India exports more to Latin American countries than to neighbors and traditional trade partners

India exports more to Latin American countries than to neighbors and traditional trade partners 

                                                     

India’s exports of 275 million dollars in 2024-25 (April 2024-March 2025) to the remote Honduras in Central America are more than the exports of 201 m to nearby Cambodia. The population of Honduras is just 10 million as against 17 m of Cambodia.

 

If you think this is incredible, here are some more:

 

India’s exports of 382 m to Dominican Republic are more than the 263 m to Kazhakstan.

Export of 635 m to Guatemala is more than the 614 m to Myanmar..

And more surprises...

Exports to Brazil (6.7 billion dollars) are higher than to the traditional trade partners such as Japan (6.25 bn), South Korea (5.82 bn) Vietnam ( 5.43bn)…..and neighbors such as Srilanka (4.55 bn), Indonesia ( 5.38 bn) and Thailand ( 4.8 bn) 

Exports to Mexico (5.75 bn) are more than the exports to Russia (4.88 bn), Canada (4.22 bn) and Egypt (3.41 bn).

This is not a one year wonder..This is the clear continuing trend in the last decade.

 

India was the 7th largest supplier of goods to Latin America  with 20.22 billion dollars in 2024. This is just 1.4% of Latin America’s total imports of 1.4 trillion dollars in 2024. There is scope to increase India’s exports to 50 billion dollars in the next five years. 

Motorcycles ride the wave of export boom to Latin America

India’s motorcycle exports to Latin America were 1.5 billion dollars, which is 46% of India's total exports..

Mexico was #1 destination of India's global export of motorcycles in 2024-25 with 390 million dollars..

Colombia was #2 with 380 million.. and Guatemala was #4 with 173 m

Other destinations: Brazil 123 m, Argentina 89 m, Peru 68 m, Honduras 60 m,

 Earlier, Colombia used to be the # 1 destination.

India is the #2 supplier of motorcycles to Latin America, after China.

Car exports

Car exports to Latin America were 1788 million dollars. This was 25 % of India’s global car exports of 7.24 bn dollars. 

 Major destinations: Mexico 938 m, Chile 257 m,  Peru 160 m, Panama 68 m, Colombia 75 m, Costa Rica 59 m, Guatemala 54 m and Ecuador 44 m.

. 

Pharmaceuticals

Pharma exports were 1.8 billion dollars.  

Major destination of India’s pharma exports:  Brazil 520 million dollars (up from 416 m last year), Mexico 198 m, Chile 212 m, Venezuela 177 m, Colombia 157 m, Peru 110 m, Guatemala 89 m, Dominican Republic 73 m and Ecuador 40 m.

India ranks as the 5th largest supplier of pharmaceuticals to Latin America, after US, Germany, Switzerland and Ireland. 

India is the # 2 supplier of pharmaceuticals to Peru, Dominican Republic and Guatemala....# 3 to Chile... # 5 to Honduras and El Salvador...# 8 fro Brazil, Mexico and Colombia.

 

Major exports

Vehicles     4.88 bn

Chemicals  3.3 bn

Pharmaceuticals    1.81 bn 

Machinery  1.73 bn 

Petroleum Products  1.17 bn                   

Iron and steel  884 m

Apparels 684 m

Textile fibers and filaments 422 m

Aluminum products  592 m               

Plastics   492 m 

Cotton  495 m  

Rubber products 434 m            

                 

Imports 

Main import items: 

 

Crude oil  7.2 billion dollars

Raw gold.        7.06 bn  

Vegetable oil 3.74 bn 

Raw sugar 1.36 bn

Copper including concentrate   2.75 bn 

Machinery and equipment 855 m

Wood        548 m

Chemicals 436 m

Fresh Fruits 195 m

Cotton 182 m

Paper pulp 156 m

Pulses 170 m

 

Crude oil imports which reached a peak of around 15 billion dollars in 2013-14 has come down drastically due to US sanctions on Venezuela which had supplied 10 bn dollars of crude in 2013-14.

 

Main sources of crude oil imports: Colombia 2.18 bn, Mexico 1.58 billion dollars, Brazil 1.4 bn, Venezuela 1.58 bn and Ecuador 157 million

  

Raw gold import sourcing: Peru 4.46 bn (up from 2.8 bn last year), Colombia 834 m, Dom Republic 603 m, Argentina 466 m, Mexico 208 m, Bolivia 364 m (down from 1077 m last year), Chile 70 m Brazil 213 m,  and Brazil 46 m

 

Latin America is the main source of soy oil imports of India. Argentina is the #1 global supplier with 2.98 billion dollars (up from 1.9 bn last year), followed by Brazil 783 m. 

