India offers dot to China dotcom

In the shadow of the Shanghai miracle and under the brooding gaze of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Kiran Karnik of Nasscom unveiled t...

In the shadow of the Shanghai miracle and under the brooding gaze of Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee, Kiran Karnik of Nasscom unveiled the 8216;yin-yang8217; principle of information technology, pointing out that Indian software could be 8216;8216;embedded8217;8217; into Chinese hardware to produce an unbeatable combination worldwide.

It was a motif the PM later embroidered in his own speech at the major IT event in Shanghai today, pointing out that 8216;8216;strategic gain8217;8217; could be juxtaposed with technological advantage to create a win-win situation.

8216;8216;In combination, rather than in competition, Indian and Chinese IT industries can be a potent force. This is a principle which has far wider application in South-South cooperation,8217;8217; he said.

RED CARPET FOR BACK END

8226;Vajpayee said the two governments could help set the groundrules for a partnership that might simplify a roundabout contract execution process. 8226;Companies from developed countries which won software contracts for major events such as the Olympics in the past would in turn subcontract them to Indian firms, he said.
8226;8216;8216;Indian and Chinese firms could join to provide state-of-the-art solutions cutting out the middleman.8217;8217;

As two giant screens, in English and Chinese, underwrote the giant leaps that India has taken in software development in recent years, Karnik stressed that the combined size of the market would surely subject the competition from any other region to major embarrassment.

But it was Mayor of Shanghai Han Zheng8217;s presentation at the event that captured the Chinese determination to make Shanghai an international mercantile city by 2020. Han, who follows in the footsteps of erstwhile mayors like Zhu Rongji 8212; who in turn rose to become the Premier of China 8212; announced a four-part programme in which social security would go hand in hand with innovation as well as world-class infrastructure so as to make Shanghai the envy of the world.

8216;8216;We have a very clear target in mind,8217;8217; mayor Han said. Still, it was left to IT 038; Disinvestment Minister Arun Shourie to put the record straight on the Indian-tiger-versus-the-Chinese-dragon metaphor that has dogged the Prime Minister even before he set foot in Beijing earlier this week.

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8216;8216;India and China are different societies,8217;8217; Shourie said at a Ficci seminar on leveraging insights and growth in Asia, adding, 8216;8216;the role of the state, despite decentralization in China, is very different.8217;8217; Pointing out that the enormous amount of construction in Shanghai was being undertaken outside the state budget, Shourie said India would be 8216;8216;watching how China would be putting this infrastructure to diligent use in the near future.8217;8217;

Clearly, even as Vajpayee seems to have clarified the political signals on this visit, it is up to the Indian business community to destroy the barriers in their minds and cut red-tape at home to leverage their advantages abroad. For example, Infosys is opening an office in Shanghai more than two years after former premier Zhu Rongji visited Bangalore and gave Infosys an open invitation to take on the Chinese dragon.

Shourie said he was accepting right from the start that India needed to get its act together to attract much more FDI than at present. But he pointed out that if the last century belonged to America and this one to China, then the next one surely belonged to the 8216;8216;knowledge industry8217;8217; wherever it might be.

That8217;s when, Shourie implied, India, despite all the disadvantages of its low socio-economic indicators, may well have the ability to take on the software world.

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With IT comprising 20 per cent of exports as well as 15-odd per cent of the national GDP, Shourie pointed out that 8216;8216;India8217;s creativity8217;8217; may well be a match for the authoritarian state which still controls the direction that capitalism takes.

8216;8216;How is creativity sustained, especially when the state pays such an active role,8217;8217; Shourie asked, adding, 8216;8216;To see a hundred flowers bloom and a hundred schools of thought contend you have to come to India.8217;8217;

He pointed out that there has been a perception that India and China are 8216;8216;hostile rivals8217;8217; and that it was time to transform that view.

If both nations could interlock their respective strengths, Shourie said, the new Asian century may well take on the world.