By Jason Overdorf in Delhi
The Independent - 14 September 2007
Kashmir's treacherous Siachen glacier, battleground for the high-altitude standoff between India and Pakistan – sometimes termed "the coldest war" – is now set to become a tourist attraction.
In what has been pitched as a vote of confidence in a ceasefire that began in 2003, the Indian army announced yesterday in Delhi that it plans to open the 72 kilometre-long Siachen glacier to civilian trekking expeditions.
India and Pakistan – which have fought three wars for possession of Kashmir – are perhaps closer to a peaceful resolution than ever before. But to cynical observers, the move fits neatly into the tradition of oropolitics – or using mountaineering for political purposes – that has framed the conflict for many years.
Cadets from Indian military academies will begin a climb to the 16,000 feet Kumar Post next week, according to local reports.
If that expedition is successful, regular civilian expeditions – including some catering to foreign climbers – will be launched next year.
"The glacier can become a major tourist attraction. Since the ceasefire agreement with Pakistan, things have been safer and it is possible to hold such activities," a senior army officer was quoted as saying.
The first batch of trekkers, scheduled to set out from Leh on September 19, will be provided with basic training at the Siachen base camp by the Indian army. Ten experts on glaciers will guide the expedition, and the Indian army will provide equipment, lodging and logistical support for the trekkers.
An army spokesman indicated that the move to open Siachen to trekkers was inspired by Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh's call to turn the glacier into a "peace mountain" in 2005.
India and Pakistan have battled intermittently on the forbidding glacier since 1984.
Friday, September 14, 2007
Monday, September 10, 2007
outsourcing goes upscale
By William Underhill and Jason Overdorf
Newsweek International
Sept. 10, 2007 issue - The infamous "race to the bottom" may not be over. But increasingly, service industries are moving operations not to nations at the bottom—which is to say, nations like India, where labor is cheapest—but to where the work will be done best. The new race is to find the most-competitive service. And it speaks volumes about the rapid modernization of India that its companies are still out front.
This is even more remarkable if you consider how many new players and new kinds of services are crowding into the outsourcing market. According to consultants A.T. Kearney, there are now 55 countries, from Vietnam to Poland and Brazil, actively selling themselves as "remote service locations" to multinationals. And the kinds of services on offer continue to expand from call centers and back-office functions into new areas of information technology and R&D for industries as diverse as consulting, law and medicine. Western giants like IBM are getting in the game by setting up their own outsourcing arms (usually in developing nations). IDC research predicts that the world market for offshore IT services will grow to $37.8 billion by 2011, more than double last year's figure. Yet no new rival has derailed India's rise.
In the past decade, India's outsourcing revenue has increased tenfold. By some reckonings, Indian companies still capture more than 80 percent of the IT offshoring business. With growth in the Indian industry still running at a healthy double-digit rate, the top companies—Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys—are evolving as fast or faster than the outsourcing market itself. Each now has a total stock-market value of more than $20 billion, when none were even listed 10 years ago. They are, in short, flourishing in a market that is now far more complex than the old caricature of Western firms' "exporting" well-paid jobs to poor nations, where salaries are far lower. "The smart companies are seeing outsourcing and offshoring not as a cost play but as a strategic way to transform their business," says Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Indian IT giant Infosys. "The customer is no longer just paying for 100 people to work for him, [but for a specific business outcome]. Therefore, the Indian companies have to improve the capacity of their people, so we have more people with a consulting mind-set. And we have to be willing to take risks."
The reason Indian companies can stay out front seems pretty clear: India, on the whole, remains poor and backward, but its leading companies are already world-class. Once humble and happy to take the IT drudge work of big U.S. or British multinationals, Indian firms are now multinational in their own right. The skills of their employees are improving fast, so they are able to offer higher-level services to Western blue-chip clients. And the sheer scale of past savings that Indian firms have delivered to Western clients puts them in a good position to win future contracts when those and other clients look to move more-sophisticated operations abroad. Kiran Karnik, president of India's National Association of Software and Services Companies, puts the matter simply: "While cost continues to be an important consideration, it's not the only one."
Geography is reasserting itself. Indian outsourcers are maintaining their edge in part by moving closer to clients, establishing their own bases in the West. Last month Wipro paid $600 million for an American infrastructure-management firm called Infocrossing, creating a beachhead that allows Wipro to deliver services and recruit U.S. talent more easily. (Last year Wipro hired more than 200 college and business-school graduates from the United States and Europe.) Proximity matters, says Suresh Vaswani, president of Wipro's global IT practice. "Data centers [for U.S. clients] have to be in the U.S., fundamentally because of customer comfort," says Vaswani. "That way all my servers ... are not so far away."
Trendspotters would do well to watch Sashi Reddi, whose relatively new Indian company is already moving to base employees overseas. A 42-year-old serial entrepreneur, Reddi founded AppLabs six years ago with a staff of less than 10, and it is now the world's leading independent software-testing firm, with 1,900 on its payroll and a client list that includes Sun Microsystems and Cisco. Already, some 400 of his employees are based in Britain and America, ready to bag ever more ambitious projects—with labor paid at Western rates. "You can only do so much with an offshore cost advantage," says Reddi, noting that customers want work done close at hand. Location can trump labor costs, says Reddi. "All the decent players are faced with the same decision."
Competition is helping to force the evolution of India's big players. A clutch of big-name operators has muscled into the business even on India's home territory. IBM Global Services, Accenture and Electronic Data Services now have a combined work force in India of about 100,000. And many nations are entering the outsourcing industry with built-in advantages. The Philippines, for example, has an edge in accounting services because it is well known for producing a generous supply of graduates. Bilingual Mauritius is rebuilding itself as a "cyberisland," and has an edge pitching to corporations that need services delivered in English and French. And new EU members, like Bulgaria and Romania, can help fellow members avoid violating EU regulations on matters like privacy, which insist that certain types of work must be handled inside the Union's borders.
For entrepreneurial Indians, the answer is simple: set up alongside emerging rivals. Look around any promising IT hot spot in Central or Eastern Europe and the Indians are there. Infosys already employs 250 people—almost all recruited locally—at a service center in the Czech city of Brno, handling business in 25 languages. And next month Infosys will open a facility across the border in Poland as part of a $250 million deal with Royal Philips Electronics. "Central Europe can't compete with countries like India on cost alone but it can better meet specific European customers' outsourcing needs due to the local talent and language skills and being in the same time zone," says B. G. Srinivas, the head of Infosys operations in Europe.
Nor are the Indians about to relinquish the low-cost advantage that provided their initial selling point. Inevitably, white-collar Indian salaries are climbing fast, but a staffer in Bangalore will still cost barely a tenth of his counterpart in Baltimore, and a youthful population should prevent serious labor shortages or wage spikes. And when it makes sense, India is now outsourcing the routine work to new outsourcing nations, some (like Vietnam) with even cheaper labor rates than its own. Satyam Computer Services, founded less than 10 years ago, now runs operations centers in Malaysia, Brazil and China and has plans to add more in the Czech Republic, Russia, Vietnam and Thailand. It was perhaps inevitable—Indian offshoring has finally gone offshore. That's the kind of flexibility it needs to stay ahead in this game.
With Katka Krosnar in the Czech Republic
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20546427/site/newsweek/
Newsweek International
Sept. 10, 2007 issue - The infamous "race to the bottom" may not be over. But increasingly, service industries are moving operations not to nations at the bottom—which is to say, nations like India, where labor is cheapest—but to where the work will be done best. The new race is to find the most-competitive service. And it speaks volumes about the rapid modernization of India that its companies are still out front.
This is even more remarkable if you consider how many new players and new kinds of services are crowding into the outsourcing market. According to consultants A.T. Kearney, there are now 55 countries, from Vietnam to Poland and Brazil, actively selling themselves as "remote service locations" to multinationals. And the kinds of services on offer continue to expand from call centers and back-office functions into new areas of information technology and R&D for industries as diverse as consulting, law and medicine. Western giants like IBM are getting in the game by setting up their own outsourcing arms (usually in developing nations). IDC research predicts that the world market for offshore IT services will grow to $37.8 billion by 2011, more than double last year's figure. Yet no new rival has derailed India's rise.
In the past decade, India's outsourcing revenue has increased tenfold. By some reckonings, Indian companies still capture more than 80 percent of the IT offshoring business. With growth in the Indian industry still running at a healthy double-digit rate, the top companies—Wipro, Tata Consultancy Services and Infosys—are evolving as fast or faster than the outsourcing market itself. Each now has a total stock-market value of more than $20 billion, when none were even listed 10 years ago. They are, in short, flourishing in a market that is now far more complex than the old caricature of Western firms' "exporting" well-paid jobs to poor nations, where salaries are far lower. "The smart companies are seeing outsourcing and offshoring not as a cost play but as a strategic way to transform their business," says Nandan Nilekani, CEO of Indian IT giant Infosys. "The customer is no longer just paying for 100 people to work for him, [but for a specific business outcome]. Therefore, the Indian companies have to improve the capacity of their people, so we have more people with a consulting mind-set. And we have to be willing to take risks."
The reason Indian companies can stay out front seems pretty clear: India, on the whole, remains poor and backward, but its leading companies are already world-class. Once humble and happy to take the IT drudge work of big U.S. or British multinationals, Indian firms are now multinational in their own right. The skills of their employees are improving fast, so they are able to offer higher-level services to Western blue-chip clients. And the sheer scale of past savings that Indian firms have delivered to Western clients puts them in a good position to win future contracts when those and other clients look to move more-sophisticated operations abroad. Kiran Karnik, president of India's National Association of Software and Services Companies, puts the matter simply: "While cost continues to be an important consideration, it's not the only one."
Geography is reasserting itself. Indian outsourcers are maintaining their edge in part by moving closer to clients, establishing their own bases in the West. Last month Wipro paid $600 million for an American infrastructure-management firm called Infocrossing, creating a beachhead that allows Wipro to deliver services and recruit U.S. talent more easily. (Last year Wipro hired more than 200 college and business-school graduates from the United States and Europe.) Proximity matters, says Suresh Vaswani, president of Wipro's global IT practice. "Data centers [for U.S. clients] have to be in the U.S., fundamentally because of customer comfort," says Vaswani. "That way all my servers ... are not so far away."
Trendspotters would do well to watch Sashi Reddi, whose relatively new Indian company is already moving to base employees overseas. A 42-year-old serial entrepreneur, Reddi founded AppLabs six years ago with a staff of less than 10, and it is now the world's leading independent software-testing firm, with 1,900 on its payroll and a client list that includes Sun Microsystems and Cisco. Already, some 400 of his employees are based in Britain and America, ready to bag ever more ambitious projects—with labor paid at Western rates. "You can only do so much with an offshore cost advantage," says Reddi, noting that customers want work done close at hand. Location can trump labor costs, says Reddi. "All the decent players are faced with the same decision."
Competition is helping to force the evolution of India's big players. A clutch of big-name operators has muscled into the business even on India's home territory. IBM Global Services, Accenture and Electronic Data Services now have a combined work force in India of about 100,000. And many nations are entering the outsourcing industry with built-in advantages. The Philippines, for example, has an edge in accounting services because it is well known for producing a generous supply of graduates. Bilingual Mauritius is rebuilding itself as a "cyberisland," and has an edge pitching to corporations that need services delivered in English and French. And new EU members, like Bulgaria and Romania, can help fellow members avoid violating EU regulations on matters like privacy, which insist that certain types of work must be handled inside the Union's borders.
For entrepreneurial Indians, the answer is simple: set up alongside emerging rivals. Look around any promising IT hot spot in Central or Eastern Europe and the Indians are there. Infosys already employs 250 people—almost all recruited locally—at a service center in the Czech city of Brno, handling business in 25 languages. And next month Infosys will open a facility across the border in Poland as part of a $250 million deal with Royal Philips Electronics. "Central Europe can't compete with countries like India on cost alone but it can better meet specific European customers' outsourcing needs due to the local talent and language skills and being in the same time zone," says B. G. Srinivas, the head of Infosys operations in Europe.
Nor are the Indians about to relinquish the low-cost advantage that provided their initial selling point. Inevitably, white-collar Indian salaries are climbing fast, but a staffer in Bangalore will still cost barely a tenth of his counterpart in Baltimore, and a youthful population should prevent serious labor shortages or wage spikes. And when it makes sense, India is now outsourcing the routine work to new outsourcing nations, some (like Vietnam) with even cheaper labor rates than its own. Satyam Computer Services, founded less than 10 years ago, now runs operations centers in Malaysia, Brazil and China and has plans to add more in the Czech Republic, Russia, Vietnam and Thailand. It was perhaps inevitable—Indian offshoring has finally gone offshore. That's the kind of flexibility it needs to stay ahead in this game.
With Katka Krosnar in the Czech Republic
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20546427/site/newsweek/
Saturday, September 01, 2007
bollywood: a primer
By Jason Overdorf
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Sept. 2, 2007 - In its heyday from the 1950s through the 1980s, Bollywood produced dozens of beloved films. These classics made superstars out of actors like Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Rajesh Khanna, Hema Malini, Zeenat Aman, Rekha and Amitabh Bachchan—a hero so well-loved the nation came to a standstill when an on-set injury in 1982 left him at death’s door for two months. Colorful song-and-dance spectacles that encompass melodrama, slapstick, high romance and cheap thrills—all in the same three hours—these movies rank second only to yoga among India’s most successful cultural exports. Here’s a primer on some of Bollywood’s best films—including a few from the “New Bollywood.”
Awaara (1951)
Directed by Raj Kapoor
Bollywood bwana Raj Kapoor directed, produced and starred in this melodramatic tale of a boy cast out of his law-abiding home and raised by bandits. When his father, an unforgiving judge, throws out his mother because he suspects her of infidelity, Raj (Raj Kapoor) finds succor with Jagga (K. N. Singh), only to discover years later that Jagga was the one who spread the lies that caused his mother’s disgrace. Enraged, Raj kills Jagga but fails to kill the judge, and is sentenced to years of rigorous imprisonment—by his own dear old Dad (Prithviraj Kapoor). The movie was a sleeper hit abroad in China, Romania, Turkey and Russia, where some still cherish fond memories of its signature song, “Awara Hoon” ("I Am a Tramp").
Mother India (1957)
Directed by Mehboob Khan
Nominated for an Oscar in 1957 in the best foreign film category, this sentimental, patriotic tribute to Indian womanhood stars Nargis as a poverty-stricken village mother whose marriage has left her in the clutches of an unscrupulous local moneylender. Even though her husband abandons her, she spurns the moneylender’s offer to marry her and cancel her debts. In what would become a classic Bollywood trope, one troublemaker son is driven from the village to become a bandit, while the other toils away as a farmer. In the end, the bandit (played by Sunil Dutt) returns to kill the moneylender and steal his daughter. But “Mother India,” who has vowed her son will do no wrong, shoots him and he dies in her arms. In real life, Sunil Dutt and Nargis married a year after the film was released.
Mughal-e-Azam (1960)
Directed by K. Asif
This epic period flick about a Mughal emperor and his son took nine years to complete, set the bar for lavish productions and held the all-time box-office record until 15 years after its release. In the film, the Mughal prince Salim (Dilip Kumar) falls in love with a beautiful slave girl named Anarkali (Madhubala) when she dances for him in a palace of mirrors to the song “Pyar Kiya to Darna Kya” ("I Have Loved, So What Is There to Fear?"). But when the prince tries to marry the slave, his father, Emperor Akbar, throws the girl in jail. A battle ensues. The prince is defeated and sentenced to death, but the slave girl bargains for his life by offering her own in return.
Padosan (1968)
Directed by Jyoti Swarup
"Cyrano De Bergerac" meets "Romeo and Juliet" meets Milli Vanilli in this tearjerker. Village simpleton Bhola (Sunil Dutt) wins the love of his neighbor Bindu (Saira Banu) with his beautiful songs. The only trouble is, Bhola can’t sing—he’s lip-synching tunes crooned by his buddy Guru (Kishore Kumar). When Bhola finds out he’s lied, she dumps him and decides to marry her music teacher. But Bhola wins her back by faking his suicide. Tears pour, and a wedding ensues.
Sholay (1975)
Directed by Ramesh Sippy
A crackling Bollywood-style Western—chapati Western, some call it—Sholay brings together two lovable crooks, a principled policeman and a ruthless gangster in a tragicomic, action-filled caper. The story of two convicts (Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra) who help a retired policeman capture the ruthless bandit Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan) who massacred the policeman’s family, Sholay was loved by audiences so much that one Mumbai theater ran the film for 286 consecutive weeks—more than five years. Even today, millions of Indians can quote rafts of the superstylized dialogue from memory.
Amar, Akbar, Anthony (1977)
Directed by Manmohan Desai
Undoubtedly one of the zaniest Bollywood movies, this film may be the greatest of all the stories to follow the once-beloved “lost and found” formula. With three major stars (Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor) and three equally big heroines (Parveen Babi, Shabana Azmi and Neetu Singh), "Amar, Akbar, Anthony" was an old-school blockbuster about the three sons of an ex-convict who are abandoned when their father is forced to flee his old mob boss and their mother goes blind. One son (Amar) is adopted by a Hindu policeman and becomes a policeman himself. Another (Akbar) is raised by a Muslim tailor and becomes a singer. The third (Anthony) is raised by a Catholic priest and becomes a rebellious scofflaw. In the end, the boys are reunited and join forces in fighting, singing and dancing; they find their mother, and take revenge on the evil mob boss—and Mom miraculously regains her sight. Throughout it all, Amitabh Bachchan delivers the goods—tears, guffaws, funny accents, goofy costumes—as Anthony. And the smash song “My Name Is Anthony Gonzalves” remains on most Indians’ list of desert island discs.
Umrao Jaan (1981)
Directed by Muzaffar Ali
Set at the time of the Indian Uprising (or Mutiny, as the British called it) of 1857, this poetic and atmospheric film tells the story of a young girl—Umrao Jaan, portrayed by the incomparably gorgeous Rekha—who is kidnapped by a neighbor and sold to a brothel to be trained as a courtesan. Skilled in poetry, song and dance, she charms the local prince (Farooque Shaikh) but winds up running away with a handsome bandit (Raj Babbar). But when the police kill him and the British attack Lucknow to put down the mutiny, she is forced to flee the city and winds up—can you guess?—back in her old village, where she meets her old mother and younger brother and sings a heartbreaking song.
