The Insider View by Pankaj Gaurav

When Arunachalam Muruganantham perceived the idea that he was going to do something about the fact that women in India can’t afford sanitary napkins, he went the extra mile: He wore his own for a week to figure out the best design. Chances are you've never heard of Jayaashree Industries or its owner Arunachalam Muruganantham yet. With his roots in rural Tamil Nadu, his main claim to fame is that he almost single-handedly created a model for making affordable sanitary napkins in the country. It's a subject few men know or dare to ask about. Muruganantham's curiosity about his wife's use of cloth during her periods led to shocking revelations and a long body of research. Driven by the revelation that his wife was torn between spending money on milk for the children and buying commercially manufactured sanitary napkins, Indian innovator and inventor Arunachalam Muruganantham embarked on a long and intensive journey to find a solution. His achievement – a simple machine ...

Burning Problem Indian banking industry is undergoing a big problem of NPA [1] (Non-Performing Asset) crisis in recent years which is eroding the profitability metrics of commercial sector banks, affecting their balance sheets (higher provisions [2] ) and in a longer run impacting overall Indian economy as well. As per recent news, SBI reported a massive 67% fall in consolidated net profit at Rs 1,259.49 crore in the quarter to December 2015, after it classified loans worth Rs 20,692 crore as having turned bad [3] . Other large Public sector banks, to quote a few like Punjab National Bank and Union Bank of India have posted substantial dip in their net profits. RBI has relaxed the norms as part of proposal on April 6 th 2015, which says banks can take 2 more years for classifying certain asset as NPA. This may help banks on going easy on provisioning against bad loans. But this is going to aggravate the problem further in longer run as it may lead to technical bankruptcy ...

High yield Bonds: An Investment opportunity post 2008 economic crisis Post 2008 economic crisis, High yield bond market has evolved significantly in terms of returns generated to investors, as they have been quite rewarding, if they went long and held it to 7 years. There are few exceptions in last quarters on 2015 and Current 2016 Q1,  but period prior to it was remarkably rewarding time for investors in this asset class. From March 31, 2009 to June 30, 2014, the high yield market returned nearly 18% on an annualized basis, with spread to worst dropping from 1,675 basis points to 372 basis points over comparable Treasury bonds (Please refer figure 1)                                Figure 1 [1] [1] Source : S&P Capital IQ LCD, SPUSCHY stands for S&P U.S. Issued High Yield Corporate Bond Index Return of High Yield bonds encompasses two components: Coupon Income an...