Posts tagged ‘India’

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21/07/2015

Traveling on India’s Roads Is Getting More Dangerous – The Numbers – WSJ

Traveling on India’s roads is getting more dangerous. In 2014 there were 141,526 deaths due to road accidents in the country, up from 137,423 a year earlier.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s government is set to introduce the Road Transport and Safety Bill in the upcoming 18-day session of Parliament, which starts Tuesday.

It would be India’s first separate legislation to govern road safety. Counter-intuitively, the legislation would reduce penalties for offenses such as drunken driving or speeding, but road-safety campaigners say that would make the law more likely to be enforced.

Until then, some numbers from the National Crime Records Bureau that show how safe it is (or isn’t) to travel on India’s roads.

39.2%

The percentage of India’s accidental deaths in 2014 that were the result of traffic accidents.

May

The month in 2014 in which the most traffic accidents were reported in India. Accidents that month accounted for 9.2%, or 44,106 out of 481,805 of the total traffic accidents that year.

3 p.m. – 9 p.m.

The time the largest number of traffic accidents were reported in 2014, making up a total of 34.2% of traffic accidents that year.

2.9%

Amount fatalities from road accidents increased by in 2014, from a year earlier. Road accidents overall increased by 1.8% in 2014.

31.39%

Percentage of road accidents in India in 2014 where at least one person died.

Two wheelers

Type of vehicle most often involved in fatal road accidents. More than one in four (26.4%) of accidental deaths on roads involved motorbikes, scooters and other two wheelers, followed by trucks and lorries at 20.1%, cars at 12.1% and buses at 8.8%. The statistics do not say if this included bicycles.

National highways

Roads which saw the highest number of accidents, contributing to 27.5% of total road accidents. These roads makes up just 1.58% of India’s total road network. State highways had a share of 25.2% of total accidents. The national highways also saw the most fatal accidents – accounting for more than 32.5% of the total deaths on India’s roads in 2014.

Uttar Pradesh

The state with the most road traffic accident deaths in India in 2014 –16,284. Perhaps not surprising, since it is India’s most-populous region. The state was closely followed by Tamil Nadu at 15,190 deaths and Maharashtra at 13,529 deaths.

Speeding

The cause of most road accidents in India in 2014–accounting for 36.8% of total accidents, causing 48,654 deaths and injuring 181,582 people. Dangerous, careless driving or overtaking caused 137,808 road accidents, the data showed, resulting in 42,127 deaths and injuring 138,533 people. Poor weather caused 3.2% of road accidents, while driving under the influence of drugs or alcohol contributed to 1.6% of total road accidents

via Traveling on India’s Roads Is Getting More Dangerous – The Numbers – WSJ.

Posted in Economics, India alert, Transport | 1 Comment »

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13/07/2015

The Seven Signs of India’s Outsourcing Apocalypse – The Numbers – WSJ

After years of success, the outsourcing industry is under stress as the market shrinks and spending falls. Indian companies say their business models, built on cheap labor, are under threat from a shift to cloud computing, where clients ditch server rooms and bespoke software. Here’s how the outsourcing industry has shrunk in the past several years.

$120.4 billion

The value of outsourcing deals worldwide in 2014, down from $206.8 billion in 2010.

1,144

The number of outsourcing deals signed globally in 2014. The deals are down 61% from 1,805 deals in 2010, KPMG data shows.

$552 million

The average value of the world’s 100 largest outsourcing deals in 2012. Since then, the average size has fallen and was at $452 million in 2014, according to International Data Corp.

9

The number of outsourcing deals made in 2014 worth $1 billion or more, the lowest in more than a decade. Big outsourcing deals are rarer, and are being won by fewer companies – five of those deals were made by International Business Machines Corp., according to International Data Corp.

20%-30%

The amount Indian outsourcing contract values fall when they are renewed, according to Emkay Research. As the work gets scarcer, clients bargain harder on prices.

