दृष्टिकोण – Indra's Viewpoint

Makara Sakaranti falls on Sunday this year. The date is always January 14, as it is September 17 for Viswa Karma Puja. We have been celebrating the day in a particular manner for many years. After taking bath early in the morning, we touch by our fingers a bowl of rice, sesame seeds and some amount of pulses of gram that is given as a charity to some deserving person. During lunch, we take flattened rice with milk and curd. We also take sweet of different types- gajjak, tilkoot, rewari, all prepared with sesame seeds as constituent especially on this day. In dinner we take ‘khichari’-rice cooked with pulses and now with many vegetables and spices too to make it real tasty. This is the practice that we have been following for years.

This is the day when many Hindus go to take bath in river Ganga. And one famous place for this day’s bath is Ganga Sagar in West Bengal. We have been there many years ago. Sagar is an island at the mouth of river Hooghly (Ganga) in Bay of Bengal. There is a temple there that is dedicated to Kapilmuni. As the story goes, the 60,000 sons of King Sagara got burnt into ashes because of a curse from the hermit, Kapilmuni. Their souls didn’t get salvation. Muni had said that it would be possible only if some one can bring Ganga to immerse their bones and ashes. Many of the descendents of Sagar tried that, but it was Bhagirath whose penance induced the Ganga to descend from heaven. Ganga on descending on earth through the hair lock of Lord Shiva followed Bhagirath up to the Sagar Island and washed the bones and ashes of the ancestors. They got salvation. As per Hindu beliefs the descendants are responsible to clear the sins of all their ancestors too. I don’t know if Ganga’s water has retained its virtue to clear the sins after the greed and laziness of the Indians have totally polluted it. For the first time, the Hindu saints have come out to protest against its pollution. I wish they also tell publicly that their disciples must not pollute it by throwing all the wastes and remnants from rituals in the rivers.

On the day the sun goes from Kumbha (Aquarius) to Makara (Pisces). The earth, farthest from the sun at this time, starts its journey ‘north’ (Uttarayana) towards the sun, ending the coldest month, Paush, kicking off the merry month of Magh. The auspicious period of Uttarayan is from January 14 to July 14. According to Gita Shri Krishna manifests himself in his full splendour during this period. Bhishma, the grandsire of Mahabharat chose to die at this time. Falling to Arjuna’s arrows at Kurukshetra, he didn’t die, as his father had blessed him with the power to choose the time of his death. He waited for this auspicious time to come to die. At the deathbed he revealed the ‘Vishnu Sahasranaamam‘ to Yudhishtra. The recitation of ‘Vishnu Sahasranaamam’ can provide salvation to even ordinary person.

Makar Sanskranti is supposed to be a very important day in Hindu cultural tradition. Unfortunately, the social leaders of our region have not been able to make it as colourful and enjoyable as ‘lohdi’ of Punjab.

Patna, the state capital of Bihar, must be busy in the arrangement of the global meet (Barat, as friend of mine told me on when I referred to the show) being held in Patna between January 19 and 21. It’s really the Chief Minister Nitish Kumar’s show, though Institute of Human Development and a Patna-based news portal, bihartimes.com, in collaboration with the state government, are organizing it.

The President will inaugurate and the Mauritius Prime Minister, Navin Ramgopal may likely be the guest-of-honour at the meet. As expected, some 500 delegates, mostly eminent NRIs and experts from different fields will participate in the three-day meet. I wish I could have been in Patna at this time. However, I have some views and I hope Bihartimes.com will put my ideas to the concerned forum where that fits right.

Like every one else, I wish and pray that the show satisfies and yields the expected results for all the stakeholders.

Mauritius-the ‘Crown jewel’ built by Bihari immigrants

Let me start with Mauritius. Bihar and Mauritius has a special relation. I still remember my Presidency College days. Sometime in 1956, I had met some students in Calcutta Medical College who were from Mauritius. Their ancestors went from a place near my maternal village Kwath, near Dawath in Rohtas to Mauritius. I still remember the warmth of the meeting.

I find Mauritius tops the FDI in India. I don’t know what it is, but if it is true why can’t it come to Bihar? Bihar is trying to make sugar sector as its main industry. Is there something that Bihar can get from Mauritius in technology related to sugar cane cultivation and sugar-based industries? Few months back, someone from Mauritius contacted me to find out the village of her ancestors. Can’t a website be set up by a government agency to help such people?

However, keeping in mind the history of immigration to Mauritius, I suggest there must a Pravashi Bhawan (Complex) in Patna with facilities such as guesthouse, library, convention hall, and a cultural museum. On the same line, at Port Luis, a Bihar Bhawan should be established.

