Sensex could slide to 12,000 level

The fact that stock futures of many Nifty stocks were trading at a huge discount to their spot prices an unusual phenomenon lends some credence to this theory. A spiralling inflation and interest rate has already cast a shadow on several sectors such as banking, auto and real estate. On Friday, there was more bad news in the property space, with a downgrade of the debt papers issued by Sobha Developers. This is one of the first downgrades in the sector.

Bears tightened their grip as inflation climbed further to 11.42% and the political situation at the Centre remained fluid. “A further rise in the oil price will, unfortunately, continue to be particularly bad news for India,” broking house CLSA said in a note to clients.

“This is both despite and because of the Reserve Bank of India’s increasingly pre-emptive monetary tightening stance,” the note said, adding that “a re-test of the 12,000 level on the Sensex cannot be ruled out in these circumstances and that will be accompanied by a further weakening in the rupee.” The broking house, however, said a decline to 12,000 level would be a “massive long-term buying opportunity.”

For all the uncertainty over UPA government’s future, brokers feel that politics is not as big a cause for worry as inflation. “Market has discounted politics, because the government’s immediate priority is its own survival, and not any major policy measures,” said a veteran BSE trader, adding that it would not make much of a difference to sentiment if the government lasted for a month or three.

Elsewhere in Asia, Chinese markets declined by over 5%, while markets in Japan, Singapore, Hong Kong, South Korea and Taiwan were down between 1% and 3%.

In the US, the Dow was trading marginally higher in early trade, though it was still close to its 21-month lows.
Even as stock prices are plunging rapidly, there is no talk of any brokering house or prominent market player facing a solvency crisis. This is because there are no major outstanding positions in derivatives as was there at the beginning of the year, just before the market went into a free-fall.

Bill Gates bids a teary farewell to Microsoft

Bill Gates said a teary goodbye on Friday to Microsoft Corp, the software maker he built into the world’s most valuable technology company based on the ambitious goal of placing a computer on every desk and in every home.

He leaves his full-time executive role at Microsoft, which he co-founded with childhood friend Paul Allen in 1975, to focus on his philanthropic organization, the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s largest charity, funded in part by his vast fortune.

At an event at Microsoft’s headquarters campus here, Gates, who will become a non-executive chairman and work part-time, joined Chief Executive Steve Ballmer on stage to deliver a short speech and field questions from employees.

"There won’t be a day in my life that I’m not thinking about Microsoft and the great things that it’s doing and wanting to help," said Gates, who wiped away tears as the group of employees rose to give him a standing ovation.

Ballmer, a Harvard University classmate who joined Microsoft at Gates’ behest, got choked up as he tried to describe Gates’ impact on the company and society at large.

"There’s no way to say thanks to Bill. Bill’s the founder. Bill’s the leader," said Ballmer. "We’ve been given an enormous, enormous opportunity and it was Bill that gave us this opportunity."

Gates will leave behind a life’s work developing software to devote energy to finding new vaccines or to microfinance projects in the developing world. He will still work on special technology projects at the company.

Once the world’s richest man, Gates’ personal fortune has been estimated at about $58 billion, according to Forbes Magazine. He has slipped to third place, behind investor and good friend Warren Buffett and Mexican telecoms tycoon Carlos Slim.

ONE BILLION AND COUNTING

Ballmer spoke about how he contemplated quitting Microsoft a month after joining the company and returning to Stanford University business school. Bill passionately implored him to stay and laid out the vision of the company.

"This is what Bill said to keep me. ’You don’t get it! You don’t get it! You don’t get it! We’re going to put a computer on every desk and in every home,’" said Ballmer.

There are currently more than one billion PCs worldwide, according to research firm IDC.

Gates and Ballmer recalled the many steps Microsoft took to evolve from a fledgling start-up to a company of more than 90,000 employees making everything from video game consoles to computer software.

The pair remembered the battles with computer industry titan International Business Machines Corp’s, an early partner turned rival when it rolled out a competing operating system to Microsoft’s flagship software, Windows.

"We went toe to toe with the biggest, most powerful computer company in the world and we beat them," said Ballmer.

The 52-year-old Gates said the company had made "a mistake" not recognizing earlier how Web search and online advertising -- businesses dominated by another start-up turned powerhouse, Google Inc -- could transform the software industry.

However, he cautioned skeptics not to count out Microsoft.

"I love that kind of thing where people are underestimating Microsoft," said Gates. "Yes, we make mistakes and we know it, but we come back and learn from those things. A lot of our best work is the result of that."

After 33 years, Gates said he sometimes finds himself lost in thought, driving to Microsoft without realizing it. He also said he will move out of his corner office -- making way for Ballmer -- into a smaller area one floor below.

"I am sure there will some day next month where I start thinking about software and I will start driving here to Microsoft, go up to the fifth floor and walk down to my office and they will be remodeling it," said Gates with a chuckle.

"In fact, they were wondering if I was leaving at four or five today, so they could get started on that."

Can't do without chai? Beware

After water,is the most commonly consumed beverage in the world. In India, it’s customary to offer a guest some tea before anything else; chai-naashta, cutting chai and masala chai are part of our everyday vocabulary. And yet, the ill-effects of tea are overlooked.

The most active alkaloid ingredient in tea is caffeine — an addictive drug that stimulates the central nervous system. Tannin, also found in tea, may increase the risk of nasal and oesophageal cancer.

The perk-up effects of tea are short-lived and followed by withdrawal symptoms such as lethargy, headaches and acute irritation.
Tea does not bode for your stomach either. It is known to slow down digestion and impedes the action of ptyalin, a digestive ferment of saliva which acts like cooked starch. Excessive tea consumption could also lead to stomach troubles like gas formation and diarrhoea.

Women beware, tea could aggravate symptoms of pre-menstrual syndrome. According to a research conducted under Dr Annette Rossignol, an associate professor of public health at Oregon University,
women in China who drank between one to four cups a day were twice as likely to have Pre-Menstrual Syndrome (PMS) than those who didn’t. Drinking eight cups of tea increased the PMS occurrence up to 10 times.

INCONTINENCE

Too much tea could also lead to incontinence or frequent or urgent impulse to urinate. According to a recent study by St George’s Hospital in London, caffeine could exert pressure on bladder by causing the muscles surrounding it to contract. Experiments show that five cups of tea increases urine by 400 to 500 per cent in people vulnerable to kidney related ailments. This continued stimulation of kidneys by caffeine found in tea might damage them.

Tea also contains oxalate, over consumption of which can cause kidney damage. It is known to soak up free calcium and other minerals found in the body. It could also promote kidney stone formation and effect other parts of body.

OTHER ILL-EFFECTS

The respiratory and cardiac muscles are stimulated by tea as coronary arteries get dilated resulting in the increase in the rate of blood flow. The quickening of respiration lowers levels of carbon dioxide and increases the heat production by 10 to 20 per cent. Caffeine too is found in teas — instant teas have 35 to 50 mg of caffeine, while iced tea contains about 65 to 80 mg; brewed tea has the highest amount of caffeine — 110 mg!

REPLACEMENTS

Have a cup of green tea instead, it has 50 per cent less caffeine (only 12 to 60 mg per 150 ml) and tannin. Flower teas such as jasmine also have very little caffeine content. Herbal infusions such as tulsi, ginger, peppermint, chamomile and cranberry are even better. They are no caffeine and multiple health benefits.

LEGENDS OF THE BREW

It is said that one night, sage Bodhirama found it difficult to stay awake during his meditations and kept falling asleep again and again.Angry with himself, he tore off his eyelashes and threw them near the tree
he was meditating under. Those eyelashes grew into the first tea bush. And this is why tea has become one of the most important things for those who meditate or want to stay awake.

Does Viagra give athletes an edge?

Viagra, a little blue pill more usually taken for its off-the-field benefits, is now being studied for its role in boosting athletes’ performance. Some sports authorities say the drug is now finding a following among athletes. The World Anti-Doping Agency is currently studying Viagra’s effects in athletes but hasn’t yet banned it. Experts are divided over whether it actually offers athletes an edge.

“It’s possible,”’ says Anthony Butch, director of the Olympic Analytical laboratory at the University of California Los Angeles, a WADA-accredited facility.

Viagra, also known as sildenafil, is manufactured by Pfizer Inc. It was originally developed as a heart drug; its use as a treatment for erectile dysfunction was only accidentally discovered.

The drug works by increasing the effects of nitric oxide which makes blood vessels expand. That should theoretically allow blood cells to travel to the lungs more efficiently and to also receive more oxygen. It may also improve heart function.

Viagra is also approved to treat pulmonary hypertension, a condition where the blood vessels of the lungs tighten. Doctors have used the drug experimentally to treat pregnant women with high blood pressure and to ward off jet-lag.

But whether Viagra makes athletes faster, higher or stronger is uncertain.

“Just because you have more nitric oxide doesn’t mean that you are going to be a better athlete,” says Butch. “If you have all the nitric oxide you need and if you generate more from Viagra, it’s not clear what effect that would have,” he says. Still, some preliminary studies have shown that cyclists who took Viagra improved their performance by up to 40 percent.

“If you have more oxygen going to your muscles, that’s more energy and that makes you a better athlete,” says Dr Andrew McCullough, a sexual health expert at New York University School of Medicine. “Even if it only gives you a 10 percent increase, in peak athletes, that is enough to win,” he says.

McCullough says Viagra is only likely to help athletes like runners, cyclists or skiers: sports where endurance and speed are the key. Viagra does not work directly on muscles so it will not make athletes physically stronger.

If Viagra does give athletes an unfair advantage, they will be able to take it at the upcoming Beijing Olympics without worry, since it is not on the prohibited list of medicines. McCullough said taking Viagra could theoretically help people breathe better in heavily polluted cities, like the Chinese capital.

Many scientists at laboratories that conduct drug testing say they haven’t noticed a suspicious spike in samples containing Viagra. “We see it as much as we see ibuprofen or aspirin or antibiotics that are not prohibited,” says Christiane Ayotte, director of a WADA-accredited laboratory in Canada. “Athletes may be taking it, but they may be taking it for non-doping purposes,” she says.

Ayotte said it would be unrealistic to ban Viagra. “Are athletes going to have to submit therapeutic-use exemptions for Viagra?” she says, “That would be quite humiliating.”

Still other doctors say that Viagra’s more well-known effects on sex lives may be the ultimate explanation for any enhanced athletic abilities. “It could be that athletes are taking Viagra and then having vigorous sexual activity,” says Dr Gerard Varlotta, director of sports rehabilitation at New York University’s Rusk Institute of Rehabilitation Medicine. Varlotta doubts that Viagra itself could improve an athlete’s performance.

“If athletes are euphoric after sex after taking Viagra, they may be euphoric about their athletic endeavours,” Varlotta says.

Why Buying a car makes sense now

It’s no fun buying a new car right now. Interest rates are creeping up. You have to pay an additional excise duty on bigger cars. And fuel prices are going through the roof. Right? Well, not exactly. Although the sentiment dampners are there, this could well be as good a time as any to pick up a car.

For one, although interest rates have climbed to 13-14%, depending on your debt history, banks will be willing to offer you better terms. For instance, if you have ‘preferred customer’ status with one of the big three financiers, ICICI, HDFC or Kotak, you will be able to get yourself a much better deal than what’s on offer in the market.

Also typically the bigger the car, the better the interest rates. Financiers see the big car buyers as lower risk customers so the rates dip as go along. Which means although you cough up anywhere between Rs 30,000-50,000 ex-showroom thanks to the excise hike, a bigger car will get you better EMI rates than a smaller one.

Add to that the fact that banks offer special schemes for women and many car companies will also do their bit to sweeten the pill for their customers. For instance if you already own a car from a particular brand and are ready to change the model, dealers and financiers will doubtless offer you attractive terms.

For a mass market C-seg car, for instance, the rates can be as low 11.5-12%, which is a good 2-2.5%lower than that on small cars. And then you have to factor in the discounts. Car companies, eager to push volumes to beat the sentiment slump, have upped the rebate levels substantially.

For example, B-seg models are currently fetching anywhere between Rs 25,000-45,000 in discounts. The C-seg sedans, particularly models that have been around for a while, will get you anywhere between Rs 30,000-60,000 off, sometimes even more.

Even when companies have launched facelifts or new variants, in most cases prices have remained unchanged. Which means you get better features at the same price. And in most of these cases, the dealer throws in something to make the deal sweet so you won’t drive away without some bargain tidbit.

There’s another reason why buying a car right now may be a good idea. Although financiers aren’t willing to bet on it, the buzz is that yet another interest rate increase may be right round the corner. If that happens, your loan will become even costlier. So it may be a good idea to opt for it and push for a good bargain while you are at it.

Of course there’s one very good reason why you may want to wait till the festival season. There are a slew of new launches that are lined up and those brands which don’t have a new model ont he anvil will offer mucho rebates and other attractive add-ons to make it worthwhile for you.

Traditionally that mad scramble for consumer mind space is what makes festival buying a good bargain. But this year, with the Nano debuting, the scramble will be madder. Which means the goodies on offer will be that much more for you, dear buyer.

Finally does it make better sense to go for a cash payment rather than financing your new car given the rising rates of interest? Not yet. Financiers throw in a decent amount of discount and dealers on their own will likely not be able to match the combined rebate coughed up by them, financiers and the car companies.

Already, with demand slackening, dealer margins are fairly thin. So if you have to depend only on them for your bargains, you won’t get that much. You may argue that you pay more on interest which gobbles up the rebate over the loan period. That’s true.

But chances are you would change your car before the loan runs out so you can roll your interest without paying the entire amount and get a rebate on your new car as well. Happy bargain hunting.

Oil price to hit $150-170 in coming months: OPEC

The president of OPEC, Algerian Energy Minister Chakib Khelil, predicted on Thursday that oil prices would rise to $150-170 a barrel during the northern hemisphere summer. helil insisted on Tuesday that oil producers saw no need to raise supply, blaming high prices on factors outside their control such as US pressure on Iran and the weak US dollar.

Speaking after talks with European Union nations, Khelil said the cartel of oil states believes it is pumping enough oil to supply current demand and has stocks and extra capacity to spare.

Khelil said prices in the next few weeks depend largely on how the US deals with Iran and the strength of the US dollar.

The US, supported by the European Union, wants Iran to permanently halt uranium enrichment, a technology that can give Iran the capacity to produce materials for a nuclear bomb if it wanted. Iran denies that, saying it only wants to produce energy.
"I think the market is probably waiting to see how the dollar is going to evolve in July, how the geopolitical situation is going to evolve with the threats made on Iran," Khelil said.

"I don’t think OPEC can do much about the geopolitics," he said. "I think some other people have to do something about that because if you have threats in areas that are producing areas or potentially producing areas, then of course the market will react to it."

The president of the Organisation of the Petroleum Exporting Countries, or OPEC, - based mostly in the Gulf region - could only handle one factor behind high prices: making more oil available.

"I think we are doing that and we think we are doing that very well," he said. "All you need to do is to look at the data to be convinced that the market is well supplied in oil and that we have enough surplus capacity and that we have enough stocks in the market."

The 13 OPEC members have for years gathered regularly to establish production quotas. They control some 40 per cent of world oil output. Despite the current surge in oil prices and growing global demand, they have refused as a group to boost production.

However, Saudi Arabia, the world’s largest oil producer, has said it would add 200,000 barrels per day in July to a 300,000 barrel per day production increase it first announced in May, raising total daily output to 9.7 million barrels.

OPEC members include: Algeria, Angola, Ecuador, Iran, Iraq, Libya, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, Venezuela, Kuwait, Qatar and the United Arab Emirates.

1% rate hike may up housing EMI by 7%

Interest rates are all set to go up by 50-100 basis points, following the RBI’s decision to increase the lending rate on funds to banks by half a percentage point. Punjab National Bank (PNB) CMD K C Chakrabarty said the step taken by RBI will lead to a minimum increase of 50 basis points in interest rate. Some banks might increase the rate even to 75 basis points, he added.

However, a senior official of a private sector bank said increase in the lending rate might go up to one percentage point (100 basis points). As the interest rates are going upward for last quite some time and not likely to come down in the near future due to inflationary pressure , many banks will increase the rates by one percentage point from July 1, 2008.

CMD of Union Bank MV Nair said the present round of increase in the policy rates will force them to raise their prime lending rates by 50 basis points to 13.25% from the present 12.75%.

He said the present tight money policy pursued by RBI to contain inflation will affect more those banks which normally borrow in the overnight money market to meet their lending requirements. Because of rise in the repo rate by 50 basis points to 8.50%, the interest rates on short term funds has gone up immediately.

In fact, many banks had not increased their lending rates, when RBI had increased its repo rate any cash reserve ratio in April.

Realty: Tough to buy, tougher to rent

Realty prices might be showing signs of easing, yet its tough to buy a house. Prices are still high and loans are getting expensive. Renting a property is also getting dearer.

According to analysts and developers residential rentals are hardening, registering a 10% growth. The demand for rented residential space is high as India has very low residential rental yields hovering around 3-6% (that is, given the high prices, people prefer to live on rent rather than buy a property).

At the same time home loan interest rates are around 11% to 13%. While new property sales are slowing down, rentals are showing an upwards trend.

Many prospective home buyers are deferring purchase, expecting a dip in prices, and looking for renting accommodation in the short run.

“People are nervous about spending the capital they have in times of uncertainty. Therefore renting remains the only option. Though India is also unique as lot of people prefer to park money in residential projects and lock up apartments, which reduces the supply of apartments for rent, putting an upward pressure,” says global real estate advisory DTZ director Abhilash Lal.

Agreeing that lower residential yields have made renting a feasible option for many, Ansal Housing and Construction Director Kushagr Ansal points out, “Real estate yields in India are very low, pegged at 4-6%. This makes renting a lucrative option.”

Though new supply is being added to the pool of residential properties, it hasn’t really helped in stabilising rents. Says Parsvnath Developers COO Dr B P Dhaka, “New supply is not coming in the preferred centrally located residential areas. Also maintenance and construction costs have gone up in the last one year. All this has contributed to higher rentals.”

Developers also feel that residential rentals will not be hit in the short run. “Demand hasn’t really waned for quality houses and the market is still buoyant. Till the time the job market is healthy and disposable incomes don’t go down drastically, rentals will keep moving up. Though the rentals will plateau out in the long run,” says Ansal API vice-president (marketing) Kunal Banerji.

However, Omaxe executive director Vipin Agarwal points out, “Since residential rentals and lease are long term arrangements, there has not been a significant increase in rentals in last 6-8 months (for people already living in rented properties).’’

Why Crude Oil market is exposed to speculation

Speculation in association with an increasingly weakening dollar and supported by some fundamental risks such as fear of supply disruptions from unstable resource centers has fuelled the price spikes.

As long as the US interest rates will remain low, commodity markets in general, and crude oil in particular, will remain exposed to large speculative swings. Speculators purchase futures with borrowed money at low interest rates.

The speculative demand pushes the spot prices upwards, which, in turn, fosters even higher expectations of future price increases, which generates even more speculative demand and so on in a self-fuelling upwards spiral up to the trend reversal when speculation is no more profitable. And in case a trend reversal ensues, speculation could create an amplifying effect on the downside.

In the shorter term where demand is very insensitive to price, sharp price increases, whether caused by the OPEC’s decisions or by the trader’s expectations, are not dampened by parallel reductions in demand volumes.

Also the supply side of the market is very inelastic in the short-to-medium term, large speculative price increases cannot be cut short by flooding the market with additional supply. In a situation like this, a price speculation can continue to growing without resulting in surplus inventory, simply because traders can keep selling the same inventories to each other at ever high prices.

The likely trigger for crude oil price crash could be a slowdown in emerging markets (perhaps caused by the high oil price itself), which would obviously cut down demand for goods and services in general and crude oil in particular.

While the economic growth will accelerate for oil exporting countries, the high crude prices will impact the growth figures of fast moving economies. Inflation is rising in India and China due to increase in the costs of food imports, the current account deficits, though comfortable at current levels (China’s surplus of 11% and India’s deficit of 1%) will also be rising if the prices were sustaining at current levels.

On the other hand the ongoing slowdown in the US economy, the subprime impact and credit crunch, will negatively impact the US oil demand which accounts for nearly 21 percent of the global demand for crude oil. And even if China ’s GDP continues to grow around 10-11 per cent in the next two more years, the resultant increase in oil demand will not be sufficient to offset the decline in demand from the US economy.

It may be mentioned that the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development has already cut its economic growth outlook through next year. It now forecasts several quarters of weak growth for most of its 30 members, which include the U.S., Japan, and several European countries.

Among the industrialized economies, the U.S. economy is projected to grow just 1.2 percent this year and 1.1 percent in 2009. The euro zone is likely to grow at 1.7 percent in 2008 and 1.4 percent in 2009. Japan is expected to expand at 1.7 percent this year and 1.5 percent in 2009. Also the IMF’s world economic outlook is not encouraging, they have already reduced the world GDP growth from 4.9% in 2007 to 3.7% in 2008.

According to the IMF estimates a permanent $ 5 a barrel increase in oil prices will decrease global GDP by up to 0.3 percentage points. This means that a $ 35 (approx.) increase in the oil prices since January 1, 2008, will cut the world GDP by 2.1% this year. The relationship between oil prices and output has also been studied by Bernanke, Jones, and Lee . These authors found significant recessionary and inflationary impact for oil prices on real GDP and consumer prices.

In a nutshell we can conclude that moderation in global economic growth could create a trend reversal in the crude oil prices, where there is possibility that speculation could create an amplifying effect on the down side. This is likely to pull crude prices back to US $ 85 – 90 range (per barrel) from where they had started recent up swing in January 2008.

Dr. S P Sharma is a Senior Research Analyst with IL&FS Investsmart Commodities Limited

'Pro-women laws being misused'

Are we being fair on the not -so-fair sex? It would appear not. Laws for protecting women like the anti-dowry legislation and the domestic violence Act were vociferously opposed by men’s groups on Wednesday at a consultation initiated by the ministry for women and child development and UNIFEM.

The burden of their argument was that these laws don’t follow the fundamental legal premise that a person is innocent until he is proven guilty. "In 30% of the cases that come to us, there is a rift between the woman and her in-laws where the woman forces the man to choose between the two under the threat of slapping Section 498A of the Dowry Prohibition Act on the husband and his family," said Ashish from Save Indian Family (SIF). He added that there should be a deterrent to prevent misuse of the law. Another representative Hemant from SIF said that 1.2 lakh women (women relatives of husbands) were arrested under the anti-dowry Act but the ministry of women and child development minister was not doing anything about it. "Are you a wife development or a woman development minister?" he asked.

Dr Anumapa Singh, who counsels couples, pointed to the anomaly in the domestic violence law in that the aggrieved party could only be a woman while the respondent could only be a male. "We have witnessed violence at home where the perpetrator is a woman. So why does the law hold a man as the accused?" she wanted to know. TOI had reacted to an observation of the Orissa chairperson of the state commission for women on September 19, 2007, when she had said that these laws were being abused. We had felt there should be checks on such abuse and said, "In cases where a complaint is proved false beyond doubt, the accuser must face a jail term." This would act as a deterrent to the abuse of Sec 498A, we felt.

At the meeting on Wednesday, however, the men’s group wanted the laws to be scrapped altogether — which is not such a good idea as it is undeniable that many women do get harassed by greedy husbands and in-laws and need legal protection. Sanjay Bhartia of the Gender Human Rights Society said, "We have been opposing the domestic violence Act and have even submitted a memorandum to the Prime Minister last year on the issue," he said. Bhartia added that there was need to review the laws that were radically tilted in favour of women and open to misuse.

Men’s organisations invited for the interaction landed up in huge numbers with posters and banners, disrupting the consultation with their sloganeering.

Faced with vehement opposition, WCD minister Renuka Chowdhury admitted that she was open to change the law. "Law-making is a dynamic process. We are ready to change the law but as of now there will be no amendments to it," she said.

Reacting to the constant allegations of misuse, Chowdhury said that there were enough deterrents in the penal code to punish those found guilty of misuse. She, however, did not spell out the deterrents.

Wednesday’s protest came at a time when the Delhi police commissioner has issued instructions that only the husband and not the extended family can be arrested in anti-dowry cases. Reacting sharply to this, National Commission for Women chairperson Girija Vyas said, "If the anti-dowry law is taken lightly, women will suffer a huge loss. Only 6% of the cases are false under the Act."

India ranked 74 on world corruption index

India has been ranked a lowly 74, two steps down since last year, among 180 countries of the world on the worldwide Corruption Perceptions Index (CPI), prepared by independent international agency Transparency International.

However, corruption is much higher in Pakistan which occupies 140th place, a little below Iran, Libya and Nepal which are ranked 133, 134 and 135 respectively.

Meanwhile, China which was ranked a joint 72 with India in 2007, slided a step down to occupy a place above its neighbour this year.

Among other Asian countries, Russia is placed still lower on 145, while Sri Lanka occupies the 96th position and Maldives is ranked 90.

The least corrupt country in the region is the nascent democracy Bhutan, which has been placed at the 41st spot by the non-government organisation tracking prevalence of corruption worldwide.

Denmark, Finland, New Zealand, Singapore and Sweden corner the top five spots retaining positions as the least corrupt nations of the world, while bottom of table is occupied by Myanmar and Somalia.

The United States also retains its position and is ranked 20th, just below Germany, Ireland, Japan and France. Besides, Britain occupies the 13th spot and is just ahead of Hong Kong.

C02 emissions: US losing business in Europe

United States is losing business in Europe because of failure to respond to climate change. US and China are the largest emitters of carbon and they have an enormous responsibility to participate in emissions trading, Bart Chilton, Commissioner of Commodities Futures Trading Commission (CFTC)said.

Speaking at the Finance IQ, Second Carbon Trading Conference, New York, New York on Wednesday, he said that , it is past time for the United States to pick up the slack and start getting serious about climate change.

