Beijing Olympics- Some Aspects with Difference

Posted on August 9, 2008 by indra

The Beijing Olympics opened today, the eighth day of the eighth month of 2008 at 8 minutes and 8 seconds past 8 PM Beijing Time. Chinese have not only built physical infrastructures, but also controlled pollution around the locations that will be part of Olympic activities in any way. Factories have been closed. Some 90% cars of Beijing will remain in garages. Missiles got deployed to avoid rain during opening ceremony. The Chinese have proved today that they are the best at whatever they do with this Olympic (images).

I was never good in sports, nor I am a big sports enthusiast. I look Beijing Olympics from a different angle.

Indian Technologies for Beijing Olympics

Some small Indian companies have also contributed to make the Beijing Olympics, the sporting extravaganza a success.

The newly upgraded Beijing international airport will have the 45heat recovery ventilators made by Bry Air, a Gurgaon-based company. Bry Air’s units reclaim energy from exhaust airflows of the air conditioners and then use eco-friendly heat exchangers to heat or cool incoming fresh air, as per the need. Bry Air units will make sure that those attending the event at the main conference centre do not suffer from induced attention deficient disorder, which brings a drop in productivity and loss in concentration, due to pollutants in stale air circulating in conventional air-conditioned rooms.

Another Indian company will take care of safe landing and smooth check-in. The solution has been provided by the Kolkata-based Skytech Solutions, which has designed and implemented the airport messaging software to act as the nerve centre of Beijing airport’s communication system during the premier sporting event. Called CIIMS (Central Information Integration Management Systems), “the software is an automated messaging service between the airport and the air-traffic controllers, various gates, terminals, ground crew and the numerous airlines.” CIIMS is an intelligent communications network, programmed to react to multiple situations at a time, and respond accordingly.

Ahmedabad-based Sintex Industries has collaborated with UK-based toiletries major Poly John International to manufacture and supply nearly 3,000 portable toilets to the Beijing Olympic Games. The toilets, designed by Poly John, are manufactured at Kalol, near Ahmedabad, under the brand name Pace. Sintex will use special plastics and some metal parts as fixtures for the toilets that weigh 85 kg each and can be fixed and unfixed in an hour to other events easily. Each toilet will be manufactured in three conditional processes, roto-moulding, extrusion and thermoforming, and will cost nearly Rs 20,000.

And finally, a Pune-based company is making the rowing boats and canoes for the water sports events. Sunny Sebastian’s Sunny Water Sports is going to supply about 200 kayaks, roving boats and canoes for the water sports events. To make sure it’s the best in quality, the firm has forged an alliance with a European water sports major and designed it to match up to international standards. I had mentioned of this company in my ‘Entrepreneur India‘.

Source: Economic Times

Per capita Income and Olympic bid

Niranjan Rajadhyaksha has come out with a study correlating the per capita income of the country and the holding of Olympic game.

“Most countries have hosted their first post-war Olympics when their average incomes have moved into a tight band of between $4,000 and $8,000, calculated using 1990 purchasing power parity, or PPP, dollars.” Japan had a per capita income of $5,668 in 1964. South Korea had a per capita income of $7,621 in 1988, the year the Games came to Seoul. Interestingly, even more developed nations had average incomes in the same range when they hosted their first post-war Olympics: London in 1948 ($6,746), Helsinki in 1952 ($4,674), Melbourne in 1956 ($8,108), Rome in 1960 ($5,916) and Moscow in 1980 ($6,427). The exceptions are few: Munich in 1972 ($11,481), Montreal in 1976 ($14,902) and Atlanta in 1992 ($23,298). But when Hitler and his thugs tried to use the Berlin Olympics in 1936 to showcase their achievements, Germany had a per capita income of $4,451.” Source: Live Mint

India may try to host its first Olympics when its average income is somewhere in that range. And as per Niranjan, it will be only in 2020 with present rate of GDP growth rate.

Indians will have to wait for long 12 years to watch an Olympic in India, perhaps in New Delhi. Till then, Indians will have to be content with the various political Olympics (elections) getting held every year somewhere or every five years throughout the country.

