A Nation on the March

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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Hiten »

India Makes Progress on Poverty Reduction: UN

India has made significant progress in poverty reduction and the number of poor people in the country is expected to half of the 1990 level by 2015, a UN report said today.

According to the 2010 report of the United Nations on the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs), While India is expected to reduce its poverty rate from 51 per cent in 1990 to 24 per cent in 2015, reducing its number of extremely poor by 188 million.

"India, too, has contributed to the large reduction in global poverty," the report said......

.......While South America and Africa continue to show the largest net losses of forests, the report said that Asia had registered a net gain of some 2.2 million hectares annually in the last decade, mainly because of large-scale afforestation programmes in China, India and Viet Nam.....

"These three countries have expanded their forest area by a total of nearly 4 million hectares annually in the last five years," the report said........
Doesn't say anything good about poverty eradication in other S Asian countries. Though unnamed, not hard to guess the usual suspects who pull Asia's devp down with its own catatonic non-devp

Millennium Development Goals website

Millennium Development Goals Report 2010 [6.5 MBish PDF]
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by gujaratmba »

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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by ramana »

NYT article:

Promise of India's nascent economy

Quite a detailed report on India's rural economy.
...
Since the 1990s, when India shed its socialist past and began introducing market reforms, the structure of its economy has changed dramatically. Agriculture, which in 1990 accounted for about 30 percent of gross domestic product, now accounts for only 17.5 percent. Industry has declined from more than a quarter of G.D.P. to a just a fifth.

The most striking change has been the growing importance of services, a broad category that includes banking, communications and real estate. From 1990 to 2009, the share of services in India’s economy grew from 44.7 percent to 62.6 percent.

Many factors are at play in this transformation. One of the most important is the rise of what India calls its ITES (or information technology enabled services) industry. Over the last two decades or so, this industry has been one of the fastest growing in the country.

The impact of this rapid growth was first apparent in the cities — in the shiny technology parks and office complexes that housed the new software companies, and in a sense of optimism and self-confidence that was born from the success of those companies.

More recently, that optimism has been trickling down to the countryside. In towns like this and in the surrounding villages, the old agricultural economy is dying.

But the promise of a new economy beckons. For the young, in particular, technology offers the prospect of both personal and national salvation.

On a recent morning, I visited a computer training center here. It was run by a couple in their 20s. They were small-town entrepreneurs; they owned a couple of cellphone stores.

In a freshly painted room, about 20 young men and women sat in front of flat-screen monitors.

Two boys and a girl struggled with an HTML file. They had recently graduated from the equivalent of high school, and they were looking to the future. They told me of their ambitions to study engineering, to make money, to start their own businesses.

All of these goals, they said, depended on one thing: computer literacy. That’s why they were sitting in that room on a hot vacation morning, paying anywhere from 1,500 to 5,000 rupees, or up to $107, for their lessons.

The students spoke excitedly about the fortunes to be made in technology. They talked about Bill Gates, and about Infosys, HCL and Tata Consultancy Services, three of India’s most successful companies. It was clear that they saw technology as a path to riches.

But while their interest in computers was driven in part by personal ambition, I was struck, too, by the sense of collective purpose, even nationalism, they seemed to attach to the lessons they were taking.


K. Selvakannan, a skinny boy with a pen clipped to his shirt pocket, said that in another era, he might have been a freedom fighter. Now, he said, a technical education was “the new patriotism.”

“In my village, I am one of the few who knows computers. We have to learn for the country,” he said, adding that he planned to return to his village to create jobs and prosperity.

This entanglement of personal ambition and national purpose is in many ways typical of India’s relationship to its technology industry. Ever since the ITES sector emerged to prominence in the late 1990s, it has come to represent a vehicle for both individual and collective aspirations.

A generation has grown up seduced by promises of stock options and venture capital. The same generation has been inspired, too, by visions of “leapfrog development” and India as a “knowledge society.”

In truth, the relationship between the ITES sector and India’s broader economy remains somewhat unclear.

For all its contributions to G.D.P., the technology industry is directly responsible for less than two million jobs, a pittance in a nation where the labor force numbers almost half a billion. Some economists worry about the specter of “jobless growth”— the prospect that India’s development will be led by skill-intensive services while labor-intensive industry and manufacturing lag.

Such worries continue to dog an otherwise ebullient sector of the economy.

