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Peter Alwin wins Electrolux Design Lab 2010

September 23, 2010

Peter Alwin from National Institute of Design in India is the winner of the Electrolux Design Lab 2010 competition for inventing The Snail.

The Snail by Peter Alwin

The Snail by Peter Alwin

The Snail is a portable heating and cooking device based on magnetic induction processes. Such is the size and versatility of the Snail, it can be stuck directly on to a pot, a pan, a mug etc. to heat the contents.This reduces the amount of space required for conventional cooking whilst adding portability to the process. Powered by a high density sugar crystal battery, the Snail converts the energy from the sugar, heating up a coil to conduct the magnetic induction process to the utensil. Integrated sensors detect the food type being heated so as to automatically adjust the time and temperature. A simple touch sensitive display with interface helps to monitor the process.

The top eight finalists

FIRST PLACE: The Snail, Micro Induction Heating by Peter Alwin, National Institute of Design, India

Bio robot refrigerator

SECOND PLACE: Bio Robot Refrigerator, Cool, Green, Food Preservation by Yuriy Dmitriev, CSU, Russia

THIRD PLACE: Elements Modular Kitchen, All-In-One Kitchen Shelving by Matthew Gilbride, North Carolina State University, USA

Elements modular kitchen

PEOPLE’S CHOICE: Bio Robot Refrigerator, Cool, Green, Food Preservation by Yuriy Dmitriev, CSU, Russia

  • The Kitchen Hideaway, by Daniel Dobrogorsky, Monash University, Australia
  • Clean Closet, All in One Laundry Concept by Michael Edenius, Umeå Institute of Design, Sweden
  • Dismount Washer, Wash & Go Laundry by Lichen Guo, Zhejiang University of Technology, China
  • External Refrigerator, External Cooling by Nicolas Hubert, L’Ecole de Design Nantes Atlantique, France
  • Eco Cleaner, the Portable, Compact Dishwasher by Ahi Andy Mohsen, Elm o Sanat University, Iran

See slide show at

http://news.discovery.com/tech/future-appliances-mega-cities-electrolux.html

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Stuttgart’s white elephant

September 23, 2010

Hamada Marine "Bridge to Nowhere"

Japan is famous for its bridges to nowhere and highways without traffic but Germany is not immune from this extravagant form of supporting the construction industry and their powerful lobbies.

Der Spiegel runs a scathing attack on the white elephant that is “Stuttgart 21” and Deutsche Bahn‘s CEO Rüdiger Grube:

A multibillion railway development project is going ahead in Stuttgart, despite the fact that it offers hardly any benefits for the rail network and the money would be better spent elsewhere. Experts have been warning against the plans for years, but they were ignored.

Current estimates put the costs of building the subterranean railway station in Stuttgart, the capital of the southwestern German state of Baden-Württemberg, at €4.1 billion ($5.38 billion). An associated high-speed rail line to Ulm, a city lying about 90 kilometers (56 miles) southeast of Stuttgart, is slated to cost another €3 billion.

But what, you might ask, is the payoff for Deutsche Bahn, the federal government or the EU of implementing Stuttgart 21 and building the new line to Ulm? Deutsche Bahn CEO Rüdiger Grube offers one answer: The building project, he explains, will “eliminate the biggest bottleneck on the high-speed route from Paris to Bratislava.”

It would seem that Grube still doesn’t have his facts straight. It might help if he actually took the train from Paris to Bratislava. The roughly 13-hour trip would probably be enough to convince him that this so-called express corridor actually isn’t so express and that boring tunnels through the karst formations of the Swabian Alps mountain range for the Stuttgart-Ulm line is not about to make the connection significantly more attractive.

See map Paris to Bratislava

As Düsseldorf-based engineer Sven Andersen puts it, “Stuttgart 21 does nothing for long-distance travel.” Unlike Grube, Andersen has spent his entire career working in the railway industry, most recently as an expert on operational issues, and is considered one of the top experts on Germany’s railway system.

