source :
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-company/corporate-trends/NRI-remittances-leading-to-boom-in-wealth-in-villages/articleshow/6212272.cms
When Shreyas Vani, a resident of Karamsad in Gujarat’s Anand district, wants to loosen his tired muscles after a hard day’s work, he just ambles into a swanky parlour bang in the middle of the village.
“It is just one of many (luxuries of life). Young people in our village yearn for them and want them right here. Money is not a factor,” he says, as the latest model of iPod deliberately slips out of his jeans’ pocket.
Two thousand kilometers away in Punjab’s Jallandhar district, when potato seed farmer, Santokh Singh, wanted to buy a car, he hitched a cab ride to Chandigarh, only to drive back in a brand new Audi A4. He says his fellow farmers are not settling for anything less, so why should he. “Our village has narrow roads, but a broad vision for BMWs, Mercs and Audis,” Singh laughs.
Stories such as these redefine rural life as we perceive it. Some villages in India are ahead of the curve and when it comes to luxury, they offer an opportunity to brands, no less secondary to businesses in the metros. Here people want the best cars and branded diamond jewellery. They shop for foreign tours-for travelling as well as study, and use Wi-fi enabled laptops. Here, the raw scent of the farmlands get mixed with the fragrance of a Channel and Diesel.
The secret is quite an open one, whether the village be in Punjab, Gujarat or Kerala. Remittances from their NRI sons and daughters have led to an unprecedented boom in wealth. In Kerala, near Thiruvalla, lies the Kumbanad-Kozhencheri belt which has a whopping `5,400 crore parked in bank deposits! In Karamsad village, remittances have topped `1,500 crore in banks and post offices.
Take the example of Kerala. Real estate development, the most visible sign of recent prosperity that provided jobs to 25 lakh people in the state is also roaring in Kochi after being hit by the Gulf crisis earlier this year.
Hoardings at city junctions announce the arrival of new luxury apartments, the kinds which are usually found in posh localities of metro cities. Big builders already have more plans.
“A lot of investment had been planned there on the basis of projected demand linked to the expansion of the technology parks, and in homes,” says SN Raghuchandran Nair, president of the Confederation of Real Estate Developers. What has this done to villages? Well they look more like a wealthy suburb in a western country than an Indian village.
If this sounds unbelievable, wait till you hear about Asia’s richest village. With remittances of over `5,000 crore, people in Madhapar in Gujarat’s Kutch district, live life kingsize. Apart from cars like the Jaguar, or BMW 7-series, they are particularly enthused by the brand of cosmetics they use. Jadhavbhai Varsani, who runs a plush supermarket in the town, says that imported cosmetics, from L’Oreal to Dunhill and Diesel, sell like hot cakes.
Young people buy only top end brands as they are used to it from the trips abroad,” he says. As you enter his huge store, you can see cosmetics from Dove to Armani neatly arranged in long shelves. The supermarket itself looks straight out of a California suburb.
For many jewellery retailers, traditional hoardings and billboards are passe’ in Karamsad. “Today, we hire local models and organise events at marriage parties and business meetings to attract a large number of cash-rich youngsters for our latest jewellery design,” says Rupen Patel, a jeweler.
In Punjab, long among the more prosperous villages in the country, the image of turbaned kurta worn farmer driving a white Maruti car laden with his produce is like a yellowing photograph.
Now, there is big competition amongst companies with farmers opting for Mercs, BMW, Audi and other high-end SUVs, say car dealers in the region. Little wonder then that when Mercedes opened its first showroom in Jalandhar, it immediately saw customers who were from the farming community.
Years ago, these farmers used to buy tractors in groups extracting heavy discounts from the tractor makers or dealers. Now, they are doing the same with car dealers. Says Raghubir Singh, a member of the Jalandhar Potato Growers Association, “We have approached a big car maker, and they have told us we will get a good offer if we all book through the same dealer.”
The difference between the rich rural buyer and the consumers in the big cities is that while the rural rich are willing to pay upfront, the urban rich would take a loan and pay up in instalments.
“There is a tax issue as well, which the farmer doesn’t have to comply with. But more importanly, he has a higher disposable income and hence easy to do business with,” says a diamond jewellery company executive.
