Of Career, Carriage and Computer Coolie College
Sid Harth
Can you walk that walk, talk that talk
By Rahul Chandawarkar
MASTERED Java, C++ and Visual Basic? Confident you can take on the world?
Hold your horses, buddy, today's changing times demand that you see
eye-to-eye with the pros in Texas, Chicago and New York and be as much at
home there as in good old Pune.
What we are trying to tell you is that as important as your computer skills
is your ability to understand that in US-speak a pay-phone means a public
phone, bucks means dollars, a cab means a taxi and that an apartment is our
good old desi flat. And no, they cannot download this info from their
computer screens!
No wonder then that a new breed of management trainers here are being hired
to equip young recruits with a combination of customer interface skills,
foreign catchphrases and personal grooming.
Shashank Patkar, president of the Software Exporters Association of Pune
(SEAP), says that maximum importance is being given in providing customer
interface skills, what with the rapid increase in transcontinental business.
Says Patkar, "Young professionals might be either too cryptic or too verbose
while communicating the status of a project report. The customer has limited
time and the communication has to be brief, yet clear."
Emmanuel Braggs, human resources development manager at Indus Software,
gives equal importance to both customer interface skills and technology
skills. Says Braggs, "Our foreign-bound workforce is given an exposure to
the everything foreign, from environment to table manners to eating habits
and communication skills."
According to Alan Doulton, city-based consultant trainer, people are
different all around the world. While the Americans are direct and precise
in their communication, the Japanese prefer to hide their emotions and we
Indians tend to beat around the bush. Doulton makes young pros aware of
this.
The other problem that Doulton is trying to rectify is the case of Indians
speaking too fast. According to him, while the Americans speak just 60 words
per minute, we zoom along at 80 to 100 wpm. Therefore, when teleconferencing
skills are taught, Doulton takes pains to make his students speak slowly and
in short sentences. "I train them to say the same thing in three different
ways, so that the Americans can understand easily," he adds.
Doulton also attaches importance to non-verbal skills and gives instances of
how a vigorous shake of the head from side to side, which to us Indians is a
confirmatory nod, could easily be construed as the opposite by the
Americans, leading to numerous communication problems.
Another city-based trainer Minocher Patel feels it is important for
travelling software pros to understand the body language of the Americans.
"The Americans may appear loud in their gestures and we tend to get overawed
by this. It is important to assert ourselves in a quiet and confident
manner."
Minocher films his students and shows them what is right and wrong with
audio-visual aids. He also encourages his students to watch American and
British films and serials before embarking on their first overseas trip.
Stressing the importance of grooming, Minocher cites examples of how young
software executives could make basic mistakes; like the case of one Pune
youngster who went for a meeting in the US, straight from the airport,
without shaving, and in a crumpled shirt.
Minocher feels that we Indians also have problems interacting with women in
the western world. He cites the case of a young Pune software executive was
sent back from the US for allegedly misbehaving with an American woman.
Keeping such incidents in mind, Minocher says that he warns his students not
to misinterpret a greeting from a woman as anything more than a greeting.
The teachings seem to be soaking in, what with two young programmer
analysts, Jyotsna Chauhan and Himanshu Deshpande of Cognizant Technology
Solutions, presently undergoing one such session singing praises of the
same. Says Jyotsna, "Most of us are technology savvy but deficient in social
skills. Workshops like these help us absorb the culture shock of visiting
the US for the first time." Himanshu agrees: "The grooming sessions prepare
us to handle a western business environment effectively, without making
fools of ourselves."
