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The article discusses information technology company International Business Machines' (IBM) presence in India. The domestic Indian market is one of the fastest-growing in the world for IBM. The firm now has more employees in India than in any country except the U.S. IBM is doing research and development in India as well as writing software. In 2006 the firm held its annual investors' day in India.

As 2004 began, there was no shortage of good economic news for India. In the third quarter of 2003, gross domestic product grew at an annual rate of 8.4 percent. Foreign-exchange reserves stood at record levels of more than $100 billion; the stockmarket had recorded its biggest annual rise in 12 years; inflation and interest rates were low; the current account was in balance. China next door was booming, and for once this was seen as an opportunity rather than a threat; and the globalization of services in international business played to India's strengths. Unsurprisingly, India's finance minister, Jaswant Singh, says that the fundamentals of the Indian economy are better than ever before. Much attention was given to a forecast published in October 2003 by Goldman Sachs, a United States investment bank, for Brazil, Russia, India and China, four large developing economies. It predicted that, over the next half-century, India will continue to average annual growth of more than 5 percent. The most fundamental long-term reason for optimism is demographic. More than half of all Indians are under 25 years of age. The fall in interest rates has come as the currency, the rupee, has broken with its traditional steady depreciation against the dollar.

This article reports on economic growth in China and India and speculation as to which country will edge out out the other in 2011. The article discusses national accounting, gross domestic products (GDP), and central banking in the countries, as well as their populations and labour forces. Information is also provided on the Chinese energy industry and India's infrastructure.

This article discusses the consumer market in India and the response of India-based businesses to their home markets. Indian business has begun looking at small villages not just as a potential market, but as a vital and neglected part of its supply chain. Corporations have begun developing plans to create nationwide retail network with a distribution system to supply it. Satellite television, mobile telephony and slowly improving roads are nibbling away at the rural-urban divide.

This article discusses an increase in Indian manufacturing and its effects on the country's job market. Indian manufacturing corporations, which grew exponentially during the 1990s, have begun to reorganize their workforces. Executives of these corporations have begun to realise that India can not be a success relying on cheap labor to produce cheap goods. They have started investing in new technologies and creating white-collar, technically adept corporate teams instead.

The article discusses outsourcing. Last month the McKinsey Global Institute, the consulting firm's internal think tank, published a report on the subject called "The Emerging Global Labour Market". Extrapolating from a study of eight industrial sectors, the institute calculated that in 2003 there were 1.5m service jobs outsourced abroad from developed countries. By 2008, it reckons that number will have risen to 4.1m. To set that in context, it points out that "an average of 4.6m Americans started work with a new employer every month" in the year to March 2005. Although India is undoubtedly the biggest recipient of offshoring jobs, developed countries too rank high on the lists. Among the ten fastest-growing exporters over the period were Estonia, Ireland and Sweden, all of them now member states of the EU. "European firms," says the OECD, "tend to offshore within Europe". Limits to the growth of offshoring are already appearing. Technology, which made it possible to shift such work abroad in the first place, is now helping to bring it back. Banks are starting to use automated call centres. Then again, says the McKinsey Global Institute, if current demand continues, the supply of suitable labour in the popular cities of Prague and Hyderabad will run short by 2006 and 2008 respectively. The demand for engineers from Britain and America alone, it claims, will use up the suitable supply in all of China, India and the Philippines by 2011. According to the OECD, close to 20% of total employment in the 15 pre-expansion EU countries, America, Canada and Australia could "potentially be affected" by the international sourcing of services activities.

In 2003, India seemed in a sorry state. One year on, in the phrase of its government's propaganda campaign, "India is shining". The risk of war seems remote and a historic settlement with Pakistan seems possible. After a dozen years of opening up and liberalizing, India's economy is still relatively small by global measures. On one estimate India's labor force will expand by 50 percent more than all of East Asia's put together. Without further structural reform, such a growth spurt seems unlikely. But this survey will argue that this is indeed a moment of shining economic opportunity for India, and that if Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee's Bharatiya Janata Party succeeds in leading its coalition to another election victory, it should be better placed to take advantage of it, and pursue the necessary reform, than has been any government in recent years.

The article discusses the potential for a surplus of labor in India. By one estimate India's labor pool could increase by up to 110 million people during the next ten years. Although the Indian service sector will employ a portion of those, manufacturing will be challenged to absorb the remainder due to an emphasis on technology over labor, as well as laws that discourage hiring.

This article discusses how offshoring is working for American companies but not so for German firms. No word scares the world's hand-wringing professional classes so much as "offshoring". Just compare Germany and America. According to a new study from the McKinsey Global Institute, every dollar of corporate spending shifted offshore by an American firm--mostly, now, to India--generates $1.13 in new wealth for America's economy. Moreover, says the study, America's economy is more likely to benefit from all those Indian body-shops buying American products, ranging from Dell computers to the Coca-Cola that fuels programmers' late nights. And American shareholders are more likely than German investors to have a stake in an Indian offshoring company, further increasing America's gains.

Notes the establishment of call centers in India, as of spring 2000. Reasons for their proliferation in India, including low-wage English-speaking labor; Ravi Sikund's establishment of a training school to teach call center personnel to speak like customers in Great Britain or the United States; Skills that will be taught; Salaries.