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Strong GDP growth in India but danger signals persist

September 1, 2010

India and China continue to grow and should be able to weather the storm of the coming second dip of the double-dip recession which is looking ever more likely in Europe and the US – notwithstanding the recent growth in Germany and the UK.

In India the sharp growth in the manufacturing and service sectors could overcome the demand side weakness that is also apparent. The April – June quarter has had the highest growth for 10 quarters. Bringing inflation down from the current 9+% becomes crucial. The good monsoon so far should help. The hotels and tourism sector should get a further boost in the 3rd quarter when the Commonwealth Games is held in Delhi – though the Games themselves seem to be mired in corruption scandals and the late completion of all the venues.

From the Hindu Business Line. http://www.thehindubusinessline.com/2010/09/01/stories/2010090152010100.htm

Powered by a manufacturing rebound, the Indian economy has recorded an 8.8 per cent growth during the first quarter of the current fiscal (April – June 2010)

The 8.8 per cent year-on-year increase in the real gross domestic product (GDP) compared with 6 per cent in the same quarter of 2009-10 has been largely due to robust industrial (especially manufacturing) growth from a low base.

The industry, as a whole, grew 11.4 per cent against 4.6 per cent in the corresponding period of the previous fiscal, when factories were struggling to emerge from the slowdown triggered by the global financial crisis of late 2008.

Within industry, manufacturing registered a 12.4 per cent year-on-year jump, against 3.8 per cent during April-June of last fiscal. But, it is not only industry that has done better relative to last year. Even the farm sector and services have notched up higher growth rates for the first quarter. While agriculture has benefitted from a decent rabi harvest that followed a drought-impacted kharif crop, in services, the impetus has come mainly from commerce (trade, hotels, transport and communication) and construction.

But as The Times of India points out, danger signals on the demand side still persist and could threaten future growth.

However, a closer look at the data, say economists and bankers, reveals that the upward trend may not continue for long. StanChart in a report, said that despite strong growth in Q1, slow growth in domestic demand and global slowdown raise doubts about growth in the next few quarters. A research report by Nomura also pointed out that the biggest surprise in India’s growth figures is the substantial divergence between the real GDP (gross domestic product) growth estimated at 8.8% (year-on-year basis) and the real GDP growth at market prices, estimated at 3.7%.

The report explained that the difference between the two is indirect taxes and subsidies offered by the government. Government’s latest figure suggests that taxes are falling while subsidy payments have risen substantially.

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Posted in Economics, India | 1 Comment »

First Allied POW escape from Singapore in 1942

August 26, 2010

“3000 Miles to Freedom” by Brig. M. M Pillai M.C.

My father died in 1988 leaving a manuscript of his escape from Singapore and his return to India after the fall of Singapore in 1942. He would have been 99 on 11th August this year.

He was the first Allied prisoner of war to escape from Changi and return to India. He used to tell us that he had travelled a thousand miles on foot, a thousand miles by boat and a thousand miles by train to make his journey of 3000 miles to freedom. In 1968 he tried to get a copy of his official debriefing report from the War Office in London to cross-check his manuscript written from memory long after the event. But he found that the report had been classified to be held secret for 50 years.

In early 2000 I found that a copy of the official report was available in the Singapore War Archives. The report had been circulated to all the Allied Armies and the Australian copy had found its way into the Singapore Archives sometime after 1992 when the material was declassified. Apparently the 50 year classification was because the report contained not only the names of people who had helped him along the way but also the names of people he felt were Japanese collaborators.

Mark Pillai as a Captain circa 1950

He was accompanied by two others; one of whom ( a medical officer) decided to settle along the way. The second was a civilian friend S. Radhakrishnan. To avoid the unneccessary hassle of getting a civilian back through Allied lines they invented the story of the “Singapore Volunteers” and passed Radhakrishnan off as an officer in this fictitious regiment. The subterfuge served to get through the Allied check-posts and later Radhakrishnan was properly commissioned into the Indian Army.

For about 6 months after his return my father had a “minder” – a brother officer from a different regiment but who came from his part of the country in Southern India – to ensure that my father’s escape was not a ruse to establish a  “sleeping” collaborator.

http://www.nas.gov.sg/1stcab/syonan/SyonanChap7.html (link updated 25th August 2013 since the original link to the National Archives of Singapore was outdated).

Australian War Memorial, Series AWM 54 Item 779/10/4, “Escape narrative of Lieut M M Pillai, Royal Bombay Sappers and Miners, and Lieut V Radhakrishnan, Singapore Volunteers – Appendix: Treatment of Civilians and Atrocities”, p.33, CD No. D2006100078.

