Rupee slumps to touch pre-Rajan era level as bears grip stocks

India’s benchmark equity indices fell to their lowest levels in 20 months as concerns about a global economic slowdown amid slumping commodity prices and a weakening rupee spurred investors to sell shares.

The rupee breached the 68-a-dollar mark on Wednesday for the first time since August 2013. It closed at a record low of 68.85 a dollar on August 28, 2013, just days before Raghuram Rajan took charge as RBI Governor. Dealers said state-run banks intervened on behalf of the central bank after the currency touched an intra-day low of 68.17 a dollar, helping the rupee close at 67.95, compared with Tuesday’s 67.65.

“The RBI intervened in both the currency futures as well as in the spot market,” said a dealer with a state-run bank. “The intention of the central bank was not to allow the rupee to depreciate at a fast pace.” The central bank always maintains that it intervenes to curb volatility and does not target any level for the rupee.

The rupee has weakened 2.74 per cent so far this year after declining more than 5 per cent in 2015. Still, the Indian currency has performed better than its emerging market peers from Russia, Brazil and South Africa. Dealers said there could be more pressure on the rupee, going forward.

The 30-share Sensex lost a whopping 640 points during intra-day trades on Wednesday to touch a low of 23,839.76. It finally closed at 24,062.04, down 417.80 points or 1.71 per cent. This is the lowest close for the Sensex since May 15, 2014, when the benchmark ended at 23,905.60.

Source:- The Hindu, 21-Jan-2016

Militants storm Pakistan university, kill at least 20

Armed militants stormed a university in volatile north-western Pakistan on Wednesday, killing at least 20 people and wounding dozens a little more than a year after the massacre of 134 students at a school in the area, officials said.

A senior Pakistani Taliban commander claimed responsibility for the assault in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, but an official spokesman later denied involvement, calling the attack “un-Islamic.”

The violence nevertheless shows militants retain the ability to launch attacks, despite a nationwide anti-terrorism crackdown and a military campaign against their strongholds along the lawless border with Afghanistan.

A security official said the death toll could rise to 40 at Bacha Khan University in Charsadda. The Army said it had concluded operations to clear the campus six hours after the attack began, and that four gunmen were dead.

A spokesman for rescue workers, Bilal Ahmad Faizi, said 19 bodies had been recovered, including those of students, guards, policemen and at least one teacher, named by the media as chemistry professor Syed Hamid Husain. Husain reportedly shot back at the gunmen with a pistol to allow his students to flee.

Many of the dead were apparently shot in the head, TV footage showed. Thirty-five of the wounded are being treated in hospital, a police officer said. — Reuters

Source:- The Hindu, 21-Jan-2016

Mumbai varsity graduate wins an Oscar

After Bhanu Athaiya, Satyajit Ray, Resul Pookutty, A.R. Rahman and Gulzar, another person of Indian origin has joined the list of Academy Award winners. Rahul Thakkar, a computer engineering graduate from Mumbai University, has won an Oscar that honours scientific and technical achievement.

Mr. Thakkar shares the honour with Richard Chuang for “groundbreaking design” of the DreamWorks Animation Media Review System.

Earlier this month, the Academy of Motion Picture Arts and Sciences announced the ten scientific and technical achievements represented by 33 individuals who will be honoured at its annual scientific and technical awards presentation on February 13, at the Beverly Wilshire in Beverly Hills.

“With their outstanding, innovative work, these technologists, engineers and inventors have further expanded filmmakers’ creative opportunities on the big screen,” said Richard Edlund, Academy Award-winning visual effects artist and chair of the Scientific and Technical Awards Committee.

Unlike other Academy Awards, achievements receiving Scientific and Technical Awards need not have been developed and introduced during 2015. Rather, the achievements must demonstrate a proven record of contributing significant value to the process of making motion pictures.

Mr. Thakkar, who took his Master’s degree in computer science from Utah State University has over 20 years of experience in product design and research and is presently the vice-president at Brivo Systems.

The Academy Award citation says of the DreamWorks media review system: “Over its nearly two decades of development, this pioneering system enabled desktop and digital theater review. It continues to provide artist-driven, integrated, consistent and highly scalable studio-wide playback and interactive reviews.”

Source:- The Hindu, 21-Jan-2016

‘Good evidence’ for 9th planet in solar system

Scientists reported on Wednesday they finally have “good evidence” for Planet X, a true ninth planet on the fringes of our solar system.

The gas giant is thought to be almost as big as Neptune and orbiting billions of kilometres beyond Neptune’s path distant enough to take 10,000 to 20,000 years to circle the sun.

This Planet 9, as the two California Institute of Technology researchers call it, hasn’t been spotted yet.

Computer modelling

They base their findings on mathematical and computer modelling, and anticipate its discovery via telescope within five years or less.

The two reported on their research on Wednesday in the Astronomical Journal because they want people to help them look for it. — AP

Source:- The Hindu, 01-21-2016

ISRO puts fifth GPS satellite in orbit

In yet another textbook launch, the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) on Wednesday launched IRNSS-1E, the fifth of the seven-satellite Indian Regional Navigation Satellite System (IRNSS) into space.

ISRO’s workhorse PSLV C-31 rocket lifted the 1,425 kg satellite from the second launchpad of the Satish Dhawan Space Centre here at 9.31 a.m. and placed it in the intended orbit some 19 minutes later. This is ISRO’s first launch for this year.

