Anti-war protests in India and Pakistan against Bush’s visit
While a certain corner of our capital was transformed by red carpets in preparation for George Bush’s visit last week, the other corners were lined with banners, placards and posters that reflected the utmost contempt for Bush and his policies.

Many students were on the streets declaring that they would not be party to the crimes of war and bloodshed. We were joined by people from all walks of life.

The crowd swelled to around 100,000 filling thousands of metres of road.

This mass snaked its way through the streets with cries against the US president, against imperialism in Iraq, against genocide in Africa, against war for oil, against the nuclear arms race and against injustice.

Together we chanted, “Yeh bushwa paglaya hai, yeh sab tel ki maya hai, bachon ka hatyara hai, isko tel hi pyara hai. (Bush has gone mad, all he wants is oil. He kills children for the sake of oil.)”

Around 150,000 demonstrated in Mumbai and there was a partial general strike in Hyderabad.

That Bush came as a “state guest” is a clear signal that our government is becoming a client state of the US - a shameful measure for a nation that had to fight against imperialism in order to free itself.

In Pakistan demonstrations were less visible due to a state clampdown. Nevertheless there were protests in Karachi, Lahore and Islamabad. Imran Khan, the cricketer turned politician, accused Bush of being an “enemy of democracy” and then, like many opposition politicians, found himself placed under house arrest.

Bush was unable to see Pakistan - he came in the dark of night and dared not leave the fortified embassy in Islamabad for the whole visit. He left without giving a single public address.

Satyam Expands in China
Satyam of Hyderabad, India, is setting up operations in Guangzhou, China to address the local market and hire qualified staff for its global business, according to a company executive.

While the new software development center at Guangzhou will be relatively small and focused on the southern China market, Satyam plans a large software development campus in one of the second-tier cities of China, said Virender Aggarwal, Satyam’s director and senior vice president for Asia Pacific, Middle East, India and Africa.

The company intends to use the planned software development campus as a base to target global customers, as staff costs in India rise, Aggarwal said.

The company has set up operations in Malaysia and hired hundreds of people locally, but China is one of the few locations worldwide where the company can hire qualified software development staff in the thousands, according to Aggarwal. “I can’t give a figure of the number of staff we will hire in China over the next few years, but it will be in multiples of thousands over the next three years,” he said.

Currently, Satyam has 270 employees in China of whom 250 are employed at a large software development center in Shanghai. The company also has an office in Beijing and a small software development operation in Dalian. About 96 percent of the company’s employees in China are locals.

Satyam is unlikely to expand in Shanghai because staff costs in the city have been rising, Aggarwal said.

China is emerging as an alternative location to India for offshore outsourcing. “By building a base in China and training staff, we don’t think we are helping [the Chinese], as they are going to build their software development capabilities in any case,” said Aggarwal. Indian outsourcing companies have very little choice but to expand in China as staff costs are going up in India, he added.

A number of Indian outsourcing companies, including the country’s largest outsourcer Tata Consultancy Services Ltd. of Mumbai, have set up operations in China to tap the local market for IT services and provide local service for the operations of some of their multinational clients in the country.

India’s second largest outsourcer, Infosys Technologies Ltd., announced in August last year that it was increasing staff in China from 250 to about 6,000 over the next five years.

SQL bags IT contract from Granules
SQL Star International Limited, an IT knowledge and enterprise services unit, has bagged the first strategic outsourcing contract in the SME market segment.

Granules India Ltd, a fully integrated pharmaceutical formulations manufacturer with the world’s largest ‘granulation’ capacity, has entered into an agreement to outsource its entire Information Technology (IT) management to SQL Star, a release said here today.

This strategic contract will include Oracle Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) solution deployment, Radio Frequency Identification (RFID) solution, Process Control Systems Integration and implementation, and IT facilities and operations management, release added.

SQL Star will integrate Granule’s processes across the entire supply chain, finance and HR covering operations spread across their headquarters at Hyderabad, three plants in India, Sales and Marketing office in the United States and the logistics, distribution and technical support network globally. This ERP implementation is scheduled to be operational from July 1, company’s CEO Narendra Shukla said.

“We believe that the best of global expertise can be cost effective and made available to the domestic enterprise in India. Mostly organisations do not deploy their better talent for the Indian domestic customers; but SQL Star seeks to change that situation”, he added.

Granules India Managing Director Krishna Prasad said, “interactions with SQL Star were marked by credibility, collaboration, a clear business understanding, and a non-sales’, approach, putting them on a completely different platform than the others”.

