Modern Indian watchmaking took its first steps onto the world stage at the Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) 2024, and in 2025 that presence gathers momentum. This is India at the GPHG 2025.

Last year marked a quiet but historic beginning when homegrown brand Titan entered two models from its celebrated Edge line in two separate categories, becoming the first Indian watchmaker to be represented at what is often called the “Oscars of Watchmaking.”

This year, the story grows richer. With three Indian brands securing nominations at the 2025 edition, it feels less like a token presence and more like the stirring of a genuine horological voice from the subcontinent with a celebrated history. Here are the nominations for this year at the watch Oscars:

Titan

Titan Flying Tourbillion Ref. 1984GL01

The Titan Watch Company was established in 1984 in Chennai by the Tata Group, under the stewardship of famed industrialist J.R.D. Tata, in collaboration with the Tamil Nadu Industrial Development Corporation (TIDCO). Though the seed for the venture were sown in the late 1980s when Xerxes Desai, then a Tata executive, approached J.R.D. with the idea of building a world-class watch company in India. By 1986, the first prototypes had emerged, setting the foundation for what would become one of the country’s most beloved brands.

In 2024, Titan marked 40 years – a story of making watches part of everyday Indian life. To celebrate this milestone, Titan unveiled the “40 Years of Joy” Anniversary Collection, a set of watches, revisiting its earliest designs from 1986–88, alongside new mechanical creations. The epitome of the collection was the Titan Flying Tourbillion 01 – a first in many aspects. India’s first tourbillion wristwatch developed it stands as the first tourbillon wristwatch to be designed and developed entirely in India, within Titan’s own workshops.

To start with, the dial is a balance of contrasts, both featuring a mutually complimenting handcrafted Guilloché pattern in blue and white. The smaller, in a deep royal blue, hosts the time display with elegant gold sword-shaped hands, while the larger, in ivory white, reveals the open tourbillon.

Titan Flying Tourbillion 01 Ref. 1984GL01

On closer observation, the tourbillion cage, made in 18k rose gold is made-shaped as the modern Titan ‘T’ monogram, a subtle ode to four decades of watchmaking. Ingeniously, it also serves as the sweeping seconds hand.

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The Titan Flying Tourbillon 01 comes in a full 18k rose gold case and is powered by the in-house Caliber 7TH1. This hand-wound mechanical movement consists of 141 components, with plates and bridges engineered to balance function and form. The ribbed crown is finished in matching rose gold. The caliber runs at 4 Hz (28,800 vph), has a 36-hour power reserve, and is adjusted for accuracy to ±12 seconds per day across six positions.

Priced at INR 26.5 lakh / $30,300 / CHF 24,500, the watch reflects Titan’s move into more complex watchmaking beyond its long-established role as a volume manufacturer.

The Titan Flying Tourbillion Ref. 1984GL01 is nominated at the GPHG 2025 under the Tourbillion category. Visit the watch at https://www.gphg.org/en/watches/titan-flying-tourbillon

Titan

Jalsa Flying Tourbillion by Nebula

Titan, India’s largest watchmaker, is less a single brand and more a house of several, each aimed at a different market segment. Among them, Nebula holds a distinctive place. Positioned at the premium–luxury end, Nebula is known for its solid gold watches – pieces that are often ornate, limited in numbers, decorative, and rooted in traditional Indian aesthetics.

For Titan, Nebula has been the space to experiment, to merge craftsmanship with culture while edging closer to serious and elegant watchmaking. In 2025, that effort took shape in the Jalsa collection, a line that reinterprets traditional motifs through the language of fine horology.

Jalsa – an Urdu word meaning a celebration. Urdu is a language born in central India in the 17th century, known for its rich lyrical vocabulary and depth of expression.

Jalsa is a celebration of India’s advent into a new era of modern watchmaking, built on centuries of rich horological history. It is both an appreciation and a continuation of the long story of Indian art and craft, now finding expression through the face of timepieces.

The watch itself is commanding – its sandwiched case, carved from a full block of agate stone held within an 18k rose gold frame. And yet, despite this artisanal engineering, it is the dial that quietly claims the eye, the elephant in the room.

The watch presents a hand painted marble dial featuring a royal procession of Raja Sawai Pratap Singh, the 18th-century ruler of Amber-Jaipur who built the Hawa Mahal (palace of winds) an architectural marvel which also serves as a beautiful backdrop of the painting. In spirit, it recalls the grandeur of the Maharaja watches of yesteryears. Yet it is firmly contemporary, produced in limited numbers of just ten pieces.

