PRICE RS. 100. AUGUST 31, 2012 Incredible India!?...PRICE RS. 100. AUGUST 31, 2012 Incredible...

PRICE RS. 100. AUGUST 31, 2012

Incredible India!?

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www.forbesindia.com

FORGET THE OBSESSION WITH BECOMING A SUPERPOWER.FIRST, LET’S BECOME A GREAT NATION.

I N D E P E N D E N C E D A Y S P E C I A L

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Redefining Our Purpose

5

L e t t e r F r o m T h e E d i t o r

August 31, 2012 | FORBES INDIA

“Cat: Where are you going?Alice: Which way should I go?Cat: That depends on where you are going.Alice: I don’t know.Cat: Then it doesn’t matter which way you go.”

M ull over these words from Lewis Carroll’s Alice in Wonderland, as we prepare

to celebrate our 65th Anniversary of Independence. And then, try to honestly answer the next question: Do we really know where we’re headed as a nation? I don’t know what you’re thinking, but even for a die-hard believer of the India story like me, it’s a tough question to answer. All around us, the prevailing gloom seems to suggest that we may have lost sight of the path, but hopefully, not the destination.

At Forbes India, for the past two years, Independence Day has been an occasion to refl ect on the challenges facing us as a nation. In 2010, we focussed on some of India’s biggest geopolitical challenges in our special package, India and the World. Last year, we turned our gaze inwards to examine the key fault-lines that had opened up, as an embattled state came under fi re for its failure to govern. (In case you want

to read those special packages again, please log on to http://forbesindia.com)

This year, the centrepiece of our special package is a provocative essay by someone who is a familiar fi gure on these pages: Sundeep Waslekar, thinker, global strategic aff airs expert and author. Waslekar forces us to re-evaluate the fundamentals of a great nation. And he draws upon some powerful examples from the experiences of other nations that began rising around the same time as we did. Obviously, there are many ways to defi ne a great nation. In my book, it begins by having the humility and capacity to learn from the experiences of others. Keep that in mind when you read his essay on page 44.

In a separate package, we’ve also paid tribute to a set of outstanding Indians who’ve tried their best to keep two of our vital institutions—the bureaucracy and the judiciary—vibrant and responsive. Sarosh Homi Kapadia is one such individual, whose story of integrity and commitment will inspire generations, long after he steps down as Chief Justice of the Supreme Court on September 29.

Make sure you read our story on him, and the nine others, plus a photo feature on the things that make us proud to be Indians.

Best,

Indrajit GuptaEditor, Forbes India

[email protected]@indrajitgupta

THERE ARE MANY WAYS TO DEFINE A GREAT NATION. IT

BEGINS BY HAVING THE HUMILITY

AND CAPACITY TO LEARN FROM THE EXPERIENCES OF

OTHERS-------

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Volume 4 | Issue 18 | Aug ust 31 , 201 2

August 31, 2012 | FORBES INDIA12 13FORBES INDIA | August 31, 2012

Contents

FEATURES

44

Ge

tty

Im

ag

es

FORBES INDIA LEADERSHIP AWARDS 201280 The India Growth Story is Still GoodDespite the recent pessimism, the Forbes India Leadership Awards jury is still bullish on India Inc

86 The Fab 50Out of a long list of outstanding companies, the Forbes India Leadership Awards nominees represent the best of the best

Credible IndiaIt’s time to set aside ambitions of great power and focus

on building a great nation, says Sundeep Waslekar

58 SH Kapadia 62 Purna Chandra Kishan 64 MK Bhan 66 HK Mittal

68 Rajeev Chawla 72 Alex Menon

76 Amod Kumar

70 Aruna Sudararajan 74 Ram Mohan Mishra

78 UV Singh

68 Breaking New GroundThe government wrestled with the problem of digitising land records for over a decade. Rajeev Chawla is fi nally getting the job done.

70 Government Inc. Aruna Sundararajan’s approach to state-run projects made her an e-literacy pioneer

72 The Algebra of Infi nite DevelopmentNothing is getting in the way of Alex Menon’s drive for development

74 All in it TogetherRam Mohan Mishra doesn’t think of his constituents as benefi ciaries—each is a potential entrepreneur

76 The Early AdopterUnder Amod Kumar, Uttar Pradesh has been an e-governance incubator

78 On a Mission to End Illegal MiningUV Singh fi nally got the evidence needed to bring down the illegal trade in Karnataka. Now, he’s targeting the entire country

I N D E P E N D E NC E D AY S P E C I A L

58 Pilgrim of JusticeChief Justice SH Kapadia will be remembered for landmark judgments, but also for working to restore the judicial system’s credibility

62 Stopping Traffi ckPurna Chandra Kishan rescued thousands of child labourers by cracking down on traffi ckers

GUARDIANS OF THE FLAME

64 A Visionary Who Also DeliversMK Bhan is driving innovation in the Department of Biotechnology by taking governance outside the government

66 Stepping Up For StartupsIndia needs growth-fuelling entrepreneurs; HK Mittal has a plan to help them launch

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14 FORBES INDIA | August 31, 2012

WE VALUE YOUR FEEDBACK.

Write to us at:

[email protected]

Letters may be edited for brevity.

Read us online at www.forbesindia.com

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Volu me 4 | Is sue 18 | Aug u st 31 , 201 2

Contents

Ba

zu

ki

Mu

ha

mm

ad

/ R

eu

ters

Co

rbis

65 THINGS WE LOVE ABOUT INDIA

Something to celebrate for each year of independence

92

Cover Photograph: Corbis20 Letters to the Editor22 Exit Interview24 Close Range26 World Watch116 Thoughts

REGULARS

BRIEFING28 Delivering More Costs than CashCash on delivery is a hit with customers, but for companies, it doesn’t pay

CURRENT EVENTS32 Assam Violence a Progeny of Peace DealsState-mediated settlements meant to make peace have created new divisions

RESOLUTION34 Passing the Buck There is a way to fi x India’s TV audience measurement system—if all industry players are willing to tackle the problem

OLYMPICS38 You Can’t Buy an Olympic MedalBut the Mittal Champions Trust is hoping its support can give top athletes a leg up

40 A Collective Story of ‘So Near, Yet So Far’Despite a record medal haul, India’s Olympic performance couldn’t meet lofty expectations

UPFRONT

India’s Saina Nehwal kisses her bronze medal

40

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Life � Daily Sabbatical �Magazine � Upfront � Features � Multimedia � Blogs � News

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PRINCETHOMAS

SEEMA SINGH

Writes on sci-tech and all things that lie at the intersection

things that happen in the realm of business, society and technology.

Markets today seem to be designed for short-term investorsScott Patterson, an investigative journalist with the Wall Street Journal, has tracked the impact of technology on Wall Street through his latest book Dark Pools. He tells us a story about programmers, geeks and crooks, who have used technology to the hilt to make a quick buck on Wall Street.

NDTV vs TAM –The Kingdom is NakedThe entire TV and advertising worlds, their aunts, cousins and dogs, are up in arms over the NDTV

Tracks the world of business for Forbes India from the rear seat

Group’s $1.3 billion lawsuit-grenade that has landed right in the centre of their incestuous world. From advertisers to TV channels to media buyers, everybody is taking part in the newspaper column equivalent of the candlelight solidarity march.

Where Should I Give?If you are feeling torn between two equal choices, give to a place you go often too. If it’s close to the place where you stay, then not only will you visit it often, but it will give you a chance to take your family and involve your kids in philanthropy as well.

Review: Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 GT-P3100The Samsung Galaxy Tab 2 imparts a very pleasing heft and feels solid in the hand. The package contents are relatively Spartan–besides the tablet itself, there is a tiny quickstart booklet, a USB cable, power adapter, and snap-in plug for use with Indian power outlets.

How to Build aGreat Nation

Hate it that Bisleri is a Generic BrandBisleri’s Chairman Ramesh Chauhan wants the name to become a brand

(By Sundeep Waslekar)INTRODUCING APERTUREThe new avatar of Forbes India slideshows

http://forbesindia.com/aperture

ASHISH MISHRA

An autophile with a handle on the Indian auto industry

TOP FIVE SALES NEGOTIATION MISTAKES

THE UNCONSCIOUS EXECUTIVE

Stop talking, start listening. Can tweaking your approach help clinch the deal?

Careful consideration of all the options can be done by our unconscious mind

THE ENTREPRENEUR’S MOTIVATION: NOT WHAT YOU THINK…

Show me the money? Entrepreneurs don’t always look at fi nancial rewards as the best thing in being their own bosses

Your daily dose of

wisdom from the likes

of Harvard, Stanford,

INSEAD, Oxford, ISB,

Yale, Rotman, Tuck

School of Business

and many others...

Writes on interesting

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Readers Say


L e t t e r s To T h e E d i t o r

KUDOS, RATAN TATA

Refer to Ratan Tata’s Second Act (August 17, 2012, issue). As an investor in company stocks, the Tata group of companies has always been the backbone of my portfolio. Surprised to note that Mr Ratan Tata is 74 years of age. Saw him at an AGM a few years ago, he resembled a suave tycoon decades younger than his actual age. Besides a role model as a business honcho, seems Mr Tata should also be a model for future generations for living life to the fullest and aging gracefully. Rudolph A FurtadoOn the Web

I was overwhelmed by the excellent social work being done by the Tata trusts. Every citizen should also pitch in with their bit, like saving water. The World Bank has estimated that by 2014 water shortage will cause widespread disturbances in India. One of the biggest criminals in water wastage is the fl ush toilet. So, why not limit the capacity of the cistern and make it mandatory for manufacturers? That way, the country will save gallons of water per day without having to change a basic habit. Cisterns in Israel, for instance, have a capacity of 2.5 litres. IK Adlakha Ghaziabad

A QUESTION OF ETHICS

Congratulations on the fabulous August 3rd issue of Forbes India. The article on OnMobile was brilliantly researched and very incisive and written with a fl ow that made it an unstoppable read. The Moser Baer piece was also a very interesting article that succeeded in bringing out the thought behind the company’s strategic initiatives while astutely narrating its setbacks. A well balanced write-up that looked at the issues objectively.Harsh GoenkaChairman, RPG Enterprises

Refer to Pinnacle versus Precipice (August 3, 2012). The learned analysis led me to suggest that the fall of superachievers may be attributed to two separate reasons—disregard for ethics and high regard for self-judgment. Victims of the former, like the founders of Satyam or OnMobile, are bound

to meet their nemesis sooner or later and deserve no sympathy. YG Chouksey Pune

NOT JUST BUSINESS

Refer to A Tough Poser for Moser (August 3, 2012, issue). Why are companies like IBM, GE, Apple, Nike, etc some of the best in business for so long? Because they are founded by a motive of achieving something else than just money. Senior Puri started a business because he wanted to make money. He rightly made media storage devices as there was a huge market. But what next? Had his motive been to revolutionise the industry, he could have surely avoided the bankruptcy of his business. Puri Junior, too, is motivated by doing business to make money. He might prove lucky. But this is not the way to build organisations.PramilOn the Web

MR TATA SHOULD BE A MODEL FOR FUTURE

GENERATIONS FOR LIVING LIFE TO THE

FULLEST AND AGING GRACEFULLY

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AUGUST 17, 2012, ISSUE

On Page 39 – In Sanjoy Bhattacharyya’s column ‘Where Angles Fear to Tread’, the market cap for VST Industries should be Rs 2,550 crore and not Rs 2,555 crore, as written. The error is regretted.

AUGUST 3, 2012, ISSUE

On Page 49 – KP Singh, the DLF chairman had invited Jack Welch of GE to visit India, not Jeff rey Immelt, as written. The error is regretted.

CORRECTIONS & CLARIFICATIONS

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U p f r ont / E x i t I n t e r v i e w

Q Can you tell us about the Indian Energy Exchange’s growth? and where it stands today?The exchange started in June 2008 with less than a dozen participants. Today, we have about 600 participants and are trading about 2,000 MW of power daily. So far, we have conducted 35,000 hourly auctions. There have been no delays, complaints or errors.

Q How has trading

improved?When we started in 2005, everybody said there is a power shortage and questioned who will buy and sell [on the exchange]. We went around the country and collected stakeholders

and told them that the exchange

is necessary to remove the

shortages. The single-buyer model

had failed along with Enron [Dabhol power project where the sole buyer was MSEB]. What we needed was a multi-buyer, multi-seller model that we could have in an exchange. Eventually, the Central Electricity Regulatory Commission came out with a paper and norms were issued under which the Indian Energy Exchange was established. They allowed us to go live in June 2008. They were worried that, in a shortage scenario, the prices would shoot up. Initially, the prices did go up to Rs 12-13 per unit. But when people understood this is a long-term game and many joined, the prices fell to about Rs 3 per unit.

Q What is your take on the recent power outages? We have to look at these from a diff erent angle. Are we utilizing the power available in the country? At least 20,000 MW is not being used as it is not getting the price. In such a situation, the shortages will increase because you

are not using available resources. Each state, due to monsoon failure, is trying to grab whatever 3,000 MW or 5,000 MW of short-term power is available. In such a situation, such mishaps can occur.

Q What is the solution?The Electricity Act has provided for market development and that prices should not be regulated. The Act provides that once you give a choice of suppliers, their tariff won’t be determined. But we still determine the tariff s and that is why the market is not developing. Such mishaps could have been avoided had our regulators and states deregulated tariff s for one MW and above. That is one solution.

But power outage may happen again for whatever reasons. There has to be basic minimum power available for vital installations and cities. This can be done by islanding that area, such as in Mumbai. We should also have small power plants; of 10, 20 or 50 MW combined heat and power units, which produce about 20 percent of its requirement. This should work as a peaking plant [which runs only when demand is high] every day and also double as the emergency supplier. A

mit

Ve

rma

Jayant Deo, MD and CEO of Indian Energy Exchange, tells DINESH NARAYANAN that an open market for power can reduce the chances of large blackouts

Power outages could’ve been avoided with tariff decontrol

JAYANT DEOAge: 68

Education: Bachelor of Mechanical Engineering, PG in Industrial

Engineering & Financial Management from Jamnalal Bajaj Institute

Of Management Studies, Mumbai

Career: Whistleblower of Enron’s Dabhol power project, Founder

Member, Maharashtra Electricity Regulatory Commission

Interests: Reading about unfolding energy dynamics, music, nature

walk, quiet moments at water fronts

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U p f r ont /C l o s e R a n g e

DR VINCE CABLEAge: 69

Designation: British Secretary of State

for Innovation, Business and Skills

Career: Former Chief Economist for

Shell, Head of Economics Programme

at Chatham House

Education: Natural Sciences and

Economics at Cambridge University,

and a PhD from Glasgow

Interests: Keeping fi t; cycling, walking,

Ballroom and Latin dancing. Visits a dance

studio once a week for advanced classes

and takes dance exams

Q So what is the solution to the Eurozone’s economic problem?Everything I say has to be prefaced by pointing out that Britain isn’t a member of the Eurozone, so therefore, we don’t want to dictate to the Eurozone membership what they do. But we nonetheless recognise that this crisis aff ects us.

It aff ects us in two ways: One is trade—half of British trade is with the European Union, mostly with the Eurozone. The other reason is that our banks have a signifi cant level of exposure, not particularly to Greece, but if you take Spain, Italy, Portugal, Ireland, that adds up to a signifi cant level of exposure and naturally we want to avoid another shock to our banking system. So it’s very important that the Eurozone crisis is resolved in a sensible way.

Q So what needs to take place now, and can it actually happen?I think there is a broad understanding now of what needs to happen—the only problem is getting the political agreement amongst a signifi cant number of sovereign governments as to how you implement these things within a rapid time frame. I think fi rst of all there’s an acceptance that there has to be a banking union with a common approach to supervision,

Dr. Vince Cable,

British Secretary of State for Business, tells RANI SINGH that Eurozone leaders have a plan to tackle the economic problem—they just need the political will to put it into action

The Steps to Solving the EurozoneCrisis Are Well Understood

resolution of bank failures and the guarantees and deposits. There is a broad acceptance that there has to be closer fi scal integration in order to facilitate transfer payments from the richer to the weaker parts of the European Union, but with a set of disciplines so that the countries that are supporting the weaker countries have some control over expenditure, which is the key German requirement. That, in turn, implies a much higher degree of political integration within the Eurozone. I think that although Britain is not part of that, and we’re not opting to be part of it, we can see the logic of that succession of decisions.

Q How do you see this being implemented? Won’t it take time?It will take time. There has to be a build-up of political consensus. There are legal requirements that have to be met. The Germans have a constitutional court, for example. I think very often the critics underestimate what’s already been achieved. The Eurozone countries have already created a fi rewall to protect the spread of fi nancial contagion. There have been signifi cant advances in the last year in fi ghting this emergency. The big key steps are well understood by the governments concerned and it’s a question of making sure they’re now implemented.

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U p f r ont / Wo r l d Wa t c hS

am

ee

r P

aw

ar

Heads of states and governments of at least 125 countries and the EU are represented on Twitter, but very few leaders tweet regularly and tend to use it more as a pre-election engagement tool

Source

“Twiplomacy” is a study of the use of Twitter by world leaders conducted by global public relations and communications fi rm Burson-Marsteller

North America

*83%US President Barack Obama,

who was the fi rst world leader to

get on Twitter in March 2007, is also

the most popular politician on the

micro-blogging site with more than

17 million followers. But he ranks

fi fth on the overall list, right after

Britney Spears.

*Percentage of world leaders

represented on Twitter

Africa

60%The PM of Uganda, Amama Mbabazi,

is the most conversational world

leader on Twitter with 96% of his

tweets being @replies to questions

from his followers. Rwandan

President Paul Kagame is also an

avid user, frequently chatting with

his followers on the site.

Asia

56%China and Indonesia are among the

Asian countries that do not have

their heads of state or government

on Twitter. Indian PM Manmohan

Singh, who is the latest G20 leader

to join the site in January 2012,

has a little over one million

followers. Malaysian PM Najib

Razak had invited his 500,000th

follower for breakfast.

Europe

75%Germany and Italy are the only

two G8 countries in Europe where

neither the head of state nor the

government is on Twitter.

@BarackObama has established

mutual Twitter relations with only

the PMs of Norway and Russia,

Jens Stoltenberg and Dmitry Med-

vedev, respectively. Vatican City’s

social media project @Pope2You-

Vatican, set up to accompany the

beatifi cation of Pope John Paul II,

has had over 27,000 followers.

Oceania

29%Only 4 of the 14 countries in Ocea-

nia are on Twitter. With 10 mutual

connections with world politicians,

Australian Prime Minister

@JuliaGillard is the second-most

connected leader after EU

president Herman van Rompuy

(11 connections).

South America

75%Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez

is the second-most followed

politician on Twitter with over three

million followers. Enrique Peña

Nieto, Mexico’s President-elect,

was the second world leader after

Obama to log on to Twitter.

Compiled by NILOFER D’SOUZA

I NDIA

Delivering More Costs than Cash

The economics of cash on delivery don’t add up


Am

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erm

a

One of the most widely believed facts about the Indian e-commerce story

is that Flipkart.com’s 2010 decision to start off ering “Cash on Delivery” (COD)—a payment option that allows buyers to pay for goods at the time of receipt—catalysed the entire sector and set the stage for fantastic growth rates thereafter.

“There is a massive amount of hype that COD, as defi ned by Flipkart, has redefi ned e-commerce in India. It is absolute nonsense,” says K Vaitheeswaran, founder and CEO of Indiaplaza.

Vaitheeswaran introduced COD at Indiaplaza back in 2001, when it

used to be called Fabmart.com, only to withdraw the option by 2003.

Courier companies who delivered his orders kept COD money for two-four weeks, putting substantial pressure on the fl edgling startup’s cash fl ows.

Worse, many of Vaitheeswaran’s customers told him they found COD more cumbersome than prepaid orders (via credit or debit card) because someone had to be physically present at the time of delivery with cash.

“It is my fundamental belief that people shop online for three reasons: Selection, pricing and convenience, nothing else. COD

U p f r ont / B r i e f i n g

basically knocks the last one out of the park,” says Vaitheeswaran.

PREPAID TO POSTPAID

The Indian mobile growth story was to a large extent powered by the rise of the prepaid SIM card, which gave customers greater control over their monthly bills while putting their money in the hands of mobile operators upfront.

Taking a cue from mobile operators, Indian Direct to Home (DTH) operators convinced their customers to pay for their monthly TV in advance instead of at the end of a month, as they’d done with local cable operators.

By ROHIN DHARMAKUMAR

I NDIA


U p f r ont / B r i e f i n g

But through COD, e-commerce companies are doing exactly the opposite, thus squandering a massive cash fl ow advantage.

Mukesh Bansal, the founder and CEO of Myntra.com, lived in the US for nearly a decade before moving back to India to start his business. “I shopped with Amazon.com for years, using my credit card. But for the last few years I’ve been ordering through COD only. I think it’s India’s equivalent of [Amazon’s] one-click-pay,” he says.

Of course, Myntra off ers its customers COD, like practically every e-commerce company in India. COD now accounts for 50-60 percent of orders for most companies.

“People have gotten so used to COD from other e-commerce sites that it has become an expectation,” says Gaurav Kushwaha, the founder and CEO of online jewellery seller Bluestone.com.

Indian e-commerce fi rms credit COD for enabling millions of Indians to transact online using cash because there simply isn’t enough plastic around. There are 100 million internet users in India, but only around 18 million credit cards.

But according to the Internet and Mobile Association of India (IAMAI), of those 100 million internet users, only around 10 million are active online shoppers. And the RBI tells us there are 240 million debit card users in India.

We are thus confronted with two stark facts: First, there are over 200 million card users in India who are still not shopping online, and second, e-commerce companies who off er COD might be turning debit or credit card users into exclusive COD users.

Of course, one could argue that most of these users aren’t comfortable using their cards online, but IRCTC, the Indian government-owned rail ticket portal, has managed

to attract 25 million registered users without off ering COD.

THE DISECONOMICS OF COD

Much like a slow-acting toxin introduced in a person’s bloodstream, COD makes its presence felt gradually within startups by infecting various functions and creating unforeseen complications. The most obvious “symptoms” are the direct costs. For every order delivered via COD, third party courier companies charge either a fi xed fee, ranging from Rs 45-75, or 2.5-3 percent of the order value, whichever is higher.

