Strategic Analysis

Strategic Analysis:
A Monthly Journal of the IDSA

April 2000 (Vol. XXIV No. 1)

 

Information Technology-Advantage India
By Akshay Joshi *

 

India's information technology (IT) strategy started 5000 years ago when an Indian scientist Aryabhatta invented the digit zero. The use of this digit for positional notation in the decimal system, together with the consistent use of zero, proved to be the final solution of an important computational difficulty, and the world by and large has used it ever since. 1 Had India taken the copyright for this discovery, almost 50 percent of the inventions in the computer industry would have been Indian. However, Indian philosophy preaches that by sharing knowledge one's own knowledge gets enhanced. This is proving to be true in today's knowledge-based society. India, after having missed the industrial revolution, is on the threshold of the information revolution. A combination of factors, some global and some of our own doing have created an environment suitable for making India an economic superpower in the 21st century.

 

India's Information Technology Strategy

India adopted the English language under the colonial rule of the British. By the time India gained independence, English was a well established language. Thereafter, India concentrated on developing skilled scientific manpower by opening government-funded 'centres of excellence' and public sector industries. The urge for self-sufficiency and the encouragement for research fuelled the scientific temper of this nation. The Nehruvian model of Socialism worked well till the 1960s, but thereafter India failed to appreciate the changes on the global scene and lost its way. In 1976, the Janata Party government further closed our society and banished companies like International Business Machines (IBM) from India. However, in the field of IT, this was a blessing in some ways. Indian companies started using public domain, non-proprietary systems like UNIX instead of getting stuck with proprietary systems like the ones made by IBM. Proprietary systems created protected domains in the United States (US) and other western countries. Therefore, when UNIX and other client-server systems proliferated in the 1980s, there was resistance from US citizens and US companies to their entry. This in turn created a great opportunity for Indians. 2 Till the late 1980s, there was a steady growth in the Indian IT industry accompanied by a brain drain to the West. In 1988, an autonomous organisation called the National Association for Software and Services Companies (NASSCOM) was formed and it started working closely with the Indian government for the development of the IT sector.

1991 saw the opening up of the Indian economy. In the words of Rajat Gupta, Managing Director Worldwide, McKinsey & Company, "India's first tryst with destiny was political freedom from the colonial rule in 1947; the second tryst is economic freedom". 3 In 1991-92 a World Bank funded study by the Department of Electronics (DOE) in India visualised a $ 1 billion a year potential for software exports from India by the year 2000. 4 This was the first benchmarking exercise carried out by India. We have achieved the target of $1 billion a year well ahead of time. Since 1991, the Indian software industry has grown at over 50 percent every year and will be a $5.7 billion industry in 1999-2000. Due to the 'offshore software development revolution' in the 1990s, almost 273 of the 'Fortune 1000' companies are outsourcing their software requirements to India. The market capitalisation of Indian software shares stood at $27.3 billion in December 1999. The period 1996-98 saw the change of three governments in India-a period of major political changes. The IT industry however continued to grow on its own. By the time the present Bhartiya Janta Party (BJP) came to power for the first time in 1998, India was already on the software map of the world. Indian companies like Infosys and Satyam Computers used the Y2K opportunity to become visible players throughout the world.

In 1998, the BJP government formed the Prime Minister's (PMs) IT Task Force in which eminent people from the government, industry, defence forces and the research community were taken. This task force appreciated that the challenge was to develop an information infrastructure in India which constitutes addressing problems like the cost of the personal computer (PC), the cost of connectivity and IT literacy. 5 Accordingly, the IT Action Plan Part I set out 108 recommendations for the Indian IT industry in July 1998. The government approved these recommendations immediately. The IT Action Plan Part-II containing 84 policy instruments for the development, manufacture and export of IT hardware was submitted to the government in November 1998. The National Task Force (NTF) on IT and Software Development brought out a Basic Background Report (BR-3) on strategic policies that should be followed to make India an IT superpower in 1999.

According to this report, "The BR-3 constitutes a paradigm shift from the earlier concepts and strategies adopted for the growing IT industry in India. These policies are oriented towards creating an appropriate investment climate and streamlining the procedures for minimising uncertainty, increasing velocity of business and growing proactive enterprises with market aggressiveness and inventive resilience".

