This four lettered word “LIFE” is the synonym of living and nothing else, don’t waste it about thinking over the things which have either happened in the past or more likely have not even happened yet, this is a constantly changing world, everything is temporary in this world even you and me, we are perishable, then what are you doing why are you wasting your life over thinking of the things which are just confined within your mind doors, they are not reality they just exist within in your mind most of the problems you have in your life have originated from overthinking, be in now and enjoy this moment, live this moment because this moment is life, don’t take it too seriously, don’t put too much pressure on your mind, don’t let the desire of a successful future destroy your present, if you think that a sad present can give you a beautiful life then you’re wrong because life is now and if you can’t make yourself happy being in this moment then how can you expect it from yourself that attaining a certain goals will make you happy? If something doesn’t satisfy you today then how can you think that it will give you a beautiful and peaceful life, most of the people destroy their life either thinking about their past or caring about their uncertain future, we human being have only 5 senses, we can never analyse what’s going to happen in the future the only thing which is in our hand is to take actions but we can never predict the result of our actions and most of times the way we perceive our future is not exactly how it turns out to be, now the current scenario of world is a good example of the uncertainty of life, no one knew that this would happened in the beginning of 2020 all of us had a tons and tons of plans for our new year but our plans got failed they turned out to be something called “LOCK DOWN” we are at our home today, probably many of us had a lot of plans and wishes with our family, or friends but today it’s not safe to step out of our homes unnecessarily, this is life man, this is the reality and nothing can change the fact no matter how many plans you make, no matter how much time you waste in figuring out your life, at the end you will have even more questions than before. So live your life instead of worrying.
The Consumers can now cheer as the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 has recently replaced the three decade old Consumer Protection Act, 1986. The Consumer Protection Act, 2019 which came into effect on Monday (July 20) has replaced the earlier Consumer Protection Act, 1986.
The new Act as per the Experts say that “it gives more power to the consumers”. It seeks to revamp the process of administration and settlement of consumer disputes, with strict penalties, including jail term for adulteration and misleading ads by firms.
On July 20, 2020 certain provisions of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 came into force as notified by the Central Government. Following the the key features of the relevant provisions:-
Key features of the Consumer Protection Act, 2019 which came into effect on July 20, 2020:-
1) Consumers can now institute a complaint from where they reside or work for gain.
2) The original pecuniary jurisdiction of the District Commissions has increased upto ₹1 crore from ₹20 lakh earlier.
3) The Pecuniary jurisdiction of State Commissions has been increased from ₹1 crore to Rs. 10 crore.
4) The National Commission can hear cases above ₹10 crore when compared to above ₹1 crore earlier.
5) While the provisions relating to e-commerce are not yet notified, a section relating to electronic service provider (covering software services, electronic payments) is notified.
6) The opposite party needs to deposit 50% of the amount ordered by the District Commission before filing an appeal before the State Commission. Earlier, the ceiling was a maximum of ₹25,000, which has been removed.
7) The limitation period for filing of appeals to the State Commission has been increased from 30 days to 45 days.
8) The Parties can be allowed to settle the disputes through mediation.
Following are the Sections which came into force:
Above mentioned provisions pertain to the Consumer Protection Councils, Consumer Disputes Redressal Forum, Mediation, Product Liability, punishment for manufacturing, selling, distributing etc spurious good or products which contain adulterant.
As per the rules, the e-commerce players will have to display the total ‘price’ of goods and services offered for sale along with break-up of other charges. Only a few certain miscellaneous provisions with regards and respect to the powers of the Central and State Government to make the rules and regulations have also been enforced.
On misleading advertisements there is provision for jail term and fine for manufacturers. There is no provision for jail for celebrities but they could be banned for endorsing products if it is found to be misleading.
For the first time there will be an exclusive law dealing with Product Liability. A manufacturer or product service provider or product seller will now be responsible to compensate for an injury or damage caused by the defective product or deficiency in services.
The Act has also defined an “e-commerce” as the buying or selling of goods or services including the digital products over digital or electronic networks. The existing definition of e-commerce has been adopted from India’s FDI Guidelines on e-commerce.
The definition of ‘e-commerce Entity’ as provided under the FDI Guidelines includes inventory and market place models.
There is also a provision for class action law suit for ensuring that rights of consumers are not infringed upon. The authority will have power to impose a penalty on a manufacturer or an endorser of up to 10 lakh rupees and imprisonment for up to two years for a false or misleading advertisement.
One Plus are launching their another smartphone called One Plus Nord today in India on July 21st 2020 at 7:30 PM IST.
The expected price of this smartphone will be around ₹ 34,900
The key specifications of the phone are:
The phone comes in 3 variants 6 GB + 128 GB, 8GB + 256 GB and 12 GB + 256 GB, the entry level price for this mobile is expected to be around ₹ 25,999. The phone will come with 3 colour variants one is Nordic White, second is Arctic Blue, and another one is Amber Red. The back of the One Plus Nord will reportedly flaunt a frosted glass panel, like the previously launched OnePlus 7T.
The OnePlus Nord will come equipped with a Type-C port and will draw power from a 4,200 mAh battery unit powered by a 30W fast-charger. It is well-established that the OnePlus Nord will flaunt a 90Hz refresh rate AMOLED display with dual punch hole housing a 32MP + 8MP selfie camera setup. As far as the rear camera is concerned, we are expecting the OnePlus Nord to boast a quad-lens camera setup featuring 48MP + 8MP + 2MP + 2MP hardware. The OnePlus Nord will use the Adreno 620 GPU to handle graphics.
Features:
Octa core (2.4 GHz, Single Core + 2.2 GHz, Single core + 1.8 GHz, Hexa Core)
Kendriya Vidyalaya Sangathan (KVS) has started the online registration process of the admission in Class 1st for academic session 2020-21 on it’s official website kvsangathan.nic.in Check the procedure down below to apply, it contains the direct link, important instructions, lists of the documents and everything which is required for the admission.
Step 3: Now, read though the details and documents required for the admission process
Step 4: Click on the registration link
Step 5: Upload all the documents and click on submit
Step 6: Now, download all the documents and keep a copy This is how you can apply.
The online registration for Class 1 will close on August 7 at 7pm. The registration for class 2 onwards has also started on July 20 and will close on July 25 at 4 pm if vacancies exist (in offline mode).
The first provisionally selected students list for class 1 will be released on August 11th 2020, the second list will be out on August 24th 2020 while the third list will be out on August 26th 2020 (if seats remain vacant).
Declaration of provisional select list of candidates as per priority service category for unreserved seats, if any (keeping the left over reserved seats blocked) will be done from August 27th 2020 to August 29th 2020.
The registration for class II onwards (Except Class 11th) will take place from July 20th 2020 to July 25th 2020 (Offline mode).
Declaration of list of Class II onwards will be done at July 29th 2020 at 4:00 PM. Admission for class 2 onwards students will take place from July 30th 2020 to August 7th 2020.
For KV students: Registration for admission in Class 11th will be done within a week of class 10th result declaration.
Admission list for class 11th will be declared within 1 week of registration.