Most entrepreneurs counter that a payment gateway for credit card transactions would charge a similar amount. They were right till last month, when the RBI cut merchant fees for debit card transactions to a maximum of just 1 percent. Also,

after deducting their fees, courier companies tend to sit on COD money.

To avoid this, most e-commerce companies have started doing their own deliveries. Flipkart alone has about 1,300 employees doing door-to-door customer deliveries. Some of them also carry wireless card readers to allow for “card-on-delivery”, but at an annual rental of Rs 6,000-12,000 per reader, that isn’t an option for every startup.

A 2011 study by consulting fi rm ATKearney in the Chinese e-commerce market found that the economics of running a self-owned delivery network make sense only at a volume of about 2,000 parcels per day per city. In India, where operations costs generally outstrip China’s, the fi gure might be even higher.

Now a large company like

Flipkart may be able to aff ord it, but can others? Besides, India has over 40,000 PIN codes; how many can be covered through a self-owned delivery network?

COD insidiously works its eff ect behind-the-scenes in other ways. Because customers who place COD orders haven’t incurred any cost, they usually turn out to be much more fi ckle at the time of delivery.

At Myntra, returns of COD orders average around 4 percent compared to 1 percent for card-based prepaid orders. For most others, it’s much worse.

Each return implies a further outgo of Rs 45-75 to the courier company, meaning a total spend of Rs 90-150 on a phantom order.

Worse, these returns can play havoc with the inventory costs as products must be examined and restocked. It stands to reason that few e-commerce startups can aff ord this over the long run.

It’s not just the economics. A CEO of an e-commerce fi rm points towards larger numbers of suspicious high-value orders, like one his fi rm recently received for nearly three dozen of the latest Samsung Galaxy smartphones, costing over Rs 30,000 each, from a small town in northern India. The order was never shipped after the buyer refused to pay by cheque or accept delivery in the fi rm’s offi ces.

The CEO says he suspects money laundering could be a possible reason.

Because of the potential for mischief with large cash transactions, the RBI too has stated its ambition to move more customers and businesses towards prepaid cards, including mobile “wallets”.

“We have taken millions of people who would have been happy paying through cards and moved them to COD. It is a step back for the long term development of e-commerce,” says Vaitheeswaran.

FLIPKART HAS ABOUT 1,300 EMPLOYEES DOING DOOR-TO-DOOR CUSTOMER DELIVERIES

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reveals that there is little intent or capacity to address the grievances which drive confl icts.

The Assam Accord (1985), for instance, focusses on the core issue of detection of “foreigners” but never produced any eff ective mechanism to check the infl ux of Bangladeshi migrants.

As a senior government negotiator disclosed, the only issue that mattered was getting the “democratic” Assam movement’s leaders to come to power. A quarter of a century later, peace talks are still on, now with the armed group United Liberation Front of Assam (ULFA).

Most people surveyed by SAFHR do not believe that these deals contribute to peace. Barely 22 percent thought the accord could build sustainable peace, 24 percent

saw it reinforcing the status quo and 24 percent called it eyewash. The majority of respondents across fi ve confl ict-aff ected areas believed the accord’s major contribution was controlling violence.

The process of negotiations itself fragments, rather than unites, because the state chooses when and with whom to talk. The 2003 Bodo Accord signed with the Bodo Liberation Tigers (BLT) split the ethnic minority and the section which was excluded from the negotiations grouped under the National Democratic Front of Bodoland (NDFB).

NDFB is now in a separate dialogue with the government. It undermined the authority of BLT leaders in controlling the BTA Council, which diverted funds to fi ght turf wars with NDFB and gave it an incentive to crank up violence levels to force the state to negotiate with it.

Autonomy was intended to expand grassroots democracy, but the studies showed democracy shrinking. The Bodo, Tripura, Darjeeling/Gorkha and CHT Accords envisaged creating self-governing councils. Instead, they have either perpetuated interim non-elected bodies or, as in Bodoland, allowed the non-rehabilitated ex-armed cadres of the BLT to capture electoral processes.

The structure of power institutionalised in these ethnic homelands disadvantages non-dominant minorities. In Bodoland, though the Bodos have become a minority (35 percent of the population) in several segments of the ethnically delimited BTA, the power structure is weighted fi ve to one in favour of the Bodo tribes, disadvantaging non-Bodo “minorities”.

Anxieties over loss of autonomy,

minoritisation and land fuelled inter-ethnic violence in 1994, 1996, 1998, 2008 and 2012 targeting the more vulnerable non-Bodo communities–Santhals and “illegal” Muslims–hundreds of thousands of whom are still in “permanent” refugee camps.

The peace deals creating autonomous ethnic territories have not only failed to empower marginalised communities, but have also torn up the multi-ethnic character of these regions, leading to new confl icts. Xenophobic reactions have given rise to new movements for separate homelands such as the Bodo movement (Assam), Hmar assertion (Mizoram), Koch Rajbhonshis and Muslims

(Bodoland), Tharus (Madhes-Nepal) and Pashtuns (Balochistan). Equal rights of citizenship have failed to break down systemic inequalities, producing a politics of quotas and competing ‘ethnic’ homelands.

Peace in ethnic homelands is routinely disrupted by endemic cycles of violence that disrupt governance and undermine initiatives such as the potentially transformative “Look East policy”.

But it is premised on our states fi nding eff ective and sustainable strategies in resolving confl icts.

Rita Manchanda is senior research director at SAFHR

and a former journalist

Y et another cycle of violence has erupted in the multi-ethnic, multi-religious

and multi-lingual Northeast, a “frontier” region that historically, socially and spatially has had only a tenuous connection with India. Bordering Bangladesh, Myanmar and China, the naturally well-endowed region is riven by land, language, religion and identity confl icts.

For the past several weeks, ethnic and communal violence has engulfed the Bodo tribal homeland, claiming more than 60 lives and putting to fl ight 400,000 people in the Bodo Territorial Autonomous Districts (BTAD) area in lower Assam.

The recent confl ict is a reminder of the legacy of South Asia’s integrated geographies and economies and the movement of people that produces enduring anxieties over illegal migrants outnumbering the natives.

This cycle of violence pits indigenous Bodo tribes against people of Bengali origin and Bangladeshi migrants. The communal frame of Muslim victimisation distorts bitter contests over land and Bodo anxieties over losing their autonomous homeland, wrested from the Assamese through armed insurrection.

The violence also lays bare the deep fl aws in the government’s strategy of resolving violent ethno-nationalist assertions through peace deals that deliver territorial “homelands” to ethnic elites through power sharing arrangements in autonomous or federal units.

The cycles of endemic violence prove that these top-down peace processes do not address the issues that drive the confl ict, nor do they improve the quality of life of the people.

A grassroots, rights-focussed study of the Chittagong Hill Tracts (CHT) Accord (1997), the Mizo Accord (1986), Naga Peace Accords (1947-

1997), Bodo Accords (1993, 2003), Madhes Accords (2007-2011) and Balochistan (non-accord) by the South Asian Forum for Human Rights (SAFHR) shows that such state-tailored peace processes do

not empower struggling communities. Often, peace deals are power sharing arrangements for the elites, rarely culminating in plural politics or more just and inclusive societies.

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Assam violencea progeny of peace dealsState-negotiated accords have only managed to empower ethnic elites, creating new fi ssures and shrinking democracy


THE PEACE DEALS CREATING AUTONOMOUS ETHNIC

TERRITORIES HAVE NOT ONLY FAILED TO EMPOWER

MARGINALISED COMMUNITIES, BUT HAVE ALSO TORN UP THE MULTI-ETHNIC CHARACTER OF

THESE REGIONS, LEADING TO NEW CONFLICTS

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By RITA MANCHANDA

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FLAMING ROW Village women at a relief camp

in Assam’s Goshaigaon town after their houses

were burnt down in ethnic riots

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Passing the BuckThe current spat between NDTV and TAM puts the spotlight on why the television audience measurement system is dangerously fl awed. There’s a way to sort it out though, provided the entire industry takes ownership of the problem


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One of the most revealing statements in NDTV’s weighty lawsuit—194 pages;

targeted at over 30 companies and individuals; and between $1 billion and $2 billion in damages—against TV measurement fi rm TAM and its investors is this: “The primary remedy (of the corrupt activities) was to increase sample size from 8,000 boxes to 30,000 boxes, immediately stopping publication of data until the sample size was increased to appropriate levels.”

“Increasing the sample size to 30,000 would automatically increase their revenue in proportion, so tell me,

why would TAM say no to this?” asks Praveen Tripathi, former chairman of the erstwhile Joint Industry Body (JIB) Technical Committee that oversaw TAM and currently CEO of Magic9 Media & Consumer Knowledge, a consumer and media knowledge consulting fi rm. Tripathi was also the CEO of INTAM, in many ways TAM’s predecessor.

His question exposes the doublespeak that has characterised most of the criticism directed at TAM in recent weeks.

In 2010, the ministry of information and broadcasting, under Union minister Ambika Soni, had constituted

U p f r ont / R e s o l u t i o n

a committee chaired by Amit Mitra, the then director-general of FICCI and now the fi nance minister of West Bengal, to review the existing television rating point (TRP) measurement system. In its report presented in November 2010, the Amit Mitra committee laid down a roadmap for improving the system.

A critical recommendation was increasing the number of Peoplemeters by around 22,000. Funding this increase in TAM’s Peoplemeter homes would entail a one-time capital expenditure of about Rs 330 crore spread over fi ve years, plus an additional

By ROHIN DHARMAKUMAR

August 31, 2012 | FORBES INDIA 35

operating expenditure of Rs 330 crore a year, according to a senior industry executive. That money will have to come from its current research subscribers.

Most advertisers, save a few large FMCG companies, don’t pay for TAM research in spite of collectively spending Rs 13,000 crore annually on TV ads. They access the data by either getting their media agencies to buy it, or perversely arguing that broadcasters ought to pay for it because it helps them sell ads.

That’s like a pension fund asking private corporations to sponsor research reports about themselves that will then form the basis for its own investments.

Worse, very few have the in-house technical expertise to understand and analyse TAM’s statistical data, much less strategise on it.

Much of the current mess is also tied to the way in which clients choose their media agencies and how their compensation system has evolved. In a majority of cases, the media agency that “bids” the lowest percentage of the advertiser’s annual ad spend as commission—ranging from zero to 2.5 percent—ends up “winning”. At such low margins, they start to eliminate all non-essential costs, like research.

Though they’re forced to subscribe to TAM data by their clients, it’s not really analysed or used in depth. The media agency’s business model relies on making money through unoffi cial “rebates”, essentially kickbacks from broadcasters as quid pro quo for channelling their client’s ad budgets.

That leaves broadcasters. Even though the top 30 channels garner nearly 80 percent of all viewership, there are another 600-plus, clawing for their share of the Rs 13,000 crore and largely stagnant ad market. Their balance sheets are already stretched and the huge annual “carriage fee” paid to cable operators to ensure

their channel’s visibility hasn’t helped either. Given that they already shoulder 70-80 percent of TAM’s research bill and agency “rebates” ranging from 7.5-15 percent, most are in no mood to see their TAM bill go up manifold. With no one, including itself, willing to foot the cost of a nearly four-fold increase in TAM panel size, NDTV lays the blame on TAM’s international owners—Nielsen and Kantar.

“A research agency is not here for charity. It has to be fi nally funded through subscriber’s contributions,” says Tripathi.

RUNNING AROUND IN CIRCLES

To repeat a cliché, India is arguably the most complex, diverse and geographically large consumer market in the world.

For instance, the average viewer spends around 130 minutes per day watching TV. Of this, nearly 80 percent is spent on a leading set of 30 channels. This means that the rest of the channels—anywhere from 150 to 350, depending on the DTH or cable operator—are fi ghting for a slice of roughly 26 minutes each day.

When both the TAM sample sizes and viewership minutes are so insignifi cant, even minor manipulations in viewing can

have a magnifi ed impact on TRP ratings. It is an open secret that the TAM system can be easily gamed by bribing lower-level employees at TAM and households where the meters are placed.

Besides, the Joint Industry Body (JIB) that since 1997 oversaw TAM’s research and frequently questioned its data died an unnatural death around 2004. So, for the last eight years, there has been virtually no industry supervision of TAM. The Broadcast Audience Research Council (BARC), the successor to the JIB, has been a non-starter since 2007 when it was fi rst proposed.

“If people from the industry don’t have time to supervise TAM, they have no right to call it lousy. It’s like a conductor after having fl ed the orchestra, blaming individual musicians for playing their own tunes,” says Tripathi.

Meanwhile, TAM fi eld staff are often intimidated and threatened by local cable operators (a problem that will become more acute when it goes to semi-urban and rural India) or corrupt channels. Even its CEO, LV Krishnan, regarded as one of the most ethical people in the industry, has received personal threats from powerful people. Much of both the corruption and intimidation can be traced back to the cable operator-local channel-politician nexus.

TAM had even approached the Union government for some kind of offi cial protection for its equipment and staff , to no avail.

“Instead of blaming them, the way for the industry to respond is to knock on LV’s [Krishnan] door, saying here are the resources. Take 10 percent of our manager’s time for next 16 weeks and let’s come up with ideas on how to solve it together,” says Tripathi.

CLEANING UP THE MESS

So how do you now solve this mess?

THE CASE On July 25, 2012, NDTV fi led a mas-

sive lawsuit in the New York Supreme

Court against TAM, India’s default TV

audience measurement fi rm jointly

owned by Nielsen and Kantar Media.

Seeking $1.3 billion in damages, the

lawsuit accused TAM of fudging

research data and engaging in corrupt

practices to skew ratings towards

those broadcasters who paid its

offi cials bribes. TAM’s data was also

fl awed, said NDTV, because it moni-

tored just 8,150 homes to extrapolate

the TV viewing habits of 130 million

households in India.

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● For starters, get BARC off the ground. Model it on the British Broadcaster’s Audience Research Board or BARB. The provider of TV research in the UK, BARB in turn has appointed three diff erent agencies to create the same—Kantar Media (one of TAM India’s parents) for recruiting panel homes and installing meters; Ipsos MORI for conducting the survey; and RSMB for producing the sample design and conducting quality checks.● Separating ownership of panel meters from research, while taking responsibility for the fi nal data, is a good way for BARC to address many questions around the reliability of TAM’s processes. This is assuming of course that it can progress beyond its fi ve-year standoff between broadcasters and advertisers.● Strengthen TAM’s existing fraud-detection mechanisms and

algorithms, while in parallel putting up punitive measures for those who game the system, like disregarding their data for a few months or “naming and shaming” them.

Also, funding the Rs 660-odd crore required to expand TAM’s panel size from 8,150 to 30,000 would appear somewhat less challenging, if BARC were to look at South Africa.

Formed in 1974, the South African Advertising Research Foundation (SAARF) collects a 0.5 percent “levy” on all advertising that takes place, which is then used to fund a comprehensive set of research activities through the year.

Mandating a trivial 1 percent levy (considering that most contracts have hidden “rebates” of 7.5-15 percent anyway) should generate Rs 130 crore annually, no mean sum considering TAM’s current fee income is estimated to be between Rs 40-50 crore.

How to Fix the TV AUDIENCE MEASUREMENT SYSTEM

homes too small a sample for India

SolutionProblem

8,150 TAM worked with the Amit Mitra committee to propose increasing that to 30,000 meters. Subscribers will need to foot the cost for the increase

Audience measurement for 650+ channels is tough. Consider separating the ‘long tail’ to a diff erent research eff ort

Ratings for niche and English channels very tough

The TAM system is constantly being gamed by corrupt stakeholders

TAM’s technology is expensive and outdated

Work with TAM on detecting frauds through statistical or technological validations, and penalising the violators

Harness a “return path” from millions of new DTH and digital cable set top boxes directly

TAM is a black box Invest time as an industry body to understand and improve TAM’s processes

One could always argue that broadcasters would be wary of being forced to give an additional discount of 1 percent, especially if advertisers refuse to pay the levy.

That’s where the industry would need to come together. And part of it would be to make ad contracts more transparent. Either ban secret “rebates” altogether or force broadcasters to disclose the exact amount they off er as “rebates”.

The internet can be a good role model here. For instance, Google and Facebook do not off er advertising rebates anywhere around the world. Google even off ers TV ads in the US market run through a real-time and transparent auction system.

Such transparency will shift the focus of media agencies away from volume discounts towards real research and results.

Thanks to advances in technology, it is now possible to improve the quality of TV research, while reducing costs. There are over 37 million DTH subscribers in the country currently, each powered by a relatively modern set top box that is aware of the channel being played. By utilising “return paths” in some boxes and adding them to others using inexpensive plug-in hardware, one could generate viewership data that is orders of magnitude better than today’s. TAM is already understood to be in close conversations with most DTH platforms.

But maybe the most important solution would be for advertisers—the folks who are currently spending Rs 13,000 crore on TV ads and most conspicuous by their relative silence around TAM’s criticism—to sit up and take control.

Disclosure: Forbes India is published by Network18, which also owns CNN-IBN, CNBC-TV18, IBN7, CNBC-Awaaz and other news and entertainment channels.

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the trust until London 2012; we are now going to fund it until Rio 2016.

Q Can you buy a result in sport? LM No. You can’t buy an Olympic medal, but if you keep putting yourself in a position to win, your percentages will be better.

Q What do you actually do with your chosen sportspersons?AM We create a programme for them depending on what the key requirements are. Usually, it’s a mixture of coaching as well as very specialised opportunities to train abroad or train with some specialists within the country.

Q What have you observed about the passion that’s needed?AB It’s very hard to do a whole lot else if you’re going to train eight to 10 hours a day. If an athlete doesn’t want that kind of

commitment, they’re not going to have success at the highest stage.

Q There is no other person/body in India giving as much to Indian sport as you are. Aren’t you doing what the Indian government should be doing?LM Yes. But to fi ght the system is too tough, so it is more eff ective to supplement and plug the holes.

Q Still, couldn’t the government be doing more?AB Everybody could be doing more. The government could do more because as a nation we’re not succeeding at the Games. The fi rst couple of years were very diffi cult. They off ered resistance. Slowly, as they understood that we’re a not-for-profi t, we’re only trying to help people, we’re ready to work alongside, we’re willing to support them in their endeavours, they’ve changed.

If Mahesh Bhupathi had the

chance to sit down with some of these decision-makers, he could teach them so much about how they could make more active, prudent and effi cient decisions.

Q How can India’s sports infrastructure improve? LM There is a lot of infrastructure. We need systems to better utilise it.

Q What do Indian athletes need to do to get their performances to peak level?LM Training, training, all types of training. They need to have a great physique, a great mind, and they should understand technique. They have to have a look at world-class players and see how they get gold medals.

Q Do Indian athletes need to spend more time abroad?LM Not necessarily, no. If we can provide good training in India, as we have done in the MCT, then other business houses can also do the same.

Q Aren’t you still a lone voice?LM No, I think other business houses seem to be getting interested now. They’re talking about it. So if we succeed here, I’m sure more business houses will come on board.

Q What diff erence has MCT made? LM Sport is a unique discipline where a lot of factors put together have to culminate to be able to get results. You have to put yourself in the position for victory and then hope for results. The MCT has given its athletes the best training, and everything else they might need. It has prepared them in the best possible way to put them in a position to win medals.

Chairman and CEO of ArcelorMittal, Lakshmi Mittal, set up the Mittal

Champions Trust (MCT) with son-in-law Amit Bhatia, founder and senior partner of private equity fund Swordfi sh Investments. CFO of ArcelorMittal and Lakshmi Mittal’s son, Aditya, is a trustee of the MCT along with Mahesh Bhupathi, former world number one tennis doubles player. Manisha Malhotra, who was part of the tennis team in the 2000 Sydney Olympics and also won mixed doubles silver in the 2002 Asian Games, is the CEO of the trust.

Q What is the aim of the MCT?LM To absolutely support individual sports. We have even decided to support for the next Olympics.

Q How was the MCT born?AM My father was instrumental in establishing it. Eight years ago, we both were at the Games in Greece. The Indian team [put up a poor show with Rajyavardhan Singh Rathore winning the lone silver], so it was a big disappointment. We felt we needed to change that. That was when the trust was established. We saw a few medals in Beijing and it’s just continued.

Q How much personal interest do you take?AB In terms of who guides the trust and gives it its vision, that comes from my father-in-law, me and Aditya. We try to give it its overall direction and shape. Manisha Malhotra runs the trust in India.

Q How much money have you put into the MCT?AB When we fi rst launched the trust, my father-in-law decided that we’ll invest $10 million in the corpus of the trust. We subsequently realised that to be able to run a sports initiative like this, having a set budget in mind P

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You Can’t Buy an Olympic MedalSteel magnate Lakshmi Mittal, who has set up the Mittal Champions Trust to nurture medal hopefuls, tells RANI SINGH that athletes have to position themselves for victory


U p f r ont /O l y m p i c s

To read the full interview, visit forbesindia.com

SON SHINE

Aditya Mittal, who

is a trustee of the

Mittal Champions

Trust, at the torch

relay in London

RALLYING ON Lakshmi

Mittal on the fi nal day of

the Olympic torch relay

in London on July 26,

2012. He has decided to

extend the funding of his

trust till Rio 2016

is very diffi cult. If, all of a sudden, an athlete needs reconstructive surgery, it’s not something you can budget for.

We send our athletes to all the best centres around the world. The boxers come to Bradford, the wrestlers go to Russia, Korea and Cuba. We realised

very quickly that things were very expensive, especially as the number of athletes went up to 40. So the number of $10 million was thrown out of the window a long time ago.

The other thing that changed was that we had decided we would fund

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Save for badminton, women’s boxing and shooting, performances were way below expectations



By V KRISHNASWAMY in London

championships. He went on to become No 2

in the US by end 1912. In 1914, he won the US

Open beating another Titanic survivor Karl

Behr, also from US, in the quarterfi nals.

OMEGA TIMES IT WITH DICKEN’S BICENTENARY

The House of St Barnabas, an 18th century

Georgian townhouse on Soho Square, has

been providing support for the homeless for

160 years. This house also has a connection

to Charles Dickens, whose bicentenary is

being marked this year. This house was used

as a model for the London lodgings of Dr

Manette and Lucie in A Tale of Two Cities,

which contrasts life in London and Paris

around the time of the French Revolution.

The house in Soho has one of the very

few remaining private gardens, called the

Secret Garden and it is now the Omega

House for the Olympics. The Garden

has a large screen TV; guests can relax

and watch events or simply party.

