Rumble in the Jungle: Part 4

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In the midst of India's new found romance with Africa (do have a look at previous posts in this series), I thought it'd be interesting to check how many African countries are returning the favour. While there are much more precise, financial ways of doing that, I'll dwell on the only one I know. How many of these countries have bothered to set up a website tailored for an Indian audience? I've been presuming that if these countries really, really need Indian investment, they'd try to make it very easy for investors to get information about their country and its business practices. To the best of my knowledge, there are 55 countries in Africa - 49 in the mainland and six island states. Of these only 37 have physical Embassies or High Commissions in India. Curiously, as many as 22 of these haven't bothered to set up a website....

What wonders hath Honeywell wrought

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The refrigerants in your fridge. The polyester & nylon in your clothes. The detergents you clean them with. The road you drive on. The medicines you take. The candles at your candlelight dinner. The lipstick women love to wear. What do they all have in common? In one way or the other, they're all made from the byproducts of petroleum refining. (I didn't believe it either. Scroll to the end of the article for a crash course in Chemistry). Turns out Honeywell's UOP is a world leader in designing products you and I can use, from the byproducts of petroleum refining. They've set up a $34 million, 2 acre campus in Gurgaon, near New Delhi. It's their fourth outpost in India, the only one devoted to developing new Performance Materials and Technologies (PMT). (Editor's note: Honeywell International is among America's 100 biggest corporations with separate wings that manufacture/....

Rail planners running out of steam?

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So was it a good railway budget? I really wouldn't know - the experts would know better. This write-up is about something the experts probably forgot about. About commuting on rails, within Delhi. Of course, our world class metro will have a three hundred kilometer network by 2016. Over two million people use it everyday. By all accounts, it's a very profitable venture. But there's a shadow network in Delhi that rivals the Metro's reach and spread. It links posh areas like Maurya Sheraton and Taj Palace Hotels in Dhaula Kuan, Delhi University's south campus colleges, the Chanakyapuri diplomatic enclave, market hubs like Sarojini Nagar, Lajpat Nagar & Karol Bagh, office complexes near Connaught Place and ITO. Yet, hardly 5,000 people ride the ring rail service every day. Most ride ticketless. In fact, some stations don't have functional ticket counters at all. Those....

Rumble in the Jungle - Part 3

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India's heart pines for Africa - Mahatma Gandhi supposedly said that a long time ago. With China pouring in billions into the continent, that pining is suddenly a full blown heart ache. The Afro-Asian Rural Development Organisation (AARDO) is fifty years old. India was one of the founding members, along with Egypt, Japan, Libya and Malaysia. Today, fifteen African and fourteen Asian countries are full time members. AARDO was apparently set up to get rid of poverty in Africa and Asia. According to an article by Delhi University Lecturer Debajani Baxipatra, more than two-thirds of the world's population lives in this region. So do three-fourth's of the world's poor. Most earn less than $2 (Rs 100) a day. So here's what Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh is doing about it. His speech at AARDO's Golden Jubilee celebrations in New Delhi, could well have been penned by....

Rumble in the Jungle: Part 2

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A cheap machine to milk a cow automatically. A clothes' iron heated by CNG, not coal. A motorcycle that tills a field. Table rugs made from farm waste. A windmill for just $100. China's trade with Africa last year was worth more than $122 billion. It lends more money to the African continent than the World Bank itself. It's built huge Parliament buildings for the countries of Malawi and Lesotho and might build another one for Zimbabwe. In a face-off with a juggernaut like that, what India conjures up are little baubles. That's what I thought, walking through a grassroots technology expo organized on the side lines of the India-Africa Science and Technology Conference in New Delhi. The Chinese have cornered the really big industrial projects that can transform Africa, so we've resorted to peddling them shiny beads and gimmicks. "Why didn't we think up stuff like....

Thursday , March 01, 2012

Rumble in the Jungle: Part 1

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"Who cares about Africa Yaar!" - drawled a senior journalist on the side lines of the India - Africa Science & Technology Ministers' Conference held in New Delhi. Many felt the same way for years. And not just because Africa is much poorer and thousands of miles away. India is such a colour conscious country, we run advertisements on national TV touting skin whitening creams to our own top rung CEOs, rues a senior scientist. Our fascination for white skin blinded us to the potential of dark Africa for decades. Things are different now and not because we've turned a new leaf. Africa is the world's future. Its emerging middle class is a huge market for the latest goods. Its reserves of oil, natural gas, uranium and other minerals could feed our factories for decades. Its vast lands could feed the world's exploding population. The problem....

Wednesday, February 29, 2012

Of Cancer, AIDS and diapers

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Turmeric and Kokum to beat Cancer and AIDS? That our DNA, or rather the sequence of genes in it, determines our predilection to ailments like diabetes or heart disease - we all learn in middle school. But tiny chemical reactions within our cells have an equally important role to play. If they take place just right, our genes behave the way they've been programmed to. If not, then some genes might not kick in at all. Or might behave abnormally. Cancer is an abnormal, excessive growth of cells. Scientists are still trying to unlock its secrets. But they do know oral cancer is almost always caused by chewing tobacco. The tobacco disrupts chemical reactions in the cells in our mouth - tricks their genes to go into overdrive. Thousands of extra, unwanted cells are suddenly churned out - that's what causes the huge, ugly ulcers found in all....

Wednesday, February 22, 2012

Indian science teacher gets international honour

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She could be standing right next to you at the bus stop and you'd never notice. She'd just be another face in the crowd. Speak to her on the phone and you hear a lilting, patient voice. No aggression, no attitude, no hurry to conquer the next big challenge. Revolution isn't wrought by people like her. Or at least that's what you'd think. Vandana Suryavanshi was born in the same little hill town erstwhile actor Smita Patil came from - Dhule in Maharashtra. But instead of cinema, Mrs Suryavanshi took up science. She has been teaching the subject for the past twenty years, first in Roha, a sleepy hamlet on the Mumbai to Goa road and now in Pune, at Vidya Valley school. How interesting can a school teacher, that too from a second tier metro like Pune be? Well, interesting enough to be invited by an American....

Wednesday, February 15, 2012

The Iran files

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Does the only country that ever used a nuclear bomb in war, have any right to preach non proliferation to the world? Isn't that a bit like Arnold Schwarzenegger saying only he and maybe a few buddies like Sylvester Stallone and Jason Statham should be allowed to build big muscles. Does a country that's merrily assassinated Iranian nuclear scientists inside Iran for the past few years have a moral right to complain if its own diplomats are targeted in retaliation? Both sets of people were civilians, both have been shadow attacks, unacknowledged by the governments themselves. On the other hand, does a country that's publicly, vehemently and repeatedly proclaimed that a neighbour state has no reason to exist, that it should be "wiped off the face of the world" - be allowed to come within even shouting distance of a weapon of mass destruction? If diplomacy were....

Friday , February 10, 2012

Young guns: future stars of Indian science

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The National Academy of Sciences in India (NASI) and Elsevier, an international publishing firm for scientific literature, have for the past five years, handpicked and honoured outstanding young Indian scientists. This year, eight scientists won the NASI-SCOPUS Award. They get a plaque and Rs 50,000 in cash. What they also get is the attention and respect of their scientific peers. Many former NASI-SCOPUS winners have gone on to wrest greater accolades - so this in a sense, is a sign of bigger things to come. Here's a quick look at some of this year's awardees. And the work that makes special. Biological Science: Sanjib Senapati (IIT Madras) The next time you play a video game, think of Dr Sanjib Senapati. While you slay dragons, wallop huge sixers or race cars on your PC, he'll be playing a complex game of his own. A game that one....