India Moving Ahead

Posted on November 4, 2015 by indra

Is it not great when if a World Bank official says, ‘It took four months in 2005 to start a business in India, but it takes only 29 days now.’? And some good news…..

1. India now ranks 130 out of 189 countries in the ease of doing business.”A forward movement of 12 spots in the ease of doing business by an economy of the size of India is a ‘remarkable achievement. Going from 142 in the world to 130, as India has done, is very good sign.” The World Bank has said in a separate box that India is the biggest reformer.

2. India is ranked 8 globally in protection of minority investors, ahead of many developed economies including the US, Germany and Japan.

3. India has moved up one position to become the world’s seventh most valued ‘nation brand’, with an increase of 32 per cent in its brand value to USD 2.1 billion. The surge of 32 per cent in India’s ‘nation brand value’ is the highest among all the top-20 countries on the list.

4. India has pulled ahead of China and the United States to take pole position as the most favoured destination for foreign direct investment (FDI), according to the Financial Times, having received $31 billion – $3 and $4 billion more than China and the US respectively.

5. India continues to top the global confidence index.

6. India will remain the world’s fastest growing information technology (IT) market in 2016 as it is expected to spend more than $72 billion on IT services, products and hardware, up from 7.2% from the current year, according to research firm Gartner Inc.

7. As the second-fastest growing and third-largest start-up ecosystem in the world, India is moving at a frenetic pace.
8. The Strategy& study found China and India recorded R&D spending growth of 79 percent and 116 percent, respectively, between 2007 and 2015.

9. The first ever global report commissioned by the Queen Elizabeth Prize for Engineering has revealed that while just 20% of 16 to 17 year-olds from the UK and 30% from the USA are interested in an engineering career, in India the rate is as high as 80% – the highest in the world.

10. India has made significant progress in the past two years in financial transparency . According to the global financial secrecy index (FSI) report released by Tax Justice Network (TJN), India ranked 45 in the list of 92 countries in 2015 in comparison to 32 in 2013, which is seen as a big jump.

Prime Minister Narendra Modi has been ranked ninth on the Forbes list of powerful people for 2015, up six places from last year when he was at number 15.

Another study is more satisfying for India. “In the study of 175 countries by anti-graft organisation Transparency International, India ranked 85, ahead China which came at 100, the Corruption Perceptions Index 2014 said. On a rating of up to 100, India scored 38, two points ahead of China’s 36. India’s score grew by two points over last year’s assessment.”

Are these not something to celebrate? Should we get bogged down by the intolerance debate or controversy on which the media is wasting its time? Why should we all not debate to sustain and improve on these global rankings?

Posted in economy, governance, industry | Leave a comment

Creating Non-agriculture jobs in Rural Bihar

Posted on November 3, 2015 by indra

Will the new government focus on and ensure by creating non-agriculture employment? Unless, every family thinks of having engaged after the farming work for extra earning, poverty can’t be eliminated. What all can become part of these rural Enterprises?
I wish some younger entrepreneurs start thinking intensively for creating a large number of new micro-entrepreneurship projects in rural region of Bihar. Every village can grow as a small manufacturing enterprise for at least something or can provide opportunities for some service entrepreneurs, may be micro ones. With the policy such as MUDRA, finance may not remain constraint. However, the bank officers are to be motivating rather harassing lot.
1. Talents of the young girls who come to a village after marriage with certain skills such as stitching apparels or different items for household uses including cheap sanitary towels, or for knitting sweaters, or making stuffed toys can be exploited to create extra earnings for the families. An effective link between traders and these talented ones will be necessary in the ecosystem.
2. The Panchayats can be persuaded for getting the school buildings or the panchayat house for opening a skill centre, and schools such Usha Silai Schools can be sponsored with a sole objective of starting a cooperative business.
3. Other enterprises for young men such as maintenance services for agriculture machines such as tractors, pumps to electronic gadgets that are flooding the rural areas fast, can also have potential. Today, all the users go to small towns nearby.
4. Every village can have some tutors engaged for providing tuitions to students of different levels, some even helping for getting distant education for higher level courses. With gradual increase in earnings and increasing interest in education, many parents are today able to pay for this. For instance, my cousin’s wife has been providing the tuition against payment for a number of years.
5. Another attractive area may be small scale home based food processing such as pickles or satoos or some traditional seasonal snacks. Many traditional snacks such as bhoonja, tilwa, ladoo with methi, sonth, and haldi as constituents, that used to be a delicacy for winter season, are disappearing fast. And with good packing and quality assurance, one can thinking of selling it on line. Could any one imagine that upala (cow dung cake) are getting sold on-line in festivals season. One can explore and get into the right business. There is no point in having these production bases in urban areas. With improving road connectivity, transportation will hardly be a bottleneck. However, a mind set of extra earning rather than wasting time in watching useless serials on TV must change.
There can be hundred of ideas for creating jobs and it will be in national interests that graduates of engineering and management schools are roped to carry out the feasibility studies and suggest ways and means to create non- agricultural work in rural region.
6. One such idea is certainly for the graduates in agricultural sciences. Can’t they think of opening low cost advisory or technical assistance services for the farmers to improve their yield and earnings? What can be the way for improving the yields from the prevalent small land holdings, say 3-5 bighas? Some can advise the best combinations of crops, plantations of fruits and vegetables to maximise the earnings of the individual small farmers who are in majority today. Some graduates in science can open small labs for finding the chemical composition of the soils in different regions of a village to suggest the right type of fertilisers, and may be a switch to bio-fertilisers.
7. A similar service may engage some trained young persons for various healthcare services. A safe maternity home and maternity advisory service can too be an engagement and a future business proposal.
8. A weekly market in every panchayat may create opening for selling home grown vegetables and other eatables. With households getting nucleus, even a rural family may like to have alternative of cooking at home.
9. Some young men can think of getting into rural tourism, as many in urban India will like to spend a night in village if it provides excitement and entertainment.
10. Rural India itself can create employment and business. Organic manure from the waste generated in villages, housing, marriages etc can provide a lot of scope for creating business and employment for the local population. The need is to make the activities marketable and sell it through different entrepreneurship.
http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/environment/the-good-earth/A-greener-way-out-of-farm-crisis/articleshow/49614230.cms
11. http://www.business-standard.com/article/companies/amul-s-not-so-marginal-farmers-115102300023_1.html Can the new generation of Bihari farmers take a lesson from Gujarat get into dairy farming in big way? If GCMMF can enter into other states like Uttar Pradesh and West Bengal bringing similar prosperity to its farmers, why can’t happen in Bihar?
Mushroom farming or government encouraged plantation on large scale on idle government land can change the fate of many poor in rural Bihar.
With the fast social changes coming in villages, many requirements of the people living there will need many services requiring some enterprises. The government must ensure a 24×7 electricity for the rural enterprises to be better in productivity and competitiveness.
http://www.ndtv.com/photos/news/kushalta-ke-kadam-aiming-for-independence-20606?pfrom=home-campaigns#photo-263178

