Dec 22 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Average household debt in cities up 7 times in 10 years

Subodh Varma





22% Of Urban Families Have Loans To Repay

Nearly a third of rural households and a quarter of urban ones are in debt, says a report released this week. This is understandable with the spread of credit facilities. But the scale of indebtedness revealed is astonishing: between 2002 and 2012, the average amount owed by each family has jumped seven times in cities and more than four times in rural areas.About 22% of urban households were in debt and the average debt per family was Rs 84,625, up from Rs 11,771 in 2002. In the rural areas, 31% of households were in debt compared to 27% in 2002 -their average debt had increased from Rs 7,539 to Rs 32,522. The survey , carried out by the National Sample Survey Organization (NSSO), studied assets and debt across India through two visits to more than one lakh households in 2013. Such surveys are done by the NSSO every 10 years.
Average debt is computed by dividing the total debt by total population, which includes households that have no debt.A better picture of the scale of indebtedness is seen if the total debt is distributed only over the indebted households: then the average debt increases to Rs1,03,457 in rural areas and Rs 3,78,238 in urban areas. The survey also estimat ed that average value of assets among rural households was about Rs 10 lakh while in urban areas it was nearly Rs 23 lakh.
The definition of assets used this time round was changed from that of previous surveys. Consumer durables, bullion and jewellery were not counted as assets. Also, prices of land and building were taken from normative guideline values rather than as reported by the informant.Hence, asset values reported in this survey are not comparable to previous ones. What is striking in asset ownership is the extreme inequality between rich and poor.While the average value of assets owned by the richest 10% of the urban population was Rs 14.6 crore, the poorest 10% owned assets worth just Rs 291 -virtually nothing. In rural areas too, similar inequality is visible. The average asset value of the richest segment was Rs 5.7 crore compared to Rs 2,507 for the poorest.
Expectedly , wide variation is seen in asset ownership depending upon vocation. In rural areas, cultivators owned assets valued on an average at Rs 29 lakh while non-cultivators had assets worth about Rs 7 lakh. Similarly , in urban areas, self-employed families had assets worth as much as Rs 51 lakh compared to about Rs 20 lakh worth of assets owned by wage or salary earners.
The enormous contribution of real estate prices to the explosion in asset values is clearly seen in the fact that in rural areas, 73% of the value of assets was derived from land and 21% from buildings.In urban areas, while 47% of asset value was from land, 45% was from buildings.
In urban areas, 82% of debt is incurred to finance housing, education, marriages etc and only 18% is for business purposes, showing that the urban housing boom has been driven by debt. In rural areas, 40% of loans were taken for business.Interestingly , shares and debentures made up an insignificant part in both rural and urban areas for most. Just 0.07% of asset value of rural households and 0.17% among urban ones derived from shares etc.

International Conference on Technology for Education kicks off 

The sixth IEEE International Conference on Technology for Education (T4E) today kicked off on Amrita University’s Kollam campus in Kerala amid great enthusiasm.  The chief architect of India’s National Knowledge Network, which made the country a leading player in network infrastructure, S V Raghavan, inaugurated the conference.

The four-day conference will bring together researchers, visionaries and practitioners in the areas of education and technology to discuss the role of technology for making education relevant.

‘’This is for the first time that the event is being held in Kerala. In the past, the conference has been hosted at various IITs,’’ said a spokesperson of Amrita Vishwa Vidyapeetham (Amrita University).

- See more at: http://digitallearning.eletsonline.com/2014/12/international-conference-on-technology-for-education-kicks-off/#sthash.Y9ajjlaD.dpuf

Harsimrat Badal Launches Fruits and Vegetable Availability Maps of India Report

New Delhi: The Minister of Food Processing Industries Smt. Harsimrat Kaur Badal today launched the first ever report focusing on the availability of fruits and vegetables pan India at the Yes Bank-MoFPI National Conference on Spurring financing & Investments in the Food Processing Sector. 

Highlighting the importance of nurturing the Food Processing Industry, Smt Badal said, “I commend Yes Bank for coming up with this report and Fruits and Vegetables map; it can be used as a handbook of some of the best available data today on Fruits and Vegetable availability across the nation. Agricultural land is reducing but mouths to be fed are increasing so we must grow more, from less, to feed more – that is where food processing comes in, and if there is more availability, there will be less inflation. We need to aim for higher standards in food processing to guard the population against inflation.” 

Smt. Badal underscored the need to prepare a National Food Grid. She said that the first step towards this Grid is this “Fruits & Vegetables Availability Maps of India Booklet” which puts forth an overview of the production and availability scenario of key food commodities in the country. The content of this booklet gives an insight of what is grown where as well as the surplus and deficit status of various commodities at the national as well as state level. 

The Minister of State Sadhvi Niranjan Jyoti said that the food processing sector is growing at an annual rate of 8.4 per cent and also provides great opportunities FDI. She said that last year this sector attracted an investment of USD 4 billion. The MoS suggested that seminars should be held in each districts to apprise people about the activities under the food processing sector. 

Sharing his thoughts at the conference, Shri Suresh Prabhu, Railways Minister said, “We must bring more investment and finance into the Food Processing industry to give the sector a fillip. There must be an integrated approach to boosting agri-growth. We are also working on developing a multi-modal transport system in India, which will help transportation of food produce across the country, thereby enabling better price discovery for farmers and agriculturists.” 

