Chetan Bhagat has batted for Microsoft and particularly for Bill Gate Foundation in his latest novel " Half Girl Friend." The popular Indian writer in English had narrated with a story line how the aid from the Foundation has transformed a village school in the remotest part of Bihar run by his hero in the novel and his mother. Not only that the Foundation has come to his rescue in his hunt for his estranged half girl friend and finally in tying the nuptial knot on her. I am told that the book will be translated into vernacular languages and will be serialized in a popular Malayalam weekly.
Microsoft is also gearing itself for helping India in the financial inclusion program of the prime minister in tracking the bank account holders in villages in the far-flung areas. According to some paper reports, it will communicate to the government the villages that are saturated in terms of coverage of bank accounts, so that the authorities can concentrate on other villages where the coverage is lagging behind.
Not to be left as a laggard in the race, Google has unveiled recently a plan to bring Indian languages under its ambit to give the non-English speaking people an easy access to the internet. It has drawn up a plan to increase the number of Indian net users to 500 million by 2017. Besides setting up an Indian language alliance to facilitate the process, the world's largest search engine company is holding parleys with smart phone manufacturing companies to have inbuilt key boards in Hindi in the mobile phones. It is believed that from the Hindi belt, it will move to other parts of the country to bring all other important languages under its ambit.
The e-commerce companies from the US have already made their presence in India, through fully owned subsidiaries or through the joint venture route. Hectic lobbying is on for allowing direct participation of FDI in e-commerce. Sooner or later, the government will have to open up the segment for accelerated flow of FDI.
The romance of the techie companies with India has clear commercial motives. India's internet penetration and tele-density are set to increase manifold. Along with that business transacted through the net will increase manifold in the coming years. That sounds music to the techie companies since they can rake up revenues. For search engine companies, that will a boost to their ad income. Telephone manufacturing companies , it will be a bonanza for selling their products and for the content and other back-room operators, it will mean more business.
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