Success in my Habit

Monday, June 19, 2017

RIL-BP to invest USD 6 bn in developing new gas fields

New Delhi: Reliance Industries and its partner BP plc today announced investment of USD 6 billion in developing new gas fields in the KG-D6 block after an eight- year hiatus.
RIL chairman Mukesh Ambani said two firms have also agreed on a strategic cooperation on new opportunities for conventional and unconventional fuel trading and marketing including jointly setting up petrol pumps.
"Changed policies have allowed us to develop new resources," BP CEO Bob Dudley said.
He said BP-RIL has agreed to progress on R-Series gas field development in the KG-D6 block and will invest USD 6 billion. The gas project will reduce India's import dependence by 10 per cent.
Addressing a joint press conference, Ambani said RIL-BP after many years will invest Rs 40,000 crore to bring 30-35 mmscmd of gas.
This "new and historic cooperation" will also explore trading of fuel and carbon emission trading, he said.
With regard to pending arbitration, Ambani said RIL will follow legal course for bringing them to conclusion.
"We don't see pending arbitration hampering our new investments," he added
RIL is locked in four arbitration cases with the government. It is in arbitration against the government disallowing recovery of certain KG-D6 gas field costs as a punishment for gas output lagging targets.
Another arbitration is over deferring of a natural gas price hike due to the company from April 1, 2014. The latest arbitration is against government demanding USD 1.55 billion compensation from RIL and its partners for "unfairly" producing ONGC's gas.

Seafood exports to grow above 20% in FY18

Bhubaneswar: Seafood exports are likely to grow over 20 per cent in 2017-18 after the figures touched an all-time high of $5.78 billion (Rs 37,870.90 crore) in 2016-17.
The exporters are upbeat despite the fact that the major importing countries are taking protectionist measures to safeguard their local industries.
Recently, The American Shrimp Processors’ Association has named India, along with Indonesia, Thailand, Vietnam, Mexico, China, and Malaysia, as seven of the 13 countries with which the US ran a significant overall shrimp trade deficit in 2016. The US trade deficit in shrimp was $4.5 billion in 2016.
Similarly, the International Trade Commission of the United States had unanimously voted to extend the current anti-dumping orders on shrimp from China, India, Thailand and Vietnam for an additional five years.
"With exports to US setting new records and the markets' rising appetite, the industry is confident of a strong growth for the Indian shrimps. By our current estimates, it would be a surprise if Indian exports don't bring in growth in excess of 20 per cent y-o-y (year on year)," said Rahul Kulkarni, director, WestCoast Group, a leading seafood exporter from India.
USA had imported 1,88,617 tonnes of Indian seafood in the last financial year, accounting for 29.98 per cent in dollar terms. The exports have registered a growth of 22.72 per cent, 33 per cent and 29.82 per cent in terms of quantity, value in rupee and the US dollars, respectively.
The exporters are pinning hopes on growth in exports with the adoption of the Vannamei or Pacific White variety of shrimp in recent years over the Black Tiger by new states.
"The areas brought under Vannamei cultivation is on the rise in states like Odisha and West Bengal. There is also emergence of demands from new countries like Canada and Australia", said G Mohanty, an Odisha based exporter.

RERA to boost GDP growth: PHD Chamber

New Delhi: The Real Estate (Regulation and Development) Act, if implemented with a positive approach, can boost the GDP of the country, industry body PHD Chamber said today.
The Real Estate Regulation Act (RERA) came into force from April 1 with a promise of protecting the right of consumers and ushering in transparency.
Today like GST, the RERA is another burning topic and these changes will have a positive impact for decades to come, PHD Chamber Vice-President Rajeev Talwar said at a conference.
"RERA is yet another big step forward ... its implementation in positive manner can boost the GDP of the country which dipped marginally in the previous fiscal," he said.
He appealed the government to come out with a concept of 'kick start loans' for real estate developers, especially for those whose projects are stuck as also make a provisioning of a loan at the rate of 6 per cent for buyers that have invested their hard earned money in such projects so that their re- launch becomes conclusive.

