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Gold monetisation: Make your metal work for you and the economy
Consumer Trends

Gold monetisation: Make your metal work for you and the economy

By: Bijapurkar and Rajesh Shukla Explaining Indians’ love of gold to foreigners is hard. We are the world’s biggest gold consumer, pipping China to the post, and consuming 842 tonnes of gold in 2014, 75 per cent of which was in the form of jewellery. It is very hard to explain to puzzled foreigners the psychological and emotional feelings of well-being and security that comes from owning or wearing gold. Whenever I buy gold jewellery, my friends from the cold analytical world of finance give me an estimate of the likely rate of return I would get over a period of time and demonstrate how it is a foolish investment more so after the jeweller applies his weight discount for the solder and wastage. But such rationality cannot overcome millennia of the positive symbolism for gold. While my domestic help scrimps and saves to buy gold for her own social […]

March 16, 2015
The consumer is ready; are companies?
Consumer Trends

The consumer is ready; are companies?

The Indian consumer is feeling very good right now. Across the rich and poor, and those who live in both urban and rural India, there is a strong belief that the good times are around the corner (echoing the Achhe din aane wale hain slogan on which the Bharatiya Janata Party rode to power last year). Since October 2014, when this survey was done, inflation has eased further, and there has been a decrease, albeit one that could be temporary, in fuel prices, while food prices have cooled. In short, there is no reason for the optimism evident late last year to have dissipated by now. This sentiment has translated into confidence that incomes will improve or, at worse, stay the same. Sure, there are those who remain uncertain, but across the board, the indicators do suggest that the Indian consumer is ready and waiting. In the context of some […]

February 25, 2015
New residents in search of the new city
India My Land

New residents in search of the new city

An even more disheartening statistic is that, in the top 53 cities, about 16 per cent of the population lives in slums. Indian cities once used to have distinctive characteristics. There was beavering Mumbai, epitomised by the hordes milling in and out of train stations, and cabbies who would not bother to give up precious billable hours to molest a passenger, and the rich and famous living discreetly. In contrast, there was middle-class, government Delhi and powerful, political Delhi, where everyone understood their place in life and how best to signal it loudly. Kolkata was the bastion of genteel poverty and good manners, as seen from its decaying buildings and the way it cared for its women. Unlike Delhi, where women were traumatised with male harassment, in Kolkata, women were offered seats in crowded mini-buses and were treated like everybody’s mothers and sisters on the street. I once got into […]

January 6, 2015
Demand Drivers

Bridging the income gap

By: Rama Bijapurkar and Rajesh Shukla Inequality in India has reduced in the last decade but the key to reducing the still yawning spread in incomes is supporting an entrepreneurial ecosystem with gusto. (Illustration: Ajay Thakuri) ABOUT: Among the keenest watchers of Indian consumers, Rama Bijapurkar and Rajesh Shukla are co-founders of People Research on India’s Consumer Economy, a not-for-profit research centre on India’s consumer economy and citizen environment. Bijapurkar has served on boards of several Indian companies and is author of We Are Like That Only and A Never-Before World. Shukla, formerly director at NCAER Centre of Macro Consumer Research, is author of How India Earns, Spends, Saves.  The discussion inside India on inequality has become very complex and fragmented. Lost in the maths and the economic theory, the ideology and the international comparisons is the “people view”. It’s the tower of Babel and the championship of siloed thinking out […]

January 4, 2015
The brave new world
India My Land

The brave new world

Not so long ago, a woman who needed to be out at a late hour would use a recommended cab company, her employer’s car and driver, or most likely, the reliable neighbourhood taxi stand. If not, someone in the family would come and pick her up. Today, there is a swelling tide of women in the workforce, but their safety is as precarious as ever. The alleged Uber rape in Delhi reveals that now, in this new world of contract work and “aggregators”, no cab company is safe. You pay a premium not for guaranteed safety, but for efficiency and comfort and travel at your own risk. The BPO bus drivers are no better. Companies who hire security for their women are still offering unknown, unverified contract workers. A world of opportunity has opened up in the last 15 years. Rising education levels and the chance to earn more and […]

