The Indian Economy: News That Caught My Eye # 2

Infosys in the Nasdaq-100 Index: On 18th December 2006 Indian IT giant Infosys (market capitalisation on nasdaq - $5.6 Billion) is set to join the likes of Adobe, Apple, Cisco, Dell, eBay, Google, and Microsoft in the Nasdaq 100 Index - becoming the first Indian company to do so!

Infosys is one of the great Indian companies (like Tata) that has a spotless reputation in India, and ranks among one of the most aspirational organisations to work for.

Business wise too, they've grown from strength to strength, and this recognition is the icing on the cake - though people at Infy insist this is just the beginning!

Meanwhile their PR machinery is working overtime, though redundantly, because most media is falling all over themselves to get soundbytes from them. Now that's what I call reputation!

Auto Industry shows 16.4% growth: In the period April to November 2006, India Inc produced 7.4 million vehicles - recording an increased production of 17.52% four wheelers, and 15.02% higher two wheelers. With domestic sales of four wheelers rising by 20.68%, and two wheelers up by 14.43% (the rest of the increase went into exports)

All this growth is good, though I'd say no thanks to advertising - because advertising in the auto sector in India (two wheelers in particular) continues to be pretentious, insightless, and should send most of the relevant creative directors into hiding (except perhaps, those doing the Tata Motors, Bajaj, and TVS work).

The US - India Nuke Deal: Last week the US congress voted overwhelmingly (330 Ayes, 59 Nays, 44 abstentions) to pass the legislation allowing nuclear trade with India, ratifying to the world India's outstanding responsible stand and record in nuclear power management.

Unlike countries like Iran, North Korea and our neighbour Pakistan, India has never postured or threatened anyone with its capabilities, but has focussed on its positive uses.

Capability proven, responsibility recognized and promised, India inc including the Tatas and Reliance Energy can now look forward to expanding their capabilities into nuclear energy in the near future.

Mobile User base crosses 14 crore (14,00,00,000): Indians love to talk. And the mobile phone providers (GSM, WLL and CDMA) have raked in the benefits, adding a whopping 6,700,000 subscribers in November alone. GSM service providers like Airtel and Hutch lead the market, not just offerring basic services but a host of value added services as well.

Not surprisingly, marketing and advertising in this industry is very active and noticeable, with brands like Hutch (courtesy Ogilvy) consistently creating fabulous slick looking and premium feeling campaigns. Airtel also has its act together, but has a more lower mass appeal.

Kerala ties up with Red Hat: The state government of the south Indian state of Kerala (which recently tried to ban Microsoft for some ideological reasons) has joined the free software bandwagon, and is officially opening its doors (blatantly aligning?) to Linux. It's trying to woo Red Hat into setting up facilites and support for the state government and state run schools in Kerala.

My only point is, when state governments are in a habit of banning companies - which literally amounts to banning growth through free trade - I would think twice before investing there.

West Bengal threatens to slip back into the red: This eastern state of India has long sufferred at the hands of communist parties who have consistently paralysed growth and chased companies out of the region, in the name of 'taking care of the interests of the common man'.

Fortunately, over the last half decade or so, we saw a positive change in attitude, stemming from the progressive thinking of the previous and current Chief Ministers - Jyoti Basu and Buddhadev Bhattacharjee respectively. We have begun to see dramatic changes in the state, which until recently looked like something time had forgotten.

New IT parks, new industry and hence new prosperity was beginning to show.

Which is why perhaps the Tata group chose West Bengal as the location for their prestigious new car project. Only to now find themselves at the mercy of archaic thinking communist forces who once again are resorting to strikes, and going on a rampage trying to stop the project from taking off!

These people have no clue as to the damage their actions will cause to the people they claim to be protecting. And how it will effect further investment in the state. Whatever their issues are, need to be resolved in a slightly less violent and more civilised manner than what they're doing right now.

Sprite sells more than Coke! India is full of surprises - and perhaps the only part of the world where the Coca Cola company sells more Sprite than their flagship brand Coke! This is besides the point that their largest selling brand is a third name - Thums Up - which they acquired from an Indian company many years back! The final tally of cases sold by Coca Cola India - Total, 215million; Thums Up, 50million; Sprite, 40million; Coke, 32million.

