Clubhouse at Ireo Waterfront, Ludhiana
An increasing number of expats are choosing India as their preferred destination for work with the domestic economy growing at a steady pace, according to a survey by Association of Executive Search Consultants, a global association for retained executive search and leadership consulting firms.
Executives consider India to be a fertile ground for growth opportunities, the survey revealed.
The respondents in the survey included senior executives working across varied industries including retail, real estate, oil and gas, technology and the government sector. 59% of the surveyed executives noticed a growing change in the Indian workforce, with workers coming from diverse nationalities.
The increasing salary levels in India, especially for top ranking positions, were highlighted as an important factor fuelling this recent trend. The study also found that working in India helped 30% of the surveyed employees in terms of savings. Though a majority of those surveyed (76%) said that their company did not have policies to help them save, indicating that personal savings were self-driven and voluntary.
Read more: The Economic Times
Real Estate
How to Invest In Realty in Hot Markets
Investing in real estate is a time-honoured method of achieving financial success. Throughout the ages, investment property has helped a lot of people make a great deal of money ¬ sometimes quickly, sometimes over the long term. Those who invest for the short term are generally known as property speculators, and they play a dangerous game. Long-term property investment is for forward thinkers who have an investment horizon of at least five years. The objective of a long-term property investor is to buy a property at a low price and sell it at a higher price. To be successful at this, one needs to know what is going to happen in a certain location over the next few years. You will need to invest in a growing location, not an established one. This is especially true if you are a middleclass person living off a middle-class income.
Read more: Financial Chronicle
Infrastructure
India to spend $1 trillion on infrastructure in next 5 years
India will spend USD 1 trillion on infrastructure development in the country over the next five years and 40 per cent of it will come from the private sector, Kamal Nath, Union Minister for Urban Development and Parliamentary Affairs said today.
“The Cabinet has approved an expenditure of USD one trillion in the next five years on Infrastructure Development and 40 per cent would come from private sector,” he told members of the Indian Journalists Association at the India House here.
The minister was speaking after two rounds of meetings here with British investors yesterday and today.
The meetings follows the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding between the Ministry of Urban Development, Government of India and the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, UK on Co-operation on Urban Regeneration and Development, a couple of months ago.
Kamal Nath said a three-day Seminar would be held in Delhi on the Infrastructure Development shortly.
Read more: The Economic Times
Construction workers demand better wages
Construction workers staged a protest march in the city on Tuesday, demanding better wages.
Hundreds of construction workers from various parts of the state joined the protest march organized by the Sadou Asom Nirman Sramik Union, a union of workers engaged in building and other construction work.
“Our main demand from the government is that the minimum monthly wage of construction workers be fixed at Rs 10,000. Huge sums allocated for the welfare of construction workers are yet to benefit these workers who play a key role in the development of the state,” said Khagen Deka, president of the union.
The union also sent a memorandum to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh through the deputy commissioner of Kamrup (metro) district demanding fulfillment of their demands. In the memorandum, the union also said that some of the new schemes introduced by the Centre for construction workers are aimed at investing the welfare scheme funds in government and private institutions, which they oppose.
Read more: The Times of India
Economy
Delhi is favourite Indian spot for foreign tourists
The India Gate is the national monument of India
New Delhi is the most popular Indian destination for overseas travellers, according to the latest Hotel Price Index (HPI) report by Hotels.com. Mumbai is in second place and Bangalore comes third. Other popular metros include Chennai, Hyderabad and Calcutta in the 4th, 8th and 9th positions, respectively.
Goa is the 5th most favourite destination for foreigners followed by Jaipur at the 6th spot. Cochin, located in ‘God’s own Country’ Kerala took the 10th position on the list.
The HPI report also reveals that South East Asian destinations are popular with Indian travellers. According to the report, the great value rates available in Bangkok make it the most preferred international destination amongst Indians, followed by Singapore. Other popular South East Asian destinations in the top 10 list include Pattaya, Hong Kong, Kuala Lumpur and Phuket on the 6th, 7th, 9th and 10th positions, respectively.
