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Rural Business Incubators: Tool for Inclusive Growth
BIPIN and Ratan, in their twenties, manage a small business that sells food-items, rice, chapathi, vegetables, nan etc, between 10 am and 3 pm every day in Mayur Vihar, in New Delhi. They make a profit of approximately Rs 2500 (US $56) per day. They have no bank account. There is no registration with the municipality. Their business has no official and legal permission. Though the food is cooked and served in un-hygienic condition, every time their roadside hotel has a waitin...
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- South Asia
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Japan’s Uniqlo Joins Grameen Bank to Help Poor in Bangladesh
Japan’s casual clothing brand Uniqlo and Nobel Peace laureate Muhammad Yunus said Tuesday they would create a textiles company in Bangladesh to help poor women gain financial independence. Fast Retailing, which owns Uniqlo, plans to invest some 100,000 dollars to set up Grameen Uniqlo Ltd in October. The new company will source materials and make garments in Bangladesh -- including women’s underwear, school uniforms and blankets.
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- South Asia
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Eco-Friendly Water Solutions for Indian Farmers
More photos and information on International Development Enterprises - India at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/asia_pacific/10366023.stm ...
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- South Asia
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Kinetic Plans Power Project for Villages
Kinetic Chairman, Arun Firodia, who saw an opportunity at bottom-of-the-pyramid long before the phrase became a catchword and launched the moped Luna, now plans to launch a project that would bring power to villages. The plan entails starting a pair of micro-electric plants at villages with a population of over 2,000. The mini wer-generation stations, one each for solar and biomass, will have a capacity of around 35-kilowatts each. "Through our family trust, we will soon be startin...
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- South Asia
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In India, for India: Medical Device Makers Plug In
(Reuters) - In a sleek glass and chrome building in Bangalore’s software hub, the more than 1,000 young researchers and engineers at GE Healthcare could hold the keys to innovations that save lives in India’s vast hinterland. The 50,000-sq. ft. R&D facility, GE Healthcare’s largest, recently launched the MACi, a portable electrocardiogram (ECG) machine that weighs less than 1 kilo and runs on a battery even in hot, dusty conditi...
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- South Asia
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India’s Mobile Providers: Competing for Calls at the Bottom of the Pyramid
Six months ago, Chunnilal Menaria’s wife grumbled about her husband spending US$45 on a mobile phone. They lived in a one-room stone house, with no toilets or running water, only eight hours of electricity a day and earned US$60 a month with which they fed their family of five. The monsoon seasons, from which India derives much of its annual rainfall, have been poor over the past couple years and forced Menaria to take up carpentry to supplement his dwi...
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- South Asia
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D.Light Wins Ashden Award
D light Design, an Indian social enterprise that brings innovative solar lanterns to many people across India and other developing countries, has won the top Gold Award at the Ashden Awards for Sustainable Energy 2010. The prize, worth 40,000 pounds, was announced on Thursday night by noted environmentalist and broadcaster, Sir David Attenborough. D light Design was chosen for designing, manufacturing and marketing high quality, durable and affordable solar lanterns. In the w...
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- South Asia
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Rang De: India’s First Online Platform for Micro-Credit
Kanakama Redi, a vegetable vendor in Puri, Orissa used to work from 8.00 am till late in the evening. Yet, most of her earnings were lost in repayment of the loan, availed at higher credit rates, to buy vegetables. Like her, Baban who makes bamboo baskets too could not make the most of her skills earlier as she required money for the raw material and it came at a high interest from the local lender. But things changed once micro-finance facilitator Rang De took care of their small-term requir...
- Region
- South Asia
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