NEPAL: China to train Nepal army
FROM SOUTH ASIAN MEDIA NET / INDIA TRIBUNE
NEW DELHI 15 Dec 2009: Just two days after President Pratibha Patil conferred the rank of “Honorary General” on the Chief of Nepal Army General Chhatraman Singh Gurung, India’s move of rolling out red carpet for Nepal has been somewhat upstaged by China’s latest strategic move.
Reports from Kathmandu today said China would train the Nepalese Army and it has also pledged Rs 220 million as military assistance for procuring “non lethal” hardware and logistics to Nepal. This comes even as General Gurung is on eight-day visit to India. He has met the top brass including the Defence Minister AK Antony seeking cooperation. He has also sought for tanks, an airstrip and recruitment of Gurkhas to be conducted by the Indian Army in Nepalese soil.
A Chinese military delegation led by Maj Gen Jia Jialing has met Nepal Defence Minister Vidya Bhandari, after which it has emerged that China and India are now locked in fight over “helping Nepal”. Notably, Indian Intelligence agencies had warned a fortnight ago about the impending meeting and the probability of some “big announcement” coming at the end of this. With its latest move China has managed to build a “relationship” with yet another nation that borders India.
A senior China watcher pointed out that it was Nepal, sandwiched between India and China, which was playing on nerves of two powers and playing a balancing act. For China, it is a major score to further its military policy of surrounding India with what it calls the theory of “string of pearls”.
It already has a long standing partnership with Pakistan, where it is building ports, supplying fighters, tanks, and nuclear-tipped missiles. This had recently forced Antony to term the relationship as “military nexus”.
A few years back China had build a major relationship with Sri Lanka by constructing a brand new sea port at Hambantota facing the India Ocean. In lieu, Chinese Navy ships get re-fuelling facilities at Sri Lanka. It has strategic interests in Myanmar for its gas fields and is helping that nation is building roads and infrastructure.
Meanwhile, what should worry India are the reports from Kathmandu that quoted Adviser to Nepal Defence Minister Subhash Devkota as having that the money (Rs 220 million) from China will be utilised to supply the “non-lethal” military hardware, including logistics and training to the Nepal Army.
It was these worries that had forced India to welcome the Nepal Army Chief and use his old association with India hoping to counter China’s activity in Nepal. General Gurung was chief guest at the passing-out-parade at the Indian Military Academy (IMA) in Dehradun on Saturday. India’s security perspectives and concerns in the region have figured in the discussions, said a senior official.
Saturday, December 19, 2009
TAAS to play major role in International Rhododendron Festival 2010
GANGTOK, December 18: The Himalayan State of Sikkim is gearing up to celebrate 2010 as the Year of Tourism with a host of festivals and other tourism promotional measures.
Ushering in the Year of Tourism will be the International Rhododendron Festival slated to be held on April-May, next year and ground work for this festival is on with the tourism stakeholders of Sikkim.
A high level meeting was held recently by the State forest department headed by forest secretary ST Lachungpa with the executive members of Travel Agents Association of Sikkim (TAAS) and Sikkim Angling Association to discuss the modalities of organizing International Rhododendron Festival 2010 in Sikkim.
The International Rhododendron Festival 2010 is being organized for the first time in the entire Himalayan belt.
Programmes will be organized in various Rhododendron belts of Sikkim, namely Singba Rhododendron Sanctuary, Varsey Rhododendron Sanctuary and part of Lachen-Thangu axis.
The Singba Rhododendron Sanctuary has around 24 species of rhododendrons and will be in bloom during April-May, so the organizers decided to keep it as main area for inauguration and Varsey as closing function, informed TAAS general secretary
Lukendra Rasaily in a press statement. However, seminar on rhododendrons will be held here at Gangtok.
The main aim of organizing International Rhododendron Festival is to tap the potential of eco and sustainable tourism of the State, protection and conservation of almost 39 species of rhododendrons of Sikkim, provide economic benefit to local populace through sustainable tourism, share expertise with international researchers.
The festival will have many activities beside conference and seminar on rhododendrons where international, national, regional experts and other participants including from Sikkim will be attending the seminar.
Rhododendron nature walk, photo exhibition, bird watching, angling, mountain biking, ethnic food festival, cultural shows, camping, exhibition of local handicrafts will be part of activities during the festival, it is informed.
Series of meetings have already been conducted in various places besides this recent meeting which has decided to create a website, brochure, posters and other publicity materials. The website will be launched during the last week of December and TAAS has been accorded to create website for festival.
The TAAS said that in past four months, the organizers have been in touch with major experts on rhododendrons with reference with International Rhododendron Festival.
It is decided that TAAS will have to play a major role in promotion, publicity, and marketing of the festival for participants and the tourists alike. It is also decided that various organizations such as Angling Association, TAAS, SAATO, local bodies of the respective areas will be supporting other activities during the festival. It is further decided that the Forest department will be requesting various other department for lighting, sanitation, security, required infrastructure for the International Rhododendron Festival 2010.
The TAAS, SAATO and local bodies will be providing logistic support to Forest department, Rasaily said.
source: sikkim express
GANGTOK, December 18: The Himalayan State of Sikkim is gearing up to celebrate 2010 as the Year of Tourism with a host of festivals and other tourism promotional measures.
Ushering in the Year of Tourism will be the International Rhododendron Festival slated to be held on April-May, next year and ground work for this festival is on with the tourism stakeholders of Sikkim.
A high level meeting was held recently by the State forest department headed by forest secretary ST Lachungpa with the executive members of Travel Agents Association of Sikkim (TAAS) and Sikkim Angling Association to discuss the modalities of organizing International Rhododendron Festival 2010 in Sikkim.
The International Rhododendron Festival 2010 is being organized for the first time in the entire Himalayan belt.
Programmes will be organized in various Rhododendron belts of Sikkim, namely Singba Rhododendron Sanctuary, Varsey Rhododendron Sanctuary and part of Lachen-Thangu axis.
The Singba Rhododendron Sanctuary has around 24 species of rhododendrons and will be in bloom during April-May, so the organizers decided to keep it as main area for inauguration and Varsey as closing function, informed TAAS general secretary
Lukendra Rasaily in a press statement. However, seminar on rhododendrons will be held here at Gangtok.
The main aim of organizing International Rhododendron Festival is to tap the potential of eco and sustainable tourism of the State, protection and conservation of almost 39 species of rhododendrons of Sikkim, provide economic benefit to local populace through sustainable tourism, share expertise with international researchers.
The festival will have many activities beside conference and seminar on rhododendrons where international, national, regional experts and other participants including from Sikkim will be attending the seminar.
Rhododendron nature walk, photo exhibition, bird watching, angling, mountain biking, ethnic food festival, cultural shows, camping, exhibition of local handicrafts will be part of activities during the festival, it is informed.
Series of meetings have already been conducted in various places besides this recent meeting which has decided to create a website, brochure, posters and other publicity materials. The website will be launched during the last week of December and TAAS has been accorded to create website for festival.
The TAAS said that in past four months, the organizers have been in touch with major experts on rhododendrons with reference with International Rhododendron Festival.
It is decided that TAAS will have to play a major role in promotion, publicity, and marketing of the festival for participants and the tourists alike. It is also decided that various organizations such as Angling Association, TAAS, SAATO, local bodies of the respective areas will be supporting other activities during the festival. It is further decided that the Forest department will be requesting various other department for lighting, sanitation, security, required infrastructure for the International Rhododendron Festival 2010.
The TAAS, SAATO and local bodies will be providing logistic support to Forest department, Rasaily said.
source: sikkim express
NEPAL: Maoists’ “states” unconstitutional, says government
BY PRERANA MARASINI
KATHMANDU: The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) on Friday completed the task of declaring 13 autonomous states for the country in the face of major opposition.
The ruling parties termed the declaration of the states unconstitutional as the Constituent Assembly has a State Restructuring Committee working on the organisation of states.
The Maoists have declared Limbuwan, Kochila, Kirat, Sherpa, Bheri-Karnali, Tharuwan, Seti-Mahakali, Tamsaling, Newa, Bhote, Magarat, Tamuwan and Madhes as autonomous states.
source: Hindu
BY PRERANA MARASINI
KATHMANDU: The Unified Communist Party of Nepal (Maoists) on Friday completed the task of declaring 13 autonomous states for the country in the face of major opposition.
The ruling parties termed the declaration of the states unconstitutional as the Constituent Assembly has a State Restructuring Committee working on the organisation of states.
The Maoists have declared Limbuwan, Kochila, Kirat, Sherpa, Bheri-Karnali, Tharuwan, Seti-Mahakali, Tamsaling, Newa, Bhote, Magarat, Tamuwan and Madhes as autonomous states.
source: Hindu
It is a dangerous precedence to create more states…
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri
The untimely demise of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy could not have happened at a worse time. The sequence of events that happened post his death proved the same. If initially it was a major political crisis that erupted with respect to the nomination of a candidate as the next chief minister of the state, later on, it was the demand of K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) for a separate state of Telangana that turned one of the most prosperous and properly administered states into a virtual battleground. The state, which for a very long period has been in the news for its strides in Information Technology and the successful battle against Maoists, is now in the news for all the wrong reasons. True to its style, the government at the Centre easily gave in to the demands of K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who was quick to realise the political vacuum that was created by the death of YSR and found the revival of Telangana movement for a separate state an ideal platform to re-launch his political career graph.
But what was most surprising was the manner in which the decision makers at the Centre and especially in the Congress High Command believed in what they saw in the media and steered according to the way it was ill-advised by some political opportunists who thought that a formal announcement by the Centre to create a separate state would douse the flames that had erupted in Hyderabad and were engulfing almost the entire state. Thus, with the formal announcement of the Centre about its intent to create a separate state like Telangana, for KCR, victory (subsequent to his tactically timed fasting) was imminent. But what he and the decision makers at the Centre did not gauge was the extent to which anti-Telangana sentiments prevail in the state. The resignation drama in the Andhra Pradesh assembly that followed, forced the government to be on the back foot again. But by then, the damage was already done. Even before the Central Government realised its folly in hurrying up the creation of a new state – although not surprising – newer and rather ridiculous demands for newer states started emanating from different regions of the country. There have been fresh movements for trifurcation of Uttar Pradesh into Harit Pradesh and Poorvanchal, and also a shocking Bundelkhand with some regions of Madhya Pradesh too. There have been demands for Gorkhaland, Greater Cooch Behar, Kamtapur as also Vidharba. What is disgusting is that in many cases, these demands for new states have had one individual proponent whose political career depended solely upon the creation of the new states. Thus, while there is Bimal Gurung in Gorkhaland, who has literally isolated that place from rest of West Bengal, there is Ajit Singh of Rashtriya Lok Dal for Harit Pradesh, and then once-upon-a-time part-time actor Raja Bundela leading the Bundelkhand campaign.
The two issues that need attention here are: One, would these proposed new states be viable on their own or not? Two, should new states be created merely to fulfil the political ambitions of struggling politicians? Can states like Bundelkhand or Gorkhaland ever be viable on their own without external support? In the issue of the Telangana movement, Hyderabad is a wonderful case in point. One of the most critical grudges of the pro-Telangana agitators is that the whole region has been deprived of all development which has gone to the coastal regions. Yet, in the last one decade or so, Andhra Pradesh has become synonymous with the incredible development of Hyderabad and its prominence as the pioneering hub of information technology. Now, this development in the once notorious Hyderabad was not brought about by the people of Telangana but by the people of Andhra Pradesh as a whole. Today, Telangana cannot ask for Hyderabad just like that. Billions of dollars have been invested there by people who are not originally from Telangana. Similarly, the calls for a Gorkhaland to be made into a separate state curved out of West Bengal are absurd because, for example, the hill-station of Darjeeling is completely dependent on millions of tourists coming every year from the plain-land of Bengal, and is also dependent on the trade of tea, for which Kolkata is the hub.
The last three states that were curved out in India were Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh. Barring Uttarakhand to some extent, there hasn’t been much development in the states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Both have literally failed to tackle the problem of Naxalism; and corruption is rampant. The common man there is not far better off than what they were before the creation of the states. Of course, people like Madhu Koda have made billions by making the best of the political instability in terms of number games in the legislative assembly.
All in all, even if India needs to create smaller states for better administration, the objective to create such states should be purely based on better governance and overall development rather than caste, creed, religion or regionalism as that would only divide India more. More than that, it is an extremely dangerous precedence to set for the future!
source:The Himalayan Beacon
Prof. Arindam Chaudhuri
The untimely demise of Y S Rajasekhara Reddy could not have happened at a worse time. The sequence of events that happened post his death proved the same. If initially it was a major political crisis that erupted with respect to the nomination of a candidate as the next chief minister of the state, later on, it was the demand of K Chandrasekhar Rao (KCR) for a separate state of Telangana that turned one of the most prosperous and properly administered states into a virtual battleground. The state, which for a very long period has been in the news for its strides in Information Technology and the successful battle against Maoists, is now in the news for all the wrong reasons. True to its style, the government at the Centre easily gave in to the demands of K. Chandrasekhar Rao, who was quick to realise the political vacuum that was created by the death of YSR and found the revival of Telangana movement for a separate state an ideal platform to re-launch his political career graph.
But what was most surprising was the manner in which the decision makers at the Centre and especially in the Congress High Command believed in what they saw in the media and steered according to the way it was ill-advised by some political opportunists who thought that a formal announcement by the Centre to create a separate state would douse the flames that had erupted in Hyderabad and were engulfing almost the entire state. Thus, with the formal announcement of the Centre about its intent to create a separate state like Telangana, for KCR, victory (subsequent to his tactically timed fasting) was imminent. But what he and the decision makers at the Centre did not gauge was the extent to which anti-Telangana sentiments prevail in the state. The resignation drama in the Andhra Pradesh assembly that followed, forced the government to be on the back foot again. But by then, the damage was already done. Even before the Central Government realised its folly in hurrying up the creation of a new state – although not surprising – newer and rather ridiculous demands for newer states started emanating from different regions of the country. There have been fresh movements for trifurcation of Uttar Pradesh into Harit Pradesh and Poorvanchal, and also a shocking Bundelkhand with some regions of Madhya Pradesh too. There have been demands for Gorkhaland, Greater Cooch Behar, Kamtapur as also Vidharba. What is disgusting is that in many cases, these demands for new states have had one individual proponent whose political career depended solely upon the creation of the new states. Thus, while there is Bimal Gurung in Gorkhaland, who has literally isolated that place from rest of West Bengal, there is Ajit Singh of Rashtriya Lok Dal for Harit Pradesh, and then once-upon-a-time part-time actor Raja Bundela leading the Bundelkhand campaign.
The two issues that need attention here are: One, would these proposed new states be viable on their own or not? Two, should new states be created merely to fulfil the political ambitions of struggling politicians? Can states like Bundelkhand or Gorkhaland ever be viable on their own without external support? In the issue of the Telangana movement, Hyderabad is a wonderful case in point. One of the most critical grudges of the pro-Telangana agitators is that the whole region has been deprived of all development which has gone to the coastal regions. Yet, in the last one decade or so, Andhra Pradesh has become synonymous with the incredible development of Hyderabad and its prominence as the pioneering hub of information technology. Now, this development in the once notorious Hyderabad was not brought about by the people of Telangana but by the people of Andhra Pradesh as a whole. Today, Telangana cannot ask for Hyderabad just like that. Billions of dollars have been invested there by people who are not originally from Telangana. Similarly, the calls for a Gorkhaland to be made into a separate state curved out of West Bengal are absurd because, for example, the hill-station of Darjeeling is completely dependent on millions of tourists coming every year from the plain-land of Bengal, and is also dependent on the trade of tea, for which Kolkata is the hub.
The last three states that were curved out in India were Jharkhand, Uttarakhand and Chhattisgarh. Barring Uttarakhand to some extent, there hasn’t been much development in the states of Chhattisgarh and Jharkhand. Both have literally failed to tackle the problem of Naxalism; and corruption is rampant. The common man there is not far better off than what they were before the creation of the states. Of course, people like Madhu Koda have made billions by making the best of the political instability in terms of number games in the legislative assembly.
All in all, even if India needs to create smaller states for better administration, the objective to create such states should be purely based on better governance and overall development rather than caste, creed, religion or regionalism as that would only divide India more. More than that, it is an extremely dangerous precedence to set for the future!
source:The Himalayan Beacon
A year of reforms for the MF industry
Suresh Parthasarathy
In many respects, 2009 will be remembered as a watershed year for Indian mutual funds.
During the year, the SEBI took up drastic reforms in the area of entry loads, distributor remuneration and transactions in mutual fund units. However, the transition proved to be difficult for the industry; as the year draws to a close, it is still grappling with the changes. Here's a look at the changes and their impact.
With effect from August 1, 2009, SEBI abolished the entry load mutual funds levy on their customers when purchasing units on the principle that the system of building a flat commission into the purchase price of funds was not transparent. SEBI suggested that the financial advisor charge the customer directly for the service rendered and disclose the commission they are likely to receive from the fund house concerned.
The move was opposed by distributors. After the rule took effect, inflows into equity funds dropped by half in the first few weeks and have remained tepid since. To improve inflows, fund houses have taken to paying 0.25-0.5 per cent on investment as upfront commission from their pocket to distributors.
The abolishment of entry load for mutual fund investments is still being debated in some developed markets and few have a road map to implement the abolishment over the next few years.
Uniform exit load
After the abolition of entry load, fund houses started charging higher exit loads on their funds. To curb this, SEBI asked funds to comply with the guideline of charging uniform exit load for all investors.
Schemes were asked to maintain all collection by way of loads, including the contingent deferred sales charge, in a separate account.
Of the exit load, a maximum of one per cent of the redemption proceeds was required to be maintained in a separate account. This was to be used by AMCs to pay commission to agents, with the rest to be credited to the scheme.
The SEBI also allowed the exchanges to trade in MF units. The NSE and the BSE soon opened platforms that allowed investors to buy and sell mutual fund units. Investors owning a stock trading and demat account with a broker can now buy mutual fund units as they buy stocks.
The move is expected to expand the reach of mutual funds through the 1.5 lakh share broking terminals in 1,500 cities.
A big benefit of the new system is that mutual fund investors can hold multiple mutual funds in dematerialised form. An investor using this facility need not hold multiple statements of accounts for his investments with different fund houses. He can track all his MF investments with a single demat account statement.
No objection certificate
SEBI also decided to make it easy for investors to switch mutual fund distributors by recently ruling that funds cannot seek a no-objection certificate from investors shifting intermediaries.
