If he manages to push his latest proposals through, French President François Hollande may find himself with a few more young supporters on his side.
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China’s reform issue
China’s top financial policymakers expressed determination on Friday to push on with their campaign to reform and rebalance the world’s second-largest economy even as growth cools.Manufacturing activity in China has slowed for the past eight months, prompting expectations that regulators could dramatically loosen monetary and fiscal policies to spur the economy, as they did during the last global downturn. However, top officials who spoke at a financial forum in Shanghai indicated they will maintain the current “prudent” policy mix, while continuing with reform.
China will also expand the financing channels available to banks, allowing them to raise funds overseas and retain higher levels of profit, Chinese banks have been in the spotlight in the past year with investors worried that a slowing economy may increase losses from bad loans, especially after the banks loaned some 10.7 trillion yuan to local governments following the 2008-09 financial crisis.Nearly all these reforms, such as boosting institutional investment, are long-term positive factors, and will not immediately push large amount of money into the market, Early economic indicators suggest growth did not pick up in June, raising doubts over whether China can meet its 2012 growth target of 7.5%, a level many thought the economy would comfortably exceed when it was announced in March. The reform push led by the central bank and other financial watchdogs represents a change in approach by Beijing from the last crisis. To offset the effects of the global downturn that began in 2008, China unleashed a wave of policy lending, infrastructure spending and other fiscal stimulus. It successfully revived growth but exacerbated existing structural economic distortions, encouraging real estate and stock speculation and enabling local governments to incur the USD 1.68 trillion pile of debt.
20 Years in Bollywood: ShahRukh Khan
On this day two decades ago a new Hindi film superstar emerged: Bollywood’s all-time favourite romantic hero Shah Rukh Khan, who debuted with Deewana. On completing 20 years, Khan says he just ‘got lucky’ and admits he has made mistakes all along. Superstardom, disappointment and controversies – Delhi boy Shah Rukh Khan has seen it all in his celebrity hood. For Khan, it’s been two decades in Bollywood, but his tryst with showbiz began in 1988, the year he started his journey with TV series Fauji, after being trained at The Barry John’s Acting Studio. Next year he featured in another successful show Circus and Doosra Keval.If people loved his act on small screen, he won hearts as a crazy lover in Deewana, in which he was competing with none other than Rishi Kapoor in the lead role. But lady luck was smiling on him and audiences loved his chemistry with the late Divya Bharti. The song Aisi deewangi dekhi nahin kabhi picturised on them became a chartbuster. Deewana turned out to be a huge hit at the box office, and won Khan a Filmfare Best Male Debut Award.There was no looking back thereafter – only more films, more hits, and more awards for Khan. His success earned him titles like – King Khan and the Bollywood Badshah.He redefined the romantic hero in Hindi cinema with many films and his work profile is eclectic.
At the peak of his career in 2007, he choose to go back to his roots: Television – to host the third season of the game show Kaun Banega Crorepati. After making it big in showbiz, he turned businessman by launching his production house Red Chillies Entertainment and later by investing in the Indian Premier League (IPL) franchise Kolkata Knight Riders (KKR), whose victory at the fifth IPL Season was a silver lining for the star this year as lately, he has been a part of controversies. Now, one of the most lovable Bollywood actor is set to return to his lovey-dovey avatar with Yash Chopra’s next directorial venture. He will be seen romancing Katrina Kaif in it.
“Twenty uninterrupted years of serving. Not enough talent or looks or game plan. Thank you all. I guess I got lucky, lucky to be working all the time,” tweeted Khan, who entered filmdom with Deewana, which was released on June 25, 1992. ”Made mistakes, still continue to do so. A little madness. A bit of solitude. Too silly to realise it’s impossible and maybe that’s why it gets achieved.”Mom said to only feel and say positive things. ‘Your Farishtey (angels) are always listening and fulfil your words’. My Farishtey work overtime,” wrote SRK.
