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General Forum: Society | | *******HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY********* | |
| would have been lot easier ...if its just this
http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=29666
Posted by: Ravi At: 15, Aug 2003 11:28:02 PM IST
Adding to Swathis list of facts :)
)))))
By Arun Shourie
Twenty to twenty-five years ago, even 10 years ago,
few of us had heard of
Information Technology. Today, exports from this
industry are worth $10
billion - that is, over Rs 45,000 crore a year. That
figure is 20 per cent
of our total exports.
In spite of the fact that each of the markets to which
we supply IT software
and solutions has been in the trough of recession for
years, IT exports have
grown by 26 per cent this year. Infosys had not even
been born 25 years ago.
Wipro was a company selling vegetable oil. Indeed,
other than the ''Tata''
in Tata Consultancy Services, there is scarcely a name
in the IT industry
that was known then.
And guess what the average age is in the industry?
Just 26 and a half! These
26/27-year-olds have changed the world's perception of
India. It's not just
a country of snake-charmers, it's a country against
which protectionist
walls have to be erected. Of course, we can also charm
snakes. And not just,
to pluck a phrase of Malcolm Muggeridge, snakes in
snakes' clothing!
And these 26-year-olds are changing India's perception
also of itself: that
India can; that, therefore, we should face the world
with confidence. That
is the situation in activity after activity. We lament
the fact that, while
we are ahead in software, we have lost out to China in
IT hardware. That is
true - as of the moment. We shooed away firms like
Motorola when they
approached us in the early 1990s for facilities to set
up manufacturing
operations in India. China welcomed them, it wooed
them, it created every
conceivable facility for hardware firms from Japan, of
course, but also from
Taiwan, a country at which 400 of its missiles are
aimed. It has thereby
leapt ahead.
But the game is hardly over. That world-class hardware
can be produced in
India is evident. How many of us would have heard of
Moser-Baer? Located in
unprepossessing Noida, it is the world's third largest
optical media
manufacturer, and the lowest-cost producer of
CD-Recorders. Its exports are
close to Rs 1,000 crore.
The firm sells data-storage products to seven of the
world's top 10 CD-R
producers. And it produces them so efficiently that,
to shield themselves,
European competitors had to file an anti-dumping case
to stop and penalise
its exports to Europe. Moser-Baer fought on its own.
And won.
A firm most of us have not heard of. A firm that is
manufacturing products
at the cutting edge of technology. A firm exporting Rs
1,000 crore of
products that require the utmost precision and
technological sophistication.
A firm that European firms fear.
And equally important - the very international fora
that our ideologues
shout are instruments of exploitation hold against
European firms, and in
favour of this Indian firm.
There is more. Moser-Baer has acquired Capco
Luxembourg, a firm that owns 49
per cent of a Netherlands-based CD-R distributor. And
it has set up Glyphics
Media Inc. in the United States-for markets in North
and South America. And
here we are being made to shiver at the thought that
foreign firms are about
to swallow us!
Heard of Tandon Electronics? Its exports of electronic
hardware are close to
Rs 4,000 crore!
At a moment's notice, my friends Amit Mitra of FICCI
and Tarun Das of CII
send me particulars of firm after firm, in sector
after sector, that has
broken new ground. A sample:
.. Fifteen of the world's major automobile
manufacturers are now obtaining
components from Indian firms.
.. Just last year, exports of auto-components were
$375 million. This year
they are close to $1.5 billion. Estimates indicate
they will reach $15
billion within six to seven years.
.. Hero Honda is now the largest manufacturer of
motorcycles in the
world-with an output of 17 lakh motorcycles a year.
.. One lakh Indica cars of the Tatas are to be
marketed in Europe by Rover,
one of the United Kingdom's most prestigious
auto-manufacturers under its -
that is, Rover's - brand name.
.. Bharat Forge has the world' ;s largest
single-location forging facility -
of 1.2 lakh tonnes per annum. Its client list includes
Toyota, Honda, Volvo,
Cummins, Daimler Chrysler. It has been chosen as a
supplier of small forging
parts for Toyota's global transmission parts' sourcing
hub in Bangalore.
