Source:  thebookseller.com

A month ago I became aware of disquiet among some Indian publishers that foreign publishers are actively encouraged to move to India by the Indian government. Demands to scrap the Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) have fallen on deaf ears. Indian publishers complain they have no support from their own government and foreigners are able to repatriate their profits. Indian publishers find it difficult to raise funds as they are not usually so well established as their foreign competitors and Indian banks are unwilling to accept books as collateral, so expansion is hampered.

Mr Harish Jain, m.d. of Unistar Books, established in Chandigarh for nearly 30 years, explained to me that throughout its history Indian publishing has been largely based on the family firm, so it could never develop the way it has in Europe and the United States, with massive investment. Despite being the largest producer of books, India has failed to make an impact on the world stage. Eminent Indian scholars are largely produced outside India.  Indian publishing has survived by concentrating on producing books for its captive audience of mainly educational books. These, according to Mr Jain, are badly written, edited and shabbily produced, due to demands for the price to be low and the disorganised and fractured state of the market over a continent-sized country with cultural and linguistic differences. It is this area that the foreign businesses are targeting. 

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