But if Indians can throw at least some disruptive political parties, mostly regional ones in Indian Ocean and work hard, Olympics can come much earlier.
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Read: Suman Bery: The next twenty yearsChina

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Why am I hopeful on Indian Economy?

Posted on August 8, 2008 by indra

Rangrajan, a former governor of RBI predicts slowdown of GDP growth to 7-8%. Inflation has gone highest in last 13 years. But many like me feel hopeful about the Indian economy. I see many rain bearing clouds all over the sky.

How can the growth slow down, if direct tax collection go up and up and that also by as high a figure as 47% for April-July?

Big companies are trying to put in huge investment in investment such as solar power. As reported, major players like Essar, Indiabulls, Reliance, ADAG, Tata Power, Suryachakra and Euro Group among others have come calling to the Gujarat Energy Development Agency (GEDA) with proposals lined up in photovoltaic, thermal and hybrid solar projects. Nobel Laureate Professor John Byrne to chart a roadmap that will help in translating proposals of over 600 MW into a reality. The US-based Clinton Foundation is in talks with the Gujarat government to set up an ‘Integrated Solar City’ project with a capacity to generate a 5,000 Mw over a period of time.

A gearbox manufacturing company is expecting orders worth Rs 1,100 in next quarter and expects to reach Rs 1,000 crore as revenue. The country can’t slip back with manufacturing performing so well.

Power sector has switched over from E&Y to IIT-Roorkee for consultation for its 3 Ultra Mega Power Projects (UMPP) of 4,000 Mw each at Cheyyur (Tamil Nadu), Munge (Maharashtra) and Bedabahal (Orissa). It is imposing the faith in engineering institutes and its knowledge resources.

India is going ahead with ambitious healthcare programme. India Inc is participating. Ramalinga Raju, chairman and founder of Satyam Computer has set up the Emergency Medical Research Institute in Hyderabad and has started piloting an emergency service, using the dial numbers 108. EMRI today is serving 147 million people in three states. Raju plans eventually to cover the entire country. The government is creating infrastructure for the required basic human resources.

IT companies are flourishing against all news of loosing the glow. The total number of programmers working on Sun Microsystems’ platforms in India has risen to 7,40,000, retaining the country’s position as the leading developer location across the world in comparison to 7,00,000 developers in China and around 600,000 in the US. In January this year, India had overtaken the US and China to emerge as the largest developer location for Sun Microsystems with over 6,29,000 programmers working on its platforms.

And interestingly, the industry’s associations are joining hands with institutes to make them move along the growth of the country. As reported, the Bengal Engineering & Science University, the West Bengal University of Technology and the Confederation of Engineering Industry (CII) on Wednesday signed a memorandum of understanding to collaborate in the development of soft skills among students who are likely to opt for a career in the IT sector.

And as a good development ‘One Laptop per Child’ has landed in India after failing to negotiate twice with the government of India. And this time it is with Reliance ADA Group. I see million of poor primary school students using laptop to father their knowledge and participate with the mainstream to help the country grow with its best known strength of knowledge.

And it is this knowledge that makes the largest automaker company of the world to recognize the talent of the country. Toyota involved fifty Indian engineers in developing its compact cars. So it is not only IT and BPO. Further to that even the public sector companies have started doing great. For instance, Delhi Metro Rail Corporation (DMRC) has emerged as the sole consultant for the metro rail network to be set up in Karachi, Pakistan’s biggest city.

And I believe ‘India will hop and skip to superior tech’ and attain sustainable high growth rate.

However, India faces maximum danger of all kind in all sectors from its politicians and any one claiming to have some following with vagabonds that can go to any extent and to any low. I wish the younger generation came out with a different model for politicking business.

