The Wonder that is India

Posted on August 5, 2007 by indra

It was ‘Seven Wonders of the World’ till 070707, and now it’s ‘the wonder that is India’ a ‘Times of India’ initiative.

List of the monuments in ‘the wonder that is India’ includes:
Taj Mahal, Victoria Terminus, Lotus Temple, Hampi, Darjeeling Toy Train, Fatehpur Sikri, Charminar, Bhimbetka, Howrah Birdge, Kumbh Mela, Brihadeswara Temple, Ajanta, Qutab Minar, Konark, Ghats of Benaras, Golden Temple, Khajuraho, Shravanbelagola, Kailash Temple (Ellora), and Nalanda Ruins.

To be frank, I don’t know the intention of this intiative of SMS- based selection or election that has become a common practice these days. However, it becomes a good guide to plan an outing to see something that we inherited from our history ancient as well as modern.

In my opinion, Kumbha Mela would not have been part of it, as all the Kumbha Melas are not similar in variety and size of crowd attending it. It depends on many other factors.

I am to still cover some from the above list that I would love to do at the earliest: Hampi, Darjeeling Toy Train, Bhimbetka, Kumbh Mela, Brihdeswara Temple, Ajanta, Golden Temple, Shravanbelagola, and Kailash Temple (Ellora).

To one of my friends with whom I was discussing this expressed surprise that I had not been able to make it up to even Darjeeling when we are basically a Calcuttan in every respect, spending major part of our lives there.

And that took me to the memory lanes of yester years. However, we always keep on missing the opportunities. We missed the opportunity to ride Shimla Toy Train, when we went to Shimla. As per newspaper report, it is India’s entry for World Heritage this year. We took the trip in my car. Initially, the idea was to leave the car at Kalaka. But we changed the idea when I found Sirohi’s keen interest and preference for driving. I always prefer car, as it provides flexibility.

The 104-year-old Shimla toy train is considered the greatest narrow gauge engineering feat in the country. The train covers its 96-km journey starting from Kalka and runs through 102 tunnels, 20 sleepy hill stations and over 900 bridges before reaching Shimla.

Interestingly, Indian Railways have already contributed three world heritage sites: The Darjeeling Himalayan Railway, the Nilgiri Mountain Railway and Mumbai’s VT Station are Unesco’s world heritage sites. As per a railway executive, “Simla toy Train is not just a railway but a cultural corridor. That’s why during his six-day stay in Shimla, Lee will be given a complete feel of KSR – its heritage value, the cultural richness of the communities living along it, the stunning terrain and the immaculate engineering.”
And I feel bad that we had missed the opportunity.

PS. You can click to see the images from the google sites, if you are planning to take a trip to the ones I have not done:
Hampi, Darjeeling Toy Train, Bhimbetka, Brihadeswara Temple, Ajanta, Golden Temple, Shravanbelagola, and

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‘Time’s Special Issue on India

Posted on August 4, 2007 by indra

‘Time’ has come out with a special issue on India ‘ 60 years of Independence’ India Charges Ahead: It faces challenges the size of an elephant, but the world’s largest democracy is living up to the dreams of 1947

Indian Summer
By SIMON ROBINSON
Many of the years since independence were ones of promise undelivered. But India is beginning to live up to its dreams — perhaps encouraging neighbors to emulate its success

A Family’s Journey
By SIMON ROBINSON/NEW DELHI
Three generations of the Malhotra clan have shared their country’s tears, happiness and triumphs

Beyond Faith
By ARYN BAKER
On the subcontinent, Islam is more than a creed. It possesses the power to unite a nation — yet divide a people

Soldier of Fortune
By SIMON ROBINSON/NEW DELHI
To strike it rich in India’s changing economy, follow the trail of ex-cavalry officer K.P. Singh, who used insight, guts and luck to build a real estate empire — and reaped a $20 billion bonanza

The India Advantage
By ISHAAN THAROOR
Democracy is loud and messy, but its resilience in India shows that it is neither alien to Asia nor an obstacle to prosperity

Essay: Business as Usual
By WILLIAM DALRYMPLE
India’s rise isn’t a miraculous novelty, it’s a return to traditional global trade patterns

Rising Star
By MICHAEL ELLIOTT, EDITOR, TIME INTERNATIONAL
To write about the 60th anniversary of India’s independence from Britain is to notice something different in the air. Doubt is out; confidence is catching on

Chidanand Rajghatta for ‘The Times of India’ reports from Washington:

India and the US are all set to begin exceptional civilian nuclear cooperation – overturning three decades of mistrust, heartburn and antipathy – under the terms of a landmark agreement released simultaneously in the two capitals on Friday,

Unique and far-reaching in its scope and latitude, the socalled 123 Agreement, kept under wraps since its finalisation last week, carves out a special place for New Delhi in the international nuclear architecture. The agreement virtually recognises India as a de facto nuclear weapons power, implicitly bringing it into the tent of five permanent nuclear powers. There are explicit assurances of non-interference in India’s weapons programme arising from Indian commitment to firewall its military and civilian nuclear programmes.

