by admin | May 25, 2021 | Investing, Markets, Social Media, Technology
London : Facebook has announced it will commit tens of millions of dollars to Community Leadership Program that is designed to empower global leaders who are building communities through its family of apps and services.
Apart from that, Facebook would also commit up to $10 million in grants that will go directly to people creating and leading communities so that Community Leaders could have more impact with additional support, the company said at the Facebook Communities Summit Europe in late on Friday.
“In addition, we introduced new tools for group admins and the expansion of our London-based engineering team that builds technology to help keep people safe on Facebook,” the social media giant wrote in a blog.
Under the programme, Facebook would offer Residency and Fellowship opportunities for training, support and funding to community leaders from around the world.
“Up to five leaders will be selected to be community leaders in residence and awarded up to $1,000,000 each to fund their proposals,” it said.
“Up to 100 leaders will be selected for our fellowship program and will receive up to $50,000 each to be used for a specific community initiative,” the company said.
Facebook would also expand its Community Leadership Circles programme that brings local community leaders together to meet up in person to connect, learn and collaborate as well as Groups for Facebook Power Admins that is being run with more than 10,000 group admins in the US and Britain to help leader share advice with one another.
Meanwhile, the new tools for Group Admins and Members would keep their communities safe, organised and engaged.
With the Admin Tools, admins can now find member requests, Group Insights making it easier to manage groups and freeing up more time for admins to connect with members.
Group announcements will let group admins to post up to 10 announcements that appear at the top of their group.
Now admins can create a dedicated rules section to help them effectively communicate the rules of the group to their members. Now admins can add a personalised colour that is displayed throughout their group.
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, Economy, Investing, News, Politics
By Arun Kumar Das,
New Delhi : Overriding concern for safety, improvement in passenger amenities and big investment in infrastructure are slated to be the focus for the railways with the Modi government expecting to loosen the purse strings in its last full budget ahead of the 2019 general elections.
There is unlikely to be any fare hike or announcement of new trains. The consolidation of all major initiatives in the last three years will be reflected in the Budget 2018-19 to be rolled out on February 1.
The operating ratio (OR) is slated to be 95 per cent for the next fiscal as against the 96 per cent in the current financial year.
The financial health of the railways is determined by its OR, which indicates how much the railways spend to earn a rupee. An OR of 90 per cent means 90 paisa is being spent to earn 100 paisa.
There will be provisions for manufacturing of electric locomotives at Diesel Locomotive Works (DLW) at Varanasi and Diesel Component Works (DCW) at Patiala to cater to the growing demand of electric locos in the coming years.
Since the railways has decided on electrification of the entire rail route and phasing out of diesel locos in a gradual manner, there is a need for manufacturing of electric locos in large numbers.
The railways have registered a growth of 1.4 per cent on passenger bookings and 6.9 per cent in goods loadings till December 2017 as against the previous year.
In a major thrust to modernisation, the budget is likely to earmark Rs 95,000 crore for overall upgradation in the rail infrastructure including signalling automation, replacement of age-old tracks and other assets.
Amid the rising global crude oil prices and dipping of the GST collections, Finance Minister Arun Jaitley is expected to do a tightrope walk while presenting the Budget.
Though there are widespread expectations of the middle class for lightening of the tax burdens, the government is likely stick to its fiscal consolidation measures to curb fiscal deficit.
It is learnt that Jaitley will not spell out the every detail of the allocation for the railways but read out only operating parts that focus on major expenditure on various heads, revenue earnings and projected growth in goods and passenger sectors.
The budget is likely to witness an increase in the plan allocation from Rs 1.31 lakh crorre to about Rs 1.46 lakh crore, while the gross budgetary support (GBS) is also expected to be around Rs 65,000 crore against Rs 55,000 crore in 2017-18.
Railway Minister Piyush Goyal has said time and again not to depend upon the GBS and emphasised the need to generate enough funds from internal resources and the market.
Monetisation of transmission assets, commercial exploitation of surplus land and creation of new avenues for ad revenue are some of the measures being undertaken to maximise earnings.
While borrowing was pegged at Rs 40,000 cr in the last budget, this time it will go up further to fund capacity enhancement plans of the railways.
The railways will make a provision of around Rs 3,000 crore in its budget for 2018-19 to install CCTV systems in all 11,000 trains — including premier and suburban services — and all the 8,500 stations in the Indian rail network.
Though the cross-subsidy for passenger service is more than Rs 30,000 crore a year now, the state-run transporter will still include many initiatives to upgrade amenities at rail premises, including Wi-Fi at all stations, SMS alerts for all trains and revamping of the ticketing website, among others.
Aiming to provide better amenities, there will make a provision for installing about 3,000 escalators and 1,000 lifts at all major urban and suburban stations across the country.
With safety getting top billing, complete automation of the entire signalling system is likely to get the nod among other safety related measures in the forthcoming budget.
The construction of new lines, gauge conversion and doublings besides massive electrification will continue to be part of the infrastructure development plan.
There is also expected to be adequate provision for capacity enhancement of the railways to step up the growth momentum as investment in the sector is crucial to continue the country’s growth trajectory.
