India Plans A Supercomputing Grid

Re:India? by swissmonkey · 2002-03-05 12:22 · Score: 2, Funny

Actually, at least 1/8 of the world cares about this place, that's much more than all the ignorant morons of your kind put together.

Go for it! by bcilfone · 2002-03-05 12:23 · Score: 2, Funny

Hopefully they can pull it off... maybe then the US government will encourage its tech workers instead of threatening to throw them in jail in the name of a cartoon mouse.

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A choice of masters is not freedom

Re:Go for it! by CitznFish · 2002-03-05 12:55 · Score: 1

Yeah, blame it on Disney. That is pretty weak. Do you even know what you are saying? Do you have anything to even make that statement mean something? Do you realize Disney employees people in India? Pull your head out of your ass and have a look around....

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'mmmmmmmmm.... forbidden donut'

I really hope this is for good.... by wholesomegrits · 2002-03-05 12:23 · Score: 2, Informative

And not for developing shitload of nukes to destroy Pakistan with. It sure sounds like the kind of thing perfect for nuclear simluations. Not that I'm fond of Pakistan's idea of leveling India with Nukes.

Braving the sanctions, C-DAC has built four versions of its Param series of machines, putting India in an elite club of supercomputing nations like the United States, Japan, Israel and China.

Oh wow, it's a who's who of nuclear powers. Considering that the US hasn't ruled out bombing the shit out of Afghanistan we're certianly in good company. The U.S. sanctions thing is bogus. They are close enough to Japan, France, Israel, &c to get all the shit they need.

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No sig is worth reading.

Re:I really hope this is for good.... by Anonymous Coward · 2002-03-05 12:38 · Score: 5, Informative

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....
Re:I really hope this is for good.... by Spock+the+Vulcan · 2002-03-05 12:41 · Score: 1

putting India in an elite club of supercomputing nations like the United States, Japan, Israel and China.

Oh wow, it's a who's who of nuclear powers.

Japan wouldn't be too amused at being called a nuclear power.
Re:I really hope this is for good.... by joib · 2002-03-05 12:47 · Score: 2

Come to think of it, if they can allocate money for a nuke program, they can certainly afford to get appropriate number crunching equipment which is solely in the hands of the weapon designers, not shared by half the academics in the country. You know, nuclear weapons research is usually classified something like "top secret"... I doubt they'd let outsiders access their stuff solely for security reasons.
Re:I really hope this is for good.... by Anonymous Coward · 2002-03-05 14:23 · Score: 1, Interesting

The "second world" nomenclature is rather arbitrary, but there's a hierarchy in the third world, and the difference is "industrialization". Countries such as Argentina, Brazil, and India are not in the same group as Afghanistan, Haiti, and most small countries in the Pacific. Countries in the first group are able to feed most of its population, produce industrialized goods and even finance a small but important academic research fund.
And remember different countries have different costs of living. Where I live, I can buy a very decent meal for less than 1 dollar. If I decide to cook my own meal, that figure drops to less than 50 cents. So don't be silly. Maybe those people do earn less than a dollar a day, but if they have how to grow their own crops, they may be doing relatively fine. Maybe their generation is "lost" in a sense, but if their children go to quality public schools, you should expect a totally different picture in less than a generation.
So, don't tell me about money. Tell me about schools, hospitals and information.
Re:I really hope this is for good.... by Lobachevsky · 2002-03-05 14:27 · Score: 2, Informative

according to the CIA factbook, per capita is $2,200/yr (2000est), and 35% below poverty(1994est); not $100/yr at 90%.
Re:I really hope this is for good.... by spasm · 2002-03-05 15:26 · Score: 4, Informative

" 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.
Re:I really hope this is for good.... by kesuki · 2002-03-05 15:49 · Score: 1

Why should we be so scared of India building some backbone? Considering the central location perhaps they could get into the global bandwith business. The problem with imperialism is that while you can prevent your technologies from 'being stolen.' However, the cost of protecting technology is great. By overly protecting a technology you ensure that one big company no longer has the resoources to develop new technologies, because they are so busy trying to protect older ones.
If india can become a huge market of growth by importing some technology from america then it will truly benefit everyone. Look at how companies like Enron can ride market bubbles here in america. The stock market has always had it's share of companies like enron it is impossible to stop all corruption. If Americans try to choke off competition because it isn't from the USA it creates a negative atmosphere. That means that instead of investing capital in 'hot' markets that can grow exponentially legitimately we end up having tons of venture capital looking for a home. People will see this and start up Enron like corperations and get away with billions. The worst case scenario of free markets is that you lose dominance in one market only to find that the country you lost dominace to is importing more goods from you.
It's important to realize that money is a reperesentation of the total productive output of the entire world. There can only be 'more' money if the productivity of the world goes up. The result of productivity collapsing is a collapse in the value of the money in circulation. Inflation is caused by governemnts that print more money than actually represents the total productivity of their nation. There is a slight exception to this however. America prints the majority of it's money for export to other countries. Since it's accepteed in so many nations globally they can print the money based on global demand for a stable currency. Without that kind of advanatage America could never sustain a multi-trillion dollar debt. I also have a facinating theory on the 'Internet bubble.' America had been reducing the rate at which we were aquring new debt. Basically for 2-3 years there we were paying the minimum payments on all our debts. This had the effect of freeing up capital. The internet was growning at exponential rates (and still is) and so it was seen as the obvious market for all the venture capital. Any market that gets oversaturated with capital could find itself in a bubble situation. Especially a 'new' market that no one (with money) understands. Then again a new market can cause a bubble without the help of freed capital, so unless we get in a time machine it's hard to prove.

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https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html
Re:I really hope this is for good.... by jack+deadmeat · 2002-03-05 16:38 · Score: 1

Eh, the Chinese are much more likely suspects for helping the Pakistanis out with nuclear weapons technology.
Re:I really hope this is for good.... by nyteroot · 2002-03-05 17:06 · Score: 2, Informative

Actually, building a massive internet backbone in India is a really bad idea for two reasons:
1) India needs cheap, regular phone service first. I don't know if much has changed in five years, but last time I was there (not in a big city, mind you, but not exactly out in the boonies.. Udupi, Karnataka, near Mandgalore .. if that means anything to you) but local phone calls weren't cheap and you only made STD (long-distance) calls if you were an important businessman. And the sound quality wasnt good enough to support 9.6kbps.
2) India needs reliable elctricity! I know this one still holds true, I recently read something about the average electricity in India being 8 hours a day. I remember not being able to sleep cause the mill next to us would have to turn on its diesel generators every other night
Once India gets these acts together, then it should worry about getting a huge Internet network.. basics first, guys..

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Ratio of replies to old sig content : replies to actual post content > 0.5. Sig changed.
Re:I really hope this is for good.... by kiwipeso · 2002-03-05 17:49 · Score: 1

Argentina, Brazil and India are all second world nations, far less developed than my small country in the Pacific.
I am a New Zealand citizen and an Australian citizen, I resent this discrimination against Pacific Islands.

Where I live, I can buy a meal for less than a NZ$. That's about US40 for a McDonalds cheeseburger and none of this 'grow your own' crap.