“In fact, the biggest increase in the Chicago Climate Exchange carbon market took place after Super Tuesday, February 5th. That is the date when 24 states had political contests—with 52% of all pledged Democratic Party delegates and 41% of the total Republican Party delegates at stake. That is the date when the field of presidential contenders shrank to three viable candidates,” Bart Chilton said.

All three, Senators Clinton, Obama and McCain, support a mandatory cap and trade system. Within a short period of time thereafter, prices for the Carbon Financial Instrument traded on the Chicago Climate Exchange moved from the $2.50-$3.00 range to over $7.00.

“Ensuring honest emission markets, for both futures and options contracts, would be the responsibility of the CFTC. We would perform the same types of oversight functions that we currently perform to guard against fraud, abuse and manipulation. We would work to ensure that these emission markets are viable tools for hedgers and for speculators,” Chilton added.

Despite the phenomenal growth in market for carbon emissions since 1990’s the United States, world’s historically largest emitter has only initiated certain voluntary carbon markets and has sat on the sidelines and not truly tapped into its massive potential to participate in this space, Chilton said.

“We all know that the global market for carbon emissions has grown precipitously since its origins in the 1990’s, and particularly in the last few years. In 2002, the World Bank estimated the volume of carbon emissions traded globally at 32 million metric tons with a value of approximately $100 million. For 2008, these values are estimated to increase to a volume of 4.2 billion metric tons, and a total value of $92 billion,” he said.

What does all that mean? It means that the market value of global carbon trades has experienced an average annual growth rate of about 312% since 2002! That is a cumulative increase of 92,000 percent! That’s not conjecture, it is a hard number fact that this trading has gone from $100 million to $92 billion. As important is the fact that what we are seeing is a policy value shift – a change in priorities for the world which is reflective of the seriousness of this issue, Chilton added.

It is unacceptable that China, the second-largest economy in the world, is not stepping up and participating in this global challenge, he commented.

Hows and why’s of Internet banking

Are you one of those wizards whose Internet banking password is `Password123’? You are in August company. Most don’t seem to have the patience to create an elaborate password. Your Internet banking account is only as secure as its password. A weak password exposes it to strangers and hackers.

If you love the ease of online transactions, you have to learn the ropes of basic online security, in your own interest.

Here are a few tips for creating and more importantly, remembering a secure password.

Your name, surname, pet name, names of your kids, your birthday, your employee number, your car’s number plate, and your account number, are all easy to guess. Avoid them completely.

Don’t create lazy passwords. To make passwords strong, complicate them with capitals and small letters; use numbers and characters such as !@#$% ^&*() .

Create an algorithm. It could be important dates, the first line of your favourite song or your favourite movie. Like `One Flew Over The Cuckoo’s Nest’, will get you ‘1F^TCNest’.

Don’t scramble around wondering if `F’ was capital or if it was `o’ or `0’ or `1’. Have an algo and always apply it.

For example, one number, one character, beginning with caps and ending with the last word in full. Use the algo to reset and change passwords. Don’t discuss your algorithm, it is the formula to your password.

There are passwords to your Yahoo and Hotmail accounts and there are passwords to your bank account. Don’t sweat over the small stuff. If your friend logged in to read your mail, you may at the most lose a friend; if someone logs in to sweep off your cash, you lose both the money and the friend. Keep your critical passwords strictly confidential.

Also, avoid typing a password in front of someone. Passwords like ‘qwerty123456’ are so easy for peepers to figure. Avoid strokes to adjacent keys that can be cracked by mere observation.

Short passwords can be easily assaulted. Hackers routinely crack up to six characters. If your algo is a good one, remembering may not be tough. `Raindrops keep falling on my head and I want to steal your umbrella’ can become a superb password -- RkFoMh&Iw 2SyU.

Longer a password, the more secure it is. For, every extra character increases the potential for more possible combinations. Anyone who uses a combination of at least eight letters, numbers and special symbols make things hard for decryption software.

If you use 26 lowercase letters of the alphabet and a password length of seven characters you will have 26 = 8.03 billion combinations to choose from.

This may appear large but it will be cracked in 45 minutes by a common computer.

Passwords longer than seven characters, using non-dictionary words are therefore to be preferred in an attempt to use ’good’ passwords.

Don’t make the password so complicated and bizarre that you cannot remember it unless you wrote it down somewhere. Commit your password to memory with a keyword or picturisation.

Imagine for example, a cuckoo clock striking one, on the top of your bank building.

If you don’t leave your house key below the door mat, you don’t leave your password below the keyboard, mouse pad, in your diary, or on a post it slip stuck to your monitor.

If you have to store it, make it a sentence only you understand. For example, cuckoo clock above the bank strikes one. Never keep the user name and password together.

Online banking comes with some preset safeguards. Your password is masked when you type it -- it is not displayed on the screen. You are required to reset passwords periodically.

When you reset, you are asked for the old password for authentication. Your new password has to be typed twice, so that you don’t inadvertently set a password with a typo and are unable to retrieve it. Your account is locked after a few attempts at guessing the password. You can ask for resetting if you have genuinely lost the password.

As most writers on the subject say, a password is like your toothbrush: choose carefully, change regularly, and never share it with anyone.

India banks sell dollars to beat tight cash, rupee up

The rupee rose to a fresh three -week high on Thursday as banks liquidated dollar holdings amid tight cash conditions in the money market, and buoyed by firmer stock markets.At 11 a.m., the partially convertible rupee was at 42.695/700 per dollar, 0.1 percent stronger than Wednesday’s close of 42.73/74. The rupee has risen 0.6 percent this week but is down 7.7 percent in 2008.

"It is very difficult to hold on to a long dollar position with call rates at almost 9 percent," a senior dealer with a private bank said.

Overnight cash rates, a barometer of cash supplies in the inter-bank money market, were at 8.50/8.75 percent, compared with 6 percent when cash is adequate.

The rupee was also underpinned by a hefty half percentage point increase in interest rates by central bank on Tuesday to rein in galloping inflation. It was the second rate rise this month.

Traders said annual inflation, which hit a 13-year high in early June above 11 percent, was expected to stay in double digits for some time.

"With this kind of inflation and repeated rate hikes in the country, there is expectation the rupee may not weaken more than 43 per dollar," the trader at the private bank said.

Dealers said they expected dollar supplies would be higher than demand, helping the rupee to trade in a band of 42.65 to 42.75 through the rest of the session.

Traders were also watching the stock market to gauge fund flows. Foreign institutional investors have been net sellers of $6.2 billion of Indian shares so far this year, after having bought $17.4 billion in 2007.

India’s main share index was up 1 percent in the morning but is down more than 29 percent so far in 2008.

Now, an 'orgasm jab' for women

Want to heat up your bedroom life? Get the ’G-shot’! It’s a jab that enhances a woman’s sexual experience by boosting the G-spot- the ultra-sensitive area of tissue that can hold the key to happy lovemaking.

Also known as the ’orgasm jab’, the non-surgical treatment comes at a price of 800 pounds. Rather like lip-plumping jabs, the treatment involves injecting collagen straight into the G-spot, reports the Daily Mail.

This not only enhances its sensitivity, but increases the width of the area to the size of a 10 pence piece. It also raises the G-spot a quarter of an inch in height, making it much easier to find.

The treatment is sure going to make women’s sex life reach new levels as with the evolutionary treatment they can achieve multiple orgasms every time they have sex.

Quit smoking, stop heart problems: Cardiologists

Stay away from smoking and fast food, advocate eminent cardiologsits to youths as the number of young people suffering from heart problems are on the increase. The number young people coming with heart ailments for treatment was gradually increasing but no statistics are available," they said.

It was important to have a national statistics to work on proper policies and programmes to make a healthy society, they said citing the example of American Collelge of Cardiologists’ programme on diet restriction and compulsory exercises for youth.

"Today, it is a scary situation as we get young people in late twenties and thirtees with heart problems," eminent cardiologist Dr Samuel Mathew told media on Wednesday.

"Since we do not have the statistics on young adults, the civic bodies should prepare epidemiological data so that the country can have proper statistics to work on various policies and programmes," he said.

Angioplasty is a common intervention choice to avoid bypass surgery and "we try to avoid surgery on a young person and even angioplasty," he said.

Mathew demonstrated today two difficult cases of 100 per cent blockages in patients (71-year-old man and 47-year-old woman) with low heart function for the benefit of 1,500 cardiologists who were attending the international cardiology meet at Bangkok.

Other doctors who participated in the angioplasty demosntration were Jamshed Dalal, Anil Sharma, Nitin Gokhale and Ajit Menon.

Shake a leg to recharge mobile battery

What do you do if you are stuck in a field at a pop festival but there’s trouble ahead because your mobile phone’s battery is about to run out? Thanks to a new gizmo, you now just need to face the music and dance.

Mobile phone operator Orange said on Tuesday it had teamed up with GotWind, a firm specializing in renewable energy, to produce a recharger powered by dance energy alone.

The portable kinetic energy chargers will be given a test run at this year’s Glastonbury Festival, the world’s biggest greenfield music and arts celebration that begins on a farm in Somerset on Friday.

Orange said the prototype chargers weigh the same as a phone and are about the size of a pack of cards. Attached to the user’s arm, they employ a system of weights and magnets which provide an electric current to top up charge in a storage battery. This can then later be used to recharge the phone.

"We wanted to create a fun, engaging and interactive product which would encourage users to have a laugh while charging their mobile phone and at the same time test out a new energy-efficient prototype," said Hattie Magee, Head of Partnerships at Orange UK.

Mittal buys third major property in London's priciest street

NRI steel tycoon Lakshmi Mittal has bought his third major property for 70 million pounds in Kensington Palace Gardens, London’s most expensive street. ( Watch )

Mittal, whose fortune is estimated at 27 billion pounds, already owns two large homes in Kensington Palace Gardens where Princess Diana spent her last years.

The latest purchase of the former embassy of the Philippines from Hedge fund tycoon Noam Gottesman came a month after Mittal bought Britain’s most expensive house for 117 million pounds on the street nicknamed "Billionaire’s Row", ostensibly for his son Aditya and his family.

The 70 million pounds price tag for Mittal’s latest property is all the more remarkable as the former Philippine Embassy is in need of modernisation, the Evening Standard said.

The 16,250 square feet home is also not the largest in the road but it looks on to Kensington Palace.

58-year-old Mittal, Britain’s richest man, himself lives in a home in Kensington Palace Gardens which he bought for 57 million pounds four years ago and is three times-bigger than his latest acquisition.

Idea Cellular to Buy Spice Communications to Compete With Bharti Airtel

Idea Cellular Ltd. the fastest growing of India’s five biggest mobile-phone carriers, offered 32.4 billion rupees ($757 million) for control of Spice Communications Ltd. to increase subscribers by a sixth.

Idea, owned by billionaire Chairman Kumar Mangalam Birla, agreed to buy a 41 percent stake from Spice Group for 77.30 rupees a share and make an open offer for a further 20 percent at a price that’s 41 percent higher than Spice’s close yesterday. Idea, whose chairman also runs cement and aluminum operations, will sell a 15 percent stake to Malaysia’s TM International Bhd. after the takeover. TM owns 39 percent of Spice.

Idea will add about 4.5 million customers, closing in on Bharat Sanchar Nigam Ltd., India’s fourth-largest carrier. India is projected by the telecom ministry to double its mobile-phone subscribers to 500 million in two years, after having surpassed the U.S. as the second-biggest market this year.

``By taking over Spice they enhance their position and secondly, they become a dominant player’’ in India, said Choo Swee Kee, who counts TM International shares among the $202 million he manages at TA Asset Management Bhd. in Kuala Lumpur. ``For TM International, to hold a smaller stake in a bigger ocean is better than to hold a larger stake in a pond.’’

Idea this year has been adding customers faster than larger rivals Bharti Airtel Ltd. and Vodafone Group Plc’s Indian unit, according to data from the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India. The combined entity will have about 30 million subscribers in the market of 269 million users. Bharat Sanchar had 41 million users in April, while Bharti, the nation’s largest operator, had more than 64 million subscribers.

Shares Surge

Spice surged 32 percent in Mumbai to close at a record 72.35 rupees. Idea climbed 2.8 percent to 101.90 rupees, its biggest gain since June 12. India’s benchmark Sensitive Index rose 0.8 percent.

Idea shares have dropped 27 percent this year compared with a 22 percent decline in the Bharti stock and the benchmark index’s 30 percent fall.

After the takeover, Idea will sell 464.7 million shares of the combined company at 156.96 rupees apiece to TM, Malaysia’s second-largest wireless carrier, the New Delhi-based Idea said.

``India is all about scale. The merger will result in scale being achieved, so it’s very positive for us,’’ Yusof Annuar Yaacob, chief financial officer at TM, said in a phone interview. ``A merger where we’ll end up having a stake in Idea is better than having 39 percent’’ of a smaller company, he said.

TM, which offers wireless services to 40 million customers in 10 Asian markets including Indonesia and Bangladesh, will gain a stake in an operator with licenses to sell services nationwide.

Yusof said TM will spend about $2 billion to get as much as a 19 percent stake in the merged entity and added he would fund it through debt.

Expansion Plans

Idea expects to start wireless services in Tamil Nadu, Bihar, and Mumbai, the country’s financial hub, by August, Birla told reporters in Mumbai today. The carrier plans to spend as much as 100 billion rupees in two years to expand services and complete the takeover in six months, he said.

The Birla family, which is one of India’s oldest business families, runs companies including Hindalco Industries Ltd., India’s largest producer of aluminum and Grasim Industries Ltd., the South Asian nation’s third-largest cement producer.

``We have already moved from being the sixth biggest to the fifth-largest player in the telecom business. Our objective is to build on that position of strength and move aggressively with our growth plans,’’ Birla said.

Daler Mehndi sings in Rajinikanth's Kuselan

The magic and mayhem around superstar Rajinikanth’s ’Kuselan’ is getting bigger by the day. The audio album of the movie will hit the market on July 1 across the country. G. V. Prakash has reportedly come out with very good songs and Punjabi pop king Daler Mehndi will be singing in Tamil for the first time. Lending his inimitable voice for the song ’Oyam Zaarare’ this is the first time the popular singer will be featured in a South Indian song.

Big names of the music industry such as Shankar Mahadevan, Hariharan, Sujata, Chitra, Sadhna Sargam, Shreya Ghosal, Kailash Kher and Prasanna.V.V. have all sung for ’Kuselan’.

Superstar Rajinikanth speaking about his role in the film said, "The character Ashok Raj will be a turning point in my career. I have always been overwhelmed by the response I get from my audience. I have portrayed nearly 20 different characters for a song in this film and I am very excited about the movie."

While Daler Mahendi’s song ’Oyam Zarare’ is poised to be the next chartbuster, the audiences will groove to the foot tapping tunes of ’Perinba’. A major highlight of the song is that P. Vasu has got the who’s who of the Tamil Film industry to appear in the song.

The audio rights for ‘Kuselan’ have been bagged by Big Music, truly a big name in the music business.

Katherine tops 'Most Desirable Women' list

Katherine Heigl has been named the Most Desirable Woman in a poll by AskMen.com. The ‘ Grey’s Anatomy ’ star pipped the likes of Jessica Alba and Scarlett Johansson to land the top spot at AskMen.com’s annual list of Top 99 Most Desirable Women.

In casting their votes, readers were asked to look beyond sex appeal and beauty to choose women who have the characteristics they value in a potential companion, like intelligence, humor, charisma, and ambition.

Over 5 million votes were cast as the readers identified the females from the worlds of music, fashion, sports, and entertainment who they felt best represented their ideal woman.

The second spot went to supermodel Alessandra Ambrosio, while actress Kate Beckinsale stood third.

The Top 10 Most Desirable Women are:

1. Katherine Heigl

2. Alessandra Ambrosio

3. Kate Beckinsale

4. Eva Mendes

5. Jessica Alba

6. Scarlett Johansson

7. Jessica Biel

8. Rihanna

9. Marisa Miller

10. Adriana Lima

Are you ready for Freemales?

If you are single, child-free (not childless) and consider relationships (read romantic) a high-risk job, you have just earned a new adjective for yourself – Freemale. This species came into existence about a decade back and while most other species that should be saved – both flora and fauna – are finding their way to WWF’s Red List, Freemales are actually increasing in number. So while all you Freemales out there raise a toast, countries like Australia and England are reporting in various surveys how the number of single women in the age-group of 25-45 have actually doubled and may soon surpass the number of their married counterparts!

Hallelujah to that, but is the situation in India similar too? Well, Freemales may not have overtaken the married women, but the numbers have shown an appreciable increase. In fact, you can happily count any woman who takes to her designer heels the moment a relative/friend/acquaintance asks ‘when are you tying the knot?’ in this category.

“What I don’t understand is why your single status is counted as ‘hasn’t got a good enough catch till now’. Yes, I am waiting for Mr Right but I won’t settle for Mr Right Now. So if I have to go without marriage, so be it. I am not complaining, only the rest of the world is,” says Sarika Gupta, a 30-year-old bank manager, who hates the fact that her self worth is decided by the fact that she has not managed to get a ‘Mrs’ prefix to her name till now, “I have a house, a car and a healthy social life. But all that is negated the moment my marital status comes into play!”

There are others who say that they are happy to put themselves first, only nobody will buy it. “I am ok with my life the way it is. I have seen my friends going through bitter divorces or making adjustments to somehow keep their marriage going. I won’t say I am disillusioned with the institution but just that it doesn’t excite me enough to give up my freedom and way of life for it. And honestly, I am too set in my ways today and too busy with work to try to make a match. I have men in my life but they aren’t the ones I will pledge my troth to anytime soon,” says 34-year-old Meenu Menon, a media professional.

However, these Bridget Jones-meet-Sex And The City quartet don’t intend to be single for the rest of their lives. “If love and marriage happen, great, but no second choices for me,” says graphic designer Arpita Trivedi, “I have spent a lot of time abroad before I came to India. Trust me, Indian society is as accepting of your single status as a US or UK. At least here you have your family to act as a cushion when you take a fall. There living a single life is much more difficult. But singletons all across the world are used to being go-getters; a loser of a marital match has no chance in hell of succeeding. So why go for it? Also, rootless as I have been of late, do I want to get into such a relationship and not change cities if my work demands it? I am not so sure.”

However, this status is not half as much fun as it sounds. Ask the 40-year-old Carrie Bradshaw in SATC, who at 40 realises credit cards can buy you Manolo Blahniks and extra closet space for your designer togs, but not love. You may not want to marry for the next three years, but will you regret this decision in five? “It is not easy,” confesses 36-years-old Juhi Galihar, a self-employed entrepreneur, “At times I do miss having a family, a husband. But then, my married friends say they wish they had decided to focus on their careers instead of taking a break to take care of their kids. Well, you can’t have it all!”

Where will Bill Gates head now?

The announcement by one of the world’s richest men two years ago that he intended to switch from the corporate arena to the world of charity sounded like a cliche. Now, Bill Gates faces the challenge of making it real. "With success, I have been given great wealth," Gates said in June 2006. "And with great wealth comes great responsibility to give back to society, to see that those resources are put to work in the best possible way to help those in need."

That pledge will see Gates, 52, take a hands-on role as co-chairman of the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation, the world’s richest charity, which thanks to the generosity of Gates and his close friend, fellow business tycoon Warren Buffet, currently has a war chest of $37.3 billion dedicated to improving health care and fighting poverty in the developing world.

The foundation is destined to become even richer with both its main benefactors pledging to donate almost their entire fortunes and to require the foundation to spend all its money within 50 years of their deaths.

Currently, the foundation is required by law to make grants of at least $1.5 billion annually, but the plan is to dramatically increase that figure, and plans are already in the works to double the foundation’s staff of 250 employees.

The foundation is split into three units.

The Global Health Programme currently donates some $800 million a year -- roughly equal to the annual budget of the UN’s World Health Organization. It plays a leading role in efforts to eradicate polio, fight AIDS and spread the use of vaccines and immunizations.

The Global Development Programme helps fight extreme poverty, with grants that support micro-finance loans, agricultural development in Africa and the spread of information technology.

Among the biggest projects of the United States Programme are scholarships for high-achieving minority college students, Internet access in libraries and numerous other educational initiatives.

While there would seem to be little to criticize about a guy who gives $30 billion to charity, the foundation does often come in for criticism.

A report in the Financial Times quotes scientists condemning the grant-making process as "opaque."

Others say the foundation shirks the responsibility of "saving lives now" through simple actions like boosting vaccines, in favour of early-stage science aimed at developing breakthrough drugs.

Some also criticise the foundation for not taking more concrete steps to improve the lives of the poor, for excluding white students in the US from its billion-dollar scholarship programmes and for working with abortion-rights groups to help combat the spread of AIDS.

There is also a concern that the Gates Foundation will dominate any issue it becomes involved in, deterring other donors who might otherwise have contributed.

Gates, of course, is no stranger to controversy and appears ready to put his intellect and celebrity to bat for the foundation’s causes.

"The new world is more controversial than the old world," he told Newsweek.

"We do family planning. We fund research on crops, and some people think that you shouldn’t take science to help the poor people. This whole thing about which operating system somebody uses is a pretty silly thing versus issues involving starvation or death."

Gates is determined to have a major impact on the world’s major problems and has been studying furiously to get familiar with the science behind the issues.

He also brings his clout, vision and business acumen to the table, which could be decisive in pushing forward remedies and cajoling governments who might have different agendas.

"This is good news for the world’s poor," said Anne Lynam Goddard, chief of staff of CARE, an Atlanta-based non-profit funded by the Gates Foundation.

She recalls how Bill and Melinda Gates went to speak to ex-prostitutes in Botswana to learn about the spread of AIDS.

"Where others might have shied away from working in that sector, they haven’t," Goddard said. "They come with no political agenda."

India says Reliance to pump natural gas by September

India’s Reliance Industries Ltd will start pumping 25 million standard cubic metres a day (mmscmd) of natural gas from its D-6 field in the Krishna Godavari basin by September, the government said.This would help fertiliser plants switch to gas from naphtha and fuel oil, boost power generation, and increase supplies to households, the oil ministry said in a statement on Wednesday.

Output from the deep-sea field in the Bay of Bengal is expected to rise to 40 mmscmd by March 2009, it said.

The government said companies that discover gas in India under the New Exploration Licencing Policy must accord priority to urea plants, LPG plants, power plants and city gas distribution projects in that order.

"The sale would be on the basis of formula for determining the price as approved by the government," it said.

Twenty-two natural gas-based urea plants, which are using naphtha and fuel oil as natural gas was not available, would benefit from the decision, the statement said.

The government said 3 mmscmd of Reliance’s gas would be supplied to existing gas-based LPG plants, while 18 mmscmd would be supplied to power plants which were idle, underutilised or due to be commissioned this fiscal year.

India markets rattled by surprise rate rise

Indian shares fell to their lowest in more than a year and government bond yields soared to seven-year highs on Wednesday after a surprise rate rise by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Tuesday aimed at reining in inflation.Bank shares fell, with No. 2 lender ICICI Bank dropping as much as 4.3 percent to its lowest since Oct. 2006 on expectations loan demand would ease.

Lenders generally were expected to raise interest rates after the RBI lifted its key lending rate by an aggressive half a percentage point to a six-year high of 8.5 percent and increased reserve requirements for banks.

The RBI tightened policy after data late last week showed annual wholesale price inflation jumped in early June to a 13-year high of more than 11 percent. It was the second rate rise this month.

The finance ministry said the rate rise would moderate demand and inflation but should augur well for the overall economy, which expanded 9.0 percent in the last fiscal year.

Industrialists were less sanguine, with automotive suppliers, real estate and consumer products makers concerned about the impact of rising credit costs on investment and demand.

"The entire industry will feel the impact as the cost of cars will go up now, as well as manufacturing costs," Arvind Kapur, managing director of auto parts maker Rico Auto Industries Ltd, said.

BOND YIELDS TO RISE FURTHER?

The partially convertible rupee, which has been under selling pressure from capital outflows and a widening trade deficit in recent weeks, gained 0.3 percent to 42.8625 per dollar.

Traders said foreign investors were buying Indian bonds to lock-in the higher yield, which in turn boosted the rupee. Exporters bought the rupee in anticipation of further gains.

The rupee hit a 13-month low of 43.21 in late May, but traders say the central bank has been supporting it since to prevent costlier imports from stoking inflation.

The benchmark 10-year bond yield jumped to 8.86 percent in early trade, a level last tested in October 2001, from a close at 8.57 percent on Tuesday, before the rate move.

"We should see 9.10-9.20 percent on the 10-year yields in the near term," said Suresh Pai, chief dealer at Canara Bank.

The benchmark share index fell 2.6 percent to its lowest since May 2007. It stood down 0.5 percent at 0700 GMT.

Poor India makes millionaires at fastest pace

India, with the world’s largest population of poor people living on less than a dollar a day, also paradoxically created millionaires at the fastest pace in the world in 2007 even though the world grew such "high net worth individuals (HNWIs)" at the slowest pace in four years.

Growing them at a blistering pace of 22.7 per cent, India added another 23,000 more millionaires in 2007 to its 2006 tally of 100,000 millionaires measured in dollars, according to an annual Merrill Lynch Cap Gemini report that weighs such financial information for its wealth and asset management purposes.

In contrast, developmental agencies put the number of subsistence level Indians living on less than a dollar a day at 350 million and those living on less than $ 2 a day at 700 million. In other words, for every millionaire, India has about 7000 impoverished people.

While India’s HNWI population growth of 22.7 per cent in 2007 exceeded China’s 20.3 per cent and its own 2006 gains of 20.5 in 2006, it was still way below its giant neighbour in absolute number of millionaires. China counted nearly 500,000 HNWIs.

Overall, the numbers of millionaires (not counting home values in their assets) in the world grew at 9.4 per cent and crossed the 10 million mark for the first time. The United States, despite its economic woes, led the pack of Richie Rich’s with more than three million millionaires, i.e., one in every three millionaires in the world lives in America.

