Prayatna

What India can learn from China

This post points to one from the archives.

I had described an extremely insightful and thought provoking talk by Prof. Leslie Young comparing and contrasting India and China. In the talk, Prof. Young covered the history and philosophy of the two nations and attempted to connect that to the long-term economic progress of the two countries and also discussed the state of capital markets and corporate organisations in both the countries.

I had linked to a transcript of the talk, but that link is now dead. Fortunately I had a copy of the speech saved on my local hard disk. So I've now posted the entire text of the talk on my blog. Definitely worth reading - go, read it!

In another post, I had linked to a talk by Dr. Mashelkar, Director General of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research (CSIR) in which he said, "Our technology innovations must be now redirected for solving the major problems that the nation faces today." Prof Young, in his talk, says that unlike China, we in India have been too theoretically minded from time immemorial and haven't provided enough practical leadership to solve the  problems facing society at various points in time in history. An observation, I find hard to disagree with. An example provided by Dr. Mashelkar and another by Prof. Young drive home this point well.

All the world's speeches, on audio, available for free. Can it really be done? Why not, says Doug Kaye

[via New Media Musings] Doug Kaye, the host of  ITConversations.com has announced details of his new non-profit venture which is an extension of the excellent work he has been doing at ITConversations.com by providing us access to audio recordings of superb conference sessions, lectures and talks that we would never have access to otherwise.

Some of the talks I've really really enjoyed on ITConversations.com are Clayton Christensen's talk on Capturing the Upside, Malcolm Gladwell's talk on Human Nature, Brewster Kahle's talk on Universal Access to All Knowledge and Joseph Chamie's talk on Population and Demographics. Here's how Doug Kaye describes his new venture in his own words.

Every day there are scores or even hundreds of fascinating and important conference sessions, lectures or other presentations that are lost. They simply evaporate because no one captures or records them. Some of these presentations are by the greatest and most inspiring minds of our time, and many could be important to people in the far reaches of the planet, if only they could hear them.

My new project is to capture (record) all of these presentations, post-produce them, and make them available worldwide for free.

To record tens of thousands of events each year, we will appeal to the social conscience of the worldwide army of podcasters – 10,000 today, and 25,000-50,000 within a year – who I believe will be enthusiastic about the opportunity to give back to their communities and to the world. As a side benefit, these “podcaster stringers” will hone and extend their skills and build their reputations in ways that could benefit them financially and otherwise.

We will build an online “dating service” that will match podcasters with events in their communities. Likewise, we will recruit volunteer writers and producers to create and edit the metadata and descriptions that accompany the recordings. Content will be managed, and quality will be maintained, by a Wikipedia-like system and community. High-volume content will be delivered by a combination of BitTorrent and partners such as the Internet Archive.

We will cover not just IT or even technology, but literally every topic about which someone speaks and another person finds it valuable enough to capture.

You can also listen to an hour long interview with Doug Kaye (mp3, 20.8 mb) where he describes what he did before he started ITConversations and what he plans to do with his new venture.

Doug Kaye's idea really warmed the cockles of my heart. Everytime I go to a speech or a talk, I have been trying to write up a blog post about the speech, apart from trying to get my hands on a transcript of the speech/talk and link to it on my blog. All these posts are listed on my blog, Prayatna, under the category titled Speeches. My friend, Badri, has been doing the same, but he blogs in Tamil on his blog ThoughtsInTamil. 

Some years ago, I used to read a small magazine published in the U.S. called Vital Speeches of the Day which did something similar by publishing transcripts of speeches, but it featured only a few select speeches. I wanted to do something like that in India someday. But what Doug Kaye is proposing to do with minimal cost using Wikis and help from some technology partners, to make available content for free to the end user is amazing. The impact of making available the vast amount of content, on the advancement and spread of knowledge, is going to be huge. Imagine being able to listen to, and learn from the experts and best speakers on any topic. Of course, the signal to noise ratio is likely to be quite low, with lots of speeches and lectures being very poor and only a few that are really good, but the few good ones will automatically bubble up to the top quicky and get noticed.

 

In the Indian context, we need to organise lots of speeches, especially in all  Indian languages, and also record them and disseminate them widely.  A people hungry for knowledge would benefit tremendously. Today, with the widespread availability of CD/VCD players and the growth of FM radio, community radio and the Internet, such audio content can be distributed widely across India.

Ramachandra Guha on Gandhi and Nehru

Over an year ago, Ramachandra Guha spoke on the Multiple Careers of Mahatma Gandhi, at the Chennai Mathematical Institute. Guha listed four callings of Gandhi including that of a Freedom Fighter, a Social Reformer, a Religious Pluralist, and a Prophet/Futurist and said, in each of his four callings, Gandhi innovated and forged novel techniques to address what he saw as the fundamental problems. In each of the four callings he was bitterly opposed by multiple groups including those having diametrically opposite views to each other. Guha went on to say that Gandhi was a truly universal thinker who stands out for his enduring trans-Indian relevance.

Less than a month ago, on the 30th of March to be precise, Guha was again in Chennai to deliver the  M.Ct.M. Chidambaram Chettiyar Memorial Endowment lecture at the University of Madras. On this occasion he spoke on "Verdicts on Nehru: The Rise and Fall of a Reputation."

I attended Guha's talk on Nehru, took notes and also have an audio recording of the entire talk. I hope to write about it soon and will also try and clean up the audio and put up the entire audio recording on the web.

 

The Malady of continuing fiscal imbalance: The impossible quadrangle - Fourth Ambirajan memorial lecture

Yesterday, I attended the fourth Ambirajan Memorial Lecture held at the IMAGE auditorium, MRC Nagar, Chennai, organised under the auspices of the Public Expenditure Round Table (PERT), a Chennai-based think tank on public finance issues and the Institute of Economic Education (Chennai).  The speaker was Dr.  Raja Chelliah, the noted economist and founder chariman of the Madras School of Economics, and the topic of the lecture was The malady of continuing fiscal imbalance: The impossible quadrangle. The full transcript of the lecture (pdf) is available online.

The substance of Dr. Chelliah's speech (excerpted from the transcript) was as follows:

The root causes of the endemic fiscal crisis, especially at the level of the states, (which then affects the central fisc)  are to be  found in the simultaneous pursuit of fiscal objectives and policies which are in themselves incompatible.

