Indian Economy - News & Discussion Oct 12 2013

[Singha]

flipkart has become the 2nd biggest seller of books in the world.
http://qz.com/439321/amazon-may-be-the- ... -flipkart/

[Yagnasri]

Many infra companies are suffering due to various reasons like huge dues from Electricity Boards, high interest rates etc. Some promoted by politicos are not properly paying salaries now as there is no money. Something need to done like payment of outstanding dues to them.

[Prem]

^ China went from $2 trillion in 2005 to a $10 trillion in 2014.

I would be surprised if we do not cross $4 trillion in 2020 (unless the World economy tanks completely).
If Modi is at the helm for 10 years we should be more than half the Chinese economy by 2025.
Hopefully it is not all wishful thinking on my part.

We will be 4T by 2019-2020 and then double in 4-5-6- years depending on the mood ..

[tushar_m]

China is making lots of things up.

They can actually manipulate their own currency without any big problem.

If you search you will find that they are in trouble right now

[tushar_m]

By PPP we have a GDP of & 7 trillion$ + right now

[pankajs]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/art ... 875423.cms
India begins first seabed exploration for gold and other mineral deposits in Indian Ocean

CHENNAI: India has begun an exploration for mineral deposits and precious metals like gold and silver in the Southern Indian Ocean. The country's first ever seabed exploration for polymetallic sulphides is being done in the Rodriguez Triple Junction (RTJ), a geological junction in the southern Indian Ocean where three tectonic plates meet near Mauritius.

Scientists at the National Centre for Antarctic and Ocean Research (NCAOR), Goa said that the country has been granted 10,000sq km near RTJ for seabed exploration of polymetallic sulphide, a mineral deposit with three or more metals in commercial quantities.

The license to conduct exploration for 15 years was granted in 2014 by the International Seabed Authority (ISA), an autonomous international organization established under the 1982 United Nations Convention on the Law of the Sea.

[amit]

flipkart has become the 2nd biggest seller of books in the world.
http://qz.com/439321/amazon-may-be-the- ... -flipkart/

This piece of news is very important IMO. This shows that at least one Indian IT/e-commerce company has begun to realise the benefit of India's huge population. Very soon Flipkart should become the world's No1.

Look at China. Alibaba, is bigger than Amazon and EBay combined in terms of turnover and volume. And yet it has zero/marginal presence outside of China which these two have global. Hopefully Indian online companies will also be able to benefit from the economies of scale as more Indians go online. While I don't advocate the kind of curbs that China imposed on foreign online companies (eg Google vis a vis Baidu or Amazon vs Alibaba) I sure hope that the government discourages efforts to "takeover" successful local companies by the big boys in the online space.

[Arjun]

flipkart has become the 2nd biggest seller of books in the world.
http://qz.com/439321/amazon-may-be-the- ... -flipkart/

What the article actually says is Flipkart has become the second most googled book seller in the world...and I guess its assuming that all searches for Flipkart are for books.

[Suraj]

Core sector growth rises to 4.4% in May

EPFO draws up plan to invest in stock markets

The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) will invest a part of its corpus in exchange-traded funds issued by SBI Mutual Fund.

This decision was taken at a meeting of the finance, investment and audit committee of the EPFO last week.

EPFO has decided to invest five per cent of its incremental corpus of Rs 1,00,000 crore in ETFs in 2015-16. EPFO will start investing in SBI-Sensex ETF, SBI-ETF Nifty Junior, SBI-ETF Banking and SBI-ETF BSE 100. The mutual fund has also applied to the Securities and Exchange Board of India for a Nifty-based ETF.

EPFO will pool all its investment meant for the month on a single day, when the market falls by over four per cent. When the market falls by over two per cent, the entire sum meant for a week will be invested. These plans will be reviewed every financial year.

Apr-May fiscal deficit at 37.5% of FY16 BE

The Centre’s fiscal deficit for April-May this year stands at Rs 2.08 lakh crore, or 37.5 per cent of the 2015-16 Budget estimate of Rs 5.56 lakh crore, compared with 45.3 per cent in the corresponding period last year. On a year-on-year basis, the deficit was narrower due to higher non-tax revenue and lower non-Plan expenditure.