Mr. India (1987)
Directed by Shekhar Kapoor
Not many non-Indians know that Shekhar Kapoor—a former model in ads for “suitings and shirtings”—directed this crowd-pleasing fantasy before moving to Hollywood to make "Elizabeth." But its goofy comedy and good-natured spoofing of James Bond hijinks made "Mr. India" a smash. The story pits Arun Verma (Anil Kapoor), an orphan who makes his money busking with a violin, against Mogambo (Amrish Puri), a dastardly villain as absurd as Dr. Evil with his own high-tech island. It’s a mismatch until Verma receives a mysterious letter revealing that his late father invented an invisibility cloak. After that, the common man becomes a crimefighting superhero—Mr. India—and takes down Mogambo and his mad scientists.
Hum Aapke Hain Kaun ...! (1994)
Directed by Sooraj R. Barjatya
Perhaps the first of the lavish “family dramas” that became the staple, and then the bane, of Bollywood, "Hum Aapke Hain Koun ...!" ("Who Am I to You") is the story of two Indian families brought together by the (of course) lavish wedding where musclebound pretty boy Salman Khan and curvaceous screen siren Madhuri Dixit meet and fall in love. The three-and-a-half-hour spectacle with 14 songs and big dance numbers is hard to beat.
Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995)
Directed by Aditya Chopra
The first and most successful of the “NRI movies” (films featuring, and in part targeting, nonresident Indians), "DDLJ" as it came to be known was a megablockbuster, attracting enough fanatics to keep it running for 600-plus consecutive weeks at one Mumbai theater. Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol play Raj and Siman, Indians living in the U.K. who meet and fall in love on a tour of Europe. But Siman’s father insists that his daughter will have an arranged marriage with the man of his choosing—a pompous, arrogant ass (of course). In a socially regressive turn typical of later NRI movies, Raj refuses to elope with Siman, but insists on convincing her father that he’s the right choice with lots of (smarmy, but in a good way) singing and dancing.
Dil Chahta Hai (2001)
Directed by Farhan Akhtar
Many consider "Dil Chahta Hai" ("What the Heart Desires") to be the spark that began the current stylistic revolution in Bollywood filmmaking. The story of the lives and loves of three friends (Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna) leaving college for the adult world, the movie was the first film to depict India’s modern, urban youth. Though it didn’t do well in the hinterland, it won critical and popular acclaim for its easygoing, realistic humor and its postmodern tributes to classic Bollywood songs. And for the upwardly mobile kids of India’s cities, it provided as seminal a cultural touchstone as the TV series "Friends" did in the U.S.
Lagaan (2001)
Directed by Ashutosh Golwarikar
One of the earliest films to break away from the romance formula, Lagaan tells the story of a 19th-century Indian village under the thumb of a ruthless (and racist) British officer. When the British officer doubles the tax on the village crops despite a ravaging drought, a rebellious villager (Aamir Khan) wagers him that the villagers—who’ve never played before—can beat the legation team at a game of cricket. If the village wins, the tax will be canceled instead of doubled. If the British win, the tax will be tripled. The story unfolds with all the gimmicks of Hollywood’s classic sports flicks, as well as a few Bollywood twists—like the village untouchable whose mangled hand turns out to make him a wicked spin bowler! As usual for Bollywood, the English-language songs were dismal. But the high drama, British villains and terrific Hindi soundtrack made "Lagaan" a moderate success around the Commonwealth.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20537192/site/newsweek/
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Sept. 2, 2007 - In its heyday from the 1950s through the 1980s, Bollywood produced dozens of beloved films. These classics made superstars out of actors like Dev Anand, Dilip Kumar, Raj Kapoor, Rajesh Khanna, Hema Malini, Zeenat Aman, Rekha and Amitabh Bachchan—a hero so well-loved the nation came to a standstill when an on-set injury in 1982 left him at death’s door for two months. Colorful song-and-dance spectacles that encompass melodrama, slapstick, high romance and cheap thrills—all in the same three hours—these movies rank second only to yoga among India’s most successful cultural exports. Here’s a primer on some of Bollywood’s best films—including a few from the “New Bollywood.”
Awaara (1951)
Directed by Raj Kapoor
Bollywood bwana Raj Kapoor directed, produced and starred in this melodramatic tale of a boy cast out of his law-abiding home and raised by bandits. When his father, an unforgiving judge, throws out his mother because he suspects her of infidelity, Raj (Raj Kapoor) finds succor with Jagga (K. N. Singh), only to discover years later that Jagga was the one who spread the lies that caused his mother’s disgrace. Enraged, Raj kills Jagga but fails to kill the judge, and is sentenced to years of rigorous imprisonment—by his own dear old Dad (Prithviraj Kapoor). The movie was a sleeper hit abroad in China, Romania, Turkey and Russia, where some still cherish fond memories of its signature song, “Awara Hoon” ("I Am a Tramp").
Mother India (1957)
Directed by Mehboob Khan
Nominated for an Oscar in 1957 in the best foreign film category, this sentimental, patriotic tribute to Indian womanhood stars Nargis as a poverty-stricken village mother whose marriage has left her in the clutches of an unscrupulous local moneylender. Even though her husband abandons her, she spurns the moneylender’s offer to marry her and cancel her debts. In what would become a classic Bollywood trope, one troublemaker son is driven from the village to become a bandit, while the other toils away as a farmer. In the end, the bandit (played by Sunil Dutt) returns to kill the moneylender and steal his daughter. But “Mother India,” who has vowed her son will do no wrong, shoots him and he dies in her arms. In real life, Sunil Dutt and Nargis married a year after the film was released.
Mughal-e-Azam (1960)
Directed by K. Asif
This epic period flick about a Mughal emperor and his son took nine years to complete, set the bar for lavish productions and held the all-time box-office record until 15 years after its release. In the film, the Mughal prince Salim (Dilip Kumar) falls in love with a beautiful slave girl named Anarkali (Madhubala) when she dances for him in a palace of mirrors to the song “Pyar Kiya to Darna Kya” ("I Have Loved, So What Is There to Fear?"). But when the prince tries to marry the slave, his father, Emperor Akbar, throws the girl in jail. A battle ensues. The prince is defeated and sentenced to death, but the slave girl bargains for his life by offering her own in return.
Padosan (1968)
Directed by Jyoti Swarup
"Cyrano De Bergerac" meets "Romeo and Juliet" meets Milli Vanilli in this tearjerker. Village simpleton Bhola (Sunil Dutt) wins the love of his neighbor Bindu (Saira Banu) with his beautiful songs. The only trouble is, Bhola can’t sing—he’s lip-synching tunes crooned by his buddy Guru (Kishore Kumar). When Bhola finds out he’s lied, she dumps him and decides to marry her music teacher. But Bhola wins her back by faking his suicide. Tears pour, and a wedding ensues.
Sholay (1975)
Directed by Ramesh Sippy
A crackling Bollywood-style Western—chapati Western, some call it—Sholay brings together two lovable crooks, a principled policeman and a ruthless gangster in a tragicomic, action-filled caper. The story of two convicts (Amitabh Bachchan and Dharmendra) who help a retired policeman capture the ruthless bandit Gabbar Singh (Amjad Khan) who massacred the policeman’s family, Sholay was loved by audiences so much that one Mumbai theater ran the film for 286 consecutive weeks—more than five years. Even today, millions of Indians can quote rafts of the superstylized dialogue from memory.
Amar, Akbar, Anthony (1977)
Directed by Manmohan Desai
Undoubtedly one of the zaniest Bollywood movies, this film may be the greatest of all the stories to follow the once-beloved “lost and found” formula. With three major stars (Amitabh Bachchan, Vinod Khanna and Rishi Kapoor) and three equally big heroines (Parveen Babi, Shabana Azmi and Neetu Singh), "Amar, Akbar, Anthony" was an old-school blockbuster about the three sons of an ex-convict who are abandoned when their father is forced to flee his old mob boss and their mother goes blind. One son (Amar) is adopted by a Hindu policeman and becomes a policeman himself. Another (Akbar) is raised by a Muslim tailor and becomes a singer. The third (Anthony) is raised by a Catholic priest and becomes a rebellious scofflaw. In the end, the boys are reunited and join forces in fighting, singing and dancing; they find their mother, and take revenge on the evil mob boss—and Mom miraculously regains her sight. Throughout it all, Amitabh Bachchan delivers the goods—tears, guffaws, funny accents, goofy costumes—as Anthony. And the smash song “My Name Is Anthony Gonzalves” remains on most Indians’ list of desert island discs.
Umrao Jaan (1981)
Directed by Muzaffar Ali
Set at the time of the Indian Uprising (or Mutiny, as the British called it) of 1857, this poetic and atmospheric film tells the story of a young girl—Umrao Jaan, portrayed by the incomparably gorgeous Rekha—who is kidnapped by a neighbor and sold to a brothel to be trained as a courtesan. Skilled in poetry, song and dance, she charms the local prince (Farooque Shaikh) but winds up running away with a handsome bandit (Raj Babbar). But when the police kill him and the British attack Lucknow to put down the mutiny, she is forced to flee the city and winds up—can you guess?—back in her old village, where she meets her old mother and younger brother and sings a heartbreaking song.
Mr. India (1987)
Directed by Shekhar Kapoor
Not many non-Indians know that Shekhar Kapoor—a former model in ads for “suitings and shirtings”—directed this crowd-pleasing fantasy before moving to Hollywood to make "Elizabeth." But its goofy comedy and good-natured spoofing of James Bond hijinks made "Mr. India" a smash. The story pits Arun Verma (Anil Kapoor), an orphan who makes his money busking with a violin, against Mogambo (Amrish Puri), a dastardly villain as absurd as Dr. Evil with his own high-tech island. It’s a mismatch until Verma receives a mysterious letter revealing that his late father invented an invisibility cloak. After that, the common man becomes a crimefighting superhero—Mr. India—and takes down Mogambo and his mad scientists.
Hum Aapke Hain Kaun ...! (1994)
Directed by Sooraj R. Barjatya
Perhaps the first of the lavish “family dramas” that became the staple, and then the bane, of Bollywood, "Hum Aapke Hain Koun ...!" ("Who Am I to You") is the story of two Indian families brought together by the (of course) lavish wedding where musclebound pretty boy Salman Khan and curvaceous screen siren Madhuri Dixit meet and fall in love. The three-and-a-half-hour spectacle with 14 songs and big dance numbers is hard to beat.
Dilwale Dulhaniya Le Jayenge (1995)
Directed by Aditya Chopra
The first and most successful of the “NRI movies” (films featuring, and in part targeting, nonresident Indians), "DDLJ" as it came to be known was a megablockbuster, attracting enough fanatics to keep it running for 600-plus consecutive weeks at one Mumbai theater. Shah Rukh Khan and Kajol play Raj and Siman, Indians living in the U.K. who meet and fall in love on a tour of Europe. But Siman’s father insists that his daughter will have an arranged marriage with the man of his choosing—a pompous, arrogant ass (of course). In a socially regressive turn typical of later NRI movies, Raj refuses to elope with Siman, but insists on convincing her father that he’s the right choice with lots of (smarmy, but in a good way) singing and dancing.
Dil Chahta Hai (2001)
Directed by Farhan Akhtar
Many consider "Dil Chahta Hai" ("What the Heart Desires") to be the spark that began the current stylistic revolution in Bollywood filmmaking. The story of the lives and loves of three friends (Aamir Khan, Saif Ali Khan and Akshaye Khanna) leaving college for the adult world, the movie was the first film to depict India’s modern, urban youth. Though it didn’t do well in the hinterland, it won critical and popular acclaim for its easygoing, realistic humor and its postmodern tributes to classic Bollywood songs. And for the upwardly mobile kids of India’s cities, it provided as seminal a cultural touchstone as the TV series "Friends" did in the U.S.
Lagaan (2001)
Directed by Ashutosh Golwarikar
One of the earliest films to break away from the romance formula, Lagaan tells the story of a 19th-century Indian village under the thumb of a ruthless (and racist) British officer. When the British officer doubles the tax on the village crops despite a ravaging drought, a rebellious villager (Aamir Khan) wagers him that the villagers—who’ve never played before—can beat the legation team at a game of cricket. If the village wins, the tax will be canceled instead of doubled. If the British win, the tax will be tripled. The story unfolds with all the gimmicks of Hollywood’s classic sports flicks, as well as a few Bollywood twists—like the village untouchable whose mangled hand turns out to make him a wicked spin bowler! As usual for Bollywood, the English-language songs were dismal. But the high drama, British villains and terrific Hindi soundtrack made "Lagaan" a moderate success around the Commonwealth.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20537192/site/newsweek/
bollywood takes on hollywood
By Jason Overdorf
Newsweek International
Sept. 10, 2007 issue - Ronnie Screwvala is the front runner in the race to become Bollywood's Jack Warner—the man who began the transformation of parochial U.S. cinema into its modern global form. Yet Screwvala is rarely picked out of a crowd in India, let alone in the United States. But Hollywood insiders know him well, for producing the "The Namesake," the groundbreaking hit about Indian immigrants, and for coproducing a Chris Rock comedy ("I Think I Love My Wife"). Now he is coproducing "The Happening," a new sci-fi thriller starring Mark Wahlberg and directed by M. Night Shyamalan ("The Sixth Sense") that seems destined to vault him into the big leagues. With a budget of $57 million, it will cost as much as 10 Indian blockbusters, setting a new bar for Bollywood. "Our ambition is to be a global Indian entertainment company—there's no reason we can't make big-budget Hollywood movies, too," says Screwvala.
At 45, Screwvala is a stocky, soft-spoken man whose urbane colonial English is a far cry from Jack Warner's notorious bluster. But his innovations are fast putting his Mumbai-based company, UTV Software Communications, on the world map and setting the modern standard of studio efficiency in Bollywood, the way Warner did in Hollywood. A multimedia conglomerate with interests in film, TV, animation and videogame production and distribution is also the closest thing to the diversified Warner Bros. that India has ever seen.
Indeed, over the past five years Screwvala has led the transformation of India's prolific but chaotic film industry. India makes about 1,000 movies a year, including Bollywood's 200-odd Hindi pictures and others in regional languages—about 10 times Hollywood's total. But until recently, every Bollywood movie was an independent film made by a producer-director who ran his operation like a mom-and-pop shop. Deals were cut off the books between film families. Marketing was left to theater owners. And writers scripted scenes on the day of shooting, following stock formulas: brothers separated at birth; village rebel vs. rapacious landlord, or cops vs. robbers. It was considered the height of innovation simply to meld these elements, creating, say, a story about brothers separated at birth who grow up on opposite sides of the law but then ultimately join forces against an evil landlord after much singing, dancing and weeping.
In its heyday, from the 1950s through the early 1980s, Bollywood managed to pack cinemas throughout this movie-crazy country with such fare. But its formulaic plots grew stale at just about the time that TV penetrated middle-class homes. Film revenues virtually stagnated between 1985 and 2000 at about $1 billion annually —less than one third the box office of a single major Hollywood studio. India's poverty and low ticket prices started making foreign markets more alluring. But Bollywood couldn't produce a global hit.
That may finally be changing. Indians are getting wealthier. The younger generation is spending more on entertainment. And innovators like Screwvala have begun professionalizing the business, bringing in outside investors and accounting standards and aggressively marketing films with novel plots. His production company has cut the old three-and-a-half-hour marathons to between 90 and 120 minutes, and has hired Hollywood scriptwriters to make its features more watchable. He's also gone straight to foreign shores—backing Mira Nair's New York-based production of "The Namesake," a story about the Indian diaspora—to prove that his model will work. The film grossed about $14 million at the box office—nearly 95 percent from the United States, more cash than any other Indian production has earned abroad to date.
Indian movies are also enjoying an impressive domestic boom. In 2006, India's film business grossed about $2 billion, up from $1.5 billion in 2004, and PricewaterhouseCoopers forecasts that revenue will leap to more than $4 billion over the next five years. "Our growth rates are much higher than Hollywood's, but in value terms we are way below [the U.S. movie industry]," says Timmy Kandhari, head of PWC's media and entertainment practice. But that will change as ticket prices—which now average less than $1 in India—swiftly catch up with the racing Indian economy.
This anticipated boom has foreign and domestic players scrambling to get in. Disney bought a 15 percent stake in Screwvala's UTV for $14 million in 2006. This year, Viacom inked a 50-50 joint venture with budding news-media mogul Raghav Bahl, head of the Indian entertainment conglomerate Network 18. The venture, called Viacom 18, will produce and distribute TV shows, digital media and (eventually) 10 to 12 movies a year. A separate entity called the Indian Film Company—in which Network 18 and Viacom own stakes—will begin financing about 40 to 45 films a year within three years. Billionaire Anil Ambani's Reliance ADAG conglomerate has acquired a 51 percent stake in a leading movie company called Adlabs Films for a little under $90 million. And three Indian studios held IPOs in London this year, raising a combined $220 million.
That's big money in a nation where until recently the average film budget was only about $150,000, and should dramatically increase the number and quality of Indian films. But very little cash will likely flow into coproductions with Hollywood, an area where Screwvala remains at least several years ahead of his competitors, most of whom still shy away from big Hollywood gambles. Screwvala is contributing $27 million—more than an Indian hit would gross—to the $57 million budget for Shyamalan's "The Happening." But the returns can be huge: "The Sixth Sense," which cost Shyamalan around $40 million to make, grossed nearly $700 million.
Screwvala has more than one wager in play. UTV has also forged coproduction deals with Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures, and with Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment. Hollywood—which requires endless cash injections and has for years been looking for outside funding from sources as diverse as German pensioners and private-equity funds—is only too eager to cut more such deals. "I think [these coproductions] are going to become more common," says Jose L. Rodriguez, Shyamalan's U.S.-based coproducer on "The Happening." "Ronnie is sort of leading the pack."
He's also shaking up Bollywood. Until recently, India's film industry was controlled by a few powerful producer-directors, like Yash Chopra, who enjoyed strong family or personal ties to Bollywood's fickle superstars, many of whom were also related. The heads of these "film families" never worked out a budget in advance and started shooting with only a fraction of the cash they needed in hand. Preproduction was a 20-minute meeting. Writers made up the dialogue as they went along. There were no production schedules or contracts; stars walked in and out of projects at whim. With hundreds of local distributors and tens of thousands of theater owners who habitually underreported box-office returns, it was hard to tell who, if anybody, was making money. "Nobody thought of this as a profit-and-loss [business]," says Screwvala. "They thought of it as a cash-flow [business]. So if a producer-director made a movie and it lost $5 million, but he got advances to make his next movie of $5 million, [in his mind] he'd broken even."
