दृष्टिकोण – Indra's Viewpoint

A story appeared in media.

After the J. Jayalalitha-led AIADMK crash-landed in the May ’06 assembly elections, Jaya TV reporters conducted an informal survey among the fisher folk of the tsunami-battered Nagapattinam and Cuddalore districts. “Amma gave you everything after the tsunami: house, boats, nets, provisions, stoves. Why didn’t you vote for her?” The reply was piercingly frank: “True, she rebuilt our lives. We’ll always be indebted to her. But she did not give us a TV. Karunanidhi was offering us that and more. So we voted for him.” Many had lost their TV sets too in the tsunami.

This is the way our politicians promise and our people who really matter vote. The DMK as promised in its manifesto is distributing 30 lakh free CTVs this fiscal at a cost of Rs 750 crore already allocated in the state budget. It will distribute 60 lakh more in next two years. Each set costs Rs 2,965. With the present 76.2% TV penetration, the highest in the country, perhaps, Tamil Nadu will soon be the first state whose entire population will own TV sets. Surprisingly, 60 of 100 TV sets have cable connections too. With DMK gifts, many who already have a TV set will get one extra but that will be coloured one. Are Tamilians so crazy about the entertainment? Perhaps with film personalities mostly in CM chair, it is so.

No one can challenge or question the prudence of a veteran such Karunanidhi in a state that tops the development indices and where the people are considered better educated in the country.

Many question, however, whether it would have been better to provide toilet in every household, as in 92 lakh households out of 142 in TN don’t have toilets. Others see the scheme to offer business potential for Sun Network of the CM family with so many more cable connections, even if it gives Rs 100 per month.

And there is another little known Dalit party that has another agenda and free offering plan. VCK (Viduthalai Chiruthai Katchi) are promising free computer to class XII students and even have distributed some 40 among dalits. Is it not a competition of a sort that other states may envy?

I feel instead the state and the government would have facilitated the ownership of a cellular phone to all able-bodied persons in the state with certain skill and willingness to work. The state must also develop few websites, something like shaadi.com where every skilled person can register his name, trade and skill, and cellular number without any fee. That could have given better employment to the people. The government could also have spent this huge amount on crating trade schools to provide some sort of trade training to each and every person in working age to face the job market with confidence.

However, it is for the politicians and their voters to decide and demand. Politicians will go the way they wish, and we can only go on grumbling.

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Six Indian-American innovators figure in MIT’s Technology Review (TR) journal’s honours list this year for their contribution in providing tech solutions in various fields. It is great achievements for the emigrants. It also indicates the priorities of this ethnic group.

Since 1999, the Technology Review (TR) journal of the Massachusetts Institute of Technology has been selecting young innovators below 35, whose innovations they find most exciting and creative. As Jason Pontin, editor-in-chief of TR says: ”TR35 is among the most prestigious honours that can be bestowed on a young innovator.”

The editors of the magazine select these innovators. A panel of judges from major institutions like Boston University, Hewlett-Packard Labs, Caltech and Applied Materials etc help in arriving at the finalists. The list has now been brought down to 35 from the earlier 100 innovators.

TR estimates Indian-Americans comprise just under 1% of the country’s population, but their contribution to innovative technology is 12% to 17%. The inclusion of six Indian-Americans means there is a 50% rise over the previous year, and a 70% rise since 2004.

NRIs have made it to the list every year since its inception. The first-year winners included Sabeer Bhatia of Hotmail fame, Amit Goyal for his research on semiconductors, and Akhil Madhani, the creator of Black Falcon robot that performs remote minimally invasive surgery.

Later winning innovators were like Sangeeta Bhatia who used microchip-manufacturing tools to build artificial livers and Shuvo Roy who built tiny machines that could warn of impending heart attack and monitor healing after surgery. In 2004 list had Chaitali Sengupta who oversaw the architecture of communication chips used in advanced cellular systems, and Smruti Vidwans who developed a drug against TB.

This year’s list has six Indian-Americans.

Jay Shendure, 31, HARVARD MEDICAL SCHOOL
A second-generation NRI, biotechnologist and medical student, Shendure is revolutionising genetics with a new way to sequence DNA. He developed a novel method of DNA sequencing that is substantially cheaper than the conventional method. His goal is to bring the cost down to a point where it costs around $1000. He plans to use the technique to sequence the genome of a lung tumour to identify the mutations that cause it.

