Harley-Davidson, the legendary motorcycle maker, has set foot on Indian soil with the war cry ‘Hear the Roar’. The company based in Milwaukee, US, opened its first showroom in India at Hyderabad.

Anoop Prakash, managing director of Harley-Davidson India said, “We look forward to initiating a new era of motorcycling.” The company is planning to launch 12 models of the bikes in the country. There are also plans afoot to mark its presence in others Indian cities this year itself. This includes the country’s capital New Delhi and financial capital of Mumbai.

The bikes, fondly nicknamed Hogs, will be imported by the company and marketed in the country. The US-made bike will face stiff custom duties and piles of paperwork when shipped to India. This will result in its price shooting up to unbelievable levels. In India, the price of Harley-Davidson starts at Rs 7 lakhs (883cc model) and will go up as high as Rs 35 lakhs (1,800 cc model).

The US motorcycle maker with an iconic following is lured to India by its recent economic prosperity. Harley-Davidson’s foray into Indian market is part of the company’s strategy to enter emerging markets, as its customer base in developed countries is ageing and business stagnating.

Mr. Prakash said that the heavy and bulky bikes are ideal for the Indian roads. The company’s slogan ‘Freedom of the Open Road’ though may be unsuitable for the congested Indian roads. India has open roads beyond city limits, but the ride definitely won’t be smooth due to the presence of potholes.

Harley-Davidson was founded by Harley, a motor enthusiast at the turn of the 20^th century. It shot into fame with the movie ‘Easy Rider’ and is one of the two companies that survived the Great Depression of the 30s.

The Greenhouse Gas (GHG) emission inventory done after a long gap of 13 years is finally out. While the country’s emissions stood at 1.23bn tonnes of carbon dioxide equivalent during the last inventory in 1994, it jumped up by 41% to 1.73bn tones of carbon dioxide in 2007. However, India retains one of the lowest per capita emission figures – 1.5 tonnes carbon dioxide equivalent. When compared to per capita emission figures of developed countries, this is too low.

India’s GHG emission remains less than one-fourth of that of the US. With India’s huge population – almost 17% of the world population lives in India – the emission figure is condonable.

The increased GHG emission is attributed to the fast-paced industrialization in the country. Montek Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman, Planning Commission, who released the inventory report with Jairam Ramesh, minister of environment, pointed out that Indian economy’s emission intensity continues to decline.

Mr. Ramesh told media persons, “Interestingly, the emissions of the US and China were almost four times that of India in 2007. It is also noteworthy that the emissions intensity of India’s Gross Domestic Product (GDP) declined by more than 30 percent during the period 1994-2007.”

“India has the most updated emission inventory and we are not obliged by anyone to do so but the initiative was taken for domestic usage. We should now benchmark our emissions for 2007 with best practices in the world,” he added.

The energy sector continues to be the biggest contributor of GHG emission in the country, accounting for 58% of emissions. This is followed by industries at 22% and agriculture at 17%.

It is no news that India has been doing much better than most of the ‘developed’ countries, as far as finance is concerned. This is reflected in the credit ratings of many of the top Indian companies. In the past six months itself, the credit ratings of many of the Indian companies have risen very high, according to Crisil. It is believed that in the second half of the financial year, more than 100 companies will improve their credit ratings.

The number of defaulting companies has also decreased significantly over the last 6 months. It is believed that more companies will come out of the red in the coming months. Still, if statistics be believed, Crisil has reported that 13.1% of the companies rated by it still continue to carry a negative outlook as far as long term ratings are concerned. This will only increase over the next few months.

Today, 26 January, is India’s sixtieth anniversary of that date in Indian history when the country adopted its constitution. There is no better time to review the story so far and look into the future.

Indian economy’s kickoff was not as good as in other areas of governance. The multitude of restrictions placed on production, sales, import and export nipped the ambitious entrepreneurs in the bud. When many of the sectors were kept out of bounds by reserving them exclusively for public sector, the last nail in the private enterprise coffin was driven in.

Banking, insurance, oil and coal sectors were nationalized to the disappointment of private sector. No wonder India could post only modest growth figures during these decades of regulations.

Things started easing up a little in the 80s due to small-scale liberalization. This was prompted by burgeoning external debts and mounting fiscal deficits is another matter. The small increment in the growth rate was encouraging enough for the government to pursue the liberalization plans on a larger scale in the 90s.

There were skeptics galore arguing that a democracy like India can never achieve the growth equal to dictatorships. The tide began to turn after the turn of the millennium. It reached a crescendo when the growth rate reached an unbelievable 8.5% during 2003-04. Again during 2008-09, the same level of growth was achieved.

When the entire world, including the developed countries was reeling under recession, India emerged a winner with a remarkably quick recovery. The latest feather in its cap is the recent report released by PricewaterhouseCoopers. Based on Purchasing Power Parity (PPP), India is set to become world’s third largest economy, latest by 2012.

No doubt, Indian economy is headed in the right direction.