Macroeconomists speak of the "Impossible Trinity" in the area of monetary-external sector policy.  They argue convincingly that the policy of fixed exchange rate, full capital account convertibility and freedom to follow monetary and fiscal policies required by domestic circumstances cannot all be pursued simultaneously.  They are incompatible and one of them will have to give way. 

In India, under the auspices of the central government, four major policies affecting the government finances are being pursued which are incompatible.  These are: 

1. adoption of the "gap-filling approach"  by the Finance Commissions,
   
2. the policy of the Planning Commission of extending loan "assistance" to the states according to a set of entitlement formulae with no reference to borrowing or repayment capacity or the existing level of public debt - the same criteria are used for the distribution of loans as for the distribution of grants,
   
3. the policy of pay revision of government servants through the appointment of pay commissions periodically and the adoption of the same recommended revisions by the central government and by all the state governments, regardless of the size of the government labour force in different states, the capacity to pay of the governments of the different states, their per capita incomes and the general level of salaries in those states, and
   
4. the pursuit of the objective of achieving fiscal health through getting the governments to maintain reasonably low levels of fiscal deficit, through responsible fiscal policies, that is, each government assuming responsibility for balancing its budget.

The last-mentioned is a basic objective of the central government's macroeconomic policy.  However, the other three policies generate trends that make it impossible to achieve, in the medium or long-term, a state of fiscal balance.  This incompatibility may be christened "the Impossible Quadrangle".  The incompatibility basically arises from the fact that the policies relating to central transfers and loans to the states generate wrong incentives and violate economic considerations while the policies relating to the recruitment of government servants and their pay revisions do not take into account incentives, economic considerations or capacity to bear higher tax burden.  The tendencies and impulses generated by the policies in the first three areas militate against the objective of attaining and maintaining fiscal balance.  The planning mode applied to public financial activities proceeds on the basis that finances can be managed without reference to incentives, financial capacity of sub-national governments or fiscal discipline (essentially meaning that the governmental authority undertaking an increase in public expenditure on its own volition must pay for it).  Fiscal responsibility cannot be planned from above; such conditions and rules must be created that fiscal responsibility will be practised in a federation in which the sub-national governments / states have a good deal of autonomy.

The impact of "the gap filling approach" on a state government is graphically described by Dr. D.K. Srivastava (a member of the 12th Finance commission) in the following words:  "Borrow to spend in the current period.  Accumulate interest liabilities.  Show a record of higher expenditure.  Get transfers to cover this historically attained level of expenditure.  Also get transfers to meet additional interest liabilities which become a committed liability.  Now borrow again. Also ask for relief on past debt liability."

Dr. Chelliah, proposed a new approach to address the problem.

Certain basic policy decisions will have to be taken. 

• First, the states should be treated as autonomous units and they should be allowed to determine for themselves levels of revenues and expenditure.  They will have the primary responsibility to maintain fiscal balance in their respective jurisdictions. 
  
• Second, the percentage share of central taxes going to the states must remain constant for at least 15 years. 
  
• Third, block grants should be aimed at making up deficiency in fiscal capacity.  "Need" must be defined as deficiency in fiscal capacity.  Cost disadvantages could also be compensated.  The proportion of block grants to devolution could rise. 
  
• Fourth, the distinction between plan and non-plan expenditure should be done away with, at least as far as revenue expenditure is concerned.  The Planning Commission should deal with only capital expenditure. 
  
• Fifth, while loans could be extended to states by the centre to a limited extent, states should be required to borrow from the market within the limits set by the centre .  The centre could subside a small part of the interest (to differing extent) in respect of states that have less than average taxable capacity.  Concurrently, in the place of plan loans, some capital grant assistance should be given with higher per capita amounts for the states with lower capacity.  Collections of small savings should go into a fund as of now, and the states should negotiate loans (within the cap) with the fund, the lending rate of interest being determined by the borrowing rate and the credit worthiness of the states concerned.

When this new approach is adopted, it may be necessary to write-off 50 per cent of the debt which the states are now holding in order to enable the states to cope with the new situation (only that part of the debt which consists of central loans and market borrowing).  But this will be on the understanding that there will be no more debt relief.   With this new approach, our federal fiscal policy would become more rational, equitable and efficient and fiscal balance will be gradually restored.

The previous Ambirajan Memorial lectures were delivered by Dr. C. Rangarajan (2002), Dr. M.S. Swaminathan (2003) and Dr. P. V. Indiresan (2004).

Prof. S. Ambirajan, an economist, taught at the Indian Institute of Techonology (Chennai) for many years and was later honorary proferssor at the Madras School of Economics in Chennai. He passed away on February 04, 2001.

Here is a list of other speeches that I have attended or come across (along with a brief summary and/or a transcript of the speech).

Social Capital

I attended a talk on Social Capital by Sunder Ramaswamy, Director of the Madras School of Economics, at the Shriram HRD Centre in Chennai on September 18. The talk was organised under the aegis of the Scientific Research Association for Economics and Finance*, Chennai. Sunder Ramaswamy is one of the co-editors of the book titled Social Capital and Economic Development - Well Being in Developing Countries, published in 2002.

In the late 1980s and the early 1990s, people began to realise that two communities with the same profile of physical and human capital developed in very different ways under similar sets of circumstances. The difference in results was attributed to the organisational ability inherent in the community and that difference has loosely come to be called Social Capital. As an example, the speaker cited his experience with two different communities in Burkina Faso in West Africa, which had roughly the same number of children and the same school infrastructure and also the same income levels in the community. But one community had 45% higher attendance in school than the other and the only significant difference between the two communities was the fact that one of them had an active Parent Teacher Association. The speaker admitted that he himself was skeptical about social capital 8 years ago, but has only become less skeptical today and is still trying to get a better grasp of it. The concept of social capital is still evolving - in the early 1990s, there were 25 different definitions and now it has been distilled to the following (along with the concept of TNN described below).

Social capital is believed to consist of three different components:

1. bonding capital - the ties that exist within small units like the family
   
2. bridging capital - the ties that exist across the entire community, and
   
3. linking capital - the ties that exist between the community and the state or other relevant power groups

Early disagreements on whether social capital is a macroeconomic phenomenon or a microeconomic phenomenon have now been more or less resolved and social capital is believed to be relevant largely at the micro level. So one should think in terms of social capital of a community and not social capital of a state or country. But the speaker also emphasised that the debate on macro vs micro still continues within the research community. The concept of social capital also ties into the change in the developmental world view that has happened over the past 2-3 decades from top-down centrally planned development activities to that of participatory development at the community level.