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- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
Re:I really hope this is for good.... by sireenmalik · 2002-03-05 23:56 · Score: 1

Why doesnot President Bush Fire Ma'm Rice and hire you as his precious advisor?! You almost know inside-out of everything that moved on this side of Timbuktoo.
Let March 15, 2002 go peacefully then I 'll come back to you and say you wont fire Nukes?!? And whats with you Indians? somebodyin India says I got flu, and you put this on Pakistan!?!
Some dude mentioned of Grid Computing of which i am sure know nothing about, and you burnt all your gaskets for the "informative" pass-time.
Hey, a good idea is to out-source it to Pakistan, they will do it for you,ofcourse as Pakis have contacts with USA, USSR, China, Korea, Afghanistan( old and new) President Bush, President Bush Sr., CIA, FBI, XYZ, PERL, LINUS, Bill Gates, James Bond, Stalin's girlfriend, etc etc. You see Pakistanis can even induce Flu in your country via 3G mobile networks. Seriously.

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Voltaire: God is dead.
God: Voltaire is dead!
Re:I really hope this is for good.... by jweatherley · 2002-03-06 00:19 · Score: 2, Informative

There was a big drop in call charges in India in the new year. The phone lines support 56k modems - I was reading slashdot from Hyderabad this christmas. Indeed a year and a bit ago I would have had more luck getting an affordable DSL connection in an Indian city than the UK! Broadband has got better in the UK but it still sucks if you don't live in a large city.

As for power a UPS is essential for a computer over there but 8 hours a day is just not true - on average there seemed to be a cut every other day for half an hour max - not great but bearable.

A big problem with electricity in India is the amount of theft - bare wires from the junction box into someones house - nice!

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Reverse outsourcing: it's the future
Re:I really hope this is for good.... by kiwipeso · 2002-03-06 07:26 · Score: 1

Which is my point, Not all Pacific Island nations are 3rd world countries. Those that aren't about to dissapear by global warming are usually 2nd world places.
As for high standards of living, Wellington, New Zealand has the most : internet domains, internet connections, cafes & restaurents per capita in the world.

I object to comparing pacific islands with the 3rd world, sure the Pacific may be primitive in places like my friend's Fiji holiday home, but that's the point of having a house on the beach. (I live across the road from a beach in wellington)

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- Kaos games and encryption systems developer
Re:I really hope this is for good.... by No+One · 2002-03-20 13:06 · Score: 1

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Wheeeeeeeee....

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There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde

Re:India? by buzban · 2002-03-05 12:24 · Score: 1

much more than all the ignorant morons of your kind put together.

thank god...

Get the physical infrastructure sored out first by gibler · 2002-03-05 12:26 · Score: 2, Interesting

Shouldn't roads and irrigation be more important. Hospitals. Schools.

Re:Get the physical infrastructure sored out first by Zibblsnrt · 2002-03-05 13:38 · Score: 3, Insightful

Shouldn't roads and irrigation be more important. Hospitals. Schools.
Do so many people really believe that if a country isn't spending all their money on development, they might as well not be spending any?
...Come on, people, it's not like it's a one-or-the-other decision. It's possible to build roads and computers at the same time, leaps of black-and-white "logic" aside. :P
-PS

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"All that is necessary for evil to succeed is for good men to do nothing." - Edmund Burke
Re:Get the physical infrastructure sored out first by jaju · 2002-03-05 21:25 · Score: 1

Of course they are important. But who says that having an I-Bone means neglecting them in the first place?
The backbone is a step in the right direction, connecting more people, letting information flow smootly, and in the long way helping in better education.
Having hospitals need not really mean that the government build each and every hospital. The government provides the facilities, and it's upto the citizens to use such infrastructure and help the society.
A good information backbone might be able to save quite a few lives too!

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People will do tomorrow what they did today because that is what they did yesterday.

What better country to pull it off? by Xyverz · 2002-03-05 12:26 · Score: 1

Being as most Americans think of India as a 3rd-world country, I say "what better country to pull it off"?

Actually, there is some sense to my suggestion... They don't have any archaic and esoteric infrastructure in place. They'd have to build this from the ground up, no?

Okay, I'm gonna go read that article now... (I'm prolly misinformed...)

--X...

Where do they go for outsourcing? by cmdr_beeftaco · 2002-03-05 12:26 · Score: 3, Funny

Where will they go for contractors when the project is 6 months behinds schedule and 50 million over budget? Will they farm out the programming to Pakistan? China? I need answer.

Re:Where do they go for outsourcing? by Glorat · 2002-03-05 13:34 · Score: 3, Interesting

It is interesting to note that here in the UK, the laws for immigration have changed significantly. Laws are getting tougher for assylum seekers but being relaxed for immigrants that would help the UK economy... and many of these are Indians because they are smart and well educated. Indeed, I have heard of many a project that have been outsourced to India because skilled labour is so much cheaper there. India have the skills and manpower to pull this off
Re:Where do they go for outsourcing? by cmdr_beeftaco · 2002-03-05 13:45 · Score: 1

projects outsourced to india? unheard of. that's the joke. jeeeeez, do the brits have any humor.
Re:Where do they go for outsourcing? by sharkey · 2002-03-05 14:40 · Score: 2

Perhaps they'll get Battle School grads to do the work in forced-labor camps. Probably only need some kind of a psycho who's willing to kill to keep 'em in line.

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"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.

High voltage? by cperciva · 2002-03-05 12:27 · Score: 2

C-DAC's computers, built on a sophisticated clustering of microprocessors, would use advanced software to securely network the machines, much like a high-voltage electricity grid.

Can anyone work out what they're trying to say here? Do high-voltage electricity grids use advanced security software? Perhaps they're saying that anyone who tries to tamper with the network will get shocked? Or...

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Tarsnap: Online backups for the truly paranoid

Re:High voltage? by DarkFyre · 2002-03-05 12:42 · Score: 1

It sounds like two issues to me, or else misuse of the word 'security.' I think the word they were looking for was 'robustness,' in that severing a single line shouldn't cause discontinuities.

I know, my power gets cut off from time to time, too. But I think the 'high-voltage' (ie. non-residential) grids have redundancy in the same way that this proposed network will have better redundancy that the pedestrian Internet (where too many pidgeons on a line in Minneanapolis causes my connection to slow to a crawl).
Re:High voltage? by talonyx · 2002-03-05 15:03 · Score: 2

They're saying that the computers will be all over the place connected with networks, just like how substations are connected with electrical cables.

I sure hope you failed English in high school.
Re:High voltage? by kesuki · 2002-03-05 16:04 · Score: 2

Obviously the 'sophisticated clustering of CPUs' is generating a heat shield. So the effect must be a server room that causes anyone who attempts to tamper with the systems to collapse from heat stroke and/or suffer second degree burns. Or perhaps a more simple solution that the server nearest the door has a peltier device redistribting heat to the door knob so no one can enter the server room.
;-)

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https://www.gnu.org/philosophy/free-sw.html

Re:the down side... by Aanallein · 2002-03-05 12:28 · Score: 1

the data doesn't travel over wires... rather highly trained camels carry packets. still uses IP though.

Lol! Reminds me of a recent Dilbert.
Hmm, in fact, I think there's a chance you remembered that one as well. Still funny though. :)

Yahoo Chat by ZaneMcAuley · 2002-03-05 12:28 · Score: 1

So we expect more of em on Yahoo chat? (Assumming Yahoo chat stays up long enough as its down again atm:D ) More "I Love you" , "Happy Valentines Day" PMs :D

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----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong

Heh by EricKrout.com · 2002-03-05 12:28 · Score: 3, Funny

India's new i-Grid follows a long line of previously successfull Apple products, the i-Pod and the i-Mac being two of them.

