The Ministry for Statistics and Programme Implementation has released the latest Per Capita Income figures at the national level. India’s per capita income which was Rs. 24,143 in the year 2004-05, currently stands at Rs. 54,835 (US$ 1218 Approx) in the year 2010-11. This represents an increase of more than 120%.
Source: http://indiamicrofinance.com/india-per-capita-income-gdp.html, accessed: 09.02.2012
„The Indian IT industry in the US has contributed $15 billion in taxes alone in the last five years“, according to India’s Foreign Secretary Ranjan Mathai.
According to a report appearing in the Economic Times (Feb. 8, 2012):
NASSCOM estimates that Indian industry employs over 100,000 in the US up from 20,000 six years ago, he said adding it supports 200,000 other jobs, including indirect ones, apart from enhancing the competitiveness of some the US industries.
„Most Indian companies are setting up development centres. Indian IT industry contributed $15 billion in taxes over the last five years. This success story should not be set back by stringent visa regulations which act as a non-tariff barrier,“ he said.
„According to a back of envelope calculation – Indians paid over $200 million in visa fees. Perhaps $30-50 million has been taken from young aspiring Indians working in businesses whose US visas were rejected. The pink slip has become a greenback!“ Mathai said.
Source: The Economic Times, online, 08.02.2012
According to a recent report appearing in the Times of India, China has emerged as a major threat for branded Indian products. Some Chinese firms are reportedly producing counterfeit products of popular brands like Dabur and ITC and selling them with a „made in India“ tag in India and Africa. Apart from severe damage to brand reputation, the economic losses are estimated to stand at Rs. 22,528 crores (close to $ 5 billion).
See, the full report (January 1, 2012):
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Made-in-India-faked-in-China-5bn-loss/articleshow/11325880.cms
The Institute for Technology and Innovation Management at Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH) publishes a new working paper on the topic: “India – A Lead Market for Frugal Innovations? Extending the Lead Market Theory to Emerging Economies“. The paper is authored by Rajnish Tiwari and Cornelius Herstatt (Working Paper 67, January 27th, 2012).
Abstract
India has emerged as a vibrant and versatile source for cost effective, “disruptive innovations” of various varieties. Price-sensitive consumers in a large and growing market keep inducing firms to apply “frugal engineering” for creating affordable products and services without compromising excessively on quality. Because, as The Economist asserts: “Frugal does not mean second-rate”. Such innovations are characterized by high affordability, robustness, and “good enough” quality in a volume-driven market. Resource constraints motivate firms and entrepreneurs to think out-of-the-box. The trick lies in creating solutions that are able to circumvent given environmental constraints in a cost effective way. India’s large and enormously young population faced with limited budgets, but well-endowed with high aspirations, provides an ideal experiment ground for many firms. Solutions created for the Indian market are often suitable for other developing countries in Asia, Africa and Latin America that frequently face similar socio-economic conditions. In some instances they succeed even in developed country markets by enabling significant cost reductions. This emergence as a hub for “frugal innovations” possibly suggests a “lead market” role for India.
On the other hand, lead markets, as understood today, are characterized by high per capita income, great customer sophistication and high quality infrastructure. Such assumptions imply that lead markets, almost by default, can only exist in economically developed countries because only they can finance the development effort. Using two anchor-cases of product innovations aimed at price-sensitive segments in India we generate preliminary evidence to challenge some of the core assumptions of the “lead market” theory and propose that lead markets can emerge in developing countries too because market attractiveness (e.g. volume of demand, export possibilities) and technological capabilities are able to offset many other deficiencies. The supposed absence of customer sophistication is channelized into a challenge for supplier-side sophistication to design cost effective, “good enough” solutions (“low-cost, thin-margin”) that can meet the aspirations of consumers in a highly competitive market. In order to master this challenge companies need access to a competent and sufficiently large technical base with first-hand knowledge of the ground situation of targeted customer groups (“social capital”).
Keywords: Lead Markets; India; Frugal Innovations; Frugal Engineering; Disruptive Innovations; National Innovation System; Sectoral Innovation System.
According to a news item by Nida Najar of NYT News Service appearing in the Times of India (15.10.2011):
Indians are now the second-largest foreign student population in America, after the Chinese, with almost 105,000 students in the US in the 2009-10 academic year, the last for which comprehensive figures were available. Student visa applications from India increased 20% in the past year, according to the American Embassy.
Although a majority of Indian students in the US are graduate students, undergraduate enrolment has grown by more than 20% in the past few years.
The most interesting, and probably a worrying part of the whole story for the national innovation system is that those school students passing out with marks well over 90% are unable to get an admission in top-leauge colleges and universities in India. It cites the example of a Delhi girl who has „received scholarship offers of $20,000 from Dartmouth and $15,000 from Smith. Her pile of acceptance letters would have made any teenager smile: Cornell, Bryn Mawr, Duke, Wesleyan, Barnard and the University of Virginia“. The same girl was however denied admission by the top Delhi colleges for having scored „only“ 93.5% in her final board exams (12th standard), according to the report.
The report continues:
American universities and colleges have been more than happy to pick up the slack. Faced with shrinking returns from endowment funds, a decline in the number of high school graduates in the US and growing economic hardship among American families, they have stepped up their efforts to woo Indian students thousands of miles away.
Representatives from many of the Ivy League institutions have begun making trips to India to recruit students and explore partnerships with Indian schools. Some have set up offices in India, partly aimed at attracting a wider base of students.
The report, mercifully, also takes on the ills ailing the Indian education system without mincing words:
American universities have now become „safety schools“ for increasingly stressed and traumatized Indian students and parents, who complain that one fateful event – the final high school examination – can make or break a teenager’s future career. […]
But for some students, it is not merely the competition that drives them to apply to study in the US. It is also the greater intellectual freedom of an American liberal arts education. India’s educational system is rigid, locking students into an area of study and affording them little opportunity to take courses outside their major beyond the 11th grade. […]
Also see similar reports or slightly varying versions of the same report in other publications:
NDTV: Squeezed out in India, students turn to US
Hindustan Times: Exodus of Indian student to America continues