Economy

If one is keenly observing the economy for revival trends, the time has reached for being hopeful. Stock market in the country is witnessing strong upward trends over the last one month, raising hopes for a macroeconomic revival in the coming quarters. The Indian stock market was an underperformer in 2011 compared to its emerging market peers. But, 2012 tells an entirely different story. Major stock indices rallied by around 20% during the last couple of months.                 Stock market revival can be interpreted as a preceding trend for a macroeconomic revival in the economy.  A booming market is

The much anticipated revision of monetary policy by the RBI makes a 50 bps cut in CRR, releasing additional liquidity by around Rs 32000 crores. Many in the market consider it as a pleasant surprise.  The CRR cut is a relief for the banking system, the entire financial market as well as for the RBI. The banks were drawing around one lakh crore rupees from the RBI daily under the Repos facility. Now they can avail more liquidity on their own. The CRR cut augments natural liquidity in the system by helping banks to find money out of their own funds. Of course, the banks were continuously relying on RBI’s repo window too much over the last two months For the financial syst

It is difficult to get woman workers at Rs 350 per day in Kerala villages. Most farm works are done by migrant laborers from States like Bihar, Orissa and West Bengal. But under NREGS, it is easy to get large number of women workers at Rs 160 per day. People prefer NREGS work because of less work commitment and less work effort required under NREGS. They get minimum wages for ultra minimum work they are doing.             The story of NREGS may not be similar in states where there is bonded labor, high level of underemployment etc. But the quality of work done or assets produced from the NREGS programme is poor throughout the

The new monetary policy declared by the RBI doesn’t consider the interest rate reduction signal requested by the investors and the loan seekers. Those visioning a positive turnaround were also expecting the RBI to initiate interest rate cuts. A softened interest rate environment is necessary to revive growth in the economy. Definitely, a repo cut would have signaled beginning of the badly needed interest rate cuts. By postponing the repo cut, the RBI has delayed the inevitable reversal of monetary cycle. The existing high interest rate phase was started in early 2010. It is the result of continuous repo rate increase during thirteen revisions since then. The Repo rate, whic

              This article tries to assess the social and environmental impacts of tourism on the socially backward and environmentally sensitive Wayanadu district of Kerala.   Tourism is widely conceived to be a service which results in considerable degree of sharing between the host community and the visitors. The natural environment as well as the cultural heritage of a community becomes selling products in tourism. The interaction between the hosts and visitors leaves its mark on the environment, people and culture of the hosts. Responsible tourism is a concept which measures the effects of tourism on the

The scheme to promote individual entrepreneurs, Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP) launched by the central government will get enhanced funds. The budget for the Technopreneur Promotion Programme (TePP) of the Union Ministry of Science & Technology has been hiked to Rs 60 crore. During the previous Plan, Rs 8 crore was disbursed un¬der TePP against the targeted disbursal of Rs 10 crore. The number of outreach centers engaged in the pro¬motion of innovation under TePP is also set to go up from 20 at present to 30 by end-March 2009.The TePP is a joint initiative un¬der the Department of Scien¬tific & Industrial Research (DSIR) and the Department of Scien