Friday, January 26, 2007

Happy Republic Day !

I wish my dear country a very Happy Republic Day !!!!
Cant explain how happy I feel about it. Its 58th republic day. Good work!
And I miss writing. I have not written for so many days.
God knows what all stuff lies in my mind. I have to let it out someday....
I hope to come back again soon!.
C U!

JAI HIND !

Sunday, January 14, 2007

No Tax Exemptions

I heard that government is seriously planning to revoke all tax exemptions! What are they planning? I am not against paying taxes but taxation should be rational.
Even if we pay taxes, the roads are bad.
There is no proper drinking water.
Electricity is interrupted often.
Health is poor.
There is no social security system.
Even after that if there is some constructive project, they beg for private participation.
Don't get me wrong, but are the fruits of our taxes truly reaching us? And, if we save money in government funds, why should we be taxed? And, if the tax exemptions go, will anyone save anything in government funds (PF, infrastructure bonds etc)?
First of all, everyone needs to save for his future because there is no social security in India. If they do not save, everyone will be at the mercy of their children. To be self-sufficient and not be a burden, we must save for old-age. Note: I am not talking about investments which is a mode of earning. Since government does not provide social security, health-care and food, it has a moral responsibility to promote savings. And moreover, if these savings are going to government pocket, so, there must be tax exemption on those vehicles.
The exempt, exempt, tax policy is flawed in principle. First of all, there is no tax exemption, it is only a rebate that we get. People are saving for the future, no one knows what will be the tax rate/policy 20 years down the line. Now, if a person saves thinking that he will have a certain amount of money in old-age. Now in reality, no one can predict the inflation or the future tax rate. So, the person with savings gets only a fraction of what he has saved. He will feel cheated. How will he survive the old age?

If government is planning no tax exemptions, let it be this way:
  1. Tax the whole salary, no rebates. After that there should not be deduction on withdrawing that money. This is regarding the government funds.
  2. Cover more junta in tax net. Currently only 11% of the population pays taxes. The total revenue will increase.
  3. Why will anyone save in government funds? Guarantee that the returned amount will be 8-9% interest. And this should be a no-risk fund.

And be accountable, the returns of taxes should be visible in the quality of living provided to the citizen.

Saturday, January 13, 2007

Why Private Participation?

Every time I hear words like: "private sector should participate in rural telecom", "infrastructure should be given in the hands of the private sector", etc., I feel sick. Why do people say so? Is it because private sector runs better than public? Is it because private sector is more honest/efficient than government? Or is it because they no longer trust the government officials?

I believe that it is a mixture of all these. Whoever is saying these statements is just being myopic. He simply wants to cure the sector of his choice but does not sees the government as a single body. All those are problems plaguing the whole system. Even if we weed it out from one or two places, it will still continue to affect and disturb our lives. Or does he suggest that the whole government be privatized? While it can be debated what all be the responsibility of government and what all stuff can be left to the markets. But privatization? No way!

There is a very good reason why Government should continue handling critical sectors like infrastructure, power etc: we pay them taxes. They should not shun responsibility in veil of making things efficient. Else, it should reduce taxes ;) and anyways, whoever takes up the task will become corrupt.

What should be the ideal model? In my opinion, government should keep subjects like policy making, law enforcement to itself. Subjects like transportation, infrastructure, power, telecom, education, sports should be left to the private sector to do. And there should be a regulatory body having representation from babus, judiciary and prominent public from that field to overlook the long term working. Government should distance itself from the day-to-day working of most departments.

If we look at places where it has worked, telecom is a classic example. Government just framed the policies and set-up TRAI. Since then, the telecom sector has grown by leaps and bounds! The connectivity in urban areas has become excellent! Until government had monopoly in this field, it was growing at snail's pace.

We have already seen examples of different models and know which one has the best chances to work good. Let us introduce this model in other sectors and try if it helps. I have faith in this arrangement and hope that this model works for the good of India's future and collective good of Indians.

Jai Hind!

Friday, January 12, 2007

Kudos to ISRO

ISRO successfully put 3 satellites in orbit using its PSLV rocket. Proves India's capability in space technology. Excellent! Read the full Press Release .

Monday, January 08, 2007

Telecom Trends

Telecom is a red-hot field with fierce competition. It is also a basic necessity nowadays. There are three aspects to it:
  1. Voice Communication
  2. Data communication
  3. Cable-TV broadcast

Recently there has been a push towards connecting even the villages with telephones and Internet. TRAI and government are talking about private participation in this regard. Also, BSNL gets special favour from TRAI (in terms of extra funds) for providing telephony services in villages. But always there is a push towards wireline networks. Though I do not mean that wireline is redundant, it is difficult to deploy. The operator needs to lay cable to far-off places and in the end, there will only be a handful of subscribers in villages. This is not financially viable for private operators, so they do not even attempt to service those regions.

I feel that preference should be given to wireless networks for telecom services in villages. 2G (GSM/CDMA) has been in market for quite long and is now available for very low rates. There is even scope of getting the equipment in 'second-hand' because cities are gearing up for 3G deployments. There is no digging involved and a single tower can cater to the needs of several square kilometers of area. Maintenance is also easier in wireless because there is no danger of snapped cables, rain-water in connectors. Handsets have also drastically reduced in prices. I sincerely feel that 2G cellular systems are better options for providing voice telephony to villages; both in terms of price and maintainability.

Ditto for internet services. Already we can find waiting list for DSL connections in most cities. There is no capacity. Policymakers should speed up deployment of WiMAX which can serve an area of more than 50 sq.km. from a single tower. The bandwidth will also be an order of magnitude higher than the current maximum bandwidth. Already the rate of mobile adoption is more than that of landline phones. Similar revolution needs to happen in broadband. We just need to take the right steps.

