Researching India

Posted on November 17, 2007 by indra

Attractiveness: India is tipped to be among the top three destinations where multinational companies (MNCs) planned to spend their R&D budgets over the next three years, according to a 2004 survey by The Economist Intelligence Unit. A recent UNCTAD survey corroborates: India was number three in terms of R&D location attractiveness – close behind China and the US. The number of R&D centres of MNCs trebled from 100 to over 300 in the past three-four years.

Patents: In patents, India lags behind global peers; a US ranking of patents between 1995 and 2004 showed India in 24th place globally. Aggregate domestic R&D spending has never exceeded 1 per cent of GDP – just Rs 21,600 crore in 2004; in purchasing power parity terms, it was at Rs 1,07,600 crore, making India the world’s ninth largest spender. But China spent more than three times as much at Rs 3,76,000 crore, becoming the third-largest spender.

Spending: About 75-80 per cent of India’s R&D spending comes from public enterprises, while in China, more than 65 per cent comes from private enterprises.

The total private R&D investment is estimated to have risen from Rs 3,200 crore in 2002 to Rs 16,400 crore in 2005. This has led to a corresponding increase in total R&D spending from Rs 16,000 crore in 2002 to Rs 34,000 crore in 2005 (when total private spending is estimated to have risen to 48 per cent). India has seven firms in the worlds top 1,250 companies ranked on the basis of investments in research and development.

Manpower: India has between 117,528 and 300,000 scientists, researchers and engineers while China has three times as many at 926,252.

China vs. India: As investment and output in China are mostly for local consumption, India with its local and global focus could emerge as the dark horse and become the No. 1 knowledge destination by 2020.

US-based DuPont has invested Rs 200 crore in its R&D centre in India that is the only ‘One DuPont Centre’ worldwide housing everything from biotech to IT solutions. IBM has set up R&D centers staffed by 3,000 engineers in India, which have become a source of innovation on everything from software to semiconductors to supercomputers.

AstraZeneca India, could realize its biggest success by introducing a cheaper and more efficient TB drug by 2010. This could be a big breakthrough as no new TB drug has been discovered since 1964. The company may take a crack at discovering new drugs for diseases such as dengue and diarrhoea.

The Microsoft’s development centre in Hyderabad works on core product groups such as Windows, Office, Visual Studio, and data and storage platforms. It has fully developed from scratch products like Virtual PC and Data Protection Manager.
Microsoft’s Koppolu has orchestrated a 100-strong external partner team which includes HP, Intel, Wipro and TCS, sitting across the world to come up with an RFID solution, slated for release by the end of this year.

Motorola’s team of 30 full-time researchers and scientists are working on phones that will have multi-lingual displays and speech recognition and noise cancellation technology. The team is responsible for more than 40 per cent of all software that goes into Motorola phones, including the latest Motorazr.

General Motors chose Bangalore as its first research centre with an investment of $60 million in 2003.

A recent study by The Indus Entrepreneurs (TIE), an association of Indian IT professionals in the US, revealed that close to 60,000 professionals have relocated to India in recent years. At GM, the percentage of returning Indians to total employees is over 50 per cent; at Monsanto, it’s 30 per cent; at GE, its over 20 per cent; and at MSIDC and Biocon, it’s over 10 per cent.

Most of the captive MNC labs started with developing parts of a product or doing feature enhancements and have gone to taking over complete ownership of products and building them from ground up.

Texas Instrument’s engineers in India completely designed a single-chip cellphone solution that has made possible the Rs 1,000-cellphone dream; the chip brings down power and space consumption by 50 per cent. At MSIDC, teams have developed from scratch solutions such as RFID Biz Talk, Virtual PC, and Data Protection Manager. At Yahoo! India, employees have fully developed properties such as Avatars (images that can be customized and used on mail or messenger), Farechase (which pulls out best airfares from multiple sources such as cleartrip, travelguru, etc), podcasting service and Ourcity (compilation of city-based information).

Scientists and engineers at GE’s JFWTC are helping in designing key parts of the GEnx engine, which powers the Boeing “Dreamliner” 787 and Boeing 747. Another team at the GE’s Bangalore Engineering Center simulates bird strike and fan blade out (an occurrence when the blade comes out from the fan module) events.

