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India - News
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News Updates - 23
January 2001 Where India trumps China: Software - Business Week World's largest statue in India? - Conde Nast Traveler magazine Indian actress-writer starts interactive e-novel - CNN Indians in Saudi Arabia send back $4 bn. annually - TOI India tests enhanced version of Agni missle - Washington Post
It's not often that people in India have a chance to lord it over China. The world's second-most-populated country, India suffered from a bit of an inferiority complex, especially when it comes to China, No. 1 in population. The two fought a border war in the 1960s. In the 1980s, the Chinese economy boomed, as Westerners and Japanese poured investment into the country, while India languished. Even when New Delhi introduced belated economic reforms in 1991, China continued to attract the bulk of foreign direct investment. So India's prominence in the software industry gives tremendous satisfaction to many here in the subcontinent. Starting with the Y2K-solution business and continuing with software-outsourcing services, Indian companies have become key players in the global economy. The likes of Infosys, Satyam, and Wipro are now favorites of investors both in Bombay and in New York. Indian officials are talking grandly of turning the country into an information-technology (IT) superpower. Meanwhile, China has gone nowhere in the software business. That makes India's success all the more gratifying for Indians. China may have prominent hardware companies, such as Legend Computer (No. 6 in the Business Week Global IT 100), that far outclass Indian rivals, such as Hindustan Computer (HCL). But when it comes to software, the Middle Kingdom has nothing that can compare to India's world-class software companies.
Perhaps that explains why Indians have been miffed about the way the Chinese press has written about the country recently. Currently traveling around India is Li Peng, the chairman of the National People's Congress and the No. 2 man in the Chinese Communist Party leadership. While newspapers in Hong Kong and the West are filled with reports about secret documents showing Li's role in the 1989 Tiananmen crackdown, papers in India are interested in more pressing matters, such as the insulting economic commentary in the official Chinese newspapers. CULTURAL ADVANTAGE? And don't forget the anger that many Indian business executives feel about alleged Chinese dumping of products like chemicals, plastics, consumer goods, and electronics in India. Official statistics say Chinese imports are just 3% of India's total, but unofficial numbers put the figure as high as 20%. "When they dump, they dump in huge numbers," gripes Dev Bhattacharya, president of corporate strategy and business development at Indian conglomerate Birla Management Corp. "Within the last year, it has become huge," he adds. All of this underscores the importance of Indian software successes like Infosys, Wipro, and Satyam. These companies, which specialize in providing outsourcing software services for Western multinationals, have recently reported their quarterly earnings, with profits growing by over 100%. Since the Chinese enjoy the upper hand in so many other areas, Indians are understandably crowing about their IT accomplishments. Dewang Mehta runs Nasscom, the National Association of Software & Services Companies. Yes, he says, the Chinese have ambitions to grow in software. But India won't easily surrender its first-mover advantage. "We have perfected the art of IT services," he brags, adding that China is 10 years behind India in this area. And, Mehta adds, India's democratic culture gives it an edge over authoritarian China. "Innovation doesn't come from non-democratic society. With democracy," on the other hand, "it is strengthened," he says. China may have an advantage over India when it comes to building infrastructure -- as the Chinese press has proudly reported in advance of Li Peng's trip. But when it comes to building human capital, Mehta says China can't compare. The Chinese are determined to prove that they can. Look for the Sino-Indian competition to heat up in the new year.
The Maitreya Project is creating one of the world's great monuments dedicated to the values of loving-kindness, compassion and peace. The Maitreya Project includes a wide range of social services, including an international standard hospital and school. The Maitreya Project will be a model of responsible development that is environmentally sustainable and built to last 1,000 years.
The Maitreya Project is located in Bodhgaya, India, the home of the world-renowned Mahabodhi Stupa, where the historical Buddha gained enlightenment. According to tradition, 1,000 Buddhas will manifest enlightenment in Bodhgaya, making it one of the most important historical and spiritual sites for the world's 400 million Buddhists. By improving the area's infrastructure and combining public facilities with inspiring architecture and art, the Maitreya Project will help to develop and sustain Bodhgaya as a tour and pilgrimage destination, enabling many more people from all over the world to visit.