As can be seen, there is lot more than bits, bytes and blackouts that
software pros need to contend with.
http://www.atip.or.jp/ATIP/public/atip.reports.96/atip96.106r.html
ATIP96.106 : Computer Society of India (CSI'96) Bangalore
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ASIAN TECHNOLOGY INFORMATION PROGRAM (ATIP)
REPORT: ATIP96.106 : Computer Society of India (CSI'96) Bangalore
To: Distribution
From: D.K.Kahaner, [kah...@atip.or.jp]
This is file name "atip96.106"
Date: 9 Dec 1996
ATIP96.106 : Computer Society of India (CSI'96) Bangalore
ABSTRACT: The 31st annual meeting of the Computer Society of India,
CSI'96, was held 30 Oct -- 3 Nov 1996 in Bangalore India. This report
summarizes some aspects of meeting. We also briefly describe some
related high technology activities in India, including, the Asian &
Pacific Center For Transfer of Technology (APCTT), the Indian National
Scientific Documentation Center (INSDOC), the Council of Scientific &
Industrial Research (CSIR), and the Center for Artificial Intelligence
and Robotics (CAIR).
----------------------------------------------------------------------------
----START OF REPORT
ATIP96.106------------------------------------------------------------------
--------------
Copyright (c) 1996 by the Asian Technology Information Program (ATIP)
This material may not be published, modified or otherwise redistributed
in whole or part, in any form, without prior approval by ATIP, which
reserves all rights.
CONTENTS
1. COMPUTER SOCIETY OF INDIA (CSI'96)
2. CSI'96 PAPERS/PRESENTATIONS
3. CSI'96 COMMENTS
4. COMPUTER & SOFTWARE SITUATION IN INDIA, OVERVIEW
5. OTHER SOURCES OF TECHNOLOGY INFORMATION IN INDIA
5.1 Asian & Pacific Center For Transfer Of Technology (APCTT)
5.2 Indian National Scientific Documentation Center (INSDOC)
5.3 Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)
5.4 Center for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR)
6. CONTACTS
1. COMPUTER SOCIETY OF INDIA (CSI'96)
This year, 1996, was the 31st annual meeting of the Computer Society of
India, held in Bangalore 30 Oct -- 3 Nov 1996. CSI's meetings fall midway
between a trade show and an academic conference. With a low registration fee
(by western standards), a full range of tutorials (nine), multi-track
refereed paper presentations, and a large exhibition with more than three
dozen vendors, CSI is trying to bridge the gap between theory and practice.
This year approximately 2,000 Indians along
with a very small smattering of others were in attendance, with about 600 of
these participating in the tutorials during the first two days.
2. CSI'96 PAPERS/PRESENTATIONS
[The remaining sections of this report are available to ATIP subscribers]
Tokyo Office: Asian Technology Information Program (ATIP)
Harks Roppongi Building 1F
6-15-21 Roppongi, Minato-ku, Tokyo 106
Tel: +81 3 5411-6670; Fax: +81 3 5411-6671
U.S. Office: Asian Technology Information Program (ATIP)
P.O. Box 9678,
Albuquerque, New Mexico 87119-9678
Tel: (505)-842-9020; Fax: (505)-766-5166
For further information
Send email to : in...@atip.or.jp
Access WorldWideWeb Site : http://www.atip.or.jp/
[Complete ATIP reports on Asian Science and Technology go to subscribers and
collaborating organizations by direct distribution, or via electronic
access. These contain text and often, charts, graphs and pictures. Reports
for unrestricted distribution often contain summarized, or abstracted
information. Sponsors can also obtain specific follow up
information -including copies of proceedings, selected papers, exhibition
particulars, updates, translations, query searches, etc. Contact ATIP at
IN...@ATIP.OR.JP]
END OF REPORT ATIP96.106a
[The remaining sections of this report are available to ATIP subscribers]
3. CSI'96 COMMENTS
CSI'96 was formally inaugurated by T.N.Seshan, known as a visionary in
India and currently its chief election commissioner. Seshan criticized CSI
for its lack of participation by women and young people, as well as for not
having a social agenda. (In rural India, there are regions where not even 5%
of the women are literate, and India is in the bottom third among countries,
based on its Gender Development Index, GDI.) Seshan commented that "unless
the industry has a social tie-up, information
technology will live in an ivory tower with history brushing it aside if it
did not come to the aid of those in distress."