New Stuttgart station

As Andersen sees it, Stuttgart 21 and the related plan to built the Stuttgart-Ulm high-speed railway line are “a transportation-policy disaster.” Likewise, he adds, the project seems to be based on a complete misunderstanding of Stuttgart’s role in the German and European railway network. “Stuttgart is a destination,” he says. “It’s not a place people travel through to get someplace else. Converting the station into a through station won’t be an improvement on any significant route.” Indeed, all you have to do is look at a map to realize that Stuttgart is not a central location. All fast connections between key economic zones pass through other cities. For example, the Frankfurt-Zurich route runs far west of Stuttgart through Karlsruhe and Basel, while the Frankfurt-Munich route makes a wide arch through Würzburg and Nuremberg, far north and east of Stuttgart.

Full article:

http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/0,1518,717575,00.html

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US Recession officially over – but what about the second dip

September 20, 2010

http://economix.blogs.nytimes.com/2010/09/20/the-recession-has-officially-ended/?hp

The recession officially ended in June 2009, according to the Business Cycle Dating Committee of the National Bureau of Economic Research, the official arbiter of such dates.

As many economists had expected, this official end date makes the most recent downturn the longest since World War II. This recent recession, having begun in December 2007, lasted 18 months. Until now the longest postwar recessions were those of 1973-5 and 1981-2, which each lasted 16 months. Recession and expansion dates are based on various economic indicators, including gross domestic product, income, employment, industrial production and wholesale-retail sales. The Business Cycle Dating Committee typically waits to declare that the economy has turned until well after the fact, when it has a longer track record of economic data to confirm a new trend.

But the double-dip remains a distinct possibility even if the OECD believes the US may just escape it.

A graph of the Early 1980s recession in the Un...

Triple-dip in the 1980's

The United States will experience a slow, jobless recovery from its deepest and longest downturn since the 1930s but will avoid a double-dip recession, the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development said today. In its annual health check of the world’s biggest economy, the Paris-based OECD said that it expected activity to expand by 2.6% in both 2010 and 2011 without having a marked impact on the country’s near double-digit jobless rate.

But the optimism is speculative and not shared by everybody. Some believe that jobs growth is not happening at a speed sufficient to avoid the double-dip.

The U.S. economy has a “significant likelihood” of entering a double-dip recession if the government doesn’t step in to help the unemployed, economist Robert Shiller told MarketWatch News Break in August. The Yale University professor and author of the best-selling book “Irrational Exuberance” pinned the probability of a double-dip recession at more than a 50-50. Shiller pointed to the nation’s stubbornly-high unemployment as a root cause of lingering economic woes. And with the Federal Reserve running out of bullets to fight a second recession, he urged Congress to join the battle and focus on putting people back to work.

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Women highly successful in Indian Banking and in India Inc.

September 19, 2010

Gender imbalances continue to prevail in corporate boardrooms across the world, but the situation is much better in India if the number of women CEOs that India Inc has is any indication–nearly four times more than that of the US–a survey says.  According to a survey by international executive research firm, EMA Partners International, around 11% of Indian companies have women CEOs, while in the case of Fortune 500 list from the US, the women CEOs just account for three% of the total consideration set. “In the backdrop of the Fortune 500 numbers, the Indian results certainly look a lot better, though on a standalone basis, it is clear that barring financial services, other industries have a long way to catch up,” EMA Partners chairman James Douglas said in the survey.

The Times of India: According to a study by Standard Chartered Bank about women on corporate boards in India, the financial sector performs best in terms of gender diversity, nine of the eleven banks listed on BSE-100 have a woman on their board and two of these banks have a female CEO. In fact, through the recent recession, Reserve Bank of India had two women deputy governors on board, Usha Thorat and Shyamala Gopinath.

Women leaders in banking

ICICI Bank, India’s second largest bank after State Bank of India, is headed by a woman, Chanda Kochhar. So is the third largest in the private sector, Axis Bank, with Shikha Sharma at its helm. HDFC Ltd, India’s largest housing finance group has Renu Sud Karnad as its managing director; Kalpana Morparia heads the Indian arm of global financial leviathan JPMorgan Chase & Co; Meera Sanyal is the country executive for Royal Bank of Scotland and; Manisha Girotra is the managing director of Union Bank of Switzerland‘s India operations.

“Women are not driven by wanting to just show numbers,” says Karnad, who feels the recession was a result of excesses, of wanting to achieve goals at whatever cost. “Women are more practical and moderate in risk taking.”