 

Brazil is the source of imports of raw sugar which India refines and reexports to other countries.

 

Chile, the main supplier of copper and other mineral concentrates from the region supplied 1.59 bn, followed by Peru 428 m and Colombia 103 m

 

Main suppliers of wood from the region:  Brazil 129 m, Uruguay 115 m, Ecuador 106 m, Panama 38 m,

 

Trade 2024-25

Figures in millions of US Dollars 

 

Country	exports	imports	Total trade
Brazil	6771	5435	12206
Mexico	5749	2869	8618
Argentina	1018	3737	4755
Peru	1002	4981	5983
Colombia	1472	3245	4717
Chile	1154	2604	3758
Venezuela	217	1647	1864
Bolivia	70	370	440
Ecuador	317	352	669
Dom Republic	382	730	1112
Panama	287	166	453
Guatemala	634	29	663
Uruguay	153	153	306
Honduras	275	35	310
Costa Rica	224	115	339
Paraguay	181	33	214
El Salvador	149	4	153
Nicaragua	159	24	183
Cuba	15	3	18
Total	20229	26532	46761

 

 

Trade from 2010-11 to 2024-25…figures in billions of dollars

 

 

Year	exports	imports	Total trade
2024-25	20.23	26.53	46.76
2023-24	19.15	23.75	42.90
2022-23	22.41	25.59	48.00
2021-22	18.89	25.62	44.50
2020-21	12.74	14.92	27.66
2019-20	13.18	20.67	33.85
2018-19	13.16	25.7	38.89
2017-18	12.1	24.4	36.45
2016-17	10.4	19.6	30
2015-16	10	19.7	29.7
2014-15	13.7	29.3	43
2013-14	12.77	31.31	44.08
2012-13	12.48	31.38	43.86
2011-12	11.33	18.42	29.75
2010-11	10.04	14.01	24.05

 

  

Latin America is a large substantial market of 19 countries, population of 620 million and GDP of 6 trillion dollars with a per capita income close to 10,000 dollars. 

Latin Americans have started attaching more importance for trade with India, as part of their strategy to reduce over dependence on China and and to diversify from the protectionist Europe and US. 

India is the 5th largest destination for Latin America's exports after US, China, Canada and Spain. This means India is more important than Germany, UK, France or Japan.

 Some suggestions for action to boost India’s exports

 

India should open embassies in Ecuador, Costa Rica, Honduras, El Salvador, Nicaragua and Uruguay. 

The commercial section of the embassies in the region should be strengthened with dedicated India-based and local officers with adequate budget. 

 

India should start negotiations for FTA with Mexico and Colombia, the 2^nd  and 3rd largest destinations of exports to Latin America. The ongoing FTA talks with Peru and Chile to be concluded soon. 

India should join as member of the Inter-American Development Bank to enable Indian companies to participate in the large infrastructure projects of the Bank. 

India should consider extending more lines of credit to the region. While China has given more than 150 billion dollars of credit to Latin America, India’s credit is not even one billion. 

China has over 60 Latin America study centres but India has just three.  The Ministry of. External Affairs should encourage and fund Latin America study centers to do research especially on Latin American markets and business opportunities.

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Latin America includes 10 countries in South America, 6 in Central America , 2 Spanish speaking Caribbean (Cuba and Dominican Republic) and Mexico.

Source of Statistics: Ministry of Commerce of India

My Name is Emilia del Valle - novel by Chilean writer Isabel Allende

"My name is Emilia del Valle”  is the latest novel by Isabel Allende, the 83-year old Chilean-American writer.  

Allende became famous after her first novel “ The House of Spirits” published in 1982. Since then, she has written over twenty novels. I have enjoyed reading most of them as well as her autobiographies. Her novels are based on her personal experience of exile, dictatorships, ideological conflicts, civil wars and other such familiar Latin American themes. She has used the signature Latin American genre of Magical Realism in some of her novels.

Emilia del Valle, the protagonist in the novel, is a strong-willed, independent and adventurous woman. She is the daughter of Molly Walsh, a nun in San Francisco who was seduced and made pregnant by Gonzalo Andres del Valle, a wealthy Chilean playboy while on a trip to the US city.  After being  thrown out of the monastery, she gives birth to a daughter whom she names as Emilia del Valle. When the biological father refuses to marry or accept paternity, Molly marries a Mexican school teacher in  San Francisco. Emilia becomes a writer of dime novels and later a journalist. She persuades her newspaper to send her to cover the Chilean civil war of 1891. In Santiago, she meets her father who has given up his adventurous life and taken to religion seriously praying, repenting for his past sins and making confessions to a priest every day. After making a will accepting Emilia as his daughter, he dies in her arms. She inherits a piece of land in a Mapuche forest area in southern Chile. She travels to the forest and discovers the natural beauty of Chile and the culture of the indigenous Mapuche tribe.