The combined wealth of the globe’s millionaires grew to nearly $41 trillion last year, which means their average wealth was more than $4 million, the highest it’s ever been.

In measuring the millionaire mob in India, the Merrill Lynch Cap Gemini report looked at metrics for the year 2007, which means it did not take into account the precipitous stock market slide that has wiped out nearly a third of the market value in 2008.

"India led the world in HNWI population growth at 22.7 percent, driven by market capitalization growth of 118 percent and real GDP growth of 7.9 percent. Although India’s real GDP growth decelerated from 9.4 percent in 2006, current levels are considered more stable and sustainable," the report observed.

It also ranked India’s two largest exchanges – the Bombay Stock Exchange and the National Stock Exchange – among the world’s top 12 exchanges by end of 2007, "with growth rates of 122% and 115% respectively....that were boosted by initial public offering markets and heightened international interest."

Explaining the faster rate of growth of millionaires in India than in China, the report suggests that as market capitalization and real GDP in China were spread over a larger population, there were smaller per capita gains in China. In 2006, India had a larger market capitalization growth than gross national income, significantly impacting HNWI population growth.

In addition, it said, China is currently experiencing explosive growth in its "mass affluent" population, which has yet to break the HNWI threshold of US$1million.

The observation also suggests China is having greater equitable growth than India.

Sania Mirza overcomes injury to down Castano

Sania Mirza battled through the pain barrier to reach the second round of Wimbledon with a scrappy 7-6 3-6 6-4 win over Colombia’s Catalina Castano on Tuesday.The Indian number one, making a comeback after undergoing wrist surgery in April, needed a medical time out at 4-1 down in the second set to treat a pectoral injury.

Although the rub down could not save her from losing the second set, Mirza stood firm in the decider to wrap up victory after two hours 16 minutes.

"It’s always good to get through matches like that, even when you’re not playing your best, you’re coming back from an injury," Mirza told reporters.

"Today I actually felt nervous again to go out. I didn’t really sleep well last night, to be honest. But I think that happens when you’re coming back from injury.

"You’re probably expecting things from yourself which you’re probably not able to do as well as you did before.

"But getting through matches like this is what’s going to help you get better, and I think it was very good for me to get through that."

While Mirza lapped up the applause from the vocal Indian fans packed into court 11, Castano was left to reflect on yet another fleeting visit to the All England Club.

In six appearances at the grasscourt grand slam, she has lost in the first round every time.

Mirza, seeded 32nd, will next face Spaniard Maria Martinez Sanchez as she attempts to reach the third round here for the first time.

The 21-year-old, however, admitted her wrist still did not feel 100 percent.

"Medically, it’s fine now," said Mirza, who could face defending champion Venus Williams in the third round.

"But I still have pain when I hit a late forehand because that’s something that even the doctors have said stays.

"Sometimes it goes away in three months, sometimes it takes eight months. So that’s something that you kind of have to play through. It’s a new wrist so it takes time getting used to taking 100 mile an hour balls for over two hours.

"But I’m feeling like I can compete again and what the hell, I’m winning a match."

Loans to get costlier as RBI ups rates

Get ready for another round of interest rate increases from housing loans to car loans, from consumer loans to corporates borrowing for their business. Late on Tuesday, RBI raised two key policy rates — repo rate and cash reserve ratio (CRR) — by 50 basis points (100 basis points = 1%).

Aimed at reining in an inflation rate that is now at a 13-year high of 11.05%, RBI raised the repo rate to 8.5% from 8% with immediate effect. It also decided to increase CRR from 8.25% to 8.75% in two stages. From July 5, CRR will be set at 8.50%, and from July 19, at 8.75%.

This is the second time in less than two weeks that RBI has raised the repo rate to contain inflation. It’s the rate at which banks borrow from RBI. A rise in repo rate will make it more expensive for banks to get money from RBI, which is likely to force them to charge customers a higher interest rate. On June 11, RBI had raised repo rate by 25 basis points. Last month, RBI had raised CRR by 50 basis points.

RBI’s rate hike decisions are expected to force banks to raise interest rates as well as deposit rates. Higher interest rates will affect those who wish to borrow to buy a house, a car, or consumer durables like fridge and television; it will also hurt those who have taken home loans on a floating rate basis. Higher rates also mean corporates now have to pay more as interest costs for their borrowings. "The question is not if rates will go up, but by how much," said a senior official with a domestic financial house.

Anil Ambani firm signs up Bachchans in Rs 1,500cr deal

Reliance Big Entertainment (RBE) seems to be getting bigger by the day. Days after reports of the Anil Ambani firm planning to infuse about $600 million into Hollywood bigwig Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks comes the news of a mega deal with the Bachchans.

Sources said the deal could be worth Rs 1,000-1,500 crore and would include film production, television series, reality shows, internet and mobile content besides live shows. RBE will look into the managerial, marketing and distribution of the projects in the deal while the creative inputs would come from the Bachchans.

Some of the directors who have been signed up to direct films for the joint venture are Cheeni Kum director R Balakrishnan, Sujoy Ghosh, Rohan Sippy and Dr Chandraprakash Dwivedi. A source from Reliance Adlabs said that more directors would soon be signed up for the joint venture.

Confirming the JV, a spokesperson for RGE said, "We are proud of the association with the Bachchan family. We are confident that the creative genius of the Bachchans and the business acumen of Reliance will create magic and take entertainment to a different level. The joint venture and our strategy to tie up with Indian and international creative talent will help the company build a new-age global entertainment conglomerate."

Amitabh Bachchan’s company AB Corp will facilitate the execution of the joint venture projects. Speaking to TOI , Bachchan Sr said, "We will provide the creative inputs and also share the profits. As of now, we plan to start with film projects and work in a way that will benefit us mutually. Also, they have given us the liberty to work outside and there is an unwritten understanding that we have the first right of refusal."Reliance Big Entertainment (RBE) seems to be getting bigger by the day. Days after reports of the Anil Ambani firm planning to infuse about $600 million into Hollywood bigwig Steven Spielberg’s DreamWorks comes the news of a mega deal with the Bachchans.

Nuclear deal or early polls, India may learn soon

India’s government and its communist allies meet on Wednesday over a civilian nuclear deal with the United States, in talks that could decide if the controversial energy pact or the ruling coalition survives.The communists, who prop up the ruling coalition in parliament, say they will bring the government down if it pushes through the pact, a threat that last year saw Prime Minister Manmohan Singh’s coalition delay a showdown over a deal.

The government’s non-communist coalition members, worried that inflation at a 13-year high could destroy their re-election chances in a snap poll, are pushing Singh to avoid a political confrontation and delay the deal.

But Singh is reluctant to publicly abandon a deal in which he has invested a lot of his personal reputation, giving rise to media speculation that he is now ready to sacrifice the Congress-led government with less than a year before polls.

"There is no doubt that the meeting is extremely crucial and we expect the Congress to formally announce its decision," said communist leader Nilotpal Basu.

Singh says the pact is vital to end India’s long exclusion from global civilian nuclear trade, and Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee described it as the "most potent means" for achieving energy security for Asia’s third-largest economy.

The communists claim the deal, which gives India access to U.S. nuclear fuel and technology, would damage India’s independent foreign policy and security.

SNAP POLLS?

The Congress party has played down the political importance of the deal, saying it is one issue among many.

"The prime minister has categorically stated that nuclear deal is one important agenda, but the future of the government does not depend on the nuclear deal alone," Veerappa Moily, a senior Congress leader, said.

While time runs out, the deal still needs clearances from the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) board of governors and the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group.

Then the deal would have to go to the U.S. Congress for final approval. But it may already be getting too late as the United States gears up for presidential elections.

"The reality, of course, is that every day that goes by is one less day on the legislative calendar for us to be able to have congressional action take place," U.S. State Department spokesman Tom Casey said.

"So it certainly gets harder every day that this is delayed."

Some analysts say the communists could allow the government to negotiate an India-specific safeguards agreement with the IAEA, and not let the deal go any further.

That would buy the government time and avoid early elections but leave the deal in limbo.

Snap polls are a possibility if Singh resigns, analysts say, but his party could also find a caretaker prime minister if it wanted to see out its term in office.

"At the moment, it seems unlikely that the government will risk their electoral prospects, especially keeping in mind the inflation," Basu said.

"There are differences on the deal even within the Congress, so they are unlikely to push ahead."

Oil prices won't come down: OPEC president

Oil prices "will not come down," OPEC president Chakib Khelil said Tuesday, assuring that the oil cartel has already done what it can on the matter. "OPEC has already done what OPEC can do and prices will not come down," Khelil told journalists as he arrived for a meeting with EU energy officials in Brussels.

Khelil says oil supply bigger than demand, over-production estimated at 500,000 barrels per day.
ALGIERS - OPEC’s acting president Chakib Khelil on Thursday ruled out an increase in production by the oil exporting group despite pressure on the cartel to help rein in record crude prices.

Khelil, who is Algeria’s energy minister, said OPEC "excludes resorting to an increase in production because at the moment supply is bigger than demand and there is over-production estimated at 500,000 barrels per day."

In comments made to the press, he explained that Iraq had increased its production and Saudi Arabian output had also gone up by 300,000 barrels per day.

The Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries would hold a planned meeting on September 9 "to proceed with an evaluation of the market and to take decisions likely to assure the stability of the market," he said.

He accepted that OPEC faced pressure to increase production to help soothe the tense market, but he said that "the fundamentals of the market are not influencing prices at the moment.

"The problem is the result of the economic crisis hitting the United States which has led to the depreciation of the dollar, as well as threats to Iran which constitute a source of geopolitical uncertainty."

The fall of the dollar has increased demand for crude from foreign buyers. The commodity is priced in dollars, so when the dollar falls it makes it cheaper for buyers using other currencies.

Khelil also said speculation by investors had played a part in higher prices.

He backed a proposed meeting of consumer and producing countries in Saudi Arabia on June 22.

Oil prices fell sharply on Thursday as the dollar strengthened on another highly volatile day on world oil markets.

New York’s main oil futures contract, light sweet crude for July delivery, slumped 4.00 dollars to 132.42 dollars per barrel.

The contract had surged by five dollars the previous day in response to a US government report that showed American crude reserves dipped for a fourth week running.

Brent North Sea crude for July delivery sank 2.72 dollars to 132.30 dollars.

Employees or email-slaves?

While Internet and emails may be boosting co-ordination among workers in an organisation, but on the flip side, they are also increasingly making people slaves to the electronic form of communication and offices less efficient, says an email consultant.

Email Management Solutions managing director Sharon MacNevin said that there is 40 per cent increase in email use per year since 1996.

’’It has grown wild and out of control. Searching for emails can be one of the biggest time wasters,’’ Theage.com.au quoted Sharon, as saying.

Email Management Solutions is a consulting firm that trains businesses on the best ways to reducing time checking inboxes and using workers’ time more effectively in the office. It has found that on an average, an employee spends 14.5 hours a week reading and responding to email.

"That is over two hours a day just reading and replying to your emails,’’ said Sharon.

She further added that workers were not ’’time managing’’ now. She pointed out that before the introduction of email, employees would collect the daily mail from their pigeonhole, and may be the morning mail used to contain internal memos.

"You sorted thorough that mail, worked out what was the priority and what was not important. That was effective management of communication, and we did it well,’’ she said.

Also, she said that memos were written in a concise way, so that everyone understood it, unlike today’s wayward use of email.

"You were told the style of the memo was all about, and it was part of your induction program. There are few protocols as to how you stylise your email, on what you can say. There are email policies about language and no sexual intonations,’’ she said.

She even pointed to the culture of ’NRN’ - No Reply Necessary - on the sent email, in order to avoid replying a ’thanks’ via email.

"NRN gives the person the right not to send a message they got it or not to acknowledge it. You would never go into the tea-room and say thanks to 20 people for the email, would you? Or send a thanks for a memo’’ she said.

Also keeping a regular check on a worker’s email breaks down time management skills and reduces a worker’s productivity.

"If you go from the work at hand and see a little pop up that says you have a new email, you are more than likely going to get trapped and you’ll be in the email cycle. It could take up to a good 20 minutes before you get back to the same point in concentration you were at with the work beforehand,” she said.

Working overtime can give you the blues

Employees working overtime are more likely to face depression and anxiety, according to a new study.

The study led by Elisabeth Kleppa of the University of Bergen, Norway, has revealed that people working for longer hours are at a greater risk of developing depression and anxiety. During the study, the researchers analysed the data on work hours from a larger study of Norwegian men and women.

Symptoms of anxiety and depression were assessed using a standard screening questionnaire and scores were compared for 1,350 workers who worked overtime, 41 to 100 hours per week; and approximately 9,000 workers who worked normal hours, 40 hours or less.

They found that overtime was associated with higher anxiety and depression scores among both men and women.

The scores showed that "possible" depression increased from about nine percent for men with normal work hours to 12.5 percent for those who worked overtime, while in women, the rate of possible depression increased from seven to eleven percent.

In both sexes, rates of possible anxiety and depression were higher among workers with lower incomes and for less-skilled workers. The relationship between overtime and anxiety/depression was strongest among men who worked for 49 to 100 hours per week. Men working more than 48 hours per week are at a higher of mental distress.

The study appears in the June Journal of Occupational and Environmental Medicine, official publication of the American College of Occupational and Environmental Medicine (ACOEM).

How to tell her you love her

Telling her “I love you” is a big step in building a relationship. There are many ways of doing it, but make sure you mean it before you say it to your girlfriend. Plan it all well. Here’s how you can go about it...

FIRST STEP: Decide on when and where you want to tell her. Would you like to do it in a special place? Do you want to say it to her on a certain day? Maybe if her birthday is coming up soon, you’d like to wait and finally propose to her on that special day. You might want to tell her at the restaurant where you went the first time.

SECOND STEP: You have to set the mood and be romantic. Buy her flowers. Flowers often say a lot. You could also buy her a romantic gift, something she would love.

THIRD STEP: Look at her directly, take her hand and tell her how positive you feel about her. Give her examples of things you really like about her. Be
sincere.

FOURTH STEP: In your conversation, convey to her how you feel being with her and how much you enjoy your time together. Be specific about what you value and appreciate about being with her.

FIFTH STEP: Follow these positive statements with telling her you love her in whatever way feels best for you. For instance, “I feel I’ve come to love you” or “I realise I love you” or “I feel so much love for you” or “I’ve fallen in love with you” or simply “I love you.” But hey, don’t hesitate and not say it at all. It’s your big day, be calm and tell her what you feel. After all, there’s been so much preparation you’ve made for this moment. In all probability, she will smile and accept your proposal.

Does online dating end in failure?

Internet dating, which sparks such a rush of emotions between people even before they have met, often ends in disappointment and failure. According to a new study, the initial spate of replies a person gets on net dating sites makes them seem very popular.

The kind of attention is a lot more “than if they had walked into a bar”, said Matthew Bambling of the Queensland University of Technology, who led the study,

“It gives a feeling of being powerful. The online environment doesn’t have the conventions and context of a real life meeting and so online interactions can have a bigger impact on a person,” Bambling noted.

He said this lack of inhibition that online interactions allow means some people are carried away by their feelings and “don’t use their heads as they would in normal social situations when meeting people”.

Bambling said he has seen people in counselling regarding the consequences of making emotional investments in people they had been emailing after meeting them on line.

“They often become quickly emotionally involved and invest in the other person before meeting. After meeting they move too fast because an emotional relationship actually started when they began interacting online before meeting, in which time they build up a fantasy view of the other person,” he said.

“When they do meet, often the other person is not always what they had imagined but if they are already emotionally invested they go out anyway. They can end up wasting a lot of time trying to make it work.”

Bambling said to avoid pitfalls in online dating people should arrange to meet up after the first few e-mails. This helps to avoid over-investing emotionally or building up a fantasy about the other person.

“The main thing to remember is to make real-life contact as soon as possible if you are interested in someone because it is here that you will know if a relationship is a possibility.”

Men and women 'think differently'

A new study has shown that women and men may actually think in different ways, by finding that there are subtle genetic variations between their brains. Researchers from Uppsala University, Karolinska Institute, and the University of Chicago, have determined that there are hundreds of biological differences between the sexes when it comes to gene expression in the cerebral cortex of humans and other primates.

The findings suggest that some of these differences arose a very long time ago and have been preserved through the evolution of primates.

These conserved differences constitute a signature of sex differences in the brain, the researchers said. More obvious gender differences have been preserved throughout primate evolution; examples include average body size and weight, and genitalia design.

This novel study focuses on gene expression within the cerebral cortex – that area of the brain that is involved in such complex functions in humans and other primates as memory, attentiveness, thought processes, and language.

For the study, the researchers measured gene expression in the brains of male and female primates from three species: humans, macaques, and marmosets.

To measure activity of specific genes, the products of genes (RNA) obtained from the brain of each animal were hybridized to microarrays containing thousands of DNA clones coding for thousands of genes.

The authors also investigated DNA sequence differences among primates for genes showing different levels of expression between the sexes.

The results suggested that variation in expression of genes in the brain might be an important component of behavioural variation within as well as between species.

The differences could also explain sex variations in mental health and neurological diseases: women, for instance, are more at risk of depression and Alzheimer’s, the authors noted.

"Knowledge about gender differences is important for many reasons. For example, this information may be used in the future to calculate medical dosages, as well as for other treatments of diseases or damage to the brain," said Professor Elena Jazin of Uppsala University.

Lead author Björn Reinius noted that the study does not determine whether these differences in gene expression are in any way functionally significant. Such questions remain to be answered by future studies.

Anil Ambani eyes coal-to-fuel block -paper

India’s Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) is looking to bid for mines that will be used to convert coal to liquid fuel, the Mint newspaper reported on Tuesday, citing an unnamed group official.The group has short listed an Australian firm and an American company as technology partners and could bid for three coal-to-liquid blocks in Orissa, the newspaper said.

Group spokesman Venkatesh Somayaji declined comment on the report.

The newspaper said the move could open another front in an ongoing battle between Anil Ambani and his elder brother Mukesh, whose energy group Reliance Industries Ltd, was also in the fray for the blocks.

Reliance Industries had this month claimed it had a right of first refusal for Reliance Communications, controlled by Anil, after the mobile operator began exclusive talks with South Africa’s MTN Group to create an emerging market telco that would rank in the global top 10.

The estranged brothers have sparred since they reached a settlement in 2005 that divided the Reliance business empire between the two.

ADAG has interests in telecoms, power, construction, financial services and entertainment.

Record crude oil prices have kicked up interest in proven technologies such as coal-to-liquid.

Is she not warming up to you?

Your rush hour ends when...you reach home
You’ve rushed home, travelling in the packed metro, rush through dinner to rush between the sheets. You do not even bother to switch on the bedside lights, hurriedly talk dirty and start angling in the dark. You are in such a rush that you do not even realise that she is not ready yet. Have you forgotten the most important rule you learnt when you set out in the first place — that women take time to warm up and cool down. Let’s face it; she still has morsels of the caramel custard you had for dessert clinging to her lower lip. Rather than use that to further the play of love, you are going for the kill right away. If you do not stop in your tracks now, she will be put off sex (with you) for a long time.

You’re not acting in a porn film
Porn sites, even the classic Kamasutra, can teach you a lot. But it’s impossible to master all those painful contortions. Sexologists will tell you that while sex can be flirtatious and meaningless even among committed people, the best moments are those that have some heart.

Dude, ensure that she is comfortable and do not treat her like a porn star. There are two off shoots of this: either she will be completely repelled by your constant requests or may actually turn into ‘rasadevi’ in the bedroom.

Are you being too gentle?
You are a gentleman. She loved that about you right at the beginning. That’s what drew her to you. She loves the fact that you are a conscientious lover; gentle all the way. But (and this might confuse you, as we have just told you that gentleness does take a man a long way in a relationship) women do like it when a man takes charge. Your courtly love is not getting you far. You have made her feel safe and secure with all your genteelness, but c’mon, be a man. Mix up that gentle-lover attitude with some Tarzan-tactics. Arrive at a middle ground to get anywhere close to her heart.

Remember Chandler from Friends?
This is straight off Friends. And is relevant to many men who are a few years into a relationship. In one of the episodes, Joey remarks what a lazy lover Chandler is after he and Monica emerge from a round in the bedroom. Joey can tell what a lazy lover his friend is by the way his hair is plastered flat at the back of his head. Lesson number four for you. Guys, there can be nothing more annoying than being with a non-active lover. Whatever happened to caressing and petting through the act? Or would you rather that she cuddle up with the pillow. Let it be known, many women find that very comforting. The pillow does not talk garbage not does it cavort clumsily around the four-poster.

Finally, where’s the innovation, dude?
When was the last time you were inventive? For most women, sex is not so much about the act as it is about the anticipation. Put on some music, read to her, draw a warm bath and light up some aroma candles as a welcome back home from work surprise, or have dinner ready; basically create an atmosphere of romance. Most men dismiss this
as being overly girly and a dent to their machismo. Let it be known, most women find a hint of the artistic in men very flattering. And then of course, sex.

Inflation India's biggest challenge, says FM

Finance Minister P Chidambaram considers inflation the country’s biggest challenge today and regards becoming an open market as the way forward. Expressing concern at "the relentless rise" of crude oil, commodity and food prices, he put partial blame for the rising food prices on the "foolish" diversion of food to fuel. But he did not name the US, where food crops like corn are used for making ethanol.

Speaking to a private news channel on Sunday night, the finance minister said, "Food prices have also been on the rise thanks to foolish diversion of food to fuel".

Chidambaram also did not think that recent acts of terrorist violence would affect the investment climate in India.

"Please remember, terrorist violence has affected bigger cities like London, Madrid, Tokyo, New York," he told the show host Erin Burnett discussing India’s economic challenges.

"If terrorist violence, terrorist action affects any city in India, it concerns all of us but that does not mean that investment has been jeopardised or is in peril," Chidambaram said. "India’s biggest challenge now is inflation."

India is building thousands of kilometres of roads, power plants, refineries and sea ports, he said referring to investment in infrastructure. "But surely the way forward is to become an open market."

Indian Commerce and Industry Minister Kamal Nath, too, viewed infrastructure as "also a big challenge for us to keep pace with our growth."

Infrastructure is just not roads, ports and airports, but also rural roads, which connect villages, drinking water, health and access to medical facilities.

Envisaging large investment in infrastructure over the next five years, he said: "It is happening. We have to have huge investments in energy sector, ports. So that’s all happening, that’s on the anvil."

Asked how long controls on foreign investment would stay, Kamal Nath noted that retail is one of the very few sectors which are not open. "Rest are all absolutely open and we are taking in investments."

Obviously because of liberalisation, foreign direct investment (FDI) had grown from $2.2 billion four years ago to 25 billion this year, he said.

Asked if India could remain self-sufficient in food in view of its growing population, Kamal Nath said: "We have been self-sufficient except in edible oil and lentils, which are imported. And unless we have a monsoon failure, we don’t see a problem even with these growing numbers."

Comparing India and China, the minister said: "We call ourselves the fastest growing free market economy. And there are differences in governance too." And while India’s growth story is domestic market-driven, China’s growth story is export market-driven.

"But China has its own genius, we have our own genius," Kamal Nath said noting the two countries have good relations even as they compete with each other

India's mobile user base to hit 560 mn

India along with other BRIC countries is likely to become home to over 1.7 billion mobile users by 2012 driven by emergent middle class, with 680 million users expected to be addicted to net surfing through their handsets, a latest report says.

Out of the 1.7 billion expected subscribers in BRIC (Brazil, Russia, India and China) nations, India is likely to have 560 million mobile users, while China is expected to top the chart with 800 million, a report by eMarketers said.

India would be followed by Russia with 189 million users and Brazil at 176 million.

At present, India has over 270 million mobile users and is adding over eight million subscribers every month.

Out of the 560 million mobile users, about 53 per cent or about 298 million subscribers would use mobile internet, while China would have 40 per cent or 320 million mobile internet users.

"Mobile is the internet for an increasingly large and attractive consumer segment an important distinction for marketers to keep in mind," said John du Pre Gauntt, Senior Analyst and author of the report ’Mobile BRIC: Extreme Growth Ahead.’

According to the report, BRIC region represents the next great growth curve for both mobile and interactive marketing industries and forms the core of an emergent global middle class population that would cross 1 billion by 2015.

"As these huge populations within BRIC accumulate disposable income, they are poised to form interactive relationships with local and global brands primarily through mobile phone," Gauntt said.

"With PC and broadband penetration far below that of mobile, marketers and mobile operators find themselves in uncharted territory," he added.

Five of the world’s 10 largest cities are located in BRIC, along with four of the top five Markets for new mobile subscribers. Rapid growth in entertainment and media consumption in the BRIC countries is important for marketers looking to interact with mobile consumers.

Obama offers plan to crack down on oil speculation

U.S. Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama proposed on Sunday new steps to tackle energy market speculation that has been blamed for runaway oil costs.The plan comes as the high cost of gasoline has become a major concern for the economy and U.S. consumers as well as a top theme in the election race between Obama and his Republican rival in the November election, John McCain.

Among other measures, the plan would require U.S. energy futures to trade on regulated exchanges, Obama’s campaign said in a statement.

The campaign also said Obama backed legislation that would direct the Commodity Futures Trading Commission to investigate proposals such as increasing margin requirements in the market.

The Illinois senator also wants to see more transparency and oversight of institutional investors in the commodities markets.

"I think everyone believes there’s too much speculation in the oil markets," said New Jersey Gov. Jon Corzine, an Obama ally who announced the proposals in a conference call with reporters. "A lot of the price of oil, I think, people put at the doorstep of speculators bidding up and holding supplies off the market."

Obama said last week he was concerned about irregularities in the oil markets.