.. Asian Paints has production facilities in 22
countries spread across five
continents. It has recently acquired Berger
International, which gives it
access to 11 countries, and SCIB Chemical SAE in
Egypt. Asian Paints is the
market leader in 11 of the 22 countries in which it is
present, including
India.
.. Hindustan Inks has the world's largest single
stream, fully integrated ink
plant, of 1 lakh tonnes per annum capacity, at Vapi,
Gujarat. It has a
manufacturing plant and a 100 per cent subsidiary in
the US. It has another
100 per cent subsidiary in Austria.
.. For two years running, General Motors has awarded
Sundaram Clayton its
'Best Supplier Award'; the volumes it sources out of
India are growing every
year.
.. Ford has presented the 'Gold World Excellence
Award' to Cooper Tyres.
.. Essel Propack is the world's largest laminated tube
manufacturer. It has a
manufacturing presence in 11 countries including
China, a global
manufacturing share of 25 per cent, and caters to all
of P&G's laminated
tube requirements in the US, and 40 per cent of
Unilever's.
.. Aston Martin, one of the world's most expensive car
brands, has contracted
prototyping its latest luxury sports car to an
India-based designer. This
would be the cheapest car to roll out of Aston
Martin's stable.
.. Maruti has been the preferred supplier of small
cars under the Suzuki
brand for Europe. Suzuki has now decided to make India
its manufacturing,
export and research hub outside Japan.
.. Hyundai Motors India is about to become the parent
Hyundai Motors
Corporation's global small car hub. In 2003, HMC will
source 25,000 Santros
from HMI's plant in India. By 2010 HMI is targeted to
supply half a million
cars to HMC. It was only in 1999 that HMI got its
first outsourcing contract
and already, in 2003, 20 per cent of its sales will be
what it supplies as
an outsourcing hub. It is exporting cars to Indonesia,
Algeria, Morocco,
Columbia, Nepal, Sri Lanka and Bangladesh.
.. Ford India got its first outsourcing contract in
2000. Within 3 years
outsourcing accounts for 35 per cent of its sales.
Ford India supplies to
Mexico, Brazil and China. The parent Ford is sourcing
close to $40 million
worth of components from India, and plans to increase
these in the coming
years.
Ford India is already the sole manufacturing and su
pply base for Ikon cars
and components. These are being exported to Mexico,
China and Africa.
.. Toyota Kirloskar Motors chose India over
competitive destinations like
Philippines and China for setting up a new project to
source transmissions
as this option proved more economical.
.. Europe's leading tractor maker, Renault, has chosen
International Tractors
(ITL) as its sole global sourcing hub for 40 to 85
horsepower tractors.
.. Tyco Electronics India bagged its first outsourcing
contract in 1998-99.
So successful has it been that components and products
others have
contracted from it already account for 50 per cent of
its total sales. It
supplies to the parent, Tyco Europe.
.. TISCO is today the lowest cost producer of
hot-rolled steel in the world.
.. TVS Motor Company has been awarded the coveted
Deming Prize for Total
Quality Management. Many of the largest of
organisations, even American
ones-like GE-have not managed that recognition yet!
India's pharmaceutical industry has come to be feared
as much as its
infotech industry. It is already worth $ 6.5 billion
and it has been growing
at 8-10 per cent a year. It's the fourth largest
pharmaceutical industry in
terms of volumes and 13th in value. Its exports have
crossed $2 billion, and
have increased by 30 per cent in the past five years.
India is among the top
five manufacturers of bulk drugs.
Even more telling is another figure. We are always
being frightened,
''Multinational drug companies are about to
takeover.'' In 1971 the share of
these MNCs in the Indian market was 75 per cent. Today
it's 35 per cent!
There's another feature we should bear in mind:
India's strengths are
becoming evident across the technology spectrum:
.. We are among the three countries in the world that
have built
supercomputers on their own, the US and Japan being
the other two: two
months ago, the fourth generation PARAM super-computer
was inaugurated in
Bangalore.
.. We are among six countries in the world that launch
satellites. We launch
some of our own satellites of course; we have launched
satellites for others
too, among them such countries as Germany and Belgium.
We have the largest
set of remote sensing satellites. Our INSAT system is
also among the world's
largest domestic satellite communication systems.
At the other end:
.. India is one of the world's largest diamond cutting
and polishing centres.
