Amid slowdown, India ramps up aid for neighbours
Mar 18, 2012
NEW DELHI: A difficult economic situation notwithstanding, India will be stepping up its assistance programme to its neighbouring countries in the coming fiscal.
The biggest chunk of India's assistance programme is reserved for Afghanistan, Myanmar and Bhutan that are provided for in the 12th five-year Plan. But under the non-plan head, Bhutan takes the largest chunk with a combined loan-grant amount of Rs 1,500 crore. Bhutan has traditionally been the largest recipient of Indian aid, with massive hydro-electric projects being covered in the Plan expenditure. :thumb:
Afghanistan and Myanmar are big recipients, both strategically vital for India's security and economic interests. India has invested heavily in infrastructure projects in Afghanistan, including roads, parliament buildings and capacity building for the Afghans in various fields. India also runs the biggest children's hospital in Kabul. :thumb:
However, recently, India won the Hajigak iron ore mines that will necessitate building several roads connecting the mines to border points. A new component of India's aid package to Afghanistan is in the security sector. As a result of the strategic partnership agreement with Afghanistan last year, India is committed to training and equipping Afghan national security forces. This will include training programmes, to be mainly held in India.
New Delhi is building a multi-modal transport system in Myanmar that could also serve to improve trade with the country that India now regards as the gateway to south-east Asia.
Other countries that will continue to receive Indian aid this fiscal is Sri Lanka, where India has invested in rehabilitation and rebuilding programmes in the north, railway lines and oil terminals as well as building houses for the internally displaced persons from the Tamil regions. Bangladesh also takes a sizeable chunk of Rs 250 crore after the PM announced a $1-billion credit line for the country in 2010.
Bafflingly, the government spends a minuscule amount for "energy security" in the MEA, but it's so small that it's unclear what this would be used for. Equally strangely, Mongolia gets Rs 2 crore this year from India, but the reason for that remains unclear.
Amid slowdown, India ramps up aid for neighbours - Times Of India
India is still getting foreign aid, some 70 billion in remittance a year.
look, remittances to India is hardly around $30billion from US+EU, check, and it is from those high qualified professionals who run US's industries, to help them have high technologies and these industries not only employ low skilled/unskilled local civilians but also these firms pay very high taxes to the US's government from the business they do by using these High Qualified migrants, mainly Indians, who are cream of their society, and migrated there under "Demand List Category" for a better future. and hence they are involved in building US's society/economy this way :tup:Of course its aid, Indians are sending it back to aid their families.
Foreign companies pulling more money out of India
MUMBAI: Foreign direct investment, the sort of sticky long-term money India craves to fund its current account deficit and build up its infrastructure, may not be so stable after all.
According to a Nomura report, multinational companies have been pulling money out of India at an accelerating rate, moving $10.7 billion out of the country in 2011, up from $7.2 billion in 2010 and just $3.1 billion in 2009.
Foreign cos pulling more money out of India-Nomura | Reuters
Can India 'Fix' Afghanistan? - NY Times
June 7, 2012
As the United States winds down its military engagement in Afghanistan, optimism is growing about the role India can play to stabilize and develop the country.
This week, visiting United States Secretary of Defense Leon Panetta encouraged Indian leaders to take a more active role in Afghanistan, involvement once considered by the United States as merely an opportunistic way for India to antagonize Pakistan.
The United States' encouragement is hardly needed. India plans to "intensify" its already "high level political engagement and broad-based development assistance in a wide range of sectors," India's minister for external affairs, S.M. Krishna, told Afghanistan's visiting foreign minister, Zalmai Rassoul, in a speech in New Delhi last month. With assistance from Europe and the United States expected to drop substantially, India may be left as one of Afghanistan's most prominent aid partners.
Here on India Ink, we have been asking: Does this make any sense? On first glance, at least, India seems an unlikely provider of development assistance because of the serious issues troubling it at home. Many of the same things that Afghanistan needs, from infrastructure to education, India is having troubles providing for many citizens, even without the regular threat of attacks from the Taliban.
India's state-run power industry struggles to get enough fuel thanks to mismanagement and bureaucracy, even its brightest youth can't land a spot at a good university and about third of its citizens live in destitute poverty, with hundreds of millions malnourished. The current central government is grappling with a growing deficit, shrinking economic growth and an increasingly dissatisfied voter base.
