CRR controversy

SBI chairman pratip choudhury had showed his discontent towards the cash reserve ratio(CRR) comparing CRR to a Non-Performing Asset(NPA).There is a reason behind his statement, for every 100 rupees of fresh deposits raised banks keep aside 4.25 rupees as CRRwith RBI on which they earn no interest income.The balance sheet is hit straight away.... banks now have to deploy rupees 95.75 at commercial rates in such a way as to ensure the depositor earns interest on his rupees 100. But before they do that banks have to invest rupees 24 in government securities under statutory liquid ratio (SLR) which offers the lowest interest rate among all interest bearing asset categories. So now, banks have to earn enough interest income from remaining 71.75 rupees to ensure depositor earn his interest income, but the banks also make health profit. But this is not the end of anomalies. From 71.75 rupees 40 % that is 28.7 has to be allocated to priority sector. At the end of this rather uneconomical model banks are finally left with 43.05 rupees to do commercial banking and earn enough interest income to enable to pay its depositor interest on his 100 rupees,distributing some profits to the shareholders,bonus to employees and plough balance profit to capital for future expansion.
some suggestions from banking industry:
CRR should pay an interest to banks
SLR should be brought down to levels comparable with else where in the world. Slr in many countries is as low as 10% such as in US and 1% in Australia.
Assets of UBS and DEUTSCHE Bank are over 260% and 75% of GDP of Switzerland and Germany, respectively. Assets of ICBC are about 35% of the GDP of China. in Contrast Assets of ICICI, India"S second largest bank are around 6% of India's GDP. Assets of SBI and ICICI taken together are around 25% of GDP.

Nobel Prize in chemistry 2012

Robert J. Lefkowitz and Brian K. Kobilka both from USA are awarded the 2012 Nobel Prize in Chemistry for having mapped how a family of receptors called G-protein–coupled receptors (GPCRs) work. In this family, we find receptors for adrenalin (also known as epinephrine), dopamine, serotonin, light, flavor and odour. Most physiological processes depend on GPCRs. Around half of all medications act through these receptors, among them beta blockers,
antihistamines and various kinds of psychiatric medications.

G-protiens are also known as guanine nucleotide- binding protiens are a family of protiens involved in transmitting chemical signals from ouside a cell into the cell.G-protien function as molicular switch. G-protien located within a cell are activated by G-protien coupled receptors (GPCRs) that span the cell membrane. G-protiens and GPCRs working ogether transmit signals from many harmones,nuerotransmitters.G-protiens metabolic enzymes,ion channels, transporter, and other part of cell machinery controlling transcription mobility,contracility and secreition which in turn regulate diverse systemic functions such as embryonic development, learning, memory and hoemostasis. G-protien complexes are three types α,β,γ.


In the 1980s, Lefkowitz decides that his research group should try to find the gene that codes for the beta receptor. This decision would prove to be crucial to this year’s Nobel Prize. A gene is similar to a blueprint. It contains a code that is read by the cell when it joins amino acids to create a protein, for  instance, a receptor. The idea was that if the research group could isolate the gene and read the blueprint for the beta receptor, they could get clues as to how the receptor works.

At about the same time, Lefkowitz hires a young doctor, Brian Kobilka. His fascination with adrenergic receptors was born of his experience in hospital intensive care. A shot of epinephrine could be the difference between life and death. The hormone opens up a swollen respiratory system and speeds up the heart rate. Kobilka wanted to study the power of epinephrine in its smallest molecular detail, and so approached Lefkowitz and his team of researchers.

Kobilka engages in the hunt for the gene. However, during the 1980s, trying to find a particular gene in the body’s enormous genome is a bit like trying to find a needle in a haystack; the technically challenging  project is slow to advance. However, Kobilka has an ingenious idea that makes it possible to isolate  the gene. With great anticipation, the researchers begin to analyze its code; it reveals that the receptor consists of seven long and fatty (hydrophobic) spiral strings – so-called helices . This tells the scientists that the receptor probably winds its way back and forth through the cell wall seven times.