Assets of the MF industry grew by 75 per cent from Rs 4.6 lakh crore to Rs 8.07 lakh crore for 2009. The equity assets of the industry shot up from Rs 1.1 lakh crore to Rs 2.05 lakh crore during the year, with the stock market gains helping this process.
However, inflows to the MF have predominantly come from debt funds and debt assets are at a historic high.
Suresh Parthasarathy
In many respects, 2009 will be remembered as a watershed year for Indian mutual funds.
During the year, the SEBI took up drastic reforms in the area of entry loads, distributor remuneration and transactions in mutual fund units. However, the transition proved to be difficult for the industry; as the year draws to a close, it is still grappling with the changes. Here's a look at the changes and their impact.
With effect from August 1, 2009, SEBI abolished the entry load mutual funds levy on their customers when purchasing units on the principle that the system of building a flat commission into the purchase price of funds was not transparent. SEBI suggested that the financial advisor charge the customer directly for the service rendered and disclose the commission they are likely to receive from the fund house concerned.
The move was opposed by distributors. After the rule took effect, inflows into equity funds dropped by half in the first few weeks and have remained tepid since. To improve inflows, fund houses have taken to paying 0.25-0.5 per cent on investment as upfront commission from their pocket to distributors.
The abolishment of entry load for mutual fund investments is still being debated in some developed markets and few have a road map to implement the abolishment over the next few years.
Uniform exit load
After the abolition of entry load, fund houses started charging higher exit loads on their funds. To curb this, SEBI asked funds to comply with the guideline of charging uniform exit load for all investors.
Schemes were asked to maintain all collection by way of loads, including the contingent deferred sales charge, in a separate account.
Of the exit load, a maximum of one per cent of the redemption proceeds was required to be maintained in a separate account. This was to be used by AMCs to pay commission to agents, with the rest to be credited to the scheme.
The SEBI also allowed the exchanges to trade in MF units. The NSE and the BSE soon opened platforms that allowed investors to buy and sell mutual fund units. Investors owning a stock trading and demat account with a broker can now buy mutual fund units as they buy stocks.
The move is expected to expand the reach of mutual funds through the 1.5 lakh share broking terminals in 1,500 cities.
A big benefit of the new system is that mutual fund investors can hold multiple mutual funds in dematerialised form. An investor using this facility need not hold multiple statements of accounts for his investments with different fund houses. He can track all his MF investments with a single demat account statement.
No objection certificate
SEBI also decided to make it easy for investors to switch mutual fund distributors by recently ruling that funds cannot seek a no-objection certificate from investors shifting intermediaries.
Assets of the MF industry grew by 75 per cent from Rs 4.6 lakh crore to Rs 8.07 lakh crore for 2009. The equity assets of the industry shot up from Rs 1.1 lakh crore to Rs 2.05 lakh crore during the year, with the stock market gains helping this process.
However, inflows to the MF have predominantly come from debt funds and debt assets are at a historic high.
INDIA- a land of limitless potential-Gururaj Deshpande
On a lazy, rainy Sunday afternoon in Bangalore, the only thing that would have prompted me to move out was a unique opportunity: To meet the person who, in the heady days of the dotcom revolution, became one of the richest persons of Indian origin in the world.
His net worth, at its peak exceeding $4 billion (Rs18,800 crore now), may have whit tled down but his entrepreneurial zeal and his pas sion for technology have not ebbed. Like many Indians living abroad who prefer an acro nym, US-based Guru raj Deshpande likes to be called Desh. Though his primary expertise is in IT and telecom, he is a serial entrepreneur, mentor to several profit and non-profit ventures, and a philanthropist.
With his neatly combed silver-grey hair, the clean-shaven Deshpande looks much younger than 60. Given that he is on one of his fleeting visits to India, our rendezvous on a Sunday is not surprising.
Neither is the venue--the rotunda drawing room at his brother-in-law N.R. Narayana Murthy's house (Murthy's wife Sudha and Deshpande's wife Jayashree are sisters).
There is this apocryphal story of how Deshpande used to be introduced as Murthy's brother-in-law in India, and vice versa in the US.
Born in Hubli, in Karnataka, Deshpande graduated in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and went to Canada to do his master's and PhD. He used to be an academic before a fellow professor got him into the world of business.
Unlike Murthy, who has focused on Infosys Technologies Ltd since its start in 1981, Deshpande has started and taken public three multi-billiondollar companies.
In October, A123 Systems, of which he is the chairman, had a spectacular debut on Nasdaq, raising $438 million and trading at a 50% premium on the offer price on the day of listing. A123 develops and manufactures advanced lithium ion batteries and battery systems.
Today, Deshpande says he divides his time equally between each of his not-forprofit initiatives and his six businesses-- Sandstone Capital, Sycamore Networks, A123 Systems, HiveFire, Tejas Networks and Airvana Inc. He is the chairman of the first five and an investor in the last.
His non-profit initiatives include an innovation centre at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an alumni network at IIT Madras--he is on the institute's board as well--The Indus Entrepreneurs, the Public Health Foundation of India, Social Entrepreneurship Sandbox (an organization that helps NGOs incubate ideas) and Akshaya Patra, a meal programme for impoverished school children.
Deshpande says things have changed--India today offers more opportunities for entrepreneurship than the US.
He counters my scepticism: "Look at the scale and variety of challenges which need to be addressed in the Indian market.
They are mind-boggling. While cutting-edge technology might still get done in the US, the Indian environment is conducive to entrepreneurs, if you can identify market opportunities and address them."
He adds that unlike the late 1970s and 1980s, entrepreneurs in India now have access to angel investors, venture capital firms and mentors.
When he moved from academia in 1981, initial hiccups in entrepreneurship preceded the eventual successes. He worked for Codex Corporation, a manufacturer of modems. While Codex profited handsomely from Deshpande's technological expertise, he realized what his strengths were. He co-founded Coral Networks, a router developer, in 1987.
But product delays and disagreements with his financial partner forced him to quit Coral. He returned to India briefly, but decided to go back.
With most of his money gone, there were times when the family had to go without health insurance, a dangerous situation in a country where medical services are expensive.
Did he ever contemplate quitting? "It's never easy. Those tough times taught me a lot. The key to being a successful entrepreneur is the ability to tolerate pain, face challenges, have the humility to correct oneself midway, if required, and self-belief."
It was this innate confidence which made Deshpande start Cascade Communications six months later, in 1990. From a one-man show, he built it into a $500 million company before Ascend Communications acquired it for $3.7 billion in 1997. By then, about 72% of all Internet traffic was passing through Cascade products.
Ascend itself was eventually acquired by Lucent for $24 billion, mainly because of its Cascade portfolio.
Deshpande started Sycamore Networks next. In October 1999, when Sycamore debuted on the bourses, it had a market cap of $18 billion. His 21% shareholding in the company made him one of the richest persons in the world.
Sycamore has struggled since, and lost $35 million in the latest quarter. "The landscape changed," Deshpande says.
"Markets changed. But Sycamore is still strong compared to some of its peers. It still has (close to) a billion dollars in cash. I am confident it will do well."
Since the late 1990s, he has been investing in companies which either address the Indian market or have a large role to play in the country. One such, Tejas Networks, involved in optical networking, has emerged as a strong player in its segment.
Deshpande, who is the chairman of Tejas, becomes animated when he talks about the firm's potential--it has raised $75 million in venture funding so far.
"After petro imports, telecom equipment is another area where India imports a lot. With more than 500 million telco subscribers, the market potential in India is huge. But there are few Indian telecom equipment manufacturing companies. While Tejas is doing its bit, there is potential for several more ventures like Tejas."
I ask him whether we will see big telecom companies such as China's Huawei or ZTE emerge from India. "Within the last 10 years, from around a $1 billion in sales, Huawei and ZTE today would have combined sales of $30 billion. While this is impressive, those companies get tacit backing from the Chinese government. In the long run, companies that get market validation and not necessarily government support are likely to thrive better. India (the government) could do more to encourage telecom manufacturing."
With his international experience, does he have any advice for his brother-in-law, who is launching Catamaran (the venture capital fund Murthy is starting with a Rs630 crore corpus, mainly contributed by his wife Sudha)? "We talk to each other on a regular basis but not on investments. I am sure he has his own ideas. For now, I am not looking at co-investing," he says, smiling.
He spends a lot of time on the Deshpande Centre for Innovation at MIT, to which he contributed $20 million. "The quality of some ideas there is incredible.
They have the potential to impact society in a fundamental way and I am excited by it."
The Akshaya Patra is another cause close to his heart. He has contributed his own money and raises funds for the foundation.
Deshpande recalls a recent event in Haiti in which "Bill (Clinton) was amazed at the scale of Akshaya Patra. We feed a million children a day (in India) and it is increasing". The Clinton Foundation feeds around 70,000 children in Haiti.
Deshpande, who is also mentoring his son Pawan at his start-up HiveFire adds: "I want entrepreneurs to dream big.
India today is full of opportunities. The potential and possibilities are limitless."
EMAIL
venkatesha.b@livemint.com
On a lazy, rainy Sunday afternoon in Bangalore, the only thing that would have prompted me to move out was a unique opportunity: To meet the person who, in the heady days of the dotcom revolution, became one of the richest persons of Indian origin in the world.
His net worth, at its peak exceeding $4 billion (Rs18,800 crore now), may have whit tled down but his entrepreneurial zeal and his pas sion for technology have not ebbed. Like many Indians living abroad who prefer an acro nym, US-based Guru raj Deshpande likes to be called Desh. Though his primary expertise is in IT and telecom, he is a serial entrepreneur, mentor to several profit and non-profit ventures, and a philanthropist.
With his neatly combed silver-grey hair, the clean-shaven Deshpande looks much younger than 60. Given that he is on one of his fleeting visits to India, our rendezvous on a Sunday is not surprising.
Neither is the venue--the rotunda drawing room at his brother-in-law N.R. Narayana Murthy's house (Murthy's wife Sudha and Deshpande's wife Jayashree are sisters).
There is this apocryphal story of how Deshpande used to be introduced as Murthy's brother-in-law in India, and vice versa in the US.
Born in Hubli, in Karnataka, Deshpande graduated in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and went to Canada to do his master's and PhD. He used to be an academic before a fellow professor got him into the world of business.
Unlike Murthy, who has focused on Infosys Technologies Ltd since its start in 1981, Deshpande has started and taken public three multi-billiondollar companies.
In October, A123 Systems, of which he is the chairman, had a spectacular debut on Nasdaq, raising $438 million and trading at a 50% premium on the offer price on the day of listing. A123 develops and manufactures advanced lithium ion batteries and battery systems.
Today, Deshpande says he divides his time equally between each of his not-forprofit initiatives and his six businesses-- Sandstone Capital, Sycamore Networks, A123 Systems, HiveFire, Tejas Networks and Airvana Inc. He is the chairman of the first five and an investor in the last.
His non-profit initiatives include an innovation centre at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an alumni network at IIT Madras--he is on the institute's board as well--The Indus Entrepreneurs, the Public Health Foundation of India, Social Entrepreneurship Sandbox (an organization that helps NGOs incubate ideas) and Akshaya Patra, a meal programme for impoverished school children.
Deshpande says things have changed--India today offers more opportunities for entrepreneurship than the US.
He counters my scepticism: "Look at the scale and variety of challenges which need to be addressed in the Indian market.
They are mind-boggling. While cutting-edge technology might still get done in the US, the Indian environment is conducive to entrepreneurs, if you can identify market opportunities and address them."
He adds that unlike the late 1970s and 1980s, entrepreneurs in India now have access to angel investors, venture capital firms and mentors.
When he moved from academia in 1981, initial hiccups in entrepreneurship preceded the eventual successes. He worked for Codex Corporation, a manufacturer of modems. While Codex profited handsomely from Deshpande's technological expertise, he realized what his strengths were. He co-founded Coral Networks, a router developer, in 1987.
But product delays and disagreements with his financial partner forced him to quit Coral. He returned to India briefly, but decided to go back.
With most of his money gone, there were times when the family had to go without health insurance, a dangerous situation in a country where medical services are expensive.
Did he ever contemplate quitting? "It's never easy. Those tough times taught me a lot. The key to being a successful entrepreneur is the ability to tolerate pain, face challenges, have the humility to correct oneself midway, if required, and self-belief."
It was this innate confidence which made Deshpande start Cascade Communications six months later, in 1990. From a one-man show, he built it into a $500 million company before Ascend Communications acquired it for $3.7 billion in 1997. By then, about 72% of all Internet traffic was passing through Cascade products.
Ascend itself was eventually acquired by Lucent for $24 billion, mainly because of its Cascade portfolio.
Deshpande started Sycamore Networks next. In October 1999, when Sycamore debuted on the bourses, it had a market cap of $18 billion. His 21% shareholding in the company made him one of the richest persons in the world.
Sycamore has struggled since, and lost $35 million in the latest quarter. "The landscape changed," Deshpande says.
"Markets changed. But Sycamore is still strong compared to some of its peers. It still has (close to) a billion dollars in cash. I am confident it will do well."
Since the late 1990s, he has been investing in companies which either address the Indian market or have a large role to play in the country. One such, Tejas Networks, involved in optical networking, has emerged as a strong player in its segment.
Deshpande, who is the chairman of Tejas, becomes animated when he talks about the firm's potential--it has raised $75 million in venture funding so far.
"After petro imports, telecom equipment is another area where India imports a lot. With more than 500 million telco subscribers, the market potential in India is huge. But there are few Indian telecom equipment manufacturing companies. While Tejas is doing its bit, there is potential for several more ventures like Tejas."
I ask him whether we will see big telecom companies such as China's Huawei or ZTE emerge from India. "Within the last 10 years, from around a $1 billion in sales, Huawei and ZTE today would have combined sales of $30 billion. While this is impressive, those companies get tacit backing from the Chinese government. In the long run, companies that get market validation and not necessarily government support are likely to thrive better. India (the government) could do more to encourage telecom manufacturing."
With his international experience, does he have any advice for his brother-in-law, who is launching Catamaran (the venture capital fund Murthy is starting with a Rs630 crore corpus, mainly contributed by his wife Sudha)? "We talk to each other on a regular basis but not on investments. I am sure he has his own ideas. For now, I am not looking at co-investing," he says, smiling.
He spends a lot of time on the Deshpande Centre for Innovation at MIT, to which he contributed $20 million. "The quality of some ideas there is incredible.
They have the potential to impact society in a fundamental way and I am excited by it."
The Akshaya Patra is another cause close to his heart. He has contributed his own money and raises funds for the foundation.
Deshpande recalls a recent event in Haiti in which "Bill (Clinton) was amazed at the scale of Akshaya Patra. We feed a million children a day (in India) and it is increasing". The Clinton Foundation feeds around 70,000 children in Haiti.
Deshpande, who is also mentoring his son Pawan at his start-up HiveFire adds: "I want entrepreneurs to dream big.
India today is full of opportunities. The potential and possibilities are limitless."
source: Livemint
On a lazy, rainy Sunday afternoon in Bangalore, the only thing that would have prompted me to move out was a unique opportunity: To meet the person who, in the heady days of the dotcom revolution, became one of the richest persons of Indian origin in the world.
His net worth, at its peak exceeding $4 billion (Rs18,800 crore now), may have whit tled down but his entrepreneurial zeal and his pas sion for technology have not ebbed. Like many Indians living abroad who prefer an acro nym, US-based Guru raj Deshpande likes to be called Desh. Though his primary expertise is in IT and telecom, he is a serial entrepreneur, mentor to several profit and non-profit ventures, and a philanthropist.
With his neatly combed silver-grey hair, the clean-shaven Deshpande looks much younger than 60. Given that he is on one of his fleeting visits to India, our rendezvous on a Sunday is not surprising.
Neither is the venue--the rotunda drawing room at his brother-in-law N.R. Narayana Murthy's house (Murthy's wife Sudha and Deshpande's wife Jayashree are sisters).
There is this apocryphal story of how Deshpande used to be introduced as Murthy's brother-in-law in India, and vice versa in the US.
Born in Hubli, in Karnataka, Deshpande graduated in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and went to Canada to do his master's and PhD. He used to be an academic before a fellow professor got him into the world of business.
Unlike Murthy, who has focused on Infosys Technologies Ltd since its start in 1981, Deshpande has started and taken public three multi-billiondollar companies.
In October, A123 Systems, of which he is the chairman, had a spectacular debut on Nasdaq, raising $438 million and trading at a 50% premium on the offer price on the day of listing. A123 develops and manufactures advanced lithium ion batteries and battery systems.
Today, Deshpande says he divides his time equally between each of his not-forprofit initiatives and his six businesses-- Sandstone Capital, Sycamore Networks, A123 Systems, HiveFire, Tejas Networks and Airvana Inc. He is the chairman of the first five and an investor in the last.
His non-profit initiatives include an innovation centre at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an alumni network at IIT Madras--he is on the institute's board as well--The Indus Entrepreneurs, the Public Health Foundation of India, Social Entrepreneurship Sandbox (an organization that helps NGOs incubate ideas) and Akshaya Patra, a meal programme for impoverished school children.
Deshpande says things have changed--India today offers more opportunities for entrepreneurship than the US.
He counters my scepticism: "Look at the scale and variety of challenges which need to be addressed in the Indian market.
They are mind-boggling. While cutting-edge technology might still get done in the US, the Indian environment is conducive to entrepreneurs, if you can identify market opportunities and address them."
He adds that unlike the late 1970s and 1980s, entrepreneurs in India now have access to angel investors, venture capital firms and mentors.
When he moved from academia in 1981, initial hiccups in entrepreneurship preceded the eventual successes. He worked for Codex Corporation, a manufacturer of modems. While Codex profited handsomely from Deshpande's technological expertise, he realized what his strengths were. He co-founded Coral Networks, a router developer, in 1987.
But product delays and disagreements with his financial partner forced him to quit Coral. He returned to India briefly, but decided to go back.
With most of his money gone, there were times when the family had to go without health insurance, a dangerous situation in a country where medical services are expensive.
Did he ever contemplate quitting? "It's never easy. Those tough times taught me a lot. The key to being a successful entrepreneur is the ability to tolerate pain, face challenges, have the humility to correct oneself midway, if required, and self-belief."
It was this innate confidence which made Deshpande start Cascade Communications six months later, in 1990. From a one-man show, he built it into a $500 million company before Ascend Communications acquired it for $3.7 billion in 1997. By then, about 72% of all Internet traffic was passing through Cascade products.
