The Edit PageTHE ECONOMIC TIMES

The Kelkar committee report on revisiting and revitalisingthe public-private partnership (PPP) model for infrastructureprojects rightly pitches for pragmatism, transparency and abusiness-like attitude for all stakeholders. The idea that PPPcontracts must focus on service delivery rather than fiscalbenefits, and further that we need improved fiscal reportingpractices, is spot on. In tandem, we need better identificationand allocation of project and other risks among stakeholders,as the report has stressed.

About 1,200 PPP projects estimated to cost over .` 7 lakh crore,which amounts to over a third of the Union Budget, are undervarious stages of implementation nationally, most of them

road projects. The report commends theministry of highways for proactively rea-ctivating scores of languishing or stalledprojects. The way ahead in roads is toavoid delays and to institutionalise dispu-te resolution, it adds. Airports have alsogarnered much PPP resources, but thepanel wants a unified regulatory structu-

re for the sector notified and says it is essential to take into ac-count all aeronautical and other cash flows into account.

More important, the report calls for promptly amending thePrevention of Corruption Act, 1988, and to differentiate bet-ween genuine errors in decision-making and plain corruptpractices. Broadly speaking, for renegotiated projects, the pa-nel wants full disclosure of long-term costs, risks and potenti-al benefits, along with financial implications for the govern-ment, prior to the renegotiation. Also recommended is a cen-tre for excellence for PPP and mechanism design in the form ofaNational Facilitation Committee for time-bound ironing outof policy and operational glitches. We need to step up PPP fornewer areas like public housing.

Some Useful Advicefor PPP Projects

Bell Curves R Prasad

A living language is defi ned as one that has at least one speaker for whom it is their fi rst language

Top 15: Linguistic diversity of countries

Believe me, Lord,Im a monotheist.

There are 7,102 known living languages in the world, with Papua New Guinea (PNG) home to the maximum number (839), according to Ethnologue. The table below ranks countries according to the total count of living languages used as a fi rst language in that country

Living Languages

Sour

ce: w

ww

.eth

nolo

gue.

comHarriet Beecher Stowe

Writer

The bitterest tears shed over graves are for words left unsaid and deedsleft undone.

PNGIndonesia

NigeriaIndia

USChina

MexicoCameroon

AustraliaBrazil

DR CongoPhilippines

CanadaMalaysia

Russia

839

707

526

454

422

300

289

281

245

229

212

193

174

146

140

18THE ECONOMIC TIMES | BENGALURU | WEDNESDAY | 30 DECEMBER 2015

When RuminationAffects CogitationRaiding the refrigerator in the dead of night for a very latepost-prandial snack has been immortalised by the famedfridge forays of the Rubenesque Nigella Lawson in her TVcookery shows. Even if todays standards demand a slim-mer silhouette, midnight munchies have not been regardedas a health hazard, except by weight watchers. But recent re-search showing that this nocturnal habit may seriously af-fect memory, too, rather than merely pile on the pounds, putsa different cast on the matter. That the timing of food mayaffect cogitation as a scientist put it implies that sus-tained midnight snacking may put too much of a strain onthe brain when the circadian clock (which ticks on regard-less of sustenance) decrees it is sleep time.

True, the researchers arrived at their conclusion based onthe reactions of laboratory mice eating at the wrong time(for them), which may not mean that humans will react thesame way. Anyone who has woken up in the morning wond-ering how that big packet of chips or tub of ice cream mirac-ulously emptied in the course of the previous night will real-ise that memory lapses related to late-night eating are notentirely unlikely. Maybe that is another reason why Lawsonin her svelte new avatar has also dispensed with the secretbedtime snack segment in her latest TV series.

Midnight snacking might expand thewaistline but cuts into brain power

LPG Cut-OffaLot of GasThis refers to the report, Che-ap LPG Turned Off for ThoseEarning .` 10L (Dec 29). Onefails to understand the practi-cality of the governments de-cision, which is not sensible tosay the least. The sanctity orgenuineness of taxable inco-me is a moot point. Here too,those sections that do not dis-close their real income willbenefit. The governmentsapproach of trusting the citi-zens has to wait in a countryof professional tax evaders.

