Parents and the Pill Zehra: This is an excellent article. Please keep writing in the same frank way. Do not be intimidated by the retired old moral policemen of chowk. The new generation supports you !

Cheers!

Soapbox Sania ``Really??? Then why did a sri lankan soldier kicked Rajiv Gandhi`s butt``

If India was at war with Sri Lanka, why was Sri Lankan soldiers giving guard of honor to Rajiv Gandhi?

why was he later made sowarg baashi by the same people in a ``martyrdom operation``?

India tried to help Sri Lanka get rid of extremist LTTE. It did not work out due to various reasons. The terrorists who killed Gandhi belonged to LTTE. Does not mean India was at war with Sri Lanka.

Soapbox Sania How old is Sania again?

Open letter to an Indian Bureaucrat This article would have served a better purpose has it given a little bit of background. Instead, this comes across just another shrill rant.

Pakistan Travelogue I #113 by jang
``..he paid a short visit to sivajis temple-town..``
That would be Tuljapur

Mahadev Gobind Ranade (1842-1901) Ranade was known as ``Bolke Sudharak`` in the reformist circles of Maharashtra. i.e. some one who only talks the talk. The other group, the so-called ``Karte Sudharak`` or the people who walked the walk when it mattered include Mahatma Phule, Gopal Ganesh Agarkar and later, Ch. Shahu Maharaj and Maharshi Dhondo Keshav Karve. Yassir has inspired me to write an essay on the life of Mahatma Phule.

Promoting Research in Pakistan: A Few Ideas Re. Lobbying at the universities:
Actually, when my brother in law applied for grad course at Georgia Tech, he was helped out not by an Indian but a Pakistani professor.

Swami Vivekananda and Malcolm X trail Ranade blazed

You might want to read up on Agarkar and Phule.

Pakistan’s Software Industry Israel Association of Software Houses chairman Amiram Shore predicts that software exports will rise 10% to $3 billion in 2004.

Israel Association of Software Houses chairman Amiram Shore today predicted that Israeli software exports would grow 10% to $3 billion in 2004, while domestic sales would rise 3% to $925 million.

Shore added that he expected 30 new software start-ups to be founded this year, and 300 additional employees to be hired in the industry. Israel’s software sector currently has 13,300 employees, compared with a peak of 14,500 in 2000.

According to Shore, total software sales will grow 8% to $3.88 billion in 2004, after declining 11% during the three-year recession.

The reasons the optimistic forecasts include recovery in the global high-tech market and among traditional software consumers, particularly in the US, and the growing need in Israel and around the world for upgrading of computers systems.

Software industry exports were up 5% to $2.68 billion in 2003, while domestic sales slid 5% to $900 million. Total sales grew 2% to $3.58 billion.

Half of the 150 start-ups founded last year were in the software sector. At the same time, 20 software houses closed down in 2003 15% of all high-tech companies that closed down last year.

Ranked by sales, Israel’s four leading software companies in 2003 were Amdocs (NYSE: DOX) - $1.48 billion (8% less than in 2002), Mercury Interactive Corporation (Nasdaq: MERQ) - $506 million (26% more than in 2002), Check Point (Nasdaq: CHKP) - $432 million (up 1.3%), and (Formula Systems (Nasdaq: FORTY; TASE: FORT) - $367 million (up 29%).

Surprise growth in India`s software outsourcing, one million employed
BANGALORE, India (AP) - India`s export revenues from software outsourcing have exceeded targets and will reach $17.3 billion US in the fiscal year ending March 2005, the country`s software trade body said Friday.

The total number of people employed in India`s outsourcing industry has reached one million for the first time, the National Association of Software and Service Companies said.

``Our exports gained momentum this year with more companies realizing the value of global sourcing,`` the association`s president, Kiran Karnik, said in an interview.

In the year ended March 2004, India`s software exports stood at $12.8 billion and the industry employed 770,000 people.

When the current fiscal year began, India forecast revenues of $16 billion from software exports for the period, given the backlash in the United States against outsourcing work to India and other developing nations.

``However, the anti-outsourcing wave has decreased, if not gone away fully. We managed to grow faster than our rivals like Ireland and Russia,`` Karnik said.

India`s domestic market for the current fiscal year has been valued at $4.9 billion, up from $3.9 billion a year earlier.

The total annual value of India`s software industry, including exports and local sales, is nearly one trillion rupees ($22.2 billion).

