The Great Debate (India)

Reuters, link economy and the business of journalism

The following is a guest column by Chris Ahearn, President, Media at Thomson Reuters.

Last summer, I published a blog post that laid out my feelings about the link economy and its positive contribution to the evolution of the business of journalism. One year later, Reuters.com continues to encourage linking to the rich content we offer and even pulling interesting excerpts for discussion in a different forum.

In exchange for that occasional use of our content, we ask others to respect the hard work our journalists put into their craft and in some cases risk their lives in doing so by offering prominent links and attribution.

We encourage bloggers and individuals to use a teaser and perhaps add their own perspective to enhance the online experience. The RSS feeds on Reuters.com are designed to make this easy to do.

Recently, we engaged in a controlled experiment with Attributor to identify websites that republish complete or near complete versions of Reuters articles and have a commercial model, without a license or agreement. In many cases those websites utilize third party ad networks to monetize their audiences. Some question why we object to websites posting full copies of our stories without a licensing agreement. The answer is simple – we believe it is neither fair nor legal nor ethical.

Our efforts to identify such environments are focused on opening up a conversation with these publishers to create a mutually beneficial relationship. In the last few days, we received many emails about this experiment, varied in tone from humorous to helpful to downright nasty. It seems, however, that some of the facts are being overlooked.

First, we absolutely respect and encourage people to discuss and debate breaking news, particularly when referencing our reporting. We believe it makes societies stronger and are delighted when it happens. Second, we expect websites and users to kindly respect how we wish our content is linked to and excerpted as opposed to copying and pasting (again, that is why we make our RSS feeds available and always welcome linking to the Reuters.com network). Third, if websites are commercial in nature (i.e. take advertising) and want to post our full articles we should have a fair commercial relationship.

A new symbol for the rupee?

The Indian rupee will soon get its own unique symbol, joining the dollar, pound sterling, euro and the yen as international currencies with an identity that is instantly recognizable worldwide.

Five designs had been shortlisted by the government following an all-India contest and media reports suggest the Cabinet will choose the winning entry (from the following five) this week.

Which is your favourite design for the rupee symbol? Does the use of such a symbol reflect India’s growing importance in the global economy? Share your views.

from The Great Debate UK:

Pranab Bardhan on the economic rise of China and India

In its May economic outlook, the Organisation of Economic Cooperation and Development projected upward growth outlooks for BRIC countries Brazil, Russia, India and China -- the world's four largest emerging economies.

Strong growth in those economies is helping to pull other countries out of recession, the OECD said. The Paris-based organisation projects that China’s GDP growth will exceed 11 percent for 2010, and anticipates that India's real GDP growth will be 8.3 percent. Russia's GDP growth is expected to be 5.5 percent, and Brazil's is projected at 6.5 percent. By comparison, the OECD projects that the Euro area will see 1.5 percent real GDP growth, while the UK will see a 2.2 percent growth.

The "BRIC" acronym was created by Goldman Sachs economist Jim O'Neill in 2001 to mark a shift of economic power from the West. In June 2009, the BRIC leaders met in Yekaterinburg, Russia, for a summit, which was seen as the beginning of a geopolitical alliance, although their economies are very different: Brazil's economy is based on agriculture; Russia's on energy exports; India's on services and China's on manufacturing. At that time, the BRIC countries accounted for 40 percent of the world's population and about 15 percent of its economy.

In a new book titled "Awakening Giants, Feet of Clay: Assessing the Economic rise of China and India", Pranab Bardhan, a professor of economics at the University of California, Berkeley, dissects some generally accepted beliefs about the economies of China and India -- arguing that they are oversimplified -- to provide a new perspective on what to expect from the two countries in the future.

He examines the impact of economic growth on politics, people and the environment within China and India.

Bardhan spoke to Reuters about his book at his office at the London School of Economics where he is serving as BP Centennial Professor for 2010 and 2011. Watch the video here:

What would you have done differently if you were FM?

The government raised personal income tax slabs for 2010/11, which could result in a net tax saving of 20,000 to 50,000 rupees for those earnings above 300,000 rupees.

Fuel prices — Petrol (by 2.71 rupees) per litre and diesel ( 2.55 rupees a litre) — would be raised from Friday midnight.Are you happy with Budget 2010/11?

Reuters India asks its readers to don the finance minister’s cap and tell us what they would have done differently.

What would you do if you were the FM?

The task before the finance minister is tricky as the Congress-led government gears up to present the annual budget for 2009-10 on July 6.

Reuters India asks its readers to don the FM’s cap and tell us what shape they would give to the budget to keep a country of over 1 billion people happy.