Dr M Khalid's global village blog

Staff caught on camera offering money-laundering solutions in Cobrapost sting; ICICI, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank initiate inquiries; FM steps in to stem panic Online media firm   Cobrapost   today alleged managers of the country’s top-three private banks by market capitalisation — ICICI Bank, HDFC Bank and Axis Bank — had been offering ‘money laundering’ as products to people looking to park black money. Also read:   How to launder money and live happily ever after “They are offering it as a product —  one without brochure,” said Cobrapost   Founder & Chief Editor Aniruddha Bahal. Even as Bahal was unveiling a 150-minute documentary film of sorts, based on the multi-centre covert investigation that used spy-cams, stocks of the three banks were slipping into the red — falling by up to two per cent each. However, with banks swiftly offering statements announcing internal investigations, the market shed its fears and lifted the stocks. HDFC Bank gained ...

News Item1:   Government has infused R s.   1,248 crore in PNB, and R s. 809 crore in Bank of India   March 07, 2013    Ref: http://profit.ndtv.com/news/industries/article-government-infuses-rs-1-248-crore-in-pnb-bank-of-india-gets-rs-809-crore-319105 News Item2: Global liquidity infusion may fuel commodity prices: India TOKYO, OCT 11- 2012:   India today said huge liquidity infusion by the US and Europe into the financial system could result in increased investments into developing countries though there are concerns these might also fuel commodity prices. “There are pluses and minuses. The immediate concern is that if so much liquidity is injected into the system, it might lead to elevated prices, especially in commodities. It might lead to increased speculation in commodities, crude oil, wheat, cotton, metals,” Finance Minister P. Chidambaram said. The Minister said this when asked about the impact of liquidity infusion by de...

On woman's day. My tribute to the determination of women. Kolkata: Subhasini Mistry toiled for years as a manual labourer, a housemaid and a vegetable-seller. At 70, she can look back with satisfaction at a two-storeyed, whitewashed building, the realisation of her dream to build a hospital for the poor - all because she couldn't afford proper medical treatment for her husband and became a widow at 23. Her younger son Ajoy is a doctor at the hospital which has 12 doctors and over 25 beds and runs on donations. Mistry was grief-stricken after her husband died, but she resolved to build a hospital for the needy so that others would not have to suffer the same fate as her husband. What followed was a life of abject poverty and extreme physical labour as the mother of four soldiered on with the single-minded pursuit of setting up the hospital. Over time, she managed to save enough to buy a one-bigha (one-third of an acre) plot. Now 47 years down the line, Humanity Hosp...

Lucknow, March 8 (IANS) A business delegation from Saudi Arabia arrived here Friday as part of an exclusive industry interaction tour organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) to strengthen bilateral business ties. The delegation, which is on a business tour to India March 4-8, arrived in Lucknow after stopovers at Hyderabad and New Delhi. Addressing the business fraternity from Uttar Pradesh, Dr. Abdulrahman Al Rabiah, chairman, Saudi-Indian business council and president of Al Rabiah and Partners, said: "Relations between the two countries date back to centuries. Half of Arabic food and accent is Indian, even the first light lit in Mecca was from India." Rabiah also gave a presentation wherein he shared that "Saudi Arabia presents a US $624 billion investment opportunity up to 2020 and the advantages of investing there include international standards, availability of raw material, accessibility to international markets, competitive pricing, availa...

Timing Is Everything To many of us, renting a home seems like throwing away money. Shouldn't we buy and let that money build equity, rather than line a landlord's pocket? Turns out that in many major cities it makes perfect financial sense to rent for a few years or more, according to real estate information web site Zillow.  Zillow's "breakeven horizon" metric crunches the costs of owning or renting over 30 years -- tracking them, in the case of a home, from purchase to sale. Where the two sets of costs converge is the point after which buying is smarter. For example, if you're going to live in   Nashville  in for two years, buying won't give you any financial edge over renting, because the breakeven is 2.6 years. In   New York , with home values high, let's just say it takes even longer. Eg. Denver    Breakeven horizon: 2.8 years Zillow Rent Index:  9.3% Homes sold at a loss: 21.13% Portland   Breakev...

7 March 2013 Last updated at 09:22 Sausages, ham, bacon and other processed meats appear to increase the risk of dying young, a study of half a million people across Europe suggests. It concluded diets high in processed meats were linked to cardiovascular disease, cancer and early deaths. The researchers, writing in the journal BMC Medicine, said salt and chemicals used to preserve the meat may damage health. The British Heart Foundation suggested opting for leaner cuts of meat. The study followed people from 10 European countries for nearly 13 years on average. Lifestyle factors It showed people who ate a lot of processed meat were also more likely to smoke, be obese and have other behaviours known to damage health. However, the researchers said even after those risk factors were accounted for, processed meat still damaged health. One in every 17 people followed in the study died. However, those eating more than 160g of processed meat a day - roughly two sau...

The government may have to freeze the diesel subsidy at the current level to protect the budget numbers at some point in time, said Chief Economic Advisor to the Finance Minister, Raghuram Rajan, while flagging concerns over the widening current account deficit. "At some point, we should think about freezing the subsidy on diesel at the current levels until it reaches the level of world prices so that the budget is not exposed to the risks of an increase in global oil price," Rajan told the convocation of the RBI-run National Institute of Bank Management here today. Also read :   Current account deficit biggest concern: Rajan Terming the widening current account deficit, which had run up to a historic high of 5.4 per cent of GDP in Q2 of the fiscal, as the "biggest concern now," the noted economist said, "CAD is our biggest concern right now because as you finance from outside, you are dependent on the interest of foreign investors. They've been...