Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) – Management Trainee

Hindustan Aeronautics Limited (HAL) hiring MA, MBA/PGDM, BE/B.Tech LLB, MSW, PG Diploma, Diploma holders for Management Trainee role

Company name : Hindustan Aeronautics Limited
Posts : Management Trainee
Qualification : MA, MBA/PGDM, BE/B.Tech LLB, MSW, PG Diploma, Diploma
Location : Bangalore
Last date to apply : 11 Oct 2013

Details of Post :

Management Trainee

1. Management Trainee (Technical)  - Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering/ Technology (Full Time) in the Branch of Aeronautical/ Computer Science/ Electrical Electronics/ Mechanical/ Metallurgy/ Production, from Institutes/ Universities recognized by appropriate Statutory Authorities.
2. Management Trainee (Marketing)  - Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering/ Technology (Full Time) in the Branch of Electrical/ Electronics/ Mechanical & Production, with 02 yrs Full time PG Degree/ Diploma in Marketing Management from Institutes Universities recognized by appropriate Statutory Authorities.
3. Management Trainee (Integrated Materials Management) - Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering/ Technology (Full Time) in the Branch of Electrical/ Mechanical/ Production, from Institutes/ Universities recognized by appropriate Statutory Authorities.
4. Management Trainee (Legal) - Bachelor of Law (5 yrs integrated Full Time course) or Bachelor’s Degree with Full Time Bachelor of Law, from Institutes/ Universities recognized by appropriate Statutory Authorities.
5. Management Trainee (Architecture)  - Bachelor’s Degree in Architecture (Full Time), from Institutes/ Universities recognized by appropriate Statutory Authorities.
6. Management Trainee (Civil) - Bachelor’s Degree in Engineering/ Technology in Civil (Full Time), from Institutes/ Universities recognized by appropriate Statutory Authorities.
7. Management Trainee (Human Resources)  - Bachelor’s Degree with 02 yrs Full Time Post Graduate Degree/ Diploma/ MBA/ MSW/ MA, with specialization in Human Resources/ Personnel Management/ Industrial Relations from Institutes/ University recognized by appropriate Statutory Authorities.

Emoluments : Rs. 16,400/- per month

Age Limit : 28 years as on 11.10.2013

Application Fee : Rs.500/- (Rupees Five Hundred only), which is non-refundable (exempted in the case  of SC / ST / PWD candidates). All core banking branches of State Bank of India (SBI) has been authorized to collect the Registration Fee in specially opened Account No. 30969511830, on behalf of HAL. HAL will not be responsible in case of a candidate depositing the Fee in wrong Account.

Selection Procedure : Selection process will comprise of All-India based Online Selection Test and the Interviews

Important dates to remember :

Last date to apply : 11 Oct 2013

CSK enter semis with 8-wicket win over Brisbane Heats

Chennai Super Kings defeated Brisbane Heat by eight wickets to reach the semifinals of the Champions League Twenty20, in Ranchi on Saturday. 

Earlier, spinners bowled brilliantly to demolish the Brisbane Heat middle-order but Chennai Super Kings leaked too many runs in the end to allow the Australian side post a respectable 137 for seven in their Champions League Twenty20 Group B match, on Saturday. 

Heat’s innings was in doldrums having lost six wickets for a mere 66 runs but Ben Cutting brought his side back in the game with his fiery unbeaten knock of 42.

Cutting hit five sixes in his blistering 25-ball knock and added 71 runs with Chris Hartley (31) for the seventh wicket to lend some respectability to their total. 

Heats were 87 for six in 17 overs and reaching hundred was looking difficult but Cutting and Hartley snatched the momentum from CSK in the last three overs.

It all started in the Dwayne Bravo when Cutting smashed him for two sixes to bring up the hundred. A similar treatment was meted out to Mohit Sharma in the last over. 

Hartley also played his part as he hit consecutive fours off Sharma before holing it out in the last ball.

The spin trio of R Aswhin, Ravindra Jadeja and Suresh Raina had done a brilliant job as they shared four wickets among them and gave away just 37 runs in their combined 11 overs. 

CSK were in complete control of the match as paceman Sharma drew the first blood in the fifth ball of the match by having Dom Michael caught by S Badrinath in the cover region.

Albie Morkel dealt the Australians second blow by sending back skipper James Hopes (20).

Dhoni introduced Jadeja immediately after the power-play overs and the left-arm spinner responded with two wickets. 

In the first ball he removed key batsman Daniel Christian, who lofted the ball straight into the hands of long on Michael Hussey, and in the fifth he had Joe Burns caught by Suresh Raina in the first slip.

Heats slumped to 55 for four and that could have been worse had Dhoni not dropped Chris Lynn off Ashwin in the next over. Lynn swung hard and top edged but Dhoni could not get his hands on to that as Suresh Raina watched.

However, Ashwin scalped him in his next over, again foxing him with his carrom ball as the edge flew to Jadeja.

Raina came to the party by bowling out Chris Sabburg (2). 

Scoreboard

Brisbane Heats: 137 for 7 in 20 overs (Ben Cutting 42; Ravindra Jadeja 2/18).

Chennai Super Kings: 140 for 2 in 15.5 overs. (Michael Hussey 55 not out, Murali Vijay 42; Daniel Christian 1/16, Ben Cutting 1/24).

America UN resolution orders Syria chemical arms destroyed

The UN Security Council unanimously passed a landmark resolution Friday ordering the destruction of Syria's chemical weapons and condemning a murderous poison gas attack in Damascus.
   
The major powers overcame a prolonged deadlock to approve the first council resolution

on the conflict, which is now 30 months old with more than 100,000 dead.
   
UN leader Ban Ki-moon, who called the resolution "the first hopeful news on Syria in a long time," said he hopes to convene a peace conference in mid-November.
   
Resolution 2118, the result of bruising negotiations between the United States and Russia, gives international binding force to a plan drawn up by the two to eliminate President Bashar al-Assad's chemical arms.
   
The plan calls for Syria's estimated 1,000 tonnes of chemical weapons to be put under international control by mid-2014.
   
International experts are expected to start work in Syria to meet the tight deadline next week. Britain and China offered to finance to the disarmament operation.
   
"Should the regime fail to act, there will be consequences," US Secretary of State John Kerry warned the 15-member council after the vote sealing a US-Russian agreement.
   
But Kerry hailed the resolution.
   
"The Security Council has shown that when we put aside politics for the common good, we are still capable of doing big things," he said.
   
Human Rights Watch however was not impressed with the deal.
   
