Saturday, January 26, 2013
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Terror sponsorship ‘a serious issue’ President’s message My Fellow Citizens, On the eve of our 64th Republic Day, I extend warm greetings to all of you in India and abroad. I convey my special greetings to members of our armed forces, paramilitary forces and internal security forces. India has changed more in last six decades than in six previous centuries. This is neither accidental nor providential; history shifts its pace when touched by vision. The great dream of raising a new India from the ashes of colonialism reached a historic denouement in 1947; more important, independence became a turning point for an equally dramatic narrative, nation-building. The foundations were laid through our Constitution, adopted on 26 January 1950, which we celebrate each year as Republic Day. Its driving principle was a compact between state and citizen, a powerful public-private partnership nourished by justice, liberty and equality. India did not win freedom from the British in order to deny freedom to Indians. The Constitution represented a second liberation, this time from the stranglehold of traditional inequity in gender, caste, and community, along with other fetters that had chained us for too long. This inspired a Cultural Evolution, which put Indian society on the track to modernity: Society changed in a gradual evolution, for violent revolution is not the Indian way. Change across the knotted weaves of the social fabric remains a work in progress, impelled by periodic reform in law and the momentum of popular will. In the last six decades there is much that we can be proud of. Our economic growth rate has more than tripled. The literacy rate has increased by over four times. After having attained self-sufficiency, now we are net exporters of food-grain. Significant reduction in the incidence of poverty has been achieved. Among our other major achievements is the drive towards gender equality. No one suggested this would be easy. The difficulties that accompanied the first quantum leap, the Hindu code bill, enacted in 1955 tell their own story.
President Pranab Mukherjee delivers the Republic Day message.
It needed the unflinching commitment of leaders like Jawaharlal Nehru and Babasaheb Ambedkar to push through this remarkable legislation. Jawaharlal Nehru would later describe this as perhaps the most important achievement of his life. The time has now come to ensure gender equality for every Indian woman. We can neither evade nor abandon this national commitment, for the price of neglect will be high. Vested interests do not surrender easily. The civil society and the government must work together to fulfill this national goal. I speak to you when a grave tragedy has shattered complacency. The brutal rape and murder of a young woman, a woman who was symbol of all that new India strives to be, has left our hearts empty and our minds in turmoil. We lost more than a valuable life; we lost a dream. If today young Indians feel outraged, can we blame our youth? There is a law of the land. But there is also a higher law. The sanctity of a woman is a directive principle of that larger edifice called Indian civilization. The Vedas say that there is more than one kind of mother: Birth mother, a guru’s wife, a king’s wife,
a priest’s wife, she who nurses us, and our motherland. Mother is our protection from evil and oppression, our symbol of life and prosperity. When we brutalize a woman, we wound the soul of our civilization. It is time for the nation to reset its moral compass. Nothing should be allowed to spur cynicism, as cynicism is blind to morality. We must look deep into our conscience and find out where we have faltered. The solutions to problems have to be found through discussion and conciliation of views. People must believe that governance is an instrument for good and for that, we must ensure good governance. We are on the cusp of another generational change; the youth of India spread across villages and towns, are in the vanguard of change. The future belongs to them. They are today troubled by a range of existential doubts. Does the system offer due reward for merit? Have the powerful lost their Dharma in pursuit of greed? Has corruption overtaken morality in public life? Does our legislature reflect emerging India or does it need radical reforms? These doubts have to be set at rest. Elected representatives must win back the confidence of the
people. The anxiety and restlessness of youth has to be channelized towards change with speed, dignity and order. The young cannot dream on an empty stomach. They must have jobs capable of serving their own as well as the nation’s ambitions. It is true that we have come a long way from 1947, when our first Budget had a revenue of just over Rs.171 crore. The resource base of the Union government today is an ocean compared to that drop. But we must ensure that the fruits of economic growth do not become the monopoly of the privileged at the peak of a pyramid. The primary purpose of wealth creation must be to drive out the evil of hunger, deprivation and marginal subsistence from the base of our expanding population. Last year has been a testing time for us all. As we move ahead on the path of economic reforms, we must remain alive to the persisting problems of market-dependent economies. Many rich nations are now trapped by a culture of entitlement without social obligations; we must avoid this trap. The results of our policies should be seen in our villages,
farms and factories, schools and hospitals. Figures mean nothing to those who do not benefit from them. We must act immediately, otherwise the current pockets of conflict, often described as “Naxalite” violence, could acquire far more dangerous dimensions. In the recent past, we have seen serious atrocities on the Line of Control on our troops. Neighbors may have disagreements; tension can be a subtext of frontiers. But sponsorship of terrorism through nonstate actors is a matter of deep concern to the entire nation. We believe in peace on the border and are always ready to offer a hand in the hope of friendship. But this hand should not be taken for granted. Fellow Citizens, India’s most impregnable asset is self-belief. Each challenge becomes an opportunity to strengthen our resolve to achieve unprecedented economic growth and social stability. Such resolve must be nourished by an avalanche of investment, particularly in better and greater education. Education is the ladder that can help those at the bottom to rise to the pinnacles of professional and social status. Education is the mantra that can transform our economic fortunes and eliminate the gaps that have made our society unequal. So far education has not reached, to the extent desired, to those most in need of this ladder. India can double its growth rate by turning today’s disadvantaged into multiple engines of economic development. On our 64th Republic Day, there may be some reason for concern, but none for despair. If India has changed more in six decades than six previous centuries, then I promise you that it will change more in the next 10 years than in the previous 60. India’s enduring vitality is at work. Even the British sensed that they were leaving a land, which was very different from the one they had occupied. At the base of the Jaipur Column in Rashtrapati Bhavan there is an inscription: “In thought faith… In word wisdom… In deed courage… In life service… So may India be great” The spirit of India is written in stone.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
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Indo-Saudi ties enter era of promise, hope
O
N the occasion of 64th Republic Day of India, I extend my good wishes and felicitations to all my fellow citizens residing in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia. The historical ties between India and the Arabian Peninsula in the realms of commerce, trade and culture impart it a distinct character that transcends conventional boundaries of human engagement. In the present times, the level of bilateral engagement between India
Faiz Ahmad Kidwai
Hamid Ali Rao and Saudi Arabia has touched a new high. The landmark visits of Custodian of the two Holy Mosques His Majesty King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz to India in January 2006 and the visit of Hon’ble Prime Minister of India, Dr. Manmohan Singh to the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia in 2010 gave a renewed impetus to the bilateral engagement. The Delhi and Riyadh Declarations have provided the framework and the roadmap to elevate bilateral relations and heralded a new era of strategic partnership between the two countries.
Economic growth reflection of our democracy’s strength
The recent growth registered in bilateral trade has been impressive, to say the least. From $15.94 billion in 2006-07, bilateral trade in 2011-12 has exceeded $36 billion. The two-way trade figures from April-November 2012 stood at $27 billion, registering a 15.15 percent increase over the same period in the last year. Today, Saudi Arabia represents the 4th largest trading partner for India and it remains the largest supplier of crude oil to India, meeting around a quarter of its requirement. Indian investments in Saudi Arabia have exceeded $1.6 billion covering a wide spectrum of sectors including management and consultancy services, construction projects, telecommunications, information technology, pharmaceuticals, etc. There are a number of Indo-Saudi joint ventures and Saudi owned companies operating in India, in sectors like paper manufacture, chemicals, computer software, granite processing, industrial products and machinery, cement, metallurgical industries, etc. Of late, there are heartening signs of Saudi investors looking forward to investing in India particularly in sectors like infrastructure and real estate. There exists considerable scope for diversification of trade relations and further strengthening our economic ties. Last year, a 45-member ‘Saudi Youth Delegation’ visited three cities in India namely Hyderabad, Bangalore and New Delhi. The Saudi Ministry of Foreign Affairs sponsored the 10-day mission which visited centers of excel-
lence, business houses, hospitals besides exchanging ideas with the Indian youth and meeting with Indian officials. Recently, ‘Indian Cultural Week’ was held in Riyadh in association with the Saudi Ministry of Culture and Information in which 54-member Indian delegation participated. There are a large number of Indian expatriates residing in Saudi Arabia and their contributions to the overall progress and development of the Kingdom has been well acknowledged and appreciated. The credential of the Indian community as peace loving, hard working and law-abiding residents is well established. The fact that so many of my fellow citizens are residing in this friendly country is in itself a testimony to their wider acceptance by the Saudi people and the government. I would like to thank Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, His Majesty King Abdullah bin Abdulaziz for the continuous support and patronage extended to the Indian community in the Kingdom. The new era in which Indo-Saudi relations have entered is resplendent with promise and hope. While so much has been attained in the last decade, the future appears brighter, opening new vistas of joint cooperation and avenues of yet-to-be tapped opportunities, for the betterment of the peoples of the two countries. (Hamid Ali Rao) India’s Ambassador to Saudi Arabia
T
ODAY is our 64th Republic Day. I take this opportunity to extend my warm wishes to my fellow countrymen and persons of Indian origin residing in the Western Province of Saudi Arabia. I also extend my sincere greetings to all the friends and well-wishers of India who are residing in this holy land. On this happy occasion, I would also like to mention the successful and incident-free Haj 2012 and register the appreciation of the more than 170,000 Indian Hajis for the arrangements, facilities and services provided by the Government of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques. I take this opportunity to thank the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, his government and his people in conducting yet another successful and incident free Haj. In recent years, India has emerged as an indispensable partner in dealing with regional and global issues ranging from peace to politics and social to economic development. The stable and steady economic growth in India is a reflection of the dynamism and strength of our democracy and maturity of our political system. The India of the future would be characterized by a more knowledge based and technology driven society. India and Saudi Arabia enjoy warm bilateral relations based on mutual benefit as they share greater symmetry in the perception of regional and global issues of importance. The landmark visit of the Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, King Abdullah Bin Abdul Aziz, to India in 2006 and the visit of our Prime Minister, Dr. Manmohan Singh to Saudi Arabia in 2010 and the subsequent signing of the Delhi and Riyadh Declarations by the two leaders
have given considerable depth and diversity to the political and economic relations between the two countries. Ever since, the bilateral trade witnessed a rapid growth. It increased from $ 25.06 billion in 2010-11 to $ 36.74 in 2011-12 registering a rise of 46.57 percent in one single year. The Kingdom of Saudi Arabia assumes special significance for us as it serves as a second home to our nearly two million fellow Indians who are contributing greatly to the economy of India as well as to the economy of their host country. I take this opportunity to congratulate them all especially the senior executives, entrepreneurs, academicians, and medical specialists who have extended a helping hand in improving the image of India through a network of various platforms such as Saudi Indian Business Network (SIBN), Indian Education Council (IEC), Indo Saudi Medical Forum (ISMF), Saudi Indian Friendship Society (SIFS) and a host of other regional and community forums. We, at the Consulate General of India, Jeddah, take pride in rendering the best and the fastest possible consular services to the Indian Diaspora residing in the Western Province. The wellbeing of our community is our top priority and we remain committed to our round-the-clock response to the needs of our brothers and sisters living in the various parts of this Province. It is with background that we are going to have ‘Open House’ starting from the next month in the premises of the Consulate General of India. Jeddah. Jai Hind. (Faiz Ahmad Kidwai) Consul General, the Indian Consulate General in Jeddah
Saturday, January 26, 2013
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Riyadh, Delhi eternal partners in progress RIYADH: GHAZANFAR ALI KHAN arab news staff
The Arabian Peninsula’s relations with the Indian Subcontinent are possibly as old as human civilization. Irrespective of the political nomenclature or the demographic and geographical boundaries, people from the Arab world have been traveling to India as merchants, travelers, intellectuals and religious scholars. The visit of Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques King Abdullah to India, after a gap of five decades in 2006, marked a virtual rediscovery in the intrinsic warmth of relations that have existed between the people of these two regions. In fact, Indo-Saudi partnership has improved significantly in recent times and is expected to gain its momentum in the years to come. It is the common interests and the mutual desire that have been the main driving force behind this partnership. The economic complementarities are helping this relationship grow stronger. Saudi Arabia is now an important part of India’s foreign policy and vice-versa. With a changed global geopolitical environment and increasing economic interdependence, Saudi Arabia today considers India not only a strategic economic ally, but also a potential ‘bridging power’ that can play a constructive role for regional peace and stability. This relationship has the potential to not Indian only serve the interests of both sides but on a Prime large scale it can bring peace, security and Minister prosperity in the region. India, today, stands Manmohan at a threshold in leveraging its economic and Singh with military growth in consonant with its Custodian national security goals. of the Two This situation has not only earned a Holy national identity but also an international Mosques status where both economy and military strength are major determinants. India, durKing ing this period of unilateralism and emergAbdullah during the ing multilateralism, has taken a number of steps that attracted the international attenpremier’s tion, which can be corroborated by the high Riyadh level visit of P-5 countries. visit. India is being seen as the source of stability and security in the world in general and Asia in particular. The visit of King Abdullah, who was the chief guest on the occasion of the Republic Day of India in 2006, must be seen in that context. The visit was a true manifestation to the fast growing relations between the two countries. India’s engagement with the Arabian peninsula dates back to several millennia when traders and sailors from South Asia used to sail across the Arabian Sea, in boats made of Malabar wood. The relationship got reinforced and strengthened over a period of time with robust exchanges and there emerged a strong symbiotic relationship which has stood the test of time and is growing stronger. The remarkable cultural similarities between the peoples of the two lands show the integration and assimilation of various aspects of their respective traditions into each other’s daily lives. The centuries old two-way trade was mutually beneficial for the people of India and Arabian Peninsula, enhancing their knowledge and understanding, besides fulfilling their day-to-day requirements. India used to import pearls and dates from the Arabian peninsula, while satiating the Arab necessities like foodstuff, timber, textiles and also supplied other luxury items like silk and jewelry. The shared sense of mutual respect and admiration for the role played by the leader-
Indian Defense Minister A. K. Antony in talks with Crown Prince Salman, deputy premier and minister of defense in Riyadh in this file photo.
