Bombaywalla
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Prabhadevi, Bombay
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In the day...
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Interesting news.
BANGALORE: The Karnataka government will launch two new venture funds to back young companies and set up a network of incubators in smaller cities as part of an ambitious plan to boost startup activity in the state.
The venture fund will have a corpus of 100 crore, with half the investments coming from the state and central governments. Private investors will provide the balance. "A separate fund of 20 Crores will be set up to provide angel investments for very early stage companies," said TV Mohandas, chairman of Karnataka Information and Communication Technology Group 2020 which is spearheading the initiative.
A network of incubation centres to support technology startups will also be set up across select districts by the first quarter of 2014 according to the state's secretary for information technology and biotechnology, Srivatsa Krishna. "We are creating a comprehensive ecosystem for startups," he said. Karnataka's moves to bolster startup activity coincide with similar initiatives by the centre and other states, such as Kerala. Earlier this month chief minister Oommen Chandy said his government would set aside 1% of the state's budget expenditure or 500 crore to fund young entrepreneurs. In Delhi, the India Inclusive Innovation Fund, envisaged as a 5000-crore fund, has received initial commitments of 400 crore from investors.
"The government can play a significant role," said Krishna Tanuku, executive director of the Wadhwani Centre for Entrepreneurship Development at Indian School of Business. "It should create infrastructure like tools, platforms, interdisciplinary projects and proof of concept centres."
Government support for startup activity comes at a time when entrepreneurial activity is rising across the country. An estimated 600 new startups will be launched every year according to consulting firm Zinnov. This year nearly 1,750 crore has been invested in early stage ventures.
The entrepreneurial boom is also attracting interest from foreign governments keen to partner with state-supported funds. This month, the United Kingdom Trade & Investment board struck a partnership with the Karnataka Information Technology Venture Capital Fund. They will together fund UK-based startups that set up operations in the state.
"There will be a link between startups in London's Tech city and Bangalore," said Francis Maude, Britain's' cabinet office minister who announced the tie-up this month.
UKTI will also mentor entrepreneurs along with software industry body Nasscom.
Government support for start-up activity is also being modeled on successful initiatives globally, including Israel's Matimop programme. Karnataka's vision document for the sector, co-authored by Pai, recommends greater backing for research and innovation-led start-ups, including the establishment of a 1000 crore venture fund for information and communication technology ventures. "We are committed to making Bangalore the innovation hub for the world," said Krishna.
^^
India, unlike other Global plays, remains an elitist, exclusive IT domain. This is funding for the boys. There's corruption in 'innovation and start-up' funding game too, but my point is:
Offices for the Boys
- The govt.'s vote bank rural masses Vs. the IT classes polarised Indian society over 1/2 century and starved the upper-middle class of funds. No self-respecting middle class type goes into start-up, business or anything like that. Business is a monopoly of the 'biz classes'.
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In other words, the pictured dlf Cybercity Gurgaon in Delhi NCR satellite of Gurgaon, the slickest of many office complexes in Delhi NCR is about 10 Mil. sq. ft. Add adjacent office buildings from adjacent and across the expressway, it goes up 25 Mil. sq. ft.
dlf Cybercity Gurgaon
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At a generous 10 sq. ft. of office space per employee, the area employs a min.:
25,000,000 sq. ft./10 = 2.5 Million workers, knowledge workers !
(I can therefore see Delhi NCR as a 100 Million agglomeration. This IT boom has just surfaced and already soaked up millions. It boom is now scaling up to the next level or layer and this time with all the proper govt. incentives, schemes, scams whatever. I can easily see 100 Million sq. ft. of IT space sprouting up all over Delhi NCR, much almost done or under construction, that's 10 Million K-jobs ... phew! Check- )
Smaller, dlf Noida IT Park at 1.25 Mil. sq. ft.
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Each can fend for a family of 7-10 easy, that's an incredible and unbelievable 7-10 Million ppl.
Believe me, world class folks work here for often world class pay, in any case better than average Indian pay. There are many more such IT Parks across Delhi NCR specially in Noida, Gr. Noida, Gurgaon, Manesar etc. Delhi obviously has govt. white collar jobs. All jobs for the educated, middle class-caste boys. Entire population of Delhi NCR is about 25 Million. If 15 out of the 25 Million (they say it's a young population) are working class, and the 3-5 IT Parks and govt. throw up about 7.5 -10 Million white collar jobs, life's just got interesting for the said class after '1000 yrs.' of discrimination.
There are millions of manufacturing, construction, food, retail and other jobs for sure. Amazing!
I'm thinking, with the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor popping up in a handful of yrs. from here all the way to Mumbai, this area is going to be something else because it's already somewhat Global.
Therefore, if this takes off it will un-lock and revolutionize the middle-to-upper middle IT classes by getting them into business, for the first time in a 1000 yrs. ?