Why did US go out of the way to accepts all the India wanted in the Agreement? Will India loose anything in bargain? Is it a realistic US appreciation of democratic India and its age-old value based diplomacy?

‘Time’ magazine’s special issue is to recognize the place of India in global village.

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Noida And Lucknow

Posted on August 3, 2007 by indra

I was surprised when Mr. Arora informed us that some new person has replaced Monica Garg, the CEO of Noida Authority. Mayawati government had appointed Ms Monica recently, when it came in power after defeating Mulayam. Why do the person in Lucknow keep on changing the CEOs of Noida so often? Every one knows the answer, but no one can dare to speak of that. Noida is the golden goose. CEO must keep on handing over the golden eggs to the master. When he or she fails, someone else replaces the failed person with a clear understanding to meet the target of golden eggs. Manmohan Singh was trying to fix up a minimum tenure for all IAS assignments to bring in some accountability. But the state chief ministers need not follow the wishes of the prime minister, particularly when they know that the PM hardly matters politically. How can one expect Noida to compete with Bangalore or Hyderabad with CEOs getting shifted so often? How can the people of Noida expect some lasting improvement in civic services in the township under this condition?

However, my grievances are related to some inconveniences of Noida that can be helped by any one who comes to hold the chair in Noida Authority.

Staffs from Noida Authority dismantled the soft barriers that the residents of Blocks A &B of Sector 41 facing the road dividing the sector from Sector 39, had raised to protect themselves freely from external extrusion. We were told that it was done by an instruction of Monica Garg. There was also a promise of a boundary wall. It appeared in local media too. Unfortunately nothing has happened as shown in photograph above. The residents live unprotected. I really pity some, who own factories and are susceptible to many types of harassments and embarrassments from some insane employees including, as I was told, sometimes threat of kidnapping of their kids.

This article is also to highlight the lack of certain basic planning by the Noida Authority in providing the basic infrastructure for living properly for the residents in Block A of sector 41 from plot number A-45 to A-59.


The photographs above show the accumulation of water soon after it rained on August 3, 2007 in Noida. There is no drainage provided for this. It always happens, but with rain god not very generous with Noida, the residents forget. It requires a new drain along the stretch.

Another sore point is the construction of a service lane along the side of the main road connecting Choura Mor to Dadri Road that is going on for last few months causing inconvenience to all those, particularly senior citizens who use the road to go to the nearby markets. It is bound to take some more months as a number of electrical installations, including poles and transformers are to be relocated. Many of the residents feel that the service lane will not serve any useful purpose. They don’t understand for whom the service lane is being built, once the gates of the sector are as it is placed today remain closed.


Water will accumulate on the service lane as shown in photographs above, unless proper drain is incorporated along it. It may affect even the foundation of the houses near it. Why can’t Noida Authority take the technically active people of the affected areas in confidence before designing and building such roads?

There are some more things to highlight:

Can Noida Authority do something about open defecation along many roads?

Can Sector 18 be declared no car movement zone as the shopping area in Sector 17 of Chandigarh?

Can Noida Authority encourage the shop owners to make the markets look good and tidy, say by having some uniformity of signage?

Can Noida Authority establish some good libraries proposed so seriously by the National Knowledge Commission?

Can Noida Authority encourage some private entrepreneur to set up a captive power plant for Noida?

Can Noida Authority get the project of City Centre with all its components executed fast?

Can Noida Authority get some more Science Colleges for the children of its residents?

Can Noida Authority ban plastic bags?

Surprisingly, whenever the government in Lucknow changes, the important projects get suspended. With coming of Mulayam, the work on Taj Expressway and the flyovers got stuck. Now the Mayawati government has scrapped the land allotment to 14 hotels of Noida that were expected to be operational by 2010 to meet the requirements of Commonwealth Games. Noida suffers in process.

Can something be done by the center to do away with these bad practices affecting the city and its growth? Nothing can ever happen if there is so much interference from Lucknow and CEOs are kept under the constant threat of transfer.

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Mauritius and Bihar CM

Posted on August 2, 2007 by indra

With mention of Mauritius, I get reminded of my grandfather. He was the first who got me introduced to some Mauritian medical students. They were studying in Calcutta Medical College when I was in Presidency College for my Intermediate Science. It was sometime between 1955 and 1957.Those young men had told my grandfather about their ancestry from some villages around Dawath and Kwath that happened to be near Bodarhi, the village of my mother, where I had some years of my childhood with my mother. I don’t remember how my grandfather came in touch with those young men. Perhaps it was through one Arya Samaji educationist who happened to live in College Street those days. My grandfather had a great ability to network with many people. Unfortunately, I could learn that trait from him. My grandfather got emotionally attached with those students because they came from our home district. The young men perhaps went to their ancestor’s villages also.

Very lately, Yamuna keeps on asking me to visit Mauritius. I had been telling her about story of those old days when many from Bihar went there as contract workers to work in the sugarcane fields that were being developed by the western masters. The descendants have prospered, and are affluent living adapting to western style. However, culturally they have kept alive some of the old rural rituals and religiosity of Bihar, and also the Bhojpuri language. They do also celebrate ‘Chhath’ in a famous water body of Mauritius.