Each room has been designed to

complement a watch collection. The space-

themed Speedmaster Room, for example,

was named after the fi rst watch worn

on the moon in 1969 by Buzz Aldrin.

This venue was originally an accommodation

for the homeless. In 2006, it was closed and

re-launched as a ‘for-hire’ event venue and life

skills centre. The revenue generated is used

for charity. Much of the stylish re-modelling

done by Omega will stay and enhance the

value of the House after the Games.

BRITISH SOLDIER ROWS TO GOLD, LOOKS FORWARD TO POSTING IN AFGHANISTAN

British soldiers, who did duty in Afghanistan,

have been requisitioned at various places by

the LOCOG. They also contributed a gold medal

through Heather Stanning, a Sandhurst-trained

offi cer in the Royal Artillery, who had been on

special training leave since 2010. But once the

competition is over, the 27-year-old has set her

sights on a posting to Helmand, a province in

Afghanistan. Stanning was cheered by her Army

comrades in Afghanistan as she won Britain’s

fi rst rowing gold at Eton Dorney. She has been

enrolled on the unit’s next tour of the war-torn

province. She will be deployed later next year.

AWAY FROM PRYING EYES, A SAFE HOUSE FOR ATHLETES

Oakley, the eyewear company, has since 1996

She lost out to the eventual champion, Britain’s Nicola Adams. Still smiling in defeat, Mary Kom stole the hearts of 1.2 billion Indians by apologising for not winning a gold or silver.

Hey Mary, thank you for staying on for so long, when you could well have been forgiven for missing the Olympics and arranging for your twin sons’ fi fth birthday party on the day you fought your fi rst bout at the Olympics.

SHUTTLING TO GLORYIn a sport where Chinese intrigue dominates, Saina Nehwal has broken through in a manner reminiscent of Prakash Padukone making his way past a wall that had bricks of Indonesian, Chinese and Danish make embedded in it.

Back in the 1980s, when Padukone ploughed a lone furrow, it was him against the dominant Indonesians and a sprinkling of Chinese and Danish stars. Now it is Saina versus the Chinese.

Four years ago, as an 18-year-old, Saina was upset and on the verge of crying as she let go of an 11-4 lead and lost in the quarter-fi nals of the

women’s singles at Beijing. Now as a 22-year-old, she is mature beyond her years, and knows what an Olympic medal can do for her sport in India.

If she has any doubts on that, Pullela Gopichand, her coach, and one of the only two Indians to win the All England title, says, “This medal was important. Saina can and will do better, but an Olympic medal can change the face of Indian badminton. We have the depth and we need to nurse it for Rio [2016].” What he makes clear without saying it in so many words is that he also wants to take on the Chinese.

Saina got the bronze when her opponent Wang Xin conceded after the fi rst game on account of injury. But the medal should come without an asterisk, for Saina is among the fi ttest in her sport and she was showing all signs of fi ghting her way back as she moved from 14-20 to 18-20 before losing the fi rst game.

Saina’s performance may have overshadowed Parupalli Kashyap’s historic entry into men’s singles quarter-fi nals, but he has it in him to go higher. Jwala Gutta and V Diju may not have done justice to themselves in mixed doubles, but Jwala and Ashwini

Ponappa came within a whisker of making the knock-outs and they had it in them to challenge for a medal for, last year they won a bronze at the same venue in World Championships.

SHOOTING KEEPS THE STREAK GOINGShooting brought India a medal for the third successive Games. Beginning with Rajyavardhan Rathore’s silver in Athens, the winning streak continued with a gold from Abhinav Bindra in Beijing. There was no gold this time, but there were two medals—a bronze from Gagan Narang, and a silver from Vijay Kumar, who understandably felt hurt that he has been described as a ‘surprise’ medallist.

Fourth in the two-day qualifi cation, the rules of his event stipulated that all fi nalists begin with a clean slate once again. Kumar stayed among the top-3 all through the fi nal.

The medal did not surprise Kumar, who said, “I am the National champion since 2004; I won two gold medals with new Games Record in 2006 Melbourne Commonwealth Games; a gold and a bronze in Doha Asiad and a Silver in world Championship in China, three gold and a silver in 2010

A Collective Story of‘So Near, Yet So Far’

A DIFFERENT WIMBLEDON

The strawberries and cream were there

and so was the rain. But you will never

see another Olympic match at Wimbledon.

Nor will you see tennis players in colourful

clothing or a Wimbledon with no Pimms.

The ‘Home of Tennis” wore a diff erent look.

The green backdrops made way for the purple

screens with the London 2012 logo and Olympic

rings in white. The ‘whites only’ Wimbledon

clothing code was set aside as players turned out

in national colours. Serena Williams was dressed

in patriotic red, white and blue stars and stripes,

while Roger Federer marked the Swiss National

Day in red shirt, red bandana and white shorts.

The grassed Aorangi Terrace, known as

Henman Hill, too, was changed as the fl oral

Wimbledon logo was replaced by a colourful

Olympic rings display. There was no Pimms

either, because they are not the sponsors!

‘TITANIC’ SURVIVOR’S 88-YEAR-OLD REIGN ENDS IN MIXED DOUBLES

When Victoria Azarenka and Max Mirnyi of

Belarus won the mixed doubles, they took

over from the reigning Olympic mixed doubles

champions Richard Norris Williams and

Hazel Hotchkiss Wightman of the US, who

won the gold when the event was last played

in 1924. It ended their 88-year-old reign.

Williams, who died in June 1968, was a

survivor from the Titanic, which went down in

1912, exactly a 100 years ago. Williams spent

more than six hours in the freezing waters of

the Atlantic before his rescue. He was told that

his legs might have to be amputated. But he

preferred to walk in pain and the rest is history.

Williams, brought up in Switzerland,

and his father, Charles Duane Williams

were going to America on the Titanic to play

tournaments during the summer before

enrolling at Harvard University that autumn.

Charles was killed in the Titanic disaster.

Not only did Richard Williams refuse to

accept amputation, he walked through pain

and seven weeks later won the Pennsylvania

state championship followed by the clay court

DIARY NOTES

True, it is the best-ever medal haul from India. A tally of four medals

with one silver and three bronze is greater than the three won four years ago, but the absence of a gold makes it look thinner in quality.

The Indian story of the Games may well be MC Mary Kom. This, in a manner of speaking, was her fi rst and last shot at glory. She was the face her sport used to get women’s boxing into the Olympic agenda.

The 29-year-old mother of two has been candid enough to admit that she virtually lived to see the sport come to Olympic Games. And when it did, the federation and International Olympic Committee limited it to three weight categories—the lowest of which was still way above the one where Mary Kom had achieved all her glory.

Yet, Mary Kom was resilient enough to fi ght in a higher category. From 45 kg, where she began her career in 2001, she moved to 46 and then 48. At the Olympics she had to fi ght in the 51kg category. Shorter, and possessing metabolism that makes it diffi cult to gain weight, Mary Kom literally punched way above her weight.

India’s MC Mary Kom

(in red) defends against

Nicola Adams of Great

Britain (in blue) during the

women’s Flyweight boxing

semi-fi nals

Britain’s Helen Glover

and Heather StanningSerena Williams

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been running its ‘Athlete Safehouse’ where

limited non-athletic guests are invited, simply

because it is a place where athletes can spend

time with family and friends, who otherwise

cannot visit them in the Olympic Village.

Athletes from all over the globe drop in to

catch a meal, meet friends and surf the net.

Thee SafeHouse, where athletes can also

get their customised eyewear assembled,

took more than two-and-a-half years and

millions of dollars to prepare. Staff ed by over

40 people, it is located right next to Tower

Bridge at the posh London Design Museum.

IOC LOOKS AT COACHES, TOO, IN BADMINTON CONTROVERSY

Badminton had its moment—well, much more

than a moment—of shame as players indulged

in ‘match-fi xing’ in front of millions of viewers

in women’s doubles badminton. The players

were disqualifi ed and sent home, but an upset

International Olympic Committee is taking the

matter further ahead, and has asked for an

inquiry into the coaches and team offi cials.

“We have asked to look into it to see if

there are any issues to answer similarly for

the coaches,” said IOC spokesman Mark

Adams. “It’s important to make sure it’s

not just the athletes that are punished.”

Eight women badminton players, including

four from Korea and two each from China

and Indonesia were disqualifi ed for trying to

lose their group matches in a bid to secure

favourable draw in the knock-out stage.

Li Yongbo, head coach of the Chinese

badminton team, apologised in public.

“As the head coach, I owe the fans

and the Chinese an apology,” Li said.

“Chinese players failed to demonstrate

their fi ghting spirit. It’s me to blame.”

NOT BITTER-SWEET, BUT “BITTER-TWEET” !

On the day of the Double Trap, 2004 Athens

silver medallist Rajyavardhan Rathore

tweeted: “The two other WR holders are in

the fi nals: Fokeev of RUS and Peter of UK..

Ind Shooting federation decided to keep the

3rd WR holder out.” The reference was to

himself, as he shares the world record! For

the record, Peter Wilson won the gold, and

India’s Ronjan Sodhi, who shot a blank in

his third last shot, failed to make the fi nal.


Badminton seems to produce a string of

modest superstars. Prakash Padukone,

the late Syed Modi, Pullela Gopichand

and now Saina Nehwal. And there are

a few more in the assembly line.

Padukone started it back in 1994 with

his Prakash Padukone Badminton Academy.

Gopichand started his academy around

2004. Now between the two academies,

results are beginning to show.

Soon after Nehwal’s medal-winning

performance , Gopichand said, “An Olympic

medal will raise awareness and bring in

more sponsors overall for the sport.”

There is no denying the fact that

India is slowly but steadily growing

into a major force in badminton.

“There are a lot of youngsters coming

up. It is tough to single out players, but

there are players like PV Sindhu (No 26

among women), Sourabh Varma, Sameer

Varma, Guru Saidutt and many others,”

adds Gopichand, when pushed for names.

For the record, India has 10 players in

the world’s top-100 among men, the same as

Malaysia, while China has only fi ve (but all are

in the top-20). Denmark has nine in the top-100

and Indonesia seven. So, that should make India

a badminton superpower. The only diff erence is

that none of the Indians are in top-20, but it is

only a matter of time before this talent explodes

onto the world stage. Among women, India,

led by Saina Nehwal, has four in the world’s

top-100 and another two at No. 101 and 104.

INDIACAN BECOME A WORLD FORCE IN BADMINTON

India’s Saina Nehwal

kisses her bronze medal

Tournament referee Torsten Berg speaks to

players from China and South Korea during their

women’s doubles badminton match

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Commonwealth Games and two bronze in Guangzhou Asian Games. So, if my medal has still surprised people and media I can’t help it.”

For Narang, who has tasted success in every major competition, a bronze might have seemed small compensation.

Ronjan Sodhi’s participation and failure in double trap elicited unfair and veiled barbs. But considering these were his fi rst Games and he shot very well for 72 of the 75 shots before faltering in the last three, he does not deserve to be dismissed.

The collective story of ‘so-near-and-yet-so-far’ belonged to shooter Joydeep Karmakar, who fi nished fourth in 50m prone, and to boxers Devendro Singh and Vijender Singh, who lost in quarter-fi nals, one bout away from a bronze medal. Discus duo Vikas Gowda and Krishna Poonia may have made the fi nal,

which was creditable, but a medal was always out of their reach.

Of the three who won medals four years ago, gold medallist Abhinav Bindra and bronze medallist Vijender failed to land another medal. Sushil Kumar, who was still to get into the ring at the time of writing, does have a chance in 66 kg freestyle wrestling.

Athletes, barring the discus duo Vikas Gowda in men and Krishna Poonia among women, who made the fi nal, were disappointing. The tennis contingent did little to justify the brouhaha they created at the time of selection. The much-hyped archery contingent of six never progressed beyond the second round and the hockey team was unable to win a single league game.

The rest like table tennis, judo, rowing, swimming and weightlifting did what they were expected to—which was making up numbers.

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CREDIBLE INDIA

Stone me for saying this. But say, I must. The great Indian obsession with wanting to be a great power is utterly impractical, completely undesirable and totally

nonsensical. What I would like India to be instead is a great nation. I refuse to be a part of “Incredible India”. What I want is to be part of “Credible India”. This, for two reasons:� Great powers destroy, great nations nurture. Destruction demands cruelty. Nurturing demands compassion. I believe in compassion.� Great powers are built by rulers. Great nations are built by citizens who have as much a chance to take a stab at greatness as their leaders. I believe in equality.

Both of my beliefs, as much as they are intensely personal, are rooted in history as well.

The obsession with being a power-based state can be traced to the works of Niccolò Machiavelli, the 15th Century Italian historian, diplomat, humanist and writer. Machiavelli’s fundamental thesis was based on his observations of the very brutal methods Cesare Borgia and his father Pope Alexander VI used to build a state. I don’t intend to get into the specifi cs, except that Borgia was a failure because he had accumulated power on the back of his father’s infl uence and under the guise of protecting the interests of the Church. After his father’s death, he was arrested by Pope Julius II and that was the end of Machiavelli’s hero.

A GREAT DIVIDE Political leaders enjoy disproportionate importance in India. This is evident everytime a leader travels—traffi c is diverted and roads are

cleared to make way for the cavalcade of offi cial vehicles, inconveniencing citizens greatly. In this picture, students are seen walking during a mock security

drill ahead of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's visit to Jammu in November 2004

C O V E R S T O R Y ]

Hope is the most important input for growth in any country. All hope asks for is focus to build a nation that is humble, compassionate and above all else, a great one By SUNDEEP WASLEKARI NDIA


But for whatever reasons, when Machiavelli wrote his treatise The Prince, on power and how it ought to be exercised, he chose to ignore Borgia’s failures. Instead, he focussed on Borgia’s life where he had accumulated power. The fallacy in looking only at this part is that you ignore the fact that when power is acquired through all available means,

credibility is overlooked. And when credibility is given the pass, as Borgia discovered, you have to cede ground.

Unfortunately, contemporary history is fi lled with instances of rulers, nations and businesses that subscribe to the Machiavellian school. Without exception, over time, all failed. Be it the Roman, the French or the British empires, all of them have

been liquidated. As for the American empire, it is now teetering on the brink of collapse. What is common to all of them is a veneer of arrogance.

Much the same thing can be said of corporate behaviour. Take some of the Indian companies operating in Africa. There are many that have made a mark exporting agricultural produce in collusion with local

politicians. They get free water, land at subsidised prices and the labour they employ work in inhuman conditions. What is common to all of them is that they work with corrupt regimes, dictatorships, or both.

In the long run, the model is unsustainable because corrupt regimes and dictatorships collapse and take the business models

they support with them.The idea terrifi es me. As I look

around, there seems an almost uniform consensus on building a nation that wants to be feared and respected. India is now part of the G20. What the government wanted was a place on the G10 table, comprising what used to be the G8 with China and India now included. We thump our chests with pride each time a new weapon is added to our military arsenal. We high-fi ve when an Indian business acquires assets in another part of the world. But how does an “Incredible India” matter if it isn’t a “Credible India” we’re building?

Of the almost 600 districts in India, 200 are infested with Naxalites. How many people, of their own free will, without being coerced, will support Naxalism? Nobody. Because Naxalism, like every insurgent movement supported by terror, is suicidal. Terrorists I’ve met with know if you kill, you will eventually get killed. To that extent, anybody who participates in terrorism is participating in suicide.

Which brings me to the next question: Why would anybody participate in suicide? Surely, it ought to be desperation. Consider, for instance, the following.� Twenty years ago, the average productivity of a cow or a buff alo in both India and China was in the region of 1,000-2,000 litres of milk each year. An Indian buff alo continues to deliver the same yields, while an animal bred in China delivers fi ve times as much. Why? What is it about the Indian dairy farmer that holds him back?� India is a rain-dependent nation. But on average, only 38 percent of

arable land is irrigated. Solutions like drip irrigation are available to redress the problem. But only a meagre 5 percent of available land has seen this solution. Why don’t Indian farmers demand drip irrigation?� There are roughly 450 million people in India that make up our work force. Of these, 90 percent haven’t completed school education. Why? Because, of the 630,000 villages in India, over 500,000 don’t have

Sundeep Waslekar is the president of Strategic Foresight Group, a think tank based in India that advises governments and institutions around the world on managing future challenges.

He was instrumental in creating the concept of The Cost of Confl ict in the Middle East, based on a complex set of parameters, which has since then become the main tool for negotiations in the region. He also crafted the concept of Blue Peace, which looks at how water can be used as an instrument of peace. Switzerland has adopted this concept as part of its state policy, and the Swedish and British governments will soon follow suit.

He has worked with or on 50 countries and has presented these new policy concepts at committees of the Indian Parliament, the European Parliament, the Houses of Commons and Lords in the UK, the United Nations Alliance of Civilizations and the World Economic Forum, among others.

Waslekar, who graduated from the Oxford University with a BA in Philosophy, Politics and Economics in 1983, has been involved in parallel diplomatic exercises to fi nd common ground in times of crisis. Since the mid-1990s, he has facilitated dialogues between the Indian and Pakistani governments and Kashmiri leaders as well as between leaders of Western and Islamic countries after 9/11.

Waslekar has also authored several books, essays and research reports. His most recent book, the Marathi bestseller Eka Dishecha Shodh on new directions for India’s future, is into its eighth edition, in about one-and-a-half years, and has also been translated into Urdu and Hindi. He was conferred D.Litt (Honoris Causa) of Symbiosis International University by the President of India in December 2011.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

CITIZENSHIP EQUIVALENCE Jyrki Katainen (l),

Finnish fi nance minister and chairman of the National

Coalition Party, and Swedish Prime Minister Fredrik

Reinfeldt meet Finnish voters in downtown Helsinki,

Finland in April 2011. Scandinavian countries serve as

a great example of the fact that societies where there

are no power disparities tend to be prosperous

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Even though they started on the development journey around the same time as India, countries like Turkey, Israel, Malaysia, Singapore and South Korea have gathered signifi cant momentum in recent years.There’s a common pattern in the manner in which these countries have embarked on their path to development


schools that can provide education above Class VII. Without a doubt, labour productivity is linked to education. Why does the Indian labourer not demand education?

The most important input for growth in any country is hope. Unfortunately, most Indians haven’t seen hope. And all hope asks for is focus and ingenuity to build a nation that is humble, compassionate and above all else, a great one.

Yet, across the world, a clutch of nations started on the same journey as we did, of moving from a developing nation to a developed nation. And in the last 20-30 years, countries like South Korea, Turkey, Malaysia, Israel and Singapore have begun to nudge ahead of us. They’ve pursued a set of priorities, succeeded in pulling a larger mass of people out of poverty, emphasised technological innovation and made equally good progress in social spheres like education and healthcare (see graphic 'Path to Prosperity').

So, what did they do diff erently from us? After research and conversations with people from across the world, I have come to believe that there are fi ve common themes that these nations have used to infuse their people with hope and put themselves on the path to greatness.

THEME #1: WHERE THE RULED

AND RULERS ARE ON PAR

Back in 2002, while I was working on peace issues in the Middle East with the Turkish government, Recep Tayyip Erdogan of the AK Party had just come into power. In those days, Turkey was a nation with power concentrated in the hands of the military elite and a charmed circle of industrialists from Istanbul. It wasn’t surprising, therefore, to fi nd large numbers of discontented and unemployed people there.

On assuming power, Erdogan moved into a two-storey house in downtown Ankara and ruled that all ministers and members of Parliament ought to live in their own homes. In a speech delivered at the Turkish Parliament he argued, “If you want to be representatives of people, you must live and work with your people.” He then proceeded to take away other privileges they enjoyed.

He followed it up by calling in people from the construction business and asking them to reduce invoices he reckoned were infl ated or face being blacklisted for all government projects. He also made it clear that any compromise on quality, durability or deadlines in building roads, dams or other projects with public money

would attract severe penalties. He then moved to provide

special grants to the poorest and incentives to small businesses in an attempt to provide a fi llip to the rural economy. He issued orders that his government focus on education in the most backward provinces of Turkey. Five years was all it took to eff ect a transformation. The party came back to power in 2007 and again last year. It was the kind of change that took Southeast Asian countries almost two decades.

There are doubts whether Turkey will be able to sustain this momentum. But a beginning has been made with strong foundations.

It is to be seen whether they can take it further because 10 years is too short a time to judge a country.

Then there is Singapore. It is a benevolent dictatorship led by the Lee Kuan Yew family. But, despite being a dictatorship, it has a system in place that allows people to impose checks and balances on the ruler. Elections in Singapore are a farce and a candidate can be jailed if anybody representing Lee Kuan Yew is defeated. It can be argued, therefore, that Singapore suff ers from a democratic defi cit.

But let’s ignore this defi cit for a moment. In Singapore, if any parliamentary or party offi cial gives telephonic instructions to a bureaucrat, and the bureaucrat complains; or if any minister or parliamentarian does anything to harass a citizen and the citizen complains; the minister or the parliamentarian can be jailed. If a bureaucrat does not respond to an inquiry in three weeks, he can be punished. What it means is there are checks and balances that constrain the ruler’s power at an operational level.

Examples of the impact accountability holds exist in India as well. The contrasts are most obvious if you place Sikkim on the one hand and Jammu & Kashmir on the other. Both lie in the lap of the Himalayas. Sikkim has the Chinese to contend with and J&K the Pakistanis. Sikkim has Christians and Buddhists and J&K has Muslims, all national minorities, as the majority population and both have had controversial histories of accession to India. Both remain poor.

But Jammu & Kashmir has been plagued by insurgency and violence while Sikkim is one of the most peaceful states in the country. This, in spite of the fact that Kashmir gets more Central funding than Sikkim! Probe deeper and you realise this is a function of the relationship between

THE PATH TO PROSPERITY

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MAKE PUBLIC SERVANTS ACCESSIBLEThis was done by eliminating special privileges for elected representatives.

EXAMPLESIn Israel, there is no special housing available even for Cabinet ministers.

ATTACK THE PERIPHERYFocus next on the most backward regions in the country, rather than wait for the principles of trickle-down theory to take root.

EXAMPLESTurkey focussed fi rst on Anatolia, one of the most backward and poorest parts of the country.

DRIVE PRIVATISATION OF STATE ENTERPRISESTo raise monies, the government pushed through a major privatisation programme.