So what is it that makes women so successful in the Indian banking and financial services industry? “Retail banking is more of a relationship thing and women excel at that,” says Karnad. In the Indian context, while women have started venturing out to work in the corporate world, they have been handling relationships at home too, as a wife or a mother. “This nurturing and adjusting attitude flows into the workplace as well.”

The mid-80s saw a number of smart women graduating from the B-schools just when the Indian banking sector was starting to grow. ICICI, HDFC, HSBC, Citibank, were all expanding and were hiring during the mid-80s and the early 90s.

“We were fortunate to have senior role models like Tarjani Vakil, chairperson of Exim Bank who pierced the glass ceiling in the 1970s and ’80s,” says Meera Sanyal, who started her career in the mid-’80s with ANZ Grindlays Bank and is now Royal Bank of Scotland’s country executive for India.

ICICI particularly nurtured a number of women—Chanda Kochhar, Shikha Sharma, Renuka Ramnath—who have today reached the top. One of most prominent among them is Kochhar, who joined the bank as a management trainee in 1984 and rose through the ranks to become the managing director and chief executive officer. Today, of the eleven top executives working directly under her, three are women. “I give a lot of credit to ICICI, which as an organisation has allowed women to grow, prosper, handle responsibilities and offered equal opportunities,” says Kochhar. Of the overall 40,000 employees at ICICI, a quarter are women. “It has contributed a lot to the feminine quotient in the Indian banking sector.”

Additional Sources: http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/articleshowpics/6584055.cms

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Tata Nano +: Tata Motors riding high

September 19, 2010

Tata Nano +

Tata Motors is to woo Indian small car budget customers by launching an upgraded version of its Nano, the new Tata Nano Plus sometime in 2011. Tata Motors plans a Nano Plus with upgraded features. The Nano+ for the Indian market is expected to be similar to the Nano Europa.

Tata Nano was launched to woo the Indian automobile customers with its Rs. 1 lac (2200$) price tag but has failed to live upto the initial hype because of technical problems and issues of delayed delivery. The new Tata Nano + will include a more powerful 1000 cc engine instead of the older 623 cc engine. It will also include ABS, alloy wheels, integrated music systems and improved interiors. The car will be on the lines of Nano Europa and will compete with Maruti Alto and Chevrolet Spark. Delivery of the car  should not be a problem as the new Sanand plant increases production.

Tata Motors’ global vehicles sales rose 29% to 85,411 units in August 2010 over August 2009. The global sales include figures of its British luxury unit Jaguar Land Rover, whose sales rose 29% to 16,220 units in August 2010 over August 2009.

Tata CNG hybrid bus

Tata CNG hybrid bus

Tata Motors are also bringing out India’s first CNG-Electric hybrid public transport bus. It can accommodate 32 people, uses a parallel hybrid system and has a top speed of 72 kph.

Tata Motors has reported a growth of 29 percent in August. The entire sales of Tata’s vehicles totaled to 85,114 units in August 2010, a growth of 29 percent over August 2009. This has taken the cumulative sales for the fiscal year (April 2010 – August 2010) to 424,938, higher by 42 percent compared to the corresponding period in 2009-10. Sales of all commercial vehicles were 40,882 last month, a growth of 25 percent, taking the cumulative sales to 192,612, a growth of 35 percent.

2009 Jaguar XF photographed at the 2008 Washin...

Jaguar XF

Sales of all passenger vehicles were 44,232 in the month, a growth of 33 percent and the corresponding cumulative sales are 232,326, a growth of 49 percent. Tata passenger vehicle sales, including those distributed, were 28,012 for the month, a growth of 35 percent with a cumulative increase of 50 percent. Jaguar Land Rover global sales in August 2010 were 16,220 vehicles, higher by 29 percent. Jaguar sales for August 2010 were 3,788, higher by 33 percent, while Land Rover sales were 12,432, higher by 28 percent. Cumulative sales of Jaguar Land Rover for the fiscal are 92,759, higher by 46 percent. Cumulative sales of Jaguar are 24,919, higher by 31 percent, while cumulative sales of Land Rover are 67,840, higher by 52 percent.

Tata Motors is planning to launch new models with its Venture MPV and Aria Crossover in the near future.

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Defence lobbies enlist the sun

September 18, 2010

“Solar flares could paralyse Britain’s power and communications”.

