1 Why students leave the engineering track (The New York Times) Amid broader discussions about the future of the American work force, the National Science Foundation has released a comprehensive report on the state of engineering and science in America. Perhaps swayed by statistics about the shortage (and correspondingly high wages) of engineers and scientists in the US in the last decade nearly one incoming freshman in 10 have said they expected to major in engineering. But the share who actually complete degrees in engineering has been about half that.
What accounts for the high attrition rates? Maybe some of it has to do with aptitude, or encouragement, or good role models and mentors. But Philip Babcock, an economist at the University of California, Davis, suggests that a lot of it has to do with homework. He found that in 1961, full-time students spent about 40 hours each week in class and studying. By 2003, they were investing about 27 hours a week.
The typical engineering major today spends 18.5 hours per week studying. The typical social sciences major, by contrast, spends about 14.6 hours. STEM fields (science, technology, engineering, mathematics) have also had less grade inflation than the humanities and social sciences have in the last several decades. Given the study habits shown above, this probably isn’t surprising; courses with higher grading standards will often require students to study harder to get an A. So maybe students intending to major in STEM fields are changing their minds because those curriculums require more work, or because they’re scared off by the lower grades, or a combination of the two.
2 Vodafone cleared of tax dues in India (BBC) India's highest court has ruled that Vodafone is not liable for taxes and penalties of up to $4.4bn. The judgement could relieve pressure on other foreign companies facing similar tax investigations in India. The case centred on Vodafone's $11bn acquisition of the Indian assets of China's Hutchison Telecommunications in 2007. Vodafone said it did not owe tax on the deal, as the assets were held by a firm based in the Cayman Islands.
In May 2007, Vodafone's Dutch subsidiary acquired a 67% stake in CGP Investments Ltd, a Cayman Islands registered company which held the Indian telecom assets of Hutchison. It was presented with a tax demand of 112 billion rupees, currently worth $2.2bn. The Indian government subsequently sought penalties of up to 100% of the original bill.
3 Big reforms in Italy (BBC) The Italian government has approved a controversial series of reforms designed to boost its ailing economy. Measures include allowing more taxi licences and permitting pharmacists to give discounts on some medicines. The government's aim is to end restrictive practices and increase competition, but critics say small businesses will be harmed. Earlier, Italy unveiled a 5.5bn euro package for investment in infrastructure. Standard and Poor's cut Italy's rating by two notches last Friday to BBB+, citing concerns over the economic outlook, and Fitch Ratings has warned it could do the same by the end of the month unless progress is made.
4 Amazon’s first ‘fulfilment’ centre in India (Guardian) Amazon is setting up its first "fulfilment centre" in India as the world's largest internet retailer tries to break into the world's second most populous nation. Fulfilment centres are giant warehouses that help store products, ship them and handle returns quickly. The fulfilment centre is based in Mumbai, the biggest city in the country, according to job listings on Amazon's Indian careers website. The company spent heavily last year setting up more than 10 new fulfilment centres in the US. The company also lists centres in China, Germany, Japan and the UK on its website, but currently lists none in India. Fulfilment centres cost a lot to set up, so Amazon's efforts to start one in India signal that the company is serious about getting into the country's $550bn retail market.
5 Malawi women march for right to wear pants (Johannesburg Times) About 2,000 Malawian women staged a protest against attacks on trouser-wearing women, who were stripped in the streets this week by a gang of unemployed youths and sidewalk vendors. "We have to say no to abuse against women. We have to fight for women's rights," Vice President Joyce Banda told the women. Banda is the country's first female vice president. On Wednesday police announced that 15 men had been arrested in connection with the incident, prompting President Bingu wa Mutharika to defend women's right to wear whatever they liked. Until 1994, women in this deeply conservative poor nation were banned from wearing pants, during the long dictatorship of Kamuzu Banda.
6 China’s driving schools and the art of war (Johannesburg Times) China is rapidly becoming a country on wheels and its crowded driving schools are racing to churn out licensed drivers as fast as cars roll off the assembly lines. But judging by the daily smash-ups and blatant disregard for even basic traffic rules on China's roadways, quantity seems to have trumped quality at many schools. China surpassed the US in 2009 to become the world's largest auto market. According to official data, China granted 22.69 million driving licences in 2011 alone, bringing the total number of licensed drivers in the country to 236 million at the end of 2011.
