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The End May Be Nigh for Microfinance in India
Reserve Bank of India Governor Duvvuri Subbarao said a few weeks ago that "hopefully, sooner rather than later" there will be national rules governing microfinance institutions that would trump the law imposed by Andhra Pradesh last year that has gutted the business model of private microcredit companies. Mark Stoleson, chief executive officer of Legatum, a Dubai-based investor in the industry, was in Delhi this week with a warning: Act now, or face what he termed a "Lehman Brothers at ...
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- South Asia
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PepsiCo Will Cater to Different Segments of Consumers
NEW DELHI: Beverage and snacks maker PepsiCo India is gunning for the bottom-of-the-pyramid consumer for the first time in the country, as its chairman, Manu Anand , drives the New York-based $60 billion parent’s target to reach the ’next one billion’ consumers in the value segment. In his first media interaction since he succeeded Sanjeev Chadha in January this year, Anand tells ET that PepsiCo is creating verticals to cater to different segments of consumers, ac...
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- South Asia
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Hands Off Our Houses
Mumbai, India: LAST summer, a business professor and a marketing consultant wrote on The Harvard Business Review’s Web site about their idea for a $300 house . According to the writers, and the many people who have enthusiastically responded since, such a house could improve the lives of millions of urban poor around the world. And with a $424 billion market for cheap...
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- South Asia
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Fighting the Taliban One Irrigation Project at a Time
JALALABAD, Afghanistan-When Chris Corsten describes his job, he starts from space and zooms into the eastern hemisphere of the world, down into Central Asia, and then into Afghanistan, using Google Earth. In one of the country’s rural districts, nestled in mountains and riverbeds, are hundreds of colored dots representing construction sites. If Corsten moves his cursor over one of these dots, a geo-tagged photograph showing Afghan men building walls or mixing cement appears. If he display...
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- South Asia
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Pak to be Leading Recipient of UKAID Next Year
KARACHI: Pakistan will be biggest development programme partner of UKAID next year, said Andrew Mitchells, UK Secretary of State for Department of International Development (DFID). "The biggest development partnership programme that Britain will have next year in the world will be in Pakistan and it is designed to help children get into the schools," he said after inaugurating a mobile banking franchise of private mobile telephone company here on Wednesday in cooperation with Tameer-e-P...
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- South Asia
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LeapFrog to Invest up to $40 Million in India
MUMBAI --LeapFrog Investments, a $135 million fund focused on micro-insurance, is looking to deploy as much as $40 million in India. "India presents an opportunity as the level of penetration of insurance is very low," said Jim Roth, the company’s co-founder and partner. In other markets, insurance is for the wealthy, whereas in India there is insurance that focuses on the mass market, he said, adding that LeapFrog will invest between $5 million and $20 million in a company. M...
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- South Asia
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A $25 Solar Lamp for Millions in India
One of the partners, Matthew Scott, led the design and development of a solar-powered lamp when he was a student at the Stanford Business School in 2003. The lamp is based on light-emitting diode (LED) technology, which uses much less electricity than incandescent bulbs or fluorescent tubes. Scott initially intended for the lamps to be used in commercial buildings or aircraft. Then he read "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid" and shifted his approach. The book by C.K. Prahalad des...
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- South Asia
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A Network to Help Start-Ups With a Cause
By DEEPTI CHAUDHARY OF MINT BANGALORE - A social-sector advisory firm has launched a platform to bring together rich individuals, foundations and companies keen on investing in businesses that cater to the poor. Intellecap Impact Investor Network (I3N), launched ear...
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- South Asia