Teji Bachchan and Sonia Gandhi

Posted on December 22, 2008 by indra

A HOMAGE TOO


Teji Bachchan, wife of the late Hindi poet Harivansh Rai Bachchan and mother of Bollywood star Amitabh Bachchan, died yesterday (Friday) at the age of 93.

I was a fan of Haribans Rai Bachchan, the famous popular poet of Hindi. I remember one of my schoolteacher Sahodar Pandeyji singing his ‘Deen Jaldi Jaldi dhalata Hai’ from Nisha Nimantran. I kept on buying his books from Rajpal Sons. At many a time, I found a real joy in reading his poems. The language is so simple that anyone could enjoy it. Later on a cassette of Madusala sung by Manna De became my loving possession for quite some period. But believe it, when I bought and went through the autobiography of Haribans Rai Bachchan, I found his prose better than even his poems. As an engineer, hardly any one will believe that I went through the book in three volumes at a stretch. I had not done that even for any interesting novel. Haribans Rai had married Teji. It was his second marriage after the death of her first wife Syama.

However, in the meantime Amitabh became the superhero in Hindi films. All my family- kids and wife became his fan. However, I remained fan of Senior and poet Bachchan.

Death of Teji has again raised some questions about the cordial relation between Gandhis and Bachchans that got soured. Sonia would have certainly visited Teji in hospital or participated in the last rite. Even if she had some difference of opinion with Amitabh, she would have remembered of Teji’s role in her life and paid the respect to her. Here are some stories about the relation of Teji and Sonia.

As per one report, “Teji acted as her godmother and schooled her in Indian customs when she arrived in Delhi as Rajiv Gandhi’s fiancee in 1968 and was put up at the Bachchans’. “I came to learn a lot from them. Teji aunty is my second… no, my third mother (after her own mother and mother-in-law Indira Gandhi),” she had said as per one report in a 1985 interview. ” Amit and Bunty (Ajitabh) are my brothers.” Several wedding rituals like Sonia’s mehendi ceremony were held at the Bachchan home.

Another media report said, “When Rajiv Gandhi was courting Sonia Antonio Maino, the shy young Italian girl. It was Teji who acted as a gentle mediator when her friend, the powerful Indira, was reluctant about her pilot son’s wedding to the Italian girl from a middle-class family. When the Rajiv-Sonia marriage was finally fixed in 1969, Sonia and her family had nowhere to stay in New Delhi. As per Hindu customs, a betrothed girl cannot enter her in-laws’ house before marriage. Once again, Teji came to the family’s help. Sonia and her family moved in briefly and stayed at the Bachchan’s New Delhi residence at 13, Willingdoon Crescent, all through the wedding.

Yet another report said, “The families were so close once that Tejisang at the Congress chief’s wedding and “introduced her to the Indian way of life”.

“Rajiv Gandhi’s fiancée Sonia (Maino), visiting from Italy, was put up at our house.. She was so taken with our openness that she began to look Teji as a mother and Amit and Bunty as brothers. Rajiv and Sonia were married in February, with some part of the ceremony being held at our house,” recalled the late Haribans Rai in his memoirs.

I am sure Sonia would have improved her image by just visiting Bachchans to pay her homage to Teji. Sonia claims herself an Indian. This act of her is not in line with the Indian tradition and social norms. But perhaps, Maino (Sonia) is following her Italian norms about which we hardly know.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Lead from Front

Posted on December 21, 2008 by indra

Perhaps the biggest change, over the years that I notice is that the executives are too busy with the meetings. Whenever I contact some whom I knew during office hours these days, the normal reply nowadays is ‘Sahab is in meeting.” In my days, even my wife used to hear whenever she rang, “Sahab is on shop floor.” She had the biggest complaint against me that I never sat in office. Unfortunately, we didn’t have any cell phone at that time too.

In my entire career I couldn’t resist myself from being near to the place where the work went on and it paid good dividend too. I still remember when I took over as General Manager, Technical Services. I was on a round in sheet metal tooling manufacturing area. A group of workmen were busy in constructing a huge main jig for the assembly and welding of car body in white. I asked, “Do you know where it would be used?” The workmen confessed that they had not visited and seen the operation. How could they appreciate the need of the workers who would use the jig? They went, saw, and got many changes incorporated to make it acceptable and easy for the user workmen. It was only personal observation of the work that could help me in finding the real bottlenecks and providing the best solution.

Unfortunately, very few executives go out to see the work going on in thee field. Meetings and computers are the most popular means to control the progress. It is true for all the people involved in administration. And that is one of the reasons that the implementations are behind the schedule or the project on completion doesn’t provide the facility it was meant for.

An article ‘See for Yourself’ by Tim Laseter and Larry Laseter in ‘Strategy+Business’ recently referred to the culture of face-to-face, on-the-spot problem solving among executives and companies. The practice solves real customer problems, adopts ideas from others and makes them their own, collaborates with suppliers to eliminate waste, and engages the hearts and minds of their entire workforce

No company embraces the principle of firsthand observation more than the Toyota Motor Corporation. A philosophy of genchi genbutsu, literally translated as “go and see,” permeates the organization from the manufacturing floor to product development and even corporate staff functions. Toyota’s executive in charge of real estate visited every single property now in Toyota’s vast global portfolio of land and buildings before approving any of the investments.