With the visit of Nitish Kumar, a mature statesman, things will improve. The visit will not only serve the developmental goal of the state, but also go a long way to establish a close relationship between its people for mutual benefits. Bihar government has committed to open an assistance center that will help finding the ancestral background of any family of Mauritius that seeks that. A ‘Bihar Bhawan’ in Mauritius and a ‘Mauritius Mahal’ in Bihar is expected to come up. However, both the government must not be miserly in these projects. Its size and architecture must be as good and as large as the intention.

I have some more ideas:

1. I wish Nitish Kumar would have gone with a group of good chefs who could in ‘Bhojpuri Week’ prepare ethnic Bihari cuisines such as Litti /chokha, dalpuri/ gurmha, baddi/ phulawar and ghughani/ horha on one side and sweets such as Khajjha, Khajjhuli, Khurma, lakatho, lawanglata and piao to sweeten the atmosphere. I am of an opinion that one can reach to the heart of the people more easily through their bellies.

2. A group of women from Bhojpuri region would have accompanied Nitishji. It would have served to strengthen the brotherly bondages; and these women would have laid foundation to have marriage relations in future.

3. I would also request Mauritius and Bihar governments to create some voluntarily agreed bed/breakfast facilities with the willing families to receive the guests from Bihar and Mauritius.

It is really unfortunate that the national dailies have hardly covered the Nitish Kumar’s visit of Mauritius, though they have all the resources to cover Sanjay Dutt and Prativa Patil episodes in many paged features day after day. Bihartimes.com has been the pioneer in covering Nitish Kumar’s vist in detail.

P.S: I tried to get to some links of the newspapers of Mauritius to find out about their coverage of Nitish Kumar’s visit, I failed. I wish if someone who succeeded would let me know.

I requested one of my readers in Mauritius to send some clippings that she collected painfully and forwarded. And I feel obliged.

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Organised Retail Sector and Social Responsibility

Posted on August 1, 2007 by indra

Organised retail sector is regularly in news these days. All big business houses including Reliance, Tata, Birla, Mittal, and many others are trying to cash on its potentials. As a commoner is made to believe this may mean a better price for the farmers or producers for their produce and a lower price to the consumers.

One wonders, why a popular fruit such as ‘Babugosha’ that sells at Rs 10 per kg at Kullu in Himachal where it is grown, comes at Rs 30 per kg in Delhi. However, the fruit grower may be getting hardly Rs 2 to 5 per kg at auction. A farmer gets Rs 8.5 per kg for his wheat, but ITC claiming excellent social responsibility charges Rs 17.5 per kg for the wheat flour if bought in package of 10 kg, and more in smaller packages. Parwal, another common vegetable, sells at Rs 12 or less a kg at Patna, but Safal, the Mother Dairy’s outlets for vegetables and fruits sells it at Rs 24 per kg or more. And the poor vegetable grower gets hardly Rs 4-5 a kg. Milk is better. The cattle owner gets about Rs 9 a liter, when the end user buys it at Rs 20 a liter. Is the difference of price between the producers get and the end users pay due to the cost of transportation and other expenses or because of excessive margin charged by the middlemen and the final sellers? Should the consumers and farmers expect that the big business houses coming in organised retail sector will cut down these cost by incorporating efficient transportation and storage in the system cutting delays and wastages, that causes the difference and share the margin by paying more to the farmers and charging less from the end consumers as advocates of social responsibility?

I look at the trays of imported fruits displayed in Reliance Fresh and get a feeling that even these big retail players will also hardly do anything to assist and develop better fruits by proper input to the growers. Instead, they will take the easiest route to import the cheapest from all and odd sources taking advantage of the excuses of globalisation and sell at the best possible margins to the consumers.

And that is what is happening for all the other items in new retail stores big and small. They are importing the cheap Chinese goods and taking the maximum advantages of the craze of Indians for foreign goods. Why can’t at least the big retail players take lessons from Maruti Udyog, who developed many auto component manufacturers that have become today world class and are competing with the best in the world? Big Bazaar and Vishal are at least the ones where at point of time, I found selling mostly Chinese goods.

Chinese manufacturers are having the advantages of developing these household items to the tastes of the people of western countries that are flashy and latest in design. And Wal-Mart and other big retailers got them developed from China because of the high cost of those in US.

Indian manufacturers can certainly compete in many cases, if assisted by the big retailers. The big business houses through its presence in retail sector in big way will help manufacturing sectors to transform itself to a world class taste through product innovations and manufacturing practices that can make them competitive too. The biggies can help agriculturists, floriculturists, horticulturists, and SMEs in manufacturing to produce the quality products at the cost to enhance and sustain the global demand for Indian goods.

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Powering India-3

Posted on July 31, 2007 by indra

Power Generation and Private Sector

Private companies have kept on complaining about the dismal condition of the power sector of the country, but have hardly contributed as much as it could to solve the power shortage of the country shielding themselves with some or the other excuses and shortcomings of the government machinery. As on April 30, 2007 private sector players account for only 13% of India’s total installed generation capacity of 132,110 MW

Reliance Energy and Tata Power are the two major private players in power generations. But they seem to be pygmy in comparison with public sector giant NTPC with total installed capacity of 27,904 Mw through 25 power stations.