UTV, by contrast, went public on the Mumbai Stock Exchange in 2005, becoming one of the first listed film companies in India and introducing modern methods. The studio spends as long as two years in preproduction selecting scripts and setting casts, budgets and distribution plans. UTV has also taken control of marketing and raised spending to 25 percent of each film's production costs, nearing the Hollywood average (about 50 percent). And UTV shoots pictures in three months—on budget. To improve collections from the foreign market, UTV has avoided selling the overseas distribution rights to its films and built its own distribution network instead, setting up offices in the United States, Canada, Britain and the United Arab Emirates. Now the company is focusing on turning the 20-odd other countries where Bollywood films have established a niche market into a meaningful part of the business.
Screwvala says he shook things up out of necessity. "I was an outsider," he explains. "I hadn't grown up with these stars and directors." The son of a businessman (his father retired as managing director of a cosmetics firm), he was hardly destined for the movies. But after graduating with a degree in commerce from Mumbai University, he cut his teeth in television. He was the first to launch multichannel TV in India, schlepping around to meet with the residents' associations of Mumbai apartment buildings to sell closed-circuit cable at a time when the only other option was a single, state-owned broadcaster. Later, his company produced India's first daily afternoon soap opera, "Shanti." Working with Disney to dub its library of films into Indian languages in 1996 gave Screwvala the idea to try and create a modern, Western-style film company himself.
With little capital and without the family ties needed to attract big stars, he attacked the industry's fringe first. UTV got into film distribution in 1996, and then in 1997 Screwvala produced a typical low-budget Bollywood romance named "Dil Ke Jharoke Main" ("In the Windows of the Heart"). It bombed, convincing Screwvala of the need to work with a new generation of actors, directors and writers who were willing to experiment. UTV then inked deals to coproduce three films with big budgets (for Bollywood) and A-list stars. All three strayed from the Bollywood formulas and laid the foundation for the company's subsequent hits, including "Rang de Basanti"—a realistic film about Delhi youth.
UTV wasn't the first to make innovative movies; director-producer Ram Gopal Varma preceded Screwvala on this count. And Yash Raj Films, the perennial box- office leader, was quick to adopt many of UTV's Hollywood-studio-style practices. But Yash Raj was slow to see the potential of genre-breaking films, making its first such attempt this year with "Chak De," a movie about women's field hockey. This delay let Screwvala harness new-style films to new corporate structures more quickly than his rivals.
Hollywood is impressed. James Lassiter, Will Smith's partner in Overbrook Entertainment, says he and Smith were blown away last year when they met Screwvala in India. "We connected with Ronnie," Lassiter says. "He's more ambitious [than other Bollywood players], the way we're more ambitious [than Hollywood] ... He's smart, he has excellent taste, he has a global perspective and I think ultimately he'll be a big winner in worldwide cinema."
At home, Screwvala has already come a long way. He has crept steadily up the charts to become the second biggest box-office success in Indian film after Yash Raj, which still focuses on romances and big-budget song-and-dance extravaganzas. And Screwvala now takes in more than any of the other big producers from India's film families, many of whom are now scrambling to adopt his basic business model. Where there were once scores of director-producers who made one or two films a year, operating by the seat of their pants, now many of the best directors have been absorbed by the three major studios, which produce eight to 10 films a year. Thanks to the recent IPOs and other deals, three more studios—each with serious financial muscle—will produce their own slates next year.
The next challenge for Bollywood is to branch out into the broader media and entertainment business, which is expected to grow in India from about $11 billion to $25 billion by 2011. Screwvala is building UTV into what he calls a 360-degree media and entertainment company. He already has ventures in animation, gaming and TV content production, and he has eight to 10 TV channels in the works. UTV's animation division is producing four features for the world market this year, including one starring Will Smith and another directed by Simi Nallaseth, one of the animators of "Ice Age." Earlier this year, UTV acquired a British videogame company called Ignition Entertainment Ltd. Ignition is set to release Wardevil, a high-end game for the Sony's PS3, in 2008 and hopes to turn it into the linchpin of a multimedia franchise. UTV is also partnering with Richard Branson's Virgin Comics on a line of superheroes based on Indian mythology.
UTV can expect plenty of competition, with many big Indian media players now seeking out foreign partners and new markets. With Viacom's backing and marketing muscle, Network 18 is also building a media and entertainment empire. Apart from its fast-growing film operation, it is already one of the biggest players in Internet content and TV broadcasting, where it has teamed up with NBC Universal and Time Warner as well as Viacom. With its dominance in TV news, it could soon play News Corp. to UTV's Warner Bros. Deep-pocketed Reliance ADAG, one of India's biggest conglomerates, is going into satellite broadcasting, launching 45 radio stations, and recently established a second film production company, Big Motion Pictures, to complement its majority stake in Adlabs.
It's difficult to predict where the deal making will end. Hollywood, which has been going global for the past several decades, now earns more than 60 percent of its revenue abroad. While it's tough to imagine Indian films ever developing as broad a global market, the PricewaterhouseCoopers projections show the ticket sales for Indian productions rising fastest outside India, even as its increasingly wealthy middle class heads to the box office at home for more unconventional fare. Meanwhile, Bollywood seems set to continue its development as a financier and marketer of global products—whether created at home or abroad. As the muscle of the new media titans like Screwvala increases, it won't be long before they truly become household names—in India and beyond.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20546429/site/newsweek/
Newsweek International
Sept. 10, 2007 issue - Ronnie Screwvala is the front runner in the race to become Bollywood's Jack Warner—the man who began the transformation of parochial U.S. cinema into its modern global form. Yet Screwvala is rarely picked out of a crowd in India, let alone in the United States. But Hollywood insiders know him well, for producing the "The Namesake," the groundbreaking hit about Indian immigrants, and for coproducing a Chris Rock comedy ("I Think I Love My Wife"). Now he is coproducing "The Happening," a new sci-fi thriller starring Mark Wahlberg and directed by M. Night Shyamalan ("The Sixth Sense") that seems destined to vault him into the big leagues. With a budget of $57 million, it will cost as much as 10 Indian blockbusters, setting a new bar for Bollywood. "Our ambition is to be a global Indian entertainment company—there's no reason we can't make big-budget Hollywood movies, too," says Screwvala.
At 45, Screwvala is a stocky, soft-spoken man whose urbane colonial English is a far cry from Jack Warner's notorious bluster. But his innovations are fast putting his Mumbai-based company, UTV Software Communications, on the world map and setting the modern standard of studio efficiency in Bollywood, the way Warner did in Hollywood. A multimedia conglomerate with interests in film, TV, animation and videogame production and distribution is also the closest thing to the diversified Warner Bros. that India has ever seen.
Indeed, over the past five years Screwvala has led the transformation of India's prolific but chaotic film industry. India makes about 1,000 movies a year, including Bollywood's 200-odd Hindi pictures and others in regional languages—about 10 times Hollywood's total. But until recently, every Bollywood movie was an independent film made by a producer-director who ran his operation like a mom-and-pop shop. Deals were cut off the books between film families. Marketing was left to theater owners. And writers scripted scenes on the day of shooting, following stock formulas: brothers separated at birth; village rebel vs. rapacious landlord, or cops vs. robbers. It was considered the height of innovation simply to meld these elements, creating, say, a story about brothers separated at birth who grow up on opposite sides of the law but then ultimately join forces against an evil landlord after much singing, dancing and weeping.
In its heyday, from the 1950s through the early 1980s, Bollywood managed to pack cinemas throughout this movie-crazy country with such fare. But its formulaic plots grew stale at just about the time that TV penetrated middle-class homes. Film revenues virtually stagnated between 1985 and 2000 at about $1 billion annually —less than one third the box office of a single major Hollywood studio. India's poverty and low ticket prices started making foreign markets more alluring. But Bollywood couldn't produce a global hit.
That may finally be changing. Indians are getting wealthier. The younger generation is spending more on entertainment. And innovators like Screwvala have begun professionalizing the business, bringing in outside investors and accounting standards and aggressively marketing films with novel plots. His production company has cut the old three-and-a-half-hour marathons to between 90 and 120 minutes, and has hired Hollywood scriptwriters to make its features more watchable. He's also gone straight to foreign shores—backing Mira Nair's New York-based production of "The Namesake," a story about the Indian diaspora—to prove that his model will work. The film grossed about $14 million at the box office—nearly 95 percent from the United States, more cash than any other Indian production has earned abroad to date.
Indian movies are also enjoying an impressive domestic boom. In 2006, India's film business grossed about $2 billion, up from $1.5 billion in 2004, and PricewaterhouseCoopers forecasts that revenue will leap to more than $4 billion over the next five years. "Our growth rates are much higher than Hollywood's, but in value terms we are way below [the U.S. movie industry]," says Timmy Kandhari, head of PWC's media and entertainment practice. But that will change as ticket prices—which now average less than $1 in India—swiftly catch up with the racing Indian economy.
This anticipated boom has foreign and domestic players scrambling to get in. Disney bought a 15 percent stake in Screwvala's UTV for $14 million in 2006. This year, Viacom inked a 50-50 joint venture with budding news-media mogul Raghav Bahl, head of the Indian entertainment conglomerate Network 18. The venture, called Viacom 18, will produce and distribute TV shows, digital media and (eventually) 10 to 12 movies a year. A separate entity called the Indian Film Company—in which Network 18 and Viacom own stakes—will begin financing about 40 to 45 films a year within three years. Billionaire Anil Ambani's Reliance ADAG conglomerate has acquired a 51 percent stake in a leading movie company called Adlabs Films for a little under $90 million. And three Indian studios held IPOs in London this year, raising a combined $220 million.
That's big money in a nation where until recently the average film budget was only about $150,000, and should dramatically increase the number and quality of Indian films. But very little cash will likely flow into coproductions with Hollywood, an area where Screwvala remains at least several years ahead of his competitors, most of whom still shy away from big Hollywood gambles. Screwvala is contributing $27 million—more than an Indian hit would gross—to the $57 million budget for Shyamalan's "The Happening." But the returns can be huge: "The Sixth Sense," which cost Shyamalan around $40 million to make, grossed nearly $700 million.
Screwvala has more than one wager in play. UTV has also forged coproduction deals with Fox Searchlight and Sony Pictures, and with Will Smith's Overbrook Entertainment. Hollywood—which requires endless cash injections and has for years been looking for outside funding from sources as diverse as German pensioners and private-equity funds—is only too eager to cut more such deals. "I think [these coproductions] are going to become more common," says Jose L. Rodriguez, Shyamalan's U.S.-based coproducer on "The Happening." "Ronnie is sort of leading the pack."
He's also shaking up Bollywood. Until recently, India's film industry was controlled by a few powerful producer-directors, like Yash Chopra, who enjoyed strong family or personal ties to Bollywood's fickle superstars, many of whom were also related. The heads of these "film families" never worked out a budget in advance and started shooting with only a fraction of the cash they needed in hand. Preproduction was a 20-minute meeting. Writers made up the dialogue as they went along. There were no production schedules or contracts; stars walked in and out of projects at whim. With hundreds of local distributors and tens of thousands of theater owners who habitually underreported box-office returns, it was hard to tell who, if anybody, was making money. "Nobody thought of this as a profit-and-loss [business]," says Screwvala. "They thought of it as a cash-flow [business]. So if a producer-director made a movie and it lost $5 million, but he got advances to make his next movie of $5 million, [in his mind] he'd broken even."
UTV, by contrast, went public on the Mumbai Stock Exchange in 2005, becoming one of the first listed film companies in India and introducing modern methods. The studio spends as long as two years in preproduction selecting scripts and setting casts, budgets and distribution plans. UTV has also taken control of marketing and raised spending to 25 percent of each film's production costs, nearing the Hollywood average (about 50 percent). And UTV shoots pictures in three months—on budget. To improve collections from the foreign market, UTV has avoided selling the overseas distribution rights to its films and built its own distribution network instead, setting up offices in the United States, Canada, Britain and the United Arab Emirates. Now the company is focusing on turning the 20-odd other countries where Bollywood films have established a niche market into a meaningful part of the business.
Screwvala says he shook things up out of necessity. "I was an outsider," he explains. "I hadn't grown up with these stars and directors." The son of a businessman (his father retired as managing director of a cosmetics firm), he was hardly destined for the movies. But after graduating with a degree in commerce from Mumbai University, he cut his teeth in television. He was the first to launch multichannel TV in India, schlepping around to meet with the residents' associations of Mumbai apartment buildings to sell closed-circuit cable at a time when the only other option was a single, state-owned broadcaster. Later, his company produced India's first daily afternoon soap opera, "Shanti." Working with Disney to dub its library of films into Indian languages in 1996 gave Screwvala the idea to try and create a modern, Western-style film company himself.
With little capital and without the family ties needed to attract big stars, he attacked the industry's fringe first. UTV got into film distribution in 1996, and then in 1997 Screwvala produced a typical low-budget Bollywood romance named "Dil Ke Jharoke Main" ("In the Windows of the Heart"). It bombed, convincing Screwvala of the need to work with a new generation of actors, directors and writers who were willing to experiment. UTV then inked deals to coproduce three films with big budgets (for Bollywood) and A-list stars. All three strayed from the Bollywood formulas and laid the foundation for the company's subsequent hits, including "Rang de Basanti"—a realistic film about Delhi youth.
UTV wasn't the first to make innovative movies; director-producer Ram Gopal Varma preceded Screwvala on this count. And Yash Raj Films, the perennial box- office leader, was quick to adopt many of UTV's Hollywood-studio-style practices. But Yash Raj was slow to see the potential of genre-breaking films, making its first such attempt this year with "Chak De," a movie about women's field hockey. This delay let Screwvala harness new-style films to new corporate structures more quickly than his rivals.
Hollywood is impressed. James Lassiter, Will Smith's partner in Overbrook Entertainment, says he and Smith were blown away last year when they met Screwvala in India. "We connected with Ronnie," Lassiter says. "He's more ambitious [than other Bollywood players], the way we're more ambitious [than Hollywood] ... He's smart, he has excellent taste, he has a global perspective and I think ultimately he'll be a big winner in worldwide cinema."
At home, Screwvala has already come a long way. He has crept steadily up the charts to become the second biggest box-office success in Indian film after Yash Raj, which still focuses on romances and big-budget song-and-dance extravaganzas. And Screwvala now takes in more than any of the other big producers from India's film families, many of whom are now scrambling to adopt his basic business model. Where there were once scores of director-producers who made one or two films a year, operating by the seat of their pants, now many of the best directors have been absorbed by the three major studios, which produce eight to 10 films a year. Thanks to the recent IPOs and other deals, three more studios—each with serious financial muscle—will produce their own slates next year.
The next challenge for Bollywood is to branch out into the broader media and entertainment business, which is expected to grow in India from about $11 billion to $25 billion by 2011. Screwvala is building UTV into what he calls a 360-degree media and entertainment company. He already has ventures in animation, gaming and TV content production, and he has eight to 10 TV channels in the works. UTV's animation division is producing four features for the world market this year, including one starring Will Smith and another directed by Simi Nallaseth, one of the animators of "Ice Age." Earlier this year, UTV acquired a British videogame company called Ignition Entertainment Ltd. Ignition is set to release Wardevil, a high-end game for the Sony's PS3, in 2008 and hopes to turn it into the linchpin of a multimedia franchise. UTV is also partnering with Richard Branson's Virgin Comics on a line of superheroes based on Indian mythology.
UTV can expect plenty of competition, with many big Indian media players now seeking out foreign partners and new markets. With Viacom's backing and marketing muscle, Network 18 is also building a media and entertainment empire. Apart from its fast-growing film operation, it is already one of the biggest players in Internet content and TV broadcasting, where it has teamed up with NBC Universal and Time Warner as well as Viacom. With its dominance in TV news, it could soon play News Corp. to UTV's Warner Bros. Deep-pocketed Reliance ADAG, one of India's biggest conglomerates, is going into satellite broadcasting, launching 45 radio stations, and recently established a second film production company, Big Motion Pictures, to complement its majority stake in Adlabs.
It's difficult to predict where the deal making will end. Hollywood, which has been going global for the past several decades, now earns more than 60 percent of its revenue abroad. While it's tough to imagine Indian films ever developing as broad a global market, the PricewaterhouseCoopers projections show the ticket sales for Indian productions rising fastest outside India, even as its increasingly wealthy middle class heads to the box office at home for more unconventional fare. Meanwhile, Bollywood seems set to continue its development as a financier and marketer of global products—whether created at home or abroad. As the muscle of the new media titans like Screwvala increases, it won't be long before they truly become household names—in India and beyond.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20546429/site/newsweek/
Monday, August 13, 2007
do-it-yourself education
By Jason Overdorf
Newsweek International
Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - In India, education is supposed to be free and universal through age 14. In fact, it often doesn't work out that way. Consider Dhiraj Sharma, the 10-year-old son of a bicycle rickshaw driver in Dehli, who was forced to stay home last year after the local state denied him admission because he didn't have the right papers—a common problem. So Dhiraj is now applying to a private school. For just $6 a month, the R.S. School offers a much better education than the state, says Dhiraj's father, Ramesh, complaining that his son "finished class three in government school, and he can't read anything!"
Such problems have sparked a boom in private schooling throughout the developing world. In 2000, James Tooley, an administrator for Orient Global, a Singapore company that invests in education for the poor, went walking in Hyderabad, India, and was startled to find private schools on virtually every corner. He launched a full-scale study in India, China and Africa, and everywhere, officials and aid agencies told him such schools for the poor didn't exist. But when his researchers explored the villages and slums, they found that not only did they exist, they were flourishing. "It's a tremendous success story," says Tooley. "Entrepreneurs are catering to poor, low-income families, and they're achieving better than the government at a fraction of the cost."
The story was perhaps most dramatic in China. Tooley and his chief researcher, Qiang Liu, traveled to the poorest, most remote villages of Gansu province. Officials there insisted there were no private schools. And so it seemed, until Qiang woke up one morning at dawn and canvassed the vegetable market. Sure enough, women who'd traveled there from the neighboring countryside told him about private schools farther up in the mountains. "In the end, our survey found 586 of them in these remote villages, where the government and [aid workers] said there were none."
Elsewhere the private schools were easier to spot and even more numerous. In Delhi, hand-painted signs advertise low-cost private schools at every twist of the narrow lanes. In Hyderabad, 60 percent of the schools serving poor neighborhoods are private. None of them get state aid, and two thirds are not recognized by the government at all—meaning they are essentially black market. In the hinterlands of Accra, Ghana, Tooley's team found the same phenomenon: 65 percent of kids there attended private, unaided schools. In Lagos, in three different slums, the figure jumped to 75 percent.
