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The fresh round of investments will be in addition to the Rs10,000 crore the group has already invested in the southern state in sectors including retail, telecom and cement Visakhapatnam:  Aditya Birla Group on Friday said it will invest Rs 7,000 crore in the next two years in Andhra Pradesh, one of the first big-ticket announcements at the start of the second edition of the state’s partnership summit with the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). The fresh round of investments would be in addition to the Rs 10,000 crore the group has already invested in the southern state in sectors including retail, telecom and cement. The AP government is expecting to sign over 400 memorandums of understanding (MoU) in the two-day event valued at over Rs 7 trillion across sectors such as aerospace and defence, oil and natural gas, automobiles, life sciences, electronics, energy and minerals. The new investments would help expand existing businesses, Kumar Mangalam Birla, chairman of t

It's evident that new launches and sales of residential projects took a hit as a result of demonetization in India. The National Capital Region (NCR) was the most affected - demand contracted 29% and supply was down 73%. Launches in the Mumbai Metropolitan Region (MMR) plunged 53% and sales were down 26%, according to a report by Knight Frank. Deals have come to a standstill as both buyers and sellers wait for clarity. Source: Knight Frank Research Before demonetization, however, there had been consolidation in the real estate sector. Driven by stagnant property prices over the past two years and interest rates cuts, home sales across top eight cities in the country in September 2016 jumped 15%  year-on-year . Sales were dominated by the MMR and NCR. Phase of consolidation Last year, Quikr acquired real estate portal CommonFloor for  $200 million  and Sequoia-backed Grabhouse, making a foray into the managed property rental business. CommonFloor, which cou

You hear a lot of advice about how to reduce stress at work. But most of it is about what to do over the long term — take up yoga, eat a healthy diet, keep a journal, or  get more sleep . But what do you do when you’re overcome with stress in the moment — at your desk, say, or in a meeting? Perhaps you’ve heard bad news from a client or were assigned yet another project. How can you regain control? What the Experts   Say Eighty percent of Americans are stressed at work, according to a  recent study  by Nielsen for Everest College. Low pay, unreasonable workloads, and hectic commutes were the top sources of tension, followed closely by obnoxious coworkers. What exacerbates the problem is that “people walk into work already laden with stress,” says Maria Gonzalez, the founder and president of Argonauta Strategic Alliances Consulting and the author of  Mindful Leadership . “If there is a hardship at home, you bring that to the office and it gets layered with your professional st

Turning Negativity into Productivity Dealing with a pessimist on your team can be a frustrating and time-consuming experience. Attempts to ignore or counter frequent negative comments may simply incite further negativity. Good news: by being proactive you can help the pessimist change his behavior and enable your team to achieve greater productivity. What the Experts Say The first step is to figure out what is causing your team member’s negativity. Roderick Kramer, William R. Kimball Professor of Organizational Behavior at Stanford Graduate School of Business, says that it is the role of the leader to understand the underlying cause of the pessimism before acting. “Some people are dispositional pessimists whose knee-jerk reaction is to see the negative in everything, while others may be expressing a pessimistic point of view based upon informed logic,” Kramer says. Some common sources of pessimism include resentment at not having been promoted, a need for attention, or a

Ever thought of Singapore or Denmark? Yes, Denmark is actually a very good idea. Opportunities exist everywhere -- not just in your own home country or hometown. While much has been said about globalization and our increasingly connected world, if you're starting a business, your first thought might not be to launch it in, say, Denmark. But it turns out that Denmark is actually a very good idea: The  World Bank Group  has ranked that Scandinavian nation third in the world in terms of ease of doing business there. By comparison, the United States ranks eighth. Depending on your target audience and its needs, plus taxation laws, the nature of the local workforce and other factors, doing business overseas just might offer advantages to you that exceed those of the country where you live right now.  Starting with a place you may be familiar with, here are some of the best countries to consider when starting a business: The United States What makes the United States a

Internet access is transforming how companies recruit talent and how tolerant employees are of commutes. The right tools make everyone happier. Telecommuting and working remotely was once reserved for trendy Silicon Valley based startups, but these days it’s more of a common occurrence. In fact, 37 percent of Americans worked from home last year.  It has benefits both sides love -- the company gets to reduce operating costs and the employee eliminates long commutes, providing them with more personal and family time. The internet is entirely responsible for how businesses operate these days. Whether you operate a large company with hundreds of employees, or you are a solopreneur building a small team, you can leverage online tools and software to run your business from anywhere in the world. There are no geographical limitations, provided you have an internet connection. There are several options when it comes to cloud-based tools and SaaS (software-as-a-service) applications

We want to make India an electronic-manufacturing hub, Union Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Wednesday, while detailing to the media the key decisions he took in a meeting with Union Finance Minister Arun Jaitley. We want to make India an electronic-manufacturing hub, Union Electronics and IT Minister Ravi Shankar Prasad said on Wednesday, while detailing to the media the key decisions he took in a meeting with Union Finace Minister  Arun Jaitley . Prasad said, “We have as many as 108 crore mobile phones in the country and we had requested Arun Jaitley ji that they should be manufactured in India only. And as it is there is zero duty in India for it due to international obligations. We had also been given duty differential.” “In the last one-and-a-half years, as many as 42 mobile manufacturing companies have entered the market. And 30 component manufacturing companies have also come. Proposals worth Rs. 26,000 crore have come and the best companies of