Indian Economy-News & Updates

[Justin Joseph]

Twin towers of 60 storeys, 253 metres (827 feet) The Imperial is ready to move in




Now apartments get ‘Imperial’ feel

By Priyanka Das Gupta Mar 10 2010

Have you ever thought of having your own slice of the sky, where every fluff of cloud is your own to name to chase or simply blow away? Then The Imperial can surely be your dream home.

Located in the heart of South Mumbai amidst plush neighbourhood, the 60-storey structure is probably one of the tallest structures in Asia. The Imperial is the flagship project of SD Corporation, a joint venture between Shapoorji Pallonji & CO and the Thacker Group, consisting of two towers of 60 storeys each and at 253 metres (827 feet) above mean sea level.

“The Imperial is a landmark meant for the connoisseurs of high living. It will soon set a new benchmark in luxury living in India redefining opulence and surpassing current benchmarks by a long way,” said a company spokesperson.

The project has a total of 228 apartments. Of which nearly 70 to 80 per cent have already been sold out. “We will be able to give off the apartments for fit outs by March itself. By Diwali, the owners should be able to start moving in” the spokesperson said.

The Imperial will have 3, 4 and 5 BHK apartments including duplex at various levels. The apartments are priced in the range of Rs 7.5-8 crore and Rs 75-80 crore.

Designed by Hafeez Contractor, the two towers have a bouquet of exclusive apartments, ranging from 2,500 sq ft to 10,000 sq ft.

The Imperial possesses a treasure of sumptuously des*igned apartments each meti*culously crafted by ren*owned designers like Pinakin Patel from Mumbai, Neterwala & Aibara Inerior Designers from Mumbai and Craig Nealy Architects from the US, who have given their creative touch to the minutest detail.

The apartments will have marble flooring sourced from Spain and Italy with exclusive features like gas and smoke detectors as well as power back-up system. “Power back-up ensures that residents will have electricity supply even when there is a power failure in the elevators and lobbies. The apartments will also house features like folding windows and deck. The tall towers will have entrance lobby with a ceiling that soars three levels with a waterfall around that hugs the glass walls. The towers will have state-of-the-art building management system to monitor everything from security and utility.

 

[Bingo!]

Apartment Advertisement???





oops i thought this was a defense forum..

 

[jaunty]

Bharti clinches Zain Africa in $10.7bn buyout​

Shalini Singh, TNN, Mar 25, 2010, 01.01am IST

NEW DELHI: Finally, it was third time lucky for Bharti Airtel. After twice wooing but failing to clinch a merger with South Africa’s MTN, Bharti’s ambitions of an African safari have been fulfilled, following the acquisition of Zain Telecom’s 15-country Africa operations for a total enterprise value of $10.7 billion.

The acquisition is the second largest by an Indian company since Tata Steel’s $13.6-billion acquisition of Anglo-Dutch steel maker Corus. It will catapult Bharti to the rank of the sixth-largest telecom service provider in the world by number of subscribers. And, in an ironic twist of fate, one of Bharti’s major competitors in its new markets will be MTN.

The board of Zain, which met after the Kuwait Stock Exchange had closed, approved the deal on Wednesday. However, when contacted, Bharti Airtel declined to comment. It is learnt that Bharti Airtel chairman and managing director Sunil Mittal left the country on Monday night and the company is expected to make a formal announcement on Thursday, March 25, the last day for exclusive talks between the two companies.

According to the financial arrangement announced by Bharti Airtel on March 21, Bharti has to make a total payout of $9 billion after discounting $1.7 billion of debt. Of this, $8.3 billion will be paid upfront while the remaining $700 million is payable after a year.

Bharti will be up against some well-entrenched competitors in Africa, including some home-grown companies and others who are parts of global telcos. Additionally, Bharti will have to complete all regulatory clearances in 15 countries. The regulatory challenge may be of a varying degree across these countries but will certainly require some working.

According to analysis by consulting firm BDA India, the combined entity will have 163.5 million subscribers with Zain Africa contributing 41.9 million and Airtel 121.6 million. The combined EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) margins are 38.3% with Zain Africa’s EBITDA at 32% and Bharti’s at 41%. Combined net margins are 15.4% with Zain Africa at 4.1% and Airtel at 23.8%. All figures for Zain are for the nine months ended September 2009 while all figures for Bharti are for the nine months ended December 2009.

The enterprise value per subscriber of the combined entity works out to $217.3. Zain Africa’s ARPUs are an average of $8.2 (ranging from as high as $25 in Gabon to as low as $3 in Ghana while Bharti’s ARPU is $4.9.
---

So finally Airtel's aim to expand its business to Africa has been fulfilled and it is one of the major buyouts by an Indian company. Well done

 

[RajeHind]

Bharti clinches Zain Africa in $10.7bn buyout​

Shalini Singh, TNN, Mar 25, 2010, 01.01am IST

NEW DELHI: Finally, it was third time lucky for Bharti Airtel. After twice wooing but failing to clinch a merger with South Africa’s MTN, Bharti’s ambitions of an African safari have been fulfilled, following the acquisition of Zain Telecom’s 15-country Africa operations for a total enterprise value of $10.7 billion.

The acquisition is the second largest by an Indian company since Tata Steel’s $13.6-billion acquisition of Anglo-Dutch steel maker Corus. It will catapult Bharti to the rank of the sixth-largest telecom service provider in the world by number of subscribers. And, in an ironic twist of fate, one of Bharti’s major competitors in its new markets will be MTN.

