Loud Thinking

Archive for September, 2015

World’s largest DEMONCRACY (or Modi’s murder Muslimscracy) wants to sit as a permanent member of the UN Security Council.

A Times of India report:
Right next door to Delhi, mob lynches man over cow slaughter rumour..!
http://m.timesofindia.com/city/noida/Mob-kills-man-over-cow-slaughter-rumour/articleshow/49161246.cms

GREATER NOIDA: A 58-year-old man was killed by a mob in Greater Noida’s Bisada village on Monday night following rumours of cow slaughter in his house. As tension gripped the village and spread to nearby areas, another mob went on the rampage on Tuesday morning in Ooncha Amirpur – barely 5km from Bisada – demanding death penalty for those involved in cow slaughter. The mob clashed with the police after six people were arrested for the murder.
Kiran S, SSP, Gautam Budh Nagar said, “Around 800 armed forces, including a battalion of Provincial Armed Constabulary and police from Ghaziabad, Bulandshahr and Hapur, have been deployed in the village and the areas around it.”
Family members of Iqlakh, the murdered Bisada villager, denied slaughtering any cow in their small house and claimed the story was cooked up to target them. They also claimed neither the cops reached on time nor their neighbours came to their rescue. Iqlakh lived there with his 70-year-old mother Asgari, 52-year-old wife Ikraman, younger son Danish (21) and daughter Sahista (16). His elder son Sartaz works with the Indian Air Force and is currently posted in Chennai. Danish suffered serious injuries in the attack.
“Hundreds of people gathered in front of our house on Monday night and started abusing us,” Asgari told TOI. “A heated argument followed for 10 minutes after which the agitators turned violent and broke open the main gate. They misbehaved with my daughter-in-law and grand-daughter. They did not even spare me. I had locked myself in the washroom but they broke open the washroom door and thrashed me.”
Asgari added, “The attack continued for nearly half an hour, but no one came to our rescue. They brutally thrashed my son and grandson. They, then dragged my son’s body to the road and fled after dumping it there.”
SP (rural) Sanjay Singh said Iqlakh’s body has been handed over to his family after an autopsy, the report of which suggested that he died due to severe blood loss and haemmorage. He also said an FIR had been filed against 10 people, six of whom were nabbed and put behind bars. They have been identified as Rupender, Vivek, Sree Om, Sandeep, Saurabh and Gaurav, all in their late 20s.
“All accused are from Bisada,” Singh said. “They have confessed. We recovered some meat from their possession. The accused claimed it was beef that they recovered from the deceased’s home. It has come to our knowledge that the mob held a meeting in a temple in the middle of the village, where they decided to teach the deceased a lesson for slaughtering cows. The mob then rushed to the victim’s home and attacked the family,” he added.
BJP district president Thakur Harish Singh blamed the police for the incident. “The police did not react on time. The locals gave samples of meat to cops but they did not take it seriously. Then some people got agitated. We urge people to restore peace,” he said.
A man named Rahul Yadav reportedly sustained a bullet injury on his left hip during Tuesday’s clash in Ooncha Amirpur. Yadav is being treated in a private hospital. A magisterial probe has been ordered into the clash.
Gautam Budh Nagar’s district magistrate N P Singh announced financial assistance of Rs 50,000 for the treatment of Danish. “We have also recommended financial help for the family. We have formed peace committees to restore amity in the area. Senior administration officials are coordinating with the peace committees,” he said.

Dear Mian Muhammad Nawaz Sharif PM Pakistan.

Sir,

The below mentioned analysis of Mr. Asad Omar is really alarming and needs an impartial high level inquiry into the fact that why certain key indicators of Pakistan’s economy and business have gone down in your current tenure, to the level even below than than the previous PPP government led by Asif Ali Zardari during 2008-2013.

Quote.
“Pakistan’s ranking in the world economic forum global competitiveness index has dropped from 124th at the end of the Zardari era to 129th this year. The doing business report of the World Bank dropped Pakistan from 107th to 128th. The combination of this eroding competitiveness and the piling of exorbitantly expensive debt is sinking Pakistan further into a debt trap imperiling future generations of the country.”
Unquote.

