Multimode delivery: The best way to impart learning

By: G Krishna Kumar | 

Published: June 16, 2020 4:20 AM

Digital education picked up pace with platforms like SWAYAM and PM eVidya. But when the time has come to test its effectiveness on a grand scale, it is surprising to see governments, schools and parents alike refusing to accept screen-based education.

Both the Centre and states have divided views on online education. This conundrum needs to be handled effectively as online education is likely to be the norm. Digital education picked up pace with platforms like SWAYAM and PM eVidya. But when the time has come to test its effectiveness on a grand scale, it is surprising to see governments, schools and parents alike refusing to accept screen-based education.

Online interactive: Instead of completely banning online education for kids in the lower classes, we need innovative means to impart some form of education. While everyone hopes kids will be back in schools in full strength in the next few months, the risk of virus infection is alarming and parents would do well to support the government in supporting screen-based teaching.

India is faced with two challenges in terms of internet connectivity—quality of the internet and the digital divide. On quality, India ranks low in the global speed index (71st among 139 countries); while on broadband India is ranked 31st (of 174 countries), it is an urban phenomenon. India has made abysmal progress in getting the rural broadband infra with BharatNet. A report states that the target was to connect 2.5 lakh villages, but Wi-Fi is available only in about 23,000 gram panchayats.

So, mobile internet seems to be the only way out in the near future. With over 10GB data usage per month per person, India is among the top nations on mobile internet usage. With 5G not happening anytime soon, we need to live with poor internet speeds. The bigger issue is the gap in internet penetration in urban and rural areas—urban penetration is 100%, rural is less than 30%.

For addressing the have-nots, the government should consider giving tablets (something like Aakash tablets that gained popularity a decade ago). The euphoria around Aakash died too soon. The government must consider some form of ‘tablet and internet yojana’ for addressing underprivileged kids. The tablets can be controlled solely for education purposes. CSR funds from corporates can be put to good use for procuring and distributing tablets.
It’s time to ponder why India cannot have its own Zoom-like app exclusively for education. Can’t the government task top tech institutions to create a scalable app?

TV as a medium: Data shows that TV ownership in households in much higher than smartphones. In south India, for example, 95% homes have TVs. While it is lower in other parts, the government can revive TV-based learning. Do you remember UGC education programmes in early 1990s? Each state can have its own DD Gyan Darshan channel. Even better, the government could incentivise free-to-air TV channels for carrying classroom sessions. TV-based delivery will not be interactive, so schools can enable regular touch-time between parents and kids to monitor progress and provide guidance.

Multimode delivery: The government can enhance the draft National Education Policy (NEP) and formulate a long-term strategy for standardising education through a mix of online interactive, online one-way delivery (recorded sessions) and on-premises (regular classrooms) methods.

The draft NEP has the 5-3-3-4 design comprising of five years of foundational stage (three years of pre-primary school and classes one and two), three years of preparatory stage (classes three to five), three years of middle stage (classes six to eight), and four years of secondary (classes nine to 12). Perhaps a graded multimode delivery from, say, 100% on-premises method for foundational stage to 60% on-premises for secondary students can be considered. For students pursuing UG/PG, the online portion can be 70-75%—in-person interactions cannot be ignored and hence 25-30% of the time students will have to be present on-premises. Such a model could go global as well.

Indian students planning for higher education in foreign countries will have to spend much lesser money in earning their degrees as their need to be physically present on-premises will become considerably lesser.

The pandemic has provided us a great opportunity to implement multimode education delivery; now we need the right framework.

An ICT professional and a columnist based in Bengaluru. Views are personal
krishnak1@outlook.com

How to make the most of an electric car

Reasons included tax benefit offered on the loan availed for purchasing it, reduction in GST, no road tax, registration fees, etc. Add to that the fact that the Kona Electric has a decent range (claimed is 452 km on its 39.2 kWh battery pack).

• By: G Krishna Kumar
• October 3, 2019 4:49:30 PM
• A few months ago, I wanted to buy a `20-25 lakh petrol car. Since none met my expectations, I decided  Hyundai Venue, the compact SUV (about `10 lakh). During the process, I learnt about then to-be-launched Hyundai Kona Electric. At the same time, it was encouraging to see the government’s Budget announcement to encourage sales of electric cars. While the launch price of the Kona was above my budget (over `25 lakh), with the GST reduction on the anvil, I booked it. Reasons included tax benefit offered on the loan availed for purchasing it, reduction in GST, no road tax, registration fees, etc. Add to that the fact that the Kona Electric has a decent range (claimed is 452 km on its 39.2 kWh battery pack).
  I was aware charging would be a problem. While I got a slow charger and a fast-charging AC equipment free for charging at home, public infrastructure is almost non-existent. Then I got to know BESCOM, the electricity provider in Bengaluru, has set up 12 fast-charging stations across the city—the government of Karnataka and BESCOM are also planning to set up charging stations along national highways.I was among the first few customers to get the delivery of the car, in August. Its ride quality is fantastic. The intuitive cluster, infotainment system and the button-based drive-mode selector are futuristic. Interestingly, many people have asked me the typical ‘kitna deti hai’ question.
  I’ve driven during rush hour, off-peak hours, and on a short stretch on highways. Practical storage spaces are worth mentioning, and ventilated seats are a boon in hot weather. Also, during rush hour traffic, I have been getting about 7.5 km per kWh (translates to 294 km range). During off-peak hours and if driven at 30-50kph, the efficiency improves to 11 km per kWh (431 km range). The key to getting better range is easy acceleration, regenerative braking set at level 3, using driver-only AC (if you are the only one in the car). Also, range improves when going downhill as that helps recharge the battery. With five people travelling and AC switched on, about 9 km per kWh is achievable (352 km range). On the highway, the best range is possible when driving at 70-90kph.I’ve observed the Kona returns a range of 320-370 km during urban driving and about 300 km on the highway. Customers like us definitely need more choices as far as electric cars are concerned, and surely such electric cars that have a range long enough not to give us range anxiety.
• The author is an ICT professional and Kona owner based in Bangalore. krishnak1@outlook.com

Indian Railways: Only rapid tech adoption can solve safety, speed challenges

By: G Krishna Kumar | Published: February 28, 2017 4:32 AM

Recently, I was travelling in China and was particularly impressed with the affordable high-speed train CRH (China Railway High speed). In general, the major railway stations resemble any international airport with excellent passenger-friendly facilities. Mandatory security screening of people and luggage at the railway stations is worth mentioning—considering we have virtually non-existent screening at railway stations and bus terminals in India.
The journey from Beijing to Shanghai was covered in less than five hours, with CRH clocking a peak speed of about 315 kmph. Introduced a decade ago, CRH has become very popular with an annual ridership of over 140 crore last year. It is certainly comparable with Japan’s Shinkansen (Bullet train) or Europe’s TGV/ICE in terms of the quality of experience. High-speed trains are certainly not a luxury, and greatly improve productivity. Imagine a four-hour train journey from Bengaluru to Mumbai, at an affordable price.

Although governments in the past have “attempted” to modernise the Indian Railways, it is sad that India is still far away from a high-speed rail system. The country has the fourth-longest railway network (after US, China and Russia) in the world. The Shatabdi Express, which started almost 30 years back, can only clock 150 kmph. Isn’t it intriguing that no technology/innovation was pursued to better the speed of our trains? The Gatiman express is the fastest with 160 kmph.

