A visit to India is good for the soul. It reminds you about fundamental values. That was our observation when we entered the arrival lounge of the Mumbai airport, our first stop en route to our Rajasthan desert drive event.

Mumbai airport is like Jaipur airport and New Delhi airport. All floors are marble or tile or stone. No carpets at all; very practical, economical and easy to maintain.

Then the luggage-push carts. Not a shadow to the luxurious German-made, escalator-capable vehicles that we have in the KLIA but practical India-made equipment, simple but functional, and anyway, no escalators in Mumbai airport for the luggage cart. That's the thing I would also have to say about Made-in-India cars honest values, fundamental features.

India has made slow but significant progress from early days when it embraced modern car technology via the Maruti-Suzuki agreement to make small cars.

In 1991, India reduced its socialist and self-dependence agenda and opened its door to foreign investment and technology. Today, it makes basic but modern compact, sub-compact and medium sized car. It still has the 1960's styled Ambassador cars made by Hindustan Motors and these are the official cars for the Indian Army and the civil service. Our story begins in India because USF-Hicom's chief executive officer Datuk William Chong is betting that Made-in-India cars will find a market in Malaysia.

Why India? Why not China? I asked him during our trip to the Rajasthan desert to test the Mahindra Scorpio, the first model that he's going to distribute in Malaysia starting April.

William, the DRB-Hokum group's automotive director, sees India as a great source of technology and value-for-money products. He spotted Marinara, a 50-year-old company whose tractor division won the Deming Prize and that is the world's fifth largest maker of tractors.

Its Multi Purpose Vehicle called the Scorpio is top Indian MPV, far outselling its nearest competitor the Tate Safari. The first batch of the Scorpio for Malaysia will use a Renault 2.0 litre petrol engine.

The Deming Prize is the Nobel Prize of manufacturing companies, awarded in recognition of best quality control. The Deming prize has its origin in1950 when the Union of Japanese Scientists and Engineers (JUSE) invited Dr. W. Edwards Deming to Japan where he taught the basic principles of statistical quality control to executives, managers and engineers of Japanese industries. His teachings made a deep impression
And provided the impetus in implementing quality control in Japan.

In appreciation, JUSE created a prize to commemorate Dr. Deming's contribution and friendship and to promote the continued development of quality control in Japan. The prize was established in 1950 and annual awards are still given each year. The prize, especially the Deming Application Prize that is given to companies, is a world mark of quality control so let's see if the cars will be as good as the tractors.

For Mahindra & Mahindra Ltd, the automotive industry is also about automotive components. It recently started Mahindra USA (MUSA) to enter the business of making auto components for the world's biggest car companies there.

For some perspective of the status of industry in India, here are some recent snapshots about the Indian auto industry: Bharat Forge has the world's largest single-location forging facility and its clients include Honda, Toyota and Volvo. Hero Honda, the Indian joint venture with an output of 1.7 million motorcycles a year, is now the largest motorcycle manufacturer in the world. India is the second largest tractor manufacturer in the world and is the fifth largest commercial vehicle manufacturer in the world.

Ford has just presented its Gold World Excellence Award to India's Cooper Tyres. Aston Martin contracted prototyping of its latest luxury sports car, AM V8 Vantage, to an Indian-based designer and is set to produce the cheapest Aston Martin ever.

Suzuki, which makes Maruti in India, has decided to make India its manufacturing, export and research hub outside Japan. Hyundai India is set to become a global small car hub for the Korean giant and will produce 25,000 Santros to start with. By 2010, it is set to supply half a million cars to Hyundai Korea, Hindustan Motor Industries and Ford.

The prestigious UK automaker, MG Rover, is marketing 100,000 India cars made by Tata in Europe under its own name. India is among three countries in the world that have built Supercomputers on their own name. The other two countries being USA and Japan. India built its own Supercomputers on the US denied India purchasing a Cray computer in 1987.

100 of the Fortune 500 companies are in India compared to 33 in China. Cummins of USA uses its R&D Centre in Pune to develop the sophisticated computer models needed to design upgrades and prototypes electronically and introduce five or six new engines models a year.