A key challenge for development economists is to define and design development projects to deliver results, despite the ground realities in communities being complex and varying from community to community. The speaker argued that not understanding the principles of social capital will result in more mistakes in the delivery process. The basic economic principles themselves apply similarly to all communities but it is social capital that gives the development economists a common framework to discuss the differences and variations between the communities.

How does social capital work? It works by creating Trust, creating Norms of shared behaviour and creating a Network of interaction with the government (TNN) . The main questions relating to social capital that need to be addressed are:

1. What are the reasons for development successes - is success a result of social capital at work?
   
2. Does lack of social capital result in developmental failure?
   
3. How does one create social capital in areas that are absent?

The speaker emphasised that social capital is not a value good. It is not intrinsically good or bad. He cited the Mafia and Al-Qaeda as examples of social capital at work, but not socially desireable. Social capital can have both negative and positive effects in a community.

The economist, Robert Putnam suggests that SC is the third leg of a three legged stool. The first leg is the private sector, the second is the State and the third is Civil Society which can also be termed as Social Capital. Social capital is that part of Civil Society that translates into a positive outcome of development in terms of immediate utilitarian results.

Deepa Narayan, an economist with the Poverty Group in the World Bank (who has published a study titled Voices of the Poor, after talking to the poor across many countries to understand poverty better) lists the following requirements to help create Social Capital in a community.

1. dissemination of information
   
2. effective use of technology
   
3. active engagement between the public and the government whereby the members of the public can interact with the local government officials responsible for development and monitor the progress by the officials
   
4. actively create forums for networking by providing things like a community hall as a place for people to meet, roads, safe spaces for women to meet etc..

The State needs to do two things to foster social capital.

1. Create a stable macro economic environment in terms of growth rates, inflation, reducing regional inequalities etc.
   
2. Try not to put impediments for information flow

There was a brief Q&A session at the end of the talk in which,

Mr. A. M. Swaminathan, former Finance Secretary, Government of Tamil Nadu (and Chairman of the SRAEF Trust*) remarked that from his experience in Tamil Nadu, some regions seemed to have higher social capital than others. As an example, he said Erode District was better organised in terms of the milk and weaver co-operatives etc., but Coimbatore District next door was far behind. Kanyakumari, he said, seemed to lack social capital and was one of the most difficult districts in terms of getting development going.

Mr. P. K. Doraiswamy, former Additional Chief Secretary, Government of Andhra Pradesh remarked that bureacracy may actually be unwittingly excluding social capital by imposing rules and a top-down approach. As an example he said local water tanks and ponds in villages were maintained by the local community for centuries, but now PWD Engineers despatched by the bureacracy are charged with maintaining it and the bureacracy may actually look askance at attempts by locals to maintain the water bodies. He also suggested that the quality of the individual was also a factor in the creation of social capital and if individuals in the group were all bereft of social capital, the group itself may not have it either. He wondered if creation of social capital was also a function of local leadership and said when someone had once asked Dr. Kurien (of Amul) what was required to replicate the Amul success in Andhra Pradesh, Dr. Kurien's simple answer was to get another Sardar Vallabhai Patel. Mr. Doraiswamy also suggested that the concept of working together in a community be consciously taught right from the school level to help foster the creation of social capital.

In response to a question on metrics for measurement of social capital, the speaker said it was still early days and various groups are working on generating various metrics.

One person pointed to economist, Robert Putnam's book Bowling Alone in which Putnam worries about declining social capital in the US with people becoming increasingly disconnected from family, friends, neighbors, and democratic structures and asked if that was so because the civic institutions in the US are well developed, and so social capital wasn't really necessary for development since it actually seems to be declining if the institutions were well developed. The speaker responded to that by likening social capital to the scaffolding required to construct a building. It is still very much necessary in the intermediate stages to build the structure (institutions) whether or not it withers away later. The speaker also pointed out that Europe may be a better example of social capital at work than the US since community activities and interactions with the State were much stronger in Europe than in the US.

To a question on how social capital works in virtual communities and in the developed world, the speaker said studies are in progress and there is much literature on these areas.

I found the World Bank's social capital resource and the Saguaro Seminar resource at Harvard University as good starting points to find out more about social capital as well as good pointers to the literature.
__________________________________________

* The Scientific Research Association for Economics and Finance (SRAEF) is a registered Public Charitable Trust under the Indian Trust Act, set up with the following objectives:

1. To undertake applied and empirical research studies in the area of economics and finance
   
2. Development of economic and financial models by application of statistics and mathematics to specific problems relating to India
   
3. To invite eminent specialists to address the members of the public on their specific areas of expertise
   
4. To organise seminars, workshops, lectures, training programmes etc. on economic and financial issues of national concern
   
5. To organise essay competitions and debates for school and college students
   
6. To undertake surveys on its won or commission such studies by qualified and experienced researchers on economic and financial matters

For further details, contact Mr. T. S. Gopal, Hon. Secretary, SRAEF (tel: +91-44-520-4750, email: teessgpal@hotmail.com)

India is becoming the land of opportunity - Dr. Mashelkar

Dr. Mashelkar, Director General of the Council of Scientific and Industrial Research (CSIR) was awarded the "For the Sake of Honour Award" by the Rotary Club of Madras East at a function at the Park Sheraton Hotel in Chennai on March 03, 2004. A friend of mine who was attending the function had asked me to come along and I was fortunate to listen to Dr. Mashelkar speak.

Here's a summary of what Dr. Mashelkar had to say (paraphrasing his words).

It is a great time to be an Indian and more importantly, to be in India. Not because of the $107 billion of foreign exchange reserves or the 8% growth rate, but because of the distinct changes that have taken place over the years. When I returned to India in 1976, my wife had to use a kerosene stove and wait over an year for a gas connection, I had to pay Rs. 3,500 for a Bajaj scooter and wait 7 years to get it, I had to wait 7 years to get a personal telephone and had to get a "not manufactured in India certificate" and clearance from the Director General of Trade and Development to buy a goniometer for my experiments. Today, we can get a gas connection or a telephone or buy a two wheeler over the counter or easily import scientific equipment required for research.