The statue and its throne-building, a 17-storey, modern structure containing prayer halls, a museum, exhibition hall, library, audio-visual theatre and auditorium, will be placed in a beautifully landscaped 40-acre park with meditation pavilions, fountains and pools, a guesthouse, and a playground designed especially for the enjoyment of children and their families. A secluded monastery and nunnery will be located nearby. Research into production methods of the Project's artworks has progressed to a point where we are confident that it is feasible to produce all of the pieces by the Project's 2005 completion date. Indian actress-writer starts interactive e-novel NEW DELHI - Indian actress, model and author Tara Deshpande will launch this week an interactive electronic book described by its publishers as the first Internet book to invite contributions from readers. Contributors will write alternate chapters and win prizes for guessing the ending of "The Motive," a free, downloadable "whodunit" that mixes crime and politics. The first chapter of the book will be available on the Internet on Tuesday at www.themotive.net. Deshpande told Reuters on Monday that she would choose from among contributions the second, fourth and sixth chapters of the novel, which will unfold over the World Wide Web. She will round off the book with her own seventh chapter. Contributors will not share royalties, but can win trips to Southeast Asia. Readers can win prizes by guessing the outcome as the plot thickens over the Internet. "They can take the novel where they want," Deshpande said. "I find the idea extremely interesting. It is a kind of experiment with global culture." Deshpande, who has already authored a collection of poems titled "Fifty and Done," is a glamorous figure who plays offbeat roles and dancing cameos in India's "Bollywood" film industry. Budding
writer The e-book is a brainchild of Firstandsecond.com, an online bookstore which has tied up with publishing software maker Adobe Systems Inc. Adobe, which is betting on e-books which will be read on portable devices, will provide the technology. Deshpande is not the first to write a book distributed over the Internet, but is said to be the first trying to co-author a book by inviting contributions from would-be readers. "It is the world's first collaborative book," G.B.S. Bindra, president and chief executive officer of eFirst Solutions India, the firm that owns Firstandsecond.com, said. Indians
in Saudi Arabia send back $4 billion annually RIYADH: Speak of NRI investment and the image of a prosperous businessman or professional in the US or Europe bringing back dollars springs to mind. Nobody associates the term with a construction site labourer or a school teacher in an Arab country. Yet figures show that the 1.6 million Indians in Saudi Arabia, of which 85 per cent are labourers, annually contribute a staggering $4 billion of the estimated $12 billion in NRI remittances. Indians comprise not only the largest group of expatriates in the Kingdom but also the largest number of Indian expatriates in any single country. Lured by the prospect of high wages in Saudi Arabia's labour deficit economy, a stream of manual workers flows in on a daily basis. "Indians," says a Saudi businessman, "are a preferred community for their discipline as also the work culture. When we get a man claiming to be an engineer he is actually a qualified engineer." It is an influence that is felt in multiple ways - cuisine, familiarity with Indian culture, traditions, geography and even film stars. Fatima, the daughter of a rich Saudi businessman, reels off the names of current Indian film stars with ease even though she has never stepped out of the Gulf region. Servants employed in homes and workmen at workplaces are a steady source of interaction though social contact between Saudis and the Indian community is very, very limited. The Kingdom has strict laws relating to the welfare of the workforce, born out of an awareness that its own security requires checks on the working conditions of the large expatriate community. (One in every third resident is an expatriate.) Top of the pageIndia
Tests Enhanced Version of Missile NEW DELHI - India successfully test-fired an enhanced version of its intermediate-range Agni II ballistic missile from its eastern coast today, prompting expressions of concern from several nations. "The flight test results have indicated that the mission objectives were met satisfactorily," the United News of India quoted missile program director R.N. Agarwal as saying. It was the second test of the upgraded version of the original Agni, a two-stage, solid-fuel missile with a 1,250-mile range, which a defense analyst said was a key element of India's plan to build a credible minimum nuclear deterrent. India carried out nuclear tests in 1998 and declared itself a nuclear state. Defense experts say the Agni II can carry nuclear warheads and strike targets deep within China, India's nuclear-armed neighbor. It is part of a wide-ranging missile development program. |
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