Article from BBC
Ultra-thin TV to hit the market
Sony hopes the screen will re-invigorate its fortunesAn ultra-thin television brighter and crisper than current generation screens will go on sale from Sony in December.
The TV uses organic light-emitting diodes (OLED) to produce the image, resulting in a screen only 3mm thick.
OLED screens are more energy efficient than LCD panels as they do not need a backlight to boost brightness.
But it is difficult and expensive to make large screens using the technology. Sony's first OLED TV costs £850 and has an 11in display.
OLED screens are brighter than LCD panels and also have better contrast ratio - resulting in sharper pictures.
The diodes emit a brilliant white light when attached to an electricity supply and are also being developed for use as replacements to traditional light bulbs.
Colour display
Different organic materials produce different colours and are combined to produce a colour display.
Sony has hailed the new television as a signal of its returning strength as a technology innovator.
"Some people have said attractive products are slow to come at Sony despite its technological strength," said Sony president Ryoji Chubachi at a news conference at its Tokyo headquarters.
I do believe this is a type of technology with very high potential
Katsumi Ihara, Sony
He added: "I want this world's first OLED TV to be the symbol of the revival of Sony's technological prowess.
"I want this to be the flag under which we charge forward to turn the fortunes around."
Other firms are also working on OLED screens - Samsung has shown off a 40-inch TV using the technology - but Sony is the first to market.
"I don't think OLED TVs will replace LCD TVs overnight. But I do believe this is a type of technology with very high potential, something that will come after LCD TVs," said Sony executive deputy president Katsumi Ihara.
The new TV goes on sale in Japan on 1 December. There are no plans for a global launch as yet.
The OLED TV has a lifespan of about 30,000 hours of viewing - half that of Sony's LCD televisions.
Monday, October 01, 2007
Sunday, September 02, 2007
GSLV Launched successfully
Article from "The Hindu" leading Indian newspaper
Another milestone: GSLV-F04 lifts off from the Sriharikota spaceport on Sunday. It put into orbit ISRO’s latest communication satellite INSAT-4CR.
SRIHARIKOTA: The launch of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, GSLV-F04, from here on Sunday turned out to be “a sweet success,” with the launch vehicle injecting the communication satellite, INSAT-4CR, in its pre-determined orbit.
This was the heaviest satellite to be launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), with the INSAT-4CR tilting the scales at 2,130 kg.
It was a remarkable comeback for the ISRO after the failure of the GSLV on July 10, 2006. What added to the success of the latest mission is that it was the third consecutive successful mission this year.
On January 10, the PSLV put in orbit a spacecraft that was brought back to the earth, and on April 23, a pared down version of the PSLV put in orbit Italian satellite Agile.“A fantastic job”
ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair said the ISRO team had done “a fantastic job” after the failure of the GSLV mission in 2006, and appreciated “the precision with which this mission had performed the job.”
Dr. B.N. Suresh, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, described the launch as “a sweet success.”
It showed that the GSLV was a robust vehicle, whose systems performed as expected.
As Mr. Nair described it, “from all points of view, it was a highly dramatic mission.”
The vehicle was scheduled to lift off on September 1. But the heavy downpour on August 26 played spoilsport.
“Every night, clouds would come in from somewhere. … There will be lightning. We lost 40 hours in the countdown sequence.” So the launch was postponed to 4.21 p.m. on September 2.
But 15 seconds before lift-off at 4.21 p.m., there was a problem. The signal related to the readiness of the upper, cryogenic stage did not reach the computer, which takes over the entire launch sequence 12 minutes before lift-off.
So the computer halted the launch. After the problem was addressed, the launch was re-scheduled for 6.20 p.m.
In the twilight hour, the GSLV-F04 shot off from its second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre and rode a ball of flame. All the three stages ignited and jettisoned into the Bay of Bengal on time. Seventeen minutes after lift-off, INSAT-4CR was injected into the geosynchronous transfer orbit at a velocity of 37,000 km an hour.Signal drop-outs
The were other heartbreaking moments. There were signal drop-outs from the tracking stations at Brunei and Biak in Indonesia, and the ISRO lost track of the vehicle. This happened on and off for three and a half minutes. But at the end of 17 minutes, jubilation filled Sriharikota.
While G. Ravindranath was the Mission Director, N. Jayachandran Nair was the Vehicle Director. Prahalada Rao was the Satellite Director.Pat for scientists
PTI reports from New Delhi:
President Pratibha Patil, Vice-President Mohd. Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Sunday congratulated space scientists on the successful launch of communications satellite INSAT-4CR.
Ms. Patil congratulated Indian Space Research Organisation and the scientists involved in the launch of the satellite.
This successful launch further validates the immense economic and strategic importance of the country’s space programme, Mr. Ansari said.
Mr. Singh also congratulated ISRO on successful launch of GSLV-F04, which placed into orbit a communications satellite that is expected to augment Direct-to-Home television service.
Mr. Chatterjee said the successful launch “proves the point that the GSLV is a reliable vehicle.” It also underscores the self-reliance of the country’s space programme, the Speaker said. — PTI
Another milestone: GSLV-F04 lifts off from the Sriharikota spaceport on Sunday. It put into orbit ISRO’s latest communication satellite INSAT-4CR.
SRIHARIKOTA: The launch of the Geosynchronous Satellite Launch Vehicle, GSLV-F04, from here on Sunday turned out to be “a sweet success,” with the launch vehicle injecting the communication satellite, INSAT-4CR, in its pre-determined orbit.
This was the heaviest satellite to be launched by the Indian Space Research Organisation (ISRO), with the INSAT-4CR tilting the scales at 2,130 kg.
It was a remarkable comeback for the ISRO after the failure of the GSLV on July 10, 2006. What added to the success of the latest mission is that it was the third consecutive successful mission this year.
On January 10, the PSLV put in orbit a spacecraft that was brought back to the earth, and on April 23, a pared down version of the PSLV put in orbit Italian satellite Agile.“A fantastic job”
ISRO Chairman G. Madhavan Nair said the ISRO team had done “a fantastic job” after the failure of the GSLV mission in 2006, and appreciated “the precision with which this mission had performed the job.”
Dr. B.N. Suresh, Director, Vikram Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvananthapuram, described the launch as “a sweet success.”
It showed that the GSLV was a robust vehicle, whose systems performed as expected.
As Mr. Nair described it, “from all points of view, it was a highly dramatic mission.”
The vehicle was scheduled to lift off on September 1. But the heavy downpour on August 26 played spoilsport.
“Every night, clouds would come in from somewhere. … There will be lightning. We lost 40 hours in the countdown sequence.” So the launch was postponed to 4.21 p.m. on September 2.
But 15 seconds before lift-off at 4.21 p.m., there was a problem. The signal related to the readiness of the upper, cryogenic stage did not reach the computer, which takes over the entire launch sequence 12 minutes before lift-off.
So the computer halted the launch. After the problem was addressed, the launch was re-scheduled for 6.20 p.m.
In the twilight hour, the GSLV-F04 shot off from its second launch pad at the Satish Dhawan Space Centre and rode a ball of flame. All the three stages ignited and jettisoned into the Bay of Bengal on time. Seventeen minutes after lift-off, INSAT-4CR was injected into the geosynchronous transfer orbit at a velocity of 37,000 km an hour.Signal drop-outs
The were other heartbreaking moments. There were signal drop-outs from the tracking stations at Brunei and Biak in Indonesia, and the ISRO lost track of the vehicle. This happened on and off for three and a half minutes. But at the end of 17 minutes, jubilation filled Sriharikota.
While G. Ravindranath was the Mission Director, N. Jayachandran Nair was the Vehicle Director. Prahalada Rao was the Satellite Director.Pat for scientists
PTI reports from New Delhi:
President Pratibha Patil, Vice-President Mohd. Hamid Ansari, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee on Sunday congratulated space scientists on the successful launch of communications satellite INSAT-4CR.
Ms. Patil congratulated Indian Space Research Organisation and the scientists involved in the launch of the satellite.
This successful launch further validates the immense economic and strategic importance of the country’s space programme, Mr. Ansari said.
Mr. Singh also congratulated ISRO on successful launch of GSLV-F04, which placed into orbit a communications satellite that is expected to augment Direct-to-Home television service.
Mr. Chatterjee said the successful launch “proves the point that the GSLV is a reliable vehicle.” It also underscores the self-reliance of the country’s space programme, the Speaker said. — PTI
Sunday, August 12, 2007
An Eyeopener ...
This is something about conserving old buildings in India. I was talking to my friend who is an architect and she mentioned so many things about the conservational aspects, which was really an eye opener for me and thought I should include it in my information depo. Well am really not sure how this is working in other parts of the world, coz I am not an expert in architectural field :) ( I am sure it is the same)
One of the most unique and valid point which made me think was, how can we conserve old buildings, whether it may be of historical importance or not? Well here is the answer... In countries like India which is high in population, when people tend to construct more new buildings it makes the country more congested (which already is), this results in more environmental calamities. When I say environmental calamities it includes many aspects and would like to mention a few .. for example, if we start constructing new buildings we are going to destroy/eradicate more nature (which includes trees, plants, air flow etc etc), and this causes lots of pollution and as a matter of fact, recently the whole world is talking about Global Warming.
So in order to avoid all the above, her solution or rather her suggestion was to renovate the existing old buildings. By doing this we can achieve three things 1. preserve old buildings and save more space in the country and allow the nature to be at peace. 2. If the old building is of historical importance we don't loose the history/culture (it is always something pleasant to visit a place which has some historical importance). 3. I correlated her thoughts about preserving old buildings with Global Warming, I strongly believe that this will help us save the nature.
When I talked to her it was really an eye opener and I decided to renovate one or two old buildings and preserve it and at the same time help the community to save the nature. So you all can think about it.
Adios..
One of the most unique and valid point which made me think was, how can we conserve old buildings, whether it may be of historical importance or not? Well here is the answer... In countries like India which is high in population, when people tend to construct more new buildings it makes the country more congested (which already is), this results in more environmental calamities. When I say environmental calamities it includes many aspects and would like to mention a few .. for example, if we start constructing new buildings we are going to destroy/eradicate more nature (which includes trees, plants, air flow etc etc), and this causes lots of pollution and as a matter of fact, recently the whole world is talking about Global Warming.
So in order to avoid all the above, her solution or rather her suggestion was to renovate the existing old buildings. By doing this we can achieve three things 1. preserve old buildings and save more space in the country and allow the nature to be at peace. 2. If the old building is of historical importance we don't loose the history/culture (it is always something pleasant to visit a place which has some historical importance). 3. I correlated her thoughts about preserving old buildings with Global Warming, I strongly believe that this will help us save the nature.
When I talked to her it was really an eye opener and I decided to renovate one or two old buildings and preserve it and at the same time help the community to save the nature. So you all can think about it.
Adios..
Friday, August 10, 2007
Best in show: emerging technology
An article from BBC
Here the BBC News website gives a brief rundown of the most innovative and eye-catching.
BYU-BYU
Byu-Byu users blow on to the screen
This aims to add another dimension, namely wind, to communication via video screens.
The system consists of fine-meshed screens that let air pass through them but also display images projected on to them.
The screens are also fitted with 64 sensors that bend when blown upon. Light bounced off tiny mirrors attached to the rear of the sensors lets the system work out where someone is blowing on the screen and how hard.
Sitting beyond the sensors behind are banks of small fans that can send strong or gentle breezes back through any section of the screen.
Masahiro Furukawa, one of the creators of Byu-Byu, said it added a tactile element to video communication. He said it could be used to blow out candles on a birthday cake thousands of miles away or play games such as virtual air hockey.
The name of the project, Byu-Byu, is an onomatopoeic Japanese phrase used to describe a howling wind.
FREQTRIC
Users have a tiny electric current running through their body
This interface aims to add another dimension to computer gaming and musical performances by making success depend on touching other players or artists.
At the heart of Freqtric are game controllers that, via a steel plate on their underside, trickle a small electric current through a player's body.
Sensors in the controller spot when this current is disrupted when they are touched by another player.
Tetsuaki Baba, creator of Freqtric and a student in the graduate school of design at Kyushu University, said touch could be put to different uses in a game. Shooting an opponent, for example, could be made to depend on touching them, he said.
How soft or hard someone is touched can also be sensed to add another, more subtle, aspect to game playing.
Mr Baba added that multiple Freqtric controllers could be used.
Tests of the system have involved four or five people becoming living instruments who, when touched, trigger a particular note or sound to be played.
GRAVITY GRABBER
The system allows people to feel the weight of virtual objects
This system makes use of the discovery that squashing and rolling the sensitive pads on the ends of a person's index finger and thumb can give a realistic impression of weight.
Post-graduate student Kouta Minamizawa and colleagues, from the Information Physics and Computing department at the University of Tokyo, aimed to exploit this using a lightweight, wearable ring fitted with tiny motors that pull on a narrow band of cloth.
Those using this system slip these rings onto their index finger and thumb with the band stretched across the tip of the digit. They get a sense of the weight of virtual objects when the tiny motors pull the band tight around the pad of the finger or slip the band from side-to-side.
The system can be used to represent single bulky objects like bottles when they are empty or have a liquid sloshing around inside them. It can even give the impression of several separate objects rattling round inside virtual containers.
Mr Minamizawa said it could be used in games to give players a more realistic sense of what their character was holding or doing.
SOAP
Moving the skin around the hull moves an onscreen cursor
This handy gadget aims to be a replacement for the mouse and other interface devices for people using wall-based displays or sitting a long way from a screen.
The gadget, about the same size as a bar of soap, has a loose outer skin that can move freely around a deformable inner hull.
Inside the hull is an optical sensor, taken from a computer mouse, that can work out how far the slippery fabric has moved or detect when it is moved by pressure being applied to the outer hull.
On screen cursors can be moved by sliding the fabric skin around the hard hull.
By squeezing and releasing the hull, the device can be used to click an onscreen button or pull a virtual trigger.
Patrick Baudisch from Microsoft Research who created the device said prototypes had been tested with large wall-based displays, media centres on TVs typically controlled from a couch and interactive games.
STRING WALKER
The system can be used to stroll through virtual worlds
This system aims to make simulations much more immersive by letting people walk through the virtual environment while staying in the same place.
The String Walker uses a broad turntable in the middle of which are two shoes each one of which has four strings attached to it.
Those using the walker put on the shoes and take steps as if they were strolling around. The tight strings are moved to cancel out the step and keep the person in the centre of the turntable but move them on a pace in the virtual world.
Touch sensors in the heels of the shoes work out which foot is being moved.
The turntable can handle sidestepping or walking round corners and rotates to keep the walking person always facing the same way, although their view in the virtual world may have shifted.
Developed by Hiroo Iwata and colleagues from the University of Tsukuba, the system could find an initial use in training simulators for safety courses or for the military.
E-mail this to a friend
Printable version
Here the BBC News website gives a brief rundown of the most innovative and eye-catching.
BYU-BYU
Byu-Byu users blow on to the screen
This aims to add another dimension, namely wind, to communication via video screens.
The system consists of fine-meshed screens that let air pass through them but also display images projected on to them.
The screens are also fitted with 64 sensors that bend when blown upon. Light bounced off tiny mirrors attached to the rear of the sensors lets the system work out where someone is blowing on the screen and how hard.
Sitting beyond the sensors behind are banks of small fans that can send strong or gentle breezes back through any section of the screen.
Masahiro Furukawa, one of the creators of Byu-Byu, said it added a tactile element to video communication. He said it could be used to blow out candles on a birthday cake thousands of miles away or play games such as virtual air hockey.
The name of the project, Byu-Byu, is an onomatopoeic Japanese phrase used to describe a howling wind.
FREQTRIC
Users have a tiny electric current running through their body
This interface aims to add another dimension to computer gaming and musical performances by making success depend on touching other players or artists.
At the heart of Freqtric are game controllers that, via a steel plate on their underside, trickle a small electric current through a player's body.
Sensors in the controller spot when this current is disrupted when they are touched by another player.
Tetsuaki Baba, creator of Freqtric and a student in the graduate school of design at Kyushu University, said touch could be put to different uses in a game. Shooting an opponent, for example, could be made to depend on touching them, he said.
How soft or hard someone is touched can also be sensed to add another, more subtle, aspect to game playing.
Mr Baba added that multiple Freqtric controllers could be used.
Tests of the system have involved four or five people becoming living instruments who, when touched, trigger a particular note or sound to be played.
GRAVITY GRABBER
The system allows people to feel the weight of virtual objects
This system makes use of the discovery that squashing and rolling the sensitive pads on the ends of a person's index finger and thumb can give a realistic impression of weight.
Post-graduate student Kouta Minamizawa and colleagues, from the Information Physics and Computing department at the University of Tokyo, aimed to exploit this using a lightweight, wearable ring fitted with tiny motors that pull on a narrow band of cloth.
