Bush in India

From the pages of "The Economist"

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ON THE 13-hour flight next week from Washington to Delhi, George Bush could do a lot worse than to put aside his briefing books and curl up instead with E.M. Forster's best-known novel. “A Passage to India” is a tale, above all, of misunderstanding: of wrong signals, exaggerated expectations, offence unwittingly caused and taken, and inevitable disappointment. It is a parable of the complications that arise when eager Anglo-Saxons go travelling on the Indian subcontinent.

A degree of wide-eyed enthusiasm on Mr Bush's part is forgivable. India is a rich and exotic prize. Its booming high-tech service sector and tens of millions of affluent consumers have already convinced many of the world's business people that India is on the brink of replicating the astonishing burst of growth that transformed China from poor-house to power-house in little more than two decades. Add in the seductive fact that this “new China” is the world's largest democracy, and the arguments for forging a much closer partnership between India and America seem unassailable.
Rising India

It would not be before time, either. America has neglected India in the past. When Bill Clinton went to Delhi in 2000, his was the first presidential visit for 22 years, and it is surely not a good thing that Mr Bush has waited quite so long to make his own inaugural trip there. India is a nuclear power, home to more Muslims than any country but Indonesia; and it borders China, which many American policymakers see as at best a growing rival and at worst a future enemy. India is seldom regarded in the same way, even though it favoured the Soviet side in the cold war and even though Indian firms offer just as tough competition for parts of America's service sector as Chinese factories do to low-end manufacturing.

Despite all this, there are reasons to urge both sides to tread as carefully as angels before they rush in to an over-enthusiastic partnership. Mr Bush needs to avoid two kinds of mistake. The first, and most serious, would be to shower America's new friend with gifts that the United States can ill afford. Unfortunately, this has already happened. In July, when India's prime minister, Manmohan Singh, visited Washington, he came home with a remarkable present: a promise from Mr Bush that he would aim to share American civilian nuclear technology with India.

That was too generous. Under American and international law, such technology can be given only to countries that have renounced nuclear weapons and joined the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty. India has never joined the treaty, and it tested nuclear weapons in 1998. Mr Bush, in effect, was driving a coach and horses through the treaty in order to suit his own strategic ends, a move that invites the accusation of hypocrisy from other nuclear states and wannabes not so favoured. The idea was that India, in return, should take steps to satisfy the Americans on a long list of nuclear-security concerns, such as not exporting weapons technology and continuing to observe a moratorium on testing. Most important, India was asked to separate its civilian and military nuclear programmes, with the former subject to a rigorous inspection regime.

So far, however, the proposals offered by the Indians actually to do all this are far from adequate. As Mr Bush packs his bags, desperate attempts are being made to bridge the gap. The obvious danger is that in order to portray his summit as a success Mr Bush will be tempted to accept even fewer safeguards from India. That would be a dangerous mistake: nuclear proliferation matters too much to allow excessive wiggle-room or create bad precedents. Fortunately, whatever deal is agreed between Mr Bush and Mr Singh will also require the approval of America's Congress, which has already taken a dim view of Mr Bush's nuclear generosity to India.
Fearful China

Sending the wrong signal on nuclear weapons is not the only potential pitfall in America's romance with India. Mr Bush should also be wary of sending the wrong signal about America's intentions towards China. Too often when Indian-American relations are discussed in Washington, the notion is invoked that India might somehow turn out to be a “counterweight” to China. Yet it is hard to see, in practical terms, what sort of counterweight India could actually be. On the contrary, that sort of talk is liable only to reinforce China's fear that America's grand strategic design is to encircle it and block its rise as a great power. That fear has already been strengthened by America's recent transfer of some of its military might from the Atlantic to the Pacific.

The United States should not base its Asian strategy on that sort of balance-of-power diplomacy. Apart from anything else, India is far too canny, and cares too much about its own China relationship, to be drawn into such a game. Instead of encircling China, Mr Bush should concentrate on putting the American relationship with it on the right footing: deeper engagement, coupled with a determination to make China play by the rules. Yet Mr Bush's approach to this rising superpower has sometimes seemed almost casual: Hu Jintao, China's president, had been made to wait far too long for his state visit to Washington even before Hurricane Katrina forced him to cancel a visit last August. And Mr Bush has not worked hard enough at home to make the free-trade case against the protectionist hawks gunning for China (though, to be fair to him, he has not given them much comfort either).

Mr Bush must also take care to ensure that friendship with India does not damage his close ties to Pakistan, another American ally the president intends to visit on this trip. Pakistan is infinitely more fragile than India, but right now of much greater strategic significance to America. It is central to the fight against the remnants of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Afghanistan. On top of that, it has an awful record of selling (by unauthorised freelancers, claims its government) nuclear-weapons technology on the open market. Pakistan's president, Pervez Musharraf, has lately shown signs of flexibility towards his country's long and dangerous dispute with India over Kashmir. But both countries need to show flexibility on Kashmir, and Mr Bush must take care not to tilt so far India's way that the Indians feel under no pressure to make concessions of their own. That will merely weaken Mr Musharraf and enfeeble a valuable American ally.

