High interest rates affected GDP: India Inc

Industry lobby groups Tuesday said the slowdown in India's GDP growth in the fourth quarter of 2010-11 was mainly on account of high interest rate regime, aimed at taming inflation.

The Reserve Bank, which has hiked key rates nine times since March, 2010 to tame inflation, has led to high borrowing costs for the industry and hit their margins.

"The disaggregated figures reveal that the growth of industrial sector has slowed down across the board. The persistent tightening of monetary policy is surely leaving an imprint on the performance of industry," said Ficci secretary general Rajiv Kumar.

"The trend ...which is particularly evident in the Q4 figures for 2010-11 is a worrying trend," Kumar added.

On the same lines, Assocham president Dilip Modi said "tightening of monetary supply to control inflation leads to high interest rates and consequently restricts fresh investments in the infrastructure sector."

In the fourth quarter ended March, the economy grew by just 7.8 percent due to poor performance of the manufacturing sector, as against 9.4 percent in the same period of 2009-10.

During the quarter, growth in the manufacturing sector slowed down to 5.5 percent from 15.2 per cent in the same quarter of 2009-10.

For the entire fiscal, however, the economic expansion was only marginally off at 8.5 percent as against the projected 8.6 percent.

Modi said "The manufacturing sector has not performed as expected due to low level of new investments. We must learn to live with acceptable levels of inflation. Raising interest rates is not the best way to address inflation. What we need is good infrastructure for the industry to grow fast".

Meanwhile, CII president B Muthuraman said, "Reforms need to be pursued in the areas of land and labour so that large-scale manufacturing projects can be implemented."

PHD Chamber suggested the government to increase the declining share of agriculture sector in GDP as more than 60 percent of our population is dependent on it.

"The share of agriculture in India's real GDP is continuously decelerating; it has been decelerated to 14.4 percent in FY 2011 as compared with 14.6 per cent in FY 2010," PHD Chamber President Salil Bhandari said.

However, farm output in Q4 shot up to 7.5 percent compared to meager 1.1 percent in the same period last year.

Source: http://goo.gl/8veje

Other Universe Facts !!

The universe is so vast in relation to the matter it contains that it can be compared in the following way: A building 20 miles long, 20 miles wide and 20 miles high that contains 1 grain of sand.

The three most common elements in the universe are 1) hydrogen; 2) helium; 3) oxygen.

As late as 1820, the universe was thought to be 6,000 years old. It is now thought to be between 15 and 20 billion years old.

Scientists believe that hydrogen comprises approximately 90 to 99 percent of all matter in the Universe.

A bucket filled with earth would Weigh about five times more than the same bucket filled with the substance of the sun. However, the force of Gravity is so much greater on the sun that a man Weighing 150 pounds on our planet would Weigh 2 tons on the sun.

A space vehicle must move at a rate of 7 miles per second to escape the earth's Gravitational pull. This is equivalent to going from New York to Philadelphia in about twenty seconds.

There are approximately 10,000 pieces of equipment revolving around the earth. About 3,000 of these pieces are satellites, the rest are odd bits of Debris.

Astronomers believe that the universe contains one atom for every 88 gallons of space.

First Happens Facts

Persians first began using colored eggs to celebrate spring in 3,000 B.C. 13th century Macedonians were the first Christians on record to use colored eggs in Easter celebrations. Crusaders returning from the Middle East spread the custom of coloring eggs, and Europeans began to use them to celebrate Easter and other warm weather holidays.

An American cow called Fawn was not afraid of flying. In May 1963, she was swept up by a tornado and carried half a mile, only to land safely in another farmer's field. Five years later, another tornado carried her over a bus. She survived this too, and lived to the ripe old age of 25.

The greatest snow fall ever in a single storm was 189 inches at the Mount Shasta Ski Bowl in February, 1959.

The 1st feature-length animated film, released by Disney Studios in 1937, was "Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs."

The town of Tidikelt in the Share Desert once went ten years without rainfall.

The record for the biggest one day rainfall was set on Reunion Island in the Indian Ocean, on March 15, 1952, where 74 inches of rain fell in 24 hours.

The word "earthling" was first found in print in 1593.

The first man-made object to circle the earth was Sputnik I, launched in 1957.