When reached for comment, Apple's visionary Steve Jobs stated that his engineers "would worry about the technical difficulties" associated with such a large distributed system after they "dealt with the more important stuff first, like what fluorescent color to make the transparent wires and stuff".

monolinux.com :: GNUs For Nerds. Flawless Grammar.

Re:Heh by decoydog · 2002-03-05 12:56 · Score: 1

now that's comedy...too bad my mod points expired this past weekend.
Re:Heh by darkov · 2002-03-05 22:22 · Score: 2

Yeah looks good but it too fucking expensive. When will Apple learn that it can't foist overpriced distributed computing networks onto unsuspecting countries. Someone should tell them they can get a much cheaper Grid by using PCs and Linux.

Also, I hear it only supports one button mice. Sigh.

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Reliable, Great Value Hosting: $7.95/mo 2.4G/120G

Mammoth applications? by Oink.NET · 2002-03-05 12:29 · Score: 2, Funny

Quoth CNet:

India's state-run agency for advanced computing plans to build a nationwide grid of supercomputers for mammoth applications.

Mammoth, as in wooly mammoth? I suppose they'll be excavating Cobol programmers to write the code for it...

Re:Mammoth applications? by scoove · 2002-03-05 12:40 · Score: 2

grid of supercomputers for mammoth applications.

No, you must not have seen the network diagram. It's very explicit, as it has an elephant standing on the back of a turtle (and so on).

Check your Visio2000 India Symbols pack. It's all there.

*scoove*
Re:Mammoth applications? by dillon_rinker · 2002-03-05 13:16 · Score: 2

Skeptic: But what does the turtle stand on?
True Believer: It's turtles all the way down!
Re:Mammoth applications? by Bob+McCown · 2002-03-05 13:48 · Score: 1

Well, at least get it right...dug this off the web A well-known scientist (some say it was Bertrand Russell) once gave a public lecture on astronomy. He described how the earth orbits around the sun and how the sun, in turn, orbits around the entre of a vast collection of stars called our galaxy. At the end of the lecture, a little old lady at the back of the room got up and said: "What you have told us is rubbish. The world is really a flat plate supported on the back of a giant tortoise." The scientist gave a superior smile before replying, "What is the tortoise standing on?" "You're very clever, young man, very clever," said the old lady. "But it's turtles all the way down."
Re:Mammoth applications? by SamBeckett · 2002-03-05 14:21 · Score: 1

It's actually in the introduction to one of Hawking's books, too.
Re:Mammoth applications? by ElderKorean · 2002-03-06 16:35 · Score: 1

The turtle doesn't have to stand on anything. According to Terry it's just moving through space.

I suspect that it is on the way to the turtle mating place in the sky. When it gets there then the really important question can be answered....What sex is the turtle.

The disc of the world is supported on the back of four elephants which are in turn walking in a big circle on the back of the turtle.

The turtle even has a name - A'Tuin.
Re:Mammoth applications? by dillon_rinker · 2002-03-12 14:39 · Score: 2

THE TURTLE MOVES!

India the Next Superpower by pyrrho · 2002-03-05 12:31 · Score: 5, Interesting

There is no doubt in my mind that India is the next big superpower.

(1) Lots of unspoilt natural resources
(2) Smart People
(3) Most Important (A LOT OF PEOPLE)
(4) and it doesn't hurt they speak english allowing them to segue their way in.

My premise..? Numbers don't lie. A giant market is a giant period. This prediction does cover China too, their population makes them a sleeping giant. Except that China does not have an open society. India is struggling against years of exploitation and it's own caste system... but given the adoption of democracy there I can't imagine it won't arrise from these difficulties and when it does, it will have more resources than anyone will be able to (or want to) stop.

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-pyrrho

Re:India the Next Superpower by scoove · 2002-03-05 13:05 · Score: 2

There is no doubt in my mind that India is the next big superpower.

Good arguments, but I'm not sold (as much as I'm impressed with India's efforts and potential).

Is there really any good evidence of the emergence of a superpower from a ethnically diverse and incompatible populace, absent significant suppression by the elite minority of the other groups?

China and South Africa are good examples of the potential for advancement under suppression.

I'm really more curious than serious on my argument - I'd have to believe there's a /.'er polysci major that knows of some good material on the topic.

Need some bedtime reading this weekend!

*scoove*
Re:India the Next Superpower by Anonymous Coward · 2002-03-05 13:09 · Score: 1

Superpower!! Looks like you know all there is to know about india. Try making a long distance call in India at peak time within 1 hour .... or finding a drivable road .... or any place without millions of miserable poor people with nothing to eat.

India is a sick, failed nation with a future which will continue to be the same unless there is a revolutionary change of mindset and prompt action to abandon and destroy their bureaucratic and corupt institions (including entities like C-DAC) and systems. If you know India this means building pretty much everything from scratch.

Will India become a superpower? Not in next 50-100years and certainly not unless it abandons it current system as well as its egotistical stand on Kashmir, which is to hold on it even if it means economic depravation and starvation of the vast majority of its billion souls. That formula is no recipe for success, it does however gurantee that the nation is stuck in this cycle until there is mass revolution or a post-apocalyptic reconstruction.
Re:India the Next Superpower by NixterAg · 2002-03-05 15:17 · Score: 1

South Africa is experiencing astronomical crime rates (and it is still growing) and corruption at all levels of government. I'd wager that it could go the way of Zimbabwe within the next 20 years (and I hope not...it is a truly beautiful country).

I don't exactly know what you mean "potential for advancement under suppression". I also have absolutely no idea what "emergence of a superpower from a(n) ethnically diverse and incompatible populace, absent significant suppression by the elite minority of the other groups" means either.
Re:India the Next Superpower by pyrrho · 2002-03-05 16:13 · Score: 1

Do you think roads and communication lines take more than 50 years to get in place? If it was just infrastructural issues, it could happen over night. But it's a matter of waiting for democracy to set in, it's a cultural issue. I don't believe that India will take that long on cultural grounds, and in fact my prediction is exactly as you deny, 50-100 years.

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-pyrrho
Re:India the Next Superpower by raldanash · 2002-03-05 16:24 · Score: 1

I disagree with the "unspoilt" resources. India is a 1 billion people in 1/3 the size of the US. Most of the "unspoilt" spaces are mountains and deserts. Try to find wilderness in the flatlands-good luck. India does some some iron and manganese in the Chota Nagpure highlands-but it's industrial capacity isn't a great as someplace like China which has more hydro potentional and more mineral resources (coal).

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NO gods, NO governments, NO [OPTION]....
Re:India the Next Superpower by ma_sivakumar · 2002-03-05 16:33 · Score: 2
My premise..? Numbers don't lie. A giant market is a giant period.

That is not strictly true. I am from India, and I have worked in China and in UK. Based on my experience, numbers are not everything. While I also see a lot of potential in the huge population of India and China, there are major hurdles to overcome.
1. Education:
  
  The education system in India is still the same system which aimed to churn out clerks to serve under the colonial British masters. The bright Indian professionals you meet in the western world are bright inspite of all the negatives of the education system
2. Personal Responsibility:
  
  As a direct result of the poor education system, you can see laws being flouted at all levels (right from the traffic system to awarding government contracts). When you have a big mass of people who are not following the rules, (unless watched over by the police,) most of the energy is drained in watching out rathern than performing
3. Corruption
  
  Again, following the above two, the system is corrupt through and through. NOTHING gets down without palms being greased and even after greasing, in many places nothing gets down EVER
  
  To mask their inefficiency, the political class resort to religeous fundamentalism, casteism and war mongering.
I also hope that we can wish away all these. But these are the sad realities. The silver lining is the functioning democracy and the remarkable shrewdness of the ordinary man in seeing through all this.

Thus, we are slowly inching towards progress, but as we say, sometimes you climb an inch and slip a foot, so it is tough
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yAthum UrE yAvarum kELir All the places are our place, everybody is our kin. (A Tamil Poet - 2000 years ago)
Re:India the Next Superpower by jweatherley · 2002-03-06 01:18 · Score: 1

Half the nation probably dies of some malnurishment related disease
Well, actually they probably don't - food is plentiful and cheap in India. (even allowing for the low average wage). BTW perhaps an Indian could spell 'malnourishment'...

And how do you explain the fact a billion people cannot compete in any international atheletic endeavour?
OK they're not a world sporting superpower but there is Sachin Tendulkar - but you USians probably don't know too much about cricket.

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Reverse outsourcing: it's the future
Re:India the Next Superpower by No+One · 2002-03-20 11:53 · Score: 1

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old posts offtopic.

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There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde

Better way of spending the cash... by MoThugz · 2002-03-05 12:33 · Score: 1

It's no secret that India has a high disparity between the rich and the poor. Some of you might even seen it on TV (remember Amazing Race?). Somehow it makes me feel that this project is a waste of money for Indians.

Now with sectarian violence threatening to rip the country apart, they still have time to think of an I-Grid?

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Welley Corporation - SLM Scammers

Re:Better way of spending the cash... by nelsonal · 2002-03-05 18:26 · Score: 1

While the US has much higher disparities between rich and poor, Brazil is much higher. I think its close to the top.
One of the most common wealth disparity figures is the gini coeficcient, it measures the difference between a country's Lorenz line (a line plotting wealth percentile to population percentile) verses an ideal 45 degree line. European contries tend to have the lowest numbers, the US is near the middle, and South American countries are generally the highest. In Brazil's case the richest 20% of the country holds almost 70% of the wealth.

--
Degaussing scares the bad magnetism out of the monitor and fills it with good karma.

Whts the difference between Pakistan and a pancake by indole · 2002-03-05 12:37 · Score: 2, Troll

From the article:
"Such a grid would share or combine diverse computer memories and software in parallel processes to aid environmental modeling, fast analysis of satellite images, advanced chip design and simulation of heavy-duty equipment like turbines."

I think it's interesting how when one nuclear agressive country imports Playstation 2's we freak the fuck out, but when another nuclear agressive country creates the worlds largest supercomputing grid we say, Bravo!

Ah well, such is life.

--
(2,3-Benzopyrrole)

Colleges by Telastyn · 2002-03-05 12:38 · Score: 5, Interesting

From what I understand this will be a large project to interconnect India's largest technical colleges (Institutes of Technology, which are very prestegious and good) and have smallish (by US standards) supercomputers at each one. They would then resell the pooled computing resources as needed.

The American equivalent would be having a supercomputer at Stanford, MIT, UMich, CMU, GATech, and maybe 4 other places, connected via internet2 and ssh tunnels.

Re:Colleges by gupg · 2002-03-05 12:59 · Score: 1

yeah I think its kind of the national supercomputer centers that the US universities had in late 80s/early 90s. They were called NCSA .. thats where Mosiac came from.
Re:Colleges by Dock · 2002-03-05 13:16 · Score: 1

I hope you aren't suggesting using a SSH tunnel for the entire connection. You would need those massive systems *just* to encrypt/decrypt the traffic, you'd have nothing leftover for applications. And AFAIK, SSH tunnels are severely limited. You would need a fixed port for the tunnel on the client end and you would only be able to connect to a single remote site through it. We are not talking about a encrypted proxy here.

Would you want to have to use a single port for every host you'd want to connect to over the network? www.uni1:8000, www.uni2:8001, www.slashdot:8050, on and on. You wouldn't be able to connect to more than 65k sites without constantly changing your local profile. Talk about a waste of resources..

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http://about.me/paultenny
Re:Colleges by Anonymous Coward · 2002-03-05 13:45 · Score: 1, Insightful

Specifically, NCSA at UIUC. I think the NCSA "alliance" thing came later. I would add UIUC and Berkeley to the parent poster's list.

Re:Not Indians! by Spock+the+Vulcan · 2002-03-05 12:46 · Score: 1

And people from the US are not called Americans, but Christians, even though not everyone practises Christianity, right? You, sir, are either an idiot, or very misinformed. And worse is the moderator who modded this insightful. Geez.

Re:Priorities by scoove · 2002-03-05 12:51 · Score: 5, Insightful

Umm, should the indians worry about feeding their own and eliminating bubonic plague as a major cause of death before they build stuff like this?

God do I hope that's a silly European and not a stupid American saying something like that. (It's probably a stupid American aspiring to be a silly European, in all likelyhood).

Actually, I think this is an exceptional move to help get people out of poverty (not that all people in India are in poverty - another rather myopic view). Besides the usual opportunities represented in such a move, technology tends to bring in a tremendous opportunity for entrepreneurship (read: a way for poor blokes to move up in the world).

Because of the rate of change with technology, rapid obsolescence, intellectual demands (brain vs brawn), the expansion of technology in any economy really helps young adults create new businesses which in turn feed more money into channels outside of the status quo.

I hope India explores liberal licensing of 2.4 and 5.8 GHz frequencies as well, ensuring this backbone has room to grow. India's telecom network has been terribly restricted, corrupt and ineffective in past years and a wireless broadband framework could serve as an excellent spur network to feed all this new commerce into the backbone.

eliminating bubonic plague

Er... we still have it in the US, buddy! It lives in prairie dogs (which have become recent animal preservationist favorites because they're so cute). Folks still come down with it from other rodent population that comes in contact with the prairie dogs (which are unaffected by the disease).

*scoove*

Re:Not Indians! by queequeg1 · 2002-03-05 12:52 · Score: 1

Per the US State Dept. India information

Re:India? by Anomolous+Cow+Herd · 2002-03-05 12:53 · Score: 1

Yeah, except all the examples you cited are in the past, while what he cited began last week and is still happening. Or are you just trying to say that they are about 100 years behind the civilized world?

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"I don't know that atheists should be considered citizens, nor should they be considered patriots." - George Bush

Re:Not Indians! by gupg · 2002-03-05 12:53 · Score: 1

You Idiot !!

Ofcourse they are called Indians - I am from India.

Where do you think the incorrect name for Native Americans came from ?? Christopher Columbus was looking for a new route to India and landed on Islands off of North America and thought he had reached India. So he called those people Indians.

Re:Priorities by gupg · 2002-03-05 12:56 · Score: 1

If every nation first tried to feed its people and then did scientific research, then the nation would never progress. The US would first have to work to get every Bum off the street, before it could fund any research.

India : Some Facts by matrix0040 · 2002-03-05 12:56 · Score: 4, Informative

I guess the replies reflect a general ignorance about india and indians in general. India might have it's own problems with poverty and all but still countries in europe and US relied on indian brain power for their IT needs.

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 ;-)

Re: India : Some Facts by Sivaraj · 2002-03-06 03:15 · Score: 1

The defense department have their own separate supercomputer, called Anurag. It was less powerful than Param from C-DAC, but it was built specifically for defense purposes.

Named the "I-Grid" (I is for 'Information' silly ! by ZaneMcAuley · 2002-03-05 13:06 · Score: 1

And there i was thinking I stood for Idiot, the Idiot-Grid :D Glad u cleared that up.