19.5% growth in foreign tourist arrivals in May, 2017 over May, 2016

55.3% Growth in Foreign Tourist arrivals on E-Tourist visa in may, 2017 over may, 2016
New Delhi: Ministry of Tourism compiles monthly estimates of Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) & FTAs on e- Tourist Visa on the basis of Nationality-wise, Port-wise data received from Bureau of Immigration (BOI).

The following are the important highlights regarding FTAs & also FTAs on e-Tourist Visa from tourism during the month of May, 2017.
Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs):
The number of FTAs in May, 2017 were 6.30 lakh as compared to FTAs of 5.27 lakh in May, 2016 and 5.09 lakh in May, 2015.
The growth rate in FTAs in May, 2017 over May, 2016 is 19.5% compared to 3.5% in May, 2016 over May, 2015.
FTAs during the period January- May 2017 were 42.15 lakh with a growth of 16.4%, as compared to the FTAs of 36.22 lakh with a growth of 8.7% in January- May 2016 over January- May 2015.
The percentage share of Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India during May 2017 among the top 15 source countries was highest from Bangladesh (29.73%) followed by USA (14.37%), UK (6.76%), Malaysia (3.64%), China (2.91%), Sri Lanka (2.68%), Japan(2.38%), Germany (2.34%), Canada (2.33%), Australia (2.26%), Singapore (1.99%), France (1.77%), Afghanistan (1.76%), Nepal (1.73%) and Republic of Korea (1.52%).
The percentage share of Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) in India during May 2017 among the top 15 ports was highest at Delhi Airport (24.17%) followed by Haridaspur Land check post (17.06%), Mumbai Airport (15.04%),Chennai Airport (7.75%), Bengaluru Airport (6.50%), Kolkata Airport (5.29%), Gede Rail Land check post (3.62%), Hyderabad Airport (3.33%),Cochin Airport (3.25%), Ghojadanga land check post (2.14%), Tiruchirapalli Airport (1.76%), Ahmadabad Airport (1.61%), Trivandrum Airport (1.36%), Goa Airport (0.78%),and Attari-Wagh Airport (0.77%).
Foreign Tourist Arrivals (FTAs) on e-Tourist Visa
During the month of May, 2017 total of 0.68 lakh tourist arrived on e-Tourist Visa as compared to 0.44 lakh during the month of May 2016 registering a growth of 55.3%.
During January- May 2017, a total of 6.50 lakh tourist arrived on e-Tourist Visa as compared to 4.35 lakh during January-May 2016, registering a growth of 49.4%.
The percentage shares of top 15 source countries availing e- Tourist Visa facilities during May, 2017 were as follows:
USA (15.1%), UK (13.1%), China (8.4%), Germany (4.3%), Australia (4.1%), France (4.0%), Canada (3.9%), Korea (Rep.of) (3.4%), Singapore (2.8%), Malaysia (2.5%), Russian Fed (2.2%), Spain (2.1%), UAE (2.0%), Thailand (1.9%), and South Africa (1.6%).
The percentage shares of top 15 ports in tourist arrivals on e-Tourist Visa during May, 2017 were as follows:-
New Delhi Airport (45.1%), Mumbai Airport (21.4%), Bengaluru Airport (8.6%), Chennai Airport (7.8%), Kochi Airport (3.6%), Hyderabad Airport (2.8%), Kolkata Airport (2.5%), Dabolim (Goa) Airport (1.9%), Ahmadabad Airport (1.4%), Amritsar Airport (1.2%), Tirchy Airport (1.1%), Trivandrum Airport (1.1%), Jaipur Airport (0.4%), Calicut Airport (0.4%)and Pune Airport(0.3%) .

