Learning From Cross Country Experiences In Housing: A Micro Finance Approach For Inclusive Housing In India

Housing is one of the primary human needs. It is second only to the need for food and clothing. From a macro perspective, housing is an industry that can prove itself to be a growth engine for a nation, particularly a developing nation like India. Housing has been one of the top priorities for the various governments in India since the seventies. The need for housing has been increasing at a phenomenal pace in India and so also the need for housing finance. Since the growth in supply of housing could not keep pace with the growth in its demand, housing shortage has been on the rise over the years. Housing finance industry which was relatively dormant till the early nineties underwent sweeping changes ever since the initiation of financial sector deregulation measures. Financial deregulation measures brought about several changes in this industry, the first and foremost being the fast growth rate in the industry coupled with cutthroat competition among the industry players. This trend has been quite prominent since the entry of commercial banks into this arena. Accordingly, there has been a surge in the growth of retail (personal) loans segment, particularly in respect of housing loans. This is evident from the fact that housing loans disbursed by banks as a percentage of their total loans has increased from just 2.79% as of end-March 1997 to as high as 12.52% as of end-March 2007. Thus, there has been an unprecedented growth rate in the disbursement of housing loans by banks, and as of 31 March 2007 the outstanding balance of housing loans by all banks in India stands at Rs.230689 Crore, as against just Rs.7946 Crore as of 31 March 1997, the growth rate being 35.82 %CAGR (for the eleven years’ period, FY 1997-‘2007). However, in spite of the impressive growth in housing finance over the years, there are growing apprehensions regarding its inclusiveness, i.e. accessibility to the common man, the underprivileged sections of the society to housing finance etc. Of late, it is widely recognized that formal housing finance system, particularly the commercial banks (CBs) – most dominant among the players – is fast becoming exclusive in operations, with nearly 90% of the total housing credit going to the rich and upper middle income group, primarily the salaried class. The case of housing finance companies (HFCs) is quite similar in this regard. The poor and other marginalized sections are often deprived of adequate credit facilities for housing purpose. Studies have revealed that urban housing poverty is much more acute than the rural probably because of the very fast process of urbanization coupled with constant rural to urban migration

Synthesis and characterization of 3d-transition metals doped ZnO thin films and nanostructures for possible spintronic applications

The objective of the present study is the formation of single phase Zn1−xTMxO thin films by PLD and increase the solubility limit of TM dopants. The TM doped ZnO nanostructures were also grown by hydrothermal method. The structural and morphological variation of ZnO:TM thin films and nanostructures with TM doping concentration is also investigated. The origin and enhancement of ferromagnetism in single phase Zn1−xTMxO thin films and nanostructures using spectroscopic techniques were also studied. The dependence of ablation parameters on the structural and optical properties of ZnO thin films were studied

Studies on Transition Metal Chelates of some Tridentate Aroylhydrazones

The ability of aroylhydrazones to bind with transition metals is a developing area of research interest and the coordinating properties of hydrazones can be tuned by the appropriate choice of parent aldehyde or ketone and the hydrazide. So in the present work we selected four different aroylhydrazones as principal ligands. Introduction of heterocyclic bases like 1,10-phenanthroline, 2,2′-bipyridine, 3-picoline and pyridine leads to the syntheses of mixed ligand metal chelates which can cause different bonding modes, spectral properties and geometries in coordination compounds. The importance of aroylhydrazones and their complexes in various fields and their interesting coordinating properties stimulate our interest in the investigation of transition metal chelates with four different aroylhydrazones. The aroylhydrazones selected are 4-benzyloxy-2-hydroxybenzaldehyde-4-nitrobenzoylhydrazone dimethylformamide monosolvate, 5-bromo-2-hydroxy-3-methoxybenzaldehyde nicotinoylhydrazone dihydrate methanol monosolvate, 4-diethylamino-2- hydroxybenzaldehyde nicotinoylhydrazone monohydrate and 2-benzoylpyridine- 4-nitrobenzoylhydrazone. The selection of 4-benzyloxy-2-hydroxybenzaldehyde- 4-nitrobenzoylhydrazone was based on the idea of developing ligands having D-π-A general structure, so that the proligand and metal complexes exhibit NLO activity. Hence it is interesting to explore the coordinating capabilities of the synthesized hydrazones and to study the NLO activity of hydrazones and some of the metal complexes.

On the transition from localized to delocalized electronic states in divalent-metal clusters

The transition from van der Waals to covalent bonding, which is expected to occur in divalent-metal clusters with increasing cluster size, is discussed. We propose a model which takes into account, within the same electronic theory, the three main competing contributions, namely the kinetic energy of the electrons, the Coulomb interactions between electrons, and the s \gdw p intraatomic transitions responsible for van der Waals like bonding. The model is solved by taking into account electron correlations using a generalized Gutzwiller approximation (slave boson method). The occurrence of electron localization is studied as a function of the interaction parameters and cluster size.