CSR Activities of Coal India

              As per CIL’s Corporate Social Responsibility Policy the following provisions have been made for the people and development of the Areas within the radius of 15 Kms. for every project.

·         Education

·         Water supply including drinking water

·         Health care by providing indoor medical facilities and medicines

·         Environment

·         Social empowerment

·         Infrastructure for village electricity/solar light/pawanchakki etc. ( Recurring expenditure to be borne by the beneficiaries)

·         Sport and culture

·         Generation of employment and setting up Co-operative society

·         Infrastructure support

·         Grant/donation/financial assistance/sponsorship to reputed NGO’s of the society/locality doing/involved in upliftment of the standard of the society

·         Heritage sites in the CSR purview ensuring involvement of employee’s representatives in this project

·         Empowerment of women for education, health and self employment

·         Relief of victims and natural calamities like Earth Quake, cyclone, Drought and Flood situation in any part of country

·         Disaster Management activities including those related to amelioration/mitigation

·         Collection of old cloths from the employees and distribution in the nearby village by utilizing the platform of MahilaSabha of the Company, club (executives and non-executives) and Women in Public Sector

·         Development of smokeless fuel out of coal and also arrangement for distribution of efficient Chula to the villagers

·         Adoption of village for carrying out the activities like infrastructural development i.e. road, water supply, electricity and community centre etc.

Funds for the CSR activities is being allocated based on 5% of the retained earnings of previous year subject to minimum of Rs.5/-per tonne of coal production of previous year. Out of the total CSR budget 15% and 8% is being collected separately for undertaking developmental works for Scheduled Cast and Scheduled Tribes populations respectively. 

  This was informed by Shri  Pratik Prakashbapu Patil , Minister of state  in the Ministry of Coal  while replying a written question in Rajya Sabha today.  

The U.S. Economy Today

This article is excerpted from the book Outline of the U.S. Economy, published by the Bureau of International Information Programs.

The U.S. gross domestic product (GDP) stood at $15 trillion in 2011. Measured by purchasing power parity exchange rates (equalizing what people can buy with different currencies), that came to about 1.3 times the size of the second largest economy, that of China (whose population is more than four times that of the United States) and more than three times the GDP of third-ranked Japan. With just 4.5 percent of the world's population, the United States was responsible for 19 percent of total economic output.

In 2011, U.S. GDP per person was $48,100, compared with a worldwide average of $11,800. The economy generated more than $40 billion a day in goods and services, drawing its fuel from the labor of the 153 million Americans who make up the workforce. Providing more fuel were the billions of dollars that Americans invested daily in their businesses and homes, exclusive of government spending, and the nation's resources of minerals, energy, water, forests and farmland.

The productivity of American working men and women remains a standard for the world. In 2011, the average American worker produced more than $62 of goods and services per hour; the average worker in the European Union produced only 71 percent as much; and the average Chinese worker produced less than 20 percent as much, according to the U.S. Conference Board business organization.

A long trend of strong productivity growth has helped the United States maintain relatively low unemployment and inflation during most of the period since World War II.

U.S. labor productivity growth fell to 0.8 percent in 2008 but rebounded to 1.6 percent in 2009 and 2.7 percent in 2010.

The World Economic Forum, whose annual conferences bring together top international government and corporate leaders, has regularly ranked the United States as the world's most competitive economy. Major U.S. companies have remained competitive in international markets through a determined focus on innovation, cost reduction and the return of profits to shareholders. Of the 2011 Fortune magazine list of the 500 largest corporations worldwide, the United States was first with headquarters of 133, Japan was second with 68 and China third with 61.

American technology leadership continues to expand from its current strengths in computers, software, multimedia, advanced materials, health science and biotechnology into the frontiers of nanotechnology and genetics. The American dollar remains the centerpiece of international commerce but competes with the euro, Japanese yen and, just starting now, Chinese yuan.

When Barack Obama took office as president in January 2009, the immediate economic crisis - and its implications for future U.S. economic growth and prosperity - dominated his agenda.

Speaking just before his inauguration, Obama acknowledged the severity of the challenges facing the United States. But he also reminded the nation of its heritage and of its inherent strengths. "We should never forget that our workers are still more productive than any on Earth. Our universities are still the envy of the world. We are still home to the most brilliant minds, the most creative entrepreneurs, and the most advanced technology and innovation that history has ever known. And we are still the nation that has overcome great fears and improbable odds."

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.) 

The Challenges of This Century

This article is excerpted from the book Outline of the U.S. Economy, published by the Bureau of International Information Programs.