India is going from poverty to riches on the back of it's educated elite who have turned their knowledge imperative into a cash fountain. This in contrast to all the Asian Tigers who moved up the ladder by grinding their labour classes. 100's of millions of self proclaimed 'middle class' with a back-up of another 100's of millions of aspiring middle class makes India a middle class country to reckon with. Better or worse, good or bad ... it's quite a model.
- India's real intellect, brain power or knowledge economy is locked in it's middle-to upper middle, education obsessed, knowledge driven, upper class-caste combine. To it's credit, after a 1000 yr. history of discrimination, this class-caste combine is ringing in over $ 108 Billion in IT exports alone, it's not just growing, but zooming. All within a mere 65 yrs. of freedom even if the largest TCS, Wipro, HCL, Cognizant are the regular biz. types for whom it's business as usual, rather then the majority upper class-caste service class types for whom this is all new. The chance to get into business that is. Hope all the above crores convert the said service class-caste types into biz. types.
The good news is that poverty is down to 20 %. Will go down to a bearable 10 % by 2020.
Below: Roads for the boys, not that I like but notice no bicycle paths for the poor.
Delhi Metro
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(all classes-castes inclusive )
(c) Proposal to extend airport metro to IFFCO Chowk, Gurgaon - Economic Times
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/photo/23003771.cms
Very naive view!
Education 1'st, industrialisation later. Korea, Japan, Taiwan, Thailand, Malay, Indonesia not sure and even China educated 1'st and then got into development.
Society, the non Judaic, Indo-Saracenic upper class-caste society of India (read between the lines), decayed enough over 1000 yrs. and more of subjugation to run with education and knowledge.
Contrast that with the fighting Rajputs, Marathas, Sikhs, Gurkhas and Nairs (after all, it can be argued that they failed to do their job and the Judeo-Christian invaders/colonists moved in) who were also among the frontrunners to get into modern education along with the traditional knowledge based upper class-castes. Today, specially in the IT context, all are basically a big new IT caste-class.
When said caste-class folks make big money, there's a trickle down effect on intellectual assets and eco-system. Computer magazines start circulating, govt. policies come up to favour technical education institutes, the media booms with positives, IT institutes spring up, cleaners and servers graduate to dusters and e-mail assistants leapfrogging the rat race. Remember Jamal from Slumdog Millionaire who passed off as 'Call Center Assistant'. Trickle down effect also works on book publishing, institution building like free press, Oscar winning movie scripts, commercial real-estate, infrastructure like roads to far flung factories where bottom-of-the-pyramid folks can work in solar lamp or cell phone manufacturing.
I prefer the top-to-bottom, educated and responsible to the not so educated and irresponsible transfer model rather then let's turn it upside down, full bloodletting bottoms-up revolution. Mesays, better the top 20 % get rich big and spread it around rather then the bottom 20 % get rich, drink it up and go baying for blood. Or build statues and concrete elephant parks.
Another reason is that the bottom of the pyramid types may need basic education to handle basic jobs where personal hygiene, discipline, schedules, instructions, applications and networking skills are important. Money for basic education also comes from above, the trickle down effect.
China used 'Communism' to shock-&-awe it's opium sleeping ppl. into modernity even if it meant mass killings during the Gr8 Leap Fwd. type days. India could well afford to avoid the kicking and screaming re: contact with the new age colonialists who pre-built a modern framework, a political democracy, new education system, defense establishment, press, Rails, IAS and specially the eco-system for a nation state; all modern ideas that have taken root Globally since they were planted in India. I think this suits India. China had to fumble through.
Some decades ago Mexican maquiladora manufacturing and NAFTA was going to turn Mexico into a proper 1'st world country right alongside the US & Canada, not! Manufacturing comes and manufacturing goes, intellect remains. Int. assets take long to mature and India had the British colonial school and college pedigree and the precedent of what later became the Global tools of commerce- not fascism for eg. but a chaotic, multi party democracy, English language, free press etc. Not Indonesia, they didn't have a Lord Macaulay inspired, colonial state funded education establishment.
Lastly, the pay-off, the profits from int. work are a in multiples of the peanuts from labour.
India's mixed model pushing theorganic intellectual build-up and money for brains + non-destruction of the bottom of the pyramid folks means that India can now afford it, India will put up the Delhi-Mumbai Industrial Corridor and crank out factories like no tomorrow. China's factory worker population is in dive mode re: 1 child policy, so the work's got to go. Vietnam, Bangladesh, Indonesia, Pakistan, Kenya, Ghana etc. maybe the only contenders because even Thailand and Malaysia have moved on.
Of the above, Indian manufacturing will wipe out all but Vietnam. But then Vietnam is small Vs. India. Indian manufacturing is cheaper than even China as China also moves on.
Till now India didn't have the money to build out the infra. assets for big time mass manufacturing.
No problem.
India's exports are either in traditional, geographically advantageous or sunrise industries. Steel based manufacturing, coal fired plants, jewels ... diamonds value-add and re-export, crude oil refining and re-export and IT and brain-body shipping based exports.
Pls. can someone id this, I'd like to check out the rest of it if I can find it: