I have long been a fan of what NIFT, the fashion design school in New Delhi, comes out with each year. This time, the President of India has taken things further, by saying that the country should lead the world in fashion technology at the Institute’s convocation. ‘This will enable India to tread its own path instead of proceeding on its beaten path,’ he said, and achieve an export target of US$70 billion, not US$23 billion as projected for the next five years.
   A lot of this comes from freedom of thought and a sense of values that I always see from India, which leaves me in little doubt that the nation will achieve its target.
   Interestingly, President A. P. J. Abdul Kalam used the term ‘Brand India’, which to me signals his thinking of the target as part of the way India will represent itself to its audiences. If that was the case, then this seems to be integral to the way the nation would brand itself: ‘Researchers in fashion design should be able to study the psyche of new generation men and women and create colour, texture and shape to suit tastes based on the wealth of our native artistic talent hidden in every part of the count[r]y.’ There is recognition of past and present in that quotation, without looking too much at the former.
   Of the nation-branding exercises I’ve examined since the 1990s, this is one of those rare times that the premier himself has spoken of one, and delivered a speech that seems to be part of an expression of its strategy. posted by Jack Yan, 5:53 AM  permalink