TOP 20 LAST WEEK (3-mar to 9-mar)

CURRENT AFFAIRS

MULTI YEAR LOW LEVELS
Wall Street witnessed a 12-year low in banking sector and General Motors Corp on Wednesday.
a. Citigroup Inc. finished down 10 percent at $1.02.
b. General Motors ended with a loss of 15 percent at $1.86.
Indian economy is also exhibiting the similar behaviour.
a. Rupee slid to an all-time low of 52.185 a dollar on Tuesday.
b. India's inflation rate fell to 3.03%, its lowest level in six years.
c. BSE sank by 2.9% to 8197.92, its 3-year low on Thursday with Reliance Industries (dropped 5.1%) and ICICI Bank Ltd (dropped 5.2%) leading the downfall.
d. Infrastructure sector recorded growth of 1.4% as compared to 3.6% in the same month last year.

SWAT VALLEY- TALIBAN - PAKISTAN
After a six-month campaign, the Pakistani military is claiming victory over the Taliban in Bajaur, a northern sliver of the tribal areas, saying the militants have suffered heavy losses and have been pushed over the border into Afghanistan.

TERRORIST ATTACK ON SRI-LANKAN PLAYERS
Sri Lankan cricket team was attacked in Pakistan by 12 gunmen on Tuesday while travelling by bus for second test match against Pakistan at 9 a.m. local time. Six security personnel were reported dead and eight players hurt. Batsmen Tharanga Paranavitana and Thilan Samaraweera sustained the worst injuries but are in a stable condition now. Next day, CCTV of Pakistan showed the footage in which the attackers made an easy getaway questioning the security arrangements. There were reports of advance threat alerts to Sri Lankan team by local security agencies.
With the proceedings of investigations, Pakistan ruled out the involvement of India or the LTTE indicating that the Al Qaida or Let activists may be behind the attack. The suspected mastermind of last week’s assault on the Sri Lankan cricket team escaped a police raid on his home in northern Punjab.
America speeds up efforts to save Pakistan with massive amounts of economic and military aid. Pervez Musharraf said he would consider becoming President again even as he ruled out joining any political party.

IPL CONTROVERSY
The T20 cricket blitz was rescheduled and on some days there will be three encounters squeezed in. The rescheduling of IPL came after govt. Raised concerns over security arrangements for IPL and elections at the same time. As IPL scrambled to meet the Centre’s security brief, it was decided that five matches scheduled on election days or just before or after would be rescheduled. However, there seems to be another hitch to season two of IPL. Home ministry sources say that police chief want more spacing between matches.

SUDAN PRESIDENT – ARREST WARRANT
The International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant for Sudan’s president Omar al-Bashir, on the charges of war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur. Sudan on Monday freed the country's top opposition leader, who was jailed for nearly seven weeks after calling on President Omar al-Bashir to surrender to face war crimes charges. The release of Hassan Turabi, ex- president also appeared to be an attempt to blunt opposition to the president who is trying to rally support at home after an issue of warrant.

NORTH KOREA – SATELLITE LAUNCH
South Korea and Washington are expected to fine-tune their response regarding the missile launch. They have already agreed with Japan that even if North Korea claims that it's launching a satellite instead of a missile, this should be sanctioned as it is a violation of the UN Security Council Resolution 1718 that prohibits Pyongyang from engaging in missile-related activities.
The U.S. and South Korean military launched a massive joint military exercise on Monday amid Pyongyang’s strong opposition and repeated warnings. North Korean army also warned that it will stage a war on the territories of the United States, Japan and South Korea if its satellite launch "for peaceful purpose" was intercepted.

SATYAM CASE
After weeks of deliberations and suspense, Satyam received approval from SEBI to begin a global bidding process for 51% share to a strategic investor. Under the process, the investor will be issued fresh equity of 31% and will be required to make the mandatory open offer to purchase a minimum of 20% share from the public. There will also be no-claims clause which disallows the buyer to sue the government in case the real value of Satyam turns out to be less than estimated.