The board of Zain, which met after the Kuwait Stock Exchange had closed, approved the deal on Wednesday. However, when contacted, Bharti Airtel declined to comment. It is learnt that Bharti Airtel chairman and managing director Sunil Mittal left the country on Monday night and the company is expected to make a formal announcement on Thursday, March 25, the last day for exclusive talks between the two companies.

According to the financial arrangement announced by Bharti Airtel on March 21, Bharti has to make a total payout of $9 billion after discounting $1.7 billion of debt. Of this, $8.3 billion will be paid upfront while the remaining $700 million is payable after a year.

Bharti will be up against some well-entrenched competitors in Africa, including some home-grown companies and others who are parts of global telcos. Additionally, Bharti will have to complete all regulatory clearances in 15 countries. The regulatory challenge may be of a varying degree across these countries but will certainly require some working.

According to analysis by consulting firm BDA India, the combined entity will have 163.5 million subscribers with Zain Africa contributing 41.9 million and Airtel 121.6 million. The combined EBITDA (earnings before interest, tax, depreciation and amortization) margins are 38.3% with Zain Africa’s EBITDA at 32% and Bharti’s at 41%. Combined net margins are 15.4% with Zain Africa at 4.1% and Airtel at 23.8%. All figures for Zain are for the nine months ended September 2009 while all figures for Bharti are for the nine months ended December 2009.

The enterprise value per subscriber of the combined entity works out to $217.3. Zain Africa’s ARPUs are an average of $8.2 (ranging from as high as $25 in Gabon to as low as $3 in Ghana while Bharti’s ARPU is $4.9.
---

So finally Airtel's aim to expand its business to Africa has been fulfilled and it is one of the major buyouts by an Indian company. Well done

Now its turn for Reliance, TATA teleservices ,Idea along with Essar they are also considered as giants in the world telecom industry and has capabilities to rule the telecom world.

 

[Optimus]

India to have 28% of world's workforce by 2020​

India will add about 120 million people to its working population by 2020, constituting 28 percent of the world's workforce, according to deputy governor of the Reserve Bank of India (RBI).
"In the decade of 2010-20, India will add 120 million people in the working age-group looking for employment which will make India's working population 28 percent of the global force," said Subir Gokarn.
"The nearest competitor China, on the other hand, will add only 19 million people in the same period contributing five percent of the global working population," he said speaking at a Confederation of Indian Industry (CII) conference on achieving a double-digit economic growth.
India is poised to have an upper hand compared to any other nation in terms of working population in the coming years.
The country's ever increasing workforce has, however, put strains on the largely state-run institutions with most courses still not revised in time to incorporate changes in technology and other spheres.
Speaking about the strong need for trained and skilled manpower, the deputy governor said if India were to achieve a double digit growth, it would have to effectively employ the increasing workforce.
Gokarn added that during 2020-2030, India will add another 100 million people to its work force against China which during the period will see a 62 million drop in its working age population.
Emphasising on the effects of having a larger skilled workforce in a particular sector Gokarn said that employment in service sector increased from 28 percent in 1999-2000 of total population to 30 percent in 2004-05.
"During the same period, the service sector contribution to GDP has increased from 55 percent to 60 percent," he said.

India to have 28% of World Workforce by 2020

 

[ramu]

Bharti-Zain deal finally sealed

In the largest ever telecom takeover by an Indian firm, Bharti Airtel on Tuesday signed a deal with Kuwait-based Zain Telecom to buy its African business for $10.7 billion (about Rs 48,000 crore).

Announcing the deal, Sunil Mittal said, "This agreement is a landmark for global telecom industry and game changer for Bharti.

"This transaction is a pioneering step towards South-South cooperation and strengthening of ties between India and Africa. With this acquisition, Bharti Airtel will be transformed into a truly global telecom company with operations across 18 countries fulfilling our vision of building a world-class multinational,” said Mittal.

“We are excited at the growth opportunities in Africa, the continent of hope and opportunity. We believe that the strength of our brand and the historical Indian connect with Africa coupled with our unique business model will allow us to unlock the potential of these emerging markets. We are committed to partnering with the governments in these countries in taking affordable telecom services to the remotest geographies and bridging the digital divide. I would also like to compliment the Zain group for building world-class operations in Africa and we have enjoyed working with them on this transaction," he said.

"The extremely tight time lines and the enormity of the task posed a real challenge. Bharti was able to achieve this important milestone through much hardwork and support from SingTel and the external advisors. Appreciation is in order for all the team members involved in this transaction," he further added.

Asaad Al Banwan, Chairman, Zain Group said, "Since we acquired Celtel in 2005, we have grown substantially to become one of Africa's leading mobile operators, and we are proud of the contribution Zain Africa has made to the development of telecommunications across the continent."

The acquisition, the second largest by an Indian entity after Tatas' Corus deal, would make Sunil Mittal-led Bharti the world's seventh largest mobile operator with a total subscriber base of about 179 million. It would have estimated revenues of $13 billion.

With this, Bharti has fulfilled its ambition of entering Africa, where it failed twice in the last two year's to forge a $23 billion merger deal with South African telecom giant MTN.

Zain has operations in 17 African countries and Bharti has acquired all, but those in Sudan and Morocco.

The African business would widen Bharti's reach, which was hitherto restricted to Asia and Indian Ocean region with businesses in Sri Lanka, Bangladesh and Seychelles.

Of the $10.7 billion enterprise value of Zain, Bharti will be paying $8.3 billion upfront and $700 million after a year. It would also take over approximately $1.7 billion of Zain's debts as on December 31, 2009.

