Technology, Governance and the Phailin Cyclone

Cyclone Phailin (photo from DNA/AFP)

"Why should I leave my home?? What storm are you talking about? Can't you see the blue skies??"

Convincing a villager about impending disaster is not easy business. Even if you are armed with the latest satellite imagery.

On 29 Oct., 1999, when an super cyclone hit India's Eastern coastline, across Odisha, nearly 10,000 people died. The Indian Met Department (IMD) had issued warnings to the state government.Nobody took them seriously Warnings were not issued to the coastal villages. Blue skies suddenly turned grey, wind-speeds crossed 220 kmph and thousands of homes were blown away.

Nearly 14 years later, on 12 October, 2013 when a very severe cyclone hit the same coastline, IMD was able to provide a warning five days in advance. Within this limited period, the Odisha state government evacuated more than a million people inland. The skeptics who saw only the blue skies were coaxed, cajoled and then bullied to the cyclone shelters.

Once the storm died down, they had much to be thankful for. In all, the cyclone and floods affected around 12 million people in 16,487 villages. It damaged about 4,00,000 houses and 1,182 power transformers in 17 districts. Yet, only 44 people had died.

How did we pull it off this time?

First of all, IMD had got its act together. Since 1999, a number of new ISRO satellites had started scanning the region for danger signals. Sensors and transmitters had been placed all along the coastline.

Command and control systems too were altered. Instead of routing IMD's disaster alerts to regular government departments bogged down by routine administrative work, a new institutional mechanism was put in place. The National Disaster Management Authority emerged with its state-level counterparts - in this case the Odisha-DMA. To ensure that adequate manpower could be spared in emergencies, officers were deputed to the National Diaster Response Force and its state equivalent.

In 1999, the state government's tardy response had cost it the subsequent elections. This time the Chief Minister himself encouraged all his legislators, not only to join ODMA and other officials getting people evacuated, but also to ensure that food, drinking water and other supplies were reaching the evacuation centres.

It is certainly a real confidence booster to know that we can handle something of this magnitude. Now we need to roll up our sleeves and figure out why the monsoons flood our cities every year. Seriously.

The trick is to be prepared while the skies are still blue.

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LINKS & REFERENCES:

* Dash, Satya Prakash (2013): HOW ODISHA MNAGED THE PHAILIN DISASTER, EPW 2Nov13 -- http://www.epw.in/commentary/how-odisha-managed-phailin-disaster.html-0

* Bagla, Pallava (2013): A TINY STEP FOR A GIANT LEAP? The Hindu, 31Oct13 -- http://www.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/a-tiny-step-for-a-giant-leap/article5297789.ece?homepage=true

* Battle over Forecasts (NDTV, 14 Oct) -- http://www.ndtv.com/article/india/cyclone-phailin-india-meteorological-department-wins-battle-over-forecasts-431657

* WSJ - http://stream.wsj.com/story/latest-headlines/SS-2-63399/SS-2-352978/

* Washington Post (10 Oct) - POTENTIALLY CATASTROPHIC CYCLONE PHAILIN HEADED FOR INDIA -- http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/capital-weather-gang/wp/2013/10/10/potentially-catastrophic-cyclone-phailin-headed-for-india/

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NOTE:

The destructive power of cyclones in measured in its wind-speeds: Severe (90-199kmph), very severe (> 220 kmph) and super (220+ kmph).

The How of 'Schedule Y'

Last week the Supreme Court of India pulled the brakes on a thriving drug trial industry in India.

Valued at over $300 million a year this industry was engaged in a rather unusual business. Big pharmaceutical MNCs spending billions of dollars in the discovery of New Chemical Entities (NCEs) would conduct their first human-level trials in countries like India. If the new drugs turned out to be blockbusters, the chances of their being available to patients in India was next to zero.

Out of 475 global clinical trails conducted from 2005 to 2012 using Indian patients, only 17 patented drugs were freely available for the  participants. This is doubly significant because it was in 2005 that Indian pharma laws were amended to allow 'concurrent' testing of NCEs. With this removal of a phase-lag in the testing regime, drugs of  unproven safety and efficacy could be tested on patients in this country.

So it came as not surprise that on 3 Jan., 2013, the Supreme Court directed the Central Drug Standards Control Organisation (CDSCO) to put in place a three-tier scrutiny of all clinical trails. Drugs & Cosmetics Rules already had a separate section - Schedule Y - setting the procedures for such trails but they were never really implemented.

Even after the SC directive, for the next 10 months neither CDSCO nor the health ministry did  to improve the safety of Indians participating in these trails. Taking note of this tardy response, on 21 October 2013, the court has ordered the government to stop all 'concurrent' clinical trails.

Even though this affects only 331 or 1122 trails (30%); and even though our gains from these trails were limited (no patent rights, no affordable drugs) it is interesting to see the MNC pharma lobby portraying this as a zero-sum game where 'India's loss is Bangladesh's gain'!

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* Mascarenhas, Anuradha (2013): DRUG TRAILS - LAX REGULATIONS COST THE COUNTRY DEAR, Indian Express, 25Oct13

* Jesani, Amar (2013): TRIED, TESTED AND FAILED, Indian Express 28Oct13

* Schedule Y -- http://cdsco.nic.in/html/D&C_Rules_Schedule_Y.pdf

Perception Giap

General Vo Nguyen Giap, one of the greatest military strategists and leaders of this century passed away yesterday. India was unmoved. What a shame!

Not one talking head in India's strategic community thought of paying a tribute to him. Where are our military historians who are all crawling out of the woodwork whenever anybody whispers 'Pakistan' or 'China'?

Indian newspapers merely reproduced the obituaries prepared by Western newswires. Times of India picked stuff from AP; the Hindu reprinted an obituary from the Guardian, UK, while the Indian Express lifted one from the New York Times. Surely we could do better than this...

By all accounts, Gen. Giap was as earthly, realistic and practical as any great leader would be. He was trained to be a teacher and a journalist, not a soldier. Yet he went to to lead his troops - both men and women - through some of the most brilliant military victories that liberated Vietnam, first from the French colonial army (Dien Bien Phu, 1953), and then from the relentless US quasi-colonial intervention that ended with their retreat from Saigon in 1975.

Yesterday, on our prime-time TV, retired army generals and other assorted hawks were blowing hot and cold over Pakistani 'infiltration' in the Keran sector of Jammu & Kashmir. Perhaps the TV anchors did not consider Gen. Giap's legacy worthy of a discussion. Or maybe the NDA-OTA-IMA types don't think much of a teacher who switched tracks to become a soldier.

Either way, if we don't study modern Asian history carefully, the loss is ours.

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

Postscript: Finally, in today's IE, an economist has chipped in an op-ed on Gen. Giap. Small mercies.
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LINKS:

NYT - Gap Remembers (1990) -- http://www.nytimes.com/1990/06/24/magazine/giap-remembers.html?pagewanted=all&src=pm
NYT -- http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/05/world/asia/gen-vo-nguyen-giap-dies.html?pagewanted=all

Hookway, James (2013): LEGENDARY VIETNAM GENERAL VO NGUYEN GIAP DIES, Wall Street Journal, 8 Oct., 2013, URL -- http://online.wsj.com/article/BT-CO-20131004-706371.html

http://articles.timesofindia.indiatimes.com/2013-10-04/rest-of-world/42716060_1_nguyen-giap-south-vietnam-dien-bien-phu

The HIndu -- http://www.thehindu.com/news/international/world/gen-giap-vietnam-war-hero-dies-at-102/article5201303.ece?textsize=small&test=2

Alagh, Yoginder K (2013): GENERAL VISION, Indian Express, 8Oct13 -- http://www.indianexpress.com/news/general-vision/1179603/

Fall, Bernard B (): HELL IS A VERY SMALL PLACE --
- Good Reads- http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/113486.Hell_In_A_Very_Small_Place
- Amazon - http://www.amazon.com/Hell-In-Very-Small-Place/dp/030681157X

Tussar Silkworms

In early morning sunlight, a Tussar silkworm is an incredibly beautiful sight.