India’s credit rating- Stable
Moody’s Investors Service announced that it was maintaining a stable outlook on India’s Baa3 rating as problems such as slower growth and higher inflation were long-standing and already factored into the outlook. The agency considered the global and domestic factors, including potential shocks in agriculture, and said they could keep India’s growth below trend for the next few quarters. But it felt recent negative trends were unlikely to become permanent or even medium-term features of the Indian economy.
Furthermore, the impact of lower growth and still-high inflation will deteriorate credit metrics in the near term, but not to the extent that they will become incompatible with India’s current rating, is what Moody predict and even Indian govt is confident on this.
Next President of India?????
Pratibha Patil wakes to the sound of trumpets and horse-backed riders in the cobbled courtyard of her magnificent palace in New Delhi, she walks on a treadmill, prays at her private temple and prepares for a long, hollow day. That’s how it has been for Patil and her 11 predecessors as president of India: a grand office and an opulent home with liveried attendants, but almost no power. But that might change when Patil leaves office in July and a new president is elected for the next five years.
For the first time since India became independent 65 years ago, it may have a president with political clout. That power will flow from a prerogative that effectively gives the president a casting vote when no one political party has a clear mandate to rule – the likely outcome of the next national elections due by 2014.
A politically driven president – and the leading contender for the job, current Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee, is certainly that – could also take advantage of India’s vaguely worded constitution to influence legislation in a parliament splintered by many parties and alliances. He could also use his power to dissolve an impossibly fractured parliament, and delay or even scupper legislation by withholding the required presidential assent. ”The role of the president will be critical after the next general elections,” wrote M.J. Akbar, a former Congress party lawmaker, in the India Today weekly. “In theory, a president is above politics; in practice, he is what he chooses to be.”
Maruti to hire 1900 employees this fiscal.
Largest car-maker Maruti Suzuki will be adding around 1,900 employees to its workforce this year, out of which around 900 will be for engineering and management divisions. They have already hired around 200 employees so far this fiscal and the plan is to hire 900 personnel on the engineering and management side apart from around 1,000 technicians on the shop-floor, taking the total hiring to around 1,900 this year, news came out from the officials.
Announcing the second automotive HR conclave being organised by industry body SIAM here on June 14-15, Siddiqui said the company would launch a web-based training academy with an investment of Rs 25 crore by October. The academy will link the company with its dealers, suppliers and Suzuki group entities in the country, and “The main advantage of the academy is that 75 per cent of the training will be provided from the location itself, the training will comprise functional and technical modes, soft skills and customized training. The initial investment will be Rs 25 crore in the first phase, which may go up to Rs 35 crore during expansion. On the upcoming Gujarat plant, which will be the third plant for the car major after the Gurgaon and Manesar plants in Haryana, the company will hire around 1,600 employees for the 2.5-lakh per annum new facility being set up at an investment of Rs 4,000 crore. The current headcount in Maruti stands at around 9,350, including the 200 employees it hired since the beginning of this fiscal.
Airplane Headache?????
Flying is a headache for many people, but for some that figure of speech becomes literal with “airplane headache,” a form of pain that flares up during landing, researchers said. The unusual, specific head pain – severe usually on one side of the head and near the eye – was first reported in medical literature in 2004, with several dozen more cases documented in the following years. Now, Italian researchers writing in the journal Cephalalgia argue that “airplane headache” should be considered a new subtype of headache and suggest a list of criteria doctors can use to diagnose it. The ‘headache attributed to airplane travel,’ also named ‘airplane headache,’ is a recently described headache disorder that appears exclusively in relation to airplane flights, in particular during the landing phase.
Researchers had all of them complete detailed questionnaires to describe their symptoms. Overall, they fit the features of past cases of airplane headache: severe pain on one side of the head that was usually limited to the time the plane was landing. The headache was almost always short lived, less than 30 minutes for 96 percent of the people. Only a minority consistently had headaches during landings, and for most it happened on some flights but not on others. Nobody knows what causes it. Nobody knows how many people have it. Nobody knows what treatments work and also It’s not clear what might trigger the headaches. One theory is that the pain may be related to pressure changes in the sinus cavities, based on the idea that passengers with colds or sinus infections can get severe headaches during take-off or landing but this airplane headache is distinct from migraines and other well-known headache types and the good news is that airplane headache seems harmless.It doesn’t appear to be a serious or life-threatening disorder.