Ascend itself was eventually acquired by Lucent for $24 billion, mainly because of its Cascade portfolio.
Deshpande started Sycamore Networks next. In October 1999, when Sycamore debuted on the bourses, it had a market cap of $18 billion. His 21% shareholding in the company made him one of the richest persons in the world.
Sycamore has struggled since, and lost $35 million in the latest quarter. "The landscape changed," Deshpande says.
"Markets changed. But Sycamore is still strong compared to some of its peers. It still has (close to) a billion dollars in cash. I am confident it will do well."
Since the late 1990s, he has been investing in companies which either address the Indian market or have a large role to play in the country. One such, Tejas Networks, involved in optical networking, has emerged as a strong player in its segment.
Deshpande, who is the chairman of Tejas, becomes animated when he talks about the firm's potential--it has raised $75 million in venture funding so far.
"After petro imports, telecom equipment is another area where India imports a lot. With more than 500 million telco subscribers, the market potential in India is huge. But there are few Indian telecom equipment manufacturing companies. While Tejas is doing its bit, there is potential for several more ventures like Tejas."
I ask him whether we will see big telecom companies such as China's Huawei or ZTE emerge from India. "Within the last 10 years, from around a $1 billion in sales, Huawei and ZTE today would have combined sales of $30 billion. While this is impressive, those companies get tacit backing from the Chinese government. In the long run, companies that get market validation and not necessarily government support are likely to thrive better. India (the government) could do more to encourage telecom manufacturing."
With his international experience, does he have any advice for his brother-in-law, who is launching Catamaran (the venture capital fund Murthy is starting with a Rs630 crore corpus, mainly contributed by his wife Sudha)? "We talk to each other on a regular basis but not on investments. I am sure he has his own ideas. For now, I am not looking at co-investing," he says, smiling.
He spends a lot of time on the Deshpande Centre for Innovation at MIT, to which he contributed $20 million. "The quality of some ideas there is incredible.
They have the potential to impact society in a fundamental way and I am excited by it."
The Akshaya Patra is another cause close to his heart. He has contributed his own money and raises funds for the foundation.
Deshpande recalls a recent event in Haiti in which "Bill (Clinton) was amazed at the scale of Akshaya Patra. We feed a million children a day (in India) and it is increasing". The Clinton Foundation feeds around 70,000 children in Haiti.
Deshpande, who is also mentoring his son Pawan at his start-up HiveFire adds: "I want entrepreneurs to dream big.
India today is full of opportunities. The potential and possibilities are limitless."
venkatesha.b@livemint.com
On a lazy, rainy Sunday afternoon in Bangalore, the only thing that would have prompted me to move out was a unique opportunity: To meet the person who, in the heady days of the dotcom revolution, became one of the richest persons of Indian origin in the world.
His net worth, at its peak exceeding $4 billion (Rs18,800 crore now), may have whit tled down but his entrepreneurial zeal and his pas sion for technology have not ebbed. Like many Indians living abroad who prefer an acro nym, US-based Guru raj Deshpande likes to be called Desh. Though his primary expertise is in IT and telecom, he is a serial entrepreneur, mentor to several profit and non-profit ventures, and a philanthropist.
With his neatly combed silver-grey hair, the clean-shaven Deshpande looks much younger than 60. Given that he is on one of his fleeting visits to India, our rendezvous on a Sunday is not surprising.
Neither is the venue--the rotunda drawing room at his brother-in-law N.R. Narayana Murthy's house (Murthy's wife Sudha and Deshpande's wife Jayashree are sisters).
There is this apocryphal story of how Deshpande used to be introduced as Murthy's brother-in-law in India, and vice versa in the US.
Born in Hubli, in Karnataka, Deshpande graduated in electrical engineering from the Indian Institute of Technology, Madras, and went to Canada to do his master's and PhD. He used to be an academic before a fellow professor got him into the world of business.
Unlike Murthy, who has focused on Infosys Technologies Ltd since its start in 1981, Deshpande has started and taken public three multi-billiondollar companies.
In October, A123 Systems, of which he is the chairman, had a spectacular debut on Nasdaq, raising $438 million and trading at a 50% premium on the offer price on the day of listing. A123 develops and manufactures advanced lithium ion batteries and battery systems.
Today, Deshpande says he divides his time equally between each of his not-forprofit initiatives and his six businesses-- Sandstone Capital, Sycamore Networks, A123 Systems, HiveFire, Tejas Networks and Airvana Inc. He is the chairman of the first five and an investor in the last.
His non-profit initiatives include an innovation centre at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), an alumni network at IIT Madras--he is on the institute's board as well--The Indus Entrepreneurs, the Public Health Foundation of India, Social Entrepreneurship Sandbox (an organization that helps NGOs incubate ideas) and Akshaya Patra, a meal programme for impoverished school children.
Deshpande says things have changed--India today offers more opportunities for entrepreneurship than the US.
He counters my scepticism: "Look at the scale and variety of challenges which need to be addressed in the Indian market.
They are mind-boggling. While cutting-edge technology might still get done in the US, the Indian environment is conducive to entrepreneurs, if you can identify market opportunities and address them."
He adds that unlike the late 1970s and 1980s, entrepreneurs in India now have access to angel investors, venture capital firms and mentors.
When he moved from academia in 1981, initial hiccups in entrepreneurship preceded the eventual successes. He worked for Codex Corporation, a manufacturer of modems. While Codex profited handsomely from Deshpande's technological expertise, he realized what his strengths were. He co-founded Coral Networks, a router developer, in 1987.
But product delays and disagreements with his financial partner forced him to quit Coral. He returned to India briefly, but decided to go back.
With most of his money gone, there were times when the family had to go without health insurance, a dangerous situation in a country where medical services are expensive.
Did he ever contemplate quitting? "It's never easy. Those tough times taught me a lot. The key to being a successful entrepreneur is the ability to tolerate pain, face challenges, have the humility to correct oneself midway, if required, and self-belief."
It was this innate confidence which made Deshpande start Cascade Communications six months later, in 1990. From a one-man show, he built it into a $500 million company before Ascend Communications acquired it for $3.7 billion in 1997. By then, about 72% of all Internet traffic was passing through Cascade products.
Ascend itself was eventually acquired by Lucent for $24 billion, mainly because of its Cascade portfolio.
Deshpande started Sycamore Networks next. In October 1999, when Sycamore debuted on the bourses, it had a market cap of $18 billion. His 21% shareholding in the company made him one of the richest persons in the world.
Sycamore has struggled since, and lost $35 million in the latest quarter. "The landscape changed," Deshpande says.
"Markets changed. But Sycamore is still strong compared to some of its peers. It still has (close to) a billion dollars in cash. I am confident it will do well."
Since the late 1990s, he has been investing in companies which either address the Indian market or have a large role to play in the country. One such, Tejas Networks, involved in optical networking, has emerged as a strong player in its segment.
Deshpande, who is the chairman of Tejas, becomes animated when he talks about the firm's potential--it has raised $75 million in venture funding so far.
"After petro imports, telecom equipment is another area where India imports a lot. With more than 500 million telco subscribers, the market potential in India is huge. But there are few Indian telecom equipment manufacturing companies. While Tejas is doing its bit, there is potential for several more ventures like Tejas."
I ask him whether we will see big telecom companies such as China's Huawei or ZTE emerge from India. "Within the last 10 years, from around a $1 billion in sales, Huawei and ZTE today would have combined sales of $30 billion. While this is impressive, those companies get tacit backing from the Chinese government. In the long run, companies that get market validation and not necessarily government support are likely to thrive better. India (the government) could do more to encourage telecom manufacturing."
With his international experience, does he have any advice for his brother-in-law, who is launching Catamaran (the venture capital fund Murthy is starting with a Rs630 crore corpus, mainly contributed by his wife Sudha)? "We talk to each other on a regular basis but not on investments. I am sure he has his own ideas. For now, I am not looking at co-investing," he says, smiling.
He spends a lot of time on the Deshpande Centre for Innovation at MIT, to which he contributed $20 million. "The quality of some ideas there is incredible.
They have the potential to impact society in a fundamental way and I am excited by it."
The Akshaya Patra is another cause close to his heart. He has contributed his own money and raises funds for the foundation.
Deshpande recalls a recent event in Haiti in which "Bill (Clinton) was amazed at the scale of Akshaya Patra. We feed a million children a day (in India) and it is increasing". The Clinton Foundation feeds around 70,000 children in Haiti.
Deshpande, who is also mentoring his son Pawan at his start-up HiveFire adds: "I want entrepreneurs to dream big.
India today is full of opportunities. The potential and possibilities are limitless."
source: Livemint
MONDAY PARLIAMENT WINTER session ends.
Lok Sabha, which had been disturbed over creation of Telangana continuously for four days, was adjourned sine die on Friday. However, the Rajya Sabha will be in session.
MAHARASHTRA GOVERNMENT to table the report of the Ram Pradhan Committee that probed the 26/11 attacks before the legislature. The report will then be discussed by a 15member committee, comprising leaders of the Opposition in both Houses and group leaders of legislature parties.
BHUTAN'S KING Jigme Khesar Nam gyel Wangchuck will be on a sixday state visit to India, his first visit since his formal coronation over a year ago. This is expected to strengthen the special relationship between the two countries.
INDIA PLAYS Sri Lanka in the third contest of the fivematch ODI series at Cuttack.
TUESDAY THE CAPITAL market regulator Secu rities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) board meeting will be held at Sebi Bha van in Mumbai. On agenda are the con troversial Sebi panel's findings against National Securities Depositories Ltd. WEDNESDAY RESULTS FOR 81member Jharkhand assembly election will be announced.
ASSOCHAM IS organizing the fourth national conference on "GSTroad map to 2010", to be held at LeMeridien, New Delhi. Industry leaders feel that the discussion paper on the Goods and Services Tax has kept many issues, that are of great concern, ambiguous.
The conference will be chaired by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee.
THURSDAY THE FOURTH match of the oneday international series between India and Sri Lanka takes place at Kolkata.
THE DEPARTMENT of industrial poli cy and promotion under the ministry of commerce and industry is scheduled to release inflation figures for sensitive items including food. Annual food infla tion reached a 10year high at 20% for the week ended 5 December leading to an uproar in Parliament by the Opposi tion.
SUNDAY FIFTH ANNIVERSARY of the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 226,000 people in 13Asian and African countries .
Lok Sabha, which had been disturbed over creation of Telangana continuously for four days, was adjourned sine die on Friday. However, the Rajya Sabha will be in session.
MAHARASHTRA GOVERNMENT to table the report of the Ram Pradhan Committee that probed the 26/11 attacks before the legislature. The report will then be discussed by a 15member committee, comprising leaders of the Opposition in both Houses and group leaders of legislature parties.
BHUTAN'S KING Jigme Khesar Nam gyel Wangchuck will be on a sixday state visit to India, his first visit since his formal coronation over a year ago. This is expected to strengthen the special relationship between the two countries.
INDIA PLAYS Sri Lanka in the third contest of the fivematch ODI series at Cuttack.
TUESDAY THE CAPITAL market regulator Secu rities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi) board meeting will be held at Sebi Bha van in Mumbai. On agenda are the con troversial Sebi panel's findings against National Securities Depositories Ltd. WEDNESDAY RESULTS FOR 81member Jharkhand assembly election will be announced.
ASSOCHAM IS organizing the fourth national conference on "GSTroad map to 2010", to be held at LeMeridien, New Delhi. Industry leaders feel that the discussion paper on the Goods and Services Tax has kept many issues, that are of great concern, ambiguous.
The conference will be chaired by finance minister Pranab Mukherjee.
THURSDAY THE FOURTH match of the oneday international series between India and Sri Lanka takes place at Kolkata.
THE DEPARTMENT of industrial poli cy and promotion under the ministry of commerce and industry is scheduled to release inflation figures for sensitive items including food. Annual food infla tion reached a 10year high at 20% for the week ended 5 December leading to an uproar in Parliament by the Opposi tion.
SUNDAY FIFTH ANNIVERSARY of the Indian Ocean tsunami that killed 226,000 people in 13Asian and African countries .
INDIA HAS GREAT FUTURE
Mirko Bordiga, chief executive officer of Ducati Asia Pacific, is no stranger to the luxury auto business. He's spent almost all his career selling Ducati bikes and Ferrari and Maserati cars.
As one of the first entrants into the Indian luxury bike market, Ducati has gone about building its brand and presence in a slow and steady manner. The bikes, which will retail with a price tag of Rs10-45 lakh, are currently sold from two showrooms--one each in Mumbai and Gurgaon. Now Bordia, 41, plans to up the ante and expand rapidly in order to maintain an edge in a market that has seen a slew of launches in the past few months. Edited excerpts from an interview: Global luxury bike makers have be come more aggressive in the Indi an market of late. HarleyDavidson announced its entry a few months ago. Are also getting more aggres sive as a result of this?
To be honest, it's the others who became more aggressive because of our actions. We entered India in 2008 and we've been searching for the best way to grow the brand in India.
We've been making sure we took the right steps in the beginning. So, we found a very good location in Mumbai and now this location in Gurgaon and we're very positive about the future. You see things are moving very fast in India in our sector.
Ducati is going through the fran chise route through Precision Mo tors India Pvt. Ltd as your sole importer. Other bike makers have set up wholly owned subsidiaries.
Why have you chosen this model and what are its advantages?
The Indian market is not an easy market and our company is used to operating with partners outside of the major markets.
At the moment, we have subsidiaries in Europe, USA and Japan, but each one of these markets is over 2,000 units (a year).
India has a huge potential but we still need to make the right steps first. In a market like this you need a local partner who knows what they're doing.
Ducati sold about 20 bikes in cal endar 2008. What are your targets in 2010?
We forecast a (sale of) 150 bikes.
What are your plans for expanding your presence in India?
We do have a plan to be present in all metros--Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata.
In the past you've sold luxury cars as well, such as Ferrari and Maser ati in China. How is the Indian luxu ry car or bike customer different from a Chinese customer?
Indians are showing a much bigger interest and much bigger (car and biking) culture than the Chinese. India has been a producer of big bikes like the Royal Enfield. So, in your mind, the concept is not as strange.
But the Chinese market is much larger than the Indian market at present.
No. In our plans, India will be ahead of China for a while because it is easier to sell in India than in China due to regulations. In many cities in China, you cannot register motorcycles that have an engine capacity of more than 250cc.
Now, they've opened up registrations in Beijing and Shanghai, but there is a lot of work to do not only in terms of brand building but creation of motorcycle culture.
How does the Indian market com pare with other global markets?
It is totally different. Big motorcycle markets in the West have been around for many decades. In India, we've just started a few years ago in the late 1990s. So, in terms of evolution, those are mature markets. We know what to expect. India, we know, has a big potential, but is very unexplored. But we know that if we do the right things in terms of customer service, brand positioning, after-sales, we think we can cut out a significant share for our products. Where do you see the Indian mar ket in five years?
Good question. It's very difficult to say, to be honest. I think in five years, if the pace of change goes on like this, India can be a major market in my area of operations.
What are your favourite bikes to ride?
My favourite bikes are always the future models. I think among the new bikes the Hypermotard 796 will be a hit. I like it a lot. At the moment, I am riding a Monster 696 in Italy. In China, I don't have a bike as yet.
Your favourite luxury car?
Very difficult question. The Ferrari 458 is very beautiful.
They've done a great job in designing it.
Indians have always been very dis cerning buyers and always look for value. They're willing to pay a price but only if they think the product is worth that much. After having done business in India do you also get that impression?
Well, I'll tell you, after the crisis everybody has started thinking like that. People have become more aware of the money they spend. But, our motorcycles have a technological content that competitors cannot match not only in terms of speed but also in terms of safety, rideability and so on.
Very difficult to answer regarding India, as we don't have a large enough base of customers to establish any trend for the Indian market. At the moment, the people who buy the bike in India are people with a big passion for the brand... and the people that I've met have the same amount of passion as bikers in Europe. Indians travel a lot and so they're well acquainted with the Ducati brand. In the West, there is a lot more segmentation. Every family of bikes can be sold to different people.
Did you always want to get into the car and bike industry?
I always wanted to get into this. But in Italy everyone wants to get into this industry.
I'd say I've been lucky to get in, but in terms of desire I always had the desire. I've been really lucky to work with the top companies for more than 10 years.
With global economies picking up, how long before your sales in Asia pick up?
In 2010, I expect a slight drop. I don't think there will be a boom like the one we experienced three-four years ago.
Who are your main competitors in the Indian market?
At the moment, nobody.
Harley-Davidson has not set up dealers. Ours are the only shops that sell big bikes.
The Japanese bikes are not comparable to ours--Suzuki's Hayabusa is sold through its existing dealers and so the customer experience is not the same.
SOURCE:livemint
As one of the first entrants into the Indian luxury bike market, Ducati has gone about building its brand and presence in a slow and steady manner. The bikes, which will retail with a price tag of Rs10-45 lakh, are currently sold from two showrooms--one each in Mumbai and Gurgaon. Now Bordia, 41, plans to up the ante and expand rapidly in order to maintain an edge in a market that has seen a slew of launches in the past few months. Edited excerpts from an interview: Global luxury bike makers have be come more aggressive in the Indi an market of late. HarleyDavidson announced its entry a few months ago. Are also getting more aggres sive as a result of this?
To be honest, it's the others who became more aggressive because of our actions. We entered India in 2008 and we've been searching for the best way to grow the brand in India.
We've been making sure we took the right steps in the beginning. So, we found a very good location in Mumbai and now this location in Gurgaon and we're very positive about the future. You see things are moving very fast in India in our sector.
Ducati is going through the fran chise route through Precision Mo tors India Pvt. Ltd as your sole importer. Other bike makers have set up wholly owned subsidiaries.
Why have you chosen this model and what are its advantages?
The Indian market is not an easy market and our company is used to operating with partners outside of the major markets.
At the moment, we have subsidiaries in Europe, USA and Japan, but each one of these markets is over 2,000 units (a year).
India has a huge potential but we still need to make the right steps first. In a market like this you need a local partner who knows what they're doing.
Ducati sold about 20 bikes in cal endar 2008. What are your targets in 2010?
We forecast a (sale of) 150 bikes.
What are your plans for expanding your presence in India?
We do have a plan to be present in all metros--Delhi, Mumbai, Bangalore, Hyderabad, Chennai and Kolkata.
In the past you've sold luxury cars as well, such as Ferrari and Maser ati in China. How is the Indian luxu ry car or bike customer different from a Chinese customer?
