Re: Jeff, Reed : Greetings from a friend in New Delhi

first week great

On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 5:26 AM, Hardeep Singh Puri < > wrote: Will be in New York early December. Look forward to a discussion with you.

Sent from my iPhone

On 13-Nov-2014, at 2:48 pm, jeffrey E. jeevacation@gmail.com wrote:

great, i knew you would come around

On Thu, Nov 13, 2014 at 4:22 AM, Hardeep Singh Puri < > wrote: Jeff/Reed,

Jeff, I briefed you on my discussions with Reed in Silicon Valley on 3 October. Your reaction was that Reed should visit India sooner rather than later. Back in India, since mid-October, I am now convinced more than ever that India today presents a terrific opportunity for internet-based economic activity. The Japanese telecom and internet giant, Soft Bank, to mention just one example, announced recently that it had laid out plans to invest US$ 10 billion in the Indian e-commerce space over the next 10 years. Snapdeal, an Indian entity is the first recipient of US$ 600 million in funding. The market buzz is strengthened by the election of a new Government with a strong mandate bent on reviving the Indian economy with a major focus on `Digital India'.

India, with 200 million users, is the world's fastest growing country for internet users. Five million users are added every month and India will have 500 million users by 2018.

Newly elected Prime Minister Modi's focus to revive the Indian economy includes an audaciously ambitious plan to expand rural internet coverage to 250,000 villages by 2017 from the existing 130,000. In two years, 150,000 post offices will be transformed into multi-utility centres (providing a range of government services, banking for instance, and not just postal services). Some 250,000 government schools will get broadband and free WiFi and all schoolbooks will have e-versions.

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Another major focus of the Modi government is the "Make in India" campaign. There are 30 million students enrolled in India's registered Universities. On an average, 10 million of these enter the job market every year. Another 5 million or so enter the job market straight from school or otherwise. In order to make India's GDP grow by 8 to 10 per percent every year, we need to provide for 15 million entrants to the job market every year. English, the language through which the Western World sees India, is spoken only by a limited percentage of India's population, less than ten per cent to be precise. On 3 October, I told Reed that India's total population of 1.2 billion can be broadly divided into different States and linguistic groups, of which the main are: Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Urdu, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam, Oriya, Punjabi.

This lesson was learnt early by Google. Google's search engine works in the following Indian languages: Hindi, Bengali, Telugu, Marathi, Tamil, Gujarati, Kannada, Malayalam and Punjabi,

I had mentioned to Reed that I would put some bright minds to work on this. Some interesting conclusions have emerged. For example, in the state of Gujarat even post graduates studies and professional studies like law are in the Gujarati language.

The Modi Government is placing strong emphasis on innovation and skill creation and upgradation.

Linkedin has 28 million resumes in India. , an Indian entity has 38 million. Linkedin's 28 million clientele constitutes its second largest market after the US. The potential for Linkedin's clientele in the US to grow is limited by absolute numbers. Growth of the internet in the US will most certainly not be able to keep pace with India's because in India, the penetration of the internet is less than 20%. By 2018 India will have half a billion subscribers and a very large per cent of them will be looking for jobs and enter the market educated in regional languages.

Jeff/Reed, I have summarized my findings above in order to endorse Jeff's view that the visit to India be undertaken earlier rather than later.

Please mull over this.

Reed, my daughters Himayani and Tilottama asked me, in particular, to thank you for sending them the copies of your books duly autographed. I have been remiss in not conveying their appreciation earlier.

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Jeff, your suggestion for less of `goody goody' and more of internet based entrepreneurial ideas has registered. I am ready.

Warmly,

Hardeep

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