Appreciation in the Rupee value and Indian Industries and Economy

Now, the decision to buy Indian has suddenly gotten more expensive.

As the dollar was plunging against the Indian rupee a few months ago, one of the Pune programming shop raised its hourly fee from about $22 to $25, an added expense an infant company such as RFQConnect could ill afford.

Around the globe, the falling dollar is touching everyone in the business world, from Saudi oil princes to U.S. computer makers, making American goods and services cheaper while raising the cost of foreign products.

One effect that hasn't received much attention is how the dollar's relentless drop is throwing a bit of sand into the gears of India's vaunted technology machine. That movement of technology operations to India is a trend that has emerged as a prime symbol of globalization in recent years.

The reason U.S. companies went to India for technology in the first place was to save money. Workers there in the outsourcing sector earn roughly one-eighth as much as their American counterparts, according to experts on India business. And software development services that
might cost $200 to $275 per person per hour in the United States can be bought from an Indian company for $25 an hour or less, those experts note.

The past year, the dollar has fallen from about 45 rupees to about 39. That 13 percent drop, on top of significant pay increases there, has shaved part of the Indian cost advantage, forcing buyers and sellers of technology services to adapt. Economists expect the rupee to strengthen over the long term as India's economy matures.

One ironic bit of fallout from the falling dollar: Big Indian software companies are stepping up their hiring of American tech workers, who have suddenly become a lot cheaper to employ. For example, Bangalore technology giant Wipro Technologies recently unveiled a plan for a software development center in the Atlanta area that ultimately could hire 500 programmers.
To be sure, India's tech sector is still thriving. So far, the dollar's fall hasn't appreciably curbed the readiness of most U.S. companies to use Indian technology services, experts say.

Many experts are feeling "Even a reasonably sharp appreciation of the rupee doesn't change the fundamental cost difference between the two countries,".

But the combination of higher Indian salaries and a rising currency is prompting Indian vendors to pay closer attention to their costs and push through small price increases. And U.S. corporations that set up major technology centers in India are finding that their operations there aren't saving them as much money as they expected.

Its just because "They have to send over more dollars than they have in the past."
The giant Indian technology conglomerates such as Tata Consultancy Services, Wipro and Infosys Technologies are hedging their bets by expanding in countries such as China, where costs are lower than in India. They're also building business with European countries whose currencies have stayed relatively stable compared with the rupee. And they're bulking up in the United States.

Tata says it's pushing for greater productivity in India while reviewing where it invests around the world.

"Over the longer period, does it make sense to incur more expenses in the United States?" asked S. Mahalingam, the company's chief financial officer in India. "If the rupee gets down to 37 or 35 to the dollar, then it would make sense to create another development center in the United States."

Meanwhile, Tata says it is imposing price increases of 3 percent to 5 percent on existing contracts and 5 percent to 8 percent on new contracts. The company feels pressure to keep those increases small, because currency movements "are not a great argument for raising prices," Mahalingam said.

Furthermore from 2003-07 Indian market is booming in leaps & bounds, today after China India is 2nd fastest growing economy of the world with a growth rate of 9.4% in the first quarter. It’s a “trillion dollar country surpassed Russia & has become world’s 10th largest economy, today (till 30th march, 2007) Indian forex reserve is around $200 bn.

From July,2006-May,2007, value of rupee has highly appreciated by 10.7% from Rs 46 to Rs 40.56 and Rs 39 as well.

Indian import & export growth rates in March & June 2007 were 34.8% & 18 % respectively which reduced from April 2007 by 6% & 5% respectively.

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "SOMEBODY YOU LOVE" & SOMEBODY YOU LIKE"

DIFFERENCE BETWEEN "SOMEBODY YOU LOVE" & SOMEBODY YOU LIKE"

In front of the person you love, your heart beats faster.

But in front of the person you like, you get happy.

In front of the person you love, winter seems like spring.

But in front of the person you like, winter is just beautiful winter.

if you look into the eyes of the one you love, you blush.

