The World Bank has said that increasing automation could jeopardise 69% jobs in India and 77% in China in the coming years, with technology playing a major disruptor, especially in developing countries.
"As we continue to encourage more investment in infrastructure to promote growth, we also have to think about the kinds of infrastructure that countries will need in the economy of the future. We all know that technology has and will continue to fundamentally reshape the world," a Press Trust of India report cited World Bank President Jim Kim as saying. "But the traditional economic path from increasing productivity of agriculture to light manufacturing and then to full-scale industrialisation may not be possible for all developing countries," the report cited him saying further.
This comes even as the International Monetary Fund (IMF) has said that India will grow at 7.6% this fiscal and that its economy is recovering fast. The IMF had earlier forecast India’s growth at 7.4%. At this rate, the IMF says, India is racing ahead of China, which is likely to grow at 6.6% and 6.2% respectively during 2016 and 2017.
Meanwhile, citing top bankers, The Economic Times says in a report that home loan borrowers may have to wait a while before their equated monthly installments (EMIs) come down following Tuesday’s rate cut by the Reserve Bank of India (RBI). The RBI had reduced the repo rate by 25 basis points.
Lending rates are determined by a framework called the Marginal Cost of Fund Based Lending Rate, which stipulates that rates remain fixed for a particular tenure, which in the case of home loans is one year, the report notes. Even in the past, transmission has been an issue with banks not passing the full benefits of a repo rate cut to consumers.
Separately, as much as 60% of the telecom spectrum on offer has remained unsold at the end of the third day of the ongoing auctions, with the government receiving bids slightly short of Rs 61,000 crore. Telecom companies, burdened by debt, have not bid for the 700 MHz and 900 MHz bands, even at the end of the third day of bidding. A Business Standard report says that at this rate, the government will fetch just about Rs 65,000 crore from the auction, about Rs 25,000 crore of which will be by way of an upfront payment this year. The government was hoping to garner at least Rs 5.6 lakh crore from the spectrum sale.
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