RBI had sharply reversed its monetary stance

Dr Subbarao also said that the sudden and rapid expansion of government borrowing programme has impeded monetary transmission. Last year, the final net government borrowing was two-and-a-half times the Budget Estimate. This year’s budgeted borrowing is going to be at least a third higher than that. “The intent behind RBI’s monetary easing was to encourage banks to reduce lending rates and maintain the flow of credit to the productive sectors. But government borrowing had resulted in firming up of yields, notwithstanding the substantial excess liquidity, militating against the low interest rate regime that we want,” he said. Delicate balance Dr Subbarao said that the RBI will this year again have to manage the delicate balance between government borrowing and maintaining ample liquidity to meet the demand for private credit as it picks up in the months ahead. “We will follow the same open, transparent and consultative process as we did last year,” he said. Following the full outbreak of the global financial crisis in September 2008, the RBI had sharply reversed its monetary stance from ‘tightenting’ to ‘easing’. The monetary stimulus came through a sharp reduction in the policy interest rates and the cash reserve ratio, reduced pre-emption of bank resources through the statutory liquidity ratio and expansion of refinance facilities for banks, some of which were sector specific. The potential liquidity made available by the RBI as a result of these measures amounted to Rs 5,60,000 crore, or nearly 9 per cent of GDP.


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Yahoo Inc is considering developing new real-time search capabilities

SAN FRANCISCO (Reuters) - Yahoo Inc is considering developing new real-time search capabilities, even as it outsources its existing Internet search technology to Microsoft Corp. Yahoo's Prabhakar Raghavan, head of Yahoo Labs, said that the company could potentially "mine" messages from Twitter, the popular microblogging service, to offer Web surfers search results beyond those offered by Microsoft's Bing. Bing is the Microsoft search engine that is to provide Yahoo's standard search results, under the terms of a long-awaited partnership announced this week. [ID:nLU412795] "I've always held that the interesting thing of Tweets is not necessarily searching them but mining them. So we could real-time mine them, then assemble what we mine into the search engine," said Raghavan in an interview with Reuters on Friday. By "mining" the data, Yahoo could offer search results far beyond a simple list of comments on Web sites, for instance, but instead could analyze data and group results by criteria ranging from topic to geography. While Raghavan stressed that he was not "pre-announcing" any product plans, he said his comments were intended to paint a picture of some of the things that Yahoo is considering in its new form.

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Former philippines president Aquino was died

MANILA — Former Philippines president Corazon Aquino, whose "People Power" revolution toppled dictator Ferdinand Marcos and restored democracy to the nation, died on Saturday after a battle with colon cancer. "Cory" Aquino was propelled into the political spotlight in 1986, leading millions of Filipinos in protests against the corrupt regime of Marcos, who jailed thousands of dissidents during his brutal 20-year regime. As people across the Catholic nation woke to the news, President Gloria Arroyo declared a 10-day period of mourning for Aquino, whom she praised as a "national treasure." Aquino's family announced her death early Saturday. "Our mother peacefully passed away at 3:18 am, August 1, 2009 of cardio-respiratory arrest," Senator Benigno Aquino Jr, said in a statement outside the Makati Medical Centre in Manila, where his mother had been hospitalised. "She would have wanted us to thank each and every one of you for all the prayers and the continuous love and support," he said. "It was her wish for all of us to pray for one another and for the country," Aquino said. Arroyo, in the United States on an official visit, said: "Aquino led a revolution that restored democracy and the rule of law to our nation at a time of great peril." Former aide and press secretary Teodoro Locsin, who is also a close family friend, openly wept on television.


