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Real Economic Development in Afghanistan
A successful woman-run rug business has been operating for the last five years in Afghanistan. Arzu Rugs currently employs 600 people and provides direct economic support to almost four times that many. Arzu means “hope” in Dari. In addition to the well-paying jobs created by the rug-weaving work, the company funnels its profits back to the community in the form of medical care, education, and social services that touch the lives of an estimated 100,000 Afghans. Arzu was cre...
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- South Asia
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World’s Cheapest Car Hits Indian Streets
by Phil Hazlewood The world’s cheapest car, the Tata Nano, hit the streets on Friday, as the first customer got the keys to a vehicle that its makers hope will transform travel for millions of Indians. Ashok Raghunath Vichare took delivery of a lunar silver Nano LX model, one of three cars handed over in person by Tata Motors boss Ratan Tata at a city dealership. The 59-year-old customs official from Mumbai said only that he was "very happy" to have got his hands...
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- South Asia
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Are Businesses Without Benefactors Better?
Usually a hot startup bankrolled by eager investors doesn’t care much about its burn rate. In the case of Envirofit, though, that was the obsession from the beginning. The company sells cookstoves to "bottom of the pyramid" customers in India and the Philippines, and thanks to innovative engineering, they use less kerosene, burn hotter, and produce 80% less noxious fumes than the most commonly used models. So impressive is the technology that its inventor, engineer Bryan Willson, was hono...
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- South Asia
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India Inc feasts on charm
The much-awaited visit of US secretary of state Hillary Clinton got off to an early start in the commercial capital over breakfast with the doyens of India Inc. The chefs at the Taj Mahal Palace & Towers had prepared several delicacies for the power pow wow. The dishes remained untouched because there was too much food for thought. “Nobody ate breakfast. We were riveted by this charismatic lady in strawberry pink and ...
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India’s Indigenous Genius: Jugaad
Etymology aside, I have always been convinced that the word indigenous arose from India. To make something out of limited resources is India’s genius and, therefore, indigenous. After centuries of foreign attacks, changing cultures and ever-evolving political stands, India has somehow managed to create an insular economy where we create what we need from what we have. In India, we call this jugaad and you can see a jugaad car on the highways of North India made from spare parts. Inn...
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- South Asia
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An Internet for Rural India
One intrepid entrepreneur battles brigands and bureaucrats to bring e-governance to India’s 700 million rural poor. By Malika Zouhali-Worrall BANGALORE (Fortune Small Business) -- It’s a sweltering day in May, the hottest time of year in the South Indian town of Sathanur. In the shade of a whitewashed storefront, a rugged, mustached man named Nagabhushana Achalu is filing his first application for a certificate that will hel...
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- South Asia
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Rural Markets Hold The Key…
On his extensive travels across rural India as founder of MART, a rural marketing and research consultancy, Pradeep Kashyap has seen several instances of the kind of micro level development prescribed by policy statements such as the Union Budget. Kashyap, whose organisation earlier this year had done a study which showed that rural demand for goods and services was alive and kicking despite the slowdown in urban India, says that the increased spend in the rural economy as envisaged by the 20...
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- South Asia
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’Poverty Pushes People Towards Entrepreneurship’
BANGALORE: More and more people are getting into an entrepreneurial mode and setting up their own businesses. This is not necessarily out of choice, but mostly because they do not really have many other options open to them. Speaking at a lecture on ’Economic Lives Of The Poor’, Prof. Abhijit Banerjee, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, said this diversification into business and entrepreneurship is not necessarily due to choices or lack of it, but because the poor do not have acc...
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- South Asia
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