For the first two months of 2015-16, net tax revenue stood at Rs 19,889 crore, or 2.2 per cent of the full-year Budget estimate, compared with 2.9 per cent in the year-ago period. Non-tax revenue was Rs 32,472 crore, or 14.6 per cent of the full-year estimate, compared with 4.6 per cent for April-May 2014. Total receipts stood at Rs 52,361 crore, or 4.6 per cent of the 2015-16 Budget estimate, compared with 3.2 per cent for April-May 2014.

Non-Plan expenditure for April-May stood at Rs 2.01 lakh crore, 15.3 per cent of the full-year estimate, compared with 18.1 per cent for the first two months of the last financial year. At Rs 62,106 crore, Plan expenditure was 13.4 per cent, compared with 10.4 per cent last year.

Total expenditure for April-May this year was Rs 2.63 lakh crore, 13.4 per cent of the full-year estimate.

[Vayutuvan]

... I sure hope that the government discourages efforts to "takeover" successful local companies by the big boys in the online space.

What role does govt. have in private business other than making the playing field level and make sure that everyone is playing by the rules? Intervention should be only when national interest (as in security) is at stake. In any case, IoT is a so much hot air. It will run out of gas soon enough.

[Karthik S]

EPFO draws up plan to invest in stock markets

The Employees Provident Fund Organisation (EPFO) will invest a part of its corpus in exchange-traded funds issued by SBI Mutual Fund.

This decision was taken at a meeting of the finance, investment and audit committee of the EPFO last week.

EPFO has decided to invest five per cent of its incremental corpus of Rs 1,00,000 crore in ETFs in 2015-16. EPFO will start investing in SBI-Sensex ETF, SBI-ETF Nifty Junior, SBI-ETF Banking and SBI-ETF BSE 100. The mutual fund has also applied to the Securities and Exchange Board of India for a Nifty-based ETF.

EPFO will pool all its investment meant for the month on a single day, when the market falls by over four per cent. When the market falls by over two per cent, the entire sum meant for a week will be invested. These plans will be reviewed every financial year.

Wasn't this discouraged by Swaminathan Gurumurthy in that video? He was pro banking and not so keen on pro market. I know it's only 5% but any successes may lead to further investments in the stock market, leading to US like situation. As long as 5%-10% limit is maintained it should be fine.

[Singha]

airtel has become the 3rd largest cellphone operator in the world with 300 mil after vodafone with 400mil and china telecom with 650mil.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ind ... 877528.cms

but they continue to operate on trading model, with no strength on the technology side preferring to outsource even most of operations and tech to vendors and outside cos.

even much smaller US , EU and east asian operators have deep links to vendors, their own r&d and testing labs like bellcore used to do for the bells, bench of technical experts and presence in standards bodies. pick any NTT docomo, china telecom, T-mobile, verizon, telefonica, vodafone, orange, telecom italia they are all in there.

just feeding on the vast indian consumer base without building strength to influence the course of events...

[Supratik]

It is a bad idea for pension, insurance funds to invest in markets. If the market tanks for some reason the Govt will have to bail out using public funds and debt. Instead they should have invested in infra like LIC is doing with railways. Blindly copying the west in this case.

[Suraj]

I have not read Gurumurthy's critique about pension funds investing in the equity market, but I don't see why it's a problem. If the issue is high volatility, then that's exactly where the presence of a very large domestic institutional investor helps. Their presence adds liquidity, lowers volatility, and makes the markets less dependent on the vagaries of FPI inflows and outflows. This isn't the Harshad Mehta BSE of the 1990s anymore, but one of the world's top 10 stock markets by capitalization. Equities, bonds and gilts all have a role within EPFO's or LIC's investment portfolio.

[Prem]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/art ... aign=cppst

April's industrial growth data and May's core sector data both show a strong rebound and the mood among some of India's infrastructure firms is cautiously optimistic. in a recent interview to a television channel, AM Naik, chairman of Larsen & Toubro, said that there is a lot of movement and the capex cycle is slowly picking up from stagnation. "I would say in the highways segment, a lot of money is being spent. On the power transmission and distribution, I can see lot more activities with the coal issue having been resolved. Many half-completed power plants will now see the light of the day." It may be too early to celebrate as orders and tenders .. t may be too early to celebrate as orders and tenders have to translate into profits and sales growth. That is likely to take time. But investors have already begun to notice the trend. The BSE capital goods index is the best performer since early May, rising 9.29% beating the Sensex's 3.47% gain and the Nifty's 2.73% rise. Sectors like FMCG, pharma and IT --- the leaders of last year's rally --- have lagged behind. The fact that this performance has come at a time of nervousness and concern i .. If government capex investment continues, industrials will perform better this year and the nascent recovery could begin to take hold. That's a big story for Indian investors, used to tepid and disappointing growth.