N VIJAYAGOPALANTrivandrum

Play the Game,AdministratorApropos the editorial, Beauti-ful Games, Awful Administra-tors (Dec 29), the most popu-lar game on the planet hasreceived its moment of truth,in the sad form of sacking oftop two administrators of the

game, and oneof them hasbeen a Frenchfootball great.The million-dollar ques-tion is, whenwill our coun-trys sports

bodies act on the series of cor-ruption charges in cricket andother sports. Yes, the game isalways beautiful, and admin-istrators can add to this beau-ty by discharging their dutieswith honesty and integrity.

BAL GOVINDNoida

Let Airlines FaceCompetitionThis refers to your edit, DontPamper Airlines, Make TravelCheap (Dec 29). Shouldnt thecitizens benefit from competi-tion? The domestic airlinespitchfork fares even in timesof calamity like floods to profi-teer from flyers misery. TheDGCA continues to look theother way when the so-calledbudget airlines charge morethan the full-service airlines.The government, which hasnever bothered to address the-se malpractices, should aban-don this anti-consumer policy.Rather than the airlines, thegovernment has a duty towar-ds the people. Ensure a levelplaying field and let the air-lines fend for themselves.

ASHOK GOSWAMIMumbai

Chat Room

Letters to the editor may be addressed to

editet@timesgroup.com

The desire to provide millions of Indians access to the in-ternet they have been denied so far stirs so strongly with-in Facebooks bosom as to make it invent Free Basics, aplatform for select sites, the data cost of accessing whichwould be borne by Facebook. This is the claim that Face-book uses to justify the privileging of some sites over oth-ers that Free Basics implies. If this passion is so strong,why not simply bear the data cost of all phones priced be-low a cut-off, to ensure that only the poor get the benefit ofthe subsidy? Or even better, why not invest the money increating an infrastructure of free Wi-Fi for all citizens inevery town with a population above a cut-off figure, to bedetermined on the basis of the availability of funds?

The internet should remain free and open, with no ac-cess provider privileging or degrading access to any site.This is the structure designed to fully tap the revolution-ary potential of the internet to empower humanity to lea-rn, transact, innovate, create, earn and enrich. While ex-

panding internet usage, Free Basicsends up eroding such an open structu-re of the internet, discriminating ag-ainst all sites that are not part of thefree platform. Instead of such a plat-form, why not fund setting up the in-frastructure of free Wi-Fi? Since spec-trum is scarce in India, Wi-Fi provid-

ers can generate revenue by letting telcos offload a part oftheir data and voice traffic to Wi-Fi, even as Wi-Fi is offer-ed free to consumers. The government of India alreadyseeks to create Wi-Fi hotspots at railway stations and thelike, with support from Microsoft and Google. Why notscale up this activity significantly, and fit a revenue mo-del on to it, benefiting spectrum-starved telcos and ourdata-starved public?

Of course, this would call for additional pieces of soft-ware, on telco equipment and consumer handsets. Thatwould be a relatively minor hurdle. The big one is clarityon the real goal being pursued while promoting free ac-cess to a select few websites. Once that is achieved, some-thing on the lines of New Yorks gigabit Wi-Fi being roll-ed out right now is entirely doable in Indian towns.

India Needs FreeWi-Fi, Not Free BasicsThere is a business case for the spread of free Wi-Fi

MATA AMRITANANDAMAYI

Selfless action is the outwardexpression of selfless love.When the heart is filled withlove, it expresses itself in theform of unselfish action. Oneis a deep inner feeling and theother its outward manifestati-on. Without deep, unconditi-onal love, selfless actions can-not be performed.

In the beginning of our jour-ney, our self-love becomes thedriving force for each of ouractions, even if we choose tocall them selfless. Love for theego, or oneself, is the predom-inant feeling in every humanbeing. Unless this feelingwithers away, real selflessnesswill not emerge.

There is a story of an oldman planting mango trees.When his neighbour saw whathe was doing, he said, Do youthink you will live long enou-gh to taste the mangoes fromthose trees?

No, I doubt it, replied theold man. Then why are youwasting your time? asked theneighbour. The old man smil-ed and said, All my life I haveenjoyed eating mangoes fromtrees planted by others. Thisis my way of expressing mygratitude to the people whoplanted those trees.

If you choose love and self-lessness as your goal, you needto be watchful. Watch yourmind constantly, because themind wont let you do any-thing selflessly.

The mind doesnt want youto be selfless its only aim isto drive you down the path ofselfishness, because the mindis selfish. As long as you dwellin the mind, you can only beselfish. You have to be free ofthe mind to be selfless.

Mind asMinefield

Indian industry must preparefor a paradigm shift in manu-facturing that is on its way that could sweep swathes oftraditional Indian industry in-

to that dustbin of gargantuan appe-tite, that of history.

