Sunday, September 28, 2014

Oil ministry revives debate on hydrocarbon incentives.

New Delhi: Petroleum and natural gas minister Dharmendra Pradhan has signalled the government’s desire to debate the incentive regime governing hydrocarbon exploration. “When we make policies in India, we go the two extreme points. It can be the both (models). Both models can throw up some agreeable points. We will have to find a way,” Pradhan said while delivering the keynote address at Mint’s Energy Conclave in New Delhi on Friday. Pradhan indicated that the oil ministry was actively considering the issue and was willing to explore the middle ground between two contentious options: the existing cost-recovery model and the alternative revenue-sharing model. The production-sharing contract framework for the oil and gas sector currently allows for cost recovery by oil and gas explorers before they pay the government a share of revenue. There has been a debate on whether to retain the existing production-sharing agreement or shift to a new revenue-sharing one, with support emerging for both proposals. Explorers want the existing contract to continue. “Whenever we go for any policy, we can’t take extreme viewpoints. What is good today may become bad tomorrow and may again become good thereafter. We will have to create faith and bring clarity and showcase our long-term vision as a map to the country,” Pradhan said. “We want clean energy, reliable energy and affordable energy.” The oil minister’s latest comment follows a postponement in the new domestic gas-pricing formula till 15 November, after elections to the Maharashtra and Haryana assemblies are over. The cabinet committee on economic affairs (CCEA) had earlier deferred the decision on a price increase due from 1 July by three months until 30 September. The decision to further put on hold the price revision will bring some relief to fertilizer and gas-based power producers. Domestic gas is currently priced at $4.2 per million British thermal unit. “We should decide what kind of economic model should work in this country. It is for the democratically elected representatives to form that policy. It is for the political executive to decide that. We have been deliberating and contemplating about a good model,” Pradhan said. A government panel comprising secretaries in the ministries of power, fertilizer and expenditure department along with the additional secretary in the petroleum ministry has submitted its report to the government on gas pricing, which has to be taken up by the CCEA. Hydrocarbon explorers in India have made a total payment of $15.4 billion to the Union government as royalties, cess and profit petroleum, and $1.93 billion to state governments since 1994. Profit petroleum is the total value of hydrocarbons produced in a contract area after deducting costs incurred by the explorer. It is split between the government and the explorer. The minister emphasized the need for protecting the interests of consumers. “The entire world is watching what will be the gas pricing. When I was studying the issue, it came to my mind that the world is concerned about what should be the wellhead price. Shouldn’t we think what is an end-user’s capacity? The marketability of any product can only be assured by the end users’s purchasing capacity. That’s the reason why this government’s priority is also end user,” Pradhan said. While increasing domestic gas prices will raise the cost of power and fertilizers, a panel headed by C. Rangarajan, a former Reserve Bank of India governor and former chairman of the prime minister’s economic advisory council, had suggested a pricing formula in which the final base price was arrived at by the simple average of the respective weighted averages of the prices of imported gas across sectors over a 12-month period and that of prices in the three major international gas trading hubs. These are the US Henry Hub, the UK National Balancing Point and Japan’s custom-cleared rate. “India can’t become anyone’s replica. India will create its own model, and in India’s self-created model, the affordability of the country’s common people is an important subject,” Pradhan said. There has been waning investor interest in the Indian hydrocarbon sector, with around 70% of Indian basins remaining largely under-explored. The response to the New Exploration Licensing Policy (Nelp) has been tepid. “We want the world’s super majors in the petroleum and natural gas sector and power sector to come to this country and create affordable and sustainable energy and use the human resources of this country in a right way in their efforts,” Pradhan added. India approved Nelp in 1997—it took effect in January 1999—to boost hydrocarbon exploration. Under Nelp, the government allocates rights to explore hydrocarbon blocks through a bidding process and has done so in nine phases so far for 360 blocks, involving an investment of around $21.3 billion. “For smart economic management, we will have to reduce subsidy. While we will have to keep in mind the interests of the poor; it doesn’t mean that we will have to keep on providing the poor with the subsidy. We will have to make the poor self-dependent and to increase their purchasing capacity,” Pradhan said. India has an energy import bill of around $150 billion. That is expected to reach $300 billion by 2030. State-run oil marketing companies bore an under recovery of Rs.1.4 trillion last fiscal year as they sold fuels below cost of production. The 2014-15 budget estimated India’s subsidy bill at Rs.2.6 trillion, or 2.03% of gross domestic product, with oil subsidies amounting to Rs.63,500 crore. Commenting on the growing subsidy burden, Pradhan said: “We could have used it to build roads, improving health service in villages, providing basic facilities to the poor household.”

