Depreciation of the Indian Currency: Implications for the Indian Economy.

The Indian currency has depreciated by more than 20 per cent since April 2008 and breached its crucial 50-level against the greenback on sustained dollar purchases by foreign banks and stronger dollar overseas. The fall in the value of Indian rupee has several consequences which could have mixed effects on Indian economy. But, mainly, there are four expected implications of falling rupee. First, it should boost exports; second, it will lead to higher cost of imported goods and make some of the capital intensive projects more expensive to execute; third, it will increase the cost of dollar loans taken by companies and increase the foreign debt and fourth, it will slow-down the overall economic growth by increasing the interest rate and dissuade flow of FIIs. This paper studies the real implications of the depreciation of the rupee on the Indian economy and shows that in the long run, the Indian economy has more to lose and less to gain with weaker rupee.

Unleashing The Growth Potential Of Indian MSME Sector

The MSME sector occupies a position of strategic significance in the Indian economic structure. This sector contributes nearly eight per cent to country’s GDP, employing over 80 million people in nearly 36 million widely-dispersed enterprises across the country; accounting for 45 per cent of manufactured output, 40 per cent of the country’s total export, and producing more than 8000 valueadded products ranging from traditional to high-tech. Furthermore, these enterprises are the nurseries for innovation and entrepreneurship, which will be key to the future growth of India. It is also an acknowledged fact that this sector can help realise the target of the proposed National Manufacturing Policy to enhance the share of manufacturing in GDP to 25 per cent and to create 100 million jobs by the end of 2022, as well as to foster growth and take India from its present two trillion dollar economy to a 20 trillion dollar economy. Despite the sector’s high enthusiasm and inherent capabilities to grow, its growth story still faces a number of challenges. In this light, the present paper examines the role of Indian MSMEs in India’s economic growth and explores various problems faced by the sector. The paper also attempts to discuss various policy measures undertaken by the Government to strengthen Indian MSMEs. Finally, the paper proposes strategies aimed at strengthening the sector to enable it to unleash its growth potential and help make India a 20 trillion dollar economy

Single and Competitive Removal of Pb(II) in the Presence of Ni(II) using Polyacrylamide Grafted Rice Husk

In a quest to find efficient adsorbents for metal ions, studies on various adsorbents for metals have been of interest since the past several decades. The present study is focused on the removal of Pb (II) ions from aqueous solution using poly acrylamide grafted rice husk by batch studies. Industrial waste waters generally contain metals present as mixtures, therefore the effect of Ni (II) on the removal of Pb(II) from mixtures of Pb(II)+Ni(II) ions has also been investigated. The adsorbent has been prepared by the treatment of rice husk with acrylamide in the presence of N,N-methylene bis acrylamide and potassium persulphate. The adsorbent has been characterised by infrared spectral studies. Maximum adsorption obtained is 93% at pH 5, metal ion concentration 300mg/L in 180mins at 298K. Isotherm analyses show that both Langmuir and Freundlich isotherm models are best obeyed. The process is endothermic and spontaneous in nature and follows pseudo first order kinetics. Intraparticle diffusion also occurs but is not the rate determining step. Application of Langmuir competitive model for the binary system shows that  adsorption of Pb(II) has been supressed by presence of Ni(II) ions. Studies suggest that the adsorbent is effective and can find industrial applicability

Gender Discrimination in Accessing Finance by Women-Owned Businesses: A Review

This article comprehensively presents evidence of shared gender economics in accessing credit for women-owned ventures. The ‘she’ based approach has faced financial-market differentiations when it comes to women’s access to finance. By reviewing and analysing approximately 125 articles, the researchers try to seek an overview of the degree of influenced financial availability to women-owned businesses, proclivity covers existing, and relevant studies based on pragmatism of gender bigotry, deep-rooted gender biases, and differences in cost and conditions observed by women-owned enterprises in accessing credit, which is an essential driver for businesses’ success. The vital detection of this research unveils that while women-owned firms face certain constraints like their men counterparts, there are many challenges that women solely face because of their gender. Risk aversion of banks, lack of financial services, lack of collateral, and low accessibility to finance are some of the specific constraints faced by women-owned businesses. Our results imply that women-owned firms have more often been credit worthy than the men-owned firms in terms of financial penetrability and debarment from the financial markets. Our main findings are focused on evaluating the gender-subordination approach adopted by the financial service providers to women-led businesses in their quest for financing

