A red line slashing across the lawn in Arjun Sirohi’s backyard shows where Sound Transit might build an elevated light-rail track.

Sirohi and his wife, Neeraj, don’t want to sell their house in the quiet Surrey Downs neighborhood, so close to downtown Bellevue that he walks to work and they can walk together to the grocery store and the movies.

But his worst fear is that the transit agency will buy only the eastern side of his property and run a track in front of the modest deck he’s reluctant to rebuild because he doesn’t know how long it will be his.

“Our friends joke with us, ‘If it was in India, the train would be open and we would be selling tea,’ ” Sirohi said.

Under plans developed last year, the East Link rail line would run along the west side of busy 112th Avenue Southeast, through what are now the yards of Sirohi and at least eight of his neighbors on 111th Place Southeast.

Sound Transit says it won’t buy entire properties if it needs only part of them. The City Council, unhappy about that, might act as a go-between and buy those homes instead.

The Sirohis are among more than 50 South Bellevue households whose homes or yards are in the path of the track that will connect Seattle, Mercer Island, Bellevue and Redmond starting in 2023.

The residents, on or near Bellevue Way Southeast and 112th Avenue Southeast, have been wondering about the future of their homes since voters in 2008 approved the $2.8 billion line. The uncertainty has only increased as Bellevue and Sound Transit have explored noise-dampening and cost-saving ideas that have increased the number of homes that may be bought out.

Sound Transit, which buys only the portion of properties needed for the rail line, may not be ready to buy land on Sirohi’s block before 2014. Officials aren’t yet sure what land they will need for the project, because the route hasn’t been finalized.

However, acquisition of more than 40 other houses and condos north of Sirohi’s house and Surrey Downs Park could begin late this year. That portion of the route has undergone detailed environmental study and isn’t likely to be changed, transit officials said.

Still tweaking plan

After two years of fighting over the route between Interstate 90 and downtown Bellevue, the City Council and Sound Transit agree roughly where it will go, but are now considering tweaks that could reduce how much money the city must contribute to a $320 million tunnel through downtown.

Costs could be trimmed by moving parts of the rail line from trenches to the surface. On Bellevue Way that would mean moving the historic Winters House to the east or moving the track and roadway westward into the Enatai neighborhood.

On 112th Avenue, the latest concept would close Fourth Street and extend Eighth Street to the west — smack through Sirohi’s house.

Sirohi’s next-door neighbor has put up a large sign at Eighth and 112th that proclaims, “No Train on 112th.”

Most residents have resigned themselves to a rail line along 112th. Surrey Downs Community Club President Ron Bennett said an initial survey of residents showed “everyone adamantly against” extending Eighth Street because it would allow cars to cut directly through the neighborhood to and from the Interstate 405-Eighth Street interchange.

“If light rail is coming, I can live with it. I certainly would prefer to have them take my house than not take it,” said Bennett, whose home is even closer to the planned rail line than Sirohi’s.

About 40 homes in the path of the train are condominiums, most of whose owners preferred to move rather than live with a train running along the opposite side of the street.

But that means the condos can’t be sold on the real-estate market, said Scott Rodgers, president of the Carriage Place Condominiums Homeowners Association.

“For the last, I’d say five years, no one’s been able to sell,” Rodgers said. ” … It kind of puts a new meaning on the term condo bondage.”

The soonest Sound Transit could possibly buy out those condos is “very late this year,” the agency’s real-property director, Roger Hansen, said.

Other homeowners along the rail line will have a much longer wait.

The Bellevue City Council has been pressuring Sound Transit to make property purchases as soon as possible and to buy entire properties rather than portions of them.

“I think if you’re going to drop a train in somebody’s backyard you need to buy their property,” said Councilmember Kevin Wallace. He also said property owners abutting the planned track have “a scarlet letter” that makes it impossible for them to sell to anyone other than Sound Transit.

But under the guidelines for federal grants Sound Transit receives, the agency can acquire only the portions of properties needed for transportation purposes, said East Link Deputy Project Director Don Billen.

Sound Transit typically doesn’t begin buying property until engineering is 60 percent complete — a milestone the agency expects to reach about the end of 2013.

Bellevue Council option

Fred Butler, deputy president of the Issaquah City Council and chair of the Sound Transit Capital Committee, said it would be premature to say how soon properties might be acquired.

“We’re early in the process and we haven’t decided which ones of these cost-saving alternatives we’re going to carry forward to get the information we need. A lot of folks are talking. We’re having a transparent conversation about this,” Butler said.

The Bellevue City Council, not happy about the prospect of Sound Transit buying only “slivers” of properties, may step in with its own solution: purchasing entire properties with city dollars and then reselling portions of them to Sound Transit.