McCain’s campaign accused Obama of following the Republican candidate’s lead to close a loophole it said was signed into law by Democratic President Bill Clinton.

"John McCain has supported bipartisan efforts to close this loophole and will work to address abuses in oil speculation," McCain spokesman Tucker Bounds said. "Barack Obama has voted the party line for Democrats who claim the loophole is fixed."

Obama’s proposal comes as U.S. lawmakers have been discussing ways to limit speculation in crude oil futures, including regulation of overseas trading in a benchmark U.S. oil contract.

The Commodity Futures Trading Commission, the top U.S. futures market regulator, has promised to boost surveillance of energy trading by tracking index funds and getting more information on oil contracts based on American crude that are traded in the United Kingdom.

But Sen. Maria Cantwell, a Washington Democrat, has called the regulator "toothless tiger" and said Congress will need to act if the CFTC does not pursue the matter aggressively enough.

Oil prices have doubled in the past year as big funds have poured money into commodities, seeking a hedge against inflation and the weaker dollar. The hot money has helped extend a six-year rally in oil, as supplies have failed to keep pace with surging demand in emerging economies like China.

Obama’s announcement came as major producers, consumers and leading oil company executives gathered for an emergency meeting in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, on ways to rein in runaway oil prices. Host Saudi Arabia vowed to pump yet more oil, but said that alone would not be enough to calm the market.

Eat a big breakfast to reduce weight

Want to shed those extra pounds? Well, all you need to do is start eating a big breakfast, according to a new study. The study, conducted by Dr Daniela Jakubowicz from Virginia Commonwealth University, found that women who eat half of their daily calories first thing in the morning lose more weight in the long term than those who start the day with a small breakfast.

For the study, researchers compared the ‘big breakfast’ diet with a strict low-carb weight-loss regime.

The study was conducted with 96 obese and physically inactive women.

The low-carb diet involved 1,085 calories a day - the majority of these coming from protein and fat.

Breakfast here was the smallest meal of the day - just 290 calories, with just seven grams of carbohydrates.

Jakubowicz’s ‘big breakfast’ diet involved more calories - 1,240 - with a lower proportion of fat and more carbohydrates and protein.

Breakfast here was 610 calories, with 58 grams of carbohydrates, while lunch and dinner were 395 and 235 calories respectively.

After four months, the strict low-carb diet caused an average weight loss of 28 pounds; the big-breakfast version cut 23 pounds.

However, eight months later, the situation reversed, with the low-carb dieters putting an average of 18 of those pounds back on, while the big breakfasters continued to lose weight, on average 16.5 pounds each.

They lost a fifth of their total body weight on average, as compared to less than 5 percent for the low-carb dieters.

Jakubowicz reported that the big breakfasters said they felt less hungry, particularly in the mornings.

"Most weight loss studies have determined that a very low carbohydrate diet is not a good method to reduce weight," BBC quoted her, as saying.

"It exacerbates the craving for carbohydrates and slows metabolism - as a result, after a short period of weight loss, there is a quick return to obesity," she added.

Jakubowicz said that the bigger breakfast helped by making people feel fuller during the day, and was healthier, because it allowed more fibre and fruit to be included.

A spokesman for the British Nutrition Foundation said that there was evidence that a king-size breakfast could help dieters.

"Research shows that eating breakfast can actually help people control their weight," she said.

"This is probably because when we don’t have breakfast we’re more likely to get hungry before lunch and snack on foods that are high in fat and sugar, such as biscuits, doughnuts or pastries," she added.

The findings were presented at a San Francisco conference.

Is your partner addicted to porn?

Does your partner spend excessive amount of time on the Internet? Has he or she become less social as compared to before? Well, then you may have to stay a bit alert for these are some of the signs indicating your partner has slipped into the porn trap.

What constitutes a porn addiction or compulsion is a hotly contested issue, and therefore knowing the symptoms is extremely important, reports Fox News.

1. Your partner is not as social as he used to be
He has little interest in socializing with you or making time for others, including his family. He is excusing himself from activities, has unexplained absences, and is not able to account for his time.

2. Your partner lacks interest in sex or is sexually unresponsive
A decrease in physical affection and non-sexual touch is among the signs. If you have sex, it’s because you are the one initiating it. Your partner is having trouble becoming sexually aroused.

3. Your partner is being uncharacteristically demanding or rough during sex
You’re pressurized to engage in sexual activities that are either physically or emotionally uncomfortable. Your partner is using atypical sexual language, seems to be objectifying you and he has no qualms about it.

4. Your partner does not seem ‘present’
Your lover has become emotionally distant during sex. You’re starting to feel sexually rejected or neglected. In or out of the bedroom, you and your partner can no longer describe yourselves as emotionally intimate.

5. Your partner has started to nit-pick your appearance
Your partner seems more and more concerned about your appearence, and if you’re sexually attractive ‘enough.’ He might make cutting remarks about your weight or shape. He’s also making insensitive sexual comments, which make you feel like a sex object.

6. You feel like you’re no longer getting straight answers from your lover
You suspect that much of what is being said these days are white lies. He’s defensive when asked about porn use, yet you are finding evidence of hiding, lying, and secretive behavior, including porn materials you didn’t know about.

7. Your partner is practically wed to the Internet
He spends more and more time on the computer, often demanding privacy and/or changing his bedtime ritual.

8. You’ve noticed a change in your partner’s demeanor
Your partner just doesn’t seem like himself. He has trouble calming down and sleeping. His moods and interests are different.

Indian shares hit 2008 low as inflation tops 11 pct

Indian shares were knocked to their lowest level in 2008 on Friday by a surge in inflation to a 13-year high above 11 percent, with Reliance Industries, telecoms and banks bearing the brunt of investor despair.

The 30-share main BSE index ended down 3.42 percent 14,571.29 points, its lowest close in 10 months, after it had risen as much as 0.7 percent before the market was sideswiped by the inflation data. Only one share in the index closed stronger.

"It is not surprising the market has taken it badly with people already starting to think about higher interest rates and other tightening measures," said Andrew Holland, head of strategic risk group at DSP Merrill Lynch in India.

Inflation rate rose 11.05 percent in the 12 months to June 7, its highest since May 1995 and well above market forecasts, as higher fuel prices fed into the data.

The central bank last week raised interest rates for the first time in more than a year to contain inflationary expectations, having relied on raising banks’ reserve requirements over the last 18 months, and Friday’s data had the market factoring in further tightenings.

The market fell as far as 14,520.88 on Friday, its lowest since Aug last year. It lost 4.1 percent on the week, a fifth successive weekly fall that brought up its longest losing streak in 15 months, and is down 28.2 percent in 2008.

Bank shares fell on expectations of further monetary tightening by the central bank to contain inflation expectations.

Top lender State Bank of India fell 4.11 percent to 1,247.50 rupees, its lowest close in a year. No. 2 ICICI Bank dropped 2.5 percent to 734.65 rupees and HDFC Bank dropped 1.9 percent to 10-month closing low of 1,099 rupees.

Top listed firm Reliance Industries, which has the heaviest weighting in the benchmark index, fell 6.6 percent to 2,096.60 rupees, its lowest close in nine months, on heavy selling by funds, traders said.

No. 2 mobile operator Reliance Communications lost 6.7 percent to 512.30 rupees, its lowest close in over two months. It lost 9.6 percent in the week on worries that a family feud could delay or derail a multi-billion dollar tie-up with South Africa’s MTN.

State-run explorer Oil and Natural Gas Corp rose 1.5 percent to 866.85 rupees ahead of its earnings on June 25, buoyed by recent upgrades by CLSA and JP Morgan. Net profit is seen rising 61 percent on high oil prices, a Reuters poll showed.

In the broader market, 2,248 losers led 448 gainers on volume of more than 278 million shares.

The 50-share NSE index fell 3.48 percent to 4,347.55, its lowest close in 10 months.

Elsewhere in the region, the Karachi’s 100-share index fell 1.82 percent to 11,655.28, its lowest close in more than 14 months, while Colombo’s All share index gained 1.11 percent to 2,459.98, its biggest daily rise in a month snapping a nine-day losing streak.

STOCKS THAT MOVED

*Hindalco fell 6.4 percent to a three-month closing low of 161 rupees on concerns of earnings dilution from a rights issue. The aluminium maker set a one for three rights share issue to help replace a bridge loan it took to help funds its $5.9 billion purchase of Canada’s Novelis last year.

* Abbot India rose 3.7 percent to a five-month closing high of 555 rupees ahead of its results for the quarter ending May.

* Auto makers Maruti Suzuki India, Ashok Leyland, Tata Motors and Hero Honda Motors fell on worries a policy response to inflation would hit demand for vehicles.

MAIN TOP 3 BY VOLUME

* Reliance Natural Resources Ltd 13.3 million shares.

* IFCI on 12.8 million shares.

* Niraj Cement (NIRC.BO: Quote, Profile, Research) on 11.7 million shares.

Dasavathaaram, chaos theory & commodity markets

God does not play with the dice. Kamal Haasan-starrer Dasavathaaram movie is making waves. The basic concept behind the movie is Chaos Theory and application of Chaos Theory.

In mathematics, chaos theory describes the behavior of certain dynamical systems. That is, systems whose state evolves with time – that may exhibit dynamics that are highly sensitive to initial conditions (popularly referred to as the butterfly effect). As a result of this sensitivity, which manifests itself as an exponential growth of perturbations in the initial conditions, the behavior of chaotic systems appears to be random. This happens even though these systems are deterministic, meaning that their future dynamics are fully defined by their initial conditions, with no random elements involved. This behavior is known as deterministic chaos, or simply chaos.

Chaotic behaviour is also observed in natural systems, such as the weather. This may be explained by a chaos-theoretical analysis of a mathematical model of such a system, embodying the laws of physics that are relevant for the natural system.

Chaotic behavior has been observed in the laboratory in a variety of systems including electrical circuits, lasers, oscillating chemical reactions, fluid dynamics, and mechanical and magneto-mechanical devices. Observations of chaotic behaviour in nature include the dynamics of satellites in the solar system, the time evolution of the magnetic field of celestial bodies, population growth in ecology, the dynamics of the action potentials in neurons, and molecular vibrations. Every day examples of chaotic systems include weather and climate. There is some controversy over the existence of chaotic dynamics in the plate tectonics and in economics.

Systems that exhibit mathematical chaos are deterministic and thus orderly in some sense; this technical use of the word chaos is at odds with common parlance, which suggests complete disorder. A related field of physics called quantum chaos theory studies systems that follow the laws of quantum mechanics. Recently, another field, called relativistic chaos,has emerged to describe systems that follow the laws of general relativity.

As well as being orderly in the sense of being deterministic, chaotic systems usually have well defined statistics.For example, the Lorenz system pictured is chaotic, but has a clearly defined structure. Bounded chaos is a useful term for describing models of disorder

Chaos theory is applied in many scientific disciplines: mathematics, biology, computer science, economics, engineering, finance, philosophy, physics, politics, population dynamics, psychology, and robotics.

One of the most successful applications of chaos theory has been in ecology, where dynamical systems such as the Ricker model have been used to show how population growth under density dependence can lead to chaotic dynamics.

Chaos theory is also currently being applied to medical studies of epilepsy, specifically to the prediction of seemingly random seizures by observing initial conditions.

Coming to Derivatives markets and more specifically our commodity futures markets,

Network effect Network Externalities and the two sided Network : The macro economic purpose and existence of derivatives markets. Network effect is a term used narrowly to describe business phenomena, or more broadly to describe non-business phenomena.

In the narrow usage, a network effect is a characteristic that causes a good or service to have a value to a potential customer which depends on the number of other customers who own the good or are users of the service. In other words, the number of prior adopters is a term in the value available to the next adopter.

One consequence of a network effect is that the purchase of a good by one individual indirectly benefits others who own the good — for example by purchasing a telephone a person makes other telephones more useful. This type of side-effect in a transaction is known as an externality in economics, and externalities arising from network effects are known as network externalities. The resulting bandwagon effect is an example of a positive feedback loop.

Stock exchanges and derivatives exchanges feature a network effect. Market liquidity is a major determinant of transaction cost in the sale or purchase of a security, as a bid-ask spread exists between the price at which a purchase can be done versus the price at which the sale of the same security can be done. As the number of buyers and sellers on an exchange increases, liquidity increases, and transaction costs decrease. This then attracts a larger number of buyers and sellers to the exchange.

The network advantage of financial exchanges is apparent in the difficulty that startup exchanges have in dislodging a dominant exchange. For example, the Chicago Board of Trade has retained overwhelming dominance of trading in US Treasury Bond futures despite the startup of Eurex US trading of identical futures contracts. Similarly, the Chicago Mercantile Exchange has maintained a dominance in trading of Eurobond interest rate futures despite a challenge from Euronext.Liffe.

There are two kinds of economic value to be concerned about when thinking of network effects:

Inherent — my value from me using the product
Network — my value from you using the product

Network value itself can be direct or indirect.

Direct network value is an immediate result of other users adopting the same system. Some examples of this are fax machines and email.

Indirect is a secondary result of many people using the same system. For example, complementary goods are cheaper or more available when many people adopt a standard. Toner may be cheaper for widely used printers.

Negative and positive network effectsPositive network effects are obvious. More people means more interaction.Negative network effects beyond lock-in also exist.

Negative network effects result from resource limits. Consider the connection that overloads the freeway or trading portals — or the competition for bandwidth. In fact, the automobile and ethernet congestion examples illustrate that there can be threshold limits. In this case, the n+1 person begins to decrease the value of a network if additional resources are not provided.The result is that in some networks there is an exclusion value. This is clear to anyone who has considered problems of authentication or trust on the modern internet.

Another negative network effect is provider complacency. The absence of viable competitors in a successful network can cause a provider to restrict resources, consider fee increases, monopolistic tantrums or otherwise create an environment contrary to the end as well as intermediary users’ benefit.

These situations are typically accompanied by vocal complaints from the users. (In a competitive environment the users would simply change vendors rather than complain.)

Classic examples are the United States Postal Service or telephone companies during the 1960s and 1970s. More recent examples include the National Stock Exchange of India, Microsoft’s operating system and Ebay’s auction site.

Two-sided markets, also called two-sided networks, are economic networks having two distinct user groups that provide each other with network benefits.

Example markets include our commodity derivatives markets comprised of commercials(hedgers,producers,supply lines or people who have an inherent commercial implication of the markets) and non commercials(investors,speculators,traders and arbitrageurs , who are there only for a profit motive),credit cards, comprised of cardholders and merchants; HMOs (patients and doctors); operating systems (end-users and developers), travel reservation services (travelers and airlines); video games (gamers and game developers); and communication networks, such as the Internet. Benefits to each group exhibit demand economies of scale. Consumers, for example, prefer credit cards honored by more merchants, while merchants prefer cards carried by more consumers.

Structural Characteristics
In some networks, users are homogeneous, that is, they all perform similar functions. For example, although participants in a telephone network originate and receive calls, these roles are transient. Almost all phone users play both roles at different times. Likewise, almost all instant messaging, FAX, and email users both. Networks with homogenous users are called one-sided to distinguish them from two-sided networks, which have two distinct user groups whose respective members consistently play the same role in transactions.

In a two-sided network, members of each group exhibit a preference regarding the number of users in the other group; these are called cross-side network effects. Each group’s members may also have preferences regarding the number of users in their own group; these are called same-side network effects. Cross-side network effects are usually positive, but can be negative (as with consumer reactions to advertising or with non commercial in derivatives markets losing money on zero sum transactions).

Same-side network effects may be either positive (e.g., the benefit from swapping video games with more peers) or negative (e.g., the desire to exclude direct rivals from an online business-to-business marketplace). Figure 1 depicts these relationships.
In two-sided networks, users on each side typically require very different functionality from their common platform. In derivatives markets for example the commercial user are participating in order to reduce is inherent risk in his actual business whereas the non commercial has only the motive to profit out of the same.

Other examples include credit card networks, for example, consumers require a unique account, a plastic card, access to phone-based customer service, a monthly bill, etc. Merchants require terminals for authorizing transactions, procedures for submitting charges and receiving payment, “signage” (decals that show the card is accepted), etc. Given these different requirements, platform providers may specialize in serving users on just one side of a two-sided network.

Srinivasan Venkataraghavan is Chief Executive Officer, Altos Advisory Services

Too much TV viewing leads to obesity

Too much television viewing makes you not only dull but also obese, according to a Canadian study. The study, ’Sedentary Behaviour and Obesity’, has found a strong link between the number of hours spent watching television and the likelihood of being obese.

Based on the 2007 Canadian Community Health Survey involving 42,600 men and women aged 20 to 64, the study found that more time spent watching television increased obesity among both sexes.

"When factors such as age, marital status, education, household income, immigrant status and urban-rural residence were taken into account, the odds of obesity among men and women who reported watching television 21 or more hours a week were almost twice the odds for men and women who averaged five hours or fewer in front of the tube," Statistics Canada said, quoting the study.

The study also found link between time spent on computer and obesity among both sexes. It concluded: "Frequent computer users (11 or more hours per week) of both sexes had increased odds of obesity, compared with those who used computers for five or fewer hours per week."

It also found that even leisure-time computer use contributed to obesity among men and women.

"When age and other socio-demographic characteristics were taken into account, those who used computers for at least six hours a week had increased odds of being obese, compared with those who averaged no more than five hours," the study reported.

Curiously, the study found no link between reading (another sedentary activity) and obesity for either sex.

The study is line with other previous studies that have linked television viewing to obesity, irrespective of physical activity and dietary intake.

Bad boys get the girls: Study

Scientists have now confirmed what good guys always knew: bad boys get the girls. Researchers have shown that across cultures it really does pay to have a mean streak - with callous, self-obsessed, deceitful men proving the biggest hit with the opposite sex.

The findings, reported at the Human Behaviour and Evolution Society meeting in Kyoto, Japan, may help to explain why anti-social personality traits, known as the "dark triad", could have an upside: a prolific sex life.

"James Bond epitomises this set of traits. He’s clearly disagreeable, very extroverted and likes trying new things - killing people, new women," said study author Peter Jonason of New Mexico State University in Las Cruces.

"It is universal across cultures for high dark triad scorers to be more active in short-term mating," said David Schmitt of Bradley University in Peoria, Illinois, who also presented preliminary results at the same meeting from a survey of more than 35,000 people in 57 countries.

He said such people are more likely to try and poach other people’s partners for a brief affair.

Jonason and his colleagues subjected 200 college students to personality tests. Jonason found that those who scored higher on the "dark triad" personality traits tended to have more partners and more desire for short-term relationships, according to the study highlighted by New Scientist magazine.

But the correlation only held in males. The study shows that women who share the same personality traits do not enjoy the same success with the opposite sex.

Nice guys, however, need not lose all hope. Earlier studies have shown that while girls tend to like cads for flings, they usually settle down with more caring types.

Ten Things for India to Achieve its 2050 Potential

Goldman Sachs Group Inc, the world’s largest investment bank, has outlined 10 things for India to improve upon, in order to achieve its potential and grow 40 times by 2050. According to Goldman Sachs’ global research report on "Ten Things for India to Achieve its 2050 Potential," the world’s second fastest growing economy has the potential to even outgrow the US economy by 2050 provided it pays attention to the following ten fields:

(1) improve governance (2) raise educational achievement (3) increase quality and quantity of universities (4) control inflation (5) introduce a credible fiscal policy (6) liberalize financial markets (7) increase trade with neighbours (8) increase agricultural productivity (9) improve infrastructure and (10) improve environmental quality.

"Having the potential and actually achieving it are two separate things," the report says bluntly.

"Delivery of all these and more would ensure strong, persistent, medium-to-long-term growth, allowing India to reach its amazing potential," the report, written by Jim O’Neill, head (global research), Goldman Sachs, and Tushar Poddar, vice president (research), Asia Economic Research Team, Goldman Sachs India, said.

The report said India is ranked 110 out of 181 in Goldman’s "growth environment scores", a system that ranks the development climate in various countries. That puts it behind other emerging markets such as China, Brazil and Russia.

"Without better governance, delivery systems and effective implementation, India will find it difficult to educate its citizens, build its infrastructure, increase agricultural productivity and ensure that the fruits of economic growth are well established," the report said.

Goldman highlights India’s literacy rate, which is as low as 61 per cent. India is projected to add 310 million people -- about the population of the US -- to its population of 1.1billion by 2020, The Financial Times reported.

This implies a massive increase in public education spending; beyond the 3 per cent of gross domestic product it currently spends to upgrade its already faltering school and higher education systems.

The report also cites governance as one of India’s biggest issues. The problem is not too much democracy but too little. India’s public services suffer from a lack of accountability. In health, water and education the state is the regulator and provider of services, yet politicians are nowhere to be seen once they are elected.

On the economy, the government needs fixed targets for inflation and the fiscal deficit. India’s deficit, if it is combined with various off-budget subsidies, is one of the highest in the world and is projected to reach more than 7 per cent of GDP this financial year.

According to the investment bank, if India works harder on the necessary reforms and implements the changes, it could raise its economic growth potential annually by as much as 2.8 percent and reach double digit economic growth, which China has been able to record.

GES, introduced by the investment bank in December 2005, aims to summarize the overall structural conditions and policy settings for countries globally.

To arrive at a score on a scale of 10, Goldman Sachs looks at 13 variables including inflation, government deficit, external debt, investment rates, openness of the economy, penetration of personal computers, phones, Internet, education, life expectancy, political stability, rule of law and corruption.

Inflation in India @ 11:05% spooks Stock markets crash

Inflation has crossed all expectations with the figure rising to an unprecedented 11.05 percent for the week ended June 7, a 13 year high. This is expected to be on account of diesel and petrol price hikes announced in June 4.

The markets have taken huge beating after inflation numbers, which stood at 11.05% for the week ended June 7 as against 8.75% in earlier week. It is at 13-year high and the main reason was oil price hike, which happened at the end of last month.

Analysts say that we can see more action in the Repo and CRR rate. They say the RBI would come out with some measures on the rate and liquidity side much before the July policy.

The rate is now at the highest since May 6, 1995, when it was 11.11 percent.

The energy group index rose 7.8 percent in the week of June 7 when the government raised fuel prices.

Inflation for the week ended April 12 was revised upwards to 7.95 percent from 7.33 percent. The annual inflation rate was 4.28 percent during the corresponding week of the previous year.

The wholesale price index is more closely watched than the consumer price index, which is published monthly, because it covers a higher number of products and is published weekly.

This is a thirteen year high according to analysts. Many analysts had expected inflation to touch 10 percent soon after fuel price hike. Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram is expected to come out with the government’s view on the unexpected double digit inflation figure

The figures for inflation released last week did not take into account the recent hike in petrol and diesel prices which were effective only from June 4. Inspite of that inflation rose to a seven year high of 8.75% in the last week of May, as compared to 8.24% in the previous week. This is was the fastest rise in inflation since February 2001.

The latest inflation data led to a big fall in BSE sensex that dipped 339 points to previous close.

Now, red wine to fight obesity

A glass of red wine a day not only helps keep the heart healthy, but as it turns out, it can also help battle obesity. And if you are a teetotaller who would rather stay away from spirits, don’t fret because just eating grapes will also have the same effect.

As it turns out, the thing responsible for this fat fighting phenomenon is resveratrol, a compound present in grapes and red wine, according to a new study.

Researchers at the University of Ulm in Germany carried out a study to see whether past research of resveratrol protecting laboratory mice from the health problems of obesity, also applied to humans by changing the size or function of fat cells.

The German team used a strain of human fat cell precursors, called preadipocytes, which develop into mature fat cells. They found that resveratrol not only inhibited the pre-fat cells from increasing and prevented them from converting into mature fat cells, but that it also hindered fat storage.

What especially interested the boffins was that resveratrol reduced production of certain cytokines (interleukins 6 and 8), substances that may be linked to the development of obesity-related disorders, such as diabetes and clogged coronary arteries.

"Resveratrol has anti-obesity properties by exerting its effects directly on the fat cells. Thus, resveratrol might help to prevent development of obesity or might be suited to treating obesity," said the study’s lead author, Pamela Fischer-Posovszky, PhD, a pediatric endocrinology research fellow in the university’s Diabetes and Obesity Unit.

Top 10 annoying office habits!

Overbearing, obsessively rude, noisy, and opinionated – there are so many things that can be found annoying in that one person in office. So, what actually are some of the ‘universally’ bad behaviours for office work? Here’s a look at the top 10 annoying office habits...

1. Office drummers - There are lesser annoying office habits than the person who has to tap out a rhythm while waiting for their brain to submerge into the work they’re assigned.

2. Foghorn phone voice - The breed of office worker who raises their tone several decibels as soon as they pick up the phone.

3. Pod pong - Well, these are those people who marinate themselves in perfumes overnight.

4. Key smashers - All offices have at least one person who appears to think that to make the little symbols on their keyboard appear on the screen, they need to exert the force of an atomic bomb through the ends of their digits.

5. Paid for nothing - In this case, an employee gets paid for standing out in the sunshine chatting to wheezy and addicted mates while the fresh-lunged members of the workforce are indoors putting their mind to work.

6. Snot funny - What is it with people, who riddled with pleurisy, the bubonic plague or cancer of the entire body, still think it’s a good idea to come in to work? The world really won’t stop if that report doesn’t get finished and the boss more likely regards you as a mug than a martyr. Your work mates, of course, will shower you with love for ruining their plans for the weekend and keeping their kids out of school.

7. Lucifer’s lunch - Egg and mayonnaise sandwiches, tuna fishcakes, blue cheese with crackers, breakfast burritos with extra onion and chips with salt and vinegar – all food items which should be banned from the workplace, thanks to their smell.

8. Ringtone hell - This section includes all those people who play bits of their favourite heavy metal music collection from a speaker on their desk, via their mobile phone.

9. Space invaders - You distinctly remember hearing the boss bring your new work mate over to his or her work area and say, "This is your desk". The boss did not follow that up with the words, "but feel free to use your colleague’s desk for overspill if there’s not enough room for your inane gossip magazines and pictures of your 17 children".

