Elements of India's emerging success

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Elements of India's emerging success
GoodNewsIndia.com (Mar 19)

India has been posting around 6% growth for a decade. It's knowledge proficiency has been known for a little more than that. It has been a democracy for half a century and has cherished family values for millennia.

So what's new that's causing this new chorus of India praise? In the past six weeks a slew of columnists have been 'discovering' these long known virtues.

John Pesek [International Herald Tribune, Feb 15, 05] cautions the G7 nations against "down playing India's potential relative to that of China." Economists have a poor record of predicting winning nations says Morgan Stanley's Danial Lian. Even as they betted that Japan would lead the Pacific Century, it's economy tottered and China arose in the Nineties.

Pesek goes on to imply that the world has been into denial about China's fragile systems - political and economic. India's on the other hand are robust. Its "entrepreurial vigour is more impressive than China's". Its well developed financial markets are fueling capital formation. "What China must build from scratch, India has up and running". He concludes that. "Western investors ultimately could favour India over China".

Not just investors, the US government too must serenade India ,says David Kirkpatrick [Fortune, Feb 23, 2005]. He merely adds to the rising clamour for closer ties between these two countries. Typical of American sensibilities, the writer's enthusiasm is due largely to how Citibank ATMs, Dells and other American brands are comfortingly ubiquitous in India. He also marvels how he was able to video-conference his family from a Bangalore hotel lobby using his laptop.

Kirkpatrick does eventually get to the substantive part of what makes India really tick: "I would walk into an office filled with fresh-faced young people and be so struck by their energy and enthusiasm that I had to believe the infrastructure problem could somehow be overcome. The will to succeed there is so strong". And then he declares: "I found India so enthralling that I could imagine living there someday". How nice.

Ali Al-Baghi, a former UAE minister for oil, writing in the Wall Street Journal, is more direct and pertinent about why India will be a success story: "The difference between us and a country like India is our Arab mentality. Our mentality has led us to where we are now, while the mentality of Indians has pushed them to their current high position." He then admires: "It has achieved huge success and amazing developments in a variety of fields because it favoured democracy, peace, development and is strongly against any kind of extremism. Isn't it enough that hundreds of millions of Indians, who are mostly non-Muslims, are being ruled by a Muslim President".

Well, you wouldn't quite say 'ruled' but a pardonable error in one who doesn't live in a democracy. By the way, is it only such people who will adore India's democratic ways, whereas the 'Free World' would adore China instead and look at India only when it ripens as a market for its brands?

The prestigious New Scientist is not given to such political discussion but to reporting science readably. Still, its Special Edition [Feb 19, 2005] on "India - the next knowledge superpower" carries almost nothing totally new that has not been noted widely in the last couple of years. May be our self-assurance has so grown that we no longer gloat over western raves as we did a decade ago.

Still and all, it is pleasing to learn how India's space programme has focused on societal applications instead of just business ones. ISRO's satellites are measuring water stress in crops, predicting yields, picking places to drill for water, deciding where to locate rainwater trapping check dams, mapping chlorophyll rich waters that sustain fish catches, reducing deaths due to cyclones from 10,000 in 1977 to just 900 in 1990, linking hospitals to serve remote areas and so on.

Despite a lack of great business anxiety - or perhaps because of that lack-, it has been "estimated that ISRO's projects have added between two and three times the organisation's budget to the nations GDP".

Other articles in the Special Edition highlight instances of Indian innovations and drive. There is the L V Prasad Eye Institute, Hyderabad using stem cells drawn from near a damaged cornea to repair it to grow it anew. India's erstwhile practice of manufacturing cheap, generic copies of blockbuster drugs has made it a leader in chemistry research and spawned 9000 drug firms. One of them Bharat Biotech, has produced hepatitis B vaccine for a dollar a shot [or a twentieth of western prices] by innovating and reducing the cost of producing a crucial protein. GE's Bangalore research team has significantly improved the efficiency of its wind turbines and its engine for Boeing's planned 7E7 aircraft.

There is news too, that'd get up the hackles of conscientious objectors: New Scientist reports on India's decision to turn to fast breeder nuclear reactors for its future power needs, even as the world is switching them off. India believes it can succeed where others have lost their nerves. And, GM crops are alive and growing well, thank you. In March, 2002 India set up the Genetic Engineering Approval Committee as a lightning rod to handle protesters and it has been cunningly effective.

Behind all these developments— mostly good and some, disturbing— lies what is known as India's knowledge leadership. Nandan Nilekani of Infosys says, "US students will worry that IT jobs will migrate to India and so will stop studying technical subjects... If the immigration of technical experts to the US and the supply of their graduates eventually dry up, then I can imagine the centre of gravity of innovation drifting east".