Here are some of her descriptions of Chile and Chileans:

-They say that from every corner of Chile one can feel the majestic presence of the Andes Mountains and their telluric energy that defines the proud, serious, and stoic nature of the Chilean people.

-The soul of Chile lies on the sea, the Pacific Ocean, which spans its entire length from the northern border down to the Patagonia. 

- The spirit of Chile is defined by water ...from the sea, blue lakes, raging rivers, waterfalls, springs, persistent rains, snow, and tears...water everywhere, save for that tremendous desert of nitrate.

-He had a lyrical manner of expressing himself that did not seem out of place in that country full of poets. This was something difficult to reconcile, since the same Chileans who so loved the beauty of poetry were also quite bloody-minded.

The author goes poetic in describing the forests in southern Chile as a 'vast expanse of millenary trees, the coigue, canelo, araucaria, hazelnut, and cypresses of the Andes Mountains. Green—a hundred shades of it—and, sometimes, from on high, the blaze of a red copihue, the national flower of Chile. Birds of all varieties, choruses of boisterous song and suddenly the silent flight of an Andean condor. The forest filled with the sound of the trilling of birds, the murmur of foliage, the babbling of brooks and springs. The pure, crisp air like crystal that seeps into every corner of the body and soul, rinsing clean the secret pathways of the veins and thoughts. 

Allende calls Chile as an invented country because she had lived most of her life outside.  She titled her first autobiography  as ¨My invented country¨. Chile has been living in her imagination strongly with nostalgia and melancholy. She looks back at her country more emotionally and intensely to compensate for her forced separation. It became even more acute since Isabel started writing novels only after her exile to Venezuela during the Pinochet military dictatorship. President Allende, overthrown in a coup and killed by the military, was a cousin of her father. 

Allende has brought out how the Chilean oligarchy controls and manipulates its political and economic power using the military to protect and promote their interests at the expense of the poor people. General Pinochet, during his long military dictatorship from 1974 to 1990, has legitimized and promoted the oligarchy’s power and privileges through neoliberal policies and constitution. This is the reason why there has been a historically strong and ongoing leftist movement in the country seeking economic and social justice through protests and resistance and calls for change of the constitution.

Of course, Allende brings out the Latino spirit in the novel with Emilia’s character, romance, love and adventures, similar to her own personal experience. 

Allende is lively even in old age. In one of her interviews, she says,”I have been in love all my life, with different men, of course. Love is beautiful and melodramatic. I am in my seventies and I want love, passion and romance, like any teenager, but match.com is not for me. No one online would ever be interested in a short, bossy Latina grand mother. Now, if I get to meet a guy I like in person, well that’s different. I grab him by the neck, or whatever part of him is closest to me, and he doesn’t stand a chance. We humans are sexual and sentimental creatures to the very end of our lives, a fact that makes my grandchildren cringe."

Allende is proud of her ‘being able to catch a man (Roger Cukras) as the third husband in 2019 when she was 77.  Even now at her advanced age of eighty three years, she lives a free-spirited California life with a full-blooded Latino passion. She says, "all the fundamental things in my life happen in Spanish, like scolding my grandchildren, cooking, making love and writing”. Interestingly, her first husband Willie has built a new house on a hill in San Francisco in the Chilean style and named it as ¨House of Spirits¨, the same name as her first novel which made her popular. 

While her spirit is wild, Allende is rigorously disciplined in her writing work. She works ten hours a day and six days a week. She says, “I get up every morning around six. First I have a cup of coffee, then a shower and then I put on full makeup as if I was going out to the opera. I get dressed and put on high heels, and then I climb the stairs to the attic where I work. I won’t see anyone, not even the mailman, yet I dress up for myself.” She starts work on a new book every year on 8 January. 

The 83-year old Isabel Allende does not let the old age to cloud her Latino heart and creative mind. She believes in the Latino saying, " Don't stop having fun when you are old. You become old only when you stop having fun. She is already into her next project which is going to be another memoir, although she says, "I like to write fiction because I'm a very good liar"

 

Mario Vargas Llosa, the pride of Peru and iconic writer of Latin America

Great novels never actually seem to tell us anything; rather, they make us live it and share in it by virtue of their persuasive powers. This is what Mario Vargas Llosa advises to aspiring writers in his book ¨Letters to a young novelist¨. It is certainly true in my case. His novels, among others, have persuaded me to become ¨Passionate about Latin America¨. I have read most of his novels, essays and his autobiography. His characters live in my imagination. His stories keep taking me on virtual journeys across Latin America, the land of Magical Realism.

