Innholdsfortegnelse for 06 2016 i Business Today

In terms of sheer volume, the Indian milk production – at 400 million litres per day – is the highest in the world. In terms of per capita consumption, though, we lag way behind the developed nations. The Indian per capita consumption of milk at 97 litres per year is far behind the US, where the per capita consumption is 285 litres per year, or the EU’s 281 litres per year. The organised market is worth at least 80,000 crore, while the total market – which includes all the unorganised, unbranded players – is estimated to be worth a humongous 5,00,000 crore. Over the past few years, rising incomes in urban areas and working couples have created a good demand for value-added dairy products. While the global demand has remained…

1. For relatively small sums of money, crowdfunding offers access to a bigger network of individuals through an online platform 2. In most cases, cost of raising funds is also lower compared to conventional modes 3. Raising money for causes is most effective and efficient on crowdfunding platforms 4. Most pitches and appeals on crowdfunding platforms are pre-vetted and curated, and thus a boon to investors 5. Entrepreneurs find it easier to ask for money on crowd-funding platforms 6. Since money raised is spread over many investors, risk is lower for them. For entrepreneurs, inventory requirement can be forecast and its cost may also become lower 7. A successful fund raising is at least a partial validation of the idea behind the enterprise 8. Campaigns on crowdfunding platforms also provide…

In segments where it operates, it is neither a leader nor a challenger Hand in every pie — e-commerce, deals, price comparison, grocery, furniture, classifieds and payments — has led to loss of focus and limited success Overall fund crunch for start-ups and overdependence on one investor is affecting ability to raise money The company is reportedly weak on the technology front, often leading to mismanagement of supply chain and operations Since most large e-commerce companies are following the marketplace model, AskMe’s business model is hardly different from others Following layoffs at AskMe, e-commerce companies are flooded with resumes…

Two years in office is sufficient time for any well-meaning government to realise that there are no shortcuts to India’s development. The country cannot aspire to be prosperous unless its vast rural economy prospers, urban and rural poverty are eliminated, and agriculture turns remunerative and profitable enough to sustain and support the growth ambitions of India’s teeming rural population. BT’s special report on ‘The Village Economy’ takes a critical view of the grandiose plan of Niti Aayog CEO Amitabh Kant to make India a $10-trillion economy by 2032. It also looks at Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s grand vision to double farmers’ income by 2022. BT correspondents spread out across the country to examine the progress in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s pet project – the Saansad Adarsh Gram Yojana, including the…

SCHEMES/ ALLOCATION (`CRORE) MGNREGA 38,500 National Education Mission 28,010 Pradhan Mantri Awas Yojana 20,075 National Health Mission 20,037 Pradhan Mantri Gram Sadak Yojana 19,000 Integrated Child Development Scheme 16,120 Swachh Bharat Abhiyan 11,300 Gram Jyoti Yojana* 8,500 National Rural Drinking Water Programme 5,000 LPG connection to poor households 2,000 *Combination of Deen Dayal Upadhyaya Gram Jyoti Yojana and Integrated Power Development Scheme Source: Union Budget 2016/17…

At 8 per cent growth over 10 years, India’s GDP will double and it will add an estimated 30-80 million jobs. To manage them, the country needs to groom three to eight million managers Recently India made global headlines for dethroning China as the numero uno destination for foreign direct investment. A report published by fDi Intelligence estimated India’s capex investment in greenfield projects to be $63 billion in 2015. That’s better than China’s $56 billion, Brazil’s $17 billion and Russia’s $12 billion, putting India at a favourable spot amongst BRICS. This will be music to the ears of the Indian government and its high visibility ‘Make in India’ programme. A slew of investments has been announced by global corporations including Foxconn’s mammoth $5-billion investment plans in Maharashtra, GE and…

Swati Agarwal, 38, is a typical working woman. A director with PricewaterhouseCoopers (PWC) India, she reaches office at 9 am every morning, does her bit for the company – where she looks after corporate strategy – and then heads home to family. There’s a small twist, though – she works part-time, having availed the company’s “reduced hours” policy. After six hours at work, she is back home around 3 pm to receive her children – a son aged 10 and a daughter aged six – from school. Her salary and leaves are proportionate to the hours she spends at work, but she is content. “The good thing is that it (part-time work) does not affect your ratings or the kind of roles you are playing,” says Agarwal. “In the past…

