Today's Hot Stories - March 21, 2014
10 Headlines for Today(1) All accused in Mumbai's Shakti Mills gang rapes convicted, sentencing tomorrow
(2) Rumble in Sena fortress; troops break ranks
(3) Court annuls Thailand general election
(4) Anand Mahindra, Lakshmi Mittal among world’s greatest leaders: Fortune magazine (5) Govt sells 9% stake in Axis Bank, shares fall 3%
(6) Fitch cuts outlook for Russia's credit rating
(7) Nieminen brushes aside Tomic in record 28 minutes
(8) Lopez-Perez overcomes Bourgue
(9) Bangladesh sneaks into Super-10 despite loss
(10) India, Singapore win 2014 UN Water for Life award
5 Stories for Today
(1) Friends bid adieu to Khushwant Singh
(2) Russia approves treaty on Crimea
(3) Indian luxury car market youngest in world
(4) Japan passes record $937 billion budget
(5) States grow much faster than national growth rate
(1) Friends bid adieu to Khushwant Singh
Friends, family and admirers gathered at the Lodhi crematorium in South Delhi on Thursday afternoon to pay their last respects to Khushwant Singh.
Singh died “very peacefully” at 99, said his son Rahul Singh. “Of late, he wouldn’t talk much, but would like to discuss the upcoming Lok Sabha elections. He had his single malt on Wednesday night. On Thursday morning he got up as usual and was doing his crossword when he decided to lie down and never woke up. He died the way he would have wanted to,” said Rahul, adding that earlier this week Singh suffered slight breathing trouble. The noted author had expressed his wish to donate his eyes but “it wasn’t possible, there was no time to do so,” said his son.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his wife Gursharan Kaur, Congress president Sonia Gandhi, veteran journalists Kuldip Nayar, Arun Shourie and M J Akbar, author Vikram Seth and his mother Justice Leila Seth, former Indian cricket team captain Bishan Singh Bedi, Union ministers Salman Khurshid, Kapil Sibal and Farooq Abdullah, BJP leader L K Advani, politician Jaya Jaitly, former minister M S Gill, former attorney general Soli Sorabjee and actor Vinod Khanna were among the crowd of Singh’s admirers at the crematorium.
“What does one say about an institution. There was a very special thing about him that was a part of the ethos of modern India — his wisdom, experience, analytical ability, fantastic generosity and his feel for the past. He was the past, he was the present, and all that he wrote was also the future,” said Khurshid.
“He was a very sophisticated person and always spoke from the heart. He was very loving and totally fearless. I started writing poetry because of him,” said Sibal.
Source: The Indian Express
(2) Russia approves treaty on Crimea
The Russian Parliament has approved a treaty making Crimea part of Russia even as Ukraine proclaimed the region an "occupied territory" and threatened to go nuclear.
The Russian Parliament has approved a treaty making Crimea part of Russia even as Ukraine proclaimed the region an “occupied territory” and threatened to go nuclear.
The State Duma, the Russian Parliament’s lower house, on Thursday, overwhelmingly ratified the treaty on reunification of Crimea with Russia signed two days back. The upper house is expected to endorse the pact on Friday.
Ukraine reacted to the Russian move with a flurry of legislative initiatives, ranging from a visa regime for Russia to acquiring nuclear weapons to stop Russia’s “invasion”.
The Ukrainian Parliament adopted a declaration stating that “the Ukrainian people will never, under any circumstances, stop fighting for the liberation of Crimea from the occupants.”
Ukraine’s Security Council has called for introducing a full-scale visa system for Russians and pulling out of the Commonwealth of Independent States, an amorphous association of former Soviet states. However, Acting Prime Minister Arseniy Yatsenyuk said Kiev should not be in a hurry to impose a visa regime on Russia as the measure would hurt Ukrainians who earn their living in Russia. There are 3 to 5 million Ukrainian migrant workers in Russia who remit home $4 to $5 billion a year.
Ukrainian lawmakers have also drafted a host of bills to protect Ukraine against “expansionist” Russia, including a bill that would “restore” Ukraine’s nuclear status. In 1994 Ukraine handed over to Russia the nuclear weapons left over after the breakup of the Soviet Union in exchange for international guarantees of its security and territorial integrity.