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Monsoon, Water Scarcity and Just-in-time Irrigation

Posted on August 7, 2008 by indra

Since my childhood, I have seen canals as a means of irrigation (images). However, as I remember, it was never a reliable means. In days of draught with rain god failing the farmers, it never provided the water so badly needed. Officer working in the department were corrupt and favoured those who bribed them. One of the very old men in the village died with an ambition to make his grandson even an orderly in the department. Fortunately for my village, under some World Bank scheme, the canal got renovated and widened. However, the maintenance and up keeping remain extremely poor (see a recent photograph, canal on leftside). The irrigation by canal water requires a network of sub canals to take water to individual plots. No doubt, the system means a lot of wastage of water and over irrigation. Further, the quarrels between the landholders to share the water were rampant. Sometimes, it used to be bloody too.

At present time it must be really difficult rather impossible to take up any new canal project with so much of opposition to land acquisition and compensation. Further, new breeds of experts, economists, and columnists have written a lot against the canal-irrigation. Tushaar Shah of the International Water Management Institute writes, “Even after 200 years of canal building, less than 15 per cent of Indian farmlands benefit from canal irrigation. The rest is either rain-fed or supported by some 20 million farmer-owned irrigation wells. Spending $50 billion on dams and canals in the 11th Plan would be a waste.” Even Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar agrees with Shah. The experts claim, farmers need just-in-time water on demand that groundwater and wells can provide better with minimal wastage. Hindu religious scriptures considered construction of well and pond as great pious work that takes away the ill effects of sins committed and provides heaven after death. I remember my mother carrying out a function of the marriage of the well that we got constructed in our plot of land that didn’t have any means for irrigation.

Surprisingly, even after 60+ years of independence, only around 40 per cent of the cropped area in India is irrigated and most of the Indian farmers and the economists look for a good monsoon for the good yield that affects inflation rate and GDP growth rate. Overall monsoon rain in India is pretty good. Planners must look to find ways and means to collect the water of monsoon effectively in water tanks, lakes and reservoirs that otherwise goes waste, so that it can be pumped in for irrigating the farmland when needed. The entire country, covering every village, has to go in for a programme of saving and storing water, below and above the ground, as part of overall watershed development programmes. Since 2004 budget, Mr. Chidambaram includes the renovations of the thousands of water bodies in all his budgets. It will reduce the suspense and the dependence on the precise progress of the monsoon.

An enormous irrigation potential still remains untapped in most villages. Through NREG scheme, every panchayat must rejuvenate tanks on priorities and, where possible, construct them. Rainwater, which mostly runs off, has to be channeled into water bodies, which both store the water and recharge groundwater. Wherever possible, bunds on seasonal rivers and rivulets have to be constructed to create reservoirs.

Innumerable successful examples of such grassroots water harvesting initiatives exist from pre-canal irrigation days. Rulers and landlords built huge tanks. Rajsmand and Jaismand in Rajasthan are examples. In and around my hometown Sasaram, many water tanks are still there, though many need rejuvenation and de-silting. Conservation of monsoon water as much as possible must become again the national mission that must reach every nook and corner of the country for darught-proofing. And as the country improves on water conservation, it will greatly mitigate the risks posed by the vagaries of the monsoon and the additional risks likely to be posed by global warming. Investment in creating these assets would have got priority over the waivers running in thousands of crore.

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Indian Automakers and Hybrids

Posted on August 6, 2008 by indra

It is great news. Toyota is going to launch its hybrid Prius in India. I don’t know how reliable is the news. I wish it to be correct. Honda has already done that. However, with no concession on taxes, the price of Honda Civic will be about Rs 21 lakh with taxes constituting half of it. I don’t know why can’t the government do away with many taxes, as it will be huge saving on oil and emission. I was surprised when Honda announced the launch why Toyota didn’t do that. As much as I know the customers in US have already accepted Prius as good alternative to the regular gas guzzling cars. With Vikram Kirloskar with Toyota I expected that to come first. CII as well as SIAM must impress upon the government to give the manufacturers some tax advantages too. If the requirement is high enough, the manufacturers may even make India a manufacturing base too. Toyota today has gone ahead of GM to become number one auto manufacturer in the world. Its annual worldwide capacity is 10 million units. India’s market is lucrative enough for Toyota to give a sustainable lead. India is to gain a lot from Toyota as it has attained the ultimate in manufacturing practices in the world. Its lean manufacturing and legendary Toyota Production System has gone beyond auto sector and improved the productivity. However, surprisingly Toyota has been among the last manufacturers to enter both China as well as India.

As reported, ‘the 2008 version of Prius has been adjudged the most fuel-efficient midsize car in the US. Sold in over 40 countries across regions, the hybrid variant has also been rated as the third least carbon dioxide emitting vehicle in Britain. As the first commercially mass-produced gas-electric hybrid, one million Prius vehicles were sold by April worldwide, including 592,000 units in the US and 315,000 units in Japan.’

As I came to know from some of my friends in auto industry, the manufacturers such as Tata Motors and Mahindra and Mahindra are developing hybrid of its own. I wish both the manufacturers took a ‘Nano’-approach to cut down the price to the minimum. Let the scientists and technocrats of IITs and other famed research institutions of the country get into some practical researches to make some essential products such as a hybrid car or small hybrid SUV as answer to soaring fuel prices and growing concerns over emissions that can be produced and sold world over a practical reality. Every country is trying to go hybrid through collaborations or its own development endeavours. Why shouldn’t India do it? Why should there be doubt if hybrid cars will work for India?

I was amazed to learn about the project of solar driven car initiated by Delhi College of Engineering and shocked to know that they are not getting fund as little as Rs 16 lakh to take it to the right conclusion in a country where Rs 150,000 crore goes in subsidies that never reach the beneficiaries. Interestingly, Toyota has planned to use solar panel in Prius too.

As many of IITs find it interesting to work with IBM, Microsoft and other IT companies, I wish it start working with the auto companies too in the innovation works related to every aspect of the vehicle from development to manufacturing and servicing too.

The challenge is to reduce the price of input with innovation in many fields including battery. A price tag of Rs 8-10 lakh can make a hybrid car sell in commercially viable volume in India too. It will extend the challenge to the auto component sectors too. It is interesting that in auto sector Indian manufacturers have learnt the tricks from Japan. Perhaps Japan has trained maximum number of Indians in manufacturing sectors. It gets reflected in the maximum number of the Deming Prizes that Indian manufacturing enterprises have own.

India can go ahead of China only with innovative approaches that must cover all aspects of product development for high-tech items and it must learn from Japan and not from China.

A country is today known by its position as automaker and vehicles that its people own and use. But as demanded by mother earth, the vehicle must use minimum of fossil fuel and must be as far as possible green. All who can think of ideas to achieve those goals will be called servant of mother earth and remembered.

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Crude Oil and Onion

Posted on August 5, 2008 by indra

There was hue and cry in the world, as the crude price jumped to $147+ for a barrel. And the world population today can’t think of a life without energy for which the only popular and economically viable source is the fossil oil. None of the producing companies in oil producing countries said that their wells had dried or were going to dry soon and so they are conserving by gradually reducing the production. But the speculators made the prices rise. I don’t know how much the people or the countries owning the oil fields get benefited or lose out of the day-to-day price rise or fall. I assume the baiters would have been making the maximum of the cut. With the same production and consumption too, the crude prices have now come down to $124 last week and is expected to go further down. But as the consequence of the earlier surge that made many experts predict that the price might touch as high as $250 or even $500 per barrel, the economy of many countries got huge shock. Many stock markets collapsed including our own making many losing huge amount. Prices of all the commodities went up and so the inflation rate causing sleepless nights for the prime minister and finance minister. And suddenly the whole world started talking of conservation, higher fuel efficiencies, smaller cars, or hybrid cars. I don’t know a world body can’t devise a way out to avoid this situation? Why can’t in the larger interest of the world population a uniform programme be taken up to cut down the use of crude oil gradually? Why can’t the scientists and technocrats pull together their energies to find a viable solution? Why should it be a monopoly of a country or two?

