According to the Hindu Business Line, solar panels will be installed in the state of Gujarat (northwestern India) to generate power. Those panels will use the 11,807 miles long network of Narmada canals.

Narendra Modi, Gujarat’s Chief Minister, inaugurated the “Canal Solar Power Project”, a 1 Megawatt pilot project on 24 April 2012. The project is situated on the Narmada branch canal near Chandrasan village of Kadi taluka in Mehsana district. This pilot project has been developed on a 0.45 mile stretch of the canal by Gujarat State Electricity Corporation  with support from Sardar Sarovar Narmada Nigam Ltd, which owns and maintains the canal network.

The state of Gujarat has attracted investments of $1.7 billion on solar energy projects while Gujarat invests nearly $370 million a year on renewable energy.

As the government of India does not have to spend a lot of money on infrastructure or land acquisition, the cost of solar power per megawatt is expected to be less than the estimated $1.85 million.

A new study found that three-fourths of all the healthcare spending in India happens at hospitals owned by corporations.  Further  the growth of private hospitals has also been inequitable, with more than a third of all hospitals present in the large Metros and Tier I cities.

This leaves two problems (opportunities?) in India today. First is that the vast majority of its 1.2 billion citizens don’t have access to anything beyond the most basic healthcare facilities.  Second that even in the Tier 2 and 3 towns and cities,  not much is available in the form of high quality care.

The study points to some public-private partnerships as example of how to  broaden the reach of citizens covered by healthcare. A few illustrations in the health sector include the Urban Slum Healthcare Project in Andhra Pradesh which is a partnership between State Commissionerate of Family Welfare and NGOs. Another is outsourcing emergency transport services in 14 states in the country where state governments are in partnership with private providers such as EMRI and  Ziquitsa. Further there has been the practice of contracting management of PHCs and CHCs to NGOs in Karnataka and Gujarat. GE Healthcare too has partnered with public hospitals to set up diagnostic centers within the hospital.

My friend Professor Sudhir Jain is now Director (President) of  one of the “new” Indian Institutes of Technology, the one located in India’s fastest growing state, Gujarat.  IIT Gandhinagar has aligned with office equipment maker Ricoh’s  innovating lab based in California.

“We floated a proposal to Ricoh Innovation Inc (RII) to get involved with us, to which they have agreed.  We will develop technology  focused on improving interactions between people and information. An emerging market like India offers huge opportunities.  Ricoh Innovation Center wants to understand the Indian market through us. Our students shall get involved in doing this,” Dr Jain was quoted as saying in Business Line.

RII develops technologies for Ricoh, specializing in office imaging equipment, production print solutions, document management systems and IT services. “One of the projects initiated at the institute in joint collaboration with RII was Book Snap, as a part of which our students had developed a library linked software for them,” Professor Jain said.

What this means

They say capital flows quickly across the globe. But when ideas and innovation meet passion and zeal, I think you see an even faster flow. A new institute in India collaborating with the California unit of a Japanese company, that is an example of extreme global R&D, wouldn’t you say?

According to an article in the Economist, Pune in west India, has won the steely hearts of Germany’s car firms. Inside a $700m Volkswagen plant on the city’s outskirts, laser-wielding robots test car frames’ dimensions and a giant conveyor belt slips by, with sprung-wood surfaces to protect workers’ knees. It is “probably the cheapest factory we have worldwide”, says John Chacko, VW’s boss in India. In time it could become an export hub. Nearby, in the distance it takes a Polo to get to 60mph, is a plant owned by Mercedes-Benz. Zubin Kabraji, of the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce, says Pune hosts 262 German companies, up from 130-odd in 2008.

India’s own Bharat Forge, with $1.3 billion of sales, makes car parts, with 70% going abroad. Its boss, Baba N. Kalyani, says local entrepreneurs are “doing a damn good job”. Industrial hotspots such as Pune, Chennai in Tamil Nadu and the state of Gujarat are not the only evidence that manufacturing has momentum in India.

India’s share of global merchandise exports has doubled to 1.5% since 2000. Exports have shifted towards engineering products, which now make up a fifth of the total.
Indian labor may even have grown relatively cheaper. A 2010 study by  the U.S. Bureau of Labor Statistics found that, at just under a dollar an hour, India’s labor costs (including social-security costs and taxes) were similar to China’s and just 3% of American levels. Since  then the Indian Rupee has fallen by a third against the renminbi and a fifth against the dollar, making things even cheaper. And those data only included elite workers in the “official” sector—an unskilled laborer might get four dollars a day. Unadjusted for productivity, Indian labor is dirt cheap.

What this means:

For many American and European companies, a “China + 1″  sourcing strategy needs to consider India as a serious option, in the case of  technologically complex products.

Solar photovoltaic installations in India have crossed 1 gigawatt mark.  The country has targeted 20 GW by the year 2020.

As at the end of June, India had grid interactive solar Photovoltaic  installed capacity of 1,030.66 MW. Most of the capacities have come in Gujarat. In addition, India has 85.21 MW of off-grid solar PV systems, counting only those that are higher than 1 kW.

According to the Hindu Business Online, renewable energy in India crossed another milestone in the first quarter of the current year — total grid interactive renewable energy installations crossed 25,000 MW.