The chief engineer for the 2004 Sierra minivan had never designed a vehicle specifically for the North American market, so he set out to drive in all 50 states and every province of Canada and Mexico. The insights he gained on his trip led him to redesign the popular minivan, making it bigger but easier to handle, at a price US$1,000 lower than the previous version. His observations of North American driving conditions led to enhancements of the turning radius and side-wind stability. The team also expanded the number of cup holders and storage pockets, pointless in the Japanese market where trips are shorter and riders rarely eat in the vehicle, but popular with Americans.

Consider the experience of a U.S. automotive supplier that exchanged benchmarking visits with a Japanese competitor in the late 1980s. Executives of the supplier clamored for spots on the trip to Japan, but because they had not spent sufficient time observing their own factories, the visit became a boondoggle that yielded limited competitive intelligence.

In contrast, the Japanese contingent, made up of experienced managers and engineers, arrived in the U.S. equipped with cameras and tape recorders. Though the Japanese immediately accepted the prohibition against cameras, they pleaded the case for tape recorders on the grounds that their English was limited and that they’d need to review the tapes to ensure that they fully understood the host’s commentary. Because the host was unable to speak Japanese and could not conduct the tour in the guests’ native tongue (the Japanese hosts had led their tour in English), he felt he had to accede to their request.

Moments into the tour, one of the guests asked about the cycle time and capacity of a key piece of proprietary equipment. The host refused to answer the question, but he realized that the Japanese would capture the necessary information by simply replaying their tapes and timing the sounds of the machine as it cycled through its processes. Worse yet, halfway through the tour the host discovered that the tour group included industrial artists who were busily sketching detailed perspective drawings of key pieces of equipment.

Honda engineers observed Disney Park’s guests to uncover problems in the parking lot. A couple of decades ago, the company’s car designers noted that people were struggling to lift awkward items such as baby strollers into and out of car trunks. Inspired to solve this problem, the team lowered the trunk opening to be flush with the car bumper. The lower opening is now a common feature among sedans, but in 1989, innovations such as this helped propel the Honda Accord to first place in U.S. unit sales.

Few executives today inspire their followers. The well-meaning leader who considers management an art equally applicable across any industry, be it aircraft engines or banking, can never match the leader who truly understands the business at hand and continually invests the time to learn more about it.

Given the unpopularity of observation, it’s no wonder that many employees view executives as Dilbert cartoon characters: clueless autocrats anxious to implement the next management fad as a “strategic initiative.”
Embracing firsthand observation as an integral part of your personal management style and embedding it in a company’s culture can break the fad cycle. It connects everyone to reality and forces a collaborative, problem-solving mind-set that can produce enduring results rather than just temporary improvement.

Computer-generated reports and meetings certainly play an important role in management, but the critical, visceral insight needed for effective leadership can come only from firsthand contact. The best executives get out of their offices and away from their computer screens to observe their frontline employees, competitors, customers, and suppliers on the job.

Please try to move out to see the work you are responsible for or on which you want to propose your idea. You will contribute better.

Posted in management | Leave a comment

Tulsi- Means of Livelihood

Posted on December 20, 2008 by indra

I was amazed when I found one Organic India’s Tulsi Tea Collection sachet in an envelope from ‘Good Housekeeping’, a magazine along with other promotion materials. Yamuna has always kept a tulsi in our residence wherever we lived. Tulsi leaves are also part of our daily prasad. I do use some leaves of tulsi in tea for my morning tea. However, I could never even imagine that tulsi can be cultivated as a regular crop too.

Last week, I happened to come across and went through ‘Tulsi Evangelists‘ in ‘Business Today’. I was just stunned but delighted to know how a plant or shrub that we had been seeing since our childhood being worshipped in our homes has become the source of livelihood for a large number of farmers. And this could happen through an initiative of a foreigner Yoav Lev, presently President and Founder of Organic India.

As the story goes, ‘Lev first came to India with his wife Holly in 1995 to meet his guru H.W.L. Poonja in Lucknow. The couple fell in love with the country. The Israeli-American couple also got introduced to Ayurveda and tulsi. And today Lev propounds, “Tulsi contains hundreds of beneficial compounds known as phytochemicals. Working together, these compounds possess strong antioxidant, antibacterial, antiviral, and immunity-enhancing properties that promote general health and support the body’s natural defense against stress and illness.” Lev wanted to commercialise tulsi for the benefit of the people. But he needed organically farmed tulsi on a large scale. Lev had a tough time convincing the farmers to grow tulsi instead of regular crops. The couple set up a company called the Indo-Israel Trading Corporation (IITC), which was renamed Organic India last year. The company now employs more than 12,000 contract farmers in Uttar Pradesh, Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh, cultivating tulsi on 50,000 acres of land.