Posted in bihar, rural india | Leave a comment

Make-in-India: My Outlooks

Posted on October 23, 2015 by indra

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Make-in-India: Here is a story of a traditional manufacturing hub. Munger district, along Ganga’s banks in Bihar, has a formidable reputation for being a hub for illegal gun making. Gun making in Munger is about 200-year old. As believed, ‘the British established this industry in this region during the first Anglo-Afghan war. During the first world war, these gunsmiths came into prominence for developing the cartridge gun. After 1947, the government prompted these gunsmiths to set up cooperative factories. However, due to government apathy in arms purchase and policy hassles, most of these factories quickly shut down.’ The people in gun making are already trained and can manufacture even sophisticated guns such AK-47 or better. Today, all these enterprises do illegal manufacturing and business. Manohar Parrikar, the IITian Defence Minister is smart and proactive. Can this talent in manufacturing be used to get into a respectable business enterprises through some innovative schemes? Can some influential technocrat missionary suggest ways and means to integrate these manufacturing talents to create an arms manufacturing hub of the country to produce world class arms with some technical input and meagre investment in some machine tools and testing equipment? Can some one put the suggestion to the effective decision maker?
2

Wrote a letter to Indian Express today-
Make-in-India: L&T must answer some questions. As reported in Indian Express, “the bronze parts of the Statue of Unity for the memorial to Sardar Vallabhbhai Patel, coming up in Gujarat will be made in a foundry in China. Larsen & Toubro (L&T) got the contract from the Gujarat government for the Rs 3,000-crore project. It has sub-leased the “bronze cladding” of the statue to TQ Art Foundry, part of the Jiangxi Toqine Company in Nanchang. Hundreds of Chinese workers are also expected to arrive in Narmada to “assist” L&T in the concrete construction of the statue core. The Gujarat government expresses it helplessness over where the contractor company gets the material from.” L&T is the largest engineering fabricator in India. L&T has been suggesting time and again to put higher taxes on the Chinese imports to make Indian manufacture competitive. L&T must let the people of India know why it had to go to China for getting the prestigious statue made? Is it the lack of the facility in India for this one-off order that it mostly undertakes? Why could not it find the alternate way of making it with inputs from other Indian experts? Can we take pride in such a memorial? How will a tourist react, may be a foreigner, when the guide will tell that it was built by the Chinese? It is shameful for country that has an unique iron pillar in Delhi, a large number of highly polished Ashokan pillars, and Bahubali statue in Sravanbelgola. The executors of the pride project could have waited to make it Indian. http://www.outlookindia.com/article/make-in-china/295673

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Make-in-Bihar and Nitish: The biggest contribution of Nitish Kumar is his Mukhyamantri Cycle Yojana (chief minister’s bicycle programme. Was it his idea or that of some other minister, may be Sushil Modi, his Deputy in the cabinet. Since 2006-07, the state has recorded around 70 lakh beneficiaries to get cycles. And it laid to setting up of the cycle manufacturing companies its plants in Bihar, around Patna. However, only in the last two years, several prominent cycle manufacturing companies – Hero Cycles, Avon Cycles and TI Cycles have tiptoed to Bihar after coming of Modi’s government. Hero Cycles has invested Rs 55 crore to set up a modern plant in Bihta and employed over 250 people .Avon Cycles has a plant in Hajipur Industrial Estate. Interesting, the plant location has also because the eastern region-Bengal, Bihar, Odisha and Assam – comprises around 45 per cent of the country’s bicycle market of around Rs 9,500 crore. I wish Bihar to become the hub for cycle manufacturers. At present, Ludhiana is the country’s cycle manufacturing hub. Interestingly, over 60 per cent of the people working in Ludhiana are migrants from Bihar. Will the gain of the jobs for Biharis may be loss of jobs for the already employed migrants? However, many opine that Nitish Kumar may ride to victory with the support of the beneficiaries with his gifts of cycle on which the government has spent more than Rs 1,500 crore. I still think Nitish Kumar would have done more for the handicrafts such as Madhubani arts or Bhagalpur tussar. It had a huge potential of employment with aggressive push from the government push. While merchandise exports have been in negative territory for the 10th month in a row, some odd sectors have weathered the crisis, reports Banikinkar Pattanayak in New Delhi. Interestingly, Indian Handicrafts has outdone the global competition. Even unlike other merchandise exports, the exports of handicrafts from India are in boom. In rupee terms, handicraft exports almost tripled to Rs 18,639 crore in the five years through 2014-15. Nitish would have focused on what does not require huge resources for creating employments. I hope the new government will focus on creating more and more rural employment.