Scores of western firms outsource software and engineering design, and back-office functions to companies in countries such as India where labour costs are lower.

http://www.dqindia.com/content/top_stories/2004/104040802.asp
Thursday, April 08, 2004

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It’s 10:30 in the evening. Shahida Saleem, a senior IT executive with a software firm shuts down her laptop and walks out of her deserted office. She then drives home through the city’s waterfront. Home is a flat in a multi-storied apartment where the petite Saleem stays alone with her children. While this scenario would not be uncommon in the US, in the Indian sub-continent, most would associate this only with Mumbai, a city with a pronounced Western lifestyle.

However, it isn’t Mumbai we are talking about, but the Pakistani port city of Karachi, by now particularly famous after the last ball histrionics in the recent Indo-Pak cricket match. And the waterfront is not Marine Drive, but Clifton—the posh upmarket beachside neighborhood of the city. Though most media reports project Pakistan as an ultra-conservative culture, mired deep in obscurantism, the situation is far from that. A Pakistani delegation representing the country’s IT industry, during a recent visit to India, attempted to present a friendlier picture.

Social Liberation
Saleem, who is incidentally the chairperson of three industry bodies—Federation of Pakistan Chambers of Commerce & Industry (FPCCI) Standing Committee on Information Technology; FPCCI Standing Committee on Education and the FPCCI Standing Committee on Women Entrepreneurs, says, ``The stereotype of Pakistani women only in purdah does not hold true any more, especially with respect to the IT industry. True, there is a section of fundamentalists who still frown at working women, but these people are becoming marginalized in the big cities of Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad, which anyway are the thriving centers for IT today.``
Pakistani software delegation with Indian delegates at Nasscom 2004

Here`s a look at the bright side—of a new liberalized Pakistani society, where women are making responsible careers in the IT industry, and the story does not end only with Shahida Saleem. Even P@SHA (Pakistan Software Houses Association), Pakistan’s equivalent of Nasscom is led by a lady, Jehan Ara. Now, would anyone bet on a woman being Nasscom’s chief ?

However, just like cricket, it’s easy to get lost in the hype and forget the success of the industry itself. Most people in India do not even associate an IT industry with Pakistan—for them Pakistan’s only contribution to IT ends with the discovery of ‘Brain’, the world’s first computer virus developed by the Majeed brothers of Lahore.

Therefore, the Pakistan team essentially broke two myths. One that even in the conservative Islamic society, there is a positive case for the IT industry to thrive. And second, despite the fundamentalist diktats, women are increasingly involved in this New Economy. According to estimates from P@SHA, the Pakistan software industry is estimated to be around $100 million (including exports) with about 300 companies. It employs around 25,000 IT professionals and aims to touch $1 billion revenues in two years in domestic and overseas markets. Of this exports account for about $30-40 million. Significantly, the rest is contributed by the domestic market.

A majority of the software houses engaged in the services and product development business for the international and local clientele, is already involved in developing products to meet local market demands especially for the sectors like automation of industries and banking.

9/11 Helps Domestic Focus
One very important reason that forced most software companies in Pakistan to look homewards was to make-up the losses they experienced due to drop in the overseas orders by 50% in post- 9/11 scenario. While 9/11 had an impact on even the thriving Indian IT industry, the hotbed of offshore outsourcing for years, one could easily imagine the catastrophic effect it had on Pakistan, the epicenter of all the 9/11-related troubles. According to industry estimates, Pakistan lost about $2-3 billion in exports till date post 9/11. Even the Technology Business Development Office set up near Silicon Valley was shut down within six months of commencement of operations. ``The perception was that the country’s in a war zone and therefore perhaps that it was not in a position to carry out commitments,`` laments Ara.

The domestic focus by the IT industry is being led by the Nasdaq-listed NetSol Technologies, founded by the Ghauri brothers, one of the leading business houses of Pakistan. Even the Pakistan Software Export Board (PSEB) has become active in increasing domestic thrust. The federal government and Punjab government’s plans for the automation of offices under e-government project and PSEB’s industrial automation program, are the main sources of hope for the Pakistani domestic software industry.

According to PSEB officials, under the Bridge 2002 Industrial Automation project, some 50 industrial units were automated till date. The Punjab government’s Rs 500-million automation project in the departments like excise and taxation, when out-sourced to local software houses, will also help improve the financial health of the software sector in Punjab. The other virgin areas providing greater opportunities to the software industry are mega-institutions like Pakistan Railways, WAPDA, Local Bodies and Oil and Gas where automation activities will result in the outsourcing of the projects to the software houses. Even banks like Habib Bank and Muslim Commercial Bank could eventually look towards local software houses for automation purposes instead of looking at foreign firms.

With the impact of 9/11 gradually settling down, both P@SHA and PSEB realize that software exports need to be increased considerably for the Pakistan IT industry to be taken with any seriousness. The Pakistani delegation made its intention clear with representation from leading companies like Millennium Systems, Autosoft Dynamics, Sunsoft, iWays, Datanet, Arwin Technologies, Enabling Technologies, Kontact Limited and OraTech.

