Government of India | CHINDIA ALERT: You'll be living in their world, very soon

31/12/2013

Tesco and Vodafone cleared to invest billions in India – Telegraph

An Indian panel has cleared investment plans by Tesco and Vodafone worth more than $1.5bn, as foreign firms show new interest in the country since New Delhi eased barriers to foreign capital.

Sadia Boudries, a Tesco employee poses for a photograph at a Tesco supermarket in London, UK

The Foreign Investment Promotion Board (FIPB) sanctioned a proposal by Vodafone, the world\’s biggest mobile phone company, to buy its joint venture partners\’ stakes in its Indian arm for 101bn rupees (£1bn).

Tesco, the world\’s third-largest retailer, had applied to the board for permission to invest an initial $110m (£66.6m) in the Tata conglomerate\’s retail business Trent Hypermarket.

\”The board gave permission to Tesco and to Vodafone. Now the applications must go to the Cabinet Committee on Economic Affairs,\” a senior foreign investment panel official told AFP on condition he was not named.

The move by Vodafone to buy out its partners comes after India opened the telecom sector to 100pc foreign ownership five months ago and comes despite a bitter tax row with the Indian government over its Indian investment that is under conciliation.

Before that, foreign ownership in phone firms was capped at 74pc.

New Delhi moved last August to open up its large and potentially lucrative retail sector to foreign companies to try to boost the slowing economy.

via Tesco and Vodafone cleared to invest billions in India – Telegraph.

Posted in Economics, FDI, India alert | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Asia, Foreign Investment Promotion Board, Government of India, India, New Delhi, Tesco, Vodafone

06/12/2013

No end to suffering for Bhopal gas victims | India Insight

Twenty-nine years have passed since a poison gas leak from the Union Carbide pesticide plant in Bhopal killed thousands of people. For the estimated 100,000 survivors and their children who cope with birth defects, illness and a variety of other health problems, it might as well still be the 1980s.

English: Wall painting outside Union Carbide site, Bhopal, India. Français : Grafitti sur le site de Union Carbide, Bhopal, Inde. (Photo credit: Wikipedia)

It was 12 a.m. on Dec. 3, 1984 when 40 tons of toxic methyl isocyanate leaked from the plant. In the J.P. Nagar neighbourhood that was worst affected, many people died instantly. The death toll is more than 5,295, according to the Indian government though projections based on an Indian Council of Medical Research study put the figure as high as 25,000. An estimated 574,372 people have been affected in some way by the gas; health activists say more than 150,000 have been seriously affected.

Lung and eye complications are common among people in this area. Many also suffer from loss of limb function along with severe palpitations and recurring chest pain.

“I do not have the strength left to do anything now,” said Mazid Khan, 52, who was employed as a security guard at the Union Carbide Corporation factory. Mazid was exposed to the gas, and now suffers from weak eyesight and swelling in his limbs.

Most victims have received 25,000 to 50,000 rupees ($400 to $800 at today’s conversion rates) in compensation, an amount that is far too small for effective medical treatment or as restitution, said Rachna Dhingra of the Bhopal Group for Information and Action (BGIA), an organization that works with victims of the disaster.

This is because the process of medical categorization was an extremely flawed process. Less than 6 percent of survivors underwent the crucial tests of urine thiocyanate, exercise tolerance test and lung function test. The other 94 percent received the small payment.

via No end to suffering for Bhopal gas victims | India Insight.

Posted in China alert, Economics, Environment, Pollution | 1 Comment »

Tags: Bhopal, Bhopal disaster, Government of India, India, Indian Council of Medical Research, Methyl isocyanate, poison gas leak, the Union Carbide pesticide, Union Carbide, Union Carbide Corporation

20/09/2013

Indian govt approves 10% dearness allowance hike, to benefit 80 lakh government employees, pensioners

Times of India: “The government on Friday approved a proposal to hike dearness allowance to 90% from existing 80%, a move that would benefit about 50 lakh central government employees and 30 lakh pensioners.

