FEILD MARSHALL SAM MANECKSHAW passes away ... Nation loses her bravest soldier

                                 
        Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, MC, ("Sam Bahadur") (born April 3, 1914) was an Indian Army officer. In a long career spanning nearly four decades, Manekshaw rose to be the 8th Chief of Staff of the Indian Army in 1969 and under his command, Indian forces concluded a victorious campaign during the Indo-Pakistani War of 1971.
Sam Manekshaw is the first of only two Indian military officers to hold the highest rank of Field Marshal of the Indian Army (The other being Field Marshal K M Cariappa). His distinguished ilitary career has spanned four decades and through five wars, including World War II.

         Field Marshal Sam Hormusji Framji Jamshedji Manekshaw, whose military victory in the 1971 Indo-Pak war led to the creation of Bangladesh, died in Military Hospital in Wellington, Tamil Nadu late Thursday night. He was 94.
         Manekshaw had developed "acute bronchopneumonia with associated complications" and was placed under intensive care four days ago after his condition became serious.

Early life and education

        Manekshaw was born in Amritsar, Punjab to Parsi parents who immigrated to the Punjab from the small town of valsad on the Gujarat coast. After completing his schooling in Amritsar and Sherwood College (Nainital), he joined the first batch of 40 cadets at the Indian Military Academy, Dehradun on 1 October 1932. He passed out of the IMA in December 1934 and was commissioned as a Second Lieutenant in the Indian Army. He held several regimental assignments and was first attached to the Royal Scots and later to the 4/12 Frontier Force Regiment.

Military career

        Manekshaw's military career spanned four decades, from the British era and World War II, to the three wars against China and Pakistan after India's independence in 1947.

World War II

        During World War II, Manekshaw saw action in the Burma campaign on Sittang River as a Captain with the 4/12 Frontier Force Regiment and has the rare distinction of being honoured for his bravery on the battle front itself. During World War II, he was leading a counter-offensive against the invading Japanese Army in Burma. During the course of the offensive he was hit by a burst of LMG bullets and was severely wounded in the stomach. Major General D.T. Cowan spotted Manekshaw holding on to life and was aware of his valour in face of stiff resistance from the Japanese. Fearing the worst, Major General Cowan quickly pinned his own Military Cross ribbon on to Manekshaw saying, "A dead person cannot be awarded a Military Cross."
        Having recovered from those near-fatal wounds in Burma, Manekshaw went for a course at Staff College, Quetta and later also served there as an instructor before being sent to join 12 Frontier Force Rifles in Burma under General (later Field Marshal) Slim's 14th Army. He was once again involved in a fierce battle with the Japanese, and was wounded for a second time. Towards the close of World War II, Manekshaw was sent as Staff Officer to General Daisy in Indo-China where, after the Japanese surrender, he helped rehabilitate over 10,000 POWs. He, then, went on a six-month lecture tour to Australia in 1946, and after his return served as a First Grade Staff Officer in the Military Operations Directorate.
        Manekshaw showed acumen for planning and administration while handling the issues related to Partition in 1947, and later put to use his battle skills during the 1947-48 Jammu & Kashmir Operations. After command of an Infantry Brigade, he was posted as the Commandant of the Infantry School and also became the Colonel of 8 Gorkha Rifles (which became his new regimental home, since his original parent regiment The 12th Frontier Force Regiment went on to join the new Pakistan Army at partition ) and 61 Cavalry. He commanded a Division in Jammu & Kashmir and a Corps in the North East, with a tenure as Commandant of Defence Services Staff College (DSSC) in between. As GOC-in-C Eastern Command, he handled the tricky problem of insurgency in Nagaland and the grateful nation honoured him with a Padma Bhushan in 1968. He enjoyed his retired life in Coonoor,The Nilgiris.

                 
Manekshaw(Centre) with Lt General Sartaj Singh, GOC 15 Corps, shares a joke with a jawan.

