Noted

Conferred: To steel tycoon Lakshmi Niwas Mittal, the Lifetime Achievement Award for embodying and exemplifying the ideals of free enterprise and entrepreneurial capitalism, by American business magazine Forbes.

Ranked: India, at #31, on the World Economic Forum’s first Financial Development Index, based on the good performance of its financial markets, particularly the foreign exchange and derivatives markets, and also the stability of its banking system.

Dipped: To 12.1 per cent, the inflation rate based on the wholesale price index for the week ended August 30, down from 12.34 per cent in the previous week. The inflation rate matched the median 12.01 per cent forecast in a Bloomberg survey of 22 leading economists.

Recorded: By the capital goods and consumer durables sector, high growth rates that pushed the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) for July 2008 to a five-month high of 7.1 per cent, though it was still lower than the figure of 8.3 per cent recorded in July 2007. The IIP for the April-July period this year stood at 5.7 per cent against 9.7 per cent registered in the same period of 2007.

{mosimage} Risen: By 10.5 per cent, indirect taxes collections from customs and excise, in the first five months of 2008-09, to Rs 93,860 crore, the Finance Ministry has said. The government raised Rs 47,740 crore from customs duties in the five-month period, 18 per cent more than in the corresponding period last year. It collected Rs 46,120 crore from excise duties, or 3.7 per cent more.

Slowed: To 10.4 per cent, the growth in foreign tourist arrivals to India during the first eight months of 2008, compared to the figure of 15.6 per cent last year. In absolute terms, 3.5 million foreign tourists visited India during the January-August period compared to 3.2 million last year.