The coldest outdoor temperature ever recorded on earth was 127 below zero in Antarctica on August 24, 1960.

Even when all the molecules in a single breath of air have been dispersed evenly in the earth's atmosphere, there will still be one or two of the same ones taken into the lungs with every subsequent breath. Every time you breathe in, you inhale one or two of the same molecules that you inhaled with the first breath you took as a baby.

An earthquake on Dec. 16, 1811 sent the Mississippi River backwards.

The only two days of the year in which there are no professional sports games (MLB, NBA, NHL, or NFL) are the day before and the day after the Major League all-stars Game.

The first footprints at Grumman’s Chinese Theater (now Mann's Chinese Theater), were made by Norma Tallmadge in 1927. Legend has it that she accidentally stepped in wet concrete outside the building. Since then, over 180 stars have been immortalized, along with their hands and feet and even noses (Jimmy Durant).

The Beatles were depicted in wax at Madame Tussaud's Wax Museum in London, in 1964, the first pop album stars to be honored.
Read more: First Happens Facts

All about Earth !!

Baby robins eat 14 feet of earthworms every day.

At one time the earth consisted of one land mass and a huge body of water. Geologists today call the land Pangaea (from the Greek words "all land" while the water was called Panthalassa (from the Greek words "all sea"). Between 180 and 200 million years ago, Pangaea split into two parts: Laurasia, which consisted of North America, Europe and Asia; and Gondwanaland, which consisted of Africa, South America, India, Antarctica and Australia.

Astronauts brought back about 800 pounds of lunar rock to Earth. Most of it has not been analyzed.

Approximately 40,000 tons of meteoric dust hits the Earth each year.

According to Hawaiian lore, the earth mother Papa mated with the sky father Wake to give birth to the Hawaiian Islands.

About one-tenth of the earth's surface is permanently covered with ice.

A Red Giant(a kind of exploded star) has a lower density than any vacuum here on earth.

A Blue Earth, Minnesota, law declares that no child under the age of twelve may talk over the telephone unless monitored by a parent.

You would need to travel at 6.95 miles per second to escape the Earth’s gravitational pull. This is equivalent to traveling from New York to Philadelphia in about twenty seconds.

Venus rotates so slowly that in a typical day lasts approximately 244 Earth days (5,856 hours).

If you dig in your backyard, don’t worry about running into the earth’s core. You’d have to dig a hole 4,000 miles (6,437 kilometers) deep!

Some scientists believe that the earth began billions of years ago as a huge ball of swirling dust and gases.

Read more: All about Earth

Interesting Language Facts !!

According to Illinois state law, it is illegal to speak English. The officially recognized language is "American."

Widow is the only female form in the English language that is shorter than its corresponding male term (widower).

Victor Hugo's Les Miserable contains one of the longest sentences in the French language 823 words without a period.

There is only ONE word in the English language with THREE CONSECUTIVE SETS OF DOUBLE LETTERS.... Bookkeeper

There is a word in the English language with only one vowel, which occurs five times: "indivisibility."

There is a seven letter word in the English language that contains ten words without rearranging any of its letters, "therein": the, there, he, in, rein, her, here, ere, therein, herein.

There are two words in the English language that have all five vowels in order: "abstemious" and "facetious."

There are thirteen languages spoken by more than 100 million people. They are: Mandarin Chinese, English, Hindi, Spanish, Russian, Arabic, Bengali, Portuguese, Malay-Indonesian, French, Japanese, German, and Urdu.

There are roughly 6,500 spoken languages in the world today. However, about 2,000 of those languages have fewer than 1,000 speakers. The most widely spoken language in the world is Mandarin Chinese. There are 885,000,000 people in China that speak that language.

There are only two sequences of four consecutive letters that can be found in the English language: "rstu" and "mnop." Examples of each are understudy and gynophobia.

There are only 4 words in the English language which end in "duos": tremendous, horrendous, stupendous, and hazardous.

There are at least two words in the English language that use all of the vowels, in the correct order, and end in the letter Y: abstemiously & facetiously.

There are 41,806 different spoken languages in the world today.

The word "queue" is the only word in the English language that is still pronounced the same way when the last four letters are removed.