EXAMPLESTurkey relied on 3G telecom auctions to raise funds for infrastructure development. Private fi rms were encouraged to bid for them in an open, transparent manner.

PUSH FOR FREE ENTERPRISE AND AN OPEN ECONOMYAcross the board, private enterprises were allowed to fi ll the gap created by the withdrawal of state enterprises. Simultaneously, the infl ow of foreign direct investment was encouraged. That resulted in a more competitive private sector which in turn enhanced productivity growth and accelerated growth.

BUILD EXPERTISE IN CUTTING-EDGE SCIENCE AND TECHNOLOGYDespite other disadvantages, Israel, Singapore and South Korea have invested behind cutting-edge science and technology.

EXAMPLESEven though Singapore could draw water from neighbouring Malaysia till 2062, Singapore developed its own waste water treatment technology to achieve water independence nearly 50 years ahead of schedule. It is now selling that technology to West Asian countries and Africa.

BUILDING PUBLIC WORKSTo kick-start the cycle of investment demand, the government typically starts building public infrastructure.

EXAMPLESMalaysia built roads, bridges, ports and highways in a conscious attempt to boost its economy.

1ROOT OUT CORRUPTIONThat's usually the main element of the reform process. Most of these nations succeeded in reducing corruption levels pretty substantially by empowering bureaucrats to act without fear or favour.

EXAMPLESIn Singapore, bureaucrats were insulated from political interference by a legislative fi at. South Korea used e-governance to remove the state’s discretionary powers from a variety of areas.


IN A COUNTRY OF 1.2 BLN PEOPLE, IF

ONLY A 100 MLN ARE ALLOWED TO USE

THEIR POTENTIAL TO THE FULLEST, UN-

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the rulers and the common people. Sikkim’s economy is balanced

towards development. The society there has worked out an informal contract and the emphasis is on a balanced relationship between the leadership and the people. In J&K, inequality has existed since the 1950s, with one family calling the shots.

Wherever power disparities exist, economic and social disparity follow and lead to violence. But where balance exists, human development and non-violence come into play—the outcome of which is always hope.

THEME #2: WHERE EVERYBODY

FEELS THEY BELONG

Where disproportionate importance is given to leaders, societies don’t progress. Scandinavian countries serve as great examples.

There was this one instance when a woman in her early 60s arrived at Zurich airport after a long international fl ight. A friend of mine, Jean Daniel Ruch, met her there and the two of them got onto a train headed for Bern, the Swiss capital. Because the train was crowded, the older woman occupied a seat near the door while my friend stood next to her.

When the ticket controller came in, he pointed out politely to the lady that her seat was reserved for the physically challenged and that she ought to vacate it. The lady complied. Passengers witnessing the episode didn’t off er her their seats either and she travelled standing all the way to Bern.

She was Micheline Calmy-Rey, foreign minister and former President of Switzerland. She is to Switzerland what Sonia Gandhi is to India. My friend serves as a senior ambassador with the Swiss foreign ministry and was the only offi cer assigned to receive Calmy-Rey at

the airport. When this incident was recounted to me, I thought it stunning and included the anecdote in my book, Eka Dishecha Shodh.

Last year, Calmy-Rey was re-elected as President. I met her at the launch of a report prepared by the think tank I head in partnership with the Swiss and Swedish governments, where I presented her an English translation of the book. She fl ipped through it and quietly told me: “The ticket controller did not ask me to get up politely. He was rude and ordered me to vacate right away.” Earlier this year, at the height of her political career, Calmy-Rey retired from politics.

Then there was this time I met former Swiss President Joseph Deiss at Geneva railway station. We went around looking for a café to chat. But every place was packed and nobody cared it was Deiss looking for a table. When we fi nally found a place, the waiter took our orders and treated us as he would other customers. Last year, Deiss was appointed president of the United Nations General Assembly.

I often contrast this with my experiences in India. Years ago, I accompanied a group of Indian parliamentarians to the Maldives. They all had economy class air tickets. At Thiruvananthapuram airport, however, offi cials downgraded fare-paying business class passengers to upgrade the parliamentarians. Only one MP protested.

I’ve often wondered what explains incidents like these! Citizenship

equivalence, I guess! That is perhaps why India, in spite of having more natural resources than Sweden or Switzerland hasn’t yet gotten to the path of becoming a great nation.

By no means am I suggesting the task here is an easy one. Theoretically, in a country of 1.2 billion people, if only a 100 million are allowed to use their potential to the fullest, unrest is inevitable. In India, agricultural

producers comprise 60 percent of the labour population. But their contribution to the GDP is 20 percent. That is both unfortunate and undesirable. One of the reasons why this discrepancy exists is because farmers experience trade barriers, like the Agricultural Produce Market Committee (APMC), which puts serious restrictions on whom they can sell to. And solutions that exist in the

form of co-operatives often operate as monopolies in the hands of political families who do everything they can to prevent the competing co-operatives.

Exceptions exist—like the Milk and Milk Product Order, which was diluted 10 years ago. Until then, dairy farmers were prevented from operating in the open market. While there is still some way to go, this move has had an impact,

the outcome of which is growth of packaged milk and milk products.

If growth is the mandate, the agricultural economy has to be liberalised and producers set free. Because when farmers and rural industries have access to a steady income, they will invest in improving productivity. That, in turn, will push everybody into building a country where the ruling

FOR THE PEOPLE Justice and Development

Party (AKP) supporters celebrate their party's

victory in the 2002 Turkish general elections.

The party's plank: Give people what they really

want, that is, justice and development


“IF YOU WANT TO BE REPRESENTATIVES

OF PEOPLE, YOU MUST LIVE

AND WORK WITH YOUR PEOPLE”

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class and citizens are equals. To start the process, though, one

question needs to be answered. Do you expend energies into getting into the Top 10 in terms of GDP? Or do you focus on getting the Human Development Index (HDI), where India has consistently ranked below 120, to higher levels? What a low HDI means is that for all the GDP growth and the consequent prosperity, development is superfi cial at best.

THEME #3: WHERE INNOVATION IS

WOVEN INTO THE SOCIAL FABRIC

Why aren’t Indians innovating enough? Is it because the Indian idea of innovation is cost cutting or process innovation—also known by another fancy term, frugal engineering—as opposed to original research?

I had the opportunity to interact with Stef Wertheimer, chairman of the ISCAR group, near Haifa in Israel. ISCAR specialises in industrial cutting tools and blades. Wertheimer contributes to about 10 percent of Israel’s GDP through his various business ventures and is to Israel what Ratan Tata is to India.

I asked him what the secret of his success is. He off ered to show me around the fourth fl oor of the building he operates in, where at least 1,700-1,800 of the best research engineers in the country focus on original research. The secret, he said, is ruthless focus. Each year, he retains only the best among them and retrenches those he reckons are at the bottom of the pyramid. But because the retrenched people are so good, they are much sought after by others or launch startups, and innovation spreads.

Why don’t episodes like this occur in India? At the risk of sounding repetitive, Indians who matter and can catalyse change are too focussed on their balance sheets as opposed to innovation.

In 2003-2004, I visited the Centre for Innovation in Global Governance (CIGI), a think tank operating out of a brewery in Waterloo, a small town in Canada. The Prime Minister of Canada at the time, Paul Martin, had mandated that they conceptualise what he called the L-20, where L was an acronym for “Leaders”.

Unfortunately, Martin lost the elections and the idea was shelved. It was set into motion again after the fi nancial crisis of 2008, when President George Bush revisited the theme. The only diff erence was that it is now called the G-20.

But, to get back to the point, the

man behind CIGI was neither a diplomat nor a researcher. He was Jim Balsillie, founder of Research in Motion, better known as the makers of Blackberry—another matter altogether that Blackberry ran into trouble with its shareholders and Balsillie had to give up his responsibilities at RIM. But, with the

benefi t of hindsight, his contribution to international governance has been outstanding. Thanks to his eff orts, G-20 is now operational. Balsillie is also the main supporter of Perimeter Institute of Theoretical Physics, based in Waterloo. As for CIGI, it works on policy prescriptions for R

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reforming institutions such as the International Atomic Energy Agency, Financial Stability Forum, and the international monetary system.

In India, I can only think of the Tatas who founded the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR) and Tata Institute of Social Sciences (TISS). I guess

that is why when Balsillie visited India, he was surprised that despite having precedents of the kind set by the Tatas, Indian businesses aren’t thinking about how to promote original research in physics, maths, governance and international relations.

His surprise isn’t misplaced. In the next two to three decades, the fourth industrial revolution will be underway. The fi rst industrial revolution took place in late 18th Century, the second in the late 19th Century, and computerisation is the third. The fourth includes genomics, nanotechnology and robotics (GNR). These apart, expect breakthroughs in space technology, renewable energy and water technologies. All of these will transform the world.

India has to decide whether it wants to be a great power by servicing multinationals and providing software engineers who work at the low end of the cost curve, or be a lead player in the new revolution.

THEME #4: WHERE EDUCATION

IS CENTRAL

Educational institutions are important because the talent needed to prime people for the fourth revolution can come only out of educational institutions.

When the fi rst and second industrial revolutions took place, India was a colony and couldn’t participate. During the third revolution, India made headway and managed to garner revenues and exposure. GNR, along with space, energy and water technologies, is a low-capital-intensive revolution. To set up laboratories, capital requirements are low. What is needed is human capital. To do that, India needs to innovate.

A single school that can accommodate 700 children using brick and mortar will take an awfully long time and cost on average Rs 2 crore. Add to these numbers the fact that there exists a defi cit of one million teachers. What can be done is obvious.

The government allows anybody to set up a community radio station that covers a radius of 25 kilometres. If this technology were deployed into

education, a few crore of rupees and the 700,000 villages with no access to schools suddenly become accessible. India has a satellite in orbit as well, which is meant to be used exclusively for education. Any institution can use it to impart remote education to children in Naxalite-aff ected areas in central and northern India; or to the schools located in diffi cult-to-access regions such as the North East.

THEME #5: WHERE RELATIONSHIPS

MATTER ABOVE ALL ELSE

I believe relationships ought to be preserved immaculately—be they immediate ones, in the neighbourhood or those of strategic signifi cance—else, the outcomes can be disastrous. It has been demonstrated that minus good relationships with neighbours, it is possible to be a great power, but impossible to evolve into a great nation. Turn once again to the Turkish and Scandinavian models.

In Turkey, soon after Erdogan took over, even as he managed the country, he devoted attention to relationships with countries in the South and East. He fi gured it could be a trading opportunity for the Turks. So he extended an arm of friendship to Syria and created a free trade zone. Not just that, he focussed on removing internal trade barriers and increasing mobility. He was also Israel’s most trusted partner.

During the course of my stint in Middle Eastern diplomacy, the Syrian foreign minister once rolled out a peace plan with Israel. The

THE OBJECTIVE OF THE SCANDINAVIAN

MODEL WAS TO BUILD NATIONS

NOBODY THINKS OF ATTACKING

--------

TOWARDS PEACE Villagers in Manipur's

Kumbi village protest against the controversial

Armed Forces Special Powers Act (AFSPA)

in August 2004. AFSPA gives troops the

right to arrest and shoot suspected rebels.

Power and its physical manifestation—

force—can only counter terrorism, not stop it.

Deconstructing terror demands creation

of new kinds of social contracts

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only condition he placed on the table was that it ought to be facilitated by Turkey. That said, I must also point out that in the last couple of years, Turkey’s relationships with both Israel and Syria have taken a backseat.

As for Scandinavia, the model is of interest because I often wonder how to contain terrorism. Why is it that terrorists don’t think of attacking

countries like Norway or Sweden? Whenever violence erupts, they are incidents triggered by maniacal individuals—not secessionist outfi ts. This is because the Scandinavian model represents that of a great nation. Their objective was not to build a security infrastructure because there is only so long and so often it can counter attacks; but to build

nations nobody thinks of attacking. Countering terror is a physical act

as opposed to deconstructing terror which is an intellectual exercise. It demands you create new kinds of social contracts in the country. But if you insist on living only by power and its physical manifestation—force—then you only think of countering terrorism. Therefore, it ought to be

deconstructed. Problem is, India hasn’t thought along those lines yet and it cannot happen overnight.

THE WAY FORWARD

First, ask the most basic of all questions. Ought a nation to measure its success in terms of GDP growth or in terms of the human development quotient?

I believe nations that measure success in terms of GDP are prone to violent disruptions. That, to my mind, explains our susceptibility to terrorists. Norway, on the other hand, has a stated policy that policing will be kept to the minimum. That explains why Scandinavian countries are of no interest to terrorists. When you elicit no response, what

is the incentive in attempting?In making this transition,

disruption is inevitable. But you could choose between managed positive disruption, or enforced violent disruption.

To understand this, turn to Turkey once again. What happened there was that a group of politicians got together and built new terms of reference for what a nation ought to be like. To do that, they hired a market research agency to ask people what they want. Everything people said boiled down to two words—justice and development. Armed with this insight, the Justice and Development Party was formed—the acronym for which in Turkish is AKP—and is now in power.

Eff ectively, they used modern tools from mainstream business to understand grassroots problems and arrive at a political conclusion. They presented their fi ndings and agenda to the people and got elected into offi ce.

In Singapore, though, change was imposed. In the process, it compromised on civil liberties.

However, they’ve achieved 70-80 percent of what they set out to do.

Change in Malaysia was similar to what happened in Turkey. In 1968, following racial riots, leaders cutting across communities came together and agreed they wouldn’t allow violence to happen again. So they made a constitutional amendment that mandated any elected cabinet to have representatives of the three major races in the country. They realised political engineering can be used to resolve other problems as well, including economic ones.

I don’t see any signs of that happening in India. My beliefs compel me to argue that what India suff ers from is a crisis of vision, ethics and courage. Put these values together and what you have is statesmanship. That is why even 60 years after his death, Mahatma Gandhi is still remembered. He had an ethical code, and courage. Lee Kuan Yew, the fi rst prime minister of Singapore, is someone I think of in that mould. He once told me something interesting—that one of the driving forces in his life was a nursery rhyme.

Humpty Dumpty sat on a wall,Humpty Dumpty had a great fall,and all the king’s horses,and all the king’s men,couldn’t put Humpty together again. He said he read it a few times

every single day after he became prime minister. Because, he said, it underscores an important political statement. If your national resources, whether human, natural, or entrepreneurial, fail and go out, all the kings, their men and horses can’t put them together again. “So I had to create a vested interest in the nation of Singapore, not by using power but by using ideas.”

He couldn’t have put it any better. Great nations are built on the back of ideas—not force.

FOR ALL THE GDP GROWTH AND THE

CONSEQUENT PROSPERITY,

DEVELOPMENT IS SUPERFICIAL

AT BEST--------


INNOVATIVE SOLUTIONS An irrigation system

sprays recycled waste water on a fi eld in Israel.

The country has developed a billion-dollar

industry by marketing its waste water reuse

technologies. India remains a rain dependent

nation. Solutions like drip irrigation are

available, but a meagre 5 percent of available

land has seen this solution I NDIA

GuardiansOF THE FLAMETwo of the greatest institutions that

have shaped Independent India are its bureaucracy and judiciary. The

bureaucracy is the backbone of the country’s structure of governance, a term in abundant use these days mostly for its absence. Yet there are individuals within the system who envision small but powerful ideas that bring us one more inch closer to the idea of India when it was born. Forbes India showcases nine of them in this special edition. They were not chosen through a process, by rank or by any method. Neither are they the only ones. They were picked simply because each one of them has done something to make the life of ordinary people a little better.

Then there is chief justice SH Kapadia. One of the most extraordinary judges, Kapadia has brought an ascetic purity to the Supreme Court. He is what we Indians call a Karmayogi.


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Pilgrim of JUSTICE

By DINESH NARAYANAN

progress from being an advocate to becoming a judge and have the honour of living in those very same salubrious surroundings, Parsi Khabar, an online community web site, reported Mistree as saying.

Many years later, when Kapadia became a judge at the Bombay High Court, he always sat in court room number three on the ground fl oor, which perplexed many because as judges rose in seniority they also moved up the courthouse building. Kapadia revealed the reason why he was fond of the room when he was

invited to tea at the Bar just before taking over as the Chief Justice of the Uttaranchal High Court in 2003. Early in his career as a low-grade employee, he used to end up at the Fountain area near the court for work. He didn’t have anywhere to go to spend his lunch break. For three years lunch often used to be a small cone of roasted chana (gram) and courtroom number three was the place to relax because it let in good breeze. A lawyer in Mumbai who was present says that Kapadia recalled how his interest in law was fuelled

by the sessions in that courtroom. Kapadia began his career as a

grade four employee with Behramjee Jeejeebhoy where his main job was to deliver case briefs to lawyers. Behramjee Jeejeebhoy was the owner of seven villages in Bombay and had a lot of land revenue as well as a number of land-related disputes to settle. Those cases were handled by Gagrat and Company where a young lawyer, Ratnakar D Sulakhe, used to work.

“Sarosh used to come very regularly to our offi ces. That is how I fi rst met him. He had a keen interest in law G

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I N D E P E N D E N C E D AY S P E C I A L

The judicial function a judge performs is the spiritual function of a man, says SH Kapadia, Chief Justice of India

A judge, by virtue of his chosen profession, chooses to become an ascetic, distant from

the society he lives in, yet immersed in it so deep that he is confronted with the rawness of its existential struggle every day. Chief Justice of India SH Kapadia is a person who understands it too well.

“A judge must inevitably choose to be a little aloof and isolated from the community at large. He should not be in contact with lawyers, individuals or political parties, their leaders or ministers unless it be on purely social occasions,’’ Kapadia said while delivering the MC Setalvad Memorial lecture on Judicial ethics in April 2011.

Since taking over as the Chief Justice on May 12, 2010, Kapadia has worked tirelessly to restore the diminishing dignity and credibility of the Supreme Court as the fi nal forum for justice seekers. With a single stroke of the pen, he stopped reckless mining in Bellary. He disqualifi ed the crucial appointment of Central Vigilance Commissioner (CVC) reminding the prime minister and his government that processes must stand the test of integrity. In the Vodaphone case, Kapadia pointed out that laws are not open to unduly liberal interpretations. A corporate lawyer said that the

Vodafone judgement reinforced to the world the independence of the country’s judiciary.

In a few days a Constitution Bench headed by Kapadia will decide on the Presidential Reference made to it after the SC quashed 122 telecom licences and asked the government to conduct auctions to allocate natural resources. He is also expected to frame guidelines for the media on reporting on matters that are being heard in court.

Chief Justice Kapadia will be remembered for some of the landmark judgements he delivered. And the way he lived as a judge will never be forgotten. It can only be called exemplary. In a now famous and widely quoted letter that he wrote to former Justice VR Krishna Iyer, Kapadia said: “I come from a poor family. I started my career as

a class IV employee and the only asset I possess is integrity...’’

EARLY DAYSThe destiny of Sarosh Homi Kapadia was uncertain when he was born on September 29, 1947 in a nation that came into existence barely six weeks before him. Not many people in the world who watched the birth of India gave it a chance as a democracy. The odds were stacked against Kapadia at birth because unlike the illustrious Parsis of Bombay, his father had grown up in a Surat orphanage and had worked as a lowly defense clerk. His mother Katy was a homemaker. The family could barely make ends meet but that did not weaken their robust values.

“My father taught me not to accept obligations from anyone, and my mother taught me the ethical morality of life,’’ Kapadia recalled at a Bombay Parsi Panchayet felicitation when he became CJI. Young Sarosh, however, had decided that he would make his own destiny. He wanted to become a judge and nothing else.

At the felicitation, Panchayet trustee Khojeste Mistree talked about his student days. Kapadia would walk down Narayan Dhabolkar Road in Mumbai, past the Rocky Hill fl ats, where a number of judges lived, and dream that one day he would

❯ PROFILE

Chief Justice of India. In his long legal career, he has served a lawyer at Bombay Bar, a Bombay High Court Judge, a Special Court Judge, Uttaranchal Chief Justice, Judge Supreme Court

❯ HIS ACHIEVEMENT

He is one of the fi nest judges and administrators. He has redefi ning judgeship

SAROSH HOMI KAPADIA

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Salve elaborated on the evolution of environmental jurisprudence in India.

UNSHAKEABLE INTEGRITYThere are two qualities of Justice Kapadia that no one disputes— integrity and compassion.

“His humble beginnings are refl ected in his outlook and judgements,’’ says senior lawyer Soli Sorabjee. “A litigant may

feel disappointed if he loses the case but no litigant goes back [from Kapadia’s court] feeling he was not fairly or fully heard.’’

In his pursuit of fl awless integrity, Kapadia has hermetically sealed himself. He even said in a speech that judges and lawyers should work like a horse and live like a hermit. When Forbes India sought to interview him for this profi le, the CJ’s offi ce said the strict code of conduct binding Supreme Court judges does not allow him to agree. Kapadia’s personal code of conduct is more severe. Retired Justice VR Krishna Iyer told Forbes India that he had gathered from his colleagues that he was too dignifi ed to even meet other judges, rarely meets anybody at random and when he speaks he is taciturn.

Kapadia does not accept even offi cial invitations if they fall on a working day. He once rejected an invitation to represent India at a conference of the Commonwealth Law Association in Hyderabad because it fell on a working day. On the fi rst day in offi ce as CJI, he cleared 39 matters in half an hour. Kapadia has practically

dedicated his life to the profession, rarely taking holidays even.

During the fi rst summer holidays after he became chief justice, Kapadia is said to have come to offi ce everyday to streamline the SC registry. According to several lawyers, the registry had deteriorated into a corrupt offi ce where ‘bench hunting’ was common. Bench hunting is gaming the allocation process to make

sure that a certain matter appears before a certain judge who the lawyer thinks will rule in a particular way. Kapadia has put an end to it and is now said to review the day’s board of case listings and pull up the SC staff if he fi nds something amiss.

The CJ has also stopped out-of-turn mentioning of cases to be taken up urgently, which has caused some consternation among lawyers. Earlier, lawyers could request the judge while the court was in session to take up an unlisted matter because it was urgent. Now they have to fi le an urgency petition a day in advance. The system exists because there is a mountain of pending cases in the judicial system. And since the SC is the fi nal authority, it gets overburdened. “It will not be long before we have a 100 judges in the SC,’’ says a lawyer. The SC currently has 30 judges, excluding the CJI.

The Indian justice system had drawn a lot of fl ak over the past few years after the integrity of several past and sitting judges was questioned. But Kapadia defended the system in his Law Day speech last November.