Technology keeps evolving, every-one knows. But sometimes, the scaleof evolution can be dramatic, anddeeply disruptive. Such a paradigmshift is almost on us. Industry hadbetter keep its eyes peeled for it. Andthe government must prepare policyto ease the transition for Indian in-dustry and enable it to ride the newwave. The biggest partner in this hasto be academia.

Technology is changing in everyarea. What is of particular relevanceright now is technology change in so-lar power generation, power storage,robotics, material sciences and nanotechnology, the latter two being clos-ely interrelated.

Disruptive ChangeThe cost of generating solar powerhas been coming down year afteryear, sharply. Stanford lecturer in en-trepreneurship, disruption and cle-an energy Tony Seba forecasts dra-matic lowering in the cost of solarpower over the next eight years, tobring it below the cost of convention-al power, aided by dramatic improve-ments in storage technology.

Traditionally, battery technologyattracted the interest of the electron-ics industry. Of late, the automotiveand solar power industries have join-ed electronics in investing huge amo-unts of money in improving, in fact,revolutionising, storage. Not onlywould the efficacy and cost of stori-ng power come down radically, shiftsin business models would allow any-

one to buy storage on tap from bat-tery banks, just as they buy data stor-age capacity on the cloud.

The ability to store power and re-trieve it at will makes a big differenceto the viability of non-conventionalpower and managing peak demand.Imagine a situation in which all, ormost, power is generated from solarpanels. Where would that leave thecoal and oil and gas industries?

Oil would still be saved by automo-biles, right? Perhaps not. Electriccars would not just become viable al-ternatives to those running on inter-nal combustion engines but surpassthe latter in range and performance.An electric car has few moving partsapart from the wheels and Tesla off-ers limitless warranty on its cars.

An internal combustion enginesability to convert the energy produc-ed by burning fuel into the cars mo-tion is pathetically low, less than one-fourth the ability of an electric carengine to convert electric power intokinetic energy moving the car. Elec-tric cars would, thus, not just shiftthe pollution produced while gener-ating their energy, that is electricity,outside the city but also reduce, over-all, the pollution that is created formoving the car.

Electric cars would, in short, dis-place conventional cars, sooner rath-er than later. Is Indias sizeable auto-motive parts industry prepared tocountenance such a change?

It is not. Also because of the on-going change in the materials withwhich cars are going to be made.BMWs most advanced cars alreadyare made of carbon formed into akind of wool, spun into fibre and wo-ven into sheets that are pressed intocar body parts in a specialised divi-sion of labour at plants in Germany,Japan and the US.

The Boeing Dreamliner is alreadymade of carbon fibre. More andmore things that are required to be

both light and strong will switchfrom metal to carbon and other com-pounds of nano particles.

Carbon fibre is but one of themany new materials that will funda-mentally alter the composition of ev-eryday goods. Metals with ceramicparticles diffused in them, compou-nds designed to mingle with metalsand non-metals to perform in whatthe jargon calls additive manufactu-re, popularly known as 3D printing.

India Has to AdaptThen there is the steady advance inrobotics. If robots can cut cloth topreprogrammed patterns as well asa master tailor can, and other robotscan stitch the cloth as desired intogarments, what competitive advan-tage will remain for low-wage coun-tries like India and Bangladesh?

The answer is, there will always besomething that can be done better

and at least cost in a country like In-dia. The range of things that will fallinto this category will depend on theskill levels of our workforce, on theability of our schools and colleges tocotton on to new requirements in in-dustry, make appropriate changes tothe curriculum and train young peo-ple with new knowledge and enhanc-ed ability to adapt.

To remain relevant to a new globaleconomy with altogether new manu-facturing practices driven by newadvances in materials, distributedcomputing and new forms of energy,the country will have to overhaul itseducation system completely. Quali-ty must improve, and the nature ofschooling, change.

India traditionally has focused onmastering existing knowledge, withthe implicit assumption that knowl-edge pre-exists. This outdated viewof knowledge must be replaced inour pedagogy, to train children to qu-estion what they are taught, to devel-op critical and creative faculties so asto prepare them to create new knowl-edge. Not a nano challenge.

tk.arun@timesgroup.com

Wrecking Tech Shift Ahead

New energy sources, shifts in automobile technologyand material sciences, and advances in robotics anddistributed computing will force extreme adaptation

Some technology changes on the horizon could pose a severe challenge for India

T K Arun

There, the most modern factory. What next?