Many a time I feel the situation created by the speculators who so ever they might be is similar to those who control the market prices of onion and potato. Even at the time when there is no one to buy the produce from the farmers at the time it is ready, the consumers in India keep on paying what the traders wish to extract. Why should the price for a common item such as onion be Rs 16 or 20 a kilo? If a government and the theories of free economy can’t control the price of this essential item, how can it appreciate and affect the price of crude oil?

Can some one tell me the difference in pricing of oil and onion? Left to me, I would have gone for a differential pricing of onion charging the price of gold for onion from the oil producing countries that import our onions. The countries producing onion should get into cartel to fight with the oil producing countries.

Can some one give his opinion on my agony?

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Entrepreneuring India

Posted on August 4, 2008 by indra

I try to think over about my positive outlook towards Indian economy. I love to keep before me the celebrities like Abdul Kalam and CK Prahalad as icons of hope of a prosperous super power India. Kalam did that with ‘India 2020’ and Prahalad has his ‘India @75’. What does sustain my hope? Outlook Business has stories of some entrepreneurs who have successfully created niche companies. Each of the stories is exhilarating. I could never think of these unique business models. Here are the selected few:

SKM Egg Products manufactures egg powder that it exports to 24 countries at a factory, capable of producing 4,600 tonnes a year at Choagapalayam village near Erode in Tamil Nadu. About 40% of its Rs 100 crore revenues (for year ended March 2008) came from Japan, and another 40% from Europe.

Naval Kishore Singh, 73, a former employee of Tata Steel, has used his expertise at catching deadly, poisonous snakes. His income from the venom extraction exceeds Rs 1.2 crore with Christian Medical College, and Bharat Serum as main clients. Interestingly, Singh has no office and operates from a tea stall in Jamshedpur.

Narayana Peesapaty sold his flat to get into a business of producing edible cutlery using sorghum as base and vegetable pulp-spinach, beetroot and carrot to add color and nutritive value. Narayana has applied for process patent, and dreaming big. He is also developing an edible plate that can go well with a pizza. It will be something like those ice-cream cones.

Sandip Taware’s Bhagirathi Hatcheries is one of the estimated 1,000 emu-farms that produce about 33,000 tonnes of emu-meat in India. Emus are Australian birds, and its meat, as claimed, is healthier. Interestingly, India produces 1.9 million tonnes of chicken meat every year. Is it not a great story of enterprising Indians? Could one think of such an enterprise few years ago?

Central Parking Services with its 1200 employees and annual revenue of RS 45 crore in 2007-08 provides parking management solutions: designs car parks, installs equipment and manages them.

Acme Tele Power Ltd of Manoj Kumar Upadhyaya, http://www.acmetelepower.com/ an electronics engineer from Shahjahanpur’s government polytechnic, is now a company with Rs 1,800 crore revenues for 2007-08 with presence in 17 countries with already secured seven patents (additional 14 pending approval) in energy management solutions.

Appachi Cotton based in Pallachi, Tamil Nadu presently with revenue of Rs 30 crore aims to strike big through organic textiles route. It has been growing organic cotton through contract farming over 400 acres in Karnataka that is likely to increase to 1,000 acres in next two years.

KAM-Avida Enviro Engineers, a now a Rs 25 crore company, makes and maintains sewage drain cleaning equipment and in the next three to four years will have four lines of business: drain cleaning equipment, compacting garbage disposal trucks, industrial vacuuming machines and street sweepers.

Sunny Water Sports, http://sunnywatersports.com/Default.asp an Rs 5 crore manufacturer of boats, has now more than 110 types of boats to offer, and became the first local manufacturer of two storeyed luxury boats two years ago. Cost arbitrage apart, Sunny Water Sports has been able to keep its client satisfied on quality standards and timely delivery.

Many young men and women in the country are trying to put their ideas in to business enterprises and even don’t hesitate to quit good jobs for the same. . Finance is not very difficult for these successful startups with many venture capital firms looking for good businesses to invest in. And many successful celebrities such as Nandan Nilekani find pleasure in encouraging them.

It is this entrepreneuring India that will change the face of India and bring it in the league of prosperous nations.