Rahul kumar Gupta

PGDM,2nd Year

Featured Research

from universities, journals, and other organizations

Earth's water is older than the sun: Likely originated as ices that formed in interstellar space

Date:

September 25, 2014

Source:

Carnegie Institution

Summary:

Water was crucial to the rise of life on Earth and is also important to evaluating the possibility of life on other planets. Identifying the original source of Earth's water is key to understanding how life-fostering environments come into being and how likely they are to be found elsewhere. New work found that much of our solar system's water likely originated as ices that formed in interstellar space.

This is an illustration of water in our Solar System through time from before the Sun's birth through the creation of the planets.

Credit: Bill Saxton, NSF/AUI/NRAO

[Click to enlarge image]

Water was crucial to the rise of life on Earth and is also important to evaluating the possibility of life on other planets. Identifying the original source of Earth's water is key to understanding how life-fostering environments come into being and how likely they are to be found elsewhere. New work from a team including Carnegie's Conel Alexander found that much of our Solar System's water likely originated as ices that formed in interstellar space. Their work is published in Science.

Water is found throughout our Solar System. Not just on Earth, but on icy comets and moons, and in the shadowed basins of Mercury. Water has been found included in mineral samples from meteorites, the Moon, and Mars.

Comets and asteroids in particular, being primitive objects, provide a natural "time capsule" of the conditions during the early days of our Solar System. Their ices can tell scientists about the ice that encircled the Sun after its birth, the origin of which was an unanswered question until now.

In its youth, the Sun was surrounded by a protoplanetary disk, the so-called solar nebula, from which the planets were born. But it was unclear to researchers whether the ice in this disk originated from the Sun's own parental interstellar molecular cloud, from which it was created, or whether this interstellar water had been destroyed and was re-formed by the chemical reactions taking place in the solar nebula.

"Why this is important? If water in the early Solar System was primarily inherited as ice from interstellar space, then it is likely that similar ices, along with the prebiotic organic matter that they contain, are abundant in most or all protoplanetary disks around forming stars," Alexander explained. "But if the early Solar System's water was largely the result of local chemical processing during the Sun's birth, then it is possible that the abundance of water varies considerably in forming planetary systems, which would obviously have implications for the potential for the emergence of life elsewhere."

In studying the history of our Solar System's ices, the team -- led by L. Ilsedore Cleeves from the University of Michigan -- focused on hydrogen and its heavier isotope deuterium. Isotopes are atoms of the same element that have the same number of protons but a different number of neutrons. The difference in masses between isotopes results in subtle differences in their behavior during chemical reactions. As a result, the ratio of hydrogen to deuterium in water molecules can tell scientists about the conditions under which the molecules formed.

For example, interstellar water-ice has a high ratio of deuterium to hydrogen because of the very low temperatures at which it forms. Until now, it was unknown how much of this deuterium enrichment was removed by chemical processing during the Sun's birth, or how much deuterium-rich water-ice the newborn Solar System was capable of producing on its own.

