Bio fuels

Bio fuels are liquid fuels obtained directly from plants and animal matters due to carbon fixation of geological past. the various generations of bio fuels are listed below..popular form of bio fuels are bio gas; bio diesel.vegetable oil.syngas etc

FIRST GENERATION

directly use the food crops like wheat and sugar for ethanol and oil seeds for bio diesel by conventional method of fermentation...

green house emission more...

SECOND GENERATION
here non- food crops used instead of food crops in first generation ....like wood ;organic waste etc

THIRD GENERATION
used specially engineared algae and its bio mass used to convert into bio fuels;; here green house emission will be low compared to others

since first generation completely depends on food directly the volume of food grains directing away from food market and been focusing on energy market..as every country is energy starved and good remuneration for farmers every one attracting to energy production..

with the third generation bio fuels the advantages are:
1)the algae are cultured to act as a low-cost
, high-energy and entirely renewable feedstock
2)t algae will have the potential to produce more energy per acre than conventional crops.
3) Algae can also be grown using land and water unsuitable for food production, therefore reducing the strain on already depleted water sources
4). algae based biofuels is that the fuel can be manufactured into a wide range of fuels such as diesel, petrol and jet fuel.

the fourth generation bio fuel which will further yet to reduce green house emission..itz a ray of hope for human kind for nurturing sustaninable development for upcoming generations

GAAR and its Effects

The idea of GAAR became popular in the backdrop of Vodafone tax case.. GAAR is general anti avoidance rules made to prevent intentional tax avoidance by manipulating tax laws. It empowers the Income Tax dept. to investigate any deal or joint ventures which involves huge capital. however the announcement of GAAR created havoc in Capital market and is believed might lead to tax terrorism.. Main reasons were:

1. The arbitrary method to investigate any commercial deal.
2. Due to the possibility of retrospective taxation 
3. Vagueness of tax laws might be used against a particular company. eg recent Vodafone case of transfer pricing . Under GAAR they have much more power.

Impact on economy:
1. Less investment by foreign companies so less growth.
2. Reduced employment 
3. Poor service delivery as less competition .

Impact on ease of doing business:

1. GAAR will weaken the investors faith in stability of Indian tax regime.
2. Cost benefit analysis favors delay in implementation unless a properly detailed and acceptable norms are formed.
3. One big case like Vodafone may have ripple effect on investor's confidence.

As shome panel recommended we should delay it's implementation for now and should strive toward a stable and predictable tax regime,avoid retrospective taxation and work to provide a transparent business environment in Indian economy.

Sending the right signal

The government’s decision not to appeal against the adverse verdict of the Bombay High Court in its Rs.3,200-crore tax case against Vodafone is the first concrete demonstration of its resolve to do away with what Prime Minister Narendra Modi and Finance Minister Arun Jaitley termed “adversarial” taxation policies of the erstwhile UPA government. Though the BJP had during its election campaign, referred to “tax terrorism” in its election campaign there was little that happened in the first eight months of the new government to show that such policies would be reversed. The latest Cabinet decision sends out a strong signal to foreign investors that this government will be fair in its tax policies and avoid needless litigation. The decision not to appeal has implications for other such similar cases involving multinationals and is, in that sense, a significant one. It is also an acknowledgment that the Income Tax Department’s assessment of the case was erroneous. The Vodafone case was about wrong classification of a capital receipt as taxable income at the hands of the company. Applying transfer-pricing guidelines, the I.T. Department held that Vodafone had underpriced its shares issued to the parent. So it revalued the shares and deemed the difference to be a loan given to the parent. This was clearly high-handed and a wrong application of transfer-pricing regulations.

The government’s decision to accept the High Court verdict is also a signal to assessing officers that they should refrain from making unreasonable tax demands, relying on aggressive and faulty interpretations of rules and sections. Yet, it is also true that the government turns the heat on these officers when it decides that tax collections need to be augmented. If the tax official is confused he cannot be blamed. What is needed is a stable policy that sends out the signal to both assessing officers and taxpayers that the government will crack down on evasion but within the framework of the law; there will be no extraordinary interpretations of rules and sections even in times of revenue distress. The focus will now shift to whether the government moves to neutralise the mischief caused by the retrospective tax amendment; this is a major demand of foreign investors who were disappointed that it was not addressed in the first budget of this government in July last year. The General Anti Avoidance Rules, or GAAR, are a cause for worry for taxpayers and foreign investors as they confer wide discretionary powers on the I.T. Department. It will be interesting to see if Mr. Jaitley makes a Budget announcement to postpone its implementation once again as per the recommendations of the Parthasarathi Shome Committee.