The surprising thing is that despite its large size, you are likely to miss it completely, until you notice that during the Autumn season, some trees have been stripped of all their leaves. 

Tussar silkworms come in shades of green that blend perfectly into the foliage of Arjuna trees (Terminalia arjuna). If the color does not fool you, it also has a'twig' color-band along its sides. And like one of those fancy trailer trucks on our highways, it has a string of orange 'lights' running the length of its body!

Do these 'lights' serve some purpose? I've been scouring the net for more information but nothing has turned up so far..

Tussar silk ("Kosa" in Sanskrit), alongside Eri and Muga, happen to be some of the earliest non-plant fibers adopted in India. Yet, it is surprising to see so little information available on Google Scholar about their origins either as traded goods, or in terms of entomological studies. 

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LINKS:

- Fiber Stories -- http://www.naturalfibres2009.org/en/stories/silk.html

- Tussar Silk -- http://www.utsavpedia.com/textiles/tussar-silk-the-story-of-wild-silk/

- http://www.copperwiki.org/index.php?title=Tussar_Silk

- Prasad, Mahesh (2011): INDIA'S FOREIGN TRADE - FROM ANTIQUITY TO DATE, Google books -- http://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=P2KyHFkBh9EC&oi=fnd&pg=PA7&dq=tussar+silk+history&ots=vyC6nfgeJ-&sig=Z44Gn6GuQZ-ORB2wezi_dTWAYfI#v=onepage&q&f=false

- Wardle, Thomas (1880): Wild Silks of India - Principally Tusser -- Google Books -- http://books.google.co.in/books?hl=en&lr=&id=24kIAAAAQAAJ&oi=fnd&pg=PA1&dq=tussar+silk+history&ots=6NVQ3DvL6V&sig=cB9NwpJ_P1nsZt1AX9N-RlWqnxk#v=onepage&q&f=false

- Kosa Silk -- http://www.utsavpedia.com/textiles/kosa-silk-the-heritage-of-chattisgarh/

* 10 most toxic caterpillars -- http://www.environmentalgraffiti.com/nature/news-ten-creepy-and-colorful-caterpillar-hazardous-human-health?image=0

Insurance Frenzy

All through this week I was overwhelmed by the attention I got from ICIC-Pru Life Insurance Company, and - this is even more surprising - from the Insurance Regulatory Authority of India (IRDA).

At first came the calls from IRDA. Vivek, an IRDA employee (Ref.8231), wanted to know details of my insurance policies and seemed rather unhappy to know that my insurance agents had not been passing on a part of their hefty commission to customers like me.

"Finally", I thought, "Here is a regulator who is actually reaching out to check for customer feedback".

I had forgotten about this conversation until Vivek called again to say that my agents (Sachin Jain and Gera Wealth Creators for LifeTime and Lifetime-S respectively), ought to have paid me back 30% of each of the annual premium payments I paid them!

Just when the numbers were sinking in, I got a call from ICICI-PruLife. A very persuasive Kulvinder Singh Dhillon (Id 1086918) told me gravely that the value of my market linked insurance policy had eroded substantially over the years. Would I be interested in converting it to an endowment policy? This, he insisted, was the only way in which I could hope to recover the money I had lost.

Dhillon then put me on to his boss in Mumbai. The boss turned out be an amazingly rude woman who kept telling me that she was "very, very, very, very senior to Dhillon", and that she did not have the time to provide explanations about this rush up.

Confused, I reached out to Vivek of IRDA. "Did they ask you to open a new account?...and pay up Rs.20,000, upfront?" he laughed, and cautioned. "Don't sign up for anything new until you get all the information on email."

Vivek also put an end to the frenzy of calls from ICICI-PruLife.

IRDA is all set to enforce new insurance-sector norms from 1 October 2013. Traditional products are being brought at par with unit-based ones; commission is being linked to policy term and coverage will now depend on the age of the insured persons.

All through this, I still have not figured out why a giant insurance company should bully existing customers, and why the national insurance regulator was reaching out to one-in-a-million suckers like me.

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LINKS:

* BS -- http://www.business-standard.com/article/pf/life-insurance-products-to-become-more-transparent-from-tomorrow-113093000237_1.html

* ET -- http://articles.economictimes.indiatimes.com/2013-09-09/news/41903514_1_products-irda-new-norms

* IRDA Homepage -- http://www.irda.gov.in/Defaulthome.aspx?page=H1

Down the Digital Memory Lane

Copy of a Book Review published in the Hindu Business Line on 27 September 2013
...........................................................................................

Digital memory of a billion-plus nation

R. Dinakar

Digital Republic: India’s rise to IT power — History and Memoir By Mathai Joseph Publisher: Power Price: Rs 299

September 26, 2013:  

"Computing”, says Mathai Joseph, “has become a metaphor for what can be achieved in India. It has given recognition to India as no other science or technology has.”

He would know, as he was one of the country’s first computer scientists, was a part of the nascent Computer Group at Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), and a former head of research at TCS. Having spent over 45 years understanding the capability and behaviour of computers — from an era where ‘memory’ meant rolls of perforated paper, to the advent of cloud computing — he stands at a unique vantage point to narrate the story of India’s tryst with information technology.

Joseph’s book Digital Republic — India’s rise to IT power, is a memoir for our times. Starting with the early 1960s, Bombay provides a colourful backdrop to his college-years, the beginnings of an enduring love for literature, theatre and music, and to his long stint with TIFR. It is here that the freshly minted PhD from Cambridge struggled to convince the scientific establishment that computing deserved strategic support, alongside nuclear energy and space science.

The bosses at TIFR, however, refused to set aside their blinkers. While major strides were being made elsewhere, 1960-1975 marked the lost decade for Indian computing. Stuck in the fog of the Cold War, it lost not only the momentum gained from the first indigenous computer — TIFRAC (1960) — but also a great opportunity to create a manufacturing base for computer hardware in India.

Much like the story of IT in India, the book too has its ups and downs. The initial chapters might seem rather pedestrian, with their cryptic titles (Self at BBVT, Byculla Byeways) and rambling descriptions that almost make you wonder if you picked a Chetan Bhagat by mistake. However, if you persist beyond Chapter 3, Digital Republic gets back on track, and offers a fascinating narrative of computing through its formative years.

Initially, Joseph had been confounded by digital computers — “How could programs and data lie together in the computer memory?” he wondered, “just like a librarian stacked on a shelf with books!” Hands-on exposure helped. For the first time, at Cardiff, he had access to the latest machines of the time — ESDAC-1 and the Stance Zebra computer, and to the latest programming language — Algol 60. Expertise built on these systems helped him gain admission to Churchill College at Cambridge for a PhD. Later, a recommendation from Cambridge, and a fervent wish to avoid becoming an “immigrant”, brought him to TIFR in 1968.

The author returns time and again to the frustrations of working at TIFR. Initial admiration for the team leaders’ managerial acumen seems to have given way to a growing sense of disappointment. Instead of working on operating systems, Joseph was asked to work on computer graphics, where he found himself treading on a colleague’s zealously guarded turf.

So he moved on to experimental computing, seeking faster methods to translate programming language into machine language; better methods of allocating storage, and trying new synchronisation techniques in designing operating systems. Here again he found his team’s efforts being compared poorly against the experimental physicists who seemed to be on their own “serendipitous jaunt”, busy fitting “a few more pieces into an already well-understood mosaic”. Joseph sadly notes that “Science at TIFR was run as a collection of fiefdoms with the suzerainty of each leader unquestioned and unchanged till his eventual retirement”.

Finally, in the 1970s, when the Government set up a separate Department of Electronics, the career bureaucrats ensured it would remain under their thumb — unlike nuclear energy and space science. In the name of “self-reliance” they continued to make technologically unsound decisions, until companies such as TCS redeemed IT for India, with their world-class products and services.

This self-published book holds valuable lessons, not only for those with interest in science and technology but also for policymakers and bureaucrats. It is certainly a reminder of opportunities lost, and of what could yet be achieved in India, if only we can shake some of our institutions out of their smug, self-serving complacency.

