National public debt up 4.9 per cent

Public debt of Centre excluding liabilities, increased by 4.9 per cent to Rs.37,52,576 crore at the end of the first quarter (April-June) this fiscal from Rs.35,78,244 crore in the fourth quarter (January-March) of 2011-12.
Holding of securities by the Reserve Bank of India at end-March 2012 at 14.4 per cent was higher than 13.6 per cent a quarter ago, “mainly reflecting the impact of OMO [open market operation] purchase of securities to support liquidity.”

India bans Iranian ships in Indian waters

In a move which will make problems for the Oil Marketing Companies(OMC) Indian government stopped providing cost, insurance and freight (CIF) approval. Crude oil imports from Iran are possible only if state insurers like General Insurance Corp. (GIC) provide insurance cover for ships carrying Iranian crude. However, government resolution is still pending in the matter for sovereign guarantee for ships.

Right to service bill passed

Kerala assembly passed the Kerala State Right to Service Bill 2012, which make the services that each government department is supposed to provide, a right of the citizen. According to the bill each department and self-government institution should notify in the gazette the services that would be delivered by them.

New DGCA and Civil Aviation Secretary

K.N. Srivastava, likely to take over as the new Civil Aviation Secretary and Arun Misra, is expected to take over as the new Directorate General of Civil Aviation (DGCA).
Mr. Srivastava is expected to replace the present Civil Aviation Secretary, S.N.A. Zaidi.
Mr. Misra will take over as the new DGCA from Prashant Sukul who is handling the job now temporarily.

Magsaysay Award for Indian social activist

Indian social activist Kulandei Francis whose community initiatives in Krishnagiri, Tamil Nadu, helped thousands of rural women to form micro enterprises to break out of poverty, is one among this year’s six winners of the Magsaysay Award.
His main contribution was in the form of Integrated Village Development Project(IVDP). 
Magsaysay award is given by Ramon Magsaysay Award Foundation (RMAF). This award is given in memory of Ramón del Fierro Magsaysay who was was the seventh President of the Republic of the Philippines.

SBI launches $1 bln bond sale

State Bank of India launched a five-year dollar bond sale aiming to raise $1 billion or more. India’s banking giant has given an initial guidance of around 400 basis points over Treasuries. Indian corporate house and financial institutions refrained from selling dollar bonds for quite a time as a surge in risk aversion and India’s worsening economic and fiscal fundamentals have made it expensive to borrow in dollars. As the local interest rates is so high it is beneficial for Indian firms to borrow overseas.

L&T, Pipavav to build warships with Mazagon Dock

 

L&T and Pipavav Defence and Offshore Engineering Company, formerly Pipavav Shipyard, have signed deals with Mazagon Dock to build warships for the defense.

By this move the requirement, ‘guidelines for establishing joint venture companies by Defence public sector undertakings,’ laid down by the Defense Ministry.

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NBFC- Factor a new category introduced by RBI

Reserve Bank of India(RBI) introduces a new category of NBFC,  NBFC-Factor which will buy receivables of other financial institutions at a discounted price. According to RBI companies seeking registration under NBFC- Factor should have a minimum Net Owned Fund(NOF) of Rs. 5 Cr. But existing firms in this field will be given time to comply with the stipulated guidelines. 

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F1: German GP

Ferrari’s Fernando Alonso won the German Grand Prix. Red Bull's Sebastian Vettel came second and McLaren’s Jenson Button got the remaining podium position. With this win Alonso extended his lead in the world championship standing. 

Pranab Mukherjee: The Indian President

“I declare that Shri Pranab Mukherjee has been duly elected to the office of President of India,” Returning Officer and Rajya Sabha Secretary General V K Agnihotri said. The election was one sided with Mukherjee securing  69.3 per cent of the total 10,29,750 valid votes polled. Mukherjee, who is a veteran congress leader got a vote value of 7,13,763 while rival P A Sangma, who was backed by BJP and some other opposition parties like AIADMK and BJD, trailed far behind with 3,15,987 vote value.

