Photon I A S

from an article by Ha-Joon Chang in the Guardian In my lifetime Korea has lived through one of the greatest development miracles – half a century ago, its annual per capita income was around £50, less than half that of Ghana at the time. Today, it stands at £12,000, putting it on a par with Portugal and Slovenia. How was this possible? Korea of course did things that most people agree are important for economic development, such as investment in infrastructure, health and education. But on top of that, it also practised many policies that are now supposed to be bad for economic development: extensive use of selective industrial policy, combining protectionism with export subsidies; tough regulations on foreign direct investment; active, if not particularly extensive, use of state-owned enterprises; lax protection of patents and other intellectual property rights; heavy regulation of both domestic and international finance. The Korean experience shows that sustainabl...

from NYTimes The delinquency rate on home equity loans is higher than all other types of consumer loans, including auto loans, boat loans, personal loans and even bank cards like Visa and MasterCard, according to the American Bankers Association.

from an article in The Atlantic suggested by Sudhir To attract that missing ingredient to his city, Henry hit on an idea that has enjoyed a sort of comeback lately. He devised a charter for Lübeck, a set of “most honorable civic rights,” calculating that a city with light regulation and fair laws would attract investment easily. The stultifying feudal hierarchy was cast aside; an autonomous council of local burgesses would govern Lübeck. Onerous taxes and trade restrictions were ruled out; merchants who settled in Lübeck would be exempt from duties and customs throughout Henry the Lion’s lands, which stretched south as far as Bavaria. The residents of Lübeck were promised fair treatment before the law and an independent mint that would shelter them from confiscatory inflation. With this bill of rights in place, Henry dispatched messengers to Russia, Denmark, Norway, and Sweden. Merchants who liked the sound of his charter were invited to migrate ...

from an article in Business Line Sterlite Industries, India Cements, Jindal Stainless, Nahar Industries, Vardhman Group and Rajasthan Spinning and Weaving Ltd are among an increasing number of industrial consumers that have begun buying part of their power requirement through deals on the power exchanges. Despite initial reluctance by most State Electricity Boards (SEBs) to grant open access permission, industrial consumers now account for nearly a third of the 30-39 million units of electricity traded daily on the IEX, the country's largest exchange, from close to zero a year ago. This fundamental consumer shift is driving up trading volumes on the exchanges, with around 100 industrial customers emerging as active players on the IEX. The industrial buyers basically come under two categories — one, those facing power-cuts during peak hours and hence resorting to purchases on the exchange by paying up to Rs 10-12 aunit, and, two, firms scouting for cheap power during off-peak hou...

from an interview with Uday Kotak in Livemint He talks about why low stake for promotors in Banks may not work. So you would not need to bring it down to 10%? It’s a very interesting subject. First of all, the licensing conditions say promoters can have 49% (stake). It’s a very important debate that you have flagged off. One of the challenges that the world has seen is that a very diversified ownership has given perverse results. The CEO in that situation gets disproportionate power without enough skin in the game. Does this work? The world is debating on this. Another very interesting thing in the Indian context is: whenever Indian financial institutions tried to diversify ownership, they ended up becoming foreign companies. What do we want? If we look at the current FIPB (Foreign Investment Promotion Board) norms, they basically make some of my peers foreign companies. Is that a direction where we want to take our financial sector?

The Recent Events in Andhra show how easy it is for a News channel to destabilize the society. I think News channels are like financial derivatives which should be controlled and regulated.There should be a national media registry/archives which record every popular channel continuously.This will be similar to a 'black box' that an airplane keeps. It will ensure accountability and check the channels which 'manufacture' the news. The investment needed to start a channel has come down to about 10 crores and enable many people to start their own channel.The amount of havoc that a channel can do is immensely greater. With a 10 crore investment I can influence policy, cause 100s of crores damage to my rivals, destabilize society etc. This shows that news channels are in the category of 'fire arms' or a 'driving license' where the user can cause significant damage to others by improper use. If a society has to be stable, we must reduce the points of failure. I...