Cheating Chits: From Sanchayita to Saradha

Posted on April 27, 2013 by indra

Chit fund had been cheating the greedy or needy poor as well as rich equally since time immemorial. Everyone wishes to earn some extra money or make fast buck. I have still few certificates of Sanchayita that my clerk while in HM in 80s, sold me. He had brought to my company flat in Hind Motors one of the senior managers of Sanchayita, who was an alumnus of Presidency College. I had to extend the due courtesy, though I hardly enjoyed it. My clerk knew my weakness of everyone connected to my alma mater. He wanted his officer to convince me to invest more. As I didn’t open my purse, they were disenchanted that evening and finally left. Perhaps just after a month, Sanchayita scandal was in media and many lost their hard earned money. 

For last few days now, the public outrage in street protests has again been growing over a fraudulent investment scheme run in the name of  ‘Saradha’ in West Bengal. Thousands of ordinary men and women have lost their money again in a chit fund. According to media, Mamta Banerji and many leaders of the Trinamool Congress leaders, such as Rajya Sabha MP Kunal Ghosh, Lok Sabha MP Shatabdi Roy and Mamta’s transport minister Madan Mitra had proximity with the dubious firm. Sudipto Sen is the villion CEO of Saradha. And after the arrest, Sen has ignited the bomb that may inflict serious damage to the image of Trinamool of Mamta. This is something that didn’t happen when Sanchayita was busted by the then finance minister of left front, Shri Ashok Mitra. Perhaps, that was due to Jyoti Basu.

Mamata Banerjee’s government would set up a Rs 500-crore relief fund to pay back to some poorer investors in the Saradha depositors. She planned to rake in Rs 150 crore from hiking taxes on cigarettes by 10%, at the same time suggesting that people should “smoke more frequently” — never mind what doctors may have to say on the subject. 

As reported in media,  the victims of Saradha Group hailed primarily from the districts and from villages, who have lost their life savings.Many of the agents are TMC leaders at the grassroots level and even panchayat members. Most cannot return to their homes since they are being hounded by investors. Sanchayita didn’t cause this much of upheaval.

But unfortunately, the government during the last thirty years couldn’t enact laws to protect ignorant Aam Aadami from fraudsters.

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Manufacturing India-Tractors

Posted on April 22, 2013 by indra

India is the largest market of tractors in the world by volume. M&M is the world’s No. 1 tractor company, by volume with annual sales of above 2, 00,000 tractors and presence in 40 countries. M&M is trying to enter the Chinese’s market with an association with a local manufacturer. Mahindra has sold well over 1.75 million tractors worldwide. As a new strategy, M&M having its focus on export that is currently less than 5% of total sales of 220,000 units in fiscal year 2013.

Interestingly, at one time, almost all states of India planned to have manufacturing facilities for tractors, scooters and TVs. But as usual, all these endeavours failed. However, India has many tractors manufacturers with Mahindras and TAFE as leaders, but Escorts, HMT, Sonalika and another dozen of them are in the business of manufacturing tractors. At least two of the globally reputed tractor manufacturers have set up the shops in India with modern manufacturing facilities.

New Holland Agriculture with a state of the art technology of manufacturing in Greater Noida is a 100% subsidiary of CNH Global N.V. (NYSE:CNH), a majority-owned subsidiary of Fiat Industrial S.p.A (FI.MI) – the World’s largest Agricultural Equipments Company, the leading manufacturer of Agricultural and construction equipment in the world.

John Deere established a green field project in 1999 in India and has set up a state of the art tractor manufacturing plant for John Deere tractors at Sanaswadi, near Pune, in the state of Maharashtra.

Interestingly, both John Deere and New Holland sells in India as well as export their tractors to a large number of foreign countries.