Non-KV students availability of vacancies, display of admission list & admissions in Class 11th registration will be done after the admission of KV students in Class 10th.
According to the official schedule, last date of admission for all classes including class 11th is September 15 2020.
Note:
If any of the dates happen to be a public holiday the next working day will be treated as opening/closing date.
The studies of Class 1 will commence from 15th September 2020 either online or regular depending upon improvement in COVID-19 situation.
Presently around 198 Kendriya Vidyalaya across the country are being used as Isolation Centre or Quarantine Center by Central/State Government due to pandemic COVID-19. These KVs will be functional for regular classes only after lifting of lockdown.
If you want to build an indepebdent free lance career right away then here is the solution, the book Pyjama profit is a free lancing guide, it has the answers of all the questions wandering in your mind whenever you think of this one word ‘freelancing’ grab your copy and start doing what you love to do and get paid for it.
So here is a short and concise review of the book.
The millennial’s guide to a sustainable freelance career, it is the tagline of one of the best selling books on Amazon, ‘PYJAMA PROFIT’ the authors of the book are Varun Mayya and Abhinav Chhikara. The books is all about their journeys from the freelancing to a successful and stable business, the co author of the book Varun Mayya says “Tommorow, if you put me in a strange country without any resources, all I need is a laptop and an internet connection and I know I’ll build myself an awesome life fairly quick.”
Pyjama profit is a modern guide to free lancing. The book talks about the in demand online skills, the different paths one can take to become an expert in specific fields and the freedom that freelancing allows to hone further skills, taking on bigger assignments. A stable income from freelancing was the bedrock that allowed the authors – Varun and Abhinav to pursue their dreams and passions. Now, they have shared their stories of what worked for them and how anyone, anywhere can thrive without being tied to a 9 to 5 job. The book is a perfect fit in today’s time as the freelance economy grows and so do the aspiration among millennials to find a work they love, and not just something that pays their bills.
Photography is one of the major things of everyone’s life today,
All of us want to freeze the moments we live day to day in a photograph, the new developing technology has made it very easier for people to document their lives easily through photographs and videos and the advancements in technology helps you to put your documented photographs or videos on the platforms like YouTube, Instagram etc. and build your career out of it but the question is how to get started? Now, basically if you want to get started with photography then you do not need a professional degree or course the only thing you need are skills and that’s it but if you’ll do a course or major in photography or cinematography then it will help your chances of getting jobs in the Multi national companies, but if you want to make a career out of blogging vlogging youtubing or photographer then a degree is not a compulsion, what important is teaching yourself about the principles of capturing an image and the lighting conditions and then just go out start practising in real world, now you can learn everything by yourself but it takes time to develop a skill, what’s more important in photography is light.
The word “Photography” itself depicts the meaning as drawing using light. The word photography is made of two words PHOTO and GRAPHEIN where Photo means light and Graphein means to draw.
So, light plays the major role in photography, after learning the basic principles of photography and light the practising comes into play.
Now, the answer of the question how to get started is very simple just start practising right away, reach out to people, at the earlier stage do the unpaid shoots then build your profile, work as an intern and gain experiences overtime after building your name you can start to earn money through photography and can begin your own photography career.
Cardboard boxes that have been used for generations and thrived in the age of e-commerce continue to flourish or could the cardboard box be facing a new challenger? Cardboard boxes are a very big deal within the U.S. The United States is the Saudi Arabia of trees. Someone’s going to make the first box and that’s almost inevitably a mill generally in the Southeast United States. China certainly doesn’t have trees and India the extent they do have trees they’re not necessarily the right types of trees and shouldn’t be dedicated towards making boxes for us. The box business grew rapidly up through 1999 when the U.S. coordinated box market had its peak shipment. Starting in the early 2000s the U.S. corrugated box market faced multiple economic obstacles.
The great recession dragged on box demand and even after the recession demand continued to slow for commodity like soda and for the boxes that transport them. The move to digital devices also coincided with a drop in demand for copy paper and newsprint. But box makers found a grace in e-commerce sales and Amazon sale specifically which were growing at mostly integer rates within the recession and post-recession years. Those e-commerce sales have become a significant market for the containerboard industry. In 2018 told a U.S. e-commerce sales were estimated to be $512 billion almost 50 percent higher than in 2015. Amazon captured 48 percent of those sales. Most estimates are that e-commerce accounts for about 10 percent of the U.S. box market. Amazon accounts for close to 5 percent of U.S. box demand. By our estimates they are clearly the single largest box user in the US. International Paper with a third of the market I think does closer to 50 percent of all the amazon boxes evidently they got a bit more share than perhaps some of the smaller players.
Amazon said they deal with most of the big box makers across the U.S. according to analysts. Those manufacturers include International Paper, WestRock, Packaging Corporation of America and Georgia-Pacific. Some investors were turning to these companies as a way to invest in the e-commerce giant without having to purchase Amazon’s pricey stock. People didn’t really start talking about buying International Paper or WestRock as a secondary investment in Amazon till about the last five years. Despite the boost from e-commerce sales the box business still isn’t growing all that much. And since 2018 their stocks have mostly underperformed the S&P 500. In 2018, 69 percent of International Papers total revenue came from the box business and that sales volume has been mostly flat for the past five years. Although the big producers sold less boxes in 2018 than in 2000, industry consolidation has dramatically narrowed the fields.
The handful of big players remaining are based in Memphis, Tennessee, Atlanta, Georgia and Lake Forest, Illinois. Analysts have told CNBC that substantial industry mergers have made it easier to collectively hike prices and those price increases have helped drive revenue. There are portions of the business that are in indisputable secular decline but if you’re in the brown part of the business, making these boxes, that’s been some very welcome growth. But those extra boxes piling up on people’s doorsteps have led to a backlash from disgruntled customers who are sick of receiving golf ball sized products in supersized boxes. It used to be that you’d order a toothbrush and it would come in three giant boxes and you’d say to yourself, what is this? Well, Amazon is trying to rectify that by using fewer boxes and using other types of packaging where appropriate. With e-commerce packaging underfire Amazon decided to change the way they do shipping. In 2008, Amazon introduced the Frustration Free Packaging program. It aims to reduce the extra packaging created when retail packaged products are placed inside Amazon boxes to be shipped. Instead, products certified in the program that are roughly the size of a blender or larger need to be packaged in their own ready to ship boxes. And those boxes also need to be made of 100 percent recyclable materials. For customers that means that the packaging is easy to recycle and the box is easy to open without all the excess packaging materials.
Amazon offered vendors an incentive of a dollar per shipment to modify their packaging. And starting August 1st 2019 Amazon is charging a $1.99 penalty for each product shipped that needs to be reboxed. And basically the point of this deadline is for Amazon to get out of the business of packaging. They want their vendors to send them boxes that Amazon doesn’t have to touch or rebox. Over the last two years we have invented two different kinds of flexible mailers. One is the blue and white all plastic mailer. We’ve recently launched in the last six, eight months a paper padded mailer that’s actually fully recyclable with the paper stream. Amazon said they made about 10 million shipments using the paper padded mailer and depending on the month the plastic mailer is used about 20 to 30 percent of the time. So really when we come down to deciding if the product is of the size it can go on a mailer, it’s not likely to be damaged by going in the mailer, the mailer is always the better fitting option and frankly is easier for the customer to choose to recycle than breaking down a corrugate box. We’re driving in that direction for many different reasons. But those plastic mailers generally are not accepted in municipal recycling programs and you’ll need to bring them to a store that accepts plastic bags. The latest stats from the EPA show that corrugated boxes were recycled at a rate of 92 percent in 2015 while plastic bags, sacks and wraps were recycled at a rate of 13 percent in 2015.
