2018 SPECIAL.... 18 TRENDS FOR 2018

 18 TRENDS FOR 2018

ET Magazine looks at what will define the New Year in politics, business, sports and technology — from a fiercer face-off between Narendra Modi and Rahul Gandhi to promoters losing control of companies, from drones taking over the skies to girls going for gold in sports. Read on

NaMo vs RaGa: Bigger, Bolder Battle

The two leaders will face off as eight states go to polls. It will set the tone and tenor for 2019 general elections

This winter’s Gujarat elections shook the BJP citadel that has grown from strength to strength in the state since 1995. Does the unusually close fight between the Congress and the BJP in the 2017 assembly elections suggest a shift in or at least a rebalancing of politics in the country in 2018?

Of the eight states that go to the polls in 2018, the BJP rules three. Rajasthan, under Vasundhara Raje, has a crushing majority of 163 seats out of 200 in the current assembly. In Madhya Pradesh, Chief Minister Shivraj Singh Chouhan will be seeking a fourth term for the party, as will Raman Singh in Chhattisgarh, the BJP’s longest serving chief minister, in power since 2003. The other large state going to the polls will be Congress-led Karnataka. Four states of the Northeast — Meghalaya, Nagaland, Tripura and Mizoram — will also have assembly elections between February and December 2018.

In 2019, the year of parliamentary elections, these eight states will send 99 MPs to the 17th Lok Sabha, incidentally the precise number of seats the BJP won in the Gujarat assembly polls.

Both Madhya Pradesh and Chhattisgarh are seeking to extend the government beyond three terms in office into a fourth one. Antiincumbency is a formidable factor for the ruling party in both these states. In Rajasthan, the Congress has won back several local bodies against the ruling party. In the Northeast, the BJP has worked hard to spread its footprint in the predominantly tribal belt. In the only big state that belongs to the Congress, Karnataka is not likely to be easy for either the BJP or the Congress.

The Congress’s pushback in Gujarat — Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s home from where he was catapulted to the top job — is the first sign that the BJP’s momentum has been arrested since the Modi wave swept the party to power with a simple majority in 2014. The state polls in 2018 will measure the efficacy of the BJP’s post-Gujarat strategy as well as the longevity of the Congress’s fight across the nation under Rahul Gandhi.

Tough Choices in Governance

Big questions — from kisan to Pakistan, growth to oil prices — will confront the government

The government is likely to face tough choices in 2018. First, as made clear by Gujarat’s farmers, agriculture will need serious attention from the BJP-ruled Centre, especially with the party hoping to win most of the eight states that go to polls in 2018. But should farmers get sops like loan waivers and very high minimum support prices or will they be happy if the government’s targeted schemes on supplying cooking gas and electricity work out? A tough question for the BJP, and February’s budget will give the first clue on the answer.

Second, the government’s challenge on growth. Private investment is still sluggish, as is bank lending. How quickly the insolvency problem works out is the key question here. Equally crucial: what is the elbowroom on ramping up public capital expenditure? Hard choices have to be made between fiscal discipline and giving a sarkari push to the economy, on whether a cut in corporate tax rates is justified as a means to enthuse private capital. For the RBI, the inflation-versus-growth question will become sharper as prices stay up, growth remains modest and the government gets increasingly antsy about the absence of interest rate cuts. Again, the first couple of months of 2018 will give us a clue.

Third, Pakistan: the eternal dilemma for Indian governments. Narendra Modi has tried being nice and tried being tough but an increasingly dysfunctional Pakistan seems impervious to any messaging. As the general election draws near, the Centre will need to show there is a clear line on the troublesome neighbour. What that line will be — more cross border strikes, even bigger military responses, another offer to talk? — will be among 2018’s most fascinating questions.

Fourth, high oil prices. If Donald Trump or some other equally unpredictable force does something that spooks oil markets and prices rise steeply next year, a lot of calculations for a major oil importer like India will need to be revised. Keep an eye on Brent crude prices to get a sense of how 2018 will shape up.

As we said, 2018 will be the year of tough choices.

