1 Technology jobs boom unlike other sectors’ (San Francisco Chronicle) Hiring in the technology sector is gaining momentum. Among US technology companies with a market value of more than $100 million, almost 50 increased employment by more than half in the most recently reported two-year period, according to data compiled by Bloomberg. Some small and midsize businesses boosted payrolls by almost fivefold, underscoring the resilient demand for Internet services, software and electronics.
Rohit Dhingra is one face behind the statistics. He went to Columbia Business School in New York so he could land a consulting job. Instead, he got hired by a company making computer gear in Silicon Valley. "A few years back, it just would have been a slam dunk that you want to do investment banking," Dhingra said. "The future of financial services does not seem as bright." While the broader unemployment rate dropped to 8.5% in December, reaching a three-year low, few companies outside of technology have as voracious an appetite for workers. In the software and services industry, 74 companies with more than $100 million in market value expanded their workforce by at least 10%. That was more than any other industry group measured by Bloomberg.
2 La Tribune sold, ends daily print run (Paid Content) France’s national La Tribune newspaper said Monday’s edition was its last daily print copy, as its owner’s sale to a regional publisher and an online ad group was announced. The pair - France-Economie-Regions and web group Hi-Media - will axe 115 of 165 staff, play up the paper’s website and revert to a weekly, journal-style print run. It is the second closure of a French daily in two months. In December, France-Soir’s owner Alexander Pugachyov, sad he would end that title’s print edition and publish only online, with the loss of 89 out of 127 jobs. La Tribune describes it as “the symptom of a sickness’, and “a tragic epilogue, which comes after 27 years of turbulent and complex history”.
3 Indian cricket’s end of an era (BBC) All good things have to come to an end - but the end in Adelaide over the weekend was brutal. India were routed in an overseas cricket Test for the eighth time in a row - four by an innings and two by more than 290 runs. The team's fabled batting line-up, stuffed with ageing legends, lay in ruins, mowed down by a bunch of terrific young Australian speedsters. The Adelaide annihilation came on a flat track holding no terrors. The last time Indian cricket went through a similar ordeal was back in the 1960s, when they lost 17 overseas games on the trot.
India managed to pass 300 runs only twice in the past 16 Test innings in England and Australia. This from a team in which four batsmen - Tendulkar, Dravid, Laxman and Sehwag - have an incredible 45,611 runs between them. (It didn't help that their wayward bowlers picked up only 93 wickets in the two series, while England and Australia picked up all of the 160 Indian wickets in eight Tests.) Cricket, like most things in shining India, is marked by hubris, cronyism, conflict of interest, and many such moral conflicts. So don't expect any searing and transparent post-mortem of the team's performance, or a sensible plan for the future. It will be a rocky road ahead.
4 India shrine goes green (BBC) Surrounded by seven hills, high above lush green forests is the temple town of Tirumala. The crown jewel is the dazzling gold-plated temple of Lord Venkateshwara. Located in the southern Indian state of Andhra Pradesh, this is not just one of Hinduism's holiest shrines, but also one of the richest. It has an annual income of $340m - mostly from donations. Between 50-100,000 people visit this temple every day. This puts enormous pressure on water, electricity and other energy resources. Now the temple is using its religious influence and economic might to change the way energy is used here. Developing reserve forests around the temple to act as carbon sinks, the management has transformed the environment.
Inside the temple complex, a large multi-storey building is dedicated to just one thing - cooking free meals for pilgrims. Several cooks work in tandem stirring large pots of rice, curry and vegetables. Nearly 50,000 kilos of rice along with lentils are cooked here every day. Located on the roof of this building are rows of solar dishes that automatically move with the angle of the sun, capturing the strong sunlight. Then the energy is used to convert water into high pressure steam, which cooks the food in the kitchen below. Generating over 4,000kgs of steam a day at 180º C, this makes the cooking faster and cheaper. As a result, an average of 500 litres of diesel fuel is saved each day. By switching to green technologies, the temple cuts its carbon emissions and earns a carbon offset, or credit, which they can sell.
(In contrast, the authorities at the Sabarimala temple are seeking more forest land for ‘developmental’ work.)
5 Poll-time pyrotechnics (Khaleej Times) Austerity is clearly not a virtue with Indian politicians on a campaign trail. As clamorous electioneering gets underway for the looming assembly elections in five states — Uttar Pradesh (UP), Punjab, Uttarakhand, Goa and Manipur – flamboyance has edged out frugality. Despite the Election Commission’s stringent directive that no candidate exceed his poll spend limit of Rs 1.6m per constituency, cash is sloshing about everywhere. From spiffy SUVs to choppers to chartered planes to slick e-campaigns, a cache of baubles are being deployed to woo the electorate in the world’s largest democracy.
No less gobsmacking are the candidates’ personal assets (which have to be publicly declared as per rules). Punjab’s politicians are clearly leading the rich man’s club. So what if the state itself is hurtling towards a debt of Rs 720bn by this fiscal-end? Congress’ Kewal Singh Dhillon (MLA from Barnala), for instance, has declared assets worth a whopping Rs 1.36bn. “Mercedes and Lexus are my favourites cars,” says Dhillon. Akali Dal President Sukhbir Badal – coming in a notch lower at Rs 764 million — counts rearing of exotic birds and Arabian horses at his stud farm as his “hobbies”. Uttar Pradesh’s ‘dalit ki beti’ aka Chief Minister Mayawati – who publicly frowns at her MLAs’ ‘wasteful’ expenditure including lavish weddings — will be moving about in half a dozen-odd planes and helicopters. The BJP will keep seven helicopters and two planes at its leaders’ beck and call. Ditto Samajwadi Party – the pioneer in the chopper business from the time it ferried the Bachchans, Sanjay Dutt, Jaya Prada and a whole caboodle of Bollywood stars for its raucous rallies in 2007.
