Indian IT Industry

vina · Post by **vina** » 12 Mar 2010 17:25

Diyar Esteemed Maualanas and Maulaners , a Kweschun/Pooch.

Has anyone bought a license of Matlab (non student/academic , professional use) in India, any idea of how much it will cost ?

However as a cowardly dhoti clad skinflint bania, I am very inclined towards the free /phokat ka maal, Gnu Octave. Anyone has experience with Gnu octave ?. The wiki link says it is pretty compatible with Matlab, how easy is it to run 3rd party Matlab routines in GNU Octave in case I choose to (there too, I may not , but if it is free I might).

Danke, Dhanyavad, Shukriya , Thank You.

shaardula · Post by **shaardula** » 12 Mar 2010 18:19

what type of mathops do you need? do you need any toolboxes?

if you are only looking for rapid prototyping and dont want to be bothered with memory management and other details, and good basic solvers i would think octave is fine. that is my requirement too, so i use a 5-6 year old matlab version that has a very simple licence scheme. the licence issues these days gives me the creeps. i have quite a few toolboxes but hardly ever use them, only be tps & spline routines. nothing more than that. everything else i prefer writing myself. what i hear is the new version has some pretty nifty parallel computing support. for example for loops can be parfor-ed fairly easily. but i dont need it.

i would say see if you can get an old version somewhere. for most practical purposes that should be fine. i'm guessing this is for personal use and not company use, otherwise you would not be asking these types of questions.

also if mainly interested in statistical stuff have you considered R?

vina · Post by **vina** » 13 Mar 2010 09:15

shaardula wrote:if you are only looking for rapid prototyping and dont want to be bothered with memory management and other details, and good basic solvers i would think octave is fine.

Yeah. That is what I am looking at Matlab kind of tool for and I think I will go with Gnu Octave. This morning during my morning walk, I asked one of the folks in my apt complex who works for MathWorks on how much would a basic bare bones version cost here in India and he said 1 lakh, so really not worth spending that kind of money on it if there are equivalent alternates.

also if mainly interested in statistical stuff have you considered R?

That too, but can wait for a bit. I am using R and am in no way inclined to splurge money on SAS / S+ or anything.

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 13 Mar 2010 10:33

Anybody knows this company
http://www.crunchbase.com/company/mig33

Mig33 edit
Mig33 is a mobile download application that brings a potent mix of social networking, IM and VoIPfeatures to your mobile phone. Any mobile that can run Java and connect to the Internet by GPRS, 1X or 3G, can use Mig33. Once installed users can do all the basic social networking things like create profiles, send photos, friending and messaging. They even have chat rooms, which is separate from their IM feature. When users are logged in they can make VoIP calls. http://www.mig33.com

General Information edit
Website mig33.com
Category Mobile/Wireless
Phone 650.348.5111
Email [email protected]
Employees
Founded 12/05
Description Social Network Mobile aplication
Offices edit
Burlingame, USA
270 East Lane, Suite 2
Burlingame, CA, 94010
USA
See nearby companies
People edit
Steve Boom
CEO
Mei Lin Ng
Co-founder & Global Advocate
Martin Wells
VP Product
Steven Goh
EVP, Board of Directors
Francis Yu
Engineering & Operations
Niren Hiro
Investor, Advisor
Richard Yanowitch
Board of Directors

a_kumar · Post by **a_kumar** » 14 Mar 2010 22:19

X-posting here for lack of better thread.. from MRCA..

chiragAS wrote:Its not just the embedded software stuff. The custom built ASIC chips on board are designed specifically to hurt the user if they wish so. no matter what you say they won't sell you this tech.
even though deisgnning ASIC chips is not a big deal for India, its the manufacturing thing which is a problem.
the tech they now use is 22 nanometer which is jealously guarded by the likes of Intel and IBM.
and we have not even started to setup such plants in India. (hope DRDO is working on it)

Its a risky proposition to go with US fighter jets. when they denied source code to UK on JSF and it took their PM to resolve it,
you can understand there is no hopes for us.