The Talgo train, which could reduce the travel time by 25% with no additional investment on railway infrastructure could be the way forward. But that will take at least 1-2 years. Talgo trains which can clock 180-200 kmph, are planned to replace Shatabdi and Rajdhani. This is India’s best bet, while we await the Bullet train between Mumbai and Ahmedabad, but this is expected to take at least six-eight years to be ready.

While India tries to get its high-speed network with trains clocking upto 320 kmph (that’s double the Shatabdi speed), Japan and China are aggressively implementing super-high-speed, 500 kmph rail network. Also, the world awaits the trial run of the Hyperloop (a technology using specially built tubes) that can travel at over 900 kmph. The founder of Hyperloop has stated that India can have a Hyperloop in 38 months.

While we await high-speed trains, we have a here-and-now problem around safety. The recent spate of railway accidents has resulted in the death of close to 200 people. Statistics on the Indian Railways’ website indicate that thousands of people die every year due to other reasons—level crossing, over-crowding in trains, etc. Considering the safety challenges, the finance minister in his budget speech announced the formation of a Rashtriya Rail Sanraksha Kosh with a corpus of R1 lakh crore. A good move indeed, however, time-bound implementation will be the key.

As total hours of interruption to “through traffic” on railway network due to train accidents, failure of railway equipment was 1,281 hours in 2015 in India. Compare this with Japan, where the total delay across all the Shinkansen network is around 35 seconds per day, amounting to an annual delay of less than four minutes. The 53-year old Shinkansen network has an impeccable record of zero accidents.

Europe’s railway safety performance report 2016 states that European railways are the safest mode of land transport, despite the recent accidents in Germany and Italy. In fact, report credits the hugely improved safety due to strong technology adoption.

Fundamentally, we need to modernise the signalling and communication systems in the Indian Railways, considering that we still use manual signalling at several places. Although wireless technologies, like GSM-Railways (GSM-R) are being tried, due to poor implementation, the Railways has not been able to utilise the full potential. On the other hand, advanced countries are looking at high-speed 4G wireless technologies for railway communication.
In the EU, automatic train protection system (ATP) is used for monitoring and restricting speed, and reducing the risk of collisions and derailment of trains. Train Protection and Warning System (TPWS) has been in the news for many years in India. One such system was piloted in south Indian on a 68 km stretch, recently.

Advanced countries are investing heavily in R&D to further improve safety. For example, in the UK, a sensor system has been developed that could turn any train into a track monitor that can inspect the condition of rails. This can provide real-time information. In addition, artificial intelligence and data analytics is used for providing additional insights.

Electronic sensors, including acoustic and temperature based sensors would provide advance information about any structural failure or damages to the railway track and about the wheels. Such technologies are relevant in the Indian context as over 15% of the accidents are due to track defects.

The government plans to get rid of unmanned level crossing in the country by 2020. This is indeed the right step.
Effective adoption of technology can certainly improve safety, but this would involve significant effort in training and upskilling the railway staff. Recently, the Indian railway inked an agreement with Italian railway for conducting safety audit. As per the agreement, India could significantly benefit from Italy’s technological know-how.

The author is ICT professional, based in Bengaluru. Views are personal

For all the wrong reasons

Reliance Jio effect ensured other telcos get busy wooing subsidies, but focus is wrong
The much hyped October 2016 auction has ended in a flash with the government making only a fraction of the anticipated Rs 5 lakh crore.

By: G Krishna Kumar | New Delhi | Published: October 13, 2016 6:10 AM

The much hyped October 2016 auction has ended in a flash with the government making only a fraction of the anticipated Rs 5 lakh crore. Sixty five per cent of the spectrum was unsold, and the efficient 700Mhz spectrum did not find takers. Was it steep base price or prudent bidding (unlike the usual recklessness seen in the previous bidding)?

While we digest the outcome of this flash auction, the Reliance Jio effect has ensured all the telecom operators (telcos), including the state-owned BSNL, are busy wooing subscribers. Let’s hope this would shake-up the telecom sector and enable delighted subscribers, but there are challenges galore. The government, telcos and the regulator must work together in improving the overall quality of experience.

The next telecom wave in India is undoubtedly data. India already has 350 million internet users and this is expected to double to over 730 million internet users by 2020, as per a recent National Association of Software & Services Companies (Nasscom) report. More important, 75% of new user growth is expected to come from rural areas.

Back to basics—Call drops

While India’s rapid rise in voice and data penetration is appreciated, it is unfortunate that the telecom sector is not focusing on fixing the vexing call drop issue. Despite all the effort from the government, media and public, there is hardly any change in the ground situation. While the telcos claim to have added thousands of towers to reduce call drops, the fact remains that the call drop menace just continues.

The Supreme Court had struck down the telecom regulator Trai’s proposal asking telcos to compensate for call drops. The relationship between Trai and telcos, also seems to have hit a low. Notwithstanding this, the government must ask the telcos to improve the call drop issue urgently. Trai should seek direct feedback from the subscribers and not just depend on the test reports on call drops.

Regulatory levies

It is to be noted that the regulatory levies in India are three or four times higher compared to China and other countries. Recently, the government decided to retain the weighted average formula for computing spectrum usage charges (SUC) as against a simple flat rate. The complicated weighted average formula takes into account the frequency band, when the spectrum was acquired, among other parameters. While the government imposed a flat 3% SUC for the recently concluded auctions, it should go for the flat rate for all the spectrum soon.

The tussle between Trai and the telcos about IUC (interconnect usage charge) meanwhile continues. IUC is the charge levied by telcos for calls terminating in their network. For example, for a call made by someone from Network A (called calling party) to someone on network B, an IUC of 14 paisa per minute is charged by A to B. Since we follow a calling party pays model, this charge is passed onto the subscriber initiating the call. The IUC was reduced by 30% from 20 paisa to 14 paisa in March 2015. The recent consultation paper from Trai suggests that the IUC be abolished. Obviously, the big telcos are upset as they are set to lose a few thousand crores with this move.

The smaller telcos, especially the latest entrant Reliance Jio will be the beneficiaries, if Trai suggestions are implemented. Considering that we have eight operators (down from 10-12 due to spectrum sharing/trading pacts amongst the operators) in each circle and India still being a large voice driven market, a staggered reduction in IUC could be considered.

Zero IUC or Bill and Keep (BAK) model allows for calls to be terminated at no-charge. Basically, the operator recovers their costs from their own customers instead of charging other operators. The BAK model is followed by the landline service providers in India.

This means, no termination charges are levied for calls made from landline to another landline or mobile network. To encourage landline phone use, BSNL allows free calls to any network in India on Sundays.

Tariff war 2.0

Globally, telcos allow internet telephony or Voice over IP (VoIP), but Indian telcos don’t support it. Why? Telcos earn 5-6 times more using a traditional call as compared to VoIP calls. No wonder telcos get jittery about zero-IUC. Trai’s proposal of a zero-IUC is intended to encourage telcos to provide VoIP services.

Reliance Jio’s Voice over LTE services, completely an IP driven network is sure to disrupt the market. Jio’s aggressive growth will be a challenge till the Interconnect issue is sorted.