[Vadivel]

airtel has become the 3rd largest cellphone operator in the world with 300 mil after vodafone with 400mil and china telecom with 650mil.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ind ... 877528.cms

but they continue to operate on trading model, with no strength on the technology side preferring to outsource even most of operations and tech to vendors and outside cos.

even much smaller US , EU and east asian operators have deep links to vendors, their own r&d and testing labs like bellcore used to do for the bells, bench of technical experts and presence in standards bodies. pick any NTT docomo, china telecom, T-mobile, verizon, telefonica, vodafone, orange, telecom italia they are all in there.

just feeding on the vast indian consumer base without building strength to influence the course of events...

+1.

Airtel i have found is a just a follower of latest technology from abroad. Either its 3G,4G IPTV etc. No innovation for Indian market. The saving grace is we get latest telecom techs from outside, else we would'nt even get that in a matured way.

[srin]

I have not read Gurumurthy's critique about pension funds investing in the equity market, but I don't see why it's a problem. If the issue is high volatility, then that's exactly where the presence of a very large domestic institutional investor helps. Their presence adds liquidity, lowers volatility, and makes the markets less dependent on the vagaries of FPI inflows and outflows. This isn't the Harshad Mehta BSE of the 1990s anymore, but one of the world's top 10 stock markets by capitalization. Equities, bonds and gilts all have a role within EPFO's or LIC's investment portfolio.

I agree and over a sufficiently long term, equity investment would help boost the returns - particularly important for those who don't invest in equities directly or indirectly (like my dad who retired a few years ago).

But, what isn't good:
a) EPF isn't professional enough for fund management. Remember a few years ago, they suddenly said they found a few thousand crores and it turned out to be bad accounting after all ? NPS has professional fund managers and stipulates investment in index funds. Either EPF invests in index funds or they allow external professional fund managers. NPS is way better on this score.
b) No flexibility at withdrawl: If when you are retire at 60, it is a bad time for the market and there is a temporary 10% dip in the corpus. But can you postpone by a couple of years the withdrawl of the money ?

Personally, I look at EPF as a risk-free, tax-free long term investment, and do my own equity MF investment.

[Supratik]

I am looking at it from the aam admi point of view. Do I trust others to play with my money? It should be a personal choice. There can be market-linked pension/insurance schemes and the individual can choose where to invest.

[Suraj]

But, what isn't good:
a) EPF isn't professional enough for fund management. Remember a few years ago, they suddenly said they found a few thousand crores and it turned out to be bad accounting after all ? NPS has professional fund managers and stipulates investment in index funds. Either EPF invests in index funds or they allow external professional fund managers. NPS is way better on this score.

Professional investment is a prerequisite, regardless of their plans to invest in equities.

b) No flexibility at withdrawl: If when you are retire at 60, it is a bad time for the market and there is a temporary 10% dip in the corpus. But can you postpone by a couple of years the withdrawl of the money ?

On the other hand, empirical data shows equities consistently outdo fixed rate instruments in the long run, which means a 10% dip would be from a far greater basis, for a reasonably long time horizon.

Personally, I look at EPF as a risk-free, tax-free long term investment, and do my own equity MF investment.

The best solution might be to give people a say in what risk bucket their own savings should be invested in, or automatically bias those approaching retirement to mainly a fixed asset heavy portfolio, so people can themselves provide input on their risk tolerance.

[amit]

What role does govt. have in private business other than making the playing field level and make sure that everyone is playing by the rules? Intervention should be only when national interest (as in security) is at stake. In any case, IoT is a so much hot air. It will run out of gas soon enough.

Sorry to say this boss but there are several things wrong with your comment. First of all I was not talking about IoT (but I'll get back to that later) but about e-commerce platforms.

How do you define national interest? Do you think national interest would be served, or let's put it this way, national interest won't be affected if, say, Flipkart which is really a trailblazer in terms of opening up the fledgling e-commerce market in India, were to be bought over by say Amazon and made a part of Amazon's global e-commerce platform?