The council earlier this month authorized the city manager to study what “public uses” the city might have for those properties south of Surrey Downs Park — including park expansion — and how much it might cost to buy them.

Sirohi is counting on the city to make sure his property isn’t split into pieces, with the house on one side and an elevated train on the other.

Even with city help, he worries he won’t recoup the life savings he and his wife put into the house where they raised their two children — and that they won’t be able to find a home in a nearby neighborhood.

“There is no way anybody can live on this property if the train comes through,” he said. “You cannot open this door. Nobody is going to buy this home.”

Keith Ervin: 206-464-2105 or kervin@seattletimes.com

Article source: http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/localnews/2018232929_railroute18m.html?cmpid=2628

The announcement was made at a news conference by the Indian external affairs minister, SM Krishna, at the end of a two-day visit by Sheikh Abdullah bin Zayed, the UAE Minister of Foreign Affairs.

The UAE and India are each other’s biggest trading partners, and bilateral trade between the two countries in 2011-12 was worth US$67 billion (Dh246bn).

The energy and property sectors appear particularly primed for an increase in trade.

The new task force is to be led by Sheikh Hamad bin Zayed, the managing director of the Abu Dhabi Investment Authority (Adia), and Anand Sharma, India’s commerce minister.

Sheikh Abdullah’s trip to India was his third in less than a year, Mr Krishna pointed out, “an indication of the priority that each of us accords to our bilateral relations.”

Sheikh Abdullah also met Mr Sharma and India’s finance minister Pranab Mukherjee. Apart from the task force, the agenda included India’s imports of UAE oil as well as Adia’s investments in Indian real estate.

Sheikh Abdullah said that he “would like to see more UAE energy exports to India especially when it comes to crude oil … There are talks between our officials looking at these avenues and even further. We would like to see UAE presence in downstream investments in India, including petrochemicals”.

India has recently cut, by 11 per cent, its imports of crude oil from Iran, under pressure from the United States, and the UAE – at present India’s fifth biggest supplier of oil – could well pick up that slack.

In 2011-12 alone, India imported 15.79 million tonnes of crude oil from the Emirates, up from 14.7 million tonnes the year before.

“With India’s growing refinery capacity, the UAE as a source of crude oil” would become increasingly important, said Chandarajit Banerjee, the director general of the Confederation of Indian Industry, a non-governmental body.

Sanjaya Baru, a New Delhi-based director for geoeconomics and strategy at the International Institute for Security Studies, noted the recent visits by Indian diplomats to the UAE and to Saudi Arabia “to ensure supplies of oil … There is a lot of traffic between Delhi and the Gulf capitals”.

The UAE, said Mr Baru, has made several major investments in India. The UAE ranks among the top 10 countries investing in the republic, with an estimated $8 billion invested in sectors such as telecommunications and real estate. Adia’s real-estate investments, estimated at $400 to $500 million, are further evidence of deepening ties.

Adia’s investments were made through property funds and private equity funds. In March, a source told Reuters that Adia was looking for opportunities to increase its direct investment.

sbhattacharya@thenational.ae

ssubramanian@thenational.ae

Article source: http://www.thenational.ae/news/world/middle-east/emirates-and-india-fortify-their-trade-ties

* Bill to ensure woman’s right to 50 percent share of residential property owned by husband

NEW DELHI: Indian women’s groups applauded Friday cabinet approval of amendments to a bill that would for the first time grant women a clearly-defined share of their husband’s property after divorce.
The new Marriage Bill will, if passed by parliament, ensure a woman’s right to a 50 percent share of the residential property owned by her husband, whether it was acquired before or after their marriage.
Activists said the amendments green-lighted by the cabinet on Thursday threw an important legal lifeline to women who too often find themselves homeless and with no income source after a divorce. “The government’s decision is a giant leap in the right direction. It will secure every woman’s future,” said Ranjana Kumari who heads an advocacy group called Women Power Connect.
Existing law recognises a divorced women’s right to a property share, but the size of the share is not defined and, when disputed, is left to the discretion of the court along with the alimony payment. “The changes in the divorce law are pragmatic,” said Pinky Anand, a lawyer and an expert on family law in the Supreme Court.
“It also gives recognition to a wife’s contribution in the household. She will never be on the street with no money after her divorce.”
Another amendment approved by the cabinet on Thursday stipulates that a statutory six-month “cooling off period” for couples seeking a divorce can only be waived with the agreement of both parties. Currently, either party is able to seek a waiver without consent of the other. There is no immediate timeframe for when the amended bill will go before parliament. India, where marriage is still viewed as the bedrock of society, has traditionally had one of the world’s lowest divorce rates, with only about one in 100 marriages failing. But the rate is rising, particularly in big cities, in line with the greater empowerment and increasing financial independence of women in urban India through better education and employment. afp

