India Grey Mart Goes

Bananas Over Apple

One of the
sellers on eBay, who plans to
source the handsets from Aus-
tralia and Singapore, said he has
already received more than 20
bookings with the full amount
paid by Wednesday evening. His
listing had got more than 600 hits,
he said. Australia and Singapore
are part of the global launch.
Apple has enlarged the screen,
made the edges more rounded
and slimmed down the iPhone
as it seeks to fight for the high-
er end of the smartphone
market with bitter rival Sam-
sung, with which it has tan-
gled in court over alleged pat-
ent infringements.
ManiaUnstoppable12
Writankar.Mukherjee
@timesgroup.com
Kolkata: The new iPhone seems to
have re-ignited the lust for posses-
sion that used to be sparked off by
some of Steve Jobss more dramatic
unveilings. A day after Tim Cook
took the wrappings off the iPhone 6
and the 6 Plus, the Indian grey mar-
ket went a little crazy. People were
willing to pay . `1 lakh and more for
the privilege of getting the phone
soon after its launched in the US
and elsewhere on September 19 and
before it officially reaches India, on
October 17.
On eBay India, a sealed and factory
unlocked 16GB iPhone 6 was going
for . `1 lakh, while a 16 GB iPhone 6
Plus was being offered . `1.1 lakh. The
devices will be shipped to India from
September 21. Another seller on
eBay India listed a network-locked
16GB iPhone 6, which will be un-
locked before sale, at . `75,000.
PEOPLE BID . `1 LAKH FOR PHONE
Satish John & Ashutosh R Shyam
Mumbai: Flashback to 1998, and the
Kargil war. The military is forced to
abort missions due to heavy casu-
alties. Then it decides to deploy the
controversial Bofors gun to destroy
Pakistani outposts from various van-
tage points. The strategy pays off, but
the military realises it will soon run
out of ammunition to feed the howitz-
ers. At the urging of army command-
ers, the defence ministry turns to Ba-
ba Kalyani and his company Bharat
Forge to make shells for the 155mm
howitzers.
Kalyani, chairman of the Bharat
Forge Group, recalls how the compa-
ny got the emergency order to make
1 lakh shells. Thats how the compa-
nys ability to turn out high-quality
products at short notice, which
helped burnish its global reputation
in the auto parts industry, came to
play a role in history.
More than a decade since then, the
group led by flagship Bharat Forge is
ready with artillery equipment that
the Indian defence forces will soon
start testing. This puts it nicely in
place to take advantage of the Na-
rendra Modi governments initiative
to encourage greater private partici-
pation in the defence sector.
A lot of emphasis on local manu-
facturing of defence products has
been put by the current government.
Thus, companies like us, whove tak-
en defence seriously, are now produc-
tion-ready, Kalyani told ETin an ex-
clusive interview. The government
has also opened up the sector to more
overseas investments to persuade for-
eign companies to transfer tech-
nology to Indian firms.
Army will SoonTest Cos Artillery3
When at War, Bharat Forges Ahead to Victory
The ability to turn out high-quality products at short notice helped auto-parts major become part of history
Baba Kalyanis
Defence Strategy
Bharat Forge
scouting for a
European or
North American
partner to
make small
arms
155mm 155mm
artillery gun
to tested by
December
ultra light artillery
gun to be tested
by next year
ULTRALIGHT GUNTOBE TESTEDBYNEXT
Conversionof 133mmguns to155mm
Co eyeing
plans to make
ammunition for
the guns once
govt allows
private sector
entry
Malaysian infrastruc-
ture conglomerate YTL
Corporation Berhad is
in talks with Hyd-
erabad-based NSL
Group to buy up to 49%
stake in its thermal
power business, a per-
son with direct knowl-
edge of the devel-
opment said. YTL, which
reported $6.1b revenue
for the year ended June
2014, has power assets
across Malaysia, the UK,
Singapore, Australia
and Indonesia. 8
YTL may
Buy 49% in
NSL Power
Krithika.Krishnamurthy
@timesgroup.com
San Francisco (United States): Sili-
con Valleys top accelerator Y Combi-
nator (YC) is considering bringing its
much sought-after Startup School,
where prospective entrepreneurs can
get practical advice from successful
founders and investors, to India.
Startup School is a free, one-day event
where speakers like Facebook founder
Mark Zuckerberg, actor Ashton Kutch-
er, Amazons Jeff Bezos and VC inves-
tor Marc Andreessen, among others,
have shared the podium. This year, for
the first time, Startup School ventured
outside the Silicon Valley with events
in New York and London and is expect-
ed to debut in China next year.
YCInvestedin700Cos12
Local Startups will Get
Global Lessons Shortly
YCombinators Startup School may come to India soon
UPBEAT In his first interview to a paper after becoming BJP boss, Amit Shah says corporates are
happy & bureaucrats are active as they feel protected. Party is sure of win in state polls, he says
SP Fanning Communal Tension;
Rajnath not Marginalised: Shah
BANGALORE | 18 PAGES | .`3.50 ONLY THURSDAY, 11 SEPTEMBER 2014
HNIs Rush in to Join
Indian IPO Party Cheap
MARKETS + FINANCE 9
Ten Transfer Debutants
to Watch Out for in EPL
SPORTS 18
Manufacturing: Put Local
Market Before Exports
WORLD VIEW 15
BENNETT, COLEMAN & CO. LTD.
