Strengthening Micro Health Insurance Units for the Poor in India

President Dr. Abdul Kalam supports pro-needy health insurance

His Excellency Dr. Abdul Kalam granted an audience to members of the project team on 30 October 2006. The President expressed his support for the development of pro-needy health insurance. The president said that the future of development activities, notably health insurance in rural areas, lies in integrating them into community structures.

Strengthening Micro Health Insurance Units for the Poor in India - Better Health through more Equity in the Access to Health Care!«

Myths and realities regarding health insurance for the poor

An article published in Economic and Political Weekly captures in a nutshell the myths and realities in health insruance for the poor in India. The article, written by the project's lead expert Prof. David Dror, confronts prevailing myths in India with evidence from this project's survey. The article can be downloaded here.

Developing Pro-Poor Health Insurance in India - An International Conference on Micro Health Insurance

A Conference for Community Organizations and Policy Makers took place at India Habitat Centre, New Delhi on November 1st and 2nd 2006. The aim of the conference was to disseminate new information on the contribution of community health financing toward low-cost health insurance for poor and rural population segments in India.
Find more information here. [Download brochure.] A docmentation will follow soon; presentations can be downloaded in the programme section.


The UN wants insurance companies to help protect the world's poor against the impacts of climate change.

Insurance-based schemes could make money available to affected communities much faster than traditional aid, its climate meeting in Nairobi was told.

A pilot project in Ethiopia earlier this year insured 62,000 rural families against drought.

Computer models of climate change suggest droughts and floods will become more common across Africa.

Current extreme weather events on the continent affect most severely the livelihoods of people with no access to conventional insurance.

"Every year, the World Bank donates millions in order to repair events and to repair disasters; and we need a step change in the way we manage relief for poorer parts of the world," said Thomas Loster of the Munich Re Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation linked to the re-insurance giant.

"Through public-private partnerships that match seed money from public sources with the skills of the private sector, I believe we can do this by realising new kinds of risk cover across large parts of the developing world."

Poor harvest

The pilot project in Ethiopia shows how such schemes could work in practice.

Using money provided by the US government, the Ethiopian administration and other donors, the World Food Programme (WFP) brokered a deal with the Axa Re insurance company to obtain cover for 62,000 rural families against drought.

The insurers agreed that below a certain minimum of rainfall, they would pay $7m within a matter of days, to be spent on food aid or payments to farmers. The premium paid was $930,000.

As it happened, rainfall stayed above the threshold, and Axa Re kept its money. But WFP's Peter Smerdon believes the project shows how poor communities can gain relief quickly.

"The big advantage is it's much faster," he told BBC News.

"Normally, you see a disaster coming, you wait for it to get there, you go and assess the damage, you go and see what you need, you appeal to donors, you have to get the food and assistance in there; and that can take months."

By that time, he observed, farmers might have lost their livestock, sold their farming equipment, and eaten their seeds.

Subsequently, they must rely on international assistance to restore living standards, which is much more expensive in the long run as well as much more damaging to people's lives.

Corporate Finance

Corporate finance is an area of finance dealing with the financial decisions corporations make and the tools and analysis used to make these decisions. The primary goal of corporate finance is to enhance corporate value while reducing the firm's financial risks. Equivalently, the goal is to maximize the corporations' return to capital. Although it is in principle different from managerial finance which studies the financial decisions of all firms, rather than corporations alone, the main concepts in the study of corporate finance are applicable to the financial problems of all kinds of firms.


The discipline can be divided into long-term and short-term decisions and techniques. Capital investment decisions are long-term choices about which projects receive investment, whether to finance that investment with equity or debt, and when or whether to pay dividends to shareholders. On the other hand, the short term decisions can be grouped under the heading "Working capital management". This subject deals with the short-term balance of current assets and current liabilities; the focus here is on managing cash, inventories, and short-term borrowing and lending (such as the terms on credit extended to customers).


The terms Corporate finance and Corporate financier are also associated with investment banking. The typical role of an investment banker is to evaluate investment projects for a bank to make investment decisions.

Home Equity Loans - A Jackpot or Pending Disaster?

Equity loans were developed to assist homeowners to increase the equity on their home in order to make cash, or else create another loan on the house. Home prices escalate each year, making the house increase worth each day that it still stands. A House's equity then is the entire value of the property, minus the mortgage the homeowner is paying on the house.

If you establish an equity loan, you must take into consideration that the loan is envisioned to end your first mortgage and then commence regular payments on the pending loan. Lenders call for borrowers to pay a minimum of 5 percent upfront deposits, as a guarantee. The larger mortgage of deposit will cut back your interest rates and mortgage payments in most instances.