When you think about what is the greatest pain point for the consumer after having it get there safely arrive on time people are concerned about receiving something that is plastic or made a poly because of the environmental concerns. Some waste management companies say plastic packaging also causes problems for the recycling systems. Plastic mailers get caught in the recycling machinery slowing down the process and raising the costs for recyclers and sometimes contaminating entire bundles. Until Scotty on the Enterprise can beam the products from the warehouse to your living room I think Amazon’s going to be good for the corrugated business. I think there’s going to be noise I think you’re going to have challenges from time to time where people say, “Should we try and the plastic pouch?”, in the long run plastic is going to be on the wrong side of history. Because Amazon is a market leader in the U.S. e-commerce sector any move away from cardboard to plastic mailers could signal a shift for the entire industry. The corrugated box could be about to undergo a major facelift. We’re seeing some major trends among consumers and what they’re expecting from e-commerce and the first one is actually this desire for increased engagement with the package. In 2015, Amazon partnered with Universal Pictures and Illumination Entertainment to ship orders in bright yellow delivery boxes featuring cartoon characters from the movie Minions. The boxes promoting the movie and a special Amazon U.R.L. dedicated to shopping for merchandise from the film.
On February 14th 2019, a suicide bomber attacked a convoy of Indian security forces. “We’re getting reports of multiple casualties in a roadside…” He killed at least 40 Indian soldiers here in Kashmir. “The deadliest attack the region has seen this century.” The bomber was part of an Islamic militant group based in Pakistan. “Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility for that attack.” 12 days later, India carried out airstrikes in Northwestern Pakistan. Then Pakistan shot down at least one Indian aircraft around here. “The most serious escalation in years.” Kashmir is one of the most disputed places on Earth. Over the course of 70 years, it’s been at the center of three wars fought between two massive armies. It’s heavily occupied by more than half a million Indian troops and a deadly collection of militias and terrorist groups.
Kashmir is the stage for the relentless conflict between India and Pakistan. But focusing on the two countries can obscure what’s really at stake: The voice of Kashmiris who are caught in a vicious cycle of violence. Kashmir is one of the most strategic places in the world, where 3 powerful countries collide: India, Pakistan, and China. China invaded and took this slice of Kashmir from India. And was given this one by Pakistan. India and Pakistan control these parts, but lay claim to more. This region is at the center of a brutal conflict over these disputed borders. So it’s important to start when they were being drawn. In the mid-1800s, India was a patchwork of several hundred provinces and princely states under British rule. A century later, when British India won independence, the British left and hastily decided to split the region into two. These areas would be a new Muslim-majority country, Pakistan. And this would be the mostly Hindu, but secular, India. The partition was bloody. “Communal hatred flares up within the Punjab.” “1 million people become refugees overnight.” “They flee from savagery and butchery that has never been exceeded, even in India’s stormy history.” Amid the chaos, some princely states were given the choice to join either country. In most cases, the ruling monarchs followed the will of their people. But this state, called “Jammu & Kashmir” was different. It was right along this new border and had a Muslim-majority population, but was ruled by a Hindu monarch. When asked to pick a side, the ruler chose to stay neutral Fearing that the monarch would join India, the Kashmiri population rebelled here in 1947 Armed tribesmen from Pakistan soon joined the fight.
The monarch turned to India for military help and in exchange agreed to join them, which sparked the first Indo-Pakistan war in Kashmir. “Continuing thus increased the threat to world peace and brought the dispute to the eye of the United Nations . The UN Security Council brokered a ceasefire in 1949, which established this line with Pakistan controlling this side and India this one. It also asked Pakistani tribesmen to withdraw and Indian troops to follow, so that Kashmir could hold a direct vote to decide its own future. But neither held up their end of the deal. Pakistan argued that Kashmir’s Muslim-majority population rightfully belonged with them. While India insisted that Kashmir was handed over to them by the Hindu monarch. So they doubled down and added Kashmir to their constution. Both countries continued to tighten their grip around it for many years . “Kashmir. Fighting is going on and heavy casualties in men and equipment have been inflicted on the aggressor.”
In 1965, the second India-Pakistan war broke out in Kashmir. Thousands of people were killed between the huge armies on both sides. A ceasefire ended the war, but didn’t change this line. Kashmir was kept divided and occupied. And another war broke out in 1971. This time the focus wasn’t in Kashmir — it was in East Pakistan. Here, India helped rebels fight for independence and dealt Pakistan a devastating defeat. This region became a new country, Bangladesh, and Pakistan lost its eastern half. This made Kashmir more important than ever: It became one of the most militarized places on Earth, as India and Pakistan deployed planes, tanks, artillery, and soldiers along the Line of Control. On the political front, in ’87, India reportedly rigged an election, declaring a pro-India party as the winner. Now this was a big turning point for many Kashmiris, who felt they were again denied the chance to vote. Thousands took to the streets in Indian-controlled Kashmir to protest the occupation. But India met the movement for independence with harsh resistance. Which quickly escalated to more violence.
“In January security forces opened fire on demonstrating separatists, turning a two-year old struggling movement into a full-blown popular uprising.” “More than 600 people are killed in clashes between troops and separatists.” Kashmiri militias, just like the Jammu and Kashmir Liberation Front, started recruiting Muslim youth to fight for independence. And increasingly attacked the Indian military. Pakistan saw an opportunity in this insurgency. They helped introduce a new kind of militant group: Radical Islamic fighters who fought for a more pro-Pakistan Kashmir. By the mid ’90s, these groups dominated the insurgency. India responded with incredible military force, deploying 500,000 troops to Kashmir. And they cracked down on militants and protestors. Unarmed civilians were killed and many more were forced to flee the violence. And in ’98 the stakes were raised yet again. “Today India conducted three underground nuclear tests.” “Pakistan today successfully conducted five nuclear tests.” Kashmir became a battleground between two nuclear-armed nations and another war broke out in 1999. “More evidence of the attacks being launched on the Indian-controlled area of Kargil.” “The past two days have seen a number of the fiercest fighting thus far .” “Militant Muslim fighters have also crossed over into some parts of Indian-ruled Kashmir.” The 1999 war ended with another ceasefire, but that did not stop either country.