"We are still the nation that has overcome great fears and improbable odds."

President Barack Obama

United States of America

2010

The economy of the United States, which generates nearly $15 trillion a year in goods and services, is the largest in the world and, by most measures, the most innovative and productive.

American households and employers make millions of daily decisions about what to spend, invest and save. Many layers of laws, policies, regulations and court decisions both constrain and stimulate these decisions. The resulting economy reflects market and individual choices but is also structured and shaped by politics, policies and laws.

This edition of Outline of the U.S. Economy, updated in 2012, offers historical context for understanding the interplay of individual economic decisions and the legal and political framework that surrounds them. It is a primer on how the U.S. economic system emerged, how it works and how it is shaped by American social values and political institutions.

The United States' entrepreneurial and opportunistic culture supports competition and risk taking in the economy, but many Americans also rely on government social "safety nets" to help them through unemployment and retirement. These conflicting currents shape the U.S. economy. The most fundamental questions about how the U.S. economy works and which policies best serve the nation have been debated since the nation's founding. Today's economists and political leaders continue the debate.

For more than two centuries the U.S. economy has responded to new opportunities and rewarded long-term investment - but it has also proved vulnerable to booms and crashes. The cycle of highs and lows swung violently in the first decade of the 21st century, culminating in the global financial panic of 2008 and the "great recession" that followed.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.) 

What the U.S. Economy Produces

This article is excerpted from the book Outline of the U.S. Economy, published by the Bureau of International Information Programs.

Standing by itself, U.S. manufacturing would be the eighth-largest economy in the world.

U.S. Manufacturing Institute

2006

The U.S. economy is in the midst of its second radical conversion. The first represented a shift from agriculture to manufacturing. The past quarter-century has witnessed a further evolution toward finance, business services, retailing, specialized manufacturing, technology products and health care. The first revolution mated European capital to America's burgeoning 19th century expansion, while the current transition reflects Americans' response to unprecedented global competition in trade and finance.

Like other economies, the U.S. economy comprises a circular flow of goods and services between individuals and businesses. Individuals buy goods and services produced by businesses, which employ individuals and pay them wages and benefits, providing the income that individuals use to make new purchases of goods and services and investments, or to save.

The most common measure of the U.S. economy is the federal government's report on the gross domestic product (GDP). GDP records the value in dollars of all goods and services purchased in the United States by individuals and businesses, plus investments, government spending, and exports and imports from abroad. (It does not include sales by foreign companies located in the United States or by American companies operating in foreign countries.)

GDP is made up both of goods and services for final sale in the private-sector market and nonmarket services, such as education and military defense, provided by governments. In principle, the value of goods and services in the market reflects an exchange between willing buyers and sellers and is not fixed by government, with some notable exceptions such as government farm and energy subsidies.

In 2011, the $15.1 trillion U.S gross domestic product comprised approximately $10.7 trillion in personal spending by American consumers; $1.9 trillion in private investments for homes, business equipment and other purposes; and $3 trillion spent by governments at all levels, minus an international deficit of $578 billion - the difference between what the United States imported and exported and its net financial transactions with the rest of the world.

Looking at GDP another way, in 2010 governments collected $2.7 trillion in taxes, roughly 60 percent of that on personal income and the rest on production and business profits. Governments paid out $3.2 trillion in benefits, primarily to individuals, and $202 billion in interest to holders of government debt. (The United States places near the middle of major economies in its overall tax burden, ranking 18th out of 35 nations surveyed in 2009 by the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development.)

GDP sources are broken down into major economic sectors such as manufacturing and retail sales. Comparing the 2010 output of these sectors with 1980 shows the magnitude of the shift from goods to services over the past 30 years. In 2010, manufacturing provided 12 percent of total U.S. domestic output of goods and services. In 1980, its share was 20 percent. Finance and real estate services overtook manufacturing, contributing 21 percent of the U.S. economic output in 2010 versus 16 percent in 1980. 

Suppliers of professional business services, including lawyers and consultants, contributed as much value as manufacturing - 12 percent of the domestic economy. This figure was only 7 percent in 1980. Retail and wholesale trade, at 12 percent, was slightly lower than in 1980. The category of health care and private educational services was 9 percent in 2010, compared to 4 percent in 1980. Government at all levels accounted for 14 percent of the country's economic output in 2010, essentially unchanged from 1980. Oil and gas production dropped to just over 1 percent of the nation's output in 2010, from 2 percent in 1980.

