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JULY 2004 |
IN THIS ISSUE
MAIN FEATURE $9 Billion Bonanza : Biotechnology in India By Deepak Goyal GLOBALIZATION Outsourcing God : Mass in Kerala By Siddharth Srivastava SOCIAL CHANGE Power to the People : Lok Satta Movement By Nirupama Guntapalli Publisher’s Note • Infotech India • eBay Buys Bazee.com S. Asian VC Sweeps • Freedom of State Media • A Responsible Summer The Prime Minister’s BMW • BBC Connects Kashmiris Finance: Wise Today, Happy Tomorrow • SF Dance Festival New Theatre in NY • Community News • Auto Review: 2004 Toyota Prius Hybrid Bollywood • Tamil Cinema • Recipe: Bengali Aloo Dum • Horoscope |
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Publisher's Note
India’s technological prowess has made it a global player in information technology, but the next big thing may well be biotechnology. This is not exactly news, because India’s plucky pharmaceutical firms like Ranbaxy and Dr Reddy’s were already beginning to give generic drugs manufacturers in the West a run for their money. To be sure, India is still a small player in the $40 billion biotech market. What is remarkable is the concerted public-private partnership that appears to be focused on making sure India is well positioned to use its intellectual and scientific talent pool to be a significant player in the global biotechnology bazaar. India had an impressive road show at BIO 2004, the recent biotechnology convention in San Francisco. A delegation led by Maharaj Kishan Bhan, secretary of India’s Department of Biotechnology was on hand. Our cover story takes a look at the future prospects and challenges in biotechnology for India. MAIN FEATURE  $9 Billion Bonanza:Biotechnology in India By Deepak Goyal At a relatively modest $500 million, India is a small player in the global $40 billion biotechnology business. But that's about to change, as biotech dreamers envisage a $9 billion market within five years and big shots like M.S. Swaminathan and R.A. Mashelkar prepare a blueprint to remove bottlenecks, writes Deepak Goyal. While India is made enormous strides in marketing its skills in the information technology sector, there are increasing signs that biotechnology may be the next big thing for India. Although it’s still a relatively small player, that could change fairly soon, given the aggressive and focused approach taken by both the Indian government and business. Today, the $500-million Indian biotech industry is a bit player in the global $40 billion biotechnology industry. But the industry as well as the government envisions the India’s biotech sector to grow into a $9 billion business in five years. In April-May, the government set up a national task force headed by Dr. R.A. Mashelkar, chief of Center for Scientific and Industrial Research, to streamline the regulatory process involved in the approval of all recombinant DNA products. Similarly a task force on the application of biotechnology in agriculture headed by Prof. M.S. Swaminathan, chief architect of India’s Green Revolution, submitted its report. The report focused on how to use new tools of genetics in an environmentally safe way to contribute to the sustainability of agricultural productivity in future. The Association of Biotechnology-led Enterprises has set up a $40 million incubator biotech fund. India is emerging as the new destination for the vaccines market, the bioinformatics industry, Genetically Modified products, clinical trials and clinical research organizations. While most of the large companies today are from the pharma background, About 150 small and medium-sized companies are working in biotech product and services. Of course, there are daunting challenges. Foreign investors shy away from what they perceive to be a regulatory nightmare and poor patent protection. Biotech research itself is a risky, extremely expensive endeavor, and in the West, draws superior research skills. The growth of biotech in U.S. and U.K. can be directly associated with the ability of the research in academia to transform into technology to commercial purposes and the ability to churn out spin offs. Take Isis Innovation, a subsidiary of the University of Oxford. “Since 1997, Isis Innovation has been responsible for creating spin-off companies based on academic research generated within and owned by the University of Oxford, and has spun out a new company every two months on average,” says Isis CEO Tim Cook. “The combined value of Oxford’s companies has reached two billion pounds, using quoted market capitalization and investor valuations for unquoted companies.” The biotech sector has attracted virtually no