A more fitting title for the book might have been, “India’s Rise to IT Power — despite the Government”.

The reviewer is an independent consultant specialising in ‘Technology for Development’.

(This article was published on September 26, 2013)

Keywords: Computing, Mathai Joseph, Computer Group, Tata Institute of Fundamental Research, TIFR, former head of research at TCS. Joseph’s book, Digital Republic - India’s rise to IT power, 

Printable version | Oct 2, 2013 10:40:57 PM | http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/features/weekend-life/digital-memory-of-a-billionplus-nation/article5167990.ece © The Hindu Business Line

The End of Special Status States?

All of us like to feel special. If you are in India and if you happen to one of the states in the union, being marked out as 'special' brings not only warm fuzzy feelings, but also a bigger dollop of funds from the central pool.

Until now 'special status' states meant that you were either one of the seven sisters from the North East, or one of the northern Himalayan states of J&K, Himachal Pradesh or Uttarakhand. It meant that your state fulfilled each of the five conditions required to earn the title: (i) hilly and difficult terrain; (ii) low population density or sizable share of tribal population; (iii) strategic location along borders with neighboring countries; (iv) economic and infrastructural backwardness; and (v) non-viable nature of state finances.

The special states are able to give corporate tax and excise duty waivers. It gets them 100% central funding for infra schemes like PMGSY. But the cherry on the cake is the larger chunk of central funds - Normal Central Assistance (30% shared by 11 special states; 90% of this is grant), and Special Central Assistance.

The game changed a few months ago when Bihar demanded special status. Not to be left behind, Orissa and Rajasthan too joined the chorus. The reigning czar of planning, Montek,  then took out the checklist and showing them that they fulfill only the last two of the five-point criteria. The states continue to grumble anyway.

All is this is likely to end with today's announcement that "special status" is going to disappear completely. According to a PIB press release, the Report of the Dr. Raghuram Rajan Committee for Evolving a Composite Development Index of States (another of those titles!) submitted its recommendations to the government today.

RaRa's committee has come up with a new index for measuring backwardness based on per-capita consumption (NSSO data). It simply divides all states into three categories - Relatively Developed, Less Developed and Least Developed.

All the special category states would now be placed in the decidedly less endearing category, Least Developed.

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LINKS

* PIB Press Release -- http://pib.nic.in/newsite/erelease.aspx?relid=99675

* Bhattarharjee, Subhomoy (2013): WHAT IT MEANS FOR A STATE TO BE COUNTED AS SPECIAL, Indian Express, 14 Jun 2013-- http://www.indianexpress.com/news/what-it-means-for-a-state-to-be-counted-as-special/1128832/0

* Indian Express editorial (30 Sep) on Rajan's new Index: HOW CONVENIENT -- http://www.indianexpress.com/news/how-convenient/1176217/

Two URLs

Consider the following two URLs:

* http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67525?utm_content=buffer616b1&utm_source=buffer&utm_medium=twitter&utm_campaign=Buffer

and

* http://www.eurasianet.org/node/67525

The first one takes you to a page on Turkey. The second one takes you to exactly the same webpage using a far more compact address, quite unlike the ones you get from sites like TinyURL. The difference is that the first one was approached through a link on Twitter.

The extra elements in the URL, starting with "?", seem to contain three distinct components separated by a and ampersand "%", and each of these describes something called "utm". So what exactly is this?

It seems UTM stands for Urchin Tracking Modules created by Google Analytics to help track traffic sources. These tags apparently help you create unique links for different campaigns and enable them to be tracked while they are being distributed through emails, banner ads, or even offline marketing campaigns.

Good to know.. :)

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LINKS:

* Google Analytics - Traffic - URL Builder - https://support.google.com/analytics/answer/1033867?hl=en

* UTL Link Tracking Explained - http://www.intownwebdesign.com/google-analytics/google-analytics-utm-link-tagging-explained.html

* Explain the Internet to a 19th century Street Urchin -- http://www.fastcodesign.com/1662563/infographic-how-to-explain-the-internet-to-a-19th-century-street-urchin

Short Trip, Sharp Eyes

Is there something about short trips that sharpens your powers of observation?

This is the thought that crossed my mind after reading Anu Garg's latest posts on AWAD, which has been aptly described by the New York Times as "The most welcomed, most enduring piece of daily mass e-mail in cyberspace"!

Over the past few days, Anu has been posting Japan Special's after a brief visit to the Far East. Despite having stayed and traveled extensively in Japan for two years, some of his observations have come as a big surprise to me.

I did not know, for instance, that "skosh", "honcho" and "tycoon" were all English words borrowed from NihonGo. Neither did I notice that each of the 47 prefectures in Japan has its own cutesy police mascot, created to "win the affection of the people and make them feel safe"!

Japan's 47 Prefectures and their 47 police mascots! (pic source: idleidol.net)

The one for Ibaraki is neither a frog, nor an owl but a skylark named Hibari-kun.

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LINKS:

* Japan's Mascots -- http://idleidol.net/

* AWAD - A Word A Day - http://wordsmith.org/awad/index.html

PDCA Motors

Until today I knew of only one version of PDCA - the iterative, management method of plan-do-check-adjust cycles for continuous process improvements popularized by Deming.

A search of something more mundane - kitchen chimney's - brought me to another PDCA. These were
Pressure Die Cast Aluminum motors that apparently make the kitchen equipment a lot less noisier than their normal metal bodied cousins.

Why so?

Unlike the traditional machining method of producing motor shells, in the PDCA process, molten aluminum alloy is injected at high speed and pressure into molds. The components that emerge from the mold dies is apparently a lot more precise in terms of dimensions, strength and surface finish.

The growing popularity of this technology can be attested by the fact that even Government of India's MSME Training Institute is promoting this as a high investment, high return business proposition.

But still, how does this make the motor more efficient in terms of noise output?

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LINKS:

* Dargusch (2006) - article in the Materials Science Journals -- http://www.joinville.udesc.br/portal/professores/verran/materiais/Paper_Willian.pdf

* Pressure Die-Casting - MSME Training Institute, Allahabad -- http://www.dcmsme.gov.in/reports/METProducts/PressureDieCasting.pdf

A Cactus called Sabra

It is difficult to imagine Indian cooking without tomatoes & chilies, both of which came in from the 'New World' - thanks to the Portuguese. No less critical are some of the other plants that came from the Americas -- potatoes,  avocados, corn, cocoa, tapioca (manioc/kappa), artichokes, and squashes of all sorts.

Now it turns out that an entire country - Israel - owes its dominant social identity, ethos and national spirit to a cactus plant that originated in Mexico!

I was browsing through "Fortress Israel" - a new book by Patrick Tyler - when I came across a new word: Sabra. It is apparently a tough species of prickly-pear that clings to the Mediterranean coastline.

 Opuntia Sp. (aka Sabra) - pics from Wikipedia

This is the plant that the Zionist pioneers chose to describe and differentiate themselves from the mass of Holocaust survivors and immigrants who flooded into Israel from Europe, North Africa, Iraq, Yemen and Morocco. The Sabras saw themselves as new Jews, no longer a 'caricature of passivism, dependence, and weakness, but a people determined to take its fate into its own hands'.

In a hostile and unstable region, the sabras saw themselves as tough and self-reliant fighters, never as interested in debate as in taking action, less interested in accommodation with the Arabs than in seizing objectives and creating facts on the ground. And yet, just like the Sabra cactus, they wanted to be tough on the outside, but delicate & sweet inside.

It is amazing to recall that clumps of this very cactus species lined the roads leading to our school at Uppal, Hyderabad. During the summer holidays, we used to scratch names on their flat, thick leaves, and extract the viscous sap for fixing glass powder on to the 'maanja' strings used for competitive kite-flying.

I always imagined these cacti to be the original inhabitants of every arid landscape in the country. It is mildly shocking to know that this plant too came from the Americas!

