Big Mission: 10,000 Start-Ups In Next 10 Years

 The National Association of Software & Services (Nasscom) today announced a plan aimed at incubating, funding and supporting 10,000 technology start-ups in India over the next ten years.

Mr Som Mittal, President Nasscom, said, “10,000 Start-ups aims to catalyse the technology start-up ecosystem by 5X and create a significant national impact on employment, GDP, innovation and entrepreneurship indices. This is one of the largest initiatives that Nasscom is undertaking and will be vital to realise the industry vision of $300 billion by 2020.”

Among the attendees at the launch were Rajan Anandan, MD Google India, Saurabh Srivastava, Founder of Indian Angel Network, Bhaskar Pramanik, Chairman Microsoft India and Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman Google Inc.

Schmidt had a few tips for entrepreneurs.

“Focus on recruiting. The first set of people you hire are those that set the culture. Having the right technical people matters a lot,” Schmidt said, adding, “The world is a much bigger place than you think of it. Most people underestimate what they are working on. As a start-up you can change the world.”

He also said finding the right partner to start a business is very difficult, but very essential for the growth of a company. “If you can find yourself a partner who is so embedded with you in business and you live and die with them in arguments – understanding you are alive. That is amazing,” Schmidt said.

The program plans to incubate and fund 10,000 technology start-ups facilitating a tenfold growth in them to $15 billion firms and will focus on multifold activities aimed at fostering entrepreneurship, building entrepreneurial capabilities at scale and providing robust early stage support through incubation, mentorship and angel funding.

Start-ups can benefit by receiving early stage funding between Rs 5 lakhs and Rs 2 crore, with three to four months of incubation and acceleration help, a start-up kit which will consist of technology and business tools worth $25,000. Most of all, the start-ups will benefit by striking connections to technology mentors, leaders and venture capitalists.

Nasscom has said it will focus on three key areas to achieve its goal:

1) Evangelise and create awareness about technology entrepreneurship as a preferred career option. India has an organised workforce of 30 million of which 3 million are IT professionals.

2) Engage with aspiring entrepreneurs through digital/social channels and start-up support groups to create entrepreneurial capability. The programme will see over 7,000 start-up events like hackathons, investor roadshows and best practices workshops being held across 30 cities. Tech talks and discussions will help entrepreneurs identify global technology trends and needs.

3) Incubate and facilitate funding of 10,000 start-ups through partnerships, extend support to incubators/funding partners in the form of industry connects and co-working infrastructure and a start-up kit consisting of hosting credits and other technology and business tools valued over $25,000.

“With over 150 million internet users and growing, the internet in India presents enormous opportunities for innovation and entrepreneurship. At Google we are very excited about the possibilities that India represents and are committed to extend all the support to make this initiative a roaring success,” Rajan Anandan, VP and Managing Director, Google India said. “We will work very closely with Nasscom and all the players in the ecosystem to boost the technology innovation rate in India,” he added.

Some of Nasscom’s partners in the program are the Indian Angel Network, Google, Microsoft and Verisign.

http://newshyd.blogspot.in/2013/03/inn-advertising-tarrif.html

Reevaluation of India’s Nuclear Program

By Mukesh Williams

The paper concerns the reasons for India going nuclear, the development of its nuclear program and its rationale for its not signing the NPT and CTBT in spite of advocating a non-violent foreign policy. The early stages of India’s nuclear program were prompted by a perceived threat of China and later of Pakistan. The success of the program was a combination of three factors namely, a skilled organizational workforce, scientific leadership and political endorsement. In this the contributions of the IAEC, Homi Bhabha and the late Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru played a significant role.

India’s accelerated nuclear development in the 1960s and 1970s was again prompted by the nuclear ascendancy of China and its unilateral support to Pakistan as a buffer zone. India took advantage of the positive connotations of nuclear technology in mid-twentieth century and developed a thermal reactor thereby initiating a nuclear program that would evolve into the nuclear explosive project. The explosion of a nuclear device by China in 1964 initiated a debate in the Indian media and political circles on the efficacy of developing a nuclear military technology and the negative impact on its fragile economy. While the Congress Party believed in international diplomacy to contain the hegemonic intentions of China, the BJP and the Praja Socialist Party argued for developing a military nuclear option. It was believed that the military nuclearization of India would not contradict the pacifist goals of Gandhian ideals that had infused its foreign policy. On the contrary the theory of deterrence would protect the sovereignty of India thereby making the ethical compromise pragmatic and viable.

The secretive development of the nuclear program under Indira Gandhi and Homi Sethna culminated in the explosion of PNE at Pokhran in 1974 and made Indian foreign policy more assertive. The changed geo-political reality of the 1980s in the wake of Soviet invasion of Afghanistan pushed the United States closer towards Pakistan making Pakistan an American ally to combat the threat of growing Soviet communism in the region. With a supportive America, Pakistan took the Chinese help in developing its own nuclear program aimed at containing India. Perceiving a new nexus between Pakistan and China, India began to develop its own missile technology. In 1996 the CTBT once again reiterated a time bound framework for universal nuclear disarmament placing yet a new pressure on India to contain its nuclear program. Sensing the closing of the nuclear window India conducted five nuclear explosions at Pokhran to bolster its image aboard and then place a moratorium on nuclear tests. In the wake of these explosions there were worldwide condemnations and the US, European powers and its allies like Japan placed economic sanctions on India.

India however continued to develop both economically and technologically in subsequent decades and began to be perceived as a responsible nuclear nation and a western ally in its fight against terrorism. In 2006 the US signed a treaty with India initiating a civilian nuclear transfer of technology beneficial to both countries. Both the European and Japanese perceptions about India’s nuclear program has changed from political belligerence to economic advantage. India has always argued that the development of dual-purpose nuclear technology would offer a cheap and effective resource to resolve economic and social problems but this is debatable.

In a world wrought by extremely divisive forces, nations with advanced nuclear and missile technologies act as deterrence to state-sponsored violence and keep a check on the hegemonic ambitions of non-nuclear nations. Today, it is not only enough to possess nuclear weapons but also a sophisticated delivery system in the form of intercontinental ballistic missiles to be taken seriously by other nations. In its February 14, 2009 issue The Times of India reported that India would test-fire ICBMs in 2010. By this date it would also acquire a submarine launched ballistic missile technology (SLBM), and develop a ballistic missile defense system (BMD) in order to offset its military disadvantage and come closer to the exclusive club of nuclear nations formed by America, Russia and China. In the light of these new developments it is important to analyze the causes and motives that forced India to go nuclear about four decades ago in spite of espousing a non-violent foreign policy.

Early Stages of India’s Nuclear Program: India’s nuclear program began in the late 1940s when India gained independence from Britain after over 150 years of protracted colonial rule. The memory of American bombings of Hiroshima and Nagasaki was fresh in the minds of Indian leaders and the public, who felt the need to develop an indigenous nuclear technology and military superiority to prevent future colonization or hegemony by any other ambitious nation. India began to see the U. S. model of using nuclear technology for producing both domestic energy and providing military defense as an ideal for its geographical and political situation. At the same time India never lost sight of developing nuclear technology indigenously—whether it was related to the mining and enrichment of uranium and reprocessing spent fuel or the development of cryogenic engines and supercomputers.

The beginning and success of India’s nuclear program was a rich combination of perceived military threats and able political and scientific leadership to address these threats. India’s nuclear program, beginning in the 1960s and developing in the 1970s, was a direct outcome of perceived security threats from China and Pakistan. The success of the program owes in large measure to the dedicated efforts of the Indian Atomic Energy Commission, its chairman Homi Jehangir Bhabha and the late Indian prime minister Jawaharlal Nehru. Together they provided the impetus for a skilled workforce, a sophisticated infrastructure and nuclear R&D to create a formidable nuclear defense plan for India that would become the envy of many nations. The first one-megawatt thermal reactor in India named Apsara went critical on August 4, 1956 paving the way for the development of its dual-purpose nuclear technology.

In the early 1950s atomic R&D was viewed in the world as a positive contribution by nations towards resolving their economic and social problems. The development of atomic energy did not have the negative connotations of ‘nuclear proliferation,’ ‘mass destruction’ or ‘global threat’ as it has today. India took advantage of this favorable international climate and used the expertise of nuclear nations like France, United Kingdom, Canada and the United States to build its own nuclear technology. Of all these nations, Canada was instrumental in helping India construct its nuclear program in the initial stages. Briefly, the initial two decades, that is the 1950s and 1960s, were basically developmental in nature as they provided India with the nuclear expertise to expand its infrastructure and nuclear agenda into what Lal Bahadur Shastri termed “the nuclear explosive” project.

The Nuclear Debate: From 1947 to 1964 India continued to develop its civilian nuclear infrastructure keeping the military option open. But when in 1964 China exploded a nuclear device, the act initiated a grand debate about the security needs of India based on its nuclear threat perception of China and Russia. India always saw communist China as a friend and often raised the highly emotional slogan Hindi-Chini Bhai Bhai, or Indians-Chinese Brothers, Brothers. India never anticipated that a border dispute with China would soon turn into a full blown conflict. In 1962 India fought a contentious border war with China and lost about 50,000 square miles of territory to it. The Sino-Indian conflict revealed the abysmally poor defense system India possessed. The conflict shattered the belief that a communist country would never threaten the sovereignty of India. However, this perceived and real threat from China did not push India into a nuclear arms race with China. India still feared the debilitating effect of a costly nuclear development on its fragile economy.