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Mamta! Please Spare ‘Nano’

Posted on August 4, 2008 by indra

I was myself against Tata Motors using fertile Singur land of the marginal farmers for setting up the manufacturing plant for Nano, a car that if prudently produced and distributed can bring about a revolutionary change in manufacturing sector of the country. I was also skeptical, with all my experiences of working in an automobile firm itself, about the cooperation of the unions of West Bengal that is essential for getting a global scale plant operate at the best productivity level. However, once the West Bengal government has agreed with the decision on location, the project must go on with full speed. The plant must get the machinery and equipment commissioned, workers trained, start production fast and put Nano in market. All the technocrats and managers of the country appeal to Mamta for giving up her protest now and stop her men to do anything that further delays the start of production. Let us see if Leftist unions resist the temptation of creating problems for the project.
Mamtaji! Tata Motors have many other challenges to face with increasing inflation and the input cost to make the car that Tata has promised at $2500 to the world. Most of the competitions from all over the world are looking at Tata Motors and doubting its capability to make it. An article, ‘The Nano: Tata’s Costly Promise‘ in the latest issue of Business Week has raised the same doubt. The engineers of Tata Motors have taken a task to prove that Indians too can innovate and create a world-class product that others can envy. All of us must consider ourselves a stakeholder in the project and provide the moral support if not anything else.

Nano is small and rugged enough for rural India. It will help the aspirations of many getting realized with fuel efficiency of 23 kms or more for a litre of gasoline. I find many farming families with better yield and minimum support price of the produce can afford it. What can be a better offer? As reported, the demand already is already outpacing the potential supply expected from the plant. Engineers and manager of Tata Motors, as promised are working overtime using all means at their disposal to innovate ways to produce Nano at the promised price.

And that is the reason of my earnest appeal to Mamta. Her political gain through these protests and demoralizing effects of the management staffs working on the project will be just meager compared to the huge loss the nation and not the company will have, if the project doesn’t succeed. And time is a great factor today for that. Very soon the competitors including Bajaj and Renault tie-up are also coming out with the competing products. West Bengal will loose second chance of being a major player in auto industry.
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Latest Mamata’s Menance
August 24: Singur siege date -Plan to surround Tata Motors site and keep away ‘outsiders’


Singur divides businessmen as Tata Motors faces fresh Trinamul fire

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My Expectations from Bihar’s Biggest Three

Posted on August 3, 2008 by indra

Let me clarify that this is entirely my own list of biggest three that I came out with the information from my friends and media reports. And one shouldn’t feel bad about it rather should excuse me as I have remained out of the state for most of my life so I hardly understand the intricacies of the built-in politics of the state.

One thing that is common to the three is their IPS background and to me it means discipline and certain aspect of honesty. All three suffered from the ruling class because of their forthright approach to the responsibility entrusted to them.
Initially I had suggested Nitish government through media to bring in some tough outsiders such as Kiran Bedi or Gill to overcome the caste-biased politics and influences in Bihar to improve upon the horrible law and order situation that he inherited. But perhaps Nitish was right in selecting the police head from the insiders. To some extent, he has succeeded in repairing the image of the state and in improving the law and order situation related to kidnapping industry that some say flourished in Bihar because of political patronage.

And today I am really happy to know that DN Gautam has got into the chair heading the police in Bihar. With all his records of toughness towards the political dons without fearing the consequences from political bosses, he appears to be the best choice. I wish him a great success, more so I wish he establishes and leaves behind a system that makes the perception of the Bihar police as lastingly efficient and effective. Gautam would have conceived a game plan in his mind over the years of working experiences in the state to get the things right for the state that he would carry out when he himself occupies the chair. He must execute and complete the same during his tenure. It is necessary that the perception about the law and order condition in Bihar get a total positive change in the outsiders who matter, and who wishes to invest in business in Bihar. Can Gautam make the police responsive and people-friendly? Can he get rid of the immense influence of the middlemen in the department? Can he involve the community at grassroots level, particularly in rural Bihar, to establish peace and orderliness?