Indian companies such as Tata Motors, Bajaj, Mahindra, Sun Pharma, Glenmark, Tata Steel, Dr Reddy’s and Ranbaxy are beefing up their core R&D initiatives and have produced results that have made them globally successful.
By 1996-97, the cumulative patents of Tata Steel were around 30. Last year, they had filed 234.

If we look at two recent news reports, we can appreciate what Indian technocrats and scientists are at, so far the product development capability of India is concerned.

1.The Tata supercomputer, named EKA after the Sanskrit term for one, at Pune’s Computational Research Laboratories, a Tata subsidiary, has been ranked fourth in the widely anticipated Top 500 list released at an international conference on high performance computing in Reno, Nevada. The Indian supercomputer has been adjudged the fastest in Asia.

2.India has successfully tested the indigenously developed cryogenic stage to be employed as the upper stage of the country’s Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle (GSLV) in a significant milestone in its space programme.

But Indian firms are still playing catching up. According to World Bank data of the top 50 applicants for patents in India between 1995 and 2005, 44 were foreign firms. Miles to go to match the competition!

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Education: National Priority

Posted on November 16, 2007 by indra

No doubt, education is the national priority. India can’t develop as superpower only with its massive number of population in working age group. India must build skills in its people through quality education of all sorts. IT has broken many traditional barriers about educational qualifications. Even a good graduate in English can serve Microsoft in equal position with another with degree in engineering. It starts with good and universal education at primary level. Education must be one that enables one to understand whatever is taught clearly and must not end with the ability to reading and writing. And it must continue till the end of professional life with refreshing courses and training in new skills as and when developed or desired.
It is heartening that the government has started realizing the need and necessity. The 11th Five-Year Plan (2007-2012) under making proposes nearly one-third of the total allocation for education and health that was 9% of the Plan allocation till date. It reflects the change.

Main thrust will be on primary education. Rs 1.25 lakh crore (as against Rs 30,000 crore in the last plan) out of a total of Rs 2.85 lakh crore will go to primary education. However, thrust must be on improving the effectiveness of the allocation and the working culture in the schools. And it can happen only if the teachers are motivated through training and incentives to impart the best to the students. IT and technologies can take away the workload off the teachers who will be expected to be working more as facilitators. The curricula must focus on developing values, communication skills, and creativity while imparting the traditional knowledge of the subject based on its actual application. Teaching must arouse the interest to know, learn, and apply the knowledge rather than to pass examinations. Students must get an urge to spend time in library and the creativity centers of the schools or colleges.

Likewise, the share of adult and secondary education is being increased to Rs 6,000 crore, and Rs 53,000 crore respectively. And higher and technical education gets Rs 84,000 crore. The plan envisages major reforms in education such as introducing credit and semester systems and exam reforms.

Higher education will undergo massive expansion. The plan seeks to establish 30 new central universities of which 16 are to be set up in areas, which don’t have a central university. The rest 14 are to be model universities with world-class infrastructure costing around Rs 1,000 crores for each. Seven more IITs, seven IIMs, 10 National Institute of Technology, five Indian Institute of Science, Education and Research, 20 IIITs and two schools of architecture are part of the plan. Additionally, 330 new colleges will come up in educationally backward districts.

I wish the plans got approved and implemented giving all the benefits out of good education within the timeframe.

It gives real joy to know that Indians in general give so much weightage to education. There can’t be better proof of this than the information that ‘for the sixth year in a row, Indian students have emerged as the largest group of international students in the US. According to the latest figures released by the Institute of International Education on Sunday, there are 83,833 Indian students in US universities. Indian students comprise 14.4% of the total international students in the US.’ And it is on increase and for better education. 71% of them in US are doing Masters and PhD studies. Graduate student enrolment grew nearly 6% from 56,397 in 2005-06 to 59,521 in 2006-07. There are only 12,500 Indian undergraduate students pursuing bachelor’s degrees at US institutions. Indians students are seeking admission in institutions of many countries including even China. It’s good sign. Let skilled knowledgeable Indians move to all corner of the globe and serve the humanity. Let the nation move from ignorance to knowledge, and India takes the real leadership in knowledge sector.

P.S. Indian students dominate Harvard Business School

Indians among largest overseas student groups in the UK</

Posted in education | Leave a comment

Why Are Politicians Blocking N-deal?