The Congress government wisely realized that, at the present moment, to pursue international diplomacy in order to contain the hegemonic intentions of China would be more suited to India’s needs. The opposition parties did not share the government’s view. Both the Hindu nationalist party, the Bharatiya Jana Sangh and the socialist party, The Praja Socialist Party, demanded the nation to develop a nuclear military option to combat the growing hegemonic intentions of both China and Russia. The intellectual elites, the media and the political parties in India began to debate the pros and cons of a robust nuclear policy.

The Indian newspapers saw the Chinese nuclear policy as a “new menace” to the world that directly affected India, its next door neighbor. Some pacifists argued that India must not develop its own nuclear weapon technology but instead seek nuclear protection from the US. Though the United States president assured India of American help in the eventuality of a nuclear attack, the US government was unwilling to make a firm commitment. The lack of a clear assurance from the US made Indian leaders feel that in case of an emergency, or a scenario where Russia and China joined hands against India, American help may not be forthcoming. India always considered verbal assurances somewhat unreliable in international diplomacy, and rightly so. The US government on the other hand was unwilling to make a firm commitment to India or sign a treaty. Given the state of affairs it was felt that an independent nuclear program would not only free India from depending on the US or Russia, but also bestow prestige on the country for its scientific prowess.

The Ethical Imperative: The Indian debate on “going nuclear” was fervently discussed under many sub-themes including necessity and cost, but the most significant sub-theme was the ethical imperative. It was felt that the nuclear program would run contrary to the general non-violent ideals propounded by Mahatma Gandhi and the pacifist principles of Panchsheel enshrined in the Indian foreign policy. Obviously the pragmatists disagreed. They argued that the threat posed by five nuclear nations to the security of India was far greater than the ethical compromise. They further argued that the theory of deterrence need not contradict the moral basis of nonviolence, but in fact lend credence to it. Since China posed a long-term threat to the security of India, China continued to shape Indian foreign policy vis-à-vis nuclear disarmament and sanctions. It was felt that even if China did not use the bomb on India, it would threaten to use the nuclear option to blackmail and coerce India. Therefore many intellectual elites felt that strengthening nuclear security at high cost was a far greater priority for the government than just worrying about fiscal development.

Soon the pragmatists were able to win over the moralists and the idealists in their campaign to develop a nuclear option. Both the ruling and opposition parties began to feel the need for developing military nuclear infrastructure. Even from within the Congress Party pressure began to mount on the government to produce its own “atom bomb.” The New Delhi Pradesh Congress President Mustaq Ahmed voiced this concern by suggesting that the time was right for India to develop its own nuclear infrastructure. In November 1964 the Jana Sangh tabled a motion in the Lok Sabha urging the Indian government to produce nuclear weapons. Mr. Lal Bahadur Shastri who until now was opposed to the idea of a nuclear program, began to be convinced that India should go nuclear. He modified Jana Sangh’s motion by suggesting that India should develop “peaceful nuclear explosives” in the near future. This paved the way for an underground nuclear test called the Subterranean Nuclear Explosion Project.

Response to Pakistan and China: The conflict with Pakistan also helped India to think more positively about its nuclear program. In 1965 India and Pakistan fought a bloody war to resolve the territorial dispute in Kashmir. In this conflict China supported Pakistan creating a sense of crisis in India. China threatened India with grave consequences if it proceeded with military action against Pakistan. It is during this period that India’s nonviolent idealism gave way to a pragmatic defense policy that included the nuclear option. The political history of the 1960s in India amply demonstrates this conclusion.

Though initially Indira Gandhi pursued a non-nuclear policy, the thermonuclear test by China on May 9, 1966 and the nuclear missile test on October 27, 1966 convinced her in favor of developing a nuclear explosive technology. Also the Nuclear Non-proliferation Treaty was increasingly considered detrimental to the security interests of India, as it did not attempt to contain the Chinese problem. On the contrary it went on to legalize China’s nuclear status. India therefore refused to sign the NPT in 1968. A survey in 1972 demonstrated that 68.9 percent of Indians were not in favor of the NPT.

India always perceived China’s nuclear and rocket technology as a threat to its security. On April 24, 1970 China tested a rocket carrying a satellite in orbit. This once again raised India’s anxiety to a new level. In response to the Chinese threat, IAEC chairman, Vikram Sarabhai initiated a 10-year nuclear space program called the Sarabhai Profile that would develop a missile delivery system for both civilian and military purposes.

The Difficult 1970s and Pokhran I: In the midst of political and technological impasse, India began to inch forward towards a nuclear option. Though the political crisis in the 1970s was obvious, the technological crisis was less obtrusive. The Americans had refused to transfer the technology of super computers and the Russians were coerced by Americans to deny cryogenic engines to India. Denied help from both the superpowers India turned swadeshi. In less than four years it was able to produce the supercomputer named Param and develop its own brand of cryogenic engine. In 1974 India conducted its first peaceful nuclear explosion or PNE at Pokhran, nicknamed “Buddha Smile,” under the leadership of Indira Gandhi and Homi Sethna, a test that was conceived much earlier by Dr. Raja Ramanna. Though India vehemently denied that the test was a precursor to the development of a formidable nuclear arsenal, the test did two things: firstly it strengthened India’s nuclear option and secondly it opened the way for the development of nuclear weapons. It can be argued that India’s increasing assertiveness in foreign policy ran at tandem with its nuclear strength. The nuclear testing at Pokhran created a quick reaction and condemnation from countries like Pakistan, United States and Canada for various reasons. Pakistan felt threatened. The United States became concerned of a regional instability in the subcontinent and Canada felt betrayed as the plutonium came from the Canadian CIRUS reactor. However, most Indians were fully supportive of the nuclear development.

The New Political Reality of the 1980s: The early 1980s saw a new realignment of superpower interests in the South Asian subcontinent. We must remember that this is the period of a Cold War between the two superpowers, the United States and the Soviet Union. The American reaction to the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979 pushed US interests closer towards Pakistan. The US needed Pakistan to prevent Soviet hegemony in the region and expansion in the west. It also needed Pakistan to buttress anti-Soviet resistance in Afghanistan. The US tilt towards Pakistan reopened American military aid in the form of financial assistance and supply of F16s to Pakistan. India began to see a new threat from the growing alliance between the US and Pakistan and between Pakistan and China. Furthermore India became deeply concerned when it saw that China was directly helping Pakistan at Kahuta and PINSTECH in Rawalpindi to build its nuclear and missile technology. At one point India even contemplated surgical and preemptive strikes at these two locations.

As a reaction to the new political realignment in the subcontinent in 1983 India initiated the Integrated Guided Missile Development Programme (IGMDP) under the direct supervision of the Defense Research and Development Organization (DRDO). The IGMDP allowed India to integrate its anti-tank, surface-to-air and surface-to-surface technologies in the development of its nuclear missile program. In 1984 Pakistan’s Abdul Qadeer Khan’s comment that his country possessed the capability to produce weapon-grade uranium, accelerated India’s own nuclear program. When in 1985 Pakistan tested a triggering device for a nuclear explosion India’s threat perception of its neighbor was raised to a new height. Rajiv Gandhi was well aware of Pakistan’s nuclear ambition and its threat to India. Though he campaigned for global disarmament he did not abandon the nuclear option or the use of nuclear technology for civil use. By the early 1990s India had developed about two-dozen nuclear devices to be deployed at short notice.

Retreat of the Soviet Union: The end of the Cold War in 1991 restructured the global strategic balance. Apart from other geopolitical changes it also saw the breakup of the Soviet Union. The restructuring weakened the diplomatic support of the Soviet Union and supply of arms to India. From 1993-1995 China threatened India by deploying nuclear warheads in Tibet. China also assured Pakistan of helping it develop its nuclear and ballistic missile technologies. It is in this background that the Kashmir issue flared up. Pakistan began supporting insurgency in Muslim-dominated Kashmir and threatened India with the use of nuclear device if forced into a tight corner.

Besieged by China and Pakistan, depending on a weakened friend like the Soviet Union for support, and criticized by western powers for pursuing a nuclear program, India felt increasingly beleaguered. We must see some of the subsequent developments in the light of this situation. Though in October 1963 India had decided to join the Partial Test Ban Treaty it consistently refused to sign the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty (NPT) or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT) on moral grounds. As late as 1996, India voted against the UN General Assembly resolution endorsing CTBT on the grounds that the resolution lacked a “time-bound” framework for universal nuclear disarmament and a ban on laboratory simulations. However though India rejected the terms and conditions of the CTBT, major powers began using the provisions of the CTBT to put pressure on India to either join it or curtail its nuclear ambition. Since India had become a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) four of its nuclear reactors had to comply with the IAEA security safeguard standards. It became increasingly difficult for India to pursue a policy of nuclear ambiguity. India began to realize that like China, sooner or later, it had to accept the NPT and the CTBT. The rising power of China and its unequivocal support of Pakistan further exacerbated India’s anxieties. It is within these parameters that we must understand India’s movement towards Pokhran II.

