And they say .... India Shining
The state-run National Commission for Enterprises in the Unorganized Sector (NCEUS) said most of those living on below 20 rupees (50 US cents) per day were from the informal labor sector with no job or social security, living in abject poverty.
"For most of them, conditions of work are utterly deplorable and livelihood options extremely few," said the report, entitled "Conditions of Work and Promotion of Livelihoods in the Unorganized Sector," seen by Reuters on Friday.
"Such a sordid picture co-exists uneasily with a shining India that has successfully confronted the challenge of globalization powered by economic competition both within the country and across the world."
Around 26 percent of India's population lives below the poverty line, which is defined as 12 rupees per day, said officials.
Economic liberalization since the early 1990s has created a 300 million-strong middle class and led to an average annual economic growth of 8.6 percent over the last four years, but millions of the country's poor remain untouched by the boom.
According to the report, based on data from 2004-2005, 92 percent of India's total workforce of 457 million were employed as agricultural laborers and farmers, or in jobs such as working in quarries, brick kilns or as street vendors.
The report said the majority of those working and living under "miserable conditions" were lower castes, tribal people and Muslims and the most disadvantaged of these were women, migrant workers and children
Saturday, March 22, 2008
Next Bill Gates could be an Indian: Microsoft CEO
Will the next Bill Gates come out of India? The question could not have been put to a more apt person, as it was on Wednesday evening in New Delhi’s Teen Murti Bhawan. Steve Ballmer has been a friend of Gates from his Harvard days before the latter dropped out and he himself left his studies at the Stanford Business School to become Microsoft’s first managerial employee.
Today, Ballmer is CEO of Microsoft, and he said it may not be professionally prudent to say so, but yes, India could well produce the next Gates. However, he reckoned such an individual may still choose to take his big idea to the US and base his company there, for “proximity to affluent companies to get his company off the ground”. This is why it is so important, he said while delivering the Madhav Rao Scindia Memorial lecture, that India keep growing at 8-10 per cent, to spread the circle of affluence in the country and become a magnet for innovative ideas.
Ballmer said his job at Microsoft — which incidentally has made him the 24th richest person in the world according to Forbes magazine — is to pick the right kind of people to make innovation possible. And in India, he said there needs to be a particular kind of innovation that makes computing devices affordable to a larger part of Indian society. Microsoft will harness all its values and principles so that 400-500 million Indians get access to computers.
He said India is the leader in IT industry: 30 per cent of all computer science graduates in the world passing out of Indian universities. “That puts a special responsibility on this country. The world is counting on the talent of this country to lead the next wave of innovation. We want access to the incredible talent graduating from universities here.”
Harnessing that talent, requires companies to work with a “big bold goal”. He recalled how in his early days at Microsoft in the 1970s, he had a case of nerves and wondered whether he had done right to quit business school and join this new company. Gates took him to dinner with his father and spoke of his ‘big bold goal’, to put a computer on every desk in every home. Perhaps that was the first time Gates thought up the goal, but it worked, and today Microsoft has grown from a mere 30 employees to 73,000 in the 26 years since Steve joined (18 per cent of its Seattle-based engineers are Indian.)
Moore’s Law — that is, computing power and affordability will increase by a factor of two every 18 months — will operate over the next decade, Ballmer reckoned. “The innovation over the next 10 years will be even more exciting,” he said. Take this obsolete piece of technology he said, waving a piece of paper. The computer industry will produce devices over the next decade which are as thin as paper, yet will deliver all the tasks expected from them. Digitisation will move apace, enabling the user’s productivity and creativity by reading voice and intent.
Yet, he said, two key fields are yet to harness the real potential of digitisation: healthcare and education. This requires innovation to meet very Indian requirements and for businesses to be more socially conscious.
Today, Ballmer is CEO of Microsoft, and he said it may not be professionally prudent to say so, but yes, India could well produce the next Gates. However, he reckoned such an individual may still choose to take his big idea to the US and base his company there, for “proximity to affluent companies to get his company off the ground”. This is why it is so important, he said while delivering the Madhav Rao Scindia Memorial lecture, that India keep growing at 8-10 per cent, to spread the circle of affluence in the country and become a magnet for innovative ideas.
Ballmer said his job at Microsoft — which incidentally has made him the 24th richest person in the world according to Forbes magazine — is to pick the right kind of people to make innovation possible. And in India, he said there needs to be a particular kind of innovation that makes computing devices affordable to a larger part of Indian society. Microsoft will harness all its values and principles so that 400-500 million Indians get access to computers.
He said India is the leader in IT industry: 30 per cent of all computer science graduates in the world passing out of Indian universities. “That puts a special responsibility on this country. The world is counting on the talent of this country to lead the next wave of innovation. We want access to the incredible talent graduating from universities here.”
Harnessing that talent, requires companies to work with a “big bold goal”. He recalled how in his early days at Microsoft in the 1970s, he had a case of nerves and wondered whether he had done right to quit business school and join this new company. Gates took him to dinner with his father and spoke of his ‘big bold goal’, to put a computer on every desk in every home. Perhaps that was the first time Gates thought up the goal, but it worked, and today Microsoft has grown from a mere 30 employees to 73,000 in the 26 years since Steve joined (18 per cent of its Seattle-based engineers are Indian.)