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Article source: http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012%5C05%5C19%5Cstory_19-5-2012_pg14_2

Could geeking out over a mutually beloved novel surpass even alcohol as the ultimate social ice-breaker? In my three months of solo travel in India, shared literary interests have opened the doors to several new friendships. Quite like the bond formed between travelers on similar journeys, the bond formed around a favorite novel is one of shared immersive experience, usually open to impossibly wide interpretations. When we meet someone else who’s “been there,� there’s a biting urge to know exactly what the other person saw, what scenes remain strongest in her memory, what crucial knowledge or insight was retrieved, and what her experience reveals or changes about our own?

If we try to extend this “traveler’s comparisonâ€? to other narrative mediums — television programs, movies, plays — it can often lose some of its steam. Why is this? Relative limitlessness in physical and emotional sensory potential is the privilege and burden of the reader. The book, more so than any other form of narrative media, rings true, more synonymous, with the limitlessness and loneliness to be found while facing the open road or holding a one-way airline ticket to Azerbaijan. In my hypotheses, it is the loneliness quality in particular, physically and intellectually inherent to the act of reading, that lays the bedrock for the powerful social bonding achieved through literature. The limitlessness is critical too, as it promises a bounty of fertile avenues for conversation, but it’s the loneliness of the reader — or, as Rainer Maria Rilke might say, it’s how “two solitudes protect and touch and greet each otherâ€? — that assigns to a very special category those friendships formed over books.

Enjoying a good work of literature entails getting lost. Vast and foreign is the journey, and we wouldn’t have it any other way. If the book is good, then the intelligence that guides us through the story will appear many degrees superior to our own. Even in the case of a child narrator like Harper Lee’s Scout Finch, or an impaired one, like Christopher John Francis Boone — the autistic 15-year-old narrator of Mark Haddon’s The Curious Incident Of the Dog in the Night-Time — the narrative intelligences of our books should leave us feeling a bit pressed intellectually, a bit outmatched, amazed ultimately by the talent of the author who brought such an exquisite intelligence to life. It should be our expectation as readers to be transported into a compellingly drawn, but very foreign and unique reality. Our guide, the local aficionado, attempts to help us understand everything we’re taking in, though we’ll inevitably overlook and misunderstand things from time to time, sometimes big, important things. Reading Pynchon’s Gravity’s Rainbow, for me, was an experience similar to that of using one’s brain; I was able to intellectually command perhaps 10 percent of the content at hand. If this was part of Pynchon’s intent for his novel, I commend him for crafting an impressive and very odd reflection of the human condition. Yes, reading is both a richly gratifying and lonely act, at both intellectual and sensory levels, which is why meeting someone with whom we share a favorite book has a way of jump-starting our social batteries, even on our more quiet nights.

Maya Dorn, a 41-year-old copywriter, musician, and avid reader from San Francisco, uses shared literary interests as a litmus test for social compatibility. “Liking the same books is like having the same sense of humor — if you don’t have it in common, it’s going to be hard to bond with someone. You risk ending up with nothing to talk about.â€? Maya specifically cites Mikhail Bulgakov’s The Master and Margarita, as popping up again and again on the fringes of her social circles. Funny she mentioned that title; though I’ve not read The Master and Margarita, it was recommended to me a month prior to meeting Maya, at a café in Goa, where a vacationing Russian day-spa owner — stoned to a point of spare, clear English and silky slow hand gestures — explained to me the premise of Bulgakov’s post-modern “Silver Ageâ€? classic. “It’s about different type of prison, a prison of the mind!â€? The Russian pointed meaningfully at his own head. Sharing such intensely themed, café-table book-talk with a strange Russian proved quite an adventure in itself, with our caffeine jitters occasionally morphing into anachronistic, Cold War-era paranoias of Pynchonesque mirth. He was the first Russian I’d met abroad.