The numbers suggest that despite the low prices (as little as $1.50 a month), parents believe such schools do a better job than the government. And they're generally right. Harvard's Michael Kremer found that though private-school salaries were lower in India than in public schools, teachers at the former skipped fewer classes (absenteeism is a notorious problem in India's state-run schools). Similarly, a 1999 survey conducted by Delhi University's Centre for Development Economics found that while teachers in state schools spent their time sitting idle, the makeshift private schools enjoyed "feverish classroom activity."
Harder-working teachers, of course, get better results—even when they lack qualifications. Kremer's 2002 study of Colombia's PACES program, one of the largest school-voucher projects ever implemented, found that three years after switching to relatively low-cost private schools, students had accomplished more, repeated fewer grades and scored higher on tests, and were less likely to have dropped out to take jobs, than were their counterparts still stuck in the government system. Other studies have reported similar results in Thailand, Tanzania, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines and elsewhere.
Indeed, it's remarkable how many cheap private schools manage to do more with less. In Uttar Pradesh, one of the poorer Indian states, for instance, Oxford University's Geeta Kingdon has found that private, unaided schools are about twice as cost-effective as government schools, achieving better results in math and comparable results in reading at half the cost. The explanation lies in basic market forces. Competition forces these schools to work effectively. It also produces greater accountability.
In India, teachers' unions are so powerful that educators are almost never fired or transferred for transgressions. And parents are powerless. "At government schools, parents won't even be allowed into the compound, let alone to meet a teacher, but in private schools, in most cases, they have parent-teacher associations," says Parth Shah, president of New Delhi's Center for Civil Society and coordinator of India's School Choice Campaign—a program that promotes vouchers to allow poor kids to attend private school. "Parents feel they have a right to ask a question of a private school."
This higher standard is on view at Priya Adarsh School, another low-cost private operator in northeast Delhi. Here the principal—keen on keeping customers—watches his teachers on a closed-circuit television while he pecks away at a spreadsheet on his desktop PC. The standards aren't perfect, of course; when NEWSWEEK visited, the camera caught one teacher whacking a pupil with a ruler. But at least every teacher was in his or her classroom teaching, and every student was sitting at a desk and paying attention.
Skeptics decry this "at least they're trying" argument. In many regards the cheap private schools are substandard—with poor infrastructure, high teacher-student ratios and poorly qualified instructors—even if they are better than state schools. R. Govinda, head of the department of schools and nonformal education at New Delhi's National University of Educational Planning and Administration, says embracing cheap private schools is defeatist. "I'm not ready to settle for a substandard alternative," he says. "Comparing them is like comparing two people who are drowning. One is drowning in 20 feet of water, the other is drowning in 30 feet of water. Does it make a difference?"
Other opponents, both in India and elsewhere, argue that ceding the educational field to private players will put an end to any hope of an equal education for all. A study based on a survey of parent satisfaction published earlier this year by researchers at Columbia University found that relying on private markets can undermine educational equity and universal access. Furthermore, it argues, private schools strive for superior quality only where they compete with government schools; otherwise they offer "lower-quality, second-chance" educations to children without any other option. "There is no reason to assume that private markets will necessarily improve the quality of education," the study concludes.
School-choice advocates respond that it is a fantasy to suggest public education is providing a quality education to all. "You can't compare the reality of private education with some myth of what public education has been like," says Tooley. At least cheap private schools are responsive to parents, and the more parents who choose this route, the better private schools will get, thanks to increased capital, higher demand, more competition and economies of scale. "These are [now] small cottage industries," says Tooley. "They're mom-and-pop stores. There are thousands and thousands of them. Some of them are beginning to consolidate, and you're getting small, embryonic chains."
That's where he's looking to invest much of the $100 million education fund he manages for Orient Global. Already the fund has given grants to six private-school associations or institutions in Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Nepal, and Tooley's team is conducting research in India ahead of opening a chain of budget private schools for the poor there that would set new benchmarks in quality. "It's an inadequate analogy," says Tooley. "But when I go shopping in a supermarket, I go to one of several chains, and poor people also go shopping there. Poorer people. They have the same diversity of choice and the same quality. The chain doesn't discriminate between us. Also, some of them have food stamps or social-security payments, which are like school vouchers. So when you have competing chains of schools, when the market system develops, that inequality will become less relevant." In the meantime, as the slums of Delhi, Lagos and Accra show, black-market schools will continue to thrive, ensuring that, even in places where government has failed them, poor kids can get an adequate education—on the books or off.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20226757/site/newsweek/
Newsweek International
Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - In India, education is supposed to be free and universal through age 14. In fact, it often doesn't work out that way. Consider Dhiraj Sharma, the 10-year-old son of a bicycle rickshaw driver in Dehli, who was forced to stay home last year after the local state denied him admission because he didn't have the right papers—a common problem. So Dhiraj is now applying to a private school. For just $6 a month, the R.S. School offers a much better education than the state, says Dhiraj's father, Ramesh, complaining that his son "finished class three in government school, and he can't read anything!"
Such problems have sparked a boom in private schooling throughout the developing world. In 2000, James Tooley, an administrator for Orient Global, a Singapore company that invests in education for the poor, went walking in Hyderabad, India, and was startled to find private schools on virtually every corner. He launched a full-scale study in India, China and Africa, and everywhere, officials and aid agencies told him such schools for the poor didn't exist. But when his researchers explored the villages and slums, they found that not only did they exist, they were flourishing. "It's a tremendous success story," says Tooley. "Entrepreneurs are catering to poor, low-income families, and they're achieving better than the government at a fraction of the cost."
The story was perhaps most dramatic in China. Tooley and his chief researcher, Qiang Liu, traveled to the poorest, most remote villages of Gansu province. Officials there insisted there were no private schools. And so it seemed, until Qiang woke up one morning at dawn and canvassed the vegetable market. Sure enough, women who'd traveled there from the neighboring countryside told him about private schools farther up in the mountains. "In the end, our survey found 586 of them in these remote villages, where the government and [aid workers] said there were none."
Elsewhere the private schools were easier to spot and even more numerous. In Delhi, hand-painted signs advertise low-cost private schools at every twist of the narrow lanes. In Hyderabad, 60 percent of the schools serving poor neighborhoods are private. None of them get state aid, and two thirds are not recognized by the government at all—meaning they are essentially black market. In the hinterlands of Accra, Ghana, Tooley's team found the same phenomenon: 65 percent of kids there attended private, unaided schools. In Lagos, in three different slums, the figure jumped to 75 percent.
The numbers suggest that despite the low prices (as little as $1.50 a month), parents believe such schools do a better job than the government. And they're generally right. Harvard's Michael Kremer found that though private-school salaries were lower in India than in public schools, teachers at the former skipped fewer classes (absenteeism is a notorious problem in India's state-run schools). Similarly, a 1999 survey conducted by Delhi University's Centre for Development Economics found that while teachers in state schools spent their time sitting idle, the makeshift private schools enjoyed "feverish classroom activity."
Harder-working teachers, of course, get better results—even when they lack qualifications. Kremer's 2002 study of Colombia's PACES program, one of the largest school-voucher projects ever implemented, found that three years after switching to relatively low-cost private schools, students had accomplished more, repeated fewer grades and scored higher on tests, and were less likely to have dropped out to take jobs, than were their counterparts still stuck in the government system. Other studies have reported similar results in Thailand, Tanzania, the Dominican Republic, the Philippines and elsewhere.
Indeed, it's remarkable how many cheap private schools manage to do more with less. In Uttar Pradesh, one of the poorer Indian states, for instance, Oxford University's Geeta Kingdon has found that private, unaided schools are about twice as cost-effective as government schools, achieving better results in math and comparable results in reading at half the cost. The explanation lies in basic market forces. Competition forces these schools to work effectively. It also produces greater accountability.
In India, teachers' unions are so powerful that educators are almost never fired or transferred for transgressions. And parents are powerless. "At government schools, parents won't even be allowed into the compound, let alone to meet a teacher, but in private schools, in most cases, they have parent-teacher associations," says Parth Shah, president of New Delhi's Center for Civil Society and coordinator of India's School Choice Campaign—a program that promotes vouchers to allow poor kids to attend private school. "Parents feel they have a right to ask a question of a private school."
This higher standard is on view at Priya Adarsh School, another low-cost private operator in northeast Delhi. Here the principal—keen on keeping customers—watches his teachers on a closed-circuit television while he pecks away at a spreadsheet on his desktop PC. The standards aren't perfect, of course; when NEWSWEEK visited, the camera caught one teacher whacking a pupil with a ruler. But at least every teacher was in his or her classroom teaching, and every student was sitting at a desk and paying attention.
Skeptics decry this "at least they're trying" argument. In many regards the cheap private schools are substandard—with poor infrastructure, high teacher-student ratios and poorly qualified instructors—even if they are better than state schools. R. Govinda, head of the department of schools and nonformal education at New Delhi's National University of Educational Planning and Administration, says embracing cheap private schools is defeatist. "I'm not ready to settle for a substandard alternative," he says. "Comparing them is like comparing two people who are drowning. One is drowning in 20 feet of water, the other is drowning in 30 feet of water. Does it make a difference?"
Other opponents, both in India and elsewhere, argue that ceding the educational field to private players will put an end to any hope of an equal education for all. A study based on a survey of parent satisfaction published earlier this year by researchers at Columbia University found that relying on private markets can undermine educational equity and universal access. Furthermore, it argues, private schools strive for superior quality only where they compete with government schools; otherwise they offer "lower-quality, second-chance" educations to children without any other option. "There is no reason to assume that private markets will necessarily improve the quality of education," the study concludes.
School-choice advocates respond that it is a fantasy to suggest public education is providing a quality education to all. "You can't compare the reality of private education with some myth of what public education has been like," says Tooley. At least cheap private schools are responsive to parents, and the more parents who choose this route, the better private schools will get, thanks to increased capital, higher demand, more competition and economies of scale. "These are [now] small cottage industries," says Tooley. "They're mom-and-pop stores. There are thousands and thousands of them. Some of them are beginning to consolidate, and you're getting small, embryonic chains."
That's where he's looking to invest much of the $100 million education fund he manages for Orient Global. Already the fund has given grants to six private-school associations or institutions in Kenya, Nigeria, Zimbabwe and Nepal, and Tooley's team is conducting research in India ahead of opening a chain of budget private schools for the poor there that would set new benchmarks in quality. "It's an inadequate analogy," says Tooley. "But when I go shopping in a supermarket, I go to one of several chains, and poor people also go shopping there. Poorer people. They have the same diversity of choice and the same quality. The chain doesn't discriminate between us. Also, some of them have food stamps or social-security payments, which are like school vouchers. So when you have competing chains of schools, when the market system develops, that inequality will become less relevant." In the meantime, as the slums of Delhi, Lagos and Accra show, black-market schools will continue to thrive, ensuring that, even in places where government has failed them, poor kids can get an adequate education—on the books or off.
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/20226757/site/newsweek/
Monday, July 16, 2007
doctor of death
A busted terror plot in Britain puts the spotlight on radicalized Muslim professionals
July 16, 2007 issue - What could possibly have inspired Bilal Abdullah, a medical doctor, to ride a blazing Jeep Cherokee into the busy Glasgow airport terminal? Last week Shiraz Maher, a former member of an Islamic fundamentalist group that had tried to recruit Abdullah, told the British media this story:
In the ancient university town of Cambridge, Abdullah shared an apartment with a man who played the guitar, apparently not well, and sang off key. Abdullah later "boasted," Maher recalled, that he had warned his flatmate that if he kept on playing and singing, "I'm going to smash the guitar." To make his point a little more emphatically, Abdullah popped a video into the DVD player. It showed Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the vicious chief of Al Qaeda in Iraq (killed by an American airstrike last summer), beheading a hostage. "If you think I'm messing about, this is what we do," Abdullah warned his roommate. "This is what our people do. We slaughter." (Maher says that Abdullah thought the threat was funny.)
Last week every intelligence service engaged in the War on Terror wanted to know: was Abdullah inspired by the example of Al Qaeda in Iraq to try to set off a pair of car bombs in London and then immolate himself on a suicide mission in Scotland? Or was he actually carrying out a mission planned by Al Qaeda in Iraq? The answer is not known, at least publicly. Counterterrorism officials who asked for anonymity discussing sensitive matters told NEWSWEEK that there is some evidence of links between Abdullah (or alleged co-conspirators) and Al Qaeda in Iraq. But they could not be sure if the ties were coincidental and possibly irrelevant—or part of a larger plot. The ineptitude of Abdullah and another would-be suicide bomber, who tried to set himself on fire after the car failed to explode, suggests an amateurish operation. Abdullah and the other man survived, and their car bombs in London turned out to be duds.
Still, intelligence officials were asking themselves if the aborted bomb plot was a fire bell in the night. Last week President George W. Bush was once again warning that if America failed to defeat terrorists in Iraq, "they will follow us home." The president's many critics learned about Abdullah's story—how he had been radicalized in Iraq after the March 2003 invasion—and saw the fulfillment of their fears, that the war in Iraq would serve only to breed terrorists, who would, in time, strike out against the West.
The story line was made more chilling by early reports that police had rounded up eight suspects in Britain and Australia—seven of them physicians and one a medical technician. How could doctors, sworn to save lives, be so zealous about killing? Abdullah, of course, is hardly the first M.D. with mass murder on his mind. Haiti's butchering Papa Doc Duvalier was a doctor. So is Osama bin Laden's sidekick, Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Indeed, the most dangerous extremists are not embittered young men without jobs or hope. They are the elites, or, more typically, the sons of the elite, who are working out some grievance or vengeance and have the know-how and means to find truly dangerous weapons. Evidence collected from the caves of Afghanistan suggested that Zawahiri had a special interest in chemical and biological weapons. More readily than most people, doctors can lay their hands on the ingredients for gas or germ warfare. Some also have access to the sort of radioactive material that could be used to fashion a dirty bomb.
It is possible that the bomb plots will turn out to be the work of a sinister "doctors' cell" embedded by Al Qaeda to cause mayhem in Britain. It is also possible that the medical personnel rounded up by the authorities were friends or colleagues of the would-be suicide bombers, but not involved in a conspiracy. At least three of them are thought to be related by blood—brothers Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed, and Mohamed Haneef, the doctor detained in Australia.
Kafeel seems to have been the other man in the Jeep Cherokee. Jumping out of the car as it crashed into the airport terminal, he poured some sort of flammable liquid over his head and lit himself on fire. Badly burned, he has yet to be questioned, according to investigators. Going to Britain from India, Ahmed is an engineer, not a doctor as initially reported. There is some suspicion that he was the bombmaker, working out of a garage in Scotland. If so, he does not appear to have been a very clever one. Instructions on making a car bomb are not hard to find on the Internet. But the two Mercedeses found in Central London packed with propane cylinders and nails were crude and possibly ineffectual. A government expert following the investigation pointed out to NEWSWEEK that propane cylinders require prolonged exposure to heat before they will explode, and the resulting blast would not have been powerful enough to shatter the vehicle into metal shards.
Ahmed and Abdullah may have been bunglers, but their story is still ominous. Scion of a prominent Iraqi family, Abdullah, 27, was born in England, where his father had come to study medicine. The family returned to Baghdad, where they reportedly enjoyed the privileges of a Sunni family with good connections to Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime. Quiet and studious, Abdullah was always devout. A high-school classmate and friend, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation, recalled seeing Abdullah become worked up when classmates said "Merry Christmas" to each other. "This is not for us Muslims, it's only for Christians," Abdullah shouted. He was radicalized, says this friend, on a trip to Jordan in 2000. "When he came back he was completely changed," says the friend.
A British relative told The Washington Post that Abdullah showed his zeal, preaching in the place of an absent mullah at a mosque in Cambridge, where he lived for a time while he episodically pursued his medical studies in Britain. Abdullah's father, a prominent doctor, had wanted his son to study medicine. "His heart was not in it," the Post quoted the relative as saying. "To be honest, he passed because his father was a well-known professor, and that's the way it worked in Iraq." The troubled young Abdullah would have preferred being a mullah, said the relative. "I saw him praying one time and he had tears in his eyes."
Abdullah was in Baghdad when the Americans invaded and deposed Saddam—a disaster for Abdullah's prominent Sunni family. As sectarian violence spread, Mohammed Rawi, the president of Baghdad University and the former dean of the College of Medicine, was found shot in his office. Rawi was a Baathist who allegedly had provided medical care for Saddam. Not long after the killing, Rawi was replaced by a Shiite. This infuriated Abdullah, according to his high-school friend. At the time, Abdullah told his classmates, "A Sunni dean was killed and a Shiite dean must be killed." Abdullah also began speaking out bitterly against the American occupiers.
Abdullah returned to England in 2004. Living over a kebab restaurant in Cambridge, he tutored the owner's children in religion, chemistry and biology. He also intensely followed the news in Iraq by Internet. The relative interviewed by The Washington Post said that he did not know what or who might have influenced Abdullah, but as for Al Qaeda, "he liked what they were doing in Iraq." At some point, he became friends and possibly roommates with Kafeel Ahmed. A devout Muslim from India, Ahmed had fought with the leaders of the mosque near his home in Bangalore over his attempts to get its followers to adopt more-conservative practices. (Angry local toughs reportedly threatened to break his arms and legs.) Some investigators say that Ahmed left behind a last will and testament before the two men set off on their failed suicide mission.
Of their mutual friends and acquaintances swept up by police after the bombing attempt, the most intriguing may be Mohammed Asha, arrested, along with his wife, Marwa, as they drove up the motorway between England and Scotland. The child of educated, middle-class parents, Asha graduated from the Jubilee School in Amman, Jordan (set up by Queen Noor for gifted children), with the third highest academic ranking in the country. His grades in medical school were a perfect 4.0. "About once in 10 years a student comes along that good," says Zuhair Abu Faris, head of the Jordan Medical Association.