"This resolution fails to ensure justice for the gassing of hundreds of children and many other grave crimes," said the watchdog's UN director, Philippe Bolopion.
   
Efforts to destroy Syria's chemical weapons "do not address the reality that conventional weapons have killed the overwhelming majority of the estimated 100,000 people who have died in the conflict," Bolopion said.
   
"If the killing of civilians by conventional weapons continues unabated, the chemical weapons resolution will be remembered as an effort to draw red lines, not save civilian lives," he said.
   
Bolopion renewed HRW's call for the UN to "refer the situation in Syria to the International Criminal Court (ICC), and adopt targeted sanctions against those responsible for mass killings."
   


No automatic punitive measures


Russia, Assad's main ally, has rejected any suggestion of sanctions or military force against Assad. It has already used its veto power as a permanent Security Council member to block three Western-drafted resolutions on Syria.


   


There are no immediate sanctions over a chemical weapons attack, but the resolution allows for a new vote on possible measures if the Russia-US plan is breached.


   


Russian foreign minister Sergei Lavrov said that the council would take "actions which are commensurate with the violations, which will have to be proven 100 percent."


   


The resolution also applies to the Syrian opposition, Lavrov said.


   


The resolution "condemns in the strongest terms any use of chemical weapons in the Syrian Arab Republic, in particular the attack on August 21, 2013, in violation of international law."


   


Washington has blamed Assad's government for that sarin gas assault on the Damascus suburb of Ghouta that US officials say killed more than 1,400 dead, and threatened a military strike over the attack.


   


Syria has denied responsibility.


   


Syria attacks must be 'accountable'
Should Syria not comply with the resolution, the Security Council agreed to "impose measures under Chapter VII of the United Nations Charter."

   


The charter can authorize the use of sanctions or military force, but new action would require a new vote, said Russia would likely oppose any use of force against its ally.


   


Russia also rebuffed calls by Britain and France for the Ghouta attack to be referred to the International Criminal Court.


   


The resolution expressed "strong conviction" that those responsible for chemical weapons attacks in Syria "should be held accountable."


   


It formally endorsed a decision taken hours earlier in The Hague by the Organization for the Prohibition of Chemical Weapons (OPCW) to accept the Russia-US disarmament plan.


   


Ban said the resolution "will ensure that the elimination of the Syrian chemical weapons program happens as soon as possible and with the utmost transparency and accountability."


   


Ban also told the Security Council he wanted to hold a new Syria peace conference in mid-November, and said that the foreign ministers from Britain, China, France, Russia and the United States agreed to make sure that each side negotiate in "good faith."


   


A first peace conference was held in June 2012 but splits in the Syrian opposition and the international community have thwarted a follow-up.


   


Ban will start contacts with his Syria peace envoy Lakhdar Brahimi next week on setting the firm date and who will attend the new meeting, diplomats said.


   


He also noted that the resolution was not "a license to kill" with conventional arms.


   


"A red light for one for one form of weapons does not mean a green light for others," Ban said.


   


The Security Council resolution gave backing to the 2012 conference declaration, which stated that there should be a transitional government in Syria with full executive powers.


   


It also determined that the new peace conference would be to decide how to implement the accord.


   


British Foreign Secretary William Hague said after the resolution was adopted that the international community must step up efforts to help those caught up in a humanitarian crisis.


   


In Brussels, European Union foreign policy chief Catherine Ashton said the resolution represented "a major step towards a sustainable and unified international response" to the Syrian crisis.


   


"This decision should pave the way to the elimination of chemical weapons in Syria, and set a standard for the international community in responding to threats posed by weapons of mass destruction," Ashton said.


   


The EU would provide "forceful" support in the case of non-compliance, Ashton said in a statement.


   


Meanwhile in Syria, a car bomb north of Damascus detonated Friday, killing at least 30 people. Eleven more deaths were reported in a government air raid, highlighting the continued slaughter in Syria's long-running civil war.

Decoding Rajan’s Frankfurt speech: Why central banks fuel bubbles

Alan Greenspan, when he was the chairman of the Federal Reserve of United States, the American central bank, used to say “I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” Greenspan was known to talk in a very roundabout manner, never meaning what he said, and never saying what he meant. Thankfully, all central bank governors are not like that. There are some who like calling a spade a spade. 


Raghuram Rajan, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), was in Frankfurt yesterday to receive the Fifth Deutsche Bank Prize for Financial Economics. In his speech he said things that would have embarrassed central bank governors of the Western nations, who are busy printing money to get their economies up and running again. In the aftermath of the financial crisis that started in late 2008, Western central banks have been printing money.

 With so much money going around, the hope is that interest rates will continue to remain low (as they have). At low interest rates people are likely to borrow and spend more. When they do that this is likely to benefit businesses and thus the overall economy. But what has happened is that the citizens of the countries printing money are still in the process of coming out of one round of borrowing binge. 

When interest rates were at very low levels in the early 2000s, they had borrowed money to speculate in real estate in the hope that real estate prices will continue to go up perpetually. This eventually led to a real estate bubbles in large parts of the Western world. AFP The situation is no different today than it was in 2005, when Rajan said what he did. AFP Eventually, the bubbles burst and people were left holding the loans they had taken to speculate in real estate. Hence, people who are expected to borrow and spend, are still in the process of repaying their past loans. 

So, they stayed away from taking on more loans. But money was available at very low interest rates to be borrowed. Hence, banks and financial institutions borrowed this money at close to zero percent interest rates and invested it in stock, real estate and commodity markets all around the world. Some of this money also seems to have found its way into fancier markets like art. And this has again led to several asset bubbles in different parts of the world. 

As Rajan put it in Frankfurt “We seem to be in a situation where we are doomed to inflate bubbles elsewhere.” Economists still do not agree on what is the best way to ensure that there are no real estate or stock market bubbles. But what they do agree on is that keeping interest rates too low for too long isn’t the best way of going about it. It is a sure shot recipe for creating bubbles

. Even the once great and now ridiculed “Alan Greenspan” agrees on this. In an article for the Wall Street Journal published in December 2007 (after he had retired as the Fed chairman), he wrote “The 1% rate set in mid-2003…lowered interest rates…and may have contributed to the rise in U.S. home prices.” What he was effectively saying was that by slashing the interest rate to 1%, the Federal Reserve of United States may have played a part in fuelling the real estate bubble in the United States.