The anxiety amongst incumbent telcos to counter Jio has resulted in tariff war 2.0 for data, with many of them reducing tariff by over 50% to retain subscribers. This reminds us of the tariff war 1.0 or call tariff paisafication started during 2003, when voice call rates were drastically reduced (again thanks to Reliance). But then the quality deteriorated over a period of time.

Undoubtedly, the tariff war 2.0 is good news for the subscribers. Instead of only trying to provide cheapest data tariff with average quality, the telcos must compete on excellence in quality of service for data, India specific content and superior user experience. All these without compromising on net-neutrality.

Again direct subscriber feedback on quality and ensuring the telcos offer acceptable data-rate over a specified period of time are much needed.

For India’s dream of a digital society to be a reality, the government, regulator Trai and the telcos need to work cohesively for ensuring superior subscriber experience.

The author is ICT professional. Views are personal

Getting set for the app economy

By: G Krishna Kumar and V Sridhar| Financial Express | FE-Reflect | July 23, 2015 11:49 pm

With increased adoption of smartphones and deployment of 3G/4G networks, the country is poised for the take-off of an app economy, a new term coined to describe the economic aspects of mobile applications and content.
With 3-5 million signing up for mobile broadband and 25 million smartphone shipments every quarter, the app economy is here to stay.
Alibaba, the Chinese top e-tailer made headlines for clocking about $9 Billion in just a day during the Singles’ day in November 2014. Not surprisingly a significant chunk was from mobile devices.  A latest KPMG report says that e-commerce (through traditional websites on PCs/laptops) will be overtaken by mobile based m-commerce very soon.
It is a trend that is gaining traction with all  e-tailers providing great user experience on mobile devices. Most recently, India’s leading e-tailer, Flipkart, offered special discounts for purchases made using mobile apps instead of their website. In fact, some of the e-tailers are gearing-up to do away with websites and take a “mobile app” alone route.
In general, the mobile app market has grown significantly over the past five years.  Google’s Play Store  and  Apple’s iStore, both boast of over 1.4 million apps. Is there a real market for app developers in India? How does the app economy work?
The apps market in India is likely to grow by more than four times to $626.23 million (around Rs 3,800 crore) by 2016, with paid apps contributing over 50%. Indian Council for Research on International Economic Relations (ICRIER) estimates the total worth of Indian app economy at $150 million currently (about Rs 900 crore), with immense potential to grow further.
An average of 17 apps were downloaded in a year in India per user, out of which 4 were paid apps, compared to a global average of 26 apps, of which 5 were paid apps. India is among the top three countries by the number of app downloads
Interestingly, 80% of apps being downloaded in India are global apps. This may be due to the lack of India-specific apps. Unlike countries like China, Korea, or even Japan, where country-specific Apps are a smash hit like Weibo or KaKaoTalk, India cannot boast of many India specific app with millions of users. Bharti Softbank’s Hike messenger has about 25 million users.
A recent report states that there are over 3 lakh mobile app developers in the country. Over the past few years, quite a few Indian companies specialising in app development have emerged and are successful in developing apps for both B2B and B2C markets. InMobi has just released an engaging mobile advertisement delivery platform competing with Facebook and Google. Some companies have created a niche for themselves by focusing on iOS apps.
UK-based mobile app research company Vision Mobile has some interesting statistics about the Indian market from a developer stand point.  Android has emerged as the primary app development platform with over 56% developers using Android, while 20%  of the developers use iOS.  In terms of revenue model, advertising contributes to about 40% , followed by the ‘pay per download’ of 21% and contract work  and commissioned apps coming in with 20%.
What could be the niche areas for Indian apps? Diversity of languages is a unique trait for India. Firms such as Reverie Technologies have developed platforms for Indian language processing; mobile app developers, especially those related to media could look at creating apps that meet the needs of language diverse demographies of India.
Newshunt, the multilingual news feed platform for example has seen good traction amongst non-English speaking users.
Another area is the development of apps for improving day-to-day life of Indians. Congestion in roads, call drops on telecom networks, overflowing sewage, water shortages are some of the common infrastructural and public utility bottlenecks that we face day in and day out. How about a simple India specific weather forecasting application in local language? This could also be used for emergency alerts regarding floods/earthquakes,etc.
The Singapore government has made significant progress in enabling mobile  app based service delivery.
Singapore’s OneService provides a platform for residents to give feedback to the authorities on all the municipal issues. The ActiveSG app lets the public book sporting facilities and sign up for sports programmes. myENV allows the user to check  weather and related information.
India could adopt mobile app based governance systems. For example, the government had recently shortlisted 20 app ideas from over 9,000 entries with over 50,000 ideas in the PMO app contest—certainly a great initiative to spur innovation among the youth. Let us hope to see millions of downloads and active usage enabling a digital society.
The e-commerce companies are basically trying to provide some smoothness to the unorganised sector through digital intervention.  Similarly, apps can bridge the gap between citizens and the governments at various levels to improve public services.

Kumar is vice-president, Symphony Teleca and Sridhar is professor, IIIT Bangalore. Views are personal
First Published on July 24, 2015 12:25 am
 

Need to redesign structure for skilling India

 February 2, 2015 12:36 am Financial Express FE-Reflect FE Columnist

The union minister of state (independent charge) for skill development, Rajiv Pratap Rudy, recently said that India’s skilled workforce is 2%, compared to over 75% in all major economies. In this backdrop, the government us working on a new skill development policy to address shortcomings of the existing policy. Although skill development can improve “employment-readiness”, a sustainable job creation platform is urgently needed.

