Obama’s visit – A quick scorecard

When the 56th U.S President Barrack Obama made his maiden visit to India, it was much anticipated that he was all set to pursue future cooperation between the two world’s largest democracies.

During his visit the 6 major agreements penned between the two governments were:

• A US$50 million dollar clean energy research and development center project to be backed by both sides in the field of solar energy, bio-fuel and energy research over 5 years.
• A Memorandum of Understanding (MOU) to work together to establish a global center for nuclear energy.
• A joint India-US energy cooperation program which aims to address clean energy issues in India and the US.
• A technical joint agreement to study India’s annual monsoon rains in India.
• US to support India in exploration and extraction of Shale gas resource using US technology in India.
• A world class global disease detection center in New Delhi designed to prevent the spread of infectious diseases in joint effort with US.

Besides these major agreements, the US president made significant deals worth US$ 10 billion and also endorsed India’s bid for a permanent seat at the UN Security Council during his speech at the Indian Parliament.

Source: Multiple

Coal India Limited would be the World’s biggest listed coal producer!

Coal India Limited is set to make history with Rs 15,200-cr IPO, Coal India’s initial public offering (IPO), the nations biggest and priced at a discount to global peers, is likely to attract investors and set the stage for it to become a global industry benchmark, akin to Brazil’s Vale in iron ore.

The government said investors can bid for Coal India (CIL) shares in the Rs 225-245 price band that will help it raise as much as Rs 15,200 crore. Ten per cent of the company, or 63.16 crore shares are on sale, which if priced at the top end, could make it the seventh most-valuable firm in whole of India with a market capitalization of $34 billion.

Coal India, with an output of 431 million tonnes a year, would be the world’s biggest listed coal producer. Its coal reserves are also the largest in the world with 10.6 billion tonnes compared with Peabody’s 9.3 billion tonnes and China’s Shenhua’s 7.4 billion tonnes.


Economic Times

Every Indian would now have his own Unique Identity!

Aadhaar is a 12-digit unique number which will be issued by the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI) to all residents of the country. It's a step towards putting India in the club of more than 50 countries around the world that have some form of national identity cards. The number will be stored in a centralized database and linked to the basic demographics and biometric information photograph, ten fingerprints and iris of each individual.
The number will be unique and would be available for online and offline verification and, hence, will rule out the possibility of duplicate and fake identities from government as well as various private databases.

What will be the benefits of the unique identification number?

The most important characteristic of Aadhaar is its universality and it is assumed that the biometric card with the number will be gradually accepted across the country as the identification number by all service providers and government agencies. It is assumed by the UIDAI that the card will increase the trust between private and public agencies and reduce the denial of services to people who have no identification.

Source:Times of India
Photo: Wikipedia