The campaign, he said, "is the step of a lion." The logo is a striding lion made of cogs, symbolising manufacturing, strength and national pride. The Make in India campaign aims at turning the country into a global manufacturing hub by smoothening business processes and attracting foreign companies to set up factories in India and invest in the country's infrastructure. The focus, on creating jobs and helping the "poor reach the middle class faster," said the PM.
About 500 top CEOs, including leading lights of India Inc, listened intently as Mr Modi outlined his vision. Good governance, he said, was not enough. There must be "effective governance that investors must feel."
The PM emphasised on a need to rebuild investors' trust and provide them with a better investment climate. "Incentive isn't enough, we need a climate for growth," Mr Modi said promising faster decision making and a better policy environment for global and domestic corporates.
Improving the ease of doing business was a priority, the PM said. And that the country must rise to number 50 in the world on that count. Right now, India ranks 134th out of 189 countries on ease of doing business, according to the World Bank.
He also launched a website - www.makeinindia.com - through which a dedicated cell will answer business queries within 72 hours.
Later in the day, PM Modi left for a six-day visit to the US, where he will meet CEOs of several Fortune 500 companies.
Speaking before the PM, India's richest man Mukesh Ambani of Reliance Industries said, "PM Modi dreams and does, working 14 hours a day and motivates a billion Indians to dream and do," and promised that his company would create 1.25 lakh new jobs over the next 12-15 months as part of the "Make in India movement."
Tata group chairman Cyrus Mistry said, "Key challenges like building critical infrastructure and putting in place transparent tax and Duty structures have to be met...Make in India is a unique opportunity for government and business to work together."
Other captains of industry also spoke, each pledging commitment to the Make in India campaign. The Modi sales pitch was beamed simultaneously in state capitals and Indian missions abroad.
Navratri is observed in the Hindu calendar month of Ashwin. In 2014, Navratri starts on September 25 and lasts until October 3. Durga Puja celebrations begin on September 29, 2014.
Navratri is the Hindu festival of nine nights dedicated to the glorification of Shakti, the feminine form of the Divine. During these nine nights, the mother goddess is worshipped in nine different forms. Navratri culminates on the 10th day with the festivities of Vijayadasham, also known as Dusshera. A common greeting during this festival is Shubh Navratri (Happy Navratri).
During Navratri, many Hindus in Gujarat and elsewhere wear colorful costumes and perform a special type of vigorous dance known as garba. Traditionally, garbas are performed around an earthen lamp or images and statues of the mother goddess.
In eastern India and in the Bengali diaspora, celebrants worship the goddess, Durga. She is venerated in the form of a many-armed goddess riding atop a lion or a tiger, and stamping on the demon Mahishashura. On the 10th day following Navratri, the statue of the goddess Durga is taken through the streets in a procession accompanied with singing and dancing to be immersed in a river or the sea.
In north India, Vijayadashami, also known as Dusshera, is the 10th day following Navratri. It celebrates the triumph of good over evil, and marks the victory of Lord Rama over the demon king Ravana. Huge effigies of Ravana are burnt on this day.
Sony’s
latest Xperia Z3 flagship smartphone sets a new bar for battery life, and
manages to last half a day longer than most other smartphones without cutting
back on features or power.
The Z3 is
the latest in Sony’s premium smartphone range, and part of its plan to replace
them every six months.
“We are a
latecomer to the smartphone market and have a lot of new technology bubbling up
inside of the company,” Sony’s head of mobile Kuni Suzuki told the Guardian.
“We want to show it off and use it to be more competitive.”
“Every
six months we find many, many areas where we can improve in both hardware and
software, but it’s only sustainable as long as we are growing in the premium
product market,” he said.
Sony
warned on 17 September that poor sales and negligible growth in its smartphone
division, primarily fuelled by failures in the US, would drag the company into a £1.3bn projected loss.
The Z2
released in April this year was a solid phone, but felt too big and bulky. Does the Z3 have what it takes
to bring Sony out of its tailspin?
Thin, metallic and glass
The
Xperia Z3’s smooth, rounded metal band around the outside, and the glass front
and back, both look and feel premium. Its nylon corners are designed to absorb
impact without shattering the screen, although they were not put to the test.
The phone
is 9g lighter and 0.9mm thinner than its Z2 predecessor, weighing 152g at 7.3mm thick. It is still heavier than the competition including the 145g Samsung Galaxy S5 and the 129g iPhone 6.
The Z3 is
thinner than most of its Android and Windows Phone competition including the
8.1mm thick Galaxy S5, but is 0.4mm thicker than the new iPhone 6. It is
waterproof to 1.5m for 30 minutes, with small doors protecting the microUSB
port, SIM and microSD slots.