Pokhran II: In early 1998 when the Hindu BJP came to power, it wanted to realize its election pledge of advancing India’s nuclear capability. In May 1998 it conducted five nuclear tests under the leadership of Atal Behari Vajpayee. It is argued that these tests were part of the party’s strategy to bolster its image both at home and abroad. Subsequent events revealed that this argument was not completely sustainable. Within a few months of Pokhran II the BJP lost elections in three major states of India, namely Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi. However it must be remembered that in 1995 the Congress Party under Narshima Rao also wanted to test a nuclear devise but backed out under US pressure. It can be said that the pressure of the CTBT became a diplomatic barrier that India had to either break or succumb to. India chose to take a bold stand and conduct its nuclear tests.

Over the years US sanctions against India have been lifted and European and Japanese acrimony has also evaporated. In 2006 India and the US signed a civilian nuclear transfer of technology which was considered mutually beneficial. This has to do with a growing recognition in the west that India is not only a responsible nation using nuclear technology for peaceful purposes, but also a strong international ally in fighting terrorism.

Conclusion: Though the development of the nuclear program has directly addressed India’s anxieties regarding its neighbors, it is debatable whether nuclear technology for civilian use is beneficial in the long run. It is widely believed that nuclear energy would provide sustainable and cheap electricity to India in the coming years. However many scientists argue that this hope may be belied as it has been in other countries pursuing the same goal. Nuclear technology has never proved to be a major generator of electricity. On the contrary the dangers it poses to the environment are far greater than its benefits. Though the deployment of nuclear weapons is directly under the control and command of the prime minister of India, the threat of nuclear weapons from countries like China and Pakistan to the people of the Indian subcontinent cannot be ignored. Even though India’s nuclear deterrence is enormous in the region it still calls for a serious discussion on the ways nuclear technology is utilized in future and the need for nuclear disarmament in the subcontinent.

Technology & tolerance: Tools to treasure

Diversity, and the freedom to espouse it, is necessary for organisations, and also for a technologically and economically resurgent India. It also embodies the very idea of India, says Kiran Karnik.

Many assert that we live in an age of technology. Undoubtedly, technology is a major driver of economies around the world, and is having an increasingly bigger impact in the socio-cultural sphere. Yet, this — by itself — is not new; after all, the economic importance of technology has been seen from the days primitive humans devised better weapons for hunting, and its socio-cultural role — through settlements resulting from agriculture, for example — has been important for centuries. What is different today is the speed at which technology is changing and progressing. It is the rate of change in technologies and the rapidity of its spread that is radically different from earlier eras.

We have seen in India the pace at which cable and satellite TV spread across all parts of the country and penetrated deeply into the socio-economic pyramid, as contrasted with the leisurely pace of conventional TV. Even more striking is the phenomenal story of mobile telephony, already — in just over a decade — the device is owned by more Indians than any other. The ubiquity of information and communication technologies, and continuing innovations in their applications, is bringing about radical shifts in mindsets as much as in economics. For example, connectivity has annihilated the concept of “remote”: today, with mobiles and internet linkages, the very definition of isolation has changed. With allowable exaggeration, one could say that geography is history, heralding the death of distance.

In a changing environment, organisms that do not evolve and adapt may not survive. This is as true of social structures as it is of biological entities: organisation and countries that do not adapt to the new environment of rapid technological change are likely to be endangered. What is required is not just a coping mechanism to weather on-going change, but proactive measures that enable one to take advantage of the situation.

For a number of reasons, India is wellpositioned to capitalise on this scenario, which requires the ability to adapt to change and a strong technological base. The first is potentially helped by demographics: the high proportion of young people in our population — for some decades to come — is a great advantage, given that the young are far more amenable to change. The second (the technology base) has been built over the last six decades and though it does need far more attention and resources, it is already of a magnitude to potentially be an initiator — and not just adapter — of new technologies.

India’s space and nuclear technology progammes — despite years of embargoes by the west — exemplify the country’s strong technological base. In recent years, this has been supplemented by growing capability in fields like information technology, bio-technology and automobile design. These provide a good foundation for understanding, predicting and handling the changes that result from technological advances. However, if we are to go beyond this and be an active participant in shaping change, there is need for a major thrust in S&T, through massive investments in R&D, science and engineering education and in mechanisms to encourage private investment and promote industry-academia-R&D interaction.

The superstructure, to stretch the metaphor, depends not only on the foundation, but also on the soil or the ambience within which it is embedded. In an era of fast — and, often, revolutionary — technological change, to be a leader requires that one has to think differently, to go beyond imitation or incremental change. Economic and strategic power will increasingly go to those who innovate, who create the breakthrough technologies. The days of seeking economic advantage by efficiently productising technology developed by others, are numbered because of the speed with which technologies become obsolete, as also the increasingly restrictive regimes, which often deny access to new technologies. Radical breakthroughs, on a sustainable and on-going basis, happen mainly when the socio-cultural milieu encourages divergent — even subversive — thinking.

A quick solution to India’s colossal problems of poverty, illiteracy, healthcare, social justice and economic equity, depends on its ability to devise and use new and innovative tools. Some of these will be technological, will others will be societal, organisational and fiscal. Such solutions — with the speed and scale warranted by the magnitude of the problems — will necessarily be radical deviations from the present, requiring many alternatives to be tried and an even larger number thought about. We need, therefore, to catalyse an explosion of radically new ideas. Such a flowering of creativity, in a number of different areas, can take place only in an ambience where divergent thinking is encouraged. The future of India depends upon this.

India, with its immense diversity in every sphere, and a vibrant democracy, is well placed to foster such creativity. Yet in recent times, we have seen attempts to stifle such openness. Recent incidents in Mumbai, Mangalore and elsewhere, have brought to the fore groups that seem determined to stamp out diversity. The issue is not just about “outsiders” or of women’s rights. The larger issue is that of diversity, of tolerance and a respect for the rights and freedom of others. While fringe groups have a right to their view, they must not be allowed to impose this on others through force or even threat, coercion and fear. It is the duty of the State to permit all citizens to live a life style of their choice and certainly to have and propagate any ideas, howsoever radical these may be, as long as they are within the bounds of the existing laws. Permitting lumpen groups, of whatever persuasion, to enforce their own version of laws and morality is a dereliction of duty by the State.

In an evolving society, many ideas and behaviours are manifest. We need, in our own collective interest, to permit all streams of ideas, however diverse or deviant, and not seek to stifle them or impose pre-determined ones. Such diversity, and the freedom to espouse it, is necessary for organisations, and also for a technologically and economically resurgent India; it also embodies the very idea of India.

Technology & tolerance: Tools to treasure

Diversity, and the freedom to espouse it, is necessary for organisations, and also for a technologically and economically resurgent India. It also embodies the very idea of India, says Kiran Karnik.

Many assert that we live in an age of technology. Undoubtedly, technology is a major driver of economies around the world, and is having an increasingly bigger impact in the socio-cultural sphere. Yet, this — by itself — is not new; after all, the economic importance of technology has been seen from the days primitive humans devised better weapons for hunting, and its socio-cultural role — through settlements resulting from agriculture, for example — has been important for centuries. What is different today is the speed at which technology is changing and progressing. It is the rate of change in technologies and the rapidity of its spread that is radically different from earlier eras.

We have seen in India the pace at which cable and satellite TV spread across all parts of the country and penetrated deeply into the socio-economic pyramid, as contrasted with the leisurely pace of conventional TV. Even more striking is the phenomenal story of mobile telephony, already — in just over a decade — the device is owned by more Indians than any other. The ubiquity of information and communication technologies, and continuing innovations in their applications, is bringing about radical shifts in mindsets as much as in economics. For example, connectivity has annihilated the concept of “remote”: today, with mobiles and internet linkages, the very definition of isolation has changed. With allowable exaggeration, one could say that geography is history, heralding the death of distance.

In a changing environment, organisms that do not evolve and adapt may not survive. This is as true of social structures as it is of biological entities: organisation and countries that do not adapt to the new environment of rapid technological change are likely to be endangered. What is required is not just a coping mechanism to weather on-going change, but proactive measures that enable one to take advantage of the situation.

For a number of reasons, India is wellpositioned to capitalise on this scenario, which requires the ability to adapt to change and a strong technological base. The first is potentially helped by demographics: the high proportion of young people in our population — for some decades to come — is a great advantage, given that the young are far more amenable to change. The second (the technology base) has been built over the last six decades and though it does need far more attention and resources, it is already of a magnitude to potentially be an initiator — and not just adapter — of new technologies.

India’s space and nuclear technology progammes — despite years of embargoes by the west — exemplify the country’s strong technological base. In recent years, this has been supplemented by growing capability in fields like information technology, bio-technology and automobile design. These provide a good foundation for understanding, predicting and handling the changes that result from technological advances. However, if we are to go beyond this and be an active participant in shaping change, there is need for a major thrust in S&T, through massive investments in R&D, science and engineering education and in mechanisms to encourage private investment and promote industry-academia-R&D interaction.

The superstructure, to stretch the metaphor, depends not only on the foundation, but also on the soil or the ambience within which it is embedded. In an era of fast — and, often, revolutionary — technological change, to be a leader requires that one has to think differently, to go beyond imitation or incremental change. Economic and strategic power will increasingly go to those who innovate, who create the breakthrough technologies. The days of seeking economic advantage by efficiently productising technology developed by others, are numbered because of the speed with which technologies become obsolete, as also the increasingly restrictive regimes, which often deny access to new technologies. Radical breakthroughs, on a sustainable and on-going basis, happen mainly when the socio-cultural milieu encourages divergent — even subversive — thinking.