Currently I’m 100 pages out from finishing Jeffrey Eugenides’ The Marriage Plot, quite a relevant book for this topic, as so many of Eugenides’ principal characters’ social lives are influenced by literature. Clearly Eugenides sees the unique social potency of books as a given fact, something that can be leveraged as a plausible plot-building tool. College seniors, Madeleine Hanna and Leonard Bankhead, sow the early seeds of the novel’s epic romance while discussing various books in a Semiotics 211 seminar. The two of them quietly ally with one other, colluding intellectually against the opinions of the cerebral and pretentious Thurston Meems. Madeleine and Leonard criticize the gratuitous morbidity of Peter Handke’s A Sorrow Beyond Dreams, while Thurston extols the text for its originality. A bit later on in the story (spoiler alert) it is nothing other than a brief, semi-drunken bout of book chatter that opens the door for Madeleine’s unlikely one night stand with the villainous Thurston:

‘Which book?’
‘A Lover’s Discourse.’
Thurston squeezed his eyes shut, nodding with pleasure. ‘That’s a great book.’
‘You like it?’ Madeleine said.
‘The thing about that book,’ Thurston said. ‘Is that, ostensibly, it’s a deconstruction of love. It’s supposed to cast a cold eye on the whole romantic enterprise, right? But it reads like a diary.’
‘That’s what my paper’s on!’ Madeleine cried. ‘I deconstructed Barthes’ deconstruction of love.’

In the story-world of The Marriage Plot, literature maintains a power to broker alliances and define enemies. Books are also cited in the mediations of religious and political debate. Books influence career paths, and weigh in profoundly on other critical, life-defining decisions faced by Eugenides’ characters. At one point in the novel, Eugenides finds it perfectly reasonable that nothing other than a positive social experience — three young women bonding at a conference on Victorian literature — would be enough to inspire his protagonist, Madeleine, to pursue a career as a Victorian scholar.

The Marriage Plot isn’t really about books so to speak — I say this despite the title itself being an allusion to the standard plots that recurred throughout the great Victorian-era novels — nevertheless, Eugenides is most comfortable and successful in using the phenomenon of literary community to facilitate settings and move his plots. The success of The Marriage Plot may help illustrate and confirm that the social utility of literature may be by its own right capable of assuring literature’s imminent survival.

As Eugenides’ novel illustrates, the social reach of literature doesn’t end with discussions of stories and novels. Academic texts and non-fiction contribute peripheral influence to communities of all kinds, even those not squarely centered around literature. Avid reader and rock climber, Joe White, of Leeds, England cites Joe Simpson’s Touching the Void as indispensable to his adventurous social circle. “Though I can’t recall ever forming a particular personal bond over just one book,â€? Joe says, “being heavily involved in climbing and mountaineering fraternities has led me to form many friendships based around that specific activity, and the literature that surrounds the activity often provides talking points or focal points for the community. Pretty much everyone’s read Touching the Void, I mean, it’s not only relevant to climbing, but it’s an amazing story in its own right.â€?

I recently happened into a brief but enjoyable encounter with the esteemed Joyce Carol Oates. She was promoting her memoir, A Widow’s Story, and was fielding questions from her audience. Amid the 100-plus crowd, I was fortunate to have the opportunity to ask her one:

Ms. Oates, in a recent interview you spoke of the unique type of distress that comes from having one’s work rebuked in a public forum. You cited the experience of your contemporary, Norman Mailer, after having his second novel, Barbary Shore, denounced by the literary critics of the day, making, as Mailer put it, “an outlaw out of him.â€? But could you speak to the opposite side of this dichotomy — what might you share with us concerning that unique thrill and gratification that comes from producing a superior work of art, a work you know to be beloved by people all over the world. Do those who love your work weigh as heavy on the writer’s mind as those who detract from it?

Oates, took some time in silence to prepare her response.

“Art is a communal experience,� she replied.

As far as directly quoting the writing legend, the exact integrity of my recollections end with that phrase, but I can attest that she expounded for some time on the personal connections to be achieved through these special artifacts, books, these “communal experiences.â€? But does the act of reading, at a glance, feel in any way communal? Or does it feel, in fact, quite the opposite? Even members of the most ambitious and tightly-knit book clubs tend to do their actual reading in solitude. As such, when the noise of the world becomes occluded by the bestseller between your hands, it’s easy (and perhaps optimal?) to forget that so many others are journeying across this exact same text. You can’t see your companions now, your fellow patrons. They’re nowhere on your radar. You have no idea who they are or that they exist at all. Nevertheless, as you read, your fellow adventurers are out there waiting to meet you, biding their time behind a chance encounter, a well-fated introduction, a tweet, or a blog post, or an otherwise interesting article of prose. You didn’t realize it, but so much mystery, so much anticipation has amassed behind your new friendship, a cosmos-load of potential energy. You didn’t know it — you were too engaged with the mind behind the words — but through all the sentences, the pages, the lovely, lonely hours past, a part of you secretly longed for a flesh-and-blood friend with whom you could share your experience. When you meet your friend, you’ve met an instant confidant. You unburden yourselves on one another, reliving the adventures, revisiting those daunting and glorious experiences you dearly miss, refining and refreshing your perspective in the silver gazing pool of another soul, one that’s triumphed through similar loneliness. Book-bonding is soul-mating, pre-arranged through art, fun-filled and beautiful as a wedding.