Indian farming is unique with about 102.8 million farmers. However, 61.3 million of them are having landholdings of less than 1 hectare, about 1.2 million farmers have land holdings of more than 10ha, 6.3 million between 4-10 ha, 13.1 million between 2-4 ha and 20.9 million between 1-2 ha. With such a distribution of landholding, the scope of traditional mechanization is limited. It reflects into low HP/ha and low yield in T/ha. And so around 52 % of the population is engaged in agriculture and mechanization is at 30% of the potential.

Basically, the tractors manufacturers must design features in tractors for local conditions besides its cost and robustness for easy maintainability. The Indian manufacturers must go for innovative attachments to the tractors for easily performing various operations of the farming of various food grains as well as that of various commercially beneficial horticulture items, vegetables and fruits. The industry is going for consolidation and for becoming globally competitive. India may not integrate the sophistication and luxury in designing and manufacturing tractors, but for the export market it must provide everything that can make Indian tractors acceptable.

As reported recently in ‘Hindu Businessline’, SAME Deutz-Fahr (SDF) Group, which bought the Lamborghini tractor brand from the uber luxury car-maker, is targeting rich farmers, high-profile individuals with farming interests, as also golf -courses, cricket stadiums and luxury resorts. Though the pricing is yet to be firmed up, Lamborghini tractors sell in Western markets upwards of $20,000 (Rs 10 lakh plus).

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एक पुरानी कविता

Posted on April 22, 2013 by indra

२०.५ २००१.
एक पुरानी कविता

हर युग में भीष्म शर कुंठित हुए
शिखंडी के सामने
आचार्य द्रोन देते रहे आटा घोल
पुत्र को
लेते रहे एकलव्य के अंगूठे
दक्षिणा में शाशकवर्ग हित
मारे गए शोकावस्था में
धनुष छोड़ झूठे शिष्य से
पुत्र बध की भनक सुन |
हर युग का कर्ण
माँ को रुलाता रहा
मिथ्या अहंकार में
और फिर
गलत सारथी चुन
मरता रहा चालक शत्रु से |
हर काल में
भाई भाभी का चिर हरण कर
खुश हुआ
देवर के खून से रंगती रही
केशराशि खुले रख बर्षों तक |
फिर वही द्रौपदी
सुहाग मनाती रही
पांच पांच पुत्र दे
बलि |
अमित बलि होकर भी
दुर्योधन मारा गया
छल से |
शम्बूक को ब्राहमन
मिलने न दिया राज वर्ग
छल से सम्पूर्ण अमृत पान किया देवों ने
मिहनत मरती रही
बुद्धि घात करती रही |
जो दूसरों के लिए गलत था
अपने लिए सही बना
अहिंसा कभी नहीं जीती
न अशोक काल में
न अब \
कलिंग युद्ध की याद ,
या डर
अशोक के धर्म चक्र का
बापू की अहिंसा नहीं
भारत का जन बल जो
जाग्रत हुआ
था लाया १५ अगस्त |
गरीबी हटेगी नहीं कानून से से
हटेगी तो डर से
गरीबों की संख्या
निगल जाएगी
अमीरों के ऊँचे महल |

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Manufacturing India-2/3 Wheelers

Posted on April 19, 2013 by indra

India has raced ahead from the days of Vespa, Rajdoot and Bullet that were hot in demand by prospective bridegroom in India as dowry.

Images

India is the second largest producer of two-wheelers in the world. In the last few years, the Indian two-wheeler industry has seen spectacular growth. The country stands next to China and Japan in terms of production and sales respectively.

Images

Interestingly, however, based on CY2012 volumes, India is now the largest 2W market in the world with sales volumes of 13.8 million units (domestic), having overtaken China at 12.6 million units. In fact, while 2W sales volumes in India grew by 5.8% in CY2012 over the previous year, the domestic demand in both China and Indonesia (the second and third largest 2W markets, respectively) shrunk by 10.0% and 9.2%, respectively.

Interestingly, the three major manufacturers- HeroMotoCorp, Bajaj Auto and TVS Motors- are located near the three metros in North, West and South.