Companies Will Change Hands

The reason could be debt or disinterest. While promoters of indebted firms will be eased out by banks, scions of some business families may not be interested in taking over

Many companies are battling insolvency proceedings, and a lot of them will see either promoters giving up or being taken over. In June 2017, the Reserve Bank of India referred 12 accounts, identified as wilful defaulters, to the insolvency process under the Insolvency and Bankruptcy Code (IBC). Later in the year, it identified 28 more accounts as wilful defaulters. In November, through an ordinance, the Centre tweaked the IBC to debar wilful defaulters and those with NPA accounts from bidding for their own assets in auctions to recover defaulted loans. The 180-day limit for resolving cases mean a lot of resolutions/auctions will happen in 2018. The big names on the list include Essar Steel, Bhushan Steel, JP Infra and ABG Shipyard. A lot of excitement is around steel companies as big names like Tata Steel, ArcelorMittal and Vedanta are likely to put in bids.

There are 4,300 insolvency proceedings at the National Company Law Tribunal (NCLT), under the corporate insolvency resolution process, filed between May 2016, when the IBC came into force, and November 2017.

Insolvency apart, there is also a growing tendency among promoter families where the next generation is not ready to take over and run their parents’ businesses. They would rather go into a growth business that they can scale up faster. Some may not be interested in business at all. The only option here is to organise the family investments into a family office and induct professionals to run the businesses. Either way, watch out for changes.

Stars Will Again Rise in South

There will be more stardust in southern politics, with Rajinikanth, Kamal Haasan and Upendra making their political aspirations clear

Former Tamil Nadu chief minister J Jayalalithaa’s death in 2016 threw the state’s political field wide open. Infighting in her party, the AIADMK, gave hope to its bête noire, the DMK. But with DMK chief M Karunanidhi no longer active in the party’s affairs owing to old age — he is 93 — new political aspirants are hoping to provide an alternative. In May, Rajinikanth gave the strongest hints in recent years about finally taking the plunge. He will make an announcement on New Year’s Eve. Kamal Haasan recently said that he would launch his own party soon. Tamil Nadu has a long line of artists taking to politics: while Jayalalithaa and her mentor MG Ramachandran were actors, and Karunanidhi and his predecessor CN Annadurai were screenwriters.

The BJP, which is insignificant in Tamil Nadu, has invited Rajinikanth to join it. The party hoped that a merger of the AIADMK’s warring factions would yield it political gains, but the AIADMK’s affairs are still in a mess, with a faction controlled by Jayalalithha’s jailed aide Sasikala wielding some influence. While Sasikala’s nephew TTV Dhinakaran won the recent by-election to Jayalalithaa’s constituency in Chennai, the BJP fell behind even NOTA. The BJP, however, will rely on the five southern states to deliver more seats in the 2019 general election (the BJP and its allies won only 38 out of 129 seats in these states in 2014). It is keeping its options open, maintaining cordial relations with both the AIADMK and the DMK, which is a Congress ally; Prime Minister Narendra Modi recently met Karunanidhi in Chennai.

The NDA is betting on increasing its 14.6% vote share in the 2016 Kerala assembly election, when the state elected its first ever BJP lawmaker, and converting it into a few seats in 2019 but its ally BDJS, which pulled in a lot of Ezhava votes, is on a weaker wicket.

The BJP will bargain for more seats in Andhra Pradesh, where its relationship with its ally, the Telugu Desam Party, has seen better times. The BJP is playing it safe by not openly criticising TDP’s rival, the YSRCP. There is also speculation that former chief minister NT Rama Rao’s grandson, a Telugu film star who shares his name, might venture into politics. In Telangana, the BJP could break ties with the TDP and fight the 2019 election alone. (Telangana and Andhra will also have their assembly polls along with the general election.) How the BJP fares in Karnataka in 2019 will depend on the assembly election next year, which will be the first for actor and filmmaker Upendra’s party, Karnataka Prajnavanta Janata Paksha, which he launched in October 2017.

Fight for Privacy in a Connected Age

As companies try to map user behaviour, consumers will push back to protect privacy

Have you travelled to a new city and got a Facebook prompt asking if you would like to know what your friends did when they visited the same place? Facebook knows where you are going, who have been there and what they did. Have you wondered how many ways Facebook is using knowledge about you and not telling you about it? Recently, Facebook denied one of the oldest allegations against it — that it listens to user conversations through the smartphone mic and then uses cues to target ads. It is not just Facebook.