Prithwish Basu, 31, BBN TECHNOLOGIES
This Kolkata genius is making waves with his networking innovation. Even the US Defence Department wants to test his network designs to help keep soldiers in touch on the battlefield. Basu grew up in Delhi and studied at DPS. After B.Tech from IIT Delhi, he enrolled at Boston University for PhD. There he proposed a wireless parking meter network for discovering vacant parking spots.

Ram K Krishnamurthy, 33, INTEL
Ram is from Hyderabad, a REC-Trichy graduate, who did his PhD at Carnegie Mellon University has invented high-performance energy-efficient circuits for PCs that “could enable PCs with significantly improved energy-efficiency and performance per watt of power consumption.”

Sumeet Singh, 31, CISCO
Singh studied at mayo school and did his PhD at the Computer Science & Engineering University of California. He was the co-founder of NetSift Inc, which was acquired by Cisco this June. Singh has changed the method for tackling e-viruses. He has automated virus detection in such a way that defenders are on the same footing as attackers. He hopes the technology will be able to scan more than 20 GB of data per second.

Anand Raghunathan, 34, NEC LABORATORIES AMERICA
Raghnunathan’s innovation will make all mobile devices secure from viruses. The supplementary processor, dubbed Moses, does security functions on mobiles.

Ashok Maliakal, 31, LUCENT TECHNOLOGIES, BELL LABORATORIES
Born in the US, Maliakal’s parents migrated from Kerala to the US in the ’70s. As a materials scientist at Bell Labs, he has designed nanostructured composite materials for optical and electronics applications. If mass-produced, it could lead to a new generation of flexible display screens.

I don’t know frankly how many of these innovators are proud of their Indian origin, but I am sure 100% Indians, particularly old technocrats like me get elated to hear their success stories and pray for their successful endevour to reach the top of the world in their area of activities. Who knows one of them one day get a Noble? They may feel great by calling themselves Americans rather Indians, but still they can’t take away the right of ours to feel proud about their achievements. They must also not forget that somewhere these wllwishes of some millions would have worked.

According to the 2000 Census, the median household income of Indians was $70,708-far above the national median of $50,046. The Census Bureau says that 63.9% of Indians over 25 hold at least a bachelor’s degree, compared with the national average of 24.4%.

An Asian-American hospitality industry advocacy group says that Indians own 50% of all economy lodging and 37% of all hotels in the U.S. AnnaLee Saxenian, a dean and professor at University of California, Berkeley, estimates that in the late 1990s, close to 10% of technology startups in Silicon Valley were headed by Indians.

You’ll find Indian physicians working in almost every hospital as well as running small-town practices. Indian journalists hold senior positions at major publications, and Indian faculty have gained senior appointments at most universities. Last month, Indra Nooyi, an Indian woman, was named CEO of PepsiCo (PEP) (see BusinessWeek.com, 8/14/06, “PepsiCo Shakes It Up”). Census data show that 81.8% of Indian immigrants arrived in the U.S. after 1980.

Vivek has provided the clearest logical viewpoints on the success stories of Indians in US. Read the full article of Business Week. It is inspiring. It is not just luck, but perspiration that has brought Indians where they are.

Indians parents are crazy to see their children as engineers. For sometimes, it appeared there is going to be saturation soon in the demand. However, the success and growth rate of Indian IT and BPO sectors have kept the demand of properly educated engineers increasing. Today, many studies have predicted a shortage in near future. With changing business model, any number of engineers with good knowledge of their core domain subject (electrical, mechanical, civil, electronics, metallurgy, chemical, and for that matter any stream) and communication capability will remain in demand. It is because the companies, world over today are willing to contract out elements of their engineering, design, and research and development that were earlier exclusively kept in-house. Smarter the companies, more is its outsourcing of high end processes. Outsourcing will no more be limited to non-engineering information technology, manufacturing, and business processes. Innovation and R&D that had been a company’s competitive edge, and serve as the engine for growth are going out for outsourcing to capable service providers.

