Ray, Graphic Artist

How much can you pack into one life?


In an HT feature commemorating Satyajit Ray's 92nd Birth Anniversary, I was pleasantly surprised to know that the great man had left his mark, far beyond the world of books and cinema. He also excelled in typography and graphic art!


Here are some copies that grabbed my attention:

A campaign for the Tea Board

Booklet cover design

Jabakusum anti-hair-loss tonic! :)

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LINKS & REFERENCES.

http://www.satyajitray.org/

http://www.satyajitrayworld.com/versatility_advertisements.php

Ray on the net -- http://www.satyajitray.org/links/index.htm

Big Data, Small World

When a magazine like Foreign Policy comes up with an article titled 'The Rise of Big Data' you know that something has tumbled out of geekdom to the world of ordinary mortals.

The article talks about 'incredible new uses (of data) with the assistance of inexpensive computer memory, powerful processors, smart algorithms, clever software, and math that borrows from basic statistics'.  Instead of trying to “teach” a computer how to do things, the new approach is to feed enough data into a computer so that it can infer the possible answers on its own. 

India's ambitious UID project does not find mention here - perhaps its not big enough - but it does describe some amazing new uses of data. One of these is Prof. Shigeomi Koshimizu's "bottom-up" approach to establishing unique identities.

Prof. Shigeomi's team at AIIT-Tokyo placed 360 pressure-sensors on car-seats and found that when a person is seated, the contours of the body, its posture, and its weight distribution can all be quantified and tabulated and converted to a digital code that is unique to each individual!

Perhaps the day is not far when Indian's lining up for their UID cards will be spared the trouble of scanning fingerprints and of staring into machines for iris patterns. They would just have to just sit on a chair while somebody verifies their application and simply walk out with a biometric-id card..  :-)

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LINKS & REFERENCES

Cukier, Kenneth Neil  and Viktor Mayer-Schoenberger (2013): The Rise of Big Data - How It's Changing the Way We Think About the World, Foreign Policy, May/June 2013 -- url -- http://www.foreignaffairs.com/articles/139104/kenneth-neil-cukier-and-viktor-mayer-schoenberger/the-rise-of-big-data?page=show

Japanese boffins crack arse-based ID recognizer -- url -- http://www.theregister.co.uk/2011/12/27/japanese_bum_id_recognizer/

Boneless Wonder

"Where have I heard that before?"

This is the thought that crossed my mind when I read the following passage from a Private Member's Bill tabled in the Indian Parliament today:

(viii) Panchayati Raj continued on paper and Sarpanches got elected without any attendant charter of responsibilities and the financial powers that could have rendered their duties effective and meaningful;
(ix) despite the detailed enumeration of allocable functions to Panchayats in Eleventh Schedule (article 243 G) of the Constitution, the devolution of financial powers to make these enumerated functions meaningful and the non vacation of administrative space by concerned government departments, has resulted in rendering the Panchayati Raj a boneless wonder;

It turns out that the original expression comes from a circus advertisement that was used by Winston Churchill to flame Ramsey MacDonald in the 1930s. He is the original quote -

"I remember when I was a child, being taken to the celebrated Barnum's Circus, which contained an exhibition of freaks and monstrosities, but the exhibit on the program which I most desired to see was the one described as "The Boneless Wonder". My parents judged that the spectacle would be too demoralizing and revolting for my youthful eye and I have waited fifty years, to see The Boneless Wonder sitting on the Treasury Bench."
Winston Churchill On Ramsay MacDonald

It seems Ramsey M found himself quite often at the receiving end of Churchill's barbs. Here is another one -

"[Ramsey] MacDonald has the gift of compressing the largest amount of words into the smallest amount of thoughts."

For a wider sample of barbs & quotes, look here.

A Quake & Silence

At around 2:20 pm today, my chair trembled and moved on its own.

In the few seconds that followed, I closed my eyes and soaked in that familiar, dreadful silence.

Two years ago, on 7 March 2011, I was on my dining chair having a late lunch at Tsukuba-U when the 'biggest earthquake in recorded history' hit us in Japan. In the hours, days and weeks that followed, we moved from one evacuation center to another; struggled to access food and drinking water...and yet considered ourselves very, very fortunate to be a few dozen miles away from the tsunami that  devastated the Tohoku coastline left about 18,000 people dead or missing.

Today's tremors ended in a few seconds but the same old questions dangled in the silence: where was the epicenter? How many houses have come crashing down? How many lives have been lost?

The simple fact that the lights were still on and that the networks were still working told us that the tragedy had taken place somewhere far away. Still, nothing turned up on the internet until Reuters posted an twitter-update ten minutes later.

The complete story is now in -- that far-away-place is called Khash in South-East Iran. At 7.8 magnitude "more than 30 people are reported dead".

