Saturday, November 6, 2010
Monday, August 9, 2010
Efforts on to check oil spill spreading along Konkan coast
Efforts continued on a war-footing Monday to combat the oil spill from a Panaman ship that crashed into another vessel in Mumbai harbour as it threatened to spread further along the Konkan coastline.
Cargo vessel MCS Chitra, which was damaged after a collision with stationary MV Khalijia-III, gets submerged as fears of an oil spill makes authorities take up anti-pollution operations off the coast of Mumbai.
Hectic efforts, meanwhile, continued to combat the oil spill spanning around two miles in the Arabian Sea, three days after Panaman cargo carrier MSC Chitra and a St. Kitts ship MV Khalijia-III collided outside the Mumbai harbour, barely five km from south Mumbai.
In the biggest such operation mounted so far in the Indian sea waters, authorities have deployed five Indian Coast Guard (ICG) ships, one helicopter and one small aircraft for controlling the massive oil spill, an official said.
The affected ship, MSC Chitra, was loaded with an estimated 2,600 tonnes of oil, 300 tonnes of diesel and 89 tonnes of lubricating oil at the time of the accident.
The ship has also dangerously tilted at nearly 70 degrees and nearly 30 huge containers have so far fallen off into the sea.
Some containers are floating in the choppy Arabian Sea in the busy navigation channels giving entry and exit into the country's one of the oldest and largest ports - the Mumbai Port and Jawaharlal Nehru Port Trust respectively.
In view of the serious hazard the floating containers pose to vessels navigating in the area, the shipping traffic has been kept on hold for the time being. Ships like the ICG Sankalp, Amrit Kaur, Subhadra Kumari Chauhan, Kamla Devi and C-145 - have joined the ICG AOPV Sangram, which was deployed since Sunday to monitor the oil spill and guide relief efforts. A Chetak helicopter and a small Dornier aircraft were pressed into service for aerial spray of dispersants to tackle the thick oil slick.
Thursday, August 5, 2010
COMMONWEALTH IS NOT COMMON WEALTH
Shocking: Liquid soap for Rs 9,379
The Suresh Kalmadi-led Commonwealth Games Organising Committee (OC) may have some more explaining to do. A scrutiny of the final inventory and price list of several “overlays” — movable fixtures and fittings for venues and stadia — hired from four foreign firms reveals major anomalies.
The total cost of hiring these "overlays" is over Rs 600 crore and the inventory list shows several cases where there is a huge price differential for the same item.
The overlays include first-aid kits, water dispensers, lecterns, office stationery, staircases, bookshelves, curtains, doormats, barricade golf carts, fire extinguishers and emergency lights.
Consider:
* After a bidding process, the OC selected four foreign firms for their mega turnkey deal and, as it now transpires, while one vendor, Nussli of Switzerland, for instance, is charging Rs 187 for renting out each "liquid soap dispenser," another firm, British consortium ESAJV, is charging Rs 9,379 for the same item. While the Hong Kong-based Pico Deepali Overlays Consortium is charging the OC Rs 2 for a single disposable glass, the ESAJV consortium is charging India Rs 37 per glass.
* All the hired items were split into seven operational "clusters" covering all the 60 venues of the Games. Each cluster is made up of specific stadia and venues.
* For instance, a 82.5 KVA generator set is hired by OC for Rs 4.65 lakh from Pico Deepali. A generator of the same specifications was hired from Nussli for Rs 14.58 lakh.
* There is a difference of almost Rs 60 lakh for hiring a single public display system of identical size and pitch between Pico Deepali and ESAJV with several such systems being hired for a single games cluster.
Asked about these discrepancies, senior OC members said it was now standard international practice for overlays to be rented per cluster for large sporting events and that the contracts were awarded to the four foreign vendors since their bids were "overall" the lowest.
They said that in such transactions, it was understood that a large quantity of the overlays would be refurbished or brought in second-hand, while other items like furniture, carpets, stationery and toiletries would obviously be new.
Said A K Saxena, OC's Joint Director General (overlays and procurement), told The Indian Express: "There are a few internationally reputed firms who deal with overlays and we have no option but to negotiate on the basis of entire clusters. There may be a price difference between identical items but we have only looked at the lowest bidder for entire clusters and there may also be difference of quality in the items."
Other OC officials admit it took them almost two years to resolve the muddle over overlay rentals since the agencies constructing the venues showed a reluctance to furbish the interiors themselves. Lalit Bhanot, OC's Secretary General, said that they had -- at an earlier stage -- requested for experts from the Central Vigilance Commission and the Delhi Metro Rail Corporation to be part of the hire procedure.