source: http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/sending-the-right-signal/article6836457.ece

Consumer protection act

The CPA,1986 was enacted considering the large number of consumers in India who are illiterate and are susceptible to exploitation by unscrupulous businesses. Hence, a major objective of this Act was to make consumers aware of the various quality-control measures(e.g. Hallmark, BIS-mark etc.) being employed for the products and the rights available to them to seek redressal against unfair practices.

Although, the impacts have been largely positive as is visible in the increased consumer awareness and adherence of businesses to the quality-control standards, there have been certain issues as well. The movement has left many rural regions untouched. Also, the slow progress of addressing the cases has resulted in large-scale pendency. Provisions for addressing new-age cases such as e-commerce are also non-existent.

The recent amendments proposed to the CPA, 1986 are largely progressive in the sense that it seeks to decrease the time required to seek redressal by including provisions for online filling of complaints and setting a time limit of 21 days for scrutiny of cases before admission, effectively leveraging the District Forums by increasing their pecuniary jurisdiction from Rs.20 to Rs.50 lakh, and increasing the penalties to 10 times the cost of goods provided.

However, certain issues such as the appointment of mediators to settle disputes are contentious as this would lead to arm-twisting of the weaker parties and may encourage corruption. Also, the setting up of a Consumer Authority and absence of provisions to streamline the conducting of cases in courts may only lead to greater regulations and complexities. Addressing these issues is necessary to ensure that the new amendments bring about definitive improvements in the CPA.

inequality in South Asia

World bank report can be justified by charity group Oxfam that said “The richest one percent of the world’s population will have more wealth than the remaining 99 percent by next year."

The reasons behind growth of inequality are:

1. the greater proportion of the population in South Asia people lives in rural areas;

2. the incidence of poverty tends to be higher in rural than in urban areas.

3. Trade liberalization has flooded the markets with cheaper and higher-quality goods and services, it has also engendered an influx of foreign participation in South Asia, it devastated small and local businesses, and created a substantial discrepancy between the incomes of the wealthy and the impoverished population.

4. Poverty impacts women and men differently and a number of factors, such as biased macroeconomic and institutional structures, discriminatory laws and customs, and societal attitudes make it more likely that women will fall into and remain in poverty than men.

Measures to Bridge Them:

1. Fairer Tax code is vital and easy to implement. Increasing progressive taxes such as the higher rate of income tax from 30% to 60% will take more income from those on high income levels. This enables cuts in regressive taxes and increased benefits which help increase the income of the poor. This can be an effective way for reducing relative poverty.

2. Government spending on education, health and skill development should be progressively increased.

3. It is also necessary to decrease Birth rate of population, China with its one-child policy achieved better results than other south Asian nations

Government should change its economic policy of neo-liberalism to fabianism for achieving better distribution of resources to masses.

Still slipping on oil | DRSC NELP-PSC / V Ramani

It is ironic that at a time when the prime minister is talking about making India an easier place to do business, one of his ministries is moving in exactly the opposite direction. The draft revenue-sharing contract (DRSC), which seeks to replace the New Exploration Licensing Policy production-sharing contract (NELP-PSC) regime for oil and gas exploration in India with a revenue-sharing model, reveals an attitude of extreme suspicion of the private investor. It also indicates that the government has learned nothing from the fiascos in this sector over the past decade. The committee headed by Vijay Kelkar, formed to prepare a road map for enhancing domestic oil and gas production, submitted its report to the government of India in January last year. Eight months after the new government came to power at the Centre, no action has been taken on the recommendations of the committee.

There are four areas in which the DRSC has, in a sense, moved in an investor-unfriendly direction, especially compared to the NELP-PSC format. Production of oil and gas is, by its very nature, an uncertain and risk-laden process, subject to reservoir behaviour. By penalising an investor for under-production, the government fails to recognise that many factors other than a force majeure could have an impact on production. As if this were not enough, the DRSC goes on to prescribe the creation of an escrow account into which all oil/ gas revenues will flow in the first instance, ostensibly to safeguard the revenue interests of the government. Any dispute on payments between the government and the investor will choke the flow of revenue to the latter, depriving it of the financial resources to carry on production.

