Numbers:(”136.8″,”-20.6″,”Billion $)

India had a deficit of $ 11.84 bn during the same period in 2006, its exports continued to slide in the face of a rising rupee while China’s surplus grew despite recalls of its goods in the USA and other countries.     

Cricket – evokes passions within South Asia synonymous to those exhibited by the Latin Americans & Europeans for Soccer.

An English sport – primarily now played in the Commonwealth Nations, the former British colonies. The centre of gravity of the sport is though now centered on India where it evokes a billion passions and several more $$$. No longer is it the gentleman’s sport played over the English greens in pristine whites for it is characterized by raucous crowds screaming their hearts out. Indian wins within India are cheered by scenes depicting those of street parties and fire works displays of the nature on display at the millennium eve’s party on the Sydney harbour while losses at times result in extremes from violence, discussions within the parliament (YES) to burning of effigies of the cricketers. Why? Only for cricket being the sport which puts India a force to reckon with – a country of a billion + which struggles to draw a single ‘gold’ in the Olympics! Not to mention the cricketers are amongst the highest grossers in the country and including endorsements their annual take homes runs into millions and millions of $$.

But then – I am not here trying to write on Indian Cricket but rather cricket in China!

The Chinese cricket team is the team that represents the country of the People’s Republic of China in international cricket. They became an International Cricket Council affiliate member in 2004. Hong Kong is a member of the ICC in their own right, becoming an ICC associate member in 1969. Hence, players from Hong Kong are not eligible to represent China in international competition.

Although cricket was brought to China by the British as long ago as 1858, the game was never taken up by the locals and, beyond a few expatriate tournaments, did not exist in the world’s most populous nation until the start of this century. (more…)

Numbers:(”44.7″,”32.5″)

Gini Coefficient measures the degree of income equality, 0 indicates perfect equality, and 100 indicates perfect inequality where one
person owns everything.  

India’s strong Rupee and availability of surplus cash with the its banks, has affected its export markets. In the current fiscal year, the Indian Government expects the economy to grow more than 9 percent for the third successive year. For the Central Bank, managing liquidity has become a most challenging task.

Fast and significant appreciation of the Indian Rupee and excess inflow of foreign money has only added to inflationary pressures and resulted in overheating of country’s economy. The magnitude of the capital inflows mean serious repercussions on domestic business as well as exports.

To counter the impacts of this surging inflow of foreign money, Indian government has now announced some curbs on overseas borrowing by its local companies. Details on this can be read at http://www.india-briefing.com.

The government expects that these measures will weaken the rupee and bring immediate relief to India’s highly profitable software and outsourcing industry, whose dollars earnings have been hit by the appreciating Rupee. Curbs on these corporate borrowings is therefore a step, Indian government has taken to check capital inflows, without hurting the direct foreign or portfolio investments.

China on the other hand is tightening its grip on foreign investors in China’s real estate business, banning them from borrowing offshore. The objective is to control the rising property prices and use this control as one of the steps to cool the economy. China’s urban property inflation has already risen by 7.1 per cent. Such moves will restrict foreign investors who take advantage of lower interest rates to borrow funds from outside China and reduce the inflation caused by such borrowings.

The High Court of Madras (Chennai) has rejected a challenge to India’s patent laws this week from the Swiss pharmaceutical company Novartis, paving the way for Indian drug manufacturers to continue to produce low cost generic drugs. The battle over the case has been long and complex, with Novartis arguing that the landmark ruling would discourage investments in innovation and would undermine attempts to improve products or heavily invest in much needed medical research. IP and Patent protection issues, according to Novartis, have now been weakened internationally and this would now lead to long term negative consequences for R&D into better medicines.

On the other hand, organisations such as Medecins Sans Frontieres, state that the ruling is “a huge relief for patients and doctors in developing countries who depend upon affordable medicines from India”, and have long campaigned for access to essential medicines. Aid organisations worldwide have hailed the ruling as “a victory for the rights of patients over patents”.

The case, keenly monitored by the international pharmaceutical industry, centered on Novartis requesting the court to clarify significant parts of the Indian Patent Legislation, arguing that it breached the Indian Constitution, and in particular the granting of patents for incremental developments. Although the full judgment has not been publically released, it is believed the judge was of the opinion that the court had no jurisdiction to rule over whether Indian patent law complied with WTO guidelines on Intellectual Property. The issue arose over a seperate case last year in which Novartis has been denied a patent in India on a freshly modified form of its leukemia drug Glivec. The decision had been made on the basis that the new drug was insufficiently innovative, as Indian patent legislation does not permit the practice of ‘evergreening’ - issuing patents for already known drugs that have undergone modification. Novartis comments however “medical progress occurs through incremental innovation. If Indian patent law does not recognize these important advances, patients will be denied new and better medicines”.