I know Kishore Kunal of Mahavir temple fame for his great contribution to the religious establishments and healthcare. I consider his unique endeavours to get Dalits as head priest in temples of Bihar as path breaking and socially very much contemporary and necessary. I wish he could get a good primary school, a trade training centre and yoga teaching facility attached with each temple all over rural Bihar. With lack of modern healthcare infrastructure and mechanization of farming that has taken out the physical work to a great extent from the men and women in villages, Bihar needs the spread of yoga in rural regions badly and so it needs building of skills to get a respectful employment. As I came to know of his interest in establishing super specialty hospitals, I wish he could get one in every district headquarter of the state. I am sure he can market his mission among the business houses and NRIs interested in doing so.

Abhayanand has become a legendary figure because of his Super 30 model that has attained 100 percent hit in IIT-JEE this year. As I understand from media, he has a wonderful plan to do something similar specially for the minority community that has historically remained under-priviledged and deprived. It is unfortunate that the quest for IITs and IIMs has overshadowed all the education goals of the parents and the students in the state and the country. They hardly know that it is the excellence in education that matters even for much coveted IT industry. A student can pursue any subject, but must attain excellence in it. Interestingly, some highly positioned employees of Microsoft India have English language as their domain knowledge. The domain knowledge may relate to physics, mathematics, chemistry, or anything else. An excellence can make the student equivalent to any IITian in today’s business world. They can very well understand that, as a graduate degree in any such subject is the minimum educational requirement for entrance in IIMs. Many big companies such as Infosys, Wipro, or Satyam take in the good graduates with many subjects other than engineering. However, besides the subject of graduation, the student must develop a good capability for communications in English and know computer operation as tools. Can Abhayanand ji spread this among the student and teachers community of the state?

Unfortunately, the state needs more good colleges at the district and block level, and the earlier philanthropic endeavours from the members of community to establish that, is missing. The state is also failing to attract those business houses that are establishing private educational institutions in the other states. Can Abhyanand, Kishore Kunal or for that matter any other person or group take the task of marketing education potential of Bihar among the prospective investors of the private sector? After all Bihar is feeding many institutes in Southern states and in many part of the world with proportionately large number of students.

Let the three succeed and leave behind a great legacy of their own.

PS: I wish someone could pass on the write-up to them.

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The world’s oldest top 10 jokes

Posted on August 3, 2008 by indra

We knew PJs in IIT days. I myself was never good at it. In Hind Motors, I clearly remember two persons- Mr. Raju and Mr. KP Gupta, who were in demand to entertain with their jokes. However, I was thrilled by the endeavour of the team members who worked on compiling the list of the world’s oldest top 10 jokes. I wonder why they couldn’t lay hand on some Chinese or Indian jokes. Can some knowledgeable Indian help?

The Dave Historical Humour Study defines a joke as having a clear set-up and punch line structure. The team has created the history of the joke that goes as far back as 1900 BC. It also provides a unique and compelling insight into how jokes have evolved over the years, both globally and in the UK.

The world’s oldest joke is revealed to be an ancient Sumerian proverb dating back to 1900 BC. The Sumerian version of this joke occurs in tablets dating to the Old Babylonian period and possibly even dates back to 2,300 BC. The Dave Historical Humour study spent two months trawling the annals of history to produce the first report of its kind into the world’s oldest recorded jokes.

1. Something which has never occurred since time immemorial: a young woman did not fart in her husband’s lap (1900 BC – 1600 BC Sumerian Proverb Collection 1.12-1.13)

2. How do you entertain a bored pharaoh? You sail a boatload of young women dressed only in fishing nets down the Nile and urge the pharaoh to go catch a fish (An abridged version first found in 1600 BC on the Westcar Papryus)

3. Three ox drivers from Adab were thirsty: one owned the ox, the other owned the cow and the other owned the wagon’s load. The owner of the ox refused to get water because he feared his ox would be eaten by a lion; the owner of the cow refused because he thought his cow might wander off into the desert; the owner of the wagon refused because he feared his load would be stolen. So they all went. In their absence the ox made love to the cow which gave birth to a calf which ate the wagon’s load. Problem: Who owns the calf?! (1200 BC)