ship of the two countries in the shaping of the region since the beginning of 20th century brought the two countries at the same plain. People of India admired the unification efforts of late King Abdulaziz Al-Saud and formation of the Kingdom of the Saudi Arabia. The Indian government has supported the endeavors undertaken by the leadership of Saudi Arabia to improve the Haj management, which has made the pilgrimage a safe and comfortable experience. The leadership of the two countries has displayed a strong commitment to further the historical bonds of friendship. The visit of late King Saud bin Abdulaziz to India in 1955 marked the beginning of high-level bilateral engagement, which was followed a year later by the visit of the then Indian Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru to the Kingdom. Later Crown Prince Faisal bin Abdulaziz visited India in 1959 and Prime Minister of India Indira Gandhi visited the Kingdom in 1982. The bilateral relationship received a major fillip in the beginning of 21st century with King Abdullah’s historic visit to India. The visit resulted in “Delhi Declaration,” signed by the two leaders at the conclusion of the visit, which committed the two countries to pursuing a joint strategic vision to promote bilateral relations for mutual benefit as well as for the peace and security. The visit of Prime Minister of India Manmohan Singh to Saudi Arabia in 2010 and the signing of the ‘Riyadh Declaration’ during the visit gave a further boost to the momentum of bilateral relations. It elevated the engagement between the two countries to the level of “strategic partnership” and articulated their commitment to promote bilateral ties in political, economic, security, defense and cultural areas. Based on the framework provided by the Delhi Declaration and Riyadh Declaration, bilateral relations between the two countries have been strengthened with increase in ministerial visits and stronger economic ties based on substantial trade relations and investments. The tone set by the two landmark visits opened new vistas in bilateral cooperation. Saudi Arabia emerged as India’s 4th largest trade partner during the financial year 2010-11. There are over 565 small and medium Indian enterprises operating in the Kingdom and the total Indian investments in Saudi Arabia have now crossed $2.5 billion, with the presence of major Indian companies in sectors such as IT, construction, contracting services, financial services and engineering goods etc. The recent years have witnessed an enhanced level of cooperation in the field of information technology, biotechnology, nanotechnology and space. India possesses one
of the largest and qualified pools of scientific and technical manpower in the world, which is globally acclaimed for technological competence. Many Indian expatriates, who are specialists in field of IT, are contributing to the growth and development of Saudi IT and knowledge-based industries. On international front, the two countries have shared vision for the global peace and development. India supports the Kingdom’s efforts in combating global terrorism and both the countries strive to join efforts to put an end to the scourge of extremism and violence, which constitute threat to all nations. King Abdullah’s initiative to promote interfaith dialogue is well received and appreciated by the Indian leadership. The Vienna-based center for interfaith dialogue funded by Saudi Arabia has on its governing board an Indian religious leader named Swami Agniwesh. On the other hand, the role played by about two million Indian expatriates in the growth and development of the Kingdom is well appreciated by the Saudi leadership and has played an important role in bringing the two countries closer. They have been participating in all the major developmental projects in the Kingdom. In turn, the Kingdom is the largest source of crude oil for India, meeting around one-fifth of India’s oil requirements. Also, A. K. Anthony, defense minister of India, paid a visit to Saudi Arabia, the first ever by the Indian defense minister to the Kingdom that further strengthened the defense ties between the two countries as articulated in the Riyadh and Delhi Declarations. Deputy Chairman of Rajya Sabha K. Rahman Khan visited the Kingdom to participate in the G-20 Parliamentary Speaker’s Conference. Minister of State for External Affairs E. Ahamed visited the Kingdom in May, 2012, and held high-level meetings with various Saudi dignitaries besides meeting with the members of the Indian community. From the Saudi side, Tawfiq Al-Rabiah, commerce & industry minister led a 76-member delegation to New Delhi earlier this year for the 9th Indo-Saudi Joint Commission Meeting. Saudi Assistant Petroleum and Mineral Resources Minister Prince Abdul Aziz bin Salman visited India in February this year and held meeting with Indian Petroleum and Natural Gas Minister S. Jaipal Reddy. Saudi Parliamentary delegation led by Shoura Council Chairman Dr. Abdullah bin Mohammad bin Ibrahim Asheikh visited India and held meetings with Indian vice president, prime minister, Lok Sabha speaker and also external affairs minister.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
15 Pallava Bagla
India has big plans for nuclear energy. There are both opportunities for countries to sell nuclear technology and material to India and for smaller countries to buy reactor technology from India. India being a founding member of the global nuclear watchdog the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna has had a ‘spotless proliferation’ record, so doing business with India is opportune in the 21st century. Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh has always strongly batted for use of nuclear energy. Speaking at the diamond jubilee celebrations of the Saha Institute of Nuclear Physics in Kolkata, Singh said: “I am convinced that nuclear energy will play an important role in our quest for a clean and environment friendly energy mix as a major locomotive to fuel our development processes.” In a global landmark, the world’s safest nuclear reactor, the 1000 MW Russian made reactor that experts say can never face a Fukushima type of disaster since it can be cooled simply by air flow and gravity in times of emergency is being commissioned at Kudankulam in southern India. India today has 20 operating nuclear power plants — all owned by the government — which generate about 4780 MW of power and in addition runs about half a dozen research reactors. The country has accumulated according to the government about 350 reactor years of experience and has an “impeccable (safety) record.” Singh a known votary of nuclear power had staked the future of his own government in 2008 in favor of the landmark Indo-US civilian nuclear agreement that brought India back into the fold of global nuclear commerce. India now wants to ramp up its nuclear
India dreams big on nuclear power A sea-side view of the Kudankulam Nuclear Power Project.
capacity to 63,000 MW by 2032, by importing reactors from France, Russia and US. India’s nuclear energy program has been unique as it relies mostly on home grown technology and today the Department of Atomic Energy makes its own 700 MW Pressurized Heavy Water Reactors, while a smaller 220 MW reactor is being offered for export to countries who may seek the technology. Nature unfortunately has been unkind to India as it is not well endowed with uranium and if all the resources are used a 10,000
MW nuclear program can be sustained only for 40 years. But on the other hand since the Indian soils are rich in thorium, a globally unique nuclear energy development pathway called the threestage nuclear grand plan has been put in place by the country. The idea is to install small reactors that use natural uranium to generate power, the waste that emerges from this can then be used as fuel in so called “fast breeder reactors” and finally a completely new kind of reactor the Advanced Heavy Water Reactor a
plant that feeds on the abundant thorium reserves could generate enough electricity to power the nation for 250 years, fulfilling India’s quest for energy independence. India had been under international sanctions ever since it exploded a nuclear device in 1974, which became stifling in 1998 after India tested nuclear weapons at Pokharan, in the deserts of Rajasthan. The sanctions were formally lifted in 2008, when the Nuclear Suppliers Group and the International Atomic Energy
A research reactor at the Bhabha Atomic Research Centre, Trombay.