The word "honcho" comes from a Japanese word meaning "squad leader" and first came into usage in the English language during the American occupation of Japan following World War II.

source: Interesting Language Facts

Playboy Hefner gets knotty again

LOVE, the true variety or otherwise, knows no age barriers — and Playboy chief Hugh Hefner is living proof of this. The 84- year- old has apparently got engaged to his 24- year- old girlfriend Crystal Harris.

Hefner tweeted that he has gifted Harris a ring on Christmas eve, the celebrity gossip website TMZ. com reported. “ After the movie ( The Tourist ) tonight ( Friday), Crystal and I exchanged gifts. I gave Crystal a ring. A truly memorable Christmas Eve,” he posted.

While Harris may well have jumped at the chance to be Mrs Hugh Hefner, her happiness could be tempered by Hefner’s marriage history. He has tied the knot twice before; with Mildred Williams, their marriage lasting from 1949 to 1959, and later with model- actress Kimberly Conrad with whom he split earlier this year.

He met Mildred or Milly, with whom he shared his first sexual experience, in college. Of the marriage, Hefner has said: “ I think the relationship was probably held together by two years of foreplay. That wasn’t unusual for our time. In fact, most of my immediate friends didn’t have sex until they married. Milly and I had it just before.”

“ I had literally saved myself for my wife, but after we had sex, she told me that she’d had an affair. That was the most devastating moment in my life. My wife was more sexually experienced than I was. After that, I always felt in a sense that the other guy was in bed with us, too.”

Nonetheless, he and Milly remained married for ten years and had two children, Christie, was has been chairman and chief executive officer of Playboy since the mid- 80s, while Hefner has remained the magazine's editor- in- chief.

In September 2009, Hefner asked for his marriage to former playmate Kimberly Conrad, 47, to be ended because the two were feuding about money. Hefner wanted his support payments for Conrad to be cut by half to $ 20,000 a month, saying he has already given his estranged wife close to $ 12 million since their separation in 1998.

At the time, Hefner had told TMZ : “ I am happy to be out of the marriage. I only remained married for the sake of the children, at her request.”

In recent years, Hefner has had numerous girlfriends — including Holly Madison, Kendra Wilkinson and Bridget Marquardt, who starred alongside him in the reality show The Girls Next Door.

Read More Six decades apart! Playboy Hefner gets ‘ knotty’ again

Cool facts about Space !!

There is still so little known about outer space by modern science, but of that little we do know, there are some extraordinarily amazing things. This is a list of the top 10 cool facts about Space.

10. Lightweight

Saturn's Rings

Fact: If you put Saturn in water it would float

The density of Saturn is so low that if you were to put it in a giant glass of water it would float. The actual density of Saturn is 0.687 g/cm3 while the density of water is 0.998 g/cm3. At the equator Saturn has a radius of 60,268 ± 4 km – which means you would need an extremely large glass of water to test this out.

9. Constantly Moving

Milkyway Pan1

Fact: We are moving through space at the rate of 530km a second

Our Galaxy – the Milky Way is spinning at a rate of 225 kilometers per second. In addition, the galaxy is travelling through space at the rate of 305 kilometers per second. This means that we are traveling at a total speed of 530 kilometers (330 miles) per second. That means that in one minute you are about 19 thousand kilometers away from where you were. Scientists do not all agree on the speed with which the Milky Way is travelling – estimates range from 130 – 1,000 km/s. It should be said that Einstein’s theory of relativity, the velocity of any object through space is not meaningful.

8. Farewell old friend!

600Px-Moon Pia00302

Fact: The moon is drifting away from Earth

Every year the moon moves about 3.8cm further away from the Earth. This is caused by tidal effects. Consequently, the earth is slowing in rotation by about 0.002 seconds per day per century. Scientists do not know how the moon was created, but the generally accepted theory suggests that a large Mars sized object hit the earth causing the Moon to splinter off.

7. Ancient Light

800Px-The Sun1

Fact: The light hitting the earth right now is 30 thousand years old

The energy in the sunlight we see today started out in the core of the Sun 30,000 years ago – it spent most of this time passing through the dense atoms that make the sun and just 8 minutes to reach us once it had left the Sun! The temperature at the core of the sun is 13,600,000 kelvins. All of the energy produced by fusion in the core must travel through many successive layers to the solar photosphere before it escapes into space as sunlight or kinetic energy of particles.

