GLOBAL POST

Want to grow rich in India? Think poor

Jason Overdorf feels that the economic downturn is actually good news in India. With the rich not buying, Indian businessmen are now looking at the “bottom of the pyramid”, the biggest segment of Indian consumers, as more than just cheap labour. And so there are companies now focusing on building homes for the urban poor, telecom companies pushing to widen their footprint amongst the poor and rural areas, and boosting “touch points” or wholesalers in small towns and villages. As a managing consultant quoted by the author says, “It’s a Robin Hood marketing which is going to capture the hearts and the emotive imaginations of the largest numbers of consumers in this country.”

TELEGRAPH

India’s middle class must cut its hot air emissions

It’s less than a hundred days to the Copenhagen summit. That India is at the forefront of the debate will not be easily admitted by its politicians, the author Dean Nelson writes. The ministers travel in “long cavalcades of gas-guzzling Ambassadors”, demand executive jets during polls, the lawns of Lutyens bungalows are “kept verdant with water drawn from tubewells by inefficient electric pumps” and inside, air-conditioners run 24/7. And then they term global warming “the white man’s burden”. Coupled with this is a middle class that “cares for itself, its status and image”.

THE NATION (PAKISTAN)

India’s ambitions

In a recent editorial, the author states that “India might be using the nuclear controversy raked up by its nuclear scientist K Santhanam to justify new tests”. Before New Delhi goes ahead with its plans, it should keep in mind that “these are turbulent times for the region” and should also think of the “horrible consequences” the nuclear tests will have on the environment. New Delhi’s “nuclear ambitions”, besides being “part of the nefarious plan to pressurise Pakistan, are also meant to show the world its nuclear muscle.” While warning that India must exercise restraint, the author also says that all this, in reality, “points attention to the nuclear flashpoint of Kashmir.”

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