When I lived in India during the late 80’s and early 90’s, I avoided watching Bollywood movies. The storyline was always the same – a lot of family drama with action and songs. Heroic acts and actions that were difficult to understand even after having stretched my unlimited imagination.
Saw recently two bollywood movies, that I highly recommend. “Taare Zameen Par” is a beautiful story of a dyslectic boy and a teacher realising the situation and adjusting the teaching practise to meet this boys needs. Maybe this will help parents bring forward the “right” potential and see each child as an individual. The same applies to schools too.
Of course its common knowledge that the Swedish princess Victoria is dyslectic. When visiting India she invited Amir Khan, the actor from Taare Zameen Par for dinner.
The second movie is called “3 Idiots“ about 3 collage students going for their dreams. Success naturally follows. Not everyone is meant to be an engineer or a doctor. Another great movie with Amir Khan in the main role.
Hopefully these type of movies are eye-openers that will help us in India to look at each other as individuals than “engineer” or “doctor” making machines.
I feel like starting 2010 on a positive note.
TCS reported a third quarter profit of $384m on revenue of $1.64bn for its third financial quarter 2009. This represented 38.9% and 10.3% increases on the previous year respectively. It also recruited almost 13,000 workers. Complete story at Tata results confirm Indian strength.
We are seeing a recovery in the US market to be followed by Europe. The downturn has shown the following:
- Companies using offshoring services have increased the number of Indian consultants than the consultants from local market.
- BRIC countries i.e. Brazil, Russia, India and China are a strong market despite the downturn.
2009 hasn’t been all downhill with exception of Satyam mess. This was of course recovered under new brand Mahindra Satyam. I found a great list – “That was IT in the Year 2009″ with a lot of Indian news.
Media portrait India differently in Sweden today than for 5 years ago. A number of strong business women have been mentioned.
- http://www.e24.se/kvinna/karriar/har-ar-indiens-mediedrottning_1778667.e24
- http://www.e24.se/kvinna/karriar/banbrytaren-nadde-toppen_1764179.e24
India and China will dominate global 2010. We will also hear a lot of the Indian companies opening in China and vice-versa during 2010.
A great year to look forward to.
Often I am asked why one should offshore to India? What is so “good” about India? I see the advantages and understand the challenges on both the sides – customer as well as the provider. I am “home blind” since I come from India thereby I quote from the book, The black book of outsourcing, Douglas Brown and Scott Wilson.
- India has the second-largest English speaking population in the world, after the United States.
- An educated workforce of more than 270 million workers.
- The outsourcing market in India, particularly for information technologies, has had time to mature and gain support from U.S. and U.K. businesses.
- India’s 1991 Statement on Industrial Policy facilitated foreign direct investment and technology transfer, thereby ushering in a new era with fewer of the regulatory burdens that had previously kept foreign firms from establishing business operations there. Since the policy reform, foreign direct investment in India has increased more than fiftyfold.
- IT is top governmental priorities. The Ministry of Information Technology, established in 1999, plans to accelerate the implementation of IT in government education and the private sector.
- More than 70,000 software engineers graduate annually from colleges.
As well as
- A growth rate of 8.0% (http://www.indiainbusiness.nic.in/whyindia.htm)
- Emerging middle class with a spending power which can be seen everywhere. India can be seen as a potential market. It is no longer local market within ones own country – it is a global market.
- Many companies with Capability Maturity Model Level 5.
- Etc.
The goal of a growing number of American and European companies is to outsource customer-service work to India, to take advantage of India’s low wages, thriving high-tech sector, and annual output of 2 million English-speaking college graduates. Of the 3.3 million white-collar service jobs estimated to be outsourced in 2015, more than half will go to India.
The black book of outsourcing, Douglas Brown and Scott Wilson.
The Indian government has introduced depreciation benefit (tax benefits) on commercial vehicles purchased by companies on or after January 1, 2009 and put to use before October 1, 2009.
