Elements of India's emerging success

http://www.goodnewsindia.com/Pages/content/newsclip/story/208_0_2_0_C/

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.

India - the most romantic country in the world

India - the most romantic country in the world

The Christian Science Monitor
Mushy Bollywood
India and romance are inseparable, going by Bollywood standards. Judging the “syrupy confection of boy-meets-girl doled out in almost every movie made here, India must be the most romantic country in the world,” writes The Christian Science Monitor. The story talks about the many words that Indian films have for love. According to culture watchers and filmmakers, the result “is a country teetering between its traditional rules and the giddy individualism of the West, with profound effects on India’s urban youth.”

The newspaper goes on to quote Santosh Desai, president of McCann Erickson, who says, “this is the first generation that believes tomorrow will be better than yesterday.” He talks about a sense that the world is opening up with the “lifting of constraints.”

http://www.expressindia.com/fullstory.php?newsid=42125&headline=India~is~the~most~romantic~country~in~world

Why we’ll be a knowledge superpower

Why we’ll be a knowledge superpower

Pramit Pal Chaudhuri

New Delhi, February 20, 2005|00:59 IST


US infotech industry lobby, AeA, says countries like India are “eroding” the US’s status as the world’s tech superpower. New Scientist has dedicated its latest issue to Indian tech — from software to satellites to pharmaceuticals.

Is the US losing its tech edge? YES. But very slowly. US tech trends have been drifting south. The percentage of patents that are filed by US firms is down. Growth rates for US science and engineering articles are weak. Less Americans are getting science and tech degrees. Foreign Affairs recently pointed out that the war on terrorism has so drained R&D expenditure that civilian R&D will “decline in real terms over the next five years.”

But these are trends. US science and engineering publications grew at only 13 per cent between 1988 and 2001 while India’s grew by 25 per cent, but the US still produced 20 times more than India in 2001. US R&D expenditure is bigger than the next five countries put together. The lead is gargantuan.

Is it a long wait for India then? NOT necessarily. There are two trends that are helping push India on to the knowledge fast lane. One is brain circulation. The US has compensated for American disinterest in lab careers by attracting brains from overseas. But foreign applications to study tech in the US have fallen dramatically — engineering fell 34 per cent alone in 2003. 9/11 is partly to blame: visa rejection rates have risen. But a bigger factor is that Indians and Chinese are finding opportunity knocking louder at home. And nothing moves knowledge better than brains physically moving.

The other is globalisation of tech. US firms are now outsourcing R&D overseas. India is a favourite destination. Says the New Scientist, "more than 100 IT and science-based firms have located R&D labs in India." And it's not just software. GE's Bangalore lab is renown for its material sciences division. An Indian firm recently bagged a contract to commercialise a US nanotech drug-delivery patent. Crucially, Washington is wary of China but sees India as a safe tech partner.

Is India's tech power status guaranteeed? NO. No one quite knows why knowledge economies happens. But it is clear you need, at a minimum, a competitive market, a decent educational system, patents to protect innovators and a risk-taking mentality. India has got it half-right in each category. The road is still under construction.

But Indians can shock and awe. After Bill Clinton's week-long presidential visit to India, the US ambassador was asked what was the visit's big moment. He said, "It may surprise you: The State Department's wires really began burning over a female Indian scientist who presented a paper on nanotechnology to Clinton's science team."

The New Scientist has no doubts. It's India special issue's title is "The next knowledge superpower."

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1249604,0008.htm?headline=Why~India~will~be~a~
knowledge~superpower?

Coming soon, the soldier as a weapon system

Coming soon, the soldier as a weapon system Rakesh Goswami Mhow (MP), February 19, 2005|20:55 IST

