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Indian Tales of Inclusive Business Models
We just spent the last few weeks criss-crossing India to discover how private sector companies are striving to support India’s quest for "inclusive growth." Inclusive growth has become the economic development mantra for both Indian politicians and CEOs in recent months. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is championing this concept to ensure that even as the red-hot Indian economy keeps growing at 9%, this growth is equ...
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Husk Power Systems Wants to Lead “a Revolution in Electricity”
Sometimes the simplest ideas can produce powerful results. Husk Power Systems (HPS) is premised on a simple need--for electricity--and a simple material--discarded rice husks. The for-profit social enterprise was started four years ago by three Indians from the state of Bihar, along with one American classmate from the University of Virginia...
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The Rich Market that is India’s Poor
MUMBAI - The sleek, portable computing platform, akin to the iPad, offers all the practical features of a tablet computer - internet browser, multimedia player, PDF reader and video-conferencing capability. But its biggest draw is its price: US$35 [Dh128]. Unveiling the prototype of the touch-screen computing tool in July, Kapil Sibal, who at the time was India’s human resources and development minister, pegged the device as India’s answer to the $100 laptop developed in 2...
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Focus on Society, Not Just The Quick Money: Amartya Sen
New Delhi: Speaking at The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE) summit, Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen asked the business community to increase their focus on the society than making quick money on the sly. "The business community plays a unique role but they are also part of the society. They should not get into making quick money on the sly. They have to think big, not just in terms of money, but also in terms of remedies for the society," he said. ...
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Pioneer Avers Solar Power’s Now Cheaper than Kerosene
(...) "Our product costs Rs1,000 and gives 24 hours of light on one charge. It is actually cheaper than kerosene when you spread it over the full lifetime," Chugh said. "The solution, technologically, is there.. If 700 million people can buy a mobile phone that costs Rs3,000 or more, they can surely spend Rs1,000 for energy," he said. What is missing, Chugh points out, are market ’enablers’. In other words, while it may indeed be cheaper than a kerosene in the long run, how does...
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The Underdog Capitalist
If Prahalad’s work had a common theme - if he himself had a core competency -- it was what he called the democratization of commerce. He was an unapologetic celebrant of capitalism. But his version of capitalism was one in which the little guy could win, and often did. Small companies were not destined to be crushed by their larger rivals, because ideas mattered more than resources. And selling products to the world’s poor didn’t exploit them, in his mind; it gave them the same ch...
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Banks to Ensure Funds for Microlenders
MUMBAI -The chief executive of the Indian Banks Association indicated Wednesday that banks will ensure microlenders remain fully funded in the short term to help them overcome temporary hiccups in repayments and maintain business as usual. Microlenders typically fund their loans to their consumers though short-term loans from banks, leaving them vulnerable to temporary fluctuations in repayment patterns. Bad loans in the Indian microfinance space have typically been as low as 0.1%...
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GE Health-Embrace to Distribute Infant Warmer in Early 2011
MUMBAI: GE Healthcare, in partnership with NGO ’Embrace’ will distribute a low-cost ’infant warmer’ that looks like a small sleeping bag to rural Indian children early next year. Costing less than one per cent of the traditional incubators, th...
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- South Asia
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