Eventually the manuscript was checked and a publisher ( Lancer Military Publications) interested enough in an old Second World War escape story was found.

http://www.lancerpublishers.com/catalog/advanced_search_result.php?keywords=Pillai&osCsid=569721b13eaaa324b7b54cf34fc36de3&x=5&y=5

Three Thousand Miles to Freedom

http://www.lancerpublishers.com/catalog/product_info.php?products_id=710

This is a an escape story. It is the story of escape from a Japanese Prisoner of War camp in Singapore to India across coastal waters and Malayan and Burmese jungles.

Capt Mark Pillai was a Bombay Sapper officer in Malaya when Singapore fell and the Allies surrendered. This is the story of his escape from the Changi POW camp in 1942. He was 31 years old at the time and he was accompanied by an Indian medical officer and an Indian civilian acquaintance.

It is an inspirational story of escape. Escape stories frequently tend to chronologically list events without adequately conveying the fears and apprehension or the anxiety and the hardships that soldiers endure, nor the will and inspiration they galvanise in doing so. This is a compelling story, simply told, which brings to life the meaning of escape from captivity in enemy territory in an age long gone.

It is a story of understated bravery and gallantry, where three Indians made a daily tryst with destiny over a protracted period of time, attempting as it were to do their duty as they saw it, in an effort to live to fight another day when both the big picture and the tactical situation seemed hopeless.

It is a story of hope which reveals the stubborn spirit of humanity and courage that epitomizes good soldiers anywhere when they turn adversity into opportunity and inspire others to do the same.

Mark Pillai was awarded the Military Cross by Field Marshal Archibald Wavell for his gallantry.

(more…)

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Posted in 2nd World War, History, India | 9 Comments »

IBM is second largest private employer in India

August 18, 2010

In 2006 IBM had 53,000 employees in India which grew to 73,000 employees in 2007. Since then, the company has maintained that it is a global company and geographic numbers do not have any meaning in that context. In 2010 IBM employees in India exceeded 100,000 and may be as many as 130,000.

IBM still employs the most people in the US but almost one in three of IBM’s total workforce of over 400,000 is now in India.

http://www.accessnorthga.com/img/stories/205230/ibm-india_medium.jpg

The Times of India reports that

The fact that IBM has over one lakh (100,000)  people on its rolls in this country is one of India Inc’s best-kept secrets.
Tata Consultancy Services is the largest private sector employer in the country. It had 163,700 employees as on June 30.

No one in US-headquartered IBM will admit that it employs such a large number of people in India — for fear of a backlash at home. There’s been rising anger in the US over the transfer of `American jobs’ to lower cost havens, particularly India. Faced with an economic slowdown and a politically-damaging high employement rate, Barack Obama himself has begun to sound jingoistic. He has issued barely-veiled threats against US companies that ship out work and promised candies to those who stay patriotic.Even as an IBM spokesperson declined comment when contacted, a source within the company said that in a couple of years, the India employee strength could cross that in the US, where it employs about 1,55,000 people, and where the pace of hiring is substantially slower than in India. IBM globally has a little over 4,00,000 employees. So, close to 1 in 3 of its employees is already an Indian.

Its staff strength is more than four times that of India’s biggest private sector company, Reliance Industries, which employs about 23,000 people. It is bigger than the combined employee base of the two Tata Group’s crown jewels, Tata Steel (81,000) and Tata Motors (24,000).

A cross-section of industry analysts and manpower recruitment firms TOI spoke with not only put IBM’s India workforce (including that of its wholly-owned subsidiary IBM Daksh) at over one lakh, some even went to the extent of saying it might be 1.3 lakh — well over Infosys’ 1.14 lakh as on June 30. Infosys is India’s second largest IT firm by revenue and third, it now transpires, by employees.

Since 2007, the company has stopped disclosing the geographic break-up of its employee numbers. The last time it provided figures was in 2007, when it said it had 73,000 employees in India. Since then, the company has maintained that it’s a global company and geographic numbers do not have any meaning in that context.
 (more…)

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The 35$ tablet and cloud computing

July 28, 2010

Whether or not the 35$ tablet recently unveiled in India ever becomes real is irrelevant.

Kapil Sibal

It looks like an iPad, only it’s 1/14th the cost: India has unveiled the prototype of a $35 basic touchscreen tablet aimed at students, which it hopes to bring into production by 2011.

But the 20$ pc in India – the “Shaksat” has not really happened.

But the Tata Nano – as the 2000$ car – did happen even if the cost is slightly over the magic target of one lakh rupees (100,000).

The 749 rupees ($16) water purifier is a reality and $2,000 open-heart surgery has been available for some time.