The Army will no longer be only marching on its stomach. It will soon be taking a large byte of the virtual world. The future Infantry soldier will scan the battle on the visor of his helmet; have navigational aides like the GPS; and don a protective suit to guard against nuclear, biological and chemical warfare. He will have highly sophisticated weapons to have more protection, more firepower and a higher degree of situational awareness. During training, he won't go to the mountains to train in combat in rocky terrain; he won't go to the firing ranges to better his aim. He'll just sit in a virtual reality laboratory and press 'Alt-Tab' between dessert and mountain or between attack and defence. For effect, two to three soldiers will perform the same combat task that 10-15 men do in the current scenario. The Army is planning to make the future Infantry soldier a weapon system. The project, called F-INSAS (Future Infantry Soldier As A Weapon System), will start with the setting up a virtual reality-based training (VRBT) laboratory at The Infantry School in Mhow. Once this laboratory is set up, there will be less live firing during training; the soldier wouldn't need to travel to specific locations for training in particular terrains or climatic conditions. This will cut down expenditure on ammunition as well as on transportation and save time. Says The Infantry School Commandant Lt. Gen. DP Singh: "In 10-15 years from now, the Infantryman will be a weapon system. The VRBT will bring a great deal of flexibility in training." It sounds unbelievable. In the present circumstances, the soldier goes to the desserts to train in that terrain and to the mountains for training to operate in rocky terrain. Post VRBT, he will sit in the laboratory and just switch between software to travel from one training area to the other. "Training," Lt. Gen. Singh adds, "is an expensive proposition. The expenditure on ammunition is a matter of concern. We will simulate realistic combat situations in a synthetic environment in the virtual reality lab." The new concept will involve training of real soldiers with real equipment to fight in a virtual environment. The school proposes to use the higher end of simulation to create 3-D effects, acoustics and feel of touch and later integrate motion with it, he adds. "The benefits of VRBT can be exploited multi-dimensionally by training soldiers in different tactical and combat scenarios and terrains," says Faculty of Studies director Col RJ Sharma, who is officer in charge of the project at The Infantry School. "It can also be used to place a small Infantry sub unit in a defensive battle scenario, where it repels an attack of a virtual enemy combined with the effects of a real battle - the soldier in the laboratory will even feel battle smells," he adds.

How a village star hit NASA radar

How a village star hit NASA radar

Behind 15-year-old topper’s success, his parents and an amazing rural school

ALKA PANDE

NARHI NAGRA (BALLIA) FEBRUARY 19 In an unremarkable 450-square foot half-constructed home, where smoke from the chulha has blackened the walls, sits a 15-year-old, awash with regret. Saurabh Singh is now officially one of the brightest schoolboy scientists in the world. NASA results don’t lie and Saurabh, a diffident boy from eastern Uttar Pradesh has become the first Indian to top its International Scientist Discovery Examination for 2005-06. It is the same examination in which President A P J Abdul Kalam, as a young boy, finished seventh and later Kalpana Chawla finished 21st. But Saurabh is still upset that he missed out on a world record. His result speaks for itself: Aeronautics (A++); Physical Chemistry (A++); Organic Chemistry (A++); Magnetism (A++). Then the horror. He scored a mere A+ for Electronics and he is furious with himself. “I didn’t monitor the time properly and got nervous and made a mistake in the last one,” he says. It seems almost surreal to watch this boy from a lower middle-class family—his father Ramkeshwar is an assistant teacher at Naherji Inter College—sitting in a 10x10 feet room, lighted only by a 40 watt bulb, speaking so nonchalantly of how he conquered science. It is a compelling tale that must, of course, begin with a brilliant boy, just five feet four inches tall, who is still working out Physics formulae under the dim bulb and who thought nothing of studying 16 to 18 hours a day for months. But the story is incomplete without his father Ramkeshwar, who thought nothing of forking out Rs 46,000 to ensure him sophisticated coaching, or his mother Nirmala Devi, an auxiliary nurse and midwife who has worked away from home, in Fatehpur, for years so the family could make ends meet. And it cannot ignore a certain Reena Singh who started Gyan Peethika Senior Secondary School on the suburbs of Ballia in 1993. It was this school, 40 km from his home, that he attended for his Classes IX and X, staying in a hostel and learning to dream. Reena has made it her life’s mission to make sure she offers village children the facilities that can make their dreams come true. With the help of her two US-based daughters, she has set up a school complete with a multimedia lab and 25 computers. The place is even fitted with CCTV cameras. The school, which offers Science, Commerce and Information Technology has also applied to start courses in Biotechnology and Fashion Designing. It even has a separate wing for competitive examinations where Saurabh first honed his skills. “We used to read about great people and he said that one day we would read his name too,” said his hostel room-mate Pankaj Singh. Reena made sure that she sharpened Saurabh’s English language skills. “The children here are oozing with talent and just require some motivation,” she said. No wonder that when NASA chief Sean O’Keefe asked Saurabh a question on English grammar, he gave the right answer — even though he replied in Hindi. “The NASA chief applauded,” says Saurabh. The boy certainly keeps good company. After his stint at Gyan Peethika, he was packed off to Kota for coaching in Science and Mathematics. There again, he says he was fortunate to run into Umesh Singh, a Physics teacher so devoted he would actually stay up all night with his students as they prepared. Now the results are out and Saurabh is already a celebrity in his own right — again, no coincidence as Reena’s daughters were on their laptops within minutes of the news, sending out the news to the media and VIPs. Each member of the UP Legislative Council has promised to donate a day’s salary to help Saurabh. His own idol, President Kalam, has expressed a desire to meet him. And Gyan Peethika school has announced a Saurabh Singh scholarship worth Rs 40,000. When he spends next year at Pennsylvania, he will know that back home he himself has become a role model.

URL: http://www.indianexpress.com/full_story.php?content_id=65044