My fortnightly column A Dose of IT discussing on the issues of genomics and technology Kapil Khandelwal QuoteUnquote with KK www.kapilkhandelwal.com

1. New Delhi, Sept 18: The
World Wide Web Consor-
tium’s (W3C) India office was
inaugurated by Minister of
State for Communications
and IT Sachin Pilot.
W3C is engaged in develop-
ment of common protocols on
the web, developing of stan-
dards and recommendations
for web access.
The establishment of new
W3C India office space gives it
a permanent entity and would
play more active and crucial
role in proliferation of W3C
standards among ICT indus-
try and users to make India
truly a knowledge-based soci-
ety. “Activities initiated by
W3C India office will go a long
way in accelerating the
growth of web in indian lan-
guages,” said Pilot on the
occasion. “This step will facil-
itate information access on
world wide web regardless of
languages, location,
ability,generation age and
income,” he added. —IANS
bbIITTss
GOOGLE REMEMBERS
UNCLE PAI
NNeeww DDeellhhii:: : Google’s home-
page Saturday paid homage
to Anant V. Pai, who intro-
duced Indian culture and tra-
dition to millions of his coun-
trymen through his Amar
Chitra Katha comic series.
INDIA GETS ITS FIRST
ONLINE ART FAIR
NNeeww DDeellhhii:: Art fairs in India
are entering digital space.
The country’s first online art
fair, India Art Collective, will
be held from November 19 to
26. Collective director Sapna
Kar said: “India Art Collective
will allow collectors and art
lovers to discover a vast col-
lection at a single location
from any place.”
Twitter was an
amazing
experience &
even greater set
of people.
–––– AAbbdduurr CChhoowwddhhuurryy
ex- Chief Scientist,
Twitter
EHEALTHPOINTGETSA
PRESTIGIOUSAWARD
NNeeww DDeellhhii:: Indian healthcare
provider E HealthPoint has
been named laureate of the
Tech Awards 2011, a signa-
ture programme of the US-
based Tech Museum, for app-
lying technology to benefit
humanity.
WORLD WIDE WEB
CONSORTIUM SETS
UP INDIA OFFICE
New Delhi, Sept 18:India
and Britain Friday held dis-
cussions to further their coop-
eration in science and tech-
nology. Science and
Technology Minister
Ashwani Kumar held talks
with former British prime
minister Gordon Brown on
the sidelines of the Summer
Davos conference under way
in Dalian, China.
“Discussions were held on
collaborative projects in sci-
entific research, including
futuristic and advanced
research in nanotechnology,
biotechnology, nuclear safety,
material science, astrophysics
and green technologies,” said
an official statement issued
here. Britain also offered
assistance for facilitating
achievement of universal edu-
cation targets set by India and
the achievement of millenni-
um development goals, the
statement said. — IANS
INDIA, BRITAIN
DISCUSS SCIENCE
AND TECHNOLOGY
c m y k c m y k
TECHNOMICSQUOTE OF THE DAY
PAGE 13
Twitter’s chief scientist Abdur
Chowdhury has quit the
microblogging giant.
Yahoo’s interim CEO Tim Morse got
a 25 per cent pay hike. He now
earns $750,000, up from $600,000.
MONDAY 19 | SEPTEMBER 2011
BENGALURU
New Delhi, Sept 18:
Indian outsourcing compa-
nies are likely to witness a
slump in hiring activity
owing to the current global
economic scenario, but the
decline would not be as
“substantial” as was after
the 2008 crisis, experts
believe. There is definitely
an impact of the global eco-
nomic scenario on Indian
IT and outsourcing firms,
however, most of them
have long-term contracts
with their clients which
were signed at extremely
competitive rates, experts
said.
According to HR consul-
tancy Hay Group’s
Managing Consultant
(Mumbai Operations and
Rewards Practice Leader)
Sridhar Ganesan, “Post-
2008, business planning
with high focus on risks
and mitigation has been
critical for Indian IT firms.