But we must again ask the question we began with: What's new that's causing this attention and praise? Perhaps the world has sized up India but hasn't quite the right phrase yet that would describe what animates the Indian mind. We have two clues from recent times that might let us understand.

First, when the tsunami struck on Dec 26, 2004, India facing a monumental disaster at home, nevertheless announced an instant aid of $25 million to Sri Lanka and also despatched help to Indonesia. This,when the US lazily announced a niggardly $35 million for the whole world.

Second, we learn from a New Scientist article, India has just completed "the Giant Metrewave Radio Telescope [GMRT]— world's largest, low-frequency radio telescope and India's biggest science project." Located at Khodad near Pune, the GMRT consists of 30 tracking antennas, each 45m diameter. "This is Big Science on anyone's scale". India's innovative engineers "created a revolutionary, low-cost design. The entire design cost $12 million". Astronomer Paulo Freire of Cornell University, USA says, "The beauty of GMRT's design is deeply influencing the construction of the SKA" [square kilometer array].

The purpose? GMRT will do something that reads like this: "detect a 1420 megahertz radio signal emitted by exited hydrogen gas". Pure science with no profit-intent built in.

So, what's the connection between India's scientific pursuit and tsunami outreach? Together, they epitomise what the Indian mind yearns for: stay open in mind, investigate and reconsider your certainties; and combine that with compassion for the human condition. Not to say, India has perfected this or is anywhere near doing so, but the Indian mind yearns for it.

Indians are growing a successful economy probably because their activities don't always make economic sense.

US wants to help India be a superpower

http://headlines.sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=13702274&headline=US~wants~to~help~India~be~a~superpower

US wants to help India be a superpower
Saturday, 26 March , 2005, 09:58

Washington: The United States unveiled plans Friday to help India become
a "major world power in the 21st century" even as it announced moves to
beef up the military of Pakistan.

Under the plans, Washington offered to step up a strategic dialogue with
India to boost missile defense and other security initiatives as well as
high-tech cooperation and expanded economic and energy cooperation.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has presented to Prime Minister
Manmohan Singh the Bush administration's outline for a "decisively
broader strategic relationship" between the world's oldest and largest
democracies, a senior US official said.

"Its goal is to help India become a major world power in the 21st
century," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity.

"We understand fully the implications, including military implications,
of that statement."

He did not elaborate but noted that South Asia was critical, with China
on one side, Iran and West Asia on the other, and a somewhat turbulent
Central Asian region to the north.

The US-India plan was announced as Washington decided Friday to sell an
undetermined number of F-16 fighter jets to Pakistan under a plan to
prop up Pakistan on the political, military and economic fronts.

Rice discussed the US-India plan with Singh during her Asian visit
earlier this month but it was not revealed to the public.

The US proposal culminates efforts to repair relations strained by
India's May 1998 nuclear tests.

The healing process began when Bill Clinton visited India in March 2000
near the end of his presidency, as the first president to go there since
Jimmy Carter in 1978.

He eased sanctions on purchases of high-tech equipment and broke into a
market formerly served by India's Cold War ally Russia.

President George W Bush's administration, under a so-called "Next Steps
in Strategic Partnership," pushed that process forward by completely
lifting sanctions, including military sales, in return for India's
support on the US-led war on terrorism.

"This year the administration made a judgment that the 'Next Steps in
Strategic Partnership,' though very important, wasn't broad enough to
really encompass the kind of things we needed to do to take this
relationship where it needed to go, and so the president and the
secretary (Rice) developed the outline for a decisively broader
strategic relationship," the US official said.

Bush was inviting Prime Minister Singh to visit him in July in
Washington and the US leader would also like to travel to South Asia
later this year or early next year, he said.

Those presidential meetings, he added, would "be consolidating an
enhanced dialogue" on the strategic, energy and economic tracks with India.

The strategic dialogue will include global issues, regional security
matters, Indian defense requirements, expanding high-tech cooperation
and even working toward US-India defense co-production, the official
explained.

The United States, he said, was prepared to "respond positively" to an
Indian request for information on American initiatives to sell New Delhi
the next generation of multi-role combat aircraft.

"That's not just F-16s. It could be F-18s," he said.

Deputy State Department spokesman Adam Ereli said US corporations were
now "free to talk to India" about whatever aircraft they could offer.

"It'll be up to India to decide what it wants. And then negotiations, if
it does decide it wants something from us, based on its needs, would
proceed from there," Ereli said.

Beyond possible sale of fighter planes, the US is ready to discuss the
more fundamental issue of defense transformation with India, including
transformative systems in areas such as command and control, early
warning and missile defense, the official said.

"Some of these items may not be as glamorous as combat aircraft, but I
think for those of you who follow defense issues you'll appreciate the
significance," he said.