So the team created models that simulated a protoplanetary disk in which all the deuterium from space ice has already been eliminated by chemical processing, and the system has to start over "from scratch" at producing ice with deuterium in it during a million-year period. They did this in order to see if the system can reach the ratios of deuterium to hydrogen that are found in meteorite samples, Earth's ocean water, and "time capsule" comets. They found that it could not do so, which told them that at least some of the water in our own Solar System has an origin in interstellar space and pre-dates the birth of the Sun.

"Our findings show that a significant fraction of our Solar System's water, the most-fundamental ingredient to fostering life, is older than the Sun, which indicates that abundant, organic-rich interstellar ices should probably be found in all young planetary systems," Alexander said.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Carnegie Institution. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

NARESH KR PG 3 SEM

Featured Research

from universities, journals, and other organizations

Earth's water is older than the sun: Likely originated as ices that formed in interstellar space

Date:

September 25, 2014

Source:

Carnegie Institution

Summary:

This is an illustration of water in our Solar System through time from before the Sun's birth through the creation of the planets.

Credit: Bill Saxton, NSF/AUI/NRAO

[Click to enlarge image]

Water was crucial to the rise of life on Earth and is also important to evaluating the possibility of life on other planets. Identifying the original source of Earth's water is key to understanding how life-fostering environments come into being and how likely they are to be found elsewhere. New work from a team including Carnegie's Conel Alexander found that much of our Solar System's water likely originated as ices that formed in interstellar space. Their work is published in Science.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by Carnegie Institution. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

NARESH KR PG 3 SEM

Wednesday, September 24, 2014

Featured Research

from universities, journals, and other organizations

Firelight talk of the Kalahari Bushmen: Did tales told over fires aid our social and cultural evolution?

Date:

September 22, 2014

Source:

University of Utah

Summary:

A study of Africa's Kalahari Bushmen suggests that stories told over firelight helped human culture and thought evolve by reinforcing social traditions, promoting harmony and equality, and sparking the imagination to envision a broad sense of community, both with distant people and the spirit world.

!Kung Kalahari Bushmen in Africa sit in camp. A University of Utah study of nighttime gatherings around fires by these hunter-gatherers suggests that human cultural development was advanced when human ancestors started telling stories around the fire at night to reinforce social traditions, promote harmony and spark the imagination.

Credit: Polly Wiessner, University of Utah

[Click to enlarge image]

After human ancestors controlled fire 400,000 to 1 million years ago, flames not only let them cook food and fend off predators, but also extended their day.

A University of Utah study of Africa's Kalahari Bushmen suggests that stories told over firelight helped human culture and thought evolve by reinforcing social traditions, promoting harmony and equality, and sparking the imagination to envision a broad sense of community, both with distant people and the spirit world.

Researchers previously studied how cooking affected diets and anatomy, but "little is known about how important the extended day was for igniting the embers of culture and society," anthropology professor Polly Wiessner writes in a study published online today in the journal Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences.

"There is something about fire in the middle of the darkness that bonds, mellows and also excites people. It's intimate," says Wiessner, who has studied the Bushmen for 40 years. "Nighttime around a fire is universally time for bonding, for telling social information, for entertaining, for a lot of shared emotions."

Wiessner's study, which she calls "exploratory," analyzed scores of daytime and firelight conversations among !Kung Bushmen -- also known as Ju/'hoansi Bushmen -- some 4,000 of which now live in the Kalahari Desert of northeast Namibia and northwest Botswana. (The exclamation, slash and apostrophe symbols represent click sounds in their language.) They are among several groups of Kalahari Bushmen.

Why study the campfire tales of Bushmen?

"We can't tell about the past from the Bushmen," Wiessner says. "But these people live from hunting and gathering. For 99 percent of our evolution, this is how our ancestors lived. What transpires during the firelit night hours by hunter-gatherers? It helps answer the question of what firelit space contributes to human life."

She writes: "Stories are told in virtually all hunter-gatherer societies; together with gifts, they were the original social media."

From the Workaday World to Nights of Bonding and Wonder

In her study, "Embers of Society: Firelight Talk among the Ju/'hoansi Bushmen," Wiessner says archaeological evidence indicates human ancestors had sporadic control of fire 1 million or more years ago, and regularly used it after 400,000 years ago.