Of the $8.3 billion paid to Zain, Bharti has raised the debt from a consortium of foreign banks and State Bank of India with the lead-arranger and lead-advisor Standard Chartered Bank committing the highest amount -- $1.3 billion followed by $0.9 billion by Barclays.

The rest of the co-advisors -- ANZ, BNP, Bank of America-Merrill Lynch, Credit Agricole CIB, DBS, HSBC, Bank of Tokyo-Mitsubishi UFJ and Sumitomo Mitsui Banking Corporation -- have allocated $600 million each.

State Bank of India has agreed up to one billion dollar loan in rupee terms.

Source : Bharti-Zain deal finally sealed - NDTV Profit

 

[Marxist]

India's ONGC Videsh To Spend $10 Billion On Overseas Acquisitions - CEO

NEW YORK -(Dow Jones)- ONGC Videsh Ltd., the overseas arm of India's state-owned Oil & Natural Gas Corp. (500312.BY), plans to spend $10 billion on acquiring assets abroad over the next five years, according to a top company official.

The company could also seek additional funding from the government if needed, R.S. Butola, managing director and chief executive officer, said Thursday at a press conference in New York.

Butola is part of a team of Indian officials, including Minister of Petroleum and Natural Gas Murli Deora, in New York to meet with investors.

India's ONGC Videsh To Spend $10 Billion On Overseas Acquisitions - CEO - FOXBusiness.com

 

[Marxist]

India's exports go up by 34.8%

Apr 1: India's exports for February 2010 recorded a 34.8 percent increase at US $ 16091 million as compared to February 2009 whereas the imports for February 2010 showed a growth of 66.4 percent at US $ 25057 million as compared to February 2009.India’s exports during February, 2010 were valued at US $ 16091 million (Rs. 74547 crore) which was 34.8 per cent higher in dollar terms (26.7 per cent in Rupee terms) than the level of US $ 11941 million (Rs. 58822 crore) during February, 2009. Cumulative value of exports for the period April-2009 to February-2010 was US $ 152983 million (Rs 727345 crore) as against US $ 172379 million (Rs. 774585 crore) registering a negative growth of 11.3 per cent in Dollar terms and 6.1 per cent in Rupee terms over the same period last year.

India’s imports during February, 2010 were valued at US $ 25057 million (Rs.116082 crore) representing a growth of 66.4 per cent in dollar terms (56.4 per cent in Rupee terms) over the level of imports valued at US $ 15062 million ( Rs. 74198 crore) in February, 2009. Cumulative value of imports for the period April, 2009- February, 2010 was US $ 248401 million (Rs. 1180124 crore) as against US $ 287099 million (Rs. 1289412 crore) registering a negative growth of 13.5 per cent in Dollar terms and 8.5 per cent in Rupee terms over the same period last year.

Oil imports during February, 2010 were valued at US $ 7636 million which was 97.4 per cent higher than oil imports valued at US $ 3869 million in the corresponding period last year. Oil imports during April, 2009- February, 2010 were valued at US$ 73230 million which was 18.2 per cent lower than the oil imports of US $ 89492 million in the corresponding period last year.

Non-oil imports during February 2010 were estimated at US $ 17421 million which was 55.6 per cent higher than non-oil imports of US $ 11193 million in February, 2009. Non-oil imports during April, 2009- February, 2010 were valued at US$ 175171 million which was 11.4 per cent lower than the level of such imports valued at US$ 197607 million in April 2008- February, 2009.

The trade deficit for April 2009- February, 2010 was estimated at US $ 95418 million which was lower than the deficit of US $ 114721 million during April 2008 -February, 2009.

 

[Chanakyaa]

[ Feel India Series : Article - 4 ]


With their ever-widening use, supercomputers are being increasingly regarded as a strategic resource. Supercomputers were denied to India in early eighties even when it wanted it for weather forecasting. India decided to enter this area by using the alternative route of parallel processing. India’s journey from 1986 to 1999, shows the way indigenous innovation changes the control regime and vice versa.

CSIR’s National Aerospace Laboratory at Bangalore developed the FLOSOLOVER Mk 1, which was the parallel computing product for computational fluid dynamics. It demonstrated its feasibility in 1986. This led Cray Research Inc. (US) to negotiate with India’s Meteorological Department on its safety requirements. The same Cray was reluctant to have a dialogue with India earlier.

In 1987, the major initiatives of creating the Centre for Development of Advanced Computation (C-DAC) in Pune was launched to develop an Indian supercomputer based on massively parallel processing based architecture. US, which was unwilling to give a supercomputer to India earlier responded by clearing Cray XMP 14, under restrictions in 1988. There were conditionalities on non-nuclear use as well as in-situ surveillance by US government officials of the strict observance of conditionalities.

In 1989, the efforts of C-DAC, DRDO, BARC, NAL to develop parallel processing supercomputers gained grounds and signs of success were visible. Later on, C-DAC demonstrated successfully PARAM-8000, a supercomputer with a peak computing power of 1000 M-Flops.

....

Since Then What India achieved is a History.
Super Computers Find theor applications in a variety of Military applications like Nuclear Simulations, Designs and Complex Calculations.
Today We Posess some of the Fastest Super computers of the World, Designed and Developed by India.

Here we Go...

1. PARAM 8000

​

C-DAC's decade old association with the Institute of Computer Aided Design (ICAD), Moscow of the Russian Academy of Sciences began in 1991-92 when the Department of Science &. Technology, Government of India, brought it under the ambit of an Indo-Russian Scientific Programme, popularly called Integrated long Team Programme (ILTP) of collaboration in science and technology between India and Russia.

