30 April 2007 - 20:57
Computers in India for Rs 4,500 (US$ 100)
An Indian company, Novatium, based in Chennai is to sell PCs for US$ 100 or less (Rs 4,500).According to the CEO Alok Singh, Novatium has a target of 10 million customers over the next 5 years.
The company can offer such low prices by making use of ‘thin computing’ services, which means that the complex computing tasks are moved to a central server and the desktop PC is made relatively simple to just provide access to what is being processed.
The Net PC package — consisting of the CPU, a 14-inch CRT monitor, a keyboard and a mouse — has been tentatively priced at Rs.4, 450 (roughly $100). When Net PC hits the market at this price, it could well be the most economical home PC ever.
Whereas a PC in India can cost upwards of Rs 40,000, 140 subscribers in Chennai have been paying a monthly rental of Rs.449 for which they are able to log on to the Internet using either Windows (Network version) or Linux (Ubuntu), run applications such as Microsoft Office, run educational packages, play games and download content that will be stored in the server.
Novatium says after the successful trial in Chennai they plan to expand into 6-7 big cities in the next year.
Novatium was founded by Ray Stata Chairman of US-based Analog Devices, Netcore Solutions Managing Director Rajesh Jain and Professor Ashok Jhunjhunwala of IIT Madras.
Monday, 30 April 2007
Sunday, 29 April 2007
Indian Tops UK Sunday Times Rich List
29 April 2007 - 23:14
Three Indians in the Top Five on the Sunday Times UK Rich List
India to Get Free High-Speed 2Mbps Broadband
Shortage of Relevant Graduate Skills but not Solar Panels
Lakshmi Mittal, the President of Arcelor Steel, is still the richest person in Britain with assets totalling £19.25 billion, an increase of £5 billion over last year. The second richest is the Russian oil tycoon and football groupie Roman Abramovitch with a mere £10.8 billion.
According to the List, despite the fact that Labour have been in power for the last ten years, the wealth of Britain's resident super-rich has trebled. Thanks to Gordon Brown’s management of the economy the gap between the rich and the poor is now greater than it was before Labour came to power. Nice one Gordon.
The only person in the top five who was actually born in the UK is the celebrated estate agent, the Duke of Westminster, with a ‘bijou’ property empire of £7 billion.
The Hinduja brothers, Sri and Gopi, are ranked joint fourth with a £6.2 billion empire obtained from “industry and finance”, although as there are two of them they only really have £3.1 billion each, so possibly some ‘match fixing’ there.
If you want to be on the list you will need a fortune of £70 million to scrape in at number 1,000. If you think you have been inadvertently left off, you need to complain to the Sunday Times, not me.
India to Get Free High-Speed 2Mbps Broadband
The Indian government has decided to provide free, high-speed broadband services throughout India by 2009, via state-owned telcos BSNL and MTNL. Consumers will no doubt be delighted, but the telecom businesses themselves may be less pleased as they risk losing most of their revenue, in part due to the change to VOIP, which allows people to make telephone calls free of charge. The quality of VOIP calls, is starting to improve and by 2009 it is expected to be as good as analog calls. Telecom companies will be forced to create new applications if they wish to continue in business. India is a long way behind China in so far as concerns infrastructure but the Indian government has taken a decisive step to modernize its communications network, plus India will not be hampered in its development by the censorship and State control that exists in China.
Shortage of Relevant Graduate Skills but not Solar Panels
According to KV Kanath CEO of ICICI Bank: "skill-sets in India do not match a lot of the jobs. What is being taught is a disconnect from what we require. Last year, to recruit 10,000 people we had to see 300,000 resumés." There are plenty of UK graduates looking for jobs, so maybe we’ll see some of them emigrating to India.
Mr Kamath also warned that the infrastructure in India could be a threat to economic growth. He said that India's infrastructure needs to be improved, as power blackouts are still relatively frequent. "New capacity will take three or four years to come up," he said. "It will be a catch-up game for a very long time."
