The President of the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), Hari S. Bhartia has urged industries to participate actively in the skill development movement taking place across the country at an event held to mark the signing of an MoU between CII and PanIIT Alumni Reach for India (PARFI). He said that "it is critical for industries to take their businesses beyond the corridors of their corporate offices and look at business for livelihoods".Skill development, especially among the rural school-dropped out youth, is the single most contributor that will ensure that the Indian demographic dividend is actually reaped.Chandrajit Banerjee, Director General, CII explained how, in order to achieve this ambitious goal, "CII and PARFI, the Nation Building arm of PanIIT Alumni have forged a unique partnership to set-up a national chain of rural, residential training centres called PARFI Skill Gurukuls for under?privileged youth with an annual training capacity of 10,000 candidates per annum. PanIIT Alumni association (PIAI) is a not-for-profit registered society of IIT alumni across campuses, with a charter for nation building."India today faces a unique 'dilemma', as 40 per cent of world's population under 25 years of age is living in India and yet only 5per cent of the total Indian industrial workforce is skilled (compared to 85 per cent of the 450 million (approx) global workforce). Only 9 per cent of the Indian workforce is engaged in the organised sector and only 5 per cent has marketable skills."To reap India's demographic dividend, we need to invest in skill sets to empower youth along with on-the-ground implementation just like the government has done through IITs," says Hari Padmanabhan, Founding Patron, PARFI. Padmanabhan states that while on one side, there is huge unemployment/under-employment in India, on the other side many companies suffer human capital shortage. The root cause for this issue, he believes, is the lack of investment in skill. "Hence, we have chosen to 'give back' the same through vocational education in a self-sustainable manner for the underprivileged youth in this country and co-invest along with National Bank for Agriculture and Rural Development (NABARD),CII to set-up 30 skill gurukuls with a training capacity of 10,000 across the country, out of which 7 gurukuls with capacity of 3500 are already set-up," he says. With support from CII, PAFRI have kept up the 100 per cent post-training employment rate so far and intend to institionalise this partnership to continue this outcome guarantee and at the same time, provide valuable human capital to CII industry members. At present, in India nearly 63 per cent children drop out from school at different stages and by the end of 2012, there is expected to be a surplus of 13 lakh unskilled and unqualified school dropouts and illiterates. In relation to this, various studies state that by 2020, there will be a global shortage of 56.5 million skilled workers. On the contrary, India will have a surplus of 42 million people of working age. Salient Features Of CII-PanIIT Skill Gurukuls Vocational finishing schools, targeting school drop outs below grade X and from Below Poverty Line(BPL) households Fulltime, residential training of 30-45 days in trades such as welding, construction, catering, driving with a practical orientation One-of-its-kind self-sustainable model with zero-subsidy for blue collar trades by giving 100 per cent micro finance assistance funded by NABARD 100 per cent placement assurance due to upfront tie up with CII members Recovery of training loan through wage?deductions based on assured placement Thus, uneducated, unemployed rural BPL youth get 100 per cent loan, skill training, government recognised MES certification, financial inclusion through SBI account to which wages are deposited and assured employment Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh has set a mandate to have a skilled workforce of 500 million by the year 2022 and thus leverage the advantage of our young population to thereby become the largest pool of technically trained manpower in the world. Bhartia, who is also the Co-Chairman & MD of Jubilant Organosys, recounted that "CII had committed to opening 10 skill development centres and we have already initiated 11 skill development centres. We have moved the skill development agenda with the theme of business for livelihood. While the government is investing in skill development, private sector involvement is critical and businesses in India accept responsibility and have participated in skill building." He goes on to establish that CII believes it is imperative to capacitate people by making them self-reliant and independent of external support. This can be achieved through a futuristic approach which aims towards providing sustainable livelihood. This partnership between CII and PanIIT Alumni Reach For India(PARFI) is one such initiative.