Reliance Energy

Reliance Energy currently produces a total of about 950 MW of power through its 500 MW (2 units of 250 MW each) Dahanu thermal power plant near Mumbai, and from power projects at Kochi, Andhra Pradesh, Goa as well as a wind farm in Karnataka. However, it has a number of power projects under development and construction: a 1,200 MW (2 units of 600 MW each) coal-based power plant at Rosa, a 7,480 MW project at Dadri in Uttar Pradesh, a 300 MW coal-based power plant at Butibori near Nagpur, and a 4,000 MW power plant at Shahapur in Raigad district of Maharashtra at an estimated investment of Rs 15,000 crore, comprising a 2,800 MW gas-based project and a 1,200 MW imported coal-based project. As reported in media, Reliance Energy is planning a capacity addition of 15,000 MW from power generation projects using coal, gas, hydro and other renewable fuels at an investment of over Rs.60, 000 crore over the next five years.
Even the 4,000 Mw Sasan ultra mega power project has gone to Anil Dhirubhai Ambani Group (ADAG) company Reliance Power (formerly known as Reliance Energy Generation) after the disqualification of the original winning bidder, a consortium of Singapore-based Globaleq and Lanco Infratech.

Tata Power

Tata Power has an installed generation capacity of 2323 Mega Watts. The Thermal Power stations of the company are located at Trombay in Mumbai, Jojobera in Jamshedpur and Belgaum in Karnataka. The Hydro stations are located in Raigad district Maharashtra and the Wind Farm in Ahmednagar. Tata Power has now the ultra mega power project of Mundra in Gujarat too in its fold.
Reliance Industries Ltd.

As per the media reports, Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is also trying to come in business of power generation and is planning to set up 4,000 MW of gas-based power generation capacity at multiple locations at an investment of Rs 10,000 crore, in addition to a mega fertiliser plant at Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh. Around 1,000 MW capacity will come up at Jamnagar in Gujarat, where RIL is building a 27 million tonne per annum (mtpa) refinery alongside its existing 33 mtpa refinery.

Many new enterprises such as Lanco Infratech from South are also trying to enter power sector seeing a future in power generation because of the huge gap in the demand and supply. Lanco currently generates 518 MW of power in six operational independent power projects. Interestingly Lanco was the company that got awarded Sasan ultra mega power project.

The Rs 5000 crore K K Birla group outfit Chambal Fertiliser and Chemicals Limited (CFCL) proposes to set up a 2000 MW power plant in Orissa at an investment of around Rs 10,000 crore.

RPG’s CESC has been a significant player in power generation in West Bengal. CESC has a total generation capacity of 975 MW. It has planned to invest Rs 12,000 crore for building a 2,000 MW power plant in one of the eastern states of the country.

Captive Power Capacity

However, captive power generation capacity over the years has grown as a measure source to cope up with the failure of the government in providing this basic input for the growth of the industries in the country. As per an estimate, captive power capacity now exceeds 50,000MW, as most in the industry sets up its own plants to assure power for their units. Around 12,000 mega watts (MW) of new captive power capacity that is expected to come through over the next five years, according to estimates firmed up the Central Electricity Authority. According to another estimate, the installed captive power capacity is about 19,485 MW in the country of which 14,866 MW is already connected to the grid while the remaining 4,619 MW is currently operating in isolation to meet captive requirements of the plant owner.

It is common today to see a diesel gensets that powers homes and colonies. And perhaps, private India has found solutions to public problems.

I can only say that private sector must not keep on blaming government and go for power generation in big way and create competitive conditions as it has been created in telecom sector. If Reliance Energy provides the power at the tariffs of around Re 1 per unit agreed in its bid for Sasan Ultra Mega Power Project, the benchmark gets fixed. This can only be the way out for the country’s growth rate in two digits.

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NHAI Must Speed Up

Posted on July 31, 2007 by indra

I have been traveling quite often in last one year- Uttarakhand, Gujarat, UP and Bihar, and very recently Himachal Pradesh through Haryana and Punjab. As my mode of transportation, I always prefer a car vehicles mostly and knowingly to see the country from a nearer quarter and observe the progress on road building and its quality. Interestingly, NHAI has done and been doing a fantastic work in last few years. As reported, the Golden Quadrilateral is nearly complete. Even in the recent trip to Himachal I saw a lot of NHAI (National Highway Authority of India) protecting covers along the route where the work was in progress. Roads are getting widened, huge flyovers are being built, and service lanes are getting constructed. However, I have only one observation on the speed of work.

A nation expects road construction to go faster. When the land acquisition is over, why should there be so slow a progress? Is there a dearth of manpower in India for the work or does India lack the machinery and equipment for road construction at faster speed?

Perhaps what India lacks badly is a project management team that makes speed with quality of work as a mission. From Delhi to Chandigarh, we saw NHAI’s boards declaring ‘work under progress’, but we didn’t see any significant workforce deployed and work being done on a scale that shows the contractors are working to complete the task with a time frame in mind and a schedule to be maintained. Can someone challenge my observations to be wrong?