Indians are showing a much bigger interest and much bigger (car and biking) culture than the Chinese. India has been a producer of big bikes like the Royal Enfield. So, in your mind, the concept is not as strange.
But the Chinese market is much larger than the Indian market at present.
No. In our plans, India will be ahead of China for a while because it is easier to sell in India than in China due to regulations. In many cities in China, you cannot register motorcycles that have an engine capacity of more than 250cc.
Now, they've opened up registrations in Beijing and Shanghai, but there is a lot of work to do not only in terms of brand building but creation of motorcycle culture.
How does the Indian market com pare with other global markets?
It is totally different. Big motorcycle markets in the West have been around for many decades. In India, we've just started a few years ago in the late 1990s. So, in terms of evolution, those are mature markets. We know what to expect. India, we know, has a big potential, but is very unexplored. But we know that if we do the right things in terms of customer service, brand positioning, after-sales, we think we can cut out a significant share for our products. Where do you see the Indian mar ket in five years?
Good question. It's very difficult to say, to be honest. I think in five years, if the pace of change goes on like this, India can be a major market in my area of operations.
What are your favourite bikes to ride?
My favourite bikes are always the future models. I think among the new bikes the Hypermotard 796 will be a hit. I like it a lot. At the moment, I am riding a Monster 696 in Italy. In China, I don't have a bike as yet.
Your favourite luxury car?
Very difficult question. The Ferrari 458 is very beautiful.
They've done a great job in designing it.
Indians have always been very dis cerning buyers and always look for value. They're willing to pay a price but only if they think the product is worth that much. After having done business in India do you also get that impression?
Well, I'll tell you, after the crisis everybody has started thinking like that. People have become more aware of the money they spend. But, our motorcycles have a technological content that competitors cannot match not only in terms of speed but also in terms of safety, rideability and so on.
Very difficult to answer regarding India, as we don't have a large enough base of customers to establish any trend for the Indian market. At the moment, the people who buy the bike in India are people with a big passion for the brand... and the people that I've met have the same amount of passion as bikers in Europe. Indians travel a lot and so they're well acquainted with the Ducati brand. In the West, there is a lot more segmentation. Every family of bikes can be sold to different people.
Did you always want to get into the car and bike industry?
I always wanted to get into this. But in Italy everyone wants to get into this industry.
I'd say I've been lucky to get in, but in terms of desire I always had the desire. I've been really lucky to work with the top companies for more than 10 years.
With global economies picking up, how long before your sales in Asia pick up?
In 2010, I expect a slight drop. I don't think there will be a boom like the one we experienced three-four years ago.
Who are your main competitors in the Indian market?
At the moment, nobody.
Harley-Davidson has not set up dealers. Ours are the only shops that sell big bikes.
The Japanese bikes are not comparable to ours--Suzuki's Hayabusa is sold through its existing dealers and so the customer experience is not the same.
SOURCE:livemint
PM’s ADDRESS AT Copenhagen
18 DEC 2009
Following is the text of the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh’s remarks at the informal plenary of Head of States/Governments at the 15th COP at Copenhagen, Denmark today:
“I would like to thank Prime Minister Rasmussen for his efforts in trying to build a global consensus on highly complex issues, involved in climate change, attempting to balance divergent and varied interests.
We have all worked hard to reconcile our different points of view. The outcome may well fall short of expectations. Nevertheless, it can become a significant milestone. I therefore support calls for subsequent negotiations towards building a truly global and genuinely collaborative response to climate change being concluded during 2010.
As we embark on future negotiations, we would do well to take stock of what we have learnt from our efforts over the past two years. I draw three lessons, which should guide us in the task ahead.
Firstly, the vast majority of countries do not support any renegotiation or dilution of the principles and provisions of the UNFCCC, in particular the principle of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.
Further, the need for action on our part is more and not less than what was envisaged at the time of the Rio Convention or the Kyoto Protocol. That is why the Bali Action Plan commits us to enhancing the implementation of the UNFCCC.
To settle for something that would be seen as diminished expectations and diminished implementation would be the wrong message to emerge from this Conference. We should therefore reaffirm categorically that our negotiations will continue on the basis of the Bali mandate.
Secondly, the Kyoto Protocol should continue to stand as a valid legal instrument. Parties to the Protocol should deliver on their solemn commitments under the Protocol. It would go against international public opinion if we acquiesce in its replacement by a new and weaker set of commitments.
Finally, it is clear that any agreement on climate change should respect the need for development and growth in developing countries. Equitable burden sharing should underlie any effective global climate change regime. Any new regime will have moral authority and credibility only if it acknowledges that every citizen of the globe has an equal entitlement to the global atmospheric space.
India has a vital stake in the success of the negotiations as we are among the countries most likely to be severely impacted by climate change.
We have therefore adopted and started to implement a major National Action Plan on Climate Change, relying upon our own resources. Our targets include installation of 20,000 MW of solar energy capacity by 2022, improving energy efficiency by 20% by 2020 and adding an additional 6 million hectares of forests over the next several years.
Excellencies, each one of us gathered here today acknowledges that those worst affected by climate change are the least responsible for it. Whatever emerges from our negotiations must address this glaring injustice, injustice to countries of Africa , injustice to the Least Developed Countries, and injustice to the Small Developing States whose very survival as viable nation states is in jeopardy. We in India , too, are vulnerable, but nevertheless as responsible citizens of the globe, we have agreed to take on a voluntary target of reducing the emission intensity of our GDP growth by around 20% by 2020 in comparison to 2005. We will deliver on this goal regardless of the outcome of this Conference. We can do even more if a supportive global climate change regime is put in place.
Excellencies, we have a difficult task ahead of us. I hope we will all play a positive and constructive role so that we can bridge differences and come up with a balanced and also an equitable outcome during the coming year. India will not be found wanting in this regard.”
pib
18 DEC 2009
Following is the text of the Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh’s remarks at the informal plenary of Head of States/Governments at the 15th COP at Copenhagen, Denmark today:
“I would like to thank Prime Minister Rasmussen for his efforts in trying to build a global consensus on highly complex issues, involved in climate change, attempting to balance divergent and varied interests.
We have all worked hard to reconcile our different points of view. The outcome may well fall short of expectations. Nevertheless, it can become a significant milestone. I therefore support calls for subsequent negotiations towards building a truly global and genuinely collaborative response to climate change being concluded during 2010.
As we embark on future negotiations, we would do well to take stock of what we have learnt from our efforts over the past two years. I draw three lessons, which should guide us in the task ahead.
Firstly, the vast majority of countries do not support any renegotiation or dilution of the principles and provisions of the UNFCCC, in particular the principle of equity and common but differentiated responsibilities and respective capabilities.
Further, the need for action on our part is more and not less than what was envisaged at the time of the Rio Convention or the Kyoto Protocol. That is why the Bali Action Plan commits us to enhancing the implementation of the UNFCCC.
To settle for something that would be seen as diminished expectations and diminished implementation would be the wrong message to emerge from this Conference. We should therefore reaffirm categorically that our negotiations will continue on the basis of the Bali mandate.
Secondly, the Kyoto Protocol should continue to stand as a valid legal instrument. Parties to the Protocol should deliver on their solemn commitments under the Protocol. It would go against international public opinion if we acquiesce in its replacement by a new and weaker set of commitments.
Finally, it is clear that any agreement on climate change should respect the need for development and growth in developing countries. Equitable burden sharing should underlie any effective global climate change regime. Any new regime will have moral authority and credibility only if it acknowledges that every citizen of the globe has an equal entitlement to the global atmospheric space.
India has a vital stake in the success of the negotiations as we are among the countries most likely to be severely impacted by climate change.
We have therefore adopted and started to implement a major National Action Plan on Climate Change, relying upon our own resources. Our targets include installation of 20,000 MW of solar energy capacity by 2022, improving energy efficiency by 20% by 2020 and adding an additional 6 million hectares of forests over the next several years.
Excellencies, each one of us gathered here today acknowledges that those worst affected by climate change are the least responsible for it. Whatever emerges from our negotiations must address this glaring injustice, injustice to countries of Africa , injustice to the Least Developed Countries, and injustice to the Small Developing States whose very survival as viable nation states is in jeopardy. We in India , too, are vulnerable, but nevertheless as responsible citizens of the globe, we have agreed to take on a voluntary target of reducing the emission intensity of our GDP growth by around 20% by 2020 in comparison to 2005. We will deliver on this goal regardless of the outcome of this Conference. We can do even more if a supportive global climate change regime is put in place.
Excellencies, we have a difficult task ahead of us. I hope we will all play a positive and constructive role so that we can bridge differences and come up with a balanced and also an equitable outcome during the coming year. India will not be found wanting in this regard.”
pib
STATE OF WEST BENGAL- DOWN DOWN AND DOWN
FROM THE ECONOMIC REVIEW
A study of the economic evolution between 1960 and 2005 of West Bengal, which was one of the two richest states in India in 1960, has gone from a relative per capita income of about 105 percent of Maharashtra down to a relative income of around 39 percent as on 2005 and this figure is continuing to fall on a YoY basis…… From one of the richest states in India, to one of the poorest in India.
This is compounded by the fact that the WB State now has the currently ongoing India’s worst violent Maoist/Naxalite movements – and the disgruntled people of the “earlier special administrative zones – under the British Raj” of Darjeeling and Dooars areas demanding separation from Bengal to form the “Indian Union State of Gorkhaland”.
Analysis reveals (as per various independent sources) that a large part of the blame for West Bengal’s development woes can be attributed to: (a) low aggregate productivity (b) poorly functioning labour markets and (c) sectoral misallocations.
It was found that sectoral productivity and labour market allocation wedges were strongly correlated with political developments in West Bengal, namely the increasing vote share of the leftist parties.
In 1960, two of the three richest states in India were Maharashtra and West Bengal. Maharashtra, home state of Mumbai (Bombay), was a center of commerce, industry, finance and arts. West Bengal, home state of Kolkata (Calcutta), was a center of manufacturing, and it had the social and physical infrastructure that came with Calcutta’s past as the long-standing capital of the British Empire.
Over the next four decades, however, the two states’ economies diverged as West Bengal under-performed relative to Maharashtra. Both states experienced growth, but West Bengal just grew more slowly. In fact too slowly to even keep up with national inflation. Drawing on data from multiple sources, the extent of West Bengal’s decline could be quantified. According to calculations, by 2003, its per capita output had fallen almost 43 percent relative to Maharashtra’s. For a pair of regions at the top of the heap to diverge at a rate exceeding 1 percent a year for almost 45 years is remarkable in and of itself.
What makes the experience of West Bengal and Maharahstra even more remarkable is that these two regions are located within the same country, and, as such, are subject to the same national policies.
The purpose of this article is to better understand and expose the relative decline of West Bengal. We believe this examination is a necessary step to the ultimate goal of ascertaining the state-specific policies, institutions, and/or degree of implementation of national policies that may be the root causes of West Bengal’s under-performance.
The Labor Market
1. The share of total GDP of the other key sector, services, increased in both states. Agriculture, manufacturing and services comprise about 90 percent of output of these two states during this period.
2. Wedges indicate that the marginal product of labor in West Bengal’s manufacturing sector was too low relative to labor’s marginal product in the services sector. The remaining 70 percent difference is attributed to differences in sectoral productivity. Interestingly, we find that agricultural productivity in West Bengal relative to Maharashtra remained unchanged between 1960 and 2005. However, there was an increase in the relative agricultural share of the labor force in West Bengal during this period. This positive agricultural employment effect was the primary reason for the relatively muted decline in agricultural’s share of output in West Bengal.
We find that our measured wedges are strongly correlated with political developments in West Bengal, namely the increasing vote share of the leftist parties over the last 45 years. (This trend is currently being reversed as of the last Lok Sabha Elections of April 2009 and the further electoral defeat may be in further sectoral rectification of the current State of Bengal). The vote share of the leftist parties, in turn, is positively correlated with the incidence of sectoral misallocation, industrial action, strikes, lockouts etc…
The incidence of industrial action in West Bengal (measured by the ratios of days lost to days worked) increased sharply in the mid-1960s and thereafter has remained at about three times the level in Maharashtra. This suggests to us that an increase in the bargaining power of labour in West Bengal may have been a significant ingredient in the relative decline of West Bengal.
We find the results interesting on two counts. First, as alluded to above, we are unable to find a similar example of two regions within the same country, who were jointly at the top of the income distribution at some point in time, exhibiting such a marked difference in economic performance over a 45 year period. Indeed, even looking at the cross-country income data it is hard to find similar cases.
But, as pointed out by Kehoe and Ruhl (2003), there are a couple of cases like New Zealand and Switzerland which showed 40 percent declines. In per capita incomes relative to the USA between 1960 and 2000. However, New Zealand (4 million people in 2000) and Switzerland (7 million) are tiny when compared with West Bengal (80 million) and Maharashtra (97 million).
Key Stylized Facts
Then, we employ the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), as well as some of the data from Besley and Burgess (2004), to obtain manufacturing sector numbers.
In order to compare per capita incomes across states, we splice several constant-price net state domestic product (NDP) series covering 1960 through 2003. The series are normalized to 2003 prices. That is, in 2003, real NDP in each state equals nominal NDP. The resulting series are still not comparable across states, because aggregate prices may differ across states.
To make state-level comparisons possible, we employ two consumer price indices from the World Bank data set, one for industrial workers and one for agricultural labourers, which are adjusted for inter-state price differences, i.e., they are all expressed relative to an all-India price index. For each state, we take an average of these two indices in 2003 and then divide this average by Maharashtra’s average. We multiply this ratio by the constant-price NDP series. Lastly, we divide by population for each year, where population in years between.
State-level distribution of per capita NDP in 1960 and 2003, expressed relative to Maharashtra. Maharashtra was the third richest state in 1960, while West Bengal was the richest state in India with a per capita income that was about 5 percent higher than Maharashtra’s. However, by 2003, West Bengal’s per capita income had fallen to just 39 percent of Maharashtra’s. Meanwhile Maharashtra became the second richest state. In addition, the fall in West Bengal’s relative income was the largest drop in percentage point terms across all the states.
Rest of India
Decline in the relative per capita income of West Bengal has been going on for decades, and that even as West Bengal is losing ground to Maharashtra, the rest of India is exceeding that of West Bengal.
A fall in income of this magnitude in such a short period of time by a leading economy is rare. To put this in perspective, consider the OECD countries’ performance relative to the United States between 1960 and 2000. Kehoe and Ruhl (2002) use the Penn World Tables data to show that the two countries that suffered sharp drops in their per capita income.
It is worth pointing out that population in West Bengal and Maharashtra have followed very similar paths. West Bengal’s population has been between 86 and 88 percent of Maharashtra’s between 1961 and 2003. So differences in per capita NDP performance cannot be attributed to unusual population dynamics.
Relative to that of the United States were New Zealand and Switzerland. Both declined by about 40 percent relative to the United States. However, the population of New Zealand and Switzerland in 2000 are 3.9 million and 7.2 million, respectively. By contrast, the population of West Bengal in 1991 (2001) was 68 million (80 million). The relative decline of a region that is 20 times as populous as New Zealand and 10 times as populous as Switzerland, and, moreover, is within the national boundaries as the faster growing regions, is what makes this case study so compelling.
Proximate Explanation
Of particular interest to us is to identify factors specific to West Bengal that could have simultaneously depressed total factor productivity in manufacturing and services, reduced the marginal product of labour in manufacturing, and increased incentives for labour employed in agricultural in the state. The usual practise in exercises like these is to look for specific policies that could have caused these outcomes. The complicating factor here is the compulsion of electoral politics in India.
The strong socialistic bent of the country since gaining independence from Britain in 1947 has caused political parties across most of the ideological spectrum to converge on a similar set of stated economic policy goals. These stated goals typically include being pro-labour, pro-rural, pro-agriculture, pro-small scale industries, etc. policies across states in India often doesn’t reveal the true picture.
Besley and Burgess (2003) found that West Bengal was the state with the highest number of pro-labour changes in labour regulations, they ended up classifying both West Bengal and Maharashtra as being pro-labour. Rather, in our opinion, the key difference across states is the implementation record: which policies are implemented and how rigorously are they implemented. But this is precisely what makes the mapping between policies and outcomes hard and can only be discerned.
In order to make some progress on understanding the different outcomes between West Bengal and Maharashtra, we start by describing the political history of these two states. With the exception of some brief interludes, between 1960 and 2005 Maharashtra was governed almost throughout by the Congress party.
However, since 1977 West Bengal has been governed uninterrupted by a leftist coalition called the Left Front led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) making it the longest running government in the country.
Since the Leftist political parties are the biggest supporters of labour and the rural poor, one candidate explanation for the differential performance between the two states is that the politics of West Bengal caused it. It is important to reiterate that despite the similarity between the stated political and economic objectives of both the leftist parties as well as the socialism oriented Congress party, there may well be a difference in policy implementation between a government run by a party that courts labour votes and a government that is run by labour interests itself. We assess the potential of this margin by examining the interaction of the political power of the left with the wedges that we identified above.
The leftist vote share is defined as the combined vote share in local Assembly elections of the following parties: Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation), Communist Party of India (Marxist), Forward Block, Forward Block (Socialist), Farward Block, Forward Block (MG), Forward Block (RG), Forward Block Marxist), Revolutionary Socialist Party.
We have data for the Assembly elections in 1951, 1957, 1962, 1967, 1971, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1991, 1996, and 2001. We generated an annual series for the vote share by filling in for the years between elections using the average annual growth rate of the share between successive elections.
Manufacturing and services sectors in West Bengal (relative to Maharashtra). The figures show a strong negative relationship between the vote share and the wedges with correlations of -0.49 and -0.55, respectively. Clearly, leftist votes didn’t translates into productivity gains in general.
Given the pattern of co-movement between the leftist vote share and the different wedges in West Bengal, the obvious next step is to determine what exactly happened in response to the growing political strength of the left. The first suspect is that an increasing leftist vote.
Share may have been accompanied by rising bargaining power of the trade unions may have induced more aggressive trade union demands for higher wages, more labour-friendly work rules etc.. To examine this possibility, in Figure 18 we look at the ratio of man-days lost to man-days worked in West Bengal and Maharashtra between 1960 and 1995.
Figure is Revealing
The level of industrial action in the two states was almost identical till 1966. Starting in 1967 there was a sharp spike in industrial action in West Bengal. Thereafter the man-days lost ratio in West Bengal was always higher than in Maharashtra (with the exception of one year, 1982, which saw a brutal strike in Maharashtra). During the period the mean for the man-days lost ratio in West Bengal was almost three times that in Maharashtra.