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Over the past week, some disappointing data and nebulous worries about Chinese growth and monetary policy have prompted some analysts to express concern over a possible decline in demand for commodities, and perhaps even an end to the bull run that started in 2002 and was briefly interrupted by the global financial crisis of 2008, before resuming in 2010.The Reuters-Jefferies CRB index, a global benchmark for commodities prices, is on course for its biggest weekly fall since July 2008, after giving up about 8 per cent so far this week. It dropped 4.9 per cent on Thursday.US crude oil prices extended losses after closing below $100 per barrel for the first time since March.Silver, which has been a catalyst for the broader commodity market selloff, extended losses after falling 10 per cent on Thursday, its biggest one-day loss since October 2008."The recent data suggests a contraction in growth, but not a collapse," said Joel Crane, an analyst at Morgan Stanley in Sydney."Commodity prices have exceeded fundamental values, so a pullback is justified. Weakness in the second quarter was to be expected given the challenge faced by the world in the past two months - major political unrest in many of world's oil producers and the most costly natural disaster in modern times," Crane said in a reference to Japan's devastating March 11 earthquake.China GrowthBut growth in rest of Asia, particularly China, looks solid with the world's top consumer of commodities and second biggest oil importer seen growing at a robust annual figure of around 8 per cent in the next five years.That has created a disconnect between the situation in Asia's big consumers of commodities and the mood among traders in Europe and the United States, where the economic situation is far more precarious."Capitulation or correction? This is a correction. There is an anchor for commodities - the China growth story. That hasn't gone away - nothing has changed fundamentally," said ANZ senior commodity analyst Mark Pervan."Investors had priced in a lot of good news, may be too much, and this week they have rushed for the door.""There was already a good deal of speculative money flushed out in the past few days, but this is a good thing. Chinese consumers will find prices far more attractive and we may start to see appetite for imported commodities pick up."That view was supported by Shanghai-traded metals which lagged their internationally traded counterparts, and by data on the Chinese economy showing that growth continued.The price premium for the benchmark London Metal Exchange copper contract narrowed to 1,200 yuan versus its Shanghai equivalent from around 2,000 yuan when Shanghai closed on Thursday."This tells me that London was a bit frothy, while China was trading closer to fair value," said a trader based in Perth."The fact Shanghai hasn't collapsed under the weight of selling on international markets should be seen a positive for the state of demand and the real price for industrial raw materials."China's official purchasing managers' index fell to 52.9 in April from 53.4 in March, well shy of market forecasts for an increase to 54.0.But some said the pessimism towards Chinese demand was overdone, with 26 straight months of expansion and economists polled by Reuters expecting growth at 9.5 per cent in 2011 after last year's increase of 10.3 per cent.A halt to the weakness of the dollar, which hit its lowest in three years this week after a drop over the past 11 months, could be in sight. The end of a second round of quantitative easing by the Federal Reserve in June could be the first step away from the US central bank's ultra-loose monetary policy.A recovery in the greenback would make dollar-denominated assets like commodities cheaper for holders of currencies like the euro or the yen."The feeling has been growing that the dollar has done enough on the downside for the time being," a fund manager said on condition of anonymity.He said commodity markets had traded sideways since mid-April had traded, with investors epitomised by Goldman Sachs saying it was time to take profits, while others argued that commodities were still tight and the dollar would remain weak."In the last two days the market has broken down quite decisively as the world has decided maybe the Goldman view was right."Fears of inflation in China also contributed to the weaker mood in commodities. However central bank officials expect Chinese inflation to moderate in the second half.Yu Yongding, now a director in the Chinese Academy of Social Sciences, a top government think tank, said that soaring global commodity costs were the main source of price pressures, and that the Chinese economy was growing solidly but not overheating."If we address cost-push inflation just with monetary tightening, it will reduce supply and it will make inflation worse, so we must be cautious," he said.Chinese consumer price inflation hit 5.4 per cent in the year to March, a 32-month high. The government has raised interest rates four times and also restructured bank lending in a bid to tamp down on price pressures. Many investors think the next tightening move could be just around the corner, but the nation may be reaching the end of tightening cycle."We are looking at one or possibly two more hikes by the end of the second quarter, at 25 basis points each," said Stephen Green, an economist at Standard Chartered."In the last cycle they stopped hiking rates three months before the CPI peaked. CPI will be the best thing to settle market sentiment."(Reuters)