Over the years, Pakistan’s militant groups got bolder and launched terror attacks in Kashmir and outside of Kashmir. In 2001, members of Lashkar-e-Taiba bombed India’s parliament building in New Delhi killing 14 people. And in 2008, 10 militants from the same group killed 174 people and wounded 300 in Mumbai. Meanwhile, Indian military cracked down in Kashmir, firing bullets and pellets on unarmed protesters. Leaving hundreds wounded and blind. This is the vicious cycle of violence. The Indian Army’s crackdown drives some Kashmiris to join Pakistani-backed militant groups, who carry out violence against the Indian forces. It’s a cycle that Kashmiri civilians are stuck in the middle of. Which brings us back to 2019. The suicide bomber was 19-year old Adil Ahmed Dar from Pulwama, Kashmir. According to his parents, in 2016, Indian police officers stopped him and humiliated him by forcing his face into the ground. The same year he was shot in the leg at a protest. The next year, Dar left home with his brothers, to join Jaish-e-Mohammed, a Pakistani-supported militia that radicalized him and trained him to be a suicide bomber. A year later, he drove explosives into an Indian military convoy. For more than 70 years India and Pakistan have driven a cycle of violence, retaliation, and exploitation in Kashmir. But beneath it all is the Kashmiri’s wish to make a choice. A wish that continues to be suppressed, again and again, by violence.
The police, obviously, they’re not in the business of of profiting from private acquisitions. We’ve seen extensive lobbying from defense industries who produce educational videos for police who were spending hundreds of millions of dollars to directly lobby Congress for defense spending, but also for these police programs. The police also have their own lobbying organizations that work toward security budgets and equipment for local law enforcement. The National Fraternal Order of Police is one of them and has lobbied in favor of federal grants that are responsible for the militarization of police. It’s really a variety of Homeland Security grants administered by the cops office, the home, the Department of Homeland Security, etc., that have allowed departments to directly purchase military grade equipment. And this has been essential to stimulating a domestic law enforcement market for military contractors. In some cases, the folks who provide the equipment actually directly assist police departments in making these grants. There’s even a Web site that is sponsored by these defense contractors and other providers of police equipment to aid departments in the production of these grant proposals. This whole industry grew significantly during the War on Drugs campaign in the 1970s.
Congress passed a law that focused on incorporating cooperation between the military and the local law enforcement, particularly related to countering drug crimes and the war on drugs. Right. That was sort of the first connection between the military and domestic law enforcement. In 1989, Congress passed the National Defense Authorization Act, temporarily allowing the Department of Defense to transfer excess military equipment to federal and state agencies. The program continued until the 1997 National Defense Authorization Act expanded it to include local law enforcement and made it permanent under a new name. The 1033 program that began a massive transfer of military equipment to local police departments free of charge as long as they paid for shipping and maintenance. That 1033 program was the congressional authorization that allowed police departments to basically go online. There were catalogs of of weapons and vehicles and aircraft and watercraft and any kind of military surplus military equipment was available for the asking. And it was at no cost to law enforcement agencies.
Departments may purchase shotguns that are placed in police vehicles as a routine matter, and some departments are purchasing a variety of less lethal weaponry with their own resources. But when we see sniper equipment, armored vehicles, large amounts of body armor, this is often the result of federal spending. Since its inception, over 11,500 domestic law enforcement agencies have taken part in the ten thirty three program, receiving more than 7.4 billion dollars in military equipment. What you end up seeing is as a result of the 1033 program, local law enforcements continue to ramp up what we call special task force, like SWAT teams, gang task force, drug task force. Right. That all utilize this excess military material. In July 2014, Congressman Alan Grayson proposed that legislation to limit the transfer of certain weapons through the 1033 program. The amendment was met with immense opposition failing on a bipartisan vote of 62 to 355.
The people who voted not to change the 1033 program received 70 percent more money in campaign contributions from the defense sector than those who wanted restrictions. One of the really troubling developments about the involvement of the federal within the direct subsidy of purchases of militarized equipment is that this is often really about creating a new marketplace for defense contractors instead of really putting questions of public safety first. Besides providing free military equipment, the federal government also allows the police to purchase new equipment using their own funds. Under the 1122 program, it also gives local police departments the same discounts enjoyed by the federal government. We’ve seen instances across the country where local governing bodies, like boards of selectmen and mayors and city councilors are often unaware that tax dollars have been expended to acquire these kinds of military weapons and military vehicles. What makes both 1033 and 1122 programs so powerful is the lack of clear oversight and accountability.
The 1122 program, as an example , isn’t a grant or transfer program and thus isn’t required to be monitored by the federal . Meanwhile, the 1033 program has put lethal weapons within the hands of officers who haven’t any justifiable need for such equipment. We’ve seen instances reported of some small towns, even some college and university police departments that were acquiring military grade weapons with none demonstrable need for the utilization of these or the acquisition of these weapons. After the events in Ferguson, the Obama administration sought to tighten the 1033 program with additional requirements and restrictions after months of confrontations on America’s streets. President Obama today banned the federal government from giving some types of military equipment to local police. We’ve seen how militarized gear can sometimes give people a sense like there’s an occupying force as against a force that’s a part of the community that’s protecting them and serving them. And this led to calls in Congress to eliminate 1033 and eventually measure an executive order by the Obama administration to place some limits on the type of equipment that could be used, things like bayonets and turreted armored vehicles.
The Obama administration also required police agencies to justify purchases of equipment considered potentially lethal. President Trump, however, rescinded all of those measures within two years in office. Obama administration made some efforts to increase accountability in auditing of this. But even then, the restrictions and oversight were quite limited. Under the Trump administration, there’s even less evidence of any oversight. Any sense that we know how this equipment is being used or whether or not officers are being properly trained and how to use it. In some cases, equipment transfer through these programs has simply vanished due to a lack of oversight and poor bookkeeping.
There’ve been a number of situations where there have been audits of local police departments to try to figure out what they’ve done with this equipment. And these departments have been unable to provide adequate records. We don’t know if this is a local sheriff taking home camping supplies or if this is about, you know, stuff that’s really gone missing, has been resold or has just simply been lost. Oftentimes, the militarization of the police force might be what’s distracting them from their original purpose, protecting our communities.
India is one among the world’s fasting growing economies. It had been touted as an economic and geopolitical counterweight to China. But recently its growth fell to its slowest pace in six years. Investment has weakened, and unemployment has risen. So what’s causing the slowdown, and how can it be reversed? Since the turn of the century, India’s economy has grown at a rapid rate, helping transform the country. Between 2006 and 2016, rising incomes lifted 271 million people out of poverty, meaning the proportion of Indians still living in poverty has fallen dramatically, from around 55% to twenty-eight . Access to electricity has also improved. In 2007 just 70% of the population had access to power. By 2017, that grew to nearly 93%.
More recently, the Indian government constructed around 110 million toilets — a huge step towards better sanitation designed to prevent the practice of open defecation. It’s a signature program of Prime Minister Narendra Modi, known as Swachh Bharat, or Clean India. All this development has been supported by a booming economy, but as lately , that expansion has begun to run out of steam. In the third quarter of 2019, India’s economic output grew by 4.5% – making it the primary time the country’s growth dipped below 5% since 2013. For context, 4.5% growth remains much above that of developed economies just like the U.S., But with 12 million Indians entering the workforce per annum , economists say the country needs annual growth rates to remain above nine percent to make sure there are enough jobs. So, what’s causing this recent slowdown? Well, officialdom argue turbulence in international financial markets is guilty.
