POST 23 
PART-2

Well, want to continue the topic from yesterday about MGNREGA, and when i want cover those remaining points about what is the rate of change of employment and how it has affected the life of the normal people, today issue in times of India talks about the same. 
Will put some light on it.

1) The wage rate till recently remained around average is just above 120,but just a day ago government has increased the wage rate and have been changed w.r.t the states and adjusted according to the rate of inflation .

2) The number of people from the categories who are employed under this scheme has almost dropped by 10%.

3) The number of works taken may have gone up  by 60% in last 5 years, but the number of works completed have dropped below 205 and work in progress have grown up steeply.

The government now want to bring this under direct transfer scheme (DBT), but this would happen if the government agencies are able to provide unique identification or Aadhaar numbers to entire population i, where the government intends to put MGNREGA under DBT mode. 


well we will have to wait and watch

POST 23 
PART-1

Well some hours ago there was a news on Wage revision under MGNREGS scheme so I thought that I must put down something on this.May be good topic for GD's.

Even though many of you must have have heard about this term, let me first put some light on its history.

The Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREGA) is an Indian job guarantee scheme, enacted by legislation on 25 August 2005. The scheme provides a legal guarantee for at least one hundred days of employment in every financial year to adult members of any household willing to do public work-related unskilled manual work at the statutory minimum wage of Rs 120  per day in 2009 prices. If they fail to do so the govt. has to pay the salary at their homes.

This act was introduced with an aim of improving the purchasing power of the rural people, primarily semi or un-skilled work to people living in rural India, whether or not they are below the poverty line. Around one-third of the stipulated work force is women. The law was initially called the National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (NREGA) but was renamed on 2 October 2009.Some Say that it the reason why UPA government came back into power. 

Well to get the provisions under this act you can visit Wikipedia.

But how well the scheme is doing now is the question to be answered.

Here are some findings to prove them.

1) The main purpose of the scheme is to provide livelihood security and create physical assets, while the average wage paid is rising , the benefits to rural households are limited because of employment provided per household in days.

As i say this government has increased the maximum wage of Rs. 214 has been fixed for Haryana, and a minimum of Rs. 135 for the northeastern States. But the facts remains 4 states (AP,MP , RAJ, UP) account for 50% expenditure under the scheme

Bihar,Maharashtra,Up account 46 % of the rural poor , but have utlized only 20 % the MGNREGS Funds.

2) The number of projects launched under the scheme are rising, but the number of project completed fell sharply in 2011/12

3) The expenditure in the scheme has not increased significantly in past 3 years, rather it declined in 2011/12 rs. 39,377 Cr in 2010/11 to 38,035 Cr in 2011/12.

I mean we should give this a thought.  

POST 22

India Ranks on 136th position on Human Development Indicators list, well that's not great rank considering that there 249 countries in the world (Wikipedia) far from BRIC nations.

Before I tell why this is the question of concern, let me first  tell what this Human Development Index means and how this system works.

Human Development Index :The Human Development Index (HDI) is a composite statistic of life expectancy, education, and income indices to rank countries into four tiers of human development. It was created by economist Mahbub ul Haq, followed by economist Amartya Sen in 1990 and published by the United Nations Development Programme.

There are complex calculation formula for the methods, for what i want to put forward is the concern why a developing nation like India is standing in this position and small countries like Norway,Japan top the list.

The GDP per Capita in 2011 46982$ in Norway, 30660 in Japan where it is just 3203$ in India which indicates our standard of living. Life Expectancy at birth in Japan is 83.6 years, Norway 81.3 yrs, where as in India it 65.8 yrs.

Adult literacy which is a major concern only 62.8% as majority of our strength lies in youth, as compared to canada where its 100% and china 94.3% as per latest figures available.Well figures don't seem to give a good picture.Well we need to do a lot of things and after reading few article I came across some objectives we can set for ourselves,

 1: ERADICATE EXTREME POVERTY & HUNGER

 2: ACHIEVE UNIVERSAL PRIMARY EDUCATION

 3: PROMOTE GENDER EQUALITY AND EMPOWER WOMEN EUALITY AND EMPOWER       WOMEN

 4: REDUCE CHILD MORTALITY

 5: IMPROVE MATERNAL HEALTH

 6: COMBAT HIV/AIDS, MALARIA AND OTHER DISEASES

 7:ENSURE ENVIRONMENTAL SUSTAINABILITY MENTAL SUSTAINABILITY.

Please put across your views.

 

POST 21
G mane Genius

Was reading a article on Biscuit Market in India from Parle point of view and was astonished by some finding, here are some of them.

1) The total Biscuit market in India is worth Rs. 21,213 Cr.of which Parle is the Market Leader.
The stats to prove this are

PARLE 38%
Britannia 26%
ITC (Sunfeast) 10%
Others 26%

Well I must , we have made Parle name synonyms with the glucose biscuits.

2)Parle is now diversified into snack market by introducing chips under the name Parle's, where they have some stiff competition by Lay's  (49%) , Balaji (12%), Bingo (8%), where as Parle has now gained only 6% market share.
But thing about snack product is they need to be consumed within 2 months of manufacturing  And parle has done a ight thing by targeting smaller towns and playing high volume and , low margin game which it has successfully mastered from its business Biscuit.
A pack of parle off 15.6 grams of chips , while pack of lays offers 12.5 grams of chips for same price of 5 rs.

3) Some astonishing figures for the naion beloved biscuit. Parle-G I found n the net
Year of Launch -1939
400 Mn : No of parle-G biscuit manufactured daily
4551 No of parle-G biscuit consumed per second
79.4% Parle-g share in glucose biscuit market
Sells more than al the biscuits sold in china.

POST 20

The Direct-To-Home (DTH) satellite broadcast has been expanding at scorching pace in last 5 years.But it remains under severe financial stress, with mounting Debt and losses.This is mainly due low average revenue per user (ARPU),soaring content cost and heavy taxation.

The substantial investments DTH companies have made in infrastructure have added to their to costs,while the slow pace of switching over from analog to digital has kept revenue down.

THE FACTS

1)The subscriber base of DTH companies in india has risen almost nine-fold in the last five years...
from 6 Millon in 2008 to 53 Million in 2013*

2)Bu the cable and  satellite industry is still dominated by local cable operators due to slow pace of digitisation( swichover from analog to digital cable signals). Most cable networks operate in the digital mode
Market share of local cable operator in 2009 was 83% and that of DTH was 17% and in 2013 it is 63% by Local Cable operators  to 37% by DTH service providers.

3) The ARPU is low due to rock botom pricing by DTH companies to compete in crowded market.
5$ in india where as 80$ in USA

4)DTH companies are taxed heavily.Expenses include licence fees,service tax,entertainment tax and an import duty on set top boxes.High Content cost is paid to broadcasters is major concern.

5)Investment in infrastucture too has risen over years.As a result DTH industry is reporting huge losses and is saddled with massive debt.
Debt reported for 2012 is Rs. 5.5 Billion, where as industry faces a loss of Rs.18.4 Billion.

SOURCE:Business Standard
FICCI_KPMG India Media & Entertainment Report.