India, along with other countries, has been a attracting attention in the west recently with respect to both outsourcing as well as long term global economic trends, and the issue seems to have attained a critical mass, with both the Beeb and McKinsey Quarterly doing specials simultaneously.

The Auntie is running special programming for "India Week" on BBC World TV channel as well as on the BBC News web pages and, as is wont, has an all round approach; with coverage from cultural and social angles, along with economic/governmental approaches. Of course, no serious journalistic thesis on India would be complete without pictures of overloaded mass transport, so there's some of that too! (And the logo manages to invoke agriculture, bindi, and the rising sun all at once :|)

The McKinsey Quarterly special edition: Fulfilling India's promise which has been in the hopper for a almost a couple of months, with articles coming online as they're ready, now seems to be complete. Most of the articles deal with specific facets of India's economic future: for instance energy needs, or potential as a manufacturing hub (both pay-to-read) or problems with the financial infrastructure (register-to-read); but there are a few qualitative articles with overarching themes. The ones I would specifically recommend for general consumption are the introduction to the special issue by Rajat Gupta, and Why Believe in India, as well as an engaging interview with the PM Dr. Manmohan Singh.

All in all, it looks like the pot has come to a boil. Hopefully the cooking will be worth the wait.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~

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Chalk up one more for the Tata's - now the owner of "more than 60,000 km of an under-sea fibre optic cable network, spanning three continents..."

Meanwhile, the US dollar continues its downward tumble [and is expected to continue for a while!]

The Incredibles is incredible, and Saw seems to be a rough draft of a good movie.

My blog becomes a collection of random links.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~ ~Money~

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Say a guy makes some changes in an IC engines so that they burns 20% less fuel, run cooler, and almost completely removes knocking and stalling, what do you think will be the response? Awards? Royalties? Admiration and recognition?

Not so for Somender Singh. Since May 2001, he's been trying to get some attention of the industry to his US patent, without much luck.

Here's a Popular Science article on Singh and his engine. [which I got to from this GoodNewsIndia page] [Incidentally, the whole August issue of PopSci is dedicated to the 'Future Car']

[At last call, it seems Tata Motors might be looking at this with some seriousness.]

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~ ~Science~ ~World~

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Editorial in Nature reviews the Indian election results and the chanllenges for the new government.

Quoting some of the interesting points:

• During [BJP's] rule, according to some estimates, 250,000 expatriates returned home, many of them scientists and engineers drawn into the booming biotechnology and information-technology sectors.


• The BJP government increased the amount that India spends on research and development from 0.6% of gross domestic product in 1999 to 1.1% today — and it claimed that this would rise to 2% by 2007. It also supported ambitious industrial ventures, including the beginnings of a civilian aircraft industry, the arrival of telemedicine in remote villages, and the expansion of higher education.


• Support for scientific research is likely to be largely maintained by the incoming government. The Congress Party's traditional rationalism will also be welcomed by many scientists, who may be glad to see the back of former BJP science minister Murli Manohar Joshi, who sought to persuade universities to teach astrology


• India also holds a pivotal position on the World Trade Organization's Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) agreement, which is supposed to harmonize patent rules. India is due to comply with TRIPS by January next year. But it will be interesting to see how the necessary legislation fares in the new parliament, given that Congress's supporters will be hurt by reforms that could undermine India's generic-drugs industry and increase the cost of healthcare.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~ ~World~

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Interesting lecture transcript [pdf] - "FUTURE FIRE: CHALLENGES FACING INDIAN DEFENSE POLICY IN THE NEW CENTURY"
Conclusion paragraph -

"Where does all this imply in terms of conclusions about India's capacity to develop the defense capabilities that would make it a great power in this century? My argument essentially would be that its capacity to master the creation, deployment and use of military instruments is still not assured at this point in time. Whether it will succeed in this endeavor will depend greatly on how it resolves the three macro (Economic growth rate, National Vision, Exploiting the existing international system [i.e. unipolar world]) and five micro (Neutralizing Internal Security threats, Preserve effective external defense, Provider of regional security, Effective and economical Nuclear detterent, Policy on indegenous/external Defense Industry) problems that I have identified.

India may not succeed in this endeavor for many reasons, the most important of which may be, in the final analysis, its lack of, in Sunil Khilnani's phrase, "an instinct for power." At one level, however, that may be what is most attractive about India: its innate tendency towards moderation and its reluctance to resort readily to the use of force to secure the political outcomes it desires. India still remains, in my judgment, a deeply conservative, relatively inward looking, state that has focused more on "satisficing" rather than "maximizing" military power. But that also implies that as far as military instruments go, India might be condemned to remaining a middle power for at least for some time to come, as opposed to becoming a true great power in the Kennedysque sense of the term. And if that be the case, then perhaps the "bridging strategies" that Sunil Khilnani spoke about may turn out to be even more important than the votaries of a strong Indian military capability might be willing to countenance today."