But do we have any choice? the way GOI is licking their boots, the way pakis are getting armed bu US, the control US has on european firms directly and indirectly. we will end up with the teens.
bad days ahead.

HarishV wrote:
even though deisgnning ASIC chips is not a big deal for India, its the manufacturing thing which is a problem.
Correction - It definitely IS a big thing. The one fab that India has works on outdated technology.
the tech they now use is 22 nanometer which is jealously guarded by the likes of Intel and IBM.
and we have not even started to setup such plants in India. (hope DRDO is working on it)
Fab-ing isn't cut out for everyone - when the 100 odd chips get done for the DRDO, then what is going to happen to the fab? When you are going to make ASIC's in the order of just ten's of hundreds to tens of thousands you don't go about breaking ground for a new fab facility without looking at the economics.
There are plenty of semicon fabs - TSMC, Chartered, etc. who'd bend over backwards to help get your chip done just use their technology libraries and give them the gds2 - for a price - and yes it doesn't make sense for the DRDO to re-invent the wheel.

I still say go buy off the shelf from whoever bids the best - friends or no friends. Unless you are going to build in numbers there is no point in doing things from scratch. Which is probably a good reason for most delays plaguing Indian defence.

chiragAS wrote:
HarishV wrote: There are plenty of semicon fabs - TSMC, Chartered, etc. who'd bend over backwards to help get your chip done just use their technology libraries and give them the gds2 - for a price - and yes it doesn't make sense for the DRDO to re-invent the wheel.

I still say go buy off the shelf from whoever bids the best - friends or no friends. Unless you are going to build in numbers there is no point in doing things from scratch. Which is probably a good reason for most delays plaguing Indian defence.
Harish you misunderstood me. yes its true if u give money they will do anything.
but my concern is how much safe it would be to trust them that they dont add anything extra to it.
You can rip open a GDS-II file also. Noboby does that in commercial world. but if any intell agency wants it it can be done.
What if they give u libraries in such a way that you feel you have filled up the die area, but there is some more place on it.
once they have done with your circuit. they can add their own.

Well i can go on this. but mods will kick us out. may be i will write up more on this in some other thread later.

a_kumar · Post by **a_kumar** » 14 Mar 2010 23:12

GDS is the input to the FAB plant, and if one uses FAB's own library components for the GDS, then the job of figuring it out gets easier for somebody handling the GDS. Having said that, it is still a tremendous effort that takes a lot of time and needs a very strong motivation. A more pressing concern would be that it could have kill switches that the customer may never detect. In this fashion, an ASIC (eg. used in LCA) from an untrustworthy FAB is similar to buying it from Amir Khan, if not the same in terms of feasibility (in light of all the worries of kill switches or malicious codes).

The price India will pay is not limited to vulnerability in defense equipment. Imagine the amount of electronic gadgets folks in India are using right now (laptops/cellphones etc). Note how much it costs and that we are not making any of them, not in a way to make any difference. So that drains from our Forex reserves. Our IT industry is earning Forex reserves and imports of these devices is draining it.

In next decade, these gadgets will permeate every segment of the society and we are still not doing anything to prop up domestic manufacturing facilities (FABs or device manufacturers). So when the demand for these devices skyrockets as expected and there are no domestic industries to cash in, each and everyone of us will contribute to Taiwan's and China's riches, while draining the Forex reserves.

Unfortuntately for us, solution is not simple. We cannot look at building FAB plants and the associated technology like building LCA or Arjun. Without going into the actual technology aspect, unlike Arjun/LCA, where next generation comes in once a few decades, FABs jump generation in less than 2 years.

Best start would have been to lure some of the foreign investors by offering massive incentives. But the Semiconductor policy of 2007 failed miserably. Closest we got was "Fabcity" in Hyderabad as a site for future investments in FABs. There was going to be a $3 Billion investment (not sure how firm it was) by SemIndia, but it morphed into something else now. As for "Fabcity", it can host Telangana agitations for next decade.