I set aside my nightmares, pull back my chair and get to work again...

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LINKS:

• Blogpost - "Quake Notes" - 11 April 2011 -- url -- http://dinakarr.blogspot.in/search?q=quake
• BBC - http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-middle-east-22168202
• Visvanathan, Shiv (2011): Tsunami's of the Mind, Tehelka, 9 April 2011 -- url --  http://tehelka.com/the-tsunamis-of-the-mind/: Interesting thoughts on "how a nation copes with disaster is a sign of its democracy’s health — and whether it can move beyond mere technofixes and plumbing stereotypes"

Bonds to the Rescue

H. Kuroda, the new governor of Bank of Japan made a dramatic announcement today. Instead of trying to keep the interest rates low, the bank would henceforth buy long-term bonds to force more money into circulation. This, hopefully, will encourage everybody to spend more and pull the Japanese economy out of its 20-year-long doldrums.

The point that caught my attention came in this para of an NYT report:

"the central bank said it would buy longer-term government bonds, lengthening the average maturity of its holdings to seven years from three years and expanding Japan’s monetary base to ¥270 trillion by March 2015. Under that plan, the bank will buy ¥7 trillion of bonds each month, equivalent to over 1 percent of its gross domestic product — almost twice the pace of the U.S. Federal Reserve."

Yen 270 trillion translates into Rs. 1.55 Crore Crores (155*10^12) and US$ 2.83 Trillion!
According to BoJ, Japan's current monetary base stands at Yen 146 trillion. So if all goes well the expansion is going to be about 50 percent in two years.

What is India's current monetary base?

According to a Reserve Bank of India (RBI) press release dated 22 March, 2013, India's latest recorded money supply (M3) stands at Rs. 73 Lakh Crores (73.5*10^12).

So the difference in money cirulating now in India, to what Japan expects to have in 2015 is the difference more than double our current levels -- Rs. 82 Lakh Crores (82*10^12)!

Note: All figures in US$ Trillion; India's monetary expansion is assumed to be 16%

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LINKS & REFERENCES


Japan - Monetary Base 2013 - http://www.boj.or.jp/en/statistics/boj/other/mbt/mbt1303.pdf

RBI - Growth Rates for M3 -- http://rbi.org.in/scripts/SPF17.aspx

Tabuchi, Hiroko (2013): JAPAN INITIATES BOLD BID TO END FALLING PRICES, NYT, 4 April, 2013 --- url --- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/04/05/business/global/japan-initiates-a-bold-bid-to-end-years-of-falling-prices.html?partner=rss&emc=rss&smid=tw-nytimes&_r=0
- The central bank said it would aggressively buy longer-term bonds and double its holdings of government bonds in two years, doubling the amount of money in circulation in the process. The bank will aim for a robust 2 percent rate of inflation “at the earliest possible time,”
- The policies are part of a new asset purchase framework that focuses on the monetary base instead of the overnight interest rate, which has remained close to zero for years doing little to increase prices or otherwise help the real economy.

* RBI Press Release on Money Supply -- http://rbidocs.rbi.org.in/rdocs/PressRelease/PDFs/IEPR1658RM0413.pdf

* George Soros's view - http://www.businessinsider.com/george-soros-on-bank-of-japan-2013-4?goback=%2Egmp_49695%2Egde_49695_member_229425408

Maria's Insects & Flowers

 

Thanks to today's unusual doodle, here is the remarkable story of a Dutch lady who loved to draw insects and flowers:

The Guardian - GrrlScientist (2 April 2013) -- http://www.guardian.co.uk/science/grrlscientist/2013/apr/02/maria-sibylla-merian-artist-insects-science

 

The Limits of Delimitation

1952, 1962, 1973, 2002, 2026...

Is there anything odd about this sequence?

For India, the mismatch in the last two years point to a fundamental problem -- an issue that has been postponed until another generation picks up the courage to resolve it.

The problem we examine here is that of "proportional representation" - the very basis of electoral politics in India.

The lower house of our parliament, the Lok Sabha is composed of representatives of the people chosen by direct election on the basis of the adult suffrage. The maximum strength of the House envisaged by the Constitution is 552, which is made up by election of up to 530 members to represent the States, up to 20 members to represent the Union Territories. The total elective membership is distributed among the States in such a way that the ratio between the number of seats allotted to each State and the population of the State is, so far as practicable, the same for all States.

Over the years, we have come far from the 'as far as practicable' scenario. Many states which have taken the trouble to improve healthcare and to control their population growth, are finding that they have been robbed of the power of numbers.

Under Article 82 of constitution, Parliament is required to enact a Delimitation Commission after every Census. The motive behind this act was to ensure that there is not much disparity in the population of different constituencies whether in Lok Sabha or in the state assemblies. Delimitation Commissions were set up in 1952, 1962 and 1973. During Emergency in 1976, the constitution was amended to not have delimitation till after 2001 census. The idea was to prevent disincentives for states which have managed to have some degree of population control.

