Opinion: What’s Holding Back Affordable Housing In India

By Likha Veer
Group Executive Editor

INTERVIEW: India needs more than five million homes annually and more than 90% of this demand is in the affordable segment — homes priced at less than $50,000. But supply is lagging. Rajesh Krishnan, founder and CEO of the Brick Eagle Group, a financial services platform for affordable housing, says the disparity between supply and demand is because of a broken ecosystem. According to him, everybody in the affordable housing value chain “seems to be missing some piece of the puzzle.”

In a conversation with INNLIVE, Krishnan talks about his prescription for affordable housing in India. He points out that along with being a pressing social need, it is also a $100 billion market opportunity. “We are making investments across the value chain so that we can take it from start to finish.”

Mobile Arms Race: Why Privacy Is the Next Battleground?

By M H Ahssan - Group Editor in Chief

Recently, Apple and Google unveiled the latest iterations of their iOS and Android mobile platforms, respectively. While these were incremental enhancements from both companies, a war is brewing to make consumers’ smartphones even smarter, by using more personal data.

The two companies dominate the mobile platform space, and are now taking the fight to a new battleground that revolves around knowing users well enough to be proactively helpful, to deliver information that is contextually relevant and to make their devices act even more like a human personal assistant.

The World's 'Spiciest & Strong Chilli' Grows In India!

By Hemanshu Rai in Imphal

One of the many things that puzzle people about those from the Northeast is their obsession for bhut jalokia. A fiery chilli that makes them teary eyed. It's so hot that some even cry! But these are only tears of joy. To stop the tears, they quickly take a mouthful of raw sugar! All is well again and they continue eating.

A meal in some parts of the region is hardly complete unless it is laced with hot and sizzling bhut jalokia. The scary-sounding name "bhut jalokia" is a vermilion-coloured chilli pepper which is famed as the world's hottest chilli. In 2007, it was certified by the Guinness World Records as the 'hottest chilli pepper in the world'. In fact, in 2010 the Indian military decided to use this chilli in hand grenades for crowd control.

Hema Malini's Behaviour Not Acceptable In Any Politician!

By Krishna Kumar

How many characters does it take to hang yourself in the public eye? One hundred and forty, and that's not including the characters who make up Hema Malini's publicity team. 

This morning, the former actress and current politician's Twitter account presented the world wide web with this: "How I wish the girl's father had followed the traffic rules - thn this accident could have been averted & the lil one's life safe!".

If we ever come up with a visual dictionary, then this tweet could work as the perfect example for two words -- callousness and stupidity.

Spotlight: It's Perfect Time To Stop The Degree Snobbery?

By Likha Veer
Group Executive Editor

With even well-known institutes ditching the diploma, experts say skills matter more than a certificate. Remember those black and-white graduation photos in the family album, the prized degree held up and the proud tilt of the head? For Indians, a degree has always been a weighty document. Diplomas? In our snobby minds, those were for the electrician, the beautician or the technician.

Even today most would agree with the views of Bengaluru parent Anuradha Gopinath whose son Vivek G is in Class 11. “If my son chooses to go the IIM route, a diploma is fine. Otherwise, it's only a degree. Let's not compare a diploma from a polytechnic to a degree from a technology institute,“ she says.

Money Matters In India: Some Indian CEOs Make More Than 400% On Their Employees Are Paid Monthly!

Exactly how much India's corporate honchos earn has been a matter of conjecture. Until now. That members of the C-suite make an incredible amount of money has always been known, but exactly how much – especially, compared to the average employee’s salary – has been a matter of conjecture.

Now, new regulations in India have mandated making that information public.

The Companies Act of 2013 and the new Corporate Governance Code by the Securities and Exchange Board of India require that listed firms disclose the ratio of remuneration of directors to the median employee salary.

Prespective Of 'Vyapam Scam': After Rapid Political Rise, CM Chouhan May Sink In Cash-For-Jobs Scandal

By Newscop
Group Managing Editor

Once seen as a prime ministerial candidate, the Madhya Pradesh chief minster is now trying just to survive the crisis.

The cash-for-jobs, or Vyapam, scam surfaced four months before a moment of glory for Madhya Pradesh’s Bharatiya Janata Party chief minister, Shivraj Singh Chouhan. Already eight years in office, the chief minister was hailed as the hero of a spectacular electoral victory in the state assembly election of 2013.

Sporadic cases of ineligible candidates being granted admission to the state’s six medical colleges had been surfacing in the media for many years. The public also had a sense of the longstanding nexus between Madhya Pradesh’s professional examination officials and admission touts.

OpEd: Why Do Indians Show Sympathy For 'Rule-Breakers'

By Dr.Shelly Ahmed

From businessman Rajat Gupta to the Vyapam suspects, the public often views wrongdoers as victims.

Discussing Madhya Pradesh’s Vyapam scandal, which began with students hiring proxies and bribing exam invigilators, a friend reminded me of the case of Ashwini Gupta. On April 9, 1935, Gupta, then a young professor in Calcutta’s Ripon College, took leave from work pleading ill health, and instead sat for a BA economics exam under the name of a student he tutored privately called Samaresh Mukherjee. 

Gupta’s ruse was discovered, he was soon arrested, and in December that year sentenced by a magistrate to six months hard labour.