An effort was made to encourage high quality papers from contributing
authors. My impression was that tutorials were up to international
standards, as were most of the invited papers. The latter are typically not
new research results, as an important function of these is to describe
existing products, services, or techniques to an Indian community that may
not be as well "plugged in" as their peers in the West. Internet, Java,
multi-media, etc., were hot, as expected, but there was little new
presented. Examples of these included M.Tannebaum
on Internet Commerce, or L.Goh on Visual Computing. Papers on banking played
a strong role, and there were heated exchanges between audience and speakers
on the usefulness of centralized vs. distributed databases in branch banks.
(Indians have high scholarship standards, and are not
bashful about complimenting activities they like, and just as ready to
openly criticize those they disagree with.) Banks in India are large by
world standards; at least 25 bank (companies) have more than 500 branches,
and "large" account volumes (per branch) about four times the world average.
India's banking system is woefully out of date, as are many other aspects of
the country's infrastructure. In Bangalore, India's much publicized high
tech center, electrical power went down at least once or twice each day,
sometimes for several minutes. Most computers here are routinely connected
to UPS, but the electrical power situation obviously needs correcting.
Similarly, Bangalore does not have a convention center. While Michael
Jackson was entertaining 500 miles to the north in
Bombay (recently renamed Mumbai), and violent protests were erupting in
Bangalore over the Miss World Pageant, CSI sessions were spread out in three
separate hotels, with the exhibition several miles away at a tented
pavilion. For the latter, traffic was stalled for hours one day, because of
an event involving the Prime Minister.
In a large and very general meeting such as this, contributed papers on a
wide variety of topics are presented, and depending on one's interests some
will be of much more relevance than others. We encourage readers to browse
the titles presented here and query ATIP for further details on
those papers or topics that seem most important. Presentations were
reasonably well distributed between business, technical industry, and the
academic community, and there were a appropriate number of applications. For
these, we mention Computer Aided Prototyping (Gurumoorthy) where fused
deposition modeling (FDM) is discussed, and
Algorithms for (Paper) Roll Cutting (Jena) which relies on techniques
similar to those used to address one dimensional bin packing problems.
Several other papers are worthy of note. A discussion of user-level threads
and relation to performance analysis (Parab) clearly indicates that some
Indian organizations are perfectly at home working with state of the art
systems concepts. We also note the interesting talk by Jamadagni on
packaging for high performance computing, which gave a nice overview of the
current state of multi-chip modules. Unfortunately, the
proceedings does not contain a complete paper (but this might be available
from the author). Although there was no special focus on networking, several
papers stand out. Jhunjhunwala's paper describes how some recently developed
technologies, including several forms of Wireless Local Loops, could be used
to reduce the costs of the access portion of the network (that portion that
carries information from the backbone to the user) in urbanized sections of
India. (In countries such as India, with very poor connectivity in most
areas (including urban),
the only way to reach everyone quickly without incurring high
infrastructure costs seems to be through the use of wireless
technology.)
One interesting paper was presented as an invited talk by Dr. N. S.
Gopalakrishnan, from India's National Law School, in Bangalore, on the topic
of "Intellectual Property Rights and Computer Software". A very nice summary
of this was prepared for ATIP by Prof. S. Sanyal, of the Tata Institute of
Fundamental Research, and is given below.
INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS AND COMPUTER SOFTWARE
Dr. N. S. Gopalakrishnan, National Law School, Bangalore, INDIA
Paper Contents
1) INTRODUCTION
2) INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS - AN OVERVIEW
3) COMPUTER SOFTWARE AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS PROTECTION
4) CONCLUSION
1) INTRODUCTION:
Role of Computers in the present society needs no special introduction. The
driving force behind the all pervasive usefulness of Computers stem from the
ready availability of extremely user-friendly software packages, for almost
all sections of the society. Complex systems like Airline and Railway
Reservations, Hospital and Hotel Management
are just a few examples. The latest era of revolution in Communication is
completely dependent on Complex Computerized Systems. As a result of these
developments, information is treated as a separate entity today, with its
management possible through Computer Software.
It is noteworthy that with present state of the art Computer
Systems, it is possible to garner information from all corners of the world.
