DEUTSCHE BANK PRIZE FOR FINANCIAL ECONOMICS

The Deutsche Bank Prize in Financial Economics honors renowned researchers who have made influential contributions to the fields of finance and money and macroeconomics, and whose work has led to practical and policy-relevant results. It is awarded biannually, since 2005, by the Center for Financial Studies (CFS), in partnership with Goethe University Frankfurt. The award carries an endowment of €50,000, which is donated by the Stiftungsfonds Deutsche Bank im Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft.

2005 Awardee

Eugene F. Fama, Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business, was the first winner of the prize.  He was awarded for his fundamental contributions to financial economics, in particular, for developing and investigating the concept of market efficiency, which is now a cornerstone in the field of finance.

2007 Awardee

Michael Woodford, Professor of Political Economy at Columbia University in New York, was awarded with the DB Prize 2007 for his fundamental contributions to the theory and practical analysis of monetary policy.

2009 Awardee

 Robert J. Shiller, Professor of Economics at Yale University, and Professor of Finance at Yale School of Management, was awarded the 2009 prize for his contributions to the field of financial economics.

2011 Awardee

Kenneth Rogoff, Professor of Economics and Professor of Public Policy at Harvard University, was awarded the 2011 prize for his pioneering contributions to the field of international finance and macroeconomics.

 

2013 Awardee

Raghuram G. Rajan, Professor of Finance at the University of Chicago’s Booth School of Business, RBI Governor and Chief Economic Adviser in the Finance Ministry of the Government of India, received the DB Prize 2013.

RAGHURAM RAJAN RECEIVES DEUTSCHE BANK PRIZE 2013

• Reserve Bank of India governor Raghuram G Rajan has been awarded the Fifth Deutsche Bank Prize for Financial Economics 2013, in recognition of his ground-breaking research work which influenced financial and macro-economic policies around the world.
• Presenting the prize to Rajan, Deutsche Bank co-chairman Juergen Fitschen 26^TH Sep 2013 said that it would have been hard to find a more deserving winner for this year's award.
• Rajan's career "is not only marked by path-breaking, empirically-based research, but he never shied away from the real world of complex policy issues and special interests. He never shied away from speaking inconvenient truths," Fitschen said.
• He noted that Rajan had in 2005 warned about the dangers of building up "unsustainable imbalances in the financial system," three years ahead of global financial crisis.
• "Prof. Rajan's work revealed that the relationship between the financial sector and the rest of the economy is so complex that it is not good enough to simply look at the size of the financial sector in relation to the gross domestic product ( GDP), as is done so often at present," Fitschen said.
• He had also "warned us about the dangers of using or rather misusing" financial regulations and financial systems for purposes other than their original objectives, for example, for safeguarding stability or fostering growth, the Deutsche Bank co-CEO said.
• The housing bubble in the United States, which triggered the financial crisis in 2008, had highlighted the danger of using the financial system to make up for the failures in social policies.
• Jury chairman and director of the Centre for Financial Studies Michael Heliassos said the organisers are quite pleased to welcome Rajan in his new capacity as the RBI governor.
• Rajan was picked up for the prize from more than 260 nominations from top universities, central banks and research centres in 37 countries. More than half of the nominations came from the US.

GOOGLE AT 15

• Google celebrated its 15th birthday with a trip down memory lane, and an update to the search engine formula which helped spawn the tech giant.
• The company took journalists on a tour of where it all started -- Susan Wojcicki's garage in Menlo Park, California, where Larry Page and Sergey Brin began working on Google in 1998.
• Wojcicki is currently a Google vice president. A Google+ page meanwhile included a photo album of the original home search page, and collected dozens of birthday wishes. But Google, which has grown into one of the world's biggest companies, was not content to just look at the past.
• It announced an upgrade to its main search engine, with new ways to integrate its use across different devices.
• Since 1998, the tech world has changed dramatically and Google said its search engine has been constantly improved.
• "The world has changed so much since then: billions of people have come online, the web has grown exponentially, and now you can ask any question on the powerful little device in your pocket," said Google Search chief Amit Singhal in a blog post.
• "You can explore the world with the Knowledge Graph, ask questions aloud with voice search, and get info before you even need to ask with Google Now." Singhal said the change includes "a simpler, more unified design on mobile devices." "You'll also notice a new look and feel for Google Search and ads on your phones and tablets," he added.
• "It's cleaner and simpler, optimised for touch, with results clustered on cards so you can focus on the answers you're looking for.
• Danny Sullivan of the tech blog Search Engine Land said the upgrade of main search engine is based on a new algorithm with the code name "Hummingbird," which he said is "especially designed to handle complex queries."