Moreover, such an arrangement is likely to adversely affect confidence in lending funds to the investor, given the uncertainty of future payment schedules. The revenue-sharing model is not cost sensitive: this could lead to the failure to develop marginal fields since the extraction of royalty by the government, followed by revenue shares determined prior to the assessment of post-exploration oil/ gas prospects, could make the development of such fields unviable for the investor. Finally, the DRSC has done away with the contractual stability clause in the earlier NELP-PSC that gave confidence to the investor that tax and other fiscal terms would not be altered by the government to the disadvantage of the investor during the contract period.

Apart from imposing more onerous terms, as described above, the DRSC has also failed to address some of the concerns repeatedly raised by investors in recent years, especially in the wake of the Reliance and Cairn-Vedanta controversies. No effort seems to have been made to address vexatious contract management issues that have dogged almost every production-sharing contract signed in the past. The Kelkar Committee report had suggested measures to strengthen the Directorate General of Hydrocarbons (DGH) to enable it to fulfil its regulatory functions more competently. However, the DRSC retains the control of the ministry over decision-making processes, in spite of the fact that almost no company has managed to get clearances for work programmes, gas pricing or other contractual issues in a time-bound manner from the government.

It would seem that past practices will continue — the DGH will refer every matter to the government and there will be inordinate delays in decision-making. Even a simple matter like permitting exploration activities in a producing field area to better exploit its potential has been bogged down by bureaucratic red tape in the past. The same opacity in decision-making was also evident in the lack of a clear decision by the government when the investor, having made recent discoveries (as in Cairn’s Rajasthan block), requested an extension in the contract period to fully exploit the production potential of the field. The DRSC holds out little hope that such issues will be resolved in a timely, pragmatic manner. While the government of India has announced a price for the sale of natural gas, there is still no clarity on the move towards market-determined gas prices. Uncertainty regarding how administered gas prices may be tweaked by the government in the future could well affect investor sentiment.

Ultimately, no contract can hope to substitute for a competent, strong regulatory framework. The government needs to urgently build up the capabilities of the DGH to manage exploration and production contracts and put in place processes that enable companies to focus on their primary task of looking for oil rather than complying with unnecessary procedural formalities. The government appears to be focused on short-term revenue gains rather than the primary objective of enhancing oil and gas production in India, a classic case of killing the goose that lays golden eggs.

The writer, a retired IAS officer, was director (exploration contracts), ministry of petroleum and natural gas
express@expressindia.com

- See more at: http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/still-slipping-on-oil/99/#sthash.JpyhAyQs.dpuf

salient features of SC/ST sub-plan

In spite of the Constitutional safeguards and developmental planning launched, the SCs and STs are lagging behind the general population in various socio-economic indicators. So, the
Government took a shift from trickle down approach to direct targeting approach of development by mandating a planning process for the social, economic and educational development through SC/ST sub-plan.

Salient Features- 
(i) Envisage fund allocation and channelizing the flow of outlays and benefits both in physical and financial terms 
(ii) Ensuring socio-economic development through infrastructure development, educational activities, etc
(iii) Protection of STs against exploitation through legal and administrative support

Implementation issues-
(i) Inadequate allocation of funds as per the SC and ST population in the States, 
(ii) Non-utilization of even the allocated funds, 
(iii) Diversion of SCSP and TSP funds to other sectors at the end of the annual plan, 
(iv) Implementation and administrative bottlenecks 
(v) Improper delivery mechanism at the field level.

Measures to correct the inadequacies- 
(i) Earmarking the funds according to population and developmental needs along with outcome-based budgeting
(ii) Ensuring timely release of funds and proper implementation with strict monitoring and review mechanism 
(iii) Funds should be made non-divertible and non-lapsable

Thus, not just mere fund allocation but a comprehensive legislation for SC/ST sub-plan should be brought up to plug the above lacunae along with empowering National Commission for SCs and STs as the nodal agency to look into its working and ensuring its
implementation in letter and spirit.

Secularism in India

Indian Constitution included word Socialist and Secularism after 42nd Constitutional Amendment 1976, because it was felt that India as an nation of various religions and shown positive religious tolerance. It was also to make it clear in future that no particular religion can claim more share in policy implementation or declare herself as more holier, representative than other. In last 4 decades, India has set example in front of world by it’s positive secularism where state has no religion and it promotes every religion existence and prosperity equally as envisioned by our forefathers.