Thus, it is possible from India, a developing country, to look up detailed
information from public Databases in the USA or wherever, and to plan a
travel program, e.g. selection of Airlines and Plane timings, Hotel types
and rates and booking procedure. Thus a true Global Integrated Information
(GII) system is emerging.
Software development is a process which is also a Multi-Billion Dollar
business today. One peculiarity in this industry is that obsolescence is
very fast and competition is extremely fierce. Hence for an industry to
remain stable and prosper, continuous Research and Development is a must.
Once a software package has gained acceptance and has become popular, two
types of problems emerge. Firstly, the developer finds himself seeing one or
multiple sets of functionally similar software packages from other vendors.
This happens constantly, even though the basic concept was his. It is also
important to remember the versatile nature of software packages or programs
e.g. whether it is available on only one platform (such as a PC) or on
multiple platforms (systems) from different vendors like: IBM, HP, SUN, SGI
etc., as well as PCs. Oracle's Relational Database Package is a good
example of such a package which is also being very heavily used in different
large and medium database applications.
Problems of Imitation and Copying: Popular software programs on PCs are more
prone to being copied and imitated. Programs which are more proprietary or
are available only on one or on very few systems face less of this problem.
Nevertheless, the developers undergo significant loss because of illegal
imitation and copying.
The objective of this report is to see and check the role of
Intellectual Property Rights and to seek a path to provide
protection in the development of software.
2) INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS (IPR) - AN OVERVIEW:
(a) What are Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) - defined as :
* Private property rights given for the products of Intellectual
Labor.
* Legal rights as recognized by a Legal System.
* Limited monopoly right.
* Limited in time and benefit.
* Limitation of the exclusive property right based on larger
public interest.
* Rights are intangible in nature.
* Nature and content of the rights differ according to the nature
and quality of intellectual labor.
(b) Classification of Intellectual Property Rights -
COPYRIGHT -This can be classified in terms of Items, Rights and Term.
(i) Items - Items cover the areas of:
* Original Literary, Musical, Dramatic and Artistic Work.
* Cinematographic Films.
* Sound Records.
* Protection to the Form but not to the Ideas.
(ii) Rights - Rights cover the classes of:
* Right of Reproduction.
* Right of Distribution.
* Right of Public Performance.
* Right of Broadcasting.
* Right of Adaptation.
* Right of Sale, Rental, Hire.
* Right of Translation.
(iii) Term - Term covers the following:
* Life + 50 years to Author of the work.
* 50 years in case of other works.
Copyright has the following limitations -
* Permissible Use.
* Non-voluntary Licenses.
The possible remedies could be -
* Infringement of Rights.
* Civil and Criminal remedies.
* Administrative remedies.
PATENTS - This can be subclassified as Items, Limitations and Remedies.
(i) Items cover Inventions:
* New - Prior Publication / prior use
* Having non-obvious inventive step
* Commercial Application (Useful)
* Product or processes
Term - For 14 to 20 years
Right - Exclusive right to make, manufacture, sale, offer to
sale etc.
(ii) Limitation Coverage:
* Exclusion of certain inventions from Patent Protection e.g.
Discovery, Morality, Public Order etc.
* Compulsory licenses / Governmental Use
* Revocation
(iii) Remedies: This could be Civil / Administrative.
DESIGN - This can be defined as
* External features of a Manufactured Product
* The Design could be New or Original
* It might be eye catching as adjudged by the eye of an observer
Term
* It is for a period ranging from 5 to 15 years
* Right - Exclusive right to reproduce
* Design Copyright
TRADE SECRET - This involves
* Information kept in secret e.g. Know-how, Technical Information
* Design of Product, Method of Manufacturing etc.
* Information which is not generally known
* Information which has an economic value
* Information is valuable as long as you can keep it in secret
* Information value is lost through another independent discovery
* Information lost by unrestricted disclosure
TRADE MARK - This involves
* Marks used in Trade
* Marks used in Goods and Service
* Valid as long as used in Trade
3) COMPUTER SOFTWARE AND INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS PROTECTION:
COPYRIGHT PROTECTION OF COMPUTER PROGRAMS -
(a) Computer Program is a literary work - covers protection for source
and object code.
(b) Computer Programs treated as original work.
(c) Non-Literal Elements in Computer Program
Some famous cases where the non-literal elements were contested:
* Lotus Vs. Borland, 1996, Supreme Court refused to pass on an
judgment.
* Lotus Vs. Paperback, 1990.
(d) No decision has yet been known to have taken place in India. The test
of originality / idea in Indian Law exclude Non-literal Elements.
RIGHTS - Rights involve
(a) Right of Reproduction / Storing in Electronic Form
(b) Right of Distribution
(c) Right of Public Performance
(d) Right of Public Renting
(e) Right of Re-Sale
LIMITATION -
(a) Permissible use - Developers in Computer Software
* should adhere to fair use.
* should provide proper interface for usage of one software
package with other existing ones.
* Software package is open to Decompilation / Reverse Analysis
* Allow usage for Research / Training.
(b) Compulsory Licensing becomes mandatory.
REMEDIES -
(a) Infringement of Copyright involves
* exercise the rights without authorization
* secondary infringement (assisting, facilitation etc.)
* dealing with infringed copies
(b) Civil Remedies
* Temporary / Permanent Injunction
* Damages
* Accounts and other appropriate remedies
(c) Criminal Remedies
* Infringement - 6 months to 3 years of imprisonment and
Rs. 50,000/- to Rs. 2,00,000/- fine.
* Use of infringed copies - 7 days to 3 years of imprisonment
and Rs. 50,000/- to Rs. 2,00,000/- fine.
PATENT
Patentable subject matter
* Method or Process in Computer Program
* Procedure for solving Mathematical Program
* ALGORITHM - by itself is an unpatentable subject matter. Patenting
a mathematical formula will wholly prevent its use for
practical purposes.
* Phenomena of Nature, though just discovered, mental process and
abstract intellectual concepts are not patentable, as they are
the basic tools of Scientific and Technological work.
* Attaching a Post Solution Activity to a Mathematical Formula is
held not patentable.
* Patentability of Computer related invention is held patentable if
this invention claimed has a patentable process or method in
the traditional sense of Patent Law even though it is limited
to a mathematical formula.
* Industrial Transformation of an algorithm is capable of getting
Patent Protection e.g. converting signals from Analog to
Digital form and then manipulating the signal and analyzing it
against baseline values - like analyzing Electrocardiographic
signals of Heart Attack Victims - is held patentable.
* When Mathematical Formula are the standard way of expressing
certain functions or apparatus, it is appropriate that Mathematical
Terms are used - this will not make a claim unpatentable.
4) CONCLUSION:
* Drafting Patent claims - Algorithms as a "Mean For" an
apparatus or method or process, it "means - plus function".
* Indian Position - Section Three of the Patent Act
prohibits the patenting of Computer Software.
4. COMPUTER & SOFTWARE SITUATION IN INDIA, OVERVIEW
The success of the computer, and especially the software business in India
has been written about frequently, see for example ATIP reports "ATIP96.019
: National Association of SW and Service Companies, (NASSCOM'96) Bombay" and
"ATIP96.080 : Software Technology Parks of India (STP)". The actual
situation is complicated. Global IT spending is
estimated at US$70B, about 2.3% of GDP, with the US share about US$50B.
However, Indian IT expenditures were only 0.8% of its GDP. In 1995, Indian
software companies (both domestic and exports) had revenue of US$800M, only
0.27% of the world market. Indian hardware manufacturers sold about 300,000
PCs while US counterparts sold 50 million. The US software industry employed
about 1.5 million, while India's employed
80,000 professionals. Historical figures may be misleading, as there has
been very rapid growth, with both India's domestic hardware and software
industry growing at 30-50% in the last three years, with the software export
industry has been growing at 50-60% in the last five years. A great deal of
the growth can be directly attributed to the relaxation by the Indian
government, of exceptionally high import duties on imported hardware and
software. These have come tumbling down within only a few
years from 110% to current values of 10%. CSI's chief guest at its opening
ceremony (see below) attributes the residual 10% to the need to allow the
clerks to keep their jobs.