It suggests the merging of the Department of Telecom (DoT), Department of Electronics (DoE) and the Ministry of Information & Broadcasting (I&B) under a single Ministry of Informatics, for formulating coherent plans and policies. The task force has argued that such a move would be in line with convergence of data, voice and video, happening the world over. Besides the merger, the report has suggested a new IT organisational structure in the government, like appointing an advisor to the PM on the lines of the set up in the US, setting up a separate IT division in the Planning Commission and forming a high level committee at the centre and state levels constituting several task forces on the lines of the National Computer Board in Singapore. The report calls for setting up 'tool rooms' throughout the country for the purpose of offering a wide range of services like design and development, training, consultancy, software-housing and the like. One of its main suggestions is to radically enhance per capita productivity of software engineers from $15000-$40000 at present, to over $1,50,000 which will be comparable to those in the US and Israel. The report aims at making India a $100 billion player in the IT world. 6

The year 1999 saw some more dramatic developments in India's IT strategy. Infosys created history by becoming the first Indian company to make a public offer in the United States via the American Depository Receipt (ADR) route. For trading the company listed itself on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Patrick Sutch, Director, Business Development, Nasdaq (Asia Pacific Region) believes that Infosys' success story will induce other Indian software companies to follow suit. He feels that the US investor's appetite has been whetted for further Indian listings. 7 Satyam Infoway has joined Infosys on the Nasdaq. Indian software companies can now use the proceeds of their American Depository Receipts/ Global Depository Receipts (ADR/GDR) to acquire software companies overseas without taking prior government approval. This will encourage the Indian software industry to become global players. 8

1999 also saw the approval for the National Telecom Policy (NTP-1999), formation of the IT Ministry and the passage of the IT Bill - all steps in a positive direction. The second benchmarking exercise in India was initiated by the government when NASSCOM commissioned McKinsey and Company, the pre-eminent management consulting firm, to help develop a vision and strategy to capture the opportunities thrown up by the digital revolution and generate rapid growth for India's IT industry and, thereby its economy. The report predicts that India has the potential to become a global superpower in the knowledge economy.

Some of the key findings of this report are that by the year 2008:-

According to this report, technology, economy and market drivers are reshaping the global information technology landscape which offer Indian and India-centric companies unique opportunities in four broad areas: value-added IT services, software products, IT-enabled services and e-business. 9 The Indian IT industry is finding a lot of attention showered on it by the global media especially in the last two years. The development of the IT industry and it's impact on the Indian economy can be summarised as follows:

"India has a new mantra-Information Technology, and almost everyone is chanting it. The success of India's export-led software development industry has helped to put IT at the top of the political agenda and turned it into a model for the modernisation of an otherwise troubled economy. 10

- Paul Taylor, Financial Times IT, London.

 

Why Information Technology Suits India.

The Industrial Revolution was possible because after having established the appropriate political conditions by means of the Glorious Revolution of 1688, the English bourgeoisie concentrated all its efforts in fructifying the commercial revolution it had launched by the end of the Middle Ages. 11 Similarly, India because of its democratic political set-up is ideally suited to exploit the information revolution. Information Technology by its very nature needs and breeds democracy, freedom and democratic institutions. India is the largest and most vibrant democracy which encourages the free flow of information and ideas. English, which is fast becoming the international business language, thanks to the Internet, is used extensively in India. India also has a well educated human resource pool who have a good grounding in mathematics. Add to this the confidence of successful young entrepreneurs, who are now in decision-making positions all over the world. There is a view that the Indian brain has good abstraction capabilities which is suited for cyberspace. We missed the industrial revolution because Indians are not good at tinkering, however, a knowledge based society suits our psyche. 12

The brain drain which took place since independence is now changing to a reverse brain drain, with successful IT savvy Indians pouring money and resources into India. These whiz kids are also networking with each other to ensure success to more people. Many successful entrepreneurs are now returning to India to exploit the opportunities in this market.

