However, having attended an event yesterday evening hosted by my friend Deepak Haria at Deloitte for the promotion of  TATA Jagriti, which is an Indian NGO that literally takes a trainload of enterprising Indian youth across India (on a yatra / journey) to expose them to subjects of importance to India’s development and introduces them to entrepreneurial thinking, I’m pleased to say that this question was posed, albeit in a different way, to Mr Gopalakrishnan who is a Board Director of TATA (http://www.tata.com/aboutus/articles/inside.aspx?artid=vyj45RCRud4=).

He was asked whether the Jagriti Sansthan – the NGO (http://www.jagritiyatra.com) – equips the participants in political skills that help them overcome political problems, which the TATA man rebutted by explaining that a programme like the yatra doesn’t aspire in providing such training, as in his mind, entrepreneurs – by definition – find ways, by themselves, to overcome obstacles and achieve success.

Interesting, I thought.

Let me know what you think characterises a successful entrepreneur. Please leave your comments on this post.

The impact of a poor monsoon is huge. India has approx 240 MILLION farmers, and an average of 60% of the labour market is dependent on the agriculture sector – directly & indirectly. Water is important to their livelihoods.

The problem is that the monsoon pattern is changing. Instead of long rains on a regular basis, India now experiences short, heavy showers with long dry periods inbetween, the risk of flooding and paradoxically, drought is increased.

The Indian government needs to look at strategic ways to help farmers. Instead of dishing out seeds and providing subsidies, they need to look at the ways in which rainwater can be captured, stored, and distributed more effectively. Only 30% of all agricultural land is irrigated, imagine if they could improve this figure!

The second way is to educate the farming community about new technologies available to improve their harvests, such as installing sprinkler irrigation systems or extending what the ITC group has done with enabling farmers to get latest market data on their mobiles that allows them to set the right prices for their crops.

Lastly, improve access to microfinance, in which small ticket loans could be provided for investments in technology & know how.

What’s also evident is that around the time of Indian independence,  India used to be wholly dependent on the agri sector. However, as time moves on India’s dependency has declined to around a level where agriculture accounts for almost 20% of her GDP. My point is that India knows it needs to reduce its dependency on the monsoon to deliver a bumper harvest, and has been doing so gradually.

I read a really interesting note, which will help me conclude this post. A bad monsoon isn’t just bad for India, but for the whole world. We need to look at the agri-food sector like a Rubiks cube, in which if you change one face of the cube, you inevitably create changes on the other sides of the same cube. In a similar vein, a decline in, for example, rice production has an impact on the cost of wheat in North America – after all we live in an increasingly interdependent world.

The next six months are going to be exciting, please keep on following this blog for updates as they occur.

In Tata’s benefit, I’d like to add that their track record demonstrates their commitment to fairness and responsible behaviour. They, themselves, wouldn’t have wanted taxpayer money, unless they were in such dire straits, as has been the case with JLR.

However, Mandelson was right to ensure that the benefit of any funds has to favour the taxpayer. He’s played a great game in ensuring that Tata work harder to secure funding from other sources.

For me what has been remarkable is the way and extent that Tata have used the media to get their points across. Generally speaking, Indian CEO’s shoot from the hip and everything Tata has said on-air has been well scripted and spoken. Take for example Ratan Tata’s appearance on Sky News in which he asked the government not to “play chicken with him”. Such articulation is rare in Indian business circles.

Full marks to his advisers.

Traditionally, August and December were two points at which we could do all the things that needed doing at work, but in the last few years this distinction blurred as there was so much going on. It seems to be much quieter this time around, perhaps they’re too busy organising themselves for the autumnal months ahead of us – which looks busy.

I thought I’d write a post as to what’s going on in London viz. India in September & October, as this’ll probably save some time in conversation. Please feel free to add to this list:

Lord Davies, International Trade Minister, leads a business delegation to India this September. He’ll visit Delhi, Mumbai, and Nagpur from 14th – 18th September.

Officials from The Indian Ministry of Finance & SEBI visit London on a study tour of regulatory and monetary policy.

The Corporation of London hosts its India Advisory Council meeting on 1st October, which Naina Kidwai and other leading CEOs from Mumbai visit. There’s an event with CNBC also.

The Lord Mayor of London leads a City delegation to India from 19th – 24th October. The Lord Mayor represents the interests of the financial services sector of the UK.

The Indian President visits the UK on her first state visit here. You can be assured of several events around this. I believe that her visit will also be used to mark the countdown to the Commonwealth Games in Delhi.

The UK India Business Council will organise their annual conference and dinner on 29th October. Was a blockbuster last year, you’d better buy tickets early if you want to secure a seat.

