Daily Pulse India: MTV’s KickStart For Startups, Make In India Hits and Misses, A Bad Bank

Get the youth: The government’s Startup India initiative has found an unusual ally. Viacom18, the joint venture between the Mukesh Ambani’s Network 18 group and Viacom plc. has launched MTV Kickstart with the government to promote startups. MTV, Viacom’s flagship channel for youth, will reach out to college students, conduct startup festivals and end it with a reality show for startups to pitch for funds to investors. Clearly, the channel is using a tried and tested formula in a new area of focus. But with both focused on the youth, this seems to be a no brainer.

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Make in India week has ended and India has a commitment of more than 15 trillion rupees, or $220 billion of investment and 720,000 jobs in the next year. More than half this money will be invested in Maharashtra, which hosted the event. But amid the euphoria are voices of caution that point to various hurdles, such as an increase in automation in manufacturing, which means the job creation may be limited, the tax issues which are still a big worry for investors, and other more obvious issues such as infrastructure, lack of skills and of course the unions. The government still has a Herculean task ahead and all eyes are on Modi to see how he pulls it off.

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Speaking of Make in India and Maharashtra, there is one company that is giving the state leaders sleepless nights. Foxconn, which signed a $5 billion deal with Maharashtra to set up factories to make smartphones and other gadgets, chose Maharashtra as its partner, over other states in the fray such as Telangana, Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka. Eight months down the line, there is no sign of any action from Foxconn, let alone a timeline. The Chinese company is apparently in the midst of due diligence, but a dozen visits later, a formal proposal is yet to materialize. Analysts and Foxconn watchers say its plans to acquire Japanese electronics maker Sharp may have pushed its India plan down the priority list.

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Bad Bank: It may not be that far off after all. As the government battles with ideas to purge bad loans that are crippling the state owned banks, there is a proposal to set up a “bad bank” that will take over all the loans from the government banks. RBI Governor Raghuram Rajan is against the idea, as he believes the government’s support is good enough for the banking system and there’s no need for a new entity, which will give rise to fresh complications. But the government seems all set to go ahead, so we’ll just have to wait and see how it pans out.

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Rating agency Moody’s has pegged India’s growth this year at 7.4 percent, and cut its global growth estimate to 3 percent and said India is more insulated from global turmoil than many other countries.

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Days after telecom companies wrote to TRAI seeking clarifications on its net neutrality stand, the regulator has said it’s open to talking to telcos about questions they may have. The companies want clarity on the definition of a closed communication network, which we hope TRAI will clarify soon.

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Cover Image: JNU continues to be on the boil. After protests by JNU students, we’re seeing protests by other students and intellectuals against “anti national” JNU students. The big question is will this be the reason for a third washout of the Parliament session that begins next week?

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