I personally think that would be great tragedy because in many ways new generation companies like Flipkart, MakemyTrip and others are the Gen 2.0 Indian IT companies which will inspire a whole generation of kids with their success just as during the turn of the millennium TCS, Infosys, Wipro and others did. I know today it's fashionable to dismiss them a body shops, lacking innovation etc but from the Year 2K fix these companies have built multibillion dollar businesses in the space of one and a half decade. That's not something to be scoffed at.

IMO these Gen 2.0 companies must be identified, nurtured and protected from companies that buy other companies simply to gain market share. You have to understand the lure of the Indian IT/e-commerce market. There is flat growth in most Western markets, and the world's biggest market, China, thanks to government policies, is so dominated by local companies that international brands can only play second fiddle. India on the other hand is ripe for the pickings and I think just like the Chinese government did, the Indian government needs to leverage the size of the market in order to ensure Indian champions are born. These companies and their growth should be considered strategic.

Also just follow how the US government has, over the years, nixed proposals by Chinese companies to buy/invest in companies which the US considers strategic. Lenovo buying IBM PC was not strategic.

Regarding IoT, well I admire your confidence when you just dismiss it as a fad that will go away.

Some years ago in Barcelona I heard John Chambers ex boss of Cisco say it would be a $17 trillion business opportunity by 2020 (for all companies). You know what? Since then the kind of excitement that has been generated by IoT is something I haven't seen for a long while. Even when cloud computing graduated from being "virtualization 2.0" there wasn't this kind of excitement.

So if you think it will go away in a few years, well all power to you!

[amit]

airtel has become the 3rd largest cellphone operator in the world with 300 mil after vodafone with 400mil and china telecom with 650mil.
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/ind ... 877528.cms

but they continue to operate on trading model, with no strength on the technology side preferring to outsource even most of operations and tech to vendors and outside cos.

even much smaller US , EU and east asian operators have deep links to vendors, their own r&d and testing labs like bellcore used to do for the bells, bench of technical experts and presence in standards bodies. pick any NTT docomo, china telecom, T-mobile, verizon, telefonica, vodafone, orange, telecom italia they are all in there.

just feeding on the vast indian consumer base without building strength to influence the course of events...

To be honest telcos like Airtel have only one model to aspire to. And that is to become a cloud computing, software as a service (SaaS) and security business service provider. That's because their legacy telephony system will soon become a commodity service that they will have to give away it away virtually for free. Airtel and other Indian companies are not yet feeling the pinch as their is still significant upside potential for ARPU growth, especially as 3G services kick in. But these telcos will see that very soon folks are using WhatsApp, Viber, Facebook Messenger and Google, among others to make phone calls.

Before that they have to look for enterprise business, especially from SMBs. A good model of this kind of growth is British Telecom. Airtel's major investor and partner Singapore Telecommunications is also going this way.

As far as I know Airtel has outsourced functions like ERP, CRM and HR to, I think IBM. I'd say that was a good decision, it frees up the company to do what they are good at that is building out the telco infrastructure.

The thing to look out for is, do they become complacent because of the organic growth potential (that is new users) growth in the Indian market and don't plan ahead? Are they already taking steps to leverage their network to provide services to enterprise users. IMO, Airtel should look to buy good ISVs with core enterprise software technology expertise in order to build up their skill sets. This can't be done overnight, it will take time and effort to build up the skill sets.

The telcos you mentioned have all followed this model.

[amit]

But, what isn't good:
a) EPF isn't professional enough for fund management. Remember a few years ago, they suddenly said they found a few thousand crores and it turned out to be bad accounting after all ? NPS has professional fund managers and stipulates investment in index funds. Either EPF invests in index funds or they allow external professional fund managers. NPS is way better on this score.

Professional investment is a prerequisite, regardless of their plans to invest in equities.

b) No flexibility at withdrawl: If when you are retire at 60, it is a bad time for the market and there is a temporary 10% dip in the corpus. But can you postpone by a couple of years the withdrawl of the money ?

On the other hand, empirical data shows equities consistently outdo fixed rate instruments in the long run, which means a 10% dip would be from a far greater basis, for a reasonably long time horizon.

Personally, I look at EPF as a risk-free, tax-free long term investment, and do my own equity MF investment.

The best solution might be to give people a say in what risk bucket their own savings should be invested in, or automatically bias those approaching retirement to mainly a fixed asset heavy portfolio, so people can themselves provide input on their risk tolerance.

