The Hindu Business Line : Money unites the new generation

Teenage girls admiring Mahatma Gandhi and wearing saris, as much as they like “wearing tight blue jeans and high heels, drinking sodas and even alcopops and watching MTV, just like their counterparts in the West.” This is the ‘Miss India’ that John Farndon describes in India Booms ( www.randomhouse.co.in). “Beauty is a $3-billion business in India, and it’s not just the city k ids who are taking it. Procter and Gamble are seeing their greatest sales growth in rural areas.”

The one thing that unites the new generation is money, the author finds. “In the past, most young Indians wanted a career in the civil service, engineering or medicine when they grew up. Now, it’s the high-paying jobs in IT and media that are the Holy Grail.” As a result, “millions of young Indians are now devoting themselves to learning computer science with a zeal that Indians once gave only to their gods.” Clothes top the list of cash-spend priorities for the young, writes Farndon, citing a survey. “A further 19 per cent on buying mobile phones and making calls. Cafés and malls are described as ‘fave hangouts’, while home, the movies and shops are the best places to spend time.” Retail boom, youth power, demographic dividends and so on are celebrated, even as cities are becoming vibrant and energetic places to live; yet there are many millions of Indian teenagers who are out of the loop, the author rues. “Even if these youngsters are actually given computers, for instance, as some well-meaning schemes propose, they may not be able to actually use them – because 60 per cent of India’s rural households have no electricity.”

Roller-coaster read.

Kaapi Shastra

Coffee: Retailing the Refreshing Brew
Coffee Board

The Indian market for coffee is nascent, observes Coffee: Retailing the Refreshing Brew from Coffee Board (www.crosswordbook

stores.com). “Notwithstanding the fact that 80 per cent of the urban consumers have consumed a cup of coffee in the last one year, the per capita consumption is in decimals. Even if all the current consumers were to be persuaded to drink just on e more cup of coffee in the year, the domestic market for coffee would grow by nearly 5 per cent,” predicts the Board.

Among its many initiatives to promote coffee use is ‘Kaapi Shastra’, a training programme on coffee roasting and brewing. “We have also introduced a nine-month diploma course on coffee quality management which aims at creating a new team of professionals with specific training in cupping practices,” informs the preface.

Inviting.

Esoteric odds

What Are The Odds?
Graham Sharpe & Roger L. Schlaifer

What percentage of the world’s 6,750 known languages are actively spoken by fewer than a lakh people? In which of the following countries are you most likely to have to bribe a government official to get something done: Colombia, Turkey, or Finland? Who makes the most money annually by allowing their music to be used in advertisements in the US? What percentage of tickets for concerts in the UK end up on the black market? What percentage of workers contact their offi ce whilst on holiday? Find scores of more esoteric questions and answers in ‘What Are The Odds?’ by Graham Sharpe and Roger L. Schlaifer ( www.landmarkonthenet.com).

D. Murali

http://BookPeek.blogspot.com

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Money unites the new generation