However, the Constitution of India was specifically amended in 2002 not to have delimitation of constituencies till the first census after 2026. Thus, the present Constituencies carved out on the basis of 2001 census shall continue to be in operation till the first census after 2026.

Until then, should we keep our fingers crossed, and hope that the BIMARU states which are now in the midst of an economic resurgence will, somehow or the other, also manage to bring down their population?

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* What is Delimitation? (part-1-3) - http://www.indiavotes.com/blog/category/delimitation/

* Press Note (17 Aug., 2007) - http://eci.nic.in/delim/Press/PN_17082007.pdf
. the Commission has already issued final notifications in respect of 25 States.
. The work in three States, namely, Assam, Arunchal Pradesh and Nagaland has been stayed by the Guwahati High Court in Writ Petitions pending before the High Court. The appeal of the Union of India in respect of Manipur State is pending in the Supreme Court. In all these court cases the legality of the 2001 census has been challenged.
. The net result is that except the four above-mentioned, North-Eastern States, the delimitation process has been completed in all respects for 3726 Assembly Constituencies and 513 Lok Sabha Constituencies in rest of the country.
. Articles 82 and 170 (3) of the Constitution of India stipulate that the readjustment of Constituencies shall take effect from such date as the President, may by order, specify.

* Delimitation Commission of India - FAQs - http://eci.nic.in/delim/FAQ/FAQ.pdf

* http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/BIMARU_states

* http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2010-09-24/news/27568301_1_regions-bimaru-growth-in-personal-income

Three Divers Make India Crawl

Three Egyptian divers damaged three undersea cables near Alexandia Port, and India's internet speeds have come down to a crawl.

What happened? Are our internet lifelines so vulnerable?

According to newspaper reports --

 "The current outages that affect three of the eight communications cables that connect India to the rest of the world — SMW-4, IMEWE and EIG — are likely to impact services provided by Bharti Airtel, Tata Telecommunications, Reliance Communications and public sector service providers BSNL/MTNL."

Which are these eight cables? What do these acronyms stand for?

• SMW-4 (South-East Asia-Middle East-Western Europe-4): One of the eight cables carrying traffic between Egypt and Europe. SMW-4 also carries voice and data communications between 15 countries, including Singapore, Malaysia, Thailand, Bangladesh, India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan, the United Arab Emirates, Saudi Arabia, Algeria and France.
• IMEWE (India-Middle East-Western Europe): is a 13,000 km cable system between India and France. It has cable landing stations at Mumbai, Karachi, the UAE, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, Lebanon, Italy and France.
• EIG (Europe India Gateway): Connects India with 11 European, African and West Asian nations.

What about the other five cables?

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LINKS & REFERENCES

Kurup, Deepa (2013): DUDE, WHAT'S WRONG WITH MY INTERNET SPEED?, The Hindu, 31Apr2013 ---url--- http://www.thehindu.com/sci-tech/technology/internet/dude-whats-wrong-with-my-internet-speed/article4564798.ece

Economic Times: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/news/news-by-industry/telecom/bsnls-internet-capacity-down-due-to-cuts-in-undersea-cable/articleshow/19307846.cms

Ghosh, Sauvik (2013): http://www.livemint.com/Industry/dzPwMJvhTIkNmyjBavchvO/International-communication-links-in-India-to-be-hit-for-two.html
http://www.livemint.com/Politics/RhHb2bR1ZVIaarxSF5VqlK/Egypt-arrests-scuba-divers-accused-of-cutting-Internet-cable.html

Fleeting Reds

The Kosam trees (Schleichera oleosa) of Delhi put out a spectacular display last week.

Just two weeks ago these trees reminded me of the onset of Autumn in Japan. Like the Ginkgo's, the Kosam's too turned their otherwise unremarkable foliage into shades of yellow and dropped them off, leaving nothing but a skeleton of barren branches.

Then, unlike the Ginkgo's which remain barren until spring, the Kosam's sprout tender young leaves almost immediately. The leaves turn deep scarlet for a few days before turning into a regular green color.

What could be the evolutionary story behind this fleeting display? Is it meant to attract the Lac insects? Do they help in pollination?

Food for Thought

The National Food Security Bill 2011 is all set to be introduced in the second-half of the Budget Session of Parliament. The Bill presents a difficult set of dilemma's and conundrums.

On the face of it, there could be no cause which is more noble: using our surplus stocks of foodgrains to feed the poor. The Bill proposes to use large-scale food distribution to feed 67% of the country's population of 1.2 billion.

Yet, as always, the devil lurks in the details.

Where will the food come from?

