Dr M Khalid's global village blog

The long-running boom in emerging markets came to be identified, if not propped up, by wide acceptance of the term BRICs, shorthand for the fast-growing countries Brazil, Russia, India and China. Recent turmoil in these and similar markets has produced a rival expression: the Fragile Five. The new name, as coined by a little-known research analyst at Morgan Stanley last summer, identifies Turkey, Brazil, India, South Africa and Indonesia as economies that have become too dependent on  skittish foreign investment to finance their growth ambitions. The name has caught on in large degree because it highlights the strains that occur when countries place too much emphasis on stoking fast rates of economic growth. The new catchphrase also raises pressing questions about not just the BRICs but about emerging markets in general.  Read more at: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/29542510.cms?utm_source=contentofinterest&utm_medium=text&utm_campaign=cppst

  The Reserve Bank of India (RBI) on Wednesday announced it would withdraw all pre-2005 currency notes from the economic system come March 31 this year. Also read: RBI to withdraw all pre-2005 currency notes Here’s a quick FAQ to help you understand the issue:  Q: Will my currency notes become invalid from April 1? A: Partly. While you cannot use them for your normal transactions, you will still be able to go to a bank and have them exchanged.  Q: Till when can I have my notes exchanged at the bank? A: After July, persons seeking exchange of more than 10 pieces of Rs 500 and Rs 1,000 notes will have to furnish proof of identity and residence to the bank.  Q: How can I tell whether a note is pre- or post-2005? A: All notes printed after 2005 have the year printed in the middle of the bottom row. Pre-2005 notes do not have this feature.  Q: Why did RBI decide only on 2005 as the cutoff year? A: Notes issued since 2005 have a different design and colour and this will bring unifo

Among non-agricultural wage earners, more than three-fourths had no written contract, 70 per cent were not eligible for paid leave, and 74 per cent were not covered by social security benefits. The need for training is acute: a seminal study by Boston Consulting Group, engaged by lobby group Confederation of Indian Industry in 2006/07, which is often referred to, noted some two in five in the workforce were illiterate and another 40 per cent were school dropouts. Only about one-tenth had some vocation training, and a similar percentage had completed 12 years of schooling. In his  2013/14 Budget  speech in February, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram proposed an allocation of Rs 1,000 crore for a skill development scheme that would offer an incentive of Rs 10,000 to every individual who undergoes training. It is still unclear how this would be implemented. Chidambaram also announced a 17 per cent increase in the allocation for the human resources ministry. Industry has welcomed these ann

The Economic Times reported that CMC Limited, a subsidiary of Tata Consultancy Services, and New Zealand's Unitec Institute of Technology announced a tie-up to offer vocational education and training from CMC Academy Centres in India. CMC Academy and Unitec will work together to provide training programmes to address the skill gap in areas like hospitality, organized retail, automobile servicing, healthcare, construction technology and textiles. CMC Academy offers job enablement training in IT, accounting and finance and several skill areas through more than 250 training locations across India.  Unitec Institute of Technology is the largest institute of technology in Auckland, New Zealand with over 23,800 students in 2010 http://www.reuters.com/finance/stocks/CMC.NS/key-developments/article/2624192

NICHOLAS CARLSON 14 JAN 11, 2014, 07.28 PM in Share 42 YouTube/LeWeb For years, Hugo Barra was one of the most visible executives at Google. He was a product manager for its Android team. Every year at Google's biggest conference, Google I/O, Barra would show off Android's latest new features for the whole world. Then, in August of this year, Barra quit Google to work for a Chinese company. In December, he gave a talk in Paris about how utterly blown away he's been by that place. This is Hugo Barra. Barra used to be a top executive in Google's Android division. Google In August he quit to go work for the "Steve Jobs of China," Xiaomi CEO Lei Jun. Xiaomi/YouTube After just two months in China, Barra spoke at the Le Web tech conference in Paris in December. YouTube/LeWeb Barra told his interviewer that he's totally blown away by the place. He said he had some charts