Indian Institutes of Technology (IITs), were recently categorised by Washington's City Magazine, Washingtonian, as among the world's pre-eminent technical finishing schools. One of its alumni, Gururaj Deshpande made a big impact in the US when his company Sycamore Networks made an amazing debut on the Nasdaq stock exchange. Sycamore, which enables fibre-optic networking technology, was offered at $38 per share, opened at a shining $280 when trading began on the Nasdaq and finally closed at $185, a dazzling gain of 386 percent over the offer price. This storied market debut has now become enshrined as part of Nasdaq folklore and made even the venerable Wall Street Journal refer to Deshpande's vaulting success in reverential terms. Another IIT alumni, Arun Netravali, has been appointed as head of Bell Laboratories-the worlds largest R&Damp; organisation in communications. Since 1925, Bell has generated over 30,000 inventions and its scientists have won six Nobel Prizes and countless international awards. Whether it is communication satellites, cellular telephony, digital networks, fibre optics or modems, its work in these fields is widely recognised. At last count Arun Netravali had 60 patents with the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT). As the digital revolution morphes and evolves with breakneck speed, Indian Americans seem to be in the forefront. More importantly, as their political and economic clout expands, the media is beginning to pay attention. The Washington Post covered the Indian American community's emergence as a powerful lobbying group in Capitol Hill-beginning to show the same astute political skills and savvy as the Jewish and Irish lobbies. 13

Today there are more than 20000 Indian millionaires in the Silicon Valley. Most of them started off with little more than an engineering degree. Jokingly, they describe it as the 'revenge of the nerds'. These techie tycoons are looking to invest not just cash, but significantly, also time and expertise in India. These successful entrepreneurs are now promoting Indian startups. Today a network of Indian technocrats called The Ind-US Entrepreneurs, or TiE, acts as a mentor for other Indians. Networking within the US, and, with the not-so-distant homeland-India, is the order of the day. American Indians are donating money to children's charity homes, advising financial institutions on how to catapult venture capital investment in India and providing contacts and expertise. As Mr BV Jagadesh, an active member of TiE sums up, "Yes, we are successful, but now a lot of us feel we should create the same sort of environment and momentum for people back in India". 14

Today there is a general belief that though knowledge may be flowing from the North to the South, but 'usable knowledge', which creates wealth does not flow. There is a growing fear in the developing world that the collective knowledge of the world may become the proprietary knowledge for a few countries that will use it for commercial reasons. The developing nations find it difficult to actually get the flow of technology from the developed countries. There has been a paradigm shift in India's thinking on the economics of knowledge and the issue of intellectual property rights (IPR). Earlier, India had a philosophical attitude towards the economics of knowledge. We did not believe in patenting knowledge, ideas and information. Now India is not only patenting knowledge but also lobbying for an international regime on Intellectual Property Rights based on equity and ethics. 15

Another major global paradigm shift, which is benefiting India, is the reducing costs and importance of hardware and the increasing costs of software. Today hardware costs only 10 percent while the software component costs 90 percent of the computer system. Since hardware is losing importance, countries like Korea are losing market share in the IT industry, while countries like India are benefiting because of software. 16 Countries like India, which have a strong intellectual and human capital in the field of software stand to benefit by the increasing importance of software in the information technology industry. At present India is exporting low level software ie., the $2 per hour variety. However, the core competence of the Indian software writers is in high-end software exports ie., the $2000 per hour variety. 17 Indian software exports form 10.5 per cent of the total exports of the country. The value of exports stood at $2.7 billion in 1998-99. If India can target the high-end software this value is likely to increase many times over. By 2003, software exports will overtake all other sectors of exports in India.

Another trend today is that the services industry is replacing the manufacturing industry the world over as the fastest growing part of the economy. There is a great opportunity for countries like India because of this shift. Services like medical transcriptions, tele-medicine, bill collections over the Internet, universal libraries, etc which use modern information technologies cost almost 10 times less in India than in advanced countries. In India almost 40 per cent of our national wealth comes from the service industry. If India can build a good information infrastructure capable of supporting sophisticated, fast and cheap communication technologies, it has the potential to become the Asian hub for all services related activities in the region. There is a potential Rs 55000 crore (US $13 billion) market which will provide employment to 1.1 million people by 2008. 18

