The Competition Master

Consumer price inflation up 7.65% in January

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div id="6064" style="display: block;">                                          <ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>India's annual consumer price inflation was 7.65 percent in January,  the  government said in a statement, higher-than wholesale inflation  for the  period. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>The annual consumer price index (CPI) data released for  the first  time on Feb 21 measures retail prices in major food groups,  fuel,  clothing, housing and education across rural and urban India. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>Unlike  most central banks, which mainly use the CPI to monitor  inflation and  set monetary policy, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) has  long used the  wholesale price index (WPI) as India's main inflation  gauge. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>Inflation as measured by the WPI eased to a 26-month low of 6.55 percent in January. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>The RBI signaled last month its readiness to cut rates if there was a sustained decline in inflation.</li>
</ul></div></div>

Consumer price inflation up 7.65% in January

India's annual consumer price inflation was 7.65 percent in January, the government said in ...

+ Read more »

State FMs meet on Mar 3; decide on expanding service tax net

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div id="6065" style="display: block;">                                          <ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>Ahead of the Union Budget, the state Finance Ministers will meet  here on  March 3 and suggest steps for increasing the ambit of the  service tax  net with a view to garnering more resources. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>The state Finance  Ministers have decided on the negative list and  are expected to sort out  issues concerning definition of services so  that more economic  activities could be brought under the tax net. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>It is widely  expected that in the Union Budget on March 16, the  government is  expected keep 22 services in the negative list and impose  10 percent tax  on all other services. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>A proper definition of service will help  the government in imposing  levy on more economic activities and also  prevent tax-related  disputes. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>Last month, the Empowered  Committee of State Finance Ministers on  Goods and Services Tax (GST) had  approved imposition of service tax  based on a negative list of  services. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>At present, the tax is levied on 119 services. For the  current  fiscal, the Centre hopes to mop up Rs 82,000 crore from this  levy. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>Modi said that during the next meeting the ministers would  also  deliberate on development of Information Technology network for  GST,  headed by Nandan Nilekani. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>On compensation for phasing  out of Central Sales Tax (CST), Modi  said, "The Centre is refusing to  give CST compensation for 2011-12.  This issue will also be discussed and  we will try to reach an amicable  solution". </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>The Centre has  agreed to release around Rs 6,394 crore for 2010-11  as compensation to  states for the gradual lowering of CST to 2 percent  from 4 percent for  gradual roll out of GST. However, the Centre has  refused compensation to  the states in the current fiscal. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>At present, CST is  payable on inter-state sales at 2 percent.  Although CST is levied by the  Centre, the revenue goes to the state  government. State from which  movement of goods commences gets revenue. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>The government is  trying to introduce the new GST regime, which  will subsume various  levies like excise, service tax and states tax,  like value-added tax,  entry tax and purchase tax. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>In their pre-Budget consultative  meeting with the Finance Minister,  industry too demanded that  government should come out with negative  list, while expanding the  service tax base.</li>
</ul></div><a href="http://www.tippani.in/blog/xbusiness.php?submit=showComments&id=6065">                                             </a></div>

State FMs meet on Mar 3; decide on expanding service tax net

Ahead of the Union Budget, the state Finance Ministers will meet here on March 3 and suggest ste...

+ Read more »

Yemenis vote to elect new leader amid unrest

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li><span id="advenueINTEXT"> Yemeni voters head for  the polls, ending  President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 33-year rule  and thus making Yemen the  first Arab state where a revolt has led to a  negotiated settlement.</span></li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li><span id="advenueINTEXT"> The referendum-like poll, in which Saleh's  deputy Abdrabuh Mansur Hadi is standing as the sole consensus  candidate, is being boycotted by two major opposition groups; the  separatist Southern Movement and the northern Shiite rebels.</span></li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li><span id="advenueINTEXT"> But the main proponents of the uprising  that began in January 2011 have asked Yemenis to throw their support  behind Hadi, whose posters have been plastered across buildings and  throughout the streets of the capital Sanaa.</span> </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li><span id="advenueINTEXT">Yemen's new president will rule for an  interim two-year period, after which presidential and parliamentary  elections will be held, a condition of the Gulf-brokered transition deal  signed by Saleh in November. </span></li>
</ul></div>

Yemenis vote to elect new leader amid unrest

Yemeni voters head for the polls, ending President Ali Abdullah Saleh's 33-year rule and thus making Yemen the first Arab state whe...

