Mahanomics

Maharashtra chief minister Prithviraj Chavan announced in the state assembly that state’s total annual revenue has gone up to Rs. 1,21,000 crore this year (2011-12) compared to Rs. 1,06,000 crore in the previous year. Chavan said Maharashtra received an investment of Rs. 82,386 crore in 77 new projects that have been set up since April 2011 in the state. Replying to the debate on governor’s speech during the budget session of the state assembly, Chavan said over 54,000 new jobs will be created in projects that have come to the state in the past one year. Maharashtra received a share of 33% in the total foreign direct investment (FDI) that has come to the country in this period. The chief minister claimed that the government was doing its best to achieve the target of zero load-shedding (power cuts) in the state by December 2012 as Khaparkheda and Bhusawal power-generation stations are expected to provide 1000MW of extra power by March 2012. He said the singlephasing policy had worked in rural areas, where water pumps were being provided power separately. State finance minister Ajit Pawar will present the annual budget next Monday. Opposition parties have targeted the government over poor fiscal management. The state faces a debt of Rs. 2,38,000 crore and almost 30% of the state’s revenue has to be kept aside to service this debt. Chavan admitted that the state faces a challenge in regional imbalance in development. Government sources have already indicted that the new industrial policy which is soon to be rolled out will focus on this aspect.

CCTNS

Come next year, filing of FIRs at police stations will no longer be a cumbersome exercise. Efforts are on to implement online registration of FIRs across the country, beginning 2013. Home minister P Chidambaram spoke about the possibility, banking on the implementation of his ministry’s flagship project — the Crime and Criminal Tracking Network and Systems (CCTNS) — that aims to link over 14,000 police stations across the country. “The CCTNS is a project that is under implementation. It would be completely implemented by the end of this year or early next year, and then, online registration of FIRs will be possible,” Chidambaram told the Rajya Sabha. Responding to a question by Trinamool Congress member D Bandyopadhyay whether FIRs can automatically get registered at ‘thana’ level, the home minister said, “That is the goal. When the CCTNS is fully implemented, all FIRs can be registered online.” At present, the Delhi Police has a system of “uploading and viewing” FIRs registered in the capital within 24 hours of registration — except those declared sensitive by additional commissioner of police or DCP of the district concerned. This system has been in place since February 1.

Somewhere in the Sunderbans....

The deeper you go into the Sunderbans, the more mysterious it is. The camera traps that have snapped 18 Bengal tigers outside the core area of the mangrove forests also captured two photos of a never-before seen cat. It could be another species altogether, a eureka moment for conservationists and wildlife enthusiasts. Forest officers scanning through a bunch of pictures of the wild stopped in their tracks when they came across a small, black cat with a long tail. Nothing of the sort had been seen in decades of documentation and exploration in the Sunderbans. The Sunderbans is the only tiger reserve in India where leopards have never been seen. Its Bangladeshi side reported the last sighting of a leopard in 1931. The cat spotted in the camera traps is bigger than a wild cat and smaller than a leopard, say sources. It’s not yet known whether it’s a new species but forest officials believe it is a melanistic leopard-cat, a rarity in the animal world. In leopards, two genes determine whether the animal’s colour will be yellow with black spots or completely black. The black panther gets its colour from the black recessive gene. “We have never seen any animal like this in the Sunderbans. Apart from the 18 tigers, scores of other cats, including jungle and fishing cats, were found during the exercise, which was done outside the reserve area for the first time. Most of them were expected till we came upon two sightings of a black cat with a long tail,” said Sunderbans Biosphere Reserve director Pradeep Vyas.

Dust haze hits Maximum City

Mumbaikars experienced a rare phenomenon when the city was enveloped in layers of dust. Called dust haze, the phenomenon saw suspended particulate matter in the air rise from 200 units per cubic metre to an unprecedented and dangerous 1,200 units. Scores of patients, especially the old and those prone to respiratory ailments, complained of breathlessness.

Somewhere in Russia....