20 Indian firms in top 100 companies in Asia300 ranking

New Delhi: Jun 15: As many as 20 Indian firms have been named in the top 100 of Nikkei Asian Review's Asia300 companies list, which was topped by Taiwan's Largan Precision.
According to the Nikkei Asian Review's second annual Asia 300 Power Performers Ranking -- a compilation of the most powerful and valuable listed companies in Asia, as many as three Indian companies have made it to the top 10 list, while none had made the cut in the previous financial year.
"India's rise in the rankings is remarkable," Nikkei said, adding Indian players held 10 of the top 30 spots, outperforming their Chinese and Southeast Asian counterparts.
The list was topped by Taiwan's Largan Precision, the world's leading maker of lenses for smartphone cameras.
Indian IT service provider HCL Technologies came in at the second place, followed by Zee Entertainment Enterprises and Tata Consultancy Services at the third and fourth place respectively.
Others in the top ten include, Taiwan Semiconductor Manufacturing Co at the 5th position, Alibaba Group Holding (6th), Eclat Textile (7th), Vietnam Dairy Products (Vinamilk) (8th), Tencent Holdings, (9th) and Airports of Thailand at the 10th place.
Other Indian companies named among top 100 include Sun Pharmaceutical Industries at the 11th place, Infosys (15), ITC (16), Maruti Suzuki India (17), Lupin (18), Dabur India (24), Asian Paints (28), Power Grid Corporation of India (40), Godrej Consumer Products (41), Bajaj Auto (43), Wipro (48), Hero MotoCorp (57), Hindustan Unilever (62), Housing Development Finance Corp (71), Motherson Sumi Systems (72) and Vedanta at 93rd place.
The Asia300 list consists of a total of 327 companies in India, China, Hong Kong, South Korea, Taiwan and six other Southeast Asian nations.
The Nikkei ranked them based on average growth in sales and profit over the past five years, profitability, capital efficiency and financial soundness.
"These results testify to India's solid personal consumption despite the government's demonetisation of two high-denomination bank notes last November," it said.
The combined net profit of Indian companies on the Asia300 list increased 9.8 per cent on the year, a sharp contrast to the 9.8 per cent fall for Chinese and Hong Kong companies combined, it added.

