Mosquito-Nama

Which is this mosquito that landed on my CD after a happy-meal?

Over the past two weeks there has been a spike in the mosquito population in NCR Delhi. As soon as winter gave way to the warmth of spring there seems to a lot more life in the open drains and exposed water-tanks. Since vector control in general and mosquito control particular requires a concerted action in any neighborhood, perhaps this is a good indicator of how a community functions.

In our New Delhi suburb the response of residents follows an interesting pattern. We turn on their electronic insect repellents all day, step over exposed drains and pools of stagnant water, refuse to clean our water-coolers and then complain that the local government is doing nothing to help.

We, of course, know all there is to know about health hazards but, somehow, it seems to unseemly, so 'undignified' to roll up our sleeves, to clean up the water-coolers or to step outdoors to clean the drains - especially when you have the luxury of complaining that the others are not doing what they are supposed to do!

Coming back to the happy-meal mosquito, its a culex. This species is particularly active at dusk and is a carrier for filaria and encephalitis.

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REFERENCES

Culex menace: The sting that triggers encephalitis (ToI 4 Apr 2012) - http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2012-04-03/delhi/31281034_1_culex-anopheles-mosquitoes

FACT SHEET ON MOSQUITO CONTROL BY INDIAN MEDICAL ASSOCIATION -- http://www.imakerala.net/ecc/fsmc.pdf

March 2012 - Links of the Month

Random posts that grabbed my attention:


India Design Forum - Design Within Reach - http://www.economist.com/blogs/prospero/2012/03/india-design-forum?fsrc=scn/fb/wl/bl/designwithinreach
"If India does not establish some brands soon, it will be too late since all the imports will just take over the country,” says Karim Rashid. “It was a shame that the hotel I stayed at in New Delhi had Italian lighting, Italian furniture, German sinks, German faucets, French products,”


Architecture in Osaka: When the Hanshin Expressway company and a building owner sat down to resolve a common problem they came up with a rather unusual solution!   http://www.tofugu.com/2012/02/24/osaka-architecture/


TED  - How simple ideas lead to scientific discoveries - http://www.ted.com/talks/how_simple_ideas_lead_to_scientific_discoveries.html


TED - Nancy Duarte: The secret structure of great talks - http://www.ted.com/talks/lang/en/nancy_duarte_the_secret_structure_of_great_talks.html

Courage under pressure: Ditching of plane in Lake Hudson
 - http://www.youtube.com/watch_popup?v=tE_5eiYn0D0#t=109

Book (eulogy) on MS Swaminathan: One Man's Quest for a Hunger-Free World

Falser Words Were Never Spoken - BRIAN MORTON, The New Yorker, August 29, 2011 - URL - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/08/30/opinion/falser-words-were-never-spoken.html?_r=1

Conflict of Interest and the Cure for Cancer - http://www.moneytrendsresearch.com/scientists-cure-cancer-but-no-one-takes-notice/

Obituary to a Music Director - 'Bombay Ravi' - http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mp/2002/05/27/stories/2002052701090200.htm
Aage bhi na Jaane tu (Waqt 1965) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oCdoqLH0hP8&feature=related


Nayak-2005-Suzuki-India Case Study - URL - http://www.ximb.ac.in/~jcr/Suzuki.pdf

Henri’s Walk to Paris: Saul Bass’s Only Children’s Book, 1962, Resurfaced 50 Years Later -- http://www.brainpickings.org/index.php/2012/02/21/henris-walk-to-paris-saul-bass/


New Delhi Railway Station Masterplan concept (If wishes were horses... :)  ) http://www.arup.com/Projects/New_Delhi_Railway%20Station/New_Delhi_Railway_Station.aspx

My Experiments with Self - A salary-man attempts to follow the footsteps of Gandhi- http://myexperimentwithself.blogspot.in/2012/03/week-1-1.html?spref=fb

Japan can learn from Israel - http://www.japantimes.co.jp/text/fl20120103zg.html#.T3g_sxuBODk.facebook

Escape Delhi (river rafting etc) - http://www.escapedelhi.com/Home.aspx?tripId=5

Devdutt - Getting Better and Better - Durga statues as a metaphor for presentation-preparation - http://devdutt.com/topics/leadership/getting-better-and-better.html

Harnessing Energy - an imaginative German advertisement - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=4KDLgaili8s&feature=share

Rana Hasan, ADB Papers - http://beta.adb.org/data/publications/author/238

Wave Clouds - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/File:Wavecloudsduval.jpg

Glasswinged Butterfly - http://twistedsifter.com/2012/03/15-stunning-photos-of-the-glasswinged-butterfly/

Nahalal: Circular moshav (coop village) designed by RIchard kauffman - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nahalal

Arial Photography - http://twistedsifter.com/2011/03/25-mind-blowing-aerial-photographs/

Jonathan Haidt: Religion, evolution, and the ecstasy of self-transcendence -
http://www.ted.com/talks/jonathan_haidt_humanity_s_stairway_to_self_transcendence.html


Rushdie, Salman : Outside the Whale,Granta - http://www.granta.com/Archive/11/Outside-the-Whale/Page-1

Common Bird Monitoring India (CMBI) - http://www.cbmi.in/

Flying like a bird - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GYW5G2kbrKk&feature=youtu.be

Delhi Dairy: Sorry, no Indian mobile = no Indian rail ticket - http://christinepemberton.me/?p=12262

Song - Roumor Has It - Mathai - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YSnrLqdt6oc
And the Original by Adele - Rumour has it (with lyrics) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ti3t7MAwaaM



Electronic Market Research - http://www.isuppli.com/Pages/Home.aspx

Writing Rules by Henry Miller, Elmore Leonard, Margaret Atwood, Neil Gaiman & George Orwell >>> http://www.openculture.com/2012/01/writing_rules.html

Jayati-Jayati Bharata Mata (brought back memories of K V Uppal!) - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OF2QCl3-6BM

Painting & Interpretation - Beijing 2008 - http://vliam.com/2011/03/oil-painting-beijing-2008-bu-liu-yi/

Ghosh, Jayati (2012): Could Ecuador be the most radical and exciting place on Earth? The Guardian, UK, 19 Jan 2012, URL - http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/cifamerica/2012/jan/19/ecuador-radical-exciting-place

SPIDERS - SOUTH INDIA: http://www.southindianspiders.org/default.htm

DEFENCE SCAMS - Clear and present danger, Josy Joseph | Mar 28, 2012, ToI - http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/home/opinion/edit-page/Clear-and-present-danger/articleshow/12431832.cms



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Words from AWAD:

Apollonian
Def: Serene; harmonious; disciplined; well-balanced.
An Apollonian gasket is the name for a beautiful fractal composed of ever-shrinking, mutually tangent circles. It's named for a Greek mathematician, Apollonius of Perga, whose work on conic sections gave us the names of some more common mathematical objects: the ellipse, the hyperbola, and the parabola.