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Reserve Bank Governor D Subbarao warned on Monday that the country will not be able to cash in on the demographic dividends if the economy continues its job-less growth pattern for far too long.Stating that now questions are being asked whether the model of services-led growth is sustainable, the Governor said the services sector cannot be the sole engine of growth.Referring to the boastful talk about the huge demographic dividend, Subbarao said, "We forget the most important thing-- demographic dividend is not inevitable. To reap the demographic dividend, we need to find jobs for the 150-200 million people who will be thrown out of the farm sector (in the near future)."The Governor was speaking while releasing a developmental report prepared by the city-based research agency Indira Gandhi Institute of Development Research, at the RBI headquarters.Though the services-led growth has steamed our economy so far, we cannot depend on it to drive growth from here on, he pointed out."The services sector may have been an autonomous engine of growth for the last 20 years, but going forward, it cannot be an engine of growth like it has been. We cannot depend on it to drive our growth. We need to focus on manufacturing and, importantly on agriculture too, for sustainable growth," Subbarao said.The share of the services sector in the $1.7-trillion GDP has gone up to 65 per cent last fiscal, up from about 50 per cent in 1991, when the economic liberalisation bandwagon started rolling. The contribution of services sector to GDP growth is still higher at 70 per cent, the Governor said.Explaining why a services sector-led growth is not sustainable, Subbarao said this sector has very strong forward linkages but weak backward linkages and hence low employment generation potential.Another inherent drawback of the current model of growth is that the services sector cannot find so many productive jobs especially when skill endowment is relatively low, he said."Therefore, we need to focus on manufacturing sector for generating jobs that we need," he said.Talking about the importance of the external sector and the need for rupee float, the Governor said "we need a calibrated approach to capital account convertibility and of course, we need foreign exchange reserves sufficient to buffer against the uncertainties,"Capital account convertibility has been a widely debated issue wherein some pro-liberalisation voices have been asking for a full convertibility rather than the present system where the monetary authority caps it for individuals and corporates separately.The RBI has been steadily increasing the limits and has relaxed it to a level that is adequate for individuals, but not so for corporates which have been demanding full float of the domestic currency.Stressing that the external sector with its increasing contribution to the GDP is very important, Subbarao underlined the need for keeping the current account deficit at a "sustainable level", even while maintaining a market determined exchange rate which does not "militate" against the macroeconomic stability.(PTI)
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Top buyer India was in the physical market as the wedding season gathers pace, while consumers from Thailand, Indonesia chased gold bars, with bullion prices already losing more than 5 percent since striking a record around $1,575 on Monday.Gold bars were offered at premiums as high as 85 cents to spot London prices in Singapore, up from 50 cents earlier this week and also last week. Dealers noted physical buying on silver by bargain hunters in Singapore and Hong Kong."I guess everyone thinks we have tonnes of gold bars lying around that buyers can just grab and go, and worst of all, they are still shopping for bargains," said a physical dealer in Singapore, who sells gold bars at a premium of 85 cents."But we dare not commit for anything that will not be on the shelf for them or will arrive later than next Wednesday," he said, referring to tight gold supplies in Singapore.Gold rose more than 1 per cent, headed for a 5-per cent drop from a week earlier, its worst week since March 2009. Silver turned negative, falling more than 1 per cent after earlier rebounding from its biggest one-day dollar fall since 1980 in the previous session."We're seeing buying from Indonesia, Thailand and basically from everywhere. We are quoting gold bars at 80 cents premiums," said another physical dealer in Singapore."There's good buying around for gold and silver," said the dealer, referring to demand from India.India celebrates Akshaya Tritiya, a gold buying festival, on Friday, followed by the wedding season that will last through May. Gold jewellery is a popular gift at marriages and festivals in India.Premiums for gold bars in Mumbai jumped to $1.5 to $1.8 an ounce to spot London prices from about $1.2 a week earlier due to limited supplies. For silver, suppliers charged premiums of 15 to 20 cents an ounce, steady from last week.Dealers in Hong Kong, a centre for bullion trading in East Asia, offered gold bars at a premium of up to $1.7 from $1 an ounce last week. Demand from jewellers helped stir up trade, but consumers in mainland China were on the sidelines."We haven't seen any significant change in buying interest since the prices dropped sharply, as people see it as a normal correction after prices rallied rapidly to the record above $1,570," said Yang Lutao, deputy general manager of Tianxinyang Gold Industry in Sichuan, which sells gold bars to retail investors.Premiums