Other destinations in the top 10 list include Dubai on the 3th spot, New York on the 4th, London on the 5th and Las Vegas on the 8th.
Read more: Business Line
Indian cos invest $2.03 bn overseas in Oct
Overseas direct investment by Indian companies rose to $2.03 billion in October from $1.36 billion the previous month, data from the Reserve Bank of India showed.
Guarantees continued to dominate as the preferred route to invest in overseas companies with $1.04 billion being invested through this route. Investment through loans and equity were $500 million each during October, the data showed.
The biggest investment was by Piramal Healthcare which invested $260 million to set up a wholly-owned subsidiary in Netherlands. The subsidiary would engage in financial, insurance and real estate operations.
Other key investments were joint ventures by Reliance Ports and Terminals in Singapore for which the company invested $200 million and by Sterling Biotech in British Virgin Islands for an investment of $135 million.
Read more: Financial Express
Energy
Energy efficiency in buildings: implementation challenges and way forward
Construction of real estate space continues to grow at unprecedented rate, with urbanization of developing India. With the government’s reform agenda in full steam, there is no doubt that buildings and infrastructure shall continue to dominate urban and peri- urban space in the coming days.
Buildings have significant energy and environmental footprint. About 32% of total electricity consumed in India is by buildings. As per RICS report, total incremental demand for real estate space in 2011 was about 7566 million sq. ft. of which residential demand was about 43.3%, followed by 43.1% in industrial space while the rest is on account of retail, commercial, hospitality, healthcare and educational spaces.
Energy consumption by the built environment shall be on the rise if we continue to chart the current path. Government of India has developed the Energy Conservation Building Code of India in 2007 under the EC ACT 2001,which till remains a voluntary code with no mandates. Interestingly, the Energy Conservation Act 2001 defines buildings as entities used for commercial purposes, which means that ECBC primarily applies to commercial buildings, while residential buildings account for nearly 24% out of 32% of building sector electricity consumption in India.
Read more: The Economic Times
IT
Chandigarh among emerging tier II cities for IT startups
Chandigarh has been included by the National Association of Software & Services Companies among five tier II Indian cities that are emerging as hubs for IT product startups. The four other cities are Trivandrum and Cochin in Kerala, Coimbatore in Tamil Nadu and Ahmedabad in Gujarat.
A Nasscom booklet released on the eve the IT association’s two-day Product Conclave 2012, which starts here Wednesday, said 810 of the 3402 IT product companies are located in the region comprising of Chandigarh, Mohali, Gurgaon, Delhi and Noida. In terms of conglomeration of companies, this area is second only to Bangalore with 929 IT product startups.
Nasscom, the premier Indian IT & BPO industry lobby group, also noted digital domain has witnessed a rapid growth among the product companies. It noted the Chandigarh-Mohali and Gurgaon-Delhi-Noida (NCR) areas house 437 of the total 1,278 product companies in the digital domain. This is by far the largest comglomeration of product firms in the digital domain followed by 413 in Bangalore and 385 firms in the Mumbai-Pune region.
See article: Tribune India
Emerging Businesses
Power of Ideas 2012: How Gurgaon-based startup helps cos to test right candidate for right job
As companies try to streamline their hiring process and get the most appropriate candidate for the job, a two-year old startup is attempting to equip them with the right assessment tools. The software as a service (SaaS) company, Mettl, was founded by two school friends Ketan Kapoor, an IIT-Roorkee and IIM-Calcutta alumnus, and Tonmoy Shingal, an IIT-Kanpur and IIM-Bangalore alumnus.
The platform can create assessments based on automatic evaluators and simulators. It can also create multi-competency assessments. “Our plan was to start a training and assessment company, but we quickly realised that assessment alone is a massive opportunity,” says Kapoor. “Learning and assessments are moving online and that is why we created an online platform.”
As both the founders were not coders, they first built the technology team to create the platform. In late-2010, the company bagged its first client, Capgemini.
Read more: The Economic Times
IREO: India's leading real estate developer 