India is making astounding gains in certain sectors, which unfortunately is getting drowned in the noise created by politician and other scandals.
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I just learnt from my relatives that under the new telecom policy initiatives, two or three states which includes Tamil Nadu, Maharasthra all telephone calls including cellular with in the state have been made local calls.

The minister for telecom Mr.Maran has said that the final long term objective is to have \"One India\" that is all telephone calls with in India would be local calls !

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A giant in Plastics called \"Basell\" a multi national company and a technology provider and leader in the field of Polyethylenes and Polypropylenes will be taken over by a consortium of investors headed by our own \"Haldia Petrochemicals from Haldia, West Bengal\". This acquisition will catapult India into leader ship in Polymers/Plastics - Globally\".

Just a thought, \"Oil comes all the way from ME to North America, gets processed into various forms which includes polymers, goes back to Asia to be made into Plastic products and components. Shouldn't the flow be the other way!.If you really look closely, Canada is one of the leading processors of Polymers globally, the reason being the polymer comes from USA, gets made into plastic components in Canada, which is due to lower cost of transportation from USA and back, energy costs, exchange rate differential and lower LABOUR costs in Canada, gets back to USA as products as USA is one of the highest consumers of Plastic products\".

The real disadvantage India has in comparison to China is that there are not many containers flowing from it to North America. If it needs to get a good and competitive rate, we need to send the container to Singapore for consolidation and hence the longer transit times. If India expands its port facilities and makes it more accessible to larger vessels we should be one of the best and most competitive exporters of Plastics to North America.

With Reliance and Haldia leading the way, we should ask for Indian Experience in Plastics when somebody asks for Canadian Experience !

Those who are in the Plastic Industry in Canada, please tell your supervisor or your employer about this development. This information has come out in the May 9, 2005 issue in the News of the week page in the Chemical and Engineering News a free publication of the American Chemical Society, USA with the website \"WWW.CEN-ONLINE.ORG\".

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GE plans to make India as one of its key manufacturing hubs. GE is planning to set up its own bank, acquire some manufacturing companies to make India as one of its key manufacturing hubs. This is the recent news in Times of India.

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This is rather an old news, but worth sharing that is \"Nokia has finalized to set up a manufacturing unit in Chennai\".

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In UK the current trend is for the UK nationals to visit India for the HealthCare/Tourism package, wherein a person travels to India, gets his/hers health care needs met which includes surgery; takes a holiday in India and gets back. This is due to the lower cost of health care and no wait times for surgical procedures.
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Yes, I do agree that there is lot of corruption, lack of good quality water, lack of infrastructure and so on so forth. Yes India is a sleeping giant, but I'm very happy to report to you that when ever it stirs and gets into the slumber mode it makes noise enough to rumble the world. Ages before that is thousands of years ago we exported spices, silk and other specialities. Lots of voyagers set out looking for India from Europe and ended up finding other continents and countries. As we all know civilizations and times go out in cycles, there will be a day when the world will look at India, and people will be queuing up in front of Indian Embassies for work permits, visas and there will be forums similar to Canadian Desis writing about delays in work permits and time lines.

Mera Bharath Mahaan!

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Speech by Thomas Friedman of The New York Times....

"When we were young kids growing up in America, we were told to eat our
vegetables at dinner and not leave them. Mothers said, 'think of the
starving children in India and finish the dinner.' And now I tell my
children: 'Finish your maths homework. Think of the children in India
who would make you starve, if you don't.'"