दृष्टिकोण – Indra's Viewpoint

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.

As reported, finally IIT comes to Bihar. Looking back in history we find Bihar has waited for nearly six decades for an IIT. It happens in Nitish’s reign that couldn’t happen in 50s. Shri Babu lost against the personality of Dr. BC Roy. Dr. BC Roy influenced Nehru and got the first IIT established at Kharagpur, West Bengal instead of Sindri (earlier in united Bihar, but now in Jharkhand).

However, only the time will tell what Bihar gains by having an IIT. The location of IITs till date has not changed the region as Stanford and Berkley have done it for the Silicon Valley, USA. IIT of Bihar must concentrate on encouraging research and entrepreneurship.

Though Bihar was not having an IIT, but it didn’t affect any way the students of Bihar who right from the first batch started entering IITs in good number because of their merit. Individual zeal and assistance of institutes such as Super 30 Institute of Patna has helped the ambitious students in their pursuits to enter into IITs.

Let the location of this IIT not be decided by politicians. Interestingly, as reported, Fatmi, MOS, HRD already wishes to have it at Darbhanga, his home constituency.

I have some different views.

Let IIT of Bihar be the first seed institute of world-class higher learning in the premises of Nalanda International University as gifted by the government of India. Let IIT be located somewhere near the International Airport of Buddha Gaya with a 6-lane expressway between the two. Connectivity of the location will be the deciding factor. The concept of Nalanda International University must be pursued with a missionary zeal. That one project can bring a revolutionary transformation in the economy of the region.

As wished by many faculties of IITs let there be 50% reservations for the foreign students, particularly from the South East Asian councom/OPINION/Editorial/COUNTER_VIEW_An_IIT_cannot_clean_up_Bihar/articleshow/1085480.cms”>An IIT cannot clean up Bihartries including China, Taiwan, Korea and Japan. It must try to have good teachers also in large number from the South East Asian countries. And one can dream of the day, when many specialized institutes of higher learning sponsored by different countries and the reputed universities of the world get setup in the premise of Nalanda International University.

Let this IIT become unique in some way and serve the whole of the region.

I wish the local politicians didn’t spoil this ‘crown jewel’ institute by their foolish demands and moves.

As reported, before polling in the last Bihar elections, Jagdeep Chhokar and Trilochan Sastry (an IIT, IIM and MIT-educated operations research expert who also taught at IIM-A) met Nitish Kumar. He said since some with criminal records were already in the fray, he could not help. But “he promised that in the event of his becoming CM, none of them would be made ministers,” says Sastry. He adds, ”Nitish Kumar kept his word. Today we have in Bihar, ministers who don’t have criminal records, at least on paper.” This is what the most Bihar watchers think. Nitish and his team are bringing some change. It may be slow but is coming steadily.

Bihar that used to be in news earlier for all wrong reasons, is taking some steps that are coming as ‘first’ time in any state. Bihar was the first to allocate 50% reservation to women in village and district councils. As reported, it wished to employ 50% women teachers in its drive to fill up the vacancies of teachers, about 1.5 lakh in number.

From January 2, 2007, Bihar has switched over to the five day working in the government offices. Mission is to improve for better efficiency. Working hours are more on regular days to compensate the loss of Saturday and the casual holidays have also come down from 16 to 12 days. Even the CM reaches his office well ahead of the time (and with his lunchbox) and so do all top bureaucrats.

Interestingly, is Nitish Kumar trying to run the government as CEO, and to introduce corporate culture in government functioning. He is credited with some more firsttimers. He appointed retired army men on contract in the state police force and formed Special Auxiliary Police. He has also appointed retired CBI officials on contract to form a special anti-corruption cell. Let these innovative out of the box solution bring efficiency and change the image of Bihar.

And very soon, RTI will just be a phone call away in Bihar for all the people. “The government has planned to set up a call centre where a person can ring in to seek the information required by him. The call centre will then write a formal application which would be forwarded to the concerned department through fax or internet and, on getting the information sought, would pass it on to the person. It will cost the person just Rs 10 as call charge.”

I wish he took up some more tasks on prority. Can Nitish Kumar arrage a monitoring of some of the central projects of immense importance to the state- East-West Corridor and Golden Quadrilateral Expresswaya passing through the state, seven new road projects of NHDPIII that are included for Bihar, taking the length of roads in the state from 113 km to 890 km, and rural electrification and road work under Bharat Nirman?