Those using this system slip these rings onto their index finger and thumb with the band stretched across the tip of the digit. They get a sense of the weight of virtual objects when the tiny motors pull the band tight around the pad of the finger or slip the band from side-to-side.
The system can be used to represent single bulky objects like bottles when they are empty or have a liquid sloshing around inside them. It can even give the impression of several separate objects rattling round inside virtual containers.
Mr Minamizawa said it could be used in games to give players a more realistic sense of what their character was holding or doing.
SOAP
Moving the skin around the hull moves an onscreen cursor
This handy gadget aims to be a replacement for the mouse and other interface devices for people using wall-based displays or sitting a long way from a screen.
The gadget, about the same size as a bar of soap, has a loose outer skin that can move freely around a deformable inner hull.
Inside the hull is an optical sensor, taken from a computer mouse, that can work out how far the slippery fabric has moved or detect when it is moved by pressure being applied to the outer hull.
On screen cursors can be moved by sliding the fabric skin around the hard hull.
By squeezing and releasing the hull, the device can be used to click an onscreen button or pull a virtual trigger.
Patrick Baudisch from Microsoft Research who created the device said prototypes had been tested with large wall-based displays, media centres on TVs typically controlled from a couch and interactive games.
STRING WALKER
The system can be used to stroll through virtual worlds
This system aims to make simulations much more immersive by letting people walk through the virtual environment while staying in the same place.
The String Walker uses a broad turntable in the middle of which are two shoes each one of which has four strings attached to it.
Those using the walker put on the shoes and take steps as if they were strolling around. The tight strings are moved to cancel out the step and keep the person in the centre of the turntable but move them on a pace in the virtual world.
Touch sensors in the heels of the shoes work out which foot is being moved.
The turntable can handle sidestepping or walking round corners and rotates to keep the walking person always facing the same way, although their view in the virtual world may have shifted.
Developed by Hiroo Iwata and colleagues from the University of Tsukuba, the system could find an initial use in training simulators for safety courses or for the military.
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Printable version
Wednesday, June 06, 2007
India Moves Beyond the Back Office
India Moves Beyond the Back Office
Boston Consulting's Sirkin and Bhattacharya say India has all the ingredients to emerge as a 21st Century manufacturing hub
by Harold L. Sirkin and Arindam Bhattacharya
In today's global economy, the division of labor between China and India couldn't be clearer: China makes things; India does things.
Beneath the surface, however, this has started to change. Driven by its vast domestic market and an abundance of relatively low-cost workers with advanced technical skills, India is becoming an important and potentially world-class manufacturing hub, according to a recent report by the Boston Consulting Group and Knowledge@Wharton.
It has several hurdles to overcome first, the most significant of which is the country's notoriously substandard infrastructure: shabby airports, potholed roads, clogged ports, and insufficient electric power.
Plagued by Power Shortages
This latter problem is especially acute. According to the Ministry of Power, peak demand during the fiscal year ended Mar. 31, 2006 exceeded supply by approximately 11.6%. Ravi Aron, a senior fellow at the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, notes that overpriced and unreliable energy supplies have forced many Indian businesses to invest in their own generators. About three-fifths of all Indian manufacturing depends on such power, compared to less than a fourth in China. "This is an additional capital investment that shows up on the balance sheet," Aron notes. "Insulating yourself from India in India is an expensive business."
Acknowledging the problem, Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram told us last fall, during Boston Consulting Group's first-ever global partners meeting in that country, that India will have to spend an estimated $150 billion over the next seven to eight years to bring infrastructure up to par. The importance of this can't be overstated. If the efforts are successful, India should be able to boost its annual gross domestic product growth rate from the current 8% to 9% per year to a sustainable 9% to 10% per annum.
More and more multinationals are aware of India's vast potential and have been setting up operations in the country. Ford (F), Hyundai, and Suzuki all export significant numbers of cars manufactured in India. LG, Motorola (MOT), and Nokia (NOK) either manufacture handsets in India or have plans to start, with a sizable share of production being exported. ABB, Schneider Electric (SU), Honeywell (HON), and Siemens (SI) have Indian plants that manufacture electrical products for both the domestic and export markets.
Less Dependence on Home Economy
A number of globally competitive Indian companies also are making their mark. Over the past five or six years, many Indian firms have restructured their manufacturing operations and have implemented world-class practices. Moser Baer has established itself as a global manufacturer of CDs, DVDs, and other data-storage media. Indian pharmaceutical companies, many of which already meet demanding U.S. Food & Drug Administration manufacturing standards, are entering the global market in increasing numbers. And Indian auto parts manufacturers are becoming prominent institutions in the global supply chain.
As Wharton Management Professor Saikat Chaudhuri points out, until recently, global manufacturing in India has been driven strictly by domestic demand. But the dependence of the manufacturing sector on the domestic economy, the Wharton expert notes, is starting to fade. Toyota (TM), for example, is building transmissions for its global manufacturing operations in a factory near Bangalore. Hyundai Automotive Group has designated its Indian manufacturing plant as the only Hyundai facility worldwide that will make small cars, marking a major shift in manufacturing operations from South Korea to India.
While the services sector has been red-hot for some time, India's manufacturing competitiveness is a recent phenomenon—and rests on its ability to do technologically advanced, high-end manufacturing at comparatively low cost. This is possible when you graduate an estimated 400,000 engineers per year, second only to China.
A Simple Business Equation
Consider the rapidly growing auto parts industry, which has emerged as a major supplier to many leading multinationals.
Bharat Forge—the largest chassis manufacturer in the world—is the dominant figure here, but by no means the only player. More than a dozen Indian automotive parts manufacturers already have been awarded the prestigious Deming Prize, the Japanese quality award presented by the Union of Japanese Scientists & Engineers. Prize winners include Sona Koyo Steering Systems, brake manufacturer Sundaram-Clayton, and TVS Motor. (The latter two are both part of the TVS group.)
For many multinationals, the business equation is really quite simple. As Sachin Nandgaonkar, a colleague of ours in BCG's New Delhi office, puts it: "If I can have Japanese quality at a much lower cost, then why not?"
Service Sector as Model
Besides auto parts, telecom equipment, and pharmaceuticals, India has the potential to be competitive in a variety of other skill-intensive industries, such as fabricated metal products, high-end chemicals, consumer electronics, and computer hardware.
Between 1990 and 2005, manufacturing's contribution to the Indian economy remained more or less stagnant, rising marginally from 25% to 27% of gross domestic product.
Over the same period, the service sector's share of GDP rose from 37% to 52%. In 2005, manufacturing exports, according to BCG estimates, were just 6% of GDP, compared to China's 35%. The point is: There's much room for growth. But the more important point, perhaps, is that the service sector provides the model.
Leveraging Brainpower
Indian manufacturing, if it is to prosper in the global marketplace, will be knowledge-based. India's service providers have been moving up the value chain for some time now. Gone are the days when Indian companies were merely an extension of the back office. Today, Indian companies are providing customers with "knowledge process" outsourcing (KPO), services requiring specialized expertise, judgment, and discretion.
That's the road less traveled that Indian manufacturers would be wise to take as well: leveraging their technical skills and brainpower to seek competitive advantage. All that stands in the way is the road well traveled: an inadequate and antiquated infrastructure that can't sustain a modern manufacturing powerhouse.
Sirkin is a senior vice-president and director of Boston Consulting Group, based in the firm's Chicago office. Bhattacharaya is a BCG vice-president and director in the company's New Delhi office. For more on this topic, see the recently published BCG/Knowledge@Wharton report, "What's Next for India: Beyond the Back Office," available at www.bcg.com under "Publications."
Sirkin is a senior vice-president and director of Boston Consulting Group, based in the firm's Chicago office. Bhattacharaya is a BCG vice-president and director in the company's New Delhi office. For more on this topic, see the recently published BCG/Knowledge@Wharton report, "What's Next for India: Beyond the Back Office," available at www.bcg.com under "Publications.".
Boston Consulting's Sirkin and Bhattacharya say India has all the ingredients to emerge as a 21st Century manufacturing hub
by Harold L. Sirkin and Arindam Bhattacharya
In today's global economy, the division of labor between China and India couldn't be clearer: China makes things; India does things.
Beneath the surface, however, this has started to change. Driven by its vast domestic market and an abundance of relatively low-cost workers with advanced technical skills, India is becoming an important and potentially world-class manufacturing hub, according to a recent report by the Boston Consulting Group and Knowledge@Wharton.
It has several hurdles to overcome first, the most significant of which is the country's notoriously substandard infrastructure: shabby airports, potholed roads, clogged ports, and insufficient electric power.
Plagued by Power Shortages
This latter problem is especially acute. According to the Ministry of Power, peak demand during the fiscal year ended Mar. 31, 2006 exceeded supply by approximately 11.6%. Ravi Aron, a senior fellow at the Mack Center for Technological Innovation at the University of Pennsylvania's Wharton School, notes that overpriced and unreliable energy supplies have forced many Indian businesses to invest in their own generators. About three-fifths of all Indian manufacturing depends on such power, compared to less than a fourth in China. "This is an additional capital investment that shows up on the balance sheet," Aron notes. "Insulating yourself from India in India is an expensive business."
Acknowledging the problem, Indian Finance Minister P. Chidambaram told us last fall, during Boston Consulting Group's first-ever global partners meeting in that country, that India will have to spend an estimated $150 billion over the next seven to eight years to bring infrastructure up to par. The importance of this can't be overstated. If the efforts are successful, India should be able to boost its annual gross domestic product growth rate from the current 8% to 9% per year to a sustainable 9% to 10% per annum.
More and more multinationals are aware of India's vast potential and have been setting up operations in the country. Ford (F), Hyundai, and Suzuki all export significant numbers of cars manufactured in India. LG, Motorola (MOT), and Nokia (NOK) either manufacture handsets in India or have plans to start, with a sizable share of production being exported. ABB, Schneider Electric (SU), Honeywell (HON), and Siemens (SI) have Indian plants that manufacture electrical products for both the domestic and export markets.
Less Dependence on Home Economy
A number of globally competitive Indian companies also are making their mark. Over the past five or six years, many Indian firms have restructured their manufacturing operations and have implemented world-class practices. Moser Baer has established itself as a global manufacturer of CDs, DVDs, and other data-storage media. Indian pharmaceutical companies, many of which already meet demanding U.S. Food & Drug Administration manufacturing standards, are entering the global market in increasing numbers. And Indian auto parts manufacturers are becoming prominent institutions in the global supply chain.
As Wharton Management Professor Saikat Chaudhuri points out, until recently, global manufacturing in India has been driven strictly by domestic demand. But the dependence of the manufacturing sector on the domestic economy, the Wharton expert notes, is starting to fade. Toyota (TM), for example, is building transmissions for its global manufacturing operations in a factory near Bangalore. Hyundai Automotive Group has designated its Indian manufacturing plant as the only Hyundai facility worldwide that will make small cars, marking a major shift in manufacturing operations from South Korea to India.
While the services sector has been red-hot for some time, India's manufacturing competitiveness is a recent phenomenon—and rests on its ability to do technologically advanced, high-end manufacturing at comparatively low cost. This is possible when you graduate an estimated 400,000 engineers per year, second only to China.
A Simple Business Equation
Consider the rapidly growing auto parts industry, which has emerged as a major supplier to many leading multinationals.
Bharat Forge—the largest chassis manufacturer in the world—is the dominant figure here, but by no means the only player. More than a dozen Indian automotive parts manufacturers already have been awarded the prestigious Deming Prize, the Japanese quality award presented by the Union of Japanese Scientists & Engineers. Prize winners include Sona Koyo Steering Systems, brake manufacturer Sundaram-Clayton, and TVS Motor. (The latter two are both part of the TVS group.)
For many multinationals, the business equation is really quite simple. As Sachin Nandgaonkar, a colleague of ours in BCG's New Delhi office, puts it: "If I can have Japanese quality at a much lower cost, then why not?"
Service Sector as Model
Besides auto parts, telecom equipment, and pharmaceuticals, India has the potential to be competitive in a variety of other skill-intensive industries, such as fabricated metal products, high-end chemicals, consumer electronics, and computer hardware.
Between 1990 and 2005, manufacturing's contribution to the Indian economy remained more or less stagnant, rising marginally from 25% to 27% of gross domestic product.
Over the same period, the service sector's share of GDP rose from 37% to 52%. In 2005, manufacturing exports, according to BCG estimates, were just 6% of GDP, compared to China's 35%. The point is: There's much room for growth. But the more important point, perhaps, is that the service sector provides the model.
Leveraging Brainpower
Indian manufacturing, if it is to prosper in the global marketplace, will be knowledge-based. India's service providers have been moving up the value chain for some time now. Gone are the days when Indian companies were merely an extension of the back office. Today, Indian companies are providing customers with "knowledge process" outsourcing (KPO), services requiring specialized expertise, judgment, and discretion.
That's the road less traveled that Indian manufacturers would be wise to take as well: leveraging their technical skills and brainpower to seek competitive advantage. All that stands in the way is the road well traveled: an inadequate and antiquated infrastructure that can't sustain a modern manufacturing powerhouse.
Sirkin is a senior vice-president and director of Boston Consulting Group, based in the firm's Chicago office. Bhattacharaya is a BCG vice-president and director in the company's New Delhi office. For more on this topic, see the recently published BCG/Knowledge@Wharton report, "What's Next for India: Beyond the Back Office," available at www.bcg.com under "Publications."
Sirkin is a senior vice-president and director of Boston Consulting Group, based in the firm's Chicago office. Bhattacharaya is a BCG vice-president and director in the company's New Delhi office. For more on this topic, see the recently published BCG/Knowledge@Wharton report, "What's Next for India: Beyond the Back Office," available at www.bcg.com under "Publications.".
Tuesday, April 10, 2007
Be-Confident
How to Be Confident
We are all human and have flaws. Even if your physical appearance, intellectual ability, or social skills aren't what you wish they were, that doesn't have to stop you from being confident. Here's how to believe in yourself.
Steps
Make a list of special talents you have, or of things you do that are good—morally or otherwise. Focusing on your attributes helps distract you from those parts of yourself that you think are flawed. It doesn't have to be a specific skill or activity, either; it can be an approach or an attitude that you champion through life. Do you always stay calm, cool and collected, even in harried situations? Are you very patient with people? Do you always see the humorous side of things? Are you always there for your friends?
Find your passion.
Whether it's baton twirling, martial arts, classic cars, or basket weaving, you will feel confident pursuing that endeavor by recognizing what you enjoy doing the most. More importantly, you'll be enjoying your progress.
Choose a role model, whether someone close to you, or someone famous. Think of the qualities, that the role model displays, whether physical, emotional, moral, and/or spiritual. Work towards acquiring those.
Accept compliments gracefully. Don't roll your eyes and say, "Yeah, right", or shrug it off. Take it to heart and respond positively ("Thank you" and a smile works well).
know that you have important things to say and do. When you feel strongly about something,
speak loudly and clearly and make eye contact with people. Be yourself.
Take care of yourself. Eat healthy and get enough exercise. Don't abuse your body, don't overload it, and don't deny it of the things it needs. At the same time, don't obsess. Buying all the moisturizers, creams and conditioners will not bring you closer to who you want to be. Those things are only band-aids and make up. Confidence comes from within. Take the time to reflect on your life and do some emotional maintenance. In order to be confident, you must value yourself and understand that your well-being is important.
Stick up for yourself. If people put you down (and not in a good-natured, joking way), then let them know that their opinion of you is not held by everyone--most of all yourself. This may, at first, be hard to do. But once you stick up for yourself a few times, your confidence builds and you get more adept at it.
Celebrate your individuality. If you know you've got something special or different, then embrace it—don't hide it! That's diversity! You may wish that you were taller, or shorter, skinnier, stronger, whatever the case may be. But you need to realize that, if you were like everyone else, then you wouldn't be who you are. "What am I?" you ask; the answer's easy: You're a unique individual who is capable and growing and learning.
Take action. It is surprising at how powerful the simple step of taking action can be. And the action you take need not be something extravagant or grand. It could be something as simple as tackling a task that you have been procrastinating, such as writing a letter or tidying up that corner of the garage that has been out of control for the last several months. It could also be something as interesting as taking a class in yoga, art, interior design, anything that interests you that you haven't done yet. Whether large or small, action brings with it exhilaration, enthusiasm, and the confidence that other things can be done as well.
Tips
Try not to compare yourself so much with other people. It is a wasteful pursuit and you could be doing something better with your time and energy. Know what you, personally, want and expect from yourself, and focus on attaining those things. The things that you want and expect from yourself shouldn't have anything to do with how you measure up to others.
Consider attending leadership classes. Learn to take control of things. If you are in school, then consider running for a social position, such as a president of a club. The ability to lead others and respond to others' behavior under your leadership will help to bring you self confidence.
Listen to your inner monologue—your inner voice. In situations where you believe you lack confidence, realize that your inner voice is telling you negative things. You need to retrain that inner voice to be positive in those situations. If you need help, find someone who can help you do that.
Warnings
Don't put yourself down. Everyone is different and has a valuable contribution to make to a diverse society. You are important for the person you are.
Don't stop yourself from doing what you want to do.
Remember that there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. Be careful not to portray a pompous or cocky attitude.
Never excuse your virtues. For example, don't say, "Sorry for being here on time" when your friend is not ready.
We are all human and have flaws. Even if your physical appearance, intellectual ability, or social skills aren't what you wish they were, that doesn't have to stop you from being confident. Here's how to believe in yourself.
Steps
Make a list of special talents you have, or of things you do that are good—morally or otherwise. Focusing on your attributes helps distract you from those parts of yourself that you think are flawed. It doesn't have to be a specific skill or activity, either; it can be an approach or an attitude that you champion through life. Do you always stay calm, cool and collected, even in harried situations? Are you very patient with people? Do you always see the humorous side of things? Are you always there for your friends?
Find your passion.
Whether it's baton twirling, martial arts, classic cars, or basket weaving, you will feel confident pursuing that endeavor by recognizing what you enjoy doing the most. More importantly, you'll be enjoying your progress.
Choose a role model, whether someone close to you, or someone famous. Think of the qualities, that the role model displays, whether physical, emotional, moral, and/or spiritual. Work towards acquiring those.
Accept compliments gracefully. Don't roll your eyes and say, "Yeah, right", or shrug it off. Take it to heart and respond positively ("Thank you" and a smile works well).
know that you have important things to say and do. When you feel strongly about something,
speak loudly and clearly and make eye contact with people. Be yourself.
Take care of yourself. Eat healthy and get enough exercise. Don't abuse your body, don't overload it, and don't deny it of the things it needs. At the same time, don't obsess. Buying all the moisturizers, creams and conditioners will not bring you closer to who you want to be. Those things are only band-aids and make up. Confidence comes from within. Take the time to reflect on your life and do some emotional maintenance. In order to be confident, you must value yourself and understand that your well-being is important.
Stick up for yourself. If people put you down (and not in a good-natured, joking way), then let them know that their opinion of you is not held by everyone--most of all yourself. This may, at first, be hard to do. But once you stick up for yourself a few times, your confidence builds and you get more adept at it.
Celebrate your individuality. If you know you've got something special or different, then embrace it—don't hide it! That's diversity! You may wish that you were taller, or shorter, skinnier, stronger, whatever the case may be. But you need to realize that, if you were like everyone else, then you wouldn't be who you are. "What am I?" you ask; the answer's easy: You're a unique individual who is capable and growing and learning.
Take action. It is surprising at how powerful the simple step of taking action can be. And the action you take need not be something extravagant or grand. It could be something as simple as tackling a task that you have been procrastinating, such as writing a letter or tidying up that corner of the garage that has been out of control for the last several months. It could also be something as interesting as taking a class in yoga, art, interior design, anything that interests you that you haven't done yet. Whether large or small, action brings with it exhilaration, enthusiasm, and the confidence that other things can be done as well.
Tips
Try not to compare yourself so much with other people. It is a wasteful pursuit and you could be doing something better with your time and energy. Know what you, personally, want and expect from yourself, and focus on attaining those things. The things that you want and expect from yourself shouldn't have anything to do with how you measure up to others.
Consider attending leadership classes. Learn to take control of things. If you are in school, then consider running for a social position, such as a president of a club. The ability to lead others and respond to others' behavior under your leadership will help to bring you self confidence.
Listen to your inner monologue—your inner voice. In situations where you believe you lack confidence, realize that your inner voice is telling you negative things. You need to retrain that inner voice to be positive in those situations. If you need help, find someone who can help you do that.
Warnings
Don't put yourself down. Everyone is different and has a valuable contribution to make to a diverse society. You are important for the person you are.
Don't stop yourself from doing what you want to do.
Remember that there is a fine line between confidence and arrogance. Be careful not to portray a pompous or cocky attitude.
Never excuse your virtues. For example, don't say, "Sorry for being here on time" when your friend is not ready.
Thursday, March 08, 2007
Article on IT by Amartya Sen
I.T. AND INDIA [1]
Amartya Sen
1
Some admirations come from near, others from very far. My respect and reverence for the IT industry in general and the extraordinarily dynamic and triumphant Indian IT industry in particular have come, by necessity, from some distance, since I am a dabbler in things far away from IT services and software. When the invitation came to attend this year's NASSCOM meeting and the leadership forum, I thought that this either indicated some mixing up of my identity ("wake up, wake up," I wanted to say, "I teach non-IT subjects at a university!"), or alternatively, it reflected generous interest of NASSCOM leaders to reach out (or as my students say, "hang out") beyond their principality.
Of the two possibilities, identity confusion is the more exciting. My late friend Isaiah Berlin, the philosopher, recounted to me his exciting experiences when he was invited to a musical gathering under the mistaken impression that he was Irving Berlin, the musical composer, rather than Isaiah Berlin, the political philosopher. Apparently, the assembled gathering was somewhat disappointed by Isaiah Berlin's inability to respond to repeated requests to provide some insights into the melodies from Annie Get Your Gun or Call Me Madam. And, of course, Sen is a more common name than Berlin , offering more opportunity of identity confounding. Indeed, I was once asked in a gathering of very energetic and very globally minded Ugandan students - this happened at the Makerere College in Kampala - whether I, Amartya Sen, was any relation of Sun Yat Sen. I had to tell my interlocutor, "No, but we are trying hard."
It is, however, the second possibility - not identity confusion - on which I want to speak this afternoon, that is about the possibility of the IT industry to reach out beyond its principality. I want to talk not, of course, about my being here at this NASSCOM meeting, but about the case for the IT industry to bring its influences somewhat beyond what can be seen as its traditional domain.
Of course, the idea of what counts as "traditional" is hard to articulate in the case of a field of enterprise as new as information technology. Indeed, a little over a century ago, in 1885, when the Indian National Congress had its first meeting in Bombay, which was attended by among others Jamsetji Tata (he would establish his new "Swadeshi mills" next year), Jamsetji would have been, I imagine, a little puzzled if he were told that the enterprise he was pioneering would soon include a huge operation in software and IT - indeed the largest in the country (my friend Ramadorai, who heads it, is here). The importance of information has, of course, been acknowledged over many millennia, but the ideas of IT technology and software are quintessential contributions of contemporary modernity - not something with any ageless recognition. Indeed, the entire idea of a National Association of Software and Service Companies (that is, NASSCOM) would have appeared quite mysterious to the pioneering industrial leader of India. As it happens, the domain of IT is still evolving, and I would like to argue for taking an even broader view than has already got established.
My point is not that the IT industry should do something for the country at large, for that it does anyway. It already makes enormous contributions: it generates significant incomes for a great many Indians; it has encouraged attention to technical excellence as a general requirement across the board; it has established exacting standards of economic success in the country; it has encouraged many bright students to go technical rather than merely contemplative; and it has inspired Indian industrialists to face the world economy as a potentially big participant, not a tiny little bit-player. My point, rather, is that it can do even more, indeed in some ways, much more. This is partly because the reach of information is so wide and all-inclusive, but also because the prosperity and commanding stature of the IT leaders and activists give them voice, power and ability to help the direction of Indian economic and social development.
2
Let me begin by asking a question that no one here will, I think, ask (because everyone I meet here seems so polite and well-behaved): why should the Indian IT industry have any sense of obligation to do things - more things - for India, more than what happens automatically from its normal operations (as a by-product of business success, rather than as a deliberated goal to be advanced, among other demands and necessities)? Why assume there is any obligation at all for IT to do anything other than minding its own business?
I think part of the answer lies in reciprocity. The country has made huge contributions, even though they are not often clearly recognised, to help the development and flowering of the IT industry in India, and it is not silly to ask what in return the IT might do for India .
But how has the country helped? Perhaps most immediately, the IT sector has benefitted from the visionary move, originally championed by Jawaharlal Nehru, to develop centres of excellent technical education in India, such as the IITs, to be followed by the Institutes of Management and other initiatives, aimed at enhancing the quality and reach of Indian professional and specialized education. Despite Nehru's moving rhetoric in favour of literacy for all (which was plentifully present even in his celebrated speech on the eve of independence on 14th August 1947 - the speech on India 's "tryst with destiny"), he in fact did shockingly little for literacy. I would suggest that Jawaharlal Nehru did not really think through how to ensure the practical realization of his goal of literacy for all, in which he did believe with sincerity and conviction, but not with any sense of practicality. It was, however, entirely different as far as technical education is concerned - here Nehru's sense of ways and means nicely supplemented his fervent passion. India was not only the first poor country in the world to choose a robustly democratic from of governance, it also was the first country with grinding poverty to give priority to the development of technical skill and the state-of-art education in technology. And from this the IT sector has benefited a lot, since the entire industry is so dependent on the availability, quality and reach of technical education.
However, IT's links with India 's past goes back much further than that. The nature of Indian society and traditions have tended to support the pursuit of specialized excellence in general and the development of IT in particular. There has been a historic respect for distinctive skills, seeing it even as a social contribution in itself. Indeed, even the nasty caste system, which has so afflicted the possibility of social equity in India, has tended greatly to rely on - and exploit - the traditional reverence for specialized skill, which, in its regimented form, has been used to add to the barriers of societal stratification. There is a tradition here that can be taken in many different directions, and it is a matter of much satisfaction that the IT industry's use of the same respect is remarkably positive and potentially open and inclusive. I will come back to that question of inclusiveness later on (it is an important subject on which there is a case for more deliberation and action), but before that let me comment on a few other connections, since they are often missed, between the success of IT in India and some particular features of India's past.
Going well beyond respect for specialized skill, there is also a general attitude of openness in India to influences from far and near - of admiring excellence no matter where it is produced. This is particularly important since the IT success of India did draw initially, as indeed was inevitable, on what was going on with much accomplishment abroad. The experiences of the Silicon valley, in particular, was very important for the yearning of skilled and discerning Indians to learn from others - and then to make good use of it. While many Indians have a deep preference for what we can see as total local immersion and even succumb to evidently strong temptations to denigrate things happening abroad (and this attitude rears its ugly head from time to time in contemporary Indian politics as well), there has also been for thousand of years a very robust tradition here of admiring, using and learning from excellence anywhere in the world.
The IT technical experts may not readily perceive that there is a remarkable similarity between (1) their own valuational commitment to learn what they can from anywhere which has good ideas to offer, and (2) the open and welcoming attitude to departures originating elsewhere which Rabindranath Tagore articulated with compelling clarity in a letter to a friend (in a letter to Charlie Andrews in fact) in the 1920s, at the height of our struggle of for national independence:
Whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin. I am proud of my humanity when I can acknowledge the poets and artists of other countries as my own. Let me feel with unalloyed gladness that the all the great glories of man are mine. Therefore it hurts me deeply when the cry of rejection rings loud against the West in my country with the clamour that Western education can only injure us.
It is, of course, to the credit of Western centres of excellence in education and practice that they were so welcoming to learners from abroad (I think America and Europe do not always get enough recognition for its liberal priorities in this field, despite their narrow-minded national and local priorities in other areas), but it is also important to see that the interest and initiative of bright Indians to learn from abroad for domestic use was strongly founded on an open-minded willingness to comprehend, as Tagore put it, that "whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin."
I want to point to one further connection between the development and achievements of Indian IT and the Indian intellectual traditions on which Indian IT draws. I don't refer here only to the love of mathematics that has inspired so many young Indians throughout history, and which is important in many different ways, for the efficacy IT operations. The general maths-friendliness of Indian intellectuals is relevant here: according to some accounts, the mathematician Bhaskara even tried to convince his daughter Lilavati that if she came to master mathematical puzzles then she would be highly popular when she went to parties, which seems to me be, to say the least, a little doubtful. But aside from being fascinated by maths, Indian intellectuals have also typically been very excited about arguments in general: it is a subject on which I have even indulged in writing a book (incidentally, in my last trip to Mumbai I was very impressed to be offered a cut-price pirated edition of my book, The Argumentative Indian, by a street vendor near the airport, who also had the exquisite taste of explaining to me that this book was "quite good" - and from him, also "very cheap").
IT is a hugely interactive operation and in many ways Indian IT has depended on what we can call TI, that is, "talkative Indians." It is not hard to see how a tradition of being thrilled by intellectual altercations tend to do a lot to prepare someone to the challenges of IT interactions.
3
Given what the country has done for Indian IT, it is not silly to ask: what specially can the IT industry do for India (other than what happens automatically without any deliberate pursuit of non-business ends)? This seems to me to be right, but I would also like to emphasize that historical reciprocity is not the only - perhaps not even the most important - reason for being interested in the social obligations of the IT industry. Many considerations arise there.
There is, of course, the elementary issue of the obligation of those who "make it" vis-a-vis those who do not manage quite so well, which is a very basic ethical demand that, it can be argued, society places upon us. This raises immediately the question what any prosperous group may owe to others not so well placed. This is not only a reflective demand for social deliberation - part of what Immanuel Kant called a "categorical imperative" - but it is also a part of enlightened business operation. There is, as it happens, a very well established tradition in a part of Indian business to do just that, particularly well exemplified by the Tatas for example, through various socially valuable activities such as building hospitals, research centres and other social institutions of high distinction. I am impressed to see that many of the major IT leaders seem to be very seized of this challenge.
If that possible role is obvious enough, there is some need to understand better other roles in which the IT industry can make a very big difference in India. As it happens the key to the success of IT, namely accessability, systematization and use of information is also very central to social evaluation and societal change. There is, in fact, a very foundational connection between information and social obligation, since the moral - and of course the political - need to pay attention to others depends greatly on our knowledge and information about them.
Indeed, already in the 1770s (more than two hundred years ago), that remarkable Scottish philosopher, David Hume, had noted the importance of increased intercourse in expanding the reach of our sense of justice. He had put the issue thus (in his chapter "Of Justice," in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals):
....again suppose that several distinct societies maintain a kind of intercourse for mutual convenience and advantage, the boundaries of justice still grow larger, in proportion to the largeness of men's views, and the force of their mutual connexions. History, experience, reason sufficiently instruct us in this natural progress of human sentiments, and in the gradual enlargement of our regards to justice, in proportion as we become acquainted with the extensive utility of that virtue.
Negligence of suffering of others is sustainable, given human interest in justice and equity, only when we know little about that suffering. More information in itself goes a long way to breaking that chain of apathy and indifference.
This foundational connection also gives the information industry a huge opportunity to help India by trying to make its contribution to the systematization, digestion and dissemination of diverse clusters of information in India about the lives of the underdogs of society - those who do not have realistic opportunity of getting basic schooling, essential health care, elementary nutritional entitlements, and rudimentary equality across the barriers of class and gender. This can also be said about problems of underdeveloped physical infrastructure (water, electricity, roads, etc.), as well as social infrastructure, that restrain the broad mass of Indians from moving ahead. There are particular causal connections also here: an enterprise that hugely depends on the excellence of education for its success - as the IT sector clearly does - has good reason to consider its broad responsibility to Indian education in general.
I do not know enough about the IT operations to see whether all this can be turned into a business proposition as well. But my point is that even if it cannot be so transformed, it is something that the IT sector has good reason to consider doing. Can there be a group initiative in any of these fields? Can NASSCOM itself play a catalytic role here? Informational issues are thoroughly rampant in morality and politics, and in many direct and indirect ways, the preoccupation of the IT enterprise links closely with the foundations of political and moral assessment and adjudication.
Even though in this presentation I am mainly concentrating on domestic issues, I should mention in passing that the role of information and informed understanding can also be very large in the pursuit of global peace and in defeating ill-reasoned violence. When we consider how many of the brutalities in the world today are linked with ignorant hostility to cultures and practices abroad, we can appreciate the contribution of informational limitation, among other causal factors, in cross-border belligerence. I could have talked about that too, in developing some ideas presented in my last book (Identity and Violence), but given my time limits I will resist that temptation.
4
I return now to the domestic scene. In emphasizing the role of the moral domain for the IT sector to feel some responsibility towards making India a more equitable country, I do not want to give the impression that there is not also a prudential case for going in that direction. One of the huge obstacles to the domestic development of the IT sector is the size of the local market, which is still quite small, despite all the recent expansions. Indian IT has done very well in making excellent use of the global market, but competition there is likely to be increasingly fierce. Other countries are trying to learn from the experience not only of America and Europe but also from India , and while India has some peculiar advantages in the IT field (which I have already discussed), the barriers may well be gradually removed in many countries - indeed even in many poor countries - in the world. China, which has a much larger domestic market already and will continue to expand that market very fast, is not as vulnerable as we may be, in this particular respect.