Agency, suitably amended their rules to accommodate India into the nuclear commerce club in spite of the fact that India has still not signed the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) or the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT). India’s impeccable non-prolif-
eration record was applauded and an exception made for India so that India’s desire to provide clean carbon free energy to its vast 1.2 billion population could be satiated. Today, India is ready to import 40,000 MW of installed capacity of nuclear reactors of which 20,000
MW may come from two American suppliers General Electric and Westinghouse. Another 10,000 MW may come from Russians and the rest 10,000 MW may be supplied by the French. Negotiations are at an advanced stage. Efforts are on to find suitable solutions on how to accommodate the requirements of a people-centric nuclear liability regime that the Indian Parliament enacted recently. If all goes as per plans, the world’s single largest nuclear power park may come up at Jaitapur, a coastal site south of Mumbai where AREVA the French nuclear giant is getting ready to install 9900 MW of atomic reactors. India is one of the few countries that has end-to-end capabilities from mining of uranium, enrichment, using it in atomic power plants and then also has the capability to reprocess the waste so that every drop of energy is squeezed out from the scarce uranium resource. Since the country believes that plutonium the socalled ‘long lived dirty by-product’ of a nuclear program is also a rich source of energy, suitable highly modern reactors are being indigenously designed to harness all the energy. The world’s only 500 MW Prototype Fast Breeder Reactor is at an advanced stage of construction at Kalpakkam south of Chennai, a plant that will generate more fuel than it consumes. Ratan Kumar Sinha, chairman of the Atomic Energy Commission, Mumbai, India’s highest decisionmaking body on matters nuclear says: “India is deeply committed to increasing the role of nuclear energy while ensuring full safety of its citizens.” (Pallava Bagla is Science Editor for New Delhi Television. Views expressed are personal. He can be reached at Pallava.bagla@ gmail.com)
Saturday, January 26, 2013
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Commercial ties growing progressively RIYADH: GHAZANFAR ALI KHAN arab news staff
India and Saudi Arabia are old trading partners with their trade linkages dating back to several centuries. The bilateral relations especially in the domains of economy, commerce, oil, gas, science, energy, banking and investment have reached new heights. Saudi Arabia and India have established a number of institutional mechanisms for bilateral economic cooperation. These include the Saudi-India Joint Business Council, the Indo-Saudi Joint Commission Meeting, the Joint Working Groups, etc. India and Saudi Arabia are also actively engaged with each other in forums like India-GCC Industrial Conference. The business ties between the two countries are being steadily expanded and strengthened by continuous interaction and cooperation, including regular exchange of business delegations. Besides being a major trade partner, India sees the Kingdom as an important economic partner for investments, joint ventures, transfer of technology projects and joint projects in third countries. The value of the two-way trade between the two countries in 2011-12 exceeded $36 billion marking a 46.57 percent increase over the previous year. This is by far the largest increase in bilateral trade during the last five years. The increase has not been one-dimensional. Both imports from and exports to the Kingdom have been increasing. The bilateral trade figures for April-November 2012 ($27.58 billion) registering an increase of 15.15 percent over the corresponding period in the previous year shows that this upswing trend continues. Today, Saudi Arabia is the 4th largest trading partner for India. Both countries are committed to elevating the current buyer-seller relationship into strategic energy cooperation. Many Indian companies are operating in/from Saudi Arabia. According to The Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) Indian companies /entities have invested a sum of $1.62 billion in Saudi Arabia from January 2000 to December, 2010. Saudi investors are also looking at investing in India and in fact, they have evinced keen interest to invest in India. There are opportunities for Indian businessmen and companies in sectors like construction industry, petrochemicals and health & pharmaceuticals in
VK Mathur, chairman of Confederation of Indian Industry (CII), presenting a memento to the visiting Saudi Minister of Commerce & Industry Tawfiq Al Rabiah as Eng Abdullah Al Mobty, chairman — Council of Saudi Chambers, KKM Kutty, co-chairman CII Gulf Committee, Yusuff Ali MA, managing director of Lulu Hypermarkets and Shehim Mohammed, regional director-Riyadh Lulu Hypermarkets looks on. The Saudi Minister was leading a 50 member business delegation to attend Indo-Saudi Joint Economic Commission meeting as well as Indo-Saudi Business Council meeting.
Saudi Arabia while similarly ample opportunities are there for Saudi businessmen and companies in sectors like infrastructure and real estate in India. Trade delegations from the Confederation of Indian Industries (CII) and several Indian Export Promotion Councils have visited the Kingdom and held BuyerSeller Meets in the Kingdom in the recent past. Indian companies have been actively participating in several trade fairs and exhibitions held in the Kingdom including the recent Saudi Agro Food exhibition. Saudi business groups have also been visiting India. Saudi businessmen/companies have been participating in Reverse-Buyer seller meets organized by some of the Indian export promotion councils in India. To this end, it is important to note that the 5th India-Saudi Joint Business Council is scheduled to be held in India shortly. According to a report published recently, India traditionally enjoys cordial relations and cooperation
with Saudi Arabia. India’s old, historical ties with Saudi Arabia, coupled with increasing imports of oil and gas, growing trade and investment opportunities, and presence of approximately two million Indian workers in the region, are of vital interest to India. India’s economic linkages with Saudi Arabia have increased steadily especially due to growth in oil imports. In fact, Indo-Saudi economic relations have shown remarkable growth with bilateral trade showing a marked increase in the last five years. Indian investments in the Kingdom have risen considerably and according to another report, about $ 2 billion have been invested in over 500 joint ventures so far. Many Indian companies are now operating in/from Saudi Arabia. According to the Saudi Arabian General Investment Authority (SAGIA) Indian entities have intensified their moves to invest in the Kingdom and the six-nation Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) in
recent years. Saudi Arabia is the 45th biggest investor in India with investments from April 2000 to September 2012 amounting to $40.82 million, said the report. There are a number of Indo-Saudi joint ventures or Saudi owned companies in India, in diverse fields such as paper manufacture, chemicals, computer software, granite processing, industrial products and machinery, cement, metallurgical industries, etc. Saudi companies are also looking at India as an attractive investment destination. There are opportunities for Indian businessmen and companies in sectors like construction industry, petrochemicals and health & pharmaceuticals in Saudi Arabia. Similarly, attractive opportunities are there for Saudi businessmen and companies in sectors like infrastructure and real estate in India. In recent times, the number of Saudi businessmen and delegations visiting India has grown substan-