Equity loans then are borrowed money and the homeowner specifies collateral, which usually is the house. There are advantages of signing up for equity loans, particularly if the borrower is in debt and needs cash to pay off his house. The collateral,though, is the garnishing product if the borrower cannot repay his mortgage. Stated a different way, if the borrower fails to make repayment on the equity loan, then the bank may well take back the home.

As a result, the plan for homeowners is to borrow money by taking out an equity loan to minimize the monthly mortgages. Some homeowners may pay $500-$600 per month on their mortgage; and if they stumble on the correct lender, they will apply for an equity loan to repay $180 per month. The reduction is wonderful, but what the homeowner is doing is taking out a 30-year term loan, paying less than $200; as a result the homeowner is in fact paying double for the same house.

Mortgages come in quite a few styles; so if you are considering refinancing your home, it pays to shop around for rock bottom rates and greatest deals. If you are choosing an equity loan, you might want to query about overpay and underpay loans, where you might get your hands on lump sums of money back on your mortgage. Additionally, you will really want to print out contracts and compare them page by page to ascertain what benefits you will gain by choosing one legal agreement over the other.

Secured Loans – Put Your Home’s Equity At Work To Cash Out Money

My family was desperate to make big changes at home. But, I couldn’t fulfill their desires due to lack of sufficient funds. It was only at that time I got to know about secured loan that gave me a ray of hope and helped me in making my family’s small dreams come true.

Secured loans are the loans that require a borrower to put a security against the loan. Your home, car or even a saving account can work as collateral. The loan money you get can be used for any purpose you desire. You can use it to buy your dream car, to finance a luxurious holiday, to make desired improvements in your home or for any personal purpose.

With a secured loan, borrowers get an opportunity to make use of the equity in their property without selling it. Usually, secured loans are offered in a range of £5000 to £75000. Some lenders may grant you a loan of up to 125% of the property value. The amount you can borrow with a secured loan depends on the value of your property, your ability to repay the loan and your personal circumstances. Loan term of a secured loan varies from 5 to 25 years, depending on your credit score and the amount of loan you are looking for.

There are various benefits attached to secured loans. They facilitate borrowers to design their own loan package, you can opt for either a fixed rate secured loan or adjustable rate secured loan. In case of a fixed rate secured loan, the rate of interest is fixed in the beginning and remains the same throughout the loan term.

While, in case of adjustable or flexible rate secured loan, the rate of interest varies with the market rate of interest. If you have fixed monthly income or a salaried individual, fixed rate secured loan is appropriate for you. But in case, you don’t have a regular source of income or are self employed, a flexible rate secured loan will be perfect for you helping you grab the benefits of falling interest rate.

Lenders use credit check tool to find out the creditworthiness of the borrower and whether he will be able to pay the monthly installments and the loan amount or not. Knowledge of credit score will help you in negotiating with the lenders and will land you in a pool of great loan deals. If you don’t know your credit score, get it evaluated from any of the credit rating agencies but make sure that the agency is registered and is genuine. For your reference you can get your credit report from renowned credit rating agencies namely – Equifax, Experain and Transunion.

Only a few years back bad credit was considered to be a blot on individual’s credit report. But, with the changing time and growing cases of bankruptcy and defaults, lenders have accepted the fact that majority of the people fall into the bad credit trap with none of their own mistake. Keeping all this into consideration, lenders in the UK also offer secured loan to people with bad credit, reasons behind it could be a default, arrears or bankruptcy.

You can also use the loan money to consolidate all your existing debts and can make them manageable with one lower monthly payment to pay each month and can get rid of all the hassles involved in dealing with number of lenders and answering their harassing calls. This can also help you in improving your credit score.

Secured loans can help you in accessing the needed funds by putting your home’s equity at work. When you start searching for the secured loan, shop around! Don’t take the very first option you get. Collect loan quotes from number of lenders and compare them, this will help you in getting the best secured loan deal that perfectly suits to your needs and expectations.

Travel And Tours Cruise On

So, you want to go on a cruise! It’s exciting, it’s fun and it’s your way of enjoying the great life. But how do you make the choice of where to go, when and with whom? There are so many choices with respect to cruising nowadays that it can be very confusing. Here are a few tips to consider helping you decide which cruise is right for you.