"Fire altered our circadian rhythms, the light allowed us to stay awake, and the question is what happened in the fire-lit space? What did it do for human development?" asks Wiessner, who earlier this year was among three University of Utah researchers elected to the National Academy of Sciences.

Wiessner says !Kung Bushmen hold firelight gatherings most nights in groups of up to 15 people. A camp has hearths for each family, but at night people often converge at a single hearth. She analyzed only conversations involving five or more people.

Firelight stories deal with topics such as past hunts, fights over meat, marriage, premarital customs, murder, bush fires, birth, getting lost, interactions with other groups, truck breakdowns, being chased by animals, disputes and extramarital affairs. And there also are traditional myths.

For her study, Wiessner analyzed two sets of data:

- Notes she took in 1974 (initially for another purpose) of 174 daytime and nighttime conversations at two !Kung camps in northwest Botswana. Each conversation lasted more than 20 to 30 minutes and involved five to 15 people.

- Digital recordings, transcribed by educated Bushmen, of 68 firelight stories Wiessner originally heard in the 1970s but came back to have retold and recorded during three visits in 2011-2013 to !Kung villages in Botswana and Namibia.

Wiessner found daytime conversations differed much from firelight discussions. Of daytime conversations, 34 percent were complaints, criticism and gossip to regulate social relationships; 31 percent were economic matters, such as hunting for dinner; 16 percent were jokes; only 6 percent were stories and the rest were other topics

But at night, 81 percent of the conversations involved stories, and only 7 percent were complaints, criticism and gossip and 4 percent were economic.

Bonding with People Near and Far -- and with the Supernatural

Wiessner found how conversations reinforced major !Kung social institutions and values: arranged marriages, the kinship system, a social structure based on equality, the sharing of food during times of hardship, land rights, trance healing and xaro, a system of exchange that involved pledges of mutual assistance, including housing and food, in troubled times.

"What I found was a big difference between day and night conversation, the kinds of information transmitted and the use of imaginary thought," Wiessner says.

"Day conversation has a lot to do with economic activities -- working, getting food, what resources are where," she says. "It has a lot to do with social issues and controls: criticism, complaints and gripes."

"At night, people really let go, mellow out and seek entertainment. If there have been conflicts in the day, they overcome those and bond. Night conversation has more to do with stories, talking about the characteristics of people who are not present and who are in your broader networks, and thoughts about the spirit world and how it influences the human world. You have singing and dancing, too, which bonds groups."

Healers dance and go into trances, "travel to god's village and communicate with the spirits of deceased loved ones who are trying to take sick people away," Wiessner says.

She says nonhuman primates don't maintain mutually supportive ties outside their group: "We are really unique. We create far-flung ties outside our groups."

Such extended communities allowed humans "to colonize our planet because they had networks of mutual support, which you see expressed today in our capacity for social networking" she adds. "Humans form communities that are not together in space, but are in our heads -- virtual communities. They are communities in our heads. For the Bushmen, they may be up to 120 miles away."

Wiessner suggests that firelight stories, conversations, ceremonies and celebrations sparked human imagination and "cognitive capacities to form these imagined communities, whether it's our social networks, all of our relatives on Earth or communities that link us to the spirit world." She says they also bolstered the human ability to "read" what others are thinking -- not just their thoughts or intentions, but their views toward other people.

What Has Electricity Done to Us?

Examining how firelight extended the day prompted Wiessner to wonder about modern society, asking, "What happens when economically unproductive firelit time is turned to productive time by artificial lighting?"

Parents read stories or show videos to their children, but now, "work spills into the night. We now sit on laptops in our homes. When you are able to work at night, you suddenly have a conflict: 'I have only 15 minutes to tell my kids a bedtime story. I don't have time to sit around and talk.' Artificial light turned potential social time into potential work time. What happens to social relations?"