Scare on flight after man spills chemicals
A negligent act by a lab assistant with the Tata Institute of Fundamental Research (TIFR), put at risk the lives of over a 100 fellow passengers on a Jet Airways Hyderabad-Mumbai flight.

Karan Hambir, who is attached to the TIFR’s Homi Bhaba Centre for Science Education, was carrying bottles and boxes containing glycerine, potassium permagnate and other items in his kit.

He was returning to Mumbai with three colleagues on Saturday evening after participating in a science exhibition in Andhra Pradesh.

The chemicals slipped out of his kit after it was was mishandled, filling the aircraft cabin with smoke soon after the plane landed in Mumbai. Hambir too suffered burns as he stamped his foot on the kit to contain the smoke. The incident took place at 6.40 pm.

Officers of Santa Cruz airport police, who arrested Hambir, said bottle lids were loose. “There was no fire,” said Jet Airways spokesperson A K Sivanandan.

According to bureau of civil aviation security guidelines, inflammables cannot be carried on board an aircraft. Sivanandan said, “Passengers are not supposed to carry these items in cabin luggage.

The New india, and the Old One
Presidents of the U.S. don’t get scared. They get security. But if the murder of an American diplomat in Karachi last week underlined the fact that George W. Bush was on one of his riskier foreign trips, the President was probably unaware he was skirting not two conflict zones - Afghanistan and Pakistan - but three. in india, Bush toured the southern city of Hyderabad to praise an example of everything that’s right about the nation. Like its neighbor Bangalore, this ancient Muslim fort town is a hub for science and technology. But Hyderabad is also an example of what’s still wrong with india. in the last few years, thousands of impoverished farmers have committed suicide in the barren, drought-stricken land outside the metropolis. For some, despair has turned to anger at the shiny city on the horizon, and their forsaken fields are now a front line in a little-noticed war between security forces and an estimated 10,000 Marxist guerrillas. in a land-mine attack a few hours’ drive north of Hyderabad three days before Bush arrived, the Naxals (who take their name from a 1967 rebellion in the town of Naxalbari) killed almost 30 government supporters returning from an antirebel rally.

Today, there is old india and new india. One is epitomized by the surging chaos that fascinated generations of backpackers and travel writers. The other is the efficient center of outsourcing and iT that thrills today’s investment bankers. Where the two meet, there’s trouble. The government of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was elected on a tide of rural resentment against the booming cities in spring 2004. That rage continues. Government figures released last month show Naxal violence claimed 892 people last year, up from 653 in 2004. in November, hundreds of guerrillas overran an entire town, broke into its jail and freed almost 400 prisoners. The Delhi-based institute for Conflict Management says the Naxals now control a corridor stretching hundreds of miles across the central hinterland.

Bush, one may surmise, paid little attention to this. He’s not alone: new india is just as indifferent. The country’s entrepreneurs and middle classes are euphoric about their new prosperity, and rightly so - they are the engine of change that will eventually modernize a whole nation. india is a focus for the twin drivers of our age: globalization and technology. The economy has doubled in size in 15 years, foreign direct investment is 40 times what it was in 1991, and india now has several world-class conglomerates. And there are 70,000 millionaires in india, celebrating a stock index that has tripled in three years.

But in a country of 1.1 billion people, where 800 million earn $2 a day or less, the Naxal movement shows that members-only progress can spur a deep sense of injustice. Economic growth of 7-8% sounds pretty good until you realize it means just an extra $40 a year for the average indian. The changes that will improve the life chances of all - ending malnutrition and corruption, reforming infrastructure, education and health care - will take generations to achieve. History suggests progress will be uneven and messy. During the industrial Revolution in the British isles, starvation and forced migration almost halved ireland’s population. in the late 19th century in the U.S., millions lived in squalor, and militias occasionally shot striking workers in labor disputes - it happened as late as 1914, in Ludlow, Colorado. Before the Bolshevik Revolution, Russia had one of the fastest rates of economic growth in Europe, even as peasants starved and an urban proletariat grew up ready to revolt.

it’s easy to see how, on a three-day trip, india might feel like a nation magically transformed. Bookstores have shelves dedicated to india’s new economic might, newspapers review the latest Porsche, and television advertisements feature indian astronauts drinking sodas on the moon. But backbreaking poverty remains all too evident, the country still has only 3,000 km of freeway, and finding enough water to drink is an annual battle for tens of millions. (Oh, and there are no real-life plans for an indian lunar landing.) There’s a handy Hindu concept to explain these paradoxes. Maya means wonder, as in Mayanagri (city of dreams), the Hindi nickname for Bombay. it also denotes a willful fantasy - of the kind, for example, that would have a U.S. President last week expressing his “joy” at seeing the new india while in Delhi, a city only half-supplied with sewers. Gandhi was once asked what he thought of Western civilization. “That would be a good idea,” he replied. So would an india in which economic development benefited all. Those who see a nation that has already arrived are suffering from a very indian illusion.