Each marble dial is hand-painted with natural pigments, using a centuries-old miniature painting technique by Padma Shri awardee Shakir Ali Ji, an artiste extraordinaire.

The transparent sapphire caseback offers a view into the movement where the movement baseplate is inlaid with deep red agate, lending in warmth and richness of Jaipur to the mechanics within, as described by Titan’s design chief, Shri Mahendra Chauhan. The Jalsa employs the same movement as the Tourbillion 01, which we read earlier.

Priced at INR 41.3 lakh / $47,350 / CHF 38,200, the Jalsa by Nebula is competing at the GPHG 2025 in the Artistic Crafts category. Discover the watch at https://www.gphg.org/en/watches/jalsa.

Bangalore Watch Company

Peninsula Agumbe

India is defined and celebrated as much by its artistry as by its nature. The lands, the seas and the forests of India for thousands of years have shaped and nurtured the beautiful people, the culture and diverse flora & fauna of the country for time immemorial.

Drawing from this spirit of nature, Bengaluru-based Bangalore Watch Company unveils the Peninsula Professional Collection for 2025. Conceived as a tribute to the land, sea, and mountains of the Indian plateau, the series, described as The Great Indian Outdoor Watch, marking the urban brand’s stride into performance-driven watchmaking.

BWC Peninsula Agumbe

The case draws its inspiration from the pebble – an elemental form shaped over centuries by nature’s patient wear & tear, long celebrated in watch design. The collection is offered with four distinct dials, each a tribute to a different terrain through unique surface finishes, paired with bold dive-watch inspired indices and luminous sword-shaped hands, ensuring both legibility and character.

The indices at 3 and 9 are uniquely designed to carry details, inlaid with one, at 9 shaped like a pine tree, the other, at 3 like sea waves, reflecting the theme of land and water. A date window sits cleanly at 6 o’clock, balanced. With its lug-less pebble-shaped case, sapphire crystal and oversized engraved crown, boasting 20 ATM the watch feels sturdy yet comfortable enough, ready for adventures across any terrain.

The Peninsula collection features four watches – a black MOP dial – tribute to the Gulf of Mannar, Blue dial – for the Laccadive, the Lakshwadeep sea in the Arabian Sea, the Green dial – Agumbe for the lush rainforests of the western ghats and a textured white dial representing the mighty Zanskar Range of the Great Himalayas in Leh-Ladakh. The watch is powered by a Swiss workhorse – the Sellita SW200-1 Automatic movement.

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One of the most thoughtful touches lies on the caseback of the watch, BWC has done a fantastic job engraving an interesting illustration with a monoline ‘FOR OUR LOVE OF THE HIMALAYAS, THE WESTERN GHATS AND THE INDIAN OCEAN’ on the screw-on case back.

The featured version, the Agumbe pays tribute to the forested Malenadu region of the Western Ghats with a lacquer finished, sunburst green dial.

Retailing for INR 1.2 Lakh / $1400 / CHF1,100 the Agumbe Peninsula by Bangalore Watch Company competes at the GPHG 2025 under the Sports category. Visit the watch at https://www.gphg.org/en/watches/agumbe

Bangalore Watch Company

Peninsula Mannar

Within the Peninsula Collection, BWC presents the Mannar – a limited edition of just 50 pieces featuring dials crafted from rare black mother-of-pearl. Each dial carries its own natural pattern, shaped by wild oysters found in the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mannar, once celebrated as India’s historic pearl delta.

In the Indian Ocean, between India and Sri Lanka, lies the storied Gulf of Mannar. For over two millennia, free divers plunged into these waters in search of pearls formed by wild oysters of the Indian Ocean. Famed for their size and lustre, these pearls adorned Indian kings and drew Roman traders across seas in pursuit of their glamour. Indian Kings wore them with pride, and Roman traders came looking for treasures to take back home. But since the 1900s, the pearl beds have collapsed. Today, only a memory. 

Seas of the Gulf of Mannar

The Mannar with its rare black mother-of-pearl dial is a tribute to the lost pearl beds of the Indian Ocean. The dial reflects soft hues as if light moves the ocean bed it, with every piece revealing unique natural patterns. No two dials are alike, making each watch truly one of a kind. 

