Indian Economy: News and Discussion

[FalconSlayers]

It's now or never for India to take lead in semiconductor industry, says SEMI CEO

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It's now or never for India to take lead in semiconductor industry, says SEMI CEO

India has almost everything needed to have a successful semiconductor industry but needs to work towards re-establishing credibility, said Ajit Manocha, president and CEO of Semiconductor Equipment and Materials International (SEMI). The Rs 76,000-crore ($10bn) incentive scheme for chip-making...

economictimes.indiatimes.com

 

[sauntheninja]

I'm not against Gov propping up state run businesses as long as there's reasonable chance of breaking even on the P/L sheet.

But, BSNL shouldn't be on that list. There's no way BSNL can compete with the likes of Jio. It'll be a loss making venture right from the get go.

Government stance is probably they need to be present in critical sectors like telecom

 

[Cheepek]

???

 

[Shuturmurg]

When you glorify outsourcing instead of innovation...

All design work done here is for MNC's

 

[sameer3694]

Lack of enough funding causes troubles for our entrepreneurs to spend on R&D, which is why the only thing we do is services.

Plus India itself being a very small economy compared to USA/China despite being 5th largest and on route to become 3rd largest in next 2-3 years would still be a tiny fraction of them. Which makes us a small domestic market and with lesser wealth generation than those biggies.

When India reaches 12-14 trillion 10 years from now, I do see that happening and things changing.

I agree, I’d say if we are comparing countries with similar or even slightly higher GDP per capita(Ex: Indonesia, Philippines, Vietnam) we’re doing fairly well. If you look on the global innovation index, we’re far ahead of many of these countries.

In fact in the last few years there are good product companies coming up like Log9, Godi energy, Addverb etc. However we’re no where compared to the US or China given the level of human development we’re at.

Another big problem is the oligarch family model of development we have, it’s very similar to Russia. Some select business families are getting enriched and they all have the bania and trader mentality. In house innovation except for TATA is probably very low.This needs to change somehow.

 

[Bran794]

I once went on a jungle safari. And lived in a Resort on the edge of the Jungle. These was literally no Mobile signal what so ever in both Jio/Airtel.

Fortunately my BSNL simcard had signal in the middle of nowhere. And I only had it because, the service was provided by the government free of cost.

IDK. If the government is not satisfied with the private infrastructure on remote locations. They can always fund BSNL to crop up the infrastructure, instead of relying on private services.

Considering the Military also has a lot of use for mobile services in remote locations. It's better to have government services available when needed.

 

[tommy]

How is the research and innovation in Indonesia and Philippines? Few years back there was lot of hush about Philippines and Indonesia being the next IT destination.

Has anyone worked with them? If yes, how are they technically? And where are they in the IT ladder?

 

[Kumata]

 

[skunk works]

Somebody tell this chadarmod I don't WANT anything, stop calling me for God's sake. What a little whiny bitch.

 

[SKC]

How is the research and innovation in Indonesia and Philippines? Few years back there was lot of hush about Philippines and Indonesia being the next IT destination.

Has anyone worked with them? If yes, how are they technically? And where are they in the IT ladder?

Philippines is a gone case!
Indonesia has lot of potential.

 

[Pythonlover]

During the 1990s, urban India used to grapple with 2-4 hours of load shedding on an average everyday except for 'VIP' areas.

Rural India?

Had an opportunity to spend my summer holidays with my uncle who was a forest ranger. We lived without power for 30 days - yes, you heard it right. 30 days without power in the month of April during the peak of summer in the mid 90's.

Coal supplying areas of Bengal, Jharkhand, Bihar suffer week long power cuts. Entire weaving & loom industry in Bihar is in a pitiable state. They've seen better days but thanks to the power situation during Lalu's era, the situation slipped beyond salvageable point.

There are some green shoots appearing but wonder how long it will last as even developed states like Karnataka have gone into free power distribution mode.

Fast forward to 2007-20012 under UPA, TN faced an acute power crisis - it was so bad, Coimbatore, Erode which happen to be the industrial belts saw large scale shifting of business to China. These were SME's which produced a ton of components for the consumer goods & consumer durables companies. Many OEMs too.

Coming to textiles, India has only one major cotton garments cluster - Tiruppur.

Punjab/Haryana is a hub for hosiery and synthetics/polyester garments.

Most of our exports are unbranded products so they cannot even command a base price in USD terms unlike Bangladesh or Vietnam which happen to be manufacturing hubs for major fast selling and big brands.

90% of Tiruppur exports survives on large bulk orders of very random cotton stuff which sells for 50 cents to a dollar if they're lucky. Most of them haven't bothered to build a brand.

Indian textile/garments industry gets enough orders from domestic consumers so they don't bother putting in extra effort given the costs of scaling up - manufacturing, managing, marketing besides maintaining brand reputation, quality etc.

The better managed ones in India are part time suppliers to small & big brands who sell locally.

Our export numbers of garments in absolute value terms won't show an uptick till we start manufacturing for large brands and exporting from here which are pricier than what is currently exported in bulk.