As it happens, one of the reasons for the larger domestic reach of IT in China is its much wider base of good basic schooling. So, what is an issue of equity, on one side, is also a matter of central importance for prudential reasoning about domestic economic expansion, on the other. The same goes for a much wider base of elementary health care in China, though this, as it happens, has been going through some turmoil since the Chinese economic reforms of 1979 which effectively abolished free health care for all, through insisting on privately purchased health insurance. It is a subject on which I have written elsewhere, so I will not go further into it here, other than noting that the Chinese authorities are quite receptive now of critical scrutiny of the present system of health care that China has ended up having. This, in fact, is in sharp contrast with the past when we had made similar criticisms earlier, and I do know that very serious critical scrutiny is currently going on in Beijing on this, in a very constructive way. I expect major changes to happen in China in a more inclusive direction before long.
Excessive reliance on private health care in India for the most elementary problems of ill-health and disease (resulting mostly from the limited size, reach and operational efficiency of public health facilities) is similarly a barrier to the availability and entitlement to health care for all Indians, and this obstacle urgently needs removing. These are all subjects on which the IT sector is well placed to provide considerable enlightenment and guidance. As it happens, the IT sector itself will indirectly benefit (for reasons I have already outlined) from playing a constructive and deliberated role in widening the base of social and physical infrastructure. But the more immediate - and also the more foundational - reason relates, I think, to demands from the moral domain to which the IT sector has reasons to respond. This is so, I have argued, for a variety of reasons, varying from Indian IT's unequal current success and its debt to India's traditions and priorities, on one side, to - and this is often unrecognised but happens to be extremely important - the central role of information in moral reasoning, on the other. There is indeed, I would argue, something of a socially connected obligation here, the recognition of which could make a huge difference to the future of India.
Amartya Sen
1
Some admirations come from near, others from very far. My respect and reverence for the IT industry in general and the extraordinarily dynamic and triumphant Indian IT industry in particular have come, by necessity, from some distance, since I am a dabbler in things far away from IT services and software. When the invitation came to attend this year's NASSCOM meeting and the leadership forum, I thought that this either indicated some mixing up of my identity ("wake up, wake up," I wanted to say, "I teach non-IT subjects at a university!"), or alternatively, it reflected generous interest of NASSCOM leaders to reach out (or as my students say, "hang out") beyond their principality.
Of the two possibilities, identity confusion is the more exciting. My late friend Isaiah Berlin, the philosopher, recounted to me his exciting experiences when he was invited to a musical gathering under the mistaken impression that he was Irving Berlin, the musical composer, rather than Isaiah Berlin, the political philosopher. Apparently, the assembled gathering was somewhat disappointed by Isaiah Berlin's inability to respond to repeated requests to provide some insights into the melodies from Annie Get Your Gun or Call Me Madam. And, of course, Sen is a more common name than Berlin , offering more opportunity of identity confounding. Indeed, I was once asked in a gathering of very energetic and very globally minded Ugandan students - this happened at the Makerere College in Kampala - whether I, Amartya Sen, was any relation of Sun Yat Sen. I had to tell my interlocutor, "No, but we are trying hard."
It is, however, the second possibility - not identity confusion - on which I want to speak this afternoon, that is about the possibility of the IT industry to reach out beyond its principality. I want to talk not, of course, about my being here at this NASSCOM meeting, but about the case for the IT industry to bring its influences somewhat beyond what can be seen as its traditional domain.
Of course, the idea of what counts as "traditional" is hard to articulate in the case of a field of enterprise as new as information technology. Indeed, a little over a century ago, in 1885, when the Indian National Congress had its first meeting in Bombay, which was attended by among others Jamsetji Tata (he would establish his new "Swadeshi mills" next year), Jamsetji would have been, I imagine, a little puzzled if he were told that the enterprise he was pioneering would soon include a huge operation in software and IT - indeed the largest in the country (my friend Ramadorai, who heads it, is here). The importance of information has, of course, been acknowledged over many millennia, but the ideas of IT technology and software are quintessential contributions of contemporary modernity - not something with any ageless recognition. Indeed, the entire idea of a National Association of Software and Service Companies (that is, NASSCOM) would have appeared quite mysterious to the pioneering industrial leader of India. As it happens, the domain of IT is still evolving, and I would like to argue for taking an even broader view than has already got established.
My point is not that the IT industry should do something for the country at large, for that it does anyway. It already makes enormous contributions: it generates significant incomes for a great many Indians; it has encouraged attention to technical excellence as a general requirement across the board; it has established exacting standards of economic success in the country; it has encouraged many bright students to go technical rather than merely contemplative; and it has inspired Indian industrialists to face the world economy as a potentially big participant, not a tiny little bit-player. My point, rather, is that it can do even more, indeed in some ways, much more. This is partly because the reach of information is so wide and all-inclusive, but also because the prosperity and commanding stature of the IT leaders and activists give them voice, power and ability to help the direction of Indian economic and social development.
2
Let me begin by asking a question that no one here will, I think, ask (because everyone I meet here seems so polite and well-behaved): why should the Indian IT industry have any sense of obligation to do things - more things - for India, more than what happens automatically from its normal operations (as a by-product of business success, rather than as a deliberated goal to be advanced, among other demands and necessities)? Why assume there is any obligation at all for IT to do anything other than minding its own business?
I think part of the answer lies in reciprocity. The country has made huge contributions, even though they are not often clearly recognised, to help the development and flowering of the IT industry in India, and it is not silly to ask what in return the IT might do for India .
But how has the country helped? Perhaps most immediately, the IT sector has benefitted from the visionary move, originally championed by Jawaharlal Nehru, to develop centres of excellent technical education in India, such as the IITs, to be followed by the Institutes of Management and other initiatives, aimed at enhancing the quality and reach of Indian professional and specialized education. Despite Nehru's moving rhetoric in favour of literacy for all (which was plentifully present even in his celebrated speech on the eve of independence on 14th August 1947 - the speech on India 's "tryst with destiny"), he in fact did shockingly little for literacy. I would suggest that Jawaharlal Nehru did not really think through how to ensure the practical realization of his goal of literacy for all, in which he did believe with sincerity and conviction, but not with any sense of practicality. It was, however, entirely different as far as technical education is concerned - here Nehru's sense of ways and means nicely supplemented his fervent passion. India was not only the first poor country in the world to choose a robustly democratic from of governance, it also was the first country with grinding poverty to give priority to the development of technical skill and the state-of-art education in technology. And from this the IT sector has benefited a lot, since the entire industry is so dependent on the availability, quality and reach of technical education.
However, IT's links with India 's past goes back much further than that. The nature of Indian society and traditions have tended to support the pursuit of specialized excellence in general and the development of IT in particular. There has been a historic respect for distinctive skills, seeing it even as a social contribution in itself. Indeed, even the nasty caste system, which has so afflicted the possibility of social equity in India, has tended greatly to rely on - and exploit - the traditional reverence for specialized skill, which, in its regimented form, has been used to add to the barriers of societal stratification. There is a tradition here that can be taken in many different directions, and it is a matter of much satisfaction that the IT industry's use of the same respect is remarkably positive and potentially open and inclusive. I will come back to that question of inclusiveness later on (it is an important subject on which there is a case for more deliberation and action), but before that let me comment on a few other connections, since they are often missed, between the success of IT in India and some particular features of India's past.
Going well beyond respect for specialized skill, there is also a general attitude of openness in India to influences from far and near - of admiring excellence no matter where it is produced. This is particularly important since the IT success of India did draw initially, as indeed was inevitable, on what was going on with much accomplishment abroad. The experiences of the Silicon valley, in particular, was very important for the yearning of skilled and discerning Indians to learn from others - and then to make good use of it. While many Indians have a deep preference for what we can see as total local immersion and even succumb to evidently strong temptations to denigrate things happening abroad (and this attitude rears its ugly head from time to time in contemporary Indian politics as well), there has also been for thousand of years a very robust tradition here of admiring, using and learning from excellence anywhere in the world.
The IT technical experts may not readily perceive that there is a remarkable similarity between (1) their own valuational commitment to learn what they can from anywhere which has good ideas to offer, and (2) the open and welcoming attitude to departures originating elsewhere which Rabindranath Tagore articulated with compelling clarity in a letter to a friend (in a letter to Charlie Andrews in fact) in the 1920s, at the height of our struggle of for national independence:
Whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin. I am proud of my humanity when I can acknowledge the poets and artists of other countries as my own. Let me feel with unalloyed gladness that the all the great glories of man are mine. Therefore it hurts me deeply when the cry of rejection rings loud against the West in my country with the clamour that Western education can only injure us.
It is, of course, to the credit of Western centres of excellence in education and practice that they were so welcoming to learners from abroad (I think America and Europe do not always get enough recognition for its liberal priorities in this field, despite their narrow-minded national and local priorities in other areas), but it is also important to see that the interest and initiative of bright Indians to learn from abroad for domestic use was strongly founded on an open-minded willingness to comprehend, as Tagore put it, that "whatever we understand and enjoy in human products instantly becomes ours, wherever they might have their origin."
I want to point to one further connection between the development and achievements of Indian IT and the Indian intellectual traditions on which Indian IT draws. I don't refer here only to the love of mathematics that has inspired so many young Indians throughout history, and which is important in many different ways, for the efficacy IT operations. The general maths-friendliness of Indian intellectuals is relevant here: according to some accounts, the mathematician Bhaskara even tried to convince his daughter Lilavati that if she came to master mathematical puzzles then she would be highly popular when she went to parties, which seems to me be, to say the least, a little doubtful. But aside from being fascinated by maths, Indian intellectuals have also typically been very excited about arguments in general: it is a subject on which I have even indulged in writing a book (incidentally, in my last trip to Mumbai I was very impressed to be offered a cut-price pirated edition of my book, The Argumentative Indian, by a street vendor near the airport, who also had the exquisite taste of explaining to me that this book was "quite good" - and from him, also "very cheap").
IT is a hugely interactive operation and in many ways Indian IT has depended on what we can call TI, that is, "talkative Indians." It is not hard to see how a tradition of being thrilled by intellectual altercations tend to do a lot to prepare someone to the challenges of IT interactions.
3
Given what the country has done for Indian IT, it is not silly to ask: what specially can the IT industry do for India (other than what happens automatically without any deliberate pursuit of non-business ends)? This seems to me to be right, but I would also like to emphasize that historical reciprocity is not the only - perhaps not even the most important - reason for being interested in the social obligations of the IT industry. Many considerations arise there.
There is, of course, the elementary issue of the obligation of those who "make it" vis-a-vis those who do not manage quite so well, which is a very basic ethical demand that, it can be argued, society places upon us. This raises immediately the question what any prosperous group may owe to others not so well placed. This is not only a reflective demand for social deliberation - part of what Immanuel Kant called a "categorical imperative" - but it is also a part of enlightened business operation. There is, as it happens, a very well established tradition in a part of Indian business to do just that, particularly well exemplified by the Tatas for example, through various socially valuable activities such as building hospitals, research centres and other social institutions of high distinction. I am impressed to see that many of the major IT leaders seem to be very seized of this challenge.
If that possible role is obvious enough, there is some need to understand better other roles in which the IT industry can make a very big difference in India. As it happens the key to the success of IT, namely accessability, systematization and use of information is also very central to social evaluation and societal change. There is, in fact, a very foundational connection between information and social obligation, since the moral - and of course the political - need to pay attention to others depends greatly on our knowledge and information about them.
Indeed, already in the 1770s (more than two hundred years ago), that remarkable Scottish philosopher, David Hume, had noted the importance of increased intercourse in expanding the reach of our sense of justice. He had put the issue thus (in his chapter "Of Justice," in An Enquiry Concerning the Principles of Morals):
....again suppose that several distinct societies maintain a kind of intercourse for mutual convenience and advantage, the boundaries of justice still grow larger, in proportion to the largeness of men's views, and the force of their mutual connexions. History, experience, reason sufficiently instruct us in this natural progress of human sentiments, and in the gradual enlargement of our regards to justice, in proportion as we become acquainted with the extensive utility of that virtue.
Negligence of suffering of others is sustainable, given human interest in justice and equity, only when we know little about that suffering. More information in itself goes a long way to breaking that chain of apathy and indifference.
This foundational connection also gives the information industry a huge opportunity to help India by trying to make its contribution to the systematization, digestion and dissemination of diverse clusters of information in India about the lives of the underdogs of society - those who do not have realistic opportunity of getting basic schooling, essential health care, elementary nutritional entitlements, and rudimentary equality across the barriers of class and gender. This can also be said about problems of underdeveloped physical infrastructure (water, electricity, roads, etc.), as well as social infrastructure, that restrain the broad mass of Indians from moving ahead. There are particular causal connections also here: an enterprise that hugely depends on the excellence of education for its success - as the IT sector clearly does - has good reason to consider its broad responsibility to Indian education in general.
I do not know enough about the IT operations to see whether all this can be turned into a business proposition as well. But my point is that even if it cannot be so transformed, it is something that the IT sector has good reason to consider doing. Can there be a group initiative in any of these fields? Can NASSCOM itself play a catalytic role here? Informational issues are thoroughly rampant in morality and politics, and in many direct and indirect ways, the preoccupation of the IT enterprise links closely with the foundations of political and moral assessment and adjudication.
Even though in this presentation I am mainly concentrating on domestic issues, I should mention in passing that the role of information and informed understanding can also be very large in the pursuit of global peace and in defeating ill-reasoned violence. When we consider how many of the brutalities in the world today are linked with ignorant hostility to cultures and practices abroad, we can appreciate the contribution of informational limitation, among other causal factors, in cross-border belligerence. I could have talked about that too, in developing some ideas presented in my last book (Identity and Violence), but given my time limits I will resist that temptation.
4
I return now to the domestic scene. In emphasizing the role of the moral domain for the IT sector to feel some responsibility towards making India a more equitable country, I do not want to give the impression that there is not also a prudential case for going in that direction. One of the huge obstacles to the domestic development of the IT sector is the size of the local market, which is still quite small, despite all the recent expansions. Indian IT has done very well in making excellent use of the global market, but competition there is likely to be increasingly fierce. Other countries are trying to learn from the experience not only of America and Europe but also from India , and while India has some peculiar advantages in the IT field (which I have already discussed), the barriers may well be gradually removed in many countries - indeed even in many poor countries - in the world. China, which has a much larger domestic market already and will continue to expand that market very fast, is not as vulnerable as we may be, in this particular respect.
As it happens, one of the reasons for the larger domestic reach of IT in China is its much wider base of good basic schooling. So, what is an issue of equity, on one side, is also a matter of central importance for prudential reasoning about domestic economic expansion, on the other. The same goes for a much wider base of elementary health care in China, though this, as it happens, has been going through some turmoil since the Chinese economic reforms of 1979 which effectively abolished free health care for all, through insisting on privately purchased health insurance. It is a subject on which I have written elsewhere, so I will not go further into it here, other than noting that the Chinese authorities are quite receptive now of critical scrutiny of the present system of health care that China has ended up having. This, in fact, is in sharp contrast with the past when we had made similar criticisms earlier, and I do know that very serious critical scrutiny is currently going on in Beijing on this, in a very constructive way. I expect major changes to happen in China in a more inclusive direction before long.
Excessive reliance on private health care in India for the most elementary problems of ill-health and disease (resulting mostly from the limited size, reach and operational efficiency of public health facilities) is similarly a barrier to the availability and entitlement to health care for all Indians, and this obstacle urgently needs removing. These are all subjects on which the IT sector is well placed to provide considerable enlightenment and guidance. As it happens, the IT sector itself will indirectly benefit (for reasons I have already outlined) from playing a constructive and deliberated role in widening the base of social and physical infrastructure. But the more immediate - and also the more foundational - reason relates, I think, to demands from the moral domain to which the IT sector has reasons to respond. This is so, I have argued, for a variety of reasons, varying from Indian IT's unequal current success and its debt to India's traditions and priorities, on one side, to - and this is often unrecognised but happens to be extremely important - the central role of information in moral reasoning, on the other. There is indeed, I would argue, something of a socially connected obligation here, the recognition of which could make a huge difference to the future of India.
Thursday, January 25, 2007
Mother Esther - Biography
I feel greatly honored to write about a person whom I met during my long but short and wonderful trip to India.
Every individual around the world is dedicated in doing something for a purpose and tend to have great expectation (on the positive side), may it be for a good or bad cause. But one can only find a few among them who dedicate or rather sacrifice their entire life for a good cause of others (people not related to oneself).
I wanted to write this biography, because I felt it is my duty to do so. I am a normal human being surrounded by a big wall of “EMOTIONS”, because of which I am not able to go beyond the wall and see the other side of the world and I am sure most of us in the world are on the same boat.
