terror strikes Bangaluru

The mask of terrorist as freedom fighter & pious religious persons dropped when a terrorist opened fire on the participants of an international seminar in Indian Institute Of Science, Bangalore on 28th December 2005. These academics are experts on operations research and among the most harmless creatures on the earth. The person who died on the spot , Dr Puri , 65 years old, was a retired professor in Mathematics from IIT, Delhi.

Mindless violence or continuation of the strategy to cripple Indian economy by proxy war?
(http://sify.com/news/fullstory.php?id=14085687)

India may become engineering sourcing hub

Global engineering companies such as Siemens, Cummins, ABB, Aker Kværner, Wartsila, Alfa Laval and SKF are planning to increase their sourcing of engineering equipment and services from India three-four times from the current level in the next three years. The companies will eventually make India their components and services sourcing hub for the global markets. The objective is to save costs by transferring operations to countries like India and China without compromising on the quality.
Going by the strategy, ABB plans to source high-voltage circuit breakers, medium-voltage outdoor circuit breakers and magnetic actuators from India in a big way. Meanwhile, SKF's application development centre for two-wheelers and Bangalore's automotive market is being built up as a global hub for providing engineering solutions for two-wheelers.The Indian unit has provided solutions to global two-wheeler majors that include Suzuki, Kawasaki and Honda. SKF is also planning to step up the sourcing of bearings from its Indian subsidiary. Anglo-Norwegian engineering firm Aker Kværner has already set up a team, which will work with the group's Indian subsidiary Aker Kværner Power Gas for selecting and obtaining materials and services from the country, said Stan Bogiel, the Aker Kværner group's senior vice-president for global sourcing. "The focus of our global procurement would shift to India and China from the West. This would help us minimise risks without compromising on quality," said Bogiel. Engine maker Cummins is currently examining the feasibility of outsourcing Cummins Inc's back-end jobs ranging from transaction processing to operations in India. Cummins Research and Technology Institute in Pune will play an important role in the group's future products. The institute will significantly cut down the time spent in prototyping and, thus, reduce the time to market for the group. As for Finland-based Wartsila Corporation's focus on India, Banmali Agarwala, managing director, Wartsila India, said, "Wartsila's sourcing from its Indian subsidiary will rise in multiples over the next couple of years." He added: "Wartsila India will provide its parent with equipment and components such as reduction gear boxes used in ships, castings, forgings, switchgears and electrical cables. Manpower within Wartsila India would help in erection of power plants." On the other hand, Alfa Laval India is planning to double the manufacturing capacity of equipment like heat exchangers, separators and fluid-handling equipment and decanters. The Swedish parent Alfa Laval AB will source about half of its Indian arm's production. On a recent visit to India, Siemens President and CEO Klaus Kleinfeld said Siemens India, with 13 manufacturing facilities in the country, is positioned to play a larger role in its parent's operations.
(source :Business Standard: December 19, 2005)

Jail for high tech transfer

Two American defence firms and their executives were sent to jail by an US court for violating US export law. The offence was supply to India a CONTROL PANEL used in a process to manufacture carbon- carbon, a critical component of Agni missile heat shield.
How can “control panel” export to India is a hole in US national security is a mystery baffling many observers.
( The Times of India, 23/11/2005)

Impact of technology import on R&D

Liberalisation of foreign technology import policy in the 1990s has generated a general concern on how high-technology Indian industries have performed in acquiring and strengthening their technological capabilities during the reform period 1991-2001. Read the draft paper of Authors: Pradhan, J.P.; Puttaswamaiah, S.Produced by: Gujarat Institute of Development Research (GIDR), India (2005) Available online at: http://www.eldis.org/cf/rdr/rdr.cfm?doc=DOC20027
The research reveals many interesting facts about the nature and character of technology accumulation in Indian manufacturing of which:
liberalisation of technology import policy does not have any adverse impact on in-house R&D activity in Indian manufacturing vis-a-vis foreign disembodied technology import
the large chunk of technological activity is confined to a small set of industries either in terms of R&D, import of disembodied technology or investment in foreign and domestic capital goods
the investment of Indian manufacturing in accumulating capital goods, foreign as well as domestic, has seen dramatic decline in the 1990s.
Any comments?

India- Hungary R&D partnership

Universities of Hungary , Russia were long recognized for their academic excellence. Their inability to convert research results into billions of dollars , like their counterparts in USA was also well known. A strategic partnering between these universities and Indian IT firms reputed for their global delivery systems in on the drawing boards for last few months. The first to take off is partnership between Hungary’s premier science IT institute MTA SZTAKI and Satyam Computer Services ltd of India, in areas such as grid computing , data mining.

