Slashdot Mirror
India Plans A Supercomputing Grid
An Anonymous Coward writes: "According to this article at CNET, India is building a country-wide High Speed Network. Named the "I-Grid" (I is for 'Information' silly !), its a feat for the Indians who have been bogged down by U.S. sanctions in the recent past -- besides, with a country as big as theirs, its one helluva project!"
First, India's really a second-world nation. The first/second/third world definitions were western/communist/other, but India's definitely not 3rd world (Uganda, Sudan, Afghanistan), and definitely not first world.
Second, India is less likely to use Nukes than Pakistan -- and U.S. citizens can thank the CIA for giving Pakistan nuke technology. Look up "Gary Powers" in your history books. His U-2 that was shot down over Russia began its flight in Pakistan. The U.S. has been in thick with Pakistan and less-than-honest deeds since. Pakistan was also a favored point for inserting people into the old U.S.S.R, and it touches China, making for more flight options to bases in Japan.
Back during the previous Bush presidency, India and Pakistan were in another heightened state of alert. Pakistan had fighter jets sitting on the tarmac, hot-seating pilots in 2-hour shifts, waiting for the word to sprint across the border and hit large cities like Delhi and Bombay. The previous President Bush, who understood the world far better than his offspring combined, probably deserves a Nobel Peace Prize for calming things down.
Third, Pakistan is the lawless nation here. Their previous female prime minister was forced out partly because of video tape taken by her secret service detail of her having sex with her own husband. (This is too absurd for me to make up, mind you.) Pakistan is currently controlled by a military dictatorship, which puts it into the same category as Pinochet, Hussein, Castro....
Fourth, a "poor" country deciding to spend a LOT of money on a private Internet backbone should scare the begeezus out of people. India is as more proximal to large population pockets than any other country. If you wanted to network Asia, Africa, and Europe, India is the place to do it.
Fifth, India was/is on the U.S. watch list because of grain sales back in the 1970's between Russia and India, and because of the U.S.'s need for a place to launch CIA spy plane flights (see Gary Powers reference above). The old "friend of my enemy is my enemy" simplistic notions of how the relationships between nations should work. India needed food, Russia was willing to sell it cheaper than the U.S., and so the simple rules of capitalism landed India on the watch list.
Sixth, there is great education in India. Who here among us has not had an Indian classmate? For seeing so many of them, remember that you are only seeing the ones that got accepted over here, and/or had the money to come over. There are many brains in India, well-educated, disciplined, and hungry for the opportunity to prove they are good, and to improve their lot in life. They lack only the chance, the opportunity....
About supercomputing in India. CDAC had developed it's first supercomputer long back and has been making a lot of progress in this field. And before raising a nuclear alarm, India already has nuclear capability (and can launch a satellite into orbit (2+2 = ?) ) besides there are many other civilian applications on parallel computing .. ever heard of weather prediction (farming and fishing happen to be the largest industry in India and weather prediction is critical for these industries) Now i am not going to make a big list of all the applications of parallel computing but developing nuclear weapon is just one among the vast number of critical applications. Hell even the cows in india need the supercomputing power (they're the ones plowing the farms ;-)
Here is an article on the same subject in the Times of India: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp ?art_id=2867426
" First, India's really a second-world nation. The first/second/third world definitions were western/communist/other, but India's definitely not 3rd world (Uganda, Sudan, Afghanistan), and definitely not first world."
Kinda ironic india invented the term 'third world' and applied it to themselves - the idea was the world was polarizing into the russian / american camps, & India saw that small, poor nations that cozied up to one or the other didn't do all that well, so decided to go down the route of 'independent neutrality'. Supposedly the rationale for this was all sorts of world-peace type reasons, but the (presumably hoped for & planned) outcome was the US and USSR outdid each other to see who could throw the most money & toys at the Indian Govt. Dig out an old copy of Janes from the 80s or earlier & have a look at which countries produced major chunks of hardware in the Indian military - a weirder mix of USA/USSR you won't find almost anywhere.
Can't think of too many other countries that did as well out of joining the 'third world' camp though, and it quickly became a catch-all term for places mostly thought of by westerners as stupefyingly poor.