Every religion has a designated Messenger to God. In the same way, I consider this great person as a Messenger to the world, who is beyond the wall of EMOTIONS that surrounds me.
Mother Esther, is the great person I am talking about and from whom I came to know the true meaning of dedication. Every one of us would like to help people who are in need, like Orphans, Old age, poor, diseased etc. So we tend to go to an orphanage, old age home and many other places to help them.
Mother Esther is an exception; she is one among the few who dedicated her life for the good will of others. I was curious to know about her as to what made her enter into the life of complete dedication and true sacrifice.
Mother is running an Orphanage place named “Saranalaya” in Coimbatore, India. As soon as I entered the orphanage, I was surrounded by a group of young kids and I could see tons of true love and affection in their faces. Mother received me and my mom with a warm welcome and gave us a good authentic Indian tea and some wonderful snacks.
I talked to her for a long time, which ended my curiosity but came to know a new meaning of dedication. I would like to share this with everyone.
Mother, was born in a beautiful place called Kanyakumari, southern most tip of India and a place where visitors can have a great view of sunset and sunrise. She has four siblings (brothers) and she is the only girl child in the family. A girl child going for a school during those days is a big ordeal. During her third grade, she was the class topper, but she was never recognized in her family for her studies. She had to cry to her family members for her higher studies during her young ages.
Days passed by, after lots of refusal and oppositions she somehow struggled to reach tenth grade. She was topper in her village of all the girls in her tenth grade final exam, which was a big thing during those days. Her family members felt proud of her achievements and wanted her to go for higher studies.
This made her think, that her family members wanted her to go for higher studies because she brought pride to her family. She decided not to do things for people, who don’t realize the true effort but go for pride. She always had a thought about becoming a Nun. One fine day she stepped out of her house and went in the direction of a Church to become a Nun.
From there on, she decided to live for others and not for herself. She was given posting in the Church as Nun for various social activities. Even though she was doing lots of social activities she still was not satisfied. She felt that somebody somewhere is waiting for her and is in need of her help. One fine day in a place called Coimbatore, TamilNadu she decided to go to a jail to give consultation for those who are terrorists, criminals, etc. But there was always a big opposition in her organization.
Her unstoppable thirst to help the real people who are in need made her to go against the organization. She went to the jail to meet the Superintendent of Police, which is an arduous task because an individual is not allowed into jail without prior appointments and the reason for making an appointment should be genuine. She found a picture of hers’ taken in a function along with other Sisters, Mothers and Superintendent of Police (whom she wanted to meet in the jail) who was the Chief Guest.
She went to the jail with the picture along with full faith in God. She went passed all the policemen and finally reached the destination where she wanted to be. Yes, she was in SP’s (Superintendent of Police) office. Firstly, the SP didn’t realize who she was and then she showed the picture and made him realize. She then went on to tell him the purpose of her visit. Initially, SP said it was not possible and finally she convinced him but then according to the jail rules, she needs to get an approval from an authorized person in her organization.
By God’s grace, there was a Baptist who was able to provide her the full support and approved her for doing this job. Finally after all the struggle and hurdles she is in a service of her choice. Her great faith in God made her feel and look audacious when she was walking along the jail corridor. She went into a hall filled with the most stubborn or the so called stubborn criminals. Her first session was not that good because everyone turned their heads with a great disrespect. Mother was kind enough to let it go and she realized that one day things will come her way with the help of God.
Days passed by, Mother went through all the curses and criticisms from people in jail as well as from her organization, but because of her patience she was able to overcome all those obstacles. She was able make every individual in jail listen to her and now they feel that the day is not complete if they don’t consult with Mother for few hours. She had one specific experience with a person in jail which made her take another diversion in her life.
One among those in jail was very stubborn and was never willing to attend Mother’s consultation hours. He was put in jail because he murdered an individual who criticized him for being a lower caste. He is a well educated and honored who has great respect for others. One fine day, he came to Mother and cried for a long time and he did regret for his mistakes. He talked to Mother about his kids who are helpless and that their career was in stake. Mother realized that her task is incomplete and decided to help the kids of the all the individuals who are in jail. She realized that young kids are not supposed to suffer because of the mistake of their parents.
Mother went in search of all the kids who are in need; some lived in nearby places and some in remote villages. Most of those kids were diseased; she brought them to her home, provided them with all the basic necessities and all the necessary medications to cure their diseases. Now every kid is talented in something and some kid passed their 10th and 12th grade with some excellent job opportunities.
Kids come and go, but Mother is always the same doing her duties with a great satisfaction and tremendous amount of faith in God. She goes to jail everyday for consultation, take care of their kids until they get good job opportunities and provide them all the necessary talent.
God can be realized, felt and seen through people like Mother Esther and I feel that I did see and will always see God in her forever. Thank You GOD!!!!!
Every individual around the world is dedicated in doing something for a purpose and tend to have great expectation (on the positive side), may it be for a good or bad cause. But one can only find a few among them who dedicate or rather sacrifice their entire life for a good cause of others (people not related to oneself).
I wanted to write this biography, because I felt it is my duty to do so. I am a normal human being surrounded by a big wall of “EMOTIONS”, because of which I am not able to go beyond the wall and see the other side of the world and I am sure most of us in the world are on the same boat.
Every religion has a designated Messenger to God. In the same way, I consider this great person as a Messenger to the world, who is beyond the wall of EMOTIONS that surrounds me.
Mother Esther, is the great person I am talking about and from whom I came to know the true meaning of dedication. Every one of us would like to help people who are in need, like Orphans, Old age, poor, diseased etc. So we tend to go to an orphanage, old age home and many other places to help them.
Mother Esther is an exception; she is one among the few who dedicated her life for the good will of others. I was curious to know about her as to what made her enter into the life of complete dedication and true sacrifice.
Mother is running an Orphanage place named “Saranalaya” in Coimbatore, India. As soon as I entered the orphanage, I was surrounded by a group of young kids and I could see tons of true love and affection in their faces. Mother received me and my mom with a warm welcome and gave us a good authentic Indian tea and some wonderful snacks.
I talked to her for a long time, which ended my curiosity but came to know a new meaning of dedication. I would like to share this with everyone.
Mother, was born in a beautiful place called Kanyakumari, southern most tip of India and a place where visitors can have a great view of sunset and sunrise. She has four siblings (brothers) and she is the only girl child in the family. A girl child going for a school during those days is a big ordeal. During her third grade, she was the class topper, but she was never recognized in her family for her studies. She had to cry to her family members for her higher studies during her young ages.
Days passed by, after lots of refusal and oppositions she somehow struggled to reach tenth grade. She was topper in her village of all the girls in her tenth grade final exam, which was a big thing during those days. Her family members felt proud of her achievements and wanted her to go for higher studies.
This made her think, that her family members wanted her to go for higher studies because she brought pride to her family. She decided not to do things for people, who don’t realize the true effort but go for pride. She always had a thought about becoming a Nun. One fine day she stepped out of her house and went in the direction of a Church to become a Nun.
From there on, she decided to live for others and not for herself. She was given posting in the Church as Nun for various social activities. Even though she was doing lots of social activities she still was not satisfied. She felt that somebody somewhere is waiting for her and is in need of her help. One fine day in a place called Coimbatore, TamilNadu she decided to go to a jail to give consultation for those who are terrorists, criminals, etc. But there was always a big opposition in her organization.
Her unstoppable thirst to help the real people who are in need made her to go against the organization. She went to the jail to meet the Superintendent of Police, which is an arduous task because an individual is not allowed into jail without prior appointments and the reason for making an appointment should be genuine. She found a picture of hers’ taken in a function along with other Sisters, Mothers and Superintendent of Police (whom she wanted to meet in the jail) who was the Chief Guest.
She went to the jail with the picture along with full faith in God. She went passed all the policemen and finally reached the destination where she wanted to be. Yes, she was in SP’s (Superintendent of Police) office. Firstly, the SP didn’t realize who she was and then she showed the picture and made him realize. She then went on to tell him the purpose of her visit. Initially, SP said it was not possible and finally she convinced him but then according to the jail rules, she needs to get an approval from an authorized person in her organization.
By God’s grace, there was a Baptist who was able to provide her the full support and approved her for doing this job. Finally after all the struggle and hurdles she is in a service of her choice. Her great faith in God made her feel and look audacious when she was walking along the jail corridor. She went into a hall filled with the most stubborn or the so called stubborn criminals. Her first session was not that good because everyone turned their heads with a great disrespect. Mother was kind enough to let it go and she realized that one day things will come her way with the help of God.
Days passed by, Mother went through all the curses and criticisms from people in jail as well as from her organization, but because of her patience she was able to overcome all those obstacles. She was able make every individual in jail listen to her and now they feel that the day is not complete if they don’t consult with Mother for few hours. She had one specific experience with a person in jail which made her take another diversion in her life.
One among those in jail was very stubborn and was never willing to attend Mother’s consultation hours. He was put in jail because he murdered an individual who criticized him for being a lower caste. He is a well educated and honored who has great respect for others. One fine day, he came to Mother and cried for a long time and he did regret for his mistakes. He talked to Mother about his kids who are helpless and that their career was in stake. Mother realized that her task is incomplete and decided to help the kids of the all the individuals who are in jail. She realized that young kids are not supposed to suffer because of the mistake of their parents.
Mother went in search of all the kids who are in need; some lived in nearby places and some in remote villages. Most of those kids were diseased; she brought them to her home, provided them with all the basic necessities and all the necessary medications to cure their diseases. Now every kid is talented in something and some kid passed their 10th and 12th grade with some excellent job opportunities.
Kids come and go, but Mother is always the same doing her duties with a great satisfaction and tremendous amount of faith in God. She goes to jail everyday for consultation, take care of their kids until they get good job opportunities and provide them all the necessary talent.
God can be realized, felt and seen through people like Mother Esther and I feel that I did see and will always see God in her forever. Thank You GOD!!!!!
Wednesday, December 27, 2006
Network Drivers ....
This is an interesting article ... I am not a big time networking guy but this gave me a good understanding and above all it provided some useful information ... have fun reading it ..
http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/293/
The battle for wireless network drivers
Written by Jem Matzan
Dec 20, 2006 at 08:52 PM
BSD and Linux programmers have had a lot of success in creating drivers for new computer hardware in a timely manner, but much of their effort has been without the support of major hardware manufacturers. Intel, Marvell, Texas Instruments and Broadcom, though separate and competing entities, seem by one consent to prevent non-Microsoft operating systems from working properly with some of their most widely-used network chips. To find out more about this situation, I interviewed representatives from network chip manufacturers and programmers from free software operating systems. Their answers are below.
The problem
If you have not had any trouble with network drivers recently, you probably aren't aware of the problem that this article addresses, so here's a quick overview: The increasing need for higher network chip performance and lower cost of manufacturing has encouraged companies that create computer network chips to abstract software that was previously permanently stored on the chip. When this software is integrated with the hardware, you don't have to think about it -- it works without any extra effort, and all you need is a driver so that your operating system can interact with it. If hardware specifications are not provided, the device can be reverse-engineered to create a driver from scratch. Programmers generally do this by playing with the hardware registers until they figure out how to interact with it.
When the software is abstracted from the hardware, it changes from an invisible program stored on a memory chip into a file that must be loaded into the network chip's memory through the driver. Generally this software (no matter where it resides) is called firmware. In this case the driver does not interface with the hardware directly; it only does so through the firmware. In this scenario it is impossible to reverse-engineer the hardware because it is essentially brain-dead without its firmware -- all it knows how to do is load the firmware. Once the file is loaded into the network chip, then the hardware knows how to be a network device. Essentially the firmware is its own device-specific operating system. Programmers are unable to reverse-engineer this kind of hardware because the only registers they can play with are the ones that load the firmware; they can, however, reverse-engineer the firmware interface once it is loaded. That's still not an easy thing to do, but even if it weren't so complicated, many operating system developers don't want to write their own device firmware -- all they want to do is write a driver that can load and interface with it.
The first challenge for operating system developers is obtaining the right to distribute the firmware file, which some manufacturers will not allow without significant restriction. Firmware is not operating system-specific, so the same firmware file can be used with any OS, provided it has a driver that can interface with it. So the second challenge is creating such a driver, which requires firmware interface documentation. Not surprisingly, many of the same manufacturers that prohibit or restrict firmware distribution also won't provide interface documentation.
This problem is most prevalent with wireless network chips, but it's also creeping into the wired variety as well. Most notably, Broadcom has developed a new PCI Express 10/100/1000 LAN card that uses several discrete MIPS processors, all of which require proprietary firmware to be loaded. According to a network driver programmer I spoke with, they are employed as such: One of the processors is responsible for loading the firmware onto the other chips; one sends network packets; one receives packets; one tracks packet state to perform TCP offload assistance and various other things; one handles negotiating with the host CPU as it puts/removes packets in/out of the descriptor rings. In this case, all of the firmware fits into an 87k file, but firmware files can be considerably larger: Intel's firmware files are just under half a megabyte, and the firmware for the Alteon Networks Tigon II network controller is in the vicinity of 2MB.
Unrestricted redistribution of firmware files is satisfactory for some open source operating system projects like OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and many varieties of GNU/Linux, but others like Fedora Core and Debian demand an entirely free software environment, so redistribution of the firmware without the ability to modify and distribute the source code is prohibited. The standard response to this from the Free Software Foundation is to reverse-engineer the device and provide free firmware. So even though it is very difficult -- almost impossible -- to do it in the absence of documentation, could such firmware eventually be reverse-engineered? The development team that works on the OpenBSD operating system has a lot of experience with reverse-engineering, but both project leader Theo de Raadt and OpenBSD network driver programmer Jonathan Gray agree that such work would be impractical. Of reverse-engineering firmware and the hardware that it runs on, de Raadt told me, "We can sometimes reverse-engineer how to talk to a device... some are worse than others... but imagine reverse engineering the firmware of 300-400 devices on the market today! Behind their little ARM/MIPS buses, they are a no man's land of undocumented-ness and bugs; hundreds and hundreds of bugs created almost all by the realities of 'time-to-market pressures.'" The issue, in other words, is made worse by hastily-designed hardware that doesn't work as it should, and requires specific workarounds in the firmware and/or driver. Sometimes manufacturers provide patches or documentation for driver programmers; sometimes they don't.
So instead of lobbying for documentation to write open source firmware, de Raadt would prefer to simply have the right to freely distribute necessary proprietary firmware files with his operating system, along with correct firmware interface documentation so that a driver can be created, and information from the manufacturer regarding bug workarounds. Many network chip manufacturers stubbornly refuse to grant these requests, however. Theo de Raadt told me in an email, "Our efforts to do more wireless involves a few approaches. We reverse-engineer what we can. We borrow from other people's reverse-engineering lessons where we can, for instance, prism54.org is a Linux team, but their reverse-engineer work has resulted in knowledge which we can obviously use to write a BSD driver. And finally, we dialogue directly with vendors to get more free access to documentation, early access to hardware, or firmware distribution rights (sometimes there is just no other way). Some vendors (in particular Ralink or Realtek) will even give us hardware before it goes on sale. Some give us documentation, some give us code. But largely a lot of American vendors are still stupidly resisting giving anything. In any case, all these efforts together now mean that we have more wireless support in OpenBSD than all the Linux distributions. Maybe even combined!"
According to Jonathan Gray, the drivers that OpenBSD currently has that require firmware that vendors won't let the OpenBSD Project distribute are:
acx (4) - TI ACX100/ACX111 IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
ipw (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 IEEE 802.11b wireless network device
iwi (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG/2225BG/2915ABG IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
malo (4) - Marvell Libertas IEEE 802.11b/g
bcw (4) - Broadcom IEEE 802.11b/g (this driver is still under development and does not currently work)
wpi (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG IEEE 802.11a/b/g
pgt (4) - Connexant/Intersil Prism GT Full-MAC IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
uath (4) - Atheros USB IEEE 802.11a/b/g
wpi (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
And the wireless devices that either do not require firmware, or that have runtime firmware that OpenBSD is allowed to distribute:
atu (4) - Atmel AT76C50x USB IEEE 802.11b wireless network device
ral (4) - Ralink Technology IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device (2nd gen 802.11 Ralink)
rum (4) - Ralink Technology USB IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
zyd (4) - Zydas ZD1211 USB IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network device
Intel requires that people who use its Centrino wireless firmware submit to a lengthy license agreement before downloading and using it. While the majority of end-users may just scroll down and click the "I Agree" link to get past it, the process is not quite so simple for free software operating systems, which would have to provide the same license hurdle for every one of their users, and agree not to modify any of the driver header code that Intel provides. Commercial desktop GNU/Linux distributions like SUSE, Mandriva, and Linspire already do this, or have independent distribution agreements with Intel.