"When no expert joined us, we did the procurement ourselves and picked companies which were not only the lowest bidders but had also done events like the Beijing Olympics and the FIFA World Cup," he said.
He admitted that after the Games, the empty venues would be handed back by the OC to the administrative bodies -- to be refurbished.
Monday, August 2, 2010
History Mystery
|
Friday, April 23, 2010
Things you should keep in mind before a balance transfer
"I have some outstanding on my credit card for the last three months. I want to change the due date for payment on my card. I want to know how it will affect the interest levied on my outstanding."
Interest on credit card outstanding is charged on daily outstanding balance from the date of transaction to the statement generation date. Some banks may offer the facility of changing the statement date to customers. However, the implication on change in statement cycle in this case will be restricted to the change in the number of days for which interest is calculated (depending on whether the statement date has been brought forward or pushed back).
I want to demolish and reconstruct a property owned by my mother. She does not have any source of income. I want to take a loan to build this property. Is there a possibility of some arrangement with a bank, if my mother becomes a co-applicant?
There are many banks and housing finance institutions that would be willing to finance you. However, each institution follows its own norms on income, age, ownership of property, etc, and, depending on that, lays down conditions such as no-objection certificate (NOC) from all other legal heirs, etc.
I am looking for a small-ticket personal loan of around Rs 70,000. Of the three banks that I have accounts with, only one agreed for this small loan. Others said their minimum disbursement was much higher. However, the bank ready for the deal is quoting 25 per cent interest rate. I am ready to pay up to 18 per cent. I tried to negotiate with the direct selling agent, but it did not help. I had taken a consumer loan from this bank and my repayment history is impeccable. I also invest in mutual funds using this bank account. With such credentials, is there anyone I can approach to negotiate on the interest rate?
You may request your present bankers to consider a reduced amount of personal loan, based on your relationship with them. You may also explore the possibility of taking a loan against financial securities such as fixed deposits, RBI bonds, mutual funds, etc, for the exact amount you require, which comes at a much cheaper rate.
I feel the interest rate on my home loan is high, when I compare it with offers from other banks. Can you suggest me a few things I should keep in mind before opting for a balance transfer? How should I calculate whether it makes financial sense or not?
While considering a balance transfer to another bank or housing finance institution, please bear in mind that while your monthly outgo will come down as equated monthly installments (EMIs) are less, you will have to bear some upfront costs such as prepayment penalty to be paid to the current
Moderate drinking helps heart, but don't binge
One or two alcoholic drinks a day can help healthy people-and heart patients-live longer, new research confirms.
But the two new studies-one of nearly 250,000 US adults, the other an analysis of eight previous studies of more than 16,000 people with
"No question, heavy or binge drinking can have adverse health outcomes," Dr. Simona Costanzo and colleagues from
However, they add, doctors should tell their patients with heart disease and other clogged artery-related problems, together known as cardiovascular disease, that moderate alcohol consumption-a drink a day for women, two for men-"should not be harmful to their health."
There is considerable evidence that moderate drinking helps reduce the risk of heart disease and death from heart-related causes, likely due to the fact that drinking alcohol is linked to higher levels of "good" cholesterol.
However, questions have been raised about how research on alcohol and health is done, Dr. Kenneth J. Mukamal of Beth Israel Deaconess Medical Center in Boston and his team, the authors of the other study, write.
To address these issues, Mukamal and his colleagues looked at nine years' worth of data from the
The researchers correlated the information on alcohol consumption with data from the National Death Index up until 2002, identifying 10,670 deaths from cardiovascular causes among survey participants.
The risk of dying due to heart disease or stroke was about the same for people who had never drank, meaning they had less than 12 drinks in their lifetime; people who drank infrequently, meaning they had more than 12 drinks in their life, but never drank more than 12 drinks in a given year; and ex-drinkers, who had more than 12 drinks in their lives and had consumed more than 12 drinks per year in the past, the researchers found.
But for light drinkers, defined as men or women who had three drinks a week or less, risk was 31 percent lower than for non-drinkers.
Among moderate drinkers (women who had three to seven drinks each week and men who had three to 14 drinks a week), risk was 38 percent lower than it was for abstainers.
Heavy drinkers, meaning women who had more than seven drinks a week and men who downed more than 14 drinks weekly, had the same cardiovascular death risk as non-drinkers.
