Do Indians haggle too much?

The Jacksonville, Florida newspaper runs a column called “Dare to Ask”, where readers can ask uncomfortable or politically incorrect questions. Now when I teach my “Business with India” workshop at Caltech and elsewhere, I alway tell my executive attendees to open up and ask me ANYTHING, without fear of offending me or others. People have [...]

Obama’ first State Dinner: India is the chosen one. Or is it?

Yesterday AP reported that President Obama had decided to host an “Official State Dinner” for the first time in his Presidency and that the chosen occasion was the impending visit of India’s Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh. Within hours, the announcement was published on over  500 news outlets (85% of them Indian).  Acceptance of this [...]

Julia Roberts shoots for ‘Eat, Pray, Love’

Sony’s Columbia Pictures will distribute Eat, Pray, Love a feature film to be released in 2011.  Based on Elizabeth Gilbert’s book of the same name, the movie stars Oscar-winner Julia Roberts. The Los Angeles Times reported that shooting in Naples has just been completed and the next stop is India. Indian media is working itself [...]

Water on Moon: India and USA working together

NASA scientists working closely with the India’s space researchers have discovered water molecules in the polar regions of the moon. Indian Space Research Organization’s Chandrayaan-1 spacecraft, launched in October 2008 carried the Moon Mineralogy Mapper, M3 designed specifically to look for water.   M3 was designed and built by a NASA team at the Jet Propulsion [...]

Obama invokes Gandhi, Let’s do lunch, or dinner

When President Obama visited Wakefield High School, in Arlington, Virginia earlier today for his speech to school kids, he also opened the floor to questions from students.  Here is a transcript from the White House site. “Let’s get a young lady in here. Go ahead.” STUDENT: Hi. I’m Lilly. And if you could have dinner [...]

Steel Sales Rise 20%

At least for the state-run Steel Authority of India Limited (SAIL), there is no recession. The company owns and operates massive steel plants in Rourkela, Bhilai, Bokaro and Durgapur (most of which were built with Soviet and German collaboration, since the U.S. did not know HOW to collaborate with a government back in the 1950/60s). [...]

Largest circulating newspaper is based in Kanpur

I  grew up in the city of Kanpur, in northern India. a city that has seen relative decline in recent decades.  During the British Raj it was a thriving textile town. Manufacturers of televisions, tractor parts, motor scooter rose and then declined. Today the city is known for leather and hide exports and for the [...]