venture capital in India, though a seed fund is now being set up. However, entrepreneurs and government technocrats are saying that a focused change in both regulatory hurdles and business environment will poise biotech for growth in India. Meet Kiran Mazumdar-Shaw, managing director of Biocon, India’s most successful biotech company. Mazumdar-Shaw, who has been called “India’s mother of invention,” by The New York Times and “India’s biotech queen” by The Economist magazine, is bullish on India. She should know. In addition to chairing the Confederation of Indian Industry’s National Task Force on Biotechnology, she is also president of the India’s biotech industry group Association of Biotechnology-led Enterprises. According to Mazumdar-Shaw, India has promising prospects in a host of fields in biotechnology, like clinical research, vaccines and biologicals, research process outsourcing and transgenic crops. “India can be a good destination for clinical research,” says Mazumdar-Shaw. “We have diverse and dense native patient populations. The speed of patient enrollment is very high, besides there is abundant availability of qualified medical and paramedical professionals. Besides, there is abundant availability of qualified medical and paramedical professionals. “Vaccines and biologicals is another area. The Indian pharma has proved that success in tapping the biogeneric opportunity. We have good bio-processing skills and increasingly Indian companies are showing their ability to meet international standards. And not just that, we are demonstrating cost-competitive technologies.” Shantha Biotechnics managing director Varaprasad Reddy agrees. “India can position itself as an affordable base for producing vaccines for the developing countries and UNICEF demand,” he says. “The Indian market could witness the entry of new vaccines in areas like malaria, AIDS and diarrhea.” Mazumdar-Shaw points out to other areas of biotech which are promising. “Research process outsourcing and clinical trials is another area of advantage. India has a large scientific skill base. And with R&D costs being a big issue globally, India can offer a globally competitive R&D cost benefit,” she says. “India can become a global hub for transgenic crops. A global opportunity for innovation also exists in clinical validation of diagnostic products. Besides, Indian IT skills can be used very well in the informatics space. “The biotech sector is committed to WTO and TRIPS. In May 2003, the Indian Patents Act recognized the patenting of microorganisms. You will see that four out of 10 top PCT patent filers n India are biotech companies like Biocon, Avesthagen, Panacea Biotech and Sahajanad Biotech.” Mazumdar-Shaw says partnership will be the key to India’s future success. “The whole biopartnering process should shift to the more basic level of academia-industry interaction,” she says. “The partnering model is going to win the day for India.” India’s way to biotech success, she says, is to build a high-quality education platform that will provide world-class intellectual capital, and to build on an internationally recognized regulatory framework that will incorporate high standards of bioethics and biosafety. The future she sees is bright. It is her hope and belief, she says, that in five years India will “build a $5 billion biotechnology business segment in India which can provide employment to 1 million scientists and engineers; build a $1 billion business segment for Research Process Outsourcing. Besides world-class clinical capabilities and generate $1.5 billion through clinical trials; attract $2 billion investment in the biotechnology sector and to be amongst the top three countries and agri biotech; and to be amongst the top fie countries in health science biotech.” R.A. Mashelkar, one of India’s top technocrats and CSIR chief, says biotechnology opens new vistas in improving people’s lives. “Biotechnology has the potential to transform the lives of the people by impacting hugely on agriculture, animal husbandry, health, environmental protection, material transformation,” he says. “Take one example of health sector, specifically. Thanks to our increasingly deeper understanding of the intricate biochemical interactions at the cellular and molecular levels, there are new paradigms in health care. We have moved from preventive medicines (vaccines) and curative medicines (antibiotics) to predictive and corrective medicine, thanks to the unraveling mystery of the human genome.” India has tremendous potential to play an important role in this exciting field if the government plays its cards right, he said. “We need to understand that the only raw materials that were needed for software were ‘gray matter’ and the ‘bandwidth.’ In biotechnology sector, the government will have to play a crucial role. We have seen that the chain of ‘mind’ to ‘marketplace’ in biotechnology involves the government. Animal experimentation, customs clearances, regulatory approval delays and so on have been the major bottlenecks so far. If the government doesn’t create a hassle-free environment, biotechnology in India will not succeed, let even grow. “But if we do so, then we have a huge chance. India’s rich, human, plant and animal genetic diversity, its rich resource of human capital in life sciences, its tremendous cost advantage and availability of large local markets in all diverse sectors, can be leveraged to make India a rightful leader. What is important is to see that hundreds of ‘bio-entrepreneurs’ emerge in this sector. Then India can really fly.” - Deepak Goyal is a freelance writer. He lives in Kolkata. |TOP|
INFOTECH INDIA  Hutch Acquires Aircel...TCS, IBM Ties Grow...GAIL Gas Pipeline... Boeing, ISRO Mull Satellite...Astron BPOs hennai Staff Doubled...Moon Mission... Technology Delivery Stressed...Ramco Systems Profits Up...Reliance Cuts Tariffs... IBM Linux Center...Airbee Development Center...Property Tax Online... Access to Research Journals — Here is the latest on information technology from India Hutch Acquires Aircel Hutchison Essar announced the acquisition of 100 percent of Aircel Limited and Aircel Cellular Limited from Sterling Infotech Limited. Aircel operates GSM 900 cellular licenses in Chennai and Tamil Nadu. It has over 1.1 million subscribers as of May 31, 2004. The acquisition is subject to approval from the relevant authorities. Hutchison Essar already operates a GSM 1800 license in Chennai and the parties are in the process of making the necessary application to seek approval from the Department of Telecom. This will be the first intra-circle merger transaction since the announcement of the intra-circle merger guidelines. Announcing the acquisition of Aircel, Ravi Ruia, vice-chairman, Essar Group said, “Our joint venture with Hutchison goes back over four years. We have found it a highly professional relationship and are delighted to extend it to a larger footprint.” Dennis Lui, group managing director, Hutchison Telecom, said, “We have been in Indian telecom since 1994 and this step marks a continuation of our commitment to the Indian telecom market. We welcome the subscribers and employees of Aircel into the Hutchison Essar fold. We have grown from a single circle operation in Mumbai to now 14 license areas and look forward to playing a significant role in India’s telecom growth.” Commenting on this acquisition, C Sivasankaran of Sterling Infotech Group said, “The acquisition of the mobility market leader in Tamil Nadu will provide significant impetus to Hutchison Essar to strive for leadership position in the Indian mobility space. Post-acquisition, the Sterling Infotech Group will continue with its focus on various wireless business initiatives including GSM businesses in north and east India with specific thrust on penetrating rural markets.” Under this agreement, TCS will train its employees and create focused solutions using IBM hardware and middleware platforms. The two companies will market each other’s products and services in key vertical markets such as banking, financial services, insurance, telecommunications, retail and manufacturing. This relationship, TCS said, will enhance its delivery capabilities in several areas, including portals, security and on-demand computing. IBM will gain opportunities to reach new markets and grow market share for its hardware and middleware technologies. TCS is part of IBM’s ISV Advantage initiative, which enables TCS to migrate its products and solutions to IBM platforms. “This expanded global agreement builds on two decades of collaboration with the world’s largest information technology company and will reinforce our business transformation strategy that helps companies determine how they can perform most efficiently and effectively,” said N. Chandrasekaran, executive vice-president of TCS. “When two global leaders such as TCS and IBM combine forces, customers receive a powerful new base of human and technology resources that produces high quality results at lower cost and enables faster deployment,” he added. The 50-km pipeline will help meet the requirements of consumers in the Kuthalam area and result in an additional flow of natural gas into the Kuthalam gas pipeline, a GAIL statement in Chennai said June 23. Union Minister for Petroleum and Natural Gas Mani Shankar