• The Ayurvedic Way to Love and Compatibility
• World Abounds in Top Indian Achievers: Tytler
• Rohit Bal to Design Uniform for British Airways Staff
• 500 Indian Farmers to Till African Soil
• Premji 11th in FT List of 'Billionaires with Heart'
• IITians' Bid to Empower India
• Nine Indians in MIT's List of Top 100 Innovators
• Software for US Polls from India
• UNESCO: Nanda Devi Park Most Important
• Magarpatta City: The Farmers' Cybercity

• India on the Verge of Next Green Revolution
• 2 Indian Americans Set to Make Mark to Oxford
• Pharmacists of Indian Origin in Demand in UK
• Desi Autorickshaw Goes to London!
• India Gets Its First Cord Blood Bank
• IITs Among the World's Best
• X'mas Cheer Outsourced to India
• India Opens centre in S Africa to Boost Trade
• Meet the Man Who's Working those Mercs
• Unschooled UP Boy is College Genius

India is on the verge of a new Green Revolution, and with its abundant resources and a professional approach it has the potential to become a global player in the agricultural sector even while facing the challanges posed by the World Trade Organisation (WTO) regime. "After the Green Revolution in the 1960s, this is the most crucial time in the history of Indian agriculture, and the country is on the verge of another Green Revolution," said KS Money, chairman, Agricultural & Processed Food Products Export Development Authority (Apeda) while addressing the Ag India 2005, a fresh produce summit organised by the Confederation of Indian Industry (CII). With India's negotiations with the WTO entering a crucial phase, it is just a matter of time before the protection-regime in the agricultural sector will be over and the government will have to slash the agricultural subsidies. The speakers at the seminar highlighted the need for bridging the wide gap between the farmer and the consumer, and making producers market-driven. Citing an example of farmers in Kerala who took up cultivation of vanilla when its prices shot up in the international market, Mr Money said that those who adopt a global approach would reap the benefits of their hard work. Earlier, in his welcome remarks, Kairas Vakharia, chairman of CII-Western Region's Agri-business Committee said that the dynamics of agriculture has changed and the sector today requires an 'industrial' approach.

Courtesy: www.financialexpress.com, November 26, 2004

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Mr Ian Desai and Ms Swati Mylavarapu, the two Indian Americans who won Rhodes scholarships for 2005, are on top of the world and eager to pursue their line of studies at Oxford University in England. The two are among 32 Rhodes scholarship winners from the US and will join scholars selected from 18 other nations to enter Oxford University next October. "It's very overwhelming! An exciting opportunity," Mr Desai, who has won several prizes at the university level, told the News India-Times newspaper here upon learning he had received the scholarship. As an undergraduate student at the University of Chicago, Desai was elected a Student Marshal, the highest academic honour that the university gives to undergraduates, and has received an award for his collection of poems. "I did a comparative study on ancient Greece and Indian civilisation," said Mr Desai, a native of New York. He received honours for an undergraduate thesis that compared the ancient Greek classic Iliad with the Indian epic the Mahabharata. Mr Desai also was part of South Asia Watch, a student organisation and initiated its Kashmir project. "We created a yearlong dialogue on the region from a cultural and historical perspective," he noted.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, November 24, 2004

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A new book by lifestyle and relationships expert Lisa Marie Coffey argues that ayurveda, the ancient Indian system of healing, can be applied to the sphere of relationships. "Once we understand the basics of ayurveda, we see that we can get along with anyone. There are no 'bad' matches," writes Coffey in What's Your 'Dosha', Baby?" The author, who makes frequent appearances on television and radio talk shows, finds a surprising use for ayurveda. She contends that ayurveda can be used not only to heal bodies, but also to heal relationships and to find compatibility. Conceding that there are many ways of pursuing compatibility - such as the Mars/Venus and the love signs systems - Coffey suggests that long before these theories were invented, ancient India had produced a holistic system of healthcare in "ayurveda", or science of life.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, November 20, 2004

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Pharmacists of Indian origin are set to play a growing role in Britain's health services. Britain has launched a Health Working Group in which these pharmacists would have a greater say in shaping the country's health policy. Health Secretary John Reid met some 200 pharmacists of Indian origin at the House of Commons Thursday evening and lauded their contribution to providing pharmacy services in the country. The meeting was organised by the Labour Friends of India, an independent parliamentary group with membership of 165 MPs and Peers. At the meeting, Stephen Pound, MP and chairman of the Labour Friends of India, said: "The Indian community is key to the success of any government policy, especially concerning health. "We know that approximately 33% of you are doctors, we also know of your significant size in the pharmaceutical sector and for this reason we have launched a Health Working Group where pharmacists, such as yourselves, can have a bigger say in shaping health policy and more importantly in telling us how we are going to get there."

