Santosh Pandey

Madhu the first Bihari Twitter Bird-inspired by the world famous Madhubani Art from Bihar

2011-05-05T02:35:00.002+05:30

On the occasion of Bihar Entrepreneur Network's Networking and entrepreneurship conference We are launching worlds first Bihari Twitter Bird "MADHU". Madhu has been designed by Manish Sinha

Manish is Chief Strategy Officer - Digitas India, an Entrepreneur and founder of Once Upon A Time - A Story-telling & Brand 2.0 Consultancy. He is also founder of Cinnamon Stays a Hospitality company.

Santosh Pandey's Twitter Times

2011-04-17T05:22:00.001+05:30

Santosh Pandey

My Facebook Times

2011-04-17T05:20:00.000+05:30

A World I Never Made

Tera na hona jane kyon Hona hi hai

2011-04-14T03:13:00.000+05:30

Bihar society is Hiring

2011-03-05T02:45:00.001+05:30

Check out this SlideShare Presentation:

Bihar society hiring

View more presentations from BIHAR SOCIETY.

THE BIHAR

2011-02-21T16:59:00.002+05:30

Check out this SlideShare Presentation: I would like to invite you to read the much awaited quarterly webzine of BIHAR GROUP and BIHAR SOCIETY.
This Webzine will be a quarterly feature. Articles , features, advertisement etc are welcome from all members.

Bihar Society:

PDF format:

PPT format:

Social Entrepreneurship Jobs
https://docs.google.com/document/d/1aOhsgnIyHTUTBWXN0GBikmX5ny-LciDScAeWjzCvzD0/edit?hl=en#

THE BIHAR

View more documents from Santosh Pandey.

Visitors in this blog in last Quarter

2011-01-23T05:06:00.000+05:30

My message to William Dalrymple

2011-01-23T00:55:00.001+05:30

Dear Mr. Dalrymple,

First of all I would like to introduce myself. I am a born Bihari (Indian). Today I got very offended after reading your interview in WSJ wherein you quoted " that few would’ve turned up had the festival taken place in Patna". As a Bihari and also a resident of Patna, I would like to ask you on what basis you are spreading such a negative image of Patna?

Bihar & Patna is already suffering from a negative image due to biased Indian media and on the top of that such statement from a Historian and writer of your repute does no good to this image but having an incremental impact on the bad perception.

Few year back ( in 2007) also you had given similar statement in Financial Times London regarding Bihar wherein you has given a statement which was about an election in Bihar at a time when there was no election in Bihar. It was extremely negative right from the word go, associating certain reprehensible practices which are culturally far more likely to happen in other states than Bihar.

Some of our fellows Biharis had communicated their apprehensions to you at that time also and you had assured that you will not try to propagate a negative and biased opinion about Bihar any further.

But alas, you did it again this time, and that too without any solid reason. Did you try ever to organise any such thing in PATNA in Bihar? then on what basis such an opinion?

Let me invite you to come to Bihar to get a first hand feel of Bihar/Bihari and our hospitality, culture and warmth. I guarantee that you will be surprised and bowled over.

We are planning to Organize several big festival ( Mahotsava as it is called in HINDI) for example Rajgir Mahotsava, Gaya Mahotsava, Dasrath Manjhi Love Mahotsava, Nalanda Mahotsava, Vikramshila Mahotsava, Patliputra Mahotsava and many more).

The reason for sending this message are not only to communicate to you that we as Biharis are hurt by your irresponsibly statement in international media but also to invite you to have a first hand experience of Bihar so that you can form a more objective and correct opinion about Bihar.

Would also like to invite you to our Facebook Bihar Page and our Volunteer NGO effort for betterment of Bihar. Please see the link below:

a) http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_153744714660549&ap=1
b)http://www.facebook.com/home.php?sk=group_188103284536849&ap=1

I also read your clarification that you Love Bihar and hence this invitation to the cause of Bihar. Hope you will reply back or help Bihar rather than only curse and criticize.

regards,

Santosh
Santosh Pandey

Some Leading Industries of Bihar

2011-01-22T22:10:00.000+05:30

Santosh Pandey

World Class University and Research Centre in Bihar

2011-01-21T21:25:00.000+05:30

Santosh Pandey

In the news

2011-01-15T15:44:00.000+05:30

Santosh Pandey

On the wall-Sala main to model ban gaya

2011-01-15T15:41:00.000+05:30

Santosh Pandey

My Self vreated Harvard Siploma- anything is possible in this wold

2011-01-15T15:35:00.000+05:30

Santosh Pandey

World Class University and Research Centre in Bihar

2011-01-09T20:22:00.001+05:30

Nalanda had a tougher admission process than what Harvard or MIT have today. But it was destroyed and thus began the decline of Bihar,India,Asia and world. The Wheel or History takes a turn, come join the movement and make the future or become history. We don't need to revive Nalanda but the whole atmosphere. Just like Delhi as an Institutional Area which houses, IIT-Delhi, IIFT, ISI,IIFT,Fore etc. We need many ....,

Bihar is the heart, mind and soul of India and Asia. Yoga,Kamasutra, Surgery, Buddha, Mahavira, Guru Gobind Singh were sons of Bihar and Nalanda University is world's greatest and oldest institutions (destroyed and needs reconstruction). Please help Bihar in the quest to reclaim the position as a seat of learning, research and Asian renaissance.

The Adventures of Sherlock Holmes

Wish you all a very happy new year 2011.

2011-01-01T00:32:00.000+05:30

Pandey

Galiyaan= a very touching poem by Ashok Chakradhar

2010-08-05T21:34:00.000+05:30

The new MS Bing Integrated Mapping

2010-08-05T21:27:00.000+05:30

Can we eat to starve Cancer

2010-08-05T21:02:00.000+05:30

Ganga Behti Ho Kyon

2010-04-04T05:08:00.001+05:30

This is one of my facourite songs sung by Legendary Bhupen Hazarika.

Gham ka Khazaana (Jagjit Singh, Lata Mangeshkar)

2009-12-20T18:54:00.001+05:30

How India beat China in auto exports-Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar

2009-12-20T14:37:00.003+05:30

This week, Ford Motors announced that India would be a global manufacturing hub for its new small car, the Figo. This underlines a remarkable new development. India has overtaken China as a car exporter this year, exporting 201,138 cars in January-July against China’s 164,800. What’s more, Indian exports in this period went up 18%, while China’s fell by 60%.

Of other big Asian exporters, Korea’s exports have fallen 31% and Thailand’s 43%. In a terrible global recession, India is the only country with zooming exports. Hyundai has long made India an export hub for small cars, and aims to export 300,000 India-made cars this year. Maruti-Suzuki comes second in exports, with Tata, Mahindra and others well behind. Nissan is about to build a new factory in India specifically for exports. India looks like exporting half a million cars in 2009-10, and should cross the million mark within five years.

What accounts for India’s success? Visionary planning? Long-term strategy? No, India’s triumph was completely unplanned. No planning document ever envisioned or planned for beating China.

Analysts say China has become a great auto exporter because of huge subsidies, an undervalued exchange rate and dirt-cheap credit. But India never aimed at an undervalued exchange rate to pile up large trade surpluses — rather, it aimed to keep the real effective exchange rate unchanged from 1993 onward. India’s interest rates were always among the highest in Asia. It stubbornly refused to reform its inflexible labour laws, with adverse effects on productivity and wages relative to Asian competitors. No Indian strategic vision targeted special provisions or subsidies to the auto sector. Indeed, the sector for years suffered exceptionally high excise duties and sales tax.

How then did this sector become world class? In the early 1990s, auto production was freed for investment by any domestic and foreign investor. Indian planners as well as foreign investors regarded India as a low-skilled, low-productivity country producing third-rate cars like the Ambassador and Premier. Foreign investors came only because car imports were virtually banned. The small size of the Indian car market created serious scale diseconomies.

Critics from both the Right and Left criticized the new auto policy. Leftists claimed foreigners would decimate the industry. Free-marketers complained that foreigners were being wooed to create an inefficient, high-cost industry behind high tariff walls.

Nobody foresaw what fierce competition would do. Auto companies compete by constantly producing new models with improved features like fuel efficiency. Indian consumers are very price-sensitive, so design changes to reduce costs are also vital. India’s auto parts companies had rarely been asked for innovative changes during the old licence-permit raj, when the Ambassador and Premier faced little competition. But MNCs brought in competition, and started a dialogue with auto ancillary manufacturers on constant design changes. To their surprise, they found that Indian engineers had considerable skills, and could make improvements quickly and cheaply.

Bharat Forge, which makes auto forgings like crankshafts and axles, was among the first to realize that India’s big advantage was not cheap labour but cheap skills. The company decided to have no blue collar workers at all, only engineers. This yielded a huge rise in innovation and productivity, and soon made Bharat Forge the second biggest auto forging company in the world.

For new auto components, global giants like Delphi and Visteon typically took three months to go from concept to design, prototype, testing, removal of glitches, and final manufacture. But Bharat Forge found it could do the entire sequence in just one month.

Soon, every auto company and parts maker in India focused on using cheap skills to constantly produce better and cheaper parts and vehicles. Bajaj Auto once relied on know-how from Kawasaki for motor-cycles, but soon found that its own R&D produced far better bikes for Indian conditions. Maruti Suzuki made India a global hub for R&D. And Tata Motors created the Nano, the world’s cheapest car, making the world sit up.

The ultimate compliment to India’s design skills came from Carlos Ghosn of Renault-Nissan. He decided to build an ultra-cheap car (that might compete with Tata’s Nano) in collaboration with Bajaj Auto. In such partnerships, the global partner usually does the R&D and the Indian partner the low-cost production. But Ghosn decided the new car should be designed by Bajaj Auto, which had never produced a car before. Why? Because Ghosn felt it was easier to upgrade from a two-wheeler than downgrade from a standard sedan to produce an ultra-cheap car.

This then is the secret of India’s success. Don’t waste time with strategic planning and picking winners. Simply let competition happen. You will be surprised how the most unlikely sectors can become world class. That’s how India has just beaten China.

The True side of Dr. Zakir Naik- Please see to understand him

2009-12-13T19:16:00.003+05:30

In a country, like India where he was born, brought up and given all his knowledge and wisdom propagating this type of thought is really dangerous. If all Hindus start thinking that only we Know the religion which is right and Hindu teacher only knows 2+2=4 and every one else is like a teacher who teaches 2+2=6, or 8, or so on, then, know Dr. Naik would not have been what he is today? there should not be any other faith or religion in India than Hinduism. There should be no other place of worship than Hindu temples. And if we follow the preaching of Dr. Naik, we should force all muslims to convert to the path of Hinduism, demolish all mosques, churches and other places of worships and construct Hindu Temples there.

Bill Gates on mosquitos, malaria and education

2009-11-29T15:49:00.000+05:30

Bill Gates hopes to solve some of the world's biggest problems using a new kind of philanthropy. In a passionate and, yes, funny 18 minutes, he asks us to consider two big questions and how we might answer them. (And see the Q&A on the TED Blog.)

Nandan Nilekani's ideas for India's future

2009-11-29T15:29:00.000+05:30

Nandan Nilekani, the visionary co-founder of outsourcing pioneer Infosys, explains four brands of ideas that will determine whether India can continue its recent breakneck progress.

Pranav Mistry: The thrilling potential of SixthSense technology

2009-11-29T15:28:00.001+05:30

At TEDIndia, Pranav Mistry demos several tools that help the physical world interact with the world of data -- including a deep look at his SixthSense device and a new, paradigm-shifting paper "laptop." In an onstage Q&A, Mistry says he'll open-source the software behind SixthSense, to open its possibilities to all.

Hans Rosling: Asia's rise -- how and when

2009-11-25T13:50:00.000+05:30

Hans Rosling was a young guest student in India when he first realized that Asia had all the capacities to reclaim its place as the world's dominant economic force. At TEDIndia, he graphs global economic growth since 1858 and predicts the exact date that India and China will outstrip the US.

Devdutt Pattanaik: East vs west -- the myths that mystify

2009-11-25T02:39:00.000+05:30

Devdutt Pattanaik takes an eye-opening look at the myths of India and of the West -- and shows how these two fundamentally different sets of beliefs about God, death and heaven...

Kargil War - Pakistani Army surrenders and accepts bodies

2009-07-05T15:49:00.000+05:30

The Pakistani Army puts up a white flag and accepts the slain bodies of its officers in this damning video. Pakistan lost more than 4000-6000 soldiers in the Kargil war, while India lost 500 soldiers. Pakistan generally disowned the bodies of most of its soldiers but accepted a few senior officers.

According to the information fed to every Pakistani, the Kargil war was fought by mujahideen and not by Pakistani Army regulars. This video shows the Pakistan Army very clearly involved at Kargil. They did'nt count on ace videojourno Kunal Verma, filming the whole event. Nor did they count on being outclassed in combat, yet again, by an Indian.

Kargil War

2009-07-05T15:14:00.003+05:30

Kissa killer kerosene ka - Marker may turn kerosene into killer fuel

2009-07-01T18:02:00.000+05:30

Nearly 6.5 million BPL families who depend on kerosene for their cooking and lighting needs as well as farmers who use it for pumpsets and spray pesticides could soon be exposed to cancer-causing fumes from markers that will be laced with the poor man's fuel to check diversion.

Markers are chemicals that cannot be distinguished once they are mixed with kerosene. But if such doped kerosene is used to adulterate motor fuels, the marker will show up when petrol or diesel samples are tested using special equipment. Since kerosene costs nearly half of petrol or diesel due to subsidy, nearly 38% of supplies for the poor are siphoned off for adulterating motor fuels.

To check such diversion, state-run oil marketing companies are about to roll out the marker throughout the country. But test criteria specified in the procurement norms means only markers with `halogenated hydrocarbons' -- which can be detected using X-Ray (XRS) or gas chromatograph technology -- will qualify, sources said.

Halogenated hydrocarbons are among 189 `hazardous air pollutants' listed in the US Clean Air Act of 1990. The Act bans their use in fuels as after combustion they produce `toxic dioxins', described by US Environmental Protection Agency as extremely harmful to humans and environment. Generally, these chemicals are used to conduct lab tests to detect toxicity in foods and not used in fuels anywhere in the world.

It transpires that no environmental or health impact study was done before setting the procurement criteria, which appears to purely focus on a marker's ability to detect adulteration. Neither is there any hint that a marker will have to undergo a green or health test. This is surprising since as early as 2005, Hindustan Petroleum's then R&D advisor, A K Bhatnagar, had described the problems associated with halogenated hydrocarbons in his presentation on fuel quality made at a Ficci-Petrotech seminar in Delhi.

Company executives, however, said "pollution aspects have been taken care of" in the procurement norms. "The technical committee has laid down elaborate parameters. They will test each marker against those parameters and safety will be assured," a top executive of an oil company who is involved with the procurement process said, requesting that neither he nor his company be identified.

The crux lies in one of the criteria in the norms, called the `charcoal test'. In this test, charcoal should not be able to filter or remove the marker from kerosene. According to sources, only markers with halogenated hydrocarbons can pass this test.

Writer : Sangh Priya gautam.sanghpriya@gmail.com

Smoking Kills

2009-06-17T02:39:00.002+05:30

The Shutka Book of Records- Shutka a town of superlatives

2009-05-31T23:53:00.001+05:30

Shutka is a town of superlatives. Everyone proclaims to be a champion at something.
Who is the best at protecting the community from evil spirits? Who is the most talented singer in town? Meet the 'lamb champion' of 35 years and the greatest lover. They all star in Aleksandar Manic's unique film about Shutka, Macedonia, where the largest Roma community in the Balkans resides.

The Shutka Book of Records captures the idiosyncrasies of Roma culture, revealing the humour and tall stories of an ancient travelling people who are often persecuted but little understood.

The most obscure pursuits, from vampire hunting to training geese to fight and collecting hard-to-find cassettes of Turkish music, are all fair game in the townspeoples' constant quest for one-upmanship.

With most of the community living on welfare, next door to a vast refugee camp left over from the Kosovan conflict, Shutka could easily be a depressing, hopeless place.
While Shutka is cash poor, it is rich in imagination, and with so many champions in Shutka, there are opportunities for everyone

Google's Bus to Internet Nirvana launched in Tamil Nadu

2009-04-18T11:30:00.002+05:30

Google India has launched what is being dubbed the Google Bus. It is a specially furnished bus with Internet connectivity, which will be touring different towns in Tamil Nadu - a state of India. The aim of the bus is to introduce, inspire and educate the general populace on the power of the Internet and how it can benefit common people

Seeking to attract more people on the information superhighway, the bus will be touring 15 towns in Tamil Nadu over a span of 45 days. India is projected to have Internet connectivity of around 20 million by the year 2010. And perhaps, the Google bus is Google's way of ensuring it gets to garner maximum portion of this pie. Google is providing updates of the bus trip at the specially set up web page The Internet Bus Project

Google gets really local

2009-04-12T13:51:00.001+05:30

The search engine now helps you find that restaurant with uncanny accuracy

Ever wondered how you can search for the most esoteric information in the world on Google.com and find thousands of results with pictures? But try finding the address of the nearest barbershop and the experience is drastically different. Indeed, an entire family of local search engines and directories such as www.asklaila.com and www.justdial.com have sprouted up to help you do just that—locate products and services in your immediate vicinity with contact details and sometimes even directions.

Google map

But if you like to do all your searching in just one location, then we have good news. Google has just announce the global roll-out of a map enabled local search function within the traditional Google search interface. Type in the word “groceries” into a search engine and chances are that among the first few results is a small map of the location you are in with grocery stores marked out in typical Google Maps fashion.

It is by no means a 100% accurate depiction of the number or location of those stores. That’s because is simply using the IP (Internet protocol) address of your computer to make an approximation of where in the world you are. So it might know you are in Mumbai, but it definitely won’t know you are in Dosti Acres in Wadala East. But as a quick and dirty first-cut search the service is excellent. Clicking on the link further takes you a Google Maps site where you can browse through even more results. Some searches for restaurants and cinemas come with links to reviews, photos and detailed contacts.

And all this without using any complicated search strings or changing advanced settings. So before making plans this long Easter weekend give Google a whirl and see what it throws up.

47 Indian companies among Forbes ‘Global 2000 List’

2009-04-12T13:47:00.001+05:30

New York: As many as 47 Indian companies, led by corporate behemoth Reliance Industries and the country’s biggest lender, State Bank of India, have made it to the list of world’s biggest 2,000 companies by US magazine Forbes.
However, five Indian companies — scam-hit IT firm Satyam Computer, realty firm Unitech, Suzlon Energy and two Anil Ambani group firms Reliance Power and Reliance Capital — have been dropped out of the Forbes ‘Global 2000 List’ this year.
Four Indian companies, Hero Honda Motors, Sun Pharma, Indian Bank and Jindal Steel and Power Ltd are the new entrants to the list.
Mukesh Ambani-promoted RIL, State Bank of India, and Oil and Natural Gas Corporation are among the top 200 companies ranked 121st, 150th and 152nd, respectively, on the list.

All the three top Indian firms have improved their ranks considerably from their last year’s positions, wherein RIL had been 193rd, SBI at 219th spot, while ONGC was ranked 198th.
Overall, the list is topped by industrial conglomerate General Electric, followed by Dutch oil and gas major Royal Dutch Shell, Japan’s Toyota Motor, ExxonMobil and UK’s BP in that order.

The rankings have been compiled on the basis of a composite score of sales, profit, assets and market capitalisation.

However, British banking giant HSBC Holdings has dropped to the sixth place this year from its numero uno position in the last year’s list.
The other top Indian firms on the list include Indian Oil (207th), NTPC (317th), ICICI Bank (329th), Tata Steel (463rd) and Bharti Airtel (508th).
The Indian presence is almost evenly divided among the private and state-run companies. While none of the Indian companies has managed to find a place among the top 100 firms this year as well, the elite club includes a firm run by person of Indian origin.

Lakshmi Mittal-headed steel behemoth ArcelorMittal is at 41st position. However, Vikram Pandit-run banking giant Citigroup has dropped to 472nd rank this year.
Further, Indra Nooyi-run beverage major PepsiCo has been ranked 115th, India-origin Francisco D’Souza-headed Cognizant Technology Solutions at 1389th place. Motorola, headed by Sanjay Jha, is at 658th place.

According to Forbes, the Global 2,000 companies have combined revenue of $32 trillion, $1.6 trillion in profit, $125 trillion in assets and $20 trillion in market capitalisation.

Other Indian companies on the list include SAIL (582), Reliance Communication (689), Larsen & Toubro (773), BPCL(795), Bhel(796), HDFC (808), TCS(834), Hindalco Industries (848), HDFC Bank (864), DLF (883), Infosys( 891), Punjab National bank (946), ITC (987), Wipro (989), Bank of India (997), HPCL (1,002), GAIL (1,037) and NMDC (1,057).

The list also has Canara Bank (1,059), PGCIL(1,085), Tata Motors (1,157), Bank of Baroda (1,184), Power Finance (1,324), Axis Bank (1,332), Union Bank of India (1,350), Grasim Industries (1,380), Indian Overseas Bank (1,462), Sun Pharma (1,522), M&M (1,529), Allahabad Bank (1,629), Indian Bank (1,659), Syndicate Bank (1,663), IDBI Bank (1698), Central Bank of India (1,724), JSPL (1,793), NALCO (1,794), OBC (1,869), UCO Bank (1,872) and Hero Honda (1,939).