What is really important is the challenging of barriers and the attitude it represents. The future of distributed computing, perhaps through a much more extensive use of the cloud, could well depend on this challenging of attitudes. Ultimately the device used by every individual would be nothing more than  a very secure interface device:

  • secure and simple regarding the individual’s identity
  • secure regarding the connection to the cloud, and
  • secure regarding the personal or sensitive material stored in the cloud.

As Tony Bradley of PC World puts it

The $35 tablet prototype from India will run a variation of the open source Linux operating system. It has 2Gb of RAM, but no internal storage–relying on a removable memory card. The device has a USB port, and built-in Wi-Fi connectivity. Seems like reasonable enough specs–especially for $35.

On the software side, the $35 tablet has a PDF reader, multimedia player, video conferencing, Web browser, and word processor. The value of the multimedia player will be contingent on its compatibility with popular audio and video file formats. The functionality of the word processor will hinge on its ability to create, view, or edit files in Microsoft Word format.

….. Many will scoff at the idea of a $35 tablet PC. Of course, many tech geeks, pundits, and power users also scoffed at the concept of a netbook, claiming it was too weak to be of any value. A year later, netbooks were cannibalizing notebook sales as students embraced the cheaper platform, and business professionals opted for smaller, lighter mobile computers.

Ultimately, it doesn’t even really matter if the “$35 PC” ever materializes. The Indian prototype illustrates what’s possible and breaks down barriers–challenging the rest of the industry to push the envelope. A Linux-based (think Android or Chrome OS), Web-connected tablet would likely still be a tremendous success in the United States at three times that $35 target.

Of course netbooks are already losing out to ipads and small tablets.

Scoffers are already out in force but even they serve a purpose in creating the challenge necessary. It is always more satisfying to do something when there are those who scoff and say it cannot be done.

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Posted in Business, India, Technology | 2 Comments »

High probability of La Nina: Good news for the Indian monsoon

June 26, 2010

Good news for the Indian monsoon

The Indian Meteorological Department has increased their rainfall forecast from being 98% of normal to being 102% of normal because of the La Nina conditions developing from the cooling of  the Central Pacific. The monsoon is expected to be “on time” and Northern India will get some relief from the sweltering temperatures they have been suffering.

Development of La Nina will also lead to global temperatures continuing to show the decline which has been apparent for the last decade.

The monsoon is formally defined to last for the 4 months of June to September every year and the onset and progress of the northern front of the monsoon is closely watched and can have a major impact. Even though the Indian economy is not as vulnerable to bad monsoons as it used to be, the importance of the monsoon to agriculture (and therefore also to related industries such as fertilisers, pesticides,pumps and even tractors) means that the difference between a “good” monsoon and a “bad” monsoon can be as much as 2% of annual GDP.

‘‘The latest forecasts from a majority of the dynamical and statistical models indicate continued and rapid cooling of the equatorial Pacific to below La Nina threshholds. There is a very high probablity (about 60%) for the La Nina conditions to develop during the monsoon season, which favours stronger than normal monsoon,’’ said IMD Director General Ajit Tyagi.

(photo credit: worldslatestnews.com/…/)

La Nina is also expected to bring more rain to Australia.

While La Nina will be welcomed in India and may disrupt the Ashes Tests in Australia it is not good news for the soya bean crops in Brazil.

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Posted in Business, Environment, India, Science | 1 Comment »

23 B$ Broadband Bonanza for the Indian Government

June 11, 2010

(photo – http://adityasphones.files.wordpress.com/2009/06/mobile-phones-rural-india.jpg )

Mobile subscribers are increasing by between 5 and 10 million every month in India !!!

Following the receipt of over $15 Billion ( Rs 67,700 Crores) from the auction of the 3G spectrum to mobile operators in May, the Indian Government has received over $8 Billion (Rs 38,300 Crores) from the 16 day auction of the Broadband Wireless Access (BWA) spectrum.

This is more than 3 times greater than the expected proceeds and provides the Indian Government with an unexpected $15 Billion to improve the fiscal deficit for the current financial year.

http://www.ptinews.com/news/707739_Broadband-spectrum-auction-ends–Govt-gets-38-300-cr

As with 3G, Mumbai and Delhi received the highest bid amounts. The BWA auction had two slots of 20 MHz of spectra across India.
At least 11 companies, including Bharti Airtel, Reliance, Idea Cellular, Aircel, Vodafone and Tata Communications Internet Services, participated in the auction for Broadband Wireless Access spectrum. The state owned bodies – BSNL and MTNL, which had received BWA spectrum allocations in advance of the auction will have to pay the equivalent of the winning bid in each service area.

BWA spectrum enables high-speed Internet access as well as Internet telephony and TV services. It can also be used for voice and high-speed data services.

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Posted in India, Technology | Comments Off on 23 B$ Broadband Bonanza for the Indian Government

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