Current Affairs Updates : July 29, 2009

July 27, 2009 : Rs. 50000 crore lost every year in farm produce handling
July 27, 2009: IT sector to employ about 2.25 mn by 2015
July 27, 2009: The Fall of per capita availability of Food Grains in India
July 27, 2009: India's Top 10 Trading Partners
July 27, 2009: NASSCOM Top 10 BPO employers of India

1. Fragmented farming,
2. Lack of cold chain facilities,
3. Lack of Transportation, proper storage and processing facilities

How can this affect the food security act ?
Commodity analysts express fear that the huge crop losses can jeopardise the Centre's plan to enact a food security law, especially at a time when poor monsoon has raised concerns on lower farm production. Govt needs to take appropriate steps.

July 27, 2009: India IT sector to employ about 2.25 million by 2015
According to Minister of state for labour and employment Harish Rawat Indian IT sector is expected to directly employ about 2.25 million professionals by 2015. This figure was based upon a study which was conducted by the department of IT in consultation with the National Manufacturing Competitiveness Council.

July 27, 2009: The Fall of per capita availability of Food Grains in India
India's per capita availability of foodgrain was 436 grams a day in 2008, 442.8 grams in 2007 and 445.3 grams in 2006. So it is falling every year.
What is the reason?
As per a reply given by Minister of state for agriculture, K V Thomas in Loksabha, this is because of fluctuations in production caused by variations in weather conditions.

India's foodgrain production had touched an all-time-high of 230.78 million tonnes in 2007-08, followed by 233.88 MT in 2008-09.

July 27, 2009: India's Top 10 Trading Partners
In 2007-08, India's trade stats were as follows:
Exports =$162.98 billion
Imports =$251.56 billion
Total trade= $414.54 billion
Trade Deficit= $88.58 billion

Following are figures for April 08-December 08 (3 quarters):
Exports =$131.13 billion
Imports =$235.34 billion
Total trade= $366.47 billion
Trade Deficit= $104.21 billion

Here is a list of India's largest trade partners:

1. United States
2. China
3. United Arab Emirates
4. Saudi Arabia
5. Germany
6. Singapore
7. Hong Kong
8. United Kingdom
9. Belgium
10. Netherlands

July 27, 2009: NASSCOM releases list of top 10 BPO employers of India
A list was recently released by NASSCOM which gives the names of India's biggest employers in IT BPO sector. The top rank is of TCS which employes 126000 people. The list of top 10 companies with the names of their CEO / chairman is as follows:

1. TCS : S Ramadorai.
2. Infosys : S Gopalakrishnan
3. Wipro : Azim Premji
4. Cognizant : Francisco D'Souza
5. HCL Tech : Shiv Nadar
6. HP India : Mark Hurd
7. Mphasis : Ganesh Ayyar
8. Intelenet : Susir Kumar
9. IBM Daksh : Shanker Annaswamy (Regional GM)
10. Genpact : Pramod Bhasin

India's IT-BPO dustry directly employs nearly 2.2 million (22 lakh) professionals.

source : Rediff Business