It's no surprise that India's Afghanistan plans have been greeted with some skepticism.
"In the land of the blind, the one-eyed man is king," said Rajeev Malik, an economist at CLSA, a research and brokerage house, who has been a sharp critic of India's fiscal policy and government. "India has not managed to fix these issues itself," he said, but added that the country "probably has more experience than Afghanistan."
India's on-the-ground aid record, though limited, has been decent.
India has committed some $2 billion in aid to Afghanistan, of which $1 billion has been spent, according to the Ministry of External Affairs. Indian public and private companies have built a highway to Iran, put up transmission lines to bring power to Kabul, are constructing a new Parliament building and working on a hydro-electric project in western Afghanistan.
India sent one million tons of high-protein biscuits to Afghanistan, and plans to follow that with an additional 250,000 tons this year. There are 1,000 Afghan students on scholarships in Indian universities right now.
More ambitious plans are in place. In October of last year, when Afghanistan's president, Hamid Karzai, visited India, the two countries signed a strategic agreement that said India would train and equip Afghan security forces. This month, India is holding meetings for regional investors interested in Afghanistan in New Delhi.
Invitees include Turkey, China and Pakistan. Over a dinner in May in New Delhi, Mr. Rassoul told Indian government advisers Afghanistan would like India to concentrate on building up governance, law courts and health care.
"We don't want a fundamentalist Afghanistan, just like everyone else," explained Syed Akbaruddin, spokesman for India's Ministry of External Affairs, in a recent interview. "We don't want an Afghanistan that slides backward."
The two countries share ties cemented long ago, he said, citing the well-known Rabindranath Tagore story "Kabuliwala," about an Afghan fruit seller who befriends an Indian girl. India has a limited physical presence on the ground in Afghanistan, he said, which should quell concerns that India is focused on containing or antagonizing Pakistan. "What do we have in Afghanistan that is a threat to Pakistan?," he asked rhetorically.
India's aid to Afghanistan comes without any conditions, unlike aid to India from foreign countries in the past, he said. India is not pressuring the Afghanistan government to improve, say, education for girls, or rights for women, but is focusing on infrastructure and other concrete projects, he said.
India's projects in Afghanistan are "replicas of what India has been able to successfully implement in some part of India or the other," said Mr. Akbaruddin. "They have been incubated in some part of India."
Staunch supporters of India's involvement say sheer practicality of the alliance makes it work.
"Today the average Afghan knows that for many of the things that would lead to an improved quality of life, India offers the most viable option," said C. Uday Bhaskar, a security analyst based in New Delhi.
To explain, he offered an example: The quality of higher education in Britain or the United States or Australia might be better than in India, he said, but most Afghans can't afford Western universities, and if even they could, they probably wouldn't get a visa to go anyway.
Much of what is on Afghanistan's "wish list" can be "enabled in a considerable degree by India," Mr. Bhaskar said. President Karzai himself attended an Indian university, doing his postgraduate studies at Himachal Pradesh University, in Shimla.
Others note that the "aid" relationship is not new. "People forget this has been going on quietly for a long time," said K. Shankar Bajpai, a former ambassador to China, Pakistan and the United States, who is now an analyst with Delhi Policy Group. For six decades, India was "very much engaged" in Afghanistan, working on everything from building tunnels through the mountains of the Hindu Kush to education and health programs.
Recently, the two countries have built up a "friendly relationship without some of the imperial hang-ups that spoiled Delhi and Kabul's relationship in the past," he said. In a sign of this friendliness, in March, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh called Mr. Karzai to congratulate him on the birth of his daughter.
Another factor to consider is that while India's development problems weigh heavily on the country's poor and middle class, facilities for the wealthy in India are often world class. Many of Afghanistan's wealthy are already beneficiaries, and these upper-class industries and ties are only expected to grow.
Take health care: India's private hospitals, and especially those in New Delhi, serve as de facto doctors' offices for wealthy Afghans, who are just a two-hour flight away. Hospitals like Max Healthcare's giant facility in Saket have special facilitators for Afghan patients who come for everything from in vitro fertilization treatments to heart trouble, doctors say. Often, their Afghan patients pay in crisp United States dollar bills.