The fact that days lost due to industrial action in West Bengal started rising in the late 1960s is interesting as that was precisely the time that the leftist coalition first came to power in the state, albeit for a short period of time. Against the ratio of man-days lost to man-days worked in West Bengal. As is obvious, the more powerful the left became the greater was the incidence of labour action, strikes etc. — The correlation between the leftist vote share and man-days lost ratio is 0.59. Another sign of increasing labour power in West Bengal during this period was rapid expansion in the number of registered trade unions in West Bengal from 2057 in 1957 to 4808 in 1970, i.e., a 2.5 fold rise. During the same period the number of registered trade unions in Maharashtra only increased from 1586 to 2560.
To put these numbers in perspective, it is worth noting that Maharashtra was not exactly a state with a particularly docile labour force. The level of trade union power in the textile industry in Maharashtra was extremely high with some of the state trade union leaders like Mr. Datta Samant having a national profile.
Sources: Amartya Lahiri and Kei-Mu Yi at the Iowa Development Conference, Iowa State University, and Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.
FROM THE ECONOMIC REVIEW
A study of the economic evolution between 1960 and 2005 of West Bengal, which was one of the two richest states in India in 1960, has gone from a relative per capita income of about 105 percent of Maharashtra down to a relative income of around 39 percent as on 2005 and this figure is continuing to fall on a YoY basis…… From one of the richest states in India, to one of the poorest in India.
This is compounded by the fact that the WB State now has the currently ongoing India’s worst violent Maoist/Naxalite movements – and the disgruntled people of the “earlier special administrative zones – under the British Raj” of Darjeeling and Dooars areas demanding separation from Bengal to form the “Indian Union State of Gorkhaland”.
Analysis reveals (as per various independent sources) that a large part of the blame for West Bengal’s development woes can be attributed to: (a) low aggregate productivity (b) poorly functioning labour markets and (c) sectoral misallocations.
It was found that sectoral productivity and labour market allocation wedges were strongly correlated with political developments in West Bengal, namely the increasing vote share of the leftist parties.
In 1960, two of the three richest states in India were Maharashtra and West Bengal. Maharashtra, home state of Mumbai (Bombay), was a center of commerce, industry, finance and arts. West Bengal, home state of Kolkata (Calcutta), was a center of manufacturing, and it had the social and physical infrastructure that came with Calcutta’s past as the long-standing capital of the British Empire.
Over the next four decades, however, the two states’ economies diverged as West Bengal under-performed relative to Maharashtra. Both states experienced growth, but West Bengal just grew more slowly. In fact too slowly to even keep up with national inflation. Drawing on data from multiple sources, the extent of West Bengal’s decline could be quantified. According to calculations, by 2003, its per capita output had fallen almost 43 percent relative to Maharashtra’s. For a pair of regions at the top of the heap to diverge at a rate exceeding 1 percent a year for almost 45 years is remarkable in and of itself.
What makes the experience of West Bengal and Maharahstra even more remarkable is that these two regions are located within the same country, and, as such, are subject to the same national policies.
The purpose of this article is to better understand and expose the relative decline of West Bengal. We believe this examination is a necessary step to the ultimate goal of ascertaining the state-specific policies, institutions, and/or degree of implementation of national policies that may be the root causes of West Bengal’s under-performance.
The Labor Market
1. The share of total GDP of the other key sector, services, increased in both states. Agriculture, manufacturing and services comprise about 90 percent of output of these two states during this period.
2. Wedges indicate that the marginal product of labor in West Bengal’s manufacturing sector was too low relative to labor’s marginal product in the services sector. The remaining 70 percent difference is attributed to differences in sectoral productivity. Interestingly, we find that agricultural productivity in West Bengal relative to Maharashtra remained unchanged between 1960 and 2005. However, there was an increase in the relative agricultural share of the labor force in West Bengal during this period. This positive agricultural employment effect was the primary reason for the relatively muted decline in agricultural’s share of output in West Bengal.
We find that our measured wedges are strongly correlated with political developments in West Bengal, namely the increasing vote share of the leftist parties over the last 45 years. (This trend is currently being reversed as of the last Lok Sabha Elections of April 2009 and the further electoral defeat may be in further sectoral rectification of the current State of Bengal). The vote share of the leftist parties, in turn, is positively correlated with the incidence of sectoral misallocation, industrial action, strikes, lockouts etc…
The incidence of industrial action in West Bengal (measured by the ratios of days lost to days worked) increased sharply in the mid-1960s and thereafter has remained at about three times the level in Maharashtra. This suggests to us that an increase in the bargaining power of labour in West Bengal may have been a significant ingredient in the relative decline of West Bengal.
We find the results interesting on two counts. First, as alluded to above, we are unable to find a similar example of two regions within the same country, who were jointly at the top of the income distribution at some point in time, exhibiting such a marked difference in economic performance over a 45 year period. Indeed, even looking at the cross-country income data it is hard to find similar cases.
But, as pointed out by Kehoe and Ruhl (2003), there are a couple of cases like New Zealand and Switzerland which showed 40 percent declines. In per capita incomes relative to the USA between 1960 and 2000. However, New Zealand (4 million people in 2000) and Switzerland (7 million) are tiny when compared with West Bengal (80 million) and Maharashtra (97 million).
Key Stylized Facts
Then, we employ the Annual Survey of Industries (ASI), as well as some of the data from Besley and Burgess (2004), to obtain manufacturing sector numbers.
In order to compare per capita incomes across states, we splice several constant-price net state domestic product (NDP) series covering 1960 through 2003. The series are normalized to 2003 prices. That is, in 2003, real NDP in each state equals nominal NDP. The resulting series are still not comparable across states, because aggregate prices may differ across states.
To make state-level comparisons possible, we employ two consumer price indices from the World Bank data set, one for industrial workers and one for agricultural labourers, which are adjusted for inter-state price differences, i.e., they are all expressed relative to an all-India price index. For each state, we take an average of these two indices in 2003 and then divide this average by Maharashtra’s average. We multiply this ratio by the constant-price NDP series. Lastly, we divide by population for each year, where population in years between.
State-level distribution of per capita NDP in 1960 and 2003, expressed relative to Maharashtra. Maharashtra was the third richest state in 1960, while West Bengal was the richest state in India with a per capita income that was about 5 percent higher than Maharashtra’s. However, by 2003, West Bengal’s per capita income had fallen to just 39 percent of Maharashtra’s. Meanwhile Maharashtra became the second richest state. In addition, the fall in West Bengal’s relative income was the largest drop in percentage point terms across all the states.
Rest of India
Decline in the relative per capita income of West Bengal has been going on for decades, and that even as West Bengal is losing ground to Maharashtra, the rest of India is exceeding that of West Bengal.
A fall in income of this magnitude in such a short period of time by a leading economy is rare. To put this in perspective, consider the OECD countries’ performance relative to the United States between 1960 and 2000. Kehoe and Ruhl (2002) use the Penn World Tables data to show that the two countries that suffered sharp drops in their per capita income.
It is worth pointing out that population in West Bengal and Maharashtra have followed very similar paths. West Bengal’s population has been between 86 and 88 percent of Maharashtra’s between 1961 and 2003. So differences in per capita NDP performance cannot be attributed to unusual population dynamics.
Relative to that of the United States were New Zealand and Switzerland. Both declined by about 40 percent relative to the United States. However, the population of New Zealand and Switzerland in 2000 are 3.9 million and 7.2 million, respectively. By contrast, the population of West Bengal in 1991 (2001) was 68 million (80 million). The relative decline of a region that is 20 times as populous as New Zealand and 10 times as populous as Switzerland, and, moreover, is within the national boundaries as the faster growing regions, is what makes this case study so compelling.
Proximate Explanation
Of particular interest to us is to identify factors specific to West Bengal that could have simultaneously depressed total factor productivity in manufacturing and services, reduced the marginal product of labour in manufacturing, and increased incentives for labour employed in agricultural in the state. The usual practise in exercises like these is to look for specific policies that could have caused these outcomes. The complicating factor here is the compulsion of electoral politics in India.
The strong socialistic bent of the country since gaining independence from Britain in 1947 has caused political parties across most of the ideological spectrum to converge on a similar set of stated economic policy goals. These stated goals typically include being pro-labour, pro-rural, pro-agriculture, pro-small scale industries, etc. policies across states in India often doesn’t reveal the true picture.
Besley and Burgess (2003) found that West Bengal was the state with the highest number of pro-labour changes in labour regulations, they ended up classifying both West Bengal and Maharashtra as being pro-labour. Rather, in our opinion, the key difference across states is the implementation record: which policies are implemented and how rigorously are they implemented. But this is precisely what makes the mapping between policies and outcomes hard and can only be discerned.
In order to make some progress on understanding the different outcomes between West Bengal and Maharashtra, we start by describing the political history of these two states. With the exception of some brief interludes, between 1960 and 2005 Maharashtra was governed almost throughout by the Congress party.
However, since 1977 West Bengal has been governed uninterrupted by a leftist coalition called the Left Front led by the Communist Party of India (Marxist) making it the longest running government in the country.
Since the Leftist political parties are the biggest supporters of labour and the rural poor, one candidate explanation for the differential performance between the two states is that the politics of West Bengal caused it. It is important to reiterate that despite the similarity between the stated political and economic objectives of both the leftist parties as well as the socialism oriented Congress party, there may well be a difference in policy implementation between a government run by a party that courts labour votes and a government that is run by labour interests itself. We assess the potential of this margin by examining the interaction of the political power of the left with the wedges that we identified above.
The leftist vote share is defined as the combined vote share in local Assembly elections of the following parties: Communist Party of India, Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist), Communist Party of India (Marxist-Leninist) (Liberation), Communist Party of India (Marxist), Forward Block, Forward Block (Socialist), Farward Block, Forward Block (MG), Forward Block (RG), Forward Block Marxist), Revolutionary Socialist Party.
We have data for the Assembly elections in 1951, 1957, 1962, 1967, 1971, 1972, 1977, 1982, 1987, 1991, 1996, and 2001. We generated an annual series for the vote share by filling in for the years between elections using the average annual growth rate of the share between successive elections.
Manufacturing and services sectors in West Bengal (relative to Maharashtra). The figures show a strong negative relationship between the vote share and the wedges with correlations of -0.49 and -0.55, respectively. Clearly, leftist votes didn’t translates into productivity gains in general.
Given the pattern of co-movement between the leftist vote share and the different wedges in West Bengal, the obvious next step is to determine what exactly happened in response to the growing political strength of the left. The first suspect is that an increasing leftist vote.
Share may have been accompanied by rising bargaining power of the trade unions may have induced more aggressive trade union demands for higher wages, more labour-friendly work rules etc.. To examine this possibility, in Figure 18 we look at the ratio of man-days lost to man-days worked in West Bengal and Maharashtra between 1960 and 1995.
Figure is Revealing
The level of industrial action in the two states was almost identical till 1966. Starting in 1967 there was a sharp spike in industrial action in West Bengal. Thereafter the man-days lost ratio in West Bengal was always higher than in Maharashtra (with the exception of one year, 1982, which saw a brutal strike in Maharashtra). During the period the mean for the man-days lost ratio in West Bengal was almost three times that in Maharashtra.
The fact that days lost due to industrial action in West Bengal started rising in the late 1960s is interesting as that was precisely the time that the leftist coalition first came to power in the state, albeit for a short period of time. Against the ratio of man-days lost to man-days worked in West Bengal. As is obvious, the more powerful the left became the greater was the incidence of labour action, strikes etc. — The correlation between the leftist vote share and man-days lost ratio is 0.59. Another sign of increasing labour power in West Bengal during this period was rapid expansion in the number of registered trade unions in West Bengal from 2057 in 1957 to 4808 in 1970, i.e., a 2.5 fold rise. During the same period the number of registered trade unions in Maharashtra only increased from 1586 to 2560.
To put these numbers in perspective, it is worth noting that Maharashtra was not exactly a state with a particularly docile labour force. The level of trade union power in the textile industry in Maharashtra was extremely high with some of the state trade union leaders like Mr. Datta Samant having a national profile.
Sources: Amartya Lahiri and Kei-Mu Yi at the Iowa Development Conference, Iowa State University, and Indian Statistical Institute, Delhi.
GJM rejects Chidambaram’s appeal
19 Dec 2009
The Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) leadership has turned down Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s appeal to call off the “fast-unto-death” programme by some of its activists which entered its eighth day on Friday.
“Our president Bimal Gurung has made clear to Mr. Chidambaram our refusal,” senior GJM leader and member of its central committee Benoy Tamang told The Hindu over telephone from Darjeeling.
The GJM has been demanding creation of a Gorkhaland State comprising Darjeeling and its adjoining areas in West Bengal.
Mr. Chidambaram, in a statement issued in New Delhi, made the appeal to the GJM even as he stressed the need for creating a cordial atmosphere for the tripartite talks scheduled to be held in Darjeeling on December 21.
The GJM leadership said that though it had abided by Mr. Chidambaram’s request to call off its four-day bandh 12 hours after it had begun in the Darjeeling hills on December 14, the fast would continue.
The condition of some of those participating in the protest has been worsening by the day.
West Bengal government’s appeal
The West Bengal government too believes that by calling such an agitation in the run-up to the talks, the GJM is only vitiating the atmosphere. It has also appealed to the GJM to call off the agitation, according to State Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen.
“No need for agitational approach”
New Delhi Special Correspondent writes:
Earlier, Mr. Chidambaram, in a statement issued in New Delhi, said as the talks involving the Centre, the West Bengal government and the GJM were already scheduled, there was no need to adopt an agitational approach on the eve of such dialogue.
He said the GJM’s hunger strike was still continuing and he was saddened to learn that several on fast were suffering from dehydration and some hospitalised. “The deteriorating health of some who are observing fast is a matter of concern to all of us. Hence, I would appeal to the GJM to call off the stir immediately and utilise its time and energy to prepare for the tripartite talks,” the Home Minister
source: The Hindu
19 Dec 2009
The Gorkha Janamukti Morcha (GJM) leadership has turned down Union Home Minister P. Chidambaram’s appeal to call off the “fast-unto-death” programme by some of its activists which entered its eighth day on Friday.
“Our president Bimal Gurung has made clear to Mr. Chidambaram our refusal,” senior GJM leader and member of its central committee Benoy Tamang told The Hindu over telephone from Darjeeling.
The GJM has been demanding creation of a Gorkhaland State comprising Darjeeling and its adjoining areas in West Bengal.
Mr. Chidambaram, in a statement issued in New Delhi, made the appeal to the GJM even as he stressed the need for creating a cordial atmosphere for the tripartite talks scheduled to be held in Darjeeling on December 21.
The GJM leadership said that though it had abided by Mr. Chidambaram’s request to call off its four-day bandh 12 hours after it had begun in the Darjeeling hills on December 14, the fast would continue.
The condition of some of those participating in the protest has been worsening by the day.
West Bengal government’s appeal
The West Bengal government too believes that by calling such an agitation in the run-up to the talks, the GJM is only vitiating the atmosphere. It has also appealed to the GJM to call off the agitation, according to State Home Secretary Ardhendu Sen.
“No need for agitational approach”
New Delhi Special Correspondent writes:
Earlier, Mr. Chidambaram, in a statement issued in New Delhi, said as the talks involving the Centre, the West Bengal government and the GJM were already scheduled, there was no need to adopt an agitational approach on the eve of such dialogue.
He said the GJM’s hunger strike was still continuing and he was saddened to learn that several on fast were suffering from dehydration and some hospitalised. “The deteriorating health of some who are observing fast is a matter of concern to all of us. Hence, I would appeal to the GJM to call off the stir immediately and utilise its time and energy to prepare for the tripartite talks,” the Home Minister
source: The Hindu
Greenko in Sikkim Hydro Project
18 December 2009
Co-founder and chief executive Anil Chalamalasetty said: "This has been an important period for Greenko.
"We have continued to grow the pipeline of assets under development and successfully negotiated significant increases in the tariffs of our operational plants.
"We believe that developments including the commissioning of AMR (24.75 MW) and Rithwik (24.75 MW) hydro assets, enhanced banking facilities, strategic investment from GEMF II and the acquisition of Sikkim 96 MW hydro project, will position the company as a leading IPP and clean utility producer in India and help achieve our target of 1,000 MW of secured capacity by the end of Financial Year 2014."
18 December 2009
Co-founder and chief executive Anil Chalamalasetty said: "This has been an important period for Greenko.
"We have continued to grow the pipeline of assets under development and successfully negotiated significant increases in the tariffs of our operational plants.
"We believe that developments including the commissioning of AMR (24.75 MW) and Rithwik (24.75 MW) hydro assets, enhanced banking facilities, strategic investment from GEMF II and the acquisition of Sikkim 96 MW hydro project, will position the company as a leading IPP and clean utility producer in India and help achieve our target of 1,000 MW of secured capacity by the end of Financial Year 2014."
Sikkim to host International Rhododendron Festival
Gangtok, Dec 18 (PTI) Sikkim would host International Rhododendron festival in April-May 2010 showcasing its rich varieties of this flower.
As many as 39 varieties of rhododendron will be on display during the month-long festival to be held in the sanctuaries at Singba, Varsey and Lachen-Thangu where the flower blooms around April and May, Forest officials said.
A number of other events like conference and seminar, rhododendron nature walk, photo exhibition, bird watching, angling, mountain biking, ethnic food festival, cultural shows, camping, exhibition of local handicrafts would be held during the festival, the first of its kind in the Himalayan Belt, they said.
The International Rhododendron Festival will come handy in promotion of vast potential of eco-tourism in Sikkim, the officials said.
Gangtok, Dec 18 (PTI) Sikkim would host International Rhododendron festival in April-May 2010 showcasing its rich varieties of this flower.
As many as 39 varieties of rhododendron will be on display during the month-long festival to be held in the sanctuaries at Singba, Varsey and Lachen-Thangu where the flower blooms around April and May, Forest officials said.
A number of other events like conference and seminar, rhododendron nature walk, photo exhibition, bird watching, angling, mountain biking, ethnic food festival, cultural shows, camping, exhibition of local handicrafts would be held during the festival, the first of its kind in the Himalayan Belt, they said.
The International Rhododendron Festival will come handy in promotion of vast potential of eco-tourism in Sikkim, the officials said.
Friday, December 18, 2009
Proposal to make Ajmer World Class Railway Station
Ajmer Railway Station in Rajasthan has been identified for development into World Class Station through Public-Private Partnership(PPP) mode. Preliminary activities have been taken up. No target date for completion has been fixed.