“I am an optimist. I do not share

the impression that judicial system has collapsed or is fast collapsing. I strongly believe and maintain that with all the drawbacks and limitations with shortage of resources and capacity, we still have a time-tested system,’’ he said. He also said that the backlog of cases is not as huge as is made out to be. “Seventy-four percent of the cases are less than fi ve years old,’’ he said and

added that the focus is on quickly disposing of the rest of the cases.

Kapadia has certainly restored the confi dence and pride in the Supreme Court of India.

“He will certainly be remembered for the landmark Vodafone decision,’’ says Percy Billimoria, senior partner at corporate law fi rm AZB and Partners. “Whenever anyone complains about the retrospective amendment of the tax law on this issue, I always retort by reminding them that the fact that the decision held that the government’s stand on a matter with such far reaching revenue implications was contrary to the law at the time shows that at least our judiciary is fair and independent.’’

By the time Kapadia hangs up his cloak and collar on September 29, he would have left an indelible mark on India’s judicial history. Former Justice VR Krishna Iyer told Forbes India: “While I have seen during the last 97 years of my life among good judges with great credentials, there was hardly anyone to compare with Kapadia the like of which no eye had seen, no heart conceived and no human tongue can adequately tell.’’


I N D E P E N D E NC EDAY S P E C I A L

and I encouraged him to take it up,’’ remembers Sulakhe, who is now legal consultant with the Godrej group.

Kapadia studied law and enrolled at the bar. By that time he had a keen grasp of issues related to land and revenue and began taking up such cases. As a junior lawyer, he quickly gained a reputation for his preparation and ability to cite authority while arguing. Kapadia then joined Feroze Damania, a feisty labour lawyer reputed to be partial to poor and marginalised people.

In 1982, Kapadia argued a case for people living in Ghatkopar, a suburb in Mumbai. The area was formerly salt pans and fell under the control of the Salt Commissioner. The commissioner had ordered summary eviction of about 3,000 tenements. Kapadia fought the case which resulted in a landmark judgement laying down the principle that governments cannot invoke summary eviction laws to throw out people when there is a genuine dispute on the title.

“It was not about money. He was genuinely interested in the welfare of marginalised people,’’ a colleague who worked with him at Damania’s offi ces told Forbes India.

He did not wish to be named. The colleague says, at the time

Kapadia became interested in Buddhist and Hindu philosophies, especially in the teachings of Ramana Maharishi, Swami Vivekananda and Ramakrishna Paramahansa.

Later he became a frequent visitor to Belur Math on the banks of the Hoogly in Kolkata. A monk at the Math says he learnt meditation techniques. He has read everything about Ramakrishna and also what Swami Vivekananda wrote.

Kapadia’s worldview is highly infl uenced by Indian thinkers but is also tempered by the observed realities of the modern world. It has also shaped his thinking as a judge who believes in continuous learning.

“What we need today in India as far as the judges are concerned is a scholastic living,” Kapadia said in December 2008. Delivering the JK Mathur memorial lecture in Lucknow, Kapadia went on to defi ne the context of modern day justice and the legal profession. In that speech he said how important it was for judges to understand the various concepts in diff erent fi elds, including economics and accountancy. Kapadia himself is a qualifi ed accountant and has vast knowledge of economics. That came in handy in a case where Orissa’s tribals were pitted against a miner.

There were no jobs, hospitals or schools in the area the company wanted to mine. Kapadia analysed

the accounts of the company to fi nd out whether it could set aside a portion of profi ts for tribals’ welfare. He dissected the accounts segment-wise to discover a profi t of about Rs 500 crore when without the standard of accounting the

profi t would be only Rs 15 crore. “A judge sitting in tax matters

knows the accounting standards. It helps us to decide matters in the context of socio-economic justice enshrined in the Constitution… This is where I emphasise the knowledge of the basic concepts.’’

A Mumbai lawyer who knows him from the time Kapadia was a lawyer and later judge, says that he has evolved into a complete jurist. Yet, the Chief Justice has not stopped learning.

In July 2011, the Supreme Court gave a verdict in a case involving limestone mining in Meghalaya’s East Khasi Hills by Franco-Spanish cement company Lafarge Umiam Mining. Almost a year-and-a-half before that, the company had been asked to stop mining by a Bench headed by Justice KG Balakrishnan. When the hearing resumed, Justice Balakrishnan had retired and Kapadia was presiding on the three-judge bench.

As Harish Salve began to argue for Lafarge, Kapadia realised that he did not know enough background. So he asked the senior lawyer to brief the court on the history of environmental jurisprudence. A stumped Salve said that would be like reading a textbook.

To which Kapadia replied that he was a Bombay man who understood very little about environmental matters and would Salve not help the court? Every Friday for the next seven weeks the cavernous courtroom turned into a classroom where

“WE, THE JUDGES, DO NOT MIND A STUDIED FAIR CRITICISM. HOWEVER, AS AN ADVICE TO THE BAR

PLEASE DO NOT DISMANTLE AN INSTITUTION WITHOUT SHOWING HOW TO BUILD A BETTER ONE. PLEASE REMEMBER: WHEN AN INSTITUTION NO LONGER

MATTERS, WE NO LONGER MATTER’’

“HIGH COURTS AND THE SUPREME COURT ARE COURTS OF PRINCIPLES. THE JUDGES SHOULD NOT SPEAK

ANYTHING BEYOND THE PRINCIPLES OF A PARTICULAR CASE. LET US NOT GIVE LECTURES TO THE SOCIETY“I NDIA

In 2009, the district administration in Dungarpur in southern Rajasthan had to face a hostile situation. Hundreds of tribal

people had taken to the streets demanding an inquiry into the deaths of children who were sent to work in cotton fi elds in the adjoining districts of Gujarat.

Eight children had died in the previous fi ve years and the latest case had sparked a protest.

While some children died of exposure to pesticides, in other cases they were suspected to have died due to malnourishment and ill-treatment. Snake-bite cases were also frequently reported at these farms.

The labour contractors who had taken the children for work had also gone underground.

The tribal people of Dungarpur started the agitation, demanding the labour contractors' arrest and compensation for the families of the children who had died.

Purna Chandra Kishan, then the district collector, decided that he needed to crack the whip to stop the child traffi ckers. In order to get support from the Bhils, the predominant tribe, Kishan roped in the tribal chiefs to participate in special task force teams that were established to monitor child traffi cking in the district.

“Once we involved the tribal chiefs, we got more information. The contractors would pay the tribal A

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families in advance Rs 30 per child for a day’s work. However, they themselves would pocket around Rs 120 per child from the cotton farmers. We knew the families who were contacted by the traffi ckers and were able to take preventive action,” said Kishan, an IIT-Kharagpur graduate.

He also organised raids on the child traffi ckers and arrested some of the biggest contractors.

The administration ensured that every vehicle passing through the district was searched, and hundreds of children were rescued during these surprise checks.

In 2009, around 30,000 children worked as labourers. But by the end of 2010, there were only a few hundred still working.

In order to ensure that the families did not suff er on account of money

after the children were rehabilitated, the district collector urged the parents to participate in jobs under the National Rural Employment Guarantee Scheme (NREGS). As the parents found steady work and enrolment fi gures for NREGS climbed, the dropout rates in schools declined.

A senior district administration offi cial says the work started by Kishan has ensured that the people

of Dungarpur have become organised in their fi ght against traffi ckers. “Even today, the enrolment rates at the schools here are higher than what they used to be fi ve years ago. The tribals are keeping a watch on the activities of the traffi ckers too.”

Kishan, 37, who is from Orissa and now works with the National Rural Livelihood Mission, also authored an English learner’s book for children in Vagadi, a tribal language. The book is yet to be accepted as a standard textbook in Dungarpur as it would require clearance from the state government. However, several teachers have bought copies and have organised special English workshops for the tribal children.

“It is amazing to see how much can be done in a district if you make the local population part of your campaign. That is what I have learnt the most in Dungarpur,” said Kishan.

❯ PROFILE

After serving as district collector of Dholpur and Dungarpur, Kishan is now heading the National Rural Livelihood Mission in Rajasthan

❯ HIS ACHIEVEMENT

His campaign against child traffi cking in Dungarpur is one of the rare instances where the administration has managed to wipe out the menace from a district

PURNA CHANDRAKISHAN

37

StoppingTRAFFICK

Purna Chandra Kishan cracked the whip on labour contractors and saved thousands of children in Rajasthan from dying in the killing fi elds of Gujarat

By KP NARAYANA KUMAR

I NDIA

A Visionary WHO ALSO DELIVERSIt is necessary to build a solid governance system, but it should be outside the government, says MK Bhan

By SEEMA SINGH

“He is a visionary, but can he deliver?” was the subject of

a letter sent to the Prime Minister’s Offi ce after Maharaj K Bhan took over as secretary of the Department of Biotechnology (DBT) in 2005. The context was some radical changes that he was proposing after extensive consultations with students, faculty, industry, investors, agriculturists and regulators—virtually all stakeholders.

“That [letter] did not hurt me, nor did I take it as challenge, but I did get obsessed with combining my vision with execution brilliance,” says Bhan.

He went on yet another “consultation yatra”, this time looking for the principles of implementation. His insight: Don’t mix policy with service; build a solid governance system but outside the government.

In the months that followed, DBT set up dozens of institutes, new unobtrusive models of governance that are enshrined in the General Finance Rules and a service structure that is outside the government and allows for outsourcing.

The new hiring rules give

contract careers to professionals and a salary, Bhan emphasises, that is unheard-of in the government. “We have created manuals of rules that never existed in India.”

One example is the Biotechnology Industry Research Assistance Council, a Section 25 (non-profi t) company.

In the fi rst year, strong validation came from WHO and Bill & Melinda Gates Foundation, which want the Council to be their management partner in India. Sensitive to social innovation, it’s evaluating at least 10 proposals in this category.

The way to bring transformative change, Bhan says, is to be guided by principles, create new instruments, convince people, get support from fi nancial advisors and use them again and again, to create standards.

“We’ve tried to do things beyond standard committees; I have realised the power of soft think tanks,” he says.

A paediatrician and an acclaimed public health professional, Bhan came to DBT with a vision to change the department, which focused on biology, to one that encompasses engineering, technology, agriculture,

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bio-energy, product development and much more. Since he doesn’t like fi ve-year Plans, which, he believes, miss core strategy, he developed one preceding the 11th Plan.

It’s amazing how he imagined everything and has achieved almost all of what he promised in the Biotech Policy, says Shrikumar Suryanarayan,

an entrepreneur and ex-chief executive of the Faridabad bio-cluster. “He has been brave enough to fund industry projects, which is important because biotechnology is all about translation. That’s a big shift he has brought in the government.”

One of his last goals is the Biotech Regulatory Authority Bill lying with

the Parliament which he hopes gets passed soon because the country needs a regulator for other biotech products even if it shuns GM crops.

“I have created instruments that will serve biotech in the country for 1,000 years. If all other ministries use these, the nation will save 15 years,” says Bhan.

❯ PROFILE

Secretary, Dept of Biotechnology

❯ HIS ACHIEVEMENT

Transformed DBT into a multi-disciplinary, collaborating agency that can nurture smart-thinking people into new-age innovators

MK BHAN

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HK Mittal, who is keen to convert paper-publishing students and professors into entrepreneurs, wants to cut down on time taken to set up a business in India

By SEEMA SINGH

Start a company in one day, close it in seven days. To expect such speed in India is more than utopian for

entrepreneurs, but for HK Mittal this vision is a guiding force, even though he knows it takes three to six months to start a business and nearly seven years to close it. “Can we learn from Singapore; or even China where it takes 15 days to start a business?” he asks.

Mittal has been with the Department of Science and Technology (DST) for close to the two decades, as adviser and member secretary of its National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board. For most of his stint, he has bootstrapped the department in setting up incubation centres in academic institutions. About 400 startups in 80-odd incubators have been funded under various programmes.

But that’s not enough. Unless 1,000 or more incubators are fully functional across the country, India won’t see high-octane success stories that it craves for, he says.

Soon after an MBA from IIM-Ahmedabad in 1984, Mittal joined the Entrepreneurship Development Institute of India and promoted grassroots entrepreneurship, A

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Stepping UP FOR STARTUPS

particularly in states like Sikkim and Orissa. He landed up with the DST position in 1990. For the last two years he has also led its Technology Development Board which funds commercialisation of research.

While it serves as a lifeline for aspiring entrepreneurs, the programme is also criticised for its long cycles of approval.

Mittal takes it on his chin,

promising that the Board is getting more proactive. He is trying to shorten the approval cycle, from 12 months to three months, and increase the number of applications approved, from about 15-16 to 100-200 within two years.

After a marathon screening in January, during which 28 proposals were approved in one go, another round is slated for August 31 in Hyderabad where the

board will look at 30 proposals. When Rajesh Rai, chief executive

of India Innovation Fund where DST is a Limited Partner, calls him “sincere”, “to-the-point”, and one “who doesn’t waste his time or my time”, he is probably underestimating the challenge that Mittal faces in converting paper-publishing or degree-toting students and professors into entrepreneurs.

In a country where rigidity runs high in academic institutions, Mittal muses on revamping the evaluation system to reward entrepreneurship. Can one startup be equated with three published papers? Can the teaching load of professors be reduced if they are becoming or mentoring entrepreneurs?

Talk of no, or paltry risk capital and he sounds apologetic. Talk of professionalism among researchers and he looks frustrated: “[Entrepreneurial] teams are either formed for life or break soon enough.” Still, he is hopeful about the new draft entrepreneurship policy and the Planning Commission’s proposals for higher risk capital and policy reforms.

Like evanescent particles that wink in and out of their state, Mittal lives out of a suitcase in his various roles as investor, catalyst, facilitator, shock-absorber, and above all, a dreamer of big bang success stories of Indian entrepreneurs.

❯ PROFILE

Adviser, member secretary, National Science and Technology Entrepreneurship Development Board

❯ HIS ACHIEVEMENT

Providing fi nancial and institutional assistance to technologists for commercialising their tech/research

HK MITTAL

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BreakingNEW GROUND

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Rajeev Chawla’s work with the revenue department set the benchmark for digitisation of land records in India

I NDIA

By NILOFER D'SOUZA

Back in 1998, when digital revolution was still a nascent concept in India, one man in

Karnataka harnessed the power of technology to weed out corruption in land holdings in the state. Rajeev Chawla, then the revenue secretary, employed a young workforce to collect data and help compile the

state’s fi rst digitised land records, a programme now called Bhoomi.

The mandate to digitise land records was not new. The Central government had in 1985 ordered state governments to computerise the records. But for 13 years, the instructions merely remained on paper.

In 1998, when Chawla stepped in, he not only brought to the table his administrative capability as an IAS offi cer, but also the technical knowhow he had acquired through his training as an engineer at IIT-Kanpur. And in 18 months, he accomplished what the government had been trying for 13 years. He set up the fi rst pilot project in Madhur village with the support of SM Krishna, the then chief minister.

“I had worked on this project before Chawla came on board,” says Samartharam NR, Bhoomi head, National Informatics Centre. “But it was not seeing good results as the ownership from the revenue department was missing. Before Chawla joined, it [digitisation of land records] was seen as a secondary activity.”

However, the going wasn’t easy when Chawla started off . The 50-year-old, who realised that

changes have to be implemented at the grassroots level, spent nearly a year visiting villages, talking to accountants, deputy commissioners etc. He got around the problem of rigid mindsets by devising the method of “compassionate appointments”, building an army of workers by hiring kin of government employees who had died while in service and trained the 19-25-year-olds in handling the software. Chawla also ensured that no transfers took place in the initial years so that the programme ran like a well-oiled machine.

By 2003, Bhoomi digitised records of 177 talukas of the state. But the IAS offi cer wanted to take the project to the next level and create Urban Property Ownership Records (UPOR) for which he even turned down a position in the Centre’s e-governance initiative. In late 2009, UPOR was tried out in four towns, including Mysore, and the results were encouraging. Harsh Gupta, the managing director of Karnataka Urban Infrastructure Development and Finance Corporation, says, “When I was posted in Mysore as deputy commissioner, UPOR work was already under way. Through it, we identifi ed 200 acres in prime areas that were under various encroachments.”

Early this year, Chawla started to dig into urban property records in Bangalore, a large share of which is estimated to be illegal. In May, he was transferred as the Metropolitan Commissioner, Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority.

Samartharam, who has worked with Chawla since 1998, still hopes that he will return to Bhoomi and continue with his project on UPOR. “I sincerely hope he comes back, so that we can continue with the good work we started,” he says.


❯ PROFILE

An IAS offi cer, Chawla was the principal secretary to the revenue department (Bhoomi and urban property registration) in Karnataka before being transferred as the Metropolitan Commissioner, Bangalore Metropolitan Region Development Authority

❯ HIS ACHIEVEMENT

In 1998, Chawla was the fi rst one to roll out an initiative, now called Bhoomi, to digitise land records in the state. He also launched a project to create Urban Property Ownership Records in various towns

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GovernmentINC.

Aruna Sundararajan used business principles to build one of the country’s best state-run projects

By NS RAMNATH

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In 2003, Tulip, then a fl edgling company, applied for a computer networking project in Kerala. It had no experience implementing

big projects, having just entered this segment after starting out as a re-seller of software. Tulip's technology was untested in the dust and grime of the real world. Yet it was bidding for a state government project—a project it seemed to have no chance of winning.

Any bureaucratic machine is primed to be risk averse, avoiding any decision without reams of documentary evidence to justify it. Established players had a chance. New players didn’t.

So Colonel Hardeep Singh Bedi, Tulip’s chief, was pleasantly surprised when the Kerala government took an unconventional route. It asked the bidders to set up pilot projects, and chose the ones that performed best. Tulip passed the test. That one unlikely decision, by an IAS offi cer who chose to think diff erent, gave the company a big push. Its revenues last year were Rs 2,700 crore.

The project that gave Tulip its kick-start was Akshaya, and the IAS offi cer in charge was Aruna Sundararajan. “She was an IAS offi cer, but she worked like a business person. She always had that trait in her,” says HS Bedi. That trait—the ability to balance public good with private enterprise—helped make Akshaya one of the best thought-out and best-executed

state-run projects in the country. It off ers lessons for any project

whose success hinges on how well government, business and citizens work together, like India’s current eff ort to create the world’s largest biometric identity programme.

Akshaya started as an e-literacy (computer skills) project in Kerala’s Malappuram district, quickly spread across the state and evolved into a service delivery centre for all citizens. At least one person in each of Kerala’s 3.25 million families became computer literate through Akshaya centres. When the government launched a scheme to provide life insurance coverage to the poor, the network of Akshaya centres helped ramp up registrations quickly. More recently, 75 percent of all UID (Unique Identifi cation number) registrations in Kerala happened in Akshaya centres. What’s impressive is the way Akshaya scaled up and endured, says Nasscom’s K Purushothaman.

He attributes that success at least in part to Sundararajan’s vision.

“The interesting part is that the demand came from the people, the panchayat. They wanted to make their district 100 percent e-literate. We responded to that need,” says Sundararajan. But that was no easy task back in 2002. There were no similar projects that she could look to and learn from. Infrastructure was lacking and the solution had to be both scalable and enduring, drawing sustenance from citizens seeing value in the services provided in the centres and from entrepreneurs who saw a business opportunity.

During the early stages of the project, Bedi remembers Sundararajan visiting each and every centre, asking questions and getting feedback from users. The attention to detail helped. Citizens saw the value in the service Akshaya provided, and the huge public support for Akshaya is one of the reasons it succeeded, says Purushothaman.

Government, as well as citizen demands, can drive innovative projects. Impressed by Akshaya’s success, Rajasthan’s government wanted Sundararajan to lead an ambitious fi nancial inclusion project, though a change in government meant it was never completed. “Political risks are inherent in some of these projects. That’s what you learn,” she says. But given a chance, they can succeed.

❯ PROFILE

Principal Secretary, Social Welfare & Chairman Kudumbashree Mission, Government of Kerala

❯ HER ACHIEVEMENT

Pioneering work in mass e-literacy in Kerala through Akshaya programme

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to his experience as an assistant to the DM of Bijapur–another Naxal-aff ected district. “I knew the psyche of the place had to be dealt with as nobody was excited,” he says.

Menon began by organising a three-day cultural festival in Sukma that hosted some of the most popular talents in the country–the Prince dance group, for instance, winner of India’s Got Talent. He built

camaraderie among the villagers by conducting sports activities, especially cricket matches, every day and gave participants new uniforms. At a painting exhibition, he invited people to express their ideas on peace, an elusive concept in the community.

He also focused on solving some of the area's most pressing survival problems. “Food security was my priority,” said Menon, who started

new Public Distribution System shops, issued 13,000 Antyodaya cards enabling citizens to get foodgrains at Rs 1 per kg and built a godown to ensure grains were supplied on time.

Menon stepped on the toes of the Red brigade by penalising contractors and government offi cials for poor services. In three months, he choked funds to insurgents while winning the tribals over to his side.

Every day, about 40 people lined up at his offi ce with their grievances. And most went home happy.

On April 21, as Menon reached Majhipada to announce several development programmes for the village, the Naxals stormed his meeting, killed two of his bodyguards and kidnapped him. He was released after 12 days in captivity in which he fought against bouts of severe illness. But the 32-year-old made a strong statement by resuming offi ce the very next day.

Menon has just been transferred to the state capital with a new assignment. In his spare time, he reads up on the writings of former bureaucrats like DD Sharma and P Shankaran on resolving the Naxal problem. “Getting kidnapped runs in my family, it doesn’t bother me,” he jokes, referring to his uncle T Radha, an Andhra cadre offi cer who was also abducted by the Naxals while in offi ce.

❯ PROFILE

CEO, Raipur Development Authority

❯ ACHIEVEMENTS

As the DM of Chhattisgarh’s Naxal-hit Sukma district, launched several initiatives to alleviate hunger and poverty in the region. Was kidnapped by the Naxals, but resumed work right after his release after 12 days

ALEX PAULMENON

32A common saying in India’s administrative circles–“PM, CM and DM”–shows the primacy the

three positions–the prime minister, the chief minister and the district magistrate–enjoy at their respective power rungs. As a young DM, Alex Paul Menon was aware of the potential his role gave him to bring about changes. But even he did not budget for his dramatic kidnapping by Naxals as he set about developing Sukma, Chhattisgarh’s newly-created district.

