Life Moves On

• 1984 Olympics; Kodak sponsors TV broadcasts of the games as well as the US track team despite Fujifilm being the official sponsor.
• 1988 Summer Olympics; Fujifilm sponsors the games despite Kodak being the official sponsor.
• 1992 Summer Olympics in Barcelona; Nike sponsors press conferences with the US basketball team despite Reebok being the official sponsor. During ceremonies, the players covered their Reebok logos.
• 1994 Winter Olympics; American Express sponsors the games despite Visa being the official sponsor.
• 1996 Atlanta Olympics; sprinter Linford Christie wore contact lenses embossed with the Puma AG logo at the press conference preceding the 100 metres final, despite Reebok being the official sponsor.
• 1996 Cricket World Cup; Pepsi ran a series of advertisements titled "Nothing official about it" targeting the official sponsor Coca Cola.
• 1998 World Cup; Nike sponsored a number of teams competing in the Cup despite Adidas being the official sponsor.
• 2000 Sydney Olympics; Qantas Airlines’ slogan "The Spirit of Australia" sounds strikingly similar to the games’ slogan "Share the Spirit." despite Ansett Air being the official sponsor.
• 2002 Boston Marathon; as Adidas-sponsored runners come off the course Nike are treated to spray-painted messages honoring the day of the race, but not the race itself.
• 2003 Cricket World Cup; Indian players threatened to strike over concerns that the anti-ambush marketing rules were too strict. Of particular concern was the length of time before and after the cup that players were not allowed to endorse a rival to one of the official sponsors. Players argued that if they had pre-existing contracts that they would be in breach of them if they were to accept the ICC’s rules.
• 2006 FIFA World Cup; fans of the Netherlands had to disrobe Bavaria Brewery’s leeuwenhosen because Budweiser was the official beer sponsor.

IIT Mumbai go bankrupted…This is really astonishing to read…I could not believe my eyes when I read this. IITs are the premier or the creamest institution for technological reseaches but being an Indian it really hurts me to know IITs are going bankrupted. Recently all the 7 IITs have informed our HRD ministry that they are running out of fund and they have also stated that the situation is getting out of hands as IIT Pawai can not even give salary to their staffs. Although these IITs are getting a considerable funs and donations from abroad but still the fund crunch raised. In the latest discussion the heads of the respective IITs have suggested HRD ministry to grant a Rs.20 crores fund to each of the IITs to meet the needs. Lets see is this at all help those premier institutions to hold back the fund again.

Source:Yahoo News!

Despite higher increase, simply an one-tenth of the need for micro-finance is being served. Although microfinance institutions (MFIs) expanded their client home in 2006 on an average by around 23 per penny, with the book of their loans having risen precipitously in new years to $25 billion last year from around $4 bn in 2001, the microfinance industry is yet incapable to play much than a fraction of today’s prospective borrowers’ need. , a survey by Deutsche Bank Research says. While MFIs presently help an estimated 100 million micro-borrowers, the overall prospective need in terms of amount of borrowers is approximately estimated at one billion, says the survey that calls for an increasing participation of personal sector investors to scale upward microfinance. In geographical terms, the undeveloped need is unevenly spreading around the world. The largest fraction of impoverished folk is located in India (310 million), Bangladesh (70 m), Indonesia (60 m), Nigeria (45 m) and Brazil (40 m).

Coming out strongly against what he termed as ‘market fundamentalism’ in the Indian subcontinent, Nobel laureate Amartya Sen has called for speedy reforms, saying the drive against globalisation was only ‘a slogan’ that needs to be countered.

Sen declared himself to be ‘anti-anti-globalisation,’ saying that drive against globalisation was ‘a slogan, only a campaign’ that should be countered.

At the same time, he said, the pros and cons of globalisation needs to be weighed in the context of each society and there was nothing wrong with a comprehensive analysis and criticism of the process.

Referring to China, Sen said despite being a communist country China has accepted market economy to some extent. He said although he does not support the market economy strongly, it could be introduced depending on a country’s necessity.

Both Sen and fellow Bangladesh Nobel laureate Muhammad Yunus pitched for the poor of the world, stressing that the process should help them and not merely the rich.

It was important that potential of the process was utilized to eradicate poverty and lift countless have-nots above the poverty line, they said at a dialogue, ‘Towards an Inclusive Globalisation’, organised by Centre for Policy Dialogue (CPD), Bangladesh’s premier think tank on economic affairs.

Sen, Yunus and global financier George Soros, however, appeared at different wavelengths on the need to police the globalisation process and the role of the media.

Soros called globalisation ‘a market fundamentalist project’, which is putting the ultimate reliance on market forces.

However, Yunus said globalisation is moving in the wrong direction, arguing that the majority of those receiving the benefits of globalisation were the strongest in the society while the poorest have no say in the process.

Highlighting the fact that two percent of the people possessed 50 percent of the world’s total assets, he stressed on the need for ‘free assets free for all’ policy.

As globalisation is something that cannot be stopped, Yunus said the relevant question centres on ‘right globalisation versus wrong globalisation’. Comparing globalisation to a highway, Yunus said: ‘Vehicles of the big countries are plying on this highway while rickshaws have no place here’.