New Mauritius President

Rajkeshwur Purryag sworn in as the fifth president of the Republic of Mauritius following the resignation of Anerood Jugnauth in March following a conflict with Prime Minister Navin Chandra Ramgoolam. Mauritius is a country of four islands in the Indian Ocean which got freedom from Britain in 1968.

World Food Prize

This year's World Food Prize will be awarded to Israeli scientist Daniel Hillel  for pioneering a “radically innovative way of bringing water to crops in arid and dry-land regions.” This award was established by Nobel Peace Prize winner and Green Revolution champion Norman Borlaug. The first World Food Prize laureate was renowned Indian agricultural scientist Professor M.S. Swaminathan. 

QFIs allowed to invest in MF debt schemes

The Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) in consultation with the Government of India (GoI) and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), it has now been decided to allow Qualified Foreign Investors (QFIs) to invest in Indian corporate debt securities and debt schemes of Indian mutual funds. This will allow overseas individual investors to invest up to $1 billion in debt schemes and  corporate bonds of mutual funds without any lock-in period. This will be additional to the $20 b for FII investment in corporate debt

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US house decides to trim down Pak aid

 U.S. House of Representatives has unanimously voted to cut military aid to Pakistan by $650 million, with a top Republican calling the country as a traitor of USA. They said Pakistan take billions in US aid and with that they are funding terrorists who attack US and other nations.

SAIL share sale approved by cabinet

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs (CCEA) approved sale of 10.82 percent SAIL shares to fetch around 4000 crore Rupees. CCEA is headed by the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. the disinvestment department depending on the market conditions will decide on the timing of the issue.

PMO in action finally...

Prime Minister's Office(PMO) announced setting up of a board for project clearance of infrastructure and energy projects, under the Cabinet Secretary. PMO said in a statement that over 70 blocks awarded under New Exploration Licence Policy(NELP) rounds were facing issues of clearances, badly hurting the progress of exploration activity for showing the importance of such a move. This problem exists in ports and infrastructure sectors also. This board is designed to work like Foreign Investment Promotion Board(FIPB) which in its regular meetings give clearance for foreign investments.

New DGCA appointed

Government cleared the appointment of Arun Mishra as the new Director General of Civil Aviation(DGCA) replacing Mr E. K. Bharat Bhusan after he is removed from the position. Bharat Bhusan is appointed as financial adviser in the steel ministry.

India, Russia pact for two new units in Kudankulam

India and Russia signed a pact for funding two new units at the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project in Tamil Nadu. Russia will provide an export credit of $3,400 million to Russian organizations to build the units. The total estimated cost of construction of the units 3 and 4 is Rs 32,000 crore. The unit 1 and 2 are expected to be commissioned shortly.

Rajesh Khanna passes away

India’s first superstar Rajesh Khanna died at his residence. Fondly known as Kaka, Khanna had 15 consecutive solo superhits between 1969 and 1972 in his credit.

Government raises food grains output estimate

Government’s latest estimates show, country’s foodgrain output touched an all time high of 257.44 million tones (mt) in 2011-12 season. It is a 5.17 per cent growth higher than the final output of 2.44.78 mt in 2010-11. The earlier projected output for 2011-12 was 252.56 mt.

ADB included Renminbi and the Rupee in its Trade Finance Programme

The Asian Development Bank will provide trade finance support to deals denominated in the Rupee and the Renminbi(China). The bank’s board of directors approved the inclusion of the Rrupee and the Renminbi in its Trade Finance Programme.

The ADB’s Trade Finance Programme fills market gaps for trade finance by providing guarantees and loans to banks to support trade. This programme has been used to cover only transactions denominated in dollar, yen and euro. The programme is active in 16 countries.

Essar Oil to pay Rs 1,000 crore to Gujarat Government

The Supreme Court has ordered Essar Oil to pay Rs 1,000 crore to Gujarat Government by July 30 to avoid the Government’s move to seize the company’s bank accounts. Earlier, the Gujarat Government had decided to seize the company’s bank accounts to recover the sales tax liabilities of around Rs 6,300 crore as well as penalty and interest of Rs 2,000 crore.