Transit of Venus….. again in 2117!!!!!!
A rare celestial spectacle, transit of Venus, the last for this century, unfolded in the morning sky all across the country, enthralling the astro enthusiasts. Scientists and astronomers alike celebrated the arrival of the Transit of Venus, peering up to the skies to watch a dark black spot slide over the surface of the Sun. The awesome spectacle was visible all over the country, including the national capital. However, a cloudy sky restricted its visibility from Delhi and some other parts of northern India.
Large projectors, pin hole cameras and telescopes were set up to help people see the celestial event unfold at the Planetarium, where a large number of people had gathered to see the rare event.”It is exciting to see such an event, It is too good to resist. It is awesome, which was earlier seen in 2004 also. The next Venus transit will happen after 105.5 years in 2117, making this a lifetime’s event. From the Earth, this phenomenon is seen when the Venus passes between the Sun and the Earth. It occurs in intervals of 8, 121 , 8 and 105 years.
Sachin in now an MP!!!!!
Cricket Legend Sachin Tendulkar today began the new innings as a member of Parliament. He took oath as member of Rajya Sabha to which he was nominated on April 26. Tendulkar was busy with the IPL season, which ended on May 27. He had created history by scoring 100 international centuries in March this year.39-year-old Tendulkar, who was accompanied by his wife Anjali, took oath in the chamber of Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari. “Cricket comes first,” Tendulkar said when reporters asked whether he preferred cricket to Parliament.
In a nation of multiple gods, mortals run the risk of being elevated to divinity. With cricket as contemporary India’s mass religion, Sachin Tendulkar has had to live with a demi-god status for years now. It’s a burden he has been conscious of, rarely being drawn into controversy. Through good times and bad, Tendulkar has gone about doing just one thing with absolute single-mindedness: scoring a mountain of runs. He is the boy next door who has become the God of cricket through the sheer weight of ‘pure’ achievement. Which is why his decision to accept a Rajya Sabha nomination in the eminent citizens’ category is being seen by some as somewhat incongruous with his exalted position. Tendulkar as a backbencher MP is seen to lower his stature rather than enhance it. A group on the social media – mainly well organised ‘Internet Hindutva’ groups – have even tried to give it a political twist by suggesting that Tendulkar has fallen prey to a Congress ‘conspiracy’ to divert attention from scams. In spite of these many controversies we will have to see what Sachin is going to do being both a cricketer and a politician now.
Greece & Iran tensions over crude prices
Despite recent gains, oil has fallen sharply this month with Brent down more than 12 percent. The front-month Brent contract is off about 16 percent from this year’s high above $128 reached at the beginning of March.Large speculators in crude oil futures and options markets have cut net long positions this month, easing back on assets deemed risky. Exchange data on Monday showed Brent net longs have been trimmed for three consecutive weeks. Investors say a key risk for the oil market is tension over Iran’s nuclear programme, which Washington and its allies believe is designed to produce an atomic weapon.A dispute between Iran and the West intensified over the weekend after Tehran refused to allow the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) to visit a nuclear site suspected of being used to develop nuclear weapons.
Oil rose above $107 per barrel on Monday as fears of a euro zone break-up receded, but Middle East oil supply worries resurfaced after minimal progress in talks over Iran’s nuclear program. Fears of a war in the Gulf that could threaten global oil supplies have returned after world powers failed to convince Iran last week to halt its most sensitive nuclear work.Tension between Iran and the West remains high ahead of more talks in Moscow next month to try to end the stand-off.The latest Greek opinion polls are being seen as a positive and a lack of progress in the Iranian talks have also helped lift the market