Aiyar laid the foundation stone of the pipeline June 20, it said. GAIL supplies gas to around 50 consumers in all the five zones of the Cauvery basin with a pipeline network of 190 km. The public sector company also has a network of more than 5,300 km of natural gas pipeline across the country. Addressing an Indo-U.S. Space meet, U.S. Under Secretary of Commerce Kenneth I. Juster said the U.S. government had recently approved a license authorizing Boeing satellite systems to engage in discussions and share data with ISRO on the division of responsibilities for possible joint cooperation in the development and marketing of communication satellites. Asked by reporters about the proposal, ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair said the satellite would be similar to the two tonne class INSAT satellite. “We are discussing with Boeing on whether we can incorporate some of their payloads and have joint marketing of the communication satellite,” he said. The satellite would be for the global market, he said, adding that if the agreement comes through, it would hit the market in two years. Astron BPO, which opened a 50,000 sq ft office here that could house over 2,000 persons, has a total of 350 employees in Chennai. “We will increase the employees to 700 in two to three months,” said David Mitchell, CEO, Astron Group. Addressing a news conference here, he said the company also plans to invest another $2 million in the Chennai facility in the next six months. Already, Astron BPO, a wholly-owned subsidiary of Astron Group, has invested $5-6 million in the state-of-the-art Chennai facility, said Mark Underwood, managing director, Astron BPO. In addition to its Chennai facility, Astron BPO has a BPO facility in Technopark, Thiruvananthapuram. “The Technopark facility also employs 350 staff,” said Underwood, adding that all major expansion in India would be made at the Chennai center. “The initial designs are complete. We have selected the payload and the earth station design is also complete,” ISRO chairman G. Madhavan Nair said June 18. He said the “metal cutting” process will put the country in the select club of space-faring nations that have mapped the moon surface and given more scientific insights about the earth’s satellite. “The project is on schedule,” Nair said of the mission in which ISRO’s workhorse, the Polar Satellite Launch Vehicle, will fire a lunar polar orbiter into space that will map the moon’s surface at an altitude of 100 km. ISRO will also have a slot for a 10 kg scientific payload from an external agency in the lunar orbiter, for which about 25 proposals have been received, including from the U.S., Israel, Canada and France, besides from several Indian academic institutions. Nair said ISRO has finalized a contract to launch a satellite into the low-earth orbit from a European country next year using the PSLV rocket. He said INSAT-4A communications satellite will be launched later this year and INSAT-4B next year. He told reporters on the sidelines of an in-house methodology workshop on Development Technology Achievement Index at the M.S. Swaminathan Research Foundation here that there was a gap between research and delivery, which had to be closed. The intermediate link, the development part, has been a weakness in the Indian science and technology, with some exceptions, and some of the initiatives taken by the office of the principal scientific adviser related to strengthening these linkages, he said. “The PSA’s office is, therefore, taking up what it calls synergy projects,” which were essentially studies and pilot projects, which could “nucleate or catalyze” large multidisciplinary projects or help in networking “institutions whose work has a common objective but the efforts are fragmented,” he said. Referring to the workshop, Chidambaram said hopefully the meeting would suggest some methods of measuring the impact of science and technology in Indian agriculture and rural areas. Asked whether lopsidedness of application of technology would be discussed, Chidambaram said everything was demand driven, which was also true for technology. Dr. M.S. Swaminathan, noted agricultural scientist, was also present. However, in the 12-month period ended March 2004, the company’s losses stood at Rs. 332.6 million, compared to Rs. 273.2 million in the fiscal 2002-03. Announcing this here, P.R. Venketrama Raja, vice-president and managing director of Ramco Systems, said the company’s unique solution assembly and delivery platform Ramco VirtualWorks has been successfully delivered and this will drive the company’s growth to new heights this fiscal year. The company’s revenues from Ramco VirtualWorks have accounted for over 45 percent of its global software revenues, he informed. Raja said the global operations of Ramco Systems, which included revenues from subsidiaries in the U.S., Switzerland, Singapore, Malaysia and South Africa, have achieved a break-even in the last quarter of 2004 fiscal. The global revenues grew by 15 percent at $37.22 million, as against $32.32 million in the previous year, he added. Under the new tariffs, local and intra-circle calls from Reliance India Mobile to other Reliance India phones have been reduced to 99 paise from Rs. 2.49 and to other GSM operators and landlines, the rates have come down to Rs. 1.79 from the existing Rs. 2.49-Rs. 2.99. Announcing the new tariff plan Advantage 99, V.G. Somasekhar, business head, Tamil Nadu and Chennai, Reliance Infocomm, said the reduction in rates were across the board and it came without any conditions. He said the national and inter-circle calls from RIM pre-paid phones to any other Reliance phones have also been reduced to Rs 1.79 from Rs. 2.99 and to other GSM operators and landline to Rs. 2.49 from Rs. 2.99-Rs. 3.99. Reliance, which was the first CDMA technology-run telecom company, to introduce a pre-paid scheme in February this year, has a total subscriber base of 7.5 million across the country. The pre-paid subscriber base is 1.5 million. In Tamil Nadu and Chennai circles, the pre-paid subscribers are about 100,000, Somasekhar said. Compared to other telecom operators, the new rates on Reliance pre-paid were cheaper by 40 percent on STD calls and on calls to other operators, he added. “The center provides facilities and support and consulting services to test, develop and drive Linux application and solution development. It will also provide Linux product and solution certification. “It will help clients take full advantage of the reliability, flexibility and total cost of ownership value that Linux provides,” IBM said in a statement. The center will showcase integrated solutions using Linux and provide deep, specialized skills to IBM clients and business partners to help them leverage Linux-enabled solutions to solve real business challenges, it said. The center will also be used for in-depth technology briefings and workshops, as well as product and solution demonstrations and Linux education and training. “IBM has been committed to Linux for years and supports the `opening up’ of software and services,” said R. Dhamodaran, vice-president and country executive, IBM Software Group. Other IBM Linux Centers of Competency are located in Austin (Texas-USA), Beijing (China), Boeblingen (Germany), Moscow (Russia) Sao Paolo (Brazil) and Tokyo (Japan), the statement said. The company would initially invest one million dollars in the new center, which would utilize the talents of the knowledge industry here, the company’s CEO, Raj Sundaresan told a press conference in Chennai June 15. Airbee provides innovating intelligent connectivity software for wireless communications, he said, and claimed that the company was the pioneer in the invention of intelligent software for wireless voice, data and video communication. The company was the one which developed software licensed to manufacture microprocessors used in an increasing number of wireless communications applications, he added. Apart from property tax and water charges, people would also be able to receive birth and death certificates. The corporation has tied up with 16 banks, where its database was available, for collecting charges, Mayor C. Ramachandran told reporters in Madurai after launching the online connection. He said the government would bear 80 percent of the total computerization and development cost of Rs. 12 million. Consumers could pay their dues with credit cards at http://www.maduraicorporation.com. There is also a proposal for online collection of professional tax, vacant land tax, D and O trade license and PFA trade tax, he said. Details of defaulters would also be available, he said. Vice-chancellor C. Thangamuthu, addressing a function at Jamal Mohammad College in Tiruchirapalli June 14, said it was allocated Rs. 2.5 million under a UGC scheme, out of which Rs. 1.2 million has already been spent for the installation of computer hardware and software. With ER NET IN, faculty members and others can have easy access to prominent research journals and download the contents. The system will be commissioned within a week. Sheikh Mohmmmad, principal of the college, released a research journal of the college and laid the foundation stone for a building block costing Rs. 10 million contributed by the former students of the college.