Excluding government's share of the economy, goods-producing companies made up 21 percent of total private-sector output in 2010, down from 34 percent in 1980. The services sector climbed from 67 percent to 79 percent during that period.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.)

A Boost for Trade Expansion

This article is excerpted from the book Outline of the U.S. Economy, published by the Bureau of International Information Programs.

The case for trade expansion received a major, if unexpected, boost in the 1990s from the administration of President Bill Clinton. Clinton's predecessor, George H.W. Bush, had made a North American Free Trade Agreement a centerpiece of his economic program, and it awaited congressional action as the 1992 presidential campaign arrived. Some of Clinton's advisers urged him to back NAFTA to demonstrate his credentials as a "new Democrat" - one who embraced trade and technology and was not beholden to the labor leaders who adamantly opposed the agreement. Others warned Clinton that supporting NAFTA could cost him precious electoral votes in a campaign that featured the independent candidacy of software billionaire H. Ross Perot, who predicted that NAFTA would send jobs flying to Mexico with a "giant sucking sound."

Stanley Greenberg, Clinton's pollster, argued that backing NAFTA might afford important political gains. Even though many voters were uneasy about the Mexican trade issue, they were not against trade itself, Greenberg said. Voters in "new economy" states such as California, he asserted, wanted an internationalist president. Clinton agreed, declaring he would seek to improve the agreement and then support its passage. He went on to defeat Bush in the 1992 election. Perot received 19 percent of the popular vote, a high-water mark for no-compromise opponents of trade expansion in a national election.

After becoming president, Clinton made congressional approval of the NAFTA agreement one of his administration's top priorities, gathering a coalition of Republicans and pro-trade Democrats in both the House of Representatives and the Senate to support it. An intense nationwide debate followed, with American labor unions warning that U.S. workers would lose jobs to Mexico, and with U.S. business leaders urging approval of the trade pact as a way of stimulating exports.

To win support from more Democrats, Clinton's negotiators pushed Mexico and Canada to accept two additions to the agreement designed to improve workers' rights and environmental protection in Mexico. These, it was thought, would help protect American labor by preventing Mexican producers from cutting their costs at the expense of labor and environmental standards. Congress approved the pact in 1993.

The debate about NAFTA's economic impact continues. During the 2008 Democratic presidential primary campaign in Ohio - a state that has lost 400,000 manufacturing jobs this decade - leading contenders Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton each said they favored amending NAFTA to make it fairer to workers. But they did not call for its repeal.

Following NAFTA's approval, the United States sought regional trade agreements with Central American nations and negotiated bilateral agreements with Israel, Jordan, Chile and Singapore. But opposition grew in the House of Representatives as imports cut more deeply into U.S. manufacturing employment. Earlier trade agreements had succeeded in Congress largely because they could be handled under special fast-track parliamentary rules that specified firm deadlines and forbade amendments. U.S. officials said the rules preventing major congressional amendments were essential since they locked in the terms reached by negotiators at the bargaining table. Congress could approve or reject the pacts, but not change them. However, a renewal of the fast-track authority in 2002 passed by just three votes in the House, and the authority was not renewed when it expired in 2007.

When President George W. Bush in 2008 sought congressional approval of a pending trade agreement with Colombia, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi, a Democrat, blocked it, asserting the House would first have to consider measures to deal with the U.S. economy's slowdown and to "address the economic insecurity of America's working families."

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State.)

Soaring Deficit

This article is excerpted from the book Outline of the U.S. Economy, published by the Bureau of International Information Programs.

The emergency measures taken to stimulate the economy and shore up threatened financial institutions drastically increased the federal budget deficit, which represents the difference between federal spending and revenue. The federal budget had already gone into deficit during the George W. Bush administration, starting in the 2002 fiscal year. President Obama's 2009 stimulus package of new government spending and tax cuts brought the deficit, as measured in proportion to the entire economy, to a level not seen since the end of World War II. The Congressional Budget Office forecast the deficit for fiscal year 2011 at $1.5 trillion.

A bipartisan National Commission on Fiscal Responsibility and Reform appointed by Obama concluded in 2010 that the nation was on "an unsustainable fiscal path."

The commission noted that in 2011, the first of the Baby Boom generation of 78 million citizens would become eligible for Social Security and Medicare (the health program for the elderly), increasing the cost of these programs. If U.S. deficits continue to grow at the current pace, by 2025 federal tax collections and other revenue would cover only interest payments on the federal debt and "entitlement" programs (Social Security; Medicare; Medicaid, the health program for the poor; veterans' pensions and benefits). Nothing would be left for defense programs or federal support for education, transportation, housing, research and all the rest of government services.