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New Delhi removed pressure on Islamabad

NEW DELHI: The Opposition parties on Friday said the government’s stand that it took forward the Atal Bihari Vajpayee legacy vis-À-vis Pakistan was to cover up its “monumental lapse,” even as External Affairs Minister S.M. Krishna reiterated that New Delhi pursued an independent foreign policy. Replying to a debate in the Rajya Sabha on the working of his Ministry, Mr. Krishna emphasised that no progress in dialogue with Pakistan was possible in an atmosphere vitiated by violence or threat to use violence. The India-Pakistan joint statement, he said, encapsulated this view. The Minister disagreed with the BJP’s charge that New Delhi removed pressure on Islamabad to act against terror. “While opposing the government, let us not give more credence to what others say over what the Prime Minister and our own government have formally stated. We are not here to question each others’ motives. We are united against terrorism period,” he said. In his nearly 50-minute response, Mr. Krishna outlined the contours of the foreign policy, engagement with India’s neighbours, different groupings and regions, the Look-East policy, view on the Israel-Palestine issue, and specific issues, including steps being taken by Australia to address the students attacks problem. Earlier, Leader of the Opposition Arun Jaitley said, “In an exercise to aim damage control, an argument has now been advanced that it is a continuation of the line followed by [the former Prime Minister] Atal Bihari Vajpayee. Now it is sought to be used to cover up their own lapse.”

For futher details visit as : www.hindu.com/2009/08/01/stories/2009080161021000.htm

Kolkata police is gearing up to implement

The Kolkata police is gearing up to implement a ban imposed by the Calcutta High Court on over 15-year-old commercial and transport vehicles from Saturday in the metropolis. The Supreme Court on Friday refused to grant an interim stay on the High Court order. "We will implement the order of the honourable High Court and not allow any 15-year-old commercial vehicle to ply in the city," Kolkata Police Deputy Commissioner in charge of headquarter Jawed Shamim told PTI in Kolkata. Bengal Bus Syndicate president Swarnakamal Saha said his association, which controls over 60 per cent of private buses in the city, would not run 15-year-old buses as per the court order. "Only those buses which are less than this age would be plying from today," he said. Earlier, some of the leaders of the bus owner associations had taken a defiant stand and said that buses less than 15-year-old would also not ply if older buses were seized from today.


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Australia since a spate of attacks on Indian students

This will be the first high-level visit from India to Australia since a spate of attacks on Indian students studying in that country began over a month ago, creating outrage in India and the diaspora community Down Under. Krishna will meet his Australian counterpart Stephen Smith and call on Prime Minister Kevin Rudd to discuss a range of issues, including the recent attacks on Indian students that has put an otherwise growing relationship under strain. "He will visit Sydney and Melbourne to hear first-hand, about the problems being faced by Indian students and will discuss the matter of their safety and security with the state leadership," the external affairs ministry said here Friday ahead of Krishna's visit. He will "also apprise himself of the measures put in place, in this regard, by the Australian law enforcement agencies" and meet prominent members of the Indian community and Indian students, the ministry said. He will also participate in the Annual Post Forum Dialogue Meeting of the 16-nation Pacific Island Forum (PIF), at which India is a dialogue partner, in Cairns in northeast Australia.

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Pakistan till it stopped exporting terror

NEW DELHI : Continuing with its attack on the Manmohan Singh government for the Sharm-El-Sheikh joint statement, BJP on Friday brought the prime minister in its firing line, blaming him for leading India to a position of weakness in its negotiations with Pakistan. Confronted with a barrage of criticism from the entire Opposition, and also from within Congress, the government on Friday repeated what it told the Lok Sabha on Thursday — that the Sharm-El-Sheikh joint statement had been buried completely, and there could be no negotiations with Pakistan till it stopped exporting terror. “Any meaningful dialogue with Pakistan can only follow the concrete fulfilment of their commitments not to allow their territory to be used for terrorist activities against India,”external affairs minister S M Krishna told the Rajya Sabha this afternoon in his reply to the debate on his ministry’s working. The government had earlier come under all-round flak for agreeing to the Sharm-El-Sheikh joint statement, described as a “monumental lapse’’ by leader of the Opposition in the Rajya Sabha Arun Jaitley. Participating in the debate in the Rajya Sabha on the working of the external affairs ministry, the BJP leader charged the prime minister and his team of negotiators with reversing the foreign policy that has consistently been pursued by India so far. He was particularly harsh on the prime minister, accusing him of being “alarmist”. “You try and alarm the country with a new argument that there are only two options available — it’s either a dialogue or a war. The moment the prime minister limits his options to dialogue or war, he brings India to a position of weakness because the other alternative is war. And when you come down to a position of weakness and start negotiating, it is dialogue irrespective of terror,’’ the Opposition leader argued.

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