But in places like this, where a new generation is leaving behind the professions (and the poverty) of their parents, there is little sign of such anxiety. At the computer training center, I sensed only a deep faith in the future, an almost serene confidence that the technology-led boom experienced by urban India is finally spreading.

Before leaving, I spoke to M. Aparna, who had started the training center with her husband. She was optimistic about the future. She said the number of students kept growing. Even the older generation was coming into the center now, with farmers now trying to learn how to use computers.

Outside the center, under the cellphone store Ms. Aparna owned with her husband, a tractor was parked by the side of the road. The owner, a shirtless farmer, was barefoot. His feet were caked with red earth.

Once, I thought, this would have been his town. Now he just looked out of place.


........

Note a few things.
The urbanised and Westernised writer cannot understand rural Indian nationalism!

Second when I visited India in 2006, I observed that India has managed to commoditize IT technology services such that there is particiaption at all levels of the food chain. I have seen computer savy housewives design posters for dance recitals to be carried to the printer. I have seen neighborhood IT centers where you could drop off handwritten notes and made into MS word format for a small fee. At the higher level I talked to WIPRO and Infosys folks. Small towns on the way to Bhadrachalam all had atleast an IT coaching shop.

The shirtless farmer could be the financial backer of the teaching venture or his children could be in there.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by svinayak »

ramana wrote:
Second when I visited India in 2006, I observed that India has managed to commoditize IT technology services such that there is particiaption at all levels of the food chain. I have seen computer savy housewives design posters for dance recitals to be carried to the printer. I have seen neighborhood IT centers where you could drop off handwritten notes and made into MS word format for a small fee. At the higher level I talked to WIPRO and Infosys folks. Small towns on the way to Bhadrachalam all had atleast an IT coaching shop.
Even in the early 90s near my village there was computer language teaching classes. I asked where was the computers and they said no computers. Without the computers they were learning the language.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Paul »

They were doing that in Engineering colleges in the 90s. :rotfl: :mrgreen: :mrgreen: :((
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Neshant »

Agriculture, which in 1990 accounted for about 30 percent of gross domestic product, now accounts for only 17.5 percent. Industry has declined from more than a quarter of G.D.P. to a just a fifth.

The most striking change has been the growing importance of services, a broad category that includes banking, communications and real estate.
Lets not cite the destruction of agriculture & industry and the rise of financing & high-rolling as progress.

Agriculture & industry are part of the real economy. Banking & financing crap is supposed to be a consequence of the real economy prospering - not an industry in of itself.

We have already seen in the US and Britain where the financing 'industry' has turned out to be an nothing but paper shuffling, fee collecting and at its worse scamming.

I'm sure many foreign players are looking to pull a few paper scams on the vast Indian populus to rip off their savings via fancy investing in AAA rated garbage with the promise of high returns. Or high frequency trading via back doors in the stock market software they offer up as transfer of technology.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Abhijeet »

The huge growth in services is simply because increasing numbers of Indians are able to afford more than the absolute bare necessities for survival. So they are using more cell phone minutes, buying more life insurance policies, and opening more bank accounts. All of this comes under services, and none of this has anything to do with financial high-rolling. These are all good, solid services that are the building blocks of a modern economy. In India, they are only now being put into place.

India is at least several decades away from a situation where a majority of the population is investing in junk stocks or CDOs. The amount of money invested in the stock market and other "non-under-mattress" type investments is very small, and needs to increase massively in coming years. Currently, the majority of the population puts their money into (in decreasing percentage order) mattresses, gold, bank accounts, and fixed-return instruments like FDs -- while inflation roars along at 10+% rates.

We need people to get more into stock and mutual fund investing. There is no parallel with the US -- and I wish people would stop applying the lessons of developed economies to barely middle-income countries where the conditions are totally different.

The loss of agriculture should not be mourned but cheered. More people need to get into the modern world, not scratching out a living with subsistence farming.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Suraj »

The NYTimes article reports wrong breakdown of the contribution of economic sectors to GDP. The most recent breakdown was approx 16-17% from agriculture, 29% from industry and 54% from services. Their premise that industry as a share of GDP has contracted is false; it is not mathematically possible when industry has grown at close to or better than the growth rate of services over the past half a decade. Agriculture is not the primary rural employment base - the rural services GDP exceeds the agricultural one.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by anishns »

While we continue harping about the ADAM and the IPhone 4G, here's a product which touches the hearts of many millions of India's poor and other impoverished nations worldwide.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/world/africa/10486605.stm
Beebs wrote:The developers of a solar lamp that aims to replace kerosene-burning lights in developing countries have won a prestigious environmental award. D Light Design says its lanterns, which sell for around $10 (£7), contribute to the reduction of carbon emissions.
The company, set up by Indian entrepreneurs, says indoor air pollution by Kerosene fumes kills 1.5m people per year.
Although $10 might be steep for many of India's poor, I think if the government subsidizes it, the costs can be significantly reduced. It is not a "ground breaking" invention so to speak, however, its the best use of taking available technology and deriving a product which appeals to wide populace.

