Women honchos give leadership mantra to female entrepreneurs

September 29th, 2009 NEW DELHI - A whopping 63 percent of top executives of India Inc believe a sustainable economic recovery is under way, according to a survey conducted by a leading think-tank. Indian business honchos are the most optimistic of the lot in Asia of a sustainable economic recovery, said the survey, conducted among 258 senior executives from Asia by the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU).

September 12th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Successful entrepreneurs turn big ideas into business opportunities, but how should they protect those ideas? A new paper offers a how-to guide on intellectual property protection, laying out the options for budding entrepreneurs as they consider how to move forward. This article lays out the pros and cons of various intellectual-property protections, says Stephen Schanz, associate professor of management, innovation and entrepreneurship at North Carolina State University (NCSU) and study co-author.

August 15th, 2009 DUBAI - An educational foundation in the United Arab Emirates (UAE) has launched a training programme for young entrepreneurs in Bahrain to help them identify market needs and understand best business practices, WAM news agency reported Saturday. The Mohammed bin Rashid Al Maktoum Foundation has launched the programme in collaboration with the Bahrain Development Bank and its affiliate Bahrain Business Incubator Centre.

August 14th, 2009 WASHINGTON - Companies in which women are board members fare worse on the stock market, according to a study conducted by researchers at the University of Exeter. The researchers have found that companies with female board members this face stockmarket prejudice despite performing as well on all other measures as those with all-male boards.

August 13th, 2009 SYDNEY - Female customers are less likely to buy an item from a shop if they feel the sales girls are more attractive than they are, according to a study. The latest research from the University of South Australia (USA) says the power of gorgeous girls at the counter has some very clear limits.

August 7th, 2009 LONDON - Women board members may not be very good at making money, but they are really efficient when it comes to ousting male chief executives who are not up to the job, according to a study. In the research, two academics have apparently found that while female board members behave more like independent directors, this does not necessarily translates into bigger profits.

July 31st, 2009 NEW DELHI - The government is planning to formulate a separate policy for the country's food processing industry and to scale up research and development (R&D) activities in the sector, Minister for Food Processing Industries Subodh Kant Sahai said here Friday. "The government is planning to call a meeting of state food processing ministers after the conclusion of the current parliament session to seek their views in formulating a separate food processing policy," Sahai said.

July 14th, 2009 SHIMLA - Himachal Pradesh Tuesday asked mini hydropower project producers to provide funds for the development of the areas where the power plants have been commissioned, a government spokesperson said. "The state government decided that all private power producers generating hydroelectricity up to 100 KW (0.1 MW) will have to provide three percent of the income generated from the project to the local gram panchayat for the first 12 years and six percent thereafter.

July 7th, 2009 AHMEDABAD - The Anil Ambani-controlled advertising group Mudra Tuesday launched a new company, Ignite Mudra, specifically for building brands for new entrepreneurs. "The Mudra group has been responsible for building several iconic brands such as Vimal, Dhara, Rasna, Itchguard, Dermicool, Moov and Nutralite for the past three decades," said Ignite Mudra president Chandan Nath at a press conference here.

July 2nd, 2009 CHANDIGARH - In a major relief to female employees engaged on contract basis, the Haryana government Thursday announced that they too would be entitled to maternity leave. A letter issued by the state's finance department stated that women employees, whose services have been hired on contract basis in a lawful and authorised manner, shall be entitled to fully paid maternity leave up to a maximum of three months or till the currency of the subsisting contract, whichever is earlier.

June 26th, 2009 NEW DELHI - CEOs of Indian companies can make a dollar run longer than their Western counterparts because of the spirit of frugality with which they have been brought up, says a top India-born US-based recruiter of corporate honchos for Global 2000 companies. "The CEOs in Indian companies grow up to work with constraints and are able to optimise their operations more than their counterparts in US and UK.

May 24th, 2009 GANDHINAGAR - Gujarat will shortly contact Sri Lanka following its offer of assistance to set up resorts along the state's 1,600-km coastline. "At the Vibrant Gujarat summit in January, Sri Lankan officials had offered to help us set up resorts on the Saurashtra-Kutch coastline on a public private partnership (PPP) model," a senior state tourism department official said.

May 24th, 2009 JAMMU - Jammu and Kashmir believes overhauling its sagging industry is the only way to revive the ailing state through development and job creation. An industrial policy complete with an incentive package is being worked out to attract entrepreneurs from all over the country.

April 10th, 2009 NEW DELHI - Women journalists cornered Prime Minister Manmohan Singh over the rising prices of food stuff during an interaction in the capital Friday. During the meet with members of the Indian Women's Press Corps at the Hotel Taj Palace here, one journalist pointed out that the prices of pulses, rice and flour was lower during the National Democratic Alliance government of Atal Bihari Vajpayee.

March 12th, 2009 MUMBAI - The Indus Entrepreneurs (TiE), the world's largest non-profit network of entrepreneurs and professionals dedicated to the advancement of entrepreneurship, announced today the launch of India's first Women Entrepreneurship platform - TiE Stree Shakti (TSS). A GEM study conducted by TiE revealed that 90 per cent of women at the grassroot level need help in Training and Education to improve their business skills.