10. Eau de underarm - There are fewer things more noxious than a damp-shirted male who, after working up a sweat running for the bus, is left to "mature" over a keyboard for eight hours.

Nifty market Find crucial support @ 4800

The Nifty is likely to consolidate between the range of 4600 to 4800 levels in coming trading session.Market is waiting for trendline breakout.On the higher side it may face resistance around 4800.Once it breaks upperside trendline next target 5000.On the downside 4600-4400levels is an immediate support

At 11:36 am, the Sensex was up 1 point at 15,697 and the Nifty up 9.45 points at 4,662. Market breadth is positive; 944 shares are advancing while 233 shares declining on the NSE.

Sugar stocks are trading sweetly. Buying seen in Bajaj Hind, Balrampur Chini, Dhampur Sugar, Dwarikesh Sugar, EID Parry, Oudh Sugar Mill, Rajshree Sugars, Sakthi Sugars, Shree Renuka and Upper Ganges

All you wanted to know about wines

India is no stranger to wine. Tracing the history of the drink, its origins can be found in old religious writings. During the Vedic period, wine was often referred to as ‘Somarasa’. Hindu Gods Indra and Varuna are believed to have tasted a mixture of wine and herbs as per the Yajurveda.

It’s no surprise that the drink is once again gaining popularity with Indians. Especially with rising incomes, people now have a reason to flaunt their affluence and there is no better way to do it than to be spotted swirling a glass of wine. Although the wine-growing culture in India is still in its nascent stage, its consumption is certainly witnessing a rapid growth.

However, for most of us, the names of wines like Sauvignon Blanc and Beaujolais may be no more than tongue twisters, but if you want to know your drink, here’s a low-down...

The wine connection

There are a host of wine clubs to help people learn more about wines, host wine tasting sessions and dinners, arrange vineyard visits and other wine-centric events for its members. The Wine Society of India, one of the oldest of these organisations may be just a decade old but has managed to attract people interested in wines. The Delhi Wine Club is another such organisation that allows people to connect with other wine drinkers by hosting events.

Ravi Sachdev, a businessman and a member of the Delhi Wine Club says, “I was a whisky drinker and it was the urge to try out something new and socialise that prompted me to become a member of the club. The club hosts wine tasting events and dinners where I get to taste wines from all over the world. I also get a lot of information on pairing wines with food.”

And for people who are reluctant to join one of these ‘clubs’, there are other options to explore. The very appropriately named Tulleeho, for instance, is a beverage service provider open to everyone. But not everyone can become a member of these clubs. “We have a screening committee and prefer having only those people who are already wine drinkers,” says Subhash Arora, president of the Delhi Wine Club.

“The wine culture in India is growing steadily without a doubt and its future is very rosy, but there is still a woeful lack of knowledge. At present, wine consumption is mainly in the metros but no longer confined only to the affluent consumer. Once Indians begin to enjoy wine with food and we can shop for wine like we buy our general provisions, we will reach the next level in our unfolding wine culture,” says Reva Singh publisher and editor of Sommelier India, the country’s only magazine dedicated to wines.

“The most important factor contributing to its growth is that India is producing some really good wines. Many of these wines are making an appearance abroad and are becoming increasingly popular as a natural extension of Indian cuisine," she adds

Types of wines

• Still wines – These are made by fermentation of juice extracted from grapes and can be classified as red, white and rose.
White wines may be both dry and sweet. They are usually made from white grapes and do not require much aging. These can be served chilled and used for everyday drinking. Red wines are generally made to taste dry. While some of them can be drunk young, like white wines, others improve with aging.
• Sparkling wines – These are wines with significant levels of carbon dioxide that make it fizzy. Sparkling wines vary in quality and character. They are usually white or rose. Some examples are Italian Brachetto and Australian sparkling Shiraz.
• Fortified wines – These wines have a small per cent of alcohol added before fermentation, leaving them sweet as the extra wine stops fermentation and deactivates the yeast. Fortified wines have a wide range of tastes, from austerely dry to sweet. Wines can be sweet when young and then mature to dryness.
• Aromatised wines – These generally have a little alcohol added in the form of brandy after fermentation leaving it dry as a result of consumption of sugar by the yeast.

Among the easily available wines in India are Sula and Grovers. Among foreign wines, you may try Italian, French, Chilean, Australian and Californian wines. You can get a variety of Indian wines starting from Rs 450 to Rs 700 and foreign wines within the range of Rs 2500 to Rs 7000.

“New world wines are easier to drink as they are young and less expensive as compared to old world wines, which keeps them in high demand,” says Arora.

“There has been 30 per cent yearly growth in wine consumption in India. We also see a lot of women and youngsters developing a liking for wines these days. I see a bright future for wine culture in India,” he adds.

And it’s not just the type of wine you are drinking, but also the glass that matters. The shape of the glass regulates the flow of wine and enhances its quality. To extract the aroma of a wine you need to swirl it in the glass. So now you know why red wine glasses have a shorter stem unlike the white wine glasses.

Pairing wines with food

Pairing wines with food is important. The best combinations are where the character of wine matches the flavour of the food. So, it is important to know the character of the wine. “The notion of pairing red wines with red meat and white whines with fish may not be true always. It depends on the preparation. Pairing of wines with cheese is also quite popular,” says Sachdev.

Wine drunk by itself tastes different than wine with food. In fact, wines can enhance the flavour of food. So, it’s essential to consider how the food is prepared. You can then pair the wine with the sauce, seasoning or dominant flavour of the dish. For example, spicy food or hot curries often work best with sweet desert wines.

...and music!

Not just food, but music too can influence the taste of wine, says a recent study by psychologists at a British university, which suggests which songs go well with which type of wine. Heavy rock music or Rolling Stones can be a good accompaniment to a Cabernet Sauvignon, for example. Music stimulates different parts of the brain and lets us perceive tastes in a similar way.

Flaunt your vino!

It’s not just your collection of wines you can show off, equally exciting is storing and serving it in style. There are a wide range of products available in the market that can help you flaunt your vino. From bottle stoppers, corkscrews, wine buckets to innovative wine racks, you can use them all to pamper yourself and your guests. What’s more – you can get them all from Rs 450 to Rs 25,000 depending on your budget.

So, what are you waiting for? Go and grab your drink and enjoy it with music, food or accessories and don’t forget to swirl it with style!

Depressed? Binge a little

Next time when you are a bit low on energy or in a depressive mood and you feel like gorging on all the sin-ful foods; just give in to the ‘Hunger’ urge and you’d feel better.Recent studies have shown that a certain hunger hormone called ghrelin, when released can help fight anxiety and stress related depression.

Scientists’ findings support the idea that these hunger hormones coordinate entire behavioural response to stress and probably affect the mood, stress and energy levels.

The ghrelin hormone is produced in the gastrointestinal tract when the body is fasting and it then plays a role in sending hunger signals to the brain. A new study on mice has found that chronic stress causes ghrelin levels to go up and that behaviours associated with depression and anxiety decrease when ghrelin levels rise.

However, an unfortunate side effect is increased food intake and body weight. While blocking the body’s response to ghrelin signals might be one way to help control weight, but this may actually increase anxiety and depression, which would be bad. Our ancestors had just one common notion which was securing enough food to prevent starvation.

They needed to be as calm and collected as possible when it was time to venture out in search of food, or risk becoming dinner themselves. This is where it is guessed that the anti-anxiety effects of hunger-induced ghrelin may have provided a survival advantage. Researchers are now interested to see whether ghrelin treatment could help people with anorexia nervosa, with the idea being that in a certain population, calorie restriction and weight loss could have an anti-depressant effect and could be reinforcing for this illness.

Sex: The Stress Buster

According to a survey, revealed at an Indian Psychiatrists Society (IPS) seminar held recently, more and more couples are turning away from sex simply because they are too tired after work. This is especially true of young couples in metros who are too busy running the rat race to devote time in the bedroom. The keeping up with the Joneses syndrome has overtaken all desire for physical intimacy.

So, is it time to push the alarm button? Yes, say experts who feel that physical intimacy between couples is the key to a happy and stress-free relationship. Sex is much more than just a physical act and is very important for one’s physical and emotional health. Some recent studies claim that sex practiced in a cozy atmosphere works as an effective stress buster.

Because of deep breathing and touching involved in sexual activities, our body produces hormones called ‘endorphins’. These hormones are also known as ‘feel-good’ hormones, because of the moment of pleasure they bring along. Therefore, sex does not only bring in a feeling of well-being but a calming effect too.

Shriya Gupta, a homemaker opines, “Though it’s only for a short period but sex actually relives you from all your worries and you feel much better. Not only intercourse but foreplay also helps in decreasing the stress level to a certain extent. Sex is a way of expressing your feelings with your physical self involved in it. I think it is a very romantic way of relaxing with your spouse. Above all, it really helps you in burning so many calories.”

Many individuals believe that because of their healthy sex life, they feel more emotionally involved with their partner. However, we cannot forget that only pleasurable sex can increase the sense of attachment between couples.

Noted psychiatrist Dr Sameer Parikh says, “There is a very scientific way to look at it as merely sex will not help much. If you consider sex as one of the daily chores then you will not get any satisfaction out of it. Sex demands your physical as well as mental involvement. I think it is an extension of a relationship which strengthens the bond between two individuals.”

Model Amanpreet Wahi, who is all set to tie the knot shares, “I know a lot of couples who have a healthy sex life and it does translates into great chemistry between them. It is a beautiful thing that binds two people together. Sex is also one of the ways of loving each other as saying ‘I love you’ is not enough sometimes. I know a couple, both of them are approaching 50 but they still have sex regularly as they think it enhances their bond.”

Unfortunately, in the quest of attaining a stress-free life, sex is taking a back seat. The desire for material pleasures is killing the basic desire of pleasuring each other.

Kunal Sharma, software professional admits, “After a close encounter with my wife I feel relieved and sleep well at night. However, many a times, my mind is so occupied with several other things that I can’t concentrate on sex. If I push myself for sex, I don’t enjoy it and it becomes tough to keep myself involved.”

Sex is a dimension of love and experts believe that ignoring yours and your partners’ sexual desires can be hazardous for a relationship.

Dr Rachna Singh, holistic medicine and lifestyle management expert says, “With today’s fast paced life, pressure on relationships has increased. With demanding professional lives, most of us end up ignoring our personal needs. Not having a good sex life can result into dissatisfaction between couples. ”

Priyanka Tiwari says, “My husband and I work with a BPO. Our timings are completely different and we hardly get time for each other. Most of the time, we end up fighting or yelling at each other over petty issues. We hardly have any sex life now. Whenever I want to make love, he says he is too tired and when he pursues me, I think of my early morning shift and prefer to sleep. ”

The fast pace of life today is leaving us with no time for basic and simple pleasures. With our busy schedules, it is quite easy to forget about your partner’s needs. Experts feel that couples should set themselves extra time for those special moments – after all, there is no simpler and effective stress buster than some action between the sheets.

Ramneek Panatal, model thinks, “If you don’t get time on weekdays you can always plan out something special for weekends like a small vacation, a long drive or simply a romantic dinner. Sometimes you have to go out of your way to please your partner but it’s worth it.”

RBI relaxes lending norms for housing loans

Making it easier for urban cooperative banks to extend housing loans, Reserve Bank of India has relaxed the risk provisioning norm for purchase of residential properties up to Rs 30 lakh. The central bank issued notification on Monday in pursuance of the annual credit policy announcement made by the Reserve Bank of India Governor Y V Reddy on April 29.

Earlier on May 15, the central bank had relaxed the risk provisioning norms for housing advances by the commercial banks.

"It has been decided to enhance the limit of Rs 20 lakh to Rs 30 lakh in respect of bank loans for housing in terms of applicability of risk weights for capital adequacy purposes. Accordingly, such loans will carry a risk weight of 50 per cent," Reddy had said.

The move would provide the urban cooperative banks additional capital for lending more to housing sector.

For banks, the amount of capital they are required to set aside for each loan is decided by minimum capital adequacy ratio prescribed by the central bank. Capital adequacy ratio is the ratio of a bank’s net worth to its risk-weighted credit.

According to the analysts, the RBI has modified the provisioning limit for housing loan to take care of the growing property rates mainly in the urban centres.

The risk provisioning earlier was 75 per cent of the loan value between Rs 20-30 lakh.

For loans exceeding Rs 30 lakh for purchase of residential property, the banks would have to make a risk provision on 75 per cent of the loan amount.

Indian couple moves SA court against racism

A young Indian couple, allegedly targeted with racial slurs for six months by their African neighbours who called them "coolies" and told them to "go back to India", have moved the Equality Court in the South African city of Durban.

Gopaul Mohun and his wife, Radhika, residents Amanzimtoti, south of Durban, told the court that they had been insulted by their neighbours, Msizi Joel Mosondo, and his family for the past six months.

"They said we were cane cutters and that is all we are fit for," Mohun said in the papers filed in the court.

"Mr Masondo said he was oppressed and that he fought for this country and that Indians only benefited from his hard work. Masondo’s wife said :’You coolie, go back to India where you belong," the Indian alleged.

"The family uses derogatory racial words and phrases and tells neighbours about ’these Indians’."

Mohun told the court that he had twice tried to serve warning notices on the Masondo family but they had refused to accept it.

"He and his family continue to make violent threats...on me and my family despite my attempt to bring peace. The police told me that Masondo’s wife had refused to allow her husband to accept the notices and said that she doesn’t care about me because I am nuisance to them," he said But Masondo, in a brief affidavit, replied that Mohun was the "trouble maker".

"Therefore, while the cases and investigation are going I’m not responding to anybody like Mr Gopaul who brews trouble now and again and talks too much", said Masondo.

The hearing has been set for June 25. South Africa has recently witnessed heightened racial tensions with renewed xenophobic attacks that has left more than 63 people being killed and displaced over 70 000.

Hindu Marriages Act breaking more homes than uniting: SC

Expressing concern over an increasing number of divorce cases flooding the courts, the Supreme Court on Tuesday observed that the Hindu Marriages Act had done more harm to the family system in the country than strengthening it. "The Hindu Marriages Act has broken more homes than uniting," a vacation Bench of Justices Arijit Pasayat and G S Singhvi observed.

The apex court regretted that the growing number of divorce cases in the country was having a disastrous effect on children of families which get broken in such a manner.

Enacted in 1955, the Hindu Marriages Act which had undergone several amendments till 2003 contains various provisions for validity of a Hindu marriage, restitution of conjugal rights and divorce, the latter being a concept evolved from the English law.

"Even at the time of marriages, anticipatory divorce petitions are being filed," the Bench remarked sarcastically.

The apex court passed the observation while dealing with a petition filed by a divorcee for seeking his child’s custody.

"Ego should get dissolved for the sake of the child," the Bench remarked even as the separated parents tried to air their views.

The apex court told the separated couple that it was more concerned with the welfare of the child, rather than the mutual recrimination between the two.

"Ultimately the child suffers. If it is a girl the trauma is more, particularly at the time of the marriage of such children," Justice Pasayat speaking for the Bench observed.

The apex court lamented that the provisions provided in the Hindu Marriages Act for granting divorce on the grounds of spouses suffering from diseases like leprosy, mental illness were being misused by some couples.

"In those days our forefathers never had such problems," the apex court observed while stating that marital disputes during the olden days were sorted out within the four walls of the house.

In this case, Gaurav Nagpal through counsel Manik Karanjawala had sought custody of his 11-year old son.

Nagpal had filed the appeal after the trial court and the Delhi High Court had both granted the custody of the boy to his estranged wife Sumedha Nagpal.

There was high drama during the hearing of the case when Gaurav asked his wife to give him an hour time to sort out certain differences between.

But even before the court could give its views on the plea, Sumedha bluntly rejected the idea.

"It’s just an eyewash your Lordship. He has been beating me and my father," Sumedha told the Bench, which however, said that it would not go into the merits of the case at this juncture.

Instead, the Bench said it would personally talk to the couple in chamber during the afternoon.

The matter was also listed for further hearing on Wednesday.

Oil extends fall, more convinced on Saudi output

Oil fell for a fourth day on Wednesday, as more investors appeared convinced that top exporter Saudi Arabia’s plan to boost supply could tame prices.U.S. crude futures for July fell 66 cents to $133.35 a barrel by 0225 GMT, taking four-day losses to over $3.30 a barrel or 2.4 percent. The contract briefly hit a record of nearly $140 on Monday.

London Brent crude slipped 72 cents to $133.00.

Oil traders initially gave a muted response to news that Saudi Arabia was poised to pump oil at its fastest rate in decades next month, but analysts said increasing evidence of more crude is gradually shifting sentiment.

"I’m surprised prices didn’t fall further ... if the Saudis discount their oil significantly, I think U.S. refiners will really start to buy and start building inventories," said Robert Nunan, a risk manager at Mitsubishi Corp in Tokyo.

U.S. crude oil stock data due later in the day is expected to fall by 1.5 million barrels last week, a fifth consecutive draw, a Reuters survey showed.

Analysts are expecting a rise of 800,000 barrels for gasoline and 1.8 million barrels for distillates.

While many analysts questioned whether the Saudis would find willing buyers for its oil at current prices, India’s Reliance Industries said on Tuesday it was already committed to buy 30 percent of the additional Saudi crude in July, after lifting the same proportion of extra supplies this month.

United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon said over the weekend that Saudi Arabia was set to raise its oil output to 9.7 million barrels per day in July, up 550,000 bpd from May, a move whose rationale and effect has been questioned by some OPEC members.

Eyes are now on the Saudi-called emergency meeting between oil producing and consumer nations on June 22 to address the sky-high prices, which have led to protests against high fuel costs across the world.

Oil prices have jumped nearly seven-fold since 2002 as strong demand from emerging economies such as China stretches global production. A surge in speculative buying by investors hedging against inflation and the weak dollar has accelerated the rally this year, pushing prices nearly 40 percent higher since January.

While Saudi moves to dampen markets by pumping more oil, U.S. and British regulators unveiled a plan to slap position limits on U.S. crude contracts on the London-based ICE exchange to rein in speculators.

The combined effort among Saudi Arabia, the United States and Britain could rattle some investors and bring down prices, analysts said.

But billionaire oil tycoon T. Boone Pickens played down the role of investors in crude markets on Tuesday, arguing prices were rising as world oil production peaks.

Oil’s fall was cushioned by the softening dollar, which slipped on Tuesday as U.S. housing starts fell to a 17-year low, casting more doubts over how much the U.S. Fed might boost interest rates in coming months.

The dollar has since steadied against the yen on Wednesday.

Sun rising in Indian power sector!

With the power bill hitting the roof, Indian homes are looking for alternative energy sources in a big way. This is evident from the increase in sale of Solar photovoltaics (PV), which convert sunlight into electrical power, in the country and across the world.Soaring oil prices have also added to the race for solar power now. If you visit Kerala nowadays, you can see every newly-built house in the state has a solar panel, which is used to heat water and for other purposes. This was not the case in Kerala a few years ago.

Come to Gujarat, the state is using solar energy in a big way. Industries are also depending on solar energy now so that they can earn carbon credits.

In a recent solar industry trade fair in Munich, there was growing confidence that the “grid parity” — whereby electricity from the sun can be produced as cheaply as it can be bought from the grid — is now just a few years away.

Solar photovoltaics (PV) have long been dismissed as too expensive to make a meaningful contribution to the battle against climate change.

But costs are falling as PV production booms, and with electricity prices rising rapidly in line with soaring oil and gas prices, demand for solar panels is increasing sharply.

Germany, the world leader in PV thanks to its “feed-in tariff” support, installed 1.1 gigawatts of capacity last year — the equivalent of a large power station. It now has nearly half a million houses fitted with PV panels. The feed-in tariff pays people with solar panels above-market rates for selling power back to the grid.

In India, the ministry of new and renewable energy has launched new schemes to encourage large scale use of solar energy in the country during the 11th Plan period.

The new schemes include ‘Development of Solar Cities’ and ‘Demonstration Programme on MW size Grid Solar Power Generation’

Around Rs 600 crore has been tentatively allocated for research, design and development in the energy sector for the 11th Plan. During the last Five Year Plan period, Rs 72.65 crore was spent for the same activities. The ministry has financially sported about 600 RD&D Projects particularly in Solar Energy Sector.

New schemes have been launched by the ministry in addition to implementation of ongoing schemes to encourage large-scale use of solar energy in the country during the 11th Plan period. The new schemes include ‘Development of Solar Cities’ and ‘Demonstration Programme on MW size Grid Solar Power Generation’.

The Ministry of New & Renewable Energy promoted deployment of nine Solar Energy Plants during 2007-08 in six states of the country. Out of this, Maharashtra tops the list with three plants whereas Jammu & Kashmir got two such plants. Chhattisgarh, Haryana, Orissa and West Bengal each got one power plant during this period. The total capacity sanctioned for these plants is less than 2000 kwp. The capacity under implementation is more than 800 kwp

Good lifestyle can transform genes

Comprehensive lifestyle changes including a better diet and more exercise can lead not only to a better physique, but also to swift and dramatic changes at the genetic level, US researchers said. In a small study, the researchers tracked 30 men with low-risk prostate cancer who decided against conventional medical treatment such as surgery and radiation or hormone therapy.

The men underwent three months of major lifestyle changes, including eating a diet rich in fruits, vegetables, whole grains, legumes and soy products, moderate exercise such as walking for half an hour a day, and an hour of daily stress management methods such as meditation.

As expected, they lost weight, lowered their blood pressure and saw other health improvements. But the researchers found more profound changes when they compared prostate biopsies taken before and after the lifestyle changes.

After three months, the men had changes in activity in about 500 genes - including 48 that were turned on and 453 genes that were turned off. The activity of disease-preventing genes increased while a number of disease-promoting genes, including those involved in prostate cancer and breast cancer, shut down, according to the study published in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

The research was led by Dr Dean Ornish, head of the Preventive Medicine Research Institute in Sausalito, California, and a well-known author advocating lifestyle changes to improve health.

"It’s an exciting finding because so often people say, ’Oh, it’s all in my genes, what can I do?’ Well, it turns out you may be able to do a lot," Ornish, who is also affiliated with the University of California, San Francisco, said. "’In just three months, I can change hundreds of my genes simply by changing what I eat and how I live?’

That’s pretty exciting," Ornish said. "The implications of our study are not limited to men with prostate cancer."

Ornish said the men avoided conventional medical treatment for prostate cancer for reasons separate from the study. But in making that decision, they allowed the researchers to look at biopsies in people with cancer before and after lifestyle changes.

Chimps calm each other with hugs

For most folks, a nice hug and some sympathy can help a bit after we get pushed around. Turns out, chimpanzees use hugs and kisses the same way. And it works. Researchers studying people’s closest genetic relatives found that stress was reduced in chimps that were victims of aggression if a third chimp stepped in to offer consolation.

"Consolation usually took the form of a kiss or embrace," said Orlaith Fraser of the Research Centre in Evolutionary Anthropology and Paleoecology at Liverpool John Moores University in England. "This is particularly interesting," she said, because this behaviour is rarely seen other than after a conflict.

"If a kiss was used, the consoler would press his or her open mouth against the recipient’s body, usually on the top of the head or their back. An embrace consisted of the consoler wrapping one or both arms around the recipient."

The result was a reduction of stress behaviour such as scratching or self-grooming by the victim of aggression, Fraser and colleagues report in Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

Frans de Waal of the Yerkes Primate Centre at Emory University in Atlanta said the study is important because it shows the relationship between consolation and stress reduction. Previous researchers have claimed that consolation had no effect on stress, said de Waal, who was not part of Fraser’s research team.

"This study removes doubt that consolation really does what the term suggests: provide relief to distressed parties after conflict. The evidence is compelling and makes it likely that consolation behaviour is an expression of empathy," de Waal said. De Waal suggested that this evidence of empathy in apes is "perhaps equivalent to what in human children is called ’sympathetic concern’."

That behaviour in children includes touching and hugging of distressed family members and "is in fact identical to that of apes, and so the comparison is not far-fetched", he said. While chimps show this empathy, monkeys do not, he added.

There is also suggestive evidence of such behaviour in large-brained birds and dogs, said Fraser, but it has not yet been shown that it reduces stress levels in those animals.

Jet denies talking to Rel Ind for stake sale

Country’s largest private carrier Jet Airways on Tuesday denied media reports that the company is talking to Mukesh Ambani-led Reliance Industries for selling stake in the airline. In a filing with the Bombay Stock Exchange, Jet Airways said that media report concerning sale of stake to Reliance Industries was “not correct”.

A leading newspaper has reported that Reliance Industries was in talks with the management of Jet Airways for picking up 6-7 per cent stake in the airline.

The crude oil soap opera from Saudi Arabia

Is Saudi Arabia these days ruling the world? If the crude oil gyrations and the global oil-talks are of any indications, the lives of most people on earth, especially those oil-addicted Western countries, are dependent on Saudi Arabia.It was just a few weeks ago that the Saudis had raised oil production by 300,000 barrels per day. Now the oil kingdowm is going to pump more oil to satiate the oil-hungry, inflation-hit nations.

That means the Saudi Kingdom’s total daily oil output is going to be around 10 million barrels.

But there lies the catch. According to Justice Litle, Editorial Director, Taipan Publishing Group, the whole world is going through the crude oil soap opera from Saudi Arabia

Read below a wonderful article written by Litle on the new oil game that Saudi Arabia is playing:

"The Saudis are playing a new game. In exchange for giving in to the pleas of fuel-addicted Western countries, they could be bringing some new demands to the table... like demanding a lowering of gas taxes to ease the cost of fuel.

This is an odd twist. Why would the supplier want to start dictating end-use terms to the buyer? It might not go over too well for the Saudis to start acting like the IMF, tying their favors to stern advice and policy prescriptions.