Cheers!
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UPDATE: Content Theft!

Okay, the issue of illegal mirroring has been sorted out. Here's how:

• On discovering the illegal mirroring of my wordpress blog at byindia, I wrote an email to both byindia and web2corp, a US based company that recently bought byindia.


• Within a couple of hours, I received an email from no less than the CEO of web2corp, expressing his concern and desire to fix the problem.


• I pointed out the mirrors to my site, as well as the mirrors of bothack, my treasure and ekawaaz - bloggers like me who faced the same problem.


• Within an hour of my second email, the offending mirrors disappeared and I got another email from web2corp saying they'd identified the problem, and I quote - "a script, a webbot spyder, that in fact was attempting to scan content of bloggers and create accounts in ByIndia. That is also the reason it was so canned looking (ie. carlin, cala, cais, etc.) and why they were new blogs in ByIndia. The only possible reason here is sabotage assuming that bloggers such as yourself would be angered by the activity and bash ByIndia verbally. We have immediately patched the platform to reject such auto-posting. ByIndia's blogs are not new, as they were established in early 2005 and have always been the most popular aspect of the product before our involvement just a few months ago." He goes on to add that he will hope me and other Indian bloggers will visit ByIndia as they're proud of the products and hope it wil become a destination they will be proud of in years to come.

Okay, so we give them the benefit of the doubt - that they did not realise this script was running amok in their system. let's say we'll believe the sabotage theory that some external force (competitors) managed to slip this into their system to anger us bloggers. And let's just appreciate the fact that they responded so quickly and efficiently to fix the problem - and leave it at that.

Though I would double-check every new and existing blog on ByIndia (which incidently I hadn't even heard of until yesterday!) to see if it isn't a Mili Vanili!

So back to my role as Noshtradamus (the real one), let me sum up the learnings here:

• It's very easy in this day and age for content to get ripped off, so you got to keep your eyes and ears open - also enlist the help of online support/protection groups such as Creative Commons


• Do a web/blog search on your own subjects every now and then to scan for plagiarism and as I discovered - blatant rip offs!


• If you have a problem, spread the news, and you'll more often than not discover you aren't the only victim - get together and act!


• Always contact the offending party immediately and give them the first chance to explain. If they're multinational, or companies based in the US or Western Europe, they will most likely be quick to respond and sensitive to your angst - hence they will do something to help you out (unless they're shady bastards who had done it deliberately).


• And finally, if you're investing in some company operating half way across the world - do your homework well. Because if you don't do due dilligence, you could just end up acquiring a lot of crap! That's common sense, isn't it?!

Now I can get back to my regular posts, and try to recover the time lost in clearing this mess!

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The Indian Economy: News that caught my eye this week!

8% Growth: According to the Centre for Monitoring the Indian Economy (and hints from the Indian Finance Minister) the Indian economy is expected to grow by 8% in the financial year ending March 2007. This comes in the wake of plenty of new capital investments, high credit growth, and improved profitability in the corporate sector.

11th largest 'services' exporter: While overall growth this year is expected to stay healthy, the services business in India is growing by leaps and bounds. According to the WTO's International Trade Statistics, Indian services exports have grown by 41.6% to 56.1 billion USD versus 39.6 billion USD last year!

Indian Insurance companies have reason to smile: While the Indian government is planning to hike FDI in the insurance sector, there are indications that the government is also planning changes in the Insurance Act, which currently mandates that the local promoters in joint ventures with international insurance companies have to compulsarily reduce their stake from 74% to 26% within 10 years. This is good news for Indian companies like Bajaj, Max, HDFC and ICICI who would perhaps want to remain in the business and go solo instead of living under the shadow of their JV partners. FYI, the Indian insurance industry is growing at a rate of around 20% every year!

Taj Group checks into Ritz-Carlton, Boston: Taj Hotels Resorts and Palaces, one of Asia's largest and finest hotel groups (headquartered in Mumbai, India) has entered a definitive agreement to purchase The Ritz-Carlton, Boston from its current owners, Millennium Partners for around US $170-million and close the deal in January 2007. Read the full story here.

For more information/other news around India and its economy, check out IBEF, The Economic Times, Business-Standard
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