Current affairs to know
The Union government of India has now permitted residents of Gulf nations and all EU nations to invest directly in stock markets and allowed individual overseas investors (also known as Qualified Institutional Investors) to bring up to $1 billion in debt market.
Facebook made its Wall Street debut on May 18, 2012 with stock priced at US$ 38. It raided about US$ 16 billion in one of the biggest initial public offerings in US history. With a value of US$ 104 billion, Facebook is larger than Starbucks Corp and Hewlett-Packard combined.
The debt burden on every Indian—in the form of government’s debt—went up by 23% in 2011-12. The per capita debt in India, as on March 31, 2012, is estimated at Rs 33,0000, compared to a little over Rs 26,600 a year ago.
According to the 66th round of National Sample Survey (NSS), around 60 per cent of India’s rural population lives on less than Rs 35 a day and nearly as many in cities live on Rs 66 a day. The poorest 10 per cent of the rural population lives on Rs 15 a day, while in urban areas the figure is shade better at Rs 20 per day.