Posted on November 16, 2007 by indra

As reported, a high-profile group of former military chiefs, ambassadors, senior bureaucrats, strategic planners, foreign secretaries, and nuclear and space scientists has addressed an open letter to MPs on the eve of the Parliament session to get the Indo-US Deal approved by majority in parliament without making it a political issue. It seems to be a last-gasp effort and interesting development. Let the MPs hear the opinion of the people who held very important and the highest positions on an issue of national importance.

Unfortunately, a majority of MPs will have to oppose the deal during the debate in both the houses because of the party’s directive or whip to do that. Some political parties wish to oppose it as they want to project themselves anti- American, otherwise major minority community may get offended as it treats US as anti-Muslim. Some oppose the deal with US as US is the only superpower today with the demise of the communist block led by Soviet Union, and China is still not ready to lead and they faithfully believe in communism as the only solution of all troubles. Some oppose it because they would have liked their own party to get the credit of taking the deal through.

The group has asserted that India could not hope to get a better deal, and have raised pertinent questions: “Can we do better without the agreement, or, can we get a better one? The answer to the second question is surely, no.”

“The agreement has given us as much as it has because of a most particular combination of circumstances which can hardly come again. To the contrary, there are forces at work internationally that will only complicate our position – for example, the growing pressure for a Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty, or the growing potential of American opponents of the agreement.”

The Left seems to have softened its stand on letting the government open negotiations with IAEA. But BJP even after all the lobbying from the American heavyweights in administration seems to be undeterred and bent on cashing the political advantage of opposing the deal in the forthcoming elections.

Who can stop India from exploding more devices if it was ready to face the consequences? “Even under the Non-Proliferation Treaty – from which we are being exempted – a state can opt out and conduct a test if it feels that it is vital to its security.”
The signatories said the agreement with the US would put no fetters on India to produce more weapons if it deemed it necessary.

The signatories suggest accepting the “attainable” instead of holding out for the “ideally desirable”. A major obstacle to India attaining world power status “has been the denial of high technologies, particularly those related to security needs, which have enabled some self-selected powers to forge well ahead of us. We will continue to be denied access to such technologies unless the international community agrees to remove the existing sanctions. In opening the way to such an outcome, what is formally a bilateral agreement between us and the US is actually the basis for agreement with the international community.”

Suddenly, the leftists are very much concerned to prove India’s sovereignty. According to the signatories, the nuclear deal wouldn’t put Indian foreign policy hostage to the US. “International relationships are shaped by strength, the stronger you are the greater your freedom of action. We believe India is more vulnerable to foreign pressures without this agreement than we would be by increasing our strength through an intelligent use of it to put through various development programmes which currently falter.”

But will our great politicians listen to the advices of these dignitaries or some unscrupulous ones even brand them pro-American paid lobbyists to prove that they are the only to have the knowledge and concern of the dignity and future of the country?

I wish better sense prevails on MPs and party bosses so that Indian scientists don’t remain outcastes and India can get access to all scientific researches on equal terms. That is possible only if India goes ahead with the Deal.

Posted in governance, industry | Leave a comment

Economist and Technology in India

Posted on November 15, 2007 by indra

Economist last week carried a commendable special issue ‘Technology in India and China’. The lead article ‘Howling at the moon’ talked of the Asian aspirations on moon mission.

China’s Chang’e 1 satellite, launched in October, began its first lap of the moon, marking another step towards a manned lunar mission. India, which hopes to circle the moon with its own satellite next year, matches China’s technological enthusiasm. India shall be taking up the feasibility study for landing on moon.

However, the main hypothesis of Economist is on the growing technological capabilities of both the countries and some advisory as usual how should both move ahead. According to Economist, ‘both countries believe they can succeed in high-tech markets that America, Europe and Japan have long regarded as theirs by right.’

The article ‘Running fast’ deals with nicely on the strength of China as well as India. It talks about India’s IT sector:

India’s ancient civilisations ushered in a “mathematical revolution” from the fifth century, when Aryabhata devised something like the decimal system. In the seventh century Brahmagupta explained that a number multiplied by zero was zero. By the 15th century, Madhava had calculated pi to more than ten decimal places. India’s genius, then as now, was in software not hardware. The heirs to Aryabhata and Brahmagupta, India’s digital ambassadors have won acclaim for their mastery of ones as well as zeros.