 Rajan in his Frankfurt speech for a change agreed with Greenspan. As he said “We should wonder whether lower and lower interest rates are in fact part of the problem, I say I don’t know.” It is easy to conclude from the statements of Greenspan as well Rajan that central bank governors do understand the perils of printing money to keep interest rates low. Given that why are they still continuing to print money? Ben Bernanke, the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve hinted in May 2013, that the Fed plans to go slow on money printing in the months to come.

 He repeated this in June 2013. But when the Federal Reserve met recently, nothing happened on this front and it decided to continue printing $85 billion every month. As Albert Edwards of Societe Generale put it in a February 2013 report titled Is Mark Carney the Next Alan Greenspa…? “I keep seeing Central Bankers saying again and again that QE(quantitative easing, a fancy term for printing money) and more recently, helicopter money is not only necessary but essential.” 

So the question is why do central banks in the Western world continue to print money? Dylan Grice, formerly of Societe Generale, has an answer in his 2010 report Print Baby Print. As he writes “What’s interesting is that central banks feel they have no choice. It’s not that they’re unaware of the risks…They’re printing money because they’re scared of what might happen if they don’t. 

This very real political dilemma… It’s like they’re on a train which they know to be heading for a crash, but it is accelerating so rapidly they’re scared to jump off.” Sometimes the withdraw symptoms are so scary that it just makes sense to continue with the drug. Dylan compares the current situation to the situation that Rudolf von Havenstein found himself in as the President of the Reichsbank, which was the German central bank in the 1920s. 

Havenstein printed so much money that it led to hyperinflation and money lost all its value. The increase in money printing did not happen overnight; it had been happening since the First World War started. By the time the war ended, in October 1918, the amount of paper money in the system was four times the money at the beginning of the war. Despite this, prices had risen only by 139%. But by the start of 1920, the situation had reversed. 

The money in circulation had grown 8.4 times since the start of the war, whereas the wholesale price index had risen nearly 12.4 times. It kept getting worse. By November 1921, circulation had gone up 18 times and prices 34 times. By the end of it all, in November 1923, the circulation of money had gone up 245 billion times. In turn, prices had skyrocketed 1380 billion times since the beginning of the First World War. So why did Havenstein start and continue to print money? Why did he not stop to print money once its ill-effects started to come out? Liaquat Ahamed has the answer in his book The Lords of Finance. As he writes “were he to refuse to print the money necessary to finance the deficit, he risked causing a sharp rise in interest rates as the government scrambled to borrow from every source.

 The mass unemployment that would ensue, he believed, would bring on a domestic economic and political crisis.” The danger for central bank governors is very similar. If they stop printing money then interest rates will start to go up and this will kill whatever little economic growth that has started to return. Hence, the choice is really between the devil and the deep sea. As far as Rajan is concerned he is possibly back to where it all started for him. 

The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, one of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks in the United States, organises a symposium at Jackson Hole in the state of Wyoming, every year. The 2005 conference was to be the last conference attended by Alan Greenspan, as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Hence, the theme for the conference was the legacy of the Greenspan era. Rajan was attending the conference and presenting a paper titled “Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?” Those were the days when Greenspan was god. The United States was in the midst of a huge real estate bubble, but the bubble wasn’t looked upon as a bubble, but a sign of economic prosperity. 

The prevailing economic view was that the US had entered an era of unmatched economic prosperity and Alan Greenspan was largely responsible for it. Hence, in the conference, people were supposed to say good things about Greenspan and give him a nice farewell. Rajan spoiled what was meant to be a send off for Greenspan. In his speech Rajan said that the era of easy money would get over soon and would not last forever as the conventional wisdom expected it to. “The bottom line is that banks are certainly not any less risky than the past despite their better capitalization, and may well be riskier.

 Moreover, banks now bear only the tip of the iceberg of financial sector risks…the interbank market could freeze up, and one could well have a full-blown financial crisis,” said Rajan. In the last paragraph of his speech Rajan said it is at such times that “excesses typically build up. One source of concern is housing prices that are at elevated levels around the globe.”

 He came in for a lot of criticism for his plain-speaking and calling a bubble a bubble. As he later recounted about the experience in his book Fault Lines – How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy, “Forecasting at that time did not require tremendous prescience: all I did was connect the dots… I did not, however, foresee the reaction from the normally polite conference audience. I exaggerate only a bit when I say I felt like an early Christian who had wandered into a convention of half-starved lions. As I walked away from the podium after being roundly criticized by a number of luminaries (with a few notable exceptions), I felt some unease. It was not caused by the criticism itself…Rather it was because the critics seemed to be ignoring what going on before their eyes.”

 The situation is no different today than it was in 2005, when Rajan said what he did. The central bank governors are ignoring what is going on before their eyes and that is not a good sign. Or as Rajan put it in Frankfurt “When they (central banks) say they are the only game in town, they become the only game in town.”