Listed below are few examples of the types of cruise you may wish to take:

1. Mediterranean cruise
2. Caribbean cruise
3. an Alaskan cruise,
4. a cruise down the Amazon or Panama Canal
5. a Transatlantic ocean crossing
6. South Pacific or Hawaiian Island cruise
7. River cruises (the fjords in Norway, the Danube in Europe, the Nile in Egypt, the Mississippi in United States)
8. Polar cruises to see the penguins in the Antarctic
9. Russian waterways cruises
10. Galapagos Island cruises
11. New Zealand or Australia

Each can be very appealing but are also very different.

1. The first thing to consider in taking one of these cruises is when you want to go—the time of the year can dictate the type of cruise. Some cruise ship lines do not offer cruises to the Mediterranean in the winter months, but transfer their ships to the warmer waters of the Caribbean. Alaskan cruises only run in certain months also due to weather conditions. Ocean crossing cruises (Transatlantic) take place only as the seasons change so that cruise ship companies can reposition their ships to match the high seasons’ tourist industry.

2. You also have to decide on the length of your cruise. A typical choice is a 7-night cruise, but you can take cruises from 3-4 nights to over a month in length, or more. The length of your vacation time available may limit you, but taking a cruise for the first time may also be a consideration. Limiting your cruise to a manageable shorter cruise may help you decide whether a longer cruise at another time may be more advisable. In other words, do you get seasick? Do you like the variety of visiting different ports? Do you wish to simply stay at one destination and relax? Do you like the busy atmosphere of the many activities on a ship?

3. Next, the ports that you wish to visit can be a great part of which cruise is the right choice for you. Have you always wanted to visit Tortugas, the Bahamas or Cayman Islands? Here is your chance to get a taste of it. Make sure that one of your chosen destinations is on your cruise itinerary, and there are endless choices of various itineraries available. Cruises are great ways to experience various places. Then you can decide which destination you would like to see more of on a future vacation.

4. Another consideration in choosing a cruise is the amount of time you wish to be “At Sea”. For a Transatlantic voyage you are at sea for many days at a time, which limits you to being within the confines of the ship at all times. This can be a bonus if you don’t want the hustle and bustle of visiting different ports, but it can also be a downside if you want a lot of variety on your vacation. Some cruises offer very little time at sea, being in a different port every day, and this flurry of activity can be too overwhelming for some vacationers.

I would recommend a bit of both—for a 7-night cruise a good happy medium would be 2 days at sea with the other days stopping at various ports of call.

5. Once you have narrowed down your choice of cruise to when and where you wish to visit, the next hardest choice is the cruise line and size of ship you want to use. The size of ship can dictate the cruise line, as some cruise lines offer significantly larger ships than others.

Some cruise lines only use smaller, more intimate ships for smaller groups of people. Other cruise lines offer huge ships with passengers in the thousands. You must decide whether you like a small personal touch or like the larger groups. (We found that even on a larger ship, there were still areas where we could go to get away from the crowds. Crowding on the huge ships was not a problem at all.)

6. Fitting the cruise line to your individual personality is perhaps the most important factor in determining your cruise enjoyment. There are many different types of ship lines that cater to varying personalities. Of course, the Disney Cruise Line caters to families, but others such as Carnival Cruises cater to more of a party atmosphere for adults, or Norwegian focuses on a more conservative group.

Discuss with your travel agent which cruise line fits you best. Cruise lines also offer themed or special interest cruises, such as an art collectors cruise, golfer’s cruises or culinary class cruises. These may be great to fit in with the interests in your life-style.

7. Once you have found the best itinerary for you on the cruise line that suits your personality, at the best time of year for you, there are still other choices you need to make. Some cruise lines offer “freestyle cruising”, which simply put means that you don’t have a set dinner time at a set table, but you can choose to eat whenever you wish.

On most cruises, however, you have a preset dinner time at an assigned table. You can choose an early dinner (usually around 6-6:30) or a later dinner time (7:30-8:00). In choosing your dinner time, take into consideration your off-ship excursions. You don’t want to have to rush back from your shore excursion just to get back in time for dinner.

You also usually have a choice of how many people you wish to sit with (usually from 4 to 8 -10 people at a table.) Our travel agent suggested a table of 8 on our cruise—she stated that if you were at a table for 4 and you didn’t get along with the other couple you were stuck, but a table for 8 offered more chance of finding congenial soul-mates.

8. Shore excursions can also be a major part of your cruise experience. There are many different shore excursion packages available, from visiting butterfly farms, swimming with dolphins, exploring ancient ruins, to snorkelling or scuba diving. Of course, if you wish you do not need to go on any shore excursions.