Dionysian
Def: Uninhibited; undisciplined; spontaneous; wild; orgiastic.

Promethean
Def: adjective: Boldly creative; defiant; audacious. noun: A person who is boldly creative or defiantly original.
According to the ancient Greek poet Hesiod, Prometheus (meaning "forethought") had a brother, Epimetheus ("afterthought"). We all have afterthoughts, although perhaps none so dramatic as regret over Pandora, but there is no suitable adjective "Epimethean" in our vocabulary today.


Graffiti (gruh-FEE-tee)
noun: Words or drawing made on a wall or other surface in a public place.
ETYMOLOGY:
Plural of Italian graffito (a scratching). Ultimately from the Indo-European root gerbh- (to scratch), which also gave us crab, crayfish, carve, crawl, grammar, anagram, program, graphite, and paraph. Earliest documented use: 1851.


Gedankenexperiment
Def: A thought experiment: an experiment carried out in imagination only.

Daruma: Of Limbless Dolls and a South Indian Monk

Mention the word "Daruma" in Japan and you are quite likely to see faces light up with smiles. Children would instantly recall playing with a "Yuki-Daruma" - the Japanese version of a snowman, while the adults would talk of the cutesy, egg-like doll on which they paint eyes on  New Year's day, to absorb and ward-off evil.

I was mildly shocked to discover yesterday that Daruma tradition has its origins far from Japan. The doll is actually based on a monk who moved from the plains of South India to the Songshang mountains of China.

In circa 520AD, the original Daruma, a South Indian prince-turned-monk appeared at the Chinese port city of Canton (now Guandong). His name was Bodhi-Dharma. After a brief  - and irreverent encounter - with Emporer Wu of the Liang Dynasty, he moved on to the Shao-lin monastry in the Sonshang mountains.

The legend goes that at this monastry, Bodhidharma meditated for nine long years facing a blank wall and came up with a treatise that forms the basis of Dhyana (Zen) Buddhism. It was also during this period that both his legs atrophied away and he tore away his own eyelids to avoid falling asleep during meditation!

Perhaps the legend carries a lot of metaphor and symbolism which can be understood only by those who dive into the deep waters of Dhyana-meditation. For the rest of the lay public mere limbless dolls would suffice, to amuse the children and to remind them about what it takes to really know yourself.

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REFERENCE

Hoover, Thomas (1980): The Zen Experience (Link to Amazon Page)

A note on the commercialization of Daruma's at Wikipedia

Labor Pains

In a recent article, M. Sabarwal pointed out that the recent surge of  worker-strikes in the Indian manufacturing industry (Orient Craft, Maruti-Manesar, Munjal Showa, Honda-India) were not about the usual labor-related issues: minimum wages, a safe working environment, or social security.The flash-point, he noted, was the informalization of work (90% of employment) and the explosion of contract labor (30% of total; 50% of non-farm employment).

This adds an interesting dimension to a long-standing complaint of FII and FDI investors in India, voiced by the World Bank (2008) - "India’s labor regulations - among the most restrictive and complex in the world - have constrained the growth of the formal manufacturing sector...Better designed labor regulations can attract more labor- intensive investment and create jobs for India’s unemployed millions..."

So which are the labor laws & regulations that need to be re-designed?

A paper by Ghosh, Fields and Dasgupta (2006) offers some pointers:

Industrial Disputes Act, 1947:

• Provisions introduced in 1953 relating to payment of compensation for layoff and retrenchment
• Amendment in 1957 required the employer to compensate the workers affected by closure in the same way as if they were retrenched.
• The 1976 amendment reduced the demand for labor by 17.5%, increasing the pressure on the unorganized sector to absorb excess labor supply.
• Chapter V-A requires an establishment employing 50 or more workers, in the case of valid retrenchment, to provide the workers with thirty days’ notice and 15 days’ pay for every year of continuous work by the worker at the firm.
• 1982 Amendment - Employers employing 100 or more workers must give notice of a closure to workers or their representatives and to the government, 90 days prior to the date of intended closure.

Indian Contracts Act, 1972:

• Provisions can be used  to resist dismissal under grounds that are not covered by IDA, 1947

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REFERENCES


Sabharwal, Manish (2012): PUTTING INDIA TO WORK, Indian Express, 26Mar12 p11


Basu Kaushik, Fields Gary and Debgupta Shub (2006): Retrenchment, Labor Laws and Government Policy: An Analysis with Special Reference to India, WB Papers

A Passport to Thebes

"Welcome to Thebes" was one of the most unusual play I have seen at the National School of Drama in New Delhi.

Directed by Annie Ruth and presented by the final year students of NSD (16-21 March),  it was an adaptation of a 2010 play by Moira Buffini. Apart from a ticket, you  needed a 'passport' to get into the theatre. The play itself an energetic mix of Greek mythology and contemporary politics, presented by actors dressed in African costumes, with their lines forcefully delivered in Hinglish, Tamil and Mizoram's Aso dialect!

The play revolves around the death of a Thebian warlord named Polynices. In the ensuing power vacuum, two neighboring states are vying to control Thebes: Athens and Sparta.

It was interesting to know that, as in the Indian classics, names of key character's have a meaning that is closely reflects their true nature. Polynices means "manifold strife". What about the names of the other characters?