December 19, 2014
Retirement Plan
C'est La Vie

Retirement Plan

In which the householder decides to relinquish her family, the duties of daily life and retreat into the woods, if only for the little while I can’t wait to go into vanaprastha, that stage in life when you are entitled to say “what goes of your father” to household stuff and live in a zen world. Where you don’t have to do collective bargaining for all manner of decisions — what to eat, where to holiday, what colour to paint the walls, should the dog be allowed to sleep on the bed, should bedsheets be vibrantly patterned or in boring pastels and so on. In order to prepare for it, I have been taking a vacation all by myself, once a year, where I live untidily, wake up early to watch sitcoms and not worry about being slothful, and have cereal, toast and egg in the evening because quite simply, it […]

May 31, 2014
Policy Needs to Focus on Middle India
Policy Perspective

Policy Needs to Focus on Middle India

India’s economic policy has worked hard for the rich. A new approach is needed to serve the rest and must go beyond the wish list of India Inc. It’s time to think about the Indian economy not as some prize stud bull that has vital statistics we can all be proud of, but as an instrument of improving the lives of all Indians, steadily, year on year, and giving them the resilience to withstand the inevitable down cycles and shocks. Growing faster than others or breaching a GDP growth target number does not automatically achieve this. The test of a good economy is also not what heights the Sensex has scaled, especially when the gap between it and the real economy is so wide. Today, most Indians do not have a regular monthly-salary paying job. They have some form of self-employed livelihood on which they live — modestly in good […]

May 30, 2014
Taking Stock of the World of Young India
India My Land

Taking Stock of the World of Young India

Leadership is about how people behave and what values and tendencies drive such behaviour. All behaviour has psychological, social and cultural foundations; and anyone attempting to influence leadership behaviour of a cohort or understand it better needs to understand the social environment in which the cohort grew up and the challenges it faces in life at this point in time. Needless to say this is the “baggage” that they will bring into the workplace that HR professionals need to be cognizant. But first, a necessary caution that has to be heeded by anyone seeking to lead young India or prepare young India to become better leaders: Young India is not singular and homogeneous. It is very heterogeneous and the different segments of it are quite different from each other. Yes, all of them are a singular age cohort – liberalization children; born after 1991 and now entering the work force. But just as post […]

April 1, 2014
We Are Like That Only: Getting Inked
C'est La Vie

We Are Like That Only: Getting Inked

Market research shows that this constituency is very concerned about what impact it will have on the governance of the country, rather than the impact it will have on the Sensex. A family that votes together is bound to debate endlessly. Election stress hit our household too, despite us being south Bombay types who are supposed to be unconcerned with them. SUMMARY A family that votes together is bound to debate endlessly. Election stress hit our household too, despite us being south Bombay types who are supposed to be unconcerned with them. (My favourite from a list floating online titled 10 Reasons Why South Bombayites don’t vote is: “What? No valet parking?”). Actually, it isn’t true that they are unconcerned. My informal market research shows that this constituency is very concerned indeed, perhaps not about what impact it will have on the governance of the country, rather what impact it […]

May 11, 2014
New India, New Ideas
India My Land

New India, New Ideas

It is hard to see why preserving the idea of India should include preserving dynasty and feudalism. (Source: AP) The young care about achievement and opportunity, reject fear mongering. Mani Shankar Aiyar is right when he says that the idea of India is not “Hindudom” (‘The dying light of freedom’, IE, May 17). Each of us who loves our country (and there are multitudes outside the Congress, too) must rise up in arms and fight if it threatens to become so under Narendra Modi’s regime. Like most middle-of-the-road Indians who happen to be Hindu, I agree with him on the sacredness of the secular and inclusive idea of India. But I also know that Indira Gandhi’s wearing a rudraksha in her later years or Sonia Gandhi doing a puja before filing her nomination does not make either any more secular, and Modi’s forehead tika and Ganga aarti does not make him any more communal. However, Aiyar, like […]

May 19, 2014
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