But if you look into the eyes of the one you like, you smile.

In front of the person you love, you can't say everything on your mind.

But in front of the person you like, you can.

In front of the person you love, you tend to get shy.

But in front of the person you like, you can show your own self.

You can't look straight into the eyes of the one you love.

But you can always smile into the eyes of the one you like.

When the one you love is crying, you cry with them.

But when the one you like is crying, you end up comforting.

The feeling of love starts from the eye.

But the feeling of liking starts from the heart.

‘Kamadugha Yojane’

‘Kamadugha Yojane’

The ‘Kamadugha Yojane’ started to spread the protection and promotion of Indian cow breeds by Shree RamchandraPur Mutt. It aims to have focused the importance of Indian cows not only as sacred animals for the devout Hindus but as a source of traditional therapy if the encouraging response it has aroused is any indication.

Kamadugha Yojane is a unique programme drawn up for the protection of Indian cow breeds in appreciation of the multifarious uses of the ‘Panchagavya’ - the combination of the five ingredients such as cow dung, urine, ghee, curds and milk - which is found to be useful in treating major diseases such as cancer and diabetes, as has been testified by the Council of Scientific Industrial Research (CSIR).

It has been confirmed by many studies that the fact that cow urine costs more than cow milk speaks of its limitless medicinal use. In addition the cow is the most useful animal, not only from the religious point of view but also because of its medical uniqueness, which has been proved scientifically. Furthermore what is significant is that all these useful ingredients are found more in the Indian cow breeds, the fact of which enhanced the need to protect and promote them by all means.

However, it is disturbing to note that out of about 70 Indian cow breeds, hardly 31 are alive and it is feared that the remaining breeds would become extinct unless special efforts are made to protect and promote them. Some of these breeds have acquired the international recognition too in view of their unique qualities. The special features of some of the Indian cow breeds have prompted foreigners to register their own patent on them.

It is estimated that nearly ten thousand cows are being slaughtered every hour which has pushed the cows of the Indian breed on the verge of extinction enhancing the importance of protecting them. The ambitious Kamadugha Yojane envisages among other things the extension of the shelter to the cows of the Indian breeds in the ‘Goshalas’ (cow sheds) in a bid to increase their strength.

The Shree RamchandraPur Mutt has taken up several schemes to protect the cow, and put the dung and urine to different uses through the sustained research at its premises. It includes ‘Gavya Chikitsalaya’ - the laboratory for evolving the uses out of the cow urine, use of the cow dung for gobar gas and the ‘Gavyamruta’ - the series of the medicines made of the cow urine etc.

What is Cow Protection?

What is Cow Protection?

Hearing the term "Cow Protection," people typically have one of two reactions. Some think protection is for endangered species, and since there are lots of cows, it's better to concentrate on whales. Others think it may be some pagan worship of animals - the "sacred cow" image.
THE ACTUAL PHILOSOPHICAL REASON FOR COW PROTECTION IS VERY SIMPLE: First of all, all living entities should be protected from slaughter and other violence at the hands of humans. Not only cows, but animals have SOULS the same as we do. All are children of God, all are dear to Him. With this view in mind, it can be seen that slaughter is a form of MURDER.

The cow, however, is our MOTHER. Vedic philosophy says that cow is equal to our mother. You may wonder why the cow is considered as mother. Well, it is because she gives her milk to nourish us.

All mothers should hold a position of respect, and since one does not kill and eat one's mother, the cow should not be killed and eaten. Likewise, the bull is our father because he can plow the earth to produce food grains. One does not kill and eat one's father and mother - not even when they are old and less economically useful.

5000 years ago, Lord Krishna, the Supreme Personality of Godhead, appeared on earth to protect His devotees and to demonstrate His pastimes. Among those pastimes was his childhood role as a cowherd boy. The cows were very dear to Him because of their affectionate and gentle nature as well as their contributions to human society, and He was kind to them in return and protected them. We should follow His example.

