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Author of the Indian microfinance success story Vikram Akula, founder of SKS Microfinance Pvt Ltd, believes that even though microfinance is not an answer to the agriculture crisis in Vidarbha, it can supplement incomes for farm families. After 150 branches all over the country, he moved into Vidarbha recently. His three branches have 1,000 borrowers in 21 villages.

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The world’s second largest phone maker Motorola on Tuesday launched a new phone priced at about Rs 1,600. The strategic pricing is aimed at enhancing its leadership in the sub-Rs 2,000 handset market where it is already the leader in the Rs 14,400 crore entry level segment of the Rs 24,000 crore handsets industry. It competes with Chinese players like Haier and Bird who sell their products starting Rs 1,200 a handset. Nokia, the largest player in the domestic handsets market, offers its entry level series starting at Rs 2,000. LG and Samsung, the other players in the industry, don’t operate in the sub-Rs 2000 range.

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With mobile phone shipments expected to slow next year, Nokia and Motorola are set to slug it out in emerging markets with low-cost, ultraslim phones.

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Advanced Micro Devices is changing both its products and business model in its plans to address low cost PCs for developing countries. The moves are part of a new direction in the wake of cancelling earlier this month its Personal Internet Communicator (PIC), a low cost PC in a sealed case aimed broadly at developing countries.

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The informal sector -- officially defined as businesses that are not registered in any way -- currently accounts for some 2,9-million jobs. Official statistics on the size of its contribution to total employment have fluctuated wildly over the past decade, from 11% in 1996 to a peak of 29% in 2001, then down to 19% in 2004 before climbing to 23% this year.

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Indian telecommunications company Bharti Airtel has signed a tie-up deal with Wal-Mart to open a chain of retail stores across the country, Sunil B. Mittal, Bharti Airtel's chief executive officer, said Monday.

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Apax is looking for long-term investment and buyout opportunities in the fast-growing technology, telecom, retail and consumer, media, healthcare and financial services sectors. It also has several companies in its portfolio that may interest Indian firms as they scout for foreign assets to expand their reach and size.

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But there was a twist: while the company would have direct subscribers like regular cellular companies, local entrepreneurs in villages would buy phones, rent them out — with airtime — to neighbours and friends who wanted to make calls.

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Villages in one of the world's poorest countries, long isolated by distance and deprivation, are getting their first Internet access, all connected over cellphones. And in the process, millions of people who have no land-line telephones, and often lack electricity and running water, in recent months have gained access to services considered basic in richer countries: weather reports, e-mail, even a doctor's second opinion.

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The U.S. Agency for International Development (USAID) and the International Finance Corporation (IFC), part of the World Bank Group, today signed a Memorandum of Understanding which opens the way for these organizations to jointly support a range of new grassroots business development projects in the developing world. Poverty alleviation has become a primary objective of development efforts, and this new collaboration will help to build and maintain democratic states that support improved and sustained production techniques designed to create sustainable wealth.

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