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 15 Mar 2010 02:36

Semiconductor fabrication plants (a.k.a. fabs) also don't come cheap either. Setting up a new fab will cost north of $6 billion or so.
http://news.cnet.com/Semi-survival/2009 ... 81418.html
Note that the cost of a new fab is estimated to double every 4 years or so, per Rock's Law.

The plant also needs other developments such as reliable power and large amounts of water.

a_kumar · Post by **a_kumar** » 15 Mar 2010 02:54

nukavarapu wrote:^ I remember GOI setting up something called ZeroOne Corporation with an aim of bringing top scientists from DRDO, ISRO, IISC, IIT and other premier institutes together to design a microprocessor of our own. I have heard no news on the development so far. The processor was supposed to be based on Open Sparc architecture. Does anyone has any news on that?

If you are referring to the ET article.. here are some comments on that last year..

shyam · Post by **shyam** » 15 Mar 2010 04:26

Why do people believe that we have to use 22nm technology for our defense applications?

120 nm can easily meet most of the requirements. All we need to do is to let TATA, Reliance or L&T buy fab technology from one of the bankrupt companies and import that to India. These ventures have to be made profitable. Long time back there was a news that Wipro was trying to build libraries for ASIC design to be targetted to TSMC fab. Don't know what happened to that. Create this eco-system and then impose tax on imported chips. Slowly, our market size will ensure that Indian fabs are self sustaining.

vera_k · Post by **vera_k** » 15 Mar 2010 10:08

Reliance has a $5b project to set up a Fab in Gujarat. It was deferred in Dec 2008 when the global recession hit. I'd bet it will make a comeback once they can make the financing work. HSMC India also signed a MOU during Vibrant Gujarat 2009 for building a Fab in Gujarat.

Vibrant Gujarat MOUs

Reliance zeroes in on Gujarat

The ongoing transition to SoC means that there is a window of opportunity to subsidise Fab projects in India. If the government is able to put together an incentive plan for purchasing large amounts of cheap power efficient computers, it would allow at least one Fab to defray investment costs. This might happen anyway due to a 3G/4G rollout that increases the number of SoC based smartphones bought in the country.

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 15 Mar 2010 10:54

@nukavarapu: I think you accidentally quoted my post instead of a_kumar's post perhaps? The articles I posted describe costs of setting foundries and the directions the industry is taking.

Neshant · Post by **Neshant** » 15 Mar 2010 19:29

vera_k wrote: The ongoing transition to SoC means that there is a window of opportunity to subsidise Fab projects in India. If the government is able to put together an incentive plan for purchasing large amounts of cheap power efficient computers, it would allow at least one Fab to defray investment costs. This might happen anyway due to a 3G/4G rollout that increases the number of SoC based smartphones bought in the country.

demand all cellphone manufacturers setup their fab in India if they want to sell into the local market.

that will get the semiconductor industry started in a hurry.

otherwise give them the boot.

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 15 Mar 2010 21:50

^^^
Many reasons why this can't be done:
=========================
1. Some cellphone manufacturers don't manufacture chips. They purchase them from other vendors. For instance, the iPhone doesn't have any Apple manufactured chips.
2. Of the companies that sell chips for cell phones, quite a few of them are fab-less manufacturers (i.e.) they design the chip and own the intellectual property rights to the chip and sell the chips to cell phone manufacturers, but they don't have in-house manufacturing capabilities of their own e.g. Qualcomm, Broadcom, Mediatek etc. Instead they farm out the chip manufacturing to some other company e.g. TI, Samsung etc.
3. Setting up a fab requires reliable power sources and plenty of water. So semiconductor manufacturers are going to demand that GOI build power plants first before they drop a plant in India.

Ameet · Post by **Ameet** » 15 Mar 2010 23:19

Facebook to open office in Hyderabad

http://in.news.yahoo.com/43/20100315/81 ... rabad.html

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 16 Mar 2010 08:16

When certain company 'considered' building a fab in desh, the first requirement was to build a captive power plant. One with two gas turbines and one diesel backup. But the project primarily got scrapped because of the need for WATER!!

a_kumar · Post by **a_kumar** » 16 Mar 2010 08:28

@nukavarapu
Didn't you notice the plug

vina · Post by **vina** » 16 Mar 2010 10:01

got scrapped because of the need for WATER

I dont understand this water business. How much is needed ? Surely by no stretch can California be termed as "blessed" with water. It is largely desert in most parts, the Central Valley agriculture is purely because of irrigation and water for SF, LA and SD etc are got from close to 300 to 400 miles away . Most of India has better water availability than CA. How come CA has Fabs while India doesnt have any?