Negative voting to foster purity, vibrancy in elections: SC

• The Supreme Court on 27 Sep 2013 said that the voters have right to reject all candidates contesting elections.
• The Apex Court has directed the Election Commission to include negative voting by allowing voters to select none among the options.
• The Supreme Court has added that negative voting would foster purity and vibrancy in elections.
• The court says that it would lead to systemic change in polls and political parties will be forced to project clean candidates.

Hearing a petition filed by the People's Union for Civil Liberties, an NGO, the Supreme Court has directed the Election Commission to provide a button on voting machines to allow voters to reject all candidates contesting an election in a constituency.

Benefits of Right to Reject:

1.     Negative voting would foster purity and vibrancy in election.

2.     Political parties will be forced to project clean candidates.

3.     The voters who are dissatisfied with the candidates in the fray would turn up in large number to express their opinion.

Voters in Delhi, Madhya Pradesh, Rajasthan, Chhattisgarh and Mizoram - where Assembly elections are due in November - will have the right to reject option.

Presently the concept of right to reject is present in France, Belgium, Brazil, Greece, Ukraine, Chile, Bangladesh, the United States, Finland, Sweden, Columbia and Spain.

FIRST ESTUARY DISCOVERED UNDER ANTARCTICA

For the first time, scientists have discovered that Antarctica's massive ice sheet is hiding an estuary, where fresh water from rivers mixes with salt water from the ocean.

Hidden at the head of the thick Ross Ice Shelf in West Antarctica, a strange and singular ecosystem could exist in the estuary, researchers said.

"We know in the sub-aerial environment that estuaries are fascinating," said Richard Alley, a glaciologist at Penn State University and co-author of a study.

 "You have got a mixture of two very strange environments, so whether you're going to find anything that shakes up the world, I don't know, but it's a fascinating target," said Alley.

The tidal mixing zone sits beneath the end of the Whillans Ice Stream, one of the fast-moving "ice rivers" in West Antarctica. Ice streams are features that flow quickly compared to the surrounding ice, 'LiveScience' reported.

Researchers announced, earlier this year, that the buried glacial lake contained microbial life. Estuaries are channels only partly open to the ocean, and a one-kilometre-wide channel snakes inland from the Ross Sea toward Lake Whillans.

The river-like channel is about 7 meters deep. Researchers led by Huw Horgan of Victoria University in New Zealand, found signs of a thin brackish layer of sub-glacial water, ocean water and sediment several kilometres inland of the Whillans Ice Stream grounding line.

The grounding line is where the bottom of a glacier loses contact with land and floats on water. The study was published in the journal Geology.

RAJASWA BHAWAN - NATIONAL TAX HEADQUARTERS

The Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs on 24 September 2013 approved the construction of the Rajaswa Bhawan as the National Tax Headquarters at Kasturba Gandhi Marg, New Delhi at an estimated cost of 485.16 crore Rupees, which will be incurred over a period of next three and a half years. Apart from this, 15 crore Rupees will be incurred as the annual recurring expenditure after completion of the project.

The construction of the Rajaswa Bhawan, the National Tax Headquarters, in a plot of land measuring 5.65 acre has been undertaken with the objective of decongesting North Block and consolidating the establishment of both the Boards, that is the Central Board of Direct Taxes (CBDT) and the Central Board of Excise and Customs (CBEC) under one roof. These Boards, besides advising the Government on tax policies, are responsible for the overall administration of field offices under them. Both the Boards are the largest revenue collectors for the Government of India. The growth in revenue collection over the years has led to expansion of the Directorates as well as staff under the Boards, and North Block does not have the capacity to accommodate all these offices. Therefore, a composite building bringing together both the Boards and associated offices will improve efficiency immensely, as appropriate physical infrastructure and work environment are important contributors to overall efficiency in tax administration.

Foundation was laid by president Pranab Mukherjee on 23 feb 2009. The Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) was appointed as the agency for construction of the building in 2008 after obtaining approval of the Ministry of Defence and a No Objection Certificate (NOC) of the Ministry of Urban Development.

A nation-wide architectural design competition, was conducted in 2010-2011 and out of 58 final entries, the first prize award winner M/s Vistaar Architects and Planners, Mumbai was selected by a Board of Assessors and appointed as the main architect for the project for providing comprehensive architectural services.

The building design has been visualized as a modern, State-of-the-Art centrally located green building incorporating features of energy efficiency approaches in conformity with the Energy Conservation Building Code [ECBC] recommendation; Green Building concept leading to favorable Green Rating for Integrated Habitat Assessment [GRIHA]; fire protection and detection in conformity with all regulations; provision for seismic safety in conformity with all applicable Bureau of Indian Standards [BIS] codes; comprehensive waste management system; sewage treatment and recycling of water including independent system for grey and white water; minimal hard landscape and maximum soft landscape.