AUCTION – GANDHI’S BELONGINGS
Vijay Mallya, the new owner of the Mahatma's belongings (bought in $1.8 million) says he wants to donate them to the Indian government. Although he rejects any support from government in the bidding process. Later, the seller said he was withdrawing them so the auctioneer has agreed to wait two weeks before finalizing the sale.
India is preparing legislation to prevent more of Mahatma Gandhi's belongings being auctioned off abroad. Thus, selling or buying of heritage articles abroad will be illegal.

UPCOMING ELECTIONS
Samajwadi Party on Thursday accused Congress of ending their alliance. Earlier, Congress announced 24 candidates for UP which it said was in response to SP having unilaterally naming 64 contestants. The failure of two allies to cement a pact would be good news for prime ministerial ambitions of Mayawati.


NEWS

BUSINESS/ECONOMY
1. Banks said that they will pass on the benefit of cut on repo rate and reverse repo rate by RBI to the customers. This will result in loans to get cheaper to further extent. ICICI Bank has cut its home loan rates by 25-50 basis points for new customers with immediate effect.
2. The growing uncertainty among companies about their ability to recover all dues from customers is pushing many to take credit insurance policies. Manufacturers and wholesalers selling products on credit to customers can take trade credit insurance protection.
3. The stimulus packages announced by government seems to be working (especially excise cuts), with the country’s largest truck maker — Tata Motors recording a 35% growth in sales and the second largest — Ashok Leyland witnessing a 33% increase in February sales.
4. Microsoft, which had recently announced shedding some 5,000 jobs, will be giving pink slips to H-1B visa holders too, despite acknowledging that this category of workers has a significant contribution to the company’s success. Also, Technology giant IBM is resorting to "scattered layoffs" and the total could be nearly 4,600 employees in North America even though the company has reported surprisingly strong quarterly profits in January.
5. Five months after Tata Motors shifted its Nano plant to Gujarat, another Tata company has decided to move a project out of West Bengal. Tata Metaliks has scrapped its 500,000-tonne billet project, proposed to be built with an investment of Rs 700-800 crore, in the state and is likely to put it up in Karnataka. Company had initiated talks with both West Bengal and Karnataka some time in 2005, asking for 500 acres from each. However, the Karnataka project has now been scaled up to 900 acres.
6. China has begun designing two more nuclear reactors for Pakistan, which will come up at its Chashma Nuclear Power Complex. The decision came soon after Pakistani president Asif Ali Zardari's visit to China in the last week of February.

TECHNOLOGY
7. After a failed bid in the previous test, a new version of the 290km-range supersonic BrahMos cruise missile was successfully test-fired on Wednesday at Pokhran firing range in Rajasthan.
8. A second prototype of Saras, India’s first indigenously designed civilian plane, crashed during a test flight, killing all the three crew members at Bidadi. India successfully staged a missile intercept test on Friday as part of its plan to build a missile defence system

OTHERS
9. In Ghaziabad riot started at 5:30 pm. mobs on Wednesday severely beat up two policemen, set fire to a police post, police jeep and about half a dozen motorcycles and vandalized the police control room on Meerut Road. Late in the night, prohibitory orders under Section 144 were imposed in the city. The rioting took place over allegations that two ‘‘carjackers’’ the police claimed to have shot in an encounter in the morning had actually been picked up from their homes around midnight on Tuesday by an SI and four constables. The cops denied the charge.
10. KASHMIR: The killing of a youth by CRPF at Nowhatta on Friday has evoked wide-spread condemnation from both separatists as well as mainstream politicians. Kashmiri people are living under military dictatorship. A local says “The blood of civilians living in J&K has become trivial for govt of India.”
11. Homemade bombs damaged police vehicles in a Tibetan part of western China on Monday, and authorities expanded a security cordon across the restive region ahead of the 50th anniversary of a failed revolt that sent the Dalai Lama into exile.