Even though our FCI godowns are overflowing with foodgrains, the Bill needs our Public Distribution system to handle 74 million tonnes by 2013-14. However, just 29.7 million tonnes were lifted by states in 2009-10 as against 45.4 million tonnes allocated for the PDS!

Where will the money come from?

The official estimated cost is Rs.95,000 per annum. Experts say that this is a rather conservative figure. Gulati & Gujral (2011) calculated the minimum annual expenditure at Rs. 200,000 Crores. To put the amount in perspective, total subsidies budgeted for 2011 on everything was Rs 140,000 crore.

Can the existing logistics network handle this?

You could call this 'new wine in an old, leaky bottle'. Until inefficiencies in the existing distribution systems are addressed on a war footing, we might be sending more money than ever before, down the drain. To take one example, labour in FCI is highly organised and an unskilled worker (loading and unloading job) earns around Rs 35,000 per month -- much, much more than the average skilled worker.  According to reports, 'hundreds of such FCI workers get more than Rs 1 lakh a month and the highest is about Rs 1.85 lakh per month'.

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LINKS & REFERENCES

The cost of Food Entitlement

* Aggarwal, Ankita and Harsh Mander (2013): ABANDONING THE RIGHT TO FOOD, EPW, Feb 2013 -- url -- http://www.epw.in/commentary/abandoning-right-food.html --- http://centreforequitystudies.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/02/Abandoning_the_Right_to_Food.pdf

* FE Editorial: NOW TO DIGEST THAT FOOD, 19 Dec. 2011, Financial Express, 19 Dec., 2011 -- url -- http://www.financialexpress.com/news/fe-editorial-now-to-digest-that-food/889477
- To put the amount in perspective, total subsidies budgeted this year on everything are R1.4 lakh crore.
- spends 5-6 times more on farm subsidies than it does on farm investment where the returns in terms of poverty reduction and higher farm growth are several times higher.
- other distortions like the Essential Commodities Act that allows states to ban movement of agri-commodities and suspending futures markets to the APMC Act that allows commission agents to take away as much as 15% of the farmers revenue

* Gulati, Ashok and Jyoti Gujral (2011): "FOOD SECURITY BILL: Can we afford Rs. 6 lakh crore food subsidy in three years?", The Economic Times, 17 Dec., 2011 -- url -- http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2011-12-17/news/30528849_1_food-subsidy-subsidised-grain-priority-households
- The farmers are not happy as the MSP for wheat and rice has gone up by less than 20% against a cost escalation of about 45%.
- But Punjab imposes 14.5% taxes and various forms of cess, etc, on top of the MSP for any procurement of grain being done from the state. The argument is that many states have minerals and they impose large royalty on their mineral wealth.

* PRS Legislative Brief - NFSB-2011 - http://www.prsindia.org/uploads/media/Food%20Security/Legislative%20Brief%20National%20Food%20Security%20Bill%202011.pdf

* Swaminathan, MS (2009): SYNERGY BETWEEN FOOD SECURITY ACT AND NREGA, The Hindu, 1Jun2009 ---url---http://www.hindu.com/2009/06/01/stories/2009060153470800.htm

Visualizing India's Electorate

Data visualizers are now turning their attention to Indian politics!

Here is an interesting presentation by S. Anand of Gramener.com --

Visualising politics from gramener

Not all slides are communicate  clearly but, on the whole, one does get a flavor of the complications involved in Indian electoral politics.

Anand's blog is also very cool: http://www.s-anand.net/

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REFERENCES / LINKS

* Four Color Theorem - (1976) by Kenneth Appel and Wolfgang Haken. It was the first major theorem to be proved using a computer. Wiki -- http://www.s-anand.net/

Sanctioned, Allocated & Released!

During the ongoing Budget Session of the Indian Parliament, numbers linked to three words are a source of much angst and analysis -- sanctioned, allocated and released.

Most often, 'sanction' refers to the amount of money notionally set aside by the Planning Commission of India towards implementation of its "Five Year Plans". Once a sanction has been made, the Ministry of Finance uses it as a reference number while 'allocating' budget for each activity listed its annual plans.

Now, allocation is linked to the extent of utilization. So the amount that is finally released for work on the ground may be a fraction of what was originally sanctioned by the planners.

Take for instance a flagship scheme which goes by the unweildy acronym - JNNURM. This is the Jawaharlal Nehru National Urban Renewal Mission (JNNURM), created to 'encourage reforms and fast track planned development of identified cities'. In all, 73 cities were identified across India, and the Planning Commission 'sanctioned' Rs. 66,085 Crores (~$13 billion) for a period of seven years (2005-11).