Thursday, June 15, 2017

India's space business is ready for lift-off

New Delhi: For the Indian Space Research Organisation (Isro), this has been a remarkable year. It took two launches to make it so. The first, in February, set the startling record of the maximum satellites injected into orbit by a single launch, 104—a tremendous leap from the previous record of 37.
The second, in June, was the first successful launch of India’s heaviest, most powerful rocket, GSLV Mark III, developed entirely at home, through more than 15 years of patient work. GSLV is short for Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle.
Beyond the usual registers of ingenuity, scientific progress and national pride that space programmes evoke, these launches marked a strictly business-oriented milestone: It announced the ambitions of Antrix Corp. Ltd, Isro’s fledgling commercial arm, of becoming a serious contender in the $335.5 billion global space industry, and part of a new space race that is poised for take-off.
“In the next five years, the growth in space will be mind-boggling,” says Rakesh Sasibhushan, Antrix’s chairman and managing director. “It will change the way we do things and the kind of technology we will be able to put in space.”
Billions of dollars worth of new investment have poured in for a clutch of new projects with old roots, providing high-speed satellite Internet connections that will blanket the globe. Isro and Antrix are uniquely positioned to take advantage of this because the nature of the project involves placing thousands of small satellites in a so-called Low Earth Orbit, or LEO, the very thing that Isro’s most successful rocket, PSLV, does so well (the 104-satellite launch was all about small satellites being put into LEO). PSLV stands for Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle.
Antrix, says Sasibhushan, is looking at “an unprecedented transition period because of the growing global market”.
“The 104 launch by the PSLV has been a big boost for us as far as marketing is concerned,” he says. “In business terms, we are looking at a major milestone in the next one year.”
The new space race needs a lot of rockets.
Internet on satellite
Most of the world’s Internet works through terrestrial connections. One of the major reasons why communication satellites that are in geosynchronous orbits (at around 35,000km from earth), are not used for Internet is “latency”—the time lag that is introduced when signals have to travel back and forth from the satellites. It takes a radio wave at least 230 milliseconds to get to geosynchronous orbit and back; a signal through a fibre optic cable can travel between New Delhi and London around eight times in that time.
But the terrestrial network has its own limitations; despite the galloping demand for connectivity, Internet users across the world are still clustered mainly in urban areas, because those are the areas the cables reach. Forget India or African countries, even large swathes of the US do not have access to fast broadband connections.
Yet, the global demand for broadband services continues to grow at light speed; according to a report by Cisco Systems Inc. last year, over 1,000 billion gigabytes of data was exchanged in 2016. By 2020, that figure is expected to double, and the number of “connected” devices is projected to become around thrice the global population.
Enter SpaceX founder Elon Musk.
To meet these needs, and to overcome the problem of time lag, SpaceX plans to instal a “constellation” of small satellites in LEO (between 1,150-1,350km above earth). The idea is that this constellation—4,425 satellites according to SpaceX—will be able to provide coverage to every part of the planet. The satellites will deliver broadband using Ka- and Ku-band radio frequencies and move data between each other using laser links in a mesh network. The latency will drop to nothing because of the small distance between the satellites and the ground systems.
SpaceX plans to begin testing prototypes this year, and launch its first satellites in 2019, with full capacity service expected to begin by 2024. In May, the US regulatory body Federal Communications Commission held a hearing for SpaceX’s application.
Musk is not alone in betting on broadband satellites, an idea that first took shape in the 1990s with American companies Teledesic and Iridium, and ended in spectacular failures. This time, the results may be very different. For one, the technology for both satellite manufacturing and launch vehicles has undergone cosmic changes. And, as Carolyn Belle, satellite and launch industry analyst at Northern Sky Research (NSR), a space market research and consulting services firm, says, “The times have changed.”
“In the 1990s, the idea was a bit too early,” she says. “But now connectivity and mobile Internet network is in every part of our lives.”
Musk’s opponents in this race include OneWeb, a London-based consortium backed by Sunil Bharti Mittal and Richard Branson, among others, that raised $500 million from investors in 2015 when it announced the plans, and received a further $1.7 billion this year from Japan’s SoftBank Group Corp. after it merged with satellite telecom firm Intelsat (SpaceX raised $1 billion, with backing from Google).
Boeing Co. is also in the fray and Bloomberg reported in April that Apple Inc. may be funding its efforts. There are smaller firms such as US-based LeoSat as well. Samsung Electronics Co. Ltd too has outlined similar plans. The International Telecommunication Union, which designates orbital slots for communication satellites, says it has received 35 filings since 2015 for broadband constellations, most of them involving “mega constellations”. The target is a share of the $30 billion in revenue from satellite Internet by 2025, according to a forecast by SpaceX.
All of this is just to say that if things go according to plan, thousands of new satellites will have to be launched in the next five years, at a frequency that is unheard of.
“This is now a separate market (small satellites),” says Belle of NSR. “Right now, commercial operators are restrained most by launch availability—they have satellites, but no way to put them into orbit.”