Do you see messages on your smartphone browser cautioning you about your phone being infected with a virus, directing you to the Play Store to download a particular app or taking you to an unfamiliar web page? It’s a ploy to take over the DNS settings on your WiFi router. It makes browsing on mobile almost impossible. When you encounter such a problem, be sure to clear all your cache memory and browser history, reset your WiFi router and reconfigure it. Although there isn’t a concrete solution to such a problem, ensuring that your router has the latest firmware installed can be helpful. You can check and install the latest firmware by visiting the website of the router manufacturer. Log in to the router settings and reset. To do this,…

The Fourth IIT – The Saga of IIT Kanpur is about the establishment and growth of the Indian Institute of Technology Kanpur (IITK) over its 50 years of existence. The book traces its history back to 1960 when it started in temporary premises and chronicles several other developments over the years, with different directors and administrators at the helm. Overall, I would call this a monograph documenting the various events that took place in the institute’s history. It elucidates details regarding the development of infrastructure, curriculum, academic and research entities, recruitment of faculty and growth of research activities. This book may be of interest for persons connected with IIT-K; perhaps not very interesting to others. Having been an undergraduate student at IIT Kanpur from 1963 to 1968, I witnessed the…

How did Kwid become a runaway success in the highly competitive compact car market? Kwid had to be stylish, roomy and offer great fuel economy. The endeavour was to make our customer’s life easier with a robust, innovatively designed car. Its body and chassis were tested in Japan, body equipment was evaluated in Korea and endurance tests were carried out in France, while India was the backdrop for the overall assembly testing. Indian suppliers contributed 98 per cent and high localisation helped us offer extremely low cost of ownership – 17 per cent lesser than competition. What’s at the core of Kwid’s contemporary design? Kwid was the result of an international design competition, aimed at creating an A-segment car for international markets. The Renault India design centre worked on the…

FINANCIAL PLAN BY LOVAII NAVLAKHI Ushamrita Choudhury, 29, works as a Marketing Manager with Axis Bank. Her mother, Shukla Chowdhury, 61, is dependent on her. Ushamrita’s annual income is Rs 8,70,000, while her annual household expenses are Rs 5,60,000. One positive is she has started investing some surplus. This can be seen in her recently-acquired shares and recurring deposits. Except for these, she has a bank balance of Rs 50,000. She has some liabilities in the form of personal and credit card loans. Both carry a high rate of interest. It is important that she pays off these loans as soon as possible. She has a Jeevan Anand policy for which she pays Rs 1,65,000 annually for a Rs 30 lakh cover; this means she is using 56 per cent…

Water, Water Nowhere! This refers to your cover story on the water crisis (The Real Cost of Water, May 22). It is an open secret that water is being illegally exploited across the country. And the unprecedented crisis has affected everyone – from domestic users to farmers to industrialists. Misutilisation of groundwater consumption – from the rich to the poorest of the poor – has reached its peak, leading to a rapid depletion of water resources in the country. Also, adding to the problem is drought in major parts of the country. The surface water levels are falling drastically. The gap between demand and supply of this precious resource is widening. The country urgently needs to implement its national water policy. Definitely, it is a tough task tackling the current…

1 India now has the right to tax capital gains from sales of shares acquired on or after April 1, 2017, in a company resident in India 2 Protection to investment has been granted in relation to the shares acquired before April 1, 2017 3 The rate of taxation on the capital gains arising between the transition period of April 1, 2017, and March 31, 2019, shall be 50 per cent of the domestic tax rate on fulfillment of the Limitation of Benefit (LOB) clause 4 Taxation (capital gains) after the transition period will be at full rate from the financial year 2019/ 20 5 Interest income arising in India to a Mauritian resident bank will be subject to withholding tax in India at the rate of 7.5 per cent…

What the COAI says Keep the spectrum usage charge (SUC) at 3 per cent now and gradually reduce it to 1 per cent With all bands interchangeable for 4G, telcos will direct most of their traffic on bands with low SUC charges Already, spectrum rates in India are 30 per cent higher than the global average Globally, a nominal administrative fee is charged from telcos, which is less than 1 per cent What Reliance Jio (RJio) says DoT’s proposed rate of 4.5 per cent is going to hit RJio by `60,000 crore over 20 years The weighted average method of calculating SUC should be continued Telcos bid for spectrum taking into account the associated SUC charges. Increasing them later is unfair Revenue segregation on the basis of bands is possible…

If you thought that all the action in business was concentrated around the e-commerce sector, you could not be more wrong. The unlikely category of milk and dairy products has been seeing some of the most frenetic activity over the past couple of years. Multinational and Indian corporate giants have jumped into the market. Start-ups have cropped up. Fund raising is taking place at a frenzied pace, both from the equity markets and via private equity funding. And new products and innovations are being launched fast and furious. Meanwhile, the 800 pound gorilla in the market – the 31,000 crore Amul (2015/16), is managed by the Gujarat Cooperative Milk Marketing Federation (GCMMF) – is aggressively throwing resources to protect its turf. It wants to hit 65,000 crore in revenues…

