India stands out among BRIC nations

Within the BRIC nations,it dubiously stands out for having continuously slipped.

India has slipped six notches in innovation to rank 62 in a list of 125 countries,managing to stay in the top half by just about a whisker,according to a latest study undertaken jointly by INSEAD and the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII).

In fact,this is the second consecutive year the country has failed to impress. In 2010,it ranked 56 and the previous year,41. Within the BRIC nations (Brazil,Russia,India and China),it dubiously stands out for having continuously slipped.

The index,launched in 2007,is refined every year,and takes into account several input factors such as human capital and research,institutions,infrastructure,market and business sophistication and the output they produce scientific and creative.

It attempts to better capture innovations in society and go beyond the traditional measures such as number of PhDs,research articles produced,patents issued,etc,.

Though India has slipped in the global innovation rankings,among emerging markets,it has come to contribute innovations such as the Nano (the cheapest car from Tata Motors),solar-powered cellphones and Mac 400 a handheld electrocardiogram. They are low-priced and hope to achieve high volumes.

In a separate chapter Innovation in India: Affordable innovations,the study notes that big multinationals,including global giants such as PepsiCo,IBM,Nokia,Xerox and GE as well as the big domestic ones such as Godrej,Mahindras and Tatas are shifting their focus towards the rapidly increasing middle-income group of customers by coming up with frugal innovations.

Within the South Asia region that includes Pakistan,Bangladesh and Sri Lanka,India tops the innovation rankings. However,in the lower-middle income group of countries as per the World Bank classification,India ranks eighth.

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China tops the lower-middle income group followed by Moldova,Jordan,Thailand,Vietnam,Ukraine and Guyana.

Indias position in innovation has been dragged down by its poor performance on the input side,where it ranks 87. It falls on the last quartile on factors such as business environment,elementary and tertiary education and knowledge workers.

On the output side though,India is at the 44th position. On labour productivity it ranks 21,commercial services exports fourth,high-tech exports 32,ninth on creative goods exports and 29 on creative services exports.