A recent study by Arrka Consulting revealed that more than 70% of Indian apps do not take adequate permissions for collecting data from users about their usage behaviour. Also on average, Indian apps ask for more permissions (3.5 times) than American counterparts. On top of that, there are concerns around biometric data, including for Aadhaar, and the Supreme Court will be hearing a batch of petitions on that in the coming year. Biometric data resides in your phone as well, which unlocks by scanning your fingerprint or face.

The counter attack for holding on to one’s privacy has already begun. The new EU General Data Protection Regulation, which will become law from May 25, can be a benchmark for the rest of the world for creating legislation in protecting personal data and in how app providers can use such data. Only last week, Edward Snowden, the American whistleblower holed up in Russia, released a privacy protection app called Haven: Keep Watch, a beta version of which is available on Google Play. This app attempts to protect users from unwelcome intrusions by using the camera, the mic and the accelerometer. Google is said to be working on an app that alerts you if someone is peeping at your smartphone over your shoulder. Both these apps use smartphone sensors like the mic and the camera, making you wonder whether while it protects, it also creates more usable data.

Motown to Take an EV Turn

The government is pushing to have only electric vehicles on the roads by 2030 — to counter pollution and crude oil dependence

The era of the internal combustion engines (ICE) is coming to an end across the world. India, too, is gearing up for the change with road transport and highways minister Nitin Gadkari giving a deadline: 2030. There are two big reasons for this – rising vehicular pollution and concerns around oil security. Today, 65-70% of the fuel produced by a barrel of crude oil is used for transportation. The US consumes 19 million barrels of oil each day; oil provides 92% of the energy that powers its cars, trucks, ships and aircraft. It is the same for India, the world’s third largest oil importer. It now imports over 80% of its crude oil needs, up from 37% in 1990. In 2017-18, India’s oil import bill is likely to rise a third to touch $85-90 billion.

Many pull factors are at play, too. There are marked improvements in EV technology, including battery storage capacity, its cost economics, charging time and range anxiety. The cost of battery power has fallen from around $1,000 per kWh in 2010 to around $227 in 2016 and is expected to drop below $200 per kWh by 2020. By 2030 experts expect EVs to attain cost parity with ICE.

China will lead the global EV wave — its manufacturers accounted for 43% of all EVs sold in 2016. In India, too, the government is making the first move. In Nagpur, the municipal corporation, Ola and Mahindra & Mahindra are experimenting with an all-EV fleet with charging infrastructure. Meanwhile, the first tender of 10,000 EVs was won by Tata Motors. The EV push will have dramatic implications for India’s Motown. ICE-focused car companies and vendors will have to either reinvent or perish. On the other hand, a rash of established companies and startups, from M&M to Ather Energy and Chetan Maini-led Sun Mobility, will find new business opportunities.

Ascent of Drones

Better technology and lower costs will see drone use proliferating across businesses, consumers and the military

Facebook wants to use it to deliver broadband to the boondocks, Amazon and Alibaba want to extend their ecommerce reach using it, industrial giants ranging from GE to Shell to Reliance Industries are all tinkering with it to keep an eye on their vast business complexes. In 2018, the drone will spread its wings. It will no longer just be a hobbyist’s passion or a behemoth’s plaything. With its technology evolving and costs falling, it may be ready to hit the mainstream. Ecommerce companies are expected to step up their drone use to deliver shipments, while medical charities can collect reports and deliver medicines quicker.

Much of this has happened because laws have changed. In 2015, the US Federal Aviation Authority, the aviation regulator, softened its long-standing antipathy to these devices and allowed their wider use. In India, too, the Directorate General of Civil Aviation announced draft regulations on civil use of drones in November 2017, providing a fillip to its use. Already, companies in oil and gas, logistics, supply chain, automobiles and several military units have run experiments of various sizes to figure out their use. With liberalised norms, these efforts are only expected to gather pace. Instead of a handful of drones whizzing about, experts predict that drone swarms will take centre stage. Dozens, if not hundreds, of small drones could buzz around industrial sites checking for leaks and defects, fly over large farms checking on pests, irrigation and crop production, and even upend conventional military strategy by taking over battle fields and using superior technical capabilities to outmanoeuvre human-run weaponry. As drones are being juiced up with the booster shot of artificial intelligence, allowing them to learn on the job, they will get smarter with each flight.

