the sword of Damocles has been hanging on the two-wheeler industry ever since India got into the business of tightening emission standards in 1990. But now with further tightening of the norms in 2000 and the proposed revision of the norms in 2005 and subsequently in 2009, the possibilities of further improvements in engine technology to meet these norms seem quite remote. Unless there is a major technological breakthrough in the conventional two-stroke engine technology, industry pundits fear that the ubiquitous Indian two-wheeler sector may die a natural death.

The Society of Indian Automobile Manufacturers ( siam ) claims that the proposed emission standards for two-wheelers for 2005 would be the strictest in the world. But no one in the industry seems to know which engine technology