When I was interviewing candidates for the post of Chief Innovation Officer for the National Innovation Foundation, I came across a candidate who was an expert in branding, and asked him "Can you brand India for me?" Pat came the reply - India is a Land of Ideas. The US has been branded as the Land of Opportunity and it was this perception of opportunity that spurred the cream of the cream of Indian youth to migrate to the US in the past decades. But the process has begun reversing. According to NASSCOM, over 25,000 professionals have returned to India in the past two years.

India is now becoming a global research, design and development platform. There are 1600 researchers at GE's research centre in Bangalore (to go up top 2400 soon) of which 400 are Ph.D.s and 40% are young Indians who have opted to come back to India. When a biotech VC fund was set up by Sharat Daroo for APID, 60% of the applicaitons were from young Indians wanting to come back to India.

About a month ago, I was giving a talk at HCL and someone who graduated from IIT Chennai many years ago came up to me and told me that of the 142 people from his batch who left India after passing out of IIT, 78 have returned. The trickle that has started can become a torrent.

The youth are now beginning to look at India as the land of opportunity. Abid Hussain once said, "it is better to have brain drain than brain in the drain" and the brains that left are now starting to coming back.

It is not just the multinational companies in India that are investing in research design and development in India. The Indian pharma company, Dr. Reddy's Laboratories, has doubled its R&D spend from 4% to 8% this year which is a huge investment in R&D.

India is moving from imitation towards innovation. From making the Ambassador (a british-designed car) in India, we have now come around to making the Rover (the Indica designed and manufactured in India by Tata Motors) and exporting it to Britain. The wheel has turned full circle.

Economic growth in different countries has been spurred by different factors. The infrastructure in the US, textiles in the UK, timbre in Sweden, milk in Denmark, oil in the Middle East etc. In India, in the 21st century, it is going to be the Indian mind that is going to spur economic growth. Our success in IT has brought our self-pride back.

Let me end with a sobering thought. Today only 50% of our children go to school, of which only 40% go up to 10th standard, of which only 30% actually pass. Effectively only 6% of our children are passing out of our schools, whereas the number is 68% in South Korea.

Today, only 0.06% of Indians are creating the export revenues. This is the tip of the tip of the tip of the iceberg. What about the submerged part of the iceberg?

Coming from a poor family myself, many years ago I couldn't afford going to college. A scholarship of 60 rupees a month for 6 years from the Dorab Tata Trust (quite a small sum for the trust) helped me and many others go to college. If all the 60+ Rotary clubs in Chennai alone can spend money to help educate our youth, we can create not just one but millions of Mashelkars.

The Multiple Careers of Mahatma Gandhi

I attended a talk by Ramachandra Guha at the Chennai Mathematical Institute in Chennai on January 27. In the talk titled, The Multiple Careers of Mahatma Gandhi, Guha put forward his claim that Gandhi was  unquestionably the greatest figure of the 20th century and then treated the audience to an engrossing hour and a little more trying to justify his claim.

Here's what Guha had to say (his views paraphrasing his words).

Gandhi simultaneously had four careers (rather callings, since he wasn't doing these like you and me to pay the bills). In each of his four callings, Gandhi innovated and forged novel techniques to address what he saw as the fundamental problems. In each of the four callings he was bitterly opposed by multiple groups including those having diametrically opposite views to each other. Gandhi was a truly universal thinker who stands out for his enduring trans-Indian relevance.

Gandhi's four callings included that of a

• Freedom fighter
  Gandhi was able to crystallise the diverse consituencies into a single force in a successful manner to achieve freedom for the nation.

  He invented the concept of mass satyagraha - a means of non-violent struggle against colonial rule. Before him, there were two different schools of thought on how to go about achieving freedom from colonial rule. On the one hand were the constitutionalists who were basicaly pacifists petitioning the government, appealing to their sense of fair play and working through strictly legal means. On the other hand were the violent revolutionaries threw bombs and aimed to kill British officers hoping thereby to frighten the British into leaving.

  Gandhi realised that the pacifist approach was not enough and deeply abhorred the violent approach as well. So he thought of Satyagraha - a means of peaceful mass protest that both the pacifists (who thought his methods too radical) and the violent revolutionaries (who thought non-violence was too sissy a means and not macho) were vehemently opposed to.

• Social Reformer
  
  Gandhi worked towards undermining the institution of social untouchability and many times he put this calling of his ahead even of the Freedom Fighter. He adapted satyagraha in this calling of his and used the idea of temple entry to symbolically challenge the upper caste perception of social untouchability by congregating in front of a temple with a group of untouchables and demanding the right to worship with the uppercastes, in a non-violent manner.

  In 1933-34, Gandhi undertook a padayatra through South India which was fully as important as the Dandi March of 1930 in its significance, given that the British were supporting separate electorates for untouchables. The padayatra was to promote the abolition of untouchability, which Gandhi felt was a deep and fundamental flaw in Hindu Society. When we are trying to get freedom from the British, how could we deny the same to a certain section of our own society? Without ridding society of this fundamental inequality, we would not have the moral right to demand freedom from the British.

  Gandhi started the Harijan Sevak Sangh and went through the small towns of Karnataka and Kerala and raised money to open up temples for harijans and also start schools for harijan children. A shrewd bania, he adopted a novel method of fund-raising. He had obtained autographs of all popular congress leaders and would sell these for money at all the public meetings in the small towns across south India. Fortunately for us, the entire story of this padayatra of his is recorded in complete detail since the British had sent intelligence agents to follow every single move of Gandhi during his period. They simply did not believe that Gandhi's sole motive was social reform and assumed that this was only a fig leaf for his real motive of inciting the populace against the British. All the intelligence records are now available in the India Office Records at the British Library in London

  His attention shifted, after a massive earthquake in Bihar in March 1934, and Gandhi called off his padayatra.

  In his attempts at social reform, he again had two sets of opponents who were against methods. Ambedkar and his followers felt he was not doing enough to eliminate untouchability and the upper caste Hindus felt he had no business to challenge the structure of Hindu society. In fact the Shankaracharyas sent a petition to the British that Gandhi must be derecognised as a Hindu!

  He was also very successful in addressing gender issues, but practice was always ahead of theory. For e.g. he didn't wholly approve of women working, but he was more successful than any one else in bringing more women into public life than any other leader in any other part of the world.

• Religious Pluralist
  
  Gandhi felt that religion answered a fundamental human need which would not disappear with the advent of industrialisation or modern science, but would always have a role.

  He devised the idea of interfaith prayer meetings as the means to help bridge the gulf between religions. This idea of his has enduring and compelling relevenace and deserves further study.