What does it take to make India become a significant player in the world IT
market? N.Murthy (Infosys) suggested several metrics, including the
following.
Be among the top 10 countries in IT spending
Be among the top 10 domestic software revenue earning countries
Be among the top 5 software exporters
Be among the top 10 in per-capita PC production and usage
Be among the top 10 in the per-capita number of IT professionals.
Most multinational companies are still using Indian software talent as a
"body shop", responding to design requests from outside. In a conversation
with an Indian/American representative of one such large organization,
employing more than 200 software professionals in India, he freely admitted
that there was very little motivation for his Western management to
encourage local value-added activities or professional
growth, as long as the basic cost of a "fully loaded" person was one third
that in the West. Based on his experiences in the US and India, he felt that
his Indian staff have a "fire in their belly" and work longer and with more
drive than their US counterparts. At the same time he noted that they
weren't being utilized in a way that would lead to long term benefit for the
Indians.
Most people in the computer business in India makes similar remarks. Indian
workers have excellent skills and creativity, and there is plenty of
motivation. But, few Indians have the capital resources necessary to open a
business and much of the well publicized growth is from the outside infusion
of capital and companies looking for lower cost production. There is a great
deal of grumbling, especially from academics. Indian universities are
notoriously disconnected from industry. Further, university salaries are
very low and have not kept pace with the those in the private sector; for
the latter, salaries are pushed up by the demand for software and hardware
engineers from the
MNCs. One professor, now working on ATM and other communications technology
at one of the IIT's (roughly equivalent to a good US state university),
complained that new graduates going to industry are receiving salary offers
comparable to his, 17 years after he received his BS. The situation is
frustrating enough that this academic expects
to leave for an industrial job within a year. He expressed the view that
such problems were leading to an erosion of the traditional high quality at
Indian academic institutions.
There are computer success stories, for example in banking software, by
companies such as Infosys, and products such as CITIL's. The latter was
produced by Citicorp's Bangalore subsidiary, and was the number one selling
corporate banking package in 1995. Although some Western urbanites might
doubt it, there are banking needs in places beyond NY
and London, and CITIL's MicroBanker has been successful in Jamaica, Africa,
Korea, etc. The company also has several related products for financial
organizations. Another example is a spreadsheet product, E.X., developed by
Tata Consultancy Services. But these are not commensurate with the size of
the industry.
Perhaps developing indigenous product prototypes needs to be done at
semipublic institutes, rather than at a university or in an MNC industry
setting. In that context C-DAC (Center for Development of Advanced
Computing) and NCST (National Center for Software Technology) come to mind.
C-DAC is known in the West for its efforts to develop parallel computers,
originally using transputers and more recently with SPARC and
UltraSparc processors. These efforts are considered to be successful in
India (and there is a great deal of pride associated with the project),
although perhaps not profitable. With an eye toward developing products for
which there is a larger market, C-DAC has also been moving into the
considerable market for Indian language products, such as desktop
publishing, word processing, graphics, and other multi-media software
containing Indian language interfaces, overlay keyboards, etc. As there are
many distinct local languages in India, such products have a large potential
market, both inside the country, as well as outside for use by Indian
expats. This includes not only support for creating information in local
languages but also for exchanging text between languages.
(There is an effort to develop an Indian Standard Code Font key, using
either seven or eight bits.)
There seems to be little VLSI work here, and no indigenous fabs, but there
are clearly opportunities. For example migrating old designs to new
technologies, such as converting 1 micron to 0.25 micron design, or
maintenance and upgrading of design tools. There is also the need (and
potential) for niche products, such as design tools that can be deployed to
the world market (perhaps via the Internet). Examples (courtesy of
G.Venkatesh) are "tools to check the sanity of chip and software interfaces
(similar to software protocol analyzers), tools for generating software
libraries that run on special processor cores, tools
for producing synthesisable hardware libraries, tools to post-process
layouts to achieve some optimization, tools that analyze Verilog or VHDL
descriptions for various parameters of interest, special purpose simulators
that address simulation needs in specific application areas, tools that
generate software simulators, assemblers or even assembly code optimizers
for applications specific processors, etc."
