• India's Fastest Train Flagged Off
• Feel Life Undersea in INS Kursura
• Oxford to Target Students From India
• India's 1st Global Village Near Noida Soon
• S-E Asia Looks up to India For Leadership
• Global Institutes Count on Alumni to Woo Indians

• Foreign Techies Land on Indian Shores
• UK Invites Bright Indian Students
• Kalam 1st President on Sub
• Ancient Sea Link Discovered by ASI
• IIM Bangalore Gets to go Abroad
• NRI Math Whiz Co-Wins King Faisal Award

For Daven Dunlea, 25, India is still associated with tigers, as much as Mexico conjures up a tequila. But when it came to his internship at Hyderabad-based Satyam Computers, the Irish-born Dunlea didn't bat an eyelid. Twenty six-year old Polish HR post graduate, Maciej Wituszynski , gave up opportunities to work in France, Brazil and Turkey for a year's internship at TCS's Mumbai office. Says Wituszynski, "I would like to stay back here for a career.'' It's happening. After years of brain drain to western nations, India is beginning to see a new phenomenon: brain gain. In the last year, TCS has recruited 80 students of foreign origin from 21 countries, while Satyam has more than 120 interns of 22 nationalities. Wipro and Infosys together have an equal number of recruits who may end up being absorbed. Says TCS global head (human resources) S Padmanabhan, "For IT students across the world, having an India experience on their CVs has become an important competence.'' Says Nascomm's president Kiran Karnik, "India's success in IT is bringing in the world's talent, just like education attracted students to America.''

Courtesy: The Economic Times, February 15, 2006

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Heralding a new era in rail travel, India's fastest train the Delhi-Bhopal Shatabdi Express was on Wednesday flagged off by Railway Minister Lalu Prasad. Union Minister for Science and Technology Kapil Sibal, Minister of State for Railways Naranbhai Rathwa, Chairman Railway Board and other senior officials of the Railway Ministry were also present at the New Delhi Railway station on the ocassion. The new train will reduce journey time between the 198-km Delhi-Agra stretch from the present two-and-a-half hours to less than two hours, railway officials said. A superfast WAP-5 locomotive will pull the train comprising all new coaches upgraded at the Kapurthala Coach Factory, they said.

Courtesy: The Times of India, February 15, 2006

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Bold and bright Indian students are being wooed by top British educational institutes, with one academic saying that Indians outperform 'even the brightest of our lot'. The ability of Indian students to pay high tuition fees has not gone unnoticed in Western education circles. The easy availability of bank loans for education and the increasing awareness of education abroad have made the Indians choosy. "It is no longer the case that Britain is the preferred choice because of history and shared language. Indian students are now asking us why should they go to Cardiff University and not to Leicester University," a senior British academic said. The budget for international promotion - mainly focused on India, China and Southeast Asian countries - has increased exponentially in almost every British university in recent years. Overseas students pay at least three times the fee that a home student pays, which makes them most sought after at a time of budgetary cuts. Education authorities here are drawing up innovative plans to lure bright Indian students. These include offering discounts on fees to pick-ups at the Heathrow airport. It is also accepted that Indian students invariably perform better than their counterparts from Britain or other countries. "Time was when we could choose to admit an Indian student or not admit. Now admission is just a formality. Evidence shows that Indians outperform even the brightest of our lot," the academic said.

Courtesy: The Times of India, February 15, 2006

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President A P J Abdul Kalam may have got the opportunity to make an actual submarine sortie but ordinary citizens need not despair as they too can now experience life undersea. With a ticket costing a mere Rs 25, one can board the INS Kursura - an actual submarine installed on the Rama Krishna beach here - and get a glimpse of how the country's naval troops spend months on end in a floating home. Decommissioned in 2001 after 31 years of service, the INS Kursura submarine is said to be the first museum of its kind in South Asia. "Usually, old submarines are sold as scrap. It was former Admiral V Pasricha who got the idea of converting it into a museum," says Curator G Panniraj, a former Navy man himself. The uphill task of hauling the mammoth submarine a distance of 600 metres from the sea to its present location took 18 months at a project cost of Rs 5.5 crore. Indeed, the forward movement of the submarine in the initial weeks is said to have been in millimetres. The unique submarine museum was finally opened to public in August 2002 by the then state Chief Minister Chandrababu Naidu. Replete with 22 torpedoes, albeit with disengaged warheads, the 91.3 metre long and eight metre wide INS Kursura is a Foxtrot class submarine of Russian make. Slight modifications have been made for the convenience of visitors so that they could have a clear view of its three decks, says Panniraj. Amidst the array of intricate machinery, life-size models of submarine crew have been placed inside INS Kursura to help visitors recreate a sense of life undersea. Below several 'Please Don't Touch' signs, an unfinished game of chess lies forgotten on the narrow dining table, the executive officer lies on his bunk poring over a novel, while the cook is sweating in the kitchen busy making idlis. Space is premium in any submarine with equipment, ammunition and life-saving systems taking priority. And the toilets - that's another story. The 75-member crew had to make do with only two toilets on the entire submarine. Unlike on land, defecating hundreds of metres under the sea is a complex task involving pedalling faeces into a cylinder before the container is shot out into the sea. Many milestones in the history of submarine design and operations have been chronicled in photographs and artefacts placed inside the submarine, which played a vital role in the 1971 Indo-Pak war. "The submarine museum needs a monthly cost of Rs 2.5 lakh to keep it running," says guide S A Govinda Rao.