There are many other indications which clearly indicate that it is 'Advantage India' as far as the information revolution is concerned. The latest slogan in the IT industry is, "Move Work to India". India stands to gain extensively through IT-enabled services. A spurt in global telecom links-through Internet and other devices makes it feasible for companies located in the US and other developed countries to sub-contract work to countries where English is extensively spoken, but personnel are available cheaply. The services include call centres, medical transcription, animation, back-office operations, revenue accounting and creation of legal databases. India has a 10-12 hour time difference with the US and has established brand equity in mega markets about its software capabilities. All these factors will help India. 19 A majority of the Internet start-ups on the West Coast of the US are Indian. Many Americans are giving their Internet start-ups Indian names in order to corner some market share. In the world of the Internet even small companies have a level playing field and can compete with the big names in the IT industry in niche areas. Creation of virtual libraries and information databases is another sector which India can exploit. There is a potential $10 billion opportunity in this field. 20

The writing on the wall is absolutely clear. Information Technology has the potential to push India into being one of the worlds leading economies. The Indian Prime Minister, AB Vajpayee says that,

"India has what it takes to be a 'Knowledge Superpower', and the government will do all it can to make it happen. It is often said that the first industrial revolution bypassed India. Let it not be said that India was not in the vanguard of the knowledge revolution". 21

 

Impact on International Relations

Soft Power of Information Technology

The exercise of soft power (the ability to achieve the desired outcome in international relations through attraction rather than coercion) in the information age requires credibility in order to be persuasive. Establishing a reputation for credibility involves providing accurate, filtered and relevant information even if it may reflect badly on the information providers own country. Governments that can credibly assure potential partners that they will not act opportunistically and will provide accurate information will gain advantage over competitors whose promises are less credible. During the Cold War, the United States was a more credible ally for Western European countries than the Soviet Union because, as a democracy, the United States could more credibly promise not to seek to exploit or dominate its allies. 22 In the colonial era, when various countries including India were fighting for independence, it was the Soviet Union that was a credible partner to all colonies because it championed the cause of the colonies for independence. Being an open society and a democracy, India is in a better position than countries with authoritarian regimes to assure potential partners of its credibility.

India's recent success in the IT industry, the development of indigenous satellite and other electronic technologies, our ability to creatively use the Internet and the increasing success of Indian entertainment exports-film, TV, and music-draw attention to India's competitive advantage in these fields. The Indian media's self-confidence has been built in the face of decades of free competition in the cultural marketplace since India has remained an open society. Indigenous talent in the information and entertainment media has always been willing to benchmark itself against international competition and has not just survived but thrived. It is the export of indigenous entertainment that is important in projecting Indian images and India's image across the globe. The foreign policy dimension of the entertainment and information export (especially software export) should be obvious to any student of international relations because modern power in today's world is increasingly being projected through the soft power of information technology. Democratic and liberal India can make more effective use of various media than autocratic and insular regimes. 23 India must continue to exploit this advantage. More importantly we should be aware that we possess this advantage.

Export Controls

Some governments insert various conditions in their trade laws in order to deny other countries access to their R&D and their high-technology exports. They have been restricting the export of hi-tech goods and services in the name of national security. The revolution in IT compounds threats to national and international security by greatly facilitating the transmission of information to potential aggressors. However, private markets and enterprises dominate information technologies. Therefore, efforts by the government to restrict their transfer have foundered because of the difficulty in stemming the flow of such technologies and the reluctance to forego the profitable revenue from this largely non-defence trade. 24 While export controls may be justified in some sectors like encryption software, the use of denial and delaying techniques in other sectors may be counterproductive. 25 Developed countries are using skilled manpower from many developing countries to develop these technologies. Pressure from the knowledge workers and the economics of the export of high-technology will force nations to ease export controls.

The involvement of the Chinese in the US information technology industry needs to be studied in detail. "Today Silicon Valley has become Beijing's East Berlin, its gateway to the best Western technology. About half of the 900 technology transfer cases investigated annually on the West Coast involve Chinese", according to a US Defence Intelligence Agency analyst. "They have hundreds of front companies and have hundreds of people working in those companies", says a western military attache in Beijing. 26

Cooperation Among Nations

China has shown keen interest to step up cooperation with India in the field of IT. The Chinese IT industry has doubled every two years in the 1990s and the compound rate of growth between 1995 and 1998 has been estimated at 32 percent per annum. The total market in 1998 was estimated at US $ 36.5 billion. It has been suggested that Chinese and Indian companies could combine to provide software solutions in Japan and Korea. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) in India has suggested providing training courses in advanced computing and multi-lingual technology. The Chinese have also expressed interest in setting up joint ventures with India for the manufacture of computer hardware and components. 27