GLOBALIZATION
 Outsourcing God: Mass in Kerala - By Siddharth Srivastava First it was sweatshop jobs. Now it's prayers. Many Western churches are passing on requests for prayers to Kerala churches for the same reason programming jobs are flooding to Bangalore - it's a whole lot cheaper. Siddharth Srivastava reports. How about David Beckham and outsourcing? It’s happening. With Euro 2004 mania gripping the continent, prayers and missed penalties are coming thick and fast. For the die-hard fans who want to leave nothing to chance, often nothing works better than a request for a prayer, which in the existing environment of cost conscious outsourcing, is being carried out in — get this — the south Indian state of Kerala. To be sure, outsourcing of prayers is not taking away jobs in the West, but it is certainly making quite a few say “O Jesus.” A mix of economics and a shortage of priests in Western Europe and the U.S. have fuelled the outsourcing of the “Holy Mass” to parishes in Kerala. Here is how it works: Mass intentions — requests for services, such as thanksgiving and memorial masses for the dead — made at U.S. dioceses are passed to churches in Kerala, to priests and congregations with time on their hands. The communication is usually via e-mail. As there is no official channel many intentions are through personal relations of the priests, who may have friends abroad. If a devotee offers a Mass in, say, New York, it may be performed in Thrissur. In the current context, nervous fans who have been putting in mass requests for Beckham-Rooney to help England sail through, are being carried out in Kerala. Each mass is said in front of a public congregation in Malayalam, the local language. Reports from Kerala say bishops have had to limit priests to just one mass a day to prevent them from denying others the opportunity to earn a higher income. There is a dominant Christian population in Kerala with churches dotting the urban and rural landscape. Referred to as “dollar or pound masses,” several reports on prayer outsourcing have been appearing in the local press in Kerala due to the incomes being generated. “Most of these requests are made from the US and European countries. These Mass intentions are usually routed through dioceses and handed over to relatively less busy parishes,” says Jose Porunnedam, chancellor of Syro-Malabar Church, in a local daily. “Pilgrim centers also direct Mass intentions to the diocese. We also get Mass intentions made at Lourdes in France and Santiago De Compestele in Spain,” says Father Dr Philip Nelpuraparambil, director of ecumenism and dialogue at Archdiocese of Changanassery. The main reason for the outsourcing of prayers is the lack of manpower and hectic schedules in churches in the West. Add the financial benefits. As in the case of corporate outsourcing the money saved can be substantial. While fees for a Holy Mass intention made in Germany can be 50 euro ($60), it is just Rs. 50 ($1) at a Thrissur diocese. Rates vary from country to country: a request from North America or Europe can net an Indian priest three pounds or four pounds, which is good money here. “Mostly these intentions are given out for meeting expenses of parishes with membership of fewer than 250 families and less sources of income. The money is also used for paying remuneration for the priests,” says Father Paul Alappat, chancellor of Thrissur Archdiocese, which gets an average of 50 Mass intentions from abroad every month. One Indian news agency has quoted the case of Father Benson Kundulam, who lived in Paris for several years, recently held a requiem mass in Cochin for a man in France mourning the death of his father. “It doesn’t matter where the person is from, we treat the request the same,” he says. The money, he says, is the last thing on the priest’s mind. “It is a religious duty to say the mass. We do it the same, whether it is an Indian paying a few rupees or an American paying dollars.” His colleague, Father Tony Paul, who has not traveled abroad, gets far fewer foreign requests and more Indian ones, which earn only a third of the money. “If you don’t get personal requests, it is up to the bishops to hand them out,” he said. Virtual worship is not unusual in India as several prominent temples such as Tirupati, Vaishnodevi have set up Web sites that allow online darshan as well as offering of prasad (sweets, incense etc) by paying via credit card. However, as in the case of corporate outsourcing, there have been voices of protest from the West. Britain’s biggest industrial union expressed alarm earlier this week at the latest trend in outsourcing to South Asia: religion. “Religious services and prayers for the dead are being offshored from the United Kingdom to India because of a lack of priests,” Amicus, whose one-million-plus membership includes several thousand clergymen, said in a statement. Amicus cited press reports that revealed how more and more prayers were being said in Kerala because they had become too expensive in the West. “This shows that no aspect of life in the West is sacred,” said Amicus’ national secretary, David Fleming. Church representatives, however, say