Alan Greenspan, when he was the chairman of the Federal Reserve of United States, the American central bank, used to say “I know you think you understand what you thought I said but I’m not sure you realize that what you heard is not what I meant.” Greenspan was known to talk in a very roundabout manner, never meaning what he said, and never saying what he meant. Thankfully, all central bank governors are not like that. There are some who like calling a spade a spade. Raghuram Rajan, the governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI), was in Frankfurt yesterday to receive the Fifth Deutsche Bank Prize for Financial Economics. In his speech he said things that would have embarrassed central bank governors of the Western nations, who are busy printing money to get their economies up and running again. In the aftermath of the financial crisis that started in late 2008, Western central banks have been printing money. With so much money going around, the hope is that interest rates will continue to remain low (as they have). At low interest rates people are likely to borrow and spend more. When they do that this is likely to benefit businesses and thus the overall economy. But what has happened is that the citizens of the countries printing money are still in the process of coming out of one round of borrowing binge. When interest rates were at very low levels in the early 2000s, they had borrowed money to speculate in real estate in the hope that real estate prices will continue to go up perpetually. This eventually led to a real estate bubbles in large parts of the Western world. AFP The situation is no different today than it was in 2005, when Rajan said what he did. AFP Eventually, the bubbles burst and people were left holding the loans they had taken to speculate in real estate. Hence, people who are expected to borrow and spend, are still in the process of repaying their past loans. So, they stayed away from taking on more loans. But money was available at very low interest rates to be borrowed. Hence, banks and financial institutions borrowed this money at close to zero percent interest rates and invested it in stock, real estate and commodity markets all around the world. Some of this money also seems to have found its way into fancier markets like art. And this has again led to several asset bubbles in different parts of the world. As Rajan put it in Frankfurt “We seem to be in a situation where we are doomed to inflate bubbles elsewhere.” Economists still do not agree on what is the best way to ensure that there are no real estate or stock market bubbles. But what they do agree on is that keeping interest rates too low for too long isn’t the best way of going about it. It is a sure shot recipe for creating bubbles. Even the once great and now ridiculed “Alan Greenspan” agrees on this. In an article for the Wall Street Journal published in December 2007 (after he had retired as the Fed chairman), he wrote “The 1% rate set in mid-2003…lowered interest rates…and may have contributed to the rise in U.S. home prices.” What he was effectively saying was that by slashing the interest rate to 1%, the Federal Reserve of United States may have played a part in fuelling the real estate bubble in the United States. Rajan in his Frankfurt speech for a change agreed with Greenspan. As he said “We should wonder whether lower and lower interest rates are in fact part of the problem, I say I don’t know.” It is easy to conclude from the statements of Greenspan as well Rajan that central bank governors do understand the perils of printing money to keep interest rates low. Given that why are they still continuing to print money? Ben Bernanke, the current Chairman of the Federal Reserve hinted in May 2013, that the Fed plans to go slow on money printing in the months to come. He repeated this in June 2013. But when the Federal Reserve met recently, nothing happened on this front and it decided to continue printing $85 billion every month. As Albert Edwards of Societe Generale put it in a February 2013 report titled Is Mark Carney the Next Alan Greenspa…? “I keep seeing Central Bankers saying again and again that QE(quantitative easing, a fancy term for printing money) and more recently, helicopter money is not only necessary but essential.” So the question is why do central banks in the Western world continue to print money? Dylan Grice, formerly of Societe Generale, has an answer in his 2010 report Print Baby Print. As he writes “What’s interesting is that central banks feel they have no choice. It’s not that they’re unaware of the risks…They’re printing money because they’re scared of what might happen if they don’t. This very real political dilemma… It’s like they’re on a train which they know to be heading for a crash, but it is accelerating so rapidly they’re scared to jump off.” Sometimes the withdraw symptoms are so scary that it just makes sense to continue with the drug. Dylan compares the current situation to the situation that Rudolf von Havenstein found himself in as the President of the Reichsbank, which was the German central bank in the 1920s. Havenstein printed so much money that it led to hyperinflation and money lost all its value. The increase in money printing did not happen overnight; it had been happening since the First World War started. By the time the war ended, in October 1918, the amount of paper money in the system was four times the money at the beginning of the war. Despite this, prices had risen only by 139%. But by the start of 1920, the situation had reversed. The money in circulation had grown 8.4 times since the start of the war, whereas the wholesale price index had risen nearly 12.4 times. It kept getting worse. By November 1921, circulation had gone up 18 times and prices 34 times. By the end of it all, in November 1923, the circulation of money had gone up 245 billion times. In turn, prices had skyrocketed 1380 billion times since the beginning of the First World War. So why did Havenstein start and continue to print money? Why did he not stop to print money once its ill-effects started to come out? Liaquat Ahamed has the answer in his book The Lords of Finance. As he writes “were he to refuse to print the money necessary to finance the deficit, he risked causing a sharp rise in interest rates as the government scrambled to borrow from every source. The mass unemployment that would ensue, he believed, would bring on a domestic economic and political crisis.” The danger for central bank governors is very similar. If they stop printing money then interest rates will start to go up and this will kill whatever little economic growth that has started to return. Hence, the choice is really between the devil and the deep sea. As far as Rajan is concerned he is possibly back to where it all started for him. The Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, one of the twelve Federal Reserve Banks in the United States, organises a symposium at Jackson Hole in the state of Wyoming, every year. The 2005 conference was to be the last conference attended by Alan Greenspan, as the Chairman of the Federal Reserve. Hence, the theme for the conference was the legacy of the Greenspan era. Rajan was attending the conference and presenting a paper titled “Has Financial Development Made the World Riskier?” Those were the days when Greenspan was god. The United States was in the midst of a huge real estate bubble, but the bubble wasn’t looked upon as a bubble, but a sign of economic prosperity. The prevailing economic view was that the US had entered an era of unmatched economic prosperity and Alan Greenspan was largely responsible for it. Hence, in the conference, people were supposed to say good things about Greenspan and give him a nice farewell. Rajan spoiled what was meant to be a send off for Greenspan. In his speech Rajan said that the era of easy money would get over soon and would not last forever as the conventional wisdom expected it to. “The bottom line is that banks are certainly not any less risky than the past despite their better capitalization, and may well be riskier. Moreover, banks now bear only the tip of the iceberg of financial sector risks…the interbank market could freeze up, and one could well have a full-blown financial crisis,” said Rajan. In the last paragraph of his speech Rajan said it is at such times that “excesses typically build up. One source of concern is housing prices that are at elevated levels around the globe.” He came in for a lot of criticism for his plain-speaking and calling a bubble a bubble. As he later recounted about the experience in his book Fault Lines – How Hidden Fractures Still Threaten the World Economy, “Forecasting at that time did not require tremendous prescience: all I did was connect the dots… I did not, however, foresee the reaction from the normally polite conference audience. I exaggerate only a bit when I say I felt like an early Christian who had wandered into a convention of half-starved lions. As I walked away from the podium after being roundly criticized by a number of luminaries (with a few notable exceptions), I felt some unease. It was not caused by the criticism itself…Rather it was because the critics seemed to be ignoring what going on before their eyes.” The situation is no different today than it was in 2005, when Rajan said what he did. The central bank governors are ignoring what is going on before their eyes and that is not a good sign. Or as Rajan put it in Frankfurt “When they (central banks) say they are the only game in town, they become the only game in town.”

Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/economy/decoding-rajans-frankfurt-speech-why-central-banks-fuel-bubbles-1137227.html?utm_source=ref_article

Is Rahul Gandhi a hit and run politician?

 Rahul Gandhi is angry again. Yesterday, he barged into a press conference being addressed by Congress general secretary Ajay Maken and announced that the ordinance passed by the Union Cabinet to protect convicted legislators from complete disqualification as “complete nonsense”.


The Supreme Court had ruled on July 10, that an MP or an MLA, if convicted by a court in a criminal offence with a jail sentence of two years or more, would be immediately disqualified. On September 24, the Union Cabinet cleared the the Representation of the People (Amendment and Validation) Ordinance, 2013 to negate the Supreme Court ruling.

