20 facts you must know about India's growth

1)The Indian economy is the eleventh largest in the world by nominal GDP and the fourth largest by purchasing power parity (PPP).

2)India is poised to achieve 9 per cent economic growth in the current financial year itself, driven by robust performance by the agriculture and industry sectors.
The economy grew by 8.9 per cent in the second quarter of the current fiscal.

3)India has emerged as one of the world's top ten countries in industrial production. The nation's industrial production grew at the fastest pace in three months at 10.8 per cent.
Manufacturing grew 11.3 percent in October after a 4.6 percent gain in September.

4)India is one of the fastest growing automobile markets in the world, expanding at 35 per cent on average in the first four months of the current financial year.

5)The Bombay Stock Exchange has been rated as the world's best performing stock market recently. With a 13 per cent gain, Sensex is among the world's 10 biggest markets, according to data collected by Bloomberg.

6)Indian companies have become bigger and stronger in the last ten years with the average revenue of a company on the Fortune India 500 list standing at Rs 7,632.5 crore (Rs 76.32 billion).
The total revenue of the Fortune India 500 companies stands at Rs 38,16,239.40 crore.

7)India is the world's largest recipient of overseas remittances. The remittances grew from $49.6 billion in 2009 to $55 billion in 2010.
It is also the country with the second largest number of emigrants after Mexico, according to the World Bank.

8)India owns over 18,000 tonnes of above ground gold stocks worth approximately $800 billion and representing at least 11 per cent of global stock, according to estimates of World Gold Council.
India ranks 11th in the world with 557.7 tonnes of gold reserves.

9)India is among the top 10 nations in terms of foreign exchange reserves.
The country's foreign exchange reserves breached the $300-billion mark for the first time since 2008 with an addition of $2.2 billion on the back of a healthy rise in foreign currency. The nation's forex reserves currently stand at $296.40 billion.

10)India's services sector, backed by the IT revolution, remains the biggest contributor to the country's GDP, with a contribution of 58.4 per cent.

The industry sector contributed 24.1 per cent and the agriculture sector contributed 17.5 per cent to the GDP.

11)India's civil aviation sector will be among the top five in the world in the next five years.
Indian domestic air traffic is expected to reach 160-180 million passengers per year, while international traffic will exceed 80 million.

12)India's exports during November jumped by 26.8 per cent to $18.9 billion year-on-year. India's exports during April-September aggregated to $103.65 billion registering a year-on-year growth of 28 per cent.

13)India, China and Brazil are the top three target countries for foreign direct investment until the end of 2012 with the United States, for years number one, now in fourth place, according to the UN trade and development agency UNCTAD.

14)The Indian telecommunications industry is the world's fastest growing telecommunications industry, 723.28 million telephone (landlines and mobile) subscribers and 687.71 million mobile phone connections as of September 30, 2010.

15)The number of Internet users in India is estimated at 81 million. The Telecom Regulatory Authority of India pegs the number of broadband subscribers at 10.08 million in August 2010.

16)The Indian IT-BPO industry is expected to exceed $70 billion in fiscal 2011.
The Indian IT-BPO exports are projected to grow by 13 per cent to 15 per cent while domestic IT-BPO will grow slightly more by 15 per cent to 17 per cent during fiscal 2010-11.

17)India has the largest number of post offices in the world. The world's highest post office, Hikkim is located at 15,500 feet in the Lahaul Spiti district of Himachal Pradesh.

18)The largest employer in India is the Indian Railways, employing over 1.6 million people. Indian Railways started operations on April 16, 1853.

19)ndia ranks second in farm output globally. India is one of the largest producer in the world of milk, cashew nuts, coconuts, tea, ginger, turmeric and black pepper.

20)Tourism is the largest service industry in India, with a contribution of 6.23 per cent to the national GDP. The number of foreign tourists visiting the country during September this year is higher than that of the same month last year.

Around 3.69 lakh (369,000) foreign tourists came to India in September this year as compared to 3.28 lakh (328,000) during the same month in 2009.

Courtecy:www.rediff.com

Railways: Largest contributor to India's e-commerce

With the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation pushing electronic booking of tickets and scores of online travel portals entering the business, the share of tickets sold online in the total ticket revenues of the railways has doubled to nearly 30 per cent this year.
"Until February, we sold 38.7 million tickets. This is already a 104 per cent increase over the total number of tickets sold online in (the whole of) 2007-08, which stood at 18.9 million," said an Indian Railways official.
The estimated gross sales for 2008-09 stand at Rs 3,400 crore (Rs 34 billion), which makes IRCTC the largest contributor to e-commerce in the country, accounting for over a third of the total e-commerce of Rs 9,000 crore (Rs 90 billion).
"I won't be surprised if IRCTC is the biggest contributor. Last month alone, it did Rs 412 crore (Rs 4.12 billion). I am sure it has a better margin than online air ticketing agents and the non-travel e-commerce players may not have similar revenue potential as a train ticketing website," said Mrutyunjay Mishra, co-founder of JuxtConsult, an IT consultancy firm.
There are about 7.9 million active online buyers, of which 80 per cent buy travel products.
The entry of travel portals like Cleartrip, Ezeego1 and Yatra into the fray has given customers more options, besides enhancing the customer profile. These portals have tied up with IRCTC and customers can buy railway tickets through these sites, too. The portals charge Rs 10 to Rs 20, in addition to IRCTC charges, as service fee.
Cleartrip, which is the largest player in railway bookings, has grown 100 per cent between January and March. According to Noel Swain, vice-president (marketing), Cleartrip, the company sells 3,000 tickets every day. Yatra, which started online railway bookings a month ago, has grown from 8-10 tickets a day to about 1,000.
On booking railway tickets from a travel portal, a customer now gets offers similar to those on air tickets.
"We have launched a 10 per cent cash back offer on railway tickets for all Master Card users on our website from April 1," said Cleartrip's Swain.
Mudit Khosla of Yatra added: "All the offers that were given on airline tickets are now being tried on railway tickets also. For instance, various consumer durables companies are now trying to push vouchers to rail tickets as well."
Neelu Singh, COO of Ezeego1, said that although the margins on rail tickets were not very high, she pushed the sales of other products.
Although the travels portals together account for a minuscule chunk of the overall e-bookings of the railways, they enhance the customer profile. For instance, both Cleartrip and Yatra have an AC to Non-AC bookings ratio of 70 to 30, while for IRCTC, the ratio is the opposite.
The scope for expansion is huge. According to the JuxtConsult study, only 9 per cent of the 35.09 million internet users buy products online as most of them do not have credit cards or do not trust the medium.

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