Indian entrepreneur news update

Here's some interesting news from around the country about Indian entrepreneurs:

The Mumbai underworld chooses soft targets: The financial year ended March 2006, and everyone's filed their income tax returns. At least the advance tax. A CNN-IBN report says, someone in the IT department leaked out information about the high-flyers, and they're now getting extortion calls from the Mumbai underworld. Thankfully, I am out of the country and don't take my cellphone on international roaming. Given their cut-off criteria, someone like me would probably be on that special list.

Interview with Jasjit Sawhney, founder of Net4India: Interesting interview with Sawhney, where he talks about his varied background in law and forex, before coming to India to launch one of the most successful ISP's we have. Note their venture into the PCO business, which is pretty low-tech, but must've appealed. Adds to my constant refrain that entepreneurs need not always look at high-tech stuff. Some of the best ventures are those that fill a niche, regardless of the technology. They're also strongly venturing out into the Middle East and South East Asia. Looks like a good time to approach them for potential partnership talks!

Ah, the dream looks like it might be coming true: As I have often evangelized earlier, the true rise of the Indian economy (India Shining and all that) depends greatly on the number of new enterprises that start and grow. This article talks about a significant increase in the number of new entrepreneurs, primarily in the "advanced" states of Maharashtra, Tamil Nadu, West Bengal, Uttar Pradesh, and Andhra Pradesh. I think West Bengal is a state that will far exceed expectations in this regard. The commies aren't sitting quitely. What is even more interesting is that the growth of entrepreneurs in rural areas has outstripped that in the urban areas. Looks like this time the Green Revolution will refer to the color of Rs. 500 notes!