The precedence of 2008 in
terms of outlook and fore-
casts is therefore much
more realistic.” Echoing
the sentiment, executive
search firm GlobalHunt
Director Sunil Goel said,
“The IT and outsourcing
companies have re-aligned
their businesses, and have
a very balanced approach.
Though there would be a
slowdown, there may not
be a complete downfall or a
shut down in hiring activi-
ty.”
Prateek Srivastava, man-
ager (IT Practice), Elixir
Consulting, a recruitment
process outsourcing firm,
said: “The impact of a glob-
al slowdown would be mar-
ginally low than the last
time. Early reports already
indicate Indian IT firms
are picking up more talent
than last year from top B-
Schools.” Besides, Indian
BPO companies in their
evolution of business from
basic services to more com-
plex services have also
realised that clients are
looking at the portfolio of
operations for giving busi-
ness. “It is not just pure off-
shoring anymore. The
model has to be a mix of
onshore, near shore and
offshore,” Hay Group’s
Ganesan said, adding that
Indian outsourcing firms
like Aegis and Wipro
among others are not look-
ing at only India but a port-
folio of locations that will
help them win client busi-
ness based on this model.
Central European coun-
tries are getting a lot of the
knowledge process out-
sourcing (KPO) business as
the cost is competitive, it is
near the main company
headquarter and also tech-
nical institutions there are
providing very good talent.
“There has been an accel-
erated number of compa-
nies that have decided to
move to places like
Philippines, Latin America
and Australia, primarily
because of cheaper wages
coupled with high literacy
rates. Countries like
Philippines, a former US
colony that retains many
American cultural values,
ensure better cost arbi-
trage,” Srivastava said.
India, which was earlier
preferred for its low-cost
advantage, has lost that tag
as salaries have gone up in
the last decade, infrastruc-
ture cost has increased and
support system cost has
also jumped. Companies
are now looking for newer
avenues where they can
align their costs.
— PTI
Recession may hit Indian IT cos hiring
In India, e-commerce
visits you at home
■ Dozens of online retail firms have recently sprung up to capitalise
on India’s growing Internet use
Bengaluru, Sept 18:
Several months ago, when
Prabhu Kumar could not
find a book he wanted in
bookstores here, he found
it online at Amazon.com
for $10. But he had to pay
more than $9 in fees to
have Amazon ship it to
him.
Many Indians are
unwilling to use credit
cards online, so some
companies send delivery
squads to customers’
doors.
Mr Kumar, a software
programmer, said he
would not be doing that
again. He now shops on
India’s answer to Amazon
— FlipKart.com — which
delivers books, phones
and other items in as little
as 24 hours at no extra
cost. Mr. Kumar doesn’t
have to pay FlipKart a
single rupee until a couri-
er bearing his books
arrives at his door. He
can then hand over cash
or a credit card.
“I think it perfectly fits
the Indian mentality,” Mr
Kumar said.
While dozens of elec-
tronic commerce firms
have recently sprung up
to capitalise on India’s
growing Internet use,
they have a problem.
Indians are not yet com-
fortable with shopping on
the Web. Many of them
remain unwilling to use
credit cards online. So the
Indian retailers have
gone to great lengths to
gain customers. Custo-
mers may pay in cash on
delivery, and the compa-
ny fields delivery squads
to ensure shipments get to
customers quickly.
Online sales still make
up a small portion of over-
all retail spending — one
estimate pegs it at $10 bil-
lion, a tiny fraction of
India’s $500 billion retail
market — but they are
growing fast.
FlipKart says it had rev-
enue of 500 million rupees
($11 million) in its last fis-
cal year, and is now clock-
ing sales of about 10 mil-
lion rupees a day.
SnapDeal.com, a coupon
and deals site similar to
Groupon, expects sales of
1.5 billion rupees this
year, up from almost
nothing the year before.
The top executives of the
Future Group, India’s
largest retail company,
says its daily online sales
are on pace to triple
between now and March.
“This time it is for real,”
said Kishore Biyani, the
founder and chief execu-
tive of the Future Group,
referring to an earlier
wave of e-commerce
euphoria in the early
2000s. “This is the biggest
thing to happen in India.”
