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India?s New Retailers
I n a dry and dusty fair in Osmanabad, a small town tucked away in the Marathwada region of Maharashtra, a thousand women have just spoken. Their verdict is loud and clear. CANDY RED. Consumer durables firm Godrej & Boyce is parading several colours of its new breakthrough product, ChotuKool, a nano refrigerator. A few fluorescent colours come first. The women vote this out with a cacophonous show of hands. They know what they want. Candy Red. ...
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- South Asia
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Fund houses target the bottom of the pyramid
Savita Devi, a daily wage earner in Gujarat, is saving for her future through a mutual fund. And she has company. Around 150,000 small investors are putting Rs 50-200 per month in UTI Asset Management Company’s (AMC’s) Micro Pension Plan. UTI AMC is not the only fund house targeting the bottom-of-the-pyramid investors to extend its presence. SBI Mutual Fund, an affiliate of State Bank of India (SBI), also launched a ‘Chota Systematic Investment Plan (SIP)’ in Apr...
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- South Asia
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India needs a brilliant wave of entrepreneurs
MUMBAI NEW DELHI: Zeus, for once, was thwarted as the driving rain and rolling thunder failed to dampen the cheery mood at the concluding chapter of The Power of Ideas programme in Mumbai. The Times of India building was the venue for the interaction between shortlisted candidates and investors from the Indian Angel Network (IAN), VCs and incubators. There was a flurry of activity as entrepreneurs and ...
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- South Asia
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Safe, comfy and chatting away – women?s empowerment at PCO booths
New Delhi, June 28 (IANS) Anjali Kher, 33, a small-time designer from Srinagar, keeps in touch with her family in the Kashmir Valley from the public telephone booth next to her home in Delhi. “The booth remains open till midnight and I drop in almost every day after work to call my father and my brothers,” Kher, who lives in Mayur Vihar, told IANS. The public telephone - including the PCO (public call office) phone booths with STD facilities - in India has become a too...
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- South Asia
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Expat Bangladeshis spend more calling home than others: survey
Dhaka, 28 June (bdnews24.com)—Expatriate Bangladeshis called home more frequently than their Pakistani, Indian, Sri Lankan and Filipino counterparts, spending $48 a month to stay in touch, a survey says. The survey ’"Teleuse at the bottom of the pyramid", conducted by LIRNEasia, a regional ICT policy research institute, found 87 percent of Bangladeshi migrants called home at least once a week, while 34 percent called home daily. Dr Rohan Samarejiva, chairma...
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- South Asia
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Street vendors to be rechristened as micro-entrepreneurs
They may be selling bananas, paav bhaji, cosmetics, cigarettes or just about anything else either on a push-cart going round streets or simply by standing on the roadside and now these street vendors are all set to get a new designation — micro-entrepreneurs. The National Policy on Urban Street Vendors, 2009, approved by the UPA government, recognises street vendors (or micro-entrepreneurs) as an integral and legitimate part of the urban retail...
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- South Asia
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Why Companies See Bright Prospects in Rural India
In late May, when India’s GDP numbers were released, many were happily surprised. In the fourth quarter of the fiscal year (January-March 2009), the economy grew 5.8% against expectations of less than 5%. For the year, growth was 6.7%, less than the 9% recorded in 2007-2008, but still very respectable during a global downturn. Multinational banks and brokerage houses rushed back to their spreadsheets to raise their growth forecasts for 2009-2010. But why were the estimates so pessim...
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- South Asia
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India Inc for PPP to better quality of education
The education industry is looking at an increased public-private partnership (PPP) in educational and training initiatives for matching skill-set demands of the industry with the available talent. Education is among a few sectors that has been insulated from the impact of a global economic slowdown but faces a huge challenge of reducing the gap of educated yet unemployable talent. “We would like to see more investment in PPP programmes to improve education quality at the bottom of...
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- South Asia