One of the first visits by a Chinese delegation to India to restore normalcy to Sino-Indian relations after the Pokhran nuclear tests in 1998, was by a high level Chinese delegation headed by Qu Weizhi, Vice Minister of the Ministry of Information Technology to study India's software sector. 28 The Joint Statement issued by the Prime Ministers of India and Pakistan at the end of the Indian PMs visit to Lahore in February 1999, identified IT as one of the areas to improve bilateral relations among the two countries. They decided that: "The two sides shall determine areas of cooperation in Information Technology in particular for tackling the problems of Y2K". 29

There is tremendous scope for cooperation between India and Japan, India and the European Union (EU), and India and the US in the field of IT. According to Mr Kenichi Ohmae, the author of The Borderless World, described as "Mr. Strategy" and the architect of the ambitious "Malaysian Multimedia Super-corridor", Japanese companies are good at manufacturing, but bad at computers. They do not have a clue what to do with their computer set-ups that do not talk to each other. These "legacy systems" pose hurdles in developing a coherently integrated management, sales and supply chain, he feels. Indian IT experts have the capability to make these systems web-enabled and help Japanese companies become more efficient and cost effective, according to Mr Ohmae. 30

In the European Union (EU) there is a shortage of 400,000 IT specialists. The business potential in the Euro conversion in UK alone is $2 to 3 billion. Indian software firms are poised to export software and services worth $3 billion for Euro-related IT projects in the next 3 years. 31 At present Indian software exports to the US amount to 58 percent of the total while that to the EU accounts for 21 per cent. According to the US Ambassador to India, Richard Celeste, Indian and US governments can learn a lot from the cooperation between the IT industry of the two countries. The two governments should learn how to convert problems into opportunities, inculcate the quality of openness and learn how to improve productivity from the IT industry. According to him, there has been a 24 hour partnership between the two countries in cyberspace which has brought the two countries closer despite a 'blow-hot, blow-cold' relationship at the diplomatic level. 32

 

Issues before India in the 21st Century

India's IT sector will require 2.2 million globally competitive professionals to achieve an annual revenue of $90 billion by 2008, according to the NASSCOM-McKinsey Study ™ released in India on December 17, 1999. Having established a reputation for themselves in the software market these software professionals are likely to be much in demand. The annual output of trained manpower in the software sector in India is 70,000 persons with qualifications above the post graduate level. These numbers simply do not add up to the requirement of 2.2 million professionals by the year 2008. Moreover, countries like Malaysia want to build their 'Multimedia Super-corridor' with Indian talent. With a high bleed level of Indian software professionals to foreign shores, the Indian government is taking steps to train more people as well as retain professionals by providing added incentives. However, there is likely to be a "War for Indian Talent" in the next ten years and India needs to create opportunities to 'pull' these software professionals. 33

Earlier, products had 90 per cent material and only 10 per cent of knowledge component. Today products have 95 per cent knowledge component and 5 per cent material component, which is a revolution by itself. General Electric (GE) will hire 350 Doctors of Philosophy (PhDs) in India every year and Ranbaxy, an Indian pharmaceuticals Multinational Corporation (MNC) hires 131 PhDs every year. Oracle and IBM have set up research facilities in India. All these factors indicate that in a knowledge-based society, India is likely to become a global research and development (R & D) platform. This will give India tremendous strategic leverage in the information age. We need to provide our knowledge workers with a good intellectual climate if we want them to operate from India. 34

An important ingredient of India's IT strategy in the 21st century will be to "Anchor Indian IT MNCs" abroad, that is, encourage top Indian IT companies to become global MNCs. In Europe, Nokia is worth almost 2 per cent of Finlands GDP. Sweden is called the 'Silicon Valley of Mobile Phones' because of Ericsson, while SAP has played an `Anchor MNC' role for Germany. Silicon Valley in the USA serves as a regional development model which has an economic leverage of its own in the world. Companies like Hewlett Packard (HP) and Cisco played a critical anchor role in the Silicon Valley. All these MNCs encouraged innovation within their country and created a global brand equity for their products. 35

Israel, a small country with no natural resources worth the name and with enemies all around has a wide array of hardware and software products, even as nearly 150 of its IT companies are listed on the Nasdaq. Israel has nearly 85 venture capital companies, spends nearly 2.2 per cent of its GDP on R & D, most of which goes to hi-tech industries, primarily IT and has a marketing muscle due to the global network of Jews and the connections that Israel has with the US and other European countries. 36 India needs to encourage some of its top companies in the software field to become global MNCs. They can do this through acquisitions, by getting closer to customers and by using low cost financing tactics.