AI Will Play a Huge Role in Your Life

Thanks to artificial intelligence, businesses and consumers will benefit from reduced costs, improved efficiency and more choices

If you are a frequent online shopper, chances are you searched for, say, a belt, and the website suggested you buy something unrelated, like a coffeemaker. This will become rarer as machine learning, a subset of artificial intelligence, improves substantially. And with advancements in technologies for image recognition and search — Google has launched this feature on its Pixel 2 phones, though it is still in beta — ecommerce will be more interactive and intuitive. According to a report by PricewaterhouseCoopers, using different datasets to make predictions, including shopping recommendations, is the biggest area of focus in AI globally.

Moreover, Amazon, Samsung and Google are training the voice assistants on their devices to get better at speaking in and understanding Indian English accents, saving us the effort of repeating our questions. Given India’s multilingual nature — there are 22 major languages at last count and tens of other languages and variants — AI will make non-English speakers’ experience with gadgets less cumbersome. Banks and other financial services firms are increasingly relying on AI to better serve their customers and reduce costs. HDFC Bank and State Bank of India are among those which have launched chatbots to handle customer queries.

Healthcare is another sector that will be transformed by AI, especially in a vast, underserved country like India – it ranks a lowly 154 out of 195 countries on a healthcare access index. Estimating the incidence of a disease in a particular population based on extensive data and cheaper diagnoses are among the upshots of cognitive computing. Many entrepreneurs are betting on AI-based offerings to lift them out of obscurity; one of them, Bengaluru-based Halli Labs, was acquired by Google in July, just four months into its founding.

It might be a while before driverless vehicles are seen on Indian roads, but India is taking to AI at a rapid clip. A recent study by Capgemini found more than half the Indian companies using AI to have taken it beyond just pilot projects, a higher proportion than any of the other eight countries surveyed. The study found AI adoption to be the largest among telecom and retail companies globally. Most of us will hardly stop to think about it, but AI will play a much larger role in our lives in 2018 than ever before.

Biometrics Will Be Thumb Rule

Biometrics will come of age with more smartphones being equipped with fingerprint and iris recognition

Apple has not so much invented technologies as brought them into the mainstream. Think multitouch user interface and Touch ID, the latter of which popularised unlocking phones with your finger. Now with the iPhone X, Apple is using your face as a passcode. While Face ID is not the same as an iris scanner, which other companies have installed on their devices before, Apple — and its competitors like Samsung, Google and OnePlus —

could lead the way in changing how people interact with their phones in the future, particularly in India.

Biometrics involve the use of fingerprint, iris, voice or facial patterns to identify oneself. It is more secure than a PIN or a password. A 2017 HSBC survey of over 12,000 persons in 11 countries, including India, found that nearly half the respondents expect fingerprint recognition to replace passwords and a quarter of them say iris recognition will be the alternative. The study also concluded that China and India will be the most open to new technologies. Nearly a third of the Indians surveyed use fingerprint scanners, next only to China (40%), and Indians are three times as likely to have used iris recognition as the average of the 11 countries.

Offices are increasingly using fingerprint and iris scanners to allow access to their employees and millions are receiving government subsidies under various schemes through Aadhaar, a biometrics-based identification initiative. However, concerns over the misuse of the data collected for Aadhaar remain. Mobile apps are fast replacing passwords with fingerprint identification. E-payment companies like Paytm and banks use biometric data to authenticate payments and transfers. Facial or iris recognition on phones is glitchy and not foolproof – what fingerprint scanning was three years ago – but it is only a matter of time before it becomes reliable and available on a wide array of devices. Phones will soon have fingerprint readers on the screen itself.

TechSci Research pegged the size of the biometrics market in India in 2016 at around $780 million, which is expected to grow at a compound annual growth rate of 26% till 2022, making it clear that the adoption of biometrics is heading only one way.

Startups Bottom Out, Headed Up

As investor interest wanes, only startups with robust, scalable ideas will get VC backing

According to Venture Intelligence, a tracker of deal data, 74 venture capital investments, totalling $286 million, were made in India in the third quarter of 2017, sharply down from 104 investments worth $437 million in the corresponding period a year ago. The past 12 months have seen a sharp downturn in investor sentiment, as startups have struggled to enthuse VCs wary of backing ventures in this difficult business environment. 2017 was the year Snapdeal, once valued at $5 billion, almost collapsed, and a raft of funded ventures across apparel, food tech and grocery were shuttered.