On the other end of the economic spectrum, at least one Indian charity has also been successful in Afghanistan.
The Self Employed Women's Association(SEWA), which starts women's self-help groups, has been running vocational training programs in Afghanistan since 2008, teaching women to make jam and sew clothing, among other skills. The group said it has trained 3,000 Afghan women so far, despite two fatal terrorist attacks on the team in Kabul. The women, who are often orphans or widows, use the training to earn an income outside their home.
Whether the ambitious plans in industries like mining and manufacturing will work out remains to be seen. In November, a consortium of public and private Indian companies, led by the state-owned Steel Authority of India, won a bid to mine in three states in Afghanistan, which includes the construction of a six million-ton steel plant, an 800-megawatt power plant and 200 kilometers each of road, rail and transmission lines – as well as a pledge to set aside one percent of profits for establishing educational and medical facilities.
"We are very bullish about this," the chairman of SAIL said when the deal was announced. Total investment by the Indian companies is pegged at $10.8 billion. :thumb:
The big numbers, heavy-duty infrastructure plans and optimistic outlook are a stark contrast to SAIL's India performance. In February, SAIL said quarterly profits fell by more than 40 percent from the same period the year before, thanks in part to higher raw material costs and SAIL's inability to get coal from another state-owned company.
Can India 'Fix' Afghanistan? - NYTimes.com
Dollar Billionaires in Poor Countries: India's "Philantrocapitalism"
September 10, 2012
In this time of global financial crisis, when so many are suffering financial hardship, most countries have witnessed increases in their number of dollar millionaires. These 'High Net-Worth Individuals' (HNWI), according to a report by Capgemini and Merrill Lynch Wealth Management, have in recent years more than doubled in India. In 2008-09, India had 84,000 HNWIs. By 2010, it had risen by 50 per cent (126,700), the biggest increase of all countries.
In the worldwide list of dollar billionaires for 2010, India ranked third with 69, behind China (128) and the US (403). Forbes states, however, that the wealthiest 100 Indians are collectively worth $276 billion, while their top 100 Chinese counterparts are worth $170 billion. The three richest Indians together had more wealth the top 24 Chinese billionaires combined.
You don't have to look very far for evidence of their wealth, with more than 30 luxury skyscrapers springing up in Mumbai. For the rich occupants, the taller, the better, to escape from the reality of India below — the railway tracks, low-rise tenements, choking traffic and the 55 per cent of the city's population who live in slums. People are paying nearly two million dollars for a designer apartment, built in complexes with private cinemas, swimming pools, floodlit tennis courts and high-level security. Developers believe each year Mumbai can absorb between 30,000 and 40,000 more homes in the one million dollar-plus category. (Another housing bubble in the making?)
Such extreme wealth doesn't go unnoticed. In the UK, people are questioning the decision to keep giving India some $460 million of aid annually, which makes India the largest single recipient of British aid. Many ordinary Brits are asking if it can be right that the downtrodden British taxpayer gives such sums to a nation that boasts such wealth (albeit highly concentrated).
Siphoning off the country's wealth
Some of the most damning comments about India come from French author Dominique Lapierre, whose book royalties from 'City of Joy' fund projects for the underprivileged in India. He is frustrated by the greed and corruption that he encounters.
Lapierre's non profit organisation, City of Joy Aid, runs a network of clinics, schools, rehabilitation centres and hospital boats. It operates 14 projects in India, most in the Sunderbans area. However, 90 per cent of free medicines get stolen in the journey from Delhi to Kolkata, and the project is thus forced to buy them at high prices from the market.
A few years ago, Lapierre set up in Delhi a trust which offers a tax-deductible certificate for all donations. With more than a hint of disappointment, he notes the foundation still does not have any funds from affluent Indians who seem reluctant to help their fellow country-folk.
Quite the opposite, it seems. Much of India's wealth has been creamed off into Swiss banks, robbing ordinary folk of a quality of life they can now only but dream of. According to some estimates, it could be over Rs 7,280,000 crore (around $1.6 trillion). Data from the Swiss Banking Association in 2006 indicated that India had more black money than the rest of the world combined, or 13 times India's total national debt. Global Finance Integrity notes this siphoning of wealth has served to widen the gap between rich and poor and asserts the main guilty parties have been private organisations and High Net Worth Individuals.