Courtesy: The Times of India, February 14, 2006

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Dr A.P.J. Kalam went on Monday where no Indian President has been - 40 metres under the sea. He marked the occasion with a call for developing long-endurance submarines, a possible reference to nuclear-propelled ones. Along with the President, two ministers of state for defence, Rao Inderjit Singh and M.M. Pallam Raju, and Navy Chief Arun Prakash took a three-hour ride on the Russian-origin Kilo-class submarine INS Sindhurakshak. Asked for his comments, the President said, "We need systems with long range and endurance." He also talked about developing conventional as well as strategic submarines. Though nothing was spelt out, the President seemed to refer to submarines with a nuclear propulsion system - submarines which can stay underwater for longer without needing to resurface and can travel long distances. India has a secretive advanced technology vessel (ATV) programme, which is reportedly developing exactly this class of submarine. The submarine trip, and the remarks to the crew and the media, came on the last day of Dr Kalam's visit to Visakhapatnam for the Ninth Naval Fleet Review. During the three-day visit, he has also talked about the need to have submarines fitted with BrahMos and other long-range missiles. The President's aides on board INS Sindhurakshak included a doctor apart from the submarine's own. But a police officer who is part of his security detachment wasn't accommodated and there was a bit of a spat on this with the Navy, which insisted that the President was safe with them. A Kilo-class submarine normally carries a crew of about 60 and there isn't room enough for too many extra people on board. The submarine travelled about 35 km into the Bay of Bengal, off Visakhapatnam.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, February 14, 2006

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Lord Chris Patten, Chancellor of Oxford University, will visit India next month as part of a drive to attract brightest students from the country to help university compete with the better-funded US Ivy League colleges. "Globalisation doesn't end at the Thames Valley," the former European commissioner and governor of Hong Kong told the Financial Times in an interview published on Monday. "I hope it will be the first of several visits to India and China over the next few years," he said. "I don't think a serious university can do without a properly thought-through strategy for China and India." Lord Patten will visit Bangalore, Mumbai and New Delhi and meet Oxford alumni, speak at a Business School seminar and discuss ways of raising more money for bursaries for Indian students. He said there were about 17,000 Indian students in Britain, compared with nearly 80,000 in the US. He said, "we have to fight very hard to keep our position in the world league table to stay up there with Harvard, Yale, Princeton, Stanford and MIT."

Hindustan Times, February 13, 2006

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Unraveling some facts buried in history, experts from Archaeological Survey of India said the possibility of a sea link between south India and the rest of Asia about 3,800 years ago could not be ruled out. Mr Arun Malik, an archaeologist with ASI, Chennai, while throwing light on Adichannallur civilisation, said here that the observation of human morphological types based on the cranial evidences point to the existence of more than one racial and ethnic group in that region during the period of the civilisation's long geo-historic period. "Occurrences of intermediate and pure traits of yellow race of South-east and Far-east Asia and typical ethnic and tribal Indians on the external morphology of the skulls and bones give credence to the fact that a sea trade may have been there," said Mr P Raghavan, a bio-anthropologist currently assisting ASI, Chennai, in studying geo-morphological aspects. Mr Malik said the latest excavations at the Adichanallur's pre-historic site along the coast of Tuticorin in Tamil Nadu have yielded more than 160 urns, many of which contained hundreds of different-sized potteries. Husk, paddy and other cereals have also been found in the urns. He said the people of Adichanallur were agrarian in nature who also mastered blacksmithery and made a variety of iron implements. "The engraved drawings on the clay urns narrate the decoded ecological, environmental and cultural significance. For example, a fascinating art showing a tall dancing female with a large-sized reptile, probably a crocodile, and a member of a deer group explain the pre-historic faunal and floral wealth. An incomplete ancient Brahmin Tamil script engraved on inner surface of urn is yet to be decoded," said Mr Malik. On the practice of burying their dead, Mr Malik said most of the burials were in association with iron and copper metallic objects like swords, knives and bangles. Mr Raghavan said he had identified a unique pre-historic discovery of a stillborn baby. "The foetus is about 3-5 months old, which I found from one of the urns. Association of fossilised bird bones and domesticated cattle teeth further throw light on the pre-historic domestication of animals," he said.