Political uncertainty and U.S.-China trade tensions mean confidence levels among investors and consumers everywhere have sunk. The United Nations has even warned that a global recession in 2020 is now a “clear and present danger”. But back to India – many economists say the country’s growth problems are literally self-inflicted. One obvious culprit is the shadow banking sector. During the 2000s, India saw an investment boom. It was fuelled by state banks dispensing a load of loans for giant infrastructure projects. But some of the companies taking advantage of these loans couldn’t keep up with the repayments. That meant the state banks weren’t getting paid back and therefore struggled to give out new loans. To keep business moving, shadow banks stepped in. These financial institutions, which operate like ordinary commercial banks but don’t follow traditional banking rules, eventually made up an estimated third of all new loans nationwide. The loans played a pivotal role for the millions of small businesses and consumers who would otherwise have no access to credit. But in 2018, shadow banking giant Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services, defaulted on its debt repayments. Its collapse sent shockwaves through the economy and shook up more traditional banks that had supported the world.
It became harder for people to shop for expensive items like cars. That hurt India’s automotive industry, which is one among the country’s biggest. It employs about 35 million people and makes up about 7% of India’s GDP. Last summer, the industry suffered its worst sales performance in nearly 19 years, and reports suggest tens of thousands of workers are laid off. The agriculture and construction sectors have also been hurting, with small and medium businesses being hit the hardest. The country’s percentage has been on an overall upward trend since July 2017, rising several percentage points to 7.7%. Higher unemployment means consumers are buying less, resulting in the unfortunate cycle of slower manufacturing, production, investment and job creation.
A survey from the Reserve Bank of India found consumer confidence has fallen to its lowest level in five years. But Indians still have a positive outlook for the longer term , with most consumers expecting to feel more optimistic during a year. However, if things don’t improve, debt could become another issue. Expecting better days ahead, many households have continued to spend, by taking out loans and dipping into savings. Household savings as a proportion of GDP has fallen from 23.6% to 17.2%. Meanwhile, household debt has surged to 10.9% during the same period. Critics say the govt in New Delhi has did not spot these risks and hasn’t done enough to urge the economy moving again. The Reserve Bank of India’s former governor Raghuram Rajan recently blamed the lack of significant reforms and a slowdown in investments since the global financial crisis. Even the country’s chief economic advisor recently admitted reforms are needed to form India more friendly to investors.
India has cut its corporate rate , but labor and land laws are still extremely strict. He also says the country must become pro-market, instead of just pro-business, to avoid costly government bailouts of failing sectors. But not all reforms have been good to the economy. In 2016, Prime Minister Modi tried to crack down on corruption, counterfeits and evasion by banning high value bank notes. In one night, the cash ban made 86% of all cash invalid. Three years later, many analysts say the policy disrupted the economy and did not achieve many of its original goals. In 2017, a replacement nuisance tax placed small businesses struggling and a few of them were forced to shut . In mid-2019, India’s government introduced a controversial new tax on foreign investors. Consequently, India’s stock exchange suffered its worst July performance in 17 years. Just one month later, the measure was scrapped.
The government has now refocused its efforts on international trade and investment, and thus the recent changes to the corporate rate could indeed help attract businesses and investors to India. But if the country wants to be a part of the world’s largest supply chains, it’ll need low and consistent tariff levels to encourage outsiders to take a position for the long term.
The country’s shifting export policy has harmed several of its largest industries, particularly clothing. India’s share of the worldwide apparel market has increased only slightly within the past 20 years. And though the Indian workforce is vast, both Bangladesh and Vietnam now export more. On top of that, the country’s import tariffs on the average are much above the world’s biggest economies. They’re also among the highest of the world’s emerging economies. Even U.S. President Donald Trump has called for the country to bring down its duties.
Has India’s growth actually slowed the maximum amount as we think? The government’s former chief economic advisor Arvind Subramanian caused a good little bit of controversy in June 2019, when he claimed the country’s official stats probably overstated GDP growth by 2.5% from 2011-2012 to 2016-2017. He says the bottom line is that India never recovered from the global financial crisis. The government denies this. But none of this has hurt Prime Minister Modi at the polls – he won by a landslide in the most recent election. So how will he keep his promise and double the dimensions of the economy by 2025? Many economists insist a well-explained economic vision would help. As would more long-term investment, better skilled workers and enhancements to infrastructure. It may not matter who or what’s responsible for India’s recent economic challenges, but bottom line – India’s economic process must recover , and fast.
Kabaddi is played on a 13×10 meter court and is separated into two halves by a midline. The game is played between two teams made up of seven players each. The teams alternate between raiding and defending. The raider’s objective is to go to the other half of the court, tap one or more of the defenders and return safely within 30 seconds. However, the raider must start repeatedly saying “kabaddi” before he crosses the midline and can’t stop repeating this word until he crosses back over to his team’s side. If he stops saying “kabaddi” on the opponent’s side of the court, even for a split second, he is out. He picks up one point for each defender he touches, but he must also avoid being tackled to keep the points.
This is difficult as he can face between one and seven defenders at the same time. The defenders have to work together as a unit, avoid the raider’s tap and failing that, stop him from returning. Defenders get one point for a successful tackle. Any player that steps or is forced out of the court is then eliminated. UP Yoddha represents the northern state Uttar Pradesh. The team is in its second season in the Pro Kabaddi League and Rishank Devadiga is the team’s captain. So, kabaddi is all about a body contact game. It’s basically like a rugby game. You have to be strong, you have to be fit, mentally fit and also agile on the mat. In one of interview they were asked when, what’s the atmosphere like? How much pressure was there on him as captain?… He replied, Pro Kabaddi started they were told to face the camera, the audience, and everything. It was a bit nervous at the start, but then they enjoy the atmosphere, enjoy the matches.
Kabaddi as a professional sport is a relatively new thing. Until recently, it’s been seen as more of a hobby only played outside the cities. Kabaddi was looked as a rural, rustic sport. It was a sport that was not embraced by urban India, completely overlooked the sport. The settings of the sport was such that it used to be played on dusty bowls. Kabaddi on television? Completely unheard of, “Why would somebody watch it? How are they going to present it?” And that was what aggregated people to come and sample the sport. In other sports, in cricket, for example, you have to wait for a four, or a six, or when a wicket falls. That is the high point. In soccer or football, it’s a goal, similarly in hockey. In kabaddi, every 30 seconds is a high point. It has got the potential of either being a successful raid or being a successful tackle.