Growth Bottlenecks
There are a plethora of reasons for the Pakistan IT industry’s stunted growth, compared to India. Most important have been inadequate (quantity and quality wise) trained personnel and lack of networking between computer educational institutions and the IT industry. The absence of good educational institutions in the country hasn’t helped its cause as well.
The Pakistani software delegation at Nasscom 2004 with Kiran Karnik, Jerry Rao and Pradeep Gupta, MD, CyberMedia

The non-availability of international technical standards, models and printed information, lack of foreign exchange to import books, scarcity of components and development tools as well as poor telephone infrastructure, in which the Pakistan Telecommunications Corporation (PTC) has had monopoly rights, are the other main impediments to flourishing growth.

Paksitan’s poor economic health has also led to top IT management often devising strategies and policy for sheer survival, rather than growth-influencing policies and practices. In a nutshell, the absence of support from financial institutions for IT companies, the lack of a proper governmental IT policy framework, unstable market conditions and widespread software piracy with little enforcement of intellectual property rights have all combined to retard the infotech industry’s growth.

India’s Role
If in spite of all these core problems as well as the 9/11 effect, the Pakistani industry finds itself in a growth curve. But there is still a big question mark over the future of an India-Pakistan joint association on IT. Officially, the purpose of the Pakistani IT team’s visit was not only to explore and cultivate trade opportunities, but also to share in the success of Indian IT companies and their experience in providing high quality services.

While drawing from the Indian experience might help the Pakistani industry mature, the relationship between the two countries is yet to normalize enough to talk about things like JVs or joint consortiums for offshore bidding. The dreaded K-word is still an impregnable barrier that prevents people from each country to stop looking at the other with less suspicion. However, Saleem or Ara claim that the new generation in Pakistan are not bothered by issues like Kashmir.

More than the sense of distrust, however, there is little rationale behind an India-Pakistan IT association because the Indian IT industry hardly needs it. With Indian leadership in the global IT scenario already a well-established fact, it is anyway the de facto IT superpower in South Asia. To set up business in Pakistan to establish regional IT hegemony makes little sense for an Indian IT company. Even the Pakistan domestic market has not matured enough or the talent pool itself has not grown enough to justify the presence of an Indian IT company.

Despite the optimism, with Indian companies like Infosys and Reliance evincing interest to set up shop in Pakistan, there seems to be little possibility of anything fructifying soon. However, with the current Indian polity bullish about increased bilateral co-operation with Pakistan, Nasscom officials felt that the visit would help open up new avenues. Except a return visit by a Nasscom delegation, nothing is in the pipeline in 2004-05. It seems we’ll have to be satisfied with the cricket for the moment. Any IT conjugation is just not on anybody`s radar yet.

What the hell !

Planting Democracy in the World – A Mantra for Freedom #21 haha arjun .. well said. That`s exactly what I was thinking while reading bucaphelus`s post. It is indeed amazing to see how much currency this slogan of ``Hindu dharma is in danger`` has in educated indians (especially NRIs). Visiting Sulekha forums can be such an eye opener !

Why We Need Islamization of Science Is there a point to this article? If there is, I am missing it completely

Deliciously Delhi Ras, I also love desi food. My position is different than hamidm and mantolives.. they seem to hate desi food by default where as I love desi food as long as it is authentic and not Baluchi`s or Jackson Heights variety

Deliciously Delhi Indian food != north indian / punjabi food.
All this masala ladden north indian dishes make me sick. I recently moved to Jackson Heights thinking that although the area is filthy, at least I will get to eat good, wholesome, desi food there. BIG MISTAKE ! I agree 100% with hamidm as far as the so called ``indian cuisine`` as available in places like Kabab King, Baluchis and Haandi is concerned. I guess the definition of good indian food outside india is chunk of meat slapped with a grease, masala and then some. If you eat it once in a while, it tastes pretty good but if you eat it everyday, you will end up dead by 40. Unfortunately, real indian food is not available in the run of the mill indian eateries at least in New York. I have been looking for stuff like Porial, Chettinad Chicken, Bakarwadi and Pooran Poli all over the city in vain.

If Godhra did not happen… 3 gujja,
Modi is and will always be a criminal. Nothing, not even Godhra can justify the Pogrom unleashed by Gujarat government. To justify Gujarat carnage as reaction to Godhra is like justifying 1984 anti-sikh riots as a reaction to Indira Gandhi`s assassination.

If Godhra did not happen… It could still be a terrorist ... ZZZZZzzzzzzzzz