Mukamal and his team also found that people who had two drinks on days when they consumed alcohol were "consistently" at lower risk than people who had three or more drinks per drinking day.
The study's strengths include its size, the fact that it included a broad sample of the US population, and its ability to separate people who had never drank or only rarely drank from those who had drank previously but quit, Mukamal noted in an E-mail interview.
"Our results suggest that even in this well-designed study, the lower risk linked to moderate drinking remains," he told Reuters Health. "However, it also clearly confirms that the benefit is lost for excessive drinking."
People with cardiovascular disease get mixed messages on whether moderate drinking is OK. The US Food and Drug Administration advises people with heart disease who drink alcohol to quit, but guidelines from the American Heart Association say they can drink in moderation, Costanzo and her colleagues point out in their report.
To better understand the risks and potential benefits of alcohol for cardiovascular patients, the researchers identified eight studies including 16,351 patients with cardiovascular disease. They analyzed the relationship between alcohol consumption and death due to cardiovascular disease among study participants, as well as the association between drinking and overall mortality.
The Italian team found a similar benefit pattern to the one Mukamal and his colleagues identified: heart patients who drank were less likely to die than abstainers, and the maximum benefit was seen for those who consumed between 5 to 10 grams of alcohol a day. A standard drink-12 ounces of beer or 5 ounces of wine, for example-contains about 14 grams of alcohol, according to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
But people who drank more than about 25 grams of alcohol daily had overall mortality and cardiovascular death risks exceeding those of abstainers, and the more they drank, the higher the risk.
"Cardiovascular patients should be informed that low-to-moderate alcohol consumption (1 drink/day for women or up to 2 drinks/day for men) should not be harmful to their health," Costanzo and her team say. However, patients who don't drink regularly shouldn't be encouraged to start, they add, and those who drink heavily should be encouraged to quit or at least sharply reduce their alcohol intake.
"The risks of moderate drinking differ by sex, age, personal history, and family history," Dr. Arthur L. Klatsky of
He concludes: "What is required is a synthesis of common sense and the best available facts."
Source: Reuters
Wednesday, April 14, 2010
The issue behind IPL stand off!
Twitter has become a battleground of sorts – some smaller wars fought some bigger with far reaching implications. By now everyone knows about the bitter fight ensuing between IPL head-honcho Lalit Modi and Shashi Tharoor who allegedly has played a key role in bringing IPL team to Kochi / Kerala. Although Kochi Team was by a consortium called Rendezvous sports – the people behind this consortium is not known, and that’s the center of all the controversy. What is interesting is that lot of the communication have been put up on twitter and that has irked both sides equally. It really looks like the battleground.
Just hours after the franchise agreement papers were signed by Rendezvous sports the full details of the ownership group was revealed by Modi on Twitter.
"25% of Kochi team is given free to Rendezvous sports for life," wrote Modi.
"Kochi shareholders are: Rendezvous 25% free, Rendezvous 1%, Anchor 27%, Parinee 26%, Film Waves Combine 12%, Anand Shyam 8%, Vivek Venugopal 1%," he added.
"And Rendezvous free equity – held by Kisan, Shailender and Pushpa Gaikwad, Sunanda Pushkar, Puja Gulathi, Jayant Kotalwar, Vishnu Prasad, Sundip Agarwal."
Modi also said, "There are certain shareholders in the Rendezvous Company who have not been able to answer the question over stakes yet. The agreement has been signed, but we will seek clarification. It’s just a matter of time."
The disclosure brought a stern response from Rendezvous sports who threatened legal action claiming Modi had breached a confidentiality agreement by announcing the names of the people involved in the franchise.IPL commissioner Lalit Modi has landed himself in the middle of a political war of words after revealing the names of those involved in the ownership of the new Kochi franchise.Kochi franchise co-owner Vivek Venugopal responded to Modi’s claims saying all the information the IPL needed had already been given to them, he added "if there is any other specific clarification they are looking for, we are ready to provide. The agreement has been signed."
The announcement by Modi also caused a war of words with minister Shashi Tharoor who claimed Modi was trying to discredit the team and create reasons to disqualify it so that the franchise can be awarded elsewhere.
Sashi Tharoor helped Rendezvous sports during the bidding process and although he has no stake in the franchise he said the Kochi team had bid in an "open and transparent" manner. "Their unexpected success upset the plans of a lot of powerful people, who had wanted the franchise to go elsewhere".
"The unethical efforts that have been made by Mr Modi and others to thwart the Kerala franchise which has been won fair and square in a transparent bidding process are disgraceful," he added.