Here's the company website: http://www.dlightdesign.com/products_kiran_global.php

Here's the CEO's blog: http://www.socialedge.org/blogs/let-there-d-light
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Amber G. »

Xpost from math thread:

Results of The Indian Math Olympiad Team this year:
Akashnil Dutta - Silver Medal (Won Silver in 2009 too)
Gaurav Patil - Silver Medal (Won Bronze in 2009)
Akshay Degwekar - Honourable mention
Anand Degwekar - Honourable mention
Ronno Das- Honourable mention
Satyaki Mukherjee - Bronze Medal

Congratulations.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by andy B »

Neshant wrote:
Agriculture, which in 1990 accounted for about 30 percent of gross domestic product, now accounts for only 17.5 percent. Industry has declined from more than a quarter of G.D.P. to a just a fifth.

The most striking change has been the growing importance of services, a broad category that includes banking, communications and real estate.
Lets not cite the destruction of agriculture & industry and the rise of financing & high-rolling as progress.

Agriculture & industry are part of the real economy. Banking & financing crap is supposed to be a consequence of the real economy prospering - not an industry in of itself.

We have already seen in the US and Britain where the financing 'industry' has turned out to be an nothing but paper shuffling, fee collecting and at its worse scamming.

I'm sure many foreign players are looking to pull a few paper scams on the vast Indian populus to rip off their savings via fancy investing in AAA rated garbage with the promise of high returns. Or high frequency trading via back doors in the stock market software they offer up as transfer of technology.
Even though I moiself work in boinking I 400% agree with the above statement.

There is NO substitute to replace Agri sector and the decline in Agri should be treated with caution.

The simple way to see it is if Industry/Services keeps growing and Agri keeps shrinking in a decade or two may be even earlier we will need to start importing grains on a large scale :eek:
This considering the fact that India has huge arrable land, good bio-tech tech base ityadi would be shameful to say the least.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by RamaY »

anishns wrote:Although $10 might be steep for many of India's poor, I think if the government subsidizes it, the costs can be significantly reduced. It is not a "ground breaking" invention so to speak, however, its the best use of taking available technology and deriving a product which appeals to wide populace.
One can get a Crank-LED lamp for $2-3 when purchased bulk from China. I would rather someone in India make them.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by biswas »

x posted from Indian Health Care sector
A diabetes breakthrough from India

New Delhi: A team of Indian scientists has discovered a novel form of insulin that could drastically reduce the suffering diabetics face in controlling their blood sugar.

Read more at: http://www.ndtv.com/article/sci-tech/a- ... a-37130?cp
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Karna_A »

India's GDP in Current prices in Billions of US Dollars is as follows:

2003: 575.330
2004: 665.867
2005: 775.410
2006: 849.905
2007: 925.426

This is from IMF site:
http://www.imf.org/external/pubs/ft/weo ... cfm?G=2001

The question I have is although this GDP does make it a nation on march, it looks like GDP is growing at around 9% though official figure is 7.2. (For year 2007)

Is the difference due to rise in prices?
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Neshant »

Abhijeet wrote:The loss of agriculture should not be mourned but cheered. More people need to get into the modern world, not scratching out a living with subsistence farming.
Gambling in the stock market and getting people enrolled in insurance ponzi schemes only ends in disaster. Its beginning to dawn on the west that selling dodgy financial services is no way to build an economy. They need to forget that and get on with the business of reserching & developing, manufacturing and marketing real products instead of promoting financial scamming, insurance ponzi schemes, real estate flipping and fiat printing.

The destruction of a real industry is always a disaster. The aim should be to increase value in agriculture in India - i.e. developing the food industry with branded products. If India could buy a chocolate company like Cadbury, it could link its agri sector to a product higher up on the value chain.

