KACHARAGADLA

One of my fondest memories of growing up in a small town in India is making gashes in the bark of a tree on the way to school. The next day we would collect the gum which had seeped out. It was fun to use the natural gum to stick labels on our notebooks, even if it was messy. Later I graduated to industrially produced adhesives, from simple glue to quick fixes for broken objects. But it’s only recently that I learned about the sophisticated technology and precision manufacturing involved in adhesives for such critical products as the wings of aircraft. One of the leading manufacturers of adhesives of this kind is Henkel, headquartered in Dusseldorf, Germany. Its Dragon Plant (the name is a cultural homage to the plant’s sheer magnitude) in Shanghai, China, is the  world’s largest adhesives factory , and aims to be the smartest one, too. I was intrigued to discover how an IoT (internet of things) product made by an Indian startup, Flutura, in Bangalore is playing a transform

As the startup ecosystem in India  continues  to take off, it’s interesting to note the unique way Indian entrepreneurs go about their fundraising efforts. Certain patterns are universal in the lifecycle of a typical startup, and specific traits differ based on cultural and local norms. India and the US, two leading nations in tech innovation, are excellent subjects for examining universal elements of international startups, as well as differences. As an expat entrepreneur from India who currently lives and works in the U.S., I’ve had the opportunity to learn from the best practices and culture of each environment. Currently, my company is at the threshold of opening its first office in India following rollouts across North America – providing me with a unique full-circle vantage point. There’s a growing appetite for investment in new Indian businesses, both locally and globally. A country of 1.2 billion people with first-rate human capital and a strong tech education base, Ind

India is a country that is inhabited by more than 1.21 billion people, and by  2022  it is projected to replace China as the most populated nation in the world. This enormous size of its population has resulted in the difficulty of providing ample jobs to its citizens; the severity of the problem can be understood from the International Labor Organization’s (ILO) report titled  world employment social outlook , which states that the number of job seeking Indians is projected to reach 17.6 million people in 2017. Last year, the Chattisgarh Government’s Directorate of Economics and Statistics was barraged by  75,000  applicants for 30 peon jobs – a 14,000 Rupee position that involved basic tasks such as fetching tea. Amongst these queries many included requisitions from qualified engineers and management graduates. In 2011 around ten million Indians with graduate, post-graduate and technical degrees were looking for work. Unemployment rates were higher among the better qualified, a

Long relegated to second place behind China, Asia’s economic leader, there are clear indications that India is on the verge of a dramatic growth phase, according to analysts from the international investment bank, Credit Suisse. “India looks to be firing at last,” was one of the headings in the bank’s report which also contained a warning for international mining companies hoping to sell bulk materials, such as iron ore and coal, to the country. Self-sufficiency, which has long been a political objective in India, appears to be developing in bulk commodities with distribution problems that have dogged coal and iron ore being overcome. Piles of coal stand near a rail yard at the coal-fired NTPC Ltd. Badarpur Thermal Power Station in Badarpur, Delhi, India. Photographer: Prashanth Vishwanathan/Bloomberg The aim of the week-long visit by the Credit Suisse team was to see whether commodity intensive growth has started in India. The answer was positive, but with a mixed outloo