Megaera (played by D. Antony Janagi):  'The jealous one'
Sergeant Miletus (N.P. Chouhan): Named after the Milax shrubs where he was hidden after birth
Eurydice (Kalyanee Mulay): 'She whose justice extends widely'
Prince Tydeus (Debasis Mondal):
Pargeia (Bharti):
Haemon (Mrigendra Konwar): 'Bloody'
Antigone (Arundhati Kalita):
Ismene (Amanjeet):
Tiresias (brilliantly played by Bendang Temsu Walling):
Harmonia (Prashant Kumar):
Polykleitos (Prateek Srivastava):
Aglaea (Raju Roy): 'Splendor, brilliant, shining-one'
Thalia (V. Uto Chishi): 'Abundance'
Euphrosyne (Hardik Shah): One of the three Graces
Eunomia (Janagi): 'Good order - governance according to good laws'
Helia (Thoudam Victor Singh): 'Children of the sun'
Eris (PrashantKumar): 'Strife'!
Xenophanes (Himanshu Kohli):
Thesus (Sanal N):
Phaeax (Victor):

Gloom, Doom and a "Fallen Giant"

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This month, Western Japan-experts have been out in full force, debating Japan's perception of itself. The debate was set off by an article in the New York Times, written by Eamonn Fingleton. Titled "The Myth of Japan's Failure", the piece refutes a widely held dim view of the country and its economy and insists that a 'number of facts and figures that don’t quite square with Japan’s image as the laughingstock of the business pages'.

What are these facts and figures? - Average life expectancy, internet infrastructure, exchange rates, unemployment rates, construction of skyscrapers, current account surpluses, and consumption patterns. Everything seems to point that, far from the gloom and doom scenario's painted by Western analysts, Japan is doing rather well. Fingleton's most interesting point, however, was that the Japanese actually benefit from the negative press because it is 'the perfect excuse in politely waving away solicitations from American universities and other needy nonprofits. Ditto for the Ministry of Foreign Affairs in tempering expectations of foreign aid recipients.'

And while everybody is sympathising with the "fallen giant", Japan continues to build an ever more sophisticated industrial base. Japan's exports to China alone run more than $120 billion a year; Competence of the German's, Korean's and Taiwanese depends of machines and manufacturing tech acquired from Japan.

The article presents an interesting, contrarian view which is perhaps aimed at goading an American audience into action. An Asian audience - especially the Chinese -  may see things differently. At the end of the day, the fact remains that the iPhone and CRH bullets may have seriously dented the Japanese self-image of being top-cats in the manufacturing sector.

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REFERENCES / LINKS

1. Eamonn Fingleton (2012): "The Myth of Japan's Failure", NYT 6 Jan., 2012, URL - http://www.nytimes.com/2012/01/08/opinion/sunday/the-true-story-of-japans-economic-success.html?_r=2&ref=general&src=me&pagewanted=all

2. Rejoiner by Krugman, Paul (2012): "Japan, Reconsidered" NYT 9 Jan., 2012, URL - http://krugman.blogs.nytimes.com/2012/01/09/japan-reconsidered-2/

3. Rejoiner to Krugman's rejoiner :) - Eamonn Fingleton (2012): A Reply to Paul Krugman, January 19, 2012, URL - http://www.fingleton.net/a-reply-to-paul-krugman-2/#more-1465

'Bias for thought against action'

"Although Indians blame ideology (and sometimes democracy) for their failings, the truth is that a mundane inability to implement policy -- reflecting a bias for thought and against action -- may have been even more damaging."

This is a quote from an essay written by Gurcharan Das in Sep., 2006 issue of Foreign Affairs. Nearly six years later, just about every point in the essay continues to hold good, including this trenchant comment about our bias for thought over action.

The most recent example of this was on display at the 99th Indian Science Congress, attended by over 15,000 scientists and students. Here, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh declared in his inaugural address that China had beaten India in science. A comment that drew headlines the next day.

A few days later, an intrepid journalist from the Indian Express, Amitabh Sinha,  found that Mr. Singh been repeating the same platitudes for years. Sinha notes, "speeches of the Prime Ministers in the last 10 years reveal how repetitive this exercise has become reflecting either a policy stasis in the sector, lack of bold reforms or both. Each year, the PM underlines the same themes: increase in investment, de-bureaucratisation of scientific establishments, public-private partnerships. So much so that sometimes the Prime Ministers use the same quote to make the point."

For a PM widely criticised for his 'masterly inactivity', one wonders why he had to bring China into this inaugural address. Was it to goad the scientists into action (while assuming they had a short memory), or was it merely to add a dash of variety & drama to his repetitive public statements that are merely reflect our continuing bias for thought against action?

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LINKS / REFERENCES

ENS (2012): China has beaten us in science: PM, Indian Express, 4 Jan., 2012, URL - http://www.indianexpress.com/news/china-has-beaten-us-in-science-pm/895449/

Sinha, Amitabh (2012): If science seems stuck, so do the Prime Ministers, 8 Jan., 2012, URL- http://www.indianexpress.com/news/if-science-seems-stuck-so-do-the-prime-ministers/897127/

Kulkarni, Sudheendra (2012): INDIA NEEDS SWADESHI S&T, IE 8 Jan12 p11

Editorial - Indian Express (9 Jan 2012): THE MORE THINGS CHANGE, URL - http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-more-things-change/897460/

Udon in India's Spaghetti Bowl

In the spaghetti bowl of international trade agreements, India's plate seems to be garnised very 'comprehensively'. We have comprehensive partnerships, comprehensive cooperation, and then those that sit on the fence between cooperation and partnership!

The word seems to be a favorite with governments. But if examined its usage a little more closely, it turns out that even though it sounds very decisive and all-encompassing they don't really mean it.

CECA involves only 'cooperation' towards tariff reduction in a phased manner on all items except those on the 'negative list' and tariff quota rate (TQR) items. On the other hand, the 'partnership' in a CEPA is extra-comprehensive, so it also covers trade in services and investment. 

Here is a summary of such trade agreements from the website of the Ministry of Commerce & Industry (MoCI) and other sources:

• Comprehensive Economic Partnership Agreement (CEPA) - Sri Lanka (2000); Singapore (2005); Korea (2009); Japan (2011);  Negotiations on with Canada
• Comprehensive Economic Cooperation Agreement (CECA)  - Thailand (2001), Singapore (2005), Negotiations on with Australia, Indonesia
• Comprehensive Economic Cooperation and Partnership Agreement (CECPA) negotiations - Mauritius
• Preferential Trade Agreement (PTA) - Chile (2005); Negotiations on with South African Customs Union (SACU), MERCOSUR
• Free Trade Agreement (FTA) negotiations - New Zealand, ASEAN, Bay of Bengal Initiative for Multi-Sectoral Technical and Economic Cooperation (BIMSTEC), Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC)
• Trade Agreements - Pakistan

The most recent CEPA signed between India and Japan is perhaps a case of adding udon to the spaghetti bowl of trade agreements. The pact is expected to provide access to the $5-trillion-GDP Japanese market. It is also the first CEPA with a developed country. About 94% of the tariffs between Japan and India will be eliminated within 10 years (about 97% by Japan and about 90% by India) on a trade value basis.

