Oops... sorry says Novartis

lots of trouble with Indian pharma lately.

i remember reading about novartis being less than honest on cases related to ophthalmology. is this the same?

Splitting hair on Milliseconds

Been late to this beat... but then I got hang of this detail only today.

"That’s not possible, Nanex concluded, unless the data (released in Washington from the Fed) was transmitted to servers located in Chicago because there are milliseconds of latencies involved with passing along that information. It also raised the possibility that the data leaked to market participants early, allowing about $800m in futures contracts to trade milliseconds before the rest of the market learned of the decisions."

$800mn trade in 8mS early through FT Alphaville

Freaking cheating. 

Moily and oily deals

Moily has lately been in the news for a lot of reasons.

a. For suggesting that petrol bunks can be closed at 8PM or so to reduce consumption [obviously, he was misunderstood or so he said after the media exactly understood what he meant.]
b. For writing imposition letters request letters to all CM's asking them to stagger office timings [for govt offices. But then, do they ever work so much? Shouldnt 3 days weeks do rather instead of staggered shift timings? Anyway, very little work gets done... so how does it matter whether it happens at 4.00PM or 4.00AM as long as it happens [or doesnt happen?]
c. For also writing to CM's to suggest that one day a week, people travel by buses.

A few more things are happening... moily and his oily ministerial secretaries and their deputy underlings are looking at more oil opportunities - oily deals if you like. They are currently in advanced negotiations with Ramirez [Venezuela Minister] for getting an agreement signed for OIL / ONGC [OVL] to get oil fields et al.

Apparently, should get done in a few weeks or so they say. Off to Caracas in a few weeks, Moily, to sign more oily deals on butter paper.

as an aside - a few suggested Iran oil too - well, we are trying it. But a lot of logistical difficulties remain.
A few:
a. Antagonise US. [dont do it excessively]
b. Insurance for ships becomes a huge problem [Iran suddenly stops the shop from leaving their port]
c. Iran takes money in rupees upto an extent (30%, if I am not mistaken) . A bilateral deal -good for India. Doesnt need to dip into forex reserves and is a win-win for both countries. but pt a & b together complicates  things to a great extent.

I track Venezuela and whether Nicolas Maduro will survive in office till next yr mid as part of GJP

Update: By happenstance. Yay, with the Iran deal done, it will be a lot more friendly regime. Next 6 months should either break or build. Time should tell.
I also realize that India has a deal with Iran in such a way that it can use Euros for payment of the rest... not necessarily USD. Interesting, that!

India and the danger of the demographic dividend

A nice timely article from FT Alphaville.

The intent here isn’t to blindly counter the optimism of the headline numbers but to point to the enormous policy challenges that exist (and have existed but not been met). Sure, the pressures created by imbalances will force change over time in one way or another, but choosing not to preempt them ignores the sad danger inherent in potential.

A good read

A tidbit: More take on China and revisiting his early '11 predictions, Michael Pettis elaborates 

Apple : iOS7 and A7 chip

Apple did a lot of good things recently.
a. Shipped iOS7 [I personally like it. I see that a lot of the guys complain too. Jury is still out. But I like what I see]
 b. Introduced lower cost phones 5c and also upped the higher range 5s.

Incidentally, I also saw a few reports which said that Network providers had crates and crates of 5c while they didnt have enough 5s phones. Possibly Apple is trying to create a market for 5c as this is the first time Apple is having 2 product lines in the same version [and hence will be a new chapter and experience for them too].

Overall reports are currently good. iOS7 has brought in wholesale changes to the approach [UX Lives!]
It remains to be seen how the battery and performance holds.

As always a few difficulties too - 2 security flaws already reported. One to do with control through control centre and access mail, twitter, photo stream and such. Other is to do with calling on a locked phone using the emergency phone options. Sadly, both of the flaws can be tried on a locked phone too.

This link gives a good overview of how the A7 chip holds up and why its a benchmark beast.

Link here

Skeuomorphism is finally out. Good one, Jony Ive. One up on Scott Forstall? The next few days and months should tell.

Update: Sep 30th: Aahaa. Brilliant link