This ordinance allows convicted MPs and MLAs to continue in office to the condition that their appeal is admitted by a higher court within a period of 90 days and their conviction is stayed. Rahul Gandhi felt that this was incorrect and said “I’ll tell you what my opinion on the ordinance is. It’s complete nonsense. It should be torn up and thrown away. That is my personal opinion.”

 “I am interested in what the Congress is doing and what our government is doing. That is why what our government has done as far as this ordinance is concerned is wrong,” he went on to add, embarrassing the Prime Minister and his cabinet of ministers, which had cleared the ordinance only a few days back, in the process. PTI A lot of analysis has happened since yesterday afternoon, when the Gandhi family scion said what he did. PTI A lot of analysis has happened since yesterday afternoon, when the Gandhi family scion said what he did.

Some people have suggested that “Rahul has his heart in the right place”. Some others have said “what is wrong with calling rubbish, rubbish”. A television anchor known for his loud and aggressive ways called it the “victory of the people”. And still some others have asked the obvious question “how could the government have cleared the ordinance without the consent of Rahul or his mother Sonia Gandhi?” On the whole, Rahul’s decision to call the ordinance “nonsense” and something that should be “torn and thrown away” is being projected as a surprise.

While nobody could have predicted what Rahul Gandhi did yesterday, at the same time this can’t be termed as a surprise. Rahul Gandhi over the last few years has made a habit of raking up issues to embarrass the government and his party, by saying something controversial and then disappearing. In July 2008, Rahul visited the house of Kalavati Bandurkar, in the village Jalka in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. Her husband had committed suicide in December 2005, hit by crop failure and debt. He left her with a debt of Rs 1 lakh.

After visiting her, Rahul highlighted her plight in Parliament and then quickly forgot about her. It was an embarrassment for the Congress Party given that it ruled the state of Maharashtra. Since bringing her into the limelight, Kalavati’s daughter and a son-in-law have also committed suicide. In October 2008, while addressing girl students at a resort near Jim Corbett National Park, Rahul Gandhi referred to “politics” as a closed system in India. “If I had not come from my family, I wouldn’t be here. You can enter the system either through family or friends or money. Without family, friends or money, you cannot enter the system.

My father was in politics. My grandmother and great grandfather were in politics. So, it was easy for me to enter politics. This is a problem. I am a symptom of this problem. I want to change it.,” he said. Where is the change? When was the last time the Congress party had an election for the post of its president? If the top post of the party is not democratic, how can the party be expected to be democratic? On February 5, 2010, Rahul came to Mumbai and travelled in a local train both on the western line (From Andheri to Dadar) and the central line (from Dadar to Ghatkopar).

 A lot of song and dance was made about him defying the Shiv Sena, but nothing constructive came out of it. The local trains continue to burst at its seams. On May 11, 2011, Rahul riding pillion on a bike managed to enter the Bhatta-Parsaul villages in Uttar Pradesh, giving the district administration a slip, and challenging the might of Mayawati, the then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. The villagers in Bhatta-Parsaul were protesting against the acquisition of land by the state government and the protests had turned violent.

 A few days later Rahul went to meet the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to appraise him of the situation. After coming out of the meeting he told reporters “The issue here is a more fundamental one with regard to these villages in particular and a large number of villages in UP down the Agra highway, where state repression is being used, where people are being murdered…quite severe atrocities are taking place there…

.There is a set of 74 (mounds of) ashes there with dead bodies inside. Everybody in the village knows it. We can give you pictures. Women have been raped, people have been thrashed. Houses have been destroyed.” These were serious allegations, but nothing ever came out of them. On August 26, 2011, Rahul gave a speech in favour of Lokpal in the Lok Sabha, where he said “why not elevate the debate and fortify the Lokpal by making it a Constitutional body accountable to Parliament like the Election Commission of India?” That was the last we heard of Lokpal. Meanwhile, Anna Hazare, continues to threaten to go on another hunger strike if the bill is not passed by the Lok Sabha soon.

 More recently, on April 4, 2013, Rahul addressed the Confederation of Indian Industries. It was a 75 minute speech, and one of the things he recounted about was about a journey he made a few years back on the Lokmanya Tilak express from Gorakhpur to Mumbai (Lokmanya Tilak is a station in Mumbai at which many long distance trains coming from the Eastern part of the country terminate). “I spent a large part of the 36-hour journey moving across the train and talking to travellers – youngsters, weary families, and migrants moving from the dust of Gorakhpur to the glitter of Mumbai. Took us 36 hours. It is called an Express!” Some time later in the speech he said:

“I am a pilot. I learnt to fly in the United States, I came back. I wanted to convert my license. So I went to the DGCA and I asked what do I have to do. They gave me the curriculum, I opened the book. A large section in the book talks about how to drop mail from aeroplanes. How many of you are getting your mail dropped from airplanes in the sky?…And it’s not only in pilot training, it’s everywhere. Look at our text books, open them out. Most of the stuff is not really relevant to what they are going to do.” The things that Rahul said were not only an embarrassment for the current government.

The fact that Indian Railways takes so much time or our education system is not up to the mark, has not happened overnight. The degeneration has happened over a period of time, meaning Rahul’s great-grandfather(Jawahar Lal Nehru), his grandmother (Indira Gandhi), his uncle (Sanjay Gandhi), his father (Rajiv Gandhi) and his mother (Sonia Gandhi), who have been de-facto heads of government at various points of time since India’s independence, are responsible for it. But then we all know that? How does just pointing out the obvious help anybody? Where are the solutions? As The Economist wrote after Rahul’s CII speech “Gandhi could have spelled out two or three specific measures, ideally in some detail, that he would support

for example, getting an Indian-wide goods-and-services tax accepted; promoting investment in retail or other industries; or devising a means by which infrastructure could be built much quicker. If he were really brave, he might have set out thoughts on ending bureaucratic uncertainty over corruption, or on land reform.” But all Rahul seems to do is hit and run. He says something on an issue, embarrasses his party, his government or his ancestors and moves on. Rahul Gandhi is not a serious politician.

He is in politics because he cannot do anything else or is expected to continue the family tradition and keep the flag flying. One can only speculate on the reasons for his lack of interest, given his reclusive nature. From his father and grandmother being assassinated to the fact that the future generations are no longer interested in what their forefathers built, be it business or politics. I am more tempted to go with the latter reason. Rasheed Kidwai, makes this point in the new edition of his book 24 Akbar Road. As he writes “It is said that the conqueror Taimur the ‘Lame’ once spoke to the famous historian and sociologist Ibn Khuldun about the fate of dynasties. Khuldun said that the glory of a dynasty seldom lasted beyond four generations.