Given the ongoing recession and slowdown, it is still too early to know if the agreement between both government's will actually lead to a boost in bilateral trade.

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LINKS / REFERENCES

* Dhar, Biswajit (2011): All that the India-Japan CEPA Promises, FT 9 Sep 11, URL - http://www.financialexpress.com/news/all-that-the-indiajapan-cepa-promises/843865/0

* Raghavan, BK (2011): India-Japan CEPA holds great promise, BL 7 Sep 2011, URL - http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/opinion/columns/b-s-raghavan/article2430062.ece

* India-Japan Cepa comes into force on August 1 - HUMA SIDDIQUI, FT 30 Jul 2011 URL - http://www.financialexpress.com/news/indiajapan-cepa-comes-into-force-on-august-1/824406/0

* India-Korea CEPA - http://www.aepcindia.com/files/INDIA-KOREA-CEPA-Website.pdf

* PTI (2011): Ministry team to explain FTA benefits to stakeholders, BL 21 Feb 2011, URL - http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/industry-and-economy/economy/article1477059.ece?homepage=true

* India - Trade Agreements - http://en.reingex.com/India-Free-Trade-Agreements.shtml

* http://www.gktoday.in/bankpo-question-answers/what-is-difference-between-ceca-and-cepa/
* http://www.differencebetween.com/difference-between-ceca-and-vs-cepa/

* Update on India's Foreign Trade - URL - http://commerce.nic.in/tradestats/Indiastrade_press.pdf
* System on Foreign Trade Performance Analysis (FTPA) - http://commerce.nic.in/ftpa/default.asp

* Dept. of Commerce, MoCI-India, URL - http://commerce.nic.in/trade/international_ta_current_details.asp

Dying Gasps on Broadband

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Within days of getting a broadband connection from BSNL I find myself trying to decipher the secret language of LEDs, to understand why my internet connection keeps tripping every few minutes.

'Customer Care' at BSNL, unfortunately, continues to be an oxymoron. The helpline has a ready, pre-recorded explanation for all wobbly connections - 'technical work is in progress'. And this has been on for the past three days.

In hindsight, the broadband-guy did a smart thing by giving me some troubleshooting notes. It has already come in handy while trying to understand why the links are so erratic and unreliable. Everytime there is a break in the connection, I find myself staring at the array of LEDs on the modem. The only one which is constant is the red one for power supply. The fickle ones are the yellow for DSL and green's for internet and WiFi.

The wireless modem itself ( ADSL2+ CPE/IAD model AN-1020-21 type WT) is manufactured by Vippalamiritha Magnetic Components Ltd., Hyderabad. It comes with a manual which is anything but helpful. Its GUI interface at the default IP address, 192.168.1.1, tosses up a long list of acronyms which give company to common attributes like Dying Gasp, WhipMode and UtopiaInterface.

It is 'Dying Gasp' that first caught my attention. What a appropriate term for an instrument always on the brink of near-death experiences! Somebody out there certainly has a sense of humor.

Dying gasp is apparently a message sent by the customer premises equipment (CPE) DSL device to the digital subscriber line access multiplexer (DSLAM) when a power outage occurs. It is listed as one of the 'common attributes' of an Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Link (ADSL).

My wireless modem has been gasping, dying and going through the inevitable cycles of life & death a few hundred times everyday. Nirvana is nowhere in sight. Nor is the possibility of a reliable broadband connection. Until that happens I plod on with my karma of trying to understand more about ADSL  and broadband technology.

Here is an attempt at figuring out the answers (this is, of course, a work-in-progress):

ADSL2+: Asynchronous Digital Subscriber Line
ANS:
CPE:
DHCP Server:
DNS: Domain Name Server
MAC spoofing: lets MyDslModem identify itself as another computer or device.
PPPOE LlcBridged Protocol:
PVC Mapping:
SNR:
SSID: Service Set Identifier in wireless computer networking
UBR Category:
VPI/VCI: (0-255)/(32-65535)

BSNL: Telephones, Broadband and Bribes

A week ago I was pleasantly surprised to see a BSNL employee at our doorstep with a packet in hand. I had applied for a land-line + broadband connection and this 'lineman' had come for the first part: handing over the telephone instrument and activating the physical connection.

Over the past two decades the government-owned telecom company had transformed into a trend-setter when it comes to affordable connections. Spurred by the telecom privatization MTNL/BSNL has seen a huge improvement in its services.

Gone are the days when my grandfather had to write a melodramatic application letter to get a telephone connection in Thrikodithanam. He had to provide good reasons for being granted the privilege of a telephone connection, so he had written a  note about his ailing health, his advanced years and about wanting to keep in touch with  'My son who is in the army posted at Siachin glacier and my grandson serving the Air Force at the Arunachal frontier..'. A few months later a clunky, black bakelite instrument marked 'ITI' was installed with much fanfare.

The instrument I received from BSNL would have amazed my grandfather. It arrived without any special requests and was loaded with features that needed a careful scrutiny of a tiny manual and its miniscule print.

The BSNL lineman, as if to compensate for having exceeded a customer's expectations, went on to crudely pulled together some wires dangling outside the house, borrowed my screwdriver & insulation tape (he believed in travelling light) to fix the wires and, before leaving, insisted on having an "Inaam" (reward / bribe). The minimum amount he assured me, was Rs.100, because, these days, 'even a litre of petrol is so expensive!'.

The broadband guy came a couple of days later with a wireless modem. He was a lot neater and better equipped. He quickly configured the laptop and modem, wrote down detailed troubleshooting notes and left in a hurry, without bothering to even ask for an Inaam.

Obvioulsy, BSNL is an organisation with more than one face. The hoary tradition of seeking bribes is restricted to only the 'linemen' whose expertise lies in creating and maintaining a tangle of wires in every neighborhood. Only they can decipher and pull the right wires out of this tangle and  undertake the task of pulling wires across streets and installing the telephones. Also, By ensuring that the wires are fixed without insulation tapes or covers customers can be then be held on tenterhooks and regularly milked for further Inaams and baksheesh.