A quick solution to India’s colossal problems of poverty, illiteracy, healthcare, social justice and economic equity, depends on its ability to devise and use new and innovative tools. Some of these will be technological, will others will be societal, organisational and fiscal. Such solutions — with the speed and scale warranted by the magnitude of the problems — will necessarily be radical deviations from the present, requiring many alternatives to be tried and an even larger number thought about. We need, therefore, to catalyse an explosion of radically new ideas. Such a flowering of creativity, in a number of different areas, can take place only in an ambience where divergent thinking is encouraged. The future of India depends upon this.

India, with its immense diversity in every sphere, and a vibrant democracy, is well placed to foster such creativity. Yet in recent times, we have seen attempts to stifle such openness. Recent incidents in Mumbai, Mangalore and elsewhere, have brought to the fore groups that seem determined to stamp out diversity. The issue is not just about “outsiders” or of women’s rights. The larger issue is that of diversity, of tolerance and a respect for the rights and freedom of others. While fringe groups have a right to their view, they must not be allowed to impose this on others through force or even threat, coercion and fear. It is the duty of the State to permit all citizens to live a life style of their choice and certainly to have and propagate any ideas, howsoever radical these may be, as long as they are within the bounds of the existing laws. Permitting lumpen groups, of whatever persuasion, to enforce their own version of laws and morality is a dereliction of duty by the State.

In an evolving society, many ideas and behaviours are manifest. We need, in our own collective interest, to permit all streams of ideas, however diverse or deviant, and not seek to stifle them or impose pre-determined ones. Such diversity, and the freedom to espouse it, is necessary for organisations, and also for a technologically and economically resurgent India; it also embodies the very idea of India.

Technology & tolerance: Tools to treasure

Diversity, and the freedom to espouse it, is necessary for organisations, and also for a technologically and economically resurgent India. It also embodies the very idea of India, says Kiran Karnik.

Many assert that we live in an age of technology. Undoubtedly, technology is a major driver of economies around the world, and is having an increasingly bigger impact in the socio-cultural sphere. Yet, this — by itself — is not new; after all, the economic importance of technology has been seen from the days primitive humans devised better weapons for hunting, and its socio-cultural role — through settlements resulting from agriculture, for example — has been important for centuries. What is different today is the speed at which technology is changing and progressing. It is the rate of change in technologies and the rapidity of its spread that is radically different from earlier eras.

We have seen in India the pace at which cable and satellite TV spread across all parts of the country and penetrated deeply into the socio-economic pyramid, as contrasted with the leisurely pace of conventional TV. Even more striking is the phenomenal story of mobile telephony, already — in just over a decade — the device is owned by more Indians than any other. The ubiquity of information and communication technologies, and continuing innovations in their applications, is bringing about radical shifts in mindsets as much as in economics. For example, connectivity has annihilated the concept of “remote”: today, with mobiles and internet linkages, the very definition of isolation has changed. With allowable exaggeration, one could say that geography is history, heralding the death of distance.

In a changing environment, organisms that do not evolve and adapt may not survive. This is as true of social structures as it is of biological entities: organisation and countries that do not adapt to the new environment of rapid technological change are likely to be endangered. What is required is not just a coping mechanism to weather on-going change, but proactive measures that enable one to take advantage of the situation.

For a number of reasons, India is wellpositioned to capitalise on this scenario, which requires the ability to adapt to change and a strong technological base. The first is potentially helped by demographics: the high proportion of young people in our population — for some decades to come — is a great advantage, given that the young are far more amenable to change. The second (the technology base) has been built over the last six decades and though it does need far more attention and resources, it is already of a magnitude to potentially be an initiator — and not just adapter — of new technologies.

India’s space and nuclear technology progammes — despite years of embargoes by the west — exemplify the country’s strong technological base. In recent years, this has been supplemented by growing capability in fields like information technology, bio-technology and automobile design. These provide a good foundation for understanding, predicting and handling the changes that result from technological advances. However, if we are to go beyond this and be an active participant in shaping change, there is need for a major thrust in S&T, through massive investments in R&D, science and engineering education and in mechanisms to encourage private investment and promote industry-academia-R&D interaction.

The superstructure, to stretch the metaphor, depends not only on the foundation, but also on the soil or the ambience within which it is embedded. In an era of fast — and, often, revolutionary — technological change, to be a leader requires that one has to think differently, to go beyond imitation or incremental change. Economic and strategic power will increasingly go to those who innovate, who create the breakthrough technologies. The days of seeking economic advantage by efficiently productising technology developed by others, are numbered because of the speed with which technologies become obsolete, as also the increasingly restrictive regimes, which often deny access to new technologies. Radical breakthroughs, on a sustainable and on-going basis, happen mainly when the socio-cultural milieu encourages divergent — even subversive — thinking.

A quick solution to India’s colossal problems of poverty, illiteracy, healthcare, social justice and economic equity, depends on its ability to devise and use new and innovative tools. Some of these will be technological, will others will be societal, organisational and fiscal. Such solutions — with the speed and scale warranted by the magnitude of the problems — will necessarily be radical deviations from the present, requiring many alternatives to be tried and an even larger number thought about. We need, therefore, to catalyse an explosion of radically new ideas. Such a flowering of creativity, in a number of different areas, can take place only in an ambience where divergent thinking is encouraged. The future of India depends upon this.

India, with its immense diversity in every sphere, and a vibrant democracy, is well placed to foster such creativity. Yet in recent times, we have seen attempts to stifle such openness. Recent incidents in Mumbai, Mangalore and elsewhere, have brought to the fore groups that seem determined to stamp out diversity. The issue is not just about “outsiders” or of women’s rights. The larger issue is that of diversity, of tolerance and a respect for the rights and freedom of others. While fringe groups have a right to their view, they must not be allowed to impose this on others through force or even threat, coercion and fear. It is the duty of the State to permit all citizens to live a life style of their choice and certainly to have and propagate any ideas, howsoever radical these may be, as long as they are within the bounds of the existing laws. Permitting lumpen groups, of whatever persuasion, to enforce their own version of laws and morality is a dereliction of duty by the State.

In an evolving society, many ideas and behaviours are manifest. We need, in our own collective interest, to permit all streams of ideas, however diverse or deviant, and not seek to stifle them or impose pre-determined ones. Such diversity, and the freedom to espouse it, is necessary for organisations, and also for a technologically and economically resurgent India; it also embodies the very idea of India.

We don't need PM Modi's new 'smart' cities, we need to run the existing ones better

Fourteen years ago, when Bill Clinton was issued a driver’s licence in minutes by the then Chandrababu Naidu government in erstwhile Andhra Pradesh, a classmate in Hyderabad immediately decided to bring my excitement and awe to a quick end.

“Don’t exult yet. Things can go wrong: the computer or the printer may not work, or the cussed clerk at the counter may just not let them work.”

This is more or less a truism of a sort, for later I discovered that a senior secretary to the Maharashtra government would just not get to read my emails. His PA with the password would be on leave, or in those days of limited sizes of the mailboxes, wouldn’t have cleaned it up. My mails would bounce back. It was exasperating to have access to technology and not use it.

STEM-ming Opportunities

By M H Ahssan

CHANGES IN THE INTERNATIONAL ECONOMY HAVE CREATED TREMENDOUS JOB OPPORTUNITIES FOR STUDENTS,WHO HAVE DEGREES IN THE STEM (SCIENCE, TECHNOLOGY, ENGINEERING AND MATHEMATICS) SUBJECTS. TIM ROGERS PRESENTS THE EFFORTS MADE BY INSTITUTIONS AND REGULATORY BODIES TO PROMOTE THE STEM SUBJECTS,AND THE OPPORTUNITIES THAT LIE THEREIN.

With an increasing number of national governments and transnational organisations like the European Union switching their priorities to assist the development of knowledge-focused economies, the emphasis on encouraging more graduate students to opt for Science, Technology, Engineering and Mathematics (the commonly termed STEM group of academic subjects) master’s and PhD degrees, is greater than ever before. The change in popularity has undoubtedly been due, in part, to the expansion of the international technology sector and the re-entrenchment of science and engineering as central to modern economic success.

Excellent employment prospects
As investment in research and development continues to grow and is supported by more open government policies, the growth of the science and technology sectors is likely to continue at an increasing pace over the next 20 to 30 years.

The shift to a more technologically and scientifically driven global economy can only be good news for international graduates in the STEM subjects. With the number of appropriately-qualified STEM graduates below the level of current global demand, employment prospects are buoyant, even in light of the current economic uncertainty. Countries as diverse as China, Denmark, Finland and Malaysia have prioritised so-called innovation strategies to develop their capacity in research and development in the fields of biotechnology, information technology, mobile communications and genetic research, all of which require skilled master’s and PhD graduates. Such demand is likely to only increase.

According to the executive search firm Heidrick and Struggles’s 2007 Mapping Global Talent report, developed in association with the Economist Intelligence Unit, the demographic patterns of China and India, coupled with the countries’ strong focus on the STEM subjects will have a profound impact on both their national and the international labour markets: “We can predict that these two countries will yield an increasing number of talented graduates in the hi-tech sector, given their strong tradition of engineering and science at the university level.”

Attracting STEM graduates
The likelihood of an altered global employment scene is acknowledged by many governments around the world to such an extent that special initiatives to encourage and capture STEM graduates are now commonplace. The UK Government has recently embarked on a number of programmes to encourage more research and development in the STEM subject areas and attract talented master’s and PhD graduates to either come and work in the UK, or to remain in the country after their programme of study has been completed. The UK has similarly extended its focus to securing more STEM graduates through a number of subject-specific projects, all of which have potentially important consequences for international graduate students. One of the projects, ‘Stimulating Physics’, is intended to encourage more students to pursue physics at universities in the UK.