The firm has a diverse product range comprising 15 premium quality Ayurvedic herbal formulations like Ashwagandha, Amalaki, Brahmi, Bowelcare, Breathe Free, Flexibility, Immunity, Herbal Antibiotic, Liver-Kidney Care, Sugar Balance, Triphala, Tulsi, Weight Balance, Women’s Well Being, along with five different blends of Tulsi Tea- Tulsi Original, Ginger, Green, and Tulsi Chai Masala. The company cultivates, collects, processes, manufactures and markets certified organic Tulsi teas, herbal supplements, Psyllium, Castor Oil, Ayurvedic and medicinal herbs, and many other organic foods and organic spices. The Lucknow-based company with associate offices in the US and Israel recently launched 18 new organic flavours of tea which include Pomegranate Green, Chamomile, India Breakfast, Licorice Spice, Passionfruit, Red Chai, Sweet Lemon, Sweet Rose and Vanilla Crème, among others. These blends are being prepared using Rama, Krishna and Vana tulsi leaves, which the company grows organically. According to Lev, they ” have invested close to Rs 50 crore till date in our operations and expect to break even by April 2008.”

For the past few years, the company is also been supplying Ayurvedic herbs to select companies in the US, France, Japan, Germany, Korea, Israel, The Netherlands and Australia. Recently, it has signed an agreement with Germany’s Ulrich Walter GmbH to market Organic India Tulsi Tea products.

Further, the innovative ideas have brought prosperity and stability in the households of the farmers that have gone for cultivating tulsi. The 3-4 month organic crop cultivations provided better margins to the farmers. They ‘get as much as Rs 40,000 from the tulsi crop per season while other crops fetch just around Rs 10,000’. Kailash Nath Singh, one of the pioneer farmers, now gets around Rs 3 lakh from the company for one crop. Even the yield has improved. “In the first year, the crop yielded 2.5 quintal per acre, but now the productivity of the land has increased to 20 quintal per acre.”

To acknowledge the efforts of the farmers, for the last five years, Organic India has been organising an annual event called Tulsi Mahotsava at Azamgarh, which felicitates farmers associated with the farming of tulsi. The organic tulsi has brought about a wave of social change as well. Close to 1,200 socially outcast women are employed as machine operators or for plucking in various villages.”

Is it not very exciting and inspiring story? It certainly delighted me. Indian traditional knowledge available in different parts of the country can provide a huge lot of entrepreneurship opportunities and scope of employment for India’s talented young men and women. Our young men and women must look around and grab the opportunity instead of keeping on blaming the government and trying only the set avenues for employment.

Posted in agriculture | Leave a comment

‘Economist’ This Week

Posted on December 19, 2008 by indra

‘Economist’ this week has four reports related to India. It is good enough indication of the importance and attention that India is getting these days.

The report on Information technology in India ‘Gravity’s pull’ deals with a fear or prophecy of if India’s computer-services industry heading for a fall.

The “IT” in India’s IT industry has always been something of a misnomer. True, most of its more than 1.6m employees sit in front of computers, writing software for Western firms, remotely maintaining their computers and electronically handling some of their operations. But the business is mostly about people and processes. The very essence of India’s IT firms is their ability to marshal huge local workforces to supply high-quality services. Today more Indian than American firms meet the highest internationally recognised standards for software development.
So why the concern? Indian IT faces a host of threats. The most immediate difficulty is the rapid appreciation of the rupee against the dollar in recent months. Western firms, meanwhile, increasingly want Indian providers to do more than just keep systems running; they want help in developing new solutions to business problems-something few Indian firms are set up to do. India’s IT firms have shown before that they can change if they really need to. Even if the heavyweights stumble, smaller firms are ready to take up the baton.

In Indian start-ups section, it has ‘Entrepreneurial push’ and answers a query. Is Bangalore another Silicon Valley in the making?

More venture capital (VC) is flowing into the country-including some from American VC firms active in India-and a growing share of it is being invested in innovative early-stage firms. Things are moving in the right direction, but this is hardly Silicon Valley. The infrastructure for technology entrepreneurs is at “an early stage.” The “term sheets” listing the financing conditions are the same, but the courts may not interpret them in the same way. Professional networks and the collective knowledge of how things are done are still developing. The demand in India is not so much for new technologies as for new ways to make technology affordable to the masses. Such approaches are likely to fare well in other emerging economies-and could disrupt rich countries, too.

Narendra Modi and his style in Indian politics can’t escape the attention of anyone with assembly election in the state. Many think, a win for Narendra in Gujarat will make him a larger than life personality in Indian politics. And the cadre of BJP, if there is one will like his elevation to head the throne at New Delhi. Though media may not agree but he is one who has done equally well with development. Even many of his critics agree about it.

Economist views in ‘Anyone but Modi‘:

Mr Modi’s national ambitions would be “virtually unstoppable” if the BJP won. That would be a problem in the rest of the party because Mr Modi alienates the RSS and others in the BJP with his centralising, autocratic style. With no other BJP politician of national stature, the party had little choice but to turn to Mr Advani for the moment.

Economics focus and concern for the rising rupee is behind the report: ‘The uncomfortable rise of the rupee’. Is India suffocating from too much foreign attention?