tially, indicating a growing interest in emerging business opportunities in India. Correspondingly, a large number of Indian trade and industry delegations have visited Saudi Arabia to explore the immense opportunities. These delegations received warm and enthusiastic response from the Saudi business community as stated above. Saudi Arabia and India have established a number of institutional mechanisms also for bilateral economic cooperation. Earlier, the two countries had signed the Bilateral Investment Protection and Promotion Agreement (BIPPA) and Double Taxation Avoidance Agreement (DTAA) during the historic visit of King Abdullah to India in January 2006. As far as exports and imports are concerned, Saudi Arabia is the largest suppliers of crude oil to India, accounting for almost one-fifth of its needs. The import of crude oil by India forms a major component of bilateral trade with Saudi Arabia. Since the 1990s, India's economic liberalization has helped bolster trade with Saudi Arabia, which annually supplies to India nearly 175 million barrels of crude oil. Saudi Arabia is the 14th largest market in the world for Indian exports and is destination of more than 1.86 percent of India’s global exports. Both nations are expected to expand trade and cooperation and joint ventures in telecommunications, pharmaceuticals, health services, information technology, biotechnology, agriculture, construction projects, energy and financial services. India has agreed to set up institutes of higher education and research, provide educational opportunities in India for Saudi students. Referring to the growth in investment, the report said that progressive growth has been observed between the countries in bilateral investment after the liberalization policy of India in 1991. Indian firms have shown their complementary interest in Saudi market following new Saudi laws and processing of joint venture projects or wholly owned subsidiaries receiving a boost in the Kingdom. SAGIA has issued 426 licenses to Indian companies for joint ventures till 2010. Several Indian companies have established collaborations with Saudi companies and are working in the Kingdom in the areas of designing, consultancy, financial services and software development.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
18 RIYADH: GHAZANFAR ALI KHAN arab news staff
INDIA is a land of contrasts, with pristine beaches, mountains, fertile valleys, rainforest and desert. It caters to almost every conceivable type of vacation, including nature and ecotourism, adventure tourism, beach tourism and cultural tourism. India’s rich history and its cultural and geographical diversity make its international tourism appeal unique and attractive for every one — men, women and children of any country, any religion, any creed. It presents heritage and cultural tourism along with medical, business, marine and sports tourism besides a huge entertainment industry. India captures the heart of its global visitors and mesmerizes them with its natural beauty, colorful festivals, exotic beaches and architectural splendor. India also has one of the largest and fastest growing medical tourism sectors. On the other hand, India is a colorful tourist destination offering the best tourism experience to the visitors in terms of countless cultural, spiritual and travel experiences. The travel and tourism industry in India is almost three times bigger than the size of automotive manufacturing industry, and generates more jobs than several other sectors. In fact, improvements on accessibility and infrastructure, air and road connectively, professionally trained human resources, range of tourism product options and a focused marketing campaign under the banner “Incredible India” has helped the country achieve a tourism growth of 8.1 percent in terms of both volume and value in 2012. This is according to new research from the World Travel & Tourism Council (WTTC) sponsored by American Express, released recently. The research, undertaken by Oxford Economics, shows that the sector’s direct contribution to India’s GDP is very substantial. Travel and tourism’s total contri-
India beckons:
Land of contrasts gears up to become a year-round destination
bution — including direct, indirect and induced impacts — to GDP in India was around 6.4 percent of the total GDP. This compares to 3.3 percent for automotive manufacturing, 4.5 percent for education and 3.7 percent for the mining industry. Supporting 39 million direct, indirect and induced jobs in India, travel & tourism sector generates more jobs than the mining industry and communications services. The travel and tourism sector is a significant source of export revenue for India. In 2011, the total foreign tourist arrivals in India were 6.29 million and foreign exchange earnings stood at $ 17 billion (Global rank 17) — up 17.6 percent from previous year figure of $ 14 billion (5.58 mil-
lion FTAs in 2010). India’s foreign exchange earnings grew by an astonishing 14.1 percent (CAGR) during 2001-10 outpacing global average of 7.7 percent. Owing to a steady decade-long growth, India’s share in world foreign exchange earnings have gone up from 0.64 percent in 2002 to about 1.72 percent in 2011. The Gulf and the Middle East is an important market for India with over 250,000 tourists visiting India, with Saudi Arabia contributing more than 26,000 Saudi tourists in 2011. This is mainly because India has to offer everything for everyone. India has been promoting and projecting itself as a destination for history, culture and architecture. It has something for every age
group, every sort of interest varying from wildlife, cuisine, shopping, leisure, adventure tourism, beaches holiday or luxury stays, wellness or Spa experience, river cruising, backwater experience, living in rural areas or experiencing India’s rural life. There are several ways to explore India. One can travel by road or train and get to see the life of majority of the people who live in villages or one has the choice to travel in private jets or domestic airlines. India is not a country one can see in a week, two weeks or two months. Some people say that it can take a couple of years to a lifetime to see and experience India. There are very many ways to experience India, which also has many niche tourism areas
which attract people who are interested in a particular activity. One of the important and popular travel circuits of North India is called the “Golden Triangle Circuit” which involves the cities of Delhi, Agra and Jaipur. Delhi is the capital city full of energy and color with the old and the new, thronging bazaars and Mughal architecture with a combination of wide boulevards and narrow lanes. It is an old historic yet a modern city with a number of tourist attractions viz. the Red Fort, the Jama Masjid (the largest mosque in India), the Qutub Minar complex with its soaring tower, India Gate, Lodhi Gardens, the Lotus Temples, Humayun’s Tomb etc. Jaipur is a city in the desert State of Rajasthan. The
city has beautiful and majestic hill forts and palaces and is known as the Pink City because of the color of the stone used extensively in the walled city, Jaipur’s bazaars sell embroidered leather shoes, blue pottery, tie and dye scarves and other exotic wares. Western Rajasthan itself forms a convenient circuit, in the heart of the Thar desert that has shaped its history, lifestyle and architecture. On the other side, Agra, the city of the inimitable Taj Mahal is now an educational and business centre known for its craftsmen and handicrafts, Marble and soft stone inlay work, carpet and leather goods are some important traditional crafts of the city. Besides the Taj Mahal, Agra has the Agra Fort, Sikandra, Ram Bagh and Itmad-ud-
Daulah, and 35 km away is Fatehpur Sikri, the imperial ruins of the Mughal city. Agra and Fatehpur Sikri are not merely rich legacies of Mughal History — they are the finest examples of architecture which combined Hindu and Muslim elements. To this end, it is important to note that traveling by road from New Delhi to Agra is a luxury. A brand new world class multi-lane road has been constructed for the luxury of motorists. Now with this new Delhi-Agra Expressway, the distance between the two cities is reduced to 165 km that can be easily covered in around two hours. Another important highlight is the polo tourism. The game of polo originated in Rajasthan, a desert state of India. People from the Middle East love horses and take pride in their steeds and stables. In India, there is a rare breed of horses called the “Marwari Horses” from the Jodhpur region of Rajasthan which are a great attraction for the horse lovers. Polo in India is of two types: The Horse Polo and the Elephant Polo. For fun, there is also the Camel Polo, which might be of interest to the tourists from the Gulf region. Normally tournaments are held from October to February/March. This time of the year it is not too hot for an outdoor game of polo. Apart from this, there are lots of demonstration matches, which people like to see. Incidentally, the oldest world polo club is in India. The Maharaja of Jaipur Polo Championship attracts people to the area and promotes the game. People from Saudi Arabia can experience the monsoon rains or visit the hill stations located all over India. Most of the high peaks of the world are in the Himalayan mountain ranges which traverse from north to eastern part of the country. These mountains are snow-capped during winter, while in summer they are beautiful, lush green and good for soft adventure like river rafting, white water rafting, mountain climbing or just trekking and walking.
