India, believed by many to have the potential to become the next China, is finally making headway in the exports market as it broke into the top 5 suppliers of Christmas decorative items and t-shirts to the US.

Sea-borne shipments of festival goods and accessories to America touched $20 million last month, almost triple the value from the year-ago period, according to US customs data. In the process, India gained a clear lead over the Philippines as buyers diversify supply sources in the face of rising labor costs and disruptions from China’s strict Covid-zero policy.

One such beneficiary of the early Christmas present is Amit Malhotra, whose Asian Handicrafts Pvt. supplies decoration items to global brands such as Walt Disney Co., London’s Harrods, Target Corp. and Dillard’s Inc. He confirmed a 20% jump in orders compared to a year ago, and that he has bumped up production capacity.

“This year we have shipped over 3.2 million units of Christmas decoration, up from 2.5 million last year,” said Malhotra, director at Asian Handicrafts. “Though China exports a significant share of Christmas decoration items, many first-time buyers have been approaching us now,” he said.

The trend isn’t limited to Christmas goods. Exporters in Asia’s third-largest economy have been witnessing a significant increase in orders from both the US and Europe, with the shift mostly seen in low-cost, labor-intensive sectors such as apparel, handicrafts and non-electronic consumer goods. While diversification of supply chains began with the US-China trade war in 2018, India hadn’t seen any meaningful gains back then as countries such as Vietnam cornered the bulk of orders that wereaway from Beijing.

The pandemic, which saw China adopt strict lockdowns, is helping change that. India’s goods exports, which touched $420 billion in the fiscal year ended March, have already reached close to half that level in the five months beginning April. While that’s hardly worthy of comparison to China’s annual $3.36 trillion of exports, analysts view it as a good starting point for the sub-continent’s largest economy, which is currently growing at the world’s quickest pace.

“Taiwan, the EU, the US, Japan — all are willing to give India a second look,” said Alex Capri, a research fellow at Hinrich Foundation, set up by US entrepreneur Merle Hinrich to promote sustainable global trade.

Indian government data showed Christmas decoration exports in the year ended March increased more than 54% from fiscal year 2020 levels, while handicraft exports witnessed a jump of around 32% during the same period.

China’s continued decoupling from the global economy along with post-pandemic recovery presenting an opportunity for India to accelerate its investment in longer-term competitiveness and prioritize ‘winnable’ sectors, Siddharth Jain, a partner in the operations and performance practice at Kearney, said. By 2030, India is projected to have the world’s most abundant labor force, and could contribute over $500 billion annually to the global economy, according to a report by Kearney and the World Economic Forum.

“We have started to see green-shoots of this with India’s exports in FY22 reaching around $420 billion, far higher than earlier years,” Jain said. “This was driven by a combination of external as well as internal factors.”

India also managed to surpass El Salvador to become one of the top 5 suppliers of cotton t-shirts to the US this year.

The apparels sector, where India competes with nations like Bangladesh, saw an up-tick owing to multiple factors including a ban of all cotton products from China’s Xinjiang region over alleged ill-treatment of its ethnic Uighur Muslim minority, said Gautam Nair, managing director at Matrix Clothing Pvt., a medium-sized garment export firm. “The surge also further accentuated due to huge boom in buyers’ purchase and supply chain diversification.”

Medium- and large-export firms saw a jump of 30%-40% in their order books last fiscal year and the upswing would be more visible in the current financial year ending March 2023, Nair said. Matrix Clothing, which exports apparels to global brands including Superdry, Ralph Lauren, Timberland, and Napapijri, has seen orders climb by 45% last fiscal year compared to the pre-covid year.

Still, there are hurdles to the growth of low-value added manufacturing in the form of non-labor costs, warn analysts.

“The bigger problems are the legacy issues of contract enforcements, tax transparency etc.,” said Priyanka Kishore, an economist at Oxford Economics. “These do pose a challenge to India’s manufacturing ambitions and need to be addressed for the country to fully tap its potential as a manufacturing hub.”

Indian American doctor-economist Jay Bhattacharya has received the 16th Doshi Bridgebuilder Award in recognition of his consequential research focusing on the economics of health care around the world.

When the Covid-19 pandemic began in 2020, the Stanford University professor whose research has a particular emphasis on the health and well-being of vulnerable populations, turned his attention to the epidemiology of the virus and the effects of lockdown policies.

Named for benefactors Navin and Pratima Doshi, Loyola Marymount University gives the award annually to individuals or organizations dedicated to fostering understanding between cultures, peoples and disciplines.

Battacharya gave a lecture exploring “The Economic and Human Impact of the Covid-19 Pandemic and Policy Responses” at the presentation ceremony on Sep13.

“The Covid-19 pandemic has affected everyone on the planet,” said Christopher Key Chapple, Doshi Professor of Indic and Comparative Theology and founding director of the Master of Arts in Yoga Studies.