But no amount of classroom work or simulated driving may prepare drivers for the roadways that more closely resemble slow-moving battle grounds than transportation arteries. In 2010 alone, China reported 3.9 million road accidents that killed 65,225 people and injured 254,075. Lack of experience is often cited as a key reason behind the rocketing number of accidents. It's enough to make one nostalgic for simpler days when millions got around on bicycle.
7 ‘Apartheid made South Africa rich’ (Charles Hoffman in Johannesburg Times) I am a great fan of Jonny Steinberg’s writings, but his recent assertion in the Sunday Times that Apartheid, with all its inefficiencies, actually held back SA’s economic development calls for a response. You cannot think away Apartheid and assume the alternative would have been some efficient and liberal dispensation immune to the post-independent African story.
In my view, if Apartheid never happened (if the Afrikaner was never here?) there is no reason to believe that SA would be any different today from any other ex-British ruled African country – that is a poor and collapsed state. And why did none of the other post-independent African countries flourish despite having none of the Apartheid inefficiencies? Why did they all fast collapse? Why did SA in contrast become this rich and modern state, albeit much “skewed”? Of course all this does not justify Apartheid, but it at least brings some perspective to the legacy of our past.
8 Fitch lowers India growth estimate (Khaleej Times) Fitch Ratings cut India’s growth estimate for the current fiscal year, citing record interest-rate increases and a global economic slowdown. “The combination of a tightening of monetary policy, which was implemented to tame persistent inflationary pressures, and a weaker global economy is likely to weigh on India’s growth,” Fitch said on Friday. India’s economy may expand 7% in the fiscal year through March 2012, from an earlier estimate of 7.5%, Fitch said. The World Bank this week cut India’s 2012 forecast by 1.9 percentage point to 6.5%.
9 Stop the ‘Chindia’ talk (Business Standard) Figuring out the gap between the two “rising giants of Asia” is an instructive study. For instance, China’s GDP in 2011 was $6.99 trillion, or nearly four times India’s $1.84 trillion. Could India have avoided falling so far behind China? After all, when China began its Four Modernisations in 1978, the two economies were of roughly the same size ($145-148 billion). Even in 1991, when India began its reforms, China’s economy was only 40% bigger than India’s $268 billion. The answer is that, in many ways, India in 1991 was already two decades and more behind China on key indicators, and it has not closed the gap.
For instance, China’s literacy rate in 1991 was 78%, whereas India’s was just 52%. Ditto with life expectancy; China’s in 1991 was 70 years. Twenty years later, India had a tally of only 64 years. China’s goods exports are about six times India’s. Move to research, and China has a citation index that is twice as good as India’s. In the space programme, China sent its first man into space in 2003; India hopes to do it in 2015, but is likely to take longer. As for infrastructure, China has more than 30,000 km of expressways on which traffic speeds go up to 120 kmph; India has a few hundred kilometres.
China has a whole inter-city network of high-speed trains, five times as many Internet users, and nearly a million MW of power generation capacity. India has only fractionally increased its train speeds since the first Rajdhani Express of 1969, and even if the country doubles power generation capacity every decade, starting from 150,000 MW in 2010, it will take more than a quarter century to get to where China is today. The smallest gap is in the mobile phone population. And the largest gap perhaps in the quality of political leadership — China is able to produce a new crop of top-rung leaders every decade, in Beijing and in the provinces and large cities, whereas India’s political parties offer little beyond an upper crust. As for sport, India got one gold medal in the last Olympics, China got 51. The cold message to all Indians: stop talking of the two countries in the same breath, and dump the “Chindia” coinage. For why does India not bracket itself with Iran, whose economic size in relation to India (1:4) is broadly the same as India’s to China?
10 India cannot even think of growing at 7% (Shankar N Acharya, economist and policy advisor, in Financial Chronicle) My worry is that we could be in for less than 7% growth not just this year or the next but for quite a few years. This is because we are not doing anything about some of the fundamental problems we face -- the energy shortage, for instance. You will agree that there have been little reforms between 2004 and 2011.
I don’t wish a crisis. But I see a crisis building up on two or three fronts. I am worried about the external balance of payments front. The trade gap is at 10% of GDP. The current account deficit is already 3.5% of GDP. The external debt today is at the highest level in absolute terms and it is primarily commercial and of shorter term. We may talk about foreign exchange reserves of $300 billion, but $300 billion in today’s context is nothing. It can disappear in no time. We are vulnerable to external shocks. Then I fear that we can get caught in shortages — of energy, of infrastructure, water and of other res¬ources unless we do act on those fronts. We could then be investing 30% of the GDP, but would still be constrained to grow slowly.
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