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~ ~World~
Edited on: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 5:11 PM
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The Konkan Railway project is certainly an anomaly in the usual Indian Goverment way of doing things. E Sreedharan, the man in charge himself tells us how superior management overcame the numerous ways of inducing delays, corruption and substandard work into a goverment project - including a war induced petroleum shortage!
While rather long, and a bit rambling, the lecture transcript is definitely worth a read when you have some time.

In Passing: Read the report 'Scientific Integrity in Policymaking: An Investigation into the Bush Administration's Misuse of Science' - by the Union of Concerned Scientists, signed by a bunch of eminent scientists, including ~20 Nobel Laureates.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~
Edited on: Tuesday, April 20, 2004 5:38 PM
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Check this out! We who came to US in August 2002 paid the absolute maximum price for our dollars, ever!
Price then ~ Rs. 49/$. Price now ~ Rs. 43/$. A difference of Rs 6000/1000 $!!! Argh!

Meanwhile, although I haven't read any analysis of the current strengthening of the rupee, I won't be surprised if is somebody's [illegal] way of making a lot of money.... The jump is rather anomalous in recent past....

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~ ~Money~ ~USA~
Edited on: Wednesday, April 14, 2004 1:28 PM
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Parts one - Charge of the Indian brigade, two - From socialist rags to competitive riches and three - Required: a new form of governance for a new economy of Arun Shourie's series on our 'Brave new Industry'. Worth a read...

In Passing: They are playing 'knock knock' jokes on board the ISS.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~ ~Money~
Edited on: Sunday, April 04, 2004 2:32 PM
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Why we should be more concerned about what's happening to his philosophy, than what's happening to his Medal. Highly recommended read.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~
Edited on: Thursday, April 01, 2004 1:40 PM
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After quite a time from being announced, the Simputer is finally here, now being called 'Amida Simputer' ["Amida is another name for Buddha, one of India's most original and profound thinkers. Amida literally means Infinite Light and Infinite Life. The name represents PicoPeta's vision in a deep sense; originality combined with universality and humanism...."].

Designed and marketed by PicoPeta [check this for brief info], and manufactured by BEL [frankly that's the first time I've heard BEL manufacturing anything, but that's not surprising, since they manufacture for the military, and probably ISRO... but I digress...], and IISc probably has had a hand in the development. [The coinventors of Simputer and founders of the Simputer Trust are/were IISc professors.]

First the Specs:

• 206 MHz Processor [amidasimputer.com doesn't seem to say which, but the older simputer.org says it's '[Intel's] 32-bit StrongARM SA-1100 RISC CPU running at 200MHz']
• GNU/Linux OS
• 32 MB built in memory, 64 MB RAM
• 2 USB [think chikki! LOL], 1 serial, 1 IR [!!!] ports
• 3.8", 240 X 360 pixels touchscreen - grayscale [16 shades] or color [64k], depending on how deep your pockets are...
• Battery life 6-8 hours
• A large number of bundled apps [including panchanga, presumably to figure out when is the auspicious time to hid the send button on your email... only in India....]
• Internet connectivity using either a landline or a CDMA mobile
• Standard accessories include, among others, smart cards, a chikki with unstated and variable [by model] storage capacity, and a faux leather or denim [!] pouch. There will no doubt be an aftermarket pouch industry soon. [Also, the Indian OSDN, and LUGs will probably come up with s/w to put on the Simputers, esp the barebones one (see below)]

For more tech write up, check this page [Encore Software, ncoretech.com], apparently from another manufacturer of the Simputer. They don't seem to have their model released yet... Encore are going to target only bulk markets, including in African countries! As an aside, you can manufacture Simputer too, if you pay the Simputer Trust a licensing fee of $25k. Read the Simputer GPL

Now the pricing:

• The cheapest model [Rs. 9950] is IMO, featureless - wrt hardware and software - but quite useful for when the government wants to equip all the panchayats with computers and email connectivity, and possibly organizations that want to have customized apps built on it.
• The next one [Rs. 12450] has everything else except for the 64 k color screen. The first two also have, for some reason, a chocolate brown shell, although it renders quite differently on my screen...
• And the ultimate Amida, [RS 19950!] with everything, but they couldn't afford a real [or faux] leather pouch, so it has a denim one instead...!

