Bangalore, India’s future face!
The best and brightest Indian youth throng to Bangalore!
High-tech India arrives on a bullock cart!
2,30,000 engineers, most of them young, are working in Bangalore IT firms and outsourcing companies.
China has a tech work force of 1,80,000 engineers.
China is one year behind India.
While other countries, even in Europe, are lagging behind India in such tech work force numbers.
Recently, there was this photograph in the newspapers.
A bullock cart fetches a new satellite dish on a bullock cart to the door steps of a newly set-up US software company, the first one to set up shop in Bangalore. It was a long time back, about 25 years ago. The last 25 years saw India emerge ,Bangalore city emerge, from a sleepy city, garden city of pensioners paradise to a bustling city we see today!
How this had happened?
This is a story that needs to be written about, a story that needs to be narrated more widely and sung in school text book songs!
Yes, in those days when you walk through the Bangalore city roads, even in the then fashionable roads like M.G.Road or Cunningham Road you won’t see any foreign company name plates. The first one name plate to change the scene came thanks to the US based Texas Instruments on the Cunningham Road and then the nearby Millers Road.
The satellite was driven on a bullock cart and unloaded and here is that picture that captures dramatically what we are saying here.
Today, Bangalore has something like 650 MNC companies or their branches or franchises.
In the year 1985 there was only a few. Infosys was started in 1981 and no one took notice of it’s for the next twenty years or so.
Today it is an international icon.
Now, it is said by many that the US President Barack Obama is keeping himself awake all night and Bangalore is frightening him to his bones. In the last few months the US President failed for his words and the one word that constantly prop up in his imagination is Bangalore that had taken away the American jobs and the US unemployment at 9.6 per cent simply drives the American President for some solutions to the losing US jobs.
His prescription is to stop jobs to Bangalore, the off-shore jobs ,the US President thinks are jobs taken by the low cost Indian techies and the high tech sectors in the US are losing it out, may be forever!
That is the fear.
As for the Indian youth, more specially, the first generation rural youth, the well-educated and highly motivated and highly disciplined Indian youngster, both men and women, from the far -0ff North East, Bengal to Rajasthan to Mumbai to other parts of India Bangalore is the new Mecca.
This is where a new divinity has cropped up. Bangalore means business opportunities. Bangalore is equivalent to business outsouring jobs for the entire world!
India is now taken seriously. As for the US President Bangalore is a nightmare, Bangalore is much feared.
The brain power of Bangalore is the new hope, the new strength and new global power!
Texas Instruments(TI) then communications director , K.S.Narahari stumbled upon this rare photo and that is how the Bangalore high-tech story is unfolded here.
The current anti-outsourcing campaign in the Ohio state is simply because there is a crude fear that by banning the outsourcing of jobs somehow can be stopped.
This is sheer ignorance and failure to see what the IT technology holds for the future of the world. Internet revolution has simply reduced the physical distance. The world is flat. This is now a 24/7 world.
The world is always awake.
Round the clock, round the world everyone is working.
India is a young country. There is so much of educated skills power.
Internet ideally suits and drives this economy, a virtual economy where you can get things done at the minimum cost.
Can you argue, however nationalistic you are you will do your jobs only within your own geography. This madness.
Now Bangalore houses the best MNCs all in a few streets. Drive down the old airport road. You would come across IBM, Intel, Reuters, Dell, Microsoft and these are only the big names. All the other American names, Oracle, Accenture are there.
Cisco has built its second headquarters here. Cisco also has reportedly shifted 20 per cent of its top executives to the city. Alcatel-Lucent is planning to invest 500 million to set up its global services base in India. Capgemini announced last week that it will make India its global services base here. By the end of this year its 35 per cent of employees will be based in India. Its largest office outside USA is in India. Other global brands, Microsoft, Yahoo, Adobe and Google have a similar story to tell you!
Computers came to India as soon as they were out in the USA. Not the IBN big machines but the desk top computers. In 1985 one could walk down the MG Road and saw one-one room office of the WIPRO! Today it is a giant!
In 1985,the only business book on the roadside book stalls is the IBM Way! With a dark blue colored suited man on the jacket!
Today business books are dime a dozen, it is now ebay, kindle, e-book readers.
Today an average techice, reads his or her books on the I-Pad or kindle and as soon as the newspapers come out in the morning, be it in New York or London or Shanghai, you can scan the newspapers just at the next second!
So, we in Bangalore scan the newspapers from around the world capitals in a matter of minutes.
So too the books, no more we order even on the ebay.
We can just download and read them on the ebay e-book reader!
So life today in the tech capital of India is fast and at the same time very invigorating and exciting.
India’s competitive edge, say observes ,lies in Indians’ innate and innovative capabilities.
So, business enterprises to thrive only on their innovative business models and strategies.
Today’s India sees lots of new billionaires and millionaires. In Mumbai it is a stock exchange culture that drives business.
In Bangalore just the opposite.
New startups, new linkages, new It tools, Google, Facebook, Twitter and these are the roads to success.
Be it business or even in social and other areas of life.
Bangalore is India’s future face. So be it!
Infosys struggled for the first 19 years to reach a turnover of 100 million. By 2008 it grew by 40 times to touch 4 billion.
So, now in Bangalore it is all about billionaires and millionaires.
The Bangalore roads are choked to death by the new and latest foreign brand luxury cars. In five minutes time the chances are you might be caught by such models like the latest Mercedes, Volkswagon or Skoda or BMWs.
The public transport in Bangalore is now a marvel of latest technology. Besides the latest Volvos, you will now see the latest Mercedes buses and other models.
There is now a new metro. The flyovers of Bangalore makes you feel you are in San Fracisco!
The youngsters sport latest fashion clothing. Saris are becoming rarity, the changeover to modern dress codes is now a standard.
So too the use of latest gadgets. You will see in an auto rickshaw youngster using their laptops!
You can pick up your latest Apple i-phone or a laptop. We are all eagerly awaking the coming of latest I-pads!