The first generation inclined towards conquest; the second towards administration; the third, freed of the necessity to conquer or administer, was left with the pleasurable task of spending the wealth of its ancestors on cultural pursuits. Consequently, by the fourth generation, a dynasty had usually spent its wealth as well as human energy. Hence, the downfall of each dynasty is embedded in the very process of its rise. According to Khuldun, it was a natural phenomenon and could not be avoided.” Hence, evolution is at work. As historian and author Ramachandra Guha told me in an interview I did for Firstpost in December 2012 “

I think this dynasty is now on its last legs. Its charisma is fading with every generation. And Rahul Gandhi is completely mediocre.” That to a large extent explains Rahul’s hit and run mentality and his reluctance to take a more active role in government. After his yesterday’s statement, the least that Rahul Gandhi can do is take on more responsibility either by advancing the Lok Sabha elections or becoming a part of the government in some form.

But neither of these things is going to happen because Rahul Gandhi has said what he wanted to and disappeared again. His attitude is best reflected in an interview he gave to the Tehalka magazine in September 2005, in which he is supposed to have remarked “I could have been prime minister at the age of twenty-five if I wanted to.” The statement created an uproar. The Congress party immediately jumped to the defence of its princeling. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, specifically mentioned that Rahul had not said ‘I could have been prime minister at the age of twenty-five if I wanted to’.

Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/is-rahul-gandhi-a-hit-and-run-politician-1139397.html?utm_source=ref_article

Firstpost Politics Is Rahul Gandhi a hit and run politician? by Vivek Kaul Sep 28, 2013 #Ajay Maken #BJP #Congress #criminals in politics #Manmohan Singh #Ordinance #Pranab Mukherjee #President of India #Rahul Gandhi #Sonia Gandhi 15 0 1 55 CommentsEmailPrint Rahul Gandhi is angry again. Yesterday, he barged into a press conference being addressed by Congress general secretary Ajay Maken and announced that the ordinance passed by the Union Cabinet to protect convicted legislators from complete disqualification as “complete nonsense”. The Supreme Court had ruled on July 10, that an MP or an MLA, if convicted by a court in a criminal offence with a jail sentence of two years or more, would be immediately disqualified. On September 24, the Union Cabinet cleared the the Representation of the People (Amendment and Validation) Ordinance, 2013 to negate the Supreme Court ruling. This ordinance allows convicted MPs and MLAs to continue in office to the condition that their appeal is admitted by a higher court within a period of 90 days and their conviction is stayed. Rahul Gandhi felt that this was incorrect and said “I’ll tell you what my opinion on the ordinance is. It’s complete nonsense. It should be torn up and thrown away. That is my personal opinion.” “I am interested in what the Congress is doing and what our government is doing. That is why what our government has done as far as this ordinance is concerned is wrong,” he went on to add, embarrassing the Prime Minister and his cabinet of ministers, which had cleared the ordinance only a few days back, in the process. PTI A lot of analysis has happened since yesterday afternoon, when the Gandhi family scion said what he did. PTI A lot of analysis has happened since yesterday afternoon, when the Gandhi family scion said what he did. Some people have suggested that “Rahul has his heart in the right place”. Some others have said “what is wrong with calling rubbish, rubbish”. A television anchor known for his loud and aggressive ways called it the “victory of the people”. And still some others have asked the obvious question “how could the government have cleared the ordinance without the consent of Rahul or his mother Sonia Gandhi?” On the whole, Rahul’s decision to call the ordinance “nonsense” and something that should be “torn and thrown away” is being projected as a surprise. While nobody could have predicted what Rahul Gandhi did yesterday, at the same time this can’t be termed as a surprise. Rahul Gandhi over the last few years has made a habit of raking up issues to embarrass the government and his party, by saying something controversial and then disappearing. In July 2008, Rahul visited the house of Kalavati Bandurkar, in the village Jalka in the Vidarbha region of Maharashtra. Her husband had committed suicide in December 2005, hit by crop failure and debt. He left her with a debt of Rs 1 lakh. After visiting her, Rahul highlighted her plight in Parliament and then quickly forgot about her. It was an embarrassment for the Congress Party given that it ruled the state of Maharashtra. Since bringing her into the limelight, Kalavati’s daughter and a son-in-law have also committed suicide. In October 2008, while addressing girl students at a resort near Jim Corbett National Park, Rahul Gandhi referred to “politics” as a closed system in India. “If I had not come from my family, I wouldn’t be here. You can enter the system either through family or friends or money. Without family, friends or money, you cannot enter the system. My father was in politics. My grandmother and great grandfather were in politics. So, it was easy for me to enter politics. This is a problem. I am a symptom of this problem. I want to change it.,” he said. Where is the change? When was the last time the Congress party had an election for the post of its president? If the top post of the party is not democratic, how can the party be expected to be democratic? On February 5, 2010, Rahul came to Mumbai and travelled in a local train both on the western line (From Andheri to Dadar) and the central line (from Dadar to Ghatkopar). A lot of song and dance was made about him defying the Shiv Sena, but nothing constructive came out of it. The local trains continue to burst at its seams. On May 11, 2011, Rahul riding pillion on a bike managed to enter the Bhatta-Parsaul villages in Uttar Pradesh, giving the district administration a slip, and challenging the might of Mayawati, the then Chief Minister of Uttar Pradesh. The villagers in Bhatta-Parsaul were protesting against the acquisition of land by the state government and the protests had turned violent. A few days later Rahul went to meet the Prime Minister Manmohan Singh to appraise him of the situation. After coming out of the meeting he told reporters “The issue here is a more fundamental one with regard to these villages in particular and a large number of villages in UP down the Agra highway, where state repression is being used, where people are being murdered…quite severe atrocities are taking place there….There is a set of 74 (mounds of) ashes there with dead bodies inside. Everybody in the village knows it. We can give you pictures. Women have been raped, people have been thrashed. Houses have been destroyed.” These were serious allegations, but nothing ever came out of them. On August 26, 2011, Rahul gave a speech in favour of Lokpal in the Lok Sabha, where he said “why not elevate the debate and fortify the Lokpal by making it a Constitutional body accountable to Parliament like the Election Commission of India?” That was the last we heard of Lokpal. Meanwhile, Anna Hazare, continues to threaten to go on another hunger strike if the bill is not passed by the Lok Sabha soon. More recently, on April 4, 2013, Rahul addressed the Confederation of Indian Industries. It was a 75 minute speech, and one of the things he recounted about was about a journey he made a few years back on the Lokmanya Tilak express from Gorakhpur to Mumbai (Lokmanya Tilak is a station in Mumbai at which many long distance trains coming from the Eastern part of the country terminate). “I spent a large part of the 36-hour journey moving across the train and talking to travellers – youngsters, weary families, and migrants moving from the dust of Gorakhpur to the glitter of Mumbai. Took us 36 hours. It is called an Express!” Some time later in the speech he said: “I am a pilot. I learnt to fly in the United States, I came back. I wanted to convert my license. So I went to the DGCA and I asked what do I have to do. They gave me the curriculum, I opened the book. A large section in the book talks about how to drop mail from aeroplanes. How many of you are getting your mail dropped from airplanes in the sky?…And it’s not only in pilot training, it’s everywhere. Look at our text books, open them out. Most of the stuff is not really relevant to what they are going to do.” The things that Rahul said were not only an embarrassment for the current government. The fact that Indian Railways takes so much time or our education system is not up to the mark, has not happened overnight. The degeneration has happened over a period of time, meaning Rahul’s great-grandfather(Jawahar Lal Nehru), his grandmother (Indira Gandhi), his uncle (Sanjay Gandhi), his father (Rajiv Gandhi) and his mother (Sonia Gandhi), who have been de-facto heads of government at various points of time since India’s independence, are responsible for it. But then we all know that? How does just pointing out the obvious help anybody? Where are the solutions? As The Economist wrote after Rahul’s CII speech “Gandhi could have spelled out two or three specific measures, ideally in some detail, that he would support—for example, getting an Indian-wide goods-and-services tax accepted; promoting investment in retail or other industries; or devising a means by which infrastructure could be built much quicker. If he were really brave, he might have set out thoughts on ending bureaucratic uncertainty over corruption, or on land reform.” But all Rahul seems to do is hit and run. He says something on an issue, embarrasses his party, his government or his ancestors and moves on. Rahul Gandhi is not a serious politician. He is in politics because he cannot do anything else or is expected to continue the family tradition and keep the flag flying. One can only speculate on the reasons for his lack of interest, given his reclusive nature. From his father and grandmother being assassinated to the fact that the future generations are no longer interested in what their forefathers built, be it business or politics. I am more tempted to go with the latter reason. Rasheed Kidwai, makes this point in the new edition of his book 24 Akbar Road. As he writes “It is said that the conqueror Taimur the ‘Lame’ once spoke to the famous historian and sociologist Ibn Khuldun about the fate of dynasties. Khuldun said that the glory of a dynasty seldom lasted beyond four generations. The first generation inclined towards conquest; the second towards administration; the third, freed of the necessity to conquer or administer, was left with the pleasurable task of spending the wealth of its ancestors on cultural pursuits. Consequently, by the fourth generation, a dynasty had usually spent its wealth as well as human energy. Hence, the downfall of each dynasty is embedded in the very process of its rise. According to Khuldun, it was a natural phenomenon and could not be avoided.” Hence, evolution is at work. As historian and author Ramachandra Guha told me in an interview I did for Firstpost in December 2012 “I think this dynasty is now on its last legs. Its charisma is fading with every generation. And Rahul Gandhi is completely mediocre.” That to a large extent explains Rahul’s hit and run mentality and his reluctance to take a more active role in government. After his yesterday’s statement, the least that Rahul Gandhi can do is take on more responsibility either by advancing the Lok Sabha elections or becoming a part of the government in some form. But neither of these things is going to happen because Rahul Gandhi has said what he wanted to and disappeared again. His attitude is best reflected in an interview he gave to the Tehalka magazine in September 2005, in which he is supposed to have remarked “I could have been prime minister at the age of twenty-five if I wanted to.” The statement created an uproar. The Congress party immediately jumped to the defence of its princeling. Abhishek Manu Singhvi, specifically mentioned that Rahul had not said ‘I could have been prime minister at the age of twenty-five if I wanted to’.

