Dr M Khalid's global village blog

Chinese move to establish an air defence zone not only causes friction and uncertainty, but also constitutes a unilateral change to the status quo in the region, which is already fraught. This is the message Vice President Joe Biden would be conveying to the top Chinese leadership when he travels to Beijing next week, a top administration official said on Thursday. Biden travels to China, Japan and South Korea next week. "We have real concerns with this move by the Chinese because it raises serious questions about their intentions... It increases the risk of miscalculation and the risk of accidents," the official said. During his trip to the region, Biden would make it clear that the US has a rock-solid commitment with its allies. "At the same time, the US also believes that the lowering of tensions and the avoiding of escalation in this region, when you're talking about the second and third largest economies in the world, is profoundly and deeply in th...

India's largest real estate developer Lodha Group said Friday it has bought Canada's embassy building in London's prime Mayfair district for around $530 million. The seven-storey Canadian High Commission in Grosvenor Square, known as Macdonald House, will be converted into luxury residences for the super-rich, Indian media said. "We will create a world-class development, which befits the status of the address," said Abhishek Lodha, managing director of Lodha Group. The Lodha group was chosen as the buyer of the property by the Canadian government after a competitive bidding involving global developers and sovereign wealth funds, the Lodha group said. The Indian firm is buying the property through internal funds and does not plan to raise debt to finance the deal, officials said. In 2010, India's Sahara group had acquired the Grosvenor House hotel in London for around $750 million from the Royal Bank of Scotland. In December last year, the Lodha...

Solar power plants from moon could continuously send 13,000 terawatts of power back to Earth. By comparison,  it took the United States all of 2011  to generate 4,100 terawatts of power. Shimizu Corporation, a Japanese architecture and engineering firm,  has a plan  to effectively turn the moon into a giant solar power plant,  reports Inhabitat . It proposes building a massive collection of solar panels (a "Luna Ring") 6,800 miles long by 12 miles wide on the moon's surface. That's certainly a heavy-duty construction job for human beings, so Shimizu plans to get the work done with robots, only involving humans in supervisory roles. Once complete, this hypothetical plant could continuously send energy to "receiving stations" around the globe by way of lasers and microwave transmission. This idea gets around two major hurdles for solar power, as there is no weather or darkness to curb electricity production on the moon. If operating in ship-shape, Sh...

WASHINGTON — There was a time when Saudi and American interests in the Middle East seemed so aligned that the cigar-smoking former Saudi ambassador, Prince Bandar bin Sultan, was viewed as one of the most influential diplomats in Washington. Those days are over. The Saudi king and his envoys — like the Israelis — have spent weeks lobbying fruitlessly against the interim nuclear accord with Iran that was reached in Geneva on Sunday. In the end, there was little they could do: The Obama administration saw the nuclear talks in a fundamentally different light from the Saudis, who fear that any letup in the sanctions will come at the cost of a wider and more dangerous Iranian role in the Middle East. Although the Saudis remain close American allies, the nuclear accord is the culmination of a slow mutual disenchantment that began at the end of the Cold War. Already, the Saudis have watched with alarm as Turkey — their ally in supporting the Syrian rebels — has begun making conciliat...

The lure of attractive salaries, quick promotions, foreign posting and job mobility attracted lakhs of young students to India's top outsourcers, making India the back office of the global IT requirements. Some of those charms faded over the last few years as the global economy saw sustained slowdown, but more recently, India's big outsourcers have bounced back as global demand picked up. What's missing, however, is the usual exuberance among employees associated with a change in environment. "This time the usual acceleration in wage pressure that accompanies improving demand seems absent... We note the bargaining power of companies with respect to entry-level employees is at its peak with real wages at their lowest in more than 15 years," Credit Suisse said in a report. Here's what putting pressure on salaries and hiring. 1) Capacity of engineering colleges in 2013-14 rose to a whopping15 lakh as against 6 lakh in 2006-07. 2) India is projected to grow at ...

http://www.livingwage.org.uk/ The Living Wage Foundation supports, recognises and celebrates the leadership shown by Living Wage Employers in the UK. We believe that work should be the surest way out of poverty. 66% Employers reported high retention of talent after shifting to Living wage standard.