That rapid growth has
drawn the attention of
venture capitalists who
poured $183 million into
20 e-commerce firms in
the last 12 months, up
from $61 million for 13
firms in the previous 12
months, according to
Venture Intelligence, a
research firm.
The rapid growth has
also attracted the notice
of American online retail-
ers. Amazon, which has a
software development
office in Bengaluru, is
now building a ware-
house and hiring employ-
ees for an Indian site,
according to two industry
officials. And earlier this
year, Groupon bought an
Indian Web site,
SoSasta.com. But, like in
frothy Silicon Valley,
some Indian analysts and
investors are starting to
question the frenzied
deal-making. These skep-
tics find it difficult to jus-
tify the high prices ven-
ture capitalists are pay-
ing to invest in unprof-
itable Indian e-commerce
firms. For instance,
VCCircle, a news site,
recently reported that
FlipKart may soon raise
$150 million, which would
give it a $1 billion valua-
tion. (Executives at the
company declined to dis-
cuss its financial plans.)
India has 50 million to
100 million Internet
users, according to vari-
ous analysts, and the
number is growing by
about 30 percent a year.
JuxtConsult, a New Delhi-
based research firm, esti-
mates that 17 million peo-
ple bought something
online this year, up from
10 million last year. The
Indian government esti-
mates that household con-
sumption has increased
by more than two-thirds
in the last five years, and
most of that increase has
come in the purchase of
nonfood items.
“It seems to be more for
real than a flash in the
pan,” said Kanwaljit
Singh, who is a senior
managing director at
Helion Advisors, which
has invested in about a
half-dozen Indian e-com-
merce sites, including
MakeMyTrip.
But capitalising on
India’s growth online will
not be easy. Sachin
Bansal and Binny Bansal,
the founders of FlipKart,
have had to do things that
their American or
European counterparts
would never have. They
have set up delivery oper-
ations in 13 big Indian
cities like Bengaluru,
Mumbai and New Delhi
because Indian shippers
do not have the delivery
and package-tracking
abilities that FedEx and
U.P.S. provide for its
American customers.
They plan to expand
FlipKart’s delivery net-
work to 25 cities within a
year.
Sachin Bansal, the com-
pany’s chief executive,
said that by having its
own staff, FlipKart avoids
paying courier services’
commissions of more
than 2 percent to accept
cash on delivery, which
make up about 60 percent
of its orders. It can also
track packages more
accurately. And because
labor costs are relatively
low in India, its delivery
cost is a modest $1 a pack-
age. The Bansals say they
are prepared for competi-
tion from Amazon.
Sachin Bansal, who work-
ed with Binny Bansal as a
software developer at
Amazon before starting
FlipKart, brushed aside a
suggestion that the firm
would make for an easy
acquisition by Amazon.
“We are very keen on
going our own way,” he
said. “The opportunity is
so large that we would
want to grow it to a much
bigger level before we
think of anything.”—NYT
Intel to lower PC
power consumption
California, Sept 18: The
world’s largest chip-
maker Intel Corporation
said it is working on a
host of futuristic tech-
nologies that would
improve the power effi-
ciency of PCs 300-fold in
the next 10 years, as well
as ensure the security of
data and user identities.
Speaking on the final
day of the Intel Developer
Forum (IDF) 2011 here,
Intel Chief Technology
Officer Justin Rattner
said the company was
developing technologies
to take computing to the
next level, with better
performance and lower
power consumption.
Energy efficiency was a
key theme of the three-
day IDF summit this year
and a number of Intel
executives demonstrated
the efforts being taken by
the company in this
regard. The move
assumes significance in
light of consumers gravi-
tating toward always-on
computing devices with a
greater degree of mobili-
ty. Mr. Rattner said that
Intel’s multi-core technol-
ogy, in which more than
one processing engine is
built into a single chip,
has become the accepted
methodology for increas-
ing performance while
keeping power consump-
tion low.