Western pols are used to bossing third-world countries around before deciding whether to give them money. They are decidedly not used to being bossed around themselves before getting more oil. If the Saudis do start pushing policy buttons, the move could backfire. It smells a little desperate, and suggests it’s not just the West that is sweating. The sheiks are in a tight spot, too.

The polite way to put it is that the Saudis, if not all of OPEC, are concerned about the health and well-being of its best customers. The impolite thing would be to compare the Kingdom to the leaders of a drug cartel. (Not an unprecedented analogy, as President Bush has openly spoke of America’s “addiction” to oil.)

It’s fitting, too, to note what happens when drug dealers don’t have enough high-quality product to meet demand. They have to sell a lower-quality product to meet the shortfall, or otherwise cut the “good stuff” with some low-cost agent to make it stretch further.

The junkies might complain about the drop-off in quality, but they still pay... after all, they have a habit to feed and no place else to go.

The comparison here is to the quality of oil that the Saudis will be putting forth. That extra few hundred thousand barrels -- if they are truly able to pump it -- will not be the light, sweet stuff that goes down so smoothly.

It is far more likely to be the heavy, sour stuff that takes a lot more work to process. When it comes to serving up the “good stuff,” even the Kingdom is maxed out.

Along with the other finger pointers, the Saudis are quick to lay blame at the feet of traders for the sky-high oil price. They repeat the same lines over and over like a mantra. “There is no shortage of oil. There will be no shortage of oil. This is just temporary.”

The motives for this reassuring talk are not hard to figure out. The Kingdom wants to keep its best customers happy and complacent in the short term... and as addicted as possible in the long term.

The worst nightmare for Saudi Arabia, and for all of OPEC really, would be for the Western world to suddenly get deadly serious about breaking its oil addiction. For this reason, high energy prices are a boon to OPEC but also a danger. The longer the oil price stays high, the ever greater buildup of Western political will occurs to actually do something about the problem.

The main reason oil prices are high, of course, is because the supply just isn’t there. Demand at the margins has overtaken regular supply.

We’re seeing a pattern of “demand destruction” now, in which Western consumers are finally cutting back due to pain at the pump, but that doesn’t cancel out the basic equation. The rise of China, India and the developing world has changed everything."

In poker terms, the Saudis are very close to shoving all-in on a bluff. They are still raking in the chips, but they know lady luck has left them. Over time, we can expect the “we’ve got plenty” rhetoric to look more and more detached from reality. That reality being that the Saudis are maxed out... and much closer to being tapped out than they or their customers want to admit.

The reality of “Twilight in the Desert,” as peak-oil expert Matt Simmons calls it in his eye-opening book of the same name, is hard to deny given the shape of things.

That means countless billions in profits for the major oil exporters today... but a whole new world tomorrow."

MTN Group Slides as Family Row Threatens Reliance Merger Talks

MTN Group Ltd. fell the most in more than a week in Johannesburg trading after a feud between India’s Ambani brothers threatened to disrupt merger talks with Reliance Communications Ltd. Chairman Anil Ambani. MTN, Africa’s largest mobile-phone company, lost as much as 3.94 rand, or 2.8 percent, to 135.01 rand, the biggest drop since June 9. The stock traded at 135.64 rand at 9:39 a.m., valuing the company at 253 billion rand ($29.3 billion).

Reliance Industries Ltd., controlled by Anil Ambani’s older brother Mukesh Ambani, said last week it had informed MTN and Reliance Communications that the company could block any move to sell a controlling stake in the Indian wireless operator without allowing Reliance Industries an opportunity to buy the shares.

Reliance Communications is India’s second-largest mobile- phone company.

Customs, excise duty up 12.8% in Apr, May

After dipping into negative growth in April, excise duty collections grew by 4.4 per cent in May helping the government mop up 12.8 per cent higher revenues at Rs 35,216 crore from indirect taxes, barring service tax, for the first two months of this fiscal.

Data for service tax collections are available only for April and the collection under this head grew by a whopping 40 per cent at Rs 6,093 crore in that month, according to an official release in New Delhi.

Excise duty collections grew by 0.9 per cent at Rs 15,993 crore for the first two months of this fiscal compared to same period in 2007, boosted by 4.4 per cent growth in May at Rs 9,583 crore against Rs 9,175 crore in the same month last year.

For the month of April, collections under excise duty had fallen by 3.9 per cent to Rs 6,410 crore against Rs 6,673 crore in the same month last year.

Finance Minister P Chidambaram had said that meeting target of excise duty collections for this fiscal appeared to be a formidable task.

Even excise duty collection growth in May fell short of the target of 8.8 per cent growth for the whole fiscal.

Customs duty mop-up was up by 25.1 per cent for the first two months at Rs 19,223 crore. Collections under this head grew by 25.2 per cent at Rs 10,205 crore in May.

Despite cut in customs duty on various items to tame inflation, the Government is hopeful of meeting the collection target under this head for this fiscal.

Customs duty and service tax collections are targeted to grow at 14.4 per cent and 26.1 per cent during the current fiscal, respectively.

Hearing loss common in diabetics

Hearing loss is nearly twice as common among diabetic adults than their healthy counterparts, according to a new study. Researchers stumbled on the phenomenon after analysing the results of tests administered to a nationally representative sample in the US.

The test measured their ability to hear low, middle, and high frequency sounds in both ears. The link between diabetes and hearing loss became evident across all frequencies, with a stronger association in the high frequency range.

Adults with pre-diabetes, whose blood glucose is higher than normal but not high enough for a diabetes diagnosis, had a 30 percent higher rate of hearing loss compared to those with normal blood sugar tested after an overnight fast.

The researchers analysed data from hearing tests administered between 1999 and 2004 under the National Health and Nutrition Examination Survey (NHANES), held by the Centres for Disease Control and Prevention (CDCP).

Half of the 11,405 surveyed, aged between 20 to 69 were randomly assigned to have their hearing tested, and nearly 90 percent of them completed the hearing exam and the diabetes questionnaire.

"Hearing loss may be an under-recognised complication of diabetes," said co-author Catherine Cowie of the National Institute of Diabetes and Digestive and Kidney Diseases (NIDDK).

Diabetes may lead to hearing loss by damaging the nerves and blood vessels of the inner ear, the researchers suggested, a finding also supported by autopsies of such patients.

Diabetes is a group of diseases marked by high levels of blood glucose resulting from defects in insulin production, insulin action, or both.

Afflicting nearly 21 million people in US, it is a major cause of heart disease and stroke and the most common cause of blindness, kidney failure and lower limb amputations in adults.

Pre-diabetes, which causes no symptoms, affects about 54 million adults in the US, many of whom will develop type 2-diabetes in the next 10 years.

These findings were published online on Tuesday in the Annals of Internal Medicine.

Yahoo! partners with MTNL, Idea Cellular

Yahoo! the leader in mobile advertising and mobile Internet services, on Tuesday announced partnerships with two Indian mobile operators MTNL and Idea Cellular as part of a series of initiatives in Asia. While in case of MTNL it is for Yahoo! oneSearch, the mobile search engine, in the case of Idea Cellular, the partnership is for mobile advertising.

The Sunnyvale, California based company on Tuesday announced several new mobile initiatives for the Asia Pacific region, including five new Yahoo! oneSearch partnerships with leading mobile operators including MTNL, Hong Kong CSL Limited (CSL), Smart Communications Inc (Smart, Philippines), Digital Mobile Phlis, Inc (SUN Cellular, Philippines) and Vibo Telecom Inc (Vibo, Taiwan).

It has also forged strategic mobile advertising partnerships with Idea Cellular Ltd and Maxis Communications Bhd (Malaysia), the company said in a statement distributed via Businesswire.

Yahoo! also announced localised versions of Yahoo! Go 3.0 for India, Australia and Southeast Asia, including a local language version for Indonesia, and an English version of Yahoo! oneSearch with voice that recognises regional accents.

The company also announced the launch of new mobile widgets for the Asia Pacific region including Yahoo! Cricket, Yahoo! Answers and Showtimes (Yahoo! India Movies), as well as a MTV Asia mobile widget featuring news updates and music charts.

These announcements further demonstrate Yahoo!’s global momentum and unveil the next phase of the company’s mobile strategy for the Asia Pacific region, said the release.

Today’s Yahoo! oneSearch partnerships announcement brings the total number of mobile search deals signed by Yahoo! worldwide in the last 18 months to over 60.

Coffee drinkers may live longer

Here’s some good news for coffee buffs -- drinking large amounts of the caffeinated concoction does not increase the risk of an early death, and, if you are a woman, it may protect you from developing heart disease.

A new research has revealed that drinking up to six cups of coffee a day has no negative effect on the health of a person and it could reduce the risk of women dying from fatal heart attacks and stroke by almost a quarter.

Researchers have based their findings on an analysis of 84,000 women and 41,000 men who were tracked for 20 years. The participants completed questionnaires every two to four years about their coffee intake and habits like diet, smoking.

According to study’s author Esther Lopez-Garcia of the School of Medicine at Universidad Autonoma de Madrid in Spain, "Coffee consumption was not associated with a higher risk of mortality in middle-aged men and women.

"(However) The possibility of a modest benefit of coffee consumption on heart disease, cancer, and other causes of death needs to be further investigated.

Market full of oil, price trend fake: Iran

The market is full of oil and the rising price trend is "fake and imposed", Iran’s president said on Tuesday, partly blaming a weak US dollar which he said was being pushed lower on purpose. "At a time when the growth of consumption is lower than the growth of production and the market is full of oil, prices are rising and this trend is completely fake and imposed," President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad said in a televised speech.

"It is very clear that visible and invisible hands are controlling prices in a fake way with political and economic aims," he said when opening a meeting of the OPEC Fund for International Development in the central Iranian city of Isfahan.

Iran, the world’s fourth-largest oil exporter, has repeatedly said the market is well-supplied with crude and blames rising prices on speculation, a weak US currency and geopolitical factors.

"As you know the decrease in the dollar’s value and the increase in energy prices are two sides of the same coin which are being introduced as factors behind the recent instability," Ahmadinejad said.

Oil steadied on Tuesday after touching a record near $140 the previous day, with traders caught between a weaker dollar and expectations that top exporter Saudi Arabia will ramp up output to its highest rate in decades.

Iran has often said it sees no need for the Organization of the Petroleum Exporting Countries (OPEC) to boost output.

"EVER-INCREASING DECREASE"

Ahmadinejad reiterated his view that oil should be sold in a basket of currencies rather than US dollars, an idea which has failed to win over other OPEC members, except Venezuela.

"The ever-increasing decrease in the dollar’s value is one of the world’s major problems," he said.

"A combination of the world’s valid currencies should become a basis for oil transactions or (OPEC) member countries should determine a new currency for oil transactions," he said.

Iran, embroiled in a standoff with the West over its nuclear programme, has for more than two years been increasing its sales of oil for currencies other than the dollar, saying the weak US currency is eroding its purchasing power.

Ahmadinejad, who in the past has called the dollar a "worthless piece of paper", suggested "some big powers" were driving it lower on purpose:

"The planners for some big powers are acting to decrease the dollar’s value," he said. "For years they imposed inflation and their own economic problems to other nations by injecting the dollar without any support to the global Economy."

Foes since Iran’s 1979 Islamic revolution, Tehran and Washington are also at odds over Tehran’s disputed nuclear activities as well as over policy in Iraq. Iran says its atomic work is peaceful.

India inflation to head up, ease by end-2008

India’s headline inflation rate is likely to hover at 8 to 9 percent for some time and will hit double digits before declining in the last quarter of calendar 2008, its chief statistician said on Tuesday.India’s most widely watched inflation measure, the wholesale price index (WPI), is already at a seven-year high of 8.75 percent and the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) unexpectedly raised its key lending rate last week to 8.0 percent in an effort to calm prices.

Economists expect the impact of a hike in government-set fuel prices early in June will push the WPI to a 13-year peak above 9 percent this month. The early June data is due this Friday.

Pronab Sen, secretary at the ministry of statistics and programme implementation, told Reuters in an interview primary price increases had been factored in but second-round increases were now coming through into the inflation numbers.

"Numerically, I suspect it’s going to hang around at somewhere between the 8 and 9 percent mark for a while," Sen said.

Asked if inflation would reach double digits, he replied: "It will touch it but it’s not likely to stay there for very long."

Rising costs of raw materials, food and energy worldwide have stoked prices in Asia’s third-largest economy, prompting the government to ban some exports and slash some import duties to keep supplies up and prices down.

Inflation is well above the RBI’s comfort zone of 5.5 percent and is posing a major policy headache for the communist-backed ruling coalition in the run-up to key state and federal polls later this year and in 2009, as rising prices hit the poorer members of the population the hardest.

BACK TO TREND

India’s economy grew 9 percent in the fiscal year which ended in March and Sen said growth was moderating.

"Now we are starting to taper down to the trend and the trend would be somewhere between 8 and 8.5 percent. So I suspect we’ll be there somewhere."

But he added that with inflation and efforts to control it, as well as a global slowdown, growth might drop below trend.

"We might actually overshoot on the downward trajectory a little bit, so we might dip slightly below 8 percent but eventually we’ll catch up."

The economy has averaged 8.8 percent in the past four years. The RBI expects it will expand at 8-8.5 percent this fiscal year to March, while some economists and policymakers say it could be lower.

On prices, Sen said the peak would depend on how soon demand was compressed and when new industrial capacity came on stream.

"So I’m really looking at the last quarter of the calendar for it to start coming down."

Demand was hard to gauge because of lack of data but there was some evidence of moderation in fast-moving consumer goods and white goods, he said.

Except for steel, capacity was being created across sectors, including pharmaceuticals, auto components, autos and cement, while capital goods, such as engineering plant and machinery, had gained in strength after a late start to capacity addition in 2006.

Inflation eased quickly in late 2007, dropping to just above 3 percent, and Sen said that base effect would give the headline rate an artificial "push-up" at the same time this year.

Where it ended the fiscal year next March would depend on the government’s policy on domestic fuel prices, he said.

"A lot depends on what is done on oil prices and that’s a policy matter," he said.

Rising FD rates bring cheer to depositors

There is some good news for retired persons and those dependent on the interest income as banks have started increasing their fixed deposit rates following the decision of the RBI to hike the short term lending rate by 0.25 per cent.Oriental Bank of Commerce on Monday revised their fixed deposit rates for various maturities and raised the rates for its special deposit scheme Asha Kiran (FDs for 400 days) to 9.75 for senior citizens.

This is probably the highest interest rate being offered by the city based public sector lender on 13-month deposit.

Though the senior citizens would get a rate of 9.75 per cent, others will receive 9.25 per cent for 400-day fixed deposit from OBC.

Even the new generation private sector lender Yes Bank increased the deposit rates by 0.5 per cent across all maturities.

After the recent revision of interest rates by Yes Bank, senior citizens would get a maximum of 10 per cent on fixed deposits with a maturity of one year to 18 months. The others would receive a return of 9.5 per cent.

Country’s largest public sector lender, State Bank of India, also revised fixed deposit rates upward by up to 0.5 per cent for selected tenures effective June 1.

SBI increased fixed deposits rate for 5-10 years by 0.5 per cent to 9 per cent while 3-5 years tenure was hiked by 0.35 per cent. Senior citizens will get 0.5 per cent more.

Another Mumbai-based lender Bank of India also increased deposit rates up to 0.5 per cent for various maturities.

For deposits having a maturity of one year to less than two years, the revised rates stands at 9.15 per cent, against the earlier rate of 8.50 per cent, while for deposits ranging from two to three years, the new rate is 9.25 per cent as against earlier rate of 8.75 per cent.

Similarly, fixed deposits of Bank of India having a maturity of three to five years will earn 9.50 per cent interest, against the earlier 8.75 per cent.

"The rates have been revised with a view to mobilize funds from deposits in the beginning of the financial year. We will review our rates by June 30, after which they might be revised again," the BOI official had said.

There would be a case for further upward revision of fixed deposit rates in case the inflation, as projected by many analysts, goes up to 10 per cent.

Moreover, the banks would have to raise fixed deposit rates to retain the deposit base, says brokerage firm Edelweiss Capital in its recent analysis on impact of repo rate hike on the banking sector.

The study further pointed out that following recent hike in repo rate, bottomline of those banks which are dependent on wholesale money market for funds would come under pressure.

Mkts cheer, Sensex ends 300 pts up

The Markets were on an upswing on Tuesday with the Bombay Stock Exchange benchmark Sensex posting a gain of over 300 points on buying support in banking, realty and capital goods segments.The BSE baormeter gained 301.08 points, or 1.96 per cent, at 15,696.90, after touching the day’s high of 15,732.75 and a low of 15,357.98 poiints.

The wide-based National Stock Exchange index Nifty rose by 80.50 points at 4,653.00. It rose to a high of 4,664.05 and dipped to a low of 4,561.75 points during the day.

"Interest rate sensitive stocks are attracting a fair amount of buying by domestic funds, which in turn are lending support to banking shares," said a Delhi-based NSE broker Rajiv Malik.

He said realty stocks were bolstered by Unitech-Lehman deal as well.

Banking stocks surged the maximum and the sectoral index gained 311.54 points at 7,567.17, as most of the banking stocks led by ICICI Bank, State Bank of India, HDFC Bank, Yes Bank, Kotak Baank, Axis Bank and Punjab National Bank witnessed good buying support.

Capital goods index also gained 260.07 points at 12,363.27 followed by realty sector index by 226.32 points at 6,099.19.

This MLA picks up garbage, cleans drains

PUDUCHERRY N Anand, fondly called "Bussy" Anand, is a busy man. A first-time MLA, he was elected from the Bussy assembly constituency in the Union territory in 2006 and hence the prefix. And when the 44-year-old legislator of Puducherry Munnetra Congress is not pushing for schemes, meeting voters or discussing local politics over a cuppa, he’s clearing garbage, cleaning clogged drains and spraying mosquito repellent across the town.

And he does this with his own money, spending Rs 75,000 to Rs 85,000 every month from his earnings.

Anand’s dual role began nine years ago when, disappointed with the government’s slack conservancy work, he started a garbage collection unit of his own.

Since then, he has been going to the ’field’ himself, assisting a small team in spraying mosquito repellent, clearing blocks in drains and undertaking door-to-door collection of garbage from all households in his constituency.

When his nine-year-old unit launched an intensive cleaning campaign last week, the MLA was spotted going around in a spotless white shirt and pants with a mosquito repellent kit on his back, covering the thoroughfares of Puducherry.

And he doesn’t do it for publicity: for long, he was neither given a party post nor a ticket while he was in Congress.

But Anand plodded on with garbage-clearing, not letting the mess in the Congress stop him from cleaning the city.

"The government is not effectively undertaking garbage clearance work," he says, as he expertly sprays repellent on an open sewage drain. Anand’s unit, which started with a single tricycle and two men in 1999, has 14 members today, equipped with four tricycles and gadgets "to carry out our mission".

So much so that residents refuse to hand over garbage to the government conservancy staff and wait for Anand’s unit every morning. The members visit all households daily, barring Sundays, from 6am to 12 noon, and from 4pm to 6pm and collect segregated garbage.

"People appreciated my work and rewarded me by electing me in 2006. I am grateful to them, but my garbage collection campaign will continue forever," said the first-time MLA. "The workers engaged by the municipality haven’t got their salaries for the past 11 months. They staged a token protest and are now threatening to go on indefinite strike. It is high time the municipality evolved a long-term plan for clearing garbage," says the MLA.

Brains of homosexuals are different

Researchers in Europe have revealed what has long been suspected - brains of homosexuals have structural and functional differences from those of "straight" people. Two studies have concluded that while lesbians have a lower proportion of grey matter in their more male-like brains than straight women, the brains of gay men have structural similarities to those of heterosexual ladies.

In fact, gays also exhibit the same powerful response as straight women to the sex hormones released in male sweat, according to the studies.

In one study, a team at University College London used magnetic resonance imaging to look at the brains of 80 men and women, including 16 gay men and 15 lesbians.

They found that lesbians had a "male-like" proportion and distribution of grey matter in their brain when compared with heterosexual women.

"In homosexual women the perirhinal cortex grey matter displayed a male-like structural pattern. The perirhinal area is associated with social and sexual behaviour," ’The Sunday Times’ quoted the British researchers as saying.

In another study, researchers at Karolinska Institute in Sweden questioned 12 gay men, 12 heterosexual women and 12 heterosexual men to smell hormones found in male sweat.

The researchers measured their brain responses and found that the anterior hypothalamus, an area linked to sexual behaviour, responded strongly in both heterosexual women as well as gay men.

However, straight men showed little response - this implies the brains of gay men have functional similarities to those of straight women, according to lead researcher Ivanka Savic.

The team from Sweden also measured the brain responses of 12 lesbians who were asked to smell male and female hormones. The participants actually responded much more strongly to the female hormones.

Tool against TB: Free mobile talktime

CAMBRIDGE/MASSACHUSETTS: Researchers at MIT believe they’ve discovered a new weapon in the battle against tuberculosis: Free cellphone minutes. For years, doctors have struggled to get some TB patients to take all their medication, which generally involves a six-month regimen of multiple drugs.

Now a student-led group at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has developed a way to use cellphones to let patients test themselves. And if the tests show patients are following doctor’s orders, they get rewarded with free minutes.

"We’re piggybacking on one of the bigger rollouts of infrastructure out there, which is wireless technology and telecom technology," said Jose Gomez-Marquez, one of the project’s leaders.

The system works like this: Patients test their urine using a strip that reveals a numeric code if it detects TB medicine. They then text message the code to their health care provider and get credit toward incentives such as free minutes.

The in-home tests also eliminate the need for health care workers to make several patient-monitoring visits a week, a routine that is often impractical in remote places, Gomez-Marquez said.

Mobile phones are good tools for the project because they are common in the developing world, where it’s often cheaper to erect cell towers than miles of poles and wires, Gomez-Marquez said.

Dr Mario Raviglione, director of a World Health Organization program to fight TB, called the MIT idea "creative".

But he said personal visits must continue because systems that depend heavily on patient self-reporting have often failed.

"I would think it’s a dangerous game to rely only on incentives," he said.

In 2006, the most recent year statistics are available, 9.2 million people worldwide were diagnosed with tuberculosis and 1.7 million died.

The disease can be cured with a steady regimen of drugs. But many patients start feeling better and stop taking the medicine too soon. Others abandon the drugs because of side effects such as nausea, fever and rashes. If the drugs are taken only sporadically, the bacteria build up resistance. The WHO estimates that 5 to 10% of TB deaths are patients who stop taking medication properly.

The MIT group - which originally included five students - took on the TB problem in 2007 as part of the university’s annual "IDEAS competition", which challenges participants to solve various world problems.

Under the TB treatment system used by the WHO, the relationship between the patient and health care worker can get adversarial, said Elizabeth Leshen, an MIT junior working on the project.

"We wanted to do something that takes the health care worker out of the supervisory role and puts him or her back into the patient care role," she said.

Cell minutes were chosen as an incentive because patients want them and phone companies are willing to give them out, said Gomez-Marquez, who added that other incentives and reporting methods can be tailored to different regions.

A small study of 20 patients in Nicaragua last year indicated the MIT system could work, and a larger study in Pakistan is planned for this summer. The team is trying to raise the $200,000 for a full-scale clinical trial.

The WHO’s Raviglione said the MIT group’s program could be an asset, particularly in developed countries, where people are more familiar with technology. But he said it must be combined with regular visits from health care workers or community leaders who can ensure patients take their medicine.

A pill a day for substance abusers

A single pill taken every day for nine months will now help the country’s intravenous drug users (IDUs) kick the habit. India has finally decided to roll out the ambitious Oral Substitution Therapy (OST) from September, to reduce the risk of HIV transmission among the country’s highly vulnerable IDU community.

The National AIDS Control Board, headed by health secretary Naresh Dayal, has sanctioned Rs 136 crore for the OST programme, which hopes to cover 40,000 IDUs by 2012.

Under the programme, substance abusers will keep an oral pill of Bupernorphin under their tongue for five minutes every day in front of a supervising doctor. This will cut their desire for addiction.

Speaking to TOI, director general of National AIDS Control Organization (NACO) K Sujatha Rao said that the first phase would see India enroll 10,000 IDUs by March 2009 from Manipur, Nagaland, Mizoram, Chandigarh and Delhi.

These places may account for 90% of the country’s IDUs. Orissa, Mumbai, Punjab and Kolkata too are becoming hotbeds for IDUs. NACO estimates that India is home to 2 lakh IDUs.

Nearly 25% of them are suffering from HIV due to sharing of contaminated needles. OST programmes in China and Australia have proved to be a roaring success and it was found that Bupernorphin helped addicts get over hard substances like heroin and cocaine.

Rao had recently visited China, which had upscaled its OST programme to 30,000 IDUs in a year, to study how to formulate, plan and implement the programme in India.

According to Rao, surveys conducted by AIIMS had found the relapse rate after detoxification to be as high as 92% among addicts. "The OST policy has finally been cleared. By August, we will finish procuring the stock of Bupernorphin required to run the OST programme. By March 2009, we will reach out to 10,000 IDUs. Four expert teams are being formed to evaluate the 33 agencies who will implement the OST. The list of IDUs and the eligibility are being finalized - he should have support from family, ought to have gone through detox and failed," Rao said.

According to her, 20% of the IDUs were suffering from such advanced addiction that their brain’s motor functions had stopped responding. "They can even commit murder if not put on OST. However, once they get the medication, they are as normal as you and me. China’s crime rate dipped after they introduced the OST programme. Till now, India followed a conservative 15-day detox programme for addicts. However, it has failed miserably," Rao said.

India is a busy transit route for drug traffickers moving heroin from the Golden Triangle of Laos, Myanmar and Thailand and also from Afghanistan. Inevitably, that has led to a rise in substance addiction in India.

"Denying this would be disastrous - especially because drug addicts are at a higher risk of contracting HIV through sharing needles," an official said.