outsourcing religious services has been going for many years which has nothing to do with the current fad over business process or the services sector jobs. Paul Thelakat, spokesman for the Cochin archdiocese and editor of the largest-selling Catholic weekly in Malayalam has been quoted as saying that prayers for the dead have been outsourced for decades and that the tradition has been thrust into the spotlight only because of the controversy over corporate outsourcing in the West. “Priests and bishops abroad have no choice but to send them here or else the mass intentions would never be said,” Thelakat said. Other critics say that though religion outsourcing does not take jobs away from other parts of the world, unlike its corporate equivalent, the process may attract unscrupulous priests scrambling to make a profit, with no way to verify whether the clerics performed the ceremonies. It could indeed be morally right to outsource God as it results in money being re-distributed to the poor and needy. On the other hand, should matters concerning the human spirit be shopped around to the lowest material bidder? - Siddharth Srivastava is a journalist based in New Delhi. |TOP| REPORT  Auction Mania:eBay Buys Bazee.com – A Siliconeer Report Although Internet penetration in India pales in comparison to other countries, industry watchers see the country as a potential hot spot for growth as eBay jumps in for a piece of the action. A Siliconeer report. Online auction giant eBay has agreed to acquire Indian rival Baazee.com for roughly $50 million, the online auctioneer said June 23. The online behemoth said the acquisition will give eBay an opportunity to significantly increase its global presence by giving it a foothold in India, the second most populous country in the world, behind only China. eBay CEO Meg Whitman said the proposed buyout was an important step in expanding her company’s international operations and said the auctioneer is entering India just as the online retail market in that country is poised for growth. “Although it’s early days for e-commerce in India, we believe there is great opportunity over the long term,” Whitman said in a statement. While Internet penetration in India pales in comparison to other countries, including eBay’s own backyard in the United States, industry watchers have tabbed the country as a potential hot spot for growth. According to market researcher IDC, there are about 17 million people currently using the Internet in India, and that figure is expected to reach 30 million by 2006. Baazee, which claims more than 1 million registered customers, mirrors eBay’s business model of letting individuals buy and sell items via online auctions. Offering a seemingly endless range of items much as eBay does, Mumbai-based Baazee identifies itself as the largest online marketplace in India. Executives at the auction house pointed to the proposed acquisition as a validation of their strategies. Under the terms of the deal, San Jose, Calif.-based eBay will acquire all outstanding shares of Baazee for about $50 million, in addition to other transaction-related expenses. The companies said they expect the deal to close sometime during the third quarter. VC WORLD  $1 Billion Bonanza: South Asian VC Sweeps - A Siliconeer Report Despite the dour mood in the investment market South Asian-run U,S companies collected a whopping $1.08 billion in venture capital in 2003. A Siliconeer report. South Asian-run companies in the U.S. collected $1.08 billion in venture capital last year, an increase of 5.3 percent over 2002, according to the third annual survey released June 11 by Waltham, Mass.-based IndUS Business Journal, a newspaper which covers South Asian businesses in the U.S. “This number, which is almost certainly a conservative one, comprises about 6.1 percent of all the venture capital raised by U.S. companies in 2003,” said Upendra Mishra, managing partner of the Mishra Group, Inc., publisher of IndUS Business Journal. “Considering the continued struggles of the venture-capital market, Indian and other South Asian entrepreneurs fared extremely well.” U.S. companies raised $17.8 billion in venture capital in 2003, down from $19.9 billion in 2002, according to Ernst & Young LLP and VentureOne. “What’s most amazing is that the increase occurred during a year when venture investment dropped, continuing its sag from the tech collapse,” says Martin Desmarais, editor of the IndUS Business Journal. “It’s a strong testament to the determination of South Asian and Indian entrepreneurs, and it also shows the faith investors have in the group.” Rohit Padgaonkar, research manager at IndUS Business Journal, added: “The dollar amounts and number of deals is conservative because some companies didn’t respond to our surveys or traditionally don’t release their investment numbers.” Leading South Asian venture capital recipients in 2003 include: Infinera Corp. of Sunnyvale, Calif., with $53 million; Axiowave Networks Inc. of Marlborough, Mass., with $45 million; Sanera Systems Inc. of Sunnyvale, Calif., with $35 million; Ikanos Communications Inc. of Fremont, Calif., with $33 million; and Molecular Imprints Inc. of Austin, Texas, with $30 million. The top-five states in regards to venture capital money raised by South Asian companies in 2003 are California, with 36 companies raising $538.1 million; Massachusetts, with 16 companies raising $223.4 million; Texas, with four companies raising $74 million; New Jersey, with seven companies raising $62.1 million; and Georgia, with four companies raising $40.6 million. Waltham, Mass.