While SpaceX will use its own launch services for its constellation, OneWeb has already secured services for its proposed 648-satellite constellation through a deal between European Space Agency’s Arianespace, Russia’s Roscosmos and Virgin Galactic; valued at over $1 billion, it’s the largest commercial launch purchase in history.
That leaves all the other Internet broadband firms scrambling to secure launches.
“So when you have something like a 104 satellites launched in one go, it opens up intriguing possibilities; it adds a lot of value for whatever company can secure such a deal,” says Belle.
Sasibhushan says that Antrix is already in discussions with some of the companies in the broadband space race, though he did not disclose names.
“Currently, we have on hand orders of around Rs600 crore, for PSLV launches up to 2020,” he says, “We are expecting many more orders to come in.”
The business of space
So far, India has been an insignificant entity in the space business, where roughly 80% of the revenue has historically come from the launch of heavy satellites in geosynchronous orbits. Despite the success of the GSLV Mark III, India still does not have a rocket powerful enough to do that. It relies almost entirely on Arianespace to launch its own heavy satellites.
PSLV, a smaller vehicle, has been in use since 1994, and slowly built a reputation for reliability over the next decade, launching a handful of small satellites for other countries. Since 2008, PSLV’s “order book” began to show a spike in interest, and in 2013, when it successfully launched India’s Mars Orbiter, the cheapest ever mission to Mars, there was a further boost to orders.
Till around five years back, there was little commercial interest in putting small satellites in LEO. Now there are all kinds of companies that want that space, for remote sensing, earth imaging and communication.
This change of orbital interest coincided with another development that turned out to be lucky for Antrix. The global vehicle of choice for launching small satellites, a Russian-Ukrainian converted intercontinental ballistic missile called Dnepr, was decommissioned after the Russian annexation of Crimea led to tension between the two countries in 2015. Russia’s space agency suspended its joint programme with Ukraine to launch the rockets. It was Dnepr that had held the previous record for most satellites deployed in a single launch, when it put 37 of them in orbit in 2014.
PSLV stepped in. In 2015, three PSLV flights put 18 foreign satellites in orbit; previously, it used to average four foreign satellites a year. More launches followed in quick succession, including the full constellation of 100 satellites for US-based start-up Planet Labs, an earth observation company that hopes to begin data services by the end of this year. Twelve Planet Labs satellites travelled on a PSLV in June 2016, and the rest were a part of the record 104-satellite launch.
Yet, says Sasibhusan, “the launch market using the PSLV is still not large. It brings in only 20% of our revenue”.
Most of Antrix’s revenue (it made a profit after tax of Rs209.13 crore in 2015-16, up from Rs205.10 crore in 2014-15) comes from satellite communication services, and the biggest contributor is direct-to-home television.
Now that this is set to change with the battle for satellite broadband, Isro and Antrix are increasingly focusing on making PSLV launches more commercially attractive.
First off, PSLV is marketed as the cheapest launch vehicle in the world.
A launch by Ariane-5, the most successful commercial rocket in use right now, costs more than $100 million, while that by SpaceX’s Falcon 9 costs around $62 million. When SpaceX introduced Falcon 9, there was serious disruption in the market, with Arianespace and other firms scrambling to bring costs down. In comparison, a PSLV launch costs $15 million, yet the cost is not considered disruptive enough.
“The dynamics of launch costs are a complex area,” says Belle of NSR. “The PSLV is far less capable than the Ariane 5, for example, being used to deliver satellites with a lower total mass to LEO rather than GEO, thus should be a lower cost. Costs must always be made by approximate price per kg to the same orbit to eliminate these variables.”
Taking such variables into account, Belle says that “commercial operators have clearly stated that the launch prices they have received from Isro are not that much cheaper than the proposed American or European launch prices”.
For Belle, the availability and frequency of launches is a far more pressing concern for companies.
“The business requires the constellation to be in place,” she says. “If you are waiting for launches, and you can’t get more than 10 or so satellites up in a year, then you may have to drop the idea altogether.” This is one of the chief reasons why OneWeb has secured a multi-agency deal, involving multiple rockets and launch sites.
Improving the frequency of launches is on top of Isro’s priorities as well.
“There is a great demand for PSLV launches and our primary aim now is to streamline the activity so we can have more frequent launches,” says Isro’s chairman A.S. Kiran Kumar. “At the moment we are doing four-five a year. By 2020, we are hoping to get to 18 launches a year.”
Work is on at multiple fronts to make this happen. A second vehicle assembly building is being added to Isro’s launch site at Sriharikota, so that even while one mission is ongoing, another vehicle can be in preparation. Already, Kiran Kumar says, by streamlining various processes and bringing in better technology, the gap between two launches has been reduced from 70 days to 30 days (till 2007, there used to be one launch every two years). In June, the new capacity is being put to the test for the first time, with the GSLV Mark III launched in the first week, and a PSLV launch scheduled for the last week of the month.
There is still a major barrier before Antrix can properly exploit Isro’s launch capabilities: as a national space agency, the priority for Isro is not business, but national missions, and commercial launches are accommodated only when some spare capacity opens up.
“There has always been a huge gap in national needs for strategic or civilian use,” says Kiran Kumar, “and we have worked to bridge that gap. But the gap is still there; we need double the number of satellites that we already have, so commercial activity cannot be a priority.”