By contrast, Global management and consulting firm Bain notes philanthropic donations amount to just 0.6 per cent of India's GDP. This is not too good when compared to giving in the US and UK, for example, but is better than rates in other developing countries like Brazil and China. In the US, individuals and corporations are responsible for 75 per cent of charitable gifts, whereas in India individual and corporate donations make up only 10 per cent of charitable giving. Some 65 per cent comes from India's central and state government, and the remaining gifts are provided by foreign organisations.
In India, giving does not rise with income and education. As a percentage of household income, donations by the wealthy actually decrease. From an analysis of 30 HNWIs in India, Bain noted that they contribute, on average, just around one-fourth of one per cent of their net worth to social and charitable causes.
All of this is not meant to imply that philanthropy is absent in India. Far from it. Vineet Nayyar's Rs 30 crore gift (just under $7 million) to the Essel Social Welfare Foundation is a high-profile example of philanthropic giving. Over the years, Rohini Nilekani has donated $40 million to numerous causes that try to tackle the root causes of social problems and not merely the symptoms. Her biggest contribution has been to Arghyam, a Bangalore foundation that promotes clean water and hygiene, which now has projects in 800 villages. Philanthropy can and does positively impact people's daily lives.
Philanthrocapitalism: a plaster on a gaping wound
What is really required, though, is a proper redistributive system of taxation, effective welfare provision and genuine economic democracy through forms of common ownership to help address inequality and poverty. In the absence of such things, wealthy philanthrocapitalists will have a major say in deciding which problems are addressed and how, and some will be highly selective.
For instance, critics of Bill Gates say his foundation often ends up favouring his commercial investments. Instead of paying taxes to the state coffers, he donates his profits where it is favourable to him economically, such as supporting GM crops in Africa or high tech patented medicines. 'Giving' often acts as a smokescreen for channeling funds into pet projects and 'business as usual', with rich corporations receiving money to shape the world in their own image and ultimately for their own benefit. Apparent benevolence can have sinister motives, just like certain governments which provide money in the form of 'development aid' that is intentionally used to fund actions that serve geo-political self interest and ultimately undermine the recipient state.
Philanthropy isn't necessarily opposed to capitalism; it's very much part of it. Capitalism is designed to ensure that the flow of wealth goes upwards and remains there via, among other things, the privatisation of public assets, deregulation of the financial sector, the use of subsidies and tax policies that favour the rich, the legal obligation to maximise shareholder profits and the consistent downward pressures on labour costs.
Professor Ha Joon Chang of Cambridge University says that economics isn't a social science anymore, but adopts the role the Catholic Church played in medieval Europe. Essentially, economic neo liberalism is secular theology used to justify the prevailing system, with the hope that some drops of wealth will trickle down an extremely thin funnel to placate the mass of the population. Widening the funnel slightly by making benevolent donations will not address the underlying issues of a failed system.
For example, consider that one in four people in India is hungry and every second child is underweight and stunted. Environmentalist Vandana Shiva argues that hunger is a structural part of the design of the industrialised, globalised food system and of the design of capital-intensive, chemical-intensive monocultures of industrial agriculture. The long-term solution for hunger lies in moving away from and challenging the centralised, globalised food supply controlled by a handful of profiteering corporations.
This type of built-in structural inequality, whether it concerns hunger, poverty, housing, income or health, is part and parcel of a development process that is skewed by elite interests in India and at the World Bank and by the corporations that pull the strings at the World Trade Organisation, who have all succeeded in getting their 'globalisation' agenda accepted. No amount of philanthropy, regardless of how well meaning it may be, will remedy the overall destructive effects of the type of capitalism (and massive corruption) being embraced by India's economic and political leaders.
Originally from the northwest of England, Colin Todhunter has spent many years in India. He has written extensively for the Bangalore-based Deccan Herald, New Indian Express and Morning Star (Britain). His articles have also appeared in many other newspapers, journals and books. His East by Northwest site is at: East by Northwest :thumb:
Dollar Billionaires in Poor Countries: India’s “Philantrocapitalism” | Global Research
means, GDP of India on PPP was already $5.16tn in 2006. again we have India's growth rate since 2007 as below:"There are, however, practical difficulties in deriving GDP at PPP, and we now have two different estimates of the PPP conversion factor for 2005, India's GDP at PPP is estimated at $ 5.16 trillion or $ 3.19 trillion depending on whether the old or new conversion factor is used," it said.