The prickly pear (Opunta Stricta) is also a the centerpiece of one of the most successful examples of 'biological control'. In the early 1900s a despairing Australian government signed up an entomologist named Alan Todd, as a last resort to deal with Opuntia that had invaded over 260,000 sq.km of farmland. In 1925, Todd brought in the Nopal Moth from South America to feed on these cactii, and within a few years, Opuntia was no longer an 'invasive weed'.

Perhaps they came with unknown Portuguese sailors who stocked them in their ships as a handy veggie to prevent scurvy; or maybe the birds brought it into the heart of the India peninsula, and to the Mediterranean to become a mascot for the Jews in their new homeland!

Innovation by Govt Order

"Innovate!", said the government, "And they all went forth and innovated."

Does it really work this way? Is it really possible for innovations to emerge from government orders?

Sam Pitroda tweeted today that he was 'delighted to have 24 State Innovative Councils taking the innovative agenda forward'.

This was news to me. Even though I was aware of the existence of a 'high-power' agency that had been created to instill the joys of innovation to all the boring copycats in India, I never knew that it had been functioning like yet another government department.

Perched in the ivory tower called Planning Commission, the National Innovation Council was conceived in the early years of UPA-II. Sam Pitroda was appointed the chairman, a dozen or so eminent personalities were roped into the advisory committee, and they have been 'promoting innovation' ever since.

So what does the NIC/SIC do? It seems these councils would "drive the innovation agenda in the states and harness the core competencies, local talent, resources and capabilities to create new opportunities".

How? Through seminars, workshops and speeches exhorting people to 'innovate'? By ordering government agencies to submit their 'innovation road-maps'??

Even a cursory look at some of the most inventive and innovative societies will tell you that innovation is not something that can be extracted by bureaucrats. In Israel, the armed forces help in building multi-disciplinary networks among talented youngsters. In Estonia, the government set the pace through a reliable, affordable WiFi network that covers the entire country.

In contrast, our approach to innovation sounds a bit  like the Chinese approach to manufacturing steel during the Great Leap Forward!

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LINKS:

* National Innovation Council - http://innovationcouncil.gov.in/
- http://innovationcouncil.gov.in/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=24&Itemid=17

* Innovation "Action Plan" for MSME - http://www.dcmsme.gov.in/Innovation%20Action%20Plan%20for%20Ministry%20of%20MSME.pdf

* Innovation Clusters
- Furniture Industry in Ernakulam, Kerala -- http://h67.in/sampitroda/Ernakulam_Caselet.pdf
- Moradabad Bass Cluster - http://h67.in/sampitroda/Moradabad_Caselet.pdf

Going Gaga over RaRa

"Let us remember", said the new RBI governor, in his maiden speech, "that the goal is having greater financial access in all parts of the country, rather than meeting bureaucratic norms."

Music to our ears!

In Raghuram Rajan, we may finally see a leader who not only has a clear vision but also the ability to communicate it and the gumption to see it through. Almost immediately after the speech was telecast yesterday, the Rupee stopped sliding, and the markets which had been down in the dumps for weeks, perked up.

While it was pleasure to read his speech, carefully crafted like a fine motor engine, I found in it many unfamiliar terms. Since I am likely to be following RaRa very closely hereon, I need to find out more about --

* Electronic Bill Factoring Exchanges: For electronically receiving and auctioning MSME bills - what does that mean?
* Inflation Indexed Savings Certificates linked to the CPI New Index
* National giro-based Indian Bill Payment System: What is "giro-based"? And I thought electronic bill payments were already quite popular..
* “White” POS device: How is this different from the usual point-of-sale device


---------------------------------------------
LINKS

* RBI Press Release - Statement by Dr. Raghuram Rajan on 4 Sep., 2013 -- http://rbi.org.in/scripts/BS_PressReleaseDisplay.aspx?prid=29479

* First Post - R. Jagannathan -- http://www.firstpost.com/business/raghuram-rajan-hits-first-ball-sixer-set-to-bowl-markets-over-1084247.html

* Mint-WSJ: The Morning After -- http://www.livemint.com/Opinion/3gbcDl2HYGQtANET2HXRyM/Raghuram-Rajan-The-morning-after.html

* Takshashila - Beginning with an A+ -- http://tgs.nationalinterest.in/2013/09/04/well-begun-with-a/

The Right Swallow

What a remarkable coincidence!

Just the day after I struggled to identify an unusual, elegant bird perched on an electric line, it turned up as the IBC bird-of-the-day!

Wire-tailed Swallow

Pic by Sid Adhikari
Source: Internet Bird Collection - http://ibc.lynxeds.com/photo/wire-tailed-swallow-hirundo-smithii/sitting-dead-tree

August 2013: Interesting Articles & Links

* The Hidden Diary Series -- http://www.thehindu.com/features/metroplus/travel/the-hidden-diary/article5071536.ece

* Venu, MK (2013) -- India of 2013 is not the India of 1991 -- http://www.thehindu.com/todays-paper/tp-opinion/the-india-of-2013-is-not-the-india-of-1991/article5069783.ece
- The U.S. Federal Reserve balance sheet was roughly $890 billion in 2007. It has ballooned to a little over $3 trillion today simply by printing more dollars. Such massive liquidity injection by printing dollars in such a short period is probably unprecedented in American history.
- cheap, finance capital flowing in from the West is a double-edged weapon. If not used judiciously to enhance productivity in the domestic economy, such finance will tend to become an external debt trap. This lesson is as important for the government as it is for the Indian capitalist class which has shown a tendency to use cheap finance and scarce resources such as spectrum, coal, land and iron ore to play stock market games in collusion with the political class.

* Wahi, Namita on LARR Bill - http://india-seminar.com/2013/642/642_namita_wahi.htm

* Krishna - Ladies Man -- http://www.firstpost.com/living/the-ladies-man-and-original-feminist-lord-krishna-1066519.html

* Difficult Languages -- http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/08/economist-explains-19?fscr=scn/tw/te/ee/languagedifficult

* Photographing Nature - Karen Bass - Skywatching in Altiplano, on the Bolivia-Chile border -- http://www.ted.com/talks/karen_bass_unseen_footage_untamed_nature.html

* Plain talk for Entrepreneurs --  http://www.fabricegrinda.com/entrepreneurship/absolute-must-read-for-all-entrepreneurs/
- http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/24/the-ultimate-cheat-sheet-for-starting-and-running-your-business/
- SaaS - Software as a Service
- Schwag - promotional items given to employees - http://techcrunch.com/2013/08/24/the-ultimate-cheat-sheet-for-starting-and-running-your-business/
- DBAs - "doing business as"
- 80) I have too much competition. What should I do? --- Competition is good. It shows you have a decent business model. Now simply outperform them.

* Four steps to bounce back - http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rajesh-setty/4-steps-to-bounce-back_b_3817847.html

* Five things that keep Japanese people chained to their jobs -- http://en.rocketnews24.com/2013/08/26/five-things-that-keep-japanese-people-chained-to-their-jobs/

* IE Editorial on Food Secirity Bill (27Aug13) -- http://www.indianexpress.com/news/entitlement-follies/1160377/

* The Golden Emperor Moth -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Loepa_katinka

* Gupta, Anil (2013) - http://www.dnaindia.com/analysis/1880125/column-why-should-start-ups-suffer-so-much-in-decade-of-innovation

* Golden Rice - http://www.nytimes.com/2013/08/25/sunday-review/golden-rice-lifesaver.html?smid=tw-share&_r=0

* Jagannathan, R (2013) -- http://www.firstpost.com/india/why-tharoors-defence-of-upa-nomics-is-more-a-self-goal-978519.html

* Puri, Aditya (2013): ALL THIS HAND-WRINGING, IE 23Aug13 -- http://www.indianexpress.com/news/all-this-handwringing/1158808/0
- The consensus among economists is that the CAD this fiscal is unlikely to breach 4 per cent (about $75 billion), compared to 4.8 per cent of the GDP ($88 billion) last fiscal.
- The CAD is not about oil and gold alone. In 2012-13, while the aggregate CAD was 4.8 per cent, the CAD excluding gold and oil was 3.8 per cent. In an import bill of about $500 billion, about $280 billion was non-gold and non-oil. We imported about $30 billion of electronic items alone in 2012-13. Any strategy to compress the deficit will have to involve reducing this component of imports.
- Our oil import bill is approximately $170 billion.
- Coal imports are the single biggest item on our balance of payments after oil and gold. The rise in coal imports is the direct result of the inability to mine domestic reserves because of environmental regulation, judicial action and the prohibition on allocating blocks to private miners. From $9 billion in 2009-10, coal imports jumped to $16 billion in 2012-13.

