India Goes Crazy For Western Magazines

NEW DELHI -- Hairstyles to crave and hints on how to get over heartbreak. This month's must-have lip gloss and a new nine-iron that will make your golfing buddies jealous.

At a newsstand in New Delhi, international magazine titles are often more common than Indian ones.

An explosion of Western magazines has hit newsstands in India in the past 12 months, pitching a familiar mix of consumption and gossip, relationship advice and expensive goodies.

Indian versions of Vogue, Rolling Stone, OK!, Hello, Maxim, FHM, Golf Digest, People and Marie Claire have all sprung up this year, and GQ and Fortune are soon to follow. They join familiar names like Cosmopolitan, Good Housekeeping and Reader's Digest.

Despite rising inflation and a slowing economy, India remains one of the world's bright spots for magazine publishing. Magazine advertising in India is expected to grow by 20 percent to $302 million in 2008, according to the International Federation of the Periodical Press. A whole new class of nouveau riche Indians has been created in recent years as the economy and real estate prices soared and two-income families became the norm in some upper-income urban areas.

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Comments

[Nommo]

Being American is not now nor has it ever been cheap.

[ebanks84]

I'm not surprised. Since they are making all OUR money for all OUR jobs that have been transported over there, they can now afford to purchase OUR MAGAZINES. We can't any more because we're too broke!

Hey, is anybody HIRING over there by chance? I might need to move!

[unscum]

Many westerners see India through the rose colored glasses of the outsourcing boom. Sure the boom is still there. But the reality is it is one of the most difficult counties in the world to live in or travel through. If the traffic, pollution, 13%+ inflation rate and endemic government corruption of India's big and now not so big cities don't kill you, the 50+ Celsius summer time heat probably will. My mum just came back from there to see her relatives, she says the India of today is not the the India she once knew; as someone who is retired in Canada (with free healthcare, government pension etc.) she vows never to go back.

Sure India has lots of potential, sure it's a lot better now than 20 or 30 years ago (for some). But unless you have lots of money with you when you go there, you'll join the ranks of so many Indians struggling to survive.

[1jadednewyorker]

This sounds like places in the US i.e New York or California ...If you dont have money it is foolish to move or live there.

(yeah I got my name honestly)