India produces more engineering graduates than America. But it has only 24 personal computers for every 1,000 people, and fewer than three broadband connections. India’s billion-strong population cuts both ways. As of now, India matters more to technology than technology does to India.
Leapfrogging or piggybacking?
India’s path has remained idiosyncratic. The skills demanded by its industries are those of a much richer country. This can be shown, roughly, by statistics, but more sharply by anecdote. General Electric’s technology centre in Bengalooru (formerly Bangalore) is working on advanced propulsion systems for jet engines. India’s Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) produces the software for Ferrari’s Formula One cars. India’s drug makers offer 60,000 finished medicines; only three countries produce a bigger volume.

Ganesh appears in some unofficial versions of the Mahabharata, a Hindu epic, as a scribe, whose quill pen breaks in his haste to record the poem as a sage recites it. Not to be beaten, Ganesh snaps off one of his tusks, dips it in ink and does not miss a line. Those virtues of determination and improvisation explain much of the success of India’s celebrated IT firms, such as TCS, Wipro and Infosys. Each firm has its epic tales of deadlines made and obstacles overcome. Their exports of IT services (which do not include other back-office services) grew by 36% in the last fiscal year to reach $18 billion, according to NASSCOM. IT services employed about 560,000 people. The big three have landed several deals each worth over $300m (with companies such as Skandia, General Motors, United Biscuits and British Telecom) and margins are still healthy. For example, Infosys reported an operating margin of 28% for the third quarter.

But some think India should be doing more with its intellectual resources. It should aspire to be the poet, not the scribe. India’s exports of its own software-or licensing of its own intellectual property (IP)-amounted to about $450m in the year ending March 31st, a tiny fraction of its service exports.

Services are labour-intensive; products require a bit of capital. It thus makes sense that India started out by specialising in the services. Add a roomful of computers and a company could get to work. But it is precisely the labour-intensity of services that must ultimately limit the industry’s growth. To double its revenues, a service company has more or less to double its headcount. That is expensive: wages of IT professionals are growing by 15% a year. TCS, for example, now has over 100,000 employees, having added over 12,000 in the most recent quarter.

Eventually, Indian firms will need to embody their brainwork in a patentable software product that can be copied and sold, over and over again.

What is stopping them?

Indian software firms often lack the wherewithal to push a product in the marketplace, and to survive the marketplace’s whims. Services yield predictable returns. Products, on the other hand, require a heavy outlay up-front, which may never be recouped if the package fails to find enough distributors, “channel partners” and customers. I-flex solutions, India’s biggest software-product success, survived its early years by running a services business on the side.

To make a successful product, a company needs to be close to its customers. But Indians do not use much software-they bought only $1.6 billion-worth last fiscal year-and when they use it, they do not pay for it. Piracy rates are as high as 72%. One company, Tally, has succeeded by writing accounting programs for small businesses in India and other emerging markets. It touts “the power of simplicity” and traces its origins to the efforts of its founder and his son to computerise their own company’s accounts in the 1980s. You can buy the silver edition of Tally’s ninth release for 11,232 rupees ($290). This compares well with foreign packages that are “atrociously expensive” and “require two or three PhDs to run.”

Meanwhile, the services firms themselves seem happy renting out IQ. Their aim is not just to add heads, but also to earn more revenue per head. India’s leading firms hope to move away from charging clients on the basis of inputs-“time and materials”-or even outputs-pieces of code. They want to charge customers on the basis of the gains their IT services can deliver, such as cutting their billing costs.

Scribes want to become better scribes. To become a poet, you probably need to be born as one.

But it seems logical to expect the big players of Indian IT sector getting into software-product as they can afford it. And many of the smaller entrepreneurs and startups must emulate Tally. In sheer number, it doesn’t seem India lacks talent, but its younger generation of entrepreneurs straight from the incubators of the institutes must be enthused to enjoy the risk of going in to software product business rather than money making BPOs only.

Posted in Tecchnology | Leave a comment

Earn While You Learn

Posted on November 14, 2007 by indra

As reported in media, students getting admission in Delhi University in undergraduate as well as graduate courses will soon be able to get part-time jobs too within the university setup. The part-time jobs on campus may include positions of research associate, library assistant, technician, cafeteria manager, website and database developer, counselor, physical education trainer, swimming coach, hostel caregiver, gardener, staff vehicle driver and security person. Academic performance of students and their financial needs will the criteria for getting the job. The remuneration will be at par with market standards, and students will be paid on the basis of the number of hours they put in per day. A research scholar gets Rs 8,000-12,000 per month as per the UGC standards. The research and teaching assistants working on part-time basis will get an hourly payment.

