Archive for November, 2007

United Spirits the third-largest distiller in the world with sales of over 66 million cases powered by 15 millionaire brands will be merging Shaw Wallace with itself.

United Spirits, a part of the UB Group, had acquired Shaw Wallace for around Rs 1,300 crore in mid-2005 .

UB acquired Whyte & Mackay for around $1.2 billion, would stay on as a subsidiary.

“Whyte & Mackay, Bouvet Ladubay and Liquidity have been acquired in the spirits business, while we acquired 46 per cent in Deccan Aviation. We need to consolidate these acquisitions and will thrust forward,” said UB Group Chairman Vijay Mallya.

It is time for TATA Motors to be global global after TATA Steel took over CORUS. Tata’s bid is as much as $1 billion above those of other contenders.

TATA, Mahindra & Mahindra, and New York’s One Equity Partners, are the only bidders. Ford, which is looking to pocket $2 billion from the sale, may not announce a winner for a few months.

Will the Indian auto giant manage to take Jaguar and Land Rover off Ford’s hands?
[full story at Business week ]

The Rs 40-lakh saree, manufactured by handloom weavers of “The Chennai Silks“, replicates Ravi Verma’s much-acclaimed painting Lady Musicians that features women from various cultural backgrounds, woven with 12 precious stones and metals and replicating 11 famous paintings of Raja Ravi Verma, will seek an entry into the Guinness Book of World Records as the world’s most expensive saree.

It took 4,680 man hours for a team of highly-skilled weavers to complete the work, using a double warp.

Jewels made of gold, diamond, platinum, silver, ruby, emerald, yellow sapphire, sapphire, cat’s eye, topaz, pearl and coral were integrated to adorn the women featured in the paintings, using an intricate hand-woven process.

Nuclear fission is a reaction in which a large nuclei breaks apart into two smaller nuclei, releasing a great deal of energy.

Nuclei can fission on their own spontaneously, but only certain nuclei, like uranium-235 and plutonium-239, can sustain a fission chain reaction. This is because these nuclei release neutrons when they break apart, and these neutrons can slam into other nuclei, causing them to also break apart and release more neutrons.

Uranium-235 is the fuel of choice in all commercial reactors (and even one natural reactor ).
The uranium fuel is packed into the core and usually surrounded by a moderator, which is a substance that slows down the neutrons so they have a better chance of inducing fission.

Once the chain reaction gets going, the heat from the core is typically used to boil water and drive a steam turbine. The chain reaction can be slowed down and even turned off by introducing control rods, which contain materials that absorb neutrons.

via - livescience