Just to add.

Globally the world's biggest equity/stock market investors are pension funds. There have been a few missteps but overall they seem to have done reasonably well. Professional management and due diligence is a must. And that is irrespective of where PF invest their money.

Here's some interesting news:

China’s pension fund may invest 30 per cent of net assets in equities

Also:

The Latest Trend in Pension Fund: Invest In Private Equity

[Supratik]

Thats all good. But my pension and insurance is ultimately my money that the govt is holding. Shouldn't I have a say in that?

[Vayutuvan]

Amit thanks for a detailed reply. I see that thee are several points we agree on but there are also several points we disagree on. Problem is not my defining IoT. Give me sometime for a rejoinder.
But one quick point - protectionism is not going to help anybody. If from the word go the policy makers say that we will not let your company get acquired, then it is closing off access to one of the exit strategies. The cofounders will have no recourse but to grow big enough to going public - possibly even globally - or whither away. Forget VCs, even angel investors would simply pack bags and go home, especially those from Si valley.

Also product development talent is a big problem not just in India but all over the U.S. Other than a few pockets like si valley.

As for prevention of strategic assets, I am talking about a situation similar to Seattle port trust or cray. To leverage IoT one requires infrastructure that too an excellent one. Just good enough won't do. Don't get me wrong - IoT will be there but it won't be something that is in your face kind if IoT which is being hyped up today by techno-evangelists. Cisco's ms. Warrier is at the forefront.

[Vayutuvan]

Amit how much due diligence is required such that the possibility of Puerto Rico defaulting on long bonds is factored in? I held for 10 years and just two days before the payout this warning from Padilla. I live in Illinois which is predicted to be next.

[amit]

^^^
Boss both your replies are interesting. Let me get back to you after a while. Busy with something.

Cheers

[VKumar]

Post bank permit soon

New Delhi, June 27: Telecom minister Ravi Shankar Prasad today said the Reserve Bank of India was likely to grant a payments bank licence to the department of post in August.

Payments banks can accept deposits of up to Rs 1 lakh and can offer current and savings account deposits. They can also issue debit cards and offer internet banking. However, they are not allowed to offer loans or issue credit cards.

The move will enable the network of 1,54,000 post offices (including 1,30,000 rural post offices) to offer banking services.

Should help provide services where there are no bank branches.

Maybe think of a Railway bank, considering number of stations and locations!

[Vayutuvan]

Amit: No problem. My experiences are anecdotal which is unlike what economists do. Probably that is the reason why we have different perspectives on the same matter. My economics was limited two courses I took back when Anti-trust laws are in India were such that a company having 25% of the market share in a segment or INR 20 cr. income is considered was considered a monopoly. My professors crib about it a lot in every class - Finance, Production, Industrial Engg., Org. Behavior, and Economics.

[Suraj]

Thats all good. But my pension and insurance is ultimately my money that the govt is holding. Shouldn't I have a say in that?

I'm curious. How much say does the average person have today in this matter ? I'm not familiar with the current status of EPFO from a contributor's perspective.

[Supratik]

My information is limited to people in the family who are drawing govt pension and none of them have any idea. I believe the current setup is that the govt and individual both contribute to the pension fund unlike previously when it was purely the govt. It seems to me it is purely govt decision and they will do the risk management. However, when professional managers in Wall Street can mismanage I am not sure if one can trust a few babus. I would rather that they invest in infra like LIC in railways which is a business proposition with less risk and assured long term returns. They can have funds which play the market and it is upto the individual to choose.

[Suraj]

So in summary, the current setup has no means for the individual to control how his contributions are invested. There are a lot of different things up in the air here, which should not be confused, or one issue used to argue against another unrelated one, because that is just confusing noise:
* EPFO needs professional investment management expertise, independent of their plan to invest in equities.
* Equities have higher volatility but also substantially higher long term returns, within an equally well managed setup where both are available.
* There's no reason EPFO should not invest in equities. Stocks are still stigmatized as 'gambling', but that social stigma is unwarranted today. Bonds may appear 'more stable', but their problems are just buried below the surface.
* There needs to be either an automated or feedback driven system where either ones benefit pool is invested more into bonds vs stock as they approach retirement, or the individual himself states what percent they want in each category, i.e. equities vs corporate and govt debt.
* Wall Street issues are significantly related to the breakdown of the Glass-Steagall law firewalling commercial and investment banking, in 1999-00. We don't have that problem. We have other problems, but not this one.