NACO has already been worried over the increasing number of IDUs as these addicts infect their partners with HIV by having unprotected sex. Needles are the predominant way that HIV is spread. Also, addicts often stop caring about sharing needles and are simply concerned about their next fix.

Chocolate-potent anti-cancer agent

We have all heard that eating chocolate is good for you - now here’s a study that tells you why. A chemical synthesised out of a cocoa compound has accelerated the killing of human tumours in a lab environment, according to the study by Georgetown University researchers.

The researchers described how four different tumour cell lines out of 16 tested sensitive to the chemical, known as GECGC. The strongest response was seen in two different colon cancers; growth was cut in half and most of the tumour cells were damaged.

GECGC "seems to be safe... because it has a structure similar to a natural product in cocoa beans - the same beans that are used to make chocolate," said the study’s lead author Min Kim.

Researchers have long studied the beneficial effects of flavanols - molecules in vegetables and fruits that exhibit potent anti-oxidant and potentially anti-tumour properties.

As part of these studies, investigators have been testing a new synthetic version of natural procyanidins, a class of flavanols, created and patented by a confectionery company Mars Incorporated.

In these studies, the scientists tested the effects of three different doses of GECGC on the cancer cell lines - the first time that a synthetic cocoa derivative has been used to screen human cancer cell lines.

None of the doses tested were extreme, Kim pointed out. "The effective concentrations were considered similar to what a person might eat or use," he said.

They found sensitivity to GECGC in both colon cancer cell lines they tested, in cervical cancer cells and in one line of leukaemia tumour cells. Other cell lines were resistant, including ovarian and prostate cancer cells.

Overall, GECGC showed the most effect in treating cancer cells that are normally fast growing, Kim said. And the fact that it demonstrated the most killing power in colon cancer suggests the chemical "could serve as a promising therapeutic for colon cancer," he said. "So far, these data are very convincing."

The researchers do not yet clearly understand the mechanism by which GECGC disrupts tumour growth, but they think it inhibits the physical connections between cancer cells and blocks internal cell signalling pathways.

The findings of the study have been published online Monday in the journal Cell Cycle .

Reliance to Raise Crude Oil Imports From Saudi Arabia

Reliance Industries Ltd., India’s biggest company, is increasing crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia as it seeks to secure supplies because of rising demand for fuels in India and the rest of Asia.Reliance, based in Mumbai, is boosting purchases by at least 90,000 barrels a day, accounting for 30 percent of Saudi Arabia’s output increase of 300,000 barrels a day this month, P.M.S. Prasad, president of the company’s oil and gas business, said in a telephone interview.

The refiner, building a second oil refinery that would make it the world’s largest by this year, stepped up imports after Saudi Arabia’s Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi said last month the kingdom is raising output to meet demand from customers. Demand for fuels in the Middle East and Asia is forecast to rise 25 percent to 39 million barrels a day in 2015 from 2008, consultant FACTS Global Energy said today in a report.

``We have been assured of the additional barrels,’’ Prasad said yesterday.

Reliance operates a 660,000 barrel-a-day refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat, and would start operations at a 580,000 barrel-a-day plant under unit Reliance Petroleum Ltd. later this year.

Refiners in Japan and South Korea are poised to increase crude oil imports in the coming months after annual plant maintenance peaked this month.

``There’s an abundant supply of heavy crude but the Saudis are more savvy than others in marketing their crude,’’ said Harry Tchilinguirian, senior oil market analyst at BNP Paribas SA. ``There’s also a seasonal element to this as refiners return from maintenance.’’

Heavy Crudes

Saudi Arabia, the world’s biggest oil producer, and the most influential member of the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, pumps a variety of light and heavy crudes. OPEC, which supplies about 40 percent of the world’s oil, hasn’t been able to rein in prices, which rose to a record $139.89 a barrel in New York yesterday.

Reliance Chairman Mukesh Ambani earns more compared with overseas rivals by processing cheaper, dirtier crude with high- sulfur content. His plant is located two days away by ship from the Middle East.

Reliance earned $15.50 from processing a barrel of oil into fuels in the quarter ended March 31, compared with $7 for a plant in Singapore, the company said April 21.

China, the world’s biggest energy user after the U.S., has increased crude oil imports from Saudi Arabia 17 percent this year to almost 10 million tons as new refineries start operations, according to customs data.

Reliance eyeing stake in Jet Airways - paper

Energy group Reliance Industries Ltd is in talks with Jet Airways Ltd to buy a 6-7 percent stake in the private airline, the Mint daily said, citing a source familiar with the development.The newspaper said on Tuesday Reliance was keen to buy a minority stake as it wanted to be associated with the domestic carrier’s proposed cargo airline.

"The mode of Reliance Industries’ investment is not finalised. It could be issue of fresh shares or diluting promoter equity," the daily said.

Spokesmen for Reliance, India’s leading petrochemical maker and a refiner, and Jet were not immediately available for comment.

For Jet, a stake sale would give it cash at a time when Indian airlines are losing money due to high oil prices.

A top company official told Reuters on Monday Jet planned to invest around $10-$15 million to set up a cargo unit, which would likely be launched in mid-2009 or later that year.

I slept with Diana: Butler

In a shocking revelation, disgraced royal butler Paul Burrell has claimed that he secretly bedded Princess Diana, a leading British tabloid said on Sunday. According to the News of the World , the "slimy flunky bragged to his wife’s brother Ron Cosgrove that he was on call for sex 24x7. Ron told us: "Burrell said Diana was so demanding. And he told me he’d caught the Queen naked."

Ron said: "The man has shamed us and made a fool out of my sister Maria. The final straw came when he was caught on video admitting how he lied to Diana’s inquest. I hope I never see him again."

For 25 years furniture dealer 61-year-old Ron has had a ringside seat at Burrell’s extraordinary rise from humble palace footman to millionaire celebrity.

And he revealed how Diana’s trusted servant dropped his bombshell story of sex with the boss over a drink at the local pub.

"It was 1993 while Paul was working for the princess at Kensington Palace," he said. "He and Maria came home to Cheshire one weekend and on the Sunday lunchtime Paul specifically asked if he could talk to me in private.

"He clearly had something on his mind so we went to the Peal of Bells in Holt for a few pints. Then during the conversation he suddenly tells me he’s been having a sexual relationship with Princess Diana.

"He said they did it in the bedroom, the bath, everywhere. He claimed Diana liked to be domineering."

According to the report, Diana’s demands on Burrell eased off when she met and fell for heart surgeon Dr Hasnat Khan.

Reliance Industries Seeks $1 Billion Loan to Expand

Reliance Industries Ltd., India’s biggest company, is seeking to borrow $1 billion to fund its expansion projects, three people with knowledge of the deal said. The company may hire banks to arrange the five-year loan in the next couple of weeks, said the people, who declined to be identified because the information isn’t public. Paresh Chaudhry, Reliance’s Mumbai-based spokesman, didn’t return phone calls from Bloomberg News seeking comment.

Reliance is building an oil refinery in the western Indian state of Gujarat that will create the world’s biggest such complex. The company, whose share price has fallen this year, will complete the refinery this year to process oil into gasoline, diesel and naphtha for exports to the U.S., Europe and the Middle East.

``The expansion would help Reliance improve its refining margins,’’ said Mumbai-based Vinay Nair, an analyst at Khandwala Securities Ltd. ``The stock may rise by 15 percent by the end of the year even after taking into account the debt it has to incur to fund the expansion.’’

Reliance shares fell 20 percent this year, compared with the 24 percent decline in the benchmark Sensitive Index. The stock gained 127 percent in 2007.

Chairman Mukesh Ambani earns more from each barrel of oil than overseas refiners by processing cheaper, lower grades of crude at a plant two days away by ship from Middle East oil fields. Reliance earned $15.5 from processing a barrel of oil into fuel in the quarter ended March 31, compared with $7 for a plant in Singapore, the company said on April 21.

Investment Plans

Ambani, the second-richest Indian and the world’s fifth wealthiest according to Forbes magazine, needs higher profits to fund $24 billion of planned investments in chemical projects in the gas-rich Middle East and increase oil and gas exploration to benefit from record energy prices. The expansion will help Reliance triple earnings in the next five years.

Reliance’s profit rose 24 percent to 39.1 billion rupees ($911 million) in the three months to March 31. Reliance operates a 660,000-barrel-a-day refinery at Jamnagar in Gujarat. It is also setting up a 580,000-barrel-a-day plant under unit Reliance Petroleum Ltd. The combined facility will be the world’s biggest refinery, according to Reliance.

The company raised $500 million from a five-year loan in September, paying interest that’s 0.39 percentage point above the London interbank offered rate, data compiled by Bloomberg show.

Credit-default swaps on Reliance Industries declined about 8 basis points at 11:00 a.m. in Hong Kong to 212.5, according to BNP Paribas SA’s prices. That means it costs $212,500 a year to protect $10 million of Reliance’s debt from default for five years.

Reliance Comms falls amid family feud

Shares in Reliance Communications Ltd, India’s No.2 mobile operator, fell more than 2 percent on Monday amid fears that a family feud could delay a multi-billion dollar tie-up with South Africa’s MTN.Energy group Reliance Industries, run by Mukesh Ambani, said last week it had the right of first refusal to a controlling stake in Reliance Communications, owned by younger brother Anil Ambani. Forbes magazine ranks the brothers among the world’s six richest men.

Reliance Communications has been in exclusive talks with MTN since late-May about a deal that could create a top-10 global telecoms firm. As part of a tie-up, Anil Ambani would likely swap his control of Reliance Communications to become the largest shareholder in MTN.

The telecoms firm on Friday called Reliance Industries’ claim to first refusal "legally and factually untenable, baseless and misconceived".

"The market hates uncertainty, and any such news would not help the stock," said Jayesh Shroff, fund manager at SBI Mutual Fund.

"I see the stock subdued in the short-term at least," said Harit Shah, telecoms analyst at Angel Broking. "Sentimentally, it is negative unless a clear settlement is arrived at."

By 0926 GMT, Reliance Communications shares were down 2.2 percent at 531.65 rupees in a Mumbai market up more than 1 percent. Shares in Reliance Industries, India’s most valuable company, were up 0.2 percent.

Reliance Communications said Reliance Industries claimed the right based on an agreement made when Reliance Communications was under Reliance Industries control.

A spokesman for Reliance Industries said on Friday the company had told both the Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG), of which Reliance Communications forms part, and MTN of the agreement in "good faith", adding ADAG had never previously questioned the validity of the agreement.

Indian media, engrossed in a long-running feud between the Ambani brothers, reported that Reliance Communications was ready to defend any legal action taken by Reliance Industries and would claim full costs and damages.

Newspapers said Reliance Industries sources said a January 2006 non-competition agreement was different to a family deal struck six months earlier that divided the Reliance empire between the brothers.

"When litigation becomes a part of the story, the stock traditionally loses favour and flavour," said Arun Kejriwal, strategist at KRIS, an investment advisory firm.

In 2050, your lover may be a robot

Romantic human-robot relationships are no longer the stuff of science fiction — researchers expect them to become reality within four decades. And they do not mean simply, mechanical sex.

"I am talking about loving relationships about 40 years from now," David Levy, author of the book ’Love + sex with robots’, said at an international conference held last week at the University of Maastricht in the south-east of the country.

"... When there are robots that have also emotions, personality and consciousness. They can talk to you, they can make you laugh. They can ... say they love you just like a human would say ’I love you’, and say it as though they mean it ..."

Robots as sex toys should already be on the market within five years, predicted Levy, "a sort of an upgrade of the sex dolls on sale now". These would have electronic speech and sensors that make them utter "nice sounds" when a human caresses their "erogenous zones". But to build robots as real partners would take a bit longer, with conversation skills being the main obstacle for developers. Scientists were working on artificial personality, emotion and consciousness, said Levy, and some robots already appear lifelike.

"But for loving relationships — that is something completely different. In loving relationships there are many more things that are important. And the most difficult of all is conversation. "You want your robot to be able to talk to you about what is interesting to you. You want a partner who has some similar interest to you, who talks to you in a manner that pleases you, who has a similar sense of humour to you."

The field of human-computer conversation is crucial to building robots with which humans could fall in love, but is lagging behind other areas of development, said the author. "I am sure it will (happen.) In 40 years ... perhaps sooner. You will find robots, conversation partners, that will talk to you and you will get as much pleasure from it as talking to another human. I am sure of it."

Levy’s bombshell thesis, whose publication has had a ripple-effect way beyond the scientific community, gives rise to a number of complicated ethical and relationship questions.

British scholar Dylan Evans pointed out the paradox inherent to any relationship with a robot. "What is absolutely crucial to the sentiment of love is the belief that the love is neither unconditional nor eternal.” Robots cannot choose you, they cannot reject you. That could become very boring, and one can imagine the human becoming cruel against his defenseless partner", said Evans.

A robot could conceivably be programmed with a will of its own and the ability to reject his human partner, he said, "but that would be a very difficult robot to sell

Goodbye to high BP and obesity

Can a single pill treat problems of high blood pressure, reduce cholesterol level and act as a blood thinner? Seems like this may be possible soon. In one of the largest clinical trials being conducted for the first time, the impact of the ’wonder drug’ is being assessed across 20 cities in India.

The trials of the drug ’polypack’ manufactured by Cadila Pharmaceuticals are being conducted on 2,000 subjects, between the age of 45 and 80 years, who have any one of the risk factors - age, obesity, high blood pressure, high cholesterol or high blood sugar.

The ’polypack’ contains a combination of five drugs in eight different formulations (three blood pressure lowering agents, an antiplatelet drug, a beta blocker, an ACE inhibitor, a diuretic and a statin) for treating cardio-vascular conditions such as reducing blood pressure and lowering cholesterol levels.

Simply put, the polypack includes blood pressure lowering combinations, aspirin (blood thinner) and a statin, which is a cholesterol lowering agent.

The trials are being conducted by St John Research Institute, Bangalore and Canada-based Population Health Research Institute.

"We need to assess the impact (efficacy) of the different combinations on an individual who has cardio-vascular risk factors, and also the safety of these drugs taken together. The side-effects of the five medicines will also be studied," says Dr Rajeev Gupta of Fortis Hospital, Jaipur who is involved in the study.

The subjects will be given the combination drug for three months and a follow up will be done in the fourth month. The trials will be completed by July and findings put together by end of the year.

The second phase of trials will assess whether heart attacks and strokes can be prevented with the combination drug, Gupta added.

Cardiovascular diseases are major causes of mortality in the Indian subcontinent, causing over 30% of deaths. It has been predicted that these diseases will increase rapidly and India will contribute to over half the cases of heart diseases in the world within the next 15 years.

Coronary heart disease and stroke have increased in both urban and rural areas. The sharp rise in cardiovascular problems including heart disease and stokes is attributed to increasing number of smokers, obesity with high waist to hip ratio, high blood pressure, high cholesterol, stress and sedentary lifestyle.

Polite way for social networking

Should you reject a friend on social networking website? How do you ward off an old lover? Have no fear. Britain’s etiquette bible has come to the rescue for social networkers who are at a loss about how to behave with online decorum.

Debrett’s have helped to compile a new set of "golden rules" for devotees of social networking sites. The rules were put together after research by the telecoms company Orange showed that almost two thirds of social networkers are frustrated and confused by online etiquette.

More than a quarter were uncertain about how to respond to unwelcome "pokes" or messages. Eighteen per cent confessed to being confused on "how to respond to my ex when in a relationship with someone else".

Debrett’s etiquette adviser Jo Bryant tried to guide the confused through what can be a social minefield.

Acknowledging that social networking has made new demands on traditional etiquette, she said "My advice is to play it safe and always employ your usual good manners when online, treating others with kindness and respect."

And you should never throw caution to the wind. Mark Watt-Jones, head of development and innovation at Orange, said "Whether you are checking your profile or posting photos of friends, these guidelines will ensure you never lose old friends or make unwanted new ones."

Indian banks not green, says UK research

Are Indian banks green and acting ethically about the environment? Not quite, according to research conducted by a British university. The University of Leicester’s Department of Geography is investigating the reasons why Indian banks have yet to commit to the Equator Principles a set of environmental and social guidelines to which 62 banks and financial institutions worldwide have become signatories.

As part of the research, doctoral student Sophie Hadfield-Hill conducted 40 interviews with CEOs and senior management of Indian banks and leading Companies.

“There is certainly a lack of awareness of the Equator Principles in India. Leading banks are vaguely conscious of the guidelines, however, the public sector is waiting to be led by the Reserve Bank of India and the private sector banks seem to only want to commit if there is regulation or financial incentive,” said Hadfield-Hill.

She also blamed the lack of interest on the issue among Indian consumers for the failure of banks to declare their commitment to environmentally and socially responsible business.

“Work needs to be done to make the guidelines more relevant to emerging economies. Firstly, however, Indian banks need to be made fully aware of the environmental and social guidelines to which banks worldwide are agreeing to,” she said.

It will be a huge financial burden for banks committing to environmental and social guidelines. However, Hadfield-Hill added: “If Indian banks are to penetrate western Markets and participate more in the global Economy, it is important that they recognise their responsibilities as global corporate citizens.

“Banks in India have significant influence over the safeguarding of fragile social groups and environments in Asia. At this time they must seriously consider their attitudes towards responsible lending both nationally and globally,” she said.

Reliance Comm shares open 0.5 pct up

Shares in India’s No. 2 mobile operator, Reliance Communications Ltd, opened 0.5 percent up after it said late on Friday Reliance Industries had claimed a right of first refusal to buy a controlling stake in it.

By 9:55 a.m, Reliance Communications shares were trading 0.52 percent higher at 546.15 rupees.

Top listed firm Reliance Industries rose 1.62 percent to 2,305 rupees

Oil falls, Saudi pushing output to highest since '81

Oil fell more than half a percent to near $134 a barrel on Monday as Saudi Arabia prepared to push production to its highest rate in decades, moving to soothe the market ahead of this weekend’s crisis meeting over record prices.U.S. light, sweet crude for July delivery fell 77 cents or 0.6 percent to $134.09 a barrel by 0209 GMT after dropping nearly $2 on Friday, when an industry newsletter reported that Saudi was poised for a big output boost next month.

London Brent crude fell $1.06 to $134.05 a barrel.

At the weekend, United Nations chief Ban Ki-moon said the world’s biggest exporter was set to increase output to 9.7 million barrels per day in July, the first official indication of its second supply boost in as many months.

"9.7, that is what he (Saudi Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi) said" on July output, the Abu Dhabi-based The National newspaper quoted the UN Secretary General as saying after he met with Naimi.

That would be a rise of 550,000 bpd or over 6 percent since May and would take Saudi crude output to its highest monthly rate since August 1981, according to U.S. government data.

Oil traders said the news could spur heavier selling during more liquid European trading hours, but losses may be checked by fears that many refiners -- particularly in Asia -- will balk at buying more of the kingdom’s heavier, hard-to-process crude.

"It’s early days yet, we may see some more reaction over the course of today," said David Moore, an analyst with Commonwealth Bank of Australia.

"I think if there is to be an increase it will be helpful to the market, the question is whether it will be absorbed with increased appetite from Asia," he said.

Saudi King Abdullah "sees that oil prices are currently abnormally high and he is willing to do all that is possible to bring prices to their appropriate levels," state news agency SPA quoted Ban as saying after meeting the Saudi monarch.

The Saudi plan comes to light a week before the kingdom hosts an unprecedented meeting of producers and consumers to tackle market instability, its latest effort to turn back a rally that has boosted prices 40 percent this year alone, spurring protests around the world and endangering global economic growth. But some questioned whether Saudi oil would temper prices, which have also been buoyed by fears over whether the world can meet long-term demand for crude and the influx of investment funds seeking a hedge against the dollar and inflation.

"If they want to put pressure on prices they need substantial price discounts that would encourage greater stock building," said David Kirsch of Washington-based consultancy PFC Energy.

Saudi Arabia had pledged a month ago to increase supply by 300,000 bpd this month versus May to meet demand from buyers, primarily in the United States.

Oil had fallen nearly $2 a barrel on Friday after industry newsletter the Middle East Economic Survey reported Riyadh was considering a sizeable output increase to near 10 million bpd.

But prices are still double what they were a year ago and have surged six-fold since 2002, and financial leaders fear the rally could worsen the U.S. economic downturn.

Saudi Arabia is the only member of OPEC with the spare capacity to boost supplies quickly and significantly. It could pump around 2 million bpd more than it does.

Cost of living in smaller cities shoots up

Metros are not the only expensive places to live in as consumers have seen the retail prices of most essential food items having soared by up to 80 per cent in the last four years. The price rise in five non-metro cities in different regions of the country like Lucknow, Bhubaneswar and Shimla -- are either more or at least in line with that of metropolis.

The trend seen in the retail prices, based on an analysis of data available with the Ministry of Consumer Affairs, come amid the wholesale price-based inflation figure having surged to its highest level in seven years at 8.75 per cent.

Besides, the economists expect the inflation figure to soon touch double-digit mark at 10 per cent, because of recent hike in fuel prices, which could further push up the retail prices.

Between May 24, 2004 and June 12, 2008, rice prices have gone up by over 73 per cent in Ahmedabad at Rs 15.25 per kg, while those in Shimla rose by about 63 per cent, Lucknow by 53 per cent, Bangalore by 50 per cent, Bhubaneswar by 44 per cent and Hyderabad by 30 per cent.

In the four metros, rice prices rose by 25-52 per cent. Wheat prices have spiralled by over 57 per cent to Rs 11 a kg in Lucknow, by 25 per cent in Bangalore, 30 per cent in Hyderabad and 21 per cent in Ahmedabad.

In four metros, wheat prices have gone up in the range of 42-48 per cent. Mumbai witnessed the highest rise of Rs 5 a kg to Rs 15.5. Wheat flour (atta) prices have become expensive by over 63 per cent in Lucknow at Rs 13 a kg. In Bangalore, it went up by 33 per cent, Hyderabad by 38 per cent, Bhubaneswar 22 per cent, Shimla 43 per cent and Ahmedabad by 50 per cent.

In comparison, the wheat flour became costlier by 42-62 per cent in the metros.

Like rice and wheat, pulses prices have also gone up sharply during last four years in all these cities.

Gram prices shot up by 80 per cent in Lucknow at Rs 36 a kg, 73 per cent in Shimla, 57 per cent in Ahmedabad, 48 per cent in Bhubaneswar, 35 per cent in Bangalore and 60 per cent in Hyderabad. In metros, the prices rose by 50-57 per cent.

Tur (arhar) prices increased by 48 per cent in Lucknow at Rs 43 a kg, 42-43 per cent in Shimla and Bhubaneswar, 37 per cent in Ahmedabad, 29 per cent in Hyderabad and 6 per cent in Bangalore. In metros, the rates went up by 33-50 per cent.

In vegetable oils section, the prices of groundnut oil prices advanced by 43 per cent in Ahmedabad at Rs 73.5 a litre, 26 per cent in Shimla, 19 per cent in Lucknow, 29 per cent in Hyderabad and 31 per cent in Bangalore. In metros, the prices rose in the range of 24-73 per cent.

In metros, mustard oil became expensive by up to 50 per cent in three metros. But prices have declined in Mumbai.

Mustard oil prices rose by 49 per cent in Ahmedabad at Rs 65.5 a litre, 48 per cent in Lucknow, 46 per cent each in Shimla and Bhubaneswar, and 22 per cent in Hyderabad.

Vanaspati prices soared 42 per cent in Ahmedabad to Rs 65 a kg, 31 per cent in Shimla, 22 per cent in Lucknow, 30 per cent in Hyderabad, 21 per cent in Bhubaneswar and 17 per cent in Bangalore. In metros also, it rose by 19-35 per cent.

Milk prices increased by 43 per cent in Bhubaneswar, 23 per cent in Bangalore, 29 per cent in Hyderabad, 20 per cent each in Lucknow and Shimla. In metros, Kolkata witnessed 65 per cent rise in milk prices at Rs 28 a litre. Other three metros saw rise of 29-43 per cent.

Vitamin D keeps heart in shape

The list of benefits conferred by Vitamin D has just got longer. It also keeps the heart fit as a fiddle, besides developing strong bones, healthy immune system and protection against cancer, according to new research. In studies on rats, Robert U Simpson and his team at the University of Michigan have reported the first concrete evidence that treatment with activated vitamin D can protect against heart failure.

Treatment with activated vitamin D prevented heart muscle cells from growing bigger - called hypertrophy - in which the heart becomes enlarged and overworked, sometimes leading to heart failure.

They also prevented heart muscle cells from the over-stimulation and increased contractions associated with the progression of heart failure.

Heart failure is a progressive, disabling condition in which the heart becomes enlarged as it is forced to work harder and harder, even for routine daily activities.

Many heart patients or those with poorly controlled high blood pressure go on to experience a form of heart failure called congestive heart failure, in which the heart’s inability to pump blood around the body causes weakness and fluid build-up in lungs and limbs.

Many people with heart failure, who tend to be older, have been found to be deficient in vitamin D.

“Heart failure will progress despite the best medications,” said Simpson. “We think vitamin D retards that progression and protects the heart."

Simpson and colleagues have explored vitamin D’s effects on heart muscle and the cardiovascular system for more than 20 years.

Way back in 1987, when Simpson showed the link between vitamin D and heart health, the idea seemed far-fetched and research funding was scarce. Now, a number of studies worldwide attest to the vitamin D-heart health link.

The findings of the study are being published in the forthcoming issue of the Journal of Cardiovascular Pharmacology.

Smoking harmful for both sexes

Women who smoke are no more likely than men to get lung cancer but, among non-smokers, women appear to have a higher risk than men, US researchers reported on Friday. Women who had never smoked were 1.3 times more likely to develop lung cancer than men who had never smoked, Neal Freedman of the National Cancer Institute and colleagues found.