Other bills call for joining NATO, expelling Russia from the United Nations and declaring wartime mobilisation.
In Crimea, authorities on Thursday set free Admiral Serhiy Hayduk, the commander of Ukraine’s Black Sea Fleet, who had been detained following the storming of the Ukrainian naval headquarters by pro-Russian self-defence forces on Wednesday. Following the capture of the naval command, Ukraine’s other military units in Crimea gave up their peaceful resistance to the takeover by Crimean self-defence forces and disbanded.
Ukraine’s Security and Defence Council Secretary Andriy Parubiy said Ukraine will make arrangements to relocate as many as 25,000 soldiers and their families to the Ukrainian mainland. However, Russia said many Ukrainian servicemen in Crimea were applying to join the Russian armed forces. Russia’s Defence Minister Sergei Shoigu on Thursday asked President Vladimir Putin to sign a decree that would allow the Russian military to recruit Ukrainian servicemen.
U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon met with Mr Putin in Moscow on Thursday to discuss the Ukraine crisis. Mr Ban said they had a “constructive and productive meeting,” adding however that he had come to Moscow with a “heavy heart” and was “disappointed and concerned” over the Crimean referendum on splitting from Ukraine and rejoining Russia. He said the U.N. would do its utmost to facilitate direct dialogue between Moscow and Kiev. Russia has refused to talks to the new leaders in Kiev, whom it considers “illegitimate.”
Moscow on Thursday unveiled its own blacklist of nine U.S. nationals who will be banned from entry into Russia. The list published on the Russian Foreign Ministry’s website includes Speaker of the House of Representatives John Boehner, President Barack Obama’s aides Daniel Pfeiffer and Benjamin Rhodes, head of the Senate Foreign Affairs Committee Robert Menendez and some other senators and administration officials.
The Russian retaliation came minutes after Mr Obama announced new sanctions against Russia that adds 20 names to the earlier list of 11 penalised Russian officials, and includes a Russian bank. The officials, whose assets have been frozen and will be banned from visiting the U.S include Mr Putin’s head of staff, Sergei Ivanov, State Duma Speaker Sergei Naryshkin and some businessmen close to Mr Putin.
The U.S. President said the sanctions could be extended to broad sections of the Russian economy if Russia further escalates the Ukraine crisis.
Source: The Economic Times
(3) Indian luxury car market youngest in world
India's demographics have turned the country into one of the youngest luxury /premium car markets in the world. Top luxe brands like Audi, Mercedes-Benz and BMW — which together comprise more than 95% of India's luxury car market — say that India's luxury car demographic is among the youngest even in the emerging market pecking order.
Take Audi which, with its more than 10,000 unit tally, is now the No. 1 luxury car brand in the Indian market. India tops the list of young markets for Audi across the world, pipping hot spot China to the game. Said Joe King, head, Audi India: "The average age of luxury car buyer in India is around 35 years. Globally , it would be 43-45 years. In the Audi ecosystem, India is our youngest market."
Dittos Mercedes-Benz , which has also been targeting the 30+ age bracket with its new compact line-up . Said Santosh Iyer, head of marketing , Mercedes-Benz India: "India is certainly among our youngest markets. Typically, emerging markets show a younger profile compared to developed ones. So China, Brazil and Russia too are quite young markets for example . The average age globally and in India has come down after the introduction of new models like the A Class and B Class. In India, the average age for the A Class for example is 34-35 years but for the S Class it would be 45-50 years. So it differs model to model."
Luxury car marketers say part of the young drive has to do with the new range of compact products from the big three in the luxury automotive business. "Products like the Q3 and now the soon-to-belaunched A3 appeal to a younger set of customers," said Audi's King. "In future, the used cars will further expand this young customer base."
Auto experts say with an average price tag of around Rs 35 lakh, the entry into the luxury car segment is a tough call for most young buyers in markets like India. For example , the median age of BMW's customers stretches from 30 to 60 years. "It's not as if only young people buy luxury cars, but it is certainly true that more of them are now entering this segment in India thanks to products like the 1 Series," said the BMW spokesman.
That's why it's the entrylevel segment — comprising models like the A Class and B Class or the X1 or soon-to-debut A3 — that has had the maximum appeal among the sub-40 age bracket where the price tag is in the Rs 20 lakhplus category.