C-DAC, has over the years established a close association with ICAD owing to the Indo-Russian collaboration in Science and Technology. ICAD, an important constituent of the Russian Academy of Sciences, has expertise in the fields of Computational Fluid Dynamics, Finite Element Method, Mathematical Modeling and Scientific Visualization. C-DAC's experience in designing and installing High Performance Computers and in diverse scientific and business computing applications has ensured a good synergy between the two organizations for an effective and mutually beneficial collaboration.

The PARAM series for ICAD

With the areas identified for research collaborations, a parallel computing system, PARAM 8000 was first installed at ICAD, Moscow in 1991-92 based on the then very powerful Transputer Processor Chip. The Software dealing with Fluid Mechanics and Structural Analysis were operated and parallelized on the system. The efforts were further complemented by C-DAC by optimizing the system software tools and graphics on the installation of PARAM 8000 system at ICAD containing 128 nodes in all.

2. PARAM 10000

​

PARAM 10000 is a 6.4 GF parallel computer, which is scalable up-to tera flop range, developed by C-DAC. The processors of PARAM 10000 belong to Sun Enterprise 250 family. Sun Enterprise 250 server accommodates two 400 MHz UltraSPARC II processors for extra-high performance. PARAM 10000 has three compute nodes and one server node, and the total configuration consists of 8 processors.

The server is named as e250a and the compute nodes are named as e250b, e250c, and e250d. Each node in PARAM 10000 is a dual processor SMP (shared memory, symmetric multiprocessing) system having 2MB of level-2 cache per CPU.

The processors are based on SUN Microsystem's UltraSPARC II architecture, each operating at 400 MHz with 64 bit RISC CPU with solaris 2.6 operating system.

​

Each compute node has 512 GB of main memory, extendable up to 2 GB memory with 9.1 GB Ultra SCSI HDD (two 9.1 GB HDD) and the file server has 1 GB Main memory extendable up to 2 GB memory with 9.1 GB Ultra SCSI HDD (four 9.1 GB HDD) and 4mm 12/24 GB Tape Drive. The benefit of UltraSPARC-II processor technology is that it offers easy performance scalability providing support for heavy, compute-intensive applications such as database management, Internet/Intranet or simulation.

PARAM 10000 system supports PARAMNet and FastEthernet (TCP/TP) as system-area networks. The system software consists of Active Messages (AM) over PARAMNet using C-DAC optimized MPI (CMPI), provided by KSHIPRA, a lightweight protocol developed by C-DAC. Also public domain (mpich version 1.1) over Fast Ethernet (TCP/IP), which offers 100Mbps speed, is supported.

PARAM 10000 has an advance programming environment with ANSI complaint C and C++ compilers and tools to profile/debug multithreaded programs. The C-DAC HPCC (High Performance Computing and Communication) software is a part of PARAM 10000 programming environment that supports development and execution of both sequential and message passing programs for writing MPI parallel programs.

PARAMNET

​

PARAMNet-II, a low latency, high bandwidth interconnect, provides data rates of 2.5 Gigabits/sec in full duplex over fiber. The message latency is as low as 10 µsec.

PARAMNet-II uses a 16 port switch and a Network Interface Card (NIC) alongwith an Application Programming Interface i.e. C-DAC's Virtual Interface Provider Library (C-VIPL). The non-blocking architecture of the switch allows multilevel switching for realizing a large cluster. The switch offers very low latency of the order of 0.5 µsec. Use of an Interval routing scheme and group adaptive routing based on Least Recently Used (LRU) algorithm, ensures uniform bandwidth distribution. The NIC is based on C-DAC's Communication Co-Processor-III (CCP-III) chip based on 0.15 micron 1 million gate technology. Implementation of packetisation & reassembly, flow control, protection mechanism, address translation and error recovery in CCP-III, results in low latencies and very low overheads for the CPU.

PARAM Padma has 12 PARAMNet-II switches connected in two level configurations to form a 64-node CLOS network.

3. PARAM PADMA

The Third Mission for C-DAC in 1999 had a relatively short time span - three-and-a-half years - and the task to lead the nation into the tera era. A teraflop machine cranked out data at a trillion (a million million) floating point operations a second. By the turn of the century, supercomputing architectures had evolved.

Current thinking was that the best way to achieve high-performance was by adopting a `cluster' architecture. Not just hundreds of nodes in a single parallel processing machine, but hundreds of individual computers, all strung together to create a giant system. The economy came from the individual computers, which were fairly standard off-the-shelf desktop machines - and hence fairly cheap. C-DAC adapted itself to this change and for its teraflop platform, the Param Padma, it deployed 248 Power-4 chips in a 64-way cluster of IBM machines. It clocked just over 1 teraflop at peak speed.

On April 1, 2003, the Param Padma was dedicated to the nation in its brand new setting - the Terascale Supercomputing Facility within the C-DAC Knowledge Park in Bangalore. In June that year, it took India for the first time into the ranking of the world's Top 500 supercomputers . It was ranked 171st.

The latest Param was a 1,000 times more powerful than the first. In a span of 15 years, C-DAC had built and delivered four generations of supercomputing platforms, and over 50 of these machines were in active use in India as well as in Russia, Canada, Germany and Singapore among other countries. After the United States and Japan, India was the only country to have built supercomputers for use beyond its own shores.

4. PARAM YUVA

​

The PARAM series of cluster computing systems is based on what is called OpenFrame Architecture. PARAM Yuva, in particular, uses a high-speed 10 gigabits per second (Gbps) system area network called PARAM Net-3, developed indigenously by C-DAC over the last three years, as the primary interconnect. This HPC cluster system is built with nodes designed around state-of-the-art architecture known as X-86 based on Quad Core processors. In all, PARAM Yuva, in its complete configuration, has 4,608 cores of Intel Xeon 73XX processors called Tigerton with a clock speed of 2.93 gigahertz (GHz). The system has a sustained performance of 37.8 Tflops and a peak speed of 54 Tflops.