The phone
feels solid, with little twist or bend in the frame, although I’m sure if you really tried you could bend it like an iPhone 6 with sufficient force. Tapping on the screen and the back plate feels hollow.
The 1080p
resolution 5.2in screen is crisp and colourful, with wide viewing angles with
similar pixel density to its competitors. It is one of the brightest screens
I’ve ever seen on a smartphone, but adapts to whats on screen a lot like a TV,
locally dimming dark areas for better blacks and a higher contrast with high
brightness levels.
Stereo
front-facing speakers are loud and clear even at maximum volume.
The small
bezels around the screen combined with the the 7.3mm thickness and rounded
sides make the Z3 easy to hold, despite the large screen – a significant
improvement over the bulky-feeling Z2.
Specifications
- Screen: 5.2in full HD IPS LCD
- Processor: 2.5 GHz quad-core Qualcomm
Snapdragon 801
- RAM: 3GB of RAM
- Storage: 16GB plus microSD card slot
- Operating system: Android 4.4.4 “Kitkat”
- Camera: 20.7MP rear camera, 2.2MP
front-facing camera
- Connectivity: LTE, Wi-Fi, NFC, Bluetooth
4.0 with BLE and GPS
- Dimensions: 146 x 72 x 7.3 mm
- Weight: 152g
Stamina to go the distance
In six
months, there has been little improvement in processing power between the Z2
and Z3. The Z3 is just as powerful as the older smartphone and as quick as the
competition from Samsung and HTC. Having 3GB of RAM, instead of 2GB like the
One M8 and Galaxy S5, makes multitasking smoother with many apps running in the
background.
The Z3
will easily be able to smoothly handle anything from graphically intensive
games to video and image editing.
Sony’s
built-in noise cancelling technology is as effective as most dedicated active
noise cancelling headphones worth over £100, but requires a special headset to
use.
The
biggest upgrade is in battery life. Sony claims the Z3 has a longest usable
battery life of any flagship Android or iPhone, and it has made significant
power savings with new screen technology.
The
smartphone easily lasted two days on a single charge with heavy use: push email
arriving all day, hundreds of notifications from social media, three hours a
day of browsing and 30 minutes of gaming, plus an hour of streaming music over
Bluetooth.
That was
without activating any of the battery saving features, which can reduce
processor performance or shut off data when the screen is off, as well as other
power saving tweaks to extend standby and usage time by days.
The Z3 is
easily the longest lasting flagship Android smartphone currently available and
shows that battery life does not have to suffer for thin devices.
Small additions to standard Android
The Z3’s
software is identical to the Z2’s, with Sony’s small customisations to Android,
adding theming for changing the appearance of the software among other useful additions.
Sony’s
apps including its Music and Video Unlimited on-demand subscription services
are decent, but can be ignored in favour of Google’s or other apps.
The
Walkman app is capable of playing Hi-Res audio files, able to play the music
regardless of the format. In my testing it handled 24bit FLAC studio master
files without issue.
The Z3
will be compatible with the Remote Play Android app that allows PlayStation 4
games to be played remotely via Wi-Fi or the internet, connecting a controller
via Bluetooth. The app was not available for testing at the time of this
review.
Camera
The Z3
has Sony’s excellent 20.7-megapixel camera, which is a capable point-and-shoot
camera replacement using its Intelligent Auto mode. It also has extensive
manual modes for those that want to explore their photography, with HDR, white
balance, ISO modes and metering all available.
The phone
can record 4K video. At the lower 1080p resolution it also has two levels of
electronic shake protection, what Sony calls Steady Shot. It uses the phone’s
accelerometer to smooth out shakes and jerks, and is impressive even smoothing
video shot on the move.
Sony’s
playful augmented reality camera modes can also overlay dinosaurs, clown hats
or party balloons in real-time into photos and video for anyone that wants to
do that.
Price
The
Xperia Z3 costs £530 in black, white, copper and green, making it £9 less than
the iPhone 6 and around the same price as most of the competition from Samsung
and HTC.
Verdict
The
Xperia Z3 is easily the best smartphone Sony has ever made and an improvement
in feel and design over its predecessor.
The lack
of wireless charging for something waterproof with fiddly doors covering the
charging port is disappointing, but it has a magnetic charging port for an
accessory dock.
It has a
tough job on its hands battling with Samsung and Apple, but the Z3 is
comparable in most ways short of a fingerprint sensor. A worthy contender for
the next six months with the great battery life making it one of the best
smartphones currently available.
Pros: great battery life, solid build,
waterproof, great camera, built-in battery life, PS4 Remote Play support,
built-in noise cancelling tech
Cons: fiddly doors for ports, no
fingerprint sensor, heavier than some competitors
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