This year Foreign investors have bought some $16.7 billion in Indian shares

On Thursday evening, the Securities and Exchange Board of India, or SEBI, completed rules governing foreign participation in this fast-growing market, giving clarity to a closely watched situation that has disrupted the exchanges.

The board reiterated some hard-line proposals first floated last week, which caused the Bombay Stock Exchange’s Sensex index to decline more than 9 percent the next day, and hinted at further oversight. “This is not the last set of decisions that you would see regarding foreign investment in India,” the SEBI chairman, M. Damodaran, said in a news conference in Mumbai.

Foreign investors have bought some $16.7 billion in Indian shares this year, according to Bloomberg, 43 percent of that since the Federal Reserve lowered its benchmark interest rate on Sept. 18.

Foreign investors who have not registered with Indian regulators, a sometimes cumbersome process, can no longer use popular financial instruments known as participatory notes to invest in the market, Mr. Damodaran said on Thursday.

In essence, the move eliminates anonymous investors from the market, which could drive out short-term, speculative cash coming from hedge funds and banks. About half of all foreign investment in India’s stock markets is in the form of participatory notes. There was $89.8 billion in participatory notes outstanding in August, up from $8.1 billion in March 2004, SEBI reported on Oct. 16.

The board also said that entities that were not regulated in their home market could not use these notes, another potential blow to hedge funds, which often face little or no regulation. The regulator said investors using participatory notes based on derivatives would need to unwind their positions in 18 months. In addition, SEBI opened the markets slightly to possible long-term investors, saying that pension funds, endowments and university trusts could become registered foreign investors.

The rules go into effect Friday, Mr. Damodaran said.

Indian market regulators are facing what is becoming a common predicament in emerging markets: too much money. There is no perfect way to let the air out of a stock market bubble, say analysts and former regulators. Heavy-handed measures often drive too many investors away, while verbal warnings have little impact.

“There is no evidence I can think of where regulators have successfully intervened” to curb fast-growing stock markets, said Lynton Jones, a founder of Bourse Consult, a London-based adviser to stock exchanges.

“The trouble with markets that are emerging or have just emerged is that the government seems to feel that it can control everything,” Mr. Jones said. In the West, most participants think “markets are markets and they have to sort themselves out.”

Some economists think the impact from SEBI’s hard-line stance will be short term.

“Unless you make controls really draconian, they won’t have any lasting effect,” said Willem H. Buiter, a professor at the London School of Economics and an adviser to Goldman Sachs. “When people believe there is money to be made, they’ll find a way around them.”

When Thai regulators introduced new capital controls in December, the stock market plunged 15 percent the next day, its largest drop in about a decade. Regulators were hoping to cool appreciation of the baht and the stock market by forcing foreign investors to put 30 percent of all incoming investment cash into reserve accounts that earned no interest.

After the market drop, regulators quickly altered their rule, omitting stock market investments.

Chinese regulators have raised interest rates four times this year, hoping to slow appreciation in the country’s stock market, with little effect.

“Can you manage a market? Not really,” said Thomas Krantz, the secretary general of the World Federation of Exchanges, a trade group for financial markets based in Paris. “The market is a force in its own right. You can only do your best to make clear rules, say what you want and why you are doing it.”
Read more from: http://www.nytimes.com/

SWAMI VIVEKANANDA - Inspiring Personality of India

**********SWAMI VIVEKANANDA***************
SWAMI VIVEKANANDA'S inspiring personality was well known both in India and in America during the last decade of the nineteenth century and the first decade of the twentieth. The unknown monk of India suddenly leapt into fame at the Parliament of Religions held in Chicago in 1893, at which he represented Hinduism. His vast knowledge of Eastern and Western culture as well as his deep spiritual insight, fervid eloquence, brilliant conversation, broad human sympathy, colourful personality, and handsome figure made an irresistible appeal to the many types of Americans who came in contact with him. People who saw or heard Vivekananda even once still cherish his memory after a lapse of more than half a century.
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In America Vivekananda's mission was the interpretation of India's spiritual culture, especially in its Vedantic setting. He also tried to enrich the religious consciousness of the Americans through the rational and humanistic teachings of the Vedanta philosophy. In America he became India's spiritual ambassador and pleaded eloquently for better understanding between India and the New World in order to create a healthy synthesis of East and West, of religion and science.

In his own motherland Vivekananda is regarded as the patriot saint of modern India and an inspirer of her dormant national consciousness, To the Hindus he preached the ideal of a strength-giving and man-making religion. Service to man as the visible manifestation of the Godhead was the special form of worship he advocated for the Indians, devoted as they were to the rituals and myths of their ancient faith. Many political leaders of India have publicly acknowledged their indebtedness to Swami Vivekananda.

The Swami's mission was both national and international. A lover of mankind, be strove to promote peace and human brotherhood on the spiritual foundation of the Vedantic Oneness of existence. A mystic of the highest order, Vivekananda had a direct and intuitive experience of Reality. He derived his ideas from that unfailing source of wisdom and often presented them in the soulstirring language of poetry.

The natural tendency of Vivekananda's mind, like that of his Master, Ramakrishna, was to soar above the world and forget itself in contemplation of the Absolute. But another part of his personality bled at the sight of human suffering in East and West alike. It might appear that his mind seldom found a point of rest in its oscillation between contemplation of God and service to man. Be that as it may, he chose, in obedience to a higher call, service to man as his mission on earth; and this choice has endeared him to people in the West, Americans in particular.
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In the course of a short life of thirty-nine years (1863-1902), of which only ten were devoted to public activities-and those, too, in the midst of acute physical suffering-he left for posterity his four classics: Jnana-Yoga, Bhakti-Yoga, Karma-Yoga, and Raja-Yoga, all of which are outstanding treatises on Hindu philosophy. In addition, he delivered innumerable lectures, wrote inspired letters in his own hand to his many friends and disciples, composed numerous poems, and acted as spiritual guide to the many seekers, who came to him for instruction. He also organized the Ramakrishna Order of monks, which is the most outstanding religious organization of modern India. It is devoted to the propagation of the Hindu spiritual culture not only in the Swami's native land, but also in America and in other parts of the world.
Article source:http://www.ramakrishna.org/sv.htm

23 Octuber,2007 News "Air Deccan woman engineer found dead"

Air Deccan woman engineer found dead

A 25-year-old woman engineer, who worked with Air Deccan, is found dead under mysterious circumstances near the taxiway at the domestic airport in Delhi.

Dutt wants to be home for Diwali

Earlier the actor surrenders calmly after receiving the copy of the judgement, reports

Andaman and Nicobar Map and Information

Total Area: 8249 Sq.km

Population: 356265 upto 2001

Religion: Hindu, Christian, Muslim, Sikh, Buddhist, Jain

Location: Bay of Bengal

Andaman Island: Saddle Peak, (732 Metres)

Nicobar Island: Mount Thullier(642 Metres)