The idea behind the Pro Kabaddi League or PKL started back in 1994. However, it wasn’t until 2014, 20 years later, that a broadcaster, Star Sports, came on board. The Pro League, now in its fifth year has seen considerable growth in both investment and audience numbers. From 2016 to 2017, the PKL increased its viewership in India by almost 100 million. And while it’s still second to India’s premier T20 cricket competition, the Indian Premier League, domestically, the Pro Kabaddi League is more popular than the Fifa World Cup, one of the world’s most- watched sporting events. Investment in the league has also increased. In 2017, Star Sports signed the biggest sponsorship deal in India for a non-cricket sport, worth more than $40 million. As a result player salaries have also increased. Following the 2016 player auction, the highest paid player was on just under $130,000 This year it’s $210,000. For team owners and stakeholders in the sport, more investment will help attract more young players to the game. What ultimately a sport stands on is, what does it do for its players? So, what we have been able to do is to make kabaddi athletes aspirational for sports lovers in India. Player salaries have gone up and they definitely see themselves in the front line of the committee of sports persons in India. Which means that increasingly being a kabaddi athlete will become a viable career. That is at the heart of any sport. There are also signs of the sport growing outside India. At this year’s Asia Games neither the men or women’s India kabaddi teams won gold, and the men’s team didn’t even make it to the final. Something that caught the world’s attention. Of course, we are the country who lost, which is bad for a fan, but then for our game of kabaddi, it’s an ultimate manifestation of how the game is growing.
Cricket it’s a sport that dates back over 400 years. And as of 2019 is officially played in 104 countries around the world. Cricket’s worldwide fan base is comprised of roughly one billion people in the Indian subcontinent alone makes up 90 percent of those fans. In India, the country adopted a brand new shorter format of the game has drastically cut down on playing time from days to hours. The Indian Premier League or the IPL has only been around for twelve years but it’s fast become one of the most popular and valuable cricket leagues on the planet. The IPL is brand value has nearly doubled in the last five years. In 2018 the league was valued at 6.3 billion dollars. It rakes in and 510 million dollars each year from its broadcasting rights deal making it to only cricket league in the world to crack the top 20 most valuable media rights deals in all of professional sports joining the ranks of the NFL the NBA and MLB.
So how did the IPL become one the most lucrative cricket leagues on the planet. In India. Cricket is huge. It’s been a staple in Indian sports since the seventeen hundreds. It’s currently the most popular sport in the country. The IPL is one of the richest sports properties in the world. And while the IPL isn’t the only cricket league in India it is the most successful league in the country. The 48 day annual tournament was created in 2007 with the help of the Board of Control for Cricket in India and Indian businessmen Lalit Modi. Even though cricket already had a few pro cricket leagues they wanted to capitalize on the commercial success of 2020. So they modeled the IPL in a similar nature to pro sports in the US.
The IPL was specifically modeled after the likes of the NFL. Which has a decentralized league. meaning that all teams are owned and operated independently. Also similar to the NFL model the IPL is its own league with its own unique structure. There is a separate T20 World Cup where India competes. But that’s different from the IPL. even though matches are all held in India. Team rosters are chock full of top international talent. In 2018, teams spent 94 million dollars to buy 169 players in an auction. up from its 40 million dollars for 66 players in 2017. But what you’ve actually got in the IPL franchises who represent a city a place an industrial heartland and you’ve got the full support of some major entrepreneurs. So rather than let’s say Delhi again. So, you’ve got your IPL franchises based around the cities. I’m not as actually have a massive impact. in terms of global cricket. To make sure the stands are filled with as many IPL fans as possible and to maximize TV viewership. Matches are typically played in the evening and on weekends.
The IPL is a huge moneymaker in India since 2014. The IPL brand valuation has doubled to six point three billion dollars. The reason the IPL has won the largest fan base is for a single sports league in the world. During its opening week of the 2013 season the IPL broke records when 371 million viewers tuned in to watch and by the last week of the tournament a total of 769 million fans watched the 2013 IPL season. The ad revenue generated for that season was over 276 million dollars according to Star India’s managing director. High ratings and ad dollars were a big part of why a major U.S. media companies had their eyes on IPL broadcasting rights. When the IPL launched in 2008. The league issued being your rights to Singapore based sports marketing agency World Sport group. They broadcast an IPO matches on India’s Sony Max TV channel. Under the terms of the 10 year contract World Sport group paid the IPL approximately 1 million dollars per match in its first year for the exclusive broadcasting rights. The overall value of that broadcasting deal was 918 million dollars when the broadcasting deal expired in 2017.
There was a global bidding war for exclusive rights for the IPL. Fox and Sony put in competing bids while Facebook also put its hat in the ring for the 2018-2022 digital rights of the IPL making a 600 million dollar offer. Those TV and digital rights eventually went to Fox the American broadcasters struck a five year 2.5 five billion dollar deal for the global media rights of the IPL. The price per match jumped from 1 million dollars to about 8.47 million dollars per game. For comparison the NFL cost per game is around 22.5 million dollars. The English Premier League is around 13.2 million dollars. The NBA is close to 2 million dollars and the MLB is just 630 thousand dollars per game. Just two years after the ink dried on the Fox IPL deal Disney completed a 71 billion dollar deal for Fox entertainment assets one of the assets that Disney now owns is hot star. The Indian video streaming company in 2019. Streaming service at a global record for the number of people tuning into a life streaming event.
There are 18.6 concurrent viewers watching the IPL final match on the hot star’s website in app. And with that kind of viewership naming rights for the IPL are also huge for the league. Since 2008 the IPO naming rights have changed hands three times from brands DLF to PepsiCo India and finally to Vivo a mobile handset manufacturer in China. Vivo first took over title sponsorship in 2015 and in 2017 Vivo signed a fresh five year deal with the IPL worth approximately 341 million dollars in 2018. The average salary of cricket players in the IPL jumped nearly 30 percent from the year before. All thanks to the massive TV deal signed with Fox in 2017. Before the deal, players across the league had an average salary of 3.9 million dollars but in 2018 the average salary was just over 5 million dollars. And unlike other major sports leagues the IPL season is so short that players have a chance to bank even more cash in the off season.
The IPL takes place in the spring starting at the end of March or early April and continuing through May. That means cricketers have the flexibility to play for other clubs around the world. Take the Mumbai Indians player Kieran Pollard. In 2017 he and more than one million dollars for two months. They play for the Mumbai Indians and IPL in that same year. Pollard had multiple revenue streams from playing for cricket leagues in Australia Bangladesh and South Africa. But just as cricket first spread across the world in the 18th century cricket’s latest form of 2020. Similarly. Taking root across the globe. There’s even a record breaking investment for 2020 league in a country where cricket is even remotely popular, the U.S. In May, 2019, USA Cricket received a 1 billion dollar investment from American cricket enterprises to develop a 2020 league in America. It’s one of the biggest deals for development of domestic cricket in the US and the launch of the league is set to take off in 2021 since the 2020 cricket format was introduced in 2003 and has taken the cricket world by storm. And it doesn’t seem to be slowing down anytime soon.
America does rely on oil in many ways. It’s about 90 percent of the energy that we use in transportation. And it’s more than a third of the overall energy that we use. In fact, it’s probably going to stay that way for a lot, a lot longer. The Energy Information Agency administration predicts that going out to 2050 is still going to over a third of the energy that we’re going to use. So how was it possible for oil to reach a negative value and what does it mean for the American economy? To understand what happened, it’s important to know how a futures contract functions. So the futures market is a way to bet on the future price of a certain commodity.