“The Union Cabinet approved the proposal to increase dearness allowance to 90% at its meeting. The hike would be effective from July 1, this year,” a source said.

According to the source, the increase in DA to 90% would result in additional annual expenditure of Rs 10,879 crore. There would be additional burden of Rs 6,297 crore on exchequer during 2013-14 on account of this hike in DA.

This is a double digit hike in DA after about three years. It was last in September, 2010, that the government had announced a hike of 10% to be given with effect from July 1, 2010.

DA was hiked to 80% from 72% in April, 2013, effective from January 1, this year.

As per the practice, the government uses CPI-IW data for past 12 months to arrive at a number for the purpose of any DA hike.

The retail inflation for industrial workers between July, 2012 and June 2013 was used to compute the increase in DA.”

via Govt approves 10% dearness allowance hike, to benefit 80 lakh government employees, pensioners – The Times of India.

Posted in Economics, India alert, Inflation | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Cabinet of India, Consumer price index, Dearness allowance, economy, Government, Government of India

16/04/2013

* India, Known for Outsourcing, Now Wants to Make Its Own Chips

NY Times: “The government of India, home to many of the world’s leading software outsourcing companies, wants to replicate that success by creating a homegrown industry for computer hardware. But unlike software, which requires little infrastructure, building electronics is a far more demanding business. Chip makers need vast quantities of clean water and reliable electricity. Computer and tablet assemblers depend on economies of scale and easy access to cheap parts, which China has spent many years building up.

So the Indian government is trying a new, carrot-and-stick approach.

In October, it quietly began mandating that at least half of all laptops, computers, tablets and dot-matrix printers procured by government agencies come from domestic sources, according to Dr. Ajay Kumar, joint secretary of the Department of Electronics and Information Technology, which devised the policy.

At the same time, it is dangling as much as $2.75 billion in incentives in front of chip makers to entice them to build India’s first semiconductor manufacturing plant, an important step in building a domestic hardware industry.

But like so much of India’s economic policy, it’s doubtful that either initiative will have the impact the government is intending.”

via India, Known for Outsourcing, Now Wants to Make Its Own Chips – NYTimes.com.

Posted in Digital communications, Economics, India alert, innovation, IT, Manufacturing, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Ajay Kumar (politician), Asia, Government of India, India, indian government, Information technology

08/01/2013

* India Proposes Curbs on Tech Imports

WSJ: “India has proposed sweeping curbs on the import of technology products ranging from laptops to Wi-Fi devices to computer-network equipment.

The proposed regulations, which were reviewed by The Wall Street Journal, would create an expansive “Buy India” mandate requiring a large percentage of the high-tech goods sold in the country to be manufactured locally.

If implemented, the rules could wreak havoc on the business plans of a wide range of U.S. and other foreign firms, including hardware-makers Cisco Systems Inc. CSCO -0.40% and Dell DELL -2.22% Inc.; services companies such as International Business Machines IBM -0.64% Corp.; and telecom-gear suppliers such as Nokia Siemens Networks B.V. and Telefon AB L.M. Ericsson ERIC-B.SK -3.89% .

To comply with the rules, foreign companies would have to set up factories in India quickly—possibly as soon as April—or significantly expand their existing manufacturing capacity in a country where the infrastructure is poor and building plants can take years because of red tape and other hassles.

Or they could face the loss of current business—collectively the industries affected generate billions of dollars in sales here annually—and the chance to tap into what is expected to be a booming technology market in years to come. Spending in India’s technology and electronics market is expected to reach about $400 billion by 2020, up from $45 billion in 2009.

Proposed regulations would require most high-tech goods sold in India to be made there. A Dell factory in India.

The rules are in draft form, and their sweep may reflect some brinkmanship on the part of the Indian government, which wants foreign firms to increase manufacturing in India. The government could still choose to delay or scale back its plan.

Still, U.S. lobbyists and industry are strenuously opposing the proposals, which have quickly become the most serious point of tension in commercial relations between the two countries. The proposals also aren’t the U.S. government’s only concern. It is also trying to head off Indian anti-tax-avoidance rules that would expose foreign investors to huge potential liability if they take effect in April as planned.