Courtesy: The Economic Times, November 20, 2004

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Indians are top achievers around the world. Indians controlled "80 per cent of the software industries and the medical field in America, Canada and Britain." "The top achievers at universities in America and Britain are Indians. The number II person at NASA is an Indian.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, November 19, 2004

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Designer Rohit Bal has been selected to design a new South Asian uniform for British Airways staff in India, Bangladesh and Pakistan. According to a press release, the new uniform, which will comprise a tunic suit and sherwani, will replace the current sari and salwar kameez. A new uniform sari will also be designed to be worn at special promotional events along with the tunic suit. Mr Michael Crump, the airline's Head of Design Management based in London, said, "When we were looking for a designer for the South Asian uniform, we wanted someone who could take our new uniform, created by the British designer Julien Macdonald and interpret it into a design that reflects the cultures of South Asia." Ms Lorena Castelino, International Cabin Crew Manager, and Ms Vanita Gopal, Senior Cabin Crew Delhi, were involved as part of the team in selecting Bal from a shortlist of four designers.

Courtesy: www.thehindubusinessline.com, November 17, 2004

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Andhra Pradesh has signed a preliminary deal with Kenya and Uganda to send 500 drought-hit farmers to cultivate land in the East African nations, officials said Monday. "We've signed letters of intent with Kenya for 50,000 acres (20,234 hectares) and with the Uganda Investment Authority for 20,000 acres (8,000 hectares)," said C C Reddy, senior adviser to the Andhra Pradesh government. Indian bureaucrats devised the unusual solution to aid farmers sometimes driven to suicide after years of droughts and crop failure. With East Africa lacking experienced manpower to till the land, Andhra Pradesh officials spied a happy coincidence. Authorities in East Africa signed the agreements to give land out on a 99-year-old lease to a farmers co-operative society from Andhra Pradesh since these countries lacked the manpower required to till their lands. Land in Uganda is being given for 3.75 dollars per acre. "We're still negotiating the price for Kenya," Reddy said, adding the first farmers would leave by next April or May. "This is an encouraging development. Our farmers are very good at what they do but theyve been set back by droughts and a shortage of fertile land. Now they'll be able to take full advantage of the land and infrastructure in Africa," N Raghuveera Reddy, state agriculture minister, told AFP.

Courtesy: www.sify.com, November 16, 2004

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India's 'notorious' three-wheeler has found a place in London's science museum for its energy efficiency. The gleaming yellow and black autorickshaw is placed right at the entrance of the second floor of the multi-storey building that houses worldwide acquisitions in the field of science. The collection forms an enduring record of scientific, technological and medical change since the 18th century. "Bajaj autorickshaw - a familiar site in the streets of Indian cities. It has only a 145 cc two-stroke engine but can manage 68 miles per gallon even when carrying a driver and three passengers," says a plaque placed before the vehicle numbered DLR 6575. The museum took birth as part of the nineteenth-century movement to improve scientific and technical education. It evolved from the South Kensington Museum, which was established in 1857. The museum got a new building formally in 1928.

Courtesy: www.sify.com, November 16, 2004

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Wipro Chairman Azim Premji is the only Indian (ranked 11th) in the Financial Times list of the top 25 dollar billionaires who are doing the most to shape the world. The FT's special report on the super-rich has listed nearly 600 dollar billionaires around the globe and has named the top 25 "who are changing the way people live". The paper estimates Premji's net worth at $6.7 billion, and says he has done much to change the structure of international business and ultimately affect people's lives by winning in the global IT market. Jack Welch, former chief executive of GE, says Premji "does business straight, eyeball to eyeball". "Some call him the Indian Bill Gates. But If the anti-offshoring protesters wanted to find a bogeyman in him they would have to look elsewhere. Premji is modest and reticent, not a belligerent business leader. The comparisons with Gates don't end at software: Premji's charitable foundation works with Gates'. Premji's does more work on education in poor rural areas, giving $5 million a year, while Gates has made health a priority," the paper says. The list is headed by Microsoft's Bill Gates, with an estimated net worth of $46.6 billion. Also includes media mogul Rupert Murdoch, Soros Fund Management chief George Soros, Italy's Prime Minister Silvio Berlusconi and Intel Chairman Emeritus Gordon Moore.