Making STEM subjects central
In India, where the financial liberalisation of the 1990s has underwritten an expansion of almost every sector of the economy, the likes of which have never been seen before, the demand for skilled STEM graduates is already outstripping supply by a clear margin. With so many Indian students pursuing STEM master’s and PhD programmes in countries such as Canada, the UK and the US, it is likely that employment prospects back at home will be at least as competitive as those on offer in the West, as Indian companies compete on the world stage. Indian tech giant, Infosys, employs more than 90,000 people worldwide, 40,000 of whom are based in India, and routinely recruits directly from the campuses of Cal Tech, Imperial College and MIT to ensure its employees are of the very highest calibre. With approximately 12,000 new employees recruited annually by Infosys, 81 per cent of their intake this year will be qualified to a master’s or professional level. Tata Consultancy Services, another Indian IT specialist employer, hired 32,000 new employees in 2007-2008, simply to keep up with their own expansion plans.

A bright future for STEM graduates
Professor Heiko Schröder, Head, Royal Melbourne Institute of Technology’s School of Computer Science and Information Technology, a leading innovator in science and technology programmes, predicts a bright future for those graduating from STEM programmes. He affirms, “Worldwide, there are predictions that tell us that IT will grow again very significantly, and the shortage of jobs in the industry is already apparent, so we expect a growth in student numbers. We also know that industry investment in terms of IT, both computers and software, will grow more than ever before. American predictions are that the spending of companies on computers will grow by a factor of five in the next ten years, and spending on software will multiply by more than a factor of two, and this will make the spending on IT by far the biggest investment that companies have to make.”

A globally mobile workforce
The continuing globalisation of the science and engineering workforce in the US reflects the current broader international trend. As research and development funding crosses national borders, it is logical that the skilled workforce should become more internationally mobile. Conversely, employers now routinely seek candidates that are able to work in a globalised environment, and have experience of studying or working in another country. With the shortage of international talent likely to impact economic growth in industries, in and around the STEM subjects, perhaps there has never been a better time to consider a graduate programme in these areas.

How GE’s Collaborative Ecosystem In India Has Led To More Than 3,000 Patent Filing Contributions?

GE’s presence in India dates back to 1902, when India’s first hydropower plant was installed. Today employees across GE’s four technology footprints—in Bangalore, Hyderabad, Mumbai, and Chennai—are committed to India’s growth and development.

The John F. Welch Technology Centre (JFWTC) in Bangalore is GE’s largest integrated multi-disciplinary R+D centre. Its 100,000 square meters of labs and offices house over 4,500 scientists, researchers, and engineers who are helping redefine what is possible in the energy, transportation, aviation, healthcare, and industrial sectors—in India and the world beyond.

'Aadhaar' and India's Brave, New, ID-Armed Market

By M H Ahssan

An estimated US$20 billion worth of business opportunities over the next decade have begun rolling out in India with the launch of a nationwide program named "Aadhaar," which aims to issue 600 million unique identification numbers, or UIDs, to residents over the next four years.

A massive new market will open up as the Aadhaar UIDs enable hundreds of millions of poor and migrant residents to open bank accounts, get loans and expanded access to jobs, health insurance, mobile phone services and the like, while facilitating the delivery of public services including government programs for school children and the poor. The program also promises to improve the labor market with more efficiency in running pension plans, discouragement of jobseekers with spurious certificates, and improved tracking of attendance and performance for school students.

Large multinational technology and business services firms are looking to sell all manner of equipment, software and consulting services. Some are even planning to set up local manufacturing operations. Government and private sector entities, including banks and insurers, are poised to reengineer their services delivery as Aadhaar will help them identify, track and reach large new sections of the population that were previously underserved or off their radars. This writer spoke with executives at the Unique Identification Authority of India (UIDAI), led by Infosys Technologies co-founder Nandan Nilekani, and other experts about the emerging market opportunity.

Challenging the "Poverty Premium"
The UID project would create business opportunities at several levels, according to a report from CLSA Asia Pacific Markets, written by Anirudha Dutta, its deputy head of India research, and Bhavtosh Vajpayee, its head of technology research. "As UID-linked infrastructure expands over the next five years, we envisage a US$20 billion market and estimate that it will create 350,000 new jobs," they say in their report. By the sixth year, they expect the commercial pie to be worth US$10 billion annually.This, they say, could increase to US$20 billion with the "long tail impact" on banks and telecommunication services firms. Dutta and Vajpayee point also to the huge untapped market that the undocumented in India represent. Of a billion-plus people, only 35 million pay income taxes, 70 million have permanent account numbers to pay taxes, 60 million have passports and 240 million have bank accounts, they note. "The resulting poverty premium means the poor pay more (via usurious credit), receive less (thanks to misdirected or misappropriated subsidies) and are even excluded from basic services such as banking."

The business opportunities begin with identifying and verifying the authenticity of potential customers for all manner of services such as banking or mobile phone subscriptions. The UIDAI has kept its task simple, as Nilekani explains it: Issue Aadhaar numbers to enrollees, and provide authentication to whomever needs it. It uses biometrics technology such as fingerprints and iris scans as its identification criteria. It collects enrollees' biometric information through "registrars" it has appointed including all state governments, several public sector organizations, banks and other entities. The registrars are responsible for hiring and training the field staff that will collect the data, each carrying a specially designed kit that includes a computer, iris and fingerprint scanners and a camera. The enrollees' information is sent to the UIDAI, which then runs them through a "de-duplication" process to weed out any duplicate entries to ensure each number is truly unique. To ensure data security and privacy, UIDAI will not release enrollees' data; it will only respond to every request for authenticating an identity with a simple "yes" or "no."

"What is special about this project is the use of today's technology and computing horsepower and biometrics ... for a developmental purpose, to give an ID to a large number of Indians who don't have any papers or an ID, and then lay the foundation for the reengineering of public services," Nilekani says in an interview. "One of the big challenges is [that] we have a nation of migrants -- 120 million migrants out there -- they don't have an ID or their ID is not recognized; they may come from one village in one state and go to another city in another state." The Aadhaar numbers will help track the delivery of government programs such as the public distribution system (PDS) for food or mid-day meals or immunization programs for school children by matching benefits with actual beneficiaries, thereby plugging siphoning of funds or leakages to the private market, as with wheat.

"The whole idea of a subsidy or benefit or entitlement delivery system is it should reach the person it is supposed to reach, so the non-transferability of these is something the government would like to ensure," says R.S. Sharma, UIDAI's director-general. "If something meant for X gets delivered to X, that in itself is a great improvement as it will eliminate the leakage and misdirection of subsidies. For example, in PDS, if you are able to ensure that the food grains meant for X are indeed delivered to X only and nobody else, this will bring in accountability at the last mile of the delivery chain."

The Power to Claim Your Money
Aadhaar will also open up a whole new market for banks and other financial services providers. UID enrollees that don't have bank accounts could have them, thanks to an agreement UIDAI has reached with the Reserve Bank of India that the data collected would meet requirements. "We are telling the banks that we will transfer a single file [to each of them] including the [enrollee's] consent and that we have done the due diligence for it," says Ashok Pal Singh, UIDAI's deputy director-general overseeing the plan for financial inclusion, besides other portfolios. "Banks can do customer acquisition without any cost." (The UID is yet to figure out the best way to apportion these account-opening mandates to banks; it may do that through competitive bidding, Singh adds.)

"The fundamental purpose of a bank account is you are associated with your money -- a demonstrated and verifiable property right over the money you have," says Arun Sundararajan, professor of information, operations and management sciences at New York University's Stern School of Business. "This is probably the most transformational IT (information technology) project we are going to see in our lifetime," says Ravi Bapna, a professor of information and decision sciences at the University of Minnesota's Carlson School of Management, who holds a joint appointment at the Indian School of Business in Hyderabad. He is working on a study of UID's potential with Sundararajan.

As Big as Y2K
The UID is seeing robust interest from providers of equipment, software and other services for both the enrollment process (scanners and cameras, for example) and for financial and other applications, such as micro-ATMs to facilitate financial transactions in rural areas. "We are talking to almost every MNC in the technology area," says Bala Parthasarathy, UIDAI's head of authentications and applications. They include the likes of Microsoft, LG and Oracle, besides an array of smaller, specialized technology firms like U.S.-based biometric technology services firm IriTech and business applications developer Geodesic of Mumbai. In fact, Microsoft co-founder Bill Gates announced at a conference last year that he found the UID project "a great initiative" and wanted Microsoft to be part of it. Parthasarathy, a 20-year Silicon Valley entrepreneur, has taken a break to work on the UID project. He notes that he and other entrepreneurs and corporate executives whom Nilekani has attracted to UID "are here because this is more exciting than anything else we can do in the private sector."

Parthasarathy likens the UID program to the U.S. government's Darpa (Defense Advanced Research Projects Agency), which laid the foundations of the Internet in the early 1970s. Darpa at the time launched research and applications development around communication protocols for networked computers. The reengineering of banking, PDS, government-run pension and social security programs and educational infrastructure will be on a scale similar to that of the Y2K conversions at the turn of the century, says Tushar Vashisht, manager, project strategy at UIDAI; he has taken a break from an investment banking job in Singapore to work on his current project.

