreement was signed by three parties. The parties were Government of India, Sotheby’s and the family of Isha Sarid, the grandniece of Kallenbach. “The acquired material would be housed in the National Archives of India”, Culture Minister Kumari Selja said in press statement in the capital.

                  Eventually the Sarid family, which owns the treasures, quoted $5 million as price for the archives, but India managed to cut it down, and finally an amount of $1.28 million was paid. “The payment of 825,250 pounds ($1.28 million) has been released to Sotheby’s and the lot has been withdrawn from auction and sold to the Government of India,” the statement added.

              The archive includes a few letters which highlight on the relationship between Gandhi and Kallenbach. This relationship was a matter of utter controversy. Kallenbach was one of the foremost associates and friends of Gandhi during his young days in South Africa.

Tuesday 10 July 2012

India tops in Maternal Death Rate worldwide


                 
                 India has topped the list of most number of maternal deaths, which is pretty shame news for all the Indians. This proves that the health systems of India still need loads of improvement.  Eventually India and Nigeria accounted almost one-third of the deaths of pregnant women globally in 2010. A latest UN figures revealed these numbers, even now a day’s maternal deaths declined hugely almost by nearly half in the last two decades due to superb improvement in health systems and increased female education globally.

                Globally, an estimated 287,000 women died in pregnancy and childbirth in the year of 2010, which is a clear decline of 47 percent from levels in 1990, with Sub-Saharan Africa and Southern Asia accounting for almost 85 percent of those maternal deaths, according to a report on the trends in maternal mortality between the years 1990 to 2010. The report was released by UN Population Fund (UNFPA), World Health Organization (WHO), UN Children’s Fund, and the World Bank.

                 India has secured top place by opting 19 percent (56,000) of total maternal deaths, while Nigeria (14 percent; 40,000) is in the 2nd position. It’s a very awful situation; Indian Government should improve its health systems to protect the women, as the women are the creator of live births, so they should be treated well.

               The global Maternal Mortality Rate (MMR) in 2010 was 210 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births, down from 400 maternal deaths per 100,000 live births in 1990.

Friday 6 July 2012

India to bid for hosting the 36th International Geological Congress 2020


PM in a Meeting at PMO with the Chief Ministers

                The Union Cabinet has approved the proposal, which was presented by the Ministry of Mines, for bidding and hosting a very prestigious event, the 36th International Geological Congress 2020. This will eventually provide a discussion forum for presenting and sharing scientific results across the whole spectrum of geosciences, and also encourage international networking of leading geological surveys, institutions and scientists of the world. It doesn’t need any mention that it will be a great opportunity for geoscientists, academics and researchers of India to interact with the best in the business i.e. the world’s best scientists.  It will be also a platform to showcase Indian progress and achievement in geosciences in the recent times. India is very advanced in it, and this event will be able to prove it in front of the whole world.


                The total cost involved will be Rs. 52 crore. Earlier India hosted this event in the year of 1964 in New Delhi. So, it will be hosted by India again after a prolong wait of 56 years, if the bid is successful. If everything goes well then, the bidding process will be won by India quite comfortably.

                The event is proposed to be hosted Ministry of Mines and Ministry of Earth Sciences jointly. This event will be accompanied by field excursions to various geological sites across the India and adjoining countries viz. Bangladesh, Pakistan, Sri Lanka and Nepal, who’s National Science Academies, are also lending their much needed support to the bid attempt of India.

Thursday 5 July 2012

“God Particle” may have been discovered by the Scientists


            A long wait of mighty fifty years or so may have ended when the scientists at the European Centre for Nuclear Research (CERN) said that they had discovered a new sub atomic particle, which is assumed to be the missing Higgs boson, popularly known as “God Particle”.


             Eventually the Higgs boson holds the most important key to understand why every single matter has a unique mass and how life came to exist in this universe. These are the two most important questions that are yet to be answered.

