Scribbling: EVs: Evolution

Scribbling: EVs: Evolution: It’s a pleasure connecting back with you all after a brief gap. It was during one of my latest trips to Bangalore, I received the news abou...

EVs: Evolution

It’s a pleasure connecting back with you all after a brief gap. It was during one of my latest trips to Bangalore, I received the news about clearance of 150 electric buses by Board of Bangalore Metropolitan Corporation from a national daily. With this Bangalore will become the first city to have such a large fleet of Electric Buses for Public Transport in the country. Considering the time taken by public sector undertakings on changing their policies, this radical shift towards Electric Buses by BMTC was thought provoking about the future of mass transit system.

During the same time, news of Ashok Leyland’s launch of ‘Circuit’ Electric Buses inspired us to research more on the development of such ideas and brings to you, our loyal readers, a feature that shows the shift in industry towards adapting the EVs. In 2014, a Chinese Manufacturer approached BMTC with the proposal of inducting Electric Buses in their fleet, and offered an Electric Bus free for trial. At that point of time, the cost of an Electric Bus was three times higher than a regular diesel bus, but the operational cost was 2.5 times lesser. Moreover the pollution-free tag came as a huge relief to our major metros, struggling with absence of quality air and global warming. 

The Western countries have kick started the deed by replacing fuel vehicles with Electric ones, and in India local manufacturers like TATA, Ashok Leyland, JBM, KPIT are coming out with Electric Buses and  the investment on procuring buses are going to come down. Our team has secured a detailed report about such recent developments along with the challenges the Automobile Components industry is going to witness by this paradigm shift.

For more details on the EVs and its impacts in India you can read our December issue at www.issuu,com/mediamart/docs/december2016 

One Narendra MODI to creating MODIs

It was in November 2006 we introduced MART in Europe for the first time through MIDEST exhibition at Nord Villepinte, Paris, France.MIDEST, one of the leading international subcontracting shows was organized by Reed Expositions, and the Indian operations were handled by Arun Kumar Rai of Indo French Chamber of Commerce. Thanks to Arun, we were able to foster an alliance with and also an opportunity to take the Indian products overseas through MART.

At MIDEST like in any other international show all major manufacturing countries had their pavilions – Germany (with some states having separate pavilions), China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan, UK to name a few showcasing the strength the country possesses in offering the best manufacturing solutions to the world. These pavilions showed the seriousness and determination each Government had to promote its respective economy. But, which attracted me the most was of Pakistan.

Much to my amazement, they had a decent pavilion with a good reception desk, where a senior government official inviting all the visitors to their pavilion and I was literally impressed with the energy and vibrancies of the young officer in charge.

Now, at MIDEST 2006 because of the hard work and personal effort of Arun, he was able to bring almost fifteen manufacturers, bringing them to a single platform. With the Indian manufacturers mostly from Gujarat and from the other parts of the country who came to test their luck at European market, Arun was also successful to get a stall from EEPC – not more than a junket for the officials present. The end result, some of the individual companies were able to get orders, but the lack of a combined pitching resulted in not gaining much for India.

With the natural growth we were making in the economic front, as one of the biggest consumer markets in the world, a lot of global manufacturers are making India a manufacturing destination for the last two decades. The much needed inspiration was missing from the Government, which was addressed by our Prime Minister Narendra Modi on his maiden speech at Red Fort on 15th August 2014, and within just 40 days he is getting the mission launched, “MAKE IN INDIA, SELL ANYWHERE”. On 25th September 2014 the PM will be launching “MAKE IN INDIA” at a mega function that will be attended by about a thousand global and domestic business leaders, along with simultaneous launches planned at different metros in India as well as at some international venues. According to officials several global companies from US, Japan, Korea, Sweden, Poland, Germany, France, Australia, China, and Italy are likely to attend the function addressed by Narendra Modi.

Assuring fresh investments from Japan and China, Modi is surely taking strong steps to reverse the economic growth we were missing for the last couple of years, and already the market is responding positively.

Why this not happened earlier? Is it just a Modi magic? Will Modi minus BJP government be as effective as it is today? A country of 120 Crore people doesn’t have enough leaders who can visualize our growth and drive the nation towards prosperity?

I don’t believe a strong country like India should look upon a single individual. There must be a collective effort. What we must learn from Modi is to get inspired to think about our country, than just selfishly looking towards personal gains. We Indians will be only successful when thousands of Modis are created to lead this country, and my friends, along with me one among those people are you.

Ma Nishada

Its always a hot discussion in our editorial meeting selecting the cover story for each issue. It was my Executive Editor Dr. Rajan Perunna suggested that we must write about the changing taste of city folks in the coming edition of Metro Mart.

Great Idea! We started planning and compiling the stories. Really the tastes and trends of Thiruvananthapuram changed a lot if we compare just before 10 years. Apart from being the capital city of Kerala, Thiruvananthapuram was calm and cool with not much to offer. Kochi, even Kozhikode was appealing more to the new generation.

Today, its all changed. Thiruvananthapuram is one of the happening cities in India. Thanks to the growing IT community, especially the 25000 plus techies working in Technopark, then the Infosys campus triggered the spending culture of the city. Being the capital, Thiruvananthapuram have more government employees in Kerala. The revision of pay packages time to time, in the government sector also made the shopping and dining industry grow organically.

Almost all the brands have an exclusive store in the capital city. From Bhima to Malabar Gold, Ayyappas to Pothys, Spencers to Big Bazar, Chicken Express to Dominoz all the major outlets make Thiruvananthapuram a major shopping destination.

But then there is something which have not changed. It was very disturbing to experience two harthals during last month, because of the petrol hike called by LDF. Whole India, only Kerala witnessed a Harthal (not checked the case in West Bengal and Tripura), with a bonus to Thiruvananthapuram one extra.

I am not against protests against price hikes which effects our economy. I also personally effected by this petrol hike. But ransacking for a day of common man, disturbing the business of a street vendor will bring down the price of petrol? Does our political leaders don't realize this?

They sure know these strikes are all old. When the technology was not that accessible to common man, these strikes Bandh - stopping everything  made a point to reach the message to masses. Today the media is so strong, any news can be reached to the nook and corner of Kerala within no time. When High Court banned Bandh, political parties rename it to Harthal, and continue to interfere in our right of freedom to live peacefully.  I personally feel, these kind of harthals are only called to keep up the spirit of the new and old cadres of political parties, and by destroying public properties.

We, the common man have to resist this. Our independence and rights of freedom cannot be ransacked by any one. On the month of celebrating birthday of our father of nation Mahatma Gandhi, lets say no to Harthals, and promote peaceful protests and satyagrahas.