Peer-to-Peer Lending: What Next for India

In response to the financial crisis, banks improved their credit standards and one of the silver linings of the crisis has been an increase in financial creativity in how people raise money. Its not very clear if this is temporary or a structural change in the financial system, however, it has left certain profitable niches…

Even Out the Odds: A Switch to Greener Transport

Green Transport is a holistic approach to transportation focused on achieving a clean low-carbon and low-pollution future. Rapidly developing countries, with their exploding car ownerships and travel rates, must focus on making transport more ecologically friendly. India in particular has great potential to reap the benefits of green transport initiatives due to its huge population…

The jobs equation: For NDA to stay on the job, it must grow jobs for India’s youth

Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s promise of acche din is premised on moving away from the erstwhile dole and entitlement model, to one that empowers youth by generating large scale employment. In that context, officially released figures from the Labour Bureau are alarming. Employment generation in eight labour intensive sectors (textiles, garments, leather, jewellery, BPOs, handlooms,…

Gold Monetisation – Where Have We Reached?

In 2014, the newly elected Government, realising the potential of domestic stock of gold, decided to introduce gold related schemes that would unlock the idle yellow metal lying in private lockers.With the objective to mobilise gold held by retail and institutional investors in the country, the Hon’ble Finance Minister of India in his budget speech…

NIIF: The Sleeping Giant?

The National Investment and Infrastructure Fund (NIIF), seems to have finally come out of its Odin nap (not sleep) with its first investment. NIIF has been structured as a fund of funds and set up as Category II Alternate Investment Fund (AIF) under the Securities and Exchange Board of India (SEBI) Regulations. Its proposed corpus…

Workshop on ‘Urbanization and Expansion of Opportunities for the Poor’, New Delhi

The rapid urbanization in conjunction with industrialization has resulted in the growth of slums. Misplaced policies and bad administration have been a major contributing factor. Most of the Urban Local Bodies (ULBs) are ill-equipped to raise adequate revenue, which in turn results in a shortage of funds to undertake infrastructure development and service delivery. Furthermore,…

Hits and Misses of Budget 2016

One often wonders if the Union Budget is as big a deal amongst all sections of the population as it is in India. Usually, the budget is a somber boring exercise of number allocations and expense statements. In India however, it has become somewhat synonymous to big bang policy announcements and that time of the…