Sukma was carved out in January of this year to streamline administration in the perilous Naxal corridor. The impoverished district lacked basic amenities like food, water, roads and schools. Growth initiatives in the area would often face the wrath of Naxal strongmen, who acted independently of the leadership and demanded their share of the pie. Typically, through a local notice, they would seek a cut from a contractor's total budget for building a road. A road that might have cost Rs 90 crore would gobble up Rs 250 crore, yet be of inferior quality. The locals, increasingly mistrustful of the government, would look the other way.

Within a month of its creation, Sukma had a well-equipped DM’s offi ce, even a video-conference facility. But Menon knew that winning the confi dence of people was central to bringing about change. He hit the ground running, thanks

The Algebra ofINFINITEDEVELOPMENT

Despite being kidnapped by Naxals, Alex Paul Menon has remained steadfast in his eff orts to develop Sukma, Chhattisgarh’s newest district and one of its most backward By UDIT MISRA

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All IN IT TOGETHER

By UDIT MISRA

Have you ever wondered why governments can’t work as effi ciently as private sector companies?

Why the various departments of the government seem to function in silos? For example, if the water and irrigation department has chosen a plot for building check dams to augment water supply, why can’t the forest department simply choose that very plot for meeting its aff orestation target?Perhaps it’s because most governments do not have dedicated and thoughtful bureaucrats like Ram Mohan Mishra as their planning chiefs.

Almost two years ago, faced with Meghalaya’s continued backwardness, the Mukul Sangma-led Congress government decided it needed to rethink its strategy to improve the state’s economic condition. Though Meghalaya is one of the most resource-rich states in the country, half of its population was below the poverty line. Before the state was formed in 1972, average income in the region was 10 percent more than the national average. Now it is 10 percent below.

Leading the rethink was Mishra, who along with his team came up with a novel solution: set up a Meghalaya Basin Development Authority (MBDA) as a non-profi t company under Section 25 of the Companies Act. The chief secretary is the head of the board with all the important secretaries as board members. The planning secretary is the CEO and all the district magistrates.

MBDA operates as a company, and looks at the population as entrepreneurs that it can help make more eff ective instead of benefi ciaries to be given dole. Over the last year, Mishra led the initiative to create enterprise incubation and

facilitation centres in each block. About 60,000 entrepreneurs have already enrolled, meaning the MBDA, which formally launched this April, achieved its initial enrollment goal in just a few months. “This is a big team eff ort. And it is successful because we have taken all the stakeholders on board,” says Mishra.

The idea is to push people to dream of their chosen enterprise, while making it the government’s responsibility to bring various departments together and make those dreams come true. The MBDA also looks at forward linkages, scouting out new markets for an entrepreneur’s products. It has tied up with institutional partners like IDFC Foundation and CII’s India at 75, which help guide innovation. “We are promoting entrepreneurs and it is diffi cult to predict who will succeed or fail. But this is also an open-ended programme so we can always do whatever else is required later,” reassures Mishra.

He prefers to work behind the scenes, believing bureaucrats should be felt, not seen. Yet, his accomplishments speak for themselves. In addition to his role in creating the MBDA, it was under Mishra’s guidance that Meghalaya became the only north-eastern state to engage its international neighbours, promoting Shillong’s high standard of education to students from Bangladesh and simplifying the rules for border trade.

For inspiration, he still turns to a piece of advice he got during his training in the IAS Academy from famous civil servant Nari Rustomji: “As a bureaucrat, when you come across a page or a fi le, you must remember that it is not just a page. Rather, there are a lot of people trying to talk to you through that paper. And you must stay focused to listen to them.” A

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❯ PROFILE

Principal Secretary, Planning, Govt of Meghalaya and CEO of Meghalaya Basin Development Authority

❯ HIS ACHIEVEMENT

Mishra re-imagined Meghalaya's population as entrepreneurs instead of benefi ciaries and re-engineered the whole administrative machinery to facilitate convergence among government departments

RAM MOHAN MISHRA

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For Ram Mohan Mishra, every citizen is an entrepreneur

I NDIA

It was friendly banter with his batchmate in the Indian Administrative Service that egged Amod Kumar, BTech from

IIT-Kanpur, to come up with India’s fi rst successful e-governance initiative based on a public-private partnership (PPP) in 2004. Kumar’s friend, the DM in Jhalawar district in Rajasthan, was putting together an e-governance initiative called Janmitra. On a stray phone call he chided Kumar, saying, “UP mein to kuch nahin hota (Nothing happens in Uttar Pradesh).”

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That got Kumar, the fi rst-time DM of Sitapur district, to take up his own e-governance experiment. He quickly put together a three-man team: a block development offi cer on the development side, a sub-divisional magistrate on the regulatory side and a district information offi cer on the technical side, and sent them to study two new e-governance initiatives – Janmitra in Jhalawar, and Gyandoot, in Dhar, Madhya Pradesh.

2004 was still early days for e-governance in India. “The

DM's offi ce still had only manual typewriters,” says Kumar. But the idea was to reach each member of the district’s massive population in a fast, eff ective manner. The team returned with some learnings but wasn’t very impressed. Neither Janmitra nor Gyandoot was sustainable, as both were based on government subsidies.

Kumar took a revolutionary decision. Instead of subsidising e-governance programmes, he would involve private players and charge them. He’d intuitively created a PPP approach before he’d ever been formally introduced to the concept.

Kumar convinced 13 vendors to open internet kiosks, called Lokvani, where the public can come and place their grievances and queries before the government through a web platform. The government charged vendors a one-time licence fee, and vendors charge a nominal Rs 15 per transaction to each complainant. At the end of the day, Kumar and his team would meet to resolve the complaints and post the solutions on the same web platform for the public to see the next day.

The scheme was a hit with the public and by 2005, the Samajwadi Party government announced Lokvani’s expansion to all districts. Today, there are around 200 kiosks in Sitapur alone and thousands across the state, even though the change of government in 2007 and the advent of Common Service Centres by the Central government

held back Lokvani’s expansion.Every year between 2005 and

2010, Kumar was invited to share his experience with the young probationers at the IAS academy in Mussorie, who employed his wisdom in their respective states. “I cannot have a patent on the Lokvani system as it is very commonsensical, but I do draw a lot of satisfaction that whatever I did in Lokvani has today spread to the whole country,” Kumar said.

His next big move was in 2010, when he used IVRS (Interactive Voice Response System) technology to audit the mid-day meal scheme. Each day, an automated phone call was made to every principal in the state to record the number of students eating mid-day meals. The daily audit reduced instances of principals overstating the number of benefi ciaries, while also encouraging principals to expand or adopt the programme for fear of being criticised for inaction. After audits began, the percentage of schools without mid-day meal schemes or not in compliance dropped from 35 to fi ve, but expenditures on the programme decreased despite the expanded reach. Kumar’s eff orts got recognition when this idea was replicated at the national level.

With the return of the Samajwadi Party in UP, Kumar has been brought in as a consultant on e-governance in addition to his current role as project directo, Manthan, which runs experiments to improve maternal and neo-natal health in the state and is funded by the Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation. Many say e-governance won’t help solve deeply-rooted social problems like corruption, which need nation-building and honest leadership. But Kumar has a more measured take. “Both solutions are not suffi cient on their own. For a country of India’s size and population, even an honest leader will not be able to solve problems without using e-governance.”

❯ PROFILE

Project Director, Manthan, and Consultant to UP Chief Minister for e-governance

❯ ACHIEVEMENT

Kumar heralded an era of successful e-governance initiatives in his district which were later scaled up to the national level

AMOD KUMAR

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The EarlyADOPTERAmod Kumar’s e-governance initiatives showed public & private sectors worked better together

By UDIT MISRA

I NDIA

On aMISSION TO END ILLEGAL MININGUV Singh gave authorities the ammunition they needed to end the illegal trade in Karnataka

By PRINCE MATHEWS THOMAS

UV Singh was disappointed. It had been almost two years since his boss, Karnataka Lokayukta

Santosh Hegde, asked him to prepare a second report on illegal mining. While the fi rst report, submitted in 2008, proved trespasses by miners, it hadn’t broken the nexus between mining and the transportation mafi a, key to unraveling the illegal trade. Again in 2010, “while we had a lot of information, everything was hearsay. People were afraid to come forward,” says Singh, an Indian Forest Service offi cer of 1985, Karnataka cadre. That is when Hegde and Singh realised that the investigation should spread to the ports from where the illegally mined ore was being exported.

Led by the now-infamous Reddy brothers of Bellary, illegal mining in Karnataka had become rampant after rising demand from China pushed up iron ore prices. The state administration had asked the newly appointed Lokayukta Hegde, a former Supreme Court judge, to prepare a report. Hegde roped in Singh, a senior forest offi cer who had already made headlines with his investigation on illegal quarries in the state.

In 2010, Singh traveled to Belekeri port in Karwar, from where over Rs 2,000 crore-worth of ore was exported every year. It was a secret mission, known only to Hegde. “I told the local forest offi cial that I had come to look at a few quarries in the region and also study animals,” recounts Singh, who obtained a doctorate in zoology and still holds the record for the highest marks on that subject in the civil services exam. Over the next month,

mainly at night and often in disguise, he studied the port’s logistics—movement of trucks, documentation and the private security system deployed by miners. A month later, Singh reported his fi ndings to Hegde, who arranged for a search warrant and a team of 16 police offi cials.

In the wee hours of February 20, 2010, the team raided the port just when guards were changing shifts, taking them by surprise. “It

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was the turning point of the whole investigation,” says 54-year-old Singh, who refuses to use a mobile handset as it would compromise his location. Singh and the rest of the team went through about 5 lakh documents and 40 lakh bank accounts to trace both the ore and money. “The fi rst report in 2008 named nine government offi cials, one IAS offi cer and a chief minister. The second had names of two chief ministers, nine ministers and 797

government offi cials,” says Hegde. The report ultimately led to the

resignation of Karnataka’ s chief minister BS Yeddyurappa, and one of the primary individuals accused in the mining scam, former minister Janardhan Reddy, is still in jail. “I give Singh the credit for the report. He kept on it, despite high profi le names in the scam and despite attempts on his life. He showed a lot of integrity, courage and honesty,” adds the former

judge. Singh shrugs when asked if he ever got scared. “I don’t know, but since childhood, I have been like this,” says Singh, son of a marginal farmer in Rajasthan and the youngest of seven children. He's now working with Justice MB Shah, whose commission is investigating illegal mining in states that have iron ore reserves. Already, two reports on Goa’s mining industry created a furor earlier this year. A lot more is expected.

❯ PROFILE

An Indian Forest Service Offi cer, he is chief conservator of forests, Karnataka. Was the chief investigator in the Lokayukta team on illegal mining in three districts in Karnataka. Now a member of Justice MB Shah-led commission inquiring into illegal mining in states having iron ore mines.

❯ HIS ACHIEVEMENT

Singh led the country's most comprehensive investigation into illegal mining in Karnataka, unearthing the nexus between politicians, industrialists and the transportation mafi a. His report led to the fall of the chief minister and jailing of minister and main accused Janardhan Reddy.

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becoming a self-fulfi lling prophecy for India Inc.

We invited the high-powered jury members of the Forbes India Leadership Awards for a televised discussion moderated by Suresh Venkat of CNBC-TV18. The question

for Jury Chairman KV Kamath and members JJ Irani, Adil Zainulbhai, Akhil Gupta and Zia Mody was: “Is our pessimism killing the India growth story?”

Here is the edited transcript of the conversation.

Venkat: Let me begin with the chairman of the jury, Kamath. It has been a tough year for corporate India. How has it been for you as a business leader?Kamath: I look at events around me as mixed blessings. One positive is that we are still growing at a rate which most of the world would give at least one limb for.Venkat: There has been a general slowdown on growth, but there has been a non-corresponding increase in pessimism—and that’s my question for Akhil Gupta, chairman of Blackstone—are we being unreasonably pessimistic about the slowdown of the India growth story?Gupta: It feels worse than it is. I would say that India is in the best position, if you look at the large economies. In Europe, the best scenario you can think of is fl at growth for the next fi ve years. The US may be able to do 2 percent for the next 5-10 years, China is going to slow down and if China slows down, Japan is going to have a tough time—Southeast Asia, Australia and Brazil are going to have a tough time. The only country that has a structural strong story intact is India. So, I would say what we are facing right now is cyclical headwinds while our structural story is intact.

Our feeling is—why are we not doing better than what we are doing? Five percent is a great growth rate for any developed country, but for a country at our stage of economic development, that’s not great. I won’t see pessimism. I think we are a little disappointed that we are not getting as much help from policy formulations and we are not taking reforms faster. We are not taking the next step. Venkat: If the India growth story is intact, then why does everyone—the industry and government seem to be so pessimistic?Mody: I think it is probably feeling let down of what could have been.

THE INDIA GROWTH STORY IS STILL GOOD


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That’s the message coming out of a televised discussion by the high-powered jury members of the Forbes India Leadership Awards

The exhilarating economic growth of the noughties (decade of 2000-9) infused great confi dence

in Indian business. India Inc grew stronger and went into new geographies looking for opportunities.

The sheen has dimmed somewhat in the past two years as GDP (gross domestic product) growth slowed, and international realities started biting. More recently, gloom and doom conversations abound and there is concern around the policy paralysis

in government. It is almost like unbound pessimism has replaced the irrational exuberance of fi ve years ago.

Forbes India has chronicled much of these ups and downs in the past three years. We decided to focus on whether the negative sentiment is

THE PANEL (From left) McKinsey India’s

Adil Zainulbhai, AZB & Partners’ Zia Mody,

ICICI Bank’s KV Kamath, CNBC-TV18’s

Suresh Venkat, JJ Irani, former director,

Tata Sons, and Blackstone’s Akhil Gupta

I NDIA


Fo r b e s I n d i a L e a d e r s h i p Aw a r d s 2 0 1 2

Venkat: We are at 5 percent and we could have been 10 percent?Mody: Maybe not 10 percent but maybe much more than 5. I think that India Inc has a natural exuberance and when they feel it being dampened they probably get upset. So, it is the same animal spirits that everybody wants back, and I think there is a sense of disappointment of things that could have been better. Are we really succeeding despite ourselves? That, I think, is a mantra you hear quite often. So, often it spreads to borders beyond our subcontinent and then it sounds even more negative. If we are saying it then why shouldn’t the rest of the world? But I think there is a sense of ‘did we really have to do this to ourselves?’Venkat: And we did this to ourselves, no two ways about it.Mody: I think there is certainly a debate which would justify some suggestion that we did.Venkat: Zia Mody spoke about animal spirits and our Prime Minister not so long ago said we need to reawaken the animal spirits. One of the things that businesses are talking about is the failure of governance, the trust defi cit. How much do you think that plays a factor in our growth slowdown?Irani: I think the nation is showing its frustration that we could be doing

much better, more than 9 percent and so we are doing something between 5 and 6 percent. We have an added advantage that we have a population of 1.2 billion and, therefore, there is a tremendous capacity for internal domestic consumption and we are not that dependent on external factors. We could be doing a lot more within ourselves. There is, of course, a desire that the government should move on to the next phase of reforms and that is not happening. Maybe, in the next few weeks, we will see a positive change in that area. Let’s expect that, but I think it is not so much a matter of pessimism. It is a matter of frustration that the nation says we want to go ahead and the conditions are not allowing us to go ahead. Of course, when I say conditions, the gateway for that has to be opened by the policymakers.Venkat: So, the political system has to set right those conditions and dismantle the barriers to growth?Irani: Political and bureaucratic.Venkat: Let me go to Adil Zainulbhai—chairman of McKinsey India. There are some fears that the ‘I’ in BRIC [Brazil, Russia, India and China] could be soon replaced by Indonesia or Vietnam. Are those fears overstated?Zainulbhai: Let me start by looking

at why people are being pessimistic. Though GDP growth has slowed from 8 percent to 5.3 percent, industrial production has fallen much more and gone from 9.7 percent to 0.7. This is what industrialists and people involved in manufacturing, in industry are worried about. It is much more signifi cant than the drop in the GDP.

The BRIC was a wonderful construct that was created. But it is not preordained that BRIC should stay as it is. There were many other countries that were considered and not put in there when that term got coined. There is nothing magical that says this fast-growth emerging market should be four or three or fi ve. And, therefore, the term BRIC may not be as relevant going forward.

In terms of other countries that are very interesting, and we should all hope that more emerging countries emerge and grow faster, it is good for the whole world. So, the fact that if Indonesia, Vietnam, Turkey, South Africa, etc start doing well, that is terrifi c for everyone. That is not at the expense of anyone else.

The second thing, I would say, is, the whole world is feeling a little bit of a slowdown in diff erent ways. The Chinese economy has slowed and the government there is very nervous about the outlook. It is, in fact, putting

in place a very large stimulus. Brazil has slowed; Russia is dependent on oil prices. So, actually all of the BRIC, for diff erent reasons, are slowing. It is not just India, all of them are and, perhaps, each one for diff erent internal reasons is seeing additional slowdown. So, replacing one or the other is too simplistic. We should hope that there are 8-10 developing countries that are going to do very well over the next few years. I would rather say let us talk about countries that will join the 7 percent plus club rather than having an acronym that limits it to three-four.Venkat: Kamath, you seem to be the last man who is bullish on the economy.Kamath: I am bullish. Because if you look 10-12 years back—to me those were the darkest days for Indian business—when you had to reinvent yourself from 40 years. You had to build scale, cost eff ectiveness, and

quality. And India Inc did it. They did it again in 2008. Indeed, people can stand up and all the problems can be sorted out. However, we need to keep in mind two or three things for this to happen. You have to drive the climate for investment and the climate for demand to arise. If people can’t aff ord to buy, you are going to stall demand in the fi rst hurdle and that’s what is happening today—aff ordability has dropped dramatically and we need to address this. I think there interest rates become a key. A common man is burdened with EMI (equated monthly instalments), so that engine of growth is not fi ring as it did three years back.Venkat: So, the India consumption story is not intact?Kamath: Clearly, it is not intact. It is going on, but if there is no growth there why would you invest, so your investment cycle is also in a slow gear. The leg which could spur growth is infrastructure. There has been a

dramatic slowdown in infrastructure investment.Venkat: On the government side, on the private side, on the PPP (public-private partnership) side?Kamath: On the private side if I look at what banks were doing I would say that infrastructure off take has come down to maybe 25 percent of what it was just two or three years ago.

Now, we need to look at what are the things that are needed to spur that investment happening again, starting with power, roads. The immediate bottleneck appears to be power, I think infrastructure inputs we can manage, but we need to get the power situation addressed. Within that, the immediate impediment is coal. We need to get this unclogged because that will help us push 20,000 MW of capacity, lying virtually unfi red. So, that’s the fi rst step that we need to take to get infrastructure going. I think the animal spirits of businessmen do Akhil Gupta: “India’s structural story is intact” JJ Irani: “It is not so much a matter of pessimism; it is a matter of frustration”

I THINK THE ANIMAL SPIRITS OF BUSINESSMEN

DO NOT TAKE TOO LONG TO AWAKE, THEY ARE

HYPERSENSITIVE.— KV Kamath

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not take too long to awake, they are hypersensitive.Venkat: Akhil Gupta, there was no signifi cant diff erence in governance in UPA-I than there is now. The same paralysis that existed now existed then. Yet the Indian economy boomed—was it due to great leadership in corporate India or were we simply lifted by a rising global tide?Gupta: There are two factors. In the fi rst UPA, we had the benefi t of reforms that were done in the previous regime. What we are seeing today, is that the eff ect of what was not being done in the last fi ve years. Also, the global situation today is much worse than it was during the UPA-I and India is vulnerable to this. If the world doesn’t fi nance our defi cits we have liquidity constraints. So, I think partly what is happening is that because of inaction we have made ourselves more vulnerable to the global instability. If we had strong leadership and I think that’s where some of the frustrations are—this was

really our moment.Venkat: Have we missed that moment entirely?Gupta: Nations don’t have only one or two years. Venkat: Given the current state of our democracy and the state of our political establishment, when elections come in 2014 do you see a signifi cant shift in political ideology or political governance in the country?Gupta: Worldwide, you see democratically elected leaders are failing to do the right things. This is because right things mean short-term pain and long-term gain. So, most of our leaders are worried about the next election rather than doing the right thing.Venkat: Every time a corporate leader takes a long-term decision, which is going to impact his company in the short term, that leader is pilloried. Are corporate leaders guilty of this fl aw?Irani: That is given to us because of our historical background. Twenty years ago, who was asking for

quarterly results? Nobody and now we have this breed of analysts and fi nancial planners and so on, and 50-60 TV channels and people are thinking about what is to be done this month, three months later, forgetting what should be done for the fi ve-year programme. I am very proud to say that there is one group in our country which refuses to give any forecasts, quarterly results or six-monthly results or annual results. I think what we need to do is to think of the country as a whole. What are we likely to be in fi ve years?

Of course, certain situations have exacerbated this problem. The one most important is the question of land. Land has become a key subject now. Infrastructure is the other. I think the politicians at the top must cut across issues and take decisions which will be benefi cial three, fi ve or 10 years down the line.Zainulbhai: As Montek [Singh Ahluwalia, deputy chairman, Planning Commission] has said, ‘No country

YOU HAVE GROWN AT 9 PERCENT FOR THREE-FOUR

YEARS, BUT NOT FOR 20 YEARS. SO, JUST TAKE IT

A LITTLE EASY— Adil Zainulbhai

--------

I NDIA


has the god-given right to grow at 9 percent’. You have to work hard for it. But when we were in that phase—corporate chieftains, the government, bureaucrats, everyone took it for granted. You have grown at 9 percent for three-four years, but not for 20 years. So, just take it a little easy. But I think we do have that tendency and perhaps today the same thing is being applied in reverse. We have got the year of 7 percent growth, we are looking at a year of 5-6 percent growth and all of a sudden we are, perhaps, getting too far behind ourselves. The underlying economy hasn’t moved that much, but our mood does swing and maybe that’s a great strength in many times and that’s a great weakness—we should just accept that it is what it is.