Bihar had earned a bad name for law and order. With the Nithari episode caused because of the totally negligent police system, UP has become a Rakhash Rajya, where the life of even innocent little ones are not safe. And funniest of all, the chief minister still claims that he is the king of this jungle. He has lost the ability to even understand what he says and what it means. And he has many sycophants who clap on the statement.

When the whole of the country is shocked by the deeds of a Rakhasha of Noida, the CM of the state, his party is busy in organizing ‘Black Day’ for protesting against the execution of Saddam Hussein. And what type of protest was it that I could see on TV channel. Even perhaps the pro-Saddam Iraqis would not have dared to do that and would even feel ashamed to stone and hurt the innocent tourists visiting Iraq knowingly.

Surprisingly, the whole of India feels like going to Nithari to show sympathy with the very poor parents of those kids who were killed for no fault of theirs. But the chief minister doesn’t think it necessary to visit and share the pain and mental torture that the parents are undergoing. On advice of some of his sycophant advisors, he has been sending cheques of Rs 2 lakhs, and now Rs 5 lakhs to make them forget the memory of the kids that they have lost as compensation. UP CM Mulayam Singh Yadav’s brother and PWD Minister Shivpal Singh Yadav today described the murders of children in Noida as “small and routine incidents.” Is it not shameful of a democracy that can tolerate such a chief minister?

Interestingly, most of the victims are from West Bengal, and are from the poorest class, working in Noida as domestic help or rickshaw-puller. I thought some political leaders from Bengal would have visited them to console them. But this is the tragedy today that no one wants to help the poor unless they form the part of their vote bank. And these people confess that their names are not in the voters list.

What a shame!
Read more>
‘Noida killings a blot on society’
Nithari minor incident, says UP minister
‘Such small incidents keep happening’
Is it a Noida jinx that’s stopping Mulayam?

It was interesting to go through the coverage in ‘Indian Express’ on RA Mashelkar on December 30,2006 done by Sonu Jain.

CSIR Mashelkar retires, and heads for Pune to work as chemical scientist, ‘full-time, not just a weekend one’

He goes on to become the President of Global Research Alliance formed by nine CSIR-like institutions from Asia-Pacific, Europe and USA of 60,000 scientists and engineers with a budget of 6 billion dollars. “It’s a challenge to do what I did with CSIR on a global scale,”

“I have committed to only four weeks in a year. Rest of the time, I want to become a full-time scientist from being a weekend one,”

A decade ago, Mashelkar was the first to show attributes of synthetic hydrogels that mimic life. “This area of science fascinates me and I want to dedicate more than my weekends on it,”

How would he like to be remembered? “As somebody who brought pride to India as a scientist but as someone who is worried about the affairs of science,” he said wording his words carefully.

In his unfinished agenda is “autonomy for CSIR. To be able to set up enterprise and spin-off companies, the headquarter should only act as facilitator”. For the government to give more autonomy to the CSIR and CSIR, in turn, gives more autonomy to the labs. This will bring in more funds for science. He cited the example of how a Harvard research body has access to funds to the tune of $23 billion. “Year 2006 is the best ever both in terms of science and business. CSIR had the highest number of scientific research papers. In terms of earnings, we touched the highest figure with private sector earnings touching the highest ever,” he says with pride. From ‘SARAS’ aircraft and TB drug to a 100-dollar computer, CSIR has had several breakthroughs that are actually reaching the market. And it all happened when Mashelkar was the head.

After reading this, some questions cropped up in my mind:

Why didn’t the other national newspapers cover some similar story on Mashelkar’s retirement?

Media, particularly all national and metro newspapers, must give due coverage to the scientific works being undertaken at different institutions of national importance and the people who are making significant contributions to the image building of the country. Let them not live with myth that the readers don’t like to read those stories.

The national economy is touching 9% growth rate. Manufacturing is growing at about 12 percent. But it is small and medium-size manufacturers that are growing at about 15 percent and some small-company stars are going for the triple digits.

 Between 2001 and 2006, companies with net turnover of Rs 1 crore-50 crore saw a rise of 701 per cent in net profit, compared to 169 per cent for large companies with turnover of over Rs 1,000 crore.