The new year is likely to see wellheeled companies such as Flipkart and Ola flex their financial muscle (the latter has already bought Food Panda India in December), even as Amazon, in many ways a four-yearold startup in India, uses its war chest to extend its dominance in the country. The coming 12 months will likely see this trend accelerate as two or three players take centrestage, as categories such as grocery and fashion possibly see a further winnowing of companies. Investors are also expected to further narrow down their choices, and entrepreneurs can expect to take longer and work harder to close deals.

According to some industry estimates, there are 20 or more new funds, with over $4 billion in dry powder waiting to back fresh ideas. While some marquee names such as Accel and Sequoia have raised hundreds of millions of dollars in funds dedicated to India investments, other global players have seen top managers leave to start their own units. These investors will begin to cut deals in a very different market from 2016 and 2017, looking at prospects in newer segments such as artificial intelligence, internet of things, big data and blockchain, and away from overexposed segments such as food tech sides conventional VCs, tech giants — which made its first direct a concierge service in Bengaluru — ed to step up their dealmaking

Private Labels to Power the Cart

For both retail chains and ecommerce companies, private labels are crucial to their growth plans

Private Labels are brands owned by a retail store, hence often described as store brands or in-house brands. Private labels usually deliver better margins for retailers, making a lucrative case for investment in them. The phenomenon has not yet become a significant part of any retailer’s revenue in India — but this could change in a big way in 2018.

Historically, store brands were perceived to stock cheap, low-quality, generic products and operating in categories that do not have a high brand recall. However, retailers across big markets in the US, UK and Europe saw this perception change over the last five years. An economic downturn gets more consumers into buying products that are reasonably priced and offer value for money even if it means not having a big brand’s logo slapped on the package. This has driven retail giants like Walmart, Target, Costco and Whole Foods to grow their private labels portfolio aggressively.

In August 2017, Amazon acquired Whole Foods and its complete range of private labels. Shortly after this news, the Private Label Manufacturers Association, a nonprofit that represents 70 countries, shared a report which said that retail majors saw a 4.6% growth in sales of in-house brands in 2016, while that of established brands went up by just 1.1%.

Indian retailers and ecommerce companies are getting in on the action, too. By mid-2017, one of Flipkart’s private labels, SmartBuy, accounted for half the sales of cables and chargers on the platform. Amazon is making inroads with private labels like AmazonBasics, Solimo, Myx, Symbol and Echo.

At last count, the company had over 30 in-house brands in its fold globally. Data and analytics firm OneClickRetail has said Amazon.com’s privatelabel business may have clocked over $400 million in sales in 2017. Morgan Stanley expects the figure to top $1 billion by 2019.

BigBasket, an online grocer, expects private labels to bring in 40% of its revenues in 2017-18. On the brick-andmortar front, Future Group wants private labels to account for two-thirds of the products sold in its stores, and Godrej Nature’s Basket aims to increase the contribution of private labels to its sales from 15% last year to 25% in the near future.

Aviation Will Fly Even Higher

Backed by a government scheme, flying is set to become more common

Sometimes, numbers tell a story better than words. Sample this: domestic air travel demand surged to over 1 crore passengers in November 2017, a nearly 17% growth over the same period in 2016, according to the Directorate General of Civil Aviation. In the 11 months of 2017, a record 10.6 crore people flew within the country compared with 9.9 crore during the whole of 2016. Now this is set to rise higher.

The Narendra Modi government is aggressively pushing its regional connectivity scheme, UDAN — Ude Desh ki Aam Nagrik (Let the common man fly) — which makes flying accessible to millions of Indians by encouraging airlines to fly to under-served airports. Under the initiative, airlines will have to sell some of their seats (9-40) at no more than ₹2,500 per hour of flying, for which they will be compensated by the government. Five airlines were allotted 128 routes in the first phase of UDAN in March. The government has also given the go-ahead for 19 new airports and reviving 50 unserved/under-served airports and airstrips.

By 2036, India is estimated to have 48 crore flyers, which will be more than that of Japan (just under 22.5 crore) and Germany (just over 20 crore) combined. There is another statistic that underscores the Indian aviation boom: India will overtake the UK to become the third largest air passenger market by 2025, according to a recent report by the International Air Transport Association (IATA).