UIDAI has designed and published specifications for the collection, storage and authentication of the data, and for equipment and software including iris scanners and cameras, as well as for business applications like microfinance payments. Interestingly, it has insisted on open-source technology for UID applications to the maximum extent possible. "Vendor neutrality is an absolute principle. We do not want any part of the system to be tied to any vendor," says Pramod Varma, UIDAI's chief architect overseeing its technology architecture. "We told all the vendors that if you want to be playing into this ecosystem, you have to adhere to these standards. We are going to have a plug-and-play architecture." Open-source technology enables freer competition and therefore lower prices, Varma adds.

The UID has so far certified five manufacturers of devices and plans to extend that to about five others shortly; it is working with a total of some 15 devices makers, according to Varma. He expects the first lot of about 15 registrars requiring up to 40,000 device kits in the next six to eight months, and the increasing volumes to force price declines. "For example, in the iris scanner market, we initially expected prices of about US$2,000-US$2,500 each; by the time we started enrolling [Aadhaar recipients] the price had come down to US$1,000-US$1,500, and now we are seeing sub-US$1,000 prices," Varma says.

Some foreign vendors are enthused enough to consider setting up manufacturing facilities in India to supply the Aadhaar market, Varma notes. U.S.-based L1 Identity Solutionshas already confirmed to the UIDAI that it plans a facility near New Delhi. L1, a provider of identity-related products services, recently won a US$24.5 million UIDAI order for fingerprint and iris biometric capture devices. "With the volumes, they don't have much of a choice [but] to have local assembly that is also fully locally supported," says Varma of the pressures on suppliers to set up local bases. What's more, he adds that he is also seeing "tremendous partnership activity" between local and foreign firms in products such as mobile banking devices for microfinance payments.

Streamlining Employee Benefits
Aadhaar would also help bring new efficiencies to the employment market, says Manish Sabharwal, co-founder and chairman of TeamLease Services, a large temporary staffing services provider based in Bangalore. With UID numbers, benefits such as provident fund, pension and medical insurance plans could be linked to employees' accounts, instead of the current practice of employers managing those records. "It is particularly relevant in India where 93% of employment is informal or unorganized," says Sabharwal. "The benefits world would receive a dose of productivity, transparency and lower cost if they anchor themselves in UID." Further, he expects UIDs to help separate out the administrative, investment and management functions in government-run provident fund programs and make way for new competition and lower costs. As an employer, he also looks forward to a UID-linked labor market where he can verify applicants' academic credentials.

In late October, the UIDAI signed a deal with India's ministry of human resource development to create an electronic registry of all students. The previous day, the Central Bureau of Investigation uncovered a fake university degree racket and discovered more than 51,000 forged certificates. Human resource development minister Kapil Sibal expects to use UID numbers on school records to help track student mobility, stem dropouts by monitoring student attendance and performance, prevent spurious certificates and enable employee verification, according to media reports. He also wants to link the UID numbers to education loans and scholarships.

Meanwhile, the UIDAI has gotten off to a brisk start with a critical mass of registrars including all state governments, 16 banks and the Life Insurance Corp. of India and its network of agents, according to Ashok Dalwai, its deputy director-general for the Bangalore region (covering five states in South India). The registrars also include civil society organizations that would cover migrant labor, the homeless and the physically or mentally challenged. "The whole purpose is to capture these people who are typically left out," Dalwai says. The Tata Group's CMC has been retained for training data collection operators, and the UIDAI would need about 7,000 operators to capture the targeted one crore (10 million) records in four months, he adds.

Peering not too far into the future, other opportunities could beckon UIDAI. For one, it could export its knowhow and expertise in designing, implementing and running large social and financial inclusion programs elsewhere in the world. Director-general Sharma points out that UIDAI would have the world's largest database of 1.2 billion biometric records; the biggest such database so far is the U.S. Visit program which has about 110 million biometrics records, he says. Already, Mexico and Brazil have shown interest in studying Aadhaar, and Argentina has invited Sharma for discussions on how to implement such a massive program. "The world is looking to India to see how we do it," says Sharma. "If we are able to pull it off, it will be really transformational -- not only for ourselves but also replicable elsewhere in the world."

Why Indian IT Firms Are Hiring Failed Entrepreneurs?

By Siddharth Bhatia / Mumbai

Eyeing fresh business from outsourcing clients, IT firms are creating start-ups focused on disruptive technology. India’s biggest information technology (IT) firms are hiring failed entrepreneurs and successful venture capital executives in Silicon Valley as they seek to win fresh business from top outsourcing clients such as Target Corp. and Citigroup Inc. by creating internal start-up organizations focused on building disruptive technology solutions.

'New Dell Evolution Will Sweep All Sales Demands In EMEA'

By Daina Al Mirbash | Dubai

Whichever way you slice it, the last 12 months have not been kind to PC giant Dell. The vendor, famously founded by the eponymous Michael Dell in his Texas dorm room nearly 30 years ago, in 2013 laboured through what Forbes described as “the nastiest tech buyout ever”, while seeing its market share slump and its profits dwindle.

For Dell’s Europe, Middle East and Africa (EMEA) president, however, there is a light at the end of the tunnel. In an interview with INN Live, Aongus Hegarty explains that the company is midway through its transition from a PC builder to a provider of “end-to-end solutions” that encompasses mobile devices, security, software and data centre services. In theory, the move will not only create new, more lucrative revenue streams for Dell, but allow it to better compete with industry titans such as IBM, Hewlett-Packard and Oracle.

Indian Entrepreneurs Are Redefining India’s Taxi Service

By M H Ahssan / INN Live

Around a decade ago, entrepreneurs transformed airline ticket booking in India. Online travel companies like MakeMyTrip.com and Yatra.com started offering customers the ease of purchasing an airline ticket of their choice at the click of a button. In 2005, the Indian Railway Catering and Tourism Corporation, a government enterprise, enabled e-booking of railway tickets. A few years ago, another set of entrepreneurs transformed bus ticketing. Now a new breed of techies is looking to transform an even more fragmented sector in the country’s transportation industry — taxi services.

Focus: The Technology Of 'Being Human' In Present Era

Here's a unique opportunity to leverage individual talent and collective capability through tech advances.

In Being Digital, his prescient book on the new cosmos into which we are hurtling, Nicho las Negroponte talks of the transformation of the world from atoms to bits, a transformation he terms irrevocable, irreplaceable and exponential. Twenty years after the book was first published, we are witnessing that prediction in full flow.

Medical Innovation: When Do Costs Outweigh Benefits?

By Sarah Williams / New York

When Sunnyvale, Calif.-based Intuitive Surgical hit the market in 1999 with its surgical robot, da Vinci, the company and many of its early adopters hailed the new technology as a revolution that would benefit patients, surgeons and the health care system as a whole. Da Vinci combines high-definition visual tools with robot-guided medical instruments that allow surgeons to do complicated procedures using a few tiny incisions. The da Vinci system, which is widely used in urologic surgeries such as the removal of prostate tumors, has been shown by Intuitive and outside researchers to reduce post-surgery complications and shorten hospital stays.

How Technology Managed From India Is Changing the Complexion of Outsourcing

By M H Ahssan

It is a weekday, and Srinivasa Raju, 26, is at work at his high-security Electronic City office in Bangalore. He is in a large, cool, bright hall, surrounded by neatly arranged banks of computers, with biometric sensors and closed-circuit cameras recording every movement. Six clocks show the time in Sydney, Tokyo, Bangalore, London, New York and San Francisco. In front of him, projected on a giant screen, are a bunch of changing numbers, dials and graphs. The scene looks like NASA's space shuttle launch center; only a video monitor showing magnificent fuel plumes is missing. With Raju are a couple of other colleagues, roughly his age. It is 9 in the morning, but it appears as if not everyone has arrived for work. Despite the bright, tropical sunshine outside, you could be fooled into believing this is the graveyard shift. In many ways, it is.

Raju is at work in the global command center of a large technology company in India. He is monitoring the health of the computer network of a utility service in Europe, roughly 5,000 miles from where he is located. It is only 3:30 a.m. in the host country where the network is located, so it is accurate to say Raju is part of the graveyard shift. The next shift, which begins at 2 p.m. in India, will be buzzing as people filter into the utility company's European offices.

Such scenarios are being repeated at several high-tech companies in India that remotely manage IT infrastructure around the world, from computer networks of transportation hubs in Europe, to the world's largest private e-mail service for a global Fortune 100 organization, to ATM networks for Middle East banks, to storage devices for U.S. pharmaceutical companies. Engineers in India are monitoring, upgrading, healing and rebooting systems across the world to ensure that it's business as usual for end users of the IT infrastructure.

This relatively young high-tech business addresses architecture, design, engineering and maintenance of servers, storage devices, voice and data networks, desktops and mainframes, and services such as security, procurement, vendor management and database administration. The business goes by the unromantic name of remote infrastructure management services (RIMS).

The business has been driven by the rapid evolution in technology: virtualization, cloud computing, standardization of IT infrastructure, and the availability of sophisticated tool sets. It has also been driven by changes in customer demands and a mature offshore supply environment. Industries including telecom and banking, financial services and insurance have become early adopters. "The RIM industry is at a watershed in its development," according to a study by McKinsey that was released in March by the National Association of Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM). And as was the case with business process outsourcing (BPO), signs exist that India may be poised to gain a large share of this fast-growing market.