As the 2000s decade proceeded, foreign investors financed an increasing share of U.S. government debt. In mid-2000, this debt totaled $1 trillion. Eight years later, the total was $2.7 trillion, with foreign government-owned banks or "sovereign" investment funds holding the fastest-growing share. Foreign entities used the U.S. dollars flowing overseas for manufactured goods and oil to purchase U.S. Treasury securities and other U.S. government debt. The United States, in essence, was borrowing from the future to finance current consumption.

U.S. government officials across the political spectrum agreed on the need to realign spending with revenues although they disagreed over the best strategy for doing so. After Republican Party gains in the November 2010 elections, passing legislation on spending and taxes became more protracted and difficult. "The hard truth is that getting this deficit under control is going to require broad sacrifice," President Obama said. He proposed a policy of combining spending cuts with a tax increase for a relatively small number of families with the highest incomes, but Republicans in Congress blocked any tax rise.

(This is a product of the Bureau of International Information Programs, U.S. Department of State. )

A Guide To Survival: Finding Peace In The Midst Of Chaos

Morrison, CO, April 30, 2012 - Andy Feld understands that: “people today are very worried – and they should be. They know the society we have grown to love is tipping over and we stand to lose everything. They want real solutions - new ones, not the lip service that brings the same results that we already know won’t work.” In We’re Tipping Over: The Urgency to re-think government, business, heart and soul (iUniverse), Feld explains the New Normal - the great wake-up call of the economic crisis!

“We cannot rationalize that this is just another down economic cycle - it’s today’s New Normal and if we refuse to take definitive action there will be no middle class left and an unrealistic burden for our children to bear. It took more than 40 years to get into this financial mess—and it could take that long to correct it. We live in a global economy and we need to adjust to the worldwide competition.” He emphasizes, “We have no choice but to compete internationally for jobs, even offering incentives to corporations (as foreign countries do), to keep their business and jobs in the U.S. Yes, this will result in lower paying service/manufacturing jobs and reduced benefits, but get used to it - this will be the New Normal!”

Feld points out: “Sadly, we have become materialistic, selfish, fat and lazy and it’s easier to want the other guy to sacrifice for us. Yes, it will be an adjustment but it’s better than the alternative – a society that is bankrupt, corrupt, lacks a vibrant middle class, and is spiritually empty and unhappy. The writing is on the wall - it’s already happening! Are we really willing to risk that?” Adding, “We were part of the problem and now we need to be part of the solution.”

“In past recessions we didn’t have a huge budget deficit, banks were lending money, service and manufacturing industries began to grow locally, and our educated population and entrepreneurial spirit took over – but not this time. Why are our leaders not bringing solutions?” asks Feld.

He believes the reason is simple: “The truth is un-electable! Our elected officials (who have become professional politicians) do not see the populace going for personal sacrifice, so in order to keep their lucrative jobs they’ll do whatever it takes to get re-elected. Since our founding fathers could not have contemplated this, it’s time to make changes in congressional salaries, term limits, and campaign and lobbying reform.” 

In We’re Tipping Over, Feld offers a chance to change, survive and prosper. As individuals, we might be limited in our ability to change government and big business, but there is nothing to stop us creating our own personal happiness. It’s a beginning. We need to accept that our happiness, comfort and excitement will no longer come from outside things but from within us.

Andy Feld began his ongoing study of happiness and success many years ago. He was a businessman and a top executive who changed the direction of his life after an expedition to Mount Kilimanjaro in Africa inspired him to begin writing. He is now a successful author and expert speaker on today’s societal and business challenges, a frequent guest on nationwide radio, and a regular on local Denver TV where he resides.

William Gladstone, author of The Twelve and The Golden Motorcycle Gang, and producer of the film, Tapping the Source: “It’s time to wake up and this book will help. You get to choose where you will be when the tipping starts. It helps to have a guide and this is a good one.”

Leili McKinley, Founder, Conscious Branding: Your Identity Is Your Destiny: “A must read! Andy Feld’s book is an insightful guide to anyone wishing to take the next step to live the life they want in ‘The New Normal’.

Charles Water, Founder of Master Water’s Moving Meditation System: “Finally, a message of hope and happiness in a chaotic world. Andy is not only on target with the current reality, but also offers a positive solution; A breath of fresh air!”

Jean Wampler, Full Moon Books: “Once again, Andy Feld provides timely information addressing many of the overwhelming problems of our time. Andy continues to impart solid advice on how to use spiritual principles to attain our goals.”