My favourite novel is ¨Aunt Julia and the script writer¨. The story is about an adolescent boy who falls in love with his middle-aged aunt. She tries to dissuade him saying that his infatuation would disappear later when he would discover young girls. But he persists with his declaration of love and even proposes marriage. She again discourages him saying that such a marriage would not last given the society’s prejudice against their age combination. When he insists, she asks him, ¨suppose we get married.. how long do you think that we would live together happily?¨. The adoloscent boy replies impulsively, ¨two years¨. She jumps up in excitement, ¨two years… 720 days.. great .. it is worthwhile to marry for two years of happiness¨ They run away, get married and try to come home for parental blessing. His father stands at the door with a gun and tell them to get out before he shoots them. Llosa moves out with his wife and starts married life with a job as reporter in a newspaper.  It was only after finishing the novel I found out that this was the real life story of Llosa himself.

Llosa continued his adventures even in his old age after two wives. At the age of 78,  he fell in love with a 63-year old Filipino socialite Isabel Preyslor in Madrid. Her first husband was the famous Spanish singer Julio Iglesias. Llosa lived with her for eight years and  separated from her in December 2022.  Thereafter, he published a novel Le dedico mi silencio (“I Dedicate My Silence to You”) in 2023 at the age of 87 and announced that  would be his last novel. He died on 14 April 2025. 

He has written almost every morning of his life, publishing over 60 books. Llosa has mentioned in an interview that the two books that deserved to outlive him were "Conversation in the Cathedral" and "The War of the End of the World” on which he had put in lot of extra hard work.

Most of his novels are about his native country describing the life and society of Peruvians. A few of his novels have covered other countries. In ¨The war of the end of the world¨ the story takes place in Brazil. Llosa says that this was the best among all his novels, the most ambitious project he had ever undertaken and the book on which he worked the longest and with the most difficulty.  Another  novel ¨Feast of the goats¨ is about the Trujillo dictatorship in Dominican Republic. "Harsh Times" (Tiempos Recios) is about the overthrow of the leftist Guatemalan president Jacobo Arbenz by CIA at the behest of the United Fruit Company. The story of "The way to Paradise” originates in France and ends in Tahiti.

Llosa´s novels bring out the fascinating Latin American way of life, love, sex, relationship, politics, dictatorships, revolutionaries, religion and society realistically and magically. He was awarded the Nobel Prize for literature in 2010. The Nobel Prize Committee cited "his cartography of structures of power and his trenchant images of the individual's resistance, revolt, and defeat". The committee also praised his writing for shaping the image of South America in contemporary literature.

Llosa is a writer´s writer. In his book ¨letters to a young novelist¨ he gives advice to aspiring writers how to write novels. A writer, in his view, is a being seized by an insatiable appetite for creation, a rebel and a dreamer. Questioning of real life is the secret raison détre of literature, according to Llosa. He gives a Latino definition of writing novels saying that it is the equivalent of reverse striptease. In another book, 'A writer´s reality' he gives a detailed account of what provoked or motivated him to write some of his novels. He describes in detail the process of his writing the novels and the influences and inspiration behind them.

In his autobiography "A fish in the water" written in 1993 he has given a glimpse of his evolution as a writer. When he mentioned his interest in becoming a writer, his father was against it. His father believed that 'writers and poets were all drunks and faggots’.  So he sent the 14-year old Llosa to a Military Academy to make a proper man out of him. He took a revenge on his father by making the military academy as the subject of his first novel 'The Time of the Hero'!.  But Llosa’s narratives about the underground unsavory activities in the academy enraged the administration.  They rounded up 1000 copies of the book and set them on fire in an official ceremony. But a judge for Spain's prestigious Premio Biblioteca Breve Prize declared it "the best novel in the Spanish language in the past 30 years”. The Time of the Hero was among the first sensations of a transformative age of Latin American literature known as the Boom which included other major writers  such as Gabriel García Márquez, Julio Cortázar and Carlos Fuentes. 