for silver were steady in Hong Kong at $1 to spot London prices, although there were also higher offers as demand picked up after prices tumbled from record."I am quoting silver premium at $1 and basically we don't have much stock around. But I heard that some people are selling it at premiums of $2 to $3 for smaller size silver bars," said a dealer in Hong Kong.Lack of demand from the industrial sector kept gold bars at zero premiums in Tokyo, while a drop in Tokyo gold futures also encouraged buyers to wait for cheaper prices. Tokyo financial markets were closed from Tuesday to Thursday for holidays.The most active gold contract on Tokyo Commodity Exchange, currently April 2012 , fell as low as 3,835 yen ($47.67) a gram, its lowest since early April, tracking declines in equities."There's no change in premiums. I think people are waiting for cheaper prices and some industrial companies are still on a holiday mood," said a dealer in Tokyo.(Reuters)
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Even as buying activity remained high on the auspicious day of 'Akshaya Tritiya', both the precious metals tumbled Friday on weak global cues.Retail customers resorted to active gold buying to mark the day of Akshaya Triitya, considered to be an auspicious occasion in Hindu mythology to make token purchases.Traders said the demand among retailers for the festival had hardly any impact of the sliding precious metals prices despite the ongoing weakening trend in domestic as well as overseas markets."The weakening trend has hardly impacted retailers activity as they are dedicatedly making token buying in gold on every fall in the market," said Suresh Verma, a Delhi-based jeweller."At least the buying has capped any major fall in gold prices, while silver remained unattended, losing substantial ground," he said.Trading sentiments remained weak in silver as its prices recorded a steepest weekly fall since 1975 in global markets after impositions of higher margins. Gold also had its biggest weekly drop since February 27, 2009.Silver in global markets, which normally sets a price trend on the domestic front, fell 12.01 per cent to $34.66 an ounce, taking losses to 28 per cent this week and gold by USD 43.40 to $1,473.10 an ounce in New York.The Standard and Poor's GSCI index of 24 commodities sank 6.5 per cent on concern that slower global growth may crimp demand and investors sold to book-profits and shift their funds to surging equity markets.On the domestic front, silver ready nose-dived by Rs 6,000 to Rs 53,200 per kg and weekly-based delivery by Rs 5,900 to Rs 53,100 per kg. Silver coins lost Rs 4,000 to Rs 59,500 for buying and Rs 60,500 for selling of 100 pieces.In line with a general weakening trend, gold of 99.9 and 99.5 per cent purity plunged by Rs 225 each to Rs 22,120 and Rs 22,000 per 10 grams, respectively.However, sovereigns, found scattered buying support from retailers and gained Rs 100 to Rs 18,300 per piece of eight grams.(PTI)
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Controversial minister Jairam Ramesh was on Tuesday elevated to Cabinet rank and shifted from Environment Ministry as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh made a substantive yet incomplete reshuffle in the ministry dropping seven ministers and inducting eight new faces including V Kishore Chandra Deo.In a significant change, he also took away Law portfolio from M Veerappa Moily in the light of several embarrassments to the government in the Supreme Court and brought Salman Khursheed in the ministry.In the much-talked about revamping of his ministry, Singh did not touch the 'big four'--Finance, Home, Defence and External Affairs--and also kept four ministries, including Telecom and Civil Aviation, as additional charge.Trinamool Congress leader Dinesh Trivedi has been elevated to the Cabinet rank and given the Railways portfolio left vacant by Mamata Banerjee after she became West Bengal Chief Minister.Ramesh, who stoked controversies by his handling of environment issue with his proactive approach, gets Rural Development from where Vilasrao Deshmukh has been shifted to Science and Technology, and Earth Sciences.Beni Prasad Verma becomes a Cabinet Minister for Steel, a portfolio he earlier held as Minister of State with Independent charge.The other new faces in the Council of Ministers are Jayanthi Natarajan who gets Environment and Forests, Dibrugarh MP Paban Singh Ghatowar (DONER), Trinamool Congress leader Sudip Bandopadhyaya (Health and Family Welfare), Alwar MP Jitendra Singh (Home), Milind Deora (Communication and IT) and Rajiv Shukla (Parliamentary Affairs). .Ministers who have been dropped from the Cabinet are M S Gill (Statistics and Programme Implementation), B K Handique (DONER), Kantilal Bhuria (Tribal Affairs), Murli Deora (Corporate Affairs) and Dayanidhi Maran (Textiles).Ministers of State for Steel and Rural Development A Sai Prathap and Arun Yadav respectively were also dropped.While Maran had resigned last week in the wake of his being named in the 2G scam, 74-year-old Deora had offered his resignation citing his age and had reportedly sought a berth for his son Milind.The new ministers would be sworn in at a function at the Rashtrapati Bhawan this evening after which the strength of the Council will go up by one to 68. While there were eight additions, seven have been axed.The restructuring exercise appeared incomplete with additional charge of Textiles and Water Resources being given to Anand Sharma and P K Bansal respectively. Sharma retains Commerce and Industry and Bansal retains