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Make-in-India: Will it happen and happen in right way? As reported extensively, ‘the chairman of the world’s biggest airplane manufacturer, Boeing James McNerney has said that it could ‘make in India’ a state of the art fighter plane. “India will get technology that can be used elsewhere in manufacturing.” Boeing plans to assemble either its Chinook heavy-lift helicopters or Apache attack choppers in India. “Large sections of the Chinook fuselage are already manufactured in India and discussions are ongoing with the Indian partners to make Apache parts.” Currently, the beams of the Boeing 787 Dreamliner which can be called the spine of the aircraft are also being made in a Nagpur facility. Chairman during this India visit further said, “We can play at the centre of ‘Make-in-India’ keeping in line with Boeing’s global product strategy. We want design and make in India for India and the world. India is now better poised to make investments for us.” It must not only be the India’s market but other parameters such as talent and skill availability aspects for setting up manufacturing plants, ease of doing business, infrastructure, vendors for components and competitiveness, must encourage companies like Boeing, Airbus, or Lockheed to own its Asia facilities in India.Interestingly, NDTV for the first time had a programme on Make-in-India. http://www.ndtv.com/video/player/the-big-fight/defence-preparedness-time-for-self-reliance/387287?pfrom=home-lateststories

You can write for any clarification to irsharma@gmail.com

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Bihar Election 2015- My Different Opinions