The government had allowed higher depreciation benefit for commercial vehicles to encourage companies to purchase new vehicles with a view to pushing their demand.
Due to this benifit as well as festival season (Diwali) the number of cars being sold has increased. More to at Times of India.
50% depreciation benefit on domestic trucks bought and used before october 1, 2009. Three companies — Tata Motors Ltd, Ashok Leyland Ltd and Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd — dominate the domestic commercial vehicles with combined market share of more than 80 per cent.
Depriciation: A noncash expense that reduces the value of an asset as a result of wear and tear, age, or obsolescence. Most assets lose their value over time (in other words, they depreciate), and must be replaced once the end of their useful life is reached. There are several accounting methods that are used in order to write off an asset’s depreciation cost over the period of its useful life. Because it is a non-cash expense, depreciation lowers the company’s reported earnings while increasing free cash flow.
Major companies in India are planning, during this downturn, to be less dependent of US and thereby reaching out to new markets. More to read here.
Besides buying companies they are even hiring local consultants onsites to front the customers at the rate applicable there.
Would like to suggest Offshoring times for latest information about offshoring in India.
Will be travelling to India next month. Shall be in Mumbai, Pune, Solapur and Goa. Longing to eat some good food. So a reminder of good times 
It is holi in India, a festival of colours or correctly known as Rangapanchami. Powder colour and colourfull water is thrown on each other. The clothes and streets get coloured and its an apportunity to have fun. It has a religious significance related to hinduism. Together with bonfires (stands for warmth) and colour (spring is colourfull), we mark the onset of spring.
Music is played everywhere and people dance and have fun. Holi is celebrated differently in every state of India.
I am now being nostalgic now and would love to be in India, though in my childhood we were not allowed to celebrate holi since we were catholic. That is my great regret. Since holi felt like much more fun when I was a kid.
I came across the phrase “The elephant has woken up..” a while back in a book but experienced it first hand on my visit to India 2008. By elephant the author meant India.
It was my cousins wedding so when my uncle called me up and invited us, I couldn’t say ‘no’ . It has become a tradition in our family to get married on 27th of december. I have done that and so has my cousin.
The wedding was held in Wayanad, Kerala with it’s sprawling tea plantations and waterfalls. A six hours trip by car from Kerala got us to Bangalore which could have gone faster had the roads been better .
Bangalore is the Indian silicon valley. It was there I realised that India has really woken up. The cities architecture and its culture has radically changed, all because of the established IT Companies in Bangalore. Oracle, Accenture, IBM buildings almost wall to wall.
The middle class citizen in India has now a higher spending power, thereby all the sprawling malls. The younger generation is earning more money than the parents which has tipped the balance. They move to bigger cities and live on their own, away from the watchfull eye of the parents, relatives and neighbours. The gap between the older and younger generation is much wider now.
The elephant has woken up but what is the outcome? Maybe loss of Indian traditions to a more westernised mindset? A lot is happening in India, an exciting time to live in but also a phase that India and indians have to go through and make peace with the result.
India is a facinating country to grow in and get perspective on life. Due to its multifaceted nature and a history that supports and encourages diversity I have learnt to respect and accept it.
We speak Kannada with my mother Rosemary since she comes from Bangalore. My father John is from Maharashtra and since he cannot speak Kannada we spoke even English at home. Neighbours come from different states and thereby we learn even their languages.
Since Hindi is the official language it was also the 2nd language at school, English being the 1st. Even though we moved around a few times, major part was lived in Maharashtra and thereby I can speak, write and read Marathi. This being the 3rd language in school. Confused? Well, I have only described a few languages spoken in India. 29 languages are spoken by more than a million native speakers, 122 by more than 10,000. For more information check out. Besides languages, there are many religions in india which also makes India a multifaceted country to live. Being catholics (2%) and a minority we were living outside the norms defined by the majority i.e. the hindus (80%) and muslims (13%), thereby creating interesting situations and conflicts.
More about India later on.