These technologies
would enable faster web
access, improve PC user
security and reduce the
requirement for wireless
infrastructure to provide
the optimal online experi-
ence, among other bene-
fits, he said.
Mr. Rattner demon-
strated a new technology
for better PC security,
wherein users would be
able to see images and
other data on social net-
working sites and other
platforms only if the com-
puter recognises his or
her face. — PTI
SSAANNGGEEEETTHHAA
CCHHEENNGGAAPPPPAA || DDCC
BENGALURU
When his arrogance results
in the escape of a 100 souls
from hell, including that of
Idi Amin, Adolf Hitler and
Joseph Stalin, Daksh the
half-human son of Lord
Yama is banished to earth
to retrieve the escaped
souls and send them back to
hell. Then, there is Odayan,
who uses deceit, subterfuge
and his prowess in the
ancient Kerala martial art
form, Kalari Payattu, to
orchestrate his rise to
power and fame during the
reign of the Zamorin of
Calicut.
The adventures of Daksh
and Odayan, the new age
comic avatars in Jump, one
of India’s latest monthly
comic magazine, will be
available online at
www.comicjump.in for free
from the third week of
September. Most of the
characters in Jump are
inspired by larger-than-life
Indian and international
mythic heroes, supermen,
sports icons, Bollywood
superstars etc. And some of
the older popular stories
like Shaurya (India’s equiv-
alent of Superman) and the
Rabhas incident, a zombie
horror story set in
Bengaluru will also be
available for free download.
The brainchild of
Bengaluru boys, Suhas
Sundar and Shreyas
Srinivas, who completed
engineering from BMS
College of Engineering in
2005, Jump comics embrace
a new genre of “dark fanta-
sy” and is a blend of science
fiction, martial arts and
survival horror stories that
are narrated in a style that
combines Japanese,
American and Indian art-
work and story-telling tech-
niques.
“Having grown up on a
diet of comics spanning
Amar Chitra Katha,
Indrajal, Diamond and Raj
comic series, with charac-
ters like Karna, Surya,
Phantom, Mandrake,
Bahadur, Dara and Nagraj
filling our leisure hours, we
realised that there are
hardly any Indian comics
that can hold our attention
these days. Most of the
comic content and charac-
ters have not evolved
enough to capture the
attention of Generation Y,
who are digital natives and
have grown up in a world of
video games, computers
and multi-channel televi-
sions. Even iconic comic
book characters like
Batman and Superman
have been re-launched glob-
ally in their new avatars
over the last few months,”
said Suhas, Creative
Director, Jump, who previ-
ously worked with
Cognizant USA.
Suhas and Shreyas (for-
mer manager, Unilever
India) quit their jobs to
start Level 10
Entertainment Pvt Ltd and
create comic book content
in April 2010.
They came out with their
first issue in May 2010
which catered primarily to
the 18-30 years old male
audiences. While one of the
recent issues of Jump fea-
tures a tribute to superstar
Rajnikanth, executed in
Manga inspired artwork
style, Batu — a hero who is
modeled as a cross between
Sachin Tendulkar and
Harry Potter — is another
of Jump’s creations.
Stating that most of the
comics cater to parents
instead of their kids, Suhas
said “The time has come to
speak to the new generation
in their own lingo with con-
tent they can relate to, on
devices that they have
grown up with. We have
tied up with digital comic
content distributors to con-
vert our content into differ-
ent platforms.
The content is available
on Apple Store (i-tunes),
Nokia OVI store and mobile
phones for those who sub-
scribe to Vodafone, Tata
Docomo and Aircel services
at just `15 per story. We
have had 10,000 smart
phone downloads of our
comic stories so far.”
Jump is available across
leading bookstores in India
and can be bought online on
level10comics.com or
through dial-a-book service
with cash on delivery.
Starting with sales of 5,000
copies a month that has
now grown to 20,000 copies
and a Facebook fan base of
some 16,750 youngsters, the
season finale of JUMP is
due for release on
November 10, 2011 and will
feature tributes to iconic
characters from the Indian
comic pantheon.