Bitcoin hit new highs on Monday, as the Senate held its first hearing on the controversial virtual currency. The currency topped $700 on the MT Gox exchange, where it is traded, as the Senate discussion began. In April the currency hit a high of $266. Two years ago, Bitcoin was valued at $20. Before the meeting Federal Reserve chairman, Ben Bernanke, gave his cautious blessing to the currency. In a letter to the Senate homeland security and government affairs committee, Bernanke said such currencies “may hold long-term promise, particularly if the innovations promote a faster, more secure and more efficient payment system”. But the Fed chair also warned that he had little power to regulate online currencies. “Although the Federal Reserve generally monitors developments in virtual currencies and other payments system innovations, it does not necessarily have authority to directly supervise or regulate these innovations or the entities that provide them to the market,” he said....

The University of Nicosia (UNic), one of the major English language universities in the Mediterranean, will become the world’s first to accept bitcoins for tuition. The university will also begin a new Master of Science course in Digital Currency. According to the university those who wish to pay tuition fees in bitcoins, will be able to use an online merchant processing service or by paying directly to the university’s finance office. “ The intention of this initiative is to ease transmission difficulties for certain students and to build our own practical knowledge about this field, not to engage in currency speculation ,” the University spokesperson told GeekWire.            http://rt.com/business/bitcoin-nicosia-university-tuition-060/

Beyond CAT: 12 B-School entrance tests MANY  of you may not know that one of best colleges in the country,  JBIMS  or  Bajaj , is a state-level  B-School . In other words it is a constituent department of Mumbai Univeristy and  admits students through The Maharashtra State Entrance Test. Nearly 85 percent of the seats in JBIMS is reserved for students of the State. So all is not lost when one could not crack the  CAT  and get admission into the coveted IIMs. In fact, some the new  IIMs  are no match for established  institutes like the  TISS ,  XLRI ,  FMS  and IIFT . Admission Alert Admission open at ITM Group of Institutions,  Click here  to download prospectus Admission open at Amrita School of Business,  Download  Application form now Admission open for MBA and PGDM at Acharya Institutes, Bangalore.  Click here  to download application form So read on ...

Ranks are based on Learning and Experience: criteria and weightage are as under:- Process (Learning & Exeperience) 400 Quality of Course material (also based on recognition or accreditation by external agencies) 100 E-learning platform (presence/absence) 25 Quality of e-platform (verification by testing) 50 Telephone counselling availability  (including effective Toll-free No.) 50 Audio Visual-based course materials (absence/presence) 10 Quantum of AV study material created 40 Exam schedule 25 Responsiveness (student friendliness & forthcoming) 50 Contact Classes 50 Name of the Institution - click on name to open respective websites 1 IMT Distance and Open Learning Institute 2 Sikkim Manipal University 3 University of Mumbai 4 Indira Gandhi National Open University 5 Karnataka State Open University 6 Symbiosis Centre for Distance Learning 7 Netaji Subhas Open University 8 Yashwa...

Britain is seeking money from the Middle East in its ambition to become the first country outside the Muslim world to offer an Islamic Bond – Katie Pilbeam asks London based Market Strategist, Ishaq Siddiqi, if this is the way forward for the finance hub. The first ever Bitcoin ATM went live this week in a café in Vancouver, Canada. Does this breakthrough mean that the controversial coin is finally fighting off its critics – Katie asks Moscow based economist, Dr William Wilson and Buenos Aires based expert Daniel Bruno, for their view on the virtual currency to get a global perspective. Plus – the World Bank props up Russia in its annual ‘Doing Business’ report – but there’s still a long way to go, corporate news and the loveable in-house investor Sean Thomas reveals the latest results of his rather unique style of trading on the ever volatile Russian stock market.    http://rt.com/shows/venture-capital-summary/uk-islamic-bond-bitcoin-121/