The energy dialogue is to include civil, nuclear and nuclear safety
issues as well as the issue of space launch vehicles and satellites
while the existing economic dialogue would be revitalized with
discussion of energy, trade, commerce, environment and finance.

US energy, treasury and transport ministers are to visit India this year.

It's a European dawn for Indian IT companies

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1056061.cms?headline=It's~a~European~dawn~for~India~IT~companies

It's a European dawn for Indian IT companies
K YATISH RAJAWAT & REENA CHAKRABORTY

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ SATURDAY, MARCH 19, 2005 12:01:03 AM]

MUMBAI: European companies are now getting onto the offshore outsourcing bandwagon. German, Swedish and even Spanish companies are looking at India for outsourcing some of their functions.

Some companies like Wipro, Hexaware, HCL Tech and Mastek have traditionally had a much stronger European presence than others. Now, these companies are looking at expanding not only their sales and delivery but even their language capabilities for the European market.

As a result, the contribution to revenues from Europe is on the increase for Indian IT companies.

While the European share of revenues has increased, the exposure to the US has fallen for the companies.

Traditionally, Europe has been slow to accept outsourcing and has not experimented too much with offshore outsourcing. Strong labour unions, restricted working hours and the slow job market in Europe has not been conducive to the growth of the outsourcing trend.

But now, even European companies are aiming for offshore outsourcing contracts in a bid to cut their costs. Indian IT companies which had invested in the European market in the last few years are now reaping the benefits of this growth.

Some like TCS have even ventured to open development centers in East European countries like Hungary to sustain this growth. Hexaware has also opened a support and development centre in Germany for supporting its European customers.

In Europe, Infosys has won an integrated data services and technology provider and a UK utilities business as clients. The company also continued its relationship with a global automotive manufacturer based in Europe.

Hexaware has also witnessed a strong growth in its outsourcing business, especially in Germany. The company is now expanding its presence in Europe to ensure that it sustains this growth.

A European integrated paper manufacturing company, and an FMCG company were some of the customers acquired by Satyam for the quarter ended December 2004. The company also is also working for a European banking software solutions corporation. On the other hand, HCL Tech has been chosen to develop the loans origination system for consumer and commercial lending, as well as to develop the collateral management application for a European bank.

As the exposure to Europe has increased for the IT companies, the dependency on the US has reduced. For example, in the case of Infosys, the share of US revenues has dropped from 72 per cent for the quarter ended December 2003 to 67 per cent for the quarter ended December 2004, while the share of Europe has increased from 21 per cent to 22 per cent over the same period.

Similarly, the exposure to North America for Satyam has come down from 74 per cent to 68 per cent, whereas the figure for Europe has increased to 18 per cent for the quarter ended December 2004. Patni has also witnessed a fall in the US share of revenues to 86 per cent for the same period.

Forget IITs, now KV up for export

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1056229.cms?headline=Forget~IITs,~now~KV~up~for~export

Forget IITs, now KV up for export
SHIVANI SINGH

TIMES NEWS NETWORK[ FRIDAY, MARCH 18, 2005 11:46:33 PM ]

NEW DELHI: It is not just elite business schools and IITs which are flooded with requests for offshore campuses. The humble Kendriya Vidyalaya has also found more takers abroad.

The KV - which has already gone international with schools in Tehran, Moscow and Kathmandu - has now got a request from the Mauritian government for an Indian-style school.

It is not just good academic performance by KV students that has floored the Mauritian government. It realises an Indian school in Mauritius can provide good grounding to about 400-500 students, mostly of Indian origin, coming to India for university education every year.

This is a reason why the HRD ministry is also not averse to setting up a school there. The Mauritian government's request was promptly conveyed to KV authorities, who in turn have written to the Indian High Commission in Port Louis.

The HRD ministry is ready to oblige, but only after it is convinced about the project's viability. The KV authorities have written to the Indian High Commission in Mauritius, asking for details like source of funding and number of students likely to join the school.

"We have to see how is the demand, how many local students want to attend the school and whether this will be self-financing or government-funded," said a senior KV official. Besides KVs that follow the CBSE pattern, there are also several Indian schools in the Gulf countries. But most of them are privately-owned.

On Tuesday, Mauritius' IT and telecom minister Pradeep Jeeha asked HRD minister Arjun Singh for a KV. "He had heard good things about KV and wanted to have an Indian school on a similar pattern. He even asked for university-level tie-ups, exchange programmes and Indian technical institutes like IITs in his country," a ministry official said.

The ministry is however, non-committal on university-level tie-ups. "It is for the varsities to decide. Mauritius is keen to take expertise from JNU and DU. We will let the respective vice chancellors decide," said the official.