Posts from — July 2010

India’s Defense Minister AK Anthony mentioned several foreign defense suppliers as being recommended for blacklisting by the country Central Bureau of Investigation. This  information came in reply to a question in India’s upper house of Parliament.

The companies include

• Singapore Technologies Kinetics Ltd (STK), Singapore
• Israel Military Industries Ltd. (IMI), Israel
• Rheinmetall Air Defence (RAD), Zurich, Siwtzerland
• Denel,  South Africa
• Soltam, Israel

This substantiates India’s commitment to transparency on the defense instruments procurement side.

Using uranium fuel supplied by France’s Areva and Russia’s TVEL Corporation, three of India’s oldest atomic power stations have been able to recover from low capacity factors.

The General Electric-supplied Tarapur units 1 and 2 ran at 90 and 99 percent of capacity in the period from April to June 2010; they are both rated at just 160 megawatts each  and are over 40 years old. These units are located near Mumbai. Further north in desert of Rajasthan, the RAPS 2 unit produced at 97 percent of its 200 megawatt capacity in the same time frame.

All three reactors are under the IAEA safeguards regime which allows India to use imported uranium at plants where there is no potential of military application. Currently six Indian reactors  totalling to 1060 megawatts are under international safeguards and qualify for the use of imported uranium.

Areva is contracted to supply 300 ton for India’s existing Pressurised Heavy Water Reactors based on the “Candu” technology. TVEL Corporation is commited to 2,000 tons of uranium pellets in low-enriched form for use in Tarapur and in the new plants at Kudankulam, which use Russian VVER technology but are not operational yet.

The benefits to Russian and French companies are flowing from the American led movement to open up nuclear commerce with India, after sanctions were first imposed in 1974. Ironically American companies have yet to gain export permissions to sell anything to India.

Engineers in India, working for Indian and foreign companies, are starting to produce innovative products and technologies that have impact beyond its borders.

One such development is a system that uses thermal sensors and algorithms to calculate the number of people entering a store at a given time and when they are likely to leave. The system, designed at Tesco plc’s Service Center in Bangalore, helps managers keep an efficient number of cash registers open so check-out lines do not get too long.

Another invention, called Multipoint, targeting the classroom,  gives multiple students a mouse cursor to use on one computer screen. Previously, the result of one computer in a classroom, even at a rural school, was one student, usually an upper-class male, using the computer more than the rest of the class. Microsoft Research is now considering the system, , for commercial development.

These stories are becoming more and more prevalent; it is an encouraging sign for anyone considering opening or expanding an India R&D center

The British Prime Minister David Cameron is visiting India now, at least three months before the scheduled visit of U.S. President Obama. Cameron is distinctly focused on commercial ties. Especially with his recent interest in containing expenses at home, India seems to be on the forefront for business engagement.

In my posts I generally focus on economic, political and cultural ties between India and the U.S. but the British P.M.’s visit is interesting in terms of its timing. India’s Gen Y may not associate Britain with the country’s prolific use of the English language nor its love for the ‘gentleman’s game’- cricket. While bankers and business guys cheer for the launch of a solar powered mobile handset by Vodafone in India, the $2.54 billion tax issue that the same telecom giant has had with India may pop up as a spoiler.

The country that ruled India for 200 yearss is definitely intending to ride on the prospects that new India today has for itself and other strategic partner economies.
The new terminal at the Delhi airport might be the first sign of the 21st Century India that the British PM witnesses on his return to India. I will be curious to know how the U.S. President scores over his British counterpart when he visits India in November.

Do share with me your thoughts on the opportunities in India for U.S. businesses and if the British PM’s visit would have any impact on those.

With congressional and statewide elections around the corner in the United States, a record number of Americans of Indian origin hope to win the public’s vote.

At least eight Indian-Americans plan on campaigning for office. While their ethnic background is certainly not at the forefront of the candidates’ political efforts, some have been more transparent about it than others. Republican Nikki Haley, widely considered the favorite to win South Carolina’s race for governor, has received some scrutiny for, among other things, converting her religion, marrying a white man, and changing her name.

Haley is perhaps the most visible example of a politician veiling her Indian heritage out of all the candidates. A common trait among this wave of cross-cultural politicians is a desire to bring in new ideas and new blood, literally.

Raj Goyle, a Democrat vying for his party’s congressional nomination in Wichita, Kansas sums it up matter-of-factly, “I am who I am, I’m proud of my background and what I’ve accomplished and my family. Kansas voters absolutely will choose the best candidate based on the merits.” Goyle  worships at a Hindu temple, but clearly he is not concerned about his practice’s effect on his political status.

If there is only one thing Goyle can agree on with Pennsylvania’s Manan Trivedi, Louisiana’s Governor  Bobby Jindal and Ravi Sangisetty, California’s Ami Bera, New York’s Reshman Saujani, and Ohio’s Surya Yalamanchili, it is probably that.

In a world  that gets  smaller with technological development, America has become an example of how many religions and races can harmoniously unite under the same flag. Nikki Haley is not so much a woman of Indian heritage hoping to lead a primarily white state in South Carolina as much she is simply one American leading another group of Americans. The faster

America can demonstrate this to the world, the faster global commerce can accelerate.