The job market is a factor of demand and supply. Demand-supply mismatch here is one of the biggest challenges India faces. A report indicates that there is demand in the job market, but unavailability of the right talent is costing the economy R53,000 crore.
Although India produces lakhs of graduates, the National Employability Report 2014 states that employability is a challenge with only 18.09% of this pool getting jobs. People taking up jobs for which they are overqualified amplifies the demand-supply mismatch.
The lack of skilled people is an overarching challenge, prevalent across industries, be it manufacturing or IT. We need a three-pronged approach to address the demand-supply challenge.
We need a strong vocational education and training system, the foundation of which must be set at the primary school level. We should, perhaps, adopt the German Duales Ausbildungssystem or dual system of vocational education and training (DSVET). In fact, China too has developed its own vocational education is introduced at the primary school with students in the age group of 12-14 years. In India, in addition to specific skills, communication, logical reasoning and, most importantly, cognitive skills must be taught to the students.
The prime minister’s idea of using railway stations for imparting skill development training in rural areas must be lauded. Perhaps, this should be extended and existing infrastructure in government offices like post offices, BSNL, and even colleges and schools should be used for vocational training. The Digital India campaign can help in using ICT as an enabler for skill development, evaluation and monitoring of students. With advancement in ICT, Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platform can be used effectively to impart vocational training.
Vocational school teachers in China are mandated to spend one month in the industry every year. This is an excellent mechanism to ensure the teachers are up-to-speed in terms of industry and technology. Can we implement this in India across disciplines/courses? This can be achieved only if we have a strong industry-academia relationship. How about getting experienced professionals from different sectors to train the teachers? Perhaps, the companies can utilise their CSR spend to provide experienced manpower for training .
Also, industry bodies should drive the syllabus (both theory and practical training). The government could invite experienced and retired professionals to contribute in developing and updating the syllabus. Introducing mandatory industrial training as part of curriculum will certainly help students’ employability prospects.
The government’s plan to start an university for skilling can wait. There are quite a few disparate skill development efforts carried out in the country. We already have thousands of ITIs, engineering and diploma colleges. In addition, we have the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC) and the National Vocational Education Qualifications Framework (NVEQF) addressing some of the skill gaps. There are quite a few NGOs and private players offering skill development/ entrepreneurship training. Instead of creating new organisations/systems, it makes sense to streamline and rationalise existing systems. The autonomous body NSDA (National Skill Development Authority) in the Skill Development ministry should embark on rationalisation drive.
Finally, the government should work with the Industry bodies and identify top 5 sectors and provide the necessary push for implementation. Based on the outcome of these skill development programs, additional sectors can be added. Can the government publish quarterly data on the exact number of people reskilled, job positions filled and a view of the demand for at least 12-18 months?
An AICTE report has identified about 30 different skill areas and possible requirement by 2022. This can be a good starting point to prioritise the areas/sectors where the government’s attention is needed. As per the report, automotive, healthcare, organised retail and IT/electronics are expected to generate millions of jobs.
How about focusing on agriculture for skill development, productivity improvements and innovation? President Obama during his speech in New Delhi highlighted the importance of agricultural productivity and the cascading positive effect on India’s economy.
It is intriguing that 60% of India’s population depends of agriculture, but accounts for only 14% of the GDP. India’s premier technical institutions should be accountable for providing solutions to this sector.
Although prime minister’s Make-in-India initiative can certainly spur new jobs and also in reskilling, we need a balanced approach between manufacturing and agriculture. We don’t want all our farmers to take up non-farm jobs.
Summing up, the success of skill development will be measured based on jobs created. Prioritising sectors for skill development and rationalising existing systems to create a robust demand-supply matching and monitoring system is urgently needed. Although the new skill development policy is welcome, implementation will hold the key.
By G Krishna Kumar
The author is adviser, Centre for Educational and Social Studies, Bangalore. Views are personal

A smart way to create 100 smart cities

G Krishna Kumar | Published: Oct 28 2014, 02:16 IST

The success of participative governance has been patchy in India. Government bodies need to show much more willingness to embrace public participation

Prime Minister Narendra Modi's vision to create 100 smart cities has resonated well both in India and across the world. While each state is pitching 4-5 cities to figure in the final list, many countries have shown interest in supporting the initiative in specific states. Recently, France offered to invest in creating smart cities in Himachal Pradesh.
The idea of smart cities is timely considering that urbanisation is inevitable. Sample this: as much as 75% of population in advanced countries live in cities, and 70% of world's population will live in cities mainly in developing countries over the next 30 years. During this period, India is projected to add about 400 million people in urban areas.
While smart city as a concept has gained popularity over the past few years, there is vagueness in the definition. Rightly so, as multiple aspects including governance, public transport and traffic, waste management, entertainment and safety, among others, need to be considered.
A recent survey by the IESE Business School, called "Cities in Motion", rates Tokyo, London and New York as the top smart cities in the world. The survey considers parameters including governance, urban planning and environment. The survey indicates that these three cities have a clear vision and consistent implementation of their strategic urban plans.
Rationalising/integrating urban bodies
Should India create 100 new smart cities or improve the existing ones? India has 53 cities with over 10 lakh population and there are hundreds of smaller cities. It makes sense to improve existing cities and aim at making them �smart� rather than creating new ones which are bound to take significantly longer time.
It is a given that each Indian city has different priorities. We need to rationalise the existing infrastructure and then look for improvement. Here, information and communications technology (ICT) can play an important role in the rationalisation process. For example, Mexico city's chaotic bus service got transformed into the most dependable public transport using ICT, through demand-supply matching and providing better service to the commuters. We can also learn from other countries in improving public transport ticketing using ICT. Japan's FeliCa or London's Oyster card are great examples of hassle-free ticketing service.
The concept of smart cities should be incorporated in the urban planning bodies and a holistic approach is required. How about integrating transportation and traffic planning with urban planning? This will make the urban planning department completely responsible and accountable for a city's traffic and public transportation. Why should the traffic police be responsible for traffic planning? Instead, we should let the traffic police focus on educating and improving responsible driving among the public.
How many times do we get frustrated at the utter lack of coordination between government organisations resulting in wastage of effort/money and causing public nuisance? Roads are nicely tarred and within a few days the sanitation/water supply department begins work on the same stretch of road! As a first step, can we get such simple things aligned amongst urban local bodies and fix ownership?
The government should expand on the PPP-based initiatives and replicate success stories in passport service and airports. Further, Nobel laureate Jean Tirole's suggestion to improve the PPP model through periodic independent evaluation is worth considering in India as well. Further, e-governance must be given the right thrust as it can bring in better transparency and can reduce corruption.
Creating the right ecosystem
India needs a strategy to enable and sustain a strong smart city ecosystem. The government must embark on an initiative making innovation as an enabler for Indian smart cities. The sole aim should be realising affordable India-specific solutions.
Institutions of national importance such as the IISc, IITs and IIMs produce some of the best talent in the country. Can we utilise this talent more effectively? Also, can these institutions be held accountable in certain areas from conceptualisation to implementation?
The ministry of human resource development (MHRD) should consider adding specific aspects around smart cities such as introducing urban planning as a specialised course. Subjects such as traffic and transportation engineering should also be popularised. Students should be encouraged to pursue specialised courses by creating the right demand environment.
ICT will play a major role in enabling smart cities and India is quite uniquely positioned in terms of the IT ecosystem. We have the technology know-how, skilled and mature manpower. IT industry, often seen as export-oriented, can have a great opportunity to make significant contribution in enabling e-governance or providing high-end analytics that can help the common man.
The success of participative governance (where the government departments and the general public work closely in prioritising improvement actions for the city) has been patchy in India. Reports suggest that few cities such as Surat and Pune have performed well, but most large cities have miserably failed. There can be many �valid� reasons, but we need government bodies to show much more willingness to embrace public participation.
It will take a while for Indian cities to figure among the world's best smart cities. That's fine and perhaps Janaagraha's annual survey of Indian cities could be a starting point for assessing Indian cities on smart city parameters.
A holistic approach is needed in rationalising the existing systems. Making our cities "smart" is a milestone, and not an end-goal in India's quest to create top-class cities.

The author is adviser, Centre for Educational and Social Studies, Bangalore. Views are personal
krishnak1@outlook.com

Learning from the Germans

G Krishna Kumar, Vasishta Haavanur | Updated: Nov 18 2013, 12:06 IST

Summary
India will do too well to adopt a skill development-based education system like the one Germany follows

The Union HRD minister recently stated that India has the potential to become the worldwide hub for sourcing skilled labour, apart from meeting the country’s demand. While this is indeed possible, India faces significant challenges around skill development and employability. The recent article “India’s skill will conundrum” (goo.gl/15k0lh) in a leading newspaper provides some insights on the challenges in India’s skill development.

It is well known that India is set to become the youngest country by 2020 with an average age of 29 years. Empirical data suggests that the presence of large percentage of working-age labour force, also called India’s “demographic dividend”, would greatly stimulate economy and growth. It is time to look afresh at the broad education framework in the country and imbibe some of the best-in-class education systems in the world to improve skills and employability in the country.