With the volatile market at hand and the agri sector requiring special attention, Jaitley’s budget will be closely watched on Thursday.
(Arun Kumar Das is a senior Delhi-based freelance journalist. He can be contacted at akdas2005@gmail.com)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Corporate, Corporate Governance, Investing
By Aroonim Bhuyan,
New Delhi : Though the US Congress has extended the deadline for the EB5 visa, popularly known as the “Golden Visa”, that allows foreign nationals to apply for a green card by investing in the US, experts are of the view that the investment limits under this scheme are likely to be increased in February.
The US Congress last week extended the deadline for the EB5 visa to February 8 after the latest deadline expired on January 19.
Introduced in 1990, the EB5 visa programme allows an individual to invest $500,000 in either of two Targeted Employment Areas (TEAs) — a high unemployment area in a US metropolis or a rural area outside of a metro — or $1 million in a non-TEA area that can create 10 or more jobs, and get US citizenship in a shorter time than H1-B visa holders.
With US President Donald Trump calling for stricter norms for issuance of H1-B visas, largely availed by Indian IT firms, the EB5 visa has been in demand for the shorter route to citizenship it offers.
A private member’s bill was also introduced last year in the US Congress by Democrat Zoe Lofgren which seeks to increase the minimum salary of an H1-B visa holder to a whopping $130,000 from the current minimum of $60,000.
At the same time, the EB5 visa programme has also come under controversy with critics saying that it puts up US citizenship for sale. Authorisation for the EB5 programme has been carried on a temporary basis on Congressional spending bills since September 2015.
Now, experts say that after the latest deadline expires, investment limits of both the $500,000 and $1 million variants are likely to be increased.
According to Pankaj Joshi, Managing Director of Nysa Capital that deals with EB5 applicants, there are reportedly three proposals doing the rounds.
One proposal calls for hiking the $500,000 limit to $800,000 and $1 million limit to $1.2 million. A second proposal calls for hiking the limits to $925,000 and $1.025 million, while the third seeks to increase these to $1.3 million and $1.8 million, respectively.
So, if a hike is effected, will there be a dip in the number of Indian applicants for the EB5 visa?
“Yes, there will be a short-term dip in the applications, but depending on what level is (of the investment limit),” Joshi told IANS.
“If it goes from $500,000 to $800,000, there will be a smaller dip. Even $925,000 will see a smaller dip but if it goes to $1.3 million, there will be a large dip,” he said.
India ranks third after China and Vietnam in terms of the number of applicants for the EB5 visas. A total of 10,000 such visas are issued every year with the limit capped at 700 for one country.
According to Mark Davies, Global Chairman of Davies and Associates which also deals with EB5 applicants, the number of Indian clients his firm handled increased from 99 in 2014 to 238 in 2015 and over 330 in 2016. “I expect this to be 500-plus in 2017,” he said.
Davies explained that there are two ways in which an investor can apply for an EB5 visa — either through regional centres, which hold licences and are authorised to implement projects under the EB5 visa scheme — or outside of the regional centres.
The advantage of working with regional centres is that the jobs created under the project concerned can be counted, he said.
But on the flip side, there can be responsible or irresponsible regional centres “just as a person holding a driving licence can drive responsibly or irresponsibly”, Davies said and pointed out that the current deadline only applies for those seeking an EB5 visa through regional centres while “the direct route is open forever”.
Both Joshi and Davies are of the opinion that Indian applicants should do more due diligence of the investments they make in the projects in the US. Joshi pointed out that the approval rate for Indian applicants was around 65 per cent as against the global approval rate of 82 per cent.
“My advice is that the applicants must have white money, the source of their funds,” Davies said. “They need to have good real estate finance lawyers.”
Both the experts also warned that Indian applicants are likely to enter the retrogression phase by 2019-20. In other words, the waiting period for the green card getting longer once the cap of 700 applicants for one country is hit.
Joshi’s advice is that applicants should take advantage of the expedited process approval whenever such an opportunity arises.
Requests to expedite applications are approved only in the case of national interest, humanitarian need, or emergency situations.
Joshi’s Nysa Capital holds the exclusive marketing rights in India for the Tryon International Equestrian Center, where this year’s FEI World Equestrian Games will be held.
The project has been given the status of that of national interest and expedite process approval under the EB5 visa scheme has been granted to it. It is a new economic cluster centred around the development of a world class equestrian lifestyle centre in North Carolina.
“One of the greatest advantages of investing in an expedited process approved project like Tryon is to get the Golden Visa in less than six months whereas the average process time is around 20-24 months,” Joshi said.
(Aroonim Bhuyan can be contacted at aroonim.b@ians.in)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Opinions
By Taponeel Mukherjee,
The “Policy for Repowering of the Wind Power Projects” announced by the Ministry of New and Renewable Energy in August 2016 was a step in the right direction. Now is the time for global investors to pay more attention to wind-turbine repowering investment opportunities in India to take a grip on a growing renewable energy market.
