'The problems that the film explores still remain. It was a different time when we made the film. We were young and we thought we could change the world.'
Nearly 665 million Indians or 45 per cent of the rural population did not have access to the internet as of 2023. Difficulty in understanding internet procedures, insufficient awareness of its benefits, and a lack of interest have emerged as the top reasons for a gap in internet penetration in rural India, according to a joint report by the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI) and Kantar. "The proficiency of English in rural India is very low. While we have content in Hindi, the internet is English-heavy.
Hero MotoCorp, India's largest two-wheeler maker, has seen a decline in its market share in rural areas since 2018, losing ground to major competitors such as TVS Motor Company, Bajaj Auto, and Honda Motorcycle & Scooter India (HMSI), according to data from JATO Dynamics reviewed by Business Standard. Hero's share of rural two-wheeler sales in India has dropped from 40.4 per cent in 2018 to 33.3 per cent in 2023. In contrast, Bajaj's share increased from 12.7 per cent in 2018 to 13.9 per cent, HMSI's from 21.8 per cent to 22.2 per cent, and TVS' from 15.5 per cent to 17.8 per cent. Suzuki Motorcycle India has also seen its share rise from 1.7 per cent to 2.5 per cent.
More than 157 million Indians watched at least one film in the theatre in 2023.
'Our target will come from rural areas as there are more outlets there.'
For the smart phone industry, it has been a lacklustre quarter of CY2024, with sales falling by 3-4 per cent over the same period last year, according to Counterpoint Research projections. However, with the launch of many new models in Q1 of CY24, overall shipments grew year-on-year by 10-12 per cent. In CY23 shipments remained flat, ending the year with 152 million units.
In a poor village of daily wage earners in Siwan, Bihar, people speak about their hard lives and why they vote.
Ace designer Vikram Phadnis ended Day Four at Lakme Fashion Week Summer/Resort 2013 with a superb collection, a celebrity line up of stars, celebs and personalities from Raigad that told the glorious story of India's great craftsmen and traditions.
The data profiles the country's rural households.
Is this a shot at patriarchy under the classic tale of mistaken identities? Or a humorous coming-of-age feminist tale as seen in last year's Barbie, wonders Mayur Sanap.
Advertisement revenues will go up in 2016-17 with automobiles and e-commerce being big contributors.
A cycle that runs on water and land, a scooter powered-flour mill, solar mosquito killer, a cycle powered washing machine - these are a few of the over one lakh outstanding innovations that have come from school dropouts and poor people who belong to rural India.
Long thought of as a luxury and domain of urbanites, an e-revolution is silently hitting the rural homes as colour TVs, refrigerators, air conditioners and microwaves become a household sight in villages and small townships.
As an initial step, Internet.org and Unilever will carry out a comprehensive study to examine the opportunities to increase internet adoption in rural communities.
'We went from zero to about 10 million users in three months. Paytm came out with the wallet play and we came out with the UPI play.'
Vortex Engineering has launched one of India's greatest initiatives to extend banking services to several parts of rural India.
Ahead of the upcoming elections, political parties have started announcing incentives to benefit women, but what do women truly seek for genuine gender parity, asks Nivedita Mookerji.
Although large companies like Nestle, Dabur or HUL have been impacted by this slowdown in demand, it was the small, local players that have been hit harder.
India Inc was urged Wednesday to invest in rural India, which according to a McKinsey survey, will provide a market worth $500-600 billion by 2020.
'I watched Sui Dhaaga, Balika Badhu and Bhojpuri women's videos to see how the women are there because this is the story of 2001 and I am born in 2007.'
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The anger against land acquisition is not only among landowners.
From melodrama to mockery (remember Amar and Prem's phony separated-at-Kumbh Mela reunion in a gag of Andaz Apna Apna?), there are numerous instances of its presence.
Urban employment rate increased to 34.96 per cent in February. This is the highest employment rate recorded in urban India since September 2020.
Elections are not won or lost by expounding on such macro-economic matters. For the aam admi, what matters in manifestos are promises that will improve their quality of life, notes Vinayak Chatterjee.
Harish Hande had a strong belief in the potential of solar energy for solving energy utility issues, and decided to take the challenge head on.
'Sweden removed the inheritance tax because many of the rich were fleeing. For example, the owner of IKEA had migrated out of Sweden'
Lower income groups earning less than Rs 100,000 a year are yet to recover as are those earning between Rs 100,000 and Rs 200,000.
Dabur India has been the worst performer in the fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) space this year (CY23), posting a 1 per cent decline even as its peer index, the Nifty FMCG, has delivered returns of over 29 per cent in this period.
Promising to hold the price line to protect the real income of the poor, President A P J Abdul Kalam on Friday said the country's economy was poised to grow at 7 per cent this year.
The K-shaped economic recovery in India from the pandemic slowdown shows in corporate results as well. The automobile sector, which represents big-ticket consumption, continues to do well and has increased its share in corporate revenues and profits while fast-moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies that sell low-ticket consumer goods are struggling with poor sales and earnings growth. The share of the automobile sector, including makers of auto ancillaries, in corporate net sales rose to a 10-quarter high of 10.05 per cent during July-September 2023 (Q2FY24) from 8.94 per cent a year earlier and 9.75 per cent in Q1FY24.
Finance Minister Nirmala Sitharaman will present her sixth straight Budget ahead of the Parliamentary elections, matching the record of former Prime Minister Morarji Desai. Sitharaman in her pre-election Budget, which technically is a vote on account and popularly termed an interim Budget, will seek Parliament's nod for a grant in advance to meet the central government's essential expenditure for the first four months of the new fiscal year that starts in April. A new government elected after the April/May general elections will present the full Budget, likely in July.
'The BJP has started a war-like situation against farmers and the Jat community.'
The Indian Post Payments Bank will be a boon to Indians who live in rural areas. India has 154,000 post offices, of which 139,000 are rural.
A qualified software engineer, Ravikant Kalluri (28) is trying his hand at social entrepreneurship.
According to a government survey released for 2011-12 on household consumer expenditure, "The poorest 10 per cent of India's rural population had an average monthly per capita expenditure of Rs 503.49 per month."
They all seem to forget that the Music Academy is as much an independent institution as T M Krishna is an individual musician. In drawing those red lines for the Academy management, they do not even seem to recognise that they too have crossed a red line themselves, points out N Sathiya Moorthy.
Rural slowdown may delay growth in the economy.
Fast moving consumer goods (FMCG) companies are expected to see muted topline growth, with uneven spread of the monsoon impacting demand. Rural demand recovery, too, remains elusive in the July-September quarter. Brokerages expect volumes to remain steady in the quarter on a sequential basis.
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