  Gandhi met with resistance from three different groups of people to his idea of interfaith prayer meetings.

  • The Scientists: who believed that religion and rituals were a manifestation of a backward culture which had no place in an industrialising world. Nehru and Betrand Russell were of this belief.
  • The Proselytisers: who believed their religion was supreme and so there was no reason to accept other religions as equals
  • The Hindus: who never proselytised, but felt that their religion was superior and other religions were somehow lesser and unclean. The Hindu fundamentalists exemplified by Godse also felt that Gandhi was giving too much importance to the other religions at the expense of Hinduism.

  Gandhi was opposed to elevating one religion over another. Gandhi had conversations with many people from other religions and one such person was his close friend C.F. Andrews (who was the only one who used to call Gandhi by his first name Mohan. All others either addressed him either as Gandhiji or as Mr. Gandhi). Gandhi is to have said that his objective from these conversations was not to convert Andrews to Christianity, but to make him a better Christian and similary for Gandhi himself to become a better Hindu by learning from the teachings of Jesus Christ, who was truly an apostle of non-violence. Gandhi aimed for the good of one religion to get the good out of the other.

  Gandhi's idea of using interfaith prayers to bring religions together was innovative - it was unknown before his time.

• Prophet/Futurist
  
  Gandhi was deeply concerned about the effects of industrialisation and modernisation and what he saw as the resulting destructionist tendencies. The analogy that comes to mind is that of the moth and the flame with the moth going faster and faster around the flame and finally perishing.

  He drew on the thoughts and ideas of his disciple J.C. Kumarappa, whose ideas would today be called Appropriate Technology. Kumarappa called for a focus on decentralised, small scale and ecologically friendly approach to industrialisation. (For more on Kumarappa, see a brief life sketch of J.C. Kumarappa (1892-1960) on the web site of the Kumarappa Institute Of Gram Swaraj and  a two part article in The Hindu titled What manner of men: Part I and Part II.)
  

Arguments with Gandhi and the universal relevance of Gandhi

Gandhi' life has been a series of criticism and arguments and those arguments and criticism continue today. Verrier Elwin wrote in a letter to his mother that the professional duty of every Indian seems to be to criticise Gandhi. (The very lively and passionate question and answer session at the end of Guha's speech showed the enduring nature of Verrier Elwin's remark!)

In the early 90s, when the Ram Mandir issue was at its peak, veteran Gandhian Dr. Sushila Nair (also Gandhi's personal physician) went to Ayodhya to promote peace and held an interfaith prayer meeting outside the Babri Masjid. They were singing "Raghupati Raghava Raja Ram" and at the phrase "Ishwar Allah Tere Naam" some Hindu militants who had gathered tried to disrupt the meeting. Being a Gandhian, Dr. Nair peacefully went up to them and asked them "Aap aise kyon kar rahe hain? Aise mat kijiye. Hum Gandhiji ki taraf se aaye hain" and the response of the militants was "aur hum Godse ki taraf se aaye hain" ("Why are you doing this? Please don't do this. We have come on behalf of Gandhiji", to which the militants responded "and we have come on behalf of Godse").

Another person who examplified the intense feelings that Gandhi generated was Kondapalli Sitaramaiah, the leftist leader. Sitaramiah had never met Gandhi, but saw him as his political opponent and felt compelled to symbolically deride Gandhi. One of the first things he did after his release from a prison term was to go to Gandhi's house in Porbandar and spit in front of the house.

When Richard Attenborough made the famous (but historically flawed) film on Gandhi, it was celebrated by many but deeply resented by many as well. Pakistan was forced to make a film on Jinnah and films have since been made on the lives of Ambedkar, Bhagat Singh, Veer Savarkar and Subhash Chandra Bose as well in rebuttal. There has also been a successful play to put across Godse's point of view. There is no doubt that if Attenborough hadn't made Gandhi, none of the other films would have been made.

Gandhi had many political opponents - Jinnah, Ambedkar, Bose and others, who were all great men. But what distinguished Gandhi from the rest and makes him stand out?

Gandhi was the only Indian whose work is relevant not just to India, but also has a trans-Indian relevance - Martin Luther King, Nelson Mandela, Solidarity in Poland and many others have all drawn inspiration from Gandhi's work. Gandhi was a truly universal thinker and the reach of his ideas is such that he leaves everyone else behind.

In a parting thought, Guha said Gandhi is unquestionably the most original thinker since the Buddha. We succeeded in kicking out the Buddha. Will we succeed in kicking out Gandhi?.

Guha also related an incident from his own life to drive home the universal relevance of Gandhi. Some years back Guha had been invited by the University of California at Berkeley to offer a course on a subject of his choice and he proposed to offer a course titled "Arguments with Gandhi". His hosts at Berkeley felt there wouldn't be enough interest for such a course and suggested alternative topics like the environment vs development debate, but Guha persisted and his hosts reluctantly let him go ahead. Guha was nervous about his decision but on landing at Berkeley, Guha was extremely surprised to find an ad in the local newspaper which said "Only Gandhi knows as much as us about Fast - We give you your prints in 5 minutes"! He felt reassured that a local business thought its target audience would know enough about Gandhi to understand the ad, with a clever pun at that. His course turned out to be quite a hit with a sizeable number of people from a wide variety of backgrounds turning out for the course.

Post Script:

Guha mentioned that he had been studying Gandhi for a while now, but still had much left to study and hoped one day to be able to write a book on Gandhi.

This talk was the fifth in a series of talks titled Ideas for All organised by the Chennai Mathematical Institute.

References:

My friend Badri who also attended Guha's talk has written about the talk in Tamil - Part I & Part II.

The Hindu also carried a report on Guha's talk.

For those interested, Nathuram Godse's defense of himself is available online.

Here is a list of other speeches that I have attended or come across in recent times (with a brief summary and/or a transcript of the speech).

Interesting speeches I've attended or come across

Here's a list of interesting speeches that I've attended or come across in recent times listed in reverse chronological order.

• The Malady of continuing fiscal imbalance: The impossible quadrangle
  By Dr. Raja Chelliah (Founder Chairman, Madras School of Economics, Chennai) on February 16, 2005 at IMAGE auditorium, MRC Nagar, Chennai.

• Social Capital
  By Sunder Ramaswamy (Director, Madras School of Economics, Chennai) on September 18, 2004 at the Shriram HRD Centre, Chennai.