In 2005 he went to Britain to work as a neurologist and continue his studies. Last week his family denied that Asha could have possibly been a terrorist plotter. "He was no more religious than normal," his father, Jamil, told NEWSWEEK. "It's impossible for my son to do this; he has no time but to study. I know my son and he is not into these things." But family members seemed to struggle to gloss over some sort of change in Asha and his wife when they returned to Jordan on a visit in 2006. Asha was sporting a long, Islamist-style beard. Asha's father put the physical change down to his son's admiration for a mentor who was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
It may or may not be significant that Asha made at least preliminary inquiries about coming to practice medicine in the United States. Asha, as well as another doctor held for questioning last week in the bombing attempt, contacted a U.S. organization that licenses foreign doctors. But according to an FBI official speaking anonymously about the ongoing investigation, no evidence has turned up that any of the British suspects ever traveled to the United States or had any significant connections inside the country. Generally speaking, U.S. counterterror officials contacted last week by NEWSWEEK were not flashing red alerts about the prospects of an imminent terrorist attack on the homeland.
In Europe, there is more jitteriness in the intelligence community. In April, the London Sunday Times published a hair-raising leak of a secret British intelligence document prepared by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Center. The newspaper reported that Al Qaeda in Iraq was planning "large scale" terror attacks against Britain and other Western countries. It quoted a member of the network vowing that the operation would be on a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and would "shake the Roman throne." Concerns heightened last month when a video surfaced, purporting to show a "graduation ceremony" at which a senior Taliban commander was depicted sending off squads of masked men to be suicide bombers in Germany, Britain, Canada and the United States.
Most intelligence officials dismissed the tape as fanciful propaganda, but some acknowledged it could contain an element of reality. German authorities are particularly on edge. Last month two German citizens were arrested by Pakistan as they made their way over the border from Iran, apparently headed for Afghanistan. Some German investigators believe the two suspects (still believed to be in Pakistani custody) were on their way to be trained for attacks on the West. A senior Interior Ministry official, August Hanning, told a press conference that the current situation recalled the summer of 2001, when, as he put it, "obscure threats surfaced, which, as we know, became reality."
With Stryker Mcguire, Ginanne Brownell, Emily Flynn Vencat in London, William Underhill in Glasgow, Silvia Spring in Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Babak Dehghanpisheh in Baghdad, Sudip Mazumdar in New Delhi, Christopher Dickey in Paris, Jason Overdorf in Bangalore, Rod Nordland and Ranya Kadri in Amman and additional reporting from our Iraqi staff
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19651928/site/newsweek/page/0/
July 16, 2007 issue - What could possibly have inspired Bilal Abdullah, a medical doctor, to ride a blazing Jeep Cherokee into the busy Glasgow airport terminal? Last week Shiraz Maher, a former member of an Islamic fundamentalist group that had tried to recruit Abdullah, told the British media this story:
In the ancient university town of Cambridge, Abdullah shared an apartment with a man who played the guitar, apparently not well, and sang off key. Abdullah later "boasted," Maher recalled, that he had warned his flatmate that if he kept on playing and singing, "I'm going to smash the guitar." To make his point a little more emphatically, Abdullah popped a video into the DVD player. It showed Abu Mussab al-Zarqawi, the vicious chief of Al Qaeda in Iraq (killed by an American airstrike last summer), beheading a hostage. "If you think I'm messing about, this is what we do," Abdullah warned his roommate. "This is what our people do. We slaughter." (Maher says that Abdullah thought the threat was funny.)
Last week every intelligence service engaged in the War on Terror wanted to know: was Abdullah inspired by the example of Al Qaeda in Iraq to try to set off a pair of car bombs in London and then immolate himself on a suicide mission in Scotland? Or was he actually carrying out a mission planned by Al Qaeda in Iraq? The answer is not known, at least publicly. Counterterrorism officials who asked for anonymity discussing sensitive matters told NEWSWEEK that there is some evidence of links between Abdullah (or alleged co-conspirators) and Al Qaeda in Iraq. But they could not be sure if the ties were coincidental and possibly irrelevant—or part of a larger plot. The ineptitude of Abdullah and another would-be suicide bomber, who tried to set himself on fire after the car failed to explode, suggests an amateurish operation. Abdullah and the other man survived, and their car bombs in London turned out to be duds.
Still, intelligence officials were asking themselves if the aborted bomb plot was a fire bell in the night. Last week President George W. Bush was once again warning that if America failed to defeat terrorists in Iraq, "they will follow us home." The president's many critics learned about Abdullah's story—how he had been radicalized in Iraq after the March 2003 invasion—and saw the fulfillment of their fears, that the war in Iraq would serve only to breed terrorists, who would, in time, strike out against the West.
The story line was made more chilling by early reports that police had rounded up eight suspects in Britain and Australia—seven of them physicians and one a medical technician. How could doctors, sworn to save lives, be so zealous about killing? Abdullah, of course, is hardly the first M.D. with mass murder on his mind. Haiti's butchering Papa Doc Duvalier was a doctor. So is Osama bin Laden's sidekick, Ayman Al-Zawahiri. Indeed, the most dangerous extremists are not embittered young men without jobs or hope. They are the elites, or, more typically, the sons of the elite, who are working out some grievance or vengeance and have the know-how and means to find truly dangerous weapons. Evidence collected from the caves of Afghanistan suggested that Zawahiri had a special interest in chemical and biological weapons. More readily than most people, doctors can lay their hands on the ingredients for gas or germ warfare. Some also have access to the sort of radioactive material that could be used to fashion a dirty bomb.
It is possible that the bomb plots will turn out to be the work of a sinister "doctors' cell" embedded by Al Qaeda to cause mayhem in Britain. It is also possible that the medical personnel rounded up by the authorities were friends or colleagues of the would-be suicide bombers, but not involved in a conspiracy. At least three of them are thought to be related by blood—brothers Kafeel and Sabeel Ahmed, and Mohamed Haneef, the doctor detained in Australia.
Kafeel seems to have been the other man in the Jeep Cherokee. Jumping out of the car as it crashed into the airport terminal, he poured some sort of flammable liquid over his head and lit himself on fire. Badly burned, he has yet to be questioned, according to investigators. Going to Britain from India, Ahmed is an engineer, not a doctor as initially reported. There is some suspicion that he was the bombmaker, working out of a garage in Scotland. If so, he does not appear to have been a very clever one. Instructions on making a car bomb are not hard to find on the Internet. But the two Mercedeses found in Central London packed with propane cylinders and nails were crude and possibly ineffectual. A government expert following the investigation pointed out to NEWSWEEK that propane cylinders require prolonged exposure to heat before they will explode, and the resulting blast would not have been powerful enough to shatter the vehicle into metal shards.
Ahmed and Abdullah may have been bunglers, but their story is still ominous. Scion of a prominent Iraqi family, Abdullah, 27, was born in England, where his father had come to study medicine. The family returned to Baghdad, where they reportedly enjoyed the privileges of a Sunni family with good connections to Saddam Hussein's Baathist regime. Quiet and studious, Abdullah was always devout. A high-school classmate and friend, who asked not to be identified because of the sensitivity of the ongoing investigation, recalled seeing Abdullah become worked up when classmates said "Merry Christmas" to each other. "This is not for us Muslims, it's only for Christians," Abdullah shouted. He was radicalized, says this friend, on a trip to Jordan in 2000. "When he came back he was completely changed," says the friend.
A British relative told The Washington Post that Abdullah showed his zeal, preaching in the place of an absent mullah at a mosque in Cambridge, where he lived for a time while he episodically pursued his medical studies in Britain. Abdullah's father, a prominent doctor, had wanted his son to study medicine. "His heart was not in it," the Post quoted the relative as saying. "To be honest, he passed because his father was a well-known professor, and that's the way it worked in Iraq." The troubled young Abdullah would have preferred being a mullah, said the relative. "I saw him praying one time and he had tears in his eyes."
Abdullah was in Baghdad when the Americans invaded and deposed Saddam—a disaster for Abdullah's prominent Sunni family. As sectarian violence spread, Mohammed Rawi, the president of Baghdad University and the former dean of the College of Medicine, was found shot in his office. Rawi was a Baathist who allegedly had provided medical care for Saddam. Not long after the killing, Rawi was replaced by a Shiite. This infuriated Abdullah, according to his high-school friend. At the time, Abdullah told his classmates, "A Sunni dean was killed and a Shiite dean must be killed." Abdullah also began speaking out bitterly against the American occupiers.
Abdullah returned to England in 2004. Living over a kebab restaurant in Cambridge, he tutored the owner's children in religion, chemistry and biology. He also intensely followed the news in Iraq by Internet. The relative interviewed by The Washington Post said that he did not know what or who might have influenced Abdullah, but as for Al Qaeda, "he liked what they were doing in Iraq." At some point, he became friends and possibly roommates with Kafeel Ahmed. A devout Muslim from India, Ahmed had fought with the leaders of the mosque near his home in Bangalore over his attempts to get its followers to adopt more-conservative practices. (Angry local toughs reportedly threatened to break his arms and legs.) Some investigators say that Ahmed left behind a last will and testament before the two men set off on their failed suicide mission.
Of their mutual friends and acquaintances swept up by police after the bombing attempt, the most intriguing may be Mohammed Asha, arrested, along with his wife, Marwa, as they drove up the motorway between England and Scotland. The child of educated, middle-class parents, Asha graduated from the Jubilee School in Amman, Jordan (set up by Queen Noor for gifted children), with the third highest academic ranking in the country. His grades in medical school were a perfect 4.0. "About once in 10 years a student comes along that good," says Zuhair Abu Faris, head of the Jordan Medical Association.
In 2005 he went to Britain to work as a neurologist and continue his studies. Last week his family denied that Asha could have possibly been a terrorist plotter. "He was no more religious than normal," his father, Jamil, told NEWSWEEK. "It's impossible for my son to do this; he has no time but to study. I know my son and he is not into these things." But family members seemed to struggle to gloss over some sort of change in Asha and his wife when they returned to Jordan on a visit in 2006. Asha was sporting a long, Islamist-style beard. Asha's father put the physical change down to his son's admiration for a mentor who was a member of the Muslim Brotherhood.
It may or may not be significant that Asha made at least preliminary inquiries about coming to practice medicine in the United States. Asha, as well as another doctor held for questioning last week in the bombing attempt, contacted a U.S. organization that licenses foreign doctors. But according to an FBI official speaking anonymously about the ongoing investigation, no evidence has turned up that any of the British suspects ever traveled to the United States or had any significant connections inside the country. Generally speaking, U.S. counterterror officials contacted last week by NEWSWEEK were not flashing red alerts about the prospects of an imminent terrorist attack on the homeland.
In Europe, there is more jitteriness in the intelligence community. In April, the London Sunday Times published a hair-raising leak of a secret British intelligence document prepared by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Center. The newspaper reported that Al Qaeda in Iraq was planning "large scale" terror attacks against Britain and other Western countries. It quoted a member of the network vowing that the operation would be on a par with Hiroshima and Nagasaki, and would "shake the Roman throne." Concerns heightened last month when a video surfaced, purporting to show a "graduation ceremony" at which a senior Taliban commander was depicted sending off squads of masked men to be suicide bombers in Germany, Britain, Canada and the United States.
Most intelligence officials dismissed the tape as fanciful propaganda, but some acknowledged it could contain an element of reality. German authorities are particularly on edge. Last month two German citizens were arrested by Pakistan as they made their way over the border from Iran, apparently headed for Afghanistan. Some German investigators believe the two suspects (still believed to be in Pakistani custody) were on their way to be trained for attacks on the West. A senior Interior Ministry official, August Hanning, told a press conference that the current situation recalled the summer of 2001, when, as he put it, "obscure threats surfaced, which, as we know, became reality."
With Stryker Mcguire, Ginanne Brownell, Emily Flynn Vencat in London, William Underhill in Glasgow, Silvia Spring in Newcastle-Under-Lyme, Babak Dehghanpisheh in Baghdad, Sudip Mazumdar in New Delhi, Christopher Dickey in Paris, Jason Overdorf in Bangalore, Rod Nordland and Ranya Kadri in Amman and additional reporting from our Iraqi staff
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/19651928/site/newsweek/page/0/
Sunday, June 10, 2007
4 hours in Chennai....
Newsweek International
June 18, 2007 Issue - Once known as Madras, India's fourth largest city is known as the unofficial capital of the jasmine-and-sandalwood-scented south.
VISIT the ancient Kapa-leeswarar temple, devoted to the Hindu god Shiva (Kutchery Road, Mylapore; 4 a.m.-noon and 4-8 p.m.).
EAT tiffin, the all-purpose south Indian meal of idlis (fluffy steamed rice cakes), dosas (slightly sour pancakes made from fermented rice and lentil flour) and vadas (tiny, spicy doughnuts) at Saravana Bhavan (77 Usman Road, T. Nagar; saravanabhavan.com).
STROLL through the botanical gardens of the Theosophical Society, which include a 400-year-old banyan tree once thought to be the largest in the world (Adyar Bridge Road; 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 2-4 p.m., Monday-Saturday).
SHOP for silk saris at Sri Kumaran Stores (45 Usman Road, T. Nagar; srikumaransilk.com) or Nalli (100 Usman Road, T. Nagar; nallisilk.com).
—Jason Overdorf
June 18, 2007 Issue - Once known as Madras, India's fourth largest city is known as the unofficial capital of the jasmine-and-sandalwood-scented south.
VISIT the ancient Kapa-leeswarar temple, devoted to the Hindu god Shiva (Kutchery Road, Mylapore; 4 a.m.-noon and 4-8 p.m.).
EAT tiffin, the all-purpose south Indian meal of idlis (fluffy steamed rice cakes), dosas (slightly sour pancakes made from fermented rice and lentil flour) and vadas (tiny, spicy doughnuts) at Saravana Bhavan (77 Usman Road, T. Nagar; saravanabhavan.com).
STROLL through the botanical gardens of the Theosophical Society, which include a 400-year-old banyan tree once thought to be the largest in the world (Adyar Bridge Road; 9:30 a.m.-12:30 p.m. and 2-4 p.m., Monday-Saturday).
SHOP for silk saris at Sri Kumaran Stores (45 Usman Road, T. Nagar; srikumaransilk.com) or Nalli (100 Usman Road, T. Nagar; nallisilk.com).
—Jason Overdorf
jason overdorf's favorite restaurants in chennai
Newsweek Web Exclusive
Sarvana Bhavan (77 Usman Road T. Nagar, Phone 2434-5577). Locals swear by this no-nonsense, diner-style restaurant, which offers the full list of vegetarian Tamil staples and has opened branches as far away as California. Traditional South Indian grub comes in two basic categories in Chennai, “tiffin” and “meals,” and Sarvana Bhavan offers both. For tiffin, try a combo of idli, dosa and vada, all of which come with a spicy tamarind-lentil curry called sambar and coconut, tomato and mint chutneys. Idlis are fluffy steamed rice cakes, dosas are slightly sour pancakes made from a fermented mixture of rice and lentil flour, and vadas are tiny, spicy doughnuts. For “meals” (i.e., curry and rice), your best bet is the thali or “dish.” It comes with four different vegetables, sambar, rasam, rice and puffed fried bread called puri. For full style points, eat with your fingers—right hand only!—from a banana-leaf plate.
Anjappar (#7/2, J.P. Towers, Nungambakkam High Road, Phone : 825 6662, 8217200). Founded as the Anjappar Chettinadu Military Hotel in 1965 (“military” because it serves the meat soldiers crave), Anjappar has risen to the top among Chennai’s many restaurants specializing in food from the Chettinad region of southern Tamil Nadu. There’s a veg and nonveg side to the place, but only a Brahmin would eschew the incredible spicy meat gravy and delicacies like “country chicken” (pheasant). Make things easy on yourself and order the all-you-can-eat nonveg “meals” (don’t worry, it arrives in the singular despite being ordered in the plural). If you come in a crowd, order one “meals” each and ask your waiter to recommend some interesting side dishes. He won’t suggest veggies. Not for the chili-impaired.
Kumarakom (AB 105 4th Avenue, Shanti Colony, Anna Nagar; 4261-1877). This restaurant serves food from the neighboring state of Kerala, which you must not leave India without sampling. Your best bet here is to order a la carte. Try the karimeen pollichathu (pearl spot fish that is stuffed with spices and grilled in a banana leaf). This dish is to Kerala what crawfish etoufee is to Louisiana or chili crabs to Singapore. Don’t miss it. Other good bets include the prawn fry (which isn’t what you expect) and beef olarthiyathu (yes, beef!). For veggies, get an order of avial—a melange of root vegetables and green beans cooked in a coconut and green chili paste.
Zara’s (74 Cathedral Road, Mylapore; 2811-1462). Pretty much the only bar worth visiting in Chennai, Zara’s serves Spanish-style tapas with an international twist. Depending on the whims of government, you may or may not be able to order imported booze. But the bartenders can mix a good cocktail even when forced to resort to I.M.F.L. (Indian-made foreign liquor), the crowd is as chic as Chennai gets and noticeably short on red-eyed mustachioed marauders glowering over their whiskeys. And if you go heavy on seafood, the tapas are as good as any you’d find in, say, Cleveland. A few tapas and a couple drinks may run you $25-$40, so carry more cash than you needed at the other joints.
Sarvana Bhavan (77 Usman Road T. Nagar, Phone 2434-5577). Locals swear by this no-nonsense, diner-style restaurant, which offers the full list of vegetarian Tamil staples and has opened branches as far away as California. Traditional South Indian grub comes in two basic categories in Chennai, “tiffin” and “meals,” and Sarvana Bhavan offers both. For tiffin, try a combo of idli, dosa and vada, all of which come with a spicy tamarind-lentil curry called sambar and coconut, tomato and mint chutneys. Idlis are fluffy steamed rice cakes, dosas are slightly sour pancakes made from a fermented mixture of rice and lentil flour, and vadas are tiny, spicy doughnuts. For “meals” (i.e., curry and rice), your best bet is the thali or “dish.” It comes with four different vegetables, sambar, rasam, rice and puffed fried bread called puri. For full style points, eat with your fingers—right hand only!—from a banana-leaf plate.
Anjappar (#7/2, J.P. Towers, Nungambakkam High Road, Phone : 825 6662, 8217200). Founded as the Anjappar Chettinadu Military Hotel in 1965 (“military” because it serves the meat soldiers crave), Anjappar has risen to the top among Chennai’s many restaurants specializing in food from the Chettinad region of southern Tamil Nadu. There’s a veg and nonveg side to the place, but only a Brahmin would eschew the incredible spicy meat gravy and delicacies like “country chicken” (pheasant). Make things easy on yourself and order the all-you-can-eat nonveg “meals” (don’t worry, it arrives in the singular despite being ordered in the plural). If you come in a crowd, order one “meals” each and ask your waiter to recommend some interesting side dishes. He won’t suggest veggies. Not for the chili-impaired.