+ Read more »

Five planets to be visible in rare celestial event

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div id="6067" style="display: block;">                                          <ul style="text-align: justify;"><li><span id="advenueINTEXT"> In a rare celestial  coincidence, as many  as five planets including Saturn will be visible in  the night for two  weeks starting from February 23.</span></li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li><span id="advenueINTEXT"> The planets that would be visible to naked  eye are Mercury, Venus,  Mars, Jupiter and Saturn. Mars and Saturn are  already visible without  any optical aids....Mars can be seen in the  East with the naked eye  while Venus could be spotted towards west after  sunset till 9 pm and  Jupiter can be seen above Venus till 11 pm  (during two weeks).</span></li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li><span id="advenueINTEXT"> Mars is in Leo constellation and rises  about an hour after the sunset in  the eastern horizon. It can be  identified by its reddish hue and will  be seen almost throughout the  night and gradually moving closer to star  Regulus (Magha). In the  coming days Saturn will be seen in the east  close to midnight.</span></li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li><span id="advenueINTEXT"> Uranus which is normally faint in  appearance will be close to Venus and  hence can easily be spotted  without help of any specialised maps.</span></li>
</ul></div></div>

Five planets to be visible in rare celestial event

In a rare celestial coincidence, as many as five planets including Saturn will be visible in t...

+ Read more »

X-rays reveal why Moon has no active volcanoes

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li><span id="advenueINTEXT">Using powerful X-rays to  measure lunar  rock densities, a team of scientists have found why our  Moon, contrary  to Earth, has no active volcanoes, and traces of its past  volcanic  activity.</span></li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li><span id="advenueINTEXT"> The team led by Mirjam van Kan Parker and  Wim van Westrenen from VU  University Amsterdam suggest that the hot,  molten rock in the Moon’s  deep interior could be so dense that it is  simply too heavy to rise to  the surface like a bubble in water.</span> </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li><span id="advenueINTEXT">The driving force for  vertical movement of  magma is the density difference between the magma  and the surrounding  solid material, making the liquid magma move slowly  upwards like a  bubble. The lighter the liquid magma is, the more violent  the upward  movement will be.</span></li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li><span id="advenueINTEXT"> To determine the density of lunar magma,  Wim van Westrenen and his  colleagues synthesised moon rock in their  laboratory in Amsterdam, using  the composition derived from Apollo  samples as their recipe.</span></li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li><span id="advenueINTEXT">Small droplets of  titanium-rich glass  first found in Apollo 14 mission samples produce  liquid magma as dense  as the rocks found in the deepest parts of the  lunar mantle today. This  magma would not move towards the surface. And thats the reason volcanos  are not found on the moon.</span></li>
</ul></div>

X-rays reveal why Moon has no active volcanoes

Using powerful X-rays to measure lunar rock densities, a team of scientists have found why our Moon, contrary to Earth, has no active vo...

+ Read more »

Eurozone approves bailout for Greece

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div id="6069" style="display: block;">                                          <ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>Eurozone finance ministers have reached an agreement on a second  bailout  for Greece worth 130 billion euros (172 billion dollars),  diplomats in  Brussels said after more than 12 hours of negotiations. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>The euro surged as the news broke, climbing 0.7 percent to $1.328  within  minutes. While much depended on the details of the deal, a final   agreement on the bailout for Greece will take some pressure off the   17-country currency union, which has been battling a serious debt crisis   for two years. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>The deal details of which were still being worked out by European   finance ministers in an all-night session in Brussels was expected to   bring Greece’s debt down to 120.5 percent of gross domestic product by   2020, according to the official. That’s around the maximum that the   International Monetary Fund and the euro-zone considered sustainable. </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>It was unclear what the final deal with bondholder representatives   looked like, but the lower debt level suggested that they compromised   further. The big question will now be how many banks and other   investment funds will actually agree to participated voluntarily and   whether Greece will have to force some holdouts to sign up to make the   deal effective.</li>
</ul></div></div>

Eurozone approves bailout for Greece

Eurozone finance ministers have reached an agreement on a second bailout for Greece worth 130 bi...