* Jehadi Video - Ambush - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EQrtkm8h9WA&feature=youtu.be

* Oldest Trees on the Planet - http://www.wired.com/wiredscience/2010/03/old-tree-gallery/11/

* Internet & Productivity -- http://www.economist.com/news/finance-and-economics/21583615-internet-has-not-yet-produced-hoped-productivity-miracle-net-gains-and?fsrc=scn/tw/te/pe/netgainsandlosses
- http://www.nber.org/papers/w18315


* Badminton Champs and the House of Golden Teardrops -- http://blogs.wsj.com/searealtime/2013/08/16/a-sweet-factory-becomes-assembly-line-for-badminton-gold/?mod=e2tw

* http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/15/estonia-ussr-shadow-internet-titan

* Baker, Nicholson (2013): A FOURTH STATE OF MATTER: Annals of Technology, The New Yorker, Jul 8-Jul 15, 2013
- Retina Display (made in Korea by LG Display), offered, beginning in 2010, a liquid-crystal image that, at three hundred and twenty-six pixels per diagonal inch, looked almost as good as a glossy printed page in an art magazine.
- Liquid crystals, David Dunmur and Tim Sluckin explain, are a fourth state of matter. They're sometimes pearlescent, and they shimmer, on account of peculiarities of their rotational viscosity. They're so-called "non-Newtonian fluids," because they don't obey the formulas in elementary physics textbooks.
- Otto Lehmann, a scientist from Karlsruhe, Germany - work on LC resulted, in 1909, in a bunch of new terms grew up to describe different classes of liquid crystals, including "smectic," meaning soapy, from the Greek smegma (yes, I know), and "nematic," or threadlike, as in those long, thin intestinal nematodes that are parasitic in dogs.
- RCA ...By the mid-seventies, the company had dismantled its research program, not wanting, in the end--so legend has it--to threaten the revenues that flowed from its tube-television patents. Japanese companies--Seiko, Hitachi, Sharp, and others--licensed RCA's liquid-crystal innovations and took over further development.
- Mid 1990s (?) -- Sony was now in RCA's position: it didn't want to give up the money that poured, seemingly endlessly, from its sales of Trinitron tubes.
- South Korea saw a chance to leap ahead of everyone else. Japanese liquid-crystal technologists, called "weekend warriors" (I learned the phrase from Robert Chen's fine book, "Liquid Crystal Displays"), began shuttling to Korea, helping LG and Samsung design and outfit their billion-dollar flat-screen factories. Korea became the center of the liquid-crystal universe.
- Merck's liquid-crystal raw materials--called "singles", brand --are unthinkably pure and extremely expensive. They're produced in Darmstadt, just as they were a hundred years ago, and shipped to Merck's large Korean subsidiary in Seoul, where Korean engineers mix and mingle the singles in accordance with requirements coming from LG and Samsung.

* http://www.washingtonpost.com/business/10-reasons-why-economics-is-an-art-not-a-science/2013/08/08/7c501020-ffb5-11e2-9711-3708310f6f4d_story.html

* Realistic Paintings - http://www.boredpanda.com/hyper-realistic-art/

* http://blogs.hbr.org/cs/2013/08/build_a_career_worth_having.html

* How did Estonia become a leader in technology? The Economist - AAK-Mumbai, 30Jul13  http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/07/economist-explains-21?spc=scode&spv=xm&ah=9d7f7ab945510a56fa6d37c30b6f1709
- The joys of shedding shedding “legacy thinking”.

* DataStories - http://datastories.in/blog/2013/08/03/meanwhile-heres-what-happened-to-the-public-distribution-of-food/

* Gladwell, Malcom (2013): THE GIFT OF DOUBT -- http://www.newyorker.com/arts/critics/books/2013/06/24/130624crbo_books_gladwell?currentPage=all
- - Albert O. Hirschman's Hiding Hand Principle - "People don’t seek out challenges, he went on. They are apt to take on and plunge into new tasks because of the erroneously presumed absence of a challenge — because the task looks easier and more manageable than it will turn out to be.”

* Rajivlochan, Meeta (2013):  A CASE FOR FEWER HEROES, IE 6Aug13
- State govt efforts to upgrade instnl and decion-making structures - Maharashtra- law to regulate transfers of all officials...Let us strengthen our institutions so that quotidian acts lose their heroic patina.

* Hooda, Bhupender (2013): MYTHS ABOUT UPA'S SOCIAL SPENDING, IE 6Aug13
- Sweden - high welfare, high tax - Sweden 46%; France 42.9%
- Govt spending - social protection to GDP: Japan 19.2%; Thailand 3.6%; Singapore 3.5%; India 1.7%
- Upper class benefits more from fuel subsidy (IMF study) - top 20% capture 6x more from fuel subsidy than the poorest 20%
- India - food+fuel+fertilizer subsidies make 96% of all subsidies -- between 2003-2013 subsidy bill increased by 421% mainly because there was a 923% increase in petroleum subsidy
- During 2004-10, people dependent on agriculture fell from 24.9 cr to 22.9 cr but rural consumption increased by 25%

* Mishra, Neelkanth (2013): THE HIDDEN GROWTH, IE 6 Aug13
- Economic census 2005 - India had 42m enterprises with average 2.4 employees!

* Low light photos -- http://www.learningthelight.com/2010/04/27/how-to-take-sharp-photos-in-low-light-without-a-flash/

* Why India has a Sand Mafia -- http://blogs.wsj.com/indiarealtime/2013/08/06/why-india-has-a-sand-mafia/

* Reconstructing Solali - Acid attack victim -- http://www.livemint.com/Leisure/X1vWl8wQVglJ0WKkusMauI/True-Stories--Reconstructing-Sonali.html

* Falana Singh -- http://indiatoday.intoday.in/story/falana-singh-bathinda-parkash-singh-badal-punjab/1/297974.html

* Sengupta, Shombit (2013): EIFFEL BRAND WORTH IS GBP 435 BILLION, IE, 4AUg13
- Tourist inflows in 2012 - India 6.5m; Eiffel tower, Paris 8m!
- Every summer, more or less the entire population of Paris empties out...replaced by 83m TOurists to France - USA 67m
- Eiffel Tower - 1050ft, erected 1889 for 20 yrs - construction cost 6.5m francs but the grant covered only 1.6m, hence the 20yr fee income
- Parisian intellectuals made a huge hue and cry against the erection

* Ripley, Amanda (2013): THE $4 MILION TEACHER, WSJ, 3Aug13 -- http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424127887324635904578639780253571520.html
- Kim Ki-hoon runs a "Hagwon" (tuition centre) in Seoul and ears $4m/yr
- South Koreans spend $17b/yr on private tuition's -- US kids $15b/yr on video games
- It is about as close to a pure meritocracy as it can be, and just as ruthless. In hagwons, teachers are free agents. They don't need to be certified. They don't have benefits or even a guaranteed base salary; their pay is based on their performance, and most of them work long hours and earn less than public school teachers.
- In South Korea, if parents aren't engaged, that is considered a failure of the educators, not the family.
- Interestingly, the hagwon teachers rated best of all when it came to treating all students fairly, regardless of the students' academic performance.

* Bhalla, Surjit S (2013): POVERTY OF THOUGHT, IE 3Aug13
- How can we justify expanding PDS to 67% of the population when our own Planning Commission tells us that only 22% of the population is poor!