Image Credit: Flickr/nSeika

Article source: http://www.themillions.com/2012/05/from-the-library-of-your-soul-mate-the-unique-social-bond-of-literature.html

Posted: May 17, 2012 at 0117 hrs IST

Mohali
A high-powered committee set up by the state government has found that the lands owned by Punjab DGP Sumedh Singh Saini and five other senior officers were actually parts of the village common land (shamlat/ mushtarkan malkan).

The committee, formed to probe the nature of land owned by 60 VIPs in Chandigarh’s periphery, found that apart from these six officers, two others — retired bureucrat JS Kesar and former SSP, G S Pherurai — have been shown to own land which is still, according to the revenue records, part of the village shamlat deh.

Selling and buying of shamlat deh land by private individuals is illegal under the Punjab Village Common Land (Regulations) Rules, 1964. Also division and subsequent sale of jumla mushtarkan malkan land is illegal under The East Punjab Holdings (Consolidation and Prevention of Fragmentation) Act, 1948. Any such land deal amounts to the buyer having committed fraud with the village panchayat which is the custodian of all such lands.

The committee’s report, prepared by the government following orders of the Punjab and Haryana High Court was submitted to the chief secretary on Friday.

The report gathered by the Mohali deputy commissioner from the tehsil offices in Kharar, Dera Bassi and Majri block, states that only eight out of the 60 VIPs whose names were provided by the court owned or ever owned public land.

Saini owned 32 kanal 9 marla (a little more than 4 acres) land in Kansal village. One acre (8 kanals) of this land was however sold vide mutation number 3955. This land, states the DC’s report, was part of the mushtakan malkan rasab hasab khewat (village common land) till 1986 when it was divided among the owners according to their individual shares. Saini bought this land from these individuals a decade later.

Similarly, the state election commissioner Shivinder Singh Brar owns another 32 kanals adjoining Saini’s land in Kansal, which too was part of the village common land till 1986.

JS Kesar, a retired IAS officer of the state has been shown to own 58 kanals 5 marla of land in Tira village, which is shamlat deh (indivisible village common land). Kesar has been issued eviction orders by the block development and panchayat officer (BDPO), Majri block, on May 4.

Former SSP, G S Pherurai, also owns 15 kanal 12 marla shamlat deh land in Dhanora village, also in the Majri block. He too was issued eviction orders on May 4 by the BDPO. D S Dhillon, son of Lal Singh IAS, Joginder Singh, Baldev Singh and Gurmeet Singh too have been shown to own plots, which were once part of the village common land.

On March 24, a division bench of acting Chief Justice MM Kumar and Justice Alok Singh, which is hearing a petition on the acquisition of property by the VIPs in Chandigarh’s periphery, had asked the Punjab government to report whether land purchased by the 60 high-ranking officers and politicians was ever “public” land and if anyone of them were in possession of shamlat/ forest/ panchayat/ nazrool land. The court had also asked the government on the measures it had taken to get public land released from these officers.

The 60 VIPs under the scanner were named in the probe report of former ADGP Punjab, Chandrashekhar as owning vast tracts of properties in and around Chandigarh.

The list shows Chief Minister Parkash Singh Badal as owning five acres of land in Lohgarh village, his OSD Vishwajeet Khanna owning 21 acres in Nimbuan village, a former chief engineer Manmohanjit Singh owning 38 acres in Nimbuan, a former IAS officer AS Chattha owning land in Bishanpura, former DGP, Punjab, Gurbachan Singh Jagat owning land in Bishanpura, Navtej Singh son of Balwant Singh Ramoowalia owning land in village Chatt, Late Captain Kanwaljit Singh (Kishanpura), SS Boparai (Kishanpura), Kewal Singh Dhillon (Kishanpura), SS Virk (Dialpura, Bakarpur and Makhanmjra), Jagmohan Singh Kang and his family (Dulwa), Balbir Singh Sidhu (Kurari), Surinder Pal Singh Virk (Mohali).

Senior IAS officer KBS Sidhu is shown to “own” two schools, including the Small Wonders School in Mohali, in the name of Jasdeep Singh and Mandeep Singh in the list. Interestingly, the three tehsils, which were asked to go through the entries in the list and cross check them with the relevant revenue records found that in many cases the details in the list had no corroborative evidence in revenue records.