Posted on October 17, 2015 by indra

1
बिहार के लोग अगर जाति के आधार पर भी भोट देना चाहते हों तो भी नीतीश कुमार उचित एवं बिश्वसनीय उम्मीदवार कहाँ हैं? पहले जब जीतने का मौक़ा बड़ी जातियों के भारतीय जनता पार्टी के साथ था तो उनके साथ थे। आज वही नीतीश सब कुछ ताक पर रख केवल मुख्य मंत्री बने रहने के लिये, यादवों का मत पाकर अपने घोर दुश्मन लालू प्रसाद, जिन्हें अपने परिवार से आगे कुछ दिखता नहीं, से हाथ मिला लिये हैं। लालू परिवार के बल वे कैसी सरकार बनायेंगे और चलायेंगे । यह भी छोटी जातियों को भुलावा देना या बेवक़ूफ़ बनाना नहीं तो क्या है? कल चुनाव के परिणाम उन्हें फिर किसी की सहायता लेने को मजबूर करेंगी तो इन्हें कुछ संकोच नहीं होगा । भगवान बिहार का ख़्याल रखें ! जातियों का भेदभाव केवल भा. ज. पा. ही मिटा सकती है ।यही इसके पक्ष में है बिहार बचाने के लिये ।
जाति धर्म न मायने रखते,
एक श्रेष्ठ देश अभिमान
2
What Ranking in Education Means : As per a study, ‘the average income of households—where the highest education of any family member is a college degree or above—is roughly four times more than that of a household where no family member is literate (R3,35,174 versus R80,759). And Bihar stands among the last last at 10.1 PF households after a rule of 25 years of Bihar between Nitish and Lalu Prasad. Can you expect anything better when Bihar will be ruled by Nitish Kumar assisted by Lalu’s basically illiterate sons who have inferior educational qualification than their father with Misa Bharati as its political ideologue?
3
Funny, Is it Prasant Kishor’s advice? As reported in Indian Express today, “Leaders from the grand alliance in Bihar today urged the Election Commission to order the removal of banners and posters of Prime Minister Narendra Modi and BJP President Amit Shah from the Patna airport.” Are the Biharis who will make them win flying these days rather than using the trains? What a bankruptcy of ideas! Perhaps, they are on loosing path.
4
Shaibal Gupta, member-secretary, Asian Development Research Institute, Patna
in an article in Indian Express says ‘Double Standard in Bihar’, “Upper caste-centric alliances are not referred to as caste combines, while a coming together of marginal and subaltern castes — as in the case of the maha gathbandhan — is invariably considered a caste-centred coalition”. What is this Asian Development Research Institute? What does it do for Bihar? Is Shaibal Gupta an independent intellectual or working for Nitish Kumar as Pavan Verma does? Every real Bihari intellectual is expected to give some effective solutions to remove the social ills of caste and religion that is also one of the reasons for the lack of real development in Bihar. It is essential to drive the growth of the state to bring it in the league of the developed states of India. Will the readers respond?
http://indianexpress.com/article/opinion/columns/double-standard-in-bihar/#sthash.UYUge9gj.dpuf
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Development during Nitish Era: Liquor is the only noticeably thriving industry in recent years, thanks to his relaxed excise policy. The share of revenue from excise in the total revenues had nearly doubled from 10.33 per cent in 2006-07 to 18 per cent in 2014-15.Liquor licences in rural areas increased from 779 a decade ago to 2,360 now. Big distillers like United Breweries, Cobra and Carlsberg are the only big investment who set up distilleries near Patna in recent years. How has then Nitish promised the women of Bihar a control on liquor? Should there be no ethics and moral responsibility in politicians for the future generation?
6
Is Nitish a reliable ally? Mulayam Singh Yadav on Nitish Kumar : “When we decided to contest the Bihar polls together, Mr. Kumar supported the coalition. But when the coalition announcement was to be made, he [Mr. Kumar] quietly went to meet Rahul and Sonia Gandhi…….We kept waiting for Nitish Kumar and when I called him I was told that he was in Delhi and when I met him, Nitish Kumar said he needed to leave for Patna for an urgent work….Is it correct to lie? Is it not betrayal?”
(Further) “Injustice was, in fact, done to Lalu Prasad…he was sentenced to jail for five years but I’d ask you all who was responsible for his punishment…it was the Chief Minister (Nitish Kumar).”
7
This Bihar election will be difficult to predict. Nitish Kumar has somehow succeeded in projecting himself as Vikash Purush. But for any rational thinkers, Nitish was nowhere near what Bihar wanted from him as real development. Development of rural roads may be unique for Biharis but it has happened all over India. Growth went higher on very poor base value of 15 years of Lalu Raj. Nitish failed in creating jobs for the Biharis and higher education facilities for young boys and girls. With no skill imparted to them, a Bihari migrate only for working as menial worker from Kashmir to Kerala and Kuchh to Kolkata. Migration for higher education increased the cost of higher education for the parents. Many sell even their landed property for this. But still Nitish has better image as he with full assistance from BJP improved law and order. However, Nitish couldn’t do any thing with the rampant corruption in Bihar. It has, as some say, has increased. The win of Nitish will come only from the emotional and social unity of backward caste and will serve to satisfy their ego, but enmity between the castes will increase. It will certainly create internal bitterness with the centre that will be harmful for the state. Nitish may win but Bihar will be a great looser. With win for NDA, Biharis will be getting one more chance, though without a tested leader, for effective development with full support of the centre.
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Today I wrote a letter to The editor, India Express:
Dear Editor,
You have published an article by Tejshwi Yadav, the son of Lalu Prasad. I shall like to know if the article has been really written by Tejshwi. Please let me know.
I am from Bihar and a graduate of IIT, Kharagpur 1961 batch. I shall be obliged if you let me have the truth.
Indra Roy Sharma
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Mr. Nitish Kumar! Your model of progress can keep Bihar only as the last ranked state in all parameters, as you can’t give land,nor change labour laws neither you have any grand plans to create jobs or skilling Biharis for already available better jobs that can change their lives to better ones. For you education is a cycle, going to the school for midday meal, not acquiring knowledge and skill for students and a subsisted employment for teachers. Your statement “….Bihar will progress on its own efforts…” shows your arrogance. You would have taken help from one and all, if it aids to the progress of the state, and that’s what get reflected when you say, “…..What will these outsiders do? I want to ask you a question, who will take Bihar forward, Bihari or bahari?….” None of the political alliance after they win will impose outsider to take the top chair of Bihar. It will be only one Bihari who is contesting the election. Please be ethical enough and don’t mislead innocent and honest Biharis. Don’t be under a misperception that you are the only Bihari who has been born to take Bihar forward. “If a Bihari is to take Bihar forward, then a real Bihari is here before you. We don’t need any of these ahari-bahari. Say goodbye to all these outsiders…” Can you explain how are you a real Bihari, and Sushil Modi, Pappu Yadav, Jitan Manjhi, Paswan and Ram Kripal Yadav are not?
10
Litti Pe Charcha: I am excited with these entries on my tag line. It seems this wonderful endeavour of young Biharis, particularly the NRIs has come for the first time. Will it integrate the NRI Biharis in the foreign lands? As I have experienced Biharis outside desist from identifying themselves as Biharis unlike Andhraites or Punjabis. I wish I am proved wrong faster. The reported widespread popularity of Litti Pe Charcha must get expanded to give the state a good brand image. As reported,”NRI Biharis met at St. Paul’s Cathedral, London, Times Square, New York city, Dallas, Texas, and Los Angeles, California under the aegis of ‘Litti pe Charcha’ -to discuss the presently ongoing election in Bihar. However, it appears persons from so-called backward group were not participating in the Charchas. I wish my conclusion be wrong.
Moreover, I would have loved to see some Bihari entrepreneur developing Litti-Chokha as cuisine acceptable to Indians of other states and to foreigners too, as many Mexican food outlets such Chipotle, Chuy. Unfortunately, because of very poor quality of education system in the states such as Bihar, there is hardly any significant presence of innovative entrepreneurship among Biharis, though many have done great in administrative assignments. I hope one day I will order my Litti-Chokha on line and enjoy the same at home in Noida.

And.

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गांधी जयन्ती और स्वच्छ भारत

Posted on October 2, 2015 by indra

आज नोयडा के मेघदूतम् पार्क में बरिष्ठ नागरिकों ने एक सफ़ाई अभियान का आयोजन किया । आश्चर्य यह था कि पार्क पहले से ही काफ़ी साफ़ था। देश में ‘स्वच्छ भारत’ अभियान का कुछ असर दिखाई देने लगा है । यह एक अभियान देश को बहुत आगे ले जा सकता है और देश की दुनिया में छवि बदल सकता है। मैंने आज एक कबिता पाठ किया पार्क में उपस्थित लोगों के सामने:

एक आह्वान

आज देश तैयार खड़ा है
रचने को नूतन इतिहास
एक नया नेतृत्व दे रहा
जुड़ने का अन्तिम आह्वान
सब बाधाएँ तोड़ देश को
प्रथम पंक्ति में आना है
और मुखौटे पहने जो हैं
उन्हें सामने लाना है
जाने सब
वे कौन शत्रु हैं
जिनसे देश बचाना है
समर एक आख़िरी सामने
माँग रहा थोड़ा बलिदान
क्षणिक स्वार्थ को छोड़
जुड़े हम और करें श्वेदों का दान
आओ मिल कर आज बढ़े हम
करें सफल अद्भुत अभियान