Read more at: http://www.firstpost.com/politics/is-rahul-gandhi-a-hit-and-run-politician-1139397.html?utm_source=ref_article

BlackBerry’s Future in Doubt, Keyboard Lovers Bemoan Their Own

After teaching the world to type on tiny buttons, BlackBerry could soon be leaving the business of making phones — leaving fewer options for a vocal minority still committed to phones with its once popular physical keyboard. 

“It’s not good, not good at all,” said Gord Rosko, the president of GR Communications, a consulting firm in Edmonton, Alberta. 

Mr. Rosko said he had used BlackBerrys for about nine years. “What I call my fat Polish fingers have a hard time with touch-screen keyboards. So I’m going to keep using this thing until I can’t anymore.” 

The possibility that BlackBerry would exit the handset business was only reinforced on Friday, when the company announced disastrous financial results, including a quarterly loss of nearly $1 billion. BlackBerry had warned last week that the results would be bad, heightening expectations that it would put less focus on handsets. 

In the last few years, most smartphone users have switched to touch-screen models, like the iPhone, with virtual keyboards that appear on a glass screen. 

That has left few good alternatives for people like Mr. Rosko, especially beyond BlackBerry.

Charles Golvin, an analyst at Forrester who tracks the handset market, said most phones with buttons were inexpensive models aimed at teenagers. Most use slide-out keyboards, but those add extra weight and heft. He offered simple advice for people sticking to a physical keyboard. 

“The way you now interact with phones is through touch screens. Get over it,” he said. “Maybe the message isn’t just get over it; it’s give touch screens a chance.” 

Still, the chances that some company will try to pick up BlackBerry’s single-digit market share are good. Ted Schadler, Forrester’s vice president and principal analyst, said he expected some companies to experiment with keyboards. 

“Then there’s a big question mark of whether people will go for them,” he said.

The experiments may actually come from the companies that overtook BlackBerry in smartphones.

Samsung Electronics, whose Android-based phones are a leader in smartphone sales, has already offered phones with physical keyboards. But more important, it is aggressively going after professionals, who were the first adopters of the BlackBerry and who appear to disproportionately remain its final users. This year it introduced Knox, a set of security features for Android aimed at government and corporate users. 

Motorola Mobility, as it rebuilds itself under Google’s ownership, might also re-enter the keyboard phone market, too. Before the Google takeover, some of its most popular Android phones included a slide-out keyboard. 

Mr. Golvin said he was skeptical about any company trying to build a high-end smartphone with a physical keyboard. BlackBerry’s method of combining a screen and keyboard significantly reduces screen size, he said. The smaller screen often requires developers to tweak their apps to work on the different size, making some reluctant to make apps that work on the phones. 

