Coca-Cola in India: mango mania
For Coca-Cola in India, one of its most popular offerings is a mango drink called Maaza, an indigenous brand, made with real mango pulp, that was launched in the 1970s, and acquired by the global soft drinks giant in the 1990s.
Its popularity has now inspired growing competition from newer imitators, like Pepsi’s more recently introduced mango beverage, Slice, and Parle Agro’s mango drink Frooti. Continue reading »
The slow lane: India’s road-building efforts hit bumps
India’s rutted, potholed roads are the bane of many a traveller, not to mention its entire logistics systems. In a country where many reforms are highly contentious and controversial, Indians are united on the need for more and better roads to help them get to where they are going – and to facilitate the faster transport of everything from farm produce to electronics from place to place.
India’s Congress Party-led government had once set an target of building 20kms of new roads every day. However, the government appears to be on the slow road to road-building – far short of its desired speed. Continue reading »
Tata Group: grass is not always greener
India’s powerful Tata Group, a conglomerate that produces everything from salt to steel, has declared its intention to invest in other markets, as a hedge against the well-known risks of doing business on its home turf.
The Tata Group has had various projects in India delayed by difficulties of obtaining land, grassroots resistance and political grandstanding in India’s rambunctious democracy.
But Tata has discovered that non-democratic developing economies are not necessarily easier places to do business, as it struggles to develop a new steel mill in Communist-ruled Vietnam. Continue reading »
Air India: the pilots strike back
Air India, the ailing state-owned carrier, has long struggled to overcome an image for indifferent, if not downright surly, service, and a poor on-time performance.
But a week-long pilots’ strike, which has brought the airline’s domestic flights to a near total-halt, has inflicted even more damage on the carrier’s image. Continue reading »
India’s 1.2bn: not enough girls
The first day of news on India’s once-in-decade census was focused on the sheer size of India’s population, which has increased by 181m to reach 1.21bn. By day two, a much darker statistic stands out.
According to the provisional results of the massive counting exercise, the ratio of girls to boys among Indian children under six years old, has plummeted, and is now a mere 914 girls for every 1000 boys. That’s down from a ratio of 927 girls to every 1,000 boys back in 2001. Clearly the country’s rapid economic growth has yet to transform traditional social attitudes. Continue reading »
Buffett and Gates make big appeal
Bill and Melinda Gates and their pal Warren Buffett have grabbed global attention for their willingness to give away large portions of their personal fortunes to charitable causes – and persuading 40 other tycoons to do the same.
Now, the trio have arrived in India where they hope to inspire India’s richest people to follow them and pledge half their wealth to social causes. But as during their similar trip to China last year, it’s likely to be a tough, though not impossible, sell. Continue reading »
India’s “misery tax” bites the dust
It was dubbed “the misery tax”. In its recent budget, New Delhi unveiled a 5 per cent tax on medical treatment, including surgeries, hospital bills and even diagnostic care, starting in the next financial year.
But after a huge outcry led by doctors, New Delhi capitulated on Tuesday and abandoned the measure. Continue reading »
Tata Nano: now available at your local hypermarket
In India, the mass market for low-cost products is out there – if only you can reach it. That, apparently, is what Tata Motors believes, as it struggles to put some momentum behind its Tata Nano, the world’s cheapest car.
As it struggles with stalling sales – which hit a low of just 509 cars in November –despite India’s overall car market racing ahead, Tata has decided it needs to push harder to reach its target market, through a more creative, unconventional distribution channel: Big Bazaar, India’s answer to the hypermarket. Continue reading »
Bangladesh waking up to impact of Yunus case?
For mont
hs, the Bangladesh government has waged a bitter battle against Nobel peace prize-winning economist Mohammad Yunus – a course of action that many have warned would hurt Bangladesh’s international reputation.
As supporters of Yunus in the US congress issued fresh appeals on his behalf this week, is it possible Bangladesh authorities are finally waking up to the potential consequences of their campaign? Continue reading »
India: Japan earthquake raises awkward questions in nuclear debate
It is not just people rich countries that are questioning their nuclear programmes in the light of the crisis at Japan’s earthquake-hit Fukushima power plant.
In India too, the disaster has prompted debate, not least because the authorities are planning a major expansion of the country’s nuclear power capacity. Continue reading »
India’s fake pilots: better take the train
Indian air carriers have been struggling to find enough trained pilots to keep pace with the rapid growth of their networks and flight schedules, as Indians take to the skies in every-growing numbers.
Now comes alarming news that some of those flying India’s commercial airlines may not be licensed pilots at all. Continue reading »
India’s long and winding legal system
As Indians compare their investment climate to their neighbour and rival China, they love to tout their country’s rule of law – and British-style justice system – as one of their main advantages.
But its shortcomings have been highlighted last week by a tragic case that had been winding its way through the legal system since 1978, after a young Australian swimming champion was left a quadriplegic after an accident in a hotel swimming pool. Continue reading »
India’s new health tax misses the point
India may have completed two decades of market-oriented economic liberalisation. But its’ deep-rooted socialist mindset – especially attitudes about the poor, and how they live, or should live – are hard to shake.
That is apparent in a particularly bizarre approach to a new service tax on health care in the budget unveiled by Pranab Mukherjee, the finance minister, on Monday. Continue reading »
India ducks the retail issue
In the run up to India’s budget, expectations were running high that New Delhi would finally bite the bullet on a crucial item of its unfinished reform agenda: opening the “multi-brand retail sector” – commonly known as grocery stores – to foreign participation.
But New Delhi still lacks the spine to take such a decision, despite a growing consensus among policy-makers that strengthening organised retail could be an important tool in battling the persistent food price inflation now seen as one of India’s biggest economic challenges. Continue reading »
India: holiday gift for microfinance
Indian micro-lenders have had little to cheer about since October, when a political backlash in Andhra Pradesh state created major disruption to their operations, and prompted local banks – which had been lending generously to the institutions – to freeze their credit lines.
But Indian micro-lenders, especially smaller, socially-oriented players harder hit by the sudden liquidity squeeze, are now receiving a much-needed holiday gift from the Grameen Foundation – the US-based organisation that promotes ethical microfinance - and two of its affilates Grameen Capital India, and Grameen-Jameel . Continue reading »
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