The event explored how we could have done better, whether in the US, India, China, or elsewhere in the world and what lessons can be learned to help public policy in the future.

Bhattacharya is professor of health policy at Stanford and a research associate at the National Bureau of Economic Research. His recent research focuses on the epidemiology of Covid-19, including the lethality of Covid-19 infection and effects of lockdown policies.

He has published more than 160 articles in top peer-reviewed scientific journals in medicine, economics, health policy, epidemiology, statistics, law, and public health, among other fields. He earned his MD and PhD in economics at Stanford.

Previous award recipients include Deepak Chopra, Zubin Mehta, Huston Smith, Vedana Shiva, Pratapaditya Pal, Tulsi Gabbard, Rev. James Lawson, among others.

Image Credit: Loyola Marymount University

Four Indian American teens have received the Gloria Barron Prize for Young Heroes, a national award recognizing inspiring, public-spirited young people. Two others received honorary awards.

Established in 2001 by author T.A. Barron, the Barron Prize is a nonprofit organization annually honoring 25 outstanding young leaders ages 8 to 18 who have made a significant positive difference in people’s lives, their communities, and the environment.

Every year, 15 top winners are each awarded $10,000 to support their service work or higher education.

Four Indian American winners are: Karina Samuel, 17, Florida; Karun Kaushik, 17, California; Laalitya Acharya, 18, Ohio; and Sri Nihal Tammana, 13, New Jersey. Arsh Pal, 12, Iowa, and Reshma Kosaraju, 16, California, received honorary awards.

This year’s Barron Prize winners include those who are helping the homeless; promoting STEM education; protecting wildlife; inventing devices to benefit world health; and raising awareness and funds for important environmental issues, according to a media release.

Karina Samuel founded the Florida chapter of Bye Bye Plastic Bags, an international student-led nonprofit committed to reducing the amount of plastic on the planet.

Karun Kaushik created X-Check-MD, Artificial Intelligence (AI) software that can diagnose Covid-19 and pneumonia with 99% accuracy in under one minute.

Laalitya Acharya invented Nereid, a low-cost, globally applicable device that uses Artificial Intelligence (AI) to detect water contamination within seconds.

Sri Nihal Tammana created Recycle My Battery, a nonprofit that installs free battery recycling bins and educates young people and adults about battery recycling.

Arsh Pal created Art by Arsh to share his love of painting and raise money for charities through sales of his artwork. He has raised more than $15,000 for organizations including St. Jude Children’s Research Hospital and the Make-A-Wish Foundation.

Reshma Kosaraju invented a way to use Artificial Intelligence (AI) to predict forest fires with nearly 90% accuracy. Her AI model can determine when and where forest fires are likely to occur.

“These outstanding young people saw a need and came up with creative solutions to help others and make a real difference,” says founder T. A. Barron.

“By honoring and supporting these young heroes and their amazing work, we hope to inspire even more youth to pursue their big dreams of changing the world.”

Students from the US are set to install over six solar powered weather stations in three states in India in the coming months with 5,000 participants joining climate change workshops across the country.

Apart from this, 33 students from Bronx Community College (BCC) and City University of New York (CUNY) would conduct air pollution research in Mumbai and New Delhi, beginning in January 2023.

All this would be possible through a public diplomacy grant from the US State Department as well as a three year $300,000 National Science Foundation grant with Dr Brian Vant-hull of CUNY Remote Sensing Earth System (CREST) Institute.

The announcement was made at the recent launch of India Initiative for Research and Education Collaboration of CUNY CREST Institute (IICCCI) at the BCC in New York.

A Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed between BCC president Thomas Isekenegbe and CUNY president Vincent Boudreau witnessed by CUNY CREST Institute Executive Director, Dr Reza Khanbilvardi.

BCC has been active with academic partnerships in India since 2019. BCC professors Neal Phillip and Paramita Sen, who have received the public diplomacy grant, have also in the past undertaken a sustainability focused study abroad program to Maharashtra with 15 BCC and other CUNY students. They installed a solar powered weather station there and participated in other science and cross-cultural diplomatic activities.

The event was attended among others by Consul General of India Randhir Jaiswal his deputy Abha Jaiswal, NYC Deputy Commissioner of Trade, Investment, and Innovation for International Affairs, Dr Varun Jeph, and Vice Chancellor of Dr Babasaheb Ambedkar Technological University (DBATU), Dilip Chauhan.

Jaiswal expressed his strong commitment and support to IICCCI’s collaborative work with Indian counterparts.

Approved by CUNY Board of Trustees in June 2010, the goal of the CUNY CREST Institute is to serve as a CUNY-wide institute of excellence in advancement of earth system sciences and application of remote sensing technology as well as other emerging technologies.

Image Credit: https://crest.cuny.edu/