Even if living in untold riches, trust young adults in Gujarat to take to stock trading as a duck takes to water. In Ena village in South-Gujarat, which looks more like a glitzy township, most young people are dedicated investors in not just stocks but also complex financial instruments, including derivatives.
Many of them are regular visitors to the US, the UK and Australia, where their relatives have done well for themselves. If anywhere in India airline companies, tour operators and foreign study agents could do roaring business, it is here.
Saturday, July 24, 2010
Wednesday, February 10, 2010
India is the biggest victim of financial crisis-induced poverty
India is the biggest victim of financial crisis-inducedpoverty, according to data obtained by TOI from the United Nations Department of Economic and Social Affairs' (UNDESA). Check out these figures.
The UNDESA data estimates that the number of India's poor was 33.6 million higher in 2009 than would have been the case if the growth rates of the years from 2004 to 2007 had been maintained. In 2009 alone, an estimated 13.6 million more people in India became poor or remained in poverty than would have been the case at 2008 growth rates.
In other words, while a dip from the 8.8% growth in GDP averaged from 2004-05 to 2006-07 to the 6.7% estimated for 2008-09 may be nothing like the recession faced by the West, its human consequences for India were probably worse. The 2.1% decline in India's GDP growth rate has effectively translated into a 2.8% increase in the incidence of poverty.
Link
The UNDESA data estimates that the number of India's poor was 33.6 million higher in 2009 than would have been the case if the growth rates of the years from 2004 to 2007 had been maintained. In 2009 alone, an estimated 13.6 million more people in India became poor or remained in poverty than would have been the case at 2008 growth rates.
In other words, while a dip from the 8.8% growth in GDP averaged from 2004-05 to 2006-07 to the 6.7% estimated for 2008-09 may be nothing like the recession faced by the West, its human consequences for India were probably worse. The 2.1% decline in India's GDP growth rate has effectively translated into a 2.8% increase in the incidence of poverty.
Link
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
India puts on hold first GM food crop : Just for Now
BBC reports : India has deferred the commercial cultivation of what would have been its first genetically modified (GM) vegetable crop due to safety concerns.
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said more studies were needed to ensure genetically modified aubergines were safe for consumers and the environment.
The GM vegetable has undergone field trials since 2008 and received approval from government scientists in 2009.
My Take : Wait for the next food crisis.. GM Foods would be making a backdoor entry using Disaster Capitalist Strategy
Environment Minister Jairam Ramesh said more studies were needed to ensure genetically modified aubergines were safe for consumers and the environment.
The GM vegetable has undergone field trials since 2008 and received approval from government scientists in 2009.
My Take : Wait for the next food crisis.. GM Foods would be making a backdoor entry using Disaster Capitalist Strategy
Friday, February 5, 2010
Church of England withdraws from Vedanta
BBC : The Church of England has said that it will withdraw investment from a firm involved in a controversial mining project in the Indian state of Orissa.
This validates the stand of the environmentalists stand on Orissa. But POSCO is said to have started their operations there already. What would happen to Niyamgiri now?
This validates the stand of the environmentalists stand on Orissa. But POSCO is said to have started their operations there already. What would happen to Niyamgiri now?
Saturday, January 30, 2010
Courts apathetic to sacking under cover of globalisation: Supreme Court
The Brand value of Globalization is under a Recession now. The Indian Judiciary is now siding with the Labour these days.
The Supreme Court has expressed anguish at courts’ apathy to the plight of workers being retrenched in the guise of globalisation and economic liberalisation.
A Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly, in different but concurring judgments, regretted that there was a visible shift in the courts’ approach to cases involving interpretation of social welfare legislation.
Justice Singhvi said: “The attractive mantras of globalisation and liberalisation are fast becoming the raison d’etre of the judicial process and an impression has been created that the constitutional courts are no longer sympathetic to the plight of industrial and unorganised workers.”
He said: “In a large number of cases like the present one, relief has been denied to the employees falling in the category of workmen, who are illegally retrenched by creating bylanes and sidelanes in the jurisprudence developed by this court in three decades. The stock plea raised by the public employer in such cases is that the initial employment/engagement of the workman-employee was contrary to some or the other statute or that reinstatement will put an unbearable burden on the financial health of the establishment.”