The Indian animation industry started out by doing work for foreign companies. Increasingly, it is developing characters, lines and voices of its own

2009-04-11T21:17:00.005+05:30

Lord Hanuman did what Ghatotkach, Ganesha and even a Romeo couldn’t. He got
people to watch his antics as he burnt Lanka and wreaked havoc on Ravana’s army. The animation movie Hanuman 1, released in 2005, thus did what no other Indian animation flick had done before—it got the audiences to the big screen, and made a tidy profit in the process. The film, produced at a cost of about Rs 3 crore,

grossed almost Rs 10 crore at the box office. Conceived and executed by Silverline Technologies and released by Percept Picture Company, Hanuman 1 marked the coming of age of the Indian animation industry.

Until recently, Indian animation companies were mostly back-end production houses for American studios. Today, however, the industry is coming into the limelight with its home productions. "Animation studios are spending close to Rs 30 crore per project," says Alpana Mishra, COO, UTV Motion Pictures. UTV plans to release two films next year: Arjun-The Making of a Warrior and Alibaba Aur Chalis Chor.

Tapaas Chakravarti, Chairman and CEO, DQ Entertainment International, agrees: "The animation industry started as a pure services business, like the IT industry, about 10-12 years back. But players soon realised that the entertainment sector did not work like the technology sector. They had to move up the value chain."

The success of Hanuman 1 has spurred many other players. A Nasscom-Ernst & Young report says the industry will grow from $460 million in 2008 to $1.2 billion in 2012—a CAGR of 27%. The numbers are small compared to the $80 billion global industry. But the growth is encouraging Indian animators.

The winds of change are already visible in the shift from low-end outsourced jobs to concept-to-screen contracts. And increasingly, animation houses are partnering with Bollywood and Hollywood studios to come out with international quality shows and films. Margins have gone up by 10-15% due to this shift, says Chakravarti of DQ. Of the 100 or so films that are currently in the pipeline, 28 are already in production, and about 15 are scheduled for release in 2010.

Still evolving

However, progress has been slow. Four years after Hanuman 1, the Indian animation industry is still waiting for its next big hit. Even on television, Japanese shows dominate, though the characters and themes are alien to the culture here. Pokemon and Dragon Ballz on Cartoon Network, Doraemon and Ganso Tensai Bakabon on Hungama and Ninja Hattori on Nickelodeon are some of the popular Japanese shows here. Hollywood films are far ahead of any Indian production in terms of quality and storylines. Moreover, some recent local launches have bombed badly. The biggest failure was Roadside Romeo, produced by Disney and Yash Raj Films. Analysts say the Tata Elxsi team did a great job on the animation, but the theme and target audience did not sync. "The romantic theme did not appeal to the kids and adults could not appreciate the dubbing by the Bollywood stars," says a critic. Jumbo, a Thai movie that was dubbed in Hindi with Akshay Kumar doing the voiceover, also tanked.

"None of the Indian animation films have got the desired audience, but that is more
to do with the content and a poor script," says P JayaKumar, Managing Director of Toonz Animation. "If Indian audiences can consume Western animation films, why won’t they consume homegrown content?"

Perhaps, the biggest constraint has been tight budgets and lack of characters with global appeal. The Rs 10-12 crore budget for an Indian animation movie means the financial risk is hedged, but quality takes a beating. "How can we compete with a $100-200 million Hollywood production that is three to five years in the making with something produced within $2.5 million?" asks Toonz Animation’s JayaKumar. The company recently acquired rights to produce a movie and a TV series based on stories from Chandamama. It’s also working on a movie based on Lord Shiva.

Toonz was the first company to animate a folk character, with its Tenali Raman series. The project, which cost around Rs 6 crore, established the studio’s—and India’s—credentials in producing original animation films. However, the show took nearly five years to turn profitable.

Partnering for profits

Studios are looking at new business models, including partnerships, to produce films and shows. Sometimes, the partnership may just be an investment. In return, they get to own a big chunk of merchandising rights. Some are even negotiating distribution rights. This ensures flow of money even if there is no cash flow in the short term. For example, Toonz has bought the rights for the PlayMobil characters and will be producing content (films, TV serials, etc) to be distributed by Sony Pictures.

Today, global companies are looking at India for co-production. "Indian studios are now on par with American, European or Japanese production houses in terms of skills and infrastructure. But it will be another three to four years before we can actually produce world-class content," says DQ’s Chakravarti. Almost 70% of the company’s content is co-produced or with back-end rights (including home video, TV, DVD, music, merchandising, etc). Some of DQ’s production properties include Iron Man, Large Family and Little Nick.

The impact of the economic downturn also cannot be ignored. Big companies like Riding on own content, the industry’s size is projected to increase from $460 mn in 2008 to $1.2 bn in 2012—a CAGR of 27%

Toonz or DQ may not be severely hit as they have a number of movies and content deals, both their own and co-productions, in the pipeline. But smaller companies will suffer as they depend on outsourced work.

Still, the industry is young. The Japanese style of Anime has a robust domestic market, but it took almost 50 years to develop that style and build that market. Indian companies started end-to-end productions only about five years ago. So, they’re still on the learning curve.

Should Advani, Manmohan Singh Debate On TV?

2009-04-11T21:10:00.000+05:30

Whenever you have a discussion about presidential debates on television, somebody or the other will inevitably bring up the Kennedy-Nixon debate of 1960. By now that debate has passed into legend. According to folklore, Richard Nixon was comfortably ahead of John F. Kennedy when the two presidential contenders agreed to meet for a televised debate.

Judged purely on content, Nixon won the debate—or so the story goes. But television is a visual medium. Kennedy seemed cool and assured. Nixon had a sweaty upper lip. He was lit so that he looked like he was unshaven (what they call 5 o'clock shadow).

Viewers went with the visuals, not the content. The telegenic Kennedy won. The more experienced and cerebral Nixon lost the debate and eventually, the election.

Those who tell this story make the point that TV is not about content or substance.

It is about image and performance. The West may have fallen prey to the cult of televised politics. But fortunately, we in India can still avoid a situation where politicians are elected on the basis of TV ratings. And that's how it should remain.

Those who take this view argue that Manmohan Singh was right to reject L.K. Advani's offer of a televised debate. Why turn everything into a television event, they ask. Why not focus on old-fashioned campaigning and on issues of substance.

It's a powerful case but I don't necessarily buy it. First of all, the Kennedy-Nixon folklore is more myth than reality. Yes, Kennedy did look better but it's not clear that he won the debate. The polls were divided on who the actual victor was. Many said that Nixon had won. Moreover, that debate did not swing the election. In the event, Kennedy won by a tiny margin, almost entirely attributable to the votes that Mayor Richard Daley had stolen for him in Chicago's Cook County. Had the election been fair, Nixon might actually have won.

Nor do I believe that television necessarily favours the shallow and superficial at the expense of substance and depth. Take George W. Bush. You need only to watch him on TV to recognise that he is a moron. And yet, he ruled America for eight years in a tele-visual era.

The advantage of a television debate is that it allows voters to see where the candidates actually stand on the issues. At present, party spokesmen slug it out on news channels but the big leaders pass unchallenged.

Does Advani see no contradiction in supporting the legacy of Sanjay Gandhi while attacking the Congress for its undemocratic nature and its commitment to dynasty? Does Manmohan Singh regret his single-minded advocacy of the nuclear deal at so high a cost? Is Prakash Karat embarrassed that he has never won so much as a municipal election? Does Sonia Gandhi share Manmohan's commitment to economic liberalisation? Would she like to see Rahul as PM some day?

These are significant questions, the answers to which could determine India's destiny. But we never get these answers. We never find out where the truth really lies because these leaders appear only in controlled situations and rarely open themselves up to genuine, hard-nosed questioning.

Take Manmohan Singh. He must be the only prime minister of India to have never given a full-length interview to an Indian. (I don't include that brief comment about the Left and the nuclear deal to The Telegraph, made to serve his own political agenda.) Instead, he has spent five years giving interviews only to White people who he knows will not ask him questions on domestic politics he does not want to answer. Is it not shameful that the prime minister of India should shun any interviewer who is a citizen of his own country?

Sadly, our politicians avoid probing questions because they know they can get away with it.They are rarely questioned on the issues, never confronted with their contradictions and rarely asked to justify their actions. They like it that way. Manmohan is ready to leave the debates to Abhishek Singhvi and Kapil Sibal. Advani would much rather let Arun Jaitley do his dirty work for him.

A presidential-style debate would cut through this edifice of evasion. Our top politicians would be forced to explain their stands and to defend their positions. They will not be able to hide behind party spokesmen or to take refuge in enigmatic one-liners.

But of course, they'll never agree. The only reason why Advani has challenged Manmohan Singh to a debate is because he knows that the PM will never say yes and the debate will never happen. Advani is as reluctant to have his contradictions exploded as Manmohan is to explain himself.

So, they fall back on the old excuses: we don't have a presidential system; TV is a superficial medium; etc. And the people of India are denied the answers we deserve.

By Vir Sanghvi

Lend-Lease Pragram of Second World War II

2009-02-02T01:33:00.003+05:30

Lend-Lease (Public Law 77-11)[1] was the name of the program under which the United States of America supplied the United Kingdom, the Soviet Union, China, France and other Allied nations with vast amounts of war material between 1941 and 1945 in return for, in the case of Britain, military bases in Newfoundland, Bermuda, and the British West Indies. It began in March 1941, over 18 months after the outbreak of the war in September 1939.

A total of $50.1 billion (equivalent to nearly $700 billion at 2007 prices) worth of supplies were shipped: $31.4 billion to Britain, $11.3 billion to the Soviet Union, $3.2 billion to France and $1.6 billion to China. Reverse Lend Lease comprised services (like rent on air bases) that went to the U.S. It totaled $7.8 billion, of which $6.8 billion came from the British and the Commonwealth. Apart from that, there were no repayments of supplies that arrived before the termination date, the terms of the agreement providing for their return or destruction. (Supplies after that date were sold to Britain at a discount, for £1,075 million, using long-term loans from the U.S.) Canada operated a similar program that sent $4.7 billion in supplies to Britain and Soviet Union.[2]

This program is seen as a decisive step away from American non-interventionism since the end of World War I and towards international involvement. In sharp contrast to the American loans to the Allies in World War I, there were no provisions for postwar repayments. Some historians consider it an attempt to bolster Britain and the other allies as a buffer to forestall American involvement in the war against Nazi Germany.

Political background

Lend-Lease came into existence with the passage of the Lend-Lease Act of 11 March 1941, which permitted the President of the United States to "sell, transfer title to, exchange, lease, lend, or otherwise dispose of, to any such government [whose defense the President deems vital to the defense of the United States] any defense article". In April, this policy was extended to China as well.[3] Roosevelt approved US $1 billion in Lend-Lease aid to Britain at the end of October, 1941.

Earlier, there was an entirely different program in 1940, the Destroyers for Bases Agreement whereby 50 USN destroyers were transferred to the Royal Navy and the Royal Canadian Navy in exchange for basing rights in the Caribbean and Newfoundland. The UK had been paying for its material in gold under "Cash and carry".

Everett Dirksen, at the time a Republican U.S. Representative, was able to secure the passage of an amendment to the Lend-Lease bill by introducing the resolution while 65 of the House's Democrats were at a luncheon. Section (3)(c) of the Act thus provided that "after the passage of a concurrent resolution by the two Houses before June 30, 1943, which declares that the powers conferred by or pursuant to subsection (a) are no longer necessary to promote the defense of the United States, neither the President nor the head of any department or agency shall exercise any of the powers conferred by or pursuant to subsection (a)"

Administration

Franklin Roosevelt set up the Office of Lend-Lease Administration in 1941, appointing steel executive Edward R. Stettinius as head. In September 1943 he was promoted to Undersecretary of State, and FDIC director Leo Crowley became head of the Foreign Economic Administration which absorbed responsibility for Lend-Lease.

Lend-Lease aid to Russia was nominally managed by Stettinius. Roosevelt's Soviet Protocol Committee, dominated by Harry Hopkins and General John York, who were totally sympathetic to the provision of "unconditional aid." Until 1943, few Americans objected to Russian aid.

Significance

This chart shows the relationship in Gross domestic product between the Allied and the Axis during 1938-1945. For more information, see Military production during World War II.

Lend-Lease was a critical factor in the eventual success of the Allies in World War II[citation needed], particularly in the early years when the United States was not directly involved and the entire burden of the fighting fell on other nations, notably those of the Commonwealth and, after June 1941, the Soviet Union. Although Pearl Harbor and the Axis Declarations of War brought the US into the war in December 1941, the task of recruiting, training, equipping U.S. forces and transporting them to war zones could not be completed immediately. Through 1942, and to a lesser extent 1943, the other Allies continued to be responsible for most of the fighting and the supply of military equipment under Lend-Lease was a significant part of their success[citation needed]. In 1943-44, about a fourth of all British munitions came through Lend-Lease. Aircraft (in particular transport aircraft) comprised about one-fourth of the shipments to Britain, followed by food, land vehicles and ships[citation needed].

Even after the United States forces in Europe and the Pacific began to reach full-strength in 1943–1944, Lend-Lease continued. Most remaining allies were largely self-sufficient in front line equipment (such as tanks and fighter aircraft) by this stage, but Lend-Lease provided a useful supplement in this category even so, and Lend-Lease logistical supplies (including trucks, jeeps, landing craft and, above all, the Douglas C-47 transport aircraft)[citation needed]were of enormous assistance.

Much of the aid can be better understood when considering the economic distortions caused by the war. Most belligerent powers cut back on production of nonessentials severely, concentrating on producing weapons. This inevitably produced shortages of related products needed by the military or as part of the military/industrial economy.

For example, the USSR was highly dependent on trains, yet the desperate need to produce weapons meant that only about 92 locomotives were produced in the USSR during the entire war. In this context, the supply of 1,981 US locomotives can be better understood. Likewise, the Soviet air force was enhanced by 18,700 aircraft, which amounted to about 14% of Soviet aircraft production (19% for military aircraft).[6]

Although most Red Army tank units were equipped with Soviet-built tanks, their logistical support was provided by hundreds of thousands of US-made trucks. Indeed by 1945 nearly two-thirds of the truck strength of the Red Army was U.S.-built. Trucks such as the Dodge ¾ ton and Studebaker 2.5 ton, were easily the best trucks available in their class on either side on the Eastern Front.[7] US supplies of telephone cable, aluminium, canned rations and fur boots were also critical, the latter providing a crucial advantage in the winter defence of Moscow[citation needed].

Lend Lease was a critical factor that brought the US into the war, especially on the European front. Hitler cited the Lend-Lease program and its significance in aiding the Allied war effort when he declared war on the US on 11 December 1941.

Repayment

Large quantities of goods were in Britain or in transit when Washington suddenly and unexpectedly terminated Lend-Lease on 2 September 1945. Britain needed to retain some of this equipment in the immediate post war period. As a result the Anglo-American loan came about. Lend-lease items retained were sold to Britain at the knockdown price of about 10 cents on the dollar giving an initial value of £1,075 million. Payment was to be stretched out over 50 years at 2% interest. [8] . The final payment of $83.3 million (£42.5 million) due on 31 December 2006 (repayment having been deferred on several occasions) was made on 29 December 2006, it being the last working day of the year. After this final payment Britain's Economic Secretary, Ed Balls, formally thanked the US for its wartime support. It should still be noted that Britain has never paid off its WW I debt, there is still a balance owed of 866,000,000 GBP valued in 1934. Britain made payments until 1934 and then stopped after the US agreed to a 1 year halt, but they never resumed making payments after that. It must be noted that Britain was owed far more by other countries taking part in WWI than she herself owed, a net loss for the British Empire, the richest empire in the world. [1]

Size and repayment terms of the British debt

The original size of the debt and repayment terms (including deferments) can be ascertained from the debates in the Commons on 28 February 2002 and House of Lords on 8 July 2002 as recorded in Hansard:

"Bob Spink: To ask the Chancellor of the Exchequer (1) what outstanding liabilities there are to the United Kingdom of lend-lease loan facilities arranged during the Second World War; [38441]…"
"Ruth Kelly: The information is as follows..."

"Under the Agreement, the loans would be repaid in 50 annual installments commencing in 1950. However the Agreement allowed deferral of annual payments of both principal and interest if necessary because of prevailing international exchange rate conditions and the level of the United Kingdom's foreign currency and gold reserves.

The United Kingdom has deferred payments on six occasions. Repayment of the war loans to the United States Government should therefore be completed on 31 December 2006, subject to the United Kingdom not choosing to exercise its option to defer payment.

As at 31 March 2001, principal of £243,573,154 [$346,287,953 at the exchange rate on that day] was outstanding on the loans provided by the United States Government in 1945. The Government intends to meet its obligations under the 1945 Agreement by repaying the United States Government in full the amounts lend [sic] in 1945."

Similarly, Hansard records from a debate that took place in the House of Lords on 8 July 2002:

"Lord Campbell of Croy: My Lords, is this payment part of the lend-lease scheme under which the United States supplied munitions, vehicles and many other requirements including food and other provisions that were needed badly by us in the last part of the war?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, I referred to lend-lease in the context of the generosity of the United States throughout that period. However, the debt that we are talking about now is separate; it was negotiated in December 1945.

Lord Stoddart of Swindon: My Lords, will the noble Lord remind me as to exactly how much the loan was, and how much we have repaid since then in principal and interest?

Lord McIntosh of Haringey: My Lords, the loan originally was £1,075 million, of which £244 million is outstanding. The basis of the loan is that interest is paid at 2 per cent. Therefore, we are currently receiving a greater return on our dollar assets than we are paying in interest to pay off the loan. It is a very advantageous loan for us."

Quotations

Franklin D. Roosevelt, eager to ensure public consent for this controversial plan, explained to the public and the press that his plan was comparable to one neighbor's lending another a garden hose to put out a fire in his home. "What do I do in such a crisis?" the president asked at a press conference. "I don't say... 'Neighbor, my garden hose cost me $15; you have to pay me $15 for it' …I don't want $15 — I want my garden hose back after the fire is over."

Some questions about the terror attacks

2008-11-28T12:29:00.000+05:30

# How many terrorists were there? Did they number 20 as Maharashtra Chief Minister Vilasrao Deshmukh told a press conference on Thursday? Or did they number many more? If two or three terrorists attacked the CST, how many terrorists were present at the Taj and Trident? Did the CST terrorists drop a grenade/explosive device at Dockyard Road on the way to the station? Or was someone else responsible for that act of terror which claimed three lives?

# The terrorists are said to have set up control rooms at the Taj and Trident hotels, a Cabinet minister told PTI on Thursday. When were these bookings made? A detailed investigation into the bookings made at both hotels in the months, weeks and days before the attacks may reveal the names of suspicious guests who registered there.

# Military sources tell rediff.com that there was no way the terrorists could have carried so much ammunition with them when they assaulted the two hotels with their guns blazing. They believe the ammunition may have been stored earlier in rooms at both the hotels, perhaps on the higher floors.

# If some of the terrorists had registered at the hotels earlier, could these men/women have left along with the guests who were released? Did the police record the identities and addresses of the guests who were released from both hotels?

# Indian Hotels Chairman Ratan Tata indicated on Thursday that the terrorists had intimate knowledge of the Taj, its service corridors, its layout. Does this mean that they had a mole inside the Taj? Or more worrying, did a couple of them work there at some point of time? Did they have drawings of the layout of the two hotels?

# If the terrorists were Pakistani, how did they have such an intimate knowledge of the terrain? The two or three cowards who attacked the CST on Wednesday night made their way from the CST through a road on the left side of The Times of India building towards the Cama and Albess hospital/Azad Maidan police station, a route that is known only to true-blood Mumbaikars. Were they locals? Or did they conduct extensive reconnisance of the likely routes of escape?

# These same two or three men, who are said to have commandeered ATS Chief Hemant Karkare's [Images] police Qualis after shooting him, Additional Commissioner of Police Ashok Kamte and Inspector Vijay Salaskar, revealed similar familarity with the road outside the Esplanade Court, making an easy U-turn towards the Metro cinema junction rather than head on the road towards the CST. How did they know this if they were Pakistanis?

# How did those men, whose images have appeared all over the world, get to the CST from Colaba where they are said to have landed by boat? Did they take a taxi? Or did they have local transportation? Did they come by a suburban train, which could explain the firing on one of the suburban train platforms? Who left the grenade on the Gitanjali Express, which killed a Bengali mother?

# The terrorists are said to have done extensive reconnisance of the city. If they are Pakistanis, how did they get earlier entry to the city unnoticed? Did they come in by boat? Or did they use other routes to escape notice?

# Such an operation could not have been conducted without extensive training and preparation, possibly on models of the Taj and Trident or Chabad House/Nariman House. Could this have been achieved at the rudimentary training camps hosted by the Lashkar-e-Tayiba in Pakistan occupied Kashmir? Or was it a more systematised operation conducted by a State agency in a hostile country?

# How did they know Chabad House/Nariman House, which even long-time residents of Colaba -- the area in South Mumbai where the Taj, the Leopold Cafe [Images] and Chabad/Nariman House are located -- are unfamiliar with? The choice of this target indicates precision thinking -- it is doubtful if the Lashkar strategists are capable of such deep strategy -- and again points the needle of suspicion at a government intelligence agency in a nation inimical to India or renegades within such a bureau.