Different types of oil from all across the world are traded by barrels in their individual market places. But two futures contracts serve as the major benchmark for oil price. Brent Crude trades oil from the North Sea in northern Europe, setting the standard for international oil prices. While the West Texas Intermediate, or WTI, trades a specific grade of oil traded in Cushing, Oklahoma, that serves as a domestic benchmark for oil prices. A refinery might have a contract with a producer and say, we will pay you that Brent price or we’ll pay you the Brent price minus the transportation costs. Or you know that it’s all subject to negotiation. And those two are well known. It’s a shorthand, if you will. And a lot of times other crudes are priced off of those crudes because they’re well, known the quality is high and has a long track record. Similar to most treated commodities, oil prices rely heavily on how much of it is available on the market. In other words, supply and demand. Oil like just about anything else in the world is determined that prices are determined by a willing buyer and a willing seller. And so that means that as demand goes up, more people are buying it.
The price will typically go up, supply stays the same and vice versa. If supply suddenly increases, then then typically the price will go down if the demand stays the same. The demand is determined by how much oil is needed at any given moment due to its crucial role in the economy. High demand has often been associated with a healthy economic growth. Historically, oil demand has moved with the economy of a country. It’s been very tightly tied because almost all transportation comes from burning oil and a lot of other industrial processes use oil. So when the economy is humming along strongly, the demand goes up. And when you have a recession, the demand goes down. On the other hand, supply is usually determined by the producers who have control over its output. Historically, the Organization of Petroleum Exporting Countries, otherwise known as OPEC, has played a crucial role in determining the supply. OPEC currently has 13 member countries, including Iran, Iraq, Kuwait, Saudi Arabia and Venezuela as founding members. However, a lot has changed in recent years as the U.S. surpassed both Russia and Saudi Arabia to become the world’s largest crude oil producer since 2018. Thanks to the rise in production from American shale fields. Essentially these countries and OPEC, everyone is competing for market share.
Everyone wants to produce more for their country, but also the optionality to export it to another country and especially growth regions such as China, Asia. Being an investor or a producer in the oil industry means keeping an eye on this fine balance between supply and demand, as well as the geopolitical events that could threaten the industry. Never forget about geopolitics and the impact it can have on the oil price, because that can be that X factor of why oil may have a big premium or a big discount to fundamentals that you see supply and demand. It’s because geopolitics introduces other risk factors. A historic drop occurred on April 20th, 2020, with U.S. oil prices on WTI dropped by almost 300 percent. Trading around negative 37 dollars. What happened with oil in terms of the negative pricing in April with the futures contracts was rather unprecedented. We have seen negative prices before. For example, last year we were talking about negative natural gas prices and Waha in April 2019. But that’s more due to processing or field issues, not what is happened specifically this time with the COVID 19 and in the price war. Oil prices had been under pressure since January as China battled the spread of COVID 19.
When the pandemic finally reached the rest of the world, demand took a devastating hit. People started talking about the demand going down 2 or 3 percent instead of growing by 1 or 2 percent, as was had previously been expected. But then by the time it got to the United States and all over Western Europe, the forecasts were very different. And at the trough, we probably saw demand in April bottom out, down 30 percent. So we’ve never seen anything like this, certainly in the last 40 years since world oil markets have developed. To make matters worse, a price war erupted between Saudi Arabia and Russia in early March after OPEC and its allies failed to reach an agreement on deeper supply cuts. Oil saw its worst trading day in 20, 29 years. Yesterday, both WTI crude and Brent crude lost nearly a quarter of their value, and the S&P energy sector ended the day 50 percent off its 52 week closing high. Saudi Arabia launched a price war against other key producers. As supply remains steady while demand struck record breaking lows. The petroleum industry quickly began running out of storage space to put their oil. Cushing plays a very big role as one of the main hubs of that commercial storage. And Cushing at the time of the negative contract was around 70, 70 percent full, and what was left was perhaps already committed. So that was a huge issue because Cushing plays one of the main roles in pricing the WTI contracts. As the delivery date for WTI grew near. And investors had nowhere to put the oil. They soon began a massive sell off, prompting an unprecedented crash into the negative territory. WTI special in a way, because it’s so tightly connected to physical oil. And so if you’re holding a contract for WTI, you’re expected to take possession of oil.
What was happening was the buyers who had bought a futures contract, which meant they had responsibility to take delivery of the oil, recognized that that storage was filling up and they had no place to put the oil and they didn’t want the oil. And so they wanted to get out of the contract. Usually they can get out of the contract by getting somebody else to take the oil instead at a positive price. Cause oil’s a valuable commodity. But there was nobody who wanted to take that oil, particularly because it was located in an area that was producing way more oil than they needed. And the pipelines to move oil out of that area were completely full. The historic drop quickly sent shockwaves through the U.S. financial market. The Dow plunged by over 1,200 points over the following two days, and brokerage firms like interactive brokers reported taking 109 million dollar hit to cover its customers losses. It was kind of like what happened in 2000 where we we’re wondering if the computers could roll over. Some of the traders computers couldn’t even handle the negative. They weren’t set up for a negative. So you can imagine the disarray and the surprise, you know, that some traders faced the next morning when they looked at their margin calls or what they owed based on the severity of this drop.
However, experts point out that although the event was unexpected, there was no need to panic. It was not unforeseen. The exchange itself saw it as a possibility ahead of time. They actually discussed what to do if that were to happen, reprogram their software and so forth. And at least one major media outlet reported on it a week ahead of time before it happened. Also, some other products have gone negative in the past. Things like natural gas. So I think it’s important to put it in perspective that while this had never happened with oil before, it was just on one particular instrument. The WTI was just for one day and it was seen as at least a remote possibility ahead of time that it happened. It was very few contracts. There was very little trading at those prices and the price very quickly rebounded into positive territory.
India is that the world’s biggest producer and consumer of dairy. In 2018 alone, India produced 186 million metric tonnes of milk — about 410 billion pounds and 22 percent of the milk produced globally. Almost all of that is consumed domestically thanks to India’s dairy-heavy diet — think creamy curries, yogurt drinks, and a popular type of butter called ghee. A quick note before we proceed: this includes milk from buffaloes, which are an important source of milk in many developing countries. the point is that India loves milk.
In 2011, the French dairy company Danone hoped to capitalize on this by opening a division in India. Danone opened its own processing plant in Haryana and tried to capture some of India’s 1.2 billion dairy lovers. But less than a decade later, Danone shuttered their dairy business in India. That same year, the corporate made 28 billion dollars worldwide and was within the top three global dairy companies. With all this success, elsewhere, why did Danone’s dairy business sour in India? Let’s start with some background on Danone. Their business is broken down into three categories:
1.specialized nutrition, like supplements and formula for babies;
bottled waters and seltzers;
dairy and plant-based alternatives.
That one makes up over half of their global sales, but it’s also the one that failed in India. Danone does still sell specialized nutrition products in the country, but they don’t break out those sales figures separately. This is the same company as Dannon in the U.S. The company decided to rebrand to make the spelling less confusing for American consumers. Anyway, now for some background on India’s dairy industry. There are about 75 million dairy farmers in India. Most of them are women who own one or two buffaloes or cows to supplement the family’s income. Nearly half of India’s milk is not sold, but consumed by the farmers household. This makes India’s dairy industry much more fractured and localized than other countries where Danone operates. Take the company’s native France and one of its biggest customers, the U.S. Each has far fewer dairy farms with herds that dwarf India’s one or two animal average. This was Danone’s first big problem in India: sourcing milk is difficult. Of the half not consumed by farmers’ households, only about 15 percent goes to big organized companies or government run cooperatives. The rest goes to hundreds of small, local milk processors.