Raju is part of a new breed of engineers who will be coveted, just as the front-runners in verticals such as application development once were. The reason? People like Raju keep businesses running. And, especially important in these cost-conscious times, they contribute to bottom lines by shaving away inefficiencies.

How India Could Gain
India is seen as a major player in the global RIMS market because of three critical factors: experience in and reputation as an offshore destination; well-honed business processes; and the availability of low-cost talent. According to the McKinsey study, titled The Rising Remote Infrastructure Management Opportunity: Establishing India's Leadership, the market for RIMS is an estimated $96 billion to $104 billion, of which $26 billion to $28 billion is likely to be realized by 2013. Of this, the report says, India is positioned to capture $13 billion to $15 billion by 2013. Currently, India accounts for $3 billion to $4 billion of the total services offshored, according to the report.

A Gartner study in May noted that the top six India-based offshore service providers (TCS, Infosys, Wipro, Cognizant, Satyam and HCL) accounted for 2.4% of the total worldwide IT-services market in 2007, compared with 1.9% in 2006. While application development and management services account for most of their revenue stream, RIMS has demonstrated the most significant growth. According to G. K. Prasanna, senior vice president of technology infrastructure services at Wipro, where infrastructure services accounted for $684 million in revenues in 2007-08, "Around 17.2% of our business is RIMS-based. It is the fastest-growing business across Wipro, and it is the largest practice after application development."

Prasanna is bullish about the future. He says Wipro has the opportunity to claim undisputed RIMS leadership in India. In September, to back its bets, Wipro acquired Infocrossing, a U.S.-based data center management provider, to enhance its ability to provide remote management of IT infrastructure. Similarly, Satyam has acquired U.S.-based Nitor Solutions and Cognizant has acquired U.S.-based AimNet Solutions to fill gaps in their offerings and reach. Ed Nalbandian, who was AimNet's CEO and now is a practice leader for Cognizant, notes: "AimNet's onshore consultants help give Cognizant the strongest onshore presence among offshore players." Another key area is AimNet's approach to pricing. "Cognizant has been able to leverage that quite a bit as clients are asking to move away from FTE-based pricing to a unitized, pay-for-what-you-use approach," Nalbandian says. Cognizant's experience is not isolated. Everyone in the business is racing to close service gaps.

The growing interest in RIMS is posing several challenges in India. Among them: The ability to improve the supply of skilled talent in new technologies and create strategic alliances with technology firms to provide better service delivery and operational process compliance, and to provide innovative pricing models. "It's clear that RIMS cannot be delivered by everyone," says Pradeep Kar, founder and managing director of Microland, a Bangalore-based pure-play RIMS provider with customers in Europe, the United States, the Middle East and India. "An Indian RIMS vendor specializing in this area would be able to provide enhanced quality of service as a result of aligning tools, processes and skill sets to industry needs."

The NASSCOM-McKinsey report uses Microland as an example of an offshore vendor with proprietary tools that help simplify IT management, improve governance, reduce costs and, significantly, create transparency. Among its customers is U.K.-based Serco Solutions, for whom Microland has created two dedicated RIMS centers. For RIMS users, the combination of cost control, improved service quality and the ability to scale (or de-scale, as the case may be) are key considerations.

The Role of Recession
Industry analysts believe that one of the most immediate drivers for RIMS adoption could be the threat of a severe economic downturn in the U.S., forcing a greater amount of outsourcing to control costs. But a U.S. recession may not necessarily be a boon. "Cost pressure on my customer is always good news since it increases risk propensity and forces a decision," Prasanna says, but this in turn means greater competition and immediate pricing pressure.

While an economic downturn could improve the climate for outsourcing infrastructure management -- "even make it socially more acceptable," in Prasanna's words -- the value proposition does not change. The decision to outsource will therefore depend on flexible pricing models and short-term deals.

While pricing and deal duration form the core of the decision, outsourcers may still be wary of depending on external RIMS providers. This is largely because of the psychological discomfort of working with a team located thousands of miles away. While compliance-related risks are coming down thanks to SOX (Sarbanes-Oxley Act of 2002) and SAS 70 (Statement on Auditing Standards No. 70), the RIMS business lacks mature governance models. The challenge is to develop these models and take them through their paces in a joint effort between vendor and customer.

Over the last eight years, as the RIMS business has spread globally, various pricing models have emerged. Microland, which acquired its first infrastructure management customer in 1999, has built a model that separates assets and management. Today, a variety of pricing models continues to be available, from the more traditional time-and-material-based model to element, or device-based, pricing, outcome-based pricing, and a shared-risk-and-reward-based model. "We pioneered the concept of device-based, or transaction-based, pricing," says K.S. Ganesan, Microland's chief technology officer. "What it does for the client is it fixes cost and reduces them year on year, putting pressure back on vendors like Microland to innovate newer ways of delivering the same set of services. Of late, we see many players adopting this model."

Competitive pricing will be just one factor in determining which companies will emerge as the most successful RIMS providers. Firms are sweating it out over creating tangible differentiators. Also important, says Prasanna, are game-changing alliances with global technology companies. Original equipment manufacturers (OEMs) such as Cisco, Dell, Hitachi, Hewlett-Packard, Microsoft and Red Hat are investing in Indian partners at the forefront of the RIMS business, helping them improve the size and capability of the talent pool to support the products and services they provide. While there are no monogamous relationships in the RIMS world, some service providers are more equal than others in the eyes of the OEMs. RIMS players understand the importance of such alliances, which give them early access to changes and enhancements in technology, quick access to technical assistance, and critical access to training facilities and materials.

Not surprisingly, RIMS providers often trumpet their alliances with technology majors. The emergence of RIMS has fostered joint go-to-market strategies by technology players and has driven the emergence of joint products, resulting in greater value propositions and lowered total cost of ownership for RIMS adopters. Cognizant's Nalbandian reflects a popular industry opinion: "We think this go-to-market model is going to be successful for us."

On the other side of the business, who are the most likely candidates to aggressively adopt RIMS? The McKinsey study says that Fortune 3000 companies are driving growth and are signing more -- and in several cases larger -- deals than their Fortune 250 counterparts. This is in striking contrast to the trend established by application development and business process outsourcing in the past, which was led by Fortune 250 companies. This shift is likely to have a major impact on the marketing strategies adopted by RIMS vendors. Among the many things on the cusp of change, the future of marketing in the high-end technology space is set for an interesting makeover.

Revealing the Real Risks: Obstetrical Interventions and Maternal Mortality

By Aeman Nishath

Recently, a woman in Iowa was referred to a university hospital during childbirth because of possible complications. At the university hospital it was decided that a cesarean section should be done. After the cesarean section was completed and the woman was resting in her hospital room, she went into shock and died. An autopsy showed that, during the cesarean section, the surgeon had accidentally nicked the woman's aorta, the biggest artery in the body, which led to internal hemorrhage, shock, and death.

A cesarean section can save the life of the mother or her baby, or both. A cesarean section can kill a mother or her baby, or both. Every procedure or technology used during pregnancy and birth carries risks for the mother and baby. Whether or not to use any procedure or technology will be a judgment based on balancing the chances that it will make things better against the chances that it will make things worse.

We live in the age of technology. Since long before human beings landed on the moon, we have believed that technology can solve all of our problems. It should come as no surprise that doctors and hospitals are using more and more technology and invasive interventions on pregnant and birthing women. Has all this technology solved the problems surrounding birth? Let's look at the record. Is the increasing use of technology saving the lives of more pregnant and birthing women? In fact, the risk of a woman in this country dying from maternal mortality (i.e., causes related to pregnancy) has not decreased in more than 25 years. Each year, nearly 1,000 women die during pregnancy, during birth, or in the first week after giving birth. Nearly half of these deaths could have been prevented with better access to higher-quality maternity care. Hundreds of thousands of other women experience medical complications from pregnancy.2

The data also suggest an increase in recent years in the number of women dying during pregnancy and birth in the US.3 We have known for some time that maternal mortality in the US is underreported--in one state in one year, a third of the maternal deaths had not been reported.4 But the latest evidence suggests that "The actual pregnancy-related death rate could be more than twice as high as that reported for 1990."5

WHY ARE MORE AMERICAN WOMEN DYING?
It is difficult to pinpoint why more American women are dying before, during, and after giving birth--the data give only the leading or immediate cause of death, not the underlying causes. But if we look at the six leading causes of pregnancy-related deaths in the US, three--hemorrhage, anesthesia, infection--are often the result of invasive obstetric interventions.6 For example: Although the immediate cause of death is frequently given as "hemorrhage," in many cases the hemorrhage is associated with cesarean section (as in the case cited in the first paragraph). There is good research, both in the US and the United Kingdom, showing that the maternal mortality rate for cesarean section is four times higher than for vaginal birth.7-9 The rate of maternal mortality is still twice as high as for vaginal birth even when the cesarean section is routine, or "elective"; i.e., it is not an emergency procedure. With nearly twice as many cesarean sections as are necessary being done today in the US, the procedure could be a significant part of the reason for the country's rising rate of maternal mortality.10

Another possible cause of rising pregnancy-related deaths in the US is the markedly increasing use of epidural blocks for normal labor pain. Administering an epidural block doubles the risk that the woman will die; "anesthesia complications" are documented as one of the leading causes of maternal mortality in the US.11

There is good reason to believe that other obstetric technologies also contribute to the rising number of women who die during childbirth in this country. Data from the Centers for Disease Control (CDC) show that in the past ten years the number of women given powerful and dangerous drugs to induce labor has gone from 10 percent of all births to 20 percent.12 In the same ten years, the drug Cytotec, not approved by the FDA for labor induction because of insufficient scientific evaluation of risk--a warning often ignored by doctors--has become the single most popular labor-inducing drug. New scientific data show that inducing labor with Cytotec causes a marked increase in uterine rupture, an obstetric catastrophe in which a quarter of all babies die, many women die as well, and, of the women who survive, almost none can ever have another baby.