-based Mishra Group (www.mishragroup.com) publishes IndUS Business Journal (www.IndusBusinessJournal.com) and INDIA New England News (www.IndiaNewEnglandNews.com). |TOP| SOCIAL CHANGE  Power to the People: Lok Satta Movement By Nirupama Guntapalli Doctor-turned bureaucrat Jayaprakash Narayan is spearheading a remarkable grassroots civic movement to clean up government and make politicians accountable, writes Nirupama Guntapalli. Just when you were ready to sit back and bask in the reflected glow of heartwarming headlines about India—a common enough NRI affliction—a doctor-turned-bureaucrat-turned activist is ready to shake you out of your complacence. India, desis are wont to think indulgently, is no longer the nation of mass poverty and the rope trick. It’s nimble IT knowledge workers are beginning to give the world’s only superpower headaches. Every white collar employee in the West is anxiously looking behind his or her back to see if his job is going to be the next one to be carted off to Bangalore or Noida. Not bad, huh? Hold your applause. Jayaprakash Narayan, the articulate and passionate leader of the Hyderabad-based grassroots political reform organization Lok Satta (www.Loksatta.org), wants you to take a moment to ponder the darker side of India. And do something about it. India still faces a host of problems. Take a look at his organization’s Web site, and you will learn that:
That doesn’t mean Narayan is simply in the business of telling everybody how terrible things are in India. “The statistics are daunting,” the Lok Satta Web site says. “But should they make us, the citizens of India, helpless? “Not if we are ready to fight together.” Narayan’s Lok Satta is doing just that, and he was here at the Santa Clara Westin June 19, spreading his twin message of democratic reform and transparency. Narayan brought a bullish optimism as he reflected on India’s recent progress in political reform, but he also provides daunting statistics on corruption and economic injustice and inequality to point out how much remains to be done. Lok Satta’s goal is simple: decentralization of power, reform of the judiciary, making government accessible to people, and instituting “accountability instruments” in governance. Civic engagement works, he said, presenting two examples of success.
According to Narayan, 98.09 percent of 854,554 voters demanded the right to know the background of the candidates. The ballot was the largest ever independent opinion gathering exercise undertaken in the country, he said . A law to address the issue has been ruled valid by India’s Supreme Court, which now requires all candidates for elected office to disclose their criminal histories and personal wealth. In an article in The Hindu, Narayan has written about how he ended up being an activist. “I am asked why I have embarked on this unusual journey—medical education, civil service and now governance reform. Born about a decade after independence, I grew up in a village in coastal Andhra. My father was employed in a small town in Maharashtra, and an old aunt, a child widow who never remarried, raised me. These somewhat unusual circumstances gave me the different perspective of a participant/observer of public defecation, caste, hierarchies, superstitions, poverty and underdevelopment. “By any standard, mine was one of the most successful careers in civil services in free India. My work in various capacities made me realize how much our people are capable of, if only the fetters imposed on them are removed and they are given freedom. There are plenty of wonderful people in politics, bureaucracy and judiciary. But the successes of even the finest among them are at best only limited. It dawned on me that what is required is not a mere change of players, but a fundamental change in the rules of the game. “It did not take long for me to realize that specific governance reforms — in particular electoral reforms, separation of powers, decentralization, speedy and accessible justice and instruments to promote accountability and transparency — are needed to curb corruption and help us fulfill our potential.” “It is this vision that made me leave a comfortable job at the peak of my career. Once you understand what is wrong and know how to set it right, you have an obligation to work for change, and be a part of the solution. In a sane democracy, the electoral process and party politics should provide a solution to our predicament. But the nature of our elections and politics ensured status quo, and the political process has become the problem itself. The ball therefore is in people’s court, and a popular movement for specific democratic reforms has become necessary. That is what Lok Satta is about.” Th |