In this backdrop, how about learning from Germany? Germany has the best employment-oriented education system in the world through its Duales Ausbildungssystem or the dual system of vocational education and training (DSVET).

Global adoption of DSVET
The DSVET, pioneered by Germany allows youth to pursue over 350 apprenticeship occupations like assistants to doctors or assistant in a legal firm or specific jobs in manufacturing industries. It provides skills to the youth without a degree, thereby providing them a great opportunity to enter the labour market.
Germany’s Federal Ministry of Education and Research states that 66% of the school students enter the dual system and the entire program is mostly financed by the German companies. The course combines practical apprenticeships in a company and theoretical vocational education at a school. The duration of the theory and practical aspects vary from a few days to months. This system allows the student to be a quasi-employee of the company from the beginning, and based on individual interest and performance, a student could find full time employment.
The European Commission states that work-based learning, such as dual approaches, should be a central pillar of vocational education with the aim of reducing youth unemployment. The time-tested DSVET has been replicated in many European countries like France with positive results. Many of the countries affected by the European crisis are looking at the DSVET for improving employability. Interestingly, while countries like Greece and Spain have over-50% unemployment rates, Germany has managed to keep it at less than 8%. Although many experts attribute the low unemployment rate in Germany to its strong economy and more aged population, DSVET certainly has certainly contributed to better employability in the country.
A news report suggests that China has recently started DSVET and the results are encouraging. It is quite astonishing that some form of DSVET system has been in India since the early 1990s! The Indo-German Training Center (IGTC), which is part of the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce, is credited with bringing the system to India. Isn’t it unfortunate then that only around 100 students pass out of this system every year?

Challenges in replicating DSVET
It is quite intriguing that despite considerable effort from Germany in propagating the DSVET in other countries, the model has been successful only in a few countries. Why? Adopting the dual system involves more than mere duplication. Existing skill development framework needs to be overlapped with DSVET by considering the country’s educational, social and economic objectives. Besides, industry-academia relationship is crucial for a successful DSVET system. In addition, the government’s willingness and the availability of mass-employment generating industry are extremely important.

What needs to be done in India
India needs a three-pronged strategy to adapt the VET system. First, a strong career counselling system should be developed at the secondary school level. In Germany, segregation of children based on their abilities is carried out in the 6th grade. It is certainly debatable if a kid’s future should be decided at the age of 11 or 12 years. In India, we need schools to monitor and provide career counselling to the students when they are in 10th standard. This would help identify students who can pursue regular higher education and the ones who should take the DSVET route.
Second, we need to develop a system that will encourage industry bodies to own the DSVET initiative, including the decision on the syllabus for theory and practical training. Maybe, the mandatory CSR contribution from companies can be used effectively this way. Further, the HRD ministry and the All India Council for Technical Education could collaborate with the Indo-German Chamber of Commerce and come up with an implementation plan along with the leading industry bodies in the country. Perhaps such an exercise will help in strengthening the government’s initiatives like the National Skill Development Corporation (NSDC), the National Vocational Education Qualifications Framework (NVEQF). As a pilot, the DSVET initiative could taken up in a highly industrialised state like Tamil Nadu or Maharashtra and a state with a low level of industrialisation like Bihar or Odisha.
Third, with the advancement in ICT, students could attend theory classes using the Massive Open Online Courses (MOOC) platform that provides a classroom-like environment. Perhaps companies associated with the DSVET program could provide tablets to the students to make use of the MOOC platform.
Summing up, India has a great opportunity to utilise the demographic dividend and improve skills, thus providing employment opportunities to the youth. However, for capitalising this opportunity, India should look at strengthening the existing education and training system and perhaps time to learn from the Germans. Can we see an Indianised DSVET soon?

G Krishna Kumar & Vasishta Haavanur

The authors are Bangalore-based IT professionals. Views are personal
 

Realising India’s broadband dream

Financial Express, 24th Sep 2013, Edit & Column

SummaryAlthough uptake of mobile internet usage is encouraging, wire-line, wireless services must.

As per the 2013 edition of the State of Broadband report released recently, there are now more than 70 countries where over 50% of the population is online. The report emphasises that broadband internet has become a key tool for social and economic development, and points out an important caveat that 90% of the people in the world’s 49 least developed countries remain totally unconnected.
The Indian government set itself a target of 160 million broadband users by the year 2017 and 600 million by 2020. A quick look at the recent performance indicators published by Trai indicates the following: wire-line broadband subscription stands at a paltry 15 million with a maximum in Maharashtra at about 2.5 million; of these 15 million, 85% are provided through the digital subscriber loop (DSL) technology deployed by the fixed line service providers; wireless internet subscriptions has reached an astonishingly high number of 143 million with a maximum of about 14 million in UP. What is interesting is that while the top 10 states in wire-line broadband subscription accounted for about 80% of the total wire-line broadband in the country, the same set accounts for only 65% of mobile internet subscriptions. The above statistics indicate that mobile internet access is a possible substitute for wire-line broadband service. Going by the existing definition of 256 Kbps downlink speed, most of the mobile internet subscribers that use 3G services might qualify to be broadband subscribers. So, we seem to have almost reached the target set for next year, now itself!
What is the problem then?
Though NTP 2012 has a clause for the grand revision of the definition of broadband from 256 Kbps to 512 Kbps to 2 Mbps by 2015 and thereafter to 100 Mbps, the mobile internet access still crawls. Though Trai is yet to come up with detailed metrics for measurement of quality of service for data and internet services over mobile, the response time and call disconnects do not make it worth browsing content-heavy websites on our mobiles—unless of course we do not have a wire-line broadband service at home, which seems to be the case especially for those who live in suburban areas and less dense locations.
On the other hand, countries are marching ahead with improving broadband penetration levels, which research indicates has a positive correlation with economic development. While most of the European countries have mandated 100 Mbps broadband connections to homes, companies such as Google are experimenting with providing fibre-to-home with a speed of 1 Gbps in the US!
Amongst the OECD countries, Japan and Korea lead the pack with over 60% of the wire-line broadband deployed over optic fibre cables. However, despite opening up basic telecom services with no cap on the number of operators, the wire-line connectivity has not picked up in our country.
Is there any solution in sight?