Faces of Terror

2008-11-27T18:33:00.003+05:30

8 Things You Should Know about the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act

2008-10-02T13:26:00.000+05:30

Overview

Given the rapid pace of change in the financial markets these past few weeks along with a barrage of information that makes it difficult to distill what information matters most, we have created this key insights overview of the Emergency Economic Stabilization Act of 2008. Importantly, please note that the observations that follow are meant to provide a brief overview for executives at our member organizations based upon an initial review of the DRAFT Act. Our interpretation of the Act's implications may change as we review the final version of the act and we review more commentary on it by regulators and policy makers. You should not rely on this information as legal or tax advice.

Eight Things You Should Know Even if You Are Not a Financial Institution

1. Broad Power to Stabilize the Financial Markets. While a large portion of the Act's 110 pages go to oversight, the Treasury Secretary has broad, sweeping power under the Troubled Asset Relief Program ("TARP”)-probably broader than any government minister has had in modern history-to stabilize the US financial markets.

2. Potential Suspension of FAS 157. The Act (Sec. 132) gives the SEC authority to suspend FASB Statement 157 (i.e., the mark-to-market accounting requirement) for any issuers or any class or category of transaction; given the SEC's actions to prohibit short selling and loud complaints in the press about mark-to-market requirements, the SEC is likely (at least a 50% chance) to exercise this authority to some degree.

3. Purchases of Troubled Assets from Retirement Funds. The Act authorizes the Treasury Secretary to purchase Troubled Assets from retirements as defined by clauses (iii), (iv), (v), and (vi) of the Internal Revenue Code of 1986 (excluding non-qualified deferment plans as defined by clause of section 402(c)(8)B) for corporations with retirements funds whose value has been substantially compromised by investments-even indirect-in Troubled Assets, this provision MAY provide an avenue for relief depending on the Treasury Secretary's plan and purchase priorities; at this time, it is unclear how the Act's provisions providing the Treasury with an equity or debt interest in participating financial institutions and limitations on executive compensation would apply in these instances.

4. Not All Financial Institutions May Benefit from the Act. Don't assume that your bank or financial partner is inherently stronger as a result of the TARP program; financial institutions don't have the right to participate; for example, the Treasury Secretary can choose to exclude a financial institution that doesn't have strong prospects for long-term viability; overall, the Treasury Secretary is charged with deploying a scarce (albeit large) set of funds and to take into account the "net present value to the tax payer” of the purchases and guarantees made, which likely means the funds won't be spread peanut butter thin and, most likely, we will see many more financial institutions fail.

5. US National Debt Will Increase Sharply and Potentially Permanently. Despite provisions giving the Treasury warrants, preferred stock, or senior debt obligations in participating financial institutions, nothing in the Act requires TARP to NOT increase the national debt; the deficit will increase dramatically in the short term and the national debt ceiling was raised to $11.315 trillion; the President is required to submit legislation 5 years hence proposing how to recover from financial institutions any shortfall, but there is no guarantee such legislation will pass or that a feasible method of recovery will exist.

6. Frequent Shocks to the Financial System May Persist. The Act creates a number of incentives that favor auctions and open-market transactions for Troubled Assets over direct purchases (e.g., different executive compensation limits for participating institutions, less burdensome reporting and oversight for the Treasury Secretary, and direction in the Act to the Treasury Secretary) and the Treasury will need to issue large amounts of debt to finance TARP; the former transactions periodically and suddenly will create new pricing information that may change substantially (i) the valuation of assets in mark-to-market models and (2) investor assessment of the health of individual institutions, the financial system, and the housing market; the latter Treasury auction may produce substantial swings in interest rates and dollar exchange rates, as well as highly correlated commodity prices (e.g., crude oil prices). Additionally, much like the Federal budget, the program requires continuing acts of Congress (authority under the Act sunsets in December 31, 2009 and may be extended briefly by the Secretary for up to 2 years from the passage of the Act) which may create uncertainty.

7. Early Look at Potential Broad Executive Compensation Changes. The Act provides an early look at how the next administration and Congress may consider reshaping executive compensation more broadly than just financial institutions participating in TARP, especially regarding tax deductibility; limits include:

(1) restrictions on golden parachutes (either prohibition of payment or the ability to create new ones);

(2) limits on incentives that threaten the value of the financial institution; (3) provisions for the recover of compensation based on earnings/gains that later prove materially inaccurate; and (4) tax deductibility limits with the $1 million cap falling to $500k and golden parachutes even more likely to be treated as non-deductible (if it is even possible). Note that the executive compensation limitation draws a line between companies that participate via direct sales of assets and those that participate via open auctions; clearly favoring the latter. The motivation of lawmakers in drawing this distinction is unclear to us at this time (beyond a bias toward using market mechanisms for the purchase of assets).

8. Criminal Enforcement like the Post-Enron Period. The Act tightens up fraud provisions around use of FDIC protection claims and directs key players to co-operate fully with the FBI in investigations related to the financial crisis. Executives should expect far reaching investigation (if not charges) that extend not just to financial institutions, but also to their advisors, customers, and partners who helped create mortgaged-back securities (e.g., accounting firms, law firms) or transacted in them (e.g., pension funds, corporate treasuries).

Other Things You May Want to Know About the Act

What TARP Encompasses

* Section 101 of the Act empowers the Treasury Secretary to purchase Troubled Assets (basically any residential or commercial mortgage-related assets) held by financial institutions originated on or before March 14, 2008, or others as determined the Secretary after consultation with the Fed Chairman.

* Instead of purchasing those assets, Section 102 allows the Treasury Secretary to issues guarantees for the interest and principal of Troubled Assets (not to exceed 100%) held by financial institutions in return for a premium paid by those institutions; the premiums must at a "level necessary to create reserves sufficient to meet anticipated claims, based on an actuarial analysis, and to ensure that taxpayers are fully protected”; the premiums are managed in the Troubled Assets Insurance Financing Fund.

* The Treasury Secretary has authority immediately to tap up to $250 billion, which the President can increase to $350 billion; the Treasury Secretary can increase that authorization up to $750 billion upon sending a notice and plan to Congress, so long as Congress doesn't disapprove of the plan through a joint resolution within 15 days of receiving the plan.

* The Act encourages the Treasury Secretary to place special emphasis on supporting institutions that lend to lower-income borrows as well as small financial institutions that were well capitalized prior to the government placing Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship.

* The Treasury Secretary has broad power to manage the purchased Troubled Assets, including sell them and create securities based on them.

* Note also that there are a number of provisions throughout the act designed to assist financial institutions negatively affected when the government placed Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac into conservatorship (e.g., treatment of gains/losses of preferred stock in those institutions as ordinary income) and to prevent incidental penalties to companies like J.P. Morgan Chase who purchased financial institutions and assets as part of broader efforts to shore up the financial markets.

Efforts to Reduce Foreclosures

* The Treasury Secretary must create a plan designed to reduce the number of foreclosures; to that end, the Secretary can change the terms of residential mortgages in purchased Troubled Assets.

* Fannie Mae and Freddie Mac must issue plans designed to encourage lenders to participate in the HOPE program (the July 2008 law aimed at stemming the US foreclosure rate), although it remains voluntary and its efficacy to date in shoring up the housing market is questionable.

Protection of Taxpayers

* The Act directs the Treasury Secretary to establish policies and otherwise act to prohibit participants in TARP from unjust enrichment, which largely means that the Secretary shouldn't pay more for Troubled Assets than they cost the person from whom they are purchased; there are potentially important exceptions for current owners and conservators of Fannie Mae, Freddie Mac, Bear Stearns, Lehman Brothers, and Washington Mutual.

* The Treasury Secretary takes a warrant in publicly traded companies for non-voting common stock or preferred stock in those companies who sell Troubled Assets under the program; non-publicly traded companies must provide senior debt instruments instead; the Treasury Secretary determines the terms and conditions and will include anti-dilution provisions; the Treasury Secretary can establish de minimis exceptions where the aggregate purchase from the institution is under $100 million.

* Costs of purchased and guaranteed Troubled Assets will be determined in accordance with the Federal Credit Reform Act of 1990 (2 USC 661 et. seq.).

Oversight

* The Act creates an Office of Financial Stability, headed by an Assistant Secretary of the Treasury (Presidential appointment, with Senate confirmation).

* The Treasury Secretary must consult with the Board of Governors of the Federal Reserve, the FDIC, the Comptroller of the Currency, the Director of the Office of Thrift Supervision, and the Secretary of Housing & Urban Development; note, though, that consultation typically doesn't have a lot of teeth.

* The Act also creates a Financial Stability Oversight Board consisting of the Fed Chairman, the Treasury Secretary, the Director of the Federal Home Finance Agency, the SEC Chairman, and the Secretary of Housing & Urban Development; the Chair of the Board is selected by its members, but it can't be the Treasury Secretary; it meets monthly and has the power to create a Credit Review Committee to evaluate the Treasury Secretary's exercise of purchase authority.

* The Comptroller General has oversight of TARP, basically to evaluate the efficacy of the program and its implementation as well as to monitor controls; it can only report and recommend changes; the Comptroller General also is charged with creating a big "what happened, who is responsible, and what should we do about it” report by June 1, 2009.

* The Act creates a Special Inspector General also to oversee TARP.

* The Act also creates a Congressional Oversight Panel.

Kosi Flood in India ( Bihar) - a national calamity

2008-09-09T20:09:00.000+05:30

Bihar Flood/ Kosi Flood a national calamity

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Kosi Flood in India ( Bihar) - a national calamity

2008-09-09T20:04:00.000+05:30

Kosi Flood in India ( Bihar) - a national calamity

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BRING BACK BIHAR - MOMENT OF AWAKENING, THE FILM IS READY TO BE RELEASED THIS MONTH.

2008-07-10T23:09:00.000+05:30

THIS FILM WILL SHAKE YOU UP.

THE FILM DEALS WITH VIOLENCE RELATED TO MIGRATION OF LABOURS FROM UP AND BIHAR TO PROBLEMS AND PROMISES OF BIHAR.

IT IS A POSITIVE FILM AND WILL SHOW THE REAL VIBRANT BIHAR WITH ITS GOLDEN PAST. IT WILL MAKE YOU THINK ATLEAST ONCE FOR YOUR BIHAR.

How to check Inflation-Nice Logic - It May Work !!

2008-07-10T21:42:00.001+05:30

A man eats two eggs each morning for breakfast. When he goes to the Kirana store he pays Rs. 12 a dozen. Since a dozen eggs won't last a week he normally buys two dozens at a time. One day while buying eggs he notices that the price has risen to Rs. 16. The next time he buys groceries, eggs are Rs. 22 a dozen.

When asked to explain the price of eggs the store owner says, "The price has gone up and I have to raise my price accordingly". This store buys 100 dozen eggs a day. He checked around for a better price and all the distributors have raised their prices. The distributors have begun to buy from the huge egg farms. The small egg farms have been driven out of business. The huge egg farms sell 100,000 dozen eggs a day to distributors. With no competition, they can set the price as they see fit. The distributors then have to raise their prices to the grocery stores. And on and on and on.

As the man kept buying eggs the price kept going up. He saw the big egg trucks delivering 100 dozen eggs each day. Nothing changed there. He checked out the huge egg farms and found they were selling 100,000 dozen eggs to the distributors daily. Nothing had changed but the price of eggs.

Then week before Diwali the price of eggs shot up to Rs. 40 a dozen. Again he asked the grocery owner why and was told, "Cakes and baking for the holiday". The huge egg farmers know there will be a lot of baking going on and more eggs will be used. Hence, the price of eggs goes up. Expect the same thing at Christmas and other times when family cooking, baking, etc. happen.

This pattern continues until the price of eggs is Rs. 60 a dozen. The man says, " There must be something we can do about the price of eggs".

He starts talking to all the people in his town and they decide to stop buying eggs. This didn't work because everyone needed eggs.

Finally, the man suggested only buying what you need. He ate 2 eggs a day. On the way home from work he would stop at the grocery and buy two eggs. Everyone in town started buying 2 or 3 eggs a day.

The grocery store owner began complaining that he had too many eggs in his cooler. He told the distributor that he didn't need any eggs.

Maybe wouldn't need any all week.

The distributor had eggs piling up at his warehouse. He told the huge egg farms that he didn't have any room for eggs would not need any for at least two weeks.

At the egg farm, the chickens just kept on laying eggs. To relieve the pressure, the huge egg farm told the distributor that they could buy the eggs at a lower price.

The distributor said, " I don't have the room for the %$&^*&% eggs even if they were free". The distributor told the grocery store owner that he would lower the price of the eggs if the store would start buying

again.

The grocery store owner said, "I don't have room for more eggs. The customers are only buying 2 or 3 eggs at a time. Now if you were to drop the price of eggs back down to the original price, the customers

would start buying by the dozen again".

The distributors sent that proposal to the huge egg farmers but the egg farmers liked the price they were getting for their eggs but, those chickens just kept on laying. Finally, the egg farmers lowered the

price of their eggs. But only a few paisa.

The customers still bought 2 or 3 eggs at a time. They said, "when the price of eggs gets down to where it was before, we will start buying by the dozen."

Slowly the price of eggs started dropping. The distributors had to slash their prices to make room for the eggs coming from the egg farmers.

The egg farmers cut their prices because the distributors wouldn't buy at a higher price than they were selling eggs for. Anyway, they had full warehouses and wouldn't need eggs for quite a while.

And those chickens kept on laying.

Eventually, the egg farmers cut their prices because they were throwing away eggs they couldn't sell.

The distributors started buying again because the eggs were priced to where the stores could afford to sell them at the lower price.

And the customers starting buying by the dozen again.

Now, transpose this analogy to the gasoline industry.

What if everyone only bought Rs 200.00 worth of Petrol each time they pulled to the pump? The dealer's tanks would stay semi full all the time. The dealers wouldn't have room for the gas coming from the huge tanks. The tank farms wouldn't have room for the petrol coming from the refining plants. And the refining plants wouldn't have room for the oil being off loaded from the huge tankers coming from the oil fiends.

Just Rs 200.00 each time you buy gas. Don't fill up the tank of your car. You may have to stop for gas twice a week, but the price should come down.

Think about it.

Also, don't buy anything else at the fuel station; don't give them any more of your hard earned money than what you spend on gas, until the prices come down..."

...just think of this concept for a while.

One Year of ArcelorMittal: Post Merger

2008-07-10T19:36:00.000+05:30

One year ago, the new brand ArcelorMittal was launched. How has the group’s reputation evolved since? In this episode we take a closer look at how the company’s bold values sustainability, quality and leadership have been reflected in the last 12 months. Find out what happened since the brand launch and learn more about the best asset ArcelorMittal has – its team of 320,000 people, who make the company what it is and bring it forward.

ArcelorMittal Steel in Freedom Tower in NY

2008-07-10T19:27:00.000+05:30

The Freedom Tower, designed and inspired by New York in all its facets, is a symbol of the spirit and resilience of New Yorkers and reflects their will to move forward and overcome adversity. In this episode you will get to know the people building this iconic edifice that honours the New Yorkers’ strength. Meet those who make this vision come true!

Panoramic India

2008-07-06T21:30:00.000+05:30

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Classical Painting

2008-07-06T14:28:00.000+05:30

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Sarforoshi ki Tamanna ab Hamare dil me hai

2008-05-16T03:16:00.000+05:30

Sarforoshi song from Legend of Bhagath Singh movie.

Mera Rang De basanti Chola

2008-05-16T03:14:00.000+05:30

Mera rang de song from legend of bhagath singh movie. One of my favorite songs which has inspired me since childhood days...when we used to sing this in School function.

Nalanda to move from ruins to riches

2008-05-11T15:56:00.001+05:30

NEW YORK: Why would a mentor group associated with a university that will be founded in the boondocks of Bihar outside a village called Bargaon be meeting in Tokyo, Singapore, and now in New York?

Because the stakeholders come from far and wide, stretching from East Asia to the United States, and the university is no ordinary one. We are talking here of Nalanda, the famous Indian seat of learning and one of the world's first residential universities founded some 1500 years ago that in its heyday boasted of over 10,000 students and 2,000 teachers coming from Korea, Japan, China, Tibet, Indonesia, Persia and Turkey.

Last week, representatives from host nation India and the East Asian countries had their third meeting in New York to decide the nuts and bolts of reviving the original globalist school "aimed at advancing the concept of an Asian community...and rediscovering old relationships."

Chaired by Nobel laureate Amartya Sen, the mentor group decided on six faculties for what will largely be a post-graduate research university. They include a School of Buddhist studies, philosophy, and comparative religion; School of historical studies; School of International Relations and Peace; School of Business Management and Development; School of Languages and Literature; and, School of Ecology and Environmental Studies.

The mentor group also decided to select an eminent academician to be the Inaugural Rector an initial appointment period of five years to oversee the project, which is expected to start rolling in 2009 after the group meets again in New Delhi in August and gives its recommendation to the East Asian Summit in December. By then, countries are expected to write out the checks to revive one of the world's landmark learning centers.

The numbers are still fuzzy, but the founders are looking at an initial endowment of anywhere from $250 million to $ 1 billion, a modest start in an era when Harvard University's endowment stands at $35 billion ( see Indiaspora ).

"The idea is not to have a Harvard replica...and besides, the dollar still goes a long way in India," said Neelam Deo, India's consul-general in New York who hosted the meeting, adding that the aim of reviving the university was "to emphasize the importance of eastern intellectual endeavour and ensure that human aspiration is not be dominated by western imprint."

The oldest extant universities in the world -- in continuous operation -- date back to around 1200 years ago, and they are all outside the United States. The University of Al Karaouine in Fez, Morocco (founded 859 AD), is listed as the world's oldest, continually-operating, degree-granting university, followed by Cairo's Al Azhar University (975 AD).

European universities all came in the next millennium with Bologna (1088), Paris (1150), and Oxford (1167) listed as the oldest. Nalanda preceded all of them, having been founded around 450 AD under the patronage of the Gupta
emperors, although some records date it back to 500 BC around the time of Buddha. It functioned till 1193 when it was sacked by the armies of Bakhtiyar Khilji.

But now, with the economic weight of the world shifting again to the east, countries in the region appear keen to also gain intellectual heft. Although India, China, Japan and Singapore are the prime movers, even Australia and New Zealand are said to be keen to contribute to the Nalanda project.

Jagjit Singh - Haske Bola Karo

2008-05-11T00:59:00.000+05:30

Jajit Singh and Chitra live from Royal Albert Hall London.

Amazigly beautiful Gazal / Song.

Jagjit Singh

2008-05-10T03:16:00.000+05:30

A medley of ghazals and geets from a very rare video recording of their concert in Vancouver, Canada, in 1979. A very rare collection.

An awesome masterpiece by the Gazaljit Singh:).....u can't afford to miss it an awesome masterpiece by the Gazaljit Singh:).....u can't afford to miss it,,,

Koi baat Chale (album with Gulzar) release Concert held at Siri Fort New Delhi "Nazar uthao zara tum"

Man me Rm Basale

Aap ko dekh kar dekhta reh gaya

I am Bihar

2008-05-06T02:10:00.000+05:30

I am the history of India, I gave the world its first Republic, I nourished Buddha to enlightenment, I gave world its best ancient university, My son Chanakya was the father of Economics, Mahavir came out of my womb to found Jainism, My son Valmiki wrote Ramayan, the greatest Epic Rishi Shushrut, the father of surgery, lived on my soil My son Vatsayana wrote Kamasutra, the treatise of love , My son Ashoka -- The Great was the greatest ruler of India , I gave birth to Aryabhatt, the great ancient mathematician , I gave Ashoka Chakra that adorns India's national flag , My son Dinkar is the national poet of India , I gave the world its first Yoga University , I gave India its first president , I am the land of festivals , I am brotherhood , I am humility , I am the past , I am the future , I am opportunity , I am revolution , I am culture , I am heritage , I am intellect , I am farmer , I am power , I am literature , I am poetry , I am love , I am heart , I am soul , I am yoga , I am global , I am inspiration , I am freedom , I am force , I am destiny , I am Bihar , ...Come with your dream I will make it a reality

Photos by :Bhaskar,Chandan Singh,Ajit Chouhan and others.

The Hidden Story of Jesus Vs KRISHNA

2008-05-05T21:24:00.000+05:30

heologian Dr Robert Beckford investigates amazing parallels to the Christ story in other faiths, some of them predating Christianity by thousands of years. The Hindu god, Krishna, was conceived by a virgin and his birth was attended by angels, wise men and shepherds. Buddha was also the result of a miraculous birth and visited by wise men bearing gifts. Beckford attempts to unravel the mystery of why there are so many versions of the Christ story across the world and asks which is the real one.

Who wrote the Bible

2008-05-05T21:05:00.000+05:30

Who Wrote the Bible? Is the Bible the Word of God? Why is the Bible full of Contradictions?

This documentary explores questions at the heart of the great Christian faith in a fair open-minded fashion. It is NOT meant to be inflamatory but informative. The truth one will see is the Bible is NOT what it is thought to be. So what is the Bible? Find out!

Now since we can see Christianity is not what we thought it was, we can try and learn about Islam, a religion that many equate with terrorism. Search and learn about Islam as it is thought even by the most educated people on Earth to be the ultimate way to truth and happiness, in the truest sense of the word.

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

PART 6

PART 7

PART 8

PART 9

PART 10

PART 11

PART 12

Decoding the Past - Secrets of the Koran (History Channel) (2006)

2008-05-05T20:45:00.001+05:30

The Koran is an ancient tome that has been followed by Muslims for more than a thousand year. This History Channel presentation casts some Western eyes over the book and helps viewers to decipher some of the important passages of the text contained within. The program draws on the wise words of a number of people well versed in the ways of Islam, leading to some fascinating insights on what the Koran means and why it has proved to be so influential.