Moore’s Law — that is, computing power and affordability will increase by a factor of two every 18 months — will operate over the next decade, Ballmer reckoned. “The innovation over the next 10 years will be even more exciting,” he said. Take this obsolete piece of technology he said, waving a piece of paper. The computer industry will produce devices over the next decade which are as thin as paper, yet will deliver all the tasks expected from them. Digitisation will move apace, enabling the user’s productivity and creativity by reading voice and intent.
Yet, he said, two key fields are yet to harness the real potential of digitisation: healthcare and education. This requires innovation to meet very Indian requirements and for businesses to be more socially conscious.
Interesting facts
-->One out of three U.S. women owns a gun!
-->Pain travels through your body at 350 ft. per second
-->To find out if a watermelon is ripe, knock it, and if it sounds hollow then it is ripe.
-->The number of births that occur in India each year is higher than the entire population of Australia.
-->The average U.S. farm has 467 acres; the average Japanese farm has 3 acres.
-->The most common time for a bank robbery is Friday, between 9 and 11 a.m. The least likely time is Wednesday, between 3 and 6 p.m.
-->Every drop of seawater contains approximately 1 billion gold atoms.
-->Just about 3 people are born every second, and about 1.3333 people die every second. The result is about a 2 and 2/3 net increase of people every second.
Almost 10 people more live on this Earth now, than before you finished reading this.
-->Pain travels through your body at 350 ft. per second
-->To find out if a watermelon is ripe, knock it, and if it sounds hollow then it is ripe.
-->The number of births that occur in India each year is higher than the entire population of Australia.
-->The average U.S. farm has 467 acres; the average Japanese farm has 3 acres.
-->The most common time for a bank robbery is Friday, between 9 and 11 a.m. The least likely time is Wednesday, between 3 and 6 p.m.
-->Every drop of seawater contains approximately 1 billion gold atoms.
-->Just about 3 people are born every second, and about 1.3333 people die every second. The result is about a 2 and 2/3 net increase of people every second.
Almost 10 people more live on this Earth now, than before you finished reading this.
INTERVIEW OF WARREN BUFFET
There was a one hour interview on CNBC with Warren Buffet, the second richest man who has donated $31 billion to charity. Here are some very interesting aspects of his life:
1. He bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started too late!
2. He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering newspapers.
3. He still lives in the same small 3-bedroom house in mid-town Omaha , that he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or a fence.
4. He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security people around him.
5. He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world's largest private jet company.
6. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEOs of these companies, giving them goals for the year. He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis. He has given his CEO's only two rules. Rule number 1: do not lose any of your share holder's money. Rule number 2: Do not forget rule number 1.
7. He does not socialize with the high society crowd. His past time after he gets home is to make himself some pop corn and watch Television.
8. Bill Gates, the world's richest man met him for the first time only 5 years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common with Warren Buffet. So he had scheduled his meeting only for half hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of Warren Buffet.
9. Warren Buffet does not carry a cell phone, nor has a computer on his desk.
His advice to young people : "Stay away from credit cards and invest in yourself and Remember :
A. Money doesn't create man but it is the man who created money.
B. Live your life as simple as you are.
C. Don't do what others say, just listen to them, but do what makes you feel good.
D. Don't go on brand name; just wear those things in which you feel comfortable.
E. Don't waste your money on unnecessary things; just spend on things that you really need.
F. After all it's your life, then why give others the chance to rule your life."
1. He bought his first share at age 11 and he now regrets that he started too late!
2. He bought a small farm at age 14 with savings from delivering newspapers.
3. He still lives in the same small 3-bedroom house in mid-town Omaha , that he bought after he got married 50 years ago. He says that he has everything he needs in that house. His house does not have a wall or a fence.
4. He drives his own car everywhere and does not have a driver or security people around him.
5. He never travels by private jet, although he owns the world's largest private jet company.
6. His company, Berkshire Hathaway, owns 63 companies. He writes only one letter each year to the CEOs of these companies, giving them goals for the year. He never holds meetings or calls them on a regular basis. He has given his CEO's only two rules. Rule number 1: do not lose any of your share holder's money. Rule number 2: Do not forget rule number 1.
7. He does not socialize with the high society crowd. His past time after he gets home is to make himself some pop corn and watch Television.
8. Bill Gates, the world's richest man met him for the first time only 5 years ago. Bill Gates did not think he had anything in common with Warren Buffet. So he had scheduled his meeting only for half hour. But when Gates met him, the meeting lasted for ten hours and Bill Gates became a devotee of Warren Buffet.
9. Warren Buffet does not carry a cell phone, nor has a computer on his desk.
His advice to young people : "Stay away from credit cards and invest in yourself and Remember :
A. Money doesn't create man but it is the man who created money.
B. Live your life as simple as you are.
C. Don't do what others say, just listen to them, but do what makes you feel good.
D. Don't go on brand name; just wear those things in which you feel comfortable.
E. Don't waste your money on unnecessary things; just spend on things that you really need.
F. After all it's your life, then why give others the chance to rule your life."
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