1.

ICAI evolves uniform accounting, auditing system for political parties The Institute of Chartered Accountants of India (ICAI) will shortly present to the Election Commission (EC) a uniform accounting and auditing system for political parties. The ICAI has prepared a format for the disclosure of the entire income and expenditure of political parties. All parties registered with the EC should file their accounts in the format. The ICAI's certain accounting standards have to be applicable. At present, parties were not applying it. Once the EC approved the format, the disclosures would be available in the EC domain and, therefore, available for public scrutiny. 2. Four DPS students win NASA design contest Four school students have won NASA awards for their performance at its Space Settlement Design Contest, 2011. The students are Siddharth Tripathy, Akshat Dutt and Nisarg Behera of XII standard and Mrinal Choudhury of VIII standard, all of them from Delhi Public School. The team comprising Siddharth, Akshat and Nisarg, who won the first prize in XI-XII grade, presented their project titled 'Sangri-la', a design of a space settlement colony to provide good living amenities for 20,000 permanent space residents, according to sources from the school. The design envisages a heavenly abode for settlers who can revel in extraordinary luxury away from Earth. The team proposed a scientific research laboratory as well as a business hub in space, bio-regenerative life systems incorporating all biological components, state of the art meditation halls, an efficiently functioning government machinery to take care of the law and order, a currency named 'Hawking' besides a stock exchange. 3. China has several interests in Nepal: US Congressional report China has significantly increased its activities in Nepal where it has "several key interests," ranging from the Tibetan refugees to part of its strategic objective to encircle India. China has an interest in keeping Nepal from becoming a location from which Tibetan activists can promote the cause of Tibet. China has become more successful in recent years in convincing Nepal to restrict the exiled Tibetan community. Responding to the Chinese pressure, the government of Nepal in March 2011 prevented an estimated 20,000 Tibetans in exile in Nepal from voting for a new political head of the exiled Tibetan community. 4. High food prices may push millions into poverty: ADB Resurgent food prices, which rose by 10 per cent on average in many regional economies in Asia this year, can push an additional 64 million people into extreme poverty. The study, titled, 'Global Food Price Inflation and Developing Asia', by the multilateral lending agency, finds that a 10 per cent rise in domestic food prices could push an additional 64 million people, out of 3.3 billion people living in the continent, into extreme poverty, based on the USD 1.25 a day poverty line. The fast and persistent rise in the cost of many Asian food staples since the middle of last year, coupled with crude oil reaching a 31-month high in March, are a serious setback for the region, which has rebounded rapidly and strongly from the global economic crisis. 5. HDFC Bank adjudged strongest bank in Asia Pacific Country's second largest private sector HDFC Bank has been declared the strongest bank in Asia Pacific by the Asian Banker magazine. The bank won this award, beating more than 50 banks across 13 countries in the Asia Pacific region. The top 10 has three banks each from India and China, two from Hong Kong, and one each from Singapore and Australia. Banks were rigorously evaluated on the six parameters of scale of assets, balance sheet growth of net loans and deposits, risk management of the banks' operations, profitability and its Page 1 of 2 26th April 2011

sustainability, strength and credibility of loans disbursed and liquidity of assets to meet negative events requiring cash outflow. 6. Honda to halve India production after tsunami Honda's India unit is halving auto production because of a shortage of components following the March tsunami in Japan. Honda's plant outside the capital New Delhi will run on single shifts starting in May. The company hopes to resume full production after July. The plant can turn out 100,000 vehicles a year, including the popular Honda City sedan. Honda has also had to cut production at its US and Canadian factories. 7. Ranbaxy introduces generic olanzapine Ranbaxy Laboratories announced the Day-1 launch of olanzapine tablets, the generic version of Zyprexa. The company will be introducing olanzapine tablets in 2.5 mg, 5 mg, 7.5 mg and 10 mg and also orodispersables in 5 mg and 10 mg. Zyprexa is the innovator product of Eli Lilly and has a market size of $210 million. Olanzapine is an atypical antipsychotic and is indicated for the treatment of schizophrenia in adults. 8. Facebook adds 'Send' button Facebook has began letting members of cozy cliques formed at the social networking service share website links or photo albums without all their friends knowing about it. A "Send" button that lets people share website links with selected cadres instead of all Facebook friends was among enhancements being rolled out to a "Groups" feature launched in October of last year. More than 50 million groups have been created at Facebook since the option became available. New Send buttons, which were at 50 popular websites and expected to spread to others, let Facebook users share links to pages with fellow members of specific groups or individual friends at the online social network. 9. Maharashtra govt to build sports museum to honour Sachin Maharashtra government has decided to build a grand sports museum to honour inconic Indian cricketer Sachin Tendulkar. The government plans a new youth and sports policy and there is a proposal to set up 54 sports complex at tehsil level. 10. Nadal's reign on clay continues World No.1 Rafael Nadal hammered Spanish compatriot David Ferrer 6-2, 6-4 to win the Barcelona Open for the sixth time in seven editions. The runaway victory in one hour, 49 minutes puts Nadal into sole third place on the all-time claycourt trophy list with 31 career titles on the surface. Only Guillermo Vilas, with 45, and Thomas Muster, who won 40, are above him.

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