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Bihar: Two Rural Issues

Posted on October 2, 2015 by indra

Bihar is getting a torrential flood of promises of all types, 24×7 power, piped water, housing for all, hike in salaries, confirmations of the jobs and what not. But the question is with the Nitish Kumar’s speed of development how many years Bihar will take to be in league of leading states? I have two more relevant dreams for Bihar. Will the new government ensure that?
A. Rural Enterprises
I wish some younger entrepreneurs start thinking about intensively for creating a large number of new entrepreneurship projects in rural region of the state. Every village must grow as a manufacturing enterprise.
1. Talents of the young girls who come to a village after marriage with certain already trained skills such as stitching apparels or different items for household uses including cheap sanitary towels, or for knitting sweaters, or making stuffed toys can be exploited to create extra earnings for the families.
2. The Panchayats can be persuaded for getting the school buildings or the panchayat house for opening a skill centre, and schools such Usha Silai Schools can be sponsored with a sole objective of starting a cooperative business.
3. Other enterprises for young men such as maintenance services for agriculture machines to electronic gadgets can also have potential.
4. Every village can have some tutors engaged for providing tuitions to students of different levels, some even helping for getting distant education for higher level courses. With gradual increase in earnings and increasing interest in education, many parents will be able to pay for this.
5. Another attractive area may be small scale home based food processing such as pickles or satoos or some traditional seasonal snacks.
There can be hundred of ideas for creating jobs and it will be in national interests that graduates of engineering and management schools are roped to carry out the feasibility studies and suggest ways and means to create non- agricultural work in rural region.
6. One such idea is certainly for the graduates in agricultural sciences. Can’t they think of opening low cost advisory or technical assistance services for the farmers to improve their yield and earnings?
7. A similar service may engage some trained young persons for various healthcare services.
8. A weekly market in every panchayat may create opening for selling home grown vegetables and other eatables.
With the fast social changes coming in villages, many requirements of the people living there will need many services requiring some enterprises. The government must ensure a 24×7 electricity for the rural enterprises to be better in productivity and competitiveness.

B. Rural Schools
I wish to donate some money sufficient to put some digital aids, such as a PC or a smart blackboard or a TV set and good reading materials for the children in the school library and reading room. No one is ready to take it rather can take it. Unfortunately, under Nitish era, a large number of school buildings got upgraded, but hardly some have a boundary wall and security with gate and guard good enough to have the security of the property of the school. Unfortunately, it is not planned as a required item. Most of the schools are in the outskirts of the villages and open for vandalism. One can hardly keep something useful for aiding education and impart knowledge in interesting manner. Will the community or the government ensure the security of the school and employ a full time guard that can live in one corner of the campus? Unfortunately, the headmaster of the school has hardly some autonomy to take even the required donations for various activities that can improve the learning of the students unlike that by the government schools in US, where the parents are requested to contribute as per their means.

Will the government make each panchayat accountable to see that all the children up to the age of 14 compulsorily attend school or a skill centre, and will the government add a skill centre to every school for this? Will the government first retrain the persons, both male and female with some skills of the village and use them to provide elementary skills to the kids in the schools? Will an educationally qualified adult or a retired teacher be employed to mentor the kids of the village by starting study circles in each tolla of different castes for tutoring to make the kids interested in reading, writing and maths? It is essential to promote a culture for good education in the parents and the community. A continuous and effective dialogue between teachers and the villagers is essential to make the society conscious of the role of education for better quality of life.

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Bihar Needs New Leader throwing out the old ones

Posted on September 4, 2015 by indra

Let me start with a story ‘How Nitish, Sonia, and Lalu failed to solve the menace of Kosi that would have been a priority’. I quote from an article that appeared in Business Standard:

“Way back in 1953, then Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru appealed to fellow citizens to contribute generously to the PM National Relief Fund. The reason: the Kosi river, “which has misbehaved so often in the past”, had caused “unprecedented floods” in parts of Bihar. The damage, at the time, was estimated at Rs 21 crore. And the cost of relief and rehabilitation was in excess of Rs 2 crore.So moved was Nehru at the plight of people in the flood ravaged areas that he had decided to do something to tame the river. The Central Water Commission was asked to carry out a study and come up with a long-term solution. The Commission had suggested building a high dam at an estimated cost of nearly Rs 150 crore. However, the cost was found to be beyond the affordable limit. The scarce resources available then – India was still emerging from British rule – were to be used judiciously and the case of Bhakra Nangal Dam was found to be stronger. The Kosi dam project, therefore, had to be shelved and Bihar was deprived of its own Bhakra Nangal.” Why could not Sonia, who has suddenly become concerned about Bihar’s development, helped to get over this perennial problem of Bihar by asking Manmohan government to take up the project again and that too seriously? Why in 25 years of Lalu or Nitish didn’t move to get that Kosi Dam started to save the upheaval of human mass every year in the region?

Lalu, who claims himself the sole heir of Yadubansi and Krishna could have made Bihar the topmost milk producing state, ahead of Gujarat. It would not have required any assistance from the outside or great technical assistance or investment while providing extra earning to every family. Has Lalu any excuse for not doing that? Does Lalu know that with the increasing demand, India the top producer of milk in the world will in few years have to become a net importer of milk. Nitish could have at least done this to take people out of poverty, but he also failed. I doubt if they are concerned about the poor of Bihar. They have kept Bihar poor to remain in its driving chair for years to serve their own selfish motives.