* Sudarshan, Anant (2013): DUEL OF THE LITERATI, IE 3Aug13
- Bhagawati vs. Sen - fact is that their argument cannot have one right answer. Economic growth (increasing size of the pie), and redistribution (everyone getting something) are both objectives of the government.
- Paul Krugman vs. Harvard economists, Carmen Reinhart and Kenneth Rogoff (suggested that high debt is linked to low growth)
- Jeffrey Sachs vs. Daron Acemogu & James Robinson (book - Why Nations Fail - 'main reason for poverty is the nature of institutions and government systems)
- Richard Dawkins vs. Edward O.Wilson (book - The Social COnquest of Earth - what drives evolution? group survival or individual survival probablities?)
- Ramachandra Guha vs. Farrukh Dhondy (William Darylmple and his view of history)

* Virmani, Arvind andd Charan Singh (2013): A MISNOMER CALLED FOOD SECURITY, IE 1Aug13
- FSB inspired by National Family Health Survey 2005-6 and the Global Hunger Index (IFPRI) but "hungry" means different things to different people.

* Venkateshwaran, Sandhya (2013): SILENCE OF THE MIDDLE CLASS, IE, 1Aug13 --- http://www.indianexpress.com/news/silence-of-the-middle-class/1149418/0
- how often has India witnessed middle class protests against the death of poor children or for their right to education; how often have the middle classes raised their voice against the displacement of the tribal community or slum dwellers due to the construction of factories and malls; how often do they protest against the lack of accountability and quality in the public health system?

* Rukmini -- BARRIERS TO ENTRY, Caravan - http://www.caravanmagazine.in/perspectives/barriers-entry

* Narayanan, Dinesh (2013): Indians cannot be a Jugaad economy for ever, Forbes, 19Aug13 --- http://forbesindia.com/article/independence-special-2013/india-cant-be-a-jugaad-economy-forever/35895/1
- The Confederation of Indian Industry has presented a list of 62 stalled infrastructure projects—each worth Rs 1,000 crore or more—to the Project Management Group in the Cabinet Secretariat for fast tracking. Of these, 35 are power projects and 11 are for construction of roads and highways. Most of these projects are stuck because of lack of environment approvals, state level clearances or inability to acquire land.

* Hadoop - http://strata.oreilly.com/2011/01/what-is-hadoop.html

* Rao, Jaitirth (2013): From Nehru's Temples to just Temples, FE, http://m.financialexpress.com/news/column-from-nehru-s-temples-to-just-temples/1156900/
- n 1924, during the reign of Nallamudi (IV) Krishnaraja Wodeyar, an engineer named Mokshagundam Visvesvarayya designed and supervised the construction of a dam over the divine Kaveri river. In the process, the ancient village of Kannambadi was submerged...along with its Venugopala temple, a 700-year-old Hoysala structure.
- In 1946, Sir Louis Dane, the Lieutenant Governor of Punjab, laid the foundation stone of a dam across the river Sutlej (its ancient Sanskrit name was Sutadhari) in a village named Bhakra. The construction of the dam started in 1948. The Bhakra dam submerged the ancient town of Bilaspur, where there were many temples and sites, traditionally associated with Maharishi Vyas, the author of the Mahabharata.

* Conference Dogma Rules -- http://www.conferencemanager.dk/EuropeINNOVA2012-Copenhagen/ten-conference-dogma-rules.html

* Sushi Technology -- http://nz.sports.yahoo.com/news/sushi-round-japan-tradition-served-053528115.html

* Desai, Megnad (2013): GETTING NOWHERE FAST, FE, 5Aug13 -- http://www.financialexpress.com/news/getting-nowhere-fast/1151155
- In liberalising manufacturing all attention is paid to land shortage but then when it comes to the crunch, the political system cannot make up its mind about leaving land purchase and sale to private parties with a strong regulatory authority.
- India has made its cheap labour expensive by saddling itself with scores of laws, which interfere with manufacturing and make the creation of large units uneconomical.
- So 90% of the labour force in the informal sector has no rights and has to work in small manufacturing units as contract labour or rot in the countryside in low-paid rural jobs or suffer NREGA.
-  Public money appears to the politicians and, hence, to all who work in the public sector as limitless and costless. This is why schemes come pouring out of the NAC and UPA to spend even more money. If you cannot solve a problem, spend money to smother it.
Thus neglect to invest in railways except to benefit the railway minister’s province. If accidents happen pay compensation but do not improve safety. If mid-day meals sicken the children or kill them, pay money to their families. The same story goes for rape victims. The money mantra is the cure all and the money is public money, so why cure a problem.

* Srivastava, Mehul (2011): Why India Is Rethinking Its Labor Laws --http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_04/b4212013616117.htm
- Companies must keep 6 attendance logs and 10 separate accounts for overtime wages, and file 5 types of annual returns. There are at least 11 definitions of the word "wage."
- The success of the Software Technologies Parks of India Act—and of special economic zones in China—has spurred the revival of a 45-year-old plan that creates special enclaves with more infrastructure and fewer labor laws.

* Basu, Kaushik (2006): Why India's labour laws are a problem -- BBC -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4984256.stm
- In India there are 45 laws at the national level and close to four times that at the level of state governments that monitor the functioning of labour markets.
- Industrial Disputes Act, 1947:  Formal sector employing more than 100 workers cannot fire workers
- Data from the Ministry of Labour reveal that in the year 2000 there were 533,038 disputes pending in India's labour courts; and of these 28,864 had been pending for over 10 years.
- no worker can be made to work beyond 75 hours of overtime a quarter.
- a report by McKinsey, the consulting firm, estimated that if India overhauled its labor laws, its manufacturing exports could grow from $40 billion in 2002 to $300 billion by 2015.

* Tokyo - Largest zoomable photo - http://io9.com/the-largest-photo-ever-taken-of-tokyo-is-zoomable-and-975127382

* Gifts for the photographer :) -- http://photo.net/gift-guides/birthday-2013/

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Fortunate Accidents

"Annals of science", it seems, "is littered with blunder, mishap and blind alley made good". The Independent came up with a few interesting examples:

• Upsalite - newly synthesised magnesium carbonate material - MgCO3 - unrivaled capacity to absorb water - potential uses - domestic humidity controls, pharma factories, electronics to oil-spill clean-ups - discovered accidentally when a reaction was left bubbling over a long weekend.
• Penicillin - Alexander Flemings Staphylococcus cultures were invaded by mould.
• Pacemaker - Wilson Greatbatch fitted the wrong resistor to his heart-recording machine
• Aspartame (artifricial sweetener) - A scientist researching coal tar failed to wash his hands before he ate!
• Post-It - brainchild of a failed glue-inventor

Where can I find a more comprehensive list of such 'happy blunders'?

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LINKS

* Chance Breakthroughs - 'The Independent', London

From Carrot Juice to LCDs

In all likelihood you are reading this piece on a Liquid Crystal Display (LCD) screen. And, like me, you too would be amazed to know that LCDs have their origins in....carrot juice!

Few of us would spare a thought for something so ubiquitous as LCDs. They are everywhere - from digital wristwatches, to mobile phones and television sets. For something so common, it is difficult to imagine that it took nearly a century for the idea of liquid crystals to turn into products that are so indispensable today.  It also offers lessons on how companies and nations turn weakness into a strength, and vice versa.

Liquid crystals were first discovered by Otto Lehman, a scientist from Karlsruhe, Germany, way back in 1888. Lehman's scientist friend, working in Prague, knowing his craze for crystals of all kinds, told him about some unusual properties of cholesterol extracted from carrots. On closer examination he discovered that this carrot juice extract could refract light like a solid piece of glass, and yet be poured out like any other liquid!

Lehman went on to discover other organic liquids which could twist light in two different directions ("birefringent" properties), published a book in 1904 and managed to persuade a company called Merck, to manufacuture it. From pre-war Germany, the study of liquid crystals expanded to France, England and then to USA, where a company called Radio Corp. America (RCA) had it within its grasp the ability to make the first LCDs on a commercial level. However, RCA let the opportunity pass - it didn't want LCDs to eat into its booming, cathode-tube TV business.