4. A woman who was blind in one eye has been married to a man for 20 years. When he found another woman he said to her, “I shall divorce you because you are said to be blind in one eye.” And she answered him: “Have you just discovered that after 20 years of marriage!?” (Egyptian circa 1100 BC)

5. Odysseus tells the Cyclops that his real name is nobody. When Odysseus instructs his men to attack the Cyclops, the Cyclops shouts: “Help, nobody is attacking me!” No one comes to help. (Homer. The Odyssey 800 BC)

6. Question: What animal walks on four feet in the morning, two at noon and three at evening? Answer: Man. He goes on all fours as a baby, on two feet as a man and uses a cane in old age (Appears in Oedipus Tyrannus and first performed in 429 BC)

7. Man is even more eager to copulate than a donkey – his purse is what restrains him (Egyptian, Ptolemaic Period 304 BC – 30 BC)

8. Augustus was touring his Empire and noticed a man in the crowd who bore a striking resemblance to himself. Intrigued he asked: “Was your mother at one time in service at the Palace?” “No your Highness,” he replied, “but my father was.” (Credited to the Emporer Augustus 63 BC – 29 AD)

9. Wishing to teach his donkey not to eat, a pedant did not offer him any food. When the donkey died of hunger, he said “I’ve had a great loss. Just when he had learned not to eat, he died.” (Dated to the Philogelos 4th /5th Century AD)

10. Asked by the court barber how he wanted his hair cut, the king replied: “In silence.” (Collected in the Philogelos or “Laughter-Lover” the oldest extant jest book and compiled in the 4th/5th Century AD)

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IITs and Coaching Mills

Posted on August 2, 2008 by indra

In many of my write-ups on IIT, I raised the issue of the damage that the coaching mills sprouted all over the country, are causing. I was happy to know that the director and the dean of IIT- Madras have similar views. As reported in Times of India on July 31, M S Ananth, the director of IIT-Madras said, ”I am looking for students with raw intelligence and not those with a mind prepared by coaching class tutors. The coaching classes only help students in mastering (question paper) pattern-recognizing skills. With this, you cannot get students with raw intelligence.” Mr. Ananth also expressed his opinion against the students missing their Class XII classes to attend coaching.

It was not always like that. I sat for my entrance examination in 1957 and Rakesh, my eldest son did that in 1989. There were no coaching institutes in those days. We appeared in our Intermediate science or higher secondary examination, and there after for IIT entrance examinations. I remember I appeared for ISM, Dhanbad too. While BE College Shibpur near Botanical Garden was the center for IIT, Scottish Church College was for ISM. I don’t remember if I had seen even any question papers of the examinations in previous years. By 1989, Agrawal Classes and Brilliant Tutorial had started providing correspondence courses for preparation. I had subscribed for one of them for Rakesh. None of us could even dream of taking more chances to get into IIT or ISM.

I personally feel that IITs have failed to eliminate the ingress of the coaching industry for the entrance in IITs. In my writings I had mentioned also of the open book examinations practiced at IIT that confirms that the setting of question papers can be done in a manner that can’t be taught by coaching. I firmly believe that the directors and faculty members of IITs must devise innovative means to get the coaching mills shut, and it is very much possible unless they themselves have some vested interest. The curriculum must be one of Class XII standard, may be of CBSE. It also must discourage multiple attempts.

Further, I will disagree with Mr. Ananth about the testing the capability of communication, as it will give advantage to those coming from elite private schools. But I shall certainly like that the prospective engineers must have aptitude for engineering and creativity and the entrance examination must test that, as I hate IITians joining IIM just after graduating. I shall like to see them as brilliant engineers who can compete with the best in the world.

It is great that IIT is lifting the veil from the cut-off controversy. IIT must innovate the examination in such a manner that the candidates can take examinations on line and can know about their scores just after completing the examination.
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PS: VIEW: The idea deserves to be considered
COUNTER VIEW: Tweaking JEE won’t help

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