Kumarakom (AB 105 4th Avenue, Shanti Colony, Anna Nagar; 4261-1877). This restaurant serves food from the neighboring state of Kerala, which you must not leave India without sampling. Your best bet here is to order a la carte. Try the karimeen pollichathu (pearl spot fish that is stuffed with spices and grilled in a banana leaf). This dish is to Kerala what crawfish etoufee is to Louisiana or chili crabs to Singapore. Don’t miss it. Other good bets include the prawn fry (which isn’t what you expect) and beef olarthiyathu (yes, beef!). For veggies, get an order of avial—a melange of root vegetables and green beans cooked in a coconut and green chili paste.
Zara’s (74 Cathedral Road, Mylapore; 2811-1462). Pretty much the only bar worth visiting in Chennai, Zara’s serves Spanish-style tapas with an international twist. Depending on the whims of government, you may or may not be able to order imported booze. But the bartenders can mix a good cocktail even when forced to resort to I.M.F.L. (Indian-made foreign liquor), the crowd is as chic as Chennai gets and noticeably short on red-eyed mustachioed marauders glowering over their whiskeys. And if you go heavy on seafood, the tapas are as good as any you’d find in, say, Cleveland. A few tapas and a couple drinks may run you $25-$40, so carry more cash than you needed at the other joints.
Tuesday, April 03, 2007
killing sparks global chase
Man held in India after flight from U.S.
By MARK HUME and TENILLE BONOGUORE AND JASON OVERDORF
(Toronto Globe and Mail, April 3, 2007)
VANCOUVER, TORONTO, NEW DELHI -- Travelling at about 900 kilometres an hour over the Atlantic, on a Continental Airways Boeing 777, Avtar Grewal may have thought he had left his problems behind.
But in a blood-spattered home on the outskirts of Phoenix, Ariz., police were making links to Mr. Grewal, 32, a logistics manager from Abbotsford, B.C., that would soon trigger an international chase for the alleged killer of Navneet Kaur, his estranged wife.
Phoenix police began their investigation on Friday, just after noon, when an alarmed co-worker of Ms. Kaur's from Assist Technologies, where the 30-year-old ran a product testing team, called to say the young woman had missed work -- and there appeared to be signs of violence at her home.
By 12:30, a police team was in the affluent, newly built neighbourhood in south Phoenix on a routine "check welfare" call, but soon the home where the young woman lived alone was the focus of intense activity.
"It was very quiet. It was a hot afternoon. Police put yellow crime scene tape around the front of the house. Some of her co-workers were standing across the street in kind of the shade of the house, just waiting for detectives to come to interview them. There was a police chaplain who was there who was kind of chatting with them," said Doug Murphy, a reporter with the Ahwatukee Foothills News. Detective Bob Ragsdale said yesterday that investigators found evidence of a violent altercation in the home - and Ms. Kaur's lifeless body.
"It looks like the victim was going to seek a divorce," Det. Ragsdale said in an e-mail. "The husband was seen in Phoenix some time between 22:15 and 22:30 hours . . . outside the residence. Investigators found information from the suspect, inside the victim's residence, related to homicide. There were further indications that the husband was suicidal."
That's when the chase began.
Police soon tracked Mr. Grewal's movements to Sky Harbor International Airport, a 20-minute drive away, north on Maricopa Freeway.
There, investigators found he had taken a one-way flight to Newark, N.J. -- a major transit point in the United States for travellers bound for India.
Deborah McCarley, a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said Phoenix police contacted her office, and soon, international law enforcement connections were being made.
"The Phoenix PD . . . had information that this individual was involved . . . they knew who they wanted, we just tried to figure out . . . if he was on a plane and if he was, where he was going."
By then, Mr. Grewal was aboard a Continental Airways flight bound for Indira Gandhi International Airport, in New Delhi.
Ms. McCarley said the FBI's strategic information and operations centre was called into action and soon Indian police were on the case.
"He was arrested in New Delhi when he came off the plane," said Ms. McCarley. "He didn't give the authorities any problems."
Ms. McCarley said the U.S. government has 60 days to put through paper work requesting extradition.
Meanwhile, Ms. Kaur's family has been struggling to deal with their grief. Sukmindher Singh Cheema, news director at Radio India in Vancouver, said he had spoken with Ms. Kaur's father, Rattan Singh, a former superintendent in the Indian Police Service.
He was told Mr. Grewal and Ms. Kaur had met in California at a family function and then got married in 2005 in India.
"Grewal wanted Navneet to leave her job in Phoenix and stay with him in Canada," Mr. Singh told Delhi reporters. "But Navneet, a qualified software engineer working at a senior level, didn't want to quit. This led to strained relations between the couple."
Ms. Kaur's younger brother, Sandeep Singh, told The Times of India that he spoke to his sister the morning of her death, and there were obvious tensions in the relationship.
"He [Mr. Grewal] put many restrictions on my sister Navneet and used to keep her confined. A few months back, she wanted to attend our cousin's marriage and asked him to accompany her, but he said he would not go and did not let her attend the wedding either," Mr. Singh said.
By MARK HUME and TENILLE BONOGUORE AND JASON OVERDORF
(Toronto Globe and Mail, April 3, 2007)
VANCOUVER, TORONTO, NEW DELHI -- Travelling at about 900 kilometres an hour over the Atlantic, on a Continental Airways Boeing 777, Avtar Grewal may have thought he had left his problems behind.
But in a blood-spattered home on the outskirts of Phoenix, Ariz., police were making links to Mr. Grewal, 32, a logistics manager from Abbotsford, B.C., that would soon trigger an international chase for the alleged killer of Navneet Kaur, his estranged wife.
Phoenix police began their investigation on Friday, just after noon, when an alarmed co-worker of Ms. Kaur's from Assist Technologies, where the 30-year-old ran a product testing team, called to say the young woman had missed work -- and there appeared to be signs of violence at her home.
By 12:30, a police team was in the affluent, newly built neighbourhood in south Phoenix on a routine "check welfare" call, but soon the home where the young woman lived alone was the focus of intense activity.
"It was very quiet. It was a hot afternoon. Police put yellow crime scene tape around the front of the house. Some of her co-workers were standing across the street in kind of the shade of the house, just waiting for detectives to come to interview them. There was a police chaplain who was there who was kind of chatting with them," said Doug Murphy, a reporter with the Ahwatukee Foothills News. Detective Bob Ragsdale said yesterday that investigators found evidence of a violent altercation in the home - and Ms. Kaur's lifeless body.
"It looks like the victim was going to seek a divorce," Det. Ragsdale said in an e-mail. "The husband was seen in Phoenix some time between 22:15 and 22:30 hours . . . outside the residence. Investigators found information from the suspect, inside the victim's residence, related to homicide. There were further indications that the husband was suicidal."
That's when the chase began.
Police soon tracked Mr. Grewal's movements to Sky Harbor International Airport, a 20-minute drive away, north on Maricopa Freeway.
There, investigators found he had taken a one-way flight to Newark, N.J. -- a major transit point in the United States for travellers bound for India.
Deborah McCarley, a special agent with the Federal Bureau of Investigation, said Phoenix police contacted her office, and soon, international law enforcement connections were being made.
"The Phoenix PD . . . had information that this individual was involved . . . they knew who they wanted, we just tried to figure out . . . if he was on a plane and if he was, where he was going."
By then, Mr. Grewal was aboard a Continental Airways flight bound for Indira Gandhi International Airport, in New Delhi.
Ms. McCarley said the FBI's strategic information and operations centre was called into action and soon Indian police were on the case.
"He was arrested in New Delhi when he came off the plane," said Ms. McCarley. "He didn't give the authorities any problems."
Ms. McCarley said the U.S. government has 60 days to put through paper work requesting extradition.
Meanwhile, Ms. Kaur's family has been struggling to deal with their grief. Sukmindher Singh Cheema, news director at Radio India in Vancouver, said he had spoken with Ms. Kaur's father, Rattan Singh, a former superintendent in the Indian Police Service.
He was told Mr. Grewal and Ms. Kaur had met in California at a family function and then got married in 2005 in India.
"Grewal wanted Navneet to leave her job in Phoenix and stay with him in Canada," Mr. Singh told Delhi reporters. "But Navneet, a qualified software engineer working at a senior level, didn't want to quit. This led to strained relations between the couple."
Ms. Kaur's younger brother, Sandeep Singh, told The Times of India that he spoke to his sister the morning of her death, and there were obvious tensions in the relationship.
"He [Mr. Grewal] put many restrictions on my sister Navneet and used to keep her confined. A few months back, she wanted to attend our cousin's marriage and asked him to accompany her, but he said he would not go and did not let her attend the wedding either," Mr. Singh said.
Monday, April 02, 2007
accused killer facing extradition from india
TENILLE BONOGUORE AND JASON OVERDORF
Globe and Mail Update
TORONTO AND DELHI — A Vancouver logistics executive is under arrest in India and facing extradition to the United States for allegedly killing his estranged wife and fleeing to his homeland.
A worldwide Interpol arrest warrant was issued for Avtar Singh Grewal, 32, on Friday after the body of his estranged wife, Navneet Kaur, was found in her home in Ahwatukee, a bedroom community of Phoenix.
Ms. Kaur's co-workers from Assist Technologies, a world-leader in electronic data collection, were worried when the project manager did not arrive at work on Friday.
Checking on Ms. Kaur's home, her colleague found signs of a violent and bloody struggle, and called police, reports say.
An alert was issued that day for Mr. Grewal, who was reportedly seen outside Ms. Kaur's home at 10.30 p.m. Thursday night.
Delhi police arrested Mr. Grewal late Saturday night at Indira Gandhi International Airport after the Interpol Red Corner notice was declared by the U.S. police, the Indian press reported.
He had allegedly flown from Phoenix to Newark, N.J., where he reportedly caught a one-way Continental Airlines flight to India.
Mr. Grewal appeared in front of a magistrate at the Patiala House Courts on Sunday and was placed in judicial custody.
He appeared in court again Monday for the initiation of extradition proceedings to the United States. Delhi police said they are not investigating the matter, saying the accused had not committed any crime in India.
Mr. Grewal and Ms. Kaur married in Delhi in 2005, but they had been living separately due to their jobs, said Ms. Kaur's father Rattan Singh, a former officer in the Indian Police Service.
“Grewal wanted Navneet to leave her job in Phoenix and stay with him in Canada,” Mr. Singh told Delhi media.
“But Navneet, a qualified software engineer working at a senior level, didn't want to quit. This led to strained relations between the couple.”
Phoenix police told local media Ms. Kaur was seeking a divorce.
Ironically, Mr. Grewal fled virtually into the arms of his alleged victim's family, as Mr. Singh lives near the IGI Airport in Gurgaon with his wife and son.
On Monday, Mr. Singh left for America to bring back his daughter's body.
Ms. Kaur's brother Sandeep Singh told Times of India that he spoke to his sister the morning of her death.
“He (Mr. Grewal) put many restrictions on my sister Navneet and used to keep her confined. A few months back, she wanted to attend our cousin's marriage and asked him to accompany her, but he said he would not go and did not let her attend the wedding either,” Mr. Singh said.
Globe and Mail Update
TORONTO AND DELHI — A Vancouver logistics executive is under arrest in India and facing extradition to the United States for allegedly killing his estranged wife and fleeing to his homeland.
A worldwide Interpol arrest warrant was issued for Avtar Singh Grewal, 32, on Friday after the body of his estranged wife, Navneet Kaur, was found in her home in Ahwatukee, a bedroom community of Phoenix.
Ms. Kaur's co-workers from Assist Technologies, a world-leader in electronic data collection, were worried when the project manager did not arrive at work on Friday.
Checking on Ms. Kaur's home, her colleague found signs of a violent and bloody struggle, and called police, reports say.
An alert was issued that day for Mr. Grewal, who was reportedly seen outside Ms. Kaur's home at 10.30 p.m. Thursday night.
Delhi police arrested Mr. Grewal late Saturday night at Indira Gandhi International Airport after the Interpol Red Corner notice was declared by the U.S. police, the Indian press reported.
He had allegedly flown from Phoenix to Newark, N.J., where he reportedly caught a one-way Continental Airlines flight to India.
Mr. Grewal appeared in front of a magistrate at the Patiala House Courts on Sunday and was placed in judicial custody.
He appeared in court again Monday for the initiation of extradition proceedings to the United States. Delhi police said they are not investigating the matter, saying the accused had not committed any crime in India.
Mr. Grewal and Ms. Kaur married in Delhi in 2005, but they had been living separately due to their jobs, said Ms. Kaur's father Rattan Singh, a former officer in the Indian Police Service.
“Grewal wanted Navneet to leave her job in Phoenix and stay with him in Canada,” Mr. Singh told Delhi media.
“But Navneet, a qualified software engineer working at a senior level, didn't want to quit. This led to strained relations between the couple.”
Phoenix police told local media Ms. Kaur was seeking a divorce.
Ironically, Mr. Grewal fled virtually into the arms of his alleged victim's family, as Mr. Singh lives near the IGI Airport in Gurgaon with his wife and son.
On Monday, Mr. Singh left for America to bring back his daughter's body.
Ms. Kaur's brother Sandeep Singh told Times of India that he spoke to his sister the morning of her death.
“He (Mr. Grewal) put many restrictions on my sister Navneet and used to keep her confined. A few months back, she wanted to attend our cousin's marriage and asked him to accompany her, but he said he would not go and did not let her attend the wedding either,” Mr. Singh said.
Friday, March 30, 2007
indian state gets ready for an onslaught of rats
Rare species of flowering bamboo puts rodents in a feeding and breeding frenzy
JASON OVERDORF
(Toronto Globe & Mail, March 30, 2007)
NEW DELHI — At nightfall in the remote state of Mizoram in northeast India, villagers listen with apprehension to the rustling of thousands of rats foraging and breeding in the jungle. For now, the rodents are gorging themselves on flowering bamboo. But when the bamboo dies and the rice harvesting season begins, a scurrying plague will descend on their paddy fields.
An unusual species of bamboo blankets Mizoram, a remote state with an ethnically distinct tribal population. Melocanna baccifera flowers only once every 50 years or so, generating millions of high-protein seeds that turn the local rats into incredibly prolific breeders. But when the seeds disappear, the huge number of rats left over invade the rice paddies of the area's farmers, destroying the crops the villagers depend on for survival.
In a single night, the legion of rodents can clip the ears from every rice stalk in a field, says James Lalsiamliana, the Mizoram Agriculture Department official who heads the state's rodent control cell. During last year's harvest -- when the bamboo flowering began in the eastern part of the state -- more than 40 villages lost their entire crop. And this year, the flowering has peaked across all of Mizoram.
"They depend on this paddy for subsistence," Mr. Lalsiamliana said. "The state will now have to arrange financial support for these areas."
Local villagers call the once-in-50-years phenomenon mautam, or "bamboo death." And the last time it hit, in 1959, it was indeed deadly. The central government dismissed local forecasts as superstitious raving, and was unprepared to fight off the rodents or provide adequate relief for the massive food shortages that followed. The famine spawned a revolt against Indian rule by the Mizo National Front that lasted until 1986 and took more than 3,000 lives. Now, one of the movement's leaders, Pu Zoramthanga, is Mizoram's chief minister.
This time around, the government has released more than $125-million to fight the problem. And as much as five years back, Mizoram began tapping experts to develop a co-ordinated plan to limit the effects of the flowering and control the rodent population. The Ministry of Environment and Forests drew on experts from the International Bamboo and Rattan Network (INBAR) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to help find new ways to utilize the bamboo and thus encourage local villagers to harvest it before it flowers. The ministry also called in Canada's John Bourne, a 30-year veteran of Alberta's rat patrol who helped make the Canadian province rat free, to study the local rodents and develop a plan for killing rats. Last season, the program Mr. Bourne helped develop allowed villagers to kill hundreds of thousands of rodents using homemade traps and poison supplied by the state.
Mr. Lalsiamliana says the state paid villagers 100 rupees (about $2.50) for every 50 traps they set and distributed more than 15,000 kilograms of rodenticide.
T.P. Subramony, head of INBAR's Delhi office, says India now has a comprehensive plan that covers extraction and management of the bamboo, how to regenerate the forest cover, controlling the rodent population and dealing with health hazards that may arise with the proliferation of the vermin. But he says the key to a solution lies in realizing the value of the bamboo itself.
Although locals cut down and burn bamboo to collect ash that they use as fertilizer, experts from the state's Bamboo Development Agency estimate that less than 1 per cent of the 850,000 hectares of bamboo gets harvested, which is why a panel of researchers from UNIDO and India's Rain Forest Research Institute has recommended the promotion of cottage industries such as the manufacture of tooth picks and bamboo mats and a temporary ban on harvesting bamboo in other parts of the country for the paper industry, along with a host of other economic stimuli.
"One issue is the dying bamboo," Mr. Subramony said. "Then there is the question of how to utilize it. There is a threat, but there is an opportunity also."
Nevertheless, this flowering season, averting a food shortage depends on killing rats. And that may not be enough.
"There will likely be a food shortage, and that may lead to famine," said S.N. Kalita, formerly the principal secretary of forests and head of the environment and forest department of Mizoram. "But the situation cannot be compared with 1959. Now our communication by road and air transport are improved, so transporting in food will not be a problem. Already, some reserve stock has been created. All I can say is that the state government and the government of India is fully prepared."
Special to The Globe and Mail
JASON OVERDORF
(Toronto Globe & Mail, March 30, 2007)
NEW DELHI — At nightfall in the remote state of Mizoram in northeast India, villagers listen with apprehension to the rustling of thousands of rats foraging and breeding in the jungle. For now, the rodents are gorging themselves on flowering bamboo. But when the bamboo dies and the rice harvesting season begins, a scurrying plague will descend on their paddy fields.
An unusual species of bamboo blankets Mizoram, a remote state with an ethnically distinct tribal population. Melocanna baccifera flowers only once every 50 years or so, generating millions of high-protein seeds that turn the local rats into incredibly prolific breeders. But when the seeds disappear, the huge number of rats left over invade the rice paddies of the area's farmers, destroying the crops the villagers depend on for survival.
In a single night, the legion of rodents can clip the ears from every rice stalk in a field, says James Lalsiamliana, the Mizoram Agriculture Department official who heads the state's rodent control cell. During last year's harvest -- when the bamboo flowering began in the eastern part of the state -- more than 40 villages lost their entire crop. And this year, the flowering has peaked across all of Mizoram.
"They depend on this paddy for subsistence," Mr. Lalsiamliana said. "The state will now have to arrange financial support for these areas."