Seven times. This was the same number of strings and same spiral shape as a different receptor that already had been found elsewhere in the body: the light receptor rhodopsin in the retina of the eye. An idea is born: could these two receptors be related, even though they have completely different functions?

Robert Lefkowitz later described this as a “real eureka moment”. He knew that both adrenergic receptors and rhodopsin interact with G-proteins on the inside of the cell. He also knew of about 30 other receptors that work via G-proteins. The conclusion: there has to be a complete family of receptors that look alike and function in the same manner!

Nobel prize in physics 2012

What does noble prize 2012 mean to a common man?


Serge Haroche of France,college de France and  David J. Wineland of USA,colorado university,USA have independently invented and developed ground-breaking
methods for measuring and manipulating individual particles while preserving their quantum-mechanical nature, in ways that were previously thought unattainable.

David Wineland's method of ion isolation:

A laser is used to suppress the ion’s thermal motion in the trap, putting the ion
in its lowest energy state and thus enabling the study of quantum phenomena with the trapped ion.A carefully tuned laser pulse can be used to put the ion in a superposition state, which is a simultaneous existence of two distinctly different states. For example, the ion can be prepared to occupy two different energy levels simultaneously. It starts in a lowest energy level and the laser pulse only nudges the ion halfway towards a higher energy level so that it is left in between the two levels, in a superposition of energy states, with an equal probability of ending up in either of them. In this way a quantum superposition of the ion’s energy states can be studied.

Serge Haroche's method of photon isolation:

Serge Haroche and his research group employ a different method to reveal the mysteries of the quantum world. In the laboratory in Paris microwave photons bounce back and forth inside a small cavity between two mirrors, about three centimeters apart. The mirrors are made of superconducting material and are cooled to a temperature just above absolute zero. These superconducting mirrors are the world’s shiniest. They are so reflective that a single photon can bounce back and forth inside the cavity for almost a tenth of a second before it is lost or absorbed. This record-long life-time means that the photon will have traveled 40,000 kilometers  equivalent to about one trip around the Earth.

A Rydberg atom has a radius of about 125 manometers which is roughly 1,000 times larger than typical atoms. These gigantic doughnut-shaped Rydberg atoms are sent into the cavity one by one at a carefully chosen speed, so that the interaction with the microwave photon occurs in a well controlled manner.The Rydberg atom traverses and exits the cavity, leaving the microwave photon behind.
Applications:

1)A possible application of ion traps that many scientists dream of is the quantum computer. In present-day classical computers the smallest unit of information is a bit that takes the value of either 1 or 0. In a quantum computer, however, the basic unit of information – a quantum bit or qubit – can be 1 and 0 at the same time. Two quantum bits can simultaneously take on four values – 00, 01, 10 and 11 – and  each additional qubit doubles the amount of possible states. For n quantum bits there are 2^n possible states, and a quantum computer of only 300 qubits could hold 2^300 values simultaneously, more than the number of atoms in the universe.


2)David Wineland and his team of researchers have also used ions in a trap to build a clock that is a hundred times more precise than the cesium based atomic clocks which are currently the standard for our measurement of time. Time is kept by setting, or synchronizing all clocks against one standard. Cesium clocks operate in the microwave range whereas Wineland’s ion clocks use visible light – hence their name: optical clocks. An optical clock can consist of just one ion or two ions in a trap. With two ions, one is  used as the clock and the other is used to read the clock without destroying its state, or causing  it to miss a tick. The precision of an optical clock is better than one part in 1017, which means that if one had started to measure time at the beginning of the universe in the Big Bang about 14 billion years ago, the optical clock would only have been off by about five seconds today.

3) When we navigate with the GPS we rely on time signals from satellites with clocks that are routinely calibrated, because gravity is somewhat weaker several hundred kilometers up in the sky. With an optical clock it is possible to  measure a difference in the passage of time when the clocks speed is changed by less than 10 meters per second, or when gravity is altered as a consequence of a difference in height of only 30 centimeters.