In practice the first principle of cow protection, surprisingly, is OX EMPLOYMENT.

A mistake is made when only the cow is considered because typically her main usefulness is seen as milk production, and she won't give milk unless she first has a calf. Since half of all calves are bulls, the result will be a lot of excess bovine population. The expense of feeding them will be a deficit to the farmer. Unless employed as oxen, their only economic usefulness will be in their slaughter to produce meat.

The modern system of agriculture sees no other economically viable means of management. And most people, accustomed to this viewpoint and seeing no alternative, will throw up their hands and agree, even if they'd prefer a less violent solution. But that is only because they don't have the facts. They don't know that the overall value of the ox is greater when he is utilized for work than when he's slaughtered for meat.
The present system is full of ironies and very wasteful. Everyone laments the loss of the small family farm. But economic forces today require quantity control - which is dependent on expensive tractors, polluting fossil fuels, chemical fertilizers, and heavy mortgages - and the small farmer is driven out of business.

Yet, beef production is subsidized in countries like USA and India. To produce beef there is a disproportionate expenditure of the Earth's resources. In a world with increasing population and mass starvation, producing one calorie of flesh (beef, pork, or chicken) requires 11-17 calories of feed. 78 calories of fossil fuel are needed to produce 1 calorie of protein from beef. Two-thirds of Central America's rainforest have been destroyed to supply beef. *

A BETTER SYSTEM would be rearranging the components. First, breed cows not to provide milk with calves as the by-product, but to provide a team of oxen for every family farm with milk as the by-product. There will be neither excess milk nor excess calves. The oxen will be out in the pastures eating simply, and naturally fertilizing the soil, saving the farmer the cost of the tractor, fuel, and fertilizer. The oxen will be quite content to use their big muscles in such wholesome work, and the humans can become healthy vegetarians. As for the government, if it wants to subsidize something, why not the small family farm instead of the beef industry? The beef industry may have a powerful lobby, but who wants all that heart disease, diabetes, colon cancer, not to mention all that bad karma from killing innocent animals!

Don't we all hanker for a simpler, cleaner, more wholesome, less violent Earth?

naveen

Courtesy: http://www.iscowp.org/What%20is%20Cow%20Protection.htm

Service Sector: The Snitch of Globalization Game

Abstract:

In the context of the GATS negotiations, this paper emphasizes the key roles that services play domestically in terms of accounting for rising shares of domestic output and employment as well as cross-border trade. There is substantial evidence indicating that services liberalization and regulatory reform may result in increased economic growth and greater efficiency in the use of labor and capital, increased product innovation, and increased consumer welfare. Taking this as clue Indian policy makers have resorted to the processes of autonomous liberalization of services to maximize their contribution to the whole economy in the decade of 90s as a part of the new economic policy, so as to increase their participation in international trade in services. However to benefit from domestic liberalization of markets and capitalize on trading opportunities there are a number of preconditions that would need to be fulfilled, including an optimal process of reforms and sequencing, building supply capacity, adaptation of the regulatory environment, and development of supportive physical, institutional and human infrastructure. Thus the paper analyses Indian services economy in the context of GATS by a review of selected economic data on the trade and macroeconomic structure and the projections. The implications of regulatory reform and services liberalization are analyzed in some depth, after which there is a focus on strategies to tap the potentialities of the service sector for the development.


Full paper available on
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=918463

Paper on ‘Quad Play’

The telecommunications industry is currently changing at a rapid pace driven by the emergence of new technologies that are rewriting the business cases and cost models upon which telephony has been based for years. In line with this, many telecom companies are collectively spending huge amounts to roll out the infrastructure and technologies that will drive the next generation of voice, data and video services. Adding wireless to the package brings in a fourth dimension, thus the term Quad Play.

While the potential of Quad Pay services to generate long-term profitability is easy to recognize, adoption has been limited by the high initial investment and complex integration of different components. This Amatra paper highlights services instances that can be deployed in an economical way.

