ECONOMY CURRENT AFFAIRS MONTHLY 'OCTOBER'

General Awareness Updates – October 2011

Economy & Business

Steve Jobs, the ailing tech visionary who founded Apple Inc., has stepped down as the CEO of the technology giant and handed the reins to Chief Operating Officer (COO) Tim Cook.
Mr Jobs was diagnosed with cancer in 2003 and also went for a liver transplant in 2009, when he had taken a break from the company.He was the main force behind iconic brands like Macintosh computers, iPod music players, iPad tablets, and iPhone mobile phones.
Mr Cook, 50, widely considered as the leading candidate to succeed Mr Jobs, is a 13-year Apple veteran, who joined the company shortly after Mr Jobs took over for the second time in 1997. He has been running the day-to-day operations during this period as he has done during two prior medical leaves of absence by Mr Jobs in the last seven years.
The exit of Mr Jobs marks the end of one of the most extraordinary careers in U.S. corporate history. He is seen as the one who played a central role in reshaping the music, movie, animation, and mobile-phone businesses. While as the CEO, he took home an annual salary of only U.S.$1, he has Apple shares worth about U.S.$2.1 billion, and is the single largest Walt Disney shareholder, with stock worth about U.S.$4.4 billion.

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Veerendra Kumar, Chairman and Managing Director of the Mathrubhumi group of newspapers, is the new Chairman of the Board of Directors of Press Trust of India. A former Union Minister and former President of the Indian Newspaper Society, he is also the author of 18 books in Malayalam, one of which won the Kendriya Sahitya Academy Award in 2010.

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Abhishek Singhvi was reappointed Chairman of the Parliamentary Standing Committee on Personnel, Public Grievances and Law and Justice, paving the way for early consultations over the Lokpal Bill. The 31– member Committee is among the several Parliamentary Committees reconstituted by Speaker Meira Kumar in consultation with Rajya Sabha Chairman Hamid Ansari.

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Rohit Nandanis the new Chairman-cum-Managing Director (CMD) of Air India . He belongs to the Uttar Pradesh cadre 1982 IAS batch. He replaces senior IAS officer Arvind Jadhav. Mr Jadhav’s three year term was to end in May 2012, but his failure on all parameters and his lacklustre performance only hurried his exit from the airline. Mr Nandan is the third CMD of the airline in as many years.
As of today, Air India ’s debt stands at 42,570 crore while the losses are at '22,000 crore. It needs equity support of nearly '43,000 crore till 2021, with an immediate equity infusion of `6,600 crore. Over the past year, the government had injected an equity of `3,200 crore. The airline was finding it difficult to pay salaries to its employees and also to pay its dues to the oil companies for aviation fuel.

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The Central Government has approved the Approach Paper for the 12th Plan (2012-17) which seeks to raise annual economic growth rate to 9 per cent during the five-year period, up from 8.2 per cent estimated in the current Plan. The Approach Paper provides a broad framework of the government policy to be pursued in the five-year plan period to achieve the desired growth rate. 
The Approach Paper would be placed before the National Development Council (NDC) for final approval on October 15-16. The NDC, the highest policy-making body of the country, is headed by the Prime Minister and its members include Union Ministers, members of Planning Commission, and Chief Ministers of all states.In a bid to strengthen its mobile business, Google has acquired Motorola Mobility Holdings, the cell phone business that was split from Motorola, for U.S.$12.5 billion.

Android has become an increasingly important platform for Google, as global smart phone adoption accelerates. Google launched the Android platform in 2007; it is now used in more than 150 million devices, with 39 manufacturers.
The acquisition would turn Google, which makes the Android mobile operating system, into a full-fledged cell phone manufacturer in direct competition with Apple. The deal answers a big question about Google’s next strategic step in wireless. Google has been battling with the Apple and Microsoft over patents.
Recently, Apple and Microsoft led a consortium of technology companies in a U.S. $.4.5 billion purchase of roughly 6,000 patents from Nortel Networks, the Canadian telecommunications maker that filed for bankruptcy in 2008.
Google paid U.S.$4.5 billion for more than 1,000 patents from IBM. Motorola holds more than 17,000 patents.

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Bank of America has sold its U.S.$8.6 billion credit card portfolio in Canada to TD Bank Group and would exit its credit card businesses in Britain andIreland . Bank of America is the biggest U.S. bank by assets.

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India ’s services exports in Julywere worth U.S.$10.4 billion, a fall of 5.8 per cent compared to June. The country’s total receipts from services exported were U.S.$11.04 billion in June, 2011, according to data released by the RBI.
Imports of services also fell 18.2 percent in July to U.S.$5.89 billion, compared to U.S.$7.20 billion in June.
Overall, the services sector contributes over 50 per cent to India ’s GDP.  During the April-July period this fiscal, the country’s cumulative exports of services amounted to U.S.$44.74 billion. Imports of services, meanwhile, stood at U.S.$27.07 billion during the first four months of 2011-12.
RBI has recently started releasing provisional aggregate monthly data on India ’s international trade in services, with a lag of 45 days. For the first time, the data for April, 2011 was released on June 15. This provisional data will undergo a revision once the Balance of Payments (BoP) data is compiled on a quarterly basis, which will be released with a lag of a quarter, the apex bank said.

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