Having an economy based on real stuff is always better than having an economy based on financing & banking bull&hit.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Rishirishi »

The agri industry is Growing, but not as much as in other sectors. Unless producing for export, 30% for the agri industry is too high. It should be under 10%.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by SwamyG »

x-posting
SwamyG wrote:CK Prahalad on Indian innovation in HBR: http://www.nif.org.in/dwn_files/hbr_Mas ... CK_MLM.pdf
If this does not make you cry, then you are not a jingo :)
teaser
India doesn’t have reliable GPS-based mapping, so the primary critical task is to pinpoint the emergency’s location. The Emergency Relief Operators route ambulances using dynamic optimization algorithms based on the nature of the emergency, its severity, and the ambulances’ locations. After an officer dispatches an ambulance, she or he calls the medical technicians in it to give them healthrelated data, connects one of the technicians with the caller, and leaves them talking so the distraught caller is never alone before the ambulance gets to the spot. The operators execute this task in 80 to 90 seconds, but the organization hopes to reduce that time to 60 seconds. EMRI keeps innovating: One recent experiment consists of sending a team ahead on a two-wheeler, which slides through traffic faster than an ambulance could, enabling critical care to start sooner.
EMRI was initially setup by Raju brothers (Satyam computers fame)
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by RamaY »

SwamyG wrote: EMRI was setup initially setup by Raju brothers (Satyam computers fame)
EMRI a.k.a 108 is the single most contribution of Rajus, that is worth 10 satyam-frauds. They did a lot in coastal belt villages under Byrraju foundation.

There are many other business/political houses who did even greater scams but did zilch in return to India.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by SwamyG »

^^^^
I have no choice but to agree :-) A metric I use to measure a politician or leader is - What did he or she do that helped the nation/people in the long term. She or he could have just sowed the seeds, but that is enough in my books to call her or him a visionary and worth some praise.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Amber G. »

Amber G. wrote:Xpost from math thread:

Results of The Indian Math Olympiad Team this year:
Akashnil Dutta - Silver Medal (Won Silver in 2009 too)
Gaurav Patil - Silver Medal (Won Bronze in 2009)
Akshay Degwekar - Honourable mention
Anand Degwekar - Honourable mention
Ronno Das- Honourable mention
Satyaki Mukherjee - Bronze Medal

Congratulations.
There is a news item here:
http://www.dnaindia.com/sport/report_in ... ad_1409146

(Also at http://www.indianexpress.com/news/Duo-b ... ad/646207/

BTW Gaurav missed the gold, and Anand D. missed the bronze by just a point or so.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by ramana »

This belongs to the "A nation on the march thread":

---------------------------

sum posted

Not sure if this is the right thread but felt very touched on reading this story ( esp in the dog eat dog era of today) :
A modern day Shravan Kumar
World is fast changing and people are opting for more modern gadgets to make their life comfortable. But some of the practices continue to remind us of the stories narrated in epics and other hoary texts. Now, the mission undertaken by a 36-year old man reminds one of Shravan Kumar of great epic Ramayana.

Kailash Giri Brahamchari has resolved to visit all important religious places in the country to fulfill the vow taken by his mother Kirti Devi. A resident of Wargi village of Madhya Pradesh, Brahamchari has been carrying his blind mother Kirti Devi in her 80s in a makeshift swing suspended from a pole across his shoulder. While the woman sits in one of the baskets, Brahamachari keep his clothes, utensils and some other heavy items in the other to act as counter balance.

“When I was about eight years old, I fell from the treetop and suffered fracture. Expensive treatment was not possible because of financial difficulties. It was then my mother prayed for my recovery. She vowed to undertake a journey to some of the religious places, if I was cured. Her prayer bore the fruit and I recovered quickly and that too without any medicine. She could not perform the thanksgiving trip for one reason or the other. But when I turned 24, I started taking my mother to the religious places,” recalled Brahamchari.

He has taken his mother to places Ayodhya, Chirtrakut, Kashi, Tarapith, Basukinath Dham (in Jharkhand) and Tarakeshwar in the past 12 years.

Kirti Devi had asked Brahmachari a few times to end this religious travel but he is insistent on completing it. Brahmachari faces embarrassing moments at times as people seek his blessings because of his true love for his mother. The new-age Shravan Kumar gets good response from the people and at many places the locals make arrangements for food and shelter for the two.