Llosa had a parallel career as a journalist. He started writing for La Cronica newspaper of Lima  from the age of fourteen. He has written numerous coloumns and opinion pieces in many newspapers and magazines. Llosa says, “ journalism has the other side of my literary career” 

Llosa attributes his literary success to reading. According to him, 'reading is a protest against the insufficiencies of life. When we look in fiction for what is missing in life, we are saying, with no need to say it or even to know it, that life as it is does not satisfy our thirst for the absolute – the foundation of the human condition – and should be better. We invent fictions in order to live somehow the many lives we would like to lead when we barely have one at our disposal’. 

Llosa has credited French writers as the most significant literary and intellectual influence on him. The French inducted him into the Académie Française on February 9, 2023, making him the first member of the Academy although he had never written a book in French. 

As an aspiring writer, he dreamed of going to France, the land of great writers who had inspired him. He did not see much scope for a writer in Peru, which had no worthwhile publishers or great bookstores. The funny thing was that when he finally went to France, he found the French raving about Latin American literature. They were reading Borges, Cortázar, Fuentes, and Marquez. Llosa confesses, " In Paris, I began to feel like a Peruvian, a Latin American”.

Politically, Llosa started off as a Marxist.  But after getting disillusioned with the failure and authoritarionism of socialism in Soviet Union and Cuba, he turned to the right. He stood in the Peruvian presidential elections in 1990 but lost to Fujimori. Llosa has remained as a strong critic of the leftist governments in Latin America. 

When I was Head of the Latin America division in the Ministry of External Affairs in 2004-7, I had arranged an invitation for Llosa to visit India as the guest of Indian Council for Cultural Relations in 2006. He had accepted the invitation but could not give date since he was busy for the next several months. Later, I tried to invite him for the Latin America conference organised by the India International Centre in February 2023 but he was not available.

Cheers ..to Chile....

Cheers to Chile...

Chilean President Gabriel Boric is in New Delhi today with a large business delegation. His focus is trade and investment.

Some Indians might think that Chile is a small market of 20 million people and it is too far from India.

But Chile is more important for India's exports than some of our neighbouring countries. 

In 2023-24 (April-March) India exported 1.2 billion dollars of goods to Chile. This is more than India’s exports to neighbouring countries such as Cambodia - 185 million dollars, Kazakhstan - 237 m or Myanmar - 670 m.

Main exports are vehicles, pharmaceuticals, equipments and machinery, textiles and chemicals.

The largest EPC contract won by an Indian company in Latin America is not in Brazil or Mexico but in the little Chile. Kalpataru Projects International from Mumbai has secured a 431 million dollar EPC project for building a power transmission line in Chile. This is the single largest project contract of any Indian company in Latin America.

Chile has a unique programme called as "Start-up Chile" inviting foreign start ups to establish centres in Santiago. The Chileans give  40,000 dollars besides other incentives and benefits. Dozens of Indian start-up entrepreneurs have taken advantage of this, Every year there are some Indian start ups setting up their innovation centres in Santiago.  

Falabella, the Chilean retail chain store has a Technology Development centre in Bengaluru employing 250 Indian IT staff. They also have an office in India to procure textiles and other goods for their stores in Latin America.

Chile is the largest Latin American supplier of fresh fruits to India. These are: apples, cherries, pears, grapes, blueberries, plums, mandarins, kiwifruits as well as walnuts.

India and Chile have signed a PTA (Preferential Trade Agreement) under which Chile offers duty concessions on 1798 Indian producs with Margin of Preference (MoP) ranging from 30%-100%. India gives concessions to 1031 Chilean products with MoP ranging from 10%-100%. In any case, Chile has one of the lowest average customs duties (6%) in Latin America.
How important is India for Chile?

India is the 6th largest export market for Chile. This means they export more to India than to Germany, France, UK or Spain. 

In 2024, Chile exported to India 2.55 billion dollars of goods. Major exports: Copper concentrate-1.6 billion dollars, Copper-361 million, Chemicals-221 m, fruits- 150 m and wood pulp 97 m.

Chile is not just about business ….Chile entertains Indians and elevates their spirit.

The Chilean actress Jennifer Mayani has acted in nine Bollywood movies since 2005. The movies are: Good Boy-Bad Boy, Heyy Babyy, Om Shanti Om, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Bhram, Desi Boyz, Victory, Apartment and Golmaal 3

Chile elevates Indian spirit with its famous wines. Chilean wines are available in wine shops across India. The popular Chilean varietals are Carmenere, Merlot, Cabernet Savignon, Pinot Noire, Chardonnay and Savignon Blanc. 

Cheers to Chile...

Chilean actress in Bollywood

The Chilean actress Jennifer Mayani, is part of Chilean President Gabriel Boric's delegation, visiting India next week. 