It is planned to provide state-of-the-art station building with good architecture and having segregation of arrival/departure of passengers, modern amenities like food plazas, currency exchange counter, tourist info booth, retail outlets, internet café, ATM facilities, Hotels, car rentals, prepaid taxi booths wherever feasible, well illuminated circulating area, etc.
This information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Railways, Shri E. Ahamed in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.
Ajmer Railway Station in Rajasthan has been identified for development into World Class Station through Public-Private Partnership(PPP) mode. Preliminary activities have been taken up. No target date for completion has been fixed.
It is planned to provide state-of-the-art station building with good architecture and having segregation of arrival/departure of passengers, modern amenities like food plazas, currency exchange counter, tourist info booth, retail outlets, internet café, ATM facilities, Hotels, car rentals, prepaid taxi booths wherever feasible, well illuminated circulating area, etc.
This information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Railways, Shri E. Ahamed in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.
34 Solar Cities in India approved
17 Dec 2009 17:29 IST
LOK SABHA
Government has given in-principle approval to 34 cities in the country to be developed as Solar Cities. These include cities from Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chandigarh, Chattisgarh, Gujarat, Goa, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamilnadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Kerala. Proposals were invited from all States and Union Territories for development of Solar Cities. Approval was given based on the proposals received as per guidelines. Proposals from remaining States are yet to be received. A total of 60 Cities are proposed to be developed as Solar Cities.
The criteria set by the Ministry for the identification of cities include a city population between 0.5 to 5 million (with relaxation given to special category States including North-East States), initiatives and regulatory measures already taken alongwith a high level of commitment in promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy. The Solar City aims to reduce a minimum of 10% of its projected demand of conventional energy at the end of five years through energy efficiency measures and generation from renewable energy installations.
This information was given by Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy, Dr. Farooq Abdullah in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.
PRA/SKK
17 Dec 2009 17:29 IST
LOK SABHA
Government has given in-principle approval to 34 cities in the country to be developed as Solar Cities. These include cities from Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chandigarh, Chattisgarh, Gujarat, Goa, Haryana, Karnataka, Maharashtra, Madhya Pradesh, Manipur, Nagaland, Orissa, Punjab, Rajasthan, Tamilnadu, Tripura, Uttar Pradesh, Uttarakhand and Kerala. Proposals were invited from all States and Union Territories for development of Solar Cities. Approval was given based on the proposals received as per guidelines. Proposals from remaining States are yet to be received. A total of 60 Cities are proposed to be developed as Solar Cities.
The criteria set by the Ministry for the identification of cities include a city population between 0.5 to 5 million (with relaxation given to special category States including North-East States), initiatives and regulatory measures already taken alongwith a high level of commitment in promoting energy efficiency and renewable energy. The Solar City aims to reduce a minimum of 10% of its projected demand of conventional energy at the end of five years through energy efficiency measures and generation from renewable energy installations.
This information was given by Union Minister for New and Renewable Energy, Dr. Farooq Abdullah in a written reply in Lok Sabha today.
PRA/SKK
South-Asian train service to cross North Bengal
16 Dec 2009 13:14 IST
RAJYA SABHA
At the third meeting of SAARC Inter-governmental Group on Transport held on July 24, 2009 at Colombo, India circulated a Concept Paper on running of a demonstration container train from Bangladesh to Pakistan via India and Nepal. The possible corridor for running the demonstration train mentioned in the Paper was Chittagong Port/Dhaka(Bangladesh)-Katihar(India)-Birgunj(Nepal)-Lahore(Pakistan). The meeting noted the proposal and the Member States were to consider this proposal and offer their comments within three months.
This position was approved in the second meeting of SAARC Transport Ministers held on the next day i.e. July 25 2009. All the Member States, including Pakistan and Bangladesh have agreed to evaluate the Concept Paper circulated by India. However, comments from the Member States have not been received. Any further decision on the proposal including extension to other points can be taken only after the Concept Paper is first discussed and agreed among the member countries.
This information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Railways, Shri E. Ahamed in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.
AKS/HK/LK/TR
16 Dec 2009 13:14 IST
RAJYA SABHA
At the third meeting of SAARC Inter-governmental Group on Transport held on July 24, 2009 at Colombo, India circulated a Concept Paper on running of a demonstration container train from Bangladesh to Pakistan via India and Nepal. The possible corridor for running the demonstration train mentioned in the Paper was Chittagong Port/Dhaka(Bangladesh)-Katihar(India)-Birgunj(Nepal)-Lahore(Pakistan). The meeting noted the proposal and the Member States were to consider this proposal and offer their comments within three months.
This position was approved in the second meeting of SAARC Transport Ministers held on the next day i.e. July 25 2009. All the Member States, including Pakistan and Bangladesh have agreed to evaluate the Concept Paper circulated by India. However, comments from the Member States have not been received. Any further decision on the proposal including extension to other points can be taken only after the Concept Paper is first discussed and agreed among the member countries.
This information was given by the Minister of State in the Ministry of Railways, Shri E. Ahamed in a written reply in Rajya Sabha today.
AKS/HK/LK/TR
Business Correspondents for Banks allowed
LOK SABHA 16 Dec 2009
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) through a circular dated November 30, 2009 has permitted banks to appoint individual kirana/medical/fair price shop owners, individual Public Call Office (PCO) operators, agents of Small Savings schemes of Government of India/Insurance Companies, individuals who own Petrol Pumps, retired teachers and authorised functionaries of well run Self Help Groups (SHGs) linked to banks as their business correspondents (BCs). The instructions are operational from November 30th 2009.
This information was given by Minister of State for Finance, Shri Namo Narain Meena in reply to a question raised by Shri Dr. M. Jagannath and Shri Partap Singh Bajwa in Lok Sabha today.
LOK SABHA 16 Dec 2009
Reserve Bank of India (RBI) through a circular dated November 30, 2009 has permitted banks to appoint individual kirana/medical/fair price shop owners, individual Public Call Office (PCO) operators, agents of Small Savings schemes of Government of India/Insurance Companies, individuals who own Petrol Pumps, retired teachers and authorised functionaries of well run Self Help Groups (SHGs) linked to banks as their business correspondents (BCs). The instructions are operational from November 30th 2009.
This information was given by Minister of State for Finance, Shri Namo Narain Meena in reply to a question raised by Shri Dr. M. Jagannath and Shri Partap Singh Bajwa in Lok Sabha today.
States having Highest Financial Exclusion
In terms of the Master Circular dated 1.7.2009 of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), 375 districts in 27 States have been identified as underbanked districts as the Average Population Per Branch Office (APPBO) in these districts is higher than the national average. A list of underbanked districts has been forwarded to banks to enable them to indentify centres for opening branches in such districts.
Banks are encouraged to open branches in unbanked and underbanked areas through liberalisation in the extant Banks Authorisation Policy. Several Public Sector Banks have also initiated pilot projects through the Business Correspondent Model utilizing smart card technology, mobile banking, etc. to increase their outreach in interior areas.
RBI vide its circular dated December 1, 2009, has permitted all Scheduled Commercial Banks, (excluding Regional Rural Banks) to open branches in Tier 3 to Tier 6 Centres (with population upto 49,999 as per Census 2001) without having the need to take permission from RBI in each case, subject to reporting. Further, banks have been permitted to open branches in rural, semi urban & urban centres in the North Eastern States & Sikkim, without prior permission from the RBI. Further, RBI has also relaxed its Branch Authorisation Policy under which Scheduled Commercial banks (SCBs) including Public Sector Banks are permitted to install offsite ATMs at centres/places identified by them without having the need to take permission from the RBI. This is expected to result in further expansion of banking Network.
This information was given by Minister of State for Finance, Shri Namo Narain Meena in reply to a question raised by Shri Basudeb Acharia in Lok Sabha today. (PIB)
PIB
In terms of the Master Circular dated 1.7.2009 of Reserve Bank of India (RBI), 375 districts in 27 States have been identified as underbanked districts as the Average Population Per Branch Office (APPBO) in these districts is higher than the national average. A list of underbanked districts has been forwarded to banks to enable them to indentify centres for opening branches in such districts.
Banks are encouraged to open branches in unbanked and underbanked areas through liberalisation in the extant Banks Authorisation Policy. Several Public Sector Banks have also initiated pilot projects through the Business Correspondent Model utilizing smart card technology, mobile banking, etc. to increase their outreach in interior areas.
RBI vide its circular dated December 1, 2009, has permitted all Scheduled Commercial Banks, (excluding Regional Rural Banks) to open branches in Tier 3 to Tier 6 Centres (with population upto 49,999 as per Census 2001) without having the need to take permission from RBI in each case, subject to reporting. Further, banks have been permitted to open branches in rural, semi urban & urban centres in the North Eastern States & Sikkim, without prior permission from the RBI. Further, RBI has also relaxed its Branch Authorisation Policy under which Scheduled Commercial banks (SCBs) including Public Sector Banks are permitted to install offsite ATMs at centres/places identified by them without having the need to take permission from the RBI. This is expected to result in further expansion of banking Network.
This information was given by Minister of State for Finance, Shri Namo Narain Meena in reply to a question raised by Shri Basudeb Acharia in Lok Sabha today. (PIB)
PIB
EARTH TEMP TO RISE BY ANOTHER 3DEGREE CELCIUS- A UN REPORT
Copenhagen: leaked UN report points to 3C rise
16 Dec 2009:
A confidential UN analysis obtained by the Guardian reveals the emissions cuts offered so far at the Copenhagen climate change summit will lead to global temperatures rising by an average of 3C.
The analysis seriously undermines the statements by governments that they are aiming to limit emissions to a level ensuring no more than a 2C temperature rise over the next century, and indicates that the last 24 hours of negotiations will be extremely challenging.
A rise of 3C would mean:
up to 170 million more people suffering severe coastal floods
and 550 million more at risk of hunger,
according to the 2006 Stern economic review of climate change for the UK government —as well as leaving
up to 50% of species facing extinction.
Even a rise of 2C would lead to sharp decline in tropical crop yields, more flooding and droughts.
The paper was drafted by the UN secretariat running the Copenhagen summit.
“Unless the remaining gap of around 1.9-4.2Gt is closed and Annexe 1 parties [countries] commit themselves to strong action before and after 2020, global emissions will remain on an unsustainable pathway that could lead to concentrations equal or above 550 parts per million, with the related temperature rise around 3C,” it says.
The goal of keeping the increase in global average temperatures below 2C, relative to pre-industrial levels, has become the figure that all rich countries have committed to trying to achieve in Copenhagen.
Greenpeace campaigner Joss Garman said: “This is an explosive document that shows the numbers on the table at the moment would lead to nothing less than climate breakdown and an extraordinarily dangerous situation for humanity. The UN is admitting in private that the pledges made by world leaders would lead to a 3C rise in temperatures.
The science shows that could lead to the collapse of the Amazon rainforest, crippling water shortages across South America and Australia and the near—extinction of tropical coral reefs, and that’s just the start of it.”
The biggest remaining obstacles that remain are who pays for the fight against climate change and how much, emissions cuts and how promises of cuts are verified. Earlier, US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, pushed the negotiations forward by committing the US to contribute to a $100bn a year fund from 2020. Indonesia yesterday followed China’s lead in softening its opposition to international monitoring of carbon cuts.
Earlier this week, Rajendra Pachauri, who heads the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told the Guardian that even with 1.5C rises, many communities would suffer.
16 Dec 2009:
A confidential UN analysis obtained by the Guardian reveals the emissions cuts offered so far at the Copenhagen climate change summit will lead to global temperatures rising by an average of 3C.
The analysis seriously undermines the statements by governments that they are aiming to limit emissions to a level ensuring no more than a 2C temperature rise over the next century, and indicates that the last 24 hours of negotiations will be extremely challenging.
A rise of 3C would mean:
up to 170 million more people suffering severe coastal floods
and 550 million more at risk of hunger,
according to the 2006 Stern economic review of climate change for the UK government —as well as leaving
up to 50% of species facing extinction.
Even a rise of 2C would lead to sharp decline in tropical crop yields, more flooding and droughts.
The paper was drafted by the UN secretariat running the Copenhagen summit.
“Unless the remaining gap of around 1.9-4.2Gt is closed and Annexe 1 parties [countries] commit themselves to strong action before and after 2020, global emissions will remain on an unsustainable pathway that could lead to concentrations equal or above 550 parts per million, with the related temperature rise around 3C,” it says.
The goal of keeping the increase in global average temperatures below 2C, relative to pre-industrial levels, has become the figure that all rich countries have committed to trying to achieve in Copenhagen.
Greenpeace campaigner Joss Garman said: “This is an explosive document that shows the numbers on the table at the moment would lead to nothing less than climate breakdown and an extraordinarily dangerous situation for humanity. The UN is admitting in private that the pledges made by world leaders would lead to a 3C rise in temperatures.
The science shows that could lead to the collapse of the Amazon rainforest, crippling water shortages across South America and Australia and the near—extinction of tropical coral reefs, and that’s just the start of it.”
The biggest remaining obstacles that remain are who pays for the fight against climate change and how much, emissions cuts and how promises of cuts are verified. Earlier, US secretary of state, Hillary Clinton, pushed the negotiations forward by committing the US to contribute to a $100bn a year fund from 2020. Indonesia yesterday followed China’s lead in softening its opposition to international monitoring of carbon cuts.
Earlier this week, Rajendra Pachauri, who heads the UN’s Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC), told the Guardian that even with 1.5C rises, many communities would suffer.
DELEGATION IS NOW ESSENTIAL FOR SUCCESS
Some managers don't manage.
Instead, they try to do everything themselves. This never works, because most supervisors have too many tasks and too little time.
Phone calls, emails, meetings, business lunches and all the unforeseen events that require their immediate attention rob them of the time they need to perform their actual management duties, such as planning and controlling activities, as well as organizing employees and directing their efforts to primary tasks.
These tasks are, of course, why they are on the job.
How can they get through their busy day-to-day agenda so they can manage proactively?
To business experts Richard A. Luecke and Perry McIntosh the solution is clear: They must learn to delegate. Delegation is a basic managerial skill, such as planning or budgeting.
In fact, it is an essential "managerial competency". Besides protecting managers' time, delegation helps employees upgrade their skills and competencies. People learn best through executing tasks, and delegation gives them opportunities to build and showcase their abilities.
Luecke and McIntosh offer a simple, straightforward fivestep plan you can use to delegate job assignments. Follow it to free your time for management, to develop your staffers' skills and to build your department's broader competency.
First, determine which tasks, processes, decisions and projects to delegate. The authors advise starting with tasks that do not require your expertise and then reassigning some of your specialist chores to others who share your skills and who can take over the entire job. To maintain quality when you delegate, make sure the person you select can perform the job well.
Do not allocate certain pivotal tasks, such as hiring new employees, to other members of your team. Having your subordinates meet job candidates is fine, but deciding whether people join your team is up to you and your boss. Do not assign direct reports to handle their colleagues' performance reviews.
That's inappropriate and is sure to cause trouble. Similarly, never delegate "firing and disciplinary actions". If your boss gives you a job, don't entrust it to someone else unless the boss suggests it. Keep doing some of your team's "dirty jobs", because reassigning all of them will anger your subordinates.
Second, identify the right person for each job you reassign. Seek staffers who can devote their full attention to your tasks. Choose reliable people who have the right background to start immediately and seamlessly. Don't give a task to someone who lacks the expertise to do it well. Provide training if necessary. According to the authors, your main goal is to pass along a job to someone who will do it efficiently and professionally.
However, a second goal should be to help your employees develop their abilities through doing jobs you delegate.
Third, delegate. Ensure that the person who takes on the assignment understands what you want to achieve, knows how to do the job, is enthusiastic about the project and accepts full responsibility. Provide the "authority and resources" the staffer will need, plus a comprehensive overview of the assignment, so he or she understands how it fits into the big picture and into the company's goals.
Fourth, monitor progress and provide feedback. Touch base periodically according to an agreed-upon checkpoint schedule. Don't try to take over the job temporarily through micromanagement.
Offer specific, timely feedback on behaviour the staffer can modify.
Fifth, and finally, evaluate performance objectively. If your staffer did a good job, you have the opportunity to provide a reward, if not monetarily or with a promotion, then at least with welcome recognition and praise. Since people learn from their mistakes, careful evaluation of a poorly executed job may eliminate future errors.
The authors outline their five-step approach to delegation in clear language backed by numerous helpful examples. Additionally, they detail typical delegation problems and supply practical solutions.
Some managers don't manage.
Instead, they try to do everything themselves. This never works, because most supervisors have too many tasks and too little time.
Phone calls, emails, meetings, business lunches and all the unforeseen events that require their immediate attention rob them of the time they need to perform their actual management duties, such as planning and controlling activities, as well as organizing employees and directing their efforts to primary tasks.
These tasks are, of course, why they are on the job.
How can they get through their busy day-to-day agenda so they can manage proactively?
To business experts Richard A. Luecke and Perry McIntosh the solution is clear: They must learn to delegate. Delegation is a basic managerial skill, such as planning or budgeting.
In fact, it is an essential "managerial competency". Besides protecting managers' time, delegation helps employees upgrade their skills and competencies. People learn best through executing tasks, and delegation gives them opportunities to build and showcase their abilities.
Luecke and McIntosh offer a simple, straightforward fivestep plan you can use to delegate job assignments. Follow it to free your time for management, to develop your staffers' skills and to build your department's broader competency.
First, determine which tasks, processes, decisions and projects to delegate. The authors advise starting with tasks that do not require your expertise and then reassigning some of your specialist chores to others who share your skills and who can take over the entire job. To maintain quality when you delegate, make sure the person you select can perform the job well.
Do not allocate certain pivotal tasks, such as hiring new employees, to other members of your team. Having your subordinates meet job candidates is fine, but deciding whether people join your team is up to you and your boss. Do not assign direct reports to handle their colleagues' performance reviews.
That's inappropriate and is sure to cause trouble. Similarly, never delegate "firing and disciplinary actions". If your boss gives you a job, don't entrust it to someone else unless the boss suggests it. Keep doing some of your team's "dirty jobs", because reassigning all of them will anger your subordinates.
Second, identify the right person for each job you reassign. Seek staffers who can devote their full attention to your tasks. Choose reliable people who have the right background to start immediately and seamlessly. Don't give a task to someone who lacks the expertise to do it well. Provide training if necessary. According to the authors, your main goal is to pass along a job to someone who will do it efficiently and professionally.
