The next level

Jangoo Dalal elaborates on how India is emerging as a hot auto design hub and how intelligent networks would change the face of automobile manufacturing
The next time you pick up a glossy magazine to ogle at the specs of a futuristically designed car, you may just be able to trace its genesis back to India. Automotive engineering design services is the new buzzword and what this entails is the outsourcing of engineering and design jobs by global auto majors to countries like India. The automobile is one of the most complex consumer products in existence. And although, worldwide the auto industry is known to have one of the most mature manufacturing processes, there are dramatic changes in product...... more>>

War against piracy

SCounterfeiting is a huge menace for the automotive sector and for the entire manufacturing industry. Niranjan Mudholkar finds out how EIPR, an investigative agency, is fighting against this criminal activity
Sometime back, a huge quantity of counterfeit Lucas TVS auto parts and packaging material was seized during a raid on an auto parts retailer in the Kashmiri gate area of Delhi. Confiscated from the site were 580 pieces (regulators, condensers, distributor rotors and so on) of various fake auto products. In a different raid – in the same area – the raiding team confiscated price stickers, holograms, packaging material and auto spare parts amounting to more than Rs seven crore. The victim was again Lucas TVS. The owner of the shop was arrested. In another raid conducted on an auto parts trading unit in link road area of Ludhiana city, counterfeit auto parts material belonging again to Lucas TVS was seized. The seized auto parts in all the above cases blatantly imitated Lucas TVS, a well-known auto component major. In yet another raid, this time in Kolkata, officers attached to the Hare Street Police Station seized pirated auto parts. The polices......more>>