Hyderabad ready to receive US President
All arrangements have been made for the four-hour visit of US President George W.Bush and his entourage to the city though there is no let up in protests by Left parties and various Muslim organisations.

Chief Minister Y.S.Rajasekhara Reddy visited Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU) on Thursday evening to review the works. US Consul General in Chennai David Hopper also called on the Chief Minister and discussed Friday’s engagements.

Rajasekhara Reddy is unlikely to receive the visiting dignitary and his wife Laura Bush on arrival at the Hyderabad airport on Friday. However, Governor Rameshwar Thakur, Chief Secretary T.K.Dewan and others would be present at the airport. Rajasekhara Reddy will be present at the Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University (ANGRAU).

A five-minute film on the rapid strides made by Andhra Pradesh has already been sent to the US President which he will view in his official plane Air Force One while flying into the city.

Security has been beefed up with sniffer dogs and bomb disposal squads checking the runway, the airport complex and also the places which Bush is scheduled to visit.

Bush will proceed to the ANGRAU where the members of the Koya tribe from Tummala village in Chintur mandal of Khammam district will welcome him.

He will spend 90 minutes to know about the agricultural methods practiced by Indian farmers and the technologies developed by farm scientists. He will also interact with the self help groups and a select group of scientists.

Bush may announce opening of consulate in Hyderabad
US President George W Bush may formally announce the opening of a US consulate in Hyderabad when he arrives Friday for a four-and-a-half-hour visit of this city.

Andhra Pradesh authorities have received indications to this effect from American officials.

Bush might make the announcement when he addresses young entrepreneurs and representatives from IT and biotechnology sectors at the Indian School of Business.

The state government has offered to allot 10 acres of land near HITEC City, an IT hub on Hyderabad’s outskirts for the consulate building.

Since the US authorities are keen to start the consulate soon, the government has offered to provide an official guesthouse for the time being.

The presence of a large number of IT professionals and students from Andhra Pradesh in the US and its geographical central location is why Washington seeks a consulate here.

The US Congress recently passed a bill for setting up a fourth consulate in India after Mumbai, Chennai and Kolkata.

If the consulate comes up in Hyderabad, it would prove a boon for visa seekers from Andhra Pradesh who now travel to Chennai, New Delhi or Mumbai for visa interviews.

“There is a strong need to have a consulate in Hyderabad as 40 per cent of the visas issued by the Chennai consulate are for people from Andhra Pradesh,” said AB Bhushan, a former president of the Indo-American Chambers of Commerce.

A recent survey revealed that 30 per cent of the Indian IT workforce in the US is from this southern state.

In November, David T Hopper, the US consul general in Chennai, had said here that Hyderabad had an edge over Bangalore in the demand for a US consulate.

“It is less convenient for visa aspirants from Hyderabad to travel to Chennai than from Bangalore and hence this city has a strong case,” he had said.

Hopper pointed out that of the about 80,000 Indian students pursuing higher education in the US, over 50,000 were from Andhra Pradesh.

Flights may be delayed due to Bush’s Hyderabad visit
US President George W Bush’s visit to the city on Friday may disrupt the schedules of some domestic and international flights in Hyderabad, a top airport official said on Thursday.

“We are trying our best to accommodate all the flights which are supposed to land and take-off during the President visit with the minimum possible delay,” Hyderabad Airport Director R K Singla said, adding that “the entire situation would be known on Friday only.”

According to the Air Traffic Control sources, the President’s entourage will have an exclusive parking slot for their aircrafts which may not come in way of the routine flights.

Bush, who is expected to land here at 10 am, will fly to Acharya N G Ranga Agricultural University and later to indian School of Business located on the city outskirts.

The President’s itinerary has been kept closely guarded while official sources said that the US President’s programme includes an interaction with farmers at the Agriculture University.

Bush will address the students of indian School of Business before reaching the airport around 2 pm.

US First Lady Laura Bush, who is accompanying the President, may visit some heritage structures and could meet the self-employed rural women, the sources added.