Finance Minister Arun Jaitley’s promise to double farmers’ income in five years has been one of the most debated elements of his 2016/17 Budget speech. Experts were quick to point out that unless the government was talking about doubling the farmers’ nominal income, which inflation alone would have ensured, doubling of the real income of the farmer is next to impossible as long as India’s agricultural growth remains near stagnant. The Prime Minister’s Office would have kept this in mind when it set up an eight-member committee – headed by a top-ranking official in the agriculture ministry – this April to recommend ways to double farmers’ real income by 2022. The committee is in the midst of stakeholder consultations to find ways to double the ‘real’ income of the farmer,…

The Centre's report card lists 101 best performers, but questions remain on the holistic nature of the interventions. Here are a few examples P. Ashok Gajapathi Raju GRAM PANCHAYAT: Dwarapudi, Andhra Pradesh INTERVENTION: Adult literacy campaign Pyari Mohan Mohapatra GRAM PANCHAYAT: Dhauli, Odisha INTERVENTION: Community yoga practice C.L. Ruala GRAM PANCHAYAT: Khawlailung, Mizoram INTERVENTION: Organised sugarcane festival, village mela G. Nagesh GRAM PANCHAYAT: Patnapur, Telangana INTERVENTION: 100 per cent soil health card coverage P.K. Sreemathi GRAM PANCHAYAT: Kuttiatoor, Kerala INTERVENTION: Daily recital of national anthem in Gram Panchayat office…

Even as Vodafone and Cairn India tax disputes rear their heads again, forcing many to question the government’s commitment towards making India’s tax laws non-adversarial, Business Today’s Dipak Mondal caught up with Revenue Secretary Hasmukh Adhia, and asked him about the many tax issues the country is facing. Excerpts: Tax collection has been healthy last year (with a growth of 17.6 per cent), but that was partly because of 31 per cent growth in indirect tax collection. Do you think this year will see such high growth in indirect tax collection? This year our (tax collection) projection itself is modest. We have a projection of 11 per cent growth in tax collection, which is very reasonable, unlike the projection last year which was 18 per cent. The growth in direct…

Attackers are no longer eyeing only your desktops and laptops to steal data. Smartphones, which are loaded with your personal details, are on their radar, too. Apps and pop-ups can have malware and viruses installed on your smartphones, even before you realise it. iOS and Windows devices are not as much at risk as Android devices. Given the penetration of Android phones in the market – according to research firm Gartner, Android dominates the smartphone market with 80.7 per cent share (in the fourth calendar quarter of 2015) – Google has been working continuously to enhance security for Android users using improved machine learning and event correlation to detect potentially harmful behaviour. According to the Google Security 2015 Annual Report, the company checked over six billion installed applications per day…

BAG IT OR JUNK IT: The best e-book reader available; but way too expensive PRICE: 27,999 RATING: 4.5/5 PLUS: Design, battery, protective case MINUS: Price There wasn’t much to complain about the Kindle Paperwhite. But then came the Kindle Voyage which was thinner, lighter, with adaptive built-in light and PagePress sensor. The latest from Amazon, Kindle Oasis, is a remarkable e-book reader, but not significantly better than the Voyage. Kindle Oasis is small, compact and light as feather. It has a 6-inch e-ink display with 300 ppi, exactly the same as on Paperwhite and Voyage. However, it weighs only 131 grams – 55 grams lighter than its predecessor. It has a tapered hand grip on one side such that the thinnest part measures 3.4 mm, while the one with the…

The Power of Broke By Daymond John Price: 599 The author presents out-of-the-box ways to make it to the top when your bank account is empty, and creativity and passion are the only resources you can afford. BUSINESS BESTSELLERS* Thinking, Fast and Slow By Daniel Kahneman Penguin Price: 499 ELON MUSK By Ashlee Vance Virgin Books Price: 699 Steve Jobs By Walter Isaacson Little, Brown Book Group Price: 550 Street Smart By Suresh Padmanabhan Manjul Price: 175 Indian Innovators By Akshat Agrawal Jaico Publishing House Price: 299 *Top books by sales for Apr 18 - May 1, 2016; Includes only books released after Jan 1, 2015; Information provided by…