India's growth forecast cut again by IMF

In the mid-year health check of the world economy IMF cut its growth forecast of the global economy and of other nations. The emerging nations, only bright spot, also will suffer if policymakers in Europe do not act with enough force and speed to improve their economy. The sluggishness may spread to emerging nations as well.
They cut the growth forecast of the global economy for 2013 to 3.9 from 4.1 percent. 
It revised its growth projections for India to 6.1 percent for the year 2012 from 6.9 percent, and cut its 2013 forecast to 6.5 percent from 7.3 percent.

Reliance Power’s Sasan project will be funded by Chinese banks

RPower has tied up loans of $1.1 billion from three Chinese lenders for its upcoming 3.960 MW Sasan Ultra Mega Power Project(UMPP) in Madhya Pradesh. The loans would be provided by Bank of China, China Development Bank and The Export Import Bank of China along with Standard Chartered Bank. It would be the largest financing by Chinese Banks for an Indian project. The Sasan project being set up at a cost of about $ 4 billion, would start power generation in December 2012. The Chinese banks had signed an MoU with Reliance Power to finance $ 12 billion for its project in 2010.

Miscellaneous Informations

BLR – Bank Loan Ratings

NABARD Chairman – Dr Prakash Bakshi

DSIM – Department of Statistics and Information Management

National Bank for Agricultural and Rural Development -NABARD

South East Asian Nations -ASEAN

Coal India Ltd to invest on rail infrastructure in three States

Coal India Ltd will be investing Rs 7,500 crore to develop railway infrastructure in Chhattisgarh, Jharkhand and Odisha. These rail lines will be used to evacuate coal from the three States.

Coal India has cash reserves of Rs 58,202.78 crore as on March 30. It has planned a capital expenditure of Rs 30,000 crore during the 12^th Plan.

Chairman and Managing Director of Coal India Ltd – Mr S. Narsing Rao.

Banks' audit reforms implementation and monitoring committee

The Union Government has appointed Mr K. Sarasimha Murthy as the member convenor of the Implementation and Motioning Committee to oversee the audit reform process in public sector banks. The committee will be ensuring that this process is completed by March 31, 2013.

Sushil will be India’s flag-bearer at Olympics

Indian Olympic Association (IOA) announced that wrestler Sushil Kumar, a bronze medallist at the Beijing Games, will be the flag-bearer of the Indian squad at the London Olympics.


This announcement was made by IOA acting president V.K. Malhotra

Nagendra Murthy appointed as the MD of TMB

Mr K.B. Nagendra Murthy has been appointed as the Managing Director and Chief Executive Officer of Tamilnad Mercantile Bank. He succeeds Mr K.T Jagannathan.

RBI released statistics of India’s total external debt

($ billion, % share of total debt)

Short-term Debt – 78.179 (22.6%)

Long-term Debt – 267.640 (77.4%)


Below is the details of different long term debt


ECBs – 104.397 (30.2%)

NRI Deposits – 58.608 (16.9%)

Multilateral – 50.453 (14.6%)

Bilateral – 26.757 (7.7%)

Trade Credit – 19.908 (5.8%)

IMF – 6.163 (1.8%)

Rupee Debt – 1.354 (0.4%)

Total Debt – 345.819

Government cleared export of 2 million tonnes of wheat

The Government cleared the export of 2 million tonnes of wheat from its buffer stock with floor price of $228 per tonne. This decision was taken to make storage space for fresh crop. The current stock of wheat and rice is about 82 million tonnes in Government godowns against the storage capacity of 64 million tonnes. India harvested 90.23 million tonnes of wheat in 2011-12 crop year (July-June). India is the world’s second largest wheat producer.

Singapore Prime Minister’s India visit

Singapore Prime Minister Mr Lee Hsien Loong, addressed a function jointly organized by the apex chambers of commerce and industry in New Delhi. He has expressed the hope that the investment and services agreement between India and the Association of South East Asian Nations (ASEAN), as part of the Free Trade Agreement, will be concluded soon. He also expressed the hope that the air transport agreement can be settled quickly. 