Venkat: You work with a lot of corporate leaders as well. What goes up in the mind of a corporate leader when they get into this irrational exuberance mode or this all-pervasive gloom? Should the leader be calm and stable through time, though trials, through tribulations? Mody: Many are. I don’t think we can characterise them broadly like that. But when we were growing and India was brilliantly shining, there was a lot

of ‘me too’. If somebody went abroad and did an acquisition I want to be there too and that was good.Venkat: How much of that is driven by vanity and how much by business logic?Mody: We will see. But in terms of gloom, I think it’s more the fear. Should I invest in this country? Should I look elsewhere to put my capital? Will somebody in the system get arrested rightly or wrongly? So, I think these are the factors that hold people back. It’s just life.Venkat: There is a saying that the time to buy weapons for war is during peace. Did corporate India buy enough weapons during the years of 9 percent growth that they can use now?Kamath: Indeed they did. What are the weapons that they bought? If

you look at the last 10 years, many entrepreneurs have cleaned their act and got the balance-sheet right, got debt down, changed cost equations. They have built scale, become globally competitive, many could go out to acquire companies and turn them around. By and large, every Indian company that has gone abroad is because of hard work. These were the weapons they bought, using the dividend from the growth. When we

look at 9 percent we are exuberant, yet when we look at 6 percent we are depressed. To that depression you add what you get from the media. Then you get depression from the people who analyse you and so on and so forth. So, it just builds on itself.

We need to ignite something which casts a ray of hope. I think it’s going to happen. Just as 9 percent was not permanent, 5-6 percent, or whatever is that number, is not forever either. I think things will correct. When that ray of hope is lit, you will see things bouncing back.Venkat: How do you think this trust defi cit can be fi xed?Gupta: It’s all leadership. A few good leadership actions can change everything. The sentiment can turn because the fundamentals are there. We just need that catalyst and to me it can only be leadership.Venkat: Are you optimistic about the political class in India, the next wave of leadership that’s going to come in 2014?Mody: I would be cautious.Venkat: Why would you be cautious and what would turn the caution into optimism?Mody: I just think, seeing the present landscape, we are concerned about a fractured mandate. These lead to political compromises which are the name of the game in order to get the government going. So, it would be wonderful to have a very strong leader who could cut through….Venkat: Anybody you think is a potential leader?Mody: Now, I am going to play safe.Venkat: It’s not going to be one Mr Gandhi junior for certain it seems.Mody: I think there are many options and each one comes with a pro and a con, frankly. I think that the struggle that I and many of us will have is that we just don’t have one or two names that we can say, “Of course!” and that is really the tragedy.

Zia Mody: “India Inc has a natural exuberance; when they feel it being dampened, they get upset”

I NDIA

THE FAB 50The Forbes India Leadership Awards celebrate outstanding

individuals and organisations who have carved out distinctive niches in Indian business. The nominees you see here are the result of a rigorous selection process.

It began six months ago, when our editorial team began building a list of super-performers in 10 categories that span the entire breadth of corporate operations. The names on the long list names were then measured against a set of qualitative and quantitative benchmarks detailed on our website (www.forbesindia.com/leadershipawards), with the help of our knowledge partners, the audit and advisory fi rm KPMG. We looked back over their performance in the last three to fi ve years, to ensure they were consistent and sustainable.

The 45 individuals and fi ve companies that follow are, in our professional opinion, the best of the best. The winners will be announced at a glittering function on September 28.



STARTUP OF THE YEAR

GAURAV JAIN, ColdEx

For establishing one of the largest cold-

chain logistics companies in India out of

a tier II town: Gwalior. Very understated,

he has built a reliable network across 55

cities in India.

MANISH KHERA/ RISHI GUPTA, FINO

For setting up the largest business corre-

spondence network in India and bringing

fi nancial inclusion to millions of people

across 26 states. Use mobile tech in a

smart way and are poised to become the

country’s largest banking correspondents.

NAVEEN TEWARI, InMobi

For leading the transition of a tiny SMS-

based search company to global size and

scale. He spotted the mobile advertising

opportunity way before rivals and InMobi

is today the world’s largest mobile ad

platform after Google’s AdMob.

JAGDISH KHATTAR, Carnation Auto

For turning entrepreneur at 65, to create

a unique chain of independent, multi-brand

car service outlets. It’s the fi rst venture of

its kind in India and is already present in

16 cities. Now he’s betting big on the used

car business.

PHANINDRA SAMA, redBus

For building a powerful booking platform

that revolutionised bus travel for passen-

gers and travel agents. He has since been

able to extract multiple revenues from

every bus journey.

NEXTGEN ENTREPRENEUR NEERAJ SINGHAL, Bhushan Steel

For making the transition to the big league

of Indian steel companies, with strategic

calls on primary steel and high project

execution skills. He set up the greenfi eld

project in Orissa which helped him enter the

primary steel market and that reduced his

dependence on outsiders for raw material.

TARANG JAIN, Varroc Group

For making the leap into the four-wheeler

auto component business by acquiring

global companies that have since served as

a springboard to growth. Is now venturing

into manufacturing lights and wants to

grow the company to $4 billion by 2020.

AJAY BIJLI, PVR Cinemas

For being India’s multiplex man, who built

one of the most profi table multiplex chains

in India. Focussed on creating a premium

experience for customers on par with the

best in the world. He’s now on the verge

of a huge expansion spree, with a target

of 500 screens by 2015.

VIKAS OBEROI, Oberoi Realty

For being one of the few people who

bucked the realty trend to run a high-qual-

ity, high-margin, cash-rich business when

the rest of the sector is in doldrums. Has

a debt-free company which is rare in

today’s economic scenario.

VINOD RAMNANI, Opto Circuits

For methodically moving up the value

chain from non-invasive medical products

to high-tech branded devices. Much of

the work is research-driven with high risks

and returns.

ENTREPRENEUR WITH SOCIAL IMPACT RANJAN SHARMA, IKSL

For creating a profi table business model

that uses telecom technology to connect

farmers. IKSL has over 10 million subscrib-

ers as of 2011. Airtel and Iff co have been

connected via IKSL and the winners in the

partnership are the farmers. He has been

able to infl uence crop protection, irrigation

patterns and farm productivity.

SUDESH MENON, Waterlife

For developing innovative technologies

and a business plan to be able to supply

safe drinking water to under-served

communities. It’s no small feat considering

that Waterlife works in geographies with

high water contamination.

SAMIT GHOSH, Ujjivan

For being on the forefront of lending that

is focussed on the urban poor—a segment

often ignored by other lenders. Ujjivan has

disbursed over Rs 2,000 crore. The com-

pany is praised for high levels of corporate

governance and transparency.

CHANDRA SEKHAR GHOSH, Bandhan

For founding India’s biggest microfi nance

organisation, but one that is able to

target the poorest segment by integrating

livelihood programmes with lending. Very

involved in the livelihood, education and

health aspects of its borrowers.

WILLIAM BISSELL, Fabindia

For creating a globally recognised, profi t-

able retail brand that has over 22,000 local

artisans as its shareholders, most of whom

would have lost their livelihoods if it were

not for Bissell and Fabindia. He has always

preferred slow but steady growth and his

bottom line is almost three times that of

the industry average and invokes the envy

of every rival.

BEST CEO- Multinational Company ANTONIO HELIO WASZYK, Nestle India

For leading Nestle India to a consistent

growth of upwards of 20 percent through

tough times. Waszyk has expanded into new

product categories and has successfully

extended already popular brands like Maggi.

SHINZO NAKANISHI, Maruti Suzuki

For maintaining Maruti’s market leader-

ship, despite increasing challenges from

new entrants. Introduced a slew of new

cars designed for Indian consumers. Built

on the incumbency advantage in distribu-

tion and after sales service.

NITIN PARANJPE, HUL

Resurrected HUL’s position as a premium

multinational, after almost a decade in the

wilderness by bringing the focus back on

execution and profi table growth. Mounted

a signifi cant expansion of its famed

distribution system, after a gap of almost

two-and-a-half decades.

TIGER TYAGARAJAN, Genpact

For transforming Genpact from a pure-play

BPO into an IT/BPO company and putting

it in direct competition with outsourcing

giants like Infosys and Wipro. With a strong

focus on customers and proven expertise

in execution, Tiger is now taking Genpact

to the next level of growth.

VIPIN SONDHI, JCB India

For infusing aggression into JCB India’s

operations. The Indian arm now constitutes

30 percent of the parent’s revenues. Sets

the market trend with new machines and

innovations. JCB India has successfully

stood its ground against biggies like Cater-

pillar and Komatsu, both of whom

are bigger than JCB globally.

BEST CEO- Public Sector ANIL KUMAR, Bharat Electronics

For successfully capitalising on the rising

defence budgets. The company has an

order backlog of over Rs 25,700 crore,

mainly from the defence sector, which

translates into more than four times its

FY ’12 revenues.

CS VERMA, SAIL

For spearheading the initiative that brought

together his counterparts in other public

and private sector companies to acquire

mines overseas. Successfully led the

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companies to win the bid to develop iron

ore mines in Afghanistan.

KR KAMATH, PNB

For clear thinking and pushing result-

oriented programmes. A modern approach

has helped him change the culture inside

PNB; it is the only bank which has recorded

a return on equity of 20 percent consis-

tently over the last 10 years and funded

its growth by ploughing back capital.

MD MALLYA, Bank of Baroda

For taking charge of the bank just as the

global fi nancial meltdown was beginning

and managing to keep the bank’s perfor-

mance stable in that period. Thanks to

him, the bank has managed to maintain

the quality of its balance sheet.

RK SINGH, BPCL

For successfully steering BPCL away from

the PSU oil company pack, to the extent

that it now commands a huge premium

over HPCL and IOC. Has broken BPCL’s

dependence on the loss-making retail

business by setting up a new refi nery

and developing the gas discovery made

in off shore Mozambique in 2008.

BEST CEO- Private Sector ADITYA PURI, HDFC Bank

For building one of the strongest private

banks in India from scratch. Has consis-

tently delivered 30 percent growth in earn-

ings, without taking undue risk, for almost

20 quarters. Every year, not only have they

added 2 million customers, but also found

a way to cross-sell other products to that

customer base, thereby boosting revenues

and profi ts.

FRANCISCO D’SOUZA, Cognizant

For leading Cognizant through a slowdown

in the IT sector and overtaking the likes of

Wipro and Infosys. He’s led the company

to new geographies (around 75 percent

of revenues come from the US compared

to 90 percent a few years back) and new

segments (like consulting and remote

infrastructure management).

KAMAL SHARMA, Lupin

For building the global business for the

company, despite being late in entering

the US market. Lupin is the only Indian

company in the top 10 branded generics

market in the US.

KBS ANAND, Asian Paints

For consistently delivering profi table

growth by innovating and building a strong

customer franchise. For building up the

dealer network and improving margins for

retailers. Asian Paints has a wide dealer-

ship network of 26,000 dealers. Anand has

grown the company on the back of alliances

with global paint majors and acquisitions.

N CHANDRASEKARAN, TCS

For being able to balance aggression,

which is needed to achieve stretched

goals, with conservatism needed to make

sure such a large company, $10 billion

now, doesn’t go off the rails. He has been

able to build a very solid team of next

generation of managers.

WOMAN LEADER FOR THE YEAR MALLIKA SRINIVASAN, TAFE

For growing the company from a turnover

of a paltry Rs 86 crore in 1985 (the year

she joined as general manager-planning

and coordination) to Rs 5,800 crore in

2010. She has played a critical role in

the acquisition of the tractors business of

Eicher Motors. Earlier this year, she joined

Tata Steel’s board of directors.

MEENA GANESH, Pearson Education

For having the ability to spot trends, and

make bets on them. First with the BPO

business, then with online education—and

now the second wave of e-commerce

fi rms. PES now provides technology-based

solutions and digital content. It covers over

2,500 schools across India.

SHOBHANA BHARTIA, HT Media

For transforming a family-owned private

company into a professionally managed,

publicly listed media empire. She expanded

the media business, launched radio chan-

nels and business newspaper Mint.

ROOPA KUDVA, CRISIL

For maintaining a meritocratic culture at

CRISIL. She introduced ratings for small

and medium enterprises and has been

transparent about assumptions behind

analyses and communication to the market.

SWATI PIRAMAL, Piramal Enterprises

For transforming Piramal Healthcare into

a conglomerate, with healthcare being the

fl agship division. It’s going after IP-driven,

high-margin businesses. The pipeline is

carefully planned so that it gets exposure

to high growth areas like metabolic disor-

ders (diabetes) and oncology.

CONSCIOUS CAPITALIST FOR THE YEAR BPCL

For consuming resources responsibly

through materials management, eco-

friendly biodegradable packaging for lube

oils, handling spills, water stewardship

and monitoring effl uent streams.

CIPLA

For making AIDS treatment aff ordable. Ci-

pla made a conscious decision to not profi t

from anti-AIDS drugs. In 2001, Cipla took

on MNCs by announcing that it would sell

its triple cocktail of antiretroviral drugs in

developing countries for $350 per patient

per year, a fraction of what the MNCs were

charging at that time (about $12,000).

HUL

For having made a global commitment to

sustainable business since 2010. The plan

is expected to result in three signifi cant

outcomes by 2020: Help more than a

billion people improve their health and well-

being, halve the environmental footprint of

its products and source 100 percent of its

agricultural raw materials sustainably.

MARICO

For letting farmers take advantage of high

market rates and not cancelling contracts

when they renege on them, thus earning

their loyalty and long-term supply. Marico

is also working with the Coconut Develop-

ment Board and the Kerala government to

bring mechanisation to the dangerous and

long-drawn process that stretches from

plucking coconuts to drying and extracting

oil for Parachute.

TCS

For being one of the few Indian companies

which focuses on multiple sustainable

issues in a strategic manner rather than ad

hoc decisions. Works on multiple fronts like

employment, adult education, children, and

the environment.

LIFETIME ACHIEVEMENT AWARD AM NAIK, L&T

For rebuilding L&T into a more tightly knit

engineering powerhouse. Led two major

portfolio re-organisations, which resulted

in shedding several uncompetitive busi-

nesses and joint ventures. Focussed on

building a leadership pipeline. Lobbied

relentlessly for the cause of Indian

manufacturing with the government.

DEEPAK PAREKH, HDFC

For building HDFC into India’s biggest mort-

gage fi nancier. He expanded the group’s

presence into banking, insurance, venture

capital funding and education fi nancing.

A strong advocate of corporate governance,

transparency and reform, he is often the

spearhead of corporate activism on govern-

ment’s functioning and policy making.

E SREEDHARAN, Delhi Metro Rail Corp

For building some of the largest infrastruc-

ture projects since India’s independence,

despite working for a government organ-

isation. He faced a lot of interference from

politicians in the early years, but Sreed-

haran put his foot down and demanded

that he be given a free hand.

RAHUL BAJAJ, Bajaj Auto

For taking Bajaj Auto from a small-time

manufacturer of scooters to become the

largest two-wheeler company in India in the

1970-80s and early 1990s. At 74, he wears

many hats now: Businessman, politician

and social commentator. Pushed through a

sensible division of assets and responsibili-

ties for his two sons, Rajiv and Sanjiv.

YK HAMIED , Cipla

For believing in balancing business with

social and humanitarian causes. In May

2012, his company slashed prices of drugs

for brain, kidney and lung cancer to make

them available at one-fourth the prevailing

price. He says he’ll do to cancer drugs what

he did to HIV drugs almost a decade ago.

ENTREPRENEUR FOR THE YEAR ANALJIT SINGH, Max India Group

For building Max India into a near $2 billion

diversifi ed business house. It has interests

in insurance, healthcare, clinical research

and packaging. He set in place a new

corporate governance model at Max India,

which is now board-driven. He set up trusts

to manage his personal wealth to ensure

that the next generation doesn’t have to go

to court to settle family matters.

DILIP SHANGHVI, Sun Pharma

For making Sun into a global generic drugs

company and India’s most valuable pharma

company. With Israeli company Taro’s

acquisition, Shanghvi has taken Sun to a

level where it can be benchmarked against

the largest generics companies in the world

such as Teva, Sandoz and Watson.

KM BIRLA, Aditya Birla Group

For foraying into businesses like telecom,

retail, and fi nancial services and chang-

ing the profi le of the conglomerate, which

earlier was dominantly in old economy

sectors. He exited from many businesses

like petroleum refi ning, sponge iron and

refi ned palm oil.

ANAND MAHINDRA, Mahindra & Mahindra

For making the company a strong player

in the automo-

tive, information

technology and

hospitality sectors.

He is regarded by

many people in

the industry as a

visionary who is

taking the Mahin-

dra brand from a

small Indian player

to a global business powerhouse.

UDAY KOTAK, Kotak Mahindra Bank

For creating a fi nancial conglomerate that

is highly respected and profi table in less

than three decades. He has a tremendous

ability to spot, nurture and empower talent.

He keeps the bank suffi ciently low-profi le,

a desirable trait in a sector that has been

accused of being too testosterone-driven.

For more details log on to: www.forbesindia.com/leadershipawards

Hospitality Partner Knowledge Partner

Presented by

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T H I N G S

W E L O V E

A B O U T

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To all the thing’s that make us proud to be Indian: a salute from the heartCurated and edited by SUMANA MUKHERJEE, DINESH KRISHNAN and BENU JOSHI ROUTH

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L i f e/ R e c l i n e r

2 MOBILE TELEPHONYAt some point last year, we earned the distinction of having more mobile phone connections than toothbrushes. While some may fi nd that dubious, we say it is probably one of the biggest achievements of a modern, market-driven India and our gift to the world (which has now co-opted our model). Putting a phone (or many) in the hands of three out of every four Indians was made possible by the coming together of rare sanguinity from regulators, radical innovation by private companies and mass-scale adoption by consumers: An event so rare that it ought to be the equivalent of our Halley’s comet.

~Rohin Dharmakumar

4 PLURALISMWith nine religions, 30 languages with at least a million speakers each, and multiple cultural hotspots, India is the cultural Noah’s Ark Plus. We have more than two of everything, including executive power. Such variety must have sowed some seeds of tolerance amongst us and it must have equipped us to reconcile diff erences and fi nd common threads. That really is the idea of India.

~Shishir Prasad

3 A FREE PRESSOur press is still free. It is increasingly more commercial and advertising-dependent—and therefore eyeballs-oriented and breaking-news-fi xated—but, on the whole, it still questions what needs to be questioned and speaks truth to power. The social revolution on the Internet doesn’t just keep mainstream media on its toes; it has become a raucously free media on its own.

~PG

6 LOW-COST HEALTHCAREMuch has been written about India as a medical tourism destination: fl y in, get top class treatment at an expensive hospital at a fraction of the overseas cost, and fl y back. Hidden behind the cost arbitrage, a real revolution has been spearheaded by hospitals such as Arvind Eye Hospital and Narayana Hrudayalaya. In these hospitals, the doctors industrialised complex processes to bring down the costs to a fraction, and benefi ted a large number of the poor. A whole range of other organisations from behemoth GE to Embrace, a small social enterprise, have followed that tradition to make healthcare aff ordable.

~NS Ramnath

1 THE METROSKolkata’s Metro showed it could be done and was, for a long time, the pinnacle of advanced mass rapid transport in the country. Then Delhi’s Metro did what seemed impossible: It turned that commuter-hostile city into a veritable paradise, covering vast distances in miraculously short times. Even more amazing was the lack of disruption to the city’s life while it was (and continues to be) built.

~Peter Griffi n

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5 ZOHRA SEHGAL She toured the world with Uday Shankar’s troupe, travelled India with Prithviraj Kapoor’s Prithvi Theatre and made fi lms (incidentally, she is older than the Indian fi lm industry). Her wit, her verve, her joy for life are undimmed, still larger than life.

~Dinesh Krishnan


I NDIA


11 MONSOONSWestern clichés about rain being a downer just don’t work for us; we love our wet season. Its annual miracle rejuvenates a parched land, turning brown into countless shades of iridescent green, sending spirits soaring, provoking purple prose… We’ll stop now.

~PG

9 AULIWhen the Kashmir troubles started, we needed another place to hold our winter sports meets (did you know we have had a National Winter Games since 1996?). They’ve been held on the slopes above Joshimath (on the pilgrim trail to Badrinath), at a facility run by the Garhwal Mandal Vikas Nigam. It has decent slopes, ski lifts, and it still off ers what are probably the world’s cheapest skiing lessons. The accommodations and food aren’t spectacular, but if you want the high life, further upslope—and upscale—is the Cliff Top Club resort.

~PG

10 BUDDHISMHow many religious philosophies can you sum up in a tweet? Try Buddhism. “Life is suff ering. Desire is its cause. Extinguishing desire ends suff ering. Right action, speech and livelihood is the way to live life.” So compact was this way of life that we shipped it all across Asia, perhaps our biggest cultural export to the asean.

~SP

8 ABHINAV BINDRANever mind what happened in London; he had already proven that one could transcend Indian sport’s vicious politicking and corruption when he won the country’s fi rst individual Olympic gold medal in the 10 metre air rifl e event at Beijing 2008. He inspired self-belief in hundreds of athletes. It’s no surprise that India sent its largest ever Olympic contingent to London 2012. They owe a lot to Bindra.

~AR

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7 TAJ MAHALEternal love. Enough said.

~Abhishek Raghunath

94 FORBES INDIA | August 31, 2012 August 31, 2012 | FORBES INDIA 95

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13 WESTERN GHATSThe Himalayas get all the good press. But the Western Ghats aren’t exactly inconsequential. Aside from providing a number of cool (as in weather, not wannabeness) getaways for city-dwellers, and snagging the monsoon clouds so that the West coast gets irrigated, they are one of the world’s top 10 biodiversity hotspots and a UNESCO World Heritage Site. They are home to thousands of plant species, and hundreds of animal species, including many threatened ones. Even now, new species are being found, and more will surely be discovered.

~PG

12 BIODIVERSITY Much of the fl avour in our foods and the healing power in our herbs come from India’s wealth of species. One of the 12 mega biodiversity countries of the world, India has now embarked on measuring the economic value of its fl ora and fauna, fi nally realising that they were not out there to be our target species.

~Seema Singh

14 INDIAN WRITING IN ENGLISH Macaulay wouldn’t believe what he started. There is now a vast body of writers who are Indian in blood and colour and in taste, opinions, morals and intellect, who have gone beyond explaining India to the West, to fi nding fulfi lment (and audiences) within the country even though they write in English.

~PG

16 GANDHIIn Anna Hazare’s movement and in the Arab Spring uprising in the Middle East, we saw the power of Mahatma Gandhi’s methods. This is how ordinary people armed with nothing more than willpower can question powers that be and change the course of history.