The UK Defence Secretary will next week attend a summit of scientists and security advisers who believe the infrastructure that underpins modern life in Western economies is potentially vulnerable to electromagnetic disruption. Dr Liam Fox will tell the conference he believes there is a growing threat, and he wants to address the “vulnerabilities” in Britain’s high-tech infrastructure. “As the nature of our technology becomes more complex, so the threat becomes more widespread,” he will say.

Brahmos Missiles

The meeting will be addressed by Avi Schnurr, a former US government adviser who said that “super-flares” occur about once every hundred years, meaning the next is overdue. The electrical grid, computers, telephones, transportation, water supply, food production are all vulnerable to a major flare, said Mr Schnurr, who also works for the Israel Missile Defence Association, a lobby group.

David Williams, acting head of the UK Space Agency, told a Commons committee that any negative impacts on technology, particularly satellites, would have “severe problems both short-term and long-term” for Britain.

A few weeks ago the talk was of a Solar Tsunami which turned out to be little more than a pretty ripple. https://ktwop.wordpress.com/2010/08/04/alarmism-exaggerations-aplenty/.

The Telegraph contributed to the alarmism http://www.telegraph.co.uk/science/space/7923069/Nasa-scientists-braced-for-solar-tsunami-to-hit-earth.html

That lobbyists will use whatever scare scenario they can find to increase budgets and sales of totally unnecessary equipment (Y2K for example) is understandable. But Ministers are expected to be a little more discerning. Applying the nonsensical precautionary principle for an event that may occur once in a hundred years and which will affect the “enemy” as much as anyone else seems a feeble argument to increase defence budgets.

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Gold fever

September 15, 2010
Mojave Nugget, a gold nugget weighing 156 ounc...

Image via Wikipedia

The price of gold hit a record high on Tuesday, with analysts giving a number of reasons for its rise.

Gold generates no income. It costs to store and secure and insure. Yet the flight to gold continues. Gold only beats inflation. It fares poorly when compared to real estate or shares when compared on the basis of real inflation adjusted returns. Gold scores the highest in terms of liquidity, compared to all other investments. Gold can be converted to cash at any time. All gold investments have the same tax concern. Gold, being a commodity, is taxed as ordinary income even if  profit comes from buying a gold ETF. Between the costs of storage, premiums paid and taxes, returns from an investment in physical gold can be eroded quickly unless compensated by the gold price.

Gold price can be very volatile. Over the past three years, gold has seen an increase of 84% in value but has seen gains and losses of over 12% within the same quarter.

Indian households are estimated to hold over 16,000 tons of gold primarily as jewellery.

The BBC reports:

The price of gold hit a record high on Tuesday, with analysts giving a number of reasons for its rise. Both the price of the actual metal and the price for buying it at a future date rose more than 2% to $1,274.75 an ounce. It was the biggest one-day gain for the commodity in four months.

One of the factors spurring investors is gold’s traditional role as a so-called “safe-haven” investment at times of economic uncertainty. On the physical market, demand for both bullion and jewellery has risen ahead of the seasonal Indian wedding period and the Hindu religious festivals that begin in September.

Another driver is more technical – gold is priced in dollars, and any fall in the dollar makes it cheaper to buyers using other currencies. The dollar has fallen across a range of currencies, driven down by a range of factors. Its most remarked upon slide has been against the Japanese yen. It is trading at a 15-year low against that currency. The price of gold has risen 16% so far this year. The World Gold Council’s last report on the gold market predicted that continuing strong demand from jewellery buyers in the two fast-developing markets of India and China, would help keep the price high.

http://goldprice.org/charts/history/gold_all_data_o_usd.png

10 year gold price per ounce

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Indian Minister: Indian IT companies have created 250,000 jobs in US

September 15, 2010
DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 27JAN10 - Anand Sharma, Min...

Image via Wikipedia

While it is clearly political positioning just before bilateral trade talks between the US and India to be held next week in India, the “global outsourcing” alarmism is not as one-sided as it is made out by opportunistic politicians.

In my own experience transfer of technology across countries within the same company is more likely to lead to an increase in jobs – but not the same jobs – in the country exporting technology.

