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News Updates - 15
January 2001 India successfully tests own fighter plane - Washington Post Premji, Ambani on Forbes' billionaire list - Forbes magazine The Top 25 Managers - Business Week cover story Bury 1962, economy is new order, says Li Peng - Deccan Herald Zoroastrians Enter a New Era - New York Times India Successfully Tests Own Fighter Plane BANGALORE - India successfully flew its first indigenously developed fighter plane today, marking a significant step in the country's efforts to produce its own jet fighters and end its dependence on foreign manufacturers. The brief flight was the first since the program to build an indigenous light combat aircraft (LCA) was launched 17 years ago.The plane took off from a testing base here and flew for 20 minutes, escorted by a pair of French-made Indian Air Force Mirage 2000 planes, a Defense Ministry official said. "Today's event has put India in a league of six to eight nations that can produce supersonic fighter aircraft," Defense Minister George Fernandes said at a news conference. Government officials, however, said it would still take at least a decade before the aircraft could enter service in the air force, the world's fourth largest, which has a predominantly Russian-built fleet. There was no immediate reaction from outside India. V. K. Atre, scientific adviser to the defense minister, said the LCA program was being developed at a cost of $1 billion. Each aircraft would cost an additional $17 million to $20 million. He said six more prototype fighter planes would be tested in the next three years. A squadron of about 200 of the new planes would be ready by 2010, he added. Developed by the Bangalore-based Aeronautical Development Agency, the plane was originally planned to fly in 1991, but the test flight had been postponed repeatedly -- in part because of sanctions imposed by the United States after India's nuclear tests in 1998. The test plane's General Electric engine and its flight control systems were from the United States. Atre said about 70 percent of the plane was built with Indian components, and work has begun to develop a local engine. Light
combat craft takes India into club class (Times of India excerpts) "It was a dream run," said Wing Commander Katyal of the Indian Air Force (IAF) who tested the maiden flight of the single-seater LCA, claimed to be the world's smallest, light-weight fighter bomber. Katyal took off for the maiden flight at 10.20 a.m., climbed to 3,500 meters and flew at 400 kmph as he put the LCA through its paces in the air before landing 20 minutes later. Katyal, a veteran flyer of the IAF, was chosen from among a panel of crack fighter pilots. He normally flies the Mirage 2000 fighter-bomber. Before touching down, he performed a simulated landing in the air to check out the instrument systems of the LCA, officials who witnessed the flight said. The fighter, which can carry seven weapon stations, can be refueled while in the air and has the capability of short take-offs and landings, the sources said. It is configured to carry indigenous ASTRA medium range air-to-air missile, close combat missiles and an integral 23 mm cannon. It has also been equipped with electronic counter-counter measure (ECCM) devices developed by the Advanced System Integration and Evaluation Organisation (ASIEO). V. K. Atre, scientific adviser to the defense minister, told reporters the second prototype would be rolled out in the middle of the year and the third by the year-end. The fourth and fifth prototypes would be out in 2002. The third aircraft will have a modern weapons-management system. The fourth aircraft will be a multi-radar one, while the fifth will be complete in all respects. Atre said the LCA is a highly indigenous aircraft. It's engine is the American-made GE F-404. But from the second aircraft onwards, the indigenously built Kaveri engine will be added. Premji, Ambani on Forbes' billionaire list LONDON - TWO Indian families are among the 50-richest in the world, according to the Forbes billionaire list 2000. They are the families of Azim Premji and Dhirubhai Ambani. Premji, owner of technology and IT major Wipro, took the 43rd position with a wealth of $6.9 billion. Ambani and his family of petrochemicals major Reliance Industries was ranked at the 45th position and accounted for a wealth of $6.6 billion. Microsoft chief Bill Gates who was ranked first in 1999, with $90 billion retained the top position in 2000 also. However, his wealth has depreciated by 33.33 per cent to $60 billion due to a global meltdown. Both the Indians posted extraordinary growth in the year. While, the Ambanis posted a 450 per cent growth -- with net worth ranked at $6.6 billion against $1.2 billion in the previous year - Premji and his family's wealth grew from $2.8 billion to $6.9 billion, posting a growth of 146 per cent. The Forbes list is dominated by the Americans with 23 billionaires coming from the US. Europe has 13 billionaires - three each from Germany, France and Sweden, two from Switzerland and one each from Turkey and Italy. Canada had one billionaire in the list. The
Top 25 Managers It wasn't easy being an executive this past year. Global growth started slowing, stock markets fell. It turned out that the New Economy still followed some of the old rules after all. Company after company, corporate icons included, had to concede that their performance was disappointing. Their leaders offered explanations, revised plans, and promised to be more realistic. But boards weren't in a very forgiving mood: Many executives who couldn't rise above the skepticism had to step down. It has been a humbling year. To choose the year's 25 Top Managers, BUSINESS WEEK surveyed its staff of some 180 writers and editors in New York and 24 bureaus around the world. Then we culled that list for the truly outstanding leaders. Amongst the top Entrepreneurs Sunil
B. Mittal, Bharti Telecom Gururaj
Desphande and Daniel E. Smith, Sycamore Networks Bury
1962, economy is new order, says Li Peng New Delhi: Li Peng, China’s second-highest leader, on Saturday urged India to bury memories of a 1962 war and unresolved border dispute and take the relationship between the Asian giants to “new heights.”He also urged India to join forces with China to form a new economic order to represent the interests of the developing world. Peng, who arrived to sporadic Tibetan protests to deliver a speech at the India International Centre, stressed New Delhi and Beijing’s links spanning more than 1,000 years. “We agree that China and India are still lacking in mutual understanding and to achieve better understanding and trust is a pressing task,” Peng said. “While not shying away from the problems and differences between us, we hope that far-sighted statesmen of our two countries will demonstrate courage and will make efforts to resolve these problems and differences.” Peng, who first visited India in 1991 as then Chinese premier, stressed that “problems ... left over from history should not become impediments” and called on both countries to “elevate relations to a new height in the 21st century.” India says China still holds 40,000 sq km of its territory in Kashmir, while Beijing lays claim to a swathe of territory in Arunachal Pradesh. Peng, the current chairman of China’s parliament, later told Doordarshan that the border dispute was “historic in nature.” “We have a dispute over our borders which is historic in nature but it should not stand between the two nations.”