Interdependence and networking will be the new mantras for countries like India in the 21st century. The compulsions of international trade, advantages in sharing technology and information and the globalisation of R & D will bring nations together. The Indians in the Silicon Valley expect more and more cross pollination between the people and governments of India and the US. Contentious issues like sale of hi-tec military hardware and dual-use technology, export controls and sanctions can be tackled through good networking, interaction between the US-India Business Council, lobbying firms employed by the Indian Embassy, the Indian-American community and the Congressional caucus on India. The 21st century will see a cooperation and networking of the intellectual capabilities of weaker nations, regional groupings and interest groups through information sharing. Such networking may lead to power centres and the formation of a polycentric world. The players in this polycentric world will depend on who decides to network and with whom. 37

 

Conclusion

In the 1950s, one of the Directors of the London School of Economics (LSE) had remarked that, "If a politician were to discuss politics without a knowledge of economics, it would be a miracle if he talked sense". The same can be said about science and technology in the information age. IT is affecting all three pillars of national power: political, economic and military power. India essentially has three advantages in the information age. It has a democratic political set-up, a gene pool in human resource capital that is probably the best in the world, and English is widely used throughout the country. 38 India's biggest success is its intellectual capital. About 5 million second generation American Indians are together worth US $ 250 billion per year, which is almost 60 per cent of India's GDP. This money can come to India if we build a good infrastructure and create a suitable climate for the growth of information technology.

The Japanese understanding of 'Quality' is worth deep reflection. Using quality, what Japan did to the international automotive market, India has an opportunity to replicate in the software business. This means understanding and implementing "standards" and developing a customer oriented perspective. 39 India now needs to break from its ideological moorings of becoming a champion of the interests of developing countries against the developed world in an increasingly pragmatic world. Trade negotiations are increasingly being carried out on an industry to industry basis. The position a country adopts in one area of trade negotiations need not necessarily determine the issues it emphasises in another area. 40 In trade negotiations we must develop as many options as possible at the unilateral, regional and global level. India should now use the power of information technology, which has the potential to make India a power to reckon with in the first decade of the 21st century.

 

Endnotes

Note *: Research Officer, IDSA.  Back.

Note 1: Charles Van Doren, 'A History of Knowledge', (New York: Ballantine Books; 1991), p. 28.  Back.

Note 2: Rajendra S. Pawar, 'Global IT Dream & India's Position in it', panel discussion at the India Habitat Centre, New Delhi, September 28, 1999.  Back.

Note 3: Rajat Gupta, at the inaugural session of the release of 'NASSCOM - McKinsey Study™-Indian IT Strategies', New Delhi, December 17, 1999.  Back.

Note 4: Dewang Mehta , at the inaugural session of the release of 'NASSCOM - McKinsey Study™-Indian IT Strategies', New Delhi, December 17, 1999.  Back.

Note 5: Rajendra S. Pawar, n. 2.  Back.

Note 6: Sanjay Anand, ' IT Task Force for Merging DoT, DoE, I&B Ministry', Times of India, March 30, 1999.  Back.

Note 7: Lubna Kably, 'US Investor Appetite has been Whetted', interview with Patrick Sutch, Economic Times, April 10, 1999.  Back.

Note 8: See, 'Software Cos can use GDR/ADR Proceeds to Acquire Firms Abroad', Times of India, December 28, 1999.  Back.

Note 9: NASSCOM - McKinsey Study™-Indian IT Strategies, released on December 17, 1999 at the Indian IT Strategy Summit, New Delhi, India.  Back.

Note 10: Paul Taylor, 'Better Routes for Decision-Makers', Financial Times IT, London, December 2, 1998.  Back.

Note 11: Akshay Joshi, 'Information Revolution and China - Managing the Challenges', Asian Strategic Review, (New Delhi, IDSA, 1999), p. 220.  Back.