For instance the list states that Sumedh Singh Saini owns the “Saini-Farm” in village Sohana. He is shown to own another 6.5 acres in Sohana. The list also states that Saini is in illegal possession of 377 kanal and 10 marla of shamlat land of village Kansal. The report prepared for the High Court, however, shows that according to the revenue records Saini owns only 32.9 kanals in Kansal. No other land is shown to be owned by Saini. Similarly the list names former DGP NPS Aulakh owning land in Mohali, which too was not borne out by revenue records.

Article source: http://www.expressindia.com/latest-news/punjab-dgp-7-others-own-village-common-land/950240/

There was also a mild “QE3 hope” overlay present in the marketplace to help gold recover from the deep loss it incurred on Wednesday. That kind of optimism came from players reading certain things that smacked of potential QE into the FOMC’s just-released meeting minutes, and from just plain reading the numbers related to the Philly Fed manufacturing index and the US’ leading economic indicators (both only so-so). Follow-through action remains essential in order to be able to begin talking about the bear tide having turned. On the physical side, Chinese demand softened notably after the price recovery dampened buying appetite according to Standard Bank’s daily report.

But – as Reuters reports – “with the euro and US stocks in decline and Greece still on the brink of leaving the euro zone, many traders saw the gains as little more than a “dead-cat bounce”, slang for a small but temporary rally that follows significant declines. Milko Markov, an investment management analyst at SK Hart Management LLC, said about yesterday’s action that: ”When the move to the upside is so elastic, it suggests a lot of people caught at the wrong side, but also confirms the medium negative trend.”

Similar sentiment was manifest in the comments made by UBS analyst Edel Tully this morning when she noted in a report that “To see a return of gold reacting positively to macro stresses is indeed refreshing, but it is still far too early to make any firm conclusions from here that gold has indeed turned the corner. Follow-through buying will have to kick in to encourage investors to jump in.” The good news? Nothing (in the markets) goes straight up or down. Ever. Not for long, anyway.

Spot New York dealings this morning showed gold trading at $1,588 per ounce on the bid-side, silver quoted at $28.38 an ounce and platinum and palladium modestly higher as well. The former gained $6 to open near $1,455 and the latter climbed $2 to $603 an ounce. The PGM market is once again manifesting fears about supplies, following the break-out of hostilities between two rival mining unions at Implats’ Rustenburg mine (the world’s largest platinum mine). One worker seriously injured and tensions remain high. Standard Bank reports that “As of this morning, the company reported that “everything is calm” and that the incident had not affected production.”

On the negative side for PGMs there are reports that the slowing Chinese economy is swelling the number of unsold automobiles on the country’s dealership lots. Automakers Honda, Chery, and Geely are now carrying an estimated 45 days’ worth of inventory and the development comes as a warning sign that not all is well with the economy (read more about all that, below). In a country that normally sells a new car every 2.3 seconds, the total vehicular sales tally fell by 1.3% in the first four months of 2012 and that could turn out to be the worst such showing since 1998. Caution: bumpy road ahead.

More PGM niche-related news for you today: India’s Geological Survey announced that nearly 20 million tonnes of “platinum-group elements” have been found in exploratory surveys across that country. Major PGM findings were reported from the Eastern State of Odisha and Southern States of Karnataka and Tamil Nadu.

Background market indications showed the US dollar steady near 81.40 on the index and the euro mired close to the $1.272 level against it, while crude oil gained 22 cents to rise to $92.75 per barrel. Dow futures pointed higher albeit the past week has not been kind to that market and we won’t even mention what European shares (or Asian ones for that matter) have been subjected to of late.

The latest blows to the EU’s financial system came from Moody’s which downgraded 16 Spanish banks and from Fitch’s which downgraded Greece’s sovereign debt rating to CCC (read: “poor quality with possibility of default”). Germany’s Finance Minister said that-as he sees it-the upheaval in the region’s financial markets might drag on for another two years. The G-8 meets today in the US and will try to once again “do more” to put out the fires in the system.

The heavy fall in gold prices has, of course, once again, given rise to a plethora of allegations about the market being manipulated by unnamed (okay, sometimes even named) evil sources working for the ‘Gubmint’ or for Mr. Bernanke, or for Dr. Evil, or for Auric Goldfinger. Well, here is something this author thought he’d never report on; a major “defection” in the pro-gold camp over to the manipulation-skeptic side. 

None other than noted financial newsletter writer and gold advocate Doug Casey wrote a brilliant piece that appeared on LewRockwell.com in which he dissects the possible manipulation-related questions and concludes that they are little but rhetorical. Mr. Casey advises his readers to buy gold “even at current prices” but he instructs them to do it for “the right reasons.” Fighting “manipulation” is not one of them. 