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----- Whats wrong with this picture? http://www.revoh.org:1234/whatswrong

I hope none of the fiber goes thru Kashmir by LM741N · 2002-03-05 13:07 · Score: 2

Or they are going to have lots of network downtime.

Re:I hope none of the fiber goes thru Kashmir by Quixote · 2002-03-06 01:31 · Score: 2

Why not? Last I checked, Kashmir was a part of India. The International Law recognizes the accession of Kashmir into India. Even the United Nations agreed that Kashmir would be a part of India (until the plebiscite is held). What it does not recognize is the occupation of a part of Kashmir by Pakistan.
The plebiscite has not been held because Pakistan continues to illegally occupy a third of the region. Once Pakistan withdraws, there should be no problems in holding a plebiscite.
Coming back to the topic at hand, I hope this network (or something similar) will spread to every nook and corner of the country, bringing high-speed access to the masses.

"Weather predictions" by Edmund+Blackadder · 2002-03-05 13:08 · Score: 1

I used to know people that developed super computers back in eastern europe back before the curtain lifted. And they used to put wheather predictions first on their list on potential uses of their computers. In any event their computers were made exclusively for military purposes for russia. No i am not calling you a liar but i want to point out that wheather predictions have been a cover up for military use for supercomputers for a very long time. I dont even know whether we have any mathematical practical working mathematical models for pedicting the wheather that would make large ammounts of computing power useful.

Re:"Weather predictions" by matrix0040 · 2002-03-05 13:48 · Score: 2, Insightful

From Times of india
C-dac, based in the western city of Pune, plans to link the seven Indian institutes of technology (IITs), the Bangalore-based Indian Institute of Science and other academic institutions in the I-Grid, Arora said.
The IIT's and IISc and CDAC (as someone pointed out) are all open places. You can just walk into the place. No pass or clearance (for iit's i know for sure) needed.
I can tell you for sure that the terms of use of computational facilities at IIT's prohibit the use of computers for any nuclear or missile research. We don't do those kinds of work there. They're done in BARC and ISRO (though ISRO has joint projects with a few of iit's). But yes you can never draw a line between civilian and defence research. There are many applications of research. People will always find ways to use the civilain reseach for defence purpose but that doesn't mean one should not do research at all and go back to living in caves and hunting animals (ok a bit of exaggeration ;-))

sorry about the word reapeats by Edmund+Blackadder · 2002-03-05 13:11 · Score: 1

ignore one of the mathematicals i guess:)

and i will start using preview.

Re:Don't let them do it! by TeddyR · 2002-03-05 13:15 · Score: 1

No; but an Supercomputer would allow them to test thories that they would (SHOULD) never contemplate with real nukes. They can test scenarios that initially would seem impossible .... {flashback: Anyone remember that old movie, WarGames...}

[Even the US Govt. admits that without its computing power in WWII they would never have been able to develop the devices used on Japan in time; why do you think they treat computers and encryption as AMMUNITION]

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Time is on my side

Indians by dansef · 2002-03-05 13:16 · Score: 1, Offtopic

Q. Who are CEOs of the following well-known companies? A. Please find the answers yourself...... * AppNet America Online (The Largest ISP in the World) * Lucent Technologies (Pioneer in Fiber Optics) * Proxicom Network Solutions (The sole web domain assigner) * General Dynamics Corporation * Lazard Freres * Litton PRC * Columbia Capital * Primus Communications * Discovery Communications * Bell Atlantic * Cable & Wireless * The Motley Fool * Hughes Network Systems * Cybercash * MCI Worldcom * PSINet * Motorola * MicroStrategy * Equalfooting.com * Teligent, Inc. * MindBank * U.S. Airways * CIENA Corp. * BioNetrix * Net 2000 Communications * Computer Associates * SAIC * Startec * INOVA Health System * Cvent.com * Eglobe * Metrocall, Inc. * DynCorp * Consumer Elec. Ass'n * The Carlyle Group * Cyveillance * Nextel Communications * Fannie Mae * Intelsat * Draper Atlantic * Venture Fund, L.P. * Freddie Mac * Manugistics * Raytheon Systems Corporation * Spacevest * HSBC * United Airlines. What did you find? Do you find anything common between them? Yes, they are all Indians. They are known as the IT Mafia. They are the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even faring better than the whites and the natives. There are 3.22 Million Indians in America; 38% of Doctors in America are Indians. 12% of Scientists in America are Indians. 36% of NASA employees are Indians. 34% of MICROSOFT employees are Indians 28% of IBM employees are Indians 17% of INTEL employees are Indians 13% of XEROX employees are Indians

Re:Indians by dansef · 2002-03-05 13:33 · Score: 1

If Indians could manage to be the wealthiest among all ethnic groups in America, even faring better than the whites and the natives with the 'peanuts' you mentioned, what will they achieve when the playing field is levelled out?
Re:Indians by Anne_Nonymous · 2002-03-05 15:07 · Score: 2

AOL = Gerald Levin
LU = Particia Russo
PXCM = Acquired 9 months ago
GD = Nicholas Chabraja (a fat old white guy)
Lazard = Bruce Wasserstein
LIT = Acquired in 2001
Columbia = a pissant little firm with partners and no CEO

Etc, etc...

I don't mean to diminish the contributions of Indians to the world of business, but you obviously either have an agenda or are woefully misinformed.
Re:Indians by npguy2000 · 2002-03-05 15:09 · Score: 1

You forgot about designation ! about 80% of indians in US are form designer!
Re:Indians by No+One · 2002-03-20 12:46 · Score: 1

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Wheeeee.....

--

There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde
Re:Indians by No+One · 2002-03-20 12:48 · Score: 1

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old Score: 1 posts as Overrated.

Wheee......

--

There is no sin except stupidity -- Oscar Wilde

Another article on same report by gupg · 2002-03-05 13:22 · Score: 4, Informative

Here is an article on the same subject in the Times of India: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow.asp ?art_id=2867426

And what about tech support? by Carmody · 2002-03-05 13:24 · Score: 2

When they have it all hooked up, when one of their citizens calls for tech support, to what country will their call be forwarded?

"How about India?"

"d00d! W3 R Indi4!"

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God is real unless declared integer

The seamy side of Bollywood by cryptochrome · 2002-03-05 13:24 · Score: 2

Sounds perfect for transfering large quantities of ripped Indian Porn... wonder if they're all musicals.

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---If you can't trust a nerd, who can you trust?

India Already IS a Superpower, Mr Coward by dansef · 2002-03-05 13:28 · Score: 1

Anonymous Coward, India is not stuck in any cycle, but a progressive, broad-minded, free and democratic nation. It will be good for the Pakis to outgrow their obsession with Kashmir... i yet have to watch one Pak News, without reference to India or Kashmir! Unfortunately for them, India seeks to grow and blossom, progress and prosper, without being obsessed with something.

Re:Not Indians! by inburito · 2002-03-05 13:32 · Score: 2

And people from where ever you come from are collectively called idiots..

Communism [ot] by univgeek · 2002-03-05 13:32 · Score: 1

One of the worlds only elected Communist party, currently rules in West Bengal. The Communist party was also in and out of power in another state (Kerala) in India. The Communists also hold some seats in the Parliament. We've seen communism and we ain't it.

--
All bow to his Noodliness!! His Noodle Appendage has touched me!

Re:they should run linux by matrix0040 · 2002-03-05 13:37 · Score: 1

CDAC basically uses SunOS (version?) on their servers. I had talked to a scientist at CDAC about the reason for not using Linux and that's the reason they told me ! reliabilty.. but that was a few years ago .. maybe now they'll look at linux and bring down the cost of their grids !