CLSA estimates nine of every 10 stones sold in the
world pass through India.
.. Trade of Indian medicinal plants has crossed Rs
4,000 crore.
Here is proof positive that liberalisation has indeed
worked. ''By opening
the economy before giving it a chance to become
competitive, we have thrown
our industry to the wolves,'' it used to be said.
Quite the contrary. The
success in exports, in fields such as IT in which
competition is fierce, in
which technological change is fast as lightning,
success in auto-components,
in pharmaceuticals shows that our industry has fought
back, it has become
competitive.
Remember all that shouting about Chinese batteries a
year ago? ''Markets are
closing down, thousands are being thrown out of their
meagre businesses,
factory after factory has shut down.'' That was the
shouting just a few
months ago.
Where are those batteries from China? Yes, trade with
China has grown-by
104% in the past year. But according to figures of the
Chinese Government,
in the first five months of 2003, India has amassed a
surplus in its trade
with China, a surplus of close to half a billion
dollars.
And China is just an instance. Exports as a whole, and
in the face of an
unrelenting recession in the West, have grown by 19
per cent in the year. In
a word, what committees upon committees with their
piles of recommendations
would not have achieved, being actually exposed to
actual competition has.
Our foreign exchange reserves are at an all-time
high-$82 billion. We have
announced that we will not be taking aid from a string
of countries.
.. We are giving aid to 10 or 11 countries.
.. We are pre-paying our debt.
..We have just ''loaned'' $300 million to the IMF!
How distant the days when we used to wait anxiously
for the announcement
about what the Aid India Club meeting in Paris had
decided to give us.
But there is the other side-equally telling. Why is it
that so few among us
know even the elementary facts about these successes?
Why is it that so much
of public, specifically political, discourse, when it
is not whining is just
wailing?
Posted by: Ravi At: 15, Aug 2003 8:05:45 PM IST
paadavooyi bhaaratheeyudaa..
aadi padavoyi vijayaa geetikaa..
nedey swanthantraam dinam
veerula tyaaga phalam..
neadey navaodayanm
neede anandam..
ooo paadavoyi bharatheeyudaa aadi padavoi vijaya geetikaa..
SWATHANTRAM VACHENANI SABHALEY CHESI
SAMBARA PADAGAANEY SARIPODOI...
SANDHINCHINAA DANIKI SAMTRUPTHI PONDI..
ADHEY VIJAYAM ANUKUNTEY PORAPAATOYI..
aaaagakoyi.. bhaarateeyudaa.. kadali saagavoi pragathi daarulaa.. aagaakoyi bhaarateeyudaa...
Posted by: Mr. MAHESWARA MAHI At: 15, Aug 2003 4:16:18 PM IST
~~~~~~ HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY TO ALL ~~~~~~~~~
Posted by: విజయ్ At: 15, Aug 2003 3:56:27 PM IST
Happy Independence day to all my fellow Indians around the globe.
jai hind
shyam
Posted by: Mr. shyam shooter At: 15, Aug 2003 3:33:21 PM IST
Sorry if that link does'nt work...
http://www.westasiangames.com/greetings/independence.asp
Posted by: Jonnalagadda Jonnalagadda At: 15, Aug 2003 2:16:50 PM IST
Happy Independence Day to my Dear Indians...
http://www.jonnalagadda.150m.com/greetings/independence.asp
Posted by: Jonnalagadda Jonnalagadda At: 15, Aug 2003 2:08:10 PM IST
"INDIA IS A BEAUTIFUL COUNTRY WITH BAD POLITICIANS"
ANY HOW
HAPPY INDEPENDENCE DAY
Posted by: Mr. manoopuli At: 15, Aug 2003 1:03:33 PM IST
Wishes to all Proud Indians. Salute to Soldiers and other Patriots who sacrificed their lives to protect the country.
Saare Jahaan Se Achchaa Hindustaan Hamaaraa.
Posted by: Ms. Prasanthi Uppalapati At: 15, Aug 2003 12:12:20 PM IST
naa to^Ti bhaarati^yulaku...
swatantrya dino^tsava Subhaakaankshalu...
vande^maataram vande^maataram vande^maataram
Posted by: Mr. My_Friend At: 15, Aug 2003 11:47:30 AM IST
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