The website is informative, but leaves stuff unsaid [more detailed specs? detailed list of standard accessories by model? list of optional accessories?].

I will leave the musings on whether or not this will spark a technological revolution in India, whether or not it will work, what will be the reliability etc etc for a later date, or preferably, for other bloggers and /. [Yes, I do have SOME work sometimes... ;-)], but I do have some comments -

Considering the price [which is quite competitive globally]and usability, will it be used by teens trying to show off, and yuppies who want an expensive electronic organizer? Quite possibly. But grandfathers reading stories to grandkids, and housewives planning party expense? Not so fast Buster!

On the other hand, they do firmly state that it will not be used to make coffee. [Now, now, that kind of blustering is just going to invite all geeks to hack it FORCE it to make coffee! ;-)]

For more info, read the FAQs on amidasimputer.com [for mudbloods], and on simputer.org [for blueblooded geeks] ;-)

- Chinmay

Categories - ~GeekStuff~ ~India~
Edited on: Monday, March 29, 2004 5:26 PM
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	U.S.A.	India
Percent of world's population	5% (~270 million)	16% (~980 million)
Use of world's non-renewable resources	25%	3%
Creation of world's trash and pollution	25%	3%
Production / consumption of goods and services	21%	1%
Exports [Billions of USD]	687 [# 1]	44.5 [# 33]
Imports [Billions of USD]	1165 [# 1]	53.5 [# 25]

Source [Indiana University] [Statistics from ~ 1998]
Source for trade statistics [Indian - 2001, USA - 2002 est. ]- CIA Factbook.
Total world trade in 2002 - 6.6 trillion USD. So [Ex+Im/World] is 28% for US and 1.5% for India. Not sure that's the right way to calculate it though.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Environment~ ~India~ ~USA~ ~World~
Edited on: Tuesday, March 02, 2004 11:53 AM
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Extremely engaging Nature article on the search for our Last Universal Common Ancestor -
"...The ultimate goal is to arrive at a most defendable reconstruction in terms of a set of genes. This set will number about 600, Koonin estimates, based on what contemporary genomes tell us about the minimum number of genes needed by a self-sufficient organism. Once that set of genes is known, it might even be possible to create LUCA in a dish.
Building a microbe may seem outlandish, but just such a project is already under way. In 2002, human genome sequencer Craig Venter announced his plan to build an artificial cell with a minimal genome based on modern genes at his Institute for Biological Energy Alternatives in Rockville, Maryland. And last year, a team led by Steven Benner of the University of Florida, Gainesville, used phylogenetic analysis to resurrect a protein from an ancient bacterium that lived around a billion years ago...."

A Pelamis wave farm to go on real world trial later this year. - " a square kilometre wave farm would power up to 20,000 homes" - part of the Scottish initiative to generate 40% of the country's required energy from renewable resources by 2020

Miracle on South Block - "...Whatever is done in the future in regard to India’s international relations, the years 1998-2004 will surely be judged as the six years which witnessed real change in India’s strategy and India’s relationships around the world."

In Passing: It's official: Brits don't know f***

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Environment~ ~Fun~ ~India~ ~Science~
Edited on: Wednesday, February 25, 2004 11:48 AM
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The whole University of Pune campus is set to go on Wi-Fi!
Just a few days ago, there was the report about UoP digitizing all the results - starting from those way back like in '53 or something... and now this!
Things are moving fast... although I wonder how many UoP students/profs have Wi-Fi enabled laptops/handhelds. Heck, I haven't yet bought a 802 card.... and there's gigahertz radiation all around me.. even at home!

- Chinmay

Categories - ~GeekStuff~ ~India~
Edited on: Sunday, February 15, 2004 7:35 PM
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Preity Zinta, Ahmed Rashid, Kaushik Basu and Rohit Brijnath talk about matters south asian, on BBC.

Morgan Spurlock offers himself as a human guinea pig in 'Supersize Me' - a documentary about McDonalds, that wins him best director at the '04 Sundance.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~ ~World~

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Apparently, now I'm firmly on the SLR path now, having won a Nikon 50mm f/1.8 AIS for 51precious dollars! Also bidding on a couple of other lenses, and maybe an FM3A itself...
So much for the 256 mb CF II card I bought a while back... I guess I'll buy a reader/writer and use it as a USB flash drive now...