However, a second goal should be to help your employees develop their abilities through doing jobs you delegate.
Third, delegate. Ensure that the person who takes on the assignment understands what you want to achieve, knows how to do the job, is enthusiastic about the project and accepts full responsibility. Provide the "authority and resources" the staffer will need, plus a comprehensive overview of the assignment, so he or she understands how it fits into the big picture and into the company's goals.
Fourth, monitor progress and provide feedback. Touch base periodically according to an agreed-upon checkpoint schedule. Don't try to take over the job temporarily through micromanagement.
Offer specific, timely feedback on behaviour the staffer can modify.
Fifth, and finally, evaluate performance objectively. If your staffer did a good job, you have the opportunity to provide a reward, if not monetarily or with a promotion, then at least with welcome recognition and praise. Since people learn from their mistakes, careful evaluation of a poorly executed job may eliminate future errors.
The authors outline their five-step approach to delegation in clear language backed by numerous helpful examples. Additionally, they detail typical delegation problems and supply practical solutions.
PLAN AT A CLICK
You tracked the right unds, researched hard o get the hot stock, scanned various bank websites to get the lowest interest rates on your home loan and, last but not the least, hired an advisor to make the right choices.
However, 10-15 years on, when it was time to get the returns, you find that you have lost track of your equity-linked saving schemes you bought every year to save tax, or that the value of the funds you bought have fallen way below your target. As you rummage through your old diaries and scan your Excels to get the answers right, you realize that the pieces are lost amid the dust settled on your paperwork over the years.
So, after all the efforts you put in, what went wrong?
Just as backstage preparations are the key to the real show, keeping track of your investments is the only way you can open the doors to the returns you deserve to get.
Why online tools The market is throwing new investment avenues to make your portfolio richer, which, in turn, makes managing it that much more difficult.
With the number of bills and insurance premiums you need to service going up, the chances of defaulting and getting slapped with huge fines are also high. Keeping track of finances can involve remembering multiple login IDs, passwords and personal identification numbers. Besides, there are mutual fund net asset values to track and stock prices to monitor. So, what is the way out? One effective way is to opt for online financial tools, which helps you manage your money and provide you financial planning services, apart from other features. You can also treat them as a one-stop shop for all your investment details and follow up. Though some banks provide some of these services, online financial tools are a step ahead.
Says Devan Shah, head (business), Money Mentor, a company that creates information and software tools for financial companies: "Today an individual has multiple bank accounts and credit cards, and various investments in mutual funds and stocks. Keeping track of all these the traditional way is difficult. Hence, the need for financial tools."
What you get Personal finance tools offer three basic services.
Account aggregation: This facility lets you view all the accounts you may have with banks, credit cards, insurance, fixed deposits and public provident fund at one place. This saves you the trouble of remembering multiple passwords and login IDs.
To do this, you need to import data from all these accounts to the online platform.
You can do so by forwarding your statements to the online tool you are registered with.
Another option is to give the tool automatic access to your information with respective institutes by passing on some details of your accounts. The last option is to manually feed the numbers, much like you would do in an Excel. You can leave the rest to the system to take care of. For example, if you update the information on different loans you may have, the system will track the total debt in your name.
View your investments: You can track your overall portfolio through this facility. It gives a real-time view of your stocks, mutual funds and other investments. Most websites offer this facility free of cost. You are required to enter basic details of your investments, such as the date on which you bought or sold them, the cost price and the number of units.
Based on this information, the site will even compute your income-tax and capital gains tax. The website would also send you daily updates on email on the latest value of your overall portfolio. You can also get asset allocation charts and can see your exposure to various companies, industries or sectors.
Budgeting and alerts: The software can help you analyse your income and expenses and understand your spending pattern. It also provides you a budgeting tool, which will alert you every time you exceed your budget under a particular head, say, entertainment. You can also set a reminder to alert you about due dates for bills and premiums. Most sites give you tips on financial planning.
What it costs While most online financial tools are available free of cost, a few websites have specific charges for certain tools.
Word of caution Before you enroll for a site, here's a word of caution. Don't forget that whenever you share sensitive financial information, you carry an inherent risk. Always make sure that the site you are using doesn't store information on its server but on your machine and that, too, in an encrypted format.
"If someone is bent upon misusing data, you can't do anything about it. But tools that can be downloaded on the desktop seem to be safer than the ones where you need to store your information on the service provider's server," says Shah. Desktop download means that data is stored on your desktop, and can be seen only when you connect to the Internet. Also, check how long the site has been around. It may be dangerous to trust anybody with your data. Remember that online financial frauds are on the rise.
www.perfios.com
www.rupee.com
www.myirisplus.com
www.moneycontrol.com
www.valueresearchonline.com
You tracked the right unds, researched hard o get the hot stock, scanned various bank websites to get the lowest interest rates on your home loan and, last but not the least, hired an advisor to make the right choices.
However, 10-15 years on, when it was time to get the returns, you find that you have lost track of your equity-linked saving schemes you bought every year to save tax, or that the value of the funds you bought have fallen way below your target. As you rummage through your old diaries and scan your Excels to get the answers right, you realize that the pieces are lost amid the dust settled on your paperwork over the years.
So, after all the efforts you put in, what went wrong?
Just as backstage preparations are the key to the real show, keeping track of your investments is the only way you can open the doors to the returns you deserve to get.
Why online tools The market is throwing new investment avenues to make your portfolio richer, which, in turn, makes managing it that much more difficult.
With the number of bills and insurance premiums you need to service going up, the chances of defaulting and getting slapped with huge fines are also high. Keeping track of finances can involve remembering multiple login IDs, passwords and personal identification numbers. Besides, there are mutual fund net asset values to track and stock prices to monitor. So, what is the way out? One effective way is to opt for online financial tools, which helps you manage your money and provide you financial planning services, apart from other features. You can also treat them as a one-stop shop for all your investment details and follow up. Though some banks provide some of these services, online financial tools are a step ahead.
Says Devan Shah, head (business), Money Mentor, a company that creates information and software tools for financial companies: "Today an individual has multiple bank accounts and credit cards, and various investments in mutual funds and stocks. Keeping track of all these the traditional way is difficult. Hence, the need for financial tools."
What you get Personal finance tools offer three basic services.
Account aggregation: This facility lets you view all the accounts you may have with banks, credit cards, insurance, fixed deposits and public provident fund at one place. This saves you the trouble of remembering multiple passwords and login IDs.
To do this, you need to import data from all these accounts to the online platform.
You can do so by forwarding your statements to the online tool you are registered with.
Another option is to give the tool automatic access to your information with respective institutes by passing on some details of your accounts. The last option is to manually feed the numbers, much like you would do in an Excel. You can leave the rest to the system to take care of. For example, if you update the information on different loans you may have, the system will track the total debt in your name.
View your investments: You can track your overall portfolio through this facility. It gives a real-time view of your stocks, mutual funds and other investments. Most websites offer this facility free of cost. You are required to enter basic details of your investments, such as the date on which you bought or sold them, the cost price and the number of units.
Based on this information, the site will even compute your income-tax and capital gains tax. The website would also send you daily updates on email on the latest value of your overall portfolio. You can also get asset allocation charts and can see your exposure to various companies, industries or sectors.
Budgeting and alerts: The software can help you analyse your income and expenses and understand your spending pattern. It also provides you a budgeting tool, which will alert you every time you exceed your budget under a particular head, say, entertainment. You can also set a reminder to alert you about due dates for bills and premiums. Most sites give you tips on financial planning.
What it costs While most online financial tools are available free of cost, a few websites have specific charges for certain tools.
Word of caution Before you enroll for a site, here's a word of caution. Don't forget that whenever you share sensitive financial information, you carry an inherent risk. Always make sure that the site you are using doesn't store information on its server but on your machine and that, too, in an encrypted format.
"If someone is bent upon misusing data, you can't do anything about it. But tools that can be downloaded on the desktop seem to be safer than the ones where you need to store your information on the service provider's server," says Shah. Desktop download means that data is stored on your desktop, and can be seen only when you connect to the Internet. Also, check how long the site has been around. It may be dangerous to trust anybody with your data. Remember that online financial frauds are on the rise.
www.perfios.com
www.rupee.com
www.myirisplus.com
www.moneycontrol.com
www.valueresearchonline.com
Sikkim Manipal University Distance Education Vidyadeep – scholarship initiative
December 17, 2009
Sikkim Manipal University Directorate of Distance Education launches ‘Vidyadeep’ – a nationwide scholarship initiative
• ‘Vidyadeep is a nationwide scholarship program
• Will be offered to 1500 meritorious and deserving students of Sikkim Manipal University Distance Education (SMU-DE) programs
• Out of these 1500 scholarships, 500 scholarships will be offered to students from North East region alone
• Scholarships upto 100% of tuition fee waiver
• Launched by Anil Kumble, Brand Ambassador - Manipal Education, and Brig. (Retd.) Dr. S.S.Pabla, Vice Chancellor, Sikkim Manipal University at the 2nd National Learning Centre Convention of SMU – DDE at Mysore on 14th December 2009
New Delhi, December 16, 2009: Sikkim Manipal University Directorate of Distance Education (SMU-DDE) today announced the launch of Vidyadeep, a nationwide scholarship program for 1500 meritorious and deserving students of SMU-DE programs across India. Out of these 1500 scholarships, 500 scholarships will be offered to students from the North East alone. This scholarship is a ‘first of its kind pioneering initiative’ in the field of distance education in the country!
At the 2nd National Learning Centre Convention at Mysore on 14th December 2009, in the presence of representatives from more than 400 learning centres of SMU-DDE in India, Brand Ambassador for Manipal Education, Anil Kumble, and Brig. (Retd.) Dr. S.S. Pabla, Vice Chancellor, Sikkim Manipal University, launched ‘Vidyadeep’. Appreciating Manipal Group’s dedication and commitment towards education and healthcare, Anil Kumble applauded the efforts of SMU-DDE in making quality higher education accessible to students and aspirants from the hinterland of India. He said, “Vidyadeep is a laudable initiative to help deserving students realize their educational dreams. I am sure this is a milestone in itself. SMU-DDE is revolutionizing distance education in India providing access and equity to all its students.”
The scholarship programme is in the form of upto 100% tuition fee waiver for students currently in the 1st to 5th semester for the streams of IT, Management, Journalism & Mass Communication, Fashion, Hospitality & Tourism, Allied Health, Biotechnology and Bioinformatics.
Eligibility criteria include:
• Low family income
• Qualifying exam marks – an average of 45% and above
• Marks in last exam (for the 1st semester students)
Vice Chancellor of Sikkim Manipal University Brig.(Retd.) Dr. S.S. Pabla said “Commemorating our commitment to higher education for all, we are proud to launch this scholarship programme for our students. We encourage students to apply and avail this opportunity to realize their dreams”.
About Sikkim Manipal University - Directorate of Distance Education (SMU-DDE)
Sikkim Manipal University - Directorate of Distance Education (SMU-DDE) is amongst the largest distance education providers in India and offers Post Graduate, Degree and Diploma programs across 10 disciplines. The SMU DDE was established in 2001 by the Sikkim Manipal University of Health, Medical and Technological Sciences as part of its efforts to bring education to the masses to fulfill the growing demand for professionals and individuals who do not have the luxury of time to join regular, full-time courses. The programs offered by SMU are recognized by the Distance Education Council of the Government of India.
As a part of its continuous efforts to improve pedagogy and instructional system in distance learning, Manipal has recently introduced EduNXT, the next-generation interactive learning system. Affordable and easy to use, EduNXT enables a collaborative and interactive environment for learning thus shifting the Education paradigm from being ‘faculty-centric’ to a ‘learner-centric’, thus making quality education available to all, at the convenience of their own time and location
December 17, 2009
Sikkim Manipal University Directorate of Distance Education launches ‘Vidyadeep’ – a nationwide scholarship initiative
• ‘Vidyadeep is a nationwide scholarship program
• Will be offered to 1500 meritorious and deserving students of Sikkim Manipal University Distance Education (SMU-DE) programs
• Out of these 1500 scholarships, 500 scholarships will be offered to students from North East region alone
• Scholarships upto 100% of tuition fee waiver
• Launched by Anil Kumble, Brand Ambassador - Manipal Education, and Brig. (Retd.) Dr. S.S.Pabla, Vice Chancellor, Sikkim Manipal University at the 2nd National Learning Centre Convention of SMU – DDE at Mysore on 14th December 2009
New Delhi, December 16, 2009: Sikkim Manipal University Directorate of Distance Education (SMU-DDE) today announced the launch of Vidyadeep, a nationwide scholarship program for 1500 meritorious and deserving students of SMU-DE programs across India. Out of these 1500 scholarships, 500 scholarships will be offered to students from the North East alone. This scholarship is a ‘first of its kind pioneering initiative’ in the field of distance education in the country!
At the 2nd National Learning Centre Convention at Mysore on 14th December 2009, in the presence of representatives from more than 400 learning centres of SMU-DDE in India, Brand Ambassador for Manipal Education, Anil Kumble, and Brig. (Retd.) Dr. S.S. Pabla, Vice Chancellor, Sikkim Manipal University, launched ‘Vidyadeep’. Appreciating Manipal Group’s dedication and commitment towards education and healthcare, Anil Kumble applauded the efforts of SMU-DDE in making quality higher education accessible to students and aspirants from the hinterland of India. He said, “Vidyadeep is a laudable initiative to help deserving students realize their educational dreams. I am sure this is a milestone in itself. SMU-DDE is revolutionizing distance education in India providing access and equity to all its students.”
The scholarship programme is in the form of upto 100% tuition fee waiver for students currently in the 1st to 5th semester for the streams of IT, Management, Journalism & Mass Communication, Fashion, Hospitality & Tourism, Allied Health, Biotechnology and Bioinformatics.
Eligibility criteria include:
• Low family income
• Qualifying exam marks – an average of 45% and above
• Marks in last exam (for the 1st semester students)
Vice Chancellor of Sikkim Manipal University Brig.(Retd.) Dr. S.S. Pabla said “Commemorating our commitment to higher education for all, we are proud to launch this scholarship programme for our students. We encourage students to apply and avail this opportunity to realize their dreams”.
About Sikkim Manipal University - Directorate of Distance Education (SMU-DDE)
Sikkim Manipal University - Directorate of Distance Education (SMU-DDE) is amongst the largest distance education providers in India and offers Post Graduate, Degree and Diploma programs across 10 disciplines. The SMU DDE was established in 2001 by the Sikkim Manipal University of Health, Medical and Technological Sciences as part of its efforts to bring education to the masses to fulfill the growing demand for professionals and individuals who do not have the luxury of time to join regular, full-time courses. The programs offered by SMU are recognized by the Distance Education Council of the Government of India.
As a part of its continuous efforts to improve pedagogy and instructional system in distance learning, Manipal has recently introduced EduNXT, the next-generation interactive learning system. Affordable and easy to use, EduNXT enables a collaborative and interactive environment for learning thus shifting the Education paradigm from being ‘faculty-centric’ to a ‘learner-centric’, thus making quality education available to all, at the convenience of their own time and location
Thursday, December 17, 2009
Remember the NFO boom of 2006-2007? Just about everyone invested in new funds at that time.
One of the reasons that investors are attracted to new funds is the idea that a fund with low NAV is cheap and therefore a better investment is one of the biggest mistakes that investors make. Actually, it doesn't matter whether the NAV is Rs 10 or Rs 10,000. Here's a simple explanation of why NAV doesn't matter:
Is Low NAV Cheap?
Is a fund with a low NAV a better investment option than a fund with a higher NAV? Since you can buy more units when the NAV is low, isn't it cheaper? Should mutual fund schemes with a higher NAV be avoided? These are questions, which trouble many first-time investors in mutual funds.
The answer to these questions is that it is irrelevant how high or low the NAV of a fund is. The amount of your investment remaining unchanged, between two funds with identical portfolios, a low NAV would mean a higher number of units held and consequently a high NAV would mean lower number of units held. But under both circumstances, the product of the number of units and the applicable NAV, which is the value of your investment, would be identical. Thus it is the stocks in a portfolio that determine returns from a fund, the value of the NAV being immaterial.
When one sells those units, the return will be the same as that of another scheme, which has performed similarly.
The 'cost' of a scheme in terms of its NAV has nothing to do with returns. What you want to buy in a scheme is its performance. The only instance where a higher NAV may adversely affect you is where a dividend has to be received. This happens because a scheme with a higher NAV will result in a fewer number of units and as dividends are paid out on face value, higher NAV will result in lower absolute dividends due to the smaller number of units. But even here, total returns will remain the same.
So from whichever angle you see it, the NAV makes no difference to returns. Mutual fund schemes have to be judged on their performance. And the simplest way to do this is to compare returns over similar periods.
Source:Value research
One of the reasons that investors are attracted to new funds is the idea that a fund with low NAV is cheap and therefore a better investment is one of the biggest mistakes that investors make. Actually, it doesn't matter whether the NAV is Rs 10 or Rs 10,000. Here's a simple explanation of why NAV doesn't matter:
Is Low NAV Cheap?
Is a fund with a low NAV a better investment option than a fund with a higher NAV? Since you can buy more units when the NAV is low, isn't it cheaper? Should mutual fund schemes with a higher NAV be avoided? These are questions, which trouble many first-time investors in mutual funds.
The answer to these questions is that it is irrelevant how high or low the NAV of a fund is. The amount of your investment remaining unchanged, between two funds with identical portfolios, a low NAV would mean a higher number of units held and consequently a high NAV would mean lower number of units held. But under both circumstances, the product of the number of units and the applicable NAV, which is the value of your investment, would be identical. Thus it is the stocks in a portfolio that determine returns from a fund, the value of the NAV being immaterial.
When one sells those units, the return will be the same as that of another scheme, which has performed similarly.
The 'cost' of a scheme in terms of its NAV has nothing to do with returns. What you want to buy in a scheme is its performance. The only instance where a higher NAV may adversely affect you is where a dividend has to be received. This happens because a scheme with a higher NAV will result in a fewer number of units and as dividends are paid out on face value, higher NAV will result in lower absolute dividends due to the smaller number of units. But even here, total returns will remain the same.
So from whichever angle you see it, the NAV makes no difference to returns. Mutual fund schemes have to be judged on their performance. And the simplest way to do this is to compare returns over similar periods.
Source:Value research
Want to draft a will? key-in the details
EASING THE WAY.