Army Chief: The War of 1971 - A soldiers' General and man behind Bangladesh's birth

        Manekshaw became the 8th Chief of Army Staff when he succeeded General Kumaramangalam on 7 June 1969. His years of military experience were soon put to the test as thousands of refugees from the erstwhile East Pakistan started crossing over to India as a result of oppression from West Pakistan. The volatile situation erupted into a full-scale war in December 1971.
        During this Indo-Pakistani War of 1971, Manekshaw showed uncommon ability to motivate the forces, coupling it with a mature war strategy. The war ended with Pakistan's unconditional surrender, and the formation of Bangladesh. More than 45,000 Pakistani soldiers and 45,000 civilian personnel were taken as POWs. He masterminded the rout of the Pakistan Army in one of the quickest victories in the recent military history. This led to the Shimla Agreement which opened the door to the creation of the nation of Bangladesh as separate from Pakistan.


Honour and Retirement
       
                                       

        For his distinguished service to the country, the President of India awarded him a Padma Vibhushan in 1972 and conferred upon him the rank of Field Marshal on 1 January 1973. Manekshaw became the first of the only two Indian Army Generals to be awarded this prestigious honorary rank; the other being the late Field Marshal Kodandera Madappa Cariappa. Manekshaw retired a fortnight later (although technically Field Marshals of the Indian Army never retire because the rank is conferred for life), on 15 January 1973, after completing nearly four decades of military service.
        Following his retirement from the Indian Army, Manekshaw has successfully served as a director of numerous companies.

IMF- INTERNATIONAL MONETARY FUND

The International Monetary Fund (IMF) is an international organization that oversees the global financial system by following the macroeconomic policies of its member countries, in particular those with an impact on exchange rates and the balance of payments. It also offers financial and technical assistance to its members, making it an international lender of last resort. Its headquarters are located in Washington, D.C., USA.

                                            

The International Monetary Fund was created in 1944[1], with a goal to stabilize exchange rates and supervise the reconstruction of the world's international payment system. Countries contributed to a pool which could be borrowed from, on a temporary basis, by countries with payment imbalances. (Condon, 2007)

The IMF describes itself as "an organization of 185 countries (Montenegro being the 185th, as of January 18, 2007), working to foster global monetary cooperation, secure financial stability, facilitate international trade, promote high employment and sustainable economic growth, and reduce poverty". With the exception of North Korea, Cuba, Andorra, Monaco, Liechtenstein, Tuvalu, and Nauru, all UN member states participate directly in the IMF. Most are represented by other member states on a 24-member Executive Board but all member countries belong to the IMF's Board of Governors.

HISTORY

The International Monetary Fund was formally created in July 1944 during the United Nations Monetary and Financial Conference. The representatives of 45 governments met in the Mount Washington Hotel in the area of Bretton Woods, New Hampshire, United States of America, with the delegates to the conference agreeing on a framework for international economic cooperation.The IMF was formally organized on December 27, 1945, when the first 29 countries signed its Articles of Agreement. The statutory purposes of the IMF today are the same as when they were formulated in 1944

From the end of World War II until the late-1970s, the capitalist world experienced unprecedented growth in real incomes. (Since then, the integration of China and Eastern and Central Europe into the capitalist system has added substantially to the growth of the system.) Within the capitalist system, the benefits of growth have not flowed equally to all (either within or among nations) but overall there has been an increase in prosperity that contrasts starkly with the conditions within capitalist countries during the interwar period. The lack of a recurring global depression is probably due to improvements in the conduct of international economic policies that have encouraged the growth of international trade and helped smooth the economic cycle of boom and bust.