This year, for example, Antrix has not had much to do after the February launch of PSLV because of the lack of spare capacity.
“We are not at all in the same domain as SpaceX or other private space companies,” says Sasibhushan. “Our vision is to build a strong ecosystem for the space industry in India. We have very good intellectual assets and a host of good technology sitting at Isro and we want to manage that and see how we can work with private companies so they can build their portfolios and also complement Isro’s program.”
Opening up the skies
Space is still an entirely government-controlled entity in India, unlike in the US or in Europe, where it has been increasingly privatized since the 1980s, turning their national space agencies into managing and contracting organizations.
Isro has promised for long to move in that direction, but has had to walk the tricky line of strategic limitations and government regulations. The space agency has an enduring relationship with close to 400 companies, but none of the companies can offer the products they make for Isro to the general market. For the same strategic reasons, Isro also keeps tight control over technology as well as material. Godrej Aerospace, which manufactures the engines and boosters for Isro’s rockets, for example, has had to turn down inquiries from global companies for its products. The final assembly for the engines is also not in its hands and is done by Isro. Private companies are not allowed to build or operate satellites for their own commercial use.
All of this is set to change. This year, Isro contracted out one of its satellite integration facilities to a private company, Alpha Design Technology Pvt. Ltd. Work has also started with Godrej Aerospace to enable them to make the final engine or “stage”.
“It needs a lot of government approvals still, but Isro has internally begun the process of farming out the manufacturing of the PSLV entirely to private industry,” says S.M. Vaidya, executive vice-president and business head at Godrej Aerospace. “All the existing players have been asked to step up by one level.”
Vaidya says that it is only a matter of two-three years before this goal is realized. “We’ve waited for 20 years, but now we are close.”
It is not just regulatory issues that have delayed this opening up, but also technical ones. The Vikas engine built by Godrej Aerospace for PSLV has been a work in progress for years, and it is only in the last 10 flights, says Vaidya, that its accuracy has reached 99% on all parameters.
The increasing frequency of launches by Isro has also helped Godrej Aerospace to finally justify its rocket engine business.
“Till 2014, our production lines were operating at 30-40% capacity, making one engine per year,” says Vaidya. “Now we are working at 60-70%, because Isro now needs seven-eight engine per year, and we hope to hit 90% in the next two years. To give you some perspective, you need to operate at 80% to break even.”
This year, the GSLV Mark III flew on India’s first fully home-grown cryogenic engine. But the engine makers are poised for another major leap already. “We are making a 200-tonne semi-cryogenic engine—the second biggest booster in the world,” says Vaidya. “It has gone for sub-systems testing, and we are set to deliver by the end of the year.”
Sasibhushan, who has been with Isro since 1984, and spent 25 years in manufacturing before taking charge of Antrix last year, is driving some of these changes.
“I know what it takes to make a space system,” he says. “I knew what changes were required in manufacturing to make it commercial. We are looking at technology sharing as a step-by-step process. First we are looking at sharing tech that can’t do damage, that’s not sensitive, but which will enable a company to enter the growing global market in space.”
Isro is also helping companies get space qualification, a strict requirement in the business. Not a single nut or bolt can make it to the market without being space-qualified, which basically means that it can handle the extreme conditions in space.
“We have end-to-end solutions if you look at it,” says Sasibhushan.
TeamIndus, a seven-year-old Bengaluru start-up that is in the news for being the only Indian company in the Google Lunar XPrize competition, is a perfect example of this new push. It is hoping to land an indigenously developed spacecraft on the moon—that’s the objective of the Lunar XPrize competition—and has secured a launch contract with Antrix for this December for an undisclosed sum.
“Without Isro, we wouldn’t be here,” says Ramnath Babu, head of operations at TeamIndus (his designation is “Jedi Master, Operations”.) “They let us use their machining centres, facilities you won’t find anywhere else in India. Isro went beyond their obligations. I remember being at their facility for one such test last year, and every Isro team was there before time, and they all worked after duty hours.”
The 49-year-old renewable energy expert says that he is confident that Indian firms will finally get a slice of the space industry. TeamIndus, once the Lunar XPrize contest is over, will focus on making cost-effective satellite platforms or buses.
“There is growing demand for satellites for weather forecasting, earth observation, remote sensing, broadband, and everyone from Google to Facebook want to launch more satellites,” says Babu. “In another seven years, you will have a lot of space entrepreneurs like me.”
Sasibhushan says that enabling Indian companies to make low-cost satellites is something Antrix is actively working towards. “We are looking at technology developed by Isro that can be leveraged to make India the hub of cheap small satellite manufacturing.”
There is still a long distance to go. For one, that precarious balance between national demands and commercial ambitions is still weighed heavily towards the former.
“Isro has such pressure and backlog for national missions that it’s very hard for them focus on the commercial side,” says Vaidya. “Huge integrated investments have to be made in both Isro and private industry before we can hope to enter the global space business, and that will take at least five or six more years.”