Auto experts say India's young demographic is among its most exciting aspects as an emerging market. "The thirst for luxury in India is enormous ," said Audi's King, a reason why the big three luxe brands are now looking at non-metro markets for incremental growth.
Source: The Times of India
(4) Japan passes record $937 billion budget
Japan on Thursday passed its biggest-ever budget, a $937 billion spending package aimed at propping up growth as consumers brace for the country's first sales tax hike in over 15 years.
A total of 136 lawmakers in the 242-member upper house, controlled by the ruling Liberal Democratic Party, voted for the package, against 102 opposition votes, a parliamentary spokesman said. Four other lawmakers did not cast a vote.
The passage came after the lower house last month approved the 95.88 trillion yen ($937.4 billion) budget for the fiscal year starting in April.
The new budget comes as Tokyo pushes for speedy implementation of a $50 billion stimulus package specially designed to protect Japan's fragile economic recovery, as sales taxes rise to 8.0 percent from 5.0 percent on April 1 -- the first hike since the late nineties.
The increase is seen as crucial to bringing down Japan's eye-watering national debt, which is proportionately the worst among rich nations.
But there are fears it will derail Prime Minister Shinzo Abe's policy blitz, dubbed Abenomics, aimed at kickstarting the world's third-largest economy after it suffered years of growth-denting deflation.
"I would like to continue making strong efforts to end deflation and grow the economy," the conservative Abe told a parliamentary session Thursday.
The premier, who swept to power in late 2012 on a ticket to rescue Japan's long-lumbering economy, is expected to hold a press briefing Thursday evening.
The proposed package -- up from 92.61 trillion yen for the current fiscal year -- is seen as key to paying for Japan's snowballing health and social welfare costs.
The country's rapidly ageing population is putting pressure on the public purse, while low birth rates are threatening to create a demographic time bomb for the heavily indebted nation.
Japan's projected primary balance deficit -- the shortfall between what the government takes in and what it spends, apart from debt-servicing -- is expected to shrink by 5.2 trillion yen to 18.0 trillion yen.
That means Japan's national debt, now more than twice the size of the economy, will continue to rise, but at a slower pace.
Public spending projects are part of the proposed budget as well as plan to upgrade Japan's defence forces, as China bulks up its military and fears remain over North Korea's nuclear arms potential.
Source: Hindustan Times
(5) States grow much faster than national growth rate
The economic slowdown is not reflecting in the growth rates of the States, data on which was released by the Central Statistics Office (CSO) earlier this month. Sixteen of the 17 non-Special Category States grew faster than the rate at which the all-India gross domestic product (GDP) grew in 2012-13.
The weighted growth rates for Gross State Domestic Product (GSDP) of States add up to 6.84 per cent for 2012-13, according to the CSO data. The National GDP growth rate is 4.47 per cent. The gap between the national growth rate and that of the sum of all States is unusually wide, highly-placed government sources told The Hindu. “Where is the slowdown if the States are all growing so much faster than the national growth rate,” asked a top Finance Ministry source.
Normally, the States GDP adds up to about 90 per cent of the national GDP. The difference is the output of the sectors that do not belong to any State such as the Bombay High.
“The Finance Ministry, it seems, suspects that some States could also be deliberately over-stating or inflating their GSDP and has requested the CSO to validate the States’ data as early as possible,” said the sources. The Finance Ministry is dependent on the GSDP data for pegging the annual borrowing limits for each State.
Data validation
The GSDP data is prepared and then submitted by the State Directorates of Statistics to the CSO. After which the CSO validates the data. Normally, the data undergoes significant changes post-validation. The validated data becomes available after a lag of about two years.
“It is possible that the reason for the unusually high gap between the sum of the States and the national growth rate is that some States want to show higher growth rates than all the others,” said the sources. “There could be competition between States, especially in an election year.”
On the technical level, the concern the CSO has was, said the sources, whether the States were following the correct methodology for preparing these estimates and making projections; not the projections and estimates themselves. Major source of over-estimation in the States’ data is the data on the agricultural produce for which estimates are revised over several rounds through a year.
Source: The Hindu
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