Mayani has been acting in Bollywood movies since 2005 starting with the Hindi film Dus. She has acted in a total of 10 films including  Good Boy-Bad Boy, Heyy Babyy, Om Shanti Om, Jaane Bhi Do Yaaron, Bhram, Desi Boyz, Victory, Apartment and Golmaal 3.

Mayani has done modelling in Indian commercial ads and walked the ramps in fashion shows.

She is of Sindhi origin born in Punta Arenas, the southern most town in Chile. There is a small Indian community of a few Sindhi families settled in Punta Arenas. There are a few hundred Sindhis in other Chilean cities such as Santiago and Iquique.

Latin American actors in Indian films

Mayani is the latest Latin American actor to enter Indian films.

Mexican actress Barbara Mori acted as heroine in the Bollywood film ̈Kites ̈ released in 2010 

The following six Brazilian actresses have acted in Bollywood films: 

Bruna Abdullah - started off with an item number in Cash, followed by a small role and a special number in I Hate Luv Storys (2010) and Desi Boyz (2011) respectively. In 2012 she appeared in a Tamil film, Billa II. 

Izabelle Leite- Initially labelled the 'mystery woman' that cricketer Virat Kohli was spotted shopping with in Singapore, the Brazilian model has made her Hindi film debut with Raj Purohit's Sixteen. 

Giselli Monteiro- She surprised the audience by playing a typical Punjabi girl in Imtiaz Ali's Love Aaj Kal, starring Saif Ali Khan and Deepika Padukone. Then, in 2011, she appeared in Always Kabhi Kabhi, which was produced by Shah Rukh Khan. 

Gabriela Bertante- came to India in 2010 and took part in a fashion week in Mumbai. she was roped in as a VJ on a popular youth channel. In 2012, she appeared in back-to-back Tamil and Telugu films, Billa II, Devudu Chesina Manushulu and Cameraman Gangatho Rambabu. 

Nathalia Pinheiro- Also known as Nathalia Kaur, she was born in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. She won a calendar's model hunt contest in 2012 and appeared in it that year. Later, she made her film debut in the Kannada film, Dev Son Of Mudde Gowda, followed by an item number in Ram Gopal Varma's Amitabh Bachchan-Sanjay Dutt starrer Department (2012). 

Mariah Gomes- She made her B-town debut with a hit item song, Neeyat Kharab Hai in the Amitabh Bachchan-Ben Kingsley starrer Teen Patti (2010). Then, in 2011, the Brazilian model landed a full-fledged role opposite Prateik in Rohan Sippy's Dum Maro Dum. 

Vallery Maravi, a Peruvian actress has acted in a Kannadiga film "Neenilada Male" which was released in 2018. 

Reynaldo Arenas, a Peruvian actor, coproduced a film in collaboration with Bollywood producers and also acted in the film. 

Indian actor in Latin America

Prabhakar Sharan from Motihari in Bihar, settled in Costa Rica, has acted as hero in a Costa Rican film, Enredados, La Confusion ( Entangled, the confusion).

Indian film producer in Honduras

Mathew Kodath of Kerala, settled in Honduras, produced a Spanish film “Amor y Frijoles” ( Love and Beans- 2009) and another film “Quien Paga La Cuenta” (Who Pays The Bill?-2013) His production company Guacamaya Films also makes television content, including serials and soaps, for two of the biggest television channels in Honduras. 

Indian film shooting in Latin America

Indian producers have started going to Latin America for location shootings. A telugu film Sarrainodu starring Allu Arjun was shot in the famous Uyuni Salt field area of Bolivia in 2016. 

Rajnikant shot a dancing sequence in Machu Pichu, Peru for his film Robot. This was the first ever and last ever film shooting in the sacred premises of Machu Pichu. The Peruvians have banned film shootings after Rajnikant’s dance.

 Endemol India shot a TV serial ́Jor Ka Jhatka ́ in Buenos Aires in December 2010 – January 2011 with 28 Indian actors who stayed here for 40 days. This show was hosted by Shahrukh Khan in Imagine channel in February 2011. 

Some parts of Indian reality show--Khatron ke khiladi--was shot in Argentina starring Bollywood actor Arjun Kapoor. 

Film collaborations

An Argentine director Pablo Cesar made a feature film ̈Unicorn-the garden of fruits ̈ in 1996 as a coproduction with India and made a few more later. His new film ̈Thinking of Him ̈ based on the romantic story of meeting of Tagore with Victoria O ́campo in Buenos Aires was premiered on 28 November 2017 in the Goa Film Festival.

The Argentine musician, Gustavo Santaolalla composed music for the Amir Khan film ̈Dhobi Ghat ̈ directed by Kiran Rao. This was released in January 2011.

