How to boost Indian growth rate

Bringing down FDI barriers and reducing regulatory uncertainty to attract more private investments will help boost India’s economic growth, according to a recent report by OECD, a Paris-based body.
The report also talks about promoting entry of new private banks and establishing a plan to phase out priority lending.
The report adds the government has to “allow greater participation by foreign investors in the financial services sector and promote the entry of new private banks”.
The Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) is a grouping of mostly rich countries. 

Australia wins Women's Cricket world cup

Australia avenged their Super Six defeat against West Indies by beating them in the final of the ICC Women’s World Cup by 114 runs to lift their sixth World Cup title. 
Ellyse Perry who  scored a quickfire 25 off 22 balls (2×4, 1×6) as the Kangaroos put up a total of 259-7 in their 50 overs. She followed that up with magnificent figures of 3/15 in her 10 overs (three maidens), skittling out West Indies for just 145 runs in the process.

American, US Airways announces merger

 American Airlines and US Airways decided to merge which is a $11 billion deal. The resulting entity will be the world's biggest airline.

The combined entity will be known as American Airlines.

The merger would reduce the number of major U.S. airlines to four — the new American, United, Delta and Southwest.

The new American would have more than 900 planes, 3,200 daily flights and about 95,000 employees, not counting regional affiliates. It will be slightly bigger than United Airlines by passenger traffic, not counting regional affiliate airlines.

Widening CAD: A real threat

D. Subbarao, the Reserve Bank of India Governor warned about the widening Current Account Deficit(CAD) which will most likely be higher than last year. “Today, the external sector is vulnerable. Last year, the CAD was 4.2 per cent of gross domestic product (GDP). This year, in 2012-13, we expect the CAD to be significantly higher than that, historically, the highest CAD measured as a proportion of the GDP,” said Dr. Subbarao.
He warned about financing the CAD through volatile flows instead of getting much of foreign direct investment (FDI).

No recovery in Industrial production

 Continuing the sluggishness in the economy, the recent industrial output figure contracted to 0.6 per cent in December which is caused by poor performance of manufacturing and mining sectors and decline in production of capital as well as consumer goods.

The industrial output, as measured by the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) had grown by 2.7 per cent in December, 2011.

Industrial production growth stood at 0.7 per cent during April-December period of this fiscal, down from 3.7 per cent in the same period of 2011-12, according to official data released here on Tuesday.