When reverse-engineering works Reyk Floeter and various other OpenBSD programmers managed to write a free replacement for the proprietary Atheros hardware abstraction layer (HAL) called ar5k or "OpenHAL." The HAL isn't firmware; it is a form of abstracted device driver that actually loads into the operating system kernel through a small amount of driver code. The big difference between a HAL and a firmware is where the code resides; if it's on the device, it's firmware, and if it is loaded into the operating system's kernel, it's HAL.
ar5k works with many Atheros-based wireless cards and has been examined and recently given a clean bill of copyright health from the Software Freedom Law Center. Mysteriously, it has virtually no support from the Madwifi Project, which is the development team responsible for creating Atheros drivers for Linux-based operating systems. Madwifi continues to primarily support the proprietary Atheros HAL, though there is an old and uninformative page in the Madwifi Wiki about it. The email addresses listed for the Madwifi developers either bounce or elicit no response to requests for comments on why there is no apparent effort to use the open source HAL in Madwifi. So if it exists, it's free-as-in-rights, and it works, then why doesn't Madwifi use ar5k instead of the proprietary HAL? It may very well be pressure from Atheros that keeps ar5k out of Madwifi, but no one at Madwifi or Atheros would talk to me about it.
The manufacturers speak -- or don't
In order to find out why network chip manufacturers are so polarized in their support of free software operating systems, I made contact with company representatives at Atheros, Intel, Marvell, Atmel, Ralink, Texas Instruments, Broadcom, and Realtek. Not surprisingly, the manufacturers who shun operating system programmers also seem to be reluctant to talk to the press.
Atheros
After weeks of repeated requests and pleas for any kind of response just to verify that the PR email address works, an Atheros representative told me that she was unable to find anyone at the company who was qualified and willing to comment for this article.
Intel
Intel punted me to different people a few times, then after a short delay and a bizarre inquisition into my professional background and "intentions" in writing this article, told me that the company had nothing to say on the matter of wireless firmware distribution rights and interface documentation. Considering Intel's outstanding PR record and its general willingness to provide hardware documentation for the PCI chipsets and drive controllers that it makes, this behavior is unusual. One of the questions I asked Intel was if it felt its uncooperativeness with free software developers was in direct conflict with this presentation about the importance of participating in and supporting open source software development that Intel engineer James Ketrenos gave last summer. In it, Ketrenos says several things in favor of corporate cooperation with open source software developers, including these points:
Enable the community to do as much as possible
Only keep internal those things that the community can not contribute to (Example: Certification testing)
If you need to keep IP closed source (for example some whiz-bang algorithm), document the hardware sufficiently that the community can provide their own.
Treat the community as if they were a member of your internal team
Broadcom
The Broadcom press relations person I spoke with very much wanted to help me, but could not find anyone at Broadcom who felt qualified to comment.
Marvell
I have already written about the substandard responsiveness of Marvell's outsourced PR agency (see the bottom of the linked article).
Texas Instruments
An internal Texas Instruments press relations person was very responsive to my requests for comment at first, then punted me to an outsourced PR agency which, in turn, ignored several emails asking for information. After more than two weeks of repeated inquiries, a representative of the PR agency informed me that she was unable to find anyone at Texas Instruments who was qualified to comment on TI's policies on providing hardware documentation and firmware redistribution agreements.
Ralink Technologies
I had no trouble getting through to Ralink, where I spoke with company representative Lillian Chiu.
Ralink has been responsive to requests for hardware documentation without requiring an NDA. Why can Ralink do this when competing manufacturers such as Intel and Marvell require non-disclosure agreements?
Lillian Chiu: It's our philosophy to spread the technology without border, along with high performance and low cost.
Because of Ralink's cooperativeness with projects like OpenBSD and Linux kernel developers, Ralink's products tend to be very well supported in so-called "alternative" operating systems. Do you see this as a competitive advantage? Does Ralink sell more network products as a result?
LC: Our customers have often provided positive feedback for our best-in-class device support. We see it as a win-win situation where advanced users get more flexibility while we sell more products.
If a programmer needs to access Ralink hardware documentation, whom at Ralink should they contact?
LC: Please visit Ralink Web site at www.ralinktech.com for details under /support/forums.
Atmel Inc.
Richard Bisset, product marketing director of the multimedia and communications group, offered several minutes of his time to answer some questions about wireless drivers and firmware.
Atmel has been responsive to requests for hardware documentation without requiring an NDA. Why can Atmel do this when competing manufacturers such as Intel and Marvell require non-disclosure agreements?
Richard Bisset: For some things we do require non-disclosure agreements, but we are generally able to provide the API documentation and the firmware driver interface specifications for our hardware. As to why others may not be able to do this... well, our software is developed in-house, but others might out outsource their driver development to third-party companies, so they may not even have the documentation that a programmer requests.
As to why Intel might be so secretive with this information if they do have it, I can't say. Perhaps because more and more features are actually being moved from the firmware to the driver, some companies are being more guarded than others. Additionally, as the Centrino laptop processor includes wireless, it may be they don't want to give up any potential IP that could help their competition -- I don't really know for sure.
Because of Atmel's cooperativeness with projects like OpenBSD and Linux kernel developers, Atmel's products tend to be very well supported in so-called "alternative" operating systems. Do you see this as a competitive advantage? Does Atmel sell more network products as a result?RB: Well, if you look at the success of Intel, Marvell, Broadcom, etc. -- the big players in the wireless industry -- they are successful with the OEM and peripheral markets. As the embedded markets generally require more technical support, they probably don't care much about getting another 50,000 or 100,000 units sold and can be tight with their APIs. We were late to market with our 802.11g products, so we missed the OEM opportunities, and with wireless, you've only got three real chances for success: you can be first to market with a technology, or you can have valuable and unique features that no one else has and the market wants, or you can have the lowest price. Atmel wasn't first, didn't have any new unique features, and wasn't the cheapest, either. With the PC and OEM markets being somewhat locked out, we repositioned to focus on the embedded space where the market was experiencing and predicting large growth. In the embedded market, if you don't get documentation to developers, then you both fail.
What's the big secret with device firmware, then?
RB: Firmware is generally running on the chip itself, as opposed to the host. The code is written tightly coupled to the chip it is running on and implements/enables functions that the hardware supports. Therefore, there generally is a lot of IP within the firmware. Our firmware is loaded from an external flash into internal SRAM, but more and more semiconductor manufacturers are moving firmware functions to the driver.
We usually provide driver source code, and we try to put it under the GPL if possible, so that's usually good enough if you want to write your own driver. If you want to see more than that, we generally require an NDA, or if you're an embedded customer, we provide reference platforms.
So the firmware is so secret that you have to sign an NDA to see it, but not secret enough that some stranger who works on an obscure operating system can see it with merely a signature?
RB: It is kind of a strange situation, yes, and sometimes we run into people who are reluctant to sign NDAs. It really depends on the customer and target application. We don't require an NDA to see hardware APIs, and I think that's what you're talking about with regard to documentation.
If a programmer needs to access Atmel hardware documentation, whom at Atmel should they contact?
RB: We have contact forms through our Web site where you can make requests, and they are directed to the proper person at Atmel.
Realtek Inc.
After a few emails, I made contact with Tracy Ho, a Taiwan-based representative for Realtek.
Realtek has reportedly been responsive to requests for hardware documentation without requiring a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Why can Realtek do this when competing manufacturers such as Intel and Marvell require NDAs?
Tracy Ho: For some years Realtek has been one of the largest NIC/LOM solution providers. One of the major reasons for this is that Realtek takes customer service as one of its top priorities. We aim to work with our customers as partners in a mutually cooperative environment. Our product sales and technical support teams are well-recognized by our customers and we strive to provide them with the convenience of flexibility and real-time support. One of the ways we do this is by releasing general hardware documents without requiring a NDA.
Because of Realtek's cooperativeness with projects like OpenBSD and Linux kernel developers, Realtek's products tend to be very well supported in so-called "alternative" operating systems. Do you see this as a competitive advantage? Does Realtek sell more network products as a result?
TH: Realtek has been working very closely with various operating system providers pretty much since the company was first started, and we do consider this to be one of our competitive advantages. Over the last decade, the great expansion of networked devices throughout the home and work environment, and the use of open-source operating systems in many such devices, has definitely helped us expand market share.
If a programmer needs to access Realtek hardware documentation, whom at Realtek should they contact?
TH: For most hardware documentation, programmers can access Realtek's website. Any other questions can be directed to our technical support teams (contact information available from the "Contact Us" link on our website).
All we need to do is make sure we keep talking Some of the non-responsiveness of manufacturers may just be bad PR work, but the same companies that wouldn't talk to me have also refused to reply to free software programmers who have requested the same information. The impression I got from most of these companies (excepting Intel) was that they were not at all prepared to deal with the issues of firmware redistribution rights and hardware API documentation requests. That they have ignored free software programmers' requests is not necessarily a sign of unwillingness to participate, but perhaps a general sense of confusion as to how they are able to help. No one seems to know whom to talk to at the company, and in some cases the proper documentation may not exist -- or it may belong to yet another company that the hardware manufacturer outsourced the firmware development to.
On the other hand, it was just as difficult to contact and get comments from the Madwifi developers, and it seems that each individual wireless driver in the Linux kernel has different people working on it. Even if one of the above companies wanted to provide the appropriate materials to create free drivers and firmware, how would they know whom to contact? The irony in this story is that the heart of the problem lies in a lack of communication, but not between operating systems and network devices -- between hardware manufacturers and the software developers who are trying to support their devices.
http://www.thejemreport.com/mambo/content/view/293/
The battle for wireless network drivers
Written by Jem Matzan
Dec 20, 2006 at 08:52 PM
BSD and Linux programmers have had a lot of success in creating drivers for new computer hardware in a timely manner, but much of their effort has been without the support of major hardware manufacturers. Intel, Marvell, Texas Instruments and Broadcom, though separate and competing entities, seem by one consent to prevent non-Microsoft operating systems from working properly with some of their most widely-used network chips. To find out more about this situation, I interviewed representatives from network chip manufacturers and programmers from free software operating systems. Their answers are below.
The problem
If you have not had any trouble with network drivers recently, you probably aren't aware of the problem that this article addresses, so here's a quick overview: The increasing need for higher network chip performance and lower cost of manufacturing has encouraged companies that create computer network chips to abstract software that was previously permanently stored on the chip. When this software is integrated with the hardware, you don't have to think about it -- it works without any extra effort, and all you need is a driver so that your operating system can interact with it. If hardware specifications are not provided, the device can be reverse-engineered to create a driver from scratch. Programmers generally do this by playing with the hardware registers until they figure out how to interact with it.
When the software is abstracted from the hardware, it changes from an invisible program stored on a memory chip into a file that must be loaded into the network chip's memory through the driver. Generally this software (no matter where it resides) is called firmware. In this case the driver does not interface with the hardware directly; it only does so through the firmware. In this scenario it is impossible to reverse-engineer the hardware because it is essentially brain-dead without its firmware -- all it knows how to do is load the firmware. Once the file is loaded into the network chip, then the hardware knows how to be a network device. Essentially the firmware is its own device-specific operating system. Programmers are unable to reverse-engineer this kind of hardware because the only registers they can play with are the ones that load the firmware; they can, however, reverse-engineer the firmware interface once it is loaded. That's still not an easy thing to do, but even if it weren't so complicated, many operating system developers don't want to write their own device firmware -- all they want to do is write a driver that can load and interface with it.
The first challenge for operating system developers is obtaining the right to distribute the firmware file, which some manufacturers will not allow without significant restriction. Firmware is not operating system-specific, so the same firmware file can be used with any OS, provided it has a driver that can interface with it. So the second challenge is creating such a driver, which requires firmware interface documentation. Not surprisingly, many of the same manufacturers that prohibit or restrict firmware distribution also won't provide interface documentation.
This problem is most prevalent with wireless network chips, but it's also creeping into the wired variety as well. Most notably, Broadcom has developed a new PCI Express 10/100/1000 LAN card that uses several discrete MIPS processors, all of which require proprietary firmware to be loaded. According to a network driver programmer I spoke with, they are employed as such: One of the processors is responsible for loading the firmware onto the other chips; one sends network packets; one receives packets; one tracks packet state to perform TCP offload assistance and various other things; one handles negotiating with the host CPU as it puts/removes packets in/out of the descriptor rings. In this case, all of the firmware fits into an 87k file, but firmware files can be considerably larger: Intel's firmware files are just under half a megabyte, and the firmware for the Alteon Networks Tigon II network controller is in the vicinity of 2MB.
Unrestricted redistribution of firmware files is satisfactory for some open source operating system projects like OpenBSD, FreeBSD, and many varieties of GNU/Linux, but others like Fedora Core and Debian demand an entirely free software environment, so redistribution of the firmware without the ability to modify and distribute the source code is prohibited. The standard response to this from the Free Software Foundation is to reverse-engineer the device and provide free firmware. So even though it is very difficult -- almost impossible -- to do it in the absence of documentation, could such firmware eventually be reverse-engineered? The development team that works on the OpenBSD operating system has a lot of experience with reverse-engineering, but both project leader Theo de Raadt and OpenBSD network driver programmer Jonathan Gray agree that such work would be impractical. Of reverse-engineering firmware and the hardware that it runs on, de Raadt told me, "We can sometimes reverse-engineer how to talk to a device... some are worse than others... but imagine reverse engineering the firmware of 300-400 devices on the market today! Behind their little ARM/MIPS buses, they are a no man's land of undocumented-ness and bugs; hundreds and hundreds of bugs created almost all by the realities of 'time-to-market pressures.'" The issue, in other words, is made worse by hastily-designed hardware that doesn't work as it should, and requires specific workarounds in the firmware and/or driver. Sometimes manufacturers provide patches or documentation for driver programmers; sometimes they don't.
So instead of lobbying for documentation to write open source firmware, de Raadt would prefer to simply have the right to freely distribute necessary proprietary firmware files with his operating system, along with correct firmware interface documentation so that a driver can be created, and information from the manufacturer regarding bug workarounds. Many network chip manufacturers stubbornly refuse to grant these requests, however. Theo de Raadt told me in an email, "Our efforts to do more wireless involves a few approaches. We reverse-engineer what we can. We borrow from other people's reverse-engineering lessons where we can, for instance, prism54.org is a Linux team, but their reverse-engineer work has resulted in knowledge which we can obviously use to write a BSD driver. And finally, we dialogue directly with vendors to get more free access to documentation, early access to hardware, or firmware distribution rights (sometimes there is just no other way). Some vendors (in particular Ralink or Realtek) will even give us hardware before it goes on sale. Some give us documentation, some give us code. But largely a lot of American vendors are still stupidly resisting giving anything. In any case, all these efforts together now mean that we have more wireless support in OpenBSD than all the Linux distributions. Maybe even combined!"
According to Jonathan Gray, the drivers that OpenBSD currently has that require firmware that vendors won't let the OpenBSD Project distribute are:
acx (4) - TI ACX100/ACX111 IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
ipw (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 2100 IEEE 802.11b wireless network device
iwi (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 2200BG/2225BG/2915ABG IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
malo (4) - Marvell Libertas IEEE 802.11b/g
bcw (4) - Broadcom IEEE 802.11b/g (this driver is still under development and does not currently work)
wpi (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG IEEE 802.11a/b/g
pgt (4) - Connexant/Intersil Prism GT Full-MAC IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
uath (4) - Atheros USB IEEE 802.11a/b/g
wpi (4) - Intel PRO/Wireless 3945ABG IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
And the wireless devices that either do not require firmware, or that have runtime firmware that OpenBSD is allowed to distribute:
atu (4) - Atmel AT76C50x USB IEEE 802.11b wireless network device
ral (4) - Ralink Technology IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device (2nd gen 802.11 Ralink)
rum (4) - Ralink Technology USB IEEE 802.11a/b/g wireless network device
zyd (4) - Zydas ZD1211 USB IEEE 802.11b/g wireless network device
Intel requires that people who use its Centrino wireless firmware submit to a lengthy license agreement before downloading and using it. While the majority of end-users may just scroll down and click the "I Agree" link to get past it, the process is not quite so simple for free software operating systems, which would have to provide the same license hurdle for every one of their users, and agree not to modify any of the driver header code that Intel provides. Commercial desktop GNU/Linux distributions like SUSE, Mandriva, and Linspire already do this, or have independent distribution agreements with Intel.