“India is the largest free-market democracy in the world. To mandate local manufacturing is antithetical to the very concept of a free marketplace,” said Ron Somers, president of the U.S.-India Business Council, a lobby group for U.S. firms in India.”

via India Proposes Curbs on Tech Imports – WSJ.com.

Posted in Digital communications, Economics, Import, India alert, Manufacturing, Technology | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Buy India, Dell, Government of India, India, technology, Wi-Fi

24/05/2012

* Who Cares if the Rupee Keeps Falling?

NY Times: “As the Indian rupee continues to fall in global markets, many respected analysts contend that the weakening currency signals the failure of the economic policies of the Indian government.

In an op-ed column last weekend in The Business Standard, a leading business daily in India, Shankar Acharya said: “The real cause of the rupee’s weakness is the relentless deterioration in our economic policies in recent years. A falling rupee is simply a symptom of the underlying disease: unsound economic policies.” Mr. Acharya was part of the team that helped design the original economic reforms of 1991 and is a former chief economic adviser to the Indian government so his words should be taken seriously.

In a similar vein, in a recent op-ed column in The Wall Street Journal, Eswar Prasad wrote: “The falling Indian rupee, which Monday closed at an all-time low relative to the dollar, is a perfect metaphor for the free fall India’s economy seems to be in.” He went on to lay the blame squarely on the government’s failure to pursue necessary economic reforms, contending that the “real message” of the depreciating currency is that “India’s policy making has lost its way.” Mr. Prasad is a professor at Cornell and a former senior official of the International Monetary Fund, and his voice too must be given heed.

With all due respect to these eminent economists and others in the media who have been opining in a similar fashion, the charge that the rupee’s misfortune principally reflects the government’s policy failures cannot be decisively established on the basis of the evidence at hand. If the Indian government was in the dock, and Anglo-American rules of evidence were applied, the verdict would have to be “not guilty,” or, at best, “not proved,” if Scottish rules were used instead.

The rupee’s downward trajectory, if it were drawn on paper, could best be seen as a Rorschach test of analysts’ hopes and expectations. There is no doubt that the current Indian government has failed to deliver on much-needed “second generation” reforms, as many observers, including myself here in India Ink, have noted. This fact – driven by the reality that good economics is often bad politics in a democracy, as I argued late last year in an op-ed column in the Business Standard – is surely regrettable.”

via Who Cares if the Rupee Keeps Falling? – NYTimes.com.

Author: Vivek Dehejia is an economics professor at Carleton University in Ottawa, Canada, and a writer and commentator on India. You can follow him on Twitter @vdehejia.

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Posted in Economics, India alert | Leave a Comment »

Tags: Business, economy, eminent economists, Eswar Prasad, Government, Government of India, India, indian government, Indian rupee, politics, Shankar Acharya

15/05/2012

* No storage space for bumper harvest, warns food ministry

Times of India: “Food Corporation of India FCI has warned that unless the government can distribute 750 lakh tonnes of food grain, there will be no storage space for the bumper harvest being currently procured, the food ministry told Rajya Sabha on Monday.

The crisis of plenty has been engaging the government for a while as it is under pressure to distribute food grain to the poor or intervene in some manner to cool inflation and the FCI alarm provides the clearest indication of the scale of the problem.”

via No storage space for bumper harvest, warns food ministry – The Times of India.

This problem is not new and once again the inability of the Indian government to anticipate and solve a recurring problem makes it hard to believe what some economists say that India will overtake China in economic terms in the latter half of this century.

Tags: Food Corporation of India, Government of India, India, transportation

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Tesco and Vodafone cleared to invest billions in India – Telegraph

No end to suffering for Bhopal gas victims | India Insight

Indian govt approves 10% dearness allowance hike, to benefit 80 lakh government employees, pensioners

* India, Known for Outsourcing, Now Wants to Make Its Own Chips

* India Proposes Curbs on Tech Imports

* Who Cares if the Rupee Keeps Falling?

* No storage space for bumper harvest, warns food ministry

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