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In Khizrapur, Ambala, and Panipat, huge and very long flyovers are under constructions causing terrifically agonising problems for local as well as long-distance-traveling commuters inching their vehicles for hours. Why can’t it be expedited, when once designed properly, each column is an independent construction, and many of the components are prefabricated?

It was a great experience to drive over 100kmph on the stretches such one between Ambala and Karnal or Panipat and Delhi that are complete. In Haryana, the divider landscaping and greenery are well maintained. However, One is to wait for many years to have a real fast movement on this road up to Chandigarh with no frequent slowing at crossings. I wish it could have been expedited. The construction must progress following the best benchmark of the developing nations of the world both for speed as well as quality of facilities getting created.

When will NHDP start measuring its performance by the kilometers of road constructed rather than by contracts given and its cost in crores? And when will our media start writing about these national projects and reasons of its slow speed of execution?

While in US and Europe, I found the majority of people going for holidays by their own vehicles. Commercial vehicles on the freeways in US and Europe were few. In India, the majority of vehicles on road are commercial ones both for goods and passengers. Many times, the drivers of those vehicles are adamant enough to disregard the lane rules, making the driving by the owner-drivers of passenger cars risky. Naturally, Indians are still far behind in using their cars for holidaying extensively. I have a plan to drive along the Golden Quadrilateral and write a book about it. I still hope one day someone would sponsor that. Can Indians consider this world class Golden Quadrilateral Expressway in planning their holidays or will they wait till some guru says that I would give them Nirvana or Moksha or take care of all their sins?

I experienced the biggest problem in driving in own vehicle in the hilly areas where mostly the roads were two-laned ones; say from Bilaspur to Manali, or from Kalka to Simla. The commercial vehicles were in majority, most of them with excessive overload, moving in first gear on climb, but still going dangerously for overtaking. Road widening may be difficult but at least the shouldering on both the sides could be tried by the authorities to make the driving a little safer. A stricter control on overloading could prevent many accidents. Why can’t the manufacturers incorporate something fool–proof in design itself? Is it not strange that most of the trucks on a national highway carry 65 to 80 tonnes when they are allowed to carry up to 30 tonnes of materials?

However, most pathetic are the eye shores of various types of structures coming up on both sides of these new highways or expressways. I saw a lot of demolitions too. But why can’t it be avoided. Perhaps, the Indian people in general require change in habits and adaptation to use these new roads.

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Booming and Bubbling India- XI

Posted on July 30, 2007 by indra

India and the United States have completed negotiations on civil nuclear cooperation and jointly announced they have sealed a deal as equals, and they consider it a “historic milestone,” set to “transform” the bilateral relationship. The 123 Agreement is “between two states possessing advanced nuclear technology, both parties having the same benefits and advantages.” The agreement is the proof of the emerging importance of India globally.

Forex reserves rise to $222 bn: Country’s foreign exchange reserves rose to a record $222.043 billion on July 20, from $218.956 billion a week earlier, according to the Reserve Bank of India’s weekly statistical supplement.

Moser Baer enters into $880 m tie-up: Optical storage maker Moser Baer India would purchase high quality multi-crystalline silicon wafers from Norway-based REC Group for $880 million (about Rs 3,563.12 crore) for an eight-year period beginning 2008.

Intel plans to tap rural India: Intel marketing veteran John McClure is at the helm of an Intel effort to take computers to the country’s 650,000 villages. Intel, which also unveiled a portable personal computer designed for school children on Saturday, will provide technology support, educational content and wireless connectivity to 100,000 rural community centres over the next year.

Bangalore all set to become `unwired`: Close on the heels of Pune and Baramati (a small city in Maharashtra), India’s infotech capital, Bangalore, too will provide seamless wireless connectivity as a part of its Rs 800 crore “Unwire Bangalore” project, while Delhi still remains planning to make the city “wireless”.

India’s High-Tech Fraud Busters: Bharti Airtel has aggressive technology systems in place to check against fraudulent activities. Every time a high-value call is made, the subscriber receives a phone call to ensure that particular call was indeed made by the mobile customer. India’s second-largest bank ICICI Bank also tackles the phishing menace through a complex IT setup that alerts the ICICI system every time someone puts up a Web site that looks similar to the bank’s official site.

Railways to select only global majors for manufacturing projects: The Railway Board has decided to restrict private participation in some important manufacturing units it wants established to international equipment majors such as General Electric Co., Bombardier, Siemens AG and Alstom.

FII investments past $10 bn this yr: Net investments by foreign institutional investors (FIIs) touched $10.16 billion from January to July 2007, much higher than $7.99 billion in the entire 2006 calendar year.

Rs 11,000-cr investments planned near Chennai: Investments of about Rs 9,000 crore, that will lead to creation of over one lakh jobs, are expected to be made in the Sriperumbudur-Oragadam region, near Chennai, within the next couple of years coming from the vendors of Nokia (Rs 3,300 crore) and Flextronics (Rs 2,500 crore) and the industries in the two Special Economic Zones promoted by the State Government, viz., SIPCOT Sriperumbudur Hi-Tech SEZ (Rs 1,976 crore) and SIPCOT Oragadam Hi-Tech SEZ (Rs 1,300 crore).

