Financial Journalism (Mr. K.A. Badarinath)

The class started with a brief introduction. Professor K.A Badrinath, is the editor of Financial Chronicle and has previously worked with The Economic Times and The Pioneer. He commenced the lecture by talking about Journalism. He said that Journalism was like kite flying and required a certain realm of imagination.

 He listed down the top financial newspapers, namely, Economic Times, Financial Express, Mint, Hindu Business Line, Financial Chronicle and Business Standard. He also stated that “Reading a business paper is an art in itself”. Then he asked us to give our opinions on the state of Indian economy.

Talking about the Indian economy he stated that:

 1. The Indian economy is the ninth largest economy in the world. It’s divided between four sectors, namely, Industry, Agriculture, Export/trade, Services.

 2. It is the second largest foodgrain producer in the world.

 3. Our iron ore exports our banned. Iron ore is converted to steel and then exported to earn higher value.

4. Our net worth in terms of GDP is $1.87  trillion. Of which, 56.4% is contributed by service sector,17.4% by agricultural sector and 26.4% by the industrial sector.

5. However not even 5% of this forms the part of world trade.

6. Our GDP is the ninth largest as per the 2012 data.

7. India is the tenth largest importer and the nineteenth largest exporter in the world. Export accounts for $309 bn and import accounts for $512 bn.

8. In terms of the ease of doing business, India is on the 192^nd position which means it is very difficult to do business in India.

9. We engage in contract manufacturing. This means, our locally produced goods are further branded and sold worldwide.

10. To overcome all these problems, India first has to deal with its rural difficulties which include illiteracy, health, poverty and infrastructure.

Some of the world’s richest people live in India and own big business empires. Right now according to Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR), the Business houses ought to contribute 2% of their profits towards social upliftment. However in practice, this rarely happens.

The lecture ended on the question, whether these business houses should come up and take initiative to contribute towards India’s social sector projects?