USA- the Destination of new generation immigrants

I am sure, maximum number of immigrants participating in the NRB (Non Resident Bihari) show will be from USA. And when it comes to how can they help Bihar, I think they must start from their own village, town, or district headquarters. It will give a permanency to their link. And many of the NRIs from US will be in position to adopt and support a school or health center and making them the model with the latest technological input. Every school in Bihar must double as skill building center too. Every child of Bihar must have training in one or the other skill such as electrician, plumber, carpenter, nursing, tailoring, knitting, or as artisan besides his conventional schooling. Bihar must export only skilled labour force and not only illiterate menial workers that are more vulnerable to be exploited.

Can the entrepreneurs among NRBs devise a model for rural enterprises for apparel, handicraft, food-processing enterprises that can employ the rural men and women from all households to bring them above poverty line? Can’t Madhubani printed artifacts and Bhagalpur’s silk be expanded to provide more employment? The main task is to create jobs in rural Bihar, and all must think of it.

Can someone in Patna start an on-line service facility to help NRBs on line of ‘your man in India’?

And those from USA can also get into an outsourcing business related to e-tution, legal, and medical professions where Bihar seems to be having a lot of underutilized manpower and setup enterprises in Patna or other cities that can provide a lot of employment to educated class and bring Bihar on BPO map.

And lastly, I shall like to sell a dream project that has been talked about by our President, Prime Minister, and many celebrities- Nalanda International University. Let it not remain just a dream. Let all who associate with Bihar in any way make it realized.

Can NRBs be made to imagine of an 8-lane Super Expressway connecting Vaishalli with Boddha Gaya with Patliputra, Nalanda, and Rajgrih on its route and creating a corridor of excellence studded with 100 educational institutes of higher learning of different specialized subjects gifted by 100 countries of the world?

For the organizers and the government

I wish, the organizers and the host Bihar government-

1. To take NRBs (at least those who are interested) to Nalanda and Boddha Gaya for an outing and also to find out what can be done to develop both the places as world-class tourist destinations

2. To arrange a short trip to some typical villages nearby so that they can assess for themselves what the rural Bihar expects from them

3. To handover a roadmap of Bihar 2020 with the listing of the projects, agencies responsible, and estimated time frame for the completion

4. To come out with an advisory council of interested and reputed NRBs to generate ideas, and action plans on the development of Bihar

5. To create a website that can provide the performance and progress of Bihar’s critical projects and other information as well as to provide interactions between the stakeholders

6. To request government agencies and administration in Bihar to respond to queries and suggestions from the well wishers of Bihar

7. To keep the speech making by the ministers and bureaucrats to minimum and to allow the participants guests to come out with their ideas at the meet

Let God make the global meet a grand success.

PS: Any one can contact me at irsharma@gmail.com for explanation of any of my suggestions.

Since the early days of Indian automobile industry, the local design engineers had been making the desired changes in the product of the foreign collaborators. One very obvious desired change used to be the clearance from the road to take care of the potholed road conditions. However, today the Indian automobile industry has traveled miles and miles ahead. Many are making its real original designs that are getting accepted globally.

Here are some unique designs incorporated in car designs that will be of use in India.

There had been one aspect that radars on the automobiles could not detect – cows. However, as reported, Daimler has equipped its cars with technology that detects any metal objects such as truck or cars on the autobahns and activates safety features such as automatic slowing. However, as cows aren’t made of metal, this is one of the numerous challenges Bharat Balsubramanian, vice president (VP), group research & advanced engineering (electrical & electronics, IT & processes), is currently working on.

Alcoholic driver causes many disastrous accidents causing loss of life and property too. Toyota Motor Corp. is developing a fail-safe system for cars that detects drunken drivers and automatically shuts the vehicle down if sensors pick up signs of excessive alcohol consumption. Cars fitted with the detection system will not start if sweat sensors in the driving wheel detect high levels of alcohol in the driver’s bloodstream, according to a report carried by the mass-circulation daily, Asahi Shimbun. The system could also kick in if the sensors detect abnormal steering, or if a special camera shows that the driver’s pupils are not in focus. The car is then slowed to a halt.

Indian engineers at DaimlerChrysler’s research and development lab are working on “intelligent night view,” a next-generation application that will let the driver catch up on his sleep while the car negotiates the night traffic. This feature builds on `night view’, where the car is fitted with infrared headlights, and an infrared camera feeds high resolution images to a TV screen fitted on the dashboard, so the driver can easily steer with his newfound `night vision’. When coupled with the ongoing work on contour mapping algorithms, which will let the car identify moving objects such as pedestrians and cyclists, this application will result in accurate and accident-free drive.