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

Sir,

Please peruse the below quoted analysis of Mr. Asad Omar, which is a fit case for a highest level inquiry to find out the reasons for playing with the economy and destiny of Pakistan right under your command:

Quote.” The Government in its latest offering last week was only able to sell 500 million dollars at a yield of 8.25% which is the same pricing it got last year when Pakistan had re entered the international bond market after several years gap. Everything else remaining the same the pricing this time should have been lower as there was no re entry premium to be paid. Hence, the markets were essentially saying that things are getting worse. Umar stated that comparison with recent bond issues by other emerging market countries makes for shocking reading. Just two examples would suffice. Kenya doing its first ever issue last year and raising 1.5 billion dollars at a yield of 6.875%. Similarly Sri Lanka just a few months back raised 650 million dollars at a pricing of 6.125% which is more than 2% lower than what Pakistan is going to pay!”Unquote.

---

 

Mr. Ishaq Dar, the nation wants to know why you issued Euro Bonds at 8.25% when for comparison, Nigeria’s dollar debt carries a yield of 7pc these days, and the average for other African and Middle Eastern countries surveyed by Bloomberg was 2.8pc?

Link:- http://www.dawn.com/news/1209679/analysis-eurobond-attracts-controversy

 

Analysis: Eurobond attracts controversy
KHURRAM HUSAIN —
THE latest Pakistani Eurobond, issued last week, has hit controversy even before the finance team has returned to the country.

Pakistan offered 10-year paper at an 8.25pc yield, and received bids worth $1 billion. The last Eurobond was issued in April 2014, when the government also targeted to raise $500 million, but attracted bids worth almost $6 billion and ended up raising $2bn from the exercise. The yield then was also 8.25pc.

The diminished participation, as well as the unchanged yield from the last bond offering in 2014, has led people to suggest that the exercise ought to have been delayed, since markets were still in the grip of jitters following a steady stream of unnerving news from China and hints from the US Federal Reserve that a hike in interest rates may be coming soon.

Also read: Pakistan issues $500 million Euro bond

According to data obtained from Reuters, Pakistan’s 10-year US dollar-denominated bond issued in April last year traded at 104.883 cents on Monday — still well above its issue price but below the record high of almost 110 cents hit earlier in the year. The premium suggests investors see those bonds as a lucrative asset, although it would be necessary to know how long they intend to hold the bond to determine whether the premium means the bonds may have been overpriced.

“It’s important to keep a presence in the private debt markets,” says a high-level source in the banking industry who closely follows the money markets, “but in this particular situation, the timing could have been changed in the light of negative sentiments in global markets. This bond is also likely to be traded at a premium right away, given its pricing.”

The finance ministry justified the issue, saying in a press release that it was necessary to cover repayment of a maturing bond of the same size that was issued in 2006. That bond matures in March. The ministry also saw it as a positive sign that despite difficult global conditions, “the bond was twice oversubscribed”.

Former State Bank governor Salim Raza agrees that the timing presented challenges, and adds it is reasonable to expect that the yield on this bond should have been lower than the last one. “With improvement in underlying inflation and current account flows, compared with the last issue, we should have seen a better coupon rate,” he says, expressing some puzzlement at the urgency with which the government pursued the bond. “Perhaps they have a reserve target in mind which would warrant additional borrowing.”

The relatively secure position of the reserves, at the moment, leaves many confused as to why it was necessary to go ahead with the exercise at a time when global markets are spooked by a sustained rout on Chinese stock markets as well as possibilities of rate hikes in the US.

“It really doesn’t make sense why they were so keen to pick up $500m at a high price when they have $18.5bn in reserves,” says Sakib Sherani, former adviser to the finance minister who has advised the government in earlier Eurobond flotations. “It’s not just $500m, it’s expensive $500m,” he says.

For comparison, Nigeria’s dollar debt carries a yield of 7pc these days, and the average for other African and Middle Eastern countries surveyed by Bloomberg was 2.8pc.

Pakistan’s credit rating was upgraded by Moody’s right after the budget this year. The credit rating agency cited “continued strengthening of the external payments position; and sustained progress in structural reforms under the government’s programme with the IMF” as the key reasons behind the move.

But on Sept 18, days before the bond exercise, it issued a more guarded assessment of Pakistan’s creditworthiness. That assessment, which assigned a provisional rating of B3 to the Eurobond, spoke of “factious relations between the executive, military and judicial branches of government” as well as “very low fiscal strength and high susceptibility to event risk” as key weaknesses holding back Pakistan’s creditworthiness.

That same assessment pointed to a key concern regarding the rising reserves: they are primarily driven by borrowed money. Moody’s said any strength in Pakistan’s creditworthiness stems from “support from multilateral and bilateral lenders”, underlining the importance of Pakistan’s relationship with international financial institutions like the IMF and the World Bank as principal drivers behind its strengthening reserves.

