Daily Pulse India: Don't Sell Shoes Myntra, Flash Sale of Maggi Noodles, Mixed Bag For Modi in UK

Cheers and boos: India’s PM Modi and UK’s PM David Cameron have signed deals for about 9 billion pounds, mainly in nuclear power and finance. Modi has talked about making London the base for India’s offshore financial trading, while Cameron has promised to support India’s bid for a seat on the UN Security Council. Britain clearly needs to increase trade with India (and Modi has been talking defense deals with most country heads) and for the South Asian country, British support in diplomatic circles is critical. However, the visit was also marked with protests against the 2002 Gujarat riots, when Modi was chief minister, and about the growing intolerance to dissident voices in the country. In an apparent rebuttal of the allegations, PM Modi talked about rights being preserved in the Indian constitution at a joint news conference of the two leaders.

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Back home, the numbers are underwhelming. Factory growth has slowed in October and inflation is zooming. This is even more worrying as most companies (especially those in consumer facing businesses) ramp up production in the weeks leading up to Diwali, anticipating more demand during the festivals. Growth in consumer durables, which are usually on top of the shoppers’ list during Diwali, halved in September. The sudden surge in pulse prices has pushed food inflation higher, which was anyway expected. Reasons for the weak factory numbers range from lack of consumer confidence to statistical base effect, but the overarching view is that the economic recovery is still patchy at the moment.

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And India has topped Facebook’s list of countries, which have requested restriction of content. This is part of the social network’s attempts to boost transparency on government surveillance. The number of content pieces that India asked Facebook to block has tripled in the Jan-June period, from the year ago – more than 15,000 from 5,000. To put this number into perspective, globally, the umber of requests has doubled. What would add even more perspective is if we know how much Facebook’s membership in India has grown in the same period. We do know that US and India are Facebook’s biggest markets so it stands to reason that the most requests would come from these two countries. As for the membership base, the last number we have is from 2014 when India had 100 million Facebook members.

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Maggi’s flash sale: Snapdeal says it sold more than 60,000 Maggi kits less than 5 minutes in a flash sale of sorts for the snack food. I repeat, a flash sale of the snack food. Enough said.

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No tax cess: PM Modi has been pushing his Clean India initiative, or Swachh Bharat and last week, the government announced a 0.5 percent tax cess to fund it. Indian Inc is not enthused with the idea and has asked that it be delayed for a variety of reasons.

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First beef, now shoes: The RSS (a right-wing partner of the NDA government) has asked mobile apparel store Myntra to take down leather products from its site, as it seeks to "protect the cow." While it was tweeted by a worker of the party and not the RSS's official handle, the party's media affairs head for Karnataka (where Myntra is headquartered) said it endorses the view. Myntra promptly tweeted back that the sale of leather goods is not illegal. This story is definitely not over yet.

Cover Image: Modi and Cameron share a joke in front of a statue of Mahatma Gandhi in London.

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