Why even Isreal (largely desert) has multiple fabs!

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 16 Mar 2010 10:25

does california have fabs? I though intel had fab in portland(oregon) and texas and ireland and germany.

the plan to have a fab city in Hyd fell apart after a while for two reasons - they could not attract any of the big players to start a fab there. and it was asked why they needed 5000 acres when the intel israel fab occupies only 20-something acres.

eventually some solar cell industries did sign up - dont know what came of it.

mr bhatia was also asking for some such land in haryana - notwithstanding the fact he has no background in semiconductors.

thats the whole credibility issue with proposals lets by groups of NRIs - they ask for lot of land, perhaps to profit from hotels and tech parks on the side and this inevitably acts as a red flag for local farmers and their political backers.

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 16 Mar 2010 11:16

vina wrote:
got scrapped because of the need for WATER
I dont understand this water business. How much is needed ?

To answer your question, lots and lots

Several processes in semiconductor manufacturing need continuous supply of ultra-pure water, which is water minus any dissolved chemicals and deionized before being used. To produce 1000 gallons of de-ionized water, you need roughly 1500 gallons of normal water. To produce ONE 200mm wafer consumes north of 2000 gallons of deionized water (i.e. 3000 gallons of normal water, which is converted to 2000 gallons of DI water). As the article says, large facilities can use 3 million gallons of DI water per day, so you can do the math.

http://www.micromagazine.com/archive/02 ... ewitz.html

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 16 Mar 2010 11:31

Chipzilla opened up a $6-7 billion fab down the road here in arizona. How the heck does Arizona have water and theres no place in India that doesn't matchup? Is the Khan water infra that good that they can open one in Az but not in India ?

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 16 Mar 2010 11:53

Dont think CA has any commercial fabs anymore. Apart from huge quantities of water, fabs also need some uber-TFTA waste disposal.

Most cellphone manufacturers dont make their own chips hence dont own fabs. Those who do design their own chips use fabs like those owned Samsung. Fabs have largely become commoditized services, the money is in the design and IP as Armen-ullah pointed out. Even APPL bought itself a fab-less design company who promptly churned out a 'magical' Cortex A8. The way Intel designs its fabs and manufacturing is one of the key factors behind its success.

Armen-ullah, you missed the poster boy ARM

In other news, took parents to Computer History Museum and they got to see a real working Difference Engine (one of the only 2 in the world) - mid-way I realized that the computer my grandfather built almost a 100 year later, did some of the same operations using analog circuits. Also realized that I have a old junker at home, which is amongst the museum's wishlist for the new exhibit they are building - maybe I will part with it in the greed to have my name etched in tiny letters under the exhibit label.

chiragAS · Post by **chiragAS** » 16 Mar 2010 14:50

I agree the with you all.
As shyam pointed out we don't need 22nm immediately.
lets us start somewhere. Either use existing PSU or build a brand new PSU only for this one.
I know theres HSMC and others. but i guess they are nowhere near nano range.

As for cost, these days GOI is suddenly become rich. Heck if we can spend 2 Billion Dollar on just 10 worthless C-17 and
another half a billion on 12 VVIP Helipcopters. surely we can spare some on such projects.
As for sustainning it, I guess this PSU should be asked to produce chips for DRDO to talking Teddy bears.
If GOI really wants it, then water, money and orders won't be a problem at all.

Somebody needs to educate our politicians

btw a_kumar thanks for getting this in an appropriate thread.
@Raja Bose wow! you have one of those

would be honoured to see some pics if you dont mind putting up here.