Since 2005, the actual money allocated through the annual budgets passed by the parliament has been 73 percent -- Rs.47,967 Crores ( ~$ 9.5 billion). Allocations have fallen short of targets mainly because many states could not put in place, a set of four "mandatory reforms' -- (1) Implementation of decentralization measures as envisaged in the 74th Constitution Amendment, (2) Reform of the Rent Control Act and rationalization of stamp duty, (3) Repeal of the Urban Land Ceiling Act, and (4) Enactment of public disclosure law and community participation law.

All states have initiated these reforms but none have implemented them fully. Oddly enough, Tamil Nadu, which has the lowest rate of reform-implementation at 25% has the highest number of completed projects at 68%!

According to a CAG report submitted last year (28 Nov., 2012), only 17 percent of sanctioned projects under urban infra, have been implemented (231 of 1298). The record is even worse for housing projects: 22 of 1517 projects -- just one percent!

So, in the final reckoning, only Rs. 32,934 (less than 50%) of the original money sanctioned has been 'released' for completed projects between 2005-2011.

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LINKS / REFERENCES:

* Ministry of Urban Development - Home Page - http://jnnurm.nic.in/state.html

* JNNURM Overview -- http://jnnurm.nic.in/wp-content/uploads/2011/01/PMSpeechOverviewE.pdf
- selected cities (7+28+28) - page 14

* PRS Blog -- Status of JNNURM (7 Dec., 2012) - http://www.prsindia.org/theprsblog/?p=2330

Tech Transfer - the Aravind Way

Aravind Eye Hospital is undoubtedly one of the most unusual institutions in India. Consider these facts:

• Aravind's surgeons average about 2,000 operations a year. The average for eye surgeons in the U.S. is 125;
• Each year, Aravind Eye Care System conducts over 300,000 sight-restoring eye surgeries — and about half, are free;
• Efficiency brings down the costs but not the quality. Aravind surgeons have just half the number of complications that the British health system has for the same procedure;
• Aravind's JV with David Green resulted in Aurolabs, in 1992. Today, it is one of the largest manufacturers of intraocular lenses in the world, with sales in eighty-six countries. The average selling price of Aurolab's lenses is currently $8 compared to $150 in the U.S. 

How did a not-for-profit Indian organisation like Aravind manage to collaborate with an American entrepreneur, to mass-produce sophisticated surgical devices, at affordable prices?

A good part of the answer to this question lies in the networks & institutions set up by one individual -- Larry Brilliant.

True to his name, this American hippy turned physician, epidemiologist, technologist & author, has been tackling some of the worst medical problems affecting the poor -- smallpox, curable blindness and hearing disabilities. Brilliant teamed up with Ram Dass (formerly Richard Alpert) and Waly Gavy (all devotees of Neem Kakoli Baba), to establish Seva Foundation in 1978.

Seva Foundation tied up with a retired government doctor in Tamil Nadu, named Dr. Govindappa Venkataswamy (Dr.V), and brought in the serial entrepreneur, David Green, to tackle a major bottleneck: making affordable intra-ocular lenses.

These lenses were prohibitively expensive at $100 a piece. Green obtained the technology from an American company for a one-time fee for technology transfer, and then went on to start production in 1992. It has supplied more than 6 million lenses to non-profit users in India and eighty-eight other countries. Today, these lenses cost just $4 a piece (Rs.270).

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LINKS / REFERENCES:

* http://www.aravind.org/ --- Dr. V - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Govindappa_Venkataswamy
* T. Ravilla: developer of the LAICO-Aravind Eye Hospital Care System -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thulasiraj_Ravilla -
* Attacking the Backlog of India's Curable Blind -- The Aravind Eye Hospital Model -- G. Natchiar, MD; Alan L. Robin, MD; Ravilla D. Thulasiraj, MBA; Senthil Krishnaswamy, MD -- http://archopht.jamanetwork.com/article.aspx?articleid=640769
* Aurolab India - http://www.aurolab.com/intraocularlenses.asp
* Ydstie, John (2011): India Eye Care Center Finds Middle Way To Capitalism, NPR, November 29, 2011; url - http://www.npr.org/2011/11/29/142526263/india-eye-care-center-finds-middle-way-to-capitalism/
* SEVA Foundation - http://www.seva.org/site/PageServer
* Larry Brilliant - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Larry_Brilliant
* Neem Karoli Baba - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Neem_Karoli_Baba
* Ram Dass - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ram_Dass
* Wavy Gravy - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wavy_Gravy

* http://infinitevisionaries.com/blog/

SRI - New Farming

India plants rice over an area of about 43 million ha and produces around 125 million tonnes of rice, which is over 43 percent of national food grain production. The average yield remains low at around 2.85 t/ha.


Over the last few years, there has been much talk of a new method of crowing crops called the System of Rice (or root) Intensification (SRI). It has dramatically increased yields with wheat, potatoes, sugar cane, yams, tomatoes, garlic, aubergine and many other crops and is being hailed as one of the most significant developments of the past 50 years for the world's 500 million small-scale farmers and the two billion people who depend on them.