Another article on the same:
Modern day Shravan Kumar


By Pranita Das
Berhampur: He hasn't seen 'Bhagwan', has no knowledge of the recent laws for protecting the well being of aged parents at the hands of modern progenies. In an age when 'Dads and Moms' are facing a raw deal at the hands of their grown up children, rustic Kailash Giri is an antithesis. He has enlivened the myth of Shravan Kumar of Ramayan in real life in this 21st Century.

He is carrying his 80-year-old blind mother Kirti Devi on his shoulders on a 'Char Dham' yatra on foot. His every step on the highway

is proving to be a slap on the faces of people who do not look after their aged parents. His parched shoulders speak of the pain he has taken since more than 11 years to fulfill his mother's wish.

Kailash Giri hails from Hinota village of Jabalpur district in Madhya Pradesh. He is now trotting along the NH 5 on his way to Puri carrying the heavy load of self imposed penance on his shoulders.

Kailash entered Orissa from Andhra Pradesh about a week ago. He has already taken his mother to places such as Prayag, Kashi, Chitrakoot, Ayodhya, Rameswaram, Madurai, Tirupati and a trip along the length of Narmada River during past 11 years.

It was a hard torturous journey. He carried his mother in a makeshift swing on his shoulders. Kailash's makeshift swing comprises a strong bamboo shaft with two swings attached to its two ends that he carries on his shoulders. On one swing sits his mother while his day-to-day articles balance the weight on the other side.

He manages to cover mere four to five kilometers in a day. Roadside temples become resting places for this mother and son duo. He cooks the food and serves it before his mother as a holy offering. And both of them sit down to eat together. Till date the common men he met on his way have been his only help for sustenance. But he feels his mother's affection is his greatest strength. And he wants every youth who come across him to consider parents as embodiment of God.

Kailash had started this arduous journey when he was around 21 years of age to fulfill his mother's wish to take up the 'Char Dham' yatra. His mother had desired it after she recovered from a long ailment. He had lost his father and elder brother when he was young. He had no desire to take financial help from anyone. Having faith on his own will power he decided to take up this journey on his own physical efforts.

His journey would not end at Puri. After reaching Puri they would start for Kolkata via Bhubaneswar. Their next destination would be Pashupatinath in Nepal, Badrinath and Dwaraka to complete the 'Char Dham' yatra.

He only prays to God to grant a long life to his mother. Kailash has no dreams for his own future as he has already dedicated his life to his mother's wish. He has not taken Sanyas. But in his mind and action he has become a true Sanyasi. He is well attached to 'Sansara' but he is not part of it.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by uddu »

Ameet
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Ameet »

India unveils $35 computer for students

http://www.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/asiapcf/0 ... cnn_latest
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by putnanja »

Meet the world's largest exporter of roses
He is the world's largest exporter of roses. His company has leased 3,000 sq km of land (that is five times bigger than Mumbai, which is 603.4 sq km in size!) in Ethiopia. Here is his amazing story...

...
Today, his company Karuturi Global Ltd has 3,000 sq km of agricultural land in Ethiopia (that is 5 times the size of Mumbai!) and 239 hectares of land for rose cultivation.

The company's turnover in 2009 was Rs 650 crore (Rs 6.5 billion).

Here's his story in his own words:
...
...
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by apoorv »

My take on the $35 laptop. I am copying this from my blog.

Convincing a company to invest in mass production will require a lot more than only price and features of the product. There are many challenges:

1) How to convince the mass population to buy a Rs. 1500 gadget when they will ask that our children can study the same concepts using Rs. 10 notebook and government subsidized textbooks. Will they buy the idea that their children need the knowledge of high technology in order to have a bright future? Does the government have any workable plans where reputed teachers can take classes from metros like Mumbai and Delhi which are transmitted to rural India’s schools and the students can download the material in real time on their $35 laptop? In short, is the $35 laptop adding any value to their lives? Does this guarantees better future to the target market?

2) Can the government ensure good wi-fi and broadband internet connectivity in far corners of India in the near future? A $10-$35 gadget can make profit for a company only if volumes are there. Volumes will be there if the reach is there and to ensure the reach we need data networks which reach all the isolated corners of India including the north east and the naxal affected tribal areas.

3) The device will be a one time investment for the poor. Is the device build quality good enough to have a life of at least 10 years? Also, maintenance cost has to be very low. Can the company provide maintenance centers where people can come with their problems and get them solved at very low price, ALL OVER INDIA?