Courtesy: The Statesman, February 13, 2006

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Delhi will soon have the country's first "global village" in the vicinity of Noida's DND flyover which will showcase art, crafts and culture, revealed Delhi tourism minister Arvinder Singh Lovely in the capital on Friday. The idea to set up a global village in Delhi has emerged out of the success of the Global Village Dubai, an annual event coinciding with the Dubai Shopping Festival. Organisers of the Indian Pavilion at Global Village Dubai, where Delhi was the theme this year, have entered into a MoU with Delhi tourism department and Noida toll bridge company in order to set-up a month-long global village event from September 30 to October 31. "The global village will be set-up in the 40 acre land around DND flyover. It is the first step towards making Delhi an international tourist destination, especially in the wake of the upcoming Commonwealth Games of 2010," said Mr Lovely. Expecting a participation of 20-25 countries in the Delhi Global Village, the tourism minister gave the example of the success of the Dubai Global Village organised annually since 1995. The number of visitors to the event has grown from 500,000 to 6 million in ten years, he said. "More than 95 participants from Delhi have taken part in the Global Village Dubai this year. Extensive branding was provided to Delhi by setting up a replica of Red Fort, Qutub Minar and Humayun's Tomb," added Mr Lovely. The tourism minister, however, expressed concern about the security of tourists. "We are worried about tourists. The transport department has set up tourism kiosks providing information to tourists." Mr Lovely also revealed that funds for the global village will be generated from public-private partnership. "The aim is to provide tourists as well as Delhiites a destination that provides not only an insight into culture and heritage of India but also a new experience in shopping and entertainment," Mr Lovely added.

Courtesy: The Asian Age, February 11, 2006

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The government has decided to allow the Indian Institute of Management-Bangalore (IIM-B) to set up a campus abroad. This comes after the institute indicated that it agreed with conditions laid down by the government, including amending its memorandums of association and increasing the student intake. Human Resource Development Minister Arjun Singh had earlier said the IIMs, despite their autonomy, could not function like companies and set up brick-and-mortar campuses abroad. The government had also taken a policy stand that the IIMs should first meet domestic demand. "There is absolutely no conflict between us and the government. The ministry has asked us to go ahead with setting up campuses abroad after amending the MoA," IIM-B Director Prakash Apte told reporters after a meeting between all IIM directors and the HRD minister. Commenting on this, IIM-Ahmedabad Director Bakul Dholakia said, "For the overseas campus, IIM-A will have to amend its articles of association." He dismissed that there were differences between the IIM- A and the government. "The perception of difference was misconstrued and the government has been supportive of the IIMs and have helped in the expansion of their activities in the domestic market," he added. Apte said the process of taking the IIM-B board's approval for amending its memorandums of association would take three to four months. He added that his institution planned to increase its student intake to 280 this year, up from the existing 250, and take it to 300 in 2007. IIM-Calcutta plans to increase its student intake to 300 from the present level of 270. "A joint venture proposal to export the 'IIM brand' is on the cards and in a conceptual stage," he added.

Courtesy: Business Standard, February 02, 2006

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It is not only through history that India and its contribution in the making of this made-to-order country is remembered. It is happening now. This part of the world is looking up to India for leadership to turn the dream of 21st century as an Asian century into reality. The running theme during President A P J Abdul Kalam's interaction with intellectuals here veered around India, its rich heritage, its pre-eminent position and if it was ready along with China to create a common Asian home on the lines of the common European home. Even the challenge to the traditional Indian value system like the joint family came up for discussion with Kalam blaming the proliferation of the electronic media for debasement in urban areas.

Courtesy: The Times of India, February 03, 2006

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An Indian mathematician has been named the co-winner of the King Faisal International Prize for 2006, in recognition of his path-breaking research which has strengthened links between mathematics and physics. India's M S Narasimhan, an honorary fellow at the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research in Mumbai, shares the prize with UK's Simon Kirwan Donaldson, President of the Institute of Mathematical Sciences and Professor of Mathematics at Imperial College, London for seminal contributions to math which also helped provide a foundation for physical theories. Prince Khaled al-Faisal, Director General of the King Faisal Foundation, said the prizes would be distributed to the winners on February 18. The two mathematicians' work has helped establish strong ties with the formulation of quantum chromodynamics for which the King Faisal prize in physics was given last year, the foundation said. Each of the five prize categories consist of a certificate, hand-written in Arabic calligraphy, summarizing the laureate's work; a commemorative 24 carat, 200-gram gold medal, uniquely cast for each prize; and cash award of 200,000 us dollars.

Courtesy: www.financialexpress.com, January 01, 2006

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With Indian students having become a force to reckon with in university campuses globally, efforts to woo them are going beyond just the annual run-of-the- mill education fairs. In fact, big efforts are on by various global educational bodies in India to rope in alumni of well-known colleges and universities as brand ambassadors of education in different geographies. Recently, Usefi had an alumni fair in Delhi where alumni and current students of 12 universities, from a wide geographical and institutional range, participated. Indian students and ex-students of colleges from Texas and Florida in the South to Rhode Island in North and New York and North Carolina in East to Wyoming and Colorado in West, were seen at the fair. Participants included well-known publicly-funded institutions like University of Texas, Austin; SUNY, Plattsburgh; and University of Colorado at Denver, and popular privately funded Universities like Duke; Columbia; and University of Miami.

Courtesy: The Economic Times, February 10, 2006

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