Enter, the Elephant

8226; I was among the NRIs who never thought India would even match Pakistan, let alone China, u...

8226; I was among the NRIs who never thought India would even match Pakistan, let alone China, until a moment of epiphany in the year 2000 8216;Enter, the Dragon8217;, IE, August 16. In 1994, an US colleague recommended a book titled The Rise and Fall of the American Programmer. Its author correctly forecast the outsourcing of US programming jobs abroad over 10 years ago. Regarding India, the author had said it was possible that India8217;s software exports may rise as high as one billion dollars by year 2000. The actual exports were more than 3 billion, and within five years in 2005, they rose to 26 billion. India is doing something right. Business Week has just had a special double feature on China and India. Its conclusions would tickle Indians. Technical services exports for 2012, 148 billion dollars; pharma exports in 2010, 25 billion dollars; Indian companies performance in terms of Return on Equity and on Investment, far superior to Chinese companies. The magazine contains a large number of case studies of US companies doing business in both India and China. China continues to remain the premier destination for low-end mass manufacturing. However, the data shows a sustained interest by US companies in doing their high-end R038;D work in India.

8212; Arul Bhaskar New York

Clarification

8226; Apropos of the piece, 8216;Speaking for his position8217; in Coomi Kapoor8217;s 8216;Inside Track8217; IE, August 14. The statement, 8220;This session Parliament has brought out a book on Lok Sabha Speaker Somnath Chatterjee8217;s 365 days in office with over two dozen colour pictures8221;, is incorrect. No such book has been released by Parliament and the reference to colour pictures is imaginary.
The hon8217;ble Speaker, Lok Sabha, has never suggested setting up of a separate committee on MPLADS. Yes, a Parliamentary Forum not committee, is taking shape to deal with the issues related to water conservation and management. The hon8217;ble speaker is very proud to initiate such a forum. As far as abolishing MPLADS is concerned, when this question arose during the hon8217;ble speaker8217;s interaction with senior media persons on July 28, Mr Somnath Chatterjee said that in his opinion MPLADS is not a very scientific scheme. He made it clear this opinion should not be taken as that of the Speaker.

8212; S. Prasanna Kumar Officer on Special Duty to the Speaker, Lok Sabha New Delhi

Coomi Kapoor replies: A printed draft of the booklet detailing the major initiatives of Speaker Somnath Chatterjee in his first year in office was shown to several parliamentary correspondents by the undersigned himself. Prasanna Kumar indicated to journalists that pictures would be added before the book is released at the end of the session. It now seems that the Lok Sabha secretariat has second thoughts about the project. Whether the parliamentary body to study water management set up at the Speaker8217;s initiative is termed a forum or a committee is a matter of semantics. The Speaker8217;s scathing criticism of the MPLADs scheme at a meeting with senior journalists has already been reported in the national media.