Her research raises that question, but doesn't answer it.

Story Source:

The above story is based on materials provided by University of Utah. Note: Materials may be edited for content and length.

NARESH KR PATEL 3 SEM PGDM

Mumbai Ranked 12th Most Expensive City in New Study

Representational image

LONDON: London has overtaken Hong Kong as the world's most expensive city to live and work in, as a new study has suggested it has turned nearly twice as pricey as Sydney and four times more expensive than Rio de Janeiro. India's Mumbai was found to be at the bottom of the 12 most expensive cities report.

The combined typical cost of renting accommodation and leasing an office to work for a year in London had risen to almost 74,000 pounds per employee. That puts the British capital city well ahead of other global hubs such as New York, Paris and Tokyo, the Guardian on Tuesday quoted estate agent Savills as saying.
\

Savills' 12 Cities report is designed to help companies assess the costs of relocating employees. It measures the total cost per employee in US dollars of renting living and working space in some of the world's global hubs.

The annual cost per employee in London was put at $120,568 (73,800 pounds), with Hong Kong close behind at $115,717. New York and Paris were in third and fourth place, at $107,782 and $105,550 respectively. Sydney came eighth at $63,630, Shanghai 10th at $43,171 and Rio 11th at $32,179. Mumbai was bottom of the table at $29,742 (about Rs.18,13,000).

London's rise to first place in the rankings was blamed on the big increases in office rents, plus the pound's strength against the dollar, prompting Savills to warn that it risks becoming less competitive as a result.

Whereas falling residential rents and a weakening currency contributed to Hong Kong, which had previously topped the ranking five years running, dropping to second place

shailendar kumar

pgdm 2sem

times of india

Tuesday, September 23, 2014

Supreme Court to decide fate of 218 coal blocks on Wednesday Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Politics/Nd0UFUw4TVYDUV1niKP66M/Supreme-Court-to-decide-fate-of-218-coal-blocks-on-Wednesday.html?utm_source=copy

Supreme Court to decide fate of 218 coal blocks

New Delhi: The fate of 218 coal blocks, which was allocated to companies illegally by the Centre, will be decided by the Supreme Court on Wednesday

The apex court will pronounce its verdict at 2pm on blocks whose allocation was declared illegal by it and in which government claimed that Rs2 lakh crore investments have been made.

On August 25, the Supreme Court held that all coal blocks allocations since 1993 by various regimes at the Centre have been made illegally and arbitrarily. The apex court, which had used almost all terms to condemn the procedures adopted by 36 screening committee meetings since 1993, however, had stopped short of cancelling them saying, “what should be the consequences, is the issue which remains to be tackled.”

The court, which examined the allocation of 218 blocks in pre-auction era till 2010, had held that they were done in an illegal manner by an “ad-hoc and casual” approach “without application of mind” and “Common good and public interest have, thus, suffered heavily” due to lack of fair and transparent procedure resulting in “unfair distribution” of the “national wealth”—coal—“which is king and paramount lord of industry.”

The court’s 163-page verdict further read: “To sum up, the entire allocation of coal block as per recommendations made by the Screening Committee from July 14, 1993 in 36 meetings and the allocation through the government dispensation route suffers from the vice of arbitrariness and legal flaws. The Screening Committee has never been consistent, it has not been transparent, there is no proper application of mind, it has acted on no material in many cases, relevant factors have seldom been its guiding factors, there was no transparency and guidelines have seldom guided it.”

The coal blocks allocation case is under purview of bench headed by Chief Justice R.M. Lodha

VIKASH CHANDRA MISHRA

PGDM 2ND YEAR

SOURCE: MINT

Supreme Court to decide fate of 218 coal blocks on Wednesday

Read more at: http://www.livemint.com/Politics/Nd0UFUw4TVYDUV1niKP66M/Supreme-Court-to-decide-fate-of-218-coal-blocks-on-Wednesday.html?utm_source=copy