It's official: India's a trillion-$ economy - Times Of India
Poor Little Rich Country
BY PATRICK FRENCH | JUNE 24, 2011
How do you categorize India, a nation that is at once fantastically wealthy and desperately poor?
In May, the Indian government announced that it was giving $5 billion in aid to African countries in the interest of helping them meet their development goals. "We do not have all the answers," Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said, "but we have some experience in nation-building, which we are happy to share."
The British could be forgiven for being annoyed with Singh's largesse. Britain, after all, currently gives more than $450 million a year in aid to India, and has plans to continue doing so for at least the next few years. The British economy is bumping in and out of a recession, while India's gross domestic product is growing at more than 8 percent a year. This has put the British government in the rather bizarre position of having to sell bonds in order to donate money to Asia's second-fastest-growing economy, even as the latter is itself getting into the philanthropy business.
The policy is unpopular with most of the British press, which argues that because India has a space program and some flamboyant billionaires, it does not need aid -- especially when Britain cannot really afford it. (When the Labour government was voted out at last year's general election, the departing Finance Minister Liam Byrne left a one-line note on his desk for his successor: "I'm afraid there is no money." It was a joke -- but it was also true.) Nevertheless, Britain still sees itself as a donor nation, with all the obligations and international prestige that entails. This comes in part from a sense of postcolonial guilt: Prime Minister David Cameron spoke recently of a "sense of duty to help others" and the "strong moral case" for giving aid.
The situation suggests just how dramatically the economic rise of Asia has undone centuries of experience, and the expectation that the West will retain the hegemony it has had for the past 400 years. It is increasingly difficult to classify whether a nation is rich or poor, and terms such as "the Global South" and "the Third World" have to be heavily qualified to take into account the fact that large sections of the population in countries like China, Brazil, and India now have a purchasing power matching that of people in "the West."
In 1951, the American diplomat Bill Bullitt described the condition of India in Life magazine: "An immense country containing 357 million people," he wrote, "with enormous natural resources and superb fighting men, India can neither feed herself nor defend herself against serious attacks. An inhabitant of India lives, on average, 27 years. His annual income is about $50. About 90 out of 100 Indians cannot read or write. They exist in squalor and fear of famine." Today, it would be hard to make such an absolute statement about India. Poverty certainly remains a chronic problem, but it exists alongside pockets of substantial wealth. An Indian's life expectancy at birth now stands at 67 years, and continues to rise. It is necessary perhaps to think in a different way, and to see that a country like India, like Schrödinger's cat, exists in at least two forms simultaneously: rich and poor.
The most important change of the last two decades, since the beginning of economic liberalization, has been the transformation of middle-class Indian aspiration. Although the stagnant days of the controlled economy and the "Permit Raj" -- when important decisions depended on a bureaucrat's authorization -- had their own stability, they also stifled opportunity and individual talent. Members of the professional middle class frequently preferred to seek their fortune in more meritocratic societies abroad.
The modern Indian middle class has a new chance to shape its own destiny in a way that was not previously possible. You can move to your own house using a home loan and live outside the joint family; you can buy a car that is not an Ambassador or a Fiat; you can travel abroad and see how people in other countries live; you can watch your politicians accept bribes or dance with prostitutes on television in local media sting operations while surfing your way to Desperate Housewives or Kaun Banega Crorepati, an Indian adaptation of Who Wants to Be a Millionaire? Businesspeople who have succeeded on their own merits overseas, such as PepsiCo CEO Indra Nooyi, are presented as national heroes.
Poor Little Rich Country - By Patrick French | Foreign Policy
Most Expansive Places to Live
15-10-2012
5th Moscow $17,566 per sq.m.
7th Singapore $16,350 per sq.m.
10th Mumbai $11,306 per sq.m.
12th Sydney $8,774 per sq.m.
20th Shanghai $6,932 per sq.m.
29th Istanbul $4,569 per sq.m.
47th Dubai $3,393 per sq.m.
54th Bangkok $2,996
68th Kuala Lumpur $2,182 per sq.m.