Parliamentary Affairs.HRD Minister Kapil Sibal continues to hold additional charge of Telecom, while Overseas Indian Affairs Minister Vayalar Ravi retains additional charge of Civil Aviation.Telecom portfolio went to Sibal after DMK representative A Raja resigned on allegations in 2G spectrum allocation.No DMK representative was inducted today as replacements for Raja and Maran. Apparently, some of the portfolios have been kept as additional charges so that DMK can be accommodated if it chooses to send replacements. DMK is expected to decide on the issue at its General Council meeting on July 23-24 in Coimbatore.Veteran Parliamentarian from Andhra Pradesh V Kishore Chandra Deo makes his entry into the Cabinet for the first time, making him the second minister from the state after S Jaipal Reddy.Srikant Jena, who nursed a grudge when he was made Minister of State in 2009, has got a promotion being given Independent charge of Statistics and Programme Implementation.However, he continues to be MoS in Chemicals and Fertilisers where DMK's M K Alagiri continues to be Cabinet minister.Jena, who was a Cabinet Minister in the United Front government of 1996-97, reportedly is of the view that he should have been upgraded to Cabinet rank as Orissa does not have representation in the Cabinet.The lone Congress MP from Chhattisgarh Charan Das Mahant makes a debut as MoS in Agriculture and Food Processing.Gurudas Kamat has been shifted from Home and Communication ministries to a new ministry of Drinking Water and Sanitation with Independent Charge.Minister of State for External Affairs E Ahamed has been also been allocated the HRD portfolio.Minsters of State V Narayanasamy and Ashwani Kumar shed Parliamentary Affairs portfolios which have gone to new entrant Rajiv Shukla and Harish Rawat, who retains MoS for Agriculture and Food Processing.Minister of State for Shipping and Railways Mukul Roy, who yesterday defied the Prime Minister by not visiting the rail accident site in Assam, has been divested of the Railways portfolio. (PTI)
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India's industrial output in May rose at a much slower than expected pace, indicating taut monetary policy and high inflation were acting as brakes on the economy, although the RBI is still expected to raise rates later this month to contain stubbornly high inflation.The annual 5.6 percent growth in production at factories, mines and utilities was its slowest in nine months under a new data series, well below the forecast for an 8.2 percent rise in a Reuters' poll, in the latest sign of slowing growth in Asia's third-largest economy."Despite this lower-than-expected release, which in turn confirms the moderating growth story, we still expect the RBI (Reserve Bank of India) to hike rates by 25 bps in its July 26 meeting as inflationary pressures are still strong," said Anubhuti Sahay, economist at Standard Chartered Bank in Mumbai.The industrial output figure for April was revised down to 5.8 percent from 6.3 percent while manufacturing, which contributes about 80 percent to overall industrial output, grew an annual 5.6 percent in May compared with a revised 6.3 percent a month earlier.With headline inflation hovering around 9 percent, the RBI is widely expected to raise rates later this month, which would be the 11th increase since March 2010.A recent rise in state-set diesel prices is expected to add upward pressure on inflation.Stocks extended losses after the data release and were down 1.3 percent, although bond yields and swap rates, already down on the day on global risk aversion, were little changed.India's infrastructure sector, which includes cement, steel and refining, grew 5.3 percent in May, slightly faster than the annual growth of 5.2 percent clocked in April. The sector contributes about 26 percent to the index of industrial output.Growth in India's manufacturing sector, which eased slightly in May, lost steam last month, with the factory PMI for June sliding to a nine-month low.Private economists have been revising down their forecasts for growth in the current fiscal year, with many expecting India to grow less than 8 percent, after it expanded 8.5 percent in the year that ended in March.Bank credit on the year as of June 17 was up almost 21 percent, with bank deposits lagging behind at over 18 percent.Growth in money supply was slower at just over 17 percent, indicating banks are increasingly facing problems in lending at high interest rates, which in turn has led to a dampening of investment demand in the economy.However, there are early signs of an uptick in investment demand. CLSA said in a recent report that the growth moderation in the economy would be temporary and that the old IIP series was overstating the extent of moderation.Foreign direct investment into India during April-May rose an annual 77 percent to $7.8 billion, a sign of improved momentum after the full-year inbound FDI fell 25 percent in the fiscal year through March as investors were deterred by a spate of corruption scandals and delays in project implementation.Bleak Global OutlookJapanese consumer confidence improved for a second straight month in June, indicating that the world's third largest economy will resume a moderate recovery in autumn.However, a drop in China's crude imports and disappointing U.S. employment data reinforced fears of a demand slowdown in the world's top two energy consumers.Fresh concerns that Italy, the euro zone's third-largest economy, could be forced into a financial crisis like Greece, Ireland and Portugal has added to a bleak global scenario. (Reuters)