THE ECONOMIC TIMES
WWW.ECONOMICTIMES.COM
Rohini.Singh@timesgroup.com
New Delhi: In an exhaustive
and detailed interview to ET
his first major media interac-
tion since his appointment as
BJP president Amit Shah
squarely blamed Samajwadi
Party for rising communal ten-
sion in Uttar Pradesh. And he
dismissed all talk on marginali-
sation of home minister and ex-
BJP chief Rajnath Singh, add-
ing that rumours about Singhs
family were not the handiwork
of anyone in BJP.
On the so-called love jihad, the
headline-grabbing name for in-
ter-community marriages that
are allegedly a ruse for conver-
sion, Shah said this was more a
media creation and that BJP had
no big plans to take it up as a cam-
paign issue.
But he added that he sees noth-
ing wrong in BJP responding to
a grave social problem in gen-
uine cases.
Shah, who led BJP to a stagger-
ing 71-seat Lok Sabha perform-
ance in 80-seat UP and who was
on Wednesday chargesheeted by
the state police in Muzaffarabad
for an April 4 campaign speech,
said if polarisation was a BJP
strategy, every state in the electo-
ral calendar would have seen a
rise in the communal temper-
ature. But since
only UP is facing
this problem, the
BJP chief ar-
gued, it was SPs
one-sided vote
bank politics thats responsible.
There is no communal ten-
sion anywhere except in UP. BJP
is everywhere, but SP is only in
UP. That only means that SPs
one-sided vote bank consolida-
tion politics is responsible for
increase in communal tension,
Shah said.
Theres no tension even in
Jammu & Kashmira (poll-
bound) sensitive state, he said.
Shah was emphatic in dismis-
sing any possibility that Home
Minister Rajnath Singh was dis-
empowered in any way.
My Focus is Clear
HRD Minister Smriti Irani says she is re-
signed to the idea that she will continue to
attract controversies because of her star-
dom. But she tells Ritika Chopra that she is
determined to fulfil the promises made in
the BJP manifesto on education.4
Q&A EXCLUSIVE
SMRITI IRANI
MINISTER FOR HUMAN RESOURCE DEVELOPMENT
ON LOVE JIHAD
Love Jihad is a
media creation,
not our term. Its
a grave social
problem.
Where injustice
is done
to a woman, then
its natural that
BJP will fight
ON RAJNATH SINGH
How can the
countrys home
minister be
marginalised?
Rajnath Singh is
taking all the
decisions in his
department
Tata Honcho Does the Math
to Calculate CSR per Executive
Ajoint task force, led by the Tata groups chief
ethics officer Mukund Rajan, has proposed a for-
mula to put a monetary value to the time devot-
ed by corporate executives for social causes.
Companies8
Inside story
Akshay.Deshmane
@timesgroup.com
New Delhi: Madhya Pradesh will
soon amend its labour and land acqui-
sition laws to make them more inves-
tor friendly, becoming the second BJP-
ruled state after Rajasthan that plans
to do so.
We will relax and tweak some la-
bour and land acquisition laws to
prepare a more conducive atmo-
sphere for investors in the state.
While the Union government has al-
ready acknowledged our labour laws
to be the best in the country, we would
like to make them more appealing to
investors, said Yashodhara Raje
Scindia, states industries minister.
These changes are likely to be an-
nounced at the states high profile
Global Investment Summit, which is
scheduled to be held in Indore next
month. Scindia added that MP will al-
so announce a policy for promoting de-
fence manufacturing, a first for any
state, at the event. In early June, the
Rajasthan state cabinet cleared 20
amendments to four labour laws in or-
der to make it easy to hire and fire
workers, close and open industries,
among other things.
Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chou-
han was guarded in his comments.
We wish to promote entrepreneur-
ship in the state, and to this end,
schemes for small and medium enter-
prises have been promoted extensive-
ly, he said.
After Rajasthan, MP to Roll out Red Carpet for Investors
Shivraj Singhs state to soon amend labour and land acquisition laws to make them more investor friendly
FULL
INTERVIEW
PAGE 2
Hindi as its first language.
Android One will come bun-
dled with local language sup-
port and users will not have to
download any external appli-
cation to access their smart-
phone in Hindi, a person with
knowledge of the develop-
ment told ET.
APPLES RELEASES & LOCAL EQUATIONS7
Google has been con-
stantly working on de-
veloping more salience
around Indic computing
and providing regional
language support
SPOKESMAN
for Google
Varun.Aggarwal
@timesgroup.com
Bangalore:When Google
launches its low-cost An-
droid One devices next Mon-
day, Indian users will be able
to give voice commands, type
messages and use almost all
major mobile applications in
Hindi. This is because the
California, US-based inter-
net giant is hoping that the de-
vices, which have been tailor-
made for emerging markets,
will help it capture the non-
English speaking user base
in the country. Over 40% of
the population in India lists
Google has been constantly
working on developing more
salience around Indic com-
puting, providing regional
language support to users for
its various products and ser-
vices, a Google spokesman
said in an email.
Internet users in India
could increase by nearly a
fourth if local language con-
tent is provided, according to
a 2014 report from Internet
and Mobile Association of In-
dia and IMRB International.
Google Creating More Hindi
Content12
BPOs Move Up Value Chain7
Android One to Speak in Hindi
Googles moves aimed at garnering more Hindi-speaking users
WE HAVE THE MANDATE
TO FORMDELHI GOVT,
SAYS AMIT SHAH3
YC Numbers
>$30billion
Total market cap of
all YC companies
>$3billion
Total money raised
by all YC companies
3
Number of YC com-
panies worth more
than $1 billion
>20
Number of YC com-
panies worth more
than $100 million
SOURCE: Y COMBINATOR BLOG
716
Number of
companies
funded by
YC so far
Acceptance
rate of the
current
batch
<3%