When reverse-engineering works Reyk Floeter and various other OpenBSD programmers managed to write a free replacement for the proprietary Atheros hardware abstraction layer (HAL) called ar5k or "OpenHAL." The HAL isn't firmware; it is a form of abstracted device driver that actually loads into the operating system kernel through a small amount of driver code. The big difference between a HAL and a firmware is where the code resides; if it's on the device, it's firmware, and if it is loaded into the operating system's kernel, it's HAL.
ar5k works with many Atheros-based wireless cards and has been examined and recently given a clean bill of copyright health from the Software Freedom Law Center. Mysteriously, it has virtually no support from the Madwifi Project, which is the development team responsible for creating Atheros drivers for Linux-based operating systems. Madwifi continues to primarily support the proprietary Atheros HAL, though there is an old and uninformative page in the Madwifi Wiki about it. The email addresses listed for the Madwifi developers either bounce or elicit no response to requests for comments on why there is no apparent effort to use the open source HAL in Madwifi. So if it exists, it's free-as-in-rights, and it works, then why doesn't Madwifi use ar5k instead of the proprietary HAL? It may very well be pressure from Atheros that keeps ar5k out of Madwifi, but no one at Madwifi or Atheros would talk to me about it.
The manufacturers speak -- or don't
In order to find out why network chip manufacturers are so polarized in their support of free software operating systems, I made contact with company representatives at Atheros, Intel, Marvell, Atmel, Ralink, Texas Instruments, Broadcom, and Realtek. Not surprisingly, the manufacturers who shun operating system programmers also seem to be reluctant to talk to the press.
Atheros
After weeks of repeated requests and pleas for any kind of response just to verify that the PR email address works, an Atheros representative told me that she was unable to find anyone at the company who was qualified and willing to comment for this article.
Intel
Intel punted me to different people a few times, then after a short delay and a bizarre inquisition into my professional background and "intentions" in writing this article, told me that the company had nothing to say on the matter of wireless firmware distribution rights and interface documentation. Considering Intel's outstanding PR record and its general willingness to provide hardware documentation for the PCI chipsets and drive controllers that it makes, this behavior is unusual. One of the questions I asked Intel was if it felt its uncooperativeness with free software developers was in direct conflict with this presentation about the importance of participating in and supporting open source software development that Intel engineer James Ketrenos gave last summer. In it, Ketrenos says several things in favor of corporate cooperation with open source software developers, including these points:
Enable the community to do as much as possible
Only keep internal those things that the community can not contribute to (Example: Certification testing)
If you need to keep IP closed source (for example some whiz-bang algorithm), document the hardware sufficiently that the community can provide their own.
Treat the community as if they were a member of your internal team
Broadcom
The Broadcom press relations person I spoke with very much wanted to help me, but could not find anyone at Broadcom who felt qualified to comment.
Marvell
I have already written about the substandard responsiveness of Marvell's outsourced PR agency (see the bottom of the linked article).
Texas Instruments
An internal Texas Instruments press relations person was very responsive to my requests for comment at first, then punted me to an outsourced PR agency which, in turn, ignored several emails asking for information. After more than two weeks of repeated inquiries, a representative of the PR agency informed me that she was unable to find anyone at Texas Instruments who was qualified to comment on TI's policies on providing hardware documentation and firmware redistribution agreements.
Ralink Technologies
I had no trouble getting through to Ralink, where I spoke with company representative Lillian Chiu.
Ralink has been responsive to requests for hardware documentation without requiring an NDA. Why can Ralink do this when competing manufacturers such as Intel and Marvell require non-disclosure agreements?
Lillian Chiu: It's our philosophy to spread the technology without border, along with high performance and low cost.
Because of Ralink's cooperativeness with projects like OpenBSD and Linux kernel developers, Ralink's products tend to be very well supported in so-called "alternative" operating systems. Do you see this as a competitive advantage? Does Ralink sell more network products as a result?
LC: Our customers have often provided positive feedback for our best-in-class device support. We see it as a win-win situation where advanced users get more flexibility while we sell more products.
If a programmer needs to access Ralink hardware documentation, whom at Ralink should they contact?
LC: Please visit Ralink Web site at www.ralinktech.com for details under /support/forums.
Atmel Inc.
Richard Bisset, product marketing director of the multimedia and communications group, offered several minutes of his time to answer some questions about wireless drivers and firmware.
Atmel has been responsive to requests for hardware documentation without requiring an NDA. Why can Atmel do this when competing manufacturers such as Intel and Marvell require non-disclosure agreements?
Richard Bisset: For some things we do require non-disclosure agreements, but we are generally able to provide the API documentation and the firmware driver interface specifications for our hardware. As to why others may not be able to do this... well, our software is developed in-house, but others might out outsource their driver development to third-party companies, so they may not even have the documentation that a programmer requests.
As to why Intel might be so secretive with this information if they do have it, I can't say. Perhaps because more and more features are actually being moved from the firmware to the driver, some companies are being more guarded than others. Additionally, as the Centrino laptop processor includes wireless, it may be they don't want to give up any potential IP that could help their competition -- I don't really know for sure.
Because of Atmel's cooperativeness with projects like OpenBSD and Linux kernel developers, Atmel's products tend to be very well supported in so-called "alternative" operating systems. Do you see this as a competitive advantage? Does Atmel sell more network products as a result?RB: Well, if you look at the success of Intel, Marvell, Broadcom, etc. -- the big players in the wireless industry -- they are successful with the OEM and peripheral markets. As the embedded markets generally require more technical support, they probably don't care much about getting another 50,000 or 100,000 units sold and can be tight with their APIs. We were late to market with our 802.11g products, so we missed the OEM opportunities, and with wireless, you've only got three real chances for success: you can be first to market with a technology, or you can have valuable and unique features that no one else has and the market wants, or you can have the lowest price. Atmel wasn't first, didn't have any new unique features, and wasn't the cheapest, either. With the PC and OEM markets being somewhat locked out, we repositioned to focus on the embedded space where the market was experiencing and predicting large growth. In the embedded market, if you don't get documentation to developers, then you both fail.
What's the big secret with device firmware, then?
RB: Firmware is generally running on the chip itself, as opposed to the host. The code is written tightly coupled to the chip it is running on and implements/enables functions that the hardware supports. Therefore, there generally is a lot of IP within the firmware. Our firmware is loaded from an external flash into internal SRAM, but more and more semiconductor manufacturers are moving firmware functions to the driver.
We usually provide driver source code, and we try to put it under the GPL if possible, so that's usually good enough if you want to write your own driver. If you want to see more than that, we generally require an NDA, or if you're an embedded customer, we provide reference platforms.
So the firmware is so secret that you have to sign an NDA to see it, but not secret enough that some stranger who works on an obscure operating system can see it with merely a signature?
RB: It is kind of a strange situation, yes, and sometimes we run into people who are reluctant to sign NDAs. It really depends on the customer and target application. We don't require an NDA to see hardware APIs, and I think that's what you're talking about with regard to documentation.
If a programmer needs to access Atmel hardware documentation, whom at Atmel should they contact?
RB: We have contact forms through our Web site where you can make requests, and they are directed to the proper person at Atmel.
Realtek Inc.
After a few emails, I made contact with Tracy Ho, a Taiwan-based representative for Realtek.
Realtek has reportedly been responsive to requests for hardware documentation without requiring a non-disclosure agreement (NDA). Why can Realtek do this when competing manufacturers such as Intel and Marvell require NDAs?
Tracy Ho: For some years Realtek has been one of the largest NIC/LOM solution providers. One of the major reasons for this is that Realtek takes customer service as one of its top priorities. We aim to work with our customers as partners in a mutually cooperative environment. Our product sales and technical support teams are well-recognized by our customers and we strive to provide them with the convenience of flexibility and real-time support. One of the ways we do this is by releasing general hardware documents without requiring a NDA.
Because of Realtek's cooperativeness with projects like OpenBSD and Linux kernel developers, Realtek's products tend to be very well supported in so-called "alternative" operating systems. Do you see this as a competitive advantage? Does Realtek sell more network products as a result?
TH: Realtek has been working very closely with various operating system providers pretty much since the company was first started, and we do consider this to be one of our competitive advantages. Over the last decade, the great expansion of networked devices throughout the home and work environment, and the use of open-source operating systems in many such devices, has definitely helped us expand market share.
If a programmer needs to access Realtek hardware documentation, whom at Realtek should they contact?
TH: For most hardware documentation, programmers can access Realtek's website. Any other questions can be directed to our technical support teams (contact information available from the "Contact Us" link on our website).
All we need to do is make sure we keep talking Some of the non-responsiveness of manufacturers may just be bad PR work, but the same companies that wouldn't talk to me have also refused to reply to free software programmers who have requested the same information. The impression I got from most of these companies (excepting Intel) was that they were not at all prepared to deal with the issues of firmware redistribution rights and hardware API documentation requests. That they have ignored free software programmers' requests is not necessarily a sign of unwillingness to participate, but perhaps a general sense of confusion as to how they are able to help. No one seems to know whom to talk to at the company, and in some cases the proper documentation may not exist -- or it may belong to yet another company that the hardware manufacturer outsourced the firmware development to.
On the other hand, it was just as difficult to contact and get comments from the Madwifi developers, and it seems that each individual wireless driver in the Linux kernel has different people working on it. Even if one of the above companies wanted to provide the appropriate materials to create free drivers and firmware, how would they know whom to contact? The irony in this story is that the heart of the problem lies in a lack of communication, but not between operating systems and network devices -- between hardware manufacturers and the software developers who are trying to support their devices.
Wednesday, November 15, 2006
Physics promises wireless power
An article from BBC
The tangle of cables and plugs needed to recharge today's electronic gadgets could soon be a thing of the past.
US researchers have outlined a relatively simple system that could deliver power to devices such as laptop computers or MP3 players without wires.
The concept exploits century-old physics and could work over distances of many metres, the researchers said.
Although the team has not built and tested a system, computer models and mathematics suggest it will work.
"There are so many autonomous devices such as cell phones and laptops that have emerged in the last few years," said Assistant Professor Marin Soljacic from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the researchers behind the work.
"We started thinking, 'it would be really convenient if you didn't have to recharge these things'.
"And because we're physicists we asked, 'what kind of physical phenomenon can we use to do this wireless energy transfer?'."
How wireless energy could work
The answer the team came up with was "resonance", a phenomenon that causes an object to vibrate when energy of a certain frequency is applied.
This would work in a room let's say but you could adapt it to work in a factory
Marin Soljacic
"When you have two resonant objects of the same frequency they tend to couple very strongly," Professor Soljacic told the BBC News website.
Resonance can be seen in musical instruments for example.
"When you play a tune on one, then another instrument with the same acoustic resonance will pick up that tune, it will visibly vibrate," he said.
Instead of using acoustic vibrations, the team's system exploits the resonance of electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic radiation includes radio waves, infrared and X-rays.
Typically, systems that use electromagnetic radiation, such as radio antennas, are not suitable for the efficient transfer of energy because they scatter energy in all directions, wasting large amounts of it into free space.
To overcome this problem, the team investigated a special class of "non-radiative" objects with so-called "long-lived resonances".
When energy is applied to these objects it remains bound to them, rather than escaping to space. "Tails" of energy, which can be many metres long, flicker over the surface.
"If you bring another resonant object with the same frequency close enough to these tails then it turns out that the energy can tunnel from one object to another," said Professor Soljacic.
Wireless energy transfer has been thought about for centuries
Hence, a simple copper antenna designed to have long-lived resonance could transfer energy to a laptop with its own antenna resonating at the same frequency. The computer would be truly wireless.
Any energy not diverted into a gadget or appliance is simply reabsorbed.
The systems that the team have described would be able to transfer energy over three to five metres.
"This would work in a room let's say but you could adapt it to work in a factory," he said.
"You could also scale it down to the microscopic or nanoscopic world."
Old technology
The team from MIT is not the first group to suggest wireless energy transfer.
Nineteenth-century physicist and engineer Nikola Tesla experimented with long-range wireless energy transfer, but his most ambitious attempt - the 29m high aerial known as Wardenclyffe Tower, in New York - failed when he ran out of money.
Wireless power for gadgets
Others have worked on highly directional mechanisms of energy transfer such as lasers.
However, these require an uninterrupted line of sight, and are therefore not good for powering objects around the home.
A UK company called Splashpower has also designed wireless recharging pads onto which gadget lovers can directly place their phones and MP3 players to recharge them.
The pads use electromagnetic induction to charge devices, the same process used to charge electric toothbrushes.
One of the co-founders of Splashpower, James Hay, said the MIT work was "clearly at an early stage" but "interesting for the future".
"Consumers desire a simple universal solution that frees them from the hassles of plug-in chargers and adaptors," he said.
"Wireless power technology has the potential to deliver on all of these needs."
However, Mr Hay said that transferring the power was only part of the solution.
"There are a number of other aspects that need to be addressed to ensure efficient conversion of power to a form useful to input to devices."
Professor Soljacic will present the work at the American Institute of Physics Industrial Physics Forum in San Francisco on 14 November.
The work was done in collaboration with his colleagues Aristeidis Karalis and John Joannopoulos.
HOW WIRELESS POWER COULD WORK
1) Power from mains to antenna, which is made of copper
2) Antenna resonates at a frequency of 6.4Mhz, emitting electromagnetic waves
3) 'Tails' of energy from antenna 'tunnel' up to 5m (16.4ft)
4) Electricity picked up by laptop's antenna, which must also be resonating at 6.4Mhz. Energy used to re-charge device
5) Energy not transferred to laptop re-absorbed by source antenna. People/other objects not affected as not resonating at 6.4Mhz
The tangle of cables and plugs needed to recharge today's electronic gadgets could soon be a thing of the past.
US researchers have outlined a relatively simple system that could deliver power to devices such as laptop computers or MP3 players without wires.
The concept exploits century-old physics and could work over distances of many metres, the researchers said.
Although the team has not built and tested a system, computer models and mathematics suggest it will work.
"There are so many autonomous devices such as cell phones and laptops that have emerged in the last few years," said Assistant Professor Marin Soljacic from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and one of the researchers behind the work.
"We started thinking, 'it would be really convenient if you didn't have to recharge these things'.
"And because we're physicists we asked, 'what kind of physical phenomenon can we use to do this wireless energy transfer?'."
How wireless energy could work
The answer the team came up with was "resonance", a phenomenon that causes an object to vibrate when energy of a certain frequency is applied.
This would work in a room let's say but you could adapt it to work in a factory
Marin Soljacic
"When you have two resonant objects of the same frequency they tend to couple very strongly," Professor Soljacic told the BBC News website.
Resonance can be seen in musical instruments for example.
"When you play a tune on one, then another instrument with the same acoustic resonance will pick up that tune, it will visibly vibrate," he said.
Instead of using acoustic vibrations, the team's system exploits the resonance of electromagnetic waves. Electromagnetic radiation includes radio waves, infrared and X-rays.
Typically, systems that use electromagnetic radiation, such as radio antennas, are not suitable for the efficient transfer of energy because they scatter energy in all directions, wasting large amounts of it into free space.
To overcome this problem, the team investigated a special class of "non-radiative" objects with so-called "long-lived resonances".
When energy is applied to these objects it remains bound to them, rather than escaping to space. "Tails" of energy, which can be many metres long, flicker over the surface.
"If you bring another resonant object with the same frequency close enough to these tails then it turns out that the energy can tunnel from one object to another," said Professor Soljacic.
Wireless energy transfer has been thought about for centuries
Hence, a simple copper antenna designed to have long-lived resonance could transfer energy to a laptop with its own antenna resonating at the same frequency. The computer would be truly wireless.
Any energy not diverted into a gadget or appliance is simply reabsorbed.
The systems that the team have described would be able to transfer energy over three to five metres.
"This would work in a room let's say but you could adapt it to work in a factory," he said.
"You could also scale it down to the microscopic or nanoscopic world."
Old technology
The team from MIT is not the first group to suggest wireless energy transfer.
Nineteenth-century physicist and engineer Nikola Tesla experimented with long-range wireless energy transfer, but his most ambitious attempt - the 29m high aerial known as Wardenclyffe Tower, in New York - failed when he ran out of money.
Wireless power for gadgets
Others have worked on highly directional mechanisms of energy transfer such as lasers.
However, these require an uninterrupted line of sight, and are therefore not good for powering objects around the home.
A UK company called Splashpower has also designed wireless recharging pads onto which gadget lovers can directly place their phones and MP3 players to recharge them.
The pads use electromagnetic induction to charge devices, the same process used to charge electric toothbrushes.
One of the co-founders of Splashpower, James Hay, said the MIT work was "clearly at an early stage" but "interesting for the future".
"Consumers desire a simple universal solution that frees them from the hassles of plug-in chargers and adaptors," he said.
"Wireless power technology has the potential to deliver on all of these needs."
However, Mr Hay said that transferring the power was only part of the solution.
"There are a number of other aspects that need to be addressed to ensure efficient conversion of power to a form useful to input to devices."
Professor Soljacic will present the work at the American Institute of Physics Industrial Physics Forum in San Francisco on 14 November.
The work was done in collaboration with his colleagues Aristeidis Karalis and John Joannopoulos.