The worldwide sourcing of innovation is going far more rapidly to such nations as India, China, Thailand, and Brazil. Can Indian business leaders and its engineers compete and remain at the top? According to a study, current global spending on offshored engineering is $15 billion. By 2020, the figure will expand by an order of magnitude to $150 billion to $225 billion. More and more companies realize today that the decision to offshore engineering processes can lead to real gains in cost, quality and productivity over in-house levels.

The market for engineering services – product and component design, plant design, process engineering, and plant maintenance and operations – covers across a number of sectors: automotive, aerospace, technology/telecommunications, utilities, and construction and industrial machinery, which together account for the bulk of the world’s corporate R&D spending.

The rapid pace of global spending on engineering services is due two main reasons 1) the growing demand for ever more complicated consumer and industrial products and 2) the increased electronic and software content of everything from toys to airplanes that makes for more offshorable engineering work. And the older practice of retaining innovation in-house is no more sustainable.

Engineers are in short supply in Western economies. A 10-year-long pattern shows that fewer students in the United States and Europe are choosing engineering as a profession. India produces 95,000 graduates a year in electrical, information technology, and computer-science engineering that are the kind in highest demand, while the U.S. turns out 85,000 a year.

A Booz Allen/NASSCOM study estimated that as many as 6 million engineers are available in emerging markets to take on R&D assignments of all sorts. Twenty-eight percent are in India, and 11 percent are in China. India enjoys an advantage over China and others, as India has already optimized the business of IT offshoring that can be easily adapted to serve the engineering sector too. India could expand its revenues from engineering services by 25 to 30 times, reaping a market potential of $50 billion in 2020. However the forthcoming competition will be fierce. Within the next decade, the low-cost position currently held by India could shift to countries such as South Africa, Philippines, and Vietnam. India must gear up its competitive advantages.

A host of industry leaders are already expanding their innovation activities in India. At the automotive R&D innovation site of one major automotive component supplier in Bangalore, 3,000 employees are working on high-end electronic control units, tools, and diagnostics. A second facility is planned for Coimbatore by 2010, where 6,000 employees will work on software and engineering. Cisco is winning the most U.S. patents for new products developed at its Indian R&D operation. One automotive supplier that offshored 20 percent of its engineering found that 5 percent more often than American designers, its Indian contractors came up with designs that met specifications the first time out and did not need to go back to the drawing board. And they did that despite having a decade less experience on average than the auto supplier’s own team. One major automotive company that took part in the Booz Allen/NASSCOM study expects to save as much as 50 percent by outsourcing its power-train engineering and is seeing real improvements in quality. An industrial machinery maker is saving 60 percent by offshoring its electronics engineering and has quadrupled its rate of new product introduction.

Can India maintain its competitiveness? It must to absorb the talents produced by thousands of engineering colleges. And in turn, the engineering colleges and institutes must ensure the knowledge levels of the graduates it produces.

My friend OP Khanna keeps me on his regular mailing. OP was one who in early seventies went to Germany on an Indo-German scholarship. We were working in HM those days after IIT and had a lot of dreams. He was a better dreamer than me. He proved it in life too. His love of Germany remains. I liked his note on “Euro-English” and I hope all of you will also like it:

The European Commission has just announced an agreement whereby English will be the official language of the European Union rather than German, which was the other possibility.

As part of the negotiations, the British Government conceded that English spelling had some room for improvement and has accepted a 5- year phase-in plan that would become known as “Euro-English”.

In the first year, “s” will replace the soft “c”. Sertainly, this will make the sivil servants jump with joy. The hard “c” will be dropped in favour of “k”. This should klear up konfusion, and keyboards kan have one less letter. There will be growing publik enthusiasm in the sekond year when the troublesome “ph” will be replaced with “f”. This will make words like fotograf 20% shorter.

In the 3rd year, publik akseptanse of the new spelling kan be expekted to reach the stage where! more komplikated changes are possible.

Governments will enkourage the removal of double letters which have always ben a deterent to akurate speling.

Also, al wil agre that the horibl mes of the silent “e” in the languag is disgrasful and it should go away.

By the 4th yer people wil be reseptiv to steps such as
replasing “th” with “z” and “w” with “v”.

During ze fifz yer, ze unesesary “o” kan be dropd from vords kontaining “ou” and after ziz fifz yer, ve vil hav a reil sensi bl riten styl.

Zer vil be no mor trubl or difikultis and evrivun vil find it ezi tu understand ech oza. Ze drem of a united urop vil finali kum tru.