Hero Honda has taken new birth as two siblings; HeroMotoCorp and Hero. While the first one is the name of the company owned by the old Indian masters, Hero is fully owned Japanese company. The country’s largest two-wheeler maker HeroMotoCorp is set to kickstart its international business by foraying into new geographies by the end of this financial year, will design and develop all future products taking into account requirements in global markets all on its own.

Honda has challenged to become number one soon. It hopes to clock four million units annually from its three plants in Haryana, Rajasthan and Karnataka and to touch 10 million units by 2020, though this could be achieved even earlier.

Bajaj Auto Ltd. was known for scooter ‘Hamara Bajaj’, but has now gone whole hog for manufacturing motorcycles and is the second largest manufacturer of 2-wheelers.Bajaj Auto has also developed a quadricycle but it is waiting for the government permission for launching on road. TVS Motor has also dropped its Suzuki tag and is on its own as third largest manufacturer.

Yamaha, the Japanese two-wheeler major is planning to make India a hub for development as well as manufacturing of low-cost products and plans to launch a sub-$500 (under Rs 27,000) scooter and motorcycle, which would be its cheapest two-wheeler globally and sold across volume-laden markets such as China, Africa and Latin America. Japanese two-wheeler major Yamaha Motor Company (YMC) recently announced the establishment of Yamaha Motor Research & Development India (YMRI) at its Greater Noida facility is looking at leveraging India as a procurement hub to source the product and parts for its global market.

BMW Motorrad has gone for a tie-up with TVS Motor Company to leverage a cost competitive manufacturing base. “If you don’t have the best quality of a premium product, then you have problems later on. India is the right place for high-quality mass production.” According to Stephan Schaller, President, BMW Motorrad, Schaller who recently was in India, “India is the right place for high quality mass production — to source, produce, to ship to places in the world where we can sell them… and one of these places will also be India”.

All the three top Indian two wheelers manufacturers had successful tie ups with the Japanese manufacturers such as Honda, Kawasaki, and Suzuki. Today they are on own for their mass produced vehicles, but for the upper end product each have some strong tie-ups such as Bajaj with KTM of Austria and Kawasaki, TVS Motors with BMW. Bajaj Auto, distributor of Kawasaki Bikes in India, has recently launched Kawasaki Ninja 300 in the domestic market. It is mutually respectable working. As reported, Bajaj Auto International Holdings (BAIHBV), a Netherlands-based wholly-owned subsidiary of Bajaj Auto, has raised its stake in KTM Power Sports in an attempt to tighten its grip on Europe’s second-largest power sports bike manufacturer.TVS Motor and BMW Motorrad recently announced to jointly make sub-500cc bikes in India to be sold worldwide. As a result, TVS can now access the best in technology and R&D for its two-wheeler operations. In other words, the marketing end will have to gear up and capitalize on the BMW brand equity association to plan its strategy.

Indian 2- wheelers are contemporary in style and sleek in design and are gradually being accepted in the global markets too. The markets in more than fifty countries of Asia, Africa, Middle East, South America and even parts of Europe are gradually emerging as new destinations for the Indian two wheelers.

According to analysts, India is getting close to peak penetration levels. “Every fifth person in the addressable market owns a two-wheeler,” says a report by Macquarie Research, whose research accounted for the age group between 15 and 59 years of age and income greater than Rs.60,000 per month.

Honda Motorcycle and Scooter India (HMSI) recently launched its cheapest motorcycle in the mass commuter segment, the 110cc Dream Neo, to take on former partner HeroMotoCorp’s flagship model, Splendor.

Royal Enfield, the oldest player under new management is trying to make its presence felt. Even in present slowdown, Royal Enfield continues to buck the trend and has strong demand for its products with waiting period ranging from three to six months depending on the region. An all new 1, 50,000 units plant coming up very soon to reduce the waiting time.M&M is also trying after its acquisition of Kinetic Motors to be a major player in 2-wheeler. Many global players such as Harley Davidson, Hyosung, and Ducati of high-end motor cycles have entered India to grab that market that is going to grow. A new wave of electrical 2-wheelers is also trying to take advantage of the government subsidy that for better environmental advantages.

