Dec 02

More National Highway stretches to get plastic coat

The union government decided to use more plastic waste in bituminous mixture for construction of roads

Plastic Road Technology:

It is a technology which uses non biodegradable plastic waste  along with bituminous mixture for rural road construction

Gains of plastic road technology

• Higher resistance to deformation and water-induced damages
• Increased durability
• Improved stability and strength
• Cut I bitumen by  10%
• Withstand heavy load traffic
• Gainful disposal of plastic  

Characteristic of process

• Easy process with out any new machinery
• Simple process without industry involvement
• Use of lesser % of bitumen and thus saving bitumen resource
• No evolution of toxic gases like dioxin

Types of plastic used

• Films ( Carry Bags, Cups) thickness up to 60micron 
• Hard foams , any thickness
• Soft Foams ,any thickness
• Laminated Plastics thickness up to 60 micron (Aluminum coated also) packing materials used for biscuits, chocolates, etc.

#---------------------------------------------------#

Gujarat's controversial Labour Law Bill gets President's Assent

President Pranab Mukherjee has given assent to the contentious Labour Laws Bill of Gujarat, which has provisions to ban strikes in public utility services for up to one year.

Why this bill is presented to the President:

Not all State laws are sent to the President for assent. It is done only when a law runs counter to the Central government laws, deviates from the national policies and its legal and constitutional validity can be challenged.

When a bill is passed by the state legislature, it is presented to the governor for his assent. Governor has four alternatives under Article 200 

1. He may give his assent to the bill
2. He may withhold his assent to the bill.
3. He may return the bill for reconsideration in the state legislature (if not a money bill)
4. He may reserve the bill for the consideration of the President

When a bill is reserved by the Governor for the consideration of the President the President has three alternatives:

1. He may give assent to the bill
2. He may withhold his assent to the bill
3. He may direct the Governor to return the bill (if not a Money Bill) for the reconsideration of the state legislature. 

If the bill is passed again by the state legislature with or without amendments and presented again to the President for his assent, the President is not bound to give his assent to the bill. This means that the state legislature cannot override the veto power of the President.

Further the Constitution has not prescribed any time limit within which the President has to make decision with respect to a bill reserved by the Governor for his consideration. Hence the President can exercise Pocket Veto in respect of state legislation also.

                                               #---------------------------------------------------#

IMF gives China's currency prized reserve asset status

• The International Monetary Fund (IMF), as expected, admitted China’s Yuan into its benchmark currency basket
• The IMF executive board’s decision to add the yuan, also known as the renminbi, to the Special Drawing Rights (SDR) basket alongside the dollar, euro, pound sterling and yen, is an important milestone in China’s integration into the global financial system
• The currency will have a 10.92 per cent share, in line with expectations, after a review of the weightings formula for the SDR, which determines which currencies countries can receive as part of IMF loans
• The first time an additional currency has been added to the SDR basket and the biggest change in its composition in 35 years.
• 2010, the basket is currently 41.9 per cent dollar, 37.4 per cent euro, 11.3 per cent sterling and 9.4 per cent yen
• The yuan would not join until October 2016, allowing reserve managers time to prepare
• Under the new formula, the euro’s share will drop to 30.93 per cent. Sterling and yen will also have lower weights while the dollar remains about the same
• To be included in the SDR basket, the yuan had to meet the criteria to be ‘freely usable’, or widely used to make international payments and widely traded in foreign exchange market, chia missed the same last time
• IMF said that since Chinese interest rates were higher than those of other currencies, it was likely that the SDR interest rate would rise as a result of the yuan’s inclusion

Special Drawig Rights : 

• IMF  created SDR in 1969 to boost  global liquidity
• SDR is not technically a currency
• It allows members countries to draw any of the currencies  in the basket to meet their Balance of Payments
• Holder of SDR can obtain the above currencies i exchange of their SDRs in two ways:
   
     1 Voluntary exchange between members
  
     2 IMF designating member with strong external position to purchase SDR from a member with weak external position

                                                #---------------------------------------------------#

Terror, climate among BRICS focus areas:

China on Tuesday proposed a string of thematic lines, including a focus on counter-terrorism, for the development of media, in tune with the growing clout of the Brazil-Russia-India-China-South Africa (BRICS) grouping on the international stage.

The media summit was hosted by China’s Xinhua News Agency and co-chaired by The Hindu group of publications, Empresa Brasil de Communicacao S/A-EBC of Brazil, Rossiya Segodnya of Russia and South Africa’s Independent Media.

The media summit focused on two additional themes — integration of traditional and new media, as well as establishing an institutional architecture for the development of journalism in the BRICS countries.

The summit also yielded a six-point agreement on institutional development in the BRICS countries.
This included:

• Establishing a BRICS media foundation
• A liaison office that would coordinate summit activities
• Training of media personnel
• Coordination of BRICS media covering G-20 summits
• Holding a photo exhibition along BRICS summits
• Setting up BRICS Media Journalism Awards

                                                #--------------------------------------------------#

RBI keeps the rates unchanged 

Inline with expectations of the market, RBI yesterday announced its 5^th bi monthly monetary policy by keeping the rates unchanged. 

• RBI governor Dr Raghuram Rajan said that “we are still accommodative” indicating that RBI is ready to continue with monetary easing if needed. 
• Though WPI (Wholesale Price Index) is roaming around zero RBI is still concerned about the 5% CPI (Consumer Price Index) which is expected to touch 6% by January 2016. This is visible in the unchanged rates. If the CPI also comes under control we can expect further quantitative easing from the part of RBI in the coming February. The present rates are given below

                 REPO                        : 6.75 %

                 REVERSE REPO    : 5.75 %

                 BANK RATE           : 7.75 %

                  MSF                         : 7.75 %

                                                  #--------------------------------------------------#