India’s IT industry, which first advertised India’s virtues to the outside world, is now suffering more than most from the avid interest in the rupee. Worst hit, however, are India’s labour-intensive manufacturers. Nonetheless, some fear-and others hope-that the dearer rupee will prompt India to take a step backwards and tighten its controls on capital inflows. The migration of capital from the rich world to the poorer one is a sign of a bleaker season to come in the world’s biggest markets. This would, then, seem an inauspicious moment for India to bet its future on export-led growth. If it cannot resist the inflow of foreign capital, it should try instead to make room for it-by observing fiscal restraint-and to make the most of it-by investing it wisely. India may then have an economy worthy of a more expensive rupee; and its children may have better things to do than hang around at traffic lights trying to change a buck.

Posted in economy, governance | Leave a comment

IITians Go Rural

Posted on December 19, 2008 by indra

On occasion of Pan-IIT meet in Chennai, many have talked and written about IITs and IITians that is really informative. IIT-Madras has, for example, recruited over 200 faculty of whom at least a third did their bachelor’s in one of the IITs and had gone abroad to do PhDs. It is estimated that there is a pool of 60,000 PhDs from India in the US.

Surprisingly, IITians are still busy in ‘exploring areas where they can contribute to the larger cause.’ As reported, very soon a new website http://www.alumnet.iitkgpernet.in will electronically link all alumni and provide an effective platform for sharing ideas and contributing together.

Suggestions regarding the expectations from IITians are many. While one calls upon all IIT alumni to work towards evolving a good and low-cost education system, the other pleads to join the village adoption initiative. Nandan Nilekani, as author of his well documented book ‘Imagining India’ wishes IITians help in revamping the education system radically.

An Indian Institute of Technology survey says every IIT-ian has created 100 jobs and that every rupee spent on an IIT-ian has ‘created an economic impact of Rs 50 at the global level, half of which is India’s share’. Many celebrity alumni have given their own opinions on the glorious roles of IITians: ‘IIT-ians have created a global brand‘ ‘IIT-ians have brought glory to the country‘

Interestingly Pan-IIT this time has opted to focus on the India that lives in villages, according to a news report covered in prestigious ‘Business Week‘ too.

The IITs’ old boys will engage in the development of India’s 6 lakh-plus villages where over 70% of the population lives. For all you know, our IIT men may be able to address village-level problems before the truant politician does. And in the bargain, some of them may hopefully take to politics!

I wish both IITs and IITians can look into the ways and means to transform the rural India as priority because of its being away from the media galore. The coverage of rural India in the print and digital is extremely inadequate. While IITs must create technologies such as an extra low cost water filters, room coolers and refrigerators that can help the rural India to improve the quality of life, IITans must help in building and upgrading the existing rural schools with setting up a creativity centre, a library in each school or by getting the school teachers trained in computer and English language. It can start with a simple step of visiting a village school by every IITians and talking with the students there. If IITians focus on the single issue of universalizing the education, a good education, the rest may come automatically. I am sure if each IITian has created 100 jobs, each IITian can also help get a rural school upgraded to the desired standard. I wish the government agrees to name the school after the IITian, if it helps.

While I was going through the Business Week, I found another article in Business World ‘The Real Nation Builders’ that says, ‘As IITians bring global glory, bright engineers from lesser-known institutes build the country.’ The glory is not restricted to IITs and IITians.

Many things are happening in IITs that the IITians of yester years find interesting.

PS: ‘PAN IIT-2008’ – PM’s inaugural address “In the last six decades the IIT system has produced over 170,000 graduates. It is generally estimated that about a third or more of these alumni have found opportunities in other countries where they are universally acknowledged to be leaders in their fields of endeavour.”

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Innovating India

Posted on December 18, 2008 by indra

Any nation or an enterprise is judged by its innovativeness on long run. India’s engineering talent and IT power has created a place in global technological fraternity. However, innovations are being taken up as priority in almost all sectors, and companies- small and big too. According to a recent McKinsey Global Survey, some 70 per cent of corporate leaders say innovation is among their top three priorities for driving growth.

Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO) is moving ahead towards establishing the first “human colony”on moon. It is examining the possibility of establishing a robotic set-up or unmanned mission on the moon. And as some claim, the moon has plenty of sources for energy.

Scientists of the Defence Research and Development Organisation (DRDO) have demonstrated that they are capable of developing an indigenously-developed anti-ballistic missile shield that could protect not just Delhi, but other major metros and key installations from any nuclear attacks, whether it come in from Pakistan or China.

Simultaneously, a small innovator such as Bhanjibhai Mathukiya from Junagadh, has created an affordable mini tractor of 10 HP for the small groundnut and orchard farmers in Saurashtra. The innovation has been short-listed for the Indian School of Business, Hyderabad’s ‘Metamorphosis’ event. According to Mahesh Patel, chief innovator at the Grassroots Innovation Augmentation Network who has been incubating the small tractor, a non-exclusive rights of the invention have already been taken up by an Anand-based company, with many others showing interest. The tractor will cost about Rs 1.6 lakh and the banks will feel comfortable in financing the tractors to petty farmers. Perhaps the target cost would have been Rs 1 lakh.

And interestingly, school children studying in eighth and ninth standard are trying to use Papaya leaves for driving away mosquitoes, and are creating about 150 different colour combinations using vegetables to develop ink to be used for permanent and non-permanent marker pens. School children are grouped under Initiative for Research and Innovation in Science (IRIS). The project got support from Intel Education who has collaborated with the Confederation of Indian Industry and Department of Science and Technology.