The paper delves deep into the concepts of Quad Play. It builds on the Triple Play services like gaming, e-learning, e-medicine, music, collaboration, security, monitoring and dating and points to the increased emphasis on value addition that has triggered the growth of Quad Play communication services bundle. It lists the benefits of pre-integrated Quad Play suite for service providers like it is cost-effective, simplifies deployment, reduces time to market, is an easy way to enter the bundled services market, helps generate new avenues for increasing revenues and encourages customer loyalty. The paper also explains the advantages Quad Play provides to the end user.

The paper provides an overview of the market trends in the US as well as the world, which clearly project an increase in revenues and decrease in customer churn with the introduction of bundled Quad Play services. It highlights challenges such as price wars, decreased Average Revenue Per User (ARPU), developing and marketing the continuity of service and content across different devices like television, computer, telephone and wireless models and challenges faced by service providers in trying to position themselves as both data networks and providers of aggregated content.

The paper will help service providers identify the tremendous opportunity provided by the Quad Play service bundle in increasing revenues and customer loyalty by providing innovative bundles of personalized lifestyle services that can help capture a greater share of the subscriber’s communication and entertainment wallet. Please visit the Amatra website www.amatra.in to request a copy of the paper.

Naveen

Research Analyst

Amatra Business Consulting Pvt Ltd

why i am on earth......

i don’t know why i am here....why i came here...but the truth is that i am here...and i have to...there is no way...

White Paper on FDI and Indian Telecom

In the last 10 years India has emerged as one of the largest and high potential telecom sectors in the world. The liberalization measures by the India government starting in the 90’s coupled with India’s innate market potential and tremendous local enterprise have placed the Indian telecom market in the third place after China and the US. The buoyant opportunities in terms of large number of present and potential subscribers have made the telecom sector a very lucrative investment opportunity for investors. This paper talks about some of the recent developments in the telecom sector in terms of reforms and the flow of Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) and suggests the opportunities and points to challenges for investors.

The paper has a discussion on the tremendous growth witnessed by the Indian Telecommunications Industry in the last ten years. The paper attributes the growth of the telecom sector in India to a combination of factors like increase in the amount of disposable income of the middle class, changes in lifestyle, the world’s lowest mobile call rates (as little as $0.02 a minute), availability of low tariff mobile services, handset financing, and easy payment plans among others. However, the reforms initiated in the telecom sector by the Government of India have been identified as the main driver for the growth.

Today the Telecom Commission, the Department of Telecommunications (DoT) and the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India (TRAI) collaborate in managing the telecom sector. However the reforms that began in the 1980s with telecom equipment manufacturing being opened for private sector was the first step in the development of the Indian telecom market. The key push to open the telecom sector came in the mid 1990’s, first with the National Telecom Policy (NTP) in 1994 and then the NTP in 1999. There were three phases of reforms and the setting up of bodies like Mahanagar Telephone Nigam Limited (MTNL) and Videsh Sanchar Nigam Limited (VSNL) to continue service delivery momentum.

The paper reflects on the reforms in the telecom industry and some of the resultant growth opportunities, the FDI Policy for the Telecom Sector and the Sector Wise Actual Inflow of FDI from August 1991 to January 2007. The paper goes on to enumerate the opportunities for the investors like the fact that India boasts of a practically untouched rural market, there is an investment opportunity of more than $22 billion across many areas and there are opportunities in application and content development ranging from gaming to education. The paper also throws some light on the caveats for investors such as the gap between percentages of inflows to approvals is lowest in Indian telecom sector.

The paper on Foreign Direct Investment in the Indian Telecom Market will help foreign investors identify the tremendous opportunity provided by the burgeoning Indian Telecom Market. It will help them factor in the pros and cons of investing in the Indian telecom sector. Please visit the Amatra website www.amatra.in to request a copy of the whitepaper.

Naveen

Research Analyst

Amatra Business Consulting