As under such a competitive market, the government of India has cleared the financial package for ailing Scooters India. One can very well imagine its political motive.

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Manufacturing India-Commercial Vehicles

Posted on April 16, 2013 by indra

The production and sales of commercial vehicles tell a lot about the country’s economy. It indicates the country’s growth. Over the years, India was having two major manufacturers in cars and trucks. Though older car manufacturers-Hindustan Motors and Premier Automobiles are on way out, truck manufacturers-Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland are still going strong, though some MNCs such as Volvo and Mercedes have also entered the commercial vehicles’ market.

Tata Motors are the fourth largest commercial vehicles manufacturer in the world and the topmost in India. Ashok Leyland is the other major commercial vehicle manufacturer in India. With Hinduja, Ashok Leyland is attempting to enter newer market. Its collaboration with Nissan and Renault has launched a small truck to compete with Tata Motors’ innovative and very popular ACE.M&M,and AMW are other new major players in commercial vehicles manufacturing.

The attempt of many of the Japanese truck manufacturers (Mazda-Swaraj, DCM-Toyota, and Eicher-Mitsubishi) to enter India for producing medium duty commercial vehicles in 90s failed. It was the time when Hindustan Motors was tying up with Isuzu Motors to manufacture some of their commercial vehicles including the buses in Halol, Gujarat. That would have been a great project for the local company as well as for the country, as both the dominating players in commercial vehicles were using almost obsolete old technologies that over the years have been upgraded with help from associates. Tata Motors could do that because of the acquisitions of Daewoo Motors of South Korea. Ashok Leyland took the assistance of Hino Motors. Hindustan Motors failed to continue with the collaboration with Isuzu Motors and the project ended because of the financial reasons and perhaps the poor strategy of the management.

Isuzu Motors are trying to enter India again and all on its own. Isuzu Motors India Pvt. Ltd, a wholly owned subsidiary of Japanese auto maker Isuzu Motors Ltd, plans to set up a light commercial vehicle (LCV) manufacturing plant in Chittoor district of Andhra Pradesh at an estimated cost of Rs.1,500 crore.The plant, which will produce 120,000 units annually at peak capacity, will commence operations in 2015-16.

Volvo and Mercedes have entered India and performing fairly well. <a href=”http://www.vecv.in/aboutus-overview.aspx”>Volvo has also tied up with Eicher for commercial vehicles for larger tonnage.

As reported, even amid the slump in the automobile sector, when major automobile companies are reviewing expansion plans, the Renault-Nissan alliance in India is going the whole hog on its expansion plans. The Ashok Leyland-Nissan Dost LCV has turned into a runaway success for the commercial vehicle manufacturing joint venture between Indian Utility Vehicle major Ashok Leyland and Japanese automaker Nissan.

With improving infrastructure of roads and growing industrial activities, the manufacturing of commercial vehicles will require the latest technologies with thrust on fuel efficiency and emission control. The domestic as well as MNC manufacturers will also export in good numbers to balance the cyclic demands. Another good news for expanding business will come from Indian Defense Services with increasing demand to use locally manufactured products.

The commercial vehicles segment in India even in the slow economy present interesting trends. The M&HCV segment is witnessing steady increase in share of heavy duty, long haulage trucks owing to improvement in road and highway infrastructure. But in the LCV goods segment, the share of sub 1T segment is increasing with the emergence of the hub-n-spoke model and increasing demand for last mile connectivity. Higher tonnage trucks (16T+) offer higher profitability as operating costs (besides fuel) are similar to lower tonnage vehicles. The introduction of newer, efficient and advanced platforms/vehicles by both incumbents as well as foreign OEMs has further escalated the advantage.