“UDAN scheme seeks to promote regional connectivity by serving the unserved and under-served airports,” said Vice-President M Venkaiah Naidu, while inaugurating the 2nd Aero Expo India 2017. Connecting tier-II cities, pilgrim towns and historic places with the wider air routes is important for boosting tourism and business travel, Naidu said, adding that India became the world’s fastest growing domestic travel market for the 22nd straight month, recording a 26.6% year-on-year growth in January 2017. The trend of more and more Indians opting for flights over trains and buses will only play out in a bigger way in the new year.

Year of Tremors and Showers

More earthquakes could occur globally next year and India needn’t worry about a bad monsoon

Earthquakes are among nature’s worst disasters, and predicting them accurately is a holy grail of sorts for geophysical science. While scientists are far from predicting them accurately, if ever, they are beginning to understand the earthquake mechanisms and hence are able to make better-informed guesses, according to one of which the world will see more earthquakes next year. The analysis was published as a paper in the journal Geophysical Research Letters in August this year.

Periodic slowing and speeding of rotation of the Earth are common. When the rotation speeds up, the Earth’s equator bulges, and when it slows down, the equator shrinks. When it contracts, the stress is shifted towards the poles. When this shift happens, faults, or cracks in the Earth’s crust, which are already stressed can respond by triggering an earthquake. The Earth slowed down marginally in 2011. According to the scientists, it takes about five to six years for it to manifest in earthquakes. The big earthquake in Mexico in September may have been a warning shot for next year.

Like earthquake prediction, forecasting a monsoon accurately well in advance is also extremely valuable but difficult. However, seasonal monsoon forecasts have been improving but are nowhere near the required accuracy. There are many factors that influence the monsoon, and one of the major ones is El Nino, which is a periodic warming of the central and eastern Pacific Ocean. The higher the degree of warming, the poorer the Indian monsoon most of the time. The year before last was one of the worst El Ninos in recent times, and it coincided with one of the worst monsoons in recent times.

As it stands now, temperatures in the Pacific are below normal and are likely to stay that way through the winter. Meteorologists who watch Pacific temperatures say that normal conditions are likely to return to the Pacific by April-May, but an El Nino is nowhere in sight. This directly does not correlate with a good monsoon, but makes a poor monsoon unlikely.

Secure, Connected Public Spaces

India will see a ramp-up in Wi-Fi hotspots and deployment of CCTVs

Wi-Fi helps people get online while closed-circuit televi sions (CCTVs) ensure security Both are basic building blocks of any smart city. In India, the penetration of both is woefully inadequate, keeping large parts of the population unconnected and unwatched. India has a mere 31,000 Wi-Fi hotspots compared with 1.3 crore in France and 98 lakh in the United States, according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of In dia. And the United Kingdom has one CCTV for every 14 people, while India is believed to be nowhere near, though exact figures are not available. But both Wi-Fi and CCTV could get a big push in 2018.

For instance, Indian Railways wants to ensure 2018 is safer for women by installing Wi-Fi routers on trains and in railway sta tions and CCTVs across all stations. The Central government is giving a major push to Wi-Fi with plans to deploy 7.5 lakh public internet hotspots by the end of 2018. The Wi-Fi rollout, mainly focussed on provid ing high-speed internet in semi-urban and rural areas, will be carried out by Reliance Jio, Airtel, Vodafone, Idea Cellular and state-owned BSNL, apart from internet services providers (ISPs).

This will help push e-governance and digital development initia tives, including the government’ Digital India programme. By 2018 Google will complete its deploy ment of Wi-Fi hotspots at 800 rail way stations; 227 stations are al ready online, with an average of 75 lakh users accessing the internet via these hotspots.

CCTV will see twin changes in 2018 — more deployments and switch from analogue to internet protocol-based cameras. The vid eo surveillance market is expected to more than treble from $700 million in 2017 to $2.5 billion by 2020. Most of the cameras will be installed in public places and commercial establish ments, with the share of households at just 13%.

In Delhi, the government plans to in stall at least 1.4 lakh CCTVs next year Bosch, Honeywell, Videocon, Pana sonic are among the companies eyeing the CCTV market. By the end of 2018 India might still fall short of global aver ages in public internet access and cam eras, but will definitely be better placed than before.

