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By: somatish | Posted on March 10th, 2013 | No Comments
Turning back a few pages in history to about 300 years back, India accounted for a fourth of the world’s GDP. By 1947, colonisation and missing the industrial revolution bandwagon had shrunk its share to about 2%. Fast forward to the early 1990s, decades of closed economic policies had reduced the figure to a paltry 0.2%. From thereon, liberalisation over the past couple of decades has helped India re-emerge and brought it back firmly on its growth trajectory. India is [...]
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By: somatish | Posted on February 14th, 2013 | No Comments
Organisations must earn profits to stay in business. However, given the worldwide thrust on sustainable development gaining momentum each day, the volume of such profits is no more the sole benchmark for judging an organisation’s performance. Instead, companies are increasingly coming under scrutiny by media, civic society and other stakeholders on how ethically this profit has been earned and what the company chooses to do with it. The impact an organisation has on the environment and the society in which it [...]
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By: somatish | Posted on December 29th, 2012 | No Comments
The corporate world’s shift in focus to emerging markets is by now, an oft repeated story. Of greater interest however, is the shift within this shift – that of increasing testing of BOP (base of the pyramid) waters by the private sector, particularly large conglomerates. Almost everyone by now realises that the BOP population in emerging markets, holds the key to the future of business. Although not many can claim to have cracked the BOP code completely, efforts are on [...]
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By: somatish | Posted on December 29th, 2012 | No Comments
The Companies Bill, passed in the Lok Sabha earlier this month, makes it mandatory for companies with turnover of over INR 1,000 crore or net worth of over INR 500 crore or average net profit of INR 5 crore over the preceding three years to spend 2% of their average net profits for the last three years on Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR). The Bill includes a suggestive list of ten spending avenues including environmental sustainability, vocational skills and social business [...]
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By: somatish | Posted on December 12th, 2012 | No Comments
With conventional energy becoming progressively costlier and solar power cheaper, India is gearing up to push for grid parity for solar power by 2017, five years ahead of its original target of 2022. In the Phase 1 of the Jawaharlal Nehru National Solar Mission (JNNSM), two rounds of reverse bidding led to the lowest bid of INR 7.42 (US$0.15)/ unit. The Ministry of New and Renewable Energy (MNRE) recently released a draft policy document for Phase 2 of JNNSM by [...]
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By: Ankur Sohanpal | Posted on September 4th, 2012 | No Comments
Ratan Tata, the leader of Tata Group will be retiring from in December 2012. The time he took over the reins, the turnover of the Tata Group stood at US$5 billion. This year it is expected to exceed US$100 billion. A new Forbes India article researches deep into the social and philanthropic bend into the way Ratan Tata did things.
He has been awarded by the Rockefeller Foundation, is apparently in talks with the Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation for a [...]
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By: somatish | Posted on August 16th, 2012 | No Comments
India’s diesel subsidies have long bled government finances. They drained about USD 9 billion from the national exchequer in 2011-12. Though governments have mustered the courage to alter petrol prices in the past, they have not dared to touch diesel. The rationale so far has been that of how heavily subsidised diesel has become the poor man’s fuel and raising it would trigger widespread angst amongst the common man. However, as a latest article on firstpost.com investigates, the repercussions of [...]
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By: Ankur Sohanpal | Posted on August 13th, 2012 | 1 Comment
Business models and sales in base of the pyramid low income markets have traditionally been built around the model of “low price, low margin, high volume”, and has held sway for more than a decade. However there is a growing body of evidence that suggests quite the opposite requirements to be adopted by companies trying to introduce and scale their products and services in low income markets. The case for implementing basic business tenets so as to make ventures and [...]
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By: somatish | Posted on August 6th, 2012 | No Comments
Knowledge confers power. Recognising this, the Reserve Bank of India (RBI) recently on 16th July 2012, released the draft National Strategy for Financial Education. With almost half of India’s population being financially excluded, the need is imperative for such a National Strategy to lay the foundation for achieving total financial inclusion and thereby, inclusive growth.
Financial education plays a critical role in enabling the demand side (customers) to provide an informed response to the supply side (financial products and service providers’) [...]
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By: Ankur Sohanpal | Posted on August 3rd, 2012 | No Comments
One of the biggest threats to world development is the prevalence of malnutrition, especially in children, in the developing world. It is what causes physical and mental debilitation in generations upon generations of the countries’ future workforce.
One of the reasons for persistent malnutrition is that the perceived cost of nutritionally providing for both children and people in the poorer parts of developing countries, with traditionally used materials (in many instances, sourced by aid agencies and other agents from outside, rather [...]
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