Young and Restless India

Young Indian Men Shaving Off Mustaches

Raj — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 19:33:39 +0000

According to Washington Post article “New generation of men in India shaving off mustaches“ a survey found that 72 percent of the women who responded in Mumbai and 83 percent of those surveyed in the southern city of Chennai said they were more likely to want to kiss a cleanshaven man. The numbers were similar in New Delhi, India’s capital, and in the eastern city of Kolkata, often seen as a center of tradition.

The number of women rejecting facial hair appeared to surprise many Indian cultural commentators. Indian women’s magazines have printed letters to the editor saying how happy they are that the great Indian mustache may be trimmed, a sentiment that many young women here say they agree with. “The mustache represents all the aspects of old India — the corruption, the baddie cop in an old film, the government job for life — that the young generation want to leave behind,” said Richard McCallum a pogonologist, or student of facial hair. “Besides, no one wants to look like their parents.”

What does Young India wants from Budget 2010?

Raj — Sat, 20 Feb 2010 01:02:12 +0000

Budget 2010 is a very special Budget because this is the first Budget of the new decade according to Money Control article titled “Budget 2010: What Young India wants“. With the shadow of the recession looming across the globe, the new decade it is hoped will bring cheer especially for India.

As Finance Minister Pranab Mukherjee ushers in the first budget of the new decade, the question uppermost on everyone’s mind is, will he be able to deliver on his economic promise, and will he be able to balance political compulsions with the economic promise that he holds in terms of reforms.

In a lively CNBC TV18 Budget special Young India 2010, young corporate CEOs Malvinder Singh, Group Chairman, Religare and Fortis Healthcare, Puneet Dalmia, MD, Dalmia Cement, Kushagra Nayan Bajaj, Joint MD, Bajaj Hindusthan, Shravan Gupta, Executive VC & MD, Emaar MGF, Brotin Banerjee, MD & CEO, Tata Housing, Vishal Agarwal, MD, Visa Steel, and politicians Randeep Singh Surjewala, Congress, and Jay Panda, MP, Rajya Sabha discussed their expectations from the Finance Minister in Budget 2010.

Watch the video here.

Grass Root Innovation

Raj — Thu, 18 Feb 2010 01:27:07 +0000

India’s databank of grass roots inventors is swelling as the nation officially marks the 2010s as a decade of innovation according to CNN article titled “India’s inventors seek markets in innovation decade“.

The country’s National Innovation Foundation (NIF) has 140,000 entries compared with 10,000 when it was set up by the federal government in 2000. But 10 years later, India acknowledges that bringing its innumerable small-scale experiments to the masses remains a challenge in an economy that is attracting businesses worldwide partly because of high-tech capabilities and a growing middle class.

According to the NIF, most geniuses on its roster are school or college dropouts with little means and access to markets. India needs to promote research and development efforts for its poor and for its massive informal economy in order to put their existing know-how to mass use. But experts regret that most Indian innovations have not hit domestic markets, let alone international.

Young Indians Are Reshaping Corporate Information Technologies

Raj — Fri, 12 Feb 2010 02:22:10 +0000

Accenture survey finds that companies and organizations in China and India stand to capture a global competitive advantage on the strength of young workers and students, who are the world’s most intensive users of corporate information technology.

The research, based on a survey of more than 5,000 students and young workers in 13 countries around the world, found that the technology practices of new hires and students from the “Millennial” generation in China and India– those between the ages of 14 and 27 — have leapfrogged their counterparts elsewhere in the world, especially in much of Western Europe, where many Millennials feel that technology consumes too much time.

Millennials in the Americas (Brazil, Canada, and the United States) and Asia-Pacific (Japan and Australia), meanwhile, have positive perceptions of technology, but not at the same level as young people in China and India. When it comes to adopting new technologies, the survey found that borders don’t matter. Regardless of country, Millennials are clearly jumping the boundaries of corporate IT. They expect to use their own technology and devices rather than those supplied by their employers, according to the research. Even e-mail usage is changing.

Khadi- New Fashion Statement

Raj — Fri, 18 Sep 2009 02:14:07 +0000

Sabyasachi Mukherjee is a young, hip, Bengali designer is insisting that khadi can be a great fashion statement. Khadi, which is simple homespun weave championed by Gandhi in the 1930s to boost the rural economy and give India a sense of nationalist pride during the fight for independence, is refined, sophisticated, eco-friendly and comfortable, and has too long been regarded as the poor man’s fabric. Read more about it in BBC.com article titled “Indian designer champions homespun“.

According to Mukherjee, to wear Khadi is a sign of being well-dressed and cultured. At the same time it should help India’s rural craftsmen and women to share in the country’s growing wealth and economy. According to the article, he has dressed superstar Aishwarya Rai in homespun for two films currently in production – Ravana and Guzaarish – and the actress Vidya Balan in Paa which is due to be released in November. The nostalgia may be part of the style, but Mukherjee is very much in the new wave of Indian designers – a graduate of India’s National Institute of Technology and recipient of the Femina British Council/Times of India prize.

Fashion writers have labelled him “intellectual”, but he describes himself as a modern, practical and a socially aware businessman. It’s vital to him that the rural poor share India’s growing economy – a Gandhian concept and one that puts India right at the centre of being Indian.

His surprise hit earlier this year was the chhotu sari – the sari worn for hundreds of generations by women in the tribal areas that are woven to calf length for freedom of movement. It was, he decided, the perfect metropolitan sari for young women – long enough to give them the flowing shape, but short enough to differentiate them from their mothers and to allow them to show off their ankles and shoes.