The Times of India reports that:

Indian IT companies created 7,000 jobs in the US last month and 2.5 lakh (250,000) jobs over the last three years, commerce minister Anand Sharma has said, indicating that recent protectionist measures taken by the US such as hiking professional visa fees and clamping down on outsourcing could hamper such economic activities.

“In times of crisis, countries tend to look inwards but protection can be counter productive. This is the time to encourage global trade flows,” the minister said on Tuesday. The bilateral trade policy forum meeting scheduled next week to be chaired by Mr Sharma and US trade representative Ron Kirk will focus on both issues.

The minister is optimistic that the issues could be sorted out through discussions. “We remain optimistic about the whole scenario but responses need to be calibrated,” he said.

Read more: Indian IT cos created 7,000 jobs in US in Aug – The Times of India http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/business/india-business/Indian-IT-cos-created-7000-jobs-in-US-in-Aug/articleshow/6557684.cms#ixzz0zaEmNB00

Of course it was not so very long ago when US and EU trade officials were berating India, China and other developing countries about the sins of protectionism and closed markets. With the growth in India and China now leading the way out of recession it would be wiser to keep global trade flows open rather than to wave the protectionist flag.

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Can growth in India and China prevent the double-dip?

September 13, 2010

Chinese factories increased production in August and money growth easily topped analysts’ expectations, according to data on Saturday, showing that the economy remained buoyant despite government efforts to clamp down on bank lending and property speculation. Inflation in China sped to its fastest pace in 22 months, though the bulk of price rises stemmed from higher food costs, which analysts have said should be transitory after a spell of bad weather this summer.

image: buyusa.gov

Indian shares have risen to their highest level in more than two and a half years after data showed industrial output rose faster than expected. Figures released after Friday’s market close showed July’s factory output was up 13.8% compared with a year ago. India’s benchmark Sensex index rose 322 points, or 1.7%, to 19,122, its highest since January 2008. Banks led the gains as investors expect demand for loans to rise on the back of an expanding economy. Shares in State Bank of India, the country’s largest lender, were up 4.3%. ICICI Bank shares rose 3.5%, while HDFC Bank was 1.1% higher.

With a good monsoon this year inflation in food prices in India should now reduce sharply and if industry and manufacturing maintain their spurt, a total 10%+  GDP growth for 2010 -11 becomes probable.

Most Asian stocks too gained momentum on Monday. At 11.20 am today, the Sensex was trading up 293.53 points or 1.56% at 19,093.19, while Nifty was trading higher by 85.90 points or 1.52% at 5,725.95.

Europe and the US will continue to experience a prolonged period of low or choppy economic growth but this will have little impact on the growing domestic consumption of China and India. Companies selling into these nations are experiencing buoyant trading conditions.

This should be sufficient to mitigate the risks of a prolonged double-dip recession in Europe and the US  but will not be enough to avoid it.

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Indian monsoon has been “good”: 10%+ growth possible

September 12, 2010

The Indian monsoon season officially lasts from June to September. When average rainfall over these 4 months is close to or slightly above the long term average ( from about -5% to about +10%), the monsoon can be termed to be “good”.

With 3 weeks to go rainfall is running at 1% above the long term average and has been reasonably uniform over the whole country.

http://www.imd.gov.in/section/nhac/dynamic/Monsoon_frame.htm

Despite a steady decline in the share of agriculture and allied activities in GDP to about 14.6 percent, it continues to be the mainstay of majority of the population, of about 52 percent of the work force, and remains critical from the point of view of achieving the objectives of food security and price stability.

In 2009-10, there was a poor monsoon with rainfall being about 22% less than the long term average. Consequently the Agricultural growth rate was less than 2% (1.86%). The total GDP growth was held back to around 6%. The difference between a good monsoon year and a poor year is thought to be around 2% points for GDP:

For this year the pre-monsoon forecast was for 98% rainfall but with the La Niña conditions now prevailing, this has increased. Currently Agricultural growth (April – June  2010) is at 2.78% and the “good” monsoon is likely to see this increase sharply through the rest of the year.

Currently GDP is running at over 9% with industry and manufacturing each showing growth rates of close to 12%.

Inflation in food prices should now reduce sharply and if industry and manufacturing maintain their spurt, a total 10%+  GDP growth for 2010 -11 becomes probable.

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Posted in Business, Economy, India | 2 Comments »

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