Lalu as Railway minister got the cabinet sanction for setting up two Railway Projects that could transform Bihar into a manufacturing state if executed efficiently: 1. an electric locomotive production facility, a joint venture, in Madhepura, with an investment outlay of Rs 22,000 crore, and 2. a Rs 20,000-crore diesel locomotive factory at Marhora. Nothing much happened over last ten years. Neither Lalu with all his nearness to Sonia Gandhi nor Nitish could follow it up over last ten years for getting them implemented. Fortunately, recently the projects appears to be moving ahead. The French major Alstom has emerged as the lowest bidder for the production of electric locomotives in Madhepura.The financial bid for the Marhora diesel locomotive plant may be going to GE. With the right imagination and understanding between centre and state leadership, it can change the industrial landscape of the regions of Bihar with possibility of many vendors setting up their own manufacturing shops. Why Nitish could not prioritise these projects for these manufacturing plants and pursue it with the centre? Can’t he appreciate the importance of these projects? Why could get more and more ITIs for the youths of Bihar who will be readily available for manning these projects?

Bihar could have become a major state for IT and ITeS sector that could have upgraded the economy of the state. Lalu never believed in the potentials of these sectors. Nitish as an engineer by qualification could have certainly gone more aggressively for attracting the entrepreneurs in setting up the shops, but in last ten years of his rule hardly any significant progress has happened. The sector requires technical talent. Bihar could not get the higher education sector established as other states such as Tamil Nadu, Andhra, Karnataka, and even UP have done it. Most of the Biharis go for their higher education outside the state and get employed in those states, perhaps in thousands every year. Why did Nitish, himself an engineer failed to get IT biggies in Bihar when they were freely choosing other destinations in India from Bhuwaneswar to Noida and Mohali?

In the big grand alliance rally Nitish again stated, “We will create a Bihar where people dont leave Bihar to find opportunities, but people come here.”: Who will believe Nitish Kumar or Lalu to make the future Bihar uncertain again for the next five years?

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Nitish Kumar:Why I don’t like him anymore (continued)

Posted on July 21, 2015 by indra

I have been reading that ‘Babur’s grandson, Akbar, planted the “Lakh Bagh”, a mango orchard containing one lakh trees in Darbhanga, Bihar.’ What happened to that? Shershah and his sons built a number monuments that could have attracted thousands of tourists. Why didn’t it happen? A number of young technocrats open enterprises in Bihar, but none could scale it up to be a known entity in India. Why couldn’t Bihar create entrepreneurs in a large number? What is that for which I must like Nitish Kumar? Here is another listing of reasons that I don’t like Nitish Kumar who could have performed much more when he had full opportunity. But then he decide to break the very well performing alliance just for his personal ego, as he could not become the prime ministerial candidate of Election 2014. Here are some more:

@ Nitish Kumar humiliated Modi without any reason except for just pleasing the minority. And his lust for power has taken him to Sonia Gandhi and Lalu who have just one objective- to keep the power in the family. Even today, many doubt if Lalu will provide unconditional support to Nitish, as it is very clear from his utterances such as “When the BJP left him, he came to me. I made him CM. Humne inko bana diya.”

@ Nitish Kumar doesn’t know how to dream and think big for transforming Bihar into a developed and respected state. Perhaps he lacks that capability. Nitish Kumar has wasted his 10 years of rule and could not implement any worth mentionable project such as Mayawati’s Yamuna Expressway or Akhilesh Yadav’s Agra-Lucknow Expressway that will also be extended up to Ballia. Nitish Kumar could have connected the East-West corridor to Delhi-Kolkata GQ with a 4- or 6- lane highway. And then I could hardly find the promised industrial projects listed in large number on Bihar website in the ten year run of Nitish Kumar getting implemented.

@ Nitish Kumar though a product of JP movement had hardly the desired respect for JP Narayan or for that matter Dr. Rajendra Prasad. He hardly did anything noticeable to perpetuate their memories, as the caste of these great men does not own a great vote bank.

@ Nitish Kumar could not take any reformative step and corrective measure. Even today Bihar loses a whopping 54 per cent electricity that is either “stolen or lost”.

@ In Bihar, the state government records show that there are about 40 million people in the age group of 15 to 29 years of which less than 1 per cent had some sort of formal vocational training. Bihar exports its greatest human resources to all parts of India from Kashmir to Kerala to just humiliating menial jobs there as he can’t provide even that in Bihar.

@ Bihar can easily be the leader of the second green revolution of India. Nitish has not done anything significant to encourage the farmers to diversify in high-earning agriculture produces such as vegetables and fruits from its most fertile land or poultry and animal husbandry as resorted to by many states. Its productivity of agriculture produce is still lower, though Nitish Kumar kept on talking about the record per hectare production of paddy and potato. Nitish hardly took up any great irrigation project.

@Bihar is the third most illiterate state with 43.85 per cent population falling in that category. The quality of education at primary and secondary level in rural Bihar is just dismal. The kids come to the schools to have only their midday meal. Adult education has just vanished. Does it not cast a shadow on the effectiveness of the initiatives of chief minister Nitish Kumar in promoting education in rural areas?

@ The presence of non-agricultural enterprises in rural households is about 1.67%, minimal in Bihar.The meagre size of the registered non agriculture sector in rural areas indicates the inability to tap into the non-agriculture potential of the rural sector. Only with the large number of migrants poring money in Bihar, 6.9% of the households has members earning more than Rs 10,000 a month in Bihar.