$21,307

The average annual salary of a software developer in India, according to job search website Naukrihub.com. That’s in contrast to the $93,350 average annual salary of a developer in the U.S., according to the Bureau of Labor Statistics. Outsourcing companies say that clients are demanding quicker results and fewer, more experienced staff, forcing Indian outsourcers to hire more in the U.S. and Europe. As a result, Nasscom estimates that only 200,000-220,000 outsourcing jobs will be added in India in 2015 compared with 273,000 new jobs in 2011.

More than 50%

Amount revenue growth at India’s outsourcing giants has fallen since 2008. Tata Consultancy Services said sales grew 15% for the financial year that ended in March, compared with the financial year ending March 2008 when sales grew 37%. Infosys said revenue rose 6% last financial year, down from 19% growth in 2008.

via The Seven Signs of India’s Outsourcing Apocalypse – The Numbers – WSJ.

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12/07/2015

5 Takeaways from Modi and Sharif’s Meet in Ufa – WSJ

Little more than a photo opportunity was expected to come out of the meeting between India’s Narendra Modi and Pakistan’s Nawaz Sharif on Friday.

So, when the two rival nations put out a joint statement after their leaders held long-delayed talks in the Russian city of Ufa, some political commentators were caught by surprise.

Almost a year after his country called off talks with Pakistan, Mr. Modi accepted an invitation to visit Islamabad in 2016 for the upcoming Saarc summit.

Describing Friday’s meeting on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization summit as a “constructive engagement,” India’s foreign ministry, along with its counterpart in Islamabad, highlighted steps the two sides agreed to take on “issues of bilateral and regional interests.”

Here are five takeaways from the statement.

1 Tackling Terrorism

The current national security advisors of the two nations, will meet to “discuss all issues connected to terrorism,” said the statement. It didn’t give a timeline for the meeting between India’s Ajit Doval and Pakistan’s Sartaj Aziz.

India has on several occasions blamed Pakistan for supporting terrorism, a claim Islamabad has repeatedly denied. Last year, after eight soldiers died in a militant attack on an Indian army camp in the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir, Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh blamed Islamabad for “sheltering” terrorists. “If Pakistan can’t stop these attacks, let it take India’s help,” he said.

2 Military Meeting

The two sides also said meetings will take place between the heads of India’s Border Security Force and the Pakistan Rangers, followed by discussions between the director generals of military operations from both countries. Mr. Singh said in a statement Friday that this would “help in stabilizing the situation” at the border between India and Pakistan.

The border has recently seen a spate of violence with cross-border firing from both sides, forcing thousands of local people from their homes.

3 Freeing Fishermen

A decision on the release of Indian and Pakistani fishermen in custody in both countries, along with the return of their boats, can be expected in 15 days, according to the statement. Pakistan’s foreign ministry said as of July 1 that there were 355 Indian fishermen in Pakistani jails and 27 Pakistani fishermen in Indian jails. The statement did not go as far as to say they would be released however.

4 Religious Tourism

The neighbors agreed to establish a “mechanism for facilitating religious tourism” between the two countries.

5 Mumbai Terror Attack

Six months after Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi, the alleged mastermind of the devastating attack on Mumbai that killed 166 people in 2008, was freed from prison in Pakistan, the two sides announced a decision to “discuss ways and means to expedite the Mumbai case trial, including additional information like providing voice samples.” India alleges that the attackers were backed by Pakistan’s military and intelligence agencies—a charge that Pakistan denies.

via 5 Takeaways from Modi and Sharif’s Meet in Ufa – WSJ.

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09/07/2015

The Troubled Path to Modi and Sharif’s Meet – India Real Time – WSJ

A little more than a year after they met amid high expectations in New Delhi, the prime ministers of India and Pakistan will hold talks on the sidelines of a summit in Russia on Friday. The mood this time around is decidedly less upbeat.