Destination Canada

More and more Indian students and professionals are choosing Canada over the US

At a breakfast event at the US Embassy in New Delhi on November 9, 2016, a senior diplomat from the Canadian High Commission discreetly fielded questions on whether more Indians would opt for permanent residence and citizenship in his country, with the new US President Donald Trump taking a hard line on immigration. Fast forward to the winter of 2017 and that trend seems to be becoming a reality. Canada is fast emerging as the preferred destination in North America.

According to the annual Open Doors report on international education released in November by the Institute of International Education (IIE), New York, and the US Bureau of Educational and Cultural Affairs, the enrolment of new Indian students in US campuses remained almost flat in 2016-17, just 1.3% higher than the previous year. Over 500 American colleges and universities reported an average decrease of 7% in the number of newly enrolled students.

Though the 1,86,267 Indian students enrolled in US campuses in 2016-17 still outnumber the 1,00,000 studying in Canada, the latter is showing a significant rise in numbers. In 2016, 52,870 Indian study-permit holders went to Canada, but in 2017 the figure is already 54,425 (till October). On the other hand, the number of fresh F1 visas (for those wishing to study in the US) issued to students in India was 62,537 in 2016-17, a drop of 16.4% over the previous year.

One of the important attractions of Canada for students is the fact it is 30-40% cheaper than the US, even at top universities and colleges. Besides, Trump’s stance on immigration and concerns over racist incidents are taking the shine off US campuses.

Optional practical training (OPT), a programme that allows Indian students to remain in the US after they finish their education, is now facing difficulties as the H-1B work visa comes under a cloud. Employers in Canada, on the other hand, are wooing Indian students studying in Canada especially those in STEM fields (science, tech, engineering, mathematics). Canada’s express entry system, in fact, creates a pathway for skilled Indians to get fast-track permanent r resident status and then citizenship. For Indian students with degrees from Canadian institutions, the road to PR is even faster under the Canadian Experience Class.

Girls Will Go for Glory

A standout year awaits sportswomen, with a little help from the establishment

It was the year the Indian women’s cricket team came heartbreakingly close to the World Cup, with 180 million people watching. It was also the year the national women’s hockey team won the Asia Cup after 13 years, thereby ensuring a berth in next year’s World Cup. India’s sportswomen certainly did the country proud in 2017. In individual events, too, India had reason to cheer, whether it was PV Sindhu’s silver or Saina Nehwal’s bronze at the Badminton World Championships in Glasgow or Saikhom Mirabai Chanu ending India’s two-decade drought with a gold medal at the World Weightlifting Championships in Anaheim, US.

With these victories and the few medals in Rio in 2016 being courtesy of our sportswomen, 2018 promises to be an even better year, provided the infamous “system” does not let them down. In team sports, both cricket and hockey teams are expected to do well. “The team can really look forward to pushing up their ranking in 2018,” says Viren Rasquinha, former captain of the men’s hockey team and chief executive of Olympic Gold Quest, a not-for-profit which supports sportspersons. In cricket, a tri-series against Australia and England awaits the team early next year. In an acknowledgement of their talent, the International Cricket Council’s women’s World Cup XI had three Indians: skipper Mithali Raj, Harmanpreet Kaur and Deepti Sharma.

Badminton is the other sport that has been on an upswing. “Sindhu is obviously someone you will watch out for. But another talent you cannot ignore is Gayatri Gopichand, P Gopichand’s daughter, though she’s just 14 now,” says Nandan Kamath, a lawyer and trustee of GoSports Foundation, which supports 93 athletes. The legendary badminton coach’s daughter won the Under-19 singles title at the All-India Junior Ranking Badminton Tournament in 2017.

Rasquinha points out that the 10-metre Air Rifle is a sport that is among the most competitive in the country currently, with a lot of promising talent. But to help our sportswomen inch closer to the next medal, the establishment also needs to do a lot more. “Their safety needs to be guaranteed and there need to be more women on sports governing bodies. At present, it is more or less men making all the decisions,” says Kamath.

And victories should beget more victories.

“The single biggest change sportswomen like Mary Kom, Sindhu and Saina have brought about is the self-belief in young girls that they, too, can win,” says Rasquinha.

