What: The Fledge. It's a four-wheel hybrid vehicle with a fibreglass body, is powered by an 18 bhp, 346cc Royal Enfield engine and can run on its 200 AH battery for 100 km and attain a top speed of 60 kmph. It also has a 13-litre fuel tank and can switch from one power source to the other at the touch of a button. Its fuel efficiency: 25 km/l

Who designed it: Seven engineering students at the Delhi College of Engineering, led by S. Maji, Head of Department (Mechanical Engineering and Production)

How many people can it seat: The prototype is a single seater, but it can be configured to seat two people

Why is it in the news: It can offer some credible competition to Ratan Tata's proposed Rs 1-lakh car if it is built commercially. The developers say it will cost about Rs 1.1 lakh on the road. Both Mahindra & Mahindra, which sponsored it, and Maji, however, deny having signed any agreement to manufacture The Fledge on a commercial basis

-Aman Malik

A Party With A Difference

What: Lok Paritran, a political party formed by five idealistic youngsters (four ex-IITians and one Master of Economics from New York University), that is going to contest from seven constituencies in Tamil Nadu (five in Chennai)

Who: Tanmay Rajpurohit, Ajit Shukla, Amit Beesen, Santhanagopalan Vasudev, and Chandrasekhar

Why: "To try and make India a world leader. Unless we have political power, we cannot change anything"

Who's funding them: Friends, family, well-wishers and NRIs. "You don't need lots of money when you don't have to buy votes or pay for populist measures." Thousands of e-mails have poured in from people asking how they can help

How much: Rs 2.5 lakh per constituency

Do they really think they can succeed: "Yes. A significant chunk of people are looking for somebody who can do something good over the long term. But thinking people must come out and vote. We aim to become a national party"

-Vaishna Roy

Mobile Billboards

Rail bogiescat: New media on offer

When the Indian railways announced its turnaround a few months back, this magazine had suggested in jest that Railway Minister Lalu Prasad Yadav may yet become the mascot of Indian reforms at Davos. It may be time now to revisit the subject in a more serious mood. The Indian Railways is considering a radical move: selling advertising space inside and outside trains. The revenue target: Rs 4,000 crore per annum within three years. Since the related costs will be miniscule, this entire amount will go straight to its bottom line.

"It is a completely unexplored medium," says Debraj Tripathy, General Manager of media buying firm Maxus, adding: "The plus point is the scale it can give advertisers." Advertisers too, seem positive about the concept. "We are always looking at new media to target the millions of consumers we service," says a Hindustan Lever spokesperson. A caveat: trains stop at stations only for a few minutes and spend a major portion of journey time passing through the countryside, thus, limiting exposure to target audiences. But Tripathy feels this is not an issue. "Advertisers are happy with 30-second slots on TV; so they will be quite happy to be seen for two minutes," he says, adding that advertising inside trains will ensure captive audiences.

The matter will be discussed at a high-level meeting of the ministry on May 5 and 6, and a final decision will be taken after that.

-Shaleen Agrawal

P-WATCH
A bird's eye view of what's hot and what's not on the government's policy radar.

SEBI WANTS TO REGULATE MORTGAGE-BACKED SECURITIES

The securities and exchange Board of India (SEBI) has sought more powers to regulate trading in mortgaged-backed securities. There are two reasons for this: there is higher risk of pre-payment default in this instrument; and the proposed exchange traded market for corporate debt paper is still at an early stage of development, so the market watchdog wants to ensure that only serious players, who can ensure its proper development and growth, enter this market at least in the early stages. It wants the government to initially restrict entry only to institutional investors and to stipulate a minimum trading value of Rs 2 lakh. The regulator has also sought changes in disclosure provisions and asked for more powers to regulate public issues of instruments based on securitisation of impaired financial assets.

-Mahesh Nayak

PARENTS MAY HAVE TO CO-GUARANTEE EDUCATION LOANS

Alarmed by the high default rate in education loans, commercial banks are now asking parents or guardians to be a co-applicant in the loan application or to step in as a co-guarantor. Some banks are even disbursing such loans from branches near the students' homes rather from branches near the educational institution in which they study. "It's easier to recover loans this way," says G.V. Nageswara Rao, CEO (Commercial Banking), IDBI Bank. This follows an Indian Banks' Association (IBA) advisory to all banks in this regard. Historically, education loans have always had a higher default rate (3-4 per cent) than other loan categories (2-3 per cent), but it didn't set the alarm bells off in the past as total volumes were small. After this segment has exploded-total student loans in the country stand at Rs 8,500 crore-over the last three-four years, banks suddenly found themselves neck deep in defaults. Result: the hassle-free education loan is now a thing of the past.

-Anand Adhikari

COMING SOON, A LAW TO STREAMLINE THE BUREAUCRACY

Good governance is poised to take on an entirely new meaning. The draft Public Service Bill, which is currently with the Second Administrative Reforms Commission headed by Congress politician V. Moily, spells out a code of ethics for bureaucrats and recommends punishment in case of violations. The Bill is expected to be introduced in Parliament in the Monsoon Session, which begins in July. Once legislated into law and gazetted, it will bring about greater transparency in the process of appointing public servants. Another key issue is the likely introduction of performance-linked benchmarks and incentives for officials. The new legislation, which walks the talk on civil service reforms, will cover all the 61 All India and Central Civil Services, including 15 non-technical and 20 technical services.

-Shalini S. Dagar

Avian flu: Developing resistance

DRUG SALES CAN BE RESTRICTED

The new drug policy will empower the government to restrict the sale of certain medicines if such sales contribute to germs developing immunity to life saving drugs. The immediate provocation: reports that indiscriminate sale of anti-bird flu drugs could lead to the H5N1 virus, which causes the disease, not responding to the active ingredients in avian flu drugs.

-E. Kumar Sharma

NEW NORMS FOR POWER INCENTIVES LIKELY

The central electricity Regulatory Commission (CERC) has recommended that power subsidies should be decided by the concerned state electricity regulators. The existing one-size-fits-all approach is not viable, it says. CERC suggests that state electricity regulatory commissions should carry out surveys of captive power generation in their respective states and bring the surplus to the grid. Power deficit states will also have to buy power from others through a process of competitive bidding.

-Ritwik Mukherjee