Here is a series of documentaries made by the HISTORY channel to throw some light on this:

PART 1

PART 2

PART 3

PART 4

PART 5

PART 6

PART 7

PART 8

PART 9

PART 10

Images from my recent Prague Visit

2008-05-04T03:02:00.000+05:30

Prague

2008-05-04T02:58:00.001+05:30

Here's a Maharashtra Diwas with a Bhojuri flavour

2008-05-01T19:48:00.000+05:30

Famous UP folk artist Manoj Tiwari sang Bhojpuri songs during the Maharashtra Diwas celebration organised by the Uttar Prabha Sanstha. A keen ear to some of his songs and one couldn’t miss a distinct Maharashtrian flavour in the latest Bhojpuri extravaganza.

Tiwari’s performance was complete with traditional Maharashtrian white caps and Deputy Chief Minister RR Patil was also present at the event.

For the north Indian politicians of the Congress, this was another occasion to score a point in view of the ongoing political debate on north Indians versus Maharashtrians.

“The first people to support Marathi pride will be the north Indians. And we would always speak for our karmabhoomi,” Congress leader Kripashankar Singh proclaimed.

Bhojpuri songs praising Maharashtra, a modern day version of Lavani and a traditional welcome for Patil, all pointed at how Mumbai was a melting pot of north Indian and Maharashtrian cultures.

Happy Republic Day to all of you.

2008-01-26T14:12:00.000+05:30

GALIYAAN- a very sensual poetry by ASHOK CHAKRADHAR.

2008-01-15T23:23:00.000+05:30

Its a very good and sensual poetry by Ashok Chakradhar..

Aalok Shrivastav reciting his poems at Eighth Vishwa Hindi Sammelan held at New York JUly 13-15 2007.

2008-01-15T23:07:00.000+05:30

Listen to it...you will definately like it

Nano - The World's Cheapest Car

2008-01-15T20:17:00.000+05:30

The Tata Rs 1-lakh car is here! And it's called the Nano!

Tata Group chairman Ratan Tata on Thursday unveiled the Tata Nano at the 9th Auto Expo in New Delhi.

Details of the People's Car:

Ratan Tata, while unveiling the nano, said: "The car will meet all current safety norms and all emission criteria. The pollution it will cause will be lower than 2-wheelers."

The car, Tata said, is smaller than a Maruti [Get Quote], but has 21 per cent more volume or space inside than the 800. He said that the dealer price of the car will be Rs 1 lakh, plus value-added tax (VAT) plus transport charges.

The car will have a 624-cc petrol engine generating 33 bhp of power. It will sport a 30-litre fuel tank and 4-speed manual gearshift. The car will come with air conditioning, but will have no power steering. It will have front disk and rear drum brakes. The company claims mileage of 23 km per litre.

The car's dashboard features just a speedometer, fuel gauge, and oil light. The car does not have reclining seats or radio. The shock absorbers are basic.

the world's cheapest car, costs almost half of the cheapest car currently available anywhere in the world.

''Since, a promise is a promise the standard dealer version will cost Rs 1 lakh,'' said Tata Sons chairman Ratan Tata.

He informed that the car is 8 per cent smaller bumper to bumper, than the Maruti800 but at the same time 21 per cent larger in its interiors and can sit up to four people.

Dispelling myths that the car was not safe enough Tata said, 'The car has passed the full-frontal crash and the side impact crash''. He also side stepped emission concerns and said the car will meet Euro IV norms.

While critics had been sceptical throughout about the car meeting safety and emission norms, coming as it is at that price, Tata said he was happy to announce that Nano meets all norms as would a modern car.

The car is eight per cent shorter than Maruti 800 on bumper to bumper length, but is 21 per cent more spacious, claimed Tata.

Alluding to fears expressed by environmentalist R K Pachauri and green activist Sunita Narain that the car at that price would add more vehicles on the road leading to higher vehicular pollution, Tata said the 624 cc, 33 HP petrol engine meets Bharat Stage-III emission norms and can also meet the Euro 4 norms.

"Pachauri will not have a nightmare and Sunita Narain can also sleep," he quipped, while recalling that some people had suggested that the car should be called 'Pachauri' and some others said that it should be named 'Mamta' � probably referring to the position TMC leader Mamta Banerjee had taken against the setting up of the small-car project at Singur in West Bengal.

Commenting on the safety standard, he said the car has gone through a full frontal crash test as per norms.

The Nano will come in three variants -- standard and two deluxe models with AC. The standard car would be available for Rs 1 lakh (ex-showroom), while VAT and transportation costs are extra.

The Nano is expected to be commerically launched in the second half of 2008. News reports say that Tata Motors [Get Quote] hopes to sell 500,000 units of the car, almost four times the number of Indicas it sells. Tata plans to focus on a market segment hitherto untapped.

Not since the launch of the Maruti 800 in 1983 has any car gripped the imagination of a nation and indeed car manufacturers the world over so intensely. If commercially successful, the Tata Nano can alter the passenger car market in India, and perhaps the world, beyond description.

VITAL STATISTICS OF NANO

Made in Mumbai, wanted by the world

2008-01-15T15:25:00.000+05:30

The world’s smallest wearable cardiac monitor, a toffee-sized silicon locket, is almost ready at the Indian Institute of Technology, Bombay (IIT-B).

While the tiny computer that can store a week’s electrocardiogram (ECG) data awaits a manufacturer, it is already in demand. IIT engineers borrow it, rig some adjustments and the locket meant to monitor a heart without hospital visits measures tremors in buildings instead.

“I would be the first to buy one for my mother. The basic device is like plug-and-play,’’ said IIT’s professor Rakesh Lal, of the School of Bioscience and Bioengineering, who conceptualized the project with professor S. Mukherji. “There isn’t another product like the silicon locket,’’ Lal told HT from the University of California where he is a visiting fellow. Similar ECG monitors in the market are walkman-sized or bigger.

The demand for a user-friendly cardiac monitor is urgent in India, where, as top cardiologist Devi Shetty puts it, ‘heart disease is like an epidemic.’ “Indians are genetically three times more vulnerable to heart attacks than Europeans,’’ Dr Shetty, chairman, Narayana Hrudayalaya, told HT from Bangalore. “The average age of my patients in India is 45 years. Fathers bring their young sons for bypass grafting.”

Indians and South Asians are prone to a first heart attack at age 53, and the World Health Organisation estimates that 60 per cent of the world’s cardiac patients could be Indians by 2010.

“The locket is a hi-tech solution delivered in a low-tech fashion,’’ said professor Dinesh Sharma, who heads the project, funded by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) at IIT’s microelectronics department. “A user could also send its data card to a hospital to download ECG.’’

Algorithms fed in its system enable the locket to distinguish between jerks from running, working out or climbing stairs, and irrythmic heartbeats. Worn with five electrodes on the chest, a sensor in the locket records the heart’s electrical activity or ECG.

If it detects abnormalities, it can automatically transmit the last few seconds of ECG data to a central server using a mobile phone interface.

“We use trans-telephonic ECG devices to transmit ECG from villages through telephone lines, but the IIT device is more sophisticated,’’ said Dr Shetty. “It definitely has clinical applications, however, they’ll have to come up with a perfect product, since you cannot take chances with life.”

When a user feels uneasy, he can press a locket button to ‘mark’ that data so a doctor can later scrutinise marked segments and check the heart’s activity before the irregularity. Connected to a cell phone, the locket can be programmed to send SMS containing marked data to a doctor. Software in the locket forwards the data to the mobile, which sends the SMS.

TCS chief technology officer K Ananth Krishnan said, “TCS is always looking to collaborate with institutions to identify new technology areas and mutually develop intellectual capital.’’

Italy: Translation of Indian editor's bestseller 'Bloodbrothers' published

2007-11-16T02:50:00.000+05:30

Leading Indian journalist and author M.J. Akbar's successful novel 'Bloodbrothers' has just been published in Italian by one Italy's leading publishing houses, Neri Pozza.

Set in the northern Indian state of Bihar in the last decades of the 19th century, the novel has been a bestseller in India.

'Bloodbrothers tells the story of a young Hindu, Prayag, who loses his parents during the devastating famine that sweeps Bihar in 1870. After a long journey journey, Prayag accepts help from an old Muslim couple who gradually become his adoptive parents.

The novel chronicles a family saga that covers 150 years of Indian history, from colonial domination to independence and the dazzling mosaic of cultures that make up modern India.

Akbar is the founder and editor-in-chief of The Asian Age, a daily multi-edition Indian newspaper with a global perspective and editor-in-chief of The Deccan Chronicle, a news daily based in Hyderabad.

His elective, incisive editorials such that he wrote in May 2006 on Dan Brown's controversial novel 'The Da Vinci Code' have gained a worldwide audience. In the editorial, Akbar wrote: "It is interesting that in India Muslim clerics have sided with Christian priests to ban the film version of the novel."

If books which discredit the Prophet Mohammed are banned , then it is ethnical for Muslims that a movie that discredits Christ should be banned, Akbar argued.

Akbar is also the author of a number of other books. These include 'Nehru: The Making of India', 'Kashmir: Behind the Vale', 'The Shade of Swords: Jihad and the Conflict Between Islam and Christianity' and 'India: The Siege Within'.

Chhath sheds Bihar tag, goes Indian

2007-11-16T02:44:00.000+05:30

Parliament rests on Friday as its earlier schedule clashed with Chhath, a festival to hail the glory of Sun God which originated in central Bihar several centuries ago.

But what began as a 'little tradition' has now expanded to almost every place where the state's huge outwardly mobile population set its foot.

The banks of Yamuna and the beaches of Mumbai are no exception as millions of Bihar natives observe Chhath there, even though in later years the festival came to be associated with the river Ganga that divides Bihar in two parts, and the state's other rivers.

Sociologists said the festival's scale had grown as rapidly as the migrant population from Bihar, mainly because it offered people a chance to immediately associate with their roots and culture in a manner very different from other major occasions like Durga Puja, Diwali and Holi.

"The expansion of a group of people in newer and uncharted areas makes it more concerned about identity. Chhath becomes special because other festivals are not so well entwined with their place of origin, in this case Bihar.

The trend is same for India's other region-specific festivals but Chhath is highly visible as the sheer number of people celebrating it is huge in places like Delhi and Mumbai," JNU sociologist Anand Kumar said.

Natives of Bihar have moved out in large numbers during the past two decades in search of better livelihood prospects.

The otherwise rigorous festival -- in which those observing it fast for three days under a regimen aimed at not displeasing the Sun God -- has a liberal streak too.

The rituals involve paying homage by pouring milk before the setting Sun one day and to the rising Sun the next morning. It is now increasingly done by the side of other water bodies like oceans, lakes and ponds.

Kalam turns editor

2007-11-15T02:00:00.000+05:30

Former Indian President APJ Abdul Kalam was the people's President, and on the occasion of Children's Day, Kalam dons a new hat by turning editor for an online paper.

Never one to sit idle, former President APJ Abdul Kalam has moved on. Today (November 14) is Children's Day - a day when Kalam launches his own e-paper, which will celebrate the success stories of ordinary Indians.

Kalam is the first President to have taken to skies in a fighter jet, he's the father of India's missile programme (SLV Launch) and now, Dr APJ Abdul Kalam is all set to become the editor of an online E-paper.

Kalam quotes, "When I was in Madhya Pradesh, I was addressing 80,000 young people when a kid said, 'Why don't you have some place, where all the good things are written? It will have all the positive developments, that are happening in the country, that people can read'."

The fortnightly called a 'Billion Beats', will essay the Former President's thoughts and stories of India's achievers, young and old. It will also be available as a link, on the former President's website (www.abdulkalam.com), which has one lakh hits a day.

As Anantha Krishnan, National Affairs Editor, 'Billion Beats', puts it, "It all started with an informal chat with Dr Kalam. He felt that there's an overdose of politics, murders, crime and there's a lot of negative stories in print. So, he felt that we should celebrate the victories also. Children's Day seemed to be the right time to launch the paper. Dr Kalam wants all the success stories of scientists, agriculturists, farmers and technocrats. Basically 'Billion Beats', will try to bring to the fore, the tales of unsung heroes."

The paper will be formally launched by the former President In Andhra Pradesh, at a function attended by thousands of school children today (November 14, 2007).

Scientist, President and now even journalist, the number of hats that Dr Abdul Kalam can simultaneously wear, never ceases to amaze. Now with this venture, Dr Kalam says that he hopes to tell the stories of unsung heroes to one billion Indians, and what better day to launch it than Children's Day?

India to have four 500 MW FBRs by 2020

2007-11-14T21:46:00.000+05:30

India will have four 500 MW fast breeder reactors (FBRs) by 2020 and pre-project activities of these have been initiated, the Director of Indira Gandhi Centre for Atomic Energy Baldev Raj said here on Wednesday.

The Planning Commission has already cleared four more 500 MW FBRs each costing around Rs 3,100 crores and two of the reactors will be set up at Kalpakkam in Tamil Nadu along with the existing Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) and the under- construction Prototype Fast Breeder reactor (PFBR), Raj told to media persons on the sidelines of ongoing International Symposium on Energy Related Materials.

The Department of Atomic Energy is in process of looking for a site for the two new reactors. The pre-project activities of these FBRs are already on and the construction of these would begin in 2014, Raj said.

The FBTR is working very well for the last 22 years and PFBR is scheduled to reach criticality in 2010, he said.

"Since the PFBR will be ready by 2010, only after gaining some operational experience of the new type of reactor, we will begin construction of the four units by 2014," he said.

Atomic Energy Department is also in the process of putting up an integrated fuel cycle facility---a reprocessing unit of the irradiated fuel during the 11th five year plan.

Asked whether DAE has stock-piled enough plutonium for these four reactors in addition to the upcoming PFBR, Raj said "we have enough plutonium already to meet these needs."

Mammal origin in India

2007-11-11T01:16:00.000+05:30

Many present day plant and animal species might have their origin in India, a new find has suggested.

Scientists have suggested the new theory after the discovery of a 66-million-year old tooth in central India. The newfound tooth was unearthed in a sedimentary rock sandwiched between lava flows from the late part of the Cretaceous period, which spanned from 145.5 to 65.5 million years ago.

According to a new study led by Guntupalli Prasad of the University of Jammu, the tooth may have belonged to one of the condylarths, which were a group of primitive mammals. They included the ancestors of modern hoofed animals such as goats, horses, cows, sheep, and deer.

Because the newfound molar is about three million years older than the earliest known Condylarth specimen, this places it on the Indian subcontinent at a time when the landmass was a drifting island that had just broken away from the super continent called Gondwana. This has fuelled speculation about many mammal species originating in India.

"Many researchers had postulated that mammalian groups may have originated from basal Gondwanan stocks during the northward flight of India and finally dispersed to Asia when India collided with the Asian mainland around 55 million years ago," said Prasad.

Scientists are also supporting this theory because mammal fossils found on the southern continents that date to the time of Gondwana are quite rare.

"With a few minor exceptions, the only other place where there are really good records of mammals at that time is North America," said J David Archibald, an evolutionary biologist at San Diego State University.

But some researchers are puzzled about the primitive tooth's presence in India. "How did this animal get onto India, when the landmass was probably about in the middle of the Indian Ocean on a rapid drift northward?" asks Kenneth Rose, a palaeontologists. "That's one of the really intriguing questions here. If it is an ungulate (hoofed mammal), it provides an interesting scenario that some primitive stock got onto India and later evolved into ungulates," he speculates.

An interesting hypothesis is that good interspecies exchange existed between India and the Asian continent even during the Cretaceous period.

If so, the early ungulates might not have originated in India but somehow moved there from northern locales, where their fossils are more commonly found. "But it's still quite interesting to realize that there is some kind of placental mammal that was on India in the late Cretaceous period," said Rose.

Dear Frineds Wish you all a very Happy,Safe and Prosperous Deepawali

2007-11-09T15:44:00.000+05:30

home delivery - happy diwali

TCS, Infy among world's top-20 FinTech list

2007-11-09T15:43:00.000+05:30

NEW YORK: Four Indian companies, including two of the country's biggest IT firms, TCS and Infosys, have been named among the world's 100 biggest technology providers to the global financial services industry. Tata Consultancy Services has also emerged as the first Indian firm to be named among the top 10 in the annual FinTech 100 list of financial industry technology vendors that was released here.

Besides TCS and Infosys, I-Flex Solutions and Patni Computer Services have been named in the list. TCS moved up three positions from 13th last year to be ranked as 10th biggest technology vendor in 2007. Infosys also moved up four positions to 14th this year. It had been ranked at 18th position in 2006 and 28th in 2005.

I-Flex and Patni have been ranked at 30th and 45th positions respectively in the FinTech 100 list that is topped by Fidelity Information Services of the US. TCS is the only second non-US firm in the top ten, besides the UK-based Reuters (8th) in the list.

Other companies in the top ten include Fiserve (2nd), NCR (3rd), Diebold (4th), SunGard (5th), Unisys (6th), Broadridge Financial Solutions (7th) and First Data Corp (9th).

The annual ranking is being published for four years now by American Banker, a banking and financial services daily, and Financial Insights, a unit of global independent technology advisory firm IDC.

In an accompanying list of top 25 enterprise technology vendors for the financial services industry, none of the Indian companies could make the mark.

Last year, India's third biggest IT firm Wipro was named on this list at 22nd position, but has moved out this year.
The enterprise software list has been topped by IBM, followed by Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Fujitsu, Cisco, Microsoft, Electronic Data Systems, Hitachi, Siemens Business Services and Accenture in the top ten.

Other companies on this 25-member list include Sun Microsystems, Intel, EMC, Computer Sciences Corp, Oracle, ATOS Origin, Capgemini, Getronics, LogicaCMG, SAP AG, Thomson Financial, Deloitte, Avaya, Symantec and BearingPoint.

In the FinTech 100 list of 2006, there were five Indian companies, TCS, Infosys, I-Flex (38th), Patni (50th) and SunTech (86th). While I-Flex and Patni have moved up in the rankings, Trivandrum-based SunTech has moved out this year.

American Banker and Financial Insights said in an accompanying report that all the FinTech 100 firms garnered more than 48 billion dollars in sales from financial institutions in 2006.

"The financial services industry relies on technology to remain competitive and address regulatory changes in an increasingly complex and dynamic market," American Banker Editor-in-Chief David Longobardi said.

"FinTech companies are growing faster than what the industry spends on technology... Acquisitions have played a part, but top vendors strive to become trusted partners with their financial institution customers," Financial Insights' Global Banking and Insurance Research Vice President Jeanne Capachin said.

The companies named to the list would be honoured at the BAI Retail Delivery Conference and Expo in Las Vegas on November 14 at the Mandalay Bay.

World's No. 1 guru is an Indian

2007-11-08T15:27:00.000+05:30

MUMBAI: India gave the world the word “guru”. And now, an Indian has been declared the world’s foremost management guru. C K Prahalad, professor at the University of Michigan’s Stephen M Ross School of Business, has been crowned the greatest management thinker alive by Thinkers 50, an annual ranking of the top 50 management thought leaders in the world.

In this year’s Thinkers 50 — released in London on Wednesday — Prahalad (No. 3 last year) has trumped the likes of former US Federal Reserve chairman Alan Greenspan, strategy guru Michael Porter and Microsoft founder Bill Gates to emerge as No. 1.

There are three other Indians in the top 50: CEO coach Ram Charan at No. 22 (up from No. 24 last year), innovation guru Vijay Govindarajan of the Tuck Business School at No. 23 (No. 31 last year); and Harvard’s Rakesh Khurana at No. 45 (No. 33 last year).

"Not many management thinkers actually follow up important early ideas with genuinely groundbreaking future ideas. This is what C K Prahalad has managed to do. His work with Gary Hamel set the strategic agenda of the 1990s. Now, with "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid", he has established the social, entrepreneurial and economic agenda of our times," said Stuart Crainer and Des Dearlove of Suntop Media, the organisation which brings out the Thinkers 50 ranking.

2007-11-07T02:10:00.000+05:30

India in 2005 unveiled its revolutionary design of 'A Thorium Breeder Reactor' that can produce 600 MW of electricity for two years 'with no refuelling and practically no control manoeuvres.'

Designed by scientists of the Mumbai-based Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, the ATBR is claimed to be far more economical and safer than any power reactor in the world.

Most significantly for India, ATBR does not require natural or enriched uranium which the country is finding difficult to import. It uses thorium -- which India has in plenty -- and only requires plutonium as 'seed' to ignite the reactor core initially.

Eventually, the ATBR can run entirely with thorium and fissile uranium-233 bred inside the reactor (or obtained externally by converting fertile thorium into fissile Uranium-233 by neutron bombardment).

BARC scientists V Jagannathan and Usha Pal revealed the ATBR design in their paper presented at the week-long 'international conference on emerging nuclear energy systems' in Brussels. The design has been in the making for over seven years.

According to the scientists, the ATBR while annually consuming 880 kg of plutonium for energy production from 'seed' rods, converts 1,100 kg of thorium into fissionable uranium-233. This diffrential gain in fissile formation makes ATBR a kind of thorium breeder.

The uniqueness of the ATBR design is that there is almost a perfect 'balance' between fissile depletion and production that allows in-bred U-233 to take part in energy generation thereby extending the core life to two years.

This does not happen in the present day power reactors because fissile depletion takes place much faster than production of new fissile ones.