As Mr. Casey sees it, the “arguments about gold manipulation are more redolent of religious belief than economic reasoning.” Wow. That kind of straight talk, will hopefully not earn Mr. Casey the kind of e-mailed death threat that this author “enjoyed” last week, but it is sure to swell the “inbox” that he gets to read every day. Evidently, he did not realize that talking in “The Church of Gold” is strictly verboten. For his courage, applause is due. 

Meanwhile, Business Intelligence Middle East notes that gold has not only experienced what it calls “heavy falls” since February, but that “Since mid-Q3, when equity markets turned on better US economic data, the price of gold has essentially followed risk appetite.” You have, no doubt, seen numerous headlines on the Kitco news site over the past half a year that have linked gold’s daily trials and tribulations to “risk-off” type of sentiment manifest in the markets. 

Article source: http://www.resourceinvestor.com/2012/05/18/bullion-higher-amid-wide-ranging-outlooks?t=precious-metals

Arnab Chaudhuri was sure of one thing: when he would “spin the yarn”, it would be of “epic” proportions. Putting in three years with a team of 300, and plots from the Mahabharata, he is ready with Arjun – The Warrior Prince, his directorial debut. The film releases on May 25.

“I always wanted to make an epic action martial arts film, and Arjun was the perfect subject,” says Chaudhuri. Arjun – The Warrior Prince is the untold story of this hero, from his boyhood to a world of betrayal, vengeance and deceit. The director admits it was difficult to sift through the story matter and create the era, the palaces, the sceneries, the battlefields and the lifestyle in animation. He has roped in music directors Vishal and Shekhar for the music.

Choosing an animation over a live action feature has its advantages. “Animated characters have more freedom and space, and can be experimented with,” agrees ‘Shaktimaan’ Mukesh Khanna, now prepping for a 3D film and a 3D TV show.

“We started with Shaktimaan in 1997, and ran it for seven years. Now, it’s time to bring back the hero in a new avatar,” says Khanna. So, out goes ‘Pandit Gangadhar Vidyadhar Mayadhar Omkarnath Shastri’ and in comes ‘Rihaan Arya’. “Rihaan is no longer the bumbling photographer; he is a cyber junkie,” says Khanna. The animated version airs on Nickelodeon and Sonic.

On the other hand, Pune-based Krayon Animation has produced India’s first first stereoscopic 3D animation feature film, Delhi Safari. A slice of famous animation Madagascar, this one has five jungle inmates on a misson spiced with all the ingredients of a Bollywood blockbuster. “There’s Akshaye Khanna as Alex, the rogue parrot; Govinda as Bajrangi, the militant monkey and Urmila Matondkar as the Queen,” says Rashmi Ahad, producer of the film. While Delhi Safari releases this year end, Ahad’s next project is Govind Nihalini’s Kamlu, the story of a flying camel.

… contd.

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Tags: Arnab Chaudhuri, Mahabharata, Arjun – The Warrior Prince, Rihaan Arya

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Article source: http://www.indianexpress.com/news/on-an-animation-safari/951099/

(AFP)
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7 hours ago 

NEW DELHI — Indian women’s groups applauded Friday cabinet approval of amendments to a bill that would for the first time grant women a clearly-defined share of their husband’s property after divorce.

The new Marriage Bill will, if passed by parliament, ensure a woman’s right to a 50 percent share of the residential property owned by her husband, whether it was acquired before or after their marriage.

Activists said the amendments green-lighted by the cabinet on Thursday threw an important legal lifeline to women who too often find themselves homeless and with no income source after a divorce.

“The government’s decision is a giant leap in the right direction. It will secure every woman’s future,” said Ranjana Kumari who heads an advocacy group called Women Power Connect.

Existing law recognises a divorced women’s right to a property share, but the size of the share is not defined and, when disputed, is left to the discretion of the court along with the alimony payment.

“The changes in the divorce law are pragmatic,” said Pinky Anand, a lawyer and an expert on family law in the Supreme Court.

“It also gives recognition to a wife’s contribution in the household. She will never be on the street with no money after her divorce.”

Another amendment approved by the cabinet on Thursday stipulates that a statutory six-month “cooling off period” for couples seeking a divorce can only be waived with the agreement of both parties.

Currently, either party is able to seek a waiver without consent of the other.

There is no immediate timeframe for when the amended bill will go before parliament.

India, where marriage is still viewed as the bedrock of society, has traditionally had one of the world’s lowest divorce rates, with only about one in 100 marriages failing.

But the rate is rising, particularly in big cities, in line with the greater empowerment and increasing financial independence of women in urban India through better education and employment.