How do you like these developments? If India is to make difference with Chinese, it will have to distinctly excel and be far superior in designing of the cars and other vehicles. It can just live in glory of the designs of Indica/Indigo or Rs 1-lakh minicar or ACE mini-trucks of Tata Motors and Scorpio of M&M. Both the Indian automobile manufacturers are lucky to have a strong subsidiary of IT too that together can incorporate many high tech cutting edge features in the car design that can be a differentiator with the competition. And they must go for it to make their products robust physically as well as aesthetically for the customer satisfaction.

Muscle cars hogged the spotlight in 2006
The diesel dimension

Recent media overtures about India as an important economic power have become a daily affair. Every day some exciting news or report keeps on appearing somewhere or the other in media that confirms the inference such as India has arrived or India matters. Recent news about the two acquisition deals has made India’s presence known globally. And both these deals are big and being fought well too.

Tata Steel had already grabbed Corus, but Brazil’s CSN suddenly appeared on the scene as villain with higher bid and Tata had to improve on its bid value. The battle is still on and the whole business world is watching the final result. In Arcelor acquisition by Mittal Steel, as reported India’s Prime Minister and Commerce Minister had tried to help Mittal morally by talking in media. However, I have not come across any lobbying by the government for Tata-Corus deal. Reason is not known.

Another story is equally interesting and significant that is making splashes in business circle in India. It relates Hutchinson Essar, India’s fourth-largest mobile operator. Hutchison Telecom, which Li Ka-shing, Hong Kong’s richest tycoon and a fabled dealmaker controls, has put up for sale its 67% stake in Hutchison Essar. It is another big deal under bidding game that is being played by the biggies including Vodafone. Vodafone, Reliance Comm, Ruias, and even Hindujas are in fray. And as per some speculations, the deal may go over $20 billion.

Vodafone CEO Arun Sarin, the master strategist has visited Delhi meeting government ministers as well as discussing with prospective partners. Sarin is open for Ruias as well as Anil Ambani as partner.

Chairman Anil Ambani of Reliance Communications, India’s second largest mobile phone company is also busy doing all needed to grab the deal including lobbying with government officials and ministers. The ambitions of Anil Ambani are known to the competition. He will do everything to win.

Vodafone appears to be the front-runner. Vodafone last week reportedly valued all of Hutchison Essar Ltd at between US$17 billion (euro13 billion) and US$18 billion (euro13 billion), which would make it the biggest-ever corporate takeover in Indian history.

The final outcome of both the deals will be quite significant. As known, if Tata Steel wins Corus ultimately, it will become the fifth largest steel company f the world. And with a win, Reliance Communications will become the biggest mobile operator of India.

Could any one think of a deal of this value in India’s telecom sector happening ten years ago?

And I am completing this writeup; I read the possibilities of two more acquisitions by the two India big business houses.

1.Reliance Industries is likely to bid for General Electric’s plastics business that is expected to be put on the block. The deal may be priced at nearly $10 billion.

2.The Aditya Birla group is seen in race for a unit of Canada-based aluminium major Alcan. The proposed bid would be part of the company’s ambitious plans to become one of the top 10 aluminium producers globally over five to six years. It is estimated that it would carry a price tag of over $8 billion.

Has not India become a happening place?

Latest >Tata Far From Folding in Corus Bid
Hutch, Anyone?</

Management guru C K Prahalad’s vision for India of 2025 is one with

 100 per cent literacy
 200 million graduates and 400 million trained technicians
 25 Indian firms in Fortune 500
 10 per cent of the top universities of the world
 At least 10 Nobel laureates in science and arts

The professor of business administration from the University of Michigan’s Business School is one of the most conservative thinkers, particularly when he thinks or talks about India.

And our great President dreams of India are no different. “By 2020, I see a near zero per cent people living below the poverty line, a near 100 per literacy with every Indian having an university degree, a transparent governance system, electricity in all villages, no shortage of water, et al.”

Who don’t know Satyanarayan Gangaram aka Sam Pitroda, the man who initiated the telecom boom for India, and is now Chairman of National Knowledge Commission. He is a technocrat and keeps views India’s future with lot of apprehensions like many. As reported, when one asks him if India is fast developing as a global power, and “Nah” comes the grimace. “I don’t understand how someone can make such an irresponsible statement. Look at the garbage piled up on the roads, visit Indian towns and villages and just take a look at the sanitation problems. Do you know more than 60 per cent of the villages cannot provide safe drinking water to their population?”