5. OTHER SOURCES OF TECHNOLOGY INFORMATION IN INDIA
5.1 Asian & Pacific Center For Transfer Of Technology (APCTT)
APCTT, established in 1977, operates as a UN regional institution under the
aegis of ESCAP (Economic and Social Commission for Asia and the Pacific),
and is an 18 year old organization that links technology transfer
organizations worldwide. Headquartered in New Delhi, APCTT runs
seminars and workshops, functions as information clearing house, and
actually brokers deals between enterprises in the AP region.
APCTT's current focus seems to be on environmentally sound technologies
(EST), as well as a special emphasis on small and medium sized enterprises
(SMEs). The Center maintains a data bank on technology, business and
investment opportunities, claims more than 1000 partners in over 70
countries, and initiates over 250 technology transfer
negotiations per month.
APCTT produces a number of publications that should be of interest to
Western scientists/technologists. These include the following.
Asia Pacific Tech Monitor. This is a bimonthly, which features worldwide
opportunities, current trends, latest developments and topics pertaining to
technology transfer. For example the May-Jun 1996 issue has the following
table of contents.
* An Introduction to British Environmental Regulation
* Environmental Legislation and Enforcement Mechanism
* Waste Management
Rice Husk Particle Board
Making Waste Work
* Technology Management
Activity-asset Integrated Model for Management of Technology
Technology Transfer and Transformation in Small and Medium
Enterprises in Developing Countries
* Cleaner Production
Reducing Waste in Polyester Production (Indonesia)
Automating a Bicycle Wheel Plating Operation (China)
* ESCP/APCTT Focus [workshops, etc., sponsored by APCTT]
* Tech Events [Conferences, shows, etc.]
* Tech Mart
The Tech Mart might be the most interesting part of the publication. This
lists Offers, Requests, and other Technology Business Opportunities. These
are quite detailed (Auto Electric Horns for OEMs from India, Iron Oxide
Pigment Plant from China, etc.) The system of printing them in a bi-monthly
magazine seems rather dated, but might still be useful. I was reminded by
APCTT that many smaller organizations are not yet able to utilize on-line
services and still rely heavily on paper publications.
VATIS (Value Added Technology Information Service) Update is also a
bi-monthly series which is focused in specific sectors, i.e., VATIS Update
on Biotechnology, VATIS Update on Waste Technology, on Food Processing,
Ozone Layer Protection, and Non-Conventional Energy.
APCTT also has catalogs and books. One example of the latter is "Chinese
Technology Showcase", a compendium of technology opportunities that were
presented 8-11 April 1996 in New Delhi.
5.2 Indian National Scientific Documentation Center (INSDOC)
INSDOC provides a variety of S&T information. It is set up as a national
laboratory under the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research, CSIR
(see below). It advertises itself as a "one-stop-shop" for S&T information.
In addition to obtaining and redistributing information from journals,
patents, reports, conferences, and databases, INSDOC has in house expertise
in the areas of networking, library automation, design & development of
databases, electronic libraries, etc.
INSDOC publishes and produces (paper and electronic) a variety of material
including the following.
* Directory of Scientific Research Institutions in India
* Chemical Abstracts Keyword Index Service
* National Union Catalog of Scientific Serials in India
* Indian Science Abstracts
* Indigenous databases
Polymer Science Database
Material Science Bibliographic Database
Medicinal and Aromatic Plants Abstracts Database
Inpat: Database on Indian Patents
Metallurgy Database
Alert Database: Current Contents of Indian Journals
* GLOBTEND. A global tender watch service
* Competitor Watch Service, which provides information
on corporate and industry reports, market target,
potentials and opportunities of companies in other
countries.
5.3 Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR)
CSIR is more than 50 years old. It is chartered to promote development of
indigenous technologies and utilization of indigenous Indian resources.