OFFSHORE PRODUCT DEVELOPMENT

Emerging sector in Indian IT space is called outsourcing of Offshore Product Development (OPD). The companies engaged in this space not only develop products for biggies like Microsoft, Oracles, IBM, Siemens or Sharp, they also take up the responsibility of all aspects of the software product life cycle starting from research and development, prototyping, testing, maintenance, support and sometimes give valuable suggestions to their overseas clients about what should be the next version of a product and what the market demands by becoming partners in their business discussion. Their strength is the credibility of the Indian OPD companies in delivering high-end products while at the same time maintaining the safety and security of the Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) overseas. Indian players in the OPD space are Symphony Services, Persistent Systems, Aditi Technologies, Aspire Systems, Aztec and BrickRed.
(newindpress.com, November 7, 2005)

R&D awards

The Department of Scientific and Industrial Research (DSIR) announced winners of the National Awards for outstanding In-house R&D achievements for the year 2005. The winners are(1)Gujsynth, Vapi for development of process for manufacture of 3,5 Dichloro Aniline, (2) IPCL, Vadodara  for development of zeolite based super selective catalyst and process for manufacture of paradiethylbenzene(3) Matrix Laboratories, Secunderabad, for dev of Citalopram & others (4) Sri Biotech, Hyderabad, for dev of new protocol and delivery system for control of diseases and pests in agriculture (5) Transasia Biomedicals Ltd, Mumbai, for dev of fully automatic random access bio-chemistry analyzer XL-600 (6) Maharashtra Stae Seeds corporation ltd, Akola, for dev of pollution free cotton seed delinting plant  (7) SAIL, Ranchi, for dev of low carbon EDD steel (8) Praj Industries ltd, Pune, fro dev of multi-feed ethanol production process (9) Relaince Industries, Surat, for absorption of NG3 technology imported from E.I.Dupont (10) BEL, Bangalore fro dev of battle field survelliellance radar and (11) Rasi seeds, Attur.for dev of transgenic Bt cotton hybrids. See:  http://www.dsir.gov.in

New mantra for innovation

New mantra for innovation

What is new ? The new mantra for global innovation is , design in India and manufacture in China. Several MNCs like Motorola have tried this model and apparently benefited from it. Read more   in Business Week online special – China and India:
http://www.businessweek.com/magazine/toc/05_34/B3948chinaindia.htm

Discovery of India

Discovery of India by Warburg Pincus
Private equity investor Warburg, which invested nearly $300 million in Bharti between 1999 and 2001, walked away with a profit of $800 million from selling two-thirds of its holdings. At Bharti's current share prices, Warburg's remaining 6% stake in the company is worth some $700 million, or more than twice what it originally invested.
Warburg is the largest private equity investor in India by far, having ploughed $811 million into the country as of mid-2005.  This amount is more than twice the $362 million Warburg has invested in China, according to data provided by the National Venture Capital Association in Arlington, Va. And the investment in India generated returns in "the mid-30s over 10 years," making it most attractive place in invest. As for that vaunted Indian bureaucracy, Warburg repatriated its profits in 48 hours.
Read the story of riches : http://knowledge.wharton.upenn.edu/article/1305.cfm

R&D investment

Why payout is better for R&D investment in India?

Indian drug firms like Ranbaxy, Reddy Labs debunked the notion that new molecule discovery needs a billion dollar . This is not an isolated event is proved by research carried out at Booz Allen Hamilton, which concluded that new players in India and China with a set of different innovation effectiveness curves , need lesser resources to produce similar results than long established MNCs based in Europe, USA. The laws of diminishing returns had already set in for those MNC firms.
Read: http://www.strategy-business.com/media/file/rr00007.pdf

THE WORLD FOOD PRIZE

THE WORLD FOOD PRIZE (2005)
Dr. Modadugu Vijay Gupta , an Indian scientist, has been named winner of the $250,000 World Food Prize for his work to enhance nutrition for over one million people, mostly very poor women, through the expansion of aquaculture and fish farming in South and Southeast Asia and Africa.  He pioneered the development and dissemination of low-cost techniques for freshwater fish farming by the rural poor, providing farmers and their families with a nutritious food source they had not previously had. Dr. Gupta’s pioneering breeding of carp and other pond fish adaptable to a variety of  different environments in rural areas—from Bangladesh to the Mekong Basin countries—combined with his tenacious efforts to help millions of small-holder farmers gain access to innovative aquaculture techniques to produce a vital supply of nutritious food brought a “Blue Revolution” to Southeast Asia and beyond.
Click on the links below for more details:
http://www.worldfoodprize.org/Laureates/05Laureate/index.htm

Technology for entrepreneurs

Biopesticide technology

The Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT), Hyderabad developed a process for biopesticide formulation (10,000 ppm) from the seeds of custard apple and karanja. This technology developed at one kg batch process has been transferred to one small scale industry and is available for transfer to other entrepreneurs. Any takers?