BSNL Broadband employees might be the new wave. They are geeks who prefer to buy their own petrol.
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LINKS

A report registered on Janaagraha's IPAB ("I Paid A Bribe"!) - http://ipaidabribe.com/sforms/view_reports_paid

Year of the Dragon

Pic source: Getty Images from Daily Mail

The new year has started with an interesting headline in the Western media - "China's New Dragon Stamp Breathes Criticism". What is it about this piece of artwork that inspires such a big fuss? Why This Kolaveri Di? :-)

Designed by Chen Shaohua the postage stamp shows a fiery, beautiful dragon splayed out as if on a dissection board, staring out with its dead black eyes, mouth frozen in a grimmace.

Chinese dragons have always reminded me of the "Yali" motifs that adorn the entrances to ancient temples in Kerala. The first thought that crossed my mind when I saw Shaohua's design was, 'This is how a Yali will look if it got accidentally electrocuted!'


One positive outcome of this - completely overblown- controversy is that that it draws more attention to the wonderful creations of artists like Shaohua.

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LINKS

Shaohua at Deutchland China 2010 - http://www.biennale-decn.com/de/offenbach-2010/vortragende/chen-shaohua.html

China's New Dragon Stamp Breathes Criticism, Fear - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/01/06/chinas-new-dragon-stamp-b_n_1188232.html

Yet Another Summit Meeting

The Japanese Prime Minister, Noda, visited India this week. As usual, there was much talk about boosting trade, technology transfer and maintaining high levels of ODA assistance for infrastructure projects. Despite all the special reports, exclusive interviews and sound-bites, there seems to be little evidence of any real change in the bilateral equation.

When the dust settles down one hard fact will still remain: Japan-India trade stands at $15 billion while Sino-Japan trade is chugging on at $340 billion per year.

Why is there such a huge gap between the rhetoric and reality? A part of the answer perhaps lies in the completely unrealistic expectations with which Indian's approach the Japanese. Take for instance, India's desire to obtain advanced technologies from Japan. On 28 Dec., an Indian Express report on bullet trains headline said, 'Japan Says Will Provide Latest Technology'. The crux of the report was a quote by one Toshihiro Yamakoshi, Director, Office of Project Development, Japan's transport ministry, who is aparantly stated, 'Japan would be offering the necessary technology' for the six corridors that India is planning to develop.

A transport ministry offers technology that does not belong to it and the report claims that Japan 'will provide latest technology'. This might have made some sense if the reporter was quoting a Soviet official in the erstwhile USSR. But Japan is not USSR and neither companies not technologies belong to the government to do as they please.

The Chinese officials understood this simple fact a couple of decades ago and focussed their attention, not on the MITI officials, but on Japanese companies that needed cheap labor and access to markets. They delivered what was promised in meetings, played transnationals against each other and, over the years,  built-up their own companies as formidable competitors.

At the end of this prime-ministerial visit, Indian politicians and bureaucrats will no doubt pat each other on the backs and hope that the private sector will  take a cue from the high-level discussions and "do the needful" - until the next summit meeting.

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REFERENCES / LINKS

• Dashtidar, Avishek G and Shubhajit Roy (2011): JAPAN SAYS WILL PROVIDE LATEST TECH, Indian Express, 28 Dec 11, p7
• Garia, Nikita (2011): What They Said: Japanese Prime Minister's Visit, 31 Dec. 2011, URL -  http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2011/12/31/what-they-said-japanese-prime-ministers-india-visit/
• Edit IE (2011): LIFTING THE GAME, IE 28 Dec 11, p10
• ENS Bureau (2011): JAPAN MAY INVEST $4.5bn IN DELHI-MUMBAI CORRIDOR, IE 28 Dec 11 p16

* Joint Forum of Indian and Japanese CEOs - Joint Report (28 December 2011) - http://www.keidanren.or.jp/english/policy/2011/116.html

Zebra Crossing

Ever wondered why there are so many jaywalker's on Indian roads?

Here is a part of the answer:

This is a 'zebra-crossing' in the heart of central Delhi. It takes you from a flower-bed to a high, layered hedge...so  there is no point in attempting to cross the road from here - unless, of course, you happen to be a zebra! :)

Techno-nationalism

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The Economist has come up with a term for China's single-minded pursuit of advanced technology - 'Techno-Nationalism'.

Techno-nationalism designates the restriction of foreign participation in domestic research and development. The focus is laid on national gains through accessing foreign technology and the monopolization of technology, rather than on mutual exchange with other nations.

China, of course, is not a pioneer in this business of linking nationalism and 'national interest' to the rapid assimilation of the latest technology, by all means possible. Countries in continental Europe did exactly the same thing after the advent of the Industrial Revolution in England; Japan did it immediately after the Meiji Restoration, while Taiwan and South Korea followed suit in the late 1960's.

There are at least two significant factors that seems to be unnerving people when China does a repeat performance: The scale and speed at which China is assimilating technology, and the fact that this is taking place in an era when the advanced countries imagined that they had got the rest of the world neatly bound & gagged under the new IPR regime.

In stark contrast, India's approach in this arena seems to be laid back, lacking in a sense of urgency or purpose in reducing dependence on imported technologies.

Will this change in the days to come?

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LINKS


Hughes, Christopher W. (2011) The slow death of Japanese techno-nationalism? Emerging comparative lessons for China's defense production. Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol.34 (No.3). pp. 451-479. ISSN 0140-2390, URL - http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/39974/

NBR Reports (May 2004)
China's Post-WTO Technology Policy: Standards, Software, and the Changing Nature of Techno-Nationalism by Richard P. Suttmeier, Xiangkui Yao and Alex Zixiang Tan


Book Review by Noriko Matsumoto: Gregory P. Corning (2004) Japan and the Politics of Techno-Globalism, Armonk, N.Y.: M.E. Sharpe, ISBN 0-7656-0969-X, hardback, 235 pages plus index.
http://www.japanesestudies.org.uk/reviews/2009/Matsumoto.html

Hughes, Christopher W. (2011) The slow death of Japanese techno-nationalism? Emerging comparative lessons for China's defense production. Journal of Strategic Studies, Vol.34 (No.3). pp. 451-479. ISSN 0140-2390
http://wrap.warwick.ac.uk/39974/

Edgerton DEH (2007): The Contradictions of Techno-Nationalism and Techno-Globalism: A Historical Perspective
http://csde.washington.edu/~scurran/files/readings/SIS511/EdgertonNewGlobalStudies.pdf

Passive Surveillance, Active Apprehensions

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Ever so often the word 'technology' seems like a synonym for 'magic'.