Narendra Modi and Nawaz Sharif are scheduled to sit down for a one-on-one in the city of Ufa, where they have both traveled to attend a meeting of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization, a China- and Russia-dominated group that India and Pakistan are a part of as observers. The two South Asian nations aspire to full membership of the organization, which also includes Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan.

Relations between India and Pakistan over the past year have been strained, with a long catalog of disagreements. New Delhi called off planned talks in August after Pakistan’s ambassador to India met with separatists from the northern state of Jammu and Kashmir.

 

Tit-for-tat cross-border firing in the fall resulted in civilian casualties and provocative rhetoric from both sides.

The flare-up cast a shadow over a meeting in November of South Asian nations in Nepal, during which Mr. Modi held bilateral talks with some of his counterparts from the region but skipped a one-to-one with Mr. Sharif.

Frosty ties turned openly belligerent again in April when the alleged mastermind of a devastating 2008 terrorist attack in Mumbai was freed from prison in Pakistan. India accused Islamabad of not pursuing his prosecution properly, an allegation Pakistan denied.

Inflammatory remarks haven’t made matters easier. India’s cross-border raid on insurgent camps in Myanmar after its soldiers were killed in an ambush near the country’s northeastern frontier–and comments by Mr. Modi’s ministers afterward that the military operation should serve as a warning “to all those who harbor intentions of terror on our country”–irked the government in Islamabad. India has long accused Pakistan of supporting terrorism in India.

India has another growing strategic misgiving: a strengthening China-Pakistan nexus. The two countries, which are longtime allies and each have territorial disputes with India, recently took their relations a step further by inking a $46 billion deal for Chinese investments in building an economic corridor through Pakistan. The pact raised hackles in India, largely because it includes building Chinese-funded infrastructure on disputed territory that is governed by Pakistan but also claimed by India.

All that said, Mr. Modi and Mr. Sharif have tried to ease tensions with occasional telephone calls. In February, the two exchanged messages over the then-upcoming Cricket World Cup. In June, Mr. Modi called Mr. Sharif to wish him well ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan and gave him the news that, as a gesture of goodwill, India would be releasing some Pakistani fishermen detained by Indian authorities.

The planned meeting Friday is unlikely to result in a major breakthrough in ties. Still, when the leaders of two nuclear-armed rival nations meet, the world watches.

via The Troubled Path to Modi and Sharif’s Meet – India Real Time – WSJ.

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09/07/2015

How India Could Be Hit by Chinese Stock Slide – India Real Time – WSJ

The dive in Chinese markets on Wednesday may have rattled investors across the globe, but prospectors in India need not panic: any trickle down impact of the crisis on the South Asian nation will be limited to certain sectors.

The Shanghai Composite index has lost around a third of its value over the past month and concern is growing that Beijing’s failure to prop up its equity markets means it will be unable to push through its broader agenda of liberalizing the economy to mitigate the country’s slowing growth.

India’s metals companies are likely to be affected the most as China is the world’s biggest importer of steel and iron ore. Any further slowdown in China’s economy will bring down global prices, hurting Indian firms’ profitability.

 

Meanwhile, luxury-car manufacturers are also likely to take a hit. Tata Motors 500570.BY +1.62%’ share price has already lost about 8% in the past two trading sessions on concerns that the problems in China could further worsen the slowdown in demand for its Jaguar Land Rover luxury cars there, which is now the single-largest market for JLR.

But long-term effects are expected to be minimal. India’s benchmark S&P BSE Sensex index has gained about 5% during the past month.

Though India’s benchmark index fell 1.7% yesterday, analysts and fund managers attribute it to a domino effect from China that won’t last. India’s improving domestic fundamentals are capable of thwarting a similar meltdown.

“India is relatively better off among the emerging markets as we don’t have too many negatives compared to other countries,” said Deven Choksey, managing director of Mumbai-based brokerage K.R. Choksey Shares and Securities.

He said investors will give preference to the ongoing reform process in India and key legislation such as the Land Acquisition Bill and the Goods and Services Tax Bill, rather than global events.