Harjinder Singh, appointed in the Punjab State Warehousing Corporation in March 1986, was dismissed in July 1988. Acting on a writ petition, the Punjab and Haryana High Court stayed the order and he continued in service. Finally in September 1992, the petition was dismissed as withdrawn.
In November 1992, another order was passed sacking 22 workers including the appellant. While the labour court directed their reinstatement with 50 per cent back wages, a single judge of the High Court, entertaining an appeal, ordered compensation of Rs. 87,582. The present appeal is directed against this judgment.
Justice Singhvi pointed out that “Courts have readily accepted such plea unmindful of the accountability of the wrongdoer and indirectly punished the tiny beneficiary of the wrong, ignoring the fact that he may have continued in the employment for years together and that micro wages earned by him may be the only source of his livelihood. It needs no emphasis that if a man is deprived of his livelihood, he is deprived of all his fundamental and constitutional rights and for him the goal of social and economic justice, equality of status of opportunity, the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution remain illusory.”
Statutory goal
In a separate judgment, Justice Ganguly said: “I am in clear agreement with Justice Singhvi that this court has a duty to interpret statutes with social welfare benefits in such a way as to further the statutory goal and not to frustrate it.”
He said: “In doing so, this court should make an effort to protect the rights of the weaker sections in view of the clear constitutional mandate. Social Justice, the very signature tune of our Constitution and being deeply embedded in our constitutional ethos, in a way is the arch of the Constitution which ensures rights of the common man to be interpreted in a meaningful way so that life can be lived with human dignity.”
He said: “I share the anxiety of Justice Singhvi about a disturbing contrary trend which is discernible in recent times and which is sought to be justified in the name of globalisation and liberalisation of economy. Any attempt to dilute the constitutional imperatives in order to promote the so-called trends of globalisation may result in precarious consequences. Reports of suicidal deaths of farmers in their thousands from all over the country, along with escalation of terrorism, throw a dangerous signal.”
The Supreme Court has expressed anguish at courts’ apathy to the plight of workers being retrenched in the guise of globalisation and economic liberalisation.
A Bench of Justices G.S. Singhvi and A.K. Ganguly, in different but concurring judgments, regretted that there was a visible shift in the courts’ approach to cases involving interpretation of social welfare legislation.
Justice Singhvi said: “The attractive mantras of globalisation and liberalisation are fast becoming the raison d’etre of the judicial process and an impression has been created that the constitutional courts are no longer sympathetic to the plight of industrial and unorganised workers.”
He said: “In a large number of cases like the present one, relief has been denied to the employees falling in the category of workmen, who are illegally retrenched by creating bylanes and sidelanes in the jurisprudence developed by this court in three decades. The stock plea raised by the public employer in such cases is that the initial employment/engagement of the workman-employee was contrary to some or the other statute or that reinstatement will put an unbearable burden on the financial health of the establishment.”
Harjinder Singh, appointed in the Punjab State Warehousing Corporation in March 1986, was dismissed in July 1988. Acting on a writ petition, the Punjab and Haryana High Court stayed the order and he continued in service. Finally in September 1992, the petition was dismissed as withdrawn.
In November 1992, another order was passed sacking 22 workers including the appellant. While the labour court directed their reinstatement with 50 per cent back wages, a single judge of the High Court, entertaining an appeal, ordered compensation of Rs. 87,582. The present appeal is directed against this judgment.
Justice Singhvi pointed out that “Courts have readily accepted such plea unmindful of the accountability of the wrongdoer and indirectly punished the tiny beneficiary of the wrong, ignoring the fact that he may have continued in the employment for years together and that micro wages earned by him may be the only source of his livelihood. It needs no emphasis that if a man is deprived of his livelihood, he is deprived of all his fundamental and constitutional rights and for him the goal of social and economic justice, equality of status of opportunity, the freedoms enshrined in the Constitution remain illusory.”
Statutory goal
In a separate judgment, Justice Ganguly said: “I am in clear agreement with Justice Singhvi that this court has a duty to interpret statutes with social welfare benefits in such a way as to further the statutory goal and not to frustrate it.”
He said: “In doing so, this court should make an effort to protect the rights of the weaker sections in view of the clear constitutional mandate. Social Justice, the very signature tune of our Constitution and being deeply embedded in our constitutional ethos, in a way is the arch of the Constitution which ensures rights of the common man to be interpreted in a meaningful way so that life can be lived with human dignity.”