Und efter ze fifz yer, ve vil al be speking German like zey vunted in ze forst plas.

If zis mad you smil, pleas pas on to oza pepl

Boys gave the finishing touches and completed the painting work. The dirty work went on for over a month from rakshabandhan to this day when Yamuna is fasting for Jiyutiya. It was troubled time for us. We hardly went out for more than an hour, neither could we invite any one. However, I had been allowing Yamuna to attend her kitties and also to have evenings with the neighbours who miss her.

Surprisingly, the vendor of the wall-fixed almirah also barged in at the right time bringing in the huge fabricated structure. And it was put in the place vacated by the termite-eaten one.Perhaps the change of material from wood to steel was the only answer to escape the tirade of termite for ever. I still think NOIDA Authority must make it mandatory to treat the construction site for all builders to avoid the inconveniences and loss to the households.

Perhaps this was the last major work that I have got done, if I go by the life of the paint promised by the manufacturer. Hereafter, I shalln’t be there. It will be for the inheritors to do that.

However, I plan to relax and enjoy enjoy the next few days, if I can.

Yamuna is fasting today for long life, prosperity, and trouble free life of her sons and grandsons. Some women in some region of rural Bihar fast to get a male child too, if they don’t have one. Naturally, the modern liberal women will oppose the fast with gender-bias. But I am sure in rural India in particular they can’t bring any change.

My mother (photo above) was not very religious according to traditional perception. Later on, she was having poor health too and stopped fasts that were to be observed manytimes in a year in our family. But she continued to have the rigorous fast on Jiyutiya. I was the only male child. She did all she could do to see that I get everything in life she thought is the symbol of rich and successful man. And she died as satisfied mother seeing her son as successful executive in big corporate firm with all amenities available.

I think back and come to realize that I didn’t do much for her. My father was very sick for long time. He did get all our attentions. But perhaps in turn my mother got neglected.

On this day, I just remember her and feel sorry about whatever I couldn’t do for her. I wish she could excuse me from wherever she is.

PS: Yamuna broke her fast at 9.30 AM on September 15. Naturally, at this age the whole system must be getting upset. She doesn’t take even water, as is the practice. However, as I have observed she sleeps well when she fasts. As a part of the rituals, there is a story telling also. The stories are about the origin of the fast, its benefits when observed rightly, and problems if any deviation occurs because of human weaknesses.

But one thing more! For each child, one or sometimes two Jiyutiyas are worn. You can see them in the photograph of Yamuna, my wife. It is the modern one obtained last year from Patna courtesy Biva, my brother’s wife. Earlier one was lost in a burglary in 2003 here at our residence in Noida.

Many years ago, I was traveling to my hometown, Sasaram in Purushottam Express. As a habit, when I was nearing Sasaram, I went near the gate and started seeing outside. I never knew some of the young co passengers were watching me. One out of them came forward and asked, “Uncle, What are looking for?” ” Every time I pass through this area, I expect a change in the overall view- some prosperity, some factories, some other constructions going on. But I never find any.”
Those were the students from XLRI, Jamshedpur. Once I came to know I asked, ” Can’t you take the rural issues in your management project?” They kept mum.

I have found my dream getting materialized. Many highly educated young men and women are trying to go away from the traditional route and doing some unique things for the society.

Have you heard of Educational Initiatives’ ASSET, Pratham, iDiscoveries, AID India, Eklavya, and Uttarakhand Seva Nidhi (USN)? Educational Initiatives’ ASSET is a set of diagnostic tests developed to probe how for schoolchildren are learning concepts rather than just parroting them. Pratham focuses on improving learning outcomes in government schools. iDiscoveries is an innovative teachers training programme. AID India carries out science teaching and primary school programmes in Tamil Nadu. USN has developed environment as an examinable subject on the mainstream curriculum. And there must be many more that I am not aware of.