In Passing: an egaging interview with Strobe Talbot

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~ ~Photo~ ~World~

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Maybe you've heard about his before... The National Innovation Foundation is a CSIR related organization - chaired by Dr. Mashelkar - that aims to "help India become an inventive and creative society and a global leader in sustainable technologies" "The Department of Science and Technology help establish the National Innovation Foundation (NIF) of India, on March 1 2000, with the main goal of providing institutional support in scouting, spawning, sustaining and scaling up grassroots green innovations and helping their transition to self supporting activities." A related organization that has been around for about ten years [mainly in Gujrat, I think..] is SRISTI with their Honeybee Network and even an Innovations Database.

I'd say this is one of the most important things going on in India right now...

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~ ~Science~

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See what the 'secular alliance' is saying - "Speaking to the press after holding a meeting of PCC chiefs and state CLP leaders, Sonia Gandhi said the Congress was ready to have a common minimum programme (CMP) ‘‘if necessary’’ but it was not on the agenda right now. ‘‘Agar alliance banayenge, to zaroor hogi, par abhi nahin’’ she said in reply to a question.Speaking to The Indian Express, CPI(M) general secretary Harkishan Singh Surjeet criticised talks of a CMP at this juncture. ‘‘The stage for that has not yet come. That question will rise only after the elections. Earlier also, we never went for a pre-poll programme.’’"

How can they even think of fighting an election without declaring a commonn program???

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~

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Two articles in NYTimes:
The latest one: India's Political Women: Progress or Window Dressing? - a frank view of role of women in Indian politics, although the RSS is bashed for being male chauvanistic. Don't know what RSS actually says, but the writer holds that "The Hindu nationalist movement ... holds largely traditional views about the role of women." and the author of "The Hindu Nationalist Movement in India.", Christophe Jaffrelot is quoted saying "Woman is first of all mother" for the Hindu nationalist movement.

The older one,- Hindu Nationalists Are Enrolling, and Enlisting, India's Poor - archived on a site for Islam Awareness [haven't read much of it, but seems like they're projecting Islam to be a benevolent relegion]. This one is really ranting, more or less, about RSS organisations taking in poor kids and kids from tribal areas into schools that have a RSS viewpoint on everything. RSS and the people involved in it are frequently described to be fascist, militant, crusaders, and having missionary's zeal! :LOL: The tone of the article is as if to say that they are doing some great injustice - esp. by taking young impressionable minds and 'educating' them to suite their purpose

So when Christian charities and missionaries do the same thing, it's delivering the message of the Lord [no, not Lord Kelvin ;-)], and saving pagan souls [I doubt they use those phrases publically anymore!] but when people of other religions/nationalities do it, that's injustice? Interesting...

If on the other hand, if you watch TV in US, [and also the president invoking god in each and every speech!] you would think that most Americans are religious fanatics! And you would probably be right. A recent article in NYTimes featured poll results which said that more than 60% of the people in US said religion was "very important" in their lives, as opposed to only 30% in Europe.

God Bless America! :LOL:

And one on BBC:
New directions? - Mark Tully asks if India's era of Hindu nationalism is over. - This one is pretty good. Compares the BJP and Cong campaigns, and wonders whether Indian politics and governance is changing..... I wonder too!

UPDATE:
I'd pointed to the State of the Planet series in the previous post, but I'd like to specifically point to a component of it - The Tragedy of the Commons - "It is our considered professional judgment that this dilemma has no technical solution." During the cold war, this was the conclusion about the arms race. This article transfers that to the debate over the right to use resources i.e. freedom to do as you please vs. survival of the species and planet as a whole. Long and scholarly [as opposed to simplistic] and highly recommended reading.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~ ~World~
Edited on: Thursday, December 04, 2003 4:29 PM
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With the Sula Vineyards producing five lakh bottles a year, and Chateau Indage producing three million litres, one of my major concerns about going back to India seems to be alleviated ! ;-) Check the news here.

The future is litered with wine?!?

Update:
A Wine Spectator article gives a pretty good review to Samant's efforts, although it does not expressly taste the wines! Incidentally, I got four issues of Wine Spectator last semester, for free!

Do I drink so much wine that everybody knows? ;-)

- Chinmay

Categories - ~Fun~ ~India~ ~Money~
Edited on: Monday, December 01, 2003 4:15 PM
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That the most serious roadblocks on the Golden Quadrilateral are in Bihar and Jharkhand was underlined once again when a senior engineer of the National Highways Authority of India (NHAI) who had complained against allegedly corrupt contractors was shot dead by unidentified assailants early this morning at Gaya.

Read the news here and here.

Poll: Is arming yourself with guns a solution against such attack?

Found this website advocating the right to bear arms. Yesteday, I would have said YES for complete gun control. Not so sure anymore.

- Chinmay

Categories - ~India~
Edited on: Sunday, November 30, 2003 2:27 PM
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