Analyses

In a few weeks from now, possibly during the Budget session of Parliament, the new National Textiles Policy may be announced by the Union ministry of textiles. The textiles and apparel industry has been waiting eagerly for the new policy document, which will replace the existing one of 2000, and hopefully provide industry with a much-needed boost. The 2000 policy is hopelessly outdated, given three major international developments: the phase-out of the Multi Fibre Agreement, the emergence of...

The problem with simplistic arguments is that they invariably either remain speculative at best, or fail to make a point altogether. A classic example of this was the speculation that was fuelled last summer in the backdrop of the Chinese currency being devalued and stocks tumbling the world over. Considerable debates and discussions at that time featured in the Indian media, almost all of them drawing the conclusion that India would make the best of China's declining state of affairs, and forge...

The pomp and glitz surrounding the launch of Reliance Jio's 4G services on Monday was all-pervading. It would have one believe that the company, part of the Reliance Industries Limited (RIL) conglomerate, had done something revolutionary. But then, it hadn't. Neither had it introduced a new technology, and nor launched an innovation. It had only annnounced the rollout of its 4G telecom services, something that rival Bharti Airtel had done way back in February 2014. The promotional blitzkrieg...

The media blitz surrounding Reliance Jio's launch of 4G services (albeit for its employees, as of now) has been as overwhelming as the launch event itself had been a spectacle. But the real story is hardly about the rollout of a broadband service as it is about being a personal milestone for Mukesh Ambani, the chairman and managing director of Reliance Industries Limited (RIL). For more than ten years Ambani had been biding his time—to get into the telecom space. When the undivided RIL had...

The global production of textile machinery annually is worth over US $ 20 Billion. Among the biggest manufacturers of textile machinery are Italy, Germany, Switzerland, France and China. India does not figure at the top, but it has a big growth opportunity and prospect on this count, especially with growing demand in the export market of textile products. According to a knowledge paper prepared by Suvin Advisors for India International Textile Machinery Exhibitions Society (India ITME Society)...

What essentially began as a game of one-upmanship between two nations, has now spread so far and wide that every sector in any country which is even slightly reflective of the global economy is feeling either the pangs of it or reaping in the associated benefits. We are talking crude oil here, and the game in question is the one that is still ongoing between Saudi Arabia and the United States. As this edition goes to the press, many speculators across the world feel oil prices would fall to $45...

Few sectors of the economy have so much bearing on people's lives as the textiles and apparel industry has. It touches as many lives as the food sector does – for no one stops eating, or for that matter wearing clothes; yet, it goes on up on food considering the sheer spread of the sector and its long-drawn supply chain that has an over-arching effect on innumerable other sectors of the economy. The scale of the industry is so enormous and overlapping with other sectors, and its supply-chain so...

Karnataka Chief Minister Siddaramaiah on Tuesday owned responsibility for the Congress defeat in the elections to the Bruhat Bengaluru Mahanagara Pailke (BBMP). But only had he been a bit more graceful, for in the same breath he asserted that it was not a referendum either on himself or his party. Siddaramaiah perhaps suffers from the Ostrich Syndrome, or is too arrogant to accept reality. The Chief Minister has been parroting this referendum line for a while, and only because he saw the writing...

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's speech marking the first National Handloom Day has triggered some debate about the handloom sector. But unfortunately, as is wont nowadays, arguments for handlooms fluctuate between the revivalist (let's work towards an Indian pride) and the sympathetic (let's save the weavers). Unfortunately again, both indulge in rhetoric and bombast, cut off from grassroots realities. Modi was right in asserting that reviving the handloom sector can be a way to fight poverty...

Economic growth and development are not just about new products or product mixes and trading partners. What matters is not only about how much you export, but what you export as well. This has formed the backbone of the argument that the textiles and apparel sector can indeed lead from the front in order to ensure that the Make in India campaign of the Indian government succeeds. If there is anything after information technology (IT) that can propel India into global limelight, it is the...