Why has the rate of Cytotec-induced labor doubled when the ability of women's bodies to begin labor has not decreased? Further CDC data show that the answer is doctor convenience. In those same ten years, the number of births taking place Monday through Friday greatly increased.13 Like taking prenatal X-rays in the 1930s, prescribing the drug di-ethyl-stillbesterol (DES) to pregnant women in the 1950s, and thalidomide in the 1960s, inducing labor with Cytotec in the 1990s is another obstetric intervention that has gone into widespread use without adequate scientific evaluation, with tragic consequences for thousands of women and babies.

The scientific evidence strongly suggests that the increasing use of obstetric interventions and technologies--cesarean section, epidural anesthesia, and drugs to induce labor--is not saving more women's lives, but ending them. Medical care was responsible for some of the earlier decreasing mortality of pregnant and birthing women, not because of high-tech interventions but because of basic medical advances, such as the discovery of antibiotics and the ability to give safe blood transfusions. There has never been any scientific evidence that such high-tech interventions as the routine use of electronic fetal monitoring during labor decrease the mortality rate of women.14 There is also no scientific evidence to prove that the fall in maternal mortality was because birth was moved into the hospital.15 The evidence does show that, as long as a system is in place that can transport women in labor within 30 minutes to a facility where antibiotics, blood transfusions, and necessary cesarean sections are available, there should be very little maternal mortality. For example, in the Netherlands, a third of all births are planned homebirths attended by midwives that refer women to doctors when necessary. The rate of maternal mortality in the Netherlands is far lower than in the US.

THE IMPORTANCE OF QUALITY CARE
The US spends twice as much as any other country on maternity care, and yet 15 other countries have lower rates of maternal mortality. There are at least two reasons for this, both having to do with access to quality care. More than 40 million Americans have no health insurance; many of these are women needing maternity care. If a woman applies for Medicare support for her maternity care, she must have means testing, which necessitates that she jump through many bureaucratic hoops before she can receive care. This can be a disaster. Furthermore, women receiving publicly funded care go to overcrowded hospitals staffed by interns and residents who are overworked and insufficiently trained.16 In addition, when poor women qualify for their maternity care to be funded by Medicare, they may be referred to a private practitioner, and receive this care in the doctor's private offices and private hospitals. There they often receive less attention than the women whose care is being funded by private insurance instead of public funds, in part because of the cultural and socioeconomic gaps between the poor women and their doctors. The delays and crowding, and lack of understanding and skill of some doctors, can all lead to pregnancy-related deaths.

The second reason the US has a higher rate of maternal mortality than 15 other countries is the way birthing women are cared for here. American doctors insist that women need to be in the hospital when giving birth, yet these same doctors who need to provide maternity care for them are not in the hospital when the women actually give birth, but in their offices doing prenatal checkups on healthy women, or in another hospital doing gynecological surgery, or at home eating dinner.17 So when the birthing woman who is in the hospital (or transported to the hospital) needs urgent attention for developing complications, the obstetrician is often not there, must be called, and may come too late. Research shows that, in more than 70 percent of cases, the main factor in the death of babies at birth is the doctor's absence.18

The US and Canada are the only countries in the world in which obstetricians provide primary birth care for the majority of normal births. The American obstetrician tries to be all things to women: a primary provider of maternity care for healthy pregnant and birthing women; a provider of preventive care for women; a specialist in women's diseases; and a highly skilled surgeon. No other doctor anywhere in healthcare tries to maintain competence at all of these levels and in so many areas because it is unreasonable to expect this from one human being. It's unlikely that an obstetrician can perform a six-hour gynecological surgical procedure on a woman with extensive cancer, then rush to his or her office and do the best job of quietly, patiently counseling a pregnant woman about her sex life. If you are considering a hospital birth with an obstetrician as your primary birth attendant, ask the doctor how much time he or she will spend with you during your labor. One of the reasons a midwife, rather than an obstetrician, is generally a better choice to attend your hospital birth is that, assuming a normal pregnancy, midwives have been shown statistically to be safer birth attendants than doctors.19 This is, in part, because the midwife is there in the hospital with you throughout your labor, while the obstetrician is not.

For more than 50 years now the US has had a system of maternity care that often boils down to this: A woman goes into labor, goes to the hospital, and is admitted by the labor and delivery (L&D) nurse, who examines her. The L&D nurse then calls the obstetrician, who gives orders over the telephone to the nurse. The obstetrician may or may not come by the hospital during the labor to check the woman. It is the job of the L&D nurse to monitor the labor and call the obstetrician when the birth is imminent so that the doctor does not have to hang around the hospital waiting for the birth.

During my 15 years as Director of Women's and Children's Health for the World Health Organization, I frequently visited the industrialized countries of Europe. I observed that in the 15 countries that lose fewer pregnant and birthing women than the US does--including those countries with the world's lowest rates of maternal mortality--obstetricians remain in the hospitals, ready to jump in and treat serious complications. In those countries, it is the midwives who are out in the community, giving prenatal and postnatal checkups, and who are also in the hospitals as the only health professionals at the births of 80 to 90 percent of women who give birth without serious complications.

It cannot be overemphasized that American women's lack of access to quality, immediate obstetrical attention in the hospital is a major reason so many of them die unnecessarily during pregnancy and childbirth. Put differently, every one of the 15 countries that have lower rates of maternal mortality has universal healthcare coverage for all pregnant and birthing women (with no bureaucratic hoops to jump through), and all obstetricians are hospital-based, ready to care for these women should they develop complications. Furthermore, maternal mortality is not higher in those countries where there are large numbers of planned homebirths with midwives, because there is a system in place for transporting birthing mothers to the hospital, and for managing complications with mutual respect and collaboration between out-of-hospital midwives and hospital staff.

Data from many states in the US show maternal mortality to be four times higher for African-American women than for Caucasian women, and nearly twice as high for Hispanic women.20 The markedly greater risk that African-American and Hispanic women will die during pregnancy and childbirth is because this group includes a higher proportion of uninsured women, poor women, and women who go to hospitals with insufficient and/or poorly trained staff. In short, African-American and Hispanic women have less access to quality maternity care.

WHERE'S THE DATA?
Occasionally, a group of obstetricians tries to get a handle on maternal deaths in their locale. In a study of ten hospitals in the greater Chicago area, reported in 2000, the maternal mortality rate there was twice as high as reported by the CDC.21 Furthermore, on investigation of each case, these Chicago obstetricians found that 37 percent of the deaths were preventable. In the preventable cases, mistakes by doctors and nurses were determined to be the cause of death more than 80 percent of the time. Unfortunately, as is nearly always the case, the study made no attempt to determine how many of the deaths were related to obstetric interventions such as induction of labor, epidural block, and cesarean section. Lamenting that state maternal mortality committees, which carefully review all maternal deaths, are now largely defunct in the US, the study urged that these committees be revived to investigate causes and develop programs of intervention and education.

There is an urgent need for careful auditing of every single maternal death in the US, with a thorough analysis of causes--including underlying causes--and presentation of the results to the public. The Federal Aviation Authority could not set policies for safe flying if they were unaware of half of the planes falling from the skies, and couldn't retrieve the "black boxes" of most of those planes they knew had fallen. But this is analogous to the CDC trying to set policy for safe motherhood when they have limited data on maternal mortality. Federal policy prohibits the CDC from making surveys of what is happening in all states with maternal deaths.22 At the state level, there are enormous pressures from state and local medical societies to prevent adequate investigation of all maternal deaths.23 It's not easy to get information about the nearly 1,000 women who die each year in the US around the time of birth. To begin with, it's difficult to track maternal deaths, as death certificates in only 16 states include a question concerning whether the deceased had been pregnant within a year of her death. Although some states have regulations requiring that such deaths be reported, in no state can anyone, including scientists who want to study why these women die, gain access to information about individual cases of maternal death. If there is an investigation of a maternal death by a hospital, it is a longstanding policy that this happen behind closed doors, which protects the doctor and hospital involved. There is no public accountability. Public knowledge of pregnancy-related deaths does not fit well into any HMO or healthcare facility's marketing efforts. Employees of most hospitals know that their job security often depends on their willingness to keep silent, and the tribal loyalty of doctors is a powerful deterrent to accessing information. The CDC is doing everything it can to push states to improve their maternal death audits. It has had some successes, but today only a few states conduct thorough audits of all maternal deaths, and only one state, Massachusetts, has a law, passed after intense lobbying by consumer groups, mandating that newspapers report maternal deaths.

We know that at least half of these maternal deaths are not reported anywhere, that nearly all of these women die in the hospital, not at home, and that, with adequate medical attention, close to half of these women need not have died. The possibility of liability due to inadequate medical attention has doctors terrified of litigation, and reluctant to release information concerning maternal mortality. American women need to know that their chance of dying around the time of birth is increasing. They have a right to know why.