May the best man win

Marquee local brands passing into foreign hands has stopped evoking desi rancour

Time was when even fizzy drinks changing ownership from Indian to foreign hands was seen as a national sellout. Remember the hoopla around Ramesh Chauhan selling Parle brands like Thums Up and Limca to globe-trotting American transnational Coca-Cola in the early nineties? Or Kwality ice cream being acquired by the Indian subsidiary of Anglo-Dutch multinational, the then Hindustan Lever Limited. Or HLL again getting hold of Tata’s Lakme and Hamam in mid nineties. 

The debate then was how Indian firms and brands in the end were incapable of standing up to the might of the deep-pocketed foreign firms, and needed