Note 12: Gurcharan Das, 'Liberalisation and the Business World', talk at the India International Centre, New Delhi, October 22, 1999.  Back.

Note 13: Ramesh Chandran, "Indian Americans: Leaving their Footprints on the Sands of Time", Times of India, October 31, 1999.  Back.

Note 14: Namita Devidayal, "Silicon Valley Nerds Think of Home", Times of India, December 3, 1999.  Back.

Note 15: R.A. Mashelkar, 'Science, Technology, Innovation: Their Impact on Economic and Political Power', 11th Bose-Einstein Lecture, India International Centre, New Delhi, December 13, 1999.  Back.

Note 16: VS Arunachalam, 'Communications- the Endless Frontier', talk at the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) seminar on "Emerging Communication Technologies and Society", New Delhi, March 15-16, 1999.  Back.

Note 17: Discussion with Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam, Principal Scientific Advisor to the Government of India.  Back.

Note 18: Swaminathan S. Anklesaria Aiyar, 'The Coming Super-Babu Revolution', Times of India, February 28, 1999.  Back.

Note 19: Kinshuk Nag, 'Move Work To India, Latest IT Slogan', Times of India, September 13, 1999.  Back.

Note 20: Raj Reddy, 'The Universal Library', talk at the Indian National Science Academy (INSA) seminar on "Emerging Communication Technologies and Society", New Delhi, March 15-16, 1999.  Back.

Note 21: AB Vajpayee, "India in the Knowledge Millennium", address by the Indian Prime Minister at the 79th Annual General Meeting of the Associated Chambers of Commerce (ASSOCHAM), New Delhi, December 18, 1999.  Back.

Note 22: Robert O. Keohane and Joseph S. Nye Jr., " Power and Interdependence in the Information Age", Foreign Affairs, September/October 1998, pp. 89-90.  Back.

Note 23: Sanjay Baru, "Media Multiplier - Soft Power of Indian Software", Times of India, April 5, 1999.  Back.

Note 24: David C. Gombert, 'National Security in the Information Age', Naval War College Review, Autumn 1998, vol. LI, no.4, p. 36  Back.

Note 25: Ellen L. Frost, 'Horse Trading in Cyberspace: U.S. Trade Policy in the Information Age', Journal of International Affairs, Spring 1998, 51, no. 2., pp. 492 -93.  Back.

Note 26: M.V. Rappai, "China's Military Modernisation: Some Perspectives", Strategic Analysis, vol. XXI, no.10, January 1998, p. 1427.  Back.

Note 27: See, "China India Plan tie-up in Computer Industry", Hindu, April, 9, 1999.  Back.

Note 28: See, 'Sino-India Relations Limping Back to Normalcy', Times of India, April 5, 1999.  Back.

Note 29: See, 'The Lahore Declaration', The Hindu, February 22, 1999.  Back.

Note 30: Sanjay Anand, 'Japan Beckons Indian Infotech', Times of India, February 14, 1999.  Back.

Note 31: See, 'Euro Software Exports may realise $3b', Hindu, March 19, 1999.  Back.

Note 32: Richard Celeste, at the inaugural session of the release of the 'NASSCOM-McKinsey Study & trade;-Indian IT Strategies', New Delhi, December 17, 1999.  Back.

Note 33: Rajat Gupta, at the IT Strategy Summit, New Delhi, December 17, 1999.  Back.

Note 34: R.A. Mashelkar, n. 15.  Back.

Note 35: NASSCOM - McKinsey Study& trade;-Indian IT Strategies, n 9.  Back.

Note 36: Kinshuk Nag, 'Venture Capital, Defence put Israel on IT Map', Times of India, November 25, 1999.  Back.

Note 37: Akshay Joshi, 'Information Revolution and National Power-Political Aspects II', Strategic Analysis, Vol. XXIII, No. 6, September 1999, p. 1024.  Back.

Note 38: Raj Reddy, 'India in the Knowledge Millennium', address at the 79th Annual General Meeting of the Associated Chambers of Commerce (ASSOCHAM), New Delhi, December 18, 1999.  Back.

Note 39: Subroto Bagchi, 'Quality in Software Alone is not Enough', Economic Times, April 18, 1999.  Back.

Note 40: Narendra Pani, 'Inviting Isolation', Economic Times, April 16, 1999.  Back.