The Indian comic
book/magazine market is
estimated at `300 crore
with 12.5 crore comics sold
across the country per
annum.
New age online comics for Gen Y
Washington, Sept 18:
That playing video games
makes the brain smarter
and improves concentra-
tion might be a myth fos-
tered by a host of studies.
“Despite the hype, in real-
ity, there is little solid evi-
dence that games enhance
cognition at all,” said
Walter Boot, assistant pro-
fessor in psychology at
Florida State University
who led the study.
Many of those studies
compared the cognitive
skills of frequent gamers to
non-gamers and found
gamers to be superior, the
journal Frontiers in
Psychology reports.
However, Boot with doc-
toral student Daniel
Blakely and Daniel Simons
from Illinois University
points out that this does
not necessarily mean that
their game experience cau-
sed better perceptual and
cognitive abilities. It could
be that individuals who
have the abilities required
to be successful gamers are
simply drawn to gaming,
according to a university
statement — IANS
MYTH: VIDEO
GAMES SHARPEN
BRAIN
START-UPS
There was an interesting
panel discussion called
‘Your Genome on an Ipad’
that I attended in New York
last week. The panel includ-
ed some of the leaders in
the human genomics space
and included executives
from companies like
Illumina, Pacific Bioscienc-
es, 23andme, Knome, App-
lied Biosystems, GNUBio.
Ever since deCODE
Genetics, the pioneers in
human genomics sequenc-
ing, launched their web-
based direct-to-consumer
service called deCODEme,
personal-genomics services
have exploded in the
Western world.
Moore’s law is occurring
in the genomics sequenc-
ing, as the third and fourth
generation sequencing tec-
hnologies are beginning to
emerge. With the price of
such technologies within
the reach of the common
man, there is a likelihood of
mass sequencing of the pop-
ulation in the near future
and an explosion of infor-
mation as a result of
unleashing of personal-
genomics revolution.
Companies such as de-
CODE Genetics, 23andme,
Navi Genomics, Illumina
and Knome have launched
services for consumers to
provide personal genomic
information to consumers.
Many critics and purists
have labeled these services
as ‘recreational’ genomics
to see their genetic code,
and learn about their ances-
tors. However in the West,
there are concerns express-
ed by the regulators and
medical services industry
with consumer genomics.
Many have questioned the
validity and legal issues
around providing informa-
tion that is still not under-
stood well by practitioners
and need consultations
with experts. The industry
that supports the personal
genomics believes that it is
about personal education
and empowerment. The iss-
ues regarding who should
stand between the consum-
er and has the right to see
information about his or
her genetic code is under
the lenses of the regulatory
bodies for a while now.
Coming back to India, by
2020 around two-thirds of
the healthcare expenditure
will be used to fight chronic
diseases. Our expenditure
may double from current
levels and could be a major
factor for an economic cri-
sis. Therefore the services
from deCODE Genetics,
23andme, Navi Genomics,
Illumina, Knome will be
critical to know a patient’s
genetic makeup and work
on preventing chronic dis-
eases before their onset.
However, we are a miss-
ing the vital link — how do
we apply the genomic infor-
mation, along with the ‘phe-
notypic’ information of the
patient, based on preventa-
tive and wellness health-
care interventions? Experts
at the New York panel dis-
cussion argued that mod-
ern medicine should accept
such diagnostics undertak-
en by the consumers within
the main stream.
In 2000, President Clinton
announced the completion
of 13-years of efforts of the
Human Genome Project at
a cost of $ 2 billion. By last
year, the same task took
around a fortnight and
$1500. It is now an era of sci-
fi, where you may be able to
get your genome sequenced
and delivered to your iPad
in less that an hour for
costs as low as $100 dollars.
A Dose of IT
Kapil Khandelwal
Genome on an iPAd
Shreyas and Suhas, the creators of JUMP
FlipKart executives, Sachin Bansal, left, and Binny Bansal, in their office .
Kapil Khandelwal is director of EquNev Capital. The views
expressed are his own.