S. Mohini Ratna
Editor - VARINDIA
As far as financial decisions are concerned, the Indian government seems to have awakened from slumber. In a series of decisions taken recently by the government, we can come to the inescapable conclusion that the ruling dispensation is finally showing its mettle. The announcement by the government to delay the implementation of GAAR to April 2016 is a step in the right direction. It will result in the smooth inflow of foreign capital which is the need of the hour, given the burgeoning current account deficit that plagues the Indian economy.
Thanks to the spurt in the adoption of smartphones, the day is not far off when they will be the epicenter of all social media activities. However, there is a massive room for growth in smartphone adoption in India because there are just 27 million smartphone urban users in India, comprising only 9 per cent of the total mobile phone users. We have barely seen the tip of the smartphone phenomenon.
Security, as always, remains a high priority area for organizations. Defence Research and Development Organization (DRDO) is in the process of developing an operating system (OS) to run computers at the establishment. Growing incidents of security breaches have propelled the defence establishment to have its own OS which, it expects, will be ready in three years.
According to a new survey by 2015, the Internet services and devices industry will contribute up to US$100 billion to India's GDP, resulting in the creation of about 2.2 crore jobs by that period. With a modest contribution of 1.6 per cent to India's GDP, Internet may be contributing 3.3 per cent by 2015. This will become possible if India achieves its potential for growth in the number of Internet users and Internet technology. With an Internet penetration of 120 million, India is the world's third-largest Internet market and is poised to have up to 370 million users by 2015. China with 480 million users and the US with 245 million users rank first and second, respectively. Thanks to the current downward trend in the cost of Internet access and mobile devices, India is all set to become the second-largest Internet user base in the world by 2015.
Another area which merits our attention is the growth of e-commerce which has all the potential of becoming the latest phenomenon in the country. As things stand today, out of the present Internet users in India almost 20 million were shoppers including Online Travel Agency (OTA), and the e-tailing market has crossed $800 million with 13 million shoppers in 2012 and women accounted for 21% of the online shoppers, almost double in comparison to the previous year.
As we are still in the welcome mode for 2013, we can hope for the best as innovations and business segmentation will continue to evolve, thanks to the perseverance of the think-tanks who are working day and night for the growth of technology and betterment of the society as a whole. With this new hope, we must embark on the road ahead in the year.