                                               MEMBERSHIP

Any country may apply for membership to the IMF. The application will be considered first by the IMF's Executive Board. After its consideration, the Executive Board will submit a report to the Board of Governors of the IMF with recommendations in the form of a "Membership Resolution." These recommendations cover the amount of quota in the IMF, the form of payment of the subscription, and other customary terms and conditions of membership. After the Board of Governors has adopted the "Membership Resolution," the applicant state needs to take the legal steps required under its own law to enable it to sign the IMF's Articles of Agreement and to fulfil the obligations of IMF membership. Similarly, any member country can withdraw from the Fund, although that is rare. For example, in April 2007, the president of Ecuador Rafael Correa announced the expulsion of the World Bank representative in the country. A few days later, at the end of April, Venezuelan president Hugo Chavez announced that the country would withdraw from the IMF and the World Bank. Chavez dubbed both organizations as “the tools of the empire” that “serve the interests of the North”. As of April 2008, both countries remain as members of both organizations. Venezuela was forced to back down because a withdrawal would have triggered default clauses in the country's sovereign bonds.

The IMF is for the most part controlled by the major Western Powers, with voting rights on the Executive board based on a quota derived from the relative size of a country in the global economy. Critics claim that the board rarely votes and passes issues contradicting the will of the US or Europeans, which combined represent the largest bloc of shareholders in the Fund. On the other hand, Executive Directors that represent emerging and developing countries have many times strongly defended the group of nations in their constituency.

Inflation ... gallops on and on and on ...

                 The wholesale price index-based inflation's unabated rise continued and worse,     expected to show an uptrend for at least the next 5-6 months, according to experts. For the week-ended May 31, the annual rate of inflation stood at 8.75 per cent, the highest since February 2001 when it was 8.77 per cent. For the corresponding week last year, it was 5.09 per cent.

Economists, however, opine that inflation would touch 10 per cent in the next couple of weeks once the full impact of the fuel price hike starts reflecting in various sectors of the economy. "The direct impact of the fuel price hike could be to the tune of 90-100 basis points, which would push inflation up to 9.5-10 per cent. The indirect impact, that is, the consequent changes in prices of transportation, etc, could further push up the rate by about 50-60 basis points.

The rise in inflation for the week-ended May 31 was primarily driven by the rise in the WPI of primary or agricultural products, which rose by 0.9 per cent and manufactured goods, which rose by 0.7 per cent over the previous week. The WPI for fuel and fuel products remained unchanged at the previous week's level of 347.2. The impact of the hike in fuel prices last week will show up in figures to be released next week.

The upward revision of data too continued with the final inflation rate for the week-ended April 5 now standing at 7.71 per cent as against the provisional figure of 7.14 per cent. Considering that the final data is usually higher than the provisional figures, experts believe that the final estimate for this week would be somewhere in the range of 9.4-9.5 per cent. At times, the difference between the provisional estimate and the final figures has been as high as 1.5 per cent, they said.

Inflation, which is measured as the change in the wholesale price index, crossed the RBI's comfort zone of 5 per cent as early as February this year and has only accelerated since then. The central bank has maintained an aggressive monetary stance since then. It hiked the repo rate by 25 basis points earlier this week and had hiked the cash reserve ratio by 50 basis point last month. But monetary tightening measures are meant to target inflationary expectations rather than inflation itself and its results are likely to be seen over a period of five-six months.

Bombay Stock Exchange

Bombay Stock Exchange Limited is the oldest stock exchange in Asia which is located at Dalal Street in Mumbai. It was established in 1875 by a group of 22 stockbrokers in who began trading under a banyan tree opposite the Town Hall of Bombay from the 1850s as under the title Native Share and Stockbrokers Association. In 1899, when Mr. James M Maclean inaugurated it, the stock exchange had moved into the Brokers' Hall. The plot of land on which the BSE building now stands was bought in 1929


Mr. Premchand Roychand, a leading stockbroker of those days, helped in setting out rules and regulations of trading of stocks at the Stock Exchange in Mumbai. The Bombay Stock Exchange was recognized as the first stock exchange in the country under the Securities Contracts (Regulation) Act in 1959.