4) We need to develop an ecosystem for the device which consists of developers who make new applications and provide regular updates for the device so that it remains relevant in contemporary technological cycle.

5) Finally, the software have to be in Indian languages. Who will take the development cost for these software.

As an Indian, its my dream to see all the young Indian children carrying a laptop but the challenges to fulfill this dream are immense.

One way to make this device profitable can be to make new software which cater to farmers and fishermen as well. We can then sell the same device to these people and they can get real time weather updates and advices. Advices for farmers can be related to good agriculture practices, possible rainfall, better quality seeds, right time to use pesticides etc. For the fishermen it can be the information about place where they can find more fishes, information about typhoons etc. In this way we can increase the volume as well and may be some companies will get interested in the mass production.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Atri »

Punjab, Maharashtra, Bengal lead in curbing birth rate
NEW DELHI: Silently, and without much sarkari fanfare, dramatic changes are taking place in the population indicators of some states that you won't see reflected in country-level data.

Crude birth rate, that is, the number of live births per 1,000 population dipped from 26.4 to 22.8 for the whole country between 1998 and 2008. That's a 14% decline. But in eight major states, the decline was much more. In Punjab, birth rate fell by a whopping 23%, followed by Kerala and Maharashtra (both 20%) and West Bengal (18%).

Countrywide, the crude death rate, that is, the number of deaths per 1,000 population, came down by 18% in a decade. Again, there were surprises in the toppers' list. Both Madhya Pradesh and Rajasthan saw a 23% dip in death rates, closely followed by Bihar (22%) and UP (20%).

Subtracting deaths from births gives the natural growth rate of the population. For India, this key indicator declined by 11%, but in Kerala and Punjab, the rate of population growth slowed down by as much as 32%. In Maharashtra, it was down by 23% and in Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu and West Bengal, by about 18%.

These astonishing figures are computed from the annual Sample Registration System (SRS) survey done by the government's Census office for the years 1998 and 2008. The survey for 2008, which is the latest available, covered a sample of 7.1 million people spread across the country.

There has been a significant decline in the infant mortality rate (number of babies up to one year of age dying per 1,000 live births) in India from 72 in 1998 to 53 in 2008. Although more than 5% of babies dying in the first year of birth is still shocking, there is a decline of 26% over the past decade.

But many states are way ahead in the fight to bring down baby deaths. Tamil Nadu has slashed infant mortality by an incredible 42%, West Bengal by 34%, Maharashtra by 33% and Orissa by 30%. A few smaller states have actually shown increases in infant mortality rates. These include Delhi (-13%), J&K, Mizoram and Meghalaya. However, SRS data for smaller states needs to be seen with caution because of the small sample sizes.

While all these are comparative rates, the absolute numbers are just as important. As of 2008, Kerala had the lowest birth rate of 15 per thousand, followed by Tamil Nadu (16), Punjab (17) and West Bengal (18). Death rates are lowest in West Bengal (6.2 per thousand) followed by Kerala, Maharashtra, Rajasthan, Gujarat, Haryana, Jharkhand, Punjab and Bihar (all around 7). The natural growth rate was lowest in Kerala (8 per thousand) closely followed by Tamil Nadu (about 9), Punjab (10) and AP as well as West Bengal (both about 11). Infant mortality rate was again lowest in Kerala at 12 per thousand live births. Then came Tamil Nadu (31), Maharashtra (33) and W Bengal (35).

Experts believe a combination of factors is responsible for these positive changes, including more institutional deliveries, better sanitation and availability of life-saving drugs. Larger socio-economic factors like better rural incomes in West Bengal, high education levels in Kerala and better economic standards in Punjab are obviously contributing to state level changes in life conditions.

India is passing through a demographic transition to a society where population will grow slowly, and people will live longer, hopefully leading a healthier life
naren
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by naren »

apoorv wrote:My take on the $35 laptop. I am copying this from my blog.

Convincing a company to invest in mass production will require a lot more than only price and features of the product. There are many challenges:
apoorv ji,

I replied in telecom thread.

http://forums.bharat-rakshak.com/viewto ... 86#p911286
Amber G.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Amber G. »

Few Indian Newspapers have story about International Physics Olympiad held at Croatia this year: eg:
Mumbai girl wins gold at International Physics Olympiad
or
IIT topper wins Physics olympiad


Congrats to all. BTW for last few years, India has been faring well in IphO ... This year I think it stood sixth overall with One Gold, three silvers and a bronze!! (Don't know why but none of the Indian newspapers I have seen mentions this, in fact, apart from gold medal it does not even mention that India won 3 silvers!

