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First, let there be investment
Policy Perspective

First, let there be investment

Budget does well to focus on investment and infrastructure rather than propping up consumption to boost the economy. There are few takers for the notion, despite data, that for most of consumer India, unless incomes grow there is no way consumption can or should grow. (Illustration by Suvajit Dey) The 2019 Economic Survey’s focus on investment as a key driver of economic growth is very welcome. It changes the alarming paradigm that business and media have been working with — since investment is not happening, in order to bolster slowing economic growth the focus of policymaking should shift to boosting consumption, with cash transfers, reduced excise duties, decreased interest rates on retail loans and so on. Why investment has slowed down and how to revive it has not received even a fraction of the public attention that consumption has. There are few takers for the notion, despite data, that for most of […]

July 12, 2019 0 Comments
Limits of handout politics
Policy Perspective

Limits of handout politics

Congress may be talking to economists and experts. But is it listening to the voter? Written by Rama Bijapurkar, Rajesh Shukla Bijapurkar is the author of We Are Like That Only and A Never-before World: Tracking the evolution of Consumer India. Congress chief Rahul Gandhi. Congress president Rahul Gandhi’s plan for a “surgical strike on poverty” is built around some key numbers: Rs 12,000, the target minimum monthly income for a household; 5 crore households (amounting to 20 per cent of all Indian households); Rs 6,000, their average monthly earning; and, therefore, Rs 6,000, the monthly amount required to be transferred to each. Since his political and financial calculations hinge around these numbers, a fact check is useful, more so because neither he nor the eminent people he consulted have told us where these numbers came from. Official government surveys measure household expenditure, not income. Hardly any robust household income study […]

April 1, 2019 0 Comments
Opinion | Diary of an airport anthropologist
India My Land

Opinion | Diary of an airport anthropologist

There’s no place like large city airports to get a sharp yet nuanced sense of what India today is all about. In cities with two terminals, this is especially true of “low cost” terminals rather than the newer “global” ones, which are great to experience, but lack an Indian soul—just like those very upmarket shopping malls. Some would argue that this is exactly what these airports are, only with an airstrip or two attached. On a bus ride to the aircraft at Ahmedabad airport was a group of four loud and excited Gujarati-speaking men with a 10-year-old boy in tow, clearly from small-town Gujarat. Remember the bygone days when people wore suits and ties to get on a plane? They wore traditional weave kurtas and shawls with narrow pants, embroidered mojris and ear studs with great confidence, not self-consciously trying to become invisible in a sea of Western attired men. […]

March 15, 2019 0 Comments
Opinion | Diary of an airport anthropologist
Consumer Trends

Opinion | Diary of an airport anthropologist

There’s no place like large city airports to get a sharp yet nuanced sense of what India today is all about. In cities with two terminals, this is especially true of “low cost” terminals rather than the newer “global” ones, which are great to experience, but lack an Indian soul—just like those very upmarket shopping malls. Some would argue that this is exactly what these airports are, only with an airstrip or two attached. On a bus ride to the aircraft at Ahmedabad airport was a group of four loud and excited Gujarati-speaking men with a 10-year-old boy in tow, clearly from small-town Gujarat. Remember the bygone days when people wore suits and ties to get on a plane? They wore traditional weave kurtas and shawls with narrow pants, embroidered mojris and ear studs with great confidence, not self-consciously trying to become invisible in a sea of Western attired men. […]

March 15, 2019 0 Comments
Opinion | Diary of an airport anthropologist
C'est La Vie

Opinion | Diary of an airport anthropologist

There’s no place like large city airports to get a sharp yet nuanced sense of what India today is all about. In cities with two terminals, this is especially true of “low cost” terminals rather than the newer “global” ones, which are great to experience, but lack an Indian soul—just like those very upmarket shopping malls. Some would argue that this is exactly what these airports are, only with an airstrip or two attached. On a bus ride to the aircraft at Ahmedabad airport was a group of four loud and excited Gujarati-speaking men with a 10-year-old boy in tow, clearly from small-town Gujarat. Remember the bygone days when people wore suits and ties to get on a plane? They wore traditional weave kurtas and shawls with narrow pants, embroidered mojris and ear studs with great confidence, not self-consciously trying to become invisible in a sea of Western attired men. […]

March 15, 2019 0 Comments
Alyque Padamsee: Always a champion, never a challenger, he strode the ad world like a colossus
Corporate Governance

