Mobile Phones

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mKrishi – More power at farmers’ hands

The Hindu reports about mKrishi (mobile Krishi) a mobile agro advisory system launched by Tata.  It can help farmers get personalized advise and updated information on their mobile phones about factors that may affect their crops such as weather.

Prima facie, this looks very…

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Nokia poised to help farmers to expand its rural base

Nokia is about to launch a set of “Life Tools” to be embedded in its mobile phones in an effort to expand its base into rural India. These Life Tools cater to the needs of the rural community with information on…

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Round 2 with CGAP’s Gautam Ivatury

The ThinkChange India staff is committed to providing our readers with interviews with people we believe are at the brink of something special but have for the most part been overlooked by the mainstream media. Readers will be able to see…

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Transfer money after the beep

Here is an interesting approach to the technological hurdles of mobile banking. Called Cashnxt, this venture in Kerala, uses high-pitched sounds via mobile phones to encrypt and decrypt the secure data needed to perform a financial transaction. An article on…

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An F in Financial Inclusion

In a first of its kind survey, the Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) has released a study analyzing the level of financial inclusion currently in India relative to other nations. The results are unimpressive. The paper

ranks India…

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TC-I Tidbits

Your daily dose of headlines:

  • Mobile bank: HDFC plans to unveil its pilot mobile bank branch with an ATM aimed at microfinance clients. While the term mobile bank here differs from what we envision with regard to the use of mobile phones,…

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Cellphones and (Rural) Development, Part Two

The agricultural sector employs 2/3 of India’s population, and contributes to 1/3 of its gross domestic product (GDP) – yet, Indian farmers in rural communities are plagued by debt, falling commodity prices, changing weather patterns, fluctuating demands in the global…

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Headlines Digest

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Cellphones and Development

Recently, the NYTimes featured an article entitled, “Can the Cellphone Help End Global Poverty?”, in which it highlighted a new wave of “human behaviour” research funded by cellphone companies such as Nokia in order to tap into less developed markets.…

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Films for World Peace: Pangea Day

Can films promote peace?

2006 TED Prize winner, filmmaker Jehane Noujaim, certainly believes they can. And so, on May 10, 2008, known as “Pangea Day,” several cities across the world – Cairo, Kigali, London, Los Angeles, Mumbai, and Rio de Janeiro –…