Courtesy: www.ibef.org, November 16, 2004

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The Chennai-based Asia CRYO-CELL Pvt Ltd (ACCPL) on Sunday announced the launch of its enrollment programme, an offer to parents in India to store their children's 'cord blood' for use at a later date. "ACCPL has set up a state-of-the-art facility with an investment of Rs 12 crore at Keelakotaiyur in Tamil Nadu to store the stem cells, to be collected from the parents. The facility will be fully functional by next month," vice chairman and CEO of ACCPL, Abhaya Kumar told a meeting here. The collected samples would be processed and the stem cells separated and preserved for use by the donor and immediate family members anytime in the future, he added. The umbilical cord, the lifeline between mother and baby, has a rich source of stem cells, which have been used to help cure more than 45 life-threatening ailments. The cells also have the ability to regenerate into other types of cells in the body. Bringing the umblical cord stem cell banking to India was a medical breakthrough, he said, adding that it would cost only Rs 59,000 for storing the cord blood for 21 years, compared to $15,000-$16,000 charged in other countries. "This new technology will provide a new dimension to deal with the large number of threatening diseases. This cord blood bank will be very useful in future," director of the Adyar Cancer Institute, V Shanta, said. The first cord blood transplant on a child was in 1990, Saranya Nandakumar said, adding that about 3,500 umblical cord blood transplants were estimated to have been performed, mostly in the USA, as of June 2002. In India, 10-15 cord blood transplants had been performed so far, she added.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, November 14, 2004

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The Indian Institutes of Technology are the only institutions of higher education in south Asia to be included in a list of the world's top 200 universities, led by Harvard, Oxford and Cambridge. In the first global survey of its kind, the IITs have been placed at 41 - way ahead of many well-known Western universities, including American, British and French. The universities have been ranked on the basis of peer review, the international character of their faculty and students, teacher-student ratio and the impact of their research. The Times Higher Education Supplement, which hascompiled the list, said the ranking indicators had been chosen to reflect "strength in teaching, research and international reputation" judged by academics themselvesin the form of a peer review. The survey, it said, gave a "snapshot" of the world's leading institutions on the basis of internationally recognised criteria. While India alone waves the flag for south Asia, there are many countries in south-east Asia, notably China, Hong Kong, Malaysia and Singapore, which are strongly represented on the list. Predictably,American and European universities dominate the list, with the first four places going to U.S. institutions - pushing Oxford and Cambridge to fifth and sixth places respectively.

Courtesy: The Hindu, November 11, 2004

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Together, they happen to be the country's unofficial brand ambassadors of innovation. And this Christmas-eve, the brainy family members of the Indian Institute of Technology are hoping to share a few points on how to make India more empowered. An attempt to highlight the role played by IIT graduates in building up the country as well as a platform for discussing technology as a growth engine for global competitiveness, a two-day conference and exhibition is being organised by the global IIT alumni board -- PanIIT -- here on December 24 and 25. Founded under the chairmanship of Infosys Chairman Narayan Murthy, PanIIT is an umbrella organisation designed to evolve a brand that could provide a strong fraternity among the IIT alumni. The two-day event at Pragati Maidan here is expected to witness the presence of nearly 5,000 IITians from around the world. While the conference will have five sessions on various issues such as global competitiveness, the focus on Day Two will be on the more basic issues of "bijli, sadak and paani'', with the cultural events pepping up the evening.

Courtesy: The Hindu, November 10, 2004

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Indian innovators are holding their own in America's frontiers of science and technology. The prestigious MIT Technology Review this year features as many as nine Indians in its list of top 100 innovators, all of them under 35. They include Srinidhi Varadarajan, who conceived and built the world's third fastest supercomputer earlier this year. Director of Terascale Computing Facility at Virginia Polytechnic Institute, the 31-year-old Varadarajan worked with a cluster of 1,100 Apple Macintoshes and his creation cost a mere $5 million. Other supercomputers of this class cost $100 million or more. "The TR 100 represent the diversity of those using technology to transform the world around us," says the Technology Review. The handpicked ones are all "developing technologies that defy easy classification, often fusing recent advances in computing, medicine and nanotech". Chaitali Sengupta, a systems architect at Texas Instruments, has been recognised for her work on communications chips used in advanced cellular systems now coming to market. These chips let multimedia cell phones more easily handle Internet access, videoconferencing and mobile commerce. Another Indian at Texas Instruments to make it to TR 100 is Anuj Batra. A systems engineer, he leads one of the industry's top teams advancing ultrawideband wireless technology that provides high transmission speeds needed for streaming media applications while consuming little power.

