Beauty Contests - Why India is not getting any title these days?

                      The year 1994, there was an announcement declaring the Miss India(Universe) Susmitha Sen as the Miss Universe 1994. Almost 95% of Indians never knew about those beauty contests by that time. We started discussing a lot about this in buses, schools, at home. Before forgetting this, there was a new announcement making the Miss India (World) as the Miss World 1994. This time, we had a discussion about the difference between Miss World and Miss Universe and in fact, there was a strong debate among our friends group on - "Who looks best ... Aishwarya or Susmitha?". I am sure that many of us had such discussions in those days. Later we got such pageants in 1997, 2000 and 2001. By the year 2001, it became a common thing all over the nation.

                       But, after 2001, we did not win any beauty contest. Many argue that it is due to the public poll which was introduced after 2001 all over the world and Indians never took such polls so seriously.

But, I don't feel that might be the reason.
 

Let us see a few things here:

• Till 1991, we used all Indian Brands of cosmetics, jewelery, apparels etc. We never knew foreign brands. But, in 1991 we opened up our market for foreign brands as a part of Globalization.

• Various foreign face creams, shampoos etc were nascent to the Indian Market and there was very very less awareness about such brands among Indians especially among the Indian women / teenagers. Indian women under 35 years of age in those years accounted for almost 25% of population. This is a huge market for many companies, provided that, they went deep into the hearts of people.

          So, when all at a sudden two beauty titles were won by Indians, our attention got shifted on beauty and many teenagers have started becoming beauty conscious. Many brands have stared expanding their base in Indian Market, many beauty clinics were established all over the nation. In addition to that, the title winners were appointed as brand ambassadors for such products. This trend continued till 2001 and by that time many brands have acquired the necessary base in the market and we have become a stable market. Indian fashion industry has now become the most happening industry in par with international standards.

           It would be interesting to see that, these days people from Africa, China and Latin America are among the top five contestants (India is also among those top 5, just to ensure that the continuity of market).

            May be, in the coming years we may have a series of Miss World and Miss Universe titles being given to China and Africa... Let us wait and see...