BARC scientists say that "the ATBR with plutonium feed can be regarded as plutonium incinerator and it produces the intrinsically proliferation resistant U-233 for sustenance of the future reactor programme."

They say that long fuel cycle length of two years with no external absorber management or control manoeuvres "does not exist in any operating reactor."

The ATBR annually requires 2.2 tonnes of plutonium as 'seed'. Althouth India has facilities to recover plutonium by reprocessing spent fuel, it requires plutonium for its Fast Breeder Reactor programme as well. Nuclear analysts say that it may be possible for India to obtain plutonium from friendly countries wanting to dismantle their weapons or dispose of their stockpiled plutonium.

Baby, You Can Plug In My Car-India's electric car Reva sets the wheels in motion in climate-conscious UK

2007-11-06T04:16:00.000+05:30

Where's my wire: A Reva charging point in London's Covent Garden area

Thrifty Lady
* No engine, only a motor. No fuel tanks, no exhaust, no emissions, and no noise.
* Drive 10 km every day for a year for the price of a single tank of petrol
* Speed 70 km an hour, range 80 km on a single charge from a normal socket for a
few hours. Charging stations introduced in central London.
* Parking free, and no congestion charge either in the UK. Savings on this alone
pays for the car in a year.
* Zero emissions; save the climate, and money
* Car service at your door
It's only a little longer than a longish stride and as silent as tip-toeing; it's a car without a conventional engine or fuel tank that so far only Bangalore and London really share.

A member of the Green Party can drive to a meeting where a parked G-Wiz will say what words can never.

G-Wiz: that's what the London distributors of the Bangalorean Reva car are calling it. And that's what an excited London media is exclaiming too. Just about every newspaper and TV channel here has been smitten by this little phenomenon on wheels.

With about 900 cars on London's roads, a fair bit more than the 650 in Bangalore, G-Wiz has claimed more attention than sales so far. But this is a breakthrough car; the first car to run on batteries that works in an everyday kind of way. At 70 km an hour, it is fast enough for city driving, and with an 80 km range on a single charge of a few hours in an ordinary electric socket, it gets far enough for ordinary use. It's cheap to use; you can run it for a year averaging 10 km a day for the price of a single tank of petrol. At £7,000 (Rs 5.7 lakh), the cost is not as little as you'd like. But count in the savings, and that price can drop pretty fast.

And the price could come down. "The cars are imported from Bangalore, which means we pay import duty of 6.5 per cent, and VAT 17.5 per cent," says Keith Johnston, MD of GoinGreen, the car's London distribution company. "We're really looking for a signal from the government to cut taxes and to offer incentives for imports, in order to bring down the price further." The car does need more than 900 owners.

So, who are these 900? "They are environmentally aware, well-educated and reasonably affluent," says Johnston. "Age-wise, they are across the board, but it's mostly the middle-aged urban professional." The zero emission from the car itself answers a rapidly louder call across Europe for cutting carbon emissions from car exhausts. An industrially induced rise in carbon dioxide content in the atmosphere is thought to contribute to global warming, precipitating unwanted climate change. That makes G-Wiz perfect for a globalising conscience of the green-minded.

You'd like to think you're driving from point A to B without a speck of a glacier melting along the way. But, of course, the glacier will not remain untouched if power to the point you plug the car into has come from a power plant burning oil or coal, and therefore sending off those warming emissions. But, at least the owner is not twice the sinner. In the ideal world, power to that plug point would come from a solar panel or a wind turbine. That's when a member of the Green Party can drive to a meeting where a G-Wiz parked outside will say what words can never.

Right now the London G-Wiz driver is not doing that much to cool the allegedly warming world; it would be nasty to point out that these 900 cars, even with their Bangalore population added on, is just a minuscule fraction of the 700 million cars worldwide. But what does work, here and now, is "the saving of those other emissions from the pocket", quips Johnston.

London is peculiarly placed to cut these emissions.

Parking in central London, otherwise prohibitively priced at up to six pounds an hour, is free for G-Wiz. That could mean a saving of 20 pounds a day or more on just parking in central London. Save also the eight pounds a day congestion charge slapped on those polluting cars for driving into London. "You could save up to £600 a month on this car, in a year it will pay for itself," says Johnston.

So this, more than its 'greenery', is the car's big selling point. Well, it's certainly true for Rachel, inspecting the cars at the distribution centre in Southall. Rachel is less worried about capsizing island countries (because warming atmosphere melts glaciers and so sea levels are rising, they say) than her bills. She runs a small courier company in Hounslow, located to collect packets from nearby Heathrow. For distribution in central London, she thinks her usual petrol-driven car can take her packets up to Hammersmith just outside central London. Then on, a G-Wiz could take over, with enough room on the left seat, and with the back seat flattened to make room for parcels. This can bring substantial savings that, she says, she can pass on to clients, consequently making herself more competitive.

But the car can mean savings to just anyone. Just plug it in as you would a toaster, and away you go in a couple of hours, with 80 per cent charged. The remaining 20 per cent takes more than twice as long, for reasons that batteries know best. So it's not the car in which you'd want to explore the highlands and islands of Scotland. It's the car for local hopping. In time, people will get used to G-Wiz workers who need a power point, and guests who drop in and plug in.

But on the other side, London's eccentricities are not an unmixed blessing. The car needs off-street parking simply so a normal electricity cable can be plugged into the battery. Running an electric cable across pavement space into the car is not exactly illegal, but if someone were to trip over it and fall, you could lose a lot more than the car can save you.

Now Westminster council in central London has begun to put up power points where the batteries can be charged as you park. That should make even a longish ride into central London possible. The problem is to make that mental leap from the idea of a 'proper' car to riding a trail-blazing insect. But even conventional car manufacturers now see Reva as a sign of times to come. The ceos of Nissan and Renault have just said that the future is electric. And not hybrid either, where you might mix the two; doing both is expensive, among other things. By 2012, many conventional car makers are planning to launch purely electric cars.

Reva, with its English cousin G-Wiz, is gearing up for the new competition. The insect has already metamorphosed swiftly from DC current to more efficient and powerful AC usage. Its older drive system is being changed to make the car a good deal nippier. A new generation of lithium-ion batteries will be introduced in 2008 to make charging quicker, and last longer. Software is not all that Bangalore has to show to the world.

Chetan Maini, chief technology officer of Reva Electric Car Company, got the idea of the green car from his days at the University of Michigan, US, in the 1990s. He teamed up with Dr Lon Bell from California to work out manufacturing in India. "The styling and engineering was done jointly by a team in the US and in India," Maini says. Distribution centres have now been set up in Norway and Spain, and others are planned in Cyprus, Greece and Ireland.

It's all on low budget. Reva sells in London without a showroom, without an advertising or marketing budget.There are no car salesmen; existing users offer to take new customers on a test drive. You buy online, servicing comes to your door. "Our showroom is the streets of London," says Johnston.

That means that with the distribution centre located in Southall, no one gets to see the car more than Southall Sikhs—and nobody seems less interested. There has been only one inquiry from Southall so far, and that didn't lead to a sale. "It's a bit odd, isn't it?," says Johnston. But then he doesn't understand Sikhs. The car is environment-friendly, not sardar-friendly. As seen by Southall's Sikhs, G-Wiz suffers a continuing problem: it never will be a vaddi gaddi

India's Military Pitches in for Thorium Reactors

2007-11-05T16:21:00.000+05:30

For the first time, the Indian military in its India Defence journal, said the "success" of the innovative reactor ("that can run on thorium") that the Indian nuclear scientists have designed and which will eventually do away with uranium, largely depends on US playing ball, referring to the on-going US-India nuclear agreement negotiations. U.S. in the agreement has agreed to provide India with dual-use technologies, nuclear reactors, among other "goodies", but insists that India cannot reprocess spent fuel to extract plutonium, nor can it test nuclear explosives any more.

India Defence points out that the key to the Indian design is the role of the Fast Thorium Breeder Reactor (FTBR). India's premier atomic research center, Bhabha Atomic Research Centre's (BARC's), FTBR is the first design that truly exploits the concept of 'breeding' in a reactor that uses thorium. The handful of fast breeder reactors (FBRs) in the world today--including the one India is building in Kalpakkam near Chennai--use plutonium as fuel. These breeders have to wait until enough plutonium is accumulated through reprocessing of spent fuel discharged by thermal power reactors that run on uranium.

India Defence pointed out that while the FTBR will not produce any plutonium--commonly identified as the ingredient for making nuclear explosives--the FTBR still needs an initial inventory of plutonium to kick-start the thorium cycle and eventually to generate electricity. A blanket ban on India re-processing imported uranium--a condition for nuclear cooperation with the US--could make India's thorium program a non-starter, India Defence added.

Quoting former Indian Atomic Energy Commission chairman, P.K. Iyengar, India Defence says: "The US and Russia have piles of plutonium from dismantled nuclear weapons," adding: "They should allow us to borrow this plutonium needed to start our breeders. We can return the material after we breed enough."

India's 30% Thorium resource base can fuel for next 2500 years of Electricity

2007-11-05T16:15:00.000+05:30

India is trying hard to get a n-deal when it's a superpower in Thorium and stands 2nd in Thorium deposit with which it can be self sufficient for next 2500 years.

It's fate of our politicians to pledge 30 years of Abdul Kalam, Anil Kadodkar and n no of unknown Indian Scientists R&D Efforts.

Dont just support either Cong / Left / BJP. All the parties are fighting each other for what we dont need that much through this N-Deal.

See the below links and think of yourself who's dependent on whom.

Uranium is past energy, Thorium is future energy, until every other country get's Helium from Moon in 2020. So, we're unnecessarily going for a n-deal which makes our Worlds' only Thorium Plant and technology exposed to every dick and jerry country.

We need to spend more, to get costliest energy and create dependency on NSG countries for Uranium, when Indian is having almost 30% of Worlds' Thorium deposits

Fast breeder reactor - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fast_breeder_reactor

Quote from above URL:

"India has the capability to use Thorium Cycle based processes to extract nuclear fuel. This is of special significance to the Indian nuclear power generation strategy as India has large reserves of thorium — about 360,000 tonnes — that can fuel nuclear projects for an estimated 2,500 years. But the hitch is with the expensive nature of the construction of Fast Breeder Reactor in comparison with the Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWR) in use. This is one of the main reasons why India is looking at the cheaper option - Uranium fuel."

- So, our only issue here is spending much on constructing the Heavy Water Reactors. But, Russia is already assisting us to minimize the cost, since they too are spending much on R&D for Thorium based reactors

India's Thorium Base - http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Thorium

So, Thorium is as common as Lead in the World, but not utilized properly, since Western countries abandoned it. Now, they want to explore the options.

A must see PPT on what US scientist analyzing on Thorium in here

US fears on India's Thorium Resources & Technology -
http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/2006/06/china-and-india-their-problems-are-our.html

About Thorium - http://thoriumenergy.blogspot.com/

Cost of Uranium compared with other sort of energy -
http://www.uic.com.au/nip08.htm (not that much cheaper)

Nuclear cost calculator - http://www.wise-uranium.org/nfcc.html

Coal vs Uranium Power cost - http://www.nucleartourist.com/basics/costs.htm

Various forms of energy - http://www.rationallink.org/energy.htm

Compare various energies - http://www.nucleartourist.com/basics/why.htm

After reading this what do you conclude? Just see the political fuss on this issue in our country. Why do we need to depend on America for our Energy needs, why cant we be energy independent?

Why Indian Scientists oppose Indo US Nuclear Deal

2007-11-05T16:09:00.000+05:30

At a ceremony in the White House on Dec. 18, U.S. President George W. Bush signed the U.S.-India nuclear agreement, otherwise known as the Henry J. Hyde U.S.-India Peaceful Atomic Energy Cooperation Act. The bill would enable American nuclear transfers to India to take place in the future, following a 32-year moratorium.

In India, however, the opposition to the bill remains strong within the scientific community, which believes that it would stymie India's indigenous and hard-earned thorium fuel-based nuclear program. As a result of their pointed arguments, the Manmohan Singh government has yielded to the parliamentary opposition's demand for a full discussion of the bill in India's Parliament. Although the opposition to the bill stems from two major segments of Indian society—the military and the scientific community—to the chagrin of the government, it is now actively discussed by political leaders.

On the American side, three other approvals—by the 45-nation Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG), the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA), and the U.S. Congress—are still needed before American nuclear transfers to India can take place. Although the U.S. Congress voted overwhelmingly on Dec.9 to approve the bill, amidst strong resistance put up by the nuclear non-proliferation lobby, Congress still needs to approve the technical details of nuclear trade in a so-called 123 agreement—a peaceful nuclear cooperation pact with a foreign country, under the conditions outlined in Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act.

Uneasy Non-Proliferators

There is little doubt that the White House, helped by a massive lobbying team mobilized on Capitol Hill by the Indian Embassy and non-resident Indians, considers passing the bill in a relatively short period of time as a great success in bringing U.S.-Indian relations closer in the near future.

The opposition to the bill within the United States was epitomized by a letter sent to the U.S. Senate in mid-November by 18 arms-control advocates. They said that without amendments, the proposed legislation "would have far-reaching and adverse effects on U.S. nonproliferation and security objectives." Signers included Robert Einhorn, former assistant secretary of state for nonproliferation; Lawrence Korb, former assistant secretary of defense; Prof. Frank von Hippel of Princeton University; Daryl Kimball of the Arms Control Association; and John Isaacs of the Council for a Livable World.

Their concerns center around India's alleged unwillingness to curb its nuclear weapons program, India's lack of transparency in non-proliferation efforts, and its close ties with Iran. A new report by the Congressional Research Service, which examines policy issues for Congress, found that while India does not want Iran to have nuclear weapons, New Delhi's "views of the Iranian threat and appropriate responses [to that threat] differ significantly from U.S. views." In 2004, Washington imposed sanctions on two Indian scientists for nuclear-related transfers to Iran, and in 2005 and 2006, four Indian companies were sanctioned for chemical-related transfers to Iran, the report noted.

In India, the opposition to the bill is based on an entirely different perspective. India has remained a non-signatory of the Nuclear-Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) since the Treaty entered into force in 1970, following U.S. ratification. Staying outside of the NPT-regime, India has tested its nuclear devices on three occasions—once in 1974 and twice in 1998. In other words, India has developed nuclear weapons, but it is not recognized as a nuclear weapons state by the five official Nuclear Weapons States (NWS)—United States, Russia, Britain, France, and China—which had all tested their nuclear devices prior to the existnce of the NPT.

Atomic Scientists and Military

The issue of future nuclear tests is important to the opponents of the bill in India, because they consider that such tests are necessary in order to upgrade India's nuclear weapons to match nuclear developments elsewhere, and provide security to the nation. The Hyde Act that President Bush signed categorically demands that India ban all nuclear explosive tests in the future. It, however, does not address the fact that the United States itself is working on the design of a "Reliable Replacement Weapon" (RRW) to modernize its nuclear arsenal, and may indeed carry out a test in the future!

Moreover, in the "Definitions" section of the contested bill, it is clearly stated that the "Additional Protocol" is to be based on the Model Additional protocol of the IAEA applicable to non-nuclear-weapon states, which is highly intrusive, as pointed out by India's former Atomic Energy Commission (AEC) chairman, M.R. Srinivasan, in a recent article in the English news daily The Hindu.

He also pointed out that the Hyde Act makes it clear that the U.S. President has to satisfy himself that India is working actively on an early conclusion of the Fissile Material Control regime (FMCT); that India is supporting the United States in preventing the spread of enrichment and reprocessing technologies; and that India adheres to the Misssile Test Control Regime (MTCR) and NSG guidelines (without actually being invited to be a member of these bodies). These actions which India is obliged to take are not consistent with what "a strategic partner" (which Washington wishes India to be) should be taking. Neither are they consistent with what India—described as a "responsible state with advanced technology"—should be mandated to take, Srinivasan affirmed.

What also concerns India's defense planners about the bill, is the way it has been formulated. The Hyde Act calls for achieving a moratorium on the production of fissile material for explosive purposes by India, Pakistan, and the People's Republic of China. It may be recalled that China has been producing fissile material for weapons purposes for a long time, while India was not allowed to by the NWS. Therefore, stopping production of fissile material at the same point of time would lead to a serious imbalance. The statement of policy goes on to say that the United States shall "seek to halt the increase of nuclear weapon arsenals in South Asia and to promote their reduction and eventual elimination."

India's Thorium Program Is the Issue

Indian scientists have made their views known about the inadequacy of the Hyde Act, citing two specific areas. First, the bill says categorically that India cannot reprocess spent fuel from its reactors. it demands this because the United States claims that the "no reprocessing" clause would prevent India from getting plutonium, which could be used later for making nuclear weapons. However, there is more to the clause than meets the eye, Indian atomic scientists point out.

India decided on a three-stage nuclear program back in the 1950s, when India's nuclear power generation program was set up. In the first stage, natural uranium (U-238) was used in pressurized heavy water reactors (PHWRs). In the second stage, the plutonium extracted through reprocessing from the used fuel of the PHWRs was scheduled to be used to run fast-breeder reactors (FBRs). The plutonium was used in the FBRs in 70% mixed oxide (MOX)-fuel, to breed uranium-233 in a thorium-232 blanket around the core. In the final stage, the FBRs use thorium-232 and produce uranium-233 for use in the third stage reactors. (See Ramtanu Maitra, "Thorium: Preferred Nuclear Fuel of the Future," EIR, Nov. 18, 2005.)

To a certain extent, India has completed the first stage, although it has realized a dozen nuclear power plants so far. The second stage is only realized by a small experimental fast breeder reactor (13 MW), at Kalpakkam. Meanwhile, the Indian authorities have cleared the Department of Atomic Energy's proposal to set up a 500 MW prototype of the next-generation fast-breeder nuclear power reactor at Kalpakkam, thereby setting the stage for the commercial exploitation of thorium as a fuel source.

One reason for India's commitment to switch over to thorium, is its large indigenous supply. With estimated thorium reserves of some 290,000 tons, it ranks second only to Australia. Further, the nation's pursuit of thorium helps to bring independence from overseas uranium sources. Since India is a non-signatory of the NPT, its leaders foresaw that its civil nuclear-energy-generation program would be constrained in the long term by the provisions laid down by the commercial uranium suppliers. The 45-member Nuclear Suppliers Group demand that purchasers sign the NPT and thereby allow enough oversight to ensure that the fuel (or the plutonium spawned from it) is not used for making nuclear weapons. A non-signatory of the NPT is prevented from receiving any nuclear-related technology and nuclear fuel.

India already began the construction of the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) in 2005. The AHWR will use thorium, the "fuel of the future," to generate 300 MW of electricity—up from its original design output of 235 MW. The fuel for the AHWR will be a hybrid core, partly thorium-uranium 233 and partly thorium-plutonium.

In other words, if India cannot reprocess the spent fuel to secure plutonium for the sake of converting thorium into fuel, the thorium reactors will never take off. Separation of plutonium is essential for the eventual use of thorium as a nuclear fuel. India therefore expects that reprocessing will be an important activity of its nuclear energy program This is what has put the Indian atomic scientists on a warpath against the Singh government's willingness to accept the bill.

Natural uranium contains about 99.3% of the isotope uranium-238 and 0.7% of the fissionable isotope uranium-235. Although uranium-235 is the rarer of the uranium isotopes, it is the one that most readily undergoes nuclear fission, and is thus the most useful for common nuclear applications. Therefore, to use uranium, the proportion of the uranium-235 isotope found in natural uranium must be increased. This process of increasing the fraction of uranium-235 in natural uranium is called enrichment. At the same time, one must note that while uranium-235 is present in natural uranium in small amounts, uranium-233 does not exist in nature. Therefore, thorium-232 must be converted to uranium-233 in order to generate nuclear power.

Not an Easy 123

The second concern of the Indian scientists is the scope of "full civilian nuclear energy cooperation" (Section 123 of the U.S. Atomic Energy Act) that was promised to India in July 2005. India had assumed that this term encompassed the fuel cycle, namely enrichment of uranium and reprocessing of spent fuel. In the discussions leading to the adoption of the Hyde Act, U.S. legislators argued that the U.S. Atomic Energy Act of 1954 specifically forbids export of these technologies, as also heavy water production technology, to other countries. India has developed its own technologies in these three important areas.

According to an English news daily, The Times of India, India's top atomic scientists have spelled out some of the key points to be incorporated in the 123 agreement are:

* India should not be asked to participate in international non-proliferation efforts with a policy congruent to that of the United States.

* There should be full-scale civilian nuclear cooperation, with an assurance of constant fuel supply.

* India should be free to carry out more nuclear weapons tests.

United States Offers India Thorium Based Nuclear Reactors

2007-11-05T16:04:00.000+05:30

While India is still debating how to make the Indo-US nuclear deal work, an American company, anxious to enter the Indian market, has offered to build commercial nuclear power reactors in the country.

These reactors will rely entirely on India's thorium resources -- except at the start - and thereby remove the objections of critics.

The California-based Dauvergne Brothers Inc (DBI) says its novel type of thorium breeder reactor is fuelled with fissile material like uranium only once when it is started. It runs for its full operational life on Uranium-233 (or U-233) bred in its core from thorium.

Thorium, which India has in plenty, cannot be directly burned in a reactor. It has to be converted into fissile U-233. India's own thorium utilisation strategy hinges on reprocessing -- a contentious issue between India and the US. The DBI claims its design is tailor-made for the Indian situation.