Alyque Padamsee: Always a champion, never a challenger, he strode the ad world like a colossus

To say that he was brilliant, impossible, dazzling, utterly his own person and the definer of Indian advertising is an understatement. Like he said in his one-line ad brief for Surf, “Always the champion, never the challenger” Alyquee Padamsee died at the age of 90. (Source: directordhruv/Instagram) They just don’t make ad men like they used to. The charismatic Subhas Ghoshal, the charmingly intellectual Subroto Sengupta, the visionary people magnet Prashanta Sanyal. And now, joining that list of ad men who have died but will live forever, through legends about them, is Alyque Padamsee. To say that he was brilliant, impossible, dazzling, utterly his own person and the definer of Indian advertising is an understatement. Like he said in his one-line ad brief for Surf, “Always the champion, never the challenger”. And no-one could even come close to challenging the pedestal that he occupied—the world that he strode like a […]

November 18, 2018 0 Comments
Alyque Padamsee: Always a champion, never a challenger, he strode the ad world like a colossus
C'est La Vie

Alyque Padamsee: Always a champion, never a challenger, he strode the ad world like a colossus

To say that he was brilliant, impossible, dazzling, utterly his own person and the definer of Indian advertising is an understatement. Like he said in his one-line ad brief for Surf, “Always the champion, never the challenger” Alyquee Padamsee died at the age of 90. (Source: directordhruv/Instagram) They just don’t make ad men like they used to. The charismatic Subhas Ghoshal, the charmingly intellectual Subroto Sengupta, the visionary people magnet Prashanta Sanyal. And now, joining that list of ad men who have died but will live forever, through legends about them, is Alyque Padamsee. To say that he was brilliant, impossible, dazzling, utterly his own person and the definer of Indian advertising is an understatement. Like he said in his one-line ad brief for Surf, “Always the champion, never the challenger”. And no-one could even come close to challenging the pedestal that he occupied—the world that he strode like a […]

June 12, 2018 0 Comments
Dear Gen Now
C'est La Vie

Dear Gen Now

Setting up #MeToo as an all-or-nothing issue will make us ignore the considerable gains already made. My reply is that setting this up as an “all or nothing” issue will make us not notice the considerable gains that have already been made or the never-before foundation we now have that we can build on. Here is the sad truth. If you randomly pick any Indian woman who has stepped out of her home into the wider world of work, be it four or 40 years ago, there is a good chance that she will have a story of experiencing gender-based harassment in the workplace. Of being at the receiving end of behaviour from men in positions of power or co-workers, which made her life miserable. It breaks my heart (though it doesn’t shock my mind) that even so many decades after my generation entered the workplace, the situation remains pretty […]

October 16, 2018 0 Comments
Dear Gen Now
Consumer Trends

Dear Gen Now

Setting up #MeToo as an all-or-nothing issue will make us ignore the considerable gains already made. My reply is that setting this up as an “all or nothing” issue will make us not notice the considerable gains that have already been made or the never-before foundation we now have that we can build on. Here is the sad truth. If you randomly pick any Indian woman who has stepped out of her home into the wider world of work, be it four or 40 years ago, there is a good chance that she will have a story of experiencing gender-based harassment in the workplace. Of being at the receiving end of behaviour from men in positions of power or co-workers, which made her life miserable. It breaks my heart (though it doesn’t shock my mind) that even so many decades after my generation entered the workplace, the situation remains pretty […]

October 16, 2018 0 Comments
A More Efficient Bharat
Business Strategy

A More Efficient Bharat

Rural India has already powered India’s domestic consumption growth for over a decade now and accounts for over half of Indian household spends 17 April, 2017 by Rama Bijapurkar Rural India has already powered India’s domestic consumption growth for over a decade now and accounts for over half of Indian household spends. In many states rural growth has far surpassed urban growth and the difference between urban and rural spending has been narrowing steadily. So why all the sudden excitement and buzz these last two years, about tier-2 and tier-3 towns’ consumption zooming, and about Bharat powering India’s growth? Probably because this story is being told from the supply side and the average supplier, who is not HUL or Airtel or Pepsi, has finally ventured into seriously addressing these towns and has been pleasantly surprised at the response from them (and more response begets more marketing effort and a virtuous […]

April 1, 2017 0 Comments
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