             Scientists showed their astonishing new sorts of data of their long search for the mysterious particle. CERN director general Rolf Heuer shed tears of joy. He said, “We have reached a milestone in our understanding of nature”. Though he also expressed a sign of cautiousness, as he strengthened on the fact that future work is needed to identify what exactly had been found.  “As a layman I would say we have it, but as a scientist I have to say what do we have?” Heuer told on the press conference. Eventually this is the heaviest boson to be ever found.

              The lead scientists of the two independent LHC experiments are Italian particle physicist Fabiola Giannotti (lead the ATLAS experiment) and the US born particle physicist Joe Incandela (lead the CMS experiment).

Now let’s look into some questions to understand the matter properly.

What is the Higgs boson?

Ans: - Higgs boson is the last missing piece of the Standard Model Theory of Physics, which mainly describes the basic building blocks of the Universe. In 1964, three reputed scientists Higgs, Brout and Englert predicted it must exist to explain the most important property of all matter-it’s mass. But till now it was never experimentally confirmed.

Why has it been called “God Particle”?

Ans: Noble laureate physicist Leon Lederman wanted to name his book as “The Goddamn Particle: If the universe is the Answer, What is the Question?”. But his editor changed it to “God Particle”, though this name is slightly misleading according to the various scientists.

How was it found?

Ans: - A Higgs boson-like particle has been discovered at the $10 billion Large Hadron Collider (LHC), which is situated at 300 feet underground near Geneva. LHC is mainly designed to speed up the protons in a very high manner and then it smashed them together to create tiny fireballs, recreating conditions that prevailed when the universe was less than a trillionth of a second old.

Why is the discovering so important?

Ans:-This discovery would confirm the Standard Model of Physics. Other particles, which were predicted by this theory, have already been detected. Ans now the missing Higgs boson is believed to be discovered, scientists now can be able to look at the other riddles of the cosmos like the mysterious dark matter and energy, antimatter, super symmetry etc with a lot more surety.

Why can’t Scientists confirm the finding with certainty?

Ans: - Scientists are being rigorous as their nature. They are saying that they have found a particle that fits the predicted Higgs boson range of mass, but on the other hand they have yet to completely identify its other properties. They have to explain all current observations, including the slightly higher than expected energy and absence of some other particles. So it will take some time for sure.

            The pioneer, who eventually first told the world about this particle, the84 year old British scientist Peter Higgs said, “I never expected this to happen in my lifetime and shall be asking my family to put some champagne in the fridge.”

Wednesday 4 July 2012

A MoU on Medical Co-operations signed between India and Kuwait Government



             A MoU on medical cooperation was signed by the Union Health Secretary P.K.  Pradhan. He signed the MoU on behalf of Government of India with the State of Kuwait. Dr. Ibrahim Alabdelhadi did the honor of signing the MoU on behalf of the Ministry of Health, Government of Kuwait.


            From quite a few teams many Indian doctors and nurses are happily employed in various Kuwaiti hospitals. Considering the long standing and friendly mutual cooperation and common interest to strengthen cooperation between the two countries and desiring to lay down institutional framework for developing the most important medical cooperation between the two countries, the MoU signed inter alia provides for : degree and other valuable qualifications issued by reputed Institutions in respect of medicine including the traditional medicine, nursing, medical technicians and paramedical recognized by the Government bodies will be treated at par by the Ministry of Health of Kuwait for appropriate job placements and benefits too, appropriate training to Kuwait doctors in centers of excellence in the field of traditional and modern medicine and allied health specialties in India, provisions for treatment of Kuwaiti patients in the approved specialized Indian hospitals and to encourage medical tourism, and set up a Joint Working Group (JWG) to further elaborate the details of cooperation and to oversee the implementation of this MoU. The JWG will meet not more than once a year or as agreed upon.

            This is a necessary step for sure as now days the overall condition of Indian Health Sector is not so good. This cooperation will help to boost up the improvement rate for sure. This type of cooperation helps both the countries a lot, but what matters most is the implementation of this properly into the real field of work.