6 Muddying the oath (Khaleej Times) There have always been close links between doctors and pharmaceutical and medical device-making companies, not just in India. These links often lead to unethical practices not in keeping with the hippocratic oath. Patients are the main sufferers. Here are a few of the sharp practices that some of the large drug firms indulge in.
They invite doctors to so-called “conferences” and “conventions”, which are usually held at exotic locales. The airfare — business class, of course — and hotel expenses — five-star, needless to say — are borne by the companies. Hence, these jaunts are nothing less than paid holidays, which the doctors accept happily. The pretext is that at such meetings, mutually-beneficial ideas are exchanged, up-to-date medical know-how imparted and the doctors return home better informed and therefore able to treat their patients with the latest medicines and technology. That is the thin legal veneer, but the real purpose of the pharmaceutical companies is quite different. Their prime intent is that the doctors should prescribe the medicines manufactured by these companies to their patients.
7 Bill Gates’ frugal tastes (Sydney Morning Herald) Bill Gates has frugal tastes. Asked to name his luxuries, he lists DVDs, books and takeaway burgers. It is hard, however, to think that any fast-food outlet would get rich on Gates's custom. During a long list of engagements beginning well before dawn, he consumes nothing but cans of diet cola. For America's wealthiest citizen, austerity is relative. The retinue of staff and the private jet hint at a fortune said to be approaching £40 billion.
As he told pupils at a south London school he visited last week: "If I hadn't given my money away, I'd have had more than anyone else on the planet. Ninety-nine per cent of it will go." Bill Gates moves seamlessly between worlds. His day in London started in the VIP suite of a television studio and shifted to a school assembly hall before he left for Davos, where he announced a new US$750 million package to fight Aids, malaria and TB. Accustomed to morphing from the subsistence farms of Africa – the focus of his latest effort – to the salons of prime ministers, he does not see himself as a global power broker. "I hope they're having a good time up at the top table, but I doubt they're discussing diarrhoea and malaria."
8 Bailout packages for stressed Indian states (Business Standard) Bailout packages for fiscally stressed states are in the works, as the government seeks to garner political backing for the key policy reforms it plans to fast-track after the five state elections. West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee has been demanding a bailout package from the Centre to improve the fiscal situation of the severely debt-ridden state. The Trinamool Congress leader’s blocking of foreign direct investment in multi-brand retail and other policy measures of UPA-II is being seen, among other things, as a reaction to the delay in a bailout package for West Bengal.
The state government is scheduled to present its first Budget immediately after the Union Budget. The official said since it would be difficult for the Centre to help just one state, a comprehensive package for other states in trouble was being worked out. West Bengal is reeling under Rs 151 bn of interest payments and Rs 69bn of prepayments for 2011-12. State finance ministry officials say the situation can’t be tackled by raising tax revenues. “The bigger picture is not manageable easily, with the state’s total debt at Rs 2trn — that can’t go away easily,” said an official. The fiscal situations of Punjab and Kerala also indicate the two states have financially deteriorated considerably.
9 Bans are bad – on books or booze (Wall Street Journal) Most poor people in India, such as daily wage labourers, have no savings to speak of but spend what they earn on a day to day basis. In economist’s terms, they are “liquidity constrained.” Thus, even if they wanted to, many simply wouldn’t have the extra cash on hand to stock up in advance of a dry day, and would have to go without. Intertemporal (or interspatial) substitution affects not just liquor stores but the wider hospitality industry. Weddings too are affected by dry days. According to a news report, about 4,000 marriage parties in Punjab scheduled for Jan. 28-30 were postponed or moved to nearby Haryana as those are slated to be dry days due to state elections.
The bottom line is that government policies either to ban books or booze are at their core not only paternalistic and illiberal, but differentially affect rich and poor. Dry days are maybe a nuisance, but the banning of books is a whole other level of thought control. We’re still very far from Orwell’s dystopic nightmarish world in which even “thought crime” is punishable by death, but we ran dangerously close to it when even a long distance video link with Mr. Rushdie became impossible for his critics to stomach and the threat of violence hung in the air.
10 Like Facebook (Financial Expresss editorial) Facebook’s IPO, which will value the company between $75-100 billion and will raise an estimated $10 billion, is the latest in a series of social media company IPOs. Last year, 19 US companies—including LinkedIn, Pandora Media, Groupon and Zynga—raised $6.6 billion, according to Bloomberg data, which is why investors are almost drooling at the prospect of Facebook’s mega-IPO. To further put things in perspective, Google is currently valued at $188 billion, after around 13 years in operation. Facebook, only about 7 years old, is already aiming at a valuation of around half Google’s current value.
Facebook’s valuation far surpasses most of its internet peers, with Amazon currently valued at $88.85 billion, eBay at $41.04 billion, Yahoo at $19.53 billion, Groupon at $13.1 billion and Netflix at $5.3 billion.
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