Internet Shaping Freedom of Expression: Freedom Shaping Regulation

Recent years have seen a sequence of “moral panics” regarding accessibility of information on the internet and its exercise for criminal/harmful activity. Such problems and wider availability of internet raises the public policy concerns among governments over whether the internet should be regulated or not. Some believe it should not, considering that internet regulation will discourage what really internet is purported to encourage i.e. ‘free flow of information’. They see internet regulation as a potential threat to the ‘freedom of expression’, which is possibly one of the most prominent aspects that are instrumental in the growth and popularity of this technology. On the other hand, the others who are against the free access of internet underscores the danger of problematic content and illegal activities on the internet. They claim that much of these activities and content are illegal in most jurisdictions. Adding to this, unrestricted right to freedom of speech and expression may possibly threaten other’s rights. Thus many government organizations and internet users call for the regulation of internet. In this backdrop, paper revisits relevant literature and attempt to respond to the contentious problem of internet regulation. In this process, the paper also examines the experiences from several countries grappling with the problem of internet regulation. It concludes that any regulation on the internet has to be multi-faceted, culturally sensitive, and globally coordinated

The Indian response to the global financial crisis

The effects of the global financial crisis have been more severe than initially forecast. By virtue of globalization, the moment of financial crisis hit the real economy and became a global economic crisis; it was rapidly transmitted to many developing countries. The crisis emerged in India at the time when Indian economy was already preoccupied with the adverse effects of inflationary pressures and depreciation of currency. The crisis confronted India with daunting macroeconomic challenges like a contraction in trade, a net outflow of foreign capital, fall in stock market, a large reduction in foreign reserves, slowdown in domestic demand, slowdown in exports, sudden fall in growth rate and rise in unemployment. The government of India has been highly proactive in managing this ongoing crisis with a slew of monetary and fiscal measures to stabilize the financial sector, ensure adequate liquidity and stimulate domestic demand. As a result of this combining with many several structural factors that have come to Indias aid, India's economic slowdown unexpectedly eased in the first quarter of 2009. The present paper makes an attempt to assess the impact of global financial crisis on the Indian economy and discuss the various policy measures taken by government of India to reduce the intensity of impacts. The paper also highlights recovery of Indian economy from crisis and in the end of paper concluding remarks are given towards

Analysis and Improvement of the Hot Disk Transient Plane Source Method for Low Thermal Conductivity Materials

The hot disk transient plane source (TPS) method is a widely used standard technique (ISO 22007-2) for the characterization of thermal properties of materials, especially the thermal conductivity, k. Despite its well-established reliability for a wide variety of common materials, the hot disk TPS method is also known to suffer from a substantial systematic errors when applied to low-k thermal insulation materials. Here, we present a combined numerical and experimental study on the influence of the geometry of hot disk sensor on measured value of low-k materials. We demonstrate that the error is strongly affected by the finite thickness and thermal mass of the sensor's insulation layer was well as the corresponding increase of the effective heater size beyond the radius of the embedded metal heater itself. We also numerically investigate the dependence of the error on the sample thermal properties, confirming that the errors are worse in low-k samples. A simple correction function is also provided, which converts the apparent (erroneous) result from a standard hot disk TPS measurement to a more accurate value. A standard polyimide sensor was also optimized using both wet and dry etching to provide more accurate measurement directly. Experimentally corrected value of k for Airloy x56 aerogel and a commercial silica aerogel using the numerical correction factor derived based on the standard TPS sensor is in excellent agreement with the directly measured value from the TPS sensor using the optimized polyimide sensor. Both of these methods can reduce the errors to less than 4% as compared to around 40% error of overestimation from raw values measured with the pristine sensor. Such results show that both the numerical correction to a pristine senor or an optimized sensor are capable of providing highly accurate value of thermal conductivity for such materials.Comment: 76 pages, 11 figure

LIBERALIZATION OF FOREIGN INSTITUTIONAL INVESTMENTS (FIIS) IN INDIA: MAGNITUDE, IMPACT ASSESSMENT, POLICY INITIATIVES AND ISSUES

ABSTRACT In this age of transnational capitalism, a significant amount of capital is flowing from developed world to emerging economies. Portfolio investments brought in by FIIs have been the most dynamic source of capital to emerging markets since 1990s. Since the beginning of liberalization in 1990s, FII flows to India have steadily grown in importance. From a near absence of FII inflows till 1992, today such inflows represent a dominant proportion of total flows. Positive fundamentals, gradual removal of structural barriers combined with fast growing markets have made India an attractive destination for foreign institutional investors. Today, FIIs are the key drivers of the Indian equity market and rising stakes in Indian companies. But, at the same time there is unease over the volatility in foreign institutional investment flows and its impact on the different segments of the economy. The increase in the volume of foreign institutional investment (FII) inflows in recent time has led to concerns regarding the volatility of these flows, threat of capital flight, its impact on the stock markets and influence of changes in regulatory regimes. The determinants and destinations of these flows and how are they influencing economic development in the country have also been debated. The present paper revealed that any problem related to FIIs is basically the problem of management. India should develop new tools to manage FIIs effectively and efficiently