Though it was a textbook launch, the extremely cloudy skies in Sriharikota deprived the onlookers and journalists of a clear view, as the soaring rocket was visible only for a few seconds, before clouds engulfed it.

Announcing that the launch was a success, ISRO chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar said the national space agency had a long way to go since two more satellites were to be launched by March.

Director of Satish Dhawan Space Centre P. Kunhikrishnan called the launch a “New Year gift” to the nation and said the calendar was hectic for the space agency this year.

With the launch of the first four satellites — IRNSS-1A, 1B, 1C and 1D were launched in July 2013, April and October, 2014 and March last year respectively — ISRO said, “The current achieved position accuracy is 20 metres over 18 hours of the day with four satellites.”

IRNSS-1E with a mission life of 12 years was launched into a sub geosynchronous transfer orbit with a 284 km perigee (nearest point to Earth) and 20,657 km apogee (farthest point from Earth) with an inclination of 19.2 degree with reference to the equatorial plane.

IRNSS-1E carried navigation and ranging payloads, including a rubidium atomic clock, C-band transponder and corner cube retro reflectors for laser ranging. The signal-in-space of four satellites has already been validated by various agencies within and outside the country.

Source:- The Hindu, 21-Jan-2016

Photonics to drive terabit chips

Scientists from the Centre for Nano Science and Engineering (CeNSE) at the Indian Institute of Science (IISc) in Bengaluru are working on two projects in the area of photonic integrated circuits.

In the first, researchers and scientists at CeNSE are building a next-generation processor. It’s hard to imagine a world without microprocessors. These ubiquitous little chips drive our technology and are embedded everywhere, from phones to laptops to DVDs and rockets. But at its very core, each unit is still electrical; it has millions of transistors connected with copper lines.

What if you replaced the copper lines with photonic components? It would exponentially improve the power of microprocessors. Now, scientists from CeNSE, in a project supported by the Defence of Research and Development Organisation (DRDO), are trying to develop indigenous technology for high-speed optical interconnect technology. CeNSe has received a Rs. 5-crore grant from the DRDO for the three-year project.

“The copper wires/interconnect create a bottleneck for data transfer, but the project, will exploit high-speed Silicon photonics to improve data transfer between the core and the memory exponentially,” said Professor Shankar Kumar Selvaraja from CeNSe. In the second project, a CeNSE team is working towards improving the existing optical communication technology. “The aim is to build integrated photonic transceivers that will allow for communication speeds beyond 1 terabits per second per channel in a scalable fashion,” said Professor V. R. Supradeepa, one of the principal investigators of this Rs. 3.40 crore project.

Source:- The Hindu, 21-Jan-2016

Backchannel efforts begin to resolve U.S. visa fee issue

In the first backchannel diplomatic effort since the official notification of the recent visa fee hike move by the Obama administration, a group of U.S. Congress Representatives held a meeting with India’s premier software body, Nasscom, to ensure that such issues were amicably(characterized by friendliness) resolved to boost India-U.S. trade and investment ties.

Sources in the government and Nasscom confirmed that the meeting between a delegation of U.S. Congress Representatives including Ami Bera, the only Indian-American Representative in the U.S. Congress and a member and co-chair of the Congressional Caucus on India and Indian Americans and Nasscom representatives in New Delhi.

Talks were held on steps to increase the annual bilateral trade from the current $100 billion to $500 billion in the next few years by strengthening India-U.S. partnership in initiatives such as ‘Start-up Mission’ and ‘Make In India’ as well as by resolving all outstanding issues including the recent U.S. visa fee hike, the sources told The Hindu . Indian industry body CII had said the U.S. visa fee hike is highly discriminatory and punitive and is specifically geared towards India and Indian-centric technology companies.

According to Nasscom, the visa fee hike will restrict and reduce the usage of H1B and L1 visas by Indian technology companies, the sources said. The sources said since these visas were for short-term work, the American lawmakers were requested not to confuse this issue with immigration or spread the “myth that hiring of foreign tech workers is hindering employment of local professionals”.

The U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services (USCIS) on January 12 had said the Consolidated Appropriations Act, 2016, signed into law by the U.S. President Barack Obama on December 18, 2015, increases fees for certain H-1B and L-1 petitioners. These petitioners must submit an additional fee of $4,000 for certain H-1B petitions and $4,500 for certain L-1A and L-1B petitions postmarked on or after December 18, 2015, it addedThe additional fees apply to petitioners who employ 50 or more employees in the U.S., with over 50 per cent of those employees in H-1B or L (including L-1A and L-1B) non-immigrant status, the USCIS said. It said this fee is in addition to the base processing fee, Fraud Prevention and Detection Fee, American Competitiveness and Workforce Improvement Act of 1998 fee as well as the premium processing fee, if applicable.

In effect the hike is more than double the fee for these categories of H1B and L1 visas, which are for temporary work visas for skilled professionals, and according to Nasscom the decision’s financial implication on the Indian technology sector would be about $400 million annually.

Indian technology companies will be the most affected by the move as it is the largest user of H1B visas (67.4 per cent of the total 1,61,369 H1B visas issued in FY14 went to Indians), and is also amongst the largest users of L1 visas (Indians received 28.2 per cent of the 71,513 L1 visas issued in FY14).

 Source:- The Hindu, 21-Jan-2016