India itself has much to lose if its love-in with America goes wrong. For Mr Singh personally, the stakes are quite high. By backing American efforts to tackle Iran's nuclear ambitions, he has infuriated the left-wing parties on whose support his minority government depends, as well as some of his own party colleagues. If he cannot pull off a decent nuclear deal of his own, he will suffer for it. He is already learning that America's embrace is not the uncomplicated affair he might have hoped for. A visionary Indian project would see gas piped from Iran, via Pakistan. But as relations between America and Iran rapidly deteriorate, America is ever more reluctant to see it go ahead. Meanwhile, India's growing trade with America, whether in textiles or software services, is starting to run into a new generation of Asia-bashers in America. As E.M. Forster knew, no passage to India is ever entirely smooth.

The Battle for Bangalore...

From the Times in UK!!!

Highlights emerging trends in the emerging software industry in India and the fact that India has become a destination for quality software development: not just cost-cutting outsourcing work.
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India is turning into a battleground for the hearts and minds of software developers. On one side are the forces of opensourcing, ranged against them is Bill Gates's Microsoft. It is a battle neither can afford to lose, writes Gervase Markham..


A nasty catfight has been going on in Washington and the American press. The essence of the battle calls into question the patriotism of CEOs who would sell out their countrymen for a quick buck by taking advantage of offshoring - a word guaranteed to cause an American software engineer to choke on his high-caffeine Jolt.

American companies, being squeezed by low-cost, high-work-ethic competition from Asia, are looking to cut overheads by outsourcing their IT jobs. The destination of much of this exodus is the booming tech sector of India, as the world's second most populous country leverages the widespread knowledge of English, a legacy of its colonial past. The nexus of this growth is Bangalore, which boasts more than 200 technology companies and the highest number of engineering colleges of any city in the world.

And now a different fight has begun in earnest. In terms of the global IT landscape, it is perhaps more significant. It is the battle for the hearts and minds of those tens of thousands of Indian software developers.

On one side is Microsoft, hoping to tempt them with visions of a smoothly-integrated development system from a single vendor. On the other side is the free software movement, talking about the importance of liberty, unrestrictive licensing and control of your own computing environment. At stake is the ability to harness the brainpower of an entire subcontinent of hackers.

In the most recent exchange of fire, Microsoft's shot made the loudest bang. Buoyed by a no doubt sincere but also profile-raising series of visits by Bill Gates to Delhi slums and AIDS counselling centres, there was extensive international coverage of Microsoft's "Ready Launch 2005" event at the Bangalore Palace. There, Gates announced a $1.7 billion investment in India over the next four years, split between "donations" of software to schools, job creation and building, and developer evangelism.

However, reading the reports, one can't help but see a slightly patronising tone in their approach. One announcement which typified this was "Code4Bill" - a recruiting exercise dressed up as a competition, involving a series of online tests and real-world interviews. These whittle down the entrants to a final 20 who win internships at Microsoft India, and maybe even (gasp!) a job. The lucky grand prize winner gets to work in the "Bill Gates Technical Assistants Team" in Redmond for a year.

By contrast, the FOSS.IN (FOSS stands for "free and open source software; .IN is the country code for India) conference, a week beforehand in the very same venue, received comparatively little publicity. There were 2,700 attendees gathered to hear big names in the Linux world such as Alan Cox, the impressively-bearded Welsh kernel hacker, who gave "brutally technical" programming talks. The event's sponsor list reads like a roll call in the ABM ("Anyone But Microsoft") army - Intel, Google, Sun, HP.

At first glance, despite the Microsoft marketing muscle and donated dollars, free software should be a shoo-in. In a country which wants to encourage entrepreneurship and expand its economy, why pay more for less control? However, the free software community has its own, rather unexpected hurdle to overcome - a cultural one. Despite India being "the world's largest consumer of free software", not much code is making its way back to the major projects. It seems that Indian developers often have a difficult time engaging with the community.

There have been several reasons suggested for this. One is that the Indian university system is more oriented to creating large numbers of employable graduates who pass tests, assembly-line style, than encouraging creativity and risk-taking. In a country where an engineering degree is the ticket to a reasonably comfortable life, no one wants to rock the boat. Another factor is that Indian developers are often most comfortable with a structured work plan and clearly-defined boundaries. This style of working is not a good fit for the self-motivated, somewhat chaotic style of the free software bazaar.

So at the moment, the scales are evenly balanced. India is there for the taking. In five years' time, will India be Coding 4 Bill, or Coding 2 Share?

Gervase Markham works for the Mozilla Foundation, a non-profit organisation dedicated to promoting choice and innovation on the internet. His blog is Hacking for Christ

SAP finds Indian techies too costly.

From the Times of India

SAP, the world’s third-biggest software company, is cutting its recruitment of Indian experts because they are too expensive and is instead looking towards China, its CEO Henning Kagermann said in an interview.