As such, any job of responsibility provides on job training and builds certain amount of professionalism and develops work culture. Opportunities of part-time jobs will provide will inculcate the respect for labour and may be bring equity among the mindsets of the students. I wish the system evolve, get mature and stabilize as it has in US.

The practice is almost universal in American universities. That’s the way my three sons in US completed their Masters. However, it will be the first-of-its kind plan for any Indian university. The system will prepare them better for the career without depending very much on the parents for financial support or on banks for loan to pursue their studies.

Anand showed me the food outlets where he worked initially before he could get an assistantship in a computer lab of Arizona University. I have been promoting the necessity to incorporate part time jobs for deserving graduate students as research assistant and teaching assistants in all universities. I strongly feel that the system may make many students interested in teaching and R&D as profession that today hardly is on the priority of the boys and girls studying in universities. Most of the time, it is because of the ignorance about the challenges and the opportunities of these professions that are foundations for a developed economy.

The new scheme proposes to allow students to work for 25 to 30 hours a month through the academic year, which starts from July. I wish the students could work for the time slot convenient to them without hampering their academic engagement.

Will the scheme spread to all universities, engineering colleges and schools of business management too? Will it also mean waiving off of various fees or certain concession on it that hasgone very high? I wish it did at least for those working as teaching and research assistants

Posted in economy, education | Leave a comment

What ‘T’ Stands for? Trade or Toilet

Posted on November 13, 2007 by indra

Almost all of us know World Trade Organization that has played big role in globalization. But recently, I came to know of World Toilet Organization that had a summit and exhibition recently in New Delhi attended by many dignitaries including our Kalam. Years ago I wrote about Gandhi’s stay in Chmparan and his thrust on sanitation. The subject remains relevant even today.

With a rural background, I had been writing about the horrible conditions in villages. Open defecation is the only way. As I remember my grandfather and uncles with whom I lived during my early childhood getting up very early in morning and going for defecation outside in the fields with water in a ‘lota’. I also did the same whenever I visited my village home. Women had to wait for darkness of the night. But in those days, the social values and law and order situation were different. However, in rainy seasons, going out and finding a safe place used to be difficult. It was really awesome if someone fell sick. The situation remains almost same in rural India. But why should I talk of rural India, even in Noida, one of the richest satellite township, one can see or smell the misery created because of the open defecation near the main road in some areas by those working class who don’t have access to any toilet. And the number of such persons is pretty high. Unfortunately, many a cities including Noida has never planned to provide sufficient numbers of public toilets. After many letters to CEO to have a toilet complex in all the markets and bigger parks with Mother Dairy and Safal Booths visited by hundreds of morning walkers and customers, there are hardly any. Few years ago, I had to drive through the road of Bihar. It was horribly shameful situation with hundreds of women and girls using the roadside for open defecation. The driver couldn’t have driven without light and as he used to put on the headlight one could see them suddenly getting up and turning the faces in different direction in hundreds. When we traveled by train, we just couldn’t see outside the glass window in the morning when the train used to enter Patna. The memory of Khajuraho village was equally dismal. Government has taken up many programmes. One such is Normal Gram. I don’t know the extent the situation has changed. Even in Hindustan Motors, it was a pitiable conditions so far the toilets for workforces were concerned for many years. Unfortunately, it is mindset. Majority doesn’t feel it necessary to keep the toilets clean.

As Priya Sahgal reported on and from Sanitation Summit in ‘India Today’, ‘globally 2,600 million people defecate in the open. Of these, 700 million live in India.’ However, Bindheswari Pathak of Sulabh Sauchalaya fame wishes to half the number in India by 2015 and achieve ‘toilet for all’ goal by 2025.

Interestingly, even in 2500 B.C., Mahenjodaro had a highly developed sewage system that directed waste from every house into a sewer. Kolkata was the third city in the world after London and New York to have a sewage system in 1870. Yet in 137 years, only 232 of the 5,000 towns of India are connected to the sewage system. Sanitation Summit arranged displays of some toilet systems and accessories too. I am just getting tempted to mention some:

  The most hi-tech solution to conserve water are the incinerator toilets that don’t use a flush but one KWH of electricity for each cycle and produce a spoonful of ash.
  15 countries have by now adopted the Sulabh technology that converts waste into biogas, which can be used for cooking and power generation.
  An eclectic toilet seat massages, cleanses, dries and sprinkles perfumed water.