~SP

15 STREET FOODFrom pav-bhaji in Mumbai to phuchka in Kolkata and from chaat in Delhi to chai in Hyerabad, street food gets us all salivating. Inexpensive, varied, quick and accessible, street food fi lls the four o’clock hole in the tummy like no cold coff ee-shop sandwich can. For the best choice, head to any city’s CBD bylanes on a working day and be prepared to have your taste buds set on fi re. And we mean that in a nice way.

~Samar Srivastava

18 LATA MANGESHKARFor more than 60 years, she has captivated an entire nation with her voice. She sang mostly in Hindi, a language that most people in the South felt no affi nity for, and for fi lm stars with whom many did not identify. Yet when her songs were on radio, people listened, often touched by the gentle peace that seems to reside in her being.

~NSR

17 FRUGAL ENGINEERINGIt’s not features-stripping, nor is it low-cost engineering. A minimalist approach to problem solving, frugal engineering is a grounds-up movement that companies based out of India—local and multinational—have shown the world that’s stumbling upon one resource crisis to another. The products could be a multi-media projector in a lunchbox, a pick-up truck or a portable ultrasound machine; the underlying idea is the one whose time has come.

~SS

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19 THE INDIAN BANYAN Lord Buddha attained nirvana under the Bodhi, a not-too-distant cousin of the banyan. In its shade in Shantiniketan, Rabindranath Tagore was moved to poetry. From enlightenment to inspiration to mundane village panchayats and tiny temples, the Indian banyan (Ficus benghalensis) has towered over them all, an enduring symbol of the hardiness and hospitality of the subcontinent.

~Benu Joshi Routh

21 JRD TATA Jeh, as he was fondly known, even to those who didn’t know him, demonstrated that it was possible to be rich, successful, a business leader of unquestioned skill and, yet, be a decent human being. Not least among his many qualities was knowing when to step down. His example and values live on in the Tata group, which remains that rarity, a respected business empire.

~PG

22 FABINDIAStarted by John Bissell as a hobby, and propelled into a cult by his son, William, Fabindia is the custodian of Gandhi’s khadi-clad Indian. Not only does it provide a one-stop shop for anything ethnic, it has also created a unique business model. With a double bottom line to look after, the brand looks to benefi t the craftsmen, the customer and the company.

~Nilofer D’Souza

23 BAZAARSWalk through their long winding lanes when you’re searching for something you want that the malls won’t have, or when you just want the joy of a happy discovery. Everything can be had in an Indian bazaar, preferably with a bout of spirited bargaining thrown in. Laad Bazaar in Hyderabad, Bhindi Bazaar in Mumbai and Burma Bazaar in Chennai are particularly known for everything from spices to crockery and jewellery to electronics and furniture to cars.

~SS

20 STREET ART It’s ubiquitous, but comes in many forms: Religious, political, sporting, commercial, historical, “nature scenes”, profi les, caricatures, graffi ti. At its best it can brighten up an entire neighbourhood; remember the Rajesh Khanna mural on a Bandra wall? It can be witty, as with election graffi ti in Kolkata, or downright embarrassing if it’s your wall advertising the local “men’s health” quack. Oh, and they keep the public from “committing nuisance”. Whatever it takes.

~Sumana Mukherjee

24 COASTLINE Stretching over 7500 kilometres from Gujarat to West Bengal, the coastline, in the way it dips and rises, refl ects the way Indians think about India. And then there’s the oceans’ bounty in the form of a huge variety of seafood, with ingredients, fl avouring and preparation methods varying every few hundred kilometres. Beaches, of course, are the silver lining.

~NSR

25 ISRO & THE SPACE PROGRAMME A hungry and half-clad nation dared to dream when Russians and the Americans made a race for space. From launching a 40 kg satellite into space, India went to off er its space capabilities to other nations to launch their satellites as well. While the recent years have seen a bit of rough ride, ISRO remains one of the organisations that has continuously pushed the envelope of India’s ambitions.

~SP

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31 DHABAS There are dhabas and dhabas. Families gravitate to the ones with the loos, foodies to the ones with trucks parked three-deep. They may have a Punjabi allegiance (in which case you’ll never go wrong with tandoori rotis, black urad dal with lashings of butter, and tandoori chicken or aloo-gobi) or a more local fl avour, but however gentrifi ed or downmarket they may be, the food will be fresh and hot and the perfect reason to break the journey.

~SS

27 THE ROYAL BENGAL TIGERWhether one has sighted tigers in the mist of Nagarhole Park, the ancient ruins of Ranthambhore or just gawked at them in the city zoo, this beautiful beast holds an enduring fascination for the world. India is home to the largest number of these endangered cats. Stepped-up fi eld eff orts and public conservation discourses promise that the animal will survive the 21st century.

~SS

32 BOLLYWOODThe world’s most prolifi c fi lm industry churns out entertainment that shapes conversation, culture, even character across the country. And over the last few years, it’s been gaining large audiences—and respectability—outside the country too.

~PG

26 CRAFTSThe crafts map of India cuts a wide swath, from the bamboo craft of Assam to the blue pottery of Jaipur and the walnut woodwork of Kashmir to footwear from Kolhapur. Indian craftspeople, some six million of them, keep the knowledge alive: of locally-available material, a mastery over tools and an understanding of technique. However, only sustained investment from government and industry will ensure their survival.

~BJR

30 SUPERSTARSDespite—or maybe because of—their unconventional looks and choice of roles, Amitabh Bachchan and Rajinikanth redefi ne success in the world of cinema. On several occasions, Bachchan appeared to be down and out but, like some of his silver-screen roles, he always managed to stage a comeback. As for Rajinikanth, he never went out (and that’s not a Rajini joke!).

~NSR

29 SEX No, we didn’t invent it, but with the Khajuraho temples and the Kama Sutra, India was one of the fi rst societies to celebrate sex. Centuries later, they continue to serve as ancient weapons against modern prudishness and bigotry.

~NSR

28 BANDRA-WORLI SEA LINK & VIDYASAGAR SETUOne arcs out over the sea, one spans a river; they’d be beautiful anywhere in the world; in India, rising from the dregs of urban decay to touch the sky, they are inspiration, aspiration, possibility and reality. From afar or up close, they excite awe like no other modern architecture in India. Sometimes, we just need to gasp.

~SM

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35 BIRYANI A phalanx of carbohydrates armed with the sarissa of protein. Flavourful and fragrant, the biryani shows how conquest can turn into culture and trade into taste. The biryani traces its origin to the Persian word birian, “fried before cooking”. The dish is supposed to have come through two routes: Overland with the marauding Turks and Mughals and via trade from across the high seas to Kerala. Today, almost all regions in India have their own spin on this dish: That’s how India adopts and adapts its favourite things.

~SP

37 RAGA YAMAN / KALYANI RAAGAMThere are many ragas that are common to the North and South but none like Kalyani or, as North India knows it, Yaman. If you want to be serious, then this melody has gravitas, if you want to be playful, then it has a lightness of touch. Some of India’s best melodies have been composed in this tune. The famous Ganesh aarti ‘Sukh Harta, Dukh Harta’ is set in it, as is ‘Krishna ni Begane Baro’. The famous Thyagaraja kriti ‘Vasudevayani’ shows off Kalyani as does the beautiful Meerabai composition ‘Aeri aali Piya Bin’. Classical music at its best, rigorous and yet part of every man’s life.

~SP

36 CLASSICAL DANCEDance is perhaps the most ephemeral form of beauty. With eight recognised classical styles, Indian dance combines the pureness of nritta with the drama of abhinaya. From temple precincts to proscenium stage, it’s an art form that has kept pace with time without ever needing to dilute its original identity.

~SM38 PRAYAGS

The Prayags (literally, ‘confl uences,’ meetings of rivers) have, for centuries, been the setting for human congregations of unbelievable scale in India. And the Prayags in the Himalayas (Vishnu Prayag, Nand Prayag, Karn Prayag, Rudra Prayag and Dev Prayag), take it to a diff erent level. For a moment, set aside the spiritual meanings; just concentrate on the beauty: Two rivers rushing to join each other, the merging of distinctly diff erent-coloured waters swirling, bubbling, merging, and all of a sudden they are one, with a new name.

~DK

33 THE GOLDEN QUADRILATERALAmerica’s highways, Germany’s autobahns, they seemed impossible ideals in India, where potholes and ruts are practically default. The Golden Quad promises to change that, even if only on its wavy line connecting the metros. The stretches that have been completed are wondrous to drive on, and we live in the hope of a new tradition: The Great Indian Road Trip.

~PG

34 BR AMBEDKARThe degree of reverence attached to the man by the Dalit community can sometimes be over the top, but who can deny that he gave the downtrodden a shining example of what sheer hard work could do to improve one’s fortunes. And, of course, he was the architect of our constitution, the bedrock of our democracy.

~PG

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42 ANDAMANSFar, far away from the mainland, the modern day Andamans seems to have acquired a culture of their own. Original settlers, and later immigrants from Punjab, Bengal, Andhra Pradesh, Tamil Nadu have merged into a harmonious whole. It is only when you take a fl ight to any of the islands, away from Port Blair, that you realise how kind nature has been. If your plane is fl ying really high, you also see that all of the islands are just specks in that deep blue. And if the people do not take care of their natural protection—coral reefs, mangroves—the ocean could, quite easily, swamp them all.

~DK

39 MUMBAI’S LOCAL TRAINSOvercrowded to ridiculous extremes, yes; almost antiquated technology, yes; easily disrupted by nature or human intervention, yes. But they are, to use the cliché, the lifeline of the city. They represent and facilitate the work ethic of the city—get to offi ce, come what may—and are pretty much a daily miracle for the sheer numbers they ferry back and forth.

~PG

41 HDFC To own a home in India meant you had to grow old, literally: People mostly built or bought their homes only in their late forties after they had set aside money all through their working lives. This was because there was no long-term fi nance available. In 1977, one man, HT Parekh—father of Deepak Parekh—set up HDFC to facilitate precisely this. Home ownership may not be available for everyone yet, but it’s far easier to own a home now than it was 20 years ago. And most of that happened because of HDFC.

~SP

40 AUTEURS Satyajit Ray and Adoor Gopalakrishnan: The two geniuses might be separated by two decades by birth and 1980 km by distance, but they touched a chord in their audiences like no one before or after. From the fi rst fi lms—Swayamwaram (Gopalakrishnan) and Pather Panchali (Ray)—till their last, they revealed an intuitive understanding of the human mind that still remains unsurpassed.

~NSR

43 HUL Sunlight, Lifebuoy, Lux, Ponds, Fair & Lovely: All foreign brands, all part of the Indian psyche. From 1888, when the Lever Brothers landed in British Calcutta, to today’s Hindustan Unilever, no other company has understood the Indian consumer better, trained its managers more thoroughly or spent more time developing a supply chain that extends into really small towns. And it is arguably the only company with signifi cant foreign shareholding that hasn’t had a foreigner heading the India operations since 1961.

~SP

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46 THE INDIAN RAILWAYSFew things evoke nostalgia the way the railways do. Through 65,000 kilometres, its tracks wind along the sides of mountains and cut through the plains with equal ease and carry 30 million passengers every day. Add to that a reservation system that makes railway systems of the developed world look primitive. Recent introductions include the hip German Linke Hoff man Bush (LHB) coaches and superfast Durontos. Now, if only we could fi x safety.

~SS

45 KULHAD CHAIThere’s something about these red mud-baked tumblers. Die-hard fans swear that chai—the thick brew rapidly being appropriated by the Western world—served in them develops a taste and aroma that the fi nest china (ulp) cannot capture. Eco-friendly, hygienic and easily available, they were the railways’ tumbler of choice till the early 1990s. Earlier this decade, Lalu Prasad attempted to revive their use with mixed results, but we aren’t giving up the fi ght just yet.

~SS

44 CARTOONISTS It’s said that when India’s most celebrated cartoonist, RK Laxman, got a lucrative off er from abroad, he refused. Where else would he fi nd leaders who lent themselves so easily to caricature? The abundance of raw material drew several others into the fi eld: Sankar, Abu Abraham, Mario, Sudhir Tailang, Keshav, Surendra, Satish Acharya, the list goes on and on. To see their works collectively is to see India.

~NSR

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49 MANGOES They’re native to India (as the name Mangifera indica indicates), our national fruit and we grow about a third of the world’s output. But we only account for about 1 percent of the international trade; ergo, we like to keep as many as possible for ourselves. Who wouldn’t? A mango is the best of summer, condensed into one juicy handful.

~PG

47 PUJAS IN KOLKATAThe grime gives way to glitter, the chaos is consumed by joy. For fi ve days every autumn, India’s most benighted city digs deep to produce a festival that is inclusive, orderly and ridiculously safe. Every day, an estimated million people hit the streets, not counting 5,000 policemen. Power demands soar up by an average of 4,200 MW and the revelry continues all night. An experience of a lifetime, for atheist or believer.

~SM

53 ARCHITECTURAL HERITAGEJaw-dropping and awe-inspiring, our architectural heritage—Buddhist, Indian, Islamic, colonial, and Indo-Saracenic—showcases a matrix of religions and cultures. They embody the vision of master architects in their grand scale with as much aplomb as the skill of the craftsmen in their miniature ornamentation. Seventeen of these monuments now wear World Heritage Site tags, but scores more may benefi t from a nationwide campaign against vandalism and encroachment.

~BJR

52 GOABeaches, beaches and beaches. Cheap daaru. Great food. Susegaad. Music. Churches. Wildlife. What’s not to love! The one state where half the population is permanent and the other is ‘tourist’. Almost. Women and foreigners love it because this is the one place in India where you can wear a bikini in peace. Men love it for much the same reasons.

~AR

48 OFF-THE-MAP GETAWAYS It doesn’t happen too often—in fact it’s quite rare—but when it does it’s jaw-droppingly, breathtakingly beautiful. It’s that turn off a highway, a couple of kilometres down a dirt track, to a place of calm, serenity—and solitude. It could be in the forests of the northeast, the salt pans of the west, the ghats down south or the mountains up north. Away from the madding crowd, from the dust and din of urban India, there’s just you and nature. India is large enough to keep the idea of ‘remote’ alive. And the mobile signal at bay.

~SM

51 THE IITSIndia still doesn’t have those iconic universities that attract bright students from all over the world. But if you take the IITs as a set, they do the country proud, with their alumni in demand all over the world.

~PG

50 MULTIPLE LANGUAGES The sheer vastness of India is best refl ected in the number and diversity of its languages. We speak in many tongues—22 offi cial languages, not counting English—and we don’t always understand each other even when we speak the same language; ask the Bengali in Bangalore or the Mumbaikar in Delhi. Languages have caused bloody riots but have sparked great literature; they can divide but they can unite, and can even make us laugh at ourselves (invaluable in these grim days). And the latest, Call Centre English, has kickstarted an entire economy.

~SM

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57 VARIETY, THE SPICE OF LIFEFew things irk us more than the umbrella label “Indian food”. Fact is, cuisine can change with every 100 km, thanks to India’s ethnic, religious, agricultural and weather diversities. Kerala, the current foreign favourite, has several varieties of Hindu, Muslim, Christian and Jewish cuisines within its narrow confi nes; in Kolkata, Bangals and Ghotis fi ght for food bragging rights; Tamil Nadu’s non-veg is as complex and deep-rooted as its more famous vegetarian off erings; and in the bylanes of Old Delhi, the beef seekh and aloo paratha are both original inhabitants. They do have one thing in common, though: The great Indian melting pot.

~SM

58 ETHNIC ARCHITECTURE Traditional Kerala temples, with their sloping tiled roofs, demonstrate perfectly how to best handle torrential rain for four months. Homes in the upper reaches of cold, dry Ladakh, made of low-maintenance mud-plastered walls, the most abundant material available, the typical two-storied building houses cattle in the ground fl oor and its residents on the upper fl oor. The main living room: the kitchen, the warmest place in winter. Firewood stored on the roof also acts as insulation. Sense, sensibility and beauty. Unlike the epidemic of glass-walled hideousness now spreading through our metros.

~DK

54 KASHMIRKashmir is just regaining some semblance of peace and starting to see an infl ux of tourists again. Aside from the natural beauty, it’s ‘kashmiriyat’ that most attracts us. It means friendliness, but much more. For example, it’s not uncommon for Kashmiris to invite people they just meet back to their homes for a meal. And what meals! They are a real spread, with multiple courses and generous helpings. Meat, vegetables and rice are common and the apples of the region are in demand across the world. Cashmere wool and Pashmina shawls are staple items in tourists’ bags when they return from Kashmir.

~AR

56 WARMTH OF STRANGERS‘Atithi Devo Bhava,’ the guest is god. It’s not just a hospitality industry thing; it’s the mantra of almost every Indian. At least, we would like to believe that. It’s what sets India apart. In India, you can speak to strangers and get help, assistance, even make a phone call from their personal phones to get you out of a sticky situation.

~ND

55 RAJASTHAN CANAL The Rajasthan Canal (formally Indira Gandhi Nahar Project) passes through Barmer, Bikaner, Churu, Hanumangarh, Jaisalmer, Jodhpur, and Sriganganagar districts. It has helped transform a desert into productive agricultural land. Aside from irrigation, it also supplies drinking water, not just to remote villages but also to some major cities like Jaisalmer, Barmer and Bikaner. The canal has truly changed the lives of people living around it.

~Amit Verma

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60 CRICKETWhatever is written about cricket in India would only represent a fraction of peoples’ feelings about the game. It’s probably the only sport that gives the country reason to be proud on a regular basis. And it’s also possibly the most hated sport in India, because of its attention-hungry ways. We know it’s a paradox but, hey, welcome to India!

~AR

65 YOGAAummm. The most primordial of sounds reverberates through our bodies, the air and the world on a frequency only the attuned can hear. Cut out all the clamour and the controversies, and yoga still off ers the best spiritual stretch in the world. It’s Indian and it still costs nothing.

~SM

63 ELECTORAL PROCESSForget the Indian Premier League. India’s biggest organisational eff ort happens every fi ve years when the country plays its favourite sport, politics, on a grand scale. It costs the country more than Rs 500 crore to sift out 520-odd people from a fi eld of more than 11,000 contenders. And this is just the general elections that we are talking about! Multiply that complexity many times over for the 28 state elections. Indian democracy would not have been possible without an electoral process that has, for most part, remained fair and fi rm.

~SP

61 HANDLOOMS AND SARIS Ranging from fi ne muslin to rich brocade, textiles are one of India’s richest traditions. That Indian fabrics had a global infl uence can be judged from the number of loanwords in English: Calico, chintz, khaki, cashmere. The variety of Indian textiles is best exemplifi ed in the sari. The subtle Chanderi from Madhya Pradesh; the elaborate cotton Jamdani and silk Baluchari from Bengal; the Banarasi Kinkhwab (brocade); Kanchivaram from Tamil Nadu; Patola from Gujarat; the rich Paithani from Maharashtra. Versatile. Graceful. Sensual. Indian.

~Sveta Basraon

59 HIMALAYASThe one reason why India is the way it is. The world’s highest mountain range keeps the cold Arctic winds out and the monsoon winds in. Their snow-capped peaks and glaciers provide water to billions of people in the Indian subcontinent. They are home to some of the world’s rarest fl ora and fauna. Oh, and the Yeti also lives here. As does Lord Shiva, he of the matted locks and the blue throat, who dances the dance of death and can destroy universes when he opens his third eye. Not surprisingly, hundreds of thousands of Hindu, Buddhist and Sikh pilgrims brave the mountains to visit holy sites. If you are averse to religion, there are tall peaks to climb, natural beauty to soak in and slopes to ski.

~AR

62 TRADITIONAL SPORTDespite the commercial and cultural juggernaut that is cricket, and the occasional bursts of excellence in other internationally played sports, various traditional sports still thrive: Kabbadi, khokho, mallakhamb gymnastics, kalaripayattu, the martial competitive displays in Punjab, traditional wrestling, the Kerala boat races, the cattle races in various parts of the country, even carrom. And, since it is practically a sport in other parts of the world, yoga.

~PG

64 IT COMPANIESThe fi rst fl ag-bearers of New India, home-grown IT services companies—Infosys, TCS, Wipro and HCL Technologies—were the fi rst to show what’s possible in a fl at world by describing their employees as their real assets, upholding principles of corporate governance and competing with the best in the world. Some of them faltered. But, by and large, they remain the best examples of India’s real soft power.

~NSR

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I NDIA


L i f e/ T h o u g h t s

INDEPENDENCEThoughts on

And so we have to labour and to work, and

to work hard, to give reality to our dreams. Those dreams are for

India, but they are also for the world, for all

the nations and peoples are too closely knit

together today for any one of them to imagine

that it can live apart. JAWAHARLAL NEHRU

Swaraj is my birthright, and I shall have it

‘LOKMANYA’ KESAR BAL GANGADHAR TILAK

If there is one place on the face of earth

where all the dreams of living men have found a home from the very

earliest days when man began the dream of

existence, it is India! FRENCH SCHOLAR

ROMAINE ROLLAND

India happens to be a rich country inhabited

by very poor people.MANMOHAN SINGH

Gandhi has asked that the British

Government should walk out of India and

leave the Indian people to settle diff erences J

im B

arb

er

/ C

orb

is

among themselves, even if it means chaos

and confusion.STAFFORD CRIPPS

The most certain test by which we judge whether a country is really free is the amount of security enjoyed by minorities.

JOHN DALBERG-ACTON, 1ST BARON ACTON

The India I love, does not make the headlines,

but I fi nd it wherever I go—in fi eld or forest,

town or village, mountain or desert—and in the hearts and minds of people who

have given me love and aff ection for the better

part of my lifetime.RUSKIN BOND

If India adopted the doctrine of love as

an active part of her religion and introduced it in her politics. Swaraj

would descend upon India from heaven. But I am painfully

aware that that event is far off as yet.

MK GANDHI

This fl ag is of Indian Independence. Behold, it is born. It is already

sanctioned by the blood of martyred Indian youths. I call upon

you gentlemen, to rise and salute this fl ag of Indian Independence.

In the name of this fl ag, I appeal to lovers of freedom all over the

world to cooperate with this fl ag in freeing one-fi fth of the human race.

MADAM CAMA

India is a curious place that still preserves the

past, religions, and its history. No matter

how modern India becomes, it is still very much an old country.

ANITA DESAI

I NDIA

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