Re:Ahem by TACD · 2002-03-05 13:40 · Score: 1

Um, only if we are both using the computers flat-out. If either me or my neighbour has processor cycles going to waste, then the other coomputer can use them and hey presto! we are going faster.

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Security through promiscuity is no better than security through obscurity.

Re:Just Imagine by scorcherer · 2002-03-05 13:41 · Score: 2

I imagined a clustering article that didn't have the oh-so-cute Beowulf comments. It only contained +1nsightful and +1nteresting comments and not the usual digital landfill of /.. But you woke me up from that dream.

By the way, imagine a MOSIX cluster of these, now that would be something!

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The Cap is nigh. Time to get a fresh new account.

India and export control by AtomicBomb · 2002-03-05 13:43 · Score: 1

The usual practice of US govt is to grant permission for the export in a case by case basis. e.g. if for weather forecast/ banking => okay,
ICBM design => no,no.

I have got a feeling that they want to get away with the supercomputing export control this time (for military use ???). Their proposed use is so general that it makes control impossible. Take an example of another "tier 3" export control region: Hong Kong. I remember that in 1999, Hong Kong Government granted a permission to buy a supercomputer (16 CPU 19.2 GFLOPS peak) for weather forecasting. The standard practice is the supercomputer must be hosted in a heavily secured room in the observatory, and the observatory must hold a list for personel who can have acess to the computer. Also, the local US embassy has the right to inspect the premise and gears for irregularities...

Hong Kong as a major weather forecast hub in Asia will have to crank out a weather report each day. The chance to "sell" the spare CPU time out is pretty remote. But, still, US govt takes a lot of precautions. For a general purpose supercomputer distributed so widely like this and with many so-called "out-sourced contracts", do you think US govt can keep an eye on it effectively? BTW, in most cases, IT in Indian does not need supercomputer. But, their ICBM and advanced fighter (LCA) project will definitely need supercomputer in urgent....

Re:India and export control by matrix0040 · 2002-03-05 13:57 · Score: 1

I know about US export control. They sold us an IBM SP2 computer
IBM SP: 15 Power 3 processors, SQ switch, 8 GB RAM, 9 GB Internal HDD per Node, 90 GB External HDD on SSA
which was capable for gigabit network but didn't sell us the gigabit network equipment (switch/cards etc) saying it can be used for weapon research. Now I failed to understand the point behind this. They sold SP2 because they got $ for it but gave only 10MBps network with it.
P.S. Param uses Solaris 6 ( i had mentioned this in a previous post but didn't have the version )

Re:Priorities by MagikSlinger · 2002-03-05 13:59 · Score: 3, Insightful

Ah, the crypto-colonialist has crept out from under his rock.

1) India produces quite enough food for its population. It's poverty that's killing people.

2) Bubonic plague thrives in India because of the close proximity of people and animals over much of the country. Would you like them to start exterminating their biota to make you happy?If you are talking about antibiotics, then India needs a lot of cash it really doesn't have right now because they're still an economic backwater.

3) Since poverty is the greatest risk factor for death in India, maybe some industrial advancement would be in order. Not the kind that produces pollution and low wages, but maybe tertiary and quartenary industries, like say, computing science and engineering. Oops! They've been doing that and enjoying good economic growth and increased tax revenues to pay for things.

THUS to better serve the needs of their people through economic growth and transitioning away from a physical labor economy (where education isn't required), they need this kind of project. So please keep your neo-colonialist views to yourself. Do you imagine everyone outside of Europe and America as poor, stupid, starving darkies who need good white folk like you to put their priorities straight?

PUH-leeze! The White Man's Burden is SO over.

--
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com

Or... by Greyfox · 2002-03-05 14:04 · Score: 2

We'll all have to emigrate to India. That's OK. I like curry. I'll miss hamburgers though...

--

I'm trying to teach myself to set people on fire with my mind... Is it hot in here?

Re:Or... by bahree · 2002-03-05 14:36 · Score: 1

Umm... you got McDonalds in India. Not to mention KFC, PizzaHut, Dominos....
Re:Or... by red_dragon · 2002-03-05 15:03 · Score: 2, Informative

In India, McDonald's serves lamb burgers.

--
In Soviet Russia, Jesus asks: "What Would You Do?"

Re:Priorities by gol64738 · 2002-03-05 14:21 · Score: 1

Do you imagine everyone outside of Europe and America as poor, stupid, starving darkies who need good white folk like you to put their priorities straight?

um, yes. look at history and the basic evolution of technology and answer your own question.

Never gona happen by VS1 · 2002-03-05 14:28 · Score: 1

India's buracrecy(sp?) will never let this go through. Itll be plauged by poor funding, secrutiy problems, and stupidity. If this does go through, and WORKS, its a miracle.

--
"Humanize war? You might as talk about humanizing hell!" -- British Admiral Jacky Fisher

Re:the down side... by sharkey · 2002-03-05 14:33 · Score: 3, Funny

Ahhh. Perhaps they are adapting the Avian Carrier technology to Large Ruminants to provide lower altitude, higher throughput (camels can carry more than birds) service. Latency is still pretty bad, I'll bet.

--

--
"Outlook not so good." That magic 8-ball knows everything! I'll ask about Exchange Server next.

Re:Priorities Priority ONE get rid of GODs by Lobachevsky · 2002-03-05 14:44 · Score: 1

If the past dictates the future, why are you selectively picking the past 50-300yrs and not the past 700yrs? Before 1750, India was a land of riches, with the average person far more wealthy than their equivalents in europe. For having their wealth taken to England for two-hundred years, they've done a sporting job in the last 50.

Re:Priorities by osgeek · 2002-03-05 14:49 · Score: 2

(not that all people in India are in poverty - another rather myopic view)

Sheesh... hardly. I lived in India for a few months working in Hyderabad, so I can tell you: That country is a complete hole. While there, I traveled from New Delhi to Bombay to Goa, and everywhere I went, it was the same: abject povery.

Hell, while there, we lived in a nice house in a decent neighborhood, but we still had a couple of grass shacks in the lot right next door to us. Garbage was everywhere, little kids were running around naked and hungry through the piles of garbage (often burning).

When you breathe in the air, you count yourself lucky if you only inhale a cloud of diesel fumes. More often than not, you have to breathe old piss and sewage fumes. Where does that come from? Well let me tell you, my friends -- when the average person living in an Indian city needs to relieve himself, he just whips it out and pisses on the side of the nearest building. Playing "Dodge the Piss Puddle" is no fun while you're walking down the sidewalk.

The reason why everything is so crappy can be summed up in one word: "corruption". Even most Indian friends that I know agree that it's a huge problem, although when they talk about it, it's always some government agency that they blame. Little do they realize that corruption pervades their entire society -- from the Prime Minister down to the little guy on the street. Everywhere you go, you have to be ready to pay bribes or grease someone's palm. You *always* ALWAYS have to count your change when you buy something, or you'll get ripped off. India's only hope to become the super power that they so desperately want to be is to undertake a massive cultural ethical shift. If Indians had the ethics of the Japanese, they'd be unstoppable as a world economic power... but they don't, so they won't ever be.

Spending that time in India was the greatest learning experience in my life. Every time I think about it (like now), I truly appreciate what we have in this country.

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Why are you letting these clowns ruin our country?

Re:Whts the difference between Pakistan and a panc by npguy2000 · 2002-03-05 14:55 · Score: 1

go and submit in some newsgroup. its not suitable to start a thread with respect to the subject matter.