Dileep · Post by **Dileep** » 16 Mar 2010 17:59

The problem here at SRK is not the availability of water, but of availability of water for the purpose. We do not manage the water at all, but whenever someone want to use it, the reds puts up the flag.

In this particular case, the source of water was in fact identified, but figured that the govt and babus would never make it happen.

negi · Post by **negi** » 16 Mar 2010 22:32

Bose mian 'Junker' ? (I only know about the German Ac manufacturer of WW-II era by that name ) .

sum · Post by **sum** » 17 Mar 2010 15:48

Interesting read:
IC reverse engineering—a design team perspective

One of the most basic business requirements is the need to know what the competition is doing. This starts with tracking news releases, financial filings, and win/loss reports from the sales team. But on a product level, the engineering teams often need more detail to help make design and manufacturing decisions that can reduce engineering effort and deliver market-winning specifications. This analysis inevitably starts with a basic teardown of electronics devices like mobile phones or computers. For a semiconductor company, the process very commonly includes decapsulating a die from its package and looking at it under the microscope to do basic benchmarking of die size and functional block layout. It is this latter type of analysis that typically is called RE (reverse engineering).

In the semiconductor industry, RE has long been a recognized and well used part of competitive intelligence. It's commonly leveraged to both benchmark products and support patent licensing activities (by evidence that proves infringement or prior art). Advances in semiconductor technology, specifically the massive integration of billions of individual devices and masses of functions into single components, have caused RE to evolve from skunk-works projects in the failure-analysis lab into a specialized niche of the engineering profession.

RE in the semiconductor industry

The question most often asked about reverse engineering is, "Is it legal?" The short answer is, Yes! In the case of semiconductors, the Semiconductor Chip Protection Act protects RE in the United States and allows RE "for the purpose of teaching, analyzing, or evaluating the concepts or techniques embodied in the mask work or circuitry." Similar legislation exists in Japan, the European Union, and other jurisdictions.

Read it all...

Ameet · Post by **Ameet** » 24 Mar 2010 21:59

India Calling: Can India’s JustDial Make it in the US?

http://techcrunch.com/2010/03/22/can-in ... in-the-us/

There is one word used over and over again in India to describe JustDial: Addictive.

The company will end its fiscal year at the end of March with some $32 million in revenues having answered 72 million calls in the last year. That call volume is increasing by 40%, so the company expects to break 100 million calls in the next year. In a country where nearly everyone has a mobile phone but just 50 million people have Internet access, JustDial is essentially Google and 411 rolled together.

But what will it be in the U.S.? We’ll find out today. After several months of tweaking the service and building out the database, JustDial is officially launching its free 411-like service here on the number 1-800-JUSTDIAL

The company makes money from small businesses paying up to be sponsored listings, when someone, say, calls for a plumber much like Google. JustDial has more than 100,000 of them and, similar to Google, they only pay when they get a lead from the service. The company has raised $46 million to date from Sequoia, Tiger Venture and SAIF, but Mani says it’s all still in the bank. He’s grown the company to this size out of revenues and his initial $1,000 investment.

For now, JustDial’s US operations will be handled out of India, where the company employs some 4,000 people but, in a twist to the direction most call center jobs are flowing, Mani plans to hire up big in the US—up to 1,000 people mostly in under-employed, rural areas.

Prasad · Post by **Prasad** » 25 Mar 2010 00:14

Well well well

Dell looking outside of China for 'safer environments,' according to Indian PM

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 25 Mar 2010 01:15

tsriram wrote:Well well well

Dell looking outside of China for 'safer environments,' according to Indian PM

Exodus begins to take safe cover before Bejing buuble burst. Slow and steady , elephant walk on strong legs.