Dec 19 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

Global recognition for Indian student





Sultan Khetani of SRM University has won the BRIght Futures Prize 2014 for his work on a revolutionary microchip

Recognised as a leading private educational institute in India, the SRM University, based in Chennai, is celebrating a new milestone. Sultan Khetani, a postgraduate student of the department of biomedical engineering at the university, and his project instructor Dr Shafee Hadi (of Harvard Medical School) have won the BRIght Futures Prize 2014 for their research on fighting HIVAIDS using a low-cost flexible microchip.The BRIght Futures Prize is a prestigious award with a cash prize of $100,000 for which more than 200 teams from Harvard and MIT affiliates compete. was part of the research team at Harvard led by Dr Shafee Hadi. The project was called `Low-cost hand held microchip device for rapid HIV detection and treatment monitoring through viral load measurement on paper'.The SAP is an initiative pioneered by SRM University oneered by SRM Uni wh ich en able s bright young students to spend a semester abroad at leading world class universities, while still pursuing their undergraduate or postgraduate studies. The winning team was selected based on online voting conducted across the world. T he team att racted votes from approximately 120 countries worldwide as well as the 50 states in the USA . T he w i n ner s received the highest numbers of votes from India and the USA.
Sultan Khetani, a Semester Abroad Programme (SAP) student at SRM University The prize-winni ng lowcost chip can potentially revolutionise HIV man agement globally and will facilitate rapid, simple and inexpensive early diagnosis of infection and treatment for many sufferers.
With this latest feather in their cap, SRM University has inched closer to realising their goal of being among the top 100 universi ties in the world.

Dec 19 2014 : The Economic Times (Delhi)

Why this Inertia Over the Environment?





Some rules are plain absurd; scrap them

The Modi government had promised to ease the problems with environmental clearance. Dishearteningly , the environment ministry continues to dither on scrapping two absurd rules, dashing investors' hope that the Centre would address their concerns with dispatch. One rule requires environmental clearance for building a factory larger than 20,000 sq m. The other asks investors to acquire nearly all the land required for a project before vetting it for environmental impact. The rule is even more absurd than it initially looks, because if there is any discrepancy between proposal and execution as regards the precise plots of land acquired, environmental clearance would be nixed. How these pieces of idiocy came to be instituted in the first place is a mystery. What is even more intriguing is the failure to remove them, even after the new government spotted them.Why should and how can land be acquired prior to assessment of a project's environmental impact? How would the impact change if the land that is acquired is, in its characteristics, the same as the one proposed in the project? Environmental clearances have become a new licence raj and source of corruption. Why should it take 18 months for an industrialist to secure an environmental nod, that too in the best-case scenario? States are also to blame for making onerous extra requirements. It will force many investors to review their decisions. Ideally , the Centre should transfer the task of according environment clearances to an independent expert authority , and let the environment ministry make policy and prescribe rules that the regulator would use to give or deny clearances.
However, policymaking should be done with a sense of urgency , while balancing development and the environment. Sure, every project must be assessed, and the need is to have an efficient environment impact assessment (EIA) process in place. Time limits for granting clearances, and better coordination between the states and the Centre, will help. The government should get cracking to remove hurdles to spur growth.

Dec 19 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Oxford pips Cambridge as UK's top univ for research

PTI





Oxford University has nudged past its tradital rival Cambridge by being named Britain's best research university .The 2014 Research Excellence Framework (REF), to be released on Friday , is used as a basis for government funding allocation and has had an Oxbridge stronghold over the years. Oxford University's vice-chancellor Andrew Hamilton said he was delighted by the preview of the results.
“Research is an intensely competitive activity and we are looking at and responding to worldwide competition in the world of research, the recruitment of leading academics and outstanding students, so there will be no resting on laurels,“ he said.
This year, some of London's leading universities are posing a challenge to Oxbridge domination with University College London and London School of Economics edging up the scales. Imperial College in London also scored high with 90% of its research activities classed as world-leading.

Dec 19 2014 : The Times of India (Delhi)

Stop caste discrimination in midday meal: Panel

Akshaya Mukul

New Delhi





For the second time in two weeks, the parliamentary committee on the welfare of SCsSTs has come down heavily on the HRD ministry for its failure to curb discrimination against dalit children in the midday meal scheme in Madhya Pradesh and Karnataka.On Wednesday , the parliamentary panel headed by BJP's Faggan Singh Kulaste asked HRD to send its own team to MP and Karnataka and furnish a report by January 10 next year. During the meeting, a senior ministry official told the panel that HRD regularly sends out advisories to states that there should be no caste discrimination in the distribution of midday meal.
Panel members said since advisories have evidently not worked, ministry needs to take a more proactive stand. “We know how state governments treat advisories. HRD ministry should send its own team for investigation and bring this to everyone's notice,“ a panel member said.
In Madhya Pradesh, reports of discrimination has been reported from 12 districts. In Sehore district there was a report that plates of dalit children were marked so that food is not served to upper caste children in those plates. In case of Karnataka, state government admitted that in schools of Mysore district some students were bringing lunch box from their houses. State government said religious leaders were also involved to solve the problem of discrimination.