7 mn jobs added between FY11 and FY15, says McKinsey report

New Delhi: The labour market in India is undergoing a structural transformation. A staggering 33 million jobs were created in the non-farm sector between 2010-11 and 2014-15 finds a new study by McKinsey Global Institute. This implies that roughly eight million jobs were created on average each year.
But, with farm employment falling by 26 mn over the same period, the net addition to employment over the entire four year period was a mere 7 mn. Overall employment rose from 456 mn to 463 mn over the period.
At the aggregate level, the increase in non-farm jobs is simply not enough to absorb the millions entering the labour force each year. “At any rate, the movement of workers from farm to non-farm jobs has not been rapid enough to account for growth in the working-age population,” said the report.
The employment estimates in the report are based on employment and unemployment surveys carried out by the National Sample Survey Office as well as the annual surveys of the labour bureau.
Job growth between FY11 and FY12, the years when economic growth slowed down, was minuscule with only 11 mn jobs being created. But, growth rebounded subsequently with 22 mn jobs being created over the next two years. Bulk of these jobs were created in sectors such as trade and hospitality, construction and transportation, while sectors such as mining and manufacturing saw declines.
Overall labour force participation rate actually fell from 55.4 per cent in 2011 to 52.4 per cent in 2015, with much of the fall occurring the initial years of economic slowdown.

Hyderabad tops realty investment destination list in APAC

New Delhi: Led by Hyderabad, six Indian cities including the national capital and Mumbai are among top 10 investment destinations in the realty sector in the Asia Pacific region, owing to growth prospects in commercial office activity, says property consultant Cushman & Wakefield.
While Hyderabad emerged as the number one on destination in the region, Bengaluru and Mumbai were ranked sixth and seventh respectively, as per the report, 'Betting on Asia Pacific's Next Core Cities'.
Pune, Chennai and New Delhi were at eighth, ninth and tenth positions.
Most of the global investments for this year will be made in commercial office assets as markets in Bengaluru, Chennai, Delhi-NCR, Hyderabad, Mumbai and Pune are well placed to outperform other cities from emerging economies in Asia Pacific, the report said.
Cushman & Wakefield Senior Director, Research Services, Siddhart Goel said that having learnt many valuable lessons from 2005-08, global investors are now well equipped to take advantage of the potential that Indian real estate markets offer.
"The country is firmly on track to becoming an economic powerhouse with strengthening GDP, better business environment and investor-friendly policies by the central government," he added.
The Cushman & Wakefield report analysed markets that will offer investors the opportunity to tap into their long-term growth fundamentals, which will become increasingly viable due to sustained reforms.
Others cities on the list include Bangkok, which ranked third and Manila at the fourth position.
China's Guangzhou and Shenzhen have been placed at the fifth and sixth position, respectively.
"Sectors such as BFSI (banking, financial services and insurance), healthcare, consulting services and various manufacturing industries are increasingly driving demand for commercial spaces," Goel said.

