NEW DELHI, July 8: Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has sent “clear signals” to investors that he has stepped in to take charge of the economy - for as long as it takes - not only to restore growth but also to get his party back in the reckoning for the general elections in 2014, say those with some inside knowledge of things.

With the Congress-led United Progressive Alliance (UPA) government perhaps facing one of its toughest times, what with corruption charges against cabinet ministers and the growing perception of “policy paralysis” in the government, the Prime Minister was keen to correct the course, say aides and officials.

After he took over the finance ministry with Pranab Mukherjee quitting the post in order to fight the presidential elections, there have been signs of upturn in market sentiments with the reins now in the hands of the Prime Minister, who is acknowledged the world over as an economics guru who freed the Indian economy from its regulatory shackles in 1991 when he was finance minister in the government of Prime Minister PV Narasimha Rao.

With political compulsions making it difficult to take tough economic measures, officials in the know of the situation said the government has decided more or less to ride with the Samajwadi Party in this “tumultuous journey of growth” that was key to the economy’s revival.

The reason could be the unpredictablility of mercurial Trinamool Congress chief Mamata Banerjee and her opposition to move to boost investor confidence, especially in opening up retail to foreign supermarkets and department store giants.

“He (the Prime Minister) is keen to shed this image of policy paralysis in the government. He wants to send this message that India is ready to face the challenges and take corrective measures,” one official said.

“He also wants to send a message that he is in charge of the economy and by all indications he is here to stay as long as it takes,” the official added, not wishing to be identified.

Another official said that for some time the focus of the government will be on “fixing” the economy.

“Sonia Gandhi and the Prime Minister have taken a decision that the focus should be economy. Elections are next year and bad economic growth could turn the tide (against the party),” another official said in a background briefing.

He said the focus will be on “inclusive growth”.

“The prime minister is very sure about the fact that it has to be inclusive growth, which takes everyone along. A better economy will also mean more investments and more jobs for the people,” the official said.

He said that political consideration had taken a toll on many a government decision on the economic front.

“It more or less looks like that the Samajwadi Party is in. They have also indicated that they will support the government on major (economic) decisions,” the official said.

In his interview to the Hindustan Times - a media interview that he gave after a long time - the Prime Minister also hinted at it.

“More important is that we need political consensus in the government on some policies. There are genuine differences in opinion. So, in a democracy, consensus building is the key to long-term economic success and we are steadily moving ahead in doing that,” Manmohan Singh said in his interview.

On the perception of policy paralysis, he evaded a direct reply and said there were problems that existed among political parties in the previous government run by the United Progressive Alliance (UPA), but that the focus remained inclusive growth.

“We are passing through a similarly challenging situation and I am confident we will roll out measures to restore economic growth once again,” he said, adding he also did not believe that legislation was a bottleneck to economic growth.

“Barring an issue here and there, most economic steps that need to be taken do not need legislative action,” he said.

“The India Growth Story is intact. We will continue to work, as we have been doing for eight years, to keep the story going,” he added.

His statement immediately got a thumbs up from industry chambers FICCI and ASSOCHAM.

“Things will be clear in a few weeks’ time. Just wait,” another official added. (IANS)

NEW DELHI, July 8: The mobile value added services (MVAS) business in India is in need of a paradigm shift and generation of regional content aimed at rural masses would make it a $10 billion industry by 2015, say industry insiders and sector specialists.

Currently, the MVAS market is around $5 billion, according to a study by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IMAI) and research firm IMRB.

“The focus has to be on rural products. Services like weather forecasts, farming techniques and m-banking will rule the roost,” Udit Shankar, chief executive officer, TeleDNA, said.

Despite the launch of high-speed 3G services and low-cost handsets, the business has not seen a major expansion due to expensive internet services and lack of proper knowledge among the distributors as well as the customers about the services and their benefits.

“These customers need not only cheap devices but value for their money. Thus low cost devices, equipped with local content and proper guidance, would lead to the growth of MVAS,” Shankar added.

Sensing such an opportunity, state-owned Bharat Sanchar Nigam Limited (BSNL) is expanding to rural areas.

“Through services like m-banking and m-commerce MVAS in rural areas is likely to witness massive acceptance and this will further improve the revenues of operators as well,” said BSNL Chairman and Managing Director RK Upadhyay.

BSNL will launch a video-on-demand service in a month’s time.

Other operators such as Bharti Airtel and Vodafone have started their mobile banking services.

According to VAS solutions provider Comviva, content in regional languages will drive user demand.

“Smaller towns and villages now require content associated with health and education in a big way; providing them these requirements in their language will give a fillip to the operators and users alike,” Milind Pathak, vice president, Asia marketing unit, Coviva, said.

Regional language speakers are the large majority compared to only seven per cent English-speaking population.

Analysts belive that wider availability of smartphones of lower price points would boost the earnings from mobile VAS.

Out of the 50 million new devices sold in the first quarter of this year, smartphones constituted only 2.7 million. While the mobile subscribers base has touched almost 930 million, the total smartphone base in the country is around 27 million.

