The biggest reason is that it makes the amazing peice of technology & design, one of the best smartphones in the market available to a LOT MORE people than would have been possible otherwise.Check this out.

Impact to the Indian Consumer:

1. They have access to one of the best smartphones and a million apps in the App Store. Thats a lot of power in the hands of people of our country, enabling them for their businesses and a productive life.
2. They would be able to get a taste of what it means to use a high end piece of technology. This would inspire them, motivate them, it would make them think & do wonderful things in India. Things like square (https://squareup.com/) were viable in the US because of a strong penetration of smart phones. ( and I am talking about high end, reliable smart phones which could be used to take payments)

Impact to Apple:

1. Lot more sales in India.
2. Lot more people using  / starting to use the Apple eco-system.  They would know what it feels like using Apple would probably make them  buy more Apple devices in future.

Impact to the Indian Developer / Tech Community:

1. More people using iOS means a bigger market base for Apps focussed on the Indian Market.

Impact to Reliance

1. More contracted users. Fixed income for 2 years 🙂

Although, there are some downsides like a consumer getting locked with reliance for 2 yrs, like iPhone not anymore being the costliest, hardest to afford phone in the market and thus reducing the ‘show off’ factor associated with it, to me it still seems like an overall win for everyone involved 🙂

Thank you Apple, Reliance!