A few months back, I was fascinated by the case of the 'Stuxnet' virus. A computer programme so meticulously created, it spread through innocuous pen-drives all over the world until it lodgded itself in its target: a particular type of centrifuges purchased by Iran from Siemens, Germany, and which was being used to enrich uranium, allegedly for nuclear weapons. A few months after its launch the virus found its target, set the centrifuges on a wild spin and rendered them completely unusable.

And now WikiLeaks reveals that just about everything you say or do on the communication networks can, and is being monitored in real time by companies and government departments that operate beyond the purview of any regulatory authority. They just tune their equipment on to satellites orbiting 36,000km away and pick out conversations that end up changing the course of wars (Kargil); demolish carefully crafted careers of politicians, fixers and journalists (Amar Singh, Barkha Dutt, Vir Sanghvi), as and when the spooks (or their minders) decide the pull the plug on them.

WikiLeaks lists over 150 organisations who are engaged in this business, and, among them, two have been named from India: Shogi Communcations (Himachal Pradesh) and ClearTrail (Indore, MP). Google for ClearTrail and you are unlikely to find a company website easily, but they do seem to be hiring a lot of software talent. Their products are called mTrail, for mobile phone interception and ComTrail, which is

"devised for mass monitoring of IP and voice networks. It is equipped to handle millions of communications per day intercepted over high speed STM & Ethernet links. It doubles up as targeted monitoring system, speaker recognition, target location and instant analysis across thousands of terabytes."

Apparently there are over 33 such mass-surveillance sets with the state governments alone. The number of devices with private individuals and companies could be anybody's guess.

What is completely unclear, however, is whether these companies have build the equipment on their own (something commendable) or merely imported it from other countries like Israel. In the latter case, it is more than likely that the salesmen are playing the game both ways.

Either way, there seems to be plenty of trouble ahead!

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LINKS

• The Hindu Business Line(2011): The government's listening to us (Swami, Praveen), URL - http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/article2678868.ece
• Daily Bhaskar (5 Dec 11): WikiLeaks spying files: Trail leads to Indore, URL - http://daily.bhaskar.com/article/MP-IND-wikileaks-spying-files-trail-leads-to-indore-2615870.html
• New York Times (5 Jan., 2011): Israeli Test on Worm Called Crucial in Iran Nuclear Delay (WILLIAM J. BROAD, JOHN MARKOFF and DAVID E. SANGER), URL - http://www.nytimes.com/2011/01/16/world/middleeast/16stuxnet.html?pagewanted=all

Discovering Dhiren

In circa 1996, when Sree & I were rummaging through second-hand books at Daryaganj's Sunday-pavement-market, he suddenly picked up a shabby, damp, dog-eared book and said, "Buy this! If you don't like it, I'll take it from you whenever you want -- a buy-back guarantee!"

The same book resurfaced while I was unpacking recently:  Dhiren Bhagat's "The Contemporary Conservative". It was dustier and more dog-eared than ever before. I sat on the floor and flipped through a couple of pages, read Vinod Mehta's cover note, the first essay, and then the second and third...and kicked myself for not picking this book earlier.

It is a style of writing that you rarely get to see these days. As the cover note says, nearly all the pieces are "unsparing, learned, meticulously researched and provocative". I liked, in particular, the way he yanks away the pedestal from under some public figures like Arun Shourie (Why Shourie Can't Think Straight), Mani Shankar Aiyer (PM's Press Aide) and Khuswant Singh (Khuswant: RIP, 1982).

Here is his take on Indian politics:

"...Consequently political culture has come to acquire quite a few unwritten rules and methods: you tell a lie when you have to: rarely, if ever, refuse to do someone a favour - it is permissible subsequently not to do the favour but you must pretend that you tried. When involved in negotiation or agitation, if you see a vacant space, occupy it; when it becomes difficult to stay there, retreat....The basic premise is that everyone has a price. The skill of the politician is to find out what that price is.."

Its such a pity he passed away in 1988, when he was just 31. There would have been so much to look forward to in the papers, if he were around!

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LINKS

• Wikipedia article on Dhiren Bhagat - created today :)
• Bhagat, Dhiren (1990). The Contemporary Conservative. New Delhi: Viking / Penguin India. ISBN 0-670-83789-X.
• "Khushwant`s post mortem's". Business Standard, India. 2005-01-31. http://www.business-standard.com/india/news/khuswant%60s-post-mortems/204386/.
  "Sena turns the heat on Aiyar". Times of India. 2004-08-22. http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2004-08-22/india/27157445_1_mani-shankar-aiyar-sena-mp-sena-chief-bal-thackeray.
  "The Writer as a Young Man". The Hindu. 2002-01-20. http://www.hindu.com/thehindu/mag/2002/01/20/stories/2002012000300500.htm.

The Mobile Broadband Circus

A friend working - rather unhappily - with a telecom company made a number of interesting observations that set me wondering about the telecom industry in India. Before I discuss the industry, let me first list out the observations:

• CDMA is a better technology than GSM. All the talk about 3G being "the best" for mobile internet access is just a lot of hype. Connection speeds are anyday better on a CDMA network.
• Tata Docomo is in serious trouble. Having sunk about R28,000 Cr to build its own transmission infrastructrure (each tower costs Rs80L!) it is now witnessing a serious erosion of revenue streams. So much so that it has recently jumped into the GSM bandwagon to try and make some money. Docomo, meanwhile, is left wondering when - or if - it would be able to recoup its investments in the JV.
• MTS (another JV between Russia's Sistema and Shyam Telecom, India) is using the Tata network to offer high speed wireless internet connections.

It is actually his last point that grabbed my attention. I had purchased an MTS dongle a couple of months back. Manufactured by ZTE-China and branded "MBlaze", the choice was based on the assumption that a new company was less likely to have a congested network, and, hence, higher connection speeds. The salesman also made a strong case against the bigger companies by pointing out that even Vodafone used the MTS network for its data-packages. To drive home the point, he logged on to the Vodafone homepage and showed me the fine print. He was right.

Now my friend tells me that MTS itself is hanging on the Tata network! And like trapeze artists in a circus, the big players seemed to dangling on the smaller players, who in turn, are holding on for dear life to other big players.

When you dig a bit deeper it does make sense and many things fall in place - like pieces of a jigsaw puzzle.