A novel feature of PARAM Yuva is its reconfigurable computing (RC) capability, which is an innovative way of speeding up HPC applications by dynamically configuring hardware to a suite of algorithms or applications run on PARAM Yuva for the first time. The RC hardware essentially uses acceleration cards as external add-ons to boost speed significantly while saving on power and space. C-DAC is one of the first organisations to bring the concept of reconfigurable hardware resources to the country. C-DAC has not only implemented the latest RC hardware, it has also developed system software and hardware libraries to achieve appropriate accelerations in performance.

As C-DAC has been scaling different milestones in HPC hardware, it has also been developing HPC application software, providing end-to-end solutions in an HPC environment to different end-users on mission mode. Only in early January, C-DAC set up a supercomputing facility around a scaled-down version of PARAM Yuva at North-Eastern Hill University (NEHU) in Shillong complete with all allied C-DAC technology components and application software.

5. TATA EKA

EKA is a supercomputer built by the Computational Research Laboratories with technical assistance and hardware provided by Hewlett-Packard. When it was installed in November 2007, it was the 4th fastest in the world and fastest in Asia.[1] As of June 2009, it is ranked as the 18th fastest in the world and second fastest in Asia.[2] Eka is the Sanskrit name for number one.

EKA has 1,794 computing nodes and has a theoretical peak performance of 172.2 Teraflops (tflops or trillion floating point operations per second) and a sustained performance of 132.8 teraflops based on the LINPACK benchmarks which are used by the worldwide community to rank supercomputers based on performance.

EKA follows a near-circular layout of the data center unlike the traditional hot aisle and cold aisle rows. This near-circular layout enables the building of densely packed supercomputers, and this is the first time this architecture has been tried out on this scale.[citation needed] The CRL supercomputer has been built using CLOS architecture with off-the-shelf servers and Infiniband interconnect technologies with Linux as the operating system. This is the first ever site in the world which has used the dual data rate Infiniband with fibre-optic cable technology.

6. BARC ANUPAM :

MUMBAI: Bhabha Atomic Research Centre (BARC) has developed a very high speed ANUPAM-XENON/128 supercomputer, achieving another significant miles
tone in the field of supercomputers.
The computing speed of this 128 processor ANUPAM supercomputer is 202 Giga Floating Point Operations Per Second (GFLOPS) on High Performance Linpack benchmark program and is about three times faster than the 64-node supercomputer developed in July 2002, Head (computer division) H K Kaura said on Wednesday.
This 128 ANUPAM supercomputer is built using 64 dual xenon servers as `compute nodes' in a cluster, interconnected by a high speed communication network. Each server is based on dual xenon, 2.4 GHz processors, with 2 GB memory, and 40 GB hard disk.
The present supercomputer is also more than 6,000 times faster than BARC's first 4-node supercomputer developed in December 1991. So far BARC has developed 16 different models of the ANUPAM series of parallel supercomputers using a variety of processors as `compute nodes' and various technologies for interconnection networks, Kaura said.
The inter-communication network is designed using Scalable Coherent Interface (SCI), with a very high node-to-node communication speed of 300 megabytes per second and a very low latency of 3.5 microseconds, the scientist added.
The open source Linux operating system is used on each parallel processing node. For implementing parallel processing applications on the ANUPAM system standard Message Passing Interface (MPI) is available.
An advanced Parallel File System is implemented on ANUPAM supercomputers for efficiently processing supercomputing jobs with large Input/Output. The system is also equipped with Auto-installers for quick installation of the operating system and other software packages on all the nodes of the system from a central server.
"The significant feature of the supercomputer is that the system also has self-correcting monitor with features such as, detecting and isolating faulty nodes, stopping the execution in the run-away nodes and monitoring the operation of various of her services", Kaura said.
BARC is actively pursuing development of supercomputer systems based on parallel processing techniques, primarily, for meeting the in-house requirements of solving very large computational problems for various scientific and engineering applications, since 1991.
The BARC supercomputers are being used for solving very large computational problems in the fields of Condensed Matter Physics Simulations, Electronics Structures and Molecular Dynamics Simulations, Radiation Chemistry, Atmospheric Chemistry, Finite Element Analysis of non-linear problems, Computational Fluid Dynamics, he said.
They are also used in the fields of Crystal Structure Analysis, Radiation Hydrodynamics, Neutron Transport Computations, Gamma Ray Simulations, Electromagnetic Plasma Simulations, First Principle Electronic Structure Computations, Structural Analysis and Laser-Atom Interactions.
In addition to supercomputers at BARC, a number of ANUPAM series of supercomputers have been commissioned at various leading institutes in the country such as Aeronautical Development Agency (ADA) Banglore, Vikarm Sarabhai Space Centre, Thiruvanthapuram, National Centre for Medium Range Weather Forecasting (NCMRWF), New Delhi, Nuclear Power Corporation, Mumbai, IIT Mumbai, IIT Kanpur, UDCT Mumbai and SNDT Mumbai, a senior computer scientist of the division P S Dekhne said.
Aeronautical Development Agency has also been using ANUPAM series of supercomputers for solving Computational fluid Dynamics problems related to the airflow through the intake ducts of aircrafts.
NCMRWF, Delhi has been using ANUPAM-Alpha supercomputer for regular processing of weather forecasting computational problems since December, 1999, he said.
Dekhne said, ANUPAM supercomputers have highly user-friendly software environments and provides very high reliability of operation required for continuous operations of such supercomputers on 24 hours, seven days a week basis, for solving very large problems.
These systems, being based on commercially available off-the-shelf components, are highly cost effective and easy to manufacture.