According to the company, its reactor 'starts up using conventional uranium-based nuclear fuels, and incrementally converts to an all-thorium fuel cycle over a period of 10 years, using India's abundant supply of thorium ores to maintain energy independence'.

It said that computer simulations of the DBI thorium breeder reactor show that a single load of 25 percent uranium oxide fuel and 75 percent thorium oxide will keep the reactor running for a decade.

'In that time enough U-233 will be bred in the thorium oxide fuel to increase the output power of the DBI reactor core by 50 percent adding only fresh thorium oxide as fuel.' After that, no uranium ores are needed.

Conventional breeder reactor designs -- including the one contemplated by Indian scientists -- require chemical reprocessing to retrieve bred fuel from used uranium fuel rods or from irradiated thorium' blankets'.

The DBI reactor, according to the company, uses a different strategy.

After approximately 10 years of operation, much of the activated thorium fuel would be transferred without any reprocessing into a second-generation DBI reactor core with higher power output than the first.

'Fresh thorium breeder bundles will be added to perpetuate the cycle.'

This fuel plan relies on a robust, low-neutron absorbing, radiation-resistant, proprietary fuel encapsulation system developed by DBI, the company said.

Unlike the zirconium fuel cladding of most breeder reactors, the DBI fuel capsules are derived from industrially available material, much less expensive than nuclear-grade zirconium alloys.

While the modular core design offers scalability, several other features of the DBI thorium reactor programme could prevent weapons proliferation, the company claims.

For instance, it says the start up fuel could be a proliferation-resistant fuel, such as the denatured plutonium/thorium fuel recently developed by Thorium Power Inc, another US company.

'International agreements between India and uranium-source nations to use proliferation-resistant fuels in the DBI Reactor Programme, subject to IAEA monitoring, could sever the link between civilian and military nuclear programmes in India, without adversely affecting India's ability to scale up the DBI Reactor Programme using native thorium in future generations,' the company said.

India's nuclear power programme Can move ahead even without US support

2007-11-05T15:58:00.000+05:30

As the Dispute on 123 agreement goes on in Indian Polity and row continues between the Left parties,BJP and the Congress Government, a key aspect from the Indian viewpoint is that India has certain inherent strengths in the area of nuclear technology, which would enable India to forge ahead, albeit slowly, even without US cooperation.

Central to this argument is the availability of huge reserves of thorium in India. Thorium reserves have been estimated to be between 3,60,000 and 5,18,000 tonnes. The US estimates the “economically extractable” reserves to be 2,90,000 tonnes, one of the largest in the world. Our uranium reserves, by contrast, are estimated to be at a maximum of around 70,000 tonnes.

India currently has 15 commercial power reactors in operation, most of which are pressurised heavy water reactors (PHWR) which use natural uranium. Two Tarapur reactors are boiling water reactors (BWR) which need enriched uranium, which has to be imported.

Together they generate about 3300 MWe (Mega Watt Electrical) of power, about 4 per cent of that generated from all sources. Another six PHWRs are in construction, and along with the two “VVER” Russian built 1000 MWe reactors which use enriched uranium, they would add about 3960 MWe by 2008. The goal is to reach at least 20,000 MWe by 2020.

India's uranium reserves are low. Obtaining enriched uranium for the two Tarapur reactors and VVER type reactors requires the consent of the Nuclear Suppliers Groups countries, including Russia. This is where the agreement with the US is expected to be beneficial to India.

Also central to India's success in achieving these goals, is the harnessing of thorium, for which India has developed a three-stage nuclear programme. India has already developed and tested the technologies needed to extract energy from Thorium, but large scale execution has not yet been possible, mainly because of limited availability of Plutonium.

Stage one is the use of PHWRs. Natural uranium is the primary fuel. Heavy water (deuterium oxide, D2O) is used as moderator and coolant. The composition of natural uranium is 0.7 percent U-235, which is fissile, and the rest is U-238. This low fissile component explains why certain other types of reactors require the uranium to be “enriched” i.e. the fissile component increased.

In the second stage, the spent fuel from stage one is reprocessed in a reprocessing facility, where Plutonium-239 is separated. Plutonium, of course, is a weapons material, which goes towards creating India’s nuclear deterrent.

Pu-239 then becomes the main fissile element, the fuel core, in what are known as fast breeder reactors (FBR). A test FBR is in operation in Kalpakkam, and the construction for a 500 MWe prototype FBR was launched recently by Prime Minister Dr Manmohan Singh.

These are known as breeder reactors because the U-238 “blanket” surrounding the fuel core will undergo nuclear transmutation to produce more PU-239, which in turn will be used to create energy.

The stage also envisages the use of Thorium (Th-232) as another blanket. Th-232 also undergoes neutron capture reactions, creating another uranium isotope, U-233. It is this isotope which will be used in the third stage of the programme. Thorium by itself is not a fissile material, and cannot be used directly to produce nuclear energy. The Kamini 40 MWe reactor at Kalpakkam which became critical in Sept 1996, using U-233 fuel, has demonstrated some of these technologies.

India is currently developing a prototype advanced heavy water reactor (AHWR) of 300 MWe capacity. The AHWRs, which use plutonium based fuel, are to be used to shorten the period of reaching full scale utilisation of our thorium reserves. The AHWR is thus the first element of the third stage. AHWR design is complete but further R and D work is required, especially on safety. It is expected to be unveiled soon and construction launched.

In the third phase, in addition to the U-233 created from the second phase, breeder reactors fuelled by U-233, with Th-232 blankets, will be used to generate more U-233.

The Bhabha Atomic Research Centre has estimated that India's thorium reserves can amount to a staggering 3,58,000 GWe-yr (Giga Watt Electrical - Year) of energy, enough for the next century and beyond

BARC scientists are also looking at other designs, like an advanced thorium breeder reactor (ATBR) which requires plutonium only as a seed to start off the reaction, and then use only thorium and U-233. Here the plutonium is completely consumed and this reactor is thus considered “proliferation resistant”. A Compact High Temperature Reactor also under development at BARC . This reactor is designed to work in closed spaces and remote locations.

Success in harnessing thorium’s potential is thus critical for the India’s future energy security.

India has put in place mechanisms for ensuring safety and security of nuclear facilities. The regulatory and safety systems ensure that equipment at India's nuclear facilities are designed to operate safely and even in the unlikely event of any failure or accident, mechanisms like plant and site emergency response plans are in place to ensure that the public is not affected in any manner. In addition, detailed plans, which involve the local public authorities, are also in place to respond if the consequences were to spill into the public domain. The emergency response system is also in a position to handle any other radiation emergency in the public domain that may occur at locations, which do not even have any nuclear facility.

Regulatory and safety functions of Atomic Energy in India are carried out by an independent body, the Atomic Energy Regulatory Board (AERB). The AERB was constituted on November 15, 1983 by the President of India under the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 to carry out certain regulatory and safety functions under the Act. The regulatory authority of AERB is derived from the rules and notifications promulgated under the Atomic Energy Act, 1962 and the Environmental (Protection) Act, 1986. The mission of the Board is to ensure that the use of ionizing radiation and nuclear energy in India does not cause undue risk to health and the environment.

India Needs Thorium Breeder Reactors

2007-11-05T15:55:00.000+05:30

An effort is afoot in India and Russia to initiate research on developing small, sealed thorium breeder reactors for a wide range of uses throughout the world. The most interested party in this development is India, the most obvious reason being that India is a power-starved nation that has developed the entire nuclear-fuel cycle, including the thorium-fuel cycle, and while India is low in uranium reserves, it probably has the largest thorium reserves in the world.

But the plan to develop these reactors is not simply developing nuclear-based power sources. Large nuclear power plants are available all over the world, and even the Indian nuclear industry, under pressure from the industrial and urban sectors, is in the process of developing nuclear reactors with capacity upwards of 500MW.
Small Reactors in Clusters

But, 80% of India's population lives in rural areas, and almost 60% of the workforce depends on agriculture. A vast majority of India's water consumption is in the agricultural sector, and the entire population depends very heavily on annual monsoon rains, which can be extremely irregular, causing devastating droughts, which threaten India's food security. At the same time, India's coastline stretches about 3,570 miles on the mainland, from the border of Bangladesh in the Northeast to Gujarat in the Northwest. More than 600 million people live, bounded by an ocean on one side or the other. And, yet the vast majority of them lack safe, clean water.

The lack of power, massive shortfall of water, and the potential to pull millions out of poverty within the span of a generation, are the primary motivations behind the research on thorium reactors. These small thorium-fueled reactors, which would breed uranium-233 to generate power, can be placed all across power-short and water-short nations, and bring about a surge in economic development not seen before. The power from these small reactors will provide the power requirement for agriculture, small and medium-size industries, desalination of seawater and brackish water to make clean potable water, and also to meet the requirement of all commercial and domestic uses. The beauty of these reactors is that when power demands would grow, another one of these reactors can be placed to form a cluster.

The list of benefits of developing these small reactors by no means ends here. There are other benefits of significant dimensions. For instance, to set up these small reactors would require a reasonably small infrastructure, and since the power output will be commensurate with the local population and their activities, power generated from these reactors would be consumed locally. This would eliminate the 12-15% line losses that occur regularly when power is put on large and long grids, and prevent the instability produced in a crucial national electrical power grid, that results when a huge amount of power is dumped, or withdrawn, from that grid. Equally important is the fact that since these reactors are small, their construction and operation would not disrupt people's lives the way large infrastructure-based power plants do. The population living in the rural areas would be able to maintain their way of life, traditions, and environment, and at the same time, have a quality of life they could not have because of endemic shortfall of power and water.

Sealed Safe

But these reactors, now in the concept stage, are even more interesting. Since these reactors would be sealed "for life," removal of fissile material from the reactor core, enclosed within a tamper-proof cask, will not be possible. The whole system would be protected by a network of security alarms. These reactors generate power without requiring either refueling or maintenance. In contrast, conventional nuclear reactors are under constant attack of the anti-nuclear groupies who point at the potential threat of proliferation because these reactors must be charged periodically with new fuel, which later has to be removed for replenishment: both steps allow an opportunity for fissile material to be diverted to weapons programs.

The basic objective of the research is to develop a sealed reactor which will have a lifespan of about 30 years. At the end of this life span, the reactor would be buried in the same sealed condition. For these reactors to generate power without any outside intervention, the sealed reactor would need to be of the fast-breeder type. Thorium-232, a non-fissile material breeds fissile uranium-233, which is the desired breeder-fuel.

It is not clear at this early stage what exactly the overall configuration of these reactors would be. It is expected that the reactors would be small, about 10-15 feet in girth and about 45-50 feet in height. The weight could be as little as 200 tons. These reactors, once they become operational, would produce power uninterrupted for a generation. There will be no down time, since there will be no refueling involved. At Lawrence Livermore National Laboratory in Northern California, a similar project, using uranium-238 as fuel, is in progress. Known as the small, sealed, transportable, autonomous reactor (SSTAR), the machine will generate power without needing refueling or maintenance. To extend the reactor's life, the cylindrical core of the SSTAR will be engineered to sustain fission only when surrounded by a metal cylinder that reflects neutrons back into the fuel. This metal mirror will start at one end of the core, and over the course of the reactor's lifetime, move slowly along to the opposite end, consuming the fuel as it goes.

Clearly, the challenge in developing the thorium-fueled reactors would lie in getting the breeder to breed fissile uranium-233 continuously in such a way that it meets the power demand for three decades or so. The added challenge, of course, will be to compartmentalize the fuel so that uranium-233 becomes always available. To produce uranium-233, atoms of thorium-232 are exposed to neutrons. Thorium-233 forms when thorium-232 absorbs a neutron. Thorium-233 has a half-life of about 22 minutes and decays into protactinium-233 through beta decay. Protactinium-233 has a half-life of about 27 days and decays into uranium-233, also through beta decay. If completely burnt up through fission, one pound (0.45 kilograms) of uranium-233 will provide the same amount of energy as burning 1,500 tons (1,350,000 kilograms) of coal.

Towards an Energy Independent India

2007-11-05T15:48:00.000+05:30

"Today,India is the only developing country that has demonstrated its capability to design, build, operate and maintain nuclear power plants,manufacture all associated equipment and components,and produce the required nuclear fuel and special materials,"

says Dr.R.Chidambaram, Chairman,Atomic Energy Commission , India.

The Indian Energy Scenario

India is a country occupying 2% of the world's land mass and currently generating about 2% of the global electricity, mostly using low grade coal of which it has about 5% of the world reserves.

India has, however a share of 16% in the world's population. To achieve a modestly high level of economic growth, the domestic generation capacity needs to be increased at least tenfold, to about 900 GWe. Even with full utilisation of all existing commercially exploitable domestic hydrocarbon, hydroelectric and non-conventional resources, this level of increased generation capacity cannot be sustained for more than a few decades. For a large country like India, bulk imports of fuel or energy are neither affordable nor strategically prudent.

The Role of Nuclear Power

The Indian Uranium reserves -about 0.8% of the world - cannot contribute to any significant improvement in the situation if this Uranium is used on once-through basis and then disposed off as waste. However, with a carefully planned programme, the available Uranium can be used to harness the energy contained in non-fissile thorium, of which India possesses about 32% of the world's reserves. The first stage of this programme involves using the indigenous uranium in Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors (PHWRs) which efficiently produce not only energy but also fissile plutonium. In the second stage, by reprocessing the spent nuclear fuel and using the recovered plutonium in Fast Breeder Reactors, the non-fissile depleted uranium and thorium can breed additional fissile nuclear fuel, plutonium and uranium-233 respectively. In the third stage thorium and uranium-233 based nuclear reactors can meet the long term Indian energy requirements.

The Indian concerns and priorities are thus quite unique. For its long term energy security India has no option but to deploy nuclear power according to a strategy precisely tuned to its needs and resources.

Early History of Evolution of the Indian Nuclear Programme

Dr. Homi Jehangir Bhabha formulated this strategy nearly 40 years ago, when India possessed hardly any infrastructure to support the nascent nuclear technology. The first Prime Minister of India, Mr. Jawaharlal Nehru, helped Bhabha lay the foundations of the Indian atomic energy programme with self-reliance as the motto. Accordingly a large R & D establishment named Atomic Energy Establishment housed in Trombay, was progressively set up. This establishment, renamed Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) after India tragically lost Bhabha in an air crash in 1966, operates research reactors, basic facilities for nuclear research, supporting infrastructure and trained man-power in all disciplines dealing with nuclear energy.

The Indian nuclear power programme commenced in 1969 with the building of the twin units of Tarapur Atomic Power Station (TAPS), employing Boiling Water Reactors (BWRs), with American assistance. The reason for this choice lay in favourable performance guarantees for these reactors, and a need to quickly gain experience in running nuclear power plants.

The first two Indian PHWRs, RAPS-1, RAPS-2, were taken up for construction as a joint venture with Canada. In parallel, the Department of Atomic Energy set up facilities for fabrication of fuel, Zirconium alloy components, manufacture of precision reactor components, and production of heavy water. The import content of RAPS-1 was 45% and the half of its first core fuel charge was indigenously produced using high standards of quality demanded by the specifications. Commercial operation of RAPS-1 commenced in December 1973.

In the year 1974, after the peaceful nuclear experiment conducted by India at Pokharan, the Canadian support was abruptly withdrawn. RAPS-2 was under construction then. France too, followed suit by refusing to supply fuel for the Fast Breeder Test Reactor (FBTR) which was then under construction with French assistance. The USA expressed its inability to continue fulfilling its contractual obligations to supply fuel for TAPS. The era of technology control regimes had thus begun for the Indian nuclear programme.

Coping with the Pokharan Fallout

The sudden withdrawal of foreign technical assistance and supplies would have caused an irrecoverable set back to the Indian nuclear programme, if not its collapse. This did not happen on account of Indian determination to face the challenges head-on with the help of the R & D infrastructure already created to develop self-reliance, and the support of the Indian industry. The challenges included not only the continuation of the on going activities without external help but also the pursuit of the originally stipulated long term strategies.

To cut the long story short, while causing delays in some ongoing projects, the embargoes spurred the growth of an indigenous capability of developing substitutes for the denied products, technologies and knowhow. RAPS-2 started commercial operation in 1981; FBTR went critical in 1985, using indigenously made plutonium-uranium mixed carbide fuel. India also developed a plutonium-uranium mixed oxide fuel, and facilities for its industrial scale production, as an alternative to the enriched uranium based fuel for TAPS. India has not looked back since then, and has continued to proceed on its chosen path without depending on external help.

The Present and the Future

Today, India has ten nuclear power reactors in operation. The designs of its new reactors have progressively evolved to incorporate advanced features to further improve safety, reliability and economics.It has successfully developed the technologies for in-service inspection, maintenance and refurbishment of the older plants.Four PHWRs are currently under construction and another ten are planned for construction in the near future .These include the 500 MWe PHWRs fully designed and developed in India .Further, to accelerate the growth of nuclear power, it is contemplated to build a few light water reactor based plants with foreign collaboration.The immediate objective is to achieve 20,000 MWe of nuclear generation capacity by the year 2020.

Indian heavy water plants and zirconium alloy components manufacturing facilities have consistently met not only the domestic requirements but also export commitments.The Indian fuel fabrication facilities are capable of manufacturing a wide range of nuclear fuel based on natural uranium ,enriched uranium,plutonium , and uranium-233.Plants for treatment and disposal of various types of radioactive wastes have been set up and are operating as an integral part of every nuclear facility in the country .The fuel reprocessing facilities for extracting plutonium from spent fuel of the PHWRs are already operational.

Technologies associated with the fast reactor programme have been mastered .The indigenous efforts for the installation of first 500 MWe prototype FDR have begun and the design has been optimised .

India is an emerging leader in the development of reactor and associated fuel cycle technologies for Thorium utilization .A 30 KW(Th) research reactor KAMINI has become operational last year and is perhaps, one of its only kind in the world currently operating with uranium-233 based nuclear fuel .India's Advanced Heavy Water Reactor (AHWR) which employs thorium based fuel , has several advanced passive safety features, and goes beyond the requirements generally stipulated for the next generation nuclear power plants, currently being developed.

Today, India is the only developing country that has demonstrated its capability to design , build , operate and maintain nuclear power plants, manufacture all associated equipments and components and produce the required nuclear fuel and special materials .With assured government support during the IXth Five Year Plan,which started this year the future of nuclear power in India is bright and ,in fact, the target of 20,000 MWe by the year 2020 is considered by some people in the Indian industry as conservative .

'Thorium to give India an edge'

2007-11-05T15:43:00.001+05:30

Thorium Power is a privately-held, Washington DC-based company funded primarily through private equity investments. It develops proliferation-resistant nuclear fuel technologies. Seth Grae, president, Thorium Power, talks to ET about why thorium is the way forward for India.

Besides the fact that India has the second largest reserves of thorium, are there any other advantages for opting for thorium-based nuclear reactors rather than the uranium-based plants?
There are two major concerns when we talk of nuclear power — the first is that of safety and the second is the proliferation issue. On the aspect of safety, major nuclear companies like GE, Westinghouse, and Areva have addressed this issue. It is the proliferation angle that now needs to be addressed. For India, which has the largest thorium reserves in terms of quality, opting for thorium-based reactors is the logical step.

It is not merely an issue of fuel self-sufficiency but the fact is that it will also address the proliferation issue. Nuclear waste at a thorium-based reactor is minimal, and the plutonium from the process is used for further generation. It would make sense for India to opt for thorium rather than uranium.

Are there any other advantages for India to opt for the thorium fuel cycle?

Given India’s vast reserves of thorium, harnessing technologies that would use thorium-based nuclear fuels would give India an edge. The country could emerge as an exporter of thorium material or fuels made out of thorium. Also, given India’s massive power generating capacity expansion programme, opting for a thorium fuel cycle would make sense.

There are two types of thorium-based nuclear fuels — thorium and uranium and the other, thorium and plutonium. With the first, uranium, will come at a cost while plutonium comes free as it is a by-product of the process. The most dramatic savings happen if you use plutonium. However, fuel accounts for only 6% of costs of a nuclear plant. Indian scientists have already done work on thorium, that puts India in a favourable position.
Given thorium’s obvious advantages what accounts for its lack of popularity as a nuclear fuel?
The fact is that there has been little research and development in the nuclear fuel field. R&D in this area has been somewhere between flat and dead in the past 25 years. Thorium Power has an advantage as developing anything in the nuclear sector requires a long-time. Thorium Power’s work in the past will give it an edge over companies that are just about starting to explore this field.

What are your plans in India?

Thorium Power is the leading developer of proliferation-resistant nuclear fuel technologies. While working with Thorium Power designs will put India in a favourable position, we too stand to benefit from scientists in India to develop nuclear fuel for domestic consumption as well as for export.

What is the nature of association that you are looking at in India?

India has the potential to build at least 60 reactors of 1,000 megawatts each. India is already working on a plan to build dozens of new reactors in the coming years and the vast majority of them will be designed to use thorium fuels. We have found a lot of interest among all segments of the nuclear community here in the proliferation resistant, low-waste fuel technology that Thorium Power offers.

We are still exploring options, it could be in the nature of a technology transfer partnership or a joint venture. However, in international transactions things can develop fast. We may be in a position to announce a joint venture by the middle of next year. We are in dialogue with the Nuclear Power Corporation of India and NTPC as well as some major private sector companies.

How big do you estimate the Indian market to be?

Indian efforts in the nuclear power sector could lead to the award of contracts worth at least $100 billion. As I said, India has the potential to build at least 60 reactors of 1,000 megawatts each. At an estimated $2 billion per reactor, the potential for business crosses $100 billion.