6. Solar Diet

800Px-171879Main Limbflarejan12 Lg

Fact: The Sun loses up to a billion kilograms a second due to solar winds

Solar winds are charged particles that are ejected from the upper surface of the sun due to the high temperature of the corona and the high kinetic energy particles gain through a process that is not well understood at this time. Also, did you know that 1 pinhead of the sun’s energy is enough to kill a person at a distance of 160 kilometers? [Sourced from Planet Science]




5. The Big Dipper is not a constellation

637Px-Ursa Major Constellation Map

Fact: The Big Dipper is not a constellation, it is an asterism

Many people consider the big dipper to be a constellation but, in fact, it is an asterism. An asterism is a pattern of stars in the sky which is not one of the official 88 constellations; they are also composed of stars which are not physically related to each other and can be vast distances apart. An asterism can be composed of stars from one or more constellations – in the case of the Big Dipper, it is composed entirely of the seven brightest stars in the Ursa Major (Great Bear) constellation.

4. George’s Star

602Px-Uranus Voyager 2

Fact: Uranus was originally called George’s Star

When Sir William Herschel discovered Uranus in 1781, he was given the honor of naming it. He chose to name it Georgium Sidus (George’s Star) after his new patron, King George III (Mad King George). This is what he said:

In the fabulous ages of ancient times the appellations of Mercury, Venus, Mars, Jupiter and Saturn were given to the Planets, as being the names of their principal heroes and divinities. In the present more philosophical era it would hardly be allowable to have recourse to the same method and call it Juno, Pallas, Apollo or Minerva, for a name to our new heavenly body. The first consideration of any particular event, or remarkable incident, seems to be its chronology: if in any future age it should be asked, when this last-found Planet was discovered? It would be a very satisfactory answer to say, ‘In the reign of King George the Third.’

Uranus was also the first planet to be discovered with the use of a telescope.

3. Extra Moons

S3753 2

Fact: Earth has at least 4 moons

Okay – that is not actually true – but it is very close. In 1986, Duncan Waldron discovered a asteroid (5km across) that is in an elliptic orbit around the sun with a period of revolution virtually identical to that of Earth. For this reason the planetoid and earth appear to be following each other. The periodic planetoid is named Cruithne (pronounced krin-yə) after an ancient group of Scottish people (also known as the Picts). Because of its unusual relationship with Earth, it is sometimes referred to as Earth’s second moon. Cruithne, is fainter than Pluto and would require at least a 12.5 inch reflecting telescope to attempt to be seen. Since its discovery, at least three other similar asteroids have been discovered. These types of objects are also found in similar relationships to other planets in our Solar System. In the image above (courtesy of Paul Wiegert), the earth is the blue circle with a cross in it, and Cruithne’s orbit is shown in yellow.

2. Sunspot Music

Messiah-Mosaic-1

Fact: Sunspot activity may be the primary reason for the beautiful sound of Stradivarius violins

Antonio Stradivari is considered to be the greatest violin maker ever. He lived in Italy in the 17th and 18th centuries. Scientists have been unable to work out what it is about his violins that makes them so incredible, but they do know that the timber used to make them is a very important contributing factor. From the 1500s to 1800s, the earth underwent a little ice age mostly due to increased volcanic activity and decreased solar activity (this is called the Maunder Minimum). As a result of this cooling, the types of trees that Stradivari used for his violins were particularly hard (due to slow growth). Hard timber is especially good when making violins. It is very probable that had Stradivari lived in a different age, his violins would not be prized as they are today. This picture above is made of three overlapping photos. It shows the rings in the spruce tree used to make the most famous Stradivarius violin, the “Messiah.” The first row of numbers gives the width of each ring in millimeters (one mm is about the thickness of a fingernail). The bottom row gives the years in which each ring grew.

1. Cold Welding

Space Station 0614

Fact: If two pieces of metal touch in space, they become permanently stuck together

This may sound unbelievable, but it is true. Two pieces of metal without any coating on them will form in to one piece in the vacuum of space. This doesn’t happen on earth because the atmosphere puts a layer of oxidized material between the surfaces. This might seem like it would be a big problem on the space station

Read more: Cool facts about Space