Unbanked population: How alternative financial services ecosystem has become big boon for India

J Venkatesh had always wanted to gift his college-going daughter a phone. But the machine operator, who works in a tobacco-manufacturing unit in Secunderabad, could never save enough money to buy a smartphone. Though he had a savings account in a large nationalised bank, he wasn’t able to procure a personal loan due to poor credit score. That’s when Home Credit India, a consumer finance provider, came into the picture. Last year, the company gave Venkatesh a small-ticket loan of Rs 10,000 to buy a smartphone. “I bought an Android phone for Rs 11,000,” says Venkatesh, who had a poor CIBIL score—Credit Information Bureau (India), commonly known as CIBIL, maintains records of all credit-related activity of individuals.

From Amazon to ShopClues, how these online retailers are exploring higher margins in refurbished smartphone segment

While consumer electronics, especially smartphones, have been the ruling category mix for e-commerce companies with the largest share of gross merchandise value at about 48%, e-tailers like Amazon and ShopClues are exploring even better opportunity in the refurbished or pre-owned phone market in a bid to double margins. As per industry estimates, new mobile phones fetch margins in the range of 3-5%, while margins on refurbished models can go as high as 10%. The lifecycle of a smartphone in India has reduced substantially from two years to six-nine months, which has increased the traction for refurbished phones, which can be purchased at 65-75% of the retail price.

Hunger is a shame, says P Chidambaram

It is sad that it required the publication of a report by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI) to draw attention to a problem that has been present in India for centuries and is endemic in all developing countries: hunger. It is an undeniable fact that a significant proportion of the Indian population goes hungry on many days of the year. Why should the government deny this depressing fact, unless it has developed the habit of denying anything that is an inconvenient truth? Every year, some countries are added and some countries are dropped, presumably because of availability or non-availability of data. As the table shows, this is not a material factor — over 11 years, the total number of countries considered has varied between 117 and 122, which is, statistically, insignificant.

India must play important role in resolving Rohingya crisis: Syed Muazzem Ali

Bangladesh high commissioner to India Syed Muazzem Ali talks about the ‘all-pervasive’ India-Bangladesh relationship, insists that its ties with China are only ‘commercial’, calls for regional co-operation through SAARC, denies any IS base in Bangladesh, and admits to ‘threat’ of radicalisation in Rohingya refugees.
SHUBHAJIT ROY: It has been nearly two months since the Rohingya refugee crisis erupted; five years after the first exodus in 2012. What do you make of Bangladesh’s position on the crisis? Are you concerned about India’s position?
The core issue in the Rohingya crisis is the inability of the Myanmar government to recognise these people (Rohingya) as citizens of the country, although they have been living there for centuries. Prior to the (August 2017) mass exodus, there were already about 3,00,000 Rohingya refugees living in camps in Bangladesh since 1978.

With increasing interest in Pro Kabaddi and football leagues, cricket no longer only religion on sports TV

Gone are the days when Indian sports was all about cricket. In recent years, India has witnessed an increase in interest in sports other than cricket, thanks to the emergence of a number of sport leagues such as Indian Super League (ISL), the football tourney; Pro Kabaddi League (PKL), and Premier Badminton League (PBL), to name a few, as per a recent report by brokerage firm ICICI Securities. Another report, titled ‘Sporting Nation in the Making’ by ESP Properties, the sports and entertainment programming specialist arm of GroupM, and SportzPower, a sports portal, states that sports sponsorship grew by 19.33% to Rs 6,400 crore ($941 million) in 2016 from Rs 5,363.3 crore ($825 million) in 2015.

Two-wheeler sales: Premium motorcycles, automatic scooters are new buzzword in auto segment; here is how

As incomes and aspirations rise, the two-wheeler is no longer the ride of the poor, or considered lowly. Hot in this segment are premium motorcycles and automatic scooters, whose sales are in the fast lane. Interestingly, this upgrade has not brought good news for the numero uno player in the segment, Bajaj Auto, whose market share has significantly dropped by more than 500 basis points, to 27.5%, in the April-August period of this fiscal. The beneficiary has been Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI), especially in the automatic scooter segment. Till the end of the last financial year, HMSI had 11.5% share in the premium motorcycle segment, which has shot up by more than 400 basis points, to 15.6%.