Rs1, 460 crore order for ABG Shipyards: India’s largest private sector shipbuilder ABG Shipyard Ltd has won a Rs1, 460 crore ($360 million) order from Thailand-based dry bulk ship owner and operator Precious Shipping Public Co. Ltd for building 12 ships of 32,000 tonnes each.

RIL in power sector: Reliance Industries Ltd (RIL) is planning to set up 4,000 Mw of gas-based power generation capacity at multiple locations at an investment of Rs 10,000 crore, in addition to a mega fertiliser plant at Kakinada in Andhra Pradesh. Around 1,000 Mw capacity will come up at Jamnagar in Gujarat, where RIL is building a 27 million tonne per annum (mtpa) refinery alongside its existing 33 mtpa refinery.

Large dams power India’s growth story: The 3,000-Mw Debang multi-purpose project on the Debang river in Arunachal Pradesh that will serve two purposes – power and irrigation, will be the biggest dam in the country

Innovation can add another $50 bn to India’s IT kitty: Innovation can add an additional $50 billion to the revenue pools of Indian IT and ITES industry by 2012, according to the Nasscom-BCG Innovation Report 2007.

Government launches $500 mn national innovation project: The government has launched a $500 million (Rs2, 010 crore) National Innovation Project (NIP) to help more inventors make money off their inventions.

Infosys in global BPO deal with Philips: Infosys Technologies signed a multi-million dollar outsourcing contract with Netherlands’ Royal Philips Electronics. Infosys will also acquire three shared service centers located in India, Poland and Thailand from Phillips.

Every fifth Indian has a phone: One Indian in five now has a telephone connection. The tele-density in the country has increased to 19.86 in June 2007 from 19.26 in May, according to the subscriber growth report released by the Telecom regulator on Wednesday. The number of telephone subscribers touched 225.21 million at the end of June, up from 218.05 million in May.

Highest-ever mobile subscriber growth in June: India added 7.34 million new mobile users in June. This is the highest ever addition of mobile subscribers in a single month according to the Telecom Regulatory Authority of India.

The Indian entrepreneur just won’t let go! Findings from Grant Thornton’s International Business Report (IBR) says only 10% of business owners in the country expect a change in the ownership of their companies in the next decade, compared to 28% of businesses worldwide that expect to see such a change.

Lenovo will manufacture desktops and laptops in Himachal: Lenovo has announced setting up of a second manufacturing plant in the country in Himachal Pradesh at a cost of $11 million with a capacity of two million units of desktops and notebooks that is expected to be operational in the third quarter of the year.

Geodesic develops messenger application for Apple’s iPhone: Geodesic Information Systems Ltd, a Mumbai company, has developed the instant messenger application-branded Mundu-to allow it to be downloaded and used on the iPhone, which runs on a high-speed data network of AT&Inc.

‘Our sourcing from India may increase ten times’: According to De Filipis Giovanni, 41, the Italian managing director of Fiat India, ‘Fiat is looking at India also as a hub for its global export of cars and centre for sourcing. Fiat currently source €5-6 million (Rs27.5-33 crore) worth auto components from India for manufacturing at our plants in Europe and other parts of the world. But from next financial (year) when Ranjangaon plant is fully operational, may be its sourcing will become ten times of what it is at present.

Reforms racing down country roads: India is shinning beyond Dalal Street, even in dusty small towns and distant villages. The rural folk are more than matching their urban cousins in spending as well as earning.

NRI scientist making chips for American space flights: Sandeep Shukla, an Indian American researcher on embedded computers said to be the “brain” behind many everyday mechanisms, is now developing embedded software code generation for space missions. Embedded computers are used in wireless devices, cars, climate control systems, traffic signals, washing machines, as well as complex systems including space mission controls, avionics and weapons systems.

Nasa’s much -awaited Phoenix mission to Mars will lift off from cape Canaveral in Florida on August 3. One of the engineers of this programme is Gujarat-born Prasun Desai, 40, an MS in astronautics with a Ph.D in aerospace engineering. Desai is mainly associated with the entry, descent and landing phase of the Phoenix that will tentatively take place on May 25, 2008. (Based on a report in Times of India)

Rural India to go hi-tech with knowledge centers: Around 8,000 villages will get the knowledge centres as part of Mission 2007. The project involves many organisations, including M S Swaminathan Foundation, ISRO, NASSCOM and IGNOU, and envisages creating knowledge centres in villages to provide information to people on various issues, including agriculture, other sources of livelihood, education, market trends and health.

India ranks higher than China: The Economist Intelligence Unit ranked and scored countries based on the strength of their information technology industries. Using a scoring methodology that included factors such as a country’s business environment, IT infrastructure, and efforts in research and development, the affiliate of The Economist scored each country on a scale of 1 to 100 for a study called The Means to Compete: Benchmarking IT Industry Competitiveness (PDF). Surprisingly, US are at the top and Iran at the bottom. India is at 46, while China is at 49.
MAN Industries to set up China plant:

India has 31.5 million taxpayers: In India of over a billion people, only 31.5 million people pay taxes, and this is after the number of taxpayers has grown by nearly 11 percent between March 2002 and March 2006.