The commercial vehicles segment in India even in the slow economy present interesting trends. The M&HCV segment is witnessing steady increase in share of heavy duty, long haulage trucks owing to improvement in road and highway infrastructure. But in the LCV goods segment, the share of sub 1T segment is increasing with the emergence of the hub-n-spoke model and increasing demand for last mile connectivity. Higher tonnage trucks (16T+) offer higher profitability as operating costs (besides fuel) are similar to lower tonnage vehicles. In India, the LCV segment is currently dominated by sub 1-T and pick-up segment vehicles.Tata Motors through its innovative ACE and M&M have performed excellently. While multi-laned highways are cutting down the turnover time between metros and cities, roads laid out under Pradhan Mantri Yojana in rural India are making sub 1-ton vehicles popular.

Posted in manufacturing, rural india | Leave a comment

India:Digital Waves

Posted on April 13, 2013 by indra

India has seen at least three digital revolutions in past two decades. The first started with setting up of IPOs providing the facility for having local, STD and ISD telephony along with fax for transferring the documents. One could see these booths in every corner of the country. Both in Noida and Salt Lake, I used it for its convenience whenever the BSNL connectivity failed me.

The second revolution was for the Internet connectivity. It manifested itself in setting up of cyber cafes even in small towns and cities. I used the facility in CK market near our residence whenever I was there for sometime.It used to remain crowded in those days.

But with laptops, tablets and smart phones reaching every home either through personal procurements or through election manifesto of various states, the Internet has become easily available to a large number of individuals at homes, and now cyber cafes look deserted. However it remains popular with school going children for preparing project reports demanded by their schools.

Cell phones with almost in hands of 900 millions of the population had already killed the IPOs and with almost all cell phone service providers offering Internet on mobile phones for many a things such as social networking, cyber cafes have lost its utility.

Cyber cafes are still popular with students for project and photocopying of notes or text books and owners have added some related items along with it. I find it selling stationaries including those for computers that the students need. The self-employed owner of the cafes even help the amateurs to keep their laptops running, providing batteries or anti-virus and other softwares.

The owners try to diversify with some side business activities. I find one doing railways and flight booking, the other one does digital transfer of money for migrants.

Laptops and tablets will have good business in India with states as big as Uttar Pradesh committing to hand over to class X and XII students the gadgets free. UP alone is to buy 26.62 tablets this year itself. The state government has already selected HP for the supply of 15 lakh laptops at a cost of Rs 2,858 crores. A new wave of online education spreading fast will mean the requirements of the gadgets in increasingly larger number. I wish the local manufacturers such as HCL would have taken advantage of the opportunity.

As reported, the web-based courses of National Programme on Technology Enhanced Learning (NPTEL), led by IIT and IISc, that has Google, Nasscom, TCS, Cognizant and IIITs as partners, went online in October 2012. From July, NPTEL will offer course certification with live exams at the end. While the course is free, a fee will be charged for certification. Some IT cos have agreed to give inputs for the online courses related to computer science and networking. NPTEL is looking for a software platform to host its content along the lines of international providers Coursera and edX that have millions of users with Indians account ing for about 15%, second only to the US. The NPTEL channel, currently on YouTube, has 1.5 lakh subscribers and 8.7 crore views.

I foresee the digital onslaught to all Indian households- rich and poor benefiting them equally well.

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Manufacturing India-Car

Posted on April 12, 2013 by indra

With a sustained labour cost advantage and a working population estimated to top 850 million before the end of the decade, India is destined to become the second most competitive manufacturing destination globally, leaving behind countries like the US and Germany.

The new National Manufacturing Policy is to help the Indian manufacturing sector increase its share of the country’s GDP from 15% currently to 25% by 2022. It will require a compound annual growth rate of 14%, raising the sector’s total output to approximately $650 billion by 2022, and making India the world’s fifth-largest manufacturing nation, up from ninth currently.

India today has one of the least skilled manpower among the top manufacturing nations. Firstly, only 17% of those entering the workforce are skilled. Secondly, the quality of skilling remains a big challenge—amongst the skilled workforce, a mere 5% of workers are classified as highly skilled, and a staggering 64% are associated with a very low level of skilling. As a result, despite having a seemingly limitless supply of low-cost labour, over 65% of Indian firms face difficulty in filling vacancies with rightly skilled workers.