This is even more important given that, according to a recent IMF report, India’s GDP growth is projected to rise to 7.4 per cent in 2018-2019 and 7.8 per cent in 2019-2020, which will place a significant demand on energy pitched against rising oil prices and depleting reserves. Policymakers, in turn, need to look at ways and means to build on the existing policy framework that will boost wind energy investments through repowering of wind-turbines in India.
Wind-turbine technology has witnessed a significant improvement over the last two decades. In India, most of the wind-turbines installed prior to 2000 have a capacity that is below 500kW. The “Policy for Repowering of the Wind Power Projects” allows turbines of 1 MW or below to be eligible for repowering under the policy.
These repowering projects are not only eligible for an additional interest rate rebate of 25 basis points on loans from the Indian Renewable Energy Development Agency (IREDA) but are also eligible for all fiscal and financial benefits available for new wind projects. Investors looking at the Indian renewable energy sector must seize this opportunity. Further government incentives can provide a significant boost to the wind-turbine repowering sector.
Identifying high-quality assets suitable for repowering will be the key to a successful investing strategy. It will be important to analyse at a site level whether repowering of the wind-turbine has any economic benefit. Does the site have the wind potential to justify larger and more efficient turbines? This analysis will provide investors with access to sites that do have significant potential, since we believe that the initial wind developments would have generally happened at the better sites.
This ability to identify high quality wind assets will be crucial. In further analysis, the investor will have to identify whether repowering would have financial benefits over and above simply paying the operations and maintenance costs associated with the current turbines. Additionally, the investor will have to analyse whether the requisite transmission mechanism exists for the end user to be able to consume the extra energy.
For wind sites that meet the foregoing criteria it is possible for investors to identify and access financially viable wind-turbine repowering projects. In addition to wind projects that are fully financially feasible, government incentives available and potential positive regulations in the future can make additional projects viable. Global investors keen on entering the Indian renewable energy sector must engage with local players to identify where valuable wind energy assets are.
Repowering wind-turbines is the equivalent of generating new wind assets. Financially viable projects using the framework above have potential for significant value generation. In addition, repowering of wind-turbines also provides investors the opportunity to create investment platform structures to aggregate wind energy assets. The investors can look to not only enter repowering agreements but also to own these assets. All the above reasons make repowering of wind-turbines an investment opportunity that warrants greater attention from the global investor community.
The “Policy for Repowering of the Wind Power Projects” was a right move, but the time has come for Indian policymakers to up the ante in the wind energy sector. First and foremost, for repowering of wind-turbines to generate additional energy from an operational point of view, the transmission mechanism to transfer the energy to the end-user must exist. Transmission line investments and policies must move hand in hand with repowering of wind-turbine policies.
For India to emerge as the hub of wind energy investments globally, it is important for more investor-friendly tax policies in the wind energy sector, especially around wind-turbine repowering. The government should allow for high percentage of accelerated depreciation for wind-turbine repowering projects. Such a tax incentive will help boost the renewable energy ecosystem by encouraging investments.
In summary, India needs to not just reach its renewable energy target, but also ensure that its renewable energy resources are utilised to the maximum extent. Making investments economically feasible with effective policies and tax incentives will have social benefits above and beyond the economic benefits.
(Taponeel Mukherjee heads Development Tracks, an infrastructure advisory firm. He can be contacted at taponeel.mukherjee@development-tracks.com or @taponeel on Twitter)
—IANS
by admin | May 25, 2021 | Commodity Market, Corporate, Corporate finance, Corporate Governance, Economy, Finance, Investing, News, Politics
For representational purpose only (Google image)
Rome : The UN International Fund for Agricultural Development (IFAD) and the Indian government signed a $168 million pact to sustainably raise incomes and food security for tribal farming households in northeast India, IFAD reported.
The six-year project will help 201,500 rural highland farming households in tribal villages in 12 districts located in the uplands of Mizoram and Nagaland States, IFAD said.
The target population is smallholder farmers who depend on rain-fed agriculture and a shifting cultivation system known as ‘jhum’ for their livelihoods, IFAD stated.
“Once sustainable, the jhum-based upland farming system is breaking down due to low productivity, shortening and shifting cultivation cycles with less time to restore soil fertility and biodiversity, and an increasing demand for food by a growing population,” said Meera Mishra, the IFAD country coordinator for India.
“Changing climate patterns are also having a negative effect,” Mishra added.
The project will systematically align traditional jhum practices to the natural regeneration cycle of forests while encourage jhum farming households to adopt alternative farming systems, such as sedentary farming, wet-terrace rice fields and improved livestock systems, said IFAD.
The aim is to promote climate-resilient, remunerative and environmentally sustainable agricultural practices that reduce pressure on natural resources, according to IFAD.
The project includes a $75.5 million loan and a $1 million grant from IFAD and will be co-financed by the governments of Mizoram and Nagaland.
The agreement was inked by Gilbert F. Houngbo, President of IFAD, and Anurag Agarwal, Joint Secretary in the Indian Department of Economic Affairs, IFAD stated.
IFAD said it had financed 29 rural development programmes and projects in India since 1979, investing $1.12 billion to benefit almost 4.8 million rural households.
—IANS/AKI