More than 12,000 MW nuclear power generation by 2020: With eight more power plants sanctioned, the nuclear power generation in the country would cross more than 12,000 MW by 2020.

Last week, two of India’s largest automakers – Tata Motors and Mahindra & Mahindra – shocked motown when they expressed interest in acquiring Ford’s marquee brands Jaguar and Land Rover. The acquisition that could cost them up to $1.5 billion (Rs 6,000 crore) will not only get the buyer two legendary vehicle brands, but also catapult it to the super league of SUV technology.

India is certainly booming: The agriculturists from Andhra Pradesh are moving to Ethiopia to grow flowers to meet the global competition. The fishermen of Kolathur village, just outside Chennai are making the village emerge as the capital of the ornamental fish trade in India and in turn, making their life better. Some 1,800 families run the ornamental fish business in Kolathur. It is really heartening, when a second generation pisciculturist in his 30s says, “In 1999, I was generating a turnover of Rs 50,000 a month. Now, it is Rs 5 lakh.” Almost every family in Radadhana, an obscure village near Delhi in Sonepat district is crorepati: ‘The total land of the village is 2,800 acres of which about 2,000 acres have been acquired by builders at an average rate of Rs 50 lakh per acre. The village has a population of 7,000 grouped in about 1,400 families. Barring some 200 families of backward classes who are landless, every family must have a net worth of over Rs 1 crore.”.

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Bihar too can boom

Posted on July 29, 2007 by indra

Every day, without fail, I go to few websites related to Bihar at least once if not more times: patnadaily.com, bihartimes.com, and Bihar government websites to know about the news related to Bihar. Unfortunately, no national newspapers provide e-paper of its Patna edition. I do also glance through the list of approved projects on Bihar quite often that has kept on bulging, though it hardly provides the status of the projects. I requested CMO also to include a column for present status. But it has gone on deaf ears.

Unfortunately, to my dismay, the good news stories are very scarce. Either media is hell-bent on publishing only the hot stories of kidnappings, rapes, ghosts and witches from Bihar, or Bihar is not doing any thing publishable that brings hope and pleases the people of Bihar origin.

Lalu, Rabri and his party man Raghubansh Prasad Singh are very often in news as they keep on instigating Nitish Kumar. Many a times, Nitish gets into their trap. I feel bad after reading these stories in media, though I try to skip. Why should Nitish say ‘no’ to the center help, be it about road building, rural electrification, or other projects of Bharat Nirman or Sarv Siksha Aviyan? The task of the development of Bihar is enormous. It will require the full participation not only of the center and state government but also of all parties that are ruling or are in opposition. Rather this Yagya requires the participation of all the sane people of Bihar. They must give up some of the bad habits of asking “ka ashre hain” (What is your caste?) and about ‘oopari aamdani’ of any stranger or known persons. They will have to work hard even in Bihar as much as they do when they are working outside the state.

Nitish left for Mauritius even when Bihar is facing a bad flood. The visit was fixed long back, necessary and beneficial for Bihar. But Lalu’s men made an issue and shamefully blocked the road demanding the Chief Minister to postpone his trip. Can one feel happy about the incident? Bihar must not lose any opportunity to develop very close and mutually beneficial social, cultural, and economic relations with Mauritius at every level.

Nitish may be doing a fine job. Many in media are having good opinion about him. However, as I am a little more ambitious, I feel he is not aggressive enough.

I do hardly appreciate his rigidity about the SEZs. Why should he assume that every one else is a fool? I would have appreciated if he would have come out with some alternative innovative plan to create employment and wealth for the state and its people.

 It has been established by now that IT/ITeS such as BPO, LSO, KPO are the sectors that can provide employment and improve the prosperity level of the educated young men and women of any state. This is the only sector that can create the middle class and consumers in large number. Every state is doing its best to be IT-biased. Nitish would have certainly used the services of some expert for invigorating the sector in the state. Boys and girls from Bihar have been graduating from Karnataka, Maharashtra, Andhra Pradesh and manning many IT companies in those states and even abroad. Why can’t they do in Bihar itself?

Bihar must provide the human resources for the IT sector right in the state. Bihar needs to multiply the intake capacity of its engineering colleges and to add at least one engineering college in every district headquarters (48 in number). And then Bihar must ensure the infrastructure and work culture for the sector with no rangadari and dadas’ interference. Nitish has failed to appoint someone specially to work closely with the IT biggies to meet their requirements and to allure them to come to Patna, Gaya and Muzaffarpur.

 Bihar is also not doing sufficient to attract construction companies that surprisingly are providing employment to its people in other state where they migrate. If the construction companies and banks can be induced to come out with some right products, even rural Bihar can afford to have a boom in construction and in turn employment creation.