And there are individuals like Kranthi Kiran Vistakula, who has the passion to innovate that made him take a break from his studies in MIT to work on an innovation, active heating/cooling jacket, claimed to be the first of its kind. The US as well as Indian Army is showing keen interest in the project.

And Devesh Ashok Kulkarni, an innovator from Mumbai becomes the nominee for the best 2007 invention. Kulkarni has developed a car jack that can be integrated with the car chassis. It uses engine power to lift the car body. It will avoid the unnecessary and tedious hassle during the change of a punctured tyre.

Of many innovation awards instituted, the EMPI-Indian Express Indian Innovation Awards were representative of innovations in organizations this year. Recipients were:

Tata Consultancy Services (TCS): It started an adult literacy programme around 2000, using an in-house developed software that can make the people literate in just about 35-40 hours training without any instructor.

Karnataka State Road Transport Corporation (KSRTC): After the implementation of AWATAR (Any Where Any Time Advanced Reservation), a web enabled ticketing application, the KSRTC transformed into a profit making Rs 1000-crore turnover company.

Water Supply and Sanitation Department, Government of Maharashtra: The department started a cleanliness competition at the taluka, tehsil and district levels with the winners getting lots of prizes and publicity. This resulted 7,000 villages in Maharashtra free from open defecation.

Multi-Commodity Exchange of India: The contribution of MCX on the Indian commodities market has been innovative application of technology through IT, speed of implementation, and domain knowledge in the commodity segment
.
Keggfarms: Set up a new distribution model that raised chickens in independent nurseries, and developed ‘Kurolier’, a coloured bird, which provides more meat and eggs, as a substitute for chicken in regular diet.

Midas Communications: Its wireless product corDECT and DSL flagship DIAS, today connect over three million members of the rural community.

Tata Motors: Tata Ace, with a capacity of around 0.75 tonne has achieved last mile connectivity and more than a lakh of these vehicles transverse roads of rural India today.

As we move around and think over for a while, we find the results of innovations in products and services everywhere. See the varieties in breads, biscuits, cookies, and candies. Watch at the man who comes for the meter reading and provides us with bill and collects the cheque too. Try to look at the cell phones or for that matter any thing you had been familiar with, you can notice the new innovations.

Innovation is certainly central to a company’s strategy and performance, but getting it right is as hard as ever. Indian companies must shift its priority on design. I strongly feel that our education must emphasise on innovation and entrepreneurship from quite an early stage.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Sitaram Yachuri’s Concern for Development

Posted on December 17, 2008 by indra

Lately, Hindustan Times regularly publishes Sitaram Yachuri’s lead articles on editorial page. He is an intelligent leftist and many of his arguments are really worth attention. In a recent article, he wrote about the development of Gujarat.

“Despite the tom-toming of a vibrant Gujarat (a la the BJP’s ‘Shining India’ campaign), the fact remains that Gujarat is one of the most indebted states in the country. Its public debt to GDP ratio is a whopping 28.5 per cent. According to official figures (widely believed to be a gross understatement), over 500 farmers in the state have committed suicide. This is primarily due to rural indebtedness, which, according to the NSS’ 55th round data, is, at around 40 per cent, widely higher than the national average of 25 per cent. Irrigated area declined by 25 per cent and agricultural production fell by 4.6 per cent during the last five years.

A UN University study reveals that poverty rose to 17 per cent from 12 per cent during this period. Its Human Development Report, 2004, states, “Gujarat has reached only 48 per cent of the goals set for human development.” On the health front, 74.3 per cent of women and 46.3 per cent of children are anaemic. In social sector spending (as a proportion of total expenditure), Gujarat ranks a lowly 19 among 21 major states. On minimum wages, it ranks 8th. Despite the fact that large tracts of the state face a drinking water crisis, the Modi administration diverted $ 255 million to supply water to industries (read: vibrant Gujarat), according to a CAG report.”

I am sure as a member of CPM politburo, he must also be watching at the development of West Bengal. In West Bengal, leftists have been ruling for more than three decades. Further, since 2004, the party has an alliance with the central government. West Bengal gets whatever it asks. And the excuse of centre’s indifference as reasons for no progress can’t hold good any more. I am sure Yachuri must express his concern about the parameters of development in West Bengal. In almost all, West Bengal is in the lower half of the list of states. The left and Yachuri must prove their development model in the left-run state, as it would have been naturally easy for them to implement all their ideas in last 30+ years.

Will Yachuri write another article comparing Gujarat data made available in his article with that of West Bengal and say that West Bengal government under leftists is working miracle? Left also claim that Modi plays in the hands of industrialists. What is the condition in West Bengal? Who are leading the industrial development there? The story of Todi and his influence on the government has got by now a global publicity.

I have at least one data at hand through the media: “Bengal topped the list of suicides with 15,725 suicides, including 6,605 women, compared to 15,015 in 2005 and 13,424 the previous year.” Will Yachuri show his concern about this and see that his government takes some proactive steps?

