World's richest 8 men own same wealth as 3.6 billion: Study

On current trends, it will take 170 years for women to be paid the same as men

Breaking News - Eight richest men in the world own the same wealth as the 3.6 billion people who make up the poorest half of humanity, said a study by Oxfam, an international confederation of 19 social organisations, on Monday.

"Just eight richest men own the same wealth as the 3.6 billion people. None of them has earned his fortune through talent or hard work, but by inheritance or accumulation through industries prone to corruption and cronyism," claimed the study released ahead of the World Economic Forum annual meeting at Davos in Switzerland from Tuesday.

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In India, the study recalled that lawmakers passed a disclosure mandate in 2013, requiring CEO-pay ratios to be made public, which is an important step towards informing the public about the level of inequality within companies.

"It is not only in rich countries that CEOs (Chief Executive Officers) are rewarded with salaries that far outstrip average incomes. A top executive in India's largest cigarette manufacturer is being paid 439 times the median salary for employees at his company," claimed the study, citing a report by the capital markets regulator Securities Exchange Board of India (Sebi).

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Time to end tax havens: Richest 1% own 58% of India's total wealth

Globally, just 8 billionaires have same amount of wealth as the poorest 50% of the world population

Breaking News - In signs of rising income inequality, India's richest 1 per cent now hold a huge 58 per cent of the country's total wealth -- higher than the global figure of about 50 per cent, a new study showed today.

The study, released by rights group Oxfam ahead of the World Economic Forum (WEF) annual meeting here attended by rich and powerful from across the world, showed that just 57 billionaires in India now have same wealth (USD 216 billion) as that of the bottom 70 per cent population of the country.

Globally, just 8 billionaires have the same amount of wealth as the poorest 50 per cent of the world population.

The study said there are 84 billionaires in India, with a collective wealth of USD 248 billion, led by Mukesh Ambani (USD 19.3 billion), Dilip Shanghvi (USD 16.7 billion) and Azim Premji (USD 15 billion). The total Indian wealth in the country stood at USD 3.1 trillion.

The total global wealth in the year was USD 255.7 trillion, of which about USD 6.5 trillion was held by billionaires, led by Bill Gates (USD 75 billion), Amancio Ortega (USD 67 billion) and Warren Buffett (USD 60.8 billion).

In the report titled 'An economy for the 99 per cent', Oxfam said it is time to build a human economy that benefits everyone, not just the privileged few.

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India up 21 places in WEF gender gap report

India has climbed 21 spots to rank 87th on the World Economic Forum's Global Gender Gap Report 2016. In 2015, it was ranked 108th. The improvement in ranking, the report says, is driven largely by major improvements in education, where it has managed to close its gap entirely in primary and secondary education. With this jump in ranking, India has now overtaken China which is ranked 99th out of 144 countries. Iceland tops the latest rankings followed by Finland, Norway and Sweden.

The report measures gender gap as progress towards parity between men and women in four areas - educational attainment, health and survival, economic opportunity and political empowerment.

A troubling finding of the report is that the global march towards parity in the key economic pillar has slowed down dramatically "with the gap - which stands at 59 per cent - now larger than at any point since 2008."As a consequence the report estimates that the "global economic gender gap will now not close until the year 2186."

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India jumps 16 spots on Competitiveness Index

India jumped 16 places for the second year in a row to the 39th rank on the World Economic Forum’s (WEF) Global Competitiveness Index 2016-17. It was ranked 55th in 2015-16. This is the largest gain made by any country on the list.

Switzerland was ranked the most competitive country for the eighth consecutive year, followed by Singapore, the United States, the Netherlands and Germany.

The rankings measure countries’ performance on three indicators — basic requirements, efficiency enhancers, and innovation and sophistication factor. Performance on these in turn is measured through sub-indicators.

“Thanks to improved monetary and fiscal policies, as well as lower oil prices, the Indian economy has stabilised and now boasts the highest growth among G20 countries. Recent reform efforts have concentrated on improving public institutions (up 16), opening the economy to foreign investors and international trade (up four), and increasing transparency in the financial system (up 15),” said the report.

While an improvement on the former is likely to be the result of government initiatives aimed at curbing corruption, the latter probably reflects measures taken on corporate governance and related party transactions by authorities such as the Securities and Exchange Board of India (Sebi). Surprisingly, on reliability of police services, the country moved from 86th in 2015-16 to 53rd in...  Read full Story

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