I am not against the migration of Bihari labour or youth to other states or even abroad, but I do believe that it’s state’s responsibility to train these men and women before they migrate so that they get better engagement wherever they get employed because of their better skill and training. Bihar must get manufacturers such as Maruti Udyog and Bajaj or Hero Honda to train drivers and motor mechanics and institutes such as NIIT and Apple that provide the facilities for computer education in big way.

While the work must go on for creating PURAs, Bihar must urbanise fast too. There must be a study to find out why the farmers are not changing from their traditional way of farming to the farming as commercial business as being done in other states; and ways to encourage the transformation. One clear way of urbanization will be to create some centers of excellence along the GQ and East-West Corrider passing through the state. If Kalyani, Siliguri, Durgapur, Kharagpur and Haldia in West Bengal can become the places most suitable for IT investments, why can’t the towns of Bihar get a similar investment? However, it requires inputs from some reputed consultants. Nitish must go for that. Nitish may be honest and hard working, but people wish to see activities all over the states that can provide confidence. One way will be to make each minister declare the ten projects that they wish to execute and monitor them getting it executed. In similar manner, each Panchayat must prepare a master plan of actions in numbers and report about its progress every quarter. Governance in the state may be for the political gains too, but even then, it needs some sound management practices to achieve the goal.

Another potential certainly lies in the farm produces where Bihar is fairly rich. The state must look at farm exports too as a way out to bring prosperity to the rural Bihar.

Unfortunately, while most of the prominent politicians of Bihar take so much pain in maintaining the common style of their beard, they don’t get together to solve the problems of the people by getting development projects successfully executed.

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Himachal Pradesh – Some Observations

Posted on July 28, 2007 by indra

Many a times I wonder why do the people world over talk so highly of Kashmir as heaven on the earth. Why should not the government of India create at least few more Kashmirs, when we do have equally or, may be, better locales in Himachal, Uttarakhand, Sikkim, Bengal, Arunachal?

Himachal is wonderfully bestowed with the nature’s beauty created by snow-peaked mountains, green valleys, and beautiful rivers.

Himachal could easily get itself transformed into a developed state fast enough. Tourism alone can make the state really rich and benefit the poorer people of the state as well.

Apple cart Inn, Kriaghat


Bhagal, Darlaghat


Beas, Manali


We stayed mostly in HPTDC hotels. Locations of the hotels are good, as they are right on the highways. But these hotels can also become hubs for the development of the state. HPTDC must facilitate to have some value additions to these hotels. As we found at Bhagal Hotel at Darlaghat, renovations and refurbishing are on. However, the materials in use seemed to be of inferior quality and so was the workmanship. In a renovated room that was as otherwise extremely well done, the water pipe connection of the shower was spraying water drops right up to the toilet seat. Door lock was infective. As the manager told me, Apple Cart Inn is also getting rebuilt soon with more rooms. These hotels have plenty of land with it. The tourism department must make the landscaping around the hotels world class, adding orchards and flowerbeds too. Hotels must provide Internet facilities for the customers. On the management side, each of these hotels must take in some young local boys as interns every year and provide training in various activities of the hotel business with an idea of making them entrepreneurs and self-employed in hospitality business. The employees must be made multiskilled so that the expenses can be kept low. Some additional suggestions:

HPTDC
1.Arrange visit and stay in Apple orchards near around Manali and Kullu. Have addresses of the willing families on the website that can provide bed and breakfast for the tourists at cost.

2.Develop Himachali cuisine; market it to make it popular. I could not find anything Himachali to eat in any of the restaurants or tourist hotels, though I asked everywhere I went.

3.Kullu has a cluster of shawl weaving factories. Arrange visits and encourage the factories to develop products with contemporary designs. Is it not surprising that we couldn’t get a typical Himachalli dress from any of the shops in Shimla as well as Manali or Kullu? Why can’t Manali’s entrepreneur make money out of their products when Kashmiris are doing that on the mall road? Himachal must use the services of ‘National Institutes of Design’ to develop its products and encourage the local fashion designers and craftsmen.

Hydropower
4.Himachal could develop mini hydro power plants in large number all along its rivers such as Beas and can be a source for clean energy for the nation. All these locations can be made an attractive place for tourists too.

Horticulture and Floriculture

Himachal must have an international standard airport in and around Manali for exporting its fruits such as Apples and Babugosha, besides engaging some agricultural universities to improve its quality and self-life.

It was surprising to find that HDFC and ICICI don’t have any branches not even ATMs in Manali.

Manali also doesn’t have any branded eating-houses such as McDonald, Wimpy, or Pizza Hut, though the foreign tourists visit in large number.

What could be the reason?

Before entering Manali, some agency charged Rs 200 per vehicle for a stay of seven days. However, the road between Kullu and Manali is pretty poor. Mall and its lanes are filthy with no toilets for visitors.

It is unfortunate that the roads beyond Manali up to Keylong are really bad. And the Solang Valley appeared as full of filth with lot of vendors, undesirable number of people making money out of paragliding and unplanned constructions. Himachal must come out with a code for all constructions along the roads, if it can’t ban constructions. There is no point in making a god-gifted heaven into hell for human.
Solang Valley



But who will do all this?

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