Analysts said upcoming corporate earnings will also matter more to Indian stock prices than the Chinese turmoil. Though corporate earnings are expected to take some time to improve, analysts are confident that a sharp recovery in profits is likely from the second half of this financial year. The January-March period was the worst earnings season in the past two years.

“Both (China and India) can’t be compared and, in fact, the developments in China will only serve to reinforce confidence in India and India’s market structure,” said Aashish Somaiyaa, chief executive of Motilal Oswal Asset Management Co.

In fact, foreign investors, who own about 43% of the publicly-traded shares of companies in the Sensex, have invested about $600 million already in July, after pulling out nearly $1.8 billion in the previous two months.

And domestic investors have not lost faith in the Indian story as they have poured in nearly $2.4 billion into stocks since May.

“Whenever there is a correction in [the] Indian market, we are getting more enquiries,” said Nandkumar Surti, chief executive of J.P. Morgan Asset Management India Pvt. Ltd.

via How India Could Be Hit by Chinese Stock Slide – India Real Time – WSJ.

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08/07/2015

India to roll out $20 billion food welfare plan by December | Reuters

India will roll out its multi-billion dollar food welfare plan by December, the food minister said, allowing 67 percent of its 1.2 billion people access to cheap rice and wheat.

Labourers unload sacks filled with wheat from a truck at the Punjab State Civil Supplies Corporation Limited (PUNSUP) godown at a wholesale grain market in Punjab, May 6, 2015. REUTERS/Ajay Verma/Files

The previous Congress-led government approved the National Food Security Act (NFSA) in August 2013. India’s 29 states and seven union territories had to implement it within a year.

After missing several deadlines, only 11 states could introduce the plan and the rest sought more time.

“Finally most states have agreed to implement the NFSA by December, after the latest deadline ends in September,” Ram Vilas Paswan told reporters after meeting his counterparts from states on Tuesday.

In his February budget, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley earmarked 1.24 trillion rupees ($20.11 billion) for food subsidies.

Although Prime Minister Narendra Modi is implementing the expensive food welfare plan approved by his predecessor Manmohan Singh, the government is now trying to rein in overall subsidies to focus on investment in manufacturing and infrastructure.

via India to roll out $20 billion food welfare plan by December | Reuters.

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08/07/2015

The Brics Are Harming Each Other’s Trade, and India Is Largely to Blame – India Real Time – WSJ

Like most families, the Brics bloc isn’t as happy as it looks from the outside.

Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa, whose leaders begin a two-day summit today in Russia, are responsible for a growing share of the world’s trade-distorting policies but an even larger portion of trade-liberalizing ones, a new report finds.

However, the temporary nature of some of the market-opening measures means that overall these countries are still discriminating significantly against their trade partners—many of which are fellow emerging markets.

The finding, documented by the Global Trade Alert project of the London-based Centre for Economic Policy Research, highlights some of the awkward contradictions in the effort to unite the Brics.

“On the one hand, the Brics have sought to bolster trade between themselves with more generous credit lines for exporters and the like,” writes the report’s author, Simon Evenett, a professor of economics at the University of St. Gallen, Switzerland. “On the other hand, the Brics are responsible for a third of the instances of the harm to each other’s commercial interests. This cannot make sense.”

Global Trade Alert monitors trade-distorting moves such as tariffs, investment restrictions, “buy local” requirements for public procurement and export-promotion tools such as tax incentives and trade finance. GTA says its dataset includes more than 4,500 trade-related policies enacted globally since the financial crisis, more than double the number tracked by the World Trade Organization.

The GTA database documents three major spikes in protectionism since 2008. Over that period, the Brics governments have implemented a total of 1,451 policies that favor domestic commercial interests over foreign ones, or 32% of such measures world-wide. The Brics countries have since unwound just a fifth of these, suggesting that protectionist walls weren’t raised merely as temporary crisis-fighting measures. The Brics account for 17% of world trade.

