Only one-fourth of 587 special economic zones (SEZs) approved by the government to boost exports have become operational, Commerce and Industry Minister Anand Sharma told the Rajya Sabha today
As on December 31, 2011, an investment of Rs 249,631 crore has been made in SEZs, generating direct employment for over 8 lakh persons
SEZs account for 25 per cent of India’s export earnings, Sharma said
The 7 % comprises solely of raja, kani and the DMK gang.Gaurav_S wrote:FWIW.
India sees a big drop in poverty as number of poor falls from 37% to 30% in 5 years
Just to beat this horse carcass to a fine pulp, a lesson in counting:shyam wrote:Just to quote a phrase from Rajiv Malhotra - it just shows who is digesting whom. The problem I see is that Indians stopped using notations after crore and started using thousand crore, lakh crore etc. It just confuses almost everyone. May be the next generation will get pissed of with representing budget, GDP etc in rupee, and rather prefer them to be stated in US$.tejas wrote:Sorry but I for one am glad to see lakhs/crores bite the dust.
That's $300 billion over the next 10 yearsIt estimates that about Rs 15 lakh crore investments will be needed across various sectors. The money will have to come not just from the Government, but also from the private sector and foreign investors, she said.
Looks like TN and Guarat are in a race to the top while Bengal and UP race to the bottom.I certainly agree that nobody should ever say crore crore. But there is no need to then say hundred trillion when they can instead say jaladhi. My main point is that we invented the idea of numbers above 10k (and possibly the idea of numbers above 1000), so for us to discard the traditional (and original) system of counting so high in favor of the Western copycat system is a bit galling.shyam wrote:More than million/billion, I am keen to see numbers like thousand crore, lakh crore, crore crore go away.
Apart from the fake inflation figures put out by GoI that nobody who pays his own bills believes in, we have a devils own job maintaining the growth rate towards superpowerdom. Like someone said earlier in this thread, with our ever growing population, we dont necessarily need job losses to drive our ship off the cliff, just a stagnant job market and wages would suffice to create some massive disturbance. For all the hot talk by the Govt, the latest coal scandal shows that it is business as usual in Nai Dilli. Forget about cutting the expenses, they are busy handing over free laptops,TVs and what not!NEW DELHI: Finance minister appealed on Saturday to fractious government allies and a hostile opposition to cooperate "in the national interest" to restore the health of Asia's third-largest economy.
Pranab Mukherjee's call came as global ratings agencies and investment houses warned that India's weak public finances and political paralysis over reform measures were clouding the nation's financial prospects.
Getting India's economy back on track "is a question of broad national interest that is staring us in the face," Mukherjee told the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry in a bluntly worded speech.
The 77-year-old minister said he was "committed to protecting the credibility" of plans in his budget, presented earlier this month, to plug a widening fiscal deficit and trim a ballooning subsidy bill.
But Mukherjee said cutting spending "will involve tough decisions that we will have to take collectively", referring to coalition and opposition members who have been obstructing economic reforms at a time of slowing economic growth.
Doubts have been mounting about India's ability to deliver on its fiscal pledges amid worsening relations between the embattled ruling Congress and regional parties, whose backing it needs to retain power.
In what is being seen as a significant policy shift, the Finance Minister, Mr Pranab Mukherjee, said on Saturday that India will look to align with the OECD model for taxation in full measure in the coming days.
This intent to align with the OECD model is also a signal that India is getting closer to the Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD), a club of rich nations.
India had traditionally been following the UN model of taxation. But it had set its sight on the OECD model in the recent years, especially after it decided to lift Article 26 (clause on exchange of information) from the OECD model convention and incorporate it in all the revised double taxation avoidance agreements and the new tax information exchange agreements entered into by the country.
“Now that India has been included as 34th member of Financial Action Task Force, we will accept the OECD model. Earlier, it was difficult for us to accept the OECD model because we were not member of the task force,” Mr Mukherjee said at a post-Budget meeting organised by FICCI.
OECD does not push the boundaries on source-based taxation and relies largely on residency-based taxation, tax experts said. Although OECD does maintain that residency-based tax principle should be adopted, India as part of developing countries garnered tax revenues by largely relying on source-based tax principles.