What BBC Says ?

India has launched an advanced supercomputer known as Param Padma.

IT professionals in Bangalore
India's IT industry is highly respected
The move places India in a leading position in the field of supercomputing, normally led by the US and Japan.

There are plans to market the supercomputer internationally and build on existing markets in Europe, North America and the Far East.

India began developing supercomputers in the late 1980s after being refused one by the US.

Arun Shourie, the information technology minister, said the development of the Param Padma at the Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) showed India's technological capabilities.

Huge power

The advanced supercomputer was launched in the southern city of Bangalore on Tuesday.

The Param Padma has 1 teraflop of power, which means it can make 1 trillion processes per second.


Computer technology is one of India's fastest growing industries
Such power has previously only been available to countries such as the USA and Japan.



"It could also be used for defence and space applications."

The thrust of India's supercomputing work, however, will be in areas such as bio-technology, nanotechnology, weather forecasting, climate modelling, seismic data processing and structural mechanics.

Increasing market

Professor N Balakrishnan of the Indian Institute of Science said the Param Padma had put India into a leading position in supercomputing in the world.

India plans to market the Param Padma internationally and officials predict that the domestic market for supercomputers will triple from $0.5 billion to $1.6 billion by 2006.

India's earlier version of the supercomputer 'Param 10,000' with 100 gigaflop (floating point operations per second) memory has been sold to 8 countries including Russia, Canada, Singapore, and Germany.

India began developing a supercomputer after being denied a Cray supercomputer by the United States in 1987.

The US decision was based on fears that it could be used for military purposes.

 

[Chanakyaa]

GARUDA

The GARUDA High-Speed network is a Layer 2/3 MPLS Virtual Private Network (VPN) connecting select 45 institutions across 17 cities at 10/100 Mbps with Stringent Service Level Agreements with the service provider. This Grid is a precursor to the Gigabit speed nationwide Wide Area Network (WAN) connecting high performance computing resources and scientific instruments for seamless collaborative research and experiments. The High Speed Network is being established at all the Garuda partner institutes in close collaboration with ERNET who is also responsible for the operation, maintenance and management of this network.

 

[Chanakyaa]

Denial Driven Innovation

With their ever-widening use, supercomputers are being increasingly regarded as a strategic resource. Supercomputers were denied to India in early eighties even when it wanted it for weather forecasting. India decided to enter this area by using the alternative route of parallel processing. India’s journey from 1986 to 1999, shows the way indigenous innovation changes the control regime and vice versa.

CSIR’s National Aerospace Laboratory at Bangalore developed the FLOSOLOVER Mk 1, which was the parallel computing product for computational fluid dynamics. It demonstrated its feasibility in 1986. This led Cray Research Inc. (US) to negotiate with India’s Meteorological Department on its safety requirements. The same Cray was reluctant to have a dialogue with India earlier.

In 1987, the major initiatives of creating the Centre for Development of Advanced Computation (C-DAC) in Pune was launched to develop an Indian supercomputer based on massively parallel processing based architecture. US, which was unwilling to give a supercomputer to India earlier responded by clearing Cray XMP 14, under restrictions in 1988. There were conditionalities on non-nuclear use as well as in-situ surveillance by US government officials of the strict observance of conditionalities.

In 1989, the efforts of C-DAC, DRDO, BARC, NAL to develop parallel processing supercomputers gained grounds and signs of success were visible. Later on, C-DAC demonstrated successfully PARAM-8000, a supercomputer with a peak computing power of 1000 M-Flops. In response, in 1990, the Los Alamos (Worlton) report concluded that supercomputers were not necessary to design the nuclear weapons.

In 1991-92, C-DAC exported its PARAM supercomputers to Canada, Germany and Russia, whereas others such as NAL’s FLOSOLVER MkIII, DRDOs’ PACE, etc. matched the capabilities of US made mid-range workstations. In December 1992, the US office of Naval Research sent an official to Bangalore conference to assess the Indian capabilities in super computing. In 1993, the US authorized the licensed conditional export of high performance computers to several Indian institutions.

In November 1994, C-DAC’s PARAM 8000 was displayed at the super computing’ 94 Exposition in Washington. It was also announced that a more advanced supercomputer machine with 10 G flops will be within our reach by the end of 1995, and that the export of such supercomputers from India to the developing countries was also possible. In the same year, in response, US diluted the export requirement on the high performance computers even further.

In April 1995, India placed parallel processing super computing on its list of items requiring an Indian export licence. In July 1995, US began to review its supercomputers export controls and in October 1995, US further relaxed in a marked way the export of computers to India.

In 1998, C-DAC launched PARAM 10,000 demonstrating India’s capacity to build 100 Giga Flops machines, which was scalable further to teraflops, reaching the levels reached by advanced nations. In response, the United States further relaxed the export controls. During the same year, the same CRAY company decided to set up a subsidiary in India; interestingly the same company had denied the CRAY supercomputers in 1980s. Then came 11th May 1998, Pokhran II. In response, the US put a complete ban on several components including chips and a new saga begins!

What we see in this process of innovation chain is simply that an Indian innovation movement in supercomputers was able to force changes in the export control regimes. Our ability to receive the technology embedded in the supercomputers simply depended on our own technological preparedness.