I don’t think, Sam thinks ill of India or he is not confident of the potentials of India and Indians. But he is more down to earth when he expressed his opinion. He is perhaps pained with the progress made in last sixty years.

And then some said, ‘Indians are more successful than India.‘ Indians are achieving stunning success not at home, but abroad”. “Indians are faring better in countries ruled by whites than in their own.” Do you agree with these statements? Do you really think this is true? You only have to look at the success of NRIs, and the relative ‘failure’ of India, and you will be inclined to nod your head in agreement. But think again. Do Indians do better than India? Do Indians succeed abroad but not at home?

And then some project hyperbolically now the people of Indian origin living overseas sometimes as the fifth column of a force advancing Brand India. Even the Prime Minister agreed about their stellar role in recent US-India Nuclear Deal and thanked them.

“The aim must be to touch the sense of ‘Indianness’ in people of Indian origin living abroad. If that sense can encourage an Indian-origin doctor, scientist or software engineer to link up his or her laboratory or research work in India, it is all to our benefit. India no longer needs only sympathy and remittances from its wealthy expatriates, but their brains as well.” And so the vice-chairman of Planning Commission invites them to come out with their ideas on the Eleventh Five Year Plan in making.

All these views were expressed in the Bharatiya Pravasi Divas 2007 going on in New Delhi.

And I am sure many NRIs after seeing the fast changing India during their visit to attend PBD 2007 will go in dilemma: To return or not to return!

However, I keep on thinking if the government of India could provide some tangible facilities. Can it organize a package of religious tours for senior NRIs? Many NRIs may be interested in visiting Gaya or Varanasi, or Charo Dham. Can it organize cheaper chartered non-stop flights in summer months when a lot of senior citizens, the parents of those working in US, fly to different destinations in US? Can it have some service like ‘your man in India’ for the NRIs?

Prepare for the day when San Francisco has a gritty new suburb: Los Angeles. Indeed, much of Southern California, including the Baja Peninsula, will eventually migrate up the west coast to make Alaska even more gargantuan.

Drawing on new insights, theories, measurements and technologies geologists are forecasting the shape of terra firma in the distant future.

One website has received almost 30 million hits since its debut in 1998, and the field’s admirers now include top scientists. Among other things, the snapshot shows that Africa has drifted to the north, plowing into Europe and fusing the two landmasses, eliminating the Mediterranean Sea and replacing it with the Mediterranean Mountains. The rugged range runs down the middle of a continent far bigger than current-day Eurasia, a giant new agglomeration that might be called Afrasia.

Scotese’s web site,- http://www.scotese.com, showcases his work, called the Paleomap Project. His long-term forecast portrays a distant time when the world’s continents come together again to form a new supercontinent, which he calls Pangea Ultima.

An animated depiction of Pangea Ultima demonstrates a bold exercise in futuristic thinking. First, the Mediterranean closes. Then – 25 million to 75 million years from now – Australia moves north, slamming into Indonesia and Malaysia before pirouetting counterclockwise to smash into the Philippines and then Asia, eventually merging with it. Antarctica also moves north, shedding its icecap. Roughly 100 million years from now, it plows into the Indian Ocean, and 50 million years later wedges itself between Madagascar and Indonesia. The Indian Ocean becomes a virtual inland sea.
-Contributed by William J Broad – NYT NEWS SERVICE

Ah! Why can’t someone show these things gradually getting transformed? It will be fantastic experience.

Here are the two stories of two raw villagers about whom India, particularly Bihar should feel proud. One moved a mountain, and the other one keeps on innovating useful products. The first is an example of perseverance and the second of fertile brains that you find in plenty in India.

The Story of Perseverance

In Gahlor Ghati of Gaya, over four decades ago, a frail, landless farmer, Dashrath Manjhi got hold of a chisel and a hammer to tear open a 300-feet-high hill to create a one-km passage to change the face of his village. Manjhi, then in his early 20s chiseled and hammered at the rocks for 22 years.

As reported, this feat, part of local folklore now, started out of Manjhi’s love for his wife. She slipped off the rocks while getting food for him as he worked in a field beyond the hill and broke her ankle.
His acquaintances and neighbours called him ‘pagal’ and even his wife and parents opposed his “adventure” when Dasarath sold his goats to buy the chisels and hammer. But all that steeled his resolve. He shifted his hut close to the hill to work all day and night, chipping away, little by little. “I did not even bother to eat,” he says today.