Saturday, January 26, 2013
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Direct Benefits Transfer Scheme to help millions of the poor G. Srinivasan
India’s supremacy in the frontier area of information technology (IT) and how it leveraged this vantage position to carve out a niche for itself in the global software services business have now been universally known and acknowledged. But what is not so widely known is the unobtrusive use of this technological tool in transforming governance in India. This is borne out by a bunch of e-governance initiatives at the Central and sub-national (state) level. Due stress is now being devoted to the harnessing of ICTs (Information and Communication Technologies) for improving efficiency, competitiveness and delivery of social welfare programs the government administers to make a durable dent on poverty and deprivations, the twin maladies which afflict legions of poor across the country. Exactly seven years ago a national e-governance program was approved, with a vision to provide public services to citizens at affordable cost. A major move was the setting up of the Unique Identification
Authority to issue identification numbers (Aadhaar) for all Indian citizens. This program is fastened on the firm belief that ICT-induced development gains in areas such as health, education and governance and small and micro business creation and expansion are too good to be gainsaid. Even as the move to confer every resident with an Aadhaar number (based on biometrics i.e. their unique fingerprints) that would be linked to their bank account has been progressing in a phased manner, the government has come out with the Direct Benefits Transfer (DBT) strategy to provide direct benefits to the poor availing various social entitlement schemes. The DBT aims to ensure that entitlements and benefits to people could be made over directly to them through biometrics-based Aadhaarlinked bank accounts, thus pruning a plethora of intermediaries, choking points of leakage and delays in the system of delivery to the eventual beneficiary. DBT is only a new dispensation and is not a new scheme as it aims at making the payments under existing government or public good schemes
The DBT aims to ensure that entitlements and benefits to people could be made over directly to them through biometrics-based Aadhaar-linked bank accounts.
— such as pensions for elderly/widows/differently-abled, scholarships for students, Mahatma Gandhi National Rural Employment Guarantee Act (MGNREA) wages for millions, payments to ASHA and Anganwadi workers under National Health Schemes — reach people faster and more efficiently. In what genuine ways the new system would help the common man (or aam aadmi) foremost is that the Aadhaar and the use of biometrics would ensure that the right person gets the payment. It will also address the problem of “duplicates” i.e. the
same person getting the benefit more than once and “ghosts” i.e. a nonexistent or fake person getting the benefit are duly addressed. Second, it will ensure that the money reaches the beneficiaries directly, on time and in full amount. This is particularly a matter of immense relief to innumerable pensioners under social welfare benefit scheme because social pensions reach the beneficiary once every four-six months in many parts of the country could now reach the beneficiary bank account on the first of every month.
Third, it will further ensure that money reaches the doorstep of the beneficiary, thanks to a vast network of business correspondents (BCs) on the ground with micro ATMs would allow payments to be made contiguous to where people live — in grocery stores, in Panchayat (local government) offices, in schools, at home— and not only at bank branches, ensuring that the poor get the service akin to the rich and middle-class in the country receive. As any system of this gigantic dimension entails teething troubles at the inception, the government has
proposed to move ahead only gradually and with extreme caution. Hence it proposed a modest beginning encompassing roughly 34 schemes — largely scholarships, pensions and other benefit payments — in 43 districts as a pilot project. This was launched on Jan. 1 in a phased manner, and based on the learning and empirical data from the ground the program will be expanded later. The government is addressing mobile connectivity in backward areas which is important for authentication of beneficiaries by adding more mobile towers in those districts
and through the ambitious government programs of taking broad band Internet connectivity to every Panchayat within two years. Alongside, the post office network (a key payment channel especially for pensions and MGNREGA payments) is also being modernized with the postal department committing to upgrading to a Core Banking Solutions (CBS) system across all its post offices within 18 months. (G. Srinivasan is a deputy editor for Frontline magazine, New Delhi)
Saturday, January 26, 2013
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India steps up space program with Mars mission RIYADH: GHAZANFAR ALI KHAN arab news staff
India is stepping up its space program with a higher budget, the launch of a new satellite and a proposed mission to Mars. The country’s space agency will attempt 10 space missions by November 2013, bringing its total budget to $ 1.3 billion. The 3,400-kg GSAT-10 communication satellite — the heaviest ever built by India — was launched recently aboard an Ariane-5 rocket. The satellite aims to be fully operational by November, and has a 15-year lifespan. The GSAT-10 will boost telecommunications, direct-to-home and radio navigation services by adding 30 much-needed transponders to the country’s current capacity. India is currently leasing foreign transponders to meet domestic demand. In a recent press conference, Chairman of Indian Space Research Organization (ISRO) Dr K. Radhakrishnan said that “India has unmatched skills in space technology and knowhow and it has plans to launch 10 missions in a year.” “With the first launch a success, the ISRO faces a hectic schedule for the next year, with 9 more missions on the agenda,” said the ISRO chief. The most high-profile event is the launch of an orbiter to Mars, slated for November 2013, which aims to collect data on Martian methane sources. The ISRO timed the mission to coincide with a window where the planet’s orbit brings it closest to Earth. India intends to complete the mission with no international assistance, as a means to demonstrate the growth of the ISRO. “At the moment, we plan to do it on our own,” ISRO chief K. Radhakrishnan said. After its successful unmanned Chandrayaan mission to the Moon in 2008, which brought back the first-ever clinching evidence of the presence of water there, India is now eyeing the Mars with firm plan and full conviction. The unmanned satellite, Mangalyaan, will study the thin Martian atmosphere and will take eight months to reach the distant planet. The first model of the Mangalyaan was unveiled at the Indian Science Congress in the India’s eastern city of Kolkata recently. The mission will be launched from Sriharikota using the workhorse rocket, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle (PSLV). There is deep strategic importance to the mission. Former President APJ Abdul Kalam underlined the importance of the project by saying, “Mars is international property, all the planets belong to the international community.” In fact, ISRO calls this small orbiting mission a technology demonstration project — the 1350 kilogram satellite will announce to the world that India has the capability to reach as far away as Mars. ISRO’s leading scientist, Professor J N
Indian Space Research Organization Headquarters in Bangalore.