The specifications of the watch are similar to that of its twin, the Agumbe as you read above. The Mannar comes cased in a black PVD coated steel case. And the centerpiece, the large singular disc made of a slice of mother of pearl, coated in black to match the shallow waters of the Gulf of Mannar. 

Owing to the rarity and challenge of working with Mother of Pearl, the Mannar is offered as a limited edition of only 50 pieces within the collection.  

Retailing for INR 1.8 Lakh / $2300 / CHF 1,800 the Mannar Peninsula by Bangalore Watch Company is competing at the GPHG 2025 under the Challenge category. Visit the watch at https://www.gphg.org/en/watches/mannar

Nalla Neeram

Kaalam Minutes Timer

‘Nalla Neram’ means auspicious time in Tamil, a Southern Indian language, a time which occurs every day. Nalla Neram is a young brand established near Neuchâtel, Switzerland, by the passionate watch enthusiast Mr. Krishnamani Raman. Though crafted in Switzerland, its soul is distinctly Indian.

While chronographs have long served racing drivers, pilots, military and other specialists with tachymeter and telemeter functions, Nalla Neram introduces a chronograph minutes timer for the modern professional – tracking running and elapsed minutes, a subtle yet practical tool for the cadence of daily life.

The alternating chapter rings serve as minute trackers, marking each elapsed minutes of an hour from 1 to 60 , presented in a very interesting Greek brick pattern with minutes highlighted orange in multiples of 3.

The idea recalls a time when long-distance ‘trunk’ calls in India were limited to three minutes. All matters had to be conveyed swiftly and efficiently – within 3 minutes. The watchmaker celebrates this principle, reminding us of what can be achieved in just three minutes, a focused and purposeful living.

“Imagine what can be accomplished in just three minutes. Time is a blessing, a rare luxury, more precious than diamonds. The Kaalam Minutes Timer invites you to honour this gift, not by counting hours, but by making each minute meaningful. True luxury, lies in how we choose to use our time every day.” the watchmaker reflects in its GPHG nomination.

“The dual chronograph counters at 3 and 6 o’clock track elapsed minutes (30) and hours (12), respectively. Time indices are subtly dotted across the sand-textured dial, while the chakra at 9 o’clock moves continuously, serving as the seconds hand.”

Among the watch’s defining features, beyond its craftsmanship and part of its ingenious design, is the use of the Chakra—a wheel symbolizing the perpetual flow of time in Hinduism and Buddhism. While reminiscent of the Ashoka Chakra on the Indian flag, its significance here is distinct. Positioned at 9 o’clock, the chakra moves continuously, serving as an active seconds hand but also a visual embodiment of the ceaseless notion of time.

Caseback Chronicles

The watch is driven by the La Joux-Perret L112 calibre, featuring a black tungsten rotor engraved with the Chakra motif and the brand name. It measures a comfortable 39mm, with subtly extended lugs, and offers water resistance up to 10 ATM.”

Retailing for INR 4.9 Lakh / $5610 / CHF 4,500 the Kaalam Minutes Timer by Nalla Neram competes at the GPHG 2025 under the “Petite Aiguille” category. Visit the watch at https://www.gphg.org/en/watches/kaalam.

Conclusion

The 2025 Grand Prix d’Horlogerie de Genève (GPHG) nominations mark a watershed moment for Indian watchmaking, showcasing the country’s growing prowess and interest in crafting serious timepieces, blending heritage and innovation.

India at GPHG 2024

These nominations highlight Indian watchmaker’s their ability to produce independent designs that seamlessly integrate elements of Indian history and natural ethos. Although brands like Titan have been mass producing watches for years, these GPHG entries suggest a new level of approach and commitment to watchmaking excellence, with Indian brands like BWC and Nalla Neram vying for recognition alongside the world’s top horological names.

There is a lot to come from this part of the world, a place that has relatively stayed dormant in watchmaking, for years. Alongside emerging watchmaking powerhouses like Singapore, China competing with the long held dominance from the European and Japanese giants, India will soon emerge as a spot for watchmaking excellence bringing in the ingenious engineering and an opulent culture of arts and crafts in forms of dials and movements soon to your wrists and pockets.

As the GPHG awards approach, Caseback Chronicles wishes the Indian contingent, amongst others, the very best and eagerly anticipates the future of Indian watchmaking, which promises to be just as exciting as the country’s rich horological heritage.