One development that may help is the market that has arisen for household solar panels in India, with the help of a UN program that helps local banks offer cheaper loans to enable people to pay for the panels. It’s worth bearing in mind that China is currently a major manufacturer of solar panels, it would seem to me be a wise move for Indians to start making their own (if they don’t already).
I must admit I don't know if there are any Indian manufacturers of solar panels, so if anybody knows of any please don't hesitate to leave a comment (preferably polite).
Three Indians in the Top Five on the Sunday Times UK Rich List
India to Get Free High-Speed 2Mbps Broadband
Shortage of Relevant Graduate Skills but not Solar Panels
Lakshmi Mittal, the President of Arcelor Steel, is still the richest person in Britain with assets totalling £19.25 billion, an increase of £5 billion over last year. The second richest is the Russian oil tycoon and football groupie Roman Abramovitch with a mere £10.8 billion.
According to the List, despite the fact that Labour have been in power for the last ten years, the wealth of Britain's resident super-rich has trebled. Thanks to Gordon Brown’s management of the economy the gap between the rich and the poor is now greater than it was before Labour came to power. Nice one Gordon.
The only person in the top five who was actually born in the UK is the celebrated estate agent, the Duke of Westminster, with a ‘bijou’ property empire of £7 billion.
The Hinduja brothers, Sri and Gopi, are ranked joint fourth with a £6.2 billion empire obtained from “industry and finance”, although as there are two of them they only really have £3.1 billion each, so possibly some ‘match fixing’ there.
If you want to be on the list you will need a fortune of £70 million to scrape in at number 1,000. If you think you have been inadvertently left off, you need to complain to the Sunday Times, not me.
India to Get Free High-Speed 2Mbps Broadband
The Indian government has decided to provide free, high-speed broadband services throughout India by 2009, via state-owned telcos BSNL and MTNL. Consumers will no doubt be delighted, but the telecom businesses themselves may be less pleased as they risk losing most of their revenue, in part due to the change to VOIP, which allows people to make telephone calls free of charge. The quality of VOIP calls, is starting to improve and by 2009 it is expected to be as good as analog calls. Telecom companies will be forced to create new applications if they wish to continue in business. India is a long way behind China in so far as concerns infrastructure but the Indian government has taken a decisive step to modernize its communications network, plus India will not be hampered in its development by the censorship and State control that exists in China.
Shortage of Relevant Graduate Skills but not Solar Panels
According to KV Kanath CEO of ICICI Bank: "skill-sets in India do not match a lot of the jobs. What is being taught is a disconnect from what we require. Last year, to recruit 10,000 people we had to see 300,000 resumés." There are plenty of UK graduates looking for jobs, so maybe we’ll see some of them emigrating to India.
Mr Kamath also warned that the infrastructure in India could be a threat to economic growth. He said that India's infrastructure needs to be improved, as power blackouts are still relatively frequent. "New capacity will take three or four years to come up," he said. "It will be a catch-up game for a very long time."
One development that may help is the market that has arisen for household solar panels in India, with the help of a UN program that helps local banks offer cheaper loans to enable people to pay for the panels. It’s worth bearing in mind that China is currently a major manufacturer of solar panels, it would seem to me be a wise move for Indians to start making their own (if they don’t already).
I must admit I don't know if there are any Indian manufacturers of solar panels, so if anybody knows of any please don't hesitate to leave a comment (preferably polite).
Monday, 23 April 2007
India a Sleeping Giant ?
23 April 2007 - 17:32
India - Dreams of Empire ?
This is my first post on what is for me a new topic - India. Let me make a couple of things clear from the outset - I am not Indian (I was born in the UK in 1950 from British parents and have no ancestral connection with India) and I have never been to India ! A bit strange maybe for someone with a blog about India ? I do, however, have a connection with India through my philsophical and spiritual leanings, mainly through the teachings of advaita. I also have a great respect for India, it is just one of the strange quirks of my life that I have never been there.