The largest companies like Amul, Mother Dairy, and Nestlé have tiny percentages of the market, and they’ve been there for decades. Market research firms Mintel and Euromonitor declined to release specific market share numbers to CNBC. However, a 2016 piece in The Economic Times of India citing Euromonitor put the figures at about 7 percent for Amul, 3.7 percent for Mother Dairy, and 2.9 percent for Nestlé. In short, tapping into the existing dairy infrastructure is effective but time consuming. Imagine the effort of contacting dozens or hundreds of local and regional dairies, processors, or individual farmers. But establishing a separate supply chain altogether is very expensive — a lesson Danone learned the hard way. And when Danone did get milk, the company focused on the wrong products. Danone pushed plain yogurt and flavored yogurt drinks — popular in places like the U.S. and France with high profit margins to boot. But in India around the time when Danone arrived, yogurt comprised only 7 percent of the dairy consumed.
The real money was in ghee, a type of clarified butter, and plain old fluid milk, a product with razor-thin margins dominated by those hundreds of local small-scale producers. Analysts explained to CNBC the simple reason why Indian consumers shunned Danone’s prepackaged yogurt. And if Indian consumers did want to buy premade yogurt, they had a slew of cheaper options than Danone. Dairy never accounted for more than 10 percent of Danone’s sales in India, a far cry from its global 50 percent. Its specialized nutrition arm picks up the slack, and the company announced a renewed focus on that division when it shuttered its dairy operation. Meanwhile, two of their biggest competitors, Amul and Nestlé, made nearly five billion and 750 million from dairy, respectively. But not all hope is lost for Danone’s dairy in India.
In January 2018, the same time that Danone ended its dairy production there, the investment arm of the company announced its part in a 26.5 million dollar investment in Epigamia, an Indian yogurt startup. This could be a sustainable move for Danone in India’s dairy industry because Epigamia offers consumers products that add value onto the plain yogurt they will make cheaply reception . But perhaps most importantly is this: while much of the population still makes yogurt the old-fashioned way, analysts predict that a growing number of consumers will want to buy premade options as they move into corporate jobs in developing urban centers. Very large numbers indeed. If only 5 percent of India’s 1.35 billion people decides to buy prepackaged yogurt, that’s over 67 million consumers — more than the entire population of Danone’s native France.
Apple sells millions of iPhones every year. In the year 2018, the tech giant reported selling close to 47 million units worldwide. But not all markets are created equal. India has been one of the hardest countries to crack for the Cupertino giant. Although it’s been over a decade since Apple began selling iPhones in India, the company can’t seem to get a big bite of the world’s second-largest smartphone market. India is a very price-sensitive market, which means that people pay a lot of attention to what value they are getting out of the price that they are paying for a particular product.
In the case of Apple, there’s a lot of premium being paid for the brand itself, and that’s where the price-conscious Indian consumer thinks about that if they are getting the same kind of features or specs from another phone that they can get a lower price, that makes it tougher to sell something at a much higher premium. Apple is definitely feeling the pressure. Samsung and Xiaomi accounted for the majority of smartphone sales in India in quarter three of 2018, garnering 22 percent and 27 percent respectively of the smartphone market. In contrast, Apple made up only about 1 percent of India’s smartphone market share, trailing behind Chinese phone makers Vivo and Oppo. It’s also worth noting that the premium smartphone market in which Apple operates still makes up less than 5 percent of the overall smartphone market in India.
Most of the smartphones in India that sell, they are below $200 and Apple does not have any play in that segment. This environment is one that competitors like Samsung have begun to adapt to. The South Korean powerhouse is launching its Galaxy M series budget smartphones to appeal to the Indian market. In contrast, Apple doesn’t seem too keen on changing up its India strategy. I got some ideas for you, OK? I talked to some people at Walmart yesterday. An arrangement with Walmart Flipkart to take over India with a budget phone rather than doing it piecemeal? For us, we’re about making the best product that enriches people’s lives. And so, we’re not about making the cheapest. For us, what we’ve seen is, there’s enough people in every country in the world that we play in that we can have a really good business by selling the best phones. Still, some tech investors see Apple as being out of touch with the India market. You think they are going to slash prices? I think they have to. How can you sell a $1,000 phone in a market like China where the GDP per person is $10,000? In India it’s $2,000. And if you go back to the September earnings release, they talked about the fact that India was way below where they thought.
Well, if your average GDP person is $2,000 and you’re trying to sell a $1,000 phone, it’s gonna be probably pretty hard to sell it. They probably want to eat. Another issue for Apple: stiff tariffs. I think iPhones have a specific disadvantage in the India market because of the local regulation. There is a very high import duty on the phones that are not manufactured locally in India. So for most of the big players in the India market, they are manufacturing locally so they do not have to pay that high import duty. Samsung has been manufacturing phones in India since 2007 and just last year opened the world’s largest mobile phone factory on the outskirts of New Delhi. Chinese phone makers Xiaomi and Oppo have also invested millions of dollars to build manufacturing plants in the country. That’s not to say Apple has completely ignored India.
The tech giant already manufactures its lower-cost iPhone SE and iPhone 6s models locally, through a partnership with Taiwanese manufacturer Wistron. This year, Apple is also expected to move its production of the iPhone X series into Foxconn’s plant in southern India. If you look at how we’ve done over the years, we’ve gone from a $100-$200 million business to last year we had we exceeded $2 billion. That $2 billion was flat year over year after a rapid rapid growth. And so we have more work to do. We’d like to put stores there. We would like some of the duties and so forth that are put on the products to go away. But even with its local hardware production push, Apple still fails to provide Indians with a robust software experience.
Apple has introduced turn-by-turn navigation for the India market. Before that, that significant part was missing. And beyond that, there’s not a lot of customization that Apple has done for the India market. There are not a lot of apps that specifically cater to the India market. Past complaints for Apple Maps also included missing major landmarks and having very sparse data of cities and towns. But again, Apple is working on a solution. The company has hired thousands of engineers at its mapping facility in Hyderabad to improve its services. Apple Pay is also not an option in India, though similar payment services from Samsung and Google have already been rolled out. Finally, unlike in most other markets, Apple can’t rely so much on its brand recognition to sell devices in India. The other challenge for Apple in India is that it cannot have its own retail stores or own Apple stores because of some regulatory issues, which means it has to have partners on the retail side, whether it’s the Apple premium resellers, which you see in many other countries as well, or with the third-party resellers. In order to have a larger presence in the market.
Apple has to have partnerships with thousands of these resellers, which in a country as big as India, can be challenging. Apple is still a premium status symbol for many Indians, but one that is out of reach for the majority of the population. With phones from Chinese brands like OnePlus, which was India’s best selling premium smartphone brand for the second quarter in a row, offering similar features at a fraction of the cost, Apple may have a very tough time getting a bigger slice of the India market.
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