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Aravind Eye Care System among the World’s 50 Most Innovative Companies
In a 33-year quest to end blindness in India, Aravind has developed everything from cheaper intraocular lenses to a 20-minute cataract surgery that allows high volume at lower cost. ...
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- South Asia
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A Bright Idea that Helped India’s Poor
Harish Hande’s first installation of solar-powered lights in a rural Indian home was a stealth operation. The founder of Selco India, then a 26-year-old engineer, believed passionately that millions of Indians living in darkness at night could have their lives transformed by solar technology. But he needed a customer who could afford to pay the high up-front costs of solar lights and testify to their merits. In September 1994 Mr Hande asked a wealthy betel nut farmer in the southern...
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- South Asia
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Fighting Poverty – One Yoghurt at a Time
The west’s beleaguered banking system could learn a thing or two from an illiterate Bangladeshi villager called Sobi Rani. She is a Grameen Lady, one of the thousands of grassroots activists who are the bedrock of the Grameen phenomenon, which, with nearly 30 businesses, is probably the largest financially viable social enterprise in the world. The cornerstone is the Grameen Bank, founded 33 years ago by Muhammad Yunus, superstar social entrepreneur and 2006 Nobel Peace Prize winner. The ...
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- South Asia
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Rural India Snaps Up Mobile Phones
By Eric Bellman In the village of Karanehalli, a cluster of simple homes around an intersection of two dirt roads about 40 miles from India’s high-tech capital of Bangalore, Farmer K.T. Srinivasa doesn’t have a toilet for his home or a tractor for his field. But when a red and white cellular tower sprouted in his village, he splurged on a cellphone. While the way his family threshes rice -- crushing it with a massive stone roller -- hasn’t chang...
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- South Asia
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India to Follow $2,000 Car with $20 Laptop
The project, backed by New Delhi, would considerably undercut the so-called $100 laptop, otherwise known as the Children’s Machine or XO, that was designed by the Massachusetts Institute of Technology of the US. The Children’s Machine, which received a cool reception in India, is the centrepiece of the One Laptop Per Child charity initiative launched by Nicholas Negroponte, the computer scientist and former director of MIT’s Media Lab. Intel launched a simila...
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- South Asia
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Sunil Jain: Top of the pyramid
Management guru CK Prahalad popularised the concept of the fortune at the bottom of the pyramid (BOP), and among others, the country’s top mobile phone players seem to be taking this quite seriously given how they?re wooing BOP customers. It is, however, not quite clear how this strategy will pay off. According to a study by consulting firm BDA with chamber of commerce Ficci, the top 9 per cent of mobile phone users in India contribute 29 per cent to industry?s revenues and 45 per...
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- South Asia
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BOP Shock for India Inc.
New Delhi: Indian companies seeking their pot of gold from the lower-end or bottom of the pyramid (BOP) consumers are in for a bit of shock: The market may be much smaller in reality. While earlier, this market was supposed to be formed of 400 million people, now market research firms Technopak Advisors and Evalueserve are saying that it is not more than 160 million. Arvind Singhal, chairman of Technopak Advisors says that around 35 million households or around 160 million people that...
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- Livemint.com
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- South Asia
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Bring Break-Even to the Bottom of the Pyramid
How much does the global slowdown impact India? What should be the corporate structures and strategies to weather the current storm? Can India overcome the growth blip? Which sector is in need of urgent reform? We put these questions to management guru Prof CK Prahalad, who was in the city for a CII session on ?India@75: The emerging agenda?. ?There are dramatic changes in demand and cost structures and in some cases excess capacity?all of these require a rethink in the break-even vol...
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- South Asia