Akanksha Sarda (Mumbai won gold) will be attending MIT.

For the record, (Since no newspapers, I have searched - have mentioned this) - Here is the list of other winners.

Mehul Kumar from Jaipur, Shivam Handa and Vipul Singh of Chhattisgarh got silver medals while Sanchar Sharma from Jodhpur got a Bronze medal
Amber G.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Amber G. »

Also In the news: International Chemistry Olympiad in Tokyo - 3 Silvers and a Bronze for India.

Diptarka Hait from Kolkata, Nikunj Umesh Saunshi from Mumbai and Surendra Kotra from Hyderabad won silver medals while Amit Panghal from Sikar (Rajasthan) won bronze medal.

From: Indian students shine at Chemistry Olympiad

Siffy today has this also:
Akanksha first Indian woman to win gold at Physics Olympiad

BTW Akanksha won Silver in International Linguistics Olympiad (IOL) in 2009 (First/only person from India to win any kind of medal in IOL) .. (Truly a multi-talented young woman)
Link:http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Internatio ... c_Olympiad
naren
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by naren »

^^^ GM crops must be treated with caution. There are underlying corporate interests.

Chk this docu: Future of food
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by manju »

putnanja wrote:Meet the world's largest exporter of roses
He is the world's largest exporter of roses. His company has leased 3,000 sq km of land (that is five times bigger than Mumbai, which is 603.4 sq km in size!) in Ethiopia. Here is his amazing story...

...
Today, his company Karuturi Global Ltd has 3,000 sq km of agricultural land in Ethiopia (that is 5 times the size of Mumbai!) and 239 hectares of land for rose cultivation.

The company's turnover in 2009 was Rs 650 crore (Rs 6.5 billion).

Here's his story in his own words:
...
...
He is from my High School! Sri Ramakrsihna Vidyashala, Mysore!!
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Prem »

Nanofilters For Pure WaterNanotechnology could solve the pure-water-access problem all over the http://news.softpedia.com/news/Nanofilt ... 9548.shtml
Researchers at the D.J. Sanghvi College of Engineering, in Mumbai, India, wrote in the International Journal of Nuclear Desalination that several nanotechnology water purification techniques are currently being tested, are some are used already. “Water treatment devices that incorporate nanoscale materials are already available, and human development needs for clean water are pressing," explain team members Alpana Mahapatra, Farida Valli and Karishma Tijoriwala.Nanotechnology refers to a wide range of techniques, tools and applications that involve particles the size of a few nanometers in diameter. Such small particles have unique physicochemical and surface properties which allow them to be used in many domains. Nanotechnology fans say that this could be the solution to many major global problems related to medicine, energy, agriculture and even drinking water.
Gerard
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Gerard »

disha
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by disha »

manju wrote:
He is the world's largest exporter of roses...
He is from my High School! Sri Ramakrsihna Vidyashala, Mysore!!
Too bad you used to bully him. You could have been friends with him! :rotfl:

More to the point, if he is from middle class and came up with his sheer hardwork and intellect, it does prove that the nation is on the march., for giving opportunities for them to grow. If you can shed something on his background, it may help.
SwamyG
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by SwamyG »

^^^
He is not exactly middle-class. His father gave him a seed money of Rs50L.
Gerard
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Gerard »

‘India has more rich people than poor now’
For the first time ever, the number of high-income households in India has exceeded the number of low-income, the National Council of Applied Economic Research (NCAER) has estimated.
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by naren »

India's 'production line' heart hospital
1 August 2010

The rising costs facing healthcare systems in Western nations often make the headlines.

But could the way a heart hospital in India is offering cutting edge medical care, while keeping costs extremely low, be the way forward?

Chris Morris reports from Bangalore.
[2:06]: "Could this be a low cost healthcare model for 'other' countries like Britain ?" :rotfl:
India will conquer her conquerors... biatch. :twisted:
Gerard
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by Gerard »

http://www.hindustantimes.com/Indian-ec ... 80678.aspx
If the nine per cent growth trend is maintained, India would become $2 trillion economy in 2013-14 fiscal.
vera_k
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Re: A Nation on the March

Post by vera_k »

Pretty much agrees with the IMF estimate of $2 trillion in 2014. Makes me wonder what the debate about differences in IMF and GoI GDP data was about.
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