But certain section of society thinks otherwise and considers Indian secularism as pseudo-secularism because:

(a.) Secularism real meaning is zero favour to anyone, While in India all religions are promted equally by government.

(b.) Minority religions are given extra advantages like Haj subsidy, subsidy for missionary buying lands and setting up schools, minority can set special guidelines for their schools and university and can deny anyone’s admission there based on religion. This is against the spirit of Secularism.

(c.) With continous polarisation of religion as political agendas also degraded the value and essence of secularism.
Hence, while constitution claims India as secular nation but as a society we have to cross the barrier of commuanlised feeling both at heart and action.

--

Western secularism is negative in its application as state is totally separated from the religion. But Indian secularism is positive in its spirit as it assigns the responsibility to the State to promote and protect all religions and prohibits state to discriminate citizens on the ground of religion.

Women in Army | Empoerment

On its 66th Republic Day, during a mighty parade in the national capital, India showcased “woman power” with all-women contingents of the three Services for the first time. A day earlier, Wing Commander Pooja Thakur became the first woman to lead a ceremonial tri-service guard of honour, which the visiting U.S. President inspected. But when it comes to the overall status of women in the Indian armed forces, especially in the Army, all this represents a travesty of gender justice. Since being inducted into the Army in 1992 under the Women Special Entry Scheme (they were in even earlier in the Military Nursing Service from 1927 and in the Medical Officers Cadre from 1943), women Army officers are still denied permanent commission on a par with men: they have to be content with the short service commission. On a batch of petitions filed in 2003 by women officers demanding an end to the discriminatory practice, the Delhi High Court in March 2010 granted their just and fair claim for permanent commission — with the singeing words that it was not some “charity being sought… but enforcement of their constitutional rights”. While this prompted the Air Force and the Navy to grant women officers permanent commission, the Army took a different stand, arguing, among other things, that “the bulk of the army’s Junior Commissioned Officers and other ranks hail from rural India, who are not yet ready to accept a woman as their leader in combat situations”. In an affidavit filed before the Supreme Court in 2012 while appealing against the High Court order, the Army added: “In theory women in the army may sound good but in practical terms the arrangement has not worked well in the Indian Army and as a concept also our society is not prepared to accept women in combat role.”

As the issue remains in the Supreme Court for more than four years now, the Army needs to get real, and persuade itself to go beyond symbolic and cosmetic steps. It needs to recognise women’s capabilities — as many advanced armed forces across the world have done, even committing them to combat roles — and their right to a full-fledged career in the force, on a par with men. During the 14-year short service commission tenure they now enjoy, women officers in various corps are assigned duties similar to those of men officers without distinction, to all possible field units with men officers. If it is the Army’s claim that beyond that point in permanent commission tenure women could be exposed to hostile environments — it has cited “the unique nature of responsibility and organisational requirement that… the Army Act” necessitates — that truly smacks of gender discrimination. The time has come for the Army to end this iniquitous situation.

source: http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/editorial/going-beyond-symbolism/article6831124.ece

algorithmic trading

In algorithmic trades, the trader feeds a computer programme into the system and allows that program to put in all his trading orders and execute them too. These are very high speed transactions which help in securing a deal on the stock market within no time

There are many different types of algo programmes. Some of these programmes sclice the order into bits and spreads out the orders through the trading session so that the price is not unduly affected by the order.

Also some of these identifies anomalies between the price of an asset in different exchanges or markets and cashes in on these differences

These algos though harmless,can be used for underhand activities as well like bluff trades so that other programmmes reveal their intended trades.

Effects of algo trades on stock markets :
1. Market volatility : increase in thr unhedgable risk and thus a decrease in risk-adjusted returns
Ex: Flash Crash of 2010,USA
Knight capital case,2012
2. Increase in liquidity
3. These trades have an unfair advantage because they put in the trade before other investors become aware of it. Thus adversely affecting other investors .
4. Some of them also bombard the stock exchanges with multiple orders thus swamping the system

On the indian NSE these trades account for about 45% of the equity derivative market. Regulators worldwide are finding means to regulate these trades. However, they are hard to regulate as these trades have grown so big in number that they cannot be banned without causing serious harm to market’s liquidity and price discovery process.