@ Why does Bihar not appear with significant progress in e-governance as attained by other states? And many good things started get mired because the lack of maintenance, such as free Wi-Fi zone, multi-level parking, ghat beautification or the so talked of road along the Ganga.

@ The election campaign will be around the development one of Nitish Brand and the other will be the development associated with Modi. How will Lalu clan fit in the mission? Nitish will have to take all three– two sons and one daughter in his cabinet and allocate to them whatever portfolio they will seek, if they win.

@ Nitish Kumar can become tech savvy for winning election, but he hardly did anything to connect the schools digitally. Government teachers in Maharashtra, Gujarat, Uttarakhand are using WhatsApp groups to exchange knowledge and ideas with each other. The Karnataka Open Educational Resources platform is enabling teachers to create digital content. Why can’t the same is possible in Bihar? Nitish Kumar did hardly invest in training for teachers and school leaders in the effective use of technology.
As I understand Nitish Kumar has got the assistance of a team of 300 technocrats from IITs and IIMs for his election campaign. I wish after the election Nitish deploys them to 300 Panchayats to create action plans for improving the economic condition of the poor there and move ahead accordingly.

@ Nitish Kumar would have at least learnt from his new friend Kejriwal and done something significant in rural health care. Is it not a necessity to have a good dispensary with an ambulance in each panchayat with remote villages? I keep myself in contact with at least some villages in Bihar. When in those villages, I have discussed the necessity of a dispensary too. In none of those villages there is anything related to the public health in last so many years.

@ Nitish Kumar could hardly change the poor situation of open defecation in the state that causes many problems.Open defecation raises the risk of low birth weight, pre-term births and spontaneous abortions.Irrespective of household income levels, pregnant women without access to toilets at home were twice more likely to experience adverse pregnancy outcomes – pre-term births, low birth weight babies, foetal loss, or stillbirths – than women who had toilets.

I shall like to end with two statements from two well-wishers of Bihar in a recent conference on ‘Resurgent Bihar’:
1.”Rather than asking for votes by knocking on the doors, the JDU should ask whether schools and hospitals opened in the areas concerned. Instead of launching 160 Parivartan Raths, the BJP should have rolled out ambulances or Shiksha Raths. Today’s voters cannot be fooled by false promises,” said Anand Kumar Super 30, Patna .
2.”Bihar is far behind the national average in the sector of health education and quality of life. Resurgence of Bihar is not happening in agriculture and industrial sectors as well, nor in the villages,” Suraj Kumar, Chief Mentor, Neeti Foundation

I don’t like Nitish Kumar because he is too much political and he has not worked aggressively to take Bihar in the league of developed states.

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Make-in-India: Mobile Phones

Posted on July 11, 2015 by indra

If the media reports can be believed, many Indian and globally reputed companies will soon make India a phone manufacturing powerhouse. Announcement from Foxconn that wants to open 10-12 manufacturing facilities in India by 2020, is certainly a great news for electronics sector. However, the telecom ministry must facilitate it.

Here are the specific progress report of Make-in-India in mobile handsets.

1. Dixon Technologies (I) Pvt. Ltd. that makes TVs, set-top boxes, DVD players, washing machines and induction cookers for top multinationals such as LG Electronics, Philips, Panasonic and Toshiba, is now setting up a handset factory in Noida with an initial investment of Rs 25 crore to make 700,000 units a month, and will start manufacturing in August.

2. Karbonn Mobile India Pvt. Ltd. that gets manufactured mobile handsets in China, plans to open an assembly line in Noida, to add another in Bengaluru and and then to start a factory in Hyderabad over the next 12 months.

3. Indian handset brand Celkon has opened its first manufacturing facility in Telangana’s Medchal Industrial Estate.

4. Videocon group would start manufacturing mobile handsets at its Salt Lake facility near Kolkata in a few months’ time.

5. Micromax, India’s second-largest phone maker, has started a plant at Rudrapur in Uttarakhand and is planning investments in Telangana, Rajasthan and Maharashtra.

6. Lava has so far invested Rs 50 crore to build a facility in Noida to assemble one million units a month. A second unit, with an investment of Rs 1,200 crore and a capacity of 10 million units a month, is on the drawing board.

7. Spice Mobility is investing Rs 500 crore in Noida to build a facility it says will be up and running by the next quarter.

And at the top of all, even Mukesh Ambani promises to enter phone manufacturing, if one is to believe his announcement at the launching of Digital India, where he said,”Reliance Industries will make an investment of over Rs. 250,000 crore in the digital space, including rollout of wireless broadband infrastructure and manufacturing of mobile handsets.”

And now even globally reputed companies in the sector are not far behind to make for the huge Indian market in India.

1. Samsung that has been manufacturing in India since 2006, has spent more than Rs 500 crore to add capacity at its plant in Noida.

2. HTC has finalised its `Make in India’ plans. The Taiwanese premium smartphone maker has entered into an agreement with Global Devices Network, which set up a manufacturing and assembling unit three months ago in Noida, to make the handsets on contract.

3. Japanese electronics giant Sony is all set to make in India, though the products will be contract-manufactured at Taiwanese maker Foxconn’s upcoming facilities in the country.

4. Chinese electronics major Lenovo is looking at the possibility of setting up a manufacturing unit for smartphones and tablets in India.

5. Foxconn Technology Group, the world’s biggest contract manufacturer, will begin its second leg of manufacturing in India by producing Xiaomi smartphones in a leased a facility in Sri City in southern part of Andhra Pradesh.

6. South Korean handset maker LG Electronics is looking to start manufacturing of smartphones in India once it gets to a 10% market share, which it estimates could be achieved by December.

