Quote:100 million more Indians now living in poverty



NEW DELHI: India now has 100 million more people living below the poverty line than in 2004, according to official estimates released on Sunday.



The poverty rate has risen to 37.2 percent of the population from 27.5 percent in 2004, a change that will require the Congress-ruled government to spend more money on the poor.



The new estimate comes weeks after Sonia Gandhi, head of the Congress party, asked the government to revise a Food Security Bill to include more women, children and destitutes.



"The Planning Commission has accepted the report on poverty figures," Abhijit Sen, a member of the Planning Commission told Reuters, referring to the new poverty estimate report submitted by a government panel last December.



India now has 410 million people living below the U.N. estimated poverty line of $1.25 a day, 100 million more than was estimated earlier, officials said.



India calculates how much of its population is living below the poverty line by checking whether families can afford one square meal a day that meets minimum nutrition needs.



It was not immediately clear how much more the federal government would have to spend on the poor, as that would depend on the Food Security Bill when it is presented to the government after the necessary changes, officials say.



India's Planning Commission will meet the food and expenditure secretaries next week to estimate the cost aspects of the bill, government officials said.



A third of the world's poor are believed to be in India, living on less than $2 per day, worse than in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, experts say.



The government spends only 1 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on healthcare facilities, forcing millions to struggle to get medicines, Oxfam and 62 other agencies said in a report called: "Your Money or Your Life" last year.



While India's economy is slowly recovering from a global recession with a GDP growth of 7.2 percent, millions of poor in rural India are finding it difficult to cope with around 17 percent food price inflation.

Quote:100 million more Indians now living in poverty



NEW DELHI: India now has 100 million more people living below the poverty line than in 2004, according to official estimates released on Sunday.



The poverty rate has risen to 37.2 percent of the population from 27.5 percent in 2004, a change that will require the Congress-ruled government to spend more money on the poor.



The new estimate comes weeks after Sonia Gandhi, head of the Congress party, asked the government to revise a Food Security Bill to include more women, children and destitutes.



"The Planning Commission has accepted the report on poverty figures," Abhijit Sen, a member of the Planning Commission told Reuters, referring to the new poverty estimate report submitted by a government panel last December.



India now has 410 million people living below the U.N. estimated poverty line of $1.25 a day, 100 million more than was estimated earlier, officials said.



India calculates how much of its population is living below the poverty line by checking whether families can afford one square meal a day that meets minimum nutrition needs.



It was not immediately clear how much more the federal government would have to spend on the poor, as that would depend on the Food Security Bill when it is presented to the government after the necessary changes, officials say.



India's Planning Commission will meet the food and expenditure secretaries next week to estimate the cost aspects of the bill, government officials said.



A third of the world's poor are believed to be in India, living on less than $2 per day, worse than in many parts of sub-Saharan Africa, experts say.



The government spends only 1 percent of its Gross Domestic Product (GDP) on healthcare facilities, forcing millions to struggle to get medicines, Oxfam and 62 other agencies said in a report called: "Your Money or Your Life" last year.



While India's economy is slowly recovering from a global recession with a GDP growth of 7.2 percent, millions of poor in rural India are finding it difficult to cope with around 17 percent food price inflation.

Quote:Investment as a share of gross domestic product rose to 34.6 percent during the March quarter, government data showed. That's far higher than it was in the 1990s, when it hovered near 22 percent of GDP, and close to its peak of 37 percent not long before the global recession, Joshi said.



Europe, India's most important export market, could drag on India, especially if its debt crisis undermines global growth.



Joshi calculates that only about 7 percent of investment comes from abroad. Still, if foreign funding -- which Indian companies have used to feed their growing appetite for overseas acquisitions -- dries up, domestic sources will be stretched, he said.



"We are more connected to Europe than ever, but we have our own strengths," he said.



From 2003-2008, economic growth averaged 8.8 percent a year, before slumping to 6.7 percent last fiscal year as the Great Recession roiled India's economy.