And now here is an excerptbased on a book RURAL COMMERCIAL CAPITAL AGRICULTURAL MARKETS IN WEST BENGAL by Barbara Harriss-White, that is a serious research:

“The government policy of protecting the local agricultural elite in terms of concessions and privileges (thereby shunting aside petty trade by unlanded or small-time farmers), its inaction in improving infrastructure and technology, and of looking inwards rather than working towards progress, are all direct factors in the historically up-and-down performance of the sector and the widespread poverty in the villages.”

“When Marwaris moved to rural West Bengal to fill the void of trade in agricultural goods, they wisely started small before expanding to the control of trade in wholesale and retail, import, export, stocking and cold storage – basically, the whole market economy shopping list. They did not limit themselves to one type of crop, but diversified to various agricultural commodities. They have continued to pullulate their large share of the aggregate agricultural production and supply, as well as land ownership, trade privileges and feudal power. The deeply-rooted establishment of the Marwari business community is exemplified by their representation in the board of the Bengal Rice Millers’ Association – two-thirds are Marwaris.”

I wish the whole lot of smart politburo members of CPM including Karats and Yachuuri try seriously to prove their ideologies of Marxism to improve the living conditions of those at the bottom of the pyramid so that the rest of India can benchmark it. However, if they have failed, they at least must allow the people of India to go ahead to attain the goal of prosperity through the model our intelligent and serious economists are trying to go for.

Posted in economy | Leave a comment

Booming and Blooming India-XXXI

Posted on December 17, 2008 by indra

Inc’s Grand H1 show: For the half year ended September 2007, interest coverage ratio for Corporate India, excluding banking sector, has gone up from 10.8 to 11.7 times.

India-born Vikram Pandit is Citigroup’s new CEO: India-born Vikram Pandit has been appointed the Chief Executive Officer of Citigroup, the world’s largest financial services organisation, with immediate effect.

Rise of Indo-US execs reflects a Rising India: The ascension of Indian-born leaders like Vikram Pandit, the new CEO of Citigroup Inc., tracks the economic rise of their home country, once seen by US business as a large market and a source of low-cost technology workers, now viewed as a business power that rivals the US in some industries.

Lancaster University honours Infosys chairman: Infosys Chairman Narayana Murthy has been conferred with an honorary Doctorate degree- a Doctor of Science – by Lancaster University in recognition of his lasting contribution to the fields of business and business education.

New generation of cars to be launched in India: A global consortium of top students, professors and experts in various engineering fields plan to use the rapidly growing Indian automotive market as a launch pad for a new generation of cars that could revolutionize the international automobile industry.

We will be better than US: A new nine-nation opinion poll has found that an increasing number of Indians believe their nation will be a major global power by 2020, trumping even the US.

GE puts India on centre stage: GE has drawn up plans to make India a global sourcing hub for all its core businesses and has decided to develop and manufacture products locally for global markets and partner in large-scale projects in areas such as energy, water, aviation and rail transport.

Gulf Finance to invest $10 bn in Panvel SEZ: Bahrain-based Islamic investment bank Gulf Finance House (GFH) has signed an agreement with the Maharashtra government to set up a $10 billion (Rs 40,000 crore) special economic zone (SEZ) in five years.

Reliance plans $24 bn investments in petrochemicals: Reliance Industries has planned to spend $24 billion (Rs94,500 crore) over the next ten years to set up petrochemicals projects in the Middle East.

Nanotechnology-the new frontier for Indian IT power: India is hoping nanotechnology could provide a new thrust to its booming economy and to become a world leader in a market expected to be worth one-trillion dollars by 2015.

Wipro wins award for best software testing tool: IT major Wipro Technologies has won the best practice award for software testing, set up by the US-based International Institute for Software Testing (IIST). Wipro is the largest third-party offshore testing service provider worldwide and has also set-up the first wireless fidelity (Wi-Fi) pre-certification and certification lab at its Bangalore campus.Wipro focuses to system integration biz: Wipro Ltd, India’s third largest software services company, is looking to earn nearly one-sixth of its global IT revenues by March 2009 from system integration (SI) business, or by providing hardware, software solutions and services.

285 US dealers sign up to sell Scorpio: 285 US dealers have signed up to sell the vehicle and are investing $178 million in setting up sales and service outlets.

Daimler, Munjals to tie up for CVs: German automaker Daimler Trucks has zeroed in on the Munjals of Hero Honda for a joint venture to make commercial vehicles in India. Volvo, Eicher set up CV venture: Sweden-based Volvo AB and Delhi-based Eicher Motors announced a joint venture in India, the fifth biggest commercial vehicles market in the world, which will take on leaders Tata Motors and Ashok Leyland by selling the full range.

3 Indian cos bid for Singapore power giant: Three domestic power companies – Reliance Energy, Tata Power and GMR Infrastructure – have submitted indicative bids to acquire Singapore-government owned Tuas Power that has a capacity of 2,670 Mw and accounts for 26.1 per cent of Singapore’s electricity generation.

Maruti to invest Rs 1,750-3,500 cr for R&D: Maruti Suzuki India will put up a research and development (R&D) facility in India at an investment of between 50-100 billion yen (Rs 1,750-3,500 crore) over the next three to five years on the lines of Suzuki’s R&D facility in Japan, in which there would be facilities for test drives among other things..Suzuki’s next global car to drive out from India: After identifying India as a global export hub, Japanese auto major Suzuki Motor Co is planning to roll out its next ‘world car´ from the country. According to sources, the car that is being targeted at the European market will be rolled from Maruti Suzuki India’s (MSI) facility at Manesar.