Within the bloc, India stands out as an offender. According to GTA, the country is second only to the European Union both in the number of discriminatory measures imposed since November 2008—452 against the EU’s 604—and in the number of product categories affected by such measures—1,174 against the EU’s 1,220, both out of a possible 1,229.

Rich-country protectionism is still alive and kicking, the report shows. Of the 2,733 economic policies that harmed at least one Brics member, a fifth came from a member of the G-7 group of nations—the U.S., Canada, Japan, Germany, France, U.K. and Italy—or Australia. Nearly a third, however, came from fellow Brics nations.

All told, a greater share of G-7 policies were discriminatory, but the Brics’ protectionism affected a broader range of products. China was the most-common victim, with 2,153 foreign measures hitting its commercial interests.

The Brics also account for an increasing share of reforms world-wide to lower obstacles to foreign firms and investors, the report finds. But 28% of these liberalizations have already lapsed, compared to the global average of 15%.

Some economists say developing countries, in order to kick-start industrialization, need to shield and nurture local firms until they’re ready to compete on world markets. But Mr. Evenett argues that condoning “special and differential treatment” for poor countries doesn’t straightforwardly protect them against rich countries’ discrimination—it also provides cover for developing countries to step on other developing countries’ toes. China is the only one of the Brics whose exports haven’t stagnated over the past four years.

Hence, “a less selective approach to tackling crisis-era protectionism would seem to be in order,” Mr. Evenett writes. “The frequency with which Brics commercial interests are harmed by beggar-thy-neighbor interests ought to make the Brics champions of the monitoring of protectionism by international organizations.”

via The Brics Are Harming Each Other’s Trade, and India Is Largely to Blame – India Real Time – WSJ.

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06/07/2015

Rivals Pakistan, India to start process of joining China security bloc | Reuters

Nuclear-armed rivals Pakistan and India will start the process of joining a security bloc led by China and Russia at a summit in Russia later this week, a senior Chinese diplomat said on Monday, the first time the grouping has expanded since it was set up in 2001.

Photo

The Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) groups China, Russia and the former Soviet republics of Tajikistan, Uzbekistan, Kazakhstan and Kyrgyzstan, while India, Pakistan, Iran, Afghanistan and Mongolia are observers.

“As the influence of the SCO’s development has expanded, more and more countries in the region have brought up joining the SCO,” Chinese Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping told a news briefing.”India and Pakistan’s admission to the SCO will play an important role in the SCO’s development. It will play a constructive role in pushing for the improvement of their bilateral relations.”

India and Pakistan have fought three wars since 1947, two of them over the divided Muslim-majority region of Kashmir which they both claim in full but rule in part. Pakistan also believes India is supporting separatists in resource-rich Baluchistan province, as well as militants fighting the state.

India applied to join the regional security grouping last year and SCO foreign ministers gave a positive recommendation when they met in June. “We await further developments,” said Sujata Mehta, a senior foreign ministry official.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi will be in Moscow for a summit of the BRICS group of emerging markets and both he and his Pakistani counterpart, Nawaz Sharif, will attend a special SCO “outreach” session as part of the gathering.

Pakistan’s application is being considered, said foreign ministry spokesman Qazi Khalilullah. “We hope they will support us for full membership,” he added.

The grouping was originally formed to fight threats posed by radical Islam and drug trafficking from neighboring Afghanistan.

Cheng said the summit, to be attended by Chinese President Xi Jinping, would also discuss security in Afghanistan.

Beijing says separatist groups in the far western region of Xinjiang, home to the Muslim Uighur minority, seek to form their own state, called East Turkestan, and have links with militants in Central Asia, as well as Pakistan and Afghanistan.

China says Uighur militants, operating as the East Turkestan Islamic Movement (ETIM), have also been working with Islamic State.