Others recognised for their innovations include:

Smruti Vidwans, a postdoctoral fellow at University of California, for developing a new approach to develop anti-TB drugs.

Vikram Sheel Kumar, cofounder and CEO of Dimagi in Boston, who has developed an interactive software that motivates patients to manage chronic diseases such as diabetes and AIDS.

Ananth Natarajan, CEO of Infinite Biomedical Technologies in Baltimore, Maryland, for developing a technology that will enable implantable cardiac devices to detect incipient heart attacks.

Ramesh Raskar, a research scientists at Mitsubishi Electric, for building large computer display systems that seamlessly combine images from multiple projectors and for image-processing and graphics research that may lead to new applications in entertainment and image-guided surgery.

Mayank Bulsara, co-founder and chief technology officer of AmberWave Systems, for developing strained silicon that makes computer chips run faster and consume less power.

Ravi Kane, an assistant professor at Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, for developing a highly potent anthrax treatment.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, November 09, 2004

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Whether John Kerry likes it or not, outsourcing was at the very heart of this US presidential election. V-Empower, an IT start up with its headquarters in Bowie, Maryland and having a development centre in Hyderabad, has provided IT applications to various private websites that played a key role in the US election process. According to marketing head Saud Khan, the company's Hyderabad centre developed applications for voter registration, absentee-ballot request application and Ride To Poll, an application to guide voters to their polling booths. While the voter registration application allows citizens to register online, the absentee ballot form is for citizens who were not in the US on Election Day. "Over one million voters got registered using our application and about five lakh voters used the absentee ballot application," V-Empower's chief operating officer AA Rahman said. Another 40 million are estimated to have used the Ride to Poll application. Though none of the company's applications was used by the US government, five major private websites used them.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, November 04, 2004

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This year at the swank stores of New York and London, Christmas and New Year shoppers will pick up scores of gifts made in India. Almost all top-end stores like Macy's, Wal-Mart, Selfridges and Bloomingdale are buying hundreds of gifts from the country in a new genre of outsourcing. Shops here are working overtime to meet delivery deadlines of US and European buyers and readying to send out the first shipments of gifts by the end of the first week of November. Most of these small and medium-sized factories are in suburban Delhi where their neighbours are the giant call-centres, the very heart of India's mega outsourcing industry. "We've got orders for seven to eight items - mostly cushions, pillows, Christmas tree hangings and stockings," Nebu Jacob, a gift manufacturer, said. Jacob's Lakshmi Caminse, whose factory is in Gurgaon, produces popular gifts like beaded mats and silk napkins and supplies names like Neiman Marcus, Bergdorf Goodman, Bloomingdale and Selfridges. Gifts made in India sell between $50-500. He said even festivals like Halloween and Thanksgiving feature high on his manufacturing calendar. "Major export items from Delhi for Christmas are garments. Bedroom furnishing, dining table sets and other accessories are in great demand," said Bimal Mawandia, exporter and vice chairman of the Indian Silk Export Promotion Council. He also owns a silk scarf factory. Around 25 per cent of India's total garments exports of around Rs 30 billion comes from the Christmas and New Year season. "Garments, home furnishings with patch works, embroidery and embellishments are very popular," said Sudhir Dhingra whose Orient Crafts is one of the top exporters with a turnover of Rs 5 billion. This year, for instance, the demand is for 1960s style kitsch items. "This year the orders were for chunky pieces, very 1960s and hippy," said Mawandia.

Courtesy: The Times of India, November 03, 2004

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India's most spectacular and remote wilderness park - The Nanda Devi National Park - home to the 7,800-metre Nanda Devi peak and endangered animals like the snow leopard and Himalayan musk deer, has been declared Unesco's most important biosphere reserve. The national park is among 19 new sites in 13 countries that have been added to the list. The World Network of Biosphere Reserves now consists of 459 sites in 97 countries. While announcing its decision which was approved by the International Co-ordinating Council of Unesco's Man and the Biosphere (MAB) Programme at its 18th session which took place in Paris between October 25 - 29, Unesco said, "Nanda Devi Biosphere Reserve in the Himalayan mountains includes as core zones the Nanda Devi National Park and the Valley of the Flowers National Park. Nanda Devi rises from a vast ring of high mountains that form the Nanda Devi Sanctuary, an amphitheatre 70 miles in circumference and 6000 m high, surrounding the Rishiganga valley. Only once in this giant cirque does the elevation drop below 5200 m.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, November 02, 2004

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A business centre has been opened at the Indian consulate in Durban to assist businessmen from both countries. Commerce Secretary SN Menon, who was leading a delegation of representatives of various trade promotion and investment councils at meetings in Durban and Johannesburg, opened the centre. "I think the fundamental reason for opening this centre is that there is a very large Indian community here and there is a feeling among them that we should be doing more for them or at least encourage interaction between us and them from industry to industry," Menon told IANS. "This will enable them to use their experience and the resources that they have in South Africa." Durban has the largest concentration of people of Indian origin outside of India. Menon said a number of opportunities had been identified, the main areas being pharmaceuticals, IT, engineering and chemicals, which were already established in South Africa.