There are some interesting generic lessons in this supercomputer saga. The first is that it requires a driving force for innovation, no matter how able and competent you are. When the idea of building supercomputers through parallel processing was gaining ground in 1985, Germany launched a DM 100 million project called ‘Suprenum’ and gave its scientists five years to build parallel processing based supercomputers. However, this project was abandoned mid way because of several reasons including team management issues between the university and industry; but clearly this was due to the fact that there was no driving force, since Germany had other options. India went ahead, because India did not have any options.

In fact, I remember reading Washington Post, soon after India had exported its PARAM 8000 to Germany, UK & Russia. It said ‘Angry India Does It’, that is, India having been angered at the denial of supercomputers, developed its own. So this anger was the driving force for India and Germany had none, although they had a superior technical manpower to complete successfully the Suprenum project.

The other interesting aside is that in 1988, the Russians had made an offer of a supercomputer to India. However, the Indian team that visited Russia was not too impressed with the level of hardware etc. and finally India did not buy the supercomputers from Russia. So, India did not become dependent on the Russian technology. Russians themselves have now been importing the Indian supercomputers since early nineties.

The last issue is that we have a tendency to become relaxed, when the ban gets lifted or the export regulations become little lighter. For example, in 1991-93, when there was some relaxation from the United States, questions were being asked as to whether India should invest further in supercomputers at all.

 

[Hutchroy]

India top money recipient, remits $55 bn in 2009

MUMBAI: At a time when the global economy has been staring at across-the-board job and salary cuts, inward remittances by Indian expats have continued to surge. This reflects a flight to safety by the Diaspora on the back of the economy’s resilience amid the global crisis.

The provisional balance of payments data released by RBI on Wednesday shows that overseas Indians remitted $55.06 billion in 2009, around 17% higher than what the World Bank had projected for the year.

India has been the largest recipient of remittances by its expats for over a decade now. Unlike NRI deposits, which are repatriable, remittances are permanent transfers and hence, add to the external sector strength of an economy.

According to the World Bank, India continues to be the top remittance receiving country in the world, having attracted significantly higher inflows of $ 51.6 billion in 2008 (followed by China with inflows worth $48 billion and Mexico with $26 billion) compared with $37.2 billion in 2007.

The World Bank had, however, estimated that remittances would decline to $47 billion in 2009, reflecting a lagged response to a weak global economy.

Commenting on the trend, Naresh Malhotra, deputy general manager, international banking group of State Bank of India, said: “It reflects a flight to safety by the overseas Indians. Besides, the global economy too has picked up in the last six months.” The bank accounts for a large share of overseas inward remittances and is estimated to account for around 24% of the market share.”

SBI has been focusing on this business by adopting custom-made products for different markets and sees most of the inflows from the US, Europe and the Middle East, which are the key focus area for the bank in this business. For the Mideast, the bank has also benefited from tie-ups with local players, said an official.

According to an RBI study on ‘Invisibles in the Balance of payments’ released earlier this month, higher remittance flows to India could be attributed to relatively higher growth of the Indian economy, making it an attractive investment destination, a hike in interest rate ceilings on NRI deposits since September 2008 and uncertainty in oil prices, which might have induced workers to remit their money to India as a hedging mechanism because of its relatively good growth prospects.

The World Bank has said though remittance flows to developing countries had shown relative stability during the past crises, during the recent global economic crisis, with both the developed and developing countries facing an economic slowdown, it was argued that remittances to developing countries could witness a significant slowdown.

Apart from falling income on account of jobless growth, the increased uncertainty about exchange rates during periods of heightened volatility and immigration controls are expected to depress remittance flows.

From a longer-term perspective, the sharp increase in remittances started with the booming oil industry in the Gulf in the early 80s, resulting in the surge in migrant labour to the region and later in the 90s, the technology boom resulted in a surge in migration of skilled IT professionals in North America and Europe.

Also, back home, RBI progressively eased restriction in the currency markets since 1991, thereby almost eliminating the illegal ‘hawala’ market for such remittances by Indians, especially from the Gulf market. Besides, local banks and currency dealers have also devised attractive products to woo inflows from such formal sources.

 

[SinoIndusFriendship]

India top money recipient, remits $55 bn in 2009

MUMBAI: At a time when the global economy has been staring at across-the-board job and salary cuts, inward remittances by Indian expats have continued to surge. This reflects a flight to safety by the Diaspora on the back of the economy’s resilience amid the global crisis.

The provisional balance of payments data released by RBI on Wednesday shows that overseas Indians remitted $55.06 billion in 2009, around 17% higher than what the World Bank had projected for the year.

India has been the largest recipient of remittances by its expats for over a decade now. Unlike NRI deposits, which are repatriable, remittances are permanent transfers and hence, add to the external sector strength of an economy.

According to the World Bank, India continues to be the top remittance receiving country in the world, having attracted significantly higher inflows of $ 51.6 billion in 2008 (followed by China with inflows worth $48 billion and Mexico with $26 billion) compared with $37.2 billion in 2007.

The World Bank had, however, estimated that remittances would decline to $47 billion in 2009, reflecting a lagged response to a weak global economy.

Commenting on the trend, Naresh Malhotra, deputy general manager, international banking group of State Bank of India, said: “It reflects a flight to safety by the overseas Indians. Besides, the global economy too has picked up in the last six months.” The bank accounts for a large share of overseas inward remittances and is estimated to account for around 24% of the market share.”

SBI has been focusing on this business by adopting custom-made products for different markets and sees most of the inflows from the US, Europe and the Middle East, which are the key focus area for the bank in this business. For the Mideast, the bank has also benefited from tie-ups with local players, said an official.