[Picklu]

^^ from the original news

EPFO has decided to invest five per cent of its incremental corpus of Rs 1,00,000 crore in ETFs in 2015-16. EPFO will start investing in SBI-Sensex ETF, SBI-ETF Nifty Junior, SBI-ETF Banking and SBI-ETF BSE 100. The mutual fund has also applied to the Securities and Exchange Board of India for a Nifty-based ETF.

So, it will be more or less similar management as SBI MF and they are going to invest in index based ETFs anyway. So, the question of mismanagement is rather moot unless the MF stupendously screws up.

[Singha]

http://www.vagabomb.com/Flipkart-Ups-th ... y-Package/

flipkart offers a good maternity pkg for female employees

[Supratik]

I will call you guys optimistic. Nothing wrong in that. I only hope that there is no screwup with the govt eventually having to bail out using public funds. What we hear about the Indian banking scenario on this forum gives me the jitters. Just wanted to make my point that 1) individual should have a say where money that eventually belongs to him is invested, 2) clear demarcation which fund is market linked and which is not, 3) invest in infra instead of markets. But since the decision has been made lets see where this goes.

[Suraj]

3) invest in infra instead of markets. But since the decision has been made lets see where this goes.

I'll simply point out that there's a significant psychological and/or cultural factor that dismisses equity markets as gambling, at work here, which actual data does not match up against. Indian equities have done extremely well over long term periods. Correspondingly, infrastructure, while supposedly much more stable, is the most indebted sector of the economy today, heavily leveraged due to NPAs caused by the 2010-2014 UPA-era slowdown. The banks themselves are leveraged on account of these infra companies being unable to keep their repayment schedules.

Job squeeze to get tighter as PMI manufacturing shrinks

Growth in the country’s manufacturing activities slowed down in June compared to May as new business orders were not as forthcoming, showed a widely tracked Purchasing Managers’ Index (PMI).

Employment levels remained stagnant, reflecting cautious stance of manufacturers. Inflation eased both at input and output levels.

The index was down at 51.3 points in June from 52.6 points in May. PMI was 51.3 points in April as well. PMI above 50 points shows expansion and the manufacturing activities have been on an expansion path since November 2013.

The data came a day after official core sector index showed that eight crucial infrastructure industries grew at a six-month high pace of 4.4 per cent in May. If PMI data is in sync with official data, it could be presumed that the core sector data may be a blip.

[Kakkaji]

Finance Ministry set to bail out steel projects stalled for lack of funds

"As on date, five out of the top 10 private steel producing companies are under severe stress on account of delayed implementation of their projects due to land acquisition and environmental clearances among other factors," the report said. According to an industry representative, who attended the meeting, the government may also look at reducing import duty on coking coal and increasing import duty on flat products 5%.

[Kakkaji]

India saved $2 billion by reforming fuel subsidiary delivery

That's $2 billion a year out of the pockets of people who want to keep the C-system going.

[Kakkaji]

Government to roll out cash transfer of food subsidies from September

NEW DELHI: Government plans to phase in cash transfers of food and kerosene subsidies from September, saving 10-15 percent of the $21 billion in annual outlays on the benefits by eliminating fraud, a senior finance ministry official said on Thursday.

Under the programme, each family will get a monthly subsidy of about Rs 500-700 ($19), which would be linked to a state-set procurement price of grains.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi, who has completed one year in power, wants to improve targeting of food and fuel subsidies to reach the poor - monetising benefits previously paid in kind that often went to waste or were stolen.

[Kakkaji]

Agriculture reform: Government takes first step for a national farm market

In what could potentially transform marketing of crops in India, the government has approved the creation of a common electronic platform which will allow farmers and traders to sell their produce to buyers anywhere in the country.

“This virtual marketplace will allow a farmer from, say, Narsinghpur in Madhya Pradesh to sell his chana to a dal miller in Delhi who may be willing to pay a higher price. The miller, too, benefits by virtue of not having to be physically present in Narsinghpur or being forced to depend on traders in that APMC area,”

[rsingh]

Over heard that we are 2 tr economy officially. Could somebody give a clear picture using latest data. what is our position in world ranking. Thanks