Political Factors in India
India is the biggest democracy in the world (Wikipedia Contributors, 2019) and one of the powerful countries in the world. Neighbouring China and Pakistan which are two other powerful giants in the political world, and to five other south Asian countries with different political ideologies. Mr. Narendra Modi has been serving India since 2014 as prime minister. Since his arrival, he has focused on reinforcing the economy and international trade (Ambrogio, 2014). Each state of the Indian federal government has its own legislative, executive, and financial powers (Wikipedia, 2020b). Likewise, there are many political parties with different political views and ideologies influenced by different religionas, economical, traditional, lingual factors, etc. Furthermore, due to the high corruption in every Indian sector including every political body, investors hesitate to come to India (GAN INTEGRITY INC, 2018). However, new anti-corruption methods like educating the public against corruption and new laws implemented will combat this challenge (Falach, 2018).
Economical Factors in India
Considering the GDP value of 2.875 trillion US$ in 2019 India is among the largest economies in 2019 in the world (World Bank, 2020a). The total FOB export value in 2018 is 322 Billion US$ while the total import value marked as 617 billion US$. Textile and clothing imports weighed 11.50% in 2018 while India exported the same category 1.43% in the same year in total exports (WITS, 2018). The European Union is the largest trading partner of India worth 97 billion US$ in goods in 2019 equal to 11.1% of the total trade of India. Furthermore, 14% of Indian exports are landing in the EU as the second-largest export destination after the United States of America (European Commission, 2018).
India is expecting to double their internet economy from April 2017, US$ 125 billion to 250 billion by 2020. Likewise, e-commerce revenue growth is expected from 39 billion to 120 Billion US$ from April 2017 with a growth rate of 51% by 2020 (IBEF, 2020).
Even though the Consumer Price Index shows inflation increased by 3.7% in the 2018/19 period (Sitharaman, 2020), Indian consumers have spent over 21.6 trillion rupees which equals around 292 billion US$ during January 2020 (Entreprises SA, 2020). Furthermore, GDP per captcha, Purchasing Power Parity in India in 2019, is increased to US$ 7034 which was indicated US$ 6650 in 2018 (World Bank, 2020b).
Social Factors in India
With a history of 4500 years, Indian civilization comes from Harappan Civilization. There is evidence to prove they wore cotton and woollen garments back in 1500 BC (Know India, 2019a). Indian culture is enriched with ethical values, social norms, belief systems, artifacts, political systems, traditional customs, and technologies of their own from generation to generation (Wikipedia, 2020a). There are 780 languages in use in India. Furthermore, 22 languages are referred to in the Indian constitution as scheduled languages, with official acknowledgment and support. However, Hindi and English are the officials, but unofficial languages are widely spoken across the subcontinent of India (K&J Translations, 2020).
The majority 78% of Indians are Hindus by religion, 14% are Muslims, and 2% Christians. The rest of the minor population are Sikhs, Buddhists, Jain, and other tribal religions (Keelery, 2020).
India is famous for annual festivals, celebrations, and fairs. Birthdays of gods and saints, religious occasions, welcoming seasons of the year, harvesting festivals, raining, full moon in every part of India of their own (Know India, 2019b). Justifying the diversity, the latest and biggest sports festival in India is the Indian premier league. According to the US-based Duff and Phelps consultancy service, the brand value of the Indian Premier League is 6.8 billion US$ in 2019 (Special Correspondent, 2019). This is the company’s sixth edition of IPL’s annual study. Furthermore, stars in both the multi-billion Bollywood film industry and the Indian cricket world are also divine among the Indian society (Sengupta, 2013).
Technological Factors in India
As stated by Albert Einstein “We owe a lot to the Indians, who taught us how to count, without which no worthwhile scientific discovery could have been made.” India is leading the technology. India is one of the six nations that have full rocket launching capabilities (Wikipedia, 2020c), which marked their 50th space mission, launching “Polar Satellite Vehicle” in December 2019 (Howell, 2019). Furthermore, under the union budget 20-21 the Government allocated 901 million US$ to the Ministry of Science and Technology which is the highest ever in Indian history, and nearly 400 million US$ to the Department of Biotechnology (Resep Kuini, 2020).
Recorded 560 million internet subscribers, India became the second-fastest-growing and largest digital consumer market in 2018 after China. The number of smartphones for 100 people has increased from 5.2 to 26.2 from 2014 to 2018 (Kaka et al., 2019). By the end of 2019 total internet subscribers in India have increased to 718.74 million. Nevertheless, a heavy investment made by the Indian government upgraded fiber networks to 5G and introduced “Bharat Interface for Money” to facilitate e-Commerce in India (IBEF, 2020). However, In January 2020, e-commerce giant Jeff Bezos, CEO of Amazon said in his visit to India that “The 21st century is going to be the Indian century” (Gifford, 2020)
Environmental Factors in India
The world’s number one city with the worst air quality is New Delhi, the capital of India. Kolkata and Mumbai also are in the top ten list (Air Quality Index, 2020). In the list of the world's highly polluted cities, India holds 26 positions out of 50. Similarly, the 5th place in the world as a country (Air Quality Index, 2020b). Experiencing regular natural disasters, during the last 19 years more than 250,000 Indians died and several million became homeless due to natural disasters (SINGH, 2020) excluding COVID-19. Growing population vs. limited natural resources, poverty vs, basic needs, agricultural growth vs. damaging environment, quality of groundwater, and development vs. deforestation are a few of the major environmental challenges facing India (Mondal, 2013). However, National Clean Air Programme (NCAP) launched in 2019, Pradhan Mantri Ujwala Yojana Scheme (PMUY) launched in 2016, Swachh Bharat Mission ('Clean India') including 150 Million Toilet Construction and Rivers Cleaning (Clean Ganga) launched in 2014 the government has shown the commitment towards these factors (European Parliament, 2019).
Legal Environment in India
Foreign investments in India are monitored and governed by Foreign Direct Investments (FDI) of the Government of India and the Foreign Exchange Management Act (FEMA) of 1999. In May 2020 The Ministry of Finance in India had announced Foreign Direct Investments on Multi-Brand Retail Trading (MBRT), are permitted up to 51% through the government approval process. Furthermore, e-retailing is prohibited for FDI entities engaged in MBRT. However, multiple conditionalities will be reviewed by the government before granting permission. (Agrawal and Jain, 2020)
By section 6 of the Consumer Protection Act, 1986 consumers must be informed about the price, quality, potency, quantity, purity, and standard of goods and services through advertisements to protect against unfair and misleading trade practices. Furthermore, Section 2(R) of the same Act, protects customers from false advertisements in all possible ways. (Law Teacher, 2019). Finally, there are many labour laws in India to protect the employee as well as the employer mainly through the Worker’s Compensation Act, 1923, The Trade Unions Act, 1926, Payment of Wages Act, 1936, Industrial Employment (Standing Orders) Act, 1946, Indian Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, etc.
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