So, in the mid-1970s, RCA licensed the technology to a slew of Japanese companies - Hitachi, Seiko, Sharp, etc.. With their usual zeal for automation and fastidiousness, the Japanese managed to move the technology from labs to the production lines. Then, the leader of the pack, Sony, repeated RCA's mistake.

Hoping to save its best-selling Trinitron TV-tubes, Sony, decided to go slow on the LCDs. From here on, the Korean companies - LG and Samsung - took over, and haven't looked back since.

Today, even through the Korean companies have become undisputed leaders in LCD production & sales, the most critical link in the chain is imported from Germany. Merck, the company that the carrot-juice researcher, Otto Lehman, first approached in 1904, continues to be the world leader in the manufacture of the mother liquid crystals (called Singles / "Licristal").

So Otto Lehman took a closer look at carrot juice extract, and persuaded a homegrown company to start manufacturing liquid crystals in 1904. A century later, the same German company continues to stand its ground as the the display technology got honed in France, UK, USA, and Japan before finally reaching the South Koreans run their massive LCD production facilities at Paju.

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LINKS & REFERENCES

* "Soap, Science, and Flat-Screen TVs: A History of Liquid Crystals" -- David Dunmur and Tim Sluckin

* Baker, Nicholson (2013): A FOURTH STATE OF MATTER: Annals of Technology, The New Yorker, Jul 8-Jul 15, 2013

* How LCD works -- http://electronics.howstuffworks.com/lcd.htm

What makes Estonia different?

Soon after the collapse of the Berlin wall, the Soviet Union imploded in the early 1990s. In the chaos and power vacuum that followed, a number of Soviet 'satellites' dropped out. Among them were the three tiny Baltic states - Latvia, Lithuania and Estonia.

Even before the last Soviet troops had pulled out, all three became a part of the European Union in 1994. All three had access to new technology and markets, yet, two decades later, there is only one state in the former Soviet Union that emerged as a sturdy economy and a technology leader  - Estonia.

Estonia transformation is quite fascinating. This country, about the size of Haryana state (~44,000 sq.km), with a population of just 1.3 million, is now the most "wired" and among the best e-governed countries in the world. One of the best known Estonian products is something that is likely to be on your own toolbar - Skype.

How did Estonia achieve this transformation, in less than two decades?

By all accounts, at the center of the Estonian transformation were two men -- Toomas Hendrik Ilves and Linnar Viik. Not unlike the bullet-train revolution in Japan, this transformation too rested on a tech-savvy political head (Ilves) working closely with a techie with a vision (Viik).

Ilves came from the Estonian equivalent of an NRI family. It had fled the country as soon as USSR took over in the mid-1940s. As a result, Ilves did his schooling in Sweden, and then in USA. Having imbibed a good dose of the Scandinavian work-ethic and having seen the way computers were transforming America, a little nudge from CIA is perhaps all that was needed to take him to a leadership role back home.

However, unlike most US implants (think Karzai), Ilves seems to have been just the right person at the right place and the right time. Soon after he took over as the first president, his focus was on getting the  big picture right. Tariffs were abolished, prices freed, tax made ultra-simple, foreign players were brought in to take over many industries.

Then came in Linnar Viik with his Project Tiigrihüpe ("Tiger Leap"). WiFi hubs came up all over the country. All schools in Estonia were linked up with high-speed networks. Children were encouraged to learn programming when they were 5-6 year's old. in 2000 Viik helped Estonia become the first country in the world to adopt a system of e-governance, changing its cabinet meetings to paperless sessions using a web-based document system, with ministers able to take part from anywhere.

The Tiigrihüpe  logo said it all -- a cheerful, toothy tiger, cheerfully leaping through a boxy computer screen, into the world beyond.

Why is it that India's own 'tigers' are huddled in isolated sanctuaries across the country?


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REFERENCES & LINKS:

Economist (30 Jul 2013): HOW DID ESTONIA BECOME A LEADER IN TECHNOLOGY? --- http://www.economist.com/blogs/economist-explains/2013/07/economist-explains-21?spc=scode&spv=xm&ah=9d7f7ab945510a56fa6d37c30b6f1709

BBC (2013): HOW ESTONIA BECAME E-STONIA, 16May13 --- http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/business-22317297

The Guardian (2012): How tiny Estonia stepped out of USSR's shadow to become an internet titan, 15Apr12 -- http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2012/apr/15/estonia-ussr-shadow-internet-titan
- Linnar Viik, a lecturer at the Estonian IT College, a government adviser and a man almost synonymous in Estonia with the rise of the web.
- Not bad for country where, two decades ago, half the population had no phone line.
- Why only Estonia? -- the country's ethnic Estonian majority feel Nordic, rather than Slavic or eastern European. In the early 90s, this meant they looked to tech-happy Scandinavia for both inspiration and investment.
- From the early days, government philosophy was not to hire programmers, but to use the services of private companies, which in turn increased the competitiveness of the Estonian IT sector
- Acta, the hugely controversial international agreement that opponents fear will curtail the rights of individual internet users.

* Linnar Viik - Estonia's Internet Guru -- http://www.eubusiness.com/europe/estonia/040420021538.qhs3vusx
- Blog - http://linnar.viik.ee/

Project Tiigrihüpe ("Tiger Leap") -- http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tiigrih%C3%BCpe
- http://www.tiigrihype.ee/en

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Estonia

* Economist (1999): ESTONIA'S LAST CHALLENGE, 11Mar99 -- http://www.economist.com/node/319371?zid=307&ah=5e80419d1bc9821ebe173f4f0f060a07
- Estonia's first government of radical reformers (average age: around 35) took office in 1992, only to be ousted two years later
- The incoming reformers, by contrast, have their sights set on overhauling the machinery of government.

* Farivar, Cyrus (2011): THE INTERNET OF ELSEWHERE - The Emergent Effects of a Wired World, Rutgers University Press, 2011 --- http://www.worldcat.org/title/internet-of-elsewhere-the-emergent-effects-of-a-wired-world/oclc/643762511

* New Yorker (2013): Annals of Technology -- http://www.newyorker.com/reporting/2013/07/08/130708fa_fact_baker

India - States - area-wise: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_states_and_territories_of_India_by_area

A Special Zone

View NOIDA - Along the Expressway in a larger map

I visited the Noida Special Economic Zone (NSEZ) yesterday expecting to see something, well, special. 'Disappointed' may be a mild word to describe the experience.

It did not start that way though. When I was stopped by security guards at the main gate for an id proof and the 'Plot number', the special-ness quotient went a few notches higher. Beyond those gates of black polished granite, I imagined a neat, world class industrial park, packed with enterprises that were busy producing and exporting things destined for the global markets.

Inside NSEZ, I just wanted to go to the telephone office (BSNL) to return a dysfunctional modem. So the guards directed me to a less special Gate-II. "Here a Rs.10 pass",  the guards there said, "Roam around as much as you like till midnight!".

Once inside, it did not take long for me to realize that even though there was a lot of area to roam around, there was nothing much to see. Wide and poorly maintained roads, shabby gardens, nondescript buildings and stray dogs lolling about in open garbage heaps. At the BSNL office, the guard was asleep on a wooden bed; a dusty, discarded microwave transmitter lay near the stairwell. Most of the office rooms were empty.

As my luck would have it, the only BSNL employee in the building was right one to take back my modem. He tried his best to dissuade me. "The speeds will improve! I guarantee!". When I insisted on withdrawing the broadband connection, he changed tack and conceded that the government enterprise had been neglecting the 'last mile'. Optic fibers had been laid till the exchanges but due to internal tussles and vested interests there were just not enough staff to service customers in Noida.

Outside the BSNL office, driving around a bit more, I realized that there was an extra-special zone within this 300 acre area, considered to be outside 'customs jurisdiction of India'. All the swanky new buildings were clustered close to the main gate.  Most of these were software companies like TechMahindra, iGate and Mosaic ITES. The service sector was obviously the flavor of the season. All the rest seemed well past their glory years.

