Nothing is more shameful than the act of mindless aping. And this is one marvelous trait that Indian should really be proud of. All the time we ape. Be it in movies or literature or in mass media we copy mindlessly. Without going to the details of movies and literature, about which we have read thousands of times in the media, let’s talk a few words about the mindless copy cat attitude of our media. 

Today, when I opened the news site to have a look at the budget, one headline struck to me, “India Inc lauds the budget.” Great way of news reporting as the headline catches the reader’s eyes instantaneously but there is something that gripped me. But is a dangerous word and it negates the essence of every good thing. (Hence my college professor used to tell me “But me no more buts!!”). So what was it that made me curious?

It is the use of the word Inc. I tried to search in Google and Wikipedia to know what Inc mean. I finally found Inc stands for incorporated. Incorporation is the forming of a new corporation (a corporation being a legal entity that is effectively recognized as a person under the law). The corporation may be a business, a non-profit organization, sports club or a government of a new city or town. When a corporation is formed to identify that it is a legal entity some suffix is added. For example in USA, most of the corporations have their legal statute incorporated under the in the US company law. Similarly other two legal names that are in vogue in US and used as a legal suffix are ltd. (stands for limited) and Corps. (Stands for corporations). Wikipedia defines the legal stature as :

“A corporate name is generally made up of 3 parts: "Distinctive element", "Descriptive element", and a legal ending. All corporations must have a distinctive element and (in most filing jurisdictions) a legal ending to their names. Some corporations choose not to have a descriptive element. In the name "Tiger Computers Inc." the word "Tiger" is the distinctive element; the word "Computers" is the descriptive element; and the "Inc." is the legal ending. The legal ending indicates that it is in fact a legal corporation and not just a business registration or partnership. Incorporated, Limited and Corporation, or their respective abbreviations (Inc., Ltd., Corp.) are the possibilities for this legal ending in the U.S.”

Unmindful of the usage of the terms and their real meaning our reverend media uses the word “India Inc.” very freely. But in India the legal stricture for company formation is different. In India the term Pvt. Ltd. is used for a company that is private(same as LLC in USA) and Ltd. for Public unlisted company or a public corporation(same as inc. or corporation in the USA). So how prudent is it for the media to use the term Inc.

Is it not the mind less copying of US media?

Our outlook is US centric and hence whatever is there in USA we tend to copy it here. I don’t say copying is bad (as I have cleared my engineering through copying only), but I loathe the phenomena of brainless copying. When we use some word we should at least try to know what it means. Today USA is the most important country in the world and we copy whatever of the USA. Had Germany being the most important country, I feel our media would have used “India Ag.”!!! 

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Not the semantics
written by Minakhi Prasad Misra, March 01, 2010

India Inc. is an alliteration and so sounds good. That is the only reason one uses it. Common man does not get caught in semantics; its the phonetics that matter to him. So if India Inc. catches more attention than India Ltd, why not use it freely?

And if you really need to get the semantics, whatever India Inc. refers to is not a legal entity. So, "India Inc." is safer to use than "India Ltd." as the latter has legal binding as per the Indian Legal Statute.

Agree with you on one-point: mindlessly copying is a disastrous trait, especially during exams. Even to copy efficiently during exams you need to know certain things before hand.

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Flights of Fantasy
written by Anuradha Banerji, March 02, 2010

believe me, at the first glimpse i felt it was something about a company called India Inc. but later realized that the word Inc. symbolizes the a group of industries. somewhere you are very correct in pointing out the wrong usage of word by the media.

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