HOUSTON - The cities listed on name tags worn by men and women at a hotel here offer evidence that a highly international gathering is taking place. People have come from Toronto, Los Angeles, London, Bombay and Tehran, Iran. Yet they share a common bond as Zoroastrians, members of a monotheistic faith whose long history includes centuries of glory as the religion of classical-era Iran. The geographic diversity at the Seventh World Zoroastrian Congress indicates a new chapter in an ancient faith, a process of globalization that carries opportunity and peril. Among Zoroastrians, a "second diaspora" is under way, said Jamsheed Marker, a veteran diplomat who is an under secretary general of the United Nations. About 11 centuries ago, many made a migration, "a flight from oppression," he called it, from Iran to India. Behind today's journeys, he said, lies "an incentive to become part of the future and participate in it." If the future for Zoroastrians is measured by professional achievement, then it is on display here at the conference, at the J. W. Marriott Hotel in Houston's upscale Galleria district. It is the first time such a gathering has been held outside Asia. The program for the five-day event, which runs through Monday, is thick with advertisements placed by Zoroastrian business people, real estate agents and engineers. "I think you'll find for the most part, our community is very well- educated, very literate, especially those in North America," said Mazda Antia, 26, a Zoroastrian priest and recent law school graduate who works as a law clerk for a federal judge in Fort Lauderdale, Fla. There are only about 200,000 Zoroastrians worldwide, with 18,000 in North America and several hundred in Houston. "We're not living in proximity, in the neighborhoods we had in India," said Sarosh J. H. Manekshaw, president of an environmental consulting firm in Houston. "We are free to travel all over the world." The religion they follow was expounded by the prophet Zarathustra, about three millenniums ago in Persia, as Iran was then known. He taught an ethical code, urging believers (who are also known as Zarathushtis) toward good thoughts, good words and good deeds. The faith proclaims belief in a single deity, Ahura Mazda, whose name means Wise Lord. A central tenet is that human beings have free will, to think for themselves and choose between good and evil. The ultimate goal is to do good, eliminate evil and move the world toward perfection. Zoroastrianism long held a dominant position in ancient Iran, but it suffered two cataclysmic shocks. The first came 2,300 years ago, when the Macedonian warrior Alexander (whom history calls the Great, but many Zoroastrians call the Accursed) trounced Persia's armies and torched its palaces and libraries. The second came in the seventh century, when Islamic armies conquered the region. Zoroastrians who did not convert to Islam became increasingly oppressed. Some left, settling around Bombay and becoming known as Parsis. They agreed at that time that they would not accept converts. These days, some wonder whether that rule has outlived its usefulness. Dina G. McIntyre, an Indian-born corporate counsel, said she regarded the debate as a question of what was right. "And the right thing to do is to give people a choice, so if they want to live their lives in accordance with a certain teaching, they can," she said. "That was the essence of Zarathustra's teaching." The weight of history hangs in the debate. In the first diaspora, some groups of Zoroastrians went to China, Russia and Europe. But they later vanished, absorbed into the surrounding cultures. Nonetheless, that aspect of the past may not necessarily be the prelude to the future, especially because today's Zoroastrians have air travel and the Internet to keep in touch. As they have left India and Iran to settle elsewhere, Zoroastrians have created new institutions. Immigrants to the United States now have 24 local Zoroastrian associations, as well as a national organization, which publishes a magazine, the Fezana Journal. It includes space for men and women to advertise for Zoroastrian partners. Top of the page |
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