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Mudra Institute to Sow Power in Gujarat Farmers
Taking up an initiative to widen the scope of effective communication to the bottom of the pyramid of the Indian economy, the Mudra Institute of Communication Ahmedabad (MICA) has started conducting a research. The research called ’National Agricultural Innovation Project’ (NAIP) is funded by the World Bank. Professor Arbind Sinha and co-principal investigator ...
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- South Asia
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Tatas Add More Punch to Mass Push
“I am excited about Tata Swach because in my native village every house needs a water purifier as the water is contaminated,” says Dharmendra Jha, working in Patna. Jha’s aspiration is tied to the fortunes of the salt-to-software Tata Group, whose Tata Chemicals has priced at a market-beating Rs.749 the purifier that could make a dramatic difference in interior Bihar. “It is going to be a runaway success in rural Bihar as it won’t be consuming electri...
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- South Asia
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Why Small Packs Make Sense for FMCG Co’s
While C.K. Prahalad’s seminal work, The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid, advocated a strategy to look at the lower end of the market, companies till recently did not tap into the low-unit price market segment with aggression. Asked why marketers did not look at a low unit price strategy earlier, Cadbury India’s Managing Director, Mr Anand Kripalu, says that playing a low unit price game requires a change in manufacturing and mindset. It requires different kinds of machines,...
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- South Asia
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Think Small, Gain Big
The bottom of the pyramid in India is where the next big growth story lies. And Indian companies are waking up to this fact. The latest low-cost offering of high-end durables targeted at households in small-town and rural India is a water purifier from the house of Tatas, which revolutionised the domestic automobile market by rolling out the Nano. The new water purifier blends indigenous and advanced technologies and is priced at below a thousand rupees. Other players in the water purifier bu...
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- South Asia
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Solar Power’s Role in Rural India
Mention solar panels and you might think of people in richer countries installing them, so they can reduce their carbon footprint. But there are good reasons for installing solar technology which are not to do with climate change. For example, in those places where there are no lights in the dark, and no hot water, such as in many parts of the countryside in India, where the electricity grid does not reach. Selco is a social...
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- South Asia
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Banking Still Miles Away from Jalanga
Saraswati Das, 32, walks 20 km whenever she has to carry out a banking transaction. The walks have become more frequent of late because membership of the self-help group (SHG) she heads has been growing. Das lives in Jalanga, a small village in Orissa’s Bhadrak district. Government records show Jalanga in the list of areas with 100 per cent financial inclusion. She leads Sri Gobind Anchalika Sangha, a conglomerate of 32 SHGs based at Jalanga, which has a population of 3,360 an...
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- South Asia
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Tata Launches Low Cost Water Filter
India’s giant Tata Group on Monday unveiled a new low-cost water purifier, hoping to do for health what it did for motoring and provide affordable, safe drinking water for millions and cut disease. The Tata Swach _ named after the Hindi for "clean’’ _ is designed to be used in poor, rural households that have no electricity or running water, using ash from rice milling to filter out bacteria. The device, which will cost less than 1,000 rupees (21.5 dollars), ...
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- South Asia
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Mahindra Could Roll Out India’s Cheapest Tractor by 2010
In its bid to cater to bottom-of-the-pyramid farmers in the country, Mahindra FES is looking to roll out India’s cheapest tractor by next year. If Bloomberg reports are to be any indication the new low cost product could be powered by a 15-hp engine and would be available at Rs. 150,000 (about 40 per cent cheaper than other entry-level ones). India’s largest tractormaker has indicated that it aims to clock 25,000 units of the proposed model in the next four years, citin...
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- South Asia