Courtesy: Hindustan Times, November 02, 2004

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Magarpatta City is a modern township on the outskirts of Pune. From a distance, it resembles any other modern township that has sprung up around New Delhi or Bangalore or Hyderabad. It consists of the essential element of modern Indian urban life - a mini golf course, an artificial lake, a cyber city with buildings in gleaming glass and multi-storied residential buildings. This is where the similarities end. What sets apart the Magarpatta City project from other development projects elsewhere in the country is that this was conceived and implemented by a group of farmers who, till only a few years ago, were ploughing their little plots of land in the area. The concept of Magarpatta City took roots in the early 1990s. On the outskirts of Pune, about 100 families cling to their ancestral farms when the concrete jungle and real estate developers threaten to swallow them. Clinging together, for two decades they oppose the Pune city administrators who want to convert their village, Magarpatta, to an urban zone. It was then that it struck them that they need not oppose the development but could build a city of their own, by pooling their land. They knew their lands would eventually have buildings and not sugarcane on them.

Courtesy: www.ibef.org, November 02, 2004

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Having worked on his dream throughout his IIT Powai days, Bharat Balasubramanian has been successfully living it for the last 30 years - in DC, today as Vice-President Engineering Technologies and Regulatory Affairs. An honorary Professor in the Technical University of Berlin, Institute of Automotive Technology, he introduced to us the the new Mercedes-Benz SLK, at DC's Pimpri facility. "The production system was designed and tested in a completely digital factory,'' he explained. Balasubramanian's responsibilities at DC's headquarters in Sindelfingen include prototype manufacturing, which keeps him in sync with cutting-edge research that is to be incorporated in various models of Mercedes cars; overseeing the use of information technology, guiding a team of 1,100 to coordinate the CAD/CAM activities of the car group; and automotive safety analysis, an issue so close to his heart that he makes it a point to mention that the only person who survived the Lady D crash was the only one who was ''belted'' - the body guard. At a time when Japanese auto majors (like Toyota) are gung-ho about their own hybrid technology, Mercedes' initial goal is to further optimise traditional combustion engines as it feels their potential is still far from being fully exploited. But that's not to say that DC is not addressing the key questions of the autoworld. ''Countries like India and China need to first tackle the question of impurities in fuel,'' he says, in line with other European car manufacturers focusing on diesel technology. Balasubramanian is a key figure in developing Mercedes' high-performance diesel engines that now account for 57 per cent of sales.

Courtesy: The Indian Express, November 02, 2004

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When he sits in his classroom, he is half the size of his classmates, but when he faces a volley of questions from the teachers, he races ahead of all of them. Twelve-year-old Shailendra Verma is the youngest student enrolled in the Bachelor of Computer Application course in Lucknow University and also enjoys the distinction of being the university's youngest undergraduate student. This child prodigy cleared the Class 12 examination last year through a correspondence course at the National Open School and then passed the TOEFL and SAT with flying colours. Interestingly, Shailendra has never been to a school and does not have any formal education. He applied for admission in a Bachelor of Computer Science course at the Eastern New Mexico University in the US and even got through without any effort. But Shailendra could not make it to the US because his father, Tej Bahadur Verma, is a daily wage labourer who earns Rs 70 per day. The family could not afford his train fare to Delhi, leave alone the flight to the US. Shailendra proudly admits that since he cannot afford to buy text books, he studies on books and notes borrowed from friends and a well-wisher keeps him informed of the latest developments in computer science. The boy does not even own a computer but he aspires to be a software engineer one day. His father, however, cannot even understand what his son is doing. "Mujhe kuchh nahin maloom ki woh kya kar raha hai, magar sab kehte hain ki woh bahut bada kaam kar raha hai, (I don't know what he is doing, but everyone says he is doing a great thing)," says the father. Shailendra's friends have told him to apply for a place in the Guinness Book of Records, where he just might get to share the place of pride in the early starters section with the world's youngest postgraduate, Avatar Tulsi, 12, who is also from India.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, November 02, 2004

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