Some manufacturing sectors in India such as automobiles and Pharma are already well on the way of becoming globally competitive.

The automobile industry account for 22% of the country’s manufacturing GDP.

According to Ministry of Heavy Industry and Public Enterprises, the total turnover of the Indian automobile industry was estimated at USD 73 billion and exports were estimated to be USD 11 billion in the year 2010–11. The announced cumulative investments in this sector were USD 30 billion during this period. The main automobile clusters are based around Chennai, Gurgaon, Pune, Ahmedabad, Aurangabad, Jamshedpur, Greater Noida and Bangalore. Chennai is the biggest hub accounting for 60% of Indian auto exports.

While Maruti Suzuki is still at top of the market share, Hyundai, Tata Motors, M&M, Honda, GM India, and Mercedes Benz are also major players. Nissan, Renault, BMW, and Fiat are also present.

World’s almost all auto manufacturers have set up plants in India. Volkswagen and Skoda in its facilities in Aurangabad and Chakan are producing top ends and mass market models respectively.

Ford India is setting up its second plant at Sanand for the plant, its second in India, in September 2011 and laid the foundation in March 2012. The Rs 4,500-crore plant will have an initial capacity of 240,000 cars and 270,000 engines. Its first plant near Chennai has a capacity for 200,000 cars and 340,000 engines. Commercial roll-out of the first vehicle will happen in the first half of 2015.

India automobile sector has grown significantly over the years. It can develop the cars that the people are looking for. The quality of the products is pretty good. If an automobile sector is any indication of the manufacturing strength, India is certainly a manufacturing power.

Posted in manufacturing, Tecchnology | 1 Comment

Dear Mr. Chidambaram: A Reminder

Posted on April 6, 2013 by indra

I respect you as one of the best performing cabinet ministers and parliamentarians.Your speeches are so interesting and assuring. So I would have loved if you could have kept up the promises you made in your budget speeches. It would have enhanced your credibility. I am also one who wish to see you as prime minister even if Gandhis select you following the Sonia-Manmohan model.

Let me take you to the Budget of 2004-05 where you as finance minister had said, “I now turn to one of my big dreams. Water is the lifeline of civilidation. We have been warned that the biggest crisis that the world will face in the 21st century will be the crisis of water.”

“I therefore propose an ambitious scheme. Through the ages, Indian agriculture has been sustained by natural and man-made water bodies such as lakes, tanks, ponds and similar structures. It has been estimated that there are more than a million such structures and about 500,000 are used for irrigation. Many of them have fallen into disuse. Many of them have accumulated silt. Many require urgent repairs.”

There were some water bodies all around my village too, but most of them have disappeared, filled and encroached for either construction or cultivation. The entire nation got excited with your proposal to launch “a massive scheme to repair, renovate and restore all the water bodies that are directly linked to agriculture”.

Was the proposal implemented? If not, why couldn’t you follow it up?

I shall remind you about your second promise in the 2004 budget speech. That related to a proposal to facilitate all ITIs to be adopted by some companies to make its training and skilling relevant so that the industry get trained and skilled young men and women ready to take up responsible position.

How many of ITIs of the total in India have tied up with industry?

Can your office publish a white paper on just these two promises? How will rate yourself on the implementation of these two proposals?

How can the country develop if promises are not kept? I am sure the failure to execute both the proposals were not due to lack of fund.

Mr. Chidambaram, we expect you to take the country out of the present financial gloom. It can happen only if the government works.

Posted in agriculture, economy, governance | Leave a comment

School Cheating: Lessons from Atlanta

Posted on April 3, 2013 by indra

I have been contemplating to suggest some ways and means to motivate the school teachers of rural government schools for performing better and to devote time and energy in teaching their students. Even after providing for the infrastructural shortcomings of the schools such as separate clean toilets for boys and girls, facilities for clean drinking water, library, creativity centres, and playing grounds, the students will hardly be benefitted unless they take up their assignment seriously. Even the incentive for improving their performance can’t be made that lucrative. And unfortunately, because of the very strong unions of teachers, they can hardly be punished to the extent that corrects them.