Manufacturing drives IIP up: According to the Index of Industrial Production (IIP) data released by the Government on Wednesday, the manufacturing sector saw an impressive growth rate of 13.3 per cent during the month as against 3.8 per cent during October 2006.

India whizzes past China in ‘creativity’ alley: India has whizzed past China in the “creativity” alley, with the country occupying 15th position on the list of nations with most advertising awards as against the world’s most populous nation’s 19th rank. While India got 39 advertising awards, China received 18.

IT firms increase academia interaction: Tata Consultancy Services, the country’s biggest software exporter, as well as Infosys Technologies, Satyam Computer and HCL are among the companies that are either already working with engineering colleges or are planning to collaborate with the academia to churn out professionals with the right skills.

US market better money-spinner for Indian cos: For the 11 Indian companies listed in both US and Indian bourses, the market capitalization gain on US bourses was more than $1 billion higher than that on the domestic bourses here over the past week.

M&A deal sizes to touch $80-billion: The spurt in mergers and acquisitions (M&A) activity being witnessed since the last couple of years, involving Indian companies, is expected to touch a combined deal size of $100 billion next year.

LSI plans to up R&D from India: US-based LSI Corporation, a silicon-to-systems provider, plans to enhance the research and development activities at its Indian R&D centres in Bangalore and Pune.

India tops in providing education loans: India occupied first place in the world in providing education loans, benefiting one million students till September this year, according to Union Finance Minister P Chidambaram.

India emerges Top 3 economy in the world: With an estimated intangible assets component of 74% (as proportion of TEV), India is just behind US (75%) and Switzerland (74%), according to Global Intangible Tracker 2007 (GIT), the most extensive global study ever on intangibles assets by the London-based Brand Finance Institute.

Mkt sees Sensex touching 25K-mark in 2 years: Market players feel the stock market would remain bullish and the BSE Sensex may top the 25,000-mark in the next two years, according to a survey conducted by Industry body FICCI.

India no.2 in AT Kearney FDI confidence index: India retains second place in the Index, a position it has held since displacing the United States in 2005. China and India continue to rank first and second in the 2007 Foreign Direct Investment Confidence Index, a regular survey of global executives conducted by management consulting firm AT Kearney.

Rs 1-lakh Tata car trendsetter: BusinessWeek: It is turning out to be a dream year for Indian conglomerate Tatas — BusinessWeek has termed its Rs one-lakh car as one of the trendsetters of 2007, while naming Ratan Tata among the world’s Most Important People of the year.

IBM sees India as its global hub: Betting big on India advantage, one of the world’s biggest IT Companies IBM has said that the country would become a hub of global delivery for the company, providing research software besides contributing significantly to its revenue.

Mico integrates Indian subsidiaries with global biz: Most of Mico plants in India will now be global hubs or lead plants for some of the products they make. The Jaipur plant of Mico which manufactures about 5 lakh units of distributor pumps every year will now be the lead plant for this product globally. For injectors, the Nashik plant will be the lead plant.

Nalco to invest Rs30,000 cr in Indonesia: State-run National Aluminium Company (Nalco) plans to invest Rs30,000 crore over the next five years to build a five lakh tonne smelter and a 1,500 MW captive coal-fired power plant in Indonesia to expand its overseas business.

Computer software exports increases by 29%: The total export of computer software and services during 2006-07 has gone up by 29.4 per cent at $11.26 billion, according to the estimates made by the Electronics and Computer Software Export Promotion Council (ESC).

ITC readies hi-tech supply solutions for paan shops: ITC is working on developing an application that will allow the owners of the small shops that typically sell cigarettes and confectionery, the so-called paan and kirana stores, to place orders through mobile phones.

B`lore evolving gen-next in-car audio systems: An i-pod that can interface with the car audio and a music system that can play songs through voice command are just some of the products being developed at the chip level in the city by global corporations

BioSpectrum product award goes to Biocon: Bangalore-based Biocon’s BIOMAb EGFR, a therapeutic monoclonal antibody-based drug for treating solid tumours of epithelial origin, has bagged BioSpectrum’s product of the year award. It is for treats cancers of the head and neck.

Satyam Computer opens centre of excellence in Japan: Satyam Computer Services has opened a centre of excellence in Japan, code-named Kanzen, to strengthen its presence in that country significantly.

Grover and Associates wins US award: Karan Grover and Associates (KGA) has been awarded the US Green Building Council’s Platinum Award for creating one of the world’s “greenest” interiors in the ABN Amro Bank branch at Ahmedabad. Vadodara-based KGA is the first architect firm in the world outside the United States to bag this award.

India retains top offshoring slot: Gartner India continues to be the undisputed leader in offshore services owing to government support, English language capabilities and low cost of doing business. India accounts for about 65-70 per cent of the global offshoring pie.