Yunus pointed out that 60-70 percent of the world’s population has no access to information technology (IT) and emphasised the need for equal access to IT for all people.

‘If the IT is brought to the people at the bottom level, they will at least be able to know whether globalisation is wrong or right,’ he said.

Yunus said he is trying to introduce an idea of business with entrepreneurs setting up non-profit companies for the well-being of humanity.

With regard to the role of the media in the globalisation process, Soros partly blamed the media for failing to raise sufficient debate on the issue as most media houses were owned by big companies.

Sen, however, argued that the media is doing its job.

Sen was against the need to create another agency to monitor the globalisation process, as there were organisations like the UN, World Bank, World Trade Organisation and the International Monetary Fund to do the job.

I wish all my community members and my readers a very Happy n Posperous new Year. I hope all your wishes come true in 2007.

One more thing I have opened the opportunity to post on this blog from users. So interested users or visitors to contact me at abhijit9924@gmail.com

With regards,

Rainmaker a.k.a. Abhi 

Is there something common between the West Bengal government and successful NGOs in Bangladesh? Nobel Laureate Amartya Sen thinks there is. He uses the example of Muhammad Yunus, the Grameen Bank founder who won the Nobel Peace Prize this year, to shed light on West Bengal government’s eagerness to attract corporate investment like the Tatas.

“Major NGOs in Bangladesh began with the same kind of background as I did — they were educated, middle-class Bengalis, left of the centre, interested in equality and untrusting of the markets. However, they realized that they had to play the market economy not kick it, yet not rely on it. The West Bengal

government is doing exactly the same,’’ Sen said today.

The flowering of NGOs in Bangladesh illustrates the same — market friendly not market dependent. Microcredit, according to Sen, is both pro and anti-market. Microcredit is not capital producing, yet to use the credit somewhere, they need the market. According to him, this is exactly where the reforms in Bengal are going.

“People often ask me if I am pro or anti-market? I can be anti-market if all of us agree to grow everything for ourselves. It is like asking should conversation be banned just because there is hate-speech?’’ he said.

Sen was speaking at the launch of a book Locked Homes and Empty Schools: The impact of distress seasonal migration of the rural poor brought out by the America India Foundation. It documents the plight of 30 million people who are forced to migrate annually. He admitted he was shocked by the scale of movement and intensity of problems. It was even more startling for him as in his seminal work on the Bengal famine, he said he found that people were “sedentary in distress”’ with few families migrating to Orissa and Bihar.

Taking forward the point on market economy, Sen said: “The market economy will not be interested in running hostels and schools for these migrants. They have nothing to gain. Yet, they will gain by addressing issues of poverty in rural areas,’’ he said.

Microcredit is the hottest stuff in World economics after the Nobel Peace Prize conquered by Md.Yunus who is the pioneer of Microcredit. UN has imposed a special boost to it but still I feel its not a full proofed idea to implement Microcredit. Whats wrong with it? Let us discuss…

The problem lies not with microcredit but rather with microenterprises. The United Nations’ declaration that microentrepreneurs use loans to grow thriving businesses leading to flourishing economies is hype. A client of microcredit is an entrepreneur in the literal sense: she raises the capital, manages the business and is the residual claimant of the earnings.

But the vast majority of microcredit clients are caught in subsistence activities with no prospect of competitive advantage.

Moreover self-employed poor usually have no specialised skills and often practise multiple occupations. Many of these businesses operate at too small a scale. The median business operated by the poor has no paid staff; most of these businesses have very few assets as well. With low skills, little capital and no scale economies, these businesses operate in arenas with low entry barriers and too much competition; they have low productivity and lead to meager earnings that cannot lift their owners out of poverty.

Hi All!

I am really very sorry as I am not been able to publish any updated posts here as I am having some anomolies in my personal and professional life so please bear with me. Hopefully I will be back in short while with some awesome posts.

Happy Thankgivings to all of you.

Regards,

Abhijit a.k.a. Rainmaker a.k.a.Abhi

The World Bank does not recognize the role of non - profit in the micro finance industry as ‘legal’, i.e. as per law only banks or non - financial institutions have a right to actually engage in micro finance activities. Thus, technically speaking, organizations and institutions registered as any other legal entity, such as a society or a sec 25 company or foundation are not legally authorized to get into the business of banking.

Consequently, NGOs and other organizations have come up with roundabout routes to overcome the legalities of this business - such as forming of federations registered with nationalized bank, or all individuals coming together in a credit society and opening a group account in the name of one or two elected individuals.

In this environment many more organizations that were not set up primarily to work on microfinance and credit want to get into the sector because they look at it this way to source funds internally and move towards self sustainability.

At this point some questions strike my mind…

• Is it really fair to be so critical of the process?
• The question of the right’s perspective : a few Fellows felt that it was missing from the whole model, which seemed totally focused on profit making
• What are the existing legal frameworks for these organizations to work in ? Why are they considered not legal?
• Are the banks an financial institutions wanting to link with the non-profits and on what terms?

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