He said: “I share the anxiety of Justice Singhvi about a disturbing contrary trend which is discernible in recent times and which is sought to be justified in the name of globalisation and liberalisation of economy. Any attempt to dilute the constitutional imperatives in order to promote the so-called trends of globalisation may result in precarious consequences. Reports of suicidal deaths of farmers in their thousands from all over the country, along with escalation of terrorism, throw a dangerous signal.”
Friday, January 29, 2010
Bullets trains for US
The Automobile Lobby is said to be behind the absence of state-of-the art trains in the US. With Oil Price Peaking, things seems to change. Could mass-adoption of Trains the next thing world over?
Wired:Believe it: Bullet trains are coming.
After decades of false starts, planners are finally beginning to make headway on what could become the largest, most complicated infrastructure project ever attempted in the US. The Obama administration got on board with an $8 billion infusion, and more cash is likely en route from Congress. It’s enough for Florida and Texas to dust off some previously abandoned plans and for urban clusters in the Northeast and Midwest to pursue some long-overdue upgrades. The nation’s test bed will almost certainly be California, which already has voter-approved funding and planning under way. But getting up to speed requires more than just seed money. For trains to beat planes and automobiles, the hardware needs to really fly. Officials are pushing to deploy state-of-the-art rail rockets. Next stop: the future.
Wired:Believe it: Bullet trains are coming.
After decades of false starts, planners are finally beginning to make headway on what could become the largest, most complicated infrastructure project ever attempted in the US. The Obama administration got on board with an $8 billion infusion, and more cash is likely en route from Congress. It’s enough for Florida and Texas to dust off some previously abandoned plans and for urban clusters in the Northeast and Midwest to pursue some long-overdue upgrades. The nation’s test bed will almost certainly be California, which already has voter-approved funding and planning under way. But getting up to speed requires more than just seed money. For trains to beat planes and automobiles, the hardware needs to really fly. Officials are pushing to deploy state-of-the-art rail rockets. Next stop: the future.
Sunday, January 17, 2010
Basu pushed land reforms but left Bengal as industrial wasteland
Economic Times about Jyoti Basu, who strode the nation’s political landscape like a colossus, passed away this afternoon at a Kolkata hospital. Basu, who missed being the prime minister in 1996 because of the CPM’s ideological rigidity, was in charge of West Bengal for a record 23 years and, in the process, became the longest-serving chief minister of any state.
Basu, who put the emphasis on the bread and butter goals of communism, leaves behind a mixed legacy — while he was credited with decentralisation of power and land reforms, the state became an industrial wasteland during his tenure. Along with his senior colleagues EMS Namboodiripad and H S Surjeet, he scripted his party’s political pragmatism in 1989 and later in 1996 by aiding the formation of two non-Congress coalitions at the Centre. Despite hailing from a party seeped in dogmatism, he was credited with running a coalition through consensus politics.
Basu, who became the unanimous choice of the United Front to lead the government at the Centre in 1996, was denied the opportunity by his own party’s central committee which rejected the proposal by three votes. Incidentally, it were Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury and S Ramachandran Pillai, who had mobilised support against the proposal in the central committee meeting. Basu, known for whiplash candour, told the media in December 1997 that the decision of the party was a “historic blunder”.
Basu, who put the emphasis on the bread and butter goals of communism, leaves behind a mixed legacy — while he was credited with decentralisation of power and land reforms, the state became an industrial wasteland during his tenure. Along with his senior colleagues EMS Namboodiripad and H S Surjeet, he scripted his party’s political pragmatism in 1989 and later in 1996 by aiding the formation of two non-Congress coalitions at the Centre. Despite hailing from a party seeped in dogmatism, he was credited with running a coalition through consensus politics.
Basu, who became the unanimous choice of the United Front to lead the government at the Centre in 1996, was denied the opportunity by his own party’s central committee which rejected the proposal by three votes. Incidentally, it were Prakash Karat, Sitaram Yechury and S Ramachandran Pillai, who had mobilised support against the proposal in the central committee meeting. Basu, known for whiplash candour, told the media in December 1997 that the decision of the party was a “historic blunder”.
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