A Russian court on Wednesday dismissed a petition seeking a ban on a translated version of Bhagawad Gita for being “extremist”, bringing cheers to followers across the world months after the issue threatened to strain Moscow’s strategic ties with India. “The court in the Siberian city of Tomsk has dismissed the plea,” Sadhu Priya Das of Moscow Iskcon said after the verdict. State prosecutors in Tomsk had filed an appeal against a lower court's dismissal of their original plea seeking a ban on “Bhagawad Gita As It Is”, written by A C Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, the founder of the International Society for Krishna Consciousness (Iskcon). They had claimed that the text was “extremist” literature full of hatred and insult to non-believers which promoted social discord. The higher court in Tomsk “kept the verdict of the lower court intact”, Das said. As the judge dismissed the plea, the followers in the packed courtroom burst into applause, he said. In a statement, the Tomsk district court said after Wednesday’s verdict that it had decided “to leave unchanged” a lower court's December 28 ruling that the book did not contain extremist material.

Tech Mahindra

The $14.4-billion Mahindra Group unveiled the widely anticipated merger of its two IT services firms, Tech Mahindra and Mahindra Satyam, creating a $2.4-billion entity, which is poised to be India’s fifthlargest software outsourcing company by revenue. The development comes three years after the group acquired the scandal-rocked Satyam Computer Services, later branding it Mahindra Satyam. As part of the merger, investors will get two Tech Mahindra shares (of Rs 10 face value) for every 17 shares of Mahindra Satyam (of Rs 2 face value). The group will own 26.3% in the combined entity while British Telecom, a strategic partner of the group in Tech Mahindra, will hold 12.8%. Since Tech Mahindra currently holds 42.65% in Mahindra Satyam (through Venturbay Consultants), 10.4% equity of the new entity that will come in existence because of this crossholding, post merger, this equity will be held as treasury stock in a trust, said the management at a press briefing in Mumbai on Wednesday. Following the announcement, Dalal Street gave its stamp of approval to the plan with Tech Mahindra stock closing up 5.5% at Rs 684 while Mahindra Satyam (still listed as Satyam Computer on the bourses) closed 4.6% up at Rs 78. At the day’s closing levels, the two entities together are valued at a tad over Rs 17,800 crore (about $3.5 billion). The new entity, the branding of which will be decided over the next few months, will compete with the likes of Tata Consultancy Services, Infosys and Wipro for bagging big international outsourcing contracts. Tech Mahindra will issue 10.34 crore new shares, increasing its number of outstanding shares to 23.08 crore and its equity capital to Rs 230.8 crore, said the management. This values Satyam at Rs 76.3 a share ($1.8 billion), according to Bloomberg. “This merger does not bring about any cost savings. Instead, it’s driven by the proposition of delivering better value to our customers, and project the power of one,” said C P Gurnani, CEO, Mahindra Satyam. The management said there will be zero redundancies post merger but did not rule out some redeployment at the leadership level across functions. Mumbai will be the new headquarter for the merged entity. “We did the merger when Mahindra Satyam reached normalization and was in a steady state so that it’s a merger of equals,” said Vineet Nayyar, vicechairman & MD, Tech Mahindra and chairman, Mahindra Satyam. The joint entity will have a unified go-to-market strategy with revenues spread across telecom, manufacturing, media & entertainment, banking and insurance, along with retail and healthcare. The new entity will leverage Tech Mahindra’s expertise in the mobility vertical while Mahindra Satyam’s diverse clientele will come in handy to widen the client base of the company.

Section 377

Attorney general G E Vahanvati told a SC bench of Justices G S Singhvi and S J Mukhopadhaya, which is hearing a bunch of appeals against the July 2, 2009 verdict, that the Centre accepted the correctness of the ruling. The Delhi HC had in 2009 ordered decriminalizing gay sex in private between consenting adults, which was feted by gay activists and liberals as a breakthrough for the struggle for the recognition of alternative sexuality. The activists should also be pleased with the attorney general’s submission since the Centre never opposed the judgment. However, Vahanvati’s statement in the SC may appear to mark a shift from passive acquiescence into the HC verdict towards concurrence with it. Interestingly, it took an embarrassing message mix-up for the Centre to clarify its position on endorsing the 2009 verdict. Vahanvati said lack of communication between the home ministry and the law officer led to the confusion and reiteration of the old view before the apex court. This was immediately corrected by filing of an affidavit by the home secretary, he added. While giving the clarification, the top law officer did not forget to address the court’s serious concern about the legal ramifications of an important expression—“carnal intercourse against the order of nature” —contained in Section 377. Vahanvati said it was an important issue, but the HC did not attempt to fathom the legal width of its play in the personal lives of people contrasting with the changing social ethos and values.