Re:Priorities by Lobachevsky · 2002-03-05 14:56 · Score: 1

There's plenty of food in India; many just can't afford enough of it. Solution?

Well, one is continue with such things as the i-Grid and have the long-term solution of education and job-availability solve poverty,

another is to create a welfare state and subsidize the poor's food, etc., as we in the US do with food stamps,

alternatively, create a communist state where the $2,200/yr per capita income is evenly distributed, which would be enough to feed all.

We'll probably throw sanctions if they turned communist, and the government doesn't have the money to subsidize food (causing their currency to become weaker than it is).

Why is the Indian government exporting food when some of its own residents can't afford it? Reflectively, does our government (the u.s. for those not in here), burn over 50% of crops while some (much fewer here than in india) die here of starvation? In a capitalist world, the long-term economy of the country cannot give freebies to the unemployed/underemployed [unemployment checks in the u.s. were shortened yet again -- to, is it 10months now?]

Just what they need... by DriceX · 2002-03-05 15:01 · Score: 1

....more central government planning.

Re:India the Next Superpower -wrong history by NixterAg · 2002-03-05 15:12 · Score: 2, Insightful

Buddy, you don't have a clue.

The reasons India won't become the next superpower have much less to do with the fact that they are religious than the fact that there are a billion people living in too small of an area lacking abundant natural resources.

The only reason you have this idiotic idea that Indians are more intelligent on the average is because those are the only ones the rest of the world is exposed to. It takes the cream of the crop to go to Universities throughout the world and to go run businesses.

An Indian friend of mine at Texas A&M University was once asked why all of the Indians he met were so smart. She replied something along the lines of "because we left all of the less intelligent Indians in India".

Please, don't be offended by this statement, because I truly mean no ill will. I am just relaying what my experience has been.

Apple by graphicartist82 · 2002-03-05 15:37 · Score: 1

I wonder if Apple will make an "I-Grid" then sue the country of India for copyright infringement...

Re:Priorities by MagikSlinger · 2002-03-05 15:44 · Score: 2

um, yes. look at history and the basic evolution of technology and answer your own question

That makes no sense as a rebuttal. I have looked at history and the basic evolution of technology, and that's where my original post came from. Technological progress has always lead to an increase in human welfare. Spending little to no resources on progress to feed everyone results in stagnation (cf. Pre-Colonial China).

Could you be more specific?

--
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com

I guess you haven't played Civ III by jonbrewer · 2002-03-05 15:45 · Score: 2

Shouldn't roads and irrigation be more important. Hospitals. Schools.

If you spend all your time building roads and irrigation without developing technology, you'll get clobbered. These things need to happen concurrently. Always set your Science spending to at least 40% and let the roads and irragation sort themselves out in good time. (hint, set the workers on auto)

RFC1149 is obsolete by wackybrit · 2002-03-05 15:47 · Score: 2

Sorry, you can't get away with that nowadays.

RFC 2549 updates RFC 1149 with added Quality of Service.

--
mogorific carpentry experiments

Re:Priorities by _Knots · 2002-03-05 15:55 · Score: 1

The White Man's Burden (the poem), I've been told, was probably intended as satire. I don't remember it well enough to quote citations, but that's what my teacher said. Take it with a grain of salt, obviously.

(Note to self: reread.)

_knots

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Anarchy$ dd if=/dev/random of=~/.signature bs=120 count=1

Re:India? by Peter+La+Casse · 2002-03-05 15:55 · Score: 1

Actually, at least 1/8 of the world cares about this place, that's much more than all the ignorant morons of your kind put together.

Actually, if you look carefully, you'll find that more than 1/8 of the world are ignorant morons.

Re:Priorities by gol64738 · 2002-03-05 16:43 · Score: 1

well i suppose the real question is what has always led to an increase of technological progress, right?

Send all the Indians back to Africa by CrazyJim0 · 2002-03-05 17:15 · Score: 1

MST3K reference :)

--
God spoke to me

Re:Not Indians! by OctoBer31 · 2002-03-05 17:17 · Score: 1

Er, AnonCow?...if you live in India and happen to be Hindu rather than Muslim, you're a "Hindu". You're confusing your faith with your country of origin. The people living in the country named India are "Indians" in English.

Check out the link queequeg listed above - very informative. (thx, q).

Re:Not Indians! by OctoBer31 · 2002-03-05 17:28 · Score: 1

Don't apologize for your English, rather apologize for your error - English isn't a Romance language. And thank you for the history lesson, lest we evil Americans forget every evil deed ever committed on our shores by our countryfolk. Aren't you glad these evil deeds can only be committed by Americans, and would never, ever be done by people in any other country on Earth, including yours?

Re:Priorities by OctoBer31 · 2002-03-05 17:52 · Score: 1

Wow, not even close with the stats on Plague. The US averages 10-20 cases per year whereas the majority of Plague cases occur in Asia, with recent outbreaks in India as lately as 1997 with roughly 700 cases.

Given your track record, AnonCow, I'll leave your "starving children" stats for others to tease out, Gods help them.

India's project to build this network is an investment in their future - I can't fault them for that one bit, and am encouraged by it, actually. Given time, it has the potential to produce jobs, technology for exports, and encouragement for investors from other countries...+,+,+.

Don't do them a disservice by "quoting" stats just to deflate your mad-on toward the US.

Re:India? by jhaanti · 2002-03-05 18:35 · Score: 1

Don't say this is not happening as we speak. The racist mind set of many Americans has not changed at all. There are stories happening in every corner of US. The cops that beat up that Nigerian immigrant were released. There were cops in my town (Pittsburgh) who had beat up a pro sport player and nothing happened, they didn't even file up a report or anything against him. What happened back there was sick, but again was just bunch of homeless, jobless, poor people.

h1-b by _ph1ux_ · 2002-03-05 19:06 · Score: 2

now we can saturate their tech market with h1-b visa workers from the US!!

Not camels but bullock carts. by anandsr · 2002-03-05 20:14 · Score: 1

Very little part of india is desert. And that part
does not come on the information highway. So I guess
it will have to be bullock carts.

-1: Second World by inKubus · 2002-03-05 20:32 · Score: 1

India is a second world nation. They do not have enough food to feed their population, and their birthrates are exploding. There will be a massive famine and a very bloody war near India before they will ever be a superpower. They do have a massive army, however (~200 million able bodied men). If they could get water into their arable land and somehow get 300 million people to die, they might have a fighting chance. It's not going to be pretty.

--
Cool! Amazing Toys.

Re:-1: Second World by PD · 2002-03-06 04:48 · Score: 2

Second world? You mean they are still aligned with the USSR? Even after the USSR is gone? Amazing!

The only terms that still have meaning are first world, and third world: the haves and the have nots.

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If tits were wings it'd be flying around.

Sanctions hurt mainly the US by AndyChrist · 2002-03-05 20:41 · Score: 2

I knew a physics PhD student from India who said that when he was in the military there, anything they couldn't get from the US, they'd buy from Denmark, or make themselves. Example: he said that he himself had to design a mounting system for an infrared camera on a helicopter.

If anything, sanctions are probably good for India in the long term, as they encourage the development of local talent. (A lot of whom still want to leave India, so I guess it ends up being good for the US, too)

What "sanctions"? by Grendel+Drago · 2002-03-05 22:06 · Score: 2

From http://www.mac.doc.gov/sanctions/faq.htm:

The only sanctions remaining on India and Pakistan are restrictions on exports to Indian and Pakistani entities of nuclear or missile proliferation.