 Companies with a turnover of Rs 50 crore-100 crore did even better, raking in profit growth of 961 per cent over the five years.

 Smaller companies have also outperformed larger ones in the growth of net sales and operating profits. Operating and net profit margins of smaller companies, too, have expanded more than those of the larger ones. (Although there is no agreement on what constitutes an SME, private and foreign banks define SMEs as companies with turnover between Rs 10 crore and Rs 700 crore.)

 As the Economic Survey points out, “During 2000-01 to 2004-05, the SSI sector registered continuous growth in the number of units, production, employment and even exports. The average annual growth in the number of units was around 4.1 per cent, while employment grew at 4.4 per cent. Further, the average annual growth in production, at current and constant prices, was 10.6 per cent and 7.6 per cent, respectively.” Remarkably, this growth was achieved over a period that has seen a steady dismantling of reservations for the sector.

 SMEs will invest up to $1.2 billion on their Internet infrastructure and solutions this year, about one-sixth of the total IT spend for all companies at $7.7 billion this year.

RSB Transmission of RK Bahera was declared sick in 1979. Behera was not able to repay the Rs 1.65 lakh loan taken from the Bihar State Financial Corporation, and he could not even pay back Rs 10,000 that he had borrowed from his father. However, the company turned around in 1982 when the company became the sole supplier of sheet metal components to Jamshedpur-based Telco (now Tata Motors). The company moved to Pune in 1995. The company grabbed the clientele of other OEMs. The company going for a turnover of Rs 600 crore next year and has also acquired Michigan-based Miller Brothers Manufacturing for $19 million recently. Behera has today eight plants across the country.

Consultants Dun & Bradstreet have identified auto components, textiles, food processing, pharma, engineering and chemicals as sectors in which Indian SMEs could become globally competitive.
According to Dun & Bradstreet, SMEs in the textile sector, for instance, expect an average growth rate of 32 per cent over the next two years.

Nitin Mandhana, managing director, Indus Fila, took his company from a turnover of Rs 14 crore in 2004 to Rs 247 crore in 2006. The company set up a centre of excellence in 2006 in Nelmangala on the outskirts of Bangalore for Rs 60 crore. Here, the best global brands – such as GAP – connected to Indus Fila would be given space to set up design studios and help his team manufacture the latest fashion trends for the US and Europe. “By teaming up with German apparel manufacturers such as Bornemann and Bick in 1992, our reach to foreign markets has been easy. This has tremendously leveraged the way Indus Fila is reaching foreign markets,” says Mandhana.

The auto-component companies studied by Dun & Bradstreet grew at an average 35 per cent over the past two years and expect the momentum to be maintained.

M. Radhakrishnan started his auto-ancillary business, Autolines, in 1996 with turnover of a mere Rs 11 lakh. Bankers wouldn’t even look at their business plan. Somehow, Radhakrishnan managed a working capital loan from a local co-operative bank and pumped in his own money to survive and expand. The company reached a turnover of Rs 50 crore and bankers started beating a path to their doors. Autolines today is an Rs 125-crore company, a tier-1 supplier of sheet metal to the Tatas.

Precision Camshafts is another success story, a company manufacturing at least 3 million camshafts a year today. The Rs 75-crore company has gone on to become the sole supplier of camshafts to firms such as Ford and GM in Europe.

The auto ancillary units in the industrial areas of Chikrapur, Bosri and Alandi around Pune are flourishing. Banks are assisting the entire supply chain, because of the link to the larger OEM. I had written about Involute Technologies, a Rs 70-crore company with many tier-3 suppliers of auto components connected to it. Banks are funding them because of the link to larger OEMs such as John Deere and Tata Motors.

Everest Kanto Cylinder Ltd. has taken less than a decade to become the world’s second largest maker of cylinders for high-pressure, compressed natural gas. Rico is planning to acquire a Thai and a Turkish auto-parts maker. Orient Craft bought a failing Levi’s plant in Spain for $15 million, dismantled it and reassembled it at its Gurgaon plant. Everest Kanto already has a cylinder plant in Dubai and is building a $50 million plant in China. Iran and Pakistan, two of its best customers, are pestering the company to build factories in their countries.

Are these stories that I collected from the various places in media not the great going-ons in Indian manufacturing?

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