“It can be said that ETIM certainly has links with the Islamic State, and has participated in relevant terrorist activities. China is paying close attention to this, and will have security cooperation with relevant countries,” Cheng said.

via Rivals Pakistan, India to start process of joining China security bloc | Reuters.

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03/07/2015

Rag pickers’ services will be recognised by Government; to give national award – The Hindu

The national award, with a cash prize of Rs. 1.5 lakh, will be given to three best rag pickers and three associations.

Now, rag pickers’ services will be recognised by the government which has decided to give national award for their contribution to keep India clean. File photo

Now, rag pickers’ services will be recognised by the government which has decided to give national award for their contribution to keep India clean.

“There are millions of rag pickers in the country. This informal sector has saved the country. They are doing a good job and I have decided to recognise their efforts. We will grant national award,” Environment Minister Prakash Javadekar said at an event on waste management in New Delhi.

The national award, with a cash prize of Rs. 1.5 lakh, will be given to three best rag pickers and three associations involved in innovation of best practices, he added.

Stating that rag pickers are helping to some extent in handling waste, the Minister pitched for setting up of a credible agency like Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) that can guide municipal bodies to take measures to address waste management in a scientific way.

“At present, agencies that handle solid waste are working on contractual basis and this has failed miserably. Handling waste cannot always be a profitable business. We have suggested that the Urban Ministry build a credible agency like DMRC that can give scientific guidance,” he said.

The Minister also mentioned that there are adequate funds for waste management. “What is lacking is scientific guidance to handle different kinds of waste,” he said.

Expressing concern over the large quantity of untreated waste and sewage in the country, Javadekar said that current rules have been revised to ensure every village of over 5,000 population has a waste treatment plant.

The country generates 62 million tonnes of waste annually. “This is expected to increase to 165 million tonnes by 2030 and 450 million tonnes by 2050,” he said adding that the worrying fact is that 68 per cent of waste and sewage is not treated in the country at present.

He said the new draft norms on waste management, which aim to put in place a strong mechanism to address concerns related to different kinds of waste, would be implemented from August-end after seeking public comments.

via Rag pickers’ services will be recognised by Government; to give national award – The Hindu.

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01/07/2015

India Lags Behind Pakistan, Nepal on Sanitation – India Real Time – WSJ

Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi has made sanitation a priority for his country, saying he would rather build toilets than temples and setting a goal for every home in the country to have a place to go to the bathroom by 2019.

But new data show India is lagging behind its neighbors in providing access to adequate sanitation.

“Progress on Sanitation and Drinking Water,” a report published by the United Nations Children’s Fund and the World Health Organization this week, says that advancements in meeting Millennium Development Goals, or MDGs, by 2015 in relation to sanitation have faltered worldwide. The report says 2.4 billion people still don’t have access to improved sanitation.

 

Mr. Modi launched his Clean India, or Swachh Bharat, campaign last year for good reason. Research shows that the practice of open defecation is linked to a higher risk of stunting in children and the spread of disease. A World Health Organization report said in 2014 that 597 million people in India still relieved themselves outdoors.  And the new WHO/Unicef report says that the Southern Asia region has the highest number of people who defecate in the open.

The new data show that despite recent efforts, over the past 25 years, India has been losing the regional race to improve sanitation.

Its neighbors, Nepal, Bangladesh and Pakistan led the way with the greatest percentage-point change in the proportion of the population with access to improved sanitation facilities between 1990 and 2015.

Pakistan’s percentage point change was 40–64% of people have use an improved sanitation facility. In Nepal, a country in which just 4% of people had access to improved sanitation facilities in 1990, access rose by 42 percentage points to 46%. Bangladesh improved its score by 27 percentage points — 61% now have access to improved sanitation facilities.

India meanwhile, had a lower 23 percentage point increase in the same period – bringing the number of people with access to improved sanitation facilities to 40%.

And Sri Lanka is way ahead, with 95% of people having access to improved sanitation.

via India Lags Behind Pakistan, Nepal on Sanitation – India Real Time – WSJ.

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