“How India will be able to align itself with OECD tax principles in coming years is something that needs to be seen considering that it will require radical shift in its tax policy. Currently, India is adopting aggressive source-based taxation philosophy,” Mr Aseem Chawla, Tax Partner, Amarchand & Mangaldas, told Business Line here.
neel wrote:A study of the sources of the skewed sex ratio in India (among other countries). Highlights include that only 11% of the "missing" women were victims of sex-selective abortion. More (14%) are attributable to excess female deaths due to injuries (i.e. violence against women). Even more still (42%) are attributable to higher female:male ratios of the fatality rates of chronic diseases among Indians relative to Western populations. Also, 23% are due to higher female:male ratios of the fatality rates for communicable diseases. A further 8% are due to maternal mortality and 2% due to poor nutrition.
So a total of 65% of the "missing" women are due to higher female:male ratios of fatality rates for diseases that effect both men and women in India as compared to the West. Is this due to better medical treatment given to men than to women? If so, this is a 6x more pressing problem than sex-selective abortion. It is even 4x more pressing than violence against women. Also, if so, it may explain why the skew in the sex ratio declined so much (~27% per the latest round of NSSO), since there was so much room for improvement.
at this rate , by 2022 they ll be burning 1.5 trillion a year... I previously showed that the total subsidy bill from 2011-2021 will be in tune of 6-7 trillion dollars... in this kind of money far better than western infra can be created .. 6 trillion is 20 time the combined endowment of all amreeki universities...tejas wrote:That subsidy bar graph is as good as any argument I have ever seen to banish this useless Kangress govt to the trash heap of history. If their goal is to bankrupt the nayion they are well on their way
When the initial poverty line estimate of Rs 32/day in urban areas came out last year, TV anchors and politicians screamed that nobody could live on so little. Last week's downward revision of the poverty line rural areas has produced an even greater howl of outrage. The outrage is entirely justified on the ground of Planning Commission incompetence. But it is quite unjustified on the ground of fudging. Abhijit Sen, the Planning Commission's left-wing member-economist, would never tolerate fudging to exaggerate the fall in poverty, and he has certified the accuracy of the new poverty line.
Let's do a reality check on what the standard dal-roti diet costs the poor. Opposition politicians, NGOs ,and TV anchors have challenged Montek to show one can live on Rs 28.65 per day, at a time when a litre of milk costs Rs 37 and six bananas may cost up to Rs 30. They have castigated Montek for sitting in an ivory tower, totally out of touch with ordinary folk and reality.
Sorry, but the facts show otherwise. Those out of touch with reality and prices are the critics, not Montek. Politicians and TV anchors are well-off , and consume tandoori chicken and fried fish plus milk and fruit. But poor folk live essentially on dal-roti.
Any housewife will tell you that wheat costs up to Rs 20 per kilo and chana dal up to Rs 45 per kilo. A standard daily calorie intake of 2,000 calories can be met by 400 gm of wheat (1,600 calories, cost Rsand 100 gm of chana dal (400 calories, cost Rs 4.50). The total cost comes to just Rs 12.50. Labourers doing hard physical work may need 3,000 calories/day, but even that implies just Rs 18.75 worth of dal-roti , well below official poverty lines.
The Planning Commission says the proportion of poor Indians has fallen from 37.2 % in 2004-05 to 29.8% in 2009-10 . Sceptics say the fall is too sharp to be true. I would argue the very opposite-that the fall in poverty is actually even sharper than indicated by the 2009-10 survey. That year was a terrible drought year, and this would have artificially inflatedthe poverty rate. Another NSSO survey is being done in 2011-12 , and i am willing to bet that this will show a big fall in poverty over 2009-10-because the 2011 monsoon was normal. Any takers?
New Delhi: Rising gold and crude oil imports are expected to push up India's trade deficit to USD 428.3 billion by 2015-16, industry body Assocham on Sunday said.Oil and gold imports may increase to USD 243.7 billion and USD 83.3 billion respectively by 2015-16, it said.