The All Party Parliamentary Group for UK – India Trade & Investment Relations will host a dinner symposium on how British companies can participate in building India’s roads, ports and other infrastructure. I’m lead to believe that an Indian Minister will deliver the keynote address. Event takes place in conjunction with the Commonwealth Business Council on 2nd November.

Just as well I’ve been down to the gym building up my stamina. At least, I’ll be able to enjoy the merriment around Diwali this time. Can’t wait to attend all those charity fund-raisers in town

Having experienced great luxury travel with the likes of Jet and Virgin, especially of the sumptuous Virgin lounge in Heathrow, it remains a constant surprise that Air India’s lounge is just so, so shabby. To the point that the furniture has ciggy holes in it and everything looks greasy – including the samosas! Let’s not even mention the unbearable stained carpets, the over-weight and heavy handed flight attendants, or the sub-standard on-flight entertainment.

I agree with Praful Patel on the count that the issues with Air India are deeply systemic and go to the core. If they can’t get customer service right, then why expect a higher demand on their flights?

Not so long ago, a friend of mine – during a conversation of the excellent service I had received with Jet, quipped amusingly that she always flew business class in Air India to Mumbai, for the simple reason that “who else would let you put your kids down to sleep on the floor in front of your seat”.!!!!

What a great USP.

Well, I’ve now finished writing the book and can now focus on the presentational aspects of the project, of which, the most important being (at least for today) the title of the book. My original choice was: ‘India Inc: How India’s Top Ten Business Leaders are Winning Globally’. However, as a result of the economic downturn, is this title appropriate, given that the world has been turned on it’s head as a result of the banking crisis and subsequent global recession?

It would seem a little to extravagant to use the original title in the environment we’re currently in.

For this reason, I’m searching for something appropriate as a subtitle to ‘India Inc: xyz…’. Or is ‘India Inc.’ substantial enough?

Your ideas are welcome.

He referred to the current economic crisis we’re facing as the “crisis of the developed world”; and highlighted the fact that countries like India were experiencing growth of over 6% at a time in which ours is contracting. Jim referred to this as being “pretty remarkable” as it wasn’t too long ago that economists believed that India wasn’t capable of breaching the so called 3% Hindu rate of growth that she was known of hovering around for a very long time.

In marked contrast to China, India’s growth is a result of her personal consumption. People are still spending money and it’s domestic demand is what’s keeping it going. Interestingly, the current challenges that China is facing, Jim said, was going to be good for the world as it’ll force China to rebalance their dependence on exports.

Often criticised about the inclusion of Russia in his analysis, which shows that despite what’s happened in the last year, Russia has long outperformed Goldman’s first tranche of projections to 2050 – hence keeping those arguing for the removal of the R from his BRICs analysis at bay.

On India, the recently concluded general election was welcomed by the markets, with a surge in the Sensex of approx 20% on the day after the results were announced. Interestingly, Jim’s co-authored a paper titled ‘Ten Things for India to Achieve its 2050 Potential (http://www2.goldmansachs.com/ideas/brics/ten-things-doc.pdf) in which he highlights the need for improved governance as one of these factors.

He was asked as to what indicators would demonstrate that India was taking this seriously, which was a brilliant question that needs further consideration. In many senses the answer may be as straightforward as some of India’s biggest crooks – bureaucrats and politicians – having to face penalties for their behavioural failings. O’Neill said he would start thinking of this and perhaps write something on this matter. Please leave any comments on this post if you have any ideas.

Also asked of the real impact of being surrounded by some very populous countries, he reiterated that the potential for the entire sub-continent being lifted onto a different plane if cross-border trade could be encouraged, was noted and well received.

The briefing was taking place a day after the first BRICs summit, in which the Heads of Brazil, Russia, China, and India were meeting to discuss substantive matters such as the establishment of an alternative currency to the Dollar. In response to a question on the potential of this bloc, his analysis explained that Brazil and Russia were commodity rich, whereas India and China weren’t, which suggested that if they were to work together to realise synergies like this, then the grouping would have a dramatic effect on global economics.

In addition, he highlighted that any discussion on tackling climate change without these four economies would be futie. He joked that it was time that international institutions like the G7 & G8, the UN, IMF could do more than just “invite them for coffee on the sidelines”, which drew a few sniggers from the audience.

There’s not many people on this planet that could take the credit for coining the name of an international summit that brings together future superpowers together to discuss major issues that should concern all of us.

For this and more, Jim – we salute you.

Being such a smart guy, it beats me why you’d want to support Manchester United! Viva Barcelona