The Mblaze USB-modems use the CDMA network, which is based on the 800MHz band. The GSM networks, on the other hand, uses the much higher 1800MHz band. Higher frequencies are a lot less efficient in covering distances and many more towers to cover a unit area, and hence, GSM networks are most effective for those living closer to the transmission towers.

Vodafone, Airtel and Idea have all  banded together to share their GSM transmission towers while the CDMA players, Tata and Reliance are on their own. Since CDMA is indeed a better technology - especially for data transmission - the big-three are now trying to offer "Mobile Broadband USB Modems" by tieing up smaller players like MTS who have already obtained spectrum capacity from CDMA players like Tata-Docomo.

So, without owning a single tower, MTS is focusing all its efforts in a marketing blitz and making money on the side by leasing CDMA spectrum to the bigger GSM players. A perfect case of having somebody else's cake and eating it too! :)

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LINKS
Code Division Multiple Access (CDMA) Development Group - www.cdg.org
GSM World - www.gsmworld.com

Why Japan's R&D scores over ours

 Article published in the Hindu Businessline, 23 November 2011

................................................................................................

Why Japan's R&D scores over ours

R. DINAKAR

Indian industry has shown little interest in overtures from public sector R&D labs. 

 Unlike in Japan, India's ivory-tower scientists are wary of working closely with private companies and factory workers.

Institutions dedicated to public research & development (R&D) activity often exist in a world far removed from the rough-and-tumble arena of private enterprise. To some, the very idea of using taxpayers' money to enrich the business class goes against the notions of equity and social justice.

One can, however, learn from the Japanese, who have created interesting institutional mechanisms to deal with this issue. Take the case of Koguchi-san, a young, mid-level scientist and troubleshooting ‘scout', working with the National Institute of Material Sciences (NIMS), a government-funded research lab located in Tsukuba Science City, 60 km north of Tokyo. On most days, you will not see him in his comfortable NIMS office, but on a factory floor elsewhere. Dressed in overalls and boots, he rubs shoulders with workers, technicians and scientists at a private manufacturing firm — usually an SME — trying to understand their technical problems, to make their manufacturing processes more efficient and their products more competitive.

Typically, discussions continue after office hours. Koguchi-san and his counterparts hang out together, share a drink or a game of baseball during the weekends. In the process, they build a camaraderie that is very valuable for their parent organisations. Jointly-funded projects emerging from such friendships have resulted in better alloys, stronger adhesives, superconducting magnets, super-capacitors, dye-sensitised solar cells, and a host of other specialised products that Japan's SMEs supply to the bigger keiretsu conglomerates as well as global markets.

THE INDIA CONNECTION

Koguchi-san is a fictitious character. But NIMS is very real. So are the kind of working-level R&D partnerships that exist between Japanese public-funded labs and private-sector companies described above.

NIMS employs nearly 50 Indians. Most of them are post-doctoral fellows from our own premier universities and research institutes, with whom it has inked MoUs, and also offers ‘joint graduate' programmes.

Researchers from India and other countries spend a few years here working on focused research projects. The intellectual property rights (IPRs) resulting from this, of course, belongs to NIMS and the Japanese companies.

What is of interest for us here, though, is not ownership of IPRs or even the Indian connection. It is about public-private partnerships (PPP) aimed at meeting the needs of the domestic and international markets, that can be useful for Indian industry as well.

STATE AS CATALYST

The Government has a critical role in this process — not by establishing newer institutes and perpetuating a bureaucratic paralysis — but by acting as a facilitator and catalyst. Another fine example to quote here is the case of Hiroden in Hiroshima.

Hiroshima — long before it was devastated by the atomic bomb codenamed ‘Little Boy' — was home to a tramway network run by this company called Hiroden. Their network was among the first utilities to be rebuilt after the attack. The city gradually became famous as a ‘living museum of tramcars'. In 1999, the local manufacturers got a rude shock when Hiroden decided to replace its aging fleet of single-car trams with the latest imported German models.

Manufactured by Siemens, these were the sleek LF-LRT (Low Floor-Light Rail Transit) Combinos. Their modular, barrier-free, interconnected and low-floor design not only had a much bigger capacity, but also made passenger movement easier and faster.

Japanese tram makers had refrained from improving their designs for several reasons till then: Overseas manufacturers held patents for many of the basic technologies and the low domestic demand increased development risks.

This changed in 2000, when a new Barrier-Free Transportation Law was brought in by the federal Government. It provided tax relief and exemptions to compensate for the price difference between conventional cars and the more expensive barrier-free designs.

In 2001, two years after Siemens had won the Hiroden contract, Japan's Ministry of Land Infrastructure and Transport got together a group of eight manufacturers to come out with a 100 per cent Japanese product. It eventually led to three of them — Mitsubishi Heavy Industries, Kinki Sharyo and Toyo Electric Co. — forming a consortium, JTRAM, for creating an improved tram better suited to Japanese conditions. MHI produced the bogies, brakes and inner/outer riggings; Kinki Sharyo focused on the design, car body, articulations, and driver's cabin; and Toyo took responsibility for the electrical parts and control drive units.

The result was ‘Green Mover Max', a vehicle that had more seats, wider aisles and lower dependence on foreign technology and component-makers than the Siemens Combinos, which, meanwhile, started developing problems.

In 2004, the German company admitted that their body-shells were developing cracks after high mileages (15,000 km-plus). By now, JTRAM was ready and waiting. In 2005, Hiroden accepted the first LF-LRT built entirely in Japan. And today, JTRAM not only dominates the local market, but also gives Siemens a run for its money in the international markets.

TWO-WAY STREET

In India, the Japanese PPP model — which we have seen at work even in the more recent period — would be looked upon with a mixture of suspicion and disdain. Our scientist-administrators are wary of working closely with private companies or discussing technical problems with mere factory workers. What is the point in soiling one's hands, when promotions are linked to more ‘intellectual' activities like filing patents or publishing papers — preferably in Western journals!

There are, of course, exceptions that are often the result of one-off individual initiatives. The rice miller, Anil Mittal's chance visit to the Indian Agricultural Research Institute in Delhi turned a promising basmati strain called Pusa-1121 into a commercially-cultivated variety that now earns India more than $1 billion in annual export earnings.

But in many cases, it is industry that has shown little interest in overtures from public sector R&D labs. When the Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute at Durgapur found no takers for its indigenous tractor design in the late 1960s, its own scientists led by Chandra Mohan took the lead to commercialise ‘Swaraj' tractors through Punjab Tractors Ltd.