During the first 11 months this fiscal, oil imports have increased 41 percent to USD 132.6 billion. Gold imports were worth about USD 55 billion."India's trade deficit could rise from USD 130.5 billion in 2010-11 to USD 428.3 billion by 2015-16 and become unsustainable with merchandise imports rising from USD 380.9 billion to USD 858.6 billion," it said.The deficit is likely to be above USD 180 billion in 2011-12, it said."There is need to curtail oil imports, or else there will be a severe burden on external payments position. The gold imports must also decrease by educating domestic investors and encouraging substitution of gold purchases with alternatives from formal financial sector which will help in increasing the productive capacity of economy," Assocham said.The industry body said that there is a need to enhance manufacturing capabilities in the country to boost exports.Growing uncertainties in the euro-zone and slowdown in advanced economies had adversely impacted India's external sector outlook.The country's merchandise exports may touch USD 430.3 billion by 2015-16, it added."However, if capacity building of the industry takes place and competitiveness of Indian exports improves, then merchandise exports can touch USD 549 billion in 2015-16 and the trade deficit will be USD 309.6 billion," Assocham said.
West Bengal Industry Minister Partha Chatterjee Satuday urged union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee to reconsider the budget proposal of increasing basic customs duty on standard gold bars and coins as it would badly affect gold jewellery industry workers.Chatterjee has already sent a letter to Mukherjee requesting tht the proposal be reviewed.
"Yesterday (Friday) representatives of 'Swarna Silpa Bachao Committee' came to meet me and informed that because of the hike in the import duty on gold, about five lakh people in the state associated with jewellery industry would be affected," Chatterjee told media persons here.
"The people working at medium and small gold jewellery business will be severely affected due to the hike," he said.
Indian jewellery makers have criticised Mukherjee's proposal to increase basic customs duty on standard gold bars, gold coins and platinum by two percent, saying that it would adversely affect the country's gold jewellery industry as the prices of finished products would rise.
"I have apprised union Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee about that and urged him to consider the issue. I also urged (Railway Minister and Trinamool Congress leader) Mukul Roy and (party's Lok Sabha leader) Sudip Bandyopadhyay to request the finance minister on the matter," said Chatterjee, who is also Trinamool Congress secretary general.
Jewellers in Kolkata kept their shutters down for a few days, protesting the hike in excise and customs duties on the yellow metals. The shutdown continued till Friday.
B@NCS24 is developed by FNS of Australia implemented in India by TCS as a CBS.Singha wrote:if you recall a earlier inter-bank ATM connectivity scheme called SWADHAN died a quiet death few years back.
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/he ... han/83867/
I dont know what is used now. banks usually let customers use some other bank ATM for a small fee or free for upto 5 times a month.
is the back end called BANCS (indian) or mastercard/visa owned?
BEIJING: China has said that it would take all possible steps to address India's concerns about the widening trade imbalance in its favour and assured a level playing field to Indian companies, including pharma and IT, wanting to exploit the Chinese market.
Noting that there is a huge scope to further scale up trade and investment, Deputy Director General of Commerce Ministry Liang Wentao said the bilateral trade volume, which hit a record $ 73.9 billion last year, was still relatively "small" compared to size of the economy of both countries.
Interacting with the visiting journalists here, Wentao - the point man for trade issues with India - listed steps to address the problem of trade surplus in China's favour. He said the Chinese government has already asked its banks and financial institutes to extend funds to Indian companies in China. "We have told our financial institutes to extend help to Indian companies without any limit," Wentao said, exuding confidence about meeting the annual bilateral trade target of $ 100 by 2015. Holding that the Chinese government never favoured any trade surplus in its favour "intentionally", he said the Chinese government has been initiating a number of steps to bridge the gap which include giving Indian companies access to exploit China's annual import market of $ 1.4 trillion. Indian has been expressing concerns over the ballooning trade surplus in China's favour, which piled up to $ 27.07 billion in 2011 even though Indian exports to the neighbouring country went up to $ 23.4 billion. India has long been pushing for market access to Indian pharmaceutical and IT companies.
TCS now owns FNSvipins wrote: B@NCS24 is developed by FNS of Australia implemented in India by TCS as a CBS.
INDIA is routinely touted as a big emerging market and a rising global player. Tomorrow New Delhi will host the fourth BRICS summit of the non-Western powerhouses Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa.
Last June, Boston Consulting Group listed the US, China, Britain and India as the world's top four wealth creators in absolute gains. By their calculations, India's national wealth is estimated to grow by 18 per cent a year. All this is real enough. India is the world's fourth-largest economy in purchasing-power parity dollars and, on present trends, will rise to third within two decades.