Copyright © 2012 AFP. All rights reserved.
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Article source: http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5hvgHAfLVPUfVW4PO8NrYIurW-w5A?docId=CNG.cfebc313082c50fbd726b40ecaf830b6.7e1

“Because of the rupee’s downward trend, real estate has become cheaper for NRIs and many of them are now actively seeking residential property investment opportunities in the financial capital,” says Om Ahuja, CEO – Residential Services, Jones Lang LaSalle India “Apart from the advantages they have due to the depreciating rupee, developers are more than willing to offer discounts today owing to their ongoing liquidity concerns,” says Om Ahuja.

Should you invest?

Investing in real estate makes sense only if you plan to return to India eventually. And when it comes to finalising the investment, focus on the current price and the potential value of the property in a particular city or a suburb. Here is a quick check list.

1) Reputed builder

“You have opt for a familiar and reputed builder as there is greater chance that projects of reputed builders will appreciate more than the others,” says Jayant Pai, CFP, Vice-President Parag Parikh Financial Advisory Services.

2) Location

The scope for capital appreciation will be much higher in suburbs where you expect infrastructure development. That way you can enter at a lower price level and make optimum gains. “Ideally the locations should witness some big infrastructure development such as launch of new commercial spaces, airport, IT parks etc. These developments have the potential to earn a good return on your real estate investment,” says Om Ahuja.

This can be underscored from that fact that in Chennai, properties along OMR road are fetching good values because of its proximity to several IT companies. “If you buy a house in such locations, there is scope to see good capital appreciation and also you stand a good chance to get a personal or corporate lease on such properties,” says Om Ahuja.

3) Invest in individual houses or apartments

“NRIs are not permitted to purchase plots of land/plantations/farm houses and even commercial real estate is subject to a plethora of limiting regulations, purchasing apartments or bungalows may be the only options available,” says Jayant Pai.

4) Document Check

The most important document required is the sale/purchase deed. Sale deed will confirm the land is on the seller’s name who has the only right to sell the land. You need a copy of previous deeds if you have also bought it as a resale property. You also need original copies of Stamp duty and registered house documents. In case of a joint ownership, the owner/owners have to submit documented consent from the joint owners.

5) Avoid short-term investment

Ideally an investor should look at a time horizon of 5-7 years to compute actual gains, experts say. “However, real estate investments in the near term can get tricky since it is an interest rate sensitive sector. The demand may be impacted by relatively high interest rates,” says Vishal Kapoor Head, Wealth Management, Standard Chartered Bank, India.

Article source: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/nri/nri-real-estate/weak-rupee-makes-real-estate-investments-cheaper-for-the-nris/articleshow/13264447.cms

DLF Limited plans to raise R2900Cr by 17 -Acre plot sale. The prospect buyers for this plot are Lodha group and Vornado Realty Trust.

The deal will help DLF to bring down its debt, which stands at R22578Cr. The company plans to decrease R10000Cr of its debt by 2013.

DLF is continuously selling its non-core assets to decrease it’s debt. Recently, DLF Hotels Hospitality was sold to Square Four Housing at R550Cr; DLF raised R1200Cr by selling an IT park in Noida and an SEZ in Pune and sold two plots at Gurgaon. It is also in process to sell its luxury hotel chain Aman Resorts.

Performance at BSE

Established in 1980, the Lodha Group is Mumbai’s premier real estate developer. The Group is currently developing in excess of 30 million sq ft of prime real estate, over 27 projects in and around Mumbai, from Napean Sea Road to Dombivali.

In 2010, Lodha developers acquired land for R5700Cr at Wadala, Mumbai and R250Cr land from Lupin.

Vornado Realty Trust is a US based fund, which owns and manages a portfolio of over 100Mn square feet in New York and Washington DC. Vornado Realty is managed by TCG Real Estate.

Last month, Vornado with TCG and India Property Fund sold a commercial asset at Bandra Kurla Complex to Citigroup for R985Cr.

Recently in the space, HDIL sold two-acre plot in Mumbai to Adnai Enterprises for R900Cr to repay its debt, Parsvnath planned to raise R700Cr by land sale at Delhi, Piramal acquired one acre Gulita – property Hindustan Unilever for R452Cr.

Raise , land sale , acre , realty , debt , bring down , , Vornado Realty Trust , TCG Real Estate , Adnai Enterprises , Piramal , Gulita , HDIL , Parsvnath , Hindustan Unilever , Aman Resorts , DLF Limited , Lupin

Article source: http://www.dealcurry.com/20120518-DLF-To-Raise-R2900Cr-By-Land-Sale-To-Repay-Debt.htm