• Multiple Careers of Mahatma Gandhi
  
  By Ramachandra Guha (Noted writer and historian) on January 27, 2004 at the Chennai Mathematical Institute.

• Corporate Governance
  
  Fourth Palkhivala Memorial Lecture by Y. H. Malegam (Managing Partner, S.B. Billimoria & Company) on January 10, 2004 at  Chennai

• Corruption mocks at liberalisation
  
  Second Minoo Masani Memorial LectureBy N. Vittal (former Chief Vigilance Commissioner) on November 20, 2003 at Chennai, under the auspices of the Indian Liberal Group.

• Corrupting the Constitution
  
  Fifth K.R. Ramamani Memorial Lecture held by Hon. Justice Shri T.N.C. Rangarajan (Retired Judge of the Andhra Pradesh High Court) in November 2003, at Chennai.

• The Judicial System - need for urgent reforms and Uniform Civil Code
  
  Third Palkhivala Memorial Lecture by Ram Jethmalani (Supreme Court Lawyer and former M.P. and cabinet minister) on September 06, 2003 at Chennai.

• Building Innovative India for the 21st Century
  
  G. Ram Reddy Memorial Lecture  by Prof. R. A. Mashelkar (Director General of Council of Scientific & Industrial Research - CSIR) on July 2, 2003 at IGNOU, New Delhi.

• Empowering the Deserving
  
  Second Palkhivala Memorial Lecture by N. Vittal (former Chief Vigilance Commissioner) on June 21, 2003 at Chennai.

• Why the West leads in technology, and how India can catch up
  
  Dr. Y Nayudamma Memorial Lecture, by Prof. P. V. Indiresan (former Director of IIT Madras) on March 21, 2003 at the Adminstrative Staff College of India.

• Economic Development in China and East Asia -- Lessons for India
  
  By Prof. Leslie Young (Executive Director of the Asia-Pacific Institute of Business and Professor of Finance at the Chinese University of Hong Kong) on March 06, 2003 at Kolkata.

• Nani Palkhivala and the Constitution of India
  
  First  Palkhivala Memorial Lecture by Soli Sorabjee (Attorney General of India) on February 22, 2003 at Chennai.
  

Why the West leads in technology, and how India can catch up

Prof. P.V. Indiresan, (former Director of IIT, Madras) in his Dr. Y Nayudamma Memorial Lecture, delivered on 21 March 2003 under the auspices of the Adminstrative Staff College of India, explores the reasons for India lagging behind the West in technology and suggests some solutions to address this. He makes some very interesting points.

• Advances in knowledge and education are more important than money to a nation's growth. But "we are making the mistake of worshipping Lakshmi only to the total neglect of Saraswati"

• India can't follow the East-Asian model for growth which depends on increasing the inputs of labour and capital. We should follow the Western model which focusses on increasing the efficiency of utilization of those two inputs - through technology innovation.

  According to Krugman, the East Asian Model is liable to get saturated on the labour front once the entire population is put to work. Similarly on the capital side, saturation will be the result when savings and foreign investment reach their peak. Further, as foreign investment is notoriously fickle, the risk is not merely saturation but instability - as witnessed already in all East Asian countries. In contrast, innovation-led development is relatively autonomous, and, hence, more stable. In particular, so long as a nation is building better and better mousetraps, there is little risk of shortage of customers!

• Indian culture is an impediment to technology development. Indiresan quotes a study by Mancur Olson Jr. (Big bills on the sidewalk: Why some countries are rich and others are poor. 1996) according to whom, basically, there can only be two reasons why some countries are rich and others are poor. The reason could either be differences in factor endowments (namely, land, labour, capital and technology), or differences in environment. Olson argues that it is not the factor endowments that has made rich countries rich, but the cultural environment (including political and social backgrounds)which is the crucial factor. This argument is based on the fact that neighbouring countries with similar endowments, the United States and Mexico, South and North Koreas, or erstwhile West and East Germany - differ widely in economic performance. Indiresan suggests that

  after a foundation of capital-led growth, East Asian countries have turned to R&D and higher education for more growth. They are looking forward. We Indians have a tendency to look backward with longing to a pre-historic "Golden Age" of Ram Rajya. Nostalgia for our past glory is a cultural burden. It prevents us from modernising, from advancing knowledge in a scientific spirit.

• India lacks the scientific spirit and
  

  innovation and technological progress are unlikely in a society in which people are intellectually malnourished, are superstitious, or are extremely traditional. In brief, what any country needs most is scientific spirit.

  The iconoclasm that dominates Western science does not prevail in India. Indian scientists and engineers tend to cling to myths even after they cease to be useful. For instance, the Ambassador car is still ubiquitous in India. It started as the 1958 model of Morris Oxford. In forty years, the Ambassador car has not changed in essentials even though automobile technology has gone through several revolutions in the meanwhile. In Japan, Datsun procured the identical technology from Morris Motors and at the same time too. Unlike in India, Datsun adopted Western culture of science; it modified the received design step by step. It discarded the original design the moment it became obsolete. In the mean time, technology advances have been so substantial that the gap between the Ambassador and a modem car is unbridgeable. So, the company has gone shopping abroad once again for new technology. Such repetitive import is a bane of Indian technology. Datsun does not operate that way. It improves its designs continuously, in small but significant steps, and hence, is able to keep abreast of the cutting edge of technology.

  Essentially, in India, once a technology is inducted, it hardly benefits from further improvement. It becomes static. For instance, the earliest missiles ever used in warfare was by Tippu Sultan. They did not perform well and were discarded. The British tried in depth, to improve upon it. incidentally, the only samples of Tippu's missiles are in the war museum in London, none in India. So, much for our reverence for the past!

• The swadeshi movement has missed the real point of "swadeshi" .
  

  Mahatma Gandhi argued why India should import finished goods and export raw materials. He chose the example of cloth for the purpose, and launched the swadeshi movement. We overlook the fundamental principle Gandhiji espoused. Instead, we have clung to the idea that we should be content with handicrafts. Hence, swadeshi has come to be associated with low technology, and the underlying principle of self-reliance has all but been forgotten. While Appropriate Technology has its uses, it has its limitations too. For instance,
  

  1. A bullock cart cannot provide the same quantity or quality of service as a motorised vehicle.
     
  2. It does also pollute - relative to the quantity of service provided, its biological pollution is high, overall more polluting than a motor vehicle
     
  3. Relative to quantity of service, its capital/ running costs is high.
     
  4. It cannot generate high incomes

  Indiresan quotes Robert Reich (from his book The Work of nations) to give an improved definition of self-reliance.