According to research firm Gartner, rural areas offers a huge bowl of opportunity to service providers.

“The rural areas give a lot of opportunity to the operators but having operations in these areas is equally difficult. However, a player can still reap the benefits if it plans right,” Neha Gupta, senior analyst, Gartner, said.

“Services such as weather forecasts for fishermen and mandi rates for the farmers are already being used in some places. New contents based on video services will now rule the market,” she added.

Rajan Mathews of the Cellular Operators Association of India (COAI), the GSM operators’ lobby, however, has a slightly different take on this. He said MVAS will be driven on a segmented basis. While certain services will be a hit in rural areas, others will be taken up by elite customers.

“Services offered by the government such as m-education, m-entertainment and m-commerce would clearly have a high resonance in rural areas, while other such location-based services like navigation, finding shopping spots and travelling will be a hit among the city dwellers,” said Mathews. (IANS)

SHIMLA, July 8: Himachal Pradesh is set to allow gold-rich temple trusts to melt tonnes of the precious metal in their coffers to turn them into mementoes as is done at the Vaishno Devi shrine in Kashmir.

The government is shortly going to sign an agreement with the public sector Mines and Minerals Trading Corp (MMTC), according to an official.

“An MMTC team will be in Shimla next week to finalise the nitty-gritty before signing the agreement,” Rakesh Kanwar, director of the Language, Art and Culture department, said.

He said both gold and silver lying in the treasuries of 20 government-controlled Hindu temples would be used for making souvenirs for sale.

“But the conversion of the metals into souvenirs would be done only after its purification,” he said.

Besides souvenirs, gold coins weighing between two grams and 20 gm and silver coins from 20 gm to 200 gm would be minted.

The coins and the mementoes would have inscriptions of the respective temple deities.

According to government estimates, more than 300 kg of gold and 22,500 kg of silver are with the 20 temples.

The government last year amended the Himachal Pradesh Hindu Public Religious Institutions and Charitable Endowments Act, 1984, that allowed conversion of 50 per cent of the metal reserves in temples into mementoes.

An official said the conversion would help temples part with loads of gold and silver lying for decades and also check pilferage.

“Keeping the precious metal in safe custody is a costly affair. The income from the sale of coins and mementoes will be used for temple development and social activities,” state temple administrator Prem Prasad Pandit said.

The hill state, also known as the “Land of the Gods”, has 28 prominent Hindu temples that have a combined cash reserve of Rs 100 crore.

The shrine of Mata Chintpurni in Una district is the richest. Other rich temple trusts include those of Naina Devi in Bilaspur, Baba Balak Nath in Hamirpur, Jwalaji, Chamunda Devi and Brajeshwari Devi in Kangra and Bhimakali and Hateshwari in Shimla.

According to the government proposal, only 50 per cent of the total gold and silver lying with a temple would be converted into coins and mementoes.

“Of the remaining 50 per cent, 10 per cent is to be kept with the temple trust, 20 per cent will be invested in gold bonds of the State Bank of India and the remaining will be used to adorn the deities,” said an official. (IANS)

LONDON, July 8: Personal computers, mobile phones, tablet computers and other electronic items gobble up a staggering 320 tonnes of gold and 7,500 tonnes of silver worldwide, experts say.

Manufacturing these high-tech products requires more than $16 billion in gold and $5 billion in silver.

Most of these metals will be squandered, however. Just 15 per cent or less is recovered from e-waste today in developed and developing countries alike, according to a United Nations University statement.

Electronic waste now contains precious metal “deposits” 40 to 50 times richer than ores mined from the ground, experts said at the first meet of GeSI and StEP E-Waste Academy in Ghana, co-organized by the UN University and the Global eSustainability Initiative (GeSI).

Quantities of gold, silver and other precious metals available for recovery are rising in tandem with the fast growing sales of electronic and electrical goods.

With respect to gold alone, electronic and electrical products consumed 197 tonne (5.3 per cent) of the world’s supply in 2001 and 7.7 per cent last year.

In that same decade, even as the world’s annual gold supply rose 15 per cent from about 3,900 tonne in 2001 to 4,500 tonne in 2011, the price per ounce leapt from under $300 to more than $1,500.

Thanks to the volume and value of precious metals it contains, the percentage of e-waste collected in developing countries is estimated to be as high as 80-90 per cent.

However, some 50 per cent of the gold in e-waste is lost in crude dismantling processes in developing countries (compared with 25 per cent in developed countries). (IANS)

Counterfeiting is being considered the world’s fastest growing industry. According to current estimates, it represents up to 10 per cent of global trade. Termed the crime of the 21st century by the FBI, fake and smuggled goods combine to make a $600 billion industry, which has grown by 10,000 per cent in the past two decades, according to figures cited by The International Anti-Counterfeiting Coalition (IACC).

A recent study conducted by Business Action to Stop Counterfeiting and Piracy indicates the global value of counterfeit and pirated goods, currently estimated at US$600-650 billion, is likely to more than double by 2015. Along with smuggling, counterfeiting and fake have become major contributors towards generation of black money, which in turn encourages criminal activities including terrorism.

