India Post News Bureau

CHICAGO: Indian Industry minister Kamal Nath said here that Mother India has leap-frogged to become Modern India within the past one and half decades despite its huge infra-structural problems and diverse pulls and counter pulls.

Addressing a well attended Kellogg India Business conference last Week, he said that a slow globalization of Indian economy has induced this transformation but that the country’s growth now is not fully dependent or linked to the state of global economy as India itself presents a huge market for its own products.

“There is only onedirection for the Indian economy and that is upward,” he declared.Musing over the post independence scene, he said that there was no Marshal Plan hatched for India as was done for war tattered Europe.

The country had to choose between the two models, US and USSR and our then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru chose socialistic pattern emphasizing on adopting agriculture and heavy industries, building dams and steel mills reaching out to the real India of 650 million farmers engaged in agriculture.”

Following a land-holding pattern of one to two acres per family, we started an agricultural revolution that began the transformation of Indian economy joining forces with liberalized economy and industrial policy,” he said.

He delineated that the nine per cent growth that the Indian economy has been registering over the past few years is largely triggered by the private sector as we have moved away from Licence-Quota Raj to free liberalized market oriented economy.

He said that the government was committed to remove infra-structural bottleneck and give a fresh boost the industrial growth as it will help 100million people to move away from the agricultural sector to the manufacturing one over the next few years,In a talk to this paper, he said that this shift would be accompanied with a rise in agricultural production through improved productivity as the land availability is limited as also the elimination of waste or cutting down wasteful consumption.”

We need to create agricultural surplus for value added and processed products so that the 100million people could get gainfully absorbed in the manufacturing field,” hesaid.Touching upon the oft repeated comparison between India and China, he observed that India was better suited for achieving a higher rate of growth since the Chinese economy has become more export oriented while the Indian industry has domestic market orientation.

This is the reason whey the global economic upheaval will have less impact on theIndian economy, he added.Another interesting point that he mentioned was that the Indian investment in USA has outgrown the US investment in India last year. Indians invested close to $850 million in US industry while the US investment ran around $750 million. “India has been helping creation of jobs here,” he said.Atul Singh, President and CEO of Coca-Cola India was the keynote speaker.

He talked about the modern proven market techniques for different consumer products under varying marketing environment highlighting their relevance in huge yet selective markets in India delineating the insights and modus operandi to select and pursue in many uncharted situations.

He discussed the problems and perspectives of marketing and different approaches adopted by his company in principle.Befitting the title of the Convention, Branding India, Indians & Indianness, the presentations and panel discussions were focused on the position of India as a country presenting an exciting opportunity for domestic as well as multinational corporations alike.

In hiswelcome remarks, Dr Dipak Jain, Dean of J.J. Kellogg School of Management, restated this objective and observed that while IT, Retailand National conglomerates continue to forge India ahead, unique industries such as Media, Marketing and Hospitality present a newprospect. Dr Mohanbir Sawhney, Professor of Technology, Kellogg School of Management, the Moderator introduced the members of the morning panel, entitled, Marketing and Communications.

The panelists were Ambi Parameswaran, Executive Director and CEO of DraftFCB-Ulka Advertising, Bombay, India’s fourth largest Raj Kamble advertising group; Ashwani Singla, Chief Executive, GenesisBurson-Marsletter and Walter Vieira, founder and president of Marketing Advisory Services.Ashwin Singla discussed the process of industrial growth of India in three parts, viz., Colonial India, and Resurgent India with special emphasis on important attributes like physical, cultural and customer reflections and projections relative to the impact of modern scientific and psychological temperament of the customers and their cultural outlooks as reflected from their experiences.

Ambi Paramwswaran and Walter Vieira also brilliantly summed up their expert learning and experience on developing techniques of marketingclearly elucidating the reactions of the market place for a variety of influences, including human and natural, western and traditional (Indian) spiritual and secular and also its intellectual and emotional elements.Second panel was still more interesting as the very title indicates.

‘Indian Hospitality: Heritage Meets the New World’ highlighted India’s ancient belief that “Guest is truly God” which succinctly describes Indian outlook about hospitality, a true reflection of Indian family, culture and country.

The panelists not only drew the attention of the audience to the mind-boggling opportunities exist in India for investment, employment and prosperity but pointed that it is a combination of breath-taking sights and sounds, and world class products and services in the hospitality sector.

There was another fascinating presentation by Media & Entertainment Panel, led by famous film director Shakhar Kapoor, showcasing India’s media and entertainment industry’s unique position to shape the world’s perspective of India.

The event at the Kellogg School of Business Management concluded with the book signing ceremony by Nath, who personally signed some copies of the book “India’s Century: The Age of Entrepreneurship in World’s Biggest Democracy” authored by him and published recently by McGraw Hill.