73rd Jakarta $,2099
World's most expensive cities
Mumbai, Delhi office rentals top Shanghai, New York
Jul 25, 2012
MUMBAI: Office rentals in Mumbai and Delhi continue to be among the highest in the world, beating the likes of New York, Washington or Shanghai despite a depreciating rupee. Renting office space in Mumbai and Delhi costs over $65 and nearly $73 per square meter a month, while the same costs $63 in New York $48 in Washington and $41 in Shanghai, property consultancy firm DTZ said in a report.
Mumbai, Delhi office rentals top Shanghai, New York - Economic Times
7,730 high net worth Indians collectively own $925 billion
Sep 20, 2012
NEW DELHI: India is home to as many as 7,730 ultra high net worth (UHNW) individuals whose combined wealth amounts to a whopping $925 billion, says a study.
According to the world ultra wealth report 2012-13, by Wealth X, a global wealth intelligence and prospecting company, India has 7,730 UHNW individuals, of which 109 are billionaires.
However, in the corresponding period last year there were as many as 8,215 with a total wealth of $980 billion.
The Wealth-X analysis shows there are 109 billionaires in the country and this group represents the top 1.4 per cent of the UHNW population, and controls 20.5 per cent of the total fortune attributable to the ultra wealthy segment.
On average, these billionaires are worth close to $1.7 billion each.
Meanwhile, the global UHNW population grew by a modest 0.6 per cent to 187,380 with a combined wealth of $25.8 trillion.
The combined wealth attributable to this segment, however, shrank by 1.8 per cent from a year ago largely driven by the Euro zone crisis and a slowdown in emerging economies, the report said.
Asia saw the largest percentage reduction in UHNW population amongst the regions (2.1 per cent) owing to poor equity performance, particularly in Japan, China and India, the report said.
The population and wealth growth of UHNW depends on the economy and its direction and clarity of government policies.
Since India's GDP growth continue to moderate and the Indian equity markets, which have significant impact on the local UHNW population, declined by 8 per cent during the measuring period and the Indian Rupee declined by 25 per cent affecting the UHNW population and their wealth.
In India, the lowest tier of the UHNW group represented by those worth $30 million to $49 million is the largest group, making up 45.7 per cent of the total UHNW population in India. They have a combined fortune of $125 billion, or 13.5 per cent, of the total wealth of the India's ultra affluent.
The study focuses solely on persons with a net worth of $30 million and above (after accounting for shares in public and private companies, residential and investment properties, art collections, planes, cash and other assets).
The Wealth X study further said there are 5,775 Indians having wealth between $30 million and $100 million, and nearly 845 have wealth between $100 million and $200 million.
Between $200 million and $500 million, there are 855 Indians, while in the range of $500 million to $999 million, there are 150 Indians, the study said.
The report further said the NRI population in Asia was adversely affected by the poor performance of equity markets and weakness in the financial services sector.
7,730 high net worth Indians collectively own $925 billion: Report - The Economic Times
and here is the main report, as below :thumb:"shares in public and private companies, residential and investment properties, art collections, planes, cash and other assets, according to Wealth-X...". :ranger:
World's Billionaire Club Grows; Ultra Millionaires Lose Money - WORLD PROPERTY CHANNEL Global News Center
India with 122 billionaire ranks 5th in top 10 countries for billionaires
15 MAR, 2013
MUMBAI: The super rich will continue to get richer in the coming decade. The number of high net worth individuals in India with net assets of Rs 150 crore to Rs 160 crore is expected to more than double over the next 10 years, rising by 137% in Mumbai and around 120% in Delhi, says Knight Frank Wealth Report 2013.
The global property consultancy firm ranks India at 5th spot with 122 billionaires as of 2012 end in the top 10 countries for billionaires that are expected to increase to 225 billionaires with an 84% growth by 2022.
The report ranks Mumbai at the 7th spot with a total of 2,105 high net worth individuals in the top 30 global cities; while Delhi is at 11th spot with total 1,905 such super-rich individuals. By 2022, number of high net worth individuals in Mumbai is expected to increase to 4,988 with 137% rise; while Delhi is likely to see it growing 120% by then to 4,278.
"The rise of the Asian global cities is in parallel to what many are now calling "The Asian Century". With the historic shift in economic power towards Asia, its cities are undoubtedly going to become more influential in the coming years," said Nicholas Holt, Director Research, Asia Pacific, Knight Frank.
Across Asia, the number of HNWIs is set to rise by 88% over the next decade, the joint highest rate of growth in any world region. While New York and London top the list in the cities that matter to HNWI's, Mumbai stands only on the 38th spot of the top 40 cities.
"It is interesting to note that both Mumbai and Delhi are expected to grow at a high rate which is comparable only with fastest growing cities like Shanghai, Beijing, Rio De Janeiro and Sao Paulo," Samantak Das, Director Research & Advisory Services, Knight Frank India.
As per Knight Frank's luxury investment index, the super-wealthy are also set to step up their interest in "investments of passion" such as art, fine wine, classic cars, coins and watches this year, especially those in China. Knight Frank's luxury investment index shows that classic cars have seen the largest appreciation in value over the last decade, with an average uplift in price of 395%.
India with 122 billionaire ranks 5th in top 10 countries for billionaires: Knight Frank - The Economic Times
BRIC Country Super-Rich Worth $4 Trillion
The future of wealth will be built with BRICs.
According to new data from Wealth-X, the wealth research and consulting firm, Brazil, Russia, India and China now have a combined 25,600 people with $30 million or more in net worth (which includes shares in publicly traded and closely held companies, residential and investment real estate, art, planes, cash and other investible assets).
That is about half the number of ultra-high-net individuals in the U.S., according to Wealth-X.
The BRIC ultrarich have a combined net worth of $4.125 trillion, compared to $6.4 trillion for the U.S.
What is most interesting about the BRIC data is the concentration of wealth at the very top of the wealth pyramid. In Russia, the nation's 80 billionaires account for 7% of the total population of people with a net worth of $30 million or more, but they own 84% of that group's $640 billion in wealth.
In Brazil, the nation's 50 billionaires account for less than 1% of the ultrarich population but a third of the group's $890 billion in wealth. India's 115 billionaires represent 1.4% of the total ultrarich population and 20% of the group's wealth of $945 billion.
China's billionaires account for 1% of the ultrarich and about a third of their wealth of $1.65 trillion.
The U.S., of course, isn't exactly a model of equity when it comes to billionaires and the ultra-rich. Its 450 billionaires account for less than one percent of the ultra-rich population but control 25% of the group's $6.4 trillion wealth.
But the fastest global growth in billionaires and their lesser ultra-rich aspirants will likely be from the BRICS rather than the U.S. or Europe.
"In Russia, as in other emerging markets"¦.billionaires and near-billionaires, followed in aggregate by the mass of ultra-high-net-worth will dominate wealth," according to Wealth-X.
Which country would you want to live in if you had a net worth of $30 million or more?
BRIC Country Super-Rich Worth $4 Trillion - The Wealth Report - WSJ
CHENNAI: Even as the anti-Sri Lanka mood in Tamil Nadu is getting more belligerent, the Centre has increased its annual grant to the island nation in the Union Budget. The allocation has gone up to Rs 500 crore for 2013-2014 from Rs 290 crore last year. It was Rs 181.94 crore in 2011-2012. The Budget has allocated Rs 5,550 crore as aid for foreign governments and organizations.
India increases aid to Sri Lanka - Times Of India
its all about a bottom line fact that they left 347millions people in 1947, 2% rich and rest poor at the time of freedom, while there are already 350million Middle Class in India whose per capita income is close to $20,000 on PPP, similar to Very High HDI countries like Poland, Saudi Arabia, Argentina etc. but rest of the population growth has covered all the gains since then.Wonder up there in the clouds, what Gandhi-Nehru would be thinking seeing new members joining the billionaires' club every year but the ranks of the poor not shrinking.
That theory looks very smart. But on ground the opposite is true. Gandhi's model, on the other hand, addressed the common man direct.
Influenced by the Bhagvad Gita and Hindu beliefs, the Jain religion and the Christian teachings of Leo Tolstoy, Gandhi moved on the path of Satya and Ahimsa. 'Satya' meaning 'truth' and 'ahimsa' meaning 'non-violence' were the two weapons that Gandhi used to fight the enemy.
Gandhi inspired people to boycott British goods and refuse earthy possessions. This movement was known as Swaraj and was economically significant because Indian home industries were virtually destructed by British industrialists. He advocated renewal of native Indian industries and began to use a spinning wheel as a token of return to simple village life. Thereafter, he constantly began promoting satyagraha, non-violence, non-cooperation and swaraj to achieve independence. Finally, in August 1947, the British were forced to leave India.
mohandas karamchand gandhi
Gandhi's economic ideas are shit. Those ideas do not suit today's modern world. All the talk about "charkha" and "villages" and stuff. Absolutely useless today.time has changed during last 70 years, and hence we need to think more than what Mr Gandhi could think during WW1 and WW2 time, isn't it?????
at the same time, we have a clear view of Mr Gandhi itself as below, on the government website of India, any comment???? :coffee:
Gandhi's economic ideas are shit. Those ideas do not suit today's modern world. All the talk about "charkha" and "villages" and stuff. Absolutely useless today.
Charkha was good at that time, it became outdated within 10 years. Today, it is idiocy to talk about "Charkha".he was in favor of having home industries, and hence you need to modernize it, obviously, as he demanded that, as in my last post#34???? but until you don't have your own industries, it was good to have charkha in the villages that time, as this is what he could do as a Professional Lawyer???????
its all about having home industries, to provide employment to the people of India, and to generate taxes for the Indian government for the good of Indian people itself, not for the war purposes of British during WW1 and WW2
Charkha was good at that time, it became outdated within 10 years. Today, it is idiocy to talk about "Charkha".
Of course everyone wants home industries, and it is indeed good for India. But home industry does not mean "swadeshi". Toyota or POSCO setting up a plant in India is as good as Tata or Mahindra doing the same. Accenture opening offices in India is immensely beneficial to India, and is part of globalization, which has brought India up among the league of serious powers in this decade.
My main gripe with Gandhian ideas in today's age is his emphasis on villages and rural life. India will remain a backward and superstition-ridden nation as long as India continues to "live in villages". Urbanization and massive development of cities will propel India into a liberal and modern nation.
Gandhi was a great man, but his economic ideas have ZERO relevance to the modern day.
Did you read my post? I mentioned that what is happening today by means of foreign investment and FDI is actually generating employment for Indians, so what is happening is great.Mr Gandhi wanted India to have industries on its own, and develop technologies by own, provide employment and generate taxes, and hence, "He advocated renewal of native Indian industries." check post#34 and its reference again :ranger:
Did you read my post? I mentioned that what is happening today by means of foreign investment and FDI is actually generating employment for Indians, so what is happening is great.
That misplaced mix of Gandhian-socialism in the 1950s and 60s set the foundation of India's ruin. India would have been a developed nation by now, if it were not for that toxic economic policy that India followed back then.
Why don't you tell me what is the meaning of these empty words "renewal of native Indian industries"? Examples? Concrete agenda?
Luxury carmaker does profit U-turn
The Range Rover Evoque is the latest in the luxury brand's line-up, and goes on sale in Australia later this year.
In one of the greatest industrial turnarounds in British corporate history, Jaguar Land Rover, the luxury carmaker so troubled during the depths of the recession that there were fears it could go bankrupt, has reported a profit of more than £1 billion ($1.54bn).
Tata, the Indian parent of the British manufacturer, reported that JLR made a profit after tax of £1.043 billion ($1.6 billion) in the financial year to March 31, compared to £32 million ($49.3 million) the previous year.
The rebirth of the carmaker comes courtesy of the strong overseas demand for Jaguars, Range Rovers and Land Rovers which has made the company one of the UK's most important exporters.
Last year, more than 77 percent of JLR's output of about 240,000 cars were bound for shipment, with China for instance now making up a fast-expanding 10 per cent of its market.
JLR is also Britain's single largest automotive employer, with nearly 20,000 staff.
Carl-Peter Forster, chief executive of Tata Motors, the Indian company which bought JLR from Ford for €2.3 billion ($3 billion), said, "Jaguar Land Rover is now a strong, profitable and innovative competitor in the premium car industry and will deliver even more attractive models and technologies to customers worldwide."
The new baby Range Rover, the Evoque, is being launched in the US this northern summer and the company has also committed to the construction of a limited edition hybrid electric-powered supercar, the Jaguar C-X75.
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