Facebook's new initiative to connect people

I think this is really great move that could help Facebook to achieve adding many more millions of people in its network in coming years.

Facebook is the latest entrant into the line of companies that are trying to improve the internet access facility to the people in the developing countries. The New York Times reported that on Wednesday Facebook is expected to announce an initiative that cuts the cost of accessing basic internet services in the developing countries. The intention was to make the mobile users to access internet on their handheld devices at lower cost. The mission is partnered with other tech companies like Samsung, Nokia, Ericsson and Qualcomm.These partner companies would work on optimizing the speed of the chips on mobile handsets so that dealing with more data would be lot easier with lesser power consumption.

Probably this could be viewed as a great step by the company towards its mission of adding another billion users within next few years. It is estimated that around 4 billion people in the world have no access to the internet but almost all of them have a mobile phone.

Other tech giants like Google and Twitter have also been trying to offer a free access to their services via mobile and cheaper internet access. All these steps by these companies reveal one thing clearly - future of these tech giants lies in developing countries!

Sensex on a free fall, but do we need to worry?

Every investor looks grim now as the Sensex started its free fall on Friday. Sensex was down by almost 280 points when writing this article on Monday too. It has lost 1000 points in two days, all out of the panic from foreign investors about India's state of economy. The rupee also touched its all-time low reaching just under 62. There are various factors that could be said as reasons for this fear among investors including slower growth, inflation, corruption, falling rupee, widening current account deficit, etc.

So the investors are looking for safe havens like gold or the developed economies (e.g US) to better put their money rather in a slow growth, muddled state of economy.

Sectors like mining and manufacturing are also not gaining much from the depreciating currency as they are not performing well. It could have been a little relief for the whole economic scenario here if these sectors are doing better. Also, as India imports oil and computers in dollar dominated trade, the prices of these goods went up around 40% in last couple of years, in turn, pushing the prices essential goods across the board, ending up in higher inflation.

Raising interest rates by the RBI also didn't help much in containing the free fall of the rupee as it is considered as a 'late move'.

Meeting the current account deficit (exports-imports in negative) is also seems to be a humongous task in front of the government now, coupled with the slow growth in the range of 5%. Waning investors' confidence and falling currency should certainly be the top priority for the government to think about now. Experts think that it would be tough to contain if this situation falls into a vicious cycle.

Hope our economy will be back with a bang soon and our best wishes will always be there!