In 1982, Manjhi completed the task, which reduced a long and arduous journey from his village Gahlor Ghati to Wazirganj to a walkable distance. One could walk through a clear flat passage – about 16-feet wide – to the other side of the hill. But his victory was tinged with sadness. His wife, the reason behind his task, was not by his side. “She died of illness. We could not take her to a hospital on time,” says Manjhi. And many youngsters of the village talk of Dasharath the story. “We grew up hearing stories of the man who wants to move a mountain. Today, it’s a reality and a boon for the villagers.”

Nothing has changed but for this hand-carved passage for the village. Electric poles were put up, but the cables never came. And a five-acre plot given by former CM Lalu Prasad to Manjhi for a hospital still lies barren. Will it change now with a technocrat, surprisingly civil engineer, in the highest chair of the state? I wish it did and Dasharath could see the hospital constructed and named after his wife.
However, Septuagenarian Manjhi is hopeful. “I met CM Nitish Kumar recently. He has promised to develop the passage so that even a car can pass and will connect my village to Gaya. And, he told me that I will lay the foundation stone.”

Will Nitish Kumar, as he is a busy man, remember the promise made and honour thus the hero who moved the mountain?

Another equally exciting story goes around Mohammad Saidullah of Motihari district, Bihar.

The Story of Innovative Mind

Mohammad Saidullah has a wonderful innovative mind and a complete devotion to whatever he works on. A dozen environment-friendly and agriculture-based inventions, each named after his late wife Noor, are his proud achievements.

Mohammad Saidullah heard of the devastation of the recent flood in Gujarat and this moved him to make a water rickshaw. He wants to donate it to the state, but doesn’t know how to get it across.
The one-month-long flood of 1975 inspired him to develop the water bicycle. “I found it difficult to cross the river to go to the city. It struck me that I could design a bicycle that could float on water and move on land. It took only three days to develop it,” he says. The other ideas up his sleeve: a mini-electric powerhouse and a low-cost helicopter.

Son of a farmer, Saidullah, 63, studied up to class 10. His passion has cost him dear. His son has deserted him and he had to sell 40 bighas of land to realise his inventions.

A team from Council for Advancement of People’s Action and Rural Technology tested the fodder-cutter operated mini water pump and evinced interest. The Technology Information Forecasting and Assessment Council sent him Rs 25,000 to develop the bicycle. On January 26, 1994, he received an award for his inventions from the district magistrate of East Champaran. The following year he got first prize for a tableau of his innovations at the Republic Day Parade in Patna. In 2005, President A.P.J. Abdul Kalam presented him with the National Award for grassroots innovators for developing the amphibious bicycle.

Since his innovations do not bring in enough income, he supplements it with the honey business. He travels 30 km on his bicycle every day to sell his produce at the market.

Unfortunately, Bihar’s leadership over years has failed to use the potentials of its sons and daughters who bring real honours to Bihar. Can’t someone take a lead in taking care of these brave and dedicated people of Bihar? Can’t someone help Mohammad Saidullah to commercialise some of his inventions or get them patented? Can’t Nitish Kumar come out some discretionary grants so that he gets back the land that he had to sell? Can’t some NRB (Non Resident Biharis that will be in Patna very soon) financially help the man so that he feels satisfied and happy that the society has taken care of him?

India being a very ancient civilization has many treasures that are still not discovered. Here is one such heritage news story.
Madhya Pradesh is poised to claim yet another (Bhimbetka was already known) world record in rock art for the longest chain of rock art. The 12-km-long site, with most of its petroglyphs or pre-historic rock carvings intact, has been discovered in Mandsaur district of Malwa region, which is also home to Bhimbetka, the UNESCO world heritage site, 45 km south of Bhopal.

The Rock Arts Society of India (RASI) knew about the existence of the site for sometime. It has now gone official saying the site in the Vindhyan tableland, a plateau lying north of the central part of the Vindhya range, is indeed the “longest chain of rock arts in the world”. “Nowhere in the world has anybody come across such an extensive chain of rock arts with little interruption. What’s exciting is most petroglyphs are intact,” as claimed by internationally acclaimed paleontologist and former RASI secretary G L Badam.

The site is situated inside dense forests, 35 km from Bhanpura town, about 350 km from Bhopal. Earliest carvings in the chain are mostly of animals like rhino, nilgai , bear, panther, elephant, monkey, turtle and crocodile. But there are also pictures of cow, bull, buffalo, pig and horse. Experts have called the discovery of the Bhanpura rock arts as “an important milestone in the history of anthropology”. “The presence of a variety of rituals, processions and fighting scenes goes to prove the continuity of the art and early man’s culmination into community living.”

Most of the discoveries in pre-independent India were the works of western experts. After independence, every one thought that there would be many new discoveries. But it didn’t happen. Perhpas, the area doesn’t attract many students.