Ameet · Post by **Ameet** » 25 Mar 2010 01:25

Prem wrote:
tsriram wrote:Well well well

Dell looking outside of China for 'safer environments,' according to Indian PM
Exodus begins to take safe cover before Bejing buuble burst. Slow and steady , elephant walk on strong legs.

http://www.dailytech.com/Dell+Reportedl ... e17964.htm

The news that Dell might pull out of China, covered first by the Hindustan Times and Engadget appears inaccurate. We received a comment from David Frink, senior manager of Dell Corporate Affairs. Mr. Frink says that there are no immediate plans to pull out of China. He states:

[There is] a misunderstanding of what Mr. Dell and the Prime Minister discussed. In fact, Mr.Dell met with Prime Minister Singh to discuss ways of building India's hardware manufacturing eco-system. In this context, Mr. Dell said that the company spends approximately $25 billion annually on sourcing components from its suppliers in China. With the right kind of progress, Mr. Dell believes that India also has an opportunity of becoming a hardware manufacturing hub, generating employment and adding to the country's impressive growth. Dell HAS NOT made any plans to shift its component spend at this time.

Nonetheless, Dell may be disallowed to sell its new Android handsets in China later this year, which ironically may (in part) be manufactured in China.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 02 Apr 2010 02:26

This is a special day for many.
As some of you already know the developer of this is Mr. Shiv Kumar in the Google Labs.

tchandr · Post by **tchandr** » 02 Apr 2010 06:27

Amber G. wrote:This is a special day for many.

...err... April 1st

SRoy · Post by **SRoy** » 02 Apr 2010 19:55

Tanaji wrote:On the carrier side I think Acharya is correct. The market will definitely get more fragmented. The big telcos may not realize it but the age of Nokia, Ericcsson, AlcaLu is over and they will get rapidly sidelined. The practice of deploying custom hardware for big telco switches is coming to an end, and with it the monopoly that these companies.

The current trend is of using COTS (commercial off the shelf) platforms, on which you deploy your own software. Also more importantly, everyone is opening up their own interfaces. We witnessed that with the 3GPP standards and the practice is now becoming even more prevalent. Interfaces are increasingly standardized with open protocols. So, earlier when you had your core network exclusively of a single or 2 vendors or most, it is now composed of many vendors. Earlier if you had a Nortel PBX, it meant that you were forced to buy Nortel phones and the markups that came with it (ever looked into how much a phone cost? it was insane). Now, everyone uses SIP, you can use a third party SIP phone and plug into a PBX and its guaranteed to work... same with other devices.

This of course has some interesting effects:
Use of COTS means the telco can keep abreast of hardware development more rapidly and upgrade faster. It also is a license for the software developer to write inefficient code (though no one will admit it). If someone points to the development team at a telco, that his code is sucking up too much CPU, they respond with "So? we are recommending a Quad core now.. no problem!". Contrast this with the age of custom hardware where code was tweaked and re-tweaked to reclaim every last byte and CPU cycle

There are now more software releases, and telcos are becoming more of a software vendor with all the attendant ills. The age of "bulletproof code" is going away. Releases are no longer rigorously tested and crashes are more frequent. Telecom "5 9s" reliability is a thing of the past... even though MBA types come up with metrics to make it 5 9s.

Market becomes more fragmented. Open interfaces allow smaller niche players to sell their products to big carriers, with smaller margins. This also leads to interoperability issues on a massive scale: standards are open to interpretation and one vendors implementation of a RFC differs depending on the phase of the moon. Result: more headaches for the integrators
IMHO, the savings are just a chimera, you invariably lose out on any savings by the effort you spend on integrating and support... but then the MBA types have outsourced maintenance and support as well from the big carriers. I hear that in the UK there is a carrier called 3 that has outsourced almost everything in their operations department: drive tests, performance everything....

I think I need a career change.

Excellent post. Bang on money.

My boys and I just rescued a massively f$@ked up project. Had to throw out a proprietary crap called CISCO Call Manager (long story however).

Open source SIP soft switch and cheap SIP hard phones did the job.

mmasand · Post by **mmasand** » 05 Apr 2010 07:12

TOI-Backward Bihar goes for the smartest cards

S A Aiyar, 04 April 2010

India has launched its first high-tech census. Citizens will be photographed and will give 10 fingerprints each. The resultant database will be used to issue identity cards, and later smart cards, to all.

