India joins Missile Technology Control Regime

India on Monday joined the multilateral export control Missile Technology Control Regime (MTCR) as a full member, days after its attempt to be part of the exclusive Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) failed thanks to stiff opposition from China and a few other countries.

On Monday, foreign secretary S. Jaishankar signed the document of accession into MTCR in the presence of the ambassadors of France, Netherlands and Luxembourg, in New Delhi, Indian foreign ministry spokesman Vikas Swarup said.

India had applied for membership last year and the grouping earlier this month agreed on India’s entry into the bloc with none of the 34 members voicing any objection. Last year, Italy had objected to India’s application, unhappy as it was with New Delhi’s stance over the dispute over the detention of two Italian marines. The two marines, accused of murdering two fishermen off the Kerala coast in 2012, were allowed to return home and Italy has since dropped its objections.

China, which last week thwarted India’s entry into the 48-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG) at the just-concluded Seoul plenary, is not a member of the MTCR.

Since it concluded its civil nuclear deal with the United States in 2008, India has been trying to get admission into export control regimes such as the NSG, MTCR, the Australia Group and the Wassenaar Arrangement that regulate the conventional, nuclear, biological and chemicals weapons and technologies.

India’s efforts to get into the MTCR also got a boost after it agreed to join the Hague Code of Conduct, dealing with the ballistic missile non-proliferation arrangement, earlier this month.

The MTCR membership will enable India to buy sophisticated missile technology and also enhance its joint ventures with Russia. India is also looking to source drones from the US.

The aim of the MTCR is to restrict the proliferation of missiles, complete rocket systems, unmanned air vehicles and related technology for those systems capable of carrying a 500 kilogramme payload for at least 300 kilometres, as well as systems intended for the delivery of weapons of mass destruction (WMD).

The rupee surged to a three-week high after historic Fed move

Rupee surged to a three-week high of 66.42 against the American currency after the Federal Reserve's historic episode of monetary tightening measures triggered panic dollar selling.

A spectacular rally in domestic equities further supported the sentiment.

World financials and currency markets too reacted vehemently to the landmark outcome, ending months of lingering confusion and uncertainty.

The US Federal Reserve announced a quarter-point increase in the target range for the federal funds rate to 0.25-0.5 per cent.

This marks the end to the seven-year regime of near-zero interest rates and the Federal Reserve's first interest rate hike in nearly a decade aftermath of global financial meltdown in 2008 -- the worst economic disaster following Lehman's bankruptcy.

The domestic unit opened firmly higher at 66.62 from Wednesday's close of 66.73 at the Interbank Foreign Exchange Market against the backdrop of overnight developments and continued its strong upmove till the final trade to end with a solid gain of 31 paise, or 0.46 per cent at 66.42 -- the level not seen since November 24.

It briefly touched an intra-day low of 66.6750.

Frantic dollar selling by banks and corporates alongside unwinded long dollar positions by speculators helped the rupee to rally.

Robust stockpile of forex reserves and improving macro-economic environment alongside policy reforms by the Narendra Modi government and measures taken by governor Raghuram Rajan largely helped the Indian currency to withstand the volatility and pressure, a forex dealer said.

"The re-rating of India story and growing confidence in growth outlook, which stands the best with a 7.4 per cent growth, also bolstered sentiment, he added.

Incredibly long string of reasons including concerns over the strength of the global economy, worries about slowdown in the world's second-largest economy China and capital flight from emerging markets had prompted Fed to hold rates steady in recent past, despite bullish macro cues.

On the global front, the dollar traded two-week highs against a basket of its major peers.

Biggest wealth creators 2010-15

(TCS) emerged as the biggest wealth creator in the past five years.

According to wealth creation study conducted by financial services company Motilal Oswal, TCS created wealth worth Rs 3,458 billion for the period 2010-15, followed by ITC (Rs 1,565 billion) and HDFC Bank (Rs 1,540 billion).

Wealth creation is the process by which a company enhances the market value of the capital entrusted to it by its shareholders, the study said.

"TCS has emerged as the biggest wealth creator for the period 2010-15, retaining the top spot it held even in the previous two study periods (2009-14 and 2008-13)," the study said.

Other companies in the top-10 list are Sun Pharma (4th), Hindustan Unilever (5th), HCL Tech (6th), HDFC (7th), Tata Motors (8th), Infosys (9th) and Axis Bank (10th).

Drugmaker Ajanta Pharma emerged as the "fastest" wealth creator for 2010-15, while Titan Company was "the most consistent" for generating wealth for its shareholders.

Sector-wise, consumer and retail ranked as India's biggest wealth creating industry over 2010-2015 followed by financials and technology sectors.

The study ranked top 100 companies in terms of wealth creation. It considered wealth created as the difference in market capitalization over a period of last five years, after adjusting for equity dilution.

Consumer and retail ranked as India's biggest wealth creating industry over 2010-2015 followed by financials and technology sectors.

Mobile wallets: All you need to know

Aiming towards a cashless society, mobile wallets are still a new but a rapidly growing concept. It will be a long time before traditional wallets reach the museums, since a major slice of our population still doesn't own credit cards, people who have turned to mobile wallets are increasingly happy with them. The reason for this is obvious: Mobile wallets have made payment process absolutely seamless.

If you are still new to the concept, here's what you need to know:

What is a mobile wallet?