Posted in economy | Leave a comment

Terrorism: Ratan Tata vs. P Chidambaram

Posted on December 17, 2008 by indra

As reported in Times of India, Ratan Tata, chairman of Tata Sons announced to set up his own anti-terror mechanism: “We will now look at anti-terrorism or protection of our assets and our people ourselves and we will try to create a deterrent.” Is Mr. Tata trying to take over the task that is the responsibility of the state and central governments through its various agencies? Will the government permit that? Did Mr. Tata express his plan after a careful thought or sufficient consultation? Will it be limited to making Tata’s establishments safer through technical inputs and designs? Will other private companies follow the Tata’s ideas? I wish the government sit with the private players including Tata to understand their views and their contributions in abating the terrorism.

It is interesting that Mr. Chidambaram has already expressed his views against anti-Naxalite group ‘Salwa Judum’ in Chhattisgarh, and said, “Law and order and law enforcement is the responsibility of the state government… we do not approve of non-state actors taking over the responsibility.”

Under the shadow of Mumbai menace, the new home minister has already got two new bills on a separate agency and tighter anti-terror law through the parliament to fight terrorism almost unanimously. After many years such unanimity has been seen. However, is it not surprising that the proposer of the bill against terrorists have carefully avoided the word ‘terrorist in naming the bill? It is named the Unlawful Activities (Prevention) Act (UAPA) unlike POTA. The new bill has a signature of UPA. I don’t know if it has come because of the Lalu and Rambilash, or it reflects the way Congress works.

I don’t know how far the bills will deter the terrorists. But it is certainly going to improve the image of the government that has started working overtime in top gear after Chidambaram took over of the home ministry.

I wish the government considers Mr. Tata’s idea as complimentary to the government actions and responsibility. If the government can use the resources of private sectors to successfully solve this global menace, it will be an unique model for the world to follow.

Posted in Uncategorized | Leave a comment

Great Indian Middle Class

Posted on December 16, 2008 by indra

The great Indian middle class has been a hot topic. An article in the latest ‘McKinsey Quarterly’ offers the following projections about the great middle class in India. It is certainly exciting.

 Over the next 20 years, India will likely grow to become the world’s fifth-largest consumer economy, up from 12th now.

 If India can achieve 7.3 percent annual growth – a reasonable assumption – consumer spending will quadruple, from about 17 trillion Indian rupees ($372 billion) in 2005 to 70 trillion rupees in 2025. The dramatic growth in India’s middle class, from 50 million to 583 million people, will power this surge.

 In 1985, 93% of the population lived on a household income of less than 90,000 rupees a year, or about a dollar per person per day; by 2005 that proportion had been cut nearly in half, to 54%. By the estimate, 431 million fewer Indians live in extreme poverty today than would have if poverty had remained stuck at the 1985 level. If India can achieve 7.3% annual growth over the next 20 years, 465 million more people will be spared a life of extreme deprivation.

 Contrary to popular perceptions, rural India has benefited from this growth: extreme rural poverty has declined from 94% in 1985 to 61% in 2005, and as per projection that it will drop to 26% by 2025.

 The growth that has pulled millions of people out of poverty is also building a huge middle class that will be concentrated in India’s urban areas. In absolute terms the country’s urban population will expand significantly, from 318 million today to 523 million in 2025.

 Today 57 percent of private spending is spread across rural areas, but by 2025 cities will command 62 percent of the country’s spending power.

I personally feel that the definition of the middle class itself is flawed and data collection has its limitations in India. I see it all around. Even the shanties are having all the consumer goods that a middle class household dreamt of possessing earlier. Education has spread fast. Even those, whom I facilitated to get a menial job, could get their children educated well. Those young men are very nicely employed. And for all employed, owning a vehicle and a house is no more a big thing.

India is moving ahead at faster speed than the surveys and reports tell.

Germany based Deutsche Bank has recently come out a report, ‘India Property’. Data are revealing:

  The $48 billion-Indian real estate industry is projected to grow at a yearly growth rate of 21% compounded annually to $140 billion by 2012.

 Consumer spending on mobile telephony was as high as $18 billion compared to $5.3 billion on two-wheelers and $8.3 billion recorded by the top 4 fast moving consumer goods companies in 2006-07.

 The residential real estate market was $45 billion with $16 billion worth of net bank disbursals for mortgages in 2005-06.

 The savings rate has increased from 23% in GDP in 2000-01 to 32% in 2006-07. The deposits rate is expected to reach 40% by 2020.

 Indians accounted for 27% of global gold consumption in 2006, which went up to 39% in the quarter ending June 2007.

 Home ownership is over 90% in rural India. In urban India, home ownership has increased from less than 50% in 1970 to 70% in 2001.


Another area of boom is aviation. The Indian fleet that comprised 170 aircrafts in May 2006 is now almost twice with 312 units. With the scheduled additions this year, the number will rise to 370 by the year-end. And by the end of 2010, India’s fleet will reach approximately 500-550 aircrafts. And within the same period, the domestic market size will cross 60 million and international traffic 20 million. Aircraft manufacturer Airbus pegs India’s demand at 1100 aircraft, worth US $ 105 billion.

India and Indians, particularly the great Indian middle class, are flying high with aspirations growing exponentially. And this is with only 10% of application. It is difficult to dream the future of India.

Posted in economy | Leave a comment