  Reich makes a critical distinction between employees and owners. According to him, the labour force is always "Us" but the owners may or, may not be - even if they are citizens. According to Reich, the Corporation is "profoundly less relevant to economic future than the skills, the training and knowledge commanded by workers". He adds that control and ownership of corporations is NOT important. What is crucial is how much corporations invest in the future capability of the workers, and in R and D employing local scientists, engineers and technicians. A corporation, which invests in the training and upgrading of human capital, is "Ours" even if it is owned by foreigners; a corporation which does not invest in human capital is not "Ours" even if owned by our own citizens, even by the government.

  Reich's emphasis is on human capital, as distinct from financial capital. The latter, he explains, is fluid; international capital movements are far simpler and easier than international movements of human capital. Unlike financial capital, which is footloose, human capital is relatively more stable. Further, as a rule, financial capital chases human capital - that is why so many software firms are coming to India. Or, if we have human capital, we need not worry about financial capital. The converse is not true. That makes skilled work force a more reliable asset than financial capital. Development based on human capital is dependable; that based on financial capital is undependable. As he says:

  well-trained workers attract global corporations, which invest and give the workers good jobs; the good jobs, in turn, generate additional training and experience. As skills move upward and skill accumulates, a nation's citizens add more and more value to the world -- and command greater and greater compensation from the world, improving the country's standard of living.

  Then, an Indian owned firm, even if it were a Public Sector Undertaking is NOT one of "ours"' if it is wedded to imported technology.

• Indiresan contrasts the approaches of the social activitists (like the Narmada Bachao Andolan) with that of the technologists and looks at how both groups affect technological progress. He argues that the social activists have a negative outlook on progress with a penchant for status-quo, and the technologists have a positive outlook on progress and that the efforts of the technologists are likely to bring larger benefits over the longer term than that of the activists.

  Without in any way belittling the concerns advocated by social activists, it must be stated that social activists do impede rational development. If ecologists had been active at the time Bhakra was being built, and most of Bilaspur town was submerged, that dam would never have been built, there would have been no Green Revolution, and millions would have perished of malnutrition if not by outright starvation. It is even debatable whether their ideas will bring prosperity even to the people whose cause they claim to espouse - they are more likely to perpetuate their present dismal poverty.

• Economies of scale is a more important factor in development than capital.
  

  Evidently, the managerial ability to handle larger and larger systems is an important factor in economic growth. That is an area where India is indeed weak. Small scale industries get so many tax incentives and are allowed to evade so many taxes, that it is NOT profitable for them to expand to a globally competitive size. As a corollary, there is no incentive to invest in R&D and keep pace with global advances in technology. That is a double jeopardy - the country loses out both by poor technology and lack of economies of scale.
  

• The most important point that Indiresan makes is the damage inflicted by both Government and Industry to indigenous technology efforts, by their obsession with foreign technologies and their short-sighted approach to transfer of technologies from the laboratory to market.

  Except where it is entirely unavoidable, Indian administrators (whether in the public or in the private sector) fear to try local designs. They consider that well-worn imported designs alone are risk free. For instance, it is the official policy in the Department of Telecommunications (and in others too) not to procure any equipment unless it has been used for a minimum of two years. As a result, Indian designs face a Catch-22 situation: They will not be accepted unless they have been in use, and they cannot be in use until they are tried out!

  So, except when foreign technology is not available at all (as in defence, atomic energy and space), Indian designs do not get a chance to prove their worth . Private industry too is no different. They want swadeshi only for manufacturing operations but not for technology. In the bargain, predatory MNCs often trade on this weakness for imports and attempt to destroy any Indian technology that can prove a threat to their own hegemony. Such predatory tactics are not rare; they are, in fact, quite common. While it would be unfair to tar all foreign firms, it would be unwise not to protect the country from such threats.

  Government technocrats (and Indian industrialists too) invariably go to a foreign manufacturer for production know-how. They obtain production equipment and production drawings but not the knowledge of how to design such systems. In particular, they do not go to any laboratory abroad to buy technology. They expect Indian laboratories to meet the kind of requirements, which abroad they can get only from manufacturers. In other words, Indian laboratories are expected to provide a kind of technological support, which is the normal domain of manufacturers only. Laboratories normally stop at the stage of technique development; several further steps need to be taken before any technique can be transformed into a manufacturable process. As neither the laboratory nor the Indian manufacturer is willing or able to fill these gaps, India boasts of few successes in transfer of technology from the laboratory to the market.

  A peculiarity of technology is that, like vegetables, it must always be fresh; otherwise, it is unprofitable. If Indian manufacturers had attempted to improve their technology continuously, their technology needs would probably have been within the capability of the Indian scientific community. In any case, over a period of years, the needed expertise would have been built up. As Indian industrialists flog every know-how purchase to its death, there is a long time gap between technology renewals. So. the technology gap becomes too wide to bridge even if talented engineers are available. In other words, India offers little or no scope for Sam Pitrodas because she has little interest in improving on imported technology.
  

  Indiresan attempts to go into the reasons for such a mindset in both Government and Industry

  In India, when an official's work is evaluated, errors of commission and not errors of omission are questioned. There is no audit of opportunity costs - profits lost due to "risks not taken". Not surprisingly, under the circumstances, all officials model themselves on the lines of the Technology Checker, and scrupulously avoid getting entangled with uncertainties associated with being a Technology Acceptor. They play safe; will insist on every conceivable safeguard, and will set little value on the delay they cause, and yet get alarmed by any delay caused by the developer. Even if they have good intentions, they turn out to be difficult critics rather than supporters of indigenous technology. Thus, the Indian administrative system supports Technology Checkers only, rejects Technology Acceptors.

  Suppose the Government (and industry too) were to institute a special cadre of Technology Acceptors. While a Technology Checker improves career prospects by minutely examining how departmental funds could be safeguarded (and hence, in what way the new technology may be faulted), the Technology Acceptor makes his career by attracting outside funds for inducting newer and newer technologies. In other words, while Technology Checker looks for zero risk even if that kills new technology, the Technology Acceptor nurtures new technologies even at the risk of failure and financial loss. The Technology Acceptor behaves like a mother towards new technology; the Technology Checker behaves like the proverbial mother-in-law.

  and proposes an interesting solution.