Farmers in a Bihari village named Darveshpura are being feted for coming up with astonishingly high yields - one Sumant Kumar has grown 22.4 tonnes of rice on one hectare of land, using only farmland manure and without any pesticides. Another small farmer from a nearby village, broke the Indian record for growing wheat.

Are we really poised on the edge of another Green Revolution?

A detailed study by researchers led by Palaniswami K have reported in the EPW that the SRI method does seem to have increased yield and reduced the use of water in select locations. This team used data from 13 rice-growing states in India to come to this conclusion.

It will be interesting to see if this is more than just a flash in the pan...

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LINKS & REFERENCES:

* Palaniswami K (2013): DOING DIFFERENT THINGS OR DOING THINGS DIFFERENTLY? EPW,  http://www.epw.in/system/files/pdf/2013_48/08/Doing_Different_Things_or_Doing_It_Differently.pdf

* Vidal, John (2013): INDIA'S RICE REVOLUTION, The Guardian, 16Feb13 - http://www.guardian.co.uk/global-development/2013/feb/16/india-rice-farmers-revolution

* Siddiq, EA (): BRIDGING THE RICE YIELD GAP IN INDIA, FAO - http://www.fao.org/docrep/003/x6905e/x6905e09.htm


* SDTT-SRI - http://sdtt-sri.org/

Watch it!

A watch cannot claim to be 'Swiss-Made' unless at least 50% of its components - by value - are manufactured in Switzerland.

In India, the time products division of the Tata Group manufacturers under three brands - Titan, FastTrack and Xylys. The last one, Xylys, comes with a 'Swiss-Made' tag. Will it lose this tag if the Swiss raise the threshold to 60%?

This, along with many other interesting questions, pop up from an article in the the latest Economist. The article comes up with many hey-I-didn't-know-this facts. Consider these -

• The Swiss dominate the watch business and one company dominates this business in Switzerland - Swatch. The company has an annual turnover of SFr 7.3 billion (Rs. 4,216 Cr)
• The Swatch group owns more than a dozen brands which carpet-bomb the entire watch market, leaving the mass market to Chinese companies and their $2 watches. 
• Swatch companies - Breguet, Blancpain, Glashütte Original, Jaquet Droz, Léon Hatot, Omega, Tiffany & Co., Longines, Rado, Union Glashütte, Tissot, ck watch & jewelry, Balmain, Certina, Mido, Hamilton, Swatch, Flik Flak, Endura and Tourbillon.
• Switzerland is also the world's biggest supplier of watch components:
• ETA - 70% of movements (core mechanisms)
• Nivarox-FAR - 90% of balance springs
• Swatch is also an unwilling supplier of components to its competitors (Patek Philippe, Robert Loomes)!

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LINKS:

Swiss Makers - Time is Money (Economist, 16Feb13) - http://www.economist.com/news/business/21571943-industry-ripe-shake-up-time-money?fsrc=scn/tw/te/tr/timeismoney

Swatch Group - http://www.swatchgroup.com/en/brands_and_companies

Tata Time Products Division - http://www.titan.co.in/business-divisions/time-products-division/xylys

Shagil Precision - India's Biggest Watch Component Maker (Times of India, 4May2004) - http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2004-05-04/bangalore/28327131_1_machines-component-maker-facility

Lincoln - The Movie

I finally got around to seeing Lincoln yesterday at the US Cultural Center in Delhi.  The screening had not been publicized - there was no notice on their website or even at the building entrance that such an event was taking place. Given the fact that the auditorium was half empty, it was obvious that most of the invitees had already seen the movie, or that they did not have the patience to deal with the security barricades.

At sharp 7PM, the US cultural attache walked up the stage for an introduction. A middle-aged man in oversize clothes, he had an air of an absent minded professor describing his latest hypothesis. He talked of Lincon's milieu, his struggles with the 13th Amendment; of Speilberg's obsessive attention to detail - down to getting the right sound for a horse carriage door's 'click'.

It was a fine introduction to a carefully crafted movie.  It does a great job of giving depth, perspective and context to the life and times of Abraham Lincoln.

The movie begins at a point when the man is already larger than life. Foot-soldiers are in awe of him and have already memorized much of his Gettysburg address; he is already won his second term, and, the end is already in sight for the bloody civil war which has already cost four years and 600,000 lives. The stage is set for a big fight over the 13th Amendment, and despite all the naysayers, Abe is deeply convinced that it has to be rammed through the congress - by hook or crook.

It is not entirely clear though where this conviction comes from. He wants slaves to be free as a moral imperative but is not sure how he will treat them as equals, or even as citizens who may eventually 'earn the right to vote'. He barely manages to strike a balance between his family and his job. These human dilemmas of great leader are brought out very sensitively.