All Indians will welcome high-tech smart cards. Yet the technological lead has been taken not by the census commissioner but, astonishingly, by Bihar. This state has just completed a pilot project for smart cards in Patna district, called e-shakti (meaning power from electronic governance). These cards use not just fingerprints but biometric matching of the human iris, which is state-of-the-art technology.

E-shakti has covered 13.5 lakh people in Patna district. It is now being expanded to cover the whole state. This bids fair to be the biggest biometric card scheme in the world.

It may seem crazy that such a high-tech project is being launched in one of India’s most backward states. Yet administrative standards in Bihar are so abysmal that no mere tinkering can check corruption. Only a revolutionary new technology that bypasses traditional avenues of corruption can deliver the goods in Bihar.

In early 2007, chief minister Nitish Kumar worried that corruption and bogus muster rolls were jeopardizing his political gamble to stake his future on bringing development to Bihar. Fellow Biharis were using every trick in the book to evade his anti-corruption measures.

Then he heard that an e-governance consultant based in Chennai had devised a biometric card that could establish identities beyond all doubt, and thus thwart bogus muster rolls. Clearly such high technology would face challenges in a state where electricity was scarce in the capital and non-existent in most rural areas. Nevertheless, the consultant was invited to Patna to demonstrate his new technology, and he convinced even old cynics.
It was essential to first test the new technology in actual field conditions, learn lessons from the many glitches that would inevitably arise, and work out ways to overcome the glitches. Only then would it make sense to scale the project up to cover the whole state.

So, a pilot project was launched in Patna district. Its immediate aim was to create corruption-proof electronic muster rolls and job cards. At a later stage, the smart cards could be used for cash transfers of all sorts of government payments to beneficiaries, from pensions to subsidies. For this, all beneficiaries would need bank accounts. Problem: vast stretches of rural Bihar had no banks. But the RBI had approved a scheme for village shopkeepers to act as business correspondents of banks. So, the shopkeepers could act as mini-branches, providing banks accounts for every household that could be accessed by swiping a smart card.

The pilot project revealed many glitches. It proved imperative to launch awareness campaigns using all possible tools, including radio and TV, to sensitize people to the importance and potential benefits of smart cards. Only after such sensitization did all residents of a village attend camps to get registered. Cynicism about past failed schemes had to be overcome.

In many countries, including the US, the passport authorities scan only two thumbprints per person. But in notorious Bihar, such a system could enable crooks to use their ten fingers to create five separate identities for themselves, and claim multiple benefits. Hence e-shakti was designed to take 10 fingerprints from all people.
Even this would not have deterred innovative crooks. So e-shakti opted for biometric iris detection. This would raise costs and take much more time, but could be truly corruption-proof. Ten fingerprints and two irises are hard to fake, even for the most ingenious Bihari contractors.

The machines initially used for scanning fingerprints were very slow, and the quality of images left something to be desired. The equipment and software had to be improved substantially. Speed improvement is an ongoing need.
The software of e-shakti proved to be poorly synchronized with the software of banks. Software improvements were required to overcome the problem.

Initially, experts thought that a memory of 32 kb would be enough for the smart cards. Experience showed otherwise. The memory has now been upgraded to 64 kb, with a provision for further expansion to 80 kb. This increases the cost per card, but is essential for good service delivery.

Fortunately this is an industry marked by falling costs and rising scale. The Bihar government estimates that the cost of smart cards for the whole state will be Rs 400 crore, which is peanuts for such a large population. This drives home the lesson that, when crafted properly, high technology is not just fast and effective but cheap too. It can benefit the poor and needy no less than software millionaires in Bengaluru.

Seems like Mr.Nilekani might lose his job

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 05 Apr 2010 21:19

So, a pilot project was launched in Patna district. Its immediate aim was to create corruption-proof electronic muster rolls and job cards. At a later stage, the smart cards could be used for cash transfers of all sorts of government payments to beneficiaries, from pensions to subsidies. For this, all beneficiaries would need bank accounts. Problem: vast stretches of rural Bihar had no banks. But the RBI had approved a scheme for village shopkeepers to act as business correspondents of banks. So, the shopkeepers could act as mini-branches, providing banks accounts for every household that could be accessed by swiping a smart card.