Options for improving broadband penetration
First is the unbundling of the local loop by the incumbents about which Trai released its recommendations way back in April 2004 that will allow internet service providers and cable companies to lease the last mile/bandwidth of the incumbents to provide broadband access. Though unbundling has been touted as unsuccessful until recently, the regulators are using this policy to improve competition in an otherwise natural monopolistic market. Between 2005 and 2013, the number of unbundled lines in the UK has multiplied 70 times to about 9 million copper lines offering more than 24 Mbps. The competition in wire-line broadband has significantly increased leading to drop in prices by about 50% during this period.
With more than 90% of the 35-million-odd fixed lines being owned by the government operators (BSNL and MTNL), it is time that the government mandates unbundling to unlock value of these assets much like the above example to improve broadband penetration in the country.
Second, given the fragmented and minimal spectrum allocations to mobile operators, we can only dream of good broadband connectivity on our mobiles. Hence, release of more spectrum suitable for 3G and higher technologies is warranted. The recent policy reforms including making spectrum technology and service neutral is a welcome step encouraging the mobile operators to deploy wireless broadband technologies. However, the excessive fragmentation of spectrum and non-contiguous allocation prevents efficient implementation of broadband technologies and services. The average spectrum holding across bands per operator per service area in India stands at a paltry 2×10 MHz that is too little for effective broadband deployment with adequate quality of service. The government would do well by releasing more spectrum especially in the globally harmonised band of 2.1 GHz for 3G-based broadband services and assign contiguous spectrum for the refarmed 900 MHz spectrum in the upcoming auction.
Third is the innovative use of 4G spectrum and associated technologies such as long term evolution (LTE) by the operators. One option is to provide services similar to “MiFi” being offered by the operators in the UK and the US, where wireless long haul is provided typically through 4G-LTE network connection instead of the DSL landline. Thus, the MiFi routers are portable and flexible and can connect multiple Wi-Fi enabled devices such as smartphones, tablets and laptops. When enabled in public transport such as buses and trains, such MiFi routers provide the occupants with local Wi-Fi access, connecting them through the wireless backhaul to the internet. Applications such as the above require low frequency, better propagation spectrum in the 700 MHz range. This spectrum needs to be refarmed from the existing broadcast entities such as Doordarshan for mobile services as soon as possible as per Trai 2012 recommendations, so that quality broadband becomes a reality in our country.
To sum up, although the current uptake in mobile internet usage is encouraging, we need a much stronger push in both wire-line and wireless services as described above for India to realise its broadband dream.

V Sridhar is research fellow at Sasken Communication Technologies. G Krishna Kumar is vice-president at Symphony Teleca. Views are personal
 

Government should protect mobile consumers

G Krishna Kumar | Updated: Nov 20 2012, Financial Express, FE Special

A cup of coffee or tea (depending on which part of India we live in) and a one-minute mobile phone call used to cost the same during the late 1990s. Remember the days when incoming calls were charged? All that has changed. And now, thanks to the paisa-fication effect, even inflation has no impact on tariff. India’s call rates are perhaps the lowest in the world and it is not surprising to see India ranked among the highest in minutes of use (MOU) compared to other global markets.
Along with attractive tariff rates, availability of phones and the ease of obtaining a phone connection have helped India witness unprecedented growth in the telecommunications market, leading to a tele-density of over 77%. This transformation in communication must be lauded. Now that the government is trying to maximise revenue through auctions, should we get ready for increased call tariff going forward?
It appears as if the government is obsessed with the R1.76 lakh crore loss (as noted by the CAG) and that the regulators are trying their best to reduce this loss through exorbitant spectrum pricing. There are arguments substantiating such high prices. But, can this be justified considering communication is an essential service and should serve the larger interest of the society?
Indian telcos are required to pay one-time spectrum charge, and this price is realised now through auctioning (earlier through administrative pricing) and an annual licence fee. Overall, regulatory levies in India are far higher compared to other parts of the world. While the Indian telcos end up paying 17-20% of the gross revenue they earn as tax, their Chinese counterparts pay about 3-5%.
Although the 3G auction held in 2010 resulted in the government landing a huge booty, the operators are still struggling as 3G service is yet to pick up momentum. All the mobile operators have stretched balance sheets, with debts running into thousands of crore of rupees. Reports indicate that the operators will continue to struggle as higher debts will significantly reduce the operators’ credit-worthiness, thereby bringing down their ability to raise money for future auctions. A report states that almost all the Indian mobile operators are loss-making. It is quite unclear if 3G uptake would turn them profitable or if the operators need to wait for efficiency due to mergers or acquisitions.
The response to the much-hyped 2G auction due to the cancellation of 122 licences has been muted, resulting in much lower revenue for the government, against the target of R40,000 crore. While there were no participants for CDMA auction, for GSM there were no bidders in four key circles. The base price for pan-India spectrum was set at R14,000 crore, and R18,200 crore for 1800MHz GSM and 800Mhz CDMA spectrum, respectively. This base price is 4-7 times higher when compared with the base price during the 3G spectrum auction held in 2010 or during Raja’s allotment to companies in 2008. The telecom regulator has justified the high price by citing that tariff would go up only by a few paise. However, a report by PwC shows that the tariff can go up by 90 paise in metros. In general, most analysis indicates an increase of anywhere between 25-50 paise per minute. This is quite substantial considering the current call rates and could reduce phone usage due to the highly elastic nature of the Indian market.
Due to intense competition, the average revenue per user (ARPU) for mobile operators is less than R100 and this is among the lowest in the world. The ARPU in advanced countries is over R1,500-2500, and even China’s ARPU is over R500. A news report indicates that the reserve spectrum price for the November 2012 2G auction is costlier by many folds, when compared with other countries, when ARPU is used to compute the purchasing power parity of operators.
In the book Telecom Revolution in India, Dr V Sridhar explains that the operators experienced “winner’s curse” during the 1995 spectrum auction. Due to excessive pricing, the operators who won the bids could not afford to pay and the government had to bail them out later. The government should ensure that the 1995 situation is not repeated. In fact, the ill-effects of high 3G spectrum prices in Europe and elsewhere are well known.
The tepid response to the 2G auction could be a dampener for the government’s plan to levy an auction-determined one-time fee of over R25,000 crore aimed at creating a “level-playing field”. Even a lower fee is bound to hit the operators hard, especially some of the larger players who have to pay both prospective and retrospective charges. This will only accelerate the increase in tariff. Government’s plan on the partial refarming of the efficient 900MHz spectrum is expected to add over R1 lakh crore to the exchequer (http://goo.gl/Ae73k), but this again is likely to increase the tariff by over 60 paise.
The telecom industry contributes to 3% of India’s GDP and the government appears to have found a sweet spot to maximise revenue through exorbitant pricing. However, the government’s greed should not push the industry into oblivion. Considering the response to the 2G auction, will the government learn a lesson and take a pragmatic win-win approach?
The broadband wave is yet to pick up, but the expectations are very high and it is proven that broadband penetration contributes positively to the GDP. The National Telecom Policy (2012) has envisioned a “Right to Broadband” and the mobile phone will undoubtedly play a key role in realising this goal.
It is perhaps time for the government to be less aggressive and consider the welfare of the consumers. The government should strike the right balance that would benefit both consumers and the telecom industry. This is the only way India can sustain its claim to fame in the telecommunication sector over the coming years.
The author is vice-president of Symphony Teleca. Views are personal