And then some pickings:

England’s John Harrington invented first water closet in 1596. He made only two, one for himself and the other for the Queen.

In US in 1996, a hairdresser invented a buttock stimulator for relieving constipation. An electrician, in 1992, patented the first electric chamber pot to keep warm in chilly nights.

In Switzerland, pay toilets give you 15 minutes after which the door opens automatically, even if you’re not quite done.

The world’s most expensive toilet seat was one bought by NASA from the Russians that cost $19 million (Rs 74 crore).

In Thailand’s Chiang Mai, elephants are trained to use human toilets, while in Korea toilets are called Hae-woojae, which means a sanctuary and a place to think.

Ben Afleck gifted the world’s most eclectic toilet seat to Jennifer Lopez. It cost $105,000 (Rs 41 lakh) and had rubies, sapphire, and pearls embedded in the plastic.

NewGen toilets have incinerators; seats that massage, cleanse with perfumed water; and portable toilets that fit into a rucksack with biodegradable starch bags.

Manmohan Singh’s ‘Bharat Nirman’ has many lofty targets for rural India: road, electricity for all households, drinking water, and telephone links. I wish public toilets for every village had been part of it.

More importantly, it must be mandatory for all the small and big enterprises including shops and public places such as petrol pumps, and restaurants on the road to provide clean and safe toilets.

Unfortunately, Pathak started well with Patna, but his business models was deficient somewhere, otherwise India would have attained ‘toilet for all goal’ by now.

Posted in economy, education | Leave a comment

Booming and Blooming India-XXVII

Posted on November 12, 2007 by indra

My laptop crashed at 4 AM yesterday, while I was working for this entry. My desktop was inoperative since quite sometime. I got a shock, as I hardly knew anything why it happened. I was morose and thought I must get off for few days from doing this task so religiously every day. But it was difficult to even think of a life without browsing through the information that is changing every minute.

Being a Sunday, I was not very hopeful if something will happen so fast. But it happened.

I called Girish to wish him a happy Diwali and to complain why he didn’t call me to join the kids in firework last night. But then I enquired if he knew anyone who could help me in restoring my laptop. Girish told me about Neeraj who runs a cyber café in nearby market. I went there at 10.30AM and asked for the service. Neeraj responded well but he couldn’t come immediately as there was no one to look after the café. But he did come and took away the laptop to reload the operating system. By 4.30 PM, he sent the laptop and also confirmed that the hardware part is fine and I needn’t worry. Neeraj has sent that through a boy of 18 who works for him. The boy was quite conversant with computer systems. He has just read up to class X. I wish he could have further schooling.

But I couldn’t use my laptop for Internet, as the laptop required some reconfiguration Airtel, according to the boy that came from Neeraj’s shop. I called Airtel call center. The boy on the other side promised to get it done in next 48 hours by its service engineer, as I was not ready to do that myself on instruction on line. However, by 6.30 PM I got a call from the young man who came to fix up the Airtel part. My laptop was ready to allow me an access to the world of knowledge. Anand did rest, when he came on line at around 9.30PM, as I had informed Shannon about the developments.

Is the story not good enough a proof of booming and bubbling India?

PS I shall continue with the series again by next week.

Posted in economy, industry | Leave a comment

Renu Khator and CK Prahalad

Posted on November 10, 2007 by indra

Renu Khator

Perhaps the biggest joy for me in pre-Diwali news reports have been the information about two American Indians who have been awarded or rewarded for their outstanding work in their respective areas.

On last Monday, the Board of Regents of the University of Houston officially confirmed Renu Khator, 52, as its next chief executive. The University of Houston system, with a faculty of more than 3,000 and a student enrolment of 50,000-plus, is one of the nation’s biggest.

Renu is a small town girl, born in 1955 in Farrukhabad. Her father, Satish Chandra Maheshwari was a successful lawyer in the town. Renu studied in Mission School, Farrukhabad and graduated from the NAKP Degree College (affiliated to Kanpur University) in the town and later went to Allahabad University.

When her father settled the marriage, Renu was studying at Allahabad University in MA Part-1. Renu was against marrying without finishing her post-graduation. She went on a hunger strike. But her would-be husband Suresh Khator promised to help her pursue higher studies. And he kept the promise.