Lol. I tell you a story of 2014 or 15. I was in Patna for summers vacation (April and May). A transformer in the locality I was living failed. Guess how many days it took to replace the transformer in the capital city of Bihar? 10 freaking days. But when they installed a new one, that too failed by evening. Guess how many days it took them again to replace the transformer? 10 freaking days again. So we lived 20 days without electricity. And mind it, it was not a rural area where water would be available through hand pumps. It was a capital city. Fortunately the house I was living had a hand pump. Around 10-15 houses used to get water from that hand pump.

 

[FalconSlayers]

Philippines is a gone case!
Indonesia has lot of potential.

Problem with Indonesia is that its Jakarta centric, both politically and economically. Jakarta is like 25% of entire Indonesian economy if I'm not wrong.

Which probably explains why everything related to Indonesia online is also Jakarta centric.
And why urban centres outside Indonesia outside Jakarta looks very different from it.

 

[Shuturmurg]

Problem with Indonesia is that its Jakarta centric, both politically and economically. Jakarta is like 25% of entire Indonesian economy if I'm not wrong.

Which probably explains why everything related to Indonesia online is also Jakarta centric.
And why urban centres outside Indonesia outside Jakarta looks very different from it.

That's why they are building new capital in Borneo. Java island (where Jakarta is) has population of 15 crore, even though its pretty small (10% smaller than Bangladesh).

Nusantara (planned city) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What is insane is the disparity in GDP per capita by region in India is even larger than India, richest region richer than Poland and poorest as poor as Pakistan :

List of Indonesian provinces by GRP per capita - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

 

[FalconSlayers]

That's why they are building new capital in Borneo. Java island (where Jakarta is) has population of 15 crore, even though its pretty small (10% smaller than Bangladesh).

Nusantara (planned city) - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

What is insane is the disparity in GDP per capita by region in Indonesia is even larger than India, richest region richer than Poland and poorest as poor as Pakistan :

List of Indonesian provinces by GRP per capita - Wikipedia

en.wikipedia.org

Isn't it expected when it is Jakarta centric with around a quarter of GDP coming from Jakarta alone?
When I see videos of Jakarta and anything outside it, it makes me wonder how bad is the inequality.

 

[skunk works]

Sadly I don't see it changing.

There's nothing wrong in IT services as long as you use that experience and finances to pivot into creating actual IT. I don't see that happening in Indian MNC's. They are happy being coolie suppliers.

General junta IQ is way, way below large-scale R&D levels. Education system will have to make a sea change before that happens.

 

[AK047]

Isn't it expected when it is Jakarta centric with around a quarter of GDP coming from Jakarta alone?
When I see videos of Jakarta and anything outside it, it makes me wonder how bad is the inequality.

Their entire prosperity is centered around Jakarta which is totally unsustainable, such dependence on one city makes sense for smaller countries like Thailand and Malaysia but not for a hugely populated country like Indonesia. Moreover their economy despite being the biggest in Asean isn't as industrialized with their biggest exports being oil and gas, minerals, crude palm oil, and rubber products unlike manufacturing in case of Vietnam, Malaysia or Thailand or services in case of Phillipines. Moreover all videos of Jakarta is the same few square kilometers of their buisness district and very less videos on the rest of the city.

 

[Bran794]

Exporting chaddis are no longer viable for us; due to BD's LDC privilege. BDeshis import cotton and machinery from India and stitch the final products (very often employing children; they don't give a rat's ass to labour rights). Which is why the GoI is focussing on some costlier stuff - man made fabric (MMF) products, swimwear, footwear, leather goods etc (PLI, PM-MITRA park, leather parks being the carrots and import duties being the stick). But that will take time; their policy on electronics underwent years of tinkering before yielding results.

I think one of the biggest problems of the textile industry lies in the cotton agriculture industry.

Bangladesh & Vietnam import more than 80% of their cotton. Where as India is one of the biggest cotton producers & their Unions have a significant voter base.

Even if GoI provides 5% incentives on production it doesn't mitigation the +10% import duty the companies have to incure on cotton imports.

The truth is we cannot improve the quality of Indian cotton through incentives. Farmers need to be trained & production need expert oversight to ensure quality control. Big Brands will never shift their production to where they cannot secure quality supply for their manufactured goods from where ever they want to.

Maybe the solution lies in contract based farming. Where big corporates ensure quality control, like what lays does for sourcing their potatoes in India.

 

[sauntheninja]

General junta IQ is way, way below large-scale R&D levels. Education system will have to make a sea change before that happens.

Don't China have a similar education system to us where rote memorization is the norm. Why are they doing so much better than us apart from the fact that their economy is so much bigger than ours.

 

[skunk works]

Don't China have a similar education system to us where rote memorization is the norm. Why are they doing so much better than us apart from the fact that their economy is so much bigger than ours.

Because in China danda of the government hits, and hits hard. In india stupidity is not punished.

 

[nongaddarliberal]

???

LOL really? So they're going to somehow keep track of all numbers that blocked them, and then deny the people loans later by associating the identity with the number, that too on the spot?