Hyderabad to run behind the Bush
After years of playing second fiddle to Bangalore in attracting IT investments, industrypeople in Hyderabad are hoping that US President George Bush’s visit to the city will finally mark its coming-of-age as a hotspot for new and emerging sectors.

After New Delhi, Hyderabad is the only city that figures in the itinerary of the first citizen of the US - and that has given enough reason for the industry to cheer and hope that it would trigger a fresh round of development.

“Bush’s visit is happening at a crucial time when the state is being promoted as a hot destination for investments in software and hardware and this will send strong signals to US investors,” Shakti Sagar, managing director, global financial outsourcing services provider ADP Private Ltd, told the media.

The eyes and wallets of US investors will naturally follow the trajectory of their President’s visit and Hyderabad’s IT industry will bask in the global limelight, he added. Already, the city is home to names such as Microsoft, Satyam Computer Services, pharma major Dr Reddy’s and other giants.

According to industry pundits, the visit of the former US President Bill Clinton to the city six years ago did trigger a wave of development and also had a long-term impact in improving the ratings of the State.

According to MLN Acharyulu, managing director, Qualcore Logic, the infrastructure of the city, which had been given a facelift recently thanks to the Congress plenary, is sure to bowl over the visiting dignitary. The visit might be beneficial not only for the IT sector but also for pharma and biotech sector, feel analysts.

In the recent past, the progress in the biotech sector and the talent pool readily available here has attracted US companies like Nektar Pharma and US Pharmacopoeia to set up their R&D centres here.

“There is lot of scope for business growth between the US and India. The visit will definitely augur well for the pharma sector,” said a source in a city-based pharma company, which has a considerabale stake in the US market. While the industry is upbeat, the state government too is hoping for some concrete results.

Besides, the rumour mill has it that the US may set up a Consulate in the city and the government is gearing up to promote the visit as a testimonial to its commitment to development. “We see the visit as the most influencing factor that can bring further US investment into the state,” said a senior official.

Mock funeral held for Bush in Hyderabad
Protests in Andhra Pradesh against US President George W. Bush’s visit to India were intensified on Wednesday, with communist parties and Muslim groups organising his mock funeral and an expo on “US terrorism”.

Hundreds of workers of the Communist Party of India-Marxist (CPI-M) took out a mock funeral procession.

Shouting slogans like “Down with Bush” and “Bush warmonger go back”, the activists carried an ‘arthi’ or effigy on their shoulders and later set it afire. Women were seen beating the effigy with slippers.

The CPI-M and the Communist Party of India, along with other Left parties and their affiliated trade unions and bodies for youths, students and women also held a rally and set afire Bush’s effigy.

Bush is scheduled to visit the Andhra Pradesh capital on Friday as part of his three-day visit to India.

The communists, who have already launched a signature campaign against Bush’s visit, also unveiled posters that depict the US president as a “warmonger”. One of the posters showed Bush’s hands stained with blood.

In another protest, an expo titled “Silent Screams” also began here Wednesday. Organised by the Students Islamic Organisation (SIO), the students’ wing of the Jamaat-e-Islami, the expo highlights what it describes as “US terrorism”.

The expo has over 300 pictures depicting maimed men, women and children, and houses destroyed in US bombing in Iraq and Afghanistan, the abuse of prisoners at the Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay jails, 50 cartoons lampooning Bush and his war on terrorism, and quotes from Western analysts criticising Bush’s policies.

The two-day expo, inaugurated by Moulana Abdul Basit Anwar, chief of the Jamaat-e-Islami’s unit for Andhra Pradesh and Orissa, is drawing huge crowds of students and youths.

Visitors were also seen writing their impressions on huge banners and taking part in the signature campaign.

The expo, being held in an open ground in the heart of Hyderabad, begins with posters on the 9/11 attacks. Quoting analysts, the posters claim the attacks were part of a larger conspiracy by the Bush administration to launch a global war against Islamic countries, with Afghanistan becoming the first target.

The second section contains pictures of “US atrocities in Afghanistan” while the third deals with the US attack on Iraq to “capture oil reserves”.

Two more sections deals with “atrocities on Iraqis” and human rights abuses at American jails in Iraq and Guantanamo Bay. “Iran next?” asks a huge poster as one exits the expo, which also gives facts and figures about the killings in Afghanistan and Iraq.

“The person whom the Indian government has invited with dignity is a global terrorist,” said SIO leader Tanveerul Haq.

Haq, however, clarified the protest was not aimed against the American people. “We are with the peace loving people of America and other countries who are opposing Bush’s inhuman foreign policy,” he said.