Yash Raj Films had collaborated with Colombia’s 64-A Films to remake their Bollywood films in Spanish for Colombian audience. 

Team Toon Studio of Barranquilla in Colombia has made a cartoon film for an Indian producer in 2017. 

Alfonso Cuaron, the Mexican film director and Oscar winner, supports and mentors an Indian film maker Chaitanya Tamnahne in the making of the film "The disciple". This movie, about North Indian classical music, became the first Indian movie to play in Venice competition in 20 years last week, where it won Best Screenplay award. 

Television

Indian TV channels have shown Latin American soap operas such as Ugly Betty and Second Chance. 

Omm Moo (yoga for kids 4-9 years) a famous Colombian TV serial (2013 production) was telecast in Tamil by Sun TV in Tamilnadu. The 26 episode (7 minutes each) series mixes 3D and 2D animation with live-action and shows cows solving their problems using the exercise method of yoga. 

Zindagi channel of India telecast in 2017 a Brazilian soap opera" Total Dreamer" ( totalmente demais) which ran into 175 episodes. This is a Globo TV production telecast in Brazil in 2015-16 

Zee TV has a Spanish channel ZeeMundo with Bollywood movies for Latin American viewers. 

Globo TV of Brazil produced and telecast a soap opera ̈Camino das Indias – Passage to India ̈ in 2009. It was partly shot in India and there were Indian characters and Indian costumes. It got the highest ratings during the eight months of its telecast and stimulated Brazilian interest in India. It has been dubbed in Spanish and telecast in other Latin American countries. 

Bollywood films popular in Latin America

Bollywood films are popular in Latin America. In Peru, there are even fan clubs such as "Shah Rukh Khan Fan Club Perú" and "Club Internacional SRK Universe Perú," which are recognized by SRK and have a strong online presence on Facebook and Instagram. The Indian embassies use Indian films as part of 'soft power public diplomacy’, through organisation of Indian film festivals across the region.

India's exports to Latin America were 20.2 billion dollars in 2024

India’s exports to Latin America in 2024 (January-December) increased marginally to 20.2 billion US dollars from 19.7 billion in 2023.

Top destinations:

Brazil         6.54 billion

Mexico      5.72 bn

Colombia 1.38 bn

Chile         1.14

Argentina 1.0

Peru           947 million

Guatemala 616 m

Main exports:

Vehicles 4.66 bn

Chemicals 3 bn

Equipments and machinery 3 bn

Pharmaceuticals 1.75 bn

Exports of Motorcycles have increased to 1.4 billion dollars in 2024 from 928 m in 2023. India is the second largest supplier of motorcycles to Latin America after China.

Imports 

Imports from Latin America increased to 26 bn in 2024 from 24.5 bn in 2023

Major sources of import:

Brazil  5.25 billion dollars

Peru  4.73 bn

Argentina 3.45 bn

Colombia 3.1 bn

Mexico 2.92 bn

Venezuela 2.07 bn

Dom Republic  731 million

Bolivia 410 m

Peru has emerged as the second major Latin American supplier  in 2024 overtaking Mexico which has become fifth after Argentina and Colombia.  Main reason is reduction in imports of Mexican crude oil in 2024. 

On the other hand, Venezuela had supplied 2 billion dollars of crude oil in 2024 after the stoppage of supply in the previous 3 years due to US sanctions. Now that the Trump administration has retightened the sanctions, Venezuela  would not  be able to keep up the exports in 2025.

Main imports:

Gold  7.11 bn

crude oil 7.1 bn

veg oils 3.47 bn

copper 2.4 bn

raw sugar 1.78 bn

For the first time in Indo-Latin American trade history, gold has overtaken crude oil as the # 1 item of imports in 2024. 

Peru has almost doubled its gold supplies to 4.4 bn in 2024 from 2.4 bn in 2023. Bolivia which had supplied 2.79 bn of gold in 2022 has supplied only 404 million in 2024.

The import of raw sugar is from Brazil and it is refined and reexported to other countries 

India's importance to Latin America

In 2024, India was the 5th largest destination for Latin America's exports after US, China, Canada and Spain. This means India is more important than Germany, UK, France or Japan.