Most major global corporations have a presence there, with substantial expansion plans. Many Indian corporations are expanding their footprints abroad, including in Australia, through investment, mergers and acquisitions. India's growing economic weight has translated into increased political clout.
...All major indicators are trending in the right direction: GDP, poverty, literacy, life expectancy, infrastructure, etc. GDP has quadrupled since economic reforms in 1991 and per capita income has doubled. India has an impressive scientific-technological base, considerable soft-power assets and a 25 million-strong diaspora to provide ballast in relations with the major Western countries. Exploiting the rising global profile, India has been aggressively branding itself with the slogan "Incredible India".
And yet India has the world's biggest pool of poor, sick, starving and illiterate. It ranks 134 on ease of doing business indicators, 119 on human development, 122 on gender equality, and 87 on corruption. On average, more than 16,500 farmers have committed suicide every year for 13 years running. The annual road death toll is around 150,000, thrice as many as the US or, on a per vehicle basis, almost 20 times the US. Most of those killed in India's traffic accidents are pedestrians, cyclists, motorcyclists and pillion riders - those from the poorer end of society.
Even this single statistic is a proxy for several ailments, including inadequate infrastructure that adds to road risks and public corruption that ensures weak compliance with driving skills and safety regulations.
A report published in January by the Hong Kong-based Political and Risk Consultancy rated India's bureaucrats the most inefficient in Asia with a score of 9.21 out of 10, below China (7.11), The Philippines (7.57), Indonesia (8.37) and Vietnam (8.54). Singapore was judged the best (2.25) followed by Hong Kong (3.53). The report was based on a survey of business executives. Respondents also highlighted onerous and complex tax, environmental and other regulations and a time-consuming, costly and unpredictable court system.
Also in January, the Program for International Student Assessment published its findings of comparative national academic performance of 15-year-old school students in maths, science and English. In the 73 countries tested, India came second last, ahead only of Kyrgyzstan. An eighth-grade Indian student fared the same as a South Korean grade three or a Shanghai grade two student.
Yet another study, also published in January, based on a survey of height and weight of more than 100,000 children in six states, found that 42 per cent of India's children were moderately-severely underweight, and 59 per cent suffered from moderate-severe stunting. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh described the results as a "national shame".
The following month a government committee concluded that Indian railways have been responsible for thousands of deaths. Some 15,000 people are killed every year trying to cross unfenced railway tracks, half of them in Mumbai alone.
The report called for urgent investment, but when the Railway Minister announced a fare increase to raise the revenue base to invest back in railways for modernisation and upgrade of services and safety, he was forced to resign by his own party, which is in the coalition government.
We read last year how India has more mobile phones than toilets. Some years ago, I had organised an international workshop in a resort along a beautiful stretch of India's eastern coast.
A European participant decided to go for a pre-breakfast run along the beach. I well remember his look of utter disgust and horror as he told us how he had to thread his way through the folks of the village squatting along the beach, defecating. According to a UNICEF survey last year, 58 per cent of the world's population practising open defecation lives in India.
Not all the perfumes of Arabia will wash away the stench of these sorry but entirely credible statistics. Incredible India, indeed. No wonder the Chinese are openly disdainful of efforts by Indians to compare themselves to China.
Ramesh Thakur is professor of international relations, Crawford School, Australian National University and adjunct professor in the Institute of Ethics, Governance and Law, Griffith University
Ramesh Thakur is professor of international relations, Craw(l)ford School, Australian National University and adjunct professor in the Institute of Ethics, Governance and Law, Griffith University
Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee hopes to counter "tax-avoidance schemes."
Question for Economists on the forum - Is the perception that there is no rolling back of economic reforms wrong?By AMOL SHARMA, MEGHA BAHREE and PAUL BECKETT
NEW DELHI—If businesses like certainty, then India has been a big turnoff for foreign companies.
A series of recent developments have greatly increased the perception that the country has a risky business environment where policies suddenly can turn hostile.
Tax proposals in the national budget unveiled in March stunned foreign firms. They could create significant retroactive tax liabilities for international mergers stretching back a half-century and eliminate a tax exemption many investors now have, wreaking havoc on corporate deal making, legal experts say. More than a half-billion dollars in foreign capital has left the Indian stock market in recent days.
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