According to an RBI study on ‘Invisibles in the Balance of payments’ released earlier this month, higher remittance flows to India could be attributed to relatively higher growth of the Indian economy, making it an attractive investment destination, a hike in interest rate ceilings on NRI deposits since September 2008 and uncertainty in oil prices, which might have induced workers to remit their money to India as a hedging mechanism because of its relatively good growth prospects.

The World Bank has said though remittance flows to developing countries had shown relative stability during the past crises, during the recent global economic crisis, with both the developed and developing countries facing an economic slowdown, it was argued that remittances to developing countries could witness a significant slowdown.

Apart from falling income on account of jobless growth, the increased uncertainty about exchange rates during periods of heightened volatility and immigration controls are expected to depress remittance flows.

From a longer-term perspective, the sharp increase in remittances started with the booming oil industry in the Gulf in the early 80s, resulting in the surge in migrant labour to the region and later in the 90s, the technology boom resulted in a surge in migration of skilled IT professionals in North America and Europe.

Also, back home, RBI progressively eased restriction in the currency markets since 1991, thereby almost eliminating the illegal ‘hawala’ market for such remittances by Indians, especially from the Gulf market. Besides, local banks and currency dealers have also devised attractive products to woo inflows from such formal sources.

2010 & on remittance figures will be much, MUCH LESS. Care to fathom why?

 

[ramu]

2010 & on remittance figures will be much, MUCH LESS. Care to fathom why?

Lets hear to your theory ...

Go on

 

[Chanakyaa]

PARAM Power - Interview with Shri. R.K. Arora
Hindustan Times, New Delhi

The Centre for Development of Advanced Computing (C-DAC) is a government company under the Department of Information Technology (DIT). It was set up in March 1988 as India's national initiative for the development of indigenous supercomputers when the U.S. Government refused to export supercomputers to India.

The Rs. 70 crores company that has done India proud by developing the PARAM series of high-end supercomputers is now eyeing the eGovernance market. C-DAC chief, Shri. R.K. Arora, speaks about India's supercomputing capabilities and the eGovernance initiatives.

Excerpts from an interview.

Tell us about India's top-of-the line supercomputers. How do they compare with the global counterparts?

We brought out India's first high performance computer PARAM 8000 in 1991 with a peak computing power of 1 gigaflop. This was the time when the computer industry in India was in its infancy and the software industry was just about shaping up. Collecting a team of engineers and scientists to build a system was quite a challenge. We continued to update the technology and brought out subsequent models PARAM 8600 in 1993, PARAM 9000 in 1995 and recently PARAM 10000 in 1998. We now have another new model called PARAM Anant. The PARAM 10000 (that can perform 100 billion mathematical operations per second) was the most powerful system in Asia outside Japan. We are now working towards building a teraflop system. With this, we would be in the league of only a few nations, which have the capability to build teraflop range of supercomputers. There are only two in that category at present - USA and Japan. There are only 12 systems in the world above 1 teraflop peak computing power.

Why are the supercomputer series named PARAM?

The Supercomputer of C-DAC was named PARAM as an acronym of "PARAllel Machine." Interestingly, PARAM also implies 'Supreme' in Sanskrit.

How much do these supercomputers cost? Are these prices lower than the global market?

The cost of a supercomputer actually depends upon its size and power. The technology adopted in PARAM supercomputers is that of parallel processing. The cost could vary anywhere from say Rs. 10 lakhs to Rs. 10 crores. The price of our systems is very cost effective compared to the global market.

What is India's position as far as supercomputers are concerned? Is India emerging as a major power in this field?

India is one of the few countries in the world to have built capability of designing and building supercomputers. However, there are developments on this front in other countries as well such as China, Israel, Russia and Korea.

How many supercomputers have you sold so far?

C-DAC has sold approximately 50 PARAM systems of different sizes and configuration across the globe since its inception. Seven of these are located outside India in Russia, Germany, Canada and Singapore and the rest are in India.

What are the present uses and applications of supercomputers?

The usage of supercomputers have increased manifold of late. These applications have been traditionally described as Grand Challenge problems and the systems are used to solve problems which are called "mission critical". Some examples are weather modeling, seismic data processing, structural mechanics, molecular modeling, materials design, large body simulations and so on. The usage in business is also emerging - banking and financial modeling, data warehousing/data mining, large data centre and hosting applications.

How difficult is it for an average computer-literate to operate a supercomputer?

Usage of supercomputers based on parallel processing technology requires considerable training and experience. This is distinct from the traditional computers where user-friendly tools are available. In order, therefore, to make parallel machines more popular, equally good, user-friendly tools are needed.

Can organizations or individuals access your supercomputing facilities on a short-term or part-time basis? What would be the costs involved?

Supercomputers are used as an infrastructure facility as they cannot be created at every other place due to high cost of installation and maintenance. So the practice is to provide access to such facilities by a number of users from remote places. Based on the availability of high bandwidth communication links, such access has been made possible. We have created a National PARAM Supercomputing Facility (NPSF) in Pune solely with this objective.

Do we import supercomputers or their components from other countries?

A number of hardware components and software tools are required for building supercomputers. As all these are not available in the country, they have to be imported from outside.

Why is your organization now promoting eGovernance so aggressively?

eGovernance is a technology driven methodology to realize economic prosperity leading to transparency, high velocity of business, improved productivity and an exciting business opportunity in the channels of Government activities.

The eGovernance activities in India have increased particularly in the last two years and more such development activities are on the horizon and more States are being involved in It A market of US$ 1 billion is easily seen in the Indian context.