The action's in India

It's probably not surprising that there's been more activity in India over the past few days than in East Asia as we've all been celebrating the arrival of the rat and/or shovelling snow depending on where you live.

But there are a couple of stories I've bookmarked which catch my eye and highlight the challenges of doing business in the sub-continent:

1. Reuters and Time of India owners Bennett, Coleman & Co Ltd have ended their 3 year old JV Times Global Broadcasting, which owns and operates English news channel Times Now. Local media reports suggest that Reuters is looking for a new partner for India broadcast activities.
2. Meanwhile, Cybermedia and its controlling shareholder Pradeep Gupta are reported to have taken over Dice's stake in their online classified joint venture which will be renamed CyberMedia Careers Ltd. That was also three years old and Gupta was quoted as saying "With this change in the ownership pattern, we would like to reward our 680,000 registered job seekers / users with several innovative services". The last time we wrote about it, the venture was losing money. However, you'd have to say that, with all we read about shortage of good quality, qualified people in India, the recruitment business ought to be a good place to be.

The moral here: there are lots of great opportunities in India. They are, however, not necessarily easy to grasp and they are certainly not sitting out on a silver plate to be grabbed by every enthusiastic western CEO who has decided that the flavour of the month is India.