You can simply choose to stay on-board and take advantage of the ship’s amenities, or you can simply walk around and visit or shop in the port-of-call. Choosing a cruise can seem overwhelming, but the main point is to suit the cruise to what you want to get out of the experience. If you want a whirlwind of activity choose a party cruise line with that in mind. If you want a more relaxed atmosphere, choose more time at sea. If you want to sample various cultures, choose a destination-rich cruise.

Different types of cruises offer at of those things, and more. Hopefully the above has given you an idea in the choices you need to make to get the most enjoyment out of your cruise. Happy cruising!

Travel and Tourism

Tourism is travel for predominantly recreational or leisure purposes or the provision of services to support this leisure travel. The World Tourism Organization defines tourists as people who "travel to and stay in places outside their usual environment for not more than one consecutive year for leisure, business and other purposes not related to the exercise of an activity remunerated from within the place visited". Tourism has become a popular global leisure activity. In 2004, there were over 763 million international tourist arrivals.[1]

Tourism is vital for many countries, due to the income generated by the consumption of goods and services by tourists, the taxes levied on businesses in the tourism industry, and the opportunity for employment in the service industries associated with tourism. These service industries include transportation services such as cruise ships and taxis, accommodation such as hotels, restaurants, bars, and entertainment venues, and other hospitality industry services such as spas and resorts.

How You Can Save On Conference Calling

In recent years, companies have recognized the need to expand their businesses in the international arena. Breakthroughs in communications and transportation have facilitated this move and have enabled these companies to trade in various countries all over the globe. It is now easier for company representatives to travel armed with business proposals and tap or create connections in remote places.

An obvious downside is the expenses attendant to air travel as well as the general difficulty of coordinating seminars and promotional conferences with numerous and/or remote participants. When a company representative in one country, for example, needs to present a proposal for a business deal in another country, he has to book a flight, arrange for accommodations in the host country, schedule a meeting with the target company and then present his company’s proposal. All these activities cost time and money and will be spent without assurance that the target company will even accept the proposal.

Small meetings or conferences held between companies in more proximate locations also involve several inconveniences. Company time and money are still spent arranging lunch meetings or dinner conferences. Even the practice of holding meetings in each representative’s office involves time and the cost of travel.

As an effective solution to these difficulties, Conference Calling has quickly become a popular system of business-related communications. Company representatives may now promote their product or service and present business proposals to remote clients without need for actual travel and the incident expenses of lodging and utilities. Aside from money, the company’s time is also used more efficiently since scheduling conferences over the phone can be done by just dialing the phone. Meetings can now be held without a single participant having to leave the office. Furthermore, impromptu meetings can be held without inconveniencing any of the participants since they are not compelled to alter their schedules. With just a push of a button, all delegates may be linked together and the meeting held faster than it will take to schedule an on-site meeting. It provides an effective and efficient use of the company’s time and resources. Clearly, Conference Calling is the way to modern business communications. After all, what business would not want to save money?

How To Use Integrated Audio Conference Calling To Enhance Your Video & Web Conference Meetings

There are two technologies that are making a revolution in intra-organizational communications: They are telephone conferencing and web conferencing. Using either web or telephone conferencing, companies and non-profit organizations are now able to hold many more meetings than ever before. The newest web conferencing systems incorporate both online and telephone conferencing and this will surely speed up the growth of virtual conferencing.

Most online conferencing systems allow participants to see one another using web cams and monitors, and to speak and hear one another via Voice over Internet Protocol (VOiP) using a headset or a microphone and speakers.

But what happens if one of the would-be participants does not have the right kind of headset or microphone? And what happens if one of the would-be participants does not have a high speed Internet connection or is away from his/her computer? In previous conferencing set-ups, the person who didn’t have the right equipment might miss the audio or even the whole conference entirely.

This particular problem has now been overcome by integrating telephone conferencing along with web conferencing. For example, if participants do not have the right kind of headset or microphone, in addition to everyone being able to watch the conference online, a teleconference can be used that will allow all participants to hear and talk to each other via standard telephone connections. With some systems, the call-in number and security code for the conference call are even posted within the video/web conference meeting room.

Similarly, when a company holds a combined telephone and web conference, an employee or staff member can take part in the audio portion using the telephone conference connection even if they are away from their computer or away from a broadband Internet connection.

The combined service will make it easier for companies that are already accustomed to telephone conference calling but have not yet made the jump to online web conferencing.

Online web conferencing adds many more features to a normal telephone conference call such as Powerpoint presentations, instant polling and surveys, application sharing and real time notepads for online brainstorming, but some organizations may be holding back from going to web conferencing due to the possibility of leaving behind some of their participants. The new combined teleconferencing and web conferencing systems solve this particular problem and will probably help to accelerate the already rapid growth of web conferencing around the world.