If the court had ruled in favor of Novartis, the decision would have allowed international pharmaceutical companies to receive patents on modifications of already known drugs, thus extending the time frame of their sole rights to produce them. Concerning the Glivec drug alone, this would have prevented Indian companies from manufacturing generic versions of the drug, which they sell for about a tenth of the price of the Novartis product, leading to large nunbers of cancer patients worldwide without access to any treatment. Indian companies provide 84% of the drugs to fight AIDS that Medicins Sans Frontieres supplies to patients worldwide, and more than 25% of other essential drugs used by them. Other relief agencies are equally dependent upon Indian pharmaceutical manufacturers generic brands.

Novartis have said it is ‘unlikely’ they will appeal to the Supreme Court.

Y.K Sapru, head of the Mumbai Cancer Patients Support Group commented “This is a major decision domestically in India and internationally. India has a USD5 billion value pharmaceutical industry and 65% of those drugs are sold to the developed world and it’s patients. All that would have been suspended if the judgement had gone the other way and there would have been a dearth of affordable drugs for the worlds poor. That potential calamity has now been prevented”.

In terms of our own viewpoint, it appears an obvious moral choice taken by the court, although the global drugs manufacturers - and possibly the WTO - have strategic issues now to decide upon in terms of patent laws infringing upon the overall benefit to mankind of permitting low cost essential products. Drug companies are in a commercial environment; and they are going to have to restructure their business models in order to maintain the ability to conduct research. If Novartis, in such an environment, claim they cannot maintain the necessary R&D if patent protection is not forthcoming to allow them to make back the enormous cost of such facilities, then their competitors will. In this case, common sense and a recognition of the moral requirement to limit profiteering at the expense of the poor has been timely, and reflects well upon the Indian legal system and the governments commitment to obligations to lift the worlds poor out of misery and disease.

Scams in India are not uncommon. But this one is linked to the official in the state government of Delhi and Delhi Development Authority (DDA), a Delhi government body, responsible for distribution of land & also for undertaking major housing projects .

The investigations done by the Central Bureau of Investigation (CBI), the investigating authority of the Indian government, points fingers on one Ashok Malhotra, who in the 1980’s was selling, ‘Masala Chai’ – tea made with spices & herbs and ‘Chole Kulche’ - a very popular north Indian dish made of chick peas and fresh fried bread. Later in 1986, he managed to get contract for running a Canteen in Delhi State Assembly (a seat of political power in Delhi). This helped him to develop contacts with influential persons in the state government and use these for amassing wealth through unfair means.

He is in the news all over India, for being involved in a criminal conspiracy with DDA officials to fraudulently acquire more than 5,000 plots of land in Delhi, which were meant for resettlement of slum dwellers.

CBI raids at his own posh residence & that of his relatives have revealed some astonishing facts. He is accused of having 52 luxury cars with VIP number plates, huge sum of hidden cash and more than seven kg of gold!! CBI has also found fake ration cards, official rubber stamps, allotment letters of plots and fabricated land sale deals.

In an interview with a popular TV channel, Malhotra has admitted his links with the government officials that have helped him in his passion for acquiring VIP car numbers. The enquiry is in progress and he is now in CBI custody for further interrogation.

Has such a thing ever happened in China, if you know of any, share it here.

Numbers:(”13″,”11″)

Starting a business in India has today become a lot easier than what it was over the last 2 years, thanks to the computerization of certain processes used for incorporations.

India’s aviation is one of the fastest growing aviation industries in the world. The challenge today for India is to cope up with the growing international and domestic demand. India’s domestic aviation market alone is forecasted to grow at about 20 per cent a year over the next five years.From just four airlines three years back, India today has more than 10 domestic carriers.

The print & the electronic media has always been flooded with the stories like the following:

• Boeing has firm orders for more than 140 aircraft from various Indian airlines, including Jet Airways, Air India and Spice Jet.
• Indian carrier IndiGo orders 100 Airbus A320 aircraft
• Air India considering purchase of A380 super jumbos
• Boeing expects various airlines in India to buy 911 new aircrafts in the next 20 years

Indian airline operators are increasingly connecting India to the world by expanding their regional and global presence. It is estimated that the Indian air travel market will grow at an average 12 per cent per year over the next 20 years, compared to the worldwide average of 4.7 per cent. (more…)

A good friend of 2point6billion, Nick Polimeni, is an experienced QC engineer and conducts work in both China and India. He’s had some interesting comments to make recently to us about Engineering standards in these countries, and the potential competition with the US in technological innovation. I quote:

I’ve been working in China for the last 4 years, and have met more ‘engineers’ than I had met in the previous 30 years. Chinese students who graduate as engineers are not what we call engineers in the west. Chinese Engineers “specialize” in a given application. They’re more like technicians, by U.S. standards. They do not seem to be trained in basic engineering science, and are very deficient in such things. I have yet to meet a single one who has any familiarity for example, with the laws of thermodynamics. I’ve worked with a wide variety of them in various fields. The few who know enough to think with science, have acquired it after years of experience.