Posts from — January 2010

Sir Ben Kingsley, who played the the title role in 1982′s Oscar-winning Gandhi (and much less remembered role in the worst movie of the 21st Century so far, the Love Guru) is soon to be seen in a Bollywood movie, Teen Patti ( three cards, or three-card poker).

Mathematicians in movies: Bachchan and Kingsley

Perci Trachtenberg (Sir Ben Kingsley) is world’s greatest living mathematician.  Perci encounters Venkat (Amitabh Bachchan, India’s biggest film star of all time) a solitary mathematician from India at a casino in Londo. Venkat tells Perci about an equation that could change the dialog on math forever and perhaps win an unimaginable fortune in gambling.  A cut-throad adventure, Bollyood style follow.

The movie is directed by Leena Yadav and releases in February.

10 inch tablet PC, Adam, designed in India

A tablet device named Adam, designed by Notion Ink a startup, located in Hyderabad India, is capturing a tremendous amount of buzz in the lead up to the Consumer Electronics Show (CES) in Las Vegas next week. Based on Google’s Android operating system. Nvidia’s new Tegra chipset and the Pixel Qi new low-power display, the 10 inch touch screen computer has already been featured on Cnet, TechCrunch, Geek and a number of techie enthusiast sites which alert visitors to CES about new and exciting products.

For designing the device, the company collaborated with Bangalore-based National Institute of Design. The designers wanted to adopt an operating system which would make the device ‘talk’ to any other device so they chose Google’s Android platform. But India didn’t  have many people working on Android and Notion Ink trained 46 students from the Hyderabad-based information technology institute called “BVR IT”. All 46 kids are now working full time employees of Notion Ink.

Notion Ink has filed two patents — one for the design and the other for technology — in India, Taiwan and China. It expects to file a total of 67 patents, for user interface, hardware changes and software optimization.

Adam will likely be manufactured by a Taiwanese OEM and sold via telecom operators in the US and India for a retail price of about $320. Shipments are expected in June, 2010. The founders of Notion Ink are six graduates of the Indian Insitutes of Technology and one MBA from the Indian Institute of Management.

Pop sensation Britney Spears is visiting “God’s Own Country“, also known as the state of Kerala on India’s southern Malabar coast for her New Year’s eve celebrations. Forbes’ Magazine 13th most powerful celebrity does not have a strong following in India but is reportedly recording a new album with Kerala dances as the backdrop.   Kerla residents do celebrate January 1st as a new year.  But the day of Vishu is celebrated as “real” New Year’s Day in this part of the country. It is celebrated on the first day of the Malayalam month of Medam. Offerings to the divine called Vishukanni are neatly arranged on the eve of the festival and consist of rice, linen, cucumber, betel leaves, holy texts, coins and yellow flowers called konna..

People ask me, the India Expert, “When is your Indian New Year?”.

Well as usual there is no straightforward answer to most questions about India. There are many, many new years in this diverse country (and people want to celebrate multiple days, given the Indian penchant for holidays and celebration).   For example, Ugadi is celebrated as New Year Day in Andhra Pradesh and Karnataka in the Spring. It is called Gudi Padwa in Maharashtra where India’s largest city, Mumbai is located. In the northern India state, this day is called Navreh.

Puthandu, also known as Varusha pirappu, is celebrated as New Year’s Day in Tamil Nadu,where Chennai, another large city is located . It is generally celebrated on the first day of the Tamil month Chithirai, which falls in mid April. The same day is known Mahabishuba Sankranti in the eastern state of Orissa, and is celebrated as the Oriya New Year.

India’s government also follows multiple calendars, the Gregorian (western) and the Saka (based on one of the Hindu calendars). so you don’t a straight answer in Delhi either.

Here is more data on the subject, if you are not befuddled yet.  Or as Britney Spear migh have said in 2001  (You Drive Me) Crazy!.

But if I measure by the number of new year greetings I receive from India based contacts, January 1 probably get 95% of them.  My India cell phone is off since I am in California right now. Else I would start getting bombarded by hundreds of text messages starting at the stroke of midnight IST.

India’s factory output rose 10.3 percent in October from a year earlier as government stimulus measures and domestic demand pushed Asia’s third-largest economy into its 10th straight month of industrial expansion. The government also revised its number for September industrial output growth to 9.6 percent from 9.1 percent.

The Expert expects India factory output to continue its brisk pace at between 8 and 11 percent through 2010.  Much of this driven by internal factors, although manufacturing exports from India continue to rise, in selected categories.  A7DD3RVAUQC6

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