Indian football could be readying for a quantumleap in 2016-17. Indeed, this two-year spell couldmake or break everything.

Many years ago, Sean Fitzpatrick, the one-timeAll-Blacks captain, had told me, Rugby is to NewZealand what cricket is to India a near-religion.The difference is that a major portion of the rug-by-viewing population plays the game, while inIndia, there are very few that actually take to thefield at a competitive level.

Its self-evident, really: the more people play a sp-ort seriously, even if not professionally, the great-er the chances of finding talent that can, circums-tances permitting, go on to make a career of it.

Now thats a problem for Indiasfootball culture. Outside of a fewpockets West Bengal, Kerala,Punjab, Goa and the northeast-ern states it was never really abig deal. Thats whats changing.

In the urban centres today, Ben-galuru, for example, youll findkids trotting out in matching jerseys and boots onweekend mornings, headed for the nearest big-brand academy. Arsenal, Barcelona, ManchesterUnited, Boca Juniors, Paris Saint-Germain they all have football clinics in India. These kidsmay not follow the India vs South Africa Test se-ries, but are up to speed on the goings-on at La Ligaand the Premier League, and have strong opini-ons on everything happening at the ChampionsLeague. Even among my friends, I hear more talk

of Jos Mourinho and even Ashley Westwoodthan Virat Kohli & Co.

This is the impact of satellitetelevision, of course, andit is not restricted tobig cities. Chew onthese numbersthe official broad-casters of the In-dian Super League(ISL) sent across: 46% of the viewer-ship last season camefrom semi-urban andrural areas. The viewership in-creased to 47% in thesecond season in 2015. In 2014, roughly 93 million viewers were ur-ban, while around 80 million were not. In 2015, 237 million TVTs were urban, and210 million semi-urban and rural.The average time spent by viewers increas-ed by 36% this season.

Organisers say the 2015season had a 77% stadi-um-fill during the first 52games, compared to 72%in 2014. That should qua-lify as a blockbuster hit.Cutting across sectionsof society.

Its not just about the Indian Super Le-ague (ISL) or about the refurbished and televised I-League either. In 2017,the Under-17 World Cup will be hostedby India. No major European leaguestars, sure. But with Fifas more-than-able marketing skills, we can safely ex-pect good turnouts at the venues and decent tele-vision viewership.

Of course, awarding that World Cup toIndia, which doesnt have a great stan-ding in the sport 166th in the worldat the time of writing this is a ris-ky decision, one among many dubio-us moves Fifa has made down theyears. But from the Indian point ofview, it could make a serious differ-ence to the football culture.

Expect the legends of the game toswing by, interact with youngsters, and

spread the love and the nutmegs.We see the Fifa Under-17 World Cup as

the catalyst for Indian football.The game is about to reach

critical mass in India,because of a combina-

tion of the huge risein interest in inter-

national footballamong kids andthe developme-nt of the I-Leag-ue and ISL. Andthe World Cupis the event thatcould take it tothe next level,says tourname-nt director JoyBhattacharjya.That it could.

Messi and Ronal-do and zil and

Lampard fans are al-ready making space in

their hearts for the localboys: Sunil Chhetri, Meh-

tab Hossain, Thoi Singh, Su-brata Paul, Amrinder Singh,

Laxmikant Kattimani and others.And thats pretty amazing.Unhappily, much of this coincides

with the gradual death of iconic tour-naments like the Durand Cup and theSubroto Cup. For those of us who fol-lowed the sport through its non-glitzyyears, and still keep an eye out for theGreat Kolkata Derby, that is depressing.Still, theres no getting away from the

fact that to become big, to grow a fan base and, the-refore, money and facilities, this is the rig-

ht way. TV has to do a big chunk of thework, the way it did for cricket after1983. And, like cricket, football nowneeds a Sachin Tendulkar.

The next year or two are key. Toborrow a line from Sholay, loha gar-am hai, maar do hathoda (the ironis hot, time for the hammer-blow).

The writer is senior editor, Wisden India

Tomorrow: Can We Have Cars & Clean Air?

Will Indian Football Start Rolling?10 HOPES FOR THE NEW YEAR

Shamya Dasgupta

Todays kids may not follow acricket Test series, but are up tospeed on La Liga and the PremierLeague, and have strong opini-ons on the Champions League

MAKE IT INDIA!

Will 2016 be the year we get our act together?

CURSOR