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Open interest, the net total of long and short bets on the market, across 28 commodities held steady on Wednesday, with several key markets such as crude oil and copper seeing an increase, according to exchange data.A sharp drop in positions in the relatively smaller gasoline market, which led the collapse in prices, as well as corn and wheat was more than offset by gains in crude oil. The US oil futures benchmark hit a record high open interest.The data was similar to last Thursday, when oil prices fell precipitously, and means that for the second time in a week investors have reacted to a sharp commodity price decline by adding positions.The new bets meant the notional value of these commodities markets fell only $228 million, a sign, traders said, that bulls were not panicking but that big bets were still coming in looking for a fall in raw materials prices.The big bets came despite gasoline futures suffering their worst single day since the height of the financial crisis in September 2008, losing 7.6 per cent.The upshot is that the tug-of-war between bulls and bears in commodities has only intensified over the last week, setting the stage for more volatility in coming trading sessions."They may be seeing some speculative long liquidation on one side of the market but you may be seeing some consumer hedge buying interest on the opposite side of things," said Tim Evans of Citi Futures Perspective in New York.Trend SignalsCommodity investors typically look at the direction prices, open interest and trading volumes are moving for clues to the future direction of the market.Rising open interest with strong volumes and a falling price is seen as a sign that a market will continue to decline because more short sellers are entering.The number of contracts traded on Wednesday exceeded the 30-day average by nearly a quarter. Nearly 820 million paper barrels of West Texas Intermediate crude oil changed hands.US crude futures on the NYMEX set a new record high for open interest on Wednesday as prices plunged more than 5 per cent and took oil back below $100 per barrel.Crude futures had also set a record open interest during the previous sell-off on May 5. Indeed, both commodity sell-offs in the past week may well have been exacerbated by the huge short bets, traders said.But growing open interest in energy, which dominates the commodities sector, has obscured a shrinking of open interest in other areas.Open interest in cotton is down 22 per cent, soybeans have dropped 17 per cent and silver has fallen 12 per cent.Coffee saw open interest hit a 1-1/2-year low on Wednesday as prices have tumbled from a 34-year high. Copper open interest is at the lowest level since October 2009 and many agricultural commodities, such as corn and soybeans, are at their lowest number of open positions since the fall of 2010.(Reuters)
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Shutting down of call centres in India may not be a bad sign for just job seekers but the growth of primary education in India too. According to a study, call centres, typically outsourced by Western firms, have a positive impact on the number of students enrolling at local schools.The study found that introducing a new call centre causes a 4 per cent to 7 per cent increase in the number of children enrolling in primary schools. The findings also show that enrolment in English-language schools increases by about 15 per cent with the introduction of a new call centre. These effects are concentrated in the immediate areas around the call centre and are independent of the changes in population or income.The results suggest that introducing a call centre with 80 employees increases enrolment in the local post code by 280 children, according to Millett.The number of individuals employed in outsourcing-related businesses in India has increased from roughly 50,000 in 1991 to over 2 million in 2010 (Nasscom). These jobs demand employees with high levels of education and a good command of English, and pay high salaries by Indian standards.The study used government data (DISE) on enrolment at 239,000 schools between 2001 and 2008 in three Indian states - Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh and Tamil Nadu. This data were further combined with the locations and opening dates of 401 call centres. The report was authored by Emily Oster, Associate Professor of Economics at the University of Chicago Booth School of Business and Bryce Millett of Harvard University. Although this paper focuses on the case of India, the results may well have implications for other countries, adds Oster.
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Silver prices dropped further at the domestic bullion market in Mumbai on Monday on sustained unwinding from stockists and speculators, amid bearish overseas trend.On the other hand, standard gold moved up on mild local buying interest at existing lower levels.Silver ready (.999 fineness) fell sharply by a hefty Rs 1,085 per kg to end at Rs 53,750 from last Saturday's closing level of Rs 54,835.However, standard gold (99.5 purity) looked up by Rs 10 per 10 grams to settled at Rs 21,945 as compared to Rs 21,935 last weekend, while pure gold (99.9 purity) held steady at Rs 22,045 per 10 grams.In Europe, spot gold was trading almost flat at $1,490 an ounce on deepening concerns about the euro zone debt crisis and strengthening dollar against major currencies. Silver was bid at $34 an ounce.(PTI)
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