First up this week is the news that the Indian per capita income rose by 14.5% during 2009-10 to Rs. 46,492 at current prices or Rs. 40,605 in 2004-05 prices. The rural per capita income is Rs. 16,327 and urban is Rs. 44,223. That’s a pretty big divide, and the fact that 74% of the population lives in rural areas makes it worse.
One way to deal with this is to make things simpler for entrepreneurs and small business owners to carry out their business. There are millions of way to do that, and one thing that the government did in that direction was to make it slightly simpler for Americans to get an India visa. They are not required to produce a birth certificate anymore!
How will this help raise the per capita income?
If more Americans come here – on business or pleasure – they will spend more money, which will then benefit some Indian in one way or another. When I was in Goa last – I met someone from Italy who wanted to stay in India every year for 6 months or so, but wasn’t able to because of visa limitations. That’s just insane!
Let’s look at something sane now – Roger Nusbaum’s piece about the importance of saving, and how at a certain points in your life savings rate can become more important than your investing returns.
I haven’t written enough about the thrift aspect of personal finance lately, and I think I need to do a post on this in the coming week, and probably illustrate some of the points that Roger makes in an Indian context.
Moving along, let’s look at an insurance piece now -Â Hemant’s views on LIC Samridhi Plus – it’s a hard – hitting article and if you were thinking about this policy then I strongly recommend you read it.
Finally, NYT on Japan’s tragedy – our thoughts and prayers are with them, and I hope for the least damage to them.
