INTERIM BUDGET 2009

The Indian economy has maintained a growth rate of 7% to 8% and per capita income has risen by 7.4% in the past four yrs - here are the highlights of the 2009-10 budget.
# 7-8% growth# Quality education for all# Generating emp and investment# Ensuring 100 days employment at min wage# Focusing on agr and rual dev# Fiscal consolidation# Higher fiscal devolution Fundamentals
# Maintaining 7-8% growth
# The govt has worked for increasing access to education, health
# Employment generation
# Assuring 100 days of employment
# Agri, rural development
# Fiscal consolidation and reform
# Fiscal devolution
# Indian showed sustained growth of over 9 %
# 4.7% growth in per capita in 4 yrs
# Fiscal Deficit between 4.5% to 2.3%
# Domestic investment rate as a proportion increased to 39% in 2008
# Domestic saving increased to 39%
# All with guidance of Sonia Gandhi, Manmohan and with P Chidambaram contribution
# Growth drivers were Agri, services, manufacturing, construction
# Real heroes of Indian success stories are farmers
# 22.5 of wheat 28.5 mt of rice in PDS
# Food production grew by 10% every year to reach 230 mt in 08
# Manufacturing growth 9.5% inform 04 to 08
# Construction growth 26% from 04 to 08
# Export grew by 26.4% from 04 to 08
# Foreign trade as part of GDP grew to 35.5% in 08
# Capital inflows in 08 : 97% of GDP
# Revenue deficit fell to 1.1% of GDP Vs 3.6 under UPA
# This lead to accumulation of reserves and pressure on prices
# Effort made to deliver on commitments
# We have weathered the crisis but no room for complacency

# Current indications of the global situation is not encouraging First 9 months:
# Exports slowed down to 17.1% in last 9 months
# IIP fallen by 2% on YoY basis
# India still is second fastest growing eco of the world
# Prompt action: two packages announced
# They provided tax relief’s to boost demand and increase public spending
# Govt accorded approval infra projects worth Rs 70,000 cr
# Successful in attracting investment via PPP mode worth 67,700 cr
# 54 projects worth 67,700 cr under PPA
# Exports grew by 26.4% in last 4 years
# Agri annual growth at 3.7%
# Savings rate up to 30.7% in FY 08
# Inflation down to 4.4% in January
# Exports slowed down to 17.1% in last 9 months
# Domestic investment rate over 39% in FY 08

# Private investment partnerships in infrastructure projects
# Mention presenting budget after 25 years# Rs 652 cr pumped into Regional Rural Banks
# FY 08 fiscal deficit 2.7% Vs 4.5% in FY 04
# India Infrastructure Co to refinance 60% of the projects
# IIFCL to refinance commercial banks for infrastructure
# FRPM targets relaxed
# USD 32.5 bn received by way of foreign investment
# Fiscal deficit reduced
# To consider additional fiscal measure
# Inward FDI inflow Apr-Nov at USD 23.3 bn up 45% on year
# Latest figures show slowdown of FDI inflows
# Employment schemes, social security net need to be expanded
# Need for accelerated pace of financial reforms
# 60.12 lakh houses constructed in rural areas

# Process of re-amalgamation has been started
# Centre has contributed 600 cr for re-capitalisation of RRBs
# Turnover of public sector companies has increased from Rs 587,000 crore in 2003-04 to Rs 10,87,000 crore in 2007-08,
# Rs 632 crore provided for recaptalisation of Regional Rural Banks.
# Non-performing assets of public sector banks have fallen from 7.8 per cent in 2007 to 2.3 per cent in March 2008.
# We undertook comprehensive reform of tax structure
# Personal tax structures have been rationalised
# Union excise duties have also been rationalised
# Tax rates must fall our ability to pay must rise
# Revised estimates for 08-09
# Budget estimates revised to 909,053 cr from Rs 750,884 cr.
# Plan expenditure revised to 282953 cr
Central plan expenditure increased from Rs 243386 cr to Rs 228957 cr
Fertiliser subsidy increased by Rs 44,863 cr from about Rs 14,000 crore during 08-09.comments

RAILWAY BUDGET 2009 : A LOOK AT IT

Departing from normal practice, Lalu Prasad announced an across-the-board 2% cut in fares of ordinary and AC class.

- All AC and Mail Express fares cut by 2%

- Freight rates kept unchanged

- Freight has grown at the rate of 8% in the past five years. Freight loading in the current year has come down due to economic downturn, because of which revenue has fallen. Otherwise it would have touched Rs one lakh crore.

- 43 new trains to start in 2009-10, extension of 14 trains envisaged and frequency of 14 trains to be increased.

- Kolkata Metro will be expanded

- Railways cash reserves touched Rs 90, 000 crore

- Railways have raised $100 million at 4% interest

- Railways expected to show a surplus of Rs 18,847 crore in the next fiscal.

- Feasibility study underway for bullet trains between Delhi-Amritsar, Ahmedabad-Pune, Hyderabad-Vijaywada- Chennai, Chennai-Bangalore, Delhi-Patna, Kolkata-Haldia and Ernakulam-Howrah.

- Dedicated freight corridor from Ludhiana to Kolkata to be inaugurated later this month

- Railway line between Anantnag and Rajwansher in Kashmir valley will be extended to Qazigund in four months

- 4 call centres set up for railway enquiry

- Invested Rs 70, 000 crore out of surplus in last four years

- To invest Rs 2, 30,000 crore in the 11th Plan

- Decrease in the number of accidents in Railways since 2003

- Passenger volume likely to grow by around 7% over previous year

- Estimated freight earnings for next fiscal pegged at Rs 59,059 crore

3G SUM DETAILS ABT IT

3G is the third generation of mobile phone standards and technology, superseding 2.5G. It is based on the International Telecommunication Union (ITU) family of standards under the IMT-2000.
3G networks enable network operators to offer users a wider range of more advanced services while achieving greater network capacity through improved spectral efficiency. Services include wide-area wireless voice telephony, video calls, and broadband wireless data, all in a mobile environment. Additional features also include HSPA data transmission capabilities able to deliver speeds up to 14.4Mbit/s on the downlink and 5.8Mbit/s on the uplink.
Unlike IEEE 802.11 (common names Wi-Fi or WLAN) networks, 3G networks are wide area cellular telephone networks which evolved to incorporate high-speed internet access and video telephony. IEEE 802.11 networks are short range, high-bandwidth networks primarily developed for data.

SECURITY ISSUE WITH 3G

3G networks offer a greater degree of security than 2G predecessors. By allowing the UE to authenticate the network it is attaching to, the user can be sure the network is the intended one and not an impersonator. 3G networks use the KASUMI block crypto instead of the older A5/1 stream cipher. However, a number of serious weaknesses in the KASUMI cipher have been identified.
In addition to the 3G network infrastructure security, end to end security is offered when application frameworks such as IMS are accessed, although this is not strictly a 3G property.

ISSUES WITH 3G BETWEEN 3G PROVIDER AND USER
Although 3G was successfully introduced to users across the world, some issues are debated by 3G providers and users:
1.Expensive input fees for the 3G service licenses
2.Numerous differences in the licensing terms
3.Large amount of debt currently sustained by many telecommunication companies, which 4.makes it a challenge to build the necessary infrastructure for 3G
4.Lack of member state support for financially troubled operators
5.Expense of 3G phones
6.Lack of buy-in by 2G mobile users for the new 3G wireless services
7.Lack of coverage, because it is still a new service
8.High prices of 3G mobile services in some countries, including Internet access .
9.Current lack of user need for 3G voice and data services in a hand-held device
10.High power usage