New new thing, a phrase coined by Michael Lewis, business writing's equivalent of Tom Wolfe, is a favourite with financial journalists. Over the past few years, a clutch of emerging sectors, technologies, even business models have been anointed with the tag. The list, and it is a growing one, includes such worthies as nanotechnology, biotechnology, and, closer home in India, organised retail and healthcare, and now microfinance. Not all belong on the list as this definition of the term (new new thing) will show.

To qualify, a sector, technology, or business model should: be new, something that hasn't really been thought of, not just in India, but anywhere in the world; possess the ability to make a substantial difference to the market in the area in which it operates (this is what corporate types mean when they say paradigm shift); and hold forth the promise of wealth, for entrepreneurs and investors alike. The first criteria can be relaxed (if you insist, Constant Reader), but the last cannot for obvious reasons: money, after all, makes the world go around. Nor can it be satisfied partially: a company that makes money for its entrepreneurs, but not for the investors doesn't qualify.

Today, it is the last that makes it impossible for almost anything to become the new new thing. After years of turning a blind eye to products, technologies and business models that they didn't think up, companies and entrepreneurs have now learnt that while it pays to be first into a market, it certainly doesn't hurt to be second, or third, even fourth. And after years of playing safe with the stock market only to see seemingly-foolish risk takers grow their capital many times over, investors, especially those of the retail variety, see the new new thing in every company that makes an IPO (initial public offering). With the Bombay Stock Exchange's index, the Sensex, at 12,042.56 as this magazine goes to press, an unheard-of company claiming to be at the forefront of the nanotech or biotech revolution just has to make an announcement of an IPO to prove this point. New new things happen when there is no weight of expectations. Today there is no company, no technology, no business model and no sector that has this luxury.

Given the happenings in India, telecom should have been the new it services. It won't be for the simple reason that everyone expects it to (and the expectation-value and offer-price inherent in this argument explain why Bharti Tele-Ventures, the first Indian mobile telephony company to make an IPO, will never generate as much wealth for its shareholders such as Wipro and Infosys). That's one of the things that give the Indian it services industry a unique position.

Market Millionaires

Suzlon's Tanti (left) and Financial Technologies' Shah: Sold investors shares and some dreams

Not too long ago, the only way a person not born into a business family could get rich was to, well, try and pray. Businesses and, hence, wealth had to be built the old-fashioned way: Brick by brick, and over the long haul. Even then, rarely did any entrepreneur get fabulously rich in his own lifetime. The first exception to this rule was the legendary Dhirajlal Hirachand Ambani, better known to Indians as Dhirubhai Ambani of the Reliance conglomerate. He was probably the first industrialist to realise the potential of stock markets, and who made equity popular because of the annual appreciation the Reliance stock delivered to its shareholders.

Since then, other entrepreneurs have gone on to emulate Ambani, but it's not until recently-in fact, only over the last three years-that unknown business people have overnight become fantastically rich. You'll find two such examples inside the issue that you hold in your hands: Suzlon Energy's Tulsi Tanti and Financial Technologies India's (FTIL) Jignesh Prakash Shah. The former gentleman's wind energy company went public in September last year, and today boasts a market cap of Rs 37,000 crore. The 48-year-old Tanti and his family own more than 70 per cent of Suzlon shares, putting their net worth at about Rs 26,000 crore. Shah's FTIL, which makes software for online exchanges (it also owns a few virtual exchanges, including the Multi Commodity Exchange or MCX), has a market value of Rs 7,500 crore, with Shah's shares in it worth Rs 1,500 crore. MCX is also slated to go public, and has been valued at Rs 2,500 crore. At no other time in India, could a mere electronics engineer have created Rs 10,000 crore in shareholder value in about 10 years.

That's the good news. The bad news: These gentlemen are the creation of an unprecedented boom on the Indian stock markets. At one level, while the wealth they have created is very real, at another, it is not just notional, but vulnerable. Suzlon Energy currently trades at 52 times its earnings, and FTIL at an astounding 184. Will the two companies be able to deliver the kind of earnings that investors expect? Unlikely. What's going on right now is simple bidding and not necessarily smart investing; there's too much money chasing a handful of stocks. That, however, does not take away the fundamental shift that has taken place in Indian business. Equity investors want to become, and make, millionaires.

Great Game 2.0

Power play: A lone Taliban fighter stands guard

Blame the deaths of K. Suryanarayana and, before him, Maniappan Raman Kutty on the pusillanimity of the Indian government, or rather, its inability to play the Great Game according to its rules. The early players: Russia, China, the UK, the US and Turkey (under the Ottoman Emperors). The trophy: influence and control over Central Asia and Afghanistan. India entered the game only in the last decade. The reason is not difficult to fathom: energy. India needs oil and gas from Central Asia to fuel its dreams of emerging as a big power; hence, the need to project its influence in this region. And Afghanistan, with a friendly government in place, provides the ideal launch pad for that. The Great Game, unfortunately, is not your average spectator sport. It involves playing hardball with other powers and forces-in India's case, Pakistan and its creation, the Taliban-and covert, often illegal, manoeuvres to project and attain the foreign and economic policy objectives of individual players.

Unfortunately, India, which is still in the process of shedding its namby-pamby Nehruvian foreign policy legacy, is ill-equipped to play this game. For one, the government doesn't seem to have a clue on how much power it wants to project. It has a small detachment of about 300 Indo-Tibetan Border Police personnel stationed in Afghanistan to provide security to Indians working there. This is totally inadequate in a region that is so critical to our energy and strategic security needs, and should be beefed up urgently. But the government is waffling on this. No wonder the Taliban and its sponsors are targeting Indians, thus, putting pressure on India to scale down its presence there. It must also be more pro-active in tracking down and terminating the perpetrators of such heinous crimes.

At the micro-level, the government must learn to treat the personal tragedies that underlie the policy issues with more empathy. Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran's televised reaction to Suryanarayana's murder seemed cold and aloof. And the Andhra Government turned this tragedy into a farce by announcing a measly compensation of Rs 5 lakh. This magazine suggests that the government, as a matter of policy, should provide victims' families the last drawn pay and all other service benefits of the deceased (irrespective of whether he was a government employee or not) and provide free education to his children, in addition to the compensation. This will not heal the emotional scars suffered by the individuals, but will at least show that the nation cares and that citizens are not mere pawns in the government's global policy matrix. The crying need: a comprehensive policy on this ASAP. Because there will be many more such incidents as India's economic, political and military muscle grows.