"We noted slightly higher age-standardized incidence rates of lung cancer in women who had never smoked than in men who had never smoked," Freedman and colleagues wrote in the Journal Lancet Oncology . His team looked at a survey of 279,214 men and 184,623 women aged 50 to 71 first questioned in 1995 or 1996.

"The questionnaire asked participants about their past and current smoking status, demographics, alcohol intake, tobacco smoking, physical activity, and included a food-frequency questionnaire of 124 items," the researchers wrote.

They were watched until 2003. "During follow-up, lung cancers occurred in 4,097 men and 2,237 women," the researchers wrote.

Among men who had never smoked, 99 got lung cancer, compared with 152 women who never smoked.

The researchers did not ask about how much anyone had smoked or whether they were exposed to second-hand smoke. Experts agree that second-hand smoke also causes lung cancer.

"But when we compared smokers with similar smoking histories we noted that men tended to have slightly higher incidence rates than women.

"Our findings suggest that women are not more susceptible than men to the carcinogenic effects of cigarette smoking in the lung," Freedman’s team wrote.

They said more study needs to be done to see if female non-smokers actually do have more of a risk of lung cancer. Lung cancer is the leading cancer killer worldwide, with almost 1.2 million deaths per year — 162,000 deaths a year in the United States alone.

Even young men popping viagra

It’s no longer the oldies who are taking anti-impotency pills. Now-a-days, even younger men are turning to enhancers to meet the increasing bedroom demands of their modern female partners, claim experts.

According to them, today’s modern women, inspired by strong female characters in films like ’Sex and the City’, have become more vocal about their sexual desires and demand a higher level of stamina and imagination in the bedroom.

As a result, men aged between 18 and 40 years feel increasingly emasculated — in fact, the pressure is causing many of them to experience "performance anxiety" and is also leading to the diagnoses of erectile dysfunction, the experts in Britain have claimed. Dr John Tomlinson of Sexual Dysfunction Association said that he was hearing from an "enormous" number of 18 to 40-year-olds worried about sexual problems.

"Men may feel emasculated by modern women and feminism has taken its toll. But most of problems are psychological.

I am sure many of these men are fuelling the counterfeit drugs industry by buying their Viagra online," British newspaper the Daily Mail quoted him as saying.

According to him, advertisements glamorising the well toned male body, make an impact on men who presume it is what women expect. John Dean, a specialist in sexual medicine, said when Viagra was introduced ten years ago, it would have been unusual to treat men in their 30s. Now, however, it is common, he said.

Added sex therapist Denise Knowles of counselling service Relate: "Pornography affects how men see themselves and how they think women will see them. Further pressure comes from the myth that men should know what to do in the bedroom and that women are difficult to satisfy."

Why punish those who attempt suicide?

Should a person who attempts suicide, apparently due to some mental sickness, be punished if he or she survives after the incident? This issue has come under the focus of Law Commission Chairman Justice A R Lakshmanan, who is believed to be looking at proposals which suggest that those who make suicide attempts should not be treated as criminals.

Justice Lakshmanan’s study, which may include a fresh look at Section 309 of IPC that prescribes a maximum punishment of one-year jail for such offenders, is also likely to reflect on the need to show compassion and sympathy towards those who survive attempts to end their life.

The Commission’s recommendations on the issue are likely to have a major bearing on the way the law treats millions of suicide attempt makers in a country where 13 suicides are committed every hour and, according to rough estimates, over 10 attempts are made for each suicide.

Section 309 of IPC says that whoever attempts to commit suicide and does any act towards the commission of such offence, shall be punished with simple imprisonment for a term which may extend to one year or with fine, or with both.

The tricky question of whether to treat suicide survivors as criminals or patients has even caught the attention of the Supreme Court on several occasions.

The Supreme Court in 1994 struck down section 309 as unconstitutional on the ground that it amounted to punishing the victim-accused twice. This verdict was, however, reversed in 1996.

A Law Ministry official said "The proposals under the Commission’s consideration revolve around giving the victim-accused, who already is under mental stress, a second chance to lead a normal life."

Indian career couples too tired to have sex!

A lady Bollywood director married to a mountaineer for the past seven years has not found time to consummate their marriage so far. Worse, they did not find anything unusual in this till their friends pushed them to a psychiatrist for consultation!

This may be an exceptional case but experts at ’Psychiatrists as sexologists’, a two-day consultation on sexual medicine by the Indian Psychiatrists Society (IPS) on Saturday sent the alarm bells ringing with the statistic that more and more couples are voluntarily shunning action in the bedrooms because they are too tired after long hours at work.

"A survey has revealed that couples of this generation devote 70 per cent time to their work and just 18 per cent time to their marriage. This is worrisome as this lack of intimacy is breaking up a lot of marriages," says senior psychiatrist Dr Mahendra Watsa of Mumbai.

Dr Watsa said that as the number of such too-fatigued-to-have-sex couples increases in his clinic as they come with emotional and marital problems, he has started advising them to avoid newspapers in the morning and get busy in the bedrooms!

Psychologist Raj Brahmabhatt said that young men and women in most metro and mega-cities have got busy in the rat race. "Couples these days are chasing luxury flats, cars and farm-houses which they want within three years of their careers. Where is the time to get physically intimate?" says Dr Brahmabhatt who admitted to having seen a lot of couples who confess to having no desire for sex at the end of the day.

The most affected are couples involved in the BPO and IT industry. "The working hours are gruelling. There is a boom of marital discords in south India as most techies work 14-18 hours a day.

Unfortunately, emotional and physical intimacy does not respond akin to pressing a computer button," said psychiatrist Dr TSS Rao.

"The world feels that India is multiplying but there is a growing number of couples not wanting to becoming parents out of choice. They do not have time to conceive and devote time to parenthood," says psychiatrist Dr PC Shastri, who feels that working couples should set themselves we-alone dates and once-a-week bedroom date to regain romance!

Sorry, no blogging for me: Hrithik

Bollywood’s heartthrob Hrithik Roshan has distanced himself from the war of blogs, which have Amitabh Bachchan, Shah Rukh Khan and Aamir Khan as their main warriors, saying that he has no plans to start his own blog. "I am not interested in blogging and don’t want to comment or join the war of blogs. Sorry, no blogging for me," says Hrithik.

"I am enjoying my fatherhood these days and very soon will be busy with my next project ’Kites’ to be shot outdoor extensively. I am not giving any serious thought to blogging given my busy schedule. As for the future, I can’t say," he says.

Hrithik, who reportedly for the very first time in his career plays a "raunchy" role in his dad’s next "Kites" says, it’s too early to talk about the movie as shooting is yet to start.

"Shooting will start from the next month and it’s too early to talk about it at this stage," says the actor, who made his film debut with the blockbuster ’Kaho Naa... Pyaar Hai’ (2000).

"This movie will take a year or so to get completed and I will have more to talk about it after its completion," he says.

The movie, starring US-based Spanish model Barbara Mori and Kangana Ranaut in the lead is about the romantic engagements between an Indian boy and a Latino girl who do not speak each other’s language, in which Hrithik plays a man who keeps oscillating between love and lust.

The movie to be shot mostly in New Mexico, Las Vegas and Los Angeles will be directed by Anurag Basu with music by Rajesh Roshan

Sterlite, Tata Power enter India benchmark index

Sterlite Industries, India’s top non-ferrous metals company, and Tata Power Co Ltd will enter the country’s benchmark BSE Index after a rejig, the stock exchange said.

The two stocks replace Ambuja Cements Ltd and Cipla Ltd, the statement, released on Friday, said. The revisions will be effective from July 28, it added

Five facts about India's Ambani brothers' split

India’s Reliance Communications said Reliance Industries had claimed first right of refusal to buy a controlling stake in it, but the mobile operator said this would not delay its tie-up talks with South Africa’s MTN Group.

Reliance Communications is controlled by Anil Ambani and Reliance Industries by his estranged elder brother Mukesh.

Here are five facts about the brothers and the division of the Reliance business empire after a bitter feud between them.

* Dhirubhai Ambani, a schoolteacher’s son and founder of the Reliance business empire, dies in July 2002. Mukesh becomes chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries, and Anil is vice-chairman and managing director.

* Feud between Mukesh and Anil becomes public in November 2004.

* In June 2005, the family reaches a settlement to split the Reliance business in a deal announced by their homemaker mother Kokilaben. The formal split happens in 2006.

* Mukesh gets the flagship Reliance Industries, with interests in petrochemicals, oil and gas exploration, refining and textiles. He has since launched a retail venture.

* Anil gets telecoms, power, entertainment and financial services businesses. The Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) now includes Reliance Communications Ltd, Reliance Infrastructure Ltd, Reliance Capital Ltd, Reliance Natural Resources Ltd and Reliance Power Ltd

The man behind the success story of Tata Steel

India is fast emerging as a major steel producer and the signature of Tata Steel, and its founder and visionary Jamsetji Nusserwanji Tata is solidly etched in the history of India’s industrialization. However, not many still know of a person who braved the tigers, elephants and wild animals of the Central Provinces in the late 1800s and really found the ore. That is why Tata group themselves holds him in high esteem and held a commemorative meeting on his 150 anniversary in 2005 in Jamshedpur. His statue is prominently displayed before the Tata Steel Factory in Jamshedpur.

He was Pramatha Natha Bose, the first Indian graded officer of the Geological Survey of India. The Romance of Tata Steel (Penguin, 2007) by R M Lala captures the mood of the times: “A thin line of travelers move its way through the jungles. In front, on the horseback, was a sharp-featured bearded young man, behind him on another horse sat a remarkably beautiful woman in a sari, riding side-saddle. Another pony followed with two babies on it in the charge of a competent care taker. Following at a respectable distance behind was a camel loaded with tents and chattels. Atop the camel were perched the servants of the party. Every ten or fifteen miles the travelers would stop for the man at the head to spend four or five days on a field survey, searching for iron ore, mica, coal and other minerals.”

The protagonist in the above narrative searching for the ore is Pramatha Natha Bose and the beautiful lady, his wife accompanied by their children. For six months of the year from October to March, the family was on a continuous safari during which time they would mix freely with the local tribals, the Kolis, the Bhils and Bose would invite them to speak about their manners and customs.

They enjoyed the trip immensely. At the same time as Bose was braving the jungles, a successful textile entrepreneur was reading Ritter Von Schwartz’s work ’The Financial Aspects of Iron-making in the Chanda District’. When many thought Jamsetji would continue expanding his textile business, but he had other plans after listening to many steel experts talk in England and elsewhere. Although he did not live to see the establishment of Tata Steel in Jamshedpur, the visionary in him had directed his next generations how to run a steel company.

“Be sure to lay wide streets planted with shady trees, every other of a quick growing variety. Be sure that there is plenty of space for lawns and gardens. Reserve large areas for football, hockey and parks. Earmark areas for Hindu temples, Mohammedan mosques and Christian churches,” Jamsetji wrote to son Dorab in 1902. It was PN Bose who discovered the iron ore in the Chanda and Durg districts in central provinces. On retirement from service in 1903, he was requested by the far sighted Maharaja of Maybhanj to explore mineral deposits in the state in Northern Orissa, where he did it successfully.

HOW TATAS FOUND DURG
Dorabji Tata had gone to Nagpur to meet Sir Benjamin Robertson, chief secretary of state to inform him that the Chanda project cannot be carried out as various iron deposits situated at some distance from each other were not continuous but mere pockets and that there was not enough ore in the Lohara Hills. The chief secretary happened to be out so Mr Tata drifted aimlessly into the museum opposite the secretariat. T

here he chanced upon a geographical map of the Central Provinces, printed in colour. He noticed that the Durg area was coloured very darkly, in a hue which was meant to indicate large deposits of iron ore. Later Sir Benjamin produced the records of Geological Survey, and it was found that 15 years earlier Mr P N Bose had gone through the district looking for iron. In a report of 1887 he had mentioned that the neighbourhood was rich in iron ore, but his investigation seemed to be cursory, and his report had long been forgotten.

Had Bose pushed his inquiries a little farther, he would have stumbled upon one of the richest deposits of iron ore in the world. Even though the investigating reports for the Dhalli and Rajhara Hills were highly satisfactory, Bose wrote a letter to the Tata firm and explained that he had retired from his post in the Geological Survey, and was now in the employment of the Maharaja of Mourbhanj. Bose, with the concurrence of the Maharaja, informed Tata Sons & Co that he had found very rich deposits of iron, and invited them to send representatives to inspect the ore fields. His inquiries were the prelude to the discoveries of C M Weld in Durg area. Afterwards, the iron and steel plant was indeed established at Sakchi in Mourbhanj state.

THE MAN
Pramatha Nath Bose (1855-1934) was educated at Krishnagar College and later at St Xavier’s in Calcutta he obtained a Gilchrist scholarship to study in London in 1874. During his study in Cambridge he became a friend of Rabindranath Tagore. May be because of this association, Tagore has written a beautiful poem on steel:

“Hard (Strong) Iron was lying unconscious in the realm of deep slumber.
O, We (I) awakened it.
It was hidden within the darkness of millions of years.
So we have awakened it.
It has been tamed and is under control
It speaks the way we want it to
To we have broken its silence.
It was static but now that it has gained motion
It is running on to conquer the world
Fearlessly now, we take hold of its reins with both hands.”

As a graded officer in Geological Survey his initial work was on the Siwalik fossils. Bose has several firsts to his credit. Bose was the first Indian graduate in science from a British University, first to discover petroleum in Assam, first to set up a soap factory in India and also the first to introduce micro sections as an aid to petrological work.

Bose was the first Indian to hold a graded position in the Geological Survey of India where he served with distinction. Bose was very much involved in the Swadeshi movement. He also authored several books on the freedom movement and history of India, including The Centenary Review of the searches of Asiatic Society of Bengal in National Scene, a History of Hindu Civilisation during British Rule (3 volumes) which is an objective assessment of British rule in India.

Tata Group held a commemorative meeting in 2005 in connection with the 150th birth anniversary of P N Bose. Dr T Mukherjee, deputy managing director of Tata Steel recalled that Bose paved the way for the Indian iron and steel industry. He had constantly taken up the cause of technical education in the country. His resolute pursuit of the issue resulted in the first All-India Industrial Conference in 1905, which was followed up in 1906 by the second conference. This also resulted in formation of the Indian Industrial Association.

His efforts also catalysed the foundation of the Bengal Technical Institute which is better known as the Jadavpur University today. Bose was the first honourary principal of this institute. A staunch supporter of industrialisation in India, Bose wrote extensively about the steady depletion of our raw materials to fuel industrial growth in the West. He specially referred to the output of mineral resources and industrial ventures of the country for ten years 1894-1903 and showed that the production of manganese ore increased 15 times, petroleum more than seven fold, mica nearly quadrupled, gold trebled coal more than doubled.

Bose estimated that not even a fiftieth part of the capital of the joint stock companies engaged in mining was contributed by the countrymen. No wonder all the material was being shipped abroad, said Dr Mukherjee. He further added that Tata Steel would always owe to this luminary for the historic letter he wrote to J N Tata on February 24, 1904, which changed the course of industrialisation in the country and wished that we had many more P N Boses in India in all fields, be it science, be it culture, politics or education.

Is it right time to quest for non-correlated assets

Whats known on Wall Street as a "non-correlated asset" is just fancy talk, says Chris Mayer for the Rude Awakening, for something that doesn’t move in lock-step with the overall market. When the market falls, a non-correlated asset might actually rise, or at least hold its own. The correlation between changes in this asset’s price and changes in the broader market is either zero or near enough to smooth out your overall portfolio’s moves.

Gold is a classic example. Its price actually tends to rise during times of stock market distress, suggesting a negative correlation. (Gold up, stock market down and vice versa.)

Very few asset classes, however, can rival Gold’s long history of genuine non-correlation. Imposters abound. The imposters might move independently of the overall market for months or years at a time, thereby creating the impression that they are non-correlated. But when the markets really turn nasty, investors often learn that their "non-correlated" asset – unless it’s Gold Bullion – tumbles just as sharply as an S&P 500 Index fund.

However, some investors think they’ve found a reliable new non-correlated asset: so-called "frontier markets".

Merrill Lynch recently created an index not only to track them, but for investors to buy and sell, too. These frontier markets include Pakistan, Kuwait, the United Arab Emirates (UAE) and other markets throughout Africa and the Middle East. They also include Vietnam, Kazakhstan, Cyprus and others...individually too small for institutions to invest in, but worth buying – apparently – if you cobble them together into a new index that allows you to buy and sell the whole basket.

Merrill Lynch’s new Frontier Index tracks the 50 largest companies in 17 frontier markets. All told, the market value of all these companies combined is only about $330 billion – or about that of General Electric in the United States.

Right now, the index heavily tilts toward the Middle East, with 50% of the index in the region. Asia is the second largest component, with 23%, followed by Europe at 14% and Africa at 13%.

As for industry groups, banks usually features among the biggest companies in any emerging market. So banks and financial service companies represent about 65% of the index. Oil and gas is the next largest sector, weighing in at 13%. As far as countries go, the top three are the UAE (23%), Kuwait (18%) and Pakistan (14%).

So far, these frontier markets have lived up to their advance billing of not following the broader markets. Since Sept. 30, for example, the frontier markets actually gained 31% while the broader global market lost ground. Merrill Lynch back-tested the index several years and found that between Feb. 2000 and Dec. 2007, the index return’s correlation with the S&P 500 was only 32%.

So basically, that means that about two-thirds of the time, the frontier markets zigged while the S&P 500 zagged.

Sure, I love the idea of frontier investing – because I’m an optimist when it comes to global trade and booming overseas markets. Maybe it’s my globe-trotting that’s skewed my view. But when I travel overseas, I see great opportunity. I see people building businesses. I see the impact of global market forces on local energy, food and resource markets. I see the world getting smaller.

I’m long-term bullish on markets such as the UAE, Kuwait, Vietnam and others. But I also realize that the ride in some of these markets will be absolutely gut-wrenching. Just look at Vietnam.

The Vietnamese economy is growing somewhere between 7-9% per year. It is a cheaper place to do business than many other parts of Asia. Hence, Vietnam continues to attract a strong flow of investment.

While I liked what I saw going on there, I found no direct investment ideas. The market is just too small and illiquid. Heck, before March 2002, the market traded only on alternate days! Moreover, as with most of these frontier markets, Vietnam suffers from poor disclosures and low transparency. When you invest here, you’re really not sure what you’re getting.

I remember listening to Carlo Cannell, a very good investor at Cannell Capital, talk about his trip to Vietnam and his investments there. This was back in May 2007. The theme was investing in the dark. In Vietnam, he basically made many blind bets on lots of companies, figuring enough of them would work out.

Since then? The Vietnam market has tanked.

Perspective, though, is everything in markets. A chart of Vietnam looks nasty, with a near 50% drop from the high in less than a year. But as recently as July 2005, the index was only 250. You’d still have more than doubled your money in less than three years. In 2000, it was only 100. Investors are up six-fold from 2000, which is a lot better than an investment in the S&P 500 Index of any other major Western bourse.

And that’s really the key to the whole frontier market idea. As an investor, what’s most important is what happens over the years.

I’m skeptical of the idea of frontier markets as a "non-correlated asset", however, and for all seasons. They certainly can’t match Gold. Links between these small markets and their bigger brothers are probably stronger now than in the past. Vietnam, for example, depends heavily on foreign investment. Vietnam’s currency, the Dong, is still pegged with the Dollar.

So we have to be careful in taking the past and saying the future will work the same way. Even though, on their own merits, as growing economies, I like frontier markets for the long haul.

For now only institutions can buy Merrill’s index. But individual investors can still invest in frontier markets through mutual funds. The recently launched T. Rowe Africa & Middle East Fund is one. Just be sure you can stomach the major gyrations that come with working the frontier of investing.

Worst case? You’ll lose money in many different languages, not just English.

A short note on the Consumer Price inde

Surely the greatest marketing coup of the twentieth century – besides making cigarettes taste of freedom and youth rather than the Sandakan death-march – was kidding the world that "inflation" meant rising prices. Long mistaking symptom for cause, what hope do we have of defending our money today?

"The word ’inflation’ originally applied solely to the quantity of money," as Henry Hazlitt, sometime Newsweek and New York Times editor, put it in 1965. "It meant that the volume of money was inflated, blown up, overextended.

"To use the word ’inflation’ to mean ’a rise in prices’ is to deflect attention away from the real cause of inflation and the real cure for it."

In short, words matter – and not least when people try to save and plan for the future. Because our drive to label the world dictates our response to it. Use the wrong label, and you’re sure to screw up both your understanding and your reactions from there.

"Over the past 100 years the retail market has changed tremendously," notes Alan Kackmeister in a recent paper for the Journal of Money, Credit & Banking. "Transportation is easier. Stores are larger and less personal. Product brands have become more important. Food and other necessities make up a smaller share of consumption expenditures."

To this list of cost-cutting advances, Kackmeister could have added no end of technological and cut-price progress – mechanized and robot production, chemical fertilizers, those two billion people pulling down wage-costs after the Iron Curtain and Great Wall of China both fell to the globalized market...

Yet despite all these advances in making everyday stuff, what’s now called "the cost of living" has barely ever failed to stop rising. The official Consumer Price Index in the United States has risen 11 times over in the last 90 years. Here in Britain, one pound now buys less than 3% what it did in terms of "making ends meet".

Good job we’ve got so many more Dollars and Pounds to help pay for things, right?

Cash in on climate: Platform for encashing weather

Rain, rain go away, come again another day, Little Johny wants to play….
It is not just little Johny who dislikes a bad rain, farmers, traders, power producers, miners, plantations just about everyone from all walks of life. Even when rain comes soothing after a hot day, everyone still wants protection.

Now following the successful launch of exchange-traded weather Futures in United States under Chicago Mercantile Exchange (CME), one Hyderabad-based company, Weather Risk Management Services (WRMS) is planning to launch a weather trading platform in the country for the first time. According to CME, weather affects economies around the world and according to estimates, directly affects at least one third of businesses.

“The weather trading platform in India will be launched as soon as we get approval from Forward Markets Commission,” according to Sonu Agarwal, managing director of WRMS. The trading platform would allow one to buy or sell the value of a temperature and precipitation (rain) index at a specific future date.

While power companies such as Reliance Power or NTPC can trade in high-degree days (HDD) and low-degree days (LDD) contracts in Mumbai and estimate how much electricity could be consumed during those days, farmers can use weather derivatives to hedge against poor harvests caused by drought.

In USA, CME Group allows people to trade in weather conditions in 36 cities around the world 18 in the US, 6 in Canada, 9 in Europe, 2 in Japan average weekly, monthly and seasonal temperatures in select locations, frost and snowfall in select locations as also hurricanes in select locations. WRMS was incubated out of Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur and Small Industries Development Bank of India Innovation Centre.

WRMS claims to have played a pioneering role in developing the Indian weather market which in a short span of 2 years has grown to a size of approx $20 mn (Total contract value). WRMS says it has a diverse clientele, including premiere agricultural companies such as ITC, Dupont Mayhco, JK Seeds, Excel Crop care etc, Microfinance institutions such as Basix, Care, Sadhan and prominent Airlines & Energy utilities.

The company reaches over 200,000 Indian farmers, according to its website. To facilitate future growth, the company is building a state-of-the-art weather & disaster research and analytics centre at the country’s most reputed Engineering Research Institute The Indian Institute of Technology-Kanpur (IIT-K). Eminent experts in the area of mathematics, statistics, design and finance are associated with it in this endeavour.

Sonu Agarwal, managing director of WRMS, said the existing national agriculture insurance scheme didn’t address farmers’ concerns. The claim settlement process was long and the scheme was proving costly to the government exchequer. The risks in Indian agriculture were largely attributable to weather.

“Therefore, it was felt that insuring crop losses through weather indices could be a good idea. The weather indices could be used to settle claims due to agricultural loss on almost a real time basis. Further these indices could be traded enabling reduction in cost of risk transfer,” he told Commodity Market.

The exchange will be launched by June this year. The total transaction at the trading platform in the first 6-12 months is expected to touch Rs 10,000 crore. Even when such estimates are released WRMS does not reveal how the system will work. Whether a separate exchange will be set or whether the derivatives will be traded on existing commodity exchanges and other issues?

To Commodity Market’s queries regarding trading margins and whether a separate exchange will be set up, Sonu Agarwal said such information cannot be shared because of legal obligations binding the company. What is the logic behind putting 18 degree centigrade as the benchmark temperature value? For example in some fruit growing regions, it could be lesser most of the time but still work out fine for that kind of crops?

Sonu Agarwal said the temperature indices are being primarily created for energy utilities, 18 degree is an established cut off point for turning on or off cooling and heating appliances. He said there will be separate derivatives for rainfall, drought, temperature and other weather parameters. Sonu Agarwal said the response to weather insurance based on weather-based indices has been overwhelming.

Over 10 lakh farmers have voluntarily opted for weather index linked insurance. Couple of state governments have replaced their earlier agriculture insurance schemes with weather-index based schemes. Regarding other services provided by WRMS, Sonu Agarwal said they provide agro-advisory services to farmers and agricultural entities.

These services are offered realtime on PC and mobile platform. Farmers can know the impact of weather condition on their crops real time and can take suitable measures. There are modules which help farmers formulate optimal irrigation and harvest plans. WRMS is also launching weather insurance for the renewable energy sector.

Hydropower companies can insure themselves against loss of generation due to insufficient water flow in their base reservoirs. Wind mills can protect themselves against loss inadequate wind speed. WRMS has also announced that an online-trading game will be set up to create awareness about weather derivatives. There are some like the reader of a leading business daily who fears that weather trading could become another speculative activity on a platform with legal sanctity.

“Our insurance products should be based on risk avoidance, risk reduction or risk transfer and not based on pure speculation,” he wrote in response to a news item that WRMS is launching weather derivates. As of now it is not yet clear what form the new weather trading pla