  Apart from Technology Acceptors, we need three other actors to complete the play:

  1. Manufacturer: More specifically, the capital goods manufacturer who develops manufacturing technology for designs developed in the laboratory. This cost is best met by the government out of a special fund, like the Technology Development Fund.
  2. Technology Acceptor: An official in the User Organisation whose career depends on inducting new technologies. The cost of proving and introducing new technologies in the market is better not borne not by the User but by a venture capitalist.
  3. Venture Capitalist: One who bears the financial risk of introducing the new technology and advances the cost of proving the new product in the field. If the product fails he bears the total loss, but makes it up because he is guaranteed large returns whenever it succeeds.
  4. Government Angel: An official of a science department of the government controlling a Technology Fund. He maintains a protective watch by (a) checking that no technology is slipping so far behind that it may not be locally updated, (b) motivating the Designer, the Manufacturer, the Banker and the User to co-operate with each other. That way he protects his Fund best.

  Then, one may visualise a scenario of the following type:
  

  • A change in an existing product is either proposed by the fabricator, or by a designer, or suggested by the User.
    
  • The Government Angel sets up a development group in which the designer, the fabricator and the User are brought together. The Government Angel bears the cost of development.
    
  • The Development group defines the objectives, the problems involved and the time frame.
    
  • The designer designs jointly in collaboration with the fabricator. In turn, the fabricator constructs the prototype according to the specifications given by the User -who also tests and evaluates the product continuously as design proceeds. To ensure such co-operation, dose communication links are institutionalised.
    
  • When the scheme reaches the prototype stage, and is considered technically promising by the user (and not necessarily usable directly) the Venture Capitalist evaluates the commercial viability of the project. If satisfied, the Venture Capitalist pays for full-scale prototype trials, and in sufficient intensity that the product may be brought into use in the quickest possible time.
    
  • When the User is satisfied that the product is usable (even if that may not be perfect), trial manufacture is started, and the product is offered to User on no-risk basis on trial for, say, a one year period. The manufacturer is paid up-front by the Venture Capitalist, but the User pays only after one year, and that too if the product proves satisfactory with use. In that manner, the product gets a fair trial in the field, which makes it possible to remove teething problems. It is this last factor, removal of bugs, which are inevitable with any innovation, that is the greatest stumbling bloc for any innovation. The procedure suggested here removes this hurdle and eliminates the prime cause of infant mortality of indigenous technology.
    
  • Once the product gets into the field, the development manager and the designer shift their attention to the next increment of technology. Then, the cycle starts all over again.

  This scheme balances risks with prospects. It is likely to cut down the infant mortality of technology innovation from the current near hundred per cent level to a more reasonable figure. It calls for better technology management, not more money.

• Indiresan also makes a point about spurring rural development to bridge the gulf between the urban and rural areas which bring to mind the ideas of RISC (that Deesha is working on) and PURA (that President Kalam has been talking about).

  A City with a 100,000 population generates more employment, and better-paid employment too, than a 100 villages with a population of a thousand each. The city is able to do so because it supports a large market, which villages cannot. The city supports a large market because the City Centre enjoys, primarily, high transport connectivity, and incidentally, high economic, electronic, and knowledge connectivities. Then, rural development will be effective only when it empowers villages to enjoy the same level of transport, economic, electronic and knowledge connectivity that cities enjoy. At the root is transport connectivity from which all development begins .

  Consider linking a loop of villages by a ring road with frequent, high-speed bus services. That single transport link integrates the individual tiny markets of the villages on the loop, combines them into a single large one, as large as that of a small city. The ring can now support a variety of services that cities of similar size do. However, few of those services actually exist at the beginning. Businessmen will now see in the ring a large untapped market, and should be expected to come in. Hence, the gap between the potential future of the ring, and its current status, is a driving force for accelerated growth .

  It can be shown that, topologically, the length of all infrastructure in a ring shaped habitat is half that of conventional urban designs. For that reason, the ring offers considerable savings in development costs. Apart from this economy, this design has several other advantages.

  Because of its location in a rural area, land prices will be low. Both because of low land prices, and reduced length of infrastructure, a given quality of infrastructure will cost much less than in a city.

  • In a conventional city, the market concentrates at the City Centre. Hence, busy hour traffic is one-way only. In the ring design, all points are equally well connected. Hence, there is a natural tendency for businesses to distribute all round the ring road instead of concentrating at a point. Therefore, busy hour traffic will move equally both ways, and gets halved.
  • Further, on the ring, housing and business can be colocated. That way, daily commuting to work will be virtually eliminated. Thus, the demand for mass transportation, the most expensive component of urban life, is reduced appreciably.
  • In conventional cities, the City Centre gets congested leading to high pollution, and rapid inflation of property prices. In the ring design, the market is distributed and not concentrated. Hence, no hot spot of congestion will develop; there will be little pollution, no structural inflation.
  • The ring design lends itself also to water harvesting and water re-cycling. This too is a critical advantage because water supply has become a major financial and political problem in most cities.

  The scheme envisages construction of a 40-60 km ring road (with a provision to expand ultimately to a multi-lane highway) linking a loop of villages - not too close, nor too far (say, not less than 30 km, nor more than 60 km), from a large city. A modem habitat will be planned for about 500 metres of space on either side of the ring road. Then, everybody will be within walking distance of the ring road; one single transport route will serve everyone.

  
  

I've excerpted a fair bit of the lecture here, but I'd still recommend reading the full text of Prof. Indiresan's lecture. Whether one agrees or not on all his ideas and suggestions, they're certainly worthy thinking about.

Corporate Governance: Fourth Palkhivala Memorial Lecture by Y .H. Malegam on January 10, 2004

I attended the fourth Palkhivala Memorial Lecture on January 10, 2004 at the Rani Seethai Hall in Chennai. The speaker was Y. H. Malegam, Managing Partner of the firm of Chartered Accountants, S.B. Billimoria & Company. The title of his speech was "Corporate Governance".

I was a bit delayed in getting to the venue and missed the introduction of the speaker, but caught a good part of the talk. The organisers, the Palkhivala Foundation, announced at the end of the talk that people could leave their email addresses with one of them and they would mail across a soft copy of the transcript of the speech and I was able to get a copy of the transcript. I wish all those organising speeches and memorial lectures would make available a soft copy of the lecture tointerested persons.

The full text of Malegam's talk is available here

See the report on the talk in The Hindu.