India Shining???

Well that was the NDA’s tag line during 2004 polls. Now that the next episode is just around the corner, I am spending a few lines on the issue.. Well India IS shining with respect to some areas, and still rusting in many more. One of those rusty corners is Product based Industries. A friend of mine recently bought one of those chinese mobiles for Rs 4500. I almost fainted looking at the list of features it had: A huge maybe 3.0 inch 262000 color touch screen, 2.0 MP camera, FM, Music player, iPhone like menu, and all the basic stuff- expandable memory, but the most important thing: It had TV.. Yes.. I am serious, Came with a pretty compact (also wonderfully built) antenna.. pull it out and WELL… there was good old DD in better than TV clarity. Agreed, DD is hopeless for entertainment, but you can watch a cricket telecast on it… (Govt having forced the private channels to share the telecast).. and an odd movie.. Just imagine flaunting one of those, forget walkman… forget live scores,  The point is, for the same price, all you get in Nokia, Moto or Sony is a vga camera, 65k screen a crap looking phone (in front of the chinese that is….) Hey one more thing, it also accommodates 2 sims. The call lists, network level everything is separate. Even has dedicated keys for sim1 & 2. My friend liked this feature the best, he’s staying away from home-One sim with low std plan for calling home, other with good local tariff.

It got me thinking… There aren’t many companies in India which manufacture products which are world class, giving those big MNCs a run for their money. The impact of this is huge…Why else do we have to depend on others for our defense supplies, even 50 years after independence, when countries like Korea, Japan, having been ruined completely.. are up there at the apex. Why else, the fastest train in the country cannot cross 85mph, having had the first train run way back in 1853. Why isn’t there an Indian Google or MS or Yahoo, considering the scores of people make their living with computers. The list is long, but all is not covered by rust.

Enough of whining, lets look at the shine: How many of us know that the single reason Chinese automobile manufacturers aren’t daring to enter Indian market, is… TATA.. Aye.. they are scared of the low cost, quality automobiles of the Tata. They along with Mahindras have made some world class cars, There’s the ISRO, having set a world record by launching 10 satellites at one go. There’s HAL, having joined the elite with the Tejas. There’s Titan, having ruined the sleep of Timex in India, is making its mark in eye care. There’s Bajaj, coming up with newer technology in its every new bike. There’s HCL, having products on par with the Hps, Sonys and others… All in all… taking India to the world.. as an Aditya Birla ad says…

Well, All I can say is, we may be slow, but guys… watch out!!