Local villagers call the once-in-50-years phenomenon mautam, or "bamboo death." And the last time it hit, in 1959, it was indeed deadly. The central government dismissed local forecasts as superstitious raving, and was unprepared to fight off the rodents or provide adequate relief for the massive food shortages that followed. The famine spawned a revolt against Indian rule by the Mizo National Front that lasted until 1986 and took more than 3,000 lives. Now, one of the movement's leaders, Pu Zoramthanga, is Mizoram's chief minister.
This time around, the government has released more than $125-million to fight the problem. And as much as five years back, Mizoram began tapping experts to develop a co-ordinated plan to limit the effects of the flowering and control the rodent population. The Ministry of Environment and Forests drew on experts from the International Bamboo and Rattan Network (INBAR) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to help find new ways to utilize the bamboo and thus encourage local villagers to harvest it before it flowers. The ministry also called in Canada's John Bourne, a 30-year veteran of Alberta's rat patrol who helped make the Canadian province rat free, to study the local rodents and develop a plan for killing rats. Last season, the program Mr. Bourne helped develop allowed villagers to kill hundreds of thousands of rodents using homemade traps and poison supplied by the state.
Mr. Lalsiamliana says the state paid villagers 100 rupees (about $2.50) for every 50 traps they set and distributed more than 15,000 kilograms of rodenticide.
T.P. Subramony, head of INBAR's Delhi office, says India now has a comprehensive plan that covers extraction and management of the bamboo, how to regenerate the forest cover, controlling the rodent population and dealing with health hazards that may arise with the proliferation of the vermin. But he says the key to a solution lies in realizing the value of the bamboo itself.
Although locals cut down and burn bamboo to collect ash that they use as fertilizer, experts from the state's Bamboo Development Agency estimate that less than 1 per cent of the 850,000 hectares of bamboo gets harvested, which is why a panel of researchers from UNIDO and India's Rain Forest Research Institute has recommended the promotion of cottage industries such as the manufacture of tooth picks and bamboo mats and a temporary ban on harvesting bamboo in other parts of the country for the paper industry, along with a host of other economic stimuli.
"One issue is the dying bamboo," Mr. Subramony said. "Then there is the question of how to utilize it. There is a threat, but there is an opportunity also."
Nevertheless, this flowering season, averting a food shortage depends on killing rats. And that may not be enough.
"There will likely be a food shortage, and that may lead to famine," said S.N. Kalita, formerly the principal secretary of forests and head of the environment and forest department of Mizoram. "But the situation cannot be compared with 1959. Now our communication by road and air transport are improved, so transporting in food will not be a problem. Already, some reserve stock has been created. All I can say is that the state government and the government of India is fully prepared."
Special to The Globe and Mail
indian state gets ready for an onslaught of rats
Rare species of flowering bamboo puts rodents in a feeding and breeding frenzy
JASON OVERDORF
(Toronto Globe & Mail, March 30, 2007)
NEW DELHI — At nightfall in the remote state of Mizoram in northeast India, villagers listen with apprehension to the rustling of thousands of rats foraging and breeding in the jungle. For now, the rodents are gorging themselves on flowering bamboo. But when the bamboo dies and the rice harvesting season begins, a scurrying plague will descend on their paddy fields.
An unusual species of bamboo blankets Mizoram, a remote state with an ethnically distinct tribal population. Melocanna baccifera flowers only once every 50 years or so, generating millions of high-protein seeds that turn the local rats into incredibly prolific breeders. But when the seeds disappear, the huge number of rats left over invade the rice paddies of the area's farmers, destroying the crops the villagers depend on for survival.
In a single night, the legion of rodents can clip the ears from every rice stalk in a field, says James Lalsiamliana, the Mizoram Agriculture Department official who heads the state's rodent control cell. During last year's harvest -- when the bamboo flowering began in the eastern part of the state -- more than 40 villages lost their entire crop. And this year, the flowering has peaked across all of Mizoram.
"They depend on this paddy for subsistence," Mr. Lalsiamliana said. "The state will now have to arrange financial support for these areas."
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Local villagers call the once-in-50-years phenomenon mautam, or "bamboo death." And the last time it hit, in 1959, it was indeed deadly. The central government dismissed local forecasts as superstitious raving, and was unprepared to fight off the rodents or provide adequate relief for the massive food shortages that followed. The famine spawned a revolt against Indian rule by the Mizo National Front that lasted until 1986 and took more than 3,000 lives. Now, one of the movement's leaders, Pu Zoramthanga, is Mizoram's chief minister.
This time around, the government has released more than $125-million to fight the problem. And as much as five years back, Mizoram began tapping experts to develop a co-ordinated plan to limit the effects of the flowering and control the rodent population. The Ministry of Environment and Forests drew on experts from the International Bamboo and Rattan Network (INBAR) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to help find new ways to utilize the bamboo and thus encourage local villagers to harvest it before it flowers. The ministry also called in Canada's John Bourne, a 30-year veteran of Alberta's rat patrol who helped make the Canadian province rat free, to study the local rodents and develop a plan for killing rats. Last season, the program Mr. Bourne helped develop allowed villagers to kill hundreds of thousands of rodents using homemade traps and poison supplied by the state.
Mr. Lalsiamliana says the state paid villagers 100 rupees (about $2.50) for every 50 traps they set and distributed more than 15,000 kilograms of rodenticide.
T.P. Subramony, head of INBAR's Delhi office, says India now has a comprehensive plan that covers extraction and management of the bamboo, how to regenerate the forest cover, controlling the rodent population and dealing with health hazards that may arise with the proliferation of the vermin. But he says the key to a solution lies in realizing the value of the bamboo itself.
Although locals cut down and burn bamboo to collect ash that they use as fertilizer, experts from the state's Bamboo Development Agency estimate that less than 1 per cent of the 850,000 hectares of bamboo gets harvested, which is why a panel of researchers from UNIDO and India's Rain Forest Research Institute has recommended the promotion of cottage industries such as the manufacture of tooth picks and bamboo mats and a temporary ban on harvesting bamboo in other parts of the country for the paper industry, along with a host of other economic stimuli.
"One issue is the dying bamboo," Mr. Subramony said. "Then there is the question of how to utilize it. There is a threat, but there is an opportunity also."
Nevertheless, this flowering season, averting a food shortage depends on killing rats. And that may not be enough.
"There will likely be a food shortage, and that may lead to famine," said S.N. Kalita, formerly the principal secretary of forests and head of the environment and forest department of Mizoram. "But the situation cannot be compared with 1959. Now our communication by road and air transport are improved, so transporting in food will not be a problem. Already, some reserve stock has been created. All I can say is that the state government and the government of India is fully prepared."
Special to The Globe and Mail
JASON OVERDORF
(Toronto Globe & Mail, March 30, 2007)
NEW DELHI — At nightfall in the remote state of Mizoram in northeast India, villagers listen with apprehension to the rustling of thousands of rats foraging and breeding in the jungle. For now, the rodents are gorging themselves on flowering bamboo. But when the bamboo dies and the rice harvesting season begins, a scurrying plague will descend on their paddy fields.
An unusual species of bamboo blankets Mizoram, a remote state with an ethnically distinct tribal population. Melocanna baccifera flowers only once every 50 years or so, generating millions of high-protein seeds that turn the local rats into incredibly prolific breeders. But when the seeds disappear, the huge number of rats left over invade the rice paddies of the area's farmers, destroying the crops the villagers depend on for survival.
In a single night, the legion of rodents can clip the ears from every rice stalk in a field, says James Lalsiamliana, the Mizoram Agriculture Department official who heads the state's rodent control cell. During last year's harvest -- when the bamboo flowering began in the eastern part of the state -- more than 40 villages lost their entire crop. And this year, the flowering has peaked across all of Mizoram.
"They depend on this paddy for subsistence," Mr. Lalsiamliana said. "The state will now have to arrange financial support for these areas."
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The Globe and Mail
Local villagers call the once-in-50-years phenomenon mautam, or "bamboo death." And the last time it hit, in 1959, it was indeed deadly. The central government dismissed local forecasts as superstitious raving, and was unprepared to fight off the rodents or provide adequate relief for the massive food shortages that followed. The famine spawned a revolt against Indian rule by the Mizo National Front that lasted until 1986 and took more than 3,000 lives. Now, one of the movement's leaders, Pu Zoramthanga, is Mizoram's chief minister.
This time around, the government has released more than $125-million to fight the problem. And as much as five years back, Mizoram began tapping experts to develop a co-ordinated plan to limit the effects of the flowering and control the rodent population. The Ministry of Environment and Forests drew on experts from the International Bamboo and Rattan Network (INBAR) and the United Nations Industrial Development Organization (UNIDO) to help find new ways to utilize the bamboo and thus encourage local villagers to harvest it before it flowers. The ministry also called in Canada's John Bourne, a 30-year veteran of Alberta's rat patrol who helped make the Canadian province rat free, to study the local rodents and develop a plan for killing rats. Last season, the program Mr. Bourne helped develop allowed villagers to kill hundreds of thousands of rodents using homemade traps and poison supplied by the state.
Mr. Lalsiamliana says the state paid villagers 100 rupees (about $2.50) for every 50 traps they set and distributed more than 15,000 kilograms of rodenticide.
T.P. Subramony, head of INBAR's Delhi office, says India now has a comprehensive plan that covers extraction and management of the bamboo, how to regenerate the forest cover, controlling the rodent population and dealing with health hazards that may arise with the proliferation of the vermin. But he says the key to a solution lies in realizing the value of the bamboo itself.
Although locals cut down and burn bamboo to collect ash that they use as fertilizer, experts from the state's Bamboo Development Agency estimate that less than 1 per cent of the 850,000 hectares of bamboo gets harvested, which is why a panel of researchers from UNIDO and India's Rain Forest Research Institute has recommended the promotion of cottage industries such as the manufacture of tooth picks and bamboo mats and a temporary ban on harvesting bamboo in other parts of the country for the paper industry, along with a host of other economic stimuli.
"One issue is the dying bamboo," Mr. Subramony said. "Then there is the question of how to utilize it. There is a threat, but there is an opportunity also."
Nevertheless, this flowering season, averting a food shortage depends on killing rats. And that may not be enough.
"There will likely be a food shortage, and that may lead to famine," said S.N. Kalita, formerly the principal secretary of forests and head of the environment and forest department of Mizoram. "But the situation cannot be compared with 1959. Now our communication by road and air transport are improved, so transporting in food will not be a problem. Already, some reserve stock has been created. All I can say is that the state government and the government of India is fully prepared."
Special to The Globe and Mail
Tuesday, February 27, 2007
can india make a blockbuster drug?
Indian generic-drug makers once bedeviled Big Pharma; now they may be its best hope for success.
By Jason Overdorf
Newsweek International
March 5, 2007 issue - India used to be big pharma's worst nightmare. Loose patent laws and a glut of talented scientists made that country the world capital for generics. As quickly as companies like GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novatis, Pfizer and others could develop innovative new drugs, nimble Indian companies could copy them—and sell them for a fraction of the price. The practice led to a tangle of litigation. But now, the legal battles are giving way to new partnerships.
Earlier this month, GlaxoSmithKline signed a groundbreaking deal to develop new drugs with India's Ranbaxy—the same company it is fighting over a copycat herpes treatment. In January, Eli Lilly began working with Mumbai-based Nicholas Piramal on a number of new drugs. Several similar partnerships are in the works, and they aren't just outsourcing deals. Rather than simply sending bits and pieces of lab work over to India, the Big Pharma companies are increasingly giving their Indian counterparts the rights to develop specific drug targets, and to share in the profits. Industry sources estimate that there are 500 new drugs in development on the Subcontinent today.
The end result could be the first-ever Indian "blockbuster" drug.
The new friendships reflect two separate changes in the pharmaceutical industry. First and most important is the drying up of Big Pharma's pipeline. Western companies have historically depended on sales of "blockbuster" drugs (mass treatments for big ailments like cancer or heart diseases, which typically generate more than $1 billion in annual sales). But the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and the cost of discovering big new drugs has increased from an average of $100 million in the '80s to more than $800 million today, even as the output of novel drugs has fallen. Meanwhile, many existing blockbusters are due to go off patent this year.
That will certainly open up new copycat targets for drug makers in India. But at the same time, there's been a recent tightening of patent laws there. This second shift is pushing scientists toward more profitable original research. Indian firms believe they can make new drugs much more cheaply than Big Pharma—the head of Nicholas Piramal believes the first Indian blockbuster will be made for less than $50 million.
That's the lure for companies like Lilly and Glaxo, which have huge libraries of molecules that have shown promise—more than they can possibly investigate themselves with today's cost constraints. By licensing them out to Indian firms that are starting their own R&D from scratch, Big Pharma gets to keep the lion's share of the profits with virtually no capital outlay. But the Indian partners aren't just cheap, they're skilled. Thanks to the intense focus on science education and extensive experience in reverse-engineering generics, Indian firms are now "at least as good in chemistry" as Western players, says Daniel Vasella, head of Swiss drug giant Novartis.
So what's the most likely candidate for first-ever Indian blockbuster? A tongue-twisting compound known as balaglitazone, which helps the body to produce insulin more efficiently, and may be used to treat diabetes. It takes the partnership between India and the West a step further than a simple alliance between two companies. First developed by an Indian company called Dr. Reddy's (which got the idea from a Japanese firm), it was then licensed out to Denmark's Novo Nordisk, a big pharmaceutical specializing in insulin. After a couple of failed efforts, Novo lost patience, and the patent went back to Dr. Reddy's. The Indian firm then picked up where the Danes left off, and is now tag-teaming with another European firm to bring the drug to market. It is already in Phase III trials, the final large-scale test on humans that is one of the last hurdles before public sale. It's a stage only one in 5,000 drugs reach.
If balaglitazone goes the distance, it will profit European and Indian drug makers. But it will also offer new hope for diabetes sufferers, more of whom live in India than anywhere else in the world. It may be that the rise of emerging-market drug makers will also mean better treatments for diseases that strike hardest in developing countries.
With Silvia Spring in London
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17303201/site/newsweek/
By Jason Overdorf
Newsweek International
March 5, 2007 issue - India used to be big pharma's worst nightmare. Loose patent laws and a glut of talented scientists made that country the world capital for generics. As quickly as companies like GlaxoSmithKline, Merck, Novatis, Pfizer and others could develop innovative new drugs, nimble Indian companies could copy them—and sell them for a fraction of the price. The practice led to a tangle of litigation. But now, the legal battles are giving way to new partnerships.
Earlier this month, GlaxoSmithKline signed a groundbreaking deal to develop new drugs with India's Ranbaxy—the same company it is fighting over a copycat herpes treatment. In January, Eli Lilly began working with Mumbai-based Nicholas Piramal on a number of new drugs. Several similar partnerships are in the works, and they aren't just outsourcing deals. Rather than simply sending bits and pieces of lab work over to India, the Big Pharma companies are increasingly giving their Indian counterparts the rights to develop specific drug targets, and to share in the profits. Industry sources estimate that there are 500 new drugs in development on the Subcontinent today.
The end result could be the first-ever Indian "blockbuster" drug.
The new friendships reflect two separate changes in the pharmaceutical industry. First and most important is the drying up of Big Pharma's pipeline. Western companies have historically depended on sales of "blockbuster" drugs (mass treatments for big ailments like cancer or heart diseases, which typically generate more than $1 billion in annual sales). But the low-hanging fruit has been picked, and the cost of discovering big new drugs has increased from an average of $100 million in the '80s to more than $800 million today, even as the output of novel drugs has fallen. Meanwhile, many existing blockbusters are due to go off patent this year.
That will certainly open up new copycat targets for drug makers in India. But at the same time, there's been a recent tightening of patent laws there. This second shift is pushing scientists toward more profitable original research. Indian firms believe they can make new drugs much more cheaply than Big Pharma—the head of Nicholas Piramal believes the first Indian blockbuster will be made for less than $50 million.
That's the lure for companies like Lilly and Glaxo, which have huge libraries of molecules that have shown promise—more than they can possibly investigate themselves with today's cost constraints. By licensing them out to Indian firms that are starting their own R&D from scratch, Big Pharma gets to keep the lion's share of the profits with virtually no capital outlay. But the Indian partners aren't just cheap, they're skilled. Thanks to the intense focus on science education and extensive experience in reverse-engineering generics, Indian firms are now "at least as good in chemistry" as Western players, says Daniel Vasella, head of Swiss drug giant Novartis.
So what's the most likely candidate for first-ever Indian blockbuster? A tongue-twisting compound known as balaglitazone, which helps the body to produce insulin more efficiently, and may be used to treat diabetes. It takes the partnership between India and the West a step further than a simple alliance between two companies. First developed by an Indian company called Dr. Reddy's (which got the idea from a Japanese firm), it was then licensed out to Denmark's Novo Nordisk, a big pharmaceutical specializing in insulin. After a couple of failed efforts, Novo lost patience, and the patent went back to Dr. Reddy's. The Indian firm then picked up where the Danes left off, and is now tag-teaming with another European firm to bring the drug to market. It is already in Phase III trials, the final large-scale test on humans that is one of the last hurdles before public sale. It's a stage only one in 5,000 drugs reach.
If balaglitazone goes the distance, it will profit European and Indian drug makers. But it will also offer new hope for diabetes sufferers, more of whom live in India than anywhere else in the world. It may be that the rise of emerging-market drug makers will also mean better treatments for diseases that strike hardest in developing countries.
With Silvia Spring in London
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
URL: http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/17303201/site/newsweek/
Saturday, February 17, 2007
reinventing bollywood
By Jason Overdorf (Business 2.0 March 2007)
A REBEL MOVIE PRODUCER IN INDIA LOOKS TO HOLLYWOOD FOR INSPIRATION--NOT JUST FOR HIS FILMS, BUT ALSO FOR HIS BUSINESS MODEL.
RONNIE SCREWVALA WALKED THE RED CARPET AT THE glitzy Dubai International Film Festival in December with Oliver Stone and Richard Gere. Westerners might have wondered who he was and why he deserved the company of two Hollywood luminaries, but anyone familiar with the Indian film industry would have understood. Screwvala, one of the leading movie producers in India, is bringing Hollywood-style filmmaking to the subcontinent. And U.S. moviemakers, desperate for new opportunities, want a piece of the action.
India's teeming film industry, known as Bollywood, is extraordinarily prolific. Indian filmmakers churn out 1,000 movies each year. Yet the industry grossed just $1.5 billion in 2005, and only a handful of movies made it to first-run theaters overseas. Compare that with Hollywood, which pumped out 563 movies that year and made more than $18 billion at the box office, including $9.6 billion from international distribution.