The market for fake and counterfeit products is thriving in India and has become one of the biggest challenges faced by Indian industry. Not only is it adversely impacting genuine stakeholders, industry, the government and consumers, it is also impacting “Brand India” globally. At the time when Indian industry is looking to broaden its base, it is challenged by “Made in India” syndrome - a big and growing international business where all kinds of sub-standard healthcare, beauty, FMCG and electronic parts are being pushed into the market.

With this background, industry body FICCI set up a Committee Against Smuggling and Counterfeit Activities Destroying the Economy (CASCADE). FICCI CASCADE has been set up with the participation of leading industries from all sectors of the economy.

Several steps are being taken by FICCI CASCADE and the government to create large-scale awareness among the most impacted segment of this menace: the consumer. A joint publicity campaign has been started in association with the Ministry of Consumer Affairs under the “Jago Grahak” umbrella to create awareness among consumers. Another proposed initiative is with the Delhi Government’s “Bhagidari” campaign.

FICCI CASCADE recently sponsored the 5th Hum Kishore Festival in which more than 100 schools from Delhi and the NCR participated. June 13 was marked “Anti-Counterfeiting Day”.

According to FICCI CASCADE, spurious goods are available in pharmaceutical drugs, FMCG, computer and software goods, soft drinks, cosmetics and toiletries and are rampant in the automobile sector. Estimates of fake medicines sold in India vary from 0.4-20 per cent. Medicines purchased without invoice or bill may well be fakes. Instead of improving the health of the patient they may worsen the condition.

According to a study on the fake automotive spare parts, the market in India is estimated to be around Rs 2,500 crore, which is approximately 35 per cent of the total auto parts sold in the country.

The White Paper on Legislative Improvements to Combat Counterfeit Auto Parts by ACMA strongly underlines the need for strong legislation to tackle the problem. Based on primary research, it is estimated that around 20 per cent of total road accidents in India can be either directly or indirectly attributed to counterfeit automotive parts. Their use led to 25,400 deaths and more than 93,000 injuries in 2009. According to estimates, the end-users are paying for an additional 109 million litres of petrol and eight million litres of diesel per annum due to the use of counterfeit parts.

In IT, it is estimated that a mere 10 per cent reduction in piracy rate has the potential to create 50,000 additional jobs in India. IT is possibly the worst affected with 80 per cent of fake goods because of the huge potential of price differential.

Rapid advances in technology, liberalisation of the Indian economy and booming demand for brands have in a way facilitated the counterfeiters in making a fast buck at the cost of society. Members of the organized sector make heavy investment in research and technology to produce quality products to serve customers. These well meaning efforts are however threatened by spurious lookalikes and fakes at competitive prices.

This adversely impacts the health, safety and well-being of consumers as well as revenue of state and central governments. Counterfeiting is a serious crime and perpetrators have to be dealt with effectively. (IANS)

CHENNAI, July 8: The state-run Solar Energy Corporation of India is planning to set up small, pilot power plants with strong linkages with research and academic institutions to develop technologies and products relevant for India.

“We need to put up demonstration solar power units, say, of five MW of two or three configurations in a solar park and collect the data for scaling them up. The solar park will be close to R&D (research and development) units and academic institutions,” Anil Kakodkar, chairman of the corporation, said in an interview.

He, however, declined to disclose the probable locations where such parks would come up.

Kakodkar said the corporation would put up solar power plants on its own.

“We are looking at concentrated photo voltaic plants while there are other options also,” said the former chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission.

He said there is a possibility of having large solar collectors that would move the sun’s rays to be finally collected into a photovoltaic module. Another technology is having a combination of a tower and photovoltaic mirrors. The mirror would reflect the sunlight on a tower which would beam the rays back to a photovoltaic panel on the ground.

Kakodkar said India should have a long-term strategic plan for sustainable development of the solar power sector while being conscious of the need to do value addition within the country.

One of the elements of such a strategic plan is to reduce the cost by developing technologies and products that are India-centric.

“For example in India the dust load on solar panels are high. In Rajasthan, the sand particles on the panels are high. We have to see how the dust load on panels could be minimised,” Kakodkar said.

On the products side, he said the country should look at the possibility of taking solar lantern manufacturing to the cottage industry level that would generate jobs in rural areas.

“With rooftops solar power being looked at, schools in rural areas can have them. The students can bring the solar lanterns to school for recharge and use at home in the evening. Like the mid-day meals scheme the rooftop solar power panels can attract students to schools.”

Similarly, the option of having a hybrid micro power grid comprising solar-biomass or solar-wind could be looked at in rural areas. A hybrid of solar-biomass will reduce the battery cost of the solar power plant as the biomass plant can be operated at will, he said.

Asked about stipulating local content in solar power projects, Kakodkar said the regulations should not result in creating uncompetitive domestic sector while there should be clarity on the way in which the Indian market should grow.

He said the growth of solar technology in India will be similar to the growth of nuclear reactor in the country, that is, choosing relevant technology for the country and bringing down its cost. (IANS)