Goswami, said: “The mission is getting on, and the engineering models are ready; the main Mars exploration instruments will be delivered by March-April and later they will be flown using the PSLV some time in October-November.” Critics of the mission, however, believe the government is being profligate. “We have heard these arguments since the 1960s about India being a poor country, not needing or affording a space program. If we can’t dare dream big it would leave us as hewers of wood and drawers of water! India is today too big to be just living on the fringes of high technology,” said an ISRO scientist in a report published recently. The government says the satellite which will be placed in an orbit around Mars will be able to carry nearly 25 kg of scientific payload on board. According to ISRO, the tentative objectives of the mission will be to focus on remotely assessing “life, climate, geology, origin and evolution and sustainability of life on the planet.” This is
technology demonstration project, a mission that will announce to the world that India has the capability to reach as far away as Mars, the scientist added. Since 1960, there have been 44 missions to Mars with just about half of them being successful despite attempts made by mighty nations and blocs like the former USSR and Russia, the US, Europe, Japan and China. The first Chinese mission to Mars called Yinghuo-1 failed in 2011 alongside the Russian Phobos-Grunt mission with which it was launched. Some believe that India is trying to march ahead in what has been described as the “Asian Space Race,” but this is not the case. In fact, India also has the ambitious goal of sending a manned mission to space by 2016, which will be a huge step for the country, but may also prove difficult to implement in the limited timeframe. India has four years left, which is not a long time. However, the country has the chance to adapt what has already been developed by Russia, China and US. It is important to note that
the ISRO has grown into one of the world’s top six space programs since its inauguration. “The first 50 missions took 27 years, the next 50 took place in the last 10 years and the next 58 missions will happen in the next five years,” Radhakrishnan said, in a report published recently. Though its budget is less than one-tenth that of NASA’s, ISRO has increased every year since the early 2000s, jumping from $ 591 million in 2004-05, to $ 1.3 billion in 2012-13. However, India’s space ambitions have been met with a mixed response among the domestic population. The mission to Mars drew some criticism for its high costs in the midst of an economic downturn, but the plan has got the green light. This has encouraged the India’s science community to further boost their efforts. “In fact, India is a country which works on different levels,” Krishan Lal, President of the Indian National Science Academy, said in the same report. “On the one hand, we have a space mission, on the other a large number of bullock carts,” he said. “You can’t say, remove all the bullock carts and cycles, then move into space … you have to move forward in all directions,” Lal added. The Indian space program began in 1962. In 1969, the ISRO was set up with headquarters in the Indian city of Bangalore for the purpose of rapid development in space technology and its application. In 1972, the space commission was established. In 1975, India launched its first satellite, Aryabhatta, and thus entered the space age. Over the last two and half decades, the Indian space program has made impressive progress through a well integrated, self-reliant program. Its main objectives include mass communication and education via satellite, survey and management of natural resources through remote sensing technology, environmental monitoring and meteorological forecasting and development of indigenous satellites and satellite launch vehicles. It is important to note here that India’s space program celebrated the historic milestone in September last year after successfully launching its 100th space mission. The ISRO put a French satellite and Japanese micro-satellite into polar orbit aboard its PSLV. The mission’s payload included SPOT 6, an observation satellite from France’s space agency (CNES), and Proiteres, a 15-kg microsatellite built by students and faculty at Japan’s Osaka Institute of Technology (OIT). Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, an early proponent of India’s space program, witnessed the launch and congratulated ISRO scientists and engineers as well as personnel from France and Japan for the successful launch of their satellites.
Ashok Leyland conquers market JEDDAH: ARAB NEWS
Western Auto, known for quality transport solutions in the Kingdom, is a member of ETA Star conglomerate with its headquarters in Dubai. It is the exclusive distributor of the state-of-the-art Ashok Leyland range of commercial vehicles in the Kingdom. Western Auto has set up fullfledged workshops to assist and service any requirement of the fleets, supported by efficient and well-trained technicians. Across the Kingdom, Ashok Leyland buses and trucks have conquered the quality conscious global market. Ashok Leyland, founded in 1914 has diversified operations in 20 countries. It is known for technological leadership and has a strong reputation for product reliability.
HAPPY REPUBLIC DAY While I join all Indians in Saudi Arabia and other parts of the world in their celebration of Republic Day, I take the opportunity to congratulate Dr. Mohammed Rabeeulla, Chairman of Shifa Al-Jazeera Medical Group for receiving Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award from the Indian government in appreciation of his great contributions for the progress and prosperity of the Indian community.
Congrats to Dr. Mohammed Rabeeulla For Winning Pravasi Bharatiya Samman Award As a close friend of Dr. Rabeeulla I am very happy to see him receiving the prestigious award from Mr. Pranab Mukherjee, the President of India. Dr. Rabeeulla is not only a successful Indian businessman, who made health services affordable to people in the Gulf, but also a great philanthropist well known for his commendable humanitarian activities.
Ali Al-Sulami
Saturday, January 26, 2013
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Indian economy poised for takeoff, growth robust T K ARUN
Many articles have been written on India’s growth potential, following the slowdown in economic momentum in the last couple of years. This is myopic as the Indian growth remains robust; and the economic growth rate is likely to accelerate from 2012-13 onwards. Before the global financial crisis of 2008, the Indian economy had been growing at well over 9 percent. The growth rate slipped to 6.7 percent in 2007-08, but recovered swiftly to 8.4 percent in 2008-09 and stayed at that level the following year as well. Since then, growth has declined to 6.5 percent in 2011-12 and likely 6 percent in the current fiscal year that will conclude in March 2013. You cannot blame an external observer for concluding that Indians have hobbled in their rope trick gone wrong and it is better to wait and watch, if not keep off. But those who let appearance overwhelm their appreciation of the reality are likely to miss the strongest growth story of the next two decades. The government’s announcement in September last year of a slew of reform measures, allowing foreign investment in multi-brand retail (single-brand retail had already been opened up, although with conditions that are gradually being diluted), allowing foreign airlines to invest up to 49 percent in Indian airlines, raising the
foreign investment cap in insurance to 49 percent, opening up some forms of distributing telecast signals to foreign capital, etc. Hopefully, this could well be the turning point for the economy. Not so much because these decisions in themselves break dramatic new ground, but because it signalled political decisiveness, key for India to break her shackles of policymaking inertia. India has had minority or coalition governments continuously since 1989, except for a brief two-and-a-half years early in the ’90s. Therefore, making policy has been a function of not just reformist intent but of political management of coalitions as well. In this area, the present government had been seen as having a deficit bigger than the fiscal deficit. But the September reforms signalled boldness: A key ally with the second largest contingent of legislators in Parliament broke off in protest at opening up retail and left the ruling coalition but the political leadership was prepared for that exit and roped in external support. The government has been taking a number of measures that require considerable political courage. It has auctioned telecom spectrum, passed reforms to banking regulations that will allow the central bank, which also functions as the banking regulator, to issue new licences, initiated a system of direct cash transfer of subsidies and increased the prices of petroleum fuels, in order to reduce