Addressing IT's workforce woes

G Krishna Kumar | Updated: Apr 27 2012, 02:06 IST

NSDC could play key role in driving essential skill enhancement initiatives

Over the past 15 years, the IT industry has come a long way, witnessing unprecedented ups and downs and yet remaining one of the sectors with hope. Nasscom has predicted significant growth by 2020. To meet such large growth, India needs to develop its talent pool right at the universities.
With an about 25 lakh workforce, the Indian IT sector represents about 6% of the organised sector. Nasscom predicts the IT workforce will touch 30 million by 2020. Being heavily people-dependent, the biggest challenge for the industry will be to find the right quality engineers.
A recent national employability report states that only 20% of the engineering graduates from colleges are really employable in the IT industry. If a similar study was conducted 15 years back, the percentage of employable engineering graduates in the IT industry would have been much higher, as the industry was not as mature and expectations were comparatively low.
It is not surprising to see lower employability impacting admissions into engineering colleges. Reports indicate that there are no takers for engineering seats in many colleges. Further, over the past few years, engineering graduates from core domains like mechanical or electrical are reluctant to take IT precisely due to the same reason. In fact, many private colleges lack the intellectual infrastructure--broadband connectivity to access knowledge resources on the internet, libraries, and, most of all, a qualified and knowledgeable faculty.
A recent news report suggests that there are about 3,000 engineering colleges in India. Over 10 lakh students are admitted into engineering colleges every year. Essentially, the problem of quantity is addressed, however the challenge in terms of quality of engineers remains. What could be done to improve the quality and skill of our engineers?
The Indian education system needs an environment that fosters active partnerships between industry and colleges/universities. In the advanced countries, research work is given high priority among the engineering colleges/universities. Research activities help the students to think out of the box and also are supported by the industry through grants.
As per the Dr Anil Kakodkar Committee report in 2011, India lags way behind China in terms of university research in engineering and technology. India produces 1,000 PhDs annually in technology and engineering, compared to 8,000-9,000 in the US and China. Why? Unlike India, both the US and China have large well-funded universities that encourage higher education.
The Kakodkar report also emphasises the need for rapid improvement needed in research infrastructure in India, including the IITs. China, for example, has 3 times more enrolment for master’s programmes in engineering and management. Innovation and research orientation during university education will not only encourage students to pursue specialisation, but also help them become entrepreneurs.
AICTE could upgrade the syllabus to be more attuned with industry needs, by focusing on fundamental building blocks like programming and specific domains like banking, retail, telecom, etc. Business schools like IIMs have linked their course content to the industry and have successfully created industry-ready professionals.
Should the duration of the course (say, B.Tech) be increased by a few months? This could help in accommodating a sandwich programme, popular among advanced countries, which would provide direct work experience to the engineers. There are bound to be challenges in implementing this due to the scale. Industry buy-in will be key for the success of such an effort.
Using non-engineering graduates in the IT industry has been successful in patches, primarily driven by a few large organisations. This could be replicated for scale, through tie-ups between universities and industry, with skill enhancement on focused areas. The Government of India’s National Institute of Electronics and Information Technology (NIEIT), more commonly known as DOEACC, offers courses ranging from diplomas to MTech across the country. However this has not gained popularity.
A report states that 62% of the students require training to be eligible for any job in the IT sector. The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC), often referred to as a finishing school, offers skill-bridging training programmes to engineering graduates on focused areas. There are also few private finishing schools providing training to enable industry-ready engineers. However, such initiatives may be grossly inadequate to address the large-scale need.
The National Skill Development Council (NSDC) could play a key role in driving skill enhancement initiatives needed in the IT industry across the country. NSDC, being a high visibility initiative of the government, and has received a R1,000 crore allocation in the recent budget. NSDC is aimed to fulfil the growing need for skilled manpower across 21 sectors, including IT, and narrow the existing gap between the demand and supply of skills. NSDC has formed Sector Skill Development Councils to approve training curriculums and deliver the right value. Nasscom has joined NSDC to lead the sector skill council for IT. The Nasscom-NSDC engagement is expected to help the IT industry scale pilot initiatives and build technology as the enabler for skill development in the country.
NSDC could lead the effort in bring Nasscom, universities and private/government establishments like C-DAC together and create a charter for providing the right platform to bridge the skill gap for the IT industry. Such a programme should also help in improving soft skills and communication skills, which are often found lacking among many engineers.
So far, NSDC has primarily focused on the unorganised sector. Such an initiative in IT can help establish NSDC as a key player in the organised sector. Innovative business models can be developed, creating a win-win situation for all the stakeholders, including the students. With the government’s focus on improving broadband reach in the country, coupled with the availability of affordable devices, innovative and cost effective training methods can be implemented.
The demand for an IT workforce in India is expected to grow multi-fold over the next few years. The current employability rate among engineering graduates is alarming. Universities could relook at the duration of the courses and upgrade syllabus to be attuned with industry needs. For innovation and research to flourish, industry-academia interaction needs to be strengthened. Importantly, NSDC could play an important role in creating the right platform for enhancing the skills of India’s next-gen engineers!

The author is vice-president, Engineering, at Symphony Teleca. Views are personal

 

Infrastructure and Literacy

Financial Express ,  FE Special

G Krishna Kumar | Updated: Oct 26 2011, 03:40 IST

Despite all the hype about information technology, India is ranked a lowly 116 among 152 countries in the ICT Development Index (IDI) as per ITU’s (International Telecommunications Union) 2011 report. In fact, India has just improved by one rank in the IDI between 2008 and 2010.
It is well established that broadband uptake plays an important role in a country’s ICT growth. Reports suggest that a 10% increase in broadband penetration results in close to a 1.4% increase in a country’s GDP. In fact, in China, every 10% increase in broadband penetration is seen as contributing an additional 2.5% to GDP growth.
Globally, the US, Korea and Japan are leaders in broadband penetration. There are plenty of examples of government initiatives yielding unprecedented growth in broadband— South Korea’s Korea 21, Australia’s National Broadband Network, the EU’s Digital Agenda, Singapore’s iN2015 Master Plan etc. For the technically inclined, broadband is defined as a connection that provides a minimum of 256kbps. While the US has recently tried to raise the minimum speed, the rest of the world, including ITU and OECD, still consider 256 kbps as broadband. In fact, this speed is quite adequate for a large majority of users.
The recent draft National Telecom policy (NTP) 2011 plans to achieve 175 million broadband connections by 2017. Considering that the previous broadband policy failed to meet the goals, how can we be sure that this time around the goals are realistically achievable? Should we simply depend on 3G for broadband uptake?
Why was the broadband uptake slow?
The 2004 broadband policy had set a goal of 20 million broadband users in India by 2010, but in reality only half of that was achieved. Why? The PSU telcos enjoyed a huge monopoly in the fixed-line segment, with over 80% connections. It is well known that the PSUs have challenges in adding broadband connections by themselves due to their antiquated procedures/policies. Also, due to the lack of regulation on unbundling of local loop (sharing the infrastructure among Internet service providers and competing operators), the ISPs were not able to utilise BSNL’s last mile infrastructure. Broadband tariff has not seen reduction akin to the mobile world. It is also observed that India’s fixed-line broadband speeds are far lower compared to the rest of the world, primarily due to lack of maintenance.
Although cable TV has picked up significantly in India, coaxial cable-based broadband did not witness similar uptake due to licensing requirements, quality of infrastructure, and lack of awareness in terms of cost and quality of connection. The lack of awareness among people concerning Internet usage and availability of simple plus meaningful local content acted as a dampener for broadband uptake. Another factor was the inadequate availability of affordable Internet-enabled devices together with high broadband connection costs. So, BSNL enjoyed no competition for two years in 3G deployment and still was not successful in increasing the wireless broadband user base.
Create infrastructure and ecosystem
After the 2010 spectrum auction, 3G and BWA trends indicate that mobile broadband is certain to witness significant addition over the next few years, especially with newer and lower-priced devices like tablets, laptops etc hitting the market. This, coupled with more attractive tariffs, will boost broadband adoption. Any government regulations to improve spectrum efficiency by allowing re-farming and spectrum-sharing among operators will certainly augur well for mobile broadband adoption.
However, due to the limitations of spectrum availability, infrastructure costs and the anticipated demand for huge bandwidth, an alternative long-term broadband solution is needed for India.
The government’s plan to create a pan-India, wired broadband infrastructure with USOF-funded National Optical Fibre Network (NOFN) is certainly a step in the right direction. NOFN is expected to connect 2,500 village panchayats and would allow all the private operators’ broadband services to rural areas. India already has 7.5 lakh kilometres fibre laid out by private operators. Globally, there are several examples of optical fibre-based networks being successfully deployed and resulting in a huge uptake in broadband.
Once implemented, NFON will certainly give impetus for e-governance initiatives such as e-health, e-banking and e-education. However, given that a PSU telco has been tasked with implementing NFON, the moot question is whether the NOFN infrastructure will really be ready by 2014?
Availability of affordable tablets or PCs will certainly help in rapid broadband adoption. So the government’s initiative in launching the subsidised ultra-low-cost tablet device Aakash is a welcome move. The government’s plan in supporting semiconductor fabs will enable indigenous hardware development. This, coupled with encouragement for R&D and IPR creation, will provide the impetus for availability of affordable devices. Relevant local content and attractive tariffs are also needed for broadband uptake.
Literacy/e-literacy
India has seen unprecedented growth in mobile connections with teledensity reaching over 70%, and with rural teledensity growing at an impressive rate from 1.9% in 2005 to over 35% now. In spite of this phenomenal transformation in communication, India’s human development index stands at an appalling 119th rank of 169 countries.
The literacy level in India must be increased as it is well established that literacy translates into growth and economic development. The latest United Nations HDI trends indicate that countries like Russia, Brazil and China are way ahead compared to India in terms of youth literacy. All the three countries are far ahead of India in terms of broadband penetration as well.
Reports suggest that overall India has less than 10% computer literate population and only 32% of people living in cities are computer literate. Another important area for successful adoption of broadband is to improve e-awareness. This would enable users to understand and appreciate the value of technology and help increase the adoption rate. It is equally important to encourage meaningful/productive use of the Internet. The government could deploy USOF and embark on a mission to increase Internet/mobile broadband/computing awareness with an active collaboration amongst various stakeholders such as the government, telcos, learning content providers, universities, schools and local administration.
NTP 2011 aptly recognises the need for Right to Broadband. A strong broadband network can form the backbone of this country and hence the need to treat broadband
as an essential basic service. For enhancing positive network externalities, it is imperative that the government undertakes measures to improve infrastructure, support an indigenous ecosystem, and rapidly increases literacy/e-literacy across the country.
The author is director and delivery head for mobile devices, Teleca software solutions India.
Views are personal