And who are people manning these organization? Sridhar Rajagopalan, an IIM-Ahmedabad alumnus and former IBM Tata with two others are behind Educational Initiatives, and running it as a profitable business. Aditya Natraj, an MBA from the world famous French management school, INSEAD and a chartered accountant with seven years experience is working for Pratham. Himanshu Joshi an IIM-graduate and an employee of Glaxo SmithKline has joined iDiscoveries. Balaji Sampath, an IIT graduate with a doctorate in electrical engineering from US runs AID India. And hardware engineer Chandra Anil, software engineer Smita Kalyani, and Ravi Shankar an ex-IITian with a doctorate in computer and electronic engineering are with Sampath. IIT and MIT-trained engineer Lalit Pande has started USN. The list of the new category of social soldiers would have been much bigger, if I had known about them,

All the institutions mentioned above are working to improve the quality of education and teaching, and making it more useful to the society. All the persons named are highly educated and dedicated in the service of the society they belong to.

I only wish many more join them, if not full time at least by their moral and financial support with smaller goals. I wish, some 1,00,000 Indian engineers and other professionals (including IITians) that are working abroad and are well off form a group that ensure that no one of the kids of India will go without education because of the paucity of finance from the family. Each one can take care of a primary school in any part of India and the quality of education that its teachers impart.

Some Interesting News
India overtakes China in phone user growth
Rs 672,000 cr ( about $ 149 billion) worth announcements in 75 days
Amul set to become world’s largest liquid milk brand</POST_

Many a times, I try to forget the bitter experiences of the past and start thinking very positive about West Bengal. But I don’t know why something happens soon enough and my opinion gets in reverse gear again. The amount of mental agony that I underwent recently to get a birth certificate from Uttapara Municipality has become the sore point this time. Many well wishers of Anand helped in getting every document desired by the municipality – the certificate from the HM Hospital, and affidavit from the SDO office fast enough in shortest possible time. The person deputed was going to submit it hoping to get it in hand that day itself. Something happened. CPM workers put a big lock in the municipality building and stopped all work. With all sort of influences because of my acquaintances of half a century in West Bengal, I couldn’t get that small paper for Anand. That was essential for Anand to put up his papers for green card. I had to leave to providence. It took weeks. It was only the pressure of local people, because of impending Durga Puja that made CPM withdraw the agitation last Tuesday. In West Bengal, still things are very much in hand of local leaders who can take any decision without considering the inconveniences caused to the people.
Such things happen so often, sometimes created by the ruling party, and sometimes by Mamata’s party that we forget to keep a track. But if we go by the media report, Buddha Babu has brought in transformation. He is different. He can fight with his party to make Bengal developed. Bengal is changing and changing fast. All industrialists are making a beeline to setup some or the other ventures in the state. I have not understood the logic of setting up a Rs 1 -lakh- car plant of Tata Motors in Singur, near Kolkata. The farmers’ agitation is already pet news in Bengal’s media.

However, I thought West Bengal would be better placed in India Today’s 2006 State of the States’ study. But, it does not indicate any resurgence in Bengal.

Done by economists Bibek Debroy and Laveesh Bhandari, the 2006 State of the States study of ‘India Today’ puts Bengal in the bottom ten of the 20 big states of India almost on all parameter except for agriculture.

In Overall Rating, West Bengal ranks at 13 with improvement in score. In ‘Law and order’, WB is at 14 with deteriorated score. Agriculture is the only parameter in which WB is at 7 with significant improvement in score. I thought West Bengal will be much better of in primary education and healthcare, but in primary education, WB stands at 12th rank with reduction in score, and in primary health, it is at 11 with some improvement in score.

In ‘Consumer market’, and ‘ Budget and prosperity’, W. Bengal is at 13 with improvement in score. However, in ‘Investment environment’, WB is at 18 with certain deterioration. And in ‘governance rank’, WB is at 15.

I hoped in ‘Infrastructure’ (% of household with electricity, LPG, % of villages with pucca roads, per capita road length, and bank branches, density of post offices and teledensity) West Bengal would be better with three decades and more of single party rule. However, WB ranks only 15.

What should I conclude? Should I go by the one of opposition leaders who said recently, ‘the biggest media hype today is being created around the chief minister, Buddhadev. The Bengal boom is just clever packaging.’

I don’t agree with the leader. Kolkata’s skyline is changing and changing fast. But it is too little an achievement for a party that spoiled the total work culture of the state. They must be honest to admit their mistakes and support Buddha in going faster for a change without creating any hurdle for shellfish reasons.

Some Good News
Videocon buys Daewoo Electronics for $700 mn
Industrial output surges fastest in decade
High-tech School of the Future