That concern appears to have been raised during the road shows leading up to the bond issue, prompting the federal finance secretary to say on record that Pakistan may yet consider another IMF programme once the current one ends next September. The secretary’s remarks indicate that investors attached high importance to Pakistan’s ongoing programme as a driver of reserve accumulation and sound fiscal management.

Despite its many problems, investors remain interested in Pakistani debt mainly because of the high yields that it offers, and an abiding faith that great powers will never let the country veer towards default. Pakistan’s external debt repayments eased in recent years as the major repayments to the IMF from the 2008 facility drew to a close. But in its last Annual Report, the State Bank cautioned that these are going to rise again from 2017 onwards, “with the onset of repayments of rescheduled Paris Club debt, Eurobonds” as well as repayments from the ongoing IMF programme. “This scenario emphasises the need for caution while framing debt management strategy of Pakistan.”

Published in Dawn, September 29th , 2015

 

Dear Mr. Prime Minister,

AoA.

Sir,

The following news item (link:- http://www.futurity.org/fusion-reactor-cheaper-coal-785162/?utm_source=taboola&utm_medium=referral&utm_term=timesofindia-timesofindia) clearly spells out a very cheap and extremely CLEAN source of electricity production, from the Fusion Reactor technology.

As is known to the whole world, Pakistani scientists are second to none, in proving their skills and facing the toughest scientific and technological challenges.

As such, you are requested to kindly order the concerned to immediately start working, on the plans to produce extremely cheap electricity with Fusion Reactors, to change the destiny of the nation on a fast track basis; and also to achieve (before due time) the 40,000 MW nuclear power production target fixed to be achieved by 2050.

 

THIS FUSION REACTOR COULD BE CHEAPER THAN COAL
UNIVERSITY OF WASHINGTON

Posted by Michelle Ma-Washington on October 16, 2014

You are free to share this article under the Attribution 4.0 International license.
Fusion energy almost sounds too good to be true—zero greenhouse gas emissions, no long-lived radioactive waste, a nearly unlimited fuel supply.

Perhaps the biggest roadblock to adopting fusion energy is that the economics haven’t penciled out. Fusion power designs aren’t cheap enough to outperform systems that use fossil fuels such as coal and natural gas.

University of Washington engineers hope to change that. They have designed a concept for a fusion reactor that, when scaled up to the size of a large electrical power plant, would rival costs for a new coal-fired plant with similar electrical output.

The team published its reactor design and cost-analysis findings last spring and will present results this week at the International Atomic Energy Agency’s Fusion Energy Conference in St. Petersburg, Russia.

“Right now, this design has the greatest potential of producing economical fusion power of any current concept,” says Thomas Jarboe, a professor of aeronautics and astronautics and an adjunct professor in physics.

HOW IT WORKS

The reactor, called the dynomak, started as a class project taught by Jarboe two years ago. After the class ended, Jarboe and doctoral student Derek Sutherland—who previously worked on a reactor design at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology—continued to develop and refine the concept.

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The design builds on existing technology and creates a magnetic field within a closed space to hold plasma in place long enough for fusion to occur, allowing the hot plasma to react and burn.

The reactor itself would be largely self-sustaining, meaning it would continuously heat the plasma to maintain thermonuclear conditions. Heat generated from the reactor would heat up a coolant that is used to spin a turbine and generate electricity, similar to how a typical power reactor works.

“This is a much more elegant solution because the medium in which you generate fusion is the medium in which you’re also driving all the current required to confine it,” Sutherland says.

There are several ways to create a magnetic field, which is crucial to keeping a fusion reactor going. The new design is known as a spheromak, meaning it generates the majority of magnetic fields by driving electrical currents into the plasma itself. This reduces the amount of required materials and actually allows researchers to shrink the overall size of the reactor.

Other designs, such as the experimental fusion reactor project that’s currently being built in France—called Iter—have to be much larger than the dynomak because they rely on superconducting coils that circle around the outside of the device to provide a similar magnetic field.

When compared with the fusion reactor concept in France, the dynomak is much less expensive—roughly one-tenth the cost of Iter—while producing five times the amount of energy.

COMPARED TO COAL

Jarboe and colleagues factored the cost of building a fusion reactor power plant using their design and compared that with building a coal power plant. They used a metric called “overnight capital costs,” which includes all costs, particularly startup infrastructure fees.

A fusion power plant producing 1 gigawatt (1 billion watts) of power would cost $2.7 billion, while a coal plant of the same output would cost $2.8 billion, according to their analysis.

“If we do invest in this type of fusion, we could be rewarded because the commercial reactor unit already looks economical,” Sutherland says. “It’s very exciting.”

