Modi Wants His Ministers To Buy Desi Electronics, But What Make In India Tech Is Worth Buying?
December 30, 2014
Modi Wants His Ministers To Use Desi Electronics. But What Do We Buy?
The government has asked ministries to prefer domestically manufactured electronic products, because they think it will boost electronics production. That is what Prime Minister Narendra Modi's "Make in India" is working for. They've already gone ahead and planned to identify department-specific electronic products to procure them. Now is this is a pretty interesting situation – what products are we talking about?
Smartphones
Can you name a domestically manufactured smartphone? Apart from Micromax, that is (because seriously, imagine Modi rocking a Micromax). Karbonn, most other other players you can think of also aren't Indian as the phones are sourced from China.
Tablets
aakash.org.in
Years ago, the government had planned to give its ministers iPads and Samsung Tabs to phase out the massive amount of sarkari paperwork. We did release the Aakash tablet that was briefly a “pride and joy” kind of product – until we found how awful it was. And on a closer look, the Aakash tablet’s Make in India tag falls apart when you find that less than 20% of it is Indian hardware.
OK then. Chargers? Power banks?
mikehedges
Sure. You’ll use your easy access to ALL THAT government money to buy desi tech like chargers and power banks. Like that’s going to happen.
At least an Indian printer?
This is the kind of rage Americans feel for their printers. You think Indian printers will make it better?