India was the 7th largest supplier of goods to Latin America 

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Source: International Trade Centre ( joint agency of WTO and UNCTAD) Geneva

From Sabha to Kuppam: TM Krishna pushes the boundary of Carnatic music

  
          From Sabha to Kuppam: TM Krishna pushes the boundary of Carnatic music 
 
 Sabhas are the concert halls where the connoisseurs of Carnatic music in Chennai city go to listen. Kuppams are where poor people struggle to make a living and have no access to classical music. TM Krishna, the talented and revolutionary Carnatic music singer is pushing  the boundaries of Carnatic music from the Sabhas to the Kuppams. He has taken the classical music to a fisherman’s village Urur Olcott Kuppam on the margins of Chennai city. His initiative has now become institutionalized as  “The Urur Olcott Kuppam Vizha”,  a multi-genre festival. Every year, as part of the run-up to the vizha, T.M. Krishna sings at the Eliot’s beach in front of people most of whom have never seen the inside of the Sabhas. 
 
Krishna has also revolutionized the compositions of the classical music for his new audience. While the Sabha music is mostly the compositions of the Trinity Composers ( Thyagaraja, Shyama Shastri and Muthuswami Dikshidar, the 18^th century trio) and religious songs, Krishna has taken on new compositions with contemporary social issues, some of which are not to the liking of the Sabha crowd. During the February 2024 Vizha, Krishna performed a number of songs, among which was the first Carnatic song written about the Urur Olcott Kuppam by Perumal Murugan, a revolutionary writer. 

 
This initiative to take classical music from the elite urban audience to underprivileged areas reminds me of a similar outreach revolution in Venezuela, called as “El Sistema”. This was founded in 1975 by the Venezuelan conductor and educator José Antonio Abreu. He took classical music to the poor children in slums with the motto " Music for Social Change". Besides giving access to high culture to the underprivileged he believed that collective work through orchestras would inspire a social transformation in the poor communities. He was convinced that classical music would occupy young people with music study and instill values that can come from playing in ensembles: a sense of community, commitment and self-worth. This is especially important for children in slums exposed to criminal gangs, drug trafficking and violence. 
 
Abreu started a new youth orchestra and held the first meeting of the orchestra in a parking garage with few teenagers. Within a year, he had built an ensemble, and took it to a festival in Scotland and won critical praise for his work. After the success of the programme in Caracas, he opened more centres all over the country. In 1995, Abreu was appointed Special Ambassador for the Development of a Global Network of Youth and Children Orchestras and Choirs by UNESCO. Sir Simon Rattle, director of the Berlin Philharmonic said in a statement in 2011,  "What Abreu and El Sistema have done is to bring hope, through music, to hundreds of thousands of lives that would otherwise have been lost to drugs and violence." El Sistema has proved to be a programme of social rescue and cultural transformation for thousands of children from poor neighbourhoods in the country". The Inter American Development Bank extended grants and credit for building of regional centres of El Sistema in Venezuela. The Bank has praised the program after studying its impact through an interdisciplinary group. According to the study El Sistema has helped the children improve their capacity to control their attention, behavior and emotions besides showing lesser aggression and improvement in relations with peers.  
 
El Sistema provides free classical music training during after-school hours in the afternoons. It organizes orchestras with children and teenagers (between the ages of 2 and 18) many of whom are from poor families. The system provides musical instruments. Talented and interested adolescent students are trained to become teachers and encouraged to open new centres. The most remarkable feature of the system is its instant immersion. The children begin playing in ensembles from the moment they pick up their instruments. They enjoy the novelty of playing instruments they cannot afford to buy and feel spiritual uplift from the soothing classical music in their  neighborhood filled with the noise of gunshots and screams. The parents and neighbors of the kids in El Sistema, who cannot imagine going to the theaters for classical music performances, are fascinated by the opportunity of exposure to the high culture within their community. They are proud of the performance and achievements of the students of El Sistema. El Sistema has trained over a million students. It operates over 400 centres and 1700 orchestras with more than 5000 music teachers. 

Information on El Sistema

https://elsistema.org.ve/

The students, depending on talent and ambition, advance to statewide orchestras, with the younger ones in children’s orchestras and those in their late teens and 20s in youth orchestras. The best are selected to join the national Bolívar Youth Orchestra. Some alumni of El Sistema have gone on to distinguished careers in famous orchestras around the world.

 
Gustavo Dudamel, the celebrity music director of Los Angeles Philharmonic, is a product of the El Sistema.  He is scheduled to become the Music and Artistic Director of the New York Philharmonic in 2026. He attributes his success to ‘El Sistema’ and misses no opportunity to express his gratitude to his mentor Abreu, who passed away in 2018.

  
El Sistema has inspired a number of similar projects in two dozen countries including US, UK, Canada, Spain, Bolivia, Philippines and South Korea. There are nearly 200 Sistema-inspired programs in the United States.
 
I hope TM Krishna succeeds in his mission to spread the Carnatic music to more Kuppams.