>India lacks even the most basic manufacturing. We import stuff like lighters, toys, and basic electronics. Why do we want to make the giant leap to semiconductors?
I already answered you more than once about your misconceptions or misinformation about Indian basic manufacturing, in my sibling comments to this one.
And as others have said, importing is not done only due to inability to make the products at home. Sometimes it is done for pure cost /benefit reasons. That should be pretty damn obvious to anyone, but looks like you missed that out in your assessment. Even so-called first-world / developed countries do it. What do you think the outsourcing from such countries to India for software development is about? It is about exactly that, at least some. You are a software guy, so you should know this. I am one too. If you work for them, do you think they would hire you in India, all other things been the same, if your price was the same as equal people in the US or Europe? Of course not. It would be easier for them to deal with their local people than someone partway or halfway across the world. Get real.
Do you know that we also export plenty of things, many of which go to developed countries too, and to other developing countries, and that some of the latter cannot manufacture some of the things we do?
As for your point about why we manufacture or are trying to manufacture semiconductors, that has also been answered by others, so I will not comment. Having some amount of self-reliance is the answer. Not just profit.
Same for our space program, satellites, etc, which I did comment about in reply to somebody else in this thread.
It seems you're the one who's plenty misinformed. Most countries outsource when labour costs in their own country inch higher and it makes sense to use cheaper external labour supply. Same is not the case with India, where labour costs are still extremely cheap. Even with sky-high import duties, we're not competing with China.
I never said we don't manufacture. There are few notable industries that we are decent at and export it as well: two wheelers, pharma. But we manufacture only teeny tiny bit of mass-manufactured goods, especially electronics.
Self-reliance makes no sense when you're trying to one component out of hundreds involved. Sure, it won't be entirely useless, it will decouple some of the chip imports for defense and auto, but it will do nothing to bootstrap the electronics industry.
I have to post another comment, even though I said I would not in my previous one, because your comment is so ignorant;
>There are few notable industries that we are decent at and export it as well: two wheelers, pharma. But we manufacture only teeny tiny bit of mass-manufactured goods, especially electronics
Note highlighted words and compare them with what I say below, people.
Check the result of this Google search that I just did:
>highest selling 100 cc motorcycle in the world
And an excerpt from the results:
>The Hero Splendor is the highest-selling 100 cc motorcycle in the world. It is a popular commuter bike in India and is known for its fuel efficiency and low maintenance. The Splendor consistently leads the 100 cc segment in sales, and Hero MotoCorp, its manufacturer, is the world's largest two-wheeler manufacturer by volume.
If that is not a mass manufactured good, I don't know what is.
>Self-reliance makes no sense when you're trying to one component out of hundreds involved.
What the heck does "trying to one component" mean? Ungrammatical again.
Overall, your comments are full of falsehoods and crap.
"lacks even the most basic" implies that we don't have the higher stuff too. That in turn implies that we don't have any. All of which is false, based on the earlier links that I provided. Are you saying that those are lies? (Also anyone can google that info for themselves.) Then be open about it, and say so directly.
That was such a global, wide-ranging and patently false and pretty insulting statement (even if ignorantly done) that you made about Indian manufacturing.
Many top Indian multi-hundred-crore-or-multi-thousand-crore turnover (in rupees) industrialists or groups like the Tatas, Birlas, Bajajs, Singhanias, Thapars, Godrejs, TVS group, TTK group, Munjals, Ambanis, Premjis, and many more, may like to have a word with you, or rather, would smile and giggle at your ignorance.
And now you try to weasel your way out of it by saying, in the comment above that I am replying to:
>I never said we don't manufacture.
Those two statements are clearly quite contradictory.
Laughable.
Even your first paragraph above is wrong.
I have had enough of your false arguments. If I feel like it, I may point out what is wrong with that, later, otherwise not.
And about this:
>There are few notable industries that we are decent at and export it as well:
Maybe check out the difference between "few" and "a few", which have opposite meanings (a mistake that Indians often make), and at the same time, improve your English grammar generally.
Can't help but post another link, related to what I said above:
>Many top Indian multi-hundred-crore-or-multi-thousand-crore turnover (in rupees) industrialists or groups like the Tatas, Birlas, Bajajs, Singhanias, Thapars, Godrejs, TVS group, TTK group, Munjals, Ambanis, Premjis, and many more, may like to have a word with you, or rather, would smile and giggle at your ignorance.
Not all of those are about manufacturing, but many are.
Their combined total revenue adds up to hundreds, if not thousands, of billions of US dollars, going by a simple conversion of thousand crore rupees to USD that I just did in Google.
I already answered you more than once about your misconceptions or misinformation about Indian basic manufacturing, in my sibling comments to this one.
And as others have said, importing is not done only due to inability to make the products at home. Sometimes it is done for pure cost /benefit reasons. That should be pretty damn obvious to anyone, but looks like you missed that out in your assessment. Even so-called first-world / developed countries do it. What do you think the outsourcing from such countries to India for software development is about? It is about exactly that, at least some. You are a software guy, so you should know this. I am one too. If you work for them, do you think they would hire you in India, all other things been the same, if your price was the same as equal people in the US or Europe? Of course not. It would be easier for them to deal with their local people than someone partway or halfway across the world. Get real.
Do you know that we also export plenty of things, many of which go to developed countries too, and to other developing countries, and that some of the latter cannot manufacture some of the things we do?
As for your point about why we manufacture or are trying to manufacture semiconductors, that has also been answered by others, so I will not comment. Having some amount of self-reliance is the answer. Not just profit.
Same for our space program, satellites, etc, which I did comment about in reply to somebody else in this thread.