But more important, Mr. Golvin said, is that the overwhelming majority of smartphone users have spoken and found that the downsides of on-screen keyboards — namely, more typos — are outweighed by a variety of other advantages. 

While there remains a chance that BlackBerry will continue to churn out handsets, the company’s results on Friday underscored how big of a challenge that would be. Because the handset business requires a large sales volume to be profitable and to sustain development, many analysts expect BlackBerry to focus its remaining resources on software and services for corporations. 

That strategy could change if the company is sold. The company’s largest shareholder has made a tentative and conditional offer to buy the 90 percent of BlackBerry’s stock it does not own. But many analysts expect BlackBerry to soon leave the business of making phones regardless of the owner. 

The loss reported on Friday mainly reflected a $934 million write-down of a growing inventory of unwanted BlackBerry Z10 phones, the devices that the company had hoped would restore its fortunes, as well as $72 million in charges related largely to layoffs. 

The $1.6 billion in revenue during the three-month period that ended Aug. 31 was well below the $3 billion analysts had expected and reflected a 49 percent drop from the first quarter,

Phone sales were just as bad during the period. While BlackBerry said that 5.9 million BlackBerry phones were sold to customers during the quarter, many were from inventory that had been shipped to wholesalers and carriers in an earlier quarter. During the last quarter, BlackBerry shipped just 3.7 million phones. And most of those phones, the company said, were older models that it plans to phase out. 

Still, there are the devotees, like Jonathan M. Lindsey, a public affairs consultant in Phoenix.

“I am concerned that I’ll have to change the way I do my work,” he said. He said he had tested both an iPhone and an Android phone, and found that neither allowed him to type as quickly as a BlackBerry or manage his e-mail as effectively. 

But Mr. Lindsey, who said that he was in his early 30s, said that after eight years, he was resigned to the fact that the physical keyboard may soon become a thing of his past.

“I’m not opposed to going through the process of adapting,” he said.

Freed from federal oversight after court ruling, Southern states move to tighten voting rules

MIAMI — Emboldened by the Supreme Court decision that struck down the heart of the Voting Rights Act, a growing number of Republican-led states are moving aggressively to tighten voting rules. Lawsuits by the Obama administration and voting rights activists say those efforts disproportionately affect minorities.

At least five Southern states, no longer required to ask Washington’s permission before changing election procedures, are adopting strict voter identification laws or toughening existing requirements.

Texas officials are battling the U.S. Justice Department to put in place a voter ID law that a federal court has ruled was discriminatory. In North Carolina, the GOP-controlled Legislature scaled back early voting and ended a pre-registration program for high school students nearing voting age.

Nowhere is the debate more heated than in Florida, where the chaotic recount in the disputed 2000 presidential race took place.

Florida election officials are set to resume an effort to remove noncitizens from the state’s voting rolls. A purge last year ended in embarrassment after hundreds of American citizens, most of whom were black or Hispanic, were asked to prove their citizenship or risk losing their right to vote.

Republican leaders across the South say the new measures are needed to prevent voter fraud, even though such crimes are rare. Democrats and civil rights groups say the changes are political attacks aimed at minorities and students — voting groups that tend to lean toward Democrats — in states with legacies of poll taxes and literacy tests.

In North Carolina, for example, a state board of elections survey found that more than 600,000 registered voters did not have a state-issued ID, a requirement to vote under the state’s new law. Many of those voters are young, black, poor or elderly.

“We’re in the middle of the biggest wave of voter suppression since the Voting Rights Act was enacted,” said Katherine Culliton-González, director of voter protection for the Advancement Project, a Washington-based civil rights group that has undertaken legal challenges in several states.

For five decades, states and localities with a history of discrimination had to submit all election laws, from new congressional district maps to precinct locations and voting hours, to federal lawyers for approval. That practice ended in June when the Supreme Court struck down the provision in the Voting Rights Act as outdated.

Voting rights groups said recent actions by Southern states highlight the need for Congress to retool the rejected sections of the landmark 1965 law that were credited with ensuring ballot access to millions of blacks, American Indians and other minorities.

The administration is using the remaining parts of the law to bring court cases.
When Attorney General Eric Holder announced a suit last month to place Texas under federal supervision again, he said the Justice Department would not allow the high court’s decision “to be interpreted as open season for states to pursue measures that suppress voting rights.”

Stage set for Narendra Modi's rally on Sunday

A massive stage with LED screens and a 100-feet long cut out of Narendra Modi have been readied for his rally in the city tomorrow.

On the eve of the Gujarat Chief Minister's rally, BJP workers were busy with last minute preparations of the rally. The party activists were today giving finishing touches to the 40x80 feet stage erected at the rally ground.

Those who will come to attend the rally will be greeted by a 100-feet long cut out of BJP's prime ministerial candidate as they will enter the rally ground.

LED screens have been installed all over Delhi that will show the live broadcast of the rally.
Security has been tightened in and around the venue and arrangements have been made for medical and fire services
.
Diplomats from 40 different nations are likely to participate in the event. Sportspersons, ex-service men, former senior bureaucrats have also been invited.

Shah Rukh Khan: Yash Chopra was a fearless filmmaker

Remembering film legend Yash Chopra on his 81st birth anniversary, Shah Rukh Khan said that the 'King of Romance' was a fearless filmmaker.

Shah Rukh, 47, who worked with the director right from Darr to his last project Jab Tak Hai Jaan, is all set to walk the ramp today to celebrate the late filmmaker's birthday.




The actor said late Yash Chopra was a mentor and someone who taught him a lot about cinema.

"As a person, he taught me creativity has to be fearless. You should make that film which your heart tells you to do. If it works then it's good and if it doesn't then also it is good. I am very fortunate that I worked with him for 20 years.

"I am the one actor who starred maximum in his films from the time I joined to his last venture. I am lucky to have the opportunity to have worked with the most fearless filmmaker that the country will ever have," the actor said.

The Chak De! star, who is also a producer, said Yash Chopra also gave him great production tips.

"One of the greatest learnings that I have learnt in terms of business from Yashji is that whatever you are making, the costs have to be kept in control and for that Yashji had worked really hard," he said.

Shah Rukh's last production venture Chennai Express is one of the highest grossers at the box-office.

Yash Chopra, who made blockbusters like Waqt, Deewar, Silsila, Lamhe, Darr, Dil To Pagal Hai, Veer-Zara and Jab Tak Hai Jaan, died on October 21, 2012.