Interestingly, even the developed country such as USA is facing a serious situation with its teaching staffs. USA tried to use the famous trick of carrot and stick for improving the performance of their school teachers.

As the Times explained: “Teachers and principals whose students had high test scores received tenure and thousands of dollars in performance bonuses. Otherwise, as one teacher explained, it was ‘low score out the door.'”

Anand informed me about the American taking actions against a large number of teachers involved in cheating for improving the performance of the students of their schools so that they can earn higher performance bonus. It was a great news item in US disturbing the parents who do everything to find a good school for their children. It shocked me too, as in every visit to US, I have been visiting the schools of my grandchildren and putting a lot of queries to my sons about their education. I was happy that my grandchildren will get real good education that I couldn’t have dreamt even in India.

A grand jury charged Dr. Hall, the school superintendent and the other educators with essentially running a conspiracy in which standardized test scores were secretly raised as a way to get bonuses and ensure job security.They had been told to report to jail.

If the carrot and stick couldn’t work in US, will it serve any purpose in a corrupt country like ours?

I had heard of cheating through passing on the chits with answers to the examinees inside the examination halls in board examinations in Bihar. But what had happened in Atlanta is a step ahead. Cheating by the whole lot of teachers, principals and administrators was to have better performance of the school and thereby earning bigger bonuses.

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Aakash Again in News

Posted on March 29, 2013 by indra

Aakash is again in news. Media reports of the two cabinet ministers are interesting and show how this government is working.

Pallam Raju, the new HRD Minister, who is an alumnus of IIT, expressed concerns over the future of Aakash that appeared in media. The next day IT and Telecom Minister Kapil Sibal, who had launched Aakash as HRD minister, declared the project for the low-cost computing device, Aakash as “alive and kicking”. He had added that the work is on for its third and fourth versions. Pallam Raju again corrects his statement the next day and talked about the continuance of Aakash project.

I felt really bad after going through a blog in Forbes India by Seema Singh: “As Mint reports today, the HRD ministry, whose ridiculously naive idea it was, is close to shutting down this project. Yes, merely a project is what it was, pursued by some for their grubby little self-interests. That the ministry under Pallam Raju has decided to consign it to the bin, a place where it always belonged, it will bring a closure to this murky story. At Forbes India, we gave it a decent burial nearly a year ago. The story, What Went Wrong with Aakash Tablet, details how the idea was “stillborn” and no amount of clinical intervention could revive it.”

Why should some celebrate failure of a project of an India innovated product that could have made difference in educating millions of the poor India with help of a digital gadget? However, some were very positive and talked pretty highly about the project.

A well written article of Vivek Wadhwa, vice-president, research and innovation, Singularity University; fellow at Stanford Law School, and a director, research, Duke University, appeared in the Mint, ‘In Praise of Aakash. “Aakash has lowered the expected base price of tablet technologies from the $400-500 that is common in the West to $35-50. This would not have happened on its own.”

And then appeared another column of Satish Jha, chief mentor, Indian Centre for CSR, and chairman, OLPC India Foundation,- ‘Aakash-Cheapest tablet far from real’ in the same Mint-“If there is any nation that deserves the credit for making the cheapest computer, in more sense than one, that is China”.

I have been following the media for Aakash since its launch. I have a serious grievance about the IITs that were associated with this project, particularly IIT, Rajasthan and now IIT- Bombay. The professor/s associated with Aakash would have written in media to clarify the controversies in media. It would have removed the confusion. Can’t IITs do even this much? Is it not a shame that these institutes of national importance fail to mentor even one project such as Aakash. Why India and Indians are like one narrated in this report?

I would have loved if those connected with such gadgets in the industry would have suggested ways and means to save the project Aakash. Can it happen?

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