7. Foxconn Technology is in talks to manufacture Apple Inc.’s iPhone in India in a move that could lower prices in the world’s No.3 smartphone market

8. Chinese phone maker Gionee plans a full-fledged factory over the next three years. Another Chinese handset maker, OPPO Mobiles will also soon announce plans to make in India.

Foxconn’s announcement is the most interesting development.

Foxconn (the company that’s most famous for manufacturing the iPhone) CEO Terry Gou has bigger plans that may help the sector to grow as global player. He has recently said, “(Foxconn) we will work with local brands and help them with design, and manufacture components locally, so that Indian brands can also start to export, right now India does not export.”

Naturally, most of these facilities, to start with, will be that for assembly operation. With the advantage of much cheaper labour, India will have some advantage. But for making India a significant player in mobile phone manufacturing, if the units for manufacturing components such as processors, cameras and touch screens must get setup soon. And the big manufacturers such as Sony, Samsung or Foxconn will have to allure component manufacturers to establish their plants in the electronics clusters, as Suzuki Maruti helped the growth of auto component sector.

The operation of the cell manufacturing companies will have to be cost competitive and commercially viable. Let us look at that.

“In 2011, KPMG compared India and China’s competitiveness in handset manufacturing. The landed cost of materials, it assumed, would be 10 per cent lower for the Chinese. While an Indian manufacturer would have to import 80 per cent components, the figure for a Chinese company would be only five per cent. Chinese labour, according to KPMG, was 1.8 times more productive. Power costs were 20 to 30 per cent lower while water was 30 to 35 per cent cheaper in China. These ensured that a mid-sized Chinese manufacturer with a capacity to make 20 million units a year would have a profit margin of nine per cent. For the Indian company, the figure would be 2.6 per cent.”

India will have to improve its labour productivity. The cost of finance, power and water must come down and be lower than other competing Asian countries such Vietnam. It must not be difficult. For record, Vietnam produced mobiles worth over Rs 2.5 lakh crore in 2014/15, that is 12 times more than what India produced. China makes phones worth 60 times more.

With only 68% of Indian rural households owning cell phones that too only the cheaper one and the urban Indians aspiring to promote to smart phones, the potential market in India is huge.

As Ravi Shankar Prasad wishes , “India will emerge as a parallel production hub to China for global markets in electronics manufacturing as the government shifts attention to boost the making of sophisticated, high-technology products in the country.”

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Finding Zero: Indian or Old Khmer

Posted on July 8, 2015 by indra

I have just finished a book ‘Finding Zero’ by Amir D. Aczel. It has been a real interesting reading about the re-discovery of the earliest zero of our system we have ever found.

A French scholar named George Coedès discovered a rock piece with inscription in the nineteenth century at Trapang Prei, site of Sambor On Mekong in Cambodia. It was from the seventh century, pre-Angkor period. Coedès first translated the inscription from Old Khmer into French and published in 1931. He assigned an identifying label K-127 to the rock carrying inscription. The inscription clearly bore the date 605 in an ancient calendar that began in the year A.D. 78. Its date was thus A.D. 683. This inscription bears the earliest zero numeral ever discovered.

Interestingly another zero that is one year younger than one on K-127, thus dating from AD 684, was found near Palenbang, Indonesia. This zero was two centuries older than the Gwalior Zero.

Gwalior Zero is a circle inscribed at Chatur-bhuja (Vishnu) temple in Gwalior, India, dating to the ninth century, had been widely considered the oldest version of zero in our system, the Hindu-Arabic. There is an inscription in the temple in Sanskrit on the wall of the temple that records that it was built in the year 933 of a calendar whose starting point was 57BCE. So the year the temple was built was 876CE. The numerals 933 used here are surprisingly similar to our modern numbers. The inscription also records that the land grant for the temple had a length of 270 ‘hastas’. The 0 in 270 is the oldest zero that can be seen in India today. So by 876 CE, the Indians had the crucially important use of a place-holding zero at their disposal I a number system that from our modern vantage point was perfect. Their system would have enabled them to compute in a powerful,efficient, and unambiguous way.

But K-127 disappeared during the Khmer Rouge’s rule of terror, when more than 10,000 artifacts were deliberately destroyed. The book is the story how Amir rediscovered K-127 in Cambodia. And finally got it placed in its national museum. Amir also explains how ancient Indian philosophy of ‘sunyata’ and ‘anant’ would have influenced the origin of zero.

After closely examining the two inscriptions, one can observe that while Gwalior Zero is similar to the zero we write today, Khmer zero is only a dot that is more similar to the present day decimal point.

One can easily understand that the zero in both cases must have been invented and used years or century before those numbers were inscribed on the stone slabs both in India as well as Cambodia. With almost all the knowledge of the ancient mathematics and philosophy moving from India to all the southeastern Asian countries, it will be injustice to deny giving the credit for the invention and use of zero to ancient India’s mathematicians.

While reading the book, I always pondered if the government and the intellectuals of India could have done hundred times more to restore the strong link that Indians had over the region expanding from Bali to Korea in North. I also wonder if some researcher or the members of Indian Historical Research. one day would find some earlier zero in undivided Indian mainland.

India must also try to get the dates of the Bakhsahali manuscript agreed to find the ownership of the first available zero India was the first to discover zero. The Bakhshali Manuscript is an Ancient Indian mathematical manuscript written on “birch bark” which was found near the village of Bakhshali in 1881 in what was then the North-West Frontier Province of British India (now Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, in Pakistan).The Bakhshali manuscript, which is currently too fragile to be examined by scholars, is currently housed in the Bodleian Library at the University of Oxford and is too fragile to be examined by scholars.

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