Word: indianism
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...When Tata first suggested an ultra-cheap car a few years ago, other manufacturers initially scoffed, saying the project was a pipe dream. But if Tata lures away even 10% of the 6.5 million Indians who buy motorbikes every year, not only will it have a hit on its hands, it will have expanded India's car market by more than half. Competitors aren't willing to cede that kind of market share without a fight. Carlos Ghosn, head of Renault-Nissan, recently announced that his company was looking at building a $3,000 car in India. Fiat, General Motors...
...Building ultra-cheap cars is possible largely because of low manufacturing costs in developing countries. Tata and other Indian automakers estimate that their engineering costs alone are about half what they would be in Europe or the U.S. At the same time Tata has tapped the skills of Italy's Fiat, with which it has a joint venture in India, and engine designers in Britain's West Midlands region, some of whom were jobless after closures in Britain's auto industry over the past few years. Indian producers are relentless cost-cutters. Many, including Tata, now buy parts through Internet...
...Oberoi adds that the large and mostly prosperous Indian diaspora fuels this craze. "For them it is an issue of self-esteem and community sentiment," she says of the 20 million Indians settled abroad, or Non-Resident Indians (NRIs), as they are known. "In the southern state of Tamil Nadu, for instance, dowry has ceased to be a demand," she says. "But the groom's side insist that the wedding be a spectacular affair...
...Chatwal is an Indian-American Sikh businessman whose son's profligate wedding in Delhi last year became the subject of a Discovery Channel documentary, The Great Indian Wedding.The flood of over-the-top weddings that followed in its wake - mostly within Delhi's Sikh community - eventually prompted the Delhi Sikh Gurdwara Management Committee, a communal organization that maintains temples and represents nearly half of the city's Sikh population, passing an injunction requiring that all Sikh weddings in Delhi must now take place in gurdwaras,as Sikh temples are known, and not in hotels. No liquor or meat...
...Will such initiatives succeed in trimming the big, fat Indian wedding? Not any time soon, says Thyagarajan. But, he adds, "As people become more educated and progressive, they will begin to see the absurdity of spending $5,000 on a wedding dress. Given that more and more marriages are failing, people will soon stop making a big deal...