Right now, the concept is about one-tenth the size and power output of a final product, which is still years away. The researchers have successfully tested the prototype’s ability to sustain a plasma efficiently, and as they further develop and expand the size of the device they can ramp up to higher-temperature plasma and get significant fusion power output.

The team has filed patents on the reactor concept and plans to continue developing and scaling up its prototypes.

The US Department of Energy funded the work.

Source: University of Washington

Kind Regards,

Syed Nayyar Uddin Ahmad

An old sincere advice to India, which will always remain pertinent.

Indian PM said money doesn’t grow on trees. It does grow on a tree named PEACE However it is gobbled up by a ghost named WAR.

India is a much much larger country with a very small heart; and even a smaller mind. However, the fact remains, that there can be no peace in the sub-continent, without the consent of India.

Pakistan is already continuously in a state of war, since 1979; and is hardly making its both ends meet. Under the prevalent situation, India had two choices.

Firstly, to go the easy way of further destabilizing Pakistan, by reducing relations to the bare minimum, keep building physical pressure on Pakistan, with acts of sabotage and insurgency from its bases in Afghanistan; and through its international stooges, like the current government of Bangladesh.

Secondly, India had the chance to offer sincere hand of friendship, help and extend support to Pakistan, so that it comes out of its quagmire.

If India had opted for the second option, no doubt Pakistan would have been indebted to India forever; with the result that most importantly, the Kashmir issue, which has become such a financial and political burden for India, would have been eased out much peacefully and amicably, than one could ever have imagined.

Besides the foregoing, the huge gains of economic and political mileage to India, may have made it a bigger player in the world arena, than China.

India’s export target of USD 200 billion for year 2010-11 seems far behind, if compared with China, whose exports in a single month exceeds USD 200 billion.

The main secret of China’s exceptional economic performance is its peace policy towards Taiwan. For India, if it has decided not to play as a second fiddle to China, peace with Pakistan, should be the corner stone of its foreign & economic policy.

The present policy of just buying time to wait and see Pakistan falling down is in fact, hurting India more in economic & strategic terms.

Just imagine, the shape of India & its influence in the world if, at present, its exports were for example USD 3000-3600 billion per annum. It is high time India recognized its potential, realized the dividends of peace and must not settle for less, more so when both, China & Pakistan are nuclear powers.

Moreover, India must have that much self confidence that even if Pakistan wants, it can’t conquer India. So, the onus is on the bigger neighbor to go an extra mile, in pursuit of peace and as a minimum, immediately allow viewing of all Pakistani TV channels in India, restoration of full sporting and cultural relations and unilateral withdrawal of all its military from Siachin; and then see the un-imaginable dividends of these steps.

For Pakistan, acrimony in relations with India is no more an option and similarly for India shallow peace initiatives is a mere time waster.

The only option for India is GENUINE & AUTHENTIC peace in the region from Afghanistan to SriLanka. In this way, the biggest dividend which will accrue to India is the change of Chinese attitude towards India, as well.

So, India must see the intrinsic benefits of peace and shun any hegemonic designs, with not only Pakistan, but all it’s neighbors.

Nowadays, even a country like Bhutan can’t be invaded; so, why to waste so much resources on military matters, when the strength of a nation lies in eliminating poverty and ignorance, like Switzerland, which doesn’t even possesses a regular Army and easily survived in both world wars.

Still, India is banking on its policy of playing the waiting game, to make Pakistan as much week as possible, so that in future, it’s status is no more than the state of Bhutan.

Here, again the myopic Indian policy, which is basically pursued because of lack of any statesman in India, is keeping hundreds of teeming millions of sub-continent, into poverty and ignorance.

Firstly, India must remember that a stable and progressive Pakistan, standing on its own strong feet, is far more in benefit for India, rather than the vice versa.

Secondly, covert or overt war is not a viable and sensible option, either for India or Pakistan; and this is an absolutely ruled out option as well.

Thirdly, it’s the rule of nature that any larger nation focussing all it’s energy and resources, in competition with a smaller nation, drags itself, at least mentally, to the level of that small country.

The decadent myopic policy of waiting game, to see the demise of nuclear Pakistan, is not going to serve India, either in short or long term.

So, my advice to the Indian leadership and intellegensia is, to not only think and act like a large nation, but, also to behave like a large country.

These are defining moments for Pakistan.

If corrupt Mafia wins, Pakistan will forever, remain a Banana Republic.

However, if across the board accountability process succeeds, Inshallah, Pakistan will emerge as the most enviable nation in the world.

Currently, the situation is very delicately and evenly poised; and we have to keep our fingers crossed.