CSIR's President is India's Prime Minister and its Vice President is the
country's Minister for Science and Technology. The actual operation is by a
Director General, Dr.R.A.Mashelkar, who is the Secretary of the Department
of Scientific and Industrial Research under
the S&T Ministry.
CSIR runs more than 40 laboratories across the country. This report is not
the appropriate place for a detailed description of these, but we list their
names below.
Physical Sciences Central Electronics Engineering Research Institute (CEERI)
Central Scientific Instruments Organization (CSIO)
National Geophysical Research Institute (NGRI)
National Institute of Oceanography (NIO)
National Physical Laboratory (NPL)
Chemical Sciences Central Electrochemical Research Institute (CECRI)
Central Leather Research Institute (CLRI)
Central Salt & Marine Chemicals Research Institute (CSMCRI)
Indian Institute of Chemical Technology (IICT)
Indian Institute of Petroleum (IIP)
National Chemical Laboratory (NCL)
Regional Research Laboratory, Jorhat (RRL-Jorhat)
Biological Sciences Central Drug Research Institute (CDRI)
Central Food Technological Research Institute (CFTRI)
Central Institute of Medicinal and Aromatic Plants (CIMAP)
Centre for Biochemical Technology (CBT)
Centre for Cellular & Molecular Biology (COMB)
CSIR Complex, Palampur (COP)
Indian Institute of Chemical Biology (IICB)
Indian Toxicology Research Centre (ITRC)
Institute of Microbial Technology (IMTECH)
National Botanical Research Institute (NBRI)
Regional Research Laboratory, Jammu (RRL-Jammu)
Engineering Sciences Central Building Research Institute (CBRI)
Central Fuel Research Institute (CFRI)
Central Glass & Ceramic Research Institute (CGCRI)
Central Mechanical Engineering Research Institute (CMERI)
Central Mining Research Institute (CMRI)
Central Road Research Institute (CRRI)
National Aerospace Laboratories (NAL)
National Environmental Engineering Research Institute (NEERI)
National Metallurgical Laboratory (NML)
Regional Research Laboratory, Bhopal (RRL-Bhopal)
Regional Research Laboratory, Bhubaneswar (RRL-Bhubaneswar)
Regional Research Laboratory, Thiruvananthapuram (RRL- Thiruvananthapuram)
Structural Engineering Research Centre, Ghaziabad (SERC- Ghaziabad)
Structural Engineering Research Centre, Madras (SERC-Madras)
Information Science Indian National Scientific Documentation Centre (INSDOC)
National Institute of Science, Technology and Development Studies (NISTADS)
Publications & Information Directorate (PID)
Corporate Affairs R&D Planning and Business Development Division (RPBD)
International Science and Technology Affairs Directorate (ISTAD)
Human Resource Development Group (HRDG)
Intellectual Property Management Division (IPMD)
Inter-phase for Non-Resident Indian Scientists and Technologists (INRIST)
Centre
CSIR has been moving toward developing more electronically accessible
information, but as of the date of this report, most of their material
is still distributed on paper (although individual labs may have WWW
sites on the Internet). A very useful overview is provided in the CSIR
Handbook, which provides 1-2 pages for each of the laboratories above,
including budget, mission, and contact information.
5.4 Center for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics (CAIR)
CSIR is not the only government-level coordinating organization that
supports science and technology in India. As in the US and other countries,
a significant amount of S&T is conducted under the auspices of various
defense agencies. The same is true in India. As one example that we visited
recently, we note the Center for Artificial Intelligence and Robotics
(CAIR), a small lab which was established about ten years ago, in Bangalore,
under the Defense Research & Development Organization
(DDRO). Its fundamental goals are to conduct basic research in
artificial intelligence, robotics, and automation. Although AI is the center
of CAIR's name, basic research in this area is only represented by a few
projects; most of CAIR's activities have some application focus. Special
expertise exists in the areas of vision, neural networks, and control
systems. Associated with CAIR is the Institute for Robotics & Intelligent
Systems (IRIS), which attempts to popularize and commercialize the
technologies developed at CAIR.