The movie also gives you a glimpse of the terrible mess behind all those famous victories -- both in the congress and in battlefields. At times, your can almost feel beneath your feet, all the congealed blood from amputated limbs and smell those damp curtains and bad breath  in rooms lit by oil lamps.

A movie worth seeing.

Mawana Marathon 2013

The Mawana Marathon was held yesterday (17 Feb., 2013). It is the oldest, cheapest... and arguably the most badly organized annual athletic event in Delhi.

At first glance, the event had everything going right for it -- 23 years of steady corporate sponsorship (the Usha/Sriram Group, Red FM); it was being held "under the aegis" of the Athletics Federation of India and the running route was no doubt the most scenic you could ask for in Delhi. And yet, shoddiness of the organizers is perhaps matched only by the lack of serious intent in the vast majority of 'runners' who turned up at India Gate.

Even though the event had been open for online registration a couple of months ago, the process could not be completed unless you turned up personally at the National Stadium to pay the Rs.50 as registration fees, a day before the event. Since there were only a few officials to direct or regulate the crowds, it was hardly surprising to see thousands of youngsters jostling to reach the payment counters. Once you managed to pay the fees, there were separate counters for collecting the bibs and electronic tags. The entire exercise took about two hours.

'Instructions for Marathoners' did not provide any clear idea of the parking lots, or of the assembly areas leading up to the starting point. Runners were told to report at the 'venue' at 6 am, and then waved into enclosures to wait until 7:30 am. With nothing to keep them occupied through the dark, wet and cold morning many of the youngsters -- most of them with Delhi Police t-shirts -- got their cheap thrills by hooting and whistling at women runners in the adjacent enclosure.

The running finally started late, without any countdown or announcements. A near stampede ensued through the narrow exits. Limbs crashing against limbs until the runners stumbled out onto the open roads.

The whoops and enthusiasm diminished significantly once the crowds moved past the TV cameras and the display screens. At the first water-station a few kilometers away, there was a scramble for bottles. Teenagers hoarded up bottles and then tossed them away on the running tracks. Down the road, at the first tea-stall near the parliament another crowd of 'runners' stopped by for a chai, a few patties and a samosa before deciding that was better to walk arm-in-arm with friends. So what if they obstruct other runners?

All those who managed to complete the half-marathon and the full marathon were greeted at the finish line by folks trying to market their own sports events ('join the obstacle race next Sunday!'). Inside the enclosures, drinking water canisters were strewn in the mud, safety pins were carelessly removed from the bibs and tossed away, much to the agony of those who had to remove their shoes.

The final scene of chaos was played out at the counters where the participants had to hand in their electronic tags and exchange it for a 'goodies bag' and a medal. After all the trouble, what did the 'goodies bag' contain? - Nothing!  :(

The least I expected to find after running 21 km, was a packet of biscuits or a juice tetrapak or a fruit. Why on earth were the organizers handing out empty plastic bags marked 'Mawana Marathon 2013'??

I guess its just one of the many unanswered questions for a shoddy athletic event organized by sugar barons who have perhaps never ever stepped into a pair of running shoes.

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BTW:

* Point no.20 of the 'Instructions for Marathon Runners' said, "Participation certificates...can be obtained by logging on to www.mawanamarathon.com after three days of the marathon". More than seven days later there is nothing on this site. Is this a case for the consumer courts?

* 4 March 2013: The results are finally out. URL -  http://www.racetecresults.com/Results.aspx?CId=16394&RId=9

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LINKS

http://www.mawanasugars.com/marathon2013/about-marathon.htm

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-02-17/athletics/37144034_1_full-marathon-half-marathon-kiran-tiwari
- Uttar Pradesh's Arvind Kumar Yadav emerged victorious in the men's category, while Nilam Maruti Kadam won the women's title

A Tale of Two Aircraft Manufacturers'

HAL and Embraer are two companies set up by governments in India and Brazil respectively, more than four decades ago.  Both sought to break an oligopoly dominated by a handful of aircraft manufacturers in the developed world.

While Embraer has been a spectacular global success, HAL continues to be a staid, stagnant company. Embraer has produced more than 5,000 aircraft that operate in 92 countries on five continents, and it is the market leader for commercial jets with up to 120 seats. HAL, on the other hand, has manufactured (mostly under license), over 3658 Aircraft/Helicopters, 4178 Engines, Upgraded 272 Aircraft and overhauled over 9643 Aircraft and 29775 Engines.

Both companies had very similar origins. Embraer was started out as a government controlled company in 1969 - nearly thirty years after HAL was established in Mysore. And yet, within a span of a few decades, Embraer has become a world leader in the manufacture for executive jets while HAL has nothing significant to show for itself - except, of course, 'upgrading & overhauling' equipment for the domestic market and licensed-production of aircraft from other countries.