Remya Nair
Mumbai, Dec. 16
A draft will can be yours at the click of a mouse. Warmond Trustees and Executors Pvt Ltd is offering a facility wherein customers can provide the will writing instructions online and get a draft will within seven days for Rs 10,000.
Anyone who wishes to draft a will can log on to the company's Web site and fill in a form providing all the necessary estate details and other relevant information. The draft will be mailed to the client within seven days, said Mr Sandeep Nerlekar, MD and CEO, Warmond Trustees and Executors Pvt Ltd.
However, if the clients want Warmond to register the will and complete the other formalities, they will have to pay extra for availing themselves of the facility.
“The awareness among the people for the need of a will is increasing. With rising health concerns, people are not waiting to attain old age to make a will.
At present, most of our clients are high networth individuals. We are looking to target the salaried class as well”, said Mr Nerlekar.
Warmond has tied up with financial institutions such as HDFC Bank, Religare Macquarie and Alchemy Capital for offering estate planning services to their customers. It is also in talks with some foreign banks and a private bank for a tie-up.
Range of services
The services offered by Warmond range from basic will-drafting facilities to executorship, trust formation and management services. “We are also looking at tying up with insurance companies where we can bundle a will with an insurance policy”, he said.
Warmond trains the relationship managers of these financial institutions. So, when the relationship manager talks to the customers about the products offered by the banks, they speak about estate planning as well. If the customer evinces interest, then Warmond contacts the customers.
Referral fee
The referral fee that is paid to the financial institution is a percentage of the fee charged by Warmond.
Warmond, in its earlier avatar, was known as Centurion Executive ship, Trusteeship and Real Estate Management Advisory (CERMA), in which Centurion Bank of Punjab (CBoP) had a stake. However, after HDFC Bank acquired CBoP, it diluted its stake to 5 per cent in the trusteeship business due to potential litigation risk.
For law firms, estate and succession planning is one of the several services. Warmond focuses exclusively on this. Therefore, we are better placed and there is a lot of opportunity for us to expand, Mr Nerlekar said.
EASING THE WAY.
Remya Nair
Mumbai, Dec. 16
A draft will can be yours at the click of a mouse. Warmond Trustees and Executors Pvt Ltd is offering a facility wherein customers can provide the will writing instructions online and get a draft will within seven days for Rs 10,000.
Anyone who wishes to draft a will can log on to the company's Web site and fill in a form providing all the necessary estate details and other relevant information. The draft will be mailed to the client within seven days, said Mr Sandeep Nerlekar, MD and CEO, Warmond Trustees and Executors Pvt Ltd.
However, if the clients want Warmond to register the will and complete the other formalities, they will have to pay extra for availing themselves of the facility.
“The awareness among the people for the need of a will is increasing. With rising health concerns, people are not waiting to attain old age to make a will.
At present, most of our clients are high networth individuals. We are looking to target the salaried class as well”, said Mr Nerlekar.
Warmond has tied up with financial institutions such as HDFC Bank, Religare Macquarie and Alchemy Capital for offering estate planning services to their customers. It is also in talks with some foreign banks and a private bank for a tie-up.
Range of services
The services offered by Warmond range from basic will-drafting facilities to executorship, trust formation and management services. “We are also looking at tying up with insurance companies where we can bundle a will with an insurance policy”, he said.
Warmond trains the relationship managers of these financial institutions. So, when the relationship manager talks to the customers about the products offered by the banks, they speak about estate planning as well. If the customer evinces interest, then Warmond contacts the customers.
Referral fee
The referral fee that is paid to the financial institution is a percentage of the fee charged by Warmond.
Warmond, in its earlier avatar, was known as Centurion Executive ship, Trusteeship and Real Estate Management Advisory (CERMA), in which Centurion Bank of Punjab (CBoP) had a stake. However, after HDFC Bank acquired CBoP, it diluted its stake to 5 per cent in the trusteeship business due to potential litigation risk.
For law firms, estate and succession planning is one of the several services. Warmond focuses exclusively on this. Therefore, we are better placed and there is a lot of opportunity for us to expand, Mr Nerlekar said.
Change of lifestyle is a boost for floriculture
In the past, the demand for flowers was basically for the purpose of decoration, garland-making and religious and other ceremonies. This demand was being met by growing flowers in backyards, gardens and small and marginal farms.
Now, the demand for cut flowers and other specialised floriculture products has begun to swell, thanks largely to the changing lifestyle and growing culture of “say it with flowers”. This has given a fresh and a big impetus to flower production. This bouquet culture requires production of flowers of very high quality, conforming to certain specific norms and standards, such as thorn-free with long stems, large number of blooms per stem, uniform shape and size, and the like. This requires scientific cultivation and careful post-harvest handling of flowers.
Public sector research on floriculture has so far been scattered over a large number of agricultural research institutes and farm universities, each pursuing its own path. Though the all-India coordinated research project on floriculture, under the
Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), had sought to integrate these diversified research efforts to some extent, yet this was insufficient.
There was a need for concentrated focus on floriculture research at a single centre.
This need has now been fulfilled by upgrading the coordinated project into a full-fledged Directorate of Floriculture Research at the New Delhi-based Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), or Pusa Institute.
According to IARI director HS Gupta, the floriculture directorate has been located at this institute because the necessary infrastructure, including the much-needed poly houses for protected cultivation, already exists here. Besides, this institute has expertise in various disciplines of agricultural sciences which will be available to the new directorate for providing inter-disciplinary support to its research efforts.
Gupta feels that the country has tremendous floriculture production potential, thanks to varied agro-climatic conditions in different regions which enable cultivation of almost all kinds of flowers.
Much of the domestic and export demand is for roses and gladioli though several others like chrysanthemum, carnation, gerbera, anthurium, lily and orchids are also quite popular. The newly carved floriculture directorate will, hopefully, work for reducing import dependence for seeds and implements. There is also a need to encourage protected cultivation of flowers under poly houses and greenhouses, especially for the niche domestic market and exports. Such cultivation ensures better quality of the produce. That apart, it allows adjusting flower maturity to the periods of peak demand, such as Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Diwali and other specific occasions. Moreover, it guards the plants against pests and diseases and allows most efficient use of nutrients and water.
According to the industry estimates, the total flower production in 2007-08 was over 870,000 tonnes of loose flowers and over 43,417 million (numbers) of cut flowers. The area under flowers was estimated at about 160,000 hectares. However, the production is concentrated largely in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and West Bengal. Sikkim will also be a significant producer soon.
One of the major constraints faced by flower producers is the lack of proper marketing facilities. Specialised transportation and storage facilities that these highly perishable and sensitive products need are missing
source: Sikkim Reporter
In the past, the demand for flowers was basically for the purpose of decoration, garland-making and religious and other ceremonies. This demand was being met by growing flowers in backyards, gardens and small and marginal farms.
Now, the demand for cut flowers and other specialised floriculture products has begun to swell, thanks largely to the changing lifestyle and growing culture of “say it with flowers”. This has given a fresh and a big impetus to flower production. This bouquet culture requires production of flowers of very high quality, conforming to certain specific norms and standards, such as thorn-free with long stems, large number of blooms per stem, uniform shape and size, and the like. This requires scientific cultivation and careful post-harvest handling of flowers.
Public sector research on floriculture has so far been scattered over a large number of agricultural research institutes and farm universities, each pursuing its own path. Though the all-India coordinated research project on floriculture, under the
Indian Council of Agricultural Research (ICAR), had sought to integrate these diversified research efforts to some extent, yet this was insufficient.
There was a need for concentrated focus on floriculture research at a single centre.
This need has now been fulfilled by upgrading the coordinated project into a full-fledged Directorate of Floriculture Research at the New Delhi-based Indian Agricultural Research Institute (IARI), or Pusa Institute.
According to IARI director HS Gupta, the floriculture directorate has been located at this institute because the necessary infrastructure, including the much-needed poly houses for protected cultivation, already exists here. Besides, this institute has expertise in various disciplines of agricultural sciences which will be available to the new directorate for providing inter-disciplinary support to its research efforts.
Gupta feels that the country has tremendous floriculture production potential, thanks to varied agro-climatic conditions in different regions which enable cultivation of almost all kinds of flowers.
Much of the domestic and export demand is for roses and gladioli though several others like chrysanthemum, carnation, gerbera, anthurium, lily and orchids are also quite popular. The newly carved floriculture directorate will, hopefully, work for reducing import dependence for seeds and implements. There is also a need to encourage protected cultivation of flowers under poly houses and greenhouses, especially for the niche domestic market and exports. Such cultivation ensures better quality of the produce. That apart, it allows adjusting flower maturity to the periods of peak demand, such as Valentine’s Day, Christmas, Diwali and other specific occasions. Moreover, it guards the plants against pests and diseases and allows most efficient use of nutrients and water.
According to the industry estimates, the total flower production in 2007-08 was over 870,000 tonnes of loose flowers and over 43,417 million (numbers) of cut flowers. The area under flowers was estimated at about 160,000 hectares. However, the production is concentrated largely in Maharashtra, Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Haryana, Rajasthan and West Bengal. Sikkim will also be a significant producer soon.
One of the major constraints faced by flower producers is the lack of proper marketing facilities. Specialised transportation and storage facilities that these highly perishable and sensitive products need are missing
source: Sikkim Reporter
Tourist inflow on the rise in Sikkim
Gangtok: Total 16339 international tourists visited Sikkim in 2009 till the month of November and 462984 domestic tourists till the month of October this year. Inflow of tourists in 2009 is expected to exceed 2008 figures - 21,162 international and 4,60,564 domestic tourists in the state.
Highest number of international tourists was in the month of October and April and domestic tourists in May, as recorded by Sikkim Tourism department.
Gangtok: Total 16339 international tourists visited Sikkim in 2009 till the month of November and 462984 domestic tourists till the month of October this year. Inflow of tourists in 2009 is expected to exceed 2008 figures - 21,162 international and 4,60,564 domestic tourists in the state.
Highest number of international tourists was in the month of October and April and domestic tourists in May, as recorded by Sikkim Tourism department.
Pranay Aneja takes charge as MD of SDL
SANJAY AGARWAL
RANGPO, December 16: After almost one year of management feud that had forced the State government to intervene, the Sikkim Distilleries Limited (SDL) finally got a new full fledged managing director, Pranay Aneja who took charge from today in the oldest distillery of the State.
A management feud in the distilleries that reached the court last year in October had caused considerable anxiety for the State Government which owns 49 per cent shares in the SDL that produces quality liquor that has earned itself several awards and name for itself globally.
Between the dispute, the State Government had decided to give the unit on lease following which Aneja took charge as the new managing director of SDL from today.
Speaking to this Correspondent, the new managing director promised to make SDF a profitable venture. He said that the management has target to revamp several existing system and procedures in near future. More new brands will be added to already existing 20 brands of our products, he said.
The fresh life in SDL is expected to be infused from the New Year.
It may be recalled that a feud between the SDL partners Kunwar Onkar Singh and Harish Aneja had taken legal colour in October last with latter leveling several charges against the MD on an agreement signed between the two.
The lower court had restrained Singh who was absconding then from functioning as the MD and had also restrained the agents, representatives or any person acting under his instruction or behalf from transferring his or his nominee shares of the distilleries to any other person and or third party.
The State Government owns 49 per cent shares in the SDL that produces quality liquor that has earned itself several awards and name for itself globally. Further, the state government is also the custodian of the public shares and holds the responsibilities to look after the interest of the public shares. The state government has two officials in the Board of Directors.
Further, the state government also nominates the Chairman of the SDL.
source: sikkim express
SANJAY AGARWAL
RANGPO, December 16: After almost one year of management feud that had forced the State government to intervene, the Sikkim Distilleries Limited (SDL) finally got a new full fledged managing director, Pranay Aneja who took charge from today in the oldest distillery of the State.
A management feud in the distilleries that reached the court last year in October had caused considerable anxiety for the State Government which owns 49 per cent shares in the SDL that produces quality liquor that has earned itself several awards and name for itself globally.
Between the dispute, the State Government had decided to give the unit on lease following which Aneja took charge as the new managing director of SDL from today.
Speaking to this Correspondent, the new managing director promised to make SDF a profitable venture. He said that the management has target to revamp several existing system and procedures in near future. More new brands will be added to already existing 20 brands of our products, he said.
The fresh life in SDL is expected to be infused from the New Year.
It may be recalled that a feud between the SDL partners Kunwar Onkar Singh and Harish Aneja had taken legal colour in October last with latter leveling several charges against the MD on an agreement signed between the two.
The lower court had restrained Singh who was absconding then from functioning as the MD and had also restrained the agents, representatives or any person acting under his instruction or behalf from transferring his or his nominee shares of the distilleries to any other person and or third party.
The State Government owns 49 per cent shares in the SDL that produces quality liquor that has earned itself several awards and name for itself globally. Further, the state government is also the custodian of the public shares and holds the responsibilities to look after the interest of the public shares. The state government has two officials in the Board of Directors.
Further, the state government also nominates the Chairman of the SDL.
source: sikkim express
Food Processing development plan for Sikkim & NER
15 Dec 2009
Under the Scheme for Technology Upgradation/Modernisation/Establishment of Food Processing Industries, Ministry of Food Processing Industries extends financial assistance to food processing units in the form of grants-in-aid @ 25% of the cost of plant and machinery and technical civil works subject to a maximum of Rs.50.00 lakh in general area and 33.33% subject to maximum of Rs.75.00 lakh in difficult areas such as Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Sikkim and North Eastern States, Andeman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep and ITDP areas.
In addition, under the Technology Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture in North Eastern and Himalayan States, higher levels of assistance @ 50% upto Rs.4.00 crore for setting up and Rs.1.00 crore for upgradation of fruits and vegetables processing is available. 10% of total budget allocated to the Ministry is earmarked for North Eastern States including Sikkim.
This information was given by Shri Subodh Kant Sahai, Minister of Food Processing Industries in the Lok Sabha today in a written reply.
VLK/ska
15 Dec 2009
Under the Scheme for Technology Upgradation/Modernisation/Establishment of Food Processing Industries, Ministry of Food Processing Industries extends financial assistance to food processing units in the form of grants-in-aid @ 25% of the cost of plant and machinery and technical civil works subject to a maximum of Rs.50.00 lakh in general area and 33.33% subject to maximum of Rs.75.00 lakh in difficult areas such as Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Uttrakhand, Sikkim and North Eastern States, Andeman & Nicobar Islands, Lakshadweep and ITDP areas.
In addition, under the Technology Mission for Integrated Development of Horticulture in North Eastern and Himalayan States, higher levels of assistance @ 50% upto Rs.4.00 crore for setting up and Rs.1.00 crore for upgradation of fruits and vegetables processing is available. 10% of total budget allocated to the Ministry is earmarked for North Eastern States including Sikkim.
This information was given by Shri Subodh Kant Sahai, Minister of Food Processing Industries in the Lok Sabha today in a written reply.
VLK/ska
Decline in flow of major rivers in India
15 Dec 2009
The data in respect of 81 reservoirs monitored by Central Water Commission (CWC) under Ministry of Water Resources indicate that the total live storage capacity at the end of the monsoon season 2009 was about 20% less than the corresponding live storage during the year 2008 and 10% less than the last ten years average live storage.
In case of Godavari river basin, the total live storage of the reservoirs monitored by CWC at the end of the monsoon season of 2009 was about 53% less than the ten year average live storage
The shortfalls in the live storage capacity in Indus and Ganga have been found to be about 30% and 11% respectively.
15 Dec 2009
The data in respect of 81 reservoirs monitored by Central Water Commission (CWC) under Ministry of Water Resources indicate that the total live storage capacity at the end of the monsoon season 2009 was about 20% less than the corresponding live storage during the year 2008 and 10% less than the last ten years average live storage.
In case of Godavari river basin, the total live storage of the reservoirs monitored by CWC at the end of the monsoon season of 2009 was about 53% less than the ten year average live storage
The shortfalls in the live storage capacity in Indus and Ganga have been found to be about 30% and 11% respectively.
NEPAL: Outrage: Maoists declare Kathmandu ‘free’
BY YUBARAJ GHIMIRE
Casting a shadow on the Nepal peace process, Maoists today announced that capital Kathmandu would henceforth be called the autonomous ‘Newa republic province’ where the dominant Newar community would have more rights than others.
Prachanda, chief of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (UCPN-M), lit a candle outside the original royal palace to make the declaration of the ‘Newa republic province’, a move other political parties condemned as the “most retrograde step”.
It was seen to be symbolically challenging the political unification of Nepal by King Prithvi Narayan Shah who conquered the Kathmandu Valley in 1768 by defeating its Newar rulers.
Maoists have so far declared half-a-dozen “autonomous republic provinces”, ignoring warnings that such moves could lead to fragmentation of the country.
Prachanda said the Newar community would enjoy “special powers” and “in due course of time, all communities will enjoy equal rights”. He raised the ‘Newa Rajya Zindabad’ slogan three times.
Bishwakant Mainali, chairman of the Nepal Bar Association, said: “The move is out and out a retrograde step and against all principles the Maoists have been preaching.”
Prominent leaders from Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) also slammed the Maoists for “appropriating powers of the Constituent Assembly” and making “efforts to sabotage the peace process” through unilateral declaration of such provinces.
source: Indian express
BY YUBARAJ GHIMIRE
Casting a shadow on the Nepal peace process, Maoists today announced that capital Kathmandu would henceforth be called the autonomous ‘Newa republic province’ where the dominant Newar community would have more rights than others.
Prachanda, chief of the Unified Communist Party of Nepal-Maoists (UCPN-M), lit a candle outside the original royal palace to make the declaration of the ‘Newa republic province’, a move other political parties condemned as the “most retrograde step”.
It was seen to be symbolically challenging the political unification of Nepal by King Prithvi Narayan Shah who conquered the Kathmandu Valley in 1768 by defeating its Newar rulers.
Maoists have so far declared half-a-dozen “autonomous republic provinces”, ignoring warnings that such moves could lead to fragmentation of the country.
Prachanda said the Newar community would enjoy “special powers” and “in due course of time, all communities will enjoy equal rights”. He raised the ‘Newa Rajya Zindabad’ slogan three times.
Bishwakant Mainali, chairman of the Nepal Bar Association, said: “The move is out and out a retrograde step and against all principles the Maoists have been preaching.”
Prominent leaders from Nepali Congress and the Communist Party of Nepal-Unified Marxist Leninist (CPN-UML) also slammed the Maoists for “appropriating powers of the Constituent Assembly” and making “efforts to sabotage the peace process” through unilateral declaration of such provinces.
source: Indian express
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