Bill gates, the Microsoft founder has agreed to fund a massive rollout of projects enabling poor mobile users to do banking using their handsets.

Bill & Melinda gates foundation granted $12.5 Million that would help to fund 20 initiatives in Asia, Africa and South America announced by GSM Association, which represents 750 mobiles phone networks in the world.
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In a report by ADB (Key Indicators for Asia 2007 & 2008), Gini Index Number is quite high for India. These shows how the inequalities are present in our economy .Is this growth that we are expecting from our country.

Income inequality is the subject to worry about or the fairness of opportunity. Are we interested in increasing poor people’s income or give them the opportunity to increase income and helps them to move up in the ladder?

Redistribution seems to be the best way to go but it works only when that redistribution leads the poor into more education and better jobs.

Problems & Solutions

1. Migration from villages to cities, making cities richer than villages.
Why rural people migrate to urban cities? The answer is simple in search of economic gains. This migration makes the urban city richer than rural ones. Can India provide jobs to their rural part? This problem is done slightly by NREGA scheme. But is this the solution? No, quick fix cannot work for long term. Government have to go for feasible fiscal policies like developing manufacturing sector.

2. Status of public school / government schools Read the rest of this entry »

Pension Fund Scheme

The PFRDA (Pension Funds Regulatory and Development Authority) announced a Pension Fund scheme for the citizens in private sector, the scheme started by keeping the remotest part of the country in mind, So that private sector can use these facilities and this plan is on long term basis.

The pension fund authority listed down six pension fund manager to manage retirement fund at a charge of 0.0009 per cent for total assets under management. The six fund managers are: UTI Retirement Solutions, SBI Pension Funds, Reliance Capital Asset Management, ICICI Prudential Life Insurance, IDFC Asset Management, Kotak Mahindra Asset Management.

Image Credit by:- Grey Samaritan

The pension fund will make Rs 9 lakh out of 1000 crore instead of this the mutual fund will make Rs 22.5 crore from the same amount. The minimum money deposit should be Rs. 6000 at least in four instalments. Whenever transaction is done, POP (Points of Presence) will get Rs. 20 and hence cost will increase for subscriber. Read the rest of this entry »

SBI Home Loan Bonanza - 2009

State Bank of India (SBI) countries largest bank will offer Home loans and Small and Medium enterprises (SME) borrowers at 8 per cent for 1 year.

The borrowers under the scheme of 8.5 per cent and 9.5 per cent interest too would get the new interest rate benefit for the same period. The scheme was introduced by banks in the December 2008.

A new multipurpose loan, SBI Lifestyle Loan, which is introduced by SBI for its new existing customer, whereby the customer can borrow to the extent of 10 per cent of their home loan which could be reach maximum at Rs.5 lakh at an interest of 8 per cent annually for 1 year. Read the rest of this entry »

Rural Lady on Mobile

Mobile handset maker get Rs.5000 crore as fund from USO to provide phone connection to those families who are below poverty line in rural areas. Indian Cellular Association (ICA) represents handset makers including Nokia and Sony-Ericsson said that 50 million Below Poverty Line (BPL) families should get the subsidy and fund support should be give directly to the consumer rather then giving it to the telecom operators to make the project more effective in achieving the objective.

According to MR.Pankaj Mahindra, President ICA, Free handset, connection and 100 free calls per month with AM facility can be helpful in transforming the life of many families in BPL. Read the rest of this entry »

Satyam

Six to seven companies which are trying for the share of Satyam computer, including Global and India entities and PE firms. The Spice Corporation, which is also interested for the Satyam stake, had thrown its hat in the ring.

Mr Tarun Das, Satyam Board member said, “About half a dozen companies are interested, while we are aware of only four.”

Mr B.K.Modi, Chairman of Spice group, has confirmed that they are interested in acquiring 51 per cent stake in Satyam. He also said, “There business is also in same line and their board had decided to look for Satyam even though market is not in good condition.” Tech Mahindra is also interested for the stake of Hyderabad firm and L&T increased its share form 4 per cent to 12 per cent for Satyam. Read the rest of this entry »

Fuel Prices may Cut Again

Second time in two months, the government has decided to cut petrol and diesel prices. On Tuesday, Mrs. Sonia Gandhi, the UPA chairperson, hinted another cut in fuel prices. Late Wednesday the discussion has taken place for the reduction of the two auto fuels and reduction in domestic LPG prices also.

Dr. Manmohan Singh the PM of our country underwent for a surgery, due to this Mr Pranab Mukherjee has placed as the senior-most Minister, had met with the Petroleum Minister, Mr. Murli Deora for a discussion on the issue.

According to the Government, there could be a cut of Rs.1-2 on a litre of diesel and Rs.4-5 on a litre of petrol. There was a proposal to cut the domestic LPG prices by Rs.20-25 on a cylinder. As per the Public Distribution System (PDS) the price of kerosene remains untouched. Read the rest of this entry »

Quit Tobacco - Let the Nation Grow

In very recent article in Tobaccos Control, a BMJ (British Medical Journal) published report says India spends more for the treatment of tobacco related diseases than it collects in taxes from the industry.

The study shows that the total economic cost of tobacco use in India - direct & Indirect both amounted to $1.7 Billion in 2004 and it is 16 per cent more than the total excise tax revenue collected from all tobacco product in year 2004 ($1.46 billion).

The huge amount of money is simply going in waste. In a other report by All India Council of Medical Research (ICMR) in year 1999 had concluded that the it is not just treatment cost but also the man-hour lost because of tobacco related diseases cost a lot to tax payers (around 28,000 crore).

According to ICMR, there are 250 million tobacco users in India and around 3000 people killed every day from tobacco use. Read the rest of this entry »

Mr Kamal Nath at Press Conference - Free Trade Agreement , India & ASEAN

India and ASEAN, a group of 10 Southeast Asian members are approaching towards a common goal of clearing free trade agreement (FTA )by their parliaments on 10 Feb 2009.

This can be expected as the end of negotiations. The FTA provides the elimination of tariffs up to 80 per cent of items by 2015.Still there are few items that are in sensitive list .The tariff will not be eliminated on these sensitive items , instead it brought down by 5 per cent .

If we take, the case of India, it has 489 items and mostly farm products are on sensitive list. FTA will cover 1.7 billion people with a combined GDP of USD 2381 billion.

Excerpts from Commerce Minister Kamal Nath’s Speech at press conference

“East Asia is a very important globally competitive trading block. Read the rest of this entry »

According to a member of the new board of Satyam, the employees stated figure of 53000 as of September 30, 2008 is correct and there are no such ghost employees.

According to Mr. T.N. Manoharan, past president of The Institute of chartered accountants of India and one of the six government nominees on the new board of Satyam, there is no doubt over the employee count. There are total of 45000 employees in Satyam and another 6000 contract employees. Though the board has already checked it out recently, it has started a fresh count now after the statement in court about the fictitious employees. “We will get the results in the very next week,” he said. Read the rest of this entry »