Instagrammable Holiday

To post that perfect photo, travellers will be looking at new holiday destinations and experiences

The conventional idea of a honeymoon is to choose a destination with a pretty beach or a mountain. But Gauri Jayaram, founder of Active Holiday Company, recently had a couple asking her to help them book the Icehotel near the Arctic Circle in Sweden. Another couple contacted boutique travel firm Byond Travel because they wanted to spend their three-week honeymoon on a road trip through New Zealand. Thanks to the pressure to post holiday pictures that will have your social media friends exclaiming, “But where is this?”, and the increasing influence of travel trends in the West, more and more Indians are likely to ask for offbeat experiences in the new year.

“People will be either looking to explore conventional destinations in a different way or go to unusual places for their holiday,” says Jayaram. For instance, you might be interested in going to Austria with your family but rather than doing the usual guided tours, you could choose to hike 10-12 kilometres a day while your luggage is transported separately to your hotel. Byond Travel founder Vikram Ahuja expects to see more clients travelling to South America or the less explored countries in Southeast Asia like Laos, and Morocco and Zanzibar in Africa. “Europe is now being considered run-of-themill,” says Ahuja.

Uma Krishnan of Footprint Holidays, a boutique firm whose clients include Nandan and Rohini Nilekani, feels both Russia and South Korea will be trending destinations in 2018. “People will go for the churches and palaces in St Petersburg. Getting caught up in the World Cup fever will be the icing on the cake,” says Krishnan. With South Korea hosting the winter Olympics, the country is another attractive destination in 2018.

“People want to experience the flavour and life of the place they are travelling to. One way to do this is to dine with local hosts, which is getting more popular,” says Ahuja. Another trend he expects to pick up is acquiring a new skill on a holiday. Thus, clients have been asking about learning archery in Bhutan and salsa in Cuba, or in being trained to give a massage in Bali, rather than getting one. “Today, travellers want to explore destinations that inspire and interest them,” says Ahuja. Without forgetting their followers on Instagram and Facebook, of course.

Small is Big in Food

Compact eateries, home cooks and chef-led niche restaurants will be the flavour of the season

The big restaurant-opening of the new year is at The Oberoi New Delhi. London-based chef Alfred Prasad will open a modern Indian diner at the revamped hotel. However, for average Indian diners, it is not big and expensive restaurants that are likely to define 2018. Instead, the dining culture is set to change with much-needed freshness by home cooks, niche restaurants and small entrepreneurs. Home cooking — undiscovered recipes, regional ingredients and home chef-led concepts — is to get bigger as passion projects boom despite a tough business climate.

Expect more places like Curry Tales, a 40-seater devoted to home-style food from the western coast that opened last year in Mumbai’s Khar locality. The brainchild of Sandeep Sreedharan, who quit his corporate job to turn chef, it is now getting serious attention in the city, sans promotion. The Bohri Kitchen, a popular pop-up, may get into the restaurant space.

Sources say restaurateur Riyaaz Amlani is curating an interesting concept in central Mumbai with five niche, small restaurants, including The Bohri Kitchen and Saransh Goila’s Goila Butter Chicken under one roof. Goila Butter Chicken, meanwhile, is set to take the dish global with a pop-up in Melbourne at Masterchef Australia judge George Calombaris’s restaurant, The Press Club.

In Delhi, one of the most exciting new projects is Jamun, an Indian restaurant by Rakshay Dhariwal of PCO and Ping pedigree, where recipes have been sourced from a number of home chefs. From Telangana mutton to Goan rissois, this one has a smattering of dishes you don’t find on regular menus. Expect artisanal coffee, tea infusions and locally made cheeses to be on more café menus and retail outlets.

Small entrepreneurs with links to farmers and sourcing of millets, seasonal veggies and spices will flourish as the race for exclusively local ingredients heats up, wellknown chefs experiment and more restaurants like Bengaluru’s recent Go Native devoted to sustainable dining (all ingredients are sourced from nearby farms) spring up. Non-metros are set for more gastronomic attention. Goa’s Gunpowder and Bomras, Jaipur’s Tapri Central and Dragon House, and Savya Rasa in Pune, with dishes from the southern states by cooks hired from old messes, have attracted national attention. Expect more quality restaurants in tier-II cities as India’s eating-out culture expands.

ETM31DEC17