Perhaps the Banks and setup ATMs and have them operated by these shopkeepers. Covers security as well as ease of use. Other options are temples and post-offices (sekooolar).

svinayak · Post by **svinayak** » 06 Apr 2010 10:16

Can this be a big business for India

Google, HP Want Internet Controls for Electricity Use (Update2)
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By Simon Lomax
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid= ... FyAi3BCxFE

April 5 (Bloomberg) -- President Barack Obama should set a goal of giving every U.S. home and business the ability to “monitor and manage” energy consumption over the Internet, a group of companies and advocates including Hewlett-Packard Co. and Google Inc. said today.

Providing consumers with “direct feedback” on their electricity use “via their computers, phones or other devices” could save them $46 billion a year by 2020, the group said in a letter to Obama.

Also among the letter’s 47 signers were advocacy organizations the Climate Group and the Alliance to Save Energy, and venture capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caufield & Byers.

The Obama administration’s Energy Department last year made available $3.9 billion in grants for so-called smart-grid projects. A dispute over whether the grants should be treated as taxable income has delayed the projects, which aim to make the power grid more efficient, secure and more accessible for renewable energy sources like wind turbines and solar panels.

The Treasury Department and Internal Revenue Service confirmed this month that $3.4 billion of the grants, to deploy existing smart-grid technologies, won’t be taxed, Jen Stutsman, a spokeswoman for the Energy Department, said in a telephone interview.

Remaining Money

The department is still waiting for Treasury and IRS guidance on the tax treatment for the rest of the grants, which would be used for testing new technologies in commercial settings, Stutsman said. More than 70 smart-grid projects have been awarded grants worth almost $3.1 billion, Stutsman said.

Besides the smart-grid grants, Obama should direct the Energy Department, the Environmental Protection Agency and the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission to consider including “timely, useful and actionable energy information” when crafting regulations, and funding programs that boost “home and building energy performance.”

The White House should also convene a summit on “how to empower consumers with better information and tools for managing their energy use,” the group said.

Raja Bose · Post by **Raja Bose** » 12 Apr 2010 09:22

Nokia introduces the cheapest 3G smartphone in India
http://infotech.indiatimes.com/quickiea ... 778207.cms

Rs.3000/- for a 3Gsmart phone with free turn-by-turn navigation is going to cause major takleef to other manufacturers.

ArmenT · Post by **ArmenT** » 19 Apr 2010 06:41

http://www.nj.com/news/index.ssf/2010/0 ... ortio.html

Singha · Post by **Singha** » 19 Apr 2010 11:01

presumbably these two goons are GC holders. FBI should work with GOI to investigate the educational credentials and work exp shown to get the GC. I am 99% sure some of it will be fake. so GC should get cancelled and them deported back to desh in pakistan airways via karachi.

AjayKK · Post by **AjayKK** » 19 Apr 2010 13:30

Raja Bose wrote:Nokia introduces the cheapest 3G smartphone in India
http://infotech.indiatimes.com/quickiea ... 778207.cms

Rs.3000/- for a 3Gsmart phone with free turn-by-turn navigation is going to cause major takleef to other manufacturers.

Nokia Best Buy Price = Rs. 8, 500

Indiatimes is joking onlee..

Ameet · Post by **Ameet** » 27 Apr 2010 02:26

YouTube streams cricket from India to attract job-seekers

http://www.mercurynews.com/top-stories/ ... ck_check=1

What if YouTube held a job fair and nobody even bothered to turn in a résumé?

It happened Sunday in San Bruno, where YouTube is headquartered and where there was plenty of food and a major sporting event to watch on big monitors.

As Silicon Valley companies ramp up hiring, the popular and spunky website took the unorthodox approach to recruiting by throwing something like a Super Bowl party for about 50 guests. The attraction was a cricket final from India, which the Google-owned YouTube streamed live around the world. And there was delicious Indian food and plenty of Kingfisher beer to wash it down.

There were jobs available, too.