MCX gets final approval for stock exchange

Securities and Exchange Board of India(SEBI) gave permission for MCX-SX to start trading on equities, equity futures & options, interest rate futures and wholesale debt segments. Currently the main  stock exchanges in India are National Stock Exchange (NSE) and Bombay Stock Exchange(BSE) which will have good competition from MCX-SX. It is owned by Multi Commodity Exchange(MCX).

Sending and receiving forex is now free of service tax

According to a Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) notification sending or receiving foreign exchange will not attract service tax which will benefit exporters, families of students studying abroad and people receiving remittances from abroad.

What is ILPS?

ILPS is Inner Line Permit System which restrict an Indian citizen from entering some restricted areas or states in the country. This is a security measure to restrict travel to areas located near international border of India. Currently this is applicable for Arunachal Pradesh, Mizoram, Nagaland and Manipur.

Agni-I missile successfully test-fired

India today successfully test-fired its indigenously developed nuclear capable Agni-I ballistic missile, with a strike range of 700 km, as part of the Army’s user trial from a test range at Wheeler Island off Odisha coast.

The surface-to-surface, single-stage missile, powered by solid propellants, was test-fired from a mobile launcher at about 10:10 hrs from launch pad-4 of the Integrated Test Range at Wheeler Island, about 100 km from here, defence sources said.

Agni-I was developed by advanced systems laboratory, the premier missile development laboratory of the DRDO in collaboration with Defence Research Development Laboratory and Research Centre Imarat and integrated by Bharat Dynamics Limited, Hyderabad.

Cospar-2012 to be hosted at Mysore

Some 2,500 of the world’s space scientists are set to come together in Mysore from July 14 to 22.

The event, Cospar-2012 or the Committee on Space Research, will discuss papers worked around the theme `Space for the benefit of mankind’. It will formally open on July 16.

The highlight will be a roundtable where space agencies will present a vision for space beyond 2020. The ISRO Chairman, Dr K. Radhakrishnan, will unveil the Indian vision.

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Govt plans to revive 5 PSUs with huge fund infusion

Plans to revive five public sector units (PSUs) at a total investment of Rs.4,575 crore are under active consideration of the government which will  revive Lucknow-based Scooters India, HMT, HMT Bearings, HMT Watches, newsprint maker NEPA and Nagaland Pulp and Paper — will be revived through the induction of funds by the government.

In the case of Scooters India Ltd (SIL), the government's plan changed from offering it for outright sale to reviving on its own.

ADB offers $150 million loan for railways

The Asian Development Bank (ADB) has offered $150 million loan for the expansion of railway tracks and improving overall service in the country.

The programme will help India improve rail services along some of its busiest freight and passenger transport routes, providing double-track for about 840 kilometres of rail routes and electrifying about 640 kilometres, according to a statement released by the Ministry of Finance.

New signalling will also be installed. The ADB will also support accounting reforms to improve operational and financial efficiency at Indian Railways, it said.

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Dramatic finish for British Grand Prix

Mark Webber took the chequered flag in British Grand Prix beating Fernando Alonso who 


finished second, even after leading the first 50 laps of the 52 lap race.  

Karnataka Chief Minister changed again

Jagadish Shettar, backed by BS Yeddyurappa, will be formally elected as the BJP legislative party leader on Tuesday to formally replace DV Sadananada Gowda as the state’s new Chief Minister. 

The BJP legislative party meeting will be held tomorrow during which party MLAs will endorse the high command’s decision to appoint Shettar as the new chief minister. Shettar is likely to be sworn in on Wednesday. 


He will be the third Chief Minister in the present BJP government which came to power in 2008. Yeddyurappa, who led the party to victory then, had to step down after he was indicted by the Lokayukta in a graft case. Gowda had taken over from him in August last year. 