the subsidy burden on the fisc. The expectation is that more reforms would be announced when the annual budget is presented on the last day of February. While this much is evident to anyone who follows the news on India, there are a few changes in the political economy that receive little attention but have enormous significance for accelerating growth. The most important change is that in elections to the states (India has 28 provinces with their own elected governments), the people have made it clear that they are no longer content with empty promises or mere offer of voice and identity, as they had been in the past. Leaders are expected to deliver governance and development. Those who rise to this expectation are rewarded with another term in office, and those who do not are voted out. Politics in India has traditionally been a matter of patronage. The new political economy is forcing the leaders to think of building expressways, new towns, forging policies for releasing land for industry and make schools teach and staff hospitals. Every major state now holds annual investor meets to draw in foreign investment. The mass upheaval over corruption is forcing the system to adopt unprecedented transparency in the allocation of natural resources. A new mining bill in the works will adopt transparent auctions for mines. Pressures are
mounting to dilute, if not scrap, public monopoly in coal mining, which has been a major factor in the shortage of fuel that has been keeping 50,000 MW of power generation capacity idle in the country. A new ruling by a central appellate tribunal now ensures that every state level electricity regulator would revise power tariffs at least once every year. Refusal by these regulators to pass on the higher cost of imported coal has been one reason behind the fuel shortage in the power sector. The good news is that India today has 50,000 MW of idle capacity. In the absence of enough power to supply rural areas in the daytime (power is despatched for a few hours at night so that farmers can run their pumps for irrigation) has meant that very little rural industry has been possible till now. Once the fuel shortage has been sorted out, rural India would be ripe for structural diversification, new agro processing industry absorbing underemployed manpower and farmers gaining from new climatecontrolled warehouses and better prices through local procurement by local industry for local processing. Stateowned Bharat Broadband Corporation is busy rolling out fibre-optic cable to 250,000 large villages (India has a little over 600,000 villages in total). ( T K Arun is the Editor, Opinion, at The Economic Times, New Delhi)
IITs producing India’s techno leaders RIYADH: GHAZANFAR ALI KHAN arab news staff
What is common among the former CEO of financial powerhouse Citigroup, CEO of Europe’s biggest mobile phone group Vodafone, former managing director of Mckinsey and the promoter of India’s largest listed IT company that has top global corporations as its clients? They are all graduates of the Indian Institutes of Technology — popularly known as IITs. For over five decades, the IITs have quietly produced thousands of engineers, many of whom now occupy the top slots in
the global technology and corporate world. It has indeed been a long journey for the IITs, the center of repute for aspiring engineers, since the first of them opened in 1951 in the small town of Kharagpur in West Bengal in a complex that was a prison during the British Raj. Today the country boasts of seven IITs, which are among India’s growing centers of educational excellence, research and development in science, with six of them being ranked among the top 10 sciences and technology schools in the Asia-Pacific region. The Kharagpur center was followed by IITs in New Delhi, Chennai (for-
merly Madras), Kanpur, Mumbai, Guwahati, — one each in the various regions of the country. One more chapter was added in 2002 by converting a regional engineering college in Roorkee. All of them offer undergraduate and postgraduate degrees. These institutions have received support from Britain, Germany, US and the former Soviet Union. Graduates of the institutes have come to play a prominent role in global business, not just in tech companies. Little wonder then Microsoft chief Bill Gates terms IITs as “unique institutions” that have made their impact worldwide.
“The computer industry has benefited greatly from the tradition of the IITs,” said Gates, in his keynote speech at the 50th anniversary celebrations of the founding of the IITs in California last year. Microsoft and many American companies have been drawing liberally from talent pool of the IITs and there are hundreds of IIT alumni in the US alone. Gates called the IITs and their alumni a “treasure of top rate intellectual resource” for the world. He said if there was one feature of the IITs that he would never want changed was its philosophy of respecting merit above everything else. IIT is of the two institutions that Microsoft funds research. The other institution is Cambridge University in the campus of IIT Delhi. Similarly, IIT Kharagpur does research work in collaboration with multinationals like Motorola, Compaq and Oracle. IIT Kharagpur has announced plans to set up a campus in Silicon Valley. In a country with an abysmal record of primary education and an inefficient and outdated higher education system, these IITs are centers of unmatched educational excellence. Vinod Khosla, an IIT graduate and cofounder of sun Microsystems in the US, teams IITs as toughest schools in the world to get into. “Microsoft, Intel, Sun Microsystems — you name it, I can’t imagine a major area where Indian IIT engineers haven’t played a leading role,” Khosla, who is one of Silicon Valley’s most important venture capitalists, told American television network CBS in its “60 Minutes” program recently. “When I finished IIT Delhi and went to Carnegie Mellon for my master’s, I thought I was cruising all the way through Carnegie Mellon because it was so easy, relative to the education I had gotten at IIT Delhi,” says Khosla. The sparkling alumni roster also include N.R. Narayana Murthy of Infosys Technologies, India’s largest listed software company that writes software codes for top global corporate, Gururaj Deshpandae, the founder of Sycamore Networks, and Suhas Patil, the
IIT building in Madras.
founder of Cirrus Logic, all US-based companies. Rono Dutta, former president of United Airlines, and Victor Menezes, senior vice chairman of Citigroup are also IIT graduates. Carnegie Mellon University in June named Pradeep Khosla, also an IIT graduate, as the new dean to lead its College of Engineering. Khosla, 47, is an internationally renowned Indian American researcher and educator, an expert on robotics and intelligent systems, embedded software and cyber security. “IIT student have done exceedingly well, both in India and abroad. The label IIT encompasses a dedicated faculty, a good ambience, well selected disciplines and peer learning,” said R.S. Agarwal, deputy director of IIT-Delhi. IITs have always been getting the best students, the most brilliant and competitive with a strong will to succeed,” Agarwal said. Hundreds of thousands of IIT graduates migrate to the US every year, many to work in the computer and software industries. According to the CBS television program, one begins to get idea of the status of these premier Indian engineering schools after putting together Harvard, Massachusetts Institute of Technology and Princeton University. IIT holds a proud spot in the country’s history. India’s first Prime Minister Jawaharlal Nehru set up the first IIT campus in 1951 to churn out engineers to build big public works and infrastructure projects. The IIT were “to provide scientists and technologists of the highest caliber to help build the nation towards self-reliance in her technological needs,” Nehru said. The success of IIT graduates in the global marketplace, which has helped the institutes earn the title Millionaire University, inspires a host of school students to appear for the exam every year. With a population of over a billion in India, competition to get into the IIT is ferocious. For a middle-class Indian, a diploma from IIT is a passage to affluence, in India or abroad. The parents start goading their children to prepare for the
admission tests three to five years ahead of the time they become eligible for writing the exam. Only the top students, however, manage to join the millionaires’ honor roll. The 200,000 applicants each year must first pass exam in chemistry, physics and mathematics before they sit for a second set of grueling analytical tests. The 20,000 who make it to the second test stage compete for 3,000 entry spots. Those with highest score get first pick of their major course of study. “ It is like swimming against the tide. If you get there, there must be something in you,” said Y.P. Singh who has spent 41 years in IIT Kharagpur — five years as a student and 36 years as a faculty in the electrical engineering department. “The admission test of IIT is so tough that after clearing the exam you know how to work hard and achieve what you want to achieve all through your life,” Singh added. Agrees Y.P.S Suri, an alumnus of IIT Kharagpur. “The intense selection process guarantees that those admitted to the institute are smart and hardworking. Then the boot-camp atmosphere toughens them for business battle. “Most IITians don’t have a problem dealing with cutthroat global corporate competition after going through the grind in IIT,” said the 1975-batch mechanical engineering graduate who runs an e-commerce firm in New Delhi. Many an IIT graduate continues higher studies either in IIT or other global prestigious institutes such as Stanford University to improve technical skills. “Our name has huge brand equity in educational institutions everywhere in the world,” says Singh of IIT Kharagpur. Those graduates who head straight to work have plenty of offers. In the US they can command starting salaries of $ 50,000. IBM, Intel, McKinsey, Microsoft and Sun Microsystems have all recruited from the IITs. With a view to emerge as global centers of excellence, the IITs are now set to widen their horizons.