HOW WIRELESS POWER COULD WORK
1) Power from mains to antenna, which is made of copper
2) Antenna resonates at a frequency of 6.4Mhz, emitting electromagnetic waves
3) 'Tails' of energy from antenna 'tunnel' up to 5m (16.4ft)
4) Electricity picked up by laptop's antenna, which must also be resonating at 6.4Mhz. Energy used to re-charge device
5) Energy not transferred to laptop re-absorbed by source antenna. People/other objects not affected as not resonating at 6.4Mhz
Sunday, November 12, 2006
Indian Prime Minister speach at Cambridge University
Prime Minister's Address at the University of Cambridge Towards Inclusive Globalisation (11 October 2006)
The Chancellor The Vice Chancellor Professors, Fellows and pupils of Cambridge University My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen
I am deeply conscious of the honour that you have bestowed upon me by inviting me to deliver this lecture and by conferring on me the degree of Doctor of Law. I crave your indulgence as I begin on a personal note. I am one of the fortunate few to have been embraced by Britain's two oldest universities. Before I went to the other place by the Isis, I saw the river Cam when I came up to study for my Economics tripos at St John's. In the beginning was St.John's. The colour light blue is one of my favourites and is often seen on my head. My memories of my days in Cambridge are deep. I was taught by teachers like Nicholas Kaldor, Joan Robinson, Maurice Dobb and Professor R.C.O. Mathews. I have vivid recollections of the economist Pierro Srafa working at the Marshall Library. It was here that I became a contemporary of Amartya Sen, Jagdish Bhagwati, Mahbub-ul Haq and Rehman Sobhan - all renowned economists from South Asia who became lifelong friends. My teachers and my peers in Cambridge taught me to be open to argument and to be fearless and lucid in the expression of one's opinions. These virtues, and a relentless desire to pursue intellectual truth were inculcated in me at Cambridge. In many important ways, the University of Cambridge made me.
I am certainly not the only Indian who is thus indebted to this University. Jawaharlal Nehru was at Trinity as was his grandson, Rajiv Gandhi. Both became Prime Ministers of India. I am thus the third Prime Minister of India to have come out of Cambridge. Sarojini Naidu, known as the `Nightingale of India', played an extremely significant role in India's freedom movement and she studied at Girton. Looking beyond the arena of political leadership, there were many eminent Indians, who studied in Cambridge, and then made significant contributions to the world of science and to public life in India. In this context, I think of Jagadish Chandra Bose, who was at Christ's in the 1880s and was a pioneer in the study of radio waves and the life of plants. I think of Srinivasan Ramanujan, the master of the theory of numbers who was brought to Trinity by G.H.Hardy. I remember P.C. Mahalanobis who was at King's and then founded the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta. Homi J. Bhabha, who played a crucial role in the development of India's nuclear programme and established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai was at Gonville and Caius. M.S. Swaminathan, the man who envisioned the Green Revolution in India, was at St. Catharine's. I mention here only the very eminent but there are many others in the social sciences, in education and the bureaucracy in India who, like me, claim this university as their alma mater. The links between India and Cambridge are long and enduring.
Globalisation
When I came up to Cambridge in the mid 1950s, the Cold War had frozen the world into two blocs. India had won Independence a few years before and under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru was trying to establish its own place in a divided world. For Indians it was an era of hope, and there was great optimism about the prospect of development.
Today the world appears radically altered. The Cold War is history. A new age of freedom has harnessed to it new technologies that have transformed production and communication. The dismantling of state control has unshackled economic forces. More countries are now integrated into a global economic system in which trade and capital flow across borders with unprecedented energy. The age of freedom is also the age of economic growth. Prometheus has truly been unbound.
A very significant feature of the global economy is the integration of the emerging economies in world markets. In fact, the weight of global economic activity is gradually shifting to these emerging economies. They now account for more than two-fifths of world exports compared to a fifth twenty-five years ago.
In many parts of the developing world, especially India and China, per capita incomes are doubling or are expected to double over every decade. This will lift millions of people out of poverty. This pace of change is unprecedented, far exceeding what was witnessed during the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Freer trade and financial flows in the world as a whole are helping to contain inflation, keep interest rates low, and sustain higher levels of investment.
In my own country, the economic reforms we initiated in the early 1990s have made our economy more competitive. Indian business is responding to new market opportunities. India's growth is underpinned by a vibrant and growing entrepreneurial class. Indian youth is keen to get into technical and scientific institutions - helping India gain salience as a knowledge based economy. Our country, I believe, is now on a growth path of 7 to 9 per cent per year, while maintaining price stability. The proportion of people living below the poverty line is declining.
Globalisation: Some Concerns
These achievements of the era of globalization should not blind us to the new anxieties that globalization has brought in its wake. The reach of globalization is yet to touch many parts of the world. Moreover, the evidence suggests that the process has not removed personal and regional income disparities. In many developing countries, growth is by-passing the rural areas. Also, in the face of stagnation in their real pay, the working classes in industrialized countries are becoming fearful of the opening of markets. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening. This, coupled with the inability of the public sector to provide adequate and quality services in health and education, and cater to the needs of the poor, is causing resentment and alienation. This is nurturing divisive forces and putting pressure on the practice of democracy.
These are real and palpable concerns and they cannot be ignored. Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest to you that we address these vital concerns by making globalisation an inclusive process. We need to work for inclusive globalisation. This calls for a new global vision.
Make Globalisation Inclusive
That vision must ensure that the gains from globalization are more widely shared. It is a matter of deep concern that the Doha Development Round of trade negotiations has reached an impasse. If trade is to be an instrument of combating poverty and spreading manufacturing capacities more evenly in the world, it is vital that barriers to the export of agricultural goods from developing countries be eliminated.
Nearly 2/3rd of the population of developing countries live in rural areas. In the developed world this falls to less than ten per cent. My appeal is that developed countries should not allow short-term national interests to prevail at the cost of promoting freer trade and combating poverty. The prosperity of so many cannot be sacrificed for protecting the interests of so few. The price of myopia is heavy on the exchequers of the developed world. The issue also has profound moral dimensions.
To convince people in poor countries about the benefits of globalization we must take a more enlightened view in liberalizing trade in services and labour intensive manufactures, in which developing countries are competitive. I see trade not only as a means to prosperity, but also as peace building. Collectively we need to devise an enlightened approach to negotiations over the reduction of harmful gas emissions, intellectual property rights in the production of life saving drugs, transfer of technologies that help to combat poverty and such issues.
Prosperity, ladies and gentlemen, is not divisible. Neither is global peace possible without the eradication of poverty. As Jawaharlal Nehru said in his address to the Canadian Parliament in 1949:
"There can be no security or real peace if vast numbers of people in various parts of the world live in poverty and misery. Nor can there be a balanced economy for the world as a whole if the underdeveloped parts continue to upset that balance and drag down even the more prosperous nations."
Terrorism and Fundamentalism - From a "Clash of Civilisations" to a "Confluence of Civilisations"
The best efforts to eradicate poverty will be defeated if our societies and nations are threatened by the spectre of terrorism and extremism. Open societies like India and Britain are more vulnerable to this threat. The very openness of our societies makes us more vulnerable. Yet we must fight terrorism without losing the openness or the rule of law that guarantees the freedom of the individual.
I believe that terrorism can be defeated only by combating fundamentalism and promoting respect for diversity. Britain, the land of John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell, the cradle of common law, liberty and democracy, has a unique role to play in fighting fundamentalism. India too has its own pluralistic traditions and openness to other cultures. The legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru ordains that we remain committed to combating fundamentalism. We do not believe in a "clash of civilizations". What we believe in is enrichment of the human condition through cultural inclusiveness and a "confluence of civilizations".
Global governance
As democracies we must also stand together in making governance across the world more democratic. As a democracy we aspire to a world in which global institutions are more democratic and more representative of all the peoples of the world. The governance processes of global institutions of today - be they Bretton Woods institutions or the UN Security Council - reflect the realities of the world as it was more than half a century ago.
A more inclusive global process that carries the population of the world with it calls for a reform of these institutions, in which the developing world will have a greater voice. Not to do otherwise is to risk alienation and to render ineffectual the global system. I look to Britain, the Commonwealth and other great nations of the world to join forces in bringing about such a reordered global system.
Ladies and Gentlemen, you may well wonder why I have expressed these thoughts at this forum. Before the First World War, a young man from Allahabad came up to Trinity via Harrow. After the Second War, a simple young Indian came to St John's from an obscure university in Punjab. Cambridge University embraced both. This inclusive character of my alma mater emboldened me to speak to this august gathering about inclusive globalisation. I thank you very sincerely for your patience and your indulgence.
Thank you.
The Hindu
The Chancellor The Vice Chancellor Professors, Fellows and pupils of Cambridge University My Lords, Ladies and Gentlemen
I am deeply conscious of the honour that you have bestowed upon me by inviting me to deliver this lecture and by conferring on me the degree of Doctor of Law. I crave your indulgence as I begin on a personal note. I am one of the fortunate few to have been embraced by Britain's two oldest universities. Before I went to the other place by the Isis, I saw the river Cam when I came up to study for my Economics tripos at St John's. In the beginning was St.John's. The colour light blue is one of my favourites and is often seen on my head. My memories of my days in Cambridge are deep. I was taught by teachers like Nicholas Kaldor, Joan Robinson, Maurice Dobb and Professor R.C.O. Mathews. I have vivid recollections of the economist Pierro Srafa working at the Marshall Library. It was here that I became a contemporary of Amartya Sen, Jagdish Bhagwati, Mahbub-ul Haq and Rehman Sobhan - all renowned economists from South Asia who became lifelong friends. My teachers and my peers in Cambridge taught me to be open to argument and to be fearless and lucid in the expression of one's opinions. These virtues, and a relentless desire to pursue intellectual truth were inculcated in me at Cambridge. In many important ways, the University of Cambridge made me.
I am certainly not the only Indian who is thus indebted to this University. Jawaharlal Nehru was at Trinity as was his grandson, Rajiv Gandhi. Both became Prime Ministers of India. I am thus the third Prime Minister of India to have come out of Cambridge. Sarojini Naidu, known as the `Nightingale of India', played an extremely significant role in India's freedom movement and she studied at Girton. Looking beyond the arena of political leadership, there were many eminent Indians, who studied in Cambridge, and then made significant contributions to the world of science and to public life in India. In this context, I think of Jagadish Chandra Bose, who was at Christ's in the 1880s and was a pioneer in the study of radio waves and the life of plants. I think of Srinivasan Ramanujan, the master of the theory of numbers who was brought to Trinity by G.H.Hardy. I remember P.C. Mahalanobis who was at King's and then founded the Indian Statistical Institute in Calcutta. Homi J. Bhabha, who played a crucial role in the development of India's nuclear programme and established the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai was at Gonville and Caius. M.S. Swaminathan, the man who envisioned the Green Revolution in India, was at St. Catharine's. I mention here only the very eminent but there are many others in the social sciences, in education and the bureaucracy in India who, like me, claim this university as their alma mater. The links between India and Cambridge are long and enduring.
Globalisation
When I came up to Cambridge in the mid 1950s, the Cold War had frozen the world into two blocs. India had won Independence a few years before and under the leadership of Jawaharlal Nehru was trying to establish its own place in a divided world. For Indians it was an era of hope, and there was great optimism about the prospect of development.
Today the world appears radically altered. The Cold War is history. A new age of freedom has harnessed to it new technologies that have transformed production and communication. The dismantling of state control has unshackled economic forces. More countries are now integrated into a global economic system in which trade and capital flow across borders with unprecedented energy. The age of freedom is also the age of economic growth. Prometheus has truly been unbound.
A very significant feature of the global economy is the integration of the emerging economies in world markets. In fact, the weight of global economic activity is gradually shifting to these emerging economies. They now account for more than two-fifths of world exports compared to a fifth twenty-five years ago.
In many parts of the developing world, especially India and China, per capita incomes are doubling or are expected to double over every decade. This will lift millions of people out of poverty. This pace of change is unprecedented, far exceeding what was witnessed during the Industrial Revolution in Europe. Freer trade and financial flows in the world as a whole are helping to contain inflation, keep interest rates low, and sustain higher levels of investment.
In my own country, the economic reforms we initiated in the early 1990s have made our economy more competitive. Indian business is responding to new market opportunities. India's growth is underpinned by a vibrant and growing entrepreneurial class. Indian youth is keen to get into technical and scientific institutions - helping India gain salience as a knowledge based economy. Our country, I believe, is now on a growth path of 7 to 9 per cent per year, while maintaining price stability. The proportion of people living below the poverty line is declining.
Globalisation: Some Concerns
These achievements of the era of globalization should not blind us to the new anxieties that globalization has brought in its wake. The reach of globalization is yet to touch many parts of the world. Moreover, the evidence suggests that the process has not removed personal and regional income disparities. In many developing countries, growth is by-passing the rural areas. Also, in the face of stagnation in their real pay, the working classes in industrialized countries are becoming fearful of the opening of markets. The gap between the rich and the poor is widening. This, coupled with the inability of the public sector to provide adequate and quality services in health and education, and cater to the needs of the poor, is causing resentment and alienation. This is nurturing divisive forces and putting pressure on the practice of democracy.
These are real and palpable concerns and they cannot be ignored. Ladies and gentlemen, I suggest to you that we address these vital concerns by making globalisation an inclusive process. We need to work for inclusive globalisation. This calls for a new global vision.
Make Globalisation Inclusive
That vision must ensure that the gains from globalization are more widely shared. It is a matter of deep concern that the Doha Development Round of trade negotiations has reached an impasse. If trade is to be an instrument of combating poverty and spreading manufacturing capacities more evenly in the world, it is vital that barriers to the export of agricultural goods from developing countries be eliminated.
Nearly 2/3rd of the population of developing countries live in rural areas. In the developed world this falls to less than ten per cent. My appeal is that developed countries should not allow short-term national interests to prevail at the cost of promoting freer trade and combating poverty. The prosperity of so many cannot be sacrificed for protecting the interests of so few. The price of myopia is heavy on the exchequers of the developed world. The issue also has profound moral dimensions.
To convince people in poor countries about the benefits of globalization we must take a more enlightened view in liberalizing trade in services and labour intensive manufactures, in which developing countries are competitive. I see trade not only as a means to prosperity, but also as peace building. Collectively we need to devise an enlightened approach to negotiations over the reduction of harmful gas emissions, intellectual property rights in the production of life saving drugs, transfer of technologies that help to combat poverty and such issues.
Prosperity, ladies and gentlemen, is not divisible. Neither is global peace possible without the eradication of poverty. As Jawaharlal Nehru said in his address to the Canadian Parliament in 1949:
"There can be no security or real peace if vast numbers of people in various parts of the world live in poverty and misery. Nor can there be a balanced economy for the world as a whole if the underdeveloped parts continue to upset that balance and drag down even the more prosperous nations."
Terrorism and Fundamentalism - From a "Clash of Civilisations" to a "Confluence of Civilisations"
The best efforts to eradicate poverty will be defeated if our societies and nations are threatened by the spectre of terrorism and extremism. Open societies like India and Britain are more vulnerable to this threat. The very openness of our societies makes us more vulnerable. Yet we must fight terrorism without losing the openness or the rule of law that guarantees the freedom of the individual.
I believe that terrorism can be defeated only by combating fundamentalism and promoting respect for diversity. Britain, the land of John Stuart Mill and Bertrand Russell, the cradle of common law, liberty and democracy, has a unique role to play in fighting fundamentalism. India too has its own pluralistic traditions and openness to other cultures. The legacy of Mahatma Gandhi and Nehru ordains that we remain committed to combating fundamentalism. We do not believe in a "clash of civilizations". What we believe in is enrichment of the human condition through cultural inclusiveness and a "confluence of civilizations".
Global governance
As democracies we must also stand together in making governance across the world more democratic. As a democracy we aspire to a world in which global institutions are more democratic and more representative of all the peoples of the world. The governance processes of global institutions of today - be they Bretton Woods institutions or the UN Security Council - reflect the realities of the world as it was more than half a century ago.
A more inclusive global process that carries the population of the world with it calls for a reform of these institutions, in which the developing world will have a greater voice. Not to do otherwise is to risk alienation and to render ineffectual the global system. I look to Britain, the Commonwealth and other great nations of the world to join forces in bringing about such a reordered global system.
Ladies and Gentlemen, you may well wonder why I have expressed these thoughts at this forum. Before the First World War, a young man from Allahabad came up to Trinity via Harrow. After the Second War, a simple young Indian came to St John's from an obscure university in Punjab. Cambridge University embraced both. This inclusive character of my alma mater emboldened me to speak to this august gathering about inclusive globalisation. I thank you very sincerely for your patience and your indulgence.
Thank you.
The Hindu
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