Wimbledon 2012

Men Singles - Winner: Roger Federer Runner Up: Andy Murray 

Women Singles - Winner: Serena Williams Runner Up: Agnieszka Radwanska

Men Doubles - Winners: Jonathan Marray and Frederik Nielsen Runner Up: Robert Lindstedt and Horia Tecau

Women Doubles - Winners: Serena Williams and Venus Williams Runner Up: Andrea Hlavackova and Lucie Hradecka

Mixed Doubles - Winners:  Mike Bryan and Lisa Raymond Runner Up: Leander Paes and Elena Vesnina 

Committee on cloud computing services set up

The government has set up committee to recommend framework for cloud computing services under the chairmanship of Infosys’ executive Co-Chairman S Gopalakrishnan (Kris).

The committee has been set up following instructions from IT and Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal.

“Infosys’ Kris Gopalakrishnan is chairing the committee.

It will suggest a framework to promote cloud computing service in and from the country,” Indian Computer Emergency Response Team’s(ICERT) Director Gulshan Rai, also member of the committee, said.

RBI report on asset quality

According to the report released by the Reserve Bank of India, asset quality concerns persist for banks as growth in the non performing loans in FY12 accelerated and continued to outpace the credit growth. The RBI’s financial stability report stated that the NPAs grew at 43.9 per cent as on March end, 2012 outpacing the credit growth of 16.3 per cent.

India, Korea to enhance civil nuke ties, satellite launch operations

India and South Korea decided to enhance civil nuclear energy cooperation as well as space activities including the launch of Korean satellites by India. The two sides also evaluated the progress and expansion of their Strategic Partnership during the second India-Republic of Korea Foreign Policy and Security Dialogue at New Delhi.

Union Government unveiled New Free Drug Policy

In a policy aimed at benefitting country’s 120 crore population, the Union Government of India on 4 July 2012 unveiled the 5.4 billion dollar free drug policy. Under the new policy, every citizen of the country will be provided free medicines in all public health centres spreaded across the country. As the Ministry of Health and Family Welfare kept branded drugs out of this policy, the patients will be given only generic drugs. The policy which will remain effective over the next five years will provide a much needed support to nearly 40 percent people of the country, which spends 1.25 dollar or less a day on health.

New Controller General of Accounts assumed charge

Jawahar Thakur, took over as the new Controller General of Accounts (CGA) of India, the post earlier held by C.R. Sundaramurti. Prior to his appointment as the CGA,  Thakur was the Principal Chief Controller of Accounts in the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) under the Department of Revenue in the Finance Ministry.

India to focus on trade ties with West Africa

India is focussing on enhancing economic and trade co-operation with West African nations and has set sights on increasing the trade turnover with such African countries to around $20 billion by 2015 from the present $14.1 billion per annum.
Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma will lead a delegation of businessmen and officials to explore the vast business opportunities in the Economic Community of West African States (ECOWAS), which includes nations such as Mali, Niger, Togo, Congo and Senegal, according to Vikramjit Singh Sahani of Sun Group and lead the delegation on behalf of Federation of Chambers of Commerce and Industry (FICCI).


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India still among most-favoured nation for global companies

Major global companies consider India their third most favoured destination after China and the United States, a UN report said on Thursday, and investment inflows could increase by more than 20 percent both this year and next.

Foreign direct investment (FDI) flows into India leapt 30 percent to nearly $32 billion in 2011, though held back by slow pace of reforms, it still remains a long way down the league table of FDI recipients.

China drew $124 billion last year, while Brazil attracted nearly $67 billion and Russia $53 billion.

Spain wins Euro 2012

Spain rediscovered their magic on Sunday to beat ailing Italy 4-0 in the Euro 2012 final and with it became the first nation to win three big football titles in a row.

David Silva (14th), Jordi Alba (41st), Fernando Torres (84th) and Juan Mata (88th) were on target as Barcelona midfielders Xavi and Andres Iniesta pulled the strings in midfield in their usual commanding style after some slightly below-par performances earlier in the tournament.

Fernando Torres won the Golden Boot as Euro 2012 top-scorer thanks to a goal and an assist in the final eight minutes of Spain’s 4-0 victory over Italy in Sunday’s final.





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