On the other hand, a CSIR laboratory tried to collaborate with the cashew industry in Kerala, to jointly develop a better technology for mechanical roasting and peeling of raw nuts. But high-level discussions yielded nothing, as the industry was happy working with cheap labour. Today, high labour costs have forced mechanisation and cashew makers import the necessary equipment — from Vietnam!

A top-down approach has been a characteristic of our public-private interactions in R&D. It is high time we created incentives for our middle-level managers to seize the initiative. If, as with Koguchi-san at NIMS or the people at JTRAM, our R&D institutions make concerted efforts to build relationships and to understand the industry's needs, India too, can emerge as a hotbed of innovations.

It's time we stepped out of our institutional silos and stirred an inter-disciplinary cauldron of ideas. Our academics need to step down from their ivory towers, roll-up their sleeves, and empower their younger colleagues to bridge the yawning gap between ‘research' and ‘development' in India. 

(The author is an independent technology transfer consultant.) 

(This article was published on November 23, 2011)

Keywords: research & development (R&D), National Institute of Material Sciences (NIMS), Tsukuba Science City, Japanese PPP model, Pusa-1121

I Never Knew..

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As far as experiences go, is  there anything better than a short, sharp trip? After a quick, week-long visit to Kerala, I am convinced that intense road-travel is the best way to know soak in the contrasts that a place has to offer, without getting getting sucked into a vortex of ennui, nit-picking and petty politics.

This particular trip started with Indigo flight 6E-177 from Delhi to Thiruvananthapuram; it included a 650km drive across the length of the state, from Tvm to Kodungallur, Guruvayur and Trissur; a family get-together, and a return flight by the same airline back to Delhi.

All along, I found myself getting surprised time and again, by things I thought would never change, and by questions that never popped up earlier. And it all started at the new airport complex in Delhi.

I never knew the IGI Terminals had transformed so much. A drive down the airport road, past the Tibetan monastery, and suddenly you see that shabby buildings and ugly roundabouts have been swept away and replaced with a swank new building, with better security and much more efficient staff. Even the toilets sensors have little homilies on them! And just in case you feel completely disoriented, all you have to do is to look outside the glass windows to see "Airport Hotel". The relic is still there, perhaps as a reminder of the bad old days.

I had wondered why Indigo flights emerged as top-dog in the Indian skies until I checked in. The answer seems quite straightforward - over the past few years, while the competition has been falunting shorter skirts and pretty faces, Indigo has been hiring smart people and training them well in the art of continuous improvement. Who cares for hot meals and steel cutlery when the flights are handled efficiently and arrive well ahead of schedule!

Back on terra firma, the next big surprise was the highways in Kerala - they have improved so much! Except for a few, relatively short, painful stretches, both the trunk roads - the Main Central and the National Highway - have made road-travel so much more reliable.

And there were the elephant-questions. Until I sat for an hour gawking at the pachyderms, I never knew how leverage their tusks to crack palm fronds, or that they prefer to eat the stem like foot-long pieces of sugarcane, while completely ignoring the green leaves. I noticed this for the first time inside the Guruvayur temple during the Seiveli Puja. It never ceases to amaze me - the sight of five bedecked elephants standing in a confined space, amidst hundreds of people, in close proximity to oil lamps and their long, flickering flames.

Finally, I never knew that Trissur city was built around a huge 'traffic island' hillock, housing the famous Vadakkunathan temple. I always imagined it to be on a flat plain, separated from the Parasumeikkavu temple by the famous "pooram" ground. Even more suprising was the sheer size of the complex with its numerous sub-shrines. Most of these are in bad shape, thanks, no doubt, to the usual suspects - a Dewaswom Board with a damn-care attitude and the local populance which is unable or unwilling to take responsibility for its own heritage.

SAT-PICS:

lat=10.5249864&lon=76.2148941&z=17&l=0&ifr=1&m=b" width="730" height="536" frameborder="0">
The Thrissur Roundabout

lat=10.2799577&lon=76.7230225&z=13&l=0&ifr=1&m=b" width="846" height="525" frameborder="0">
Lakes wedged in between Mukurthi and Silent Valley National Parks

Reliance and a Weak State

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I just finished reading Hamish McDonald's acclaimed book, "Ambani & Sons -The Making of the World's Richest Brother's and their Feud". Its an amazing piece of work.

It is surprising that it took an Australian journalist to dig out murky details of corporate India and present it in such an eminently readable form. On the other hand, perhaps this is something only a foreigner could do: cutting through entrenched biases of individuals and holding up a mirror to demolish self-serving myths of an emerging nation; acting like the little boy who shouted, "But the Emperor is naked!"

Yet, the author could hardly be called a neutral observer presenting the facts - he is self-serving too, in his own way. McDonald is meticulous while naming the numerous politicians & bureaucrats who were in cahoots the Ambani's during the period 1977-2009. At the same time, when it comes to folks of his own ilk - journalists - MacDonald is more coy. Instead of naming the Indian journalists who systematically planted stories and subverted the truth for three decades, he repeatedly refers to them as just the "dirty dozen".

In the final analysis, McDonald quotes Gurcharan Das to conclude that -

A large part of the problem might be cultural: a 'bias for thought against action', or that bureaucrats 'value ideas over accomplishment'...The Indian state no longer generates public goods. Instead it creates private benefits for those who control it.

Some of the most important post-1991 reforms succeeded because of the regulatory institutions established by the state. While India needs entrepreneurs like Mukesh Ambani, it also needs a much stronger state to apply rules against any abuse of market power. Businessmen will do what they can get away with...A strong state should devote more resources to relevant and updated policies, better revenue collection and accountability and effective policing of rules, rather than persisting with so much effort in micro-managing affairs. It should strengthen its bureaucracy, not with great powers but with better resources, education and discipline so as to be truly the 'steel framework' that Nehru envisaged, or the rule-keepers prescribed by Hayek.

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LINKS / REFERENCES

Das, Gurcharan (2006): The India Model, Foreign Affairs (Jul., 2006), Reprinted in NYT. URL - http://www.nytimes.com/cfr/world/20060701faessay_v85n4_das.html?pagewanted=all

Cream Weaver: Review in the Outlook (Oct., 2010) URL - http://www.outlookindia.com/article.aspx?267219

Review at CNN-Go, URL - http://www.cnngo.com/mumbai/shop/ambani-sons-available-india-now-sold-out-383418