What sanctions are we talking about here?

--grendel drago

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Laws do not persuade just because they threaten. --Seneca

Re:I really hope this is for good.... ( by sireenmalik · 2002-03-05 23:51 · Score: 1

Hey man, why doesnot President Bush Fire Ma'm Rice and hire you as his precious advisor?! You almost know inside-out of everything that moved on this side of Timbuktoo.
Let March 15, 2002 go peacefully then I 'll come back to you and say you wont fire Nukes?!? And whats with you Indians? somebodyin India says I got flu, and you put this on Pakistan!?!
Some dude mentioned of Grid Computing of which i am sure know nothing about, and you burnt all your gaskets for the "informative" pass-time.
Hey, a good idea is to out-source it to Pakistan, they will do it for you,ofcourse as Pakis have contacts with USA, USSR, China, Korea, Afghanistan( old and new) President Bush, President Bush Sr., CIA, FBI, XYZ, PERL, LINUS, Bill Gates, James Bond, Stalin's girlfriend, etc etc. You see Pakistanis can even induce Flu in your country via 3G mobile networks. Seriously.

--

Voltaire: God is dead.
God: Voltaire is dead!

Like Napster? by monkey+typewriter · 2002-03-05 23:58 · Score: 1

As a concept, it would resemble the popular Napster peer-to-peer file-sharing system used to swap songs over the Internet, but its scale would be humongous and its design intricate, Arora said.

Ouch! What a stretch of analogy. Surely the journo should've mentioned SETI instead...

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Ahh, my favourite rhetorical recipe, the tautological soffle.

Re:Not Indians! by OctoBer31 · 2002-03-06 01:41 · Score: 1

...completely missed by you, evidently.

Re:the downside by Valluvan · 2002-03-06 01:58 · Score: 1

How about some humane perspective ? Do you know how many are killed in road accidents in developed countries like America ? You should compare figures with India and then perhaps we can talk about "humane and civilized behavior" and "successful" large-scale infrastructure. An "average" Indian does not measure development using the same scale as an "average" American or European. So, confine your muddled theory on "prerequisites" to yourself and your kind.

--

Science as a way of life.

India by pinkUZI · 2002-03-06 02:21 · Score: 1

This does not surprise me at all. India has been making a lot of positive headway with their economy. There is opportunity in India right now like there never was before. Plus, they have already been taking advantage of the .COM boom as many E-Commerce companies have been using India-based oporations as the backside of their 24 hour support. I believe I saw this on a NBC news special some time ago.

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You are receiving this message because your browser supports Slashdot Sigs and you have Slashdot Sigs enabled.

Why do you want a superpower? by HiThere · 2002-03-06 04:22 · Score: 2

Superpowers are bad. They centralize control in a way that leads to autocratic control. Even if they start off with the best of intentions, it doesn't matter. This is basically a structural thing:
When you create a center of power, the people most interested in occupying it will be those who are addicted to power, who will do anything to get it. And they do. Some are subtle, some are crass. A few people try to get the center to accomplish some other goal, but they have less motivation to seek it then the crazy ones. So you frequently end up with a crazy person controlling everything. (You might look at recent civics and history.)

Of course, it is possible that you are only predicting, not desiring, and that I read you wrong (lack of vocal tone leads to such problems).

This is like the "Linux will conqueor the world" joke seriously. As a joke it was quite humorous. As a serious goal ... well, it's a better choice than Windows, but the goal is a bad one. The goal should be to develop Linux into an operating system that would satisfy the needs of everyone in a manner that appears to us to be superior to all of the alternatives. Not to insist that everyone agree with us. It does help, however, that the us is a diverse enough group to include almost all of the points of view. E.g., GUI lovers and command line lovers (and the moderates). Experimenters and conservatives, and the moderates. etc. And that nearly anyone who wants to can become a part of the us.

This brings us back to India. India is very important to us, because it contains a large number of computer users who can't afford MS prices. As Linux becomes "good enough" to satisfy their needs, and as copyright enforcement spreads, Linux will become more popular. And India is one of the places. Perhaps not a large fraction of the population is technically skilled (I'm certain that I have seen a biased sample!), but it contains a sufficiently large number. And they frequently use hardware that won't adequately support the recent versions of Windows. But on Linux they can get as far down as the command line, and scale up through BlackBox and TWM (etc.) to KDE and Gnome, depending on what their hardware will support. And they can generally all run the same programs (well, they can all run the same programs as the command line people, and most of them can run the same programs as the BlackBox people, and ...).

Now consider this "computing grid": This will necessarily mean improving the communicaitons systems. This should have benefits throughout the society (perhaps not maximal...but their allocation isn't our choice). Etc.

--

I think we've pushed this "anyone can grow up to be president" thing too far.

Re:Not Indians! by venkataramiah · 2002-03-06 05:18 · Score: 1

Actually, there is is a simpler proof of this.. Indians were called Indians even when Vespucci, Columbus and the other colonizers, found the currently called "native Americans". What did we call them even a few years ago?? Indians, exactly..not Hindus.. The way I see it - India is the country that Columbus went looking for when he found you guys..! isnt that ironic.. Anyway, with my scant know. of Spanish, it looks like old jamirocake is using laws of (incorrect) deduction to come up with his theory. --piece

Re:Priorities by MagikSlinger · 2002-03-06 06:02 · Score: 2

It was indeed satire with a grain of truth. That is how Europeans viewed their relationship with their colonies. Although I've heard some scholars claim the phrase was already in use before the poem was written.

--
The bitter lessons of a veteran coder: http://bitterprogrammer.blogspot.com

Highly ignorant comment! by geezuskryzt · 2002-03-06 07:35 · Score: 1

grow up!

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Nam et ipsa scientia potestas est

another nation overlooking common problems for tec by Afrosheen · 2002-03-06 07:50 · Score: 2

Here we go again. Yet another nation ignoring it's problems with common poverty, mass starvation, etc. while turning its attention towards an expensive information infrastructure. Shouldn't you fix domestic problems before you strive for technology, or is it a means to an end, i.e. having this wonderful network will feed the starving and shelter the homeless?

news about c-dac, company setting up the grid by dasarathi216 · 2002-03-06 08:12 · Score: 1

My friend recently underwent a summer-internship at this c-dac(http://www.cdacindia.com/)Centre for Development of Advanced Computing, the govt institution responsible for the grid.
he had some interesting news.
People there spend time playing movies&songs on the Param supercomputer(c-net says - The latest Param crunches numbers at a speed of 100 gigaflops ). Hardly any research is carried out in these governmental institutions.
and projects drag on for years together.

so we here don't expect to c the grad anytime in the near future

das

Re:India? by Afrosheen · 2002-03-06 10:18 · Score: 2

I'd say closer to 9/10ths.

Re:Whts the difference between Pakistan and a panc by cduffy · 2002-03-12 16:02 · Score: 1

Please inform us when you've heard of a hindu terrorist? :-)

Hmm... I'd say those responsible for murdering the women and children at Cawnpore deserve the term. Opening fire under a white flag isn't exactly respectable either.

(Of course, it's noteworthy that I had to go back over a hundred years to find an example -- and certainly, the British were no saints either).

Re:India Next Superpower NOT WITH RELIGION! by No+One · 2002-03-20 11:58 · Score: 1

Just doing a bit of modproofing, since some dickless wonder's getting his jollies out of modding my week-old posts offtopic. And the lameness filter, like said dickless wonder, can bite me.