India's prime minister Manmohan Singh says the billion-plus nation needs to grow at 10 percent a year to eradicate chronic poverty.

Quote:“Foreign firms across all sectors in China are actively looking at India and the frequency of investment inquiries from China has increased more than ever before,’’ a diplomatic source told Hindustan Times in Beijing.



Taiwan companies will consider moving factories to India, Indonesia and Vietnam in the next three to five years as costs in China rise, the Economic Daily News reported this week from Taiwan, citing Arthur Chiao, chairman of Taiwan Electrical and Electronic Manufacturers’ Association. This month, Taiwanese Foxconn, maker of Apple products, hiked wages by nearly 66 per cent after 10 workers suicides and labour unrest in its Shenzhen plant.



The company reportedly began plans to relocate some factories back to Taiwan. Honda factory workers in China are negotiating pay hikes and the right to form unions. Minimum wages are being hiked by governments nationwide from northern Beijing to southern Shenzhen.



Earlier this year, a Taiwanese shoemaker producing millions of Adidas shoes in south China’s Guangzhou — the world’s shoe factory — began expanding operations to Guntur and Kadapa in Andhra Pradesh where 3,000 workers will make three lakh shoes a month.

The tilt in mood towards India by China’s foreign investors is not a rush to relocate because investors worry that erratic power supply and poor roads escalate manufacturing costs.

In May, Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer said in Vietnam: “Intellectual property protection in India is far, far better than it would be in China.”



“A year ago, such a comment (from Microsoft) would have been inconceivable,’’ Forbes columnist Gordon Chang told HT from New York.



On Saturday, Beijing’s commerce ministry tried to turnaround the debate by releasing impressive figures. China’s economy, which grew 11.9 per cent in the first quarter, attracted $ 38.92 billion dollars (Rs 1.82 lakh crore) in foreign direct investment from January-May, up 14.31 per cent from a year ago.



Apache, which started its first India factory over a year ago in Nellore, Andhra Pradesh, and is expanding to Guntur, Kadapa and Uttarkhand this year, did not respond to requests for an interview.



As Chinese labour is getting costlier, the Adidas shoemaker in India plans to increase its workforce.

Quote:http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Kneale-Are-We-Psyching-cnbc-602607617.html?x=0 One big and often overlooked factor driving that infrastructure boom is India, long the forgotten sibling at the dinner table at a time when everyone wants to talk more about China. Yet India has a real chance of eclipsing China, building a bigger middle class and a far more entrepreneurial culture. Investors may be overlooking this long-term prospect.India expects to spent $1 trillion on buildings, roads and housing in the next five years. Cell phone service is down to a penny a minute, and Bharti Airtel, with 135 million wireless customers in India, is signing up 20 million newcomers every month, says the carrier's CEO, Rajan Bharti Mittal, who attended the Yale confab.India has an estimated 50 million entrepreneurs, and all of them own their own companies. That compares with a few million in China, where multinationals dominate and the government seems to own a stake in almost everything, says Amit Mitra, secretary general of FICCI (the Federation of Indian Chambers of Commerce and Industry).Almost 90% of all tech exported by China, and 56% of all exported products (not just tech), is made by multinational corporations, Mitra says. By contrast, only 2% or 3% of India's exported products is made by corporate titans; tiny companies provide the vast majority of the nation's output.

Quote:The country has become the largest recipient of the World Bank loans with over USD 9 billion worth assistance this fiscal ending June 2010, up fourfold over the previous fiscal.



The Washington-based multilateral lender had extended only USD 2.2 billion loan to the country for the year ended June 2009.



India's share among the various recipients of the Bank is 15 per cent in terms of loans, followed by Mexico with 11 per cent and South Africa with 7 per cent as of June 20, 2010.

As of June 20, the Bank has lent USD 9.26 billion to India and is expected to provide another USD 0.04 billion in the remaining period of June. The Bank follows a fiscal year from July to June.