This blog will deal with news and developments in India in all areas, though mainly in the area of business. It is clear to anyone living in the UK that India with a population of 1 billion will have an enormous influence in the coming century. Here in the UK everyday we see more jobs being outsourced to India, for two obvious reasons. Wages are much lower in India than in the UK (around 10 - 25% of what people earn over here so I believe - I read not so longer ago that you can lead a comfortable life in India on US$ 300 a month - in England you need twice that just to rent somewhere to live) and English is spoken more or less throughout India. As a result, and because of the improved global telecommunications systems, a lot of service sector jobs that used to be done in the UK are now being done in India, particularly in areas such as banking, insurance, computing and online teaching. I suspect there are already some people in England who have emigrated or are considering emigrating to India.
I will not be going into the rights and wrongs of outsourcing, I will just be commenting on new, and hopfeully interesting, developments as I see them and as I hear about them. Things change and at the moment India is reaping economic and financial benefits from these changes. It would be nice if these economic and financial benefits were to help the population at large, but given that this is capitalism that we are altking about, I won't be holding my breath on that one. Although I expect there will be some genral improvement in living standards. But we haven't got rid of poverty and exploitation here in the West yet, so I don't expect it to disappear in the East any time soon either. Life sucks and then you die ? Maybe not, how about - life sucks and then you realize it was only a dream anyway ? For those who have no knowledge of Hinduism, that is more or less the central message (comments welcome !). Life sucks and if you realize it is a dream/illusion then you are free of it, if you don't realize it then you are re-born again and again until you do. So if you fancy living in India, then maybe you will, next time round.
So right at this moment in time I've got to get back to my day job, but I hope to be posting something 'interesting' soon.
Have a good day !
India - Dreams of Empire ?
This is my first post on what is for me a new topic - India. Let me make a couple of things clear from the outset - I am not Indian (I was born in the UK in 1950 from British parents and have no ancestral connection with India) and I have never been to India ! A bit strange maybe for someone with a blog about India ? I do, however, have a connection with India through my philsophical and spiritual leanings, mainly through the teachings of advaita. I also have a great respect for India, it is just one of the strange quirks of my life that I have never been there.
This blog will deal with news and developments in India in all areas, though mainly in the area of business. It is clear to anyone living in the UK that India with a population of 1 billion will have an enormous influence in the coming century. Here in the UK everyday we see more jobs being outsourced to India, for two obvious reasons. Wages are much lower in India than in the UK (around 10 - 25% of what people earn over here so I believe - I read not so longer ago that you can lead a comfortable life in India on US$ 300 a month - in England you need twice that just to rent somewhere to live) and English is spoken more or less throughout India. As a result, and because of the improved global telecommunications systems, a lot of service sector jobs that used to be done in the UK are now being done in India, particularly in areas such as banking, insurance, computing and online teaching. I suspect there are already some people in England who have emigrated or are considering emigrating to India.
I will not be going into the rights and wrongs of outsourcing, I will just be commenting on new, and hopfeully interesting, developments as I see them and as I hear about them. Things change and at the moment India is reaping economic and financial benefits from these changes. It would be nice if these economic and financial benefits were to help the population at large, but given that this is capitalism that we are altking about, I won't be holding my breath on that one. Although I expect there will be some genral improvement in living standards. But we haven't got rid of poverty and exploitation here in the West yet, so I don't expect it to disappear in the East any time soon either. Life sucks and then you die ? Maybe not, how about - life sucks and then you realize it was only a dream anyway ? For those who have no knowledge of Hinduism, that is more or less the central message (comments welcome !). Life sucks and if you realize it is a dream/illusion then you are free of it, if you don't realize it then you are re-born again and again until you do. So if you fancy living in India, then maybe you will, next time round.
So right at this moment in time I've got to get back to my day job, but I hope to be posting something 'interesting' soon.
Have a good day !
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