+ Read more »

Rapid Fire GK 55

Rapid Fire GK 55

1. Author of the book “Sons of Babar” is……. 2. The name of the small island(in Bay of Bengal) which was source of tension between India and...

+ Read more »

Agri sector likely to achieve 3.5% annual growth, says PM

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><div class="content" style="text-align: justify;"> <ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>The Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh said, the agriculture sector is  likely to achieve about 3.5 per cent annual growth in the 11th  Five-Year Plan, but stressed on scaling it up to 4 per cent or more in  the next Plan, 2012-2017.<br />
</li>
</ul><div style="text-align: justify;"><span><ul><li>Addressing the Golden Jubilee Convocation of the Indian Agricultural  Research Institute, IARI, in New Delhi, Dr Singh said, the government  is committed to at least double the spending on research and development  in the farm sector by the end of the 12th Five Year Plan from the  existing level of about one per cent of gross domestic produce, GDP.</li>
</ul><ul><li>Dr. Manmohan Singh said, the agriculture sector remained sluggish  during the 10th Plan period achieving merely 2.5 per cent expansion. He  emphasised that a determined effort is needed by both Central and State  governments to achieve the higher growth.</li>
</ul><ul><li>Stating that farm research is key element to achieve higher  expansion, the Prime Minister said, the agricultural research system  needs to be strengthened to meet the future challenges. He also said,  the government has adopted a multi-pronged strategy to improve returns  to farming and step up investment in rural infrastructure. Dr Singh  said, over the last seven years, the government has engineered a shift  in terms of trade in favour of agriculture by raising significantly, the  support and procurement prices.</li>
</ul><ul><li>Dr Singh said, food production at the end of the 11th plan will  exceed 250 million tonnes, an all time record. Stating that both land  and water resources are limited, Dr Singh called for developing  agricultural technology which can ensure high yield while commissioning  on water and are also capable of withstanding water stress. The Prime  Minister said, the National Agricultural Research System needs to be  further strengthened to meet the challenges of the years ahead.</li>
</ul><ul><li>The Prime minister said, there is a need to deal with the threat of  climate change. He said, climate change and rising demand for commercial  energy are expected to have a significant impact on agriculture in the  country.</li>
</ul></span></div><span></span></div></div>

Agri sector likely to achieve 3.5% annual growth, says PM

The Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh said, the agriculture sector is likely to achieve about 3.5 per cent annual growth in the 11th Five-...

+ Read more »

Centre is not in favour of hiking oil prices: Jaipal Reddy

Centre is not in favour of hiking oil prices: Jaipal Reddy

Centre is not in favour of hiking oil prices, though international crude prises have gone up due to dollar-rupee fluctuations and the late...

+ Read more »

Kundankulam nuclear power project: committee constitutes to look into safety aspects

<div dir="ltr" style="text-align: left;" trbidi="on"><ul><li style="text-align: justify;">In Tamil Nadu, the four member  committee constituted by the state government to look into the safety  aspects of the Kundankulam nuclear power projects and allay the fears of  the local population, returned to Chennai this evening after holding  talks with various stakeholders in Tirunelveli. The convenor of the  committee Professor Iniyan said they will submitting their report to the  state government shortly.  </li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>The committee had during their stay in Tirunelveli, held discussions  with the district authorities besides representatives of the group  spearheading the anti-kundalam agitation. The high level committee had  also visited the Kundankulam plant, to get a first hand account of the  safety mechanism in place at the site.</li>
</ul><ul style="text-align: justify;"><li>Meanwhile, power project area has come into a security blanket with  over 1000 police personnel deployed in the vicinity of the plant. Senior  officials of the district including South Zone Inspector General of  Police Rajesh Das are camping in the area and are closing monitoring the  situation.</li>
</ul></div>

Kundankulam nuclear power project: committee constitutes to look into safety aspects

In Tamil Nadu, the four member committee constituted by the state government to look into the safety aspects of the Kundankulam nuclear po...

+ Read more »