WPI inflation in May cools to 5-month low of 2.17%

New Delhi: Inflation based on the wholesale price index fell to a five-month low of 2.17 per cent in May, mainly because of a sharp drop in prices of vegetables.
In December, the reading was 2.10 per cent.
WPI inflation was 3.85 per cent in April and (-)0.9 per cent in May 2016.
Pulses and cereals saw a slower growth in prices.
The wholesale price index (WPI) for the month is based on the new base year 2011-12, which was revised last month from 2004-05, with an aim to reflect the macroeconomic picture more accurately.
The slowdown in wholesale inflation comes against the backdrop of retail inflation easing to a multi-year low of 2.18 per cent in May.
Government data showed that prices of food articles shrank by 2.27 per cent in May on an yearly basis.
The inflation print for vegetables read (-)18.51 per cent. While potato saw a deflation of 44.36 per cent, for onion, it came in at 12.86 per cent.
The rate of price increase was 4.15 per cent in cereals, down from 6.67 per cent in May last year. Protein-rich pulses turned cheaper in May as prices fell by 19.73 per cent.
Eggs, meat and fish saw a price decline of 1.02 per cent annually.
The index basket of the new series has a total of 697 items, including 117 for primary articles, 16 for fuel and power and 564 for manufactured products.
There was acceleration in prices of fuel and power (11.69 per cent) and manufactured products (2.55 per cent).
However, the price rise in sugar, which falls under the category of manufactured items, slowed to 12.83 per cent in May, from 23.12 per cent a year earlier.

Cabinet approves proposal to introduce the Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill 2017

New Delhi: The Union Cabinet chaired by the Prime Minister Shri Narendra Modi has approved the proposal to introduce a Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill, 2017. The Bill would provide for a comprehensive resolution framework for specified financial sector entities to deal with bankruptcy situation in banks, insurance companies and financial sector entities.
The Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance, Bill 2017 when enacted, will pave the way for setting up of the Resolution Corporation. It would lead to repeal or amendment of resolution-related provisions in sectoral Acts as listed in Schedules of the Bill. It will also result in the repealing of the Deposit Insurance and Credit Guarantee Corporation Act, 1961 to transfer the deposit insurance powers and responsibilities to the Resolution Corporation.
The Resolution Corporation would protect the stability and resilience of the financial system; protecting the consumers of covered obligations up to a reasonable limit; and protecting public funds, to the extent possible.
The Government has recently enacted the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code, 2016 ("Code") for the insolvency resolution of non- financial entities. The proposed Bill complements the Code by providing a resolution framework for the financial sector. Once implemented, this Bill together with the Code will provide a comprehensive resolution framework for the economy.
The Financial Resolution and Deposit Insurance Bill, 2017 seeks to give comfort to the consumers of financial service providers in financial distress. It also aims to inculcate discipline among financial service providers in the event of financial crises by limiting the use of public money to bail out distressed entities. It would help in maintaining financial stability in the economy by ensuring adequate preventive measures, while at the same time providing the necessary instruments for dealing with an event of crisis. The Bill aims to strengthen and streamline the current framework of deposit insurance for the benefit of a large number of retail depositors. Further, this Bill seeks to decrease the time and costs involved in resolving distressed financial entities.