To put it simply, a digital or a virtual wallet is to a traditional wallet what an email is to postcards. Most of these wallets work through apps that you can download on your smartphones, hence the term 'mobile wallet.'

Like Uber has made hailing a taxi just a few taps away, a mobile wallet makes payments as easy as few taps by the user on his smartphone. So even if you do not have cash and the thought of going to the ATM seems too time consuming, a mobile wallet will enable you to make transactions. Just make sure you have money in the wallet, which you can add through credit/debit card and netbanking.

Kinds of mobile wallets

There are four kinds of mobile wallets: Open, semi-open, semi-closed and closed.

With an open mobile wallet, you can pay for goods and services with your digital money, withdraw cash from ATMs and banks, and transfer money to other users of the wallet. These wallets also let you transfer money to mobile number bank accounts.

On the other hand, with a semi-open mobile wallet, you can pay for transactions with merchants who have a contract with the company. There is no option of withdrawing money.

Then there are semi-closed mobile wallets that, like semi-open wallets, don't allow cash withdrawals, but allow you to pay for transactions with merchants who are listed with it, like Ola Money. Also, with these kinds of wallets you can pay at listed locations.

Lastly, there are closed wallets, which are generally used by most e-commerce companies. With these wallets, you can only pay for the goods and services offered by these companies, for example Flipkart Wallet.

Which ones are the most popular in India?

Oxigen, which recently got hacked, was the first mobile wallet to be launched in India. However, the most noted one till date is Paytm, which recently claimed to have 100 million users who carry out 75 million transactions every month.

Paytm was, in fact, one of the few ways via which customers could pay for Uber before it started accepting cash. Uber's increasing popularity in India also helped Paytm's user base swell. The mobile wallet, which is currently accepted at over 80,000 merchants, eyes a further growth and aims to reach 10 million merchants by end of 2016.

Following Paytm is MobiKwik with over 25 million users and compatibility with over 50,000 merchants. According to MobiKwik's website, users make over 400,000 transactions using the mobile wallet daily.

Besides these, InMobi, PayU, Airtel Money, Vodafone's M-Pesa, Citrus Pay, Tata Teleservices's mRupee and the recently-launched ICICI Bank's mVisa are also getting increasingly popular.

How do they work?

After creating an account on any mobile wallet that you may wish to use, add money in it using your credit/debit card or through online banking. Some of these wallets can be loaded by giving cash at specified retail stores or ATMs. You can then use this money for various transactions, which include both online and offline payments. However, the only requirement is that the merchant the user is paying to through the mobile wallet must be listed with it.

Other than this, with mobile wallets you can also make in-store payments, pay for digital content, and manage credit and debit cards.

Users also get instant freebies, discounts, cash-backs and coupons when they use these mobile wallets for payments. It is noteworthy, however, that these discounts, coupons and cash-backs are usually offered by retailers, and not by the payments company.

A number of payment solutions are also coming up with an option of transferring funds, with which mobile wallet users can send and receive money among themselves.

Advantages of mobile wallets

Speaking of the benefits mobile wallets offer consumers, firstly and most importantly, they make the payment process simpler. The entire idea of going down to the ATM to withdraw cash seems old school when you can pay with just a few taps on your smartphone.

Also the mobile wallet market is still very new and competitive, as a result of which each of these companies offers various kinds of rewards and rebates to its consumers. So whether it is some coupons, cashbacks or discounts, the one person who is benefitting from it all is the customer. If you think of it in one way, you are actually using a simpler way of payment and getting a reward for it.

From the merchant point of view, digital wallets are also more beneficial for them. The platforms let merchants perform customized, real-time marketing, which lets them enroll customers in loyalty programmes. They can also reach their targeted audience more easily through an additional communication channel.

Other than this, increased use of mobile wallets also increases their online sales as they can connect to their customers directly.

Disadvantages of mobile wallets

Mobile wallets have their share of disadvantages too. The first and the most obvious one is that they are not accessible to all, because a considerable percentage of our population doesn't own smartphones or live in areas with no internet connectivity. For these folks, mobile wallets have little relevance.

400 placement offers in four days at IIT-Delhi

The number of profiles considered in the first week of placement has seen an increase of 10%.

NEW DELHI: Over 400 offers were made in the first four days of placements at Indian Institute of Technology, Delhi. The number of profiles considered in the first week of placement has also seen an increase of 10%. Owing to flood, companies from Chennai will be visiting at a later date.

Several technology companies came for placement in the first week "rolling out high packages of over $1,00,000 per annum as base pay for international positions, mainly in the US," says Anishya Madan of IIT-D's Training and Placement Cell.

Interestingly, several of these offers have been rejected by students "opting to accept offers from other firms with domestic offers." "Most foreign offers are of Rs 50 to Rs 60 lakh. Once you convert that into foreign currency, it won't allow you the kind of lifestyle you can have at Rs 30 to 40 lakh in India," explains an IIT-D student.

Madan says, "Most offers have been for India," and the average increase in packages for domestic profiles for the first week is in the range of 10% to 20%. There was a large number of Japanese companies at IIT-D this placement season. The largest number of offers have come, unsurprisingly, from information technology-43% of the total. The usual tech companies were present, but not Facebook even though Mark Zuckerberg visited the campus in October.