When Khator first came to the US in 1974 as a young bride, her English was poor. Her husband, Suresh Khator, an engineering student at Purdue University, translated for her while she was interviewed by the dean for school admission. She made the cut, earned high grades while learning the language from re-runs of “I Love Lucy” and “The Andy Griffith Show”, and never looked back.
Renu took up a temporary position, but in two decades worked her way to become provost at the university. On Monday, the Houston Chronicle observed that ”Khator spoke without using notes, and her easy eloquence seemed to impress all who met the university’s 13th president.”

Renu’s success story par excellence and shows what complimentary husband and wife can achieve.

CK Prahalad

Thinkers 50, an annual ranking of the top 50 management thought leaders in the world, has crowned C K Prahalad, professor at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M Ross School of Business, the greatest management thinker alive.

In this year’s Thinkers 50 – released in London on Wednesday – Prahalad (No. 3 last year) has trumped the likes of former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, strategy guru Michael Porter and Microsoft founder Bill Gates to emerge as No. 1.

Prahalad’s work with Gary Hamel set the strategic agenda of the 1990s. Now, with ”The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid”, he has established the social, entrepreneurial and economic agenda of our times,” said Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove of Suntop Media, the organisation which brings out the Thinkers 50 ranking.

C K Prahalad is known to set the tone in whichever area he ventures into. In 1990 he coined the term ”core competence” with Gary Hamel, an idea that emphasises that companies should stick to their core strengths. In 2004, with his book ”The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid”, he nudged multinational firms to look at the vast untapped opportunity that lies in serving the world’s 5 billion poor. And from there, CK set his sights on the idea of ”co-creation” or how companies can involve customers in the innovation process in a book he co-wrote with his colleague Venkat Ramaswamy.

One magazine called him a ”One Man Idea Lab”.

While going through the story of CK Prhalad, I came across the names of a number of Indian management gurus: Three Indians in the top 50: CEO coach Ram Charan at No. 22 (up from No. 24 last year), innovation guru Vijay Govindarajan of the Tuck Business School at No. 23 (No. 31 last year); and Harvard’s Rakesh Khurana at No. 45 (No. 33 last year). Other names in the news reporting CK’s selection were of Jagdish Sheth, professor of marketing at Emory University’s Goizueta School of Business; Nirmalya Kumar, professor of marketing at London Business School; Bala Balachandran, professor at Kellogg School of Management; and Venkat Ramaswamy, professor at the Ross School of Business and also co-author of ‘The Future of Competition’.

And then some disturbing questions crop up in my mind: Why have so many of management thinkers gone to UK or US? Could have they risen so high in India? Why do we not hear or know the names of some distinguished management thinkers working in India? Is it because Indian corporate houses don’t hear them till they are not connected to US institutions? Why do media never talk about some of their outstanding works? Could Renu attain the same position here in India?

Posted in economy, education, management | Leave a comment

Diwali – Down the memory lane

Posted on November 9, 2007 by indra

At this age I love going down my memory lane to recover some that can reflect the past.

I don’t remember if we celebrated the day in big way in our remote village. However, I clearly remember my great grandmother, a religious and child widow lighting earthen lamps that she made herself near the well, Shiva Chavutra, and the Tulsi plant in the courtyard.

I don’t have any memory from my school days at Birlapur. But I am sure we must be getting good special food on the day, as my grand father was very fond of good food that also on such occasion. Perhaps I had gone more mature by that time, and had started taking all the luxury of fireworks that as a child I would have loved as waste.

It was only the Diwali of IIT, Kharagpur that I vividly remember. The lighting competition between the halls of residences with oil lamps on the terraces and the fireworks in the ground between Azad, Nehru, and Patel Halls used to be the main attraction. But then it got discontinued. I don’t remember why.

During 37 years at Hind Motors, I don’t remember when but I started worshipping the Goddess of Wealth on Diwali (that is continuing till today) and lighting some candles. When the trio came and grew, we started buying some amount of fireworks too. But I remain scared with them. However, the main feature at Hind Motors used to be the club-organized fireworks in the island of the big tank in the colony where almost the whole lot of residents collected around the tank to enjoy. And that followed with usual exchange of greetings as a practice. For next few days, we used to visit known families to wish them prosperity.