The glory years' must have ended with the tax breaks. In India, the Special Economic Zones were first created in the late 1980s and early 1990s with the hope of repeating China's success with SEZs. Noida's NSEZ came up in 1985 and was one of the seven established by the central government. It was also the only one which was both landlocked and the only one located in North India. Companies that invested here were beyond the reach of India's convoluted labor laws and they enjoyed tax-breaks for 15-20 years.

How are the SEZs doing? My superficial view of NSEZ may have quite uninspiring, but, on the whole, they seems to be rocking. In 2004-05 they contributed 10% of India exports. Five year's later, in 2009 this share went up to 20% of total exports. 

Yet, there was no doubt that NSEZ could be managed much more efficiently. If only the government would create an incentive structure to reward professionalism, all the way from the level of the guards and BSNL employees, to the bureaucrats sipping chai in their air-conditioned offices!

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LINKS & REFERENCES

SEZ 

- http://www.nsez.gov.in/nsezwebsite/SezDevloper.aspx

- Google Maps -- https://maps.google.com/maps/ms?msid=202036517216705407893.0004b11f9c0b2060cbba5&msa=0&ll=28.538815,77.398531&spn=0.002757,0.004823

- The Special Economic Zones Act, 2005, was passed by Parliament in May, 2005 which received Presidential assent on the 23rd of June, 2005. After extensive consultations, the SEZ Act, 2005, supported by SEZ Rules, came into effect on 10th February, 2006

- List of operational SEZs -- http://sezindia.nic.in/writereaddata/pdf/ListofoperationalSEZs.pdf

- 172 SEZs under the SEZA 2005: 19 established before this Act; Noida SEZ (2003) is among the seven established by the central govt.

- Noida SEZ came up in 1985, then came Vizag SEZ in 1989. The next set came only ten years' later (Kandla, SEEPZ Mumbai, Kochi and Surat in 2000)

- share of SEZ units / Export Oriented Units (EOUs) in the national exports has gone up from 10 percent in 2004-05 to about 22 percent in 2008-09. 

- Under the scheme, a SEZ Unit can be set up in any of the seven Government SEZs (erstwhile Export Processing Zones) while EOUs can be set up outside SEZ across the country as per territorial jurisdiction of concerned Development Commissioner.

* NSEZ - Noida -- http://www.nsez.gov.in/nsezwebsite/AboutUs.aspx

- NSEZ the only Central Government SEZ in the northern India, headed by the Development Commissioner, was set up in 1985 in Noida Phase-II on a 310 acre plot of land. 

- Government of India has so far invested a sum of Rs. 1177 million on its development. NSEZ provides excellent infrastructure, supportive services and sector specific facilities for the thrust areas of exports like gem and jewellery and electronics software. 

- This is the only land locked SEZ , contrary to other zones which are situated in Port Towns and hence emphasis of type of units to be set up are those with high value and low volume.

- jewellery and software development units -- These two sectors have contributed more than 30 per cent of the export turn over during the year 2008-09.

- jurisdiction of Noida Special Economic Zone is spread over EOUs in nine states namely Jammu & Kashmir, Himachal Pradesh, Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan, Delhi, Uttar Pradesh, Uttaranchal and Union Territory of Chandigarh.

* Chapter VI: Special Fiscal Provisions for SEZs -- exemption from any duty of customs and excise

> Customs Act, 1962 or the Custom Tariff Act, 1975

> Central Excise Act, 1944 or the Central Excise Tariff Act, 1985 

> service tax under Chapter-V of the Finance Act, 1994

> securities transaction tax leviable under section 98 of the Finance (No. 2) Act, 2004 

> Central Sales Tax Act, 1956 (fos goods other than newspapers!)

> Income-tax Act, 1961 (subject to a few modifications in Sch-II)

- deemed to be a territory outside the customs territory of India for the purposes of undertaking the authorized operations, so as to encourage - 

(a) generation of additional economic activity 

(b) promotion of exports of goods and services; 

(c) promotion of investment from domestic and foreign 

sources; 

(d) creation of employment opportunities; 

(e) development of infrastructure facilities; 

Skilling You Softly

By all accounts, India is sitting right now on a "once in a life-time" opportunity. For the next twenty years it will have the largest working-age population in the world. Most of them would be moving out of agriculture to seek jobs in construction, manufacturing or services.

The economists have a fancy term for this phenomenon - "demographic dividend". What this simply means is that the country stands to gain (dividends) if this transition takes place smoothly. That is, if farm-workers are able to learn new skills; If they are able to find better paying jobs, then we will all become prosperous and live happily ever after.

The problem with "if" is that it continues to remain in the realm of possibility unless we do something about it. So what has government of India done so far? A National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) has been set up; Targets have been set for various ministries, to ensure that millions of jobs are created, at least on paper.

NSDC works with about 85 private-sector partners to provide skill-based training in 21 sectors, across the country. Most of this 'skilling' is for youngsters moving into the manufacturing sector.

However, as Megnad Desai pointed out recently (FE 5 Aug), merely liberalizing manufacturing will not help. The devil lies in the details and in this case, the details of the labor laws. "India has made its cheap labor expensive by saddling itself with scores of laws, which interfere with manufacturing and make the creation of large units uneconomical. So 90% of the labour force in the informal sector has no rights and has to work in small manufacturing units as contract labour or rot in the countryside in low-paid rural jobs or suffer NREGA".

We have tied ourselves in knots with so many labor-related laws that entrepreneurs are just not willing to expand capacity and create new jobs. In India there we have 45 laws at the national level and close to 200 the level of state governments that monitor the functioning of labour markets. Under the Industrial Disputes Act, 1947, firms employing more than 100 workers cannot fire workers without the government's permission!

So it is hardly surprising that as per the Economic Census 2005, India had 42 million enterprises with an average of less than three employees! In contrast, thanks to our labor laws, even today, we have less than a million registered companies (2012).

So now is a good time to wonder: Which is worse - to be unskilled and jobless or to be skilled and jobless?

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LINKS

* Mishra, Neelkanth (2013): THE HIDDEN GROWTH, IE 6 Aug 2013 --- http://www.indianexpress.com/news/the-hidden-growth/1151479/

* Desai, Megnad (2013): GETTING NOWHERE FAST, FE, 5Aug13 -- http://www.financialexpress.com/news/getting-nowhere-fast/1151155
- India has made its cheap labour expensive by saddling itself with scores of laws, which interfere with manufacturing and make the creation of large units uneconomical.
- So 90% of the labour force in the informal sector has no rights and has to work in small manufacturing units as contract labour or rot in the countryside in low-paid rural jobs or suffer NREGA.
-  Public money appears to the politicians and, hence, to all who work in the public sector as limitless and costless. This is why schemes come pouring out of the NAC and UPA to spend even more money. If you cannot solve a problem, spend money to smother it.

* National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) -- http://www.nsdcindia.org/faq/about-nsdc.aspx#ac

* Srivastava, Mehul (2011): Why India Is Rethinking Its Labor Laws --http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/content/11_04/b4212013616117.htm
- Companies must keep 6 attendance logs and 10 separate accounts for overtime wages, and file 5 types of annual returns. There are at least 11 definitions of the word "wage."
- The success of the Software Technologies Parks of India Act—and of special economic zones in China—has spurred the revival of a 45-year-old plan that creates special enclaves with more infrastructure and fewer labor laws.

* Basu, Kaushik (2006): Why India's labour laws are a problem -- BBC -- http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4984256.stm
- In India there are 45 laws at the national level and close to four times that at the level of state governments that monitor the functioning of labour markets.
- Industrial Disputes Act, 1947:  Formal sector employing more than 100 workers cannot fire workers
- Data from the Ministry of Labour reveal that in the year 2000 there were 533,038 disputes pending in India's labour courts; and of these 28,864 had been pending for over 10 years.
* Tokyo - largest zoomable photo - http://io9.com/the-largest-photo-ever-taken-of-tokyo-is-zoomable-and-975127382

- no worker can be made to work beyond 75 hours of overtime a quarter.
- a report by McKinsey, the consulting firm, estimated that if India overhauled its labor laws, its manufacturing exports could grow from $40 billion in 2002 to $300 billion by 2015.