china car market

China has overtaken Japan to become the world's second-largest car market after the US, official figures show. Car sales - excluding people carriers and 4x4s - jumped 37% in 2006, the China Association of Automobile Manufacturers (CAAM) said. Total passenger car sales rose 30.02% to 5.18 million units, CAAM found. Analysts said that newly affluent drivers had boosted sales, with some predicting China may overtake the US by 2015 as its economy continues to grow. Overall, Chinese vehicle sales jumped 25% during 2006 to 7.22m units.

job

The Indian aviation industry would create 40 lakh jobs in the next 10 years.After IT, ITeS and Telecom, the aviation industry would be the growth area that would give lot of opportunities for youngsters.

petro exports set to double this year

Petroleum sector exports are expected to exceed $20 billion in the current fiscal, against $9.1 billion in the previous fiscal. With that, petroleum will emerge as the largest foreign exchange segment with a 16.2% share in the country’s export basket. With the doubling of capacity of the Panipat refinery to 12 million tonnes per annum, the country has added 16.5 million tonnes of refining capacity in 2006-07. This has scaled up the combined capacity of India’s 19 refineries to 149-million tonnes per annum.

Ninth Schedule

The Ninth Schedule has about 250 laws and the Court has said that if they are seen to destroy or damage the basic structure, they can be reviewed. It is a clear indication that the Court wants to uphold the supremacy of the Constitution, even if means treading in the Parliament’s domain.Wednesday’s judgement, for example, also says unequivocally that the Supreme Court has the final say on Parliamentary affairs, a statement that is bound to raise hackles in the highest quarters of the legislature. Many already think that the Indian Judiciary is increasingly becoming the arbiter of the nation’s fate and is often intervening in matters better left to others. This judgement will give further boost to their fearIndians are getting increasingly cynical about politicians and even the bureaucracy. The sight of politicians seeking bribes confirms their worst views. The courts have come to be seen as the last resort to ensure that the country gets good governance. The judiciary still enjoys a high level of respectability and people are willing to let it enter areas where the other institutions have failed. But disproportionate power to any one institution could be dangerous.All other institutions should take note of this and clean up their own acts rather than merely complain about judicial interference. But on its part, the highest court must look at issues on a case by case basis and not claim a larger systemic authoritys.

one laptop per child

The backers of the One Laptop Per Child project are looking at the possibility of selling the machine to the public. One idea would be for customers to have to buy two laptops at once - with the second going to the developing world. Five million of the laptops will be delivered to developing nations this summer, in one of the most ambitious educational exercises ever undertaken.

dark matter

Astronomers have unveiled a three-dimensional map that sheds light on the mysterious "dark matter" that makes up a quarter of the universe.
The map shows that the dark matter forms a filamentous 'skeleton' upon which visible matter congregates, eventually producing stars, Nature magazine reports.
The composition of the dark matter is unclear but without it the universe could not exist. The dark matter is thought to act as a glue holding galaxies together.

climate forcast

The world is likely to experience the warmest year on record in 2007, the UK's Met Office says. An extended warming period, resulting from an El Nino weather event in the Pacific Ocean, will probably push up global temperatures, experts forecast.They say there is a 60% chance that the average surface temperature will match or exceed the current record from 1998.