Venture capital

Mature capital
Venture capital may soon be called mature capital, as a recent report found that smaller startup companies are seeing less VC funding than more established companies. The report came from a joint United States Department of Commerce and European Commission working group on venture capital. The findings call for more public sector and policy maker involvement in the VC process.
“Small firms need investment capital but the market has failed to provide it — public sector support is needed,” the report stated. “The work of the group confirmed that there is a fundamental market failure in the provision of early-stage financing in both the U.S. and the EU. Venture capital funds are concentrating on larger and larger deals, leaving the small and risky early-stage deals aside.”
That is due to the more attractive returns and lower risks that come with later-stage investments in more established firms and in buyouts of larger companies, the report said, warning that this can become a self-reinforcing cycle.
“Because few venture capital funds are active in the seed and early stage area, they don’t have any longer the necessary knowledge to operate there. The few remaining seed funds and the business angel investors cannot by themselves cover the demand for equity investments. The recognized benefits from the birth and growth of innovative small firms to the economies are such that public sector measures are justified to overcome this market failure in seed and early stage investments.”
Overall, the working group believes the VC industry is healthy, reporting recent total VC investment in the U.S. was $20.5 billion and in Europe $13.4 billion. Nevertheless, the report concluded that: “The discussions made it clear that each country needs to develop its own approach to venture capital, suitable to its market conditions. The policy goal, however, is common: providing growing companies with the benefit of large liquid venture capital markets.”
The joint report calls for three action items to correct the current situation. First, policy cooperation on venture capital on a cross continent basis. “Leading players are competing globally for funds and investing where return potential is high. The benefits for economic growth that venture capital brings make it essential that policy-makers recognize impediments, like administrative regulations about establishment and taxation rules, to venture investment and take action to facilitate cross-border investments. This policy process should take place in a global context, learning from best practices irrespective of their provenance.”
The U.S./EC’s second recommendation is a VC handbook for policy makers. Hopes for the handbook are that it would be forward-looking in nature, pointing to industry trends and penitential opportunities, helping to buck the cyclical venture capital industry.
And the third action item noted in the report is a resource center for policies on venture capital to facilitate VC investments and to spread information about investment conditions. To do so, the report’s parties believe that the VC industry and the public sector could cooperate to provide information about the prevailing rules, regulations and documents on venture capital on a country-by-country basis.
(Source: VC Seed Money on the Down Slope, By Suzanne Deffree -- 10/10/2005, Electronic News)

Globalization

Globalization Is Changing the Ways Which Companies Can Create Value
While some companies are already enjoying the fruits of globalization – e.g., Israel-based Teva in pharmaceuticals, India's Infosys in information technology, and Rolls-Royce in engines and turbines – most others are a couple of years behind the globalization curve, according to Adrian Slywotzky, a director of Mercer Management Consulting. Slywotzky points out that although many managers know that building a global business model is fundamental to success, they're not yet clear how it matters, how dangerous it can be, and how big the upside could be.
Globalization is no longer an extrapolation of the experience of the past 40 years in textiles, apparel, steel, electronics, and so on, Slywotzky says. Nor is it just about low costs, outsourcing, or engineers in India and China. The real opportunities, he says, lie in the proliferation of ways to design a better business – ways to source, create new customer segments, collaborate with other firms, and carry out innovation. "Globalization makes strong business models stronger," he says. "At the same time, it makes weak business models weaker, what with more competition, less differentiation, more risks, and greater disconnect from customers. And it will create more no-profit zones for companies and even entire industries." Mercer's research has uncovered several globalization trends that are having the greatest impact on companies.
First, new competitors are combining low cost and high technology to build market share very quickly. Apex, a Chinese manufacturer, sold its first DVD player in 2000, focusing on low price and special features as well as building relationships with major retailers such as Circuit City. Just two years later, Apex surpassed Sony to become the U.S. market share leader.
Second, the traditional sources of strategic control that protect profits from poaching by competitors – such as patent, brand, manufacturing scale, access to talent, and a two-year lead – will erode or disappear. Slywotzky maintains that companies must find and create new sources of strategic control, possibly in their ability to synchronize their activities super-efficiently or in creating a culture that retains and motivates the best and brightest.
Third, determining the right mix of common and custom business designs, products, and brands will become critical. Globalization involves greater heterogeneity (different income pyramids and customer priorities in each geography), plus greater complexity (different infrastructure such as telecommunications networks, highways, and distribution channels) multiplied over many more customer segments. Slywotzky comments: "Customize too much, and a firm will go broke. Too little, and nobody will buy – so the firm will also go broke. Customize in the wrong places, and it will go broke even more quickly."Finally, the areas where companies can create value are changing on a global economic stage, moving away from the traditional activity chain. For many established players, there will be three fundamental routes to add value:

• Customer connections – understanding and addressing local customer priorities more deeply than competitors do, as Lever does in India.


• A proprietary information chain – that is parallel to and governs the activity chain-better data (on customers, supply, service, and technology) combined with better application systems and a culture that knows how to use them.


• Science and innovation – -particularly customer-relevant innovation. Half the employees at telecom equipment maker Huawei work in development, many on the customer's site. Slywotzky argues that companies will have to step up the pace of university alliances and global talent sourcing, while inventing new ways to protect their intellectual capital in the process.

Because the global world is a riskier world, it will be harder for established players to protect their business, Slywotzky says. "Globalization will turn established companies into start-ups again, with no cushion from yesterday's success, just a focus on creating new success tomorrow," he concludes.
Adrian Slywotzky is based in the firm's Boston office and can be reached at 617-424-3200 or Adrian.Slywotzky@mercermc.com.

Technology for Women

Technology for Women

Government of India, Department of Scientific and Industrial Research, started a new program “ Technology Development & Utilisation Programme for Women”.  Under this program , grants will provided for promoting adoption of new technologies by women and skill up-gradation of women entrepreneurs.
Interested, mail to srv@nic.in for details.

Kauffman Fellows Program

Kauffman Fellows Program

Want to work in a Venture Capital firm? The Kauffman Fellows Program has been grooming the future leaders of top-tier venture capital firms and venture-backed businesses since 1994. It is one of the few in this category.
Interested? See their web site : http://www.kauffmanfellows.org/kfp/index.asp

Incentives for research

Incentives for scientific research under Income tax Act

Ministry of Finance , Government of India, has set up a committee to look into the incentives/ deductions under income tax rules and evolve ideas for more focused spending on genuine research activity. Dr R A Mashelkar, Secretary, DSIR is the chairman of this committee. The committee has to submit its report by end of November 2005.

Any suggestions?

Goverdhan Mehta

Goverdhan Mehta
Noted scientist Goverdhan Mehta has been honoured with the Chevalier de la Legion d'Honneur (Knight of the Legion of Honour) award by the French government. French Ambassador to India Dominique Girard will confer the award on Mehta, the former Director of the Indian Institute of Science, at a function in New Delhi Tuesday, a French embassy release said. Mehta has been honoured with the award "in recognition of his talents and major contribution to Indo-French ties", it said.
During his tenure at the IISc, the Indo-French cyber university based on the cutting edge satellite technology was set up between the institute and Toulouse. The Indo-French scientific collaboration reached a new high during his stint at the IISc and several projects in Mehta's area of specialisation -- Organic Synthesis and Solid State Chemistry -- were initiated by the institutes in the two countries.

Creativity Technique

Creativity Techniques - How to get going when ideas get stuck! By Matthias Groh, PMP
Have you been in project situations that appeared non-resolvable? Have you struggled to find ways to solve some of the seemingly difficult problems? Have you found yourself at a point during a project's life cycle from where you had no idea how to proceed? You are not alone! Schedule constraints, resource conflicts, scope changes, etc. can often leave people thinking that there's no way out. But you need to find a way, a smart and quick way to proceed in your project in these situations. This is where creativity techniques come to play. Creativity techniques can help free the mind and enable you to come up with real innovative solutions. Read more :
http://www.allpm.com/modules.php?op=modload&name=News&file=article&sid=1440

Long Afterglow Luminescent powder

Long Afterglow Luminescent Powder
Long decay phosphors is capable of emitting light in the visible range not only during excitation but also for a long period of time after excitation is cut off. National Physical Laboratory (NPL) , New Delhi developed this long decay phosphor powder which can be processed into different media and used in variety of applications like sports equipment, toys, warning signs, escape routes .