What explains this difference?

In a book titled, "The World Aircraft Industries", the authors note that most of HALs efforts, in conformity with other Newly Industrialised Countries (NICs), aimed at license-production of aircraft'. Brazil took a slightly different tack - it first established a a specialised institute for aeronautical engineering research and education in the 1940s. Then, more than two decades later, in 1969, after the basic technical infrastructure was well in place, the government set up Embraer to design and manufacture aeroplanes. Also, from the very beginning, Embraer traversed two paths in parallel — one, manufacturing planes to its own design and, two, manufacturing aircraft under licence.

According to Prof. RT Krishnan of IIMB, "Key elements of Embraer's success have been a clear focus on its core competence, ability to understand user needs in its niche market, quick absorption of technological capabilities, a platform or family approach to product development, cost competitiveness, and, above all, a global risk management model in what is clearly a global business."

In sharp contrast, India seems to have created R&D institutions in silos that remain only distantly connected with the manufacturing industry. Thanks to these silo's, in 2002, when the government of India wanted to buy a new set of executive jets for its VIP's, it turned to the best company in the business - Embraer.

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LINKS & REFERENCES

Embraer, Brazil - http://www.embraer.com/en-US/Pages/Home.aspx

HAL India - http://www.hal-india.com/

Krishnan, Rishikesha K (2003): Where core competence soars, The Hindu Business Line, 1Oct2003, url - http://www.thehindubusinessline.in/2003/10/01/stories/2003100100020800.htm

IISc - Dept. of Aerospace Engineering - http://www.aero.iisc.ernet.in/

LoC Headcount

It is not the best of times to be a soldier at the Line of Control (LoC)...

Headhunters are back in action on both sides of the border. Until last week it was only the regiments posted along the LoC that kept a tally of the heads rolling to and fro. Now the Indian media is also in the fray.

Praveen Swami of the Hindu has published a couple of articles that goes to show that the Indian army, far from being the eternal 'victim' portrayed by the Indian press, has been actually quite a meticulous stickler to the Hammurabi Code - 'an eye for an eye, a tooth for a tooth'.

According to this report, in the aftermath of a slaughter at Prankote village in Jammu & Kashmir (1998), the Pakistani's woke one morning to find a hand-written note lying next to a pile of 22 dead civilians, which asked a slightly rhetorical question - “How does your own blood feel?”

A few centuries ago, the same question was raised by Vlad-III, Prince of Wallachia, to the Ottoman Turks led by Mehmet-II. In 1462, Mehmed marched to the Wallachian capital of Târgovişte,  he discovered that all the roads to the city were lined with about 20,000 impaled Turks. Horrified, the Sultan and his troops retreated.

Over the ages, horror has always been a useful tool, both for invaders and defenders. Unfortunately, in most cases, it is the hapless civilian and the foot-soldier who dies of torture and mutilation.

As the saying goes, "When elephants fight, it is the grass that gets trampled."

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REFERENCES & LINKS

Swami, Praveen (2013): Locked in UN Files - 15 Years of Bloodletting, 30Jan13), url - http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/locked-in-un-files-15-years-of-bloodletting-at-loc/article4358199.ece?homepage=true

Let’s mount pressure to get back Hemraj’s head: Army Chief (The Hindu, 15Jan13) - http://www.thehindu.com/news/national/lets-mount-pressure-to-get-back-hemrajs-head-army-chief/article4307786.ece

ISI gave Rs 5 lakh to man who beheaded Indian soldier (ToI, 31Jan13) - http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-01-31/india/36657963_1_pakistani-intelligence-agency-isi-isi-officer-indian-army

Wasted in Transit - Really?

Over the past four days, both houses of the Indian Parliament have been debating the need to permit Foreign Direct Investment (FDI) in multi-brand retail.

One of the main arguments for FDI has been that it would bring down the "collosal wastage in transit" of perishable agricultural produce. According to the present government's estimates reported in the Parliament, this wastage is in the range of 30-40%, resulting in a net loss of Rs. 65,000 Crores (~ $13 billion).

Another wing of the the government, the Department of Industry Policy and Promotion (DIPP) the wastage stands at 25-30% for fruits & vegetables and 5-7% for foodgrains.

Yet another government body - perhaps the one directly concerned with this issue - the Central Institute of Post-Harvest Engineering and Technology (CIPHET) puts the wastage at 5.8% to 18% for fruits & vegetables, and 3.9% to 6% for cereals.

So, where does the truth lie?

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REFERENCES & LINKS

* Rajya Sabha - verbatim debates - 6Dec12 - http://164.100.47.5/newdebate/227/06122012/13.00pmTo14.00pm.pdf

* CIPHET - http://www.ciphet.in/default.asp