After we shifted to Noida, we drifted further from the festivities of the day. We do hardly go out on this day. It is lighting and puja in the evening, and that’s all. Noida is rich, perhaps with per capita income one of the highest in Indian satellite towns. People are very religious too. Yesterday we went out to visit the homoeopath doctor of Yamuna. In three attempts since the morning, we could catch him only at 8 PM. But that made me see what is Noida like on Diwali night. For the first time I enjoyed the lighting of the residents all over and all types. Huge crowd in the extra sweet and gifts shops set up in all the markets scared me to go in, but I had to get in one to buy some, even though the prices were very high and we had seen report of fake chemical khoya on TV scaring us. And on the way back, we found vendors of flowers and even earthen lamps of all types making a very good business. This is perhaps the trickling down effect of prosperous economy and a way to judge the prosperity of the shining India.

I have two sources to know something about how we celebrated the Diwali- diaries of my grandfather and my own. I have a plan to look into it. But I wish my sons wrote me what they remember.

Happy Diwali!

Posted in personal | Leave a comment

Two Bihars- Bahubali and Mushhar

Posted on November 7, 2007 by indra

Last Sunday, I saw two interesting reports. Both are good enough to shock any sensitive person of the country.

Here is the story of the Bahubali.

Anant Singh has become known to millions in one day courtesy media, and all for something that must ashamed any honourable person. His men assaulted media persons who wanted to finds out information about Resma Khatoon. Relenting to the media pressure, the CM had to get arrested Anant Singh. But who is this Anant Singh? I had never read about him. Here is something.

Anant Singh prospered under the patronage of his brother Dilip Singh, a minister in the Rabri Devi government. And at the opportunate time, he joined the present ruling party of Bihar. His story may charm some: When a dethroned Lalu Prasad Yadav put his pet horse, the polka-dotted Pawan, on sale at Asia’s largest cattle fair at Sonepur last year, Anant bought it by using a fake purchaser for Rs 1.11 crore. The grapevine in Patna had it that Lalu’s steed only heeded commands in English. Anant immediately renamed Rudal, after a Bihar folk hero, and said, “Abhi dekhte hain yeh angrezi samajhta hai ki Hindi (Let’s see whether he follows English or Hindi).” Rudal has company. A buffalo that Anant recently bought for Rs 65,000 reportedly bathes in the master’s swimming pool. As it seems, Anant would have used the village pond in his childhood for himself as well as for his buffalo. He is only living his childhood. And perhaps like all the modern Gabbaras, a perfect evening for Anant, Anand Mohan, Pappu Yadav, Shahabuddin, Sadhu and Subhash means party with lot of drinks spent in the comfort of one’s own home in the company of senior cops and politicians with a mujra performance by “scantily clad girls gyrating to Bhojpuri songs” to keep them all entertained.

Another report dealt with Musahar community:

According to my memory of the childhood, Musahars used to be pretty well built. I saw some Musahar wrestling with some higher caste ones too. But today things have changed. They got isolated and left out. A 2003 study by a student of the Indian Institute of Rural Management found that 90 per cent of the Musahar children below six suffer from malnutrition.
Musahar keep on shifting with their meager possessions: string charpoys, kitchen utensils and a few tattered garments.

Musahars is one of India’s most marginalized communities. They live in separate locations or habitations. They are believed to be tribals evicted when the British cleared forestlands. Powerful landlords usurped small plots given in compensation. According to a study, 60 per cent of Musahars were landless. Some own just small waterlogged, infertile plots.

As regards the origin of the community’s name, some Musahars claim it is because they ate rats. According to some, the name was given because of the tribe’s practice of ferreting out grain from rats’ burrows. I have seen them digging the mouse burrows in paddy field and taking out the grains from the holes. Naturally that can’t be a way of living.

The report was horrifying. The Musahars today hardly get two chapattis a day. I don’t understand why with so much publicized employment guarantee programme in almost all districts, Musahars are in such a pitiable condition. Why can’t hundreds of NGOs claiming to work for such people concentrate on the community such as Musahars and help them with all that can be done within the frame works of so many government programmes?

Both the stories are shocking and gloomy. But while one must go to the prison for the different crimes committed as don, the second require humane handling for upliftment. Musahars must be part of the inclusive growth. They can be trained for manufacturing handicrafts. A special programme must educate their children by providing all expenditures till they master some skills or get sufficiently educated and employed.

Posted in economy, education | Leave a comment