Can we get an Indian Huawei?

Financial Express

G Krishna Kumar | Updated: May 26 2011, 03:03 IST

Eight of the world’s top 10 most innovative companies of 2011 are in the ICT domain, reports a US based magazine Fast Company. Not surprisingly, all of these are product companies. While India is the largest exporter of ICT services, generating revenue of $76 billion from the IT sector, but products contribute to less than 2%. India’s contribution to technology innovation is negligible.
The product companies witness non-linear growth (not proportionate to the head count)—the revenue per employee or profit per employee of Google or Microsoft is over 20 times that of India’s top services companies. Also, these technology giants serve as a beacon and are the undisputed trendsetters on the world technology road map.
Chinese companies such as Huawei and ZTE are the world’s leading telecom equipment providers. A report states that 45 of the world’s top 50 telecom companies use Huawei products. What more recognition is needed? These companies have full backing from the Chinese government and the government also supports R&D initiatives—for example, the TD-SCDMA technology that competes with the global wireless 3G standards. Is there an Indian company that can compete with Huawei/ZTE? India has lagged behind China and Taiwan in the capital-intensive electronics hardware manufacturing industry also. But the recent policy push from the department of IT to encourage semiconductor wafer fabrication, electronics and telecom product manufacturing is a welcome move. Also, Trai recently made a recommendation for promoting domestic manufacturing of telecom products.
The loss-making PSU Indian Telephone Industries, once the flagship telecom switch and telephone maker in the country, failed miserably during the telecom boom due to lack of vision from the government. But the case is different with ISRO, whose success could be attributed to the autonomy it enjoys. Another example of a tech-savvy initiative is the UID programme Aadhar, which, though far from fully implemented, has proved that India can implement large-scale technological projects.
Although the domestic demand for IT products is increasing, most Indian product companies are yet to penetrate the market. The only exception is the banking software industry where India has emerged as a leader in core banking solutions offered by Infosys and Oracle-India. Yet Infosys’s products business generates only about 5% of the overall revenue. In general, Indian companies are risk averse and prefer to enjoy the safety of services business, hence have not been able to succeed in creating product offerings.
But some Indian IT companies are successful in the outsourced product development (OPD) model, a pseudo ownership model, wherein the independent software vendors (ISVs) are involved in end-to-end product development for the customer but the ISV does not ‘own’ the product. Cloud computing can be a cost-effective and disruptive technology for further growth in OPD and pure-play product development companies. Nasscom indicates that delivery model innovations such as SaaS and innovative revenue models could fuel IT product adoption in future.
BERD (business expenditure on R&D) and patents/IP management are key indicators of a country’s technology innovation capability. An EU commission report on ICT 2011 indicates that India lags behind China and other emerging economies in terms of BERD/GDP. While China has seen a 10-fold increase in the number of patent applications over the past decade, India’s contribution is insignificant. Generating IPs and protecting them is just one part of the story. Realising value from the IP is a different ball game. Appropriateness of the solution is the key.
It must be said that Indian education system lacks an environment that fosters active partnerships between industry and universities. In the advanced countries, research in universities is given high priority and is supported by industry in the form of grants. As per the recent Anil Kakodkar Committee report, India lags way behind China in terms of university research in engineering and technology. The report also emphasises the need for improvement needed in research infrastructure. An OECD report indicates that India has less than one researcher per thousand employed, much below the global average.
Availability of risk capital is a key constraint for product companies to flourish but Nasscom sees an improving trend. Venture capital/angel investor ecosystem has improved significantly. There are 38 incubation centres across the country aimed at encouraging product development initiatives. India has seen 30% CAGR in start-ups over the past 10 years. The product market in India is expected to touch over $15 billion by 2015. The government’s plan to invest R25,000 crore for setting up semiconductor fabs will provide an impetus for hardware-oriented product development.
The government can play a key role in helping start-ups and other companies engaged in software or hardware product development. There are many examples of how government intervention has yielded good results. Tax benefits for software export revolutionised IT industry in India. Israel supported companies working on networking technologies that helped Israel take a leading position in security. Taiwan supported electronic hardware that resulted in the emergence of the original design manufacturer market.
India has been a ‘follower’ in the ICT space and its product development capability has been patchy. It needs to move towards full-fledged product development in order to be a dominant player in the ICT arena. India’s domestic market by itself will offer sizeable opportunities. However, for made-in-India to be a reality, it is imperative that the government aggressively drives a clear road map for technology innovation, encourages product initiatives, supports hardware and semiconductor industry and, most importantly, inculcates ‘product culture’ right at the universities.

The author is director, engineering,
Teleca Software Solutions India.
These are his personal views