Over and above this, there are business opportunities arising out of fuel supply and servicing contracts. Consider that 60% of business generated by new plants involves construction and equipment contracts and the balance to fuel processing technologies and safety services.

A Sting Without Venom

2007-11-03T18:11:00.000+05:30

'Tehelka's multi-million enterprise has been greeted with circumspection bordering on derision'

Sting is suddenly a suspect, if not dirty, word. But till even just a few months ago this controversial method of procuring information was celebrated as the harbinger of a bold era, the defining characteristic of "new journalism". After the infamous Delhi schoolteacher episode, which turned out to be concocted, there is palpable discomfort with this genre. Sadly, for Tehelka's multi-million enterprise aimed at exposing Narendra Modi's alleged involvement in the 2002 post-Godhra riots, even their venture has been greeted with circumspection bordering on derision. Congress, the prime beneficiary of sting operations mounted by Tehelka, its offshoots and other copycats, has issued fervent disclaimers about its alleged sponsorship of the operation, privately suggesting this may have been funded by Modi! A failed sting is like a military coup gone awry: it is an orphan.

Why did Tehelka, the original promoter of this dubious genre of journalism, get it so horribly wrong this time? First, the timing of its public release was so transparently pegged to the Gujarat assembly polls that even breast-beating secular fundamentalists found it hard to defend. Having self-confessedly collected evidence over six months, the 'stingers' failed to convincingly explain why they waited for the poll dates to be announced and the Election Commission's model code of conduct to be operationalised. "Politically motivated" is a phrase routinely brandished by Indian politicians at the receiving end of adverse media publicity. But for once, this cliche hit the bull's eye.

Second, did the so-called sting establish anything that was not already in the domain of public knowledge? That certain bestial people on the Hindutva fringe indulged in gruesome forms of torture and murder was well-known and widely condemned. The bizarre, much-publicised twists in the Best Bakery case were sufficient to drive the point home. Significantly, however, the secular fundamentalists continue to pointedly ignore the fact that the poster boy of the Gujarat riot industry, the Muslim tailor photographed begging for his life with folded hands during the violence, has returned to his home state after a stint in 'secular' West Bengal, complaining of exploitation by CPI(M) for political gains. He now avoids publicity like the plague, saying he has no desire to play the role scripted for him by Gujarat-bashers.

Third, that TV channels, which reportedly paid a packet to Tehelka for telecast rights, ran disclaimers saying they were not responsible for the claims made by those interviewed, carries its own tale. Small-time, small-town politicians are known to exaggerate their importance given half a chance. That was my personal experience while conducting interviews in remote UP and Bihar districts with survivors of the Quit India Movement for my doctoral thesis for Oxford University. Their claims had to be routinely cross-checked to eliminate self-mythification. Talking to a reporter who posed as a Hindutva champion researching for a book on the saffron surge in Gujarat, these persons could well have given free rein to their grotesque fantasies.

But what is the worth of these "confessions"? Can they stand even cursory scrutiny in a court of law? So what did Tehelka aim at? As veterans of the burgeoning sting industry, having supplied call girls and Scotch to lubricate the wagging tongues of army officers in the defence expose, surely they knew that only a political motive could be served by their unsuccessful attempt to find a smoking gun in Narendra Modi's hand?

Fourth, did they find anything against Modi? After sending out lakhs of sms alerts for three days hyping the suspect end product, thus benefiting mobile service providers and the marketing departments of select TV channels, they couldn't find even a concealed revolver in Modi's pocket, leave alone a smoking gun.Modi never visited Naroda Patiya, site of a horrifying carnage, and thus the question of his garlanding the alleged mass murderers there simply did not arise. The post-mortem report said Congress ex-MP Ehsan Jafri died of three bullets lodged in his body. No limbs were cut one after another; neither was his torso "toasted", contrary to a chilling assertion by a prominent rioter. "Modi gave us three days," claimed yet another braggart. Self-righteous secularists argue: Modi is a demon, so whatever is said against him is true and if you want proof you are a communalist neo-Nazi!

Tehelka's disastrous misadventure doesn't need further elaboration. I can only feel sorry because they tried to be too clever by half and fell flat. Nothing justifies the burning alive of 52 kar sevaks at Godhra, and the retribution that followed. But just as Delhi recovered from the Congress-supervised anti-Sikh pogrom of 1984, so much so that Punjab twice elected that party to power in the state, so has Gujarat. This time, there is no trace of a communal cloud overhanging the forthcoming election. The only issue is Gujarat's spectacular economic development despite the devastating earthquake and the shocking riots. It is for the people of Gujarat to judge who are guilty of re-injecting the virus of communalism into the state's politics; who are friends of Muslims and who are their (hidden camera-carrying) enemies.

Source : Outlook India

Dubrovnik, Croatia, The place we visited last weekend

2007-11-01T15:22:00.000+05:30

Dubrovnik, often referred to as the 'Pearl of the Adriatic', lies on the picturesque Dalmatian coast and offers an eclectic mix of historical buildings, ancient traditions and modern café culture. Although severely damaged by an earthquake in 1667, Dubrovnik managed to preserve its beautiful Gothic, Renaissance and Baroque churches, monasteries, palaces and fountains.

Despite further damage in the 1990s by armed conflict, it is now the focus of a major restoration programme coordinated by UNESCO. Visit the Franciscan Monastery with its historic 15th century apothecary or the Dominican monastery, which houses paintings from the Dubrovnik school of art. Stroll along the cobbled paths and promenades and soak up the local atmosphere in one of the city's many pavement cafes.
George Bernard Shaw was enchanted by this beautiful city: for him, it was paradise. Millions of people also take home happy memories from this "jewel of the Adriatic".

Dubrovnik has a remarkable history. An independent, merchant republic for 700 years (abolished by Napoleon in 1806), it traded with Turkey and India in the East (with a consul in Goa, India) and had trade representatives in Africa (in the Cape Verde Islands). It even had diplomatic relations with the English court in the middle ages. (There is a letter from Elizabeth I on display in the City Museum in Dubrovnik). Its status was such that powerful and rich Venice was envious of this Croatian-Slav city.

The old town was completed in the 13th century and remains virtually unchanged to the present day. Tall ramparts surround it and there are only two entrances to the old town which lead to the Stradun, the city's promenade. One of the greatest pleasures for many visitors is to have a drink in one of the nearby cafes and watch the world go by, whilst they themselves are being watched by the city patron, St. Blaise, or Sveti Vlaho as the locals call him. In 1991/2, the Serbs shelled the city causing considerable damage, but thanks to local efforts and international aid, the old town has been restored to its former beauty.

Hotel Dubrovnik Palace
But whatever we say, our words do not give justice to this dazzling place. So come soon and see it with your own eyes!

Dubrovnik is a tranquil cultural and tourist center in Croatia,hosting many musical, art and theater events year round. The annual Dubrovnik Summer Festival is a cultural event when keys of the city are given to artists who entertain Dubrovnik's population and their guests for entire month with live plays, concerts, and games.

Ivan Gundulić, a 17th century Croatian writer, predicted the downfall of the great Turkish Empire in his great poem Osman. He wrote these immortal verses that are performed on every opening of the world famous Dubrovnik Summer Festival:

O, beautiful liberty, dear and sweet,
Thou heavenly gift where riches all meet,
Actual source of our glory of these hours,
The sole adornment of this grove of ours,
All silver, all gold, and our lives so dear,
Cannot recompense thy beauty so clear.

With these verses Dubrovnik major invites actors and poems to enter through main gates inside city stone walls.

Dubrovnik and his surroundings with beautiful islands have lot to offer in touristic activities for younger generations also. Climbing on steep hills, hiking through the Mediterranean nature, paddling and swimming in clean transparent sea is what is also part of fun in Dubrovnik.

New historical discovers say that the usual misconception of Dubrovnik coming to be as joining of Laus island and Slav settlement of Dubrovnik is disputed by the fact that there was no island of Laus, only a peninsula, and it seems that there was a port on its location dating back to ancient history (thought to be the lost port of Heraclea.)

In 1991 Croatia and Slovenia, which at that time were republics within the Socialist Federal Republic of Yugoslavia, declared their independence. In that event, the Socialist Republic of Croatia was renamed the Republic of Croatia.

Despite the demilitarization of the old town early in the 1970s in an attempt to prevent it from ever becoming a casualty of war, following Croatia's independence in 1991, the Serbian-Montenegrin remains of the Yugoslav People's Army (JNA) attacked the city.

On October 1, 1991 Dubrovnik was attacked by the JNA with a siege of Dubrovnik that lasted for seven months. The heaviest artillery attack happened on December 6 with 19 people killed and 60 wounded. Total casualties in the conflict according to the Croatian Red Cross were 114 killed civilians, among them the celebrated poet Milan Milisić. In May 1992 the Croatian Army liberated Dubrovnik and its surroundings, but the danger of JNA sudden attacks lasted for another three years.

Following the end of the war, the damage caused by shelling of the Old Town was repaired. Adhering to UNESCO guidelines, repairs were performed in the original style. As of 2005, most damage had been repaired. The inflicted damage can be seen on a chart near the city gate, showing all artillery hits during the siege. ICTY indictments were issued for the JNA generals and officers involved in the bombing.

General Pavle Strugar, who was coordinating the attack on the city, was sentenced to an eight year prison term by the International Criminal Tribunal for the former Yugoslavia for his role in the attack of the city.

See the Video of Attack on Dubrovnik, Croatia (a UNESCO World Heritage Site)

Yahoo! Mail Now in Hindi

2007-10-30T21:47:00.000+05:30

Yahoo! India has announced Yahoo! Mail in Hindi.

The new mail offers a complete Hindi interface with users getting an option to read and write email in Hindi. Yahoo! Mail in Hindi includes all information similar to the one in English, except that it offers a distinct local flavor.
John Kremer, vice president of Yahoo! Mail, said that the product and engineering teams in India have played a crucial role in this localization.

Yahoo! India has also announced a Web-based version of its instant messaging service, Yahoo! Messenger, named "Yahoo! Messenger for the Web" at http://in.webmessenger.yahoo.com.

"Yahoo! Messenger for the Web" does not require any downloads, and gives people the freedom to instant message from anywhere from an Internet-enabled computer.

And the big attraction is it allows users to chat in up to 9 Indian languages, including Hindi, Kannada, Tamil, Telugu, Malayali, Punjabi, Bengali, Marathi, and Gujarati. Users can also switch between languages seamlessly.

Globally, Yahoo! is today launching a new version of Yahoo! Messenger, i.e. Yahoo! Messenger 9.0.

Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 has a redesigned interface with new 'skin' background designs, and new emoticons for expressions like 'thumbs up', 'thumbs down', and 'rock on'.

Yahoo! Messenger 9.0 has more apparent communication features. With this version, users can forward offline IM's to mobile devices as also forward incoming phone calls to phone numbers. Videos can be sent from YouTube, Yahoo! Video, etc, and contacts can watch synchronized video through a sharing window. Similarly for photographs from Flickr or users' desktops.

A $100 Laptop; or is it?

2007-10-30T21:43:00.000+05:30

$100 laptop no more!

Nicholas Negroponte's One Laptop per Child Foundation (OLPC) has begun selling its famed $100 (XO) laptops for no less than $200 a piece.

The laptops are being made available in quantities of 10,000 and more via the OLPC Web site at: http://laptopfoundation.org/participate/givemany.shtml).

So far, the one constant in the journey of the $100 laptop has been the steady rise in prices: from the original $100 to the interim $150 to the recent $188.

What is surprising though is that the laptops being offered via the OLPC Web site are part of a donor program, wherein donors who purchase them will get to decide where they are to be sent, etc. So why are they priced so high?

Further, the XO laptops are slated to go into production in China next month, which is behind original schedule. Same with the quantities to be produced, which are way behind earlier projections.

And, the software required to run the laptops is not expected to be ready before December 7th. Which means customers have a long wait ahead before they can get their hands on the laptops.

The so-called $100 laptop comes with: a keyboard that switches languages, a video camera, wireless connectivity, an Advanced Micro Devices (AMD) microprocessor, and Linux software.

While the laptop uses Linux software, Microsoft is trying to make its Windows XP software work on the machine.

The laptop's display switches from color to Black and White for viewing in direct sunlight. The machine needs just 2 watts of power as compared to a typical laptop that needs up to 30 to 40 watts of power.

The laptop has no hard drive, and uses flash memory and four USB ports to add memory and other devices.

'Why The India Story Looks So Good'

2007-10-30T20:39:00.000+05:30

The PM talked about the inevitability of reforms, benefits of liberalisation and globalisation and also about how 'India has never reneged on its international commitments'. No, he didn't bring in the nuke deal, but wonder if it would still make the Left see red

Prime Minister’s remarks at the Fortune Global Forum.
I am delighted to be here today in the presence of such an august gathering. You represent the best and brightest in global enterprise and creativity. I welcome you to a country which has itself embarked on a journey of enterprise and creativity. I hope you not only enjoy your stay here but also get a feel for the momentous changes that are taking place across the length and breadth of this vast nation. India is a nation on the move. The elephant, which has long been commented upon as being slow and sleepy, is not just wide awake but moving forward rapidly. So rapidly that it has become imperative for the global community to notice and acknowledge its emergence on the global stage as an economy that counts.

You are all distinguished and experienced CEOs of important global companies. I am sure you have done your homework on the quantitative dimensions of India’s resurgence. Your presence here in such numbers is an indication of the dynamism that exists in our country.
I would not like to go through the numbers. These are well known to you. However, it is undeniable that India is on a new growth trajectory. A trajectory where sustained economic growth of 9-10% per annum--growth rates which were considered impossible even five years ago--seems possible for many years to come. This acceleration of economic growth over the past two decades has been driven by rising investment and savings rates and by rising domestic consumption. I believe this can be sustained into the foreseeable future for two important reasons.

First, we have witnessed an unleashing of Indian enterprise in this past decade. Big corporates have gone global. Small and medium enterprises have become more competitive. A new generation of local enterprise has burst forth onto the business stage. These “children of reform”, who have benefited from our ongoing liberalisation and reform programme, are our vanguard to a new India--an India that is prosperous, equitable and just. At the same time, our growth process is based on a widening and deepening of our own domestic market. As the Indian market grows, it is creating new opportunities for businesses across the world.

Second, a demographic transition is underway in India. We are increasingly a country of young people. For many decades to come, India will be one of the important contributors to the available global workforce. However, to benefit from this greening of India, we need to invest in our people, in their education and skill building. This is an important part of our government’s development agenda. We have been able to ensure a massive increase in public funding of education, including vocational education. We hope to unleash a new revolution in modern education.

Simultaneously, we have increased public investment in agriculture, rural development and infrastructure. We are working to remove regional disparities in development; to improve the productivity of our agriculture; and, to increase employment opportunities outside agriculture. We have facilitated greater private sector participation in infrastructure through public-private partnerships. Our needs are immense. In the next five years, we need more than US$ 450 billion as investment in infrastructure alone. We see this coming from both domestic sources and from foreign investors.

Let me say with a sense of satisfaction that the numbers on economic growth are good. I compliment our economic management team consisting of the Finance Minister and the Deputy Chairman of the Planning Commission for managing the economy so efficiently.
However, I must say that we can do even better. I believe that India must do better if it has to meet its developmental aspirations and equity goals. We have to ease up the bottlenecks constraining growth. We have ambitious plans to expand and modernise our infrastructure sectors such as roads, railways, civil aviation, sea ports, energy and telecommunications. We have to ensure that the growth process is socially inclusive and generates adequate employment. We cannot rest on what we have achieved so far. We need two more decades of sustained effort and work if we are to get rid of chronic poverty, ignorance and disease which have afflicted millions of our countrymen for centuries.

As India grows, it seeks a wider engagement with the outside world, as an open market and an open society. As a nation of young people, we view the world as a planet of opportunities. We are aware of the risks associated with globalization. However, we have the confidence to utilise the opportunities being created. I believe that is the mood in India today.

We do want to be more integrated with the global economy. This is the best way to expand our development possibilities. A prosperous, stable and democratic India is good for the world. At the same time, we seek a more equitable world order. India must regain its due and rightful place in the globalised world, taking on the obligations and responsibilities that come with it, and making use of the opportunities.

Let me say without hesitation that we are committed to the successful functioning of a rule based multilateral trading system. India remains committed to the successful conclusion of the Doha Round at an early date. We do hope that the round keeps in mind the development dimension and also addresses the concerns of millions of our subsistence farmers. Trade liberalisation has contributed immensely to our economic growth and to the growth of the world economy. Lowering trade barriers both at home and abroad has helped us. Our enterprises have become more globally competitive.

More importantly, new business activities have grown in response to global opportunities. The successes of our IT, automobile and pharmaceutical sectors is living testimony to the benefits that liberalisation and globalisation have brought us. Sometimes, we do worry that at a time when we are becoming more open, protectionist voices are being heard in developed economies. The lesson we must all draw from the experience of the past century is that no country can reverse the dynamics of social, economic and technological change. Rather we must learn to cope and adapt with change.

This is precisely why India chose to join the World Trade Organization. You will recognise the fact that we have adhered to all our Uruguay Round commitments. In fact, our firms have benefited from these commitments. While we remain committed to these obligations, we must also explore ways in which developing countries can catch up in the race to modernization.

We have affirmed our commitment to the protection of intellectual property rights. However, the global community cannot afford the complete privatisation of research, of knowledge generation, especially in fields like medicine. We need to evolve mechanisms that protect intellectual property and at the same time, address the needs of the poor. With the increasing privatisation of R&D in science and technology, modern societies require new approaches to the sharing of knowledge where such knowledge is of benefit to all humankind.

What the world needs today is a new concord between private enterprise and public welfare. How do we maintain the required incentive mechanisms that encourage private initiative and enterprise, while at the same time ensure that public welfare is enhanced? This dilemma poses itself most obviously in health care.
The policies we require to incentivise new R&D must be balanced against the need to ensure availability of affordable medicines.

There are similar trade-offs we need to reflect on when we consider the problem of climate change, global warming, ecological degradation and environment policies. The developing world will continue to see per capita consumption rising in the foreseeable future. This will exert pressure on global resources. How do we balance the aspirations of the world’s poor against our shared concern about the sustainability of the growth process?

Let me assure you that we in India are deeply and sincerely committed to the protection of our environment. The Indian approach to climate change and global warming derives from the ancient Hindu saying--vasudhaiva kutumbakam--“the universe is one family”

As I had said at the G8 Summit in Germany, India accepts its global responsibilities. We are willing to accept the obligation that our per capita emissions will never exceed the per capita emissions of developed countries. If developed countries succeed in reducing their per capita emissions, this would exert pressure on us as well.

Whether it is on trade policy or on climate change, or indeed on any international obligation, India has always worked with the global community. Moreover, India has never reneged on its international commitments. India has been a reliable partner, a responsible global citizen. India respects the rule of law. India is, therefore, a predictable partner. This is what makes India an attractive destination for investors like you.

I know very well that investment is an act of faith. It is shaped by perceptions, by expectations and by all the uncertainties of life. I invite you to have faith in India. I assure you that your faith will not be misplaced.

I do sincerely believe that the success of the Indian experiment--the experiment of a developing economy seeking its salvation within the framework of an open society and an open economy, committed to the protection of fundamental human rights and the rule of law, as a plural, secular democracy--has a global relevance. Its success has a global significance. India’s success and the success of this experiment can alter the course of history in the 21st century.

The record of the 21st century has been a mixed one as far as democracy is concerned. While people across the world have rejected fascism, authoritarianism and totalitarianism, the record of democratic societies in pulling people out of poverty has not been as convincing as we would have liked it. Let us show that this is indeed possible.

All those who invest in India, who invest in its future, who invest in India’s prosperity, who invest in the capabilities of the Indian people will be investing in the future of democracy.

The beauty of Indian democracy is its vitality; its ability to periodically rejuvenate itself; its ability to reform itself. We will continue to do so. Our systems may be slow, but they are steady. We will continue to reform our systems and our institutions, so that our economy becomes more efficient and our society more equitable.

I must draw your attention to the fact that the road to such reform over the past two decades has been a one-way street. Different political parties of different ideological hues have been in office over the past two decades. Yet, no policy reform has ever been reversed. The Indian economy, and its globalisation, has moved in only one direction--towards greater and greater freedom for individual creativity, initiative and enterprise. And towards increased integration with the world economy.

That is why the India Story looks so good.This was what we dreamt of in 1991. I doubt whether Fortune would have considered hosting such an event in India even a decade ago. The fact that you are all here today is proof of your faith in the abilities of our people. Be it FDI flows, investments in our stock markets, investments in our knowledge economy, the signals are all positive. We will work to keep these positive. I hope you will remain engaged and committed to India. I wish you well.

An Organ For A Dime

2007-10-30T20:30:00.000+05:30

A Chennai doc's arrest shows the kidney trade continues to flourish in the city

Doctor Kingpin

* Conducted 471 kidney transplants in two Chennai hospitals in the last six years
* Charges Rs 15-Rs 20 lakh per operation. Is said to be worth Rs 100 crore. Owns three bungalows and three farmhouses in and around the city.
* Donors, most of them poor, gullible women, were lured by lakhs but paid only a few thousands

Chennai cops now admit that it is but a fraction of a well-organised racket involving a network of brokers, sub-brokers, and doctors, with gullible donors hoping to better their lot.