50,000 CRORE worth of indirect tax evasions unearthed by the Indian government through a series of measures in the past two years, the finance ministry said in a statement. DEUTSCHE CONNECTION Anshu Jain, former co-chief executive of Deutsche Bank AG, along with another ex-Deutsche Bank top executive, Bhupinder Singh, is looking to float a non-banking finance company in India. ASCETIC HUNTER On his debut as Rajya Sabha MP, Subramanian Swamy literally set the House ablaze by spearheading the attack on the Congress top brass for allegedly receiving kickbacks in the AgustaWestland VVIP chopper deal. BACK IN THE SADDLE Harish Rawat was reinstated as the Uttarakhand Chief Minister after comfortably winning the trust vote in the state assembly under the supervision of a Supreme Court appointee. Rawat was earlier removed as…

Two years ago, when his connecting flight from Turkey to Africa was delayed by three hours, Anadi Sharma, Senior Manager of social media at digital agency Razorfish, tweeted his anger at Turkish Airlines. As he boarded the plane, he was upgraded to business class – yes, the airline had read his rant on Twitter. This is a fine example of using social media to turn an aggrieved customer into a delighted one, in real time. Customer feedback forms on company websites are passé; Facebook and Twitter have emerged as efficient ways for customers to interact with companies. Jet Airways has launched a feature for customers to check fares and flight status and even book tickets and check-in to their flights all through a single tweet. One member of the airline’s…

Betaout is an interesting Noida-based start-up that, among other issues, is trying to solve a key problem facing e-commerce companies. A customer after adding goods to a checkout cart on an e-commerce platform ends up most of the time not closing the transaction. It’s called ‘abandonment’ in sectoral lexicon. Most e-commerce companies would give an arm and a leg to get data and, importantly, analysis on why this happens – this would help them improve their conversion ratio. There are several players trying to provide this kind of analytics and Betaout is one among them. It sells customer intelligence and marketing automation software to e-commerce companies. Betaout counts the likes of Paytm, Mauj, Droom and Tokopedia (a leading Indonesian marketplace) amongst its 40-plus clients. The company has some marquee angel…

The seeds of the milk revolution were sown by Varghese Kurien in the 1950s, when he founded the farmer cooperative Amul at Anand in Gujarat This enabled farmers to sell their milk without the intervention of intermediaries at the highest possible price This farmer-empowered model converted Anand from a milk-deficient region to a milk-surplus district The Amul model was replicated across the country through the 1970s and 1980s By 2000, there were 73,000 co-operatives with 10 million farmers as members Today, India is the largest producer of milk. It produces 400 million kg per day India's milk production has grown from 17 MMT in 1952 to 147 MMT in 2015 Source: NDDB…

• In 1962, a Planning Commission working group set the poverty line at a monthly income of `100-125 for a family of five at 1960-61 prices • In 1971, economists V.N. Dandekar and N. Rath first suggested that poverty should be measured not by income, but by calorie consumption, and all those with intake of less than 2,250 calories a day should be classified as poor. • In 1979, the Planning Commission instituted the Y.K. Alagh Committee set the poverty line at 2,400 calories a day in rural areas and 2,100 in urban areas. Minimum per capita monthly income to enable such consumption was set at `49.10 for rural areas and `56.70 for urban areas. • In 1993, the Planning Commission set up the D.T. Lakdawala Committee, which made key…

Unlike Google, where you can install third party apps that are not listed on Play Store, Apple and Microsoft are restrictive in nature. They don’t allow users to download apps from sources apart from Apple App Store and Microsoft Windows Marketplace, respectively. Apps submitted to Apple are thoroughly reviewed for malware and viruses before they are approved to be listed on the App Store. However, jailbroken iPhones can be prone to such attacks and risks. Apple has combined software, hardware and services designed to work together for maximum security and a transparent user experience. The system also enables apps to run securely, without compromising on platform integrity. Windows OS, too, is secure as Microsoft has added security features within the API for app developers. All apps listed under the marketplace…

BAG IT OR JUNK IT: It falls short when compared to the Apple Watch or Samsung Gear S2, but works as an extension of your smartphone PRICE: 13,599 RATING: 3.5/5 PLUS: Weight, battery MINUS: Price, lacks touch display The latest Pebble smartwatch is not a fancy piece of hardware. Time Round is simple, good-looking and functional. It is the company’s first watch with a circular dial. Sleek at 7.5-mm thickness, weighing only 28 gms, it is lighter than any smartwatch, but lacks touch display. Instead, to register input, there are small easy-to-use side buttons – a back button on the left hand side of the watch and three navigation buttons on the right. It comes with an always-on e-paper display with an LED backlight which is, alas, nowhere close to…