Why isn't Bollywood making more money? That question is the driving force behind Screwvala's company, UTV Software Communications. "Broadcasting [in multiple channels] started here in 1992, and it's already a $4 billion business," says the 49-year-old entrepreneur. "Yet this 100-year-old industry is still less than $2 billion. We have to grow." His solution is to revolutionize Bollywood--blow up the business model and replace it with traditional studio rules.
It's a huge job. Bollywood has always been a haphazard affair. Half a dozen prominent families controlled it, but they weren't very businesslike. Movies started shooting with no scripts and little money. Stars disappeared midshoot for weeks at a time to vacation, go home, or work on another movie. Theater owners underreported ticket sales to avoid sharing revenue with producers. It was nearly impossible to figure out whether a movie had made money and, if so, how much.
In addition, Indian story lines did not appeal to many outside the country. To the Western eye, Bollywood movies were chaotic, a surreal combination of Sylvester Stallone and Busby Berkeley musicals. In a typical plot, the hero sang, danced, fought bad guys, got the girl, found his long lost brother, and wept on his mother's deathbed--for at least three hours.
Screwvala broke into Bollywood in the late '90s, teaming up with anyone willing to work by his rules. UTV has produced a dozen movies with all the earmarks of professional filmmaking: budgets, marketing and distribution plans, real preproduction, and three-month shoots. The company distributes them worldwide and milks Hollywood-style ancillary revenue, from product placement to soundtrack rights and video-on-demand. Screwvala has also cut the running times and dumped the disorganized and stale story lines. His hit Rang de Basanti (The Colors of Spring) tells the story of India's disaffected urban youth; it also made more than $2 million in the United States. "We're breaking the mold," Screwvala says, comparing his experience to the days when Star Wars and other independent films paved the way for new genres in Hollywood.
Screwvala likes pioneering. The former game show host started his business career walking around Mumbai, asking apartment dwellers to try a newfangled gadget called a remote control. He got Indians to give up their single-channel, government-run television and brought cable to the country in the 1980s. He used the money from that to get into television production, making a steady stream of animated cartoons that attracted U.S. producers looking to outsource their own animation.
But all the while, he had movies on the brain. "Indians have always been voracious movie viewers," he says. "That's in our DNA. But we're as strong in commerce as we are in creative. It seemed to me that there was a huge opportunity here."
He was right. Now U.S. filmmakers, their revenue streams threatened by videogames, the Internet, and video-on-demand, knock on his door. This year, along with his Indian films, he's partnering with Sony Pictures and Fox Searchlight on movies starring Chris Rock and Will Smith, as well as an adaptation of Jhumpa Lahiri's novel The Namesake. News Corp. and Disney bought stakes in UTV last year.
And Screwvala's plan is starting to bear fruit. In 2005, UTV took in $52 million--$32 million of it from movies--and turned a modest profit. That made it the second-largest producer in India, counting box office and ancillary revenue, a meteoric rise for an industry newcomer. And its "new" business practices are spurring changes at competing studios. Contracts, budgets, and balance sheets are more common. So are shooting schedules, bigger marketing budgets, and the exploitation of ancillary revenue. According to PricewaterhouseCoopers, Indian films will generate $2.3 billion by 2010
UTV has many other ventures, including 15 straight-to-DVD movies, an animated feature co-produced with a U.S. company, and a U.S. television series. But Screwvala has yet to reach his ultimate goal. "We have a good relationship with Disney," he says. "I'm hoping it can help us get some of our films into Wal-Mart." Spoken like a true Hollywood producer, albeit with a distinct colonial accent.
UNECONOMIES OF SCALE
Indians crank out nearly twice as many movies as U.S. producers but reap less than 10 percent of the revenue.
[This article contains a table. Please see hardcopy of magazine or PDF.]
| [Table] |
| 2005 films released | Revenue |
Bollywood | 1,041 | $1.5 billion |
Hollywood | 563 | $18 billion |
Sources: Box Office Mojo; MPAA; PricewaterhouseCoopers
3 STEPS TO SUCCESS
Find a fragmented industry
Enforce standards and discipline
Grow the market via exports
Tuesday, February 06, 2007
book review: way out there
Book Review: Way Out There, a collection of writing from Canada's explore magazine
By Jason Overdorf
(Outlook Traveler, February 2007)
This may sound like a strange confession for a magazine writer, but I've never been much of a fan of reading magazines. Secretly, I've always had the sneaking suspicion that anything of any consequence will eventually make its way into a book. Reading Way Out There, a new anthology of writing from Canada's top travel magazine, almost changed my mind.
By Jason Overdorf
(Outlook Traveler, February 2007)
This may sound like a strange confession for a magazine writer, but I've never been much of a fan of reading magazines. Secretly, I've always had the sneaking suspicion that anything of any consequence will eventually make its way into a book. Reading Way Out There, a new anthology of writing from Canada's top travel magazine, almost changed my mind.
A collection of 30-odd features from Explore, Way Out There shows that the Canadian magazine has terrific range. There's no endless slog of gear-based, “I'm-more-daring-than-you” articles here, and none of the formulaic, begin-with-colourful-anecdote-and-end-with-hotel-prices articles that plague travel mags. From Ross Crockford's piece about the fastest cyclist on planet Earth (“What has two legs, 122 teeth and goes 80 miles an hour?”) to Charles Montgomery's interview with the Solomon Island's last surviving headhunter (“Searching for Big Man Magik”) these are thoughtful, surprising, and above all informative stories—not of the “how I rate the service at the Plaza” variety, but the kind you remember and irritate your wife by reading aloud.
Consider, for example, Explore contributing editor J.B. MacKinnon's piece on traveling in the Sudan (“Behind the Grass Curtain”). It begins with a gimmicky, commercial magazine premise—MacKinnon sets out to prove that Canadians are no longer the world's most welcomed travelers, now that Canada has begun to interfere in world affairs. But MacKinnon hardly allows the sales-pitch to distract him as he narrates his story of traveling across the southern region of the warring country. The result is a more vivid and accessible portrait, certainly, than anything you'll find in the newspaper, all the more perceptive because it has no journalistic purpose, because the entire project, like the war, is essentially absurd.
Similarly evocative, though in a completely different vein, is Jerry Kobalenko's feature about the extreme sport of marathon swimming (“Gruelling, on a summer afternoon”). Like many outdoor pursuits, marathon swimming has in recent years changed from a feat of endurance like climbing Everest (all those paddlers who dared the English Channel) into an organized sport with a tour along the lines of the one ran by the Association of Tennis Professionals. Kobalenko manages to capture the drama of competitive swimming and the freakish psychology of the athletes who risk their lives in Canada's freezing waters remarkably well. But I mention it here because it illustrates the great strength of many of the articles in this collection: they evoke the bizarre nature of Canada's remote and cold expanses as dramatically as most “travel writing” describes India, Africa, and other places deemed to be “exotic” by editors on the other side of the world.
And for that reason, Way Out There offers great armchair traveling.
Sunday, February 04, 2007
the 100 dollar un-pc
Rajesh Jain thinks the next billion computer users hold the key to the industry's next big innovation.
By Jason Overdorf
Newsweek International
Feb. 12, 2007 issue - In a humble residential neighborhood in the south Indian city of Chennai, Hema Malini—a quiet 13-year-old girl whose hair was braided with jasmine flowers—switched on the family television and a curious new device called Nova NetTV that was connected to the TV and a keyboard. In a few seconds, the Microsoft Windows logo appeared, and suddenly her TV was transformed into a PC. With her mother looking on proudly, Hema fired up encyclopedia software, checked her e-mail and Googled for a site that offers free versions of Nintendo's Mario Bros. games.
If Rajesh Jain is successful, the NetTV, which hooks up to any television, could be the first in a family of devices that connect the next billion people to the Internet. Jain, 39, is cofounder and chairman of Novatium, the Chennai-based company that makes NetTV and NetPC, a similar product that uses a normal computer monitor. Both are based on cheap cell-phone chips and come without the hard-disk drive, extensive memory and prepackaged software thatadd hundreds of dollars to the cost of regular PCs. Instead, they are little more than a keyboard, a screen and a couple of USB ports—and use a central network server to run software applications and store data. Novatium already sells the NetPC for only $100—just within reach of India's growing middle class—and Jain believes he can soon drive the price down to $70.
Entrepreneurs, philanthropists and established computer firms have for the better part of a decade invested millions of dollars to lower the cost of a desktop PC and develop cheaper alternatives. Intel has made its Eduwise laptop; AMD, a Personal Internet Communicator; Microsoft, the FonePlus. MIT computer guru Nicholas Negroponte's Children's Machine, now called the XO, is the most publicized recent attempt at converting the poor into computer users. But Negroponte's idea is to spread computers to the poor, with the help of heavy subsidies from private and public philanthropy. His price is still about $140, too high for India. Indeed India rejected Negroponte's offer of a million for cost reasons. Jain's motive is different: he wants to make money.
And he knows India. Despite the country's rise as an outsourcing hub, PCs are selling slowly—far more slowly than mobile phones or motorbikes—because they are too expensive, too complicated to use and too difficult to maintain. What people have been waiting for, some experts think, is a new approach to computing that boils the essence of Internet access down to its lowest cost—and lowest risk. Jain plans to offer all this in lease deals that include easy-to-use hardware, Internet connection, application software and service—for $10 a month.
This formula could provide a long-sought bridge over the digital divide—and may just change the way the average person thinks of computing. The solution would open up a huge new market for Internet service providers, starting in India but possibly spreading to other emerging markets, a possibility that is already attracting the attention of the world's biggest computer companies. It would become a target for innovation on a global scale, forged by immense competition for new customers, and that would have a big impact on the PC world in the West. And if the winning formula turns out to be Jain's, or something like it, it could kill the PC altogether.
Google's push into web-hosted software and Web-based data storage is already prompting the world's software makers (including Microsoft) to rethink a business built on selling copies of software for installation on hard drives. As a consequence, the compulsion to upgrade to a more powerful PC every few years is gradually disappearing. As PC sales slow, hardware makers are looking to the developing world as the source of future profits. But if Novatium or a similar competitor succeeds, that market won't ever materialize. Dell, Hewlett-Packard, Compaq and the rest will have to phase out PCs and concentrate on devices that are similar in concept to Novatium's NetPC. The hardware business will be dead. The real money will be in providing the network, applications, data storage and other elements that are even now becoming synonymous with computing. Compaq will have to become more like Comcast.
Jain makes an unusual agent for such sweeping change. He has none of the bombast of Oracle's Larry Ellison. He lives more like a monk than a millionaire—though he sold his first successful venture, IndiaWorld, for more than $100 million in 1999. Jain first got the idea to build a low-cost computer alternative back in 2000, when he realized Western PCs weren't getting cheap enough fast enough to serve India's needs. He considered buying secondhand computers from abroad, or opening cybercafés. Then he read about Oracle CEO Ellison's plans for the so-called network computer. Maintenance and management costs for the PC were untenable, Ellison proclaimed, and businesses would soon save millions of dollars by putting software and data back onto their network servers. Ellison's idea hadn't taken off, Jain decided, because so many users in Western markets already had PCs and resisted the change. Jain realized that India would be a better target for the idea.
Aiming first at small and medium-size enterprises, Jain started to explore the potential of network-based computing software at Netcore Solutions, a company he started in 1998 (he remains its CEO). But the hardware costs were a problem. After giving a talk in 2003 at a conference in Bangalore, he was approached by Ashok Jhunjhunwala, a professor at the Indian Institute of Technology in Chennai, who runs a research lab and business incubator much like MIT's Media Lab. "The device you're talking about, the network you need?" Jhunjhunwala told him. "We can build it."
A few months later Jhunjhunwala and researchers at IIT came up with a plan that builds on the "thin client" concept that has been popular in the West for years, but only for business applications. It uses a cheap microprocessor (not Intel or AMD's standard PC chips) and removes the hard disk, CD/DVD drive and other costly and problem-prone components, leaving the keyboard, screen and USB port. Easier to maintain than regular PCs, sales of thin-client PCs to businesses are growing at about 20 percent a year in developed nations, even as sales of regular PCs flatten. Instead of working backward from the PC, Jhunjhunwala pioneered a new architecture from the ground up, replacing the expensive microprocessor with the guts of a mobile phone—thus tapping a supercompetitive industry with enormous economies of scale. In 2003, Jain and Jhunjhunwala cofounded Novatium, along with Analog Devices Chairman Ray Stata, with the aim of taking thin-client computers into the home market.
Making the computer affordable was only part of the equation, Jain realized. It also had to be what users want: something that looks and performs like a PC, with all the necessary software and an Internet connection, but which is also easy to maintain and operate. Products like the Simputer, an inexpensive, Indian-made version of the Pocket PC launched in 2004, never took off because it didn't match potential buyers' image of a computer. Meanwhile, people resisted purchasing low-priced or secondhand conventional desktops because they were too threatening—there was software to install, viruses to fight and all manner of mysterious problems.
The device shouldn't be a stripped-down version of a PC, Jain says. It should be entirely new machines, like the NetPC and NetTV, with streamlined technology and a lower price. Already, Novatium can afford to sell computing like the power company sells electricity, providing everything you need, including Internet access, for about $10 a month. And once production volume hits 1 million units, the cost of materials for a NetTV will fall to $35, bringing the sale price down to $70. In July Novatium started a commercial pilot program in Chennai with a cable operator whose feed goes into about 1,500 homes. By the end of December, it had 100 users. By the end of March it's expected to have 500, all of whom would pay around $10 a month. Started with only $2.5 million, Novatium has just 60 employees, but it is attracting attention from many major players.
One reason is that Novatium machines are open to all. Unlike most thin clients, Novatium's devices work with any network server without requiring major modifications, whether it uses proprietary software from Microsoft or Sun, or free software from an open-source company like Linux. Microsoft is participating in the Chennai pilot program because Novatium's subscription-based payment system could generate profit in markets where most users run pirated versions of Microsoft products. Top U.S.-based executives from Microsoft, Yahoo, AOL and other companies have visited Hema's house and other homes wired with the NetPC and the Nova NetTV to see how the utility computing model could work in the home. And network server giant Sun Microsystems—whose slogan has long been "The network is the computer"—has already inked a deal to market the NetPC to enterprises and schools in India beginning this year. "There's a 100 million-unit opportunity in the next five years in India itself," Jain says.
The difference between Jain's approach and Negroponte's is stark. Negroponte is world famous, and teamed up with Rupert Murdoch at Davos to promote One Laptop per Child (OLPC), a program to get computers into the hands of poor, rural users. Negroponte's XO laptop is truly innovative in its own right: it has no moving parts—it uses flash memory instead of a spinning hard disk—because they are prone to failure and overheating, and it uses so little power that it can run for hours on a car battery and can be charged by hand in a pinch. To extend Internet access, it uses "mesh networking" technology that turns each device into a relay that bounces the network onward.
But the XO also needs help. Though Negroponte promises he'll meet the $100 mark by the end of 2008, today each XO costs about $140, even with subsidized parts. AMD, for instance, offer its processors and Chi Lin Technology supplies screens at prices below what they charge for-profit companies. So OLPC is dependent on the kindness of wealthy partners, and does not get great reviews for performance—at least from rivals in the for-profit business. Microsoft's Bill Gates has disparaged the machine as an underpowered and obsolete PC, and Intel executives call it a "100-dollar gadget."
Novatium's approach has been to completely redesign the computer, slashing costs while keeping the form and functions typical of a top-end PC. Once it's set up, it doesn't look all that different from a conventional PC—the basic box plus a keyboard and monitor. It installs and operates as simply as a television—you plug it in and switch it on. And the money doesn't come from government budgets or philanthropic largesse, but from Jain's profit-oriented business model. "We do want to serve people, but we want to be profitable first," says Novatium CEO Alok Singh, who was hired for his experience bringing new products to market at Cummins Auto Services Ltd.
Negroponte is critical of Novatium's approach. For one thing, he argues that reliable networks aren't available in the rural areas where his target users live. He's adamant that the XO's approach, in which software resides on the PC, is better suited to India's needs. "The [Novatium] thin-client approach is not suited for the poor or developing [countries], because it leads to a metering economic model and presumes a stable, omnipresent, broadband network," he said in an e-mail. It's "a bit like buses versus bicycles. I would recommend the bicycle for daily use."
The Novatium team makes no apologies. It is not targeting the deeply poor rural farmers that Negroponte sees as his market. It is looking first to make money on the urban middle class, where many people are too poor to buy PCs but have ready access to cable and telecommunications networks. Taking inspiration from University of Michigan management expert C. K. Prahalad, author of "The Fortune at the Bottom of the Pyramid: Eradicating Poverty Through Profits," Jain says that in India's PC market there are 10 million relatively wealthy Indians at the "top of the pyramid" who buy computers just like consumers in developed countries. There are an additional 30 million urban Indians at the "middle of the pyramid" and 100 million very poor Indians at the "bottom of the pyramid." "What we are saying is how can you dramatically bring down the entry levels for computing in this country and make it accessible to the middle of the pyramid?" he says. "This is the sweet spot."
Novatium, of course, has a long way to go. It needs to build a network along the lines of those run by India's mobile and Internet service providers. For that, the company will need to partner with telecom or cable companies that are pushing broadband Internet access. (It is working to line up a contract with a few small cable companies, which if successful could lead to deals with larger broadband firms like Airtel, Hathway, Sify, Tata Indicom and state-owned BSNL and MTNL.) Success will bring competition from Western firms such as San Jose, Calif. -based Wyse, which already sells some network PCs to India's IT firms. But Wyse and the others aren't yet interested in the home market. And Novatium has licensed its technology to Sun Microsystems for the enterprise and education markets so Novatium can focus on selling to home users. Jain is hoping that that head start plus a rich offering of features—such as streaming video, video-on-demand and voice-over-IP, which other low-cost thin-client PCs don't offer—will give Novatium an edge for at least a few years.
Down the road, Jain envisions his device transforming the computing landscape. "It's taken a quarter century for computer makers worldwide to get to 700 million users," he says. "The utility and network computing model can double that number in the next five years. That means there's a huge opportunity for the likes of Dell, HP, Lenovo, Intel, Microsoft and so on, and the entire existing computer value chain. But they'll have to reinvent their businesses. They have to look at an entirely different model." And they'll have to look to India.
With Jessica Bennett in New York
© 2007 Newsweek, Inc.
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