KACHARAGADLA

With 4,200 tech startups, India is the third-largest tech startup hub in the world. But the steady increase in startups and a range of initiatives by the Indian government to spur growth does not mean the challenges for entrepreneurs are any less. In India, 40% of startups failed since 2014, while in the first five months of this year, over 18 businesses have shut down, according to separate surveys conducted by startup tracker Xeler8 and tech media platform Inc42. “As many as 997 of 2,281 startups in logistics, e-commerce, food tech and analytics collapsed since June 2014. The average age of these failed ventures is just over 11 months,” says Rishabh Lawania, founder of Xeler8. Last week, Indian retail mogul Kishore Biyani raised eyebrows among Indian entrepreneurs at the  Economist  India Summit in New Delhi when he said a majority of the startups lack long-term vision and were created with the aim to sell themselves off to larger companies. “Ninety percent of startups

India has complained to the World Trade Organization about support given to the renewable energy industry in eight U.S. states, the WTO said in a statement on Monday. The complaint alleges the states of Washington, California, Montana, Massachusetts, Connecticut, Michigan, Delaware and Minnesota prop up their renewables sector with illegal subsidies and domestic content requirements - an obligation to buy local goods rather than imports. The WTO statement did not give details of the complaint and there was no immediate comment from India's trade ministry. But India has voiced concerns in the past about U.S. support for its solar power industry. The race to build national solar capacity and grab a chunk of a new global market has become a major new cause of trade friction between big trading powers. India lost a case at the WTO earlier this year after the United States complained about New Delhi's national solar program. India has appealed that ruling. In 2

India is seeking to become the world’s newest international arbitration hub by establishing a new arbitral center in Mumbai. The Mumbai Centre for International Arbitration (MCIA), which begins proceedings this month, will be India’s very first arbitration tribunal. Its supporters hope it will help bring the industry’s best practices to the country. The unveiling of the MCIA underscores the significant growth of India-related arbitration cases in recent years. It also highlights the government’s desire to make India an attractive destination for international arbitration and make it a more compelling destination for business by bringing more reliable adjudication to India’s corporate sector. Arbitration remains the preferred option for multinational firms conducting business in the country, but India is not the preferred venue to arbitrate claims. The majority of arbitrations currently taking place within India occur on an ad hoc  basis. This has resulted in a lack of uniform sta

In 2009, when Shahrukh Khan was detained at New Jersey’s Newark International Airport for more than an hour, there was a  huge uproar in India . He was detained because of his surname ‘Khan’, and USA had to face accusations of racism. When he was again detained in 2011 for 90 minutes at White Plains airport near New York., then all hell broke loose and Indian Govt. and US embassy had to intervene in-order to avoid a huge diplomatic embarrassment. Even former President of India, Abdul J Kalam and Bollywood superstar Aamir Khan had to face undue security checks and delays at US Airports due to either their name, religion or nationality. Last year, India & USA decided to form a list of  2000 VVIPs  (Very Very Important Persons) so that such celebrities are not hassled at US airports. Names such as Amitabh Bachchan, Shahrukh Khan etc were included in the list, for providing them smooth entry and exit from US airports. Now, extending this ‘privilege’ of hassle free security cl

India probably gathered momentum to hold its ranking as the world's fastest growing large economy in the quarter through March, giving Prime Minister Narendra Modi more to celebrate after completing two years in office last week. Modi swept to power promising to revitalise Asia's third-largest economy and, despite a dearth of private investment and shrinking exports, his policies are having some success as cooling inflation and lower interest rates have boosted consumer demand. A Reuters survey of economists expected data out on Tuesday will show India's gross domestic product grew 7.5 percent year-on-year between January and March, faster than the previous quarter's 7.3 percent. "This 7.5 percent growth, in a global slowdown environment, has a potential to pick up even more," Finance Minister Arun Jaitley said last week in general comments about the trends. India's upbeat outlook contrasts with neighbouring China, where growth slipped to 6.7 i

Japanese telecom and media group SoftBank will “seriously” accelerate its investments in India, Chief Executive Masayoshi Son said at the start-up conference in New Delhi on Saturday. Softbank had previously said it would invest $10 billion in India over 10 years. “The time has come that the Indian economy will be big enough going forward. Mobile internet will make the domestic internet market big enough,” Son said. “I think we would seriously accelerate our investments in India going forward.” When asked about what he sees when funding any start-up he said he looks at the leadership and the commitment and determination to the company. “I look at the eyes and ideas of an entrepreneur-which field and passion, before investing,” he said. He further added that India can be bigger in momentum than China in the next 10 years. “This is the beginning of big bang start up boom in India,” Son said, adding that passion more important than making money. Son also believes that

The wording of the sub-title, “in search of a relationship”, is deliberate. It would be incorrect to write “in search of a new relationship” because that would assume there was an “old relationship”; except in an indirect manner, which I shall come back to below, India and Japan have never really had a relationship. If one takes the major actors on the global stage today – the US, the EU, Russia, Brazil, China, India and Japan – the weakest link is between Japan and India. To cite only one example: as distant as Brazil and Japan may be geographically and culturally, there is a large emigrant Japanese population, estimated at about 1 ½ million, in Brazil. Similarly, there are Indian diasporas on all continents of the world and in many countries, but none of any significance in Japan. The total number of Indian residents in Japan (population 126 million) is 22,335, about the same number as in Sweden (population 9 ½ million)! The recent (11-14 December) visit of Japanese Prime Minis