With Indians pricing themselves out of the market, SAP preferred to recruit in China and low-cost eastern European nations. “India is getting too dear,” said SAP CEO Henning Kagermann in the interview with the Financial Times published on Monday.

“We’ve decided to only recruit a certain number more from there, and then to start looking around in other locations,” he added.

The Indian software industry, particularly companies based in Bangalore and other high-tech centres, has attracted huge interest over the past decade from international investors seeking sophisticated skills at low salaries.
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Addendum : Its to be noted that an entry level software programmer in India still commands just around $5000, compared to the $50000 for an American programmer.
However this rate is growing at an estimated 11-15% a year.Perhaps its higher.

Further, SAP itself is still hiring in India, albeit at a claimed "slower" rate.

Microsoft plans to double capacity at its Hyderabad center
Google has just set up shop in Bangalore
Cisco plans to inaugurate its swanky new campus in Bangalore.
IBM, CSC and other giants also have grand plas for their Indian operations.

However our real threat remain other low cost offshoring locations like China, Thailand, Malaysia etc

Finally...Sensex makes history, touches Peak 10000

from Indiatimes Dated: 6th February.

The Sensex finally breached the coveted 10,000-point mark driven by robust buying interest across a host of index scrips.

The historic run on the bourses was accompanied by gains in all the 30 Sensex scrips. The 30-share benchmark index scaled a life-time high of 10,002.83, registering a gain of more than 250 points, over Friday's close of 9,742.58.

ICICI Bank was leading the pack of gainers on the Sensex with a gain of more than 6%. Pharma major Ranbaxy also jumped more than 5%, while gaining on the back of an overseas joint venture formed by the company.Among the other gainers, ONGC, Reliance Industries (RIL), L&T, HDFC, Hindalco, Cipla, TCS and Bajaj Auto also registered gains of more than 2%.

The NSE Nifty also jumped past the 3,000-point mark and scaled an intraday high of 3,009.45, which was barely 2 points below the life-time high of 3,011.05.
The market indices soon gathered momentum after opening on a cautious note. The BSE Sensex opened 3.51 points up at 9,746.09, while the NSE Nifty opened 0.35 points up at 2,940.95.

Buying interest was conspicuous across a host of sectors including auto, banking, software, engineering and FMCG sectors.The record-breaking rally materialised with any major broad-based catalysts, with the Q3 earnings season coming to an end and the mixed trends witnessed in the global markets on Friday/Monday.

The benchmark ended the previous week at 9,742.58, after scaling a life-time closing high of 9,919.89 on Tuesday, January 31, 2006. The 30-share benchmark index missed the elusive 10,000-point mark by barely six points in intraday trade last week.

The market observers expect the continuing strength in FII inflows and robust liquidity position of the domestic mutual funds to continue to provide support to the market sentiments.
The market sentiments are also likely to gain support from the pre-budget expectations in the near term. Traditionally, markets witness a pre-budget rally in the run-up to the union budget on expectations for possible government sops for India Inc to boost the country's economic growth.

India to launch rural job scheme.

This is the "Employment guarantee scheme" which was promised by the UPA when it came to power, last year.Could turn out to be a major white elephant, which is expensive and poorly implemented. Also it will divert funds from healthcare , education and infrastructure.

Overall this scheme is a temporary Band-aid rather than an effective surgery to solve our country's chronic unemployment. The infrastructure envisioned to be built - roads, irrigation whatever, is bound to be of poor quality and haphazard.
And given our country's dismal implementation record, lets see how far this goes.
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From the BBCWorldwide Website:

The scheme will target India's 60m rural households
The Indian government is due to launch one of its most ambitious efforts to eradicate rural poverty.
Under the National Rural Guarantee Scheme one member from each of India's 60 million rural households is guaranteed 100 days of work each year.



They will receive a minimum wage of 60 rupees ($1.50) and if that does not work, an unemployment allowance.More than a third of India's population of more than one billion people lives on less than a dollar a day.

The first phase of the programme will cover 200 of the country's poorest and least developed districts.
Prime Minister Manmohan Singh will launch the scheme in a village in the drought-prone Anantapur district of southern Andhra Pradesh state.
The president of the governing Congress Party, Sonia Gandhi, will also be present on the occasion.



The Congress Party swept to power in 2004 after it pledged to improve the conditions of India's poor.

Critics
The programme will be extended to the entire country over the next four years and is being seen as an important effort to curb the migration of villagers to India's overcrowded cities.
The Congress campaign used the scheme in election campaigns

Analysts say this is the most ambitious pro-poor scheme launched by an Indian government, in a country where nearly 70% of the population lives in villages.
People employed by the scheme will work on projects such as building roads, improving rural infrastructure, constructing canals or working on water conservation schemes.

The government says special priority will be given to women.
However, critics say the scheme is too expensive and question whether the government will be able to support it.

They say rather than paying for unskilled manual labour, the government should invest in improving rural infrastructure - especially in health care and education.
Others say there is little transparency, which may lead to red tape and corruption.