I am closely associated with wireless industry. I personally feel that 3G cellular technology is a waste of time and money. It seems to be too-little-to-late. It took so long to reach the field that its successors have now come up. 3G technologies like UMTS/WCDMA/CDMA2000 provide very little data bandwidth as compared to WiMAX, and for voice, GSM has got extremely high penetration and good QoS. It is also extremely costly, not just at the network side, but also on handset side. The 3G handsets will cost at-least 10 times as compared to current 2G handsets. Moreover, the small screens of mobiles will provide inadequate experience to the user. Even if a person receives 13 Mbps with HSDPA, what is the use-case? Unless other side also has 3G service, videoconferencing is not possible, moreover, there is not enough content available to even serve a GPRS subscriber. Small phones will also have less multimedia processing power. I suggest, have a good laptop for processing the huge amount of data pouring in from WiMAX and if you want to talk, use VoIP. Or, if needed, can keep a GSM phone, cheap and light-weight.

Do not forcibly impose policies to align with operator's and equipment manufacturer's agenda. Stuff like: barring VoIP through internet services, 2Mbps bandwidth only to data-quantity limited plans and delaying WiMAX to allow 3G to spread are examples of conservative and silly policies. With DTH and CAS, policy-makers are already doing the right things. They just need to be a little more open-minded and let the market and technology decide who wins. The ball is rolling, don't stop it.

In the end, I would also try to point out that there is a great dearth of stuff that can be done on content side. Good that broadband speeds are now faster than 256 kbps, but there is little that can be done on local front. I mean, people mostly work on media serviced from US. There is only a very small set of Indian websites which get regular users. Most government departments are offline, and if they are on the Net, rarely have 2-way communication. Doesn't help the business too! Leave out internet banking and ticketing, there is hardly stuff to do for the common man.

Sunday, January 07, 2007

State of Science and Technology in India

Today morning I opened Times of India and read the column by Swaminathan S Anklesaria Aiyar which happens to be my favourite. But reading today, I found out how people jump onto commenting on a topic without knowing it from inside and even mock those who are the pillars of that field. I am no economist but still take interest in economics, but will never ever say that Mr Aiyar is wrong about economics. But science and technology is something different. I happen to work in a very hi-tech company which is among the top 3 in its field world-wide and files thousands of patents and papers each year. I feel I am qualified to comment on technology at-least.

First of all, I should mention that Mr Aiyer and Mr Rao agree on at least one -point: sorry state of Indian Science today. I have my own views about how to improve it and catch-up with the rest of the developed world. One field needs special mention: the basic sciences. No more Indians are doing research on basic sciences like physics, mathematics, astrophysics, chemistry etc... There are contribution from Indians but only from those who work abroad. It is silly to argue that they should not have left the country but why can't we have similar conductive environment for research here? Its better to let the brain drain that keep here and rot.

In technology, there are three aspects to it: research and architecture ( to be done in universities and labs to make new technology), design (covert a new technology into an idea and design of product) and lastly the implementation (where we convert the idea and fundamental design to actual product. It is important to understand that innovation is mainly in first two stages, the last stage simply implements the innovation. While there are opportunities of innovation in last stage but chances are meagre. Let us have an example. Consider a new radio technology like OFDM which is a new radio technology. Now this is basically a research idea proposed by professors at US universities (stage 1). Companies like Qualcomm incorporate this technology in advanced cellular systems. There were senior architects and engineers in USA who did the job of using it to fulfil the needs of cellular devices (stage 2). When they had finished their prototyping and designing, they passed on the designs to their "R&D centers" in India to implement the other bits and pieces and convert it to final phone.

Most Indian technology companies and foreign technology companies working in India are following this model. Though one can argue that with this model, latest technology comes to India, truth is that this is like a service job out sourced to India. Low tech jobs are done in India which implies that almost no new technology is 'created'. Western countries still do not transfer the hi-technology and keep it to themselves and the MNCs also do not do new technology development in India, they only get things implemented.

So, the fact that many patents have been filed in India and lot of technology companies have labs in India doesn't reflect the true picture. True idea will come from figures like: how many students do PhD in engineering from Indian colleges? How many seminal papers are published by Indian students and professors in IEEE journals? How many 'new technologies' are created in India? Leave apart IITs and the situation will be pathetic. Only good fact is that Indian engineers, by virtue of their intellect, are able to learn even the latest technology and get things done.

Police Reforms

First of all let's re-look what ails Indian Police and maybe consider what is the cure:

Not just political interference but also political dependence: Criminals feed the politicians with their black money and in return politicians ensure that their business is not affected. Police officers are dependent on politicians for their promotions and placement. If they try to do anything to make them unhappy, officer's fear that they can be transferred to a 'bad' location. So, police have to ignore criminals and this vicious cycle goes on.

Poor training and equipment: Just look at the equipments on the belts of a US police officer and an Indian police officer. You will understand what I mean. Moreover, in the wake of new threats like terrorism and electronic crime, the metro-police needs to be much better trained. Not just this, the police do a sloppy job of collecting evidence from crime scene.

Lack of control and accountability: Somebody said that "political interference may be dirty words but it is another term for civilian control." But in my opinion, there are better ways to have public control. For each police station, statistics should be maintained about conviction rate, case FIR to charge-sheet turnaround time etc. Also, the career file of all prominent police officers should be made public, maybe posted on a website. If an investigation is going-on on an officer, public should be aware of it. Why are the criteria for promotions of officers such a closely protected secret?

Archaic rules: The rules have become aged and desperately in need of help. There is a lot of scope for re-framing new laws and abolishing irrelevant ones. New India requires new and better laws.