"They spoke so well," says a poor woman donor. "And they were doctors, after all. We trusted them."

Many believed the kidney racket flourished—and faded out—in Chennai in the '90s. Till the Mumbai Police arrested Dr Palani Ravichandran on October 16, and discovered that the trade was thriving. With his tally of 471 transplants in six years—most of them at Chennai's
Bharati Raja and St Thomas Mount hospitals—Ravichandran is believed to be the mastermind behind a racket which is worth several hundred crores.

Charging between Rs 15 lakh and Rs 25 lakh per surgery and paying donors only in the region of Rs 25,000-Rs 60,000, Dr Ravichandran's personal assets are worth Rs 100 crore. He reportedly owns three bungalows and three farmhouses in and around the city. Income tax raids at his residence in Mugalivakkam and clinic at St Thomas Mount yielded incriminating documents. The Mumbai crime branch has also seized documents that will throw light on the kidney transplants conducted by doctors at two Chennai hospitals.

Dr. Dread: Ravichandran, the brain behind the racket
The Mumbai police got wind of Ravichandran's antics after Jeetu Borkar, an unemployed youth from Chembur, suburban Mumbai, who donated a kidney, complained of being shortchanged. He was promised Rs 4 lakh but paid only Rs 25,000. The trail of investigation led the police to Dr Ravichandran, who was arrested along with four touts in the city. Investigations revealed that while the doctor was based in Chennai, he also facilitated and performed transplant surgeries in Mumbai.

Among the scores of women who parted with a kidney to buy a better life is Uma Devi, 26. Promised Rs 3 lakh by a broker and a "Dr" Ramesh of Arun Polyclinic in Vadapalani, she donated her kidney so her husband could have plastic surgery to fix the damage an acid attack caused to his face and chest nearly three years ago. But the doc reneged on the deal and she ended up with just Rs 63,000, a sari and a gold bracelet. She used the money to pay off her debts and later filed a police complaint saying she had been cheated.

Cheated is how every kidney donor (more women as there is always a risk of men having damaged their kidney due to drinking) is feeling, whether they parted with one of their organs a few years ago or in the recent past. It's also a reflection of how the law (the Transplantation of Human Organs Act, 1995, which makes donating your kidney for financial considerations or under pressure illegal) has been unable to stem the racket. In fact, the trade—and money to be earned thereof—has only grown in scale.

Uma Devi's case is quite instructive of the ingenious means the racketeers had devised to circumvent the law. Before she could offer herself as a donor, Uma was sent to Sri Lanka under an assumed identity—Govindamma—and a false Indian passport in April 2005. She returned a month later as Uma, on a Sri Lankan passport, and shown as a relative of Maheshwaran, a Lankan, who was undergoing dialysis at the Madras Medical Mission hospital. The idea was to show that Uma was her kidney recipient's relative in the medical report.

Unrelated kidney donors have to go through several screeings before they are cleared by the state government's organ authorisation committee.

Extreme circumstances compelled most donors to donate their kidneys, but all of them say they had no inkling that they would be conned. "They spoke to us so well," says Uma. "And they were doctors, after all. So, we trusted them." "I saw my neighbour go for blood and other tests," says Rajambal, another donor from Uma's neighbourhood. "She told me that a broker was going to give her money for her kidney. Since I had a daughter of marriageable age and no economic means to get her married, I decided to donate my kidney. I now feel I sold a part of my body rather cheaply."

The loot: Income tax men raid Ravichandran's Chennai house

How did things come to this pass? Scott Carney, a freelance journalist who has investigated the kidney racket in the state extensively, says a member of the TN Transplant Authorisation Committee had told him this: "We do everything in accordance with the letter of the law on paper, but we know that almost all of the documents we see are false. It is an open secret. It is either approve a transplant with forged documents, or a patient is going to die."

"The Directorate of Medical Services should investigate hospitals and the organ authorisation committee of the state health department," says superintendent of police K. Bhavaneswari of the Chennai crime branch. "We can book the accused only under sections of the ipc pertaining to forgery and cheating." The police have already sent a letter to the authorisation committee. "We have sent them a letter," says Abhay Shastri, senior inspector of the Mumbai crime branch who is investigating the case, "and are awaiting their reply. If they have given the permission, they will have some explaining to do."

Ravichandran apparently said he had "committed a mistake" during interrogation and that he was innocent. But Shastri refuses to believe this. "The entire nephrology department was under him," says he, "and he had hired an entire floor for the transplants." However, C. Natesan, managing director of the Bharathi Raja hospitals, has denied his hospital's involvement. "Dr Ravichandran," he says, "used to hire our operation theatre for surgeries and used to move his patients within a day or two. All consultations, tests and diagnoses were conducted at St Thomas Hospital with which he is associated."

But that, says eminent neurologist Dr G. Arjundas, "is like saying I rented out my house but I did not know bombs were being made in the kitchen. I am very, very angry. In our time, we let our work speak for us, but today some doctors think getting a BMW is what medicine is all about." The Hippocratic Oath? It went out with the 4th century BC.

In Modi’s best interests

2007-10-29T13:17:00.000+05:30

On the face of it, the latest sting operation by Tehelka, also being telecast on TV, appears to expose those responsible for the post-Godhra riots in Gujarat in February 2002. But, in fact, to any perceptible mind, the telecast could be aimed at helping Narendra Modi, who is currently fighting a tough battle within the Sangh parivar. The sting has helped revive the communal agenda, which was so pronounced during the state assembly polls in December 2002. And if riots break out again in Gujarat, it will be difficult for both those who carried out the sting and those airing it to absolve themselves of the responsibility.

The continuous screening of past events, and that too on the eve of the Gujarat polls, neither serves any journalistic purpose, nor does it help preserve communal harmony. Even as the state is trying to recover, the sting has revived ugly memories of incidents that are, in any case, being probed by the Justice G.T. Nanavati Commission. The screening is bound to lead to a deepening of the communal divide, which may contribute to the improvement of Modi’s electoral prospects. The Gujarat CM must be amused by the fact that while he has consciously stuck to his development agenda, others are helping him out by bringing up an event that had helped the saffron brigade to retain power during the last polls.

While many may give Tehelka a clean chit for its latest exposé, the organisation has, inadvertently or deliberately, played into the hands of media spindoctors close to a section of the BJP, for whom Modi’s return to power is necessary to realise their own political ambitions. With the RSS having second thoughts on supporting Modi, many BJP leaders openly revolting against him and the VHP vowing not to help him, the Tehelka exposé has not only helped the CM, but also debunked organisations opposed to him at present by holding them responsible for the carnage.

One way of looking at the sting is that Modi is not being singularly blamed for the riots, since those opposed to him now are also shown accepting their guilt. Is this an attempt to unite the parivar? But the real question is why the Nanavati Commission is taking so long to reach its conclusions. The commission will find it difficult to ignore affidavits that were filed before the U.C. Banerjee Commission, appointed by the Railways Ministry to look into the Godhra train episode. The latter had concluded that there was no pre-planned attack on the kar sewaks travelling in the Sabarmati Express, and that the fire was, in all probability, an accident.

At present, a new direction is being given to the exposé. Some BJP leaders, part of the L.K. Advani coterie, are accusing the Congress of masterminding the exposé and have appealed to the Election Commission to ban its telecast. They seem keen to keep the issue alive. Gujarat has blacked out the particular channel screening the sting. The end result is that a desired controversy has been created and TRP ratings in the country are up. But on the ground level, polarisation may take place again.

It may be recalled that till the morning of the polling in Gujarat the last time, no one could say with certainty who would win. However, two prominent news channels had focused since that morning on Muslim areas where the turnout was large, juxtaposing the images with those of Modi commenting on Musharraf and his hate-based politics. There was a sudden change post-lunch and heavy voting followed in an already polarised society. The result was 127 seats to the BJP.

Even so, a careful analysis indicated that in as many as 28 seats, NCP candidates had polled more votes than the difference between the BJP and Congress candidates. In other words, if the NCP had been taken on board by the Congress, the result may have been different. But in politics, the winner takes all and Modi got the mandate of the people who, in three earlier polls before the Hindutva experiment was started in February 2002, had voted against the BJP. Thus, all secular forces must sink their differences to take on communal forces, as they did in the 2004 parliamentary polls.

This time, Modi has changed his tactics. While the CM is talking only of development, it’s his supporters who are raking up the Hindutva agenda aimed at polarising society. The timing also coincides with proposals being discussed by the RSS to bring about changes within the BJP. It is being speculated that the RSS may come out with a decision to curtail the powers of many BJP leaders. Indications of this came during RSS general secretary Mohan Bhagwat’s recent visit to Delhi, when he chose not to meet two top BJP leaders and later spoke to only one of them, Rajnath Singh. Things in Gujarat could also get murky for Modi when Uma Bharti visits the state early in November. The Congress, on its part, seems to be lost about its strategy, amidst unconfirmed reports of a prominent leader’s close understanding with Modi. In any case, admitting BJP rebels in the Congress will hurt the party. Its strategy should be to divide the BJP vote rather than include dissidents among its ranks. To counter Modi, who is popular in Gujarat, the Congress would do well to project a credible chief ministerial candidate.

The run-up to the Gujarat polls will witness many charges and counter-charges. But stings like the one being aired are only going to hurt the people, the state and the country. And no election is worth winning if it divides the people. Between us.

Eagle-Hotel California

2007-10-20T01:02:00.000+05:30

Hotel california...lyrics

On a dark desert highway, cool wind in my hair
Warm smell of colitas, rising up through the air
Up ahead in the distance, I saw a shimmering light
My head grew heavy and my sight grew dim
I had to stop for the night

There she stood in the doorway;
with the mission bell
And I was thinking to myself,
'This could be Heaven or this could be Hell'
Then she lit up a candle and she showed me the way
There were voices down the corridor,
I thought I heard them say...

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
Plenty of room at the Hotel California
Any time of year, you can find it here

Her mind is Tiffany-twisted, she
got the Mercedes Benz
She got a lot of pretty, pretty
boys, that she calls friends
How they dance in the courtyard, sweet summer sweat.
Some dance to remember, some dance to forget

So I called up the Captain,
'Please bring me my wine'
He said, 'We haven't had that spirit
here since nineteen sixty nine'
And still those voices are calling from far away,
Wake you up in the middle of the night
Just to hear them say...

Welcome to the Hotel California
Such a lovely place
Such a lovely face
They're livin' it up at the Hotel California
What a nice surprise, bring your alibis

Mirrors on the ceiling,
The pink champagne on ice
And she said 'We are all just
prisoners here, of our own device'
And in the master's chambers,
They gathered for the feast
They stab it with their steely knives,
But they just can't kill the beast

Last thing I remember, I was
Running for the door
I had to find the passage back
To the place I was before
'Relax,' said the night man,
We are programmed to receive.
You can checkout any time you like,
but you can never leave

Video Of the Day: Barbie Girl

2007-10-20T00:59:00.000+05:30

‘Shining’ India Versus ‘Incredible’ India

2007-10-19T19:50:00.000+05:30

WE MAY have to wait a few more weeks to be sure whether Mr Lalu Yadav and Mr Sharad Pawar will be able to check the US pressures and finally ward off an immediate mid-term poll. Until then the Congress will continue with its poll preparations. Fresh bouts of bonanza and concessions to different vote banks had begun six weeks back. A massive ‘Shining India’ style publicity package is the other ingredient of this campaign. Presentations have been impressive with charts and maps.

Initially, the strategic planners wanted to project the nuclear deal as a focal point and create a ‘development wave’. Even Mr Lalu Yadav had fell for the theme (‘those against the deal are against development’) and tried the ‘bijli for villages’ slogan in Bihar rallies. But the final blow came after Ms Sonia Gandhi’s Jhajjar rally. Even before this, the party’s tired campaign themes, mostly borrowed from Pramod Mahajan’s 2004 package, had failed to impress down-to-earth politicians like Mr Lalu Yadav and Mr Sharad Pawar. The NDA had realised at a heavy cost how ineffective has been the DAVP ad campaigns based on the listed achievements of the ministries.

True, the Congress can rightly boast of some of its social programmes like the NREP, Rural Health Mission, Bharat Nirman and the Right to Information Act. These were the ones looked down by the reformers as resource waste and populist profligacy. The reform lobby had resisted it when the common minimum programme was being discussed by the UPA parties. This has been the philosophy right from days of Dr Manmohan Singh as finance minister in 1991-96. The UPA had approved them on Left’s insistence and as part of Ms Sonia Gandhi’s aam aadmi concept. If some of these schemes suffered from mismanagement and outright corruption, the blame must go to the respective state governments, not the Centre.

This apart, there are striking similarities between the NDA’s old ‘Shining India’ package and UPA’s hastily crafted ‘Incredible India’ programme. The latter lays emphasis more on India’s enhanced status under the UPA government as an emerging power. Incidentally, both ‘Shining’ India and ‘Incredible’ India rely heavily on economic showpieces like GDP rise, holding price line, rising stock market index, stronger rupee, ever shooting foreign exchange reserve and services like software and BPO boom. They form the mainstay of DAVP’s proposed Rs 250 crore advertisement campaign.

Before going in for a closer look at the UPA package, it is necessary to highlight certain basic factors that had given an edge to the NDA. Mr Vajpayee decided to advance the elections by six months to take full advantage of what was then considered as a pro-NDA wave. The BJP had done impressively in Rajasthan, Madhya Pradesh and Chhatisgarh. Hence Mahajan thought the party could make a sweep in all BJP strongholds. As against this, mid-term elections are now being forced on an unwilling and unprepared UPA. While the former moved ahead with great elation, the UPA lacks the minimum self-confidence.

Second, if the NDA had gone triumphantly as a ruling party with majority, the UPA approaches the voters as a defeated caretaker government. Third, the ‘Shining India’ package came at a time when the economy was really on ascent and it had impressed the upwardly mobile middle classes. Now the GDP has reached its own plateau. Software, BPO and call centres were then growing on their own steam, giving great hopes to the educated middle class. Attrition was not known to call centres’ enthusiastic entrants. Now most of these avenues are facing gradual descent, if not outright stagnation, for reasons beyond the government’s control.

It is unfair to blame the PM or finance minister for the UPA’s dismal report card on economic front. If the NDA had been a beneficiary of a favourable global trend in early years of the decade, the UPA government has fallen victim to globalisation’s own ruthless dictums. Once you accept it, willingly or unwillingly, you have to undergo the rigors. Hereafter, domestic economies can no longer escape from the global karma. Take the SEBI index. The government may claim credit for crossing 18K. But even Mr Chidambaram now cautions the retail investors against its predatory character. Every one knows the spurt was due to the free play by the FIIs and the invisible hedge funds. Since September, a whopping Rs 18,000 crore have been pumped in by the predatory capital. US Fed cut and effects of subprime muddle have made India a temporary grazing field. Thus the sovereign India has lost powers to regulate its own market.

Efforts to check the inflation provides another instance of the new challenges being forced on domestic economies by globalisation. RBI tried all conventional methods to reduce liquidity. The steep hike in interest rate had some effect on inflation but it evoked clamour from sectors like construction and auto. The latter is under a threat of demand recession due to costly car loans. Apparently, the unchecked liquidity was due to massive borrowings abroad at cheaper rates by Indian corporates to raise capital. Finally the RBI curbs on foreign borrowings had some effect. But it is now being dubbed as violating the globalization rules.

Even this had only a marginal effect on prices. But when the UPA leaders tell the voters the prices rise is only at 3-4 per cent, it will be a cruel joke on their aam aadmi. It is the consumer index – which is still in 8 per cent range – that reflects the common man’s burden. Ten days back the department of consumer affairs revealed that prices of essential household commodities had gone up by as much as 25 per cent this year. The rise was as high as 10.4 per cent, 31 per cent, 19 per cent, 11.8 per cent, 25 per cent and 155 per cent for rice, groundnut oil, mustard oil, milk, salt and onion respectively.

Weakening of the US dollar has introduced a far more deadly infection on domestic economy. Trade balance has widened. Exports sector reports massive retrenchment and closure. Since July, government provided sops worth Rs 3,000 crore to exporters. Last week it announced tax concessions worth Rs 1,500 crore. Despite this, Federation of Indian Export Organizations fears immediate lose of jobs to over 80 lakh workers. I-T firms, most of whom are poised to face further loss, have warned the government against withdrawing the tax cuts. They fear the foreign clients will move to Philippines and Mauritius. In 2004, NDA’s ‘feel-good’ package was more substantial in content and thus less assailable. Hence the charge against the ‘shining India’ was that it was elitist and it meant nothing for the aam aadmi. As against this, the UPA’s proposed fare is much more vulnerable to attack. Its only strong point is the CMP-sponsored rural programmes.

India: The State of States

2007-10-09T12:40:00.000+05:30

In its annual ‘State of the States’ survey, India Today magazine – the South Asian equivalent to Time, right down to its red window cover – put Bihar at the bottom among large states in eight categories ranging from economic output to electricity consumption. This hardly comes as a surprise as Bihar has earned an ‘F’ each year since rankings were first published five years ago.

Based on statistics from central government sources, about 37.5 percent of Bihar’s population lives below the poverty line, versus a national average of 27 percent. (This is defined as the availability of at least 2,400 calories per capita per day for rural areas, and 2,100 for urban areas.) Per capita income is just over $150, a pittance considering the national average is close to $500.

Like peeling an onion, it gets more painful with each layer: Barely 14 percent of households in the state have an electricity connection; the literacy rate stands at 46 percent and only 37 percent of children over 10 years old have completed primary education; and for every 1,000 children delivered as many as 60 die at birth, largely due to the absence of medical assistance.

In key developmental areas such as agriculture, health and governance, the state scored less than one on a scale of 10. That other states not long ago on par with Bihar have surged ahead on all fronts compounds its woes. With its fertile terrain, the Bihar nonetheless has an average yield per hectare of 1,535 kg compared to 3,943 for Punjab, with overall agriculture production dropping each year. Although water is never in short supply (as annual floods show), only 60 percent of arable land is irrigated.

The gloom is not absolute, however. Among other upshots, Bihar is the only state in India to have 50 percent of municipal bodies reserved for women. The innovative state property tax system is a model of efficiency that has been copied in Sri Lanka and as far as Africa and praised by the United Nations. State courts have also processed more criminals than courts in any other Indian state in the past two years, though this is not entirely laudable given the preponderance of criminality in Bihar.

The India Today survey furthermore reveals that Bihar posted the third best poverty drop at 12.94 percent, after Assam (21 percent) and Himachal Pradesh (18.8 percent). Additionally, overall access to and quality of health care posted a slight improvement.

At a conference prior to the release of the survey, Finance Minister P. Chidambaram claimed India would be able to remove “abject poverty” within 20 years -- if economic growth continued at its brisk clip, which clocked in at 9.4 percent last year. He also said it was a “myth” that states don’t have enough money to deal with pressing internal problems, presumably a veiled reference to Bihar and other flood-affected states that have vied with little success for millions in extra funds from the central government to speed recovery.

Click here for more information about India's Backdoor War.

Posted by Jason Motlagh on October 01, 2007 at 02:42 PM in Indi

Branding of Nations

2007-10-03T16:07:00.000+05:30

What it takes to BRAND a nation. Branding India

India chak diya!!! - Indians triumph in the inaugural ICC Twenty20 Cricket world championship

2007-10-03T14:59:00.000+05:30

India - Truth Alone Triumphs

2007-10-03T14:58:00.001+05:30

Bihar plans handloom park, offers subsidy on looms

2007-10-03T14:17:00.000+05:30

The Government of Bihar has decided to provide 50 per cent subsidy on purchase of modern looms for quality production of textiles.

This is part of the state government’s plan for phased development of handloom and textile industry in Bihar.

The state government, according to The Times of India report, is also working on plans to set up an Rs 2 crore handloom park.

The state’s Industry Department release further stated that under the plan, the handloom clusters would be formed and they would have water-softening plants, dyeing chambers and ETP.

Besides, the state industry department plans to rejuvenate the processing plants and cooperative spinning mills, the release said adding that training institutions imparting skills in handloom and textile production would be upgraded in the first phase of the plan.

The state government has also proposed the creation of a raw material bank with a provision of 50 per cent grant for it. The proposal is aimed at ensuring continued operation of the handloom industry, and the government has decided to sanction a grant of Rs 5 lakh as initial working capital for the bank.
—iGovernment Bureau

Bihar plans Rs 25 crore panchayat e-Gov project

2007-10-03T14:16:00.000+05:30

The Government of Bihar has given its go ahead to implement an Rs 25.2 crore e-Governance project to cover all its 8,479 panchayats.

The proposal that was approved last week at a state cabinet meeting in Patna aims at setting up a panchayat information centres or panchayat portals called Vasudha Kendras that will enable villagers to connect with the outside world and provide affordable and easy access to information about the government and its policies.

These Vasudha Kendras would further be connected to all state departments through the Internet and the government will provide computers and Internet connections at the panchayat level centre. According to the plan, eight government departments, including the chief minister secretariat, will be linked to the State-wide Area Network (SWAN).

The project aims at establishing direct contact with villagers and making the functioning of the government more transparent.

According to reports, the project would be developed by Tata Consultancy Services (TCS) along with the Bihar State Electronics Development Corporation, a state-owned IT body, while Infrastructure Leasing & Financial Services (IL&FS) will monitor the implementation.

The state had provided top administrative officials and ministers with laptops as part of its e-Governance initiative only recently. Besides, it has also connected all its 38 district headquarters through video-conferencing link.
—iGovernment Bureau